My execution continues to be spotty, but Ayla is hitting her stride. She has taken her rightful place as Hero of Trademeet, and completed the follow up quests. Now at Level 13, and getting ever closer to her SoA item goals, she is positioned to make significant progress. I hope she will.
While this session was marred by execution errors, none were dangerous, with the exception of one. Ayla was ambushed en route to Trademeet. I didn’t want to fight, but also didn’t want to squander resources. I went with RoAC II. It seemed a sensible move. It wasn’t. The slight delay associated with item based effect activation was sufficient to allow the mage to cast a spell. It was also sufficient to prevent Ayla from reaching the edge of the map before the spell effect landed.
The mage had chosen Chaos. With her II enhanced saves, Ayla can reliably make that against all but an enchanter. If the mage had been an enchanter, though, Ayla would have been at risk. Going forward this will not be an issue for Ayla, since she has Mister Efreeti so she can travel invisible. I do need a better approach in this encounter for future runs, though. I think -think- that I used to simply run to the edge of the map, and that my characters were capable of making it before the Chaos landed. I’m not sure. I need to either check my old runs or test.
In any event, Ayla survived. She was happy. I was happy. The Trademeet Dao were not.
Once upon a time, back before my break, it was possible to ice Taquee with a backstab, saunter into the Dao tent, and have the Dao identify Taquee’s bottle for you. I publicly commented on the absurdity of this and figured others might have said the same to David or the EE team, causing a change to the encounter. As a consequence, I prepared for this possibility in Ayla’s run. I had Ayla purchase all the useful things from the Dao inventory before nixing Taquee.
When Ayla re-entered the tent, she did so expecting hostile Dao, not neutral Dao. Sure enough, Ayla found them. She approached HiS with a set of traps near the door, and a second set of traps some distance away to intercept a second Dao, if needed. She opened with a backstab on Faafirah.
The backstab wasn’t sufficient to kill him, but it did cause a morale break, preventing his Stoneskins from firing. All he needed was a nudge.
Onto Khan Zahraa. Khan got his Stoneskins off, meaning we’d have to take him down with poison. Ayla led him to the Southeast edge of the tent and then juked him. That allowed her to sneak back behind the Northwest pole and set some traps.
She got two down before she was detected. A good start but not enough. Ayla broke for the door, hoping to draw Khan to our next batch of traps. Khan gave pursuit, exiting the tent and setting off the traps. Unfortunately, our final batch of traps was needlessly far away, so the speedy Khan got some attacks in before the poison could kill him. Khan hit hard, and Ayla got to the danger zone. We reluctantly used a potion of invisibility and then watched Khan die of poison in peace. Fortunately, Adratha and her stack of 10 are close by.
After collecting the reward for dispatching the Dao, we decided to return to Athkatla to purchase the Bracers of AC 3, and set the Shield of Harmony down at our temporary base, the Halfling owned and operated Five Flagons. Thanks to Mr. Efreeti, we were invisible en route, so ambushes posed no threat.
Huzzah! Onto the Druid Grove.The first thing I did at the Druid Grove was muff things up. Does anyone see the mistake? For context, the plan had been to stealth all the way to Cernd. This is not the way to do it, lol. Guess now, because the answer will be revealed in a couple paragraphs.
Anyways, Ayla took her Invisibility cast, and then left Mr Efreeti behind. She passed the trolls. She passed the spiders. She passed more trolls. She passed the druids. All seemed well.
Ayla vectored off to pick up Belm, breaking invisibility. She then used stealth the rest of the way. Finally -finally- we reached Cernd. Ayla was overjoyed. I was too. But then Cernd was all: “What did you learn?” And Ayla was all: “Wait, what? I was supposed to learn something? I thought you were just going to kill Faldorn for me?” And Cernd was all: “No. I need, like, a pretext first.” And Ayla was all: “A what?” And then I broke in an said: “Frack! Ayla, I’m so sorry: we were supposed to talk to that druid near the entrance. You need to go all the way back. I’m so sorry, but I’m rusty as all get out. You need to go back.” Ayla sighed, hit the shadows, and then stealthed to Adratha cottage. I bought her a potion of invisibility to make the return journey less painful, and back she went.
Ayla talked to the druid, and then, following a rest and an invisibility cast from Mr. Efreeti, headed back to Cernd.
She made it.
And so became the Hero of Trademeet, at the cost of two potions of invisibility. We’ll take it.
Ayla went to the crypt next, seeking the Mantle of Waukeen. Here I was reminded of my long term love/hate relationship with SCS Mr. Efreeti. Mr. Efreeti is an amazing summon- especially for a thief. And I love, love, love that he has a mind of his own, that he can be left to his own devices- that’s how a summon should work. But every now and then I want to give him commands and I find it super frustrating that I can’t. It’s fine. It’s good. I’m not complaing. But: “AHHHH! I HATE IT SO MUCH! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!” As I said, love/hate.
Ayla opened combat with a backstab on the mantle bearing skeleton warrior. Good start.
She then headed outside and ducked in the shadows for a second backstab. That finished him.
It was time to clear out the rest with the aid of my Mr. Efreeti. “Ok, Mr Efreeti. Glad you’re here! Let’s do this! Cast Invisibility on me…No! No! Mr Efreeti! Cast Invisibility on ME, not yourself…Fine, gosh darn it, cast Flame Arrow on the skeleton. No! No! Not Flame Strike on the skeleton warrior, Flame Arrow on the skeleton. You’re killing me here!”
Eventually we got Mr Efreeti to do something useful, distracting the skeleton warrior while we took care of the remaining skeletons. Happily, that’s all the help we needed. The crypt was soon cleared, and Ayla delivered the mantle to the mayor. Mission accomplish.
For good measure, we helped Tiris out, too. RoAC and Arbane aided backstabbing did the job here.
The Tiris and Raissa quest brought Ayla to level 13. I expect to have another session with her tonight, likely in the Umar Hills. I hope our little Halfling will keep on chugging. I’m enjoying her, and she likes living. I hope you all are enjoying her too.
@Borco : thanks for the run so far, the sharp way you write about it. I use your stories as future references for my own.
@Alesia_BH : fascinating to see how you connect with Ayla. From test play at the start you have grown really fond of her. Several very clinical way she has of handling potential tough situations.
@Enuhal : SoD was swift ! But liked the fact that you did not nuke things around and took a more customized approach to each fight.
It's 2 or 3 weeks since I played this character and I couldn't really remember what he was supposed to be doing. An experiment with casting invisibility in Athkatla confirmed that the Cowled Wizards had already been dealt with, but with reputation at 18 it looked like there was still a need for a couple of good deeds to be done. Checking on the Copper Coronet, Hendak was still waiting for the slavers to be dealt with. Some skeletons sent in with a cloudkill soon sorted that out.
With reputation up at 20, I used friends to tour the shops - spending the 150k or so of gold accumulated to date. Other than potions, I acquired everything I wanted to buy. However, there were still various major bits of equipment I wanted that were not for sale. The first of those to be hunted was the Ring of Gaxx - though in opening up the temple sewers I also picked up the Cloak of the Sewers and used blade barrier while invisible on some undead. The liches were helpless against PfU and Kangaxx was killed mainly with the Ring of Energy, though MMMs got the finishing blow - that also got me to cleric level 14.
Another handy item for the aspiring mage is the Staff of the Magi. At the Twisted Rune, I used PfU again to deal with Shangalar. A fire storm topped up with fireballs accounted for Vaxall and Revanek was just meleed. Vaxall had dispelled my buffs with an anti-magic ray just before dying, so Shyressa attacked me - but a few new buffs made me much too strong for her. Layene was then scared by her own Pit Fiend, giving me time to get through her stoneskins.
Usually I do pretty much all the Chapter 2&3 encounters in BG2EE before heading to Spellhold. This time though I decided to head there early. That still meant a bit more work - to watch Mook being killed, sort out some guild traitors and scope the opposition in the vampire guild. Skeletons helped with the latter, though I chose to face Bodhi alone. I got a 14th illusionist level at some point there, gaining me a first HLA.
Cleric 14 / Illusionist 14, 83 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar, 5 from helm), 308 kills (+237 in BGEE/SoD)
I would say just the two - this one and a solo priest of Talos (also in the long-life challenge). I did do a little bit more with my Avatar follow-up after they finished off the Cowled Wizards, but I'm not intending to continue with that - so that one can be considered definitely retired. I've got a number of other challenges that I pick up from time to time of course and I was actually contemplating starting one of those shortly ...
@Alesia_BH Thank you for your kind words and support (as always) - it's much appreciated! In terms of next plans, I'd expect to return shortly with a new character, as I've not yet fully satisfied my thirst for some good old adventuring in Faeurn. Note that I'm having a great time following Ayla's progress - it's fantastic to have you both here and I'm thrilled for more. Keep up the amazing work!
@Ignatius Many thanks, that's very nice to hear. I'll look forward to your future runs, whenever you'll be feeling inclined to share any of these with this friendly community. I fully respect and support your decision to include SoD in your play, although for me personally it had been hindering my no-reloading appetite until I've reached the decision to ignore it completely and focus on the classic trilogy instead. Ever since then, I've been living a much happier BG life. But that's just me and the beauty of this challenge is that everyone can follow their own preference.
That was a challenge I set up in 2016 to see if I could solo all possible character classes before I die. Thus far I've only done 7 of them in 7 years. With 69 more to go, the odds of overall success look pretty slim at the moment . Still, the only individual classes where I'm not yet confident of ultimately achieving success are the druids - so maybe at some point I'll hit a hot streak ...
Onto Khan Zahraa. Khan got his Stoneskins off, meaning we’d have to take him down with poison.
I'm not sure if it's because of different game versions I've used over the time, but I've always been rather confused regarding the interaction between poison and Stoneskin. I recall my disappointment ages ago when I was playing an assassin and her poison weapon was getting thwarted by Stoneskin, even though I was sure that it had worked in the past. It's good to know and I'll make sure to check this in my install as well.
