My progress is very slow, first of all because my time for playing games is limited, and second, because unlike many others I don't have everything memorized yet. I still have to tiptoe around, scout carefully and try to remember what was where .
In Nashkel, we picked up Minsc, found an Ankheg Plate, admitted that we were *not* Greywolf, and then, after a detour to the Morning Temple to pay my paladin tithe, I decided to take the quickest way to the gnoll stronghold, because I didn't want to risk upsetting Minsc's short timer.
On the way, we survived the Xvart hordes and their cave bear, the latter with careful kiting and many arrows.
We didn't enter the cave with the other bear yet. We're still fragile, and I don't have money to spare to Raise multiple companions.
I remembered that the next map has some enemies that I'd rather not tank with our low levels, either, so we kept to the south.
The rest of the map will have to wait until later.
We reached the Gnoll Stronghold, got the Gauntlets of Dexterity (Minsc will get them for the moment, as soon as we're back somewhere to have them identified) and rescued Dynaheir.
And I got the tome to raise charisma from the caves.
On our way back, we cleared the map with the bridges where we had met the polar bear. Killing one of the ogre berserkers brought me to level 3. I have 42 HP now. From now on, "Max HP on level up" is turned off.
Thanks to Dynaheir's innate ability to Slow Poison, I didn't need my last Antidote against the Hobgoblin Elites, either. And we met Neville and his bandits, so I have a longsword +1 now.
The rest of all those maps will have to wait until later. We went back to Nashkel and to the Carnival, to rescue Branwen. I was still undecided if I'd keep Khalid and Jaheira out of loyalty.
That made me remember why I absolutely want a cleric. And I need to buy scrolls for Dynaheir to learn as soon as possible. So, we rescued Branwen, got some basic equipment for her, said bye to Jaheira and Khalid and went to High Hedge. We found poor Melicamp, but he didn't survive.
So, we got some spells for Dynaheir, made her scribe them along with the other scrolls we had found, but I couldn't afford the Potions of Genius from Gellana Mirrorshade yet, so I had to buy some scrolls twice. She failed Identifiy the first time, and Blindness both times. But she has a decent amount of 1st level spells now. I'm keeping the 2nd level scrolls until she can cast them, to increase the success rate, and maybe after the Nashkel Mines I can afford those potions of genius.
We went north for a bit to get Ajantis (no reason to go there yet, I know. I did it anyway) and then to the Nashkel mines. I decided to go for Prism first. With Branwen's Command, Greywolf was easily finished, although his first and only hit on me cost me 10 HP.
So, I have Varscona+2 now.
I pitied Prism, but as a paladin I couldn't leave the emeralds there, since he had stolen them. I brought them back to Oublev (sp?), who is dubious at best, but the only one who knows the rightful owner.
We got the Wand of Frost from the hollow tree and entered the Nashkel mines.
It took me a lot of time, because I remembered the way, but not where the traps were, so I had Imoen creep forward step by step, changing between Hide in Shadows and Find Traps.
At last we reached Mulahey's cave. I freed Xan and sent him away, and then I didn't remember how many minions Mulahey would summon and where they would appear. Bad.
I forgot how short the duration of Command is and wasted time having Branwen cast Spiritual Hammer instead of just hitting him. And poor Dynaheir got caught between skeletons.
The coward!
Ajantis and Minsc were stuck between all those kobolds and skeletons. And then he caught me with Rigid Thinking and Branwen with Hold Person. I thought it was over. But although Imoen was too slow to interrupt him, at least she made him panic.
I killed Branwen. Sorry.
Imoen had the honor of finishing Mulahey.
Then she spent the rest of the time kiting while Minsc and Ajantis killed the remaining critters, until I finally came to my senses and joined them. We picked up all our stuff, went back to Nashkel, reported to Berrun Ghastkill, have Reputation 18 now, and had to spend 800 of the 900 gp reward to pay for 2x Raise Dead.
Sigh. I only had one Cure Light Wounds for Branwen and hoped I wouldn't have them killed again by our next assassin on our way to the deserved rest. But in the end we almost had to stop the Amnian Soldier from killing Nimbul too early.
I don't like it that the boots (Mulahey's, not Nimbul's) are called "Talos' Gift". Three of us serve different gods, so from a roleplaying point of view I wouldn't use them. But Dynaheir is the most likely to be chunked by lightning bolts, and the most needed against those who cast them, so she'll keep them.
Then we went for Tranzig. He surrendered, too, but the arrows were already in the air when I accepted. After our experience with Mulahey, I can't say that I felt much regret. Besides, he had petrified Branwen.
I think we're going to look for Bassilus next, and check out the other wilderness maps in the area before we search for the bandit camp. We need better gear first.
@Arvia It's nice reading an account from somebody who doesn't know the game too well. I had to stop myself giving advice. You'll learn soon enough things which are old hat to some people on this thread.
To keep my interest alive I keep adding different mods so that I don't know what to expect. You don't need to do that yet.
If however, you ever want advice, just ask, plenty of people here will give it.
PS I've added a little more to my last post if anyone is interested.
I'm keeping the 2nd level scrolls until she can cast them, to increase the success rate, and maybe after the Nashkel Mines I can afford those potions of genius.
There is no such effect. The chance to learn a spell depends only on intelligence and the specialist bonus/penalty. For a spell in your specialty (Evocation in Dynaheir's case), the chance is what's displayed plus 16%; for a spell outside your specialty, it's the displayed number minus 14%. Since Dynaheir has the NPC-standard 17 Int, those chances are 91% and 61% respectively for her. After one potion of genius, it becomes 100% and 83%. Two potions, and it's 100% and 100%. (The chance at 24 or 25 Int is 150%; even after the penalty, that's certain success)
Why +16/-14 instead of +15/-15? There's an off-by-one bug in the code there. Also, due to a bug, the 15% off-specialization penalty applies to anyone that has a kit, even if it's not a mage specialist kit.
I don't like it that the boots (Mulahey's, not Nimbul's) are called "Talos' Gift". Three of us serve different gods, so from a roleplaying point of view I wouldn't use them. But Dynaheir is the most likely to be chunked by lightning bolts, and the most needed against those who cast them, so she'll keep them.
For that matter, Mulahey isn't a cleric of Talos. Based on his holy symbol's description, he's a cleric of Cyric.
Even worse, there's a set of "Talos' Gift" for sale in Athkatla ... at the Lathander temple. The game designers just didn't care about making that bit of flavor fit.
@Wise_Grimwald , I imagine my struggles must look kind of ridiculous to people who have played BG regularly for years. That's why I didn't even want to post.
But I thought, what the heck, it's more exciting to try a no-reload, and it's more fun for me if I share it.
I know there are many tricks and tactics, but I want to stick to roleplaying, too. Besides, the first advice would probably be "don't play an Undead Hunter".
I'm going to ask for advice before reaching battles that I found particularly difficult before.
During my first playthrough of BG:EE, I think that was in May, I got killed twice by Prat, for example. That was tough, although I'm only playing on core rules.
I'd like to figure out how to do this, but I don't mind some suggestions, either. Even if it doesn't lead to a reload, if I'm doing some very stupid things or missing something very obvious that would make my life a lot easier, by all means please let me know!
As long as it's friendly advice. I'm sensitive to criticism ?.
Hey, don't worry! By my joining date, it looks like I started no-reloads 5 (!!!! how.....) years ago, and I was probably even more clueless than you. And I still have only one success to date. Why do I torture myself so? The community is very friendly, and we obviously don't care about suboptimal choices (we in fact have a list of all (generally suboptimal) kits that haven't been completed that we're TRYING to get through.) Undead Hunter's not even a bad kit; it compares well with almost every warrior class and subclass in the game.
The only tips I have is that ranged weapons are your friends in BG1. No one has enough hitpoints in the early game to survive two consecutive 20s, so the best policy for survival is to just never allow your opponent to get in melee range of you. Also, if you get a mage that can cast Enchantment spells, Sleep is a save-or-die for the early game that makes wilderness fights significantly less dangerous.
I suppose I should post my run soon; I'm currently in the Cloakwood with a dead Imoen, and about to traipse back through the spider-infested zones... Bleurgh.
@jmerry , are you absolutely sure? I have been told that the penalty increases for spells that you can't cast yet. Is that wrong? Or was it in the old game?
So my actual introduction for this character:
I am playing under SCSv32.4, and almost all of subtledoctor's tweaks and reworks for basically everything. Faith and Powers 0.77sd10, Might and Guile 4b13, Scales of Balance 5.17.1 as well as BG1NPC.
My last major run with these mods (several versions down) failed mostly due to having no access to Chaotic Commands due to the sphere system from Faith and Powers: Chaos was completely deadly, with not nearly enough items to mitigate its effects in a full team. Also, I somehow triggered the siege of Ust Natha, and there's 0 chance of me getting out of that alive. Even if I had escaped, any Stun effects outside of those from ranged attacks were potentially save-or-dies, and I doubt I could continue.
Despite what the thread claims, Chaotic Commands is now under the Chaos domain instead of the Thought domain, and as far as I can tell, there's only 3 or so kits that get access to the Chaos sphere. Most of them, for whatever reason, have almost nothing in their 7th level spells so I ended up rolling...
Meet Thael, essentially a C/M of Moander. His bonuses are immunity to entangle (lol) and Assassin Vine, and gets some Entangle spells natively. I haven't cast one yet; I tend to get teammates trapped in them while my opposition generally makes all their saves somehow.
