@jmerry - Watching a YouTuber play, Davaeron, I finally understood the point and popularity of a no reload run. He actually managed to roll a berserker with 18/00 strength. I never watched him roll the character. He probably does a few hundred rolls and takes something with a decent total and checks the strength and stores it if it is 18/91 or better. Anyway, he got to a stage in Baldur's Gate and he used his main character to lure a group of baddies outside to his group waiting outside.
His plan was to walk them into a prepared Web, except - He forgot to wear his ring of free action and got webbed and could not save his character. The entire point was I got to watch him mourn the death of his character he invested good time rolling and developing.
Looking at the thread dedicated to no reload runs, I had trouble with the idea of a character with realistic stats and no adjustments. In the case of a fighter, it would be 1/160 of getting 18/xx strength and no guarantees on dexterity or constitution. Actually when I think about it more, the probability is higher than that due to required minimum rolls. I thought I wrote down somewhere [ADDED: I estimated 2%] my expected probability. I think my strategy in that case would be to prioritize Constitution, because that produces hit points, the universal damage sink. Fortitude potions are hard to come by and better in the hands of other players. We can solve the dexterity very early in the game.
For a while, I was very opposed to that idea, based on characters like Imoen. She starts with 18 dex, 16 con, 17 int, 16 charisma. This would be very difficult to roll naturally.
Day 38, Hour 12 - Rested and woke up at the arsecrack of noon.
We sold some stuff at the Thunderhammer Smithy, then moved along the road to the south.
Day 38, Hour 16 - South Beregost Road
There was not much going on around here. We cleared out a few more Hobgoblins and Gibberlings.
Day 38, Hour 20 - North Nashkel Road
For a while, it was uninteresting. Then night fell and we encountered two Vampiric Wolves.
Once we loaded up with magic ammo, they were easy targets. I did not bother with a web spell, but that might have been helpful as well. It remains to be seen if the paralyze of the Vampiric Wolves works against berserker rage. I believe it does not, because it should provide immunity to hold and that it counts as a hold. I will go back and read the wording more carefully. Ghouls would be a safer target to experiment against. We can kill them more easily and if we cannot kill them, then we can still turn them.
I also still do not know about Color Spray versus Berserker Rage.
immune to charm, confusion, fear, feeblemind, hold, imprisonment, level drain, maze, stun, and sleep
My current understanding:
Immune to Hold. The wording in the same wiki says "hold." That implies immune.
The wiki on ghoul says paralyze, which is not on the above list of status effects. Not immune.
Color spray says save versus spell or unconscious, which is not on the above list of status effects. Not immune.
The bottom line is it depends on how the developers implemented the status effects and in the world of Baldur's Gate, the developers are the DM and I am not. Also. This is like to change when I make the transition to SCS.
Day 39, Hour 1 - Arrived at the Lovely Peaks
We have Coran built up perfectly for scouting. He has a very high stealth score. It is also the middle of the night and he has Infravision. Instead of resting, we should clear this place out at night. So we gave Coran the Boots of Speed and sent him scouting so that there were very few surprises.
Arghain and his half-ogre lackeys were easy marks for the web / spider's bane combo. Soon after, we encountered a strange dwarf, who sent us on a little mission hunting some ogres further to the south. It is another fine example of scouting doing the work.
Instead of doing it right with Web, we messed this one up, because the Hobgoblin Elites wander and I decided it was better to charge them instead of engaging in a missile duel. We killed the Hobgoblin Elites, then put the Ogre Berserker to sleep and hit another one with a Command. Aren't Ogres supposed to be immune to sleep because of hit dice? Is there a quirk in the way the hit dice were implemented in the game?
Meanwhile, the trouble we have caused in the name of solving trouble has caught up to us. We came upon 8 Xvarts attacking the cows on a farm. We showed up just in time to save Arabelle. The Xvarts came from a village to the west of Nashkel and came plundering the countryside when their home was destroyed by some crazy group of adventurers just a few weeks ago.
We adventurers solve more trouble than we cause. Well, nearly always, heh!
Right after that, we encountered a small group of bandits. We did what we normally do. Web.
It was not quite as effective as we imagined it to be. Dribben made a save versus Spells at 12. I looked him up. He saves at 12. I guess based on that, the penalty is built into the roll. Failing that, he did not make the save versus sword.
Finally, there was a cave. Sam followed Safana into the cave, which is probably a very dangerous move when we have Dopplegangers in the story later. Sam has the sword in case we spring the Ettercap Trap. Safana found it and disarmed it. Then the rest of the party entered.
So we're probably a bit overleved for the fixed enemies in the area and the game tried to compensate by placing lots of ogres. There is a compound effect on overleveling.
Tomorrow's adventure will bring us to the lake, where we will hunt Bjornin's half-ogres and try to steal some kills from the mighty Drizzt.
Our party so far:
57626 Sam 619 kills worth 110742
56793 Brawny 91 kills worth 14842
55799 Neera 64 kills worth 15566
46923 Safana 12 kills worth 5110 - That expensive crossbow is starting to see some results.
16812 Immy with 112 kills worth 20000
27613 Coran with 263 kills worth 87835 - He seems in better position to overtake. He is just deadly with that bow.
Still curious about SCS Mod - Is there an option to link nearby enemies into a group?
Example 1A - Coran walks up to a group of 6 Gibberlings. He shoots one and gets into sight of another and shoots that one too. He hits 95% of the time and each shot is a kill. So he goes through the entire group.
Example 1B - Coran walks up to a group of 6 Gibberlings and shoots the first one. The other 5 Gibberlings in the group are triggered (like a pull in World of Warcraft) and charge in.
Example 2A - Sam walks up to a group of 6 Black Talon Elites. He exchanges shots with the first one and Coran walks in and finishes the job.
Example 2B - Sam walks up to a group of 6 Black Talon Elites. He exchanges shots with the first one and 5 more show up to also attack. He is crazy, so he charges the group.
Both examples make melee more likely and range slightly less powerful. The second example implies we have to come up with better strategies. Sleep might work. Web might work. (What is with their save numbers?)
Installing it might add an entire new learning curve to the game.
The spellcasting game - Arcane spells
Level 1 - I am familiar enough with them that I can make a list of 22 Level 1 Arcane spells. So that gives me some idea of what they do. I read a few reviews and listened to a few videos. I could make a similar division on tiers and applications. Some A-list will always get used. B-list will sometimes get used. It likely competes with another spell that does the same thing, but is one tier above. C-list most likely has an application and that application is to get from Level 1 to Level 3.
Level 2 - Based on my gameplay, I only seem to use one spell. Immy has Invisibility spell, but Cory's stealth has been so good, I have not needed it. It might find an application if I take Safana into a dungeon.
Level 3 - Similar to Level 2, I might do well to listen to another video. Immy has Haste and Slow, both.
Neera is not far from being able to use Level 4 spells.
Divine spells
Brawny now has access to the Level 4 spells.
Going back to my rant about SCS and the examples described above, a few things might be gimping the learning curve. If we have two or three tricks that work every time, then there is not much need to get creative and use more resources. Coran is simply deadly with that bow. Sam is super strong. Brawny can get even stronger and has nearly as good armor, but never seems to get into the action. There are two abilities and a bunch of spells that never get used.
I really do not know how to describe this session. We visited several areas and cleared them. The quest story line is still officially hijacked. The gang at the Iron Throne is wondering where the heck we are, this group of mercenaries that cleared out the trouble in the Nashkel Mine, then destroyed the leadership of the Chill Black Talon, then killed Dave the Mage in the Cloakwood Mine, then disappeared.
They must be still around somewhere, because the assassins and bounty hunters sent to find them never seem to come back.
Where were we? We were in the Lovely Peaks!
Day 39, Hour 11 - Rested
Day 39, Hour 19 - Back at the North Nashkel Road
We went hunting again and at our favorite spot again, we hit pay dirt. We nabbed ourselves another couple of Vampire Wolves.
Day 40, Hour 7 - Arrived at the Lake where Drizzt is rumored to keep his cottage
We identified the Golden Girdle of Unshey and the 2H Sword +1
Day 40, Hour 15 - Rested
We found another bandit gang, Tengan, Jemby, and Zekar and they completely underestimated what they were up against. Then we went hunting for those Half-Ogres Bjornin kept telling us every time we visited the Jovial Juggler in Beregost. We finally found them.
It was Neera's turn to have some fun. She has 3 Fireball spells memorized for some occasions. Who ordered extra crispy?
I suppose with so many spells available, we can make some encounters even more trivial.
We were not doing Fireball against Drizzt. We helped him kill a few gnolls. We mostly watched him work. He kills things fast. His advice was to infiltrate the bandit camp and we have already been there and done that.
Day 41, Hour 5 - Back at the North Nashkel Road
Apparently we did not scout the area very well when we set up camp to rest. There were 10 Hobgoblins looking for us. I got scared a moment they all had bows. We are trying to sleep and they should as well. Actually they got webbed.
Day 41, Hour 13 - Rested
Day 41, Hour 21 - Arrived Nashkel Carnival
We sold a bunch of stuff and accumulated about 17.5k gold.
Day 42, Hour 6 - Rested
Now it's time to go hunting for Winter Wolves.
Day 42, Hour 18 - Fireleaf Forest
We came blazing in on an Amish hunting party. They started to talk trash to us about trespassing and we remembered the words of wisdom from Aldeth Sashenstar. We are well within our rights to do whatever we damn well please in the forest. So they opened fire on us and we opened web.
Looking around further, we ran afoul of another couple of idiots, Vax and Zal, the fastest dart thrower in the West. With the Paws of the Cheetah, we closed to melee range before he could throw and AP dart and the rest of the gang hit Vax.
It was a shame Vax did not last very long. That's what Safana said, anyway.
Day 43, Hour 4 - Rested
Day 43, Hour 20 - Arrived at the Tree of Life
That gnoll that normally warns us about the witch they are holding in Gnollhold was hostile instead. We killed him and it turned out he had a Halberd +2 Chelsey Crusher. We also found a Halberd +1 in a cave. We did not recruit Kivan, so we have no use for Halberds.
We finally found the Dryad Tree of Life and its guardian Dryad. A couple of idiots were trying to cut it down. Why they were trying to cut it down with Flails instead of Axes, we have no idea. Maybe they thought they could bash it open.
They were much easier kills at Level 6 than at Level 2.
Day 44, Hour 5 - Restsed
Day 41, Hour 1 - Back in Nashkel
We must have sold about 9 Winter Wolf Pelts. With some other goodies, we are almost at 27k gold. There might be a couple of things at the fair we can buy. The Necklace of Missiles comes to mind.
If we are buying it tomorrow, then I can have Immy either memorize a spell or use a scroll.
Here is the party:
62281 Sam with 657 kills worth 117591
61437 Brawny with 95 kills worth 15952
60430 Neera with 78 kills worth 17801
51541 Safana with 21 kills worth 7845
21428 Immy with 119 kills worth 22965
29892 Coran with 298 kills worth 97762
We will be exploring the southeast corner of the map. Speaking of, it looks like we missed a Cloudkill scroll in the Fireleaf Forest. It's probably no big deal, but would be fun to use. It is not likely we will come back and pick it up. The Gibberling Mountains are supposed to have a Ring of Fire Resistance which would very much come in handy, since we seem to love fireballs.
Neera hit Level 7. The only Level 4 spell she can cast is Stoneskin. I looked it up. 12 hours duration? It looks like she gets 3 skins out of the deal for 12 hours and we will be worrying a lot less about her.
I also still do not know about Color Spray versus Berserker Rage.
My current understanding:
Immune to Hold. The wording in the same wiki says "hold." That implies immune.
The wiki on ghoul says paralyze, which is not on the above list of status effects. Not immune.
Color spray says save versus spell or unconscious, which is not on the above list of status effects. Not immune.
The bottom line is it depends on how the developers implemented the status effects and in the world of Baldur's Gate, the developers are the DM and I am not. Also. This is like to change when I make the transition to SCS.
"Unconscious" translates to "sleep, but not subject to elven resistance". Berserker rage will protect from Color Spray.
It was not quite as effective as we imagined it to be. Dribben made a save versus Spells at 12. I looked him up. He saves at 12. I guess based on that, the penalty is built into the roll. Failing that, he did not make the save versus sword.
Yes, the bonuses/penalties on the spell's save are included in the displayed roll. So that's a natural 14, modified to 12.
If it's an effect on the creature making the saves (such as a ring of protection), that generally modifies the roll needed for success.
Day 45, Hour 9 - Rested
Day 45, Hour 13 - Nashkel Mine
There was really not much going on around here. We killed 2 Ghouls and a single Kobold. There were no Winter Wolves to be found, but we might not have been very patient with our hunting. We had an extra cavern in the mine to investigate, anyway.
Day 45, Hour 15 - Emerged in the Valley of Tombs
We trekked north and finally met a group of assassins who have been searching far and wide for us. We had been missing for weeks. Once again, a quick Web spell made this encounter easy work.
Continuing our murder spree, we found a crazy mage with a couple of Mustard Jellies.
The Mage was down in a couple of arrow shots. The Jellies.... I think they either have very high magic resistance or are immune. I also think they are immune to missile weapons. I will look them up. My source says 125 magic resistance and 100 piercing resistance and 30 slashing resistance. We sent Sammy in with Brawny and Cory to do melee.
There were some tombs to raid. One of them a rogue approached us because he wanted to return a dagger he stole from one of them. We told him we would return the dagger for him. Of course we would. Then we will loot it off of whatever was haunting him.
We claimed the Heart of the Golem Dagger +2 as our prize. We do not really have a character that can use it, really.
Maybe Imoen can use it. Or she can use the poison dagger, which is more likely, especially when she gets her rogue skills back.
Sam is already dual wielding Morning Star +1. Maybe he can use it with the Singing Shortsword +2 in case he needs +2 weapons.
Brawny has the War Hammer +2, and cannot use Daggers, anyway.
Neera has her quarterstaff and is unlikely to melee in the event of a +2 emergency.
Safana already has a +2 Scimitar and a good chance of getting another.
Cory has the Long Sword +2.
Day 46, Hour 4 - Arrived at the Gibberling Lair
Neera got her first Level 10 Fireball blast.
That should be good for an average of 35 points. Against Gibberlings, this is a lot of overkill, but also a lot of fun.
We encountered the Flaming Fist. They were on the lookout for a deserter named Samuel. We found him a little later and his girl convinced us to take him to the Friendly Arm Inn, instead.
We also encountered Hafiz, who gave us a Protection from Magic scroll. That will come in handy some time. Meanwhile hidden in a cliff face, we found a Ring of Fire Resistance +40. So we can get Sam to +60 Fire Resistance without trying. At +110 or +160 maybe we can get some heals in by saturating an area with 3 Fireballs. I will add that to the list of things to do.
Another thing for the list of things to do would be a dungeon full of magic traps, that we spring with full fire resist, lightning resist, and shield.
Day 47, Hour 6 - Arrived in Nashkel
Day 47, Hour 14 - Rested - One day has passed since we picked up Samuel.
We decided we had time for a quick shopping trip in the Fair before leaving for Beregost. We bought the Shield Amulet and the One Gift Lost Necklace of Missiles. So if we want to launch 3 fireballs at a target, we can.
Day 48, Hour 3 - Arrived in Beregost
There was not much going on in the roads. We killed a few Gibberlings and a Hoblgoblin. Meanwhile in the Jovial Juggler, Bjornin gave us another Shield +1 for clearing the half-ogres near Beregost. People can now visit their cabins on the lake in peace.
Day 48, Hour 11 - Rested
Day 48, Hour 23 - Arrived at the Friendly Arm Inn
It looks like we had about 15 hours to spare in saving Samuel. That would be one extra rest cycle. As well as I understand it, there is a three day allowance and that is enough to rest on the spot, then rest in Nashkel, then rest in Beregost. For that work, we won ourselves another Potion of Heroism and Elixir of Health.
Our scroll case is full, too. A Potion of Genius would have been nice.
65941 Sam with 680 kills worth 126608
65089 Brawny with 97 kills worth 18002 - I still have to work on that buffing game.
64069 Neera with 93 kills worth 21291 - We had fun with the fireball game. I also get nervous with her casting right next to the main group.
55180 Safana with 28 kills worth 8230 - That's okay. She serves the MVP role the next time we hit up a dungeon.
25066 Immy with 121 kills worth 23900 - We don't have any surplus Fireball spells, but we do have some skull traps.
31689 Cory with 322 kills worth 102807 - The online chat says he is the best archer in the game with the extra high Dexterity and the weapon skill.
They also said Khalid and Kivan can both get ahead of him at Level 7 with the extra half attack and I will get out a pen and paper and see how that works out on experience point levels. The Level 7 Archer version of Khalid also has 3 points of longbow mastery. From what I count, Kivan has 11 points of thaco bonus (3 dex, 3 skill, 3 bow, 1 race, 1 gauntlet) and Khalid has 8 points, plus 1 point for an extra level. So for 64000 experience points, it is very close. Coran has a 2 point edge to hit with 2.5(?) attacks per round. Khalid would have 3.0.
Kivan loses 2 points to thaco with specialization instead of mastery, but gains them back with dexterity and race bonus. So he hits at the same rate as Khalid, but loses 1 point of damage due to weapon specialization. He does have 18 Strength and that qualifies him to use the Composite Longbow +1 and it looks like that trades the point of thaco for a point of damage. So it is one point that can be freely traded between damage and thaco.
So right now, I have 0 regrets for picking up Cory right at 32k experience. Since we are very redundant on thieves, I pushed him in stealth.
As for Safana, I do not know what to do with her when we get Imoen's thief skills back up and running. Most likely, it is the other way around. She knows what to do with us.
Day 49, Hour 0 - With our scroll case all full of scrolls, we had another study party with Immy. It looks like we went 7/12 this time, as if the potion did not do anything. I have a pet theory that the RNG is streaky and the failures will happen in quick succession. 82% should have given us an expected 9.84 spells and 7 seems very low compared to the probability. I got 4.89% for 7 spells or less out of 12, so kind of liking rolling a 1 on d20. The reason I suspect streaking is because we lost 4 in a row.
It makes me think of Colonization, where the rng appears to streak based on the hour and minute. So if you are getting great results from goody huts, then you should pop them all at the same time. Similarly, if you are winning battles, then you keep on fighting battles until you take a loss.
The scrolls we lost were Lightning Bolt (no big deal) Red Fireshield (might be unique) Vampiric Touch (probably no big deal at this level) Spook (which would have been fun to play with) and stinking cloud (Neera already has it and we do not use it much)
Another random thought about another spell everybody calls useless - Infravision. When playing old-school XCOM, the soldiers were human and the aliens had infravision. In night missions, the humans had very limited line of sight and the aliens did not. The newb experience everybody remembers is taking a run from the landing craft to the nearest building for cover and watching in horror as 3 green bolts streak towards the party. One of the shots hits and that's a kill. The other two miss, but one of the stray shots kills another soldier. The night mission ends in disaster as the soldiers start to panic. They could have made infravision useful by limiting line of sight for those who do not have it, say from 50 meters to 25. With a lantern we can increase that line of sight, but that probably makes the party very obvious to the monsters trolling about.
Otherwise, outdoors, night is better if you have a good scout in the party. Send Coran around in stealth with the running shoes of speed. We might try that strategy again - or just have somebody unimportant scout with Invisibility, probably Safana, because she can still disable traps while invisible.
Day 49, Hour 8 - Rested
Day 49, Hour 12 - Arrived at the Ankheg Farm
Gerde says it's hunting season and we are limited to 4 per party. She seems to have no idea just how many of them there are out there. Maybe she meant 4 per person. We killed 5 of them and returned to claim our reward.
After that, Farmer Brun wanted us to go looking for his son. We found a huge Ankheg nest to the west of his house.
Here's a 44 crit. Are Ankhegs considered to be ranged attack only?
His son, Nathan was already dead, but he had some pretty good loot to claim, including yet another Wand of Fire. Now we have 3 of them. This is probably enough to justify stacking Neera with a different level 3 spell. Some day it will be fun to saturate zones with fireballs.
The Protection from Acid scroll appeared to be a bit of a waste. Sam got hit maybe once or twice where he missed the save versus death and got hit with the acid damage. So we saved ourselves 5 or 10 damage which could have been countered with a single healing potion at 50gp instead of 300 or 400.
We also got involved in some battle between the followers of Talos and Umberlee and maybe were chosen to decide who would prevail. We encountered some fisherman who wanted us to kill a priestess who lived near the bridge to the north of us.
Day 14, Hour 15 - We were waylaid by 2 Worgs on the way to the bridge. What happened to random encounter balance? Are the 10 bandits of doom reserved for Level 1 parties? I saw a video on the origins of D&D and they said random encounters were truly random. Your party could set out and be very lucky and encounter a dragon. The end.
Day 4, Hour 17 - Arrived at Wyrm's Crossing
Why don't they have a bridge to make the crossing to the Cloakwood Mines so much closer? Is this what the Iron Throne wants?
We confronted Tenya the priestess of Umberlee. She looked like she was about 12 years old, but looks deceive. She knew armed as we were, we were sent by those terrible fisherman. Well, if she lives, she lives. Apparently she lived. How she was able to tell her long-winded side of the story while being pounded into mush, I will not understand.
I never checked if siding with her was worth more gp or xp. Our oracles indicate we need the help of Umberlee's followers on two occasions in the future - and one of them is life and death.
Day 49, Hour 22 - We are back at the Ankheg farm. There were still wild Ankhegs
.......edited in......
There were also wild bandits. Here is our first use of Color Spray!
Our options are either to try to get the spells to work or sell the scrolls. We have lots of scrolls and lots of gold. So that's 50gp down the drain. Worth it? I doubt it. The same 50gp would buy a healing spell or healing potion.
We beat the bowl of water elemental control out of the fisherman and then felt bad and let Farmer Brun hang onto 100gp for us so he does not lose his farm. It is a very low price to pay for about 1k exp. We still have over 600k to accumulate, so every bit helps, I suppose.
Day 50, Hour 7 - Rested
Something to figure out is how to arrange the party when resting. It would be nice to have my melee characters guarding choke points, but the monsters seem to spawn next to vulnerable characters.
Day 50, Hour 11 - Returned to Wyrm's Crossing - We returned the water bowl to Tenya. She said there was no reward, but it will always work out at a later time. She also said we did not have to worry about displeasing Talos or the fishermen, who most likely have been abandoned for their failure. We got used by a couple of gods and messed up the lives of at least 3 more people. Our string of good deeds will continue.
Day 50, Hour 19 - Arrived at the Zombie Farm
1300 XP - 20 Zombies killed
800 XP, 150gp - Reward
8 hours there
8 hours rest
8 hours back
1 day to collect 2100 XP and 150gp. What was supposed to be in that area?
Day 51, Hour 4 - Rested
Day 51, Hour 12 - Back at Wyrm's Crossing
Day 51, Hour 16 - Back at the Ankheg Farm
Day 52, Hour 0 - Back at the Friendly Arm Inn
Day 52, Hour 8 - Rested
Day 52, Hour 16 - Cost Highway
Day 52, Hour 21 - Beregost
Here we arrived with a single Ankheg shell and commissioned Thunderhammer with 4000gp to make us another suit of Ankheg Armor. I suppose if we wanted it for free, then we could have come in with another 800gp worth of Ankheg shells and sold them back one at a time. We do not have enough strong characters for that.
The armor will be used by Coran instead of the Platemail +1, when he is not sneaking around as a scout. The resale value of the Ankheg armor is unlikely to be very close to 4000gp. I never checked. It is not quite as good as full plate, but Coran and Brawny do not have the strength to use full plate.
Here is our party so far:
71042 Sam with 715 kills worth 139858
70190 Brawny with 98 kills worth 18067
69167 Neera with 97 kills worth 22461
30134 Imy with 123 kills worth 25850
34208 Cory with 333 kills worth 110802
We still have stuff we can do for a few days while waiting for that armor. I do not believe it will include Durlag's Tower.
Here's a 44 crit. Are Ankhegs considered to be ranged attack only?
Ankhegs have two attacks, one ranged and one melee. They start with the ranged attack, and switch to melee if you close on them - but that takes time. You can usually get a hit or two in first. And the usual melee versus ranged effects apply, though there's no visual indicator of the switch.
The ankheg ranged attack deals 4d4 missile damage and 4d4 acid (save vs death for none). The ankheg melee attack deals 3d6 crushing damage and 1d4 acid (no save).
@jmerry - It's very helpful information. The acid scroll was not quite as much of a waste as I imagined, because there are not many other places I could use it. I thought we would be dealing with a lot more ankhegs.
Session 25 - The Wood of Sharp Teeth
We are not sure what legendary treasures we were searching for when Coran and Safana dragged us into the Wood of Sharp Teeth, but that is where we went. We had a few days or so to kill while Thunderhammer makes that armor for us.
Day 53, Hour 5 - Rested
Day 53, Hour 21 - Arrived at Larswood - One day has passed. Who remembers the ten days from before EE?
With the earlier discussion on night missions, we put the argument to the test. We found a small group of three Blacktalon Elites. We put one to sleep and Coran hit another with a fine backstab. The third one was engaged in a little bit of swordplay while we closed in.
51 points seems like a lot. We should also have a 10% probability of a crit.
We found a couple of Shadow Druids. One of them wanted revenge for killing his brothers. Obviously he must have been talking about those in the Cloakwood we cut down. The other druid did not help at all. We accused him of participating in the murder, then killed him too. Meanwhile in the heat of the discussion, he lost track of where our rogues went.
Trying to rest, we were disturbed by 10 Bandits. We sacked their base, but this is still their wood. Pretty colors. Color Spray is so pretty!
We are all loaded up on magic missile spells and using up scrolls. Normally I would cast a sleep at the edge of the line of sight. I would do well to compare the area of effect of the two spells. It would also be helpful to know how far characters can see. It is probably exactly the same as the range of the sleep or fireball spell. After that I can make a comparison of the relative usefulness of Color Spray and Sleep. I think Color Spray has a narrow window of usefulness. (We are in this window. We are high enough level not to be affected, so it is now a party friendly spell. We are also frequently encountering large groups of low level monsters.)
Day 54, Hour 7 - Rested
Day 54, Hour 23 - Peldvale
The main encounter here was Vicky and the Flaming Fist. Our options were to avoid her, side with her, or side against her. Since I do marginal roleplay in an effort to have some kind of story line, we sided with her. This is consistent with her being alive in BG2 and it is consistent with her remembering with us.
The fight was over very quickly. I thought about having Brawny cast a Command in case the backstab does not work, but Vicky thought of it first.
Meanwhile, rescuing Vicky does not mean we have to party with her. In fact, it turned out she did not to party with us. Low Charisma / Reaction scores are comically amazing! We have enough party girls as it is.
Day 55, Hour 9 - Rested
Day 56, Hour 1 - Spiderwood
We found the Red Wizard hideout. Hindsight says we should have cast Invisibility on Safana, because her hide in shadows skill is too low to sit behind a marked target for too long. So we had to rush our attack.
Coran popped out of the shadows and stabbed Brendan before he could act. Safana got spotted by Lasala and blasted with some magic missiles. Diana cast Ghost Armor, but that did not good, because Coran dropped his sword and nocked up a poison arrow. Both mages were poisoned in very little time, then pincushioned. Finally Sam reached the leader Denak.
Meanwhile hunting for the spiders, we went 0/3 on the traps, but that was no big deal. We did not find the person who lost the scroll and we will do that in the morning. We cannot do it tonight, because a storm showed up and we will simply rest and wait for it to blow over. Here is our party so far:
76743 Sam with 745 kills worth 150398
75891 Brawny with 103 kills worth 20087
74847 Neera with 107 kills worth 24131
65394 Safana with 45 kills worth 12890
35814 Immy with 127 kills worth 28910
37027 Cory with 383 kills worth 124032
The Ankheg plate armor should be ready by now, but we are about two days travel away from Beregost.
We are, however, a single day's travel from Durlag's Tower in case we want to go there. We only have a couple of characters who are not level 7. I wonder if we are strong enough for it.
I saw an YouTube Video from Extra Credits dedicated to Durlag's Tower. I believe he is from a generation much younger than I, because he appears to have experienced the game at a different age and stage. I played the original game, followed by the Tales of the Sword Coast Expansion. He might have played the two as a package.
Something very interesting he said is they placed Durlag's Tower in the middle of a newbie zone, so you can discover it at very low levels. Then he talked about the gatekeepers, which were the Battle Horrors, and explained if you can get to the tower, then you have a chance inside the tower.
Based on that, and given we were a mere one day's walk away from the tower, we went.
