Starting a very similar party to my last run, the main difference being that the protagonist is a Cavalier. I haven't played a Cavalier in EE I think, so the game could be a bit different. The names of the characters give an indication to their starting weapon proficiencies. These are slightly different.
After being ambushed we followed Gorion's advice to go to the Friendly Arms Inn where we were attacked by a mage assassin.
Realising that it was dangerous to hang around, we headed northwards clearing the area of hobgoblins as we did so.
We met three evil fishermen whom we slew.
In transit an ambush by bandits left me as the only survivor and I had to go to a temple to revive my friends.
I returned to deliver Tenya's bowl to her. She was as happy as you can expect a priestess of Umberlee to be.
We then killed a nearby ankheg before heading south again. in transit we killed a ghast and upon reaching High Hedge we were able to help Mellicamp.
In Beregost we calmed Marl down before heading south where we killed some ogrillon. We then delivered a letter one of them was carrying.
Further south I was badly hurt when assaulted by three Flaming Fist.
A spell by Nikko caused the third one to flee, so whilst we had some respite we cast healing spells before finishing him off.
Their armour was the best that I have seen so far, so those of us who could wear it did so.
We found some ankheg armour in Nashkel and proceeded to the carnival.
There we were assaulted by Zordral and we were getting worried about the outcome. Nikko then cast Prismatic Spray which was foolish as it caused Bentha to become hostile. We survived, but it caused our reputation to decrease by 7.
Heading south we agreed to help Prism with the result that Greywolf attacked. The guards at the mine assisted us and eventually we managed to hold him with a spell. After that his demise was certain.
Heading west we reunited Albert and Rufie, killed Vax and Zal, helped a dryad against Caldo and Krumm, took 'Drienne's cat to her, killed Ingot and some ogres guarding a bridge before raiding a cave where we found a tome that would improve my charisma.
Heading northwards we killed a polar bear and recieved a pair of boots as a reward. We then killed Neville before heading northward where we were able to help both an archaeologist and Brage.
Heading north-east he killed Teyngnan and his cohorts as well as some half-ogres.
In Beregost we killed both Silke and Karlat before heading off to take on Bassilus. Holst used "Hold person," and that spell proved highly effective.
We then found a ring of fire protection and shortly afterwards took Samuel to the FAI.
We went in search of Mutamin and in the process of dealing with him, we killed many basilisks.
We killed Zargal on the way to the lighthouse area where we killed numerous sirine.
Niko stopped Sil from using her disabling spells by using a venomous dagger.
Safana then joined us and to our embarrassment went on a thieving spree in both Beregost and Ulgoth's Beard.
She acquired Algernon's Cloak and several potions of defence in Beregost and when we moved on to the beard she similarly acquired potions, scrolls, a nifty hammer and a ring in Ulgoth's Beard.
We deemed it wise to take leave of her before she drew the attention of the guard.
Droth and Shoal proved easy to kill though Niko got badly hurt.
We returned Arcand's ring to him before fighting some more sirine.
One of them reduced my intelligence temporarilly to zero but the rest of my party came to my aid and subsequently merely had to wait the wearing off of the spell.
We have already bought some shopping including some more ankheg armour. However, it is now time to do more ankheg hunting to buy other needed items.
I'd like to say I've got my eye in on this kit but 'we' keep biting off more than can be chewed. The first incarnation of Wyrme didn't last long before getting held. The second incarnation thought a handful of snares would be enough to defeat Kirinhale only to see her survive and perform an instant domination.
Wyrme number 3 is made of luckier stuff though so I thought I'd record her progress to date and no doubt guarantee a reversal of fortune.
Minimal screenshots in BG:EE but one for Rahvin's gang and a second for Sarevok.
This is her gear on completion of BG:EE, and she elects to skip SoD and move onto SoA instead. The second image is what she could carry out of chateau Irenicus.
Wyrme then took sufficient care to clear out the circus and leave the Copper Coronet without immediately freeing Hendak (which she does later). After a little wandering around she helps Reynald de Chatillon - but his paladins kill him after the conversation so Wyrme finds herself holding Anarg's cup and nobody to give it to. She dumps it in her loot-store above the Adventurer's Mart.
Taking even more care it becomes obvious that Wyrme requires additional stealth abilities. She has a think and realises Mae'Var will have some boots in his guild. The key to retrieving them is to complete a few minor tasks so she quickly steals a necklace from the temple of Talos.
The next minor task is to remove Rayic Gethras. Wyrme sets snares outside his home and lures his mephits out with backstabs. This is cleanly done with minimal injury.
First "it's all over" moment:
A pair of stone golems on the second floor of Rayic's house are also vulnerable to snares but Wyrme is badly wounded and one more hit will kill her - so she gulps a potion of invisibility before regrouping to finish them off. That was close, with Wyrme thinking she was lucky to have a clear aura for gulping.
Second "it's all over" moment:
If the golems were hard work Rayic proves to be even more obstinate. Wyrme confirms a few thrown snares are ineffective with Rayic saving against them.
The sensible thing to do would be to retreat but Wyrme opts instead to have a go. Rayic is more than up to dealing with brash thieves though and the speed of his stun spell catches Wyrme out. Rayic follows up with a pair of deadly spells, each of which is plenty to kill many a thief. But not Wyrme. Not today.
(at the time, her saving throw vs spell was 2)
FoD and Disintegrate have failed but Rayic will have more spells. The stun wears off though and Wyrme scoots downstairs. The next few rounds see a game of cat and mouse as the two combatents run up and down the stairs with backstabs and incomplete spells galore.
Eventually Wyrme gets fed up and switches to arrows of fire. Rayic finds his spells getting disrupted and Wyrme uses this extra time to shoot through the magely defences and convince Rayic to push up some daisies.
So with Rayic dead there is nothing stopping Wyrme from continuing work for Mae'Var. Apart from Sansuki requesting aid then getting into a fight with the berserk warrior. Wyrme discovers thugs are moving in too, and while her special snare incapacitates the vampires their effect (Otiluke) has drawn out the Cowled Wizards to enquire what kind of magic this is.
The annoying kind obviously.
With Sansuki angry and the vampires safely tucked away Wyrme decides not to bother with this bunch of problems.
5000gp for a magic licence seems a cheek, but Wyrme doesn't want the aggro. Bargain.
Finally, these Otiluke snares might be worthwhile. Then again, they don't seem to stop Tanova from using her mind-control abilities. Wyrme saves against them and moves on once more - a failure to save from an Otiluke'd enemy would have been a gut-wrenching experience.
Having defeated Mae'Var, Wyrme is now running his guild and survives an assassination attempt.
Current status, level 18. Wyrme is wearing the boots of stealth but has sold the shadow thief armour - preferring studded leather plus a Ring of Protection +2.
Journal of Arabelle
We dropped off Xzar and Montaron, Khaled and Jaheira in Nashkel before heading south where we were involved in an ambush, We tried to help Dorn by casting a healing spell, but it arrived too late. My party members were the only survivors. We then headed for the mines which turned out to be quite easy. We rescued Xan raided some caves killing a revenabt in the process before looking for a two handed sword. Upon finding it, we picked up Minsc and then Dynaheir.
We then headed for the Bandit Camp.
Having Minsc and Dynaheir with us made that quite easy.
We are now heading to Cloakwood.
I had been planning on buying an Archmage robe, but our gold was not sufficient for recharging my wand of fire as well. Indeed it was only just sufficient for the wand.
EDIT
I didn't notice that Minsc had been poisoned early enough to save him. The rest of us carried on until we had 8 wyvern tails, returned to the temple where Minsc was raised and we got the reward for the tail.
We then went to visit the Cloakwood Mine.
The upper areas were made easy using true sight, silence, and backstabbing mages with the venomous dagger.
Against Davaeornwe cast summon monsters. Davaeorn blasted a wolf with lightning bolt doing himself serious damage in the process. His only damaging spell to the party was a fireball which also badly hurt him - the advantage of getting up close and personal.
Due to me being a Cavalier, his final spell was ineffective.
We tried to rest twice in the ankheg area. This provided us with four more shells.
In transit we were ambushed twice by ankheg and we sold their shells at High Hedge.
At High Hedge we sold all our spare mage robes which just provided us with sufficient gold to buy the two archmage robes that we needed.
We sold other surplus equipment to buy the scrolls and potions and the parts of Kazaroth that we needed. We are now definitely poor but well equipped. We won't have to return there to sell anything as he now has nothing to tempt us to buy.
In Baldur's Gate we took no notice of the advice regarding Nemphre. This removed two evil mages from the city and provided us with experience as well.
We are currently working or way through the BG quests and not having any serious problems
Wyrme pushed her luck a bit too far, not really paying attention after throwing in a few snares and relying on her berserk warrior and Kitthix spider.She realised the group of enemies were still active and as she ran their caster - Gaius - gets a stun cast.
Wyrme is stunned. Gaius is unable to follow up with more of his spells as multiple members of his party rapidly kill Wyrme.
---
Another instance of Wyrme sets off from Candlekeep and is making good progress until a real life distraction happens and the two battle horrors outside Durlag's Tower force another raised hand of defeat before attention returns.
Paladin couple update, closing in on Throne of Bhaal.
Second Pocket Plane challenge and we again summoned five Fire Elementals to stop the barrier working. Tamoko was the only one following us outside, and although she was good enough for the Elementals it seemed, once Lord stepped in, not so much. I wanted to see how Lady coped with my evil twin, or was it now good twin? And she was being coy with just streaming Fire Elementals. So I cloned and buffed, and absolutely stomped my twin. Clone then summoned Deva, and they stomped the rest too. Got Regeneration as evil reward. This is much better than the Ascension good reward, as are all the evil rewards. For Paladin's it heals 18hp, or 36hp with Oil of Speed per round, 17 rounds.
We arrived Oasis Invisible, charmed Jamis with SoC and he was then killed. Got the Answerer +4 and didn't bother with the rest. Although Oasis is a bank, we had 200k gold, and almost nothing to spend it. In Amkethran we did some commerce and easily killed the Captain. Lady now got 9 apr Critical Strikes.
Human Draconis was Silenced out of sight, and casually hacked to 1hp. We then waited the Silence out, and summoned help. But after he changed to Dragon, his Death Field wiped our Skelis, Deva and Clone out. This was inconvenient, and Lord started to tank Dragonis, Lady protecting with RoR's. Draconis was a tough SoB, but after spending all HLA's and 11 RoR's he fell. Greater Werevyvern was killed in half a round, and the Lizard men were easily wiped. With GWW speed we ran past the next room. Summoned everybody, Farsighted Anadramatis, and they hacked him to near death without retaliation. Anadramatis then talked to us, challenged us, surrendered us, and was killed soon after. Got both the Wing Buffet ring and Yellow Dragon Scales, which can be made to Yellow Dragon Scale Armor with 50 Piercing and Missile Resistance. The Kuo-toa dungeon was absolutely massacred with 29 apr Critical Strikes.
The quadruple Dragon attack was pretty hilarious. We stoned the first three Dragons with just three strikes from the WoW, and the chance of this happening is 1/500. But we took it, Carnifex arrived and Lord kited him out some time, and he was then stoned too. Eyeball area was passed with Invisibility and Speed without fighting anybody, and we built the BMU. Fll'Yissetat was then stoned for the 12h Improved Invisibility ring.
Lord, Lady and the Blue Dragon. We entered the room and quickly backed up with Speed. Tamah and the Salamanders found us. And as Lord and Clone were concentrating on Tamah, Lady wiped Salamanders out with Wave +4. Tamah got near death and buggered off somewhere. Lady then lured the four Drakes out and Lord and Clone made short work of them too. We backed off to Pocket Plane and rested. After coming back, Tamah was there, but she still has that bug where she doesn't attack anymore. So we casually killed her. Now Abazigal was all alone.
We summoned everybody and they attacked Abazigal's human form, easily turning him in to a Blue Dragon. He Imprisoned my Deva, which was good thing, as it meant that he wasted that spell. After my summons were dead, Lord started tanking Abazigal, first Whirlwinding with Soul Reaver +4 to take Abas ability to hit back away. This was going nicely, but then he put Power Word Blind on Lord and I couldn't hit him anymore. I think this was because BMU is so big that it put just enough distance between us for Lord not to see Aba. Lady tried to Dispel it, but couldn't so I had to kite it out. After it was out I continued to hack with Soul Reaver. At this point fight was going well, and Aba was hitting with only 20's. Lady summoned 5 Elementals and attacked too, but got Mazed immediately. Lady came back to life and we started really hurting Aba, and he couldn't possibly survive 19 apr Criticals, and was dead soon after. First victory for Soul Reaver +4.
In the third Pocket Plane challenge Lord stomped the Slayer and got Dark Taint. In Sendai Enclave, the Woodcutter was Petrified with WoW, and then we sneaked in. Thelynn was killed in a round with 10 apr Criticals, and the next round Lord went Invisible. Lord was then surrounded by Drow's and couldn't move so he Smited a way through. But because Lord was no visible, we were surrounded in the next area too. It took some micromanagement to beat hoard of enemies, but in the end it was nothing we couldn't handle.
Yochol and the two Glabrezu's were lured away and hacked. For Odamaron we used three PfU's and he was then casually killed. In the next room we first lured the two Greater Earth Elementals away from Ogremoch, and killed them. The next part was the reason why we went the trouble of getting Blackrazor +3. With 20 apr Blackrazor's criticals Ogremoch was level drained in two rounds. Without it, Harm or Imprisonment, you would be in a world of hurt. SCS Ogremoch Dispels every hit and does 47 average crushing damage with 5 apr, and casts Earthquake that has Sleep -6 vs. Spell two rounds. But his absolute best party trick, if not in the whole game is, unlimited, undispellable, instant casting 12 Stoneskins. So you can't damage him other than through Stoneskins, because he has them always on.
Diyatha was lured away from the rest and easily killed, as was Captain Egeissag. We buffed accordingly against the Mind Flayers, Int to 60, AC vs Crushing, and pretty easily killed all before our HLA's were out. For the Mages we sent Deva Skeli party in, and they actually managed to kill all of them. Last rest in Pocket Plane before confronting Sendai.
For Sendai battle we first killed the Cleric statue. This is because it could summon Deva which then sees through Invisibility, and we wouldn't be able to escape to Pocket Plane. Our tactic was to kill a Drow and then go Invisible using hoarded Invisibility Potions, escape to Pocket Plane, rest and do the same again. There was no way of fighting them head on as the Drow have ridiculous Thac0 like -35 and use GWW's. Before using the first Invisibility Potions we managed to kill a Drow. Rested in Pocket plane, Lord buffed with Hardiness, Armor of Faith, Regeneration and Improved Haste. The second go Lord killed two Drow's before again going Invisible to Pocket Plane to rest. And we repeated the same tactic until only one statue was alive. Summoned help and we wasted the it. Real Sendai arrived and summoned a Planetar. Deva started fighting the it, and Lady kept Deva alive with RoR. Lord and Clone in the mean time hunted Sendai, and couple rounds after her PfMW ended, and she got killed.
Fourth Pocket Plane challenge and the Favored of Cyric were easily pushed away, and Lord got Hand of Murder. Even Evil can convince Balty to join the fight against Melissan with 2-2-3-2-1-1-1-3-3-1-1-2-1 dialogue choices. In LoB/SCS/Ascension the Ravager has 1682hp, -23AC, -22 Thac0, 75DR, and is immune to pretty much everything except +4 weapons, and Harm. He also has melee weapon that Dispels every hit. We started the fight again with the summon door trick, and lured the Boneblades to other room. Once we were sure they didn't follow us, we attacked the Ravager. With few Soul Reaver GWW's and it was pretty much powerless punching bag. And just when our HLA's were out it died. Lord got 25 DR as Evil reward.
We needed some distraction and summoned Neera for her guestline. After getting ambushed and Neera getting killed in few seconds, we managed to kill the opposition. But as we killed the last enemy I forgot that we get teleported to another battle straight away. We were already pretty beaten from the first battle, and barely managed to beat the second Yuan-ti horde, we only had 5 charges left in 3 RoR's combined. That would've been pretty stupid place to end the run. Nevertheless we got to the market place, and we bought Golden Girdle, Cloak of the Lich, second Wand of Wonder, recharged our stuff and killed the Priest for fourth RoR. Szass Tam is the Spell Caster in the game. Although he doesn't have Imprisonment he had no less than 5 Time Stops after Wishing his spells back twice. Lord was couple times badly injured after Szass released Impossible amount of hurt during the Time Stops. We crew tired of kiting him around the market place, summoned everybody, and they were able to hurt him enough, so he teleported us back. Throne of Bhaal awaits.
I got rather bored with party play going through SoA, but have finally finished it. Most of it felt fairly straightforward, though I did get into trouble in the Underdark. Incidents there included 2 characters being imprisoned and a couple of stonings in addition to a number of deaths. I also lost access to the drow quests unexpectedly when I told Solaufein to go back to the City while I dealt with a deep gnome patrol - only to find him appearing out of thin air again to accuse me when I tried to settle for just a helmet. I hadn't been conscious of pissing him off, so am not sure what happened there. That did though save me from a potentially dangerous lich encounter, as I couldn't get into that tower despite going on to kill everything in the City.
As usual, I was waiting to level up until each character could do so in each of his classes. That made a particular difference with the big gap from 750k to 1.5m for the druid and the loss of saving throws from that was part of the reason for struggling in the Underdark. The main cause though was not preparing carefully for encounters. While that would be quickly fatal when playing solo, you can obviously get away with a lot more with a party and, thus far, I have got away with it .
I eventually got to take up to 6 levels for each character by finishing off Bodhi, which made for a nice jump in power. I probably also concentrated more after that and had no difficulties in finishing off the remainder of SoA.
Of course, with the huge XP gap to get another druid level, any more levels for the party will take a long time . The character with the least XP currently is just under 1.7m for each class. That means the party will need over 15m XP before getting any further levels. In the meantime though, their lookalikes will be returning to IWD to attempt HoW and TotLM ...
Kills to date:
Tobet - M CN gnome F/I (18(46),18,18,19,2,18) used charisma and strength Small sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-166, TotSC-36, IWD1-305, SoA-351
Indie - F TN half-elf F/D (18(94),18,18,8,18,15) used intelligence and wisdom Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-140, TotSC-25, IWD1-377, SoA-356
Brutan - M CN dwarf F/Cl (18(00),17,19,10,18,2) used constitution Blunt weapons, missile weapons Kills: BG1-193, TotSC-23, IWD1-393, SoA-322
Nipal - M CG dwarf F/T (18(00),17,19,11,3,10) used dexterity Blunt weapons, bow Kills: BG1-285, TotSC-56, IWD1-384, SoA-299
Chila - M CG elf F/M (18(00),19,17,18,3,9) Axe, bow Kills: BG1-208, TotSC-34, IWD1-409, SoA-310
Hapan - M CE gnome F/T (18(00),18,18,11,2,8) Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-161, TotSC-23, IWD1-232, SoA-298
Heart of Winter, like IWD in general, is by nature a bit of a slog - but at least it's a relatively short slog . I think I've only completed that once before, or maybe twice, so I probably didn't take the best options. However, I never felt Tobet was in much danger. The one time he got in a bit of trouble was when his icon hung up on a rock and some drowned dead took advantage by smashing him down almost instantly from 81 to 28 HPs. I wasn't confident he would be able to move before another attack, so used a potion of invisibility there (the only potion used in the game).
The final thrust through the Ice Palace was a bit more hassle than I expected. My standard tactics were using mainly missiles in fights, though Indie often tanked in order to reduce the amount of movement required. However, I hadn't realized there was no way to get back to Lonelywood to resupply once the party had been put on a boat by Hjollder - so I made rather more use of melee, stealth and magic while working forward to find and deal with the dragon.
Kills to date:
Tobet - M CN gnome F/I (18(46),18,18,19,2,18) used charisma and strength Small sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-166, TotSC-36, IWD1-305, SoA-351, HoW-112
Indie - F TN half-elf F/D (18(94),18,18,8,18,15) used intelligence and wisdom Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-140, TotSC-25, IWD1-377, SoA-356, HoW-85
Brutan - M CN dwarf F/Cl (18(00),17,19,10,18,2) used constitution Blunt weapons, missile weapons Kills: BG1-193, TotSC-23, IWD1-393, SoA-322, HoW-66
Nipal - M CG dwarf F/T (18(00),17,19,11,3,10) used dexterity Blunt weapons, bow Kills: BG1-285, TotSC-56, IWD1-384, SoA-299, HoW-88
Chila - M CG elf F/M (18(00),19,17,18,3,9) Axe, bow Kills: BG1-208, TotSC-34, IWD1-409, SoA-310, HoW-78
Hapan - M CE gnome F/T (18(00),18,18,11,2,8) Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-161, TotSC-23, IWD1-232, SoA-298, HoW-58
Wyrme the dwarven Bounty Hunter sets off once more, completing BG:EE and heading into Amn. She makes good progress over an evening, until the next day she encounters Rayic Gethras. After her opening backstab she positions herself out of sight in a corner, only for Rayic to move far enough to spot her.
This is somewhat unexpected and I go for the exit rather than think about matters. More on that in a moment.
