We pick up right where we left off. And you may notice that there's one thing Davaeorn drops which I didn't mention. The key stays on the ground. Lone Starr has no interest in flooding the mine. Instead, he just leaves, not even bothering to switch back to gnomish form.
Four hours later, after running through a wyvern waylay ... wait, why is he still an ogre? And he can't turn back? Now this is a bug. And a weird one; somehow the "remove abilities" trigger worked but the "change back" trigger didn't. I tried something similar in BG2 - nope. I have no idea how to reproduce this one.
Anyway, I'll make an exception to the strict no-reload rule. An inexplicable game-breaking bug can be reloaded around. I go back to the autosave and return to normal form before traveling. Lone Starr leaves the Cloakwood without incident. And the forced shapeshift back to normal works properly this time.
Before long, Lone Starr reaches the Wyrm's Crossing bridge. The Flaming Fist wants to talk to him...
Not now. That sounds boring.
Inside the walls, an old man with a pointy hat that Lone Starr has never seen before wants to talk. Nope, no time for that. Instead, he goes shopping. Some scrolls and potions at Sorcerous Sundries, one potion of power from Black Lily. The memorized instance of Friends has now been spent.
With that done, Lone Starr traverses the city. West to the central zone, unlock north and travel south, travel west. Scar is at the castle, and now he wants to bring Lone Starr to the duke. Mission acquired.
The best way to achieve this mission, of course, is to sneak past the assassins.
No need for a fight. Just the documents, please. Duke Eltan take a look at them, and sends Lone Starr back to Candlekeep.
Once he's in, Lone Starr walks straight up to the central keep. Cadderly gets in a few words, but that's it. Inside, he heads up to the second floor and meets the mysterious "Koveras". Then he just walks out the front door and gets arrested. Cutscenes ensue, and then it's off to the catacombs.
Where there are absolutely no obstacles to running through invisibly. That's chapters 5 and 6 done without a single hostile action.
Head back to the city (center zone, then east). I do another quit and load here, to clear up any hidden fatigue accumulating through quickloads. I head down into the sewers to meet Slythe; enter behind Sorcerous Sundries to the ogre mage's junction, then head west through the corridor of bodies to the Undercellar. Cast Luck, turn into an ogre ...
Slythe has 89 hit points. An ogre stab averages 82 damage without the luck bonus and 95.3 with. I rolled a 94. Just as planned.
And if that hadn't been enough, that's what the wand of frost was for.
Lone Starr heads back out the way he came, after picking up the important stuff. Krystin doesn't get involved at all.
Now, for the ducal palace. Lone Starr goes back to gnome form, casts Stoneskin, and drinks a potion of defense. Stealth won't be enough here.
Instead, I go for spells. Cast a scroll of Greater Malison, then follow up with a save or lose spell.
Specifically, Sleep. These greater doppelgangers, for some inexplicable reason, are technically level 1. With the saves of a level 17+ warrior - 3 vs death, 6 vs spell. With the malison in place, they should fail 45% of the time.
So, actually, that's some bad luck only taking down one out of six. Shortly after, Belt falls - though he does take one doppelganger out before that. A second Sleep brings the count down to two active doppelgangers, one each attacking Liia and Lone Starr. From there, it's not bad at all. The doppelganger wears down Lone Starr's Stoneskin, but doesn't break through to deal any actual damage.
The final tally: one kill for Belt, one for Liia, two for Lone Starr, and two for the guards.
And then things get weird. Sarevok attacks, then tries to get to Lone Starr ... and can't get out of the cage of guards.
It goes on like this for a few rounds before I realize how to fix it. Just walk up and force-talk to him.
That brings us to the final stretch. Running the maze invisibly, disarming the traps, is quite easy. Especially since the traps are marked on the walls. Polymorph Self does run out, so I use another scroll. Then add the potion of power and a potion of magic shielding, and head in to the temple.
Now, Sarevok has mage support. They could be troublesome. So Lone Starr stands on one of those resetting lightning traps...
The bats are slaughtered, and Lone Starr gets most of the kill credit because of his cloak. Semaj falls as well, though Angelo is protected by his Minor Globe.
Eh, close enough. Time for Sarevok. Drink a new oil of speed, then turn into an ogre.
That's one hit. Drink an invisibility potion and swing again.
Sarevok has 135 HP and AC -1 without Dex. With the potion of power, Lone Starr can hit that on a 2. And most likely kill in two hits, as he did here.
So, how long did this take? Day 13, hour 2. Game time 94264, based on the final save. Subtract 2100 from the 7 AM start for 92164 game seconds. For fairness, I'll add the Black Pits time in; game time 4631 for that, or 2531 seconds.
Total in-game time spent: 13 days, 5 hours, 32 rounds, 3 seconds.
It was pretty quick in real time too; about three hours for the main BG1 campaign, even with all the pausing and log-writing.
Kills: Shank, Carbos, 5 rats, Mulahey, 5 bandits, Davaeorn, Slythe, 2 greater doppelgangers, 8 bats, Semaj, Sarevok.
In the main BG1 portion of the run, Lone Starr took 18 total damage, all from two critical arrow hits in the encounter with Deke's bandits. He was not subjected to any effects that called for a saving throw.
And one last picture: Lone Starr's final, very incomplete, world map.
Oswig and Wun took on all Siege comers today. Wun got to fight at Bridgefort, surrender being his preferred option. The battle raged on for a while and eventually it was the two of us against remnants of Crusaders, stepping over the bodies of Khalid and others meant to be helping us.
Wun almost survived but Oloneiros used a wand to catch him out, so Oswig retreated to use a scroll of raise dead, and then we finished off the remaining resistance. The Barghest made an appearance towards the end, getting himself doomed so a wand of paralyzation worked at the first attempt.
We stopped Boareskyre bridge from being blown up with judicious use of potions of fire breath and bullets of fire. Crossing the river saw Wun comment on Oswig falling over (to have a vision) - which Oswig refuted saying he had overBhaalanced. Not a reply to be proud of.
The Underground River entrance was supposedly securely guarded, but we prevailed outside their pallisade and sneaked inside.
After positioning an explosive barrel we poisoned food and water supplies before departing. Back at camp we fought off three groups of attackers and a final main group at the camp entrance. Grimgnaw put up a brave last stand but monsters summoned via wand helped to deal with him.
Ashatiel agreed to combat against Oswig, who used a scroll of protection from magic plus potions to claim victory. Our way to Belhifet was almost clear, and potions of magic shielding gave us guaranteed saves with which to clear the path.
Against Belhifet our plans went slightly awry when we started buffing without using protection from magic scrolls. Wun was OK - he had planned for this to happen. Oswig had to adapt his plan and it seemed reasonable. Wun asked for his Champion's Strength scrolls so Oswig handed many of them over but kept a few for himself.
Only after using one of these scrolls did Oswig realise he could not cast any spells. Bad move Oswig, and that meant he could not cast Phantom Blade to get a +3 weapon.
While Caelar and Wun fought Belhifet Oswig racked his brains but could find no answer - so he tried to help by killing all the minions. After plenty of time Wun asked Oswig what he was doing and then suggested Oswig take some of his +3 bullets. Oswig could see Wun was wounded and resorting to bullets himself so asked for the Void hammer instead.
We fought like this for a few minutes, keeping Caelar alive with lesser restoration until she finally succumbed to Belhifet's attacks. Oswig tried Raise Dead on her since she was in the party but she was unresponsive.
Fine, the two of us then. The battle raged on until Wun suggested Oswig should protect himself from fire. Duly done.
As our potions wore out we gulped more. Oswig eventually realised he hadn't given Wun any potions of regeneration so handed one over. We kept applying buffs as they ran out (or we realised we'd failed to buff against them at all...)
We kept going, but so did Belhifet. After a while we started to run low on being able to protect against effects - Wun finding himself susceptible to fire with no option to stop the damage.
More rounds ensued. Belhifet was badly wounded but Wun fell first. Oswig fought on, using Wun's bullets for another 10-20 rounds before getting irritated and standing his ground slightly too long. As he was surrounded he switched to melee and 3-4 rounds of fighting with gulping potions ended badly for him. Belhifet looked at the blood on his blades, job done once again.
We started the session at the gates to Baldur's Gate and headed on in to find a shop. That visit proved troublesome though when Keeler was spotted earlier than expected by some mages upstairs. That resulted in him and Swis running in terror, but Flynn took advantage of the mages targeting his companions to score a few kills.
His companions commented that Flynn had been lucky to save against the horror and were reluctant to believe his story that he had already sneaked over to the other side of the room. However, Gate70's video record demonstrated it was not just on my computer that Flynn was safe.
Tightening things up a bit, we did most of the encounters in the City pretty safely. There was a moment of concern against the Mountain Maulers when Keeler was hit twice by a lightning bolt, but that fortunately moved sideways enough to miss during further bouncing.
On the way to get the Cloak of Balduran Swis sneaked into Degrodel's house with the intention of luring one of two of the guards outside. His powers of attraction proved rather better than he's planned, but running, sneaking and some wand use dealt with that group without problems.
Swis was fed up with being the slowcoach of the party and wanted to get some boots of speed from Lothander. He was duly greased, but despite that he managed to dodge through some summons and almost made his escape before being taken down by a heavenly blast.
Marek lasted only a few seconds, but that was just long enough to launch a confusion spell - which unfortunately affected both Flynn and Swis. Keeler had no chance of keeping both of them focused on him with the net result of two dead innocents and a reputation of 6 - good job none of us can fall in this run.
The Iron Throne party put up a reasonable fight, but the initial web / stinking cloud combination from Swis gave us too much of a head start for them to recover.
Back at Candlekeep, Flynn had forgotten reputation was low and his initial rest gave him vampiric touch as a Bhaal power - not the desired result given he has that as a special ability anyway. The tombs were easily looted thanks to Keeler's thieving skills and a few dopplegangers quickly despatched. Prat's companions perished in a web, but he lasted long enough to complete one lightning bolt - but that failed to do much damage.
There was a near death experience soon after though when Flynn mistakenly thought a phase spider was attacking Swis. After being poisoned his life was running out quickly and death seemed certain when an attempted Bhaal slow poison was interrupted. However, Swis had a green scroll looted from the tombs and his companions reassured him that it was the genuine item - and that took effect just in time.
Dark Moon Monk - L8, 62 HPs, 164 kills
Fighter/Thief - L7/7, 73 HPs, 166 kills, 1 death
Fighter/Mage/Thief - L6/6/7, 52 HPs, 170 kills, 0 deaths
It's still a close race, but Swis has taken the lead and looks the favorite to keep that. Keeler will hope that the extra half attack for recently attaining fighter level 7 will allow him to claim a few extra scalps in the closing stages next time.
I have reached level 6. The images are self-explanatory.
On the body of one of the assassins I found my personal sword which had been stolen from me.
In much the same way as Moonswords, this one knew that I was its true owner and I changed my name to that of the sword. I don't know why everyone called me le Bâtard. Maybe they didn't like my personality or perhaps it was becausse I excelled in the use of the bastard sword of which Albruin is a fine example.
Montaron and Xzar joined me. Montaron did a lot of pickpocketting after which I left him at Ulgoth's Beard.
Xzar accompanied me southward until Dorn joined me. At the ambush Dorn's life was touch and go. Upon reaching the Carnival I bade Xzar farewell. He made it clear that he won't be back.
I accidently equipped Dorn with the berserking sword. That was almost disastrous. We did however survive though I wasted 500gp removing the curse.
Throwing knives didn't work. The dragon woke up. A tough fight.
A skeleton distracted the sword. I shut the door and waited for the Neothelid to follow me outside.
The battle was still tough as some buffing wore off before it fought us. We slept and we will take on the rest tomorrow.
Had to use healing potions during the battles.
All went well until I came up against the Mind Flayers. My carefully scripted battle just didn't happen. They avoided my traps and weren't webbed with the result that the party was wasted though a mind flayer WAS killed.
A quick note about backstab damage since I saw the discussion about Mulahey - I'm pretty certain some bonuses aren't multiplied with backstab damage. Weapon damage definitely is, as well as enchantment bonuses, but I don't think proficiency or STR bonuses are multiplied. I'm not positive about bonuses like Gauntlets of Crushing or Legacy of the Masters; I think they're multiplied, but that could very well be wrong. I'll create a character later to test this out...
EDIT: according to the wiki, everything except STR is multiplied, apparently
EDIT2: Looks like that was taken into account. Weird. Maybe the formula was changed or is different regarding shapeshifted forms?
What's going on, in detail, with what I had there:
Ogre form: 4d6+1 base damage.
Bonuses: +4 damage from gauntlets of crushing (Polymorph Self forms count as "hand to hand"), +6 damage from strength. The former is multiplied in a stab, the latter isn't.
Backstab multiplier: 4x.