Day 56, Hour 11 - Rested
Day 57, Hour 3 - Arrived at Durlag's Tower
We were almost immediately greeted by Erdane, the resident shop keeper. He makes a living by lessening the amount of gold people carry into the tower. So far, we will be carrying more gold into the tower, because we had a place to unload some plate mail armor and longbows. We will be back with Friends to buy stuff from him later.
As stated in the description above, there were two battle horrors waiting for us. We could pull them one at a time, across a bridge. We had Coran take a potion of Stone Giant Strength to improve his backstabs. We are doing a night mission again. Two Battle Horrors out of the way and a couple of Dopplegangers, we got to the gate. It was time to take out the outer ramparts.
We went west first. In the original game, the skeletons would be shooting at us on the way in. Instead, they were waiting for us at the top. We moved Sam in first with a stealthed Coran, followed shortly after by Brawny, who would hopefully turn the Skeletons.
A backstab for a total of 48 points from Coran made this Battle Horror much easier work. I looked them up. It was left with 10hp, so one shot away. A Magic Missile could have done it. The east side ramparts also had a bunch of skeletons and a Doom Guard.
Day 57, Hour 5 - Durlag's Tower, Ground Level
With the Ramparts cleared, we entered the ground floor of the tower. We put Invisibility on Safana, but then learned the hard way that opening locks dispels the invisibility. We can try again later. Coran also has a good score in Open Locks, so might use him instead.
Day 57, Hour 6 - Durlag's Tower, Second Level and Rooftop
We took out some Ghasts on the second floor of the tower and that cleared the way to the rooftop. Since we knew what was coming next, a Basilisk ambush, we sent Sam in solo with Protection from Petrification. Sending Cory in stealthed would have been just as valid. We cleared the Basilisks and claimed the treasures, including another Scimitar +2.
Day 57, Hour 7 - Durlag's Tower, Third and Fourth Levels
Safana encountered a ghost in one of the rooms and retreated quickly. We were eventually able to defeat it, but everybody in the party got confused except Sam, who was berserk at the time. I looked up how long Confusion lasts. About 5 Rounds. So they behaved randomly for five rounds and wasted some very good ammo. Finally Safana took a 10 point hit from Coran and that was all the damage done. It could have been much worse. I have to get used to fights where mages teleport around.
We went up a floor to visit Kirinhale the Succubus. I did not know the dialog line to get her to give a lock of hair to the thief on the third level. It might not have been open, because we did not talk to him. We ended up having to fight her as well. The first spell was probably a Dire Charm, but Sam actually made a saving throw. Then she disappeared. Hindsight says we should have sent stealth Coran hunting. Safana got hit with two energy drains, but managed to kill her with a bolt from the Army Scythe.
On the same floor, Safana (with reduced abilities) set off a Dire Charm trap. Looking up the spell now, it lasts 5 rounds, so we should have waited it out. Instead, Immy pulled out a Dispel Magic scroll and that did the trick - and took out the energy drains as well.
Resources used:
1 Potion of Stone Giant Strength
2 Scrolls of Detect Invisibility
1 Scroll of Dispel Magic
1 (and only) Magic Protection Potion
Our party:
85860 Sam with 774 kills worth 187663
85008 Brawny with 103 kills worth 20087
83957 Neera with 108 kills worth 24781
75238 Safana with 47 kills worth 16310
44901 Imoen with 128 kills worth 35910
41558 Coran with 390 kills worth 129362
We have an incredible amount of stuff to identify, so we are loading Neera up with Identify spells. Then we will carry the stuff we got from clearing the outside of Durlag's tower and buy up some more resources.
Reload Count is now 11. Safana set off the very first trap in the Level 1 Dungeon and got hit with a fireball. The cost would have been about 4 healing potions. Given the number of healing potions we went through, this was minor. I also did not realize just how many healing potions were hidden on the level. The game designers must have known people would have been hurting.
We also took a scum save right before the final battle. I think the scum save count is 3.
We had an extra Identify spell and let Imoen attempt to learn it - and she did! It's a bit redundant, but we have a lot of items to identify, so we loaded up with Identify spells. This might not have been wise, because we were going into a dungeon and loading up with magic missile spells would be better.
Day 57, Hour 16 - Rested
We identified a bunch of stuff. Wand of Lightning, Lock of Succubus Hair, Cloak of Protection, Staff Spear +2, Halberd +1, Chainmail +1. It turned out 5 mage robes did not need identification spell.
The next trick we learned was we did not need everybody in the area to interact with the shopkeeper. He has drone delivery service. This will save a lot of carrying loot to and from the dungeon.
We bought 5 each of Potions of Hill Giant Strength, Perception, Master Thievery, then 80 each of Bolt +1, Acid Arrows, Dart +1, and Bullet +1. Little did we know what was waiting in the dungeon below.
Day 57, Hour 17 - Tower Basement
There was a trap guarded by 3 Ghasts
Durlag's Tower, Level 1
We made Safana invisible for the entire level. This time we set off a total of 2 traps. One was from Sam not being patient and careful and sending a lightning bolt blasting everywhere in the anvil room. There was no help nearby. Boots of speed are dangerous that way. The other one was a flamestrike hitting Safana in a secret corridor.
Some big fights did cause some damage. The Mustard Jellies started it. The only option with them seems to be melee and they seem to hit a lot. We had our first encounters with Skeleton Warriors. Then there was the room with 3 Greater Dopplegangers in a really awkward spot. What we should have done was have the party waiting in a more convenient spot and throw a grenade into the corner room where they are waiting.
What I did was beef Sam up to 127 in fire resistance. That appears to be a limit. Then he charged in there like an idiot. We sent in some fireballs and used up our magic missile scrolls. This is where I learned the hard way Neera can also trigger a wild surge reading a scroll. She put up a Globe of Invulnerability on the thing and we had to take it down by conventional means. The room was really too awkward a spot for a fight and they were hitting very often. (-4 AC at this level is not invulnerable - 4 APR at Thaco 7 must be why they were hitting so often.) We pulled the party back to the bigger room described earlier and moved Sam to the corner hallway and finished the fight there.
I will take some credit for not taking a scum save before this fight, but not before the big fight at the end of the level. I positioned Invisible Safana near one corridor and gave Neera, Brawny, and Imoen positions to shoot fireballs or soemthing. Coran had the other corridor. The problem was we left Neera visible to Avarice.
Love, Pride, Avarice and Fear spawned, starting the fight. Cloudkill was cast right on top of invisible Safana's position. That was more good than bad. The good part was the cloud was easily avoided and out of harm's way. We should have moved invisible Safana into the room in a backstab position, but we moved her way out of the fight. Neera got a Fireball off. Then Avarice went invisible and went after her. I was supposed to have Stoneskin off, but I have not developed the habit, so he got hit a couple of times. Most likely she turned around two times just in time to avoid a backstab chunk. Then she started running, but Avarice could run slightly faster and he kept chugging invisibility potions.
We did summon a couple of Skeleton Warriors for this fight. It was finally time to join the Dark Side. As well as I understand the videos I have seen so far, it is one of the only useful cleric spells at level 4. Love and Pride started to work on the two skeleton warriors. Fear went after Sam. Coran moved in for a backstab.
Brawny used her Holy Power and tried to chase Avarice in an effort to save Neera, but she was targeted and moved faster.
Love was the first of the four to go down. He was busy attacking the Skeleton Warriors, and Sam was helping. A Skeleton Warrior got the killing blow. The two of them were then keeping Pride busy. We might have had a stroke of luck, because Pride broke his weapon somewhere in the fight and was hitting the skeletons with nonlethal damage.
Fear also went down quickly after that. Maybe Coran actually got in an effective backstab. At about this time, Neera was running for the corridor Coran was hiding in. Then we had another stroke of luck. Avarice decided to go after Brawny, who was not backing down or running away. So Avarice got surrounded and killed before he could take another Invisibility potion.
That left Pride, who was still working on those Skeleton Warriors. We walked in and finished the job.
Resources used:
20 Healing Potions or so - We took 0 healing spells, because we were carrying a lot of healing potions. Today I learned they can be packed into cases of 24.
2 Potions of Hill Giant Strength - We started with the 5 we bought and found one more. They are going to brilliant use in here.
1 Fortification Potion
1 Potion of Master Thievery - I have no idea how many were hidden on this level.
1 Antidote - Coran got bit by the Phase Spider. He should have been hiding. We have lots of those anyway.
1 Fire Protection Scroll
1 Potion of Fire Resistance
3 Magic Missile Scrolls
1 Scroll of Burning Hands - I wanted to see how much I could heal Sam for. 3 Points.
Here is our party:
95608 Sam with 794 kills worth 205493
94755 Brawny with 104 kills worth 24087
93687 Neera with 110 kills worth 25606
84774 Safana with 47 kills worth 16310 - She is taking the Invisible MVP slot
54603 Imoen with 129 kills worth 39910
46400 Coran with 397 kills worth 146827
Note to self. First thing Neera is supposed to do in the morning is get stoned.
Ouch.
Reload count is now 15. It was going okay right up to the room before the final key of the level. I was thinking for a long time, it was good time for a scum save and I didn't do it, about 5 seconds before stepping on a floor trap and chunking Safana. Another take got all my characters confused and that was no good, especially with a berserker main. Another couple of tries, didn't like the result because some dopplegangers either died in traps or died from their own cloudkill. Finally got a good run with an extra scum save. The positive was learning quite a bit about stuff that could go wrong in the fights that would not have learned if we did not have to go back most of the level.
Cluster count is...... 5.
Beregost helping Neera.
Nashkel getting confused by the other Neira, thinking spells were more easily interrupted.
Bandits of Doom shooting Garrick on the way to the Mine. Level 1 struggles. Find ways to get to Level 3 sooner.
Cloakwood Spiderlair distanced fireballs wrong and blew up Brawnwen.
Durlag Dungeon Level 1. Vanity save for getting hit by fireball right away instead of taking 3 healing potions and fixing it.
Durlag Dungeon Level 2. Safana destroyed by Lightning Bolt. These are often much more deadly than fire.
Day 58, Hour 0
We spent way too much time cleaning out all the minor loot on this level of the dungeon. The auto loot button is a wonder, if kind of cheesy. It looks like it displays stuff on the floor or on monsters that you can grab, like you have incredibly long arms. What does it do if there is a floor trap between you and what you are looting? It is still a wonder. It made me realize there were 3 magical 2H swords on the floor to grab from the Skeleton Warriors. The tab button to show details does not necessarily show it if they are well concealed. The old school way certainly did not help. Props to EE for this!
We unloaded a bunch of stuff we were going to use later in the dungeon, like all that magical ammo we picked up. Then we loaded up on all the silly junk we picked up on the level, right down to hammers. We sold all of our loot, then gave Imoen a Friends Scroll so we could buy more stuff cheap. We bought another 20 Healing Potions, because given how Level 1 went, we were going through a lot of Healing Potions. We also bought 80 Bullet +2.
Undoing a mistake on the upper levels of the tower, we retrieved the Tome of Understanding, so Sam now has a Wisdom Score of 10. It does him absolutely no good in any of the sequels, but from what I remember, the stats on other characters do not transfer. When I think about it more, if I gave it to Brawny, then she would have access to more spells. Similarly, if I gave the Basic Manners Tome for Ogres and Trolls to Safana, then she would have 18 Charisma. With a Nymph Cloak and 20 Charisma, we have no more need for the Friends Spell.
Day 58, Hour 8 - Rested
We re-entered Level 1 and apparently, there were fresh new Ghasts and Spiders to clear out.
Day 58, Hour 10 - Durlag Tower, Level 2
I had a couple of walkthroughs open on this and it was taking a while for the level to make sense to me. There were simply more doors and switches and triggers than I could track without either writing it all down or playing. Most likely, there was an infinite number of ways to get to the end of Level 2, including 2 direct paths.
The count of resources used is no longer accurate, because of the reload. I think I used 2 Potions of Absorption, 2 Potions of Hill Giant Strength, 1 Potion of Fortitude, 1 Potion of Heroism, and several (5?) Healing Potions.
For directional reference, because the map is tilted, I will call down and to the left south. That was the first direction we went. We started looking around the locked and warded doors and looked at the books that marked them. Then we explored the chamber to the south, which was where the party hung out for a while. We disarmed a trap and eventually looted that bowl. At least - I think we did. I have to go back and check it out.
We turned the statue on the west side of the room and that opened Furball's Training room. We went in there, checking for traps, then looted the statues. With the party safely out of the way, we attacked the sparring dummy to the left, closing the main door and opening the passageways, revealing a specter of Durlag himself. He teleported a few times and taunted us, then launched a Stinking Cloud. So Sam ran back to the group and it was Coran's turn. He shot a few arrows from stealth, which turned out to be a bad move, because the Dopplegangster had Coran's name and number the entire fight. We prevailed, but he took quite a few hits.
Here I thought Potion of Fortitude allowed the user to keep the magically gained hit points when it wore off, if the hit point total was less than the new max. So if Coran was at 27/54 and the potion took him to 53/80, then he would end up with 53/54, but that was not what I saw. Very strange. Will have to check again later.
There was a statue on the East side of the (South) Doppleganger Room and that opened the way to Islanna's Room. The wardstone on the table away from the foot of the bed opened up the corridor, revealing another Durlag Dopplegangster. He teleported around and then launched a fireball, but Sam was ready and able to dodge it fairly easily. We dispatched this one, then took our first scum save of the level. (This is where we reloaded all the time.)
This is where so many options open up. We grabbed another wardstone from Islanna's bed and that opened the passageway to the Throne Room at the north end. Then we put the wardstone back. The Throne Room was free of traps, and had two secret doors, leading east and west. We opened up the (both actually) east passageway and that led to the Switch Room and another secret door leading to a northern passageway that wound around to another room to the east of Islanna's room. We went no further. We were ready for the next event.
We hid our party in the Switch Room, then had Sam run and grab Kiel's Helmet. We were going to face 3 more Greater Dopplegangers, albeit in a cheesy way. They launched a Poison Cloud and a Cloudkill. It looks like Sam caught some damage from the Cloudkill but avoided the Stinking Cloud for some reason, because I do not see a saving throw. I suppose when you hear a fart, there is some time to evacuate the room before the stench catches up - and hopefully, the stench does not chase you into the next room.
After this, it was a waiting game. With a stench like that, hopefully somebody turned the fan on. What died in there? How about a courtesy flush? Is it safe to go in yet? What would happen if we launched a fireball into that mess? Would we blow up the entire level? The entire tower? What happens if there is a Nuclear Neera Wild Surge?
There were three Greater Dopplegangsters waiting for us in the Throne Room. We could aggro two of them into the Switch Room. They were most likely very happy to exit the Throne Room, but the third guy was still sitting on the throne and apparently not done yet.
The last time we were fighting Greater Dopplegangsters, they had a lot of slashing attacks. Sam with -4AC was getting butchered, so we fixed that. It looks like they have 7 Thaco, and the plate armor applies a penalty of 4 to the roll, so they needed a 15 to hit. The last time fighting 3 at once, there were lots of attacks every round and Sam was getting hit. The Golden Girdle applies another penalty of 3 to the roll, so now they need a 18 to hit. At this point, it becomes more worthwhile to carry the Shield +1, because according to this, they need 20 to hit and we cut the incoming damage by two thirds.
Based on the screenshot, it looks like I messed up my numbers somewhere. It looks like I am missing a penalty of 1 somewhere. (I found the error and fixed it.)
Did you miss me?
We returned to the Throne Room, then went west to the Torture Chamber. Well. Safana did. She cleared out the traps, then went stealth to trigger the stealth trap to the Teleportation Room. This triggered two more Greater Dopplegangsters. We had foreknowledge of them, and apparently that was mutual, because they headed straight to the Throne Room down the nice little hallway.
Nice little hallway. After a few plays in this scenario, I finally realized that this would be a great place for Lightning Bolts! Sam took a Potion of Absorption, taking his resistance up to 110. Immy took one as well and the boots took her to the apparent max of 127. Hindsight says we could have gone with the lesser potion for 100% resistance.
The hallway did not work out as brilliantly as imagined, but did the trick.
It looks like the next room we headed towards, to the east of Islanne's Room is labeled the Trophy Room. When we opened the door to the Bridge Room, we activated about 4 more Greater Dopplegangers. 2 were in the Bridge Room, and 2 more were in the passage way leading away from the Bridge Room. We retreated, then sent Coran to pull one of them and run. Eventually, they all showed up to play in the hallway. So we zapped them.
The same trick worked against the Dwarven Doom Guards in Kiel's Tomb. Imoen just had to find a good angle to fire and she finally did. I did not check what the Dwarves needed to hit, but Sam was getting hit quite a bit.
In the next room, there was a stairway leading nowhere, then a long passageway. We started searching the passageway for traps, but a bunch of Ghasts found us and started moving in. So we retreated to the Exit Room and waiting for the Ghasts - except they kept triggering the hallway Fireball Trap. Most of them did not make it. Some of them came at the party in flames.
With the Ghasts finally cleared, we headed up the hallway to the Altar. This has a central lightning trap. Having to reload and go back to the beginning a few times was tiring. So Sam cleaned up by taking an electric shower - because - why not?
106822 Sam with 803 kills worth 222893
105969 Brawny with 104 kills worth 24087
104886 Nuclear Neera with 110 kills worth 25606
95973 Saucy Safana with 47 kills worth 16310
65961 Immy with 139 kills worth 71910
51969 Cory with 405 kills worth 162827
We left a neat little loot pile in the Throne Room. I will most likely just check the bowl I believed we did not loot. Maybe we systematically loot out Level 2 or maybe we do not. We should have plenty of spells remaining, because most of the resources we used were potions and wands.
Who ever imagined a use for the Lightning Rod? I eventually realized this when the first take on this level, Sam got zapped by a Dopplegangster and I was thinking -crap- gotta run out of the way of the reflection. Is it going to wipe out the party? I wonder if there is a place that sells more Potions of Absorption. Probably Baldur's Gate.
We took another reload, because I did not know where to stand Safana in front of the Fireball Room and she got burned and I did not feel like using up healing potions right after an Autosave, so I took a vanity autosave. We also took about 3 scum saves, because these levels are really long and I'm not that familiar with this part of the game.
This time, we got the timing of the Fireball Room down correct. We took the west passage and were greeted by a Skeleton, who told us about these five unfortunate heroes that we could send to help us with the coming danger. The best use was to have them soak up damage.
To the south were 3 Greater Wyverns. We sent Moorlock and Tamor to tank it while we pelted it with missiles. They seem to have a lot of resistance and only Coran can hit reliably, which he did with an Acid Arrow. 3 Attacks per round. 6 base Thaco. 25 Strength. No wonder they were hitting things so easily! We found out the hard way that tanking was just a bad idea. It was hitting on a roll of 11.
So that 11 was still good for hitting AC-8 and we were at AC-6. So it needed a 9 to hit. If we used a Potion of Absorption, then we could have dropped that to a 19 and maybe have a shot at tanking. We sent unfortunate adventurers off to their doom and picked up their loot and put it in a corner of the room. I will have to remember to collect it all later. With the tanking just not working, Sam ran away with tail between legs while Immy blasted it with Magic Missiles.
That left one more Beastie. We had two more adventurers to send to their doom. We thought we could have Coran lure it into the passageway where we came in from, thinking it would be too small to fit. That did not work and here is a picture of an Oh Crap moment. We distracted it with some Beasties summoned from the Wand of Monster Summoning and then took a few blasts with Fire and Ice Wands.
Looking at the log, it looks like the Wyvern did take a swipe at Neera. Aren't we glad we remembered to get her stoned?
With this room clear, we have access to the hallway leading to the 4 Elemental Challenges to finish the level if we want. We were going to clear out the Cold (Water, Ice) Room first. So we prepared by taking some Cold Resistance and a Scroll. Then we boneheadedly decided to go after the Skeletons in the suspended walkways. They are somewhat tougher than normal skeletons and all have bows and an assortment of magical arrows. We started from the south side.
Sam can stack up very decent AC against arrows and it looks like these guys were no exception. Coran stepped in to help, but took a nasty shot. Brawny tried Turn Undead, but that only seemed to help a little. Then Sam got hit - with an Arrow of Dispelling. RIP cold resistance buffs. We eventually got Cory back into the action with a couple of Oils of Fiery Burning. We blew up a few Skellies with it. Finally we got them all and cleared the bridges. It looks like we took out a total of 17 Skeletons.
That left the maze to clear out at last. Safana was invisible and taking out the traps. Looking at the walkthrough helps take out traps, but still very nervous about it, especially with the beasties roaming the area. We could find the Greater Ghouls easily enough. Coran lined up a target..... and then took a nasty backstab. Fortunately we were prepared for this, because we pre-buffed with Fortitude. The fight should be easier with the guy visible and exposed - but he kept going invisible. Sam probably took a hit or a backstab as well. Finally we got our payback. Coran was able to sneak in a backstab and I did get a picture to show for it.
We summoned monsters in to clear the zone out more. Most of them were Ghouls. They paralyzed some of our summoned beasties and we took them out with range. Finally we were in a position to go hunting for the other Ashirukaru, but only found one. So either we forgot how to count to three, or there is another one at large wandering the entire area.
The best way to find out is to have Safana walk through there fully visible. If she does not get killed, then the beastie does not exist.
We had time for one challenge out of four for tonight. So we went for the Ice Challenge. Again, we found out the hard way the bear hits on 11. We probably should have had the crushing girdle to help with tanking. Oh. 3 Thaco. 21 Strength.
Kiting would have been a better strategy. Maybe kiting with Web and get a lucky chance we stick him. We got him with arrows eventually, but took a bit of a beating. In the future, this is another use of the Potion of Absorption.
Resources used:
2 Potions of Freedom
2 Potions of Cold Resistance (We got rid of them!)
1 Protection from Cold Scroll
2 Oil of Fiery Burning
1 Potion of Fortitude
1 Potion of Hill Giant Strength
1 Detect Evil Scroll (It used to work for the entire level!)
23 Healing Potions (I think we have about 75 left.)
We have a bunch of loot to get rid of, even though we are well over 30k in gold. We will probably move that next. It's two levels full of stuff. We should be able to clear out a couple more challenges, then rest up and prepare for the final challenges and level.
Our party so far:
113027 Sam with 819 kills worth 232153
112174 Brawny with 105 kills worth 24182
111086 Neera with 111 kills worth 26581
102169 Safana with 47 kills worth 16310 and taking the MVP slot for the level
91725 Imoen with 141 kills worth 77885
55052 Coran with 418 kills worth 179147
It looks like we are about 350k experience away from level cap. There is still a full level of Durlag's Tower left to go, along with 3 Challenges and the Chess Event. If we got to Ulgoth's Beard first, then maybe some toons hit level cap before even getting into Baldur's Gate! All this time, I thought we were going to nearly completely skip Durlag's Tower.
A lot more Ouch.
Reload count is now 21.
Cluster count is...... 7.
6. Level 3. Blew up a couple characters on the way in and out of the Fireball Room.
7. Chess Event. Silly mistakes and learning experiences.
Right on loading, started looting Level 3. Tried to evacuate my team while Speedy Coran picked up all the loot to bring to the top levels. He collided and the path generator took him right back through the fireball room. That was nonsense, so I reloaded. Next time, it was Imoen too close to the door. The Fireball took her from 56 to 0. That is one heck of a Fireball! It could be 16d6, give or take - or some really high rolls. Third time we got it down to a science. Evacuate the part first. Then move the stuff.
We wasted a few hours doing this. Then we got back to the hallway to clear out two more Challenges. We went with Fire next. The room contained two Phoenix Guardians. So we sent Sam in with a Protection from Fire scroll to take his fire resistance up to 110. Then they went down very easily.
After that was the Air Challenge. The room has an Air Aspect which seems to hit often and hard, and has a poison attack. I think Sam got hit two times, but did not get poisoned. There were also Invisible Stalkers. So we used up a Detect Invisibility scroll. Meanwhile, Neera was able to blow half of them up with Fireball spells.
We took a brief moment here to use up another Genius and Mind Focusing Potion to write Imoen 3 more spells. Hindsight says it seems a bit of a waste, for just 3 spells. She no has Remove Magic, Minor Globe of Invulnerability, and Greater Malison. Maybe it was not such a waste, because the Greater Malison is useful and she needed Level 4 spells. Did we remember to memorize them for the big fight against the Demon Knight?
We went back to the surface and rested. Then in the morning we sold all our loot and went back in.
Day 59, Hour 6 - Rested
Day 59, Hour 8 - Back at Level 3
The Earth Challenge is the slime. It looks like we just need some kind of fire damage to avoid the slime splitting. We got a stealth look at it, then launched a Fireball in that direction. Then we charged in.
Except for the 110 Fire Resistance, that looks like sloppy play.
Finally it was time for the Chess Event.
Sam had the King position. He could not move anywhere.
Imoen had the Queen Position. She could move everywhere, but just like real chess, a bad idea in the opening.
Brawny and Cory had the Bishop positions. They were restricted to their colors. This is just fine.
Finally, Neera and Safana had the Knight Positions. We were not going to be moving them, anyway.
We were third time lucky on this run. The first one, I forgot that looting makes Coran visible, which was very, very bad. I decided we could do much better. Second time, we thought we could single out a Knight, but he moves very fast and hits hard on Coran.
So Nuclear Neera opened up the board with a couple of Fireball blasts, taking out 6 Pawns and injuring the row behind them. Then I figured Imoen had the Queen position, so should do more of the work. She used up a Fire Wand to blow up pieces. It is Durlag's Tower and most likely there are a lot more Fire Wands coming. With all the gold we had, we should have just got it recharged. Coran took a sniper shot at a Bishop. Then Imoen finished the match. We missed on a single Rook. So that's about 20 of Arrow +2.
Our party:
119242 Sam with 829 Kills worth 240043
118389 Brawny with 105 Kills worth 24182
117293 Neera with 119 Kills worth 34481
108376 Safana with 47 Kills worth 16310
78126 Imoen with 149 Kills worth 92685
58149 Coran with 422 Kills worth 185647
We are about 72k experience away from Imoen dinging max level and gaining her Thief skills back. It is not like we have that much need for another thief. We are doing well with Coran and Safana. She will be able to use her bow again. And she might be able to hide (invisible) and backstab.
What happens if we sign up for the Tower Tour and the Demon Knight is already dead? Does Biffy the Understudy run around with a big sword and kill everybody, then port?
What happens if we sign up for the Tower Tour and the Demon Knight is already dead? Does Biffy the Understudy run around with a big sword and kill everybody, then port?
Ike gives his spiel, one tourist dies to a trap, he offers you a wardstone ... and then it just stops. Ike and the tourists stand around after you buy or don't buy the stone, and nothing happens.
For reloads, I'm taking a holiday. Some of it was exploring. But now we have been through the Tower.
Safana went invisible and started exploring. We found the caverns first. Safana would wander forward and find some baddy for Coran to kill. Coran went stealth and fired an arrow. It was usually either a Greater Ghoul or a Crypt Crawler. He had good speed, so could run back towards the party and fire another arrow or two. If that did not work, the baddie would reach the party, hopefully going after Sam. Then Coran could come in with a backstab.
Then we had some doors to open up. There were more baddies hiding behind those doors. So we killed them too. Far to the south, there was another room behind a whole bunch of slime that hid Grael the Ghoul and his Gang. There were two more Ghouls and two crypt crawlers with him. We used up all our fireballs and did not feel like using our wand any more. So we filled the room with Web. That was not as effective as we would have liked.
After that, we returned to the Ghost of Durlag and checked the passageway to the south. It led to a room full of spiders and a couple of Ettercaps. At the other side of the room was a Stoned Golem. We waved and said hiiiiii. He did not want our gold or our iron. He just wanted our pizza.
Exploring the rooms to the north, we found the Ghost of Islanna and another room with a couple of Helmed Horrors. Islanna was nice enough to port us outside the tower so we could lighten up on our loot. We did exactly that and went back in. We are now at nearly 59k gold.
Day 59, Hour 17 - We are back at the Stoned Golem. He had a few questions for us. Then he ported us to the Compass Room with a few more Golems and more questions.
The next challenge was at the Secret Throne Room. After that, it was the Tomb Room protected by the Rune Carpet. Finally we were ready to talk to the Ghost of Dulag.
He led us into another room. We were warned by a surviving adventurer that we were facing a Demon Knight. We could turn a mirror on him, but we did not bother to use it, because we had a better magic mirror. It copies the entire party exactly the way it was at a point in time, so we can return whenever we want. It is called Scum Save.
The Demon Knight was actually..... not as bad as imagined. We sent Sam in with a Potion of Free Action and had Immy and Neera chase with a couple of web spells. This was followed up by Greater Malison and Doom. We had a scare when the Demon Knight cast Dispel, but I did not see the Free Action go away or would have switched to the Spiders Bane. I was trying to figure out why the Demon Knight was so badly hurt so quickly. We followed up with a couple of Magic Missile Spells and Nuclear Neera got the kill.