@Borco Sorry to see your run stopped. It has been a fun and educational read so far! @Alesia_BH Somehow, I feel like Cernd should've gotten that "Hero of Trademeet" title instead, considering the amount of actual work Ayla put into solving the shadow druid problem
The Avatars (Enuhal's version) - Update XIX
Okay, starting in Firkraag's dungeon - we're sending a spirit lion into the kamikaze kobolds and use inquisitor dispel to take down the rukh transmuter's buffs. I didn't intend to dispel Grim Face here, but, luckily, the transmuter lost interest in him (so I had an invisibility pot ready):
For our big golem fights, Grond0 is an important asset due to FoA slow and blunt weapon damage - we improved haste him for that reason, and in anticipation we have prepared a few "remove curse" spells for the clay golem cursed wounds:
Now, the encounter we've been preparing for - 2 elder vampires and 4 ancient vampires, improved by SCS. We buff up and move in invisibilty. Grond0 (raged) and Corey (AoP-wearing) attack first, Grim Face reveals himself with shortly after that with a false dawn cast. Alesia goes for malison, Enuhal for insect plague. Our positioning is pretty good - and luckily, some of the vampires, who spawn in a bunch of rats and wolves, trap themselves via their own summons for a few crucial seconds. We are able to get false dawn going without anyone getting drained:
The important thing here is not only the damage, but the confusion for a round, which guarantees that we can follow up with the second false dawn, slow and static charge. Even powerful ancient vampires are likely to get slowed after the malison:
Once the confusion of the second false dawn falls off, there are only 2-3 vampires left. Alesia takes one hit and gets drained a bit, but is able to move away. Grim Face actually gets an instant kill via his iMoD. All in all, a convincing victory with only one instance of level drain.
We move on to Samia, using fire protection on Grond0 to deal with all of the guardians. Our final few spells are unleashed for the director here, who actually deals some significant damage to Enuhal with a cone of cold:
Before resting, Alesia prepares 3 traps for Samia, and three more after that. In the end, the traps do most of the work here:
Some more golem battles, including an adamantite golem, give Grond0 another time to shine:
We pull out all of the other monsters out of Tazok's room before dealing with our old foe:
I don't feel like resting just for Conster, so no traps for him this time around. Instead, he gets hit with a successful inquisitor dispel:
Very good. Now, where to go next? Powerful arcane spellcasters all around, though I do have inquisitor dispel - which is why I look up some enemy levels on the wiki, seeing that Lavok and Tolgerias are propably level 22, the warden might be 18/18 with SCS... I see that vanilla liches might be just level 11 and I see no different info for SCS. That's why I go for the temple ruins - there are 2 liches here on insane SCS, but there's also a lot of room to maneuver - also, they are quite slow and very bad at dealing with the nearby laval pit (in fact, I've had one SCS lich actually DIE to the lava pit before when he tried to cross it). Still, we can't take liches in a direct fight - we're simply missing the spellslots to get all the protections I would want to have for that, and depending on their pre-buffs, we can't even fully dispel them (if they have spell trap, I can not counter it at this stage). So, either we hope they don't have SI:A and the wiki levels are accurate for SCS liches, so we can presumably inquisitor dispel them, or we go for the slow approach, using the area to our advantage, letting protections run out, using low numbers of summons to draw out extra PFMWs etc.
Well, first things first, we have to deal with a whole bunch of undead near the lava pool - engaging the shadows here also brings out two bone golems and a bunch of skeleton warriors and greater mummies towards us, we make use of our fire elementals and the heal spell to back up Grond0 and Corey:
Grond0 runs in and immediately back out again to check on the first lich - here are some of its initial pre-buffs:
He triggers three more once he walks into the room again. The lich also uses remove magic - on himself for some reason? Also, he does have SI:A going so the inquisitor plan won't work until the spell runs out. We wait for a while, checking if the lich will follow us. He will not. He refuses to move - that's fine. We can just send in summons. We wait for a few rounds and send in a spirit lion, the lich uses another PFMW followed by death spell:
While we wait for his new buffs to expire, we move to the next lich location to lure the other undead towards our party - once again, the lich doesn't follow us, but we get to kill the skeletons, golems and mummies:
Now, for our original lich. Corey and Grond0 drink oils of speed so they can move in and out quickly if needed - we go in to check up, we see that he's casting an alteration spell, we immediately run out again - it is indeed time stop, but the lich doesn't leave his room to do anything else to us. Another spirit lion goes in, triggers PFMW. While escorting the lion, Grond0 does get hit by a spell - suffocate, not exactly deadly at this point. We don't expect the lich to have more than 3 PFMWs, so as this one runs out again, we go in for the kill attempt. The lich is kind of wasting his time casting breach - I think - on Corey while we hack through his stoneskins, and Grond0 can actually get interrupts with the acid head of his FoA. He eventually applies the slow affect and the stoneskins are gone:
That took a while, but it went fairly well. As we had already encountered lich 2 earlier, we expect some of his protections to be gone at this point, including SI. Once again, we always send in a summon first before an actual character enters line of sight so that the lich will start casting his spell for the round on the summon and we can move out before he can go for a second spell if needed. We go for the inquisitor dispel and get the "dispel effects" message, but as we try to attack, it seems like his PFMW is still up:
I would guess that the liches are, in fact, not level 11, otherwise I'd have expected a full dispel here (we dispel at level 21 currently). Corey runs away. The lich spawns in his own set of summons, including 3 skeleton warriors (something the lich to the north had done as well at some points to kill our third spirit animal summon) and a few shades. We send in more of our own, the lich uses his timestop and skull traps kitthix, killing his own shades in the process. That was pointless. He doesn't seem to have a third PFMW (we couldn't really draw out many more anyway - we have used all of our summons except for the berserker horn). We try to go for the kill again - this becomes super risky as he's able to remove magic on our fighters, so they don't have a haste effect on them anymore, which would make fleeing fairly difficult. Luckily, Grond0 gets the interrupt with his acid head for his next spell and soon after applies the slow effect - victory is ours:
We rest to prepare for the shade lord, having learned some protection from level drain spells. They don't last long, but I excpect this fight to be very quick if we don't have to retreat from the level drain aura - the shade lord always seems to only have a single spell deflection as a spell defense, so secret word + breach should do the job. Grim Face gets rid of the shadow altar with a sun bullet, we execute the true sight + secret word + breach combo:
The shade lord has spent his turn casting black blade of disaster. The aura only triggers once, but everyone is protected against its effects. Victory is swiftly achieved:
We spend some time travelling around to buy a few crucial spellscrolls, including spell shield for Alesia, PFME, another ruby ray (for later), spell pierce... I'm propably forgetting something. In any case, I think the planar prison should be next.
I tested this recently. Here's the interaction in patch 2.6, with the Mirror Image interaction thrown in as a bonus:
- Instant poison on a weapon hit goes through Stoneskin, like any other elemental damage.
- Lasting poison on a weapon hit is blocked by Stoneskin; if the physical damage is absorbed, no poison is applied.
- Instant poison on a weapon hit always passes through mirror images to hit the original, even if the physical hit is absorbed.
- Lasting poison on a weapon hit is always blocked by mirror images, even if the physical hit passes through to hit the original.
Past runs for this group have mainly been in various modded installations, but this attempt is unmodded. My rules for poverty runs are:
1) You can never buy or sell any items (including any items required for quests).
2) You can never use or equip any items (but can pick things up for quests).
3) You may pay for quests (such as Gaelan Bayle), but not anything else (temples, inns etc).
As with most of my parties, all party members have to be able to level up at the same time. That means a total of 15k XP was needed for a first level, but that didn't take very long - bounty hunter traps gaining a cool 26k from Elminster.
I didn't immediately level up though, but waited for the sorcerers to get over 5k to take them straight to level 3. Quick encounters to do that included:
- commanding the belt ogre (and returning the belt as I can't use it)
- trapping Tarnesh
- calming down Marl
- finding a book for Firebead
- blinding then commanding Silke (then doing the same to Karlat)
On the way to Nashkel sleep made recovering a letter from a couple of ogrillons trivial. As with many of these earlier encounters, Hardup's spirits got the kills after the ogrillons were beaten unconscious by the party's fists. Beggar and Pauper can use magically created weapons and Pauper's special ability sword is a particularly nice example of those. Washout has his traps, Beggar his totemic spirits and the sorcerers both have magic missiles - but the use of shaman spirits provides an unlimited potential for kills without resting. That's less important this time as I'm not requiring map areas to be totally cleared, but it's still helpful.
In Nashkel, Noober was talked to - and then killed. At the Carnival, Oopah and Vitiare were commanded. Pauper then used sanctuary to get into Zordral's tent and silenced him (from behind a bookcase) at the 6th attempt.
A few mini-quests saw property returned to Mirianne, Zhurlong, Mr Colquetle and Joia. Then we moved on to the basilisk area. Skint did know PfP, but we just used Korax to deal with the basilisks - finishing off with Mutamin.
Lindin & Baerin were blinded and the other 2 silenced, allowing Korax to paralyse 3 of them before being killed - Baerin was the last to go using magical weapon attacks. That lot was sufficient for everyone to level up again.
At Durlag's Tower, battle horrors were blinded and whittled away with magic missiles. The basilisks on the roof were beaten up with Pauper acting as target using PfP. With both sorcerers now knowing invisibility the party could rest safely and they cleared out plenty of blinded ghasts. Hardup made good use of his Writhing Fog spell there when he had a decent collection of blinded targets.
Kirinhale didn't have much time to enjoy her release from captivity before dying in traps.
When Riggilo was blinded and finished off that meant everyone could level up once more.
Adventures in the Cloud Peak mountains started with holding Greywolf.
Most of the minor encounters though were left up to a pair of spirit lions. The XP on offer there is pretty limited, but there are somewhat better pickings in the Valley of the Tombs. The Revenant was blinded, before Narcillicus died in traps and his mustard jellies were chopped up by Pauper's Seeking Sword.
A first use of web on the amazons was really intended to be for the benefit of a spirit lion, but that unsummoned just before attacking - other spells were up to the job though.
@Alesia_BH Somehow, I feel like Cernd should've gotten that "Hero of Trademeet" title instead, considering the amount of actual work Ayla put into solving the shadow druid problem
Ayla has no idea what you're talking about. That was, like, a lot of walking. A lot.
Yep. Remove Magic has a party-friendly AoE projectile, so when targeting itself the lich will affect nearby enemies. The scripts can't effectively target points, so they have to target some creature. If the lich can't see any enemies, it might as well target itself.
Makes sense. PfU scrolls are removed from stores in my installation for BG2, so I believe the only one available would exist in one of Hexxats quest-crypts, which I'm also not doing due to the no EE NPC content rule for this run, so it won't really matter either way.