So that's (4d6+1+4)*4+6 = (9-29)*4+6 = 42-122 damage. But of course, since that's four dice, the extreme rolls are extremely improbable. A minimum roll of 42 damage comes from four dice rolling 1 simultaneously. That's a 1/1296 chance if you don't have any luck modifiers.
My attack damage rolls in that run, all in ogre form with the gauntlets against enemies with melee weapons:
vs Mulahey: 42 damage backstab = 4 on 4d6, 18 damage normal hit = 7 on 4d6.
vs Davaeorn: 148 damage critical backstab = 12 on 4d6.
vs Slythe: 94 damage backstab = 17 on 4d6 with Luck active.
vs Sarevok: 66 damage backstab = 10 on 4d6, 90 damage backstab = 16 on 4d6.
Nothing breaks my understanding of the game here; I just think something funny was going on with the character's luck against Mulahey.
New run. The party have even stricter rules about Arcane Magic than Amn. No mage in the party. So far everyone is LG. The characters are all previously rolled characters but given the names of actual "English" Knights Templar in the First Crusade.
Probably the English who were born in England wouldn't agree that they were truly English as many were Normans who had come over from France and resistance to the invasion wasn't completely over. The building of castles everywhere however had made resistance largely futile. The Crusade came shortly after the signing of the Magna Carta, a turbulent time in England.
There is a shortage of splint armour fot the party as all of them can wear it if available and there is only one suit in Candlekeep.
The first action in the session was re-entering the City and going to find Slythe. He stood little chance anyway against 3 martial characters, but Keeler made sure by tagging him with a dart of stunning.
At the palace the odds looked pretty good with not only potions consumed, but some summoned monsters helping out as well. However, the dopplegangers' concentration on the dukes can be seen in the fact that none of us took any damage and they managed to take Liia to near death and Belt to badly wounded.
There was a slight hiccup in the maze when Keeler used a PfU scroll to kill the first skeleton warrior and gained a level as a result. Taking that resulted in him losing the PfU protection and he took heavy damage before Flynn recast that on him.
In the Undercity a few summons made no real impression on Rahvin's party. Swis got a bit too close to them as they moved forward and was shot down by Carston.
Keeler then retreated, but not before the casters got a sniff of him. That resulted in him being held, inside a cloudkill - and with a curious ghoul scenting a free lunch.
Flynn cut off that threat with a blast from his heavenly wand, before Swis' disembodied voice suggested he look in his pack for a PfP scroll to ensure Keeler survived the poison cloud.
After returning from the temple and finishing off the remainder of the Undercity party, we moved on to find Sarevok. Swis successfully tagged him with a dispelling arrow and Semaj didn't last long when he teleported out in support. We spent a while running Sarevok round inside not only the web trap, but also Swis' own web. Even without malison the odds were Sarevok would get stuck, but he stubbornly refused to do so. His luck ran out, however, when Swis fired off a first shot with his paralyzing wand.
Jon's dungeon beckoned and we made fairly short work of that, with Keeler picking up plenty of bonus XP from disarming traps. He did have a bit of a concern after spirit armor proved insufficient buffing against a steam mephit's stun, but the stun doesn't last long and Keeler's relatively high HPs allowed him time to recover.
Ulvaryl managed to flap away at near death, but Swis added a bit more XP by forgetting and relearning spells (apart from identify of course, which he deleted before realizing he had no replacement). That allowed Swis to gain 3 levels during the dungeon, while the others levelled up on exit.
The circus offered an easy first quest, even though neither of the thieves yet had any significant dispel illusion ability.
After reporting in to Gaelan Bayle, the Copper Coronet was begging to be put under new management. The animals there put up a decent struggle, but were eventually put to sleep and Hendak given a new role.
Keeler mentioned he liked short swords and all 3 of us went into stealth to turn the tables on the ambushing Suna Seni.
Then it was on to the Graveyard to start exploring the tombs there. Flynn stealthed into one of those and hit a shadow fiend before retreating. Swis tried to do the same, only to find that the shadow fiends had now moved and were blocking the doorway. Flynn came in as well, but didn't fancy the odds and both of them shouted out for Keeler. He quickly arrived and, with Arbane in hand, was able to tank the shadow fiends. Swis still managed to get held, but the enemies didn't last long enough to take advantage.
Dark Moon Monk - L9, 72 HPs, 67 kills (+174 in BG1)
Fighter/Thief - L8/10, 90 HPs, 37 kills (+183 in BG1), 1 death
Fighter/Mage/Thief - L7/8/8, 61 HPs, 38 kills (+173 in BG1), 1 death
Keeler took the BG1 prize, dominating the final session by getting quickly stuck in to melee. Flynn's got an early BG2 lead due to his natural speed and ability to one-shot goblins.
We started shakily today and soon took the trip from bad to worse ...
Finding ourselves in the Graveyard from last time Swis fancied his chances of carving up the Crypt King, but was fortunate to survive being sliced in return.
More undead and spiders caused more damage, but we rested up prior to invading Pai'Na's nest. The intention was to go in invisibly there and set up attacks. However, after failing to hide half a dozen times or so Flynn thought what the hell and led the way inside anyway - not even stopping to beg Swis for an invisibility spell. His intention was to use his speed to run away from the spiders inside, but in the confusion of bodies he got stuck and then poisoned. Those tiny spiders inflict some of the most lethal poison in the game and, within the second or two it took to pause the game, Flynn had dropped down to something like 43 HPs (and was not willing to use an antidote).
If he could get outside and rest that would cure the poison, but there were spiders blocking the exit. One faint chance seemed to be a fireball from Swis to clear the spiders, followed by a dash for the door. Swis duly aimed a fireball at Flynn and he nimbly dodged out of the way stayed exactly where he was. In retrospect I think he hadn't been blocked by spiders when trying to move, but caught on one of the web intersections and stuck there. He did survive the fireball, but the others were much too far from the door for his few remaining seconds of life to mean anything.
Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar) @Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier @Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos. Not a preferred character but that's the luck of the draw
Plus a couple of interlopers who joined the party.
We continued attempt 38 in much the same way as attempt 37. Here we are at the starting point.
By this, we mean Peel said that a wolf was chasing him as he ran past us so watch out and Talisman didn't hear - so took an early dive.
Despite our unstated character generation delivering three divine characters, we were far too low a level to raise our fallen so paid a level 1 visit to Beregost temple and greased their palms with 100gp (Imoen is out of luck).
In next to no time we were back in action to the chagrin of Shoal the nereid. A couple of volleys of missiles limited her persuasiveness and Talisman, despite leading on the party-deathometer, took the first level up of our campaign.
Peel used his 17 Charisma to sweet-talk the Mad Arcand into rewarding us for returning his cursed ring and then we returned to town for Marl and Firebead's brief conversations.
Wirblefop then aimed for Nashkel, killing the ogrillion mailers and a hobgoblin in stealth boots on the way. We also picked up the Colquetle amulet for easy reputation later. At Nashkel we squeezed Peel into some ankheg armour and shot down Noober for impertinence.
Then we continued south and gave Greywolf a triple-command send-off. Peel had been concerned about confronting him so early but he didn't last longer than the commands.
Back to Beregost we went to pick up our easy reputation, and another unfortunate party member. Tip of the day - don't let the Priest of Talos deliver Colquetle's amulet unless you want a reputation bump downwards. The paladin and ranger exchanged worried looks, fearing they may be on a steady road to becoming fallen if Talisman isn't spoken to sternly (or if he expedites matters with a lightning bolt into a crowd of neutrals).
Peel decided he should benefit from cavalier poison immunity before we fall, and pulled the legs off four spiders.
Wirblefop tried speaking to Zhurlong about boots but a low charisma (5) meant he was spurned - and he thought the boots were lost but much much later realised Zhurlong hadn't even bothered with them.
Once we had delivered Samuel to a temple and set about an assassin we briefly visited the Friendly Arm Inn before moving on to High Hedge. Talisman demonstrated his Hold spell which came in handy several times in the rest of todays venture.
Then it was time to pick up bracers from Zal and Vax.
By this time Peel was getting more and more concerned about our dead party members. Wirblefop kept trying to convince his companion that he was a beastmaster by trade but the call of necromancy was tempting.
Caldo and Krumm perished quickly, a Command making a brief appearance but two fighters in the party is making short work of enemies now we have a handful of levels.
Talisman may be lagging in the kill-tally but his healing and situation control is making a solid contribution - even getting his sling to finish a polar bear at one point.
Peel had been jesting about Talisman's hold's not being necessary but eventually he conceded that there were times the spell allowed us to dominate battles. Here's an example.
We were heading towards the session close, so we just had time to kill off Bassilus, collect his reward, clear out an ankheg nest (Peel complaining that Wirblefop had not used the protection from acid scroll on him and Wirblefop complaining that Peel had raced into the nest without chance to apply the scroll). Peel made light work of it, chugging a bunch of but not all our healing potions.
We purchased a couple of scrolls (protection from petrification, stone to flesh) so are ready to stick our weapons into basilisks next time.
Party gear
n.b. special award of the session goes to Peel who has rolled maximum hit points for levels 2-4 and overhauled Wirblefop and his familiar.
Gate70 once more proclaimed he was a glutton for punishment, so we started a new run today. The randomly chosen characters kicked out a couple of relative weaklings this time - a bounty hunter and a skald. "Just a second" I hear the more observant members of the Forum say, "you've written a thief in the title". Indeed, well spotted . Well, in a nutshell we started the game with me having rolled a bounty hunter before I was slightly taken aback to find I had something like 140 skill points to allocate. Gate70 correctly diagnosed that I'd started the game in SoD rather than BGEE, so we ditched that one and re-rolled characters. The delay didn't help me avoid mistakes though and this time I forgot to choose the kit for the thief class. I only realized that when noticing a while later that my trap skill was rather less than I expected, but decided that we wouldn't bother restarting yet again ...
Anyway, back to the story. After leaving Candlekeep Shoal provided us with early levels - but still no better THAC0. That showed up when we took an awfully long time to deal with the 3 gnolls hanging around High Hedge.
Beregost added to our container collection and some boots of stealth were snagged on the way down to Nashkel to get some Bhaal healing. We also bought a PfP scroll, but rather than go straight to the basilisk area we stopped off at Meilum to improve our martial prowess a bit.
The basilisks then gave more levels, with the last of those and Mutamin both falling to critical backstabs.
A couple of traps laid near Kirian's crew left them all at near death, but there was a fair amount of running round before we managed to finish them all off.
A trip north via the FAI scoped out the location of Ulgoth's Beard before we returned south to the Cloudpeaks in search of some reputation to push our total to 20. However, before doing any shopping we stopped off in Bassilus' area. He caused little trouble, but the nearby hobgoblins were much more of a problem after Sonja's attempted backstab on one of the archers missed with a roll of 2. That ended with us running for the hills, both gently leaking HPs from poison arrows.
To improve backstabbing Sonja got the +3 staff from Ulgoth's and tested that out on a sirine or two at the Lighthouse - a potion of clarity being used there to make that slightly easier.
Arrows made fairly short work of the golems to leave us close to a final level. Deciding to get that before saving, we went to find the Doomsayer. The odd magic missile and backstab left him short of HPs and a first use of the wand of frost avoided any potential need for a long series of further attempted backstabs.
New Run with Xan the Enchanter using my own roll of 99.
Mods are Xan's New Groove with the items given to the Candlekeep assassins who are now dead.
Journal of Xan
Being a Moonblade wielder, finding that my Moonblade had been stolen by a thief whilst I slept filled me with dread. Fortunately I came across the thieves before they had a chance to flee Candlekeep and I recovered my possessions once they were slain.
The items that I recovered were an amulet and a buckler.
The buckler is only usable by non-chaotic elves.
Gorion and I fled Candlekeep but we were ambushed and Gorion was slain.
I fled from Gorion's killers stopping only to pick up a diamond and a couple of rings before clearing the FAI of hobgoblins.
Heading North, I killed Sonner and his cohorts before returning Tenya's bowl and killing an ankheg.
I reached Beregost and headed south.
Using sleep and charm spells proved to be an excellent way forward as I proceeded to the Nashkel Mines.
Sadly the guards killed Greywolf before I got the chance to do it myself.
A belt protected me from the winter wolf spells.
When I met up with Prism again he sadly died.
I reunited Albert and his dog and then went on to escort Samuel to the FAI.
My reputation increased when I returned Joia's ring.
To the south I acquired a belt of piercing.
I then returned the Colquetle amulet, calmed down Marl and took a tome to Firebead.
I then helped Mellicamp get back into shape and in so doing reached level4.
Ankheg hunting was next on the agenda.
A visit to the basilisk area was next.
This resulted in me reaching level 6.
I was going to drop this run but decided against it.
Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar) @Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier @Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos
Plus a couple of interlopers who remained in the party
Last time we reckoned to be on our way to visit Mutamin and his basilisks. We had a very brief detour to empty backpacks and pick up a scroll of flesh to stone, and then we looped around the basilisks culminating in a brief encounter with Mutamin.
Kirian and her adventurers found themselves silenced, and never really dug themselves out of that hole.
Wirblefop then made for Nashkel Mine, having heard Peel ask if we'd been there. We have now - although Peel mentioned having an oil of fiery burning for one group of enemies but decided not to use it until a later group - Wirblefop finding himself part of the collateral damage moments before this screenshot.
Mulahey found a Talosian Silence > Command was far beyond his grasp.
Outside the mine Lamahla and her amazons also found themselves tongue-tied.
We then made for Durlag's Tower - Wirblefop loosing (n.b. setting loose, not losing) his familiar briefly to distract two of the four basilisks before Talisman upped the ante with skeletons.
Tranzig had already spilt his guts so we knew of the bandit camp. Talisman made certain that they also knew of us, briefly.
With more bandits cast asunder within the main bandit tent we learnt of a secret mine deep in Cloakwood. So deep, in fact, that Wirblefop briefly lost his direction and we found ourselves at Firewine Bridge standing over the body of Meilum. It seemed a shame to pass up the occasion so Talisman helped himself to our second pair of gauntlets of weapons expertise. This meant his dexterity and armour class dipped slightly but everyone in the party knows that's the path of Grond0 - valour over discretion.
It wasn't long before we reached Cloakwood Mine and dispatched the defenders outside. Silence and Skeletons allowed our missiles to rule the battle.
The mine interior was covered off quickly, and Davaeorn got to try his lightning and fireball out against a Talos Storm Shield. Or he would have done if his castings worked but instead lightning bolts and hammer blows from Talisman interrupted him each time.
With Talisman having done much of the work against Davaeorn it was only natural that Peel should steal in for the killing strike.
We made our way to Baldur's Gate and cleared out the upper floor of Sorcerous Sundries as well as the sewers below. By this time our two hours was up and we reflected that slightly less than four hours had got us here from Candlekeep.
Wirblefop has 154 kills to his name, Peel 134 and Talisman 55. Neera and Imoen are holding back with zero kills between them.
Here we are in all our pomp and glory.
We had a couple of jokey moments about being held. First was in Cloakwood when Talisman asked if we wanted to pick up the Spiders Bane sword. Nobody wanted (only Peel could use it anyway) despite at the time of asking two of the three of us being stuck fast in a web.
Second was when we skirted past the hamadryad. Wirblefop suggested Peel demonstrate his ability not to be charmed or dominated but he declined saying he wasn't immune to hold. Wirblefop retorted that hold wasn't deadly and a moment or two later the three of us chimed that what happened after being held was the fatal part. Thus followed a conversation where our three learned adventurers mused about a fall not being fatal either with the landing being the decisive juncture.
Hello Everyone! It truly makes me happy to see all these runs still going. My life has been so busy the last couple of years and I have been unable to participate. I may give this another go since I have a week of free time coming up. Cheers and merry adventures my friends!
Alrighty, I went ahead and decided to try my hand this time around with a dwarven fighter/thief. I took proficiency in longbow and longswords this time around. I am on a core rules run with no mods. I quickly bought up at candlekeep, stole the star sapphire, made my way out and went to FAI and recruited Imoen, Khalid and Jahiera. I think I will do a traditional setup with Minsc and Dynahier as well. I will post some pictures with the next round. I believe I will tackle basilisks and Shoal for easy exp. Any thoughts on where I should go for easy exp after that? thinking of putting on a few levels before grabbing minsc and Dynaheir.
Alrighty, I went ahead and decided to try my hand this time around with a dwarven fighter/thief. I took proficiency in longbow and longswords this time around. I am on a core rules run with no mods. I quickly bought up at candlekeep, stole the star sapphire, made my way out and went to FAI and recruited Imoen, Khalid and Jahiera. I think I will do a traditional setup with Minsc and Dynahier as well. I will post some pictures with the next round. I believe I will tackle basilisks and Shoal for easy exp. Any thoughts on where I should go for easy exp after that? thinking of putting on a few levels before grabbing minsc and Dynaheir.
Good luck with your new character @RVNS! I hope you can make good progress this week. For easy XP, Shoal the Nereid comes to mind. And Ankhegs are susceptible to Sleep and Command. Unfortunately you have no one who can cast those spells, but you could use the wand of sleep from High Hedge.
There are a bunch of easy mini quests in the wilderness areas, especially for a warrior thief with stealth. Returning Brage is risk proof and then there is the free 900 xp in the Beregost inn from Marl. Go grab those dexterity gauntlets at the Gnoll fortress together with the Charisma tomb and then head up to Firewine for the bracers to help with stealth, archery, backstabs, and melee.
My basilisk hunting was a success other than having to get a scroll to reverse the petrification on Jaheira( I accidently moved the wrong character without the petrification protection spell). Mixed with shoal boosted us up a few levels. Then I grabbed up the easy exp from Marl. I finished up the gnoll fortress as well and snagged the charisma tomb and dex gauntlets. After that I headed to nashkel and then the mines since Khalid and Jaheira were warning me to do so(I could not remember their timer length so I went ahead to the area).I took the opportunity to help prism and then grab up varscona for my fighter/thief. That is a big win as he will use this for a long time. Next step is to finish up the naskhel mines since I am already here. I may try to finish up some other areas and retrace my steps after that. I will probably look at each area and see what I need from it and then head to the main story line and push through.
I am on a time crunch and need to streamline a little I believe. Unnecessary fights are a quick way for my run to end. I did have a pretty nasty kobold pick off imoen earlier yesterday before we got those levels to raise HP. Any suggestions or a better path or ideas feel free to share. I have more experience with BG2 than BG.
Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar) @Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier @Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos
Plus a couple of interlopers who remained in the party
Session 3 started with a bang as Wirblefop found his screen minimised. Despite this brief setback he regained his poise and pretended nothing happened. Peel and Talisman were merrily dealing with the nearby guardians without any beastmaster assistance.
We made our way around the city, introducing ourselves to friend and foe alike. Wirblefop thought the brawlers of undermountain went down quietly and then his screen minimised again.
OK, Wirblefop worked out what was going on (press print screen and Onedrive interfered to try and grab the picture - cue exit of Onedrive while playing).
Ragefast and Ramazith both expired in short order, as did Jardak and his butler. Jardak for once melting under a fighter-heavy attack.
We had a brief addition to our party dead when Talisman baulked himself against stairs and patrons - this allowed Desreta to give him a taste of ennui. Peel killed her, we hit a temple briefly and then returned for Vay-ya.
We ploughed on through the city quests and eventually took control of the Iron Throne HQ. Wirblefop kept himself to the west for once and used arrows of biting which he thought would be highly effective but ultimately Talisman's spells were better.
We made our way through Candlekeep, Peel braving the traps, and while his companions played with spiders Wirblefop decided to melee and then shoot a pair of greater basilisks.
Coronation time. We burned through the greater doppelgangers by using buffed skeletons and several potions.
The Thieves Maze looked a safe place for us. Peel cleared out a pair of skeleton warriors and just as Wirblefop decided we should cautiously check for any traps that our paladin missed - Talisman found one. Luckily for him he survived and didn't have the priest of Talos ignominy of perishing to lightning.
Rahvin and his gang were taken apart but Wirblefop showed his lack of armour against decent archers - having to retreat. Peel did a double-take, thinking our leader was on 0hp before deciding it said 8hp.
Sarevok dodged several arrows before finally getting dispelled and this allowed Semaj to occupy Peel for a while. As soon as an arrow plinked away Sarevok's haste the next arrow removed Semaj's buffs and down went the mage. Sarevok put up a brave battle for about 10 seconds before following his caster.
We ended the session and Wirblefop took it upon himself to import everyone into Shadows of Amn. Peel had asked earlier what a Beastmaster should do since Wirblefop was mainly acting as an archer. He may be right, although Wirblefop gained a level (and first spell) after defeating Sarevok he lost it on import and requires a smidge more XP to regain it. The main benefit of a Beastmaster then is that the familiar disappeared on import without loss of constitution or hit points, and a new familiar added 10 more hit points.
Yes it's a dirty trick that Wirblefop played, and he may choose to drop the hit points before next time.
Difficulty: SCS/Ascension Insane (no additional damage)
Additional mods: Adalon drops silver scales, Waukeen's Promenade Fletcher sells arrows of dispelling in stacks of 5 instead of 40
Additional rules: no xp loop, no area hopping to avoid incoming magic spells (escaping ambushes is allowed though), no Vhailor's Helm before TOB
Game version: 2.5
Weidu log BG2:
// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #0 // Rewritten Final Chapter of Throne of Bhaal: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #10 // Balthazar can be redeemed: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #20 // Improved Sarevok-Player Interactions: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #30 // Improved Imoen-Player Interactions in Throne of Bhaal: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #40 // Restored Bhaalspawn Powers: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #50 // Improved Slayer Transformation: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #60 // Expanded Epilogues for Bioware NPCs -> David Gaider's expanded epilogues for Bioware NPCs: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Tougher Abazigal: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1100 // Tougher Balthazar: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1200 // Tougher Demogorgon: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1300 // Tougher Gromnir: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1400 // Tougher Illasera: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Tougher Yaga-Shura: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Full-body portrait for Bodhi: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2100 // Alternate Balthazar portrait, by Cuv: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2200 // Extended Epilogues for additional Beamdog NPCs, by shawne: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2300 // Sharper portraits of Abazigal and Gromnir for the Enhanced Edition, by DavidW: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2400 // Slightly improved cutscenes, by DavidW: 2.0.13
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3550 // Increase the power of Cure Wounds and Cause Wounds spells to the level found in 3rd Edition D&D -> Spells heal or inflict a random amount of damage (1d8 per level of the spell, plus 1 point per caster level, to a maximum of 5 points per spell level): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3580 // Restoration and Lesser Restoration spells heal ability-score damage: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // Faster Bears: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4100 // Improved NPC customisation and management: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4115 // Thieves assign skill points in multiples of five: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4150 // Allow the Cowled Wizards to detect spellcasting in most indoor, above-ground areas in Athkatla: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4215 // Remove unrealistically helpful items from certain areas: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4218 // Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from the game -> Remove all ammo from random containers: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4240 // Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5000 // Ease-of-use party AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6500 // Improved golems: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6510 // Improved fiends and celestials: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6520 // Smarter genies: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6540 // Smarter dragons: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6550 // Smarter beholders: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6560 // Smarter mind flayers: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6570 // Smarter githyanki: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6580 // Improved Vampires: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6590 // Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6800 // Smarter Illasera: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6810 // Smarter Gromnir: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6820 // Smarter Yaga-Shura: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6830 // Smarter Abazigal: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6840 // Ascension versions of Irenicus and Sendai use SCS abilities and AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6850 // Ascension demons use SCS abilities and AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8000 // Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8010 // Improved Shade Lord: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8020 // Spellcasting Demiliches: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8040 // Tie difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings to the difficulty slider: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8050 // Improved Random Encounters: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8060 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix"): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8070 // Improved Unseeing Eye: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8080 // Improved Bodhi: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8085 // Ascension version of Bodhi uses Improved-Bodhi abilities: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8090 // Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8100 // Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8110 // Improved Sahuagin: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8120 // Improved Beholder hive: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8130 // Rebalanced troll regeneration: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8140 // Improved Drow: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8150 // Improved Watcher's Keep: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8160 // Improved Fire Giant temple: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8170 // Improved Sendai's Enclave: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8180 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8190 // Improved Minor Encounters: v33.4
Upon entering level 5 and going south, Glolin met the Helmite Ghost. Glolin agreed to his 3 challenges and entered the left door first. Here he kited some Orcs until the Helmite Ghost intervened. Glolin looted the pool.
Continuing on he entered the middle door. After buffing with prot from poison, hardness, mirror image and fireshield, Glolin rushed forward wielding Soul Reaver. Things were going great, until the Dragon used his dispel magic ability. Without prot from poison Glolin was vulnerable to his poison breath attack. He immediately equiped the helm of the rock to get atleast 25% protection back. The dragon was getting hit ferociously by Glolin, but used several healing spells to stay alive and prolong the fight. Glolin too had to use RoR several times to stay alive. After spending all his 16 whirlwind attacks on it, Glolin switched his weapons to Crom Faeyr with Defender of Easthaven in the off-hand and a few blows later the Dragon lay dead at his feet.
Glolin finished the last challenge by completing the Imps riddle and by beating him at the game of coins. He moved on to the orb room to the east. Here he pushed each button one time, and after dispatching the monsters he placed each orb in the correct pillar to recieve the mind key.