For hits, Sam took a Fireball at 60% resistance and a slash for another 22 damage.
Our party:
129311 Sam with 839 kills worth 253533 - DING! Max level 8.
128458 Brawny with 108 kills worth 26022 - DING! Max level 8.
127351 Neera with 120 kills worth 49481
118434 Safana with 48 kills worth 18310
88153 Imoen with 153 kills worth 96685 - So close!
63160 Coran with 443 kills worth 209077 - He is also close.
We have more loot from the dungeon than we can carry. We might make one more trip to sell things and then return to pick up some scraps. Or we might leave a few arrows and bolts behind.
I was not sure if we were geared enough to beat this place, but we did!
I did not do an actual reload count, so I will call it 25/8, counting Level 4 as 4 reloads. Some of it was exploring. Some of it was finding just how vindictive those traps can be.
Now I'm torn about whether to go to Ulgoth's Beard and accumulate more exp - or go to Baldur's Gate and work on the story line. I looked at what is in the shop in Ulgoth's Beard and I am leaning towards at least getting those items. The Ring of Invisibility seems good if we have 3 thieves in the party.
The Ice Island should gain a lot of exp. Again, with three thieves in the party, it should be very easy.
Werewolf Island - I'm really not sure what items we can get that area really good.
All we did after Durlag's Tower is sell our loot, then make our way to the Friendly Arm Inn. We are at 93k gold.
The staff mace is good from werewolf island for thieves. Its uses quarterstaff proficiency but is one handed. Great average damage and quarterstaff reach, even though one-handed. I can't think of anything else noteworthy.
Ice Island is quick, but I find the first group often difficult (I use SCS).
Ulgoth's Beard has some great stuff, including the +3 staff if you have a staff user.
We took to more scum loads, both in the Low Lantern. First one was because I said the wrong things to acquire the Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Second one was getting Safana hit with Confusion and not wanting her to start shooting innocents. Reload count is now at 27/9.
Some boring travel.
Day 60, Hour 3 - Arrived at Gullykin. Apparently this was the longer route.
Day 60, Hour 11 - Rested
Day 60, Hour 20 - Arrived at Ulcaster Ruins
Day 61, Hour 5 - Rested
Day 61, Hour 9 - Waylaid by some Wild Dogs
Day 61, Hour 13 - Arrived at Beregost Temple and Beregost
We had some Ankheg Armor to pick up and some Bandit Scalps to turn in.
Day 62, Hour 1 - Friendly Arm Inn
Day 62, Hour 9 - Rested
Day 62, Hour 13 - Back at the Ankheg Farm
We got about 6 of them.
Finally we decided. It was time to show up in Baldur's Gate.
Day 62, Hour 18 - Wyrm's Crossing
The first place we went was Sorcerous Sundries. We had some people to meet upstairs. They were not too happy to see us. I still don't know. What's a simian?
When I finally get the SCS mod, then it will be much harder to pull off this nonsense, won't it? Coran snuck in behind the group and opened up with a backstab, killing one out of 4 mages instantly. They managed to get a Horror spell off. One day, I will learn to start off with Remove Fear. Instead, we waited around a minute or so. Cory was not going very far.
Then we went downstairs to do some shopping. We had 94k to go through and spent about 25k or so. Then we had another study party with Imoen and Neera. We were supposed to fix everybody's spells as well.
Our next stop was Niklos and the Thieves Guild. They wanted to lighten our purses as well. They had a job for Safana and a job for the rest of us, as well.
We also found the Manual of Quickness of Action. So Sam now has 19 Dexterity. I do not remember what the difference is between 18 and 19, but can look it up.
At this point, with so much gold, we decided it is no longer worth it to have 2 mages with level 1 slot full of Identify spells. Based on that, I guess a Level 1 Spell slot is worth 67gp or 100gp, depending on how we are counting.
We went north, and were blocked off by the inner city wall. We will encounter this from time to time. Here we met Merek and Lothander. They gave us a stern warning about interfering with the Iron Throne. We went to the city center after this. More specifically, we met Lothander in the park. He said we were poisoned and can help us as soon as we remove the his geas. The first stop was the Diviner's tent. He told us most of what we needed to do.
At least this gives us something to do while we wait for darkness to fall so Safana can accomplish her job.
Next stop was South Baldur's Gate. We messed up Noralee's quest because of bad charisma. All I had to do was have somebody else talk to her. It was no big deal. The Gauntlets were still worth 2000gp.
We killed a Greater Basilisk set loose in a warehouse and a Sirine far away from home. Then we entered another building where 4 Ogre Mages were waiting for us. This was a place for a Fireball. They also blew us up with one.
With the Ogre Mages out of the way, this building will do fine for our base. We can unload some of the junk we are carrying.
We went to the Priestess of Umberlee to find out what she needed to cure Lothander of his geas. We were sent to the Temple of Tymora as our next stop. That will have to wait until the morning, because it was past nightfall and Safana had a job to do.
Day 62, Hour 22 - Northeast Baldur's Gate, Blushing Mermaid
Most of us had to wait here. Larse the Ogre was waiting for us as well. We picked a fight. What we were supposed to do was have Sam Aggro and run around. Or have him free action and web. He stood there to get beat up while Coran pelted him with arrows. The Ogre hit with 20, 17, and 17.
Safana headed outside for her deed. All she had to do was stealth and call out when the city watchman showed up. This meant we also had to hide out in the Blushing Mermaid for the night, which we did.
Day 63, Hour 7 - Rested
We headed back into the Thieves Guild for the score and the next job. Then we went to Sorcerous Sundries to identify some of our ill-gotten loot. Then we went to the southeastern part of the city to give Euric his amulet and collect our reward for saving the warehouse from the basilisk.
Then we crossed the city again to visit the Temple of Tymora. We needed that Tome of Understanding. Can you tell me why you need the Tome of Understanding?
We'll give you 50k for it.
50k??!? Holy crap! Here.
(500gp at this stage of the game is so lolololittle)
We then found a kid who needed our help. His friend died doing something silly in Umberlee's Temple and directed us to his father who was a priest of Tymora. So we were heading to Umberlee's temple, anyway. Back to Umberlee's Temple. We exchanged the Tome for the Scroll, then headed to the Blade and Stars to get Lothander his cure and his half of the Poison Antidote. We also retrieved the body of the boy from the Temple of Umberlee as a returned favor from a few weeks ago. It was good we remembered the young priestess's name, because we do not now. She must have cursed us to forget.
We carried the body back to the house by the Temple of Tymora. That kid had a lot of gold to reward us with. 2000gp and a Large Shield +1.
Back to the south to the Low Lantern Red Light District Ship. A couple of the girls got rough on us. That Axe did not seem as effective as imagined. I'm torn about whether to use it as main hand for 1.5 attacks per round, or offhand at 1.0 attacks per round and -6 penalty to hit. Mages probably have a good save versus spell, but 80% chance of cast failure probably means a dead mage. Add that to poisoned arrows and darts.
Back to Sorcerous Sundries. Identify and sell loot.
Finally, we were ready for the big boss fight. Marek. Stupid saps. They'll never know what hit them.
After this, we had 2 more quests to turn in. Yago's Book for Coran's daughter and Nadine's amulet. So this puts us back into the central part of the city. Our party:
136313 Sam with 845 kills worth 259258
135467 Brawny with 110 kills worth 26094
134345 Neera with 122 kills worth 49551
125422 Safana with 54 kills worth 21435
95139 Imoen with 157 kills worth 106120 - DING! Max level and has her thief skills back!
66632 Coran with 466 kills worth 220543
We are about 210k experience from level cap. We still have to drink Merek's antidote. I looked it up and that is what we have to do. So after that, we will be about 200k experience away.
There is one unresolved quest that we picked up - and that was to retrieve a skull for somebody who is cursed. We still have the errand for the Thieves Guild. However, we will do Safana's job next. She will be a stray alley cat burglar tonight! You're the noisiest cat I ever heard!
It looks like our next stop is the Three Old Kegs.
There is a lot of running around once we are inside Baldur's Gate proper!
Lots of reloads. Most of them trying to get the script right. A couple of them trying to find a better strategy. A lot of it did not matter. If my main character got smashed for 85 hit points, it's a trip to the temple and 500gp to fix him up.
My memory of the City of Baldur's Gate was there was suddenly a whole bunch to do. Before getting to Baldur's Gate, the rest of the game map is open and your choices are either to explore a different map area or continue along a the main story line. In the City of Baldur's Gate, suddenly a bunch of side quests and mini stories open up.
I never imagined that this could all be completed in about two days game time. I think in the original BG1 engine, so much time was lost sorting inventory. It might even be possible to finish the quest line before finishing Merek's poison quest line.
That was the first order of business. We have the Antidote. We just have to take it. That gets us 10k experience and we have another bottle of antidote good for another 9 doses. I am not sure where we are going to need this.
Neera dinged 9th level with this. She is now max level. This makes things interesting. Does this mean we can do the Boss Fight at the top of the Iron Throne by dropping Greater Malison followed by Chaos?
Day 63, Hour 10
Our next stop was the Three Old Kegs in North Baldur's Gate. We found the skull we were looking for. Searching around, we retrieved the angel skill ring for some kid's cat. Then we encountered Rinnie who was looking for a copy of a History of Unicorn Run.
Then we went burgling in somebody's house. Drelik and Jordak. Going nose to nose and toes to toes, he is a very tough fight, but against a couple of backstabs, it was much easier.
We took a diversion to the Western part of the city, back to the Temple of Tymora, to give them the skull we found. The curse should end. Then we paid a visit to Ragefast. We need a front character to talk to people. My main is no good at it. So we sent in Imoen to talk Ragefast into releasing the Nymph. So we will not be completing Razimith's task, but that is no big deal. We got a lock of Nymph hair out of the deal.
Then we went north to the Blade and Cloak Inn, where we met the Merry Fools. Then we started a fight with another gang, the Maulers of Undermountain. Winning the fight was no problem. Winning the fight with nobody getting killed was much more difficult. They really had it in for the Merry Fools and I felt bad when one of them died, especially their leader. They were also jerks. They would take shots at the bartender. Quite often, I would find the Waiter dead. I wanted everybody alive. Here was the strategy I finally got to work. We have a bunch of Wands of Fear, and this was exactly the place to use it.
With two shots from two mages, we had 4 out of 6 of them running and the rest were very easily taken out.
We went back to Sorcerous Sundries to identify all the loot we collected. We have the Helm of the Noble which adds AC and Charisma to one lucky fellow, Coran. Imoen will get the Protector of the Dryads Shortbow +2. Finally, we got a Nymph Cloak. We can have Coran use that and present 19 Charisma to the shopkeepers. Had we given him the Charisma Tome, then he would have been at 20. Alternatively, the combination of Charisma and Nymph Cloak would have worked on Safana.
Then we returned to tell Razimith the Bad News. He already knew and challenged us and ported to the top of his tower. So up we went. First level, Mustard Jellies. Second level, Ghasts. Third level, Hobgoblin Elites. Fourth Level, Kobold Commandos. Finally, Razimith was waiting for us at the top. His back was to a wall, so we could not backstab him. Instead, we shot him. He was dead before the rest of the party could run upstairs and help.
We returned to our regular place to identify everything. Sam now had a Tome of Clear Thought and the 19 Intelligence will help should we finally decide to dual level to Mage. This will be very interesting if we are doing this during Siege of Dragonspear. We also have a Ring of Protection +2.
After this, we sent Cory off to pickpocket Akrion and Nemphere. They did not want to talk to us anyway. For our trouble, we got another Cloak of Non Detection.
We then returned to the northern part of the city to give the book to Rinnie and the dagger to Quinn. Then we found another house with a couple of twin girls and a bunch of voyeurs. We killed the mage and moved on. We got a Wand of Polymorph out of the deal. I think. I do not know if we identified it yet.
Next up was the house of Degodrel. It's another tough fight, a couple helmed horrors, a couple of doom guards, and a couple of invisible stalkers. The strategy I chose was to get Sam and Immy immune to electricity. Neera would have been a better choice, because she was already stoned. Eventually, we fried them all, then talked to the master of the house. We got a new mission.
Armed with a bunch of stone to flesh scrolls, we went to the shop with the statues and freed Vail and his gang. We asked for the Helm, but he did not want to part with it. Instead, he told us to talk to his favorite Courtesan in the Cellars. We did exactly that, and retrieved the Cloak of Balduran. Then we went to the Helm and Cloak and retrieved the Helm. Then we went to turn in our dirty deed.
Degodel summoned another bunch of guards on us, so we killed him on the way out, then killed the guards. So we got the extra 5000gp and the Helm.
Finally, we were ready to head to the SW part of the city, where the Merchants Guilds were. We found Aldeth and cleared out his building, then the Seven Suns. After that, we were summoned back to Scar where we reported. He sent us on another mission to go into the sewers and investigate the missing people.
We found lots of Spiders. A bunch of Kobold Commandos. More Spiders. Some Green Slime. More Slimes. More Spiders. Finally, an Ogre Mage commanding a bunch of Carrion Crawlers. Kill them with Fire!
By then it was night, so we emerged to meet up with Narlen Darkwalk. Safana grabbed a roguestone, then we ran back to the thieves guild. We had time for a couple more errands. It was off to the Oberon Estate. Coran snuck in and grabbed the components right under everybodys noses. We returned to the Guild and were slated to die for being involved in the plot, but Narlen intervened.
Finally, we called it a night and talked to our drunk friend at the Elfsong Tavern.
Day 64, Hour 7 - Rested
We reported back to Scar as if nothing at all happened during the night and returned a ring. He sent us to Duke Eltan for our final missions.
So much action in just a single day! Therefore, everything was rushed.
This one is very short. We reached the end of Chapter 5 after about 48 hours in the City of Baldur's Gate. The online guides said to prepare for this big fight with a bunch of defensive spells. We really needed one or two.
Protection from Fire was still active and we still had a character with 110% fire resistance.
Free Action - Just in case we drop a web on the mess. Apparently we did not need to.
Floor 1 - A quick 200gp bribe got us in the door. We might have gotten away with 100gp, but it's just gold.
Floor 2 - We told the guard we were going to the fifth floor. He said he would mark our faces and make sure we looked the same when we got back down.
Floor 3 - We told these guards we were new recruits and did not have our uniforms yet. Emissary Tar was on this floor, looking for the stairs. So we told her and sent her off to her doom.
Floor 4 - Somebody mistook us for the Emissary and told us how the negotiations would be conducted. We were told who would be waiting for us on the fifth floor.
We were in a position to sneak as many characters as we wanted to the fifth floor. We moved Coran in first. He discovered the freshly killed body of Emissary Tar, along with her duplicate. Then he hid in the hallway in the back. Safana snuck in next, then Imoen with Invisibility. Sam was going up first to start the fight and Neera was going to follow closely behind. Brawny had the other flight of stairs.
We sent in Arrows of Detonation, Wand of Fire, and Nuclear Neera Fireballs and blew the place up.
Fortunately, our secret base is not far from the Iron Throne Headquarters - and not far from open sewers in case we need to move around secretly. We made our final trips to Sorcerous Sundries and another Potion shop to load up on anything that might come in handy. Fire Resistance seems to be useful. Electrical resistance is also useful. Potions of explosions. Back in our secret base, we stored the scrolls we were less likely to use in the near future, and some extra wands and ammunition.
We finally went to see Duke Eltan and were ported to Candlekeep. It is the start of Chapter 6! Our party:
158939 Sam with 892 kills worth 296723
158101 Brawny with 116 kills worth 30919
156949 Neera with 138 kills worth 54243
148021 Safana with 59 kills worth 24130
117719 Immy with 166 kills worth 120410
77905 Cory with 502 kills worth 253258
We are about 60 to 66k away from level cap, depending on how we are counting. We should definitely see it in the next chapter.
Day 65, Hour 12
We did.... no much in Candlekeep. We went straight to the library and looted as much of six levels as we could. Then we got framed for the murder of the Iron Throne leaders, promptly arrested and accused. Then Tethotril teleported us to the cellars underneath Candlekeep.
Level 1 and most of Level 2, we made Safana invisible to take out the traps. We collected everything on Level 1 and obtained Tomes of Strength and Wisdom. On Level 2, the Skeletons were annoying because they liked to wander. They did not like to stay in a tight group where they could be fireball. We also accepted the help of Arkanis and Deder. At the end, we messed up a little bit by getting Safana to attack and remove her invisibility. That cost one scroll.
Here is one frame showing Coran's PR backstab of 49 points. The next one is showing just how the game seems to be throwing valuable treasure our way.
Out of the catacombs and into the caverns, an ambush was waiting for us. (several reloads later.... first one went perfect and then Arkanis walked into a Scorcher and went hostile..... Second time got hit with Dart of Stunning and forgot to Berserker....) There was not much room to work with. We had a corridor in the north we could hide everybody and buff up. We moved Cory and Safana in behind the group. Neera and Imoen were positioned at the ends of two passageways leading to them. They were straight enough for Fireballs. Sam had fire immunity.
Here was the double fireball opener.
Next, Coran walked up behind Tam with the bow and splat him with a 64 point backstab. It's a new PR. Right after that, he pulled his longbow and shot Bor. That made Sakul mad and he started chasing Coran, so he led the way out of the room. Meanwhile, Sam finally connected with bare Mage.
Waiting around the corner was Safana with the coup de grace.
With that we made our way out of the caverns and that is it for Chapter 6. On to Chapter 7. Here is our party:
161k Sam with 907 kills worth 318518
161k Brawny with 119 kills worth 34369
161k Neera with 152 kills worth 58993
157158 Safana with 60 kills worth 25730
121k Immy with 170 kills worth 125530
80.5k Coran with 552 kills worth 272198
We are about 12k to 17k away from level cap, so we will be making our way back towards Baldur's Gate. Maybe we delay long enough to get a couple of dream sequences.
Day 65, Hour 22 - Fled Candlekeep via the Lion's Way
We chose our next spells as well as we could, then made camp.
*dream sequence 5*
Did we ever remember to use our DOHM ability? Of course not!
We were actually disturbed three times by Diseased Gibberlings!
Day 66, Hour 6 - Rested
Day 66, Hour 22 - Friendly Arm Inn
I suppose this is a good place to catch up with Minsc and Dynaheir on adventures over the past several weeks. We were framed - and at least Boo believes our story.
Day 67, Hour 7 - Rested
We actually picked up Dream Sequence 6.
Day 67, Hour 15 - Wyrm's Crossing
We paid the 100gp to get smuggled in. Was it worth it? Probably not. Did we get into the city? Yes, we did.
Meanwhile, we are sneaking our way into Baldur's Gate and it is broad daylight.
We were greeted by Husam. Maybe this smuggler was working for him and that is what we paid the 100gp for.
He filled us in on a bunch of news. Duke Eltan is sick. Scar got assassinated. Find him by the Blushing Mermaid to continue the conversation.
It was broad daylight and we had to sneak somewhere. So we went to the Shop of Silence to hide. Silence was still friendly. She said the Fist had tightened control over the city and people could rest for free. We were also greeted by Rededge, the partner of Nalen Darkwalk. He explained more of the situation and that probably Narlen was rotting in a cell or worse. With that news, Safana went invisible and snuck out with Coran to scout the street.
We weaved between the patrols and made our way to Sorcerous Sundries. There was Delthyr from the Harpers to ask us if we really committed the murders we were accused of. We did not - and he was relieved. He provided yet more information and suggest we break into the Iron Throne HQ and find out what is going on. We can go to the Three Old Kegs Inn to find him for more information.
Finally we talked to Tamoko, who said we should go find her in front of the Flaming Fist Headquarters. She said it was likely the Healer causing the sickness of the Duke.
So this is reading like the first page of an adventure book. We have three leads to follow.
If you want to meet Husam at the Blushing Mermaid, go to Page 23.
If you want to meet Delthyr at the Three Old Kegs Inn, go to page 82.
If you want to meet Tamoko in front of the Flaming Fist Headquarters, go to page 144.
If you want to go directly to the Iron Throne Headquarters, go to page 42.
We went with Husam. The with the streets being patrolled by Flaming Fist and we are on so many Wanted Posters, the safest route was through the Sewers, even with all the creepy crawlies and green slime. We emerged right in front of Ilmater's Shirne. Isn't it great that we gave them an occasional 1gp donation? We ran inside to hide, then snuck out. There seemed to be no Flaming Fist to be seen anywhere. We met with Husam.
He let down his cover and it turns out he is an Amish Shadow Thief Agent! He is there to investigate who is behind all the rumors of Amn stirring up trouble to go to war with Baldur's Gate. He is also there to clear up the involvement of the Shadow Thieves. He told us to go to the Undercellars and seek out Slythe and Krystan and report back, which we did.
This fight seemed to work out much better when we dragged Slythe far away.
His girl was nowhere to be seen - and not just because she is invisible.
Slythe gave away her secret and we cast a Detect Invisibility and there she was. Coran might as well have been invisible. If there was suitable revenge against Slythe opening a fight with a natural 20 to hit Sam, it was Coran rolling a natural 20 to crit a backstab.
We exited the Undercellars and returned to the Blushing Mermaid. There we met Ivanne, who told us the story of how Scar got assassinated. He said he saw him chase a cutpurse, who then revealed himself to be a shapechanging dopplegangster.
We returned to Husam with the invitations and everybody was clear all the events were happening tonight and there was little time to waste. We took the invitations and went back to the sewers. This time we emerged in the north part of now near the Ducal Palace. We snuck into Rinnie's home and then snuck Sam to the Temple of Helm for some quick treatment. Then we were off to the Ducal Palace with our Invitations in hand.
That is where it got out of hand very quickly. Greater Dopplegangsters were disguised as the city's Nobles, causing huge disorder at the meeting. They finally revealed themselves and lunged after Duke Belt and Duchess Liia. And Coran. They seem to find him an irresistible target. Maybe because he was an archer. It was one less Dopplegangster chasing the two remaining Grand Dukes.
With that out of the way, we presented our evidence against Sarevok. One letter. Maybe a few more letters. Duke Belt said he would examine it, but then Sarevok attacked for about ten seconds, then ported out. Probably the best strategy is run, run run. Just don't get hit. Or get hit. We can heal.
Our next stop was the Thieves Guild. Or more specifically, the maze. Who was saying the Clairvoyance Spell was completely useless? It had a single use right here! Do we really want to explore that thing in the dark? With Clairvoyance, we can see the path to the end of the maze. I saved the scroll for exactly this purpose!
The maze started with slime. Why does it have to be slime? Fortunately, it was just a couple of Green Slime and Coran was able to take that out with detonation arrows. The rest of the slime was manageable. After that, it was a couple of Doom Guards. We have three decent melee. So we lured one at a time back, then stabbed it in the back.
At the end of the long corridor, it looped around all the way back. We ran an experiment and cast Monster Summoning 2. It is a Level 4 Spell. It summoned a single Dire Wolf. I cannot think of much more underwhelming than that. We did not manage to trigger traps with it, and it got killed by Skeleton Warriors. They were probably guarding Lightning Traps. We do not know. We treated the Skeleton Warriors the same as the Doom Guards.
Day 67, Hour 22 - The Undercity
We are close to the final confrontation. Before we got there, we met a party working for the Iron Throne to attack Sarevok and his group. Being their lucky day, they found us as well. How did they navigate the maze? It does not matter. We have no time for this battle. So we sent in a quintuple fireball.
Half the party died in the initial blast.
The final confrontation took a few tries to understand how the encounter is supposed to work and how it actually worked. So we have an anticlimactic and underwhelming ending to the saga.
We buffed up like crazy. Sam forgot to use DUHM, so was stuck with only 22 Strength. Safana loaded up with the Violent Potion and Agility and Constitution and had 25 STR. Coran used the Cloud Giant for 23 STR. We loaded up on Potions of Heroism and Power and Speed. We summoned Squad of Skeletons. We remembered to use Chaotic Commands, but forgot to use any othe buffs. Then we sent Invisible Safana in to confront Sarevok.
Semij warped in first. We tried Arrow of Dispelling. That might have no effect for some strange reason. Magic Missile worked, followed by Backstab of Instant Death.
With him out of the way, we sent Sam in to go find Sarevok. It looks like he aggroed both Sarevok and Angelo. Angelo sent a Remove Magic after us, but did not chase us. Sarevok went in after us all alone.
Big mistake. Underwhelming finish. I cheesed it.
We took the time to cast Greater Malison and Doom and find out what kind spells we could hit him with a -6 saving throw penalty. Safana got a backstab in for a whopping 16 points of damage. It looks like the remove magic got rid of her 25 strength. Coran still had his 23 strength. We were spread out well. When deciding what kind of spell to hit Sarevok with, he was almost dead.
The ending scenes took us seamlessly to Siege of Dragonspear. That is probably where we go next.
The other thing I wonder about is how much things change with the SCS mod. There are probably a bunch of fights we would have to find different ways to cheese.
With 666 reloads and 3 Bhaalspawn in the same room, bad things happen. Alternate material planes in the Multiverse collide. In our material plane, we call it a rift in the space-time continuum. If our material plane is involved, then who knows what will jump into our world. Minsc and Boo might show up - and that is a very bad thing for evil people. It does not appear that is what happened. One moment, Sam was contemplating the lifeless body of Sarevok and how so much has happened over a short 68 days or so. The next moment......
Day 77, Hour 23 - In a Crypt Somewhere in the Undercity
Sam! Hey, you! Sam! Wake UP! Are you okay? You went linkdead for a long time and we were worried. We're glad you're back!
(Where are we?)
Imoen had to let the dog out. She said she'll be back. She's on auto-follow on.... Who is there to auto-follow?
Sam? No. He's first into melee.
Brawny? That's bad choice number one.
Safana? Definitely no. She's scouting ahead and looking for traps.
Cory? He's either in the back shooting or in the front stabbing.
Neera? Nuclear Neera? The Wild Mage?
None of the above. She's on auto-follow on her new Priest friend.
Room 1
How do we ask where we are without sounding like we have no idea where we are? Well it looks like we are in a crypt and we are exploring. Immy normally makes Safana invisible so she can scout the area for traps. She's AFK. So either we have Neera use a Scroll or Safana has to use a potion. Neera? Don't blow us up, please.
How Safana communicates with us and tells us it's okay to move forward, I'm not sure. Probably some creature mating call or something. Not an Ogre mating call. That would be a burp. Well, Room 2 is clear, so we move forward.
Room 2
It's actually the area between Rooms 1 and 3. There is a chasm and a broken bridge across. Maybe it was not clear. There's a mage named Porios taunting us. He says it's already gone.
That's great! We can start to piece together where we are and what we are doing? What's gone? Come on. Fill us in! Oh. The Sword of Sarevok. Maybe that means he's still dead. With that little bit of information, he realized he said too much and disappeared.
Room 3
There is a makeshift table with cards, like some people were playing Cowboy Poker and suddenly the bull showed up and it's time to run. Whoever won the game apparently forgot to claim the prize, because a Gem Bag is sitting on the other table.
Another middle-aged mage named Ammon is in the room, using it as a makeshift library. She said she was looking for some ingredients to finish a potion, more specifically Cobalt Moss. We used the room as a makeshift storeroom for inventory management. We dropped off letters and scrolls we were no longer using, and some big heavy cases of potions we will not need for the trip.
Imoen has a friend with a Level 60 Priest following us out of group and keeping us healed, so we will not need any healing or antidote potions. S(he) could clear the entire thing for us, but then we would not get any exp.
Room 4
This is the area outside of Room 3. It has a Coffin and a bridge leading across the chasm. We opened the coffin and a Tatted Skeleton attacked us.
Wait. What? Say that again? In exactly what part of the Multiverse do Skeletons have Tats? I can understand Zombies with Tats, but this is new.
Across the bridge is Room 5
Safana already scouted well. There were 7 enemies waiting for us including a Mage and and Ogre. We have resources to burn, so Neera snuck as close as she could and dropped a fear-bomb on them with her wand. 4 of them started to panic and run and this made the fight much simpler and a bit more complicated at the same time.
Room 6
Some of them opened the door to the next room, where Poor Porios was waiting for us. We could not convince his gang to stand down. He thought we would stand down. Surely we are in a different plane in the Multiverse. The problem was easily taken care of with a couple of arrows.
In this plane of the Multiverse, apparently we get the exp whether we get enemies to surrender or we kill them. In both cases they are defeated and we get the loot. It is still more fun to kill them.
Room 7
This room contained another coffin and a very hungry mummy named Fanego Nomnom. We disturbed him from a long rest and he woke up very hungry. He must eat now. He must eat you. We are pursuing a mage in here and we will feed him when we are done. In the mean time, we cleared out a couple other rooms. We even stripped the bodies and piled the armor in a neat pile.
