Jeanluc III the dwarven fighter/cleric: Update 6
Traveling with: Tcos (dwarven berserker), Jaheira, Mazzy, Yoshimo, Wewa (human wild mage)
We will soon go to Brynnlaw but first a final encounter with Firkraag. Our fear got dispelled then quite a few party members were running in fear. Also, our most powerful fighter Tcos forgot to use her enrage, and we really missed her hitting power. Our 6 snares and 5 summons weren't enough and one by one the party was killed. Then Firkraag near death and Jeanluc III were all that's left. To try to speed up the kill I had Jeanluc III switch to dual wielding two +2 hammers and miraculously Jeanluc prevailed with 12 HP to spare! Luckily there's a rod of resurrection to get his people back in business and no chunkings either. It's hard to get a fight closer than this.
EDIT:
Hmm apparently I spoke too soon. I discovered despite the fact the RoR "resurrrected" Tcos, and despite the fact I can even use her inventory, her figurine does NOT exist and also no body in the inventory screen. I think she got "chunked". So I did lose a character after all. Going to replace her with Keldorn. Will keep at it.
Tough fight @Corey_Russell. It doesn't look like a chunking though - when that happens the character's picture at the side of the screen should disappear. Did you try saving and reloading?
Tough fight @Corey_Russell. It doesn't look like a chunking though - when that happens the character's picture at the side of the screen should disappear. Did you try saving and reloading?
Yes. Remember there is NO Figurine and no body showing in inventory screen - she is chunked.
MORE INFO:
So I did the load, tried to zone out but could not because game says to gather the party before venturing forth - but gathering 6 figurines is impossible as Tcos figurine doesn't exist. So am bugged out have to remove Tcos to leave the area.
Jeanluc III the dwarvern fighter/cleric - FINAL Update!
I was fighting the illithids in the sewers when my character was trying to range an enemy and got too close and stunned. Then an illithid drained Jeanluc III's brains out - RIP Jeanluc III.
There were no great problems in Jon's dungeon. Generally fists were used, though that wasn't always possible - for instance they are not able to reach the mephit portals. Ulvaryl failed to make his escape.
After exiting to the Promenade, Clinch went straight after Mencar's gang. Brennan was blinded before a skull trap and then ice storm softened things up a bit. With the others dead I tried to grapple Brennan, but he saved and then ignored his blindness to make his exit at near-death through a non-existent gap.
At the Copper Coronet the Beastmaster was unable to put up much of a fight. The XP from giving Hendak control of the premises took Clinch to level 13 and access to level 6 spells. That includes the kit spell based on Tenser's Transformation. That greatly improves his attacks with weapons - without affecting his ability to cast magic magic. While it nerfs a basic fist attack, it does improve the magic fist (and double HPs). Here Clinch finishes clearing the upper Graveyard by dethroning the Crypt King - helped by a THAC0 of -7, 4 APR (without haste) and AC of -14.
After a few more encounters without trouble, Clinch once more suffered a near-death experience against - this time against Dracandros. He attempted to paralyze the enemy mage using ghoul touch, without considering the possible impact of spell turning - that resulted in him paralyzing himself. Fortunately he was using the 'greater' version with a duration of only 2 rounds and he recovered just as Dracandros was casting chaos at him. He ran for the nearby doorway and managed to get through that despite being confused - and no-one came after him. A sunfire then saw the back of Dracandros. Another little glitch in that area was absent-mindedly casting a spell when Hareishan arrived for the first vampire ambush - I'm sure that will not be the only time I have to watch out for those Cowled Wizards. I also picked up the silver pantaloons - even though they are unlikely to be helpful for this character.
Returning to the Graveyard Clinch took the odd risk in clearing the lower areas - ignoring the possibility of being held by ghasts or drained by a vampire (though they needed a 20 just to hit him). Finishing off the last of the spider groups took him to level 14 - though that gained no extra spells for him.
Coming back from the Graveyard Clinch rescued Renfeld - one-shotting the mage there. Rather than continue with that quest immediately he buffed up for the City Gates lich - successfully beating down its defences, though HPs had got low enough by then that a PW:stun would have been fatal. While in the area he also saved Sansuki from some vampires - note in the screenshot that he was once more caught casting spells in the City (but got out of sight range before the Cowled Wizards appeared). The Amnian soldier killed one of the wizards and another was beaten unconscious when they fought among themselves. Clinch cast a skull trap to kill that one and would then have tried to finish the others. By now though the timer had reset and more of the scum were arriving. He did manage to get out of sight of the new ones though and killed one of the two remaining from the original group with a scorcher. The last one fortunately didn't seem to have any aggressive spells left and was duly beaten to the ground.
Deciding to deal with the Cowled threat more pro-actively, Clinch deliberately summoned the next group. A couple of cloudkills killed 2 of them and a skull trap finished the others off. A death fog was added to the cloudkills for the next lot and the same combination did for a further group as well. Then it was time for the highest members of the order to make an appearance. A couple of webs and a stinking cloud were put up as interference and skull traps added to the cloudkills and death fog. Unfortunately those were not quite sufficient to finish off Zallanora and she summoned a pit fiend before teleporting away - the others though were already dead and Clinch just rested before going back to pick up the pieces (though unfortunately the pit fiend killed Jayes before Clinch was allowed to rest, so there won't be any scrolls bought from him).
He crushed the Fallen Paladins next to gain some reputation and then went on to find some illithium - taking down Neb before he could summon any help. Handing his head in took reputation to 17 and Clinch decided it was time to go to Trademeet to be able to boost that to 20. None of the genies there lasted long enough to even try and petrify Clinch (who had bulletproof saves anyway). Moving on to the Grove some trolls were swiftly disposed of to move Clinch to level 15 - picking up another 0.5 APR bonus there. After watching Cernd slaughter Faldorn Clinch reported back to Trademeet to get his reward. He quickly built on that by clearing a tomb and helping Tiris - pushing reputation up to 20 as a result.
Clinch hadn't yet got around to buying a cloak that would enable him to push charisma to 20 to get the best shop prices. To do that he returned to the Dock District. While there he finished dealing with the harpers - taking retribution on Lucette for killing Xzar. He also did the Mae-Var tasks, by-passing Rayic's PfMW with his fists and belatedly noticing that he'd picked up a level for reporting back to Edwin. Mae'Var was of course helpless when attacked. Clinch now had theoretical access to 7th level spells, but hadn't actually got around to learning any of those. With shop prices now at a minimum though and 120k or so cash, Clinch went on a bit of a spending spree - and spell learning XP gained him another quick level.
I think it's about time Clinch went in search of the Ring of Gaxx - so that will be next on the agenda.
Force Wizard L17, 99 HPs (inc. 12 from familiar and 9 from ioun stone), 392 kills (+574 in BGEE/SoD)
Edit: @semiticgoddess I'll respond further about the kit at the end of the run. I'll note here though that I was rather dozy in not recognizing that force wizards could not use enchanted weapon. That's less of a problem than I might have thought though as the 6th level transformation spell boosts magic fists as well as equipped weapons. I'm not sure if that was your intention as that means magic fists benefit from APR increases from both the basic kit and the spell. I've not done it yet, but adding in improved haste will mean enemies facing a flurry of fists at 10 APR .
~EEUITWEAKS/EEUITWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1070 // Faydark's Abilities Auto-Roller/GrimLefourbe's BG2 UI: 4.0.6
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Expanded Dual-Class Options: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited ammo stacking: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited potion stacking: v17
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1510 // Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1520 // Include bard songs from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // Core Stratagems spell-system changes (installed by default by any AI component): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Add 9 new arcane spells: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2510 // Add 6 new divine spells (some borrowed from Divine Remix): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3015 // Re-introduce potions of extra-healing: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // More Appropriate-Speed Bears: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4020 // More realistic wolves and wild dogs: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7020 // Improved deployment for parties of assassins: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7030 // Improved kobolds: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7040 // Relocated bounty hunters: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity assassins: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7150 // Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: 35.21
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2360 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Single-Classes: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2380 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Kits: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2371 // Alter Dual-Class Restrictions -> Allow non-humans to dual-class: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2350 // Alter Multi-Class Restrictions -> Allow humans to multi-class: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2390 // Alter Paladin Spell Progression Table -> Paladins Use Icewind Dale-Heart of Winter Spell Tables [grogerson]: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2400 // Alter Ranger Spell Progression Table -> Rangers Use Icewind Dale-Heart of Winter Spell Tables [grogerson]: v17
~EXPANDEDCLASSES/EXPANDEDCLASSES.TP2~ #0 #32 // Kuo-toa Disciple Kit for Bards: v2.0
Started new solo run the exact same way as usual.
250xp Intro
Killed Imoen for Oil of Speed and WoMM
Killed Xzar and Montaron for Oil of Speed with WoMM
Killed Neera for Gem Bag with WoMM
900xp Marl
Killed Algernon for Charm Cloak
Beregost Manor Invis potion
400xp Noober lv2
Gnolls killed Drizzt (Charmed Jembyl stop Drizzt attacking them) got Scimitars +3 and Mithral Chain which we could wear
Nashkel Manor Invis potion
125xp Vitiare ranged casually and only took cool 1209 arrows
900xp Hentold Dagger and 3rd Invis potion lv3
1000xp Albert
2035xp Tenya's Bowl lv4 *Scimitars
Bought the 3 Invis scrolls and Potion Case from High Hedge
Used one Invis scroll and potion to pick up WoMS
5000xp Shoal killed by WoMS lv5
Killed Dushai with WoMS for Ring of Free action and Web
Bought Rep to 10
Bought Shield Amulet
Invis Scroll to reach Mulahey who was Charmed and killed by Kobbo's, Invis potion to escape
Chapter 3
800xp Joseph's Ring
650xp Charmed Minsc killed Nimbul, got Familiar and additional 22hp in LoB mode
Bought rep to 12, Oublek 13, Mulahey Symbol 14 1000xp, Drienne's Cat 15 200xp, Firebead 16 300xp
Brage 17 1000xp, Samuel 18 500xp
975xp Charmed Marl ko'd Tranzig
4000xp Kirinhale lv6 and we finally got lv2 spell slot for Invisibility
3750xp Charmed Riggolo killed Ghost
1400xp 2xWoMS killed Riggolo
Used 2xIntelligence potions to scribe Invis
Lamalha Waylay happened and we had Invis on, but our free Charm attempt didn't work, so we missed the first Power Potion.
3500xp Charmed Meilum killed Kahrk, and we got Magi Katana +2 that improves casting level and speed by one. Only Bards and F/M can use it. I think it's few of the items that SCS adds. With it we can cast Invis with 1 casting time and Slow Poison instantly.
1200xp Tried to get Meilum killed by Kobbo's but he slaughtered them all, but was then too weak to survive WoMS. We had just enough money to buy Sandthief ring for 16k gold. Raiken escorted us to Bandit camp, where we Charmed Taurgosz who got killed by Zombies and Skelies. We equipped the ER Boots and with our natural resistance we already had 75 ER, so we only needed a Sandthief charge to escape the tent.
Chapter 4
Cloakwood passed with Invisibility, Tiber's body right-click looted 800xp. Molkar waylay happened, and we got free Charm attempt, but again it didn't work so we missed the only Detect Illusion scroll. Drasus Charmed first try and he killed the rest of them and one guard before getting WoMS 5870xp. Before going to mines we bought all scrolls from HH to have scribing session once we got Knock. Charmed Davaeorn's Guard who lured Battle Horrors away and then killed Davaeorn 6000xp lv7, which doesn't give spell slots as it was first lv3 slot. Used 3 Intelligence potions and scribed everything other than Cloudkill as Bards can't cast it before BG2. My plan was to loot everything with Knock, but we only had one lv2 slot, so we wasted one Sandthief charge to loot the Laer Tear chest. My last WoMS wasn't strong enough to kill the Mustar Jelly either so we just left, 2000xp 20rep.
Chapter 5
Looted CHA and CON tomes with Invisibility for 20/20 economy. First Power Potion from Black Lily, 16k gold for WoMS recharge.
5000xp Tremain's Son. Lothander was pre Charmed and stopped leaving 1x WoMS 5500xp. 2x WoMS handled Marek 10650xp. 2x WoMS for Ragefast 4000xp lv8 * Flail and finally second lv2 slot. Ramazith pre Charmed and his own summons killed him 4000xp. In this run the Amplifier is really useful. Euric's Amulet for OGL and 1500xp. 1500xp Brun's Son and recharged the WoF. Bought Greenstone Amulet and looted Durlag's couple upper chests for Invis potion and WIS tome. 1x WoMS Lesser Basilisk 1400xp, 11x WoMS for the three Greater ones 21000xp. WoMS for Girdle Ogre 270xp. Tarnesh WoMS 120xp. Joia's Ring WoMS 505xp. In Firewine Ruins we used WoMS to move Kobbo's as they blocked the way to Lendarn. WoMS handled Lendarns mob for 2750xp, but more importantly for second Power Potion and Cloudkill scroll. WoMS Seven Suns 7100xp lv9 and first 3rd lv spell slot. Another Spell learning session.
Did Ice Island for the longest time as I wanted to see what was there, which was nothing really, but WoMS handled all the mages and other enemies for 24600xp. Resar Charmed and after he wasted his spells he was killed by WoMS. Got Fireshield Blue. Naaman Charmed and killed by Assassins. Charmed Diyab lured Kaalos away and he was killed by WoMS 2001xp. Thaldorn WoMS 975xp. Aasim lured Shennara away to be killed by WoMS 2001xp. Then WoMS handled the rest for 9600xp.
Chapter 6
Ogre Mage waylay passed with Invis potion. Iron Throne Charmed and they killed themselves, Tuth and Brunos got WoMS 5400xp. Charmed Sakul and he was killed by Spiders for his scrolls.
Chapter 7
After killing the Eltan's Greater Doppelganger with WoMS we finally got lv10, with no additional spells but nice 102hp. Quenash Charmed for Slythe. The pair grinded out by WoMS, got additional Skull Trap scroll. Denak'sp party Fireballed from afar for Ring of Energy which we recharged. Pickpocketed Dead Shot +2 first time from Ghost Knight naturally 100 (95), never new it was this easy. From Durlag's Tower Warder level we got our third Cloudkill. The level was mostly cleared by WoMS.
Tziri v Love. With Greenstone Amulet and Speed we tried to lure Fear and Avarice to level above, but they didn't want to follow. So we first used the repeating Fireball trap to kill Avarice, which took couple healing sessions level above, and in about hour mark Avarice was dead. Separating Love from Fear was easy as Fear is slower and seems to want to stay where Love spawns. We kited Love around the table with Greenstone Amulet and Ring of Energy, and after 44 hits he was dead too. Looted the next level including 5 Haste Scrolls and Durlag's Goblet.
WoMS hunted some Mages, SS upstairs for Spider Spawn, Shangalars daughters for 4th OGL and Web scroll, and Sunin for his ring for money transfer for SoD. The mages could do little with us level skipping when they started casting. Zal WoMS for Archer Bracers. Third Scribe session except for everything except Animate Dead and Cloudkill.
For the Palace Ambush we didn't have great summons nor great damage, but we did have Dispel Arrows. So we went with least risky approach and Charmed the Assassin, Shaman and Mage Doppelgangers. Three Greater Ones were easily dispatched with Dispel Arrows and WoMS. Assassin and Shaman followed no problems. For Mage we drank Magic Shielding, but the Mage dispelled it immediatelly, Greenstone Amulet. The Mage wreaked havoc for a while summoning a lot of help, but we got Dispel hit on him and he soon fell, although we needed 3 Goblet refreshes. After looting the Palace we cleared the way to Sarevok, 5xWoMS killed Tamoko for 10k gold by items.
We still got the Kirian's Party to deal with, and I also wanted to try something else. So after buying and recharging everything we still had 3700 gold (top of our valuables) so we bought 37 Stone to Flesh scrolls. We Charmed the Lesser Basilisk and used Green PfP on it. It then first stoned the Greater Basilisk 37 times, and then Kirian's party.
Tziri v Sarevok. Sarevok's gang was revealed with Detect Invisibility, and we found a spot where all of them were hit with Fireball, and after 36 explosions all of his minions were gone. And after using 88 Fireballs total Saravok dropped dead too. We then woke up in Korlasz tomb with cool 452601xp, getting lv12 immediately with additional lv3 and lv4 slots.
For BG I kept tracking mostly these items, as they're useful for Bards, and we didn't miss that much.
10/11 Stone Forms, missed Lamalha (we have 2 penalty v spells)
2/3 Power Potions, missed Lamalha
3/3 Cloudkills
7/7 Skull Traps, learned one
No Detect Illusion with failed Molkar waylay
Some additional notes:
- Scrolls are cast in their original strenght (-50%) and duration (-25%) so our penalties don't affect them and that makes them more useful
- Sometimes quickslot icon shows 1 Invisibility even though I don't have that anymore. Might be problem switching up Amplifier on and off together with the spell slot penalty mechanic.
- The Kuo-Toa Disciple Bard song wasn't that great. 40% panicking makes enemies harder to kill if they aren't cornered, 40% of Feeblemind for one round just makes them not hit one round. 15% of Stun for one round is the only useful thing. But suffering the Panic more frequently isn't worth it. Also does LoB mode still have some saving throw problems, as I found the song work far too easily?
EDIT:
- seems that we got permanent Haste at lv12, although we are supposed to get it lv15, so it's probably switched with targeting the invisible perk
- we still have the normal lore value, so the one-half penalty isn't working
SPECIAL: For this run, only female NPCs can join the group - in case of couples like Khalid/Jaheira or Minsc/Dynaheir the male can join but as soon as practically possible is removed from group. This is why Krendon is a fighter/thief as there are not a lot of female fighter types and also the only female thieves in BG 2 is Nalia (not very good) or Hexxat but Hexxat quest very hard so it's more convenient if the main character is a thief.
Party is about level 5. Ankhegs was dicey with only 30 HP for my tank (my character), but to make sure Krendon survived I had used a protection form acid scroll on Krendon for this leg. Basilisks done with help of PfP green scroll, Kirian's party hurt bad by silences and entangle. Pirate Cave area, Sirines taken out with help of clarity potion. Golems were difficult as we had no way to disarm traps it seems but Jaheira's partial resistance to charm helped for one trap.
We woke up in Korlasz Tomb with 452k xp so we maxed immediatelly to lv12 with additional lv3 and lv4 spells. We also got permanent Haste which was supposed to come lv15, but we didn't mind. Invisibility to Porios, Invisibility and PfU to Korlasz. 5 OGL/Invisibility combos made them surrender, and we already hit the xp cap. In Baldur's Gate we sold enough valuables to buy everything interesting from SS. Killed Viconia for the first Bard head gear.
Chapter 8
Not much to do because of xp cap, but just getting the useful items. Teleria doesn't aggro if not talked to, got Stone Ally. Menhir quest for Bard gear, Reed of Echoes being the most useful thing with additional spell slots. Interestingly it disables Single-Weapon Style bonuses. Listened Dwarves getting killed, used PfU and made a pact with the Lich. Easily helped Vampire Tsolak, mostly to get Biter +2 to BG2. Hid behind the Tent for parlay. Power Potion (3) from the Bridge.
Chapter 9
Picked first Enchanted Weapon scroll from the Troll Cave with two Invis potions. Got Elven Chain from the waylay that had the Myconid cave. It's our armor for SoD as it allows spell casting, and is usable with +2 Ring. Morentherene Daggered, Ziatar burned afar. Buffed up and ran past Neothelid and Charmed Akanna second try, and her Aerial Servant killed her. Got Detect Illusion scroll from the chest. Mohad Flintborn had one Power Potion, but we weren't going to risk it. In the Fort we bought bunch of Potions from the store, and held for the Kendra's Chain, although I'm probably not going to use it in DR load out. With it (5), Gargoyle Cloak (5) and our innate 21, we can have 31 DR v Slashing. But Amulet +2 is more useful because of our bad saves. Barghest had the next Power Potion, but we weren't going to risk pickpocketing it. Surrendered Fort, Bridge Mage interrupted with Ring of Energy and WoMS and Stone Ally cleared the way.
Chapter 10
208k gold selling our valuables to the Genie. Bought everything including 5 Power Potions from Belegarm. Questing for items, most notably: Martyr's Morningstar, Orog Chieftain Charmed for -4 v Slashing Belt (cursed), PfU OGL and 2x Magic Protection to loot Undead Cave for Amulet of Silence and Lesser Fire Elemental scroll, taiming the Troll for Sindret got Power Potion, getting the items for Waizahb another Power Potion, Bellowgulp Power Potion, listened Drows kill Therli's mob for Cloak of Gargoyle to stop criticals and up our damage resistance to 26, PfU to pick up Lesser Air Elemental and Minor Spell Turning from Kanaglym, three Power Potions from Polvi, 2x Magic Protection to loot Hephernaans chest for Crown of Lies, Spell Immunity and Spell Shield.
Troll Wave - pre 18 Skull Traps, 2 Webs, Cloudkill, 4 Skelis, Stone Ally and 11 Detonators
Mage Wave - pre 3 Webs, 2 Cloudkills, Stone Ally and 15 Detonators. Tought we escaped stupid Stysich Dispel, but he still cast that after the fight. What a genius. Had to rebuff for the next wave.
Paladin Wave - pre 3 Webs, 4 Cloudkills, 4 Skelis, used all Myconids, 17 Detonators and one Goblet
Final Wave - 4 Skelis, 2 Web Sequencer, 18 Detonators and one Goblet
Ashatiel grinded 1on1 which took a lot of time with our bad Thac0, and in the end we used Ring of Energy to deal her. Didn't farm any Power Potions in the battle, but we found one on the ground, which brought the total to 15 v Bel. Picked up the second Enchanted Weapon scroll from the book case and recharged our stuff last time with Belegarm. We tricked Trix with double talk to open the doors straight away.
Tziri v Belhifet
Violet, 4xPfF, 3xPfC, 2xPfE, 2xPfA, 14xMind Focus, PfP, Defense, Fortitude, Shielding, Clarity and started lift. Myconids, Stone Ally and Hope. First wave done in 5 rounds. The second one took a lot more time with the annoying disappearing Hellcats, and had to use another Shielding. The third was again faster and once the Green Abishai was left, we started final buffing round. Fortitude, Defense, 2xStone Form, Enchanted Weapon, 7xPower, killed the Abishai, 2xPower, Clarity, Hope, Blur, Fire Shield Blue, escaped Bel's Dispel and used Strength to lower Bel's Thac0 from -12 to -9. After couple Fireshield Blues Bel was already at near death, but at that point our Power started failing, and I was forced to use just Goblet to stay alive. Now it was just a waiting game if our saves failed, Goblet ended or we got the final hit. And the luck was on our side today and we got the final hit when all of our hp buffs were gone. Hephernaan also took some time with bad Thac0 and summons, but there wasn't really risk anymore. The fight lasted longer and were closer than I anticipated. I'm thinking once Power starts failing, I should test going Invisible to break up, and then rebuffing. Maybe next time.