I tried running a C/M solo, but something in one of these mods has utterly broken wands (I suspect SoB, but can't prove anything), and killing anything with a C/M solo otherwise is far too painful for my short patience. I'll be running Thael and Imoen as a duo through the very early game, and pick up some companions once they've hit level 6 or so, so as to give companions a higher starting level.
Early circuit is uneventful: Shoal is hunted down, Melicamp is successfully saved, Marl is talked down, and some spiders are killed quickly. Sleep makes these early encounters quite easy. Heading south to Nashkel, Neira is disabled and killed, and Imoen picks a lock to get a level for Thael.
We kite Greywolf (and blinded him, I think), and then purchase the Protection from Petrification scroll. Imoen gets to use it, and she and Korax clear the basilisks. As a pure Thief (well, renamed into a Rogue), she gets multiple special feats she can choose from in Might and Guile: she has, as with almost every thief I run with these mods, Lesser Alchemy and Smoke bomb and Grease. The former lets her make one minor potion every rest, including Perception: she can get arbitrarily high thieving skills with enough time, since those things stack. The second feat allows her to use an equivalent of Stinking Cloud and Grease once per day: we use the Stinking Cloud to allow Korax to paralyze Mutamin.
We also take down the gang there after resting, after piling multiple disablers into the area.
Heading North to the FAI, Thael silences Tarnesh and we shoot him down without fear. The Ring of Wizardry allows for a high number of Sleep spells, so we deal with the Ankhegs as our last duty as a duo. There were a couple close calls, but I don't think I was ever in danger of actually dying. Finally, since we were in the area, we attempt to get some experience from Tenya, but she refused to surrender and, well...
Back to the Ankhegs, we pick up Ajantis, and south again to Beregost, we pick up Garrick to form our main 4-man team. Garrick is now a Gallant under Might and Guile (I think), and levels as a Fighter/Mage multiclass with bard songs.
We travel to the southwest wilderness areas for the CHA tome: SoB gives +1 Luck to 18+ CHA, and Ajantis has 17 natively, and we need experience anyways. While travelling, Garrick has a string of bad luck and results in our first casualty to a bunch of Kobold Commandos. My response is oddly enough to fire a Web in an area where Ajantis is standing. I... dunno. We don't have the Ring of Free Action yet. This screenshot puzzles me, frankly.
We hitch a ride back with Brage and raise Garrick before going through the mines. I generally dislike the upgraded kobolds from SCS, but spamming Sleep gets rid of a lot of the irritation. The Shaman is dealt with by swapping Garricks song to a Remove Fear buff (it cost him a feat sometime earlier, his normal one is a Bless aura) and then shooting everything until it stopped moving. Mulahey himself is silenced and quickly disposed of.
Outside, we kill a Revenant and some Mustard Jellies, before almost dying to Narcillicus. I believe that damage is mostly from a Skull trap, though I could be mistaken.
I must've forgotten the screenshot, but we get to max reputation by turning in Mulahey's holy symbol... Only for Nimbul to Confuse us, and we shoot a bystander to drop our reputation to 10. We spend quite a bit of gold to bring it back up, and finish some reputation quests to bring it back to 20. (Bjornin's half-ogres, the worgs at the lighthouse, the Doomsayer, unpetrifying the lady in the basilisk area...)
We're ambushed by the Amazons. I should've started with a Remove Invisibility spell, but didn't: Thael is backstabbed to half his health almost instantly. Garrick and Imoen are applying pressure to the priests, and stop them from casting anything useful while Thael drinks a healing potion. Ajantis is on the second rogue to stop her from firing those stupid +2 fire arrows. Eventually, with a couple more spells, every one of their four are dead and all four of us live.
We do a few more high-experience encounters before the Bandit camp: Sil and her Sirenes, (Web and Stinking cloud), Flesh Golems (invisible blocker and +1 arrows), the Battle Horrors (Many, many Magic missiles), the Ghasts in Durlag's tower (Ring of Free action pickpocketed from Dushai using Potions of Perception), and finally the basilisks on the roof (Protection from Petrification on Ajantis.) For the bandit camp itself, I took a page from @JuliusBorisov 's evil playthrough book, and triggered them all inside one small tent after claiming it for myself. Two Webs with the Ring of Free Action are sufficient to clear the entire camp as they forced themselves in that small doorway.
After selling items, we have the second ambush, and there's significantly less threat to this one. There's only one spellcaster, and everyone else can be kited without worrying about the burst.
Cloakwood: we side with Aldeth for the later Doppelganger quest, Imoen invisibly deactivates (OK, runs into) the web traps, and we traipse our way through the rest of Cloakwood. We don't fancy taking on the Drasus party fairly, so webs and stinking clouds means we shoot them all without taking any retaliation.
Anddddd I'm right to be afraid of high level mages. Hareishan hits us with a Chaos, and I can only save Thael with a Potion of Magic Blocking. Imoen, however, is not as lucky. We call it a day here, and prepare our trip back to the FAI.
@Arvia
Yes, I'm sure. I've run experiments, and while the chance of scribing success is often less than listed, it's due to that bug of the specialist penalty applying when it shouldn't. This is true for BGEE and BG2EE 2.5; I don't currently have any other games or older versions to test.
A "normal" playthrough of BGEE is unlikely to pick up many scrolls that are higher level than the mages in the party can cast, with one exception: dual-classing Imoen. And, what do you know, the bug applies for Imoen and her scribing chances are 14% lower than they should be across the board.
@Arvia Against Pratt there are two main ways that I use to survive. One to go invisible and not to bother fighting at all.
The other is to use invisibility to move your party to the south of their party leaving one behind to trigger the dialogue, and that party member should immediately take a potion of invisibility.
Then bombard that area with area effect spells, potions etc. There is a spot that can be targetted without being seen by the enemy. Use web on that spot to disable as many as possible, then target that spot with oil of fiery burning, fireballs, potions of explosions etc. You will be left with Pratt. One of the party who is tough should then take on Pratt having been protected from electricity. Make sure that the other party members won't get hit by the riccocheting lightning spell. Once the danger is past, other party members can help.
An alternative is to use summons to absorb that spell.
There are countless variations that can be used depending on party composition.
Miscast magic and silence are also useful spells against Pratt.
We set off in search of Aaron and found him. We then found both his ring and Dynaheir who joined us whilst we looked for her journal. We first went to Nashkel to drop Aaron off and then went in search of the journal. We found it and then went to take Aaron's ring to his beloved.
Whilst lookking for Dynaheir's journal, we killed literally hundreds of xvarts, though we didn't enter the cave as we had few spells left. Weasels was a very useful spell to keep the xvarts away from the squishier members of the party.
We returned to Nashkel, told Aaron of what had transpired and then left Dynaheir with Minsc.
I believe that after dealing with the basilisks, we should be ready to deal with the demons in the Nashkel mines.
@jmerry Could that be another effect of the Kit - None bug that confused a ton of players for a very long time? The saving throws bug were closed at https://support.baldursgate.com/issues/31342, but if Kit - None is also messing with spell-learning...
@Neverused
Very probably. The likes of Garrick, Safana, Aerie, and Nalia all have kit "Base Class", and learn spells at the listed rate (+1%). Anything other than "Base Class", including a blank (like Imoen in both games), and a character is treated as a specialist for spell learning purposes.
(Added in edit) I tried setting Imoen to "Base Class" in EEKeeper. That fixes it for her. 493/500 successes at 21 Int (97% listed chance).
We got Gavin to join us and did his quests starting with Mutamin and finishing with the woman causing people to disappear in Beregost.
We then dropped Gavin off at the temple and picked up Rose who we took through the Nashkel Mines which we cleared easily.
After returning to Beregost we were ambushed by a thespian and some mercenaries. They too were killed easily ( Unlike my last game) We will now return to the Nashkell Mines and see if Xan is still there.
After reporting to Gaelan Bayle I did a bit of an experiment by killing all the enemies in the Copper Coronet using spirit summons.
The availability of ironskins means precision over movement and placement is a bit less crucial when dancing and it didn't take an unreasonably long time - though it would have still been considerably quicker and easier using fire elementals (as Suna Seni soon discovered).
Fire elementals, topped up by spirit summons, made the job of clearing the top floor at Watcher's Keep pretty easy.
Travelling back from there Renfeld was picked up and taken back to the Docks. An elemental was produced as a distraction for Prebek and Sanasha, but they failed to survive a single spirit fire anyway - getting me to level 13.
Looting the harpers then took the bit of time remaining in the session.
Shaman 13, 85 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 105 kills (+515 in BG1)
Upon finding Xan we left the mines and investigated the area outide, killing a revenant, ghasts and the like.
We headed north and gave grain and vegetables to some lady-ogres who were concerned about their figures.
In Nashkel we dropped off Xan and picked up Rasaad.
We now have a reputation of 20 and we have sold any equipment that is +1 or lower. This has caused us to be quite wealthy, so if we come across any good equipment, the price should not be a major factor.
We MUST buy some slow poison potions as we seem to be quite susceptible to poison.
Rasaad didn't stay with us long as Thorin wanted to join us when we decided to visit Dulag's Tower.
We were happy for him to join us for the duration of that quest as he will be a useful member of the party, just so long as he doesn't try and persuade me to be a goody-goody. I am quite happy being neutral, and being chaotic I can do good things from time to time if I so desire.