Day 8, Hour 0, Level 2 - The Catacombs
A walking Temple Service following us through a dungeon is very handy. Not only do we have access to healing in the same zone, but she also follows us as we clear rooms. In fact, we spent a grand total of 1950gp on her services, which included identification and healing.
Room 8
We finally got our reminder that traps are still real and dangerous on this material plane. They are spotted if patient. I watch the clock on the bottom left. I watch the hammer go up and down, up, down, move. Up, down, up, down, move. I did not time how long it took to clear the thieves guild maze like that, but I was distracted enough to be not too bored.
The invisible scouting is nice. We can show Neera exactly where to place a fireball.
She got greedy and sent a second fireball and took a nasty arrow for that, but the Walking Temple is not that far away.
Room 9 - Library
It's actually a room with not much of an encounter.
Room 10 - The Wight Stuff
The combination of good scouting and two Fireballs from Nuclear Neera made this room easier. Then Sam, Cory, and Brawny cleaned up the scraps. There were 3 Wights in the room I mistook for Zombies!
Room 11 - Fire Beetle Room
The first part of the encounter was a group of boring beetles. The second part was a few Magma Mephits, the first Mephits we encountered.
Room 12 - Torches and Shadows
Same tactic. Blast and retreat. Rinse and repeat. It turns out Wraiths are invisible and we had no counter to that. Imoen has all our Detect Invisibility Scrolls and she's still AFK. So we sent in in Sane Sam.
We also popped open a globe with a couple of Ochre Jellies. We're just glad it was not Green Slime.
Room 13 - Room of Secrets
The chests were trapped and it's another group of Skeletal Undead. In this material plane, bone bats can see through invisibility. I guess this is because they are blind to begin with and sight by sonar. Coran opened a chest an ran out of the room. Safana walked in just far enough to sight the bone bat, and then moved away. Neera was able to sneak in one or two Fireballs to soften the group.
Room 14 - The Big Bone Door
This was another large group of mercenaries. We hit it a couple of times with a Wand of Fear. It turned out one of them was invisible, so we did not find out for a bunch of rounds. He could have gone after Neera, but tried Brawny and missed, then popped another Invisibility potion. We tried Glitterdust. That might have worked. That might not have. We finally got him.
Room 15 - The Burning Dead
5 Burning Skeletons led by a Skeletal Mage. This fight started weird, because Cory bumped Brawny and started the action out of schedule. So Cory took some nasty hits slinging arrows to take out the Skeletal Mage. Then we retreated to the other room to finish the fight. That was also about when that backstabber mercenary popped out of fear and tried to knife us.
Room 16 - Up the Rope
This was the room on the main floor we could not access. It was barred, so we opened it and moved the party in. Then we opened the coffin and spawned a bunch of angry sprits. They turned out to be Shadows and hit Brawny a couple of times, knocking her strength down a bit. Here we found the Cobalt Moss Ammon was looking for.
Room 17 - Switch Room
We could not convince two mercenaries guarding the switch to stand down. Just several minutes ago, we took out a group of ten of them and they want to fight us to the death. Whatever gold they are being paid, they cannot take it with them to the afterlife plane we are sending them to.
Room 18 - The Anticlimactic Boss Room
Korlatz was waiting for us here, along with a selection of her best Mercenaries. When we defeat her, it's over. The ambush by Sarevok that killed Gorion. Tarnesh waiting for us at the Friendly Arm Inn. All the ambushes by assassins over the past two months or so. Dave in the Cloakwood Mines. The Iron Throne. The Shadow Council of Dukes led by Sarevok in the Undercity. Now Korlatz. After this, it's all over.
We buffed up.
3xAnimate Dead
Remove Fear
Chant
Bless
We did not think Korlatz and her gang of undead and soon to be dead would give up without at least a little fight, but....
Sam. Fire Arrow of Dispel. Hit. Damage. Dispel.
Cory. FIre Arrow of Detonation. Hit. BOOM.
Imoen's back! Sorrrry! Oh. Did you finish already? Was there good exp and loot? Can we go now?
We turned in a couple of loose end quests. It turns out after we dealt with Faim Nomnom, he disappeared and we were free to loot his coffin. We also got his shield as a bonus. It appears we just miss out on a little experience, about 400 each.
Here is our party at the end, Otter Chaos:
(Yes, remind me and I will get the shirt!)
183090 Sam with 957 kills worth 376448
91953 Cory with 572 kills worth 315073
183085 Neera with 187 kills worth 70118
Safana with 63 kills worth 25835 taking the MVP Rogue position
Brawny with 137 kills worth 41319
This was actually a second playthrough of the same dungeon, which is why it went so much smoother. The first run through was a bunch of surprises and reloads and experiments. A good percentage of the rooms had surprises and I was all day Monday exploring it. The second run through, I knew where nearly all the surprises were and it was therefore much easier.
The group working as a group is a plus. I would have liked to see that kind of AI implemented in BG1EE.
What happens next from what I have seen with party items is:
Imoen is not recruitable. Her stuff is in a chest in the Ducal Palace.
Safana is recruitable almost immediately. She will still be wearing her stuff.
Coran is not recruitable. He has decided to move on. Maybe he had a bad breakup with Safana and we had to choose between us. Maybe he is dumping Safana on the group. Whatever stuff he is wearing is gone.
Branwen is not recruitable. She has decided it is finally time to go home. We never hear from her again. Whatever stuff she is wearing is gone.
Neera is recruitable, but much later. She should still be wearing her stuff.
All 80 slots of inventory space is transferred to a chest.
All the gold is gone. Maybe Mummy chased us out and we had to leave it behind. Maybe it disappeared in a rift going from one material plane to the other. It actually does not matter.
Right now, we are making an exit plan for the dungeon. There are a few things we could have done better in BG1EE to be better prepared for SoD, but the run should not be insurmountable without.
We still have our Gem Bags and they are full of goodies. We should still be able to buy whatever we want.
We still have nearly 80 inventory slots to fill. If an inventory slot is worth 250gp, then we can raise 20k, plus whatever we left in the gem bags. The Scroll Case is also full and we have an incredible number of potions.
Sadly, we are RIP Brawler's Hands, so no easy 18 Dexterity for Minsc. It looks like I forgot them in our secret base in Baldur's Gate, along with other items such as the Ankheg Plate Armor. We will have to limp through the game without them. We have some Potions of Agility for when we really need them.
Reading ahead in the spoilers and walkthroughs, it looks like we will have to keep Khalid alive at Level 1. I have no idea how that is going to work. He will be nearly naked and Level 1 bravely counterattacking a siege. I think we left him with Splint Mail, Sword and Shield.
SoD takes us from 161k to 500k in experience. At 250k, we should be making the class change to Mage and that will be interesting. The Experience cap gets us Mage Level 10. The structure of the game is most likely very linear. So most likely, we will be playing the entire back half of the game as a squishy mage.
An option might be to run parts of the game with only 4 characters to increase our experience gain. That will mean our extra two characters might not have their level cap.
So far, I am thinking:
Safana our Thief
Minsc our Tank, less Gauntlets of Dexterity. Also less Mace +2.
Dynaheir as part of the package
Glint can do Cleric spells and maybe Open Locks
Room for One More
Maybe later replace Minsc and Dynaheir with Khalid and Jaheira. I will think on this.
If too many spoiler items were exposed, then I'm really sorry. All I have done so far is play the Interlude, and some of the rest of Chapter 7 business in Baldur's Gate.
On Khalid - if he's ever been in the party, he comes back like you left him. Same level, same gear. If you left him dead, he gets raised. If he hasn't been in the party at all, he shows up at level 7 and fully geared.
So ... yeah, level 1 in your case. If he lasts long enough to join the party, he'll get joining bonus XP, and the SoD triggers go up to 250K.
As for spoilers - they're kind of expected in this forum. It's just in the nature of any playthrough report.
A bunch of days go by, about two weeks. We have guest suites in the Ducal Palace, go out every night and crash back in, fall-down drunk every night at about 2am. We just split up a massive fortune of 80kgp.
Branwen saw no more future with this group, so moved back to her homeland. Maybe in several weeks we will catch up with her story.
Neera was never happy with the belt she received from Adoy. She went back into the forest to seek him out again. Maybe this time he has more meaningful lessons.
Coran and Safana partnered up.
Immy was studying magic every day. There is only so much knowledge to be gained on the road and she might as well learn how to do magic right and not end up like Neera.
That leaves Sam. Out every night, crashing into the Ducal Palace at 2am.
Meanwhile at the Fair in the center of Baldur's Gate, at the Diviner's Tent:
Rob M Blynd - Who is the richest person in Baldur's Gate and where does he keep his gold?
Diviner - The richest person in Baldur's Gate is Sam Ashen and he sleeps with his gold right next to him.
Next day, Ducal Palace, Basement, Treasury:
Rob M Blynd - Hello. I would like to make a deposit.
Orpheus - Of course. How much would you like to deposit?
Rob M Blynd - 80k
Orpheus - Okay. I will write you some notes. Are there denominations you would prefer?
Day 92, Hour 11
Hells, where did all my gold go? Did I spend it already drinking? That was a wild night.
Immy? Do you have any gold so I can go out on the town again?
Hells, I can't go out. It's boring around the Ducal Palace. Maybe we go to sleep on time.
Day 92, Hour 23 - This night is different and everything changed again.
Immy woke Sam up and the way the both got up out of the bed made me think of a really awkward Luke Skywalker moment. Search your feelings, Luke! Bad idea. Very bad idea, Luke!
Immy has a kid sister vibe, and sometimes behave as if still afraid of the dark. This time she heard noises. So she woke up Sam and went off to investigate the noises. Hells, we have to get up and follow her. A bunch of noise follows, things tossed about, a fight.
Then Shale Corwin of the Flaming Fist entered the guest chambers of the Ducal Palace. Four broken bodies lie on the floor, pieces here and there. Blood is everywhere. Sam is staring vacantly at them, blood all over the flail. Murder, Death, Kills follows him wherever he goes. Why in the nine hells this man not only walks free, but is also an honored guest at the Ducal Palace?
A few moments later, Duchess Liia warped in on the scene to explain. Stay behind him and prod him forward. He only kills what is in front of him when he is like that. There are more intruders downstairs. Send him there.
Before Corwin could decide what to do with this nut, Duke Eltan arrived to assign a mission.
Wait. Duke Eltan? Didn't he die in the last episode? Wasn't he assassinated by Slythe and Krystin?
Wait. We are in a different plane in the Multiverse, maybe a different time.
What else is different in this time and place?
Silvershield - Corwin. I have a good news and bad news, along with a mission. What would you like to hear first?
Corwin - The Bad. Get it out of the way.
Silvershield - You are taking Sam out for a night on the town to retrieve his friends.
Corwin - Hells. A path of destruction follows wherever he goes. I do not know which problem is worse for the Fist, all the disruption by the influx of refugees, or the trail of dead bodies wherever he goes.
Silvershield - The good news is he leaves town on the morrow, along with his friends. You will be his designated driver and we will pick up his friends. Make sure he does not cause too much trouble.
Sam - Maybe Ophyllis wants to go with us. One of the thieves upstairs had a bunch of banknotes and I should turn these in.
Body Count:
7/9 Assassins upstairs, 2 of which were shot by Corwin, so we cannot blame Sam for those.
(Sam exit downstairs to reclaim his gold.)
8/10 Korlasz
8/11 Flaming Fist Mercenary (actually killed by Korlasz, but doesn't stop Sam from looting the body)
Ophyllis - Can I help you?
Sam - I would like to make a withdrawl
Ophyllis - How much?
Sam - It looks like..... 80k
Ophyllis - I don't keep that much right here in one place. It will take me a few days to gather it for you.
Sam - Hells. One bill?
Ophyllis - No bank can cash a bill for 10k right away!
8/12 Zelma the Pickpocket, shot by Corwin - What does she mean a path of murder and destruction follows Sam everywhere? Did she just shoot a petty pickpocket? What kind of justice is the Flaming Fist?
(Enter Sorcerous Sundries)
12/16 Sethyl, Wistak, Kog, and Yashna, the gang robbing Sorcerous Sundries
(From selling all this loot, Sam suddenly has cash to burn! We're not sure how he can leave a bunch of gem bags unattended in a crowded shop with a bunch of penniless refugees and Corwin seems unwilling to serve as a packmule. It distracts her perfect bow arm. Hells, why is it taking this guy so long to go upstairs, sell 9 arrows, then back upstairs, sell a robe. Is he looting the place, too? There was a bunch of noise upstairs and three dead bodies. Should we be investigating? Nah. We're just keeping a tally.)
(Enter Elfsong Tavern)
Hells. Where is he going now? What is he doing with those crazy glasses? Okay, he went to talk to Garrick, who seems to be more interested in the tavern owner. Just how long is this errand going to take? Coran and Safana are in a room upstairs. Why is he not going there? What is he doing now? What is he looking at? What just materialized in the middle of the tavern? Hells. He just unleashed a Fire Elemental! Where are my Ice Arrows?
13/17 - Al Alai the Fire Elemtal
I chose this one for the experience, because I thought we would need as much experience at the front end of the game as possible. In the event of a no-reload run, I would not choose this one, because Corwin has a good chance of robbing the kill. Since this is my first playthrough, I have shifted to shameless scum saving and reloading.
Fortunately Safana and Coran evacuated the building. With this much chaos and the Elfsong Tavern on fire, Sam could not be far away. They just parted ways and Safana was the first to find Sam. Oh.... Hello!
Where is Coran?
I don't know. Want to go shopping?
I'm broke.
(produces gem bag)
(Meanwhile in Sorcerous Sundries)
Safana - Does this armor make me look fat?
Corwin - Hells. Can we get going? Where to next? Hopefully the Ducal Palace.
Sam - The Iron Throne. There is also a stash we left just south of here.
(Former Iron Throne Headquarters)
14/18 - Werewolf
(Flaming Fist Headquarters)
Tiax is still in prison. Good. Accounted for.
Safana is actually... hilarious
Oh, you brought me to a jail. How romantic!
Well, when I'm not as broke, I can take you some place better.
Like, where. The Ducal Palace?
Uh..... It's uh.....
(sniff, sniff) Khalid got your tongue?
Complicated
(Ducal Palace)
(oops. Still have to hit the Three Old Kegs. Our sailor buddies will miss us.)
Hells. Bind me. We will never get this done!
(Three Old Kegs)
16/21 - Three more muggers outside of Three Old Kegs don't know how to pick a fight. Suits are good targets, of course, because they have lots of money. Armor suits are probably a bad idea, especially if the guy looks like a nut and is openly carrying his weapons. The Flaming Fist Captain behind him is nearly equally crazy.
We finally reconnected with Minsc and Dynaheir. Dumm and Dummer are reunited for more havoc! We need drinks to celebrate and we have a designated driver! Meet Schael Hellsh on Wheelsh Corwin.
Day 93, Hour 2
Corwin - Okay. Bar's closing. It's time to get home. We leave at 7am. Good luck.
Hour 6
Skie - You can't tell Daddy about this.
Wait. Where am I? What in the hells happened last night? Please tell me how old you are.
Skie - Rembember. Whatever you do, don't tell Daddy about this.
Hour 7
Welp it turns out he knows exactly what's going on, like he has eyes and ears everywhere. Skie joined the Flaming Fist under a fake name. Subtlety is not her strong suit. She should have been more creative with the fake name than Seki. Yikes.
Finally Dumm and Dummer are leaving Baldur's Gate and crowds are assembled to celebrate their departure. The tally for their last night in town could have been much worse, but topped out at 21 or so dead bodies and a badly burned Elfsong Tavern.
Our party so far, Team Dumm and Dummer:
204281 Sam with 973 Kills worth 387608
200000 Safana with 63 Kills worth 25835
168969 Minsc with 185 kills worth 26668, right where we left off
168969 Dynaheir with 26 kills worth 3888
Inventory management is so much easier. Everything we need is packed into a chest and two unfortunate Flaming Fist Enforcers were tasked with dragging the thing through the forest. It was heavy. Eventually they were curious what was in it and if we really need everything in there to survive.
Safana - Yes. I need that to survive.
Day 96, Hour 19 - The Flaming Fist Contigent arrived at the Coast Way Crossing. Just before the bridge, they started to set up camp and prepare dinner. Further down the road, there is a refugee encampment. Maybe they have better food.
Safana - Quick! She's not looking! Let's get out of here for a minute.
Halfway between the Flaming Fist Camp and the bridge was a Refugee Camp and a burned Inn. We were able to sell enough junk to buy the Bag of Holding from Belegarm at the Camp. Then we started looking into local problems.
The Inn's owner is a halfling, looking for some items in the wreckage that might have been stolen. Meanwhile some refugees have gone missing and they are suspecting Teleria, a mage who just arrived in the area. She directed us to a clearing nearby to tell us her side of the story. Of course it was a trap.
In the clearing were five stone statues. We were going to be four more. Fortunately on her body, there was already the means to fix the issue and we did not have to return to the camp to shop for Stone to Flesh scrolls.
Then there was that dark elf sorcerer Baeloth running a fighting pit between wild animals. They turned out to be rats and squirrels. He wondered how Boo would do in a match. Finally he presented us with M'Kay the Goblin. We convinced both of them to make their way to the Flaming Fist Camp, because the money and action were going to be in the north and not in the middle of the wilds.
Safana was starting to complain about the wilderness, twigs and spiderwebs getting into her hair. We will not mention that she is the one who wanted this walk in the woods in the first place. Secondly, she was the one who was supposed to watch for traps such as spiderwebs. Meanwhile, it was Minsc who had his lines down.
We finally arrived at the bridge and there were some Crusaders waiting for us. Some of them fled up the bridge and blew it up. Caelar herself was there and had her parley with us. Indeed, we will be meeting her again in Dragonspear Castle.
Back on the road, there was a bard investigating some strange stones with runes on them. Apparently they sing back at him when he sings at them.
Then there was a dwarf running away from a zombie coming out of a cavern or dig site. Apparently there is a dungeon in this area to explore.
Session is cut a bit short for Saturday morning. Descriptions were brief. Here is the party:
211748 Sam with 979 kills worth 395123
207466 Safana with 64 kills worth 27235
176434 Minsc with 190 kills worth 33598
176433 Dynaheir with 29 kills worth 8688
Sam got hit with a level drain and that was a 750gp mistake. Now that he's cured of that, it's rest time. So we will have to check out that dig site in the morning.
The first two pictures of your latest post are showing up as pure blackness for me. Did something go wrong with your screenshots there? I've had pictures fail myself, though I consistently catch it when I convert my pictures to JPEGs before posting them.
The first two pictures of your latest post are showing up as pure blackness for me. Did something go wrong with your screenshots there? I've had pictures fail myself, though I consistently catch it when I convert my pictures to JPEGs before posting them.
It should be fixed now. Here was my thought pattern:
In the intro dungeon, we had a Flaming Fist Cleric follow us from room to room in a dungeon. So if we ever needed healing, we could just run back.
In the first area, we are at a Flaming Fist Encampment. Not only we have access to a Cleric. We also have a chest with all our stuff in it. A couple of Flaming Fist Soldiers have been lugging that thing from location to location. It made me think of that scene from Space Balls.
Day 97, Hour 7 - Rested
The Flaming Fist needs a little bit of time to break camp and prepare to march for the day. That should be enough time for us to check on those Dwarves mentioned by Daran Highhammer, Brother Deepvein to be precice.
Day 97, Hour 16
Corwin - SAM! There you are! Where in the Nine Hells have you been?
Last night, I encountered this Dwarf, Daran Highhammer and he wanted our help locating his employer, Brother Deepvein. The job took longer than we imagined. I did not think it would involve destroying a Lich.
Corwin - Rasaad the Monk came here looking for you. He went with Seki into the forest to look for you. They should not be too far away. This time I will be taking you, so that you do not wander off too far. We lost today's march and we don't want to lose tomorrow.
Brother Deepvein has a few more things to clean up at the digsite. He and his remaining Clerics will be joining us at Dragonspear. What happened down there is a very long story......
........
Level 1 of the Dwarven Dig Site
We entered the site and there Deepvein was with his small band of Clerics, holding off some horde of Undead. We talked to him and started to get his story. He was looking for Coldhearth. We said we would retrieve him or tell him what we learned.
The dig had several branches and there were Undead everywhere. For the larger groups featuring things like Wights we did not want to get close to, we sent in a Fireball first. We still have an amazing quantity of Fireballs. The southern cavern featured some Umber Hulks. We sent Sam in first with immunity to Confusion. We saw them sling a Confusion at Minsc, but we had time to hit his Berserker Rage.
Now Dynaheir had to run, fast. Fortunately she was wearing the Boots of Speed. She was wearing them, because she was typically the one slinging the Fireball, then running away fast. Safana was invisible and typically safe. That left Dumm and Dummer cleaning up the mess.
To the north, we saved a Giant from another group of Undead. Apparently, the Dwarves befriended him. I'm not sure why he died right after greeting his little friends.
We also found the burial site for that bard outside, with the Menhirs. Eventually we found where the dig encountered some ancient evil.
Level 2 of the Dwarven Dig Site - The Repository of Undeath
There were lots of undead here too - and we brought 0 Clerics. We did our best to keep our distance when we had to. Some groups were huge.
Dyna, don't just stand there! Blow up the room with another Fireball! (Why they sometimes just stand there, I don't know.) From there, we had to retreat a little bit and throw one where we were able. Fortunately, these Undead were mindless. So they were mindlessly attacking in Sane Sam, who was using the only immunity to Level Drain we had available. Pure rage. Minsc hung back and used his bow. Dyna slung spells where she could. That room had a total of 15 Undead in there.
We made our way through a Laboratory, and then a throne. Then we made our way to the southwest corner. There were some Skeleton Archers that needed taken out. The southwest corner of the dungeon features a portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire.
Back in the Northeast, there was a puzzle. We could solve it. Or we could choose a set of Mephits we would most prefer to fight. We had a choice between Earth, Fire, and Lightning. We did not feel like killing 25 groups just to go up a level, so we solved the puzzle after 4 groups, demonstrating a brute force method of solving a puzzle. Mephits are kind of annoying, anyway. I think a key is to be immune to whatever spell they are slinging.
A couple rooms later was where we got to see Coldhearth converted to a Lich. He decided not to destroy us, because he needed us for a job. We kill dwarves for their neckless. He lets us live. He will even throw in a magic item.
We said we will take some time to think about his proposition. He was surprisingly patient. He said we can take all the time we need, because now he has all the time he wants. What kind of evil creatures are like that?
We reported back to Deepvein, and he had a gem we needed to defeat Coldhearth. So that's what we did. We opened the door behind him. That made him start to attack. We used the gem to kill his defenses and he did not stay up much longer. Then we searched the room for his Phylactery.
We sent Sam in with Fire Resist and the Boots of Speed to the Plane of Fire Portal. There were 4 Lesser Elementals waiting for us. For low level creatures, worth 400 exp, they actually hit hard when they do. I'm glad we did not have a round where all 4 hit by rolling a natural 20. With one remaining to take down, Coldhearth showed up for more trouble. So Sam threw the Phylactery into the portal and ran. The rest of the party arrived to finish the fight.
This gave us just barely enough experience to start the long process of Dual-Classing.
For the skill point, I chose Slings. The reasons I can think of are:
1. It is a ranged weapon.
2. Berserkers can only gain proficiency in ranged weapons and we had no proficiency.
3. We still have a Strength Bonus to benefit.
Back at the camp, we invested huge amounts of gold to get Sam an epic spellbook. It looks like he has:
21 Level 1 Spells
21 Level 2 Spells
22 Level 3 Spells (apparently missing 3)
21 Level 4 Spells (apparently missing 3)
8 Level 5 Spells
Baby's first spell was Find Familiar. This little guy's going to pick up all the little girls for him.
The massive expenditure was probably completely unnecessary. There is very little experience gain. We could have even saved it for BG2 where the experience gains are bigger.
Here is our party:
652 Sam with 1049 kills worth 436733
246963 Safana with 65 kills worth 27300 (She was invisible almost the entire dungeon)
215854 Minsc with 249 kills worth 78133
215826 Dynaheir with 63 kills worth 24198
Most likely for a while, Minsc will be our tank. He should be manageable with a few potions to beef up his hit points and armor.
We sure went through a lot of potions in that dungeon - a case and a half of healing potions. Of course, we are actively trying to get rid of them.
We added Glint to the party. I was scared at first, because I saw him at 2x32k experience, but it took a round to adjust to 2x125k experience. So he became a Cleric 8 / Thief 9. We invested the proficiency point in 2-weapon style, in case we decide to go that way. The alternatives would have been single weapon style for an extra chance of a critical, or another weapon. We are not planning to backstab our way to glory. The skill points went to Detect Illusion.
We equipped him with the Thresher +2 and a magical shield, along with the magical plate armor. We got him down to AC-6. We might switch him to dual wield for when the fights get easier. He also got the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, so packs a bruising in a compact package.
We also added Corwin. She is our super-skilled Archer. I did not sit down and figure out if she is as good as Coran was. She has 4 proficiency in Longbows, so that helps. She will get 5 at Level 9.
Day 97, Hour 20 - Coast Way Forest
We found Kesi in her not so subtle disguise as a Flaming Fist Soldier. We found Rasaad and told him to accompany the Flaming Fist Mercenaries as they march northward. We also encountered Isabella and Ikros the Vampire Hunters.
Are we going to get back to the Flaming Fist Encampment before it gets dark? Of course not. We have to wait for it to get dark before we can engage in this Vampire fight.
It gets dark at 2200 hours, so I guess we are at a very high latitude in the summer. For the European readers, maybe this is consistent with the UK, France, and Germany on our material plane.
Day 98, Hour 0 - Troll Cave
Did we head back directly back to the Flaming Fist Encampment? Of course not. We got distracted by a battle. It might have been Kesi or Rasaad in trouble, so we had to investigate. (This usually works on Corwin.)
It was not. It was a group of Orcs fighting a couple of trolls. The Orcs won the battle, so we got to fight them. Then we cleared out the Troll Cave. We could not have that so close to the Encampment, even if we were moving out the next day.
Day 98, Hour 1 - We are finally back at the Flaming Fist Encampment.
We did some last minute business. There was a halfling looking for a shield that was stolen by those vampire hunters. Minsc needed a pair of maces to bash evil things.
Day 98, Hour 9 - Rested
Day 100, Hour 1 - Arrived at Troll Claw Wood
Since it was nighttime and we have good stealth, we used this as an opportunity to scout the local area. Actually - It looks like the maps are very dense with encounters. So I am showing a bunch of encounters and not that many pictures.
Here was one encounter with a group of Orcs. These do not seem to be one-shot kills. I looked it up. Orc Archer with 35 hit points, worth 120 experience points. Level 5. Based on that, it looks like Safana got lucky with her backstab and hit for 36 points - and that implies she rolled a 7 on an 8 sided die. I might be looking up the wrong Orc Archer, based on BG2, because the wiki I looked up said 35 experience.
The other part of the encounter was the Panther was remaining Neutral until we aggroed the Orcs. Then it decided to attack our back line. We figured out who was doing the kiting and shot it. The Panther was worth 420 experience. The Orcs were worth 120 to 175 experience.
The Hobgoblin encounter was made simpler with a Web Spell.
This fight got spooky for a bit, because I thought the Hobgoblins would be similar to the Hobgoblins from BGEE. They are much tougher on the SoD material plane than on the BGEE. Safana was supposed to shoot the Hobgoblin Priest in the back and get him poisoned so it would be harder to cast spells, then shot the Scout. Instead, the Scout turned and started firing arrows back at her, but missed.
Finally, we were ready to clear out the Troll Cave. It was full of Trolls. We decided a Web spell would make it simpler - and it actually did.
With Dynaheir, it's a save versus spells at -4 instead of -2. It looks like the Troll already needs a 14 to save. So the penalty means 18, for a 15% probability. Sure enough, a lot of them were webbed. Minsc and Glint were running around immune to webs.
Where it got tense was allowing my Fairy Dragon to run around free. I thought since it was a flyer, it would be immune to Web, but it is apparently not. When a troll got free, that was the first thing he charged. We were able to shoot it down in time. The Fairy Dragon only has 12 hit points.
When I get him killed, I will reload and put him in my pack, which is where he is supposed to go. Now that I finally looked up the information online, it turns out my Fairy Dragon can only cast Mirror Image. I thought he could cast Invisibility 10 Feet, but that is not until Baldur's Gate 2.
Finally, at about 4 in the morning, we got back to the camp. The local shop sells for a little bit less, but it also buys for a little less. So we will be selling cheap stuff only, and waiting around for more expensive shops to sell the valuable stuff. For some reason, I thought that was the Refugee Camp in the previous zone, but apparently there are more.
