A journey of a bard through SCS on insane
Lammas
Member Posts: 228
TLDR: This is going to be something of a documentation of how I'm going through the motions of the game (or full saga probably) while playing a bard. Also first time SCS experience on top of that.
I like bards and lately I've noticed a lot of threads around questioning their power.
On BG1 forums there's a topic asking if they're wasted classes
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/87364/bard-and-shaman-wasted-classes
On BG2 boards there's a topic where the OP claims bards only become useful with HLA's late into the game.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/87356/which-class-do-you-think-is-solid-from-bg1-all-the-way-through-tob
There's another one that while asking a question about the class is nevertheless expressing frustration with the class in its opening post
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/87340/bard-lovers-who-is-your-favorite-bard-kit-and-how-do-you-like-to-play-bards
Now here's lil' ol' me who deemed years ago that while I can't fully turn off the powerplayer in me, playing dual-classed fighter mages was just a bit too stinky when it comes to cheese. Ever since then I've been a big fan of bards. As a matter of fact my main character hasn't been anything but since then.
All of those topics above inspired me to start a new playthrough. My weapon of choice a Blade, my favorite type of bard (I don't think there's anything wrong with the others either. No, not even the Jester).
But to make it a bit more interesting this will be my very first time playing the game with SCS installed. Yes, I've not done this once in the 2 decades I've played this game. So I installed it and pressed yes to basically everything that is going to make my life more difficult. I also decided that since this is supposed to improve enemy targeting scripts a lot, I'm making this a party playthrough. For BG1 the cast is going to be: Imoen, Jaheira, Xan, Yeslick. Kahlid somehow got stuck in Joia's bathroom and nobody cared enough about him to wait for him to be done in there so everyone including his wife decided to haul ass instead.
EDIT: I will be playing this on Insane, I realized I didn't mention this anywhere
Just for the record I've taken Blade through the trilogy on LOB difficulty solo unmodded so I can vouch is very viable there too. If I can do that, there must be some magic to the class since I'm not nearly as knowledgeable of the game as some folks here are.
So I'm thinking I'm going to just write down some of the major points of my progression. No roleplaying involved. Just trying to really mark down where and how bards are powerful.
I like bards and lately I've noticed a lot of threads around questioning their power.
On BG1 forums there's a topic asking if they're wasted classes
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/87364/bard-and-shaman-wasted-classes
On BG2 boards there's a topic where the OP claims bards only become useful with HLA's late into the game.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/87356/which-class-do-you-think-is-solid-from-bg1-all-the-way-through-tob
There's another one that while asking a question about the class is nevertheless expressing frustration with the class in its opening post
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/87340/bard-lovers-who-is-your-favorite-bard-kit-and-how-do-you-like-to-play-bards
Now here's lil' ol' me who deemed years ago that while I can't fully turn off the powerplayer in me, playing dual-classed fighter mages was just a bit too stinky when it comes to cheese. Ever since then I've been a big fan of bards. As a matter of fact my main character hasn't been anything but since then.
All of those topics above inspired me to start a new playthrough. My weapon of choice a Blade, my favorite type of bard (I don't think there's anything wrong with the others either. No, not even the Jester).
But to make it a bit more interesting this will be my very first time playing the game with SCS installed. Yes, I've not done this once in the 2 decades I've played this game. So I installed it and pressed yes to basically everything that is going to make my life more difficult. I also decided that since this is supposed to improve enemy targeting scripts a lot, I'm making this a party playthrough. For BG1 the cast is going to be: Imoen, Jaheira, Xan, Yeslick. Kahlid somehow got stuck in Joia's bathroom and nobody cared enough about him to wait for him to be done in there so everyone including his wife decided to haul ass instead.
EDIT: I will be playing this on Insane, I realized I didn't mention this anywhere
Just for the record I've taken Blade through the trilogy on LOB difficulty solo unmodded so I can vouch is very viable there too. If I can do that, there must be some magic to the class since I'm not nearly as knowledgeable of the game as some folks here are.