EDIT
Whilst looking for Dulag's Tower, I stumbled across Fallen Nightshade et al.
We disabled them with web and seriously injured them with fireball and Holy Smite.
A weasels spell kept them occupied whilst we finished them off with ranged weapons.
Upon arrival in Durlag's Tower we killed a couple of battle horrors.
EDIT
Game ended with the battle against the four warders. I was clearly too stingy when it came to using potions. No major mistakes the party was just overpowered by the warders. However they did fight differently, they didn't use the spells that I am used to.
Ammanas' very first action in Faerûn was summoning his Pseudo Dragon familiar which, after a hearty discussion, got tucked away into his inventory. While still in Candlekeep, he stocked up on sling bullets, collected Armor and Identify scrolls (thanks Thethoril) before talking to Gorion. Following Sarevok's ambush, he took the most direct route to the FAI while picking up some Easter egg goodies and vacuum cleaning the inventories of Imoen, Xzar and Monty on the way.
At FAI, Sanctuary allowed us to bypass Tarnesh to trigger Dorn's quest and earn a PoI from Jaheira. And yes, Joia did get her ring back.
Our next destination was High Hedge. Blindness and Wand of Magic Missiles took care of a lonely skeleton, so Ammanas got his skull trophy for a later use. Selling RoP +1 allowed us to finance a Wand of Sleep, although it did break the budget. Luckily for us, heroes of the Sword Coast do not have to eat nor pay any rent.
Being a follower of Valkur, the protector of sailors, there are few beings Ammanas mistrusts and dislikes more than the sirines. Poor Shoal learned that the hard way when trying to seduce him into oblivion.
Grabbing extra priest and mage levels, Ammanas returned to the Coast's Way Crossroad to collect the Girdle of Piercing from the belt ogre. Both the gnoll party at High Hedge and the spiders in Beregost succumbed to our Wand of Sleep. Perdue got his sword back (Karlat was bypassed under Sanctuary), Mirianne got her letter and Zurlong his boots. All of this earned Ammanas additional levels in both classes.
Short on money and L2 spell scrolls, we needed to cash-in. And Zargal with his sword seemed like a good target, even though the lack of Shield and Mirror Image in our spell repertoire worried me a bit. And rightfully so - that day the hobgoblins were in their prime.
They largely made their saves against a Wand of Sleep charge and managed to crit hit and poison Ammanas. Valkur bless cleric/mages and their ability to use helmets, otherwise this could already be ugly.
Ammanas gulped his Antidote (sorry for not getting it Nessa) and retreated out of range to clear his aura and heal. The second Sleep charge worked much better and we could finally call it a win.
Selling their loot allowed us to buy some critical L1 and L2 scrolls from Thalantyr, which were then successfully scribed without any INT enhancements. Oh and by the way, Melikamp died as a chicken.
With ProPetrification and Invisibility (among others) now in our arcane spellbook, we could finally afford to pay a visit to the basilisks. Korax did most of the heavy lifting, though Ammanas could still reasonably participate in the combat at range. For Mutamin, Ammanas had used Sanctuary to keep out of sight until Korax, buffed with Chant, landed his Ghoul Touch. I'll note that there was some nice random loot to be had including Potion of Mind Focusing and Laeral's Tear necklace - this one should finally fix our financials .
Nashkel was reached via Barge and Ammanas then took a detour to the mines for a rendez-vous with Dorn. He did not impress.
Left on his own, Ammanas buffed with Shield, ProEvil, Strength of One (divine), DUHM and opened with a Sleep cast from his book. With not much of a success to say the least.
Trying to avoid getting hit, he then worked his way through individual enemies with Blindness.
After taking a heavy blow, Dorothea took refuge in her Sanctuary and Ammanas could use the time to summon his skeleton warrior just as his short term buffs were running out.
For style points, we closed the battle with Shillelagh.
Narial the Undead Hunter, still continuing the 3rd attempt, yay!
We have found Bassilus and killed him and his undead minions. I know I can pretend to be his mom or something so that he will unsummon the skeletons, but I didn't want to lie. Imoen had spotted him when scouting, so we crept close enough to Silence him, and then it was no big deal.
That was level 4 for me. I got 14 HP and checked the game options, but Max HP on level up was deactivated. Just a lucky roll, apparently.
Then we went through the southern wilderness maps, fighting bandits, mages, hobgoblins, whatever.
Among other, we found and saved Brage, helped the dryads, rescued a drowned cat, helped "little" Albert find his dog, and whatever else was in those maps. I'm sure everyone else here knows that much better than me.
I have avoided the coast for now, and I haven't been to Gullykin, Firewine Bridge and Ulcaster School yet (got tired of those maps).
I reached level 5 in Mutamin's Garden,
Then we visited the far south again, and poor Minsc got killed by Narcillicus' nasty Mustard Jellies. I had avoided the fight during my first playthrough. Must have said something wrong now.
We had trouble carrying all the stuff with Minsc dead, but I wanted to fight the amazons anyway before going back to raise him. Those ways are just too long.
We used Silence, Hold Person, I don't remember if I had Dynaheir blind them with Glitterdust, too, or if that had been one of the other fights. Anyway, it wasn't difficult. I've got the Harrower, although I probably won't remember to switch weapons when I meet undead. The Potion of Magic Blocking is very appreciated.
And Imoen got a better armor.
After all that, I bought full plate mail for me and gave the Ankheg plate to Branwen, got the Wand of Sleep, several scrolls for Dynaheir, and then we went to look for the Bandit Camp. The Peldvale was crossed, the bandits killed, and we reached the camp.
Good. Full Plate for Ajantis.
After fighting the bandits in front, and everything indicating which one was the important tent, I felt justified to buff a bit before entering.
Raemon and Britik were caught in Dynaheir's Horror spell, Vinkt was Held, so everything was over quickly.
That was it. We looted the camp and took another way back, disarming web traps (at least I remembered roughy where they were. During my first run, I had to reload there, because of a spider web), fighting spiders, and meeting some unfriendly Red Wiazards of Thay.
We took care of them with some interrupting missiles, an oil of fiery burning, the wand of frost, Hold Person, and Stinking Cloud. The only damage they did was Melf's Acid Arrow on me.
That's it for now. I think I'm going to do Ulcaster School and Firewine Bridge before the Cloakwood, but will probably leave the coast with the sirens for later.
Insofar Ammanas had mostly been lollygagging around the Sword Coast, trying to earn a coin here and there. He's now level 5/5 and is also rocking a new proficiency pip in two-handed weapons. He also managed to finally complete his basic 'High Hedge' spell collection by scribing some essential L3 scrolls with a Potion of Genius, including Vampiric Touch, MSD, Skull Trap.
Here's a sneak peek into the inventory - the shield is a courtesy of Bjornin for uprooting the half-ogres near Beregost. By the way, the gnoll horde battling Drizzt at the lake usually provides a good opportunity to harvest some quality L2 scrolls (Blur would especially be welcome), but we're not lucky this time.
And here's Ammanas testing his new Vampiric Touch on poultry in preparation for the ankheg lair, which was then cleared (at least to the treasure pile) with Sleep and STR buffs.
Our next stop was Ulgoth's Beard, where we had spent a fortune on Greenstone Amulet, Cloak of Displacement and L4 scrolls before moving on south again to catch up with some old pals.
Good to see you Meilum (and thanks for the bracers)!
Howdy Greywolf!
All good Zal & Vax?
What have you been up to Sendai?
Last but not least we also said hi to Caldo & Krumm.
All of this was rather profitable, so we went back to Ulgoth's Beard Inn to buy Aule's Staff and Wand of Heavens. With his equipment looking good now, Ammanas fancied a visit to Durlag's Tower. He overcame the battle horror guardians with direct damage spells and Wand of Frost. Once inside the tower, we used MSD to collect the Wisdom tome and Sanctuary to bypass the ghasts on the second floor. Up on the roof he buffed with ProPetrification and summoned some skeleton warriors to deal with the basilisks. I'm generally trying to wean myself off the skelies a bit when playing clerics, but I decided to make an exception here.
Anyway, it seems that either Nashkel Mines won a recent tender to supply ore to the Underworld or that the local iron had just always been a complete junk, Mulahey or not.
There were last two errands to complete before we could proceed to this mines. First, the gem bag. For some reason Neera did not like us saving her skin and turned hostile. Well, we don't like you either half-elf.
Secondly, there was the pirate cove. As mentioned before, Ammanas hates sirines. And fears them as well. So it made perfect sense to avoid any confrontation and focus on the inside of the cave.
MSD took care of the traps and the golems were obliterated with Aule's and +1 bullets.
I'm not a big fan of fighting hordes of kobolds in narrow corridors and so Ammanas approached Mulahey's domain under Invisibility. He healed away the damage taken from the traps and buffed with Vampiric Touch (self), green ProUndead scroll, Shield, Strength of One, Chant, Mirror Image and Greenstone Amulet. He also prepared a Skull Trap at the edge of the northern cave chamber to cover his retreat.
Ammanas then confronted Mulahey and opened with Hold Person. Mulahey eventually made his save, but the trap worked flawlessly.
Our second attempt at eliminating the evil cleric from the fight, this time with Blindness, was a success.
We made some breathing space with Sleep and added DUHM for extra punch.
The mine was secured. Time to collect the evidence and go.
Back on the surface, with ProUndead still running, Ammanas beats the Revenant and loots the tombs before returning to Nashkel.
