No-Hope Necromancer: A Random Run, Part 5
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Alright, true to plan, we set off for the Unseeing Eye... which means we first need to clear the Sewers.
The Rakshasa, surprisingly, isn't such a big deal: It pops a Sunfire which deals a bit of damage, but we can tank it just fine by now, and fairly rapidly get through its Stoneskins even without Breach available.
Tarnor's party is quite a bit more troublesome. We lead with Skeleton Warriors and several Stinking Clouds, which let us take out Tarnor himself, Draug Fea and Zorl, but that leaves several troublesome enemies... Gaius manages a Flesh to Stone aimed at FT, who thankfully makes his save. We bludgeon our way through, but this again drives home just how weak we are in a straight-up fight (no wonder, since half the party, i.e. PoL, PoT and N, can't really contribute anything of note without firing off spells).
Skeleton Warriors are again key to managing the southern part of the sewers, owing to the Gauths and Beholders that teleport in.
Not sure how I'd handle this without them, though I suppose it'd entail a frantic fully-buffed charge and immediate attempts to nova down the Beholders.
Mekrath is next. He's reasonably high level, but doesn't get 9th level spells... yet still Dimension Door's into the midst of the party.
A Delayed Blast Fireball, aimed squarely at our frontliners (FC/FI/FT) by a minor miracle fails to kill anyone, though FI and FT are both badly singed. We're playing a bit fast and loose here, but what can you do? It's the price you pay for not scribing Breach the moment it becomes available.
Once again, Skeleton Warriors save our bacon.
The Yuan-Ti Mages in his lair are almost worse than Mekrath: We get three (!), all of them Conjurers (!!), and so literally have to wait out the small army of Elementals they conjure up before we can put them down.
Drudgery, drudgery... at least we do come out on top, and as a consolation price, a Ghast in the tunnels below drops a Power Word, Stun scroll. I'll take it. A double Cloudkill and some Skeleton Warriors clear the single Beholder group down here, and we withdraw to rest before descending into the Pit of the Faithless.
Thankfully, we're too pitiful to get a Lich spawn: It's the standard Bone Golem x2, Skeleton Warrior x3, Greater Mummy x2 instead.
Greater Mummies can be bad, but Flame Strike is surprisingly potent against them, as PoL demonstrates. The rest of the undead fall easily enough to buffed frontliners.
The Gauntlets of Dexterity is a vital piece of equipment for FC: We finally have a frontliner that's all but immune to everything (as she's wearing the Amulet of Power as well), and very difficult to land a hit on.
The Unseeing Eye's area goes smooth as well: There aren't that many Beholders/Gauths here, and the few there are succumb easily to Skeleton Warriors. Honestly, the Blind Priests put up more of a fight, though they are quite vulnerable to area damage (and Silence 15' Radius, though we forgot to memorize that).
Even with two Death Tyrants aiding it, the Unseeing Eye, once weakened by the Rod, is no match for Skeleton Warriors, and we emerge triumphant.
Compared to a lair full of Beholders, Gaal doesn't really put up much resistance, and we complete the questline without incident.
Oh, it also turns out that there were yet more Vampire ambushes we hadn't triggered yet... Tanova and two cronies accost us in the Government district, though thankfully the former doesn't have her spellcasting powers during this encounter.
We somehow manage to come out on top.
There was also an Ogre ambush that had yet to occur(really? Ogres? How would they ever be able to move anywhere in a city without being found out?), though as we were traveling invisibly at the time they were no threat to us.
Here we also proceed with the Sir Sarles questline, obtaining the Illithium by brutalizing Neb.
Also, at long last, we do a scroll scribing session: Breach is now available, along with several 6th level spells, notably Improved Haste.
Flush with our newfound (percieved...) power, we immediately underestimate the Vampires, and pay the price.
Again, Skeleton Warriors saved us. We were able to shift them around to momentarily distract the Vampires as (the non-Dominated members of) the party beat a hasty retreat to the south.
We came back refreshed and quite a bit better prepared, as a Fledgling Vampire found out to its detriment; that's a nice critical hit.
Since we're having so much trouble, we take a moment to forge the Improved Mace of Disruption +2: It is put to immediate good use against the ambush downstairs.
Ah, Tanova... how I loathe you. This time, she prepared that Spell Sequencer against which there ought to be a law: Skull Trap x3, aimed squarely at N. Normally, this'd be cause for extreme concern, but being a Necromancer, N was very unlikely to fail all his saves.. and indeed, he made them all, taking only about 35 damage.
We repay Tanova with IMoD +2 to the face.
After easily dispatching Lassal, we prepare for Bodhi. Another oddity here: We somehow get hit by our own False Dawn, but it deals Fire damage (?), and Confuses both Clerics (??). Guess we won't be using that again...
No idea how that came about. Thankfully, we force Bodhi to retreat in quick fashion, and can then leave this dreadful abode behind.
There were some levels, though nothing of much note: Both Clerics reached L12, and the frontliners got Fighter L10.
I'm just glad we made it through in one piece.
Now, with the IMoD +2 as well as a few L6 slots, I feel more confident about braving the Windspear Hills.
Even Trademeet, with its resident Rakshasa, is now an option (with Breach available)... then we can start contemplating the Planar Sphere.
A fairly short update, but it took a lot of time playing to reach this point: As noted before, Clerics don't really contribute much in terms of damage once past BG1EE, and we are suffering a bit from our principal frontliner still lacking weapon specialization.
The situation is slowly but steadily improving, however. I'm considering the sizable investment of purchasing the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength (~11k gold at our current reputation of 17), though we do also need money for scrolls in the Underdark... we'll see what happens.
At any rate, we're all still in one piece, and will keep on truckin'.
We still had some odds and sods to do in the City, starting with clearing out Ramazith's Tower that had only been half-completed last time. We also picked up the Cloak of Balduran, but rather than deal with the Iron Throne immediately we decided to do a quick tour of some of the remaining highlights on the map. That started with the basilisk area, where a spirit snake led the way to protect the rest of us from deadly gazes. Once Mutamin was dead, Kirian's crew stood no chance against a pair of raging berserkers.
Deja had been carrying a skull around for quite a while, so decided to go and find Melicamp to put it to use. He failed to survive his transformation, but we consoled ourselves by picking up a pretty penny for sorting out Bassilus.
Back at the Iron Throne, Corezerk led to get up close and personal with the party there. Deja had access to 5th level spells by this time and the use of insect plague made the casters innocuous. Gardush was the only one to survive until that had ended - and he ended a second or two later.
We hurried on to Candlekeep and it was only after arriving there that I realized I hadn't checked that we had a storm giant strength potion - so the strength tome remained there for another lucky adventurer to find . Prat was another to fail to deal with insects on the way out.
The end game encounters saw Slythe pulled away from his companion and summarily dispatched. At the palace a few nymphs joined our ranks, but didn't have much time to do anything as the dopplegangers went down so quickly.
In the maze Deja decided not to make use of a protection from undead scroll and the berserkers duly gave the skeleton warriors a lesson in deadly melee tactics. In the Undercity Kerb tried to roll over Rahvin's party in the same way. That was duly done, though he got hurt quite badly by Rahvin's 2 exploding arrows - perhaps next time he will accept the fire protection he was offered .
In the old temple Sarevok was pulled away from his companions as usual. Semaj teleported after him, but ran into some dispelling arrows and didn't last long. Kerb chose to take Sarevok on toe to toe and just managed to outlast him.
We just had time to transfer the characters to BG2EE and send Imoen on her way before saving.
Totemic druid 10, 76 HPs, 0 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 7 (G70), 105 HPs, 0 kills (263 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Berserker 7 (CR), 99 HPs, 0 kills (220 in BGEE), 0 deaths
With his own pair of haste boots and a spot of dual wielding, Corezerk got the most kills in that session, though he couldn't pull back the big lead Kerb had established. It will be interesting to see how they match up in BG2EE.
No-Hope Necromancer: A Random Run, Part 6
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Alright! We take off for Windspear Hills; this time, we do not walk close enough to the dungeon to trigger Garen, and so we get to rest at his cabin and deal with the ambush.. though the experience was nothing much, really, and we did not need yet another Plate Mail to lug around.
We press into the dungeon proper, clearing out roughly sixteen Vampiric Mists. No exaggeration either, they came trickling in a few at a time, responding to calls for help from the Hobgoblins, and when we finally pushed through to the pond area, there were another eight waiting for us...
FI now has enough spell slots to go supernova twice a day (once a day while protecting his buffs), as the Rukh Transmuter finds out: There's just no way to hurt FI unless you've got HLA's; a Planetar would do a real number on him though.
It also turns out we are too low-level to trigger an Adamantite Golem spawn, and so the Clay/Stone/Juggernaut Golems actually don't pose much difficulty, mainly because I remembered to memorize a bunch of Free Action this time to counter the incessant Slow spam. Aerial Servants are also a nice option against Clay Golems.
The first Undead spawn is rather massive: I didn't quite count, but it was on the order of two Ancient, three Elder Vampires, plus three Mummies and some Ghasts. That IMoD +2 is really paying off...
Also good that FI can pump his AC so low; someone like Minsc would just die instantly to all the CON drain from getting pummeled.
The Greater Wraiths to the south are easy in comparison. We push on a bit, but are forced to stop at the bridge: The Golems from the north came running to help the Orogs, and while we came out on top, FC got hit with Cursed Wounds.
Just as well that we rest up: Clearing this dungeon in one go under SCS Insane is not so easy, and really, there's no need to push ourselves so either.
This time, we just take the safe option and send a bunch of Skeleton Warriors at the Director. And yeah, he does fire off Enervation twice... so you should probably have NPP up if you want to fight him fairly.
Samia and friends are next (the Guardians were handled with FC and FI under Protection from Fire, nothing special): Kaol and Akae are the real threats here.
Fortunately, Akae fails his save against a Chromatic Orb and is swiftly taken down, and Kaol on his own can't keep up with our frequent removals of both his spell and physical defenses.
Next, we bludgeon Tazok and grab the Full Plate Mail +1.
The Air Elemental down the well deals a little damage with its Whirlwinds, but nothing major.
Even the Adamantite Golem is no issue: It glues itself to FC who leads it around the chamber while FT utilizes our only +3 weapon (Lilarcor) to slowly whittle it down.
Finally, the Greater Wolfwere and its accompanying Wolfweres are taken care of, and it's time for one of the potentially major threats here: Conster.
We head downstairs, talk to Firkraag, then buff to the gills and go back upstairs.
Of course, this ends up a bit of an anticlimax: Conster spends three rounds trying to do something about our massive defenses (and succeeding, to some extent).
But ultimately, his offensive efforts amount to nothing more than some MMM's tossed at Priest of Lathander before True Sight, Pierce Magic and Breach spell his demise.
And that's it for Windspear Hills... well, almost, as Firkraag yet lives, though we'll get around to him later. Nice bit of experience.
The easy-to-middling options are almost all cleared, but we've yet to tackle Trademeet, and so, after selling off yet more Plate Mail in the city, head back out.
Of course, I make the same mistake as always, underestimating encounters. The idea was to clear the whole Druid Grove area in one rest, and I envisioned the Rakshasa being the principal danger... so most of our slots were spent on protections and anti-magics meant for that particular fight.
Should've kept in mind the massive blobs of Spirit/Spectral Trolls you have to deal with before reaching Adratha's Cottage.
Really, really fortunate that SCS Trolls will largely ignore Sleeping opponents, or that would've surely spelled the end of Necromancer.
As evident from the screenshot, we started rallying and expending resources once I realized things weren't looking so hot: The enemy group was put down, and FT was raised courtesy of a Wondrous Recall.
In comparison, the Troll Mound itself was fairly easy, since it's almost only Trolls/Giant Trolls.
We had enough spellworks left to clear the path to the Cottage (thanks mostly to the Skeleton Warriors) and took a rest just outside.
The Rakshasa actually weren't so bad: We had grossly overprepared, as it seems Ihtafeer was the only one with higher-level spells, and she dropped pretty quickly.
The most dangerous thing that happened was one of them attaching itself (under Haste) to N for several rounds, but we were eventually able to shake it off.
A double Silence finally spelled the end of the Acolytes outside the Grove, and we watched as Cernd beat down Faldorn. Hooray!
Upon our return to Trademeet, we sacrificed a Potion of Mind Focusing to get FT to 24 DEX, and successfully filched the Efreeti Bottle of Taquee. Hooray Hooray!
I usually just turn in the Mantle to Logan, but this time opted to deal with Skarmaen and Lilith, as I wanted the former's Elven Chainmail. It's not much, but it's significantly better than nothing, which is what FI wears whenever he's casting spells right now.
Lilith had access to 7th level spells, but didn't get around to casting much beyond a Mantle: Skarmaen had only minor protections and was quickly hacked down.
Well, all things considered, Trademeet was quite easy... just gotta be careful not to underestimate the damnable Trolls so.
No levels this time, but both Clerics are on the verge of unlocking 7th level slots, and FC is about to get a 6th level slot, allowing her to (finally) protect her buffs once a day.
We're now running out of easy things to do.
I'll quickly mop up the Kidnappers as well as the Sea's Bounty Pirates (we'll go in with apocalyptic buff levels this time...), then there's just the Thief stronghold left before things start to get hairy.
We should be sitting around 70k gold once that is done, and we'll have a fair number of valuable gems to pawn off, so it seems a good time to hit the Underdark: We should be able to afford the critical gear from the Drow and Duergar merchants, no sweat, and we'll be quite high-level too. Importantly, N should be able to cast 7th level spells by the time we reach Ust Natha, and this time we absolutely will not underestimate Deirex so...
No-Hope Necromancer: A Random Run, Part 7
Previous part found here
Continuing where we left off, we round up the last easy quests in the city: Thwarting the kidnappers, dealing with the Sea's Bounty Pirates, and finally Mae'Var. No difficulties at all, really.
Now, the choice is Brynnlaw or start dealing with higher-level stuff.
Given that, barring an incredibly fortunate random SCS drop of a Ruby Ray scroll (which I don't think I've ever seen), there's no way for us to deal with L18+ enemy Mages and their Spell Trap, I go with Brynnlaw.
Prepared as we are (and packing the IMoD +2), the initial vampire ambush is shrugged off.
We rush through the town and swiftly dismantle Vadek; he only got to cast a single Improved Mantle (pun not intended).
Next, Perth the Adept. Once he's disposed of Kitthix, he's actually quite keen on following us outside: Fortunately, the three Greater Earth Elementals he gated in via Spell Trigger don't tag along.
Barring an attempt at what seemed like Imprisonment aimed at FC (negated by a rare Potion of Invisibility use), Perth doesn't amount to much, since he didn't go with Spell Trap and so could be Breached.
The Book of Infinite Spells immediately turns to the last page and its pointless Burning Hands. Booh.
Following a quick rest, we enter the Asylum proper. There's almost a bit of an issue during the dream sequence, as I forgot that SCS Bhaal frequently (always?) gets an Oil of Speed... and N didn't bring one.
However, N does have the Sandthief's Ring, so he invisibly waits out the Haste effect, then slowly pelts and wands Bhaal down, and we're set loose in the maze.
First: Pick up the solitary quarterstaff, bracers and healing potions, then head northwest, clearing the Gibberlings and gaining some rudimentary weaponry; also pick up the Ring of Regeneration.
Second: Deal with the Orogs and Minotaurs guarding the exit to get some armor, shields and more weapons. For the first time since I don't know when, PoT lets loose with a few Lightning Bolts in an attempt to conserve our resources.
Third: Have two Aerial Servants clobber the Clay Golem.
OK, this time I absolutely will not underestimate the Ruhk. Following extensive buffing, including Enchanted Weapon, N drops a Skull Trap which clears all but one of the Mephits. FC and FI charge in, and it actually goes off without a hitch: The Ruhk isn't nearly as tough as a Rakshasa.
Both Aerial Servants are still alive, so we have them help out against the Yuan-Ti as well: We take a lot of damage but it's spread around, and the Ring of Regeneration means we won't run out of healing... though some patience is required.