We imported our game to BG2 with nice 702545xp and we will start straight from lv13. But again it seems that mod kit doesn't want to import correctly, and we are just a Bard. Did you manage import your Force-Wizard perfectly to BG2? @Grond0
EDIT: got it working, just had to uninstall Favored Soul mod kit first
@histamiini well done on taking down Belhifet. The only systems glitch I've had is that the game kept hanging for brief periods while playing BG1. That was annoying as it made the sort of constant movement I favor more difficult. I vaguely remember a similar thing happening before and concluding it was some sort of registry conflict between different versions of BG. As a result I have deleted all the registry entries for the SCS installation I did a while ago and, fingers crossed, that does seem to have sorted things. It also means though that I won't continue with the Ways run that had gone past Sarevok. In one way that makes sense though as that run was specifically titled as 50 ways to save the dukes ...
Clinch - Force Wizard (update 5)
Previous updates:
In the temple sewers the Rakshasa was no match for magic fists. An incendiary cloud left only one of Tarnor's group to be finished off by fists. Mekrath swiftly followed before Clinch went after some liches, using a PfU scroll. Kangaxx's physical resistance and regeneration were pretty good protection against magic fists - but not good enough.
At Watcher's Keep, Clinch went in search of an ammo container. Immediately after getting that he beat up a pair of golems before presenting a gift to a lich to get up to level 18 and gain his first HLA. None of those available are magical in nature, but emphasise the physical attacks of the force wizard. In this case Clinch took hardiness - that's the same as the basic fighter ability, except that it gives 30% extra protection rather than 40% (presumably for balance reasons as force wizards gain a permanent 30% physical protection as they increase in levels). Before leaving, Clinch opened the portal to the next level and demolished the guarding statues - attacking at 8 APR.
Next up he paid Gaelan Bayle and switched the Claw for the +2 RoP. That was to avoid a particular weakness against death saving throws before invading the Planar Prison and taking on the Master of Thralls. In the event the Master did not have time to gaze at Clinch anyway before being beaten to the floor. The Warden didn't fare much better and killing the supporting yuan-ti provided another level. This time Clinch took shatter skull - allowing him to do 100 additional crushing damage with an attack once per day.
Turning once more to the Unseeing Eye quest, Clinch went to get the first half of the Rift Device. For once, there were no beholders blocking the bridge so that was no problem. Underground, Clinch meleed a lich the old fashioned way. He did use his shatter skull on a greater mummy - that worked, but the mummy's resistance to crushing damage kept it alive for a second or two longer. That did though confirm the ability lasts for 3 rounds (like smite) rather than being a one-off attack (like harm). The HLA description seems to suggest it should be a single attack only, so I'm not sure what was intended here.
Inside the beholder hive, a skull trap sequencer helped deal with a large group of beholders. Ghoul touch and the Pixie Prick dagger helped disable a few other beholders before they could do much damage and Clinch picked up another level doing that - this time taking power attack (same as fighter HLA). The Unseeing Eye was then Rifted and Fisted. Groups of beholders and undead had arrived to try and prevent Clinch from returning the rift device, but he was not caught unawares and a first use of simulacrum helped deal with them.
At the de'Arnise Hold, Clinch tore through the trolls downstairs before a spot of cooking gave him level 21. That improved his saves as far as they will go and provided him with a critical strike (same as fighter HLA). The rest of the enemies proved no more effort than the earlier ones and Clinch told Nalia to take a hike and stop bothering him about joining the party.
At Umar Hills the mimic took a long time to activate, but did finally make a (brief) appearance. Moving on, some low-grade undead were swept aside before Clinch picked up another level for talking with a stone idol. Just for the hell of it Clinch took deathblow as an HLA. Inside the temple he tried using Greater Crushing Hand for the first time on a lich. It saved though and didn't take any damage at all (save should have just halved the damage). Possibly the damage was blocked by stoneskin, though that would seem a bit surprising against a level 9 spell. Incendiary cloud did the job though - with a simmy keeping the lich occupied in it. I've always enjoyed punching dragons, so was glad to get the excuse here. Thaxy was already at near death from a 10 APR assault with magical fists by the time he choked out a PfMW spell. Clinch just turned off his magical fists though and, still at 10 APR with improved haste, finished him off with a normal fist (imbued with extra flame). While buffs were still active, Clinch took the few seconds required to beat up the Shade Lord.
On his way to collect Valygar's body, Clinch double-checked that Greater Crushing Hand could be an effective spell against one of the guarding rangers. A bit more shopping followed, including purchasing the Sling of Everard - and then immediately selling that back rather than Arla's Dragonbane . That was a costly error, but Clinch still has 100k gold with nothing left to buy for the time being.
Force Wizard L22, 110 HPs (inc. 12 from familiar and 10 from ioun stone), 751 kills (+574 in BGEE/SoD)
Inside the Planar Sphere it didn't take Clinch long to gain another level by beating up some unpleasant halflings. He took whirlwind as the last of the 6 HLAs available to him - even though the penalty that gives to THAC0 and damage means that getting 10 APR using improved haste is rather more attractive. I normally let a summons deal with Lavok, but as Clinch is not using those this run he just waded in with magic fists. Those were not deterred by improved mantle so it only took seconds to subdue the mage. Tolgerias and his mage friend were even less successful as their skulls were shattered in quick succession. There were no problems in getting the sphere back home - which was enough for yet another level.
The last of the external areas was the Windspear Hills. None of the early enemies that stood to face Clinch lasted long, but he did have to chase for some time after one of the greater wolfweres that kept losing its morale. A rare use of grapple held it in place for 2 rounds, but that wasn't quite sufficient to finish it off - Clinch eventually found a critical to do the job. Another couple of groups of golems and Clinch was up to level 25.
Progress had been pretty easy for some time, but death is usually just moments away in Baldur's Gate if you fail to pay attention and Clinch's end came in that fashion. He didn't have any fire protection spells memorized, but did have fire shield (red) and I activated that to provide some resistance against fire spells from the genies. I was thinking of things like flame strike there and didn't consider that, in addition to targeted spells, they also used fire shields themselves. Those can interact to rack up damage extremely quickly, so if you are not immune to the damage you need to be concentrating to be able to move away immediately that starts to happen - and I wasn't …
A few afterthoughts on the Force Wizard for @semiticgoddess (and thanks for all your time and effort putting kits together ).
One of the reasons I usually prefer to play solo is that gives a much better feel for the distinctive elements of character classes and kits. In a party, differences need to be much greater in order to stand out. In a group, the huge increase in melee ability (both attack and defence) of the force wizard would be enough for them to take over a fighter's role - though that probably wouldn't happen until the latter stages of BGEE. However, it probably wouldn't add to the overall power of the party as the loss in spells would counteract the melee benefits. Therefore, for party play, the kit is probably reasonably balanced.
For solo play it felt rather overpowered. Like all mages, buffing makes a significant difference, but towards the end of this run there were few things that could really threaten Clinch even when totally unbuffed - so buffing was more to do with speeding up victories than enabling them. If you wanted to reduce the power a bit (and as I said above, you might not want to as most people use parties) you could consider:
- reducing the APR benefit of transformation from 2 to 1 and not allow dual-wielding (that would stop the force wizard from getting 10 APR with improved haste and make WW more meaningful).
- reducing or removing the AC benefit from transformation (together with standard mage defenses that makes them arguably too difficult to hit). For similar reasons you could reduce the base AC benefit, so this only goes down to 4 rather than 0.
Given that the force wizard should have fighter-level abilities when unarmed, I would also suggest reducing the penalties from WW from 4 to 2 - which again will make that a more realistic option to take as an HLA. I would also be inclined to strengthen the grapple ability. I think this is supposed to be a distinctive feature of the class, but I found it was almost always crowded out by other things. You could for instance take away the possibility of a saving throw and extend the duration to 5 rounds. If you wanted to, you could also apply a movement penalty to the force wizard as well as the opponent. That would give the same sort of effect you see with blades or dwarven defenders where you have to consider in advance the wisdom of using a powerful tactic if that makes it more difficult to withdraw from a losing encounter ...
Damn what a way to go @Grond0 definitely negative side of more op chars. I also noticed the few second stutters time to time with my Three Drows, and Favored Soul playthroughs, but not with this one. No idea what caused it, maybe subrace mod, or conflict. Anyway I would reinstall everything for every new mod install, if SCS wasn't so bothersome to install. I wish there was a mod manager for BG that would remember everything, like MO2 does for TES and such games.
'Long-life challenge' - 10 year celebration (update 1)
As noted here, it's coming up for 10 years since I started my attempt to complete the full set of unmodded BG games with all 76 possible class combinations. Thus far I've only been successful with 17 of those, so need to rack up successes at a significantly higher rate to give myself any chance of completing the overall challenge.
In an attempt to maintain motivation and make a real dent in the required numbers, I'll do concurrent runs with 10 randomly chosen classes. I've found in the past that it can be helpful to do that type of grouping. The downside is that if/when any of the group die that causes a major loss of motivation to continue with the others. I'll thus have to try hard to avoid any early deaths or the 10 year celebration could rapidly turn into a wake ...
The characters chosen are:
Dragon Disciple
Blade
Cleric/mage
Diviner
Cleric
Abjurer
Stalker
Monk
Cleric dualling to thief
Kensai
I won't do any detailed write-ups, but just note down any points of interest when providing overall progress updates. The 10 years will be up on 12th March 2026, so I'll aim to complete all the runs by then
Oh dear. I can just imagine the comments of "so predictable" if I walked into a room of no-reload players just now . The let's play safe attitude lasted long enough for the dragon disciple to hit the XP limit and halt outside the Nashkel Mine to wait for other characters to catch up. I should have ended my session there, but instead made an immediate start on the blade.
Almost straight away bad habits reasserted themselves. An example was when attacking the golems at High Hedge after buying just 10 +1 bullets. In order to kill both golems with so few bullets it would be necessary to get most hits while offensive spin was active - and that tempted me to take a second shot at a golem while still inside the building. It was still a safe distance away at the time I fired, but enemies are able to leave buildings before the point at which you can do so - and arrive outside further away than you can. I was well aware of the possibility that would allow the golem to get an attack in outside, but took the risk anyway - and the golem duly managed an attack and rolled a critical hit. I'd already killed Shoal at that point, so was at level 4 - but 27 HPs was much too low to be safe from a critical. However, fortune favored me that time and I survived the hit.
That should have shocked me into playing more safely - but failed to do so. Shortly afterward, at the basilisk area, I picked up a couple more levels before trying to tackle Kirian's group. At that stage I didn't know invisibility or blind and tried to draw just Baerin away. While that can often be done, it's not foolproof and I found Lindin and Peter had followed him. Peter targeted me with a rigid thinking spell, which would have been virtually certain to be fatal if it had taken effect while the others were in sight - but I saved.
At that point I went to buy invisibility and blind and came back to use those in conjunction with stinking cloud to safely kill that party. I still didn't mend my ways though and the next enemy attacked was Bassilus. He can be pretty safely attacked by retreating out of his sight before he casts, or by disappearing before his spell completes. However, I got greedy by trying to get a shot in before using invisibility. My initiative roll wasn't quite good enough to allow that and I disappeared a fraction of a second after he finished the spell. Invisibility is of course no protection against a spell projectile already launched and this time rigid thinking took effect while I was still in sight range. Lady luck had clearly got fed up with helping me out and I attacked Bassilus a few rounds later - and then stood there like a lemon when he came in to beat me up ...
The original aim was not to continue with any characters that died, but it's so early on that I'm going to allow the blade to restart in order to keep the group of 10 together. That won't of course be much help if I can't stop myself taking risks, but who knows - maybe it is possible to teach an old dog new tricks .
@Grond0 Condolences on the loss. You spend so much time to make sure a mage is safe, and for so long they're invincible. An amazing run, and a ruthless display of creativity and power. Good luck on your next runs.
@histamiini Great work. Your consistency in planning is legendary, friend. I have no idea how you keep all that in your head at once.
I've got some tweaks and bugfixes set up--
-Force Wizard's Transformation nerfed to +1 APR and no AC bonus
-Force Wizard's Ghoul Touch spell stays on the caster for 10 rounds instead of 5, and the paralysis duration is increased to 3 rounds.
-Grapple will last 5 rounds, slow the caster's movement for 2 rounds, and have a save penalty of -2 that grows to -4 at level 14
-Whirlwind Attack has its attack and damage penalties reduced from -4 to -2
-Shatter Skull should only trigger once (it will be blocked by Stoneskin)
-The Kuo-Toa Disciples should have the proper lore nerf, and the description will correctly say that the haste comes at level 12 and true seeing comes at 15
-Kuo-Toa Disciples should have their proper elemental resistances and weaknesses
-A Kuo-Toa Disciple's bard song will have a 75% chance of applying Feeblemind and a 25% chance of applying stun, with no chance of fear.
--but right now I'm finishing up a new kit for the mod, the Bog Witch, my first shaman kit, before release. I'd toyed with the idea of doing a bog witch-themed kit one day, and only now am I finally settling on it. It's a summoning-focused shaman that pays Hit Points, current and maximum, to summon stronger monsters with no chance of failure.
Let me know if you think any of the above changes should be tweaked further.
As for the Kuo-Toa Disciple being able to get around its spellcasting weaknesses by casting from scrolls: I don't know if I can change that behavior, but fortunately, it makes conceptual sense. A Kuo-Toa Disciple is a bad spellcaster; using a scroll might be more effective than relying on their own abilities. It fits the Red Soul and Green Soul kits as well: a scroll would ostensibly be more "default magic" than either kit's.
As for the Kuo-Toa Disciple not being able to pick HLAs, I'm not sure. I wasn't able to replicate the behavior when I tested it.
Thanks! @semiticgoddess the HLA problem might be my overall install, but it's probably too risky to change up now, and I can just add them through EEkeeper. I think the Bard song change definitely sounds better. Btw forgot to mention Animate Dead is still cast in it original level, as the best Skelis at lv16, is that intended behaviour?
The Damage Resistance might be slightly too much in the end, which I'm not close to yet but thinking ahead. I've got Ascension installed so I'll end up in 49 innate + 25 Ascension + 20 DoEH in 94 DR at the end. Of course I don't know if you can design mod around other mods, and it might even not be too much at the end. Currently I'm thinking 20 at the beginning and 5 every 10 levels would be optimal, that way it would be 25 DR at BG and 40 DR at BG2. I think the elemental resistances and weaknesses are just about right.
All in all I'm really digging Kuo-Toa Disciple. It got just right amount weaknesses/strenghts and spice in it, like the permanent Haste and Invisibility Detection that are usually reserved for enemies. And you can even turn to Kuo-Toa for full rp.
~EEUITWEAKS/EEUITWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1070 // Faydark's Abilities Auto-Roller/GrimLefourbe's BG2 UI: 4.0.7
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #0 // Rewritten Final Chapter of Throne of Bhaal: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #10 // Balthazar can be redeemed: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #20 // Improved Sarevok-Player Interactions: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #30 // Improved Imoen-Player Interactions in Throne of Bhaal: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #40 // Restored Bhaalspawn Powers: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #50 // Improved Slayer Transformation: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Tougher Abazigal: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1100 // Tougher Balthazar: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1200 // Tougher Demogorgon: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1300 // Tougher Gromnir: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1400 // Tougher Illasera: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Tougher Yaga-Shura: 2.1.0
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Expanded Dual-Class Options: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2360 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Single-Classes: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2380 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Kits: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2371 // Alter Dual-Class Restrictions -> Allow non-humans to dual-class: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2350 // Alter Multi-Class Restrictions -> Allow humans to multi-class: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2390 // Alter Paladin Spell Progression Table -> Paladins Use Icewind Dale-Heart of Winter Spell Tables [grogerson]: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2400 // Alter Ranger Spell Progression Table -> Rangers Use Icewind Dale-Heart of Winter Spell Tables [grogerson]: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited ammo stacking: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited potion stacking: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Increase Scroll Stacking -> Unlimited scroll stacking: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3491 // Better Shadows of Amn Start [dark0dave] -> Start at 500k XP, select items below: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3497 // Better Shadows of Amn Start: Add Balduran's Cloak: v17
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1510 // Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1520 // Include bard songs from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // Core Stratagems spell-system changes (installed by default by any AI component): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Add 9 new arcane spells: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2510 // Add 6 new divine spells (some borrowed from Divine Remix): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // More Appropriate-Speed Bears: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4240 // Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6500 // Improved golems: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6510 // Improved fiends and celestials: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6520 // Smarter genies: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6540 // Smarter dragons: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6550 // Smarter beholders: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6560 // Smarter mind flayers: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6570 // Smarter githyanki: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6580 // Improved Vampires: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6590 // Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6800 // Smarter Illasera: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6810 // Smarter Gromnir: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6820 // Smarter Yaga-Shura: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6830 // Smarter Abazigal: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6840 // Ascension versions of Irenicus and Sendai use SCS abilities and AI: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6850 // Ascension demons use SCS abilities and AI: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8000 // Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8010 // Improved Shade Lord: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8020 // Spellcasting Demiliches: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8040 // Tie difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings to the difficulty slider: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8050 // Improved Random Encounters: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8060 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix"): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8070 // Improved Unseeing Eye: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8080 // Improved Bodhi: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8085 // Ascension version of Bodhi uses Improved-Bodhi abilities: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8100 // Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8110 // Improved Sahuagin: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8120 // Improved Beholder hive: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8130 // Rebalanced troll regeneration: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8140 // Improved Drow: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8150 // Improved Watcher's Keep: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8160 // Improved Fire Giant temple: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8170 // Improved Sendai's Enclave: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8180 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8190 // Improved Minor Encounters: 35.21
~SUBRACE/SUBRACE.TP2~ #1 #200 // Subrace mod for Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition (BG1, BG:SoD, BG2, EET) -> No change subrace colors (Hair and Skin): 0.3.1
~ZDBAE/ZDBAE.TP2~ #0 #0 // Baeloth BG2: v0.13
~ROMANCE_EXPANDED/SETUP-ROMANCE_EXPANDED.TP2~ #0 #0 // Viconia Romance Expanded: v1.0.7
~EXPANDEDCLASSES/EXPANDEDCLASSES.TP2~ #0 #32 // Kuo-toa Disciple Kit for Bards: v2.0
~UNOFFICIAL ITEM PACK/SETUP-UNOFFICIAL ITEM PACK.TP2~ #1 #5 // SoD items
We woke up in the Irenicus dungeon with nice 720k xp and got lv13 immediately, although no new spell slots. We also cast new Familiar with 34 hp extra in LoB mode bringing our total to 120 hp. Tested Monster Summon II and I against Lightning Mephit, but they didn't kill it. Rested up and Shadow Monsters killed it. But we really had awful summons and they only lasted 75% of time with our penalties, so we mostly used Invisibility to pass some Duergars. Found that Hasted Troll Shadow Monsters were beating single Duergars so we hunted Ilyich party out with multiple rests. Getting poison being permanently Hasted would be pretty much death sentence without sleep. 799k xp ascending to Athkatla.
Chapter 2
First things first, went to Government District and cast Invisibility on myself to summon Cowled Wizards, which the neutral guards neutralized casually. Got 3x Laear Tear, 2x Spell Trap, 2x Symbol: Fear, Summon Haekeashar, Small Shield +1, Project Image, Mantle, Improved Mantle, Protection from Elements, Spell Turning and 2x Invis potion. After Zallanora was dead, we could cast spells without disturbance.
Started Maevar quest line, and looted the guildhall and temples. Used WoMS to distract the Rayic Mephits. PfF and one PfF potion because our -35 FR penalty, and used the repeating Fireball trap to kill him lv14. Maevar pre Charmed and killed by his mob. After doing some easy Graveyard guests we bought rep to 14, solved the Bridge Murder rep 15. Lv15 which was nice one with first lv5 spell slot, and immunity to Blindness and permanent Invisibility Detection by Scripts (193). We can now AI attack invisible creatures and also attack Sanctuaried etc. enemies normally. Also casting Animate Dead I noticed that Skelis were cast in normal level which might be bug in the kit? Easy fetch quest for the Amulet +2. Bought WoMS and freed Hendak no problems with one Skeli and some Monsters. Picked our first head Gear from Pai'na 136 hp. Slavers were killed by repeating Cloudkill trap using PfP and Invis potion. Rep 17, lv 16 * Two-Weapon Style, and our innate DR hit 25.
Doing the Sir Sarles quest we Charmed Welther and he was killed by Cohrvale for Silver Pantaloons, which avoids the rep penalty. Harper Hold and looted De'Arnise for FoA +3. Lv17 which meant our weakness to Fire and resistance to Elecricity, Acid and Magic Damage reached max of 45. Looted Druid Grove for ranged Thac0 gloves and Belm +2. With Belm +2 we get 4apr with permanent Haste. Bought Invisibility and couple Power Potions from Adratha, before Pickpocketing Poison Immunity Amulet from her which worked with 150 skill. Cernd killed Faldorn by himself, and although Faldorn shapeshifted getting full health and got like hundred hits, Cernd in Werewolf form still beat her. Pickpocketed Efreeti Bottle from Taquee before attacking Khan Zharaa, and once he was killed the other two buggered away, rep 19. Bought Belt of Inertial Barrier and together with our innate bonus we have undisbellable 95 MDR which is nice especially against Mindflayers and Vampiric Wraiths. Doing the last Trademeet quests we hit 20/20 economy. Bought Crown of Lies for extra spell slots and third Skeli, Cloak of Gargoyle and DoEH +3. Spell Learning session, lv18 and got first lv6 slot. Had just enough money to start Chapter 3.
Chapter 3
Cleared Graveyard with casting Skelies from Mislead in Tombs, lv19. Picked up MoD +1 with Invisibility and Improved it. Fight against Vampiric Wraiths of Watchers Keep showcased our unique abilities. With 95 MDR (45+50) we were easily tanking their Magic attacks, and even when they went Invisible, we saw them with our Invisibility Detection and destroyed them. We only managed to beat one Statue before Deva arrived and our summons got killed, lv20 with 4th Skeli. Softened the last three with WoMS and then Skelis hunted them out. Left the last 8 Statues for now. Lv21 fighting the Paladins in Windspear Hill and we got our top Thac0 10 and saves 8/4/7/11/7(+2) which are pretty terrible. The Belt of Inertial Barrier helps though with -5 Breath, and this is pretty much first char where it will be our main belt. Summons pretty much handled rest of the dungeon. Samia's gang was softened with WoMS then picked up by Skelies lv22. Tarnor's gang Mislead gassed, as was Mencars, and Mekrath. Lv23 repelling Haer'dalis invasion.
Lv24 at Undead Bridge and we got a peek of our unique HLA's, except the ability button was greyed out, so we need to add these with EEkeeper. We have usual ones like Whirwind, Power Attack, Critical Strike, Evasion and Greater Evasion. And three unique ones:
- Scaly Skin (25 Damage Resistance for 1 round every 2 levels)
- Growing Insanity (Bard Song is done at -2 save)
- Natural Regeneration (innate 1hp/3s + Haste which means 6 hp per round)
Natural Regeneration is certainly nice with our permanent Haste, and Regeneration is further doubled to 12hpr when we get Ring of Gaxx. And I might even go Axe of Unyelding +5 in this run, which I never use. We are missing UAI, Traps and Magic Flute though, which all are big misses especially for the final battle.