Glolin moved west and placed the skull he got from the dragon on the pedestal. For the Spirit Warrior test he used the following actions: north, east, search, north, east, north, scroll, west, archway. As a reward he recieved the spirit key.
Watcher's Keep Level 5 - The Guardians
After changing his gear to increase his fire resistance (helm of brilliance, dragon shield) and buffing (fireshield, hardness) Glolin unlocked the lower seal, releasing Azamantes the lich. Azamantes opened with Timestop during which he summoned a dark planatar. He continued gating in several demons. Glolin decided not to engage them, and kited them until they disappeared. Once his backup was gone, Glolin rushed Azamantes with MoD, instakilling him. The flaming skulls were then moped up one by one.
After resting, Glolin turned the key of the right lock. Glolin used a divide and conquer tactic here. The Rilmani only attack on sight and do not come to help eachother. Glolin used this to his advantage and first took out the fighters, so Aurumach Rilmani was isolated. Using summons to draw his attention and to make him waste his insta-timestops, he never posed a real threat.
Glolin rested and turned the upper left key to face the final guardians.
He had equiped the reflection shield to stay safe from missile attacks, his 100%MR also proved very useful in this fight. While his summons kept the enemies busy, he rushed Ameralis Zawiir the drow cleric first. This to avoid her using implosion on Glolin. After killing her he switched to Dwarven Thrower and started to kite the enemies. Using whirlwinds at the right moment he engaged the enemies one by one, and retreated when one came too close. Nalmissra was the first to fall, followed by Xei Win Toh and The Huntress.
With only the Hive Mother and Y'tossi left, Glolin retreated through the portal back to the previous level.
After resting he returned, he rushed the Hive Mother with Crom Faeyr. Glolin brought the beast to near death, but had to retreat after being poisoned by Y'tossi. One RoR charge later, Glolin reengaged the Hive Mother, killing it with a whirlwind attack. For Y' tossi Glolin switched to Defender of Easthaven in the offhand, and used fireshields to make it kill itself while attacking Glolin. This took quite a lot of time, but in the end Y'tossi fell and the last guardian was defeated.
Glolin left Watcher's Keep for now, still undecided how to handle the great evil still lurking here.
De'arnise Keep Revisited
With the Dagger of the Stars in hand, Glolin could now take care of some unfinished business in the basement of De'arnise Keep. After summoning some fire elementals he used the dagger on them to be able to turn invisible. Once invisible Glolin lured TorGal with him to kill him easily without interference. The rest of the enemies in the basement were then moped up.
Glolin returned to Nalia and got the Keep as a reward.
Forest of Tethir
After buying all the supplies needed, Glolin felt ready to leave Athkatla for good. He talked to Elhan who teleported Glolin to the Forest of Tethir and opened up the entrance to Suldanesslar.
Glolin first decided to do some more scouting in the forest, this led him to discover a cave with the Mana bow hidden in it.
Glolin is now ready to enter Suldenesslar and clear it of all evil, he is especially triggered to finally face the mage Irenicus!
After the death of my half orc shaman in SoD (Volghin thought singing near a sleeping green dragon was a good idea), I decided to continue with him on a minimal reload run. He's now in ToB.
Meanwhile, I just began a new run with an half elf avenger named Deirdre, from BG1 to hopefully ToB.
So : unmodded game, insane difficulty (no additional damage).
The party was initially Imoen, Ajantis, Branwen, Minsc and Dynaheir, but I swapped Imoen for Coran, and Branwen for Yeslick.
Minsc died three times already, and at level 1 my avenger nearly died from a Xvart hit...
A random encounter with 4 ettercaps was difficult, as was the hamadryad who charmed Branwen and held Ajantis and Minsc. Luckily, a web was successful to prevent Branwen killing them.
Deirdre is now level 6, in the Cloackwood mine.
I play her like a mage, and so far she's better than Dynaheir : no need to scribe scrolls, twice the hit points, better AC, better Thac0...
The usual web, silence, hold person and horror is perfect against any party, at least until now.
Today's session saw us pushing our luck - but it held out, making it an enjoyable session .
The first action saw us in the Nashkel Mines, where Mulahey was wounded by skull trap before Sonja sneaked in for a backstab - finding a critical which would have one-shotted Mulahey anyway ...
Outside the mine the first comedy of errors moment occurred against the Amazons. Trindus threw in a blind and web combination before shouting to Sonja "all yours". That was intended to signal she could start shooting, but instead the fearless foolish leader moved forward - getting stuck in the web just as Trindus launched a skull trap . Fortunately halfling saves trumped human ones and Sonja was the first to recover movement.
Nimbul was backstabbed and Tranzig treated to a couple of traps to open up the route to the Bandit Camp. Early progress there was pretty good, with Taurgosz getting stuck in a web and most of the bandits cut down. However, that bred a bit of over-confidence in Sonja and she attacked a group of 4 bandits near the tent - successfully backstabbing one of them, but having to hastily resort to an invisibility potion as the retaliation poured in.
Tazok's tent was straightforward though, with web doing the heavy lifting there.
The Cloakwood passed relatively uneventfully, with Sonja able to disarm the web traps in the spider area. Trindus did get poisoned by an ettercap there, but explained that was simply to allow Sonja to try out her newly acquired Bhaal slow poison. At the Cloakwood Mine Genthore was blinded before a web and traps quickly sorted out the mages. Drasus though survived the web and there was a potentially nasty period when he was chasing hot on the heels of Sonja. She managed to avoid any attacks though until Trindus offered an alternative target to give Sonja a chance at a backstab.
In the mine the comedy of errors spawned a new chapter when we attacked a ghast. Sonja edged to the side of it to allow her to get a backstab as it chased after a retreating skald - or so she thought. Meanwhile, the aforesaid skald had decided to stand firm in order to allow Sonja the time to get behind th ghast for a backstab. The net result of that was that Sonja's attack hit - but was not a backstab - leaving Trindus paralyzed. Fortunately Sonja managed a quick killing shot with her bow before the ghast could do further damage.
Downstairs, we spent a bit of time activating the battle horrors and dealing with them using backstabs and the odd frost wand blast. Then it was time for Davaeorn. He'd already taken a bit of skull trap damage and seemed likely to expire in a couple of traps set on his landing zone - but a backstab meant he failed to get even that far.
We did most of our normal encounters in Baldur's Gate, mainly without too much incident. One exception was the ogre mage in the sewers, which looked likely to cause trouble when it followed a carrion crawler in chase of Trindus and grinned happily as Trindus once more froze in place. Sonja managed to turn the tables on the crawler with the help of one of the 5 darts of stunning she'd been carrying, but the ogre mage saved against the same fate and Sonja didn't fancy the odds as a summoned ogrillon joined the foes. That caused her to dive into her backpack and fish around for a particularly spicy curry powder she's been saving for just this sort of occasion.
The final action was doing the poison quest, with the aim of getting Sonja a decent bow at last. She had hoped to get some boots of speed from Lothander as well, but v2.6 seems to have changed the behavior of grease considerably and Lothander was able to nip to the stairs before we could target him. There was no escape for Marek though, who failed to register the danger as Trindus crooned "she's behind you".
...but v2.6 seems to have changed the behavior of grease considerably and Lothander was able to nip to the stairs before we could target him.
Grease was changed in 2.6 - but it appears to work essentially the same as it did before anyway. Which isn't particularly close to what's in the description.
How it actually works: as long as the overlay exists, everyone in it saves once per round. If a save succeeds, nothing happens. If a save fails, that creature is slowed to speed 1 for the full N+3 rounds. Saving in a future round does not remove the effect, and the slow effect will often persist well after the active spell on the ground expires.
If you're trying to slow down Lothander so you can kill him, you need to wait until he fails a save before talking. Without that failed save, he's at full speed and will get away.
There were two changes made in 2.6. First, the sound effect that played every round for everyone in the area (whether they saved or not) was removed. Second, a "remove effects by resource" effect was added. If you save, it's supposed to clear up any existing Grease effects now and let you move normally. In my testing, this does not appear to work.
...but v2.6 seems to have changed the behavior of grease considerably and Lothander was able to nip to the stairs before we could target him.
Grease was changed in 2.6 - but it appears to work essentially the same as it did before anyway. Which isn't particularly close to what's in the description.
How it actually works: as long as the overlay exists, everyone in it saves once per round. If a save succeeds, nothing happens. If a save fails, that creature is slowed to speed 1 for the full N+3 rounds. Saving in a future round does not remove the effect, and the slow effect will often persist well after the active spell on the ground expires.
If you're trying to slow down Lothander so you can kill him, you need to wait until he fails a save before talking. Without that failed save, he's at full speed and will get away.
There were two changes made in 2.6. First, the sound effect that played every round for everyone in the area (whether they saved or not) was removed. Second, a "remove effects by resource" effect was added. If you save, it's supposed to clear up any existing Grease effects now and let you move normally. In my testing, this does not appear to work.
Saving is not what I'm referring to. Lothander was affected by grease and perceptibly slowed by it - but not remotely close to speed 1 as used to be the case. Using grease we also saw distinct differences in the speed impact on Gate70 and myself. I had a single player run the other day as well where Lothander was moving much faster than he should have done after being greased, so there's definitely a significant change in v2.6 as a whole (whether intended or not) and not just in MP.
Oops, a correction. The "remove effects" effect only happens if you fail the save; that's just housekeeping so you don't get multiple redundant copies of the effect on the same creature.
Also, I missed a third change: instead of a "set movement speed" effect, the spell now uses a speed modifier that my (not entirely up to date) version of NI doesn't understand (modifier type 5 "Unknown"). This seems to result in essentially the same speeds as before in most cases, but now boots of speed can double the slowed speed. A greased Lothander will now move twice as fast as an average greased person. Which is still considerably slower than a non-greased person.
Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar) @Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier @Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos
Screencaps have been added later
Session 4; 13 November
Wirblefop, Peel and Talisman didn't appreciate their welcome to Amn - being jailed was one thing, having Imoen cram herself into the party was quite another but a downsizing exercise sorted that out. We then set about making good our escape and in less than an hour we were breathing in the fresh air of the Promenade having already visited the circus.
Over the second hour we transferred ownership of a tavern to Hendak, killed off Suna Seni, rescued and returned a poisoned harper to his hold, observed the death of Xzar at the hands of an assassin who foolishly stayed to fight us. A jaunt to Watchers Keep had given us a potion case, and we've dealt with smugglers at the docks, stopped the rune assassins involved with the skinner murders, cleared the upper part of the graveyard, and visited each area of the city. Our final act of the session was to pick up the +2 ring of protection for Peel and the Amulet of Power for Talisman.
Peel made a very early purchase of Azuredge, ignoring our lowly reputation, and this has heavily boosted his kill tally. Many shadows, skeletons and a few mummies have melted in front of him.
Party at session end:
Session 5; 27 November
Wirblefop had scribbled down a bit of a plan for the session but it wasn't long before Peel's reminders about picking up Lilacor waylaid them. Despite reverting to the unshared plan part of it (let's call it de'Arnise) was not reached and another part (temple amulet) was collected but not turned in to Mae'Var. Wirblefop kept his plan a secret, even from Peel or Talisman. Don't look!
So what did we get up to. Wirblefop's first task was to up-trade a piece of red cloth for a worn-in pair of boots of avoidance. Talisman killed Am-Si and Reti despite everyone else's efforts and then Wirblefop arrived to deprive Peel of the killing blow on Camitis, and then we opted for the silver pantaloons at the cost of some reputation.
Next on the highly encrypted (my handwriting's not THAT bad!) plan; Wirblefop headed over to Watchers Keep and we cleared the entry level. Peel got himself level drained on a trap when Talisman was amuleted up, so we rested before seeing if there were any vampiric wraiths - there were none. Talisman almost got himself killed against one of the guardian golems when trying to slipper up a long-dead priest but managed to squeeze through a small door with a handful of life left. He then showed an unreasonable level of precaution by saying he was not fully protected against a death spell and waiting at least three seconds before triggering it. He survived.
We arrived as planned at Trademeet, only for Peel to complain that this was not the sewers. No indeed. After we did enough to progress to the druid grove Peel asks about Stonefire, and Wirblefop mentions he intends to use fire arrows instead. Of which we have none (the scribbled plan had been to purchase the Firetooth crossbow but our funds were too meagre). So instead Wirblefop relented and we headed back to the Slums for their sewers. On the way Peel availed himself of the Stonefire axe making fire arrows superfluous but depleting funds further. It's not an issue, just Peel isn't aligning himself to the unspoken plan and Wirblefop hypocritically considers calling out this lack of teamwork!
Back in the sewers we test our our party raise dead when one of us is held and almost expires against the goblin shaman's party. Having barely survived that he is unfortunate enough to be the only target for our out of control berserk warrior. Uh, our cleric is dead. Peel and Wirblefop head to a temple and get Talisman raised, and on our return we confirm that the Ashideena warhammer, a small +2 shield and a candle from Watchers Keep have vanished. Talisman had a ring of protection that also went, but Wirblefop hands his ring over. Never mind, we've picked up a teddy bear from Lynis on our way back.