So I'm thinking I'm going to just write down some of the major points of my progression. No roleplaying involved. Just trying to really mark down where and how bards are powerful.
Post edited by Lammas on
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I started my blade. I checked my character files and found a bard with a total roll of 100 so I picked that. No, you don't need that much stats on a bard by any means. 81-84 already makes up for a great bard as charisma is kinda fluff, int can be boosted when needed and wis only exists for lore checks which are kinda whatever even on a bard. Still, I decided to pick this one up because I enjoy high stats so it's all 18 except for WIS 10.
This premade char also has proficiencies in dagger and two-weapon style; clearly when I made this I've aimed for having 2 weapons in my hands at all times by level 4 while using a weapon type with both melee and ranged options. Cool, I can roll with that.
I did everything in Candlekeep out of habit and then rolled out. I generally start by hugging walls a lot and just opening up map locations while avoiding any confrontations. Generally enemies aren't placed at the edges so unlocking everything between FAI and Nashkel while getting some side areas unlocked too is not a problem at all.
There's a lot of free loot just kinda up for grabs. Ring of protection, ring of wizardry, ankheg plate, cloudkill scroll. I'm selling none of these as everything that's expensive and fits into the gem bag will also help with cheesing SOD a little bit later when I get to it and the plate and the scroll are just plain useful.
The extremely short version of what I did to get started here:
- Unlock as much areas as possible while traveling towards Nashkel. Also pick up wand of frost on the Nashkel Mines map located on the north west completely free. Good single target damage, don't use on people you want to loot since it can destroy their stuff on killing blows.
- Grab oils of speed from Imoen and / or Montaron. Go north of FAI and quaff one and just run to the Ankheg cave and loot it. You don't need much of a route to be able to just grab everything in the lootable hole and get out without being attacked once. You now have +1 chainmail and a fire wand, which is a real miracle worker in BG1 landscape. Give the boy's body to the farmer to the east and give him a a hundo after for exp and rep.
Funny thing that happened here is I ran into a bandit on my way to the cave, I ran into him again while running out of the cave so he followed me all the way there. He didn't come out. Either one of the Ankhegs attacked him or he just lives there with them now.
- Went SE of Carnival to grab the ring of fire resistance and get Samuels body to FAI for some easy cheesy EXP. Talked Marl down for easy EXP. Ran into Brage and returned him into the temple for easy EXP. You get the point. There's a few quests available early on that reward exp with no combat involved whatsoever and they also happen to be quite large amounts of EXP.
- Traveled to carnival and bought the green protection from petrification scroll from the merchant selling some magical items. Most of you can probably guess where this is going but travelled east of Beregost temple and wiped the floor on some useless basilisks. While there wiped the floor with Kirian's adventuring party. One monster summoning from a wand, one well placed scorcher from a wand and maybe a few whacks from your party is all it takes. The belt is nice but the real treasure here is the potion of absorbrion.
- West of Nashkel you can get a completely free Protection from Undead scroll (might need a high enough charisma) by returning the dead cat to the girl. Traveling east of Nashkel you can get a free +2 dagger (just don't go into the cave where you're supposed to bring it and aside from not getting the EXP of returning it there's no downside. Also you can bring it there later if you feel). Read scroll of prot against undead and slaughter the ghasts in the east cave. This gives you access to wand of monster summoning. You now have access to 3 wands without having to fight anything unless you count fighting blind ghasts that can't hurt you.
- Got the chicken south of High Hedge and before going through the save-load roulette of frustration that is "will melicamp survive", entered Jaheira into the stronghold for the first time with the potion of absorbtion quaffed. The flesh golems are initially hostile until talking to Thalanthyr for the first time. You can also kill them without Thalantyr giving a damn and as their attacks are considered blunt the potion basically makes them only able to hit you on crits. This is where a party comes handy as Jaheira (in my case) can wear a helmet instead of just getting instagibbed by a crit like a solo bard here would on crit before leveling up a lot more.
