Trio 51 Update 7
Corecleric XX - halfling priest of lothander, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Mirazi - human mage (Grond0)
Betson - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
This session started out with us heading to D'Arnise Keep to help with the issues there. The first level of the keep was cleared without any incident. On the 2nd level the Yuan-ti mage was safely disposed of since he couldn't do much to Corecleric who was protected from lightning and protected by the immunities of the Shield of Harmony. We went after Glaicas too since Corecleric was still protected by lightning. As expected Glaicas didn't stand much of a chance.
The golems in the temple were cleared out fairly well. Was a brief scary moment as Corecleric got quite low health against the clay golem, but his friends were able to kill it. The iron golem was tricky but Mirazi was able to generate just enough MMM's to kill it. Corecleric then wanted to forge the flail the ages so he could kill trolls easily as well.
In the dungeon, Corecleric was able to pull the umber hulks safely a few at a time thanks to his shield of harmony. He also used sanctuary to put the meat in the cell. Then the umberhulks were finished off. Time for the main event!
Mirazi tried a cloudkill, though it didn't kill Torgal. We had a lot of summons to help which was a good thing, as Betson nearly died - but our victory was not in doubt.
We then braved Watcher's Keep - our first objective was the dart. Only a group of undead in the way but most of them were chunked by a Corecleric using turn undead while in sanctuary. Luckily the main room in the 1st level didn't have vampiric wraiths so that made it much safer. The Crimson Dart and some +3 bullets took down the two golems protecting the lich. We passed on the statues as we don't need their items.
Next was the bridge district. We got ambushed by both the Sansuki ambush and some muggers. Corecleric's turn undead helped make the fight safer. We successfully figured out Reijek was the bridge district murderer and the ambush downstairs of his tanner shop was defeated - Corecleric's true seeing helped quite a bit, but he had to gulp quite a few potions to stay intact, despite his full plate. We reported our success to the lieutenant.
Richard intentionally tripped a petrify trap and he turned to a statue. Mirazi tried to use ring of earth control on Richard but Cowled Wizards appeared so Mirazi and Corecleric ran inside a building. Then they went invisible to leave the area to to get a magic license. Mirazi and Corecleric got hit with vampire ambush on way to rescue their friend, but now with a magic license and Corecleric immune to level drain with AoP, it was a simple enough ambush. Finally their party member was rescued.
Our next battle was Mencar. With summons, emotion, and chaos, it ended up being pretty straightforward.
Next objective was Tarnor's gang and clearing out the sewers. While we intended to destroy them at a distance with mage spells, Mirazi got seen before he had intended. However only a single enemy came, then some webs and silences ended their resistance. The rest of the sewers were cleared without incident.
The last bit of the session to get the shield of balduran - we then saved our session here.
Hey, friends! It's been a while since I posted anything, but I thought I'd dip my toes back into the no-reload challenge again. I'm running with SCS and Ascension, but unlike my old runs, there are no special gimmicks or restrictions here.
Say hi to Moth Sibula, a gnome thief with the Trickster kit from the Artisan's Kitpack!
The Trickster kit is a bit odd. Aside from a 1-round Mislead innate ability that also grants a critical hit (!), the Trickster kit gets to pick a special ability from a different kit every few levels. A Trickster can learn to use Defensive Stance like a Dwarven Defender, get a slight bonus to magic resistance like a Wizard Slayer, or summon a spirit animal just like a Totemic Druid! Once you pick your ability, though, you're stuck with it--no backsies if you decide that the spell you picked isn't worth it anymore. Our first pick is a Berserker's rage ability, since it will be a priceless rescue option throughout the saga.
I follow my typical early game route: kite Shoal and sell the Ring of Evermemory so we can afford some thieving potions at Durlag's Tower later on. We also loot the ankheg pit at level 3, since rage gets us up to a comfortable 39 HP, enough to shrug off any spooky critical hits. Then it's off to Mutamin's Garden for fast XP.
We run into a Flind on the way, which makes me a bit worried, because their THAC0 penalties can make them really hard to bring down if you get bad luck--and I don't want to put Korax in harm's way before he can chomp on some basilisks for us. Moth Sibula uses Trickery to get a guaranteed critical backstab--even though she rolls a 1!
There's one easy-to-fix bug associated with the Trickster kit. The Mislead clone that it summons is supposed to have 1 HP and disappear when you attack something, but it actually has full HP and does not go away after you land a hit. To imitate the intended behavior, I just nail the poor thing with CTRL-Y!
We have rage to protect us from Mutamin, and I even bought a Protection from Petrification green scroll just in case, but we end up hiding while Korax eats Mutamin. In the past, Mutamin has killed Korax with spell damage, but Korax lives long enough to paralyze him.
We honor Korax for his service by awarding him a medal! A very pointy medal, applied using a bow.
Then the path to Durlag's Tower is clear, allowing us to buy the potions we need to safely pickpocket Dushai and Algernon. We also charm Silke, have her fight the Beregost spiders, and let them deal just enough damage to her for us to finish her off with traps.
Lest I get tempted to make this a solo run, I go fetch Kagain and buy him Beruel's Retort, a +1 throwing axe that you can use as a melee weapon so it doesn't run out. I don't like Kagain much, but he's just very convenient. I've been putting all of my skill points into Detect Illusions and Set Traps, so sneaking through the Nashkel Mines to Mulahey isn't as practical as having Kagain pave the way for us.
Kagain has an absurd 90 HP when we recruit him. Of course, without much party support, that can actually run out pretty fast, even with ankheg plate on.
We get ready to tackle Mulahey, but we end up landing a charm on him, so we just feed him to the local kobolds.
I'm starting to think Algernon's Cloak might be a little overpowered.
Soon we'll need a bard or mage for Invisibility spells, which for me is a prerequisite for dealing with several encounters in BG1 safely. After waffling a little bit on the issue, I decide to recruit Xan, solely because I don't like Xzar and I don't feel like fighting gnolls to get Dynaheir instead.
By now we've dug up some scattered goodies from around the Sword Coast. Xan deploys the Wand of Monster Summoning to help deal with Nimbul, but Moth Sibula does heavy lifting in this fight, too: she lands a backstab at the start of the fight and also uses Detect Illusions to take away Nimbul's Mirror Images, dramatically shortening his window of opportunity to hurt us.
I'm honestly not sure how necessary clerics are in BG1, and sometimes I go without a priest entirely. But on the way to Tranzig, I spot Tiax downstairs, and remember how much I love his ghast summoning spell. We recruit Tiax, summong a ghast, and it immediately paralyzes Tranzig. Luck is being super nice to us this run.
Just in case luck decides to be a fickle Philbert on us, though, I cover the party with Invisibility, travel to a random destination, and repeat the process several times until we trigger the first bounty hunter ambush. We enter the battle invisible, allowing us to pull Moth Sibula and our spellcasters aside and concentrate the enemy's attention on Kagain.
Being able to safely get a Slow and Silence 15' Radius spell off the ground is a huge deal, especially when Tiax's ghast is on the way to start stun-locking bounty hunters.
We spam disablers and the bounty hunters crumble.
I end up in Spider Woods while trying to trigger the second ambush, and I decide to go after Denak early. While Moth Sibula's rage ability and Xan's Wand of Monster Summoning could be really helpful at tackling the battle conventionally, I go with my preferred strategy: approach while invisible, charm Denak's mage buddies, and lure them off to a tea party with our local spider pals.
Brendan must have said something to offend them, though, because the tea party doesn't go so well.
Finally we deal with Denak, who is now all alone. He succumbs to a charm as well, though--a lucky break, since failing a save generally means Denak goes hostile, instead of staying neutral like his buddies do--and we make him empty his entire spellbook before overpowering him.
We keep trying to trigger the second bandit ambush, but they don't appear. I give up and go to Peldvale to convince the bandit guy to lead us to the bandit camp, since Tazok won't fight you that way (if you do that dialog in the Larswood, Tazok insists on a fight).
The bandit camp could probably be handled with Xan's Wand of Fire and some tanking by Kagain. But I play it safe, charming Taurgosz to feed him to the southern hobgoblins and then having Tiax loot the main tent under Sanctuary.
Finally we get the second bounty hunter ambush to happen. We again make sure to enter the fight while invisible, and Xan's Slow spell is enough to cripple them while they waste their time on Kagain, whose Greenstone Amulet charge grants him immunity to any silly nonsense they might try to pull on us. Xan even manages to land a basic Charm Person on one of them, and Molkar finds himself outnumbered.
Early game business is over. Now things get sticky.
@Borco Happy Easter to you, too! And it looks like you've joined the thief party, lol?
@semiticgoddess Welcome back! The trickster kit looks wild, especially in HLA-land. It will be fun to see you make it dance! Best wishes to Moth Sibula!
We run into a Flind on the way, which makes me a bit worried, because their THAC0 penalties can make them really hard to bring down if you get bad luck--and I don't want to put Korax in harm's way before he can chomp on some basilisks for us. Moth Sibula uses Trickery to get a guaranteed critical backstab--even though she rolls a 1!
Judging by the picture, you didn't get the backstab; must have been a bit off to the side. If you had, it would have been a 24-point lethal hit.
... but Moth Sibula does heavy lifting in this fight, too: she lands a backstab at the start of the fight and also uses Detect Illusions to take away Nimbul's Mirror Images, ...
And here's the drawback of the kit in action; a vanilla thief's 3x backstab with that same +2 sword kills Nimbul in one hit, every time (assuming he hasn't switched to melee yet, and a mod hasn't increased his 21 HP). With a 2x backstab, he has a chance of survival. You certainly still could have gotten the one-hit kill, but it would have taken a good damage roll (4 or better on 1d6, a 2/3 chance with your +1 luck).
The de’Arnise Keep has a troll problem, and so does Ayla. Ayla is a backstabber and trapper. She thrives on spacing. Trolls cramp her style: literally. They’re big. They’re fast. They’re ridiculously nimble. And they stick around after you thwack’em. They’re a nuisance. Ayla says, no thank you.
And so when our little Halfling hero learned that she’d be facing trolls at the de’Arnise Keep, she very nearly told Nalia to find another champ. Ayla is a Guildmistress. She has better things to do.
You may be wondering how Ayla knows that she hates trolls. When did she fight them? Well, I’ll tell you.
Since guild mistressing is hard work, Ayla decided to relieve some stress by putting the beat down on Captain Haegan’s crew.
The fight started off well. Ayla opened with a backstab on the cleric.
She then called in Mr. Efreeti. He shined, at first.
But the fight bogged down soon after. Mr. Efreeti is great, but he’s squishy. Ayla is a master thief, but an under-whelming warrior. And so when the battle shifted to straight up melee, Ayla and her bottled-bud were overmatched. Mr Efreeti got punked. Ayla was forced to disengage, drink a potion of invisibility, and regroup.
Happily, that reset was all Ayla needed. Oh my god, we’re back again.
Gonna bring the flavor, show you how.
(And for the record, that was not a Backstreet Boys reference: that was an Umbrella Academy reference. Look it up.)
Anyhoo, that was when Ayla first encountered her nemesis. Or nemeses: trolls.
I’ll never understand what’s going on in that little room. If Haegan is selling slaves, why feed them to trolls? And if you’re feeding trolls, why toss them one tiny slave. That’s not a hearty meal. Either way it doesn’t make sense.
You know what also doesn’t make sense? Letting Ayla melee trolls. She's a thief, not a fighter. This isn’t her game. After dropping the first with a backstab/acid arrow combo, Ayla took on the second in toe-to-toe melee, wielding Belm. Ayla won, but it was a pain in the tuckus, a harbinger of things to come at the Keep.
Now, my long time readers know that I’m fond of exaggerating travails and frustrations for dramatic purposes. But they also know that I always -always- show a picture of the first dead troll at the de’Arnise Keep. Bam!
Ok, now stop. When was the last time you saw that much damage on one of my characters in that ritual first troll photo? Allow me to answer. Never. Ayla really does have a troll problem.
Fortunately, Mr. Efreeti does not. He was born for this. He was also born for roasting pooches. One doggo fricassee, coming right up!
And how about a side of dead troll?
Ayla ordered about 30. Because fooey on these trolls. Backstabs don’t even kill them.
Can I get a little help here?
Thanks, buddy!
Mr. Efreeti led the charge all the way to the yuan-ti mage, at which point Ayla took over. I got this. Just promise me you’ll kill the trolls after the mage goes pop.
Teamwork really does make the dreamwork.
By then the division of labor was clear. If it’s a troll, Mr. Efreeti kills it. If It’s not a troll, Ayla kills it. Glaicus is not a troll.
What about golems? They are not trolls, but they can also squash Halfling thieves to goo, especially if said Halfling doesn’t feel like donning Destroyer of the Hills and quaffing a potion of absorption. Time to call in our new friend and compadre, Ras. Ras is immune to physical damage, and activating it doesn’t break invisibility. Ras is a backstabber’s best friend. A golem killer’s best friend, too.
As for the iron golem, he was doored under protection from poison. Cloak of the Stars darts got the kill.
After checking on her thieves in Athkatla, Ayla found a welcoming party waiting for her outside the de’Arnise hold.
Frack this! Ayla wasn’t even planning on killing Torgal at this point. She was just going to loot the keep. But she got so sick of these damn trolls, spawning and respawning, that she decided to end it once and for all. She didn’t even finish this fight. She just slinked off into the shadows and headed for Torgal. Aya is triggered. You’ve got yourself a nemesis, Torgal.
Time to murder this clown. No holds barred. Ayla set a full stack of traps, seven, and kept four in hand, ready for deployment. You bought yourself some hurt, Torgy!
This was elegant. Ayla buffed and then revealed herself. Torgal and his cronies charged. Ayla intercepted them at the door. Five of the traps fired, and then Ayla uncorked a potion of firebreath. Down goes Torgal.
Ayla steps back. Torgal’s charging lackeys are caught in the flame. They trip the remaining traps.
Just one badly injured giant troll and one yuan-ti mage left. Bring in Mr. Efreeti.
Down goes the giant troll, still no injuries.
Finally, the yuan-ti mage. Hide in shadows plus the CND drew out a pointless Divination cast. Ayla broke with a dart of stunning while his aura was clouded. Thanks for playing, snakey-poo.
And just like that, the de’Arnise Keep no longer has a troll problem. Now can we talk about how stingy Nalia is? 650 gold? Really?