I also noticed a discrepancy between the prices for Arrows and Bullets and Darts. Magical Arrows are very expensive and they come in stacks of 20. Magical bullets are much cheaper. We might maintain a couple stacks of magical ammunition and then go back to the regular stuff, because we will not know when we will have to buy something big.
Here is the party so far. For comparison, it is easier to count Chapter 9 kills.
23229 Sam with 11 kills worth 14570
269551 Safana with 9 kills worth 3915
238441 Minsc with 22 kills worth 19700
238387 Dynaheir with 7 kills worth 290
136279 Glint with 3 kills worth 1085
272538 Corwin with 17 kills worth 12925
It looks like a lot of these mobs should look simple, but have enough levels to be immune to Color Spray or Sleep. I will look for another spell that should be useful at Level 5. We might end up just loading up on Shield spells. Level 6 is coming up sooner than we imagine. That will come with another weapon proficiency point. We took Slings already. I don't see a point in taking Darts, because we have characters with that proficiency already. So that leaves quarterstaff and daggers. I am leaning towards Daggers, because that gives us another range option and a melee option.
We are a long way from Level 10 and getting our Berserker abilities back. I am hoping we can accomplish this before the endgame, so we at least get to enjoy it for a while.
For variety in the characters we are using, we might get some characters to level cap, then work with another. I have not decided yet.
Comments
His plan was to walk them into a prepared Web, except - He forgot to wear his ring of free action and got webbed and could not save his character. The entire point was I got to watch him mourn the death of his character he invested good time rolling and developing.
Looking at the thread dedicated to no reload runs, I had trouble with the idea of a character with realistic stats and no adjustments. In the case of a fighter, it would be 1/160 of getting 18/xx strength and no guarantees on dexterity or constitution. Actually when I think about it more, the probability is higher than that due to required minimum rolls. I thought I wrote down somewhere [ADDED: I estimated 2%] my expected probability. I think my strategy in that case would be to prioritize Constitution, because that produces hit points, the universal damage sink. Fortitude potions are hard to come by and better in the hands of other players. We can solve the dexterity very early in the game.
For a while, I was very opposed to that idea, based on characters like Imoen. She starts with 18 dex, 16 con, 17 int, 16 charisma. This would be very difficult to roll naturally.
Next session will be pretty short.
Day 38, Hour 12 - Rested and woke up at the arsecrack of noon.
We sold some stuff at the Thunderhammer Smithy, then moved along the road to the south.
Day 38, Hour 16 - South Beregost Road
There was not much going on around here. We cleared out a few more Hobgoblins and Gibberlings.
Day 38, Hour 20 - North Nashkel Road
For a while, it was uninteresting. Then night fell and we encountered two Vampiric Wolves.
Once we loaded up with magic ammo, they were easy targets. I did not bother with a web spell, but that might have been helpful as well. It remains to be seen if the paralyze of the Vampiric Wolves works against berserker rage. I believe it does not, because it should provide immunity to hold and that it counts as a hold. I will go back and read the wording more carefully. Ghouls would be a safer target to experiment against. We can kill them more easily and if we cannot kill them, then we can still turn them.
I also still do not know about Color Spray versus Berserker Rage.
Source - https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Enrage
My current understanding:
Immune to Hold. The wording in the same wiki says "hold." That implies immune.
The wiki on ghoul says paralyze, which is not on the above list of status effects. Not immune.
Color spray says save versus spell or unconscious, which is not on the above list of status effects. Not immune.
The bottom line is it depends on how the developers implemented the status effects and in the world of Baldur's Gate, the developers are the DM and I am not. Also. This is like to change when I make the transition to SCS.
Day 39, Hour 1 - Arrived at the Lovely Peaks
We have Coran built up perfectly for scouting. He has a very high stealth score. It is also the middle of the night and he has Infravision. Instead of resting, we should clear this place out at night. So we gave Coran the Boots of Speed and sent him scouting so that there were very few surprises.
Arghain and his half-ogre lackeys were easy marks for the web / spider's bane combo. Soon after, we encountered a strange dwarf, who sent us on a little mission hunting some ogres further to the south. It is another fine example of scouting doing the work.
Instead of doing it right with Web, we messed this one up, because the Hobgoblin Elites wander and I decided it was better to charge them instead of engaging in a missile duel. We killed the Hobgoblin Elites, then put the Ogre Berserker to sleep and hit another one with a Command. Aren't Ogres supposed to be immune to sleep because of hit dice? Is there a quirk in the way the hit dice were implemented in the game?
Meanwhile, the trouble we have caused in the name of solving trouble has caught up to us. We came upon 8 Xvarts attacking the cows on a farm. We showed up just in time to save Arabelle. The Xvarts came from a village to the west of Nashkel and came plundering the countryside when their home was destroyed by some crazy group of adventurers just a few weeks ago.
We adventurers solve more trouble than we cause. Well, nearly always, heh!
Right after that, we encountered a small group of bandits. We did what we normally do. Web.
It was not quite as effective as we imagined it to be. Dribben made a save versus Spells at 12. I looked him up. He saves at 12. I guess based on that, the penalty is built into the roll. Failing that, he did not make the save versus sword.
Finally, there was a cave. Sam followed Safana into the cave, which is probably a very dangerous move when we have Dopplegangers in the story later. Sam has the sword in case we spring the Ettercap Trap. Safana found it and disarmed it. Then the rest of the party entered.
So we're probably a bit overleved for the fixed enemies in the area and the game tried to compensate by placing lots of ogres. There is a compound effect on overleveling.
Tomorrow's adventure will bring us to the lake, where we will hunt Bjornin's half-ogres and try to steal some kills from the mighty Drizzt.
Our party so far:
57626 Sam 619 kills worth 110742
56793 Brawny 91 kills worth 14842
55799 Neera 64 kills worth 15566
46923 Safana 12 kills worth 5110 - That expensive crossbow is starting to see some results.
16812 Immy with 112 kills worth 20000
27613 Coran with 263 kills worth 87835 - He seems in better position to overtake. He is just deadly with that bow.
Still curious about SCS Mod - Is there an option to link nearby enemies into a group?
Example 1A - Coran walks up to a group of 6 Gibberlings. He shoots one and gets into sight of another and shoots that one too. He hits 95% of the time and each shot is a kill. So he goes through the entire group.
Example 1B - Coran walks up to a group of 6 Gibberlings and shoots the first one. The other 5 Gibberlings in the group are triggered (like a pull in World of Warcraft) and charge in.
Example 2A - Sam walks up to a group of 6 Black Talon Elites. He exchanges shots with the first one and Coran walks in and finishes the job.
Example 2B - Sam walks up to a group of 6 Black Talon Elites. He exchanges shots with the first one and 5 more show up to also attack. He is crazy, so he charges the group.
Both examples make melee more likely and range slightly less powerful. The second example implies we have to come up with better strategies. Sleep might work. Web might work. (What is with their save numbers?)
Installing it might add an entire new learning curve to the game.
The spellcasting game - Arcane spells
Level 1 - I am familiar enough with them that I can make a list of 22 Level 1 Arcane spells. So that gives me some idea of what they do. I read a few reviews and listened to a few videos. I could make a similar division on tiers and applications. Some A-list will always get used. B-list will sometimes get used. It likely competes with another spell that does the same thing, but is one tier above. C-list most likely has an application and that application is to get from Level 1 to Level 3.
Level 2 - Based on my gameplay, I only seem to use one spell. Immy has Invisibility spell, but Cory's stealth has been so good, I have not needed it. It might find an application if I take Safana into a dungeon.
Level 3 - Similar to Level 2, I might do well to listen to another video. Immy has Haste and Slow, both.
Neera is not far from being able to use Level 4 spells.
Divine spells
Brawny now has access to the Level 4 spells.
Going back to my rant about SCS and the examples described above, a few things might be gimping the learning curve. If we have two or three tricks that work every time, then there is not much need to get creative and use more resources. Coran is simply deadly with that bow. Sam is super strong. Brawny can get even stronger and has nearly as good armor, but never seems to get into the action. There are two abilities and a bunch of spells that never get used.
I really do not know how to describe this session. We visited several areas and cleared them. The quest story line is still officially hijacked. The gang at the Iron Throne is wondering where the heck we are, this group of mercenaries that cleared out the trouble in the Nashkel Mine, then destroyed the leadership of the Chill Black Talon, then killed Dave the Mage in the Cloakwood Mine, then disappeared.
They must be still around somewhere, because the assassins and bounty hunters sent to find them never seem to come back.
Where were we? We were in the Lovely Peaks!
Day 39, Hour 11 - Rested
Day 39, Hour 19 - Back at the North Nashkel Road
We went hunting again and at our favorite spot again, we hit pay dirt. We nabbed ourselves another couple of Vampire Wolves.
Day 40, Hour 7 - Arrived at the Lake where Drizzt is rumored to keep his cottage
We identified the Golden Girdle of Unshey and the 2H Sword +1
Day 40, Hour 15 - Rested
We found another bandit gang, Tengan, Jemby, and Zekar and they completely underestimated what they were up against. Then we went hunting for those Half-Ogres Bjornin kept telling us every time we visited the Jovial Juggler in Beregost. We finally found them.
It was Neera's turn to have some fun. She has 3 Fireball spells memorized for some occasions. Who ordered extra crispy?
I suppose with so many spells available, we can make some encounters even more trivial.
We were not doing Fireball against Drizzt. We helped him kill a few gnolls. We mostly watched him work. He kills things fast. His advice was to infiltrate the bandit camp and we have already been there and done that.
Day 41, Hour 5 - Back at the North Nashkel Road
Apparently we did not scout the area very well when we set up camp to rest. There were 10 Hobgoblins looking for us. I got scared a moment they all had bows. We are trying to sleep and they should as well. Actually they got webbed.
Day 41, Hour 13 - Rested
Day 41, Hour 21 - Arrived Nashkel Carnival
We sold a bunch of stuff and accumulated about 17.5k gold.
Day 42, Hour 6 - Rested
Now it's time to go hunting for Winter Wolves.
Day 42, Hour 18 - Fireleaf Forest
We came blazing in on an Amish hunting party. They started to talk trash to us about trespassing and we remembered the words of wisdom from Aldeth Sashenstar. We are well within our rights to do whatever we damn well please in the forest. So they opened fire on us and we opened web.
Looking around further, we ran afoul of another couple of idiots, Vax and Zal, the fastest dart thrower in the West. With the Paws of the Cheetah, we closed to melee range before he could throw and AP dart and the rest of the gang hit Vax.
It was a shame Vax did not last very long. That's what Safana said, anyway.
Day 43, Hour 4 - Rested
Day 43, Hour 20 - Arrived at the Tree of Life
That gnoll that normally warns us about the witch they are holding in Gnollhold was hostile instead. We killed him and it turned out he had a Halberd +2 Chelsey Crusher. We also found a Halberd +1 in a cave. We did not recruit Kivan, so we have no use for Halberds.
We finally found the Dryad Tree of Life and its guardian Dryad. A couple of idiots were trying to cut it down. Why they were trying to cut it down with Flails instead of Axes, we have no idea. Maybe they thought they could bash it open.
They were much easier kills at Level 6 than at Level 2.
Day 44, Hour 5 - Restsed
Day 41, Hour 1 - Back in Nashkel
We must have sold about 9 Winter Wolf Pelts. With some other goodies, we are almost at 27k gold. There might be a couple of things at the fair we can buy. The Necklace of Missiles comes to mind.
If we are buying it tomorrow, then I can have Immy either memorize a spell or use a scroll.
Here is the party:
62281 Sam with 657 kills worth 117591
61437 Brawny with 95 kills worth 15952
60430 Neera with 78 kills worth 17801
51541 Safana with 21 kills worth 7845
21428 Immy with 119 kills worth 22965
29892 Coran with 298 kills worth 97762
We will be exploring the southeast corner of the map. Speaking of, it looks like we missed a Cloudkill scroll in the Fireleaf Forest. It's probably no big deal, but would be fun to use. It is not likely we will come back and pick it up. The Gibberling Mountains are supposed to have a Ring of Fire Resistance which would very much come in handy, since we seem to love fireballs.
Neera hit Level 7. The only Level 4 spell she can cast is Stoneskin. I looked it up. 12 hours duration? It looks like she gets 3 skins out of the deal for 12 hours and we will be worrying a lot less about her.
"Unconscious" translates to "sleep, but not subject to elven resistance". Berserker rage will protect from Color Spray.
Yes, the bonuses/penalties on the spell's save are included in the displayed roll. So that's a natural 14, modified to 12.
If it's an effect on the creature making the saves (such as a ring of protection), that generally modifies the roll needed for success.
Day 45, Hour 9 - Rested
Day 45, Hour 13 - Nashkel Mine
There was really not much going on around here. We killed 2 Ghouls and a single Kobold. There were no Winter Wolves to be found, but we might not have been very patient with our hunting. We had an extra cavern in the mine to investigate, anyway.
Day 45, Hour 15 - Emerged in the Valley of Tombs
We trekked north and finally met a group of assassins who have been searching far and wide for us. We had been missing for weeks. Once again, a quick Web spell made this encounter easy work.
Continuing our murder spree, we found a crazy mage with a couple of Mustard Jellies.
The Mage was down in a couple of arrow shots. The Jellies.... I think they either have very high magic resistance or are immune. I also think they are immune to missile weapons. I will look them up. My source says 125 magic resistance and 100 piercing resistance and 30 slashing resistance. We sent Sammy in with Brawny and Cory to do melee.
There were some tombs to raid. One of them a rogue approached us because he wanted to return a dagger he stole from one of them. We told him we would return the dagger for him. Of course we would. Then we will loot it off of whatever was haunting him.
We claimed the Heart of the Golem Dagger +2 as our prize. We do not really have a character that can use it, really.
Maybe Imoen can use it. Or she can use the poison dagger, which is more likely, especially when she gets her rogue skills back.
Sam is already dual wielding Morning Star +1. Maybe he can use it with the Singing Shortsword +2 in case he needs +2 weapons.
Brawny has the War Hammer +2, and cannot use Daggers, anyway.
Neera has her quarterstaff and is unlikely to melee in the event of a +2 emergency.
Safana already has a +2 Scimitar and a good chance of getting another.
Cory has the Long Sword +2.
Day 46, Hour 4 - Arrived at the Gibberling Lair
Neera got her first Level 10 Fireball blast.
That should be good for an average of 35 points. Against Gibberlings, this is a lot of overkill, but also a lot of fun.
We encountered the Flaming Fist. They were on the lookout for a deserter named Samuel. We found him a little later and his girl convinced us to take him to the Friendly Arm Inn, instead.
We also encountered Hafiz, who gave us a Protection from Magic scroll. That will come in handy some time. Meanwhile hidden in a cliff face, we found a Ring of Fire Resistance +40. So we can get Sam to +60 Fire Resistance without trying. At +110 or +160 maybe we can get some heals in by saturating an area with 3 Fireballs. I will add that to the list of things to do.
Another thing for the list of things to do would be a dungeon full of magic traps, that we spring with full fire resist, lightning resist, and shield.
Day 47, Hour 6 - Arrived in Nashkel
Day 47, Hour 14 - Rested - One day has passed since we picked up Samuel.
We decided we had time for a quick shopping trip in the Fair before leaving for Beregost. We bought the Shield Amulet and the One Gift Lost Necklace of Missiles. So if we want to launch 3 fireballs at a target, we can.
Day 48, Hour 3 - Arrived in Beregost
There was not much going on in the roads. We killed a few Gibberlings and a Hoblgoblin. Meanwhile in the Jovial Juggler, Bjornin gave us another Shield +1 for clearing the half-ogres near Beregost. People can now visit their cabins on the lake in peace.
Day 48, Hour 11 - Rested
Day 48, Hour 23 - Arrived at the Friendly Arm Inn
It looks like we had about 15 hours to spare in saving Samuel. That would be one extra rest cycle. As well as I understand it, there is a three day allowance and that is enough to rest on the spot, then rest in Nashkel, then rest in Beregost. For that work, we won ourselves another Potion of Heroism and Elixir of Health.
Our scroll case is full, too. A Potion of Genius would have been nice.
65941 Sam with 680 kills worth 126608
65089 Brawny with 97 kills worth 18002 - I still have to work on that buffing game.
64069 Neera with 93 kills worth 21291 - We had fun with the fireball game. I also get nervous with her casting right next to the main group.
55180 Safana with 28 kills worth 8230 - That's okay. She serves the MVP role the next time we hit up a dungeon.
25066 Immy with 121 kills worth 23900 - We don't have any surplus Fireball spells, but we do have some skull traps.
31689 Cory with 322 kills worth 102807 - The online chat says he is the best archer in the game with the extra high Dexterity and the weapon skill.
They also said Khalid and Kivan can both get ahead of him at Level 7 with the extra half attack and I will get out a pen and paper and see how that works out on experience point levels. The Level 7 Archer version of Khalid also has 3 points of longbow mastery. From what I count, Kivan has 11 points of thaco bonus (3 dex, 3 skill, 3 bow, 1 race, 1 gauntlet) and Khalid has 8 points, plus 1 point for an extra level. So for 64000 experience points, it is very close. Coran has a 2 point edge to hit with 2.5(?) attacks per round. Khalid would have 3.0.
Kivan loses 2 points to thaco with specialization instead of mastery, but gains them back with dexterity and race bonus. So he hits at the same rate as Khalid, but loses 1 point of damage due to weapon specialization. He does have 18 Strength and that qualifies him to use the Composite Longbow +1 and it looks like that trades the point of thaco for a point of damage. So it is one point that can be freely traded between damage and thaco.
So right now, I have 0 regrets for picking up Cory right at 32k experience. Since we are very redundant on thieves, I pushed him in stealth.
As for Safana, I do not know what to do with her when we get Imoen's thief skills back up and running. Most likely, it is the other way around. She knows what to do with us.
Day 49, Hour 0 - With our scroll case all full of scrolls, we had another study party with Immy. It looks like we went 7/12 this time, as if the potion did not do anything. I have a pet theory that the RNG is streaky and the failures will happen in quick succession. 82% should have given us an expected 9.84 spells and 7 seems very low compared to the probability. I got 4.89% for 7 spells or less out of 12, so kind of liking rolling a 1 on d20. The reason I suspect streaking is because we lost 4 in a row.
It makes me think of Colonization, where the rng appears to streak based on the hour and minute. So if you are getting great results from goody huts, then you should pop them all at the same time. Similarly, if you are winning battles, then you keep on fighting battles until you take a loss.
The scrolls we lost were Lightning Bolt (no big deal) Red Fireshield (might be unique) Vampiric Touch (probably no big deal at this level) Spook (which would have been fun to play with) and stinking cloud (Neera already has it and we do not use it much)
Another random thought about another spell everybody calls useless - Infravision. When playing old-school XCOM, the soldiers were human and the aliens had infravision. In night missions, the humans had very limited line of sight and the aliens did not. The newb experience everybody remembers is taking a run from the landing craft to the nearest building for cover and watching in horror as 3 green bolts streak towards the party. One of the shots hits and that's a kill. The other two miss, but one of the stray shots kills another soldier. The night mission ends in disaster as the soldiers start to panic. They could have made infravision useful by limiting line of sight for those who do not have it, say from 50 meters to 25. With a lantern we can increase that line of sight, but that probably makes the party very obvious to the monsters trolling about.
Otherwise, outdoors, night is better if you have a good scout in the party. Send Coran around in stealth with the running shoes of speed. We might try that strategy again - or just have somebody unimportant scout with Invisibility, probably Safana, because she can still disable traps while invisible.
Day 49, Hour 8 - Rested
Day 49, Hour 12 - Arrived at the Ankheg Farm
Gerde says it's hunting season and we are limited to 4 per party. She seems to have no idea just how many of them there are out there. Maybe she meant 4 per person. We killed 5 of them and returned to claim our reward.
After that, Farmer Brun wanted us to go looking for his son. We found a huge Ankheg nest to the west of his house.
Here's a 44 crit. Are Ankhegs considered to be ranged attack only?
His son, Nathan was already dead, but he had some pretty good loot to claim, including yet another Wand of Fire. Now we have 3 of them. This is probably enough to justify stacking Neera with a different level 3 spell. Some day it will be fun to saturate zones with fireballs.
The Protection from Acid scroll appeared to be a bit of a waste. Sam got hit maybe once or twice where he missed the save versus death and got hit with the acid damage. So we saved ourselves 5 or 10 damage which could have been countered with a single healing potion at 50gp instead of 300 or 400.
We also got involved in some battle between the followers of Talos and Umberlee and maybe were chosen to decide who would prevail. We encountered some fisherman who wanted us to kill a priestess who lived near the bridge to the north of us.
Day 14, Hour 15 - We were waylaid by 2 Worgs on the way to the bridge. What happened to random encounter balance? Are the 10 bandits of doom reserved for Level 1 parties? I saw a video on the origins of D&D and they said random encounters were truly random. Your party could set out and be very lucky and encounter a dragon. The end.
Day 4, Hour 17 - Arrived at Wyrm's Crossing
Why don't they have a bridge to make the crossing to the Cloakwood Mines so much closer? Is this what the Iron Throne wants?
We confronted Tenya the priestess of Umberlee. She looked like she was about 12 years old, but looks deceive. She knew armed as we were, we were sent by those terrible fisherman. Well, if she lives, she lives. Apparently she lived. How she was able to tell her long-winded side of the story while being pounded into mush, I will not understand.
I never checked if siding with her was worth more gp or xp. Our oracles indicate we need the help of Umberlee's followers on two occasions in the future - and one of them is life and death.
Day 49, Hour 22 - We are back at the Ankheg farm. There were still wild Ankhegs
.......edited in......
There were also wild bandits. Here is our first use of Color Spray!
Our options are either to try to get the spells to work or sell the scrolls. We have lots of scrolls and lots of gold. So that's 50gp down the drain. Worth it? I doubt it. The same 50gp would buy a healing spell or healing potion.
We beat the bowl of water elemental control out of the fisherman and then felt bad and let Farmer Brun hang onto 100gp for us so he does not lose his farm. It is a very low price to pay for about 1k exp. We still have over 600k to accumulate, so every bit helps, I suppose.
Day 50, Hour 7 - Rested
Something to figure out is how to arrange the party when resting. It would be nice to have my melee characters guarding choke points, but the monsters seem to spawn next to vulnerable characters.
Day 50, Hour 11 - Returned to Wyrm's Crossing - We returned the water bowl to Tenya. She said there was no reward, but it will always work out at a later time. She also said we did not have to worry about displeasing Talos or the fishermen, who most likely have been abandoned for their failure. We got used by a couple of gods and messed up the lives of at least 3 more people. Our string of good deeds will continue.
Day 50, Hour 19 - Arrived at the Zombie Farm
1300 XP - 20 Zombies killed
800 XP, 150gp - Reward
8 hours there
8 hours rest
8 hours back
1 day to collect 2100 XP and 150gp. What was supposed to be in that area?
Day 51, Hour 4 - Rested
Day 51, Hour 12 - Back at Wyrm's Crossing
Day 51, Hour 16 - Back at the Ankheg Farm
Day 52, Hour 0 - Back at the Friendly Arm Inn
Day 52, Hour 8 - Rested
Day 52, Hour 16 - Cost Highway
Day 52, Hour 21 - Beregost
Here we arrived with a single Ankheg shell and commissioned Thunderhammer with 4000gp to make us another suit of Ankheg Armor. I suppose if we wanted it for free, then we could have come in with another 800gp worth of Ankheg shells and sold them back one at a time. We do not have enough strong characters for that.
The armor will be used by Coran instead of the Platemail +1, when he is not sneaking around as a scout. The resale value of the Ankheg armor is unlikely to be very close to 4000gp. I never checked. It is not quite as good as full plate, but Coran and Brawny do not have the strength to use full plate.
Here is our party so far:
71042 Sam with 715 kills worth 139858
70190 Brawny with 98 kills worth 18067
69167 Neera with 97 kills worth 22461
30134 Imy with 123 kills worth 25850
34208 Cory with 333 kills worth 110802
We still have stuff we can do for a few days while waiting for that armor. I do not believe it will include Durlag's Tower.
Ankhegs have two attacks, one ranged and one melee. They start with the ranged attack, and switch to melee if you close on them - but that takes time. You can usually get a hit or two in first. And the usual melee versus ranged effects apply, though there's no visual indicator of the switch.
The ankheg ranged attack deals 4d4 missile damage and 4d4 acid (save vs death for none). The ankheg melee attack deals 3d6 crushing damage and 1d4 acid (no save).
Session 25 - The Wood of Sharp Teeth
We are not sure what legendary treasures we were searching for when Coran and Safana dragged us into the Wood of Sharp Teeth, but that is where we went. We had a few days or so to kill while Thunderhammer makes that armor for us.
Day 53, Hour 5 - Rested
Day 53, Hour 21 - Arrived at Larswood - One day has passed. Who remembers the ten days from before EE?
With the earlier discussion on night missions, we put the argument to the test. We found a small group of three Blacktalon Elites. We put one to sleep and Coran hit another with a fine backstab. The third one was engaged in a little bit of swordplay while we closed in.
51 points seems like a lot. We should also have a 10% probability of a crit.
We found a couple of Shadow Druids. One of them wanted revenge for killing his brothers. Obviously he must have been talking about those in the Cloakwood we cut down. The other druid did not help at all. We accused him of participating in the murder, then killed him too. Meanwhile in the heat of the discussion, he lost track of where our rogues went.
Trying to rest, we were disturbed by 10 Bandits. We sacked their base, but this is still their wood. Pretty colors. Color Spray is so pretty!
We are all loaded up on magic missile spells and using up scrolls. Normally I would cast a sleep at the edge of the line of sight. I would do well to compare the area of effect of the two spells. It would also be helpful to know how far characters can see. It is probably exactly the same as the range of the sleep or fireball spell. After that I can make a comparison of the relative usefulness of Color Spray and Sleep. I think Color Spray has a narrow window of usefulness. (We are in this window. We are high enough level not to be affected, so it is now a party friendly spell. We are also frequently encountering large groups of low level monsters.)
Day 54, Hour 7 - Rested
Day 54, Hour 23 - Peldvale
The main encounter here was Vicky and the Flaming Fist. Our options were to avoid her, side with her, or side against her. Since I do marginal roleplay in an effort to have some kind of story line, we sided with her. This is consistent with her being alive in BG2 and it is consistent with her remembering with us.
The fight was over very quickly. I thought about having Brawny cast a Command in case the backstab does not work, but Vicky thought of it first.
Meanwhile, rescuing Vicky does not mean we have to party with her. In fact, it turned out she did not to party with us. Low Charisma / Reaction scores are comically amazing! We have enough party girls as it is.
Day 55, Hour 9 - Rested
Day 56, Hour 1 - Spiderwood
We found the Red Wizard hideout. Hindsight says we should have cast Invisibility on Safana, because her hide in shadows skill is too low to sit behind a marked target for too long. So we had to rush our attack.
Coran popped out of the shadows and stabbed Brendan before he could act. Safana got spotted by Lasala and blasted with some magic missiles. Diana cast Ghost Armor, but that did not good, because Coran dropped his sword and nocked up a poison arrow. Both mages were poisoned in very little time, then pincushioned. Finally Sam reached the leader Denak.
Meanwhile hunting for the spiders, we went 0/3 on the traps, but that was no big deal. We did not find the person who lost the scroll and we will do that in the morning. We cannot do it tonight, because a storm showed up and we will simply rest and wait for it to blow over. Here is our party so far:
76743 Sam with 745 kills worth 150398
75891 Brawny with 103 kills worth 20087
74847 Neera with 107 kills worth 24131
65394 Safana with 45 kills worth 12890
35814 Immy with 127 kills worth 28910
37027 Cory with 383 kills worth 124032
The Ankheg plate armor should be ready by now, but we are about two days travel away from Beregost.
We are, however, a single day's travel from Durlag's Tower in case we want to go there. We only have a couple of characters who are not level 7. I wonder if we are strong enough for it.
I saw an YouTube Video from Extra Credits dedicated to Durlag's Tower. I believe he is from a generation much younger than I, because he appears to have experienced the game at a different age and stage. I played the original game, followed by the Tales of the Sword Coast Expansion. He might have played the two as a package.
Something very interesting he said is they placed Durlag's Tower in the middle of a newbie zone, so you can discover it at very low levels. Then he talked about the gatekeepers, which were the Battle Horrors, and explained if you can get to the tower, then you have a chance inside the tower.
Based on that, and given we were a mere one day's walk away from the tower, we went.
Day 56, Hour 11 - Rested
Day 57, Hour 3 - Arrived at Durlag's Tower
We were almost immediately greeted by Erdane, the resident shop keeper. He makes a living by lessening the amount of gold people carry into the tower. So far, we will be carrying more gold into the tower, because we had a place to unload some plate mail armor and longbows. We will be back with Friends to buy stuff from him later.