- Clear Nashkel mines. Quite straightforward really. SCS does make the amount of kobolds to be almost facepalmable at times but they aren't that bad with the levels easily available and maybe your bard has a party more sensible than mine like at least one more warrior capable of having decent heath and wearing a helmet. Still, not too bad.
I burned all but one of my fireballs from my wand mostly on just kobold thrash and other big parties and used a few charges of Agannazzar's on more challenging things here and there (I still have like 5 left). I don't much care about the fireballs so I'm happy to have placed them effectively somewhere.
Also been quite liberal with my monster summoning; if it's uniquely named I'm summoning something against it and it's working fine so far. Just don't be too free with it, getting that monster summoning wand back at 100 charges is going to take like 18k at 18 rep. Mapping money can actually be a part of how to make bards be the monsters you've read about.
This is also where one of the big things about early bard comes in. The EE song is a small AOE around you, if you're summoning something go sing next to them. You'll probably hurt the enemy more by doing that than by attacking yourself but I guess this can somewhat depend on what you're attacking.
At the end of it Blade and Imoen are level 5, Jaheira and Xan are level 4. Nimbus is dead at this point and this is the first time ever that I've noticed him having such a long attack speech. I'm going to go clean up Tranzig and see you in the next post which will hopefully be a lot more cohesive as I wrote this after like a 4-5 hour session followed up by the idea of making this a forum post.
I wanted to get Jaheira and Xan up to level 5 while also collecting some upgrades for the whole party since I don't really have much loot.
For Jaheira +1 medium shield from Bjornin, dex gauntlets from gnoll stronghold ambush, piercing belt from the collector ogre and perhaps most importantly the helm of defense from Droth. Combined with the fire resistance ring I can now throw fireballs to the back of her head with reckless abandon while also not having to care much if I happen to sweep her with a scorcher. I got some stuff for the other characters as well but the stuff I put on Jaheira matters the most right now since she can actually tank things a lot better now while also allowing my bard to follow their pyromaniac tendencies with less care.
All the quests completed and baddies killed ended up with bard and Imoen on lvl 6 and Xan and both of Jaheiras classes on level 5. I've also amassed enough money from all the loot to be able to "recharge" one of my wands. In a solo playthrough I'd pick monster summoning but in this case I decided to go with fire since I can use it so liberally right now. Remember to use the spell "friends" before rebuying your very expensive wand! Don't be like me, I forgot and realized it when it was too late! I do want to mention somewhere in here that Lamalha's whole party of amazons died to a single scorcher, all 4 of them.
Some of the fights did highlight a rarely talked about strength of mages and bards: being able to cast spells from scrolls. It's a bit of a pain in the arse to micromanage it but there's no limitations to being able to access your scroll case or changing your quick items in the middle of combat so whatever scrolls you have in your possession are spells you can use at a moments notice. Having extra magic missiles or blinds or what have you to throw as an extra against tougher opponents can be surprisingly handy at times and they're not worth that much money anyway so might as well.
As I'm writing this ode to the wand of fire I'd like to bring up a neat little blade specific tech. Since offensive spin doubles your move rate, it works wonderfully with scorchers when fighting more spread out groups. My first go completely unprepared against chapter 3 finale ended up in the first game over so far as the changes the mod did to that fight took me by suprise but one potion of defense and one prepopped offensive spin later everyone in that tent got double hit by a scorcher and then it was just a matter of some clean up. Humorous moment of the day goes to Wenkt (the mage in Tazok's tent). He used a potion of invisibility and then promptly had a morale failure so he was just running around invisible. After a while I started throwing fireballs everywhere to finally get him down.