After clearing the Blind Priests with summons, we put the Rod together and escaped before Unseeing Eye appeared. Bought everything interesting from Roger the Fence and then Charmed him with the Cloak. This was to have him pickpocket it from Tziri and carry out from the Sewers. But his Pickpocket skill (60) was far too bad compared to ours (130). So no way of getting the Rift Device out, we used it on the Unseeing Eye lv25 Critical Strike.
Planar Prison landing was mostly leveled with Mislead Gas. WoMS handled the few remaining ones. Then we gradually cleared the place with Skelis and Air Elementals. Before using the Orb we cleared the pits with Mislead gas. Wanted to see the xp and loot. Not really worth the bother, but got lv26 with Scaly Skin. Warden's Yuanties were gassed from Mislead, then Warden was softened with WoMS, and Skelis and Air Elemental killed it easily. Coming out of Planar Prison we were surprised by Bard Stronghold guest which I don't think I've ever done. Getting Speed Boots we decided to visit Mindies which we are pretty equipped to deal with. With 95 MDR their Detonations just tickle a little. PfU for Alhoon, saves v spell to -4, no problems. With PfU on we destroyed the two minor Liches holding Kangaxx parts. The other one got defenses on so we waited a little but no problems. Kangaxx's Remove Magic and couple other spells avoided, and then we managed to kill his Skeli and hit Kangaxx to 1 hp. Once turned we casually stoned him with Wand of Wonder and got the Ring of Gaxx and lv27 Natural Regeneration. We now had undispellable 12hpr.
Shadow Ruins was easy with just two sets of Skelis, as the Liches didn't spawn. Shadow Dragon stoned with WoW. PfU and Tensers for Shade Lord and Death Fog Contingency on Shadow Altar. Lv28 with 5th Skeli with Crown of Lies. Planar Sphere Skellied lv29, Lavok softened with WoMS. Tanari Farsight and Skellied. One Cloudkill caused mayhem with Tolgerias and their summons started fighting each other. Softened with WoMS and finished with Skelies. Lv30 starting Circus quest and another Critical Strike. Kalah smacked with Tensers and WoMS distracting others. Killing machine with Tensers zipped through the Heretic Monks and we did the easy tests mostly for True Seeing Gem (saves a spell slot). Lv31 completing the Bard Stronghold. Vampires killeds with PfU and Tensers, Bodhi waited out lv32 *Two-Handed Weapon Style and Whirlwind. Elder Air Elemental Smoked Ruhk. Turned Firkraag to stone and back couple times until my WoW was at 1 charge, and after getting to lv34 we have decided we are ready to sail away.
Session 8, the one where we pick up after the troll mound
We safely work our way around the remaining enemies in the druid grove and Cernd is given the opportunity to feast on Faldorn in his shapeshifted state. On return to Trademeet we pick up our reward, kill Reijik Hidesman and return a talisman to the mayor
After that we return to the Planar Sphere and head inside. We of course exercised care in this area and Omen only took heavy damage on several occasions. He lost control against the opening group of halflings and Coreheal was stunned but neither died and we ground our way to a subsequent victory
Omen fared better against Tolgerias but failed to realise his fire protection had expired, with Coreheal being a cleric rather than mage and multiclass. He eventually realised after entering the nearby room with a noble djinn, mephits and salamanders. Somehow he survived with a mighty 2hp remaining so we celebrated with a quick rest before clearing out the cold room
This left the engine room to do. There were enough golems to drastically re-model Omen's armour and once more his grim determination and dwarven stance hauled him through the encounter. He suggested Coreheal should loot a container to the east and before Tar could say hang on, Coreheal obeyed and another clay golem hoved into view
Coreheal retreated, his armour starting to match that of Omen. Omen wearily out-bashed the golem while Tar watched on with no suitable weapon to use. We already had a demon heart after stepping outside earlier so fed that into the engine and went to deal with Lavok - a skeleton warrior mauling him before we made ourselves known
As the sphere was back in the Slums we felt our work there was done. It was 11 at night, but the Talos contact still declined to turn up for a meet. Omen suggested we go on a lich hunt instead, and Tar decided to start at the City Gates where a handy longsword (Daystar) was rumoured to be found
Outside the inn there we found a merchant being harangued, so sorted that out. Tar decided to empty her bags at the merchant but half way through she heard the innkeeper and Coreheal, or perhaps Omen, shouting about two lovers upstairs. Suitably distracted, this forced Tar out of the merchant conversation before she sold anything and the merchant was no longer in sight. She let out a few choice words and continued with a full backpack
Coreheal buffed Omen to deal with the lich, but it survived a first shot with Azuredge. Omen patiently waited through a timestop and then threw Azuredge a second time. All we had to do was try and pick up several wands and weapons with overflowing inventory. We managed, and then we headed to a store to actually complete trades at the Bridge district
On to the second lich nearby. Tar asking where Daystar was and Omen saying he gave it to her. Tar thought long and hard
She returned to the merchant and re-purchased Daystar, feeling somewhat ashamed at selling such an item
Back to the lich, Coreheal suggesting we purchase scrolls of protection from undead. Suitably done, but then we elected not to use them and allow Omen to do his worst with Azuredge and a couple of snares. The lich survived an initial strike, got a timestop and a few spells but eventually fell to the axe leaving Omen to mop up the remaining pit fiend
A third lich under the temple district sewers was badly injured by snares. Rather than head for Kangaxx we felt completely prepared for dealing with the Unseeing Eye. By this, we mean Coreheal asking if we had the shield of Balduran and Omen / Tar saying we did not but skeletons will be fine. Coreheal did not seem particularly convinced
An initial set of beholder, gauth and shadow fiends were relatively easy to despatch, meaning we could retrieve half a rod and return past Gaal to foil his request
Down into the pit we went, Tar invisibly blocking the various undead as Omen threw Azuredge and Coreheal used turn undead to deter or destroy anything that got past Tar. At one point we found we were suitably un-levelled to avoid a lich and instead faced a greater mummy. Omen made hard work of that while Coreheal turned several undead. Tar tried to distract a skeleton archer but found it was overwhelming in melee and overwhelming at range when she ran. After two or three attempts where she could not get past it to run away she prepared to gulp a potion of healing but Omen suggested a potion of invisibility instead. A good call, and she did so with a single hit point remaining
We moved onwards, into the beholder area. Omen pushed his luck and did well. Coreheal had concerns about the blind priests but skeletons and bounty hunter snares (now with the Otiluke effect) thinned them down and we had an easy victory. Omen told Coreheal to send the skeletons towards the beholder and gauths, but Coreheal moved also and several magical effects later he slumped to the ground dead. So with five minutes remaining we had our first death of the session, used a rod of resurrection charge, and continued on our way
The rest of the beholder lair was cleared, and with no time left on the clock we agreed to deal with the Unseeing Eye itself. Moments later it was slumped dead, and Tar identified an amulet of 5% magic resistance - it has Omen's name all over it
What goodies will we have to sell now. Have a looky loo - Coreheal appears to have palmed all junk to Omen and Tar
A pretty disappointing opening series of sessions included 2 deaths - one of which I restarted. I gave all the classes the opportunity for major power boosts early on with XP from Shoal and the basilisk area to make game play easier. The risks involved after that were pretty much all self-inflicted. I'll have to tighten up gameplay significantly if the overall result is to be a decent one.
All characters are currently at the XP cap and about to enter the Nashkel Mine. The work done to get there has varied a bit between classes, but all of them have explored most of the wilderness areas they can be bothered with. Reputation is a bit more variable, as some classes are aiming to get a mixture of good and evil Bhaal abilities, but the majority of them have reputation at 20 and have bought all the items they're interested in for the present.
Summary points of interest for each class Dragon Disciple - no incidents of note to report.
Blade - first incarnation died after getting hit with rigid thinking by Bassilus. Second attempt was hit relatively early on when a critical would have been fatal. Also a worrying moment in the last encounter before going to the Nashkel Mine. I skull trapped the Red Wizards and then withdrew in case any followed me. I intended to cast invisibility, but mis-clicked and used stinking cloud on myself instead. Fortunately there was in fact no-one following …
Cleric/mage - no incidents of note to report.
Diviner - I didn't get around to learning invisibility until after I'd explored nearly all the wilderness areas. That saved a bit of money, but was really an unjustifiable risk though there weren't in fact any particularly scary ambushes. Near the end of the session I also cleared the ankheg nest without playing safe. I was attacked twice there and hit once - when a critical could have been fatal.
Cleric - failed to kill Neera, which was a bit of a pain as the gem bag both helps manage inventory and allows considerable resources to be taken through into SoD. In Durlag's Tower I had a moment of madness when trying to rest in a location where I knew I could potentially get trapped by an ambush. I was in fact trapped by a number of ghasts interrupting my rest and would undoubtedly have been killed by them if there had not been just enough room to retreat out of sight and try resting once more - this time successfully.
Abjurer - I said in an earlier post that none of the classes chosen were new. After some time trying and failing to find my starting save for this one I finally realised that I'd been wrong earlier and I didn't in fact have one. To give me an incentive to play safely, I tried to avoid any damage at all - and that was achieved. One notable mistake was mis-clicking the conversation with Kirinhale and turning her hostile - I was able to run away before she attacked though. Like the diviner I didn't buy any spells until near the end of the session - with the important exception of invisibility. That and blind allowed me to make good progress until finally learning a wide range of options.
Stalker - after a run of 6 casters in a row it was nice to get something a bit more martial. I again tried to avoid damage for as long as possible (though knowing that the stalker could not ultimately avoid trap damage in the Nashkel Mine). That was done in the spirit of staying safe and I successfully avoided any damage up to being almost ready to take level 7. However, that attitude ultimately cost me a life when tackling the sirines at the coast. I used the potion of clarity from Candlekeep in order to protect against sirine charm. Though the sirines couldn't do much damage in melee, I was trying to avoid any at all - so used backstabs and then ran away to hide again. That meant that I had to wait for the sirines to stop in order to be sure of a backstab and a bit of time was wasted following them round. However, 5 of them were taken down in what seemed like good time, so I was actually thinking I would have enough time left to use the clarity potion to protect against the charm trap in the pirate cave as well. Unfortunately, the final sirine just wouldn't stop as it wandered around the map for ages. Eventually, I gave up on it doing so and just attacked it on the move before running round a corner of the lighthouse building and hiding. It was still stood still when I came back and this time did get a backstab. That had a good chance of killing it, but I rolled low damage and it survived. I knew it still had another charm to try though, so just kept attacking in melee. My next attack was not in time to prevent the charm, but that didn't seem like a problem - until it ended the run! I had checked the potion was still active when I hid, so it ran out sometime in the few seconds after that. That seemed a pretty rough end to take, but the stalker had progressed much too far to consider restarting as I did with the blade.
Monk - despite the stalker's experience I again tried to see how long I could avoid any damage. That was successfully done up until level 7. Attacking a battle horror at Durlag's Tower, the icon was partly hidden by an arch of rock and I didn't realise that I had made an attack until the battle horror retaliated. I didn't try and avoid damage after that, but was never more than slightly injured.
Cleric dualling to thief - no incidents of note to report. I think I'm going to wait to do a relatively late dual with this one - probably at level 15. That will provide me a level 7 spell while only reducing potential thief levels from 40 to 39.
Kensai - attacked Kirian without protection against fear. A horror spell could well have been fatal there, but I saved.
Edit: oh dear, things are going rapidly downhill. The first session for the dragon disciple was uneventful, but he perished fairly early on in the second. While doing the poison quest he charmed Lothander to prevent him running away after talking to him. After killing him he went to find Marek - who was nowhere to be found. I guess I must have forgotten to talk to Lothander, so there's no way to cure the poison ...
Edit 2: I was never really happy about restarting the blade and, after 2 other deaths still only mid-way through BGEE I'm going to call this series a failure and restart the lot. I'll keep the same character classes, but change the originaly random order they came in so that the game play also changes between characters.
Starting: In BG1EE.
Mods: Full SCS 35.21, see spoiler for WeiDU.
Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
Include bard songs from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
Core Stratagems spell-system changes (installed by default by any AI component): 35.21
Changes to Restoration: 35.21
Changes to shapeshift spells: 35.21
Icewind Dale-inspired tweaks to Baldur's Gate/Baldur's Gate II spells: 35.21
Rebalancings of slightly-too-powerful spells: 35.21
Spell school changes: 35.21
Spells increased in power: 35.21
Add 9 new arcane spells: 35.21
Add 6 new divine spells (some borrowed from Divine Remix): 35.21
Revised elementals and elemental summoning: 35.21
Replace +1 arrows and other projectiles with nonmagical "fine" ones: 35.21
Re-introduce potions of extra-healing: 35.21
Make elemental arrows like BG2: 35.21
Replace many +1 magic weapons with nonmagical "fine" ones -> Fine weapons are affected by the iron crisis: 35.21
Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores -> Remove Arrows of Dispelling from stores: 35.21
Wider selection of random scrolls: 35.21
Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): 35.21
More Appropriate-Speed Bears: 35.21
Improved shapeshifting: 35.21
Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: 35.21
Thieves assign skill points in multiples of five: 35.21
Revised handling of death effects like disintegration, petrification and imprisonment (party members who are disintegrated etc can be resurrected; imprisoned or petrified characters rejoin the party automatically; the game doesn't end if the main character is petrified or imprisoned): 35.21
Revised resting: resting in the wild uses up provisions: 35.21
Revised inn rooms: more expensive, more benefits: 35.21
Ease-of-use party AI: 35.21
Improved BG Textscreens: 35.21
Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): 35.21
Smarter general AI: 35.21
Better calls for help: 35.21
Smarter Mages: 35.21
Smarter Priests: 35.21
Potions for NPCs: 35.21
Improved Spiders: 35.21
Smarter sirines and dryads: 35.21
Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: 35.21
Smarter basilisks: 35.21
Improved doppelgangers: 35.21
Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: 35.21
Improved deployment for parties of assassins: 35.21
Improved kobolds: 35.21
Relocated bounty hunters: 35.21
Improved Ulcaster: 35.21
Improved Balduran's Isle: 35.21
Improved Durlag's Tower: 35.21
Improved Demon Cultists: 35.21
Improved Cloakwood Druids: 35.21
Improved Bassilus: 35.21
Improved Drasus party: 35.21
Improved Red Wizards: 35.21
Improved Undercity assassins: 35.21
Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction: 35.21
Tougher chapter-two end battle: 35.21
Tougher chapter-three end battle: 35.21
Tougher chapter-four end battle: 35.21
Tougher chapter-five end battle: 35.21
Improved final battle: 35.21
Improved minor encounters: 35.21
Difficulty: Insane with no level-dependent damage increase.
Rules: Random party, random choices at level-up (except HP, which are maxed).
Party in spoiler (protagonist at top).
Protagonist
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Class: Invoker
Alignment: True Neutral
Stats:
STR 17 DEX 9 CON 16 INT 15 WIS 11 CHA 14
Proficiencies:
Sling *
Starting spells:
Blindness, Chromatic Orb, Shield
Gender: Male
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Fighter / Mage / Thief
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Stats:
STR 13 DEX 13 CON 10 INT 16 WIS 12 CHA 12
Proficiencies:
Mace * Bastard Sword * Two-Handed Weapon Style * Club *
Thieving skills:
Detect Illusion +10 Set Traps +15 Move Silently +5 Hide in Shadows +5 Pick Pockets +5
Starting spells:
Blindness, Charm Person
Gender: Female
Race: Dwarf
Class: Cleric
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Stats:
STR 13 DEX 13 CON 14 INT 8 WIS 16 CHA 14
Proficiencies:
Two-Handed Weapon Style * Sword and Shield Style *
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Class: Blade
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Stats:
STR 12 DEX 12 CON 10 INT 14 WIS 14 CHA 16
Proficiencies:
Flail / Morning Star * Shortbow *
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Class: Enchanter
Alignment: Lawful Good
Stats:
STR 10 DEX 14 CON 12 INT 15 WIS 8 CHA 16
Proficiencies:
Dart *
Starting spells:
Grease, Protection from Petrification, Sleep
Gender: Male
Race: Elf
Class: Mage / Thief
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Stats:
STR 16 DEX 15 CON 13 INT 9 WIS 12 CHA 13
Proficiencies:
Short Sword * Katana *
Thieving skills:
Detect Illusion +10 Hide in Shadows +10 Move Silently +5 Open Locks +5 Pick Pockets +5 Find Traps +5
Starting spells:
Protection from Petrification, Shocking Grasp
Randomization always finds a way to bork you, I guess.
Yeah, alright, the balance isn't completely off... except the sum of our melee force is one third of a warrior and a Blade that doesn't dual-wield.
The slight upside is that the Invoker has the stats to dual into Fighter, which I intend to do if we live that long.
It'll be a fairly late dual though, so we'll be slogging along with really weak auto-attack capabilities for some time.
We'll have to make up the difference with magic, which should be doable as we have five arcanists.
Except one has minimum INT, the rest sit at middling scores, and there's only so many Potions of Genius/Mind Focusing in BGEE: I count 11/8 barring random drops, and typically there are only one or two copies of critical scrolls, so I don't think we can afford to scribe very often.
Well... I wanted it harsh. And it's not like it's unplayable, so let's see how it goes.
How to survive without a CON modifier: A Random Run, Part 1
Weak as we are, Carbos and Shanks are weaker still; we exit Candlekeep unimpeded.
I'll allow recruiting NPC's temporarily to rob them (this is mostly to get Jaheira's Potion of Invisibility and Neera's Gem Bag, though we also relieve Imoen and Xzar/Montaron of their belongings).
A Cleric with 16 WIS means three first level slots, so we have ample Commands available, as both the belt-wearing Ogre and Tarnesh come to appreciate.
With a Potion of Invisibility now at hand, we clear the local Hobgoblins, then get some rest and head north.
As long as you don't travel during night, I think you're guaranteed not to get ambushed in this region.
We retrieve Tenya's bowl, kill the Ankheg north of her hut using two Commands, talk to Farmer Brun while a sanctuaried Cleric holds his son's body underground, and finally clear some Zombies to the far north; while in the area, we spend some hard-earned gold on Arrows +2 so we can clear High Hedge later.
Together with the bits and pieces of experience from before, Cleric hits L2, and now has four Commands.
It's Ankheg time: We are guaranteed to be able to kill two per rest, and if a few Ankhegs fail their save against Enchanter's Sleep, that number rises to four. Of course, this isn't entirely risk-free, since you need to hope the Ankheg doesn't have time to attack before the Sleep hits (and you can tell if it worked or not).
It's actually a good thing Enchanter has such lousy hitpoints; otherwise the acid damage (which was never applied since he died from the pure physical damage) might've chunked him.
Anyway, a few mishaps later, we've killed off about 22 Ankhegs and everyone's gained 1-2 levels. We've already started to amass a bundle of unidentified items, so the plan is to grab the Red Potion from Nashkel and have Mage/Thief scribe a bunch of useful stuff (his 9 INT means he's by far the best candidate).
En route south, we clear the easy stuff, including Thalantyr's Flesh Golems, in and around Beregost, picking up a Gem Bag, though we leave Firebead alone for now: We want to save reputation-boosting quests until we're bribed up to 18, since the 1/4 reputation gain component of SCS can be pretty brutal in how little reputation you actually gain if you get some bad rolls.
Though it's a shame Blade probably will never make much of a dent in melee, at least he does acceptable work at range with a Shortbow and Offensive Spin active.
In Nashkel, we pick up the Red Potion, clear out Neira, talk Noober down, and head back into the wilderness.
One nice thing early on about having an Enchanter is that Sleep becomes even more lethal than normal: It's rare to see anything susceptible actually make its save, with literal hordes of enemies collapsing from a single casting being the norm.
Further north, Zargal is blinded and disposed of even as Sleep does in his fellow Hobgoblins. We leave Bassilus alone for now, and begin to laboriously ferry our massive amount of Ankheg shells south towards Beregost.
The gold gained is just about enough to push reputation to 18; we can now start turning in reputation quests, and with 16 CHA on Blade, we always get the best reward from quests as well with the reaction adjustment (though the extra rewards are very neglible, even by BGEE standards).
After six quests, the net amount is +1 reputation. Meh. Since they're in the same area as Hulrik's cow, we take our frustrations out on Arghain and his merry murdering monstrosities.
You'll note that's Cleric tanking. She's the only option really, given how badly shafted triple-classes get for hitpoints (exacerbated in this case since Fighter/Mage/Thief lacks a CON modifier... like almost everyone else).
Oh, the characters will get real names if they make it to BG2EE.
While in Arghain's area, I found out (to equal amounts surprise and delight on my part) that Ogre Berserkers are susceptible to Sleep!
Just scout 'em out and hit from beyond sight range, and the very tanky, very dangerous beasties are reduced to nothing. Good stuff.
Still hunting for that last point of reputation, we clear out Greywolf and save (?) Prism, as well as deliver Samuel, to no avail.
That's alright, let's try the dig and Brage then. We've already had some decent luck with random scroll drops, but this was really nice to see: A scroll of Knock fresh off the local Gnoll tribe.
This is especially good for us, since (as you'd expect) random Thief skill point distribution is random.
It's a pseudo-uniform distribution of points, meaning our Thieves are bad at everything. So at least now we can open the occasional lock... or will once Mage/Thief chugs that delightful Red Potion. Yeah, we're still running on the arcane fumes of our starting spells, plus a handful of L1 spells we dared to try to scribe (and mostly failed, though not entirely).
Clearing the dig finally nets us 20 reputation, which means we can now justify buying Mage/Thief some scrolls.
The Doomsayer outside is destroyed by Magic Stones, some Chromatic Orbs (we failed to scribe Magic Missile...),
and Imoen's starting wand. Brage returns with us, and we're back in civilized lands.
Still, I'd like to have Web available for the Bandit Camp. Let's hold off a little while longer on scribing; there's a Web scroll in Mulahey's chest, accessible without alerting him if you Sanctuary your way in.
Massive amounts of Sleep make it easy to fight our way through the Nashkel Mines up until the dreaded Kobold Shaman and slightly less (but still) dreaded Kobold Chieftain.
Sleep does for the cohorts, and amazingly, the Shaman fails its save against Silence... and did not prepare Vocalize! Hooray!
I'm always worried about taking on the Shaman, but this time it went very smoothly. We swipe the contents of Mulahey's chest and retreat to Beregost.
After successfully relieving Algernon of his cloak (owing to the now quite dead Vitiare's Potion of Master Thievery), a bought scroll of Friends lets us hit 20 CHA. With 20 reputation, that's a serious discount, and we make off with key scrolls for Mage/Thief.
Finally, we can start identifying items.
In fact, we spent so little we can afford to immediately start work on the second Ankheg Plate (the first being the easter egg one from Nashkel).
Cleric will eventually get the Hands of Takkok so she can equip Full Plate, but that's a long way off, and until then, both she and Fighter/Mage/Thief can't do better than Ankheg Plate.
