At Abazigal's Lair, Al confronted Draconis in human form. With good saving throws, Cloak of Mirroring and immunity to weapons, Al was safe from all human attacks - and just had to make sure he kept enough distance not to be caught under the dragon when it changed. In dragon form, Draconis has a pretty nasty breath weapon and none of the Crew had protection against that. However, they handed out damage themselves quick enough to kill Draconis before any of them were in danger.
There were no problems moving through the rest of the lair, gaining some bronze pantalettes on the way by subcontracting a recovery job to Bondari. In the final area they circled around Abazigal's position while killing all the salamanders. His hardiness meant it took a while to whittle down Abazigal's human form and prompt a change. Unfortunately the impact from that threw Baby Face into a slight cavity in the rocks and he was unable to get out before Abazigal arrived. He borrowed Mad Dog's cloak and assumed rat form just in time to save his life while the others launched a desperate attack. Baby Face had put back on the Cloak of Reflection after that and this time using that spared his life as Abazigal was unable to finish him off before his own HPs ran out. The XP from that was just enough for level 26.
Back in Amkethran they beat up some monks and mercenaries. That provided them with a gate key and they moved inside in search of Balthazar. His supporting monks were quickly slaughtered, but his high HPs and ability to disappear allowed him to survive several GWWs. His fast speed and ability to hold opponents were pretty dangerous and 2 oils of speed were used to keep him out of attack range of slower members of the Crew until he finally fell.
After resting up the Crew did the third PP challenge - a single GWW round being too much for the Slayer. For the fourth the Favored of Cyric managed just a single backstab on the Crew - though a couple of summons were killed as well. For the fifth the Crew all equipped either natural +4/5 weapons or slings using +4 ammunition. Vito tried to keep the attention of the bone blades with a fair amount of success and a couple of rounds of GWW saw the end of the Ravager. The XP from that left Al just short of another level and I considered going to Watcher's Keep to find some more enemies, but ultimately decided the run should come to an end one way or the other now.
For the first time in BG2EE the Crew made major use of potions before being transported to the Throne. Mad Dog was wearing the BMU and kept close to her, while the others poured fire in from the surroundings - causing her to flee quicker than I expected. Annoyingly, a vampiric wraith ignored Mad Dog and level drained Bugsy before Yan-C-Bin was shot down. For her second incarnation a simmy was used to help occupy her - that died just as she ran away once more. Cryonax was left stuck behind a troll while the rest of his icy gang melted away. For Mel's 3rd incarnation a first round of GWWs hit her for far more than her HPs. However, her script kept her alive until her attempt to heal herself was interrupted and she was forced to run once more. Mad Dog borrowed the Reflection Shield to snuff out the danger from the Fallen Solar. The Mariliths PfMW kept them going for a couple more rounds, but then it was time to see what Mel had left. The answer was - nothing like enough. Another GWW immediately eliminated her HPs and then it was just a matter of waiting a couple of seconds until she'd tried and failed to heal herself - prompting an intervention from the solar.
Al took the honours for the most kills. That's the first time that I've run essentially the same party through the game twice. In principle it might seem unlikely that they would try their luck for a 3rd time. However, Al did elect to stay mortal and I'm already wondering whether they would have any chance of success without using any weapons at all ...
@Grond0 Congratulations! Good job with the second round of fighters, though the weaponless variety (without them being monks) seems like it would be very challenging indeed.
In the end I decided I didn't want another party run now, but the idea of the Crew relying mainly on fists prompted me to think of a monk run. It's a while since I played LoB, so thought I would give that another go.
In Candlekeep Mendel spent a while kicking some rats to death. There's no increased XP for LoB in this run so all that effort was rewarded with a paltry 55 XP. Kiting the assassins on his own for a few more XP would have been just too time consuming, but Mendel did use stealth to try and get the Watchers to beat them down to a few HPs. They did a bit too much damage and killed Shank, but Mendel was able to pick up the 20 XP on offer for Carbos.
After departing Candlekeep, I killed Imoen, Xzar and Montaron for their equipment and moved on to Beregost. Algernon's Cloak makes LoB for non-arcane solo characters far easier and I decided to take advantage of that, calming down Marl while there. With the cloak in hand Mendel travelled down to Nashkel to learn LMD - useful for killing near-death creatures (particularly potentially dangerous ones that have been charmed). Listening to Noober there was enough to get to level 2 and a maximum 10 extra HPs.
After buying a better sling and shooting Neera for her gem bag, Mendel made use of the cloak to set a pair of ogrillons against each other in order to recover a letter for Mirianne. Surprisingly, the uncharmed one managed to kill the other, despite the supporting fire from Mendel. Things went more according to plan when a charmed hobgoblin helped kill 2 (and nearly a third) of his companions before being finished off to recover Zhurlong's boots. Finishing those quests and finding a book for Firebead got Mendel close to level 3 and dealing the coup d'état to Karlat after he was badly damaged by spiders provided the last little bit and 7 more HPs. Silke helped kill all the spiders, but then went the same way as Karlat.
Next was the FAI where a charmed hobgoblin helped kill Tarnesh. Returning Landrin's goods was then enough for level 4 (+7 HPs). Jaheira was charmed, dragged outside and killed for her invisibility potion. On the way back south a charmed ogre killed a number of enemies before Mendel turned on it.
At the Lake area Mendel helped Drizzt (very slightly) against some gnolls. Jemby and then Teyngan were charmed and used to deal with some of the other inhabitants of the area - including the half-ogres Bjornin wanted revenge on. More relatively low XP encounters followed as Mendel gradually worked towards his next level. Eventually tiring of that, Mendel went to the coast in search of something more substantial. A half-ogre made short work of Shoal to catapult him to level 5 with 9 more HPs.
Down the coast, Mendel set some sirines fighting against each other. He missed out on the XP from one of those when not monitoring its HP status closely enough, but the others took him close to another level and that was gained fighting the worgs harassing Mirianne (+9 HPS).
Next up Mendel went to the basilisk area. In most cases playing on Core Rules, Korax can sweep up all the basilisks. On LoB though they are much more resistant to being paralysed as well as having lots more HPs. Thus I was reasonably pleased to even complete the 3 lesser and 1 greater at the bottom of the map. Using Algernon's Cloak from stealth I charmed another basilisk, but that was petrified when attacking one of its peers. The next basilisk was more successful - petrifying 3 others before I let it go. Charming the greater basilisk took a number of attempts, but was eventually successful and it immediately petrified Mutamin. Kirian and her gang all went the same way, as did the previously charmed basilisk. Mendel then rounded up a pair of gnolls which reduced the basilisk to 10 HPs. Mendel placed that where he could attack it and immediately retreat into the shelter of a rock, so that he could avoid being targeted by gaze even if it retaliated. He missed with 3 stealth attacks, none of which the basilisk noticed, before the 4th was successful to get him to level 7 (+7 HPs).
Mendel's next target was the Red Wizards of Thay. They were able to throw off his charms quite quickly, but if Mendel stayed out of the way they would continue fighting each other. He only managed to pick up the XP for 2 of them, but did gain the Ring of Energy as a potential alternative source of damage.
At the Carnival a few bits of work included charming Zordral and feeding him to some kobolds before finishing him off. Then Mendel went south to the mine area. After a number of attempts Greywolf was charmed and a ghoul helped set him up for the kill. Mendel stealthed through most of the mine, just picking up the XP for one of the spiders on the way. In Mulahey's cave he dealt with the existing kobolds before charming Xan. He had no spells, but did the job of persuading Mulahey to call for reinforcements. Mendel then charmed Mulahey and successfully claimed the kill.
Back in Nashkel Mendel was not successful in finishing off Nimbul, though he claimed his boots anyway. He did manage though to pull Neira away from the soldiers in order to get her XP. With some space now cleared in his inventory, Mendel returned to the Valley of the Tombs and charmed the amazons into helping him try and kill the Revenant. However, their lack of magical weapons meant that the Revenant still had 127 HPs when they were all dead. I tried 15-20 times to charm Narcillicus, but his elvish resistance made that very hard and I was actually about to give up when it worked. Unfortunately, by that time the Revenant had disappeared. I'm not sure whether he unsummoned or was just wandering, but Mendel looked for quite a while around the map before eventually giving up and just killing Narcillicus.
In Beregost Marl was dragged upstairs and absorbed all of Tranzig's attacking spells. Mendel tried to finish him off, but failed to move him far enough from Tranzig and the mage got the killing blow an instant before LMD took effect. A bit of running round shooting or stealth attacking provided some revenge though.
Before going to the Bandit Camp Mendel explored the southern areas. Standard tactics were to charm a strong enemy, wear it down while killing other things and then finish it off when it was almost dead. There were no problems encountered doing that, though the rewards were pretty scanty.
To speed up the acquisition of his final BG1 level, Mendel went to Durlag's Tower. He had no easy way to kill the battle horrors on the path, but could drag the one on the wall to a position where he could attack without retaliation. He needed a critical to hit though - against something with 254 HPs . There was also a possibility that a skeleton archer would appear, so I had to keep half an eye on the game rather than just leave it running while doing something else. In the event, no skeletons did show up during the 9 hours of game time it took to batter the battle horror to death. Inside the Tower Riggilo accepted a lock of 'nymph' hair before being charmed. I set him to attack the ghost and was surprised when he died relatively early on - checking the battle text it looks like he was polymorphed into a squirrel.