With the exception of the encounter with Neera, Nimbul is usually the very first arcane caster my characters actually dare to confront. Not willing to underestimate our defences, we opted for Shield, Resist Fear, ProEvil, MIs, MSD and Greenstone Amulet. As for the offensive, it was time to try out our Wand of Paralyzation. Failed save on a second attempt meant this was game over for Nimbul.
Considering how both Dorn and Neera failed earlier in the adventure to make any impression, I was half surprised to see Rasaad walking away from this encounter alive. Well, whatever - we didn't have time for his proverbs anyway.
Before moving on with the main questline, Ammanas made a detour to visit some off-the-grid locations, including the Gnoll Fortress, to earn extra coin. He used to money to resupply his inventory with Claw of Kazgaroth, Necklace of Missiles, Shield Amulet and handful of scrolls and potions.
Next up was Bassilus, whom got blinded and subsequently confused with Rigid Thinking - this meant that he never managed to Cure Disease himself and was left to die dumbfounded.
Expecting the delayed assassin ambushes (as per the SCS component) to come anytime soon, Ammanas had been travelling in between locations exclusively under Invisibility at this stage. As so Molkar and his band did not surprise us. Our own actions did though. This was when I found out that divine Resist Fear breaks arcane Invisibility, which does seem rather counter-intuitive. Luckily for Ammanas, he was out of sight of the enemy and was still able to vanish under Sanctuary to complete his buff routine in safety.
But the worst part was just about to come. Casting Chant near enemies is an offensive action and that means that Sanctuary will collapse the moment the incantation begins. This one I (normally) know so...bummer. In an instant, we had four bloodthirsty assassins at our throat and a clouded aura after cancelling the spell.
Despite running sufficient protective buffs, Ammans' battle plan was botched. We tried to stabilize the situation by reapplying Sanctuary but Ammans got hit by the fighter/mage's Glitterdust. Despite its relatively short duration I did not feel like waiting it out and rebuffing. It was time to call this one a draw and retreat to Beregost.
Back in town, Ammanas had a long nap and then went on to deal with Silke and Tranzig. Both fell to our trusty Wand of Paralyzation.
Ammanas is just on his way to the Bandit Camp.
Note: Please do let me know in case you find the screenshots slightly small for your liking. I used to crop the images in my posts but I'm feeling lazy this time around . And I'm thinking that maybe I should get back to it.
Having approached the camp via Raiken our aim was clear - seek the main tent and unleash mayhem. Ammanas prepared with Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Defense, Shield, Resist Fear, Strength (arcane), Oil of Speed, ProEvil, MSD and DUHM. He also added 100% cold resist (green protection scroll + potion) against the Black Talons.
He entered the tent under Sanctuary and surprised Venkt with a heavy blow, followed by a fireball via Wand of Fire.
MSD then foils Venkt's charm attempt.
Ammanas uses his clear aura to counter with Holy Smite.
Taking down the remaining fighters and archers with sling was easy enough.
not going to dwell on it
a nameless peon, a backstab... we all know the story but I've had a request and will post about that instead
+3 weapons & wand of heaven... traps work for good characters only
he counts as undead for spells and effects
don't try to leave the area yet... fight him at range and protection from level drain if you need melee
Despite having my usual improvements to the assassins in Candlekeep, the party survived with few problems largely due to the assassins being outnumbered, but also due to the Helmite's magical sword.
Having arrived safely at the Friendly Arms Inn, we killed Tarnesh and found Joia's ring.
After proceeding to Beregost, they calmed down Marl and took a tome to Firebead.
They then went to High Hedge and after killing some gnolls, they headed south where they found Mellicamp.
At High Hedge he was restored to his human shape as was Tonder who had been suffering from lythancropy.
They returned to where they had found Mellicamp and killed Bassilus. Bassilus saved against command, but the missile attacks disrupted his spells enough so that we were able to kill him. This raised the champions a level.
We went to the temple to claim the reward.
We then killed ogrillon and returned Jumper to a little girl.
Cyrus of Cyric then became a level 2 cleric and thief.
To tie in with the portraits, my Helmite champion has ** in halberds, and my cleric/priest has ** in daggers.
After a few days away from home, I was able to get back into this run this morning. Concentrating on reputation increases, I:
- used fire elementals to beat up the Fallen Paladins.
- used fire elementals to beat up the Rune Assassins.
- used fire elementals to chop Neb's head off.
- used fire elementals to beat up the slavers (getting to level 14 in the process).
- used fire elementals to beat up the genies at Trademeet.
The above description is a bit misleading as the shaman has loads of options for winning fights without fire elementals, but they are pretty vicious in early BG2 when lots of enemies are unable to even hurt them.
Next time, completing the Trademeet quests will push reputation up to 20 and allow a bit of shopping.
Shaman 14, 87 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 152 kills (+515 in BG1)
We headed south picking up the Colquetle Amulet and Lord Foreshadow's ring on the way.
At Nashkel, we found some ankheg armour for Halburg. We talked to Noober and to Oublek who wrongly tried to give us a reward that rightly belonged to Greybeard. At the carnival we bought a rabbit for Ugh and then helped Bentha much to Aerie's delight.
We headed south and killed Zargos Flintblade before picking up a wand of frost and a ring of protection from fire. We then picked up Samuel and took him to the Friendly Arms Inn.
On the way we were attacked by a horde of bandits, all of whom perished, though they did inflict serious injuries. We recovered from those at the Friendly Arms Inn.
Heading south we took a tome to Firebead and the amulet to Mr. Colquetle. This brought Halburg and Gruamsh to level 3 and our reputation to 20.
We then went ankheg hunting to provide ourselves with some gold with which to go shopping. On the way we killed an ogre with a belt fetish and some bandits who had attacked a caravan. We then headed northwards where we killed the evil Sonner and his coleagues, followed by the undead husband of a widow.
We then turned to the ankhegs and after killing 3 Cyrus became a level 3 cleric and thief.
I just lost another solo run with the Psionicist kit I just uploaded. I was trying to use Psionic Blast on the ogre magi ambush at Candlekeep, and pressed "1" to automatically target myself, only to discover that I had accidentally picked Psionic Domination instead of Psionic Blast. Failing the saving throw and successfully charming myself ended the run.
I don't know how many runs I've started but never posted on before they ended. I have a restless run of 6 dwarven fighters going in SoA (did I die in my Shadowdancer+Cleric of Lathander/Mage restless run, or did I just start over?) and a completionist run in BG1 in which I hoped to finally try out all the new EE NPC quests, but the latter is proving less interesting than I had hoped since the EE questlines seem rather short in BG1 compared to BG2. I remember starting a solo Avenger and/or a solo Shapeshifter run, but I don't know if those runs failed or I just abandoned them.
Groups of fire elementals helped make rapid progress through the Grove - aided by the use of Firestorms.
Cernd then dealt with Faldorn.
Back in Trademeet, Tiris got a helping hand and the local tomb was firebombed (Firestorm has the advantage of bypassing magic resistance and does not allow a saving throw).
With reputation up at 20, I returned to Athkatla to buy the nymph cloak - allowing minimum prices to get the best value from the 115,000 gold earned to date. I had intended to clear Adratha out of useful potions when going back to the Grove, but got a bit too impetuous there - oh well, I almost never use the potions anyway ...
Time spent shopping meant the only other bit of work done in the session was to use the Ring of Air Control to annoy the Cowled Wizards. An insect plague chased a fire elemental into each group of those to disable casting and the elementals and Firestorms then quickly finished them off - even Zallanora failed to get away from the final group. There was no useful loot found, but items were sold for about 10k and the XP gained was enough to get up to level 15.
That means DUHM can now push strength up to 24 - so I can beat the door of Kangaxx's tomb down next time to get the Ring of Gaxx.
Shaman 15, 89 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 206 kills (+515 in BG1)
Okay, I'm midway through a new poverty run and I'm right at the Ducal Palace, though I'm not sure how things are going to play out from there, since I just have a level 8 sorcerer Charname and five other sorcerers still at level 6. @Grond0, would it work if I tried layering a whole bunch of Webs on the map and then pinned down the doppelgangers with Magic Missiles? Would I need to cast Web after the doppelgangers transformed? Because I'm guessing the nobles themselves would just get stuck due to their poor saves and fail to transform. It might be a good idea to just trap half of the nobles with Web and then use the extra rounds of safety to thin the herd before the dukes get in trouble.
The current poverty run is different from the old one. Aside from my install, which doesn't have the crazy BG1 encounters that my old one did, I'm no longer allowing items at all, even those the player creates themselves. That means no Seeking Sword, Harm, Energy Blades, Wands of Lightning from Wish, or any form of shapeshifting.
Also, while I can switch out NPCs (very important, since Tiax is so crucial to several key encounters), all of my player-created sorcerers have to have the exact same stats and spellbooks, which means spell variety is extremely limited. We have no disablers beyond Web, notably, and few means of protecting ourselves until we can all stack Spirit Armor spells to get subzero saves vs. spell.
Lance of Disruption is key to the process. It bypasses magic resistance, which means it's a great tool against enemies like Belhifet. It spares us the need to learn Lower Resistance, which is important because I'm not sure we can safely hit level 11 on the whole party by the end of SoD (we need Animate Dead to survive the elevator fight and still have enough spells for Belhifet himself).
