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.
Sorry for the end of the run.
Is it a timer starting when we start being hostile to him ?
I always thought if there was no witness, we could kill it without alerting the camp.
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.
Sorry for the end of the run.
Is it a timer starting when we start being hostile to him ?
I always thought if there was no witness, we could kill it without alerting the camp.
You're normally safe if you attack something outside hearing range, but there does seem to be a special rule for Vichand. If you don't kill him quickly then the whole camp goes hostile. If you do kill him quickly though there are no repercussions.
After returning from the Windspear Hills, Deja noted we had cash of 130k and plenty more to sell in bags and treated himself to the Sling of Ever Hard. That won't of course allow him to be competitive with berserkers, but every little helps . Seeing such extravagance, Kerb quietly asked if we were ever going to upgrade the MoD - so we ran through the Sir Sarles quest to get the illithium to do that (re-charming Hendak on the way and sticking him in a corner to think about his attempted misdeeds). We'd also picked up an ankheg shell in Windspear, so made some ankheg plate to upgrade Deja's armor.
We hadn't yet been inside Watcher's Keep, but now that Deja had level drain protection he was happy to risk there being vampiric wraiths in residence. They were in fact there and one of them did chase him for a while before making the mistake of turning on the enraged berserkers. While there we cleared the top floor of various statues. That experience was sufficient for Kerb and Corezerk to level up, but Deja will still have a long wait before he can do that again.
After doing the remaining temple quest, Deja headed for the sewers to make use of a mysterious key. Tarnor and his henchmen were blocking the way, but an insect plague immediately shut down the casters and they were then no match for the berserking duo.
Inside the illithid lair the berserkers charged into the first room and successfully cleared that. The flayers were pulled back from the second room so they could be attacked in smaller groups and that also went well. However, our proud record of no deaths in the run ended when a frontal assault on the final room resulted in the enemies surrounding the berserkers. Corezerk was briefly trapped and had his brains partially sucked, but retained enough intelligence to cut his way out. Kerb though could not find an exit and perished there. The others avenged him before using the RoR to reconstitute the group.
We knew we could not fully complete the Unseeing Eye quest as a result of a slight mishap with a lightning trap in a previous session, but decided to do what we could anyway. Purchasing the Shield of Balduran allowed Corezerk to easily kill some beholders on the way to get the half of the Rift Device we could access. Then, while we could not go to the Unseeing Eye, we could persuade it to come to us by attacking Gaal. Doing that though meant it retained its full powers. An attempted insect plague bounced off its magic resistance and, noticing that Corezerk was not enraged, it successfully stunned him. A couple of area damage spells took away much of his HPs - rendering him vulnerable to a follow-up PW: kill. By this time though the Eye's initial PfMW had worn off and Kerb was able to cut him down before further damage was done.
The final action in the City was completing the fall of some paladins.
We still had a little bit of time left in the session though and headed for Spellhold. In Brynnlaw, Perth was affected by an insect plague, but we didn't do anything else there apart from kill a few nameless pirates. A few undead were brushed aside on the way to the asylum, where Deja sadly said goodbye to his Bhaal powers. We will aim to escape from the asylum next time ...
Totemic druid 14, 92 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 104 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 17 (G70), 144 HPs, 443 kills (263 in BGEE), 1 death
Berserker 17 (CR), 139 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 408 kills (220 in BGEE), 1 death
Kerb pulled a bit further ahead that session, despite Corezerk having boots of speed to get into combat more quickly.
Corethief XXXVII the gnomish fighter/thief - Update 4
Another dragon scalp obtained. Seven snares helped soften up the dragon for the party. Carsomyr was a welcome upgrade for Serena, our undead hunter. Will venture into the sewers next.
Corethief XXXVII the gnomish fighter/thief - update 6
We were worried about surviving the Phaere ambush without access to death spells. So instead we attempted to take down the silver dragon. This was a very costly battle - Sarah the archer and Paja the inquisitor were both chunked! But the run must go on. Corethief has Gabrielle the ranger, April the berserker, and Serena the undead hunter still in the party. Am thinking of recruiting Minsc and Keldorn to fill out the party.
Corethief XXXVII the gnomish fighter/thief - update 7
Party is working their way through Suldanesslar. We had a battle with Nizi, and with 7 snares to weaken Nizi, then combat then took Nizi down. Will keep at it.
A delayed start to our usual Trio session gave an opportunity for a small slice of MP action.
Regular readers will know that we have a tendency to have problems at the start of a session and that tendency was probably exacerbated by the 3 month gap since we last played these characters. So, perhaps it was no surprise that the first encounter of the session was almost the last. Cria thoughtfully provided Brog with a clarity potion to protect against some myconids at the Underground River map, but didn't take one herself - and then failed to spot a separated myconid appearing from above the main encounter. That resulted in her being affected by confusion and, particularly with a bow still equipped, she wouldn't last long under attack.
Cria did a good job in drawing away the 3 myconids attacking him and unleashed a blast from his wand of heavens on the one attacking Cria. That didn't quite kill it though, meaning Brog had to try and stay out of reach of the myconids while remaining close enough to have another go at Cria's attacker. That was successfully done, but left Brog in an awkward spot, with a bunch of spiders known to be waiting along the natural path for him to take. He tried doubling back, but one of the myconids got a fatal blow in - fortunately though they were just out of sight range of Cria, so she was given time to recover. After picking up Brog's equipment she travelled back to find Mizhaena to get him raised.
There were no more problems with the myconids on our return and the spiders were quickly brushed aside. A web spell combined with Brog's Soft Feet boots to allow an easy kill of the cyclops. Some of the guards could also quickly be dealt with and, although the archers hit Brog with some nasty blows, he survived while we cleared the remaining guards from the entrance to the Underground River cave system.
The delayed Trio session was largely concerned with escaping from Spellhold. That was done without any particular alarms, with the lich destroyed by the iMod and Jon barely raising a sword in anger before making a run for it.
In Fish City we picked by the Cloak of Mirroring before agreeing to help the King ... then agreeing to help the Prince ... then slaughtering the pair of them.
The last few minutes of the session saw a group of drow burn up in a Fire Storm before the berserkers took no nonsense from a balor.