Talisman complains all his bullets have gone but Peel picked up a few while Wirblefop bagged more so at least Talisman has ranged ability. Wirblefop hands over the shaman's staff as a temporary measure while Peel suggests picking up a mace from the goblins. That'll do.
We complete the sewers without any further ado, Wirblefop observing that the bagged puzzle ring is accepted in multiplayer when Peel obtains Lilacor (I had expected it to fail and for the host to complete the quest).
The slaver ship is next on our list, Wirblefop struggling to pick up equipment as his companions focus on the slavers. After collecting our reward from Hendak we pick up the Talosian amulet and finish off the fallen paladin job. Wirblefop then struggles to remember what is next until Talisman suggests the teddy bear is a bit cumbersome - that's right, it was an inventory clearance. So we head to the graveyard and hand the bear over. While there we find a new home for an orphan child and kill uncle Lester half a second after he kills Nevin so a family funeral will be required for them - we're not paying nor are we arranging it.
Wirblefop wants to drop more gear off at the Promenade but Talisman is wearing thin with his half-plate armour and requests that we take on Mencar Pebblecrusher. Wirblefop sighs (I never do this party outside multiplayer) and it's not long before Smaeluv Orcslicer (reminds me why) zeroes Talisman's hit points. Wirblefop takes a good dose of magic damage while hemmed in by Pooky the familiar but Talisman's skeletons and Peel are able to clear the area. Off to a temple again to raise Talisman.
Talisman's disembodied voice asks for gear to be left on the ground to minimise multiplayer death equipment loss and we don't notice anything of value departing. We finally arrive at the druid grove, and with Stonefire plus fire arrows we burn our way across to Cernd and decline his luncheon invite - we shall merely observe. Back at Trademeet we pick up our rewards, finish off Rejiek Hidesman and clear out the feuding families temple for the mayor.
Not a bad session, with two deaths one for this week and one for us not turning up last week - that achieves Grond0's quota of one death per session if we use man-dwarf-maths.
Party gear:
Session 6; 4 December
Peel enquires why our journey remains unpublished recently, and that he has heard of a RPG tavern. Quite, says Wirblefop, who remains stubbornly lazy about such matters and would rather wait to see which way the dice of fate will settle.
As you would recall, if Worblefop had bothered documenting our journey, we start off at the mayors house in Trademeet. It is a short distance to the nearest merchant and from him we pick up the belt of inertial barrier (Wirblefop) and cloak of displacement (Peel). Talisman is asked if he wants the Dwarven thrower hammer but declines, and instead Wirblefop purchases the Blackblood club to dual-wield with Gnasher.
Our first destination of the session is the de'Arnise Keep. It doesn't take long for us to take care of trolls inside thanks to the Stonefire axe (proficient) and Blackblood club (non proficient), and we forge the Flail of Ages +1. Talisman then claims a few troll kills with this weapon (again, non proficient).
The upstairs of the Keep sees yet more trolls killed then we dismantle the sextet of golems - Talisman only running from the iron golem at the last few moments.
Within 25 minutes of the session commencing we find ourselves in the basement of the Keep so are making reasonable progress. Feeding and despatching the umber hulks there allows us to draw Tor'Gal out to his demise and after that we forge the Flail of Ages +3 then decline the company of Nalia.
Wirblefop sneakily consults his latest and not quite greatest secret plan, and heads back to town to investigate the Temple district sewers. Our warm-up starts with a rakshasa and kobolds, moving on to a sea troll and then killing Tarnor the Hatchetman and his gang. Haer'Dalis is set free as our final activity, then on to the old tunnels where Wirblefop foolishly locks himself in a chamber with two vampiric mists. Talisman breaks into the chamber allowing Wirblefop to escape as his companions defeat the mists.
We've reached the second-last resting place of a lich, so Wirblefop casts Protection from Undead onto Peel and our Cavalier solo's the Shade Lich. We move on quickly to the city gate, prevent a trader from being harassed and send Peel in to deal with a lich inside the inn's secret area. A third lich can be found in a house near the Bridge district kidnappers and we have time to debate if Talisman's saving throws will protect him against a petrification trap. Peel mentions the ring we have can cast stone to flesh and it turns out we need to make use of it - drawing the attention of a Cowled Enforcer. Any more mischief from him and we'll set Talisman's summons onto his party.
Peel once more despatches the lich and we set off to deal with Kangaxx, utilising both a rest and three more Protection from Undead scrolls. Peel uses Daystar to claim our first demilich kill.
As we are near Mae'Var's guild we hand over the guildmistresses amulet and then have to deal with Del and two of her vampires outside before turning Rayic Gethras into daisy-food. The rest of Mae'Var's tasks are duly completed and Renal Bloodscalp gives us a short sword to sell.
Next on Wirblefop's list is Umar Hills (and eventually the Ranger stronghold). Talisman reluctantly acknowledges it may be best not to buy swords and beer for the village young, much against his liberal beliefs. This may be our hardest challenge in Umar as we very quickly end up at some temple ruins. Wirblefop fully expects Talisman to do the bulk of the work here and yes our Talosian cleric sets about the undead outside and inside, popping them merrily with his turn undead. None of them are charmed, Talisman being chaotic neutral rather than evil.
We've only had 10 minutes at the Temple ruins before our session draws to a close, and this means much of the interior remains for next time (we've got inside, past the shadow jailor and demonstrated Talisman's knowledge of the three rituals to the large statue.
Session 7; 11 December
Wirblefop, Peel and Talisman wasted no time in the temple ruins. Talisman turned several undead while Peel used Azuredge to convince the tougher foes to depart. Wirblefop switched between his bow and non-proficient clubs but mostly failed to find a good way to help his companions.
About 12 minutes into the session we put up a quintet of skeleton warriors against Thaxll'sillyia the shadow dragon. We add some bears, the berserk warrior and the efreeti while Peel joins in the melee. Eventually Peel has to run for cover but Talisman (bullets) and Wirblefop (Crimson dart) keep up the ranged pressure and Peel is able to throw Azuredge when not blinded.
With the dragon defeated we can exit to face the Shade Lord. Wirblefop has been protected with Death Ward and quickly clubs the Shade Lord only to see Peel use Azuredge to destroy it. Talisman has used the +3 sling and a firestone bullet to destroy the Shade Altar.
On the way back to report in we pick up Valygar's remains and fudge around to get the first Ranger Stronghold quest (no sign of Delon) - then back to the temple ruins where Lord Tombelthen is given an amulet. We report back to Umar, head to Watcher's Keep and rest for a day before heading back to Umar. Wirblefol thinks he'll be too early but the mayor says he is far too late and is no longer regarded as the ranger protector of Umar. This after Wirblefop and Talisman explained to Peel how the Moon Dog Figurine is feted to be the best object summon you can get.
We drop off Valygar's remains as per his wishes (I like to open doors for ranger-kind). Next we try to help Mook, scaring off her attacker but not before she perishes. Reporting back to Renal Bloodscalp doesn't work so Wirblefop realises he needs to speak to Aran Linvail instead. He tells us to deal with a pair of deserters so we do that, and add Sir Sarles' quest and two temple quests. Aran wants us to see off Bodhi and we do that - failing to kill her for the time being though.
Then it's time to get Cromwell to forge the improved Mace of Disruption and Shadow Dragon armour. Peel has been counting our gold and enquiring about the Shield of Balduran. Wirblefop grits his teeth and purchases that for him, and so we head off to see about the cult of the Unseeing Eye. We pick up half a rod, just past a petrification trap. Peel had eyed the trap cautiously, asking how we could get past it - do we have a green scroll. No we do not, says Wirblefop but you'll be fine and if not we have the ring of Stone to Flesh.
Peel is not at all convinced and blindly crawls over the trap. He saves against petrification and then joyously announces his save vs spells is 3 so while not guaranteed safe he had better than average odds of survival.
We end the session at the base of a pit, ready to hunt down this Unseeing Eye next time.
Impressive post @Gate70, either:
- because you took copious notes, didn't lose them and are still able to read your own writing weeks later; or
- because you have the memory of an elephant.
OK - time to demonstrate a less impressive memory and a total inability not to throw away the notes of a session .
A few stray screenshots (which I can upload later if the Forum allows - edit: now done) prompt me to believe we finished off work in the City before attacking the Iron Throne. Sonja was up to her old tricks there, dicing with death - though extreme odds did cause her to pull a disappearing act against multiple guards on the way up (choosing to use a potion of invisibility and subsequently successfully treating her own poison when down to 6 HPs).
After resting up, the party at the top were tackled. They mainly survived an initial webbed assault, but were badly enough hurt for a fireball to finish off 4 of them clustered behind a doorway - though it was probably a good job that Trindus saved against a retaliatory confusion there.
Trindus was also taking more risks as time went on and paid for that on the trip back to Candlekeep. I don't remember what caused his death, but I suspect it was the battle with Prat's gang.
Back in Baldur's Gate, it was time to head for a party at the palace. Some doppleganger gatecrashers got rowdy there though and spoiled the party for everyone by killing the hosts just before they were forcibly pacified ...
Comments
We pick up right where we left off. And you may notice that there's one thing Davaeorn drops which I didn't mention. The key stays on the ground. Lone Starr has no interest in flooding the mine. Instead, he just leaves, not even bothering to switch back to gnomish form.
Anyway, I'll make an exception to the strict no-reload rule. An inexplicable game-breaking bug can be reloaded around. I go back to the autosave and return to normal form before traveling. Lone Starr leaves the Cloakwood without incident. And the forced shapeshift back to normal works properly this time.
Before long, Lone Starr reaches the Wyrm's Crossing bridge. The Flaming Fist wants to talk to him...
Inside the walls, an old man with a pointy hat that Lone Starr has never seen before wants to talk. Nope, no time for that. Instead, he goes shopping. Some scrolls and potions at Sorcerous Sundries, one potion of power from Black Lily. The memorized instance of Friends has now been spent.
With that done, Lone Starr traverses the city. West to the central zone, unlock north and travel south, travel west. Scar is at the castle, and now he wants to bring Lone Starr to the duke. Mission acquired.
The best way to achieve this mission, of course, is to sneak past the assassins.
Once he's in, Lone Starr walks straight up to the central keep. Cadderly gets in a few words, but that's it. Inside, he heads up to the second floor and meets the mysterious "Koveras". Then he just walks out the front door and gets arrested. Cutscenes ensue, and then it's off to the catacombs.
Head back to the city (center zone, then east). I do another quit and load here, to clear up any hidden fatigue accumulating through quickloads. I head down into the sewers to meet Slythe; enter behind Sorcerous Sundries to the ogre mage's junction, then head west through the corridor of bodies to the Undercellar. Cast Luck, turn into an ogre ...
And if that hadn't been enough, that's what the wand of frost was for.
Lone Starr heads back out the way he came, after picking up the important stuff. Krystin doesn't get involved at all.
Now, for the ducal palace. Lone Starr goes back to gnome form, casts Stoneskin, and drinks a potion of defense. Stealth won't be enough here.
So, actually, that's some bad luck only taking down one out of six. Shortly after, Belt falls - though he does take one doppelganger out before that. A second Sleep brings the count down to two active doppelgangers, one each attacking Liia and Lone Starr. From there, it's not bad at all. The doppelganger wears down Lone Starr's Stoneskin, but doesn't break through to deal any actual damage.
And then things get weird. Sarevok attacks, then tries to get to Lone Starr ... and can't get out of the cage of guards.
That brings us to the final stretch. Running the maze invisibly, disarming the traps, is quite easy. Especially since the traps are marked on the walls. Polymorph Self does run out, so I use another scroll. Then add the potion of power and a potion of magic shielding, and head in to the temple.
Now, Sarevok has mage support. They could be troublesome. So Lone Starr stands on one of those resetting lightning traps...
Eh, close enough. Time for Sarevok. Drink a new oil of speed, then turn into an ogre.
So, how long did this take? Day 13, hour 2. Game time 94264, based on the final save. Subtract 2100 from the 7 AM start for 92164 game seconds. For fairness, I'll add the Black Pits time in; game time 4631 for that, or 2531 seconds.
Total in-game time spent: 13 days, 5 hours, 32 rounds, 3 seconds.
It was pretty quick in real time too; about three hours for the main BG1 campaign, even with all the pausing and log-writing.
Kills: Shank, Carbos, 5 rats, Mulahey, 5 bandits, Davaeorn, Slythe, 2 greater doppelgangers, 8 bats, Semaj, Sarevok.
In the main BG1 portion of the run, Lone Starr took 18 total damage, all from two critical arrow hits in the encounter with Deke's bandits. He was not subjected to any effects that called for a saving throw.