Also, by grinding heavily as a solo sorcerer, we can get all the way to Baldur's Gate in complete safety with just one level 6 sorcerer Charname. Web and Invisibility are enough for most fights, Tiax can take down Tranzig with his ghast and also steal the documents from the bandit camp under Sanctuary, and you can actually kill Davaeorn from the other side of the map with Lance of Disruption. Lance of Disruption extends very long, and if you try enough times (using Invisibility to escape and rest), you can eventually get a failed save out of him and kill him with just 3 castings of Lance of Disruption.
Lance of Disruption is good for fighting lots of critters. We used it to kill Drizzt over the course of several rests and also splatter Cythandria all over the walls. I wasn't sure about using it in the Undercellars, though, due to all the innocents around, so I had to use Tiax to soften Slythe up with traps (Magic Missiles finished him off) and paralyze Kristin with the ghast.
Lance of Disruption is actually kind of hilarious.
Once I get to level 14 or 15 in BG2, I'll be using the scorcher loop with Lance of Disruption to deal nonmagical crushing damage to anything that doesn't have Stoneskin or MGOI. A triple LoD Spell Sequencer between two characters with Spell Turning should deal 573.75 nonmagical crushing damage on average, and we'd have three pairs of sorcerers who could do that before even needing to rest. But that's a long ways away.
I've considered trying out a poverty run in Legacy of Bhaal mode, but that would involve heavy use of the Reform Party trick to get extra Spirit Animals out of a Totemic Druid. The only realistic alternative I see would just be to cram multiple druids into the party, and I'd really like to have room for plenty of sorcerers for ToB.
I opened up access to the liches, using my new Shield of the Archons spell to defend against various traps. Elementals, Firestorm and insects were again the major weapons to deal with other threats.
PfU and Azuredge then helped make short work of the liches. I had no weapon or spell that could damage Kangaxx and summons would have disappeared as fast as they were created. However, the Ring of Energy makes short work of him.
In the bit of time left I cleared a few encounters in the Bridge District
and used Shield of the Archons to get the berserker horn (not that that's likely to be much use to a shaman).
Shaman 15, 89 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 234 kills (+515 in BG1)
Okay, I'm midway through a new poverty run and I'm right at the Ducal Palace, though I'm not sure how things are going to play out from there, since I just have a level 8 sorcerer Charname and five other sorcerers still at level 6. @Grond0, would it work if I tried layering a whole bunch of Webs on the map and then pinned down the doppelgangers with Magic Missiles? Would I need to cast Web after the doppelgangers transformed? Because I'm guessing the nobles themselves would just get stuck due to their poor saves and fail to transform. It might be a good idea to just trap half of the nobles with Web and then use the extra rounds of safety to thin the herd before the dukes get in trouble.
I can't remember exactly what happens (and am not sure if I've tried it in the EE), but I do remember concluding web didn't work well as a tactic. I have a feeling that may be because being held by the web doesn't prevent the transformation. Once the hold effect disappears for the dopplegangers, the web may well just help them finish off the dukes extremely quickly . I think you would need to test to be sure of what happens though ...
Comments
My progress is very slow, first of all because my time for playing games is limited, and second, because unlike many others I don't have everything memorized yet. I still have to tiptoe around, scout carefully and try to remember what was where
In Nashkel, we picked up Minsc, found an Ankheg Plate, admitted that we were *not* Greywolf, and then, after a detour to the Morning Temple to pay my paladin tithe, I decided to take the quickest way to the gnoll stronghold, because I didn't want to risk upsetting Minsc's short timer.
On the way, we survived the Xvart hordes and their cave bear, the latter with careful kiting and many arrows.
We didn't enter the cave with the other bear yet. We're still fragile, and I don't have money to spare to Raise multiple companions.
I remembered that the next map has some enemies that I'd rather not tank with our low levels, either, so we kept to the south.
The rest of the map will have to wait until later.
We reached the Gnoll Stronghold, got the Gauntlets of Dexterity (Minsc will get them for the moment, as soon as we're back somewhere to have them identified) and rescued Dynaheir.
And I got the tome to raise charisma from the caves.
On our way back, we cleared the map with the bridges where we had met the polar bear. Killing one of the ogre berserkers brought me to level 3. I have 42 HP now. From now on, "Max HP on level up" is turned off.
Thanks to Dynaheir's innate ability to Slow Poison, I didn't need my last Antidote against the Hobgoblin Elites, either. And we met Neville and his bandits, so I have a longsword +1 now.
The rest of all those maps will have to wait until later. We went back to Nashkel and to the Carnival, to rescue Branwen. I was still undecided if I'd keep Khalid and Jaheira out of loyalty.
That made me remember why I absolutely want a cleric. And I need to buy scrolls for Dynaheir to learn as soon as possible. So, we rescued Branwen, got some basic equipment for her, said bye to Jaheira and Khalid and went to High Hedge. We found poor Melicamp, but he didn't survive.
So, we got some spells for Dynaheir, made her scribe them along with the other scrolls we had found, but I couldn't afford the Potions of Genius from Gellana Mirrorshade yet, so I had to buy some scrolls twice. She failed Identifiy the first time, and Blindness both times. But she has a decent amount of 1st level spells now. I'm keeping the 2nd level scrolls until she can cast them, to increase the success rate, and maybe after the Nashkel Mines I can afford those potions of genius.
We went north for a bit to get Ajantis (no reason to go there yet, I know. I did it anyway) and then to the Nashkel mines. I decided to go for Prism first. With Branwen's Command, Greywolf was easily finished, although his first and only hit on me cost me 10 HP.
So, I have Varscona+2 now.
I pitied Prism, but as a paladin I couldn't leave the emeralds there, since he had stolen them. I brought them back to Oublev (sp?), who is dubious at best, but the only one who knows the rightful owner.
We got the Wand of Frost from the hollow tree and entered the Nashkel mines.
It took me a lot of time, because I remembered the way, but not where the traps were, so I had Imoen creep forward step by step, changing between Hide in Shadows and Find Traps.
At last we reached Mulahey's cave. I freed Xan and sent him away, and then I didn't remember how many minions Mulahey would summon and where they would appear. Bad.
I forgot how short the duration of Command is and wasted time having Branwen cast Spiritual Hammer instead of just hitting him. And poor Dynaheir got caught between skeletons.
The coward!
Ajantis and Minsc were stuck between all those kobolds and skeletons. And then he caught me with Rigid Thinking and Branwen with Hold Person. I thought it was over. But although Imoen was too slow to interrupt him, at least she made him panic.
I killed Branwen. Sorry.
Imoen had the honor of finishing Mulahey.
Then she spent the rest of the time kiting while Minsc and Ajantis killed the remaining critters, until I finally came to my senses and joined them. We picked up all our stuff, went back to Nashkel, reported to Berrun Ghastkill, have Reputation 18 now, and had to spend 800 of the 900 gp reward to pay for 2x Raise Dead.
Sigh. I only had one Cure Light Wounds for Branwen and hoped I wouldn't have them killed again by our next assassin on our way to the deserved rest. But in the end we almost had to stop the Amnian Soldier from killing Nimbul too early.
I don't like it that the boots (Mulahey's, not Nimbul's) are called "Talos' Gift". Three of us serve different gods, so from a roleplaying point of view I wouldn't use them. But Dynaheir is the most likely to be chunked by lightning bolts, and the most needed against those who cast them, so she'll keep them.
Then we went for Tranzig. He surrendered, too, but the arrows were already in the air when I accepted. After our experience with Mulahey, I can't say that I felt much regret. Besides, he had petrified Branwen.
I think we're going to look for Bassilus next, and check out the other wilderness maps in the area before we search for the bandit camp. We need better gear first.
To keep my interest alive I keep adding different mods so that I don't know what to expect. You don't need to do that yet.
If however, you ever want advice, just ask, plenty of people here will give it.
PS I've added a little more to my last post if anyone is interested.
Why +16/-14 instead of +15/-15? There's an off-by-one bug in the code there. Also, due to a bug, the 15% off-specialization penalty applies to anyone that has a kit, even if it's not a mage specialist kit.
For that matter, Mulahey isn't a cleric of Talos. Based on his holy symbol's description, he's a cleric of Cyric.
Even worse, there's a set of "Talos' Gift" for sale in Athkatla ... at the Lathander temple. The game designers just didn't care about making that bit of flavor fit.
But I thought, what the heck, it's more exciting to try a no-reload, and it's more fun for me if I share it.
I know there are many tricks and tactics, but I want to stick to roleplaying, too. Besides, the first advice would probably be "don't play an Undead Hunter".
I'm going to ask for advice before reaching battles that I found particularly difficult before.
During my first playthrough of BG:EE, I think that was in May, I got killed twice by Prat, for example. That was tough, although I'm only playing on core rules.
I'd like to figure out how to do this, but I don't mind some suggestions, either. Even if it doesn't lead to a reload, if I'm doing some very stupid things or missing something very obvious that would make my life a lot easier, by all means please let me know!
As long as it's friendly advice. I'm sensitive to criticism ?.
The only tips I have is that ranged weapons are your friends in BG1. No one has enough hitpoints in the early game to survive two consecutive 20s, so the best policy for survival is to just never allow your opponent to get in melee range of you. Also, if you get a mage that can cast Enchantment spells, Sleep is a save-or-die for the early game that makes wilderness fights significantly less dangerous.
I suppose I should post my run soon; I'm currently in the Cloakwood with a dead Imoen, and about to traipse back through the spider-infested zones... Bleurgh.