Finally there was the curve ball added in the mod outside the tent. There wasn't much of a point for me to stay and fight so I escaped instead which brings me to yet another strength of bards and mages: being able to turn people invisible. With Imoen and Xan being invisible and my blade using the remaining offensive spin for extremely non-offensive purposes, the only party member the bandits could really target was Jaheira who was handily surviving the couple of lucky hits she suffered on the way out. Without invisibility I've no doubt in my mind that Xan would've ended up as a hobgoblin spit roast as his mirror images had already been spent for the fight prior. Being able to make someone unkillable for 24 hours is kinda bonkers and I tend to always load up a couple of invisibility spells in the 2nd level slots. This ability becomes even handier on solo playthroughs where a single cast can make you able to skip whole areas without a fight.
That concludes day 2 and chapter 3. Onwards to Cloakwood.
Since I'm about to hit level 7 on my main character I decided to pay a visit to the red wizards having a picknick in the forest. Reason being they have a remove magic scroll on them and I would very much like to have access to that spell once I reach 3rd level spells. This spell was originally added in Tales of the Sword Coast expansion but in EE it's accessible earlier and easier through this fight. I picked up a potion of magic blocking from somewhere and used it here to take the biggest edge off. I'm pretty sure those are sold in High Hedge as well. Just be vary of their summons.
While I'm not sure how strong Remove Magic is going to be in the landscape of SCS as it does increase the levels of most of the opponents, it is a great example of another advantage of bards. Leveling up as fast as thieves (which is the fastest in the game) while some spells get stronger with the level of their caster can make for some rather hefty hits from things like magic missiles, fireballs, flame arrows, skull traps and melf's acid arrows are going to scale up a lot faster than mages would. At least in the vanilla game Remove Magic (and dispel magic) is one of the strongest examples of this as outside of an inquisitor in your party there just isn't anything better at removing all kinds of spell effects than a bard. Considering how a lot of the mages have been uplifted in SCS I'd imagine this to still be the case but I'll see as I go.
Cloakwood was kinda straightforward as first, third and fourth map can just be walked through without engaging with anything and I don't have very good reasons not to do that. I did walk around a bit just to revisit the layouts of the maps out of curiosity and found out Jaheira has some unique interactions with the druids there. I don't remember this being the case but then again the last time Jaheira has made the cut to stay in my party in BG1 was probably back in the naughts.
Cloakwood 2 is completely trivialized by bards and mages ability to cast invisibility. While the screen is quite doable without being able to disable traps by luring the enemies towards you without springing them before they're dealt with, it's just way too convenient to be able to turn someone invisible and just walk a lap around the map to get rid of all the web traps in your way. I might go back to see how the fight in the cave feels with improved spiders from the mod but for now I just wanted to push towards chapter 5.
There's mainly just 2 interesting obstacles in cloakwood mines. Drassus' party and Davaeorn himself. Modded Drassus proved to be the biggest challenge in the run so far. I really should've gone after one or two more big experience pockets I've left untouched for now since I'm fairly sure this fight would've been a lot easier had I got the level up before the fight instead of when killing some run of the mill guards just inside the mines. Oh well. I can't summon more monsters now without losing my wand so I'll be relying on other things for the time being.
Davaeorn was the most unpleasant thing I've dealt with in SCS so far. The way the fight has been redone makes the new gimmick overstay it's welcome to a point where it gets frustrating with all the repetition. Just IMO of course. I made Yeslick with protection from magic scroll bought from Thalanthyr to keep Davaeorn busy while my main blade gunned down the battle horrors. Them not being immune to scorchers has always been a bit curious to me.
Jaheira buffed to the brim with potion of defense (or stoneform, forget which I used), strength of some giant and a scroll of protection from fire kept the doorway guards busy while Xan tossed in some hold persons and I kept using fireballs on the now immune Jaheira and the guards to clean house.
After picking up the loot from Davaeorns body and all the chests on the level I made my way out, sold all equipment that I know for sure I won't be using, made enough money to recharge my monster summoning wand and went for some post chapter 4 clean up. I finished Sonners quest that I picked up on day 1 in favor of Tenya. With now having access to sorcerous sundries I went and bought the potion of clarity offered there and did the quest to get the childs body from Umberlee's temple for some extra anti-missile protection in the form of a new shield.