The Avatars (Enuhal's version) - Update XX
To get to the planar prison, we first must free Haer'Dalis. There's a group with multiple yuan-ti mages here that we have to deal with. We throw in death spell to get rid of the non-mages and since these guys don't have the levels to resist, Corey also throws in dispel magic:
One of them immediately throws down another PFMW, the others opt for invisibility instead, which doesn't help due to Corey's true sight. We kill two of them, with only one remaining - instead of punching through PFMW stoneskins with non-magical weapons, we decided to throw another dispel, though Grond0 and Corey lose their buffs as well in the process:
That's not a problem though - we send in some spirit animals towards Mekrath after renewing haste spells and buffing recitation/chant. He doesn't have SI:A, so he's another quick victim of inquisitor dispel:
Despite the inquisitor dispel nerf to 1,5*level, our experience bonus from having played SoD and only having 5 party members means that right now, wizards that can't be dispelled by us are becoming quite rare - and they're mostly on such high levels that they're going to include SI:A in their pre-buffs anyway.
The key to a successful opening strategy in the planar prison is to enter under invisibility 10'radius. This gives us the opportunity to kill both enemy spellcasters at the entrance at the same time - Alesia backstabs one of them, all of the others take a hit at the other one, which is enough for an instant doublekill:
We throw inquisitor dispels on the wizards to the east before casting another invisibility 10'radius so Alesia can backstab the next wizard:
Alesia still has her SI:A, so there's no trouble in throwing inquisitor dispel at these yuan-ti mages. This allows us to quickly bring them down. We renew some important buffs, because Corey loses his as we need a second dispel due to a renewed PFMW, and the inquisitor is sadly in range. He drinks an invulnerability potion to resist any stun effects from the nearby demon:
After all that, we rest, buff up (including death ward for everyone, since the warden is known to potentially use some instant kill effects) and destroy the orb. We send in a summon and throw down the dispel - with the warden only being at level 18/18, it works right away:
However, the warden is not unprepared for this. He follows up with another PFMW right away, and we dispel it again while staying at range to avoid dispelling our own. While we move away to avoid getting dispelled ourselves, he is able to cast black blade of disaster. After the dispel, he follows that up with mantle. This time we can't move away in time - if we run away, we give him the opportunity to cast another spell. I decide to dispel right away, despite not knowing exactly how good our unbuffed saving throws are. Since entropy shield only protects against remove magic, not dispel magic, Alesia is the only one who will keep her buffs. I check my saving throws - we are fine, everyone has enough saves to resist the disintegrate effect from the black blade. The warden gets to attack 2-3 times before we take him down:
That was a bit risky, but the risk payed off. Now, onto the planar sphere. The halfling wizards are relatively high level, but they still don't start with SI:A. I get the feeling that only spellcasters capable of casting level 9 spells will actually use SI:A, even on insane:
I'm mostly unbuffed here, but that's almost fine - Our fighters tend to always get dispelled either way, Grond0 has rage, both have good saving throws. Only spells with saving throw penalty or cast by a specialist are likely to do anything other than damage, and even ADHW won't instantly kill Corey or Grond0, so I'm willing to take that chance when the AI is usually more concerned with renewing its buffs anyway after we dispel or true sight - and if we don't dare to engage directly, we still can quickly muster an army of spirit animals:
The second group of halfling spellcasters - hey, this is Alesia's best backstab so far!
That's the two-handed weapon style paying off here. The other wizard is true sighted, dispelled and killed:
I get the feeling that even nerfed inquisitors are pretty damn good. We barely need to use our own spell thrusts and secret words by now. After dealing with more golems, things get serious. Tolgerias is level 21, meaning that chances of a successful full dispel are not exactly high - in fact, they are too low to develop a reliable strategy around that. I've recently learned that my previous backstabs have failed to one-hit kill this guy because he's got a ton of HP for a wizard - 96 to be precise (thanks @jmerry ). However, Alesia has often reached this amount of damage, especially when buffed. We give her our hill giant strength belt and a potion of power (though that won't buff her damage) and prepare her with the AoP to follow up with an instant cast (minor sequencer or magic missle) in case he barely survives. He does not:
The other mage is low enough in levels to simply get dispelled:
We clear the ice room, Grond0 gets protection from fire and we clear the fire room (though it's mostly a solo mission). Since we have some clay golem cursed wounds, we rest to remove them so we can use healing potions again if needed before fighting another huge group of golems. Grond0 does great here as well, so do our three spellcaster with their stone/ironskins:
My goal for Lavok was to go for another one-hit via backstab, but I was too lazy to give Alesia the hill giant strenght belt again, instead only using the strength spell, and her damage wasn't enough:
That's not good. Lavok can be deadly for us. Alesia didn't even finish her pre-buffing by casting SI:A, because I though that I might save that for the later demon encounters. She tries to remedy that as we summon a spirit lion and cast true sight, in an attempt to waste Lavok's time - maybe get him to use a round to either rewew an illusion buff or cast death spell. Instead, he uses a triple remove magic sequencer on Alesia, just before she's able to finish her SI:A cast. She's now quite vulnerable, so we need to think quickly. Lavok can't be allowed to cast another spell. He's actually our first enemy to pre-buff with both SI:A and Spell shield, so there's no way we can get past his defenses in one round - however, I remember that, quite a few sessions earlier, I spent some money - so far seemingly a waste - to buy an old BG1 favorite that we have used in this very run to deal with the firewine dungeon wizard and to prevent the bridge in SoD from blowing up - The Victor. It should still go through any spell protections, right? It does, and it takes Lavok down:
I love this little ring. It's so crazy how it can foil the plans of any high level wizard (okay, PFME would propably help, but Lavok didn't have that).
We go outside and buff with some fire protection and chaotic command spells, call in summons and quickly take down the demons - planar sphere, done - very good that we now have the gauntlets of ogre strength, so we don't always need the strength spell for Grond0:
There's only one stronghold remaining - the Unseeing Eye. I've delayed that one in hopes that we'd get to level 15 for one of our spellcasters, in order to get skeleton warriors with super high magic resistance. No dice. We'll have to find another way to deal with beholders - oh, and there's another lich waiting there as well, this time with less room to move around and no lava pit nearby. It's going to be interesting. Most importantly, I need to avoid the non-standard game over of forgetting to return the rift device. I've had three of those in the past few years - one time due to the rift device, once due to not picking up the key in the planar prison, once because the Boaresky Bridge got blown up in SoD (yes, I tried to firebomb the group on the bridge. Totally reasonable, how could I have known that the nearby explosive barrels would actually explode?).
Ayla, Halfling Thief: Umar Hills (Or Islands in the Stream)
Ayla's latest session was about teamwork: learning to fight alongside Mr. Efreeti. Early results were poor to middling, but by the end of the session, Ayla and Mr. Efreeti had built a rapport. That bodes well for future sessions.
Ayla started the session by taking on Mencar and Co. This is an important fight for a solo thief, as there are two super-valuable items involved: the Cloak of Non-Detection and Sandthief. Upon spying her cloak on the mage, Ayla chose to setup an ambush. She set a stack of traps on L1 and a second stack on L2. She then rested one last time so she'd have an additional set for combat.
You may be thinking that's a lot of traps. It is. And so before we go on, I'd like to make a brief remark on Ayla's trap use. In past thief runs I restricted my use of traps. Alesia, a bounty hunter, and thus specialized trapper, was allowed to lead enemies to traps once and only once per fight. She was not allowed to rest to increase her trap output. Alora, who invested heavily in the pickpocket skill, in keeping with the logic of the NPC she was based on, used traps only rarely, if at all. I've let Ayla use traps liberally because of the meta-purpose she is serving. Ayla's role is to help me get re-acquainted with the game. The more content I see the better. Liberal use of traps will surely help Ayla get farther, with less risk. As a consequence, I'm letting her fight in ways that I wouldn't typically allow. I'm okay with that, however, if, perchance, Ayla does make it, I may voluntarily withhold her from the Hall of Heroes. We'll see. In any case, for now she's a little trap munkin. That's just the way it is.
Anyways, let's get back to Mencar. We took our renewable buffs, RoAC and DUHM, and then headed into the fray. Ayla targeted Amon. Mr. Efreeti was supposed to take on Pooky and then run distraction. Ayla did her job.
Mr. Efreeti did not do his. Instead he went invisible, leaving Ayla as the only target on the field. Ultimately this is my fault, not Mr. Efreeti's. It is possible to get Mr Efreeti to engage instead of vanishing. I just got the action timing wrong. Whatever the cause, Ayla was not pleased: she broke for her traps.
The traps fired, injuring Brennan and Orcslicer. Brennan chose to bail immediately, which was a concern, since Ayla really wanted Sandthief. My pre-battle expectation had been that if he attempted to run he'd hit the traps on the first floor, and then die, possibly by poison in the promenade. That was foolish of me. I was assuming he continued to exist in the game world after absconding. He doesn't. Nonetheless, Ayla pursued to the first floor, hoping against hope to find Brennan's corpse. Instead, she lured her remaining foes, Pooky and Mencar, to the untripped traps. Pooky died. Mencar, now fighting alone, was injured.
Ayla circled around and landed a backstab on Mencar.
After a fumbling attempt at fighting Mencar at range, Ayla activated Arbane haste and snuck off into the shadows. She set a patch of traps, lured Mencar to them, and then finished with her bow as the Amish Guard ran distraction. A victory, but an unsatisfying one. Brennan escaped with Sandthief and Ayla's coordination with Mr. Efreeti was abysmal. Ayla went to the Flagons to think it over.
Following a hearty Halfling made meal and a good night's sleep, Ayla was ready to travel. She was off to the Umar Hills.
Mr. Efreeti may have been a disappointment against Mencar, but he was a rockstar in the mimic blood quest. He nixed the killer mimic solo while Ayla hung back, holding Arbane.
He also killed the stone golem, while finding time to save Jermien with a well executed Invisibility cast. On days like this I love Mr. Efreeti oh, so much.
Ilbratha saw immediate use in the opening temple battle.
Ayla doesn't attack with short swords yet, but she uses them a lot. She'll use them even more going forward. Why, you ask? Here's a clue.
And here's the answer.
Upon rescue, the ever gracious Mazzy Fentan gifted Ayla the Sword of Arvoreen, as a thank you. The Sword of Arvoreen, usable by Halflings, not just Mazzy, is a lovely weapon. It offers immunity to stun and slow, plus a movement rate reduction on hit effect, which is especially useful for thieves. It's Ayla's most prized possession.