And one last picture: Lone Starr's final, very incomplete, world map.
Oswig and Wun took on all Siege comers today. Wun got to fight at Bridgefort, surrender being his preferred option. The battle raged on for a while and eventually it was the two of us against remnants of Crusaders, stepping over the bodies of Khalid and others meant to be helping us.
Wun almost survived but Oloneiros used a wand to catch him out, so Oswig retreated to use a scroll of raise dead, and then we finished off the remaining resistance. The Barghest made an appearance towards the end, getting himself doomed so a wand of paralyzation worked at the first attempt.
The Underground River entrance was supposedly securely guarded, but we prevailed outside their pallisade and sneaked inside.
Ashatiel agreed to combat against Oswig, who used a scroll of protection from magic plus potions to claim victory. Our way to Belhifet was almost clear, and potions of magic shielding gave us guaranteed saves with which to clear the path.
Against Belhifet our plans went slightly awry when we started buffing without using protection from magic scrolls. Wun was OK - he had planned for this to happen. Oswig had to adapt his plan and it seemed reasonable. Wun asked for his Champion's Strength scrolls so Oswig handed many of them over but kept a few for himself.
Only after using one of these scrolls did Oswig realise he could not cast any spells. Bad move Oswig, and that meant he could not cast Phantom Blade to get a +3 weapon.
While Caelar and Wun fought Belhifet Oswig racked his brains but could find no answer - so he tried to help by killing all the minions. After plenty of time Wun asked Oswig what he was doing and then suggested Oswig take some of his +3 bullets. Oswig could see Wun was wounded and resorting to bullets himself so asked for the Void hammer instead.
We fought like this for a few minutes, keeping Caelar alive with lesser restoration until she finally succumbed to Belhifet's attacks. Oswig tried Raise Dead on her since she was in the party but she was unresponsive.
Fine, the two of us then. The battle raged on until Wun suggested Oswig should protect himself from fire. Duly done.
As our potions wore out we gulped more. Oswig eventually realised he hadn't given Wun any potions of regeneration so handed one over. We kept applying buffs as they ran out (or we realised we'd failed to buff against them at all...)
We kept going, but so did Belhifet. After a while we started to run low on being able to protect against effects - Wun finding himself susceptible to fire with no option to stop the damage.
More rounds ensued. Belhifet was badly wounded but Wun fell first. Oswig fought on, using Wun's bullets for another 10-20 rounds before getting irritated and standing his ground slightly too long. As he was surrounded he switched to melee and 3-4 rounds of fighting with gulping potions ended badly for him. Belhifet looked at the blood on his blades, job done once again.
Flynn - male, human dark moon monk (Grond0)
Keeler - male, gnome fighter/thief (Corey_Russell)
Swis - male, elf fighter/mage/thief (Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1177825/#Comment_1177825
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1178412/#Comment_1178412
We started the session at the gates to Baldur's Gate and headed on in to find a shop. That visit proved troublesome though when Keeler was spotted earlier than expected by some mages upstairs. That resulted in him and Swis running in terror, but Flynn took advantage of the mages targeting his companions to score a few kills.
Tightening things up a bit, we did most of the encounters in the City pretty safely. There was a moment of concern against the Mountain Maulers when Keeler was hit twice by a lightning bolt, but that fortunately moved sideways enough to miss during further bouncing.
On the way to get the Cloak of Balduran Swis sneaked into Degrodel's house with the intention of luring one of two of the guards outside. His powers of attraction proved rather better than he's planned, but running, sneaking and some wand use dealt with that group without problems.
Swis was fed up with being the slowcoach of the party and wanted to get some boots of speed from Lothander. He was duly greased, but despite that he managed to dodge through some summons and almost made his escape before being taken down by a heavenly blast.
The Iron Throne party put up a reasonable fight, but the initial web / stinking cloud combination from Swis gave us too much of a head start for them to recover.
Back at Candlekeep, Flynn had forgotten reputation was low and his initial rest gave him vampiric touch as a Bhaal power - not the desired result given he has that as a special ability anyway.
Dark Moon Monk - L8, 62 HPs, 164 kills
Fighter/Thief - L7/7, 73 HPs, 166 kills, 1 death
Fighter/Mage/Thief - L6/6/7, 52 HPs, 170 kills, 0 deaths
It's still a close race, but Swis has taken the lead and looks the favorite to keep that. Keeler will hope that the extra half attack for recently attaining fighter level 7 will allow him to claim a few extra scalps in the closing stages next time.
I have reached level 6. The images are self-explanatory.
On the body of one of the assassins I found my personal sword which had been stolen from me.
In much the same way as Moonswords, this one knew that I was its true owner and I changed my name to that of the sword. I don't know why everyone called me le Bâtard. Maybe they didn't like my personality or perhaps it was becausse I excelled in the use of the bastard sword of which Albruin is a fine example.
Montaron and Xzar joined me. Montaron did a lot of pickpocketting after which I left him at Ulgoth's Beard.
Xzar accompanied me southward until Dorn joined me. At the ambush Dorn's life was touch and go. Upon reaching the Carnival I bade Xzar farewell. He made it clear that he won't be back.
I accidently equipped Dorn with the berserking sword. That was almost disastrous. We did however survive though I wasted 500gp removing the curse.
Throwing knives didn't work. The dragon woke up. A tough fight.
A skeleton distracted the sword. I shut the door and waited for the Neothelid to follow me outside.
The battle was still tough as some buffing wore off before it fought us. We slept and we will take on the rest tomorrow.
Had to use healing potions during the battles.
All went well until I came up against the Mind Flayers. My carefully scripted battle just didn't happen. They avoided my traps and weren't webbed with the result that the party was wasted though a mind flayer WAS killed.
Back to the Albruin le Bâtard run
EDIT: according to the wiki, everything except STR is multiplied, apparently
EDIT2: Looks like that was taken into account. Weird. Maybe the formula was changed or is different regarding shapeshifted forms?
Ogre form: 4d6+1 base damage.
Bonuses: +4 damage from gauntlets of crushing (Polymorph Self forms count as "hand to hand"), +6 damage from strength. The former is multiplied in a stab, the latter isn't.
Backstab multiplier: 4x.
So that's (4d6+1+4)*4+6 = (9-29)*4+6 = 42-122 damage. But of course, since that's four dice, the extreme rolls are extremely improbable. A minimum roll of 42 damage comes from four dice rolling 1 simultaneously. That's a 1/1296 chance if you don't have any luck modifiers.
My attack damage rolls in that run, all in ogre form with the gauntlets against enemies with melee weapons:
vs Mulahey: 42 damage backstab = 4 on 4d6, 18 damage normal hit = 7 on 4d6.
vs Davaeorn: 148 damage critical backstab = 12 on 4d6.
vs Slythe: 94 damage backstab = 17 on 4d6 with Luck active.
vs Sarevok: 66 damage backstab = 10 on 4d6, 90 damage backstab = 16 on 4d6.
Nothing breaks my understanding of the game here; I just think something funny was going on with the character's luck against Mulahey.
Probably the English who were born in England wouldn't agree that they were truly English as many were Normans who had come over from France and resistance to the invasion wasn't completely over. The building of castles everywhere however had made resistance largely futile. The Crusade came shortly after the signing of the Magna Carta, a turbulent time in England.
There is a shortage of splint armour fot the party as all of them can wear it if available and there is only one suit in Candlekeep.
Flynn - male, human dark moon monk (Grond0)
Keeler - male, gnome fighter/thief (Corey_Russell)
Swis - male, elf fighter/mage/thief (Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1177825/#Comment_1177825
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1178412/#Comment_1178412
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1178915/#Comment_1178915
The first action in the session was re-entering the City and going to find Slythe. He stood little chance anyway against 3 martial characters, but Keeler made sure by tagging him with a dart of stunning.
At the palace the odds looked pretty good with not only potions consumed, but some summoned monsters helping out as well. However, the dopplegangers' concentration on the dukes can be seen in the fact that none of us took any damage and they managed to take Liia to near death and Belt to badly wounded.
There was a slight hiccup in the maze when Keeler used a PfU scroll to kill the first skeleton warrior and gained a level as a result. Taking that resulted in him losing the PfU protection and he took heavy damage before Flynn recast that on him.
In the Undercity a few summons made no real impression on Rahvin's party. Swis got a bit too close to them as they moved forward and was shot down by Carston.
After returning from the temple and finishing off the remainder of the Undercity party, we moved on to find Sarevok. Swis successfully tagged him with a dispelling arrow and Semaj didn't last long when he teleported out in support. We spent a while running Sarevok round inside not only the web trap, but also Swis' own web. Even without malison the odds were Sarevok would get stuck, but he stubbornly refused to do so. His luck ran out, however, when Swis fired off a first shot with his paralyzing wand.
Jon's dungeon beckoned and we made fairly short work of that, with Keeler picking up plenty of bonus XP from disarming traps. He did have a bit of a concern after spirit armor proved insufficient buffing against a steam mephit's stun, but the stun doesn't last long and Keeler's relatively high HPs allowed him time to recover.
The circus offered an easy first quest, even though neither of the thieves yet had any significant dispel illusion ability.
After reporting in to Gaelan Bayle, the Copper Coronet was begging to be put under new management. The animals there put up a decent struggle, but were eventually put to sleep and Hendak given a new role.
Keeler mentioned he liked short swords and all 3 of us went into stealth to turn the tables on the ambushing Suna Seni.
Dark Moon Monk - L9, 72 HPs, 67 kills (+174 in BG1)
Fighter/Thief - L8/10, 90 HPs, 37 kills (+183 in BG1), 1 death
Fighter/Mage/Thief - L7/8/8, 61 HPs, 38 kills (+173 in BG1), 1 death
Keeler took the BG1 prize, dominating the final session by getting quickly stuck in to melee. Flynn's got an early BG2 lead due to his natural speed and ability to one-shot goblins.
Flynn - male, human dark moon monk (Grond0)
Keeler - male, gnome fighter/thief (Corey_Russell)
Swis - male, elf fighter/mage/thief (Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1177825/#Comment_1177825
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1178412/#Comment_1178412
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1178915/#Comment_1178915
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1179299/#Comment_1179299
We started shakily today and soon took the trip from bad to worse ...
Finding ourselves in the Graveyard from last time Swis fancied his chances of carving up the Crypt King, but was fortunate to survive being sliced in return.
If he could get outside and rest that would cure the poison, but there were spiders blocking the exit. One faint chance seemed to be a fireball from Swis to clear the spiders, followed by a dash for the door. Swis duly aimed a fireball at Flynn and he nimbly dodged out of the way stayed exactly where he was. In retrospect I think he hadn't been blocked by spiders when trying to move, but caught on one of the web intersections and stuck there. He did survive the fireball, but the others were much too far from the door for his few remaining seconds of life to mean anything.
Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar)
@Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier
@Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos. Not a preferred character but that's the luck of the draw
Plus a couple of interlopers who joined the party.
We continued attempt 38 in much the same way as attempt 37. Here we are at the starting point.
In next to no time we were back in action to the chagrin of Shoal the nereid. A couple of volleys of missiles limited her persuasiveness and Talisman, despite leading on the party-deathometer, took the first level up of our campaign.
Wirblefop then aimed for Nashkel, killing the ogrillion mailers and a hobgoblin in stealth boots on the way. We also picked up the Colquetle amulet for easy reputation later. At Nashkel we squeezed Peel into some ankheg armour and shot down Noober for impertinence.
Then we continued south and gave Greywolf a triple-command send-off. Peel had been concerned about confronting him so early but he didn't last longer than the commands.
Once we had delivered Samuel to a temple and set about an assassin we briefly visited the Friendly Arm Inn before moving on to High Hedge. Talisman demonstrated his Hold spell which came in handy several times in the rest of todays venture.
Caldo and Krumm perished quickly, a Command making a brief appearance but two fighters in the party is making short work of enemies now we have a handful of levels.
Party gear
Sonja (female gnome thief, Grond0); Trindus (male human skald, Gate70)
Previous run
Gate70 once more proclaimed he was a glutton for punishment, so we started a new run today. The randomly chosen characters kicked out a couple of relative weaklings this time - a bounty hunter and a skald. "Just a second" I hear the more observant members of the Forum say, "you've written a thief in the title". Indeed, well spotted
Anyway, back to the story. After leaving Candlekeep Shoal provided us with early levels - but still no better THAC0. That showed up when we took an awfully long time to deal with the 3 gnolls hanging around High Hedge.
Beregost added to our container collection and some boots of stealth were snagged on the way down to Nashkel to get some Bhaal healing. We also bought a PfP scroll, but rather than go straight to the basilisk area we stopped off at Meilum to improve our martial prowess a bit.
The basilisks then gave more levels, with the last of those and Mutamin both falling to critical backstabs.