@Alesia_BH Good job dealing with Tor'Gal. To be fair to Nalia, you just looted her entire Keep, so she's propably short on cash. Even 650 gold pieces seem a lot to be carrying around in your purse as a travelling adventurer. I'd like to think that CHARNAME, due to their distinguished reputation, is able to keep most of their gold locked away in their stronghold while mostly using promissory notes to do business.
The Underdark outside of Ust'Natha - a very dangerous place for any group. However, inquisitor dispel is still great against the drow parties out here:
We used traps and a little bit of premature attacking to deal with the prisoners, freed Vithal, dealt with some Kuo-toans and made our way to the deep gnome village. Our first balor encounter - what we need here is fire protection, death ward+cc, protected buffs (for those who can do so) and as much damage as we can possibly deal. Some traps are certainly helpful, a few summons (deva + spirit animals + fire elementals) as well. The balor gets in, casts stoneskin + firestorm while we are mostly focused on dealing as much damage as possible, quickly hacking through stoneskins and killing him before our fighters get dispelled and in danger of getting vorpaled - and we succeed:
We help out Vithal, but before he can get away, Alesia steals all of his belongings:
Our next big fight is against the demon knights - One of the first fight we prepare for with what are our full list of buffs at this point, which include: Iron/Stoneskins, ISOM/Spell Shield, Entropy Shield/SI:A, ProFire, PFME, Remove Fear, Death Ward, CC, Strength for those without a strength-boosting item, Cat's Grace, Bless, Prayer, Recitation, PfE 10' radius, Emotions Hope&Courage, Blur/MI, Shield, AoF, Haste/Improved haste, and some summons (by now a Deva, and maybe skeletons/fire elementals/spirit animals), maybe also some Energy Blades. The problem here, which might spell some trouble in the later parts of the game, is that our two only fighter-types are easy to dispel. However, it's clearly enough for the demon knights. While Corey does lose his buffs, he's able to move away from Grond0, and, supported by our spellcasters, our barbarian has more than enough power to clear up the remaining foes:
The entire caverns are cleared out:
We use skeletons to deal with the beholder here and move on to rest. Grim Face has reached cleric level 15, which means now we finally get the good skeleton warriors - time to use them to clear the beholder hive, though first we have to deal with the initial ambush (adding PfP and energy blades to our buffs):
After that, we take down the group of drow and move back to let summons clear most of the remaining hive. Elder orbs and the hive mother, however, are not as easy to deal with as regular beholders for skeletons - a deva is a very helpful addition here:
Eventually, the mind flayer group here surprisingly teleported into our party. Luckily, we still had our buffs from the opening ambush, except for our fighters - but their saves stop them from getting stunned by psionic blast, and Grond0 can also enrage:
Turns out our deva had killed the gauths that the mind flayers were busy stunning all the time, the mind flayers stunned our deva but seeminly got bored and decided to teleport to us instead - oh, and the hive mother was still alive:
Since we were out of deva and animate dead casts, we had to return outside and rest. On our return, our summons did much better. Grim Face also tried to turn some death tyrants, but only got them to flee for a bit:
Well, after that the hive was fairly easy to clear, only one elder orb was a potential challenge, but Corey, who mostly stayed invisible to direct our summons, was able to dispel it, giving our summons the opportunity to take it down.
Lastly, we have the mind flayer city. We had to forego improved haste entirely here to get 5 PFME casts in our spellbooks. Non-negotiable here, without those we would certainly just get crushed by the bigger mind flayer groups and their detonate ability. For speed and APR, we had to rely on oils of speed this time around - easy enough at the beginning, where we only face tiny groups:
Corey collars one of the flayers, and we move on. When facing the first big mind flayer group to the west, we included a deva (protected by CC) - also buffing with some potions - heroism, stone giant strength, defense for Alesia/Grim Face (as AC is very valuable here). I paused all the time, closely monitoring intelligence scores. Grond0, in the end, is the only one who gets low enough in intelligence to be just one hit away from death, so I take special care when moving him around. However, Corey keeps taking quite a lot of damage from ballistic attacks, forcing him to constantly drink healing potions:
In fact, when facing the final group of mind flayers, he almost dies!
Another ballistic attack would've done it - the closest we've come to a character death in SoA. While fighting this group, our oils of speed run out early on in the battle - we try to counter this by casting energy blades on Grim Face and Enuhal to get some additional damage in. The final ulitharid dies just in time.
Now, we just have to kill the elder brain. Usually, I just focus the brain first, because I don't actually know what psionic powers it might actually have, so I don't want to take any chances - this time, I decide to take my time and first take out the mind flayers and brain golems. BIG mistake. It turns out the elder brain can cast remove magic, and we didn't bother to protect our buffs. A brain golem instantly hits Grim Face for 42 damage, with his stoneskins now gone. Another hit like this would've killed him, though he's able to re-apply stoneskin with his AoP. Enuhal moves to safety and re-casts chaotic commands in case of any more unexpected psi-powers:
After this shock, we turn on the brain and take it down as quickly as possible - it summons another brain golem, but it's too late to save itself, with its only successful action being a maze spell on Grim Face:
I don't play much with modded kits, but I do recall some years ago having fun playing with a War Hulk - created by @semiticgoddess. Seeing her posting this morning, I thought I might give that a run in her honour. I think the kit has been updated slightly since my last run (which would also have been in an earlier version of the basic game). To ensure no problems associated with that I've created a new starting character, though I did find my save for the original starting position.
CLASS FEATURES:
- May only land a single hit per round, regardless of level, weapon choice, or magical enchantments (attacks per round is set to 0 for 4 seconds on each hit)
- May not use missile weapons
- May place 3 proficiency points (Mastery) in two-handed swords and halberds
- May place 2 proficiency points (Specialization) in bastard swords, longswords, katanas, scimitars, axes, war hammers, spears, flails, maces, quarterstaffs, Two-Handed Weapon Style, and Single Weapon Style
- May place 1 proficiency point (Proficiency) in short swords, daggers, and clubs
SAVAGE BLOW: Although the War Hulk may only land a single strike per round, each attack has incredible force behind it. The War Hulk gains +1 Strength every level from level 1 to 5, and +1 to hit and +5% melee damage every level thereafter, along with additional bonuses every other level:
Level 1, 3, 5, 7: +1 to hit and +5% melee damage
Level 9, 11, 13, 15: +2 to hit and +10% melee damage
Level 17, 19, 21, 23: +3 to hit and +15% melee damage
Level 25, 27, 29, 31: +4 to hit and +20% melee damage
Level 33, 35, 37, 39: +5 to hit and +25% melee damage
CRITICAL STRIKE: Whenever the War Hulk lands a hit, the target has a 20% chance of being stunned for 6 seconds and pushed back on a failed save vs. death at -3.
RAGE: War Hulks channel their rage into their strikes, using pain and fury to add force to each blow. War Hulks strike harder when they are wounded, but the rage weakens their minds and causes them to lower their defenses. Whenever the War Hulk suffers damage, he or she gains a set of combat bonuses and penalties:
+15% melee damage
+1 THAC0
+1 save vs. death
+1 movement rate
Immunity to fear
-1 AC
-1 save vs. spell
All effects are cumulative and last 2 rounds. In addition, the War Hulk has a 25% chance of going berserk on a failed save vs. spell, gaining double the above bonuses and penalties for 1 round.
UNSTOPPABLE: Highly experienced or enraged War Hulks may overcome any obstacle in their path, whether magical or physical. Whenever the War Hulk is knocked unconscious or immobilized, he or she may attempt a save vs. death at -15. If successful, the War Hulk can shrug off the effects of sleep, hold, paralysis, or stun.
- Hit Die: 2d8 (2d6 after level 9)
The War Hulk only allows 1 attack a round, but there are huge bonuses that apply to that attack (at least when done in melee). The big danger with the kit is that its defences are not great and, when you take damage, there's a danger of falling into a rage. That gives additional attack bonuses, but at the cost of weakening defences further - and meaning you can't retreat. The rage only lasts 1 round, but as it has a chance of triggering every time you are hit it's possible to get into danger against weak, multiple opponents that would be no real threat to a standard fighter.
Like a kensai, the War Hulk cannot use standard missile weapons, but can use thrown daggers and axes - particularly early on that makes things much easier. One glitch is that throwing daggers are still offering 2 APR, which seems rather too generous (presumably that's a hard-coded engine restriction).
Bruce was soon on his way, picking up a couple of levels from Shoal. Note in the screenshot damage being applied without a to-hit roll following a critical hit. That's a result of critical hits having a potential chance to stun opponents.
Following Korax round various basilisks soon took me to level 6.
At this relatively early stage of the game the melee bonuses for the kit are clear in terms of ease of hitting - an unenchanted sword has a THAC0 of 5, while throwing daggers have THAC0 of 14. However, the strength bonuses from the kit apply to both types of attack, so the difference in damage (14-21 vs 12-15) is not great. That still makes throwing daggers seem attractive to me in a lot of situations (even without the rogue APR bonus).
Korax did well to paralyze both Kirian and Peter - allowing me to finish off the dangerous members of the crew.
With only Lindin left, I was happy to exchange melee blows with him - on the basis that he would die well before he could kill me, even if he did initiate a berserk rage. After going to Nashkel to pick up the ankheg armor and learn Bhaal CLW, I went to Firewine Bridge where I was similarly happy to melee Meilum to get his bracers. Then it was on to High Hedge to melee the golems separately.
With more damage now being likely to be taken, I went to the FAI to pick up Buckley's Buckler - picking up an ogre's belt on the way before throwing a dagger at Tarnesh. That pushes constitution to 20 to get regeneration.
In search of a final belt, I went next to the Cloud Peak Mountains to find Caldo and Krumm. I picked up the Chesley Crusher halberd in that area, which thematically goes well with the kit (as it restricts APR to 1). However, although the kit now allows 3 pips in halberds and 2-handed swords, one extra damage and a virtually irrelevant improvement in THAC0 still doesn't make up for the slow weapon speed - so I just sold that. I did, however, make use of the charisma tome from the Gnoll Stronghold.
At Durlag's Tower, I decided to give the last of the battle horrors a chance by standing and fighting in melee, rather than darting in and out. I nearly paid for that when the battle horror was at near death, but hit 3 times in a row, while Bruce got a critical miss. I was also now at near death with only 13 HPs (partly the result of hits from the previous battle horrors) and, even worse, the hits had initiated rage for only the second time in the run. With the reduction in AC from the earlier hits Bruce was also now a rather easier target. Fortunately, after the earlier round with 3 high rolls, the battle horror now rolled 3 poor rolls and got no further hits before the berserk state ended and Bruce could retreat.
With the walls cleared, a green PfP scroll let Bruce clear the roof of basilisks and pick up a +2 scimitar as his main weapon for the moment.
At the Lighthouse area, a potion of clarity allowed Bruce to keep the sirines at melee. A potion of absorption helped with that, as well as the golems. They failed to land a glove on him, but a magic missile trap did enrage him - helping him one-shot the last of the golems.
The constitution tome meant he ditched Buckley's Buckler for a shield offering better protection.
Bruce is close to his final BGEE level now and will be zipping through the Nashkel Mine next.
Grond0, are you sure if the War Hulk can actually make two attack rolls in one round using throwing daggers? The kit has an on-hit effect that's supposed to reduce its APR to 0 for 4 seconds, the idea being that it would force the War Hulk to cancel any extra attacks per round, even those from an off-hand weapon. But if your character can really land two hits with a throwing dagger, that might be because the zero-APR effect wears off just in time to get another attack. The low speed factor of throwing daggers might actually be the deciding factor in that.
@Alesia_BH Good job dealing with Tor'Gal. To be fair to Nalia, you just looted her entire Keep, so she's propably short on cash. Even 650 gold pieces seem a lot to be carrying around in your purse as a travelling adventurer. I'd like to think that CHARNAME, due to their distinguished reputation, is able to keep most of their gold locked away in their stronghold while mostly using promissory notes to do business.
A fair take, but I see it differently.
Nalia had a bad day. I’ll give her that. But everyone else in the game world can manage the practicalities of a gold based currency, and her household is among the richest and most sophisticated in the environs of Athkatla, the City of Coin. If I can trade on promissory notes -or what ever I’m using when I roll up to a potion seller with 40k- surely the de’Arnise family can too. There are banks in Faerun.
The thin payment has more to do with her character than her circumstances. At that point in her arc she’s well meaning, but elitist and naive. She doesn’t appreciate the value of the labor provided, and she doesn’t have a good sense of what things cost. Her aunt believed that we didn’t deserve a reward at all, that it was our duty to serve. Nalia wouldn’t say the same, of course, but she remains influenced by an undercurrent of that train of thought, and the attendant cultural norms. Nalia doesn’t want to be elitist, but she lacks the requisite self awareness to correct her behavior. Likewise, she doesn’t want to be stingy, but she’s insufficiently aware of the world around her to avoid the mistake. In a sense, it is Nalia’s circumstances that have led to the thin payment but not the proximate circumstances of the raid: it’s the deeper circumstances of her upbringing, what she has learned and what she has been shielded from learning. The Nalia of ToB would have been more generous and fair. She would have found a way.
Anyhoo, this isn't important, obviously. It was really just a one off joke to end the post, lol.
Fresh off her triumph at the de’Arnise Keep, Ayla undertook her wildest adventure yet, a planar joy ride in the Corthala family mobile home. Ayla was in command throughout this quest, but she did suffer some injuries. Care to guess which foe vexed her most? I’ll give you a hint: It’s who you’d expect exactly. This is not a trick quest.
It was not the opening clay golem. Since cursed wounds are active, Ayla has been giving clay golems a wide berth. Ras took point while Mr. Efreeti wailed away from the flank. I’m not sure why Mr. Efreeti’s scimitar qualifies as a magical blunt weapon, but I’m not complaining.
What about the hungry, hungry Halflings? It wasn’t them. No thanks to the Knights of Solamnia, ofc. Umm, I’m being hunted by cannibals here. Are you guys just going to watch? Really?
After dispatching the fodder, Ayla set her traps and took her buffs. As for the buffs, they were Ayla’s standards, DUHM, Ilbratha MI and RoAC II. To that she added a few potions: an oil of speed, a potion of stone form and a potion of strength. The latter potion, the potion of strength, allowed Ayla to swap out her Girdle of Hill Giant Strength for the BoIB. This move will become ever more common going forward.
As per usual, Ayla opened with a backstab, choosing Togan, due to his proximity. He survived, albeit at near death.
Togan raced away, as he is wont to do. Ayla returned to the shadows in preparation for a behind the lines mission. Nice knowing you, Kayardi.