We're currently in the Western Tunnels and will finish clearing those next time.
Totemic druid 14, 92 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 127 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 19 (G70), 150 HPs, 542 kills (263 in BGEE), 1 death
Berserker 19 (CR), 145 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 491 kills (220 in BGEE), 1 death
Even in that short session, there was time for the berserkers to pick up a couple more levels each. Poor old Deja remains stuck on 14, but is now nearing the 1.5m XP required for level 15 and will pick up that - and a vastly extended spell arsenal - next time.
The session started in the Western Tunnels with an assault on a group of Demon Knights. Deja had intended for the berserkers to do all the hard work there, but Corezerk felt they might need a bit of help so some totemic summons joined the fray. As it turned out Corezerk was probably right - the battle was easy enough, but the berserkers took enough damage to suggest they might have been pushed on their own.
On the downside there, the strength girdle found evaporated into thin air, so we won't be making use of Crom Faeyr this run. The kuo-toa prince then found his regeneration was insufficient to deal with a general assault headed by Kerb using Gaxx haste.
With rage available to protect against imprisonment, the next target was the giant soul gem. There was a momentary concern when Corezerk's rage ended immediately after the lich made his appearance. He ran away, but the lich in any case failed to use PfMW and Kerb finished it off before it could complete any spells.
In the illithid lair, Corezerk quaffed some potions of genius and took the lead in teaching the flayers the true meaning of pain. He and Kerb had the odd sucking experience, but nothing to worry about and the illithid brain was duly taught a final lesson.
Deja chose to get some more quick XP from the beholder hive. He entered there invisibly in order to avoid being targeted while the berserkers dealt with the elder orb and beholder at the entrance. That finally gave Deja his 15th level, increasing his level 7 spell slots from 1 to 6. After taking a number of sessions to get one level, Deja suddenly found those were like London buses (coming all at once) and he got 5 more of them in that single session.
Moving on to the drow city, Deja did a bit of shopping before turning to a new list of chores. The first of those was to rescue Phaere from a group of illithid. An ambush on the way saw Damien get a successful backstab on Deja (he really needs to get a bit more careful about keeping ironskins up!) before being introduced to his berserker friends.
Use of death spell on the illithid wasn't an option for this group, but then they don't need an easy alternative when their capacity to slice and dice is so high .
Deja was a bit uncertain about where to go, but the others helped him stumble through a few more tasks before watching as a Demon Lord said "surprise" to Phaere and the Matron Mother.
After Adalon helped us escape from the Underdark, we travelled back to Athkatla where Kruin found his spells of little use against the berserkers.
A small bit of shopping and forging of dragon scale and Wave halberd later and we headed for the Graveyard. The vampires there were rapidly disposed of on the way to find Bodhi. By this time Kerb had a WW available and used that to take almost all of Bodhi's HPs. Her script took a little bit of time to kick in after that, allowing Bodhi to land a couple more blows of her own, before Corezerk nipped in to get the final blow for the kill.
We're currently sitting outside Suldanesselar and will be seeking a confrontation with Irenicus next time.
Totemic druid 20, 101 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 142 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 23 (G70), 162 HPs, 634 kills (263 in BGEE), 1 death
Berserker 23 (CR), 152 HPs, 567 kills (220 in BGEE), 1 death
Kerb consolidated his lead in kills in that session and is now looking hard to catch
Corethief XXXVII the gnomish fighter/thief - Update 8
Party members: Keldorn (firetooth crossbow), Sarevok (Lilacor - he needs the immunities), Serena (Undead Hunter with Carsomyr), Gabrielle (Ranger with various long swords and short swords - she has to use shield of harmony as her saves aren't good enough), and April (Berserker with Azuredge (melee) and Yaga's hammer (uggraded))
The party has defeated Gromnir, Oasis ambush, Yaga-Shura, Nylee, Sendai and just now Draconis. Will keep at it, almost at the end. I wish I could say I did brilliant strategy against Draconis but we don't have magic offense and only one decent summon (Deva). Going toe-to-toe in Dragon melee seemed pretty risky and decent chance of character chunking. So instead laid some traps which Draconis was nice enough to trip and die to.
Corethief XXXVII the gnomish fighter/thief - Update 9
Party members: Keldorn (firetooth crossbow), Sarevok (Lilacor - he needs the immunities), Serena (Undead Hunter with Carsomyr), Gabrielle (Ranger with various long swords and short swords - she has to use shield of harmony as her saves aren't good enough), and April (Berserker with Azuredge (melee) and Yaga's hammer (uggraded))
The party is still making progress. We have just defeated Abazigal. It was a difficult battle with Serena, April and Gabrielle all being killed. Our battle didn't start well as I had intended to lay some traps before engaging Abazigal but we got spotted prematurely. So the party tried to get rid of the Salamanders and wear down Abazigal's human form. Once enough traps were laid, the survivors led Abazigal to the traps and there just enough traps to kill the dragon - whew! Balthsazar is next, wish us luck...
Corethief XXXVII the gnomish fighter/thief - Update 10
Party members: Keldorn (CHUNKED!), Sarevok (Lilacor - he needs the immunities), Serena (Undead Hunter with Carsomyr), Gabrielle (Ranger with various long swords and short swords - she has to use shield of harmony as her saves aren't good enough), and April (Berserker with Azuredge (melee) and Yaga's hammer (upgraded)), Mazzy (cutthroat sword)
Balthsazar defeated, traps at entrance helped win the day for us. Ravager barely defeated, it was pretty dicey as you can see from the screenshot below - wish me luck for the final fight. Getting Keldorn chunked by Balthsazar really hurt as I was hoping to use his dispel ability against Melissan - well the fight must go on! Since this is a martial group, recruited Mazzy.
Corethief XXXVII the gnomish fighter/thief - FINAL Update!
Traveling with: Gabrielle (ranger), April (berserker), Serena (Undead Hunter), Sarevok, Mazzy
For the first fight I didn't use HLAs but instead potions like haste - this enabled us to win the first one.
Potions also carried us through the first pool fight. I had laid 7 traps for Melissan which instantly defeated her 2nd fight.