Mendel used a potion of magic blocking to get the tome before heading onto the roof. It took about 10 attempts, but he eventually managed to charm one of the greater basilisks, but unfortunately that lost out in its battle with a neighbour. A second was charmed, but that one appeared to have also gone the same way. However, after charming the final one and trying (and failing) to make it move I found that it had actually been petrified at the same time as the other. The lesser basilisk was a problem as it wouldn't follow between areas and Mendel had no luck in getting a random monster to appear. Eventually he used stealth to manoeuvre a ghast to where it could see him on the other side of the stun trap - and then drag it outside. Regrettably, after all that effort, I miscounted the basilisk's remaining HPs and the ghast killed it.
Having got far less XP than hoped for from Durlag's, Mendel was still 17k short of level 8. To address that he headed next to the ankheg area. He had much better luck there than with the basilisks and got credit for all but one of the kills, as well as handing in a number of shells to improve finances. Returning the bowl got Mendel to within about 3k of his level.
In Bassilus' area, Mendel did a few encounters before tackling the cleric, using Zargal as an intended target. That very nearly led to his death when Zargal shrugged off his charm very quickly and Mendel was hit by rigid thinking. Fortunately, although now hostile, Zargal continued to try and hit Bassilus in revenge for damage he had taken - giving Mendel time to recover. He waited his chance and managed to get the kill on Bassilus using LMD. He also picked up Melicamp and successfully restoring him provided his final BGEE level (+5 HPs). That also took him to 20 reputation and prompted some shopping to buy everything currently on offer that might be of use to him.
Progress in LoB is slow so, as trailed, I thought I would take a little break from Mendel and see how the Crew did without being allowed to use or equip any weapons. That meant they were unable to kill anything in Candlekeep, so they made Nashkel their first target destination, so that Al could learn LMD. The first victim of that was Algernon, as the cloak provides an alternative way to kill things without weapons. A typical sort of tactic was practised on the gnolls at High Hedge - charming one of them, using that to kill the others, then killing the charmed one with fists and LMD.
They did plenty of work around Beregost and ranged up to the FAI and down past Nashkel to the mine - but were still at level 1 and therefore pretty vulnerable. At the mine area they charmed Greywolf, but then needed to wear him down before they could kill him. A ghoul did the job and was beaten unconscious itself, but could not be finished off. The reward from Prism finally gave everyone a level.
At that point they bought Buckley's Buckler to reduce the amount of resting required to deal with the odd injury. After beating a dread wolf unconscious (and being unable to kill it) they also went back to Gorion's death place to kill Imoen and get her magic missile wand to deal with creatures immune to LMD. Then they super-charged their progress by heading for the basilisk area where Korax soon saw them up to level 3. He was left near dead by the greater basilisk near Mutamin, but still managed to deal with the mage as well. Korax became a first magic missile victim before Kirian's gang were picked off - Kirian watching in horror as all her spells bounced off Shar-Teel.
Thinking about how the Crew could save Arabelle, I decided to indulge them with a wand of sleep. That and a charmed bear made short work of the xvarts. The bear helped out with a few more encounters and that took them to level 4. At Firewine Bridge Bentan & Poe got temporary work visas with the Crew to get Meilum's bracers.
Working through the Cloud Peak Mountains seemed pretty easy, but there was a reminder of the Crew's vulnerability when they attacked a carrion crawler in a xvart cave. It took longer than expected to beat it unconscious and the extra damage it did to weaponless enemies saw HPs falling dangerously quickly.
Relieving Ardrouine's anxieties pushed reputation up to 20. Vito's adjusted charisma was only 19, so prices were not quite at the minimum. I still decided to do buy a few things though, including some full plate (meaning all the Crew have plate mail or better), several +1 shields and a Necklace of Missiles. They also recharged the magic missile wand, which only had 4 of the original 10 charges left. Those items were immediately put to use at Durlag's Tower to deal with some battle horrors. Inside, a ghast was also filled with magic missiles before the Crew headed onto the roof. Al used a green PfP scroll to tank the basilisks. One problem with group attacking with fists against normal targets is that everyone can't get close enough to attack - leading to bumping of icons and potentially making the enemy change target - which is bad news against basilisks. I was thinking that because they have much larger icons than normal that would not be a problem and didn't initially take too much care when moving them into position. The result was there was still some bumping when they ganged up on the first basilisk and two of them got petrified as a result.
As I only allow levelling up of parties all at once I didn't want to kill the basilisks immediately and get XP of different characters too out of line. Instead I went to buy some mirror eye potions and stone to flesh scrolls before returning. Al used a potion and helped knock the first basilisk unconscious again, despite it switching to melee and landing 3 quick criticals on him. After restoring the full party they killed that basilisk to share the XP out evenly. After resting a few times to regenerate they killed the second basilisk without any trouble - getting to level 5 as a result. The third basilisk switched to melee immediately, which had the advantage of not having to worry so much about switching targets - and this one had no luck with attacks and duly went down as well. The Crew then finished their work in the Tower by giving Riggilo a lock of hair before following up with fists.
Back at the Coast the Crew patiently waited for the first group of sirines to separate so they could attack them individually. That went well, though the final one of the original group managed to feeblemind Al and was subjected to continued beating to keep it unconscious until he recovered and could finish it off. I couldn't separate two of Sil's group, but they were easily beaten up anyway. I had no realistic way to kill the golems, so just dodged those while grabbing their treasure. I hadn't previously thought about it, but the Crew are entitled to make use of Relair's Mistake - taking wolf shape offers another alternative to do fatal damage
The Crew decided they should now be strong enough to deal with Ogre Droth and went to find Shoal. To try and protect their current no-deaths status Vito used a potion of invulnerability and activated the Horn of Kazgaroth before talking to Shoal. That was successful (without the potion he would have failed the saving throw). A second use of the Horn was followed by a general attack and Droth fell unconscious before Baby Face took wolf shape and finished him off - followed moments later by Shoal herself. The wolf shape lasted long enough to kill all of the nearby ogre clan and they got some healing from the surgeon - though well short of the wounds suffered. Rest ambushes meant it was a while before everyone was fully healed again, but they did then hunt down one by one the group of sirines in the area.
In search of more quick XP they went next to the ankheg area. The first ankheg in the nest was charmed and accompanied them around the rest killing off the opposition. The same ankheg was dragged outside and helped kill a couple more ankhegs in a field, but was taken to near death itself and given a mercy killing. Dealing with the solitary ankheg in the area to the north meant the Crew carried 16 shells back to Beregost to earn a worthwhile amount. That helped pay at Ulgoth's Beard for the Cloak of Displacement, Sandthief's ring and Greenstone amulet. Coming back from there they ran into a basilisk ambush. However, they had a couple of mirror eye potions so were able to deal with it.
The next target was the Red Wizards. Charming one of them and sharing around spell damage from others made that simple enough and the Crew gained another 'weapon' with the Ring of Energy.
Time for the Nashkel Mine. That all proceeded without trouble. In the cave Carlo saved against rigid thinking before Mulahey slumped down unconscious and his army were rapidly taken down. Outside the mine though things immediately went pear-shaped against the Amazons. Al used LMD to try and drag Telka away on her own. When Lamalha followed I decided that taking 2 of them on at once was still an acceptable risk. However, the fight must have been just within hearing range of the others as they quickly turned up as well. Al failed immediately against a rigid thinking - meaning he would have been unable to get out of the way of fireballs targeted on the newcomers. Three of the others were affected by hold and another by sleep during the combat, leaving Baby Face as the only fully-functioning member of the Crew at one point. He did have the sleep wand and managed to put Maneira to sleep, but she had already done severe damage by targeting a held Carlo and refusing to switch targets to the attacking Mad Dog until Carlo was dead.
Nimbul had no similar support to call upon and was quickly overwhelmed - and the same could be said of Tranzig. The Crew will be off to the Bandit Camp next, but after the disappointment of racking up a death I'll probably do a bit more with Mendel first.
Stats:
Al (PC) - L5, 63 HPs, 90 kills
Baby Face - L5, 58 HPs, 104 kills, 0 deaths
Bugsy - L5, 68 HPs, 0 kills, 0 deaths
Carlo - L5, 67 HPs, 0 kills, 1 death
Mad Dog - L5, 62 HPs, 0 kills, 0 deaths
Vito - L5, 62 HPs, 16 kills, 0 deaths
The wolf shape offers a quick and easy method of killing opponents and Baby Face has taken the lead in the kills race in no time.
so @Grond0 you are not allowing melee or ranged weapons, but allowing any other damage like fists, shape changes, wands, charms etc. right? If you make it to BG 2 are you going to relax the restriction there?
Corecleric the gnomish cleric/thief and his band of thieves (mostly) - ToB Update
Traveling with: Garbrielle (dwarven fighter/thief), Sarevok, Paja (human bounty hunter dualed to fighter at level 11), Sarah (dwarven fighter/thief), Serena (gnomish thief/illusionist)
Chunked: April (fighter/thief), Mazzy
First a comment about my special build for Paja. It seems trying to avoid the otiulek's sphere effect of bounty hunter traps by dualing at 11 doesn't work - I am still getting the effect because of her fighter levels. So would call the build a failure. While she is an OK fighter (she has ***** in two-hand sword and ** in two hand weapon style) her saves are terrible - she has to use the Lilacor almost always otherwise she'll get charmed or confused. She does have 3 normal thief snares but is fairly minor now that we have a lot more spike traps available.
In any case, we have defeated Gromnir and Yaga. A single spike trap and direct attack finished off Yaga quickly though Gromnir was difficult as expected - some deaths but no chunkings.
