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"Maybe this time" [NO-RELOAD THREAD]: "The Tale of TEN THOUSAND Trials"

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  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    @Aerakar: There are no single-classed Assassins, Swashbucklers, Bounty Hunters, or unkitted thieves in the Hall; only the sole Shadowdancer.
    Aerakar
  • EnuhalEnuhal Member Posts: 920
    edited July 2020
    @Aerakar The assassin and swashbuckler-successes were located in the old bioware forums, which don't exist anymore, but used to be the past home of the no-reload challenge. There's another Hall of Heroes for these older runs, including some links to an archived version of the previous no-reload thread (there existed even older no-reload threads in a previous version of the bioware forums, but these are lost forever):
    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/904216#Comment_904216
    There, you will find an assassin run by BBMorti (started in 2011) and a swashbuckler by @Grond0 (around 2014). Obivously, these didn't include SoD yet :smile:
    Grond0Aerakarsemiticgoddess
  • Wise_GrimwaldWise_Grimwald Member Posts: 3,848
    Whilst Sinna is progressing satisfactorily through the City of Baldur's Gate, and expect to be heading out from there soon, another party of Chaotic Evil Characters has also set out. It is Wormwood the Blackguard and Chaosbringer the Sorceress. Both have a charisma of 18 which is new for me as I usually use Charisma as a dump stat. It is the first time that I have played with a sorcerer so I don't expect great things of the party. Wait and see what happens. Having the PC as a Blackguard may keep his sidekick alive.
    Whilst Sinna is progressing satisfactorily through the City of Baldur's Gate, and expect to be heading out from there soon, another party of Chaotic Evil Characters has also set out. It is Wormwood the Blackguard and Chaosbringer the Sorceress. Both have a charisma of 18 which is new for me as I usually use Charisma as a dump stat. It is the first time that I have played with a sorcerer so I don't expect great things of the party. Wait and see what happens. Having the PC as a Blackguard may keep his sidekick alive.

    Run ended when taking on the ankheg next to Tenya. Will try it again using different tactics but in the meantime I will carry on with Sinna.

    Clearly took on the ankheg much too soon. :'(
    EnuhalMantis37
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Enuhal wrote: »
    @Aerakar The assassin and swashbuckler-successes were located in the old bioware forums, which don't exist anymore, but used to be the past home of the no-reload challenge. There's another Hall of Heroes for these older runs, including some links to an archived version of the previous no-reload thread (there existed even older no-reload threads in a previous version of the bioware forums, but these are lost forever):
    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/904216#Comment_904216
    There, you will find an assassin run by BBMorti (started in 2011) and a swashbuckler by @Grond0 (around 2014). Obivously, these didn't include SoD yet :smile:
    Interesting. Shall I remove those from the list?

    The absence of SoD does make runs distinct. A lot of runs have only been done in pre-EE games with no SoD, and there's always the factor of mods. Just because your main character is the same class as a previous run doesn't make it any less unique.
  • EnuhalEnuhal Member Posts: 920
    @semiticgod Honestly, I would be sad to see the old runs removed from the list. At the time they were completed, they represented the same level of achievement as a modern quadrilogy run does now - getting through the entirety of the saga with no reloads, which was and still is the goal we're aiming for. Arguably, even then the challenge level for these runs was completely different from run to run - you can't compare a successful Improved Anvil solo run to an unmodded full party run in terms of difficulty - but I don't think we should start to differentiate runs at that level, otherwise the first thing we'd need to do is start separating the Hall of Heroes into multiple Halls, for example for SCS and Non-SCS runs, and I don't think anyone would be in favor of that. Even back then, people could've installed mods the combined size of SoD (and many people did!) - and I remember that even in this thread, after the release of SoD, a lot of people played without the expansion for quite a while (often because they simply hadn't bought it yet), and their runs were still considered to be perfectly valid.

    Now, for the people who have been playing the LoB+SCS+Ascension solo challenges, I can understand why SoD would be considered an integral part of the challenge, because both the coalition camp and Belhifet suddenly turn into big roadblocks and considerations. The same isn't true, however, for SCS full party runs, where SoD is arguably one of the easiest parts of the entire saga, as its difficulty isn't really affected by SCS. Since so far, we've decided not to split this challenge into different categories, I don't think it would be fair to invalidate historic runs in that fashion. Also, it could be argued that the EE does reduce the difficulty of the challenge in other ways, be it in terms of new items, NPCs, some very useful rewards for the new NPC quests, more available experience, especially with SoD, and some useful options such as max HP on level ups even on higher difficulties (which was a legal thing to manually do even in pre-EE times by turning down the difficulty level for the process of leveling up, but many people, myself included, simply didn't do it).

    Lastly, for a more selfish reason, I'd simply be sad to see old achievements of community members who, in many cases, have been active for 10+ years, be suddenly gone from the main thread - these runs are a part of the history of this challenge, and we've already lost easy access to lots of them by really only considering full trilogy successes at this point. The assassin and swashbuckler runs wouldn't be the only unique class/kit successes to be suddenly gone - the list of unfinished classes and kits, which is quite daunting but not out of reach right now, would be quite a bit longer, and a scary thing to tackle (and as it is my ultimate goal to eventually finish the entirety of that list as a community, that's not something I could be in favor off).

