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 Orc Archers in SoD are level 3, with 30 HP and worth 120 XP. Also, you get +4 damage from hitting a creature with a ranged weapon in melee, which gets multiplied in the stab. So that's (3+2+4)*4=36 damage for your stab. You rolled a 3 on the d8, and would have killed with a 2. AC 6, ignore the modifier from 17 Dex, Safana gets +10 to hit (2 enchantment, 4 melee vs ranged, 4 stealth attack) and has base THAC0 15. You need an attack roll of -1 or better to meet that AC, so you hit on a 2 and kill if you either get a crit or roll 2+ on the d8 damage die. That's about an 84% chance of the instant kill; slightly more if you're using single-weapon style, slightly less if you're not.
The arrow stacks you can buy from Belegarm are stacks of 80. You might be confused by the number of stacks in stock, which is initially 20 for the advanced arrows. Prices for ammo in general are done on a per-shot basis, so a stack of 80 +1 arrows you can buy from Belegarm will cost four times as much as a stack of 20 you can buy from Taerom. Aside from the different markups; Belegarm's shop is cheaper in general.
If you are looking for a premium vendor with superb selling and buying rates, there is a vendor in chaptor 10.
You need the spectacles to conjure him, but he has premium wares and most powerplayers hold unto their loot until they can sell it too him.
Admittedly, it is very hard for me to powergame my first run through the game. I can only gather so much information from the walkthrough. A part of that is not wanting to miss stuff. Another part of it is getting shortcuts to puzzles. Another part of it is trying to be as powergame as possible.
We sold off about 15k worth of jewelry. At least it was not to Belegarm, because then it would have been only 9k. I could have saved some money by getting Safana to 20 Charisma. There was an encounter I deliberately missed to get the boots of charisma. There are also some potions.
We missed on the +2 Sling, because I did not know I was supposed to use Glint (with Infravision) to look into a pool. I will mourn that loss, because we have three slingers. We almost lost the +2 Mace, but we were able to retrieve it from reading the walkthrough.
I should build a checklist.
Session 40 - Baby's First Dragon Kill
Day 100, Hour 13 - Rested
We headed towards the Forest of Wyrms in search of this Temple of Bhaal. We were told by Jaheira that we will need a Wardstone to enter Bridgefort. What it is doing way over there, I have no idea. We will find out when we get there.
Firstly, we were (waylaid) distracted by yet another encounter. It was......
A Gang of Goblins! 18 of them, I think! We were warned about powerful magic, so we shortened this job with a Web spell.
Then there was a snake, which we killed, because we did not want it sneaking up on us if we encountered something more. Sure enough, ahead, there were a couple of Ankhegs. Then there were some Beetles. Then we saw it.
A big hole.
Inside the hole were Myconids. They are magic mushrooms and do strange things to the mind. We were not really prepared for this, so we send Minsc in with the Tinfoil-lined Armadillo Helmet. It worked against Confusion in one encounter - or maybe a panic Fireball made the battle shorter. The second battle, he got nailed by a Feeblemind spell, which really should have had no effect. I mean - Minsc. No brain. No pain. Hashtag teamdummanddummer.
Day 100, Hour 18 - Arrived at the Forest of Wyrms.
Something interesting we note about these encounters. We are quoted 8 hours to arrive at the Forest of Wyrms. We got distracted by an encounter which is supposed to take half the travel time, 4 hours, but it takes 0 hours. We encountered another time warp. So we arrived about 3 hours ahead of schedule. With how long these areas take to clear, I suppose it works out in the end.
The south was infested with Wyverns. We had Minsc tanking them or kiting them and we had to give him a Protection from Poison Scroll.
We were getting worried at this point. We have not even cleared half this area and we have already used nearly half the Healing Potions (22/48) we brought. We also used 2 Elixir of Health and 2 of the Extra Healing Potions. Maybe we took count at the end of the session and it's not so bad anymore. Minsc gets Fortitude, Aglility, Shield, AC-9, Butt kicked and 140kg of justice tossed about like a rag doll.
Our next stop was the Spider Nest. There was a reload involved, because I did not know there was a Gargantuan spider involved and I had to keep Minsc armed with the Spider's Bane. So for the main room, we were okay, because we had two characters with Free Action, Minsc and Glint. The rest could run behind or whatever. This worked until we triggered a bunch of spiders from another room. Minsc and Glint were blocking the west passageway and about 6 more spiders ran out from the northeast passageway. We finally got the situation under control with a couple of shots from the Wand of Fear.
With all that clear, we started to search the nest. Then came the bug invasion, featuring the Rhino Beetle. Minsc - I don't know if that thing had a butt, but if it did, it's been thoroughly kicked!
Everybody else was expressing their disgust with the area. I wish I wrote down what they said.
Corwin thinks we are idiots. Caelar is waiting for us at Dragonspear. She does not understand. She will wait for us forever while we do sidequests and gather more gear. We are gearing up faster than she is.
We made our way to the Bugbear Cave that shares a residence with a Green Dragon. That was when we realized we missed a spot, so we looped back to check for it.
Corwin - *doublesigh*
Sure enough, there was a Hill Giant. Maybe he was taunting us to take the long way around and come at him. We cast Web and Blindness both at him. I'm not sure how that worked out. Maybe it was on a cue. The Giant made the saving throw versus blind, but not Web. So he got wrecked.
We would figure Giants should get some kind of bonus saving throw, if they are not partially immune. That Web must be made of some seriously sticky stuff! Spiderman would be proud!
The Dragon Cave was also a reload. First try, he charged Corwin, smashed her down to 1 hitpoint, followed by acid breath. The strategy I was trying was to find a corner to use a Lightning Bolt. Second try, we used a better cheese strategy.
Minsc - Charge in there like an idiot and take a knockout blow for the team. Good boy. Thank you.
Glint - Nailed him with 8d6 Wand of the Heavens for 40 points. Missed save.
Dynaheir - Scorcher from Wand of Fire for 6+6d6 for 12 points. Made save.
Sam - Necklace of Missiles for 6d6 for 19 points. Missed save.
Corwin - Necklace of Missiles for 6d6 for 15 points. Not sure.
Safana - Necklace of Missiles for 6d6 for 12 points. Made save.
Minsc - Got nailed by a Wing Buffet for 20 points and thrown across the room.
Dynaheir - Scorcher from Wand of Fire for 6+6d6 for 32 points. Missed save.
So it looks like 6 fire attacks. I only count 2 out of 6 saves, which is below average. The 15 might have been a make or a miss. It is 6 below the expected value of 21 and 30 is 9 above, so slightly less likely. The 40 point shot was amazing. That was 8 dice with an average of 5. The 32 point shot was pretty good, too.
It looks like the fight was a little over a single round.
Here is our party:
37662 Sam with 27 kills worth 22745
284025 Safana with 24 kills worth 11915
252902 Minsc with 55 kills worth 39580
252805 Dynaheir with 21 kills worth 22865
143487 Glint with 13 kills worth 9855
286932 Corwin with 43 kills worth 32835
Sam seems to be consistent with Safana and Dynaheir for kills and I suppose that's fine for a mage that's leveling. We are almost at level 6. Minsc and Cory are the killing team, instead of Dumm and Dummer.
I think the reason Glint lags in kills is I am grabbing range as a group and attacking as a group. The Sling has only one attack per round and that attack will occur after the arrows have fired. Sam is more likely to get a shot first because of higher dexterity and a +3 sling.
It looks like there is a Bugbear Cave, followed by the Temple of Bhaal. Hopefully this is not more difficult than the Green Dragon we faced - or all the Wyverns leading up to it. (I judge difficulty based on how many resources get used. We are probably still on moderately easy mode, because we are running with 0 healing spells on our cleric and have not set up camp to rest.
Day 100, Hour 22
We left off with the Green Dragon kill, wondering if the caverns and dungeons below get easier or harder. There are combinations of issues.
One is resource management.
We have casters and their spells. This is a daily resource, so many spells from Levels 1 to 5. We have a bunch of scrolls and potions. Some of them mimic the same spells. Some of them modify stats. Some of them grant special immunities.
We end up with an issue of using too many resources when we are not supposed to, and not using resources when we are supposed to. So if we do not use stuff to make a fight easier, then that means the tank gets hit a lot more than he should - and that means the resource we end up using will be healing potions.
Another is we have not played this before - and I do not understand what is coming until I have played it a few times or so. (I do not learn on the first or second try.) So I am missing the experience to come with better preparation. Also, I do not want to reload and rerun entire sections, like I did on the prologue dungeon and the end of Chapter 7.
Then there is the walkthrough I am using. The map is very good, because it alerts me to traps and that saves a bunch of time looking for them. I still use a lot of time watching the clock pendulum go back and forth, marking seconds and rounds. However, it is easier to spot if I know it is there. The walkthrough gives area descriptions and some monsters and key items. It only shows the major encounters - but some of the minor ones would have been good to know about. For example, knowing ahead of time we were going to face about 10 Wyverns would have been nice.
It seems to lack in the fight descriptions, as if the guide is assuming we have a strategy that works and know how to fight a particular monster. For example, it said 20k when you beat this guy - It's just like a mage, but bigger and uglier and more hitpoints. I still have a brute force mentality dealing with mages. (An SCS install should fix this.) This fight should not be too bad if you take out all the cultists ahead of time - It's almost another Green Dragon. You get 22k for beating this character and 2 Ariel Servants. You get 6k or beating the shadow aspect - Some cheesy strategies would be nice! Bring lots of buffs for this party fight - Nah, we will cheese it with AoE.
Finally, our main character was a Level 9 Berserker, but is in the process of dualclassing to Mage, so is a Level 6 Mage, instead.
The Bulrathi Lair
Oops. Wrong game.
We entered the lair in a fight with a bunch of Bulrathi Bugbears. I don't remember getting hit that much, so we did not use that much for cheesy strategies. We might have run out of creativity. There were a couple of invisible ones who were also annoying. There was.... lot of killing. Then we got to the Chief.
There was another group of Bugbears a couple more caves away and we used some of the same hit and run, hit and tank stuff that worked before. Then we found the Lost Temple of Invisible Stalkers of Cyric.
We found the Prisoners first. Then we found some cultists and gradually wiped them out. There was another room with some Invisible Stalkers. We used one of our valuable detect invisibility scrolls for that.
We finally got to the Green Dragon Junior, Ziaxar. The guide said she was not a bad fight. Maybe it wasn't. She seemed to be more of a caster. Safana was too close to Minsc and got hit with a Greater Command. Later she got hit with a poison dragon breath, so Dynaheir had to step in and save her.
With the key, we freed all the prisoners. One group was grateful, but they are working for the Crusade we are opposing. We're not sure what Corwin thinks of that. Maybe she encouraged them to turn in to the Fist Encampment, instead. We also set loose the blind priestess to continue her deeds. We commanded her to change her ways, but we doubt she will. Most likely, she will convert to the one who must not be named..... Or maybe..... She will setup shop in Athkatla in Amn and start the Cult of the Unseeing Eye. So maybe we have not seen the last of her!
The room to the south contained the Neothelid. This was an interesting fight and multiple reloads. We are going through our Potions of Clarity, because we did not come prepared for mind control stuff. It felt like we were playing XCOM the first time and finding out how much damage a Psionic Alien can do if your party is not prepared. Meanwhile, much later in life, I read an explanation that suddenly the original pistols were useful again, because they cannot harm your party if they have the best armor, but can still kill the psionic aliens.
This thing sure looked like a big ugly alien, but it did not have Ethereal or Sectoid hitpoints. It had Muton hitpoints. I counted between 117 and 134 hit points. I did not get a count on AC. It was 0 or worse. Sending Minsc in Berserk was not an option, because we quickly lose control of him. He will end up fighting a sword that is immune to his damage and he will be toes to toes with this sword in poison and taking a lot of damage every round - and we will have no way to heal him.
The cheesy strategy we ended up using was have one character with a mind shield, Sam. More will get it as necessary. Glint Eastwood would have been a better choice, because he has a chance of dealing with problems better. We summoned one Skeleton and sent him on the lead. Sure enough, it was the first target of Domination. We still could not see this thing as it conjured up a sword, so we ran our characters around, waiting to do something. The sword chased Safana for a while. That was no big deal, the least amount of harm.
Finally, it emerged. So we hit it with whatever we had. Did we mention Magic Resistance? It sure had a lot of that. Minsc might have been wasting his time for a while on that sword and we forgot to manage him for a while. He was there for the killing blow.
We were one room away from Akanna and the Warpstone and the entire reason we came to this Temple in the first place. We figured the cheesy strategy to use was to send one person, Sam, in solo with the Boots of Speed. He might have had the Skeleton nearby as a sacrificial offering. He launched an Oil of Fiery Burning and ran. We did not want to deal with Invisible Akanna just yet and we were able to lure the Aerial Servants out of the room to the Big Monster Room where the party was waiting.
Then we went in after the Priestess and brought her out to play. Greater Command seems to be the bane of Safana - as she appears to be taking another nap on the floor.
The next cheesy strategy - The Secret Room is guarded by a Shadow Aspect. The guide I was using said absosmurfly nothing about it, but it is a mean fight if not prepared for it. It looks like he likes to cast Blind, Darkness, Horror, Blur. I have no idea how many casts he has of these. He also goes Invisible at will, then backstabs a target.
If protected from Undead, then Safana can just walk in there and grab the loot, just like this.
The problem with this is we do not get the kill, or the experience, or the bragging rights. It's still an extra 1000 experience for each of us - and Sam gets his skills back another 1k sooner. So we decided to save this fight for the end, when we know what resources we have left.
This leaves the Alien Etheral Party. I think it is a Mindflayer. So we can't send Minsc in, because he dies in 2 hits. So we need another Skeleton for the job. We loaded up on Potions of Explosion for a six-pack of explosions. The Mindflayer is immune to the damage and whoever survives all of that will be drinking potions for a while. So the setup was to open the door and start the encounter, then run away as fast as possible. We lined up our shots to the door as well as we could, but only got 4 of them off. That was enough to kill Jhan Redmoons and injure the others. They came out to play, one or two at a time. So that made it easier.
Tethse was the next kill. He appeared to be a Kensai. So we do not have a ranged attack from him. Apparently with no armor, he was an easy target for Corwin. Next to go down was Flintstone. Oops. Flintborn. He appeared to be a Dwarf warrior. Believe it or not, we were able to get a Command to hit! So down he went. That left the Ranger. He was wasting his shots on the Skeleton and that was enough for yet another Corwin Pincushion.
Only then, the Mindflayer was coming out to play. The Skeleton was still alive -I mean- walking. So that was an easy kill as well.
Maybe SCS changes this.
Based on the reloads, the entire fight depends on setting up line of sight and lining up the doorway. Maybe next time we use the bigger room.
Finally, we had the Shadow Aspect. We were trying various strategies. I thought a combination of Greater Malison and Doom and Web would work, but it might be immune to Web - or walked across it so fast he did not need a saving throw. So we abandoned that strategy, because we found something that seemed to work.
We summoned four more monsters and blessed them, protecting them from fear, for whatever that was worth. We left time waiting at the doorway. We sent Safana in to solve the puzzle and open the door, then sneak back into the room. I wanted to have Glint spy for illusions, but did not get to experiment with that enough. Corwin and Minsc had Arrows of Piercing. We did not care that he could save 95% of the time. We just wanted to score hits. That thing is nearly immune to Fire, Electricity and Acid. It seems to be 99% resistance.
Corwin got the Boots of Speed, because she was opening this fight and had to back into the main room for safety. She actually opened with a 20 and disrupted the cast. She second shot did not happen, because it went invisible almost immediately. Still. We opened up with a 24 point hit. Corwin ran away and the Aspect chunked a Gnoll Elite with a huge Backstab. That was all we needed. For some reason, he was not going invisible anymore, but attacking our little monsters. Corwin struck again a couple more times, for another 12 and 19 points. Then Minsc robbed her of the kill.
It looks like this thing had AC-7. So it might have had the Blur. Or we might have disrupted it. Detect Illusion might have helped. It looked like Corwin just needed a 6 or better to hit, or 75% probability.
We might have 2 charges left on the wand of monster summoning. It used to be very powerful in BG1. It helped us out here.
Our party:
53391 Sam with 34 kills worth 25205
299779 Safana with 29 kills worth 24725
268644 Minsc with 73 kills worth 90595
268529 Dynaheir with 23 kills worth 24985
151347 Glint Eastwood with 17 kills worth 14100 - Go ahead. Make my day.
302639 Corwin with 68 kills worth 47200 - DING!
It is 3am now, so we should be resting. Tomorrow it looks like we have another battle with Hill Giants and a Green Dragon. We can choose the Green Dragon, or the treasure. I am thinking the experience is better.
After that, we will be finding out if we can save Khalid at Level 1. I am not sure what strategy will work for that, since I have not seen how the fight works. If he likes to charge into the action, we might do better to lead with 2 tanks and block the way with Web, so that he never gets into the action to start with.
Which way do we go? That Bag of Holding must be getting full and we should get some fresh supplies. So I think the Encampment might be better, but we will take a look.
Resources? We went out with 2x24 cases of Healing Potions and we are down to 5 bottles. We got smashed in there. We have several Extra Healing Potions, but we likely do not have enough to get through a dungeon like what we just did.
On the Green Dragon stuff - the lingering poison damage on the breath is pretty trivial. 6d6 instant damage (save for half) plus 3 damage over 6 seconds (save for none) for the juveniles and Ziatar. 10d6 instant damage (save for half) plus 5 damage over 10 seconds (save for none) for Morentherene. So, not much point to using that Slow Poison.
The killer here is for the EET players - a bug which lets the BG2 green dragon breath overwrite the SoD version because they use the same resource name. How do you feel about breath weapons dealing 24d6+12 instant damage (save for half) at this stage of the game?
The mind flayer party got two kills on my party when I took it on with no real planning. And since that party was only at about the pre-SoD cap in experience, I had to spend two Raise Dead scrolls to recover. Ouch. Though I'm better off on the healing potion front, because I have M'Khiin devoting most of her spell slots to healing (Cure Light Wounds, Cure Medium Wounds, Call Woodland Beings).
Some basic stats on the scariest monsters of this dungeon:
- Shadow Aspect: Level 12/12 fighter/thief, base AC -1 with 18 Dex. 60 HP, 90% resistant to elements, immune to magic and poison damage. All spells are unlimited, on recharge timers, and which spells are used depends on difficulty. Invisibility and blinding you are common themes. You really need repeatable anti-illusion power here; either True Seeing/True Sight or thief/shaman Detect Illusion.
- Neothelid: Level 16, 128 HP, AC 0, 45% magic resistance. But it likes to stay underground and cast psionic spells, so it can be a while before you actually get to hurt it.
- Ziatar: Level 9/9 fighter/cleric, wears +1 plate mail, 18 Dex, 75+36 HP. Immune to poison and has dragon breath in addition to cleric spells. Her weak point is that she's alone, and casting cleric spells while in melee combat doesn't work very well.
- Darskhelin: Level 8, 68 HP, AC 5, immune to elements, 90% magic resistance. Basically the same as a standard mind flayer.
From what I've heard, SCS doesn't change things in SoD much. Most of what SCS does is replace generic combat scripts with smarter ones, and lots of SoD creatures are already using customized scripts.
There are shops available inside Bridgefort (Jegg Hillcarver for weapons and armor, Frair Tajik for temple services and healing potions), so either direction you go will let you sell off junk and restock. On the dragon/loot choice ... 8K XP for the young green dragon. The loot cache is an ioun stone designed for thieves, three high-value gems, and 1000 gold.
Go indside its den unbuffed, and throw unenchanted throwing daggers at it. The dragon should go down… sounds weird, but it has been tested and done more than once
Go indside its den unbuffed, and throw unenchanted throwing daggers at it. The dragon should go down… sounds weird, but it has been tested and done more than once
I read about that! I'm not sure if I had a throwing dagger. It looked like a bug -I mean- feature. I thought our strategy was cheesy enough. I am sure it would not have worked on PnP. However, looking forward through the game, I do not believe there is much at all that would work on PnP. Mind you, I have very little experience with PnP.
Session 42 - Bridgefort under Siege
Day 101, Hour 11 - Rested
Hour 19 - Arrived at Boarskyr Bridge
As well as I understand this, the area is neutral until we trigger it hostile. So we went mostly that way. The Crusader Sergeant and a few guards were guarding the entrance. We told them we were looking for Kharm and they let us in, because we saved the patrol. We looked around a little bit and found Dorn. We freed him and told him we would meet him at the Flaming Fist Camp, where you will find three other half-orc irregulars. Here. Take this flagon of ale to them.
We are sure he will drink it on the way, as soon as we are out of sight. It is very strange he did not pick up his gear. There were a couple of trolls locked in, but we did not know how to free them.
We scouted the area around the fort. There were some groups of Hobgoblins and Goblin Worgriders. There was also a cave full of goblins. We blew them up the only way we knew how. Why have 20 of these guys shooting?
Glint got 17 in one shot with an Oil of Fiery Burning.
Arriving in Bridgefort, we talked to Khalid, who somehow became the Fort Commander. We found Glint's uncle the cobbler, and put him to work on the Boot and a Half of Speed. We identified a bunch of items as if we were not broke, but we still are. We upgraded a lot of weaponry to +2. So Minsc can dual-wield Mace +2. We have 2 of Flail +2 and 1 of Morning Star +2. We got a Halberd +2 for Corwin. We are down to about 9k, because the selling prices are not good and we saved our expensive gear for the next zone.
After this, the Stone of Darkness Level Drain hit. Three people died, so we took the bodies to the altars to be resurrected as Wights. Then we went out on a goose chase looking for a gold chain. We found it, on a trap full of Zombies and a single Wight. Then we made our way to the camp in search of that Red Wizard. We murdered him and took his scroll.
He reminded us too much of Edwin and we had the motive and the opportunity. There were lots of paths that result in him sounding the alarm and triggering the camp. The correct options were to threaten him into silence, or put him to sleep, or kill him. I am not sure this would have worked in SCS, because then he would spelltrigger a full arsenal of defenses, protection from normal weapons, protection from magical weapons, potion of magic blocking, immune to L1 to L5 spells. Call the camp and have 50 L9 Crusader Recruits land on the party.
We got back to the Fort and turned in the scroll. Then we entered the Temple and murdered Junia. Then we reported to Khalid and told him to wait for the sounds of battle. At L1, he will lead the charge against L9 Crusaders and die very quickly. Jaheira will find him and rez him. Again. She's probably used to it.
Our party:
68822 Sam with 37 kills worth 25785
315220 Safana with 31 kills worth24965
284082 Minsc with 79 kills worth 93575
283933 Dynaheir with 41 kills worth 25610
127869 Flint with 37 kills worth 15175
255732 Corwin with 86 kills worth 51940
The next session will be breaking the siege. Something I noticed is these Crusaders are very tough for common soldiers. I did not take detailed notes, but believe a lot of them have at least 50 hit points, based on a fire blast hitting for 24hp and they are still at 3/5 bars, which indicates more than half health. For comparison, an Average Joe L9 Fighter should have (10+8x5.5) 54 hit points. I sampled the bridge fight where Archers were hitting Minsc with a 16 at AC-5. So that indicates a Thaco of 11. They also seemed to go down quickly. It is kind of like, they leveled up the camp to be a challenge to a Level 9 party, instead of what would be expected from a military camp.
Or they want to make it feel more like World of Warcraft.
We will be returning to the Flaming Fist Encampment with the news. We will either tell them to move out with us or we will meet them there and we commence the battle when the defenders sally out. I believe the order of difficulty is:
Hardest - Attack with Bridgefort, because we start with the bosses.
Moderate - Attack with the Fist. This dooms Khalid.
Easy way out - Surrender the fort.
We will also decide what supplies we are buying. I lean towards Acid Arrows.
Day 102, Hour 2
We left off at the Flaming Fist Camp and Dynaheir needed a few more spells, so we started another study party and added to her spell list. She needed things like Stoneskin and Breach. It is strange we did not get to this sooner.
Day 102, Hour 10 - Rested - We head back to start the counterattack, but are once again distracted by....
A Young Green Damsel Dragon in Distress! We took out two Hill Giants, a trivial encounter and easy 6000 experience. We got a rich treasure trove and a Blood Red Ioun stone as a reward
Day 102, Hour 12 - Arrived at Bridgefort.
Since Khalid is Level 1 with 13 hit points and no gear and likes to lead the charge, he dies very easily. Eventually I found there is a way to keep him alive. First we parted ways with Safana.
You want me to..... What?! We will meet you at the camp.
We beefed Minsc up with a bunch of potions, then headed to the outside to find Khalid and had him join us. It is always scary at first.
We beefed him up to Level 9 and made him a Grandmaster of the Longsword. We got him a bunch of equipment, then fed him a Potion of Hill Giant Strength. Then we sallied out.
There was too much going on to properly write a story. We started in the back firing missiles, gradually moving Khalid and Minsc to a place to better face the Beghest. With the combination of two heavy melee and a Greater Malison and maybe a Blindness spell, we got him down. Meanwhile, we sent Corwin to deal with the Mages. There were probably three. She had the Boots of Speed and circled around for strategic shots with the Arrows of Detonation.
She might have hit a couple of allies with that, but otherwise wasted nearly the entire siege. We got our reputation gains from it, anyway. After that, it was the bridge. There was a mage setting up explosive barrels, then opening a portal to the Plane of Fire to set loose elementals to blow up the bridge.
We could shorten that process with a couple more Arrows of Detonation, but we did not. Unfortunately, Corwin with the Boots of Speed was way to far ahead of the rest of the group and took a lot of nasty shots. Dynaheir slowed everything down with a Web spell. We were able to kill the mage.
We went back inside and had some items crafted. Then with the help of a reload, we got our Boots of Speed.
Our party so far:
72592 Sam with 37 kills worth 25785
262505 Corwin with 110 kills worth 73485
290862 Minsc with 81 kills worth 94415
290752 Dynaheir with 41 kills worth 25610
131252 Glint with 37 kills worth 15175
254705 Khalid with 5 kills worth 5890
We have some companions with sidequests. Khalid has a sidequest and should be well able to replace Minsc as a tank, if we wanted. That frees up Dynaheir's mage slot and we can bring in Neera. That leaves room for one more. Safana also has a companion quest, so we might get back to her as well.
After that, it was the bridge. There was a mage setting up explosive barrels, then opening a portal to the Plane of Fire to set loose elementals to blow up the bridge.
We could shorten that process with a couple more Arrows of Detonation, but we did not.
That would have been a bad idea. You can hurt the barrels too. And it takes about one explosive arrow from Corwin to blow them up.
I went with a pair of Cloudkills instead. That spell is safe, because the barrels are immune to poison.
After that, it was the bridge. There was a mage setting up explosive barrels, then opening a portal to the Plane of Fire to set loose elementals to blow up the bridge.
We could shorten that process with a couple more Arrows of Detonation, but we did not.
That would have been a bad idea. You can hurt the barrels too. And it takes about one explosive arrow from Corwin to blow them up.
I went with a pair of Cloudkills instead. That spell is safe, because the barrels are immune to poison.
Yes - It was a combination of feeling the encounter out and several reloads, trying to figure out how to keep Khalid alive. I actually saw what happened when the barrels blow up.
Cloudkill - That might have been better. I guess it keeps the Mage interrupted and the portal does not open. The others will probably charge the party. (At least I assume they do, because at this level, we can't have anything under Level 5, or they die or go to sleep instantly. So Sleep and Color Spray have passed the point of being useful. Levels 5 and 6 are save or die and we can't have that. I guess we had a camp full of Level 7 soldiers.) I keep forgetting to use Cloudkill.
My goto seems to be Web. It looks like we can now get 4 characters immune to it, which is more than enough. One day we might try a Greater Malison Web Combo. I count a total of -8 if the spell came from Dynaheir, -10 with a Doom, -11 with a Called Shot. Opponents will probably start getting immune to web, but I was surprised with the Hill Giant.
There is one more path. That is to let the Mage open the portal. He opens a Portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire and you fight several waves of fire creatures. Fire Mephits and Salamanders, groups of 2 or 3. The party bugs out when the portal is opened.
Session 45 - The Warm Welcome of the Coalition
It was taking me a lot of time to get something going, because there seems to be quite a lot to unpack, and I am trying to not miss anything important.
Day 103, Hour 14
We left off giving Neera a Potion of Perception towards her quest. Then we retrieved Dorn's belongings. He was too lazy to retrieve them himself. Then we started on our 14 day march.