The Aerial Servants continue to be MVP's, exploding the Greater Wolfwere basically on contact.
That's the first half of the first level cleared; let's move on.
Kobolds aren't an issue. The Mind Flayer and Beholder are both dealt with via Skeleton Warriors (if it's just one Mind Flayer, it won't have enough actions in a round to kill the Skeleton Warriors before they kill it).
We swing around, clearing some Ghasts and Mummies. Oddly, the Umber Hulk ambush apparently spawned upon us entering the level, so we have to hold off all of them at once. Again, we suffer massive damage, but it's spread around.
A Farsight reveals that we're facing the usual in the Library, that is three Skeleton Warriors, two Bone Golems, two Greater Mummies, and a Lich which appears to be a Necromancer (it summoned a Skeleton Warrior of its own).
We prepare accordingly and move to engage: The Lich here doesn't seem to be too attached to the massive Undead spawn, so we can clear the latter out without interruption. A Fire Storm severely weakens all enemies barring the Bone Golems, and for about the fifth time, we take massive damage but come out on top. It's rough going without our gear...
OK, now we rest and turn our attention on the Lich. It puts up a Spell Trap, so we're essentially forced to wear it down using summons.
I try a different tack this time: With two Clerics, we have two Gates available, so let's drop a Balor on the Lich.
For some reason I do not fully understand, the Balor completely ignores the Lich (though it does fight and kill its summons), but fortunately the Lich very much does not ignore the Balor: Once the Lich has wasted its entire spellbook and the poor Balor returns home, we send in a few Skeleton Warriors to seal the deal.
Dace is quickly brought low, and we move onto the second level after having dealt with the Pit Fiend (who was quite weak and only worth 9000 experience).
Oddities abound this run, as we note when our summoned Hakeashar immediately dies (?) upon coming into contact with its own Stinking Cloud. Ah well, the Skeleton Warriors had the Yuan-Tis covered anyway.
Now that both Clerics are L15, we get the 9HD versions, which make remarkably short work of the Ulitharid, Noble Djinni, Spirit Troll, Umber Hulk Elder... in fact all enemies remaining here, barring the Clay Golems for which we've preserved several casts of Aerial Servant.
We make our way out, utilizing a (summoned by FI... he doesn't have many great L6 options) Greater Earth Elemental to help out against the Trolls bent on performing a sacrifice, and that's it: We're clear of the maze, if not Spellhold proper.
We prepare thoroughly: Everyone gets Protection from Fire/Electricity, select characters get Protection from Cold, then it's Protection from Evil/Chaotic Commands, buffs galore, etc.
Lonk gets a juicy 2000 gold bribe, and we're off.
Apparently, the Clones count as summoned by Irenicus? He pops a Chain Contingency with two Mordenkainen's Sword at us immediately after casting the Clone spell, and as a result, we only have to fight four Clones total. Weird.
We're unable to take him down before he can get Time Stop off the ground, and then things take a turn for the worse.
Oh, this is bad. A Dark Planetar is basically unkillable at this stage, which absolutely cannot be said for us. I try to kite it around while simultaneously working on Jon's defenses, but it's too fast, and the local loonies are of very little help (Tiax just stands there doing nothing.. not that he usually does much anyway).
Note how FC and FI are basically buffless? Yeah, Remove Magic went straight through both Spell Immunity: Abjuration and Entropy Shield. I've noticed that weird behavior earlier, and also had spell protections removed by Secret Word/Spell Thrust while under Spell Immunity: Abjuration. I can't believe it's intended?
Anyway, we're in dire straits. Can we turn this around somehow? We shuffle around like mad, but can't really apply any pressure to Jon: The moment we try to stop, the Dark Planetar zooms in on us... and eventually, our luck runs out.
FT! I... I never loved you!
OK, this is really bad, but to be fair, FT was a pretty cruddy character. We can somehow finagle our way through the Underdark absent a Thief, I'm sure, but that entails living to tell the tale here first.
Around here Jon pops a Spell Trigger with Spell Immunity: Abjuration, Spell Deflection and Globe of Invulnerability, removing any hope we had of getting through his defenses in a hurry. We crowd into the northwestern corner while Jon and that insane Dark Planetar chops up the last of the loons and our final Mordenkainen's Sword.
Surely you jest, madame.
I can keep from laughing.
And there goes FI permantly. Also kind of a rotten character, but he was all we had.
So what now? If we (by now, it's just I) can somehow best Jon, we get the pleasure of attempting the Underdark with a solitary warrior-type without weapon specialization.
Of course, I have my doubts whether a L14 Necromancer can beat a.. whatever level and whatever kit Irenicus is.
Still, apparently you can rest here.
The only way I see of doing this is summon spam. N doesn't know True Sight, so a simple Mirror Image will foil most attempts at dealing spell damage to Irenicus... OK, let's try.
I go for Mordenkainen's Sword, Conjure Fire Elemental, Animate Dead, even a Spider Spawn, and hit the rest button.
Go forth, my brave minions!
Farewell, my brave minions.
But Jon... why?!
Not even sure what that was or how it hit me from half a screen away, but I'd wager it was a Horrid Wilting.
This was basically over the moment Jon was able to get Dark Planetar off the ground.
Maybe if FI and FC had kept their buffs, they could've done something about it? The rest of Jon's spellworks weren't a big deal, after all.
Anyway, the conclusion is that my Necromancer runs seem to be cursed. I can't remember the last time I actually lost a run to Spellhold Irenicus, though this version does not seem to pull many punches... he used four HLA's: Dark Planetar, Improved Alacrity, Dragon's Breath and Comet.
In hindsight, I'm... not sure what I could've done differently. We couldn't just ignore the Clones after all (but maybe we should have?), and the two Magical Swords Jon put up were wreaking havoc even before the Dark Planetar arrived.
That's actually a fair point, I should've prepared some Minor Sequencers with Magic Missile since we lack Death Spell, and possibly even a Mordenkainen's Force Missiles or two.
In retrospect I have to say, completely random runs are extremely punishing.
No dual-wielding, no efficient ranged, barely any efficient melee at all, constant issues with unlocking/detrapping, utterly reliant on Strength/Cat's Grace...
Also, two Clerics is definitely at least one too many. While quite powerful in BG1, they don't really pull their weight come BG2.
I was also constantly annoyed at the armor swapping on FI and FT.
I'll let this rest for a little bit. If I do another random run, it'll probably be the best-of-three variety, though right now I'm feeling like a regular NPC run. We'll see what happens.
Hopefully someone else can take up the task of getting a Necromancer into the Hall, as I just can't seem to cover the distance.
Other commitments meant we hadn't expected to play this week, but ironically illness resulted in everyone being available to sit at their computer .
Irenicus' dungeon was, unsurprisingly, no problem - though we did need to have a few rests to deal with trap damage. Ulvaryl was successfully taken down before she could flee.
The circus was our first port of call and that was also swiftly done. The reward should have included enhanced charisma thanks to a magic ring, but that evaporated as Deja attempted to put it on. Money should be no problem though, so the ring is no great loss. While in the area Deja fancied taking down Mencar and his companions to get better armor. Kerb warned that might not be straightforward given the current lack of decent armor - and he apparently decided to prove his point by getting stuck when attempting to withdraw from combat and taking heavy damage. He did manage to get away in time, but collapsed when his rage ran out reducing HPs to zero - fortunately these days in the EE that only means a brief period of unconsciousness, so the party can continue to boast they've had no deaths to date.
There was another little glitch at the Copper Coronet. His companions warned Deja there not to take part in the fight between Hendak and Lehtinan as that has resulted in Hendak going hostile in the past. Deja of course refused to take their advice and Hendak duly got annoyed. However, Deja at least had a decent answer to that problem and a quick charm person ensured Hendak gave us a reward.
With one suit of full plate in the bag, we next looked in the Docks for a matching set. While there we decided to do Mae'Var's quests. It was dark by the time we got to the temple, so the priestess was asleep while we looted the necklace. Rayic Gethras can be a formidable foe, but he was disabled by insects and easy meat for berserker attacks. Mae'Var himself was of course totally outclassed. Corezerk volunteered to dare the petrification trap to get a +1 buckler for Deja and his dwarven saves helped ensure his safety there.
With cash starting to build up Corezerk benefited from the purchase of Azuredge before we paid off Gaelan Bayle. Deja attempted to address inventory problems by setting off for Watcher's Keep in search of a potion bag, but was distracted by freeing Renfeld during an ambush. That led to looting the harpers after dealing with Prebek and Sanasha. The former managed a lightning bolt despite being under heavy attack, but that fortunately just bounced round the edge of the room without hitting anyone. The final action saw us pick up a little bonus by surrounding Lucette and killing him to revenge Xzar.
Totemic druid 12, 80 HPs, 22 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 10 (G70), 123 HPs, 84 kills (263 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Berserker 10 (CR), 118 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 64 kills (220 in BGEE), 0 deaths
@aldain Sad to see the end of your run. Some very weird bugs and spell behaviours here, there seems to be something wrong with SCS, at least in your installation, but I have no idea what it is. If you have the time and interest, maybe it might be worth reporting some of the stuff you encountered in the official SCS forum.
( https://www.gibberlings3.net/forums/forum/118-sword-coast-stratagems/ )
Facing down a fallen planetar at this level (almost at any level, really) without full protected buffs is very likely to result in disaster, so the fact that your SI:A/Entropy Shield failed to do their job propably meant that there were very few ways out of the situation.
@Enuhal I lean towards it being my installation that has gone off the rails at some point.
I did another redownload and made sure to delete everything local, so unless SCS modifies the registry (I hope not...) maybe next time around'll go better.
While waiting for inspiration for the next run to strike, I had a look at the completed no-reload runs, more specifically those using SCS.
I've excluded mod-introduced kits, and runs where it wasn't clear if SCS was used or not; if you do, you get the following, where no note next to the kit means difficulty was core.
The session started with a trip to Watcher's Keep to pick up the potion case. Deja was minded to venture inside, but Kerb reminded him that we had not yet picked up the Amulet of Power and without that the possibility of vampiric wraiths inside was pretty daunting. We duly returned to Athkatla to find Aran Linvail and get his goodies. Then it was off to the Graveyard to allow Corezerk to show off Azuredge. An early victim there was Uncle Lester - this was one of many occasions when Deja's spell target died before he could finish casting. Underground, Deja did manage to inconvenience Pai'Na with an insect plague - making her an easy victim for the berserkers. Deja had somehow managed to ignore all the helmets found to date, so put on the green ioun stone. In the EE that doesn't help with protecting against criticals, but theoretically Deja should rarely be troubled by those anyway if he remembers to use ironskins.
Following up on the kidnap plot, we moved on to the Bridge District. Deja got himself in trouble there against the Rune Assassins when he deliberately allowed himself to be targeted in order to negate backstabs with his ironskins. That worked well, but the rate of attacks and his poor AC meant the second assassin was rapidly removing his HPs - fortunately, Corezerk's axes were just as efficient at removing the assassin's life . Also in that area we went in search of the Guild Contact. Corezerk commented that summoning spirit animals there was over the top, but Deja was determined to prevent the contact from quaffing any of the potions he possessed - in the event though the summons were unnecessary as Kitthix webbed the unfortunate man.
Corey noted that we hadn't yet dealt with the slavers and that was duly done without trouble - Deja once more charmed Hendak at the first attempt to convince him to give us a reward rather that a punch in the teeth. He suggested going to de'Arnise next, but Deja felt his duty as a druid was to get the druid Grove near Trademeet back into equilibrium as soon as possible. Summons helped deal with the genies to get us the Shield of Harmony and Corezerk initially told Deja to sell that as he would rely on his berserking abilities. A few minutes later he had a change of heart though and fortunately Deja had not yet been to a shop. At the Grove Deja prepared his spells to face Faldorn. The easy way to win that fight is to disable the other druid with an insect plague - and that was duly done. Tiris and the local tomb were completed as well to boost reputation and we splashed out on a new cloak and belt. Kerb was offered the opportunity to get the Dwarven Thrower, but decided he wanted to see the price come down a bit more before forking out for that.
The final target for the session was the de'Arnise Keep and we just had time to get inside that before saving. In our usual brief post-match summing up we compared the most powerful victim each of us had dealt with. Deja was slightly ashamed to say that his record showed that as Cohrvale .
Totemic druid 13, 90 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 57 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 11 (G70), 126 HPs, 161 kills (263 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Berserker 10 (CR), 121 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 155 kills (220 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Corezerk's axes proved potent this time with Azuredge cutting down undead and Stonefire finishing off trolls. As a result he's clawed back most of the kills lead Kerb had from the opening BG2EE session.
No-Hope Necromancer: A Random Run, Part 7
Previous part found here
Continuing where we left off, we round up the last easy quests in the city: Thwarting the kidnappers, dealing with the Sea's Bounty Pirates, and finally Mae'Var. No difficulties at all, really.
Now, the choice is Brynnlaw or start dealing with higher-level stuff.
Given that, barring an incredibly fortunate random SCS drop of a Ruby Ray scroll (which I don't think I've ever seen), there's no way for us to deal with L18+ enemy Mages and their Spell Trap, I go with Brynnlaw.
Prepared as we are (and packing the IMoD +2), the initial vampire ambush is shrugged off.
We rush through the town and swiftly dismantle Vadek; he only got to cast a single Improved Mantle (pun not intended).
Next, Perth the Adept. Once he's disposed of Kitthix, he's actually quite keen on following us outside: Fortunately, the three Greater Earth Elementals he gated in via Spell Trigger don't tag along.
Barring an attempt at what seemed like Imprisonment aimed at FC (negated by a rare Potion of Invisibility use), Perth doesn't amount to much, since he didn't go with Spell Trap and so could be Breached.
The Book of Infinite Spells immediately turns to the last page and its pointless Burning Hands. Booh.
Following a quick rest, we enter the Asylum proper. There's almost a bit of an issue during the dream sequence, as I forgot that SCS Bhaal frequently (always?) gets an Oil of Speed... and N didn't bring one.
However, N does have the Sandthief's Ring, so he invisibly waits out the Haste effect, then slowly pelts and wands Bhaal down, and we're set loose in the maze.
First: Pick up the solitary quarterstaff, bracers and healing potions, then head northwest, clearing the Gibberlings and gaining some rudimentary weaponry; also pick up the Ring of Regeneration.
Second: Deal with the Orogs and Minotaurs guarding the exit to get some armor, shields and more weapons. For the first time since I don't know when, PoT lets loose with a few Lightning Bolts in an attempt to conserve our resources.
Third: Have two Aerial Servants clobber the Clay Golem.
OK, this time I absolutely will not underestimate the Ruhk. Following extensive buffing, including Enchanted Weapon, N drops a Skull Trap which clears all but one of the Mephits. FC and FI charge in, and it actually goes off without a hitch: The Ruhk isn't nearly as tough as a Rakshasa.
Both Aerial Servants are still alive, so we have them help out against the Yuan-Ti as well: We take a lot of damage but it's spread around, and the Ring of Regeneration means we won't run out of healing... though some patience is required.
The Aerial Servants continue to be MVP's, exploding the Greater Wolfwere basically on contact.
That's the first half of the first level cleared; let's move on.
Kobolds aren't an issue. The Mind Flayer and Beholder are both dealt with via Skeleton Warriors (if it's just one Mind Flayer, it won't have enough actions in a round to kill the Skeleton Warriors before they kill it).
We swing around, clearing some Ghasts and Mummies. Oddly, the Umber Hulk ambush apparently spawned upon us entering the level, so we have to hold off all of them at once. Again, we suffer massive damage, but it's spread around.
A Farsight reveals that we're facing the usual in the Library, that is three Skeleton Warriors, two Bone Golems, two Greater Mummies, and a Lich which appears to be a Necromancer (it summoned a Skeleton Warrior of its own).
We prepare accordingly and move to engage: The Lich here doesn't seem to be too attached to the massive Undead spawn, so we can clear the latter out without interruption. A Fire Storm severely weakens all enemies barring the Bone Golems, and for about the fifth time, we take massive damage but come out on top. It's rough going without our gear...