I am playing under SCSv32.4, and almost all of subtledoctor's tweaks and reworks for basically everything. Faith and Powers 0.77sd10, Might and Guile 4b13, Scales of Balance 5.17.1 as well as BG1NPC.
My last major run with these mods (several versions down) failed mostly due to having no access to Chaotic Commands due to the sphere system from Faith and Powers: Chaos was completely deadly, with not nearly enough items to mitigate its effects in a full team. Also, I somehow triggered the siege of Ust Natha, and there's 0 chance of me getting out of that alive.
Despite what the thread claims, Chaotic Commands is now under the Chaos domain instead of the Thought domain, and as far as I can tell, there's only 3 or so kits that get access to the Chaos sphere. Most of them, for whatever reason, have almost nothing in their 7th level spells so I ended up rolling...
I tried running a C/M solo, but something in one of these mods has utterly broken wands (I suspect SoB, but can't prove anything), and killing anything with a C/M solo otherwise is far too painful for my short patience. I'll be running Thael and Imoen as a duo through the very early game, and pick up some companions once they've hit level 6 or so, so as to give companions a higher starting level.
Early circuit is uneventful: Shoal is hunted down, Melicamp is successfully saved, Marl is talked down, and some spiders are killed quickly. Sleep makes these early encounters quite easy. Heading south to Nashkel, Neira is disabled and killed, and Imoen picks a lock to get a level for Thael.
We kite Greywolf (and blinded him, I think), and then purchase the Protection from Petrification scroll. Imoen gets to use it, and she and Korax clear the basilisks. As a pure Thief (well, renamed into a Rogue), she gets multiple special feats she can choose from in Might and Guile: she has, as with almost every thief I run with these mods, Lesser Alchemy and Smoke bomb and Grease. The former lets her make one minor potion every rest, including Perception: she can get arbitrarily high thieving skills with enough time, since those things stack. The second feat allows her to use an equivalent of Stinking Cloud and Grease once per day: we use the Stinking Cloud to allow Korax to paralyze Mutamin.
Heading North to the FAI, Thael silences Tarnesh and we shoot him down without fear. The Ring of Wizardry allows for a high number of Sleep spells, so we deal with the Ankhegs as our last duty as a duo. There were a couple close calls, but I don't think I was ever in danger of actually dying. Finally, since we were in the area, we attempt to get some experience from Tenya, but she refused to surrender and, well...
Back to the Ankhegs, we pick up Ajantis, and south again to Beregost, we pick up Garrick to form our main 4-man team. Garrick is now a Gallant under Might and Guile (I think), and levels as a Fighter/Mage multiclass with bard songs.
Outside, we kill a Revenant and some Mustard Jellies, before almost dying to Narcillicus. I believe that damage is mostly from a Skull trap, though I could be mistaken.
We're ambushed by the Amazons. I should've started with a Remove Invisibility spell, but didn't: Thael is backstabbed to half his health almost instantly. Garrick and Imoen are applying pressure to the priests, and stop them from casting anything useful while Thael drinks a healing potion. Ajantis is on the second rogue to stop her from firing those stupid +2 fire arrows. Eventually, with a couple more spells, every one of their four are dead and all four of us live.
We do a few more high-experience encounters before the Bandit camp: Sil and her Sirenes, (Web and Stinking cloud), Flesh Golems (invisible blocker and +1 arrows), the Battle Horrors (Many, many Magic missiles), the Ghasts in Durlag's tower (Ring of Free action pickpocketed from Dushai using Potions of Perception), and finally the basilisks on the roof (Protection from Petrification on Ajantis.) For the bandit camp itself, I took a page from @JuliusBorisov 's evil playthrough book, and triggered them all inside one small tent after claiming it for myself. Two Webs with the Ring of Free Action are sufficient to clear the entire camp as they forced themselves in that small doorway.
After selling items, we have the second ambush, and there's significantly less threat to this one. There's only one spellcaster, and everyone else can be kited without worrying about the burst.
Cloakwood: we side with Aldeth for the later Doppelganger quest, Imoen invisibly deactivates (OK, runs into) the web traps, and we traipse our way through the rest of Cloakwood. We don't fancy taking on the Drasus party fairly, so webs and stinking clouds means we shoot them all without taking any retaliation.
Anddddd I'm right to be afraid of high level mages. Hareishan hits us with a Chaos, and I can only save Thael with a Potion of Magic Blocking. Imoen, however, is not as lucky. We call it a day here, and prepare our trip back to the FAI.
Yes, I'm sure. I've run experiments, and while the chance of scribing success is often less than listed, it's due to that bug of the specialist penalty applying when it shouldn't. This is true for BGEE and BG2EE 2.5; I don't currently have any other games or older versions to test.
A "normal" playthrough of BGEE is unlikely to pick up many scrolls that are higher level than the mages in the party can cast, with one exception: dual-classing Imoen. And, what do you know, the bug applies for Imoen and her scribing chances are 14% lower than they should be across the board.
The other is to use invisibility to move your party to the south of their party leaving one behind to trigger the dialogue, and that party member should immediately take a potion of invisibility.
Then bombard that area with area effect spells, potions etc. There is a spot that can be targetted without being seen by the enemy. Use web on that spot to disable as many as possible, then target that spot with oil of fiery burning, fireballs, potions of explosions etc. You will be left with Pratt. One of the party who is tough should then take on Pratt having been protected from electricity. Make sure that the other party members won't get hit by the riccocheting lightning spell. Once the danger is past, other party members can help.
An alternative is to use summons to absorb that spell.
There are countless variations that can be used depending on party composition.
Miscast magic and silence are also useful spells against Pratt.
We set off in search of Aaron and found him. We then found both his ring and Dynaheir who joined us whilst we looked for her journal. We first went to Nashkel to drop Aaron off and then went in search of the journal. We found it and then went to take Aaron's ring to his beloved.
Whilst lookking for Dynaheir's journal, we killed literally hundreds of xvarts, though we didn't enter the cave as we had few spells left. Weasels was a very useful spell to keep the xvarts away from the squishier members of the party.
We returned to Nashkel, told Aaron of what had transpired and then left Dynaheir with Minsc.
I believe that after dealing with the basilisks, we should be ready to deal with the demons in the Nashkel mines.
Very probably. The likes of Garrick, Safana, Aerie, and Nalia all have kit "Base Class", and learn spells at the listed rate (+1%). Anything other than "Base Class", including a blank (like Imoen in both games), and a character is treated as a specialist for spell learning purposes.
(Added in edit) I tried setting Imoen to "Base Class" in EEKeeper. That fixes it for her. 493/500 successes at 21 Int (97% listed chance).
We got Gavin to join us and did his quests starting with Mutamin and finishing with the woman causing people to disappear in Beregost.
We then dropped Gavin off at the temple and picked up Rose who we took through the Nashkel Mines which we cleared easily.
After returning to Beregost we were ambushed by a thespian and some mercenaries. They too were killed easily ( Unlike my last game) We will now return to the Nashkell Mines and see if Xan is still there.
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1091792/#Comment_1091792
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092077/#Comment_1092077
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092291/#Comment_1092291
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092496/#Comment_1092496
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092702/#Comment_1092702
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092938/#Comment_1092938
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1093090/#Comment_1093090
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1093287/#Comment_1093287
After reporting to Gaelan Bayle I did a bit of an experiment by killing all the enemies in the Copper Coronet using spirit summons.
Fire elementals, topped up by spirit summons, made the job of clearing the top floor at Watcher's Keep pretty easy.
Shaman 13, 85 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 105 kills (+515 in BG1)
Journal of Gruumkkax and his orcish entourage
Upon finding Xan we left the mines and investigated the area outide, killing a revenant, ghasts and the like.
We headed north and gave grain and vegetables to some lady-ogres who were concerned about their figures.
In Nashkel we dropped off Xan and picked up Rasaad.
We now have a reputation of 20 and we have sold any equipment that is +1 or lower. This has caused us to be quite wealthy, so if we come across any good equipment, the price should not be a major factor.
We MUST buy some slow poison potions as we seem to be quite susceptible to poison.
Rasaad didn't stay with us long as Thorin wanted to join us when we decided to visit Dulag's Tower.
We were happy for him to join us for the duration of that quest as he will be a useful member of the party, just so long as he doesn't try and persuade me to be a goody-goody. I am quite happy being neutral, and being chaotic I can do good things from time to time if I so desire.
EDIT
Whilst looking for Dulag's Tower, I stumbled across Fallen Nightshade et al.
We disabled them with web and seriously injured them with fireball and Holy Smite.
A weasels spell kept them occupied whilst we finished them off with ranged weapons.
Upon arrival in Durlag's Tower we killed a couple of battle horrors.
EDIT
Game ended with the battle against the four warders. I was clearly too stingy when it came to using potions.
Previous posts: Introduction
At FAI, Sanctuary allowed us to bypass Tarnesh to trigger Dorn's quest and earn a PoI from Jaheira. And yes, Joia did get her ring back.
Our next destination was High Hedge. Blindness and Wand of Magic Missiles took care of a lonely skeleton, so Ammanas got his skull trophy for a later use. Selling RoP +1 allowed us to finance a Wand of Sleep, although it did break the budget. Luckily for us, heroes of the Sword Coast do not have to eat nor pay any rent.
Being a follower of Valkur, the protector of sailors, there are few beings Ammanas mistrusts and dislikes more than the sirines. Poor Shoal learned that the hard way when trying to seduce him into oblivion.