Day 117, Hour 14
We arrived, dinging Level 8 Mage. It's..... 160k more experience to go. That would be 960k for the group. I suppose if I wanted to powergame it, then we should have taken opportunities to go solo and gain experience faster. I think we will hit our experience cap just before the final stage of the game.
@jmerry - As for your game, you started with 64k experience instead of 161k or 164k. So that is another 100k to make up.
Minsc dinged Level 9 and picked up another point in Longbows. His options are Longbow, 2H Sword, or 2W Mace. I did not see a point in a third point in DW. It is a 2 bonus to the offhand roll. The point in 2H would be 2 in speed factor. The point in Longbows is +1 Hit and +2 Damage and a half attack.
At the camp, we got quite a list of things to do:
1. Helvdar the Dwarf lost his box of Lucky Charms.
2. Waizabh the Fence is looking for a few more lost prize items.
3. The Vigilant needs help training troops. We did an.... adequate job, with the help of 2 companions. CHECK.
4. Dosia is looking for a Cure for the Uncommon Cold. It turns out we only need to interview 2 out of 3 patients.
5. Khalid needs an Aquamarine. Had we known ahead of time, I would have kept on in our pack.
6. Kesi Goldenbuckler has gone AWAL.
7. Glint's cousin is causing problems and people want him killed.
8. Safana was relieving soldiers of excess baggage and discovered a spy and we had to find out who it was. CHECK.
9. Mizhena lost her amulet and we have to find it.
10. Stonehand wants us to shut down a Thieves Guild forming in the camp.
11. Finally Twoedge wants us to interview soldiers on why they are volunteering for the front.
This was interesting. It turns out that the dialogue is dependent on the Charisma of the Main Character, which is 4. The Nymph Cloak made it 6. A Potion of Persuasion made it 10. A Friends Spell from the Staff made it 16. We were in business!
We got a Medal of Valor for our trouble. That went to Khalid, of course!
Finally, it was time to open a trade route to the Elemental Plane of Air. We had a bunch of items saved up for this. We had one Gem Bag full of expensive gems and jewelry. The other two had some junk in it. Then we had a bunch of junk in the Bag of Holding that we will never use, such as +1 weapons.
Corwin has her 20 Charisma and we are shopping. There are so many interesting items we picked up so far:
Wizzard Hat for Dynaheir, since she is the better caster.
Clover Leaf - I think that will go to Corwin.
Another Free Action Ring - We have too many characters immune to Web.
A Ring of Purity - Probably gone to Minsc.
Amulet of Protection +2 - Always handy.
Bracers of AC 5 - Might still be handy.
A third pair of Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise. Competes with Sam and Bracers AC5.
Composite Longbow +2 - goes to Minsc
Sling +2 - Will either go to Sam or Dynaheir.
Sam might do well with Throwing Knives as well.
The Night's Embrace - Goes to Glint
Soft Feet - Also goes to Glint
More Potions of Persuasion, Agility, Clarity, Freedom
We still have 40kgp. Is there other stuff we can buy?
The Scrolls might be useful. We also have the option of selling off the scrolls we will never use. Potions, of course. Wands. We have a bunch of wands with not many charges. Our friend from the Elemental Plane of Air might be happy to recharge our wands for us!
Glint did not take skill in Clubs, but is the Backwhacker useful?
I dispensed with the party status. We need a lot of experience to get our Berserker skills back. We should finalize our party.
Minsc should be IN. We already have a +3 2H Sword, the World's Edge.
That means Dynaheir is IN. She is part of the package.
Khalid should be IN. We have a +3 Longsword.
Our other two +3 weapons are both Shortswords.
Based on this and unless I change my mind, we have 3/5 party members decided.
We have Corwin right now. She is way too useful and devastating with that bow. She can use a Shortsword if we have to, but it is not a great option. Hopefully we will have something that is +3.
We also have Glint. The other option is Safana. Glint has the advantage of covering our Clerical errors, so he covers 2 roles. Safana took a skill point in Crossbows and Darts and has the option of using a Shortsword, for what it is worth.
Edwin is OUT, because we chose Minsc and Dynaheir. This covers 7/14 of our Companions.
If we are going with no evil, that eliminates Dorn, Baelor, and Vicky. That's 10/14.
Neera is an interesting choice and has options in the quest chain worth some exp. We would be very heavy in casters, 3/6. It is also bad news in a caster heavy party with a known backstabber showing up to greet us shortly. If she replaces Minsc and Dynaheir, then we need a home for the 2H Sword +3.
M'kay the Goblin is also interesting. I'm told a funny character. I'm not sure how to optimize a shammy.
Jaheira is a solid choice and we have wide open options on how to build her. Finally Vicktor the Mighty, who has probably hooked up with Safana and Vicky both is also a very interesting choice. We don't need a +3 weapon for him. He just sings for us - and is another option for spells.
It looks like our path is Deadman's Pass, the Caverns, the Keep, then the Forest. Maybe we change up the order slightly.
It looks like we misnumbered the previous post and it should have been 44 instead of 45. Maybe my counting is off, anyway.
We did a little bit more shopping. Sam is experimenting with throwing daggers now. Strength bonus and 2 attacks per round. Drawback might be range and we have to be a bit closer, like darts. This is not that big a deal if we are running with some melee. They also take inventory slots instead of quiver slots, but that does not matter, because we can still carry bullets with the quiver slots.
Day 117, Hour 14 - Or maybe Hour 0
On the way to Dead Man's Pass, we found the perfect ambush point. The question, of course, is who is doing the ambushing? The Heir of Sarevok and Bhall? Or the Heir of Cyric?
3 Arrows of Detonation. 2 Oil of Fiery Burning. 1 Potion of Explosions. Shake and bake.
Who ordered extra crispy?
The AoE on those Arrows is amazing! It looks like Minsc managed to roll a 6 for damage to get a total of 15 points for the piercing damage. For some reason, that got applied to the entire AoE. Then the 6d6 fire got applied and it was save versus spells for half. Or save versus something. It is a nice counter to how every mob seems to carry healing potions and invisibility potions.
Day 118, Hour 0 - We arrived at Dead Man's Pass
We found those Ettins and they had gems, but they did not have an Aquamarine. This was very disappointing. Does it mean we cannot complete Khalid's quest? Does it mean we just did not look hard enough? I will check the walkthrough again and see if I missed it. Next time we will just carry an Aquamarine all the way through the game, similar to the Angel Skin Ring and the Sphene Gem in BG1.
The encounters are very dense. If I counted right, we picked up nearly 120k experience in this one zone. We had a variety of strategies to deal with them.
The Ettins mentioned above, we slowly pulled back for some space and made sure whoever they were pursuing had speed. Then we picked them off.
There was an Orog encounter in the south. That was taken care of with a Web Spell. Then we found there was an invisible Marauder caught in the web. So we cast an Invisibility Purge. So the encounter cost a L2 and L3 spell.
Then we went to the northwest and dealt with the Ogre Mage and gang. We knew they were there before because our scouting was good, but they were busy casting and going berserk, so we figured we would do something else (the Orogs) waiting for all that to wear off. We chose positions around the group. Corwin chose a spot to hit the Mage. Sam tried to line up a Lightning Bolt or two. Dynaheir dropped another Web. Minsc cleaned up.
Khalid is probably actually better for the same job. We have so many options!
There were two Displacer Beast packs, and also a wolf pack. Two groups of Spiders. A trapped bridge with a group of Hobgoblins guarding it. We accidentally started the encounter, so we had to deal with them a few at a time.
We found Nuber. He brought us good luck, because we remembered to check for stuff in tree trunks and found another item.
There were two groups including Hill Giants. The smaller group was 3. We made that encounter very simple with a simple Grease Spell. They could not move fast. We pelted them.
The larger group had 3 and a Leader and a couple of Dire Wolves. The Grease would have been better, but we kited a bit with our faster characters. Then we got a Blindness spell to hit the leader.
Finally we got to the Killer Mimic Cave. There was a group of Spiders, so we protected Minsc from Poison. Khalid was probably the better choice. I keep forgetting who our tank is now. It probably does not matter. Then exploring the cave further, we found a Killer Mimic, Olyugh, and some Ochre Jellies.
This is probably a good reason we have been stocking up on these Invisibility Potions. Let's get out of here and figure out a strategy. Let's pop a reload, try this again and figure out a better strategy.
We used a Skeleton, then had Corwin hide in shadows and have the Skeleton lure a couple of Ochre Jellies around the corner so we could beat them. Then we lured the other two. That left the Killer Mimic and the Slime Beast. We raised another Skeleton and sent it after the Killer Mimic. This was the only thing that could be taken out with ranger weapons. After that, we sent the Skeletons after the Slime Beast and the rest with Melee.
Khalid still took a nasty hit, but we were able to clear up the poison damage with an Elixir of Health and the disease effect did not seem to stick around that much longer. This was a better result than getting cursed before.
Finally, there was a cellar door we found leading to a cellar full of shadows and a couple of invisible Greater Shadows. We quickly got Minsc protected and fired our ranger weapons at Khalid's target to take it down faster. Then the Greater Shadows hit and Corwin got it a couple of times.
So she's down a bit of strength for the night. It's also 4 in the morning and we should be getting rest soon, anyway.
Here is our party:
114629 Sam with 14 kills worth 13945
310577 Corwin with 45 kills worth 38890
329921 Minsc with 27 kills worth 23765
329727 Dynaheir with 6 kills worth 5690
150761 Glint with 9 kills worth 5690
293710 Khalid with 14 kills worth 30210
So I count about 816k experience to go before we get our abilities back. This map was worth almost 120k. Maybe we have a shot at it by the end of the chapter.
Based on our location, we might be going to the Castle next. We will check.
There is not much action in this one. We returned to the refugee salesmen and bought a few Potions of Healing and a Potion of Insulation. All of this will come in handy. We carry 0 Healing Spells on our Cleric, after all. With so many Healing Potions, I see little point. (I think we have between 72 and 96, plus a case of Extra Healing Potions, and all doses of the Cup of Blood.)
Sure enough, we found Kesi Goldenbuckler fighting some Mercenaries. We sent her packing back to the camp. She had this bright idea of scouting the Castle up close. It was a good idea, but we could not give her credit for it. We had to steal it.
We snuck in right through the front gate. We had a Seal of Caelar, of course. Time would show that these are not a bright bunch. How do we hide the fact that we look like the gang on the Wanted Posters? The exact same gang at the Battle of Boarskyr Bridge?
Did we say they are not the brightest bunch? We stepped in on some kind of trial. Some poor fool, Corinth, was accused of betraying the Crusade by warning his hometown of the attack. They volunteered us to investigate the facts ourselves and cast the deciding vote. Do they normally do this to recruits?
We decided we would cause more havoc by finding him innocent. The penalty is death to the accuser. Talking to the accused afterwards, he decided he would abandon the Crusade at the next opportunity. Scratch 2 Crusaders.
Then we encountered Tristan the Priest of Red Knight. Even for his childhood friend, there is no convincing him to abandon the Crusade. However, we could challenge him to a game of chess for that Holy Symbol of his. Sam grew up in Candlekeep. He has been playing his entire life.
Then we had an encounter with Corwin's ex and we somehow convinced him that Corwin abandoned the Flaming Fist and joined the Crusade. For Lawful-A, we never imagined her bluff game would be on point. There will be a surprise waiting at the Camp. Scratch 4 more Crusaders as Beno leaves his ex again and joins the Fist.
After that, we ran more errands around the Keep and robbed everybody blind.
Khalid - Don't refer to the Crusaders as enemies when we are in disguise and at their base.
Khalid - For such a stutter, we did not imagine you had such a grasp on alternate multiverse theory!
Session 47 - The Underground River
Day 118, Hour 23 - Arrived at Dead Man's Pass
Day 119, Hour 7 - Rested
Hour 19 - Arrived at Underground River
First up was the Wyvern hunt. We had room to maneuver , so we played kite and shoot. We protected Khalid just in case. Next up was the Orc Ambush. There were 18 of them, so a combination of Fireball and Arrow of Detonation did the trick.
All we needed was to see those Raiders dead. We do not need to be backstabbed 3 to 6 times.
We found some Druids and helped them out. We found a band of humanoids and just paid the toll. For another 500exp, we could have just settled some kind of peace with them. I might end up needing those exp. Then we found a mushroom guy stinking up an outhouse. In another corner, we found some displacer beasts and they had Mizzy's Amulet.
Then we found an Ogre camp and settled a leadership dispute. Of course, we nominated Khalid to fight a couple of Ogres. With that victory, we put him in charge of the party as well.
Finally, we go to the Crusader Camp, guarded of course by some Crusaders and a Cyclops. The guide we were using said they attack no matter what we said, but apparently that was not the case. We had a Battle Standard and a Seal, both.
There was more for us to gain by wiping out the camp.
The Cyclops seems to be a ridiculously easy target. We got Khalid nearly immune to missile weapons and set up Web and we were set. After that, we ran into the Companion Quests for Minsc and Dynaheir. Stop their new friends from joining the Crusade.
Here is our party:
128528 Sam
307599 Khalid
343836 Minsc
343615 Dynaheir
315482 Corwin
About 121.5k experience to go, or 729k total. It looks like 4 zones left in Chapter 10.
Now we wonder why we were sent on this mission. They have the castle under siege and surrounded. It is still being supplied by an underground cavern. Why send us? Why not just attack the tunnel? This, of course, becomes much more obvious when we return to the castle before schedule. Bence is looking for us wondering why we are not doing what we are supposed to be. We are busy gathering exp.
Did we say these Crusaders were not the brightest bunch? We killed the guards to the Crusader encampment in front of the tunnel entrance. Then we killed the Crusaders inside the entrance. After a rest and a conversation with a couple of Ruskies, we entered the tunnel.
Ladle - What in the nine hells was that noise?
Sam - A squirrel. They can be deceptively noisy at night when there are no other noises out there.
Ladle - Damn Squirrels.
Minsc - It could have been a hamster. A giant miniature space hamster.
Ladle gave us a quest to move 20 sacks of grain from one end of the room to the other. They are blocked where they are right now and that is as far as they can move it. Then he had us move the grain back. It was pointless exercise, except we got a couple more potions and 12000 exp.
We found a few interesting creatures inside. A couple of Murlocs who just wanted to hear a story, so we told them a story. Oops. Wrong game. Then a traveling potion salesman and his pet mushroom.
Eventually we found a cave with a bunch of Shadows inside. When we cleared out the Shadows, a couple of Wraiths popped out of hiding and smacked Khalid with a Level Drain. We worked with this level drain for as long as we could get away and when we finally did, Khalid kept complaining about being tired.
Further in the cave, we found some dead adventurers and we could not talk them out of anything but a fight. I am guessing this was Charisma based.
We saw a couple of not-so-bright Crusader Patrols. They are on the lookout for intruders and keeping their people safe. When they were not looking, we took out Stunk the Wizard trying to capture Water Elementals. Then the Crusade Patrol walked back past us while we were hiding the body.
We found where to place the Bwoosh and killed an Etin Ghost on the way. Hopefully this does not trigger an ant storm. Circling back, it did not. We had to circle all the way back to the entrance and head the other way, encountering the Dark Druid and his minions.
While wiping out these minions, we encountered a Crusader patrol that was poisoned. So we went back to the Dark Druid for a cure. He charged us 2000gp for it. It was no matter. We were getting the gold back soon enough, anyway. With his usefulness outlived, we planted the Acorn and proceeded to kill him.
From here it was the Dragon Ghost rescue and the Fugue Plane. Forward scouting helped here, too. We sent Glint in to check out the Wizard Cabal and jump out before the True Sight spell had its effect. Then we sent Corwin and Minsc in the Arrows of Detonation to saturate the area and Kerrium did not survive very long.
After this, there was a trapped Lich to take out. We had one charge left in this gem with his name on it. For some reason, the Endless Watcher was not too pleased with us. It was no matter.
We had some Drow to report bad news to. We found their runaways and let them go. With the Crusaders at our side, we were able to dispatch them well enough. After that, we needed a way to enter the Warrens. Of course that was easy. Drop an explosive potion into the fire to see what happens, then sneak through the door while they are investigating the chaos.
Inside, we looted everything that was not locked down, and freed Slug and the Ogres. We should report back to him before leaving the zone to see if there is any more exp. Finally, we caught a ride into the Castle Basement.
It was guarded, of course - and we could not convince them that we had business. So we dropped a Web spell.
Confronting H and his mages, our solution was the same as always. It's a fireball and AoE shrapnel. It's a fantasy medieval RPG.
With our mission complete, everybody was nagging me to get us out of there. It was pretty clear we were going to have to fight our way out - or at least sneak. Even Minsc was yelling at us to get out.
The Ogres guarding the lift wondered what all that noise was up there and did not believe our story. (This is also Charisma related.) So we had to use our timewarp and find a better way out. The non reload solution of course would be just pop 6 potions of invisibility. Instead, a 10 foot invisibility solved our problem. We turned off the party AI and made our way to the front.
Then we did something crazy. Sam always does. Sam and Minsc. Dumm and Dummer. It's far enough out of here. We are in a good defensible spot to take them all.
Two Cloudkills guarding the stairs, plus one Web and 2 Skeletons. That will slow them down while we shoot them. There were still about 6 troops at the entrance where we were staying, but with the reinforcements slowed down, they were easily defeated. After that, we were able to slaughter the room in parts.
Back in the tunnels, the Patrol has not wised up to us. Finally we were busted on the way out, so we had to fight our way. One Crusader. Two Patrols. The entrance room. Finally we were out.
We talked to the Ruskies and the Druids. We still have to talk to the Ogres.
Session 49 - Desperate Counterattack on the Coalition Camp
We are supposed to return to the Coalition camp, but we are still distracted with side quests.
Day 120, Hour 18 - Rested
Day 121, Hour 2 - Arrived at Bloodbark Grove where we had a short shopping list
Belladona - Pick up for Neera - We found out later we did not need this anymore.
Bloodbark - Pick up for Dosie
There was a a ruined house with a cellar we explored, with a fledgling Vampire waiting for us. We did not want to mess with it too much, so we used our usual solution. Blow it up with Detonation Arrows.
Day 121, Hour 11 - Rested
Day 122, Hour 7 - Arrived at Coalition Camp
Apparently, the top brass is waiting for us at Dead Man's Pass for another Parley with Caelyn. So we sold off all our goodies and turned in what quests we can and headed that direction.
Parley went nowhere and suddenly they are attacking. This is very strange. If outnumbered in a siege, there is no reason to counterattack. What kind of fanatics are we dealing with?
Trolls we can understand. Not very bright. Fire is very bright. Fire is very bad. The archers kind of finished them off very quickly.
Round 2 was the Wizards. The Wizard Slayers took care of them fairly quickly.
Round 3 were foot soldiers. I was not sure what the best counter we had available for them. We took the Wizards. We webbed the place up.
Final round was an enemy party. We were still feeling lazy and took care of them with Detonation Arrows. (We still have way too many.)
Session 50 - The Final Assault
This was a lot of hacking and slashing. The safest was to hit things from a distance to avoid getting caught too far forward. We had to balance that, because we were so close in experience.
Finally we got busted by Ashatiel and she issued her one on one challenge. Come on. The idea is fun, but this is stupid. If we are winning the assault, why should we accept a one on one challenge. We are going to win anyway. We might save some loss of life, but all the loss of life will be on their side, because we are winning. The time for a one on one challenge is before the battle and not during. Second, we are about 6 arrows away from blowing up her party. Finally.....
We were about 1200 experience points away from hitting Level 10 and getting our Berserker skills back!
I really do not know how to fight as a Mage when completely unprepared for a duel. Where could we get our AC? 0 with Potion of Invulnerability. -4 with Dexterity. -6 with Ring of Protection. -9 with Elves Bane. -14 with Boots. Her melee weapon is hammer, so I guess that's Potion of Absorption, -16AC. What's her THACO? We might have some room to get some spells up. Maybe I load up to see if I can do this.
From a game point of view, there is no point. The siege ends when we kill her and there is no more loot dropping. It is not like it matters. So we declined the duel and blew up her party. She was able to warp to a safe spot. Her party was enough for us to gain our final level.
The next place we were going was Hell. Our Detonation Arrows are unlikely to be any good there. Where we are going next, we will not be able to take very much with us.
On the way to the gate, we ran into one of our old friends. This was posted because it was funny.
The final fight was a mess. We sided with Caelar. We should have let her tank more while we take care of the adds. We did not prepare properly. We should have had Glint in the Chainmail so we would be fear warded. Our charm protections fell off on the elevator. Sam did not have a decent weapon and I did not see him do damage with a Shortsword +3. We got it in the end.
Khalid with the killing blow to end the show.
It was finally over and there was much celebration. What was that thing Skie had for us? We better not be returning to Baldur's Gate. Her father will want our heads.
Hoodieman had a mission for us in Amn and already had Immy along for the ride. Who's in?
Minsc and Dynaheir, of course.
Khalid will go, and is bringing his wife, Jaheira.
Corwin is going back to Baldur's Gate with the Fist.
That leaves Glint, the Amazing Disappearing Gnome.
If you take the duel with Ashatiel, there's still one hostile party of crusaders to the north. And they're pretty tough. The rest of them are gone, though.
As for Ashatiel's rules, she's a bit of a hypocrite. She says no hiding or the deal's off; if you go invisible and stay that way for more than a few rounds, she ends the duel and it's a general fight. Actually, that's a "she sees you" check, so hitting her with a Blindness will also be treated as cheating.
Also, Ashatiel is fond of Sanctuary herself. Going invisible for a few rounds is forbidden, but hiding behind a Sanctuary for a few rounds to heal up is allowed. Well, at least tactical hiding is allowed for the stealthy types; if you reveal yourself after a round or two with a nasty sneak attack, you're fine.
Your final shot there ... you were better off than I was on fear protection. All I had was one arcane scroll, which I had used up earlier. When Caelar delivered the final blow, only my protagonist and Dynaheir were free of panic.
Wand of Paralyze seemed to work one time, but that seems too dependent on luck.
Potion of Defense. I thought we could get Invulnerability, but can't use it as a mage. Defense gets us our base armor class 0.
Potion of Magic Shielding. 3 Turns. 50% magic damage resistance. Automatic saves, but I read that it is implemented as a bonus of 20 to the roll, so a 1 still misses.
Potion of Absorption. So we are at -7AC with -8 to missile and -10 to crush. From here we have some room to cast spells.
Needed our Vocalize Necklace, because we were silenced for some reason.
Mirror Image in there somewhere. Probably should have used Blur. There were some defenses to take down.
Breach. Spell Thrust.
Tried Greater Malison / Paralyze combination. She did a save versus Wands at 0. So I do not know why it worked the first time.
Her AC appears to be -3. So at range, we needed 16 to hit.
Our Companions can't help, but apparently there are no limits on summoned help. So Wand of Monster Summoning. Apparently she's dumb enough to attack them. Mind you, 3 or 4 of them got summoned and they hit better than a mage. This seemed to buy the time we needed to try things.
Double Magic Missile Sequencer.
Scorcher from Fire Wand.
Potion of Fire Breath.
If we go Invisible during the duel, then she uses a Detect Invisibility to dispel it. If we go Invisible again, then she uses an Invisibility Purge. If we go Invisible a third time, then she declares the duel dishonored. This is always a relative term and we have seen our example from de Lancie of Waterdeep that victory has priority over everything.
On the other side, she can go Sanctuary and that does not count as hiding from sight. Somewhere, I read that Potion of Firebreath goes through Sanctuary for some reason, so that was what we did.
I'm still new at this magic dueling thing. As well as I understand it, the idea is to get as close to immune to physical and magical damage as possible. So we had the get hard to hit down reasonably, but not optimally. We did not get down to -20AC and we did not get down to them needing a 20 to hit. That leaves the criticals. Mirror Image will take care of a lot of them. Stoneskin will take care of the rest.
Eventually we get to put up some kind of counterthreat.
As a Cleric / Mage, she has a lot of spells and a lot of them were set up with the idea of a duel.
Resource-wise, I do not believe it was worth it.
Leading up to the duel, tactics-wise, I was playing my mages wrong. This was because we had a combination of tanks and melee destroying everything already.
So learning how to mage better still needs a lot of work. This will continue in BG2EE, because we now have a L9 Berserker Mage. Especially since all of our characters are starting at 500k experience, the initial dungeon should be very easy. My main character will not have any spells memorized, but he can still slap on some armor and bash things. We have Minsc and Jaheira as well.
I will need to take some decisions on what my BG2EE party build will be. I will also look up the experience point thresholds.
Experience Point Thresholds
The experience point thresholds add an interesting element to the game. If the character picked up is below a threshold and the main character is above, then the new character is leveled to the threshold. This adds a few interesting elements to characters that are available later in the game. Specifically:
We avoid a lot of picking up our team of characters at Level 1 that seemed popular in Original BG. For example, if we wanted to play with Minsc and Dynaheir, then we would do well to pick them up at Level 1 so that we can configure them the way we want, especially if we are playing max hp per level. Dynaheir is slightly less important as a Mage. We avoid a lot of picking up the party at Level 1.
We can pick up Coran, Faldorn, and Yeslick in Chapter 4 at 32k experience points. At Chapter 5, we get more options. So these characters start off at a higher level, but we have some room to improve them.
Alignment and Reputation
They changed the reputation reaction of Neutral characters so that it makes a little more sense. In Original BG, Neutral characters were never happy, and they were Unhappy when Reputation hit 19 or 20. Now they are happy at high reputation, which does not make a lot of sense, either. I understand Neutrals generally preferring to be in a party of Heroes, but maybe should have been Neutral at 19 or 20 and happy from 13 to 18 or something.
The issue I remember with unhappy Neutral characters is they might not rejoin the party if they were unhappy when they left. The effect of the change is Neutrals are easier to work with and we can more easily include them in the party.
Another impression I get is we can play a Neutral character, such as a Druid, and build up huge reputation if we wanted. It might not matter, but we might work better with Neutral and Good.
I do not see myself ever playing as Evil, being aligned with jmerry's Truth, Justice and the Paladin Way, but if we choose to work with Neutral characters, we can run up to 20 Reputation and still be CE.
The benefit of 20 Reputation, of course, is shop discounts and not being broke. It also looks like I completely forgot about dream sequences in this discussion.
Companions in Siege of Dragonspear
There is a penalty for working with Companions who are not in Siege of Dragonspear. The party is with you one more time for one more dungeon and then they move on. Their inventory slots get carried to the Trunk, but the items they are wearing are gone.
Imoen. She leaves the party, but transfers all of her stuff to her trunk, so we can recover what we want later. There is just the one dungeon we will not have access to it. If there is no other thief in the party, then I understand she is replaced by Safana. I could be wrong about the no other thief. If Safana is already in the party, then there is no replacement and we are left with a 5-toon group. We gain an advantage of 20% on the experience from the dungeon, but we have a net penalty, because we lost a character and inventory slots.
So I think the highest benefit is to have Imoen in the BG1EE Party, but not Safana. Then Imoen gets replaced by Safana. All of Imoen's items will be transferred to a trunk at the beginning of the game and Safana will join with a bunch of equipment of her own.
All characters in the initial party are moving on. Some of them we can pick up later in the game and we will regain access to their items when we pick them up. So we are rewarded for using them. So the party choices are:
(1) Imoen
Not Safana
(3) Khalid and Jaheira
(5) Minsc and Dynaheir
(6) Edwin, probably exclusive with Minsc and Dynaheir
(7) Viconia
(11) Neera, Rasaad, Dorn, Baeloth
The Thief option in the above list is either Imoen or Gore Ironsword, the MC. So we are penalized by dual-classing Imoen to match Imoen in BG2. We are rewarded for having her as a top level Thief in BG1. Here were my losses in the initial dungeon:
Imoen. 16 Bag Slots, 1 Paper Doll
Branwen. 1 Paper Doll
Coran. 1 Paper Doll
Safana - We kept and used
Neera - We kept, but never used or even picked up
So our losses were 16 Bag Slots and 3 Paper Dolls. We seem to be making a huge deal out of it, but each slot seems to be worth hundreds of gp in the early game.
Where is our Gold?
The game starts with at 0gp and a treasury note for the 80kgp or so we accumulated in BG1EE. We find out during the game the gold is effectively gone, so we would do well to enter the game with a minimum balance of gp.
We have a Gem Bag, so we would do well to keep valuable Gems in it. We can also transfer magic items.
Detonation Arrows and Amazing Items
These are amazing. We should be sure to accumulate as many of them as we can.
Dispel Arrows - I did not have much opportunity to test them effectively
Wands - I did not do well putting them to effective use.