    Also, I don't believe that the existence of a previous run with the same class/kit would make a more modern success with a different game version, a new expansion, new mods ec. any less impressive - in fact, I'd argue that every single trilogy and quadrilogy success is an impressive achievement, if the rules of this challenge are obeyed. A lot of difficulty in our runs is, in any case, achieved by self-restriction or voluntarily installing difficulty-increasing mods. Lots of people are basically running their own type of challenge, such as Grond0s life-long attempt to finish a run with every single class and kit - one could easily decide to try and challenge themselves to get all the classes only present in the old Hall of Heroes into the New Hall, without taking anything away from these older runs.

    Well, that post turned out to be longer than expected :smile:
    Corey_RussellWise_Grimwald
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    @Enuhal: I meant remove those classes from the list of classes that weren't yet in the Hall of Heroes; I certainly wouldn't want to erase old runs!

    I only mentioned the SoD thing because I wanted to stress that there was still new ground, and that there wasn't anything wrong with doing a class that already had an entry in the Hall.
    EnuhalGrond0AerakarWise_Grimwald
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    By the way, Pearl the fighter/mage is now in endgame SoA, at over 9 million XP (I don't like hitting XP caps; I'm willing to break them since this isn't meant to be a challenge run) and trampling everything. This is actually the first time I've ever run a solo fighter/mage, and it's ridiculous just how incredibly powerful the class is. This is one of the easiest runs I've ever had, the other competitor being the Fire Seeds run with Viora the Shadowdancer/Cleric (not in the Hall because it was BG2 only, I think).

    Even without exploits, the fighter/mage is just incredibly strong, and it has almost no weaknesses--at least not in my install, where SCS v32's IWD spells give us +2 to saves from Emotion, Hope, and where a tweak mod lets items of protection stack PnP-style (two Rings of Protection can give you +2 to saves and +1 to AC). That covers the only possible weakness of the fighter/mage, which is poor saving throws compared to a shorty class and no access to Chaotic Commands or Death Ward (although a single extra Spell Immunity would cover that gap in a different install).

    Otherwise it's just a character with lots of instant-casting mage spells, the best gear in the game aside from Soul Reaver (the character has my self-portrait; she had to be good-aligned), and over 200 damage per round when fully-buffed, which is always. The only reason it's not boring is because it's so fast.
    EnuhalWise_Grimwaldjessejmc
  • lroumenlroumen Member Posts: 2,508
    In that case I'd rather see a table with 3 columns: kit, trilogy, quadrilogy with in each trilogy/quadrilogy box the player, difficulty and modlist.
    Noone is left out and you still have the right context
    Grond0
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    If you were considering providing more information about runs, I think distinguishing party from solo would be reasonable. In a party run the class of the PC will usually be significant, but it's unlikely to be crucial to most runs. Any successful run is an achievement and I don't think solo runs are significantly easier or more difficult - but, for anyone considering 'filling the gaps' by doing characters not yet done, the distinction between party and solo would probably be of interest.
    AerakarWise_Grimwald
  • EnuhalEnuhal Member Posts: 920
    @Grond0 Congratulations - as an avid druid player, I'm happy to see your party succeed. Another one into the Hall!
    Grond0Wise_Grimwaldjessejmc
  • Mantis37Mantis37 Member Posts: 1,173
    Congrats, got nervous when I saw final update but you made it through :).
    Grond0Wise_Grimwald
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Well done once again, @Grond0! Allanon has now been added to the Hall of Heroes!
    Grond0Corey_RussellWise_Grimwald
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Pearl the fighter/mage has now taken down Yaga-Shura. Basically the run is just a few chores and then scary Ascension Melissan, the only part of this run that will likely be challenging.
    EnuhalWise_Grimwaldjessejmc
  • Corey_RussellCorey_Russell Member Posts: 996
    Congrats @Grond0 ! Thanks for your write-ups - you've given me ideas how my cleric group might be able to make it! I used your tactics of energy blades on 2nd pocket plane challenge and it worked well! We are about to enter the Oasis. Incidentally, April got chunked by fire giants in Yaga's temple, so now we are reduced to 5 clerics - hope we can make it!
    Grond0Wise_Grimwald
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Condolences, @Corey_Russell. Draconis is an absolute monster, easily one of the toughest fights in the unmodded game.
    Corey_RussellWise_Grimwald
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    I feel kinda bad for not fully documenting all the other runs that ended up dying in BG1 or being abandoned somewhere along the way. Suffice to say that in between this run and my solo LoB run a year ago, I started a LOT of runs that ended with gray portraits.
    Wise_Grimwald
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    On the ettercap thing ... ettercaps have two attacks they can switch between. One of them deals poison on a failed save, the other doesn't. They are, of course, far more dangerous if they're using their piercing/poison attack than if they're using their slashing attack.
    Grond0AerakarWise_Grimwald
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    edited July 2020
    semiticgod wrote: »
    since we didn't let Imoen or Xzar and Montaron join the party so we could rob them, we don't have an Oil of Speed;

    *cough* surely only a fanatic would call picking items up from dead bodies 'robbing' them *cough* >:)

    and by that stage you've got access to the City where loads of them are available - something like 20 at the High Hall of Wonders alone I seem to remember.
    semiticgoddessWise_GrimwaldMantis37
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    @Grond0: Due to SCS' level 1 NPCs component, Xzar and Montaron would have been immortal, but I hadn't considered finishing off the Cloakwood mines yet to get to Baldur's Gate faster. Are there any special dangers at the High Hall of Wonders? I've only visited that area once ever, and promptly ran off when Alora failed a skill check and hostile critters turned up.
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