After escorting Mazzy back to Umar, and selling some two-handed swords, Ayla was faced with a difficult inventory choice. Her carrying capacity is 70lbs, and her kit weight, with the addition of Arvoreen, was exactly 70lbs. That's unsustainable. Weighing her options, in this case quite literally, Ayla chose to ditch her armor. Doing so will cause her to miss out on some AC adjustments, but at 25lbs, it offered the lowest utility to weight ratio of all Ayla's items. It had to go. Happily, 25lbs is close to the weight of the bony baby rugby ball that Ayla will soon be carrying. And so it all works out.
Onwards to the bridge! Mr. Efreeti handled this one while Ayla watched invisible.
The skeleton warriors were next. More fun with summons here. We called in the berserker, right over the lava, expecting him to get punked. He did indeed get punked, but the lava killed the baddies for us.
Shadow fiends! Ayla equipped Arbane and then retreated to the crystal. No worries here, although Ayla was in for a surprise soon after.
The bone golem! Somehow, someway, he sort of teleported out to the crystal. Ayla was displeased at first, but this was probably for the best. Ayla took it down with her bow.
Just a few more skeleton warriors now. Staff of Striking backstabs did the trick here.
Only one battle remained: the Shade Lord. Reflecting on her past success against an epic foe in Amn, Ayla decided there was but on sensible thing to do: reach out to Cernd. Alas, Cernd wanted none of this, so Ayla had to fend for herself. "Hello again, Mr Barterman! I'd like a pro undead scroll, please! Thanks a bunch!"
Since I wasn't sure whether pro undead would work against the current SCS Shade Lord, Ayla took some potion buffs here. It turns out it does. The potions were totally unnecessary. Ayla has been managing her potion resources well so far, though, so that's a minor concern. What matters is that Ayla is a hero once again. We left Mr. Efreeti out of this one because we didn't want him to trigger buffs or, worse still, a Remove cast. Mr. Efreeti was a co-hero nonetheless. Hooray for my favorite bottled bud! Teamwork makes the dream work!
I'm not sure what's next for Ayla, but I'm leaning towards Mae'Var's Guild Hall. It's about time to move out of the Flagons.
My intention is to assemble a party of paladins, Isra first as she always joins at level 2.
Journal of Carlos First and last entry
Due to my race, Gorion had to pull a lot of strings to get me trained as a Cavalier, but the others now accept me due to my dilligence. I have trained in axes due to my heritage.
Due to my eyes, they believe that I might be an Aasimar. No doubt the truth will out in due course.
With 170 gp to start with, it looks like I may be reasonably lucky.
I lost all my gold when I was arrested for theft! I hadn't even stolen anything! I was just curious and opened it!
I helped Linda and Sir Trun out with their relationship difficulties.
When I fought against the assassin Mendas, the result was touch and go!
After leaving Candlekeep and the death of Gorion, I found a Ring of Protection +1 and a diamond just lying there in holes in stumps and trees plus a ring of wizardry near the FAI.
When I ventured inside Tarnesh, a wizard attacked me. He did not survive the encounter.
Nearby I cleared the area of hobgoblins before heading north where I came across some evil fishermen.
Nearby I helped Leila who was being pestered by her undead husband.
I returned Joia's ring next and levelled up when I killed a ghast in transit.
At High Hedge I was asked for a skeleton skull. When I went outside to rest, one very conveniently attacked me.
Thalantyr then helped Melicamp.
I broke an axe when fighting a skeleton. Clearly I need to find a better axe.
I went to Beregost to rest and whilst there calmed Marl, and took a tome to Firebead.
I saw a +1 axe for sale, but didn't have sufficient gold and the storekeeper wouldn't buy any of the weapons that I had collected. However, htey bought them at the forge and I was then just able to afford it.
Mirianne gave me a ring of protection +1 on me taking her news of her husband.
At Nashkel I found some ankheg armour and Oublek tried to give me a reward thinking that I was Greywolf. I disabused him and as a result my reputation increased.
To the south I killed Zargos Flintblade and as a result gained a second axe +1.
I used it when killing Greywolf, whereupon Isra, another cavalier joined me.
It was used again to kill Zordral!
Nearby I was attacked by Hafiz.
We then took Samuel to the FAI.
Upon returning to Beregost we returned the Colquetle amulet and nearby rescued Tonder from the curse of lycanthropy.
He gave us a sword as a reward. A bit flashier than Greywolf's sword but not as good.
Oublek gave me a reward for returning some emeralds.
Heading west we reunited Albert and Rufie before taking on Vax and Zal.
We then helped a dryad.
We returned 'Drienne's cat and killed Ingot as well as a winter wolf.
At the gnoll stronghold we took on more assassins and in doing so, I got a better axe.
We returned to Lathander's Temple and investigated a nearby cave. It was very worthwhile though rather dangerous!
The armour is as good as ankheg and increases charisma. I donned it and gave the ankheg armour to Isra.
We went in search of Bassilus and killed him having saved against his Rigid Thinking spell.
We killed Zargal and went to the Lighthouse where we killed a number of sirine.
Inside the cave we killed a flesh golem, went outside to rest and upon re-entering the cave took on another.
That one turned out to be much tougher! Argh! The end.
I don't think that I made any mistakes in the battle. Perhaps potions beforehand. I try not to use buffing potions though other than potions of freedom of action.
Perhaps that is a self-imposed restriction that I ought to drop.
The session nearly started with disaster when Pauper went into an ettercap cave. The ettercap was not exactly where I expected and Pauper got caught by its web trap just before he exited the cave. With his death being mere moments away, the rest of the party piled into the cave. They were lucky there that Washout saved against the web and was able to move out of sight and throw a special trap. Aspire contributed a magic missile, but that still didn't quite kill the ettercap. Fortunately the trap had slowed it as well as damaging it and Pauper had been able to move marginally before being held again. That meant the ettercap only got one more attack on him before Aspire fired off a second magic missile to finish it off.
There were no alarms in the next couple of areas. At Ulcaster Icharyd was taken on - though there's no real danger in that as he's not the same challenge in the unmodded game as with my recent SCS Avatar run.
I wasn't then paying attention to travel times on heading to the Lake area and nearly paid the price for that in a bandit ambush when Skint took a critical hit and limped to the map edge.
There was a decent XP haul at the Lake area when Drizzt was led into some traps - not quite up to Elminster standard, but 12k is not bad .
The Doomsayer added a bit more after being blinded while tackling spirits and there was a further significant influx thanks to webbing the sirines at the Lighthouse. The party was a bit short on spells and abilities when they went into the pirate cave and ran out of nearly all ways to kill golems with the last of those still hanging on - fortunately dancing always remains an option.
After Bassilus was webbed, magical weapons and traps made much shorter work of the golems at High Hedge. Melicamp failed his restoration roll though. With another level not far off, the next target was the wolf pack at Beregost Temple. Traps badly hurt them and a few magic missiles finished off the vampiric wolves.
I'd forgotten to pick Perdue's sword up initially, but it was still waiting there at High Hedge and was soon handed over.
The party hadn't yet been to Gullykin and, though there's not much of interest there, a few dread wolves were all that was needed to allow them to level up once more.
The Red Wizard area saw skull traps eliminating most of a group of spiders, before Beggar sent in a lightning blast to finish the job. The mages themselves should have been aware of the dangers of webs, living in that area, but appeared not to be.
In Larswood the druids caused no trouble - and nor did their bears. I find dealing with cave bears amusing with this party due to the bear's fixation on attacking the first character sighted- allowing Beggar to run round and round in circles while the others gradually pummelled the bear unconscious with their fists. Baeloth showed impressive magic resistance against 3 separate call lightnings - pity he was already dead at the time.
Sleep and command helped deal with an area full of ankhegs, while spirit lions helped a farmer fertilize his fields with zombie meal.
With their random wanderings done for now, the next step was the Nashkel Mine. Mulahey was webbed there and failed to protest his execution. Nimbul found his mirror images no protection against lightning from the sky. Tranzig found himself doomed, poisoned and covered with insects before he realised he was in a fight and, not surprisingly, failed to recover the situation.
At the Bandit Camp skeletons and spirit lions did most of the work clearing the exterior. Inside Tazok's tent, blindness and webs left the enemies helpless to respond to spell attacks.
In the first Cloakwood area Seniyad found himself confused, commanded, hit by a special trap and given a nasty shock. In the second area Washout disabled all the traps before we went to give Centeol a good thumping. Tiber was so upset about his brother's death that he asked for our help with an assisted suicide (or possibly Beggar just wanted Bhaal horror as an option). In the third area, none of the druids managed to complete a spell - Amarande failing to survive a day's worth of traps as he pursued Skint down the stairs.
In the fourth area though, tragedy struck. I tried putting Hardup behind a wall of invisible blockers to dance - although that would take longer than using spell damage, it seemed a more elegant apporach. I was aware of the potential danger that the wall could be breached by spirits passing through it and tried to run when that happened - but the crush in the doorway prevented the exit. Hardup was poisoned, but quickly cured by Pauper who was also originally standing behind the wall with that purpose in mind. However, Hardup was quickly poisoned again and we only eventually made the exit just after he snuffed it.
Although I can't pay to raise characters, there was a chance that Shoal would do that for us to save the run. Unfortunately, when the EE gave a saving throw to escape death from her kiss, that also meant that she would only use raise dead if her kiss actually resulted in a kill - and this time Skint was 'lucky' enough to escape death ...
It's a bit of a grey area for my rules. When playing with a party I normally don't allow a run to continue with less than a full party - so chunking clearly ends a run. However, raising characters is allowed, so continuing in order to go and get someone raised is fine. I'm not quite sure how long it's reasonable to claim I'm just on the way to get someone raised - but that run felt like the grey had shaded well into the black and I should just start again ...
We enter the old tunnels and make our way to the eyeless cultists. Our first encounter of significance is the first group beholders in front of the forgotten temple - time to see if the level 11 version of skeleton summons can do the job as well. To improved their chances, we buff them with invisibility and haste, and Grim Face is with them to direct them and to invisibly turn undead:
As it turns out - yes, they can do the job. They are more vulnerable, sometimes taking significant damage from the "cause wounds" eyebeams, though the other eyebeams are generally not even used against them. I'd propably need a few more of them to clear out the beholder hive, propably two sets of them, and support via haste and invisibility spells again, but it seems like we should be fine.