Time Warps and Alternative Universes
In Original BG, the clock was ticking as soon as you opened your inventory. The idea was if you do not have your item ready, then it will be hard to go looking for it. When an Ogre is running you down is a very bad time to go looking for a weapon or a potion that will help you.
BG2 gave a little break. The game was still paused in inventory. However, it was not paused when looking through the Bag of Holding or Potion Case or Scroll Case. This becomes very apparent in.....
The Duel - NO interference from party members. Do you accept?
Sure. We just need a few things first, then we are ready.
Minsc. Potion of Defense, please.
Minsc. Potion of Magic Shielding, please.
Minsc. Potion of Absorption, please.
Minsc. Amulet of Whispers, please.
I might continue my list of observations later, but am more likely to keep going with BG2EE. It will start with Session 51. See you then!
If you take the duel with Ashatiel, there's still one hostile party of crusaders to the north. And they're pretty tough. The rest of them are gone, though.
As for Ashatiel's rules, she's a bit of a hypocrite. She says no hiding or the deal's off; if you go invisible and stay that way for more than a few rounds, she ends the duel and it's a general fight. Actually, that's a "she sees you" check, so hitting her with a Blindness will also be treated as cheating.
Also, Ashatiel is fond of Sanctuary herself. Going invisible for a few rounds is forbidden, but hiding behind a Sanctuary for a few rounds to heal up is allowed. Well, at least tactical hiding is allowed for the stealthy types; if you reveal yourself after a round or two with a nasty sneak attack, you're fine.
Your final shot there ... you were better off than I was on fear protection. All I had was one arcane scroll, which I had used up earlier. When Caelar delivered the final blow, only my protagonist and Dynaheir were free of panic.
This showed up while I was typing up some general observations of BG1EE and the transition to SoD.
First paragraph - Based on your wording, I cannot confirm it. I did not fight that party. I went to the other gate for Caelar's speech and then went inside. I knew the party was there based on the walkthrough, but did not go looking for it. Detonation Arrows were my solution to all problems. I came into the Assault with about 40 of them. It looks like I missed a few items, but no +3 items, and about 22k experience.
Second Paragraph - I have to read her challenge again, but she issues it as a one on one fight with no interference from party members. After this is accepted, she started adding terms to it that were not agreed to when the challenge was issued.
I just read it again. She issues the challenge. After it is accepted, the throws in all the terms. The correct response in my opinion is to turn around and refuse the challenge.
Hypocrisy of using Sanctuary - Well, the alternative is dying. We would do the same thing. If we are losing, then we just pop 3 Invisibility Potions and opt out of the fight.
Last paragraph - Your game started from a character rolled with 64k experience and a party with some items. So we already started with some unfair advantages.
Potion of Magic Shielding. 3 Turns. 50% magic damage resistance. Automatic saves, but I read that it is implemented as a bonus of 20 to the roll, so a 1 still misses.
There are no critical failures on saves in these games. If you boost your saves enough, that's a 100% success rate. I like using this against illithids in BG2. In practice, the only way a character under the influence of a magic shielding potion will fail a save is if they're level drained - that blocks the effect of save bonuses.
I do not see myself ever playing as Evil, being aligned with jmerry's Truth, Justice and the Paladin Way, but if we choose to work with Neutral characters, we can run up to 20 Reputation and still be CE.
My last run was an evil one - Dorn as protagonist. Even then, I usually floated around 6 to 8 reputation. Extreme low reputation is very inconvenient, even for the evil sort. Though I dropped down to "fight the law" territory a few times in that run, to see what it was like. And to farm the soldiers' full plate in BG2.
I've also done some mixed runs, carrying both good and evil characters in the same party - it's manageable, but does require occasionally doing bad things to lower your reputation. Until ToB, when all of the evil characters except Dorn stop caring about high reputation.
In the SoD run I just completed, I took a LN protagonist ... with mostly good companions, and good choices. Final reputation 18, including the -2 M'Khiin penalty and a church donation or two.
I'm taking the first part of BG2EE very slowly, because I enjoy the initial dungeon. For some reason, I like to take in every moment of it - It is something about rebuilding our party and characters from 0. We are most of the way through the ground floor.
Whenever acquiring a new character, I always forget to set the AI, because a lot of this is new to me. AI stands for Artificial Idiot, right? I don't find out until the character starts casting high powered spells to take out a single Goblin. So my caster is going to be out of spells in a few encounters.
Sam picked up an extra 38912 Experience from somewhere since the FInal Save from SoD. He started with 538912 Experience.
Imoen started with 540k experience. So while Sam and the Otter Chaos Gang was out there getting killed, Imoen was stuck in Baldur's Gate gaining even more experience. We rescued our other companions, MInsc and Jaheira and went into the Jailer Room to gear up as well as we could.
In the original game, characters were starting between 89k and 161k experience. Now we are starting with 500k, so this dungeon should be much easier.
Here is Minsc treating us to one of my many favorite lines of the game. It is going to be a good night.
We have one set of Splint Mail Armor and one Helmet. So we can only have one Tank. For now, this will be Minsc, because Sam is a caster at night, also wielding two crazy blades. Minsc has an option with Mace and Small Shield that does him no good against missile attacks. His other option is the 2H Sword. We took the skill point in 2H Style, so that he gets the extra critical.
There were no good weapons for Sam, so he will grab the Dagger +1 and the Katana. Compared to the Katana, it is sacrificing 2 points of Damage for 3 points of hit range. He probably does not need that much help in hit range, except the Goblins we might encounter are one-shot kills.
Imoen is using the Armor Spell. It is almost equivalent to the Studded Leather and she will be working as a caster where possible. For now, she gets a Short Sword.
Jaheira gets the Studded Leather and a Staff, but will be going Bear until needed as a Caster.
Our first test was the Smoke Mephit behind the Jailer. It did 5hp damage to Minsc and gave him a short Blind. It seems to last a round or two. It was an effective dead end with a door we could not open. So we went the other way out.
Our second test was a few Lightning Mephits. They were fun to kill until a Lightning Bolt went through all of us. Then we decided to stop and pass through the room, where we met our friend the Genie. He was nice enough to heal us before summoning an Ogre Mage which seemed to have no spells and was easy to kill.
After that was a group of Goblins. Two of them were armed with Bows and that means we now have a couple of Ranged weapons. MInsc is still tanking, so the logical choices for the bows was Imoen and Sam.
Gradually we get little upgrades for our group. In the tank room, we found a Quarterstaff +1 This went to Imoen, because Jaheira seemed to be doing fine in bear form. In the Sewage Golem room, we found the Longsword +1 and an unidentified Dagger. We are carefully saving our resources and will save the Identify Spell for when we need another magical item.
Our next stop was to find Rislev and there were more Goblins to kill on the way. This got us the Activation Stone we needed for the Sewage Golem, but we were in no hurry to open up the level, so we pressed further on. We also acquired a Sling and 8 Bullets in this room, which will make things much easier. Sam has some skill with Slings and the Goblins will be one-shot kills from range.
This is exactly what we were doing on the way to the library. In the Library, we found an Amplifier Amulet, good for an extra M2 Spell when we get out of this dungeon. We also picked up an Oil of Speed. Slowly we are acquiring resources that will be used to get out of this place.
Finally, Jaheira popped out of Bear Form to use her CSW and heal up a little bit. We were preparing for the big fight against the Druegar. I have not so fond memories of this room. I believe it was because before we were charging in there against a Mage and 4 Crossbows and no armor, wondering why we were getting smoked. Sam put up a Shield spell for some protection against that, and a Stoneskin for even more protection.
We had room to prepare and we did. On starting the encounter, we launched, Entangle, Grease, and Stinking Cloud. Whatever was in there was not getting to us fast.
We were able to dispatch the rest of the party at the cost of a couple of saving throws. Minsc took a hit from Illych. There was lots of stuff in the room. An interesting prize was a set of Throwing Daggers. Not only are the Goblins still one-shot kills, but we are now getting 2 attacks per round and we get to kill them faster!
We explored as far into the dungeon as we could without activating the Sewage Golem. We cannot enter the Air Plane and we do not have enough gear to fight the Cambion.
Something I noticed - The Shield spell did not last nearly as long as I thought. I thought the description said one hour, but it only seemed good for the one fight with the Druegar. I will read the description again.
In the Sewage Room, there was another big fight waiting for us. We decided to prepare for it by summoning 2 Rabid Dogs. (This seems so underwhelming for a M3 spell.) It did the trick. We were able to get in to the room and kill the beast. The dogs actually survived the fight. We had a bad memory from a similar beast in Siege of Dragonspear in the Mimic Cave. So I thought this was going to be some kind of boss fight for the level.
We also found a second set of splint mail, a Helm of Infravision, and an Oil of Speed. On the way to the better half of the dungeon, we found some Arrows of Biting on a Goblin.
After meeting the Dryads and entering the royal suite bedroom, we were finally busted. The Golem Force was on its way. They were not very bright. We killed one while the other ran into the bedroom to investigate who caused the commotion. Then we killed it on the way back through the Dryad room. It was almost like he was ignoring us to investigate the room. Nobody was in there, so he was on his way back.
We obtained the Air Elemental Statue, so could enter the Air Plane. We did. We took out a bunch more Mephits and talked to our friend the Genie. In SoD, he was having such a good time on the Prime Plane. Now he has a little problem. Hoodieman captured him and trapped him on this mini Airplane. So we went back to the Dryads and retrieved his bottle and got the Sword of Chaos in exchange.
Finally we are ready to attack the Cambion. Everybody has a magical weapon. We used our identify spell to identify the Grave Binder Dagger +2.
If you think this is a good idea. So many things we do come back to haunt us.
This finishes the first level. We had a little study party for Imoen, because she was going away. Here is where we forgot about the 15% penalty for all schools being considered opposition schools for dual-class mages. We went 4/10 on spells for 10k out of 20k experience, slightly below average. We will not be seeing Immy in a while and none of the spells were important, so figured we might as well try to grab a bit more experience.
Hindsight says we could have waited for a potion somewhere outside and get the full 20k experience. It is not that big a deal.
On the second level is Yoshimo, who joined us - and here is a good place to break. Here is our party:
316105 Sam with 34 kills worth 6330 - He was picking off a lot of the Goblins
525675 Minsc with 18 kills worth 11870 - He got the kill on the Cambion
527191 Imoen with 6 kills worth 2520 - and taking the MVP Thief slot
261980 Jaheira with 11 kills worth 3400
500000 Yoshimo who we just met - and in other news might meet again on Saturday!
Imoen started with 540k experience. So while Sam and the Otter Chaos Gang was out there getting killed, Imoen was stuck in Baldur's Gate gaining even more experience.
That's the joining triggers for you. Protagonist has 500K total XP, so give the new character 500K in their current class. It's always a bit wonky with dual classes involved.
This finishes the first level. We had a little study party for Imoen, because she was going away. Here is where we forgot about the 15% penalty for all schools being considered opposition schools for dual-class mages. We went 4/10 on spells for 10k out of 20k experience, slightly below average. We will not be seeing Immy in a while and none of the spells were important, so figured we might as well try to grab a bit more experience.
The penalty isn't for dual-class mages in general; it's for mages and bards that have anything other than the "base class" kit. Imoen has a null kit, so she gets the penalty erroneously. And really, it's a bug that the penalty applies to anything other than specialist mages; the whole thing looks to be code copied from original BG1 that became a problem when the kit system was expanded.
In Imoen's case, it's actually fixable by editing her kit. Most other instances you might run into (such as your protagonist with a warrior kit, or Haer'Dalis the Blade, or Neera the Wild Mage) aren't fixable short of a new patch for the game.
Though you definitely had some bad luck there. I pretty much always save the starting dungeon's scrolls for later.
The penalty isn't for dual-class mages in general; it's for mages and bards that have anything other than the "base class" kit. Imoen has a null kit, so she gets the penalty erroneously. And really, it's a bug that the penalty applies to anything other than specialist mages; the whole thing looks to be code copied from original BG1 that became a problem when the kit system was expanded.
In Imoen's case, it's actually fixable by editing her kit. Most other instances you might run into (such as your protagonist with a warrior kit, or Haer'Dalis the Blade, or Neera the Wild Mage) aren't fixable short of a new patch for the game.
Though you definitely had some bad luck there. I pretty much always save the starting dungeon's scrolls for later.
You explained the penalty to me and after this happened, I remembered - and then decided it was not as terrible as I first thought. I just worked it out on Excel - 17% probability of getting 4 or fewer, like rolling a 1 on a six-sided die. Or getting 4 out of 10 is like rolling a 2 or a 3 on a 20 sided die. It happens often enough.
In contrast, at 75%, the probability of getting 4 or fewer is about 2%. This will be a very difficult concept for me to explain, but somewhere between 17% and 2% is where I get suspicious of the rng or whoever is rolling the dice. This magic number is probably very close to 2%, because that coincides with 2 standard deviations below the mean.
If I saved the scrolls, then I would have had to drop close to 10 inventory slots, which are probably worth about 5gp each. So we gained about 50gp and lost about 1000gp. So I have to agree with the last part. It was a bad trade. It is no big deal. We will recover.
Session 52 - The Escape
Last night, we were experimenting with Yoshimo, because I wanted to confirm that he could still backstab with that Katana of his - and it turns out that he can. With that in mind, we invested his skill point in Crossbows, because I like to have one character who can use Crossbows and benefit from bolts that drop. The thief skill points were invested in stealth.
As a Bounty Hunter, traps are probably a better choice, especially if we do a lot of luring enemies. I understand traps are another great way to cheese the game - and it looks like we will not be doing very much of that.
It is a very minor issue, anyway, because Yoshi is a temporary character.
I will also have to see how some of these scenarios play out, before I finalize my strategies.
The experimenting did show how bad the next room can get if we don't get those Mephits under control. Luring them into the next room is a bad strategy. Also the Radiant ones are very annoying. We do not want half our party knocked out from a well aimed Color Spray.
So we went into the Mephit Portal Pit and started killing Mephits. We made Sammy Berserk to be immune to the Color Spray for a short while. We took our sweet time killing off the portals, but Minsc was getting cooked by all that fire damage. It looks like we took out about 13 of them in total by the time we got all the portals.
We used a total of 3 Healing Potions and 3 Extra Healing Potions to recover from that mess. So we took approximately 108 points of damage from that mess. Next time we take out the Portals quicker. In terms of Healing potions, I call this a 900gp mistake.
However, we did not bother to reload. We made about 2000gp worth of mistakes and did not bother to reload.
Day 0, Hour 15 - This time is marked, because this is where Jaheira delivers one of the more poignant moments of the game. Khalid is gone for good. We can also count the number of hours she mourns.
Next was the clone room. With Yoshi's experiment mentioned above, we knew what was coming. (In the experiment we backstabbed the Assassin, then ran back to the party. A Lightning Bolt ripped through the walls, hit Yoshi twice and the party once.) That makes it an easy decision. We force-attacked the clone and still claimed 1250xp. Then the Assassin went hostile.
We made our way to the Throne Room with all the traps. For some reason, the trap detection was not working for the first two, but we already knew where the pedestals were. So we cleared out half the room, then rescued Finneagan the Doppleganger. Then we cleared out the rest of the Throne Room, then went to attack the Vampire.
I always forget how the timer works. It looks like he follows the closest party member. Maybe he waits for a fight. Maybe he waits for a dangerous fight. He chose the Vampire fight to strike.
This would make for a very interesting 4-way cluster. We have in this fight:
3 Assassins from the Thieves guild, 1 Mage and 2 Rogues. They are Fighting
1 Vampire. They were getting killed by the Vampire when
The Party - walked in. The party was followed by
Finneagan who suddenly turned into a Greater Doppleganger.
If the AI was smarter, Finneagan would have simply gone after the range group and force them to run around, while the Rogues decide who is going to win between Dumm and Dummer and the Vampire.
With the Doppleganger going after Dumm and Dummer, it was much easier. The Mage was the next target, then the Doppleganger.
I did not check the combat log that closely, but the Greater Doppleganger seemed to be nerfed in this dungeon. Minsc took one hit and I saw quite a few misses. His AC is 1 or 2. I remember in Durlag Sam getting smoked unless he was at -10. Those Dopplegangers also cast haste on themselves and that makes a difference as well.
With those out of the way, and the Forge cleared, we had one encounter between ourselves and daylight - assuming it was still daylight. We were really taking our time in this dungeon! (Carefully looking for traps in spite of reading a walkthrough will do this. The combination of Durlag and the Thieves Maze taught this, but it kills time sensitive items.)
It was a Mage that was visible, and two hidden Thieves. They popped out of shadows to fire arrows at Imoen, who was still protected by Stoneskin. They were very quickly dead.
We leave off just short of the entrance. Our party:
326673 Sam with 61 kills worth 33185 including Ulvaryl for 8000
536244 Minsc with 26 kills worth 16415 including Cambion for 6000
537759 Imoen with 8 kills worth 7940 including Portal for 5000
267264 Jaheira with 19 kills worth 10800 including Portal for 5000
510568 Yoshi with 1 kill worth 420, a Salt Mephit
We have some resources.
14/26 Healing Potions
14/17 Extra Healing Potions
4/4 Elixir of Health
3/3 Oil of Speed
1/1 Potion of Master Thievery
Some magical weapons:
Longtooth +2
Sword of Chaos +2
Bastard Sword +1, Longsword +1, Dagger +1
Some +1 ammo, bullets, arrows, bolts
A collection of scrolls
Some gems and jewelry
Some scrap bows and armor and stuff
We also have 6 wands with a single charge each, as soon as we can identify them.
We will emerge in Waukeen's Promenade. Is there a place where we can sell our ill-gotten gains for 50% instead of 30%? All I see is 30%. If not, we might look around regular places and see what we find - and save up our expensive items.
For shortbows, it's not a big deal. We can sell 12 of them at 9gp instead of 15gp and lose 72gp, which is not that big a deal considering the magnitude of errors we already made. I have a sense that 30% is the normal everywhere in the City of Coin.
It also looks like the pricing varies from shop to shop, so we will be shopping around a bit. The measure I typically take is the Composite Longbow. It has a base value of 100 and that is an easy number to remember. A normal shop charges my Orc-Charisma Main 150gp. In BG1, that item would sell for 50gp if there were none in the shop. I never sat down to figure out how value depreciation works.
It's a short session, because I'm tired and might be coming down with something. Tomorrow we might look around the Promenade and maybe get into the Circus Tent. Saturday might be occupied for the day - It depends on how I am feeling that day.
A big explosion, another hole in the space-time multiverse, and we emerge in another time and place.
A battle is still going strong, with Jon Irenicus blowing up Shadow Thieves, suddenly interrupted by the Cowled Wizard Storm Troopers (Their spells never seemed to land.) declaring it an unsanctioned use of magical energy and declaring the disturbance over.
Why we did not use the battle to gtfo, we do not know. That trick worked against Sarevok in BG1 and we were able to evade him for many days and all he did was send low-level minions after us. However, we are in a different time and place.
There was no magical disturbance here.
What are you talking about? There is a big hole in Waukeen's Promenade.
These are not the mages you are looking for.
We just scryed the entire disturbance.
Mind trick does not work on these people or in this time and place. In the end Irenicus agreed to go with them willingly and yoinked Immy on the way. When dealing with the local police, he did not want to have them streaming in one squad at a time. That will take all day. Better to just go to their base and destroy them all there. It is easier to find this base when they are taking you there. As a bonus, he gets a new hideout after he is done with them.
This leaves four of us in a big, dusty hole in Waukeen's Promenade in the City of Coin. Minsc and Jaheira expressed their desire for revenge, so from an RP point of view, they should be in the party in the final battle. Yoshimo gets replaced by Imoen. We might change minds later as the field gets more crowded.
The first thing to do is sell our swag. For RP, at first, we will play barter. Shopkeepers are usually in the business to sell items. Buying items that will just sit on shelves is just bad for cash flow. Barter is okay. Their shelves see one item get replaced by several items. Nobody is going to touch our stuff while wandering around in a crowded city - so we left some of the party staying back to watch it all. We put it in neat little piles on a blanket as if we were trying to sell it.
We found the Bookkeeper (160/30) and obtained a Scroll Case for a Pearl Necklace, Skydrop Gem and Sunstone Gem. That was not quite enough, so we made up the balance with a Silver Ring. Similarly we visited Maher the Rasheman Weaponsmith and obtained a Sling +1 for 13 Shortbows and 3 Scimitars. This lightened up our load well enough we could freely move around the city.
Of course, this took us to Riebald Barterman in the Advernturers Mart. We obtained a Gem Bag for 4 Composite Longbows, 2 Crossbows, 1 Longbow, 2 2-Handed Swords, 6 Longswords, 4 Leather Armor and made up the difference with an Andar Gem and Bluestone Necklace. There are some very interesting items in this shop at very interesting prices. Eventually we will come back for another Scroll Case.
We have fixed most of our inventory problems for now. Hindsight says we could have saved a little bit by having Jaheira in charge as the resident Amish person and claiming a 5% discount. We could have saved about 33gp.
We paid the Weaponsmith another visit and obtained 8 Poisoned Throwing Daggers for an Agni Mani Necklace. We might have done well to wait a little bit, but it is really no big deal. Maybe we could have saved another 4gp.
Our next stop was that big circus tent. Nobody is going in. Nobody is going out. We talked to an animal trainer on the way. He was the last person seen to leave the tent. The city guard did not want to investigate. It is easier to send in newcomers to see what happens.
Watch as I make myself disappear! We met our friend the Genie at a bridge just inside. He had a riddle for us, which we solved. It is easiest when we have heard the riddle before. (We are from Candlekeep and the Monks play these games all the time.)
Failing that, we give the Genie a lecture on what we learned when Al Gebra was visiting in Candlekeep. Maybe he will be kind enough to conjure up a whiteboard and a couple of markers. Imagine a 2x3 matrix, representing the Prince and the Princess, Past, Present, and Future. Simplest for me is to represent Y as the age of the Princess, and D as the age Difference. So D/2 years in the past, the Prince was Y-1.5D years old. Twice that is 2Y-3D, the age of Princess Future. That means the age of Prince Future is 2Y-4D years. This is the same as Princess Present, Y. So this scenario works when Y is equal to 4D - or the Prince is 75% of the age of the Princess. (We can work this out with X and Y - and it is much easier at 10:45am than at 11:45pm.)
This would be a bugger to figure out mentally in a short period of time. These people in the past must have been very smart! They probably played games like this to build on the working memory. It might be similar to learning how to write and not having to remember so much, because you can write it down.
Circling the tent, we found 4 Illusionary Werewolves and 3 Real Shadows. Sam got hit a couple of times, so we waited for the effects to wear off. It appears to be for a single Turn, or one minute of game time, or 60 swings of that clock pendulum.
The Yoshimo Backstab is nice when it hits.
Then we rescued Aerie the Wingless Winged Ogre. If we ever said it was going to happen when Ogres fly, then now is the time and here is the place. Well maybe not, because this is a Wingless Winged Ogre. Aerie jumped from C6M6 to C9M10 with 500k experience. We are going to cook this place!
There was another level with some illusionary werewolves and real shadows. We killed those and waited for the shadow strength to wear off, blessed up a bit, and entered the boss level.
That got Sam to M11. We will have to fix his spells later, before we rest for the day. We had just barely enough Lore to identify the Wand of Monster Summoning. We still have 7 items to identify. A ring to raise Charisma from 4 to 18 is nice.
We paid our Rasheman Weaponsmith one more visit and obtained the rest of his Poison Daggers for 3 Flails and 3gp. We are left with 2120gp. With this, we left for the slums.
Immediately on entering the Slums, we are greeted by a representative of the Shadow Thieves who took us to his hideout. How did we know this was not a trap? Well we asked and he was very open about their motives, which is profit. What information do they have on us? We seem to be much more powerful and resourceful than what is reflected by our current loot. We are carrying 2120gp, but they want 20k to help rescue Imoen.
Besides. In a different time and place and universe, we worked with the Shadow Thieves in Baldur's Gate.
They gave us a couple of leads on jobs. There is Nalia in the Copper Coronet and somebody from the Cowled Wizards in the Government District.
Here is our party:
377728 Sam with 65 kills worth 37135
587299 Minsc with 32 kills worth 16835
292791 Jaheira with 21 kills worth 11640
561621 Yoshimo with 5 kills worth 1680
253126 Aerie who is new
We opted for a walk to the Copper Coronet. There are probably more jobs there.
The Shadow Thief Fence had Goggles of Identification available. I used to love that item, but feel a bit more meh about it. It's a little over 2000gp. We get to identify 3 items per day. So our yield is 300gp. So it will take about a week to see a profit with it.
Normally we pick up Nalia and clean up the Copper Coronet, and then do her quest. A quick look forward indicates we have Clara's quest for Hexxat, which might be interesting. I think.....
We pick up Anomen and Nalia. They are alignment compatible. We leave behind Yoshimo, because we worked together leaving Irenicus Dungeon and now he is free.
Gear. We need to rebuild our gear. Cleaning up the Copper Coronet will eventually get us Lilacor, the Idiot Intelligent Sword. Soon it will be Minsc and Boo and Lilacor. Nalia's quest, of course, gives us the Flail of Ages - and we have somebody who can use it perfectly!
This is one rough bar in the Slums. As soon as we walked in, somebody was already looking for a fight. Between Dumm and Dummer, somebody was going to get baited into a fight. It was Dumm.
The bar quieted down a bit. It is normally a prank for people new to the area who do not know better than to walk away from a fight. Every so often, somebody gets reeled into a fight and the bar gets a few moments of entertainment as the newcomer gets beat into a pulp. The pit champion was soundly defeated. There were still some who wanted to talk to us.
Anomen - We have seen you in battle and you are indeed a force. Now tell me. Are you a force for good or evil? We had Minsc to answer that question for us and with that, we had Anomen in the party. Anomen is F7C10.
Korgan - bah
Nalia - You look like you obviously had formal training. Are you for hire? With that, we parted way with Yoshimo. Perhaps a rest is in order. He will wait for us in the Copper Coronet. He returned our gem bag, but unfortunately he took the Potion of Master Thievery and that is a minor setback. Nalia is T4M11 with 60 in Open Locks and 80 in Find Traps and will probably need every potion she can get.
Clara Hexxat - We were not clear on what she wanted. She wanted to go on a trip to the graveyard. She seemed like she was on a trip already.
Lord Jierdan - He is offering us 10kg to clear out some orc raiders near his castle in Windspear Hills. This is an amazing sum, but Nalia warns us he is brutal and cannot imagine him being protective of his people. Speaking of Nalia, she wants us to clear invaders around her keep, but for some reason is very quiet about what these invaders are. How do we prepare our gear and spells if we do not tell us.
Garron - It is 10am and he is already wasted. After a fightsh like that, ye schould talk to Lehtinan over there and ask about, hehe, special entertainment. (Other Drunks) Hey, he's still new here. Maybe telling him is not a good idea. So for 1gp we bought him a drink and another 5gp to make sure he forgetsh the convershation.
Lehtinan - (Jaheira) A thoroughly despicable man - and a equally despicable place.
Madam Nin - Are you interested in.....
Aerie - No. No he isn't.
We saw a fight between a troll and an adventurer slave who did not want to fight. It lasted surprisingly long. With that, we decided to visit the restricted area and meet these fighters backstage. This started a fight with the guards.
Hendak - You there! You are obviously not aligned with our captors. (We killed 5 guards. What was his first clue?)
Wasn't there another route to Hendak - Like Lehtinan sending us to rough him up - and Hendak asking us to free him? My memory is now fuzzy on this.
Fortunately, the next direction is to animal cages on the other side of the Arena. On the way there, we got to treat the fans to a Winter Wolf kill. It would have been even better if we baited the Beastmaster's Beasts out into the Arena for some spectacular action.
We were able to do this fight in 4 stages. We took a couple of Mutated Gibberlings and a Panther at the start. For some reason, the Beastmaster was busy. Maybe he was opening cages. He and his pet were not in the first fight. The second stage was the Beastmaster and Tabitha. Third stage was a couple of bears. The fourth stage was the Minotaur. I thought we were going to have to fight all of these at once.
As a prize, Nalia gets the Tuigan Bow +1.
The crowds are still cheering for us! This might be providing cover for what is really going on. Big spectacles get set up in this Arena. There is a long pause in the action and sounds of a brawl in the Gladiator Chambers. Suddenly a group of six adventurers emerge to face...... a Winter Wolf. This is much more exciting than watching a Troll eat someone who does not want to fight. These adventurers DO want to fight! The crowd cheers!