OK, now we rest and turn our attention on the Lich. It puts up a Spell Trap, so we're essentially forced to wear it down using summons.
I try a different tack this time: With two Clerics, we have two Gates available, so let's drop a Balor on the Lich.
For some reason I do not fully understand, the Balor completely ignores the Lich (though it does fight and kill its summons), but fortunately the Lich very much does not ignore the Balor: Once the Lich has wasted its entire spellbook and the poor Balor returns home, we send in a few Skeleton Warriors to seal the deal.
Dace is quickly brought low, and we move onto the second level after having dealt with the Pit Fiend (who was quite weak and only worth 9000 experience).
Oddities abound this run, as we note when our summoned Hakeashar immediately dies (?) upon coming into contact with its own Stinking Cloud. Ah well, the Skeleton Warriors had the Yuan-Tis covered anyway.
Now that both Clerics are L15, we get the 9HD versions, which make remarkably short work of the Ulitharid, Noble Djinni, Spirit Troll, Umber Hulk Elder... in fact all enemies remaining here, barring the Clay Golems for which we've preserved several casts of Aerial Servant.
We make our way out, utilizing a (summoned by FI... he doesn't have many great L6 options) Greater Earth Elemental to help out against the Trolls bent on performing a sacrifice, and that's it: We're clear of the maze, if not Spellhold proper.
We prepare thoroughly: Everyone gets Protection from Fire/Electricity, select characters get Protection from Cold, then it's Protection from Evil/Chaotic Commands, buffs galore, etc.
Lonk gets a juicy 2000 gold bribe, and we're off.
Apparently, the Clones count as summoned by Irenicus? He pops a Chain Contingency with two Mordenkainen's Sword at us immediately after casting the Clone spell, and as a result, we only have to fight four Clones total. Weird.
We're unable to take him down before he can get Time Stop off the ground, and then things take a turn for the worse.
Oh, this is bad. A Dark Planetar is basically unkillable at this stage, which absolutely cannot be said for us. I try to kite it around while simultaneously working on Jon's defenses, but it's too fast, and the local loonies are of very little help (Tiax just stands there doing nothing.. not that he usually does much anyway).
Note how FC and FI are basically buffless? Yeah, Remove Magic went straight through both Spell Immunity: Abjuration and Entropy Shield. I've noticed that weird behavior earlier, and also had spell protections removed by Secret Word/Spell Thrust while under Spell Immunity: Abjuration. I can't believe it's intended?
Anyway, we're in dire straits. Can we turn this around somehow? We shuffle around like mad, but can't really apply any pressure to Jon: The moment we try to stop, the Dark Planetar zooms in on us... and eventually, our luck runs out.
FT! I... I never loved you!
OK, this is really bad, but to be fair, FT was a pretty cruddy character. We can somehow finagle our way through the Underdark absent a Thief, I'm sure, but that entails living to tell the tale here first.
Around here Jon pops a Spell Trigger with Spell Immunity: Abjuration, Spell Deflection and Globe of Invulnerability, removing any hope we had of getting through his defenses in a hurry. We crowd into the northwestern corner while Jon and that insane Dark Planetar chops up the last of the loons and our final Mordenkainen's Sword.
Surely you jest, madame.
I can keep from laughing.
And there goes FI permantly. Also kind of a rotten character, but he was all we had.
So what now? If we (by now, it's just I) can somehow best Jon, we get the pleasure of attempting the Underdark with a solitary warrior-type without weapon specialization.
Of course, I have my doubts whether a L14 Necromancer can beat a.. whatever level and whatever kit Irenicus is.
Still, apparently you can rest here.
The only way I see of doing this is summon spam. N doesn't know True Sight, so a simple Mirror Image will foil most attempts at dealing spell damage to Irenicus... OK, let's try.
I go for Mordenkainen's Sword, Conjure Fire Elemental, Animate Dead, even a Spider Spawn, and hit the rest button.
Go forth, my brave minions!
Farewell, my brave minions.
But Jon... why?!
Not even sure what that was or how it hit me from half a screen away, but I'd wager it was a Horrid Wilting.
This was basically over the moment Jon was able to get Dark Planetar off the ground.
Maybe if FI and FC had kept their buffs, they could've done something about it? The rest of Jon's spellworks weren't a big deal, after all.
Anyway, the conclusion is that my Necromancer runs seem to be cursed. I can't remember the last time I actually lost a run to Spellhold Irenicus, though this version does not seem to pull many punches... he used four HLA's: Dark Planetar, Improved Alacrity, Dragon's Breath and Comet.
In hindsight, I'm... not sure what I could've done differently. We couldn't just ignore the Clones after all (but maybe we should have?), and the two Magical Swords Jon put up were wreaking havoc even before the Dark Planetar arrived.
That's actually a fair point, I should've prepared some Minor Sequencers with Magic Missile since we lack Death Spell, and possibly even a Mordenkainen's Force Missiles or two.
In retrospect I have to say, completely random runs are extremely punishing.
No dual-wielding, no efficient ranged, barely any efficient melee at all, constant issues with unlocking/detrapping, utterly reliant on Strength/Cat's Grace...
Also, two Clerics is definitely at least one too many. While quite powerful in BG1, they don't really pull their weight come BG2.
I was also constantly annoyed at the armor swapping on FI and FT.
I'll let this rest for a little bit. If I do another random run, it'll probably be the best-of-three variety, though right now I'm feeling like a regular NPC run. We'll see what happens.
Hopefully someone else can take up the task of getting a Necromancer into the Hall, as I just can't seem to cover the distance.
It's sad indeed to see your run ends like this, with some weird bugs and a monstrous Irenicus at this stage of the game.
We started the session in the de'Arnise Hold and quickly recovered the flail heads to make the FoA. Unfortunately the one from Glaicus disappeared into thin air, preventing us from getting the XP for completing the quest. However, none of us were intending to make use of the weapon, so the loss was relatively small. There were no problems in the area, with summons helping to ensure TorGal went down hard.
Moving on to Umar Hills we did out usual trick of spreading the party out in order to complete several objectives at once. That was only partly successful as far as Deja was concerned as the Killer Mimic demonstrated its ability to hold enemies irrespective of their location on the map (Corezerk used his berserk ability to ensure he could keep bashing the mimic). Thaxy put up a good fight and only died a moment before Corezerk's berserk ran out - fortunate timing as his breath would have been far more dangerous once the berserkers were not protected from level drain. The Shade Lord though only lasted a second or two as Azuredge claimed another victim.
After picking up Valygar's body, we returned to Athkatla. Deja considered buying Everard's sling, but decided the 67k gold in hand needed to be protected for a bit longer. Therefore it was off to the Planar Sphere to look for more loot. The first bunch of golems there put up a decent fight and I noticed Kerb resorting to a couple of healing potions to stave off the attacks of the clay golem. The only other moment of slight concern was when a timing error meant the insect plague intended to disable Tolgerias hit him while he was still neutral. However, a follow up 3rd level insect spell successfully tagged him and after also being poisoned by a spirit snake it was no surprise he failed to complete any spells. The remaining encounters were all easy enough, but there was one other incident of note when Kerb managed to pass a looted bow to Corezerk - only to find a duplicate of that was still in his inventory. It's pretty common for items to disappear while being transferred, but not the other way round. Now if only we could manage that with the Ring of Gaxx next time everyone would be happy .
We returned to the Graveyard to sort out Bodhi's initial incarnation and pick up the Mace of Disruption. The final action in the session saw us heading into the Temple Sewers, where the rakshasa provided a new(ish) cloak for Corezerk.
Totemic druid 13, 90 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 71 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 13 (G70), 132 HPs, 247 kills (263 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Berserker 13 (CR), 127 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 266 kills (220 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Corezerk continued to take advantage this session of the continuing generous supply of trolls and undead to take the lead in the kills race. His twin axes (Stonefire and Azuredge are well suited to that, but Kerb may be able to stage a comeback in future sessions.
Coreen the halfling fighter and his band of fighters has made it to Irenicus' dungeon. What's special about this run is NO 1 hand melee weapons are being used, all party members have two hand weapons equipped. Minsc is in the party he will be using two-hand sword. Almost out of dungeon.
Corespell the gnomish cleric/mage has made it past Sarevok and is currently working his way through Irenicus' dungeon. The fight against Sarevok was dicey as Corespell got confused and could have triggered a battle horror and it would have been all over. However, lady luck was smiling on him and eventually his party's range power did manage to kill Sarevok though not before Khalid and Ajantis died.
So, I left no reload games for some months, trying some mods like Tactic Remix, but since there is the EEfixpack Alpha 2 to try as well, it was a good time for another no reload attempt.
It's mainly unmodded : only the EEfixpack, Pathfinding fix, EEex, Lefreut UI and Bubble spells menu.
It's on insane, no double damage, max HP at level up. That means BG1 should be relatively easy, but SoD will be very hard.
Since necromancer is the only one left from the pantheon, I choose it.
And so here is Drusilla, the evil necromancer ! Part 1 : BGEE (and maybe the last one as well...)
It was easy to gather my evil crew thanks to the imp familiar. I choose find familiar, sleep and Larloch's minor drain as my first spells.
On the way back to FAI after recruiting Viconia, Xzar was killed in an ambush. I decided to left him dead to keep Montaron with me.
I also recruited Kagain, Shar Teel and Dorn.
When Shar Teel hit level 3, I choose longbow proficiency and then dual class her to thief.
She would concentrate on lockpick and disarm trap, while Montaron will concentrate on set trap and detect illusions. She could in the end put the points from thief level 4 and 8 in longbow, thus attaining three with the composite bow.
We then go to the gnolls fortress for the gauntlet of dexterity and tome of charisma, but didn't entered the fortress itself.
We helped Albert, brung back Brage to the temple (better reward than to Oublek), helped Prism (same, better reward than doing strictly evil) and appeased Marle.
Then we did the Nashkel mines and hunted down some bandits.
Drusilla waited clearing the bandits camp to use some precious potions of genius / mind to scribe all the scrolls gathered so far, and memorized glitterdust in anticipation of Cloakwood trek.
Sadly her horror spell didn't work against the wyverns in the cave, but the wand of frost did the trick.
Drassus crew didn't fare well against web, silence and fireball. The traps from Montaron weren't even needed.
In the mines all went fine, Viconia once again succeed at landing a silence spell on Davaeorn.
After that I cleared some maps, looking for loot. The bounty hunters fell to web / silence.
In the city, Gorpel was a side loss in the quest for a better axe for Kagain.
I did Neera quest whithout her in the party, in order to get her belt.
Montaron's traps targeted useless mercenaries instead of Ekandor, but a wand of paralysis stunned him.
All in vain, since Neera totally disappeared from the game after that. I hope she will be in SoD with her belt...
We also did Rasaad quest to obtain the big belt for Kagain.
I decided to proceed with the story, planning a second scribing session for Drusilla after looting Ramazith's Tower, Iron Throne Headquarters, Ice Island and Candlekeep library.
Ice Island was easy with Viconia silencing the first three mages. I will never understand the "canon party" fans, a party without a cleric in BG1 ? Never !
Time to save the dukes (and stopping the flaming Fists to try to arrest me), Kristin was silenced by Viconia and Slythe then was an easy kill. I didn't let a chance to the doppelgangers in the palace, with some traps, animate deads, and slow spells.
I was almost ready to finish BG1, but I wanted to be better prepared for SoD, so I went to Durlag's Tower for the last tome remaining, but also the Durlag's Goblet and Kiel's helmet.
I helped the succubi to escape, and the wardens didn't last long.
Kiel's helmet was almost Drusilla's downfall, since an Islanne somehow succeed at casting a lightning bolt in a small room :
It was close ! Viconia was left with 1 HP. I luckily had four potions of insulation and Talos Gift.
It was the first time in all the run when I thought it was over. Maybe it was a sign to not push my luck to far ?
Anyway, I then decided to get the shield +2 and Arla's Dragonbane...
Somehow the Air aspect almost killed Kagain.
Chess on the other hand was easy with web and fireball.
Last level was straightforward, but I still prepared for the demonknight with potions and spells.
It was almost dead, then....
Farewell Dorn. I hope to see you again in SoD...
That means I had four things to dowithout him : thieves maze, Undercity, Sarevok and Kozak's Tomb.
After some thoughts on the options left, I discarded Khalid and Jaheira still at level 1, Eldoth too weak, Ajantis and Yeslick because of Kagain and others evil NPC,and in the end went for Baeloth, which came with 45,000 XP instead of 32,000 for the others. Dorn was at 140,000 XP... Sigh... But better him than Drusilla ! Pawns are here to be sacrificed, so the queen can win !
I so recruited Baeloth, and put Montaron in the front with Kagain.
I raided Entar's Estate and the palace, and bought Drusilla the last spells not in her spellbook. I also bought arrows of dispelling.
With all the wanted items in my inventory (notably some wands recharged), i went for Sarevok.
I use an invisible Shar Teel to disarm traps and backstab Sarevok with the dagger of venom, but it succeed at his saving throw.
Meanwhile, Semaj teleported himselfnear the four traps set by Montaron and Shar Teel, and then was greeted by the four animate deads summoned by Viconia. A minor sequencer with two magic missiles from Drusilla finished him.
Angelo and Sarevok followed Shar Teel back to the entrance, and Angelo annoyingly used arrows of detonation at melee range, killing himself but also hurting my party.
Tazok succeed at his saving throws against two domination spells from Drusilla, while Sarevok was busy with the undeads and Kagain and Montaron. Shar Teel hit him with a dispel arrow, and Montaron with his 23 strength from a potion landed sone good blows.
At last, BGEE is done ! Time for SoD.
As always, the true challenge was to find an appropriate portrait for Drusilla. After two tries, I choose this one (stats at SoD start) :
It's 5 months since I last played any single-player Baldur's Gate and I've been thinking it was about time I had another go. So I decided that, as a birthday treat to myself, I would have a go at a 1 day challenge with one of my long-life characters. There are not too many classes left that I haven't tried yet, but one of those is a multi-class fighter/mage. That should be able to make quick progress and generating the character as a fighter/illusionist should help protect against my tendency to be lazy with buffing.
I've got a few commitments today, but there's probably time to complete the game if things go well. It's currently 12:04 a.m. and I already rolled up a suitably powerful character yesterday, so am ready to dive straight into the action with it .
Update 1 at 4.45 a.m.
Outline of travels follows, though there were quite a few more minor encounters on the way not mentioned below.
Forgot to reset in advance to 60fps, but quickly did that.
Ignored most quests in Candlekeep, though did successfully learn identify. Found knock spell at Gorion’s grave.
Bought invisibility and found PFP at High Hedge.
Killed Algernon for his cloak.
Followed Korax round the basilisk area to get to level 4/4. Blinded Kirian’s companions and stinking cloud allowed for her easy disposal.
At Firewine Bridge charmed Bentan to get his scroll of PfM and blinded Meilum for bracers upgrade. On to Nashkel where I inadvertently rested with reputation still only back to 9 and got LMD instead of Bhaal healing.
Greywolf (or his corpse) handed over an improved sword. Then took Samuel back to the FAI. Rested to identify stuff there, but fortunately Samuel survived.
Blind and magic missiles dealt with battle horrors at Durlag’s Tower. The PfM scroll allowed me to safely get the tome (and kill the ghost). I didn’t bother with looting there though.
Did a few chores in the Cloud Peaks on the way to grab the charisma tome.
Blinded the Doomsayer on the way to get the constitution tome – using stinking cloud and MSD to protect against sirines there.
Mulahey failed to survive a stinking cloud at the Nashkel Mine. Outside there, grabbed the wand of monster summoning from some ghasts. Reporting back to the mayor took reputation to 20. Nimbul provided a find familiar scroll.
Sneaked through the Bandit Camp and used blind and stinking cloud to make the fight in Tazok’s tent trivial.
Summons avoided any risk while working through the ankheg nest.
A bit of shopping included the Dagger of Venom, some more spells and the good mage robe.