She runs the length of the room heading for the stairs and almost makes the relative safety offered there (after previous encounters she has six snares pre-set in case he follows).
Rayic has cast Horror though and today Wyrme has an inadequate save vs spell of 5. Panic sets in giving ample time to save against another spell or two until failing against a stun and being easy prey to more spells. The first of these is enough to kill off another Bounty Hunter and the hindsight post-mortem concludes one of her four oils of speed would easily have got her downstairs.
---
Wyrme contemplates becoming a gnome, having started her earliest travels as a halfling but after checking her skills remains a dwarf. Gorion agrees to escort her outside Candlekeep and so her journey starts once more. A mere evening later she is stood outside Cloakwood mine hoping not to make another mistake.
Wyrme Wyrme Wyrme when will you learn. Having defeated Sarevok and moved on to SoA she is caught out by the second stone golem in Rayic Gethras' house and will be restarting from Candlekeep again.
First though, a break by joining todays Trio - where we start in Rayic's house and I can't help but groan loudly at revisiting the last two fails at my solo game( to the probable amusement of @Grond0 and @Corey_Russell ).
@Gate70 had no need to be concerned about Rayic as we'd already killed him in the previous session, so we were able to quickly run through the remainder of Mae'Var's tasks (very quick with 3 players, where one can cover the inn, another Edwin and the third Mae'Var). Dealing with the guild was no trouble and Kencore picked up an early level there.
Next we headed to Gaelan Bayle to pay up in order to get some level drain protection. The need for that was immediately emphasized when Sansuki cried out for help. A vampire got a lick in on Kencore, but his flashing purple axe took down Del and his supporters with only that single touch on him.
Siri noticed he was lacking a potion bag and, with the Amulet of Power now available, felt any vampiric wraiths there should be manageable. On arrival though, he got a bit ambitious by mixing it up in melee with some undead - trying to protect the others from wraiths. That resulted in paralysis from a shadow fiend, but his stoneskins kept him alive long enough for Azuredge to chew through the attackers.
There were indeed vampiric wraiths in the main room, but they were not right at the door as usual and were kept occupied by skeleton warriors and the flesh golem while being shot down. Surprisingly though, there was still a dangerous enemy to come - in the form of green slimes. Attempting to enter their room, Kencore was overcome by fumes from a mephit and lay down. With his dodgy saving throws there looked to be a good chance of being turned into a slime himself and Thwaka raced to the rescue - only to fall prone herself. Faced with a quandary, Siri reacted in the fashion most natural to him and threw in a skull trap. He was hoping that Thwaka would be protected by the door frame, but that didn't happen and the already wounded assassin was blown apart.
However, with all the green slimes gone, at least Kencore survived.
Thwaka's limited skill points have largely gone on stealth and he sat staring at a FoD trap for a long time, nerving himself up to taking the 50% chance of death involved in opening it. Meanwhile Siri annoyed a couple of guardian golems and occupied their attention from the other side of a doorway, while the golems failed to notice the more dangerous Kencore cutting them down from behind.
Siri then pointed out to Thwaka that he could open the container safely, with the help of improved invisibility and briefly borrowing Kencore's +2 ring of protection.
With nothing more needed there for the moment, the others were ready to leave - but Siri was keen to try a bit more mayhem on the statues. The first pair were easy enough, but the group of four proved a bit more difficult. Siri had hoped to blind the archer, but 5 attempts at that all failed and Kencore had to chug down a bunch of potions to keep himself going while providing a target for the opposition.
Back in Athkatla, we took a first trip to the Bridge District. Initially Thwaka collected the berserk warrior, while the others dealt with the kidnappers. Then they joined forces to assault the Rune Assassins. Siri went down invisibly to tank the first Rune with his stoneskins, while Kencore dealt with the ghasts and Thwaka sneaked round to kill the first Rune with a backstab. Perfection would have involved the second Rune being immediately blinded. That didn't happen and he got an attack in on Thwaka, but a second attempt succeeded to ensure a still comfortable victory. It looked like that would result from a missile attack, but Thwaka had other ideas and a race was on . He nipped upstairs to hide, before racing downstairs and getting his backstab in an instant before Siri's last dart could strike.
The next intended destination was the de'Arnise Hold, but Renfeld got in the way there. Coming back to the Bridge District, Siri sized up Prebek's house and concluded a skull trap would fill the room nicely.
After looting the harpers, a few summons allowed us to collect a bit of a bonus from Lucette.
At the Keep things progressed well early on, with a few skeletons helping out against the main group of trolls downstairs. Outside though, there was a reminder of Kencore's fragility against attackers. After lowering the drawbridge, he led the attack on the courtyard. At the end of that Siri was just admiring Thwaka's 124 damage backstab to sort out the yuan-ti, when he noticed something missing - or perhaps he noticed something new in the large pile of loot on the ground.
Flicking back through the battle text revealed that Kencore had taken rapid damage from the giant troll and expired.
Despite the good backstabs, Thwaka had been offering up more than his fair share of critical misses and there was another of those on the yuan-ti mage upstairs.
However, Kencore stepped in and did well to stay active long enough to deal with the mage. The rest of the encounters were all easy, but time ran out before we could get down to the basement, so Tor'Gal will be the first goal in the next session.
Enchanter - L12, 45 HPs (incl. 12 from familiar), 105 kills (98 in BGEE)
Assassin - L13, 69 HPs, 65 kills (187 in BGEE), 3 deaths
Kensai - L11, 109 HPs, 158 kills (199 in BGEE), 2 deaths
Kencore dominated that session thanks to regular use of Azuredge and being the main trollkiller and is on course to get over 50% of the party kills.
Early on in Trials of the Luremaster Brutan got hit repeatedly by a whirlwind and killed. That looked like being a pain as he was the only one that could cast raise dead, but fortunately the party that killed him had a raise dead scroll that Indie could use. There were no more problems getting into the Keep, but I didn't bother scouting or using summons there and was thus caught cold when coming across a beholder. That used a range of nasty effects and I was lucky when Brutan saved against a disintegrate - but he then failed immediately afterwards against petrification, just before the beholder died. I thought that could be remedied by Tobet's spells, but the statue crumbled and Brutan was shown as having died a few seconds later without having been the target of anything else - I'm not sure why.
Though I had no immediate means to restore Brutan, I had a vague feeling that healing was available in the dungeon, so pressed on. The remainder of the Keep was cleared without further trouble, but immediately after entering the dungeon itself those dratted beholders struck again. Nipal was scouting ahead when a door near him sprang open by itself - revealing a beholder. Nipal tried briefly to close the door again, but that wasn't possible. Worse than that, like the BG variety, this beholder had the nasty habit of being able to target invisible enemies with their gaze even without actually looking at them. Nipal tried to run to get back to the others by the entrance, but was felled by a death ray - which, not content with killing him, chunked him as well.
Up to this point in the overall run I've been following all my standard rules for party play - and those would mean abandoning the run when any character is chunked. However, given the additional difficulty of trying to survive through multiple games (and my lack of desire to play through the old versions of the games again) I decided to cut myself a bit of slack and continued on . That eventually resulted in meeting a jackal warrior willing to provide healing and he cast raise dead on Brutan, though without any obvious effect. I had loads of money, so tried out resurrection as well without that doing anything, but when Tobet cast stone to flesh on Brutan's portrait he suddenly appeared.
Lots of easy enough fights followed while working through the puzzles to get to the final confrontation with the Luremaster. I initially thought it was necessary to kill all the spirit heroes and thus made a mistake there of not concentrating on the Luremaster. The fight became much more difficult when he dispelled everyone's buffs and then Indie was killed by several bounces from a lightning bolt.
A while spent with everyone running round (with Tobet concentrating on casting targeted spells at the Luremaster to negate his constant dimension dooring) saw the Luremaster nearly dead before Chila tried out a couple of items found for the first time. One of those summoned 5 ogres, which should have been a great help. However, the ogres stubbornly refused to move at all and never did anything. A bit later Chila cast a horrid wilting at a group of enemies - only to discover that's not party-friendly in IWD and Brutan slumped to the ground with all the fluids sucked out of him.
However, only a couple of seconds later one shot too many struck the Luremaster and the remaining spirits just faded away.
The surviving members of the party ended with a bit over 1.4m each, still some way short of the level bonanza they would have got for hitting 1.5m.
Kills to date:
Tobet - M CN gnome F/I (18(46),18,18,19,2,18) used charisma and strength Small sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-166, TotSC-36, IWD1-305, SoA-351, HoW-112, TotLM-68
Indie - F TN half-elf F/D (18(94),18,18,8,18,15) used intelligence and wisdom Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-140, TotSC-25, IWD1-377, SoA-356, HoW-85, TotLM-68
Brutan - M CN dwarf F/Cl (18(00),17,19,10,18,2) used constitution Blunt weapons, missile weapons Kills: BG1-193, TotSC-23, IWD1-393, SoA-322, HoW-66, TotLM-78
Nipal - M CG dwarf F/T (18(00),17,19,11,3,10) used dexterity Blunt weapons, bow Kills: BG1-285, TotSC-56, IWD1-384, SoA-299, HoW-88, TotLM-12
Chila - M CG elf F/M (18(00),19,17,18,3,9) Axe, bow Kills: BG1-208, TotSC-34, IWD1-409, SoA-310, HoW-78, TotLM-95
Hapan - M CE gnome F/T (18(00),18,18,11,2,8) Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-161, TotSC-23, IWD1-232, SoA-298, HoW-58, TotLM-78
After our somewhat lucky opening session we settle in for the not-so-long haul and see what we can cross off the to-do list. As a reminder, we have emptied our backpacks of loot following a circuit round the basilisk map.
A couple of quick tasks sees us deal with a house of spiders and pick up our golden pantaloons before restoring Melicamp from his paltry chicken state
We have no clear decision over whether to head west and play with sirines or to the east where Durlag's Tower looms. We'll make a start with the sirines, and thanks to a potion of clarity that is quickly completed.
Indy casts invisibility onto Rumbal so he can trip the traps in Black Alaric's cave. Then we set about the flesh golems.
Rumbal has despatched two of the golems but Indy has left the cave with the third in pursuit. Rumbal goes to help but hears a distantly-called question of whether he has enough room to loot the cave without Indy returning. So he heads back and empties it of goodies and returns towards Indy
By this time Indy has got away from the flesh golem and it isn't where we expect. Several minutes are spent searching the entire map meaning we have to fight various hobgoblins and wolves. Eventually Rumbal suggests we go invisible and only break it once we find our target. That takes a few minutes more and we are sorely tempted to call the golem a winner in hide-and-seek. Here's the reward.
Rather than head to Durlag's Tower we descend into Nashkel mine and eliminate Mulahey the half-orc cleric. On the way out Indy demonstrates some sorcerous malady with a spree of blindness that the Amazons eventually succumb to.
Nimbul and Tarnesh give up the location of Cloakwood Mine but we feel it is time to deal with Durlag's Tower. Indy wants to experiment with a special ability and thinks Rumbal should be safely out of reach - he is not but his 90% fire resistance (40% ring plus 50% scimitar) prevents the bulk of damage.
Indy fails to save against an annoying trap - Rumbal has danced across it unscathed and has to wait for his compainion to become un-stunned.
Rumbal assumes Indy has Protection from Petrification available, while that is not the case we have several options to hand and invisibility > skulltrap is augmented by web > blindness as required. The roof of the tower is soon cleared of basilisks. To whom do we address the bill??
Indy fails to save against the annoying trap on our way back in and is stunned once more. Rumbal heads upstairs and loots a tome (also beating that trap with his meagre save vs spell). He celebrates by releasing Kirinhale and killing Riggilo before Indy breaks free from the stun.
We move on to Cloakwood where Indy turns Rumbal invisible and his saving throws against web traps are sorely tested and found most wanting. By the time he has sprung all the traps Indy has mostly cleared out the group of ettercaps slathering away as the thought of tasty dragon disciple is about as close as they get.
Drasus is webbed and shot down followed by Rezdan. They won't be guarding Cloakwood mine any longer and Genthore plus Kysus are already blinded and don't last much longer.
Rumbal prefers to keep his boots of stealth so Indy takes the boots of speed and we make our way through Cloakwood mine. After killing a brace of ghasts Indy turns invisible while Rumbal bashes a cell door and charges downstairs oblivious to the fact that the bash + open of the door have broken his stealth. Five guards and three hobgoblin archers take aim at Rumbal.
Indy is positioning to try and cast a spell but finding it difficult to make it just-so (Rumbal suspects "just-so" involves how to drop a skulltrap onto him so suggests Indy remain hidden as these eight enemies won't be much of a problem. That turns out to be correct for once and Indy remains hidden until the next level when Davaeorn's final guard wants trouble. We give him what he wants.
Rumbal talks about gulping a potion of magic blocking to deal with Davaeorn but Indy pulls him up by suggesting we deal with the pair of battle horrors first. Oh yeah, them.
Rumbal tries to draw the battle horrors one at a time but keeps seeing both together. After 3 or 4 lucky escapes where he retreats before they see him he realises he is in the shadows. Silly ranger.
Indy has been patiently waiting before suggesting fireballs could soften up the battle horrors. Rumbal agrees and after several fireballs obliterate the battle horrors and slightly toast Davaeorn Rumbal asks if Indy was using a wand - confirmed.
Rumbal hides in shadows and scouts around to Davaeorn. A slight mis-time on our part sees Indy fire Magic Missiles before Rumbal emerges from shadows to attack. As the missiles land Rumbal strikes, and Davaeorn cannot counter our combined attack.
We head into Baldur's Gate, sell more loot and fit in some jobs.
- Poisoned by Marek, killing him to obtain the cure
- Convincing Larze these aren't the Bhaalspawn you're after
- Handing over a random Sphene gem to G'axir the seer
- Retrieving a ring for Petrine and her cat
- Returning a dagger to Quinn
- Picking up the Helm of Balduran, unfortunately Degrodel and his guardians have all been pre-deceased
- Releasing a nymph by killing Ragefast
- Getting Tremain's son breathing once more so he and Varci can run amok elsewhere
- Trying to return some gauntlets to Noralee only to find Indy sold them
- A lack of ennui for Desreta and Vay-ya
- Covering a warehouse in skulltrap fragments and dead greater basilisk so it needs a deep-clean
There should be plenty more to do next time, if we're up to it.
Rumbal is a level 7 ranger, while Indy is a level 8 Dragon Disciple.
Wyrme has another attempt at BG:EE, a few brief notes this time.
She makes short work of Shoal the nereid and repeated starts have led to optimising thieving abilities when levelling up. Previously she started with 65 in locks, and spread updates to locks + traps + move silently + set traps.
The last two runs have seen locks reduced to 60 (which still allows looting the Candlekeep gem - this is optional and I may try lower than 60 if she dies again). Plus limiting updates to move silently + set traps until they reach about 85 and then increasing the other two. This makes locks and traps more difficult but hiding to rest and throwing in bounty hunter snares both become better and the game can proceed quicker as a result.
Basilisks and sirines were completed before switching back to Nashkel Mine and Cloakwood Mine. Then back to Durlag's Tower and on into Baldur's Gate.
When sent back to Candlekeep a brief sortie to Gorion's old room was made to pick up his letter. Draw Upon Holy Might was just enough to deal with all the traps and locks in the Catacombs so Wyrme didn't have to resort to her sole potion of perception.
Slythe and Krystin took a dispelling arrow each (first two of the session).
Wyrme tracked Cythandria down and brought her to justice refused to spare her. She's also spoken to Tamoko (who will appear in the Undercity as a result).
Armed with copious notes and a journal it was time to attend the Coronation. Wyrme usually takes a few darts of stunning with her but didn't think they had helped much so went without them. She duly laid her snares over 2 visits with a rest in between (these Coronations go on and on...) and realised she had no potions of mind focusing today. Never mind, potions of defence + speed + power should be adequate.
(I am always nervous about the Coronation but Wyrme has breezed through it repeatedly)
Today though the seven snares all hit one doppelganger - and Wyrme has also shot at it. This doppelganger is dead immediately but the rest have a good start. Before Wyrme can make her next attack both Belt and Liia are taking damage.
One doppelganger is attacking Wyrme but she ignores it to try and give Belt a fighting chance. As Liia dies the doppelgangers attacking her switch their attention to Belt.
Wyrme is beginning to panic but that won't help anyone. She keeps plugging away, switching targets as they die and also as one panics. Maybe the darts actually helped before, or maybe the first doppelganger changed quicker than previously.
Belt is on his last legs as the final remaining attacker slumps to the floor, and Wyrme races to the eastern stairwell to make sure the last doppelganger doesn't survive it's panic. A couple of arrows are enough to kill it.
Following Sarevok through the Thieves Maze is straightforward for a thief like Wyrme and she lays 3 snares each side of Rahvin and his mercenaries before emerging from stealth to set a seventh in the midst of them. Wyrme grins, and runs back towards the entrance.
Rahvin does not like that and sends his ogre buddy after Wyrme, but a few arrows cut him down before Wyrme returns to backstab Rahvin. The rest of his party (Shaldrissa, Wudei, Haseo, Carston) all failed to survive the initial snarefest.
Tamoko survives a few snares and one hit but not a follow-up backstab a couple of rounds later.
On to Sarevok, laying a few snares and removing two of theirs on the western wall. Wyrme opts for a scroll of Protection from Magic before sniping at Sarevok from the shadows. She misses with her third arrow of dispelling of the game so retreats. Her fourth arrow of dispelling hits so she switches to arrows of ice.
Semaj arrives and lands on a cluster of snares. He's survived every time to date, but today he is not so fortunate and Wyrme doesn't have to shoot him down.
Sarevok is still quick enough to be a nuisance though, so Wyrme gulps potions (speed > perception > power) to help her run and hide. A mixture of backstabs and arrows is more than Sarevok can handle and Wyrme is ready to head to Amn. She's left the magic ring (from Koveras) in her gem bag borrowed from the still-alve Neera though, so that may or may not travel with her.
Equipment and stats:
Journal entries:
Wyrme just has topay attention and not to be caught out again by Del, Tanova, Rayic Gethras, a stone golem, Gaius, or a host of other delights.
Sigh - perhaps I should have called it quits when Nipal got chunked in TotLM. Possibly lingering discontent about that gave rise to a lack of concentration, but more likely it was the result of paying more attention to a cricket match on the radio than what was happening in the game . Exploring the tunnels under Saradush I'd already beaten up lots of enemies and a single mage accompanied by a Duergar sapper and an orog seemed no threat. Brutan was at less than half health from previous combats, so I did keep him at the back and move him further away when the mage cast a wilting. The others though were just left attacking the mage without considering the other opponents. It appears that both of those attacked Tobet and, without a melee weapon equipped, he was vulnerable to attack even from such comparatively weak opponents .
When the mage died I switched the general attack to the sapper and then glanced at the status of the party - and saw Tobet had only a sliver of health left. I became aware of that just too late though as, before I could even make a stab at the pause button, that sliver had disappeared.
I was expecting to get through ToB, but thought I would be likely to have problems in IWD2 - which I am both least familiar with and don't like much. Oh well, those problems will have to wait for a future occasion ...
Throne of Bhaal. Starting the fight Balty cast Lunar Stance for Time Stop Immunity, and Lord started to Whirlwind the Solar's with Ravager +6, which for us was the only easy way of killing them. Balty almost killed Bodhi during Jon's Time Stop, and soon after she was out. Lord managed to Kill (13) both Solar's with two Whirlwinds. Jon was easily being the most difficult one, casting PfMW's and Magical Swords over and over. But eventually he couldn't last Balty's constant attack and fell too. With Balty on our side pools were very easy smacking, as he's freaking awesome. He's immune to pretty much everything nasty. He also has 8 apr +4 fists and with Solar Stance does 27 average damage. He has 127 MR and 90 Elemental resistance, and can use Flip Resistances to get 90 DR. The best form here is Flip Resistance and Solar Stance as it still gives 127 Fire Resistance against Balor's.
Lord, Lady and Balty vs. the Big Six. In the first round Lord Charmed Sarevok with the Control Circlet, Lady PfM'd Abazigal and tied Illasera's Dispel bow with Reflection Shield, and Balty attacked Abazigal and Gromnir with 90 DR. Second round Lord PfM'd Sendai who Sarevok attacked. Lord took Yaga with 95 undispellable Crushing resistance. At this moment it seemed like a home run. Not so much, as both Sendai and Abazigal could cheat, and cast spells through PfM, and summoned both a Deva and a Planetar. And the Planetar especially was wreaking havoc. We tried fighting back, and it was round by round survival, Lord once going low as 30 hp. As Abazigal Mazed lady and both Celestials were coming at Lord, it was time for Fail Safe. Lord Teleported to one of the pools and started keeping Sarevok alive with the RoR. This was the most important thing, because if one of Big Six dies, and others are still full health, chance's to kill rest of them and Melissan together are slim to none.