While waiting for the armor to finish, we dispatch the local Wolf pack; Grease works surprisingly well here, especially when you layer on 4-5 casts. Also, Vampiric Wolves count as Undead, so are very vulnerable to Magic Stone.
Flush with our victory, we continue with Bassilus: By now we have so many sources of arcane damage, he gets interrupted constantly, and soon falls.
We're still missing a key equipment piece: The Gauntlets of Dexterity. En route to the Gnoll Fortress, we clear all the little things with ease, once again using a well-placed Sleep to disable two potentially dangerous Ogre Berserkers guarding a bridge.
To the west, the local Gibberling hordes had a scroll of Find Familiar. Swanky! Invoker casts it at once; there's another guaranteed drop of it from Nimbul after all, which we can scribe at a later date.
At the Fortress proper, Blade gets the CHA tome, putting him at 17 CHA. Not sure why I bothered, it won't make a discernible difference, but eh.
Around here the scroll randomizer seemingly goes off the rails a bit: We get Stinking Cloud, Skull Trap (twice!), another Knock, Haste (!) and most amazingly once we transit to Ingot's area, Invisibility 10' Radius!
If we weren't so incredibly strapped for INT potions, I'd scribe those last two right away; they're supremely useful.
Sendai, as well as Vax and Zal, are duly defeated, and we return to Nashkel. Now seems a good time to advance the plot a bit.
Mulahey seemingly spent all his slots on buffs: He throws a Poison at Cleric (which she saves against), then pointlessly tries to melee her down.
Blade took a serious beating trying to hold off the eastern Kobolds using Defensive Spin. He needs defensive spells, but the INT situation...
Back in Nashkel, brave sir Oublek (under the influence of Algernon's Cloak) falls in battle, and we respectfully retrieve the 2 700 gold off his remains. Nimbul is casually hacked down after he fails to save against Hold Person.
On to Beregost, where Tranzig has no counter to two Skeleton Warriors. On our way towards the bandit-infested woods, it's time for the first ambush, which turns out to be the Amazons.
Fortunately, Invoker is travelling invisibly: Mage/Thief only has two L2 slots, but the second one was spent on Detect Invisibility, which instantly reveals Telka and Maneira, preventing their potentially devastating backstabs.
Things get iffy for a moment when some party members wander straight into the Wand of Fire Scorcher of Fighter/Mage/thief (Mage/Thief in particular took a bad lick), but we pull through absent casualties.
Pushing further into the woods, we actually opt to take out Baeloth: We have an evil arcanist this time, so the robe will come in handy.
Web and oodles of L1 arcane spells keep the local Druids interrupted, and we suffer our second ambush en route to the Bandit Camp.
Halacan is focused and drops without ever getting a spell off; Drakar can be a nuisance if he prepared Hold Person, but this time seemingly tried to go for Chant first, which we interrupted. He didn't get a second chance.
Alright! We reach the Bandit Camp, rest up, and engage. Really, it's possible to do this as a running battle (keep moving and firebomb as you go), but we set up shop in the southeastern corner, throw down two Webs from Mage/Thief, and go to town.
As always, the real threat here is Venkt (we've countered Horror with pre-cast Remove Fear, but he can whip out Slow as he was trying to here, Glitterdust, Blind, etc.), and though he's got a little bit of Fire Resistance owing to his robe, he's a far cry from immune. Once Venkt drops, the remnants are mopped up in short order.
We can actually loot everything here: There's a bug in SCS 35.21 where Bracers of Dexterity "stacks" with Cat's Grace. The maximum DEX you can gain from Cat's Grace is dictated first by your class: 1-8 for Rogues, 1-6 for Warriors and Mages, 1-4 for Clerics.
It is then limited by your base dexterity: Mage/Thief has 15 DEX and counts as a Rogue, so can gain at most 5 DEX.
The bonus from Bracers of Dexterity is added on top of this: So with Cat's Grace, Mage/Thief can reach 23 DEX.
Fighter/Mage/Thief, also being a Rogue and having 13 base DEX, can theoretically reach 25 DEX.
I try to avoid exploiting the above, but pure random play is so punishing I don't mind using it to my advantage just for the sake of getting acceptable levels of Find Traps/Open Locks; and this, along with Knock for a few more stubborn chests, is how we loot everything.
OK, we're running out of wilderness areas, but noticably we've yet to clear Mutamin's Garden, so proceed in that direction.
Cleric can rustle up three 5HD Skeleton Warriors, and together with Korax and ranged party assistance, they swiftly clear the map.
There's a good amount of experience available at Durlag's too, even if you can't venture into the lower levels due to the traps, so that's next up.
We've a lot of magical damage available, so the Battle Horrors/Doom Guards outside are no real concern.
We grab the WIS tome (of course it goes to Cleric), and tackle the Greater Basilisks on the roof.
The oodles of Ghasts inside futilely expend their aggressions on a wall of Skeleton Warriors as we shoot them down; we refrain from going into the Warder level for now.
We'll be back shortly though: With three Potions of Perception, we can already get to 100 Find Traps, we just need to make the most efficient use of their duration so we can clear the entire Tower without running low.
Alright, keep vacuuming up experience: Ulcaster's Dungeon is next.
Mustard Jellys are actually a problem for us, since we only have one magical weapon (with attendant proficient wielder...) that can hurt them, i.e., Fighter/Mage/Thief with The Stupefier. Cleric helps out with a Spiritual Hammer and a ton of buffs. At least Fighter/Mage/Thief can be quite liberal with Giant Strength/Heroism potion use, as he's the only one that can use them for pretty much all of BGEE, so that helps.
Wolf of Ulcaster then. You need at least two, preferably three Remove/Resist Fear to handle the constant dispels, and lots of magic damage is useful, both to kill the Wolf itself and to handle its spawning of Ghouls.
Things get a little dicey as we try to cheapskate our way out of this, and we end up having to use most charges on a merry-go-round application of our Wand of Frost (yes, surprisingly the Wolf isn't even resistant to Cold damage).
OK! That basically leaves the Western Seaboard. Droth is still vulnerable to Command and therefore no threat, and we clear the local Ogre tribe without them getting a single swing in, while Skeleton Warriors account for the pack of Sirines to the southwest.
At the Lighthouse, Sleep does for the local Hobgoblins, and again Skeleton Warriors (properly buffed) swiftly render the local Sirines moot; the Flesh Golems are just shot down from afar while they clobber the remaining Skeletons.
Here the CON tome goes to Cleric: Since Invoker is dualing so late, he would gain literally no benefit from it.
The only alternative would be Mage/Thief who could reach 15 CON once we had access to the Machine of Lum The Mad... but that's so far away, I'd rather take the measly extra hitpoints on Cleric right now.
Next, some looting of Nashkel tombs. The undead pose no threat by now, not even the Revenant, given our amount of magical damage.
I accidentally activate Narcillicus while we're still unbuffed, but we at least had Skeleton Warriors up, and they manage to cut him down before he does anything dangerous; they then provide a distraction as Cleric and Fighter/Mage/Thief laboriously deal with the two Mustard Jellies.
And finally, we swing by Firewine Bridge to relieve Meilum of a pair of bracers.
That's about all the experience we can squeeze out of the wilderness, although I've left the Red Wizard area alone for now;
back to Durlag's Tower.
Our intent is to finish clearing/looting the above-ground levels, and for that to happen, the Ghost must be removed.
It kills off four Skeleton Warriors and throws a Chain Lightning at Blade (which, after Boots of Grounding, dealt a mighty 4 damage.. not sure how that's possible, guess the Ghost rolled really badly), but then can't do much else.
As for Kirinhale, we just mob her: She has high Magic Resistance, but it's not impervious, and eventually enough spells get through to finish the job.
We quaff three Potions of Perception, detrap and loot what we didn't yet above-ground, then head down to the Warders.
Mage/Thief goes around under Invisibility and detraps everything first, then once the entire level is safe, the party follows.
The Skeleton Warriors down here are not the real deal, as they can be hit with non-magical weapons (and only seem to have 50% resistance to missile damage), which simplifies things.
The Mustard Jellies take a bit of time to deal with, but never get a hit in, and the Flesh Golems are just shot down at range.
Finally, we rest (at the entrance floor, there's a good chance you won't get interrupted there), then return to deal with the three Greater Dopplegangers under full buffs: Yep, Cleric reached L7, so we now have Recitation and Defensive Harmony available.
That and 5 Magic Missiles quickly settle things.
Having turned in three of the four Warden riddles, we emerge with a bit of experience, a fair bit of gold, and some very important spell scrolls for Enchanter.
So far, we have been running entirely on that single batch of scribing by Mage/Thief done via the Red Potion: Everyone else only knows a few first level spells.
This is because I ran the numbers on the guaranteed to be available Potions of Genius/Mind Focusing.
With our party setup and deplorable levels of INT, we can only scribe scrolls reliably (100% success rate for the specialists, >=95% for the generalists) twice per arcanist... and then Mage/Thief only gets to scribe once, with 75% success rate.
All assuming we get no such potion as a random drop, of course (which we haven't yet).
But now it is time for Enchanter to use one of his two shots. He quaffs three Potions of Mind Focusing and scribes nearly everything we have available or can buy from High Hedge, notably including Haste, Invisibility 10' Radius, and a bundle of Enchantment spells of fourth (from Ulgoth's Beard mainly) and fifth (from Durlag's Tower) level.
Finally, we have options. I'm reasonably confident we could've held on until we reached the city before scribing, but then again, I'm not certain... and there aren't many scrolls left for Enchanter in the game anyway, so he'll be fine.
This seems a good place to end things for now. We're sitting at the Friendly Arm Inn, preparing to delve into the Cloakwood; everyone is around 60k experience.
We've had some mixed blessings with level-up Thief skills as well as proficiencies, as for the former:
None of our Thieves have Open Locks/Find Traps above 30, but they're both decent at stealthing (Thief/Mage actually being good enough that I routinely have him stealth when scouting rather than using Invisibility), and Fighter/Mage/Thief has 40 Set Traps, which can be significantly boosted using Gauntlets of Dexterity/Cat's Grace when needed.
As for the latter:
Fighter/Mage/Thief picked Longbow at Fighter L3... which isn't bad, especially in BGEE, but I had really hoped he'd luck into a specialization, or at the least gotten a more devastating melee option. He also won't get another proficiency until early SoD, so is kind of stuck with what he's got: Basically Longbow and Mace, and a Club if he ever wants to backstab.
Invoker wasted his L6 proficiency on Dart, meh.
Enchanter picked up Sling at L6, which is good! But his THAC0 is so awful it doesn't matter, and he'll eventually get all proficiencies anyway.
Mage/Thief got Two-Weapon Style at Thief L4, which is pointless on him, but less so than for instance Sword and Shield Style, so yay?
Cleric got Club at L4. Which is the least good melee option for her, but it's still a melee option, so I'll take it.
And... Blade also got Club at L4. Yuck. Though to be fair, his 12 STR means he can't use Flails, only Morning Stars, so maybe it'll be helpful? There's just no way he'll ever pick up two or more pips in Two-Weapon Style anyway, and he already has the best ranged weapon proficiency, so maybe just accept the way things are.
.After killing him he went to find Marek - who was nowhere to be found. I guess I must have forgotten to talk to Lothander, so there's no way to cure the poison
@Grond0, you realize you can still finish the game without curing the poison right? I've done that before and then BG 2 is fine after import.
Thanks @Corey_Russell. I've done that a few times, but I guess I was still on a hunt for perfection - even though that particular chimera is once more disappearing into the distance .
'Long-life challenge' - 10 concurrent runs as a 10 year celebration {2} (1st and final update)
The logic of concurrent runs is that some classes may fall by the wayside on the way through the full BG games. However, I wasn't happy with how quickly that was happening in the first attempt at this, so restarted all 10 classes from scratch. The classes are the same as before, but I changed the order so that the game play always varies significantly between each successive run.
Given that one of my problems with no-reload is I tend to play as something of an adrenaline junkie, I've been trying to maintain interest by seeing how far each of the characters could get without taking any damage. There was some slight degree of success to that until I got to the dragon disciple. That should have been the easiest class to play, but a momentary movement error exposed me to the gaze of a basilisk. Perhaps I may have to accept that I'm not up doing so many concurrent runs successfully, but I'll restart them all once more - I think to be happy to continue I'd really like them all to at least get through BGEE together.
Summary points of interest for each class
Abjurer - last time this one completed the first session without taking damage, but this time things started poorly as he was hit early on by an ambushing hobgoblin archer on the way to the basilisk area. I didn't particularly try and avoid damage after that, but the only worrying moment was soon after when a movement error let Bassilus into range and a critical hit took away 21 of my 26 HPs. The reward for Bassilus did though allow me to buy invisibility and a range of other spells to make progress easier after that.
Cleric - another one took early damage and this time it was entirely my fault. After giving Zhurlong back his boots I attacked him, but did so in melee. Although his script requires him to retreat where possible, if he gets a good initiative roll he can attack before retreating - which he did in this case. There was one close call after that when I surrounded Kirinhale with summons to try and kill her before she teleported away. I think I must have got too close to her as she targeted me with a charm - which fortunately I saved against.
Blade - a blade is capable of completing BGEE without damage, so I was keen to do better with this than the previous two attempts. The early encounters were done nicely, but annoyingly I failed to learn all 3 invisibility scrolls at High Hedge (even allowing for a specialist learning penalty my chances of success with one of them were over 97%). That made progress more difficult, but I still almost got up to level 8 before taking damage. An attempted rest saw an ogre appear, but I was under offensive spin at the time and 2 quick shots made it lose its morale. I mistakenly thought that it was running and kept shooting, but it had gone berserk instead and hit me before I could move away. As with other classes there were plenty more hits taken after that, but the blade has survived up to the Nashkel Mine.
Kensai - a kensai is not well equipped to avoid damage, but this one made a reasonable stab at it by getting close to level 7. While scouting the red wizards of Thay I was spotted, but I didn't think they'd got a good enough look at me to do anything. However, when manoeuvring round I found one of them had come down from the platform and I had no way to counter the magic missile that followed. After that I played the character more like a typical kensai - killing the enemy before they could kill you. Constitution regeneration allowed me to heal between combats. I did have one lucky escape when damage failed to disrupt a sirine's charm and my saving throw was needed to save me.
Diviner - this time I paid up for genius potions in order to guarantee learning invisibility early on. Progress was generally pretty good and no damage has been taken so far. There was though one dangerous incident that could easily have led to death. In the cave in the area to the north of the Carnival I tried to kill the Ettercap using skull traps from out of sight. The first two were cast without problem but, even though there didn't seem to be any issue with line of sight, I started moving forward to cast the third spell. That triggered the web trap and I was immediately held. Fortunately, in moving forward I'd moved slightly towards the wall and was still just out of sight of the Ettercap. As soon as I broke free I came into its sight, but the delayed skull trap cast and killed it anyway.
Cleric dualling to thief - another one successfully completed up to the Nashkel mine without taking any damage. Other than the odd invisibility potion I just relied on choice of routes and timings to reduce the chance of nasty ambushes. There were still a number of shots fired at me, but the ankheg armor and belt of piercing meant things like hobgoblins and skeletons needed a critical to hit and none of them managed that. As far as I know there's no sure way to avoid the trap damage in the Nashkel Mine, so this character will almost certainly not be able to complete BGEE without taking damage. Using haste increases the chance a floor trap won't fire, so I'll do that. I'll also surround myself with summons to see if I can confuse the trap - that certainly helps with NPCs, though I'm not sure if summons have the same effect.
Dragon Disciple - this is comfortably the easiest character to avoid damage with, but after 2 successes in a row with other characters I failed very early on with this one. I started shooting at Algernon without blinding him and wasn't really paying attention - which proved costly when his morale broke and he attacked me in a berserk rage. Possibly because of that early disappointment I wasn't concentrating fully on arrival at the basilisk area. After killing the first of the group of 4 basilisks in the south Korax attacked the second - which immediately retaliated in melee. Korax retreated and I tried to blind the basilisk, but failed - and a second lesser basilisk appeared attacking in melee. Avoiding those attacking Korax while continuing to retreat directly away and try more blinds wasn't easy. I moved to one side to make the movement easier - and the greater basilisk appeared and gazed at me before I could get out of sight …
Vampires of Brynnlaw easily destroyed with MoD +2. Perth the Adept was grinded out with WoMS although the fight managed to spread out on the streets. Once we got Spell Turning from the Book we stopped turning pages. We gave a Intelligence point it the Dream. Spellhold handled mostly with summons. We also managed to talk to the Statue seven times for 29500xp a pop, before the door opened. You can do this by pressing talk quickly after 'end dialogue'. Getting out of the tests lv37 and we got our 10th Critical Strike.
In first battle with Irenicus we cast Farsight and sent one Fire Elemental to trigger his defenses. Once we saw long casting Earth and Fire Elementals being cast we sent four Elementals to kill them. They actually got Jon to injured state. Sent in another batch and once Jon was at near death we activated the battle, and he escaped almost immediatelly. Hid the ship during Githyanki assault. Sold all my loot for Shaguain Priestess and got 170k gold. Shaguain City was solid slashing with Skellies, lv38 and last spell slot. Shaguains had no chance against 5 Skelis and 340hp 6apr Tensered Tziri.
Chapter 5
Lv39 fighting some Drows with Skelies and Elementals, the last level was going to take a while with 1.62M xp needed. Vithal's Earth Elemental battle was much harder than I remember, as the main Elemental was just hit with Elemental Damage because of inifinite casting Stoneskins (similar to Ogremoch). My Elementals died and we had to use all of our HLA's. Fire Elementals were cunningly weak to lure us not to rebuff against Air Elementals. And they force threw us back constantly and I weren't getting even hits. Had to gas them out. Apparently Vithal died during the Cloudkills, so we missed Skull of Death which we couldn't use anyway. Time Stop and Simulacrum were the important ones. All in all much improved (harder) fight on Earth and Air.
Elemental and five Skelies were enough for the Machine Lich. The Balor was stoned first hit from Wand of Wonder. Kuo-toa ran over with Tensers, the Priest interrupted nicely through Sanctuary. Got Simulacrum as random loot which was nice. 50k to buy everything interesting from Ust Natha. 13x Mind Focus, Absorption, 95 MDR, -4 Save spell (-2 because our innate bonus v Mindies), with 349hp 12hppr 6apr Tenser's and 10x Critical Strikes we are a killing machine, and quickly destroyed them.
In the Mind Flayer dungeon two Tensers and Improved Haste combos with all HLA's were just enough v the first big party of Mindies. Rested for the second one and used same approach. But I was out of Tensers and HLA's with one Umber Hulk, Ulitharid and Mindie left. Had to drink one Stone Form, separate and pick up them 1on1. Another rest for Master Brain and once his party was lured away and smacked, we killed it with gas. Buffed one last time, but just picked up the Staff of Command and didn't bother fighting and just escaped. We got all we needed. Fire Control Ring, but more importantly Staff of Command and all three Control Circlet's.
PfU for Deirex and after dodging his Remove Magic's, MoD+2 destroyed him. Double crossed the Drow and left. Before giving up the Dragon eggs we visited the Demon Knights. Buffed up with Fear, Fire, SI:Abj, IH, Tensers and concentrated on the one with the Soul Reaver +4. Skelies were doing pretty well, so we continued and killed them all. We can't use Soul Reaver yet being good, but that will change in Abyss. Looted the Sling +4 from Beholder Dungeon with Mislead, and just left. Adalon pawned the entrance and we escaped.
Chapter 6
Kruin was killed by Elementals before he could even talk to us. 230k gold selling our loot to Ribald's special shop. Built Crom Fayer +5, Wave +4, Silver Sword +3, 25k, bought scrolls for 54k. 100k left after buying spree.
"Mistake Rune"
PfU for Shangalar and started slinging him with +3 Bullets after we saw he saved Azuredge at 3. Had a heart attack once my +3 Bullets ended and my char lunged on him with melee. This triggered his Magical Swords, but we parked them on the door with Invisibility. Once Shangalar was dead we backed up. None of them see through Invisibility, so we activated Layene's Hakeashars, and they followed us and we cast Elementals for them. With PfU still on we cast Improved Haste, Mislead and Tenser's and Whirwind 10apr MoD +2 quickly destroyed Shyressa. I attacked Revanek, but Layene summoned Cornugon so we backed up and waited it out. We tried Charming Vaxall with Staff of Command, but he repelled it and followed us to the entrance. We used Invisibility and managed to lose him. Improved Haste scroll, Mislead and hacked Revanek out.
But attacking Layenes Elementals was a huge mistake as she cast Fallen Planetar who teleported on us and cast True Sight. And no where to hide we were quickly double Dispelled. Had to use Magic Shielding to kite Planetar. Used Cloudkill trying to miscast Layene, got Dispelled again and had to use another Magic Shielding. Then Vaxall saw us and Anti-Magic Rayed and started following us. We ran to bottom of the map, Invis, and it worked, we lost him. Third Magic Shielding and continued kiting the Planetar in close quarters as Vaxall was still in the main room. His True Sight finally ended and kiting his Dispel projectile with our Innate Haste, it hit, and we again drank Invis potion. And at the same time it was unsummoned. Phew.
Then we had summoning competition with Layene, and she couldn't repell our never ending Elementals. We got the Staff of Magi, and then I remembered it's just for mages, and we don't even get the UAI. What an utter mistake this was. Four Skelies then easily killed Vaxall. We wasted 3 Magic Shieldings and about 10 Invis potions, which may come bite us back. Anyway we survived and got 30k worth of loot.
We cleared Forest of Tethir and North forest with summons and got 4th Time Stop of 9 available for us (including Limited Wish). Attacked Bodhi's lair without PfU as we tried saving them. This worked well enough with Improved Haste Tensers and MoD+2. Killed probably 10 Vampires. Tanova was still left, and she was too strong for us and once we saw CON at 4 we backed off. Fire Elementals were able to kill her. Then we still found the Guard who was even stronger and again got us to 4 CON and we backed off. After resting, waiting his protections out we finally got the killing blow. For battle v Bodhi we used PfU, and it was much easier fight. After killing all vampies, Drizzt was still alive and we hacked Bodhi to death twice. Also hit max lv40.
Chapter 7
Picked 5th Time Stop in Suldanesselar. The three Rakhashas are pretty op so priestess is pretty impossible to save without Time Stop. And she was not worth one. Had to gas the last one because my HLA's and Tensers were out. Our innate Acid Resistance was nice v Nizi as it took 9 hits from WoW to stone him. Summoned Rillifane who pwned the opposition. Also found Spell Trigger as loot. 220k gold selling my loot to Reirra. Irenicus was baited being invisible. Softened with 5x WoMS and killed by Skelis.
The Abyss
Wraith Sarevok was easily killed, and we used the STR tear twice with drop trick to get our STR to 24. We are going to try to get the last point from Watcher's Keep. We also got alignment change to evil, which meant we could use Soul Reaver +4 and get audience with Tahazzar. Took Cloak of Fear and evil path in Selfhisness. Dragon Stoned second hit from WoW, got another Time Stop. In test of Greed we Charmed the Genie with Staff of Command, gave the sword but stopped him from leaving. We used his spells to Gate Balor, which he fought a while wasting spells. Cast 4 Skelis to finish the job, but the Genie cast Death Spell to destroy them. Elementals finished it as he couldn't touch them. This way we got the good Tear with Blackrazor +3. We used the Tear three times for nice -6 save bonuses.