Potions managed to carry us through the 2nd pool fight. I seem to remember that the 3rd fight with Melissan is the hardest but out of traps. So everyone used hardiness if they had it and enraged April.
The fight was disastrous. Melissan did a time stop and killed two of our powerful fighters outright, and Serena fell soon after. No way to dispel Melissan! Sarevok fell soon after.
April was tough for the enemies to kill but she couldn't get through Melissan's defences. I tried picking up Carsomyr and tried using dispel on Melissan but think my active PfM may have blocked it. April eventually fell, and Corethief had no more tricks up his sleeve and faced his death and attacked Melissan in melee. RIP Corethief XXXVII - he had a good run.
Thoughts for next run. It seems the only thing effective in defeating Melissan (for me) was traps. So going to roll up a party of mostly multi-class thieves and a bounty hunter and see if maybe we can get her this way. Since EE nerfed the dispelling arrows in that they don't dispel Melissan I haven't had a success in EE. Will keep at it.
Tough luck against Melissan Corey, but well done for getting that far. You might want to consider using scrolls to make copies of your high level thief in a similar future attempt so that you don't run out of traps.
After returning from the Windspear Hills, Deja noted we had cash of 130k and plenty more to sell in bags and treated himself to the Sling of Ever Hard. That won't of course allow him to be competitive with berserkers, but every little helps . Seeing such extravagance, Kerb quietly asked if we were ever going to upgrade the MoD - so we ran through the Sir Sarles quest to get the illithium to do that (re-charming Hendak on the way and sticking him in a corner to think about his attempted misdeeds). We'd also picked up an ankheg shell in Windspear, so made some ankheg plate to upgrade Deja's armor.
We hadn't yet been inside Watcher's Keep, but now that Deja had level drain protection he was happy to risk there being vampiric wraiths in residence. They were in fact there and one of them did chase him for a while before making the mistake of turning on the enraged berserkers. While there we cleared the top floor of various statues. That experience was sufficient for Kerb and Corezerk to level up, but Deja will still have a long wait before he can do that again.
After doing the remaining temple quest, Deja headed for the sewers to make use of a mysterious key. Tarnor and his henchmen were blocking the way, but an insect plague immediately shut down the casters and they were then no match for the berserking duo.
Inside the illithid lair the berserkers charged into the first room and successfully cleared that. The flayers were pulled back from the second room so they could be attacked in smaller groups and that also went well. However, our proud record of no deaths in the run ended when a frontal assault on the final room resulted in the enemies surrounding the berserkers. Corezerk was briefly trapped and had his brains partially sucked, but retained enough intelligence to cut his way out. Kerb though could not find an exit and perished there. The others avenged him before using the RoR to reconstitute the group.
We knew we could not fully complete the Unseeing Eye quest as a result of a slight mishap with a lightning trap in a previous session, but decided to do what we could anyway. Purchasing the Shield of Balduran allowed Corezerk to easily kill some beholders on the way to get the half of the Rift Device we could access. Then, while we could not go to the Unseeing Eye, we could persuade it to come to us by attacking Gaal. Doing that though meant it retained its full powers. An attempted insect plague bounced off its magic resistance and, noticing that Corezerk was not enraged, it successfully stunned him. A couple of area damage spells took away much of his HPs - rendering him vulnerable to a follow-up PW: kill. By this time though the Eye's initial PfMW had worn off and Kerb was able to cut him down before further damage was done.
The final action in the City was completing the fall of some paladins.
We still had a little bit of time left in the session though and headed for Spellhold. In Brynnlaw, Perth was affected by an insect plague, but we didn't do anything else there apart from kill a few nameless pirates. A few undead were brushed aside on the way to the asylum, where Deja sadly said goodbye to his Bhaal powers. We will aim to escape from the asylum next time ...
Totemic druid 14, 92 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 104 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 17 (G70), 144 HPs, 443 kills (263 in BGEE), 1 death
Berserker 17 (CR), 139 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 408 kills (220 in BGEE), 1 death
Kerb pulled a bit further ahead that session, despite Corezerk having boots of speed to get into combat more quickly.
Curious how useful those totemic summons are turning out to be, even just as meat shields for a few rounds. That was always one of the classes I wanted to do a full run-through with, maybe even as my first solo run. But haven't done it yet.
Tough luck against Melissan Corey, but well done for getting that far. You might want to consider using scrolls to make copies of your high level thief in a similar future attempt so that you don't run out of traps.
Nice tip! That would have made a difference and I had a ton of gold so could have bought such scrolls if available. Will keep it in mind.
Tough luck against Melissan Corey, but well done for getting that far. You might want to consider using scrolls to make copies of your high level thief in a similar future attempt so that you don't run out of traps.
Nice tip! That would have made a difference and I had a ton of gold so could have bought such scrolls if available. Will keep it in mind.
Good run indeed !
You could also use protection from magic scrolls against Mel instead of one of your characters ?
Tough luck against Melissan Corey, but well done for getting that far. You might want to consider using scrolls to make copies of your high level thief in a similar future attempt so that you don't run out of traps.
Nice tip! That would have made a difference and I had a ton of gold so could have bought such scrolls if available. Will keep it in mind.
Good run indeed !
You could also use protection from magic scrolls against Mel instead of one of your characters ?
Thanks! I did use protection from magic but by this point I only had one of them - oh I see what you mean I can cast on my characters if thief simmied by spell. Actually though most damage was actually melee - two characters were killed outright with Mel's time stop. Does anyone know if anything can deal with slayer shadows other than straight melee? I usually ignore summons since Mel will just summon more plus if you leave her alone she can heal herself.
After returning from the Windspear Hills, Deja noted we had cash of 130k and plenty more to sell in bags and treated himself to the Sling of Ever Hard. That won't of course allow him to be competitive with berserkers, but every little helps . Seeing such extravagance, Kerb quietly asked if we were ever going to upgrade the MoD - so we ran through the Sir Sarles quest to get the illithium to do that (re-charming Hendak on the way and sticking him in a corner to think about his attempted misdeeds). We'd also picked up an ankheg shell in Windspear, so made some ankheg plate to upgrade Deja's armor.