Sendai went pretty smooth until the last fight. We had quite a bit of difficulty with all the drow reinforcements coming in which slowed down our attacks on Sendai. One neat thing of this battle is Carsomyr has been useful to dispel magic protections of the Sendai mages. The magic resistance kicked in a number of times as well, so Sarah has been using it even though not proficient. Unfortunately for Mazzy the slow killing of Sendai resulted in Mazzy being CHUNKED! Sarevok will take her place. Mazzy has been great for us, we'll miss her.
Draconis is our next target. We have spike traps for him, but my Draconis battles tend to be chaotic, we'll just have to see I suppose. Here's a screenshot shortly after Mazzy's chunking:
so @Grond0 you are not allowing melee or ranged weapons, but allowing any other damage like fists, shape changes, wands, charms etc. right? If you make it to BG 2 are you going to relax the restriction there?
I wasn't intending to. The Crew won't be able to destroy the mephit portals in the opening dungeon and I have a vague memory that was a required quest at one stage. If that's still the case in BG2EE I'll have to make an exception for that ...
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 243, Core rules + unmodded (Link to end of attempt 242)
Jiddy (male gnome Fighter/Illusionist, Gate70); Chanceless (male gnome Fighter/Thief, Grond0)
T'was the 12th of July and it seemed either we didn't make enough progress to scribe the start of this attempt, or more likely I waited for Grond0 to write up the previous ending then promptly forgot I should make a start
Fast forward to 16th August and we resumed for a second instalment. We took stock of the situation, as Noober gently continued to decay at our feet. We had 1800xp between us (450xp for each of our four classes) so must have done minimal work beyond Candlekeep, Shoal the Nereid and making our way down to Nashkel
Time to start then. We headed south, killed off Greywolf, and then went to head east. At which point the game froze so we had to repeat this
Chanceless rubbed his gnomely eyes. This was not East. This was West. If he were a dwarf he'd have been chanting the Durlag mantra riddle
"from the west it came"
"from the east it came"
"I don't pay attention to detail I mash the 1 key"
However, he was indeed a gnome so instead he pretended he knew Jiddy would change direction and tracked down Rufie so we could perform a good deed before dealing with Zal and Vax. Once they were dead we headed further west, eliminating Caldo and Krumm and then looting a tome from under the gnoll fortress
North we went, dealing with two white bears one in an ambush and the other near a bridge. Jiddy found the next few jobs a bit of a blur, struggling to remember the order with which we fought Bjornins half-ogres, killed Perdues gnolls, blinded Neera and Silke, cut down Zhurlong and Karlat. Looted the +1 bastard sword from the forge, cleared basilisks, Mutamin, Kirians gang, the upper levels of Durlags Tower, assorted creatures, casters, bandits, archers, and so on. Bassilus, hobgoblins, yes them too
Hold on hold on. Chanceless bore witness of what happened, you can ask him. He pays attention to detail. Before you ask though, it's worth perusing the pictures below. They tell more than 1000 of Jiddys words.
Towards the end of the session we raced through Nashkel mine. Jiddy was considering using stinking cloud but saw Chanceless fade into the shadows so stopped. Chanceless saw Jiddy was about to cast and sensed stinking cloud. For moment after moment we waited until we could wait no more. About 2 seconds, which is often a lifetime in multiplayer
Chanceless went in for the backstab. Mulahey survived and started to cast. Jiddy tried to blind him. Chanceless tried to move but found the path in was a one-way route (we checked afterwards)
So Chanceless was stuck in combat with Mulahey, whether the cleric was blind or not. Jiddy meanwhile had a full set of skeletons and kobolds to contend with, and they did not seem to like the cut of his robe
Chanceless struck again, while Jiddy jinked about to evade attackers and lobbed another bullet at the cleric. Mulahey was not going to be a piece of cake today and he refused to die or even panic. Instead he cast hold person and Chanceless failed his save
So we had a stricken fighter/thief, and a horde of low level enemies in a confined space. Jiddy hacked down three skeletons and a kobold to make a path to the other battle. He picked up a couple of minor wounds
Mulahey had cast a magical weapon and hit Chanceless a few times. Eventually he turned to face Jiddy, then back to Chanceless and back again to Jiddy. A hit on Chanceless, a miss on Jiddy
Somehow Jiddy and his (it was not Silkes by this point) staff +1 killed Mulahey, and he bludgeoned the remaining minions. The last one fell just as Chanceless regained his movement. Jiddy casually looted while Chanceless did several circuits to convince himself that even with nobody to block him, the path to where he walked could not be used to return
(I'm sure I have observed this in the past, good to see Grond0 STILL learning after 25+ years of this game)
Anyway, we chanced our luck against the amazons outside; Jiddy belatedly finding that blinding the supporting caster turns everyone hostile; also learn after at least 25 years start with the archers so stinking cloud can be used. We added that in later but fair to say we both took a few arrows too many in this encounter before the clouds saw us gain the upper hand and all their loot
Back at Beregost we killed Tranzig and headed to the bandit camp where we will rest for weeks or months before proceeding as time permits
Due to my Windows settings I have been unable to screenshot without disrupting a game so none taken except at the end
(I'll have to see if I can find a way to revert screenshot behaviour when in fullscreen / games)
The Bandit Camp was irritating because all the bandits were able to throw off charms almost immediately they went into battle - and normally they didn't keep fighting after that (though occasionally they did). After a huge number of charms trying to get kills I finally kept Taurgosz charmed by not letting him try to attack. Unfortunately I was a bit greedy in trying to get him to low HPs and a last shot from a bandit archer killed him when he was trying to run away. After eventually killing all the external bandits, Mendel sneaked into Tazok's tent and charmed Hakt. He absorbed the worst of Venkt's spells before Mendel finished him off. Britik and Raemon followed him out of the tent and the former killed the latter comfortably. He had enough HPs left to survive against Venkt when Mendel dragged him out to his doom. Britik then found he had outlived his usefulness (but failed to outlive his non-usefulness).
In the Cloakwood he decoyed all the ettercaps and spiders out of the way so that he could pass safely through the web traps without using any resources. At the mine, Kysus confused Drasus and he killed Rezdan. Drasus then attacked Kysus and was about to kill him before Mendel nipped in first with a LMD. Genthore was then charmed and Mendel again picked up his XP after Drasus had taken him to near death. Then it was Drasus' turn to be charmed. He was set against 3 guards and would undoubtedly have killed them all - if he had not unaccountably decided to use his fists in place of a weapon. I wasn't careful enough with the ending there though and 2 guards hitting him simultaneously with criticals killed him before Mendel got the chance for a killing blow.
In the mine Mendel just stealthed through to the bottom level. He used fireballs for the first time - about 30 of those disposing of the battle horrors. The charmed guard then attacked Davaeorn. Unfortunately he broke his sword early on and Davaeorn still had about half his HPs after that. Mendel laboriously worked through those using stealth attacks with his scimitar. After that it seemed like too much effort to kill the mustard jelly and Mendel just lured it away so he could loot the treasure.
In the City Mendel started his chores with a visit to the sewers. The ogre mage there was charmed and incapacitated by his pet carrion crawlers. For the poison quest, Jalantha was swiftly cut to pieces by her own skeleton warriors. Rather than try and charm Larze, he was sent on a wild goose chase after a picture. That just left Marek and Mendel tried and failed a few times to stun him with stealth attacks. With the poison still active he couldn't do that too many times and eventually just used a mixture of stealth attacks (with his sword to improve THAC0) and sling shots to wear him down.
Moving on to the Iron Throne he charmed Aasim and watched him get slaughtered by the others. He tried several times to do the same to Diyab - using the roof to rest. Then this happened …I hadn't considered it in advance, but I have seen Flame Strikes cast between areas before - and against a maximum level opponent it's a pretty nasty spell to deal with . Oh well, back to the Crew.
Tough break there @Grond0 - maybe some fire resistance potions could have helped with that. I think I remember being flame-striked outside when fighting Jalantha before, so your description sounds plausible.
Corecleric the gnomish cleric/thief and his band of thieves (mostly) - ToB Update 2
Traveling with: Garbrielle (dwarven fighter/thief), Sarevok, Korgan, , Sarah (dwarven fighter/thief), Serena (gnomish thief/illusionist)
Chunked: April (fighter/thief), Mazzy, Paja (human bounty hunter dualed to fighter)
@Grond0 just noticed your ranged fighters run, congrats on defeating Mel!
Unless I get a mishap, my group of thieves will be meeting Melissan soon. Speaking of mishaps, while the party did defeat Abizigal, some of the party members were slow in getting back to the traps at the entrance. Serena got put to near death and Paja was CHUNKED! Korgan will replace Paja. Our party of thieves is not looking as thiev-ish as it once was but we still have lots of traps. Despite being under-leveled, Korgan can still be OK thanks to his enrage. We have defeated Pocket Plane Challenge #4 and Balthsazar is next.
Corecleric the gnomish cleric/thief and his band of thieves (mostly) - FINAL Update!
Traveling with: Garbrielle (dwarven fighter/thief), Sarevok, Korgan, , Sarah (dwarven fighter/thief), Serena (gnomish thief/illusionist)
Chunked: April (fighter/thief), Mazzy, Paja (human bounty hunter dualed to fighter)
Woohoo! After all these years of trying, I have now have a successful trilogy run in EE. When EE took away RoR heals and especially nerfing the dispelling arrows dispel effect which used to work on Melissan and Dragons, my techniques which worked great in original BG didn't work in EE.