Tziri v Irenicus
Activated the fight with one Skeli, and backed off immediatelly. Once it was killed the Balors and Glabrezus teleported on to me, and we started kiting them with WoW. They kept casting Confusion and Domination, which wasn't going to work with our saves -3/-7-/-4/-5/-4. Permanent Haste is good here. It took 35 hits to Petrify them all.
We softened Slayer with WoMS. Saw Planetar and Improved Alacrity. It took 16 WoMS and 4 Haste scrolls to hack Slayers Stoneskins out. Once Slayer was getting damaged we approached with Invis, as I still hadn't seen Time Stop. And this obviously was his plan all along. Once we were in sight, Time Stop, Dimension Door, Maze, and we didn't have any Magic Resistance...
But that was not the end, we used Protection from Magic scroll, and it Dispelled the Maze before it activated. Summoned Skelis and Elementals, buffed, and attacked with 6apr Critical Strikes, and Slayer was done after four rounds.
Luckily I remembered that Maze escape tactic. Next we try to descend the Watcher's Keep, hopefully with better results this time.
Comments
Traveling with: Tcos (dwarven berserker), Jaheira, Mazzy, Yoshimo, Wewa (human wild mage)
We will soon go to Brynnlaw but first a final encounter with Firkraag. Our fear got dispelled then quite a few party members were running in fear. Also, our most powerful fighter Tcos forgot to use her enrage, and we really missed her hitting power. Our 6 snares and 5 summons weren't enough and one by one the party was killed. Then Firkraag near death and Jeanluc III were all that's left. To try to speed up the kill I had Jeanluc III switch to dual wielding two +2 hammers and miraculously Jeanluc prevailed with 12 HP to spare! Luckily there's a rod of resurrection to get his people back in business and no chunkings either. It's hard to get a fight closer than this.
EDIT:
Hmm apparently I spoke too soon. I discovered despite the fact the RoR "resurrrected" Tcos, and despite the fact I can even use her inventory, her figurine does NOT exist and also no body in the inventory screen. I think she got "chunked". So I did lose a character after all. Going to replace her with Keldorn. Will keep at it.
Yes. Remember there is NO Figurine and no body showing in inventory screen - she is chunked.
MORE INFO:
So I did the load, tried to zone out but could not because game says to gather the party before venturing forth - but gathering 6 figurines is impossible as Tcos figurine doesn't exist. So am bugged out have to remove Tcos to leave the area.
I was fighting the illithids in the sewers when my character was trying to range an enemy and got too close and stunned. Then an illithid drained Jeanluc III's brains out - RIP Jeanluc III.
What's next: not sure.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1219739/#Comment_1219739
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1219769/#Comment_1219769
There were no great problems in Jon's dungeon. Generally fists were used, though that wasn't always possible - for instance they are not able to reach the mephit portals. Ulvaryl failed to make his escape.
After exiting to the Promenade, Clinch went straight after Mencar's gang. Brennan was blinded before a skull trap and then ice storm softened things up a bit. With the others dead I tried to grapple Brennan, but he saved and then ignored his blindness to make his exit at near-death through a non-existent gap.
At the Copper Coronet the Beastmaster was unable to put up much of a fight. The XP from giving Hendak control of the premises took Clinch to level 13 and access to level 6 spells. That includes the kit spell based on Tenser's Transformation. That greatly improves his attacks with weapons - without affecting his ability to cast magic magic. While it nerfs a basic fist attack, it does improve the magic fist (and double HPs). Here Clinch finishes clearing the upper Graveyard by dethroning the Crypt King - helped by a THAC0 of -7, 4 APR (without haste) and AC of -14.
After a few more encounters without trouble, Clinch once more suffered a near-death experience against - this time against Dracandros. He attempted to paralyze the enemy mage using ghoul touch, without considering the possible impact of spell turning - that resulted in him paralyzing himself. Fortunately he was using the 'greater' version with a duration of only 2 rounds and he recovered just as Dracandros was casting chaos at him. He ran for the nearby doorway and managed to get through that despite being confused - and no-one came after him. A sunfire then saw the back of Dracandros. Another little glitch in that area was absent-mindedly casting a spell when Hareishan arrived for the first vampire ambush - I'm sure that will not be the only time I have to watch out for those Cowled Wizards. I also picked up the silver pantaloons - even though they are unlikely to be helpful for this character.
Returning to the Graveyard Clinch took the odd risk in clearing the lower areas - ignoring the possibility of being held by ghasts or drained by a vampire (though they needed a 20 just to hit him). Finishing off the last of the spider groups took him to level 14 - though that gained no extra spells for him.
Coming back from the Graveyard Clinch rescued Renfeld - one-shotting the mage there. Rather than continue with that quest immediately he buffed up for the City Gates lich - successfully beating down its defences, though HPs had got low enough by then that a PW:stun would have been fatal. While in the area he also saved Sansuki from some vampires - note in the screenshot that he was once more caught casting spells in the City (but got out of sight range before the Cowled Wizards appeared). The Amnian soldier killed one of the wizards and another was beaten unconscious when they fought among themselves. Clinch cast a skull trap to kill that one and would then have tried to finish the others. By now though the timer had reset and more of the scum were arriving. He did manage to get out of sight of the new ones though and killed one of the two remaining from the original group with a scorcher. The last one fortunately didn't seem to have any aggressive spells left and was duly beaten to the ground.
He crushed the Fallen Paladins next to gain some reputation and then went on to find some illithium - taking down Neb before he could summon any help. Handing his head in took reputation to 17 and Clinch decided it was time to go to Trademeet to be able to boost that to 20. None of the genies there lasted long enough to even try and petrify Clinch (who had bulletproof saves anyway). Moving on to the Grove some trolls were swiftly disposed of to move Clinch to level 15 - picking up another 0.5 APR bonus there. After watching Cernd slaughter Faldorn Clinch reported back to Trademeet to get his reward. He quickly built on that by clearing a tomb and helping Tiris - pushing reputation up to 20 as a result.
Clinch hadn't yet got around to buying a cloak that would enable him to push charisma to 20 to get the best shop prices. To do that he returned to the Dock District. While there he finished dealing with the harpers - taking retribution on Lucette for killing Xzar. He also did the Mae-Var tasks, by-passing Rayic's PfMW with his fists and belatedly noticing that he'd picked up a level for reporting back to Edwin. Mae'Var was of course helpless when attacked. Clinch now had theoretical access to 7th level spells, but hadn't actually got around to learning any of those. With shop prices now at a minimum though and 120k or so cash, Clinch went on a bit of a spending spree - and spell learning XP gained him another quick level.
I think it's about time Clinch went in search of the Ring of Gaxx - so that will be next on the agenda.
Force Wizard L17, 99 HPs (inc. 12 from familiar and 9 from ioun stone), 392 kills (+574 in BGEE/SoD)
Edit: @semiticgoddess I'll respond further about the kit at the end of the run. I'll note here though that I was rather dozy in not recognizing that force wizards could not use enchanted weapon. That's less of a problem than I might have thought though as the 6th level transformation spell boosts magic fists as well as equipped weapons. I'm not sure if that was your intention as that means magic fists benefit from APR increases from both the basic kit and the spell. I've not done it yet, but adding in improved haste will mean enemies facing a flurry of fists at 10 APR
weidu.log
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Expanded Dual-Class Options: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited ammo stacking: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited potion stacking: v17
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1510 // Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1520 // Include bard songs from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // Core Stratagems spell-system changes (installed by default by any AI component): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Add 9 new arcane spells: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2510 // Add 6 new divine spells (some borrowed from Divine Remix): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3015 // Re-introduce potions of extra-healing: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // More Appropriate-Speed Bears: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4020 // More realistic wolves and wild dogs: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7020 // Improved deployment for parties of assassins: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7030 // Improved kobolds: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7040 // Relocated bounty hunters: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity assassins: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7150 // Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: 35.21
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2360 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Single-Classes: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2380 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Kits: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2371 // Alter Dual-Class Restrictions -> Allow non-humans to dual-class: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2350 // Alter Multi-Class Restrictions -> Allow humans to multi-class: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2390 // Alter Paladin Spell Progression Table -> Paladins Use Icewind Dale-Heart of Winter Spell Tables [grogerson]: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2400 // Alter Ranger Spell Progression Table -> Rangers Use Icewind Dale-Heart of Winter Spell Tables [grogerson]: v17
~EXPANDEDCLASSES/EXPANDEDCLASSES.TP2~ #0 #32 // Kuo-toa Disciple Kit for Bards: v2.0
Started new solo run the exact same way as usual.
250xp Intro
Killed Imoen for Oil of Speed and WoMM
Killed Xzar and Montaron for Oil of Speed with WoMM
Killed Neera for Gem Bag with WoMM
900xp Marl
Killed Algernon for Charm Cloak
Beregost Manor Invis potion
400xp Noober lv2
Gnolls killed Drizzt (Charmed Jembyl stop Drizzt attacking them) got Scimitars +3 and Mithral Chain which we could wear
Nashkel Manor Invis potion
125xp Vitiare ranged casually and only took cool 1209 arrows
900xp Hentold Dagger and 3rd Invis potion lv3
1000xp Albert
2035xp Tenya's Bowl lv4 *Scimitars
Bought the 3 Invis scrolls and Potion Case from High Hedge
Used one Invis scroll and potion to pick up WoMS
5000xp Shoal killed by WoMS lv5
Killed Dushai with WoMS for Ring of Free action and Web
Bought Rep to 10
Bought Shield Amulet
Invis Scroll to reach Mulahey who was Charmed and killed by Kobbo's, Invis potion to escape
Chapter 3
800xp Joseph's Ring
650xp Charmed Minsc killed Nimbul, got Familiar and additional 22hp in LoB mode
Bought rep to 12, Oublek 13, Mulahey Symbol 14 1000xp, Drienne's Cat 15 200xp, Firebead 16 300xp
Brage 17 1000xp, Samuel 18 500xp
975xp Charmed Marl ko'd Tranzig
4000xp Kirinhale lv6 and we finally got lv2 spell slot for Invisibility
3750xp Charmed Riggolo killed Ghost
1400xp 2xWoMS killed Riggolo
Used 2xIntelligence potions to scribe Invis
Lamalha Waylay happened and we had Invis on, but our free Charm attempt didn't work, so we missed the first Power Potion.
3500xp Charmed Meilum killed Kahrk, and we got Magi Katana +2 that improves casting level and speed by one. Only Bards and F/M can use it. I think it's few of the items that SCS adds. With it we can cast Invis with 1 casting time and Slow Poison instantly.
1200xp Tried to get Meilum killed by Kobbo's but he slaughtered them all, but was then too weak to survive WoMS. We had just enough money to buy Sandthief ring for 16k gold. Raiken escorted us to Bandit camp, where we Charmed Taurgosz who got killed by Zombies and Skelies. We equipped the ER Boots and with our natural resistance we already had 75 ER, so we only needed a Sandthief charge to escape the tent.
Chapter 4
Cloakwood passed with Invisibility, Tiber's body right-click looted 800xp. Molkar waylay happened, and we got free Charm attempt, but again it didn't work so we missed the only Detect Illusion scroll. Drasus Charmed first try and he killed the rest of them and one guard before getting WoMS 5870xp. Before going to mines we bought all scrolls from HH to have scribing session once we got Knock. Charmed Davaeorn's Guard who lured Battle Horrors away and then killed Davaeorn 6000xp lv7, which doesn't give spell slots as it was first lv3 slot. Used 3 Intelligence potions and scribed everything other than Cloudkill as Bards can't cast it before BG2. My plan was to loot everything with Knock, but we only had one lv2 slot, so we wasted one Sandthief charge to loot the Laer Tear chest. My last WoMS wasn't strong enough to kill the Mustar Jelly either so we just left, 2000xp 20rep.
Chapter 5
Looted CHA and CON tomes with Invisibility for 20/20 economy. First Power Potion from Black Lily, 16k gold for WoMS recharge.
5000xp Tremain's Son. Lothander was pre Charmed and stopped leaving 1x WoMS 5500xp. 2x WoMS handled Marek 10650xp. 2x WoMS for Ragefast 4000xp lv8 * Flail and finally second lv2 slot. Ramazith pre Charmed and his own summons killed him 4000xp. In this run the Amplifier is really useful. Euric's Amulet for OGL and 1500xp. 1500xp Brun's Son and recharged the WoF. Bought Greenstone Amulet and looted Durlag's couple upper chests for Invis potion and WIS tome. 1x WoMS Lesser Basilisk 1400xp, 11x WoMS for the three Greater ones 21000xp. WoMS for Girdle Ogre 270xp. Tarnesh WoMS 120xp. Joia's Ring WoMS 505xp. In Firewine Ruins we used WoMS to move Kobbo's as they blocked the way to Lendarn. WoMS handled Lendarns mob for 2750xp, but more importantly for second Power Potion and Cloudkill scroll. WoMS Seven Suns 7100xp lv9 and first 3rd lv spell slot. Another Spell learning session.
Did Ice Island for the longest time as I wanted to see what was there, which was nothing really, but WoMS handled all the mages and other enemies for 24600xp. Resar Charmed and after he wasted his spells he was killed by WoMS. Got Fireshield Blue. Naaman Charmed and killed by Assassins. Charmed Diyab lured Kaalos away and he was killed by WoMS 2001xp. Thaldorn WoMS 975xp. Aasim lured Shennara away to be killed by WoMS 2001xp. Then WoMS handled the rest for 9600xp.
Chapter 6
Ogre Mage waylay passed with Invis potion. Iron Throne Charmed and they killed themselves, Tuth and Brunos got WoMS 5400xp. Charmed Sakul and he was killed by Spiders for his scrolls.
Chapter 7
After killing the Eltan's Greater Doppelganger with WoMS we finally got lv10, with no additional spells but nice 102hp. Quenash Charmed for Slythe. The pair grinded out by WoMS, got additional Skull Trap scroll. Denak'sp party Fireballed from afar for Ring of Energy which we recharged. Pickpocketed Dead Shot +2 first time from Ghost Knight naturally 100 (95), never new it was this easy. From Durlag's Tower Warder level we got our third Cloudkill. The level was mostly cleared by WoMS.
Tziri v Love. With Greenstone Amulet and Speed we tried to lure Fear and Avarice to level above, but they didn't want to follow. So we first used the repeating Fireball trap to kill Avarice, which took couple healing sessions level above, and in about hour mark Avarice was dead. Separating Love from Fear was easy as Fear is slower and seems to want to stay where Love spawns. We kited Love around the table with Greenstone Amulet and Ring of Energy, and after 44 hits he was dead too. Looted the next level including 5 Haste Scrolls and Durlag's Goblet.
WoMS hunted some Mages, SS upstairs for Spider Spawn, Shangalars daughters for 4th OGL and Web scroll, and Sunin for his ring for money transfer for SoD. The mages could do little with us level skipping when they started casting. Zal WoMS for Archer Bracers. Third Scribe session except for everything except Animate Dead and Cloudkill.
For the Palace Ambush we didn't have great summons nor great damage, but we did have Dispel Arrows. So we went with least risky approach and Charmed the Assassin, Shaman and Mage Doppelgangers. Three Greater Ones were easily dispatched with Dispel Arrows and WoMS. Assassin and Shaman followed no problems. For Mage we drank Magic Shielding, but the Mage dispelled it immediatelly, Greenstone Amulet. The Mage wreaked havoc for a while summoning a lot of help, but we got Dispel hit on him and he soon fell, although we needed 3 Goblet refreshes. After looting the Palace we cleared the way to Sarevok, 5xWoMS killed Tamoko for 10k gold by items.
We still got the Kirian's Party to deal with, and I also wanted to try something else. So after buying and recharging everything we still had 3700 gold (top of our valuables) so we bought 37 Stone to Flesh scrolls. We Charmed the Lesser Basilisk and used Green PfP on it. It then first stoned the Greater Basilisk 37 times, and then Kirian's party.
Tziri v Sarevok. Sarevok's gang was revealed with Detect Invisibility, and we found a spot where all of them were hit with Fireball, and after 36 explosions all of his minions were gone. And after using 88 Fireballs total Saravok dropped dead too. We then woke up in Korlasz tomb with cool 452601xp, getting lv12 immediately with additional lv3 and lv4 slots.
For BG I kept tracking mostly these items, as they're useful for Bards, and we didn't miss that much.
10/11 Stone Forms, missed Lamalha (we have 2 penalty v spells)
2/3 Power Potions, missed Lamalha
3/3 Cloudkills
7/7 Skull Traps, learned one
No Detect Illusion with failed Molkar waylay
Some additional notes:
- Scrolls are cast in their original strenght (-50%) and duration (-25%) so our penalties don't affect them and that makes them more useful
- Sometimes quickslot icon shows 1 Invisibility even though I don't have that anymore. Might be problem switching up Amplifier on and off together with the spell slot penalty mechanic.
- The Kuo-Toa Disciple Bard song wasn't that great. 40% panicking makes enemies harder to kill if they aren't cornered, 40% of Feeblemind for one round just makes them not hit one round. 15% of Stun for one round is the only useful thing. But suffering the Panic more frequently isn't worth it. Also does LoB mode still have some saving throw problems, as I found the song work far too easily?
EDIT:
- seems that we got permanent Haste at lv12, although we are supposed to get it lv15, so it's probably switched with targeting the invisible perk
- we still have the normal lore value, so the one-half penalty isn't working
chaotic good
STR 19 DEX 18 CON 20 INT 11 WIS 4 CHA 18
Traveling with: Shar-Teel, Viconia, Jaheira, Branwen, Imoen
SPECIAL: For this run, only female NPCs can join the group - in case of couples like Khalid/Jaheira or Minsc/Dynaheir the male can join but as soon as practically possible is removed from group. This is why Krendon is a fighter/thief as there are not a lot of female fighter types and also the only female thieves in BG 2 is Nalia (not very good) or Hexxat but Hexxat quest very hard so it's more convenient if the main character is a thief.
Party is about level 5. Ankhegs was dicey with only 30 HP for my tank (my character), but to make sure Krendon survived I had used a protection form acid scroll on Krendon for this leg. Basilisks done with help of PfP green scroll, Kirian's party hurt bad by silences and entangle. Pirate Cave area, Sirines taken out with help of clarity potion. Golems were difficult as we had no way to disarm traps it seems but Jaheira's partial resistance to charm helped for one trap.
About to venture in to Nashkel mine next...
We woke up in Korlasz Tomb with 452k xp so we maxed immediatelly to lv12 with additional lv3 and lv4 spells. We also got permanent Haste which was supposed to come lv15, but we didn't mind. Invisibility to Porios, Invisibility and PfU to Korlasz. 5 OGL/Invisibility combos made them surrender, and we already hit the xp cap. In Baldur's Gate we sold enough valuables to buy everything interesting from SS. Killed Viconia for the first Bard head gear.
Chapter 8
Not much to do because of xp cap, but just getting the useful items. Teleria doesn't aggro if not talked to, got Stone Ally. Menhir quest for Bard gear, Reed of Echoes being the most useful thing with additional spell slots. Interestingly it disables Single-Weapon Style bonuses. Listened Dwarves getting killed, used PfU and made a pact with the Lich. Easily helped Vampire Tsolak, mostly to get Biter +2 to BG2. Hid behind the Tent for parlay. Power Potion (3) from the Bridge.
Chapter 9
Picked first Enchanted Weapon scroll from the Troll Cave with two Invis potions. Got Elven Chain from the waylay that had the Myconid cave. It's our armor for SoD as it allows spell casting, and is usable with +2 Ring. Morentherene Daggered, Ziatar burned afar. Buffed up and ran past Neothelid and Charmed Akanna second try, and her Aerial Servant killed her. Got Detect Illusion scroll from the chest. Mohad Flintborn had one Power Potion, but we weren't going to risk it. In the Fort we bought bunch of Potions from the store, and held for the Kendra's Chain, although I'm probably not going to use it in DR load out. With it (5), Gargoyle Cloak (5) and our innate 21, we can have 31 DR v Slashing. But Amulet +2 is more useful because of our bad saves. Barghest had the next Power Potion, but we weren't going to risk pickpocketing it. Surrendered Fort, Bridge Mage interrupted with Ring of Energy and WoMS and Stone Ally cleared the way.
Chapter 10
208k gold selling our valuables to the Genie. Bought everything including 5 Power Potions from Belegarm. Questing for items, most notably: Martyr's Morningstar, Orog Chieftain Charmed for -4 v Slashing Belt (cursed), PfU OGL and 2x Magic Protection to loot Undead Cave for Amulet of Silence and Lesser Fire Elemental scroll, taiming the Troll for Sindret got Power Potion, getting the items for Waizahb another Power Potion, Bellowgulp Power Potion, listened Drows kill Therli's mob for Cloak of Gargoyle to stop criticals and up our damage resistance to 26, PfU to pick up Lesser Air Elemental and Minor Spell Turning from Kanaglym, three Power Potions from Polvi, 2x Magic Protection to loot Hephernaans chest for Crown of Lies, Spell Immunity and Spell Shield.
Troll Wave - pre 18 Skull Traps, 2 Webs, Cloudkill, 4 Skelis, Stone Ally and 11 Detonators
Mage Wave - pre 3 Webs, 2 Cloudkills, Stone Ally and 15 Detonators. Tought we escaped stupid Stysich Dispel, but he still cast that after the fight. What a genius.
Paladin Wave - pre 3 Webs, 4 Cloudkills, 4 Skelis, used all Myconids, 17 Detonators and one Goblet
Final Wave - 4 Skelis, 2 Web Sequencer, 18 Detonators and one Goblet
Ashatiel grinded 1on1 which took a lot of time with our bad Thac0, and in the end we used Ring of Energy to deal her. Didn't farm any Power Potions in the battle, but we found one on the ground, which brought the total to 15 v Bel. Picked up the second Enchanted Weapon scroll from the book case and recharged our stuff last time with Belegarm. We tricked Trix with double talk to open the doors straight away.
Tziri v Belhifet
Violet, 4xPfF, 3xPfC, 2xPfE, 2xPfA, 14xMind Focus, PfP, Defense, Fortitude, Shielding, Clarity and started lift. Myconids, Stone Ally and Hope. First wave done in 5 rounds. The second one took a lot more time with the annoying disappearing Hellcats, and had to use another Shielding. The third was again faster and once the Green Abishai was left, we started final buffing round. Fortitude, Defense, 2xStone Form, Enchanted Weapon, 7xPower, killed the Abishai, 2xPower, Clarity, Hope, Blur, Fire Shield Blue, escaped Bel's Dispel and used Strength to lower Bel's Thac0 from -12 to -9. After couple Fireshield Blues Bel was already at near death, but at that point our Power started failing, and I was forced to use just Goblet to stay alive. Now it was just a waiting game if our saves failed, Goblet ended or we got the final hit. And the luck was on our side today and we got the final hit when all of our hp buffs were gone. Hephernaan also took some time with bad Thac0 and summons, but there wasn't really risk anymore. The fight lasted longer and were closer than I anticipated. I'm thinking once Power starts failing, I should test going Invisible to break up, and then rebuffing. Maybe next time.