I was now close to the XP cap and just by-passed the Cloakwood on the way to the mine. Drasus & co were blinded there before heading down. At the bottom, the battle horrors were blinded before I charmed the guard to attack Davaeorn. However, he recovered his senses quickly and broke off the attack, so I used the Greenstone Amulet to do the job myself.
A quick tour of the City allowed me to acquire the Helm and Cloak of Balduran, +2 ring and several more tomes. The Iron Throne gang stood no chance, with only a blinded Alai and the doppleganger surviving a series of webs.
Back at Candlekeep the catacombs provided the final couple of tomes for my collection. I couldn’t resist using web on Prat, even though there was no real gain in doing so.
Once more in the City, where Slythe was webbed and shot down without bothering with Krystin. At the palace, hastened summons and chaos (cast from scroll) avoided any significant risk. Belt & Liia both comfortably survived.
After running through the maze, I bypassed the Undercity party on the way to find Sarevok. He was annoyed by a dispelling arrow before Semaj teleported out into some summons. His spells killed those, but I was protected by 2 potions of magic protection. Sarevok was malisoned to make him vulnerable, but still managed to shrug off several blinds. However, lying down on the job due to an excess of emotion proved fatal for him.
I transferred to SoD with 337k XP. That’s not too far short of a typical run for me, demonstrating that, while I missed out some of the content I normally do, I did the bulk of it. Having amassed a large amount of resources and high XP, I'll expect to whip through SoD significantly more quickly.
Here’s some screenshots of the action so far, including a character record following transfer.
Update 2 at 7.35 a.m.
After a short break to get a drink I passed through the opening SoD dungeon invisibly and used cloudkill to force Korlasz to surrender.
In the City the only quests I did was to get the Spectacles of Spectacle and the Battle Tankard helmet. The 50k or so of jewellery I carried over from BGEE also allowed some shopping, including the purchase of stoneskin.
At the Coast Way Crossing I did no optional quests, but just used invisibility to trigger the encounter at the bridge safely.
I skipped through Troll Claw Woods on the way to the Forest of Wyrms. I entered the old temple there invisibly and went to find Ziatar. Web followed by stunning darts sorted her out. I was then tackling the Neothelid when the fatal black screen bug occurred and I had to reload from the autosave. It only took a couple of minutes to get back to the Neothelid and potions of invulnerability, stone form and absorption, along with a PfPoison scroll provided protection until it could be beaten up. Akanna was stuck in a web and fireballed. On the way out Morentherene got a dagger through the heart.
At Boareskyr Bridge, Vichand was stunned by the wand of paralyzation. The dragon scales were turned into a shield before I surrendered the fort. Before taking on the mage on the bridge I realised that one of the things not done in BGEE was getting the Ring of Energy – using that is my preferred tactic here. However, hasted summons and MMMs interrupted his initial spell and I was able to finish him off safely.
At the Coalition Camp I again avoided any quests, other than summoning Nazramu to do a bit of shopping. Skie was rescued at Dragonspear before I headed for the Underground River. I hit the XP cap there with the death of a gargantuan spider. The cyclops was stunned by wand and quickly finished off to get its Seal of Caelar and I then bypassed the remaining guards and went underground to place the Bwoosh and poison the food and water.
Back at the Coalition Camp it was time to prepare for an invasion. Preparation was in fact very limited as the main tactic was just to shoot exploding arrows at the various groups. My allies seemed perfectly happy to take losses from friendly fire, so it didn’t take long to complete a successful defence of the Camp – one Coalition Spy doing well to survive the holocaust there.
Back at Dragonspear Castle, a PfM scroll was used along with stunning darts to deal with Ashatiel. Inside I avoided combat on the way to find Thrix. His summons were mainly dealt with using exploding arrows as I still had lots of them. I did though manage to hit myself a few times as a result of the enemies teleporting next to me and had to retreat briefly to the previous area at one point to regenerate a bit. I took the long sword as a reward from winning a wager with Thrix. After resting I buffed and took the Hellevator. The enemies on that were no match for me in melee and I moved on to find Belhifet. I allow Caelar to fight against him, though don’t allow her to be controlled. However, using restoration scrolls in conjunction with the Battle Tankard can keep her alive without significantly damaging my combat abilities. Several scrolls were used like that before Belhifet breathed his last.
There were no problems with the epilogue and I duly loaded up BG2EE – transferring into that with 772k XP. Here are some screenshots from SoD and the updated character record.
Update 3 at 3.45 p.m.
After a quick breakfast I got going in SoA. I did pretty much everything in the opening dungeon, even though there’s not a huge amount to gain there. I like to kill Ulvaryl and successfully did that here.
On arrival in Athkatla the circus offered a gentle introduction to the new environment. In the Slums Gaelan Bayle was paid off and Hendak given control of the Copper Coronet before the slavers were evacuated from their hideout.
It was only back in the Promenade that I noticed something else I’d missed in BGEE given the lack of pantaloons in my inventory. Oh well, that shouldn’t be too serious with this character. Webs dealt with Mencar’s party without any hassle. I dislike paying the Cowled Wizards and had already had one warning from them, so tried using similar tactics on their enforcement groups. One of the groups escaped when I accidentally summoned them straight after killing the previous group and I had to make a run for it. I didn’t have any wands or other source of damage beyond spells and wasn’t able to finish Zallanora off in the final group before she used her dimension door and disappeared.
On the way to Watcher’s Keep, Suna Seni tried an ambush and regretted it. On arrival I bought the potion case before exploring the top floor. Farsight had shown no vampiric wraiths, so it was easy enough to kill the statues there.
Back in Athkatla paid Gaelan Bayle and collected goodies from Aran Linvail. Shortly after that I rescued Renfeld and used improved invisibility to deal with Prebek before looting the harpers and killing Lucette. While in the area did Mae’Var’s quests before finishing him off.
I wanted to have the FoA available, so went to the de’Arnise Hold next. I skipped little bits of that, but dealt severely with TorGal. The find familiar scroll there reminded me that I hadn’t summoned a new familiar in SoA and did that forthwith. I declined the offer of a Stronghold there.
Next up was Trademeet. I lost out on the efreeti bottle there when I blinded the genie outside the tent, but didn’t immediately kill him – and found he’d disappeared after killing the ones inside. At the Grove I picked up Belm as an off-hand weapon. I just watched on as Cernd snacked on Faldorn.
With time wearing on and pretty slow progress, I decided to go after the Planar Prison to get boots of speed. That meant going after Mekrath in the temple sewers. While there I beat up a rakshasa to get his cloak and then used a PfU scroll to kill the nearby lich. The liches at the City Gates and in the Bridge District followed and then Daystar made short work of Kangaxx to provide me with the Ring of Gaxx. Finally at the Planar Prison I entered invisibly and killed the mage before he could buff. With regeneration and improved saving throws from the Ring of Gaxx, there was no difficulty in working round and dealing with the Warden. Unfortunately the game crashed on exiting the prison and I hadn’t saved it, so had to do the entire area again. That was duly done and the levels earned gave me my first HLAs.
I boosted reputation by doing the Skinner quest, the Fallen Paladins, Trademeet tomb and then Tiris. That pushed it up to 19 and I decided to buy a few things, including the Robe of Vecna.
Next was Umar Hills, where I used invisibility to avoid a lot of the fighting on the way through to Thaxy. Lower resistance and malison set him up to be blinded for easy disposal. A Daystar sunray set the Shade Lord up for a kill.
I had various commitments mixed in that session, which partly explains the slow progress. There’s only just over 8 hours left in the day now though and at most I’ll be able to play for about 5 of those. It’s thus looking unlikely that I’ll make it through, but it will be possible to miss out a lot of content from here, so we’ll see how far I can get.
Here's some screenshots from this session.
Update 4 at 10.00 p.m.
Thanks @Aerakar. I'm still plugging away and have just got into ToB. I have again written notes as I went along and may post them later. With time pressing though I think I'm going to have to forget notes in ToB and just see how far I can make it through that in the next couple of hours ...
Update 5 at 11.15 p.m.
I was fighting Sendai's statues when I managed to nod off briefly - not a good idea. When I jerked back to awareness the planetar which had been around was gone and I was trapped in one of the alcoves by 3 attackers - with only 10 HPs left. Probably the thing to do would have been to use PfMW, but I chose to take an invisibility potion first. Unfortunately I think true sight must have already been running as I became visible again even before the true sights cast by 2 of the attackers activated. That meant I was vulnerable to being attacked before I could cast again - and that proved to be the end of the run ...
Hmm, it's been a rough week for me no-reload. Somehow Coreslinger got one-shotted by a gnoll when at full health - level 1 protection did not kick in. I wonder if someone is trying to tell me something...back to the drawing board.
One of the commitments I had that made the one-day challenge attempt with a fighter/mage more difficult was our regular MP session. Fortunately I managed not to fall asleep in that and the run continues with no deaths to date - though there were a couple of slightly scary moments this time.
Despite the fact that we've had no deaths in this run so far, Kerb felt that having a rod of resurrection available would be a wise investment - so the first action was going in search of Mekrath. While in that area, Deja decided it was about time to reduce the lich population. The berserkers attacked with just the protections from their rage and the Shade Lich managed to get his initial buffs going - but Azuredge claimed the kill as soon as his opening PfMW expired.
The next intended victim was the City Gates lich, but we had an access problem on arrival there with no way to get into its lair. A trip back to see Roger produced a storm giant strength potion and Kerb used that to enter and claim the kill.
The Elemental Lich in the bridge district proved a bit more troublesome. He also managed to buff and his fire spells did a lot of damage to the berserkers. Corezerk was taken down to 14 HPs, with his aura clouded, and had to run away in search of a heal from Deja. Fortunately the lich kept his attention on Kerb and the latter's mace finally got the kill while he laughed at the attempt to maze him during his rage.
Kangaxx was no contest as all of us made use of PfU scrolls there. The MoD had not been improved yet, which meant Kerb was the only one that could hit Kangaxx using his newly acquired Daystar - but that sword is an efficient lich killer and the demi-lich was taken down very quickly.
That kill finally gave Deja the rest of the 750k required to progress from level 13 to level 14. That prompted druids at the Grove to ask him to return and take control as Great Druid. He decided to respond to the call and found another druid interested in a pit fight, but apparently unaware of how deadly insect plague is to another caster . Rewards from the fight included another +2 ring of protection. Kerb took that which, along with the newly acquired ring of Gaxx, puts his saves into negative territory making him a really formidable opponent.
The encounter with Mekrath had opened up access to the Planar Prison and we went there next. Deja used Nature's Beauty as his newly acquired L7 spell on entrance and that actually killed at least 1 opponent outright as well as blinding several others to make the initial fight an easy one with no-one taking any damage.
Then it was over to the berserkers to show their mettle as we worked round the prison to find the Warden. He managed to produce a disintegrate spell just before being maced by Kerb, but Deja was safely hanging back out of range and both berserkers now had the saving throws to laugh at disintegration.
The final action of the session was to work through the Windspear Hills. Deja did take a bit of a risk against Firkraag by getting close to him to use resist magic to reduce his magic resistance and follow up with Nature's Beauty. That successfully blinded the dragon, meaning the fact that Deja was scared by Firkraag's aura at the same time was no great concern. In fact it appeared to be no concern at all as Firkraag remained inactive for the short remainder of his life. I think that was probably a reflection of how large dragon icons are - Firkraag's visual range after being blinded was probably within his own icon (or only very slightly beyond it) and he was unaware of being attacked.
We just had time to work through the rest of the dungeon and deal with Samia's group before making a final save for the session.
Totemic druid 14, 92 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 87 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 15 (G70), 138 HPs, 360 kills (263 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Berserker 15 (CR), 133 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 344 kills (220 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Kerb retook the lead this time. He's now wielding the MoD, so Corezerk no longer had such an advantage when fighting undead and he will need to work hard to stay competitive in future.
After the time pressure of a one-day challenge I thought I would attempt something a bit more leisurely and have another go with my wizard slayer in the long-life challenge. The fact this is the 73rd attempt at that is evidence that it is a significant challenge and, unlike with most characters, I don't think it's possible to be certain of success even if you play perfectly. However, given perfect play I think the chance of progression is reasonably good, so I continue to search for the perfect run in a triumph of hope over experience .
All went well in Candlekeep and I shot down Imoen, Xzar and Montaron to get a bit of equipment. Shoal provided the first XP bonanza, taking me to level 3 with a very acceptable additional 27 HPs. A few chores around Beregost included returning Zhurlong's boots and took me to level 4 with 15 more HPs.
I decided I wanted LMD for a first Bhaal power, so went next to Firewine Bridge and killed Bentan for his PfM scroll. I rested in Nashkel to get LMD before returning north in search of some basilisks. Korax took the front line there and following him round got me two more levels, though just the additional 20 HPs this time. Korax's chances of success against Kirian's group were very slim, but I let him try his luck - running away after he was killed.
On the way to the FAI I shot down an ogre and, as I couldn't use it, returned his belt to Unshey. On the way Tarnesh was shot down rapidly without any need to nip into the temple to avoid his spells. I bought Buckley's Buckler there in case the regeneration ability was needed. While I had it in mind, I nipped back to Beregost to kill some spiders and give Landrin back his goods - while also picking up the gold pantaloons.
Thus far I'd fought exclusively from range, but decided it was time to make melee a feasible option, so went to the Nashkel Mine to shoot down Greywolf for his sword. On the way I decided to tackle Zordral at the Carnival. I hit him several times and was caught a bit by surprise when he successfully cast horror. I got outside his tent, but not in time to avoid being caught by the horror. He followed after me, but his next 3 spells all fizzled so he had no acid arrows left. However, his LMD did inflict my first damage of the run before I took my revenge. There were then no problems in shooting down Greywolf, though that did take a little while of running round.
A few more chores around Beregost saw Perdue get his sword back and Silke shot down before she could complete any spell. Bassilus failed to make any of his spells stick, though I was careful to retreat out of sight range before any of them hit anyway. Melicamp was successfully revived.
I was no longer trying to avoid damage and took the odd bit during a trip through the Cloud Peak Mountains - though nothing of concern. The Gnoll Stronghold provided a charisma upgrade.
I decided I was up to taking on Ankhegs now and a few of them in their nest was enough for level 7, with 11 more HPs. With reputation up at 17, I decided to help out Charleston Nib, but mis-clicked on the conversation and lost the chance for that. Oh well, I thought I would have to just run away from the Doomsayer at this stage anyway. Killing Bjornin's half-ogres provided a reputation point along with a shield upgrade. Rescuing Arabelle from some hungry xzarts allowed me to hit maximum reputation. I celebrated by buying some full plate - in one way that's a bit of a waste with a free version waiting at the Bandit Camp, but it's not like a wizard slayer is going to run out of money anyway …
I was dozy in the encounter with Mulahey. I intended to shoot him down without allowing him to talk, but let him get close enough to open his conversation. However, he'd already taken significant damage by then and died before he could cast anything. Outside the mine the amazons were picked off individually, the tombs were cleared and Narcillicus shot down before he could complete a spell. That exhausted the ammunition that I'd bought in Candlekeep, though I had some darts taken from Zal to finish off some ghasts.
With Thalantyr no longer of any use to me I attacked him. I couldn't remember if that cost reputation, but it turned out it did. Some donations at the temple boosted that back to 15, helping out Ardrouine provided another and reporting to the Nashkel mayor helped out too before I killed Tranzig and headed for the Bandit Camp.
The Bandit Camp was easy enough with the external bandits being dealt with before going into the tent. Venkt was affected by a poison dart and failed to complete a spell while Britik and Raemon were being picked off.
In the Cloakwood I decided to get Spider's Bane as a source of free action. One or two spider-kin at a time were pulled out of the nest, gaining me an 8th and final BGEE level and 13 more HPs to bring up 3 figures there.