As stated in the description above, there were two battle horrors waiting for us. We could pull them one at a time, across a bridge. We had Coran take a potion of Stone Giant Strength to improve his backstabs. We are doing a night mission again. Two Battle Horrors out of the way and a couple of Dopplegangers, we got to the gate. It was time to take out the outer ramparts.
We went west first. In the original game, the skeletons would be shooting at us on the way in. Instead, they were waiting for us at the top. We moved Sam in first with a stealthed Coran, followed shortly after by Brawny, who would hopefully turn the Skeletons.
A backstab for a total of 48 points from Coran made this Battle Horror much easier work. I looked them up. It was left with 10hp, so one shot away. A Magic Missile could have done it. The east side ramparts also had a bunch of skeletons and a Doom Guard.
Day 57, Hour 5 - Durlag's Tower, Ground Level
With the Ramparts cleared, we entered the ground floor of the tower. We put Invisibility on Safana, but then learned the hard way that opening locks dispels the invisibility. We can try again later. Coran also has a good score in Open Locks, so might use him instead.
Day 57, Hour 6 - Durlag's Tower, Second Level and Rooftop
We took out some Ghasts on the second floor of the tower and that cleared the way to the rooftop. Since we knew what was coming next, a Basilisk ambush, we sent Sam in solo with Protection from Petrification. Sending Cory in stealthed would have been just as valid. We cleared the Basilisks and claimed the treasures, including another Scimitar +2.
Day 57, Hour 7 - Durlag's Tower, Third and Fourth Levels
Safana encountered a ghost in one of the rooms and retreated quickly. We were eventually able to defeat it, but everybody in the party got confused except Sam, who was berserk at the time. I looked up how long Confusion lasts. About 5 Rounds. So they behaved randomly for five rounds and wasted some very good ammo. Finally Safana took a 10 point hit from Coran and that was all the damage done. It could have been much worse. I have to get used to fights where mages teleport around.
We went up a floor to visit Kirinhale the Succubus. I did not know the dialog line to get her to give a lock of hair to the thief on the third level. It might not have been open, because we did not talk to him. We ended up having to fight her as well. The first spell was probably a Dire Charm, but Sam actually made a saving throw. Then she disappeared. Hindsight says we should have sent stealth Coran hunting. Safana got hit with two energy drains, but managed to kill her with a bolt from the Army Scythe.
On the same floor, Safana (with reduced abilities) set off a Dire Charm trap. Looking up the spell now, it lasts 5 rounds, so we should have waited it out. Instead, Immy pulled out a Dispel Magic scroll and that did the trick - and took out the energy drains as well.
Resources used:
1 Potion of Stone Giant Strength
2 Scrolls of Detect Invisibility
1 Scroll of Dispel Magic
1 (and only) Magic Protection Potion
Our party:
85860 Sam with 774 kills worth 187663
85008 Brawny with 103 kills worth 20087
83957 Neera with 108 kills worth 24781
75238 Safana with 47 kills worth 16310
44901 Imoen with 128 kills worth 35910
41558 Coran with 390 kills worth 129362
We have an incredible amount of stuff to identify, so we are loading Neera up with Identify spells. Then we will carry the stuff we got from clearing the outside of Durlag's tower and buy up some more resources.
We will see how Level 1 goes!
Reload Count is now 11. Safana set off the very first trap in the Level 1 Dungeon and got hit with a fireball. The cost would have been about 4 healing potions. Given the number of healing potions we went through, this was minor. I also did not realize just how many healing potions were hidden on the level. The game designers must have known people would have been hurting.
We also took a scum save right before the final battle. I think the scum save count is 3.
We had an extra Identify spell and let Imoen attempt to learn it - and she did! It's a bit redundant, but we have a lot of items to identify, so we loaded up with Identify spells. This might not have been wise, because we were going into a dungeon and loading up with magic missile spells would be better.
Day 57, Hour 16 - Rested
We identified a bunch of stuff. Wand of Lightning, Lock of Succubus Hair, Cloak of Protection, Staff Spear +2, Halberd +1, Chainmail +1. It turned out 5 mage robes did not need identification spell.
The next trick we learned was we did not need everybody in the area to interact with the shopkeeper. He has drone delivery service. This will save a lot of carrying loot to and from the dungeon.
We bought 5 each of Potions of Hill Giant Strength, Perception, Master Thievery, then 80 each of Bolt +1, Acid Arrows, Dart +1, and Bullet +1. Little did we know what was waiting in the dungeon below.
Day 57, Hour 17 - Tower Basement
There was a trap guarded by 3 Ghasts
Durlag's Tower, Level 1
We made Safana invisible for the entire level. This time we set off a total of 2 traps. One was from Sam not being patient and careful and sending a lightning bolt blasting everywhere in the anvil room. There was no help nearby. Boots of speed are dangerous that way. The other one was a flamestrike hitting Safana in a secret corridor.
Some big fights did cause some damage. The Mustard Jellies started it. The only option with them seems to be melee and they seem to hit a lot. We had our first encounters with Skeleton Warriors. Then there was the room with 3 Greater Dopplegangers in a really awkward spot. What we should have done was have the party waiting in a more convenient spot and throw a grenade into the corner room where they are waiting.
What I did was beef Sam up to 127 in fire resistance. That appears to be a limit. Then he charged in there like an idiot. We sent in some fireballs and used up our magic missile scrolls. This is where I learned the hard way Neera can also trigger a wild surge reading a scroll. She put up a Globe of Invulnerability on the thing and we had to take it down by conventional means. The room was really too awkward a spot for a fight and they were hitting very often. (-4 AC at this level is not invulnerable - 4 APR at Thaco 7 must be why they were hitting so often.) We pulled the party back to the bigger room described earlier and moved Sam to the corner hallway and finished the fight there.
I will take some credit for not taking a scum save before this fight, but not before the big fight at the end of the level. I positioned Invisible Safana near one corridor and gave Neera, Brawny, and Imoen positions to shoot fireballs or soemthing. Coran had the other corridor. The problem was we left Neera visible to Avarice.
Love, Pride, Avarice and Fear spawned, starting the fight. Cloudkill was cast right on top of invisible Safana's position. That was more good than bad. The good part was the cloud was easily avoided and out of harm's way. We should have moved invisible Safana into the room in a backstab position, but we moved her way out of the fight. Neera got a Fireball off. Then Avarice went invisible and went after her. I was supposed to have Stoneskin off, but I have not developed the habit, so he got hit a couple of times. Most likely she turned around two times just in time to avoid a backstab chunk. Then she started running, but Avarice could run slightly faster and he kept chugging invisibility potions.
We did summon a couple of Skeleton Warriors for this fight. It was finally time to join the Dark Side. As well as I understand the videos I have seen so far, it is one of the only useful cleric spells at level 4. Love and Pride started to work on the two skeleton warriors. Fear went after Sam. Coran moved in for a backstab.
Brawny used her Holy Power and tried to chase Avarice in an effort to save Neera, but she was targeted and moved faster.
Love was the first of the four to go down. He was busy attacking the Skeleton Warriors, and Sam was helping. A Skeleton Warrior got the killing blow. The two of them were then keeping Pride busy. We might have had a stroke of luck, because Pride broke his weapon somewhere in the fight and was hitting the skeletons with nonlethal damage.
Fear also went down quickly after that. Maybe Coran actually got in an effective backstab. At about this time, Neera was running for the corridor Coran was hiding in. Then we had another stroke of luck. Avarice decided to go after Brawny, who was not backing down or running away. So Avarice got surrounded and killed before he could take another Invisibility potion.
That left Pride, who was still working on those Skeleton Warriors. We walked in and finished the job.
Resources used:
20 Healing Potions or so - We took 0 healing spells, because we were carrying a lot of healing potions. Today I learned they can be packed into cases of 24.
2 Potions of Hill Giant Strength - We started with the 5 we bought and found one more. They are going to brilliant use in here.
1 Fortification Potion
1 Potion of Master Thievery - I have no idea how many were hidden on this level.
1 Antidote - Coran got bit by the Phase Spider. He should have been hiding. We have lots of those anyway.
1 Fire Protection Scroll
1 Potion of Fire Resistance
3 Magic Missile Scrolls
1 Scroll of Burning Hands - I wanted to see how much I could heal Sam for. 3 Points.
Here is our party:
95608 Sam with 794 kills worth 205493
94755 Brawny with 104 kills worth 24087
93687 Neera with 110 kills worth 25606
84774 Safana with 47 kills worth 16310 - She is taking the Invisible MVP slot
54603 Imoen with 129 kills worth 39910
46400 Coran with 397 kills worth 146827
Note to self. First thing Neera is supposed to do in the morning is get stoned.
Ouch.
Reload count is now 15. It was going okay right up to the room before the final key of the level. I was thinking for a long time, it was good time for a scum save and I didn't do it, about 5 seconds before stepping on a floor trap and chunking Safana. Another take got all my characters confused and that was no good, especially with a berserker main. Another couple of tries, didn't like the result because some dopplegangers either died in traps or died from their own cloudkill. Finally got a good run with an extra scum save. The positive was learning quite a bit about stuff that could go wrong in the fights that would not have learned if we did not have to go back most of the level.
Cluster count is...... 5.
Beregost helping Neera.
Nashkel getting confused by the other Neira, thinking spells were more easily interrupted.
Bandits of Doom shooting Garrick on the way to the Mine. Level 1 struggles. Find ways to get to Level 3 sooner.
Cloakwood Spiderlair distanced fireballs wrong and blew up Brawnwen.
Durlag Dungeon Level 1. Vanity save for getting hit by fireball right away instead of taking 3 healing potions and fixing it.
Durlag Dungeon Level 2. Safana destroyed by Lightning Bolt. These are often much more deadly than fire.
Day 58, Hour 0
We spent way too much time cleaning out all the minor loot on this level of the dungeon. The auto loot button is a wonder, if kind of cheesy. It looks like it displays stuff on the floor or on monsters that you can grab, like you have incredibly long arms. What does it do if there is a floor trap between you and what you are looting? It is still a wonder. It made me realize there were 3 magical 2H swords on the floor to grab from the Skeleton Warriors. The tab button to show details does not necessarily show it if they are well concealed. The old school way certainly did not help. Props to EE for this!
We unloaded a bunch of stuff we were going to use later in the dungeon, like all that magical ammo we picked up. Then we loaded up on all the silly junk we picked up on the level, right down to hammers. We sold all of our loot, then gave Imoen a Friends Scroll so we could buy more stuff cheap. We bought another 20 Healing Potions, because given how Level 1 went, we were going through a lot of Healing Potions. We also bought 80 Bullet +2.
Undoing a mistake on the upper levels of the tower, we retrieved the Tome of Understanding, so Sam now has a Wisdom Score of 10. It does him absolutely no good in any of the sequels, but from what I remember, the stats on other characters do not transfer. When I think about it more, if I gave it to Brawny, then she would have access to more spells. Similarly, if I gave the Basic Manners Tome for Ogres and Trolls to Safana, then she would have 18 Charisma. With a Nymph Cloak and 20 Charisma, we have no more need for the Friends Spell.
Day 58, Hour 8 - Rested
We re-entered Level 1 and apparently, there were fresh new Ghasts and Spiders to clear out.
Day 58, Hour 10 - Durlag Tower, Level 2
I had a couple of walkthroughs open on this and it was taking a while for the level to make sense to me. There were simply more doors and switches and triggers than I could track without either writing it all down or playing. Most likely, there was an infinite number of ways to get to the end of Level 2, including 2 direct paths.
The count of resources used is no longer accurate, because of the reload. I think I used 2 Potions of Absorption, 2 Potions of Hill Giant Strength, 1 Potion of Fortitude, 1 Potion of Heroism, and several (5?) Healing Potions.
For directional reference, because the map is tilted, I will call down and to the left south. That was the first direction we went. We started looking around the locked and warded doors and looked at the books that marked them. Then we explored the chamber to the south, which was where the party hung out for a while. We disarmed a trap and eventually looted that bowl. At least - I think we did. I have to go back and check it out.
We turned the statue on the west side of the room and that opened Furball's Training room. We went in there, checking for traps, then looted the statues. With the party safely out of the way, we attacked the sparring dummy to the left, closing the main door and opening the passageways, revealing a specter of Durlag himself. He teleported a few times and taunted us, then launched a Stinking Cloud. So Sam ran back to the group and it was Coran's turn. He shot a few arrows from stealth, which turned out to be a bad move, because the Dopplegangster had Coran's name and number the entire fight. We prevailed, but he took quite a few hits.
Here I thought Potion of Fortitude allowed the user to keep the magically gained hit points when it wore off, if the hit point total was less than the new max. So if Coran was at 27/54 and the potion took him to 53/80, then he would end up with 53/54, but that was not what I saw. Very strange. Will have to check again later.
There was a statue on the East side of the (South) Doppleganger Room and that opened the way to Islanna's Room. The wardstone on the table away from the foot of the bed opened up the corridor, revealing another Durlag Dopplegangster. He teleported around and then launched a fireball, but Sam was ready and able to dodge it fairly easily. We dispatched this one, then took our first scum save of the level. (This is where we reloaded all the time.)
This is where so many options open up. We grabbed another wardstone from Islanna's bed and that opened the passageway to the Throne Room at the north end. Then we put the wardstone back. The Throne Room was free of traps, and had two secret doors, leading east and west. We opened up the (both actually) east passageway and that led to the Switch Room and another secret door leading to a northern passageway that wound around to another room to the east of Islanna's room. We went no further. We were ready for the next event.
We hid our party in the Switch Room, then had Sam run and grab Kiel's Helmet. We were going to face 3 more Greater Dopplegangers, albeit in a cheesy way. They launched a Poison Cloud and a Cloudkill. It looks like Sam caught some damage from the Cloudkill but avoided the Stinking Cloud for some reason, because I do not see a saving throw. I suppose when you hear a fart, there is some time to evacuate the room before the stench catches up - and hopefully, the stench does not chase you into the next room.
After this, it was a waiting game. With a stench like that, hopefully somebody turned the fan on. What died in there? How about a courtesy flush? Is it safe to go in yet? What would happen if we launched a fireball into that mess? Would we blow up the entire level? The entire tower? What happens if there is a Nuclear Neera Wild Surge?
There were three Greater Dopplegangsters waiting for us in the Throne Room. We could aggro two of them into the Switch Room. They were most likely very happy to exit the Throne Room, but the third guy was still sitting on the throne and apparently not done yet.
The last time we were fighting Greater Dopplegangsters, they had a lot of slashing attacks. Sam with -4AC was getting butchered, so we fixed that. It looks like they have 7 Thaco, and the plate armor applies a penalty of 4 to the roll, so they needed a 15 to hit. The last time fighting 3 at once, there were lots of attacks every round and Sam was getting hit. The Golden Girdle applies another penalty of 3 to the roll, so now they need a 18 to hit. At this point, it becomes more worthwhile to carry the Shield +1, because according to this, they need 20 to hit and we cut the incoming damage by two thirds.
Based on the screenshot, it looks like I messed up my numbers somewhere. It looks like I am missing a penalty of 1 somewhere. (I found the error and fixed it.)
Did you miss me?
We returned to the Throne Room, then went west to the Torture Chamber. Well. Safana did. She cleared out the traps, then went stealth to trigger the stealth trap to the Teleportation Room. This triggered two more Greater Dopplegangsters. We had foreknowledge of them, and apparently that was mutual, because they headed straight to the Throne Room down the nice little hallway.
Nice little hallway. After a few plays in this scenario, I finally realized that this would be a great place for Lightning Bolts! Sam took a Potion of Absorption, taking his resistance up to 110. Immy took one as well and the boots took her to the apparent max of 127. Hindsight says we could have gone with the lesser potion for 100% resistance.
The hallway did not work out as brilliantly as imagined, but did the trick.
It looks like the next room we headed towards, to the east of Islanne's Room is labeled the Trophy Room. When we opened the door to the Bridge Room, we activated about 4 more Greater Dopplegangers. 2 were in the Bridge Room, and 2 more were in the passage way leading away from the Bridge Room. We retreated, then sent Coran to pull one of them and run. Eventually, they all showed up to play in the hallway. So we zapped them.
The same trick worked against the Dwarven Doom Guards in Kiel's Tomb. Imoen just had to find a good angle to fire and she finally did. I did not check what the Dwarves needed to hit, but Sam was getting hit quite a bit.
In the next room, there was a stairway leading nowhere, then a long passageway. We started searching the passageway for traps, but a bunch of Ghasts found us and started moving in. So we retreated to the Exit Room and waiting for the Ghasts - except they kept triggering the hallway Fireball Trap. Most of them did not make it. Some of them came at the party in flames.
With the Ghasts finally cleared, we headed up the hallway to the Altar. This has a central lightning trap. Having to reload and go back to the beginning a few times was tiring. So Sam cleaned up by taking an electric shower - because - why not?
106822 Sam with 803 kills worth 222893
105969 Brawny with 104 kills worth 24087
104886 Nuclear Neera with 110 kills worth 25606
95973 Saucy Safana with 47 kills worth 16310
65961 Immy with 139 kills worth 71910
51969 Cory with 405 kills worth 162827
We left a neat little loot pile in the Throne Room. I will most likely just check the bowl I believed we did not loot. Maybe we systematically loot out Level 2 or maybe we do not. We should have plenty of spells remaining, because most of the resources we used were potions and wands.
Who ever imagined a use for the Lightning Rod? I eventually realized this when the first take on this level, Sam got zapped by a Dopplegangster and I was thinking -crap- gotta run out of the way of the reflection. Is it going to wipe out the party? I wonder if there is a place that sells more Potions of Absorption. Probably Baldur's Gate.
We took another reload, because I did not know where to stand Safana in front of the Fireball Room and she got burned and I did not feel like using up healing potions right after an Autosave, so I took a vanity autosave. We also took about 3 scum saves, because these levels are really long and I'm not that familiar with this part of the game.
This time, we got the timing of the Fireball Room down correct. We took the west passage and were greeted by a Skeleton, who told us about these five unfortunate heroes that we could send to help us with the coming danger. The best use was to have them soak up damage.
To the south were 3 Greater Wyverns. We sent Moorlock and Tamor to tank it while we pelted it with missiles. They seem to have a lot of resistance and only Coran can hit reliably, which he did with an Acid Arrow. 3 Attacks per round. 6 base Thaco. 25 Strength. No wonder they were hitting things so easily! We found out the hard way that tanking was just a bad idea. It was hitting on a roll of 11.
So that 11 was still good for hitting AC-8 and we were at AC-6. So it needed a 9 to hit. If we used a Potion of Absorption, then we could have dropped that to a 19 and maybe have a shot at tanking. We sent unfortunate adventurers off to their doom and picked up their loot and put it in a corner of the room. I will have to remember to collect it all later. With the tanking just not working, Sam ran away with tail between legs while Immy blasted it with Magic Missiles.
That left one more Beastie. We had two more adventurers to send to their doom. We thought we could have Coran lure it into the passageway where we came in from, thinking it would be too small to fit. That did not work and here is a picture of an Oh Crap moment. We distracted it with some Beasties summoned from the Wand of Monster Summoning and then took a few blasts with Fire and Ice Wands.
Looking at the log, it looks like the Wyvern did take a swipe at Neera. Aren't we glad we remembered to get her stoned?
With this room clear, we have access to the hallway leading to the 4 Elemental Challenges to finish the level if we want. We were going to clear out the Cold (Water, Ice) Room first. So we prepared by taking some Cold Resistance and a Scroll. Then we boneheadedly decided to go after the Skeletons in the suspended walkways. They are somewhat tougher than normal skeletons and all have bows and an assortment of magical arrows. We started from the south side.
Sam can stack up very decent AC against arrows and it looks like these guys were no exception. Coran stepped in to help, but took a nasty shot. Brawny tried Turn Undead, but that only seemed to help a little. Then Sam got hit - with an Arrow of Dispelling. RIP cold resistance buffs. We eventually got Cory back into the action with a couple of Oils of Fiery Burning. We blew up a few Skellies with it. Finally we got them all and cleared the bridges. It looks like we took out a total of 17 Skeletons.
That left the maze to clear out at last. Safana was invisible and taking out the traps. Looking at the walkthrough helps take out traps, but still very nervous about it, especially with the beasties roaming the area. We could find the Greater Ghouls easily enough. Coran lined up a target..... and then took a nasty backstab. Fortunately we were prepared for this, because we pre-buffed with Fortitude. The fight should be easier with the guy visible and exposed - but he kept going invisible. Sam probably took a hit or a backstab as well. Finally we got our payback. Coran was able to sneak in a backstab and I did get a picture to show for it.
We summoned monsters in to clear the zone out more. Most of them were Ghouls. They paralyzed some of our summoned beasties and we took them out with range. Finally we were in a position to go hunting for the other Ashirukaru, but only found one. So either we forgot how to count to three, or there is another one at large wandering the entire area.
The best way to find out is to have Safana walk through there fully visible. If she does not get killed, then the beastie does not exist.
We had time for one challenge out of four for tonight. So we went for the Ice Challenge. Again, we found out the hard way the bear hits on 11. We probably should have had the crushing girdle to help with tanking. Oh. 3 Thaco. 21 Strength.
Kiting would have been a better strategy. Maybe kiting with Web and get a lucky chance we stick him. We got him with arrows eventually, but took a bit of a beating. In the future, this is another use of the Potion of Absorption.
Resources used:
2 Potions of Freedom
2 Potions of Cold Resistance (We got rid of them!)
1 Protection from Cold Scroll
2 Oil of Fiery Burning
1 Potion of Fortitude
1 Potion of Hill Giant Strength
1 Detect Evil Scroll (It used to work for the entire level!)
23 Healing Potions (I think we have about 75 left.)
We have a bunch of loot to get rid of, even though we are well over 30k in gold. We will probably move that next. It's two levels full of stuff. We should be able to clear out a couple more challenges, then rest up and prepare for the final challenges and level.
Our party so far:
113027 Sam with 819 kills worth 232153
112174 Brawny with 105 kills worth 24182
111086 Neera with 111 kills worth 26581
102169 Safana with 47 kills worth 16310 and taking the MVP slot for the level
91725 Imoen with 141 kills worth 77885
55052 Coran with 418 kills worth 179147
It looks like we are about 350k experience away from level cap. There is still a full level of Durlag's Tower left to go, along with 3 Challenges and the Chess Event. If we got to Ulgoth's Beard first, then maybe some toons hit level cap before even getting into Baldur's Gate! All this time, I thought we were going to nearly completely skip Durlag's Tower.
It is costing us quite a few reloads, however.
Insert Coin to Continue.
A lot more Ouch.
Reload count is now 21.
Cluster count is...... 7.
6. Level 3. Blew up a couple characters on the way in and out of the Fireball Room.
7. Chess Event. Silly mistakes and learning experiences.
Right on loading, started looting Level 3. Tried to evacuate my team while Speedy Coran picked up all the loot to bring to the top levels. He collided and the path generator took him right back through the fireball room. That was nonsense, so I reloaded. Next time, it was Imoen too close to the door. The Fireball took her from 56 to 0. That is one heck of a Fireball! It could be 16d6, give or take - or some really high rolls. Third time we got it down to a science. Evacuate the part first. Then move the stuff.
We wasted a few hours doing this. Then we got back to the hallway to clear out two more Challenges. We went with Fire next. The room contained two Phoenix Guardians. So we sent Sam in with a Protection from Fire scroll to take his fire resistance up to 110. Then they went down very easily.
After that was the Air Challenge. The room has an Air Aspect which seems to hit often and hard, and has a poison attack. I think Sam got hit two times, but did not get poisoned. There were also Invisible Stalkers. So we used up a Detect Invisibility scroll. Meanwhile, Neera was able to blow half of them up with Fireball spells.
We took a brief moment here to use up another Genius and Mind Focusing Potion to write Imoen 3 more spells. Hindsight says it seems a bit of a waste, for just 3 spells. She no has Remove Magic, Minor Globe of Invulnerability, and Greater Malison. Maybe it was not such a waste, because the Greater Malison is useful and she needed Level 4 spells. Did we remember to memorize them for the big fight against the Demon Knight?
We went back to the surface and rested. Then in the morning we sold all our loot and went back in.
Day 59, Hour 6 - Rested
Day 59, Hour 8 - Back at Level 3
The Earth Challenge is the slime. It looks like we just need some kind of fire damage to avoid the slime splitting. We got a stealth look at it, then launched a Fireball in that direction. Then we charged in.
Except for the 110 Fire Resistance, that looks like sloppy play.
Finally it was time for the Chess Event.
Sam had the King position. He could not move anywhere.
Imoen had the Queen Position. She could move everywhere, but just like real chess, a bad idea in the opening.
Brawny and Cory had the Bishop positions. They were restricted to their colors. This is just fine.
Finally, Neera and Safana had the Knight Positions. We were not going to be moving them, anyway.
We were third time lucky on this run. The first one, I forgot that looting makes Coran visible, which was very, very bad. I decided we could do much better. Second time, we thought we could single out a Knight, but he moves very fast and hits hard on Coran.
So Nuclear Neera opened up the board with a couple of Fireball blasts, taking out 6 Pawns and injuring the row behind them. Then I figured Imoen had the Queen position, so should do more of the work. She used up a Fire Wand to blow up pieces. It is Durlag's Tower and most likely there are a lot more Fire Wands coming. With all the gold we had, we should have just got it recharged. Coran took a sniper shot at a Bishop. Then Imoen finished the match. We missed on a single Rook. So that's about 20 of Arrow +2.
Our party:
119242 Sam with 829 Kills worth 240043
118389 Brawny with 105 Kills worth 24182
117293 Neera with 119 Kills worth 34481
108376 Safana with 47 Kills worth 16310
78126 Imoen with 149 Kills worth 92685
58149 Coran with 422 Kills worth 185647
We are about 72k experience away from Imoen dinging max level and gaining her Thief skills back. It is not like we have that much need for another thief. We are doing well with Coran and Safana. She will be able to use her bow again. And she might be able to hide (invisible) and backstab.
What happens if we sign up for the Tower Tour and the Demon Knight is already dead? Does Biffy the Understudy run around with a big sword and kill everybody, then port?
Session 31 - Queen Captures Demon Knight
For reloads, I'm taking a holiday. Some of it was exploring. But now we have been through the Tower.
Safana went invisible and started exploring. We found the caverns first. Safana would wander forward and find some baddy for Coran to kill. Coran went stealth and fired an arrow. It was usually either a Greater Ghoul or a Crypt Crawler. He had good speed, so could run back towards the party and fire another arrow or two. If that did not work, the baddie would reach the party, hopefully going after Sam. Then Coran could come in with a backstab.
Then we had some doors to open up. There were more baddies hiding behind those doors. So we killed them too. Far to the south, there was another room behind a whole bunch of slime that hid Grael the Ghoul and his Gang. There were two more Ghouls and two crypt crawlers with him. We used up all our fireballs and did not feel like using our wand any more. So we filled the room with Web. That was not as effective as we would have liked.
After that, we returned to the Ghost of Durlag and checked the passageway to the south. It led to a room full of spiders and a couple of Ettercaps. At the other side of the room was a Stoned Golem. We waved and said hiiiiii. He did not want our gold or our iron. He just wanted our pizza.
Exploring the rooms to the north, we found the Ghost of Islanna and another room with a couple of Helmed Horrors. Islanna was nice enough to port us outside the tower so we could lighten up on our loot. We did exactly that and went back in. We are now at nearly 59k gold.
Day 59, Hour 17 - We are back at the Stoned Golem. He had a few questions for us. Then he ported us to the Compass Room with a few more Golems and more questions.
The next challenge was at the Secret Throne Room. After that, it was the Tomb Room protected by the Rune Carpet. Finally we were ready to talk to the Ghost of Dulag.
He led us into another room. We were warned by a surviving adventurer that we were facing a Demon Knight. We could turn a mirror on him, but we did not bother to use it, because we had a better magic mirror. It copies the entire party exactly the way it was at a point in time, so we can return whenever we want. It is called Scum Save.
The Demon Knight was actually..... not as bad as imagined. We sent Sam in with a Potion of Free Action and had Immy and Neera chase with a couple of web spells. This was followed up by Greater Malison and Doom. We had a scare when the Demon Knight cast Dispel, but I did not see the Free Action go away or would have switched to the Spiders Bane. I was trying to figure out why the Demon Knight was so badly hurt so quickly. We followed up with a couple of Magic Missile Spells and Nuclear Neera got the kill.
For hits, Sam took a Fireball at 60% resistance and a slash for another 22 damage.