For Ravager the party attempted to range attack many of us using +4 bullets but bone blades were doing too much damage so we eventually went in melee. Only Sarah died but not chunked, RoR got her back to speed.
Melissan battle #1:
Corecleric used PfM scroll on Melissan then straight attacks - we were taking lots of damage from her summons so needed to use a GWW - success!
Pool Battle #1:
Party has a lot of level drain protection, plus a lot of buffs and we got a clean victory here.
Melissan battle #2:
4 spike traps and 3 normal snares were enough to win immediately. For FIRST TIME EVER, I used project image with Serena, which enabled her to lay down 4 spike traps and 3 snares using the image - what a powerful spell, will need to keep this spell in mind for future runs.
Pool Battle #2:
Since skeletal warriors are useless for Melissan anyways summoned four of them to assist us with this lot. We took daamge but success all the same. I used a scorcher from a wand to finish off the blizzard troll.
Melissan Battle #3:
I laid down 4 spike traps and 3 snares - immediate victory.
Pool Battle #3:
This was the battle I was worried about. I had our best summons go in to distract the solor while party ranged attacked and we had group haste - this only damaged the solar and I think the fallen solor did a death spell. We immediately moved into melee to finish off the solar quickly which we maanged to do without her killing anyone. Corecleric got poisioned but he had an elixar of health available. Some GWWs finished off the mareliths.
Melissan Battle #4:
4 spike traps and 3 snares won immediately again. Corecleric XXIX will become a god.
Can you give me the data for the Hall of Heroes entry? Notables mods (if any), any special rules/self imposed extra challenges (if applicable), difficulty setting, and a link to the starting post
Zetan the gnomish fighter/thief entering Trilogy no-reload challenge - Update 1:
Current Party: April (dwarven bersker), Imoen, Neera, Viconia
Setup: BG 1, BG2, and ToB EE, no mods
Difficulty: Core rules
Special: Will attempt to recruit new characters in EE, Dorn, Rashaad, Neera in BG 1 and Neera, Rashaad and Hexxat in BG 2. Will try to keep for whole trilogy if possible for BG 2 new characters.
I think it's pretty unlikely I will succeed this run mostly because I am not familiar with the quests for the new NPCs. If the quests are anything like Neera's which can be pretty hard then expecting failure. If Zetan dies, Intend to keep playing though (without reporting to site) to try to learn the new characters' quests. Party is working their way to Nashkel. Here is character sheet for Zetan and his helper berserker friend, April:
Well done @Corey_Russell - nice use of project image there. Don't forget that any thief can use that spell at the Throne - no need to be an illusionist as well.
At the Bandit Camp there is no risk of ambushes during rest (which is a bit odd when you come to think of it), so the Crew could happily take significant damage during encounters before healing up. That allowed them to acquire another suit of full plate from Taurgosz. Al encouraged Venkt & co to come out of their tent and took more damage than I expected in the process. The others finished the job pretty quickly though and gained a level as a reward.
In the Cloakwood the Crew tried their hand at some of the travel ambushes. They were taking quite heavy damage though, particularly those with just standard plate, and went to invest in some more ankheg armor. Despite their lack of interest in his sword, the Crew lent a helping hand fist against some marauding druids in the first area. In the second area they took a bit of a risk by fully exploring it - successfully triggering web traps only when no enemies were in sight. They dragged spiders out of the nest one or two at a time to leave Centeol helpless.
In the third area they killed some bossy druids, including an Archdruid, whose defences didn't include protection against fists or LMD. In the fourth they dragged some wyverns out of their cave and beat them up. At the mine they dragged Drasus away and overwhelmed him before charming Genthore to make him lead an attack on the mages. A couple of the Crew failed against a horror, but the others finished things off.
Inside the mine they worked down to the bottom level where the battle horrors were killed with fireballs. Vito was badly wounded by that stage, but the others attacked Davaeorn and, despite him showing his full range of spells, they kept attacking until they got their man. They had no way to kill the mustard jelly, so just looted the treasure and ran.
In Baldur's Gate, the first thing they did was grab Balduran's Helm and then seek out Jardak to get another helm. The latter gave Vito 20 charisma to get the cheapest prices available. That prompted then to buy magic missile wands all round. Next they went to find 3 more Necklaces of Missiles to greatly increase their potential firepower. Most of the time they still used fists though - such as in dealing with Ramazith. They decoyed the mustard jellies away from the Tower there while working through the other guardians. I tried to separate just one or two ghasts at a time, but lost patience at one point when I faced a group of 3. That resulted in 2 of the Crew being held and a first use of the Ring of Energy when Mad Dog looked in potential trouble.
A shortage of money was partly the reason for going back to the wilderness areas to clean up a bit more. Fists continued to be the main weapon here, for instance against Bassilus, and even the Doomsayer went down under the pummelling. Once they'd earned a bit more and bought everything potentially useful outside the City they returned back there. A couple of fireballs to reduce the number of carrion crawlers to an acceptable level helped deal with ogre mage despite his pretty successful confusion spell. Once they'd looted the nearby containers, moving back to the stairs showed up a new group of 4 or 5 of the crawlers. Rather than play it safe the Crew attacked those and nearly paid the price - with 4 of them getting held and Bugsy once more using the ring of energy to help finish off a couple of them. Soon after that Larze did even more damage to the Crew, though without ever really threatening them.
Stats:
Al (PC) - L6, 71 HPs, 96 kills
Baby Face - L6, 72 HPs, 396 kills, 0 deaths
Bugsy - L6, 83 HPs, 4 kills, 0 deaths
Carlo - L6, 75 HPs, 0 kills, 1 death
Mad Dog - L6, 76 HPs, 0 kills, 0 deaths
Vito - L6, 81 HPs (inc. 5 from Helm), 20 kills, 0 deaths
Well done @Corey_Russell - nice use of project image there. Don't forget that any thief can use that spell at the Throne - no need to be an illusionist as well.
@Grond0 I assume you mean any thief with UAI can use project image - not all my thieves had UAI actually. Also I specifically chose Serena the mage/thief as she happened to have a full set of spike traps/snares which meant the image could provide all the traps needed for the next Melissan battle, without needing to permanently draw from traps from the real characters.
Zetan the gnomish fighter/thief - Update 2
Traveling with: April (dwarven berserker), Dorn, Viconia, Neera
Permanently lost/chunked: Rasaad (when fighting the mages that show up after talking to Adoy, Rasaad appears to been frozen forever somehow - he's not petrified as stone to flesh scrolls don't fix him), Kagain (he had to be kicked out when recruiting Dorn, but we were in an ambush area. And yes I know if I can trigger the same ambush area I can recruit Kagain again, but not worrying about it for now)
Well, I expected the run to be chaotic with the new party members, and it sure has been. Poor Dorn has repeatedly died to ankhegs - we eventually had the money to get him some ankheg armor which helps a little. Raasaad also died repeatedly (to many enemies), we lost a lot of gold to resurrect him. I wanted to tell Rasaad that there is little point in training to use fists if he can't survive long enough to use said fists. This was one reason I haven't recruited him before, as I expected to lose a lot of money to the temples (which I have). The other issue? Even with two pips assigned, neither pip is in ranged weapons, so he kind of is forced to get into melee and die! I try to have other characters engage first but enemies often switch to Rasaad as he's an easy target.
We have cleared out the flesh golem cave area and the 2nd siren area. Shoal killed Dorn but didn't offer to resurrect him so we had to kill her and pay the temple yet again.
We battled a Necromancer that Dorn wanted and that went well, though was difficult. It seems we can't do the next phase of his quest until chapter 5 is that right?
We went to see Adoy and Dorn and April were killed with Rasaad somehow frozen solid permanently - cone of cold I think it was. I thought the rest of us were going to die as well, but Viconia finally managed to silence the head mage, which enabled Viconia, Neera and Zetan to do most of the work. Neera's ranged attacks are almost useless, as she is only proficient in staff, which is crazy to get her close, so she used a non-proficient sling which means she takes a huge Thac0 penalty - she pretty much only hits on a critical. She has lots of spells because of Evermemory so she is still helping plus we use wands once in a while.
So far, not too impressed with these new characters though their stories are well done. Dorn's build is terrible though as he only had ** in two-hand sword and ** in two-hand fighting style (and NO ranged weapons), except he didn't have max DEX and also he has CON below 16. He would die a bit less if he would just use a 1-hand weapon and shield, but no. It's similar how Xan has an awesome sword but if he gets into melee he is often killed in one blow because of his 9 CON.
Will keep at it. Will venture into Nashkel mines next.
so @Grond0 you are not allowing melee or ranged weapons, but allowing any other damage like fists, shape changes, wands, charms etc. right? If you make it to BG 2 are you going to relax the restriction there?
I wasn't intending to. The Crew won't be able to destroy the mephit portals in the opening dungeon and I have a vague memory that was a required quest at one stage. If that's still the case in BG2EE I'll have to make an exception for that ...
I have now tested it and it's not possible to proceed without destroying the mephit portals. Rather than use weapons there I think I'll end the run now. I always thought they were doomed to failure against Mel, but had a realistic chance of getting that far and their pretty good progress to date tends to confirm my view that they would do well in most of BG2EE given the chance.