The announcer is struggling to keep up. This is completely off the script. What is he supposed to say to keep up with the action?
The fight with the Winter Wolf is over very quickly, but that does not mean the Adventurers are done. Oh, no! They want more phat lewts! It is into the Animal Chambers they go. Are they smart enough to bring them into the open Arena so we can all see them? Let's see what comes out. A couple of Mutated Gibberlings! A Panther! A couple of Bears! Uh, oh. It looks like the Beastmaster is not pleased with this. He's coming out with his pet Tabitha. Are we done yet? Oh, no! We have a Minotaur! These adventurers are unstoppable!
Give them a big round of applause as they return to their quarters. Wait. What's this? There is more? The legendary Hendak is joining the action? Wait. Something is wrong.
Something interesting in my notes. We picked up a Sphere of Chaos spell - from a guard? Why didn't stuff like this happen in BG1?
Hendak sent us on a mission to clear out the rest of the slavers in their compound in the Slums not to far from here. We will investigate the secret passage into the Sewers next.
He took over the shop. The good news is we get an amazing discount rate. I am guessing we get a rate as if we are Reputation 20, but we shall see. We are buying at 85 and selling at 30. The bad news is we missed on the scroll case. So for next time we might take a note of what items are no longer for sale when Hendak takes over the shop.
We traded a bunch of our loot for 40 Acid Arrows. We will need them in the slaver compound and for those monsters Nalia won't talk to us about. Maybe she quietly suggested we obtain some Acid Arrows.
Session 55 - The Riddle of the Sewers
We tried Minsc in stealth and the opening was a bit of a mess. Nalia aggroed a group of Hobgoblins and that attracted an Olyugh form the other direction. We had Sam holding off the Hobgoblins in one direction and that left Jaheira up against the Olyugh. Minsc was in light armor and not much use until later. We had some new characters with useless spells to unload. So we had Nalia come back and drop a Color Spray on the Hobgoblins and see what happens.
The fight cost Jaheira an Elixir of Health. Further to the south, where the Olyugh came from, there was an Ochre Jelly and a Mustard Jelly. We were able to bait out the Ochre. Then we could charge in at the Mustard Jelly. Sam got hit once by it, so he was affected by Slow for quite a while. We rolled with it.
There was a group of Kobolds and a Shaman. They did not aggro, so we were able to force attack the group. Exploring further, Nalia aggroed another group of Hobgoblins. Run back to the main group and try to take him out solo. That did not work. The rest of the group showed up. Color Spray. Only one went down. For some reason, it's the Hobgoblin Shaman I'm worried most about, because of the spells, even though he is only worth 35exp. The Elite probably has poison arrows and that might be a problem as well. The group went down.
We also found ourselves down to 8 Healing Potions. We still have a bunch of Extra Healing Potions, about 12. The inventory of Healing Potions is how we gauge our progress.
In the end, we had the sewer pipes and a riddle, and a strange man and his carrion crawler friend to provide clues. So we solved the riddle and used an Identify Spell on Lilacor the Idiot Intelligent 2H Sword +3.
With this, we were equipped to take out the Mycanoid colony and head back to the Copper Coronet with our swag. We traded it for 3 Healing Potions and a Blindness Scroll.
Session 56 - The Slaver Compound
The back door seems to be the worst place to enter the Slaver Compound. We step in surrounded. We did know what was coming, so we prepared.
Aerie got Protection from Normal Missiles. That is unlikely to do any good, because we will be facing Arrows +1.
Nalia put Strength on Jaheira.
Aerie put Protection from Evil on Minsc.
Nalia cast Polymorph Self.
Sam cast DUHM.
Between the Captain and Archer, Minsc we getting butchered. We could only help him a little bit, because there was a Priest of Cyric we wanted to take out. We were probably supposed to cast a round of spells first. Nalia's morph to Mustard Jelly seemed to do not much at all. I did not see any attacks come from her for some reason. A Charm spell from Jaheira did not work. We probably should have used Sam's Charm on one of the bad guys as well. Eventually, it was a Hold Person spell that ended the Captain and allowed Minsc to win his side of the fight.
The next room had a Troll. Didn't Nalia have such incredible foresight to bring Acid Arrows? Wait. Where did we see a Troll before. That's right. That was the troll eating the Adventurer when we started cleaning out the Copper Coronet.
Reputation 13. We freed 3 child slaves.
There was one more room full of slaver guards and wizards. The combination of stinking Cloud and Web made it easier. We might look up saving throws in general. The Slaver Mage has to make a save versus spells at -2 or be Webbed and helpless. Then he has to make a save versus poison at +2 or go unconscious.
Finally, outside in the Slums on the way to the Copper Coronet, we were confronted by Cohrvale and Bregg who picked a fight with us without delivering a fight. It was a very easy 10kexp.
Here is our party:
458319 Sam with 25 kills worth 19910
667886 Minsc with 20 kills worth 17605
333078 Jaheira with 11 kills worth 5962
293408 Aerie with 1 kill worth 7
578285 Anomen with 10 kills worth 6402
578272 Nalia with 7 kills worth 5797
We have the trip to Nalia's Castle to prepare for. We might need more Acid Arrows. 39 might be enough. We need healing potions. We have been going through them. We have to prepare spells - We have been since the very start of the game without a proper rest and refresh of spells. Our gear is still lacking, but we will see what upgrades we can get.
Plate Mail and Splint Mail - This is as good as we will get for a while. We also have Chainmail +1 and Chainmail +2. It is not likely we can afford Full Plate for a while.
Minsc has Composite Longbow +1 and 2H Sword +3.
Sam has basic gear. We also have basic decisions to make on whether to Mage or Tank. If we go with Tank, then we can load up with Identify spells, because we will not be casting M1 spells in combat. I do not yet know if Sequencer works with armor on. It would be very interesting if it did. We can also experiment with tanking spells, followed by putting on armor.
Jaheira has Quarterstaff +1 and Sling +1.
Aerie has nothing magical. Anomen has nothing magical.
Nalia has Longtooth +2 and Tugiruan Shortbow +1.
We will tally up the value of our loot and see what we can get for it. Our gold is sitting at 8247. So we are crawling our way back to 20k.
If you want an extra scroll case, Lady Yuth at Ribalds have one - I always buy it from her
Next time, I will know better - and have 3 scroll cases instead of 2. I'm not sure if we will ever need that many scroll cases, but it's a single inventory slot that holds a lot of items. We are having a few challenges with inventory space already, for some reason. This might have been mitigated if we worked with Hexxat - I understand she has a bag of holding.
This was a very short session, because we were doing a lot of planning on how to prepare for this journey.
Session 57 - The Fall of d'Arnise Keep
We started off with a bag full of swag from the Slaver Compound. At the Copper Coronet, we traded some of it for about 50 Throwing Daggers and a couple hundred bullets. Then we headed to Bayle's house and traded a bunch of magical swag (the longbows and chainmail) and a bunch of other stuff for the Glasses of Identification. We took these, because they are equal to 3 Identification Scrolls in the field and 300gp in a town, every day. We have a bunch of magic items we need to get identified.
Our next stop was Waukeen's Promenade and Mira the shopkeeper. She had a couple of Healing Potions for us. We bought a couple more from a poor shopkeeper near the Temple of Ilmater. By this time we had sold all our loot and were spending gold. At the Temple, we healed up our party.
There is something we do not understand about healing at the temple:
Heal 8 hit points for 50gp
Heal 17 hit points for 150gp. For the same price, we can heal 24 hit points with Cure Light Wounds.
Heal 27 hit points for 200gp. For the same price, we can heal 32 hit points with Cure Light Wounds.
We also bought a Potion of Genius for Nalia and started a study party. 43 Lore does us no good in identifying items, because Sam already has 45. We do have 21 Intelligence and that seems to be working much better for scribing scrolls. We opened up our scroll case and scribed almost everything that she did not know already.
12/12 on Level 1 Scrolls for 12kexp
4/4 on Level 2 Scrolls for 8kexp
4/4 on Level 3 Scrolls for 12kexp
1/1 on a Level 6 Scroll for 6kexp - We picked up Death Fog for when Nalia picks up her next level.
The Character Record said 97% probability. The 15% penalty would make it 82%. We went 21/21, which appears very unlikely at 82% probability. I'm too lazy to get my calculator or pop open Excel, but I get about 96% probability against. Going back to the 97% probability, I get about 56%. So I suspect something weird again.
We also bought a second scroll case, because that will one day come in handy. In Waukeen's Promenade, we spent close to 2kg.
With Nalia at 21 Intelligence and being in a position to fix major problems, it was time to configure our spell slots. We realized that Nalia still has an Identify spell active and Sam still has a Minor Sequencer to cast. So we found a place to hide and cast our spells out of sight of the Cowled Wizards. The Circus Tent was a perfect option. We had Quayle to cover for us.
We identified the Mail of the Dead +2 and decided that was perfect for Aerie. She does not have the strength to use Platemail yet and splint mail is the next best option. Inside the city, we should not be casting Mage Spells, but Cleric spells are just fine.
Sam gets Mirror Image and Blur for a Sequencer. I do not know if the Sequencer will work when we are wearing armor, but it will be very interesting finding out.
Finally, we are ready to make our way to the City Gates and rescue Nalia's Castle.
Day 1, Hour 17
We are intercepted by a group of Slavers on the way to the Gates. Our choice of marching order being what it is, it looks bad. Just how close do these guys get before we realize we are getting jumped?
Sam - DUHM and throw a Dagger at that Mage. Then charge the Archer.
Minsc - Fire an Arrow at the same Mage. Then cover the group.
Jaheira - Move somewhere safe. Make sure nobody is shooting at you. Call Lightning on the Archer.
Aerie - Back up to a safe location, then Holy Smite. Holy Boot of Evil Buttkicking Justice, as Minsc would call it.
Anomen - Shoot a Bullet at the Mage and pick up the Mace and brace for impact.
Nalia - You're in a safe spot already. Just pincushion that Mage.
After the Holy Smoke cleared, the only mob left standing was blinded and helpless. So for appearing so chaotic at the start with trying to organize into a defensible position, it got better fast. This encounter was a lootfest.
We picked up another couple of spells for Nalia, who still had 21 Intelligence. Minor Globe of Invulnerability and Vampiric Touch. We are not sure yet when we might use them, but it costs nothing to add them. More scrolls added to the case.
More potions. Stone Giant and Frost Giant. These are probably most useful to Jaheira, because she is the Fighter with the lowest Strength score. For a similar reason, she is also most likely to get the Platemail +1, because it is light. She might get the Studded Leather if she ever needs to shapeshift for some reason.
A Mace +1 went to Anomen, He needed a magical weapon. Otherwise, we are stuck with a very limited (41) quantity of magical bullets. There was also another Shortsword which we identified much later.
At the City Gate, we talked to somebody who wants help with the Animals attacking Trademeet. We got reactions from Jaheira and Minsc. One said Druids are unlikely to attack a settlement without good reason. She must have been absent when we were attacking the Shadow Druids. Minsc does not like the idea of attacking animals. We seemed to have no problems with the Beastmaster in the Copper Coronet Arena.
Day 1, Hour 21
All I wish is to continue my journey!
We were probably 3 levels ahead of an encounter scaled to be fairly easy. We pincushioned the Mage, then engaged the rest of the group.
We acquired the body of Renfeld. He must be in incredibly bad shape, because he only weighs 50 pounds, 23 kg. He did not look like a Halfing lying down there. We are on our way to the D'Arnise Stronghold and he is just going to have to hang in there until we get back.
Day 2, Hour 1
We finally arrived at the D'Arnise Keep and it has already fallen. When did it fall? 4 hours ago? We could have got there in time if we left promptly instead of taking out the Slaver Compound? Nalia must be cursing us right now - Except we did rescue 3 cute little children.
We have one more chance to configure our spells. It is too late at night for me to detail exactly what I have configured so far. Sam took the Find Familiar and Identify Spells. He will be able to identify 3 more items the next day. The Familiar is a few more hit points and can rest in the backpack. We can pop him out for an Invisibility if we need to. None of these spells must be cast in combat. Level 2 was similarly easy to set up, since we are working with Mirror Image and Blur Sequencer, but we opened up a bit of experimentation. We are trying Ghoul Touch one time to see how well it works. I forget what else we took. Level 3 was MMM all the way, because we can cast this out of combat. Level 4 is another Sequencer, a Stoneskin, and an Enchant Weapon. Level 5 is Animate Dead all the way.
We had Aerie focus on the damaging spells and Nalia on utility spells as I saw them.
We shall see. It will be interesting. See you tomorrow!
We also bought a Potion of Genius for Nalia and started a study party. 43 Lore does us no good in identifying items, because Sam already has 45. We do have 21 Intelligence and that seems to be working much better for scribing scrolls. We opened up our scroll case and scribed almost everything that she did not know already.
12/12 on Level 1 Scrolls for 12kexp
4/4 on Level 2 Scrolls for 8kexp
4/4 on Level 3 Scrolls for 12kexp
1/1 on a Level 6 Scroll for 6kexp - We picked up Death Fog for when Nalia picks up her next level.
The Character Record said 97% probability. The 15% penalty would make it 82%. We went 21/21, which appears very unlikely at 82% probability. I'm too lazy to get my calculator or pop open Excel, but I get about 96% probability against. Going back to the 97% probability, I get about 56%. So I suspect something weird again.
Nalia actually has the "base class"/"generalist mage" kit. She doesn't take the penalty, so her actual success chance at 21 Int is 98%. So for 21 scrolls ... about a 65% chance of all attempts succeeding. (There's also an off-by-one bug in all of the spell learning chances)
As I've said before, 24 Int gets you guaranteed success for anyone.
The NPC arcanists in BG2EE as regards spell learning and the specialist penalty:
- Aerie (Cleric/Mage, generalist). Does not take specialist penalty.
- Edwin (Mage, conjurer). Properly takes specialist penalty and bonus.
- Haer'Dalis (Bard, blade). Improperly takes specialist penalty.
- Imoen (Thief-Mage, null). Improperly takes specialist penalty.
- Jan (Mage/Thief, illusionist). Properly takes specialist penalty and bonus.
- Nalia (Thief-Mage, generalist). Does not take specialist penalty.
- Neera (Mage, wild mage). Improperly takes specialist penalty.
A potion of genius and a potion of mind focusing will get any of those characters except Haer'Dalis and Jan to safe scribing levels. Jan needs two potions of genius, and Haer'Dalis needs three potions; those two can only completely prevent scribing failure by stacking potions of the same type.
^^The information is very helpful. Right now, I have no way of looking it up. My main will need spells when he gets close to 750k. Then we will select some M6 spells that work for him. One potion means he goes from 19 to 23 INT and has about a..... 17% chance of losing the spell - which is fine if I'm just buying another scroll. If we have about 6 scrolls, then we would do well to go all the way to 25 INT. For Nalia in that case, a 2% risk does not seem worth it unless it is a very unique scroll.
This is an issue I never worried about in the past, because the reload button fixes everything. Right now, I'm playing arbitrarily minimal reload rules. We are reloading if something went really badly or if there was a lesson learned and a much better way to handle something.
Session 58 - Steward of the Keep
Day 2, Hour 9 - We were supposed to attack at dawn, but somebody had a bad dream and we slept in. It does not matter. We camped in the Palisade and the Trolls are expecting yet another routine boring day and no action from outside, just like the previous 20 days.
We finally get to cast Find Familiar. This little guy is going to get all the girls.
Ironically, a few rooms later, we picked up the exact same scroll. Well, we can save it for another time and it only cost us an M1 slot, which would have been an Identify Spell, which is 100gp. We also took this as an opportunity to put up Stoneskin and summon a Skeleton to help us..... explore. That servant that got chunked by the Troll had one more job to fulfill before being released for good. Hopefully Nalia is not too offended.
The center chamber of the main level had 4 Trolls and we intended to sneak up on them and drop a Web, but accidently started the fight and the Trolls came in both doors. This made it look like a bad time for Minsc to be exploring in light armor, but we got through it unscratched.
Outside, we encountered another Olyuuggh and that cost us another Elixir of Health. We let the dogs live. Nalia is probably offended enough we would raise her servant to do some simple scouting for us and get chunked by a Troll a second time, but we drew the line at killing her dogs.
We started to explore the roof of the place and stepped in the wrong door and got jumped by a couple of Giant Trolls and a YT Mage. We thought we could get away with the cya later trick, but the Trolls followed us outside. We messed up the strategy a bit from here and Minsc was the one targeted and got beat up well. I should have had him kite one of the trolls around. Jaheira wasted one of them with a 71 point Lightning Bolt.
With that out of the way, we went back to check on the YT Mage. He was busy putting up his Protection spells. He had Stoneskin and a Minor Turning up. So we wasted an Insect Plague spell on him. On this floor, we rescued Nalia's aunt and Lord D'Arnise's bestie, Glacius. We hit him with a Doom spell and Jaheira got a Charm Animal spell to work.
The Golems was the part where we did a couple of reloads to..... learn some lessons.
First time through - We learn the hard way that it is just too hard to tank the big guy directly. Anomen died in the retreat. He was not chunked, so a simple rest and rez would have worked just fine.
Second time - It worked out ugly. We had Sam pop an Oil of Speed and grab the item and run for the exit. The walkthrough said the Golems cannot fit through the door, but it meant, the big guy cannot fit. So after we killed him, the smaller Clay Golem ran right into the group and started wrecking havoc. Tonight we felt we could have done it much clearer.
Third time the charm.
Sam has his armor off in Mage Mode. Enchant Weapon, Anomen. Melf's Minute Meteors.
Nalia. Polymorph Self, Mirror Image.
Jaheira. Conjure Animals. Bless.
Aerie. Chant.
Anomen. DUHM.
The Animals were not as impressive as imagined, but they got the job done. They were the primary tanks. We took the easier round first, with the Flesh Golem and the Stoned Golem. We saved the Clay Golem and Iron Golem for last. I don't know the best strategy yet for taking out the Iron Golem. We cheesed it by running outside and then pelting it with Anomen Enchanted Weapon / Sling and Bullets and Sam MMM.
We explored the roof some more and found the winch to lower the drawbridge. At this time, there was only a little bit for the Guards to do, but at least they got a little bit of action. Then we went into the Cellar.
We got the Berserk mode up just in time.
There was one more anticlimactic battler here. The Boss Troll. Jaheira conjured a Fire Elemental for the occasion, because we thought it would be cool. We were able to lure the Boss out into the Umber Hulk room just fine, but the Fire Elemental did not survive too long against the other Trolls. Here is another memorable line from Nalia at the end of it all.
It turns out our Berserker Class is active enough we got the Fighter Stronghold. We are now Stewards of the d'Arnise Keep. Here is our party:
548582 Sam with 39 kills worth 82880
758143 Minsc with 26 kills worth 33655
378189 Jaheira with 14 kills worth 8529
338518 Aerie with 3 kills worth 597
668471 Anomen with 12 kills worth 18882
668457 Nalia with 32 kills worth 35372 - She was the designated Troll killer.
Day 2, Hour 17
Another funny thing from talking to Nalia is she tells everybody she has no idea who would do this, but is very smart and likely knows exactly what is going on. We interviewed the former Captain of the Guard before we went into the keep and asked who inherits the keep in the event Nalia dies - and therein lies the answer to the question of who benefits the most from this. So we pieced together the story and continue to talk as if we have no idea what is going on.
An observation from fighting the Trolls - We spend a lot of time smacking them at Near Death hit points. It seemed like we were doing something wrong. More specifically, we did not switch to Acid weapons until the Troll went unconscious. Do they stay up the entire round after being reduced to 0hp? If that is the case, we might do well to make the switch earlier. (We were trying to conserve our Acid Arrows - One arrow per Troll.)
Experiment result - Fully armored and hitting Blur and Mirror Image on a Spell Sequencer worked just fine. I might look around for some more tanking combinations. For a while, Sam's spell choices might be utility and pre-battle buffing.
There are some decisions we should make.
A When we get back to town, we will meet both Valen and Brus. The price for their services will be reduced to 15kg.
Do we hear what Bodhi has to say or no? Do we talk to Galen right away or no?
Can we continue to do sidequests in Chapter 3 or no?
Are the sidequests still open after Chapter 4?
Irenicus is blowing up the world, but we have a bunch of sidequests to do!
We are into Day 3 of the Campaign and already in a position to get to Spellhold. We still have not very much gear or resources. Most likely, we will tell Galen to hang tight while we think about it.
B. It looks like we crossed the 750k experience threshold. This is very easy to verify. It looks like the next thresholds are 1.0M and 1.25M. If we are picking up Imoen and working with her, then the ideal time would be at 1.25M experience.
C. Do we choose Imoen to be in the final party or no? What is our final party going to be? If we are, then 1.25M is the ideal time and we do as many sidequests as we can in the last chapter. Other members can be rotated in and out of the party. In ToB, we will be picking up party members at 2.5M experience. It looks like 8.0M is the ultimate experience cap.
(Imoen IN means we go to Spellhold with Final Party + Yoshimo. Imoen OUT means we go to Spellhold with Final Party.)
D. What should we do next? Don't tell Jaheira I rightly do not know what to do next. I'm taking suggestions.
Harper Hold seems the obvious next stop. We still have somebody in our packs dying. Besides, we have loot to sell.
Are we strong enough to do the Cult of the Unseeing Eye? Pickup Keldorn temporarly?
Pickup the other companion quests that we can do quickly? Clara and Hexxat?
Pick some battles inside the city?
Jierdan / Firkraag quest might also be a good one.
Day 3, Hour 1 - Arrived at the City Gates
We saw a fight between some Shadow Thieves and a Vampire named Hareishan. We decided to help the thieves.
Why we went to the Copper Cornonet at this time of night, we are not sure. There are better places we can be staying. It matters not. Maybe the Thieves suggested we seek out Gaelan Bayle. It is what his nephew told us, anyway.
Another mysterious figure suggested we meet her mistress in the Graveyard district at night - However, we were not going there at this time, exactly tonight. So we went quickly to talk to Gaelan. The price is reduced to 15kg and we have that money. However, we wanted at least a little more time before we go rushing off on the plot. He took it well. He said he can be standing around a bit longer.
Patience is a virtue. I like people who demonstrate patience.
Our next stop was in the Docks. Coincidentally, that is where the Shadow Thieves are based. We met some muggers outside, but they were most likely not associated. Having some kind of deal with the Shadow Thieves might be making things easier for us in a city like this.
We were welcome inside the Shadow Thief Guildhall. Anomen was not exactly comfortable, of course. We bartered a couple of shortsword +1's and the junk we obtained from the muggers and a little bit of gold for more poison daggers, a couple Invisibility Scrolls and a Blindness Scroll.
We also found a Temple of Oghma to heal up in this area when we need to. We did. Eventually, we got to our destination and returned Renfeld's body to the Harpers. At least - That is who our old friend Xzar said they were. He wanted us to go into their base and retrieve his friend Montaron.
Jaheira was with us. She could help. A bit. The Harpers were willing to help us locate a thief in their building if we would do some dirty work for them - and dirty work it was. We assassinated Prebek and Sanasha. It turns out later they were Xzar's apprentices. We will have to return to this house much later, because it is filled with traps and Nalia simply cannot spot them.
Inside the base, we looted what we could while pretending to look for the thief. For some reason, Jaheira did not mind. We can only guess at the reason why. It might have had something to do with the flashy amulets the were suddenly wearing to display their membership, when it was normally kept secret. The next surprise was waiting for us.
We rescued Montaron the Bird, but it was not Montaron, but a Harper Assassin who promptly killed Xzar. It's a necessary plot twist, because a game of Baldur's Gate is not complete unless you hear Xzar die.
There was another shop (rival thieves guild) nearby and we bartered a few more scavenged items and gems for a third Gem Bag. Then we went to the Sea Bounty Tavern. Baron Ployer was waiting for Jaheira there. Just like we were popular in Baldur's Gate, she was popular in Athkatla. A few mages zoned in to hit her with a curse.
While we were getting distracted with sidequests, we were reminded on what we were supposed to be doing.
Maybe we did get distracted and forgot. Oops. Sorry. Hang in there. Be strong!
Day 3, Hour 11 - Rested
So far, we have not been delayed that long. We took a trip out to the D'Arnise keep and made 10kg and came back with enough funds to secure help for the rescue. Now we are gearing up so the rescue is not a complete failure.
In the morning, we discovered a locked secret door in the bar, so we investigated it and found a secret Pirate Hideout. They were not too happy to see us. Most likely at this hour, they were still hungover and in no condition to fight. Nalia made it easier by putting up a Web while we dispatched the Captain.
The Pirate Mage, still hung over, was slow to get up. He did have a couple of defenses up when we found him. Apparently Protection from Normal Missiles does no good against Arrows +1. The Mirror Image only bought him a little bit of time. He was able to fire a Hold Person spell. The effort was so pathetic we decided to just let Sam take the Saving Throw instead of going Berserk and Immune. He missed and got Held, but really - What was this Mage going to do next? We caught him butt naked.
Sam did get scratched up well from those Pirates and healing cost another 200gp. Some more bartering at the rival guildhall obtained us a Sling +2 for Anomen. Another merchant sold us a Jaheira Locket. Two-timing is fun, but we saw no interaction. Go figure. Three days into mourning for Khalid, we are already buying her little gifts. She seems lower maintenance than Safana or Skie, but she was probably with that guy V.
Next stop was the Copper Coronet where we got the story on where to find Belgrade. It's in Serbia, of course. Surprisingly, it was explained that Baron Ployer was not welcome here. Go figure. Just 3 days ago, the Coronet was Slaver Central. Young lady. Are you okay? You look 90. Well. Isn't she about 90? What is the normal half-elf cycle?
More bartering. We had a Shammy item and a few things to trade for the Sling of Seeking. This is a new toy for Jaheira.
Then we went to the Government District to find out what the Cowled Wizards know about the Wizards who helped Baron Ployer. They had no information to help us, but we did find somebody to pay off to not show up to help. This is adventuring at its finest!
There was a group of fanatics we dispatched to rescue Vickie. We are full up and maybe we come back for her help later. Maybe we won't. Elsewhere, we rescued a Gnome named Jan Jansen. It was the same. Maybe we will come back and retrieve him. Maybe we will not.
Those fanatics hit us easily - They were hitting AC-3 very easily. Hindsight says we should have equipped the Elves Bane Girdle of Piercing. I am guessing we would have saved about half the damage. Currently the day's medical bill is at 350gp.
For some reason, this scene reminds me of a scene from Monty Python, with all those calls for burning her.
Finally we returned to the Slums to finish off Baron Ployer. As promised, his Mages did not show up to help him out and he had to deal with Jaheira on his own.
My play has been a bit slow the past couple of days. I think I'm dealing with something seasonal, so feeling overtired and struggling to make some decisions.
Party status is skipped for now, but since there are changes coming up for the next few sidequest distractions, I will take the time to record it in the near future.
Where to next? We have leads to Umar Hills, Windspear Hills, and Trademeet. These each have at least two characters we can pick up. Jaheira hopes we leave the city soon, but I believe we will be spending this day in it.
The Graveyard District is next. We were supposed to meet somebody there at night, but we were not going there last night, because we do not want to meet somebody we do not know in a place we do not know at night. We could at least look around and get a lay of the land first. We know exactly who can give us a tour!
The next question is who we can part ways with.
Jaheira stays. She has some companion related issues.
Nalia is the owner of our new Keep. She will have a funeral to attend in the near future.
Anomen will have some companion issues later.
Minsc does not have a companion quest. He was called to the Umar Hills.
Aerie gets called to the circus in a few days as well.
We can free up one or two slots by giving Minsc and Aerie a break. Ironically, it is Jaheira that really needs the break, but that would break up one of the quest lines we would prefer to keep for now.
Added party status
610409 Sam with 45 kills worth 89640
819970 Minsc with 32 kills worth 47125
409098 Jaheira with 18 kills worth 19229
369427 Aerie with 4 kills worth 6597
730275 Anomen with 12 kills worth 18882
730261 Nalia with 33 kills worth 35392
It looks like we have had two parties and we can name them!
Party 1 - Escape Room Team
Imoen, Jaheira, Minsc, Yoshimo
Party 2 - Trollbusters
Nalia, Jaheira, Minsc, Anomen, Aerie
Inside the derelict house of Baron Ployer, we fed Aerie a Potion of Genius. It is time for another study party. First, we identified four more items:
A Scroll of Protection from Electricity
Bracers to the Death AC - These went to Nalia. Aerie got the AC8 Bracers.