Our party:
129311 Sam with 839 kills worth 253533 - DING! Max level 8.
128458 Brawny with 108 kills worth 26022 - DING! Max level 8.
127351 Neera with 120 kills worth 49481
118434 Safana with 48 kills worth 18310
88153 Imoen with 153 kills worth 96685 - So close!
63160 Coran with 443 kills worth 209077 - He is also close.
We have more loot from the dungeon than we can carry. We might make one more trip to sell things and then return to pick up some scraps. Or we might leave a few arrows and bolts behind.
I was not sure if we were geared enough to beat this place, but we did!
I did not do an actual reload count, so I will call it 25/8, counting Level 4 as 4 reloads. Some of it was exploring. Some of it was finding just how vindictive those traps can be.
The Ice Island should gain a lot of exp. Again, with three thieves in the party, it should be very easy.
Werewolf Island - I'm really not sure what items we can get that area really good.
All we did after Durlag's Tower is sell our loot, then make our way to the Friendly Arm Inn. We are at 93k gold.
Ice Island is quick, but I find the first group often difficult (I use SCS).
Ulgoth's Beard has some great stuff, including the +3 staff if you have a staff user.
....and some of the day, too.
We took to more scum loads, both in the Low Lantern. First one was because I said the wrong things to acquire the Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Second one was getting Safana hit with Confusion and not wanting her to start shooting innocents. Reload count is now at 27/9.
Some boring travel.
Day 60, Hour 3 - Arrived at Gullykin. Apparently this was the longer route.
Day 60, Hour 11 - Rested
Day 60, Hour 20 - Arrived at Ulcaster Ruins
Day 61, Hour 5 - Rested
Day 61, Hour 9 - Waylaid by some Wild Dogs
Day 61, Hour 13 - Arrived at Beregost Temple and Beregost
We had some Ankheg Armor to pick up and some Bandit Scalps to turn in.
Day 62, Hour 1 - Friendly Arm Inn
Day 62, Hour 9 - Rested
Day 62, Hour 13 - Back at the Ankheg Farm
We got about 6 of them.
Finally we decided. It was time to show up in Baldur's Gate.
Day 62, Hour 18 - Wyrm's Crossing
The first place we went was Sorcerous Sundries. We had some people to meet upstairs. They were not too happy to see us. I still don't know. What's a simian?
When I finally get the SCS mod, then it will be much harder to pull off this nonsense, won't it? Coran snuck in behind the group and opened up with a backstab, killing one out of 4 mages instantly. They managed to get a Horror spell off. One day, I will learn to start off with Remove Fear. Instead, we waited around a minute or so. Cory was not going very far.
Then we went downstairs to do some shopping. We had 94k to go through and spent about 25k or so. Then we had another study party with Imoen and Neera. We were supposed to fix everybody's spells as well.
Our next stop was Niklos and the Thieves Guild. They wanted to lighten our purses as well. They had a job for Safana and a job for the rest of us, as well.
We also found the Manual of Quickness of Action. So Sam now has 19 Dexterity. I do not remember what the difference is between 18 and 19, but can look it up.
At this point, with so much gold, we decided it is no longer worth it to have 2 mages with level 1 slot full of Identify spells. Based on that, I guess a Level 1 Spell slot is worth 67gp or 100gp, depending on how we are counting.
We went north, and were blocked off by the inner city wall. We will encounter this from time to time. Here we met Merek and Lothander. They gave us a stern warning about interfering with the Iron Throne. We went to the city center after this. More specifically, we met Lothander in the park. He said we were poisoned and can help us as soon as we remove the his geas. The first stop was the Diviner's tent. He told us most of what we needed to do.
At least this gives us something to do while we wait for darkness to fall so Safana can accomplish her job.
Next stop was South Baldur's Gate. We messed up Noralee's quest because of bad charisma. All I had to do was have somebody else talk to her. It was no big deal. The Gauntlets were still worth 2000gp.
We killed a Greater Basilisk set loose in a warehouse and a Sirine far away from home. Then we entered another building where 4 Ogre Mages were waiting for us. This was a place for a Fireball. They also blew us up with one.
With the Ogre Mages out of the way, this building will do fine for our base. We can unload some of the junk we are carrying.
We went to the Priestess of Umberlee to find out what she needed to cure Lothander of his geas. We were sent to the Temple of Tymora as our next stop. That will have to wait until the morning, because it was past nightfall and Safana had a job to do.
Day 62, Hour 22 - Northeast Baldur's Gate, Blushing Mermaid
Most of us had to wait here. Larse the Ogre was waiting for us as well. We picked a fight. What we were supposed to do was have Sam Aggro and run around. Or have him free action and web. He stood there to get beat up while Coran pelted him with arrows. The Ogre hit with 20, 17, and 17.
Safana headed outside for her deed. All she had to do was stealth and call out when the city watchman showed up. This meant we also had to hide out in the Blushing Mermaid for the night, which we did.
Day 63, Hour 7 - Rested
We headed back into the Thieves Guild for the score and the next job. Then we went to Sorcerous Sundries to identify some of our ill-gotten loot. Then we went to the southeastern part of the city to give Euric his amulet and collect our reward for saving the warehouse from the basilisk.
Then we crossed the city again to visit the Temple of Tymora. We needed that Tome of Understanding. Can you tell me why you need the Tome of Understanding?
We'll give you 50k for it.
50k??!? Holy crap! Here.
(500gp at this stage of the game is so lolololittle)
We then found a kid who needed our help. His friend died doing something silly in Umberlee's Temple and directed us to his father who was a priest of Tymora. So we were heading to Umberlee's temple, anyway. Back to Umberlee's Temple. We exchanged the Tome for the Scroll, then headed to the Blade and Stars to get Lothander his cure and his half of the Poison Antidote. We also retrieved the body of the boy from the Temple of Umberlee as a returned favor from a few weeks ago. It was good we remembered the young priestess's name, because we do not now. She must have cursed us to forget.
We carried the body back to the house by the Temple of Tymora. That kid had a lot of gold to reward us with. 2000gp and a Large Shield +1.
Back to the south to the Low Lantern Red Light District Ship. A couple of the girls got rough on us. That Axe did not seem as effective as imagined. I'm torn about whether to use it as main hand for 1.5 attacks per round, or offhand at 1.0 attacks per round and -6 penalty to hit. Mages probably have a good save versus spell, but 80% chance of cast failure probably means a dead mage. Add that to poisoned arrows and darts.
Back to Sorcerous Sundries. Identify and sell loot.
Finally, we were ready for the big boss fight. Marek. Stupid saps. They'll never know what hit them.
After this, we had 2 more quests to turn in. Yago's Book for Coran's daughter and Nadine's amulet. So this puts us back into the central part of the city. Our party:
136313 Sam with 845 kills worth 259258
135467 Brawny with 110 kills worth 26094
134345 Neera with 122 kills worth 49551
125422 Safana with 54 kills worth 21435
95139 Imoen with 157 kills worth 106120 - DING! Max level and has her thief skills back!
66632 Coran with 466 kills worth 220543
We are about 210k experience from level cap. We still have to drink Merek's antidote. I looked it up and that is what we have to do. So after that, we will be about 200k experience away.
There is one unresolved quest that we picked up - and that was to retrieve a skull for somebody who is cursed. We still have the errand for the Thieves Guild. However, we will do Safana's job next. She will be a stray alley cat burglar tonight! You're the noisiest cat I ever heard!
It looks like our next stop is the Three Old Kegs.
There is a lot of running around once we are inside Baldur's Gate proper!
Lots of reloads. Most of them trying to get the script right. A couple of them trying to find a better strategy. A lot of it did not matter. If my main character got smashed for 85 hit points, it's a trip to the temple and 500gp to fix him up.
My memory of the City of Baldur's Gate was there was suddenly a whole bunch to do. Before getting to Baldur's Gate, the rest of the game map is open and your choices are either to explore a different map area or continue along a the main story line. In the City of Baldur's Gate, suddenly a bunch of side quests and mini stories open up.
I never imagined that this could all be completed in about two days game time. I think in the original BG1 engine, so much time was lost sorting inventory. It might even be possible to finish the quest line before finishing Merek's poison quest line.
That was the first order of business. We have the Antidote. We just have to take it. That gets us 10k experience and we have another bottle of antidote good for another 9 doses. I am not sure where we are going to need this.
Neera dinged 9th level with this. She is now max level. This makes things interesting. Does this mean we can do the Boss Fight at the top of the Iron Throne by dropping Greater Malison followed by Chaos?
Day 63, Hour 10
Our next stop was the Three Old Kegs in North Baldur's Gate. We found the skull we were looking for. Searching around, we retrieved the angel skill ring for some kid's cat. Then we encountered Rinnie who was looking for a copy of a History of Unicorn Run.
Then we went burgling in somebody's house. Drelik and Jordak. Going nose to nose and toes to toes, he is a very tough fight, but against a couple of backstabs, it was much easier.
We took a diversion to the Western part of the city, back to the Temple of Tymora, to give them the skull we found. The curse should end. Then we paid a visit to Ragefast. We need a front character to talk to people. My main is no good at it. So we sent in Imoen to talk Ragefast into releasing the Nymph. So we will not be completing Razimith's task, but that is no big deal. We got a lock of Nymph hair out of the deal.
Then we went north to the Blade and Cloak Inn, where we met the Merry Fools. Then we started a fight with another gang, the Maulers of Undermountain. Winning the fight was no problem. Winning the fight with nobody getting killed was much more difficult. They really had it in for the Merry Fools and I felt bad when one of them died, especially their leader. They were also jerks. They would take shots at the bartender. Quite often, I would find the Waiter dead. I wanted everybody alive. Here was the strategy I finally got to work. We have a bunch of Wands of Fear, and this was exactly the place to use it.
With two shots from two mages, we had 4 out of 6 of them running and the rest were very easily taken out.
We went back to Sorcerous Sundries to identify all the loot we collected. We have the Helm of the Noble which adds AC and Charisma to one lucky fellow, Coran. Imoen will get the Protector of the Dryads Shortbow +2. Finally, we got a Nymph Cloak. We can have Coran use that and present 19 Charisma to the shopkeepers. Had we given him the Charisma Tome, then he would have been at 20. Alternatively, the combination of Charisma and Nymph Cloak would have worked on Safana.
Then we returned to tell Razimith the Bad News. He already knew and challenged us and ported to the top of his tower. So up we went. First level, Mustard Jellies. Second level, Ghasts. Third level, Hobgoblin Elites. Fourth Level, Kobold Commandos. Finally, Razimith was waiting for us at the top. His back was to a wall, so we could not backstab him. Instead, we shot him. He was dead before the rest of the party could run upstairs and help.
We returned to our regular place to identify everything. Sam now had a Tome of Clear Thought and the 19 Intelligence will help should we finally decide to dual level to Mage. This will be very interesting if we are doing this during Siege of Dragonspear. We also have a Ring of Protection +2.
After this, we sent Cory off to pickpocket Akrion and Nemphere. They did not want to talk to us anyway. For our trouble, we got another Cloak of Non Detection.
We then returned to the northern part of the city to give the book to Rinnie and the dagger to Quinn. Then we found another house with a couple of twin girls and a bunch of voyeurs. We killed the mage and moved on. We got a Wand of Polymorph out of the deal. I think. I do not know if we identified it yet.
Next up was the house of Degodrel. It's another tough fight, a couple helmed horrors, a couple of doom guards, and a couple of invisible stalkers. The strategy I chose was to get Sam and Immy immune to electricity. Neera would have been a better choice, because she was already stoned. Eventually, we fried them all, then talked to the master of the house. We got a new mission.
Armed with a bunch of stone to flesh scrolls, we went to the shop with the statues and freed Vail and his gang. We asked for the Helm, but he did not want to part with it. Instead, he told us to talk to his favorite Courtesan in the Cellars. We did exactly that, and retrieved the Cloak of Balduran. Then we went to the Helm and Cloak and retrieved the Helm. Then we went to turn in our dirty deed.
Degodel summoned another bunch of guards on us, so we killed him on the way out, then killed the guards. So we got the extra 5000gp and the Helm.
Finally, we were ready to head to the SW part of the city, where the Merchants Guilds were. We found Aldeth and cleared out his building, then the Seven Suns. After that, we were summoned back to Scar where we reported. He sent us on another mission to go into the sewers and investigate the missing people.
We found lots of Spiders. A bunch of Kobold Commandos. More Spiders. Some Green Slime. More Slimes. More Spiders. Finally, an Ogre Mage commanding a bunch of Carrion Crawlers. Kill them with Fire!
By then it was night, so we emerged to meet up with Narlen Darkwalk. Safana grabbed a roguestone, then we ran back to the thieves guild. We had time for a couple more errands. It was off to the Oberon Estate. Coran snuck in and grabbed the components right under everybodys noses. We returned to the Guild and were slated to die for being involved in the plot, but Narlen intervened.
Finally, we called it a night and talked to our drunk friend at the Elfsong Tavern.
Day 64, Hour 7 - Rested
We reported back to Scar as if nothing at all happened during the night and returned a ring. He sent us to Duke Eltan for our final missions.
So much action in just a single day! Therefore, everything was rushed.
Our party:
156808 Sam
155960 Brawny
154804 Neera
145881 Safana
115590 Imoen
76837 Coran
Basically, we hit level cap in abut 90k more experience.
This one is very short. We reached the end of Chapter 5 after about 48 hours in the City of Baldur's Gate. The online guides said to prepare for this big fight with a bunch of defensive spells. We really needed one or two.
Protection from Fire was still active and we still had a character with 110% fire resistance.
Free Action - Just in case we drop a web on the mess. Apparently we did not need to.
Floor 1 - A quick 200gp bribe got us in the door. We might have gotten away with 100gp, but it's just gold.
Floor 2 - We told the guard we were going to the fifth floor. He said he would mark our faces and make sure we looked the same when we got back down.
Floor 3 - We told these guards we were new recruits and did not have our uniforms yet. Emissary Tar was on this floor, looking for the stairs. So we told her and sent her off to her doom.
Floor 4 - Somebody mistook us for the Emissary and told us how the negotiations would be conducted. We were told who would be waiting for us on the fifth floor.
We were in a position to sneak as many characters as we wanted to the fifth floor. We moved Coran in first. He discovered the freshly killed body of Emissary Tar, along with her duplicate. Then he hid in the hallway in the back. Safana snuck in next, then Imoen with Invisibility. Sam was going up first to start the fight and Neera was going to follow closely behind. Brawny had the other flight of stairs.
We sent in Arrows of Detonation, Wand of Fire, and Nuclear Neera Fireballs and blew the place up.
Fortunately, our secret base is not far from the Iron Throne Headquarters - and not far from open sewers in case we need to move around secretly. We made our final trips to Sorcerous Sundries and another Potion shop to load up on anything that might come in handy. Fire Resistance seems to be useful. Electrical resistance is also useful. Potions of explosions. Back in our secret base, we stored the scrolls we were less likely to use in the near future, and some extra wands and ammunition.
We finally went to see Duke Eltan and were ported to Candlekeep. It is the start of Chapter 6! Our party:
158939 Sam with 892 kills worth 296723
158101 Brawny with 116 kills worth 30919
156949 Neera with 138 kills worth 54243
148021 Safana with 59 kills worth 24130
117719 Immy with 166 kills worth 120410
77905 Cory with 502 kills worth 253258
We are about 60 to 66k away from level cap, depending on how we are counting. We should definitely see it in the next chapter.
Day 65, Hour 12
We did.... no much in Candlekeep. We went straight to the library and looted as much of six levels as we could. Then we got framed for the murder of the Iron Throne leaders, promptly arrested and accused. Then Tethotril teleported us to the cellars underneath Candlekeep.
Level 1 and most of Level 2, we made Safana invisible to take out the traps. We collected everything on Level 1 and obtained Tomes of Strength and Wisdom. On Level 2, the Skeletons were annoying because they liked to wander. They did not like to stay in a tight group where they could be fireball. We also accepted the help of Arkanis and Deder. At the end, we messed up a little bit by getting Safana to attack and remove her invisibility. That cost one scroll.
Here is one frame showing Coran's PR backstab of 49 points. The next one is showing just how the game seems to be throwing valuable treasure our way.
Out of the catacombs and into the caverns, an ambush was waiting for us. (several reloads later.... first one went perfect and then Arkanis walked into a Scorcher and went hostile..... Second time got hit with Dart of Stunning and forgot to Berserker....) There was not much room to work with. We had a corridor in the north we could hide everybody and buff up. We moved Cory and Safana in behind the group. Neera and Imoen were positioned at the ends of two passageways leading to them. They were straight enough for Fireballs. Sam had fire immunity.
Next, Coran walked up behind Tam with the bow and splat him with a 64 point backstab. It's a new PR. Right after that, he pulled his longbow and shot Bor. That made Sakul mad and he started chasing Coran, so he led the way out of the room. Meanwhile, Sam finally connected with bare Mage.
Waiting around the corner was Safana with the coup de grace.
With that we made our way out of the caverns and that is it for Chapter 6. On to Chapter 7. Here is our party:
161k Sam with 907 kills worth 318518
161k Brawny with 119 kills worth 34369
161k Neera with 152 kills worth 58993
157158 Safana with 60 kills worth 25730
121k Immy with 170 kills worth 125530
80.5k Coran with 552 kills worth 272198
We are about 12k to 17k away from level cap, so we will be making our way back towards Baldur's Gate. Maybe we delay long enough to get a couple of dream sequences.
We cheesed our way to the end.
Day 65, Hour 22 - Fled Candlekeep via the Lion's Way
We chose our next spells as well as we could, then made camp.
*dream sequence 5*
Did we ever remember to use our DOHM ability? Of course not!
We were actually disturbed three times by Diseased Gibberlings!
Day 66, Hour 6 - Rested
Day 66, Hour 22 - Friendly Arm Inn
I suppose this is a good place to catch up with Minsc and Dynaheir on adventures over the past several weeks. We were framed - and at least Boo believes our story.
Day 67, Hour 7 - Rested
We actually picked up Dream Sequence 6.
Day 67, Hour 15 - Wyrm's Crossing
We paid the 100gp to get smuggled in. Was it worth it? Probably not. Did we get into the city? Yes, we did.
Meanwhile, we are sneaking our way into Baldur's Gate and it is broad daylight.
We were greeted by Husam. Maybe this smuggler was working for him and that is what we paid the 100gp for.
He filled us in on a bunch of news. Duke Eltan is sick. Scar got assassinated. Find him by the Blushing Mermaid to continue the conversation.
It was broad daylight and we had to sneak somewhere. So we went to the Shop of Silence to hide. Silence was still friendly. She said the Fist had tightened control over the city and people could rest for free. We were also greeted by Rededge, the partner of Nalen Darkwalk. He explained more of the situation and that probably Narlen was rotting in a cell or worse. With that news, Safana went invisible and snuck out with Coran to scout the street.
We weaved between the patrols and made our way to Sorcerous Sundries. There was Delthyr from the Harpers to ask us if we really committed the murders we were accused of. We did not - and he was relieved. He provided yet more information and suggest we break into the Iron Throne HQ and find out what is going on. We can go to the Three Old Kegs Inn to find him for more information.
Finally we talked to Tamoko, who said we should go find her in front of the Flaming Fist Headquarters. She said it was likely the Healer causing the sickness of the Duke.
So this is reading like the first page of an adventure book. We have three leads to follow.
If you want to meet Husam at the Blushing Mermaid, go to Page 23.
If you want to meet Delthyr at the Three Old Kegs Inn, go to page 82.
If you want to meet Tamoko in front of the Flaming Fist Headquarters, go to page 144.
If you want to go directly to the Iron Throne Headquarters, go to page 42.
We went with Husam. The with the streets being patrolled by Flaming Fist and we are on so many Wanted Posters, the safest route was through the Sewers, even with all the creepy crawlies and green slime. We emerged right in front of Ilmater's Shirne. Isn't it great that we gave them an occasional 1gp donation? We ran inside to hide, then snuck out. There seemed to be no Flaming Fist to be seen anywhere. We met with Husam.
He let down his cover and it turns out he is an Amish Shadow Thief Agent! He is there to investigate who is behind all the rumors of Amn stirring up trouble to go to war with Baldur's Gate. He is also there to clear up the involvement of the Shadow Thieves. He told us to go to the Undercellars and seek out Slythe and Krystan and report back, which we did.
This fight seemed to work out much better when we dragged Slythe far away.
Slythe gave away her secret and we cast a Detect Invisibility and there she was. Coran might as well have been invisible. If there was suitable revenge against Slythe opening a fight with a natural 20 to hit Sam, it was Coran rolling a natural 20 to crit a backstab.
We exited the Undercellars and returned to the Blushing Mermaid. There we met Ivanne, who told us the story of how Scar got assassinated. He said he saw him chase a cutpurse, who then revealed himself to be a shapechanging dopplegangster.
We returned to Husam with the invitations and everybody was clear all the events were happening tonight and there was little time to waste. We took the invitations and went back to the sewers. This time we emerged in the north part of now near the Ducal Palace. We snuck into Rinnie's home and then snuck Sam to the Temple of Helm for some quick treatment. Then we were off to the Ducal Palace with our Invitations in hand.
That is where it got out of hand very quickly. Greater Dopplegangsters were disguised as the city's Nobles, causing huge disorder at the meeting. They finally revealed themselves and lunged after Duke Belt and Duchess Liia. And Coran. They seem to find him an irresistible target. Maybe because he was an archer. It was one less Dopplegangster chasing the two remaining Grand Dukes.
With that out of the way, we presented our evidence against Sarevok. One letter. Maybe a few more letters. Duke Belt said he would examine it, but then Sarevok attacked for about ten seconds, then ported out. Probably the best strategy is run, run run. Just don't get hit. Or get hit. We can heal.
Our next stop was the Thieves Guild. Or more specifically, the maze. Who was saying the Clairvoyance Spell was completely useless? It had a single use right here! Do we really want to explore that thing in the dark? With Clairvoyance, we can see the path to the end of the maze. I saved the scroll for exactly this purpose!
The maze started with slime. Why does it have to be slime? Fortunately, it was just a couple of Green Slime and Coran was able to take that out with detonation arrows. The rest of the slime was manageable. After that, it was a couple of Doom Guards. We have three decent melee. So we lured one at a time back, then stabbed it in the back.
At the end of the long corridor, it looped around all the way back. We ran an experiment and cast Monster Summoning 2. It is a Level 4 Spell. It summoned a single Dire Wolf. I cannot think of much more underwhelming than that. We did not manage to trigger traps with it, and it got killed by Skeleton Warriors. They were probably guarding Lightning Traps. We do not know. We treated the Skeleton Warriors the same as the Doom Guards.
Day 67, Hour 22 - The Undercity
We are close to the final confrontation. Before we got there, we met a party working for the Iron Throne to attack Sarevok and his group. Being their lucky day, they found us as well. How did they navigate the maze? It does not matter. We have no time for this battle. So we sent in a quintuple fireball.
Half the party died in the initial blast.
The final confrontation took a few tries to understand how the encounter is supposed to work and how it actually worked. So we have an anticlimactic and underwhelming ending to the saga.
We buffed up like crazy. Sam forgot to use DUHM, so was stuck with only 22 Strength. Safana loaded up with the Violent Potion and Agility and Constitution and had 25 STR. Coran used the Cloud Giant for 23 STR. We loaded up on Potions of Heroism and Power and Speed. We summoned Squad of Skeletons. We remembered to use Chaotic Commands, but forgot to use any othe buffs. Then we sent Invisible Safana in to confront Sarevok.
Semij warped in first. We tried Arrow of Dispelling. That might have no effect for some strange reason. Magic Missile worked, followed by Backstab of Instant Death.
With him out of the way, we sent Sam in to go find Sarevok. It looks like he aggroed both Sarevok and Angelo. Angelo sent a Remove Magic after us, but did not chase us. Sarevok went in after us all alone.
Big mistake. Underwhelming finish. I cheesed it.
We took the time to cast Greater Malison and Doom and find out what kind spells we could hit him with a -6 saving throw penalty. Safana got a backstab in for a whopping 16 points of damage. It looks like the remove magic got rid of her 25 strength. Coran still had his 23 strength. We were spread out well. When deciding what kind of spell to hit Sarevok with, he was almost dead.
The ending scenes took us seamlessly to Siege of Dragonspear. That is probably where we go next.
The other thing I wonder about is how much things change with the SCS mod. There are probably a bunch of fights we would have to find different ways to cheese.
Stay tuned!
With 666 reloads and 3 Bhaalspawn in the same room, bad things happen. Alternate material planes in the Multiverse collide. In our material plane, we call it a rift in the space-time continuum. If our material plane is involved, then who knows what will jump into our world. Minsc and Boo might show up - and that is a very bad thing for evil people. It does not appear that is what happened. One moment, Sam was contemplating the lifeless body of Sarevok and how so much has happened over a short 68 days or so. The next moment......
Day 77, Hour 23 - In a Crypt Somewhere in the Undercity
Sam! Hey, you! Sam! Wake UP! Are you okay? You went linkdead for a long time and we were worried. We're glad you're back!
(Where are we?)
Imoen had to let the dog out. She said she'll be back. She's on auto-follow on.... Who is there to auto-follow?
Sam? No. He's first into melee.
Brawny? That's bad choice number one.
Safana? Definitely no. She's scouting ahead and looking for traps.
Cory? He's either in the back shooting or in the front stabbing.
Neera? Nuclear Neera? The Wild Mage?
None of the above. She's on auto-follow on her new Priest friend.
Room 1
How do we ask where we are without sounding like we have no idea where we are? Well it looks like we are in a crypt and we are exploring. Immy normally makes Safana invisible so she can scout the area for traps. She's AFK. So either we have Neera use a Scroll or Safana has to use a potion. Neera? Don't blow us up, please.
How Safana communicates with us and tells us it's okay to move forward, I'm not sure. Probably some creature mating call or something. Not an Ogre mating call. That would be a burp. Well, Room 2 is clear, so we move forward.
Room 2
It's actually the area between Rooms 1 and 3. There is a chasm and a broken bridge across. Maybe it was not clear. There's a mage named Porios taunting us. He says it's already gone.
That's great! We can start to piece together where we are and what we are doing? What's gone? Come on. Fill us in! Oh. The Sword of Sarevok. Maybe that means he's still dead. With that little bit of information, he realized he said too much and disappeared.
Room 3
There is a makeshift table with cards, like some people were playing Cowboy Poker and suddenly the bull showed up and it's time to run. Whoever won the game apparently forgot to claim the prize, because a Gem Bag is sitting on the other table.
Another middle-aged mage named Ammon is in the room, using it as a makeshift library. She said she was looking for some ingredients to finish a potion, more specifically Cobalt Moss. We used the room as a makeshift storeroom for inventory management. We dropped off letters and scrolls we were no longer using, and some big heavy cases of potions we will not need for the trip.
Imoen has a friend with a Level 60 Priest following us out of group and keeping us healed, so we will not need any healing or antidote potions. S(he) could clear the entire thing for us, but then we would not get any exp.
Room 4
This is the area outside of Room 3. It has a Coffin and a bridge leading across the chasm. We opened the coffin and a Tatted Skeleton attacked us.
Wait. What? Say that again? In exactly what part of the Multiverse do Skeletons have Tats? I can understand Zombies with Tats, but this is new.
Across the bridge is Room 5
Safana already scouted well. There were 7 enemies waiting for us including a Mage and and Ogre. We have resources to burn, so Neera snuck as close as she could and dropped a fear-bomb on them with her wand. 4 of them started to panic and run and this made the fight much simpler and a bit more complicated at the same time.
Room 6
Some of them opened the door to the next room, where Poor Porios was waiting for us. We could not convince his gang to stand down. He thought we would stand down. Surely we are in a different plane in the Multiverse. The problem was easily taken care of with a couple of arrows.
In this plane of the Multiverse, apparently we get the exp whether we get enemies to surrender or we kill them. In both cases they are defeated and we get the loot. It is still more fun to kill them.
Room 7
This room contained another coffin and a very hungry mummy named Fanego Nomnom. We disturbed him from a long rest and he woke up very hungry. He must eat now. He must eat you. We are pursuing a mage in here and we will feed him when we are done. In the mean time, we cleared out a couple other rooms. We even stripped the bodies and piled the armor in a neat pile.
Day 8, Hour 0, Level 2 - The Catacombs
A walking Temple Service following us through a dungeon is very handy. Not only do we have access to healing in the same zone, but she also follows us as we clear rooms. In fact, we spent a grand total of 1950gp on her services, which included identification and healing.
Room 8
We finally got our reminder that traps are still real and dangerous on this material plane. They are spotted if patient. I watch the clock on the bottom left. I watch the hammer go up and down, up, down, move. Up, down, up, down, move. I did not time how long it took to clear the thieves guild maze like that, but I was distracted enough to be not too bored.
The invisible scouting is nice. We can show Neera exactly where to place a fireball.