We hadn't yet been inside Watcher's Keep, but now that Deja had level drain protection he was happy to risk there being vampiric wraiths in residence. They were in fact there and one of them did chase him for a while before making the mistake of turning on the enraged berserkers. While there we cleared the top floor of various statues. That experience was sufficient for Kerb and Corezerk to level up, but Deja will still have a long wait before he can do that again.
After doing the remaining temple quest, Deja headed for the sewers to make use of a mysterious key. Tarnor and his henchmen were blocking the way, but an insect plague immediately shut down the casters and they were then no match for the berserking duo.
Inside the illithid lair the berserkers charged into the first room and successfully cleared that. The flayers were pulled back from the second room so they could be attacked in smaller groups and that also went well. However, our proud record of no deaths in the run ended when a frontal assault on the final room resulted in the enemies surrounding the berserkers. Corezerk was briefly trapped and had his brains partially sucked, but retained enough intelligence to cut his way out. Kerb though could not find an exit and perished there. The others avenged him before using the RoR to reconstitute the group.
We knew we could not fully complete the Unseeing Eye quest as a result of a slight mishap with a lightning trap in a previous session, but decided to do what we could anyway. Purchasing the Shield of Balduran allowed Corezerk to easily kill some beholders on the way to get the half of the Rift Device we could access. Then, while we could not go to the Unseeing Eye, we could persuade it to come to us by attacking Gaal. Doing that though meant it retained its full powers. An attempted insect plague bounced off its magic resistance and, noticing that Corezerk was not enraged, it successfully stunned him. A couple of area damage spells took away much of his HPs - rendering him vulnerable to a follow-up PW: kill. By this time though the Eye's initial PfMW had worn off and Kerb was able to cut him down before further damage was done.
The final action in the City was completing the fall of some paladins.
We still had a little bit of time left in the session though and headed for Spellhold. In Brynnlaw, Perth was affected by an insect plague, but we didn't do anything else there apart from kill a few nameless pirates. A few undead were brushed aside on the way to the asylum, where Deja sadly said goodbye to his Bhaal powers. We will aim to escape from the asylum next time ...
Totemic druid 14, 92 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 104 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 17 (G70), 144 HPs, 443 kills (263 in BGEE), 1 death
Berserker 17 (CR), 139 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 408 kills (220 in BGEE), 1 death
Kerb pulled a bit further ahead that session, despite Corezerk having boots of speed to get into combat more quickly.
Curious how useful those totemic summons are turning out to be, even just as meat shields for a few rounds. That was always one of the classes I wanted to do a full run-through with, maybe even as my first solo run. But haven't done it yet.
And I *know* my next run will be Jester.
They are a decent summons, with some nice special abilities (like the paralysation from the wolf). One of the best things about them in BG2EE though is that they ignore the normal cooldown period after casting a spell - so you can use them much more effectively in combat than most summons.
This session saw us arrive in ToB, where we've taken rather a beating so far - but the run goes on ...
The first action saw us make our way through Suldanesselar. That was straight-forward enough with the berserkers crunching their way through golems, Nizi expiring in a couple of fire storms and Rillifane helping us out in the temple.
On the Tree of Life, a deva was left to initially occupy Jon. Once he was covered in insects he was then unable to cause any more problems.
In hell, Deja followed the good path except for getting irate with Sarevok to get a strength boost - his wisdom is miserable anyway so improving that would not give him any perceptible advantage. Jon's slayer form was beaten down easily enough with the help of summons.
On entry to the Throne of Bhaal, Deja gratefully received a pair of Boots of Speed from Ilasera so that he will no longer lag behind his companions. In the Pocket Plane an initial challenge saw pretty easy progress through some peasants, elves and knights. The only good hero that appeared after that was Ellesime and she lasted only seconds after being caught in an insect plague.
In Saradush we did a few minor tasks before heading in search of Gromnir. My usual route to get to her is to get invited to a vampire reception and Deja did that here. She was a bit disconcerted though that her companions didn't get invited at the same time (I nearly always play solo, so that's not usually an issue). Rather than fight the vampires, Deja disappeared with the help of a potion and waited for help to arrive. The berserkers had no trouble with the vampires, but there were problems after the transition into the next level of the prison. The fighters and thieves there were able to hit Kerb easily and he turned to run too late to avoid a final strike.
Deja used Nature's Beauty on the enemies queueing at the doorway and that enabled Kerb to be safely resurrected before a shooting gallery accounted for a nimber of the enemies. However, a mis-click after killing one of those saw Corezerk move forward next to the doorway and that prompted an invisible thief to unleash a fatal backstab.
Another use of the rod allowed us to continue moving forward and we made it up into the palace without any further major problems. The plan on entering the next level up was for Deja to incapacitate the mages with insects, but her first attempt to do so was foiled by invisibility. The second attempt was successful, but in the meantime Corezerk was struggling to hold off the guards. He managed to break contact with just 14 HPs left and activated invisibility from his ring.
That's not instant though and a hit from an archer took him down to 2 HPs before he disappeared. The remaining enemies were duly finished off and we went to recuperate in the Pocket Plane. Coming back to contact Gromnir, we arrived invisibly - giving Deja the chance to use a fire storm to deal with Gromnir's mages. His support troops were still a handful, but a bit of running round and the introduction of some totemic summons saw us to victory.
The next objective was to go in search of Yaga-Shura. The initial encounters on the road were safely negotiated, but Kerb was keen to kill a few more enemies before we moved on to the Forest of Mir. That proved to be his downfall when he faced off against some soldiers supported by a giant. With both Kerb and the giant at near death he was invited to retreat, but just muttered "one more hit should settle it one way or the other". The hit duly arrived and Kerb collapsed to the ground ...
After recovering in the Pocket Plane, we made our way safely enough through the Forest of Mir where the berserkers put their undead killing weapons to good use. Then it was on to Yaga-Shura's lair where a host of fire giants were waiting for us. The first group of those were suckered into attacking Corezerk while he was in rat shape from the Cloak of the Sewers. That meant he took little damage from hits and standing in a lava pit with fire resistance over 100% allowed his regeneration to keep pace with damage. We weren't able to kill all the giants before Corezerk reverted to his normal self, but the few remaining non-elites were manageable without further assistance.