@Corey_Russell I've tried a number of parties before that could do without weapons, e.g.:
- an arcane party (2 sorcerers and 4 different mages)
- shamans
- druids (who did beat Mel)
- monks
- various mixed parties (tending to be for LoB runs)
The idea behind this run though was for a party that would naturally use weapons as their main tactic, but chose not to do so - relying on their tough defenses to compensate for weak attacks. None of the above really fit that idea, though having played with the Crew for a while it might be nice to do something different. I could also perhaps just replace one of the Crew's fighters with a paladin (that could create a club by the time they get to BG2EE). I'll think about it a bit more ...
So the party was fighting in the Larswood area and I realized that Baelith is a new character I haven't used and since we had an open spot recruited him. He is a pretty powerful sorcerer, so with Neera too, we have a lot of mage power. The run has been going well. Bandit camp was very straightforward. With Viconia's resist fear on the party for Tazok's tent, and a lot of direct attacks on Venkt the fight went well. Cloakwood also went very smooth. In the mines decided to skip fighting the resource-intensive mages and just go straight to Davaeorn. I appear to messed up and triggered a battle horror which we had to fight at the same time as Davaeorn, but Neera's aganazer's scorcher from wand cleared that up.
Once outside Baldur's Gate we fought Dorn's old boss. I had summoned some monsters, resist fear before fight, Wand of Heavens on some sort of demon, and also paralyzation wand on the other demon and poision with Dorn, and ice arrows for Zetan and then let the AI fight - it went great as the party took no damage. I guess with two arcane classes and a cleric, that is a lot of spell power - too much for Dorn's boss it seems.
Comments
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1218157/#Comment_1218157
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1218245/#Comment_1218245
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1218263/#Comment_1218263
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1218305/#Comment_1218305
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1218352/#Comment_1218352
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1218381/#Comment_1218381
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1218402/#Comment_1218402
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1218417/#Comment_1218417
At Abazigal's Lair, Al confronted Draconis in human form. With good saving throws, Cloak of Mirroring and immunity to weapons, Al was safe from all human attacks - and just had to make sure he kept enough distance not to be caught under the dragon when it changed. In dragon form, Draconis has a pretty nasty breath weapon and none of the Crew had protection against that. However, they handed out damage themselves quick enough to kill Draconis before any of them were in danger.
There were no problems moving through the rest of the lair, gaining some bronze pantalettes on the way by subcontracting a recovery job to Bondari. In the final area they circled around Abazigal's position while killing all the salamanders. His hardiness meant it took a while to whittle down Abazigal's human form and prompt a change. Unfortunately the impact from that threw Baby Face into a slight cavity in the rocks and he was unable to get out before Abazigal arrived. He borrowed Mad Dog's cloak and assumed rat form just in time to save his life while the others launched a desperate attack. Baby Face had put back on the Cloak of Reflection after that and this time using that spared his life as Abazigal was unable to finish him off before his own HPs ran out. The XP from that was just enough for level 26.
Back in Amkethran they beat up some monks and mercenaries. That provided them with a gate key and they moved inside in search of Balthazar. His supporting monks were quickly slaughtered, but his high HPs and ability to disappear allowed him to survive several GWWs. His fast speed and ability to hold opponents were pretty dangerous and 2 oils of speed were used to keep him out of attack range of slower members of the Crew until he finally fell.
After resting up the Crew did the third PP challenge - a single GWW round being too much for the Slayer. For the fourth the Favored of Cyric managed just a single backstab on the Crew - though a couple of summons were killed as well. For the fifth the Crew all equipped either natural +4/5 weapons or slings using +4 ammunition. Vito tried to keep the attention of the bone blades with a fair amount of success and a couple of rounds of GWW saw the end of the Ravager. The XP from that left Al just short of another level and I considered going to Watcher's Keep to find some more enemies, but ultimately decided the run should come to an end one way or the other now.
For the first time in BG2EE the Crew made major use of potions before being transported to the Throne. Mad Dog was wearing the BMU and kept close to her, while the others poured fire in from the surroundings - causing her to flee quicker than I expected. Annoyingly, a vampiric wraith ignored Mad Dog and level drained Bugsy before Yan-C-Bin was shot down. For her second incarnation a simmy was used to help occupy her - that died just as she ran away once more. Cryonax was left stuck behind a troll while the rest of his icy gang melted away. For Mel's 3rd incarnation a first round of GWWs hit her for far more than her HPs. However, her script kept her alive until her attempt to heal herself was interrupted and she was forced to run once more. Mad Dog borrowed the Reflection Shield to snuff out the danger from the Fallen Solar. The Mariliths PfMW kept them going for a couple more rounds, but then it was time to see what Mel had left. The answer was - nothing like enough. Another GWW immediately eliminated her HPs and then it was just a matter of waiting a couple of seconds until she'd tried and failed to heal herself - prompting an intervention from the solar.
Al took the honours for the most kills. That's the first time that I've run essentially the same party through the game twice. In principle it might seem unlikely that they would try their luck for a 3rd time. However, Al did elect to stay mortal and I'm already wondering whether they would have any chance of success without using any weapons at all ...
Edit:
Al, the Fighter (#2): @Grond0
Notable Mods: None
Difficulty: Core Rules
Special: Party only contains unkitted fighters. No use of item-based healing or resurrection. No using or equipping melee weapons.
Start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1218133/#Comment_1218133
End: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1218423/#Comment_1218423
In the end I decided I didn't want another party run now, but the idea of the Crew relying mainly on fists prompted me to think of a monk run. It's a while since I played LoB, so thought I would give that another go.
In Candlekeep Mendel spent a while kicking some rats to death. There's no increased XP for LoB in this run so all that effort was rewarded with a paltry 55 XP. Kiting the assassins on his own for a few more XP would have been just too time consuming, but Mendel did use stealth to try and get the Watchers to beat them down to a few HPs. They did a bit too much damage and killed Shank, but Mendel was able to pick up the 20 XP on offer for Carbos.
After departing Candlekeep, I killed Imoen, Xzar and Montaron for their equipment and moved on to Beregost. Algernon's Cloak makes LoB for non-arcane solo characters far easier and I decided to take advantage of that, calming down Marl while there. With the cloak in hand Mendel travelled down to Nashkel to learn LMD - useful for killing near-death creatures (particularly potentially dangerous ones that have been charmed). Listening to Noober there was enough to get to level 2 and a maximum 10 extra HPs.
After buying a better sling and shooting Neera for her gem bag, Mendel made use of the cloak to set a pair of ogrillons against each other in order to recover a letter for Mirianne. Surprisingly, the uncharmed one managed to kill the other, despite the supporting fire from Mendel. Things went more according to plan when a charmed hobgoblin helped kill 2 (and nearly a third) of his companions before being finished off to recover Zhurlong's boots. Finishing those quests and finding a book for Firebead got Mendel close to level 3 and dealing the coup d'état to Karlat after he was badly damaged by spiders provided the last little bit and 7 more HPs. Silke helped kill all the spiders, but then went the same way as Karlat.
Next was the FAI where a charmed hobgoblin helped kill Tarnesh. Returning Landrin's goods was then enough for level 4 (+7 HPs). Jaheira was charmed, dragged outside and killed for her invisibility potion. On the way back south a charmed ogre killed a number of enemies before Mendel turned on it.
At the Lake area Mendel helped Drizzt (very slightly) against some gnolls. Jemby and then Teyngan were charmed and used to deal with some of the other inhabitants of the area - including the half-ogres Bjornin wanted revenge on. More relatively low XP encounters followed as Mendel gradually worked towards his next level. Eventually tiring of that, Mendel went to the coast in search of something more substantial. A half-ogre made short work of Shoal to catapult him to level 5 with 9 more HPs.
Down the coast, Mendel set some sirines fighting against each other. He missed out on the XP from one of those when not monitoring its HP status closely enough, but the others took him close to another level and that was gained fighting the worgs harassing Mirianne (+9 HPS).
Next up Mendel went to the basilisk area. In most cases playing on Core Rules, Korax can sweep up all the basilisks. On LoB though they are much more resistant to being paralysed as well as having lots more HPs. Thus I was reasonably pleased to even complete the 3 lesser and 1 greater at the bottom of the map. Using Algernon's Cloak from stealth I charmed another basilisk, but that was petrified when attacking one of its peers. The next basilisk was more successful - petrifying 3 others before I let it go. Charming the greater basilisk took a number of attempts, but was eventually successful and it immediately petrified Mutamin. Kirian and her gang all went the same way, as did the previously charmed basilisk. Mendel then rounded up a pair of gnolls which reduced the basilisk to 10 HPs. Mendel placed that where he could attack it and immediately retreat into the shelter of a rock, so that he could avoid being targeted by gaze even if it retaliated. He missed with 3 stealth attacks, none of which the basilisk noticed, before the 4th was successful to get him to level 7 (+7 HPs).
monk 7, 59 HPs, 45 kills
Previous update:
Mendel's next target was the Red Wizards of Thay. They were able to throw off his charms quite quickly, but if Mendel stayed out of the way they would continue fighting each other. He only managed to pick up the XP for 2 of them, but did gain the Ring of Energy as a potential alternative source of damage.
At the Carnival a few bits of work included charming Zordral and feeding him to some kobolds before finishing him off. Then Mendel went south to the mine area. After a number of attempts Greywolf was charmed and a ghoul helped set him up for the kill. Mendel stealthed through most of the mine, just picking up the XP for one of the spiders on the way. In Mulahey's cave he dealt with the existing kobolds before charming Xan. He had no spells, but did the job of persuading Mulahey to call for reinforcements. Mendel then charmed Mulahey and successfully claimed the kill.