With the mage out of the action, and Togan near death, Ayla now had the upper-hand. Enemy summons remained a nuisance, however. Ayla fell back and called in some summons of her own: Ras and Mr. Efreeti. Togan lost his nerve and decided to run for it. You sure you want to go that way, Togan…
Soon after Entu landed a ballistic attack, causing Ayla’s only injury in the fight. All that did was move him to the top of the hit list. Word of advice, Entu: If you can’t detect the invisible, don’t piss off a savvy thief with a movement rate bonus.
Just Mogadish now. You guys are the worst Halflings ever. So says Ayla.
More hungry, hungry Halflings. Taibela was chunk-stabbed.
Necre caught a dart of stunning while she was trying to cast Oracle. Ayla loves to draw out Divination casts and then break stealth with darts of stunning. She’s running low on darts, an emerging issue for her.
Ayla finished at range because of Necre’s Fireshield: Blue. Two doses of poison, via dart of wounding, followed by Tuigan. Clean kill.
What of the mech room golems? Did they give Ayla the most grief? Noppers: They were just juked. Invisibility via Efreeti Bottle->Arbane Haste->Ras->RoAC II.
How about Lavok? Did he do the deed? After all, it is not a trick question, right? Wouldn’t you expect Lavok to be the most dangerous foe? Maybe for some. But this is Ayla we’re talking about. No mage could be her nemesis.
Ayla entered the control room HiS. She buffed prematurely, and then belatedly cased her prey. She found a little nook close to the staircase where she could lay traps. She put some down.
Next, she revealed herself. Let’s check those buffs.
Upon seeing Improved Mantle, Ayla returned to the shadows. She waited. When she saw a window, she broke with a dispelling arrow. Success.
Ayla’s follow up cold arrows did middling damage, but they did shut Lavok’s casting down. All the while, Ayla crept backwards.
Hey, Lavok! Why don’t you step down from there? You know you want to. You can’t reach me from up there. Come on! Just step down. You know you want to! Eventually he did, and when he did Ayla’s traps fired. Game over, Lavok.
What of Tolgerias? Backstab-> potion of firebreath. Yawn.
And the tanar’ri? Ayla’s main concerns here were Death Gaze and the mephitis. A potion of freedom covered the death gaze risk. Mr. Efreeti, with his fire resistance, handled the mephitis, leaving Ayla free to fire away at the tanar’ri with her Cloak of the Stars darts.
Once the tanar’ri made his way around the mephitis, Ayla summoned Ras, hoping it would run distraction.
The tanar’ri was too smart for that, but alas, he was too dumb to notice the traps that he walking right to. By the time the fight ended, he had done 9 damage, four less than Entu. Entu is still in the lead. And Entu, as we know, is not the winner.
Onto the elemental rooms. Here we see an ever dangerous noble efreeti, stunned by a dart while Ayla sits on full health, running 100% fire resistance via potion of fire resistance and protection from fire. Apparently it was not the noble efreeti. But of course it wasn’t. How could it be?
There is one and only one enemy that it could have been. Surely you know by now. Who else could it have been? Fortunately, the damage was meager and Mr. Efreeti stepped up again. Oh, how Ayla hates trolls. May they all die in agony.
On to the engine room. It’s time to light this candle. As for you, Mr. Clay Golem, have fun with Ras. And meet my new level 21 traps. You can make a + 4 v death, but can you make it 5 times?
Anyhoo, that was a fun quest. Ayla is pleased. I'm not sure what's next for Ayla, but I'm leaning towards Windspear Hills.
Grond0, are you sure if the War Hulk can actually make two attack rolls in one round using throwing daggers? The kit has an on-hit effect that's supposed to reduce its APR to 0 for 4 seconds, the idea being that it would force the War Hulk to cancel any extra attacks per round, even those from an off-hand weapon. But if your character can really land two hits with a throwing dagger, that might be because the zero-APR effect wears off just in time to get another attack. The low speed factor of throwing daggers might actually be the deciding factor in that.
@semiticgoddess it seems to work as I would expect if dual wielding, but with throwing daggers it's possible to get 2 attacks pretty close together. I've not tested it properly, so if the reduction in APR operated only once per round that might explain it - getting attacks at the beginning and end of round 1 and then another at the beginning of round 2 - but that didn't seem to be what you were intending.
However, if the reduction in APR is only operating when hits are scored that could well explain it. At lower levels there are quite a few misses when using missile weapons and I've not been watching closely to see whether attacks are more closely spaced when misses are made compared to hits.
I’m not sure why Mr. Efreeti’s scimitar qualifies as a magical blunt weapon, but I’m not complaining.
To make this even more confusing, there are two different summoned efreet creatures.
EFREETSU is the creature you get if you cast the level 7 wizard spell. It's level 5, and wields B3-24.itm - nonmagical, 3d8 crushing damage.
SUMEFREE is the creature you get if you use the efreeti bottle. It's level 10, and wields GENSCIM.itm - +4 enchantment, 2d8 crushing damage.
(None of the other stats are different between the two creatures, only their level and weapon. They clearly should both be level 10)
Both efreeti use the same scimitar-wielding animation, of course.
I don't use Spell Revisions, since I angle for relatability in my posts, but I do like what SR did with the efreeti weapon. +2 Scimitar: 1d8+10 slashing +1d6 fire. That makes sense to me.
The usual introduction of looking at maps and other records to see what we should be doing next was cut short when Gulpo remembered he was lacking some gauntlets and had intended to seek out a nice ogre pair. Desreta didn't seem too keen to give those up initially, but a dart of stunning eventually changed her mind.
Byrd used those darts a fair amount in the session - including stunning a nearby basilisk without using any protection against its gaze - Gulpo arrived in the building too late to protest against that method of attack and gave Byrd something of a basilisk gaze himself .
The poison quest saw Lothander make his escape before stunning darts could target him. Marek didn't try to run away - though he probably should have given the difficulty of making an impression on berserker rage.
After picking up the Cloak of Balduran, Byrd belatedly remembered he had intended last time to get the +2 club from the archdruid in the Cloakwood. With his poison cured, there was no reason not to nip over there now and he was soon the proud owner of a second magical club.
Back in Baldur's Gate we went to fight what proved to be the dodgiest fight of the session. Gulpo used enrage there to tank the opposition, while Byrd planned to snipe from the sidelines. Unfortunately, his choice of darts as missiles (stunning for clerics and wounding for mages) meant he had to stay a little bit too close to the action and was duly sent running by a stray horror spell.
That forced Gulpo to work hard to keep all the enemies focused on him. He used a potion to protect himself against magical damage and then used the enemy's scorchers against themselves with a bit of running round.
Though low on HPs he was able to finish off all the spell-users before Byrd recovered his senses and helped out against the remaining fighters.
Moving on to Candlekeep, Gulpo tripped the traps, while Byrd used a potion of cloud giant strength and his new DUHM ability to loot the tombs. Gulpo had used a potion of absorption there and that was still active when we arrived to take on Prat - meaning his lightning bolts were helpful rather than harmful to us.
In Baldur's Gate once more, Slythe froze at his first sight of Byrd to give us an easy victory.
At the palace we chose to buff up with potions and both melee, rather than try darts of stunning or dispelling arrows. The dopplegangers had a fair go at Belt, but he still just survived. Only one of them attacked Liia and that allowed her to survive as well.
We were already at the XP cap, so Byrd left the Undercity party in peace and went on to the old temple. An initial shot at Sarevok with a dispelling arrow missed, but did pull Semaj out to try his luck. Rather than relying on luck though, he would have done better to protect himself against his own spells - one of his cloudkills hurt him enough that his own fireball was able to kill him .
Byrd tried another couple of shots against Sarevok - eventually connecting just as the big man was closing in to point blank range. That made further running round and shooting much easier, before Gulpo raged and closed in to put Sarevok out of his misery.
@Alesia_BH Me providing a rather disingenuous excuse for Nalia was merely meant to be an allusion to the fact that she indeed does have the cash and is willing to part for it, rewarding 10650 gold pieces for the very same quest - but only if she happens to be in the party while the quest is being done. Quite the difference from the measly 650 one tends to get when not taking her along.
The Avatars (Enuhal's version) - Update XXIV
Before entering Ust'Natha, we prepared some traps for the underdark party - 4 normal traps and 1 spike trap ended up being enough to take all of them out. I used death spell via helmet for the mind flayer battle in order to save Phaere, but it seems like SCS gives the mind flayers here the ability to survive death spell now, so we had to do some minor fighting - we weren't exactly well buffed, having mostly only defensive spells active, but despite Grond0 once again getting to 1 hit away from int-drain-death, we were able to succeed:
Back in Ust'Natha, we did some of the arena battles, with Grim Face winning the wizard battles for us, using a deva (with its own dispel magic ability) and some skeleton summons:
Traps killed the beholder for our next quest, and we also dealt with Quile. She has a ton of mages at her disposal, all with adequate defenses, but luckily all without SI:A. We had to deal with a whole bunch of annoying teleport fields and, of course, dispels on our fighters again, but inquisitor dispel eventually allowed us to take all of them down:
After the deep gnome quest and letting Saulofein escape, we used traps once again for the slime cultists, freed some slaves around the city and finally prepared to fight Deirex. Deirex is a named lich, which means that in an insane installation, he is capable of casting HLAs. We do not have the dispelling power to prevent such a foe (who, of course, has SI:A) from casting his timestop - his defenses had no notable holes, I had to go at them with secret words and ruby rays, three in total. Meanwhile, he unleashed the dreaded improved alacrity, followed up by a dark planetar:
He also cast a warding whip on Enuhal, getting rid of his ISOM spell shield, and a death fog, providing a steady source of acid damage (aside from electricity, the only element we're vulnerable to). However, maybe because I had spread out my party because I expected a remove magic, dispelling us is one thing he didn't do. As the timestop ended, our ruby ray cast finished to get rid of his final spell protection. Now he'd be breachable, but PFMW had run out anyway. As long as I still had my buffs, including death wards, I decided not to focus on the dark planetar right away, instead going for the lich - with the high APR of double energy blades quickly doing the job:
Casting a pointless firestorm was all the dark planetar was able to to before following its master:
Very good. Our first encounter with a bunch of HLAs went rather well.
Well, now we still had to clear up house Jae'llat. Enter Alesia:
Sadly, she got hit by Corey's own dispel - she had SI:A going as far as I can remember, and I thought it would also protect against my own dispel magic. Maybe I'm mistaken, maybe her SI:A had run out. She was able to re-apply stoneskin, and Corey got a great dispel on all the enemies approaching from the east while we held the line with the help of an elemental prince, a deva and hardiness on Grond0:
Once again we got caught in a bunch of annoying teleport fields, which greatly prolonged the battle - it didn't help that our fighters ended up getting dispelled again - but in the end, we still triumphed:
Leaving the Underdark was easy enough this time, because we had already cleared the guardians at the entrance (thanks to @Borco 's suggestion, I think). I intended to end the session here, but I couldn't resist buying the newly available items at Ribald's and forging some gear at Cromwell's first. This meant we had to fight a few githyanki - easy enough, with true sight and inquisitor dispel plus a use of greater deathblow with improved haste:
And finally, since I had already prepared so many buffs for the gith and I wanted to use them for at least one more battle, I decided to take down the city gates lich. PFME's on Alesia and Enuhal were gone, though, but Alesia buffed SI:N for a potential ADHW opening, and Enuhal already has 50% protection due to his belt and added a shield of the archons. This lich, notably, had a very different script compared to the random lich spawns we encountered in chapter 3. Not only did he have 2 mordy swords in his opening sequence, he also had spell shield, but only one other spell protection. We only needed one secret word from each wizard to turn him breachable after a quick true sight. However, to our surprise, he was able to dispel not only our fighters, but also Enuhal. Had I forgotten entropy shield? I could've swordn that I had re-casted it before entering. Well, I was a bit panicked after that, but luckily, after Grim Face's breach (while the lich was clearly casting time stop), Grond0 got the one-hit-kill with the iMoD +2:
If we hadn't been able to breach before this timestop cast was complete, this could've spelled the end of the run (though, to be fair, Enuhal still had the ISOM spell shield and SOTA going). Definitely time to end the session.
@Alesia_BH Me providing a rather disingenuous excuse for Nalia was merely meant to be an allusion to the fact that she indeed does have the cash and is willing to part for it, rewarding 10650 gold pieces for the very same quest - but only if she happens to be in the party while the quest is being done. Quite the difference from the measly 650 one tends to get when not taking her along.
Yup! I know. And that's consistent with my thesis. It's juvenile and petty of her to withhold payment simply because she didn't get her way.
(And to be clear: I didn't catch that you were being disingenuous the first time. I see that now.)
Anyhoo, nice update once again! You're crushing it! That Crooked Cane lice fight sounded a little dicey though, lol.
That Crooked Cane lice fight sounded a little dicey though, lol.
Not to nitpick, but ...
Anyway, I've been trying a no-reload run of my own. This run has a specific goal - to turn that theory-crafted build that kills Sarevok in one hit into a reality.
To that end, I need a very specific party. I can recruit some of them out in the world, but three of the necessary characters must be created as the proper builds don't exist otherwise. Here's the party:
First, Saitama (the protagonist). He will be the one to deliver that crucial hit. But of course, he needs a lot of training first.
Second, Gabrielle. What would a hero be without a bard to chronicle their adventures?
Third, Arwen. A human and an elf is the same as two half-elves, right? Also, she's another bard.
We need two more specific characters that we'll recruit when the time comes. The last slot can be filled at our convenience, and I have a plan for it already. I'll be playing on Core difficulty, unmodded, in an install that doesn't have SoD. The run ends when either Sarevok or Saitama dies.
The adventure begins with us taking care of some minor matters in Candlekeep.
And there's the first kill. 8 points of damage. Saitama has a long way to go.
By the time we're out of Candlekeep, everyone has their preferred weapons. Including unbreakable melee weapons for all three - a staff, a ninjato, and a throwing axe. Not that I'd let any of them fight in melee right now, with their level 1 fragility.
Imoen, Montaron, and Xzar join briefly before we dismiss them. After taking their useful potions, of course.
Then we go out hunting the local wildlife...
Ouch. Note to self - wolves attack quickly (weapon speed zero). While I can lead them around with one decoy as the other two shoot, I need to keep at least some distance.
The remaining animals and diseased gibberlings go down without further incident, and we move on.