But then something finally went our way. Control Circlet has undispellable Charm, but there's a way to recover from it. Sarevok had a moral failure, and that made him neutral, and then enemy as he recovered from that. Now Lord didn't need to waste anymore RoR's on him. Lady died, Lord picked up the Reflection Shield, and Balty also Teleported to one of the pools. As the Bix Six all have homing beacon they tried to access to the pool Lord was, but couldn't because they were closed. Lord first baited their spells out, and then casually first Frag Grenaded them, then tuned their health with Pulse Ammunition to around 30 hp. 20 hp is the cut off when they die, and Melissan arrives. Buffed up with Hardiness and AoF, both Balty and Lord Teleported back in, and stomped the Bix Six in couple rounds. Melissan arrived, Lord hit Focus against Time Stop. Balty attacked Melissan and Lord Teleported to one of the pools. This is important because the two Solars will wreak havoc, and Heal Melissan if they see her.
Balty got killed during a Time Stop, and Melissan Teleported on to Lord. Lord welcomed her with Rift Device, Dispelling her and taking 60% of her health away. And it was time for the ultimate brawl. It took a while, me constantly keeping eye on our saves, as Melissan has GWW's and -2 save penalty per hit for 2 rounds, together with Stun -4 vs. Polymorph for 3 rounds, which could end us. With -13 vs. Polymorph we were relatively safe. With FoA +5 and DoEH we used all our HLA's, 8 Critical Strikes, 2 GWW's, Smite, Regeneration and Hand of Murder. And soon after that Melissan was finally smacked out of existence.
The fight with Melissan went smoother than expected, with no additional minions or Time Stops. Lord then relinquished the essence of Bhaal and became a true Cavalier once more, all was good again. The end justifies the means, right?
Corethief XXVIII and his friend Yoshimo - FINAL update!
Well, we had laid a full set of traps for Thaxxy, and it did get him to near death, however Thaxxy didn't die first - Corethief XXVIII died 1st to level drains. We couldn't quite finish Thaxxy off. Back to the drawing board!
Escaped from the chateau. Yep
Caught out by Del. Nope, snares got the better of her
Tanova. Not encountered her
Rayic Gethras and his golems. Dealt with more carefully this time
Gaius. A backstab sorted him out and his buddies fell to snares and backstabs
A host of other delights. Wyrme has acquired her own thieving stronghold and liberated the ring of Gaxx for her own use. One oil of speed was used to finish off Del's minions, and a second used to kill the sea troll underneath the temple district.
The extra speed certainly helps so Wyrme heads into the Planar Prison in search of hasted boots. She might just have managed it if she hadn't tried to backstab the mage nearest to her. Enemy true sight conspires to keep her visible and she is unable to defeat Aawill and co.
(I checked a couple more times and fleeing north or east of the party makes for an escape where a bounty hunter can come out on top)
Wyrme chats with Winthrop, taking a small break as another character leaves town instead.
---
Claude the shapeshifter got as far as wishing he didn't run into Lamahla and the amazons. One of his two woodland beings became confused while Claude got himself held in melee instead of standing back to cast spells. He had the greenstone amulet by this time but was only really considering use of it against the trapped tome container in Durlag's Tower.
---
Another day or so later Wyrme puts her tankard down and picks up her gear for another attempt.
Entering challenge with a 5 MP characters - sixth slot will be NPC thief - presumably Imoen in BG 1 and Yoshimo/Imoen in BG 2/ToB. Here is the protagonist:
Since dispelling arrows are rather useless in ToB (unlike vanilla) due to EE changes, will be fighters with inquisitors to dispel enemy defenses. There are two in case one of them get chunked. Two berserkers will lead the way, and Yeldan II will bravely throw bullets at everyone from the rear. NPC thief will handle trap duties. Here are the MP characters if interested:
Not a lot has been done so far (we are all level 2). Mostly basic Nashkel/Beregost quests, and heading to Gnoll Fortress to get the gauntlets of dexterity for one of the dwarven berserkers of the party. No deaths so far. Will keep at it.
Yeldan II the halfling fighter - update 2
Traveling with:
Forrest - dwarven berserker
Joshua - dwarven berserker
April - human inquisitor
Sarah - human inquisitor
Imoen - human thief
The party has made very rapid progress - this is common in a party of fighters/paladins, as many fights can be auto-attack. They aren't as time intensive as caster types are. In any case, the party got through Chapter 7 in flying colors. Using haste and strength and magic protection buffs, we destroyed Semaj and Sarevok very quickly - maybe as fast as 3 rounds. The MP characters (which is everyone but Imoen) are off to Amn!
In Amn, anyone can join, though until someone gets chunked, intend to only recruit Yoshimo and Imoen. If an inquisitor gets chunked for sure will recruit Keldorn. If a fighter gets chunked will recruit either Mazzy or Korgan.
After a month or so of waiting for the Coronation to finally begin I managed a session this morning. After the extended preparation time the fight at the palace proved simple - summons and chaos meaning the dopplegangers didn't make much inroads on the dukes.
PfU and MGoI took care of the major threats in the maze on the way to the Undercity. Rahvin's party were webbed there and none of them were able to break free before dying.
Fight of the day
Sarevok's a bonny fighter, but suffers from weak eyes
Shooting at him from long range is therefore a surprise
Withdraw at once, whether hit or miss, will be your best position
At least, that is, if you wish to reduce your opposition
With minor globe already active in case of webs or clouds
Activate your invisibility to avoid the crowds
Inch forward once more and you will see descending from the stage
Sarevok, no longer calm, but turning red with rage
Angelo and Tazok can now be safely left alone
But Semaj, while just a mage, has rather more backbone
He'll teleport out to investigate what is going on
And if you've left some traps for him - he'll be simply gone
Sarevok, now with no help, can be shot at once again
With equal speeds, both fleet of foot, you can still avoid some pain
By circling round the pillars 'til you've made a little space
Just enough to give the chance to shoot him in the face
The odds are now all stacked against the big, but clumsy, man
So take your choice of bow or spells, or anything else you can
And when at last he's nearly dead, you can decide at leisure
What form of execution would provide you with most pleasure
In the starting dungeon for SoD, I bought some items from the Flaming Fist cleric - the scrolls of greater restoration being the main target there. Moving on quickly, I went to find Porios while invisible and intimidated him into surrendering.
More use of PfU then dealt with 3 groups of undead, while some mercenaries died in webs. Korlasz was also briefly stuck in a web and a skull trap did more than enough damage to convince her to surrender.
I would have gone on to kill her, but she broke free in time to avoid a second spell and managed to run away with a sliver of life left.
In Baldur's Gate I sold items carried through from BGEE for about 45k, but was still greedy for more - so started in on the NPCs. The hour ticked over to save Minsc for now, but he's for the chop next time.
Wyrme decided not to rest before attacking Rahvin and his mercenary group outside the once-abandoned temple of Bhaal. With only two snares to use this group of enemies survived.
Wyrme drew their ogre away and backstabbed him, but her next attack saw Shaldrissa cast Remove Magic and Wudei cast hold person.
Wyrme had retreated and hidden in shadows. She had time and items to do any one of these actions
- Leave the area and return to the maze
- Gulp a potion of Invisibility
- Gulp a potion of Magic Shielding (guaranteed save vs hold)
- Use a Protection from Magic scroll (one of three)
- Use the Edventars Gift ring to gain free action
- Use a potion of Magic resistance to see if 75% resistance would be enough
- Use a potion of Magic Blocking
- Use a potion of Freedom
She did none of these things, and found herself held at the edge of the area.
Haseo had followed with his long sword, and Rahvin with his bow. Once Wyrme emerged from the shadows she was powerless to stop these two enemies cutting her down.
Her next incarnation sulked sulkily and didn't appear for at least 24 hours, then when it did she decided to have a drink while another adventurer tried their luck. Who that is she doesn't know yet but they'll make a start over the weekend.
Yeldan II the halfling fighter Update 3
Traveling with:
Forrest - dwarven berserker
Joshua - dwarven berserker
April - human inquisitor
Sarah - human inquisitor
Yoshimo - human bounty hunter
The party is making good progress. Thanks to Captain Dennis, entire party now has full plate. However, Captain Dennis gave us quite a beating as you can see.
The first action of the day was finishing off the de'Arnise Hold by going to find TorGal. An initial attack on him looked to have done far more than the necessary HPs to put him down, but he was feeling stubborn. After leaving him alone for a bit, while we killed his giant troll friends, we attacked again and this time he caved.
Next up was Trademeet. We didn't do much shopping there, but just pushed on with the quests. There was an easy ride to restore the Grove, relying on Cernd to snack on Faldorn.
Siri already had a restoration scroll in his bag, so it didn't take long to help out Tiris' wife-to-be.
Thwaka raced ahead to make a start on the tomb and clearly intended to jump in and out of that to be able to take down the occupants with backstabs. That hit a snag though as, with no-one else in the tomb, most of the skeletons followed him outside. That left Siri to occupy the big boys while Thwaka went back inside to deal with the small fry. Siri was making slow progress with his share, before Kencore turned up and Thwaka emerged from the tomb to provide a finishing touch.
Moving on to Umar Hills, Kencore inquired gently what options we had to provide hold immunity. He was answered with a sword in his gutbackpack and quickly off-handed Arbane to provide defense against a mimic.
That also worked against shadow fiends when we moved on to the temple area, though Siri took advantage of shadows grouping around Kencore to throw in a skull trap or two.
Inside the temple we made good progress initially, but hit a roadblock when a second large group of undead proved more resistant to Azuredge than expected. Thwaka took heavy damage at one end of the combat and retreated one way, while Kencore took heavy damage at the other end - but failed to retreat in time.
We took a trip to Watcher's Keep to revive Kencore. Siri noted there that he was down a few HPs. He often took advantage of Kencore's constitution regeneration to boost his own HPs with a vampiric touch in that situation and had to resist the urge to do that here .
Back at the ruined temple we went to find Thaxy. Siri laid down a field of skull traps to lead her into and, on my screen, she was pretty close to those when they exploded. However, whether it was her large icon, the fact that she was moving or a MP placement glitch, she emerged unscathed from the cloud of bone fragments.
{Edit: checking on our video record, Thaxy does look to be a bit further away than I thought at the moment of explosion, so probably was just out of range.}
Siri's back-up plan had been to memorize extra blinds and feebleminds and he started working through those while the others occupied Thaxy's attention. Siri thought the battle had turned out successfully when his final feeblemind stuck, but there was a sting in the tale. Thaxy had managed to confuse an air elemental and you can see in this screenshot that delivered a fatal blow to Kencore just after Thaxy ceased being a threat.
The threat wasn't quite over there either. Also in that screenshot you can see the results of Kencore's final action - to summon the efreeti. Its standard tactics on arrival are to go invisible and then throw a fireball at its nearest enemy. Siri noticed that happening too late and failed to get out of range - fortunately though he saved against what would have been fatal damage and Thaxy was then duly finished off.
After returning from another temple trip the trio attacked the Shade Lord. Thwaka raced to get a backstab in, but didn't quite manage a clean kill - just setting up Azuredge to remove the final few HPs.
Back in Umar Hills we went to get Valygar's body. His ranger friends ended a recent run, so I was a bit more cautious there this time - sending in the golem as a distraction while Siri unlimbered his skull traps.
The session had pointed up the potential advantage of having a rod of resurrection, so the next destination was the Temple sewers. The rakshasa there provided a cloak for Thwaka, giving her a way to regenerate her HPs once a day.
Then we went to shoot down Mekrath to pick up his rod. His umber hulk guards were oblivious to his death, so Siri went invisibly to check them out and consider what to do. His specialty meant he couldn't learn webs, stinking clouds or cloudkill. He could have resorted to throwing the latter in from a wand, but much preferred to use his own spells - and an emotion proved highly effective with only a single umber hulk resisting that (and that one was trapped behind his sleeping colleagues).
Emerging from Mekrath's rooms, we've triggered both true sights from Gaius and Tarnor's party is likely to be an early casualty next time.
Enchanter - L13, 46 HPs (incl. 12 from familiar), 136 kills (98 in BGEE)
Assassin - L15, 73 HPs, 105 kills (187 in BGEE), 3 deaths
Kensai - L13, 115 HPs, 251 kills (199 in BGEE), 4 deaths
True to predictions, Kencore dominated the kills in that session and now has an overall majority of those.
Episode 3 starts with us wondering what is left to do. Our journal suggests looking into the Seven Suns and that is what we do. Indy has a bad Magic Missile day, as Rumbal is killing enemies before the spell can be completed.
As we head to the upper section of the Iron Throne HQ Indy realises we have not paid Ramazith a visit. Will we remember to do so if we survive this combat. Rumbal sneaks upstairs to see the blind devotion which Zhalimar's four casters all have for Indy. A few webs and missiles plus Magic Missiles are enough to finish off their doppelganger together with Zhalimar Cloudewulfe and Gardush.
We are duly sent back to Candlekeep and organise our own way out. Indy is in his element here, the traps within the catacombs triggering merrily against what limited buffs he has.
Prat and his gang think to stop us, their thought being about as far as their plan gets. Have some webby skulltrap missiles.
Rumbal extravagantly uses two scrolls of protection so we can both play with the final pair of basilisks before making good our escape.
By the time we have returned to the city there appears to have been a change in control. Slythe thinks he is master of the Undercellar, but an arrow of dispelling followed by arrows of biting and Minute Meteors prevent him from reaching us.
The Thieves Maze holds no danger for us almost toasts and fries Indy. Rumbal is too distant to throw a potion and Indy is gamely saying he'd refuse to drink anyway. Somehow, somehow, he survives.
How about a bit more fun with traps - Rumbal bursts through the first deliberately then realises Indy is protected from them so he can afford to be a bit more circumspect.
Indy has a plan for Rahvin and his mercenaries involving web and skulltrap. He is slightly taken aback as Rumbal looses off several arrows of detonation - indicating more of a spending spree today than is usual for us.
Semaj survives a cluster of skulltraps but he is so badly wounded that our next arrow and meteor finish him.
Sarevok has been dispelled of his haste by an arrow and lumbers after us. Rumbal starts to gulp a few potions but Indy has decided the game should end now. The final set of Magic Missiles seal the deal.
BGII:EE
We start trapped in a dungeon. Our first job is to relinquish Imoen of her responsibilities after she releases Rumbal, and then do the same for Jaheira and Minsc. Rumbal has grabbed what equipment he can and disabled his AI scripting so now whatever happens depends on the roll of a dice is our fault.
The initial area of the dungeon passes before our eyes in a skulltrapped blur and we make our way to refuse joining forces with Yoshimo. Beyond him is a mephit portal room - Rumbal making a good start but then being caught napping and fortunately for him Indy has held back to throw in timely meteors.
For a short while we are caught in a groundhog skull day, resting to recover from injuries and becoming injured by newly memorised spells. Rumbal considers whining but realises it's all for his own good.
Ulvaryl the vampire may feel much the same but is saved from impending Magic Missiles by a hefty sword blow.
We finally escape anyway, and sell off everything that we have no suitable use for, including non-proficient magical daggers, longswords and bastard swords. Then we sheepishly look at each other as we have limited magical weapons with which to prod the circus tent. Indy volunteers to lend Rumbal his magical staff but the ranger declines and proclaims we will come back later. Maybe.
We head off to the Slums and learn of an offer of assistance from Gaelan Bayle. His fee is too rich for our tastes and limited means, so we head off in search of adventure.
First on the cards is Suna Seni. We have arrived invisibly - these bandits can't get up early enough to catch us unawares. Indy drops a skulltrap onto them followed by a second as Rumbal shoots down stragglers. That went well.
Indy enquires as to whether we shall be visiting Watchers Keep soon, perhaps in search of a magical scimitar. Why yes, hadn't been considered but how difficult can that be.
We don't make it half way to Watchers Keep before running into Renfeld's ambush. These bandits can't get up early enough to... We are somewhat worse for wear and fully visible so Rumbal moves in to melee as Indy prepares a spell.
We are victorious but now even more worse for wear and our backpacks are filling up too. Judicious swapping of items gives us a bit of spare room so we decide to take Renfeld to the docks. On the way we sell a few items and after dropping him off we are accosted by Xzar. He wants us to find Montaron and declares Renfeld's pals to be Harpers so we agree and head back. Renfeld's buddy wants us to deal with the occupants of a house so we agree to that too. As Rumbal turns to leave he notices Indy has sneaked into the house and skulltrapped all inside. One mage is still alive but between us we rapidly change his state of mind and being.
Rather than head back to the Harpers we go out to Watchers Keep and actually get there. There are shadows inside and by the time we deal with them Rumbal has been level-drained. Sister Garlena provides a cheap restoration and we enter a second time to confirm there are no Vampiric Wraiths today. This suits us and we proceed to clear the entire area picking up Usuno's Blade +4 for Rumbal and a snazzy longbow to boot.
Indy braved and survived the Finger of Death trap, his risky save vs death of 5 worked in our favour today.
Watchers Keep was easy we think. How short our memories are though, as we have overlooked Indy almost dying to ettercap poison. T'is but a flesh wound.
Thankfully nobody died, twice anyway.
All this creative accounting has left us with a surplus of funds and little to spend it on. Here we are about to buy off the Cowled Wizards when yet another money-sniffer makes her appearance. Keep dreaming lady.
Rumbal leads Indy merrily around town until the Dragon Disciple finally has to ask what we are doing. Rumbal doesn't really have an answer as he was stumbling from one thing to another in search of an attention span greater than that of a goldfish.
Indy doesn't want to accept this as an answer though so Rumbal suggests we have been looking to unlock a series of doors to make our future adventures easier. As this would be a long and tedious prelude to more exciting events we choose to spice matters up with the odd skulltrap here and there.
Note how Rumbal has been level-drained - running into two Vampiric mists near to Gaal and between the two of us and our flesh golem we did defeat them 'almost single handedly'. Since Rumbal had been level-drained he decided to celebrate by kicking a level-drain trap near the previous screenshot so we don't fall foul of it later.
Back to the Docks to hand an amulet to Mae'Var while we search for evidence against him. First we loot the Harpers HQ. Simples.
Then we accept a quest from Edwin to make a wreath out of Rayic Gethras. Indy uses invisibility and skulltrap to enter which leaves us with only one mephit to deal with. Rumbal uses DUHM and Arbane haste to kill off the brace of Stone Golems while Indy hits them with Minute Meteors.
Rayic is a tough cookie. Unfortunately for him Indy is a scheming malovence and casts Improved Invisibility onto Rumbal. Rayic seems unable to counter and defends himself with Protection from Magic Weapons. This leaves Rumbal struggling for ideas until Indy shouts to ask if he has any non-magical weapons, or failing that can he use his fists. Rumbal has an unenchanted scimitar and that defeats Rayic despite a temporary reprieve via Stoneskin.
Rayic is dead. We celebrate in the only way we know, Indy fatally engaging with a trap that would not have greatly troubled Rumbal. The ranger trudges to a temple and pays for a resurrection so he can hear all about why it was best for Indy to play with fire acid.
postscript: we found sufficient evidence to convince Renal that Mae'Var must die, and killed Mae'Var with skulltrap after skulltrap. Rumbal almost forgot he was a ranger and started thinking about the mess he'd have to clean up so it was a relief to realise he could walk away and leave it for someone else.
I've had 15 or so exits over the summer. These are the 12 I recall and there will be a couple more for Blaggerd that I can't remember any detail about.
Dern, I did not think you EVER failed.
If I put all my fails in here, it would overwhelm the Beamdog server. That's why I don't even post until I'm done or almost done.
Vynd looked around him. There were only four people, all humans, sharing the room with them. He knew soon the streets of Baldur’s Gate would teaming with people of all races: humans, dwarves, gnomes, haflings, even some elves, all descending on the city in anticipation of the Feast of the Moon that would begin in earnest on 30 Uktar. It was the last great festival of the year and marked the onset of winter. Bards would be everywhere because this was also the time to celebrate ancestors and commemorate heroes, treasures and lost cities of the past. Priests of most the deities held special rites, rituals and ceremonies at this time – most remembering the dead in one way or another. Vynd had come to know the Calendar of Harptoos better than most people who grew up in Faeurn.
He thought to himself, “I am right where I belong. How far any of this was from my mind when I was still in the Underdark,” He asked himself rhetorically. “Hmm.” He took a sip of mead. “Fantastic!” They were in a little out of the way inn in Southeast Baldur’s Gate. It was not often that Angmar had an ale beyond the main course but tonight he kept going and going. No one was complaining, mind you. Vynd enjoyed that lightheaded feeling and he knew the others were too. Who would have thought a pub like this would have such a good brew? Then again, he knew pubs and inns everywhere usually tried to have a seasonal ale or lager, or both, ready to coincide upcoming Moonfest. Best he could recall, this was maybe the third time this had happened when they all sat around a table tossing a few back. Normally, Angmar drank only wine, which he carried in wineskins, except for one ale or mead with his meals when in town. Then again, there was not much time for anything but marching and combat. During the last three and a half years, Angmar put them all through a gauntlet of adventuring.