Grabbing extra priest and mage levels, Ammanas returned to the Coast's Way Crossroad to collect the Girdle of Piercing from the belt ogre. Both the gnoll party at High Hedge and the spiders in Beregost succumbed to our Wand of Sleep. Perdue got his sword back (Karlat was bypassed under Sanctuary), Mirianne got her letter and Zurlong his boots. All of this earned Ammanas additional levels in both classes.
Short on money and L2 spell scrolls, we needed to cash-in. And Zargal with his sword seemed like a good target, even though the lack of Shield and Mirror Image in our spell repertoire worried me a bit. And rightfully so - that day the hobgoblins were in their prime.
They largely made their saves against a Wand of Sleep charge and managed to crit hit and poison Ammanas. Valkur bless cleric/mages and their ability to use helmets, otherwise this could already be ugly.
Ammanas gulped his Antidote (sorry for not getting it Nessa) and retreated out of range to clear his aura and heal. The second Sleep charge worked much better and we could finally call it a win.
Selling their loot allowed us to buy some critical L1 and L2 scrolls from Thalantyr, which were then successfully scribed without any INT enhancements. Oh and by the way, Melikamp died as a chicken.
With ProPetrification and Invisibility (among others) now in our arcane spellbook, we could finally afford to pay a visit to the basilisks. Korax did most of the heavy lifting, though Ammanas could still reasonably participate in the combat at range. For Mutamin, Ammanas had used Sanctuary to keep out of sight until Korax, buffed with Chant, landed his Ghoul Touch. I'll note that there was some nice random loot to be had including Potion of Mind Focusing and Laeral's Tear necklace - this one should finally fix our financials
Nashkel was reached via Barge and Ammanas then took a detour to the mines for a rendez-vous with Dorn. He did not impress.
Left on his own, Ammanas buffed with Shield, ProEvil, Strength of One (divine), DUHM and opened with a Sleep cast from his book. With not much of a success to say the least.
Trying to avoid getting hit, he then worked his way through individual enemies with Blindness.
After taking a heavy blow, Dorothea took refuge in her Sanctuary and Ammanas could use the time to summon his skeleton warrior just as his short term buffs were running out.
For style points, we closed the battle with Shillelagh.
To be continued.
Regards,
B.
We have found Bassilus and killed him and his undead minions. I know I can pretend to be his mom or something so that he will unsummon the skeletons, but I didn't want to lie. Imoen had spotted him when scouting, so we crept close enough to Silence him, and then it was no big deal.
That was level 4 for me. I got 14 HP and checked the game options, but Max HP on level up was deactivated. Just a lucky roll, apparently.
Then we went through the southern wilderness maps, fighting bandits, mages, hobgoblins, whatever.
Among other, we found and saved Brage, helped the dryads, rescued a drowned cat, helped "little" Albert find his dog, and whatever else was in those maps. I'm sure everyone else here knows that much better than me.
I have avoided the coast for now, and I haven't been to Gullykin, Firewine Bridge and Ulcaster School yet (got tired of those maps).
I reached level 5 in Mutamin's Garden,
Then we visited the far south again, and poor Minsc got killed by Narcillicus' nasty Mustard Jellies. I had avoided the fight during my first playthrough. Must have said something wrong now.
We had trouble carrying all the stuff with Minsc dead, but I wanted to fight the amazons anyway before going back to raise him. Those ways are just too long.
We used Silence, Hold Person, I don't remember if I had Dynaheir blind them with Glitterdust, too, or if that had been one of the other fights. Anyway, it wasn't difficult. I've got the Harrower, although I probably won't remember to switch weapons when I meet undead. The Potion of Magic Blocking is very appreciated.
And Imoen got a better armor.
After all that, I bought full plate mail for me and gave the Ankheg plate to Branwen, got the Wand of Sleep, several scrolls for Dynaheir, and then we went to look for the Bandit Camp. The Peldvale was crossed, the bandits killed, and we reached the camp.
Good. Full Plate for Ajantis.
After fighting the bandits in front, and everything indicating which one was the important tent, I felt justified to buff a bit before entering.
Raemon and Britik were caught in Dynaheir's Horror spell, Vinkt was Held, so everything was over quickly.
That was it. We looted the camp and took another way back, disarming web traps (at least I remembered roughy where they were. During my first run, I had to reload there, because of a spider web), fighting spiders, and meeting some unfriendly Red Wiazards of Thay.
We took care of them with some interrupting missiles, an oil of fiery burning, the wand of frost, Hold Person, and Stinking Cloud. The only damage they did was Melf's Acid Arrow on me.
That's it for now. I think I'm going to do Ulcaster School and Firewine Bridge before the Cloakwood, but will probably leave the coast with the sirens for later.
Previous posts: Introduction, 1
Here's a sneak peek into the inventory - the shield is a courtesy of Bjornin for uprooting the half-ogres near Beregost. By the way, the gnoll horde battling Drizzt at the lake usually provides a good opportunity to harvest some quality L2 scrolls (Blur would especially be welcome), but we're not lucky this time.
And here's Ammanas testing his new Vampiric Touch on poultry in preparation for the ankheg lair, which was then cleared (at least to the treasure pile) with Sleep and STR buffs.
Our next stop was Ulgoth's Beard, where we had spent a fortune on Greenstone Amulet, Cloak of Displacement and L4 scrolls before moving on south again to catch up with some old pals.
Good to see you Meilum (and thanks for the bracers)!
Howdy Greywolf!
All good Zal & Vax?
What have you been up to Sendai?
Last but not least we also said hi to Caldo & Krumm.
All of this was rather profitable, so we went back to Ulgoth's Beard Inn to buy Aule's Staff and Wand of Heavens. With his equipment looking good now, Ammanas fancied a visit to Durlag's Tower. He overcame the battle horror guardians with direct damage spells and Wand of Frost. Once inside the tower, we used MSD to collect the Wisdom tome and Sanctuary to bypass the ghasts on the second floor. Up on the roof he buffed with ProPetrification and summoned some skeleton warriors to deal with the basilisks. I'm generally trying to wean myself off the skelies a bit when playing clerics, but I decided to make an exception here.
Anyway, it seems that either Nashkel Mines won a recent tender to supply ore to the Underworld or that the local iron had just always been a complete junk, Mulahey or not.
There were last two errands to complete before we could proceed to this mines. First, the gem bag. For some reason Neera did not like us saving her skin and turned hostile. Well, we don't like you either half-elf.
Secondly, there was the pirate cove. As mentioned before, Ammanas hates sirines. And fears them as well. So it made perfect sense to avoid any confrontation and focus on the inside of the cave.
MSD took care of the traps and the golems were obliterated with Aule's and +1 bullets.
I'll cover the mines next.
Regards,
B.
Previous posts: Introduction, 1, 2
I'm not a big fan of fighting hordes of kobolds in narrow corridors and so Ammanas approached Mulahey's domain under Invisibility. He healed away the damage taken from the traps and buffed with Vampiric Touch (self), green ProUndead scroll, Shield, Strength of One, Chant, Mirror Image and Greenstone Amulet. He also prepared a Skull Trap at the edge of the northern cave chamber to cover his retreat.
Ammanas then confronted Mulahey and opened with Hold Person. Mulahey eventually made his save, but the trap worked flawlessly.
Our second attempt at eliminating the evil cleric from the fight, this time with Blindness, was a success.
We made some breathing space with Sleep and added DUHM for extra punch.
The mine was secured. Time to collect the evidence and go.
Back on the surface, with ProUndead still running, Ammanas beats the Revenant and loots the tombs before returning to Nashkel.
With the exception of the encounter with Neera, Nimbul is usually the very first arcane caster my characters actually dare to confront. Not willing to underestimate our defences, we opted for Shield, Resist Fear, ProEvil, MIs, MSD and Greenstone Amulet. As for the offensive, it was time to try out our Wand of Paralyzation. Failed save on a second attempt meant this was game over for Nimbul.
Considering how both Dorn and Neera failed earlier in the adventure to make any impression, I was half surprised to see Rasaad walking away from this encounter alive. Well, whatever - we didn't have time for his proverbs anyway.
Before moving on with the main questline, Ammanas made a detour to visit some off-the-grid locations, including the Gnoll Fortress, to earn extra coin. He used to money to resupply his inventory with Claw of Kazgaroth, Necklace of Missiles, Shield Amulet and handful of scrolls and potions.
Next up was Bassilus, whom got blinded and subsequently confused with Rigid Thinking - this meant that he never managed to Cure Disease himself and was left to die dumbfounded.
Expecting the delayed assassin ambushes (as per the SCS component) to come anytime soon, Ammanas had been travelling in between locations exclusively under Invisibility at this stage. As so Molkar and his band did not surprise us. Our own actions did though. This was when I found out that divine Resist Fear breaks arcane Invisibility, which does seem rather counter-intuitive. Luckily for Ammanas, he was out of sight of the enemy and was still able to vanish under Sanctuary to complete his buff routine in safety.
But the worst part was just about to come. Casting Chant near enemies is an offensive action and that means that Sanctuary will collapse the moment the incantation begins. This one I (normally) know so...bummer. In an instant, we had four bloodthirsty assassins at our throat and a clouded aura after cancelling the spell.