At this point, we're looking out for easy XP. Joia and the hobgoblins around the Friendly Arm. Calming down Marl. Picking up a scroll case. Then we buy some +1 ammo and a +1 sling, and rest in Beregost.
Our next target is the pair of flesh golems at High Hedge. They hit hard, but they're pure melee monsters and they're easy to hit if you have the ranged magical weapons for it. Which we do.
But first, there are some skeletons and gnolls to take care of.
The skeletons are a real danger; they attack at range, so we can't stop them from getting in some attacks. Fortunately, they only spawn one at a time right now. That will change.
Hit the gnolls by the southeast wall of the wizard's retreat, fall back ... into a newly spawned skeleton. This is getting hairy - time for a panic button.
One gnoll goes down to the Sleep. The skeleton is bashed shortly after. That still leaves a second gnoll to evade and shoot down, but they're not too bad with their slow weapons.
That brings us to the golems. Plink away, draw the first one outside where we have more room ...
And that's level 2 for the bards. Perfect HP rolls for both of them, too.
The second golem falls equally easily; 7 +1 bullets and 12 +1 arrows used for the pair. We sell off the junk, then head back to town for another +1 weapon - a 5-pack of those +1 throwing axes for Gabrielle. She won't be throwing them.
Now we have some more spell slots, but nothing to use them on. We need some random scroll drops, and that means more monsters like hobgoblins that drop random loot. South it is.
Two ogrillons later, the next level comes in:
More hit points, though the rolls aren't perfect this time.
We now head off the road itself to kill some of this map's hobgoblins. The very first one drops a Protection from Petrification scroll ... scribing failed despite the 86% chance. Better luck next time, I suppose. Three more scrolls follow for the bards: Friends (failed), Identify (success), Color Spray (failure). Well, at least one of the bards can memorize spells. Gabrielle takes a hit from an archer hobgoblin, and I make the decision to head south to Nashkel and increase our healing capability. Return to Beregost to rest, as the Nashkel inn isn't safe yet.
After that rest, I decide to try out the spider house:
Well, that's one way to handle things. No runaround needed when they all fail their saves.
My next targets are up north - some fishermen, a priestess, and some zombies. Tenya backs down after one good hit, but the ankheg north of her is more dangerous ...
Until it fails a save, that is. Melee attacks finish it off quickly.
The zombies are easy, though I do get sloppy and let Gabrielle take a hit (critical, for 6 damage). She gets a healing potion for that, since I don't actually have the healing power yet.
The fishermen all get to live, and Tenya gets her bowl back for 2500 XP.
And that's 5K experience each. The bards are level 4, and Saitama is level 3. All have level 2 spell slots, though we haven't seen any level 2 spell scrolls yet.
I end this first session with a rest at Ulgoth's Beard, and pick up that first Bhaalspawn healing power. One Cure Light Wounds per day, more than tripling our free healing rate.
This bunch still have a long way to go before I recruit the other half of the party. So much kiting...
(Oops, forgot to add the pictures. They're in now.)
@Enuhal Happy to hear that you've made it through the Underdark (I'm terrified of that place - in fact, only once I managed to resurface alive in a no-reload, and therefore I'm positive that any suggestion re entrance guardians must have come from someone more experienced ) and beyond and managed to safely end the session! Great (team)work!
@Alesia_BH It's almost like Ayla toured the planes just to take a break from the guild duties, the way how easy she makes it look. She's a grown-up punk rocker indeed and I deeply admire her resource management among others. Thank you for delivering an ongoing source of inspiration and style.
@semiticgoddess@jmerry Great to have you here and I hope you'll have a good time with your respective runs!
@Grond0 Best wishes to Bruce (or any other character/party you may be running in the background in parallel)!
Technical notes: Game version: BGEE 2.6.6.0 (no SoD) Difficulty: Hardcore Mods: SCS (v34.3) with all tactical and AI components; BG Tweaks (cosmetic changes) Modified SCS components: Giant Spiders (Tactical)
As indicated, I've been inclined to start another run and I'm pleased to enter Sorsha. She's an un-kitted human bard and she's expected to be travelling solo for the vast majority of the run.
(Note: Portrait has been respectfully borrowed from vinegar at DeviantArt)
After playing a sorcerer, whose reliance on items is typically fairly limited, I was interested in a character who's main asset will be his/her inventory. This is facilitated mainly by the bard's ability to use wands and scrolls, flexible weapon proficiencies and, ultimately, UAI. Pickpocketing provides a useful synergy in this respect, be that in terms of improving our balance sheet for shopping purposes or obtaining certain helpful items (we're looking at you Dushai).
Sorsha's starting weapon proficiencies were staves and short bows, which is my absolutely favorite combination at least for BG1 purposes.
The intention had been to go with a neutral alignment on a purely roleplaying basis, however in the end I decided to go along with neutral good - it's still justifiable and sufficiently authentic and it means Azuredge in early SoA (at the cost enemy Unholy Blights being one more thing to worry about).
Considering the other strengths of the class apart from the level progression (and the corresponding caster levels), there's the bard song. I admit to having a love-hate relationship with the mechanics, which either induces passivity (and therefore is not really well suited for a solo play) or "hyperactivity" (with one trying to manage various actions throughout each combat round in a way that keeps the song active at all times). With the aim of landing at what I saw as a middle ground, I decided to give Sorsha a personal item created via NearInfinity which was intended to "simulate" the bard song effect.
Initially I'd thought that: "Ok, so these benefits are relevant, but at the same time don't seem too overwhelming to disrupt to overall game balance." But that was before I revisited background information on Luck mechanics and found out that, with the passive luck modifier, we'd be getting a free pass on Mirror Image hit/miss probability rolls. Realizing that, I was a bit hesitant to proceed with the idea, but then again I sort of liked the concept already and I've eventually decided to stick with it. So please consider this as full acknowledgement and admittance of the fact that Sorsha's getting a very meaningful advantage here, although it's still more of a by-product of the character creation rather than intentional design of things.
For the record, here's our inventory ahead of Sorsha's first spell scribing session at the High Hedge (that we could afford thanks to the Ring of Wizardy). We're now all set to start exploring the Sword Coast.
I might have jumped ahead of the schedule a bit with that previous screenshot from High Hedge - most of you could say, and rightly so, that any proper run should start with the dead belt ogre. Here you go. He will not crush!
Speaking of High Hedge, there's more to it than shopping and chickens. We tested our new Wand of Sleep against the "big guy with a dog's head" or the "thievin' ball-o-fur". Oh yes, Perdue's a funny bloke. He was pleased. Or not really?
Definitely not pleased enough to help us with Karlat, from whom we had to ran away before he could chop us down to his size. Not sure if it's us, but we seem to get into trouble in almost every watering hole in Beregost we visit. With Marl, at least, Sorsha managed to de-escalate the situation with her empathy and cheerful presence.
It's not only people getting at us, but spiders too. Giant spiders, yuck! Though I admit we had no business trespassing in that house in the first place. But still, at least "enter at your own risk" sign would help.
Eventually, we did find a nice place to stay here. It's called the Jovial Juggler and it has tasty food, decent rooms and easygoing clientelle. That's straight 5 stars on Trip Advisor; we'll be back.
Mirianne asked us for help and she got it.
Zhurlong did not precisely "ask" for help, but he got his boots back nonetheless.
So who's the thespian extraordinaire? Sorsha's pretty sure it's not this Silke, though she seemed to busy to talk to. We'll have to check on her again later.
Completing all these chores around the town brought us to level 4 at 5k XP, unlocking our first L2 spell slot. We load it with Mirror Image in order to secure the gem back from Neera by fighting the Red Wizard.
Strength spells gets us inside the manor where Sorsha collects the Wand of Lightning.
Finally, we venture beyond the town limits a bit, collecting Melicamp, while Shield->MIs->equip chainmail->Wand of Sleep charge combo take care of Zargal and his crew. And yes, that armor was thrown it for style only.
To conclude with a cliffhanger, the results of the Antichickenator will be revealed in the next episode.
While we're in the Cloakwood, I pick up the one NPC I've found myself recruiting more than any other in my BG1 runs: Coran! Outside of solo runs, I rely very heavily on Arrows of Detonation and Arrows of Dispelling to deal with the BG1 endgame, and Coran is one of the best archers in the game.
We still have to deal with a wyvern to make sure Coran will stay in the party. Rather than fight the Cloakwood wyverns face to face like I normally do, I try the invisible blocker strategy I first learned from @Grond0 many years ago.
I always thought invisible blockers were a cute concept, but I've not made much use of them in the past.
Before we deal with Davaeorn, I do some side quests to bolster our levels. Bassilus, notably, failed his save against an opening Silence 15' Radius spell from Tiax.
We are now in very solid condition. Kagain has High Mastery in axes, Coran and Tiax are level 5/6, and Xan now has 3rd-level spells! With 20,000 gold and most of the key pre-Baldur's Gate items in hand, we are ready to handle Davaeorn.
Honestly, though, the bigger threat is Drasus, whose boots are just too tempting to pass up. I decide to use solo strats, charming Drasus' buddies and luring them away to get killed by a nearby guard. Coran carries Algernon's Cloak, since his mediocre stealth still makes him better at sneaking around Drasus than Moth Sibula herself.
I failed to pick up a Potion of Absorption on the way, so when Drasus is finally alone, he still deals some heavy blows to Kagain despite us overwhelming him with a wand.
Kagain is the best tank in the game, but even he is not immortal.
Xan has just barely enough Invisibility spells to smuggle the party through the mines. Coran must rely on his own stealth skills to get past, however.
At the bottom, I use the invisible blocker strat to hold down the Guard before Davaeorn. However, the group hug ends up winning him over instead
There's a trick where you can use the charmed Guard to kill Davaeorn from offscreen, and I wanted to give it a shot for funsies, but it requires luring the Battle Horrors away, which costs Invisibility spells we don't have memorized anymore. Instead, we just give Davaeorn our normal treatment: Kagain marches in with his armor, downs a Potion of Magic Blocking, and burns Davaeorn down with the Ring of Energy.
Conventional BG1 no-reload powergaming is super item-heavy. This would be a massive struggle without either the Ring of Energy or a Potion of Magic Blocking. I have no idea how I handled this fight in my poverty runs.
With Davaeorn dead, we do a few fetch quests to grab some stat tomes and make our way to Baldur's Gate! Invisibility lets us tackle the sewer ogre mage safely (especially when he fails his save vs. Silence 15' Radius), and I snag the Cloak of Balduran early by leaving one carrion crawler alive so we can charm Quenash. We feed the worm its last meal.
Next, we go after the Hands of Takkok. Vay-ya and Desreta crumple under the pressure of Slow and Silence 15' Radius. With the gauntlets on Tiax, we can finally give full plate to our cleric.
There's some excellent loot in the Iron Throne fight, but I opt for the safe route and just steal the relevant documents, bypassing the fight. Invisibility has always been my favorite spell in BG1.
Thus far, mages haven't been too tricky on their own, but in the tight spaces of Ramazith's tower, we have no choice but to deploy a weapon Moth Sibula gained a while ago: Shatter Spell! This is one of the many kit abilities the Trickster can steal from other Artisan Kitpack kits, and it lets the first successful attack roll within 12 seconds cast Breach on the target. I hope it will prove useful against SoA mages despite their ample spell buffs on Insane mode, but lower-level mages in BG1 only have MGOI, which is no defense.
There's a bugged string in the mod where Shatter Spell is called a shapechange ability in the dialog box. We deploy the same trick in the ogre magi ambush at Candlekeep--though a suite of traps set long ago does the real work in this fight.
We skip most of the fights in the catacombs. I've never placed a ton of value on XP after Mutamin's Garden; I tend to think of XP as something that's only really important at the start of BG1 and after the end of SoD. Firing off a bunch of Arrows of Detonation is about as effective at level 7 as it is at level 10.
Before we tackle Cythandria, we head back to Durlag's Tower for some looting. A rogue with the Boots of Speed, a few Potions of Perception, and a Protection from Undead scroll is sufficient to loot the entirety of the Warder levels, as long as you use stealth to get around the non-undead enemies (and a Ring of Free Action is enough to safely walk past the Mustard Jellies). Even though we're more than strong enough to clear out the level--aside from Love et al, perhaps--I find it more convenient to simply avoid fights.
We leave with an absolute mess of gold and treasure and go back to the Iron Throne headquarters to show off our newfound wealth.
Just kidding. I only travel while invisible.
Kaalos and Shennara from the first Iron Throne fight never despawn, so they're still upstairs since I never fought the first fight. No reason to tackle them and Cythandria at the same time, so I set up an invisible wall, bait them into breaking their initial stealth (which Moth Sibula's Detect Illusions ability cannot dispel), and use Tiax's ghast to paralyze them while they try to backstab it with Potions of Invisibility (which Moth Sibula can dispel).
I have Coran backstab Cythandria, but it's nowhere near enough to bring her down on its own. Coran fails a save against Slow and nearly gets turned to pudding by Cythandria's golems before he can lure them into our traps.
Heavy melee finishes off the survivor. Then we turn our attention to Cythandria. She has tons of buffs, but between Shatter Spell and Detect Illusions, we don't even need to resort to Arrows of Dispelling. We've got enough attacks per round to overcome her defenses without a dispel.
I heard on Reddit that Arrows of Dispelling no longer get past Protection from Normal Missiles, but I don't think I have the most up to date version of SCS installed just yet.
Now we need to deal with Slythe and Kristin. Kagain is beginning to get tired of his position as our tank.
Both Coran and Moth Sibula have high Set Traps (I've been super fond of traps ever since I started playing with Bounty Hunters), and Slythe gets to witness their talents firsthand.
That's what you get for not having Stoneskins, bro.
Kristin is better protected. In addition to Stoneskins, she also comes with MGOI and an opening PFMW. I could use Xan to remove the former, but since we've only got one party member that can use mage wands and I don't have a Wand of the Heavens right now, there's not much point in bringing Xan out of the shadows to cast Spell Thrust. She'd probably just nail him with Chaos or shoot him down with Minute Meteors.
Kristin's best defense, however, is her buggy stealth: unless SCS gives her the Shadowdancer kit, her ability to hide when she's out of sight (which I'm sure is standard SCS thief behavior) can actually trigger even when she's right in front of you. Now you see her...
...now you don't!
It's a bit frustrating, but eventually her PFMW runs out, paving the way for an Arrow of Dispelling. With her defenses low and her better spells already spent, I finally bring Moth Sibula out of hiding to help bring her down fast.