Their recent journeys first carried them to an island somewhere far to the north in the middle of a northern ocean. Beneath the freezing little rock (that is what it was) was a challenging dungeon filled with traps, mages, Ankheg’s, Snow Golems, and Winter Wolves. Upon escaping, they were soon on a second island after suffering a shipwreck as hirelings for a man from Ulgoth’s Beard. The Isle of Balduran teamed with a colony of Werewolves on one end, and more powerful Wolfwere’s on the other. Battling through until they could finally escape, they returned to Ulgoth’s Beard, only to face the man who hired them in combat – except now he was a Loup Garou. Having defeated the monster, Angmar next drove them on to Durlag’s Tower – a death trap south of the Wood of the Sharp Teeth. Four levels up, and four levels deep, the fortress was littered with deadly traps that took their toll more than once. Greater Doppelgangers, Greater Wyverns, a Ghost, a Succubus (Demoness), Greater Ghouls, Ghasts, and Greater Basilisks, among other nasty creatures kept them constantly returning to the temple in Beregost to purchase priestly ‘Raise Dead’ services. Vynd, at first, thought it odd that a Temple of Lathander would heal them at all but over time he had come to the conclusion that – at least with Kelddath, greed surpasses faith. Their final battle in the tower was against a powerful Demon Knight, or Death Knight, that had moved into the void and claimed residence when Durlag’s clan fell. In the end, the Death Knight’s own Magic Mirror doomed him, and Dorn helped him return to the abyss permanently. The expedition to Durlag’s Tower made Angmar fabulously wealthy as if he had not already been so when they first entered. Vynd knew better than to think Angmar would settle down and build a keep of his own though. Sure enough, they were ambushed by a Demon Cult on returning from Durlag’s Tower. The Cult needed a dagger that Angmar had taken as booty. After defeating the Cult Enforcers, Assassins, and Archers, they learned that the Cult operated out of the home of the same wizard that teleported them to the Ice Island. Angmar wasted no time.
They arrived in attack mode. Angmar was not about to give away the element of surprise, using Call Lightning to take out the Cult Guard that stood watch at the door. Bashing through the front door, they all knew their first task: Vienxay Want of Fire, Baeloth Magic Missile, Dorn, and Shar-Teel find the mage if there is one, a Cleric – anyone casting a spell. Vynd, Invisible, work around behind a vulnerable foe and Backstab. Angmar usually used Drain Life first focused on a spellcaster or the foe he accessed as most powerful. With difficulty, they defeated a Cult Mage, an Enforcer, two Assassins, and an Archer before moving to the steps that descended into the basement. In preparation, Shar-Teel and Dorn quaffed Potions of Heroism, Vynd a Potion of Master Thievery, and Vienxay and Baeloth cast protection spells on themselves, Blur, Mirror Image. Descending, they found a basement prepared for a summoning. The room was 30’ x 60,’ sunken in the middle. There were Cult Guards, six of them around the corners, and side of the rectangular depression. A woman conducting the summons went down quickly under Shar-Teel’s blade, but not quickly enough to prevent the release of the demon.
Aec’Letec, a Nabassu, had the features of a Gargoyle, with a dull black hide matted with fur. In stood nearly 7’ tall, was gaunt, scaly, and leathery with sinewy muscles over its visible skeleton. Its head was elongated, with tusks, horns, but no nose. Its ears and wings were batlike and its beady eyes glowed yellow.
Seeing the situation, Angmar withdrew back up the stairs, where the Cult Guards followed him to their slaughter. With the Demon isolated Angmar moved back down the finish him. Dorn and Shar-Teel moved in for the kill. Baeloth and Vienxay used Magic Missiles. Eventually, Vienxay exhausted her spells and was relegated to darts. Meanwhile, Vynd joined Dorn and Shar-Teel, while Angmar used Drain Life and Absorb Health before charging in with his Spear +3, Dragon Scepter. Slowly, but surely, the demon weakened and finally met its death on the material plane when Dorn’s huge Two-Handed Sword, World’s Edge crashed down on the creatures back. At first, it lay motionless. Then, Sparks and lightning burst around the killing wound. Moments later, lightning consumed Aec’Letec’s corpse, leaving a smoldering spot where he had been.
Since returning to Baldur’s Gate, Angmar took some lucrative work for Scar, the Commander of the Flaming Fist. Angmar had no qualms about working for anyone if it paid well. He would put his own ‘Black Guard’ touch on whatever he did. First they slayed a bunch of Doppelgangers that had taken over a trading coster, then they went in and wiped out everyone in the Iron Throne, a mercsantile operation that was as corrupt as they were. They had also destroyed an Ogre Mage and a handful of Carrion Crawlers that had been killing people in the eastern part of the city. All of these paid Angmar well, and they all benefitted from that. Tomorrow they were supposed to go meet Duke Eltan at the Flaming Fist. “Ironic,” he thought to himself. “Hell yeah, I’ll take another mead.”
PARTY INFORMATION
ORDER OF MARCH:
Shar-teel (point)
Dorn (shock)
Vynd (stealth, recon, assassinations)
Angmar
Vienxay (arcane support, rogue support)
Baeloth (arcane Support)
Misc & Artifacts: Cloak of the Shield, Durlag’s Goblet, Knaves Robe, Mage Robe of Electrical Resistance, Ring of Free Action, Robe of the Abyss, Robe of the Evil Arch-Magi, Tome of Understanding, Traveler’s Robe (2)
PARTY MAKEUP: (Reputation: 6 – Disliked, +2 Seven Suns)
Angmar: CE Anti-Paladin (Black Guard of Talos)/8(HP 83); Armor: Plate Mail +3 (Practical Defense), Amulet of Spell Warding, Boots of Avoidance (Senses of the Cat), Cloak of the Shield, Crystal Helm, Gauntlet of Dexterity, Golden Girdle (Girdle of Slashing +3), Ring of Fire Shielding (Charvirak’s Glow); Weapons: Spear +3 (Dragon Scepter), Flail** (Two-Handed Weapon Style*); Items: Ring of Human Influence, Ring of Fire Shielding (Charvirak’s Glow); Special Abilities: Absorb Health, Aura of Despair, Cause Affliction (2), Drain Life (2), Lightning Bolt, Poison Weapon, Shocking Grasp; Spells: None; Skills; None; High-Level Abilities: None
Shar-teel: CE Fighter (Berserker)/7 (HP 60); Armor: Crystal Plate Mail +2, Ring of Protection +1 (Ring of the Princes), Kiel’s Helmet, Boots of Grounding (Tolos’s Gift), Elves Bane (Girdle of Piercing +3); Weapons: Long Sword +1/+2 vs Regenerators/+3 vs cold/+4 vs undead (Flame Tongue +1); ***, Long Sword +1/+3 vs undead (Harrower)***, Gauntlets of Weapons Expertise (Long Sword***, Dagger*, Two-Weapon Style**); Items: Ring of Free Action; Special Abilities: Berserkers Rage; Spells: None; Skills: None; High-Level Abilities: None
Dorn: NE Paladin (Black Guard of Ur-Gothoz/8 (HP 56); Armor: Black Swan Armor +2, Ring of Protection +1, Golden Girdle (Girdle of Slashing +3); Weapons: Two-Handed Sword +3 (World’s Edge), **, Pole Axe +2 (Kilther)** (Two-Handed Weapon Style**, Axe**), Gauntlet of Weapons Expertise; Items: Boots of Speed (Paws of the Cheetah); Special Abilities: Absorb Health, Aura of Despair, Poison Weapon (2); Spells: None; Skills; None; High-Level Abilities: None
Vynd: NE Thief (Drow Assassin)/10 (HP 61 ); Armor: Studded Leather +3, Cloak of Protection +1, Gauntlets of Dexterity; Weapons: Long Sword +1* (2), Darts +1* (Dart*, Long Sword*, Short Sword*, Two-Weapon Style*); Items: None; Special Abilities: Poison Weapon (2), Set Snare (2); Spells: None; Skills; OL 35, FT 25 PP 45, MS 90, HS 90, DI 10, ST 75, BS x 5; High-Level Abilities: None
Vienxay: NE Mage/Thief (Shadowmage)//8/8 (HP 29); Armor: Robe of the Evil Arch-Magi, Ring of Protection +1 (Ring of the Princes); Weapons: Dagger +1*, Dart of Ice +1*; Items: Courier’s Boots, Ring of Invisibility (Sandthief’s Ring), Vienxay’s Silk Gloves; Special Abilities: Shadowjump, Set Snare (2); Spells: Minor Sequencer, Stoneskin, Fireball, Haste, Lightning Bolt, Blur, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Magic Missile, Blindness, Charm Person, Identify; Skills: OL 80, FT 70, PP 45, MS 85, HS 90, DI 15, ST --, BS x 2; High-Level Abilities: None
Baeloth: CE Sorcerer/9 (HP 46); Armor: Robe of the Grand Wizard, Bracers of Defense AC6, Amulet of Protection +1, Cloak of Displacement; Weapons: Quarter Staff +3 (Staff of Striking +3), Dart of Ice +1*; Items: Ring (Barrityl’s Burden); Special Abilities: None; Spells: Greater Malison (4), Melf’s Meteors (6), Spell Thrust (6), Melf’s Acid Arrow (6), Magic Missile (6), Icelance (6), Detect Invisibility (6), Globe of Darkness (6), Horror (6), Blindness (6), Chromatic Orb (6), Expeditious Retreat (6), Spook (6), Ice Storm (4); Skills; None; High-Level Abilities: None
MOD USED: Convenient Enhanced Edition NPCs v4.0, Ajantis BG1 v15, NPC Aura BG1, BG1 NPC Project v24-8, BG1 Romantic Encounters V4, BGEE NPC Tweaks, BG Quests and Encounters v22, Brage’s Redemption v4, Tweaks Anthology Beta 4, Deities of Faerun v1.9.7.6.1, Distinguishable Clubs, Divine Remix v8 Beta, NPC Drake, Dark Side of the Sword Coast v102, NPC Emily BG1, NPC Finch v4.0 Beta 7, NPC Gavin V14, NPC Glam Pack v3, I Hate Undead Kitpack v3.8
Baeloth fired off a Magic Missile at the one who called himself Prat. Angmar followed with his Drain Life ability and brought the loudmouth to his knees. There were others back in the caves and Baeloth could not wait to “Work off some anger on them.” He knew Angmar would oblige. True to form they were moving back into the tunnels before Prat’s carcass hit the floor. As they entered, a Halfing Fighter was coming up the tunnel straight in front of them. Vienxay used a Wand of Fire directing it down the tunnel over the head of the onrushing squirt so that the blast would get him from behind and cook anything or anyone else in the vicinity. He laughed out loud seeing them all bunched up trying to attack. They were as good as any Jesters he’s ever seen. Seeing them walking all over each other, Vienxay used the wand again while Dorn and Shar-Teel finished the runt. In no time they were collecting up more booty.
THAT'LL SHUT HIM UP!
They returned to the library that they had been using to rest and recuperate since they arrived. After identifying everything, distributing scrolls and potions, and discarding unnecessary items, they were ready to head back into the caves and find a way out of here. Spiders and two Greater Basilisks ended up being the only things between them and the cave exit on the south side of Candleekeep.
Angmar was now obsessed with getting to Baldur’s Gate and crushing his tormentor Sarevok. Up till now, he had taken his time, but now they were on a forced march to get there as soon as possible. Of course, now they were wanted for murdering the leaders of the Iron Throne, and the Flaming Fist would be all over them. “This could messy,” he thought. “This could be fun.
PARTY INFORMATION
ORDER OF MARCH:
Dorn (Point)
Shar-teel (Shock)
Vynd (stealth, recon, assassinations)
Vienxay (arcane support, rogue support)
Angmar
Baeloth (arcane Support)
NOTEWORTHY TREASURE (ordered alphabetically by value > 250gp or > +2 ): (Gold collected Chapter VI) 1192; Current purse 115707
Armor & Weapons: Dagger +4* (D’Raavhen’s Fang), Splint Mail +4 (Korim’s Skin), Boots of Valor (AC +4 vs Blunt), Battle Axe +3 (Enrager); Shadow Armor +3, Cloak of Protection +2, Large Shield +2, Throwing Axe +2, Bracers of Defense AC6,Crown of the Alarphon, Gloves of the Magi, Ring of Fire Resistance (Batalista’s Passport)
Gems/Jewelry: Rogue Stone, Ruby Ring, Pearl Necklace, Fire Opal Ring
Potions: Clarity, Genius, Speed, Invulnerability
Scrolls: Power Word Kill, Dispel Magic, Haste, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Slow, Blur, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Protection from Magic, Web, Mass Charm
Wands: None
Misc & Artifacts: Manual of Gainful Exercise, Tome of Understanding, Mystic Ring
BEST KILL:
1) Dorn, Aec’Letec (16000 exp)
2) Vynd, Karoug (8000 exp)
3) Shar-Teel, Greater Basilisk (7000 exp)
4) Vienxay, Greater Wyvern; (5000 exp)
5) Baeloth, Teddy the Doomsayer (2500 exp)
CURRENT DISPOSITION: Warehouse in Southeast Baldur’s Gate
NEXT STEPS: Find Sarevok
PARTY MAKEUP: (Reputation: 6 – Disliked)
Angmar: CE Anti-Paladin (Black Guard of Talos)/8(HP 83); Armor: Plate Mail +3 (Practical Defense), Amulet of Spell Warding, Boots of Avoidance (Senses of the Cat), Cloak of the Shield, Crystal Helm, Gauntlet of Dexterity, Golden Girdle (Girdle of Slashing +3), Ring of Fire Shielding (Charvirak’s Glow); Weapons: Spear +3 (Dragon Scepter), Flail** (Two-Handed Weapon Style*); Items: Ring of Human Influence, Ring of Fire Shielding (Charvirak’s Glow); Special Abilities: Absorb Health, Aura of Despair, Cause Affliction (2), Divine Wrath (2), Drain Life (2), Lightning Bolt, Poison Weapon, Shocking Grasp; Spells: None; Skills; None; High-Level Abilities: None
Shar-teel: CE Fighter (Berserker)/7 (HP 60); Armor: Crystal Plate Mail +2, Ring of Protection +1 (Ring of the Princes), Kiel’s Helmet, Boots of Grounding (Tolos’s Gift), Elves Bane (Girdle of Piercing +3); Weapons: Long Sword +1/+2 vs Regenerators/+3 vs cold/+4 vs undead (Flame Tongue +1); ***, Long Sword +1/+3 vs undead (Harrower)***, Gauntlets of Weapons Expertise (Long Sword***, Dagger*, Two-Weapon Style**); Items: Ring of Free Action; Special Abilities: Berserkers Rage; Spells: None; Skills: None; High-Level Abilities: None
Dorn: NE Paladin (Black Guard of Ur-Gothoz/8 (HP 56); Armor: Black Swan Armor +2, Cloak of Protection +2, Golden Girdle (Girdle of Slashing +3); Weapons: Two-Handed Sword +3 (World’s Edge), **, Pole Axe +2 (Kilther)** (Two-Handed Weapon Style**, Axe**), Gauntlet of Weapons Expertise; Items: Boots of Valor (AC +4 vs Blunt), Ring of Fire Resistance (Batalista’s Passport); Special Abilities: Absorb Health, Aura of Despair, Poison Weapon (2); Spells: None; Skills; None; High-Level Abilities: None
Vynd: NE Thief (Drow Assassin)/10 (HP 61 ); Armor: Studded Leather +3, Cloak of Protection +1, Gauntlets of Dexterity; Weapons: Long Sword +1* (2), Darts +1* (Dart*, Long Sword*, Short Sword*, Two-Weapon Style*); Items: Boots of Speed (Paws of the Cheetah); Special Abilities: Poison Weapon (2), Set Snare (2); Spells: None; Skills; OL 35, FT 25 PP 45, MS 90, HS 90, DI 10, ST 75, BS x 5; High-Level Abilities: None
Vienxay: NE Mage/Thief (Shadowmage)//8/8 (HP 29); Armor: Robe of the Evil Arch-Magi, Cloak of Protection +1; Weapons: Dagger +4* (D’Raavhen’s Fang), Dart of Ice +1*; Items: Courier’s Boots, Ring of Invisibility (Sandthief’s Ring), Mystic Ring, Vienxay’s Silk Gloves; Special Abilities: Shadowjump, Set Snare (2); Spells: Minor Sequencer, Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere, Stoneskin, Fireball, Haste, Lightning Bolt, Slow, Blur, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Web, Magic Missile, Blindness, Charm Person, Chromatic Orb; Skills: OL 80, FT 70, PP 45, MS 85, HS 90, DI 15, ST --, BS x 2; High-Level Abilities: None
Baeloth: CE Sorcerer/9 (HP 46); Armor: Robe of the Grand Wizard, Bracers of Defense AC6, Amulet of Protection +1, Cloak of Displacement, Crown of the Alarphon; Weapons: Quarter Staff +3 (Staff of Striking +3), Dart of Ice +1*; Items: Ring (Barrityl’s Burden); Special Abilities: None; Spells: Greater Malison (4), Melf’s Meteors (6), Spell Thrust (6), Melf’s Acid Arrow (6), Magic Missile (6), Icelance (6), Detect Invisibility (6), Globe of Darkness (6), Horror (6), Blindness (6), Chromatic Orb (6), Expeditious Retreat (6), Spook (6), Ice Storm (4); Skills; None; High-Level Abilities: None
MOD USED: Convenient Enhanced Edition NPCs v4.0, Ajantis BG1 v15, NPC Aura BG1, BG1 NPC Project v24-8, BG1 Romantic Encounters V4, BGEE NPC Tweaks, BG Quests and Encounters v22, Brage’s Redemption v4, Tweaks Anthology Beta 4, Deities of Faerun v1.9.7.6.1, Distinguishable Clubs, Divine Remix v8 Beta, NPC Drake, Dark Side of the Sword Coast v102, NPC Emily BG1, NPC Finch v4.0 Beta 7, NPC Gavin V14, NPC Glam Pack v3, I Hate Undead Kitpack v3.8
Wyrme sets her drink down and rounds up Gorion. He looks a bit tired and explains that he had a bad time last night and that he doesn't want to talk about it. Wyrme knows the drill so shuts up and gets on with it vowing to avenge his death after another disastrous encounter in the woods. She gets as far as dealing with basilisks and sirines before thinking about looking into the problems at Nashkel Mine. By the time she reaches Berrun Ghastkill all he wants to tell her about is a recent visitor.
Wyrme: Yes yes but you have a job for me to do.
Berrun: Maybe later says Berrun. Let me tell you about Uvweo.
Wyrme: Uvwho??
Berrun: Exactly. He's a low profile undead hunter and he turned up unexpectedly wielding a bastard sword until purchasing a magical one from Feldepost's Inn. Siding with Seniyad and his druids gave him the Kondar bastard sword. Shield-wise he started with a large shield before using Buckley's Buckler and lugging the unused magical large shield around. Eventually he started dual-wielding swords.
Wyrme: Oh, Uvweo. Yes I've heard of him (never heard of him). Remind me where he's buried.
Berrun: See, well that's the thing. I hear after he sorted out our mine he enhanced our standing by flooding Cloakwood Mine.
Wyrme: Ah, yep. Paladin's don't float so good.
Berrun: No, no. He got out of there, even went into Baldur's Gate. That was before he came back to Candlekeep, look here I bought a memento of his time down there.
(rumour is he uses potions of mind focusing to read green protection scrolls but here he used a potion of magic shielding to prevent being petrified)
Wyrme: Really. Let me guess he's a big lunk who'd make an impression at any coronation.
Berrun: You have met him then. Last I heard he'd detonated Rahvin and his gang with 5 arrows and Sarevok and his gang with 24 more (one arrow remaining)
Last anyone saw of him he was off to Amn.
Wyrme: In my experience that's the last we'll see of him.
The first 15 minutes of the session comprised of killing a few more NPCs and shopping (including buying find familiar, which I'd failed to learn in BGEE) before leaving Baldur's Gate.
On the road, I sorted out inventory before going to the Coast Way Woods to find a vampire - helping him out, with the aid of dispelling arrows for the mage and paralysation wand for the paladin, gained me a regeneration ioun stone.
After ignoring some orcs and trolls in an ambush area, I arrived back at the Coast Way Crossing. There, I just gave Takos his goods back en route to the bridge. Arriving there invisibly ensured I had plenty of time to duck behind the tent to wait for Caelar to call for a parley.
There was nothing of interest in the Troll Claw Woods, so I just ran through there to get to the Forest of Wyrms. I bypassed initial encounters there invisibly to get into the old temple. If you don't let Ziatar see you, he can be killed using area damage at your leisure - in this case wand fireballs did the trick.
I've learnt over and over again that half-measures are not likely to be sufficient against the Neothelid, so a potion of magic shielding, protection from poison, invisibility, stoneskin and absorption protected against him and his magical swords while scorchers did most of the damage to him.
Scorchers also dealt with a pair of aerial servants and running round while using those caught Akanna often enough to finish her off before she was finally ready to come out of her sanctuary to attack.
On the way out of the temple a first thrown dagger was perfectly aimed and proved too much for one green dragon.
I disdained the chance to work on another though in an ambush area on the way to Boareskyr Bridge. I tend to use firebreath potions there to finish Vichand off quickly, rather than just intimidate him to hand over his scroll. I didn't have any of those this time, but dispelling arrows made him vulnerable enough to die quite quickly - before the camp was alerted to the trouble.
Inside the fort I handed over the scroll, killed a dark wraith and used up some magical residue to create a quiver full of +3 arrows.