The next significant encounter is the lich in ghoul town. Expecting him to behave in a similiar fashion to the ones in the temple ruins, we tried to lure all of the other undead towards the party first while his buffs started ticking down, assuming he wouldn't follow us - and indeed, he decided to stay where he was:
With the various undead gone, we sent in a spirit lion towards the lich, triggering PFMW and death spell:
Spirit lion Nr. 2 goes in and and gets another PFMW, plus a triple animate death spell trigger. Fair enough. We send in the last one just to make sure there are no more PFMW's waiting. Our casters are buffed to such a degree that they can actually survive a timestop, so our following charge doesn't feel as risky this time around. The lich starts casting (most likely timestop), but Grond0 gets the interrupt via the acid head:
Seems like we have found a modus operandi for these unnamed liches:
So, we rest, enter the beholder hive and summon our first 5 skeletons, taking down the first big group of beholders - only 2 of them survive, but we refresh their numbers and re-buff them. The fresh skeleton group can easily clear out the remainder of the hive. The party gathers and buffs up to take down the sightless priests, Alesia lays down traps for the Unseeing Eye. We rest up, buff up, get 3 more traps prepared and pick up the rift device - we use it and kill our foe:
Mh. Aren't there supposed to be a bunch of death tyrants spawning together with the Unseeing Eye in insane SCS? I decided to wait around for a few more rounds, but no death tyrants. Very strange. No idea what's going on here - did this only happen in older versions? Did I kill the Unseeing Eye too fast? Do they spawn only after a longer period of time? Well, in that case, we really overbuffed for this battle. We return the rift device, clear out the cultist compound and get back to the Temple of Helm before going for another spell learning session (our third one in SoA so far, but these are easy to make work compared to BG1 because there are tons of potions of genius around and no money problems at all).
Very good side effects from this questline: Gauntlets of Dexterity for Corey, and Belt of Fortitude for Enuhal (quite the HP increase, as it usually lasts the entire day - takes his basic HP from 82 to 100).
Time to go to Brynnlaw. Corey gets the AoP again, Grond0 rages and we take down the three vampires:
Alesia gets a new damage record when backstabbing Perth (another crit, and I decided to not only give her the belt, but the full array of regular combat buffs we use for significant battles):
We help Ginia and free Claire:
Yes, that's the rare true sight + double secret word + breach approach, because space is so tight that we would've dispelled every single one of our buffs if Corey had done his thing. Time to enter Spellhold.
Mh. Aren't there supposed to be a bunch of death tyrants spawning together with the Unseeing Eye in insane SCS? I decided to wait around for a few more rounds, but no death tyrants. Very strange. No idea what's going on here - did this only happen in older versions? Did I kill the Unseeing Eye too fast? Do they spawn only after a longer period of time?
The SCS version of the Unseeing Eye gets a special Chain Contingency that summons a pair of death tyrants. You killed it too fast, and that bit of its script didn't get a chance to run.
I didn't expect to face much trouble at Spellhold. Yuan-ti mages are fairly routine at this point thanks to inquisitor dispel:
We use fire resistance for the rakshasa and pit fiend and move on to level 2. After buffing with chaotic commands for the mind flayer and traps + skeletons for the beholder summoned by the magical tome, we face another lich, using the same strategies we devolped in chapter 3 - first, we draw out all of the other undead:
After that, we send in summons one at a time, always waiting a few rounds in between. First skeleton - first PFMW. Second skeleton - PFMW + Deathspell. As a third summon, we send in a fire elemental because the lich had also called in 3 of his own skeletons by now. It gets killed by finger of death, but the lich doesn't cast PFMW again, so we correctly assume that he's out of protections - once again, Corey and Grond0 drink potions of speed and move in, expecting a timestop, hoping for the interrupt from the FoA acid head - which we get:
After dealing with Lassal, we move on to level 3 - though before entering, we go for a quick rest (the only one we need in Spellhold). Trolls are easy as pie by now. However, in the room with the portrait-locked doors, both the noble efreet and the ulitharid teleport out of their locked rooms, so we have to face quite a few enemies here. Luckily, we are able to cast improved haste on Grond0 and he rages, making him very efficient at dealing with these foes - though Corey got into danger once, getting hit by a psionic blast with 5% save failure chance (he succeeded - I was just surprised that the ulitharid was free):
Enuhal prepares some defenses to face Bodhi and equips the AoP - no trouble here - and we move on to the clay golems:
No cursed wounds on anyone but one of our summons, so we don't need to rest. We get our boots of speed and move on to judgement. Preparing for Irenicus isn't strictily needed, but we do it anyway - he always wants to cast his clone spell before even attempting to buff up, so he's forced to flee before he can even do anything:
I got no screenshots for the city of caverns, but there's not much to tell here. It's a relaxing pause before we face the horrors of the Underdark - though we do get to 3m XP after having betrayed the king, so we have access to our first couple of HLAs and Enuhal gets a ton of new spellslots. This is where things will get quite interesting again. The balor, demon knights, the illithid city - these things are no joke.
Great work, Enuhal! You're making excellent progress- faster than I expected.
Best,
A.
However, in the room with the portrait-locked doors, both the noble efreet and the ulitharid teleport out of their locked rooms, so we have to face quite a few enemies here.
Ayla, Halfling Thief: Mae’Var’s Guild Hall (Or The Times They Are a Changin’)
Sometime within the last session the character of Ayla’s journey changed. She’s no longer a spunky, underpowered little Halfling. She’s now a seasoned adventurer, boldly making her way through Amn.
Her ceiling is getting higher everyday, and I’m growing ever more confident in her. She may have a chance, after all.
Ayla started the session just shy of level 15. I decided to secure that level for her, along with some gold, by raiding the Saerk Farrahd estate.
Some of you may recall that I considered this move earlier in Ayla’s adventure, but turned back when I encountered a warded door, believing I had encountered a change. But then I remembered that in the past I had always entered the estate from the second floor, not the first. I decided to give that a try and the door opened.
While dubious on role playing grounds for many characters, this raid is profitable- especially for a solo thief. There’s a decent amount of loot and a ton of locks to pick for XP. It’s a super-simple way to give yourself a boost. Ayla plowed through it.
Time to secure that stronghold. While we were in the Temple Distric swiping Mistress Ada’s necklace, we decided to pay Tarnor and Draug Fea a visit. We invested a potion of strength here. The rest of the buffs were renewable, including the movement rate bonus on Ayla’s portrait. That’s from Arbane.
This got a little sloppy due to some unexpected random spawns. Ayla had set traps to the southeast, and hoped to use the northwest section to find shadows. Alas, a green slime spawned near her traps and goblins emerged in the northwest. This complicated things. Since Ayla didn’t want the green slime to trip all her traps, she broke for them immediately, hoping Draug Fea would beat the green slime to them. The green slime trip one, but Draug Fea took the rest. Fortunately that was enough.
With Draug Fea off the field, it was pretty easy to create space for backstabs. Saves furnished disabler defense, the Cloak of Displacement, Girdle of Piercing and Claw of the Kazgaroth handled arrows. Aerial servants were the only threat.
When the battle ended, Ayla noticed that Tarnor’s gear was missing. Where did he go? Is he hiding somewhere? Did he abscond a la Brennan Riesling? Considering possibilities, it occurred to me that David may have done something cheeky and sent him over by the rhakshasa. Sure enough, he did. We reset and rebuffed for this, cherry picking Tarnor and then leaving. We’ll pick up the Cloak of the Sewers some other day.
Moving on to Rayic Gethras. Ayla didn’t take any chances here. For the mephit encounter, she buffed her saves with RoAC II. Se also took elemental resistance, via potion of fire resistance, protection from fire, and a potion of cold resistance. Protection from cold was skipped because there are only two ice mephitis and we expected to nix those asap. Thanks to a crit from Ayla and a Flame Strike from Mr. Efreeti, they didn't do any damage. The remaining fire and magma mephitis were then harmless.
Ayla arrived on the second floor with her buffs spent. She didn’t like what she saw and I agreed.
We headed back to the Sea's Bounty for a rest so we could re-apply Ilbratha MIs and RoAC II. Arvoreen was kept at the ready for golem slow. Ayla engaged and was immediately struck through her MIs by a lucky hit. Instead of losing her nerve, Ayla quaffed a potion of absorption for added insurance and charged. Hurdle cleared. Time to take on the Cowled One.
As Ayla headed up to the third floor, I found myself thinking of the origins of my bounty hunter, Alesia. In my early days as a player I favored mages. At one point I encountered a thread about character duels. Players were debating which class would fare best in one on one combat. Most thought arcane casters would. I agreed. But then someone said: “Well, if we want to be realistic, the thief would never attack the mage head on. That would be stupid. The thief would race to the shadows wearing the Cloak of Non-Detection. He’d then case the mage, follow him home, wait 8 hours for Stoneskins to expire, and just murder him, preferably in his sleep.” That take seemed comical to me at first, but then I realized it was 100% right. People think of thieves as underpowered, but that’s simple because they don’t play them like thieves. They play them like fighters and then denigrate the class when it’s the approach that’s at fault. Shortly thereafter, I rolled Alesia, a bounty hunter, and committed to playing her like an actual thief. I’ve enjoyed thieves ever since them.
And so in honor of that history, I decide to let Ayla fight Ray Gethras just as that original poster suggested. In a duel with an epic mage, who started the battle in Stoneskins, Ayla simply donned the Cloak of Non-Detection, hit the shadows, hid in the corner, waited 8 hours and then chunked him. So much for the almighty power of mages…
By now only one foe stood between Ayla and her stronghold: Mae’Var.
I have to admit that this encounter was a bit disappointing. In past runs the raid on Mae’Var’s Guild Hall was exhilarating. Waves of thieves charged, each with potions in hand. It was an epic potion scoring opportunity, but it was also potentially dangerous, if you were a solo single class thief. Not knowing what to expect, I had prepped Ayla for a major fight. I had also buffed her with the intent of using AoE damage to facilitate potion scoring. That ended up being a waste.
The buffs here were protection from fire, potion of fire resistance, potion of defense, potion of strength, oil of speed, DUHM, RoAC II and Ilbratha MI. We also put our studded leather back on for the missile and piercing adjustments. Ayla entered the Guild Hall, summoned Mr. Efreeti, and prepared to blast away as Mae’Var’s army charged her. What happened? Mr. Efreeti hit Gorch with a Flame Strike and the battle was over. That was it. No one else came. Anticlimactic, to say the least, lol.
Moving on to the next room, we found Zyntris and a few others. They were dispatched with ease. Once again, anti-climactic.
This maybe for the best, I guess. The thieves were easy enough to counter, and their potions were arguably too much of a boon. Still, I missed the old encounter in Ayla’s case. It would have been fun for her.