Wand of Fire with a single charge
Wand of Cloudkill with a single charge
With the study party, we went 30/31 on scrolls, only losing a Scroll of Ghoul Touch. It is only worth 2000 XP to us. It might be possible one time we have Sam try to use it to see what it does. He is likely the only caster who can get any decent thaco.
We were close to the Copper Coronet, so we went there next. We bartered some of the scrap items we picked up and a Quarterstaff +1 for a Grease Scroll and a Vocalize Scroll to further contribute to Aerie's study party.
Now we need a proper tour of the Graveyard district and who better to show us than Clara at the bar who has been telling us to take her to Dagormir's Tomb. So we parted ways with Minsc for a short while. He got to keep a pair of Maces, the Elven Court Bow, and Lilacor +3. It is always sad parting with Minsc.
Ironically, the first place we took Hexxat was the Temple. Sam needed a little bit of healing. So add another 200gp to Sam's hospital bill. He got some of it back from Habib.
Day 3, Hour 14 - We arrived at the Graveyard district.
Fortunately, this was good timing to unite Kamir and Risa. We also rescued Tirdir, who sent us looking for his kidnappers. Anomen condemned this as an errand best handled by the guard. He is from this city. Is he aware of how well they handle these things? We have only been there two days and we already know. We also took a little bit of time to... uh.... clear out undead in some of the tombs in exchange for any goodies that might be left behind. One of our prizes was the Staff of Curing.
Finally we found Dagomir's tomb. Why didn't Clara tell us earlier?
The best way to deal with some of the beasties we encountered inside is from a distance with a Skeleton tank. It worked well enough against the Vampire Dagomir.
We eventually found the real Hexxat, who greeted us after killing Clara. Well - given the state she was in when talking to us, she might well have been dead anyway. The conversation indicates she was not, but mind controlled to drag a party of unfortunate victims to their doom.
Of course, it worked out better than that. The real Hexxat told us to meet at the Copper Coronet. We met sooner than that, because we had the cloak she was looking for. She should have just asked us for it in the first place. Instead of waiting two hours at the Copper Coronet, we joined with her.
On the way back to the Copper Coronet, we were ambushed by yet another group of Slavers. It started off looking like a hot mess, but they were dispatched very quickly and they seemed to have a good bit of loot.
We might work with Hexxat for a few more reputation points. We might as well. She has a couple of interesting advantages.
She effectively has a Bag of Holding. This is always useful. In our case, we can use it to save up expensive items for a big purchase.
She has Thief skills and we need them. Nalia has.... not quite enough.
At night she has some killer stats.
We don't care if she dies, actually. We have her coffin.
Her nighttime stats are set so she has 100 in Open Locks and Find Traps. Hopefully that is enough. The rest are going to Stealth so she can be a backstabber. Detect Illusion might have been a better choice. I have not tried running around with 100 in Detect Illusion.
It looks like our next lead is the Bridge District.
Comments
You need the spectacles to conjure him, but he has premium wares and most powerplayers hold unto their loot until they can sell it too him.
The Orc Archers in SoD are level 3, with 30 HP and worth 120 XP. Also, you get +4 damage from hitting a creature with a ranged weapon in melee, which gets multiplied in the stab. So that's (3+2+4)*4=36 damage for your stab. You rolled a 3 on the d8, and would have killed with a 2. AC 6, ignore the modifier from 17 Dex, Safana gets +10 to hit (2 enchantment, 4 melee vs ranged, 4 stealth attack) and has base THAC0 15. You need an attack roll of -1 or better to meet that AC, so you hit on a 2 and kill if you either get a crit or roll 2+ on the d8 damage die. That's about an 84% chance of the instant kill; slightly more if you're using single-weapon style, slightly less if you're not.
The arrow stacks you can buy from Belegarm are stacks of 80. You might be confused by the number of stacks in stock, which is initially 20 for the advanced arrows. Prices for ammo in general are done on a per-shot basis, so a stack of 80 +1 arrows you can buy from Belegarm will cost four times as much as a stack of 20 you can buy from Taerom. Aside from the different markups; Belegarm's shop is cheaper in general.
Admittedly, it is very hard for me to powergame my first run through the game. I can only gather so much information from the walkthrough. A part of that is not wanting to miss stuff. Another part of it is getting shortcuts to puzzles. Another part of it is trying to be as powergame as possible.
We sold off about 15k worth of jewelry. At least it was not to Belegarm, because then it would have been only 9k. I could have saved some money by getting Safana to 20 Charisma. There was an encounter I deliberately missed to get the boots of charisma. There are also some potions.
We missed on the +2 Sling, because I did not know I was supposed to use Glint (with Infravision) to look into a pool. I will mourn that loss, because we have three slingers. We almost lost the +2 Mace, but we were able to retrieve it from reading the walkthrough.
I should build a checklist.
Session 40 - Baby's First Dragon Kill
Day 100, Hour 13 - Rested
We headed towards the Forest of Wyrms in search of this Temple of Bhaal. We were told by Jaheira that we will need a Wardstone to enter Bridgefort. What it is doing way over there, I have no idea. We will find out when we get there.
Firstly, we were (waylaid) distracted by yet another encounter. It was......
A Gang of Goblins! 18 of them, I think! We were warned about powerful magic, so we shortened this job with a Web spell.
Then there was a snake, which we killed, because we did not want it sneaking up on us if we encountered something more. Sure enough, ahead, there were a couple of Ankhegs. Then there were some Beetles. Then we saw it.
A big hole.
Inside the hole were Myconids. They are magic mushrooms and do strange things to the mind. We were not really prepared for this, so we send Minsc in with the Tinfoil-lined Armadillo Helmet. It worked against Confusion in one encounter - or maybe a panic Fireball made the battle shorter. The second battle, he got nailed by a Feeblemind spell, which really should have had no effect. I mean - Minsc. No brain. No pain. Hashtag teamdummanddummer.
Day 100, Hour 18 - Arrived at the Forest of Wyrms.
Something interesting we note about these encounters. We are quoted 8 hours to arrive at the Forest of Wyrms. We got distracted by an encounter which is supposed to take half the travel time, 4 hours, but it takes 0 hours. We encountered another time warp. So we arrived about 3 hours ahead of schedule. With how long these areas take to clear, I suppose it works out in the end.
The south was infested with Wyverns. We had Minsc tanking them or kiting them and we had to give him a Protection from Poison Scroll.
We were getting worried at this point. We have not even cleared half this area and we have already used nearly half the Healing Potions (22/48) we brought. We also used 2 Elixir of Health and 2 of the Extra Healing Potions. Maybe we took count at the end of the session and it's not so bad anymore. Minsc gets Fortitude, Aglility, Shield, AC-9, Butt kicked and 140kg of justice tossed about like a rag doll.
Our next stop was the Spider Nest. There was a reload involved, because I did not know there was a Gargantuan spider involved and I had to keep Minsc armed with the Spider's Bane. So for the main room, we were okay, because we had two characters with Free Action, Minsc and Glint. The rest could run behind or whatever. This worked until we triggered a bunch of spiders from another room. Minsc and Glint were blocking the west passageway and about 6 more spiders ran out from the northeast passageway. We finally got the situation under control with a couple of shots from the Wand of Fear.
With all that clear, we started to search the nest. Then came the bug invasion, featuring the Rhino Beetle.
Minsc - I don't know if that thing had a butt, but if it did, it's been thoroughly kicked!
Everybody else was expressing their disgust with the area. I wish I wrote down what they said.
Corwin thinks we are idiots. Caelar is waiting for us at Dragonspear. She does not understand. She will wait for us forever while we do sidequests and gather more gear. We are gearing up faster than she is.
We made our way to the Bugbear Cave that shares a residence with a Green Dragon. That was when we realized we missed a spot, so we looped back to check for it.
Corwin - *doublesigh*
Sure enough, there was a Hill Giant. Maybe he was taunting us to take the long way around and come at him. We cast Web and Blindness both at him. I'm not sure how that worked out. Maybe it was on a cue. The Giant made the saving throw versus blind, but not Web. So he got wrecked.
We would figure Giants should get some kind of bonus saving throw, if they are not partially immune. That Web must be made of some seriously sticky stuff! Spiderman would be proud!
The Dragon Cave was also a reload. First try, he charged Corwin, smashed her down to 1 hitpoint, followed by acid breath. The strategy I was trying was to find a corner to use a Lightning Bolt. Second try, we used a better cheese strategy.
Minsc - Charge in there like an idiot and take a knockout blow for the team. Good boy. Thank you.
Glint - Nailed him with 8d6 Wand of the Heavens for 40 points. Missed save.
Dynaheir - Scorcher from Wand of Fire for 6+6d6 for 12 points. Made save.
Sam - Necklace of Missiles for 6d6 for 19 points. Missed save.
Corwin - Necklace of Missiles for 6d6 for 15 points. Not sure.
Safana - Necklace of Missiles for 6d6 for 12 points. Made save.
Minsc - Got nailed by a Wing Buffet for 20 points and thrown across the room.
Dynaheir - Scorcher from Wand of Fire for 6+6d6 for 32 points. Missed save.
So it looks like 6 fire attacks. I only count 2 out of 6 saves, which is below average. The 15 might have been a make or a miss. It is 6 below the expected value of 21 and 30 is 9 above, so slightly less likely. The 40 point shot was amazing. That was 8 dice with an average of 5. The 32 point shot was pretty good, too.
It looks like the fight was a little over a single round.
Here is our party:
37662 Sam with 27 kills worth 22745
284025 Safana with 24 kills worth 11915
252902 Minsc with 55 kills worth 39580
252805 Dynaheir with 21 kills worth 22865
143487 Glint with 13 kills worth 9855
286932 Corwin with 43 kills worth 32835
Sam seems to be consistent with Safana and Dynaheir for kills and I suppose that's fine for a mage that's leveling. We are almost at level 6. Minsc and Cory are the killing team, instead of Dumm and Dummer.
I think the reason Glint lags in kills is I am grabbing range as a group and attacking as a group. The Sling has only one attack per round and that attack will occur after the arrows have fired. Sam is more likely to get a shot first because of higher dexterity and a +3 sling.
It looks like there is a Bugbear Cave, followed by the Temple of Bhaal. Hopefully this is not more difficult than the Green Dragon we faced - or all the Wyverns leading up to it. (I judge difficulty based on how many resources get used. We are probably still on moderately easy mode, because we are running with 0 healing spells on our cleric and have not set up camp to rest.
Day 100, Hour 22
We left off with the Green Dragon kill, wondering if the caverns and dungeons below get easier or harder. There are combinations of issues.
One is resource management.
We have casters and their spells. This is a daily resource, so many spells from Levels 1 to 5. We have a bunch of scrolls and potions. Some of them mimic the same spells. Some of them modify stats. Some of them grant special immunities.
We end up with an issue of using too many resources when we are not supposed to, and not using resources when we are supposed to. So if we do not use stuff to make a fight easier, then that means the tank gets hit a lot more than he should - and that means the resource we end up using will be healing potions.
Another is we have not played this before - and I do not understand what is coming until I have played it a few times or so. (I do not learn on the first or second try.) So I am missing the experience to come with better preparation. Also, I do not want to reload and rerun entire sections, like I did on the prologue dungeon and the end of Chapter 7.
Then there is the walkthrough I am using. The map is very good, because it alerts me to traps and that saves a bunch of time looking for them. I still use a lot of time watching the clock pendulum go back and forth, marking seconds and rounds. However, it is easier to spot if I know it is there. The walkthrough gives area descriptions and some monsters and key items. It only shows the major encounters - but some of the minor ones would have been good to know about. For example, knowing ahead of time we were going to face about 10 Wyverns would have been nice.
It seems to lack in the fight descriptions, as if the guide is assuming we have a strategy that works and know how to fight a particular monster. For example, it said 20k when you beat this guy - It's just like a mage, but bigger and uglier and more hitpoints. I still have a brute force mentality dealing with mages. (An SCS install should fix this.) This fight should not be too bad if you take out all the cultists ahead of time - It's almost another Green Dragon. You get 22k for beating this character and 2 Ariel Servants. You get 6k or beating the shadow aspect - Some cheesy strategies would be nice! Bring lots of buffs for this party fight - Nah, we will cheese it with AoE.
Finally, our main character was a Level 9 Berserker, but is in the process of dualclassing to Mage, so is a Level 6 Mage, instead.
The Bulrathi Lair
Oops. Wrong game.
We entered the lair in a fight with a bunch of Bulrathi Bugbears. I don't remember getting hit that much, so we did not use that much for cheesy strategies. We might have run out of creativity. There were a couple of invisible ones who were also annoying. There was.... lot of killing. Then we got to the Chief.
There was another group of Bugbears a couple more caves away and we used some of the same hit and run, hit and tank stuff that worked before. Then we found the Lost Temple of Invisible Stalkers of Cyric.
We found the Prisoners first. Then we found some cultists and gradually wiped them out. There was another room with some Invisible Stalkers. We used one of our valuable detect invisibility scrolls for that.
We finally got to the Green Dragon Junior, Ziaxar. The guide said she was not a bad fight. Maybe it wasn't. She seemed to be more of a caster. Safana was too close to Minsc and got hit with a Greater Command. Later she got hit with a poison dragon breath, so Dynaheir had to step in and save her.
With the key, we freed all the prisoners. One group was grateful, but they are working for the Crusade we are opposing. We're not sure what Corwin thinks of that. Maybe she encouraged them to turn in to the Fist Encampment, instead. We also set loose the blind priestess to continue her deeds. We commanded her to change her ways, but we doubt she will. Most likely, she will convert to the one who must not be named..... Or maybe..... She will setup shop in Athkatla in Amn and start the Cult of the Unseeing Eye. So maybe we have not seen the last of her!
The room to the south contained the Neothelid. This was an interesting fight and multiple reloads. We are going through our Potions of Clarity, because we did not come prepared for mind control stuff. It felt like we were playing XCOM the first time and finding out how much damage a Psionic Alien can do if your party is not prepared. Meanwhile, much later in life, I read an explanation that suddenly the original pistols were useful again, because they cannot harm your party if they have the best armor, but can still kill the psionic aliens.
This thing sure looked like a big ugly alien, but it did not have Ethereal or Sectoid hitpoints. It had Muton hitpoints. I counted between 117 and 134 hit points. I did not get a count on AC. It was 0 or worse. Sending Minsc in Berserk was not an option, because we quickly lose control of him. He will end up fighting a sword that is immune to his damage and he will be toes to toes with this sword in poison and taking a lot of damage every round - and we will have no way to heal him.
The cheesy strategy we ended up using was have one character with a mind shield, Sam. More will get it as necessary. Glint Eastwood would have been a better choice, because he has a chance of dealing with problems better. We summoned one Skeleton and sent him on the lead. Sure enough, it was the first target of Domination. We still could not see this thing as it conjured up a sword, so we ran our characters around, waiting to do something. The sword chased Safana for a while. That was no big deal, the least amount of harm.
Finally, it emerged. So we hit it with whatever we had. Did we mention Magic Resistance? It sure had a lot of that. Minsc might have been wasting his time for a while on that sword and we forgot to manage him for a while. He was there for the killing blow.
We were one room away from Akanna and the Warpstone and the entire reason we came to this Temple in the first place. We figured the cheesy strategy to use was to send one person, Sam, in solo with the Boots of Speed. He might have had the Skeleton nearby as a sacrificial offering. He launched an Oil of Fiery Burning and ran. We did not want to deal with Invisible Akanna just yet and we were able to lure the Aerial Servants out of the room to the Big Monster Room where the party was waiting.
Then we went in after the Priestess and brought her out to play. Greater Command seems to be the bane of Safana - as she appears to be taking another nap on the floor.
The next cheesy strategy - The Secret Room is guarded by a Shadow Aspect. The guide I was using said absosmurfly nothing about it, but it is a mean fight if not prepared for it. It looks like he likes to cast Blind, Darkness, Horror, Blur. I have no idea how many casts he has of these. He also goes Invisible at will, then backstabs a target.
If protected from Undead, then Safana can just walk in there and grab the loot, just like this.
The problem with this is we do not get the kill, or the experience, or the bragging rights. It's still an extra 1000 experience for each of us - and Sam gets his skills back another 1k sooner. So we decided to save this fight for the end, when we know what resources we have left.
This leaves the Alien Etheral Party. I think it is a Mindflayer. So we can't send Minsc in, because he dies in 2 hits. So we need another Skeleton for the job. We loaded up on Potions of Explosion for a six-pack of explosions. The Mindflayer is immune to the damage and whoever survives all of that will be drinking potions for a while. So the setup was to open the door and start the encounter, then run away as fast as possible. We lined up our shots to the door as well as we could, but only got 4 of them off. That was enough to kill Jhan Redmoons and injure the others. They came out to play, one or two at a time. So that made it easier.
Tethse was the next kill. He appeared to be a Kensai. So we do not have a ranged attack from him. Apparently with no armor, he was an easy target for Corwin. Next to go down was Flintstone. Oops. Flintborn. He appeared to be a Dwarf warrior. Believe it or not, we were able to get a Command to hit! So down he went. That left the Ranger. He was wasting his shots on the Skeleton and that was enough for yet another Corwin Pincushion.
Only then, the Mindflayer was coming out to play. The Skeleton was still alive -I mean- walking. So that was an easy kill as well.
Maybe SCS changes this.
Based on the reloads, the entire fight depends on setting up line of sight and lining up the doorway. Maybe next time we use the bigger room.
Finally, we had the Shadow Aspect. We were trying various strategies. I thought a combination of Greater Malison and Doom and Web would work, but it might be immune to Web - or walked across it so fast he did not need a saving throw. So we abandoned that strategy, because we found something that seemed to work.
We summoned four more monsters and blessed them, protecting them from fear, for whatever that was worth. We left time waiting at the doorway. We sent Safana in to solve the puzzle and open the door, then sneak back into the room. I wanted to have Glint spy for illusions, but did not get to experiment with that enough. Corwin and Minsc had Arrows of Piercing. We did not care that he could save 95% of the time. We just wanted to score hits. That thing is nearly immune to Fire, Electricity and Acid. It seems to be 99% resistance.
Corwin got the Boots of Speed, because she was opening this fight and had to back into the main room for safety. She actually opened with a 20 and disrupted the cast. She second shot did not happen, because it went invisible almost immediately. Still. We opened up with a 24 point hit. Corwin ran away and the Aspect chunked a Gnoll Elite with a huge Backstab. That was all we needed. For some reason, he was not going invisible anymore, but attacking our little monsters. Corwin struck again a couple more times, for another 12 and 19 points. Then Minsc robbed her of the kill.
It looks like this thing had AC-7. So it might have had the Blur. Or we might have disrupted it. Detect Illusion might have helped. It looked like Corwin just needed a 6 or better to hit, or 75% probability.
We might have 2 charges left on the wand of monster summoning. It used to be very powerful in BG1. It helped us out here.
Our party:
53391 Sam with 34 kills worth 25205
299779 Safana with 29 kills worth 24725
268644 Minsc with 73 kills worth 90595
268529 Dynaheir with 23 kills worth 24985
151347 Glint Eastwood with 17 kills worth 14100 - Go ahead. Make my day.
302639 Corwin with 68 kills worth 47200 - DING!
It is 3am now, so we should be resting. Tomorrow it looks like we have another battle with Hill Giants and a Green Dragon. We can choose the Green Dragon, or the treasure. I am thinking the experience is better.
After that, we will be finding out if we can save Khalid at Level 1. I am not sure what strategy will work for that, since I have not seen how the fight works. If he likes to charge into the action, we might do better to lead with 2 tanks and block the way with Web, so that he never gets into the action to start with.
Which way do we go? That Bag of Holding must be getting full and we should get some fresh supplies. So I think the Encampment might be better, but we will take a look.
Resources? We went out with 2x24 cases of Healing Potions and we are down to 5 bottles. We got smashed in there. We have several Extra Healing Potions, but we likely do not have enough to get through a dungeon like what we just did.
The killer here is for the EET players - a bug which lets the BG2 green dragon breath overwrite the SoD version because they use the same resource name. How do you feel about breath weapons dealing 24d6+12 instant damage (save for half) at this stage of the game?
The mind flayer party got two kills on my party when I took it on with no real planning. And since that party was only at about the pre-SoD cap in experience, I had to spend two Raise Dead scrolls to recover. Ouch. Though I'm better off on the healing potion front, because I have M'Khiin devoting most of her spell slots to healing (Cure Light Wounds, Cure Medium Wounds, Call Woodland Beings).
Some basic stats on the scariest monsters of this dungeon:
- Shadow Aspect: Level 12/12 fighter/thief, base AC -1 with 18 Dex. 60 HP, 90% resistant to elements, immune to magic and poison damage. All spells are unlimited, on recharge timers, and which spells are used depends on difficulty. Invisibility and blinding you are common themes. You really need repeatable anti-illusion power here; either True Seeing/True Sight or thief/shaman Detect Illusion.
- Neothelid: Level 16, 128 HP, AC 0, 45% magic resistance. But it likes to stay underground and cast psionic spells, so it can be a while before you actually get to hurt it.
- Ziatar: Level 9/9 fighter/cleric, wears +1 plate mail, 18 Dex, 75+36 HP. Immune to poison and has dragon breath in addition to cleric spells. Her weak point is that she's alone, and casting cleric spells while in melee combat doesn't work very well.
- Darskhelin: Level 8, 68 HP, AC 5, immune to elements, 90% magic resistance. Basically the same as a standard mind flayer.
From what I've heard, SCS doesn't change things in SoD much. Most of what SCS does is replace generic combat scripts with smarter ones, and lots of SoD creatures are already using customized scripts.
There are shops available inside Bridgefort (Jegg Hillcarver for weapons and armor, Frair Tajik for temple services and healing potions), so either direction you go will let you sell off junk and restock. On the dragon/loot choice ... 8K XP for the young green dragon. The loot cache is an ioun stone designed for thieves, three high-value gems, and 1000 gold.
Go indside its den unbuffed, and throw unenchanted throwing daggers at it. The dragon should go down… sounds weird, but it has been tested and done more than once
I read about that! I'm not sure if I had a throwing dagger. It looked like a bug -I mean- feature. I thought our strategy was cheesy enough. I am sure it would not have worked on PnP. However, looking forward through the game, I do not believe there is much at all that would work on PnP. Mind you, I have very little experience with PnP.
Session 42 - Bridgefort under Siege
Day 101, Hour 11 - Rested
Hour 19 - Arrived at Boarskyr Bridge
As well as I understand this, the area is neutral until we trigger it hostile. So we went mostly that way. The Crusader Sergeant and a few guards were guarding the entrance. We told them we were looking for Kharm and they let us in, because we saved the patrol. We looked around a little bit and found Dorn. We freed him and told him we would meet him at the Flaming Fist Camp, where you will find three other half-orc irregulars. Here. Take this flagon of ale to them.
We are sure he will drink it on the way, as soon as we are out of sight. It is very strange he did not pick up his gear. There were a couple of trolls locked in, but we did not know how to free them.
We scouted the area around the fort. There were some groups of Hobgoblins and Goblin Worgriders. There was also a cave full of goblins. We blew them up the only way we knew how. Why have 20 of these guys shooting?
Glint got 17 in one shot with an Oil of Fiery Burning.
Arriving in Bridgefort, we talked to Khalid, who somehow became the Fort Commander. We found Glint's uncle the cobbler, and put him to work on the Boot and a Half of Speed. We identified a bunch of items as if we were not broke, but we still are. We upgraded a lot of weaponry to +2. So Minsc can dual-wield Mace +2. We have 2 of Flail +2 and 1 of Morning Star +2. We got a Halberd +2 for Corwin. We are down to about 9k, because the selling prices are not good and we saved our expensive gear for the next zone.
After this, the Stone of Darkness Level Drain hit. Three people died, so we took the bodies to the altars to be resurrected as Wights. Then we went out on a goose chase looking for a gold chain. We found it, on a trap full of Zombies and a single Wight. Then we made our way to the camp in search of that Red Wizard. We murdered him and took his scroll.
He reminded us too much of Edwin and we had the motive and the opportunity. There were lots of paths that result in him sounding the alarm and triggering the camp. The correct options were to threaten him into silence, or put him to sleep, or kill him. I am not sure this would have worked in SCS, because then he would spelltrigger a full arsenal of defenses, protection from normal weapons, protection from magical weapons, potion of magic blocking, immune to L1 to L5 spells. Call the camp and have 50 L9 Crusader Recruits land on the party.
We got back to the Fort and turned in the scroll. Then we entered the Temple and murdered Junia. Then we reported to Khalid and told him to wait for the sounds of battle. At L1, he will lead the charge against L9 Crusaders and die very quickly. Jaheira will find him and rez him. Again. She's probably used to it.
Our party:
68822 Sam with 37 kills worth 25785
315220 Safana with 31 kills worth24965
284082 Minsc with 79 kills worth 93575
283933 Dynaheir with 41 kills worth 25610
127869 Flint with 37 kills worth 15175
255732 Corwin with 86 kills worth 51940
The next session will be breaking the siege. Something I noticed is these Crusaders are very tough for common soldiers. I did not take detailed notes, but believe a lot of them have at least 50 hit points, based on a fire blast hitting for 24hp and they are still at 3/5 bars, which indicates more than half health. For comparison, an Average Joe L9 Fighter should have (10+8x5.5) 54 hit points. I sampled the bridge fight where Archers were hitting Minsc with a 16 at AC-5. So that indicates a Thaco of 11. They also seemed to go down quickly. It is kind of like, they leveled up the camp to be a challenge to a Level 9 party, instead of what would be expected from a military camp.
Or they want to make it feel more like World of Warcraft.
We will be returning to the Flaming Fist Encampment with the news. We will either tell them to move out with us or we will meet them there and we commence the battle when the defenders sally out. I believe the order of difficulty is:
Hardest - Attack with Bridgefort, because we start with the bosses.
Moderate - Attack with the Fist. This dooms Khalid.
Easy way out - Surrender the fort.
We will also decide what supplies we are buying. I lean towards Acid Arrows.
Day 102, Hour 2
We left off at the Flaming Fist Camp and Dynaheir needed a few more spells, so we started another study party and added to her spell list. She needed things like Stoneskin and Breach. It is strange we did not get to this sooner.
Day 102, Hour 10 - Rested - We head back to start the counterattack, but are once again distracted by....
A Young Green Damsel Dragon in Distress! We took out two Hill Giants, a trivial encounter and easy 6000 experience. We got a rich treasure trove and a Blood Red Ioun stone as a reward
Day 102, Hour 12 - Arrived at Bridgefort.
Since Khalid is Level 1 with 13 hit points and no gear and likes to lead the charge, he dies very easily. Eventually I found there is a way to keep him alive. First we parted ways with Safana.
You want me to..... What?! We will meet you at the camp.
We beefed Minsc up with a bunch of potions, then headed to the outside to find Khalid and had him join us. It is always scary at first.
We beefed him up to Level 9 and made him a Grandmaster of the Longsword. We got him a bunch of equipment, then fed him a Potion of Hill Giant Strength. Then we sallied out.
There was too much going on to properly write a story. We started in the back firing missiles, gradually moving Khalid and Minsc to a place to better face the Beghest. With the combination of two heavy melee and a Greater Malison and maybe a Blindness spell, we got him down. Meanwhile, we sent Corwin to deal with the Mages. There were probably three. She had the Boots of Speed and circled around for strategic shots with the Arrows of Detonation.
She might have hit a couple of allies with that, but otherwise wasted nearly the entire siege. We got our reputation gains from it, anyway. After that, it was the bridge. There was a mage setting up explosive barrels, then opening a portal to the Plane of Fire to set loose elementals to blow up the bridge.
We could shorten that process with a couple more Arrows of Detonation, but we did not. Unfortunately, Corwin with the Boots of Speed was way to far ahead of the rest of the group and took a lot of nasty shots. Dynaheir slowed everything down with a Web spell. We were able to kill the mage.
We went back inside and had some items crafted. Then with the help of a reload, we got our Boots of Speed.
Our party so far:
72592 Sam with 37 kills worth 25785
262505 Corwin with 110 kills worth 73485
290862 Minsc with 81 kills worth 94415
290752 Dynaheir with 41 kills worth 25610
131252 Glint with 37 kills worth 15175
254705 Khalid with 5 kills worth 5890
We have some companions with sidequests. Khalid has a sidequest and should be well able to replace Minsc as a tank, if we wanted. That frees up Dynaheir's mage slot and we can bring in Neera. That leaves room for one more. Safana also has a companion quest, so we might get back to her as well.