Armed with those it was finally time to go visit Black Alarics cave. The sirines naturally couldn't touch Jaheira with the potion of clarity and couldn't poison her either since she's practically immune to archers at this point. I did some supporting fireballs to get all of them down before the potion ran out and then it was just a matter of using another potion of absorbtion that I have several of at this point to kill the flesh golems. Nice amounts of experience, a CON tome that doesn't do much for me but I'll use it on my main anyway and part of the holy trinity: A wand of paralyzation.
Usually I don't bother looting this cave until this point but this is something I should've done before Cloakwood in this playthrough. Scroll of protection from poison would solve the poison arrows they shoot while 2 potions of magic blocking could be used for each of the sirine groups respectively while dealing the actual damage from outside combat with fireballs. Maybe that would've worked? I don't know when I've last dealt with this without either a potion of clarity or the greenstone amulet.
Todays lighthearted moment goes to Ragefast. I started to already clean up some of the combatless or single combatant quests in Baldur's Gate and as I encountered Ragefast I immediately summoned some monsters in front of his face. His modified AI didn't seem to handle that very well as he just kind of backed himself to the other side of the house out of my field of vision where my monsters followed him and just pummeled him to death while he was barely even putting up a fight.
It has been quite some time since I've played BG1 with such a big party as I have right now so I find myself staring at my experience I find myself wondering if I can reach the TOTSC exp cap with a party this size without doing Durlag's Tower which I'd rather stay away from.
Everything is quite easy at this point with all the wands at my disposal. Remove Magic has somewhat proven its worth even in this harder landscape though not quite to the degree of vanilla game. Remove magic followed by a wand of paralyzation is still a good mage killing one-two punch when it works but it would be stronger in a smaller party where I could level up faster.
Ramazith summoning skeleton warriors and shades is a fresh change in the mod that I definitely approve of. If memory serves in the original this seemingly intelligent mage is casting a lightning bolt in a small room. The only other mage who I noticed being considerably different was Sunin who was using plenty of upgraded spells. Oberan mages or Marek didn't get to do much. I think the Halruaan mage was different but I'm not entirely sure. I don't believe he used to cast fireball which makes the thief leader attack him before but I could be mistaken as he tends to be a bit of a pushover and dies quick without the "precasts" the mods allow enemy mages to do.
At this point I decided to change my own role in the group. Being a wand turret is in my mind the most effective way of playing a bard in BG1 and has so far trivialized big portions of the game but I don't want to write about nothing but scorchers. I want to highlight other strong tricks available too. Not using wand(s) of fire at this point in the game is somewhat silly as multiples of them become available but I'll try to refrain from using them for now.
Heading into the Helm & Cloack for a good old fashioned bar brawl I decided to see how well a classic spell of arcane casters functions in SCS. I'm talking about the level 2 spell Web.
Turns out it's still really good and even better when there's a friendly fighter who's enjoyed a pre-buff freedom potion among their other buffs in the midst of it. Bard casts web, Jaheira draws aggro, some supplementary stunning from wand of paralyzation just to make sure enemies are incapable of inflicting their violence on me while I'm inflicting mine on them and the party using ranged weapons from the edge of the effect. Bonus points for not even having to worry about aggroing or killing any civilians or the friendlies from Gorpel Hinds party.
Zhalimar's goons at the top of Iron Throne HQ are something I usually skip by just picking up the documents while invisible but I thought I'd do it this time for the challenges sake. Man, the mod maker really wanted this to feel like a chapter finale challenge, huh? Sheesh!
I'm not entirely sure if this is SCS only or if this is the case in vanilla EE as well but Sorcerous Sundries is selling twenty (20) scrolls of Chaos. As scroll casting is a thing I appreciate about this class and Chaos is a stupid good disruptive spell I'll roll with that as my chosen main strategy for this fight. The fight is somewhat different from vanilla. There's a couple new enemies although one of them can be killed for free as she is aggressive and sees the right staircase so she'll just walk up to you for a free kill that won't aggro the others. The enemies are using their spells a lot more smartly and will not waste them on summons so whoever they see needs to be protected. Chaos is not an instant win since this group is capable of dispelling each other but there's twenty of these scrolls and I'm sure they don't have that many dispels.