Back in Nashkel Mendel was not successful in finishing off Nimbul, though he claimed his boots anyway. He did manage though to pull Neira away from the soldiers in order to get her XP. With some space now cleared in his inventory, Mendel returned to the Valley of the Tombs and charmed the amazons into helping him try and kill the Revenant. However, their lack of magical weapons meant that the Revenant still had 127 HPs when they were all dead. I tried 15-20 times to charm Narcillicus, but his elvish resistance made that very hard and I was actually about to give up when it worked. Unfortunately, by that time the Revenant had disappeared. I'm not sure whether he unsummoned or was just wandering, but Mendel looked for quite a while around the map before eventually giving up and just killing Narcillicus.
Before going to the Bandit Camp Mendel explored the southern areas. Standard tactics were to charm a strong enemy, wear it down while killing other things and then finish it off when it was almost dead. There were no problems encountered doing that, though the rewards were pretty scanty.
To speed up the acquisition of his final BG1 level, Mendel went to Durlag's Tower. He had no easy way to kill the battle horrors on the path, but could drag the one on the wall to a position where he could attack without retaliation. He needed a critical to hit though - against something with 254 HPs
Mendel used a potion of magic blocking to get the tome before heading onto the roof. It took about 10 attempts, but he eventually managed to charm one of the greater basilisks, but unfortunately that lost out in its battle with a neighbour. A second was charmed, but that one appeared to have also gone the same way. However, after charming the final one and trying (and failing) to make it move I found that it had actually been petrified at the same time as the other. The lesser basilisk was a problem as it wouldn't follow between areas and Mendel had no luck in getting a random monster to appear. Eventually he used stealth to manoeuvre a ghast to where it could see him on the other side of the stun trap - and then drag it outside. Regrettably, after all that effort, I miscounted the basilisk's remaining HPs and the ghast killed it.
Having got far less XP than hoped for from Durlag's, Mendel was still 17k short of level 8. To address that he headed next to the ankheg area. He had much better luck there than with the basilisks and got credit for all but one of the kills, as well as handing in a number of shells to improve finances. Returning the bowl got Mendel to within about 3k of his level.
In Bassilus' area, Mendel did a few encounters before tackling the cleric, using Zargal as an intended target. That very nearly led to his death when Zargal shrugged off his charm very quickly and Mendel was hit by rigid thinking. Fortunately, although now hostile, Zargal continued to try and hit Bassilus in revenge for damage he had taken - giving Mendel time to recover. He waited his chance and managed to get the kill on Bassilus using LMD. He also picked up Melicamp and successfully restoring him provided his final BGEE level (+5 HPs). That also took him to 20 reputation and prompted some shopping to buy everything currently on offer that might be of use to him.
Monk 8, 64 HPs, 125 kills
Progress in LoB is slow so, as trailed, I thought I would take a little break from Mendel and see how the Crew did without being allowed to use or equip any weapons. That meant they were unable to kill anything in Candlekeep, so they made Nashkel their first target destination, so that Al could learn LMD. The first victim of that was Algernon, as the cloak provides an alternative way to kill things without weapons. A typical sort of tactic was practised on the gnolls at High Hedge - charming one of them, using that to kill the others, then killing the charmed one with fists and LMD.
They did plenty of work around Beregost and ranged up to the FAI and down past Nashkel to the mine - but were still at level 1 and therefore pretty vulnerable. At the mine area they charmed Greywolf, but then needed to wear him down before they could kill him. A ghoul did the job and was beaten unconscious itself, but could not be finished off. The reward from Prism finally gave everyone a level.
At that point they bought Buckley's Buckler to reduce the amount of resting required to deal with the odd injury. After beating a dread wolf unconscious (and being unable to kill it) they also went back to Gorion's death place to kill Imoen and get her magic missile wand to deal with creatures immune to LMD. Then they super-charged their progress by heading for the basilisk area where Korax soon saw them up to level 3. He was left near dead by the greater basilisk near Mutamin, but still managed to deal with the mage as well. Korax became a first magic missile victim before Kirian's gang were picked off - Kirian watching in horror as all her spells bounced off Shar-Teel.
Thinking about how the Crew could save Arabelle, I decided to indulge them with a wand of sleep. That and a charmed bear made short work of the xvarts. The bear helped out with a few more encounters and that took them to level 4. At Firewine Bridge Bentan & Poe got temporary work visas with the Crew to get Meilum's bracers.
Working through the Cloud Peak Mountains seemed pretty easy, but there was a reminder of the Crew's vulnerability when they attacked a carrion crawler in a xvart cave. It took longer than expected to beat it unconscious and the extra damage it did to weaponless enemies saw HPs falling dangerously quickly.
Relieving Ardrouine's anxieties pushed reputation up to 20. Vito's adjusted charisma was only 19, so prices were not quite at the minimum. I still decided to do buy a few things though, including some full plate (meaning all the Crew have plate mail or better), several +1 shields and a Necklace of Missiles. They also recharged the magic missile wand, which only had 4 of the original 10 charges left. Those items were immediately put to use at Durlag's Tower to deal with some battle horrors. Inside, a ghast was also filled with magic missiles before the Crew headed onto the roof. Al used a green PfP scroll to tank the basilisks. One problem with group attacking with fists against normal targets is that everyone can't get close enough to attack - leading to bumping of icons and potentially making the enemy change target - which is bad news against basilisks. I was thinking that because they have much larger icons than normal that would not be a problem and didn't initially take too much care when moving them into position. The result was there was still some bumping when they ganged up on the first basilisk and two of them got petrified as a result.
As I only allow levelling up of parties all at once I didn't want to kill the basilisks immediately and get XP of different characters too out of line. Instead I went to buy some mirror eye potions and stone to flesh scrolls before returning. Al used a potion and helped knock the first basilisk unconscious again, despite it switching to melee and landing 3 quick criticals on him. After restoring the full party they killed that basilisk to share the XP out evenly. After resting a few times to regenerate they killed the second basilisk without any trouble - getting to level 5 as a result. The third basilisk switched to melee immediately, which had the advantage of not having to worry so much about switching targets - and this one had no luck with attacks and duly went down as well. The Crew then finished their work in the Tower by giving Riggilo a lock of hair before following up with fists.
Back at the Coast the Crew patiently waited for the first group of sirines to separate so they could attack them individually. That went well, though the final one of the original group managed to feeblemind Al and was subjected to continued beating to keep it unconscious until he recovered and could finish it off. I couldn't separate two of Sil's group, but they were easily beaten up anyway. I had no realistic way to kill the golems, so just dodged those while grabbing their treasure. I hadn't previously thought about it, but the Crew are entitled to make use of Relair's Mistake - taking wolf shape offers another alternative to do fatal damage
Stats:
Al (PC) - L5, 63 HPs, 70 kills
Baby Face - L5, 58 HPs, 0 kills, 0 deaths
Bugsy - L5, 68 HPs, 0 kills, 0 deaths
Carlo - L5, 67 HPs, 0 kills, 0 deaths
Mad Dog - L5, 62 HPs, 0 kills, 0 deaths
Vito - L5, 62 HPs, 16 kills, 0 deaths
Previous updates:
The Crew decided they should now be strong enough to deal with Ogre Droth and went to find Shoal. To try and protect their current no-deaths status Vito used a potion of invulnerability and activated the Horn of Kazgaroth before talking to Shoal. That was successful (without the potion he would have failed the saving throw). A second use of the Horn was followed by a general attack and Droth fell unconscious before Baby Face took wolf shape and finished him off - followed moments later by Shoal herself. The wolf shape lasted long enough to kill all of the nearby ogre clan and they got some healing from the surgeon - though well short of the wounds suffered. Rest ambushes meant it was a while before everyone was fully healed again, but they did then hunt down one by one the group of sirines in the area.
The next target was the Red Wizards. Charming one of them and sharing around spell damage from others made that simple enough and the Crew gained another 'weapon' with the Ring of Energy.
Time for the Nashkel Mine. That all proceeded without trouble. In the cave Carlo saved against rigid thinking before Mulahey slumped down unconscious and his army were rapidly taken down. Outside the mine though things immediately went pear-shaped against the Amazons. Al used LMD to try and drag Telka away on her own. When Lamalha followed I decided that taking 2 of them on at once was still an acceptable risk. However, the fight must have been just within hearing range of the others as they quickly turned up as well. Al failed immediately against a rigid thinking - meaning he would have been unable to get out of the way of fireballs targeted on the newcomers. Three of the others were affected by hold and another by sleep during the combat, leaving Baby Face as the only fully-functioning member of the Crew at one point. He did have the sleep wand and managed to put Maneira to sleep, but she had already done severe damage by targeting a held Carlo and refusing to switch targets to the attacking Mad Dog until Carlo was dead.
Nimbul had no similar support to call upon and was quickly overwhelmed - and the same could be said of Tranzig. The Crew will be off to the Bandit Camp next, but after the disappointment of racking up a death I'll probably do a bit more with Mendel first.
Stats:
Al (PC) - L5, 63 HPs, 90 kills
Baby Face - L5, 58 HPs, 104 kills, 0 deaths
Bugsy - L5, 68 HPs, 0 kills, 0 deaths
Carlo - L5, 67 HPs, 0 kills, 1 death
Mad Dog - L5, 62 HPs, 0 kills, 0 deaths
Vito - L5, 62 HPs, 16 kills, 0 deaths
The wolf shape offers a quick and easy method of killing opponents and Baby Face has taken the lead in the kills race in no time.