I then surrendered the fort to avoid a major fight - though you can't avoid fighting on the bridge.
Fight of the Day
Past glories count for little when you get to Boareskyr Bridge
Passing the guarding mage means crossing a sizeable ridge
He's pretty hard to shoot and has a good save versus spell
And summons fiery creatures, even though they are not from hell
You may think area damage will kill him before too long
But first will go the barrels and that's the end of your song
So if you want to be sure that victory will come at last
You need to find a reliable way to interrupt his cast
The best I've found is truly named - it's called by some Victor
It seems to be a humble ring, but it's really hard to ignore
It's magic blast is not a spell but a level 0 effect
That goes past mage-wrought globes designed to deflect
Amid the blasts dispelling arrows fly and the 4th of those does hit
Acid arrows follow on to force the mage to quit
He tries to cast a final time, but it's now too late
A final shot rolls a hit to leave him in checkmate
While concentrating on the mage I gave the guards a chance
To congregate around me in their fighting stance
For some PCs that could be something of a danger
But potion buffs and stoneskins are a true game changer
The guards themselves could barely strike
Which was a situation they did not like
Still less were they keen on being turned to toast
But all still succumbed to the scorcher roast
At the Coalition Camp I used the Spectacles to bring Nazramu to the Material Plane.
He offers very attractive prices for your surplus goods as well as some nice goodies of his own - like the Ring of Purity.
With Bwoosh and poison stashed in my bag I ignored a dead magic zone before running through Dead Man's Pass on the way to Dragonspear Castle. Normally I fight Skie's captors there, but with time running out I just sent them on their way.
At the Underground River, a potion of clarity provided protection while using wand scorchers on some myconids. The hour then ended with more scorchers for some spiders, with a new pair of boots protecting me against a web tangle there.
Bard L11, 78 HPs (incl, 6 from familiar), 388 kills
Comments
Realising that it was dangerous to hang around, we headed northwards clearing the area of hobgoblins as we did so.
We met three evil fishermen whom we slew.
In transit an ambush by bandits left me as the only survivor and I had to go to a temple to revive my friends.
I returned to deliver Tenya's bowl to her. She was as happy as you can expect a priestess of Umberlee to be.
We then killed a nearby ankheg before heading south again. in transit we killed a ghast and upon reaching High Hedge we were able to help Mellicamp.
In Beregost we calmed Marl down before heading south where we killed some ogrillon. We then delivered a letter one of them was carrying.
Further south I was badly hurt when assaulted by three Flaming Fist.
A spell by Nikko caused the third one to flee, so whilst we had some respite we cast healing spells before finishing him off.
Their armour was the best that I have seen so far, so those of us who could wear it did so.
We found some ankheg armour in Nashkel and proceeded to the carnival.
There we were assaulted by Zordral and we were getting worried about the outcome. Nikko then cast Prismatic Spray which was foolish as it caused Bentha to become hostile. We survived, but it caused our reputation to decrease by 7.
Heading south we agreed to help Prism with the result that Greywolf attacked. The guards at the mine assisted us and eventually we managed to hold him with a spell. After that his demise was certain.
Heading west we reunited Albert and Rufie, killed Vax and Zal, helped a dryad against Caldo and Krumm, took 'Drienne's cat to her, killed Ingot and some ogres guarding a bridge before raiding a cave where we found a tome that would improve my charisma.
Heading northwards we killed a polar bear and recieved a pair of boots as a reward. We then killed Neville before heading northward where we were able to help both an archaeologist and Brage.
Heading north-east he killed Teyngnan and his cohorts as well as some half-ogres.
In Beregost we killed both Silke and Karlat before heading off to take on Bassilus. Holst used "Hold person," and that spell proved highly effective.
We then found a ring of fire protection and shortly afterwards took Samuel to the FAI.
We went in search of Mutamin and in the process of dealing with him, we killed many basilisks.
Niko stopped Sil from using her disabling spells by using a venomous dagger.
Safana then joined us and to our embarrassment went on a thieving spree in both Beregost and Ulgoth's Beard.
She acquired Algernon's Cloak and several potions of defence in Beregost and when we moved on to the beard she similarly acquired potions, scrolls, a nifty hammer and a ring in Ulgoth's Beard.
We deemed it wise to take leave of her before she drew the attention of the guard.
Droth and Shoal proved easy to kill though Niko got badly hurt.
We returned Arcand's ring to him before fighting some more sirine.
One of them reduced my intelligence temporarilly to zero but the rest of my party came to my aid and subsequently merely had to wait the wearing off of the spell.
We have already bought some shopping including some more ankheg armour. However, it is now time to do more ankheg hunting to buy other needed items.
I'd like to say I've got my eye in on this kit but 'we' keep biting off more than can be chewed. The first incarnation of Wyrme didn't last long before getting held. The second incarnation thought a handful of snares would be enough to defeat Kirinhale only to see her survive and perform an instant domination.
Wyrme number 3 is made of luckier stuff though so I thought I'd record her progress to date and no doubt guarantee a reversal of fortune.
Minimal screenshots in BG:EE but one for Rahvin's gang and a second for Sarevok.
The next minor task is to remove Rayic Gethras. Wyrme sets snares outside his home and lures his mephits out with backstabs. This is cleanly done with minimal injury.
First "it's all over" moment:
A pair of stone golems on the second floor of Rayic's house are also vulnerable to snares but Wyrme is badly wounded and one more hit will kill her - so she gulps a potion of invisibility before regrouping to finish them off. That was close, with Wyrme thinking she was lucky to have a clear aura for gulping.
Second "it's all over" moment:
If the golems were hard work Rayic proves to be even more obstinate. Wyrme confirms a few thrown snares are ineffective with Rayic saving against them.
The sensible thing to do would be to retreat but Wyrme opts instead to have a go. Rayic is more than up to dealing with brash thieves though and the speed of his stun spell catches Wyrme out. Rayic follows up with a pair of deadly spells, each of which is plenty to kill many a thief. But not Wyrme. Not today.
(at the time, her saving throw vs spell was 2)
Eventually Wyrme gets fed up and switches to arrows of fire. Rayic finds his spells getting disrupted and Wyrme uses this extra time to shoot through the magely defences and convince Rayic to push up some daisies.
So with Rayic dead there is nothing stopping Wyrme from continuing work for Mae'Var. Apart from Sansuki requesting aid then getting into a fight with the berserk warrior. Wyrme discovers thugs are moving in too, and while her special snare incapacitates the vampires their effect (Otiluke) has drawn out the Cowled Wizards to enquire what kind of magic this is.
The annoying kind obviously.
With Sansuki angry and the vampires safely tucked away Wyrme decides not to bother with this bunch of problems.
Finally, these Otiluke snares might be worthwhile. Then again, they don't seem to stop Tanova from using her mind-control abilities. Wyrme saves against them and moves on once more - a failure to save from an Otiluke'd enemy would have been a gut-wrenching experience.
Current status, level 18. Wyrme is wearing the boots of stealth but has sold the shadow thief armour - preferring studded leather plus a Ring of Protection +2.
We dropped off Xzar and Montaron, Khaled and Jaheira in Nashkel before heading south where we were involved in an ambush, We tried to help Dorn by casting a healing spell, but it arrived too late. My party members were the only survivors. We then headed for the mines which turned out to be quite easy. We rescued Xan raided some caves killing a revenabt in the process before looking for a two handed sword. Upon finding it, we picked up Minsc and then Dynaheir.
We then headed for the Bandit Camp.
Having Minsc and Dynaheir with us made that quite easy.
We are now heading to Cloakwood.
I had been planning on buying an Archmage robe, but our gold was not sufficient for recharging my wand of fire as well. Indeed it was only just sufficient for the wand.
EDIT
I didn't notice that Minsc had been poisoned early enough to save him. The rest of us carried on until we had 8 wyvern tails, returned to the temple where Minsc was raised and we got the reward for the tail.
We then went to visit the Cloakwood Mine.
The upper areas were made easy using true sight, silence, and backstabbing mages with the venomous dagger.
Against Davaeornwe cast summon monsters. Davaeorn blasted a wolf with lightning bolt doing himself serious damage in the process. His only damaging spell to the party was a fireball which also badly hurt him - the advantage of getting up close and personal.
Due to me being a Cavalier, his final spell was ineffective.
We tried to rest twice in the ankheg area. This provided us with four more shells.
In transit we were ambushed twice by ankheg and we sold their shells at High Hedge.
At High Hedge we sold all our spare mage robes which just provided us with sufficient gold to buy the two archmage robes that we needed.
We sold other surplus equipment to buy the scrolls and potions and the parts of Kazaroth that we needed. We are now definitely poor but well equipped. We won't have to return there to sell anything as he now has nothing to tempt us to buy.
In Baldur's Gate we took no notice of the advice regarding Nemphre. This removed two evil mages from the city and provided us with experience as well.
We are currently working or way through the BG quests and not having any serious problems
Wyrme is stunned. Gaius is unable to follow up with more of his spells as multiple members of his party rapidly kill Wyrme.
---
Another instance of Wyrme sets off from Candlekeep and is making good progress until a real life distraction happens and the two battle horrors outside Durlag's Tower force another raised hand of defeat before attention returns.
Second Pocket Plane challenge and we again summoned five Fire Elementals to stop the barrier working. Tamoko was the only one following us outside, and although she was good enough for the Elementals it seemed, once Lord stepped in, not so much. I wanted to see how Lady coped with my evil twin, or was it now good twin? And she was being coy with just streaming Fire Elementals. So I cloned and buffed, and absolutely stomped my twin. Clone then summoned Deva, and they stomped the rest too. Got Regeneration as evil reward. This is much better than the Ascension good reward, as are all the evil rewards. For Paladin's it heals 18hp, or 36hp with Oil of Speed per round, 17 rounds.
We arrived Oasis Invisible, charmed Jamis with SoC and he was then killed. Got the Answerer +4 and didn't bother with the rest. Although Oasis is a bank, we had 200k gold, and almost nothing to spend it. In Amkethran we did some commerce and easily killed the Captain. Lady now got 9 apr Critical Strikes.
Human Draconis was Silenced out of sight, and casually hacked to 1hp. We then waited the Silence out, and summoned help. But after he changed to Dragon, his Death Field wiped our Skelis, Deva and Clone out. This was inconvenient, and Lord started to tank Dragonis, Lady protecting with RoR's. Draconis was a tough SoB, but after spending all HLA's and 11 RoR's he fell. Greater Werevyvern was killed in half a round, and the Lizard men were easily wiped. With GWW speed we ran past the next room. Summoned everybody, Farsighted Anadramatis, and they hacked him to near death without retaliation. Anadramatis then talked to us, challenged us, surrendered us, and was killed soon after. Got both the Wing Buffet ring and Yellow Dragon Scales, which can be made to Yellow Dragon Scale Armor with 50 Piercing and Missile Resistance. The Kuo-toa dungeon was absolutely massacred with 29 apr Critical Strikes.
The quadruple Dragon attack was pretty hilarious. We stoned the first three Dragons with just three strikes from the WoW, and the chance of this happening is 1/500. But we took it, Carnifex arrived and Lord kited him out some time, and he was then stoned too. Eyeball area was passed with Invisibility and Speed without fighting anybody, and we built the BMU. Fll'Yissetat was then stoned for the 12h Improved Invisibility ring.
Lord, Lady and the Blue Dragon. We entered the room and quickly backed up with Speed. Tamah and the Salamanders found us. And as Lord and Clone were concentrating on Tamah, Lady wiped Salamanders out with Wave +4. Tamah got near death and buggered off somewhere. Lady then lured the four Drakes out and Lord and Clone made short work of them too. We backed off to Pocket Plane and rested. After coming back, Tamah was there, but she still has that bug where she doesn't attack anymore. So we casually killed her. Now Abazigal was all alone.
We summoned everybody and they attacked Abazigal's human form, easily turning him in to a Blue Dragon. He Imprisoned my Deva, which was good thing, as it meant that he wasted that spell. After my summons were dead, Lord started tanking Abazigal, first Whirlwinding with Soul Reaver +4 to take Abas ability to hit back away. This was going nicely, but then he put Power Word Blind on Lord and I couldn't hit him anymore. I think this was because BMU is so big that it put just enough distance between us for Lord not to see Aba. Lady tried to Dispel it, but couldn't so I had to kite it out. After it was out I continued to hack with Soul Reaver. At this point fight was going well, and Aba was hitting with only 20's. Lady summoned 5 Elementals and attacked too, but got Mazed immediately. Lady came back to life and we started really hurting Aba, and he couldn't possibly survive 19 apr Criticals, and was dead soon after. First victory for Soul Reaver +4.
In the third Pocket Plane challenge Lord stomped the Slayer and got Dark Taint. In Sendai Enclave, the Woodcutter was Petrified with WoW, and then we sneaked in. Thelynn was killed in a round with 10 apr Criticals, and the next round Lord went Invisible. Lord was then surrounded by Drow's and couldn't move so he Smited a way through. But because Lord was no visible, we were surrounded in the next area too. It took some micromanagement to beat hoard of enemies, but in the end it was nothing we couldn't handle.
Yochol and the two Glabrezu's were lured away and hacked. For Odamaron we used three PfU's and he was then casually killed. In the next room we first lured the two Greater Earth Elementals away from Ogremoch, and killed them. The next part was the reason why we went the trouble of getting Blackrazor +3. With 20 apr Blackrazor's criticals Ogremoch was level drained in two rounds. Without it, Harm or Imprisonment, you would be in a world of hurt. SCS Ogremoch Dispels every hit and does 47 average crushing damage with 5 apr, and casts Earthquake that has Sleep -6 vs. Spell two rounds. But his absolute best party trick, if not in the whole game is, unlimited, undispellable, instant casting 12 Stoneskins. So you can't damage him other than through Stoneskins, because he has them always on.
Diyatha was lured away from the rest and easily killed, as was Captain Egeissag. We buffed accordingly against the Mind Flayers, Int to 60, AC vs Crushing, and pretty easily killed all before our HLA's were out. For the Mages we sent Deva Skeli party in, and they actually managed to kill all of them. Last rest in Pocket Plane before confronting Sendai.
For Sendai battle we first killed the Cleric statue. This is because it could summon Deva which then sees through Invisibility, and we wouldn't be able to escape to Pocket Plane. Our tactic was to kill a Drow and then go Invisible using hoarded Invisibility Potions, escape to Pocket Plane, rest and do the same again. There was no way of fighting them head on as the Drow have ridiculous Thac0 like -35 and use GWW's. Before using the first Invisibility Potions we managed to kill a Drow. Rested in Pocket plane, Lord buffed with Hardiness, Armor of Faith, Regeneration and Improved Haste. The second go Lord killed two Drow's before again going Invisible to Pocket Plane to rest. And we repeated the same tactic until only one statue was alive. Summoned help and we wasted the it. Real Sendai arrived and summoned a Planetar. Deva started fighting the it, and Lady kept Deva alive with RoR. Lord and Clone in the mean time hunted Sendai, and couple rounds after her PfMW ended, and she got killed.
Fourth Pocket Plane challenge and the Favored of Cyric were easily pushed away, and Lord got Hand of Murder. Even Evil can convince Balty to join the fight against Melissan with 2-2-3-2-1-1-1-3-3-1-1-2-1 dialogue choices. In LoB/SCS/Ascension the Ravager has 1682hp, -23AC, -22 Thac0, 75DR, and is immune to pretty much everything except +4 weapons, and Harm. He also has melee weapon that Dispels every hit. We started the fight again with the summon door trick, and lured the Boneblades to other room. Once we were sure they didn't follow us, we attacked the Ravager. With few Soul Reaver GWW's and it was pretty much powerless punching bag. And just when our HLA's were out it died. Lord got 25 DR as Evil reward.
We needed some distraction and summoned Neera for her guestline. After getting ambushed and Neera getting killed in few seconds, we managed to kill the opposition. But as we killed the last enemy I forgot that we get teleported to another battle straight away. We were already pretty beaten from the first battle, and barely managed to beat the second Yuan-ti horde, we only had 5 charges left in 3 RoR's combined. That would've been pretty stupid place to end the run. Nevertheless we got to the market place, and we bought Golden Girdle, Cloak of the Lich, second Wand of Wonder, recharged our stuff and killed the Priest for fourth RoR. Szass Tam is the Spell Caster in the game. Although he doesn't have Imprisonment he had no less than 5 Time Stops after Wishing his spells back twice. Lord was couple times badly injured after Szass released Impossible amount of hurt during the Time Stops. We crew tired of kiting him around the market place, summoned everybody, and they were able to hurt him enough, so he teleported us back. Throne of Bhaal awaits.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143755/#Comment_1143755
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1144203/#Comment_1144203
I got rather bored with party play going through SoA, but have finally finished it. Most of it felt fairly straightforward, though I did get into trouble in the Underdark. Incidents there included 2 characters being imprisoned and a couple of stonings in addition to a number of deaths. I also lost access to the drow quests unexpectedly when I told Solaufein to go back to the City while I dealt with a deep gnome patrol - only to find him appearing out of thin air again to accuse me when I tried to settle for just a helmet. I hadn't been conscious of pissing him off, so am not sure what happened there. That did though save me from a potentially dangerous lich encounter, as I couldn't get into that tower despite going on to kill everything in the City.
As usual, I was waiting to level up until each character could do so in each of his classes. That made a particular difference with the big gap from 750k to 1.5m for the druid and the loss of saving throws from that was part of the reason for struggling in the Underdark. The main cause though was not preparing carefully for encounters. While that would be quickly fatal when playing solo, you can obviously get away with a lot more with a party and, thus far, I have got away with it
I eventually got to take up to 6 levels for each character by finishing off Bodhi, which made for a nice jump in power. I probably also concentrated more after that and had no difficulties in finishing off the remainder of SoA.
Of course, with the huge XP gap to get another druid level, any more levels for the party will take a long time
Kills to date:
Indie - F TN half-elf F/D (18(94),18,18,8,18,15) used intelligence and wisdom Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-140, TotSC-25, IWD1-377, SoA-356
Brutan - M CN dwarf F/Cl (18(00),17,19,10,18,2) used constitution Blunt weapons, missile weapons Kills: BG1-193, TotSC-23, IWD1-393, SoA-322
Nipal - M CG dwarf F/T (18(00),17,19,11,3,10) used dexterity Blunt weapons, bow Kills: BG1-285, TotSC-56, IWD1-384, SoA-299
Chila - M CG elf F/M (18(00),19,17,18,3,9) Axe, bow Kills: BG1-208, TotSC-34, IWD1-409, SoA-310
Hapan - M CE gnome F/T (18(00),18,18,11,2,8) Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-161, TotSC-23, IWD1-232, SoA-298
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143755/#Comment_1143755
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1144203/#Comment_1144203
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1145569/#Comment_1145569
Heart of Winter, like IWD in general, is by nature a bit of a slog - but at least it's a relatively short slog
The final thrust through the Ice Palace was a bit more hassle than I expected. My standard tactics were using mainly missiles in fights, though Indie often tanked in order to reduce the amount of movement required. However, I hadn't realized there was no way to get back to Lonelywood to resupply once the party had been put on a boat by Hjollder - so I made rather more use of melee, stealth and magic while working forward to find and deal with the dragon.
Kills to date:
Indie - F TN half-elf F/D (18(94),18,18,8,18,15) used intelligence and wisdom Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-140, TotSC-25, IWD1-377, SoA-356, HoW-85
Brutan - M CN dwarf F/Cl (18(00),17,19,10,18,2) used constitution Blunt weapons, missile weapons Kills: BG1-193, TotSC-23, IWD1-393, SoA-322, HoW-66
Nipal - M CG dwarf F/T (18(00),17,19,11,3,10) used dexterity Blunt weapons, bow Kills: BG1-285, TotSC-56, IWD1-384, SoA-299, HoW-88
Chila - M CG elf F/M (18(00),19,17,18,3,9) Axe, bow Kills: BG1-208, TotSC-34, IWD1-409, SoA-310, HoW-78
Hapan - M CE gnome F/T (18(00),18,18,11,2,8) Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-161, TotSC-23, IWD1-232, SoA-298, HoW-58
This is somewhat unexpected and I go for the exit rather than think about matters. More on that in a moment.
She runs the length of the room heading for the stairs and almost makes the relative safety offered there (after previous encounters she has six snares pre-set in case he follows).
Rayic has cast Horror though and today Wyrme has an inadequate save vs spell of 5. Panic sets in giving ample time to save against another spell or two until failing against a stun and being easy prey to more spells. The first of these is enough to kill off another Bounty Hunter and the hindsight post-mortem concludes one of her four oils of speed would easily have got her downstairs.
---
Wyrme contemplates becoming a gnome, having started her earliest travels as a halfling but after checking her skills remains a dwarf. Gorion agrees to escort her outside Candlekeep and so her journey starts once more. A mere evening later she is stood outside Cloakwood mine hoping not to make another mistake.
First though, a break by joining todays Trio - where we start in Rayic's house and I can't help but groan loudly at revisiting the last two fails at my solo game( to the probable amusement of @Grond0 and @Corey_Russell ).