Since enemies in EE do follow you through doors and stairs it is possible to pull Zhalimar, Gardush or sometimes both down more flights of stairs before the rest of the enemy team had time to follow. If they don't see you go down they don't come after you. Just be prepared that the rest of the enemy team will then hang around both staircases on the level prior. Being able to run the enemy groups physical types around a table on level 3 or the middle part on level 2 while waiting their berserk states out and then just stunning them to death separately of everyone else makes the fight a lot easier. It's a little silly and cheesy that you can do that but it's a system quirk in EE that is especially handy for this particular fight.
At the end of the day the plan was sound enough but I had to go get the greenstone amulet on top of my other buffs to deal with the confusion and charm spam that this group is very fond of doing. It did take some tries but at the end, no fire from any source was used in this fight either.
Took a brief merchant visit to free up some inventory space as well as recharging my paralyzation wand and emptying the magical shops of their useful potions and protective scrolls for future uses. Onwards to chapter 6.
Wands are just OP in the first game. No character that can use a wand is dead weight.
That actually makes dualing Imoen no problem at all because she is a great wand user from mage level 1 even if you wait for level 6/7 as she has far more hit points than the pure mages or Garrick. No need to carry her as people sometimes claim. Fits the story well too because she actually starts with a wand a thief can use.
I cleared the top levels of Durlag's Tower except Kirinhale(did not try her as I remember her being rather strong with SCS) and looted the level with the Warders just with Imoen(before dualing her) in my current playtrough. Lots of valuable stuff too loot. Did not trigger the Warders though as they are just brutal with SCS. The rest tends to be rather tedious even without SCS to be honest. Dunno if I will bother this playtrough.
I don't think Chaos existed in Vanilla BG1. I don't remember what we had but it was like shadow door, cloud kill and like just 2 or 3 other level 5 spells even existing in the original. I'm fairly certain that OG BG1 didn't sell you stacks of 20 of whatever lvl 5 spells they had either. My memory says you can get like one of each in sorcerous sundries but I guess one of us would have to go check to verify.
But at least I'm convinced that they're there in vanilla EE. I tend to kind of skim over the scrolls heatseeking into what I know I want and this is the first time I've noticed this.
I'm a little surprised that there's nothing to really highlight in chapter 6 even in SCS. There was a bit of an extra scuffle at the start that was moved from elsewhere into this chapter but paralyzation proved to be extremely effective in the encounter.
If there was anything different about Rieltars and Prats fight aside from mages having protections up and fighters using potions I couldn't really tell. After Zhalimar's group every encounter in this short chapter just feels like a walk in the park. I wasn't even using Remove Magic or Greater Malison. As I wasn't even near halfway used with the scrolls I just cast Chaos and then tossed one or two charges of paralyze on whoever was left and that was the whole chapter.
Going back to Baldur's Gate city it's high time to highlight a big strength of bards and thieves that could've been brought up back in chapter 5. Some shops allow you to steal from them and there's a couple of shops that allow you to sell stolen goods to them. This effectively means that for a few times in the playthrough, for a few in-game hours at a time, you can double up on the profits of your sales. The limitations are set by the amounts of potions of master thievery and potions of perception you can get your hands on. The former boosts pick pocket by 40 % for 3 hours and the latter by 20 % for 6 hours. As a bard with high DEX I've always found 2 master thievery potions at a time to do the trick for me. Potions of power work too for 20 % but only for 4 turns and they have a strong combat component to them too so I'd keep them for that purpose instead.
The fences you can sell stolen goods to are Black Lily inside thieves' guild and Silence inside the shop of silence, both found in East BG. Most shops that don't by default sell high value stuff can be stolen from so find one that buys what you're trying to flip.