We imported our game to BG2 with nice 702545xp and we will start straight from lv13. But again it seems that mod kit doesn't want to import correctly, and we are just a Bard. Did you manage import your Force-Wizard perfectly to BG2? @Grond0
EDIT: got it working, just had to uninstall Favored Soul mod kit first
Clinch - Force Wizard (update 5)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1219739/#Comment_1219739
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1219769/#Comment_1219769
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1219816/#Comment_1219816
In the temple sewers the Rakshasa was no match for magic fists. An incendiary cloud left only one of Tarnor's group to be finished off by fists. Mekrath swiftly followed before Clinch went after some liches, using a PfU scroll. Kangaxx's physical resistance and regeneration were pretty good protection against magic fists - but not good enough.
At Watcher's Keep, Clinch went in search of an ammo container. Immediately after getting that he beat up a pair of golems before presenting a gift to a lich to get up to level 18 and gain his first HLA. None of those available are magical in nature, but emphasise the physical attacks of the force wizard. In this case Clinch took hardiness - that's the same as the basic fighter ability, except that it gives 30% extra protection rather than 40% (presumably for balance reasons as force wizards gain a permanent 30% physical protection as they increase in levels). Before leaving, Clinch opened the portal to the next level and demolished the guarding statues - attacking at 8 APR.
Next up he paid Gaelan Bayle and switched the Claw for the +2 RoP. That was to avoid a particular weakness against death saving throws before invading the Planar Prison and taking on the Master of Thralls. In the event the Master did not have time to gaze at Clinch anyway before being beaten to the floor. The Warden didn't fare much better and killing the supporting yuan-ti provided another level. This time Clinch took shatter skull - allowing him to do 100 additional crushing damage with an attack once per day.
Turning once more to the Unseeing Eye quest, Clinch went to get the first half of the Rift Device. For once, there were no beholders blocking the bridge so that was no problem. Underground, Clinch meleed a lich the old fashioned way. He did use his shatter skull on a greater mummy - that worked, but the mummy's resistance to crushing damage kept it alive for a second or two longer. That did though confirm the ability lasts for 3 rounds (like smite) rather than being a one-off attack (like harm). The HLA description seems to suggest it should be a single attack only, so I'm not sure what was intended here.
Inside the beholder hive, a skull trap sequencer helped deal with a large group of beholders. Ghoul touch and the Pixie Prick dagger helped disable a few other beholders before they could do much damage and Clinch picked up another level doing that - this time taking power attack (same as fighter HLA). The Unseeing Eye was then Rifted and Fisted. Groups of beholders and undead had arrived to try and prevent Clinch from returning the rift device, but he was not caught unawares and a first use of simulacrum helped deal with them.
At the de'Arnise Hold, Clinch tore through the trolls downstairs before a spot of cooking gave him level 21. That improved his saves as far as they will go and provided him with a critical strike (same as fighter HLA). The rest of the enemies proved no more effort than the earlier ones and Clinch told Nalia to take a hike and stop bothering him about joining the party.
At Umar Hills the mimic took a long time to activate, but did finally make a (brief) appearance. Moving on, some low-grade undead were swept aside before Clinch picked up another level for talking with a stone idol. Just for the hell of it Clinch took deathblow as an HLA. Inside the temple he tried using Greater Crushing Hand for the first time on a lich. It saved though and didn't take any damage at all (save should have just halved the damage). Possibly the damage was blocked by stoneskin, though that would seem a bit surprising against a level 9 spell. Incendiary cloud did the job though - with a simmy keeping the lich occupied in it. I've always enjoyed punching dragons, so was glad to get the excuse here. Thaxy was already at near death from a 10 APR assault with magical fists by the time he choked out a PfMW spell. Clinch just turned off his magical fists though and, still at 10 APR with improved haste, finished him off with a normal fist (imbued with extra flame). While buffs were still active, Clinch took the few seconds required to beat up the Shade Lord.
On his way to collect Valygar's body, Clinch double-checked that Greater Crushing Hand could be an effective spell against one of the guarding rangers. A bit more shopping followed, including purchasing the Sling of Everard - and then immediately selling that back rather than Arla's Dragonbane
Force Wizard L22, 110 HPs (inc. 12 from familiar and 10 from ioun stone), 751 kills (+574 in BGEE/SoD)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1219739/#Comment_1219739
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1219769/#Comment_1219769
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1219816/#Comment_1219816
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1219873/#Comment_1219873
Inside the Planar Sphere it didn't take Clinch long to gain another level by beating up some unpleasant halflings. He took whirlwind as the last of the 6 HLAs available to him - even though the penalty that gives to THAC0 and damage means that getting 10 APR using improved haste is rather more attractive. I normally let a summons deal with Lavok, but as Clinch is not using those this run he just waded in with magic fists. Those were not deterred by improved mantle so it only took seconds to subdue the mage. Tolgerias and his mage friend were even less successful as their skulls were shattered in quick succession. There were no problems in getting the sphere back home - which was enough for yet another level.
The last of the external areas was the Windspear Hills. None of the early enemies that stood to face Clinch lasted long, but he did have to chase for some time after one of the greater wolfweres that kept losing its morale. A rare use of grapple held it in place for 2 rounds, but that wasn't quite sufficient to finish it off - Clinch eventually found a critical to do the job. Another couple of groups of golems and Clinch was up to level 25.
Progress had been pretty easy for some time, but death is usually just moments away in Baldur's Gate if you fail to pay attention and Clinch's end came in that fashion. He didn't have any fire protection spells memorized, but did have fire shield (red) and I activated that to provide some resistance against fire spells from the genies. I was thinking of things like flame strike there and didn't consider that, in addition to targeted spells, they also used fire shields themselves. Those can interact to rack up damage extremely quickly, so if you are not immune to the damage you need to be concentrating to be able to move away immediately that starts to happen - and I wasn't …
A few afterthoughts on the Force Wizard for @semiticgoddess (and thanks for all your time and effort putting kits together
One of the reasons I usually prefer to play solo is that gives a much better feel for the distinctive elements of character classes and kits. In a party, differences need to be much greater in order to stand out. In a group, the huge increase in melee ability (both attack and defence) of the force wizard would be enough for them to take over a fighter's role - though that probably wouldn't happen until the latter stages of BGEE. However, it probably wouldn't add to the overall power of the party as the loss in spells would counteract the melee benefits. Therefore, for party play, the kit is probably reasonably balanced.
For solo play it felt rather overpowered. Like all mages, buffing makes a significant difference, but towards the end of this run there were few things that could really threaten Clinch even when totally unbuffed - so buffing was more to do with speeding up victories than enabling them. If you wanted to reduce the power a bit (and as I said above, you might not want to as most people use parties) you could consider:
- reducing the APR benefit of transformation from 2 to 1 and not allow dual-wielding (that would stop the force wizard from getting 10 APR with improved haste and make WW more meaningful).
- reducing or removing the AC benefit from transformation (together with standard mage defenses that makes them arguably too difficult to hit). For similar reasons you could reduce the base AC benefit, so this only goes down to 4 rather than 0.
Given that the force wizard should have fighter-level abilities when unarmed, I would also suggest reducing the penalties from WW from 4 to 2 - which again will make that a more realistic option to take as an HLA. I would also be inclined to strengthen the grapple ability. I think this is supposed to be a distinctive feature of the class, but I found it was almost always crowded out by other things. You could for instance take away the possibility of a saving throw and extend the duration to 5 rounds. If you wanted to, you could also apply a movement penalty to the force wizard as well as the opponent. That would give the same sort of effect you see with blades or dwarven defenders where you have to consider in advance the wisdom of using a powerful tactic if that makes it more difficult to withdraw from a losing encounter ...
As noted here, it's coming up for 10 years since I started my attempt to complete the full set of unmodded BG games with all 76 possible class combinations. Thus far I've only been successful with 17 of those, so need to rack up successes at a significantly higher rate to give myself any chance of completing the overall challenge.
In an attempt to maintain motivation and make a real dent in the required numbers, I'll do concurrent runs with 10 randomly chosen classes. I've found in the past that it can be helpful to do that type of grouping. The downside is that if/when any of the group die that causes a major loss of motivation to continue with the others. I'll thus have to try hard to avoid any early deaths or the 10 year celebration could rapidly turn into a wake ...
The characters chosen are:
Dragon Disciple
Blade
Cleric/mage
Diviner
Cleric
Abjurer
Stalker
Monk
Cleric dualling to thief
Kensai
I won't do any detailed write-ups, but just note down any points of interest when providing overall progress updates. The 10 years will be up on 12th March 2026, so I'll aim to complete all the runs by then
Previous updates:
Almost straight away bad habits reasserted themselves. An example was when attacking the golems at High Hedge after buying just 10 +1 bullets. In order to kill both golems with so few bullets it would be necessary to get most hits while offensive spin was active - and that tempted me to take a second shot at a golem while still inside the building. It was still a safe distance away at the time I fired, but enemies are able to leave buildings before the point at which you can do so - and arrive outside further away than you can. I was well aware of the possibility that would allow the golem to get an attack in outside, but took the risk anyway - and the golem duly managed an attack and rolled a critical hit. I'd already killed Shoal at that point, so was at level 4 - but 27 HPs was much too low to be safe from a critical. However, fortune favored me that time and I survived the hit.
That should have shocked me into playing more safely - but failed to do so. Shortly afterward, at the basilisk area, I picked up a couple more levels before trying to tackle Kirian's group. At that stage I didn't know invisibility or blind and tried to draw just Baerin away. While that can often be done, it's not foolproof and I found Lindin and Peter had followed him. Peter targeted me with a rigid thinking spell, which would have been virtually certain to be fatal if it had taken effect while the others were in sight - but I saved.
At that point I went to buy invisibility and blind and came back to use those in conjunction with stinking cloud to safely kill that party. I still didn't mend my ways though and the next enemy attacked was Bassilus. He can be pretty safely attacked by retreating out of his sight before he casts, or by disappearing before his spell completes. However, I got greedy by trying to get a shot in before using invisibility. My initiative roll wasn't quite good enough to allow that and I disappeared a fraction of a second after he finished the spell. Invisibility is of course no protection against a spell projectile already launched and this time rigid thinking took effect while I was still in sight range. Lady luck had clearly got fed up with helping me out and I attacked Bassilus a few rounds later - and then stood there like a lemon when he came in to beat me up ...
The original aim was not to continue with any characters that died, but it's so early on that I'm going to allow the blade to restart in order to keep the group of 10 together. That won't of course be much help if I can't stop myself taking risks, but who knows - maybe it is possible to teach an old dog new tricks
@histamiini Great work. Your consistency in planning is legendary, friend. I have no idea how you keep all that in your head at once.
I've got some tweaks and bugfixes set up--
-Force Wizard's Transformation nerfed to +1 APR and no AC bonus
-Force Wizard's Ghoul Touch spell stays on the caster for 10 rounds instead of 5, and the paralysis duration is increased to 3 rounds.
-Grapple will last 5 rounds, slow the caster's movement for 2 rounds, and have a save penalty of -2 that grows to -4 at level 14
-Whirlwind Attack has its attack and damage penalties reduced from -4 to -2
-Shatter Skull should only trigger once (it will be blocked by Stoneskin)
-The Kuo-Toa Disciples should have the proper lore nerf, and the description will correctly say that the haste comes at level 12 and true seeing comes at 15
-Kuo-Toa Disciples should have their proper elemental resistances and weaknesses
-A Kuo-Toa Disciple's bard song will have a 75% chance of applying Feeblemind and a 25% chance of applying stun, with no chance of fear.
--but right now I'm finishing up a new kit for the mod, the Bog Witch, my first shaman kit, before release. I'd toyed with the idea of doing a bog witch-themed kit one day, and only now am I finally settling on it. It's a summoning-focused shaman that pays Hit Points, current and maximum, to summon stronger monsters with no chance of failure.
Let me know if you think any of the above changes should be tweaked further.
As for the Kuo-Toa Disciple being able to get around its spellcasting weaknesses by casting from scrolls: I don't know if I can change that behavior, but fortunately, it makes conceptual sense. A Kuo-Toa Disciple is a bad spellcaster; using a scroll might be more effective than relying on their own abilities. It fits the Red Soul and Green Soul kits as well: a scroll would ostensibly be more "default magic" than either kit's.
As for the Kuo-Toa Disciple not being able to pick HLAs, I'm not sure. I wasn't able to replicate the behavior when I tested it.
The Damage Resistance might be slightly too much in the end, which I'm not close to yet but thinking ahead. I've got Ascension installed so I'll end up in 49 innate + 25 Ascension + 20 DoEH in 94 DR at the end. Of course I don't know if you can design mod around other mods, and it might even not be too much at the end. Currently I'm thinking 20 at the beginning and 5 every 10 levels would be optimal, that way it would be 25 DR at BG and 40 DR at BG2. I think the elemental resistances and weaknesses are just about right.
All in all I'm really digging Kuo-Toa Disciple. It got just right amount weaknesses/strenghts and spice in it, like the permanent Haste and Invisibility Detection that are usually reserved for enemies. And you can even turn to Kuo-Toa for full rp.
Shadows of Amn
weidu.log
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #0 // Rewritten Final Chapter of Throne of Bhaal: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #10 // Balthazar can be redeemed: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #20 // Improved Sarevok-Player Interactions: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #30 // Improved Imoen-Player Interactions in Throne of Bhaal: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #40 // Restored Bhaalspawn Powers: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #50 // Improved Slayer Transformation: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Tougher Abazigal: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1100 // Tougher Balthazar: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1200 // Tougher Demogorgon: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1300 // Tougher Gromnir: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1400 // Tougher Illasera: 2.1.0
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Tougher Yaga-Shura: 2.1.0
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Expanded Dual-Class Options: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2360 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Single-Classes: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2380 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Kits: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2371 // Alter Dual-Class Restrictions -> Allow non-humans to dual-class: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2350 // Alter Multi-Class Restrictions -> Allow humans to multi-class: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2390 // Alter Paladin Spell Progression Table -> Paladins Use Icewind Dale-Heart of Winter Spell Tables [grogerson]: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2400 // Alter Ranger Spell Progression Table -> Rangers Use Icewind Dale-Heart of Winter Spell Tables [grogerson]: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited ammo stacking: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited potion stacking: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Increase Scroll Stacking -> Unlimited scroll stacking: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3491 // Better Shadows of Amn Start [dark0dave] -> Start at 500k XP, select items below: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3497 // Better Shadows of Amn Start: Add Balduran's Cloak: v17
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1510 // Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1520 // Include bard songs from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // Core Stratagems spell-system changes (installed by default by any AI component): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Add 9 new arcane spells: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2510 // Add 6 new divine spells (some borrowed from Divine Remix): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // More Appropriate-Speed Bears: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4240 // Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6500 // Improved golems: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6510 // Improved fiends and celestials: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6520 // Smarter genies: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6540 // Smarter dragons: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6550 // Smarter beholders: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6560 // Smarter mind flayers: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6570 // Smarter githyanki: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6580 // Improved Vampires: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6590 // Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6800 // Smarter Illasera: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6810 // Smarter Gromnir: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6820 // Smarter Yaga-Shura: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6830 // Smarter Abazigal: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6840 // Ascension versions of Irenicus and Sendai use SCS abilities and AI: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6850 // Ascension demons use SCS abilities and AI: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8000 // Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8010 // Improved Shade Lord: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8020 // Spellcasting Demiliches: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8040 // Tie difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings to the difficulty slider: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8050 // Improved Random Encounters: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8060 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix"): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8070 // Improved Unseeing Eye: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8080 // Improved Bodhi: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8085 // Ascension version of Bodhi uses Improved-Bodhi abilities: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8100 // Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8110 // Improved Sahuagin: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8120 // Improved Beholder hive: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8130 // Rebalanced troll regeneration: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8140 // Improved Drow: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8150 // Improved Watcher's Keep: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8160 // Improved Fire Giant temple: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8170 // Improved Sendai's Enclave: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8180 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8190 // Improved Minor Encounters: 35.21
~SUBRACE/SUBRACE.TP2~ #1 #200 // Subrace mod for Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition (BG1, BG:SoD, BG2, EET) -> No change subrace colors (Hair and Skin): 0.3.1
~ZDBAE/ZDBAE.TP2~ #0 #0 // Baeloth BG2: v0.13
~ROMANCE_EXPANDED/SETUP-ROMANCE_EXPANDED.TP2~ #0 #0 // Viconia Romance Expanded: v1.0.7
~EXPANDEDCLASSES/EXPANDEDCLASSES.TP2~ #0 #32 // Kuo-toa Disciple Kit for Bards: v2.0
~UNOFFICIAL ITEM PACK/SETUP-UNOFFICIAL ITEM PACK.TP2~ #1 #5 // SoD items
We woke up in the Irenicus dungeon with nice 720k xp and got lv13 immediately, although no new spell slots. We also cast new Familiar with 34 hp extra in LoB mode bringing our total to 120 hp. Tested Monster Summon II and I against Lightning Mephit, but they didn't kill it. Rested up and Shadow Monsters killed it. But we really had awful summons and they only lasted 75% of time with our penalties, so we mostly used Invisibility to pass some Duergars. Found that Hasted Troll Shadow Monsters were beating single Duergars so we hunted Ilyich party out with multiple rests. Getting poison being permanently Hasted would be pretty much death sentence without sleep. 799k xp ascending to Athkatla.
Chapter 2
First things first, went to Government District and cast Invisibility on myself to summon Cowled Wizards, which the neutral guards neutralized casually. Got 3x Laear Tear, 2x Spell Trap, 2x Symbol: Fear, Summon Haekeashar, Small Shield +1, Project Image, Mantle, Improved Mantle, Protection from Elements, Spell Turning and 2x Invis potion. After Zallanora was dead, we could cast spells without disturbance.
Started Maevar quest line, and looted the guildhall and temples. Used WoMS to distract the Rayic Mephits. PfF and one PfF potion because our -35 FR penalty, and used the repeating Fireball trap to kill him lv14. Maevar pre Charmed and killed by his mob. After doing some easy Graveyard guests we bought rep to 14, solved the Bridge Murder rep 15. Lv15 which was nice one with first lv5 spell slot, and immunity to Blindness and permanent Invisibility Detection by Scripts (193). We can now AI attack invisible creatures and also attack Sanctuaried etc. enemies normally. Also casting Animate Dead I noticed that Skelis were cast in normal level which might be bug in the kit? Easy fetch quest for the Amulet +2. Bought WoMS and freed Hendak no problems with one Skeli and some Monsters. Picked our first head Gear from Pai'na 136 hp. Slavers were killed by repeating Cloudkill trap using PfP and Invis potion. Rep 17, lv 16 * Two-Weapon Style, and our innate DR hit 25.
Doing the Sir Sarles quest we Charmed Welther and he was killed by Cohrvale for Silver Pantaloons, which avoids the rep penalty. Harper Hold and looted De'Arnise for FoA +3. Lv17 which meant our weakness to Fire and resistance to Elecricity, Acid and Magic Damage reached max of 45. Looted Druid Grove for ranged Thac0 gloves and Belm +2. With Belm +2 we get 4apr with permanent Haste. Bought Invisibility and couple Power Potions from Adratha, before Pickpocketing Poison Immunity Amulet from her which worked with 150 skill. Cernd killed Faldorn by himself, and although Faldorn shapeshifted getting full health and got like hundred hits, Cernd in Werewolf form still beat her. Pickpocketed Efreeti Bottle from Taquee before attacking Khan Zharaa, and once he was killed the other two buggered away, rep 19. Bought Belt of Inertial Barrier and together with our innate bonus we have undisbellable 95 MDR which is nice especially against Mindflayers and Vampiric Wraiths. Doing the last Trademeet quests we hit 20/20 economy. Bought Crown of Lies for extra spell slots and third Skeli, Cloak of Gargoyle and DoEH +3. Spell Learning session, lv18 and got first lv6 slot. Had just enough money to start Chapter 3.
Chapter 3
Cleared Graveyard with casting Skelies from Mislead in Tombs, lv19. Picked up MoD +1 with Invisibility and Improved it. Fight against Vampiric Wraiths of Watchers Keep showcased our unique abilities. With 95 MDR (45+50) we were easily tanking their Magic attacks, and even when they went Invisible, we saw them with our Invisibility Detection and destroyed them. We only managed to beat one Statue before Deva arrived and our summons got killed, lv20 with 4th Skeli. Softened the last three with WoMS and then Skelis hunted them out. Left the last 8 Statues for now. Lv21 fighting the Paladins in Windspear Hill and we got our top Thac0 10 and saves 8/4/7/11/7(+2) which are pretty terrible. The Belt of Inertial Barrier helps though with -5 Breath, and this is pretty much first char where it will be our main belt. Summons pretty much handled rest of the dungeon. Samia's gang was softened with WoMS then picked up by Skelies lv22. Tarnor's gang Mislead gassed, as was Mencars, and Mekrath. Lv23 repelling Haer'dalis invasion.
Lv24 at Undead Bridge and we got a peek of our unique HLA's, except the ability button was greyed out, so we need to add these with EEkeeper. We have usual ones like Whirwind, Power Attack, Critical Strike, Evasion and Greater Evasion. And three unique ones:
- Scaly Skin (25 Damage Resistance for 1 round every 2 levels)
- Growing Insanity (Bard Song is done at -2 save)
- Natural Regeneration (innate 1hp/3s + Haste which means 6 hp per round)
Natural Regeneration is certainly nice with our permanent Haste, and Regeneration is further doubled to 12hpr when we get Ring of Gaxx. And I might even go Axe of Unyelding +5 in this run, which I never use. We are missing UAI, Traps and Magic Flute though, which all are big misses especially for the final battle.
After clearing the Blind Priests with summons, we put the Rod together and escaped before Unseeing Eye appeared. Bought everything interesting from Roger the Fence and then Charmed him with the Cloak. This was to have him pickpocket it from Tziri and carry out from the Sewers. But his Pickpocket skill (60) was far too bad compared to ours (130). So no way of getting the Rift Device out, we used it on the Unseeing Eye lv25 Critical Strike.
Planar Prison landing was mostly leveled with Mislead Gas. WoMS handled the few remaining ones. Then we gradually cleared the place with Skelis and Air Elementals. Before using the Orb we cleared the pits with Mislead gas. Wanted to see the xp and loot. Not really worth the bother, but got lv26 with Scaly Skin. Warden's Yuanties were gassed from Mislead, then Warden was softened with WoMS, and Skelis and Air Elemental killed it easily. Coming out of Planar Prison we were surprised by Bard Stronghold guest which I don't think I've ever done. Getting Speed Boots we decided to visit Mindies which we are pretty equipped to deal with. With 95 MDR their Detonations just tickle a little. PfU for Alhoon, saves v spell to -4, no problems. With PfU on we destroyed the two minor Liches holding Kangaxx parts. The other one got defenses on so we waited a little but no problems. Kangaxx's Remove Magic and couple other spells avoided, and then we managed to kill his Skeli and hit Kangaxx to 1 hp. Once turned we casually stoned him with Wand of Wonder and got the Ring of Gaxx and lv27 Natural Regeneration. We now had undispellable 12hpr.