A trip north via the FAI scoped out the location of Ulgoth's Beard before we returned south to the Cloudpeaks in search of some reputation to push our total to 20. However, before doing any shopping we stopped off in Bassilus' area. He caused little trouble, but the nearby hobgoblins were much more of a problem after Sonja's attempted backstab on one of the archers missed with a roll of 2. That ended with us running for the hills, both gently leaking HPs from poison arrows.
To improve backstabbing Sonja got the +3 staff from Ulgoth's and tested that out on a sirine or two at the Lighthouse - a potion of clarity being used there to make that slightly easier.
Thief 7, 41 HPs, 87 kills
Skald 7, 49 HPs, 62 kills, 0 deaths
Mods are Xan's New Groove with the items given to the Candlekeep assassins who are now dead.
Journal of Xan
Being a Moonblade wielder, finding that my Moonblade had been stolen by a thief whilst I slept filled me with dread. Fortunately I came across the thieves before they had a chance to flee Candlekeep and I recovered my possessions once they were slain.
The items that I recovered were an amulet and a buckler.
The buckler is only usable by non-chaotic elves.
Gorion and I fled Candlekeep but we were ambushed and Gorion was slain.
I fled from Gorion's killers stopping only to pick up a diamond and a couple of rings before clearing the FAI of hobgoblins.
Heading North, I killed Sonner and his cohorts before returning Tenya's bowl and killing an ankheg.
I reached Beregost and headed south.
Using sleep and charm spells proved to be an excellent way forward as I proceeded to the Nashkel Mines.
Sadly the guards killed Greywolf before I got the chance to do it myself.
A belt protected me from the winter wolf spells.
When I met up with Prism again he sadly died.
I reunited Albert and his dog and then went on to escort Samuel to the FAI.
My reputation increased when I returned Joia's ring.
To the south I acquired a belt of piercing.
I then returned the Colquetle amulet, calmed down Marl and took a tome to Firebead.
I then helped Mellicamp get back into shape and in so doing reached level4.
Ankheg hunting was next on the agenda.
A visit to the basilisk area was next.
This resulted in me reaching level 6.
I was going to drop this run but decided against it.
Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar)
@Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier
@Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos
Plus a couple of interlopers who remained in the party
Last time we reckoned to be on our way to visit Mutamin and his basilisks. We had a very brief detour to empty backpacks and pick up a scroll of flesh to stone, and then we looped around the basilisks culminating in a brief encounter with Mutamin.
It wasn't long before we reached Cloakwood Mine and dispatched the defenders outside. Silence and Skeletons allowed our missiles to rule the battle.
With Talisman having done much of the work against Davaeorn it was only natural that Peel should steal in for the killing strike.
We made our way to Baldur's Gate and cleared out the upper floor of Sorcerous Sundries as well as the sewers below. By this time our two hours was up and we reflected that slightly less than four hours had got us here from Candlekeep.
Wirblefop has 154 kills to his name, Peel 134 and Talisman 55. Neera and Imoen are holding back with zero kills between them.
Here we are in all our pomp and glory.
Second was when we skirted past the hamadryad. Wirblefop suggested Peel demonstrate his ability not to be charmed or dominated but he declined saying he wasn't immune to hold. Wirblefop retorted that hold wasn't deadly and a moment or two later the three of us chimed that what happened after being held was the fatal part. Thus followed a conversation where our three learned adventurers mused about a fall not being fatal either with the landing being the decisive juncture.
Good luck with your new character @RVNS! I hope you can make good progress this week. For easy XP, Shoal the Nereid comes to mind. And Ankhegs are susceptible to Sleep and Command. Unfortunately you have no one who can cast those spells, but you could use the wand of sleep from High Hedge.
My basilisk hunting was a success other than having to get a scroll to reverse the petrification on Jaheira( I accidently moved the wrong character without the petrification protection spell). Mixed with shoal boosted us up a few levels. Then I grabbed up the easy exp from Marl. I finished up the gnoll fortress as well and snagged the charisma tomb and dex gauntlets. After that I headed to nashkel and then the mines since Khalid and Jaheira were warning me to do so(I could not remember their timer length so I went ahead to the area).I took the opportunity to help prism and then grab up varscona for my fighter/thief. That is a big win as he will use this for a long time. Next step is to finish up the naskhel mines since I am already here. I may try to finish up some other areas and retrace my steps after that. I will probably look at each area and see what I need from it and then head to the main story line and push through.
I am on a time crunch and need to streamline a little I believe. Unnecessary fights are a quick way for my run to end. I did have a pretty nasty kobold pick off imoen earlier yesterday before we got those levels to raise HP. Any suggestions or a better path or ideas feel free to share. I have more experience with BG2 than BG.
Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar)
@Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier
@Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos
Plus a couple of interlopers who remained in the party
Session 3 started with a bang as Wirblefop found his screen minimised. Despite this brief setback he regained his poise and pretended nothing happened. Peel and Talisman were merrily dealing with the nearby guardians without any beastmaster assistance.
Ragefast and Ramazith both expired in short order, as did Jardak and his butler. Jardak for once melting under a fighter-heavy attack.
We ploughed on through the city quests and eventually took control of the Iron Throne HQ. Wirblefop kept himself to the west for once and used arrows of biting which he thought would be highly effective but ultimately Talisman's spells were better.
Coronation time. We burned through the greater doppelgangers by using buffed skeletons and several potions.
Yes it's a dirty trick that Wirblefop played, and he may choose to drop the hit points before next time.
Here we are post import.
Difficulty: SCS/Ascension Insane (no additional damage)
Additional mods: Adalon drops silver scales, Waukeen's Promenade Fletcher sells arrows of dispelling in stacks of 5 instead of 40
Additional rules: no xp loop, no area hopping to avoid incoming magic spells (escaping ambushes is allowed though), no Vhailor's Helm before TOB
Game version: 2.5
Weidu log BG2:
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #0 // Rewritten Final Chapter of Throne of Bhaal: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #10 // Balthazar can be redeemed: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #20 // Improved Sarevok-Player Interactions: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #30 // Improved Imoen-Player Interactions in Throne of Bhaal: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #40 // Restored Bhaalspawn Powers: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #50 // Improved Slayer Transformation: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #60 // Expanded Epilogues for Bioware NPCs -> David Gaider's expanded epilogues for Bioware NPCs: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Tougher Abazigal: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1100 // Tougher Balthazar: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1200 // Tougher Demogorgon: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1300 // Tougher Gromnir: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1400 // Tougher Illasera: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Tougher Yaga-Shura: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Full-body portrait for Bodhi: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2100 // Alternate Balthazar portrait, by Cuv: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2200 // Extended Epilogues for additional Beamdog NPCs, by shawne: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2300 // Sharper portraits of Abazigal and Gromnir for the Enhanced Edition, by DavidW: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2400 // Slightly improved cutscenes, by DavidW: 2.0.13
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3550 // Increase the power of Cure Wounds and Cause Wounds spells to the level found in 3rd Edition D&D -> Spells heal or inflict a random amount of damage (1d8 per level of the spell, plus 1 point per caster level, to a maximum of 5 points per spell level): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3580 // Restoration and Lesser Restoration spells heal ability-score damage: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // Faster Bears: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4100 // Improved NPC customisation and management: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4115 // Thieves assign skill points in multiples of five: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4150 // Allow the Cowled Wizards to detect spellcasting in most indoor, above-ground areas in Athkatla: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4215 // Remove unrealistically helpful items from certain areas: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4218 // Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from the game -> Remove all ammo from random containers: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4240 // Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5000 // Ease-of-use party AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6500 // Improved golems: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6510 // Improved fiends and celestials: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6520 // Smarter genies: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6540 // Smarter dragons: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6550 // Smarter beholders: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6560 // Smarter mind flayers: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6570 // Smarter githyanki: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6580 // Improved Vampires: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6590 // Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6800 // Smarter Illasera: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6810 // Smarter Gromnir: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6820 // Smarter Yaga-Shura: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6830 // Smarter Abazigal: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6840 // Ascension versions of Irenicus and Sendai use SCS abilities and AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6850 // Ascension demons use SCS abilities and AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8000 // Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8010 // Improved Shade Lord: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8020 // Spellcasting Demiliches: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8040 // Tie difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings to the difficulty slider: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8050 // Improved Random Encounters: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8060 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix"): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8070 // Improved Unseeing Eye: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8080 // Improved Bodhi: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8085 // Ascension version of Bodhi uses Improved-Bodhi abilities: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8090 // Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8100 // Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8110 // Improved Sahuagin: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8120 // Improved Beholder hive: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8130 // Rebalanced troll regeneration: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8140 // Improved Drow: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8150 // Improved Watcher's Keep: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8160 // Improved Fire Giant temple: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8170 // Improved Sendai's Enclave: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8180 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8190 // Improved Minor Encounters: v33.4
Playthrough recording: youtube
Watcher's Keep Level 5 - Collecting the keys
Continuing on he entered the middle door. After buffing with prot from poison, hardness, mirror image and fireshield, Glolin rushed forward wielding Soul Reaver. Things were going great, until the Dragon used his dispel magic ability. Without prot from poison Glolin was vulnerable to his poison breath attack. He immediately equiped the helm of the rock to get atleast 25% protection back. The dragon was getting hit ferociously by Glolin, but used several healing spells to stay alive and prolong the fight. Glolin too had to use RoR several times to stay alive. After spending all his 16 whirlwind attacks on it, Glolin switched his weapons to Crom Faeyr with Defender of Easthaven in the off-hand and a few blows later the Dragon lay dead at his feet.
Glolin finished the last challenge by completing the Imps riddle and by beating him at the game of coins. He moved on to the orb room to the east. Here he pushed each button one time, and after dispatching the monsters he placed each orb in the correct pillar to recieve the mind key.
Glolin moved west and placed the skull he got from the dragon on the pedestal. For the Spirit Warrior test he used the following actions: north, east, search, north, east, north, scroll, west, archway. As a reward he recieved the spirit key.
Watcher's Keep Level 5 - The Guardians
After resting, Glolin turned the key of the right lock. Glolin used a divide and conquer tactic here. The Rilmani only attack on sight and do not come to help eachother. Glolin used this to his advantage and first took out the fighters, so Aurumach Rilmani was isolated. Using summons to draw his attention and to make him waste his insta-timestops, he never posed a real threat.
Glolin rested and turned the upper left key to face the final guardians.
He had equiped the reflection shield to stay safe from missile attacks, his 100%MR also proved very useful in this fight. While his summons kept the enemies busy, he rushed Ameralis Zawiir the drow cleric first. This to avoid her using implosion on Glolin. After killing her he switched to Dwarven Thrower and started to kite the enemies. Using whirlwinds at the right moment he engaged the enemies one by one, and retreated when one came too close. Nalmissra was the first to fall, followed by Xei Win Toh and The Huntress.
With only the Hive Mother and Y'tossi left, Glolin retreated through the portal back to the previous level.
After resting he returned, he rushed the Hive Mother with Crom Faeyr. Glolin brought the beast to near death, but had to retreat after being poisoned by Y'tossi. One RoR charge later, Glolin reengaged the Hive Mother, killing it with a whirlwind attack. For Y' tossi Glolin switched to Defender of Easthaven in the offhand, and used fireshields to make it kill itself while attacking Glolin. This took quite a lot of time, but in the end Y'tossi fell and the last guardian was defeated.
Glolin left Watcher's Keep for now, still undecided how to handle the great evil still lurking here.
De'arnise Keep Revisited
Glolin returned to Nalia and got the Keep as a reward.
Forest of Tethir
Glolin first decided to do some more scouting in the forest, this led him to discover a cave with the Mana bow hidden in it.
Glolin is now ready to enter Suldenesslar and clear it of all evil, he is especially triggered to finally face the mage Irenicus!
Meanwhile, I just began a new run with an half elf avenger named Deirdre, from BG1 to hopefully ToB.
Strenght : 9
Dexterity : 18
Constitution : 15
Intelligence : 8
Wisdom : 18
Charisma : 18 (now 19)
So : unmodded game, insane difficulty (no additional damage).
The party was initially Imoen, Ajantis, Branwen, Minsc and Dynaheir, but I swapped Imoen for Coran, and Branwen for Yeslick.
Minsc died three times already, and at level 1 my avenger nearly died from a Xvart hit...
A random encounter with 4 ettercaps was difficult, as was the hamadryad who charmed Branwen and held Ajantis and Minsc. Luckily, a web was successful to prevent Branwen killing them.
Deirdre is now level 6, in the Cloackwood mine.
I play her like a mage, and so far she's better than Dynaheir : no need to scribe scrolls, twice the hit points, better AC, better Thac0...
The usual web, silence, hold person and horror is perfect against any party, at least until now.
Davaeorn will be the first true challenge.