That would have been a bad idea. You can hurt the barrels too. And it takes about one explosive arrow from Corwin to blow them up.
I went with a pair of Cloudkills instead. That spell is safe, because the barrels are immune to poison.
Yes - It was a combination of feeling the encounter out and several reloads, trying to figure out how to keep Khalid alive. I actually saw what happened when the barrels blow up.
Cloudkill - That might have been better. I guess it keeps the Mage interrupted and the portal does not open. The others will probably charge the party. (At least I assume they do, because at this level, we can't have anything under Level 5, or they die or go to sleep instantly. So Sleep and Color Spray have passed the point of being useful. Levels 5 and 6 are save or die and we can't have that. I guess we had a camp full of Level 7 soldiers.) I keep forgetting to use Cloudkill.
My goto seems to be Web. It looks like we can now get 4 characters immune to it, which is more than enough. One day we might try a Greater Malison Web Combo. I count a total of -8 if the spell came from Dynaheir, -10 with a Doom, -11 with a Called Shot. Opponents will probably start getting immune to web, but I was surprised with the Hill Giant.
There is one more path. That is to let the Mage open the portal. He opens a Portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire and you fight several waves of fire creatures. Fire Mephits and Salamanders, groups of 2 or 3. The party bugs out when the portal is opened.
Session 45 - The Warm Welcome of the Coalition
It was taking me a lot of time to get something going, because there seems to be quite a lot to unpack, and I am trying to not miss anything important.
Day 103, Hour 14
We left off giving Neera a Potion of Perception towards her quest. Then we retrieved Dorn's belongings. He was too lazy to retrieve them himself. Then we started on our 14 day march.
Day 117, Hour 14
We arrived, dinging Level 8 Mage. It's..... 160k more experience to go. That would be 960k for the group. I suppose if I wanted to powergame it, then we should have taken opportunities to go solo and gain experience faster. I think we will hit our experience cap just before the final stage of the game.
@jmerry - As for your game, you started with 64k experience instead of 161k or 164k. So that is another 100k to make up.
Minsc dinged Level 9 and picked up another point in Longbows. His options are Longbow, 2H Sword, or 2W Mace. I did not see a point in a third point in DW. It is a 2 bonus to the offhand roll. The point in 2H would be 2 in speed factor. The point in Longbows is +1 Hit and +2 Damage and a half attack.
At the camp, we got quite a list of things to do:
1. Helvdar the Dwarf lost his box of Lucky Charms.
2. Waizabh the Fence is looking for a few more lost prize items.
3. The Vigilant needs help training troops. We did an.... adequate job, with the help of 2 companions. CHECK.
4. Dosia is looking for a Cure for the Uncommon Cold. It turns out we only need to interview 2 out of 3 patients.
5. Khalid needs an Aquamarine. Had we known ahead of time, I would have kept on in our pack.
6. Kesi Goldenbuckler has gone AWAL.
7. Glint's cousin is causing problems and people want him killed.
8. Safana was relieving soldiers of excess baggage and discovered a spy and we had to find out who it was. CHECK.
9. Mizhena lost her amulet and we have to find it.
10. Stonehand wants us to shut down a Thieves Guild forming in the camp.
11. Finally Twoedge wants us to interview soldiers on why they are volunteering for the front.
This was interesting. It turns out that the dialogue is dependent on the Charisma of the Main Character, which is 4. The Nymph Cloak made it 6. A Potion of Persuasion made it 10. A Friends Spell from the Staff made it 16. We were in business!
We got a Medal of Valor for our trouble. That went to Khalid, of course!
Finally, it was time to open a trade route to the Elemental Plane of Air. We had a bunch of items saved up for this. We had one Gem Bag full of expensive gems and jewelry. The other two had some junk in it. Then we had a bunch of junk in the Bag of Holding that we will never use, such as +1 weapons.
Corwin has her 20 Charisma and we are shopping. There are so many interesting items we picked up so far:
Wizzard Hat for Dynaheir, since she is the better caster.
Clover Leaf - I think that will go to Corwin.
Another Free Action Ring - We have too many characters immune to Web.
A Ring of Purity - Probably gone to Minsc.
Amulet of Protection +2 - Always handy.
Bracers of AC 5 - Might still be handy.
A third pair of Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise. Competes with Sam and Bracers AC5.
Composite Longbow +2 - goes to Minsc
Sling +2 - Will either go to Sam or Dynaheir.
Sam might do well with Throwing Knives as well.
The Night's Embrace - Goes to Glint
Soft Feet - Also goes to Glint
More Potions of Persuasion, Agility, Clarity, Freedom
We still have 40kgp. Is there other stuff we can buy?
The Scrolls might be useful. We also have the option of selling off the scrolls we will never use. Potions, of course. Wands. We have a bunch of wands with not many charges. Our friend from the Elemental Plane of Air might be happy to recharge our wands for us!
Glint did not take skill in Clubs, but is the Backwhacker useful?
I dispensed with the party status. We need a lot of experience to get our Berserker skills back. We should finalize our party.
Minsc should be IN. We already have a +3 2H Sword, the World's Edge.
That means Dynaheir is IN. She is part of the package.
Khalid should be IN. We have a +3 Longsword.
Our other two +3 weapons are both Shortswords.
Based on this and unless I change my mind, we have 3/5 party members decided.
We have Corwin right now. She is way too useful and devastating with that bow. She can use a Shortsword if we have to, but it is not a great option. Hopefully we will have something that is +3.
We also have Glint. The other option is Safana. Glint has the advantage of covering our Clerical errors, so he covers 2 roles. Safana took a skill point in Crossbows and Darts and has the option of using a Shortsword, for what it is worth.
Edwin is OUT, because we chose Minsc and Dynaheir. This covers 7/14 of our Companions.
If we are going with no evil, that eliminates Dorn, Baelor, and Vicky. That's 10/14.
Neera is an interesting choice and has options in the quest chain worth some exp. We would be very heavy in casters, 3/6. It is also bad news in a caster heavy party with a known backstabber showing up to greet us shortly. If she replaces Minsc and Dynaheir, then we need a home for the 2H Sword +3.
M'kay the Goblin is also interesting. I'm told a funny character. I'm not sure how to optimize a shammy.
Jaheira is a solid choice and we have wide open options on how to build her. Finally Vicktor the Mighty, who has probably hooked up with Safana and Vicky both is also a very interesting choice. We don't need a +3 weapon for him. He just sings for us - and is another option for spells.
It looks like our path is Deadman's Pass, the Caverns, the Keep, then the Forest. Maybe we change up the order slightly.
It looks like we misnumbered the previous post and it should have been 44 instead of 45. Maybe my counting is off, anyway.
We did a little bit more shopping. Sam is experimenting with throwing daggers now. Strength bonus and 2 attacks per round. Drawback might be range and we have to be a bit closer, like darts. This is not that big a deal if we are running with some melee. They also take inventory slots instead of quiver slots, but that does not matter, because we can still carry bullets with the quiver slots.
Day 117, Hour 14 - Or maybe Hour 0
On the way to Dead Man's Pass, we found the perfect ambush point. The question, of course, is who is doing the ambushing? The Heir of Sarevok and Bhall? Or the Heir of Cyric?
3 Arrows of Detonation. 2 Oil of Fiery Burning. 1 Potion of Explosions. Shake and bake.
Who ordered extra crispy?
The AoE on those Arrows is amazing! It looks like Minsc managed to roll a 6 for damage to get a total of 15 points for the piercing damage. For some reason, that got applied to the entire AoE. Then the 6d6 fire got applied and it was save versus spells for half. Or save versus something. It is a nice counter to how every mob seems to carry healing potions and invisibility potions.
Day 118, Hour 0 - We arrived at Dead Man's Pass
We found those Ettins and they had gems, but they did not have an Aquamarine. This was very disappointing. Does it mean we cannot complete Khalid's quest? Does it mean we just did not look hard enough? I will check the walkthrough again and see if I missed it. Next time we will just carry an Aquamarine all the way through the game, similar to the Angel Skin Ring and the Sphene Gem in BG1.
The encounters are very dense. If I counted right, we picked up nearly 120k experience in this one zone. We had a variety of strategies to deal with them.
The Ettins mentioned above, we slowly pulled back for some space and made sure whoever they were pursuing had speed. Then we picked them off.
There was an Orog encounter in the south. That was taken care of with a Web Spell. Then we found there was an invisible Marauder caught in the web. So we cast an Invisibility Purge. So the encounter cost a L2 and L3 spell.
Then we went to the northwest and dealt with the Ogre Mage and gang. We knew they were there before because our scouting was good, but they were busy casting and going berserk, so we figured we would do something else (the Orogs) waiting for all that to wear off. We chose positions around the group. Corwin chose a spot to hit the Mage. Sam tried to line up a Lightning Bolt or two. Dynaheir dropped another Web. Minsc cleaned up.
Khalid is probably actually better for the same job. We have so many options!
There were two Displacer Beast packs, and also a wolf pack. Two groups of Spiders. A trapped bridge with a group of Hobgoblins guarding it. We accidentally started the encounter, so we had to deal with them a few at a time.
We found Nuber. He brought us good luck, because we remembered to check for stuff in tree trunks and found another item.
There were two groups including Hill Giants. The smaller group was 3. We made that encounter very simple with a simple Grease Spell. They could not move fast. We pelted them.
The larger group had 3 and a Leader and a couple of Dire Wolves. The Grease would have been better, but we kited a bit with our faster characters. Then we got a Blindness spell to hit the leader.
Finally we got to the Killer Mimic Cave. There was a group of Spiders, so we protected Minsc from Poison. Khalid was probably the better choice. I keep forgetting who our tank is now. It probably does not matter. Then exploring the cave further, we found a Killer Mimic, Olyugh, and some Ochre Jellies.
This is probably a good reason we have been stocking up on these Invisibility Potions. Let's get out of here and figure out a strategy. Let's pop a reload, try this again and figure out a better strategy.
We used a Skeleton, then had Corwin hide in shadows and have the Skeleton lure a couple of Ochre Jellies around the corner so we could beat them. Then we lured the other two. That left the Killer Mimic and the Slime Beast. We raised another Skeleton and sent it after the Killer Mimic. This was the only thing that could be taken out with ranger weapons. After that, we sent the Skeletons after the Slime Beast and the rest with Melee.
Khalid still took a nasty hit, but we were able to clear up the poison damage with an Elixir of Health and the disease effect did not seem to stick around that much longer. This was a better result than getting cursed before.
Finally, there was a cellar door we found leading to a cellar full of shadows and a couple of invisible Greater Shadows. We quickly got Minsc protected and fired our ranger weapons at Khalid's target to take it down faster. Then the Greater Shadows hit and Corwin got it a couple of times.
So she's down a bit of strength for the night. It's also 4 in the morning and we should be getting rest soon, anyway.
Here is our party:
114629 Sam with 14 kills worth 13945
310577 Corwin with 45 kills worth 38890
329921 Minsc with 27 kills worth 23765
329727 Dynaheir with 6 kills worth 5690
150761 Glint with 9 kills worth 5690
293710 Khalid with 14 kills worth 30210
So I count about 816k experience to go before we get our abilities back. This map was worth almost 120k. Maybe we have a shot at it by the end of the chapter.
Based on our location, we might be going to the Castle next. We will check.
There is not much action in this one. We returned to the refugee salesmen and bought a few Potions of Healing and a Potion of Insulation. All of this will come in handy. We carry 0 Healing Spells on our Cleric, after all. With so many Healing Potions, I see little point. (I think we have between 72 and 96, plus a case of Extra Healing Potions, and all doses of the Cup of Blood.)
Day 118, Hour 13 - Rested
Hour 17 - Dragonspear Castle
Sure enough, we found Kesi Goldenbuckler fighting some Mercenaries. We sent her packing back to the camp. She had this bright idea of scouting the Castle up close. It was a good idea, but we could not give her credit for it. We had to steal it.
We snuck in right through the front gate. We had a Seal of Caelar, of course. Time would show that these are not a bright bunch. How do we hide the fact that we look like the gang on the Wanted Posters? The exact same gang at the Battle of Boarskyr Bridge?
Did we say they are not the brightest bunch? We stepped in on some kind of trial. Some poor fool, Corinth, was accused of betraying the Crusade by warning his hometown of the attack. They volunteered us to investigate the facts ourselves and cast the deciding vote. Do they normally do this to recruits?
We decided we would cause more havoc by finding him innocent. The penalty is death to the accuser. Talking to the accused afterwards, he decided he would abandon the Crusade at the next opportunity. Scratch 2 Crusaders.
Then we encountered Tristan the Priest of Red Knight. Even for his childhood friend, there is no convincing him to abandon the Crusade. However, we could challenge him to a game of chess for that Holy Symbol of his. Sam grew up in Candlekeep. He has been playing his entire life.
Then we had an encounter with Corwin's ex and we somehow convinced him that Corwin abandoned the Flaming Fist and joined the Crusade. For Lawful-A, we never imagined her bluff game would be on point. There will be a surprise waiting at the Camp. Scratch 4 more Crusaders as Beno leaves his ex again and joins the Fist.
After that, we ran more errands around the Keep and robbed everybody blind.
Khalid - Don't refer to the Crusaders as enemies when we are in disguise and at their base.
Khalid - For such a stutter, we did not imagine you had such a grasp on alternate multiverse theory!
Session 47 - The Underground River
Day 118, Hour 23 - Arrived at Dead Man's Pass
Day 119, Hour 7 - Rested
Hour 19 - Arrived at Underground River
First up was the Wyvern hunt. We had room to maneuver , so we played kite and shoot. We protected Khalid just in case. Next up was the Orc Ambush. There were 18 of them, so a combination of Fireball and Arrow of Detonation did the trick.
All we needed was to see those Raiders dead. We do not need to be backstabbed 3 to 6 times.
We found some Druids and helped them out. We found a band of humanoids and just paid the toll. For another 500exp, we could have just settled some kind of peace with them. I might end up needing those exp. Then we found a mushroom guy stinking up an outhouse. In another corner, we found some displacer beasts and they had Mizzy's Amulet.
Then we found an Ogre camp and settled a leadership dispute. Of course, we nominated Khalid to fight a couple of Ogres. With that victory, we put him in charge of the party as well.
Finally, we go to the Crusader Camp, guarded of course by some Crusaders and a Cyclops. The guide we were using said they attack no matter what we said, but apparently that was not the case. We had a Battle Standard and a Seal, both.
There was more for us to gain by wiping out the camp.
The Cyclops seems to be a ridiculously easy target. We got Khalid nearly immune to missile weapons and set up Web and we were set. After that, we ran into the Companion Quests for Minsc and Dynaheir. Stop their new friends from joining the Crusade.
Here is our party:
128528 Sam
307599 Khalid
343836 Minsc
343615 Dynaheir
315482 Corwin
About 121.5k experience to go, or 729k total. It looks like 4 zones left in Chapter 10.
Now we wonder why we were sent on this mission. They have the castle under siege and surrounded. It is still being supplied by an underground cavern. Why send us? Why not just attack the tunnel? This, of course, becomes much more obvious when we return to the castle before schedule. Bence is looking for us wondering why we are not doing what we are supposed to be. We are busy gathering exp.
Did we say these Crusaders were not the brightest bunch? We killed the guards to the Crusader encampment in front of the tunnel entrance. Then we killed the Crusaders inside the entrance. After a rest and a conversation with a couple of Ruskies, we entered the tunnel.
Ladle - What in the nine hells was that noise?
Sam - A squirrel. They can be deceptively noisy at night when there are no other noises out there.
Ladle - Damn Squirrels.
Minsc - It could have been a hamster. A giant miniature space hamster.
Ladle gave us a quest to move 20 sacks of grain from one end of the room to the other. They are blocked where they are right now and that is as far as they can move it. Then he had us move the grain back. It was pointless exercise, except we got a couple more potions and 12000 exp.
We found a few interesting creatures inside. A couple of Murlocs who just wanted to hear a story, so we told them a story. Oops. Wrong game. Then a traveling potion salesman and his pet mushroom.
Eventually we found a cave with a bunch of Shadows inside. When we cleared out the Shadows, a couple of Wraiths popped out of hiding and smacked Khalid with a Level Drain. We worked with this level drain for as long as we could get away and when we finally did, Khalid kept complaining about being tired.
Further in the cave, we found some dead adventurers and we could not talk them out of anything but a fight. I am guessing this was Charisma based.
We saw a couple of not-so-bright Crusader Patrols. They are on the lookout for intruders and keeping their people safe. When they were not looking, we took out Stunk the Wizard trying to capture Water Elementals. Then the Crusade Patrol walked back past us while we were hiding the body.
We found where to place the Bwoosh and killed an Etin Ghost on the way. Hopefully this does not trigger an ant storm. Circling back, it did not. We had to circle all the way back to the entrance and head the other way, encountering the Dark Druid and his minions.
While wiping out these minions, we encountered a Crusader patrol that was poisoned. So we went back to the Dark Druid for a cure. He charged us 2000gp for it. It was no matter. We were getting the gold back soon enough, anyway. With his usefulness outlived, we planted the Acorn and proceeded to kill him.
From here it was the Dragon Ghost rescue and the Fugue Plane. Forward scouting helped here, too. We sent Glint in to check out the Wizard Cabal and jump out before the True Sight spell had its effect. Then we sent Corwin and Minsc in the Arrows of Detonation to saturate the area and Kerrium did not survive very long.
After this, there was a trapped Lich to take out. We had one charge left in this gem with his name on it. For some reason, the Endless Watcher was not too pleased with us. It was no matter.
We had some Drow to report bad news to. We found their runaways and let them go. With the Crusaders at our side, we were able to dispatch them well enough. After that, we needed a way to enter the Warrens. Of course that was easy. Drop an explosive potion into the fire to see what happens, then sneak through the door while they are investigating the chaos.
Inside, we looted everything that was not locked down, and freed Slug and the Ogres. We should report back to him before leaving the zone to see if there is any more exp. Finally, we caught a ride into the Castle Basement.
It was guarded, of course - and we could not convince them that we had business. So we dropped a Web spell.
Confronting H and his mages, our solution was the same as always. It's a fireball and AoE shrapnel. It's a fantasy medieval RPG.
With our mission complete, everybody was nagging me to get us out of there. It was pretty clear we were going to have to fight our way out - or at least sneak. Even Minsc was yelling at us to get out.
The Ogres guarding the lift wondered what all that noise was up there and did not believe our story. (This is also Charisma related.) So we had to use our timewarp and find a better way out. The non reload solution of course would be just pop 6 potions of invisibility. Instead, a 10 foot invisibility solved our problem. We turned off the party AI and made our way to the front.
Then we did something crazy. Sam always does. Sam and Minsc. Dumm and Dummer. It's far enough out of here. We are in a good defensible spot to take them all.
Two Cloudkills guarding the stairs, plus one Web and 2 Skeletons. That will slow them down while we shoot them. There were still about 6 troops at the entrance where we were staying, but with the reinforcements slowed down, they were easily defeated. After that, we were able to slaughter the room in parts.
Back in the tunnels, the Patrol has not wised up to us. Finally we were busted on the way out, so we had to fight our way. One Crusader. Two Patrols. The entrance room. Finally we were out.
We talked to the Ruskies and the Druids. We still have to talk to the Ogres.
Our party:
203397 Sam
390295 Corwin
418761 Minsc
418477 Dynaheir
195115 Glint
382540 Khalid
We are getting close to level cap and getting our experience back. A little over 46k, or about 280k to go. So it looks more likely we will hit it.
We are supposed to return to the Coalition camp, but we are still distracted with side quests.
Day 120, Hour 18 - Rested
Day 121, Hour 2 - Arrived at Bloodbark Grove where we had a short shopping list
Belladona - Pick up for Neera - We found out later we did not need this anymore.
Bloodbark - Pick up for Dosie
There was a a ruined house with a cellar we explored, with a fledgling Vampire waiting for us. We did not want to mess with it too much, so we used our usual solution. Blow it up with Detonation Arrows.
Day 121, Hour 11 - Rested
Day 122, Hour 7 - Arrived at Coalition Camp
Apparently, the top brass is waiting for us at Dead Man's Pass for another Parley with Caelyn. So we sold off all our goodies and turned in what quests we can and headed that direction.
Parley went nowhere and suddenly they are attacking. This is very strange. If outnumbered in a siege, there is no reason to counterattack. What kind of fanatics are we dealing with?
Trolls we can understand. Not very bright. Fire is very bright. Fire is very bad. The archers kind of finished them off very quickly.
Round 2 was the Wizards. The Wizard Slayers took care of them fairly quickly.
Round 3 were foot soldiers. I was not sure what the best counter we had available for them. We took the Wizards. We webbed the place up.
Final round was an enemy party. We were still feeling lazy and took care of them with Detonation Arrows. (We still have way too many.)
Session 50 - The Final Assault
This was a lot of hacking and slashing. The safest was to hit things from a distance to avoid getting caught too far forward. We had to balance that, because we were so close in experience.
Finally we got busted by Ashatiel and she issued her one on one challenge. Come on. The idea is fun, but this is stupid. If we are winning the assault, why should we accept a one on one challenge. We are going to win anyway. We might save some loss of life, but all the loss of life will be on their side, because we are winning. The time for a one on one challenge is before the battle and not during. Second, we are about 6 arrows away from blowing up her party. Finally.....
We were about 1200 experience points away from hitting Level 10 and getting our Berserker skills back!
I really do not know how to fight as a Mage when completely unprepared for a duel. Where could we get our AC? 0 with Potion of Invulnerability. -4 with Dexterity. -6 with Ring of Protection. -9 with Elves Bane. -14 with Boots. Her melee weapon is hammer, so I guess that's Potion of Absorption, -16AC. What's her THACO? We might have some room to get some spells up. Maybe I load up to see if I can do this.
From a game point of view, there is no point. The siege ends when we kill her and there is no more loot dropping. It is not like it matters. So we declined the duel and blew up her party. She was able to warp to a safe spot. Her party was enough for us to gain our final level.
The next place we were going was Hell. Our Detonation Arrows are unlikely to be any good there. Where we are going next, we will not be able to take very much with us.
On the way to the gate, we ran into one of our old friends. This was posted because it was funny.
The final fight was a mess. We sided with Caelar. We should have let her tank more while we take care of the adds. We did not prepare properly. We should have had Glint in the Chainmail so we would be fear warded. Our charm protections fell off on the elevator. Sam did not have a decent weapon and I did not see him do damage with a Shortsword +3. We got it in the end.
Khalid with the killing blow to end the show.
It was finally over and there was much celebration. What was that thing Skie had for us? We better not be returning to Baldur's Gate. Her father will want our heads.
Hoodieman had a mission for us in Amn and already had Immy along for the ride. Who's in?
Minsc and Dynaheir, of course.
Khalid will go, and is bringing his wife, Jaheira.
Corwin is going back to Baldur's Gate with the Fist.
That leaves Glint, the Amazing Disappearing Gnome.
As for Ashatiel's rules, she's a bit of a hypocrite. She says no hiding or the deal's off; if you go invisible and stay that way for more than a few rounds, she ends the duel and it's a general fight. Actually, that's a "she sees you" check, so hitting her with a Blindness will also be treated as cheating.
Also, Ashatiel is fond of Sanctuary herself. Going invisible for a few rounds is forbidden, but hiding behind a Sanctuary for a few rounds to heal up is allowed. Well, at least tactical hiding is allowed for the stealthy types; if you reveal yourself after a round or two with a nasty sneak attack, you're fine.
Your final shot there ... you were better off than I was on fear protection. All I had was one arcane scroll, which I had used up earlier. When Caelar delivered the final blow, only my protagonist and Dynaheir were free of panic.
Wand of Paralyze seemed to work one time, but that seems too dependent on luck.
Potion of Defense. I thought we could get Invulnerability, but can't use it as a mage. Defense gets us our base armor class 0.
Potion of Magic Shielding. 3 Turns. 50% magic damage resistance. Automatic saves, but I read that it is implemented as a bonus of 20 to the roll, so a 1 still misses.
Potion of Absorption. So we are at -7AC with -8 to missile and -10 to crush. From here we have some room to cast spells.
Needed our Vocalize Necklace, because we were silenced for some reason.
Mirror Image in there somewhere. Probably should have used Blur. There were some defenses to take down.
Breach. Spell Thrust.
Tried Greater Malison / Paralyze combination. She did a save versus Wands at 0. So I do not know why it worked the first time.
Her AC appears to be -3. So at range, we needed 16 to hit.
Our Companions can't help, but apparently there are no limits on summoned help. So Wand of Monster Summoning. Apparently she's dumb enough to attack them. Mind you, 3 or 4 of them got summoned and they hit better than a mage. This seemed to buy the time we needed to try things.
Double Magic Missile Sequencer.
Scorcher from Fire Wand.
Potion of Fire Breath.
If we go Invisible during the duel, then she uses a Detect Invisibility to dispel it. If we go Invisible again, then she uses an Invisibility Purge. If we go Invisible a third time, then she declares the duel dishonored. This is always a relative term and we have seen our example from de Lancie of Waterdeep that victory has priority over everything.
On the other side, she can go Sanctuary and that does not count as hiding from sight. Somewhere, I read that Potion of Firebreath goes through Sanctuary for some reason, so that was what we did.
I'm still new at this magic dueling thing. As well as I understand it, the idea is to get as close to immune to physical and magical damage as possible. So we had the get hard to hit down reasonably, but not optimally. We did not get down to -20AC and we did not get down to them needing a 20 to hit. That leaves the criticals. Mirror Image will take care of a lot of them. Stoneskin will take care of the rest.
Eventually we get to put up some kind of counterthreat.
As a Cleric / Mage, she has a lot of spells and a lot of them were set up with the idea of a duel.
Resource-wise, I do not believe it was worth it.
Leading up to the duel, tactics-wise, I was playing my mages wrong. This was because we had a combination of tanks and melee destroying everything already.
So learning how to mage better still needs a lot of work. This will continue in BG2EE, because we now have a L9 Berserker Mage. Especially since all of our characters are starting at 500k experience, the initial dungeon should be very easy. My main character will not have any spells memorized, but he can still slap on some armor and bash things. We have Minsc and Jaheira as well.
I will need to take some decisions on what my BG2EE party build will be. I will also look up the experience point thresholds.
Experience Point Thresholds
The experience point thresholds add an interesting element to the game. If the character picked up is below a threshold and the main character is above, then the new character is leveled to the threshold. This adds a few interesting elements to characters that are available later in the game. Specifically:
We avoid a lot of picking up our team of characters at Level 1 that seemed popular in Original BG. For example, if we wanted to play with Minsc and Dynaheir, then we would do well to pick them up at Level 1 so that we can configure them the way we want, especially if we are playing max hp per level. Dynaheir is slightly less important as a Mage. We avoid a lot of picking up the party at Level 1.
We can pick up Coran, Faldorn, and Yeslick in Chapter 4 at 32k experience points. At Chapter 5, we get more options. So these characters start off at a higher level, but we have some room to improve them.
Alignment and Reputation
They changed the reputation reaction of Neutral characters so that it makes a little more sense. In Original BG, Neutral characters were never happy, and they were Unhappy when Reputation hit 19 or 20. Now they are happy at high reputation, which does not make a lot of sense, either. I understand Neutrals generally preferring to be in a party of Heroes, but maybe should have been Neutral at 19 or 20 and happy from 13 to 18 or something.
The issue I remember with unhappy Neutral characters is they might not rejoin the party if they were unhappy when they left. The effect of the change is Neutrals are easier to work with and we can more easily include them in the party.
Another impression I get is we can play a Neutral character, such as a Druid, and build up huge reputation if we wanted. It might not matter, but we might work better with Neutral and Good.
I do not see myself ever playing as Evil, being aligned with jmerry's Truth, Justice and the Paladin Way, but if we choose to work with Neutral characters, we can run up to 20 Reputation and still be CE.
The benefit of 20 Reputation, of course, is shop discounts and not being broke. It also looks like I completely forgot about dream sequences in this discussion.
Companions in Siege of Dragonspear
There is a penalty for working with Companions who are not in Siege of Dragonspear. The party is with you one more time for one more dungeon and then they move on. Their inventory slots get carried to the Trunk, but the items they are wearing are gone.
Imoen. She leaves the party, but transfers all of her stuff to her trunk, so we can recover what we want later. There is just the one dungeon we will not have access to it. If there is no other thief in the party, then I understand she is replaced by Safana. I could be wrong about the no other thief. If Safana is already in the party, then there is no replacement and we are left with a 5-toon group. We gain an advantage of 20% on the experience from the dungeon, but we have a net penalty, because we lost a character and inventory slots.