Siri - male, elf enchanter (Grond0)
Kencore - male, half-orc kensai (Corey_Russell)
Thwaka - female, half-orc assassin (Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1141650/#Comment_1141650
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1142638/#Comment_1142638
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143640/#Comment_1143640
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1144427/#Comment_1144427
@Gate70 had no need to be concerned about Rayic as we'd already killed him in the previous session, so we were able to quickly run through the remainder of Mae'Var's tasks (very quick with 3 players, where one can cover the inn, another Edwin and the third Mae'Var). Dealing with the guild was no trouble and Kencore picked up an early level there.
Next we headed to Gaelan Bayle to pay up in order to get some level drain protection. The need for that was immediately emphasized when Sansuki cried out for help. A vampire got a lick in on Kencore, but his flashing purple axe took down Del and his supporters with only that single touch on him.
Siri noticed he was lacking a potion bag and, with the Amulet of Power now available, felt any vampiric wraiths there should be manageable. On arrival though, he got a bit ambitious by mixing it up in melee with some undead - trying to protect the others from wraiths. That resulted in paralysis from a shadow fiend, but his stoneskins kept him alive long enough for Azuredge to chew through the attackers.
Thwaka's limited skill points have largely gone on stealth and he sat staring at a FoD trap for a long time, nerving himself up to taking the 50% chance of death involved in opening it. Meanwhile Siri annoyed a couple of guardian golems and occupied their attention from the other side of a doorway, while the golems failed to notice the more dangerous Kencore cutting them down from behind.
With nothing more needed there for the moment, the others were ready to leave - but Siri was keen to try a bit more mayhem on the statues. The first pair were easy enough, but the group of four proved a bit more difficult. Siri had hoped to blind the archer, but 5 attempts at that all failed and Kencore had to chug down a bunch of potions to keep himself going while providing a target for the opposition.
Back in Athkatla, we took a first trip to the Bridge District. Initially Thwaka collected the berserk warrior, while the others dealt with the kidnappers. Then they joined forces to assault the Rune Assassins. Siri went down invisibly to tank the first Rune with his stoneskins, while Kencore dealt with the ghasts and Thwaka sneaked round to kill the first Rune with a backstab. Perfection would have involved the second Rune being immediately blinded. That didn't happen and he got an attack in on Thwaka, but a second attempt succeeded to ensure a still comfortable victory. It looked like that would result from a missile attack, but Thwaka had other ideas and a race was on
The next intended destination was the de'Arnise Hold, but Renfeld got in the way there. Coming back to the Bridge District, Siri sized up Prebek's house and concluded a skull trap would fill the room nicely.
At the Keep things progressed well early on, with a few skeletons helping out against the main group of trolls downstairs. Outside though, there was a reminder of Kencore's fragility against attackers. After lowering the drawbridge, he led the attack on the courtyard. At the end of that Siri was just admiring Thwaka's 124 damage backstab to sort out the yuan-ti, when he noticed something missing - or perhaps he noticed something new in the large pile of loot on the ground.
Despite the good backstabs, Thwaka had been offering up more than his fair share of critical misses and there was another of those on the yuan-ti mage upstairs.
Enchanter - L12, 45 HPs (incl. 12 from familiar), 105 kills (98 in BGEE)
Assassin - L13, 69 HPs, 65 kills (187 in BGEE), 3 deaths
Kensai - L11, 109 HPs, 158 kills (199 in BGEE), 2 deaths
Kencore dominated that session thanks to regular use of Azuredge and being the main trollkiller and is on course to get over 50% of the party kills.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143755/#Comment_1143755
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1144203/#Comment_1144203
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1145569/#Comment_1145569
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1145728/#Comment_1145728
Early on in Trials of the Luremaster Brutan got hit repeatedly by a whirlwind and killed. That looked like being a pain as he was the only one that could cast raise dead, but fortunately the party that killed him had a raise dead scroll that Indie could use. There were no more problems getting into the Keep, but I didn't bother scouting or using summons there and was thus caught cold when coming across a beholder. That used a range of nasty effects and I was lucky when Brutan saved against a disintegrate - but he then failed immediately afterwards against petrification, just before the beholder died. I thought that could be remedied by Tobet's spells, but the statue crumbled and Brutan was shown as having died a few seconds later without having been the target of anything else - I'm not sure why.
Though I had no immediate means to restore Brutan, I had a vague feeling that healing was available in the dungeon, so pressed on. The remainder of the Keep was cleared without further trouble, but immediately after entering the dungeon itself those dratted beholders struck again. Nipal was scouting ahead when a door near him sprang open by itself - revealing a beholder. Nipal tried briefly to close the door again, but that wasn't possible. Worse than that, like the BG variety, this beholder had the nasty habit of being able to target invisible enemies with their gaze even without actually looking at them. Nipal tried to run to get back to the others by the entrance, but was felled by a death ray - which, not content with killing him, chunked him as well.
Up to this point in the overall run I've been following all my standard rules for party play - and those would mean abandoning the run when any character is chunked. However, given the additional difficulty of trying to survive through multiple games (and my lack of desire to play through the old versions of the games again) I decided to cut myself a bit of slack and continued on
Lots of easy enough fights followed while working through the puzzles to get to the final confrontation with the Luremaster. I initially thought it was necessary to kill all the spirit heroes and thus made a mistake there of not concentrating on the Luremaster. The fight became much more difficult when he dispelled everyone's buffs and then Indie was killed by several bounces from a lightning bolt.
The surviving members of the party ended with a bit over 1.4m each, still some way short of the level bonanza they would have got for hitting 1.5m.
Kills to date:
Indie - F TN half-elf F/D (18(94),18,18,8,18,15) used intelligence and wisdom Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-140, TotSC-25, IWD1-377, SoA-356, HoW-85, TotLM-68
Brutan - M CN dwarf F/Cl (18(00),17,19,10,18,2) used constitution Blunt weapons, missile weapons Kills: BG1-193, TotSC-23, IWD1-393, SoA-322, HoW-66, TotLM-78
Nipal - M CG dwarf F/T (18(00),17,19,11,3,10) used dexterity Blunt weapons, bow Kills: BG1-285, TotSC-56, IWD1-384, SoA-299, HoW-88, TotLM-12
Chila - M CG elf F/M (18(00),19,17,18,3,9) Axe, bow Kills: BG1-208, TotSC-34, IWD1-409, SoA-310, HoW-78, TotLM-95
Hapan - M CE gnome F/T (18(00),18,18,11,2,8) Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-161, TotSC-23, IWD1-232, SoA-298, HoW-58, TotLM-78
Rumbal (male elf ranger, Gate70); Indy (male elf dragon disciple, Grond0)
After our somewhat lucky opening session we settle in for the not-so-long haul and see what we can cross off the to-do list. As a reminder, we have emptied our backpacks of loot following a circuit round the basilisk map.
A couple of quick tasks sees us deal with a house of spiders and pick up our golden pantaloons before restoring Melicamp from his paltry chicken state
We have no clear decision over whether to head west and play with sirines or to the east where Durlag's Tower looms. We'll make a start with the sirines, and thanks to a potion of clarity that is quickly completed.
By this time Indy has got away from the flesh golem and it isn't where we expect. Several minutes are spent searching the entire map meaning we have to fight various hobgoblins and wolves. Eventually Rumbal suggests we go invisible and only break it once we find our target. That takes a few minutes more and we are sorely tempted to call the golem a winner in hide-and-seek. Here's the reward.
Rumbal assumes Indy has Protection from Petrification available, while that is not the case we have several options to hand and invisibility > skulltrap is augmented by web > blindness as required. The roof of the tower is soon cleared of basilisks. To whom do we address the bill??
Rumbal prefers to keep his boots of stealth so Indy takes the boots of speed and we make our way through Cloakwood mine. After killing a brace of ghasts Indy turns invisible while Rumbal bashes a cell door and charges downstairs oblivious to the fact that the bash + open of the door have broken his stealth. Five guards and three hobgoblin archers take aim at Rumbal.
Indy is positioning to try and cast a spell but finding it difficult to make it just-so (Rumbal suspects "just-so" involves how to drop a skulltrap onto him so suggests Indy remain hidden as these eight enemies won't be much of a problem. That turns out to be correct for once and Indy remains hidden until the next level when Davaeorn's final guard wants trouble. We give him what he wants.
Rumbal talks about gulping a potion of magic blocking to deal with Davaeorn but Indy pulls him up by suggesting we deal with the pair of battle horrors first. Oh yeah, them.
Rumbal tries to draw the battle horrors one at a time but keeps seeing both together. After 3 or 4 lucky escapes where he retreats before they see him he realises he is in the shadows. Silly ranger.
Indy has been patiently waiting before suggesting fireballs could soften up the battle horrors. Rumbal agrees and after several fireballs obliterate the battle horrors and slightly toast Davaeorn Rumbal asks if Indy was using a wand - confirmed.
Rumbal hides in shadows and scouts around to Davaeorn. A slight mis-time on our part sees Indy fire Magic Missiles before Rumbal emerges from shadows to attack. As the missiles land Rumbal strikes, and Davaeorn cannot counter our combined attack.
- Poisoned by Marek, killing him to obtain the cure
- Convincing Larze these aren't the Bhaalspawn you're after
- Handing over a random Sphene gem to G'axir the seer
- Retrieving a ring for Petrine and her cat
- Returning a dagger to Quinn
- Picking up the Helm of Balduran, unfortunately Degrodel and his guardians have all been pre-deceased
- Releasing a nymph by killing Ragefast
- Getting Tremain's son breathing once more so he and Varci can run amok elsewhere
- Trying to return some gauntlets to Noralee only to find Indy sold them
- A lack of ennui for Desreta and Vay-ya
- Covering a warehouse in skulltrap fragments and dead greater basilisk so it needs a deep-clean
There should be plenty more to do next time, if we're up to it.
Rumbal is a level 7 ranger, while Indy is a level 8 Dragon Disciple.
She makes short work of Shoal the nereid and repeated starts have led to optimising thieving abilities when levelling up. Previously she started with 65 in locks, and spread updates to locks + traps + move silently + set traps.
The last two runs have seen locks reduced to 60 (which still allows looting the Candlekeep gem - this is optional and I may try lower than 60 if she dies again). Plus limiting updates to move silently + set traps until they reach about 85 and then increasing the other two. This makes locks and traps more difficult but hiding to rest and throwing in bounty hunter snares both become better and the game can proceed quicker as a result.
Basilisks and sirines were completed before switching back to Nashkel Mine and Cloakwood Mine. Then back to Durlag's Tower and on into Baldur's Gate.
When sent back to Candlekeep a brief sortie to Gorion's old room was made to pick up his letter. Draw Upon Holy Might was just enough to deal with all the traps and locks in the Catacombs so Wyrme didn't have to resort to her sole potion of perception.
Slythe and Krystin took a dispelling arrow each (first two of the session).
Armed with copious notes and a journal it was time to attend the Coronation. Wyrme usually takes a few darts of stunning with her but didn't think they had helped much so went without them. She duly laid her snares over 2 visits with a rest in between (these Coronations go on and on...) and realised she had no potions of mind focusing today. Never mind, potions of defence + speed + power should be adequate.
(I am always nervous about the Coronation but Wyrme has breezed through it repeatedly)
Today though the seven snares all hit one doppelganger - and Wyrme has also shot at it. This doppelganger is dead immediately but the rest have a good start. Before Wyrme can make her next attack both Belt and Liia are taking damage.
One doppelganger is attacking Wyrme but she ignores it to try and give Belt a fighting chance. As Liia dies the doppelgangers attacking her switch their attention to Belt.
Wyrme is beginning to panic but that won't help anyone. She keeps plugging away, switching targets as they die and also as one panics. Maybe the darts actually helped before, or maybe the first doppelganger changed quicker than previously.
Belt is on his last legs as the final remaining attacker slumps to the floor, and Wyrme races to the eastern stairwell to make sure the last doppelganger doesn't survive it's panic. A couple of arrows are enough to kill it.
Rahvin does not like that and sends his ogre buddy after Wyrme, but a few arrows cut him down before Wyrme returns to backstab Rahvin. The rest of his party (Shaldrissa, Wudei, Haseo, Carston) all failed to survive the initial snarefest.
Tamoko survives a few snares and one hit but not a follow-up backstab a couple of rounds later.
On to Sarevok, laying a few snares and removing two of theirs on the western wall. Wyrme opts for a scroll of Protection from Magic before sniping at Sarevok from the shadows. She misses with her third arrow of dispelling of the game so retreats. Her fourth arrow of dispelling hits so she switches to arrows of ice.
Semaj arrives and lands on a cluster of snares. He's survived every time to date, but today he is not so fortunate and Wyrme doesn't have to shoot him down.
Sarevok is still quick enough to be a nuisance though, so Wyrme gulps potions (speed > perception > power) to help her run and hide. A mixture of backstabs and arrows is more than Sarevok can handle and Wyrme is ready to head to Amn. She's left the magic ring (from Koveras) in her gem bag borrowed from the still-alve Neera though, so that may or may not travel with her.
Equipment and stats:
Journal entries:
Wyrme just has topay attention and not to be caught out again by Del, Tanova, Rayic Gethras, a stone golem, Gaius, or a host of other delights.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143755/#Comment_1143755
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1144203/#Comment_1144203
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1145569/#Comment_1145569
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1145728/#Comment_1145728
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1145863/#Comment_1145863
Sigh - perhaps I should have called it quits when Nipal got chunked in TotLM. Possibly lingering discontent about that gave rise to a lack of concentration, but more likely it was the result of paying more attention to a cricket match on the radio than what was happening in the game
When the mage died I switched the general attack to the sapper and then glanced at the status of the party - and saw Tobet had only a sliver of health left. I became aware of that just too late though as, before I could even make a stab at the pause button, that sliver had disappeared.
I was expecting to get through ToB, but thought I would be likely to have problems in IWD2 - which I am both least familiar with and don't like much. Oh well, those problems will have to wait for a future occasion ...
Throne of Bhaal. Starting the fight Balty cast Lunar Stance for Time Stop Immunity, and Lord started to Whirlwind the Solar's with Ravager +6, which for us was the only easy way of killing them. Balty almost killed Bodhi during Jon's Time Stop, and soon after she was out. Lord managed to Kill (13) both Solar's with two Whirlwinds. Jon was easily being the most difficult one, casting PfMW's and Magical Swords over and over. But eventually he couldn't last Balty's constant attack and fell too. With Balty on our side pools were very easy smacking, as he's freaking awesome. He's immune to pretty much everything nasty. He also has 8 apr +4 fists and with Solar Stance does 27 average damage. He has 127 MR and 90 Elemental resistance, and can use Flip Resistances to get 90 DR. The best form here is Flip Resistance and Solar Stance as it still gives 127 Fire Resistance against Balor's.
Lord, Lady and Balty vs. the Big Six. In the first round Lord Charmed Sarevok with the Control Circlet, Lady PfM'd Abazigal and tied Illasera's Dispel bow with Reflection Shield, and Balty attacked Abazigal and Gromnir with 90 DR. Second round Lord PfM'd Sendai who Sarevok attacked. Lord took Yaga with 95 undispellable Crushing resistance. At this moment it seemed like a home run. Not so much, as both Sendai and Abazigal could cheat, and cast spells through PfM, and summoned both a Deva and a Planetar. And the Planetar especially was wreaking havoc. We tried fighting back, and it was round by round survival, Lord once going low as 30 hp. As Abazigal Mazed lady and both Celestials were coming at Lord, it was time for Fail Safe. Lord Teleported to one of the pools and started keeping Sarevok alive with the RoR. This was the most important thing, because if one of Big Six dies, and others are still full health, chance's to kill rest of them and Melissan together are slim to none.
But then something finally went our way. Control Circlet has undispellable Charm, but there's a way to recover from it. Sarevok had a moral failure, and that made him neutral, and then enemy as he recovered from that. Now Lord didn't need to waste anymore RoR's on him. Lady died, Lord picked up the Reflection Shield, and Balty also Teleported to one of the pools. As the Bix Six all have homing beacon they tried to access to the pool Lord was, but couldn't because they were closed. Lord first baited their spells out, and then casually first Frag Grenaded them, then tuned their health with Pulse Ammunition to around 30 hp. 20 hp is the cut off when they die, and Melissan arrives. Buffed up with Hardiness and AoF, both Balty and Lord Teleported back in, and stomped the Bix Six in couple rounds. Melissan arrived, Lord hit Focus against Time Stop. Balty attacked Melissan and Lord Teleported to one of the pools. This is important because the two Solars will wreak havoc, and Heal Melissan if they see her.
Balty got killed during a Time Stop, and Melissan Teleported on to Lord. Lord welcomed her with Rift Device, Dispelling her and taking 60% of her health away. And it was time for the ultimate brawl. It took a while, me constantly keeping eye on our saves, as Melissan has GWW's and -2 save penalty per hit for 2 rounds, together with Stun -4 vs. Polymorph for 3 rounds, which could end us. With -13 vs. Polymorph we were relatively safe. With FoA +5 and DoEH we used all our HLA's, 8 Critical Strikes, 2 GWW's, Smite, Regeneration and Hand of Murder. And soon after that Melissan was finally smacked out of existence.
The fight with Melissan went smoother than expected, with no additional minions or Time Stops. Lord then relinquished the essence of Bhaal and became a true Cavalier once more, all was good again. The end justifies the means, right?
Well, we had laid a full set of traps for Thaxxy, and it did get him to near death, however Thaxxy didn't die first - Corethief XXVIII died 1st to level drains. We couldn't quite finish Thaxxy off. Back to the drawing board!
Escaped from the chateau. Yep
Caught out by Del. Nope, snares got the better of her
Tanova. Not encountered her
Rayic Gethras and his golems. Dealt with more carefully this time
Gaius. A backstab sorted him out and his buddies fell to snares and backstabs
A host of other delights. Wyrme has acquired her own thieving stronghold and liberated the ring of Gaxx for her own use. One oil of speed was used to finish off Del's minions, and a second used to kill the sea troll underneath the temple district.
The extra speed certainly helps so Wyrme heads into the Planar Prison in search of hasted boots. She might just have managed it if she hadn't tried to backstab the mage nearest to her. Enemy true sight conspires to keep her visible and she is unable to defeat Aawill and co.
(I checked a couple more times and fleeing north or east of the party makes for an escape where a bounty hunter can come out on top)
Wyrme chats with Winthrop, taking a small break as another character leaves town instead.
---
Claude the shapeshifter got as far as wishing he didn't run into Lamahla and the amazons. One of his two woodland beings became confused while Claude got himself held in melee instead of standing back to cast spells. He had the greenstone amulet by this time but was only really considering use of it against the trapped tome container in Durlag's Tower.
---
Another day or so later Wyrme puts her tankard down and picks up her gear for another attempt.
Entering challenge with a 5 MP characters - sixth slot will be NPC thief - presumably Imoen in BG 1 and Yoshimo/Imoen in BG 2/ToB. Here is the protagonist:
Since dispelling arrows are rather useless in ToB (unlike vanilla) due to EE changes, will be fighters with inquisitors to dispel enemy defenses. There are two in case one of them get chunked. Two berserkers will lead the way, and Yeldan II will bravely throw bullets at everyone from the rear. NPC thief will handle trap duties. Here are the MP characters if interested:
Not a lot has been done so far (we are all level 2). Mostly basic Nashkel/Beregost quests, and heading to Gnoll Fortress to get the gauntlets of dexterity for one of the dwarven berserkers of the party. No deaths so far. Will keep at it.
Traveling with:
Forrest - dwarven berserker
Joshua - dwarven berserker
April - human inquisitor
Sarah - human inquisitor
Imoen - human thief
The party has made very rapid progress - this is common in a party of fighters/paladins, as many fights can be auto-attack. They aren't as time intensive as caster types are. In any case, the party got through Chapter 7 in flying colors. Using haste and strength and magic protection buffs, we destroyed Semaj and Sarevok very quickly - maybe as fast as 3 rounds. The MP characters (which is everyone but Imoen) are off to Amn!
In Amn, anyone can join, though until someone gets chunked, intend to only recruit Yoshimo and Imoen. If an inquisitor gets chunked for sure will recruit Keldorn. If a fighter gets chunked will recruit either Mazzy or Korgan.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1142354/#Comment_1142354
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1142571/#Comment_1142571
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143220/#Comment_1143220
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143383/#Comment_1143383
After a month or so of waiting for the Coronation to finally begin I managed a session this morning. After the extended preparation time the fight at the palace proved simple - summons and chaos meaning the dopplegangers didn't make much inroads on the dukes.
PfU and MGoI took care of the major threats in the maze on the way to the Undercity. Rahvin's party were webbed there and none of them were able to break free before dying.