Since Ayla was already buffed, we decided to charge down to Mae’Var. Ayla set her traps and then moved in for a backstab on Mae’Var. It landed.
The Priest of Cyric was next.
And then Ayla fell back to the traps.
A few assassins remained, all invisible. Seeking to draw them out, Ayla summoned the Berserker. Ras is a better tool for this purpose but Ayla, who is a very poor pickpocketer for a Halfling and whose operator does not allow PoMT stacking, hasn’t acquired it yet. Happily, the berserker worked well enough in this case.
Ayla finished with a crit. Say hello to your new Guildmistress, Athkatla.
Ayla simply donned the Cloak of Non-Detection, hit the shadows, hid in the corner, waited 8 hours and then chunked him. So much for the almighty power of mages…
Patience is a virtue indeed ! I've been literally clapping in front of my screen at this point. Great work and a very entertaining update.
By the way, insofar as the battle in the thieves' guild is concerned, I usually start with MaeVar in the cellar via the back entrance and then proceed to the ground floor - the hordes of thieves always show up eventually, so it may be that the script got a bit delayed in your case (I don't believe we're playing a significantly different version of the game).
Comments
My execution continues to be spotty, but Ayla is hitting her stride. She has taken her rightful place as Hero of Trademeet, and completed the follow up quests. Now at Level 13, and getting ever closer to her SoA item goals, she is positioned to make significant progress. I hope she will.
While this session was marred by execution errors, none were dangerous, with the exception of one. Ayla was ambushed en route to Trademeet. I didn’t want to fight, but also didn’t want to squander resources. I went with RoAC II. It seemed a sensible move. It wasn’t. The slight delay associated with item based effect activation was sufficient to allow the mage to cast a spell. It was also sufficient to prevent Ayla from reaching the edge of the map before the spell effect landed.
The mage had chosen Chaos. With her II enhanced saves, Ayla can reliably make that against all but an enchanter. If the mage had been an enchanter, though, Ayla would have been at risk. Going forward this will not be an issue for Ayla, since she has Mister Efreeti so she can travel invisible. I do need a better approach in this encounter for future runs, though. I think -think- that I used to simply run to the edge of the map, and that my characters were capable of making it before the Chaos landed. I’m not sure. I need to either check my old runs or test.
In any event, Ayla survived. She was happy. I was happy. The Trademeet Dao were not.
Once upon a time, back before my break, it was possible to ice Taquee with a backstab, saunter into the Dao tent, and have the Dao identify Taquee’s bottle for you. I publicly commented on the absurdity of this and figured others might have said the same to David or the EE team, causing a change to the encounter. As a consequence, I prepared for this possibility in Ayla’s run. I had Ayla purchase all the useful things from the Dao inventory before nixing Taquee.
When Ayla re-entered the tent, she did so expecting hostile Dao, not neutral Dao. Sure enough, Ayla found them. She approached HiS with a set of traps near the door, and a second set of traps some distance away to intercept a second Dao, if needed. She opened with a backstab on Faafirah.
The backstab wasn’t sufficient to kill him, but it did cause a morale break, preventing his Stoneskins from firing. All he needed was a nudge.
Onto Khan Zahraa. Khan got his Stoneskins off, meaning we’d have to take him down with poison. Ayla led him to the Southeast edge of the tent and then juked him. That allowed her to sneak back behind the Northwest pole and set some traps.
She got two down before she was detected. A good start but not enough. Ayla broke for the door, hoping to draw Khan to our next batch of traps. Khan gave pursuit, exiting the tent and setting off the traps. Unfortunately, our final batch of traps was needlessly far away, so the speedy Khan got some attacks in before the poison could kill him. Khan hit hard, and Ayla got to the danger zone. We reluctantly used a potion of invisibility and then watched Khan die of poison in peace. Fortunately, Adratha and her stack of 10 are close by.
After collecting the reward for dispatching the Dao, we decided to return to Athkatla to purchase the Bracers of AC 3, and set the Shield of Harmony down at our temporary base, the Halfling owned and operated Five Flagons. Thanks to Mr. Efreeti, we were invisible en route, so ambushes posed no threat.
Huzzah! Onto the Druid Grove.The first thing I did at the Druid Grove was muff things up. Does anyone see the mistake? For context, the plan had been to stealth all the way to Cernd. This is not the way to do it, lol. Guess now, because the answer will be revealed in a couple paragraphs.
Anyways, Ayla took her Invisibility cast, and then left Mr Efreeti behind. She passed the trolls. She passed the spiders. She passed more trolls. She passed the druids. All seemed well.
Ayla vectored off to pick up Belm, breaking invisibility. She then used stealth the rest of the way. Finally -finally- we reached Cernd. Ayla was overjoyed. I was too. But then Cernd was all: “What did you learn?” And Ayla was all: “Wait, what? I was supposed to learn something? I thought you were just going to kill Faldorn for me?” And Cernd was all: “No. I need, like, a pretext first.” And Ayla was all: “A what?” And then I broke in an said: “Frack! Ayla, I’m so sorry: we were supposed to talk to that druid near the entrance. You need to go all the way back. I’m so sorry, but I’m rusty as all get out. You need to go back.” Ayla sighed, hit the shadows, and then stealthed to Adratha cottage. I bought her a potion of invisibility to make the return journey less painful, and back she went.
Ayla talked to the druid, and then, following a rest and an invisibility cast from Mr. Efreeti, headed back to Cernd.
She made it.
And so became the Hero of Trademeet, at the cost of two potions of invisibility. We’ll take it.
Ayla went to the crypt next, seeking the Mantle of Waukeen. Here I was reminded of my long term love/hate relationship with SCS Mr. Efreeti. Mr. Efreeti is an amazing summon- especially for a thief. And I love, love, love that he has a mind of his own, that he can be left to his own devices- that’s how a summon should work. But every now and then I want to give him commands and I find it super frustrating that I can’t. It’s fine. It’s good. I’m not complaing. But: “AHHHH! I HATE IT SO MUCH! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!” As I said, love/hate.
Ayla opened combat with a backstab on the mantle bearing skeleton warrior. Good start.
She then headed outside and ducked in the shadows for a second backstab. That finished him.
It was time to clear out the rest with the aid of my Mr. Efreeti. “Ok, Mr Efreeti. Glad you’re here! Let’s do this! Cast Invisibility on me…No! No! Mr Efreeti! Cast Invisibility on ME, not yourself…Fine, gosh darn it, cast Flame Arrow on the skeleton. No! No! Not Flame Strike on the skeleton warrior, Flame Arrow on the skeleton. You’re killing me here!”
Eventually we got Mr Efreeti to do something useful, distracting the skeleton warrior while we took care of the remaining skeletons. Happily, that’s all the help we needed. The crypt was soon cleared, and Ayla delivered the mantle to the mayor. Mission accomplish.
For good measure, we helped Tiris out, too. RoAC and Arbane aided backstabbing did the job here.
The Tiris and Raissa quest brought Ayla to level 13. I expect to have another session with her tonight, likely in the Umar Hills. I hope our little Halfling will keep on chugging. I’m enjoying her, and she likes living. I hope you all are enjoying her too.
Best,
A.
@Alesia_BH : fascinating to see how you connect with Ayla. From test play at the start you have grown really fond of her. Several very clinical way she has of handling potential tough situations.
@Enuhal : SoD was swift ! But liked the fact that you did not nuke things around and took a more customized approach to each fight.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193875/#Comment_1193875
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1194527/#Comment_1194527
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1194722/#Comment_1194722
What is the long-life challenge, exactly?
@Ignatius Many thanks, that's very nice to hear. I'll look forward to your future runs, whenever you'll be feeling inclined to share any of these with this friendly community. I fully respect and support your decision to include SoD in your play, although for me personally it had been hindering my no-reloading appetite until I've reached the decision to ignore it completely and focus on the classic trilogy instead. Ever since then, I've been living a much happier BG life. But that's just me and the beauty of this challenge is that everyone can follow their own preference.
That was a challenge I set up in 2016 to see if I could solo all possible character classes before I die. Thus far I've only done 7 of them in 7 years. With 69 more to go, the odds of overall success look pretty slim at the moment
I'm not sure if it's because of different game versions I've used over the time, but I've always been rather confused regarding the interaction between poison and Stoneskin. I recall my disappointment ages ago when I was playing an assassin and her poison weapon was getting thwarted by Stoneskin, even though I was sure that it had worked in the past. It's good to know and I'll make sure to check this in my install as well.
@Alesia_BH Somehow, I feel like Cernd should've gotten that "Hero of Trademeet" title instead, considering the amount of actual work Ayla put into solving the shadow druid problem
The Avatars (Enuhal's version) - Update XIX
Okay, starting in Firkraag's dungeon - we're sending a spirit lion into the kamikaze kobolds and use inquisitor dispel to take down the rukh transmuter's buffs. I didn't intend to dispel Grim Face here, but, luckily, the transmuter lost interest in him (so I had an invisibility pot ready):
Well, first things first, we have to deal with a whole bunch of undead near the lava pool - engaging the shadows here also brings out two bone golems and a bunch of skeleton warriors and greater mummies towards us, we make use of our fire elementals and the heal spell to back up Grond0 and Corey:
I tested this recently. Here's the interaction in patch 2.6, with the Mirror Image interaction thrown in as a bonus:
- Instant poison on a weapon hit goes through Stoneskin, like any other elemental damage.
- Lasting poison on a weapon hit is blocked by Stoneskin; if the physical damage is absorbed, no poison is applied.
- Instant poison on a weapon hit always passes through mirror images to hit the original, even if the physical hit is absorbed.
- Lasting poison on a weapon hit is always blocked by mirror images, even if the physical hit passes through to hit the original.
Past runs for this group have mainly been in various modded installations, but this attempt is unmodded. My rules for poverty runs are:
1) You can never buy or sell any items (including any items required for quests).
2) You can never use or equip any items (but can pick things up for quests).
3) You may pay for quests (such as Gaelan Bayle), but not anything else (temples, inns etc).
As with most of my parties, all party members have to be able to level up at the same time. That means a total of 15k XP was needed for a first level, but that didn't take very long - bounty hunter traps gaining a cool 26k from Elminster.
- commanding the belt ogre (and returning the belt as I can't use it)
- trapping Tarnesh
- calming down Marl
- finding a book for Firebead
- blinding then commanding Silke (then doing the same to Karlat)
In Nashkel, Noober was talked to - and then killed. At the Carnival, Oopah and Vitiare were commanded. Pauper then used sanctuary to get into Zordral's tent and silenced him (from behind a bookcase) at the 6th attempt.