So I think the highest benefit is to have Imoen in the BG1EE Party, but not Safana. Then Imoen gets replaced by Safana. All of Imoen's items will be transferred to a trunk at the beginning of the game and Safana will join with a bunch of equipment of her own.
All characters in the initial party are moving on. Some of them we can pick up later in the game and we will regain access to their items when we pick them up. So we are rewarded for using them. So the party choices are:
(1) Imoen
Not Safana
(3) Khalid and Jaheira
(5) Minsc and Dynaheir
(6) Edwin, probably exclusive with Minsc and Dynaheir
(7) Viconia
(11) Neera, Rasaad, Dorn, Baeloth
The Thief option in the above list is either Imoen or Gore Ironsword, the MC. So we are penalized by dual-classing Imoen to match Imoen in BG2. We are rewarded for having her as a top level Thief in BG1. Here were my losses in the initial dungeon:
Imoen. 16 Bag Slots, 1 Paper Doll
Branwen. 1 Paper Doll
Coran. 1 Paper Doll
Safana - We kept and used
Neera - We kept, but never used or even picked up
So our losses were 16 Bag Slots and 3 Paper Dolls. We seem to be making a huge deal out of it, but each slot seems to be worth hundreds of gp in the early game.
Where is our Gold?
The game starts with at 0gp and a treasury note for the 80kgp or so we accumulated in BG1EE. We find out during the game the gold is effectively gone, so we would do well to enter the game with a minimum balance of gp.
We have a Gem Bag, so we would do well to keep valuable Gems in it. We can also transfer magic items.
Detonation Arrows and Amazing Items
These are amazing. We should be sure to accumulate as many of them as we can.
Dispel Arrows - I did not have much opportunity to test them effectively
Wands - I did not do well putting them to effective use.
Time Warps and Alternative Universes
In Original BG, the clock was ticking as soon as you opened your inventory. The idea was if you do not have your item ready, then it will be hard to go looking for it. When an Ogre is running you down is a very bad time to go looking for a weapon or a potion that will help you.
BG2 gave a little break. The game was still paused in inventory. However, it was not paused when looking through the Bag of Holding or Potion Case or Scroll Case. This becomes very apparent in.....
The Duel - NO interference from party members. Do you accept?
Sure. We just need a few things first, then we are ready.
Minsc. Potion of Defense, please.
Minsc. Potion of Magic Shielding, please.
Minsc. Potion of Absorption, please.
Minsc. Amulet of Whispers, please.
I might continue my list of observations later, but am more likely to keep going with BG2EE. It will start with Session 51. See you then!
This showed up while I was typing up some general observations of BG1EE and the transition to SoD.
First paragraph - Based on your wording, I cannot confirm it. I did not fight that party. I went to the other gate for Caelar's speech and then went inside. I knew the party was there based on the walkthrough, but did not go looking for it. Detonation Arrows were my solution to all problems. I came into the Assault with about 40 of them. It looks like I missed a few items, but no +3 items, and about 22k experience.
Second Paragraph - I have to read her challenge again, but she issues it as a one on one fight with no interference from party members. After this is accepted, she started adding terms to it that were not agreed to when the challenge was issued.
I just read it again. She issues the challenge. After it is accepted, the throws in all the terms. The correct response in my opinion is to turn around and refuse the challenge.
Hypocrisy of using Sanctuary - Well, the alternative is dying. We would do the same thing. If we are losing, then we just pop 3 Invisibility Potions and opt out of the fight.
Last paragraph - Your game started from a character rolled with 64k experience and a party with some items. So we already started with some unfair advantages.
My last run was an evil one - Dorn as protagonist. Even then, I usually floated around 6 to 8 reputation. Extreme low reputation is very inconvenient, even for the evil sort. Though I dropped down to "fight the law" territory a few times in that run, to see what it was like. And to farm the soldiers' full plate in BG2.
I've also done some mixed runs, carrying both good and evil characters in the same party - it's manageable, but does require occasionally doing bad things to lower your reputation. Until ToB, when all of the evil characters except Dorn stop caring about high reputation.
In the SoD run I just completed, I took a LN protagonist ... with mostly good companions, and good choices. Final reputation 18, including the -2 M'Khiin penalty and a church donation or two.
Whenever acquiring a new character, I always forget to set the AI, because a lot of this is new to me. AI stands for Artificial Idiot, right? I don't find out until the character starts casting high powered spells to take out a single Goblin. So my caster is going to be out of spells in a few encounters.
Sam picked up an extra 38912 Experience from somewhere since the FInal Save from SoD. He started with 538912 Experience.
Imoen started with 540k experience. So while Sam and the Otter Chaos Gang was out there getting killed, Imoen was stuck in Baldur's Gate gaining even more experience. We rescued our other companions, MInsc and Jaheira and went into the Jailer Room to gear up as well as we could.
In the original game, characters were starting between 89k and 161k experience. Now we are starting with 500k, so this dungeon should be much easier.
Here is Minsc treating us to one of my many favorite lines of the game. It is going to be a good night.
We have one set of Splint Mail Armor and one Helmet. So we can only have one Tank. For now, this will be Minsc, because Sam is a caster at night, also wielding two crazy blades. Minsc has an option with Mace and Small Shield that does him no good against missile attacks. His other option is the 2H Sword. We took the skill point in 2H Style, so that he gets the extra critical.
There were no good weapons for Sam, so he will grab the Dagger +1 and the Katana. Compared to the Katana, it is sacrificing 2 points of Damage for 3 points of hit range. He probably does not need that much help in hit range, except the Goblins we might encounter are one-shot kills.
Imoen is using the Armor Spell. It is almost equivalent to the Studded Leather and she will be working as a caster where possible. For now, she gets a Short Sword.
Jaheira gets the Studded Leather and a Staff, but will be going Bear until needed as a Caster.
Our first test was the Smoke Mephit behind the Jailer. It did 5hp damage to Minsc and gave him a short Blind. It seems to last a round or two. It was an effective dead end with a door we could not open. So we went the other way out.
Our second test was a few Lightning Mephits. They were fun to kill until a Lightning Bolt went through all of us. Then we decided to stop and pass through the room, where we met our friend the Genie. He was nice enough to heal us before summoning an Ogre Mage which seemed to have no spells and was easy to kill.
After that was a group of Goblins. Two of them were armed with Bows and that means we now have a couple of Ranged weapons. MInsc is still tanking, so the logical choices for the bows was Imoen and Sam.
Gradually we get little upgrades for our group. In the tank room, we found a Quarterstaff +1 This went to Imoen, because Jaheira seemed to be doing fine in bear form. In the Sewage Golem room, we found the Longsword +1 and an unidentified Dagger. We are carefully saving our resources and will save the Identify Spell for when we need another magical item.
Our next stop was to find Rislev and there were more Goblins to kill on the way. This got us the Activation Stone we needed for the Sewage Golem, but we were in no hurry to open up the level, so we pressed further on. We also acquired a Sling and 8 Bullets in this room, which will make things much easier. Sam has some skill with Slings and the Goblins will be one-shot kills from range.
This is exactly what we were doing on the way to the library. In the Library, we found an Amplifier Amulet, good for an extra M2 Spell when we get out of this dungeon. We also picked up an Oil of Speed. Slowly we are acquiring resources that will be used to get out of this place.
Finally, Jaheira popped out of Bear Form to use her CSW and heal up a little bit. We were preparing for the big fight against the Druegar. I have not so fond memories of this room. I believe it was because before we were charging in there against a Mage and 4 Crossbows and no armor, wondering why we were getting smoked. Sam put up a Shield spell for some protection against that, and a Stoneskin for even more protection.
We had room to prepare and we did. On starting the encounter, we launched, Entangle, Grease, and Stinking Cloud. Whatever was in there was not getting to us fast.
We were able to dispatch the rest of the party at the cost of a couple of saving throws. Minsc took a hit from Illych. There was lots of stuff in the room. An interesting prize was a set of Throwing Daggers. Not only are the Goblins still one-shot kills, but we are now getting 2 attacks per round and we get to kill them faster!
We explored as far into the dungeon as we could without activating the Sewage Golem. We cannot enter the Air Plane and we do not have enough gear to fight the Cambion.
Something I noticed - The Shield spell did not last nearly as long as I thought. I thought the description said one hour, but it only seemed good for the one fight with the Druegar. I will read the description again.
In the Sewage Room, there was another big fight waiting for us. We decided to prepare for it by summoning 2 Rabid Dogs. (This seems so underwhelming for a M3 spell.) It did the trick. We were able to get in to the room and kill the beast. The dogs actually survived the fight. We had a bad memory from a similar beast in Siege of Dragonspear in the Mimic Cave. So I thought this was going to be some kind of boss fight for the level.
We also found a second set of splint mail, a Helm of Infravision, and an Oil of Speed. On the way to the better half of the dungeon, we found some Arrows of Biting on a Goblin.
After meeting the Dryads and entering the royal suite bedroom, we were finally busted. The Golem Force was on its way. They were not very bright. We killed one while the other ran into the bedroom to investigate who caused the commotion. Then we killed it on the way back through the Dryad room. It was almost like he was ignoring us to investigate the room. Nobody was in there, so he was on his way back.
We obtained the Air Elemental Statue, so could enter the Air Plane. We did. We took out a bunch more Mephits and talked to our friend the Genie. In SoD, he was having such a good time on the Prime Plane. Now he has a little problem. Hoodieman captured him and trapped him on this mini Airplane. So we went back to the Dryads and retrieved his bottle and got the Sword of Chaos in exchange.
Finally we are ready to attack the Cambion. Everybody has a magical weapon. We used our identify spell to identify the Grave Binder Dagger +2.
If you think this is a good idea. So many things we do come back to haunt us.
This finishes the first level. We had a little study party for Imoen, because she was going away. Here is where we forgot about the 15% penalty for all schools being considered opposition schools for dual-class mages. We went 4/10 on spells for 10k out of 20k experience, slightly below average. We will not be seeing Immy in a while and none of the spells were important, so figured we might as well try to grab a bit more experience.
Hindsight says we could have waited for a potion somewhere outside and get the full 20k experience. It is not that big a deal.
On the second level is Yoshimo, who joined us - and here is a good place to break. Here is our party:
316105 Sam with 34 kills worth 6330 - He was picking off a lot of the Goblins
525675 Minsc with 18 kills worth 11870 - He got the kill on the Cambion
527191 Imoen with 6 kills worth 2520 - and taking the MVP Thief slot
261980 Jaheira with 11 kills worth 3400
500000 Yoshimo who we just met - and in other news might meet again on Saturday!
The penalty isn't for dual-class mages in general; it's for mages and bards that have anything other than the "base class" kit. Imoen has a null kit, so she gets the penalty erroneously. And really, it's a bug that the penalty applies to anything other than specialist mages; the whole thing looks to be code copied from original BG1 that became a problem when the kit system was expanded.
In Imoen's case, it's actually fixable by editing her kit. Most other instances you might run into (such as your protagonist with a warrior kit, or Haer'Dalis the Blade, or Neera the Wild Mage) aren't fixable short of a new patch for the game.
Though you definitely had some bad luck there. I pretty much always save the starting dungeon's scrolls for later.
You explained the penalty to me and after this happened, I remembered - and then decided it was not as terrible as I first thought. I just worked it out on Excel - 17% probability of getting 4 or fewer, like rolling a 1 on a six-sided die. Or getting 4 out of 10 is like rolling a 2 or a 3 on a 20 sided die. It happens often enough.
In contrast, at 75%, the probability of getting 4 or fewer is about 2%. This will be a very difficult concept for me to explain, but somewhere between 17% and 2% is where I get suspicious of the rng or whoever is rolling the dice. This magic number is probably very close to 2%, because that coincides with 2 standard deviations below the mean.
If I saved the scrolls, then I would have had to drop close to 10 inventory slots, which are probably worth about 5gp each. So we gained about 50gp and lost about 1000gp. So I have to agree with the last part. It was a bad trade. It is no big deal. We will recover.
Session 52 - The Escape
Last night, we were experimenting with Yoshimo, because I wanted to confirm that he could still backstab with that Katana of his - and it turns out that he can. With that in mind, we invested his skill point in Crossbows, because I like to have one character who can use Crossbows and benefit from bolts that drop. The thief skill points were invested in stealth.
As a Bounty Hunter, traps are probably a better choice, especially if we do a lot of luring enemies. I understand traps are another great way to cheese the game - and it looks like we will not be doing very much of that.
It is a very minor issue, anyway, because Yoshi is a temporary character.
I will also have to see how some of these scenarios play out, before I finalize my strategies.
The experimenting did show how bad the next room can get if we don't get those Mephits under control. Luring them into the next room is a bad strategy. Also the Radiant ones are very annoying. We do not want half our party knocked out from a well aimed Color Spray.
So we went into the Mephit Portal Pit and started killing Mephits. We made Sammy Berserk to be immune to the Color Spray for a short while. We took our sweet time killing off the portals, but Minsc was getting cooked by all that fire damage. It looks like we took out about 13 of them in total by the time we got all the portals.
We used a total of 3 Healing Potions and 3 Extra Healing Potions to recover from that mess. So we took approximately 108 points of damage from that mess. Next time we take out the Portals quicker. In terms of Healing potions, I call this a 900gp mistake.
However, we did not bother to reload. We made about 2000gp worth of mistakes and did not bother to reload.
Day 0, Hour 15 - This time is marked, because this is where Jaheira delivers one of the more poignant moments of the game. Khalid is gone for good. We can also count the number of hours she mourns.
Next was the clone room. With Yoshi's experiment mentioned above, we knew what was coming. (In the experiment we backstabbed the Assassin, then ran back to the party. A Lightning Bolt ripped through the walls, hit Yoshi twice and the party once.) That makes it an easy decision. We force-attacked the clone and still claimed 1250xp. Then the Assassin went hostile.
We made our way to the Throne Room with all the traps. For some reason, the trap detection was not working for the first two, but we already knew where the pedestals were. So we cleared out half the room, then rescued Finneagan the Doppleganger. Then we cleared out the rest of the Throne Room, then went to attack the Vampire.
I always forget how the timer works. It looks like he follows the closest party member. Maybe he waits for a fight. Maybe he waits for a dangerous fight. He chose the Vampire fight to strike.
This would make for a very interesting 4-way cluster. We have in this fight:
3 Assassins from the Thieves guild, 1 Mage and 2 Rogues. They are Fighting
1 Vampire. They were getting killed by the Vampire when
The Party - walked in. The party was followed by
Finneagan who suddenly turned into a Greater Doppleganger.
If the AI was smarter, Finneagan would have simply gone after the range group and force them to run around, while the Rogues decide who is going to win between Dumm and Dummer and the Vampire.
With the Doppleganger going after Dumm and Dummer, it was much easier. The Mage was the next target, then the Doppleganger.
I did not check the combat log that closely, but the Greater Doppleganger seemed to be nerfed in this dungeon. Minsc took one hit and I saw quite a few misses. His AC is 1 or 2. I remember in Durlag Sam getting smoked unless he was at -10. Those Dopplegangers also cast haste on themselves and that makes a difference as well.
With those out of the way, and the Forge cleared, we had one encounter between ourselves and daylight - assuming it was still daylight. We were really taking our time in this dungeon! (Carefully looking for traps in spite of reading a walkthrough will do this. The combination of Durlag and the Thieves Maze taught this, but it kills time sensitive items.)
It was a Mage that was visible, and two hidden Thieves. They popped out of shadows to fire arrows at Imoen, who was still protected by Stoneskin. They were very quickly dead.
We leave off just short of the entrance. Our party:
326673 Sam with 61 kills worth 33185 including Ulvaryl for 8000
536244 Minsc with 26 kills worth 16415 including Cambion for 6000
537759 Imoen with 8 kills worth 7940 including Portal for 5000
267264 Jaheira with 19 kills worth 10800 including Portal for 5000
510568 Yoshi with 1 kill worth 420, a Salt Mephit
We have some resources.
14/26 Healing Potions
14/17 Extra Healing Potions
4/4 Elixir of Health
3/3 Oil of Speed
1/1 Potion of Master Thievery
Some magical weapons:
Longtooth +2
Sword of Chaos +2
Bastard Sword +1, Longsword +1, Dagger +1
Some +1 ammo, bullets, arrows, bolts
A collection of scrolls
Some gems and jewelry
Some scrap bows and armor and stuff
We also have 6 wands with a single charge each, as soon as we can identify them.
We will emerge in Waukeen's Promenade. Is there a place where we can sell our ill-gotten gains for 50% instead of 30%? All I see is 30%. If not, we might look around regular places and see what we find - and save up our expensive items.
For shortbows, it's not a big deal. We can sell 12 of them at 9gp instead of 15gp and lose 72gp, which is not that big a deal considering the magnitude of errors we already made. I have a sense that 30% is the normal everywhere in the City of Coin.
It also looks like the pricing varies from shop to shop, so we will be shopping around a bit. The measure I typically take is the Composite Longbow. It has a base value of 100 and that is an easy number to remember. A normal shop charges my Orc-Charisma Main 150gp. In BG1, that item would sell for 50gp if there were none in the shop. I never sat down to figure out how value depreciation works.
It's a short session, because I'm tired and might be coming down with something. Tomorrow we might look around the Promenade and maybe get into the Circus Tent. Saturday might be occupied for the day - It depends on how I am feeling that day.
Day 1, Hour 7
A big explosion, another hole in the space-time multiverse, and we emerge in another time and place.
A battle is still going strong, with Jon Irenicus blowing up Shadow Thieves, suddenly interrupted by the Cowled Wizard Storm Troopers (Their spells never seemed to land.) declaring it an unsanctioned use of magical energy and declaring the disturbance over.
Why we did not use the battle to gtfo, we do not know. That trick worked against Sarevok in BG1 and we were able to evade him for many days and all he did was send low-level minions after us. However, we are in a different time and place.
There was no magical disturbance here.
What are you talking about? There is a big hole in Waukeen's Promenade.
These are not the mages you are looking for.
We just scryed the entire disturbance.
Mind trick does not work on these people or in this time and place. In the end Irenicus agreed to go with them willingly and yoinked Immy on the way. When dealing with the local police, he did not want to have them streaming in one squad at a time. That will take all day. Better to just go to their base and destroy them all there. It is easier to find this base when they are taking you there. As a bonus, he gets a new hideout after he is done with them.
This leaves four of us in a big, dusty hole in Waukeen's Promenade in the City of Coin. Minsc and Jaheira expressed their desire for revenge, so from an RP point of view, they should be in the party in the final battle. Yoshimo gets replaced by Imoen. We might change minds later as the field gets more crowded.
The first thing to do is sell our swag. For RP, at first, we will play barter. Shopkeepers are usually in the business to sell items. Buying items that will just sit on shelves is just bad for cash flow. Barter is okay. Their shelves see one item get replaced by several items. Nobody is going to touch our stuff while wandering around in a crowded city - so we left some of the party staying back to watch it all. We put it in neat little piles on a blanket as if we were trying to sell it.
We found the Bookkeeper (160/30) and obtained a Scroll Case for a Pearl Necklace, Skydrop Gem and Sunstone Gem. That was not quite enough, so we made up the balance with a Silver Ring. Similarly we visited Maher the Rasheman Weaponsmith and obtained a Sling +1 for 13 Shortbows and 3 Scimitars. This lightened up our load well enough we could freely move around the city.
Of course, this took us to Riebald Barterman in the Advernturers Mart. We obtained a Gem Bag for 4 Composite Longbows, 2 Crossbows, 1 Longbow, 2 2-Handed Swords, 6 Longswords, 4 Leather Armor and made up the difference with an Andar Gem and Bluestone Necklace. There are some very interesting items in this shop at very interesting prices. Eventually we will come back for another Scroll Case.
We have fixed most of our inventory problems for now. Hindsight says we could have saved a little bit by having Jaheira in charge as the resident Amish person and claiming a 5% discount. We could have saved about 33gp.
We paid the Weaponsmith another visit and obtained 8 Poisoned Throwing Daggers for an Agni Mani Necklace. We might have done well to wait a little bit, but it is really no big deal. Maybe we could have saved another 4gp.
Our next stop was that big circus tent. Nobody is going in. Nobody is going out. We talked to an animal trainer on the way. He was the last person seen to leave the tent. The city guard did not want to investigate. It is easier to send in newcomers to see what happens.
Watch as I make myself disappear! We met our friend the Genie at a bridge just inside. He had a riddle for us, which we solved. It is easiest when we have heard the riddle before. (We are from Candlekeep and the Monks play these games all the time.)
Failing that, we give the Genie a lecture on what we learned when Al Gebra was visiting in Candlekeep. Maybe he will be kind enough to conjure up a whiteboard and a couple of markers. Imagine a 2x3 matrix, representing the Prince and the Princess, Past, Present, and Future. Simplest for me is to represent Y as the age of the Princess, and D as the age Difference. So D/2 years in the past, the Prince was Y-1.5D years old. Twice that is 2Y-3D, the age of Princess Future. That means the age of Prince Future is 2Y-4D years. This is the same as Princess Present, Y. So this scenario works when Y is equal to 4D - or the Prince is 75% of the age of the Princess. (We can work this out with X and Y - and it is much easier at 10:45am than at 11:45pm.)
This would be a bugger to figure out mentally in a short period of time. These people in the past must have been very smart! They probably played games like this to build on the working memory. It might be similar to learning how to write and not having to remember so much, because you can write it down.
Circling the tent, we found 4 Illusionary Werewolves and 3 Real Shadows. Sam got hit a couple of times, so we waited for the effects to wear off. It appears to be for a single Turn, or one minute of game time, or 60 swings of that clock pendulum.
The Yoshimo Backstab is nice when it hits.
Then we rescued Aerie the Wingless Winged Ogre. If we ever said it was going to happen when Ogres fly, then now is the time and here is the place. Well maybe not, because this is a Wingless Winged Ogre. Aerie jumped from C6M6 to C9M10 with 500k experience. We are going to cook this place!
There was another level with some illusionary werewolves and real shadows. We killed those and waited for the shadow strength to wear off, blessed up a bit, and entered the boss level.
That got Sam to M11. We will have to fix his spells later, before we rest for the day. We had just barely enough Lore to identify the Wand of Monster Summoning. We still have 7 items to identify. A ring to raise Charisma from 4 to 18 is nice.
We paid our Rasheman Weaponsmith one more visit and obtained the rest of his Poison Daggers for 3 Flails and 3gp. We are left with 2120gp. With this, we left for the slums.
Immediately on entering the Slums, we are greeted by a representative of the Shadow Thieves who took us to his hideout. How did we know this was not a trap? Well we asked and he was very open about their motives, which is profit. What information do they have on us? We seem to be much more powerful and resourceful than what is reflected by our current loot. We are carrying 2120gp, but they want 20k to help rescue Imoen.
Besides. In a different time and place and universe, we worked with the Shadow Thieves in Baldur's Gate.
They gave us a couple of leads on jobs. There is Nalia in the Copper Coronet and somebody from the Cowled Wizards in the Government District.
Here is our party:
377728 Sam with 65 kills worth 37135
587299 Minsc with 32 kills worth 16835
292791 Jaheira with 21 kills worth 11640
561621 Yoshimo with 5 kills worth 1680
253126 Aerie who is new
We opted for a walk to the Copper Coronet. There are probably more jobs there.
The Shadow Thief Fence had Goggles of Identification available. I used to love that item, but feel a bit more meh about it. It's a little over 2000gp. We get to identify 3 items per day. So our yield is 300gp. So it will take about a week to see a profit with it.
Normally we pick up Nalia and clean up the Copper Coronet, and then do her quest. A quick look forward indicates we have Clara's quest for Hexxat, which might be interesting. I think.....
We pick up Anomen and Nalia. They are alignment compatible. We leave behind Yoshimo, because we worked together leaving Irenicus Dungeon and now he is free.
Gear. We need to rebuild our gear. Cleaning up the Copper Coronet will eventually get us Lilacor, the Idiot Intelligent Sword. Soon it will be Minsc and Boo and Lilacor. Nalia's quest, of course, gives us the Flail of Ages - and we have somebody who can use it perfectly!
This is one rough bar in the Slums. As soon as we walked in, somebody was already looking for a fight. Between Dumm and Dummer, somebody was going to get baited into a fight. It was Dumm.
The bar quieted down a bit. It is normally a prank for people new to the area who do not know better than to walk away from a fight. Every so often, somebody gets reeled into a fight and the bar gets a few moments of entertainment as the newcomer gets beat into a pulp. The pit champion was soundly defeated. There were still some who wanted to talk to us.
Anomen - We have seen you in battle and you are indeed a force. Now tell me. Are you a force for good or evil? We had Minsc to answer that question for us and with that, we had Anomen in the party. Anomen is F7C10.
Korgan - bah
Nalia - You look like you obviously had formal training. Are you for hire? With that, we parted way with Yoshimo. Perhaps a rest is in order. He will wait for us in the Copper Coronet. He returned our gem bag, but unfortunately he took the Potion of Master Thievery and that is a minor setback. Nalia is T4M11 with 60 in Open Locks and 80 in Find Traps and will probably need every potion she can get.
Clara Hexxat - We were not clear on what she wanted. She wanted to go on a trip to the graveyard. She seemed like she was on a trip already.
Lord Jierdan - He is offering us 10kg to clear out some orc raiders near his castle in Windspear Hills. This is an amazing sum, but Nalia warns us he is brutal and cannot imagine him being protective of his people. Speaking of Nalia, she wants us to clear invaders around her keep, but for some reason is very quiet about what these invaders are. How do we prepare our gear and spells if we do not tell us.
Garron - It is 10am and he is already wasted. After a fightsh like that, ye schould talk to Lehtinan over there and ask about, hehe, special entertainment. (Other Drunks) Hey, he's still new here. Maybe telling him is not a good idea. So for 1gp we bought him a drink and another 5gp to make sure he forgetsh the convershation.
Lehtinan - (Jaheira) A thoroughly despicable man - and a equally despicable place.
Madam Nin - Are you interested in.....
Aerie - No. No he isn't.
We saw a fight between a troll and an adventurer slave who did not want to fight. It lasted surprisingly long. With that, we decided to visit the restricted area and meet these fighters backstage. This started a fight with the guards.
Hendak - You there! You are obviously not aligned with our captors. (We killed 5 guards. What was his first clue?)
Wasn't there another route to Hendak - Like Lehtinan sending us to rough him up - and Hendak asking us to free him? My memory is now fuzzy on this.
Fortunately, the next direction is to animal cages on the other side of the Arena. On the way there, we got to treat the fans to a Winter Wolf kill. It would have been even better if we baited the Beastmaster's Beasts out into the Arena for some spectacular action.
We were able to do this fight in 4 stages. We took a couple of Mutated Gibberlings and a Panther at the start. For some reason, the Beastmaster was busy. Maybe he was opening cages. He and his pet were not in the first fight. The second stage was the Beastmaster and Tabitha. Third stage was a couple of bears. The fourth stage was the Minotaur. I thought we were going to have to fight all of these at once.
As a prize, Nalia gets the Tuigan Bow +1.
The crowds are still cheering for us! This might be providing cover for what is really going on. Big spectacles get set up in this Arena. There is a long pause in the action and sounds of a brawl in the Gladiator Chambers. Suddenly a group of six adventurers emerge to face...... a Winter Wolf. This is much more exciting than watching a Troll eat someone who does not want to fight. These adventurers DO want to fight! The crowd cheers!
The announcer is struggling to keep up. This is completely off the script. What is he supposed to say to keep up with the action?
The fight with the Winter Wolf is over very quickly, but that does not mean the Adventurers are done. Oh, no! They want more phat lewts! It is into the Animal Chambers they go. Are they smart enough to bring them into the open Arena so we can all see them? Let's see what comes out. A couple of Mutated Gibberlings! A Panther! A couple of Bears! Uh, oh. It looks like the Beastmaster is not pleased with this. He's coming out with his pet Tabitha. Are we done yet? Oh, no! We have a Minotaur! These adventurers are unstoppable!
Give them a big round of applause as they return to their quarters. Wait. What's this? There is more? The legendary Hendak is joining the action? Wait. Something is wrong.
Something interesting in my notes. We picked up a Sphere of Chaos spell - from a guard? Why didn't stuff like this happen in BG1?
Hendak sent us on a mission to clear out the rest of the slavers in their compound in the Slums not to far from here. We will investigate the secret passage into the Sewers next.