Probably the best shop to use for selling and re-stealing your stuff from in general is Lucky Aello in the same portion of the city. Partly because he's right next to the fences and partly because he buys anything except for scrolls, potions and wands. Doubling profits on the first 2 doesn't really matter and having wands get a "stolen goods" label is something I try to avoid, although having said that Black Lily can still be used for wand recharging if you do. She costs more than Thalantyr in High Hedge if you've got high reputation but then again if you're filling your wallet with this method, you probably don't care that much about the extra cost. Remember to sell and steal all the stuff you're wearing on you as well. Might as well reap the extra profit if you're going this way.
One shop worth mentioning when doing this for the first time is the potion shop located in SW BG. When you initially pop your thieving potions you can hit this shop first as they happen to sell 2 potions of master thievery so you can steal the ones you just used right back. There's quite a few other handy potions to stock up your potion bag with while there although most of what the guy is selling is poisonous. How is he allowed to keep selling that stuff? Also if you really want to flip your potions for profits, this is the shop to do so.
For todays humorous side remark, pickpocketed items don't count as stolen items. Only ones taken from shops do. Algernon's cloak is probably the only item worth pickpocketing in the first game and shops don't have any trouble buying that from you. It's only when you sneak it out of a shop that everyone starts caring where it's from. Maybe they all just really hate Algernon. That would make sense, I don't like Algernon either.
Both Slythe and Krystin as well as Cythandria fell to rather basic fighter potion buffs without doing anything too specific bardic wise but a Remove Magic cast did certainly hasten the process when it came to dispatching both mages in both fights. Some regular wand usage combined with singing to my summons when I deemed it safe to go in without having any spell protections on my bard made for some rather easy work of it all.
I was for a while wondering if running solo would have been better for the sake of this kind of a highlight but then I realized that I'd just be doing more of the same. The one thing I'm bringing with a party is a fighter type using potions being able to tank a lot of things while punching them and most of the strats I'd use solo would be more or less available to a party as well. I'd also be higher level so some of the things I'm doing would work even better.
I guess all this goes to show that having a fighter with a strength potion and one or two defensive potions per hard encounter is also working wonders in the BG1 landscape. There's no need to keep saving up on those things too much or there's nothing left to save them on. The limited resources are a big factor to completing the game on one of the harder difficulty settings and they're way more plentiful than a hoarder might originally imagine. I should know, I've been that guy.
Now I'm at the almost at the end with a weird exp deficiency that I normally would not have thanks to lugging some extra bodies around. I think I'll just say screw it and go in SOD with exp not maxed but I'll see about that once I deal with the coronation and consider my options before the final battle.
Lucky Aello's good, yes - including that he's very easy to steal from at difficulty 10 (110 PP score needed for 100% success). But the real best option is the "General Store" in the southwest quarter which initially stocks nothing but nonmagical weapons and armor. Same low difficulty, and that store buys practically everything including scrolls, potions, and wands.
No update today. Day or two without BG for me as I've agreed to play some other games with friends.
EDIT: Now that I think about it I did actually know this but I've just never used the guy for stealing. I think I even have a post on these forums somewhere pointing out that there's a general store in the Gate that buys wands.
Recruit Alora and invest all points in pickpocket (I think she hits 150 points with the boost from her rabbit's foot). I have never seen her fail in the stores mentioned so far in this thread. I did not know about the 110 point needed to never fail but with that knowledge I think the other thiefs you don't plan to use should be able to hit that too at 32k in case you want to use Alora. She is by far the best single class thief because her item and the best archer thief even if she comes rather late.
I still want to bring it up as a bardic strength as this is something you can do even while playing solo although I'll also immediately admit that there's no shortage of money in that scenario to begin with
Anyways, came here to say that a major PC malfunction kept me from playing for quite a bit and now that I could I don't really feel like it since my now-even-more limited game time goes towards all the new content that's come out in these couple of games that I play actively and fallen behind on during this time.
So toodles.
It was a real compliment, if you are that insecure thats your problem , and you should fix that.