Rather than rest to allow the same type of tactic to be used again, Deja went immediately to activate the next group of giants. The aim there was to use Nature's Beauty to nerf those, but I'd forgotten that the giant's attacks not only cause physical damage (which could be blocked with ironskins), but also fire damage - which disrupted Deja's spell. That left us vulnerable to attack by the group of giants. They were hasted, which made it difficult to kite them round in multi-player (where pausing is disruptive and hard to control). Kerb was badly hurt when he initially attacked the giants to allow Deja to break contact. A bit of running round followed during which I was too busy keeping Deja out of trouble to follow what was happening to the others - and thus only belatedly realised that Kerb had snuffed it once more at some point. Deciding to fight another day, Deja and Corezerk left the temple, then went invisible to go back in and resurrect Kerb to pick up his gear. The session ended in the Pocket Plane where we will gear up for another assault on the giants next time.
Totemic druid 23, 105 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 180 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 25 (G70), 168 HPs, 704 kills (263 in BGEE), 4 deaths
Berserker 23 (CR), 158 HPs, 633 kills (220 in BGEE), 2 deaths
Corecleric XXIX the gnomish cleric/thief and his band of multi-class thieves - update 1
Traveling with: April (dwarven fighter/thief), Gabrielle (half-orc fighter/thief), Sarah (dwarven fighter/thief), Paja (human bounty hunter), and Serena (gnomish mage/thief)
The band has made it past Sarevok and out of Irenicus dungeon and is just starting the slaver quests. In BG 1 I got a great drop and got invis 10' radius. This will enable the party open the fight with a lot of backstabs, could be fun. Also, we have access to quite a few traps. The party make-up is pretty straight-forward except my plan is to dual Paja to fighter at level 11 and let her use two-hand swords - Carsomyr comes to mind but there are a lot of really good swords in ToB. She of coures will have a thief weapon too if I want her to backstab. The reason to dual at 11 is I don't like the outiliuk's sphere bounty hunter traps in party play, the hold effect is much more useful. Also the last trap I get is at level 11 as 16 is both another trap and the OS traps which I don't want. Also too, getting level 12 fighter isn't too bad.
Since I also have access to cleric and mage spells and lots of martial skills, this group will have a lot of options - should be fun! Here is a sample screenshot we used invis 10' radius to open with backstabs on Prat's gang in BG 1 - it was devastating.
I've been finished with the new AoE2 content for a while now, and while I haven't found too much time to play games since then, there have been times where I found myself without anything to do while listening to a history podcast, so I decided to finally get a Necromancer run going as well. It's been a while now since I started, so there is quite a bit to report already, but the pace I'm playing at currently is very slow for my usual standards. Since I can't really focus on BG right now, this is more of a low effort run, so no mods, no custom party, just your regular old core rules game, with plans to skip Balduran's Island, the lower levels of Durlag's Tower and SoD.
Introducing Eleanor Cobham, lawful good human female necromancer
Our Bhaalspawn is named after a real historical person who was accused of necromancy. It took me a while to get a roll this high
We start out with Sleep, Larloch's Minor Drain and PfP, which we use right away to travel to the basilisk area, recruiting Corax to aid our efforts. The goal here is to earn 32k XP before recruiting our party, so that they start at their highest level iteration, which will get us to more experience in total and speed up some of the early game:
Mutamin gets paralyzed by our new best ghoul friend:
Things get a bit dicey in the southern part of the area when Corax actually gets killed by a greater basilisk in melee combat (which is a rare occurence for me in the vanilla game - bad luck with paralyzation attacks was the cause), forcing me to kite and sling the remaining lizards for a while, but we end up hunting all of them down. The adventuring party here is avoided, and we return to Beregost. The basilisk area by itself doesn't quite get us to 32k XP, so we're looking for easy quests around town that can be done without combat or with the help of the Sleep spell, such as the half ogres:
With the Beregost quests, we pretty much make it to 32k XP, just having to add a visit to Nashkel and Joia's ring. Now we recruit our party - Ajantis is the first to join. We quickly pick up Monty and Xzar, just to get a safe kill on Tarnesh:
The duo gets ditched after that, instead Jaheira and Khalid join up. Next, we pick up Branwen and finally Safana. To keep her, we have to clear the treasure cave at the sword coast. Luckily, Branwen can already call in the weakest version of skeletons, so Sirens aren't an issue:
We picked up a bit of magical ammo in Beregost in order to take down the flesh golems - Ajantis ends up taking two pretty bad hits, but we make it through these foes as well:
Our priorities now are reputation, gold, and a few specific item upgrades. We have skeletons, we have call lightning, we have hold person, silence, command, sleep and other crowd control abilities - not too much can stand in our way - some example screenshots:
Eventually, we max out our reputation and get enough gold for our first big investment, which is a scroll learning session with all available vendor scrolls at this point. Of course, with Eleanor being a necromancer, I do want to make use of the saving throw penalty for our foes. She learns a couple of horror spells, but pretty much never ends up using them - there is simply better crowd control available, it would just be an emergency spell. More useful: Skull trap. Seen here in use against the elite hobgoblins at the south-western bridge leading to Laurel:
Yeah, this spell seems to work out pretty damn well. Right, Lendarn?
As we are about to be finished with wilderness areas, Branwen finally reaches level 7, greatly improving her skeletons. With those now in our arsenal, we even dare to go for an early Kahrk kill - though things don't start out well - the ogre is able to throw a lightning bolt in our direction while we try to leave him alone with our skeletons:
However, a buffed up Khalid and Branwen with her Wand of the Heavens help out the skeletons, and we defeat the powerful ogre mage:
We also make our way to the upper area of Durlag's Tower, and our skeletons help out with the dangerous ghost:
The party hasn't visited the red wizards yet - silence works very well here:
A final thing before we finally start going after the main plot and enter the Nashkel Mines - a quick visit to the Ice Island, done with the help of a PfM scroll for Khalid. I sometimes skip that area, but Eleanor, without the ability to cast illusion-based defenses, really wants that stoneskin scroll:
Next time: Nashkel Mines, Bandit Camp, Cloakwood & Iron Mines.