He took over the shop. The good news is we get an amazing discount rate. I am guessing we get a rate as if we are Reputation 20, but we shall see. We are buying at 85 and selling at 30. The bad news is we missed on the scroll case. So for next time we might take a note of what items are no longer for sale when Hendak takes over the shop.
We traded a bunch of our loot for 40 Acid Arrows. We will need them in the slaver compound and for those monsters Nalia won't talk to us about. Maybe she quietly suggested we obtain some Acid Arrows.
Session 55 - The Riddle of the Sewers
We tried Minsc in stealth and the opening was a bit of a mess. Nalia aggroed a group of Hobgoblins and that attracted an Olyugh form the other direction. We had Sam holding off the Hobgoblins in one direction and that left Jaheira up against the Olyugh. Minsc was in light armor and not much use until later. We had some new characters with useless spells to unload. So we had Nalia come back and drop a Color Spray on the Hobgoblins and see what happens.
The fight cost Jaheira an Elixir of Health. Further to the south, where the Olyugh came from, there was an Ochre Jelly and a Mustard Jelly. We were able to bait out the Ochre. Then we could charge in at the Mustard Jelly. Sam got hit once by it, so he was affected by Slow for quite a while. We rolled with it.
There was a group of Kobolds and a Shaman. They did not aggro, so we were able to force attack the group. Exploring further, Nalia aggroed another group of Hobgoblins. Run back to the main group and try to take him out solo. That did not work. The rest of the group showed up. Color Spray. Only one went down. For some reason, it's the Hobgoblin Shaman I'm worried most about, because of the spells, even though he is only worth 35exp. The Elite probably has poison arrows and that might be a problem as well. The group went down.
We also found ourselves down to 8 Healing Potions. We still have a bunch of Extra Healing Potions, about 12. The inventory of Healing Potions is how we gauge our progress.
In the end, we had the sewer pipes and a riddle, and a strange man and his carrion crawler friend to provide clues. So we solved the riddle and used an Identify Spell on Lilacor the Idiot Intelligent 2H Sword +3.
With this, we were equipped to take out the Mycanoid colony and head back to the Copper Coronet with our swag. We traded it for 3 Healing Potions and a Blindness Scroll.
Session 56 - The Slaver Compound
The back door seems to be the worst place to enter the Slaver Compound. We step in surrounded. We did know what was coming, so we prepared.
Aerie got Protection from Normal Missiles. That is unlikely to do any good, because we will be facing Arrows +1.
Nalia put Strength on Jaheira.
Aerie put Protection from Evil on Minsc.
Nalia cast Polymorph Self.
Sam cast DUHM.
Between the Captain and Archer, Minsc we getting butchered. We could only help him a little bit, because there was a Priest of Cyric we wanted to take out. We were probably supposed to cast a round of spells first. Nalia's morph to Mustard Jelly seemed to do not much at all. I did not see any attacks come from her for some reason. A Charm spell from Jaheira did not work. We probably should have used Sam's Charm on one of the bad guys as well. Eventually, it was a Hold Person spell that ended the Captain and allowed Minsc to win his side of the fight.
The next room had a Troll. Didn't Nalia have such incredible foresight to bring Acid Arrows? Wait. Where did we see a Troll before. That's right. That was the troll eating the Adventurer when we started cleaning out the Copper Coronet.
Reputation 13. We freed 3 child slaves.
There was one more room full of slaver guards and wizards. The combination of stinking Cloud and Web made it easier. We might look up saving throws in general. The Slaver Mage has to make a save versus spells at -2 or be Webbed and helpless. Then he has to make a save versus poison at +2 or go unconscious.
Finally, outside in the Slums on the way to the Copper Coronet, we were confronted by Cohrvale and Bregg who picked a fight with us without delivering a fight. It was a very easy 10kexp.
Here is our party:
458319 Sam with 25 kills worth 19910
667886 Minsc with 20 kills worth 17605
333078 Jaheira with 11 kills worth 5962
293408 Aerie with 1 kill worth 7
578285 Anomen with 10 kills worth 6402
578272 Nalia with 7 kills worth 5797
We have the trip to Nalia's Castle to prepare for. We might need more Acid Arrows. 39 might be enough. We need healing potions. We have been going through them. We have to prepare spells - We have been since the very start of the game without a proper rest and refresh of spells. Our gear is still lacking, but we will see what upgrades we can get.
Plate Mail and Splint Mail - This is as good as we will get for a while. We also have Chainmail +1 and Chainmail +2. It is not likely we can afford Full Plate for a while.
Minsc has Composite Longbow +1 and 2H Sword +3.
Sam has basic gear. We also have basic decisions to make on whether to Mage or Tank. If we go with Tank, then we can load up with Identify spells, because we will not be casting M1 spells in combat. I do not yet know if Sequencer works with armor on. It would be very interesting if it did. We can also experiment with tanking spells, followed by putting on armor.
Jaheira has Quarterstaff +1 and Sling +1.
Aerie has nothing magical. Anomen has nothing magical.
Nalia has Longtooth +2 and Tugiruan Shortbow +1.
We will tally up the value of our loot and see what we can get for it. Our gold is sitting at 8247. So we are crawling our way back to 20k.
If you want an extra scroll case, Lady Yuth at Ribalds have one - I always buy it from her
Next time, I will know better - and have 3 scroll cases instead of 2. I'm not sure if we will ever need that many scroll cases, but it's a single inventory slot that holds a lot of items. We are having a few challenges with inventory space already, for some reason. This might have been mitigated if we worked with Hexxat - I understand she has a bag of holding.
This was a very short session, because we were doing a lot of planning on how to prepare for this journey.
Session 57 - The Fall of d'Arnise Keep
We started off with a bag full of swag from the Slaver Compound. At the Copper Coronet, we traded some of it for about 50 Throwing Daggers and a couple hundred bullets. Then we headed to Bayle's house and traded a bunch of magical swag (the longbows and chainmail) and a bunch of other stuff for the Glasses of Identification. We took these, because they are equal to 3 Identification Scrolls in the field and 300gp in a town, every day. We have a bunch of magic items we need to get identified.
Our next stop was Waukeen's Promenade and Mira the shopkeeper. She had a couple of Healing Potions for us. We bought a couple more from a poor shopkeeper near the Temple of Ilmater. By this time we had sold all our loot and were spending gold. At the Temple, we healed up our party.
There is something we do not understand about healing at the temple:
Heal 8 hit points for 50gp
Heal 17 hit points for 150gp. For the same price, we can heal 24 hit points with Cure Light Wounds.
Heal 27 hit points for 200gp. For the same price, we can heal 32 hit points with Cure Light Wounds.
We also bought a Potion of Genius for Nalia and started a study party. 43 Lore does us no good in identifying items, because Sam already has 45. We do have 21 Intelligence and that seems to be working much better for scribing scrolls. We opened up our scroll case and scribed almost everything that she did not know already.
12/12 on Level 1 Scrolls for 12kexp
4/4 on Level 2 Scrolls for 8kexp
4/4 on Level 3 Scrolls for 12kexp
1/1 on a Level 6 Scroll for 6kexp - We picked up Death Fog for when Nalia picks up her next level.
The Character Record said 97% probability. The 15% penalty would make it 82%. We went 21/21, which appears very unlikely at 82% probability. I'm too lazy to get my calculator or pop open Excel, but I get about 96% probability against. Going back to the 97% probability, I get about 56%. So I suspect something weird again.
We also bought a second scroll case, because that will one day come in handy. In Waukeen's Promenade, we spent close to 2kg.
With Nalia at 21 Intelligence and being in a position to fix major problems, it was time to configure our spell slots. We realized that Nalia still has an Identify spell active and Sam still has a Minor Sequencer to cast. So we found a place to hide and cast our spells out of sight of the Cowled Wizards. The Circus Tent was a perfect option. We had Quayle to cover for us.
We identified the Mail of the Dead +2 and decided that was perfect for Aerie. She does not have the strength to use Platemail yet and splint mail is the next best option. Inside the city, we should not be casting Mage Spells, but Cleric spells are just fine.
Sam gets Mirror Image and Blur for a Sequencer. I do not know if the Sequencer will work when we are wearing armor, but it will be very interesting finding out.
Finally, we are ready to make our way to the City Gates and rescue Nalia's Castle.
Day 1, Hour 17
We are intercepted by a group of Slavers on the way to the Gates. Our choice of marching order being what it is, it looks bad. Just how close do these guys get before we realize we are getting jumped?
Sam - DUHM and throw a Dagger at that Mage. Then charge the Archer.
Minsc - Fire an Arrow at the same Mage. Then cover the group.
Jaheira - Move somewhere safe. Make sure nobody is shooting at you. Call Lightning on the Archer.
Aerie - Back up to a safe location, then Holy Smite. Holy Boot of Evil Buttkicking Justice, as Minsc would call it.
Anomen - Shoot a Bullet at the Mage and pick up the Mace and brace for impact.
Nalia - You're in a safe spot already. Just pincushion that Mage.
After the Holy Smoke cleared, the only mob left standing was blinded and helpless. So for appearing so chaotic at the start with trying to organize into a defensible position, it got better fast. This encounter was a lootfest.
We picked up another couple of spells for Nalia, who still had 21 Intelligence. Minor Globe of Invulnerability and Vampiric Touch. We are not sure yet when we might use them, but it costs nothing to add them. More scrolls added to the case.
More potions. Stone Giant and Frost Giant. These are probably most useful to Jaheira, because she is the Fighter with the lowest Strength score. For a similar reason, she is also most likely to get the Platemail +1, because it is light. She might get the Studded Leather if she ever needs to shapeshift for some reason.
A Mace +1 went to Anomen, He needed a magical weapon. Otherwise, we are stuck with a very limited (41) quantity of magical bullets. There was also another Shortsword which we identified much later.
At the City Gate, we talked to somebody who wants help with the Animals attacking Trademeet. We got reactions from Jaheira and Minsc. One said Druids are unlikely to attack a settlement without good reason. She must have been absent when we were attacking the Shadow Druids. Minsc does not like the idea of attacking animals. We seemed to have no problems with the Beastmaster in the Copper Coronet Arena.
Day 1, Hour 21
All I wish is to continue my journey!
We were probably 3 levels ahead of an encounter scaled to be fairly easy. We pincushioned the Mage, then engaged the rest of the group.
We acquired the body of Renfeld. He must be in incredibly bad shape, because he only weighs 50 pounds, 23 kg. He did not look like a Halfing lying down there. We are on our way to the D'Arnise Stronghold and he is just going to have to hang in there until we get back.
Day 2, Hour 1
We finally arrived at the D'Arnise Keep and it has already fallen. When did it fall? 4 hours ago? We could have got there in time if we left promptly instead of taking out the Slaver Compound? Nalia must be cursing us right now - Except we did rescue 3 cute little children.
We have one more chance to configure our spells. It is too late at night for me to detail exactly what I have configured so far. Sam took the Find Familiar and Identify Spells. He will be able to identify 3 more items the next day. The Familiar is a few more hit points and can rest in the backpack. We can pop him out for an Invisibility if we need to. None of these spells must be cast in combat. Level 2 was similarly easy to set up, since we are working with Mirror Image and Blur Sequencer, but we opened up a bit of experimentation. We are trying Ghoul Touch one time to see how well it works. I forget what else we took. Level 3 was MMM all the way, because we can cast this out of combat. Level 4 is another Sequencer, a Stoneskin, and an Enchant Weapon. Level 5 is Animate Dead all the way.
We had Aerie focus on the damaging spells and Nalia on utility spells as I saw them.
We shall see. It will be interesting. See you tomorrow!
As I've said before, 24 Int gets you guaranteed success for anyone.
The NPC arcanists in BG2EE as regards spell learning and the specialist penalty:
- Aerie (Cleric/Mage, generalist). Does not take specialist penalty.
- Edwin (Mage, conjurer). Properly takes specialist penalty and bonus.
- Haer'Dalis (Bard, blade). Improperly takes specialist penalty.
- Imoen (Thief-Mage, null). Improperly takes specialist penalty.
- Jan (Mage/Thief, illusionist). Properly takes specialist penalty and bonus.
- Nalia (Thief-Mage, generalist). Does not take specialist penalty.
- Neera (Mage, wild mage). Improperly takes specialist penalty.
A potion of genius and a potion of mind focusing will get any of those characters except Haer'Dalis and Jan to safe scribing levels. Jan needs two potions of genius, and Haer'Dalis needs three potions; those two can only completely prevent scribing failure by stacking potions of the same type.
This is an issue I never worried about in the past, because the reload button fixes everything. Right now, I'm playing arbitrarily minimal reload rules. We are reloading if something went really badly or if there was a lesson learned and a much better way to handle something.
Session 58 - Steward of the Keep
Day 2, Hour 9 - We were supposed to attack at dawn, but somebody had a bad dream and we slept in. It does not matter. We camped in the Palisade and the Trolls are expecting yet another routine boring day and no action from outside, just like the previous 20 days.
We finally get to cast Find Familiar. This little guy is going to get all the girls.
Ironically, a few rooms later, we picked up the exact same scroll. Well, we can save it for another time and it only cost us an M1 slot, which would have been an Identify Spell, which is 100gp. We also took this as an opportunity to put up Stoneskin and summon a Skeleton to help us..... explore. That servant that got chunked by the Troll had one more job to fulfill before being released for good. Hopefully Nalia is not too offended.
The center chamber of the main level had 4 Trolls and we intended to sneak up on them and drop a Web, but accidently started the fight and the Trolls came in both doors. This made it look like a bad time for Minsc to be exploring in light armor, but we got through it unscratched.
Outside, we encountered another Olyuuggh and that cost us another Elixir of Health. We let the dogs live. Nalia is probably offended enough we would raise her servant to do some simple scouting for us and get chunked by a Troll a second time, but we drew the line at killing her dogs.
We started to explore the roof of the place and stepped in the wrong door and got jumped by a couple of Giant Trolls and a YT Mage. We thought we could get away with the cya later trick, but the Trolls followed us outside. We messed up the strategy a bit from here and Minsc was the one targeted and got beat up well. I should have had him kite one of the trolls around. Jaheira wasted one of them with a 71 point Lightning Bolt.
With that out of the way, we went back to check on the YT Mage. He was busy putting up his Protection spells. He had Stoneskin and a Minor Turning up. So we wasted an Insect Plague spell on him. On this floor, we rescued Nalia's aunt and Lord D'Arnise's bestie, Glacius. We hit him with a Doom spell and Jaheira got a Charm Animal spell to work.
The Golems was the part where we did a couple of reloads to..... learn some lessons.
First time through - We learn the hard way that it is just too hard to tank the big guy directly. Anomen died in the retreat. He was not chunked, so a simple rest and rez would have worked just fine.
Second time - It worked out ugly. We had Sam pop an Oil of Speed and grab the item and run for the exit. The walkthrough said the Golems cannot fit through the door, but it meant, the big guy cannot fit. So after we killed him, the smaller Clay Golem ran right into the group and started wrecking havoc. Tonight we felt we could have done it much clearer.
Third time the charm.
Sam has his armor off in Mage Mode. Enchant Weapon, Anomen. Melf's Minute Meteors.
Nalia. Polymorph Self, Mirror Image.
Jaheira. Conjure Animals. Bless.
Aerie. Chant.
Anomen. DUHM.
The Animals were not as impressive as imagined, but they got the job done. They were the primary tanks. We took the easier round first, with the Flesh Golem and the Stoned Golem. We saved the Clay Golem and Iron Golem for last. I don't know the best strategy yet for taking out the Iron Golem. We cheesed it by running outside and then pelting it with Anomen Enchanted Weapon / Sling and Bullets and Sam MMM.
We explored the roof some more and found the winch to lower the drawbridge. At this time, there was only a little bit for the Guards to do, but at least they got a little bit of action. Then we went into the Cellar.
We got the Berserk mode up just in time.
There was one more anticlimactic battler here. The Boss Troll. Jaheira conjured a Fire Elemental for the occasion, because we thought it would be cool. We were able to lure the Boss out into the Umber Hulk room just fine, but the Fire Elemental did not survive too long against the other Trolls. Here is another memorable line from Nalia at the end of it all.
It turns out our Berserker Class is active enough we got the Fighter Stronghold. We are now Stewards of the d'Arnise Keep. Here is our party:
548582 Sam with 39 kills worth 82880
758143 Minsc with 26 kills worth 33655
378189 Jaheira with 14 kills worth 8529
338518 Aerie with 3 kills worth 597
668471 Anomen with 12 kills worth 18882
668457 Nalia with 32 kills worth 35372 - She was the designated Troll killer.
Day 2, Hour 17
Another funny thing from talking to Nalia is she tells everybody she has no idea who would do this, but is very smart and likely knows exactly what is going on. We interviewed the former Captain of the Guard before we went into the keep and asked who inherits the keep in the event Nalia dies - and therein lies the answer to the question of who benefits the most from this. So we pieced together the story and continue to talk as if we have no idea what is going on.
An observation from fighting the Trolls - We spend a lot of time smacking them at Near Death hit points. It seemed like we were doing something wrong. More specifically, we did not switch to Acid weapons until the Troll went unconscious. Do they stay up the entire round after being reduced to 0hp? If that is the case, we might do well to make the switch earlier. (We were trying to conserve our Acid Arrows - One arrow per Troll.)
Experiment result - Fully armored and hitting Blur and Mirror Image on a Spell Sequencer worked just fine. I might look around for some more tanking combinations. For a while, Sam's spell choices might be utility and pre-battle buffing.
There are some decisions we should make.
A When we get back to town, we will meet both Valen and Brus. The price for their services will be reduced to 15kg.
Do we hear what Bodhi has to say or no? Do we talk to Galen right away or no?
Can we continue to do sidequests in Chapter 3 or no?
Are the sidequests still open after Chapter 4?
Irenicus is blowing up the world, but we have a bunch of sidequests to do!
We are into Day 3 of the Campaign and already in a position to get to Spellhold. We still have not very much gear or resources. Most likely, we will tell Galen to hang tight while we think about it.
B. It looks like we crossed the 750k experience threshold. This is very easy to verify. It looks like the next thresholds are 1.0M and 1.25M. If we are picking up Imoen and working with her, then the ideal time would be at 1.25M experience.
C. Do we choose Imoen to be in the final party or no? What is our final party going to be? If we are, then 1.25M is the ideal time and we do as many sidequests as we can in the last chapter. Other members can be rotated in and out of the party. In ToB, we will be picking up party members at 2.5M experience. It looks like 8.0M is the ultimate experience cap.
(Imoen IN means we go to Spellhold with Final Party + Yoshimo. Imoen OUT means we go to Spellhold with Final Party.)
D. What should we do next? Don't tell Jaheira I rightly do not know what to do next. I'm taking suggestions.
Harper Hold seems the obvious next stop. We still have somebody in our packs dying. Besides, we have loot to sell.
Are we strong enough to do the Cult of the Unseeing Eye? Pickup Keldorn temporarly?
Pickup the other companion quests that we can do quickly? Clara and Hexxat?
Pick some battles inside the city?
Jierdan / Firkraag quest might also be a good one.
I will think about this one tomorrow.
Day 3, Hour 1 - Arrived at the City Gates
We saw a fight between some Shadow Thieves and a Vampire named Hareishan. We decided to help the thieves.
Why we went to the Copper Cornonet at this time of night, we are not sure. There are better places we can be staying. It matters not. Maybe the Thieves suggested we seek out Gaelan Bayle. It is what his nephew told us, anyway.
Another mysterious figure suggested we meet her mistress in the Graveyard district at night - However, we were not going there at this time, exactly tonight. So we went quickly to talk to Gaelan. The price is reduced to 15kg and we have that money. However, we wanted at least a little more time before we go rushing off on the plot. He took it well. He said he can be standing around a bit longer.
Patience is a virtue. I like people who demonstrate patience.
Our next stop was in the Docks. Coincidentally, that is where the Shadow Thieves are based. We met some muggers outside, but they were most likely not associated. Having some kind of deal with the Shadow Thieves might be making things easier for us in a city like this.
We were welcome inside the Shadow Thief Guildhall. Anomen was not exactly comfortable, of course. We bartered a couple of shortsword +1's and the junk we obtained from the muggers and a little bit of gold for more poison daggers, a couple Invisibility Scrolls and a Blindness Scroll.
We also found a Temple of Oghma to heal up in this area when we need to. We did. Eventually, we got to our destination and returned Renfeld's body to the Harpers. At least - That is who our old friend Xzar said they were. He wanted us to go into their base and retrieve his friend Montaron.
Jaheira was with us. She could help. A bit. The Harpers were willing to help us locate a thief in their building if we would do some dirty work for them - and dirty work it was. We assassinated Prebek and Sanasha. It turns out later they were Xzar's apprentices. We will have to return to this house much later, because it is filled with traps and Nalia simply cannot spot them.
Inside the base, we looted what we could while pretending to look for the thief. For some reason, Jaheira did not mind. We can only guess at the reason why. It might have had something to do with the flashy amulets the were suddenly wearing to display their membership, when it was normally kept secret. The next surprise was waiting for us.
We rescued Montaron the Bird, but it was not Montaron, but a Harper Assassin who promptly killed Xzar. It's a necessary plot twist, because a game of Baldur's Gate is not complete unless you hear Xzar die.
There was another shop (rival thieves guild) nearby and we bartered a few more scavenged items and gems for a third Gem Bag. Then we went to the Sea Bounty Tavern. Baron Ployer was waiting for Jaheira there. Just like we were popular in Baldur's Gate, she was popular in Athkatla. A few mages zoned in to hit her with a curse.
While we were getting distracted with sidequests, we were reminded on what we were supposed to be doing.
Maybe we did get distracted and forgot. Oops. Sorry. Hang in there. Be strong!
Day 3, Hour 11 - Rested
So far, we have not been delayed that long. We took a trip out to the D'Arnise keep and made 10kg and came back with enough funds to secure help for the rescue. Now we are gearing up so the rescue is not a complete failure.
In the morning, we discovered a locked secret door in the bar, so we investigated it and found a secret Pirate Hideout. They were not too happy to see us. Most likely at this hour, they were still hungover and in no condition to fight. Nalia made it easier by putting up a Web while we dispatched the Captain.
The Pirate Mage, still hung over, was slow to get up. He did have a couple of defenses up when we found him. Apparently Protection from Normal Missiles does no good against Arrows +1.
Sam did get scratched up well from those Pirates and healing cost another 200gp. Some more bartering at the rival guildhall obtained us a Sling +2 for Anomen. Another merchant sold us a Jaheira Locket. Two-timing is fun, but we saw no interaction. Go figure. Three days into mourning for Khalid, we are already buying her little gifts. She seems lower maintenance than Safana or Skie, but she was probably with that guy V.
Next stop was the Copper Coronet where we got the story on where to find Belgrade. It's in Serbia, of course. Surprisingly, it was explained that Baron Ployer was not welcome here. Go figure. Just 3 days ago, the Coronet was Slaver Central. Young lady. Are you okay? You look 90. Well. Isn't she about 90? What is the normal half-elf cycle?
More bartering. We had a Shammy item and a few things to trade for the Sling of Seeking. This is a new toy for Jaheira.
Then we went to the Government District to find out what the Cowled Wizards know about the Wizards who helped Baron Ployer. They had no information to help us, but we did find somebody to pay off to not show up to help. This is adventuring at its finest!
There was a group of fanatics we dispatched to rescue Vickie. We are full up and maybe we come back for her help later. Maybe we won't. Elsewhere, we rescued a Gnome named Jan Jansen. It was the same. Maybe we will come back and retrieve him. Maybe we will not.
Those fanatics hit us easily - They were hitting AC-3 very easily. Hindsight says we should have equipped the Elves Bane Girdle of Piercing. I am guessing we would have saved about half the damage. Currently the day's medical bill is at 350gp.
For some reason, this scene reminds me of a scene from Monty Python, with all those calls for burning her.
Finally we returned to the Slums to finish off Baron Ployer. As promised, his Mages did not show up to help him out and he had to deal with Jaheira on his own.
My play has been a bit slow the past couple of days. I think I'm dealing with something seasonal, so feeling overtired and struggling to make some decisions.
Party status is skipped for now, but since there are changes coming up for the next few sidequest distractions, I will take the time to record it in the near future.
Where to next? We have leads to Umar Hills, Windspear Hills, and Trademeet. These each have at least two characters we can pick up. Jaheira hopes we leave the city soon, but I believe we will be spending this day in it.
The Graveyard District is next. We were supposed to meet somebody there at night, but we were not going there last night, because we do not want to meet somebody we do not know in a place we do not know at night. We could at least look around and get a lay of the land first. We know exactly who can give us a tour!
The next question is who we can part ways with.
Jaheira stays. She has some companion related issues.
Nalia is the owner of our new Keep. She will have a funeral to attend in the near future.
Anomen will have some companion issues later.
Minsc does not have a companion quest. He was called to the Umar Hills.
Aerie gets called to the circus in a few days as well.
We can free up one or two slots by giving Minsc and Aerie a break. Ironically, it is Jaheira that really needs the break, but that would break up one of the quest lines we would prefer to keep for now.
Added party status
610409 Sam with 45 kills worth 89640
819970 Minsc with 32 kills worth 47125
409098 Jaheira with 18 kills worth 19229
369427 Aerie with 4 kills worth 6597
730275 Anomen with 12 kills worth 18882
730261 Nalia with 33 kills worth 35392
It looks like we have had two parties and we can name them!
Party 1 - Escape Room Team
Imoen, Jaheira, Minsc, Yoshimo
Party 2 - Trollbusters
Nalia, Jaheira, Minsc, Anomen, Aerie
Inside the derelict house of Baron Ployer, we fed Aerie a Potion of Genius. It is time for another study party. First, we identified four more items:
A Scroll of Protection from Electricity
Bracers to the Death AC - These went to Nalia. Aerie got the AC8 Bracers.
Wand of Fire with a single charge
Wand of Cloudkill with a single charge
With the study party, we went 30/31 on scrolls, only losing a Scroll of Ghoul Touch. It is only worth 2000 XP to us. It might be possible one time we have Sam try to use it to see what it does. He is likely the only caster who can get any decent thaco.
We were close to the Copper Coronet, so we went there next. We bartered some of the scrap items we picked up and a Quarterstaff +1 for a Grease Scroll and a Vocalize Scroll to further contribute to Aerie's study party.
Now we need a proper tour of the Graveyard district and who better to show us than Clara at the bar who has been telling us to take her to Dagormir's Tomb. So we parted ways with Minsc for a short while. He got to keep a pair of Maces, the Elven Court Bow, and Lilacor +3. It is always sad parting with Minsc.
Ironically, the first place we took Hexxat was the Temple. Sam needed a little bit of healing. So add another 200gp to Sam's hospital bill. He got some of it back from Habib.
Day 3, Hour 14 - We arrived at the Graveyard district.
Fortunately, this was good timing to unite Kamir and Risa. We also rescued Tirdir, who sent us looking for his kidnappers. Anomen condemned this as an errand best handled by the guard. He is from this city. Is he aware of how well they handle these things? We have only been there two days and we already know. We also took a little bit of time to... uh.... clear out undead in some of the tombs in exchange for any goodies that might be left behind. One of our prizes was the Staff of Curing.
Finally we found Dagomir's tomb. Why didn't Clara tell us earlier?
The best way to deal with some of the beasties we encountered inside is from a distance with a Skeleton tank. It worked well enough against the Vampire Dagomir.
We eventually found the real Hexxat, who greeted us after killing Clara. Well - given the state she was in when talking to us, she might well have been dead anyway. The conversation indicates she was not, but mind controlled to drag a party of unfortunate victims to their doom.
Of course, it worked out better than that. The real Hexxat told us to meet at the Copper Coronet. We met sooner than that, because we had the cloak she was looking for. She should have just asked us for it in the first place. Instead of waiting two hours at the Copper Coronet, we joined with her.
On the way back to the Copper Coronet, we were ambushed by yet another group of Slavers. It started off looking like a hot mess, but they were dispatched very quickly and they seemed to have a good bit of loot.
We might work with Hexxat for a few more reputation points. We might as well. She has a couple of interesting advantages.
She effectively has a Bag of Holding. This is always useful. In our case, we can use it to save up expensive items for a big purchase.
She has Thief skills and we need them. Nalia has.... not quite enough.
At night she has some killer stats.
We don't care if she dies, actually. We have her coffin.
Her nighttime stats are set so she has 100 in Open Locks and Find Traps. Hopefully that is enough. The rest are going to Stealth so she can be a backstabber. Detect Illusion might have been a better choice. I have not tried running around with 100 in Detect Illusion.
It looks like our next lead is the Bridge District.