At the mine I tried to pull Genthore away from the others. Rezdan followed him soon after, but a few dart hits later his spells were useless - but before I could finish him off Kysus also appeared and I decided to bid a strategic retreat. On my return only Rezdan was there and he failed to complete another spell after wasting his first one on mirror image. Kysus was the nearest of the remaining enemies, which wasn't ideal as I couldn't safely run away that far from the edge of the map. He lost 2 spells, but did manage 1 - fortunately just a flame arrow. The fighters were then no real threat. This though prompted me to remember that I should have arranged to get horror as a Bhaal power so that I could avoid situations where retreat was not an option. An innocent later and reputation was back down at 9 and resting duly produced horror.
Working through the mine was no problem and the 2 battle horrors at the bottom were disposed of with a rest after each to regenerate HPs. The first couple of attacks on Davaeorn missed and I was hit by lightning, but further attacks soon shut down his casting to prevent his save or else spells having any chance. I rested again to get another Bhaal horror and then donated at the temple before returning to flood the mine.
Moving on to the City, I was doing a couple of reputation quests when I remembered that perhaps I still had another 'innocent' to kill in the form of Drizzt. First, though, I needed to complete the poison quest to cure myself. I ran downstairs to avoid Marek's initial spell and then tried to disable him with horror - but he resisted. Rather than rest I shot him from distance with a sling bullet and successfully disrupted a spell. That gave me the chance to close in a bit and use darts to finish him off.
Now wearing boots of speed, it's not difficult to attack Drizzt from range (though it takes a while to get the necessary criticals). He does though have 2 charm spells and the only defense against that is to use PfM scrolls (two are needed as he won't use the charm if you are already protected). As those can be useful elsewhere I tend not to attack Drizzt, but decided to do so this time. The first 2 stacks of bullets only produced one hit each, but there were 5 hits from the third stack and the same from the fourth. Drizzt was now at near death and the end soon came - leaving me still with a couple of hundred potential shots in reserve.
More temple donations and further reputation quests saw that up to 20. During that I got into one potentially awkward situation when going after the ogre mage in the sewers. It was scared by a horror cast outside its sight range and I chased it to finish it off before it could recover - forgetting that there were more carrior crawlers in the tunnel the ogre mage had fled into. Fortunately stunning darts worked a treat there.
After buying a selection of magical ammunition, I set about clearing the remaining major encounters in the City. One of those was killing Jardak and I realised that should ideally have been done earlier so I could use the Helm of Glory to reduce shop prices - though, even after all the temple donations, money is still not an issue. The final fight in this sequence was at the Iron Throne. Enemies were pulled downstairs one or two at a time and darted before I switched to melee to finish off Gardush as the last man standing.
Back in Candlekeep, I had no way to get the tomes, but DUHM provided a small consolation prize with the PfM scroll in a third tomb. I had the opportunity to get past Prat's gang without conflict, but chose to attack them from the rear. I was most concerned about Bor and he did well to resist a number of stunning dart hits after being scared. Once the others were dead Bor was tracked down and scared once again. He resisted a couple more dart hits, but finally succumbed to a melee attack.
Back in Baldur's Gate, I went straight in search of Slythe. I didn't bother with Krystin, but ran Slythe round until the 4th hit on him left him stunned. Thus far danger in the run has been essentially self-generated, but you need a bit of luck to win the fight at the palace. I got that when 4 of the dopplegangers chose to attack me rather than the dukes and both Belt and Liia survived (the former unharmed). Horror can be important there, to disrupt an attack on the dukes, but I didn't use it this time.
I remembered at that point to go and speak to Tamoko, before heading into the maze. I didn't get far in that though before another bit of memory hit me - that I hadn't finished work outside the City. The first port of call was the Lighthouse area where I targeted the groups of sirines with exploding arrows. There is a small element of danger that they will get a charm spell off casting is totally shut down, but this time they failed to manage that. I beat the golems up in melee to get the constitution tome.
I normally also do some work at Durlag's Tower, but decided not to bother with that this time. Having already used 2 PfM scrolls I didn't want to sacrifice one to obtain the wisdom tome there. However, writing the previous sentence reminded me of yet another thing - now I had DUHM I could get the PfM scroll from Ramazith's Tower .
After finally completing the maze, I killed some skeleton warriors in the Undercity before attacking Rahvin's party. I wanted his exploding arrows, so did that from the rear. Helpfully Rahvin was affected by a follow-up horror and successfully stunned while scared (and killed while stunned). I was then free to deal with Tamoko, stunning her to get hold of her full plate +1.
Inside the old temple I wanted more exploding arrows from Angelo. Repeated use of the lightning trap killed all Sarevok's companions. Angelo had survived for a long time though and, despite his 90% resistance, Sarevok by then was down to 7 HPs - and a single sling bullet was sufficient to take those.
I'd not loaded the game for quite a while, so still had all the XP earned in BGEE on transferring to SoD. Despite not doing Durlag's Tower and a few other things, I had 433k on arrival there and got 8 HPs for my 9th level. In the opening dungeon, horror opened the way to talk to Porios and convince him to surrender. PfU took me through several groups of undead, but unfortunately the last of those found the Flaming Fist early on and killed the cleric. Stunning and poison darts helped deal with the final group and I decided not to try and rest to heal the bit of damage taken. A third dispelling arrow shot took effect on Korlasz and a single exploding arrow then persuaded her to surrender. I tried to finish her off, but she successfully saved against 3 darts of stunning to make her escape at near death.
Things went pretty smoothly in SoD - until they didn't. At Boareskyr Bridge I intended to surrender the fort, but first had to get Vichand's scroll. With most characters I tend to kill him, but in the past I seem to remember not doing so with wizard slayers. I was thinking that was because of the need to kill him quickly before the camp was alerted, but thought that I could switch to exploding arrows to do that if necessary. First though I used poison darts and actually poisoned him twice before his buffs activated. However, at that point I realised another reason for not attacking him when, rather than attempt (and almost certainly fail) to cast a spell, he used a wand of paralysation and stunned. The poison darts took him to near death before he healed himself - and moments later the rest of the camp appeared to cut me down.
Corethief XXXVII has made it past Sarevok with the help of his MP party. He has a berserker, ranger, undead hunter, archer and inquisitor helping him. We'll see how they will do. A lot of short runs lately hopefully this one will do the trick.
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The Rakshasa, surprisingly, isn't such a big deal: It pops a Sunfire which deals a bit of damage, but we can tank it just fine by now, and fairly rapidly get through its Stoneskins even without Breach available.
Tarnor's party is quite a bit more troublesome. We lead with Skeleton Warriors and several Stinking Clouds, which let us take out Tarnor himself, Draug Fea and Zorl, but that leaves several troublesome enemies... Gaius manages a Flesh to Stone aimed at FT, who thankfully makes his save. We bludgeon our way through, but this again drives home just how weak we are in a straight-up fight (no wonder, since half the party, i.e. PoL, PoT and N, can't really contribute anything of note without firing off spells).
Skeleton Warriors are again key to managing the southern part of the sewers, owing to the Gauths and Beholders that teleport in.
Not sure how I'd handle this without them, though I suppose it'd entail a frantic fully-buffed charge and immediate attempts to nova down the Beholders.
Mekrath is next. He's reasonably high level, but doesn't get 9th level spells... yet still Dimension Door's into the midst of the party.
A Delayed Blast Fireball, aimed squarely at our frontliners (FC/FI/FT) by a minor miracle fails to kill anyone, though FI and FT are both badly singed. We're playing a bit fast and loose here, but what can you do? It's the price you pay for not scribing Breach the moment it becomes available.
Once again, Skeleton Warriors save our bacon.
The Yuan-Ti Mages in his lair are almost worse than Mekrath: We get three (!), all of them Conjurers (!!), and so literally have to wait out the small army of Elementals they conjure up before we can put them down.
Drudgery, drudgery... at least we do come out on top, and as a consolation price, a Ghast in the tunnels below drops a Power Word, Stun scroll. I'll take it. A double Cloudkill and some Skeleton Warriors clear the single Beholder group down here, and we withdraw to rest before descending into the Pit of the Faithless.
Thankfully, we're too pitiful to get a Lich spawn: It's the standard Bone Golem x2, Skeleton Warrior x3, Greater Mummy x2 instead.
Greater Mummies can be bad, but Flame Strike is surprisingly potent against them, as PoL demonstrates. The rest of the undead fall easily enough to buffed frontliners.
The Gauntlets of Dexterity is a vital piece of equipment for FC: We finally have a frontliner that's all but immune to everything (as she's wearing the Amulet of Power as well), and very difficult to land a hit on.
The Unseeing Eye's area goes smooth as well: There aren't that many Beholders/Gauths here, and the few there are succumb easily to Skeleton Warriors. Honestly, the Blind Priests put up more of a fight, though they are quite vulnerable to area damage (and Silence 15' Radius, though we forgot to memorize that).
Even with two Death Tyrants aiding it, the Unseeing Eye, once weakened by the Rod, is no match for Skeleton Warriors, and we emerge triumphant.
Compared to a lair full of Beholders, Gaal doesn't really put up much resistance, and we complete the questline without incident.
Oh, it also turns out that there were yet more Vampire ambushes we hadn't triggered yet... Tanova and two cronies accost us in the Government district, though thankfully the former doesn't have her spellcasting powers during this encounter.
We somehow manage to come out on top.
There was also an Ogre ambush that had yet to occur(really? Ogres? How would they ever be able to move anywhere in a city without being found out?), though as we were traveling invisibly at the time they were no threat to us.
Here we also proceed with the Sir Sarles questline, obtaining the Illithium by brutalizing Neb.
Also, at long last, we do a scroll scribing session: Breach is now available, along with several 6th level spells, notably Improved Haste.
Flush with our newfound (percieved...) power, we immediately underestimate the Vampires, and pay the price.
Again, Skeleton Warriors saved us. We were able to shift them around to momentarily distract the Vampires as (the non-Dominated members of) the party beat a hasty retreat to the south.
We came back refreshed and quite a bit better prepared, as a Fledgling Vampire found out to its detriment; that's a nice critical hit.
Since we're having so much trouble, we take a moment to forge the Improved Mace of Disruption +2: It is put to immediate good use against the ambush downstairs.
Ah, Tanova... how I loathe you. This time, she prepared that Spell Sequencer against which there ought to be a law: Skull Trap x3, aimed squarely at N. Normally, this'd be cause for extreme concern, but being a Necromancer, N was very unlikely to fail all his saves.. and indeed, he made them all, taking only about 35 damage.
We repay Tanova with IMoD +2 to the face.
After easily dispatching Lassal, we prepare for Bodhi. Another oddity here: We somehow get hit by our own False Dawn, but it deals Fire damage (?), and Confuses both Clerics (??). Guess we won't be using that again...
No idea how that came about. Thankfully, we force Bodhi to retreat in quick fashion, and can then leave this dreadful abode behind.
There were some levels, though nothing of much note: Both Clerics reached L12, and the frontliners got Fighter L10.
I'm just glad we made it through in one piece.
Now, with the IMoD +2 as well as a few L6 slots, I feel more confident about braving the Windspear Hills.
Even Trademeet, with its resident Rakshasa, is now an option (with Breach available)... then we can start contemplating the Planar Sphere.
A fairly short update, but it took a lot of time playing to reach this point: As noted before, Clerics don't really contribute much in terms of damage once past BG1EE, and we are suffering a bit from our principal frontliner still lacking weapon specialization.
The situation is slowly but steadily improving, however. I'm considering the sizable investment of purchasing the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength (~11k gold at our current reputation of 17), though we do also need money for scrolls in the Underdark... we'll see what happens.
At any rate, we're all still in one piece, and will keep on truckin'.
Deja - human totemic druid (Grond0)
Kerb - dwarf berserker (Gate70)
Corezerk V - dwarf berserker (Corey_Russell)
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We still had some odds and sods to do in the City, starting with clearing out Ramazith's Tower that had only been half-completed last time. We also picked up the Cloak of Balduran, but rather than deal with the Iron Throne immediately we decided to do a quick tour of some of the remaining highlights on the map. That started with the basilisk area, where a spirit snake led the way to protect the rest of us from deadly gazes. Once Mutamin was dead, Kirian's crew stood no chance against a pair of raging berserkers.
Deja had been carrying a skull around for quite a while, so decided to go and find Melicamp to put it to use. He failed to survive his transformation, but we consoled ourselves by picking up a pretty penny for sorting out Bassilus.
Back at the Iron Throne, Corezerk led to get up close and personal with the party there. Deja had access to 5th level spells by this time and the use of insect plague made the casters innocuous. Gardush was the only one to survive until that had ended - and he ended a second or two later.
We hurried on to Candlekeep and it was only after arriving there that I realized I hadn't checked that we had a storm giant strength potion - so the strength tome remained there for another lucky adventurer to find
The end game encounters saw Slythe pulled away from his companion and summarily dispatched. At the palace a few nymphs joined our ranks, but didn't have much time to do anything as the dopplegangers went down so quickly.
In the old temple Sarevok was pulled away from his companions as usual. Semaj teleported after him, but ran into some dispelling arrows and didn't last long. Kerb chose to take Sarevok on toe to toe and just managed to outlast him.
Totemic druid 10, 76 HPs, 0 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 7 (G70), 105 HPs, 0 kills (263 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Berserker 7 (CR), 99 HPs, 0 kills (220 in BGEE), 0 deaths
With his own pair of haste boots and a spot of dual wielding, Corezerk got the most kills in that session, though he couldn't pull back the big lead Kerb had established. It will be interesting to see how they match up in BG2EE.
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We press into the dungeon proper, clearing out roughly sixteen Vampiric Mists. No exaggeration either, they came trickling in a few at a time, responding to calls for help from the Hobgoblins, and when we finally pushed through to the pond area, there were another eight waiting for us...
FI now has enough spell slots to go supernova twice a day (once a day while protecting his buffs), as the Rukh Transmuter finds out: There's just no way to hurt FI unless you've got HLA's; a Planetar would do a real number on him though.
It also turns out we are too low-level to trigger an Adamantite Golem spawn, and so the Clay/Stone/Juggernaut Golems actually don't pose much difficulty, mainly because I remembered to memorize a bunch of Free Action this time to counter the incessant Slow spam. Aerial Servants are also a nice option against Clay Golems.
The first Undead spawn is rather massive: I didn't quite count, but it was on the order of two Ancient, three Elder Vampires, plus three Mummies and some Ghasts. That IMoD +2 is really paying off...
Also good that FI can pump his AC so low; someone like Minsc would just die instantly to all the CON drain from getting pummeled.
The Greater Wraiths to the south are easy in comparison. We push on a bit, but are forced to stop at the bridge: The Golems from the north came running to help the Orogs, and while we came out on top, FC got hit with Cursed Wounds.
Just as well that we rest up: Clearing this dungeon in one go under SCS Insane is not so easy, and really, there's no need to push ourselves so either.
This time, we just take the safe option and send a bunch of Skeleton Warriors at the Director. And yeah, he does fire off Enervation twice... so you should probably have NPP up if you want to fight him fairly.
Samia and friends are next (the Guardians were handled with FC and FI under Protection from Fire, nothing special): Kaol and Akae are the real threats here.
Fortunately, Akae fails his save against a Chromatic Orb and is swiftly taken down, and Kaol on his own can't keep up with our frequent removals of both his spell and physical defenses.
Next, we bludgeon Tazok and grab the Full Plate Mail +1.
The Air Elemental down the well deals a little damage with its Whirlwinds, but nothing major.
Even the Adamantite Golem is no issue: It glues itself to FC who leads it around the chamber while FT utilizes our only +3 weapon (Lilarcor) to slowly whittle it down.
Finally, the Greater Wolfwere and its accompanying Wolfweres are taken care of, and it's time for one of the potentially major threats here: Conster.
We head downstairs, talk to Firkraag, then buff to the gills and go back upstairs.
Of course, this ends up a bit of an anticlimax: Conster spends three rounds trying to do something about our massive defenses (and succeeding, to some extent).
But ultimately, his offensive efforts amount to nothing more than some MMM's tossed at Priest of Lathander before True Sight, Pierce Magic and Breach spell his demise.
And that's it for Windspear Hills... well, almost, as Firkraag yet lives, though we'll get around to him later. Nice bit of experience.