Next update I will post some screenshots.
Sonja (female gnome thief, Grond0); Trindus (male human skald, Gate70)
Previous updates
Today's session saw us pushing our luck - but it held out, making it an enjoyable session
The first action saw us in the Nashkel Mines, where Mulahey was wounded by skull trap before Sonja sneaked in for a backstab - finding a critical which would have one-shotted Mulahey anyway ...
Outside the mine the first comedy of errors moment occurred against the Amazons. Trindus threw in a blind and web combination before shouting to Sonja "all yours". That was intended to signal she could start shooting, but instead the fearless foolish leader moved forward - getting stuck in the web just as Trindus launched a skull trap
Nimbul was backstabbed and Tranzig treated to a couple of traps to open up the route to the Bandit Camp. Early progress there was pretty good, with Taurgosz getting stuck in a web and most of the bandits cut down. However, that bred a bit of over-confidence in Sonja and she attacked a group of 4 bandits near the tent - successfully backstabbing one of them, but having to hastily resort to an invisibility potion as the retaliation poured in.
The Cloakwood passed relatively uneventfully, with Sonja able to disarm the web traps in the spider area. Trindus did get poisoned by an ettercap there, but explained that was simply to allow Sonja to try out her newly acquired Bhaal slow poison. At the Cloakwood Mine Genthore was blinded before a web and traps quickly sorted out the mages. Drasus though survived the web and there was a potentially nasty period when he was chasing hot on the heels of Sonja. She managed to avoid any attacks though until Trindus offered an alternative target to give Sonja a chance at a backstab.
In the mine the comedy of errors spawned a new chapter when we attacked a ghast. Sonja edged to the side of it to allow her to get a backstab as it chased after a retreating skald - or so she thought. Meanwhile, the aforesaid skald had decided to stand firm in order to allow Sonja the time to get behind th ghast for a backstab. The net result of that was that Sonja's attack hit - but was not a backstab - leaving Trindus paralyzed. Fortunately Sonja managed a quick killing shot with her bow before the ghast could do further damage.
Downstairs, we spent a bit of time activating the battle horrors and dealing with them using backstabs and the odd frost wand blast. Then it was time for Davaeorn. He'd already taken a bit of skull trap damage and seemed likely to expire in a couple of traps set on his landing zone - but a backstab meant he failed to get even that far.
We did most of our normal encounters in Baldur's Gate, mainly without too much incident. One exception was the ogre mage in the sewers, which looked likely to cause trouble when it followed a carrion crawler in chase of Trindus and grinned happily as Trindus once more froze in place. Sonja managed to turn the tables on the crawler with the help of one of the 5 darts of stunning she'd been carrying, but the ogre mage saved against the same fate and Sonja didn't fancy the odds as a summoned ogrillon joined the foes. That caused her to dive into her backpack and fish around for a particularly spicy curry powder she's been saving for just this sort of occasion.
The final action was doing the poison quest, with the aim of getting Sonja a decent bow at last. She had hoped to get some boots of speed from Lothander as well, but v2.6 seems to have changed the behavior of grease considerably and Lothander was able to nip to the stairs before we could target him. There was no escape for Marek though, who failed to register the danger as Trindus crooned "she's behind you".
Thief 8, 46 HPs, 181 kills
Skald 8, 57 HPs, 124 kills, 0 deaths
Grease was changed in 2.6 - but it appears to work essentially the same as it did before anyway. Which isn't particularly close to what's in the description.
How it actually works: as long as the overlay exists, everyone in it saves once per round. If a save succeeds, nothing happens. If a save fails, that creature is slowed to speed 1 for the full N+3 rounds. Saving in a future round does not remove the effect, and the slow effect will often persist well after the active spell on the ground expires.
If you're trying to slow down Lothander so you can kill him, you need to wait until he fails a save before talking. Without that failed save, he's at full speed and will get away.
There were two changes made in 2.6. First, the sound effect that played every round for everyone in the area (whether they saved or not) was removed. Second, a "remove effects by resource" effect was added. If you save, it's supposed to clear up any existing Grease effects now and let you move normally. In my testing, this does not appear to work.
Saving is not what I'm referring to. Lothander was affected by grease and perceptibly slowed by it - but not remotely close to speed 1 as used to be the case. Using grease we also saw distinct differences in the speed impact on Gate70 and myself. I had a single player run the other day as well where Lothander was moving much faster than he should have done after being greased, so there's definitely a significant change in v2.6 as a whole (whether intended or not) and not just in MP.
Also, I missed a third change: instead of a "set movement speed" effect, the spell now uses a speed modifier that my (not entirely up to date) version of NI doesn't understand (modifier type 5 "Unknown"). This seems to result in essentially the same speeds as before in most cases, but now boots of speed can double the slowed speed. A greased Lothander will now move twice as fast as an average greased person. Which is still considerably slower than a non-greased person.
Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar)
@Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier
@Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos
Screencaps have been added later
Wirblefop, Peel and Talisman didn't appreciate their welcome to Amn - being jailed was one thing, having Imoen cram herself into the party was quite another but a downsizing exercise sorted that out. We then set about making good our escape and in less than an hour we were breathing in the fresh air of the Promenade having already visited the circus.
Over the second hour we transferred ownership of a tavern to Hendak, killed off Suna Seni, rescued and returned a poisoned harper to his hold, observed the death of Xzar at the hands of an assassin who foolishly stayed to fight us. A jaunt to Watchers Keep had given us a potion case, and we've dealt with smugglers at the docks, stopped the rune assassins involved with the skinner murders, cleared the upper part of the graveyard, and visited each area of the city. Our final act of the session was to pick up the +2 ring of protection for Peel and the Amulet of Power for Talisman.
Peel made a very early purchase of Azuredge, ignoring our lowly reputation, and this has heavily boosted his kill tally. Many shadows, skeletons and a few mummies have melted in front of him.
Party at session end:
Wirblefop had scribbled down a bit of a plan for the session but it wasn't long before Peel's reminders about picking up Lilacor waylaid them. Despite reverting to the unshared plan part of it (let's call it de'Arnise) was not reached and another part (temple amulet) was collected but not turned in to Mae'Var. Wirblefop kept his plan a secret, even from Peel or Talisman. Don't look!
So what did we get up to. Wirblefop's first task was to up-trade a piece of red cloth for a worn-in pair of boots of avoidance. Talisman killed Am-Si and Reti despite everyone else's efforts and then Wirblefop arrived to deprive Peel of the killing blow on Camitis, and then we opted for the silver pantaloons at the cost of some reputation.
Next on the highly encrypted (my handwriting's not THAT bad!) plan; Wirblefop headed over to Watchers Keep and we cleared the entry level. Peel got himself level drained on a trap when Talisman was amuleted up, so we rested before seeing if there were any vampiric wraiths - there were none. Talisman almost got himself killed against one of the guardian golems when trying to slipper up a long-dead priest but managed to squeeze through a small door with a handful of life left. He then showed an unreasonable level of precaution by saying he was not fully protected against a death spell and waiting at least three seconds before triggering it. He survived.
We arrived as planned at Trademeet, only for Peel to complain that this was not the sewers. No indeed. After we did enough to progress to the druid grove Peel asks about Stonefire, and Wirblefop mentions he intends to use fire arrows instead. Of which we have none (the scribbled plan had been to purchase the Firetooth crossbow but our funds were too meagre). So instead Wirblefop relented and we headed back to the Slums for their sewers. On the way Peel availed himself of the Stonefire axe making fire arrows superfluous but depleting funds further. It's not an issue, just Peel isn't aligning himself to the unspoken plan and Wirblefop hypocritically considers calling out this lack of teamwork!
Back in the sewers we test our our party raise dead when one of us is held and almost expires against the goblin shaman's party. Having barely survived that he is unfortunate enough to be the only target for our out of control berserk warrior. Uh, our cleric is dead. Peel and Wirblefop head to a temple and get Talisman raised, and on our return we confirm that the Ashideena warhammer, a small +2 shield and a candle from Watchers Keep have vanished. Talisman had a ring of protection that also went, but Wirblefop hands his ring over. Never mind, we've picked up a teddy bear from Lynis on our way back.
Talisman complains all his bullets have gone but Peel picked up a few while Wirblefop bagged more so at least Talisman has ranged ability. Wirblefop hands over the shaman's staff as a temporary measure while Peel suggests picking up a mace from the goblins. That'll do.
We complete the sewers without any further ado, Wirblefop observing that the bagged puzzle ring is accepted in multiplayer when Peel obtains Lilacor (I had expected it to fail and for the host to complete the quest).
The slaver ship is next on our list, Wirblefop struggling to pick up equipment as his companions focus on the slavers. After collecting our reward from Hendak we pick up the Talosian amulet and finish off the fallen paladin job. Wirblefop then struggles to remember what is next until Talisman suggests the teddy bear is a bit cumbersome - that's right, it was an inventory clearance. So we head to the graveyard and hand the bear over. While there we find a new home for an orphan child and kill uncle Lester half a second after he kills Nevin so a family funeral will be required for them - we're not paying nor are we arranging it.
Not a bad session, with two deaths one for this week and one for us not turning up last week - that achieves Grond0's quota of one death per session if we use man-dwarf-maths.
Party gear:
Peel enquires why our journey remains unpublished recently, and that he has heard of a RPG tavern. Quite, says Wirblefop, who remains stubbornly lazy about such matters and would rather wait to see which way the dice of fate will settle.
As you would recall, if Worblefop had bothered documenting our journey, we start off at the mayors house in Trademeet. It is a short distance to the nearest merchant and from him we pick up the belt of inertial barrier (Wirblefop) and cloak of displacement (Peel). Talisman is asked if he wants the Dwarven thrower hammer but declines, and instead Wirblefop purchases the Blackblood club to dual-wield with Gnasher.
Our first destination of the session is the de'Arnise Keep. It doesn't take long for us to take care of trolls inside thanks to the Stonefire axe (proficient) and Blackblood club (non proficient), and we forge the Flail of Ages +1. Talisman then claims a few troll kills with this weapon (again, non proficient).
The upstairs of the Keep sees yet more trolls killed then we dismantle the sextet of golems - Talisman only running from the iron golem at the last few moments.
Next on Wirblefop's list is Umar Hills (and eventually the Ranger stronghold). Talisman reluctantly acknowledges it may be best not to buy swords and beer for the village young, much against his liberal beliefs. This may be our hardest challenge in Umar as we very quickly end up at some temple ruins. Wirblefop fully expects Talisman to do the bulk of the work here and yes our Talosian cleric sets about the undead outside and inside, popping them merrily with his turn undead. None of them are charmed, Talisman being chaotic neutral rather than evil.
We've only had 10 minutes at the Temple ruins before our session draws to a close, and this means much of the interior remains for next time (we've got inside, past the shadow jailor and demonstrated Talisman's knowledge of the three rituals to the large statue.
Wirblefop, Peel and Talisman wasted no time in the temple ruins. Talisman turned several undead while Peel used Azuredge to convince the tougher foes to depart. Wirblefop switched between his bow and non-proficient clubs but mostly failed to find a good way to help his companions.
On the way back to report in we pick up Valygar's remains and fudge around to get the first Ranger Stronghold quest (no sign of Delon) - then back to the temple ruins where Lord Tombelthen is given an amulet. We report back to Umar, head to Watcher's Keep and rest for a day before heading back to Umar. Wirblefol thinks he'll be too early but the mayor says he is far too late and is no longer regarded as the ranger protector of Umar. This after Wirblefop and Talisman explained to Peel how the Moon Dog Figurine is feted to be the best object summon you can get.
Peel is not at all convinced and blindly crawls over the trap. He saves against petrification and then joyously announces his save vs spells is 3 so while not guaranteed safe he had better than average odds of survival.
We end the session at the base of a pit, ready to hunt down this Unseeing Eye next time.
- because you took copious notes, didn't lose them and are still able to read your own writing weeks later; or
- because you have the memory of an elephant.
Sonja (female gnome thief, Grond0); Trindus (male human skald, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1180778/#Comment_1180778
OK - time to demonstrate a less impressive memory and a total inability not to throw away the notes of a session
A few stray screenshots (which I can upload later if the Forum allows - edit: now done) prompt me to believe we finished off work in the City before attacking the Iron Throne. Sonja was up to her old tricks there, dicing with death - though extreme odds did cause her to pull a disappearing act against multiple guards on the way up (choosing to use a potion of invisibility and subsequently successfully treating her own poison when down to 6 HPs).
Trindus was also taking more risks as time went on and paid for that on the trip back to Candlekeep. I don't remember what caused his death, but I suspect it was the battle with Prat's gang.
Back in Baldur's Gate, it was time to head for a party at the palace. Some doppleganger gatecrashers got rowdy there though and spoiled the party for everyone by killing the hosts just before they were forcibly pacified ...