Sometimes I feel like half of my BG1 no-reload metagame is casting Invisibility on Charname. But then, we haven't suffered a character death so far this run, so *perhaps* our main character, who after all has the 2nd-highest HP in the party and a rage ability in addition to being our designated Potion Case bearer, could have spent a little more time fighting for the party instead of hiding.
The Ducal Palace fight goes very cleanly. I set a suite of traps to the southeast and in the doorway leading straight from the front entrance, which deals a big chunk of damage at the start of the fight. Once Coran's Arrow of Dispelling hit the Doppelganger mage, I feel secure in our success.
The path to Sarevok is now clear!
Before we proceed, I do another circuit around the Sword Coast to pick up key items I haven't needed yet, but might need for SoD. We charm Bentan at the Firewine Ruins and feed him to the zombies to take his Pro Magic scroll, blast Kiran et al with disablers to steal the Golden Girdle, and finally charm Halbazzer Drin and lure him off to the Undercity maze by ordering him to attack us as we do area transitions.
I also charm Black Lily as well, just because she was on the way. After a lot of grindy fighting against the maze's Skeleton Warriors, we draw Halbazzer Drin and Black Lily into the final fight with Sarevok.
For party runs, I like to rely on a very expensive and micro-heavy but very safe strategy, which nearly always stars Coran: put a suit of armor and the Boots of Speed on an archer, give them a Protection from Magic scroll, and then use a whole bunch of potions and Amulet of the Shield charges to buff them up. With those defenses and movement rate bonuses, they can mercilessly kite the enemy nearly unpunished.
First, though, we need to nail Sarevok with an Arrow of Dispelling, who otherwise is far too quick for Coran to escape and still have plenty of time to fire Arrows of Detonation at Diarmid.
Semaj likes to hide when the only visible party member has a Pro Magic scroll, but you can still deal damage to him with the Arrows of Detonation, since he very often is within the blast radius. I focus fire on Diarmid because Diarmid moves around the least and is the largest short-term threat to Coran.
A very large threat to Coran, in this case, because I didn't think I needed to have him spam the Amulet of the Shield to get -20 AC vs. missiles. Turns out that was a mistake.
Coran starts to take heavy damage. The fact that Diarmid can hit Coran on a 16, or even lower, means that Coran could die very quickly if the enemy gets good rolls. Semaj goes down, but Diarmid survives thanks to potions. Coran is drinking heavily by this point--not a good place to be, considering Coran is my win condition.
Coran goes all the way down to 9 HP before Diarmid finally dies, relieving the pressure on our archer. Meanwhile, Sarevok has been struggling to kill an air elemental that Halbazzer Drin summoned while Coran was kiting. Apparently the elemental is immune to Sarevok's attacks.
It looks like a bug that works in our favor, but since Sarevok would have been roughly as ineffective trying to chase down Coran instead, I don't feel too bad about it.
I have Halbazzer Drin keep summoning critters, which is about as much as he's good for in this run. His Symbol spells at the start of the fight failed to do anything, and his other high-level spell slots were all summons. But the extra firepower helps bring down the Skeleton Warriors, which Coran would have struggled to handle on his own (I often use a Protection from Undead scroll to just avoid them, in solo runs).
Finally only Sarevok is left. Xan casts Greater Malison from a scroll and follows up with Wand of Paralyzation charges until he fails a save.
BG1 is ours! Now we have to deal with SoD.
This has been a pretty typical BG1 party run for me. Basilisks at the start, charms for Mulahey and Denak and Drasus, the Ring of Energy for Davaeorn, Arrows of Dispelling for Cythandria and Kristin, and Arrows of Detonation and the Wand of Paralyzation for Sarevok--with generous use of Invisibility throughout the game, both to dodge optional fights and to enter every mandatory fight with optimal buffs and positioning.
We are now in SoD! I love Siege of Dragonspear and its diverse enemies and encounters, but I always feel a little paranoid because I have so many memories of losing runs to the final battle, an excruciating ordeal that became especially terrifying when I used to do solo LoB runs against the final boss.
The first dungeon can be a little sticky on Insane mode due to the presence of Shadowed Souls, who deal magical damage at range automatically every round. Only MGOI and magic resistance can block it based on what I see in Near Infinity, which is not something I usually run.
To circumvent this, I cover Coran with a Protection from Undead scroll and have him down a Potion of Invisibility. Combine that with the Greenstone Amulet and he can run past every enemy and over every trap straight to Korlasz. After the last trap dispels him, we give him some general defenses, namely the Greenstone Amulet and a Potion of Invulnerability, to keep him safe while he aims for a quick kill on Korlasz with Arrows of Dispelling and the Ring of Energy.
Korlasz dies quickly, which is important because her allies have some very nasty ranged attacks. IIRC you have Called Shot, Darts of Stunning, and/or Darts of Wounding to worry about. And because we can only spare a single Protection from Undead scroll to get Coran to Korlasz, Coran has to win the fight alone, without party support.
With Korlasz gone, all of her allies and all of the undead currently in the dungeon go away, letting us loot the place safely as long as we have Tiax use Sanctuary to snag the Cobalt Moss. We pile all of our goodies into the Bag of Holding, sell off all excess loot at Sorcerous Sundries for tens of thousands of gold, and then burn most of it on Arrows of Dispelling and Detonation and other expendables.
Now we need to pick out a party. Corwin is a must-have. She's extremely efficient at dealing with minor enemies, absolutely devastating with Arrows of Detonation during key battles, and our best damage dealer for the final battle.
We also need a tank. SoD NPCs don't have a lot of solid fighters until after Bridgefort, so we just grab Minsc, with Dynaheir in tow for wands. I also recruit Glint as an afterthought--I figure it's convenient to have him on as a utility character, though he won't be a big player in any major fight.
Normally I skip everything in Coastway Crossing, but our endgame ToB plans involve Defensive Stance and damage resistance stacking, and the helm of Dumathoin gives a +3% resistance to physical damage that could be really useful against ToB dragons and such. But to get that item in BG2, we need to first grab it in SoD.
Which requires tackling the Coldhearth Lich and the dungeon that precedes it. I am not happy about this.
The first area is easy to clear with wands, but deeper inside, the sheer number of enemies and their frequent resistance to Corwin's arrows makes it a slog to bring them down, and they apply tons of pressure on Minsc and Glint in the process. Even Dynaheir's Wand of Fire charges take time to bring them down.
The last fight before the lich is a nightmare. We have to bring down two Skeleton Warriors with sky-high magic resistance, near-immunity to arrows, and strong melee attacks. They kill Minsc and force us to burn many, many wand charges and magical arrows to end the fight.
I could have rested and returned at full strength, but I really just wanted it dead.
The lich is straightforward by comparison. The Secret Revealed breaks it.
In my first run of SoD, I had no idea that the Secret Revealed existed, and it nearly killed us--we had to kill it several times before I figured out how to destroy its phylactery.
We win the Helm of Dumathoin and finally escape the claws of the dungeon. As long as we're fishing for importable items, we do some other quests on the way to the next main quest target, trapping Teleria and bombing scattered mobs with the Wand of Fire--notably taking a detour for a spare Enchanted Weapon scroll in a troll cave.
Then I realize that Dynaheir can't cast Enchanted Weapon, since she's an invoker. To make sure we have +3 weapons for the final boss and also give us a wand user in the meantime, I recruit Voghiln. He's not my favorite NPC but his ability to tank and use wands make him very practical in SoD.
We kill Morentherene with a nonmagical throwing dagger and get ready for a sluggish crawl through the Neothelid dungeon. Dynaheir is now at level 9, which means two slots for Sunfire and enough Protection from Fire spells to cover the party. We can now bomb enemies harder and faster, without needing the Wand of Fire!
Ziatar goes down quickly as a result. To my surprise, the Neothelid doesn't live long enough to reburrow itself a single time.
Often I find myself struggling to survive against it while it remains burrowed, taking hits from its Magical Swords and fending off its various psionic attacks. The tricky thing about the Neothelid is that its disablers are versatile, applying multiple different effects and forcing different types of saving throws. It's very much worth a Chaotic Commands scroll or two.
While we're here, we tackle Darskhelin, on the off change the Archer's Eyes is helpful in BG2. We come very well-prepared, with a full suite of traps at the doorway, but I fail to properly cover Corwin, who fails a save against Psionic Domination. Our best attacker is now our biggest enemy.
To penalize her THAC0 and avoid getting shot down, I put Voghiln right in front of her, forcing her to attack at a huge disadvantage due to being in melee range. But she is so deadly that even Voghiln's Mirror Images can't stop her.
Moth Sibula debuffs the enemy mage with Shatter Spell, Dynaheir bombs with Sunfire, and we start clearing the field. But damn do we have to fight for it.
For Bridgefort, I go for my favored tactic, the same one I generally use for Sarevok: we put a Protection from Magic scroll on Corwin, give her some potions and Arrows of Detonation, and have her run in circles while blasting the enemy.
Arrows of Detonation are finite, but we always buy every last one that we can, just so we can splurge on key fights like these. Bridgefort is doable without them, but it's a long fight normally, and takes a lot of micromanagement. This method is just simpler.
I'm not sure if Arrows of Dispelling are supposed to work in my install (I haven't updated SCS) and I don't want to rely on a tactic that's otherwise impossible, so instead of using them to dispel the bridge mage, I opt for Shatter Spell instead. I'm a little worried, since we need more luck out of our attack rolls to prevent her from opening a portal to the Plane of Fire, but Corwin fortunately doesn't roll any critical misses.
We're getting close to the endgame now. It's probably viable to walk past a lot of mobs just using the hoard of Potions of Invisibility we've been collecting, but since this is a party run, I decide to use the party. On the way to the tunnels, we pin down the cyclops with the Wand of Paralyzation and start bombing with Sunfire. This fight requires a lot more micromanagement, since I'm saving our Arrows of Detonation and facing the enemy head-on.
It takes a lot of fireballs to clear the field. We're not in BG1 anymore; basic enemies have HP in the double digits now.
Next we snatch the Dragon Blade. That means killing Rigah and his witch. We charm both of them with the Nymph Cloak, have the witch burn her best spells, and then pin them down with backstabs and traps. As usual, I have charmed enemies switch weapons before backstabbing, since they get -4 AC and take 4 extra damage from melee attacks if they're unarmed or have ranged weapons equipped.
The tunnels themselves are largely optional. I charm Strunk, feed him to the ettin ghost, talk my way past the guard to the next area (always important to avoid that fight--that enemy group has a Wizard Slayer in it!), and use Potions of Invisibility to trigger the Hephernaan cut scene and then get out.
We still get blocked on the way by a batch of enemies that use True Seeing. In retrospect, I should have waited out the spell and drunk more potions to slip by unscathed, but I try to charge my way out to save time, and end up getting blocked off from the exit. I deploy our wands to clear a path, but it's still hard work to chew through all the enemies.
We escape! Back to the coalition camp to prepare.
We now have several mandatory fights ahead of us, each of which is VERY spooky without adequate preparation. The coalition camp invasion can lead to a near-unstoppable swarm of enemies and an instant game over if you try to retreat or let an enemy slip by (*never* use fear or confusion in that fight), the siege at Dragonspear Castle itself is the largest-scale fight in the game if you can't or don't deal with Ashatiel solo, and then...
Comments
Corecleric XX - halfling priest of lothander, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Mirazi - human mage (Grond0)
Betson - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
This session started out with us heading to D'Arnise Keep to help with the issues there. The first level of the keep was cleared without any incident. On the 2nd level the Yuan-ti mage was safely disposed of since he couldn't do much to Corecleric who was protected from lightning and protected by the immunities of the Shield of Harmony. We went after Glaicas too since Corecleric was still protected by lightning. As expected Glaicas didn't stand much of a chance.
The golems in the temple were cleared out fairly well. Was a brief scary moment as Corecleric got quite low health against the clay golem, but his friends were able to kill it. The iron golem was tricky but Mirazi was able to generate just enough MMM's to kill it. Corecleric then wanted to forge the flail the ages so he could kill trolls easily as well.
In the dungeon, Corecleric was able to pull the umber hulks safely a few at a time thanks to his shield of harmony. He also used sanctuary to put the meat in the cell. Then the umberhulks were finished off. Time for the main event!
Mirazi tried a cloudkill, though it didn't kill Torgal. We had a lot of summons to help which was a good thing, as Betson nearly died - but our victory was not in doubt.
We then braved Watcher's Keep - our first objective was the dart. Only a group of undead in the way but most of them were chunked by a Corecleric using turn undead while in sanctuary. Luckily the main room in the 1st level didn't have vampiric wraiths so that made it much safer. The Crimson Dart and some +3 bullets took down the two golems protecting the lich. We passed on the statues as we don't need their items.
Next was the bridge district. We got ambushed by both the Sansuki ambush and some muggers. Corecleric's turn undead helped make the fight safer. We successfully figured out Reijek was the bridge district murderer and the ambush downstairs of his tanner shop was defeated - Corecleric's true seeing helped quite a bit, but he had to gulp quite a few potions to stay intact, despite his full plate. We reported our success to the lieutenant.
Richard intentionally tripped a petrify trap and he turned to a statue. Mirazi tried to use ring of earth control on Richard but Cowled Wizards appeared so Mirazi and Corecleric ran inside a building. Then they went invisible to leave the area to to get a magic license. Mirazi and Corecleric got hit with vampire ambush on way to rescue their friend, but now with a magic license and Corecleric immune to level drain with AoP, it was a simple enough ambush. Finally their party member was rescued.
Our next battle was Mencar. With summons, emotion, and chaos, it ended up being pretty straightforward.
Next objective was Tarnor's gang and clearing out the sewers. While we intended to destroy them at a distance with mage spells, Mirazi got seen before he had intended. However only a single enemy came, then some webs and silences ended their resistance. The rest of the sewers were cleared without incident.
The last bit of the session to get the shield of balduran - we then saved our session here.
Say hi to Moth Sibula, a gnome thief with the Trickster kit from the Artisan's Kitpack!
The Trickster kit is a bit odd. Aside from a 1-round Mislead innate ability that also grants a critical hit (!), the Trickster kit gets to pick a special ability from a different kit every few levels. A Trickster can learn to use Defensive Stance like a Dwarven Defender, get a slight bonus to magic resistance like a Wizard Slayer, or summon a spirit animal just like a Totemic Druid! Once you pick your ability, though, you're stuck with it--no backsies if you decide that the spell you picked isn't worth it anymore. Our first pick is a Berserker's rage ability, since it will be a priceless rescue option throughout the saga.