Shadow Ruins was easy with just two sets of Skelis, as the Liches didn't spawn. Shadow Dragon stoned with WoW. PfU and Tensers for Shade Lord and Death Fog Contingency on Shadow Altar. Lv28 with 5th Skeli with Crown of Lies. Planar Sphere Skellied lv29, Lavok softened with WoMS. Tanari Farsight and Skellied. One Cloudkill caused mayhem with Tolgerias and their summons started fighting each other. Softened with WoMS and finished with Skelies. Lv30 starting Circus quest and another Critical Strike. Kalah smacked with Tensers and WoMS distracting others. Killing machine with Tensers zipped through the Heretic Monks and we did the easy tests mostly for True Seeing Gem (saves a spell slot). Lv31 completing the Bard Stronghold. Vampires killeds with PfU and Tensers, Bodhi waited out lv32 *Two-Handed Weapon Style and Whirlwind. Elder Air Elemental Smoked Ruhk. Turned Firkraag to stone and back couple times until my WoW was at 1 charge, and after getting to lv34 we have decided we are ready to sail away.
Tar, dwaven bounty hunter 17 (Gate70)
Omen, dwarven defender 14 (Grond0)
Coreheal VII, gnome cleric 11 thief 13 (Corey_Russell)
Session 8, the one where we pick up after the troll mound
We safely work our way around the remaining enemies in the druid grove and Cernd is given the opportunity to feast on Faldorn in his shapeshifted state. On return to Trademeet we pick up our reward, kill Reijik Hidesman and return a talisman to the mayor
After that we return to the Planar Sphere and head inside. We of course exercised care in this area and Omen only took heavy damage on several occasions. He lost control against the opening group of halflings and Coreheal was stunned but neither died and we ground our way to a subsequent victory
Omen fared better against Tolgerias but failed to realise his fire protection had expired, with Coreheal being a cleric rather than mage and multiclass. He eventually realised after entering the nearby room with a noble djinn, mephits and salamanders. Somehow he survived with a mighty 2hp remaining so we celebrated with a quick rest before clearing out the cold room
This left the engine room to do. There were enough golems to drastically re-model Omen's armour and once more his grim determination and dwarven stance hauled him through the encounter. He suggested Coreheal should loot a container to the east and before Tar could say hang on, Coreheal obeyed and another clay golem hoved into view
Coreheal retreated, his armour starting to match that of Omen. Omen wearily out-bashed the golem while Tar watched on with no suitable weapon to use. We already had a demon heart after stepping outside earlier so fed that into the engine and went to deal with Lavok - a skeleton warrior mauling him before we made ourselves known
As the sphere was back in the Slums we felt our work there was done. It was 11 at night, but the Talos contact still declined to turn up for a meet. Omen suggested we go on a lich hunt instead, and Tar decided to start at the City Gates where a handy longsword (Daystar) was rumoured to be found
Outside the inn there we found a merchant being harangued, so sorted that out. Tar decided to empty her bags at the merchant but half way through she heard the innkeeper and Coreheal, or perhaps Omen, shouting about two lovers upstairs. Suitably distracted, this forced Tar out of the merchant conversation before she sold anything and the merchant was no longer in sight. She let out a few choice words and continued with a full backpack
Coreheal buffed Omen to deal with the lich, but it survived a first shot with Azuredge. Omen patiently waited through a timestop and then threw Azuredge a second time. All we had to do was try and pick up several wands and weapons with overflowing inventory. We managed, and then we headed to a store to actually complete trades at the Bridge district
On to the second lich nearby. Tar asking where Daystar was and Omen saying he gave it to her. Tar thought long and hard
She returned to the merchant and re-purchased Daystar, feeling somewhat ashamed at selling such an item
Back to the lich, Coreheal suggesting we purchase scrolls of protection from undead. Suitably done, but then we elected not to use them and allow Omen to do his worst with Azuredge and a couple of snares. The lich survived an initial strike, got a timestop and a few spells but eventually fell to the axe leaving Omen to mop up the remaining pit fiend
A third lich under the temple district sewers was badly injured by snares. Rather than head for Kangaxx we felt completely prepared for dealing with the Unseeing Eye. By this, we mean Coreheal asking if we had the shield of Balduran and Omen / Tar saying we did not but skeletons will be fine. Coreheal did not seem particularly convinced
An initial set of beholder, gauth and shadow fiends were relatively easy to despatch, meaning we could retrieve half a rod and return past Gaal to foil his request
Down into the pit we went, Tar invisibly blocking the various undead as Omen threw Azuredge and Coreheal used turn undead to deter or destroy anything that got past Tar. At one point we found we were suitably un-levelled to avoid a lich and instead faced a greater mummy. Omen made hard work of that while Coreheal turned several undead. Tar tried to distract a skeleton archer but found it was overwhelming in melee and overwhelming at range when she ran. After two or three attempts where she could not get past it to run away she prepared to gulp a potion of healing but Omen suggested a potion of invisibility instead. A good call, and she did so with a single hit point remaining
We moved onwards, into the beholder area. Omen pushed his luck and did well. Coreheal had concerns about the blind priests but skeletons and bounty hunter snares (now with the Otiluke effect) thinned them down and we had an easy victory. Omen told Coreheal to send the skeletons towards the beholder and gauths, but Coreheal moved also and several magical effects later he slumped to the ground dead. So with five minutes remaining we had our first death of the session, used a rod of resurrection charge, and continued on our way
The rest of the beholder lair was cleared, and with no time left on the clock we agreed to deal with the Unseeing Eye itself. Moments later it was slumped dead, and Tar identified an amulet of 5% magic resistance - it has Omen's name all over it
What goodies will we have to sell now. Have a looky loo - Coreheal appears to have palmed all junk to Omen and Tar
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1219926/#Comment_1219926
A pretty disappointing opening series of sessions included 2 deaths - one of which I restarted. I gave all the classes the opportunity for major power boosts early on with XP from Shoal and the basilisk area to make game play easier. The risks involved after that were pretty much all self-inflicted. I'll have to tighten up gameplay significantly if the overall result is to be a decent one.
All characters are currently at the XP cap and about to enter the Nashkel Mine. The work done to get there has varied a bit between classes, but all of them have explored most of the wilderness areas they can be bothered with. Reputation is a bit more variable, as some classes are aiming to get a mixture of good and evil Bhaal abilities, but the majority of them have reputation at 20 and have bought all the items they're interested in for the present.
Summary points of interest for each class
Dragon Disciple - no incidents of note to report.
Blade - first incarnation died after getting hit with rigid thinking by Bassilus. Second attempt was hit relatively early on when a critical would have been fatal. Also a worrying moment in the last encounter before going to the Nashkel Mine. I skull trapped the Red Wizards and then withdrew in case any followed me. I intended to cast invisibility, but mis-clicked and used stinking cloud on myself instead. Fortunately there was in fact no-one following …
Cleric/mage - no incidents of note to report.
Diviner - I didn't get around to learning invisibility until after I'd explored nearly all the wilderness areas. That saved a bit of money, but was really an unjustifiable risk though there weren't in fact any particularly scary ambushes. Near the end of the session I also cleared the ankheg nest without playing safe. I was attacked twice there and hit once - when a critical could have been fatal.
Cleric - failed to kill Neera, which was a bit of a pain as the gem bag both helps manage inventory and allows considerable resources to be taken through into SoD. In Durlag's Tower I had a moment of madness when trying to rest in a location where I knew I could potentially get trapped by an ambush. I was in fact trapped by a number of ghasts interrupting my rest and would undoubtedly have been killed by them if there had not been just enough room to retreat out of sight and try resting once more - this time successfully.
Abjurer - I said in an earlier post that none of the classes chosen were new. After some time trying and failing to find my starting save for this one I finally realised that I'd been wrong earlier and I didn't in fact have one. To give me an incentive to play safely, I tried to avoid any damage at all - and that was achieved. One notable mistake was mis-clicking the conversation with Kirinhale and turning her hostile - I was able to run away before she attacked though. Like the diviner I didn't buy any spells until near the end of the session - with the important exception of invisibility. That and blind allowed me to make good progress until finally learning a wide range of options.
Stalker - after a run of 6 casters in a row it was nice to get something a bit more martial. I again tried to avoid damage for as long as possible (though knowing that the stalker could not ultimately avoid trap damage in the Nashkel Mine). That was done in the spirit of staying safe and I successfully avoided any damage up to being almost ready to take level 7. However, that attitude ultimately cost me a life when tackling the sirines at the coast. I used the potion of clarity from Candlekeep in order to protect against sirine charm. Though the sirines couldn't do much damage in melee, I was trying to avoid any at all - so used backstabs and then ran away to hide again. That meant that I had to wait for the sirines to stop in order to be sure of a backstab and a bit of time was wasted following them round. However, 5 of them were taken down in what seemed like good time, so I was actually thinking I would have enough time left to use the clarity potion to protect against the charm trap in the pirate cave as well. Unfortunately, the final sirine just wouldn't stop as it wandered around the map for ages. Eventually, I gave up on it doing so and just attacked it on the move before running round a corner of the lighthouse building and hiding. It was still stood still when I came back and this time did get a backstab. That had a good chance of killing it, but I rolled low damage and it survived. I knew it still had another charm to try though, so just kept attacking in melee. My next attack was not in time to prevent the charm, but that didn't seem like a problem - until it ended the run! I had checked the potion was still active when I hid, so it ran out sometime in the few seconds after that. That seemed a pretty rough end to take, but the stalker had progressed much too far to consider restarting as I did with the blade.
Monk - despite the stalker's experience I again tried to see how long I could avoid any damage. That was successfully done up until level 7. Attacking a battle horror at Durlag's Tower, the icon was partly hidden by an arch of rock and I didn't realise that I had made an attack until the battle horror retaliated. I didn't try and avoid damage after that, but was never more than slightly injured.
Cleric dualling to thief - no incidents of note to report. I think I'm going to wait to do a relatively late dual with this one - probably at level 15. That will provide me a level 7 spell while only reducing potential thief levels from 40 to 39.
Kensai - attacked Kirian without protection against fear. A horror spell could well have been fatal there, but I saved.
Edit: oh dear, things are going rapidly downhill. The first session for the dragon disciple was uneventful, but he perished fairly early on in the second. While doing the poison quest he charmed Lothander to prevent him running away after talking to him. After killing him he went to find Marek - who was nowhere to be found. I guess I must have forgotten to talk to Lothander, so there's no way to cure the poison ...
Edit 2: I was never really happy about restarting the blade and, after 2 other deaths still only mid-way through BGEE I'm going to call this series a failure and restart the lot. I'll keep the same character classes, but change the originaly random order they came in so that the game play also changes between characters.
Mods: Full SCS 35.21, see spoiler for WeiDU.
Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
Include bard songs from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
Core Stratagems spell-system changes (installed by default by any AI component): 35.21
Changes to Restoration: 35.21
Changes to shapeshift spells: 35.21
Icewind Dale-inspired tweaks to Baldur's Gate/Baldur's Gate II spells: 35.21
Rebalancings of slightly-too-powerful spells: 35.21
Spell school changes: 35.21
Spells increased in power: 35.21
Add 9 new arcane spells: 35.21
Add 6 new divine spells (some borrowed from Divine Remix): 35.21
Revised elementals and elemental summoning: 35.21
Replace +1 arrows and other projectiles with nonmagical "fine" ones: 35.21
Re-introduce potions of extra-healing: 35.21
Make elemental arrows like BG2: 35.21
Replace many +1 magic weapons with nonmagical "fine" ones -> Fine weapons are affected by the iron crisis: 35.21
Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores -> Remove Arrows of Dispelling from stores: 35.21
Wider selection of random scrolls: 35.21
Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): 35.21
More Appropriate-Speed Bears: 35.21
Improved shapeshifting: 35.21
Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: 35.21
Thieves assign skill points in multiples of five: 35.21
Revised handling of death effects like disintegration, petrification and imprisonment (party members who are disintegrated etc can be resurrected; imprisoned or petrified characters rejoin the party automatically; the game doesn't end if the main character is petrified or imprisoned): 35.21
Revised resting: resting in the wild uses up provisions: 35.21
Revised inn rooms: more expensive, more benefits: 35.21
Ease-of-use party AI: 35.21
Improved BG Textscreens: 35.21
Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): 35.21
Smarter general AI: 35.21
Better calls for help: 35.21
Smarter Mages: 35.21
Smarter Priests: 35.21
Potions for NPCs: 35.21
Improved Spiders: 35.21
Smarter sirines and dryads: 35.21
Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: 35.21
Smarter basilisks: 35.21
Improved doppelgangers: 35.21
Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: 35.21
Improved deployment for parties of assassins: 35.21
Improved kobolds: 35.21
Relocated bounty hunters: 35.21
Improved Ulcaster: 35.21
Improved Balduran's Isle: 35.21
Improved Durlag's Tower: 35.21
Improved Demon Cultists: 35.21
Improved Cloakwood Druids: 35.21
Improved Bassilus: 35.21
Improved Drasus party: 35.21
Improved Red Wizards: 35.21
Improved Undercity assassins: 35.21
Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction: 35.21
Tougher chapter-two end battle: 35.21
Tougher chapter-three end battle: 35.21
Tougher chapter-four end battle: 35.21
Tougher chapter-five end battle: 35.21
Improved final battle: 35.21
Improved minor encounters: 35.21
Rules: Random party, random choices at level-up (except HP, which are maxed).
Party in spoiler (protagonist at top).
Protagonist
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Class: Invoker
Alignment: True Neutral
Stats:
STR 17 DEX 9 CON 16 INT 15 WIS 11 CHA 14
Proficiencies:
Sling *
Starting spells:
Blindness, Chromatic Orb, Shield
Gender: Male
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Fighter / Mage / Thief
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Stats:
STR 13 DEX 13 CON 10 INT 16 WIS 12 CHA 12
Proficiencies:
Mace * Bastard Sword * Two-Handed Weapon Style * Club *
Thieving skills:
Detect Illusion +10 Set Traps +15 Move Silently +5 Hide in Shadows +5 Pick Pockets +5
Starting spells:
Blindness, Charm Person
Gender: Female
Race: Dwarf
Class: Cleric
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Stats:
STR 13 DEX 13 CON 14 INT 8 WIS 16 CHA 14
Proficiencies:
Two-Handed Weapon Style * Sword and Shield Style *
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Class: Blade
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Stats:
STR 12 DEX 12 CON 10 INT 14 WIS 14 CHA 16
Proficiencies:
Flail / Morning Star * Shortbow *
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Class: Enchanter
Alignment: Lawful Good
Stats:
STR 10 DEX 14 CON 12 INT 15 WIS 8 CHA 16
Proficiencies:
Dart *
Starting spells:
Grease, Protection from Petrification, Sleep
Gender: Male
Race: Elf
Class: Mage / Thief
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Stats:
STR 16 DEX 15 CON 13 INT 9 WIS 12 CHA 13
Proficiencies:
Short Sword * Katana *
Thieving skills:
Detect Illusion +10 Hide in Shadows +10 Move Silently +5 Open Locks +5 Pick Pockets +5 Find Traps +5
Starting spells:
Protection from Petrification, Shocking Grasp
Randomization always finds a way to bork you, I guess.
Yeah, alright, the balance isn't completely off... except the sum of our melee force is one third of a warrior and a Blade that doesn't dual-wield.
The slight upside is that the Invoker has the stats to dual into Fighter, which I intend to do if we live that long.
It'll be a fairly late dual though, so we'll be slogging along with really weak auto-attack capabilities for some time.
We'll have to make up the difference with magic, which should be doable as we have five arcanists.
Except one has minimum INT, the rest sit at middling scores, and there's only so many Potions of Genius/Mind Focusing in BGEE: I count 11/8 barring random drops, and typically there are only one or two copies of critical scrolls, so I don't think we can afford to scribe very often.
Well... I wanted it harsh. And it's not like it's unplayable, so let's see how it goes.
How to survive without a CON modifier: A Random Run, Part 1
I'll allow recruiting NPC's temporarily to rob them (this is mostly to get Jaheira's Potion of Invisibility and Neera's Gem Bag, though we also relieve Imoen and Xzar/Montaron of their belongings).
A Cleric with 16 WIS means three first level slots, so we have ample Commands available, as both the belt-wearing Ogre and Tarnesh come to appreciate.
With a Potion of Invisibility now at hand, we clear the local Hobgoblins, then get some rest and head north.
As long as you don't travel during night, I think you're guaranteed not to get ambushed in this region.
We retrieve Tenya's bowl, kill the Ankheg north of her hut using two Commands, talk to Farmer Brun while a sanctuaried Cleric holds his son's body underground, and finally clear some Zombies to the far north; while in the area, we spend some hard-earned gold on Arrows +2 so we can clear High Hedge later.
Together with the bits and pieces of experience from before, Cleric hits L2, and now has four Commands.
It's Ankheg time: We are guaranteed to be able to kill two per rest, and if a few Ankhegs fail their save against Enchanter's Sleep, that number rises to four. Of course, this isn't entirely risk-free, since you need to hope the Ankheg doesn't have time to attack before the Sleep hits (and you can tell if it worked or not).
It's actually a good thing Enchanter has such lousy hitpoints; otherwise the acid damage (which was never applied since he died from the pure physical damage) might've chunked him.
Anyway, a few mishaps later, we've killed off about 22 Ankhegs and everyone's gained 1-2 levels. We've already started to amass a bundle of unidentified items, so the plan is to grab the Red Potion from Nashkel and have Mage/Thief scribe a bunch of useful stuff (his 9 INT means he's by far the best candidate).
En route south, we clear the easy stuff, including Thalantyr's Flesh Golems, in and around Beregost, picking up a Gem Bag, though we leave Firebead alone for now: We want to save reputation-boosting quests until we're bribed up to 18, since the 1/4 reputation gain component of SCS can be pretty brutal in how little reputation you actually gain if you get some bad rolls.
Though it's a shame Blade probably will never make much of a dent in melee, at least he does acceptable work at range with a Shortbow and Offensive Spin active.
In Nashkel, we pick up the Red Potion, clear out Neira, talk Noober down, and head back into the wilderness.
One nice thing early on about having an Enchanter is that Sleep becomes even more lethal than normal: It's rare to see anything susceptible actually make its save, with literal hordes of enemies collapsing from a single casting being the norm.
Further north, Zargal is blinded and disposed of even as Sleep does in his fellow Hobgoblins. We leave Bassilus alone for now, and begin to laboriously ferry our massive amount of Ankheg shells south towards Beregost.
The gold gained is just about enough to push reputation to 18; we can now start turning in reputation quests, and with 16 CHA on Blade, we always get the best reward from quests as well with the reaction adjustment (though the extra rewards are very neglible, even by BGEE standards).
After six quests, the net amount is +1 reputation. Meh. Since they're in the same area as Hulrik's cow, we take our frustrations out on Arghain and his merry murdering monstrosities.
You'll note that's Cleric tanking. She's the only option really, given how badly shafted triple-classes get for hitpoints (exacerbated in this case since Fighter/Mage/Thief lacks a CON modifier... like almost everyone else).
Oh, the characters will get real names if they make it to BG2EE.
While in Arghain's area, I found out (to equal amounts surprise and delight on my part) that Ogre Berserkers are susceptible to Sleep!
Just scout 'em out and hit from beyond sight range, and the very tanky, very dangerous beasties are reduced to nothing. Good stuff.
Still hunting for that last point of reputation, we clear out Greywolf and save (?) Prism, as well as deliver Samuel, to no avail.
That's alright, let's try the dig and Brage then. We've already had some decent luck with random scroll drops, but this was really nice to see: A scroll of Knock fresh off the local Gnoll tribe.
This is especially good for us, since (as you'd expect) random Thief skill point distribution is random.
It's a pseudo-uniform distribution of points, meaning our Thieves are bad at everything. So at least now we can open the occasional lock... or will once Mage/Thief chugs that delightful Red Potion. Yeah, we're still running on the arcane fumes of our starting spells, plus a handful of L1 spells we dared to try to scribe (and mostly failed, though not entirely).
Clearing the dig finally nets us 20 reputation, which means we can now justify buying Mage/Thief some scrolls.
The Doomsayer outside is destroyed by Magic Stones, some Chromatic Orbs (we failed to scribe Magic Missile...),
and Imoen's starting wand. Brage returns with us, and we're back in civilized lands.
Still, I'd like to have Web available for the Bandit Camp. Let's hold off a little while longer on scribing; there's a Web scroll in Mulahey's chest, accessible without alerting him if you Sanctuary your way in.
Massive amounts of Sleep make it easy to fight our way through the Nashkel Mines up until the dreaded Kobold Shaman and slightly less (but still) dreaded Kobold Chieftain.
Sleep does for the cohorts, and amazingly, the Shaman fails its save against Silence... and did not prepare Vocalize! Hooray!
I'm always worried about taking on the Shaman, but this time it went very smoothly. We swipe the contents of Mulahey's chest and retreat to Beregost.
After successfully relieving Algernon of his cloak (owing to the now quite dead Vitiare's Potion of Master Thievery), a bought scroll of Friends lets us hit 20 CHA. With 20 reputation, that's a serious discount, and we make off with key scrolls for Mage/Thief.
Finally, we can start identifying items.
In fact, we spent so little we can afford to immediately start work on the second Ankheg Plate (the first being the easter egg one from Nashkel).
Cleric will eventually get the Hands of Takkok so she can equip Full Plate, but that's a long way off, and until then, both she and Fighter/Mage/Thief can't do better than Ankheg Plate.
While waiting for the armor to finish, we dispatch the local Wolf pack; Grease works surprisingly well here, especially when you layer on 4-5 casts. Also, Vampiric Wolves count as Undead, so are very vulnerable to Magic Stone.
Flush with our victory, we continue with Bassilus: By now we have so many sources of arcane damage, he gets interrupted constantly, and soon falls.
We're still missing a key equipment piece: The Gauntlets of Dexterity. En route to the Gnoll Fortress, we clear all the little things with ease, once again using a well-placed Sleep to disable two potentially dangerous Ogre Berserkers guarding a bridge.
To the west, the local Gibberling hordes had a scroll of Find Familiar. Swanky! Invoker casts it at once; there's another guaranteed drop of it from Nimbul after all, which we can scribe at a later date.
At the Fortress proper, Blade gets the CHA tome, putting him at 17 CHA. Not sure why I bothered, it won't make a discernible difference, but eh.
Around here the scroll randomizer seemingly goes off the rails a bit: We get Stinking Cloud, Skull Trap (twice!), another Knock, Haste (!) and most amazingly once we transit to Ingot's area, Invisibility 10' Radius!
If we weren't so incredibly strapped for INT potions, I'd scribe those last two right away; they're supremely useful.