Comments
I can't remember. I've certainly done it, but whether in the EE or before that I'm not sure.
Is it a timer starting when we start being hostile to him ?
I always thought if there was no witness, we could kill it without alerting the camp.
The run is still going well, including an early defeat of Thaxxy. Will keep at it.
You're normally safe if you attack something outside hearing range, but there does seem to be a special rule for Vichand. If you don't kill him quickly then the whole camp goes hostile. If you do kill him quickly though there are no repercussions.
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216824/#Comment_1216824
After returning from the Windspear Hills, Deja noted we had cash of 130k and plenty more to sell in bags and treated himself to the Sling of Ever Hard. That won't of course allow him to be competitive with berserkers, but every little helps
We hadn't yet been inside Watcher's Keep, but now that Deja had level drain protection he was happy to risk there being vampiric wraiths in residence. They were in fact there and one of them did chase him for a while before making the mistake of turning on the enraged berserkers. While there we cleared the top floor of various statues. That experience was sufficient for Kerb and Corezerk to level up, but Deja will still have a long wait before he can do that again.
After doing the remaining temple quest, Deja headed for the sewers to make use of a mysterious key. Tarnor and his henchmen were blocking the way, but an insect plague immediately shut down the casters and they were then no match for the berserking duo.
Inside the illithid lair the berserkers charged into the first room and successfully cleared that. The flayers were pulled back from the second room so they could be attacked in smaller groups and that also went well. However, our proud record of no deaths in the run ended when a frontal assault on the final room resulted in the enemies surrounding the berserkers. Corezerk was briefly trapped and had his brains partially sucked, but retained enough intelligence to cut his way out. Kerb though could not find an exit and perished there. The others avenged him before using the RoR to reconstitute the group.
We knew we could not fully complete the Unseeing Eye quest as a result of a slight mishap with a lightning trap in a previous session, but decided to do what we could anyway. Purchasing the Shield of Balduran allowed Corezerk to easily kill some beholders on the way to get the half of the Rift Device we could access. Then, while we could not go to the Unseeing Eye, we could persuade it to come to us by attacking Gaal. Doing that though meant it retained its full powers. An attempted insect plague bounced off its magic resistance and, noticing that Corezerk was not enraged, it successfully stunned him. A couple of area damage spells took away much of his HPs - rendering him vulnerable to a follow-up PW: kill. By this time though the Eye's initial PfMW had worn off and Kerb was able to cut him down before further damage was done.
The final action in the City was completing the fall of some paladins.
We still had a little bit of time left in the session though and headed for Spellhold. In Brynnlaw, Perth was affected by an insect plague, but we didn't do anything else there apart from kill a few nameless pirates. A few undead were brushed aside on the way to the asylum, where Deja sadly said goodbye to his Bhaal powers. We will aim to escape from the asylum next time ...
Totemic druid 14, 92 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 104 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 17 (G70), 144 HPs, 443 kills (263 in BGEE), 1 death
Berserker 17 (CR), 139 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 408 kills (220 in BGEE), 1 death
Kerb pulled a bit further ahead that session, despite Corezerk having boots of speed to get into combat more quickly.
Another dragon scalp obtained. Seven snares helped soften up the dragon for the party. Carsomyr was a welcome upgrade for Serena, our undead hunter. Will venture into the sewers next.
We are working our way through spellhold. We still take big damage from magic such as from a demon (screenshot). Will keep at it.
We were worried about surviving the Phaere ambush without access to death spells. So instead we attempted to take down the silver dragon. This was a very costly battle - Sarah the archer and Paja the inquisitor were both chunked! But the run must go on. Corethief has Gabrielle the ranger, April the berserker, and Serena the undead hunter still in the party. Am thinking of recruiting Minsc and Keldorn to fill out the party.
Party is working their way through Suldanesslar. We had a battle with Nizi, and with 7 snares to weaken Nizi, then combat then took Nizi down. Will keep at it.
Cria (female half-elf bard, Grond0); Brog (male half-orc cleric/thief, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1212127/#Comment_1212127
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1213450/#Comment_1213450
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1214706/#Comment_1214706
A delayed start to our usual Trio session gave an opportunity for a small slice of MP action.
Regular readers will know that we have a tendency to have problems at the start of a session and that tendency was probably exacerbated by the 3 month gap since we last played these characters. So, perhaps it was no surprise that the first encounter of the session was almost the last. Cria thoughtfully provided Brog with a clarity potion to protect against some myconids at the Underground River map, but didn't take one herself - and then failed to spot a separated myconid appearing from above the main encounter. That resulted in her being affected by confusion and, particularly with a bow still equipped, she wouldn't last long under attack.
Cria did a good job in drawing away the 3 myconids attacking him and unleashed a blast from his wand of heavens on the one attacking Cria. That didn't quite kill it though, meaning Brog had to try and stay out of reach of the myconids while remaining close enough to have another go at Cria's attacker. That was successfully done, but left Brog in an awkward spot, with a bunch of spiders known to be waiting along the natural path for him to take. He tried doubling back, but one of the myconids got a fatal blow in - fortunately though they were just out of sight range of Cria, so she was given time to recover. After picking up Brog's equipment she travelled back to find Mizhaena to get him raised.
There were no more problems with the myconids on our return and the spiders were quickly brushed aside. A web spell combined with Brog's Soft Feet boots to allow an easy kill of the cyclops. Some of the guards could also quickly be dealt with and, although the archers hit Brog with some nasty blows, he survived while we cleared the remaining guards from the entrance to the Underground River cave system.
Bard 11, 80 HPs, 295 kills
Cleric 8 / thief 10, 69 HPs, 278 kills, 7 deaths
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216824/#Comment_1216824
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216979/#Comment_1216979
The delayed Trio session was largely concerned with escaping from Spellhold. That was done without any particular alarms, with the lich destroyed by the iMod and Jon barely raising a sword in anger before making a run for it.
In Fish City we picked by the Cloak of Mirroring before agreeing to help the King ... then agreeing to help the Prince ... then slaughtering the pair of them.
The last few minutes of the session saw a group of drow burn up in a Fire Storm before the berserkers took no nonsense from a balor.
We're currently in the Western Tunnels and will finish clearing those next time.