The easy-to-middling options are almost all cleared, but we've yet to tackle Trademeet, and so, after selling off yet more Plate Mail in the city, head back out.
Of course, I make the same mistake as always, underestimating encounters. The idea was to clear the whole Druid Grove area in one rest, and I envisioned the Rakshasa being the principal danger... so most of our slots were spent on protections and anti-magics meant for that particular fight.
Should've kept in mind the massive blobs of Spirit/Spectral Trolls you have to deal with before reaching Adratha's Cottage.
Really, really fortunate that SCS Trolls will largely ignore Sleeping opponents, or that would've surely spelled the end of Necromancer.
As evident from the screenshot, we started rallying and expending resources once I realized things weren't looking so hot: The enemy group was put down, and FT was raised courtesy of a Wondrous Recall.
In comparison, the Troll Mound itself was fairly easy, since it's almost only Trolls/Giant Trolls.
We had enough spellworks left to clear the path to the Cottage (thanks mostly to the Skeleton Warriors) and took a rest just outside.
The Rakshasa actually weren't so bad: We had grossly overprepared, as it seems Ihtafeer was the only one with higher-level spells, and she dropped pretty quickly.
The most dangerous thing that happened was one of them attaching itself (under Haste) to N for several rounds, but we were eventually able to shake it off.
A double Silence finally spelled the end of the Acolytes outside the Grove, and we watched as Cernd beat down Faldorn. Hooray!
Upon our return to Trademeet, we sacrificed a Potion of Mind Focusing to get FT to 24 DEX, and successfully filched the Efreeti Bottle of Taquee. Hooray Hooray!
I usually just turn in the Mantle to Logan, but this time opted to deal with Skarmaen and Lilith, as I wanted the former's Elven Chainmail. It's not much, but it's significantly better than nothing, which is what FI wears whenever he's casting spells right now.
Lilith had access to 7th level spells, but didn't get around to casting much beyond a Mantle: Skarmaen had only minor protections and was quickly hacked down.
Well, all things considered, Trademeet was quite easy... just gotta be careful not to underestimate the damnable Trolls so.
No levels this time, but both Clerics are on the verge of unlocking 7th level slots, and FC is about to get a 6th level slot, allowing her to (finally) protect her buffs once a day.
We're now running out of easy things to do.
I'll quickly mop up the Kidnappers as well as the Sea's Bounty Pirates (we'll go in with apocalyptic buff levels this time...), then there's just the Thief stronghold left before things start to get hairy.
We should be sitting around 70k gold once that is done, and we'll have a fair number of valuable gems to pawn off, so it seems a good time to hit the Underdark: We should be able to afford the critical gear from the Drow and Duergar merchants, no sweat, and we'll be quite high-level too. Importantly, N should be able to cast 7th level spells by the time we reach Ust Natha, and this time we absolutely will not underestimate Deirex so...
Previous part found here
Now, the choice is Brynnlaw or start dealing with higher-level stuff.
Given that, barring an incredibly fortunate random SCS drop of a Ruby Ray scroll (which I don't think I've ever seen), there's no way for us to deal with L18+ enemy Mages and their Spell Trap, I go with Brynnlaw.
Prepared as we are (and packing the IMoD +2), the initial vampire ambush is shrugged off.
We rush through the town and swiftly dismantle Vadek; he only got to cast a single Improved Mantle (pun not intended).
Next, Perth the Adept. Once he's disposed of Kitthix, he's actually quite keen on following us outside: Fortunately, the three Greater Earth Elementals he gated in via Spell Trigger don't tag along.
Barring an attempt at what seemed like Imprisonment aimed at FC (negated by a rare Potion of Invisibility use), Perth doesn't amount to much, since he didn't go with Spell Trap and so could be Breached.
The Book of Infinite Spells immediately turns to the last page and its pointless Burning Hands. Booh.
Following a quick rest, we enter the Asylum proper. There's almost a bit of an issue during the dream sequence, as I forgot that SCS Bhaal frequently (always?) gets an Oil of Speed... and N didn't bring one.
However, N does have the Sandthief's Ring, so he invisibly waits out the Haste effect, then slowly pelts and wands Bhaal down, and we're set loose in the maze.
First: Pick up the solitary quarterstaff, bracers and healing potions, then head northwest, clearing the Gibberlings and gaining some rudimentary weaponry; also pick up the Ring of Regeneration.
Second: Deal with the Orogs and Minotaurs guarding the exit to get some armor, shields and more weapons. For the first time since I don't know when, PoT lets loose with a few Lightning Bolts in an attempt to conserve our resources.
Third: Have two Aerial Servants clobber the Clay Golem.
OK, this time I absolutely will not underestimate the Ruhk. Following extensive buffing, including Enchanted Weapon, N drops a Skull Trap which clears all but one of the Mephits. FC and FI charge in, and it actually goes off without a hitch: The Ruhk isn't nearly as tough as a Rakshasa.
Both Aerial Servants are still alive, so we have them help out against the Yuan-Ti as well: We take a lot of damage but it's spread around, and the Ring of Regeneration means we won't run out of healing... though some patience is required.
The Aerial Servants continue to be MVP's, exploding the Greater Wolfwere basically on contact.
That's the first half of the first level cleared; let's move on.
Kobolds aren't an issue. The Mind Flayer and Beholder are both dealt with via Skeleton Warriors (if it's just one Mind Flayer, it won't have enough actions in a round to kill the Skeleton Warriors before they kill it).
We swing around, clearing some Ghasts and Mummies. Oddly, the Umber Hulk ambush apparently spawned upon us entering the level, so we have to hold off all of them at once. Again, we suffer massive damage, but it's spread around.
A Farsight reveals that we're facing the usual in the Library, that is three Skeleton Warriors, two Bone Golems, two Greater Mummies, and a Lich which appears to be a Necromancer (it summoned a Skeleton Warrior of its own).
We prepare accordingly and move to engage: The Lich here doesn't seem to be too attached to the massive Undead spawn, so we can clear the latter out without interruption. A Fire Storm severely weakens all enemies barring the Bone Golems, and for about the fifth time, we take massive damage but come out on top. It's rough going without our gear...
OK, now we rest and turn our attention on the Lich. It puts up a Spell Trap, so we're essentially forced to wear it down using summons.
I try a different tack this time: With two Clerics, we have two Gates available, so let's drop a Balor on the Lich.
For some reason I do not fully understand, the Balor completely ignores the Lich (though it does fight and kill its summons), but fortunately the Lich very much does not ignore the Balor: Once the Lich has wasted its entire spellbook and the poor Balor returns home, we send in a few Skeleton Warriors to seal the deal.
Dace is quickly brought low, and we move onto the second level after having dealt with the Pit Fiend (who was quite weak and only worth 9000 experience).
Oddities abound this run, as we note when our summoned Hakeashar immediately dies (?) upon coming into contact with its own Stinking Cloud. Ah well, the Skeleton Warriors had the Yuan-Tis covered anyway.
Now that both Clerics are L15, we get the 9HD versions, which make remarkably short work of the Ulitharid, Noble Djinni, Spirit Troll, Umber Hulk Elder... in fact all enemies remaining here, barring the Clay Golems for which we've preserved several casts of Aerial Servant.
We make our way out, utilizing a (summoned by FI... he doesn't have many great L6 options) Greater Earth Elemental to help out against the Trolls bent on performing a sacrifice, and that's it: We're clear of the maze, if not Spellhold proper.
We prepare thoroughly: Everyone gets Protection from Fire/Electricity, select characters get Protection from Cold, then it's Protection from Evil/Chaotic Commands, buffs galore, etc.
Lonk gets a juicy 2000 gold bribe, and we're off.
Apparently, the Clones count as summoned by Irenicus? He pops a Chain Contingency with two Mordenkainen's Sword at us immediately after casting the Clone spell, and as a result, we only have to fight four Clones total. Weird.
We're unable to take him down before he can get Time Stop off the ground, and then things take a turn for the worse.
Oh, this is bad. A Dark Planetar is basically unkillable at this stage, which absolutely cannot be said for us. I try to kite it around while simultaneously working on Jon's defenses, but it's too fast, and the local loonies are of very little help (Tiax just stands there doing nothing.. not that he usually does much anyway).
Note how FC and FI are basically buffless? Yeah, Remove Magic went straight through both Spell Immunity: Abjuration and Entropy Shield. I've noticed that weird behavior earlier, and also had spell protections removed by Secret Word/Spell Thrust while under Spell Immunity: Abjuration. I can't believe it's intended?
Anyway, we're in dire straits. Can we turn this around somehow? We shuffle around like mad, but can't really apply any pressure to Jon: The moment we try to stop, the Dark Planetar zooms in on us... and eventually, our luck runs out.
FT! I... I never loved you!
OK, this is really bad, but to be fair, FT was a pretty cruddy character. We can somehow finagle our way through the Underdark absent a Thief, I'm sure, but that entails living to tell the tale here first.
Around here Jon pops a Spell Trigger with Spell Immunity: Abjuration, Spell Deflection and Globe of Invulnerability, removing any hope we had of getting through his defenses in a hurry. We crowd into the northwestern corner while Jon and that insane Dark Planetar chops up the last of the loons and our final Mordenkainen's Sword.
Surely you jest, madame.
I can keep from laughing.
And there goes FI permantly. Also kind of a rotten character, but he was all we had.
So what now? If we (by now, it's just I) can somehow best Jon, we get the pleasure of attempting the Underdark with a solitary warrior-type without weapon specialization.
Of course, I have my doubts whether a L14 Necromancer can beat a.. whatever level and whatever kit Irenicus is.
Still, apparently you can rest here.
The only way I see of doing this is summon spam. N doesn't know True Sight, so a simple Mirror Image will foil most attempts at dealing spell damage to Irenicus... OK, let's try.
I go for Mordenkainen's Sword, Conjure Fire Elemental, Animate Dead, even a Spider Spawn, and hit the rest button.
Go forth, my brave minions!
Farewell, my brave minions.
But Jon... why?!
Not even sure what that was or how it hit me from half a screen away, but I'd wager it was a Horrid Wilting.
This was basically over the moment Jon was able to get Dark Planetar off the ground.
Maybe if FI and FC had kept their buffs, they could've done something about it? The rest of Jon's spellworks weren't a big deal, after all.
Anyway, the conclusion is that my Necromancer runs seem to be cursed. I can't remember the last time I actually lost a run to Spellhold Irenicus, though this version does not seem to pull many punches... he used four HLA's: Dark Planetar, Improved Alacrity, Dragon's Breath and Comet.
In hindsight, I'm... not sure what I could've done differently. We couldn't just ignore the Clones after all (but maybe we should have?), and the two Magical Swords Jon put up were wreaking havoc even before the Dark Planetar arrived.
That's actually a fair point, I should've prepared some Minor Sequencers with Magic Missile since we lack Death Spell, and possibly even a Mordenkainen's Force Missiles or two.
In retrospect I have to say, completely random runs are extremely punishing.
No dual-wielding, no efficient ranged, barely any efficient melee at all, constant issues with unlocking/detrapping, utterly reliant on Strength/Cat's Grace...
Also, two Clerics is definitely at least one too many. While quite powerful in BG1, they don't really pull their weight come BG2.
I was also constantly annoyed at the armor swapping on FI and FT.
I'll let this rest for a little bit. If I do another random run, it'll probably be the best-of-three variety, though right now I'm feeling like a regular NPC run. We'll see what happens.
Hopefully someone else can take up the task of getting a Necromancer into the Hall, as I just can't seem to cover the distance.
Deja - human totemic druid (Grond0)
Kerb - dwarf berserker (Gate70)
Corezerk V - dwarf berserker (Corey_Russell)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1215878/#Comment_1215878
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216120/#Comment_1216120
Other commitments meant we hadn't expected to play this week, but ironically illness resulted in everyone being available to sit at their computer
Irenicus' dungeon was, unsurprisingly, no problem - though we did need to have a few rests to deal with trap damage. Ulvaryl was successfully taken down before she could flee.
The circus was our first port of call and that was also swiftly done. The reward should have included enhanced charisma thanks to a magic ring, but that evaporated as Deja attempted to put it on. Money should be no problem though, so the ring is no great loss. While in the area Deja fancied taking down Mencar and his companions to get better armor. Kerb warned that might not be straightforward given the current lack of decent armor - and he apparently decided to prove his point by getting stuck when attempting to withdraw from combat and taking heavy damage. He did manage to get away in time, but collapsed when his rage ran out reducing HPs to zero - fortunately these days in the EE that only means a brief period of unconsciousness, so the party can continue to boast they've had no deaths to date.
There was another little glitch at the Copper Coronet. His companions warned Deja there not to take part in the fight between Hendak and Lehtinan as that has resulted in Hendak going hostile in the past. Deja of course refused to take their advice and Hendak duly got annoyed. However, Deja at least had a decent answer to that problem and a quick charm person ensured Hendak gave us a reward.
With one suit of full plate in the bag, we next looked in the Docks for a matching set. While there we decided to do Mae'Var's quests. It was dark by the time we got to the temple, so the priestess was asleep while we looted the necklace. Rayic Gethras can be a formidable foe, but he was disabled by insects and easy meat for berserker attacks. Mae'Var himself was of course totally outclassed. Corezerk volunteered to dare the petrification trap to get a +1 buckler for Deja and his dwarven saves helped ensure his safety there.
With cash starting to build up Corezerk benefited from the purchase of Azuredge before we paid off Gaelan Bayle. Deja attempted to address inventory problems by setting off for Watcher's Keep in search of a potion bag, but was distracted by freeing Renfeld during an ambush. That led to looting the harpers after dealing with Prebek and Sanasha. The former managed a lightning bolt despite being under heavy attack, but that fortunately just bounced round the edge of the room without hitting anyone. The final action saw us pick up a little bonus by surrounding Lucette and killing him to revenge Xzar.
Totemic druid 12, 80 HPs, 22 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 10 (G70), 123 HPs, 84 kills (263 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Berserker 10 (CR), 118 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 64 kills (220 in BGEE), 0 deaths
( https://www.gibberlings3.net/forums/forum/118-sword-coast-stratagems/ )
Facing down a fallen planetar at this level (almost at any level, really) without full protected buffs is very likely to result in disaster, so the fact that your SI:A/Entropy Shield failed to do their job propably meant that there were very few ways out of the situation.
I did another redownload and made sure to delete everything local, so unless SCS modifies the registry (I hope not...) maybe next time around'll go better.
While waiting for inspiration for the next run to strike, I had a look at the completed no-reload runs, more specifically those using SCS.
I've excluded mod-introduced kits, and runs where it wasn't clear if SCS was used or not; if you do, you get the following, where no note next to the kit means difficulty was core.
Bard
Barbarian
Blackguard LoB
Blade
Cleric/Mage LoB
Cleric/Ranger
Conjurer Insane
Dragon Disciple
Druid
Enchanter
Fighter
Fighter/Illusionist LoB
Fighter/Mage Insane
Fighter/Mage/Cleric LoB
Fighter/Mage/Thief Insane
Illusionist/Thief
Jester
Mage/Thief
Priest of Tempus Insane
Priest of Tyr
Shadowdancer
Skald
Stalker
Sorcerer LoB
Thief
Totemic Druid Insane
Undead Hunter
I thought this was nice, as it shows that there's plenty of work left to do
Isn't Lucette a feminine name? Lucette is a her and not a him yes?
Funnily enough I did note the possible discrepancy when I posted the report, but didn't care enough to check
She says "Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side..."
Deja - human totemic druid (Grond0)
Kerb - dwarf berserker (Gate70)
Corezerk V - dwarf berserker (Corey_Russell)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1215878/#Comment_1215878
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216120/#Comment_1216120
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216315/#Comment_1216315
The session started with a trip to Watcher's Keep to pick up the potion case. Deja was minded to venture inside, but Kerb reminded him that we had not yet picked up the Amulet of Power and without that the possibility of vampiric wraiths inside was pretty daunting. We duly returned to Athkatla to find Aran Linvail and get his goodies. Then it was off to the Graveyard to allow Corezerk to show off Azuredge. An early victim there was Uncle Lester - this was one of many occasions when Deja's spell target died before he could finish casting. Underground, Deja did manage to inconvenience Pai'Na with an insect plague - making her an easy victim for the berserkers. Deja had somehow managed to ignore all the helmets found to date, so put on the green ioun stone. In the EE that doesn't help with protecting against criticals, but theoretically Deja should rarely be troubled by those anyway if he remembers to use ironskins.