Sendai, as well as Vax and Zal, are duly defeated, and we return to Nashkel. Now seems a good time to advance the plot a bit.
Mulahey seemingly spent all his slots on buffs: He throws a Poison at Cleric (which she saves against), then pointlessly tries to melee her down.
Blade took a serious beating trying to hold off the eastern Kobolds using Defensive Spin. He needs defensive spells, but the INT situation...
Back in Nashkel, brave sir Oublek (under the influence of Algernon's Cloak) falls in battle, and we respectfully retrieve the 2 700 gold off his remains. Nimbul is casually hacked down after he fails to save against Hold Person.
On to Beregost, where Tranzig has no counter to two Skeleton Warriors. On our way towards the bandit-infested woods, it's time for the first ambush, which turns out to be the Amazons.
Fortunately, Invoker is travelling invisibly: Mage/Thief only has two L2 slots, but the second one was spent on Detect Invisibility, which instantly reveals Telka and Maneira, preventing their potentially devastating backstabs.
Things get iffy for a moment when some party members wander straight into the Wand of Fire Scorcher of Fighter/Mage/thief (Mage/Thief in particular took a bad lick), but we pull through absent casualties.
Pushing further into the woods, we actually opt to take out Baeloth: We have an evil arcanist this time, so the robe will come in handy.
Web and oodles of L1 arcane spells keep the local Druids interrupted, and we suffer our second ambush en route to the Bandit Camp.
Halacan is focused and drops without ever getting a spell off; Drakar can be a nuisance if he prepared Hold Person, but this time seemingly tried to go for Chant first, which we interrupted. He didn't get a second chance.
Alright! We reach the Bandit Camp, rest up, and engage. Really, it's possible to do this as a running battle (keep moving and firebomb as you go), but we set up shop in the southeastern corner, throw down two Webs from Mage/Thief, and go to town.
As always, the real threat here is Venkt (we've countered Horror with pre-cast Remove Fear, but he can whip out Slow as he was trying to here, Glitterdust, Blind, etc.), and though he's got a little bit of Fire Resistance owing to his robe, he's a far cry from immune. Once Venkt drops, the remnants are mopped up in short order.
We can actually loot everything here: There's a bug in SCS 35.21 where Bracers of Dexterity "stacks" with Cat's Grace. The maximum DEX you can gain from Cat's Grace is dictated first by your class: 1-8 for Rogues, 1-6 for Warriors and Mages, 1-4 for Clerics.
It is then limited by your base dexterity: Mage/Thief has 15 DEX and counts as a Rogue, so can gain at most 5 DEX.
The bonus from Bracers of Dexterity is added on top of this: So with Cat's Grace, Mage/Thief can reach 23 DEX.
Fighter/Mage/Thief, also being a Rogue and having 13 base DEX, can theoretically reach 25 DEX.
I try to avoid exploiting the above, but pure random play is so punishing I don't mind using it to my advantage just for the sake of getting acceptable levels of Find Traps/Open Locks; and this, along with Knock for a few more stubborn chests, is how we loot everything.
OK, we're running out of wilderness areas, but noticably we've yet to clear Mutamin's Garden, so proceed in that direction.
Cleric can rustle up three 5HD Skeleton Warriors, and together with Korax and ranged party assistance, they swiftly clear the map.
There's a good amount of experience available at Durlag's too, even if you can't venture into the lower levels due to the traps, so that's next up.
We've a lot of magical damage available, so the Battle Horrors/Doom Guards outside are no real concern.
We grab the WIS tome (of course it goes to Cleric), and tackle the Greater Basilisks on the roof.
The oodles of Ghasts inside futilely expend their aggressions on a wall of Skeleton Warriors as we shoot them down; we refrain from going into the Warder level for now.
We'll be back shortly though: With three Potions of Perception, we can already get to 100 Find Traps, we just need to make the most efficient use of their duration so we can clear the entire Tower without running low.
Alright, keep vacuuming up experience: Ulcaster's Dungeon is next.
Mustard Jellys are actually a problem for us, since we only have one magical weapon (with attendant proficient wielder...) that can hurt them, i.e., Fighter/Mage/Thief with The Stupefier. Cleric helps out with a Spiritual Hammer and a ton of buffs. At least Fighter/Mage/Thief can be quite liberal with Giant Strength/Heroism potion use, as he's the only one that can use them for pretty much all of BGEE, so that helps.
Wolf of Ulcaster then. You need at least two, preferably three Remove/Resist Fear to handle the constant dispels, and lots of magic damage is useful, both to kill the Wolf itself and to handle its spawning of Ghouls.
Things get a little dicey as we try to cheapskate our way out of this, and we end up having to use most charges on a merry-go-round application of our Wand of Frost (yes, surprisingly the Wolf isn't even resistant to Cold damage).
OK! That basically leaves the Western Seaboard. Droth is still vulnerable to Command and therefore no threat, and we clear the local Ogre tribe without them getting a single swing in, while Skeleton Warriors account for the pack of Sirines to the southwest.
At the Lighthouse, Sleep does for the local Hobgoblins, and again Skeleton Warriors (properly buffed) swiftly render the local Sirines moot; the Flesh Golems are just shot down from afar while they clobber the remaining Skeletons.
Here the CON tome goes to Cleric: Since Invoker is dualing so late, he would gain literally no benefit from it.
The only alternative would be Mage/Thief who could reach 15 CON once we had access to the Machine of Lum The Mad... but that's so far away, I'd rather take the measly extra hitpoints on Cleric right now.
Next, some looting of Nashkel tombs. The undead pose no threat by now, not even the Revenant, given our amount of magical damage.
I accidentally activate Narcillicus while we're still unbuffed, but we at least had Skeleton Warriors up, and they manage to cut him down before he does anything dangerous; they then provide a distraction as Cleric and Fighter/Mage/Thief laboriously deal with the two Mustard Jellies.
And finally, we swing by Firewine Bridge to relieve Meilum of a pair of bracers.
That's about all the experience we can squeeze out of the wilderness, although I've left the Red Wizard area alone for now;
back to Durlag's Tower.
Our intent is to finish clearing/looting the above-ground levels, and for that to happen, the Ghost must be removed.
It kills off four Skeleton Warriors and throws a Chain Lightning at Blade (which, after Boots of Grounding, dealt a mighty 4 damage.. not sure how that's possible, guess the Ghost rolled really badly), but then can't do much else.
As for Kirinhale, we just mob her: She has high Magic Resistance, but it's not impervious, and eventually enough spells get through to finish the job.
We quaff three Potions of Perception, detrap and loot what we didn't yet above-ground, then head down to the Warders.
Mage/Thief goes around under Invisibility and detraps everything first, then once the entire level is safe, the party follows.
The Skeleton Warriors down here are not the real deal, as they can be hit with non-magical weapons (and only seem to have 50% resistance to missile damage), which simplifies things.
The Mustard Jellies take a bit of time to deal with, but never get a hit in, and the Flesh Golems are just shot down at range.
Finally, we rest (at the entrance floor, there's a good chance you won't get interrupted there), then return to deal with the three Greater Dopplegangers under full buffs: Yep, Cleric reached L7, so we now have Recitation and Defensive Harmony available.
That and 5 Magic Missiles quickly settle things.
Having turned in three of the four Warden riddles, we emerge with a bit of experience, a fair bit of gold, and some very important spell scrolls for Enchanter.
So far, we have been running entirely on that single batch of scribing by Mage/Thief done via the Red Potion: Everyone else only knows a few first level spells.
This is because I ran the numbers on the guaranteed to be available Potions of Genius/Mind Focusing.
With our party setup and deplorable levels of INT, we can only scribe scrolls reliably (100% success rate for the specialists, >=95% for the generalists) twice per arcanist... and then Mage/Thief only gets to scribe once, with 75% success rate.
All assuming we get no such potion as a random drop, of course (which we haven't yet).
But now it is time for Enchanter to use one of his two shots. He quaffs three Potions of Mind Focusing and scribes nearly everything we have available or can buy from High Hedge, notably including Haste, Invisibility 10' Radius, and a bundle of Enchantment spells of fourth (from Ulgoth's Beard mainly) and fifth (from Durlag's Tower) level.
Finally, we have options. I'm reasonably confident we could've held on until we reached the city before scribing, but then again, I'm not certain... and there aren't many scrolls left for Enchanter in the game anyway, so he'll be fine.
This seems a good place to end things for now. We're sitting at the Friendly Arm Inn, preparing to delve into the Cloakwood; everyone is around 60k experience.
We've had some mixed blessings with level-up Thief skills as well as proficiencies, as for the former:
None of our Thieves have Open Locks/Find Traps above 30, but they're both decent at stealthing (Thief/Mage actually being good enough that I routinely have him stealth when scouting rather than using Invisibility), and Fighter/Mage/Thief has 40 Set Traps, which can be significantly boosted using Gauntlets of Dexterity/Cat's Grace when needed.
As for the latter:
Fighter/Mage/Thief picked Longbow at Fighter L3... which isn't bad, especially in BGEE, but I had really hoped he'd luck into a specialization, or at the least gotten a more devastating melee option. He also won't get another proficiency until early SoD, so is kind of stuck with what he's got: Basically Longbow and Mace, and a Club if he ever wants to backstab.
Invoker wasted his L6 proficiency on Dart, meh.
Enchanter picked up Sling at L6, which is good! But his THAC0 is so awful it doesn't matter, and he'll eventually get all proficiencies anyway.
Mage/Thief got Two-Weapon Style at Thief L4, which is pointless on him, but less so than for instance Sword and Shield Style, so yay?
Cleric got Club at L4. Which is the least good melee option for her, but it's still a melee option, so I'll take it.
And... Blade also got Club at L4. Yuck. Though to be fair, his 12 STR means he can't use Flails, only Morning Stars, so maybe it'll be helpful? There's just no way he'll ever pick up two or more pips in Two-Weapon Style anyway, and he already has the best ranged weapon proficiency, so maybe just accept the way things are.
@Grond0, you realize you can still finish the game without curing the poison right? I've done that before and then BG 2 is fine after import.
'Long-life challenge' - 10 concurrent runs as a 10 year celebration {2} (1st and final update)
The logic of concurrent runs is that some classes may fall by the wayside on the way through the full BG games. However, I wasn't happy with how quickly that was happening in the first attempt at this, so restarted all 10 classes from scratch. The classes are the same as before, but I changed the order so that the game play always varies significantly between each successive run.
Given that one of my problems with no-reload is I tend to play as something of an adrenaline junkie, I've been trying to maintain interest by seeing how far each of the characters could get without taking any damage. There was some slight degree of success to that until I got to the dragon disciple. That should have been the easiest class to play, but a momentary movement error exposed me to the gaze of a basilisk. Perhaps I may have to accept that I'm not up doing so many concurrent runs successfully, but I'll restart them all once more - I think to be happy to continue I'd really like them all to at least get through BGEE together.
Summary points of interest for each class
Abjurer - last time this one completed the first session without taking damage, but this time things started poorly as he was hit early on by an ambushing hobgoblin archer on the way to the basilisk area. I didn't particularly try and avoid damage after that, but the only worrying moment was soon after when a movement error let Bassilus into range and a critical hit took away 21 of my 26 HPs. The reward for Bassilus did though allow me to buy invisibility and a range of other spells to make progress easier after that.
Cleric - another one took early damage and this time it was entirely my fault. After giving Zhurlong back his boots I attacked him, but did so in melee. Although his script requires him to retreat where possible, if he gets a good initiative roll he can attack before retreating - which he did in this case. There was one close call after that when I surrounded Kirinhale with summons to try and kill her before she teleported away. I think I must have got too close to her as she targeted me with a charm - which fortunately I saved against.
Blade - a blade is capable of completing BGEE without damage, so I was keen to do better with this than the previous two attempts. The early encounters were done nicely, but annoyingly I failed to learn all 3 invisibility scrolls at High Hedge (even allowing for a specialist learning penalty my chances of success with one of them were over 97%). That made progress more difficult, but I still almost got up to level 8 before taking damage. An attempted rest saw an ogre appear, but I was under offensive spin at the time and 2 quick shots made it lose its morale. I mistakenly thought that it was running and kept shooting, but it had gone berserk instead and hit me before I could move away. As with other classes there were plenty more hits taken after that, but the blade has survived up to the Nashkel Mine.
Kensai - a kensai is not well equipped to avoid damage, but this one made a reasonable stab at it by getting close to level 7. While scouting the red wizards of Thay I was spotted, but I didn't think they'd got a good enough look at me to do anything. However, when manoeuvring round I found one of them had come down from the platform and I had no way to counter the magic missile that followed. After that I played the character more like a typical kensai - killing the enemy before they could kill you. Constitution regeneration allowed me to heal between combats. I did have one lucky escape when damage failed to disrupt a sirine's charm and my saving throw was needed to save me.
Diviner - this time I paid up for genius potions in order to guarantee learning invisibility early on. Progress was generally pretty good and no damage has been taken so far. There was though one dangerous incident that could easily have led to death. In the cave in the area to the north of the Carnival I tried to kill the Ettercap using skull traps from out of sight. The first two were cast without problem but, even though there didn't seem to be any issue with line of sight, I started moving forward to cast the third spell. That triggered the web trap and I was immediately held. Fortunately, in moving forward I'd moved slightly towards the wall and was still just out of sight of the Ettercap. As soon as I broke free I came into its sight, but the delayed skull trap cast and killed it anyway.
Cleric dualling to thief - another one successfully completed up to the Nashkel mine without taking any damage. Other than the odd invisibility potion I just relied on choice of routes and timings to reduce the chance of nasty ambushes. There were still a number of shots fired at me, but the ankheg armor and belt of piercing meant things like hobgoblins and skeletons needed a critical to hit and none of them managed that. As far as I know there's no sure way to avoid the trap damage in the Nashkel Mine, so this character will almost certainly not be able to complete BGEE without taking damage. Using haste increases the chance a floor trap won't fire, so I'll do that. I'll also surround myself with summons to see if I can confuse the trap - that certainly helps with NPCs, though I'm not sure if summons have the same effect.
Dragon Disciple - this is comfortably the easiest character to avoid damage with, but after 2 successes in a row with other characters I failed very early on with this one. I started shooting at Algernon without blinding him and wasn't really paying attention - which proved costly when his morale broke and he attacked me in a berserk rage. Possibly because of that early disappointment I wasn't concentrating fully on arrival at the basilisk area. After killing the first of the group of 4 basilisks in the south Korax attacked the second - which immediately retaliated in melee. Korax retreated and I tried to blind the basilisk, but failed - and a second lesser basilisk appeared attacking in melee. Avoiding those attacking Korax while continuing to retreat directly away and try more blinds wasn't easy. I moved to one side to make the movement easier - and the greater basilisk appeared and gazed at me before I could get out of sight …
Stalker -
Cleric/mage -
Monk -
Chapter 4
Vampires of Brynnlaw easily destroyed with MoD +2. Perth the Adept was grinded out with WoMS although the fight managed to spread out on the streets. Once we got Spell Turning from the Book we stopped turning pages. We gave a Intelligence point it the Dream. Spellhold handled mostly with summons. We also managed to talk to the Statue seven times for 29500xp a pop, before the door opened. You can do this by pressing talk quickly after 'end dialogue'. Getting out of the tests lv37 and we got our 10th Critical Strike.
In first battle with Irenicus we cast Farsight and sent one Fire Elemental to trigger his defenses. Once we saw long casting Earth and Fire Elementals being cast we sent four Elementals to kill them. They actually got Jon to injured state. Sent in another batch and once Jon was at near death we activated the battle, and he escaped almost immediatelly. Hid the ship during Githyanki assault. Sold all my loot for Shaguain Priestess and got 170k gold. Shaguain City was solid slashing with Skellies, lv38 and last spell slot. Shaguains had no chance against 5 Skelis and 340hp 6apr Tensered Tziri.
Chapter 5
Lv39 fighting some Drows with Skelies and Elementals, the last level was going to take a while with 1.62M xp needed. Vithal's Earth Elemental battle was much harder than I remember, as the main Elemental was just hit with Elemental Damage because of inifinite casting Stoneskins (similar to Ogremoch). My Elementals died and we had to use all of our HLA's. Fire Elementals were cunningly weak to lure us not to rebuff against Air Elementals. And they force threw us back constantly and I weren't getting even hits. Had to gas them out. Apparently Vithal died during the Cloudkills, so we missed Skull of Death which we couldn't use anyway. Time Stop and Simulacrum were the important ones. All in all much improved (harder) fight on Earth and Air.
Elemental and five Skelies were enough for the Machine Lich. The Balor was stoned first hit from Wand of Wonder. Kuo-toa ran over with Tensers, the Priest interrupted nicely through Sanctuary. Got Simulacrum as random loot which was nice. 50k to buy everything interesting from Ust Natha. 13x Mind Focus, Absorption, 95 MDR, -4 Save spell (-2 because our innate bonus v Mindies), with 349hp 12hppr 6apr Tenser's and 10x Critical Strikes we are a killing machine, and quickly destroyed them.
In the Mind Flayer dungeon two Tensers and Improved Haste combos with all HLA's were just enough v the first big party of Mindies. Rested for the second one and used same approach. But I was out of Tensers and HLA's with one Umber Hulk, Ulitharid and Mindie left. Had to drink one Stone Form, separate and pick up them 1on1. Another rest for Master Brain and once his party was lured away and smacked, we killed it with gas. Buffed one last time, but just picked up the Staff of Command and didn't bother fighting and just escaped. We got all we needed. Fire Control Ring, but more importantly Staff of Command and all three Control Circlet's.
PfU for Deirex and after dodging his Remove Magic's, MoD+2 destroyed him. Double crossed the Drow and left. Before giving up the Dragon eggs we visited the Demon Knights. Buffed up with Fear, Fire, SI:Abj, IH, Tensers and concentrated on the one with the Soul Reaver +4. Skelies were doing pretty well, so we continued and killed them all. We can't use Soul Reaver yet being good, but that will change in Abyss. Looted the Sling +4 from Beholder Dungeon with Mislead, and just left. Adalon pawned the entrance and we escaped.
Chapter 6
Kruin was killed by Elementals before he could even talk to us. 230k gold selling our loot to Ribald's special shop. Built Crom Fayer +5, Wave +4, Silver Sword +3, 25k, bought scrolls for 54k. 100k left after buying spree.
"Mistake Rune"
PfU for Shangalar and started slinging him with +3 Bullets after we saw he saved Azuredge at 3. Had a heart attack once my +3 Bullets ended and my char lunged on him with melee. This triggered his Magical Swords, but we parked them on the door with Invisibility. Once Shangalar was dead we backed up. None of them see through Invisibility, so we activated Layene's Hakeashars, and they followed us and we cast Elementals for them. With PfU still on we cast Improved Haste, Mislead and Tenser's and Whirwind 10apr MoD +2 quickly destroyed Shyressa. I attacked Revanek, but Layene summoned Cornugon so we backed up and waited it out. We tried Charming Vaxall with Staff of Command, but he repelled it and followed us to the entrance. We used Invisibility and managed to lose him. Improved Haste scroll, Mislead and hacked Revanek out.
But attacking Layenes Elementals was a huge mistake as she cast Fallen Planetar who teleported on us and cast True Sight. And no where to hide we were quickly double Dispelled. Had to use Magic Shielding to kite Planetar. Used Cloudkill trying to miscast Layene, got Dispelled again and had to use another Magic Shielding. Then Vaxall saw us and Anti-Magic Rayed and started following us. We ran to bottom of the map, Invis, and it worked, we lost him. Third Magic Shielding and continued kiting the Planetar in close quarters as Vaxall was still in the main room. His True Sight finally ended and kiting his Dispel projectile with our Innate Haste, it hit, and we again drank Invis potion. And at the same time it was unsummoned. Phew.
Then we had summoning competition with Layene, and she couldn't repell our never ending Elementals. We got the Staff of Magi, and then I remembered it's just for mages, and we don't even get the UAI. What an utter mistake this was. Four Skelies then easily killed Vaxall. We wasted 3 Magic Shieldings and about 10 Invis potions, which may come bite us back. Anyway we survived and got 30k worth of loot.
We cleared Forest of Tethir and North forest with summons and got 4th Time Stop of 9 available for us (including Limited Wish). Attacked Bodhi's lair without PfU as we tried saving them. This worked well enough with Improved Haste Tensers and MoD+2. Killed probably 10 Vampires. Tanova was still left, and she was too strong for us and once we saw CON at 4 we backed off. Fire Elementals were able to kill her. Then we still found the Guard who was even stronger and again got us to 4 CON and we backed off. After resting, waiting his protections out we finally got the killing blow. For battle v Bodhi we used PfU, and it was much easier fight. After killing all vampies, Drizzt was still alive and we hacked Bodhi to death twice. Also hit max lv40.
Chapter 7
Picked 5th Time Stop in Suldanesselar. The three Rakhashas are pretty op so priestess is pretty impossible to save without Time Stop. And she was not worth one. Had to gas the last one because my HLA's and Tensers were out. Our innate Acid Resistance was nice v Nizi as it took 9 hits from WoW to stone him. Summoned Rillifane who pwned the opposition. Also found Spell Trigger as loot. 220k gold selling my loot to Reirra. Irenicus was baited being invisible. Softened with 5x WoMS and killed by Skelis.
The Abyss
Wraith Sarevok was easily killed, and we used the STR tear twice with drop trick to get our STR to 24. We are going to try to get the last point from Watcher's Keep. We also got alignment change to evil, which meant we could use Soul Reaver +4 and get audience with Tahazzar. Took Cloak of Fear and evil path in Selfhisness. Dragon Stoned second hit from WoW, got another Time Stop. In test of Greed we Charmed the Genie with Staff of Command, gave the sword but stopped him from leaving. We used his spells to Gate Balor, which he fought a while wasting spells. Cast 4 Skelis to finish the job, but the Genie cast Death Spell to destroy them. Elementals finished it as he couldn't touch them. This way we got the good Tear with Blackrazor +3. We used the Tear three times for nice -6 save bonuses.
Tziri v Irenicus
Activated the fight with one Skeli, and backed off immediatelly. Once it was killed the Balors and Glabrezus teleported on to me, and we started kiting them with WoW. They kept casting Confusion and Domination, which wasn't going to work with our saves -3/-7-/-4/-5/-4. Permanent Haste is good here. It took 35 hits to Petrify them all.
We softened Slayer with WoMS. Saw Planetar and Improved Alacrity. It took 16 WoMS and 4 Haste scrolls to hack Slayers Stoneskins out. Once Slayer was getting damaged we approached with Invis, as I still hadn't seen Time Stop. And this obviously was his plan all along. Once we were in sight, Time Stop, Dimension Door, Maze, and we didn't have any Magic Resistance...
But that was not the end, we used Protection from Magic scroll, and it Dispelled the Maze before it activated. Summoned Skelis and Elementals, buffed, and attacked with 6apr Critical Strikes, and Slayer was done after four rounds.
Luckily I remembered that Maze escape tactic. Next we try to descend the Watcher's Keep, hopefully with better results this time.