Despite running sufficient protective buffs, Ammans' battle plan was botched. We tried to stabilize the situation by reapplying Sanctuary but Ammans got hit by the fighter/mage's Glitterdust. Despite its relatively short duration I did not feel like waiting it out and rebuffing. It was time to call this one a draw and retreat to Beregost.
Back in town, Ammanas had a long nap and then went on to deal with Silke and Tranzig. Both fell to our trusty Wand of Paralyzation.
Ammanas is just on his way to the Bandit Camp.
Note: Please do let me know in case you find the screenshots slightly small for your liking. I used to crop the images in my posts but I'm feeling lazy this time around
Regards,
B.
Previous posts: Introduction, 1, 2, 3
Having approached the camp via Raiken our aim was clear - seek the main tent and unleash mayhem. Ammanas prepared with Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Defense, Shield, Resist Fear, Strength (arcane), Oil of Speed, ProEvil, MSD and DUHM. He also added 100% cold resist (green protection scroll + potion) against the Black Talons.
He entered the tent under Sanctuary and surprised Venkt with a heavy blow, followed by a fireball via Wand of Fire.
MSD then foils Venkt's charm attempt.
Ammanas uses his clear aura to counter with Holy Smite.
Taking down the remaining fighters and archers with sling was easy enough.
All clear - we're out of here.
Regards,
B.
a nameless peon, a backstab... we all know the story but I've had a request and will post about that instead
he counts as undead for spells and effects
don't try to leave the area yet... fight him at range and protection from level drain if you need melee
a low roll makes this character limited but she may do ok... I was thinking thief but changed my mind because of her stats
base Beamdog insane, install... if she makes it to BG2 I'll give her an item
Journal of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Despite having my usual improvements to the assassins in Candlekeep, the party survived with few problems largely due to the assassins being outnumbered, but also due to the Helmite's magical sword.
Having arrived safely at the Friendly Arms Inn, we killed Tarnesh and found Joia's ring.
After proceeding to Beregost, they calmed down Marl and took a tome to Firebead.
They then went to High Hedge and after killing some gnolls, they headed south where they found Mellicamp.
At High Hedge he was restored to his human shape as was Tonder who had been suffering from lythancropy.
They returned to where they had found Mellicamp and killed Bassilus. Bassilus saved against command, but the missile attacks disrupted his spells enough so that we were able to kill him. This raised the champions a level.
We went to the temple to claim the reward.
We then killed ogrillon and returned Jumper to a little girl.
Cyrus of Cyric then became a level 2 cleric and thief.
To tie in with the portraits, my Helmite champion has ** in halberds, and my cleric/priest has ** in daggers.
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1091792/#Comment_1091792
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092077/#Comment_1092077
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092291/#Comment_1092291
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092496/#Comment_1092496
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092702/#Comment_1092702
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092938/#Comment_1092938
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1093090/#Comment_1093090
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1093287/#Comment_1093287
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1093723/#Comment_1093723
After a few days away from home, I was able to get back into this run this morning. Concentrating on reputation increases, I:
- used fire elementals to beat up the Fallen Paladins.
The above description is a bit misleading as the shaman has loads of options for winning fights without fire elementals, but they are pretty vicious in early BG2 when lots of enemies are unable to even hurt them.
Next time, completing the Trademeet quests will push reputation up to 20 and allow a bit of shopping.
Shaman 14, 87 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 152 kills (+515 in BG1)
We headed south picking up the Colquetle Amulet and Lord Foreshadow's ring on the way.
At Nashkel, we found some ankheg armour for Halburg. We talked to Noober and to Oublek who wrongly tried to give us a reward that rightly belonged to Greybeard. At the carnival we bought a rabbit for Ugh and then helped Bentha much to Aerie's delight.
We headed south and killed Zargos Flintblade before picking up a wand of frost and a ring of protection from fire. We then picked up Samuel and took him to the Friendly Arms Inn.
On the way we were attacked by a horde of bandits, all of whom perished, though they did inflict serious injuries. We recovered from those at the Friendly Arms Inn.
Heading south we took a tome to Firebead and the amulet to Mr. Colquetle. This brought Halburg and Gruamsh to level 3 and our reputation to 20.
We then went ankheg hunting to provide ourselves with some gold with which to go shopping. On the way we killed an ogre with a belt fetish and some bandits who had attacked a caravan. We then headed northwards where we killed the evil Sonner and his coleagues, followed by the undead husband of a widow.
We then turned to the ankhegs and after killing 3 Cyrus became a level 3 cleric and thief.
I don't know how many runs I've started but never posted on before they ended. I have a restless run of 6 dwarven fighters going in SoA (did I die in my Shadowdancer+Cleric of Lathander/Mage restless run, or did I just start over?) and a completionist run in BG1 in which I hoped to finally try out all the new EE NPC quests, but the latter is proving less interesting than I had hoped since the EE questlines seem rather short in BG1 compared to BG2. I remember starting a solo Avenger and/or a solo Shapeshifter run, but I don't know if those runs failed or I just abandoned them.
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1091792/#Comment_1091792
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092077/#Comment_1092077
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092291/#Comment_1092291
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092496/#Comment_1092496
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092702/#Comment_1092702
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092938/#Comment_1092938
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1093090/#Comment_1093090
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1093287/#Comment_1093287
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1093723/#Comment_1093723
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1094389/#Comment_1094389
Groups of fire elementals helped make rapid progress through the Grove - aided by the use of Firestorms.
Back in Trademeet, Tiris got a helping hand and the local tomb was firebombed (Firestorm has the advantage of bypassing magic resistance and does not allow a saving throw).
Time spent shopping meant the only other bit of work done in the session was to use the Ring of Air Control to annoy the Cowled Wizards. An insect plague chased a fire elemental into each group of those to disable casting and the elementals and Firestorms then quickly finished them off - even Zallanora failed to get away from the final group. There was no useful loot found, but items were sold for about 10k and the XP gained was enough to get up to level 15.
Shaman 15, 89 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 206 kills (+515 in BG1)
The current poverty run is different from the old one. Aside from my install, which doesn't have the crazy BG1 encounters that my old one did, I'm no longer allowing items at all, even those the player creates themselves. That means no Seeking Sword, Harm, Energy Blades, Wands of Lightning from Wish, or any form of shapeshifting.
Also, while I can switch out NPCs (very important, since Tiax is so crucial to several key encounters), all of my player-created sorcerers have to have the exact same stats and spellbooks, which means spell variety is extremely limited. We have no disablers beyond Web, notably, and few means of protecting ourselves until we can all stack Spirit Armor spells to get subzero saves vs. spell.
Lance of Disruption is key to the process. It bypasses magic resistance, which means it's a great tool against enemies like Belhifet. It spares us the need to learn Lower Resistance, which is important because I'm not sure we can safely hit level 11 on the whole party by the end of SoD (we need Animate Dead to survive the elevator fight and still have enough spells for Belhifet himself).
Also, by grinding heavily as a solo sorcerer, we can get all the way to Baldur's Gate in complete safety with just one level 6 sorcerer Charname. Web and Invisibility are enough for most fights, Tiax can take down Tranzig with his ghast and also steal the documents from the bandit camp under Sanctuary, and you can actually kill Davaeorn from the other side of the map with Lance of Disruption. Lance of Disruption extends very long, and if you try enough times (using Invisibility to escape and rest), you can eventually get a failed save out of him and kill him with just 3 castings of Lance of Disruption.
Lance of Disruption is good for fighting lots of critters. We used it to kill Drizzt over the course of several rests and also splatter Cythandria all over the walls. I wasn't sure about using it in the Undercellars, though, due to all the innocents around, so I had to use Tiax to soften Slythe up with traps (Magic Missiles finished him off) and paralyze Kristin with the ghast.
Lance of Disruption is actually kind of hilarious.
Once I get to level 14 or 15 in BG2, I'll be using the scorcher loop with Lance of Disruption to deal nonmagical crushing damage to anything that doesn't have Stoneskin or MGOI. A triple LoD Spell Sequencer between two characters with Spell Turning should deal 573.75 nonmagical crushing damage on average, and we'd have three pairs of sorcerers who could do that before even needing to rest. But that's a long ways away.
I've considered trying out a poverty run in Legacy of Bhaal mode, but that would involve heavy use of the Reform Party trick to get extra Spirit Animals out of a Totemic Druid. The only realistic alternative I see would just be to cram multiple druids into the party, and I'd really like to have room for plenty of sorcerers for ToB.
Previous updates at:
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092291/#Comment_1092291
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092496/#Comment_1092496
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092702/#Comment_1092702
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092938/#Comment_1092938
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1093090/#Comment_1093090
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1093287/#Comment_1093287
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1093723/#Comment_1093723
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1094389/#Comment_1094389
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1094592/#Comment_1094592
I opened up access to the liches, using my new Shield of the Archons spell to defend against various traps. Elementals, Firestorm and insects were again the major weapons to deal with other threats.
PfU and Azuredge then helped make short work of the liches. I had no weapon or spell that could damage Kangaxx and summons would have disappeared as fast as they were created. However, the Ring of Energy makes short work of him.
In the bit of time left I cleared a few encounters in the Bridge District
Shaman 15, 89 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 234 kills (+515 in BG1)
I can't remember exactly what happens (and am not sure if I've tried it in the EE), but I do remember concluding web didn't work well as a tactic. I have a feeling that may be because being held by the web doesn't prevent the transformation. Once the hold effect disappears for the dopplegangers, the web may well just help them finish off the dukes extremely quickly