Traveling with: Garbrielle (dwarven fighter/thief), Sarevok, Paja (human bounty hunter dualed to fighter at level 11), Sarah (dwarven fighter/thief), Serena (gnomish thief/illusionist)
Chunked: April (fighter/thief), Mazzy
First a comment about my special build for Paja. It seems trying to avoid the otiulek's sphere effect of bounty hunter traps by dualing at 11 doesn't work - I am still getting the effect because of her fighter levels. So would call the build a failure. While she is an OK fighter (she has ***** in two-hand sword and ** in two hand weapon style) her saves are terrible - she has to use the Lilacor almost always otherwise she'll get charmed or confused. She does have 3 normal thief snares but is fairly minor now that we have a lot more spike traps available.
In any case, we have defeated Gromnir and Yaga. A single spike trap and direct attack finished off Yaga quickly though Gromnir was difficult as expected - some deaths but no chunkings.
Sendai went pretty smooth until the last fight. We had quite a bit of difficulty with all the drow reinforcements coming in which slowed down our attacks on Sendai. One neat thing of this battle is Carsomyr has been useful to dispel magic protections of the Sendai mages. The magic resistance kicked in a number of times as well, so Sarah has been using it even though not proficient. Unfortunately for Mazzy the slow killing of Sendai resulted in Mazzy being CHUNKED! Sarevok will take her place. Mazzy has been great for us, we'll miss her.
Draconis is our next target. We have spike traps for him, but my Draconis battles tend to be chaotic, we'll just have to see I suppose. Here's a screenshot shortly after Mazzy's chunking:
I wasn't intending to. The Crew won't be able to destroy the mephit portals in the opening dungeon and I have a vague memory that was a required quest at one stage. If that's still the case in BG2EE I'll have to make an exception for that ...
Jiddy (male gnome Fighter/Illusionist, Gate70); Chanceless (male gnome Fighter/Thief, Grond0)
T'was the 12th of July and it seemed either we didn't make enough progress to scribe the start of this attempt, or more likely I waited for Grond0 to write up the previous ending then promptly forgot I should make a start
Fast forward to 16th August and we resumed for a second instalment. We took stock of the situation, as Noober gently continued to decay at our feet. We had 1800xp between us (450xp for each of our four classes) so must have done minimal work beyond Candlekeep, Shoal the Nereid and making our way down to Nashkel
Time to start then. We headed south, killed off Greywolf, and then went to head east. At which point the game froze so we had to repeat this
Chanceless rubbed his gnomely eyes. This was not East. This was West. If he were a dwarf he'd have been chanting the Durlag mantra riddle
"from the west it came"
"from the east it came"
"I don't pay attention to detail I mash the 1 key"
However, he was indeed a gnome so instead he pretended he knew Jiddy would change direction and tracked down Rufie so we could perform a good deed before dealing with Zal and Vax. Once they were dead we headed further west, eliminating Caldo and Krumm and then looting a tome from under the gnoll fortress
North we went, dealing with two white bears one in an ambush and the other near a bridge. Jiddy found the next few jobs a bit of a blur, struggling to remember the order with which we fought Bjornins half-ogres, killed Perdues gnolls, blinded Neera and Silke, cut down Zhurlong and Karlat. Looted the +1 bastard sword from the forge, cleared basilisks, Mutamin, Kirians gang, the upper levels of Durlags Tower, assorted creatures, casters, bandits, archers, and so on. Bassilus, hobgoblins, yes them too
Hold on hold on. Chanceless bore witness of what happened, you can ask him. He pays attention to detail. Before you ask though, it's worth perusing the pictures below. They tell more than 1000 of Jiddys words.
Towards the end of the session we raced through Nashkel mine. Jiddy was considering using stinking cloud but saw Chanceless fade into the shadows so stopped. Chanceless saw Jiddy was about to cast and sensed stinking cloud. For moment after moment we waited until we could wait no more. About 2 seconds, which is often a lifetime in multiplayer
Chanceless went in for the backstab. Mulahey survived and started to cast. Jiddy tried to blind him. Chanceless tried to move but found the path in was a one-way route (we checked afterwards)
So Chanceless was stuck in combat with Mulahey, whether the cleric was blind or not. Jiddy meanwhile had a full set of skeletons and kobolds to contend with, and they did not seem to like the cut of his robe
Chanceless struck again, while Jiddy jinked about to evade attackers and lobbed another bullet at the cleric. Mulahey was not going to be a piece of cake today and he refused to die or even panic. Instead he cast hold person and Chanceless failed his save
So we had a stricken fighter/thief, and a horde of low level enemies in a confined space. Jiddy hacked down three skeletons and a kobold to make a path to the other battle. He picked up a couple of minor wounds
Mulahey had cast a magical weapon and hit Chanceless a few times. Eventually he turned to face Jiddy, then back to Chanceless and back again to Jiddy. A hit on Chanceless, a miss on Jiddy
Somehow Jiddy and his (it was not Silkes by this point) staff +1 killed Mulahey, and he bludgeoned the remaining minions. The last one fell just as Chanceless regained his movement. Jiddy casually looted while Chanceless did several circuits to convince himself that even with nobody to block him, the path to where he walked could not be used to return
(I'm sure I have observed this in the past, good to see Grond0 STILL learning after 25+ years of this game)
Anyway, we chanced our luck against the amazons outside; Jiddy belatedly finding that blinding the supporting caster turns everyone hostile; also learn after at least 25 years start with the archers so stinking cloud can be used. We added that in later but fair to say we both took a few arrows too many in this encounter before the clouds saw us gain the upper hand and all their loot
Back at Beregost we killed Tranzig and headed to the bandit camp where we will rest for weeks or months before proceeding as time permits
Due to my Windows settings I have been unable to screenshot without disrupting a game so none taken except at the end
Previous update:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1218487/#Comment_1218487
The Bandit Camp was irritating because all the bandits were able to throw off charms almost immediately they went into battle - and normally they didn't keep fighting after that (though occasionally they did). After a huge number of charms trying to get kills I finally kept Taurgosz charmed by not letting him try to attack. Unfortunately I was a bit greedy in trying to get him to low HPs and a last shot from a bandit archer killed him when he was trying to run away. After eventually killing all the external bandits, Mendel sneaked into Tazok's tent and charmed Hakt. He absorbed the worst of Venkt's spells before Mendel finished him off. Britik and Raemon followed him out of the tent and the former killed the latter comfortably. He had enough HPs left to survive against Venkt when Mendel dragged him out to his doom. Britik then found he had outlived his usefulness (but failed to outlive his non-usefulness).
In the Cloakwood he decoyed all the ettercaps and spiders out of the way so that he could pass safely through the web traps without using any resources. At the mine, Kysus confused Drasus and he killed Rezdan. Drasus then attacked Kysus and was about to kill him before Mendel nipped in first with a LMD. Genthore was then charmed and Mendel again picked up his XP after Drasus had taken him to near death. Then it was Drasus' turn to be charmed. He was set against 3 guards and would undoubtedly have killed them all - if he had not unaccountably decided to use his fists in place of a weapon. I wasn't careful enough with the ending there though and 2 guards hitting him simultaneously with criticals killed him before Mendel got the chance for a killing blow.
In the mine Mendel just stealthed through to the bottom level. He used fireballs for the first time - about 30 of those disposing of the battle horrors. The charmed guard then attacked Davaeorn. Unfortunately he broke his sword early on and Davaeorn still had about half his HPs after that. Mendel laboriously worked through those using stealth attacks with his scimitar. After that it seemed like too much effort to kill the mustard jelly and Mendel just lured it away so he could loot the treasure.
In the City Mendel started his chores with a visit to the sewers. The ogre mage there was charmed and incapacitated by his pet carrion crawlers. For the poison quest, Jalantha was swiftly cut to pieces by her own skeleton warriors. Rather than try and charm Larze, he was sent on a wild goose chase after a picture. That just left Marek and Mendel tried and failed a few times to stun him with stealth attacks. With the poison still active he couldn't do that too many times and eventually just used a mixture of stealth attacks (with his sword to improve THAC0) and sling shots to wear him down.
Moving on to the Iron Throne he charmed Aasim and watched him get slaughtered by the others. He tried several times to do the same to Diyab - using the roof to rest. Then this happened …
Traveling with: Garbrielle (dwarven fighter/thief), Sarevok, Korgan, , Sarah (dwarven fighter/thief), Serena (gnomish thief/illusionist)
Chunked: April (fighter/thief), Mazzy, Paja (human bounty hunter dualed to fighter)
@Grond0 just noticed your ranged fighters run, congrats on defeating Mel!
Unless I get a mishap, my group of thieves will be meeting Melissan soon. Speaking of mishaps, while the party did defeat Abizigal, some of the party members were slow in getting back to the traps at the entrance. Serena got put to near death and Paja was CHUNKED! Korgan will replace Paja. Our party of thieves is not looking as thiev-ish as it once was but we still have lots of traps. Despite being under-leveled, Korgan can still be OK thanks to his enrage. We have defeated Pocket Plane Challenge #4 and Balthsazar is next.
Traveling with: Garbrielle (dwarven fighter/thief), Sarevok, Korgan, , Sarah (dwarven fighter/thief), Serena (gnomish thief/illusionist)
Chunked: April (fighter/thief), Mazzy, Paja (human bounty hunter dualed to fighter)
Woohoo! After all these years of trying, I have now have a successful trilogy run in EE. When EE took away RoR heals and especially nerfing the dispelling arrows dispel effect which used to work on Melissan and Dragons, my techniques which worked great in original BG didn't work in EE.