A few mini-quests saw property returned to Mirianne, Zhurlong, Mr Colquetle and Joia. Then we moved on to the basilisk area. Skint did know PfP, but we just used Korax to deal with the basilisks - finishing off with Mutamin.
Pauper, Priest of Helm - L6, 43 HPs, 16 kills, 0 deaths
Hardup, Shaman - L5, 42 HPs, 15 kills, 0 deaths
Washout, Bounty Hunter - L6, 35 HPs, 11 kills, 0 deaths
Aspire, Sorcerer - L5, 25 HPs, 13 kills, 0 deaths
Skint, Sorcerer - L5, 24 HPs, 19 kills, 0 deaths
Ayla has no idea what you're talking about. That was, like, a lot of walking. A lot.
Best,
A,
That's probably an attempt to thwart Pro Undead.
The Avatars (Enuhal's version) - Update XX
To get to the planar prison, we first must free Haer'Dalis. There's a group with multiple yuan-ti mages here that we have to deal with. We throw in death spell to get rid of the non-mages and since these guys don't have the levels to resist, Corey also throws in dispel magic:
The key to a successful opening strategy in the planar prison is to enter under invisibility 10'radius. This gives us the opportunity to kill both enemy spellcasters at the entrance at the same time - Alesia backstabs one of them, all of the others take a hit at the other one, which is enough for an instant doublekill:
We go outside and buff with some fire protection and chaotic command spells, call in summons and quickly take down the demons - planar sphere, done - very good that we now have the gauntlets of ogre strength, so we don't always need the strength spell for Grond0:
Ayla's latest session was about teamwork: learning to fight alongside Mr. Efreeti. Early results were poor to middling, but by the end of the session, Ayla and Mr. Efreeti had built a rapport. That bodes well for future sessions.
Ayla started the session by taking on Mencar and Co. This is an important fight for a solo thief, as there are two super-valuable items involved: the Cloak of Non-Detection and Sandthief. Upon spying her cloak on the mage, Ayla chose to setup an ambush. She set a stack of traps on L1 and a second stack on L2. She then rested one last time so she'd have an additional set for combat.
You may be thinking that's a lot of traps. It is. And so before we go on, I'd like to make a brief remark on Ayla's trap use. In past thief runs I restricted my use of traps. Alesia, a bounty hunter, and thus specialized trapper, was allowed to lead enemies to traps once and only once per fight. She was not allowed to rest to increase her trap output. Alora, who invested heavily in the pickpocket skill, in keeping with the logic of the NPC she was based on, used traps only rarely, if at all. I've let Ayla use traps liberally because of the meta-purpose she is serving. Ayla's role is to help me get re-acquainted with the game. The more content I see the better. Liberal use of traps will surely help Ayla get farther, with less risk. As a consequence, I'm letting her fight in ways that I wouldn't typically allow. I'm okay with that, however, if, perchance, Ayla does make it, I may voluntarily withhold her from the Hall of Heroes. We'll see. In any case, for now she's a little trap munkin. That's just the way it is.
Anyways, let's get back to Mencar. We took our renewable buffs, RoAC and DUHM, and then headed into the fray. Ayla targeted Amon. Mr. Efreeti was supposed to take on Pooky and then run distraction. Ayla did her job.
Mr. Efreeti did not do his. Instead he went invisible, leaving Ayla as the only target on the field. Ultimately this is my fault, not Mr. Efreeti's. It is possible to get Mr Efreeti to engage instead of vanishing. I just got the action timing wrong. Whatever the cause, Ayla was not pleased: she broke for her traps.
The traps fired, injuring Brennan and Orcslicer. Brennan chose to bail immediately, which was a concern, since Ayla really wanted Sandthief. My pre-battle expectation had been that if he attempted to run he'd hit the traps on the first floor, and then die, possibly by poison in the promenade. That was foolish of me. I was assuming he continued to exist in the game world after absconding. He doesn't. Nonetheless, Ayla pursued to the first floor, hoping against hope to find Brennan's corpse. Instead, she lured her remaining foes, Pooky and Mencar, to the untripped traps. Pooky died. Mencar, now fighting alone, was injured.
Ayla circled around and landed a backstab on Mencar.
After a fumbling attempt at fighting Mencar at range, Ayla activated Arbane haste and snuck off into the shadows. She set a patch of traps, lured Mencar to them, and then finished with her bow as the Amish Guard ran distraction. A victory, but an unsatisfying one. Brennan escaped with Sandthief and Ayla's coordination with Mr. Efreeti was abysmal. Ayla went to the Flagons to think it over.
Following a hearty Halfling made meal and a good night's sleep, Ayla was ready to travel. She was off to the Umar Hills.
Mr. Efreeti may have been a disappointment against Mencar, but he was a rockstar in the mimic blood quest. He nixed the killer mimic solo while Ayla hung back, holding Arbane.
He also killed the stone golem, while finding time to save Jermien with a well executed Invisibility cast. On days like this I love Mr. Efreeti oh, so much.
Ilbratha saw immediate use in the opening temple battle.
Ayla doesn't attack with short swords yet, but she uses them a lot. She'll use them even more going forward. Why, you ask? Here's a clue.
And here's the answer.
Upon rescue, the ever gracious Mazzy Fentan gifted Ayla the Sword of Arvoreen, as a thank you. The Sword of Arvoreen, usable by Halflings, not just Mazzy, is a lovely weapon. It offers immunity to stun and slow, plus a movement rate reduction on hit effect, which is especially useful for thieves. It's Ayla's most prized possession.
After escorting Mazzy back to Umar, and selling some two-handed swords, Ayla was faced with a difficult inventory choice. Her carrying capacity is 70lbs, and her kit weight, with the addition of Arvoreen, was exactly 70lbs. That's unsustainable. Weighing her options, in this case quite literally, Ayla chose to ditch her armor. Doing so will cause her to miss out on some AC adjustments, but at 25lbs, it offered the lowest utility to weight ratio of all Ayla's items. It had to go. Happily, 25lbs is close to the weight of the bony baby rugby ball that Ayla will soon be carrying. And so it all works out.
Onwards to the bridge! Mr. Efreeti handled this one while Ayla watched invisible.
The skeleton warriors were next. More fun with summons here. We called in the berserker, right over the lava, expecting him to get punked. He did indeed get punked, but the lava killed the baddies for us.
Shadow fiends! Ayla equipped Arbane and then retreated to the crystal. No worries here, although Ayla was in for a surprise soon after.
The bone golem! Somehow, someway, he sort of teleported out to the crystal. Ayla was displeased at first, but this was probably for the best. Ayla took it down with her bow.
Just a few more skeleton warriors now. Staff of Striking backstabs did the trick here.
Only one battle remained: the Shade Lord. Reflecting on her past success against an epic foe in Amn, Ayla decided there was but on sensible thing to do: reach out to Cernd. Alas, Cernd wanted none of this, so Ayla had to fend for herself. "Hello again, Mr Barterman! I'd like a pro undead scroll, please! Thanks a bunch!"
Since I wasn't sure whether pro undead would work against the current SCS Shade Lord, Ayla took some potion buffs here. It turns out it does. The potions were totally unnecessary. Ayla has been managing her potion resources well so far, though, so that's a minor concern. What matters is that Ayla is a hero once again. We left Mr. Efreeti out of this one because we didn't want him to trigger buffs or, worse still, a Remove cast. Mr. Efreeti was a co-hero nonetheless. Hooray for my favorite bottled bud! Teamwork makes the dream work!
I'm not sure what's next for Ayla, but I'm leaning towards Mae'Var's Guild Hall. It's about time to move out of the Flagons.
Best,
A.
My intention is to assemble a party of paladins, Isra first as she always joins at level 2.
Journal of Carlos First and last entry
Due to my race, Gorion had to pull a lot of strings to get me trained as a Cavalier, but the others now accept me due to my dilligence. I have trained in axes due to my heritage.
Due to my eyes, they believe that I might be an Aasimar. No doubt the truth will out in due course.
With 170 gp to start with, it looks like I may be reasonably lucky.
I lost all my gold when I was arrested for theft! I hadn't even stolen anything! I was just curious and opened it!
I helped Linda and Sir Trun out with their relationship difficulties.
When I fought against the assassin Mendas, the result was touch and go!
After leaving Candlekeep and the death of Gorion, I found a Ring of Protection +1 and a diamond just lying there in holes in stumps and trees plus a ring of wizardry near the FAI.
When I ventured inside Tarnesh, a wizard attacked me. He did not survive the encounter.
Nearby I cleared the area of hobgoblins before heading north where I came across some evil fishermen.
Nearby I helped Leila who was being pestered by her undead husband.
I returned Joia's ring next and levelled up when I killed a ghast in transit.
At High Hedge I was asked for a skeleton skull. When I went outside to rest, one very conveniently attacked me.
Thalantyr then helped Melicamp.
I broke an axe when fighting a skeleton. Clearly I need to find a better axe.
I went to Beregost to rest and whilst there calmed Marl, and took a tome to Firebead.
I saw a +1 axe for sale, but didn't have sufficient gold and the storekeeper wouldn't buy any of the weapons that I had collected.
Mirianne gave me a ring of protection +1 on me taking her news of her husband.
At Nashkel I found some ankheg armour and Oublek tried to give me a reward thinking that I was Greywolf. I disabused him and as a result my reputation increased.
To the south I killed Zargos Flintblade and as a result gained a second axe +1.
I used it when killing Greywolf, whereupon Isra, another cavalier joined me.
It was used again to kill Zordral!
Nearby I was attacked by Hafiz.
We then took Samuel to the FAI.
Upon returning to Beregost we returned the Colquetle amulet and nearby rescued Tonder from the curse of lycanthropy.
He gave us a sword as a reward. A bit flashier than Greywolf's sword but not as good.
Oublek gave me a reward for returning some emeralds.
Heading west we reunited Albert and Rufie before taking on Vax and Zal.
We then helped a dryad.
We returned 'Drienne's cat and killed Ingot as well as a winter wolf.
At the gnoll stronghold we took on more assassins and in doing so, I got a better axe.
We returned to Lathander's Temple and investigated a nearby cave. It was very worthwhile though rather dangerous!
The armour is as good as ankheg and increases charisma. I donned it and gave the ankheg armour to Isra.
We went in search of Bassilus and killed him having saved against his Rigid Thinking spell.