I follow my typical early game route: kite Shoal and sell the Ring of Evermemory so we can afford some thieving potions at Durlag's Tower later on. We also loot the ankheg pit at level 3, since rage gets us up to a comfortable 39 HP, enough to shrug off any spooky critical hits. Then it's off to Mutamin's Garden for fast XP.
We run into a Flind on the way, which makes me a bit worried, because their THAC0 penalties can make them really hard to bring down if you get bad luck--and I don't want to put Korax in harm's way before he can chomp on some basilisks for us. Moth Sibula uses Trickery to get a guaranteed critical backstab--even though she rolls a 1!
There's one easy-to-fix bug associated with the Trickster kit. The Mislead clone that it summons is supposed to have 1 HP and disappear when you attack something, but it actually has full HP and does not go away after you land a hit. To imitate the intended behavior, I just nail the poor thing with CTRL-Y!
We have rage to protect us from Mutamin, and I even bought a Protection from Petrification green scroll just in case, but we end up hiding while Korax eats Mutamin. In the past, Mutamin has killed Korax with spell damage, but Korax lives long enough to paralyze him.
We honor Korax for his service by awarding him a medal! A very pointy medal, applied using a bow.
Then the path to Durlag's Tower is clear, allowing us to buy the potions we need to safely pickpocket Dushai and Algernon. We also charm Silke, have her fight the Beregost spiders, and let them deal just enough damage to her for us to finish her off with traps.
Lest I get tempted to make this a solo run, I go fetch Kagain and buy him Beruel's Retort, a +1 throwing axe that you can use as a melee weapon so it doesn't run out. I don't like Kagain much, but he's just very convenient. I've been putting all of my skill points into Detect Illusions and Set Traps, so sneaking through the Nashkel Mines to Mulahey isn't as practical as having Kagain pave the way for us.
Kagain has an absurd 90 HP when we recruit him. Of course, without much party support, that can actually run out pretty fast, even with ankheg plate on.
We get ready to tackle Mulahey, but we end up landing a charm on him, so we just feed him to the local kobolds.
I'm starting to think Algernon's Cloak might be a little overpowered.
Soon we'll need a bard or mage for Invisibility spells, which for me is a prerequisite for dealing with several encounters in BG1 safely. After waffling a little bit on the issue, I decide to recruit Xan, solely because I don't like Xzar and I don't feel like fighting gnolls to get Dynaheir instead.
By now we've dug up some scattered goodies from around the Sword Coast. Xan deploys the Wand of Monster Summoning to help deal with Nimbul, but Moth Sibula does heavy lifting in this fight, too: she lands a backstab at the start of the fight and also uses Detect Illusions to take away Nimbul's Mirror Images, dramatically shortening his window of opportunity to hurt us.
I'm honestly not sure how necessary clerics are in BG1, and sometimes I go without a priest entirely. But on the way to Tranzig, I spot Tiax downstairs, and remember how much I love his ghast summoning spell. We recruit Tiax, summong a ghast, and it immediately paralyzes Tranzig. Luck is being super nice to us this run.
Just in case luck decides to be a fickle Philbert on us, though, I cover the party with Invisibility, travel to a random destination, and repeat the process several times until we trigger the first bounty hunter ambush. We enter the battle invisible, allowing us to pull Moth Sibula and our spellcasters aside and concentrate the enemy's attention on Kagain.
Being able to safely get a Slow and Silence 15' Radius spell off the ground is a huge deal, especially when Tiax's ghast is on the way to start stun-locking bounty hunters.
We spam disablers and the bounty hunters crumble.
I end up in Spider Woods while trying to trigger the second ambush, and I decide to go after Denak early. While Moth Sibula's rage ability and Xan's Wand of Monster Summoning could be really helpful at tackling the battle conventionally, I go with my preferred strategy: approach while invisible, charm Denak's mage buddies, and lure them off to a tea party with our local spider pals.
Brendan must have said something to offend them, though, because the tea party doesn't go so well.
Finally we deal with Denak, who is now all alone. He succumbs to a charm as well, though--a lucky break, since failing a save generally means Denak goes hostile, instead of staying neutral like his buddies do--and we make him empty his entire spellbook before overpowering him.
We keep trying to trigger the second bandit ambush, but they don't appear. I give up and go to Peldvale to convince the bandit guy to lead us to the bandit camp, since Tazok won't fight you that way (if you do that dialog in the Larswood, Tazok insists on a fight).
The bandit camp could probably be handled with Xan's Wand of Fire and some tanking by Kagain. But I play it safe, charming Taurgosz to feed him to the southern hobgoblins and then having Tiax loot the main tent under Sanctuary.
Finally we get the second bounty hunter ambush to happen. We again make sure to enter the fight while invisible, and Xan's Slow spell is enough to cripple them while they waste their time on Kagain, whose Greenstone Amulet charge grants him immunity to any silly nonsense they might try to pull on us. Xan even manages to land a basic Charm Person on one of them, and Molkar finds himself outnumbered.
Early game business is over. Now things get sticky.
Davaeorn is waiting for us in the Cloakwood.
@semiticgoddess Welcome back! The trickster kit looks wild, especially in HLA-land. It will be fun to see you make it dance! Best wishes to Moth Sibula!
Judging by the picture, you didn't get the backstab; must have been a bit off to the side. If you had, it would have been a 24-point lethal hit.
And here's the drawback of the kit in action; a vanilla thief's 3x backstab with that same +2 sword kills Nimbul in one hit, every time (assuming he hasn't switched to melee yet, and a mod hasn't increased his 21 HP). With a 2x backstab, he has a chance of survival. You certainly still could have gotten the one-hit kill, but it would have taken a good damage roll (4 or better on 1d6, a 2/3 chance with your +1 luck).
The de’Arnise Keep has a troll problem, and so does Ayla. Ayla is a backstabber and trapper. She thrives on spacing. Trolls cramp her style: literally. They’re big. They’re fast. They’re ridiculously nimble. And they stick around after you thwack’em. They’re a nuisance. Ayla says, no thank you.
And so when our little Halfling hero learned that she’d be facing trolls at the de’Arnise Keep, she very nearly told Nalia to find another champ. Ayla is a Guildmistress. She has better things to do.
You may be wondering how Ayla knows that she hates trolls. When did she fight them? Well, I’ll tell you.
Since guild mistressing is hard work, Ayla decided to relieve some stress by putting the beat down on Captain Haegan’s crew.
The fight started off well. Ayla opened with a backstab on the cleric.
She then called in Mr. Efreeti. He shined, at first.
But the fight bogged down soon after. Mr. Efreeti is great, but he’s squishy. Ayla is a master thief, but an under-whelming warrior. And so when the battle shifted to straight up melee, Ayla and her bottled-bud were overmatched. Mr Efreeti got punked. Ayla was forced to disengage, drink a potion of invisibility, and regroup.
Happily, that reset was all Ayla needed. Oh my god, we’re back again.
Gonna bring the flavor, show you how.
(And for the record, that was not a Backstreet Boys reference: that was an Umbrella Academy reference. Look it up.)
Anyhoo, that was when Ayla first encountered her nemesis. Or nemeses: trolls.
I’ll never understand what’s going on in that little room. If Haegan is selling slaves, why feed them to trolls? And if you’re feeding trolls, why toss them one tiny slave. That’s not a hearty meal. Either way it doesn’t make sense.
You know what also doesn’t make sense? Letting Ayla melee trolls. She's a thief, not a fighter. This isn’t her game. After dropping the first with a backstab/acid arrow combo, Ayla took on the second in toe-to-toe melee, wielding Belm. Ayla won, but it was a pain in the tuckus, a harbinger of things to come at the Keep.
Now, my long time readers know that I’m fond of exaggerating travails and frustrations for dramatic purposes. But they also know that I always -always- show a picture of the first dead troll at the de’Arnise Keep. Bam!
Ok, now stop. When was the last time you saw that much damage on one of my characters in that ritual first troll photo? Allow me to answer. Never. Ayla really does have a troll problem.
Fortunately, Mr. Efreeti does not. He was born for this. He was also born for roasting pooches. One doggo fricassee, coming right up!
And how about a side of dead troll?
Ayla ordered about 30. Because fooey on these trolls. Backstabs don’t even kill them.
Can I get a little help here?
Thanks, buddy!
Mr. Efreeti led the charge all the way to the yuan-ti mage, at which point Ayla took over. I got this. Just promise me you’ll kill the trolls after the mage goes pop.
Teamwork really does make the dreamwork.
By then the division of labor was clear. If it’s a troll, Mr. Efreeti kills it. If It’s not a troll, Ayla kills it. Glaicus is not a troll.
What about golems? They are not trolls, but they can also squash Halfling thieves to goo, especially if said Halfling doesn’t feel like donning Destroyer of the Hills and quaffing a potion of absorption. Time to call in our new friend and compadre, Ras. Ras is immune to physical damage, and activating it doesn’t break invisibility. Ras is a backstabber’s best friend. A golem killer’s best friend, too.
As for the iron golem, he was doored under protection from poison. Cloak of the Stars darts got the kill.
After checking on her thieves in Athkatla, Ayla found a welcoming party waiting for her outside the de’Arnise hold.
Frack this! Ayla wasn’t even planning on killing Torgal at this point. She was just going to loot the keep. But she got so sick of these damn trolls, spawning and respawning, that she decided to end it once and for all. She didn’t even finish this fight. She just slinked off into the shadows and headed for Torgal. Aya is triggered. You’ve got yourself a nemesis, Torgal.
Time to murder this clown. No holds barred. Ayla set a full stack of traps, seven, and kept four in hand, ready for deployment. You bought yourself some hurt, Torgy!
This was elegant. Ayla buffed and then revealed herself. Torgal and his cronies charged. Ayla intercepted them at the door. Five of the traps fired, and then Ayla uncorked a potion of firebreath. Down goes Torgal.
Ayla steps back. Torgal’s charging lackeys are caught in the flame. They trip the remaining traps.
Just one badly injured giant troll and one yuan-ti mage left. Bring in Mr. Efreeti.
Down goes the giant troll, still no injuries.
Finally, the yuan-ti mage. Hide in shadows plus the CND drew out a pointless Divination cast. Ayla broke with a dart of stunning while his aura was clouded. Thanks for playing, snakey-poo.
And just like that, the de’Arnise Keep no longer has a troll problem. Now can we talk about how stingy Nalia is? 650 gold? Really?
Best,
A.
Thanks, @Grond0 . And Agreed: It's good to have you back @semiticgoddess !
@semiticgoddess Great to have you back!
The Avatars (Enuhal's version) - Update XXIII
The Underdark outside of Ust'Natha - a very dangerous place for any group. However, inquisitor dispel is still great against the drow parties out here:
Lastly, we have the mind flayer city. We had to forego improved haste entirely here to get 5 PFME casts in our spellbooks. Non-negotiable here, without those we would certainly just get crushed by the bigger mind flayer groups and their detonate ability. For speed and APR, we had to rely on oils of speed this time around - easy enough at the beginning, where we only face tiny groups:
Now, we just have to kill the elder brain. Usually, I just focus the brain first, because I don't actually know what psionic powers it might actually have, so I don't want to take any chances - this time, I decide to take my time and first take out the mind flayers and brain golems. BIG mistake. It turns out the elder brain can cast remove magic, and we didn't bother to protect our buffs. A brain golem instantly hits Grim Face for 42 damage, with his stoneskins now gone. Another hit like this would've killed him, though he's able to re-apply stoneskin with his AoP. Enuhal moves to safety and re-casts chaotic commands in case of any more unexpected psi-powers:
I don't play much with modded kits, but I do recall some years ago having fun playing with a War Hulk - created by @semiticgoddess. Seeing her posting this morning, I thought I might give that a run in her honour. I think the kit has been updated slightly since my last run (which would also have been in an earlier version of the basic game). To ensure no problems associated with that I've created a new starting character, though I did find my save for the original starting position.
CLASS FEATURES:
- May not use missile weapons
- May place 3 proficiency points (Mastery) in two-handed swords and halberds
- May place 2 proficiency points (Specialization) in bastard swords, longswords, katanas, scimitars, axes, war hammers, spears, flails, maces, quarterstaffs, Two-Handed Weapon Style, and Single Weapon Style
- May place 1 proficiency point (Proficiency) in short swords, daggers, and clubs
SAVAGE BLOW: Although the War Hulk may only land a single strike per round, each attack has incredible force behind it. The War Hulk gains +1 Strength every level from level 1 to 5, and +1 to hit and +5% melee damage every level thereafter, along with additional bonuses every other level:
Level 1, 3, 5, 7: +1 to hit and +5% melee damage
Level 9, 11, 13, 15: +2 to hit and +10% melee damage
Level 17, 19, 21, 23: +3 to hit and +15% melee damage
Level 25, 27, 29, 31: +4 to hit and +20% melee damage
Level 33, 35, 37, 39: +5 to hit and +25% melee damage
CRITICAL STRIKE: Whenever the War Hulk lands a hit, the target has a 20% chance of being stunned for 6 seconds and pushed back on a failed save vs. death at -3.
RAGE: War Hulks channel their rage into their strikes, using pain and fury to add force to each blow. War Hulks strike harder when they are wounded, but the rage weakens their minds and causes them to lower their defenses. Whenever the War Hulk suffers damage, he or she gains a set of combat bonuses and penalties:
+15% melee damage
+1 THAC0
+1 save vs. death
+1 movement rate
Immunity to fear
-1 AC
-1 save vs. spell
All effects are cumulative and last 2 rounds. In addition, the War Hulk has a 25% chance of going berserk on a failed save vs. spell, gaining double the above bonuses and penalties for 1 round.
UNSTOPPABLE: Highly experienced or enraged War Hulks may overcome any obstacle in their path, whether magical or physical. Whenever the War Hulk is knocked unconscious or immobilized, he or she may attempt a save vs. death at -15. If successful, the War Hulk can shrug off the effects of sleep, hold, paralysis, or stun.
- Hit Die: 2d8 (2d6 after level 9)
Like a kensai, the War Hulk cannot use standard missile weapons, but can use thrown daggers and axes - particularly early on that makes things much easier. One glitch is that throwing daggers are still offering 2 APR, which seems rather too generous (presumably that's a hard-coded engine restriction).
Bruce was soon on his way, picking up a couple of levels from Shoal. Note in the screenshot damage being applied without a to-hit roll following a critical hit. That's a result of critical hits having a potential chance to stun opponents.