For Ravager the party attempted to range attack many of us using +4 bullets but bone blades were doing too much damage so we eventually went in melee. Only Sarah died but not chunked, RoR got her back to speed.
Melissan battle #1:
Corecleric used PfM scroll on Melissan then straight attacks - we were taking lots of damage from her summons so needed to use a GWW - success!
Pool Battle #1:
Party has a lot of level drain protection, plus a lot of buffs and we got a clean victory here.
Melissan battle #2:
4 spike traps and 3 normal snares were enough to win immediately. For FIRST TIME EVER, I used project image with Serena, which enabled her to lay down 4 spike traps and 3 snares using the image - what a powerful spell, will need to keep this spell in mind for future runs.
Pool Battle #2:
Since skeletal warriors are useless for Melissan anyways summoned four of them to assist us with this lot. We took daamge but success all the same. I used a scorcher from a wand to finish off the blizzard troll.
Melissan Battle #3:
I laid down 4 spike traps and 3 snares - immediate victory.
Pool Battle #3:
This was the battle I was worried about. I had our best summons go in to distract the solor while party ranged attacked and we had group haste - this only damaged the solar and I think the fallen solor did a death spell. We immediately moved into melee to finish off the solar quickly which we maanged to do without her killing anyone. Corecleric got poisioned but he had an elixar of health available. Some GWWs finished off the mareliths.
Melissan Battle #4:
4 spike traps and 3 snares won immediately again. Corecleric XXIX will become a god.
Can you give me the data for the Hall of Heroes entry? Notables mods (if any), any special rules/self imposed extra challenges (if applicable), difficulty setting, and a link to the starting post
Mods: None
Games: BG 1 EE, BG 2 EE, ToB EE
Difficulty: Core rules
[url=" https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1217420#Comment_1217420"] Starting Post[/url]
Current Party: April (dwarven bersker), Imoen, Neera, Viconia
Setup: BG 1, BG2, and ToB EE, no mods
Difficulty: Core rules
Special: Will attempt to recruit new characters in EE, Dorn, Rashaad, Neera in BG 1 and Neera, Rashaad and Hexxat in BG 2. Will try to keep for whole trilogy if possible for BG 2 new characters.
I think it's pretty unlikely I will succeed this run mostly because I am not familiar with the quests for the new NPCs. If the quests are anything like Neera's which can be pretty hard then expecting failure. If Zetan dies, Intend to keep playing though (without reporting to site) to try to learn the new characters' quests. Party is working their way to Nashkel. Here is character sheet for Zetan and his helper berserker friend, April:
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1218537/#Comment_1218537
At the Bandit Camp there is no risk of ambushes during rest (which is a bit odd when you come to think of it), so the Crew could happily take significant damage during encounters before healing up. That allowed them to acquire another suit of full plate from Taurgosz. Al encouraged Venkt & co to come out of their tent and took more damage than I expected in the process. The others finished the job pretty quickly though and gained a level as a reward.
In the Cloakwood the Crew tried their hand at some of the travel ambushes. They were taking quite heavy damage though, particularly those with just standard plate, and went to invest in some more ankheg armor. Despite their lack of interest in his sword, the Crew lent a helping hand fist against some marauding druids in the first area. In the second area they took a bit of a risk by fully exploring it - successfully triggering web traps only when no enemies were in sight. They dragged spiders out of the nest one or two at a time to leave Centeol helpless.
In the third area they killed some bossy druids, including an Archdruid, whose defences didn't include protection against fists or LMD. In the fourth they dragged some wyverns out of their cave and beat them up. At the mine they dragged Drasus away and overwhelmed him before charming Genthore to make him lead an attack on the mages. A couple of the Crew failed against a horror, but the others finished things off.
Inside the mine they worked down to the bottom level where the battle horrors were killed with fireballs. Vito was badly wounded by that stage, but the others attacked Davaeorn and, despite him showing his full range of spells, they kept attacking until they got their man. They had no way to kill the mustard jelly, so just looted the treasure and ran.
In Baldur's Gate, the first thing they did was grab Balduran's Helm and then seek out Jardak to get another helm. The latter gave Vito 20 charisma to get the cheapest prices available. That prompted then to buy magic missile wands all round. Next they went to find 3 more Necklaces of Missiles to greatly increase their potential firepower. Most of the time they still used fists though - such as in dealing with Ramazith. They decoyed the mustard jellies away from the Tower there while working through the other guardians. I tried to separate just one or two ghasts at a time, but lost patience at one point when I faced a group of 3. That resulted in 2 of the Crew being held and a first use of the Ring of Energy when Mad Dog looked in potential trouble.
Al (PC) - L6, 71 HPs, 96 kills
Baby Face - L6, 72 HPs, 396 kills, 0 deaths
Bugsy - L6, 83 HPs, 4 kills, 0 deaths
Carlo - L6, 75 HPs, 0 kills, 1 death
Mad Dog - L6, 76 HPs, 0 kills, 0 deaths
Vito - L6, 81 HPs (inc. 5 from Helm), 20 kills, 0 deaths
@Grond0 I assume you mean any thief with UAI can use project image - not all my thieves had UAI actually. Also I specifically chose Serena the mage/thief as she happened to have a full set of spike traps/snares which meant the image could provide all the traps needed for the next Melissan battle, without needing to permanently draw from traps from the real characters.
Traveling with: April (dwarven berserker), Dorn, Viconia, Neera
Permanently lost/chunked: Rasaad (when fighting the mages that show up after talking to Adoy, Rasaad appears to been frozen forever somehow - he's not petrified as stone to flesh scrolls don't fix him), Kagain (he had to be kicked out when recruiting Dorn, but we were in an ambush area. And yes I know if I can trigger the same ambush area I can recruit Kagain again, but not worrying about it for now)
Well, I expected the run to be chaotic with the new party members, and it sure has been. Poor Dorn has repeatedly died to ankhegs - we eventually had the money to get him some ankheg armor which helps a little. Raasaad also died repeatedly (to many enemies), we lost a lot of gold to resurrect him. I wanted to tell Rasaad that there is little point in training to use fists if he can't survive long enough to use said fists. This was one reason I haven't recruited him before, as I expected to lose a lot of money to the temples (which I have). The other issue? Even with two pips assigned, neither pip is in ranged weapons, so he kind of is forced to get into melee and die! I try to have other characters engage first but enemies often switch to Rasaad as he's an easy target.
We have cleared out the flesh golem cave area and the 2nd siren area. Shoal killed Dorn but didn't offer to resurrect him so we had to kill her and pay the temple yet again.
We battled a Necromancer that Dorn wanted and that went well, though was difficult. It seems we can't do the next phase of his quest until chapter 5 is that right?
We went to see Adoy and Dorn and April were killed with Rasaad somehow frozen solid permanently - cone of cold I think it was. I thought the rest of us were going to die as well, but Viconia finally managed to silence the head mage, which enabled Viconia, Neera and Zetan to do most of the work. Neera's ranged attacks are almost useless, as she is only proficient in staff, which is crazy to get her close, so she used a non-proficient sling which means she takes a huge Thac0 penalty - she pretty much only hits on a critical. She has lots of spells because of Evermemory so she is still helping plus we use wands once in a while.
So far, not too impressed with these new characters though their stories are well done. Dorn's build is terrible though as he only had ** in two-hand sword and ** in two-hand fighting style (and NO ranged weapons), except he didn't have max DEX and also he has CON below 16. He would die a bit less if he would just use a 1-hand weapon and shield, but no. It's similar how Xan has an awesome sword but if he gets into melee he is often killed in one blow because of his 9 CON.
Will keep at it. Will venture into Nashkel mines next.
- an arcane party (2 sorcerers and 4 different mages)
- shamans
- druids (who did beat Mel)
- monks
- various mixed parties (tending to be for LoB runs)
The idea behind this run though was for a party that would naturally use weapons as their main tactic, but chose not to do so - relying on their tough defenses to compensate for weak attacks. None of the above really fit that idea, though having played with the Crew for a while it might be nice to do something different. I could also perhaps just replace one of the Crew's fighters with a paladin (that could create a club by the time they get to BG2EE). I'll think about it a bit more ...
Traveling with: April (dwarven berserker), Dorn, Viconia, Neera, Baelith
Permanently lost: Rasaad (frozen), Kagain (ambush area)
So the party was fighting in the Larswood area and I realized that Baelith is a new character I haven't used and since we had an open spot recruited him. He is a pretty powerful sorcerer, so with Neera too, we have a lot of mage power. The run has been going well. Bandit camp was very straightforward. With Viconia's resist fear on the party for Tazok's tent, and a lot of direct attacks on Venkt the fight went well. Cloakwood also went very smooth. In the mines decided to skip fighting the resource-intensive mages and just go straight to Davaeorn. I appear to messed up and triggered a battle horror which we had to fight at the same time as Davaeorn, but Neera's aganazer's scorcher from wand cleared that up.
Once outside Baldur's Gate we fought Dorn's old boss. I had summoned some monsters, resist fear before fight, Wand of Heavens on some sort of demon, and also paralyzation wand on the other demon and poision with Dorn, and ice arrows for Zetan and then let the AI fight - it went great as the party took no damage. I guess with two arcane classes and a cleric, that is a lot of spell power - too much for Dorn's boss it seems.
Will keep at it.