Fight of the day
Sarevok's a bonny fighter, but suffers from weak eyes
Shooting at him from long range is therefore a surprise
Withdraw at once, whether hit or miss, will be your best position
At least, that is, if you wish to reduce your opposition
With minor globe already active in case of webs or clouds
Activate your invisibility to avoid the crowds
Inch forward once more and you will see descending from the stage
Sarevok, no longer calm, but turning red with rage
Angelo and Tazok can now be safely left alone
But Semaj, while just a mage, has rather more backbone
He'll teleport out to investigate what is going on
And if you've left some traps for him - he'll be simply gone
Sarevok, now with no help, can be shot at once again
With equal speeds, both fleet of foot, you can still avoid some pain
By circling round the pillars 'til you've made a little space
Just enough to give the chance to shoot him in the face
The odds are now all stacked against the big, but clumsy, man
So take your choice of bow or spells, or anything else you can
And when at last he's nearly dead, you can decide at leisure
What form of execution would provide you with most pleasure
In the starting dungeon for SoD, I bought some items from the Flaming Fist cleric - the scrolls of greater restoration being the main target there. Moving on quickly, I went to find Porios while invisible and intimidated him into surrendering.
In Baldur's Gate I sold items carried through from BGEE for about 45k, but was still greedy for more - so started in on the NPCs. The hour ticked over to save Minsc for now, but he's for the chop next time.
Bard L10, 70 HPs, 349 kills
Wyrme drew their ogre away and backstabbed him, but her next attack saw Shaldrissa cast Remove Magic and Wudei cast hold person.
Wyrme had retreated and hidden in shadows. She had time and items to do any one of these actions
- Leave the area and return to the maze
- Gulp a potion of Invisibility
- Gulp a potion of Magic Shielding (guaranteed save vs hold)
- Use a Protection from Magic scroll (one of three)
- Use the Edventars Gift ring to gain free action
- Use a potion of Magic resistance to see if 75% resistance would be enough
- Use a potion of Magic Blocking
- Use a potion of Freedom
She did none of these things, and found herself held at the edge of the area.
Haseo had followed with his long sword, and Rahvin with his bow. Once Wyrme emerged from the shadows she was powerless to stop these two enemies cutting her down.
Her next incarnation sulked sulkily and didn't appear for at least 24 hours, then when it did she decided to have a drink while another adventurer tried their luck. Who that is she doesn't know yet but they'll make a start over the weekend.
Traveling with:
Forrest - dwarven berserker
Joshua - dwarven berserker
April - human inquisitor
Sarah - human inquisitor
Yoshimo - human bounty hunter
The party is making good progress. Thanks to Captain Dennis, entire party now has full plate. However, Captain Dennis gave us quite a beating as you can see.
Will keep at it.
Siri - male, elf enchanter (Grond0)
Kencore - male, half-orc kensai (Corey_Russell)
Thwaka - female, half-orc assassin (Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1141650/#Comment_1141650
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1142638/#Comment_1142638
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143640/#Comment_1143640
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1144427/#Comment_1144427
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1145854/#Comment_1145854
The first action of the day was finishing off the de'Arnise Hold by going to find TorGal. An initial attack on him looked to have done far more than the necessary HPs to put him down, but he was feeling stubborn. After leaving him alone for a bit, while we killed his giant troll friends, we attacked again and this time he caved.
Next up was Trademeet. We didn't do much shopping there, but just pushed on with the quests. There was an easy ride to restore the Grove, relying on Cernd to snack on Faldorn.
Moving on to Umar Hills, Kencore inquired gently what options we had to provide hold immunity. He was answered with a sword in his gutbackpack and quickly off-handed Arbane to provide defense against a mimic.
Back in Umar Hills we went to get Valygar's body. His ranger friends ended a recent run, so I was a bit more cautious there this time - sending in the golem as a distraction while Siri unlimbered his skull traps.
The session had pointed up the potential advantage of having a rod of resurrection, so the next destination was the Temple sewers. The rakshasa there provided a cloak for Thwaka, giving her a way to regenerate her HPs once a day.
Emerging from Mekrath's rooms, we've triggered both true sights from Gaius and Tarnor's party is likely to be an early casualty next time.
Enchanter - L13, 46 HPs (incl. 12 from familiar), 136 kills (98 in BGEE)
Assassin - L15, 73 HPs, 105 kills (187 in BGEE), 3 deaths
Kensai - L13, 115 HPs, 251 kills (199 in BGEE), 4 deaths
True to predictions, Kencore dominated the kills in that session and now has an overall majority of those.
Rumbal (male elf ranger, Gate70); Indy (male elf dragon disciple, Grond0)
Episode 3 starts with us wondering what is left to do. Our journal suggests looking into the Seven Suns and that is what we do. Indy has a bad Magic Missile day, as Rumbal is killing enemies before the spell can be completed.
As we head to the upper section of the Iron Throne HQ Indy realises we have not paid Ramazith a visit. Will we remember to do so if we survive this combat. Rumbal sneaks upstairs to see the blind devotion which Zhalimar's four casters all have for Indy. A few webs and missiles plus Magic Missiles are enough to finish off their doppelganger together with Zhalimar Cloudewulfe and Gardush.
We are duly sent back to Candlekeep and organise our own way out. Indy is in his element here, the traps within the catacombs triggering merrily against what limited buffs he has.
Sarevok has been dispelled of his haste by an arrow and lumbers after us. Rumbal starts to gulp a few potions but Indy has decided the game should end now. The final set of Magic Missiles seal the deal.
BGII:EE
We start trapped in a dungeon. Our first job is to relinquish Imoen of her responsibilities after she releases Rumbal, and then do the same for Jaheira and Minsc. Rumbal has grabbed what equipment he can and disabled his AI scripting so now whatever happens depends on the roll of a dice is our fault.
The initial area of the dungeon passes before our eyes in a skulltrapped blur and we make our way to refuse joining forces with Yoshimo. Beyond him is a mephit portal room - Rumbal making a good start but then being caught napping and fortunately for him Indy has held back to throw in timely meteors.
We head off to the Slums and learn of an offer of assistance from Gaelan Bayle. His fee is too rich for our tastes and limited means, so we head off in search of adventure.
First on the cards is Suna Seni. We have arrived invisibly - these bandits can't get up early enough to catch us unawares. Indy drops a skulltrap onto them followed by a second as Rumbal shoots down stragglers. That went well.
Indy enquires as to whether we shall be visiting Watchers Keep soon, perhaps in search of a magical scimitar. Why yes, hadn't been considered but how difficult can that be.
We don't make it half way to Watchers Keep before running into Renfeld's ambush. These bandits can't get up early enough to... We are somewhat worse for wear and fully visible so Rumbal moves in to melee as Indy prepares a spell.
Rather than head back to the Harpers we go out to Watchers Keep and actually get there. There are shadows inside and by the time we deal with them Rumbal has been level-drained. Sister Garlena provides a cheap restoration and we enter a second time to confirm there are no Vampiric Wraiths today. This suits us and we proceed to clear the entire area picking up Usuno's Blade +4 for Rumbal and a snazzy longbow to boot.
Indy braved and survived the Finger of Death trap, his risky save vs death of 5 worked in our favour today.
Watchers Keep was easy we think. How short our memories are though, as we have overlooked Indy almost dying to ettercap poison. T'is but a flesh wound.
Indy doesn't want to accept this as an answer though so Rumbal suggests we have been looking to unlock a series of doors to make our future adventures easier. As this would be a long and tedious prelude to more exciting events we choose to spice matters up with the odd skulltrap here and there.
Back to the Docks to hand an amulet to Mae'Var while we search for evidence against him. First we loot the Harpers HQ. Simples.
Then we accept a quest from Edwin to make a wreath out of Rayic Gethras. Indy uses invisibility and skulltrap to enter which leaves us with only one mephit to deal with. Rumbal uses DUHM and Arbane haste to kill off the brace of Stone Golems while Indy hits them with Minute Meteors.
Rayic is a tough cookie. Unfortunately for him Indy is a scheming malovence and casts Improved Invisibility onto Rumbal. Rayic seems unable to counter and defends himself with Protection from Magic Weapons. This leaves Rumbal struggling for ideas until Indy shouts to ask if he has any non-magical weapons, or failing that can he use his fists. Rumbal has an unenchanted scimitar and that defeats Rayic despite a temporary reprieve via Stoneskin.
Rayic is dead. We celebrate in the only way we know, Indy fatally engaging with a trap that would not have greatly troubled Rumbal. The ranger trudges to a temple and pays for a resurrection so he can hear all about why it was best for Indy to play with fire acid.
Dern, I did not think you EVER failed.
If I put all my fails in here, it would overwhelm the Beamdog server. That's why I don't even post until I'm done or almost done.
Vynd looked around him. There were only four people, all humans, sharing the room with them. He knew soon the streets of Baldur’s Gate would teaming with people of all races: humans, dwarves, gnomes, haflings, even some elves, all descending on the city in anticipation of the Feast of the Moon that would begin in earnest on 30 Uktar. It was the last great festival of the year and marked the onset of winter. Bards would be everywhere because this was also the time to celebrate ancestors and commemorate heroes, treasures and lost cities of the past. Priests of most the deities held special rites, rituals and ceremonies at this time – most remembering the dead in one way or another. Vynd had come to know the Calendar of Harptoos better than most people who grew up in Faeurn.
He thought to himself, “I am right where I belong. How far any of this was from my mind when I was still in the Underdark,” He asked himself rhetorically. “Hmm.” He took a sip of mead. “Fantastic!” They were in a little out of the way inn in Southeast Baldur’s Gate. It was not often that Angmar had an ale beyond the main course but tonight he kept going and going. No one was complaining, mind you. Vynd enjoyed that lightheaded feeling and he knew the others were too. Who would have thought a pub like this would have such a good brew? Then again, he knew pubs and inns everywhere usually tried to have a seasonal ale or lager, or both, ready to coincide upcoming Moonfest. Best he could recall, this was maybe the third time this had happened when they all sat around a table tossing a few back. Normally, Angmar drank only wine, which he carried in wineskins, except for one ale or mead with his meals when in town. Then again, there was not much time for anything but marching and combat. During the last three and a half years, Angmar put them all through a gauntlet of adventuring.
Their recent journeys first carried them to an island somewhere far to the north in the middle of a northern ocean. Beneath the freezing little rock (that is what it was) was a challenging dungeon filled with traps, mages, Ankheg’s, Snow Golems, and Winter Wolves. Upon escaping, they were soon on a second island after suffering a shipwreck as hirelings for a man from Ulgoth’s Beard. The Isle of Balduran teamed with a colony of Werewolves on one end, and more powerful Wolfwere’s on the other. Battling through until they could finally escape, they returned to Ulgoth’s Beard, only to face the man who hired them in combat – except now he was a Loup Garou. Having defeated the monster, Angmar next drove them on to Durlag’s Tower – a death trap south of the Wood of the Sharp Teeth. Four levels up, and four levels deep, the fortress was littered with deadly traps that took their toll more than once. Greater Doppelgangers, Greater Wyverns, a Ghost, a Succubus (Demoness), Greater Ghouls, Ghasts, and Greater Basilisks, among other nasty creatures kept them constantly returning to the temple in Beregost to purchase priestly ‘Raise Dead’ services. Vynd, at first, thought it odd that a Temple of Lathander would heal them at all but over time he had come to the conclusion that – at least with Kelddath, greed surpasses faith. Their final battle in the tower was against a powerful Demon Knight, or Death Knight, that had moved into the void and claimed residence when Durlag’s clan fell. In the end, the Death Knight’s own Magic Mirror doomed him, and Dorn helped him return to the abyss permanently. The expedition to Durlag’s Tower made Angmar fabulously wealthy as if he had not already been so when they first entered. Vynd knew better than to think Angmar would settle down and build a keep of his own though. Sure enough, they were ambushed by a Demon Cult on returning from Durlag’s Tower. The Cult needed a dagger that Angmar had taken as booty. After defeating the Cult Enforcers, Assassins, and Archers, they learned that the Cult operated out of the home of the same wizard that teleported them to the Ice Island. Angmar wasted no time.
They arrived in attack mode. Angmar was not about to give away the element of surprise, using Call Lightning to take out the Cult Guard that stood watch at the door. Bashing through the front door, they all knew their first task: Vienxay Want of Fire, Baeloth Magic Missile, Dorn, and Shar-Teel find the mage if there is one, a Cleric – anyone casting a spell. Vynd, Invisible, work around behind a vulnerable foe and Backstab. Angmar usually used Drain Life first focused on a spellcaster or the foe he accessed as most powerful. With difficulty, they defeated a Cult Mage, an Enforcer, two Assassins, and an Archer before moving to the steps that descended into the basement. In preparation, Shar-Teel and Dorn quaffed Potions of Heroism, Vynd a Potion of Master Thievery, and Vienxay and Baeloth cast protection spells on themselves, Blur, Mirror Image. Descending, they found a basement prepared for a summoning. The room was 30’ x 60,’ sunken in the middle. There were Cult Guards, six of them around the corners, and side of the rectangular depression. A woman conducting the summons went down quickly under Shar-Teel’s blade, but not quickly enough to prevent the release of the demon.
Aec’Letec, a Nabassu, had the features of a Gargoyle, with a dull black hide matted with fur. In stood nearly 7’ tall, was gaunt, scaly, and leathery with sinewy muscles over its visible skeleton. Its head was elongated, with tusks, horns, but no nose. Its ears and wings were batlike and its beady eyes glowed yellow.
Seeing the situation, Angmar withdrew back up the stairs, where the Cult Guards followed him to their slaughter. With the Demon isolated Angmar moved back down the finish him. Dorn and Shar-Teel moved in for the kill. Baeloth and Vienxay used Magic Missiles. Eventually, Vienxay exhausted her spells and was relegated to darts. Meanwhile, Vynd joined Dorn and Shar-Teel, while Angmar used Drain Life and Absorb Health before charging in with his Spear +3, Dragon Scepter. Slowly, but surely, the demon weakened and finally met its death on the material plane when Dorn’s huge Two-Handed Sword, World’s Edge crashed down on the creatures back. At first, it lay motionless. Then, Sparks and lightning burst around the killing wound. Moments later, lightning consumed Aec’Letec’s corpse, leaving a smoldering spot where he had been.
Since returning to Baldur’s Gate, Angmar took some lucrative work for Scar, the Commander of the Flaming Fist. Angmar had no qualms about working for anyone if it paid well. He would put his own ‘Black Guard’ touch on whatever he did. First they slayed a bunch of Doppelgangers that had taken over a trading coster, then they went in and wiped out everyone in the Iron Throne, a mercsantile operation that was as corrupt as they were. They had also destroyed an Ogre Mage and a handful of Carrion Crawlers that had been killing people in the eastern part of the city. All of these paid Angmar well, and they all benefitted from that. Tomorrow they were supposed to go meet Duke Eltan at the Flaming Fist. “Ironic,” he thought to himself. “Hell yeah, I’ll take another mead.”
ORDER OF MARCH:
Shar-teel (point)
Dorn (shock)
Vynd (stealth, recon, assassinations)
Angmar
Vienxay (arcane support, rogue support)
Baeloth (arcane Support)
MONSTERS DEFEATED (ordered alphabetically by value): Aec’Letec (16000 @ UB); Demon Knight (15000 @ DT); Karoug (Wolfwere @ 8000 @ IBN); Greater Basilisk (3 @ 7000 @ DT); Andris (Mage-Conjurer/15 @ 6500 @ II); Grael (5000 @ DT); Greater Wyverns (3 @ 5000 @ DT); Queen (5000 @ DT); Air Aspect (4000 @ DT); Astral Phase Spider (4000 @ DT); Battle Horrors (3 @ 4000 @ DG); Fuernebol (Greater Doppelganger @ 4000 @ DT); Greater Doppelgangers (11 @ 4000 @ DT); Kiel the Legion Killer (2 x Greater Doppelganger @ 4000 @ DT); Meiala the Sirine (4000 @ DT); Skeleton Warriors (2 @ 4000 @ DT); Ghost (3750 @ DT); Daese (Wolfwere @ 3000 @ IBN); Fission Slime (3 @ 3000 @ DT); Invisible Stalkers (2 @ 3000 @ DT); Kirinhale (Succubus @ 3000 @ DT); Love (Warder @ 3000 @ DT); Oogoor (Fire Salamander @ 3000 @ NC); Zhalimar Cloudwulfe (Fighter/11 @ 3000 @ BG); Entillus Fulsom (Mage-Enchanter/11 @ 2700 @ BG); Avarice (Warder @ 2500 @ DT); Pride (Warder @ 2500 @ DT); Snow Golems (2 @ 2500 @ II); Fear (Warder @ 2200 @ DT); Selaad Gan (Werewolf @ 2200 @ UB); Fire Salamanders (6 @ 2075 @ NC); Humbaba (Salamander @ 2075 @ NC); Tellan (Mage-Illusionist @ 2001 @ II); Ashirikura (2 @ 2000 @ DT); Doom Guard (2000 @ DT); Bishop (2000 @ DT); Dwarven Doom Guards (4 @ 2000 @ DT); Flesh Golems (2 @ 2000 @ DT); Hack (Ogre/11 @ 2000 @ DT); King (2000 @ DT); Marcellus (Mage-Conjurer/7 @ 2000 @ II); Garan (Mage-Necromancer/9 2000 @ II); Helmeted Horrors (2 @ 2000 @ DT); Naaman (Mage/9 @ 2000 @ BG); Mustard Jellies (2 @ 2000 @ DT); Sirine (6 @ 2000 @ NC); Vampiric Wolves (5 @ 2000 @ IBN); Sword Spider (2000 @ DT); Tracea Carol (2000 @ UB); Tarnor (Dwarf Fighter/9 @ 1950 @ DT); Moorlock (Fighter/8 @ 1900 @ DT); Aasim (Fighter/Cleric//8/7 @ 1800 @ BG); Alai (Fighter/Mage//8/7 @ 1800 @ BG); Beyn (Mage-Conjurer/7 @ 1800 @ II); Kaishas Gan (Werewolf @ 1800 @ IBS); Wolfwere (7 x 1800 @ IBN); Diyab (Cleric/Thief//9/9 @ 1600 @ BG); Baresh (Werewolf @ 1500 @ UB); Wolfwere (1500 @ IBN); Lesser Basilisk (1400 @ DT); Palin (1400 @ IBN); Phase Spiders (7 @ 1400 @ DT); Riggilo (Thief/8 @ 1400 @ DT); Wolfwere (9 @ 1400 @ IBN); Wraith Spiders (8 @ 1400 @ DT); Cult Enforcer (2 @ 1000 @ UB); Cult Wizard (1000 @ UB); Greater Ghouls (28/3 @ 1000 @ DT/DS); Ankhegs (4 @ 975 @ II); Nortuary (Mage/Thief//7/4 @ 975 @ BG); Thaldorn (Thief/6 @ 975 @ BG); Winter Wolves (14 @ 975 @ II); Bullrush (Hobgoblin/3 @ 950 @ DT); Polar Bears (2 @ 900 @ II); Dread Wolf (650 @ IBN); Ettercaps (2 @ 650 @ DT); Ghasts (25 @ 650 @ DT); Ogre Mage (650 @ BG); Cult Guards (11 @ 500 @ UB); Brown Bear (3 @ 420 @ IBS); Carrion Crawlers (4 @ 420 @ BG); Crypt Crawlers (5 @ 420 @ DT); Doppelgangers (10/6 @ 420 @ DT/BG); Werewolves (10 @ 420 @ IBS); Cult Archer (3 @ 300 @ UB); Cult Assassin (3 @ 300 @ UB); Dra’tan (Fighter/3 @ 240 @ BG); Guards (Fighter/3 x 4 @ 240 @ BG); Black Bear (175 @ NC); Ghouls (6 @ 175 @ DT); Ogrillons (2 @ 175 @ RE); Pawns (2 @ 150 @ DT); Dire Wolves (17 @ 125 @ IBN); Guard (Fighter/1 x3 @ 120 @ BG); Skeletons (3 @ 120 @ DT); Worgs (2/2 @ 120 @ IBN/RE); Merchant’s League Counting House Guards (Fighters/7 x 7 @ 110 @ BG); Ulf (Thief/6 @ 110 @ BG); Phoenix Guards (2 @ 100 @ DT); Hobgoblins Elites (6 @ 95 @ NC); Skeletons (3 @ 95 @ DT); Bandits (2 x Fighter/1 @ 65 @ NC); Guards (2 @ Fighter/1 @ 65 @ BG); Skeletons (24 @ 65 @ DT); Wolves (4/3 @ 65 @ IBN/ToM); Zombies (10 @ 65 @ FL); Gibberling (35 @ NC); Gnolls (6 @ 35 @ DS); Hobgoblins (4 @ 35 @ NC); Wild Dogs (2 @ 35 @ RE); Bartender (15 @ BG); Captain Tollar Kieres (Fighter/7 @ 15 @ BG); Crewmates (Fighter/6 x 4 @ 15 @ BG); Crewmates (Thief/6 x 3 @ 15 @ BG); Dauron (Fighter/1 @ 15 @ BG); Merchants (7 @ 15 @ BG); Skipper (Fisherman, Human/1 @ 15 @ NC); Wenric (Human/0 @ 15 @ FL), Xvarts (6 @ 15 @ RE); Fishermen (4, Human/0 @ 7 @ NC); Kobolds (7 @ 7 @ RE)