Korax did well to paralyze both Kirian and Peter - allowing me to finish off the dangerous members of the crew.
In search of a final belt, I went next to the Cloud Peak Mountains to find Caldo and Krumm. I picked up the Chesley Crusher halberd in that area, which thematically goes well with the kit (as it restricts APR to 1). However, although the kit now allows 3 pips in halberds and 2-handed swords, one extra damage and a virtually irrelevant improvement in THAC0 still doesn't make up for the slow weapon speed - so I just sold that. I did, however, make use of the charisma tome from the Gnoll Stronghold.
At Durlag's Tower, I decided to give the last of the battle horrors a chance by standing and fighting in melee, rather than darting in and out. I nearly paid for that when the battle horror was at near death, but hit 3 times in a row, while Bruce got a critical miss. I was also now at near death with only 13 HPs (partly the result of hits from the previous battle horrors) and, even worse, the hits had initiated rage for only the second time in the run. With the reduction in AC from the earlier hits Bruce was also now a rather easier target. Fortunately, after the earlier round with 3 high rolls, the battle horror now rolled 3 poor rolls and got no further hits before the berserk state ended and Bruce could retreat.
At the Lighthouse area, a potion of clarity allowed Bruce to keep the sirines at melee. A potion of absorption helped with that, as well as the golems. They failed to land a glove on him, but a magic missile trap did enrage him - helping him one-shot the last of the golems.
Bruce is close to his final BGEE level now and will be zipping through the Nashkel Mine next.
War Hulk L7, 125 HPs, 138 kills
Grond0, are you sure if the War Hulk can actually make two attack rolls in one round using throwing daggers? The kit has an on-hit effect that's supposed to reduce its APR to 0 for 4 seconds, the idea being that it would force the War Hulk to cancel any extra attacks per round, even those from an off-hand weapon. But if your character can really land two hits with a throwing dagger, that might be because the zero-APR effect wears off just in time to get another attack. The low speed factor of throwing daggers might actually be the deciding factor in that.
A fair take, but I see it differently.
Nalia had a bad day. I’ll give her that. But everyone else in the game world can manage the practicalities of a gold based currency, and her household is among the richest and most sophisticated in the environs of Athkatla, the City of Coin. If I can trade on promissory notes -or what ever I’m using when I roll up to a potion seller with 40k- surely the de’Arnise family can too. There are banks in Faerun.
The thin payment has more to do with her character than her circumstances. At that point in her arc she’s well meaning, but elitist and naive. She doesn’t appreciate the value of the labor provided, and she doesn’t have a good sense of what things cost. Her aunt believed that we didn’t deserve a reward at all, that it was our duty to serve. Nalia wouldn’t say the same, of course, but she remains influenced by an undercurrent of that train of thought, and the attendant cultural norms. Nalia doesn’t want to be elitist, but she lacks the requisite self awareness to correct her behavior. Likewise, she doesn’t want to be stingy, but she’s insufficiently aware of the world around her to avoid the mistake. In a sense, it is Nalia’s circumstances that have led to the thin payment but not the proximate circumstances of the raid: it’s the deeper circumstances of her upbringing, what she has learned and what she has been shielded from learning. The Nalia of ToB would have been more generous and fair. She would have found a way.
Anyhoo, this isn't important, obviously. It was really just a one off joke to end the post, lol.
Best,
A.
Fresh off her triumph at the de’Arnise Keep, Ayla undertook her wildest adventure yet, a planar joy ride in the Corthala family mobile home. Ayla was in command throughout this quest, but she did suffer some injuries. Care to guess which foe vexed her most? I’ll give you a hint: It’s who you’d expect exactly. This is not a trick quest.
It was not the opening clay golem. Since cursed wounds are active, Ayla has been giving clay golems a wide berth. Ras took point while Mr. Efreeti wailed away from the flank. I’m not sure why Mr. Efreeti’s scimitar qualifies as a magical blunt weapon, but I’m not complaining.
What about the hungry, hungry Halflings? It wasn’t them. No thanks to the Knights of Solamnia, ofc. Umm, I’m being hunted by cannibals here. Are you guys just going to watch? Really?
After dispatching the fodder, Ayla set her traps and took her buffs. As for the buffs, they were Ayla’s standards, DUHM, Ilbratha MI and RoAC II. To that she added a few potions: an oil of speed, a potion of stone form and a potion of strength. The latter potion, the potion of strength, allowed Ayla to swap out her Girdle of Hill Giant Strength for the BoIB. This move will become ever more common going forward.
As per usual, Ayla opened with a backstab, choosing Togan, due to his proximity. He survived, albeit at near death.
Togan raced away, as he is wont to do. Ayla returned to the shadows in preparation for a behind the lines mission. Nice knowing you, Kayardi.
With the mage out of the action, and Togan near death, Ayla now had the upper-hand. Enemy summons remained a nuisance, however. Ayla fell back and called in some summons of her own: Ras and Mr. Efreeti. Togan lost his nerve and decided to run for it. You sure you want to go that way, Togan…
Soon after Entu landed a ballistic attack, causing Ayla’s only injury in the fight. All that did was move him to the top of the hit list. Word of advice, Entu: If you can’t detect the invisible, don’t piss off a savvy thief with a movement rate bonus.
Just Mogadish now. You guys are the worst Halflings ever. So says Ayla.
More hungry, hungry Halflings. Taibela was chunk-stabbed.
Necre caught a dart of stunning while she was trying to cast Oracle. Ayla loves to draw out Divination casts and then break stealth with darts of stunning. She’s running low on darts, an emerging issue for her.
Ayla finished at range because of Necre’s Fireshield: Blue. Two doses of poison, via dart of wounding, followed by Tuigan. Clean kill.
What of the mech room golems? Did they give Ayla the most grief? Noppers: They were just juked. Invisibility via Efreeti Bottle->Arbane Haste->Ras->RoAC II.
How about Lavok? Did he do the deed? After all, it is not a trick question, right? Wouldn’t you expect Lavok to be the most dangerous foe? Maybe for some. But this is Ayla we’re talking about. No mage could be her nemesis.
Ayla entered the control room HiS. She buffed prematurely, and then belatedly cased her prey. She found a little nook close to the staircase where she could lay traps. She put some down.
Next, she revealed herself. Let’s check those buffs.
Upon seeing Improved Mantle, Ayla returned to the shadows. She waited. When she saw a window, she broke with a dispelling arrow. Success.
Ayla’s follow up cold arrows did middling damage, but they did shut Lavok’s casting down. All the while, Ayla crept backwards.
Hey, Lavok! Why don’t you step down from there? You know you want to. You can’t reach me from up there. Come on! Just step down. You know you want to! Eventually he did, and when he did Ayla’s traps fired. Game over, Lavok.
What of Tolgerias? Backstab-> potion of firebreath. Yawn.
And the tanar’ri? Ayla’s main concerns here were Death Gaze and the mephitis. A potion of freedom covered the death gaze risk. Mr. Efreeti, with his fire resistance, handled the mephitis, leaving Ayla free to fire away at the tanar’ri with her Cloak of the Stars darts.
Once the tanar’ri made his way around the mephitis, Ayla summoned Ras, hoping it would run distraction.
The tanar’ri was too smart for that, but alas, he was too dumb to notice the traps that he walking right to. By the time the fight ended, he had done 9 damage, four less than Entu. Entu is still in the lead. And Entu, as we know, is not the winner.
Onto the elemental rooms. Here we see an ever dangerous noble efreeti, stunned by a dart while Ayla sits on full health, running 100% fire resistance via potion of fire resistance and protection from fire. Apparently it was not the noble efreeti. But of course it wasn’t. How could it be?
There is one and only one enemy that it could have been. Surely you know by now. Who else could it have been? Fortunately, the damage was meager and Mr. Efreeti stepped up again. Oh, how Ayla hates trolls. May they all die in agony.
On to the engine room. It’s time to light this candle. As for you, Mr. Clay Golem, have fun with Ras. And meet my new level 21 traps. You can make a + 4 v death, but can you make it 5 times?
Anyhoo, that was a fun quest. Ayla is pleased. I'm not sure what's next for Ayla, but I'm leaning towards Windspear Hills.
Best,
A.
@semiticgoddess it seems to work as I would expect if dual wielding, but with throwing daggers it's possible to get 2 attacks pretty close together. I've not tested it properly, so if the reduction in APR operated only once per round that might explain it - getting attacks at the beginning and end of round 1 and then another at the beginning of round 2 - but that didn't seem to be what you were intending.
However, if the reduction in APR is only operating when hits are scored that could well explain it. At lower levels there are quite a few misses when using missile weapons and I've not been watching closely to see whether attacks are more closely spaced when misses are made compared to hits.
EFREETSU is the creature you get if you cast the level 7 wizard spell. It's level 5, and wields B3-24.itm - nonmagical, 3d8 crushing damage.
SUMEFREE is the creature you get if you use the efreeti bottle. It's level 10, and wields GENSCIM.itm - +4 enchantment, 2d8 crushing damage.
(None of the other stats are different between the two creatures, only their level and weapon. They clearly should both be level 10)
Both efreeti use the same scimitar-wielding animation, of course.
I don't use Spell Revisions, since I angle for relatability in my posts, but I do like what SR did with the efreeti weapon. +2 Scimitar: 1d8+10 slashing +1d6 fire. That makes sense to me.
Byrd (male half-elf beast master, Grond0); Gulpo (male dwarf berserker, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1195376/#Comment_1195376
Berserker 8, 112 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 200 kills, 2 deaths
The Avatars (Enuhal's version) - Update XXIV
Before entering Ust'Natha, we prepared some traps for the underdark party - 4 normal traps and 1 spike trap ended up being enough to take all of them out. I used death spell via helmet for the mind flayer battle in order to save Phaere, but it seems like SCS gives the mind flayers here the ability to survive death spell now, so we had to do some minor fighting - we weren't exactly well buffed, having mostly only defensive spells active, but despite Grond0 once again getting to 1 hit away from int-drain-death, we were able to succeed:
Well, now we still had to clear up house Jae'llat. Enter Alesia:
Yup! I know. And that's consistent with my thesis. It's juvenile and petty of her to withhold payment simply because she didn't get her way.
(And to be clear: I didn't catch that you were being disingenuous the first time. I see that now.)
Anyhoo, nice update once again! You're crushing it! That Crooked Cane lice fight sounded a little dicey though, lol.
Best,
A.
Anyway, I've been trying a no-reload run of my own. This run has a specific goal - to turn that theory-crafted build that kills Sarevok in one hit into a reality.
To that end, I need a very specific party. I can recruit some of them out in the world, but three of the necessary characters must be created as the proper builds don't exist otherwise. Here's the party:
One Punch Man, part 1
Part 2
We need two more specific characters that we'll recruit when the time comes. The last slot can be filled at our convenience, and I have a plan for it already. I'll be playing on Core difficulty, unmodded, in an install that doesn't have SoD. The run ends when either Sarevok or Saitama dies.
The adventure begins with us taking care of some minor matters in Candlekeep.
By the time we're out of Candlekeep, everyone has their preferred weapons. Including unbreakable melee weapons for all three - a staff, a ninjato, and a throwing axe. Not that I'd let any of them fight in melee right now, with their level 1 fragility.
Imoen, Montaron, and Xzar join briefly before we dismiss them. After taking their useful potions, of course.
Then we go out hunting the local wildlife...
The remaining animals and diseased gibberlings go down without further incident, and we move on.
At this point, we're looking out for easy XP. Joia and the hobgoblins around the Friendly Arm. Calming down Marl. Picking up a scroll case. Then we buy some +1 ammo and a +1 sling, and rest in Beregost.
Our next target is the pair of flesh golems at High Hedge. They hit hard, but they're pure melee monsters and they're easy to hit if you have the ranged magical weapons for it. Which we do.
But first, there are some skeletons and gnolls to take care of.
Hit the gnolls by the southeast wall of the wizard's retreat, fall back ... into a newly spawned skeleton. This is getting hairy - time for a panic button.
That brings us to the golems. Plink away, draw the first one outside where we have more room ...
The second golem falls equally easily; 7 +1 bullets and 12 +1 arrows used for the pair. We sell off the junk, then head back to town for another +1 weapon - a 5-pack of those +1 throwing axes for Gabrielle. She won't be throwing them.
Now we have some more spell slots, but nothing to use them on. We need some random scroll drops, and that means more monsters like hobgoblins that drop random loot. South it is.
Two ogrillons later, the next level comes in:
We now head off the road itself to kill some of this map's hobgoblins. The very first one drops a Protection from Petrification scroll ... scribing failed despite the 86% chance. Better luck next time, I suppose. Three more scrolls follow for the bards: Friends (failed), Identify (success), Color Spray (failure). Well, at least one of the bards can memorize spells. Gabrielle takes a hit from an archer hobgoblin, and I make the decision to head south to Nashkel and increase our healing capability. Return to Beregost to rest, as the Nashkel inn isn't safe yet.
After that rest, I decide to try out the spider house:
My next targets are up north - some fishermen, a priestess, and some zombies. Tenya backs down after one good hit, but the ankheg north of her is more dangerous ...
The zombies are easy, though I do get sloppy and let Gabrielle take a hit (critical, for 6 damage). She gets a healing potion for that, since I don't actually have the healing power yet.
The fishermen all get to live, and Tenya gets her bowl back for 2500 XP.
I end this first session with a rest at Ulgoth's Beard, and pick up that first Bhaalspawn healing power. One Cure Light Wounds per day, more than tripling our free healing rate.
This bunch still have a long way to go before I recruit the other half of the party. So much kiting...
(Oops, forgot to add the pictures. They're in now.)
Oh, Autocorrect: You always make me laugh.
@Alesia_BH It's almost like Ayla toured the planes just to take a break from the guild duties, the way how easy she makes it look. She's a grown-up punk rocker indeed and I deeply admire her resource management among others. Thank you for delivering an ongoing source of inspiration and style.
@semiticgoddess @jmerry Great to have you here and I hope you'll have a good time with your respective runs!
@Grond0 Best wishes to Bruce (or any other character/party you may be running in the background in parallel)!
Technical notes:
Game version: BGEE 2.6.6.0 (no SoD)
Difficulty: Hardcore
Mods: SCS (v34.3) with all tactical and AI components; BG Tweaks (cosmetic changes)
Modified SCS components: Giant Spiders (Tactical)
As indicated, I've been inclined to start another run and I'm pleased to enter Sorsha. She's an un-kitted human bard and she's expected to be travelling solo for the vast majority of the run.