Following up on the kidnap plot, we moved on to the Bridge District. Deja got himself in trouble there against the Rune Assassins when he deliberately allowed himself to be targeted in order to negate backstabs with his ironskins. That worked well, but the rate of attacks and his poor AC meant the second assassin was rapidly removing his HPs - fortunately, Corezerk's axes were just as efficient at removing the assassin's life
Corey noted that we hadn't yet dealt with the slavers and that was duly done without trouble - Deja once more charmed Hendak at the first attempt to convince him to give us a reward rather that a punch in the teeth. He suggested going to de'Arnise next, but Deja felt his duty as a druid was to get the druid Grove near Trademeet back into equilibrium as soon as possible. Summons helped deal with the genies to get us the Shield of Harmony and Corezerk initially told Deja to sell that as he would rely on his berserking abilities. A few minutes later he had a change of heart though and fortunately Deja had not yet been to a shop. At the Grove Deja prepared his spells to face Faldorn. The easy way to win that fight is to disable the other druid with an insect plague - and that was duly done. Tiris and the local tomb were completed as well to boost reputation and we splashed out on a new cloak and belt. Kerb was offered the opportunity to get the Dwarven Thrower, but decided he wanted to see the price come down a bit more before forking out for that.
The final target for the session was the de'Arnise Keep and we just had time to get inside that before saving. In our usual brief post-match summing up we compared the most powerful victim each of us had dealt with. Deja was slightly ashamed to say that his record showed that as Cohrvale
Totemic druid 13, 90 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 57 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 11 (G70), 126 HPs, 161 kills (263 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Berserker 10 (CR), 121 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 155 kills (220 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Corezerk's axes proved potent this time with Azuredge cutting down undead and Stonefire finishing off trolls. As a result he's clawed back most of the kills lead Kerb had from the opening BG2EE session.
I had made it to Galvena. But 3 lightning bolts from Venek killed Corethief - RIP Corethief. Back to the drawing board.
Deja - human totemic druid (Grond0)
Kerb - dwarf berserker (Gate70)
Corezerk V - dwarf berserker (Corey_Russell)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1215878/#Comment_1215878
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216120/#Comment_1216120
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216315/#Comment_1216315
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216501/#Comment_1216501
We started the session in the de'Arnise Hold and quickly recovered the flail heads to make the FoA. Unfortunately the one from Glaicus disappeared into thin air, preventing us from getting the XP for completing the quest. However, none of us were intending to make use of the weapon, so the loss was relatively small. There were no problems in the area, with summons helping to ensure TorGal went down hard.
Moving on to Umar Hills we did out usual trick of spreading the party out in order to complete several objectives at once. That was only partly successful as far as Deja was concerned as the Killer Mimic demonstrated its ability to hold enemies irrespective of their location on the map (Corezerk used his berserk ability to ensure he could keep bashing the mimic). Thaxy put up a good fight and only died a moment before Corezerk's berserk ran out - fortunate timing as his breath would have been far more dangerous once the berserkers were not protected from level drain. The Shade Lord though only lasted a second or two as Azuredge claimed another victim.
After picking up Valygar's body, we returned to Athkatla. Deja considered buying Everard's sling, but decided the 67k gold in hand needed to be protected for a bit longer. Therefore it was off to the Planar Sphere to look for more loot. The first bunch of golems there put up a decent fight and I noticed Kerb resorting to a couple of healing potions to stave off the attacks of the clay golem. The only other moment of slight concern was when a timing error meant the insect plague intended to disable Tolgerias hit him while he was still neutral. However, a follow up 3rd level insect spell successfully tagged him and after also being poisoned by a spirit snake it was no surprise he failed to complete any spells. The remaining encounters were all easy enough, but there was one other incident of note when Kerb managed to pass a looted bow to Corezerk - only to find a duplicate of that was still in his inventory. It's pretty common for items to disappear while being transferred, but not the other way round. Now if only we could manage that with the Ring of Gaxx next time everyone would be happy
We returned to the Graveyard to sort out Bodhi's initial incarnation and pick up the Mace of Disruption. The final action in the session saw us heading into the Temple Sewers, where the rakshasa provided a new(ish) cloak for Corezerk.
Totemic druid 13, 90 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 71 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 13 (G70), 132 HPs, 247 kills (263 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Berserker 13 (CR), 127 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 266 kills (220 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Corezerk continued to take advantage this session of the continuing generous supply of trolls and undead to take the lead in the kills race. His twin axes (Stonefire and Azuredge are well suited to that, but Kerb may be able to stage a comeback in future sessions.
It's mainly unmodded : only the EEfixpack, Pathfinding fix, EEex, Lefreut UI and Bubble spells menu.
It's on insane, no double damage, max HP at level up. That means BG1 should be relatively easy, but SoD will be very hard.
Since necromancer is the only one left from the pantheon, I choose it.
And so here is Drusilla, the evil necromancer ! Part 1 : BGEE (and maybe the last one as well...)
It was easy to gather my evil crew thanks to the imp familiar. I choose find familiar, sleep and Larloch's minor drain as my first spells.
On the way back to FAI after recruiting Viconia, Xzar was killed in an ambush. I decided to left him dead to keep Montaron with me.
I also recruited Kagain, Shar Teel and Dorn.
When Shar Teel hit level 3, I choose longbow proficiency and then dual class her to thief.
She would concentrate on lockpick and disarm trap, while Montaron will concentrate on set trap and detect illusions. She could in the end put the points from thief level 4 and 8 in longbow, thus attaining three with the composite bow.
We then go to the gnolls fortress for the gauntlet of dexterity and tome of charisma, but didn't entered the fortress itself.
We helped Albert, brung back Brage to the temple (better reward than to Oublek), helped Prism (same, better reward than doing strictly evil) and appeased Marle.
Then we did the Nashkel mines and hunted down some bandits.
Drusilla waited clearing the bandits camp to use some precious potions of genius / mind to scribe all the scrolls gathered so far, and memorized glitterdust in anticipation of Cloakwood trek.
Sadly her horror spell didn't work against the wyverns in the cave, but the wand of frost did the trick.
Drassus crew didn't fare well against web, silence and fireball. The traps from Montaron weren't even needed.
In the mines all went fine, Viconia once again succeed at landing a silence spell on Davaeorn.
After that I cleared some maps, looking for loot. The bounty hunters fell to web / silence.
Montaron's traps targeted useless mercenaries instead of Ekandor, but a wand of paralysis stunned him.
We also did Rasaad quest to obtain the big belt for Kagain.
I decided to proceed with the story, planning a second scribing session for Drusilla after looting Ramazith's Tower, Iron Throne Headquarters, Ice Island and Candlekeep library.
Ice Island was easy with Viconia silencing the first three mages. I will never understand the "canon party" fans, a party without a cleric in BG1 ? Never !
Time to save the dukes (and stopping the flaming Fists to try to arrest me), Kristin was silenced by Viconia and Slythe then was an easy kill. I didn't let a chance to the doppelgangers in the palace, with some traps, animate deads, and slow spells.
I was almost ready to finish BG1, but I wanted to be better prepared for SoD, so I went to Durlag's Tower for the last tome remaining, but also the Durlag's Goblet and Kiel's helmet.
I helped the succubi to escape, and the wardens didn't last long.
It was the first time in all the run when I thought it was over. Maybe it was a sign to not push my luck to far ?
Anyway, I then decided to get the shield +2 and Arla's Dragonbane...
Somehow the Air aspect almost killed Kagain.
Chess on the other hand was easy with web and fireball.
It was almost dead, then....
That means I had four things to dowithout him : thieves maze, Undercity, Sarevok and Kozak's Tomb.
After some thoughts on the options left, I discarded Khalid and Jaheira still at level 1, Eldoth too weak, Ajantis and Yeslick because of Kagain and others evil NPC,and in the end went for Baeloth, which came with 45,000 XP instead of 32,000 for the others. Dorn was at 140,000 XP... Sigh... But better him than Drusilla ! Pawns are here to be sacrificed, so the queen can win !
I so recruited Baeloth, and put Montaron in the front with Kagain.
I raided Entar's Estate and the palace, and bought Drusilla the last spells not in her spellbook. I also bought arrows of dispelling.
With all the wanted items in my inventory (notably some wands recharged), i went for Sarevok.
I use an invisible Shar Teel to disarm traps and backstab Sarevok with the dagger of venom, but it succeed at his saving throw.
Meanwhile, Semaj teleported himselfnear the four traps set by Montaron and Shar Teel, and then was greeted by the four animate deads summoned by Viconia. A minor sequencer with two magic missiles from Drusilla finished him.
Angelo and Sarevok followed Shar Teel back to the entrance, and Angelo annoyingly used arrows of detonation at melee range, killing himself but also hurting my party.
Tazok succeed at his saving throws against two domination spells from Drusilla, while Sarevok was busy with the undeads and Kagain and Montaron. Shar Teel hit him with a dispel arrow, and Montaron with his 23 strength from a potion landed sone good blows.
As always, the true challenge was to find an appropriate portrait for Drusilla. After two tries, I choose this one (stats at SoD start) :
I've got a few commitments today, but there's probably time to complete the game if things go well. It's currently 12:04 a.m. and I already rolled up a suitably powerful character yesterday, so am ready to dive straight into the action with it
Update 1 at 4.45 a.m.
Forgot to reset in advance to 60fps, but quickly did that.
Ignored most quests in Candlekeep, though did successfully learn identify. Found knock spell at Gorion’s grave.
Bought invisibility and found PFP at High Hedge.
Killed Algernon for his cloak.
Followed Korax round the basilisk area to get to level 4/4. Blinded Kirian’s companions and stinking cloud allowed for her easy disposal.
At Firewine Bridge charmed Bentan to get his scroll of PfM and blinded Meilum for bracers upgrade. On to Nashkel where I inadvertently rested with reputation still only back to 9 and got LMD instead of Bhaal healing.
Greywolf (or his corpse) handed over an improved sword. Then took Samuel back to the FAI. Rested to identify stuff there, but fortunately Samuel survived.
Blind and magic missiles dealt with battle horrors at Durlag’s Tower. The PfM scroll allowed me to safely get the tome (and kill the ghost). I didn’t bother with looting there though.
Did a few chores in the Cloud Peaks on the way to grab the charisma tome.
Blinded the Doomsayer on the way to get the constitution tome – using stinking cloud and MSD to protect against sirines there.
Mulahey failed to survive a stinking cloud at the Nashkel Mine. Outside there, grabbed the wand of monster summoning from some ghasts. Reporting back to the mayor took reputation to 20. Nimbul provided a find familiar scroll.
Sneaked through the Bandit Camp and used blind and stinking cloud to make the fight in Tazok’s tent trivial.
Summons avoided any risk while working through the ankheg nest.
A bit of shopping included the Dagger of Venom, some more spells and the good mage robe.
I was now close to the XP cap and just by-passed the Cloakwood on the way to the mine. Drasus & co were blinded there before heading down. At the bottom, the battle horrors were blinded before I charmed the guard to attack Davaeorn. However, he recovered his senses quickly and broke off the attack, so I used the Greenstone Amulet to do the job myself.
A quick tour of the City allowed me to acquire the Helm and Cloak of Balduran, +2 ring and several more tomes. The Iron Throne gang stood no chance, with only a blinded Alai and the doppleganger surviving a series of webs.
Back at Candlekeep the catacombs provided the final couple of tomes for my collection. I couldn’t resist using web on Prat, even though there was no real gain in doing so.
Once more in the City, where Slythe was webbed and shot down without bothering with Krystin. At the palace, hastened summons and chaos (cast from scroll) avoided any significant risk. Belt & Liia both comfortably survived.
After running through the maze, I bypassed the Undercity party on the way to find Sarevok. He was annoyed by a dispelling arrow before Semaj teleported out into some summons. His spells killed those, but I was protected by 2 potions of magic protection. Sarevok was malisoned to make him vulnerable, but still managed to shrug off several blinds. However, lying down on the job due to an excess of emotion proved fatal for him.
I transferred to SoD with 337k XP. That’s not too far short of a typical run for me, demonstrating that, while I missed out some of the content I normally do, I did the bulk of it. Having amassed a large amount of resources and high XP, I'll expect to whip through SoD significantly more quickly.
Here’s some screenshots of the action so far, including a character record following transfer.
Update 2 at 7.35 a.m.
In the City the only quests I did was to get the Spectacles of Spectacle and the Battle Tankard helmet. The 50k or so of jewellery I carried over from BGEE also allowed some shopping, including the purchase of stoneskin.
At the Coast Way Crossing I did no optional quests, but just used invisibility to trigger the encounter at the bridge safely.
I skipped through Troll Claw Woods on the way to the Forest of Wyrms. I entered the old temple there invisibly and went to find Ziatar. Web followed by stunning darts sorted her out. I was then tackling the Neothelid when the fatal black screen bug occurred and I had to reload from the autosave. It only took a couple of minutes to get back to the Neothelid and potions of invulnerability, stone form and absorption, along with a PfPoison scroll provided protection until it could be beaten up. Akanna was stuck in a web and fireballed. On the way out Morentherene got a dagger through the heart.
At Boareskyr Bridge, Vichand was stunned by the wand of paralyzation. The dragon scales were turned into a shield before I surrendered the fort. Before taking on the mage on the bridge I realised that one of the things not done in BGEE was getting the Ring of Energy – using that is my preferred tactic here. However, hasted summons and MMMs interrupted his initial spell and I was able to finish him off safely.
At the Coalition Camp I again avoided any quests, other than summoning Nazramu to do a bit of shopping. Skie was rescued at Dragonspear before I headed for the Underground River. I hit the XP cap there with the death of a gargantuan spider. The cyclops was stunned by wand and quickly finished off to get its Seal of Caelar and I then bypassed the remaining guards and went underground to place the Bwoosh and poison the food and water.
Back at the Coalition Camp it was time to prepare for an invasion. Preparation was in fact very limited as the main tactic was just to shoot exploding arrows at the various groups. My allies seemed perfectly happy to take losses from friendly fire, so it didn’t take long to complete a successful defence of the Camp – one Coalition Spy doing well to survive the holocaust there.
Back at Dragonspear Castle, a PfM scroll was used along with stunning darts to deal with Ashatiel. Inside I avoided combat on the way to find Thrix. His summons were mainly dealt with using exploding arrows as I still had lots of them. I did though manage to hit myself a few times as a result of the enemies teleporting next to me and had to retreat briefly to the previous area at one point to regenerate a bit. I took the long sword as a reward from winning a wager with Thrix. After resting I buffed and took the Hellevator. The enemies on that were no match for me in melee and I moved on to find Belhifet. I allow Caelar to fight against him, though don’t allow her to be controlled. However, using restoration scrolls in conjunction with the Battle Tankard can keep her alive without significantly damaging my combat abilities. Several scrolls were used like that before Belhifet breathed his last.
There were no problems with the epilogue and I duly loaded up BG2EE – transferring into that with 772k XP. Here are some screenshots from SoD and the updated character record.
Update 3 at 3.45 p.m.
On arrival in Athkatla the circus offered a gentle introduction to the new environment. In the Slums Gaelan Bayle was paid off and Hendak given control of the Copper Coronet before the slavers were evacuated from their hideout.
It was only back in the Promenade that I noticed something else I’d missed in BGEE given the lack of pantaloons in my inventory. Oh well, that shouldn’t be too serious with this character. Webs dealt with Mencar’s party without any hassle. I dislike paying the Cowled Wizards and had already had one warning from them, so tried using similar tactics on their enforcement groups. One of the groups escaped when I accidentally summoned them straight after killing the previous group and I had to make a run for it. I didn’t have any wands or other source of damage beyond spells and wasn’t able to finish Zallanora off in the final group before she used her dimension door and disappeared.
On the way to Watcher’s Keep, Suna Seni tried an ambush and regretted it. On arrival I bought the potion case before exploring the top floor. Farsight had shown no vampiric wraiths, so it was easy enough to kill the statues there.
Back in Athkatla paid Gaelan Bayle and collected goodies from Aran Linvail. Shortly after that I rescued Renfeld and used improved invisibility to deal with Prebek before looting the harpers and killing Lucette. While in the area did Mae’Var’s quests before finishing him off.
I wanted to have the FoA available, so went to the de’Arnise Hold next. I skipped little bits of that, but dealt severely with TorGal. The find familiar scroll there reminded me that I hadn’t summoned a new familiar in SoA and did that forthwith. I declined the offer of a Stronghold there.
Next up was Trademeet. I lost out on the efreeti bottle there when I blinded the genie outside the tent, but didn’t immediately kill him – and found he’d disappeared after killing the ones inside. At the Grove I picked up Belm as an off-hand weapon. I just watched on as Cernd snacked on Faldorn.
With time wearing on and pretty slow progress, I decided to go after the Planar Prison to get boots of speed. That meant going after Mekrath in the temple sewers. While there I beat up a rakshasa to get his cloak and then used a PfU scroll to kill the nearby lich. The liches at the City Gates and in the Bridge District followed and then Daystar made short work of Kangaxx to provide me with the Ring of Gaxx. Finally at the Planar Prison I entered invisibly and killed the mage before he could buff. With regeneration and improved saving throws from the Ring of Gaxx, there was no difficulty in working round and dealing with the Warden. Unfortunately the game crashed on exiting the prison and I hadn’t saved it, so had to do the entire area again. That was duly done and the levels earned gave me my first HLAs.
I boosted reputation by doing the Skinner quest, the Fallen Paladins, Trademeet tomb and then Tiris. That pushed it up to 19 and I decided to buy a few things, including the Robe of Vecna.
Next was Umar Hills, where I used invisibility to avoid a lot of the fighting on the way through to Thaxy. Lower resistance and malison set him up to be blinded for easy disposal. A Daystar sunray set the Shade Lord up for a kill.
I had various commitments mixed in that session, which partly explains the slow progress. There’s only just over 8 hours left in the day now though and at most I’ll be able to play for about 5 of those. It’s thus looking unlikely that I’ll make it through, but it will be possible to miss out a lot of content from here, so we’ll see how far I can get.
Here's some screenshots from this session.
Update 4 at 10.00 p.m.
Thanks @Aerakar. I'm still plugging away and have just got into ToB. I have again written notes as I went along and may post them later. With time pressing though I think I'm going to have to forget notes in ToB and just see how far I can make it through that in the next couple of hours ...
Update 5 at 11.15 p.m.
I was fighting Sendai's statues when I managed to nod off briefly - not a good idea. When I jerked back to awareness the planetar which had been around was gone and I was trapped in one of the alcoves by 3 attackers - with only 10 HPs left. Probably the thing to do would have been to use PfMW, but I chose to take an invisibility potion first. Unfortunately I think true sight must have already been running as I became visible again even before the true sights cast by 2 of the attackers activated. That meant I was vulnerable to being attacked before I could cast again - and that proved to be the end of the run ...
Hmm, it's been a rough week for me no-reload. Somehow Coreslinger got one-shotted by a gnoll when at full health - level 1 protection did not kick in. I wonder if someone is trying to tell me something...back to the drawing board.
Deja - human totemic druid (Grond0)
Kerb - dwarf berserker (Gate70)
Corezerk V - dwarf berserker (Corey_Russell)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1215878/#Comment_1215878
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216120/#Comment_1216120
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216315/#Comment_1216315
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216501/#Comment_1216501
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216656/#Comment_1216656
One of the commitments I had that made the one-day challenge attempt with a fighter/mage more difficult was our regular MP session. Fortunately I managed not to fall asleep in that and the run continues with no deaths to date - though there were a couple of slightly scary moments this time.
Despite the fact that we've had no deaths in this run so far, Kerb felt that having a rod of resurrection available would be a wise investment - so the first action was going in search of Mekrath. While in that area, Deja decided it was about time to reduce the lich population. The berserkers attacked with just the protections from their rage and the Shade Lich managed to get his initial buffs going - but Azuredge claimed the kill as soon as his opening PfMW expired.
That kill finally gave Deja the rest of the 750k required to progress from level 13 to level 14. That prompted druids at the Grove to ask him to return and take control as Great Druid. He decided to respond to the call and found another druid interested in a pit fight, but apparently unaware of how deadly insect plague is to another caster
The encounter with Mekrath had opened up access to the Planar Prison and we went there next. Deja used Nature's Beauty as his newly acquired L7 spell on entrance and that actually killed at least 1 opponent outright as well as blinding several others to make the initial fight an easy one with no-one taking any damage.
The final action of the session was to work through the Windspear Hills. Deja did take a bit of a risk against Firkraag by getting close to him to use resist magic to reduce his magic resistance and follow up with Nature's Beauty. That successfully blinded the dragon, meaning the fact that Deja was scared by Firkraag's aura at the same time was no great concern. In fact it appeared to be no concern at all as Firkraag remained inactive for the short remainder of his life. I think that was probably a reflection of how large dragon icons are - Firkraag's visual range after being blinded was probably within his own icon (or only very slightly beyond it) and he was unaware of being attacked.
Totemic druid 14, 92 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 87 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 15 (G70), 138 HPs, 360 kills (263 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Berserker 15 (CR), 133 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 344 kills (220 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Kerb retook the lead this time. He's now wielding the MoD, so Corezerk no longer had such an advantage when fighting undead and he will need to work hard to stay competitive in future.
After the time pressure of a one-day challenge I thought I would attempt something a bit more leisurely and have another go with my wizard slayer in the long-life challenge. The fact this is the 73rd attempt at that is evidence that it is a significant challenge and, unlike with most characters, I don't think it's possible to be certain of success even if you play perfectly. However, given perfect play I think the chance of progression is reasonably good, so I continue to search for the perfect run in a triumph of hope over experience
All went well in Candlekeep and I shot down Imoen, Xzar and Montaron to get a bit of equipment. Shoal provided the first XP bonanza, taking me to level 3 with a very acceptable additional 27 HPs. A few chores around Beregost included returning Zhurlong's boots and took me to level 4 with 15 more HPs.
I decided I wanted LMD for a first Bhaal power, so went next to Firewine Bridge and killed Bentan for his PfM scroll. I rested in Nashkel to get LMD before returning north in search of some basilisks. Korax took the front line there and following him round got me two more levels, though just the additional 20 HPs this time. Korax's chances of success against Kirian's group were very slim, but I let him try his luck - running away after he was killed.
On the way to the FAI I shot down an ogre and, as I couldn't use it, returned his belt to Unshey. On the way Tarnesh was shot down rapidly without any need to nip into the temple to avoid his spells. I bought Buckley's Buckler there in case the regeneration ability was needed. While I had it in mind, I nipped back to Beregost to kill some spiders and give Landrin back his goods - while also picking up the gold pantaloons.
Thus far I'd fought exclusively from range, but decided it was time to make melee a feasible option, so went to the Nashkel Mine to shoot down Greywolf for his sword. On the way I decided to tackle Zordral at the Carnival. I hit him several times and was caught a bit by surprise when he successfully cast horror. I got outside his tent, but not in time to avoid being caught by the horror. He followed after me, but his next 3 spells all fizzled so he had no acid arrows left. However, his LMD did inflict my first damage of the run before I took my revenge. There were then no problems in shooting down Greywolf, though that did take a little while of running round.
A few more chores around Beregost saw Perdue get his sword back and Silke shot down before she could complete any spell. Bassilus failed to make any of his spells stick, though I was careful to retreat out of sight range before any of them hit anyway. Melicamp was successfully revived.
I was no longer trying to avoid damage and took the odd bit during a trip through the Cloud Peak Mountains - though nothing of concern. The Gnoll Stronghold provided a charisma upgrade.
I decided I was up to taking on Ankhegs now and a few of them in their nest was enough for level 7, with 11 more HPs. With reputation up at 17, I decided to help out Charleston Nib, but mis-clicked on the conversation and lost the chance for that. Oh well, I thought I would have to just run away from the Doomsayer at this stage anyway. Killing Bjornin's half-ogres provided a reputation point along with a shield upgrade. Rescuing Arabelle from some hungry xzarts allowed me to hit maximum reputation. I celebrated by buying some full plate - in one way that's a bit of a waste with a free version waiting at the Bandit Camp, but it's not like a wizard slayer is going to run out of money anyway …
I'll probably hit the Nashkel Mine next.
L7, 88 HPs, 108 kills
Previous updates:
I was dozy in the encounter with Mulahey. I intended to shoot him down without allowing him to talk, but let him get close enough to open his conversation. However, he'd already taken significant damage by then and died before he could cast anything. Outside the mine the amazons were picked off individually, the tombs were cleared and Narcillicus shot down before he could complete a spell. That exhausted the ammunition that I'd bought in Candlekeep, though I had some darts taken from Zal to finish off some ghasts.
With Thalantyr no longer of any use to me I attacked him. I couldn't remember if that cost reputation, but it turned out it did. Some donations at the temple boosted that back to 15, helping out Ardrouine provided another and reporting to the Nashkel mayor helped out too before I killed Tranzig and headed for the Bandit Camp.
The Bandit Camp was easy enough with the external bandits being dealt with before going into the tent. Venkt was affected by a poison dart and failed to complete a spell while Britik and Raemon were being picked off.
In the Cloakwood I decided to get Spider's Bane as a source of free action. One or two spider-kin at a time were pulled out of the nest, gaining me an 8th and final BGEE level and 13 more HPs to bring up 3 figures there.
At the mine I tried to pull Genthore away from the others. Rezdan followed him soon after, but a few dart hits later his spells were useless - but before I could finish him off Kysus also appeared and I decided to bid a strategic retreat. On my return only Rezdan was there and he failed to complete another spell after wasting his first one on mirror image. Kysus was the nearest of the remaining enemies, which wasn't ideal as I couldn't safely run away that far from the edge of the map. He lost 2 spells, but did manage 1 - fortunately just a flame arrow. The fighters were then no real threat. This though prompted me to remember that I should have arranged to get horror as a Bhaal power so that I could avoid situations where retreat was not an option. An innocent later and reputation was back down at 9 and resting duly produced horror.
Working through the mine was no problem and the 2 battle horrors at the bottom were disposed of with a rest after each to regenerate HPs. The first couple of attacks on Davaeorn missed and I was hit by lightning, but further attacks soon shut down his casting to prevent his save or else spells having any chance. I rested again to get another Bhaal horror and then donated at the temple before returning to flood the mine.
Moving on to the City, I was doing a couple of reputation quests when I remembered that perhaps I still had another 'innocent' to kill in the form of Drizzt. First, though, I needed to complete the poison quest to cure myself. I ran downstairs to avoid Marek's initial spell and then tried to disable him with horror - but he resisted. Rather than rest I shot him from distance with a sling bullet and successfully disrupted a spell. That gave me the chance to close in a bit and use darts to finish him off.
Now wearing boots of speed, it's not difficult to attack Drizzt from range (though it takes a while to get the necessary criticals). He does though have 2 charm spells and the only defense against that is to use PfM scrolls (two are needed as he won't use the charm if you are already protected). As those can be useful elsewhere I tend not to attack Drizzt, but decided to do so this time. The first 2 stacks of bullets only produced one hit each, but there were 5 hits from the third stack and the same from the fourth. Drizzt was now at near death and the end soon came - leaving me still with a couple of hundred potential shots in reserve.
More temple donations and further reputation quests saw that up to 20. During that I got into one potentially awkward situation when going after the ogre mage in the sewers. It was scared by a horror cast outside its sight range and I chased it to finish it off before it could recover - forgetting that there were more carrior crawlers in the tunnel the ogre mage had fled into. Fortunately stunning darts worked a treat there.
After buying a selection of magical ammunition, I set about clearing the remaining major encounters in the City. One of those was killing Jardak and I realised that should ideally have been done earlier so I could use the Helm of Glory to reduce shop prices - though, even after all the temple donations, money is still not an issue. The final fight in this sequence was at the Iron Throne. Enemies were pulled downstairs one or two at a time and darted before I switched to melee to finish off Gardush as the last man standing.
Next up will be a return to Candlekeep.
L8, 106 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 358 kills
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216845/#Comment_1216845
Back in Candlekeep, I had no way to get the tomes, but DUHM provided a small consolation prize with the PfM scroll in a third tomb. I had the opportunity to get past Prat's gang without conflict, but chose to attack them from the rear. I was most concerned about Bor and he did well to resist a number of stunning dart hits after being scared. Once the others were dead Bor was tracked down and scared once again. He resisted a couple more dart hits, but finally succumbed to a melee attack.
Back in Baldur's Gate, I went straight in search of Slythe. I didn't bother with Krystin, but ran Slythe round until the 4th hit on him left him stunned. Thus far danger in the run has been essentially self-generated, but you need a bit of luck to win the fight at the palace. I got that when 4 of the dopplegangers chose to attack me rather than the dukes and both Belt and Liia survived (the former unharmed). Horror can be important there, to disrupt an attack on the dukes, but I didn't use it this time.
I remembered at that point to go and speak to Tamoko, before heading into the maze. I didn't get far in that though before another bit of memory hit me - that I hadn't finished work outside the City. The first port of call was the Lighthouse area where I targeted the groups of sirines with exploding arrows. There is a small element of danger that they will get a charm spell off casting is totally shut down, but this time they failed to manage that. I beat the golems up in melee to get the constitution tome.
I normally also do some work at Durlag's Tower, but decided not to bother with that this time. Having already used 2 PfM scrolls I didn't want to sacrifice one to obtain the wisdom tome there. However, writing the previous sentence reminded me of yet another thing - now I had DUHM I could get the PfM scroll from Ramazith's Tower
After finally completing the maze, I killed some skeleton warriors in the Undercity before attacking Rahvin's party. I wanted his exploding arrows, so did that from the rear. Helpfully Rahvin was affected by a follow-up horror and successfully stunned while scared (and killed while stunned). I was then free to deal with Tamoko, stunning her to get hold of her full plate +1.
Inside the old temple I wanted more exploding arrows from Angelo. Repeated use of the lightning trap killed all Sarevok's companions. Angelo had survived for a long time though and, despite his 90% resistance, Sarevok by then was down to 7 HPs - and a single sling bullet was sufficient to take those.
I'd not loaded the game for quite a while, so still had all the XP earned in BGEE on transferring to SoD. Despite not doing Durlag's Tower and a few other things, I had 433k on arrival there and got 8 HPs for my 9th level. In the opening dungeon, horror opened the way to talk to Porios and convince him to surrender. PfU took me through several groups of undead, but unfortunately the last of those found the Flaming Fist early on and killed the cleric. Stunning and poison darts helped deal with the final group and I decided not to try and rest to heal the bit of damage taken. A third dispelling arrow shot took effect on Korlasz and a single exploding arrow then persuaded her to surrender. I tried to finish her off, but she successfully saved against 3 darts of stunning to make her escape at near death.
L9, 114 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 463 kills
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216845/#Comment_1216845
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216863/#Comment_1216863
Things went pretty smoothly in SoD - until they didn't. At Boareskyr Bridge I intended to surrender the fort, but first had to get Vichand's scroll. With most characters I tend to kill him, but in the past I seem to remember not doing so with wizard slayers. I was thinking that was because of the need to kill him quickly before the camp was alerted, but thought that I could switch to exploding arrows to do that if necessary. First though I used poison darts and actually poisoned him twice before his buffs activated. However, at that point I realised another reason for not attacking him when, rather than attempt (and almost certainly fail) to cast a spell, he used a wand of paralysation and stunned. The poison darts took him to near death before he healed himself - and moments later the rest of the camp appeared to cut me down.