We killed Zargal and went to the Lighthouse where we killed a number of sirine.
Inside the cave we killed a flesh golem, went outside to rest and upon re-entering the cave took on another.
That one turned out to be much tougher! Argh! The end.
I don't think that I made any mistakes in the battle. Perhaps potions beforehand. I try not to use buffing potions though other than potions of freedom of action.
Perhaps that is a self-imposed restriction that I ought to drop.
Previous updates
The party hadn't yet been to Gullykin and, though there's not much of interest there, a few dread wolves were all that was needed to allow them to level up once more.
Pauper, Priest of Helm - L6, 52 HPs, 24 kills, 0 deaths
Hardup, Shaman - L6, 52 HPs, 21 kills, 0 deaths
Washout, Bounty Hunter - L7, 43 HPs, 37 kills, 0 deaths
Aspire, Sorcerer - L6, 31 HPs, 26 kills, 0 deaths
Skint, Sorcerer - L6, 30 HPs, 33 kills, 0 deaths
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1195700/#Comment_1195700
In Larswood the druids caused no trouble - and nor did their bears. I find dealing with cave bears amusing with this party due to the bear's fixation on attacking the first character sighted- allowing Beggar to run round and round in circles while the others gradually pummelled the bear unconscious with their fists. Baeloth showed impressive magic resistance against 3 separate call lightnings - pity he was already dead at the time.
Sleep and command helped deal with an area full of ankhegs, while spirit lions helped a farmer fertilize his fields with zombie meal.
With their random wanderings done for now, the next step was the Nashkel Mine. Mulahey was webbed there and failed to protest his execution. Nimbul found his mirror images no protection against lightning from the sky. Tranzig found himself doomed, poisoned and covered with insects before he realised he was in a fight and, not surprisingly, failed to recover the situation.
At the Bandit Camp skeletons and spirit lions did most of the work clearing the exterior. Inside Tazok's tent, blindness and webs left the enemies helpless to respond to spell attacks.
In the first Cloakwood area Seniyad found himself confused, commanded, hit by a special trap and given a nasty shock. In the second area Washout disabled all the traps before we went to give Centeol a good thumping. Tiber was so upset about his brother's death that he asked for our help with an assisted suicide (or possibly Beggar just wanted Bhaal horror as an option). In the third area, none of the druids managed to complete a spell - Amarande failing to survive a day's worth of traps as he pursued Skint down the stairs.
In the fourth area though, tragedy struck. I tried putting Hardup behind a wall of invisible blockers to dance - although that would take longer than using spell damage, it seemed a more elegant apporach. I was aware of the potential danger that the wall could be breached by spirits passing through it and tried to run when that happened - but the crush in the doorway prevented the exit. Hardup was poisoned, but quickly cured by Pauper who was also originally standing behind the wall with that purpose in mind. However, Hardup was quickly poisoned again and we only eventually made the exit just after he snuffed it.
We enter the old tunnels and make our way to the eyeless cultists. Our first encounter of significance is the first group beholders in front of the forgotten temple - time to see if the level 11 version of skeleton summons can do the job as well. To improved their chances, we buff them with invisibility and haste, and Grim Face is with them to direct them and to invisibly turn undead:
The next significant encounter is the lich in ghoul town. Expecting him to behave in a similiar fashion to the ones in the temple ruins, we tried to lure all of the other undead towards the party first while his buffs started ticking down, assuming he wouldn't follow us - and indeed, he decided to stay where he was:
Very good side effects from this questline: Gauntlets of Dexterity for Corey, and Belt of Fortitude for Enuhal (quite the HP increase, as it usually lasts the entire day - takes his basic HP from 82 to 100).
Time to go to Brynnlaw. Corey gets the AoP again, Grond0 rages and we take down the three vampires:
The SCS version of the Unseeing Eye gets a special Chain Contingency that summons a pair of death tyrants. You killed it too fast, and that bit of its script didn't get a chance to run.
I didn't expect to face much trouble at Spellhold. Yuan-ti mages are fairly routine at this point thanks to inquisitor dispel:
Best,
A.
Is that behavior specific to insane, Enuhal?
Sometime within the last session the character of Ayla’s journey changed. She’s no longer a spunky, underpowered little Halfling. She’s now a seasoned adventurer, boldly making her way through Amn.
Her ceiling is getting higher everyday, and I’m growing ever more confident in her. She may have a chance, after all.
Ayla started the session just shy of level 15. I decided to secure that level for her, along with some gold, by raiding the Saerk Farrahd estate.
Some of you may recall that I considered this move earlier in Ayla’s adventure, but turned back when I encountered a warded door, believing I had encountered a change. But then I remembered that in the past I had always entered the estate from the second floor, not the first. I decided to give that a try and the door opened.
While dubious on role playing grounds for many characters, this raid is profitable- especially for a solo thief. There’s a decent amount of loot and a ton of locks to pick for XP. It’s a super-simple way to give yourself a boost. Ayla plowed through it.
Time to secure that stronghold. While we were in the Temple Distric swiping Mistress Ada’s necklace, we decided to pay Tarnor and Draug Fea a visit. We invested a potion of strength here. The rest of the buffs were renewable, including the movement rate bonus on Ayla’s portrait. That’s from Arbane.
This got a little sloppy due to some unexpected random spawns. Ayla had set traps to the southeast, and hoped to use the northwest section to find shadows. Alas, a green slime spawned near her traps and goblins emerged in the northwest. This complicated things. Since Ayla didn’t want the green slime to trip all her traps, she broke for them immediately, hoping Draug Fea would beat the green slime to them. The green slime trip one, but Draug Fea took the rest. Fortunately that was enough.
With Draug Fea off the field, it was pretty easy to create space for backstabs. Saves furnished disabler defense, the Cloak of Displacement, Girdle of Piercing and Claw of the Kazgaroth handled arrows. Aerial servants were the only threat.
When the battle ended, Ayla noticed that Tarnor’s gear was missing. Where did he go? Is he hiding somewhere? Did he abscond a la Brennan Riesling? Considering possibilities, it occurred to me that David may have done something cheeky and sent him over by the rhakshasa. Sure enough, he did. We reset and rebuffed for this, cherry picking Tarnor and then leaving. We’ll pick up the Cloak of the Sewers some other day.
Moving on to Rayic Gethras. Ayla didn’t take any chances here. For the mephit encounter, she buffed her saves with RoAC II. Se also took elemental resistance, via potion of fire resistance, protection from fire, and a potion of cold resistance. Protection from cold was skipped because there are only two ice mephitis and we expected to nix those asap. Thanks to a crit from Ayla and a Flame Strike from Mr. Efreeti, they didn't do any damage. The remaining fire and magma mephitis were then harmless.
Ayla arrived on the second floor with her buffs spent. She didn’t like what she saw and I agreed.
We headed back to the Sea's Bounty for a rest so we could re-apply Ilbratha MIs and RoAC II. Arvoreen was kept at the ready for golem slow. Ayla engaged and was immediately struck through her MIs by a lucky hit. Instead of losing her nerve, Ayla quaffed a potion of absorption for added insurance and charged. Hurdle cleared. Time to take on the Cowled One.
As Ayla headed up to the third floor, I found myself thinking of the origins of my bounty hunter, Alesia. In my early days as a player I favored mages. At one point I encountered a thread about character duels. Players were debating which class would fare best in one on one combat. Most thought arcane casters would. I agreed. But then someone said: “Well, if we want to be realistic, the thief would never attack the mage head on. That would be stupid. The thief would race to the shadows wearing the Cloak of Non-Detection. He’d then case the mage, follow him home, wait 8 hours for Stoneskins to expire, and just murder him, preferably in his sleep.” That take seemed comical to me at first, but then I realized it was 100% right. People think of thieves as underpowered, but that’s simple because they don’t play them like thieves. They play them like fighters and then denigrate the class when it’s the approach that’s at fault. Shortly thereafter, I rolled Alesia, a bounty hunter, and committed to playing her like an actual thief. I’ve enjoyed thieves ever since them.
And so in honor of that history, I decide to let Ayla fight Ray Gethras just as that original poster suggested. In a duel with an epic mage, who started the battle in Stoneskins, Ayla simply donned the Cloak of Non-Detection, hit the shadows, hid in the corner, waited 8 hours and then chunked him. So much for the almighty power of mages…
By now only one foe stood between Ayla and her stronghold: Mae’Var.
I have to admit that this encounter was a bit disappointing. In past runs the raid on Mae’Var’s Guild Hall was exhilarating. Waves of thieves charged, each with potions in hand. It was an epic potion scoring opportunity, but it was also potentially dangerous, if you were a solo single class thief. Not knowing what to expect, I had prepped Ayla for a major fight. I had also buffed her with the intent of using AoE damage to facilitate potion scoring. That ended up being a waste.
The buffs here were protection from fire, potion of fire resistance, potion of defense, potion of strength, oil of speed, DUHM, RoAC II and Ilbratha MI. We also put our studded leather back on for the missile and piercing adjustments. Ayla entered the Guild Hall, summoned Mr. Efreeti, and prepared to blast away as Mae’Var’s army charged her. What happened? Mr. Efreeti hit Gorch with a Flame Strike and the battle was over. That was it. No one else came. Anticlimactic, to say the least, lol.
Moving on to the next room, we found Zyntris and a few others. They were dispatched with ease. Once again, anti-climactic.
This maybe for the best, I guess. The thieves were easy enough to counter, and their potions were arguably too much of a boon. Still, I missed the old encounter in Ayla’s case. It would have been fun for her.
Since Ayla was already buffed, we decided to charge down to Mae’Var. Ayla set her traps and then moved in for a backstab on Mae’Var. It landed.
The Priest of Cyric was next.
And then Ayla fell back to the traps.
A few assassins remained, all invisible. Seeking to draw them out, Ayla summoned the Berserker. Ras is a better tool for this purpose but Ayla, who is a very poor pickpocketer for a Halfling and whose operator does not allow PoMT stacking, hasn’t acquired it yet. Happily, the berserker worked well enough in this case.
Ayla finished with a crit. Say hello to your new Guildmistress, Athkatla.
The De’Arnise Keep is next.
Best,
A.
Patience is a virtue indeed
By the way, insofar as the battle in the thieves' guild is concerned, I usually start with MaeVar in the cellar via the back entrance and then proceed to the ground floor - the hordes of thieves always show up eventually, so it may be that the script got a bit delayed in your case (I don't believe we're playing a significantly different version of the game).