* Legend: BG = Baldur’s Gate, DG = Durlag’s Tower; DS = Disturb Sleep, FL = Farmlands, IBN = Isle of Balduran – North, IBS = Isle of Balduran - South; II = Ice Island, NC = Northern Coast, RE = Random Encounter, ToM = Temple of the Morning, UB = Ulgoth’s Beard
LEVEL UP: Dorn, Paladin (Black Guard of Ur-Gothoz)/7-8; Baeloth, Sorcerer/8-9; Vynd, Thief (Assassin)/9-10; Vienxay, Mage (Shadowmage)/Thief//8/8; Angmar, Black Guard of Talos/8
CASUALTIES: Vienxay (Fire Salamander x 2, Crewmate, Traps x 5, Warder Love, Dwarven Doom Guard, Air Aspect, Mirror Fiend); Baeloth (Crewmate, Werewolf, Riggilo, Warder); Dorn (Trap x 3, Dwarven Doom Guard, Greater Ghoul x 2, Air Aspect, Chess, Greater Wyvern, Mirror Fiend); Shar-Teel (Skeleton Warrior, Trap, Greater Doppelganger, Greater Ghoul, Chess, Greater Wyvern), Vynd (Kobold, Chess)
NOTEWORTHY TREASURE (ordered alphabetically by value > 100gp or > +2 ): (Gold collected Chapter V) 39780; Current purse 112861
Armor & Weapons: Morning Star +3 (Kiel’s Morning Star); Mace +3 (Defiler); Mace +3; Quarter Staff +3 (Staff of Striking +3); Two-Handed Sword +3 (World’s Edge); Halberd +2 (Suryris’s Blade); Large Shield +2; Staff of the Ancients +2; Long Sword +1/+2 vs Regenerators/+3 vs cold/+4 vs undead (Flame Tongue +1); Warhammer +1/+4 vs Giant Humanoids(Knee Capper); Bracers of Defense AC7; Bracers of Defense AC8; Full Plate Armor; Keil’s Helmet; Nirel’s Boots of Protection x 2; Wolfsbane Charm
Gems/Jewelry: Laerals’s Tear Necklace, Rogue Stone, Ruby Ring, Star Sapphires (2), Emerald, Pearl Necklaces (2), Fire Opal Ring, Diamond, Moonbar Gems (4), Water Opals (3), Black Opals (2), Bloodstone Amulet, Sphene Gems (3), Pearls (10)
Potions: Storm Giant Strength, Cloud Giant Strength, Fire Giant Strength (2), Frost Giant Strength (4), Extra Healing (3), Freedom (2), Speed (3), Mind Focusing, Invulnerability
Scrolls: Cloudkill, Monster Summoning III, Defensive Harmony, Greater Malison, Minor Sequencer, Stoneskin, Slow (3), Dispel Magic, Fireball (2), Haste (6), Blur (2), Invisibility, Mirror Image (2), Feeblemind, Hold Monster (2), Confusion (2), Mental Domination (2), Flame Arrow, Hold Person (2), Protection from Normal Missiles, Stinking Cloud, Identify (2)
Wands: Fear (2), Frost (2), Heavens, Lightning (2), Monster Summoning, Paralyzation
Misc & Artifacts: Cloak of the Shield, Durlag’s Goblet, Knaves Robe, Mage Robe of Electrical Resistance, Ring of Free Action, Robe of the Abyss, Robe of the Evil Arch-Magi, Tome of Understanding, Traveler’s Robe (2)
BEST KILL:
1) Dorn, Aec’Letec (16000 exp)
2) Vynd, Karoug (8000 exp)
3) Shar-Teel, Greater Basilisk (7000 exp)
4) Vienxay, Greater Wyvern; (5000 exp)
5) Baeloth, Teddy the Doomsayer (2500 exp)
CURRENT DISPOSITION: Southeast Baldur’s Gate
NEXT STEPS: Meet with Duke Eltan
PARTY MAKEUP: (Reputation: 6 – Disliked, +2 Seven Suns)
Angmar: CE Anti-Paladin (Black Guard of Talos)/8(HP 83); Armor: Plate Mail +3 (Practical Defense), Amulet of Spell Warding, Boots of Avoidance (Senses of the Cat), Cloak of the Shield, Crystal Helm, Gauntlet of Dexterity, Golden Girdle (Girdle of Slashing +3), Ring of Fire Shielding (Charvirak’s Glow); Weapons: Spear +3 (Dragon Scepter), Flail** (Two-Handed Weapon Style*); Items: Ring of Human Influence, Ring of Fire Shielding (Charvirak’s Glow); Special Abilities: Absorb Health, Aura of Despair, Cause Affliction (2), Drain Life (2), Lightning Bolt, Poison Weapon, Shocking Grasp; Spells: None; Skills; None; High-Level Abilities: None
Shar-teel: CE Fighter (Berserker)/7 (HP 60); Armor: Crystal Plate Mail +2, Ring of Protection +1 (Ring of the Princes), Kiel’s Helmet, Boots of Grounding (Tolos’s Gift), Elves Bane (Girdle of Piercing +3); Weapons: Long Sword +1/+2 vs Regenerators/+3 vs cold/+4 vs undead (Flame Tongue +1); ***, Long Sword +1/+3 vs undead (Harrower)***, Gauntlets of Weapons Expertise (Long Sword***, Dagger*, Two-Weapon Style**); Items: Ring of Free Action; Special Abilities: Berserkers Rage; Spells: None; Skills: None; High-Level Abilities: None
Dorn: NE Paladin (Black Guard of Ur-Gothoz/8 (HP 56); Armor: Black Swan Armor +2, Ring of Protection +1, Golden Girdle (Girdle of Slashing +3); Weapons: Two-Handed Sword +3 (World’s Edge), **, Pole Axe +2 (Kilther)** (Two-Handed Weapon Style**, Axe**), Gauntlet of Weapons Expertise; Items: Boots of Speed (Paws of the Cheetah); Special Abilities: Absorb Health, Aura of Despair, Poison Weapon (2); Spells: None; Skills; None; High-Level Abilities: None
Vynd: NE Thief (Drow Assassin)/10 (HP 61 ); Armor: Studded Leather +3, Cloak of Protection +1, Gauntlets of Dexterity; Weapons: Long Sword +1* (2), Darts +1* (Dart*, Long Sword*, Short Sword*, Two-Weapon Style*); Items: None; Special Abilities: Poison Weapon (2), Set Snare (2); Spells: None; Skills; OL 35, FT 25 PP 45, MS 90, HS 90, DI 10, ST 75, BS x 5; High-Level Abilities: None
Vienxay: NE Mage/Thief (Shadowmage)//8/8 (HP 29); Armor: Robe of the Evil Arch-Magi, Ring of Protection +1 (Ring of the Princes); Weapons: Dagger +1*, Dart of Ice +1*; Items: Courier’s Boots, Ring of Invisibility (Sandthief’s Ring), Vienxay’s Silk Gloves; Special Abilities: Shadowjump, Set Snare (2); Spells: Minor Sequencer, Stoneskin, Fireball, Haste, Lightning Bolt, Blur, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Magic Missile, Blindness, Charm Person, Identify; Skills: OL 80, FT 70, PP 45, MS 85, HS 90, DI 15, ST --, BS x 2; High-Level Abilities: None
Baeloth: CE Sorcerer/9 (HP 46); Armor: Robe of the Grand Wizard, Bracers of Defense AC6, Amulet of Protection +1, Cloak of Displacement; Weapons: Quarter Staff +3 (Staff of Striking +3), Dart of Ice +1*; Items: Ring (Barrityl’s Burden); Special Abilities: None; Spells: Greater Malison (4), Melf’s Meteors (6), Spell Thrust (6), Melf’s Acid Arrow (6), Magic Missile (6), Icelance (6), Detect Invisibility (6), Globe of Darkness (6), Horror (6), Blindness (6), Chromatic Orb (6), Expeditious Retreat (6), Spook (6), Ice Storm (4); Skills; None; High-Level Abilities: None
MOD USED: Convenient Enhanced Edition NPCs v4.0, Ajantis BG1 v15, NPC Aura BG1, BG1 NPC Project v24-8, BG1 Romantic Encounters V4, BGEE NPC Tweaks, BG Quests and Encounters v22, Brage’s Redemption v4, Tweaks Anthology Beta 4, Deities of Faerun v1.9.7.6.1, Distinguishable Clubs, Divine Remix v8 Beta, NPC Drake, Dark Side of the Sword Coast v102, NPC Emily BG1, NPC Finch v4.0 Beta 7, NPC Gavin V14, NPC Glam Pack v3, I Hate Undead Kitpack v3.8
Baeloth fired off a Magic Missile at the one who called himself Prat. Angmar followed with his Drain Life ability and brought the loudmouth to his knees. There were others back in the caves and Baeloth could not wait to “Work off some anger on them.” He knew Angmar would oblige. True to form they were moving back into the tunnels before Prat’s carcass hit the floor. As they entered, a Halfing Fighter was coming up the tunnel straight in front of them. Vienxay used a Wand of Fire directing it down the tunnel over the head of the onrushing squirt so that the blast would get him from behind and cook anything or anyone else in the vicinity. He laughed out loud seeing them all bunched up trying to attack. They were as good as any Jesters he’s ever seen. Seeing them walking all over each other, Vienxay used the wand again while Dorn and Shar-Teel finished the runt. In no time they were collecting up more booty.
THAT'LL SHUT HIM UP!
They returned to the library that they had been using to rest and recuperate since they arrived. After identifying everything, distributing scrolls and potions, and discarding unnecessary items, they were ready to head back into the caves and find a way out of here. Spiders and two Greater Basilisks ended up being the only things between them and the cave exit on the south side of Candleekeep.
Angmar was now obsessed with getting to Baldur’s Gate and crushing his tormentor Sarevok. Up till now, he had taken his time, but now they were on a forced march to get there as soon as possible. Of course, now they were wanted for murdering the leaders of the Iron Throne, and the Flaming Fist would be all over them. “This could messy,” he thought. “This could be fun.
ORDER OF MARCH:
Dorn (Point)
Shar-teel (Shock)
Vynd (stealth, recon, assassinations)
Vienxay (arcane support, rogue support)
Angmar
Baeloth (arcane Support)
MONSTERS DEFEATED (ordered alphabetically by value): Rieltar (Mage-Conjurer/16 @ 10000 @ CK); Greater Basilisks (2 @ 7000 @ CKC); Brunos (Fighter/9 @ 5000 @ CK); Greater Doppelganger (4000 @ CKC); Tuth (Fighter/13 @ 4000 @ CK); Kestor (Thief-Swashbuckler/12 @ 2700 @ CK); Sword Spider (2000 @ CKC); Sakul (Mage-Conjurer @ 1600 @ CKC); Phase Spiders (7 @ 1400 @ CKC; Prat (Fighter/Mage @ 1400 @ CKC); Wraith Spider (1400 @ CKC); Tam (Fighter/8 @ 1300 @ CKC); Bor (Halfing Fighter/7 @ 650 @ CKC); Ghasts (8 @ 650 @ CKC); Doppelgangers (9 @ 420 @ CKC); Skeletons (23 @ 65 @ CKX); Arkanis (Dwarf Fighter/2 @ 60 @ CKC); Deder (Halfing Fighter/Thief//2/1 @ 60 @ CKC)
* Legend: CK = Candlekeep, CKC = Candlekeep Catacombs, DS = Disturb Sleep, RE = Random Encounter
LEVEL UP: None
CASUALTIES: Vienzay (Rieltar)
NOTEWORTHY TREASURE (ordered alphabetically by value > 250gp or > +2 ): (Gold collected Chapter VI) 1192; Current purse 115707
Armor & Weapons: Dagger +4* (D’Raavhen’s Fang), Splint Mail +4 (Korim’s Skin), Boots of Valor (AC +4 vs Blunt), Battle Axe +3 (Enrager); Shadow Armor +3, Cloak of Protection +2, Large Shield +2, Throwing Axe +2, Bracers of Defense AC6,Crown of the Alarphon, Gloves of the Magi, Ring of Fire Resistance (Batalista’s Passport)
Gems/Jewelry: Rogue Stone, Ruby Ring, Pearl Necklace, Fire Opal Ring
Potions: Clarity, Genius, Speed, Invulnerability
Scrolls: Power Word Kill, Dispel Magic, Haste, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Slow, Blur, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Protection from Magic, Web, Mass Charm
Wands: None
Misc & Artifacts: Manual of Gainful Exercise, Tome of Understanding, Mystic Ring
BEST KILL:
1) Dorn, Aec’Letec (16000 exp)
2) Vynd, Karoug (8000 exp)
3) Shar-Teel, Greater Basilisk (7000 exp)
4) Vienxay, Greater Wyvern; (5000 exp)
5) Baeloth, Teddy the Doomsayer (2500 exp)
CURRENT DISPOSITION: Warehouse in Southeast Baldur’s Gate
NEXT STEPS: Find Sarevok
PARTY MAKEUP: (Reputation: 6 – Disliked)
Angmar: CE Anti-Paladin (Black Guard of Talos)/8(HP 83); Armor: Plate Mail +3 (Practical Defense), Amulet of Spell Warding, Boots of Avoidance (Senses of the Cat), Cloak of the Shield, Crystal Helm, Gauntlet of Dexterity, Golden Girdle (Girdle of Slashing +3), Ring of Fire Shielding (Charvirak’s Glow); Weapons: Spear +3 (Dragon Scepter), Flail** (Two-Handed Weapon Style*); Items: Ring of Human Influence, Ring of Fire Shielding (Charvirak’s Glow); Special Abilities: Absorb Health, Aura of Despair, Cause Affliction (2), Divine Wrath (2), Drain Life (2), Lightning Bolt, Poison Weapon, Shocking Grasp; Spells: None; Skills; None; High-Level Abilities: None
Shar-teel: CE Fighter (Berserker)/7 (HP 60); Armor: Crystal Plate Mail +2, Ring of Protection +1 (Ring of the Princes), Kiel’s Helmet, Boots of Grounding (Tolos’s Gift), Elves Bane (Girdle of Piercing +3); Weapons: Long Sword +1/+2 vs Regenerators/+3 vs cold/+4 vs undead (Flame Tongue +1); ***, Long Sword +1/+3 vs undead (Harrower)***, Gauntlets of Weapons Expertise (Long Sword***, Dagger*, Two-Weapon Style**); Items: Ring of Free Action; Special Abilities: Berserkers Rage; Spells: None; Skills: None; High-Level Abilities: None
Dorn: NE Paladin (Black Guard of Ur-Gothoz/8 (HP 56); Armor: Black Swan Armor +2, Cloak of Protection +2, Golden Girdle (Girdle of Slashing +3); Weapons: Two-Handed Sword +3 (World’s Edge), **, Pole Axe +2 (Kilther)** (Two-Handed Weapon Style**, Axe**), Gauntlet of Weapons Expertise; Items: Boots of Valor (AC +4 vs Blunt), Ring of Fire Resistance (Batalista’s Passport); Special Abilities: Absorb Health, Aura of Despair, Poison Weapon (2); Spells: None; Skills; None; High-Level Abilities: None
Vynd: NE Thief (Drow Assassin)/10 (HP 61 ); Armor: Studded Leather +3, Cloak of Protection +1, Gauntlets of Dexterity; Weapons: Long Sword +1* (2), Darts +1* (Dart*, Long Sword*, Short Sword*, Two-Weapon Style*); Items: Boots of Speed (Paws of the Cheetah); Special Abilities: Poison Weapon (2), Set Snare (2); Spells: None; Skills; OL 35, FT 25 PP 45, MS 90, HS 90, DI 10, ST 75, BS x 5; High-Level Abilities: None
Vienxay: NE Mage/Thief (Shadowmage)//8/8 (HP 29); Armor: Robe of the Evil Arch-Magi, Cloak of Protection +1; Weapons: Dagger +4* (D’Raavhen’s Fang), Dart of Ice +1*; Items: Courier’s Boots, Ring of Invisibility (Sandthief’s Ring), Mystic Ring, Vienxay’s Silk Gloves; Special Abilities: Shadowjump, Set Snare (2); Spells: Minor Sequencer, Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere, Stoneskin, Fireball, Haste, Lightning Bolt, Slow, Blur, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Web, Magic Missile, Blindness, Charm Person, Chromatic Orb; Skills: OL 80, FT 70, PP 45, MS 85, HS 90, DI 15, ST --, BS x 2; High-Level Abilities: None
Baeloth: CE Sorcerer/9 (HP 46); Armor: Robe of the Grand Wizard, Bracers of Defense AC6, Amulet of Protection +1, Cloak of Displacement, Crown of the Alarphon; Weapons: Quarter Staff +3 (Staff of Striking +3), Dart of Ice +1*; Items: Ring (Barrityl’s Burden); Special Abilities: None; Spells: Greater Malison (4), Melf’s Meteors (6), Spell Thrust (6), Melf’s Acid Arrow (6), Magic Missile (6), Icelance (6), Detect Invisibility (6), Globe of Darkness (6), Horror (6), Blindness (6), Chromatic Orb (6), Expeditious Retreat (6), Spook (6), Ice Storm (4); Skills; None; High-Level Abilities: None
MOD USED: Convenient Enhanced Edition NPCs v4.0, Ajantis BG1 v15, NPC Aura BG1, BG1 NPC Project v24-8, BG1 Romantic Encounters V4, BGEE NPC Tweaks, BG Quests and Encounters v22, Brage’s Redemption v4, Tweaks Anthology Beta 4, Deities of Faerun v1.9.7.6.1, Distinguishable Clubs, Divine Remix v8 Beta, NPC Drake, Dark Side of the Sword Coast v102, NPC Emily BG1, NPC Finch v4.0 Beta 7, NPC Gavin V14, NPC Glam Pack v3, I Hate Undead Kitpack v3.8
Wyrme: Yes yes but you have a job for me to do.
Berrun: Maybe later says Berrun. Let me tell you about Uvweo.
Wyrme: Uvwho??
Berrun: Exactly. He's a low profile undead hunter and he turned up unexpectedly wielding a bastard sword until purchasing a magical one from Feldepost's Inn. Siding with Seniyad and his druids gave him the Kondar bastard sword. Shield-wise he started with a large shield before using Buckley's Buckler and lugging the unused magical large shield around. Eventually he started dual-wielding swords.
Wyrme: Oh, Uvweo. Yes I've heard of him (never heard of him). Remind me where he's buried.
Berrun: See, well that's the thing. I hear after he sorted out our mine he enhanced our standing by flooding Cloakwood Mine.
Wyrme: Ah, yep. Paladin's don't float so good.
Berrun: No, no. He got out of there, even went into Baldur's Gate. That was before he came back to Candlekeep, look here I bought a memento of his time down there.
(rumour is he uses potions of mind focusing to read green protection scrolls but here he used a potion of magic shielding to prevent being petrified)
Wyrme: In my experience that's the last we'll see of him.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1142354/#Comment_1142354
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1142571/#Comment_1142571
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143220/#Comment_1143220
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143383/#Comment_1143383
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1146433/#Comment_1146433
The first 15 minutes of the session comprised of killing a few more NPCs and shopping (including buying find familiar, which I'd failed to learn in BGEE) before leaving Baldur's Gate.
After ignoring some orcs and trolls in an ambush area, I arrived back at the Coast Way Crossing. There, I just gave Takos his goods back en route to the bridge. Arriving there invisibly ensured I had plenty of time to duck behind the tent to wait for Caelar to call for a parley.
There was nothing of interest in the Troll Claw Woods, so I just ran through there to get to the Forest of Wyrms. I bypassed initial encounters there invisibly to get into the old temple. If you don't let Ziatar see you, he can be killed using area damage at your leisure - in this case wand fireballs did the trick.
On the way out of the temple a first thrown dagger was perfectly aimed and proved too much for one green dragon.
Fight of the Day
Past glories count for little when you get to Boareskyr Bridge
Passing the guarding mage means crossing a sizeable ridge
He's pretty hard to shoot and has a good save versus spell
And summons fiery creatures, even though they are not from hell
You may think area damage will kill him before too long
But first will go the barrels and that's the end of your song
So if you want to be sure that victory will come at last
You need to find a reliable way to interrupt his cast
The best I've found is truly named - it's called by some Victor
It seems to be a humble ring, but it's really hard to ignore
It's magic blast is not a spell but a level 0 effect
That goes past mage-wrought globes designed to deflect
Amid the blasts dispelling arrows fly and the 4th of those does hit
Acid arrows follow on to force the mage to quit
He tries to cast a final time, but it's now too late
A final shot rolls a hit to leave him in checkmate
While concentrating on the mage I gave the guards a chance
To congregate around me in their fighting stance
For some PCs that could be something of a danger
But potion buffs and stoneskins are a true game changer
The guards themselves could barely strike
Which was a situation they did not like
Still less were they keen on being turned to toast
But all still succumbed to the scorcher roast
At the Coalition Camp I used the Spectacles to bring Nazramu to the Material Plane.
With Bwoosh and poison stashed in my bag I ignored a dead magic zone before running through Dead Man's Pass on the way to Dragonspear Castle. Normally I fight Skie's captors there, but with time running out I just sent them on their way.
At the Underground River, a potion of clarity provided protection while using wand scorchers on some myconids. The hour then ended with more scorchers for some spiders, with a new pair of boots protecting me against a web tangle there.
Bard L11, 78 HPs (incl, 6 from familiar), 388 kills