Totemic druid 14, 92 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 127 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 19 (G70), 150 HPs, 542 kills (263 in BGEE), 1 death
Berserker 19 (CR), 145 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 491 kills (220 in BGEE), 1 death
Even in that short session, there was time for the berserkers to pick up a couple more levels each. Poor old Deja remains stuck on 14, but is now nearing the 1.5m XP required for level 15 and will pick up that - and a vastly extended spell arsenal - next time.
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216824/#Comment_1216824
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216979/#Comment_1216979
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1217113/#Comment_1217113
The session started in the Western Tunnels with an assault on a group of Demon Knights. Deja had intended for the berserkers to do all the hard work there, but Corezerk felt they might need a bit of help so some totemic summons joined the fray. As it turned out Corezerk was probably right - the battle was easy enough, but the berserkers took enough damage to suggest they might have been pushed on their own.
With rage available to protect against imprisonment, the next target was the giant soul gem. There was a momentary concern when Corezerk's rage ended immediately after the lich made his appearance. He ran away, but the lich in any case failed to use PfMW and Kerb finished it off before it could complete any spells.
In the illithid lair, Corezerk quaffed some potions of genius and took the lead in teaching the flayers the true meaning of pain. He and Kerb had the odd sucking experience, but nothing to worry about and the illithid brain was duly taught a final lesson.
Deja chose to get some more quick XP from the beholder hive. He entered there invisibly in order to avoid being targeted while the berserkers dealt with the elder orb and beholder at the entrance. That finally gave Deja his 15th level, increasing his level 7 spell slots from 1 to 6. After taking a number of sessions to get one level, Deja suddenly found those were like London buses (coming all at once) and he got 5 more of them in that single session.
Moving on to the drow city, Deja did a bit of shopping before turning to a new list of chores. The first of those was to rescue Phaere from a group of illithid. An ambush on the way saw Damien get a successful backstab on Deja (he really needs to get a bit more careful about keeping ironskins up!) before being introduced to his berserker friends.
After Adalon helped us escape from the Underdark, we travelled back to Athkatla where Kruin found his spells of little use against the berserkers.
We're currently sitting outside Suldanesselar and will be seeking a confrontation with Irenicus next time.
Totemic druid 20, 101 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 142 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 23 (G70), 162 HPs, 634 kills (263 in BGEE), 1 death
Berserker 23 (CR), 152 HPs, 567 kills (220 in BGEE), 1 death
Kerb consolidated his lead in kills in that session and is now looking hard to catch
Party members: Keldorn (firetooth crossbow), Sarevok (Lilacor - he needs the immunities), Serena (Undead Hunter with Carsomyr), Gabrielle (Ranger with various long swords and short swords - she has to use shield of harmony as her saves aren't good enough), and April (Berserker with Azuredge (melee) and Yaga's hammer (uggraded))
The party has defeated Gromnir, Oasis ambush, Yaga-Shura, Nylee, Sendai and just now Draconis. Will keep at it, almost at the end. I wish I could say I did brilliant strategy against Draconis but we don't have magic offense and only one decent summon (Deva). Going toe-to-toe in Dragon melee seemed pretty risky and decent chance of character chunking. So instead laid some traps which Draconis was nice enough to trip and die to.
Party members: Keldorn (firetooth crossbow), Sarevok (Lilacor - he needs the immunities), Serena (Undead Hunter with Carsomyr), Gabrielle (Ranger with various long swords and short swords - she has to use shield of harmony as her saves aren't good enough), and April (Berserker with Azuredge (melee) and Yaga's hammer (uggraded))
The party is still making progress. We have just defeated Abazigal. It was a difficult battle with Serena, April and Gabrielle all being killed. Our battle didn't start well as I had intended to lay some traps before engaging Abazigal but we got spotted prematurely. So the party tried to get rid of the Salamanders and wear down Abazigal's human form. Once enough traps were laid, the survivors led Abazigal to the traps and there just enough traps to kill the dragon - whew! Balthsazar is next, wish us luck...
Party members: Keldorn (CHUNKED!), Sarevok (Lilacor - he needs the immunities), Serena (Undead Hunter with Carsomyr), Gabrielle (Ranger with various long swords and short swords - she has to use shield of harmony as her saves aren't good enough), and April (Berserker with Azuredge (melee) and Yaga's hammer (upgraded)), Mazzy (cutthroat sword)
Balthsazar defeated, traps at entrance helped win the day for us. Ravager barely defeated, it was pretty dicey as you can see from the screenshot below - wish me luck for the final fight. Getting Keldorn chunked by Balthsazar really hurt as I was hoping to use his dispel ability against Melissan - well the fight must go on! Since this is a martial group, recruited Mazzy.
Traveling with: Gabrielle (ranger), April (berserker), Serena (Undead Hunter), Sarevok, Mazzy
For the first fight I didn't use HLAs but instead potions like haste - this enabled us to win the first one.
Potions also carried us through the first pool fight. I had laid 7 traps for Melissan which instantly defeated her 2nd fight.
Potions managed to carry us through the 2nd pool fight. I seem to remember that the 3rd fight with Melissan is the hardest but out of traps. So everyone used hardiness if they had it and enraged April.
The fight was disastrous. Melissan did a time stop and killed two of our powerful fighters outright, and Serena fell soon after. No way to dispel Melissan! Sarevok fell soon after.
April was tough for the enemies to kill but she couldn't get through Melissan's defences. I tried picking up Carsomyr and tried using dispel on Melissan but think my active PfM may have blocked it. April eventually fell, and Corethief had no more tricks up his sleeve and faced his death and attacked Melissan in melee. RIP Corethief XXXVII - he had a good run.
Thoughts for next run. It seems the only thing effective in defeating Melissan (for me) was traps. So going to roll up a party of mostly multi-class thieves and a bounty hunter and see if maybe we can get her this way. Since EE nerfed the dispelling arrows in that they don't dispel Melissan I haven't had a success in EE. Will keep at it.
Curious how useful those totemic summons are turning out to be, even just as meat shields for a few rounds. That was always one of the classes I wanted to do a full run-through with, maybe even as my first solo run. But haven't done it yet.