(Note: Portrait has been respectfully borrowed from vinegar at DeviantArt)
After playing a sorcerer, whose reliance on items is typically fairly limited, I was interested in a character who's main asset will be his/her inventory. This is facilitated mainly by the bard's ability to use wands and scrolls, flexible weapon proficiencies and, ultimately, UAI. Pickpocketing provides a useful synergy in this respect, be that in terms of improving our balance sheet for shopping purposes or obtaining certain helpful items (we're looking at you Dushai).
Sorsha's starting weapon proficiencies were staves and short bows, which is my absolutely favorite combination at least for BG1 purposes.
The intention had been to go with a neutral alignment on a purely roleplaying basis, however in the end I decided to go along with neutral good - it's still justifiable and sufficiently authentic and it means Azuredge in early SoA (at the cost enemy Unholy Blights being one more thing to worry about).
Considering the other strengths of the class apart from the level progression (and the corresponding caster levels), there's the bard song. I admit to having a love-hate relationship with the mechanics, which either induces passivity (and therefore is not really well suited for a solo play) or "hyperactivity" (with one trying to manage various actions throughout each combat round in a way that keeps the song active at all times). With the aim of landing at what I saw as a middle ground, I decided to give Sorsha a personal item created via NearInfinity which was intended to "simulate" the bard song effect.
For the record, here's our inventory ahead of Sorsha's first spell scribing session at the High Hedge (that we could afford thanks to the Ring of Wizardy). We're now all set to start exploring the Sword Coast.
Regards,
B.
Best wishes!
A.
Previous posts: Introduction
I might have jumped ahead of the schedule a bit with that previous screenshot from High Hedge - most of you could say, and rightly so, that any proper run should start with the dead belt ogre. Here you go. He will not crush!
Speaking of High Hedge, there's more to it than shopping and chickens. We tested our new Wand of Sleep against the "big guy with a dog's head" or the "thievin' ball-o-fur". Oh yes, Perdue's a funny bloke. He was pleased. Or not really?
Definitely not pleased enough to help us with Karlat, from whom we had to ran away before he could chop us down to his size. Not sure if it's us, but we seem to get into trouble in almost every watering hole in Beregost we visit. With Marl, at least, Sorsha managed to de-escalate the situation with her empathy and cheerful presence.
It's not only people getting at us, but spiders too. Giant spiders, yuck! Though I admit we had no business trespassing in that house in the first place. But still, at least "enter at your own risk" sign would help.
Eventually, we did find a nice place to stay here. It's called the Jovial Juggler and it has tasty food, decent rooms and easygoing clientelle. That's straight 5 stars on Trip Advisor; we'll be back.
Mirianne asked us for help and she got it.
Zhurlong did not precisely "ask" for help, but he got his boots back nonetheless.
So who's the thespian extraordinaire? Sorsha's pretty sure it's not this Silke, though she seemed to busy to talk to. We'll have to check on her again later.
Completing all these chores around the town brought us to level 4 at 5k XP, unlocking our first L2 spell slot. We load it with Mirror Image in order to secure the gem back from Neera by fighting the Red Wizard.
Strength spells gets us inside the manor where Sorsha collects the Wand of Lightning.
Finally, we venture beyond the town limits a bit, collecting Melicamp, while Shield->MIs->equip chainmail->Wand of Sleep charge combo take care of Zargal and his crew. And yes, that armor was thrown it for style only.
To conclude with a cliffhanger, the results of the Antichickenator will be revealed in the next episode.
Regards,
B.
Part 2
While we're in the Cloakwood, I pick up the one NPC I've found myself recruiting more than any other in my BG1 runs: Coran! Outside of solo runs, I rely very heavily on Arrows of Detonation and Arrows of Dispelling to deal with the BG1 endgame, and Coran is one of the best archers in the game.
We still have to deal with a wyvern to make sure Coran will stay in the party. Rather than fight the Cloakwood wyverns face to face like I normally do, I try the invisible blocker strategy I first learned from @Grond0 many years ago.
Before we deal with Davaeorn, I do some side quests to bolster our levels. Bassilus, notably, failed his save against an opening Silence 15' Radius spell from Tiax.
We are now in very solid condition. Kagain has High Mastery in axes, Coran and Tiax are level 5/6, and Xan now has 3rd-level spells! With 20,000 gold and most of the key pre-Baldur's Gate items in hand, we are ready to handle Davaeorn.
Honestly, though, the bigger threat is Drasus, whose boots are just too tempting to pass up. I decide to use solo strats, charming Drasus' buddies and luring them away to get killed by a nearby guard. Coran carries Algernon's Cloak, since his mediocre stealth still makes him better at sneaking around Drasus than Moth Sibula herself.
Xan has just barely enough Invisibility spells to smuggle the party through the mines. Coran must rely on his own stealth skills to get past, however.
At the bottom, I use the invisible blocker strat to hold down the Guard before Davaeorn. However, the group hug ends up winning him over instead
With Davaeorn dead, we do a few fetch quests to grab some stat tomes and make our way to Baldur's Gate! Invisibility lets us tackle the sewer ogre mage safely (especially when he fails his save vs. Silence 15' Radius), and I snag the Cloak of Balduran early by leaving one carrion crawler alive so we can charm Quenash. We feed the worm its last meal.
Thus far, mages haven't been too tricky on their own, but in the tight spaces of Ramazith's tower, we have no choice but to deploy a weapon Moth Sibula gained a while ago: Shatter Spell! This is one of the many kit abilities the Trickster can steal from other Artisan Kitpack kits, and it lets the first successful attack roll within 12 seconds cast Breach on the target. I hope it will prove useful against SoA mages despite their ample spell buffs on Insane mode, but lower-level mages in BG1 only have MGOI, which is no defense.
Before we tackle Cythandria, we head back to Durlag's Tower for some looting. A rogue with the Boots of Speed, a few Potions of Perception, and a Protection from Undead scroll is sufficient to loot the entirety of the Warder levels, as long as you use stealth to get around the non-undead enemies (and a Ring of Free Action is enough to safely walk past the Mustard Jellies). Even though we're more than strong enough to clear out the level--aside from Love et al, perhaps--I find it more convenient to simply avoid fights.
Just kidding. I only travel while invisible.
Kaalos and Shennara from the first Iron Throne fight never despawn, so they're still upstairs since I never fought the first fight. No reason to tackle them and Cythandria at the same time, so I set up an invisible wall, bait them into breaking their initial stealth (which Moth Sibula's Detect Illusions ability cannot dispel), and use Tiax's ghast to paralyze them while they try to backstab it with Potions of Invisibility (which Moth Sibula can dispel).
Now we need to deal with Slythe and Kristin. Kagain is beginning to get tired of his position as our tank.
Kristin is better protected. In addition to Stoneskins, she also comes with MGOI and an opening PFMW. I could use Xan to remove the former, but since we've only got one party member that can use mage wands and I don't have a Wand of the Heavens right now, there's not much point in bringing Xan out of the shadows to cast Spell Thrust. She'd probably just nail him with Chaos or shoot him down with Minute Meteors.
Kristin's best defense, however, is her buggy stealth: unless SCS gives her the Shadowdancer kit, her ability to hide when she's out of sight (which I'm sure is standard SCS thief behavior) can actually trigger even when she's right in front of you. Now you see her...
The Ducal Palace fight goes very cleanly. I set a suite of traps to the southeast and in the doorway leading straight from the front entrance, which deals a big chunk of damage at the start of the fight. Once Coran's Arrow of Dispelling hit the Doppelganger mage, I feel secure in our success.
Before we proceed, I do another circuit around the Sword Coast to pick up key items I haven't needed yet, but might need for SoD. We charm Bentan at the Firewine Ruins and feed him to the zombies to take his Pro Magic scroll, blast Kiran et al with disablers to steal the Golden Girdle, and finally charm Halbazzer Drin and lure him off to the Undercity maze by ordering him to attack us as we do area transitions.
For party runs, I like to rely on a very expensive and micro-heavy but very safe strategy, which nearly always stars Coran: put a suit of armor and the Boots of Speed on an archer, give them a Protection from Magic scroll, and then use a whole bunch of potions and Amulet of the Shield charges to buff them up. With those defenses and movement rate bonuses, they can mercilessly kite the enemy nearly unpunished.
First, though, we need to nail Sarevok with an Arrow of Dispelling, who otherwise is far too quick for Coran to escape and still have plenty of time to fire Arrows of Detonation at Diarmid.
A very large threat to Coran, in this case, because I didn't think I needed to have him spam the Amulet of the Shield to get -20 AC vs. missiles. Turns out that was a mistake.
I have Halbazzer Drin keep summoning critters, which is about as much as he's good for in this run. His Symbol spells at the start of the fight failed to do anything, and his other high-level spell slots were all summons. But the extra firepower helps bring down the Skeleton Warriors, which Coran would have struggled to handle on his own (I often use a Protection from Undead scroll to just avoid them, in solo runs).
This has been a pretty typical BG1 party run for me. Basilisks at the start, charms for Mulahey and Denak and Drasus, the Ring of Energy for Davaeorn, Arrows of Dispelling for Cythandria and Kristin, and Arrows of Detonation and the Wand of Paralyzation for Sarevok--with generous use of Invisibility throughout the game, both to dodge optional fights and to enter every mandatory fight with optimal buffs and positioning.
Part 3
We are now in SoD! I love Siege of Dragonspear and its diverse enemies and encounters, but I always feel a little paranoid because I have so many memories of losing runs to the final battle, an excruciating ordeal that became especially terrifying when I used to do solo LoB runs against the final boss.
The first dungeon can be a little sticky on Insane mode due to the presence of Shadowed Souls, who deal magical damage at range automatically every round. Only MGOI and magic resistance can block it based on what I see in Near Infinity, which is not something I usually run.
To circumvent this, I cover Coran with a Protection from Undead scroll and have him down a Potion of Invisibility. Combine that with the Greenstone Amulet and he can run past every enemy and over every trap straight to Korlasz. After the last trap dispels him, we give him some general defenses, namely the Greenstone Amulet and a Potion of Invulnerability, to keep him safe while he aims for a quick kill on Korlasz with Arrows of Dispelling and the Ring of Energy.
Korlasz dies quickly, which is important because her allies have some very nasty ranged attacks. IIRC you have Called Shot, Darts of Stunning, and/or Darts of Wounding to worry about. And because we can only spare a single Protection from Undead scroll to get Coran to Korlasz, Coran has to win the fight alone, without party support.
With Korlasz gone, all of her allies and all of the undead currently in the dungeon go away, letting us loot the place safely as long as we have Tiax use Sanctuary to snag the Cobalt Moss. We pile all of our goodies into the Bag of Holding, sell off all excess loot at Sorcerous Sundries for tens of thousands of gold, and then burn most of it on Arrows of Dispelling and Detonation and other expendables.
Now we need to pick out a party. Corwin is a must-have. She's extremely efficient at dealing with minor enemies, absolutely devastating with Arrows of Detonation during key battles, and our best damage dealer for the final battle.
We also need a tank. SoD NPCs don't have a lot of solid fighters until after Bridgefort, so we just grab Minsc, with Dynaheir in tow for wands. I also recruit Glint as an afterthought--I figure it's convenient to have him on as a utility character, though he won't be a big player in any major fight.
Normally I skip everything in Coastway Crossing, but our endgame ToB plans involve Defensive Stance and damage resistance stacking, and the helm of Dumathoin gives a +3% resistance to physical damage that could be really useful against ToB dragons and such. But to get that item in BG2, we need to first grab it in SoD.
Which requires tackling the Coldhearth Lich and the dungeon that precedes it. I am not happy about this.
The last fight before the lich is a nightmare. We have to bring down two Skeleton Warriors with sky-high magic resistance, near-immunity to arrows, and strong melee attacks. They kill Minsc and force us to burn many, many wand charges and magical arrows to end the fight.
The lich is straightforward by comparison. The Secret Revealed breaks it.
We win the Helm of Dumathoin and finally escape the claws of the dungeon. As long as we're fishing for importable items, we do some other quests on the way to the next main quest target, trapping Teleria and bombing scattered mobs with the Wand of Fire--notably taking a detour for a spare Enchanted Weapon scroll in a troll cave.
We kill Morentherene with a nonmagical throwing dagger and get ready for a sluggish crawl through the Neothelid dungeon. Dynaheir is now at level 9, which means two slots for Sunfire and enough Protection from Fire spells to cover the party. We can now bomb enemies harder and faster, without needing the Wand of Fire!
Ziatar goes down quickly as a result. To my surprise, the Neothelid doesn't live long enough to reburrow itself a single time.
While we're here, we tackle Darskhelin, on the off change the Archer's Eyes is helpful in BG2. We come very well-prepared, with a full suite of traps at the doorway, but I fail to properly cover Corwin, who fails a save against Psionic Domination. Our best attacker is now our biggest enemy.
Moth Sibula debuffs the enemy mage with Shatter Spell, Dynaheir bombs with Sunfire, and we start clearing the field. But damn do we have to fight for it.
I'm not sure if Arrows of Dispelling are supposed to work in my install (I haven't updated SCS) and I don't want to rely on a tactic that's otherwise impossible, so instead of using them to dispel the bridge mage, I opt for Shatter Spell instead. I'm a little worried, since we need more luck out of our attack rolls to prevent her from opening a portal to the Plane of Fire, but Corwin fortunately doesn't roll any critical misses.
Next we snatch the Dragon Blade. That means killing Rigah and his witch. We charm both of them with the Nymph Cloak, have the witch burn her best spells, and then pin them down with backstabs and traps. As usual, I have charmed enemies switch weapons before backstabbing, since they get -4 AC and take 4 extra damage from melee attacks if they're unarmed or have ranged weapons equipped.
We still get blocked on the way by a batch of enemies that use True Seeing. In retrospect, I should have waited out the spell and drunk more potions to slip by unscathed, but I try to charge my way out to save time, and end up getting blocked off from the exit. I deploy our wands to clear a path, but it's still hard work to chew through all the enemies.
We now have several mandatory fights ahead of us, each of which is VERY spooky without adequate preparation. The coalition camp invasion can lead to a near-unstoppable swarm of enemies and an instant game over if you try to retreat or let an enemy slip by (*never* use fear or confusion in that fight), the siege at Dragonspear Castle itself is the largest-scale fight in the game if you can't or don't deal with Ashatiel solo, and then...
...well, after that comes the final battle.
The graveyard for many of my past runs.