She got greedy and sent a second fireball and took a nasty arrow for that, but the Walking Temple is not that far away.
Room 9 - Library
It's actually a room with not much of an encounter.
Room 10 - The Wight Stuff
The combination of good scouting and two Fireballs from Nuclear Neera made this room easier. Then Sam, Cory, and Brawny cleaned up the scraps. There were 3 Wights in the room I mistook for Zombies!
Room 11 - Fire Beetle Room
The first part of the encounter was a group of boring beetles. The second part was a few Magma Mephits, the first Mephits we encountered.
Room 12 - Torches and Shadows
Same tactic. Blast and retreat. Rinse and repeat. It turns out Wraiths are invisible and we had no counter to that. Imoen has all our Detect Invisibility Scrolls and she's still AFK. So we sent in in Sane Sam.
We also popped open a globe with a couple of Ochre Jellies. We're just glad it was not Green Slime.
Room 13 - Room of Secrets
The chests were trapped and it's another group of Skeletal Undead. In this material plane, bone bats can see through invisibility. I guess this is because they are blind to begin with and sight by sonar. Coran opened a chest an ran out of the room. Safana walked in just far enough to sight the bone bat, and then moved away. Neera was able to sneak in one or two Fireballs to soften the group.
Room 14 - The Big Bone Door
This was another large group of mercenaries. We hit it a couple of times with a Wand of Fear. It turned out one of them was invisible, so we did not find out for a bunch of rounds. He could have gone after Neera, but tried Brawny and missed, then popped another Invisibility potion. We tried Glitterdust. That might have worked. That might not have. We finally got him.
Room 15 - The Burning Dead
5 Burning Skeletons led by a Skeletal Mage. This fight started weird, because Cory bumped Brawny and started the action out of schedule. So Cory took some nasty hits slinging arrows to take out the Skeletal Mage. Then we retreated to the other room to finish the fight. That was also about when that backstabber mercenary popped out of fear and tried to knife us.
Room 16 - Up the Rope
This was the room on the main floor we could not access. It was barred, so we opened it and moved the party in. Then we opened the coffin and spawned a bunch of angry sprits. They turned out to be Shadows and hit Brawny a couple of times, knocking her strength down a bit. Here we found the Cobalt Moss Ammon was looking for.
Room 17 - Switch Room
We could not convince two mercenaries guarding the switch to stand down. Just several minutes ago, we took out a group of ten of them and they want to fight us to the death. Whatever gold they are being paid, they cannot take it with them to the afterlife plane we are sending them to.
Room 18 - The Anticlimactic Boss Room
Korlatz was waiting for us here, along with a selection of her best Mercenaries. When we defeat her, it's over. The ambush by Sarevok that killed Gorion. Tarnesh waiting for us at the Friendly Arm Inn. All the ambushes by assassins over the past two months or so. Dave in the Cloakwood Mines. The Iron Throne. The Shadow Council of Dukes led by Sarevok in the Undercity. Now Korlatz. After this, it's all over.
We buffed up.
3xAnimate Dead
Remove Fear
Chant
Bless
We did not think Korlatz and her gang of undead and soon to be dead would give up without at least a little fight, but....
Sam. Fire Arrow of Dispel. Hit. Damage. Dispel.
Cory. FIre Arrow of Detonation. Hit. BOOM.
Imoen's back! Sorrrry! Oh. Did you finish already? Was there good exp and loot? Can we go now?
We turned in a couple of loose end quests. It turns out after we dealt with Faim Nomnom, he disappeared and we were free to loot his coffin. We also got his shield as a bonus. It appears we just miss out on a little experience, about 400 each.
Here is our party at the end, Otter Chaos:
(Yes, remind me and I will get the shirt!)
183090 Sam with 957 kills worth 376448
91953 Cory with 572 kills worth 315073
183085 Neera with 187 kills worth 70118
Safana with 63 kills worth 25835 taking the MVP Rogue position
Brawny with 137 kills worth 41319
This was actually a second playthrough of the same dungeon, which is why it went so much smoother. The first run through was a bunch of surprises and reloads and experiments. A good percentage of the rooms had surprises and I was all day Monday exploring it. The second run through, I knew where nearly all the surprises were and it was therefore much easier.
The group working as a group is a plus. I would have liked to see that kind of AI implemented in BG1EE.
What happens next from what I have seen with party items is:
Safana is recruitable almost immediately. She will still be wearing her stuff.
Coran is not recruitable. He has decided to move on. Maybe he had a bad breakup with Safana and we had to choose between us. Maybe he is dumping Safana on the group. Whatever stuff he is wearing is gone.
Branwen is not recruitable. She has decided it is finally time to go home. We never hear from her again. Whatever stuff she is wearing is gone.
Neera is recruitable, but much later. She should still be wearing her stuff.
All 80 slots of inventory space is transferred to a chest.
All the gold is gone. Maybe Mummy chased us out and we had to leave it behind. Maybe it disappeared in a rift going from one material plane to the other. It actually does not matter.
Right now, we are making an exit plan for the dungeon. There are a few things we could have done better in BG1EE to be better prepared for SoD, but the run should not be insurmountable without.
We still have our Gem Bags and they are full of goodies. We should still be able to buy whatever we want.
We still have nearly 80 inventory slots to fill. If an inventory slot is worth 250gp, then we can raise 20k, plus whatever we left in the gem bags. The Scroll Case is also full and we have an incredible number of potions.
Sadly, we are RIP Brawler's Hands, so no easy 18 Dexterity for Minsc. It looks like I forgot them in our secret base in Baldur's Gate, along with other items such as the Ankheg Plate Armor. We will have to limp through the game without them. We have some Potions of Agility for when we really need them.
Reading ahead in the spoilers and walkthroughs, it looks like we will have to keep Khalid alive at Level 1. I have no idea how that is going to work. He will be nearly naked and Level 1 bravely counterattacking a siege. I think we left him with Splint Mail, Sword and Shield.
SoD takes us from 161k to 500k in experience. At 250k, we should be making the class change to Mage and that will be interesting. The Experience cap gets us Mage Level 10. The structure of the game is most likely very linear. So most likely, we will be playing the entire back half of the game as a squishy mage.
An option might be to run parts of the game with only 4 characters to increase our experience gain. That will mean our extra two characters might not have their level cap.
So far, I am thinking:
Safana our Thief
Minsc our Tank, less Gauntlets of Dexterity. Also less Mace +2.
Dynaheir as part of the package
Glint can do Cleric spells and maybe Open Locks
Room for One More
Maybe later replace Minsc and Dynaheir with Khalid and Jaheira. I will think on this.
If too many spoiler items were exposed, then I'm really sorry. All I have done so far is play the Interlude, and some of the rest of Chapter 7 business in Baldur's Gate.
So ... yeah, level 1 in your case. If he lasts long enough to join the party, he'll get joining bonus XP, and the SoD triggers go up to 250K.
As for spoilers - they're kind of expected in this forum. It's just in the nature of any playthrough report.
A bunch of days go by, about two weeks. We have guest suites in the Ducal Palace, go out every night and crash back in, fall-down drunk every night at about 2am. We just split up a massive fortune of 80kgp.
Branwen saw no more future with this group, so moved back to her homeland. Maybe in several weeks we will catch up with her story.
Neera was never happy with the belt she received from Adoy. She went back into the forest to seek him out again. Maybe this time he has more meaningful lessons.
Coran and Safana partnered up.
Immy was studying magic every day. There is only so much knowledge to be gained on the road and she might as well learn how to do magic right and not end up like Neera.
That leaves Sam. Out every night, crashing into the Ducal Palace at 2am.
Meanwhile at the Fair in the center of Baldur's Gate, at the Diviner's Tent:
Rob M Blynd - Who is the richest person in Baldur's Gate and where does he keep his gold?
Diviner - The richest person in Baldur's Gate is Sam Ashen and he sleeps with his gold right next to him.
Next day, Ducal Palace, Basement, Treasury:
Rob M Blynd - Hello. I would like to make a deposit.
Orpheus - Of course. How much would you like to deposit?
Rob M Blynd - 80k
Orpheus - Okay. I will write you some notes. Are there denominations you would prefer?
Day 92, Hour 11
Hells, where did all my gold go? Did I spend it already drinking? That was a wild night.
Immy? Do you have any gold so I can go out on the town again?
Hells, I can't go out. It's boring around the Ducal Palace. Maybe we go to sleep on time.
Day 92, Hour 23 - This night is different and everything changed again.
Immy woke Sam up and the way the both got up out of the bed made me think of a really awkward Luke Skywalker moment. Search your feelings, Luke! Bad idea. Very bad idea, Luke!
Immy has a kid sister vibe, and sometimes behave as if still afraid of the dark. This time she heard noises. So she woke up Sam and went off to investigate the noises. Hells, we have to get up and follow her. A bunch of noise follows, things tossed about, a fight.
Then Shale Corwin of the Flaming Fist entered the guest chambers of the Ducal Palace. Four broken bodies lie on the floor, pieces here and there. Blood is everywhere. Sam is staring vacantly at them, blood all over the flail. Murder, Death, Kills follows him wherever he goes. Why in the nine hells this man not only walks free, but is also an honored guest at the Ducal Palace?
A few moments later, Duchess Liia warped in on the scene to explain. Stay behind him and prod him forward. He only kills what is in front of him when he is like that. There are more intruders downstairs. Send him there.
Before Corwin could decide what to do with this nut, Duke Eltan arrived to assign a mission.
Wait. Duke Eltan? Didn't he die in the last episode? Wasn't he assassinated by Slythe and Krystin?
Wait. We are in a different plane in the Multiverse, maybe a different time.
What else is different in this time and place?
Silvershield - Corwin. I have a good news and bad news, along with a mission. What would you like to hear first?
Corwin - The Bad. Get it out of the way.
Silvershield - You are taking Sam out for a night on the town to retrieve his friends.
Corwin - Hells. A path of destruction follows wherever he goes. I do not know which problem is worse for the Fist, all the disruption by the influx of refugees, or the trail of dead bodies wherever he goes.
Silvershield - The good news is he leaves town on the morrow, along with his friends. You will be his designated driver and we will pick up his friends. Make sure he does not cause too much trouble.
Sam - Maybe Ophyllis wants to go with us. One of the thieves upstairs had a bunch of banknotes and I should turn these in.
Body Count:
7/9 Assassins upstairs, 2 of which were shot by Corwin, so we cannot blame Sam for those.
(Sam exit downstairs to reclaim his gold.)
8/10 Korlasz
8/11 Flaming Fist Mercenary (actually killed by Korlasz, but doesn't stop Sam from looting the body)
Ophyllis - Can I help you?
Sam - I would like to make a withdrawl
Ophyllis - How much?
Sam - It looks like..... 80k
Ophyllis - I don't keep that much right here in one place. It will take me a few days to gather it for you.
Sam - Hells. One bill?
Ophyllis - No bank can cash a bill for 10k right away!
8/12 Zelma the Pickpocket, shot by Corwin - What does she mean a path of murder and destruction follows Sam everywhere? Did she just shoot a petty pickpocket? What kind of justice is the Flaming Fist?
(Enter Sorcerous Sundries)
12/16 Sethyl, Wistak, Kog, and Yashna, the gang robbing Sorcerous Sundries
(From selling all this loot, Sam suddenly has cash to burn! We're not sure how he can leave a bunch of gem bags unattended in a crowded shop with a bunch of penniless refugees and Corwin seems unwilling to serve as a packmule. It distracts her perfect bow arm. Hells, why is it taking this guy so long to go upstairs, sell 9 arrows, then back upstairs, sell a robe. Is he looting the place, too? There was a bunch of noise upstairs and three dead bodies. Should we be investigating? Nah. We're just keeping a tally.)
(Enter Elfsong Tavern)
Hells. Where is he going now? What is he doing with those crazy glasses? Okay, he went to talk to Garrick, who seems to be more interested in the tavern owner. Just how long is this errand going to take? Coran and Safana are in a room upstairs. Why is he not going there? What is he doing now? What is he looking at? What just materialized in the middle of the tavern? Hells. He just unleashed a Fire Elemental! Where are my Ice Arrows?
13/17 - Al Alai the Fire Elemtal
I chose this one for the experience, because I thought we would need as much experience at the front end of the game as possible. In the event of a no-reload run, I would not choose this one, because Corwin has a good chance of robbing the kill. Since this is my first playthrough, I have shifted to shameless scum saving and reloading.
Fortunately Safana and Coran evacuated the building. With this much chaos and the Elfsong Tavern on fire, Sam could not be far away. They just parted ways and Safana was the first to find Sam. Oh.... Hello!
Where is Coran?
I don't know. Want to go shopping?
I'm broke.
(produces gem bag)
(Meanwhile in Sorcerous Sundries)
Safana - Does this armor make me look fat?
Corwin - Hells. Can we get going? Where to next? Hopefully the Ducal Palace.
Sam - The Iron Throne. There is also a stash we left just south of here.
(Former Iron Throne Headquarters)
14/18 - Werewolf
(Flaming Fist Headquarters)
Tiax is still in prison. Good. Accounted for.
Safana is actually... hilarious
Oh, you brought me to a jail. How romantic!
Well, when I'm not as broke, I can take you some place better.
Like, where. The Ducal Palace?
Uh..... It's uh.....
(sniff, sniff) Khalid got your tongue?
Complicated
(Ducal Palace)
(oops. Still have to hit the Three Old Kegs. Our sailor buddies will miss us.)
Hells. Bind me. We will never get this done!
(Three Old Kegs)
16/21 - Three more muggers outside of Three Old Kegs don't know how to pick a fight. Suits are good targets, of course, because they have lots of money. Armor suits are probably a bad idea, especially if the guy looks like a nut and is openly carrying his weapons. The Flaming Fist Captain behind him is nearly equally crazy.
We finally reconnected with Minsc and Dynaheir. Dumm and Dummer are reunited for more havoc! We need drinks to celebrate and we have a designated driver! Meet Schael Hellsh on Wheelsh Corwin.
Day 93, Hour 2
Corwin - Okay. Bar's closing. It's time to get home. We leave at 7am. Good luck.
Hour 6
Skie - You can't tell Daddy about this.
Wait. Where am I? What in the hells happened last night? Please tell me how old you are.
Skie - Rembember. Whatever you do, don't tell Daddy about this.
Hour 7
Welp it turns out he knows exactly what's going on, like he has eyes and ears everywhere. Skie joined the Flaming Fist under a fake name. Subtlety is not her strong suit. She should have been more creative with the fake name than Seki. Yikes.
Finally Dumm and Dummer are leaving Baldur's Gate and crowds are assembled to celebrate their departure. The tally for their last night in town could have been much worse, but topped out at 21 or so dead bodies and a badly burned Elfsong Tavern.
Our party so far, Team Dumm and Dummer:
204281 Sam with 973 Kills worth 387608
200000 Safana with 63 Kills worth 25835
168969 Minsc with 185 kills worth 26668, right where we left off
168969 Dynaheir with 26 kills worth 3888
Inventory management is so much easier. Everything we need is packed into a chest and two unfortunate Flaming Fist Enforcers were tasked with dragging the thing through the forest. It was heavy. Eventually they were curious what was in it and if we really need everything in there to survive.
Safana - Yes. I need that to survive.
Day 96, Hour 19 - The Flaming Fist Contigent arrived at the Coast Way Crossing. Just before the bridge, they started to set up camp and prepare dinner. Further down the road, there is a refugee encampment. Maybe they have better food.
Safana - Quick! She's not looking! Let's get out of here for a minute.
Halfway between the Flaming Fist Camp and the bridge was a Refugee Camp and a burned Inn. We were able to sell enough junk to buy the Bag of Holding from Belegarm at the Camp. Then we started looking into local problems.
The Inn's owner is a halfling, looking for some items in the wreckage that might have been stolen. Meanwhile some refugees have gone missing and they are suspecting Teleria, a mage who just arrived in the area. She directed us to a clearing nearby to tell us her side of the story. Of course it was a trap.
In the clearing were five stone statues. We were going to be four more. Fortunately on her body, there was already the means to fix the issue and we did not have to return to the camp to shop for Stone to Flesh scrolls.
Then there was that dark elf sorcerer Baeloth running a fighting pit between wild animals. They turned out to be rats and squirrels. He wondered how Boo would do in a match. Finally he presented us with M'Kay the Goblin. We convinced both of them to make their way to the Flaming Fist Camp, because the money and action were going to be in the north and not in the middle of the wilds.
Safana was starting to complain about the wilderness, twigs and spiderwebs getting into her hair. We will not mention that she is the one who wanted this walk in the woods in the first place. Secondly, she was the one who was supposed to watch for traps such as spiderwebs. Meanwhile, it was Minsc who had his lines down.
We finally arrived at the bridge and there were some Crusaders waiting for us. Some of them fled up the bridge and blew it up. Caelar herself was there and had her parley with us. Indeed, we will be meeting her again in Dragonspear Castle.
Back on the road, there was a bard investigating some strange stones with runes on them. Apparently they sing back at him when he sings at them.
Then there was a dwarf running away from a zombie coming out of a cavern or dig site. Apparently there is a dungeon in this area to explore.
Session is cut a bit short for Saturday morning. Descriptions were brief. Here is the party:
211748 Sam with 979 kills worth 395123
207466 Safana with 64 kills worth 27235
176434 Minsc with 190 kills worth 33598
176433 Dynaheir with 29 kills worth 8688
Sam got hit with a level drain and that was a 750gp mistake. Now that he's cured of that, it's rest time. So we will have to check out that dig site in the morning.
It should be fixed now. Here was my thought pattern:
In the intro dungeon, we had a Flaming Fist Cleric follow us from room to room in a dungeon. So if we ever needed healing, we could just run back.
In the first area, we are at a Flaming Fist Encampment. Not only we have access to a Cleric. We also have a chest with all our stuff in it. A couple of Flaming Fist Soldiers have been lugging that thing from location to location. It made me think of that scene from Space Balls.
Day 97, Hour 7 - Rested
The Flaming Fist needs a little bit of time to break camp and prepare to march for the day. That should be enough time for us to check on those Dwarves mentioned by Daran Highhammer, Brother Deepvein to be precice.
Day 97, Hour 16
Corwin - SAM! There you are! Where in the Nine Hells have you been?
Last night, I encountered this Dwarf, Daran Highhammer and he wanted our help locating his employer, Brother Deepvein. The job took longer than we imagined. I did not think it would involve destroying a Lich.
Corwin - Rasaad the Monk came here looking for you. He went with Seki into the forest to look for you. They should not be too far away. This time I will be taking you, so that you do not wander off too far. We lost today's march and we don't want to lose tomorrow.
Brother Deepvein has a few more things to clean up at the digsite. He and his remaining Clerics will be joining us at Dragonspear. What happened down there is a very long story......
........
Level 1 of the Dwarven Dig Site
We entered the site and there Deepvein was with his small band of Clerics, holding off some horde of Undead. We talked to him and started to get his story. He was looking for Coldhearth. We said we would retrieve him or tell him what we learned.
The dig had several branches and there were Undead everywhere. For the larger groups featuring things like Wights we did not want to get close to, we sent in a Fireball first. We still have an amazing quantity of Fireballs. The southern cavern featured some Umber Hulks. We sent Sam in first with immunity to Confusion. We saw them sling a Confusion at Minsc, but we had time to hit his Berserker Rage.
Now Dynaheir had to run, fast. Fortunately she was wearing the Boots of Speed. She was wearing them, because she was typically the one slinging the Fireball, then running away fast. Safana was invisible and typically safe. That left Dumm and Dummer cleaning up the mess.
To the north, we saved a Giant from another group of Undead. Apparently, the Dwarves befriended him. I'm not sure why he died right after greeting his little friends.
We also found the burial site for that bard outside, with the Menhirs. Eventually we found where the dig encountered some ancient evil.
Level 2 of the Dwarven Dig Site - The Repository of Undeath
There were lots of undead here too - and we brought 0 Clerics. We did our best to keep our distance when we had to. Some groups were huge.
Dyna, don't just stand there! Blow up the room with another Fireball! (Why they sometimes just stand there, I don't know.) From there, we had to retreat a little bit and throw one where we were able. Fortunately, these Undead were mindless. So they were mindlessly attacking in Sane Sam, who was using the only immunity to Level Drain we had available. Pure rage. Minsc hung back and used his bow. Dyna slung spells where she could. That room had a total of 15 Undead in there.
We made our way through a Laboratory, and then a throne. Then we made our way to the southwest corner. There were some Skeleton Archers that needed taken out. The southwest corner of the dungeon features a portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire.
Back in the Northeast, there was a puzzle. We could solve it. Or we could choose a set of Mephits we would most prefer to fight. We had a choice between Earth, Fire, and Lightning. We did not feel like killing 25 groups just to go up a level, so we solved the puzzle after 4 groups, demonstrating a brute force method of solving a puzzle. Mephits are kind of annoying, anyway. I think a key is to be immune to whatever spell they are slinging.
A couple rooms later was where we got to see Coldhearth converted to a Lich. He decided not to destroy us, because he needed us for a job. We kill dwarves for their neckless. He lets us live. He will even throw in a magic item.
We said we will take some time to think about his proposition. He was surprisingly patient. He said we can take all the time we need, because now he has all the time he wants. What kind of evil creatures are like that?
We reported back to Deepvein, and he had a gem we needed to defeat Coldhearth. So that's what we did. We opened the door behind him. That made him start to attack. We used the gem to kill his defenses and he did not stay up much longer. Then we searched the room for his Phylactery.
We sent Sam in with Fire Resist and the Boots of Speed to the Plane of Fire Portal. There were 4 Lesser Elementals waiting for us. For low level creatures, worth 400 exp, they actually hit hard when they do. I'm glad we did not have a round where all 4 hit by rolling a natural 20. With one remaining to take down, Coldhearth showed up for more trouble. So Sam threw the Phylactery into the portal and ran. The rest of the party arrived to finish the fight.
This gave us just barely enough experience to start the long process of Dual-Classing.
For the skill point, I chose Slings. The reasons I can think of are:
1. It is a ranged weapon.
2. Berserkers can only gain proficiency in ranged weapons and we had no proficiency.
3. We still have a Strength Bonus to benefit.
Back at the camp, we invested huge amounts of gold to get Sam an epic spellbook. It looks like he has:
21 Level 1 Spells
21 Level 2 Spells
22 Level 3 Spells (apparently missing 3)
21 Level 4 Spells (apparently missing 3)
8 Level 5 Spells
Baby's first spell was Find Familiar. This little guy's going to pick up all the little girls for him.
The massive expenditure was probably completely unnecessary. There is very little experience gain. We could have even saved it for BG2 where the experience gains are bigger.
Here is our party:
652 Sam with 1049 kills worth 436733
246963 Safana with 65 kills worth 27300 (She was invisible almost the entire dungeon)
215854 Minsc with 249 kills worth 78133
215826 Dynaheir with 63 kills worth 24198
Most likely for a while, Minsc will be our tank. He should be manageable with a few potions to beef up his hit points and armor.
We sure went through a lot of potions in that dungeon - a case and a half of healing potions. Of course, we are actively trying to get rid of them.
We added Glint to the party. I was scared at first, because I saw him at 2x32k experience, but it took a round to adjust to 2x125k experience. So he became a Cleric 8 / Thief 9. We invested the proficiency point in 2-weapon style, in case we decide to go that way. The alternatives would have been single weapon style for an extra chance of a critical, or another weapon. We are not planning to backstab our way to glory. The skill points went to Detect Illusion.
We equipped him with the Thresher +2 and a magical shield, along with the magical plate armor. We got him down to AC-6. We might switch him to dual wield for when the fights get easier. He also got the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, so packs a bruising in a compact package.
We also added Corwin. She is our super-skilled Archer. I did not sit down and figure out if she is as good as Coran was. She has 4 proficiency in Longbows, so that helps. She will get 5 at Level 9.
Day 97, Hour 20 - Coast Way Forest
We found Kesi in her not so subtle disguise as a Flaming Fist Soldier. We found Rasaad and told him to accompany the Flaming Fist Mercenaries as they march northward. We also encountered Isabella and Ikros the Vampire Hunters.
Are we going to get back to the Flaming Fist Encampment before it gets dark? Of course not. We have to wait for it to get dark before we can engage in this Vampire fight.
It gets dark at 2200 hours, so I guess we are at a very high latitude in the summer. For the European readers, maybe this is consistent with the UK, France, and Germany on our material plane.
Day 98, Hour 0 - Troll Cave
Did we head back directly back to the Flaming Fist Encampment? Of course not. We got distracted by a battle. It might have been Kesi or Rasaad in trouble, so we had to investigate. (This usually works on Corwin.)
It was not. It was a group of Orcs fighting a couple of trolls. The Orcs won the battle, so we got to fight them. Then we cleared out the Troll Cave. We could not have that so close to the Encampment, even if we were moving out the next day.
Day 98, Hour 1 - We are finally back at the Flaming Fist Encampment.
We did some last minute business. There was a halfling looking for a shield that was stolen by those vampire hunters. Minsc needed a pair of maces to bash evil things.
Day 98, Hour 9 - Rested
Day 100, Hour 1 - Arrived at Troll Claw Wood
Since it was nighttime and we have good stealth, we used this as an opportunity to scout the local area. Actually - It looks like the maps are very dense with encounters. So I am showing a bunch of encounters and not that many pictures.
Here was one encounter with a group of Orcs. These do not seem to be one-shot kills. I looked it up. Orc Archer with 35 hit points, worth 120 experience points. Level 5. Based on that, it looks like Safana got lucky with her backstab and hit for 36 points - and that implies she rolled a 7 on an 8 sided die. I might be looking up the wrong Orc Archer, based on BG2, because the wiki I looked up said 35 experience.
The other part of the encounter was the Panther was remaining Neutral until we aggroed the Orcs. Then it decided to attack our back line. We figured out who was doing the kiting and shot it. The Panther was worth 420 experience. The Orcs were worth 120 to 175 experience.
The Hobgoblin encounter was made simpler with a Web Spell.
This fight got spooky for a bit, because I thought the Hobgoblins would be similar to the Hobgoblins from BGEE. They are much tougher on the SoD material plane than on the BGEE. Safana was supposed to shoot the Hobgoblin Priest in the back and get him poisoned so it would be harder to cast spells, then shot the Scout. Instead, the Scout turned and started firing arrows back at her, but missed.
Finally, we were ready to clear out the Troll Cave. It was full of Trolls. We decided a Web spell would make it simpler - and it actually did.
With Dynaheir, it's a save versus spells at -4 instead of -2. It looks like the Troll already needs a 14 to save. So the penalty means 18, for a 15% probability. Sure enough, a lot of them were webbed. Minsc and Glint were running around immune to webs.
Where it got tense was allowing my Fairy Dragon to run around free. I thought since it was a flyer, it would be immune to Web, but it is apparently not. When a troll got free, that was the first thing he charged. We were able to shoot it down in time. The Fairy Dragon only has 12 hit points.
When I get him killed, I will reload and put him in my pack, which is where he is supposed to go. Now that I finally looked up the information online, it turns out my Fairy Dragon can only cast Mirror Image. I thought he could cast Invisibility 10 Feet, but that is not until Baldur's Gate 2.
Finally, at about 4 in the morning, we got back to the camp. The local shop sells for a little bit less, but it also buys for a little less. So we will be selling cheap stuff only, and waiting around for more expensive shops to sell the valuable stuff. For some reason, I thought that was the Refugee Camp in the previous zone, but apparently there are more.
I also noticed a discrepancy between the prices for Arrows and Bullets and Darts. Magical Arrows are very expensive and they come in stacks of 20. Magical bullets are much cheaper. We might maintain a couple stacks of magical ammunition and then go back to the regular stuff, because we will not know when we will have to buy something big.
Here is the party so far. For comparison, it is easier to count Chapter 9 kills.
23229 Sam with 11 kills worth 14570
269551 Safana with 9 kills worth 3915
238441 Minsc with 22 kills worth 19700
238387 Dynaheir with 7 kills worth 290
136279 Glint with 3 kills worth 1085
272538 Corwin with 17 kills worth 12925
It looks like a lot of these mobs should look simple, but have enough levels to be immune to Color Spray or Sleep. I will look for another spell that should be useful at Level 5. We might end up just loading up on Shield spells. Level 6 is coming up sooner than we imagine. That will come with another weapon proficiency point. We took Slings already. I don't see a point in taking Darts, because we have characters with that proficiency already. So that leaves quarterstaff and daggers. I am leaning towards Daggers, because that gives us another range option and a melee option.
We are a long way from Level 10 and getting our Berserker abilities back. I am hoping we can accomplish this before the endgame, so we at least get to enjoy it for a while.
For variety in the characters we are using, we might get some characters to level cap, then work with another. I have not decided yet.