And I *know* my next run will be Jester.
Nice tip! That would have made a difference and I had a ton of gold so could have bought such scrolls if available. Will keep it in mind.
You could also use protection from magic scrolls against Mel instead of one of your characters ?
Thanks! I did use protection from magic but by this point I only had one of them - oh I see what you mean I can cast on my characters if thief simmied by spell. Actually though most damage was actually melee - two characters were killed outright with Mel's time stop. Does anyone know if anything can deal with slayer shadows other than straight melee? I usually ignore summons since Mel will just summon more plus if you leave her alone she can heal herself.
I was thinking about using it on Mel herself, so she no longer could cast spells.
Yes I know Ribald sells two but I had to use one earlier to save myself. Doesn't Melissan have some magic resistance? Might make the scroll fizzle.
They are a decent summons, with some nice special abilities (like the paralysation from the wolf). One of the best things about them in BG2EE though is that they ignore the normal cooldown period after casting a spell - so you can use them much more effectively in combat than most summons.
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216824/#Comment_1216824
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1216979/#Comment_1216979
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1217113/#Comment_1217113
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1217244/#Comment_1217244
This session saw us arrive in ToB, where we've taken rather a beating so far - but the run goes on ...
The first action saw us make our way through Suldanesselar. That was straight-forward enough with the berserkers crunching their way through golems, Nizi expiring in a couple of fire storms and Rillifane helping us out in the temple.
On the Tree of Life, a deva was left to initially occupy Jon. Once he was covered in insects he was then unable to cause any more problems.
In hell, Deja followed the good path except for getting irate with Sarevok to get a strength boost - his wisdom is miserable anyway so improving that would not give him any perceptible advantage. Jon's slayer form was beaten down easily enough with the help of summons.
On entry to the Throne of Bhaal, Deja gratefully received a pair of Boots of Speed from Ilasera so that he will no longer lag behind his companions. In the Pocket Plane an initial challenge saw pretty easy progress through some peasants, elves and knights. The only good hero that appeared after that was Ellesime and she lasted only seconds after being caught in an insect plague.
In Saradush we did a few minor tasks before heading in search of Gromnir. My usual route to get to her is to get invited to a vampire reception and Deja did that here. She was a bit disconcerted though that her companions didn't get invited at the same time (I nearly always play solo, so that's not usually an issue). Rather than fight the vampires, Deja disappeared with the help of a potion and waited for help to arrive. The berserkers had no trouble with the vampires, but there were problems after the transition into the next level of the prison. The fighters and thieves there were able to hit Kerb easily and he turned to run too late to avoid a final strike.
The next objective was to go in search of Yaga-Shura. The initial encounters on the road were safely negotiated, but Kerb was keen to kill a few more enemies before we moved on to the Forest of Mir. That proved to be his downfall when he faced off against some soldiers supported by a giant. With both Kerb and the giant at near death he was invited to retreat, but just muttered "one more hit should settle it one way or the other". The hit duly arrived and Kerb collapsed to the ground ...
After recovering in the Pocket Plane, we made our way safely enough through the Forest of Mir where the berserkers put their undead killing weapons to good use. Then it was on to Yaga-Shura's lair where a host of fire giants were waiting for us. The first group of those were suckered into attacking Corezerk while he was in rat shape from the Cloak of the Sewers. That meant he took little damage from hits and standing in a lava pit with fire resistance over 100% allowed his regeneration to keep pace with damage. We weren't able to kill all the giants before Corezerk reverted to his normal self, but the few remaining non-elites were manageable without further assistance.
Rather than rest to allow the same type of tactic to be used again, Deja went immediately to activate the next group of giants. The aim there was to use Nature's Beauty to nerf those, but I'd forgotten that the giant's attacks not only cause physical damage (which could be blocked with ironskins), but also fire damage - which disrupted Deja's spell. That left us vulnerable to attack by the group of giants. They were hasted, which made it difficult to kite them round in multi-player (where pausing is disruptive and hard to control). Kerb was badly hurt when he initially attacked the giants to allow Deja to break contact. A bit of running round followed during which I was too busy keeping Deja out of trouble to follow what was happening to the others - and thus only belatedly realised that Kerb had snuffed it once more at some point. Deciding to fight another day, Deja and Corezerk left the temple, then went invisible to go back in and resurrect Kerb to pick up his gear. The session ended in the Pocket Plane where we will gear up for another assault on the giants next time.
Totemic druid 23, 105 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 180 kills (95 in BGEE)
Berserker 25 (G70), 168 HPs, 704 kills (263 in BGEE), 4 deaths
Berserker 23 (CR), 158 HPs, 633 kills (220 in BGEE), 2 deaths
Traveling with: April (dwarven fighter/thief), Gabrielle (half-orc fighter/thief), Sarah (dwarven fighter/thief), Paja (human bounty hunter), and Serena (gnomish mage/thief)
The band has made it past Sarevok and out of Irenicus dungeon and is just starting the slaver quests. In BG 1 I got a great drop and got invis 10' radius. This will enable the party open the fight with a lot of backstabs, could be fun. Also, we have access to quite a few traps. The party make-up is pretty straight-forward except my plan is to dual Paja to fighter at level 11 and let her use two-hand swords - Carsomyr comes to mind but there are a lot of really good swords in ToB. She of coures will have a thief weapon too if I want her to backstab. The reason to dual at 11 is I don't like the outiliuk's sphere bounty hunter traps in party play, the hold effect is much more useful. Also the last trap I get is at level 11 as 16 is both another trap and the OS traps which I don't want. Also too, getting level 12 fighter isn't too bad.
Since I also have access to cleric and mage spells and lots of martial skills, this group will have a lot of options - should be fun! Here is a sample screenshot we used invis 10' radius to open with backstabs on Prat's gang in BG 1 - it was devastating.
Introducing Eleanor Cobham, lawful good human female necromancer
Our Bhaalspawn is named after a real historical person who was accused of necromancy. It took me a while to get a roll this high
Our priorities now are reputation, gold, and a few specific item upgrades. We have skeletons, we have call lightning, we have hold person, silence, command, sleep and other crowd control abilities - not too much can stand in our way - some example screenshots: