Yeah, but I'm mostly just annoyed planning all but the pools part of the end battle. And now I wont even get to see the tactics work against the Big 6 and Melissan.
@Enuhal Thank you! Fireball, eventually to be superceded by Skull Trap, continues to be key when we're dealing with large enemy groups.
It'll be a long time before enemies have resistances and/or HP to shrug off, at present levels, 45D6 fire damage, averaging 157.5 damage (78.75 if they make five saves in a row).
@histamiini Near-perfect run, I must say. Your posts are also a very good source of information on enemy abilities.
How to survive without a CON modifier: A Random Run, Part 3
Previous part found here
Next part found here
We import into SoD by importing one character at a time, rather than importing the save game directly: This ensures our characters arrive right at the cap, not getting any extra experience.
Other than Invoker inexplicably loosing the 6 HP Familiar bonus (even though we kept the familiar...), the import worked fine.
Also, we'll add a slight difficulty increase. The party had to rush to Korlasz's dungeon before the latter could make a run for it, so we wound up leaving nearly all of our gear in the hands of the palace treasurer, Ophyllis; Invoker was only able to bring the Chain Mail +3, Krotan's Skullcrusher +2 and the Helm of Balduran. I'm sure it'll be fine, certainly Ophyllis can be trusted and won't sell all of our stuff to finance his gambling addiction.
It does mean we have to punch our way through the opening dungeon in our undies, though...
With only one melee weapon, we dismantle the first enemy group with, yes, Fireball. This, along with the contents of the room occupied by Porios, allows us to equip everyone with basic gear. I opted to allow purchasing things from the Flaming Fist Healer using the starting 30k gold, though I'll probably ban that in the future: We bought out her stock of healing potions.
Downstairs, there's not really much choice but to keep Fireballin' (though Enchanter offers some variety with Skull Trap, owing to him literally not being able to cast Fireball).
But man, even by opening dungeon standards, we are weak. Clearing the first big Undead group down here virtually exhausts our spell slots, so we have to risk a rest under Invisibility 10' Radius. It took something like 6 tries, as we kept getting interrupted by enormous amounts of 1HD Skeletons (we had to head back upstairs, as there wouldn't have been enough room...), but we eventually got it.
Onward we press, Fireballing as we go, and utilizing summons for the encounters with level-draining enemies.
I found something game-breakingly fun down here: You can backstab with Stone Fist.
I'll try not to abuse that. We reach Korlasz's chambers, drop a Cloudkill and a Chaos, and beyond dealing with the few Undead in there, that was it: Korlasz either ran out of HP or failed her save against Cloudkill (she should be immune to the instant death effect owing to her level?). Either way, she and her cronies accomplished nothing. Having looted everything, we return to the palace.
Not much to report for our brief foray into the city, though we sold some of the loot to afford a few items: Two +1 THAC0 bracers (sorely needed), and the cap that grants +2 CHA for bards. Could've skipped the last one I think. Anyway, off we go!
We clear the first outside area, then head on over to Isabella and Ikros, whom we help out against the Vampire. We still have absolutely awful trap detection capabilities, so while chasing after the Vampire Cleric eats a level drain trap bringing her to level 3... yikes.
We indulge in a spot of evil by leading the local Orc warband to Isabella and Ikros, and of course the latter stand no chance in a prolonged fight; not that their loot was worth the effort.
Nevertheless pleased at the way things turned out, we head back towards camp and.. oh dear.
That is decidedly not so great. We're almost out of spells, and Cleric is still stuck at L3.
I try to rest, but this area doesn't allow it... and I do so hate ignoring the random encounters in SoD. Alright.
We bust out of a Scroll of Greater Restoration which we bought off the Flaming Fist Healer, bringing Cleric back online (though she has no spells memorized...). We'll have to do what we can here!
Fortunately, we had a few Potions of Fire Resistance. This, combined with Sunfire from the Shield we got from Isabella (RIP), and a few Scorcher from that Wand of Fire you get in Korlasz's dungeon, actually carries us through the first group of Trolls inside the cave.
Cleric quaffs a Potion of Freedom, Fighter/Mage/Thief does the same with a bunch of Fighter potions (Giant Strength/Heroism/Invulnerability... might as well, he's the only one that can use them at present) and we descend through the pool.
And it works out! We have just enough charges left on the Wand of Fire to clear all the trolls out; don't think it'd have gone so smoothly if we'd had to fight them properly.
Good that we didn't have to abandon loot! We rest up at the camp and start clearing the Repository of Undeath.
Semahl doesn't make it (mainly because we can't just Fireball his position...), but otherwise the first level goes smoothly, owing to our firepower; Web by Invoker is also very good.
Again, we have to leave to rest several times, but other than that, progress is good and steady. Also, it turns out 5HD Skeleton Warriors can handle the Bronze Sentry just fine.
The Secret Revealed does for Coldhearth, we toss the Phylactery in the fire, have Cleric equip the Helmet of Dumathoin (freeing up the Helm of Balduran for Fighter/Mage/Thief), and return to camp. A quick rest later, we wrap things up by mercilessly Fireballing the Crusaders (we want the loot!).
Oh, one last thing: You can steal from Herod, which we gladly indulge in. This is another thing I'll ban from now on in my SoD runs , and I definitely won't allow it in BG2, but just for now. Apparently he only has difficulty 65, so getting Pick Pockets to 165 (two Potions of Master Thievery are enough for us) guarantees success. Cleric gets the Club +2, Blade gets the Savage Shortbow +2, and I forget the rest, but basically, we steal almost everything. Now, on to Troll Claw Woods!
We immediately head off into the wilderness, and almost as immediately, Enchanter picks up his old BG1 pasttime: Dying.
We duly raise him, and continue clearing the area (Cloudkill is quite handy here).
Mass Fireball ensures the Troll Cave goes smoothly; we depart for the Fort, and then depart again almost as quickly, since we need the Ward Token to do anything (though not before getting hit with an Oil of Fiery Burning from a local Hobgoblin Captain, which stings a bit since again... we have no HP).
The Greater Wyverns outside are handled via massive buffing and summons soaking up most of the damage.
I had planned to handle the Spider Cave using minimal resources, but always underestimate the sheer number of fairly dangerous Spiders in here: We end up blowing nearly all our remaining buffs and offensive spellworks, but do come out on top.
Cleric has good enough HP and saves that it's fine to toss one or two Fireballs at her even if she doesn't have Protection from Fire up, so occasionally we get a bit sloppy. We go back outside after having taken care of the Beetles that burrowed in, clear the Bugbears to the north, then get the Young Green Dragon ambush on our way back to camp. We help the Dragon, of course, since the Red Ioun Stone isn't so bad for Mage/Thief (and we've no use of a Halberd +2).
Then, en route back to the Temple, we get the Goblin/Myconid ambush, which is good since it means Elven Chainmail for Fighter/Mage/Thief. Yeah, AC5 isn't that terrific, but he can keep it equipped at all times, and it just looks nice: Very Elvish.
We make our way into the Temple, daggering Morentherene while passing by. The Bugbears aren't much danger, though we Fireball them anyway to ensure no Stalkers sneak past and put Enchanter out of his misery. Down in the temple proper, we opt not to quaff Potions of Perception: I'm sure we can tank any trap damage down here.
Or not, as it turns out. Maybe we should start using those potions...
At least Cleric can cast Raise Dead now, so we just rest up in the dungeon under Invisibility 10' Radius and continue.
Ziatar is remarkably weak for a Half-Dragon, though you've got to watch out for her breath weapon: This we solve by just mobbing her and her helpless Mage cronies with Skeleton Warriors.
Well, aside from the occasional horrible death, this is going just fine. The Neothelid takes a very long time to surface, but once it does, it drops within a few seconds due to massed Magic Missile.
Summons distract Akanna's Aerial Servants while we destroy them with magical firepower, and Akanna herself fares no better.
A rest later, we go all-out on Darskhelin and his Dominated party: Nothing lives long enough to threaten us.
I considered just rushing straight to the Shadow Aspect, but knowing how dangerous it can be, we rest again.
With every conceivable buff active (including True Sight on Cleric), the Shadow Aspect doesn't even last three rounds, since it wanders too close to several pre-laid traps right after having eaten five Magic Missiles.
And we now have access to the Fort. We take Vichand down: I prefer intimidating him, since if you fight him you have to be quick or he alerts the camp, but I guess Blade isn't that frightening. All the other little quests are done, and we finish by stealing literally almost every potion from Thirrim. Ugh, I feel dirty, but he does have a ton of Potions of Genius/Mind Focusing, and we so sorely need those...
Time for the easiest Fort battle I've ever had. We use some Fireballs, sure, but mostly it's Potions of Explosions (which Thirrim had in spades): These go straight through Minor Globe of Invulnerability, so readily burn the crusade Mages to a crisp, along with the rest of the rabble. The rabble unfortunately included Khalid, as the game remembers his gear from BG1... where he had a Long Sword, a Helmet, and nothing else (since I stole his stuff when first meeting him). Less than optimal when leading the charge.
I actually forget how we interrupted the Crusader Mage on the bridge, but evidently we did somehow: The Fort is saved, and we may proceed.
Arriving at yet another camp, we can finally sell off a bunch of crap to Nazramu, netting us 100k.
5k of which we promptly donate, since I misclicked and forced the local Ilmater-worshipping crazy person to accept healing, dropping reputation by 1...
Anyway! We do the little quests around camp, and this seems a good place to stop for now.
With decent gear all-around, we're now in a good position to blitz ahead, though we'll likely take the time to scribe scrolls first thing.
I seem to recall the Concocter having at least a few Intelligence-boosting potions, which is good, since we need about 13 of them in total in order for everyone to be guaranteed success... and that's using the Gem Dagger for +1 INT for whoever is scribing at the moment. This is why we haven't scribed anything yet, we just didn't have enough potions until we ripped Thirrim off.
Anyway, let's hope we can keep it up. Fireball and/or Skull Trap, in combination with Skeleton Warriors, should be sufficient to carry us through the rest of SoD. It better be, as magic is pretty much all we've got going for us.
I'll be away for a week, so next update will be some time from now; hopefully it'll be one culminating in beating Belhifet and moving on to BG2. Until next time!
Session 11 of this run has up to two more hours of mayhem. We were at the point of going to make a deal with Adalon last time. On our way to see her Omen and Coreheal ran into a drow war party. Omen took hefty damage but even without Tar helping he swiftly brushed them aside
Tar was not helping? Why no, she was laying snares slightly to the south. As the last drow fell to the ground she tossed a special snare onto the body, and we entered Adalons lair. We sealed a deal to retrieve her eggs by swearing fealty on even more snares Tar left as a gift
As we left her lair the sound of snares could be heard, earlier than Tar had expected. On inspection we discovered the entire adventuring party had perished including their troublesome thief for whom Tar had planned to foil with the True Sight from her book of one spells
A quick rest, then on to the drow city in disguised dark elf forms. Tar almost gave herself away with dialogue menu option 1 but just stopped herself and instead announced as Veldrin from Ched Nasad. So it was that we were granted access to Ust Natha
We wasted little time, purchasing only the staff of earth for Tar and the Rod of Smiting for Coreheal. Neither strictly necessary but we are entertaining the idea of max overkill except when extreme recklessness cannot be avoided
We found ourselves rescuing Phaere. Tar a bit miffed that she had no first HLA and the containered Death spell scroll remained unused. We resorted to snares and these worked reasonably well but Omen still did much axe work. Phaere mentioned a reward and told us to return to Ust Natha
We dealt with a beholder, a peacefully brokered helmet from a patrol, and convinced Solaufein he should act as if dead otherwise we would make it a permanent fixture for him. Then we offered up the Elder Brain blood when Phaere's beholder eyestalk proved unsufficient for the Matron Mother, and juggled dragon eggs. Only one recipient could be happy about the results, other than us
The summoned Demon Lord killed both the Matron Mother and Phaere, but as it was about to depart Tar gave it the real eggs in exchange for a magical halberd. We ran for the city exit, Tar lagging behind her speedbooted companions. She even had time to quip to the guards that there was "nothing to see here"
Coreheal counter-threatened the Aboleth while we refused to deal with Ghaunadians or Deirex's lichy tower. We were being quick in our escape
By the time Tar got past the tavern and almost to the Aboleth tank all the drow started to go hostile. Omen and Coreheal were waiting at the city gate, shouting that Tar should not have hung about. She shouted back that she had gone as fast as her little legs would carry her (could have gulped an oil of speed though) and the drow started to attack and surround her. Not good news
Tar though had ideas, chiefly glugging a potion of invisibility while there was still a path to the exit. She made it without further damage and we escaped to freedom
That was close. Indeed, so close that quite a few of the drow joined us outside. Tar kept running while invisible, and hurled a special snare backwards as she gained sufficient distance. Omen was merrily carving away with his axe but poor Coreheal took a couple of quick hits and slumped to the ground. Our first party death for quite a while
Omen seemed relatively safe and the special snare mazed all the drow. They returned in dribs and drabs, landing on newly-laid snares and smashed into them with ferocious axe blows. Once all were dead Tar fumbled inside her bag of holding and used the Rod of Resurrection on Coreheal
Back to Adalon, who was unaware of our eggstravagance with her brood. Tar was searching for the right words to tell her while passing potions of cold resistance to Omen and Coreheal. Once we were fully protected from cold (and fire for Omen) we decided Coreheal should present her with a Firestorm. Omen swung his mighty axe but the cluster of snares were quicker than his arm. Tar scooped up a vial of dragon blood and we made our way back from the Underdark
Elven general Elhan was there to interrogate us, and our story convinced him to make us hunt Bodhi down IMMEDIATELY. Right-oh
It appears we had to stop off at Trademeet to purchase the belt of inertial barrier for Tar. Ringing in our ears; IMMEDIATELY
So, Umar Hills and the strange book merchant. No sign of him, we searched high low and all around the snares left by adventurers resembling ourselves. Eventually we came to the horrible conclusion that we might not have looted a container in the excitement of dealing with Rejiek Hidesman. A quick trip to the Bridge district confirms this, and we return to Umar Hills
The book merchant duly does a trade, reveals himself as a master craftsman of un-natural armour, pours the dragon blood over Tar's human flesh and declares it quite complete. With that done he announces awareness of our ruse and attacks. This would have been a brief combat ending with Omen the bloody axeman standing amid severed enemy limbs and torsos if it were not for the humane dwarven and gromish snare killing Darcin Cole and his minions immediately
Tar was crossing off her to-do list rapidly. Next to the city docks, where Cromwell forged the Equalizer long sword, the Gesen shortbow and the Wave halberd. Two were bagged and Omen grabbed the bow for seldom-use rather than the seldom-use of a longbow he'd previously rarely drawn in anger. We asked a couple of times about forging Crom Faeyr but Cromwell stubbornly refused on account of us not having the Hammer of Thunderbolts. Mr Picky!
We trotted off to the Temple district, although our two hours was up we felt obliged to give ourselves a clue as to what we should start with next time by standing outside the lair
Tar has picked up the missile container so between that and the bag of holding we had no inventory issues during the session and without visiting a store after Windspear Hills it looks quite manageable
High level abilities
Tar: Use any item (summoned a familiar), scribe scrolls, alchemy
Omen: Hardiness, whirlwind, greater whirlwind
Coreheal: Spike trap, summon deva
We've also treated ourselves to the shield of reflection; Tar realising she can use it rather than bagging it
On to session 12. We are taking in the ambience of the sewers outside a hidden illithid enclave so will be freshly ready, or not
What was that? Tar can't see an EDIT button (yes yes it's in the cog part while I'd got it in my head that it was at the bottom next to Quote), and realises she forgot to mention that after visiting Cromwell and before going to the Temple district we spent almost an hour playing dragon and mouse at Windspear Hills because of the Hammer of Thunderbolts. She ought to have remembered that the three of us fought well together and Tar only inappropriately mazed one group of low level enemies right at the start which left Omen twiddling his thumbs before they could be killed and Garren Windspear would make his entrance
Coreheal popped undead. Omen meleed adamatium golems. Tar kept out of trouble while making mischief for our enemies. Firkraag survived our initial snares as Tar intended to rest but Coreheal laid 3 more snares and they would misbehave if we rested. So Omen took a lot of damage before we eventually hauled the fiery dragon to the ground. Tar tagged and bagged more items so there is a lot of stuff to sell after the illithid lair and Cromwells forging complete. Then we could go after Bodhi unless we decide the guarded compound or Twisted Rune need to be investigated looted
Tar had started a plan for session 12: Deal with the temple district illithid, get Crom Faeyr and the fire dragon armour forged, stop off at the guarded compound and clear the Twisted Rune before dealing with Bodhi. Plus stop in at the Slums to see if the Lathander quest could be progressed at night
First then the illithid. We cleared the initial room of fighters and laid snares from the door at the end of the passage back to this chamber. A special snare was placed last so we could get respite if pushed backwards. No need for this though, so we moved on towards the third and final chamber. Omen filled the doorway with his broad shoulders while Coreheal shot from behind. Tar hung back and when Omen suffered from a first braindrain (intelligence down to 6) Tar mazed the illithid
At this point I had to answer the door but the game was safely paused. By the time I came back the game was unpaused, illithid all dead, and the hammer of Thunderbolts was in my inventory. Talk about efficient delegation
Tar then decided to deal with the guarded compound as we were already in the vicinity and Cromwells forgings would not make a material difference there. Omen got the delight of asking for a lesson and we laid a few snares. Tar used her HLAs to make a potion and a scroll after laying snares. As she looked in her inventory and gulped a rogue speed potion she announced she was ready to start then realised Omen and Coreheal had already defeated the first enemies
We laid more snares and headed upstairs, the plan being to return downstairs and see who was lured with us. Coreheal took a hefty backstab from Ketta (12 hp of 77 left) so we encouraged him to run as Sion and Koshi blundered into snares. Koshi survived long enough to be mazed again but Sion died in traps and against skeletons Coreheal had left
A few more snares and we went upstairs again, and decided to drag enemies back downstairs again Ketta, Malafan and Olaf Rassmusen arrived. Ketta backstabbed a skeleton warrior so Tar used the book of spells True Sight. Malafan and Olaf died quickly and Ketta soon followed them
Upstairs again, lingering long enough for Tar to disable two enemy traps and only Stalman remained so we killed him - Coreheal clearing two more traps as we left to forge items courtesy of Cromwell
It was now not quite 10pm but Tar wanted to make sure she turned up at the slums. So we went into the Copper Coronet to sell loot from the end of the previous session and so far today. She used a Friends scroll for a charisma of 24 because Omen had asked about purchasing the Defender of Easthaven flail
It was 9pm then 10pm but nope the Talos contact was not biting. Tar could see the temple quest in her journal but Coreheal and Omen could not. We returned to the Temple district, confirmed the quest had been given, and back to the slums to confirm a no-show. Lathander is out of luck
Next then. The Twisted Rune. Snares for the lich. Omen did the summoning but Shangalar triggered a further maze snare which was intended for Revenak and possibly Shyressa. It died before the maze started, while Revenak and Vaxall the beholder were also being mazed. Omen 'rescued' Vaxall by killing it before the maze activated and turned to face Shyressa as Revenak was mazed. Omen had forgotten to swap weapons and took a level drain, so switched and destroyed the vampire. Layene had seen us earlier though so at this point we (not Tar she's still working on being a team player) were hit by a firestorm. We still got the kill for Shyressa then stepped out of the firezone. Layene and her pit fiend gave Omen a couple of hits, while Tar used her Firetooth dagger to almost kill Layene. She managed to cast wail of a banshee before perishing just as Revenak re-appeared. We raced to him but he was mazed a second time by a snare Tar had intended for Layene. He returned to land on a pair of normal snares and we looted to our hearts content
So Bodhi and the vampire nest. Omen used Azuredge and the mace, while Coreheal turned aplenty. Tar trotted along behind, keeping out of the way and dealing with traps. Omen battered Bodhi into submission and Tar looted the container. We returned to Elhan, then realised Tar had not picked up the Lanthorn. Two quick trips later we were on our way to Suldanessellar
Two adamantite golems appeared to be getting the better of Omen (88/171hp with dwarven stance active) but Tar decided to test them against a maze snare. Both disappeared and she decided to try normal snares for their return. Raamilat summoned a nabassu while Tar was tidying her inventory then cast timestop and firestorm. No real danger for us with Tar once more showing her team skills. Omen is mazed by Raamilat but just as Coreheal sends a deva in Raamilat is mazed by Tar with another snare and lands on another snare upon returning
Next are a group of golems, only iron and sand meaning short work is made of them. Tar decides it is time to deal with Nizidramanii'yt the dragon, tossing a special snare in and as it is mazed Coreheal and Tar lay a snare each. We intend to lay more but the dragon returns far quicker than we expect. Omen is in melee but Tar has retreated and throws another maze snare. Another 2 traps are laid despite being entangled and as one was a spike trap they are enough for the dragon to succumb
We'd like to say the rest of the city was a cake walk but Omen had to retreat from golems and rakshasa at one point. He had only taken 2 or 3 steps away before Coreheal healed him, and 2 seconds later all enemies were dead. We entered the temple of Rillifane and let the avatar obtain a victory there. Tar emptied her containers with the merchant outside and we moved on to the tree of life
Tar claimed one earth elemental and one fire elemental with the staffs she had been hoarding, but the air elementals were gone before she could see them. Irenicus made a grand speech then promptly died from excess snarekiness and dragged us into Hell
We collected all tears of Bhaal except one, used them up, collected the last one, and then faced Irenicus the slayer. Coreheal took mighty damage again, before healing himself. Irenicus put up a good fight and even mazed Tar once but we've seen all his moves and it did not end well for him. Go jump off a cliff into a fiery pit and good riddance
So we reached Throne of Bhaal, starting with Illasera. Or as we knew her, Illasera the mazed and (on her return, it's behind you) trapped. Tar stripped her of her boots and we were all speedy from this point
The first thing Tar did on meeting Cespenar was have him forge the Aslyferund armour and hand it to Coreheal. 40,000gp and she thought it to be better than the shadow dragon armour. Omen and Coreheal both thought otherwise, but we will never know as it disappeared between Tar and Coreheal. It's only money. Lots of money
We did the first Pocket Plane quest, the initial enemies determinedly chasing Tar. Eventually all attention switched to Omen and we made easy pickings from then. At the end only Ellisime arrived and Tar had held back. In the moments for her to move within crossbow range, Omen had completed the area
The entrance to Saradush was now open so we ventured there. Coreheal almost died while Tar was making distance, and as he too decided to run she snared the many enemies so they would be mazed instead of giving chase. Coreheal healed himself and laid snares. Tar had to caution him as he laid several, reminding him the enemies would return in dribs and drabs so 1-2 snares per time would be optimal. It didn't really matter as Omen was patiently waiting and cut enemies down in a steady arrival procession
Melissan greeted us and our two hours was up. It had been a good session but ToB enemies can quickly kill Coreheal or Tar, and even Omen can be in danger if swarmed. Tar needs to keep on top of her maze snares to deal with this scenario
We've barely seen Tar in trouble recently but today ends that streak. Does she survive...
The session starts well with Omen and Tar tag-teaming conversations between the Saradush scroll merchant, Squip the thief and is taskmaster. With the store open for business we sell a few items. Tar fails to convince the local clergy of her decent nature, meaning Omen and Coreheal have to step in and obtain a secret key. Kisers plot is foiled and we clear out the vampires before heading into the castle cellars
Thieves aplenty down here, including two of us. Coreheal draws some attention away from Omen and pays with his life, so once the remaining thieves are downed we use a second rod of resurrection charge of the session, the first having raised a childs father outside
The orogs in the remaining cellar rooms are whittled down and then we can head upstairs into the castle
Our entry is a bit of a struggle, although we have two sets of True Sight running we have enemies split around. Omen is merrily axing away, while Coreheal uses sling and spells. Tar is not doing well though, trying a couple of snares but each time an enemy is in sight. Still, we (meaning mainly Omen and partly Coreheal) are victorious so we hide and head in to see Gromnir
His party start to chase Tar immediately. She initially suspects someone could see through invisibility but then realises her hide in shadows must have cancelled while in cutscene. Omen once more holds ground as Coreheal casts, and Tar runs around the edges of the room eventually finding somewhere to throw a special snare from. All are mazed except Gromnir who must be immune to it. Omen cuts him down and another snare or two are set for the returnees
Tar decides to visit the stores to sell loot of the fallen, and purchases a second bag of holding - she's heard if you get to the Oasis there are more lootables than you can hold and she intends to disprove that theory
With Gromnir dead we use the Pocket Plane to travel outside Yaga Shuras home in the Marching Mountains, and clear out a large number of troops. Omen and Coreheal are expecting to travel to the Marching Mountains next but instead Tar invokes the next part of her not very well thought out and entirely unspoken plan
Coreheal voices his confusion - we have already been to Watchers Keep. Omen is wiser and realises the fourth head of the Flail of Ages is our next objective. We soon have that in our grasp, having blundered our way around but safely and with no party deaths. Omen turns to go but Tar is also after the helm of the rock. So we complete the four corners at which point Tar looks at the caged chromatic demon and despite her concerns decides more combat is needed. It is duly released and would put up a tremendous effort were it not for the four spike traps that kill it immediately
Discretion being the better part of valour, and Tar having no valour, it is clearly time to leave the Keep. Only, Tar wants to obtain forge steal or borrow something that Coreheal will use unlike Aslyferund or horn of the rock. So after another Pocket Plane rest and Omen grumbling that we appear to have disposed of the cloak +2 for Cespenar to upgrade whoops we return to the Keep
If Tar can remember the path this might not be extreme suicide...
The next level starts with us following Yakman the mad elf. Tar stumbles from chamber to chamber, not able to recall where she should be heading. At one point we all prove unworthy of retrieving a holy bastard sword from a pillar, at another point we meet a group of alu fiends and a succubus. Tar has been half expecting this but not knowing exactly when, and throws Omen a potion of invulnerability. Omen gulps it but several seconds later he is charmed or dominated anyway
Tar has to admit she can't remember directions mentioned to her many years ago. It would be safe to retreat and foolhardy to continue... it may already be too late...
Coreheal runs from Omen, as ordered by Tar. He runs past Tar, making her realise she should have stated where to run, primarily around the chamber and not into a corner. Instead, Tar runs as she had intended Coreheal to and we both gulp potions of invisibility but it appears all enemies can see through invisibility. Tar continues running but is also charmed and the enemies teleport to Omen and kill him slowly - Coreheal unable to help as Omen would turn on him with deadly effects - before focusing on Coreheal
Coreheal takes hits aplenty forcing him to use the tree of life nuts and healing potions. After a short while it is clear Coreheal will die before Tar is uncharmed, and if that happens the game is up. Omens ethereal remnants suggest Coreheal should pick up the cloak of the sewers and use rat form. This gives Coreheal survival time and Tar comes to her senses. There are three important things she does at this point. Firstly, use the rod to resurrect Omen. Secondly give Omen a helm of charm protection. Thirdly throw a special snare near the alu fiends and stop the ongoing attack on Coreheal
We lay more snares, Coreheal retreats and Omen takes his place. It does not end well for the Alu fiends. That was a very close call, and although we have five minutes remaining Tar decides the session will end early. It is heresy to suggest between now and next week she will consult "Mike's" RPG oracle and that we should travel NW, NE, NW, NW arriving with some sort of protection from nasty stuff
(but will she remember that)
Postscript:
While looking at party gear for next time I observed Grond0 did not have the Flail of Ages, maybe he lost it when he died in Watchers Keep after Cespenar upgraded it. Then I thought more, and can't remember him mentioning it or I missed his comment. Then I remembered I never handed it back to him. Then I had a good look at the screen recording - snips below
This was my inventory about a minute before Cespenar
Then I picked 3 potions of fire resistance up, followed by the helm of the rock and fire scepter
Then we Pocket Planed and spoke to Cespenar, where you can clearly see the flail and head disappearing but no replacement flail mentioned
I had assumed Grond0 received the flail but don't believe that is how the game worked. After forging the flail and upgrading the helm I went into inventory to give the items back and you can see there is no flail. I didn't check Grond0's inventory at the time but assume he lost it then
& using items BLUN14 and BLUN30A on a retest I can see the +4 flail should be mentioned and returned to the protagonist so this feels like a bug to me
I was unable to recreate the issue (from the latest save, with full inventory, with item equipped by Omen, with Omen controlled by a client character). I have added item BLUN30C to Grond0's inventory and he has the choice of whether to use it or not - I don't know quite how or why but the poor flail rarely remains in our multiplayer games
(suspect it might be due to a long running session of 2 hours and three of us in multiplayer from 2 countries, as we often see odd quirks during games)
How to survive without a CON modifier: A Random Run, Part 4
Previous part found here
Next part found here
Ah yes, the great slog awaits. The Underground River part of SoD is without a doubt my least favorite part: I feel like the expansion would have benefitted from just having set the experience cap to around 400k instead and skipped this part entirely.
Anyway, we begin by scribing, using up (I think) a good dozen Potions of Genius in the process, what with our silly number of arcanists.
Options enhanced, we embark upon clearing the random crap all over these maps, but not before the Shadowy Figure waylays us (and is promptly killed by a Potions of Explosion barrage). Next, some no-name Ogre Tribe knocks off Blade and do a good job of almost forcing us to flee the map.
We were a bit low on spells at the time, which is almost a death sentence for us... and happens sooner than you think, since we need a good 4-5 Fireballs/Skull Traps to kill anything.
Anyway, we press on, and in customary fashion, almost meet our end in the Spider Cave (the one with the Killer Mimic that spits its glue clear through walls...).
I always trip the same land mines in SoD, yet always bumble through somehow. Maybe next time I'll remember to either have everyone quaff a Potion of Freedom, or have those that do not just wait invisibly until the Mimic is dealt with.
There are thankfully no more close calls for a while.
Well, that was a lie. Our Detect Traps is so shoddy we can't really disarm much, and Cleric pays the price. Good thing I never send Fighter/Mage/Thief to open stuff, a bad roll on that would've probably chunked him.
With all outdoor areas cleared, we engage the Crusaders guarding the entrance to the Underground River.
Things of course go smoothly with a full contingent of summons and buffs, but it's quite exhausting to play like that (lots of clicking and planning), so usually we just play it fast and loose.
The enormous amount of trash mobs in the southwest parts underground are just disposed of using massed Skull Traps; inside Kanaglym, Skeleton Warriors do a good job of holding the local undead and Necromancers at bay while we just unload some Potions of Explosion (these go straight through MGoI).
On the way out, Zhadroth gets a taste of The Secret Revealed, and we pick up Spell Sequencer for four out of five arcanists (Blade can't use the robe), as well as the Ring of Regeneration to reduce our dependence on Potions of Healing. I wish the ring was available much earlier, it's such a nice convenience item.
The northwestern parts of the river are painstakingly cleared: We're not taking chances anymore now that we're so close to the end, and retreat many times to rest up. Ultimately, we make our way into the Castle proper, though not before ripping off Crusader Priest Polvi for everything he's got: 180 Pick Pockets is enough to steal from him with 100% success rate.
He's got some decent stuff, notably scrolls, potions and lots of magical bullets, though as a result we are now suffering severe inventory congestion.
In the castle basement, we set some traps near the entrance to hopefully slow down reinforcements a bit, summon Skeleton Warriors to hold off the big blob of Crusaders to the east, and walk in on Hephernaan.
Both his Mages are swiftly undone, Hephernaan flees, and so do we (though not before looting his room thoroughly).
Yes, you can just loot it later if you want, but I prefer scribing the quite valuable scrolls found here before invading Dragonspear Castle proper.
We avoid any further combat; we've something like 40 Potions of Invisibility, so just slip past the Crusader Mage/Cleric at the river that cast invisibility detection spells.
Since we've managed to amass a gargantuan amount of Potions of Genius, we scribe our valuable hoard of rare scrolls carefully: It's actually a bit of an optimization problem when you have five casters vying for scrolls.
After a bit of thinking, Fighter/Mage/Thief gets the lion's share of the defensive ones; we will be relying on him as our frontliner for dangerous fights in BG2 until Invoker recovers from dualing, so Fighter/Mage/Thief really needs SI+SS.
I skip questing in the courtyard: There's no loot there we need, and nothing you get there can be imported to BG2 either, so we just trigger the invasion instead.
I'll summarize: Potions of Explosion, Potions of Explosion, Web, Skull Trap.
Gotta do something with all those potions, they're pointless in the Hells.
The courtyard battle is handled via even more Potions of Explosions alongside Skull Trap and some clerical buffs; Ashatiel challenges us.
Ah, crap on a stick. Invoker fails his save against Greater Command: My mistake, I really should've had him quaff a Potion of Magic Shielding the moment the duel started. Fortunately, he managed to get off a Monster Summoning III first, so Ashatiel spent quite some time dismantling summons, and her clerical level should be low since she's a triple class. Will Invoker's defenses outlast the Greater Command's duration even though he's suffering auto-hits?
Just barely. Ashatiel was hitting fairly hard and often, but Invoker's CON bonus kept him alive. Phew.
I play it safe and have him quaff a Potion of Invisibility; who cares about honor, we're going to survive this no matter what.
Ashatiel and her cohorts get to feel the full force of Spell Sequencer (Skull Trap x3!).
That, along with the Killer Mimic debacle, was the closest we've been so far to losing the run.
Shaken yet not stirred, we press on, and safely (?) reach the Nine Hells.
The enemies here use Hold Person, Fear and Charm (but have no means of dispelling), so Potions of Clarity and Freedom all around keeps everyone safe.
We arrive in good order at the Hellevator, and start putting our ludicrously bloated inventory to use.
Everyone gets protected against everything the Devils/Demons/whatever they are can throw at them: There are enough protection scrolls throughout SoD to turn an entire party of six immune to Fire, Lightning and Poison.
Hold Person/Fear/Charm is covered by Chaotic Commands, or just a Potion of Clarity.
That done with, we apply basically every potion that grants some kind of bonus (Potions of Fortitude/Agility/Strength/Defense are very useful for our party, given our abysmal stats); save the one hour and less duration ones for the ride up the Hellevator, and only apply the very short duration buffs like SI after the third wave.
Potions of Magic Shielding are best kept in reserve, in case someone drops and has to be revived mid fight, or your buffs get dispelled by Belhifet (see below).
I write the above mostly for my own benefit so I won't forget next go around...
There's only a single Dispel Magic in play during the Belhifet fight: Belhifet himself force-casts it first thing, and he can easily be coerced into targetting whoever's closest if he can't see protagonist (just scatter, it'll at most affect one character assuming everyone has an Oil of Speed running).
This time, Belhifet threw it at Fighter/Mage/Thief, who had SI: A running. Lucky.
We let Caelar aid us, but she fails her save against something (I'm not sure what) that knocks her unconscious for a few rounds.
Amazingly, Cleric spamming scrolls of Greater Restoration at Caelar (with the Battle Tankard equipped to keep her from going fatigued immediately) actually keep Caelar alive long enough for the latter to recover.
With his reinforcements dealt with, we turn on Belhifet, and he pops Infernal Conveyance, teleporting away and going invisible.
We counter the invisibility, and Enchanter + Mage/Thief both pop Lower Resistance, bringing Belhifet's magic resistance down by 81% (!). I'm fairly sure he has a lot less than that to start with, so he's now completely vulnerable to magic.
This is what we have been waiting for. Belhifet has no acid resistance at all... but every party arcanist knows Vitriolic Sphere, and every party arcanist except Blade has access to Spell Sequencer owing to Zhadroth's robe.
You can guess the outcome.
Belhifet was already wounded following our tender ranged mercies, so he has no way to stand up to what is basically an instant 90 x 3 = 270ish acid damage. Great success, and a good showcase of just how incredibly lethal this party can be with proper planning. No spell defenses? No chance.
That's all she wrote. We escape hell, leaving Caelar to stew there, and return home to Baldur's Gate after being framed for a crime we did not commit. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them... maybe you can hire the A-team Arcanist-team.
We escape uneventfully, are captured equally uneventfully, and BG2 awaits.
We leave SoD at the cap of 500k experience: The next batch of level-ups comes only at 660k, and 750k (L12) will see Invoker dual.
I feel he really needs Protection from Magical Weapons to stand a chance at tanking come ToB, so it'll be a late dual, though not exceedingly so: He'll regain his abilities at L13 Fighter, so 2 million, which is late mid - early late SoA.
Assuming we make it that far, but here's hoping. See you in BG2.
Tar looks around - we're in Watchers Keep on the maze level
NW to a room with no enemies
NE to a room with enemies. We ignore them and head NW (we are near that exit)
NW to a room with enemies. We ignore them, pick up some items from the floor and head NW
Tar scratches her head - she'd not thought this far ahead. Aesgareth is facing us and engages in conversation. Tar plays along and tells him she will have to think on the matter. Then she uses the Pocket Plane to never return again (although see below)
Cespenar wants 5000gp to forge some armour which is duly passed to Coreheal and for once he receives it and wears it
So now we can proceed. Tar looks at her map and decides we should visit Nyalee in the swamp. A host of undead swarm us - Omen moving ahead a bit quicker than Tar would have liked as she cut-scenes her way to the front and is heavily level drained after a conversation with the Master Wraith. She runs away and tries to cast True Sight but a wraith hits her again. She continues running while Omen smashes and Coreheal uses Turn Undead before casting restoration on her
The next group of undead enemies have all their non-casters snaremazed, and the casters put up a good fight but are ultimately pummeled as their support starts to return. We learn of Yaga Shuras heart from Nyalee and make room in our backpacks for it by emptying a few snares onto the ground. As we depart more undead try to greet us but Coreheal turns and destroys them
The Marching Mountains is next and while the outside and lower level of the fire giant temple are not as difficult as normal in a trio we still make slow work of it. Coreheal dies at one point, Omen and Tar are badly wounded at other points, an attempted pocket plane rest freezes the game so we have to clear the middle two rooms twice, and the top left room has an offset staircase meaning Omen gets stuck and surrounded by fire trolls and salamanders. His hardiness keeps him alive and after Tar despairs of hitting salamanders with the Wave halberd she suggests Coreheal can use Crom Faeyr on the trolls. This speeds matters up
The temple interior is better but still ragged around the edges. Or at least to Tar who is fairly ineffective with her weapons and if she cannot get snares into action is reliant on her companions. Berenn is defeated mainly by a low door, while Imix forces us to retreat before making the mistake of chasing us - he did not see the three snares we had laid for such an occasion
Coreheal confirms he has both hearts so we return to Nyalee. She attempts to turn on us but our earlier traps spike her and maze most of her supporting cast. They eventually return to face Omen, then we attempt to rest several times in more than one area. Coreheal had suggested using the pocket plane, the game hints might have also done so and Omen finally jokes about whether Tar has thought about it. She obstinately chooses to rest outside Watchers Keep - does that count as returning
Yaga Shura then. We sort of clear the bridge, scare Yaga Shura off and lay a few snares for his return. We fend off several enemies to keep the snares intact and on his return we bait him in and down he goes. Tar knows what this means - loot his corpse and make our way to the armourers emporium known as the Oasis. At that place she convinces Omen and Coreheal to drag enemies away briefly then uses three special snares to start mazing enemies. She wants to add in spike traps but dribs and drabs of enemies continue to arrive so must patiently wait for Omen and Coreheal to kill them the old fashioned way. Crude but effective, and two bags of holding prove more than adequate to stash armour bows swords and shields
Amkethran next, helping the cleric and thieves in two arguments with monks, protecting the mayors daughter and once more being set up by Saemon Havarian. Tar buys the Klogoroth axe for Omen, and bags gargoyle boots and Enkidus Plate in case we ever meet Cyrics followers in the pocket plane. Then we continue towards Sendai's enclave, laying snares near the woodcutter
Not enough snares, nobody is killed and despite a few summons and a deva we are soon forced onto the back foot. Tar tries another book of infinite True Sights but is backstabbed so forced to run. Coreheal is badly wounded, Omen more badly wounded. Tar feels terrible about retreating round the base of the building so summons a golem and then Kitthix. Omen and Coreheal are steadily deteriorating but finally Tar gets a snare or two working and we claw our way back on top. Tar decides we should rest in the Pocket Plane this time, mainly because Cespenar can upgrade the Rune Hammer for Omen
It doesn't look like we've done a huge amount in the two hours available to us but it was a lot of hard work with many dangerous enemies. At one point Coreheal died - Tar thinking it might have been in the lower area of the Fire Giant temple but not certain. We purchased a second Rod of Resurrection with the primary one down to four charges remaining
It's official - we have more money than sense now
(about 100,000 less than I expected but Klogoroth, Enkidu and Gargoyle may not have been cheap)
Edit: oh and we completed the second Pocket Plane challenge - Tar managing two special snares so the enemies can be separated. Angelo fails to be snared so perishes first. Semaj returns first so is spike trapped, Anti-Tar is next and duly Omened, while Tamoko survives two spike traps and only survives attack by Omen thanks to Coreheal nipping in for the kill
How to survive without a CON modifier: A Random Run, Part 5
Previous part found here
Next part found here
The party successfully imports into BG2, with the right amount of hitpoints and exactly 500k experience each; see spoiler for SCS 35.21 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
Move or modify some overpowered magic items: 35.21
Replace +1 arrows and other projectiles with nonmagical "fine" ones: 35.21
Replace many +1 magic weapons with nonmagical "fine" ones: 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
Allow the Cowled Wizards to detect spellcasting in most indoor, above-ground areas in Athkatla: 35.21
Remove unrealistically helpful items from certain areas: 35.21
Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from the game -> Remove all ammo from random containers: 35.21
Delay the arrival of the "bonus merchants" in the Adventurers' Mart and the Copper Coronet: 35.21
Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): 35.21
Ease-of-use party AI: 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 golems: 35.21
Improved fiends and celestials: 35.21
Smarter genies: 35.21
Smarter dragons: 35.21
Smarter beholders: 35.21
Smarter mind flayers: 35.21
Smarter githyanki: 35.21
Improved Vampires: 35.21
Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: 35.21
Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: 35.21
Improved Shade Lord: 35.21
Spellcasting Demiliches: 35.21
Tie difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings to the difficulty slider: 35.21
Improved Random Encounters: 35.21
Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix"): 35.21
Improved Unseeing Eye: 35.21
Improved Bodhi: 35.21
Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold: 35.21
Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: 35.21
Improved Sahuagin: 35.21
Improved Beholder hive: 35.21
Rebalanced troll regeneration: 35.21
Improved Drow: 35.21
Improved Watcher's Keep: 35.21
Improved Fire Giant temple: 35.21
Improved Sendai's Enclave: 35.21
Improved Abazigal's Lair: 35.21
Improved Minor Encounters: 35.21
Now that they're in some sense accomplished adventurers, the entire party are given proper names:
Clarice the Cleric, Burton the Blade, Figaro the Fighter/Mage/Thief, Mathias the Mage/Thief, Envor (?) the Enchanter and Ioalus the Invoker.
I had intended to import Krotan's Skullcrusher +2 for Figaro, but forgot that Staff Mace +2 is higher in the priority list, and since Ioalus had the latter equipped at the end of SoD, that's what we ended up with... eh.
7HD Skeleton Warriors and some use of occasionally successfully laid traps prove quite adequate in clearing most of Irenicus' dungeon, but cannot help much when it comes to our atrocious Find Traps skill(s).
Guess we're resting early whether we like it or not... let's just have Clarice spring the traps, she should have decent odds of survival. Better than Mathias, at any rate.
Once Mathias is back on his feet, the rest of the dungeon is uneventful, as is clearing the Circus (True Sight and Magic Missiles for the Werewolves and Shadows, respectively).
We remember to pick up the disappearing scroll case from Bernard, and clear the Beastmaster's pen with a single Cloudkill.
Cloudkill proves quite helpful in a number of encounters here, as enemies in the Sewers are low hit dice.
We still have lots of spell slots available, as Ioalus won't dual until L12.
A few Skull Traps and a suitably buffed Figaro dismantle Captain Haegan and his band.
Here we run into a first major issue: There's a resetting Prismatic Spray trap in the beached ship blocking our path that we simply can't disarm (to the far north of the corridor, north of the two Slaver Wizards). Fortunately, we can just send Skeleton Warriors under the supervision of invisible Mathias to deal with the remaining slavers..
Ugh, completely random Thief skill points are a serious pain. Even if I give Mathias the Bracers of Dexterity at some point, he won't break past 50 Find Traps unaided. We'll need the Ring of Danger Sense (which ironically is quite dangerous to retrieve), and even then probably will have to depend on Potions of Perception. We'll see how we handle things.
Having freed the slaves, we've ample gold, so invest in a magic license, and free Viconia while at it.
Suna Seni and friends get a big ol' helping of Skull Trap while we're en route back to the Promenade.
At the Promenade, we mess up a bit: Brennan Risling manages to escape. Should've prepared some 2x Magic Missile sequencers for this, but figured we had the damage to take him down quickly. I figured wrong: We've almost no damage at all! In fact, we must resort to Magic Missile'ing Mencar into the ground, since we just can't hit him (but he can assuredly hit us).
I run into another behavior I've never observed before at the City Gates: The two Shadow Thieves being recruited by a Vampire that attack you (and have some decent scrolls including Contingency) disappear on us.
What happened was that the time went from night to day right after they turned hostile, and apparently they just despawn then... never to reappear. Irksome.
En route to Watcher's Keep, we get to save Renfield. Sasha and Prebek are too low-level to have much in the way of defenses; the traps in their home are far more deadly.
We just can't disarm anything. Clarice will have her work cut out for her...
Xzar is assassinated, and we collect the odds and ends of loot.
We expose Reijek Hidesman next, getting a lovely scroll of Spell Deflection as random loot.
Speaking of random loot, we also pick up a scroll of Spell Sequencer in the graveyard.
Even with one dual-to-be and a Blade, there's still three party members that can (eventually) use that, so yes, I'll gladly take it... along with the Protection from the Elements scroll found in the Crypt King's, well, crypt.
We delve further underground; Pai'Na and her brood succumb to a Cloudkill and some focused fire (she has no armor so even our paltry THAC0 is sufficient).
The Vampyre in the southern tombs is a real piece of work, as usual: Not content to whail ineffectively at a Skeleton Warrior, it tries to seek out better targets. We eventually take it down, though Figaro takes a heavy hit (level-drain wise).
We actually have to retreat back to the Graveyard and rest up, but return under cover of Skeleton Warriors.. and finally hit a milestone.
At 750k experience, Ioalus hits Invoker L12 (picking up * in Quarterstaff), and immediately duals to Fighter.
I realized after the fact I had forgotten to cast Find Familiar, so he will be down 12 HP for a long time...
Will we beat the odds and actually pick up a specialization? Or will we forever be doomed to single-pip misery?
Ioalus rolls the dice once, twice, thrice, quice (?), and ends up with...
Long Sword *, Scimitar / Wakizashi / Ninjato *, Spear **.
OK, it could've been worse. I'd say spear is the third worst proficiency given my play style.
Club is the worst, since the only weapon better than +3 requires you to keep everyone around immune to fire at all times.
Dagger is second worst, since it's just such puny damage.
Spear... is Spear. It'll be OK. I hope? There are good spears available, though it'll be some time until we see them, and I am a little wary of Piercing as a damage type. But let's just forge ahead; at least we got a specialization, which is a minor miracle in itself.
Ideally, I'd like to go straight for the Ring of Danger Sense now, but I realize it's a bit risky to brave the Planar Sphere in our current state: Let's instead focus on big quests with little to no traps. Trademeet!
Lots of mooks at the Druid Grove, but a simple strategy of massed Fireballs works here: Frontliners need Chaotic Commands to protect against Greater Command, and Protection from Fire to protect both against Flame Strike, and our own Fireballs. Then you're golden.
Cloudkill clears the Spider infestation to the west, then we use five Skeleton Warriors to help clear another couple of Troll spawns (reducing us to a single badly wounded Skeleton Warrior left).
The Troll Mound is actually a bit tough, as the multitude of Trolls have an easy time hitting us; I end up using our single Potion of Fire Breath to help clear the field.
As you note, Ioalus has a hitpoint problem: One good hit is enough to send him into dangerous territory, as he's unlikely to survive two hits, and all but certainly dead if he has to take three hits. I need to be careful when using him for a long time, but we desperately need his THAC0...
We loot and (I think for the first time ever, for me) equip the Spear of the Unicorn +2, as well as the Bracers of Archery (the latter on Burton). Well, that improves things ever so slightly, at least.
The Greater Earth Elemental to the north of the Mound is trapped into oblivion, and we let the local Trolls narrowly defeat the Shadow Druid and his cohorts.
Kylan Lind and friends are helpless against Skeleton Warriors, and the enormous blobs of continuously spawned Red Myconids on the bridge are treated to Cloudkill (Myconids have strangely good THAC0 and can get quite dangerous if you let them swarm you).
We're almost out of spells here, and actually end up having to do a running battle against the Adherent and the Shadow Druid at the entrance to the Druid Grove: Dalok somehow didn't follow. The reason is that the Adherent has stupidly good AC, and both the Shadow Druid and Dalok popped Entropy Shield, rendering our ranged weaponry null and void... so we had to wait out their buffs.
Not the party's proudest moment, or it wouldn't have been if they had any pride. They do not, in fact: Survival is the priority here.
Cernd defefats Faldorn, and we rest outside Adratha's cottage under Invisibility 10' Radius; there's no way we could engage Adratha and friends on the same rest as that used to clear the entire Grove.
Clarice and Figaro go immune to very nearly everything, and enter. Ihtafeer and Sadaat both pop protections galore, but Jalaal is lower level, and doesn't last long. Fortunately, the protections do not include Spell Shield or Spell Immunity: Abjuration, so Breach is sufficient to make them vulnerable; Sadaat soon joins Jalaal.
But Ihtafeer herself remains a thorny issue. She's clever too: I thought her out of almost everything, but she was conserving her strength. As the party closes in for the kill, a Sunfire erupts, nearly killing several of us.
Still, that was all she had left, beyond some Magic Missiles. Some potions later, we finish the job.
That was harsh. We used almost every spell slot we had, and still had some difficulties.
Yet a win is a win.
Back to Trademeet, where we successfully pickpocket Taquee for the Efreeti Bottle (Burton was poised to instantly speak to Khan Zahraa in case of failure).
We are showered with rewards, and also duly clear the local crypt, earning a random drop of a scroll of True Sight for our efforts; soon, Envor will be scribing scrolls, I imagine.
I want the Elven Chain Mail for Figaro, but grossly overestimate the noble magelings: They both die to a combination of Sunfire and Fireball before amounting to anything.
We also finish up the Reijek Hidesman quest while here, finally gaining a point of reputation in the process; we're still only at 18 reputation, even though we bribed it all the way to 17 fairly early on.
That was quite a bit of adventuring; we return to the Copper Coronet, and this seems a good place to stop.
Burton, Clarice and Mathias are all within earshot of leveling; another major quest should do it.
Ioalus is trotting along at a steady pace, though it'll be a long time until he reaquires his true powers.
Envor is a pure arcanist: Now that he's L12, it'll be a very long time until he markedly improves again.
Figaro is almost at a standstill: His THAC0 will basically not improve much for the foreseeable future, nor his spell slots, really.
He has just enough arcane juice to handle a single major battle per day; the rest of the time, he's a poor-AC poor-HP poor-THAC0 Fighter without weapon specialization. And yet, he's still our best combatant... though Ioalus is catching up.
Things are looking a bit grim! The party is quite demanding to play as well. We have plenty of spell slots, but nearly all of them must be devoted to defenses and/or buffs in order for us not to get absolutely crushed by anything tougher than a throng of Goblins. Hopefully things'll improve as we level. Let's hope we get some good luck on those random HLA's too...
The party is sitting at roughly 850k experience; next up will likely be the Umar Hills, since there are barely any traps there.
With the experience from that, we will likely brave the Planar Sphere next. Not just for the Ring of Danger Sense, but also the Ogre Strength gauntlets: Everyone except Ioalus is frightfully weak, after all. Maybe we should invest in the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, that should help our melee a bit...
Anyway, until next time!
Good progress @aldain - I've often made an exception for thief ability points when it comes to randomized parties, mostly because it's quite annoying to fully randomize that many points one by one (though the SCS option with thief abilities in sets of five would make it easier), but that also resulted in my thieves actually being capable of disarming traps.
The hill gIant strength belt would certainly be ideal to get, it's always been a huge turning point for at least one fighter in any of my randomized groups - and if maces are a good choice for your F/M/T, it seems like Mauler's Arm might be an option to save another level 2 slot for strength. Of course, if you dare to venture into the Unseeing Eye questline early - which imo is not as impossible in practice as it might sound in theory, especially with the level 11 version of skeletons available, and a lot of good anti-undead tools in existence - you can build your own ideal fighter in terms of stats, with the dexterity gauntlets, the fortitude girdle (which lasts for 8 hours, making it essentially permanent outside of ambushes during/after travel if one remembers to use it after every rest) and the hill giant strength belt.
@Enuhal Yes, the more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards picking up the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength straight away.
It'll be a big boost for Figaro. I've also considered the Unseeing Eye: Ioalus is in the odd position of not benefitting at all from increased CON, but Figaro will become a (non-specialized) powerhouse with 19 STR, 18 CON, and 18+ DEX (usually only requires 1 - 2 Cat's Grace, as he gains 1 - 8 points owing to being part Thief). I am a bit wary of the traps there: Then again, there will be traps in the Planar Sphere too. I think going shopping for a fair number of Potions of Perception is also a priority... looks like we'll be spending some gold.
A slip back into risk-taking behaviour resulted in the death of the monk soon after starting the next section of progress. The disappointment of that led to a 6 week or so break in the action before continuing with the cleric/mage. There were then few problems with the rest of the characters, except the final one who paid the price for a moment's loss of concentration.
Summary points of interest for each class Monk - as expected, the undamaged status of the monk was measured in only seconds when I got underway again and stealthed through the traps in the Nashkel Mine. The freedom to take damage after that, or perhaps just starting the series of characters afresh though immediately plunged me back into carelessness / risk-taking behaviour. I nearly died at the Bandit Camp when, after retreating from Tazok's tent I ran out of sight and tried twice to hide without success. The second time was in another tent and I was surprised when Venkt managed to follow that far and appeared inside with me. That resulted in getting the timing of my exit wrong and Venkt was able to follow me outside while casting horror - fortunately I saved. At the Cloakwood Mine I intended to just stealth downstairs, but a guard came to find me after I opened the door near Hareishan - I thought I was in stealth when I did that, but I guess that must have failed and I didn't notice. Hareishan then arrived, but I managed to disrupt her opening spell and run away to hide. I could then have used stealth shots or necklace of missiles to kill her safely - or just ignored her and gone downstairs as I'd originally intended. Instead though I attacked with fists hoping to finish her off with one punch. The attack was successful, but I rolled low damage and she survived. I immediately retreated at speed, but not fast enough to avoid a bouncing lightning bolt cast through about 4 different walls.
Cleric/mage - eventually continuing with this series of runs I had no problems in this session with the cleric/illusionist. I'd already taken damage with this character in the previous session, so didn't have to worry about minor injuries and skeletons did the bulk of the work in clearing enemies. I only took progress up to arriving at Baldur's Gate for the first time. That's a much shorter session than the previous one, but I thought that would help give me the feeling of making progress.
Stalker - the stalker also had a pretty easy ride up to arriving at Baldur's Gate. Most of the time I was using backstabs, but there were a few uses of stealth shots - such as against Davaeorn - in order to keep things safe.
Dragon Disciple - I'd already taken damage in the first session, but avoiding that with this character is so easy that I did so in this session - that just cost a couple of potions to prevent potential trap damage. Once again there were no alarms on the way to Baldur's Gate.
Cleric dualling to thief - this was another easy session. In order to get horror as a Bhaal power, this character had left a few more things to do than most of the others. That was no problem though with skeletons to lead the way and there were no alarms.
Diviner - after a number of straight-forward sessions, I was a bit more aggressive with this one. However, the only real hint of danger was when battling mustard jellies with my staff. After retreating twice against one of those in the Cloakwood Mine, I decided to continue the attack even after being hit and another hit on me could potentially have been fatal. I used a potion of absorption, so it needed a critical to hit and failed to get one in the couple of rounds it took to finish it off.
Kensai - the kensai had not taken any damage in the first session, but a despairing attempt to jump over the traps in the Nashkel Mine using an oil of speed failed. After that he took plenty of damage and I really need to try and keep things a bit safer. He managed to join the queue waiting outside the walls of Baldur's Gate though.
Blade - the blade took no damage in the first session, so provided a good incentive to stay safe this time. I had a moment of anxiety when going through the traps in the Nashkel Mine when I'd forgotten that bard song now makes you visible. The luck bonus from the song though means that hits automatically target mirror images and those protected from a hit by a nearby kobold as well as the traps. I also got a bit of luck when targeted by wandering bandit archers twice while clearing the Camp, but they both missed and I've managed to get to Baldur's Gate unscathed.
Cleric - the cleric was another who took his first damage from the traps in the Nashkel Mine. Without the need to worry about the odd hit progress was pretty serene through to Baldur's Gate.
Abjurer - the final character should have been easy, but a moment's loss of concentration proved fatal. I hadn't been bothering with using invisibility when travelling, which means you need to be ready to act quickly in case of an ambush. Going through the Cloakwood I was ambushed by spiders and didn't react quickly enough - as a result I died of poison just before reaching the edge of the map ...
Tar Omen and Coreheal are still standing after 14 sessions. Today looks like we will make an entrance into Sendai's enclave having previously defeated the drow "woodsman" in a close run encounter
It starts so well, killing the few guards outside and the colony spores inside. A bit further inside are small spiders and umber hulks. Omen takes a battering while Coreheal finds his armour suddenly not up to scratch and this causes him to die. Tar uses snares to help Omen and once the area is secured we use a rod of resurrection charge (3 remain on rod 1, 10 on the spare rod)
The remaining enemies in this opening area are dealt with more carefully, and we cross off encounters with the drow weapon master, Odamaron the lich, sneaking past the many guards in the tunnels and so on. At some point Ogremoch survives snares (for once we apply an insufficient quantity as more would have done the job but Omen is the veritable immovable object and just outlives Ogremoch
On the other side of this small area are a random group of enemies. The first couple are dragged into snares, the next few are taken in a fair fight and the hive mother is pinned to the back wall thanks to the Klogarath axe
Tar forgets the order of this area, was that before or after she played cat and potion mouse with the drow captain. She used an oil of speed to create distance then a potion of invisibility as the captain used the Spectator Beholder to block her escape. Once invisible the Spectator was bumped out of the way and Tar had enough room to use snares. A single spike trap was not enough so she used a special maze snare and set two more spikes
The room with illithid in was no concern to Omen either
We rested in the Pocket Plane before a final confrontation with Sendai. This was a bit scatty on our part but we were never in danger from Sendai's statues. Plenty of chance for Coreheal and Tar to liberally use snares while Omen stomped on anything that moved. Eventually Sendai decides to do it herself and as we are clearing minions to use more snares she uses an earthquake to hold Tar. This could be bad
Omen has reacted, using Klogorath to push Sendai away and Tar breaks free. Sendai is almost killed by Omen but gets a stoneskin up then mirrors and more protections. She looks menacing and Omen could be facing a world of pain but Tar gets another maze snare and we set some spike traps for her return. Tar loots everything in the chamber and we depart
Abazigals enclave is next, Draconis thinking he can best us. Tar lays spike traps at the southwest and Coreheal lays an exploding trap at the southeast. These for Draconis and invisible stalkers respectively, but such plans rarely work out as intended
A deva distracts Draconis in his human form, allowing us to missile him. When he transforms to a dragon this means none of us are encircled by him. He hits Coreheal hard then chases after Tar. She is delighted to see the summoned stalkers destroyed by Coreheals trap, and more soto see Draconis fall onto her traps. So the plan actually worked! We bag his head and Tar equips his gauntlets
Inside the enclave a greater wyvern occupies Omen for a brief while, then a group of earth elementals are killed. We swim through a tunnel and arrive at a chamber containing frost salamanders. It's been a long time since we were last here, as we'd mistaken it for the Kuo Toa tunnel. The salamanders put up a brave fight and deserved to win having badly wounded Omen and being in control of the situation
Not quite though. Tar finally gets enough space for a special snare and the salamanders are mazed. Our first set of traps are too close together and all used on the first returnee meaning the rest return moments later and turn the screw on Omen
Tar gets them mazed again and we spread our snares out making an efficient kill room. At the end Coreheal mentions the Wave halberd and Tar remembers it is in a bag of holding - not much use there
Tar hides and enters the next room expecting bone golems. No silly girl, they are bone fiends and can see you through invisibility
She retreats and the fiends follow only to run into Omen
After looting the area we can use a breath potion to cover a longer tunnel and this is where the Kuo Toa are. No real problems here either but they spread out and do a good job of stopping Tar from trapping them. Up to Omen then
The third area is flaming skulls. Coreheal lends his cloak to Omen who badly needs the kill-count to keep up with us (no he doesn't). Once Omen has cleared the area we sub-contract a job to Bondari, release an trapped dragon and open up Abazigals chamber
Omen finds the frost salamanders within are not being Waved so hands the halberd to Tar. Same for her so we are forced into a slightly more pained clearance than intended. Not long afterwards we have the chamber cleared apart from the bit at the centre. We lay snares near the entrance and use missiles to relieve Abazigal of his human form
The dragon is not happy. Tar is almost immediately incapacitated but able to stand up and run. She races past her companions meaning Coreheal takes damage from the next attack. It's not far to the entrance though and Abazigal must surely be thinking we are trapped as the entrance will be blocked. He's certainly not thinking what are those spiky things on the floor. Five spike traps are enough to kill him leaving two remaining
We loot the chamber, less to grab here, and return to Amkethran. Once there we get the Big Metal Unit forged and Coreheal tries it on. Look at that armour class (from -12 with the white dragon scale to -20 with the unit). Tar takes the Big Metal Rod, and checks it works (Omen confirms the scorcher projectile is warm...)
We close the session 5 minutes early rather than get messy with Balthazar. Next time
Tar and Coreheal have 283 and 290 kills. It's a close run thing between the three of us but Omen pulled ahead slightly due to his flaming skull spree (no seriously he's been a killing machine all through the run) and just pipping us with 1353 kills
How to survive without a CON modifier: A Random Run, Part 6
Previous part found here
So, there are still some minor things we can take care of within the city before braving another major quest: First up, the Fallen Paladins, who are notably helpless against Skeleton Warriors (who isn't?).
We also take care of the Sir Sarles quest here: I'm intending to make things easier by forging the Improved Mace of Disruption +2.
I managed to remember that the painting in Neb's hideout has an Acid Blob trap on it, so Clarice had the appropriate resistances up (the new SCS spell Resist Acid/Corrosion? I think it's called), and survived handily.
Turning in Neb's head got us to 19 reputation, which I think is fine to start shopping at.
We also dealt with sundry minor encounters: Tirdir, slaying Officer Dirth for another suit of Full Plate Mail, clearing out Valeria and her goons.
There are a few decent scrolls in the cupboard here, notably Breach if you don't want to pay for it, although we've already got it due to going through SoD beforehand, as Dracandros learns much to his dismay.
I don't want to start the whole Unseeing Eye quest yet, so we settle for just clearing the first part of the sewers; indeed, Beholders/Gauths are more or less helpless against Skeleton Warriors (there's one teleporting spawn of them here to the southwest).
The local Rakshasa is annoying, but much lower level than the ones at Trademeet, so a single critical spells its end, following a successful Breach.
Now we shop a little. I find out that apparently (?), there are only seven Potions of Perception available in all of Athkatla! Roger the Fence carries three, and one of the Shadow Thieves (I forget which one, maybe Arledrian?) carries a further four. This could be troublesome...
Anyway, we also pick up a number of key scrolls: Envor gets Improved Haste, Protection from Magical Weapons from the Shadow Thief at the Bridge district, and Protection from Magical Energy from the smithy in Trademeet.
I also grabbed Minor Sequencer for him from the Shadow Thief: Apparently the SCS component which changes the spell schools of sequencers/contingencies doesn't make it possible for an Enchanter to cast from the scrolls, but Envor could actually scribe them. Good! That'll be useful.
We celebrate our newfound arcane power by going ham on Tarnor the Hatchetman and his band.
Skeleton Warriors, Cloudkill, the odd Breach... it all adds up.
OK, so the plan now is to grab the IMoD +2, then use that to facilitate clearing out Imnesvale, as I'm sure we'll get some seriously nasty undead spawns there.
We pay Gaelan Bayle, and with the cost of the previously purchased scrolls along with putting aside 7 500 gold for later forging, we can't afford the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength yet; we'll make up the difference with potions, as we have a fair few such by now.
Lassal flees in shame, Shadow Thief traitors are dealt with, and we begin our assault on the crypts.
The Vampires aren't that bad this time around, in that they don't keep going invisible ("stealthing"), but mostly just stand and fight.
Buffs and Skeleton Warriors sees us through until we can pick up the Mace of Disruption from the blood pool.
Man, the mace is just wonderful. Tanova disagrees, though.
We handle Bodhi by just running away for a few turns, and that's it. We don't report to Aran yet, but rather forge the IMoD +2 as alluded to, and make preparations for Imnesvale.
Preparations are actually quite timeconsuming for this party; even with Ioalus still caught up in dual-classing hell, we have five characters whose spellbooks need frequent rearranging. I think I spent something like 20 minutes figuring out a good setup...
Anyway, Imnesvale itself is easily cleared; we arrived there and immediately got fatigued, so figured we might as well just go overboard with the arcane solution (read: Fireball until nothing is moving anymore).
A rest later, we depart for the temple.
We've prepared some Fireballs specifically for this, so don't turn the mirror on the enemies at the entrance, although the experience was so paltry (it's almost only Shadows and Shadow Wolves, at 420 and 500 experience a pop) we might as well not have bothered.
Normally, you'd abuse having a pure Cleric to the max here, but charming Undead just isn't that useful. Seems a bit buggy, in that they will turn red, then green, then red... I much prefer just blowing them up. Though I suppose it might be helpful if there was a spawn you just couldn't handle using standard tactics.
The first room inside the ruins is just Skeleton Warriors, which our own counter just fine.
Heading further in, it's dread incarnate.
There's no good way for us to handle a Lich at present (although we did come semi-prepared).
Ideally, I'd like seventh-level spell slots, but we'll have to somehow make do.
Fortunately, this particular Lich is rather passive.
... but still very much lethal.
I was hoping to separate the Lich from its massive attendant spawn, but it had a Symbol: Death prepared, and in our no-CON party, there are still two members susceptible to that.
Clarice didn't prepare Wondrous Recall, so we head outside, rest on the fourth try (by the crystal, so it's not an issue should we get interrupted), and get Mathias back in his feet.
This time, we sacrifice a Skeleton Warrior to get things rolling: The Lich is content to stay in its room, but its servants start looking for us, which is exactly what we wanted.
Turns out 7HD Skeleton Warriors can actually hit Bone Golems (but not Greater Mummies).
Alright, let's try this then. The Lich initially popped a Spell Trap, but that has expired by now; it didn't put up any defensive Illusions, so I'm all but certain it's a Necromancer. This is good, since SCS Necromancer and Enchanter Liches are the weakest, by my reckoning (fear the Conjurers and their endless hordes...).
We bait out two Death Spells using Kitthix and the Berserk Warrior, then buff up a bit, and engage: The plan is to wear the Lich down using Skeleton Warriors, then move Figaro into position for a killing blow.
No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
The line-of-sight here is wonky: Envor doesn't suffer the ADHW, but Mathias does, and croaks.
It's fine: Envor has enough anti-Mage spells memorized to carry us through this. I hope.
We retreat a bit though; let some of the Lich's better buffs expire, I say. The Lich says otherwise.
Crap. OK, no worries. Apply emergency buffs, what we can get off in a single round, and scatter a bit.
Use Skeleton Warriors and Figaro (who does have full protections up) to occupy the Lich, and we'll be fine.
Clarice is quite sturdy, so it's alright for her to be in line-of-sight. I'm sure that Abjuration the Lich is casting is just Spell Turning or something.
Or not. Clarice is Imprisoned.
We wreak our horrific vengeance, but Liches are immune to spells below sixth level (except Breach): We have no way to dismantle its defenses as we've yet to scribe Pierce Magic, and so are reduced to just swamping it with Skeleton Warriors.
It turns out that Imprisonment was its last big spell; it flails about ineffectually with Suffocate, Magic Missile and Melf's Acid Arrow, then just crumbles unceremoniously beneath the Skeleton Warrior onslaught.
I scouted ahead after this, and confirmed there was another Lich waiting for us at the other spawn point.
Even had we dodged this (optional to fight) one, the same tragedy would likely have been in store for us.
I also went back and verified: There are no Freedom scrolls available prior to the Underdark.
I think it's theoretically possible to make our way through the Underdark with this party, but we would either have to take some risks, or just skip a lot of content. Even then, it's maybe a 50/50 shot with no Clerical buffs at all? And once we got Clarice back, she'd be far behind everyone else.
I'll consider this the end of the no-CON party, unfortunately.
Some thoughts on this run.
One, the trap situation wasn't as bad as I feared. You can dodge most of the damage by resistances, Minor Spell Deflection or Stoneskin. Though not a run-ender it was extremely annoying not being able to disarm most traps, and I imagine it also led to some loss of experience (though not that much). Would prefer to be able to disarm, all things considered.
Two, the worst part about full-random is the lack of melee/ranged power. No specialization (barring Spear...), no Blade with three pips in Two-Weapon Fighting, not even a proficient ranged weapon for Mathias.
Even with Strength and Cat's Grace making up for our woeful stat deficiencies, it was difficult for us to actually kill things without resorting to spells.
Also, we kind of had to hang on to any non-generic magical weapon, because we might end up with a specialization in it.
Three, CON is really nice because it let's you play without always paying extreme attention.
Four, dualing at Invoker L12 was not a good idea. Ioalus had sincerely crappy HP as a result, and a Fighter with crappy HP can't really do much; I should've taken the advice to dual immediately at L2, I think the party (even had they made it far enough for Ioalus to finish his dual) would have benefitted far more from that.
Five, I really need to adjust my SoA tactics to account for the risk that Imprisonment represents.
The only places where this cannot be countered are Lich spawns (Lavok and possibly Tolgerias can use Imprisonment, but they can't see through Invisibility, so just pop a Potion of Invisibility and you're good); beyond the fixed encounters, Liches are to my knowledge only present in the Temple Ruins, the Unseeing Eye quest, and the Spellhold Maze, and then only if you're high enough level, 1 million experience perhaps?
So instead of soaking up as much experience and loot as possible before going to Spellhold, finish 1 - 2 crucial (in the sense of securing important gear) major quests, then just take off? Most importantly, you want to avoid fighting a Lich in Spellhold, as it seems the only potentially unavoidable one before the Underdark, and so you actually want to keep your level down.
I still enjoy random runs, though will likely not do full-random again, at least for a while.
Maybe another go at some variation of best-out-of-three, that seems a fair compromise, we'll see.
@aldain Sad to see the end of your run. I would really like it for SCS to re-introduce at least some freedom scrolls from vendors, as they used to be present in some previous versions.
I'd like to see a bounty hunter run @Klorox is that solo or in a party? I've had many a go at each, and either is a lot of fun due to tactical play (solo splitting enemies up, laying snares while enemies are mazed, trail of Otilukes and so on while party is great to reposition before enemies return)
Tar used her Sunday ability to schedule a pocket plane rest while Omen and Coreheal were otherwise occupied. She went as far as forging the Blue Dragon Plate and upgrading Gram the Sword of Grief neither of which will see any use - in fact remembering Coreheal bemoaning electric resistance from the plate was only available after you needed it
If she thought really hard, Tar could make a case for doing Sendais enclave after Abazigals, then there would be minor benefit for the plate. Or doing the second level of Watchers Keep later than we did. Or perhaps other uses but yes Abazigal himself is the main user of electricity
Tar has handed Coreheal three sets of bullets, expecting one back and the other two to be placed in missile slots alongside the bag of bullets +2. She has also unbagged the frag grenades for the Big Metal Rod, figuring Omen might like some collateral damage. Also the Pixie Prick has finally been bagged, while the staff of the magi very briefly felt nice she decided a single handed weapon plus the shield of reflection was a preference. A brief disappointment after Cespenar pointed out Hindos Hand had no Hindos Doom +3 to upgrade to +4 (it is deeper in Watchers Keep than she intends to go) but Usunos Blade +4 will do nicely and just edge out Celestial Fury
(such an easy change she thinks. Usunos blade. As she saves the game waits for another weekend, she can't help herself haul both Celestial Fury and The Equalizer longsword out of a bag. Before she knows it she has equipped Celestial Fury instead. Spoilt for weapon choice)
& hoping even against ToB enemies Celestial Fury goes Boom Boom Boom like Baldrick says in Blackadder goes Forth
Although a few songs Boom Boom by Outhere Brothers or Boom Boom Pow by Black Eyed Peas or Boom Boom by John Lee Hooker spring to mind - no doubt many more also
No presents for Omen - in fact Tar stored the fifth flail head in the pocket plane as she had asked Omen if he preferred the +4 flail so he could run around with speedy boots and be further hasted, or the +5 version with extra damage but permanent Free Action. Speed it is
It is possible for us to do Balthazar, the remaining three pocket plane challenges and get to Melissan within two hours, I think. Time, roll of the dice, and avoidance of party fatality, will tell.
To be continued
25 minutes of gameplay later...
We defeat the Slayer pocket plane challenge (Coreheal sets 7 spike traps, 3 are enough)
Plus the faithful of Cyric (coreheal using Enkidus plate, Tar the Gargoyle boots, Omen his resistances)
On to Balthazar
who we finally defeat before realising Coreheals death was a chunking (8hp, 33 damage from Balthazar)
He realised too late who was attacking him and was unable to retreat to his traps quickly enough
@Gate70 , I try to do a small party. My last run unfortunately ended in bg1 still. I had a halfling bounty hunter and took along Korgan, Branwen and Baeloth.
Being a halfling allowed me to be semi competent at locks and traps while pouring all my points into traps and then the stealth skills.
I think dwarf is a better choice in the long run, as that 19 STR is such a jump in power.
I just wanted to share a funny "run" I've recently attempted. I was feeling a bit deprived of my main P&P RPG, The Dark Eye (the most popular German P&P RPG System) - I have two groups I usually play with, but due to a lack of recent sessions, I was looking for different ways to have some fun with it. Now, there are some The Dark Eye PC games - some of them cRPGs (Drakensang is propably the most well known nowadays; its prequel, The River of Time, is imo the best one and the only one I would fully recommend to anyone), some of them Adventure Games (the really good ones being Chains of Satinav and Memoria). However, while I have played those (the only TDE games I've never played are the super old Northlands Trilogy ones from the 1990s - before my time), returning to The River of Time would take up my full attention, and I was mostly looking for something I could play while listening to podcasts or youtube videos. So... the idea was to play BG1 as if I was playing a P&P party in The Dark Eye, with only the abilities that somewhat overlap available, and with me roleplaying as a typical The Dark Eye group of heroes.
Now, TDE is more a lot more grounded in "fantastic realism" and lower fantasy compared to D&D. A lot of classes and kits available in D&D are straight out, because they'd be able to do things no human could to in TDE, and most magical items would be unrealistically powerful. I took the time to make a short document to see which spells would still be available to me for a potential mage character, same for divine spells (both work quite differently compared to D&D, but there's at least some overlap with some RPG staples - you do get a type of fireball effect or a type of mirror image defensive spell, just to name a few). Well, I created my party, which included a Knight and a Priest of Rondra, the goddess of honor and war (created as a Paladin - cleric weapon limitations would make no sense here, and clerics would get way too many spells compared to what they can do in TDE).
Well, after all those elaborate preparations, the run ended almost immediately. When we encountered the belt ogre, I decided that those characters would never back down from a battle against an ogre in Aventuria (the setting of TDE) and would charge into melee combat. While an ogre can still knock out a PC in one hit in TDE, they generally don't outright kill them - also, you get an active parry attempt in TDE, so there's always a bit more counterplay against getting hit, especially if you outnumber your opponent. However, considering that I was actually playing a D&D game at level 1, I wasn't too surprised to immediately get oneshot by the ogre upon its very first attack (well, I was a bit surprised, because I would've expected level 1 protection to kick in, but we all know that this mechanic is very flawed and doesn't always work - I think if the specific amount of HP the character has is rolled by the enemy, the protection fails, for example).
Anyway, this quickly dispelled the idea of trying of roleplaying a TDE party through the BG series. Back to playing Age of Mythology for now
Corearcher XII the elven archer, protagonist (corey_russell)
Junker, dwarven bounty hunter (Gate70)
Duplo, dwarven kensai (Grond0)
After our unfortunate demise with our last run, was time to roll new lambs to the slaughter. I chose archer as their stealth is pretty good and keeping at range for most enemies seems to make sense. Things we got done this session:
1) Candlekeep chores completed without incident, though we almost forgot to pick up our free potion. Corarcher finished the session with a large number of blue potions so apparently this wouldn't be critical even if we missed this.
2) Corearcher took his friends to FAI to pick up +1 ring for Corearcher and another ring for some cash. Bounty hunter trap and a backstab was just too much for Tarnesh. Grond0 says what about ankegs but considering the party can't wear armor better than leather no way.
3) We worked our way to Shoal to cut her down with missiles, with Junker getting our first level. Our CHA is lousy so can't do the Mad Arcand just yet.
4) We managed to kill Neera with a single missile which enabled us to pick up the gem bag - we also picked up the scroll case. two traps, a backstab and missiles was enough to take down Silke. Corearcher let Junker take the +1 staff since Junker sometimes backstabs.
5) Took down coupe of ogrillions, did some running and shooting with the hobgoblins with stealth boots going to Junker.
6) Returned to Beregost to report to Merrianne and also to pick up crossbow of speed for Coreacher who is *** in crossbows and eventually ***** in crossbows. He gets a lot of kills. Also killed Karlat.
7) Made it to Nashkel, with noober being our next victim. We had to sell the ankheg armor as none of can use it. Granted, Gate70 could use it when he has 3million experience but he will have much better options by then.
8) We stopped by Arghain's area to pick up his two hand sword for Corearcher. We also visited Melium who is nearby and he didn't live long. We also tried to do Greywolf but Grond0 mis-clicked and we lost the +2 sword and a lot of experience and reputation. Well could have been worse I suppose. Just so this trip south wasn't a total loss we picked up the +2 dagger in the valley of the three tombs and also the ring of fire resistance and Samuel.
9) Samuel returned to FAI Temple. We also talked to Landarin for her rewards and the pantaloons.
10) We headed south once again and found a "dog" for a "boy". Corearcher asked if we were strong enough to take on Vax and Zal and Grond0 said it would be easy. While it was easy enough for Vax but Zal nearly killed Grond0, close one.
11) Next area cat returned and we even got the undead scroll despite our charisma - we belatedly realized our REP is at 20 which is no doubt why.
12) We went to gnoll fortress, mostly to pick up the goodies in a cave and also to give Gauntlets of Dexterity to Junker. By the time we got to edge of zone it was time to save and end the session.
Duplo is the kill leader, but no real surprise there, especially since he is often at range and using fast range weapon (throwing daggers).
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 selection of party gender/race/class/alignment; best out of two selection for initial stat set, proficiencies, Thief skills, and known spells.
Party in spoiler (protagonist at top).
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Class: Necromancer
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Stats:
STR 11 DEX 12 CON 15 INT 16 WIS 16 CHA 13
Proficiencies:
Dagger *
Starting spells:
Burning Hands, Larloch's Minor Drain, Shield
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Class: Beast Master
Alignment: Lawful Good
Stats:
STR 13 DEX 16 CON 15 INT 9 WIS 16 CHA 6
Proficiencies:
Longbow ** Crossbow * Shortbow *
Racial enemy:
Kobold
Gender: Female
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Fighter / Thief
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Stats:
STR 11 DEX 13 CON 16 INT 9 WIS 9 CHA 18
Proficiencies:
Axe * Two-Handed Weapon Style ** Crossbow *
Thieving skills:
Detect Illusion 15 Find Traps 15 Move Silently 5 Open Locks 5
Gender: Female
Race: Elf
Class: Mage / Thief
Alignment: True Neutral
Stats:
STR 14 DEX 15 CON 14 INT 16 WIS 9 CHA 11
Proficiencies:
Crossbow * Shortbow *
Thieving skills:
Move Silently 5 Detect Illusion 25 Set Traps 5 Pick Pockets 5
Starting spells:
Reflected Image, Sleep
Gender: Male
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Druid
Alignment: True Neutral
Stats:
STR 16 DEX 7 CON 15 INT 9 WIS 13 CHA 18
Proficiencies:
Dagger * Sword and Shield Style *
Gender: Male
Race: Elf
Class: Enchanter
Alignment: Neutral Good
Stats:
STR 14 DEX 15 CON 12 INT 11 WIS 9 CHA 16
Proficiencies:
Sling *
Starting spells:
Blindness, Larloch's Minor Drain, Sleep
I've seen much worse, as at least the frontliners (if you want to call them that) have a little bit of a CON bonus.
Proficiencies are a mess, but Beast Master is almost immune to it; she has so few available weapon choices that she manages to immediately pick up specialization in Longbows, the best choice for a ranged weapon in BG1 (and her pitiable STR doesn't matter, since she'll be using The Dead Shot +2).
Having a machine gun available will make the whole game easier, which is good, since we're oh so squishy otherwise.
I dislike Fighter/Thieves as frontliners due to the incessant armor swapping, but there's not much to do:
It will turn out that Fighter/Thief (yes, they are named after their classes; if they make it to BG2, they get proper names) lucks out when it comes to Find Traps and to some degree Open Locks, while Mage/Thief goes heavy on Detect Illusion.
We are a bit light on divine, but there's a solution to that: Necromancer has (with a single Tome of Wisdom) the stats for dualing into Cleric, and shall do so at Necromancer L9. So we'll be without Clerical buffs for essentially all of BG1; hopefully hefty abuse of Sleep, Call Lightning and Summon Insects will make up for it. And let's hope Fighter/Thief picks up a (weapon...) specialization at some point.
Be warned, this is a fairly long update.
No Cure for the Armor-Swapping Blues: A Random Run, Part 1
Candlekeep passes without incident. As we've learned from last time, an Enchanter means anything vulnerable to Sleep is almost guaranteed to fail its save, as the belt-touting Ogre soon learns.
Interestingly, Tarnesh went very light on damage; his second-level slots seem to have gone to Mirror Image, Horror and Glitterdust, which means we take no casualties when just gunning him down (as we lack the customary Command to render this encounter trivial).
Normally, if we had the Clerical muscle, early Ankhegs would be a must. It would still be possible given Enchanter, but it's risky: You have to show yourself for the Ankhegs to surface, and there's a chance they'll get an attack in before the Sleep hits them (and they might even save...).
We still head north, but just use the Potion of Invisibility we relieved Jaheira of in order to raid the Ankheg hoard; Beast Master has decent base stealth so could sneak in.
We return Tenya's bowl, and risk horrific death against the Ankheg to the north of the shack, but thankfully it fails to get an attack off before Sleep overtakes it.
It even obliges by dropping a Melf's Acid Arrow scroll: Might not seem like much, but that's very useful early on against enemy spellcasters, as typically you wouldn't get it until the end of the Cloakwood Mines.
Clearing the Zombie infestation further north nets a little more gold and experience; we swing past Ulgoth's Beard, where I for reasons unknown invest 500 gold towards Delswirftanyon's liquidation sale. I had it in my head that he gives you Studded Leather +1 (intended for Beast Master), but it was actually Leather +1. Meh.
Still, we've gold enough, so purchase half a stack of Arrows +2 while in the area, and head back south towards Beregost.
Spiders and Hobgoblins (to the east) are no issue with Sleep available, and similarly the Flesh Golems at High Hedge duly fall to our Arrows +2 as presented by Beast Master; we of course also deal with the local Gnolls while here.
There are some things we can't do without Command: Karlat is too dangerous (he might have an Oil of Speed he quaffs), Neera is too dangerous owing to the Mage, and Silke is absolutely too dangerous, period. So, we just head further south.
We'll be back this way once we've identified the Wand of Fire we're carrying: The plan is to use the Red Potion to have Enchanter scribe some vital scrolls including a purchase of Identify. He has such abysmal INT that we won't be able to scribe very often, so we'll just have to pony up and buy as many critical 1st/2nd level scrolls as possible while at it, even though our reputation is in the gutter.
Sleep of course makes the minor areas to the south not-so-challenging, and we arrive safely in Nashkel, to Neira's rather shortlived delight (we just shoot her down, the worst she can do is a Hold Person).
Having grabbed the Red Potion and rested up, we head back north, though swing by the area with Bjornin's Half-Ogres and deal with them; we leave Teyngan alone for now, since Jemby has access to 3rd level spells and again... we lack Command!
At High Hedge, we first buy a Friends scroll and cast it with Enchanter, whom at 22 CHA yields the maximum non-reputation based discount possible (with 2 CHA to spare).
We spend 3024 out of our 3039 gold here. I don't want to have to scribe with Enchanter again until we reach Baldur's Gate, so he gets every useful spell available within our budget.
With Identify available, the Wand of Fire comes into play, and we gleefully deploy it against the Wolf Pack at the Beregost Temple.
This fairly safe, fairly rapid early-game experience loop means everyone is now at least L2, with Beast Master and Druid at L3.
Beast Master picked up a pip in Quarterstaffs for her proficiency, which is still better than Sword and Shield Style (which was her other available choice...).
Now we can return and deal with Teyngan! Things turn a bit dicey though, with several party members knocked out by Sleep and Teyngan himself running wild, so we use the Wand of Fire to level the playing field.
Lots of sources of magical damage means we can also take care of the Red Wizard harassing Neera, and the latter doesn't even try to kill the entire party with a Burning Hands/Color Spray. Good times, though we still steal her belongings.
We're still picking up odds and ends of experience; the Revenant to the east of Nashkel is famously vulnerable to Fire damage, so down he goes to a Wand Scorcher. We're also here to pick up some early gold (Chain Mail +1 and Pearl Necklace), as well as an insurance in the form of the Wand of Monster Summoning. We're gunning for gold since we want to bribe reputation up before turning in a bundle of reputation quests.
There's another 1k gold easily available in Samuel's area (gem hidden alongside the Ring of Fire Resistance), so we swing by and swipe that too. Apparently, you can trigger the Dorn ambush without actually traveling to the mine, as we realize belatedly when trying to return to Nashkel: Still, we were able to get Necromancer out of harm's way before she took a ranged attack.
Every pure-class is L3 now, so we feel up to tackling Bassilus, whose reward should be sufficient for our purposes: An initial Fireball clears out almost all the attendant undead, and Bassilus himself is interrupted by a timely Acid Arrow (ha!), and never recovers.
Since we're swinging by Beregost anyway, we note that Silke is carrying another 400 gold, and has no defense against massed magic damage spam. By now Karlat is no threat either; every little bit helps.
We've gathered close to 12k gold, and so it is not so difficult to bribe reputation up to 17. You'd have to shop for >100k before reaching Baldur's Gate (home to a lot more reputation quests, and a guaranteed reputation +1 if you save the slaves in the mine) for it to be worthwhile to invest the final 5k gold to reach 18, and we've no such plans.
We start handing in reputation quests, though six hand-ins later we've obtained only a single reputation point... this is not statistically unlikely, unfortunately. We pilfer Algernon's Cloak in annoyance, and are somewhat placated by a fortunate drop of Find Familiar from some Gibberlings in Samuel's area. Handing in Samuel nets another point, so we're now sitting pretty at 19, which I think is fine to start shopping at, though there are still options available.
One such option is the Doomsayer area; the northernmost Gnoll tribe just succumbs to Sleep, and Charleston Nib finally yields the last coveted reputation point. The Doomsayer itself doesn't amount to much in the face of wand damage, and we return Brage to the garrison. With a bit of money once again, we invest in some minor items: The One Gift Lost at the carnival, some potions at High Hedge (Explosions and Freedom), Excellent Short Bow at the Thunderhammer Smithy.
Now we begin gathering crucial items: Start with the Legacy of the Masters from Meilum, who deals surprising amounts of damage.
Those will be used for the rest of the game by Beast Master. I've thought it over and think I actually prefer Helmet of Defense over Helm of Balduran for a frontline tank that's not expected to be the major damage dealer (like Fighter/Thief): The 20% fire/cold/electricity resistance means you only need to take >25 damage from one of those sources in order to benefit more from that then the 5 HP of the Helm of Balduran, and from my experience sudden massive elemental damage is not uncomming.
This also means we can bestow the THAC0 boost on someone more worthy... such as Beast Master. So, let's grab the Helmet of Defense!
Well.. figures. Shoal obliges by raising Fighter/Thief, but Droth proves a handful: He's got almost no spells, but is still an Ogre in close combat, although we do come out on top.
There's a gaggle of Sirines to the south here; while en route, we pick up another Melf's Acid Arrow scroll from some Ghouls. Nice!
Not so nice: Sirines have high resistance to Fire.
We've no Skeletons and no Potion of Clarity, but Dire Charm only lasts for five rounds, so we initiate a fighting retreat. Fighter/Thief gets Dire Charmed once but can't catch us, and the Sirines end up separated: Easy prey.
That was a nice bit of extra experience.
Of course, with 13 DEX, the Bracers of Dexterity are needed as well, so its off to the western Nashkel hinterlands.
By now the motley collection of enemies here are way too low-level to pose a meaningful threat; the worst that happens is Sendai getting a few good licks in before dropping.
And I think that's gear and money enough. We still haven't bothered to scribe anything beyond a few easily-replaced scrolls (Magic Missile, Armor, some others) with Necromancer and Mage/Thief. We have to be ever so stingy with INT potions, after all, and to be fair, wands provide us with enough arcane power for the moment.
We'll rectify this once we've gained access to the bandit camp, as there are some decent scrolls (Web, Fireball, Agannazar's Scorcher, and even Spell Thrust though this will be reserved for later scribing by Enchanter) available there.
So, let's head towards the bandit camp; first off, we'll need to clear the Nashkel mines.
The only potential snafu here is of course the Kobold Shaman, so we thoughtfully set up a Spike Growth in a pertinent position.
That made the whole thing a lot easier, as the Shaman preferred backing off into the Spike Growth rather than try to stand toe-to-toe with Fighter/Thief.
Mulahey is even more pointless than usual (the spawning adds are just Wand of Fire'd, and his attendant guards get a Sleep), and that's the mines cleared.
Oh, I forget when it was, but Fighter/Thief reached Fighter L3 at some point, and got... a pip in Darts.
That's almost as useless as useless could be, but the alternative was (again!) Sword and Shield Style.
As has become customary, we employ Algernon's Cloak to convince Oublek to battle Nimbul, and then help ourselves to the former's impressive gold reserves (3k if you haven't turned in the emeralds).
Nimbul soon runs out of spells and just plops over.
Well, time for Tranzig.
We were literally (potentially) inches from the run ending there. Notice that Enchanter took 26 damage: One more point would mean more than 10 damage above his HP pool, which could've chunked him. 26 is also precisely equal to Necromancer's HP, so she dodged what might have been a fatal blow by moving out of the room at the last second. Friggin' Tranzig.
Alright, let's be a little bit more careful. Larswood goes smoothly, as both local Druids are inundanted by Magic Missile and fail to recover.
Though not before getting Insect Plague off at poor Enchanter, who runs around in such a frenzy that Druid can't reach him in time for a heal. When it rains it pours, I guess; we shell out for another Raise Dead.
Peldvale, at least, presents no real obstacle, and we reach the Bandit Camp. We're low on supplies though (the SCS mechanic to limit outdoors-resting), so head back towards the FAI to recover, which triggers the Amazon ambush.
Alright, good! Let's get this over with: Quick and clean.
This is why charname travels invisibly from clearing the Nashkel mines until defeating the Amazons: Maneira and Telka both have stupid high damage (seriously, 14 damage with a dart?! Is she part Giant?), and famously tend to ignore melee attackers while shooting at vulnerable party members. Of course, they usually go down pretty quickly, but still a real nuisance. Yet another Raise Dead for us.
In comparison, there's no real problem with the Bandit Camp: Entangle, Spike Growth and some Wand of Fire Fireballs are, as always, sufficient.
Alright, NOW we can scribe a bit (although I am certain we could make it through the Cloakwood with just the arcane spells on Enchanter).
There really aren't that many great scrolls at High Hedge, so we can easily afford the Robe of the Neutral Archmagi for Necromancer while we're at it, with 10k to spare.
Cloakwood is Cloakwood: Lots of encounters, none of them too dangerous.
We'll deal with the Shadow Archdruid later, but the other Druids are just kept interrupted by magical damage; Centeol and her Spider lair are dealt with by Potions of Freedom, and having cleared everything up to the Mine's bailey, we start the trek back to civilization, again due to the rest restrictions.
This triggers the Molkar ambush, which is fine by me: The only real threat here is Halacan getting a Sleep off if you happen to be low-level, but it's far too late in the game for that to matter anymore. I don't know Halacan's level, but I've never seen him toss a 3rd level spell (and he's vulnerable to Command, if we had it available), so the whole encounter is over almost before it begins.
Now, for some reason (I think we were close to a nearly party-wide leveling threshhold?), we decide to finally clear the Ankheg area.
Ah yes, Druid gains a level and can now eek out two (with the Ring of Holiness) 4th level spells per day. Good! That'll be helpful against Drasus and his cohorts. Fighting our way back into Cloakwood, Beast Master hits L6, and grabs... Two-Handed Weapon Style. Which was still a better choice than Single-Weapon Style! We can't catch much of a break with proficiencies, it seems.
We also take down Amarande, which isn't so difficult: He does have a single L6 slot available, but spent it on Dolorous Decay.
This is potentially lethal, but Fighter/Thief makes her save, and then Amarande is completely open to ceaseless spell damage.
Not sure what to do with the Club +2, but we'll save it for now, since you never know what proficiencies you'll end up with under these rules (sounds ominous...).
OK, let's carefully prepare with buffs and summons before engaging Drasus. Or accidentally bump a party member into view to start the encounter before we're ready, whichever comes first.
I wonder if I'll ever beat Drasus in style.
So, we accidentally triggered everything too early by moving into sight range. Drasus came charging in along with Genthore, but we at least had some beetles from Summon Insects up, which distracted the Mages.
Aiming for a quick resolution, Druid popped Call Lightning. Apparently, this will strike outside the caster's sight range, which in this case meant it targetted Kysus... who had Minor Spell Turning up. The rest is apparent.
We do come out on top, thanks largely to the Wand of Monster Summoning, but it's aggravating eating a death this far into the Cloakwood.
But eat it we must. We make our way out of Cloakwood, raise Druid, and make our way back.
On the second level of the mines, we get the entire guard room streaming north in response to their comrades' calls, which occasionally happens. We're able to get off a Spike Growth blunting the enemy edge, followed by several Fireballs which definitely puts a damper on things. Still, it got dicey there for a second, since we ran out of antidotes (the archer guards wearing leather armor have some kind of poison effect on their shots, though it's fairly mild).
In comparison, the third level goes smoothly, mainly since Natasha fails her save against the Bombardier Beetle's Release Acidic Vapor and is Stunned. Yes, I gleefully abuse this; we've no Animate Dead, after all, so we'll take what we can get.
The Beetles decide themselves when to use it, but usually pop it first thing when they see an enemy and don't have a command they're following, so just give them explicit move orders so they wind up next to the target before telling them to attack.
Having cleared a path to Davaeorn, we retreat to rest up. The plan is the same as always: Trigger D by moving into sight range (invisibly), he'll give his speech, send two Battle Horrors north after you, then stand there and twiddle his thumbs while you destroy five waves of four guards each. Easy enough, and D meets his ignominious end at the hands of the Wand of Monster Summoning; I didn't even take a screenshot, it was that anticlimactic (though you do need to shuffle invisible party members to the south, so D won't notice them while he's teleporting about).
And that's that! We flood the mine and depart, having just about enough inventory space to store all the loot.
We start wrapping up some loose ends before going to the city: Zordral, Narcillicus, pickpocketing Bentan, etc.
This includes dealing with the Wolf of Ulcaster; this time I did it a little bit different.
Some beetles were sent north to intercept reinforcements, and Fighter/Thief got Protection from Fire, then got sent to the southeast. She's swarmed by Dread Wolves and the Wolf of Ulcaster, so we just firebomb her position.
Worked very well to quickly clear out the mobs, but the Wolf managed a dispel followed by a fearful Howl before going down.
OK. We spend nearly all our gold at this stage: There's almost nothing in Baldur's Gate we need apart from scrolls, so we grab the Robe of the Good Archmagi as well as some potions, magical ammunition and the Sandthief's Ring.
Speaking of scrolls, let's obtain that of Stoneskin: We should be able to handle Ice Island comfortably now.
Smarts a bit.
So, the plan was (since we've got plenty of PfM scrolls) to let Fighter/Thief and Beast Master clear the whole thing on their own. Again, because we lack Skeleton Warriors.
Worked rather well, until Andris teleported back in; to save some time, I sent in Thief/Mage to Detect Illusion away his Mirror Images.
Necromancer was tagging along since Andris always teleports to charname, and I wanted him to pop near the bruisers.
Andris, however, had a Sunfire lying in wait: Not sure why he bothered since it couldn't harm the party members he could see, but it could definitely harm Thief/Mage. The only reason Necromancer didn't get hurt, or potentially end up dead, is due to the 5% magic resistance from her robe. Lucky...
The rest of Ice Island goes smoothly though: Thankfully Tellan wasn't a Conjurer this time around, so he couldn't really do anything.
And now we can actually clear the city! Much to my delight, Niemain does not kill off his own allies with his Wand of Fire this time. He's unable to, given that he himself keels over to a massive Beetle acid barrage... along with his friends.
We clear encounters in rapid succession: It really helps to have a good archer.
Lothander is unable to get away, and now both frontliners have Boots of Speed.
One of the major encounters, Sunin, always leads with a Remove Magic if you're buffed; we use that time to get Thief/Mage into position to Detect Illusion away his defenses, and then mage slayers (Acid Arrows +1...) finish the job.
And now for something completely stupid.
Yes, a Fighter/Thief with 16 CON and 13 DEX is fragile and reasonably easy to hit, even when wearing Full Plate: It wasn't a good idea to send her in with no accompanying debuffs or Fireballs.
We just leave her gear where it lies, run off to raise her, then return with a (buff- and offensive magic-induced) vengeance.
In contrast, stuff like Degrodel's guardians (Wand of Fire Scorcher), the Maulers of Undermountain, Drelik/Jardak all go off without a hitch.
Alright, we previously cleared all of the Iron Throne except the top level; there are literally no other encounters left in the city, so time to progress.
We slip invisibly into the southern room and bait out the two SCS-added Thieves; beyond Kaalos taking Mage/Thief down to 4 HP with a backstab, they are duly disposed of.
Now, we've no Skeleton Warriors available here, so beetles will have to do (though they'll crumple almost instantly under this kind of melee/ranged pressure). We set up five of them in close proximity to as many enemy arcanists as possible, buff a bit, then trigger Cloudwulfe.
It's a mixed bag: Naaman is stunned, but everyone else makes their save. Diyab is dumb enough to wander off to the south on his lonesome, so we quickly pick him off, but by now the beetles are no more and the Iron Throne party is looking for us: Of course, they find us almost instantly.
Aasim was badly hurt by the initial Acidic Vapor barrage, and so doesn't hold up for long. Cloudwulfe and Gardush are both still going strong, and they're putting heavy pressure on us: Druid manages to take out Alai just as the former unleashes a successful Hold Person in return, and things aren't looking so hot. Fighter/Thief is essentially kiting Gardush, and we're exploiting Cloudwulfe's tendency to pop through the door, spot us, retreat a few steps to get range before starting to shoot, lose us, then repeat this pattern.
But now it's just the fighters left. Fighter/Thief pulls Gardush to the side, allowing Necromancer a clear shot at Cloudwulfe. Success!
Moments later, Gardush drops to a Magic Missile barrage from Mage/Thief, and we just about manage to down Cloudwulfe before the three round stun wears off. Great success, but our Benny Hill-esque tactics leave something to be desired.
Still, we got the win.
We rest up, head for Candlekeep, and beyond Mage/Thief eating a double Magic Missile (and dying...) just outside its gates, most of the chapter is uneventful. Necromancer of course gets the WIS tome as she got the one in Baldur's Gate and will get the one in Durlag's Tower: Going from 13 to 15 WIS on a Druid is fairly pointless.
There are literally no good candidates for the STR tome, so after much agonizing I give it to Fighter/Thief: 12 STR will let her naturally equip Plate Mail and Medium Shields, but really, it won't matter at all long term.
Oh, we also got a scroll of Spell Thrust from a Doppleganger here, nice!
Prat and party are an absolute pain to fight properly, mostly due to the bad line-of-sight down here, and we take a serious amount of damage, but come out on top. Crypts evacuated, and we're into the end game. Well, almost: We've still Durlag's Tower to do.
We need the experience, after all. We clear the upper levels without incident, as well as the Warder level (minus the Warders themselves), then head back to Baldur's Gate under Pixie Dust: We've amassed a good amount of scrolls, and so use up all the Potions of Genius we've got to do a massive bout of scroll scribing for all arcanists. Now we're prepared.
Let's see how the Warder fight goes without Skeleton Warriors; we of course have a bunch of beetles. Buff up with everything, and engage.
We left some traps near Fear, and they do the job: He takes a lot of damage, and is dispatched within a round from simple ranged fire. Fighter/Thief is meanwhile attempting to bludgeon Love. Yes, she got stuck with a pip in Clubs for her Fighter L6 proficiency.
If ever I see a random run of mine where most of our proficiencies aren't Club, Spear or Sword and Shield Style, I shall be wholly surprised.
Avarice is quite weak once exposed, and duly drops. By now, though, Pride has turned his tender mercies on Fighter/Thief. I make a brief attempt to hold the former with Thief/Mage, who takes a brutal hit straight through Spirit Armor, Blur and Mirror Image before beating a hasty retreat. You're on your own, Fighter/Thief.
Love has taken a lot of damage though, and goes down. Pride stands alone, but not for long: The beetles occupy him long enough for a double Slow to neuter him, followed by massed ranged fire.
A bit hectic but not really that dangerous. We descend further.
The Dwarven Doomguards are a hassle when you forget to memorize multiple Webs, but we do a fighting retreat again, and wear them down with wands in due time.
The Greater Dopplegangers to the east are an absolute pain: One in particular starts as Islanne (lots of defenses), then turns into Durlag (lots of damage), then turns into Islanne again (completely renewing all defenses!).
Annoying and dangerous, but we just muddle through somehow...
Alright, this next level is pretty straightforward. We use the heroes (who all perish in the attempt) to help us against the Greater Wyverns, use massed Wand of Fire Fireballs to kill the Skeleton Archers from outside sight range (to retrieve lots of Arrows of Dispelling), and just brutalize everything else.
This includes the chessboard: Six Fireballs from varying sources is enough to wipe almost the whole thing clean, with all party members having quaffed a Potion of Absorption beforehand so we can move freely.
Notice Necromancer leveled there. Yep, she's L9 now: Time to dual. She'll be weak for a little while but pick back up pretty quickly; in particular, it'll be nice to have access to Chant/Prayer and eventually Recitation/PfE10'.
We actually saved some experience for this: The Greater Basilisks on the roof, for starters, gets her to second level Cleric spells.
A good rest later, we return to finish the final Durlag's level, which isn't that difficult: Some source of Free Action on the frontliner and you're golden.
We ignore the Demon Knight and just teleport out. And that's it for Durlag's, far as we're concerned.
Next, let's finish the three areas we left untouched: First up is Mutamin's garden, which really isn't that much experience when split six ways.
Enchanter can raise two Skeleton Warriors, who together with Fighter/Thief and Beast Master clear the whole thing in less than a single duration of Protection from Petrification.
Alright, off to get the CON tome for Necromancer: She reached Cleric L5 and so (with her WIS bonus) can now animate two weak Skeleton Warriors. With a total of four, aided by Improved Invisible Fighter/Thief and Druid running True Sight, we swiftly clear these as well, and Necromancer is at 16 CON.
Just the Red Wizards left. Beetles effectively destroy Denak, and the rest of them aren't nearly as frightening, though we drop in an Insect Plague for good measure.
We're basically at the cap now, so won't be bothering with Balduran's Island: The Chain Mail +3 isn't all that important, so we just return to Baldur's Gate.
I ran into a funny bug here: We snuck in invisibly to save Duke Eltan, but it completely slipped my mind that the entire party was now visible after having ranged attack the Greater Doppleganger. So naturally, we got Mercenaries spawning when we tried to leave. A Chromatic Orb stunned one of them almost instantly, and he then proceeded to constantly renew his Armor of Faith prebuff. Apparently, this renewal stacked: He wound up with 100% resistance to physical (and magical) damage. Thankfully the Armors of Faith wore off pretty quickly, but here's a screenshot of an enemy worth 150 experience with 80% resistance to all forms of damage.
Cythandria didn't even manage to fire her prebuffs, on account of a Boring Beetle landing a nasty crit on her. Same thing happened with Slythe: The beetles are no joke, and even hold off Krystin until we can Confuse her and grind through her Stoneskins.
Alright, time for the palace fight. We muster our paltry four (two of whom are quite weak) Skeleton Warriors, buff up, and charge in.
We actually needn't have bothered so much with the buffing, as a single Insect Plague absolutely destroys the Dopplegangers.
We take next to no damage, but Sarevok makes up for it by bugging out and refusing to leave. Once he slices up Belt, though, he decides discretion is the better part of valor and flees: Liia still had all her defenses going and so survived the ordeal.
Oh, Belt also dropped a (single charge) Sandthief's Ring. Never knew he had one.
The maze is navigated uneventfully. The Iron Throne party down here are of course treated to massed Fireballs: Shaldrissa survives, but spends her solitary action casting something Divination-like (True Sight? She does have access to 6th level spells) and so succumbs unceremoniously.
Fighter/Thief, with her now natural 19 CHA, is able to talk Tamoko down, and we rest up before starting the final showdown.
Since this time we have two fighter-types, they both activate a PfM scroll and apply every concievable potion buff.
The other four party members apply elemental immunity (by potions and scrolls), and just hide invisibly to the south, after summoning four Skeleton Warriors.
Fighter/Thief and Beast Master lead the charge, and to no surprise given her extremely good THAC0, Beast Master immediately tags Sarevok with an Arrow of Dispelling, essentially removing him as a threat.
But there are other things to contend with here. Semaj and Angelo can't really do much owing to PfM (Semaj didn't go for summons, it seems), so we swiftly bring down Tazok and then turn on Diarmid, as the latter carries Arrows of Dispelling.
It takes a while, but we bring him down. Now Semaj's PfMW has expired, so we hit him with an Arrow of Dispelling, and Angelo finishes the job for us. Angelo: There's no point in casting Cone of Cold at someone under PfM, but thanks for the assist.
We actually had to destroy Semaj's frozen corpse with a Magic Missile spell to get his Skeleton Warrior to spawn.
Anyway, Angelo also gets an Arrow of Dispelling, and soon joins Semaj, or rather the frozen pieces formerly known as Semaj, on the floor.
With just an un-hastened Sarevok and some Skeleton Warrior cronies (his, not ours) left on the field, Wands of Monster Summoning are sufficient to hold everything off as we indulge in a ranged barrage.
BG1EE, cleared.
Not surprisingly, things were reasonably smooth, barring some deaths mainly attributable to abysmal HP owing to no CON bonus.
Beast Master was the absolute star of the show with 42% experience value, 49% of kills; as expected of a good archer in BG1EE.
We've had rotten luck with proficiencies, really, with Fighter/Thief picking up entirely useless Darts and almost as useless Clubs, and Beast Master still only having specialization in Longbow. Still, there's a theoretical chance of at least achieving one specialization. At some point. Maybe. Please don't let it be darts.
Anyway, that's all she wrote, for now. I'll be away until the new year, so the next update won't be for some time.
Most likely I'll go for SoD next, though might also just go for SoA... we'll see.
Comments
It'll be a long time before enemies have resistances and/or HP to shrug off, at present levels, 45D6 fire damage, averaging 157.5 damage (78.75 if they make five saves in a row).
@histamiini Near-perfect run, I must say. Your posts are also a very good source of information on enemy abilities.
Previous part found here
Next part found here
Other than Invoker inexplicably loosing the 6 HP Familiar bonus (even though we kept the familiar...), the import worked fine.
Also, we'll add a slight difficulty increase. The party had to rush to Korlasz's dungeon before the latter could make a run for it, so we wound up leaving nearly all of our gear in the hands of the palace treasurer, Ophyllis; Invoker was only able to bring the Chain Mail +3, Krotan's Skullcrusher +2 and the Helm of Balduran. I'm sure it'll be fine, certainly Ophyllis can be trusted and won't sell all of our stuff to finance his gambling addiction.
It does mean we have to punch our way through the opening dungeon in our undies, though...
With only one melee weapon, we dismantle the first enemy group with, yes, Fireball. This, along with the contents of the room occupied by Porios, allows us to equip everyone with basic gear. I opted to allow purchasing things from the Flaming Fist Healer using the starting 30k gold, though I'll probably ban that in the future: We bought out her stock of healing potions.
Downstairs, there's not really much choice but to keep Fireballin' (though Enchanter offers some variety with Skull Trap, owing to him literally not being able to cast Fireball).
But man, even by opening dungeon standards, we are weak. Clearing the first big Undead group down here virtually exhausts our spell slots, so we have to risk a rest under Invisibility 10' Radius. It took something like 6 tries, as we kept getting interrupted by enormous amounts of 1HD Skeletons (we had to head back upstairs, as there wouldn't have been enough room...), but we eventually got it.
Onward we press, Fireballing as we go, and utilizing summons for the encounters with level-draining enemies.
I found something game-breakingly fun down here: You can backstab with Stone Fist.
I'll try not to abuse that. We reach Korlasz's chambers, drop a Cloudkill and a Chaos, and beyond dealing with the few Undead in there, that was it: Korlasz either ran out of HP or failed her save against Cloudkill (she should be immune to the instant death effect owing to her level?). Either way, she and her cronies accomplished nothing. Having looted everything, we return to the palace.
Not much to report for our brief foray into the city, though we sold some of the loot to afford a few items: Two +1 THAC0 bracers (sorely needed), and the cap that grants +2 CHA for bards. Could've skipped the last one I think. Anyway, off we go!
We clear the first outside area, then head on over to Isabella and Ikros, whom we help out against the Vampire. We still have absolutely awful trap detection capabilities, so while chasing after the Vampire Cleric eats a level drain trap bringing her to level 3... yikes.
We indulge in a spot of evil by leading the local Orc warband to Isabella and Ikros, and of course the latter stand no chance in a prolonged fight; not that their loot was worth the effort.
Nevertheless pleased at the way things turned out, we head back towards camp and.. oh dear.
That is decidedly not so great. We're almost out of spells, and Cleric is still stuck at L3.
I try to rest, but this area doesn't allow it... and I do so hate ignoring the random encounters in SoD. Alright.
We bust out of a Scroll of Greater Restoration which we bought off the Flaming Fist Healer, bringing Cleric back online (though she has no spells memorized...). We'll have to do what we can here!
Fortunately, we had a few Potions of Fire Resistance. This, combined with Sunfire from the Shield we got from Isabella (RIP), and a few Scorcher from that Wand of Fire you get in Korlasz's dungeon, actually carries us through the first group of Trolls inside the cave.
Cleric quaffs a Potion of Freedom, Fighter/Mage/Thief does the same with a bunch of Fighter potions (Giant Strength/Heroism/Invulnerability... might as well, he's the only one that can use them at present) and we descend through the pool.
And it works out! We have just enough charges left on the Wand of Fire to clear all the trolls out; don't think it'd have gone so smoothly if we'd had to fight them properly.
Good that we didn't have to abandon loot! We rest up at the camp and start clearing the Repository of Undeath.
Semahl doesn't make it (mainly because we can't just Fireball his position...), but otherwise the first level goes smoothly, owing to our firepower; Web by Invoker is also very good.
Again, we have to leave to rest several times, but other than that, progress is good and steady. Also, it turns out 5HD Skeleton Warriors can handle the Bronze Sentry just fine.
The Secret Revealed does for Coldhearth, we toss the Phylactery in the fire, have Cleric equip the Helmet of Dumathoin (freeing up the Helm of Balduran for Fighter/Mage/Thief), and return to camp. A quick rest later, we wrap things up by mercilessly Fireballing the Crusaders (we want the loot!).
Oh, one last thing: You can steal from Herod, which we gladly indulge in. This is another thing I'll ban from now on in my SoD runs , and I definitely won't allow it in BG2, but just for now. Apparently he only has difficulty 65, so getting Pick Pockets to 165 (two Potions of Master Thievery are enough for us) guarantees success. Cleric gets the Club +2, Blade gets the Savage Shortbow +2, and I forget the rest, but basically, we steal almost everything. Now, on to Troll Claw Woods!
We immediately head off into the wilderness, and almost as immediately, Enchanter picks up his old BG1 pasttime: Dying.
We duly raise him, and continue clearing the area (Cloudkill is quite handy here).
Mass Fireball ensures the Troll Cave goes smoothly; we depart for the Fort, and then depart again almost as quickly, since we need the Ward Token to do anything (though not before getting hit with an Oil of Fiery Burning from a local Hobgoblin Captain, which stings a bit since again... we have no HP).
The Greater Wyverns outside are handled via massive buffing and summons soaking up most of the damage.
I had planned to handle the Spider Cave using minimal resources, but always underestimate the sheer number of fairly dangerous Spiders in here: We end up blowing nearly all our remaining buffs and offensive spellworks, but do come out on top.
Cleric has good enough HP and saves that it's fine to toss one or two Fireballs at her even if she doesn't have Protection from Fire up, so occasionally we get a bit sloppy. We go back outside after having taken care of the Beetles that burrowed in, clear the Bugbears to the north, then get the Young Green Dragon ambush on our way back to camp. We help the Dragon, of course, since the Red Ioun Stone isn't so bad for Mage/Thief (and we've no use of a Halberd +2).
Then, en route back to the Temple, we get the Goblin/Myconid ambush, which is good since it means Elven Chainmail for Fighter/Mage/Thief. Yeah, AC5 isn't that terrific, but he can keep it equipped at all times, and it just looks nice: Very Elvish.
We make our way into the Temple, daggering Morentherene while passing by. The Bugbears aren't much danger, though we Fireball them anyway to ensure no Stalkers sneak past and put Enchanter out of his misery. Down in the temple proper, we opt not to quaff Potions of Perception: I'm sure we can tank any trap damage down here.
Or not, as it turns out. Maybe we should start using those potions...
At least Cleric can cast Raise Dead now, so we just rest up in the dungeon under Invisibility 10' Radius and continue.
Ziatar is remarkably weak for a Half-Dragon, though you've got to watch out for her breath weapon: This we solve by just mobbing her and her helpless Mage cronies with Skeleton Warriors.
Well, aside from the occasional horrible death, this is going just fine. The Neothelid takes a very long time to surface, but once it does, it drops within a few seconds due to massed Magic Missile.
Summons distract Akanna's Aerial Servants while we destroy them with magical firepower, and Akanna herself fares no better.
A rest later, we go all-out on Darskhelin and his Dominated party: Nothing lives long enough to threaten us.
I considered just rushing straight to the Shadow Aspect, but knowing how dangerous it can be, we rest again.
With every conceivable buff active (including True Sight on Cleric), the Shadow Aspect doesn't even last three rounds, since it wanders too close to several pre-laid traps right after having eaten five Magic Missiles.
And we now have access to the Fort. We take Vichand down: I prefer intimidating him, since if you fight him you have to be quick or he alerts the camp, but I guess Blade isn't that frightening. All the other little quests are done, and we finish by stealing literally almost every potion from Thirrim. Ugh, I feel dirty, but he does have a ton of Potions of Genius/Mind Focusing, and we so sorely need those...
Time for the easiest Fort battle I've ever had. We use some Fireballs, sure, but mostly it's Potions of Explosions (which Thirrim had in spades): These go straight through Minor Globe of Invulnerability, so readily burn the crusade Mages to a crisp, along with the rest of the rabble. The rabble unfortunately included Khalid, as the game remembers his gear from BG1... where he had a Long Sword, a Helmet, and nothing else (since I stole his stuff when first meeting him). Less than optimal when leading the charge.
I actually forget how we interrupted the Crusader Mage on the bridge, but evidently we did somehow: The Fort is saved, and we may proceed.
Arriving at yet another camp, we can finally sell off a bunch of crap to Nazramu, netting us 100k.
5k of which we promptly donate, since I misclicked and forced the local Ilmater-worshipping crazy person to accept healing, dropping reputation by 1...
Anyway! We do the little quests around camp, and this seems a good place to stop for now.
With decent gear all-around, we're now in a good position to blitz ahead, though we'll likely take the time to scribe scrolls first thing.
I seem to recall the Concocter having at least a few Intelligence-boosting potions, which is good, since we need about 13 of them in total in order for everyone to be guaranteed success... and that's using the Gem Dagger for +1 INT for whoever is scribing at the moment. This is why we haven't scribed anything yet, we just didn't have enough potions until we ripped Thirrim off.
Anyway, let's hope we can keep it up. Fireball and/or Skull Trap, in combination with Skeleton Warriors, should be sufficient to carry us through the rest of SoD. It better be, as magic is pretty much all we've got going for us.
I'll be away for a week, so next update will be some time from now; hopefully it'll be one culminating in beating Belhifet and moving on to BG2. Until next time!
Tar, dwaven bounty hunter (Gate70)
Omen, dwarven defender (Grond0)
Coreheal VII, gnome cleric / thief (Corey_Russell)
Session 11 of this run has up to two more hours of mayhem. We were at the point of going to make a deal with Adalon last time. On our way to see her Omen and Coreheal ran into a drow war party. Omen took hefty damage but even without Tar helping he swiftly brushed them aside
Tar was not helping? Why no, she was laying snares slightly to the south. As the last drow fell to the ground she tossed a special snare onto the body, and we entered Adalons lair. We sealed a deal to retrieve her eggs by swearing fealty on even more snares Tar left as a gift
As we left her lair the sound of snares could be heard, earlier than Tar had expected. On inspection we discovered the entire adventuring party had perished including their troublesome thief for whom Tar had planned to foil with the True Sight from her book of one spells
A quick rest, then on to the drow city in disguised dark elf forms. Tar almost gave herself away with dialogue menu option 1 but just stopped herself and instead announced as Veldrin from Ched Nasad. So it was that we were granted access to Ust Natha
We wasted little time, purchasing only the staff of earth for Tar and the Rod of Smiting for Coreheal. Neither strictly necessary but we are entertaining the idea of max overkill except when extreme recklessness cannot be avoided
We found ourselves rescuing Phaere. Tar a bit miffed that she had no first HLA and the containered Death spell scroll remained unused. We resorted to snares and these worked reasonably well but Omen still did much axe work. Phaere mentioned a reward and told us to return to Ust Natha
We dealt with a beholder, a peacefully brokered helmet from a patrol, and convinced Solaufein he should act as if dead otherwise we would make it a permanent fixture for him. Then we offered up the Elder Brain blood when Phaere's beholder eyestalk proved unsufficient for the Matron Mother, and juggled dragon eggs. Only one recipient could be happy about the results, other than us
The summoned Demon Lord killed both the Matron Mother and Phaere, but as it was about to depart Tar gave it the real eggs in exchange for a magical halberd. We ran for the city exit, Tar lagging behind her speedbooted companions. She even had time to quip to the guards that there was "nothing to see here"
Coreheal counter-threatened the Aboleth while we refused to deal with Ghaunadians or Deirex's lichy tower. We were being quick in our escape
By the time Tar got past the tavern and almost to the Aboleth tank all the drow started to go hostile. Omen and Coreheal were waiting at the city gate, shouting that Tar should not have hung about. She shouted back that she had gone as fast as her little legs would carry her (could have gulped an oil of speed though) and the drow started to attack and surround her. Not good news
Tar though had ideas, chiefly glugging a potion of invisibility while there was still a path to the exit. She made it without further damage and we escaped to freedom
That was close. Indeed, so close that quite a few of the drow joined us outside. Tar kept running while invisible, and hurled a special snare backwards as she gained sufficient distance. Omen was merrily carving away with his axe but poor Coreheal took a couple of quick hits and slumped to the ground. Our first party death for quite a while
Omen seemed relatively safe and the special snare mazed all the drow. They returned in dribs and drabs, landing on newly-laid snares and smashed into them with ferocious axe blows. Once all were dead Tar fumbled inside her bag of holding and used the Rod of Resurrection on Coreheal
Back to Adalon, who was unaware of our eggstravagance with her brood. Tar was searching for the right words to tell her while passing potions of cold resistance to Omen and Coreheal. Once we were fully protected from cold (and fire for Omen) we decided Coreheal should present her with a Firestorm. Omen swung his mighty axe but the cluster of snares were quicker than his arm. Tar scooped up a vial of dragon blood and we made our way back from the Underdark
Elven general Elhan was there to interrogate us, and our story convinced him to make us hunt Bodhi down IMMEDIATELY. Right-oh
It appears we had to stop off at Trademeet to purchase the belt of inertial barrier for Tar. Ringing in our ears; IMMEDIATELY
So, Umar Hills and the strange book merchant. No sign of him, we searched high low and all around the snares left by adventurers resembling ourselves. Eventually we came to the horrible conclusion that we might not have looted a container in the excitement of dealing with Rejiek Hidesman. A quick trip to the Bridge district confirms this, and we return to Umar Hills
The book merchant duly does a trade, reveals himself as a master craftsman of un-natural armour, pours the dragon blood over Tar's human flesh and declares it quite complete. With that done he announces awareness of our ruse and attacks. This would have been a brief combat ending with Omen the bloody axeman standing amid severed enemy limbs and torsos if it were not for the humane dwarven and gromish snare killing Darcin Cole and his minions immediately
Tar was crossing off her to-do list rapidly. Next to the city docks, where Cromwell forged the Equalizer long sword, the Gesen shortbow and the Wave halberd. Two were bagged and Omen grabbed the bow for seldom-use rather than the seldom-use of a longbow he'd previously rarely drawn in anger. We asked a couple of times about forging Crom Faeyr but Cromwell stubbornly refused on account of us not having the Hammer of Thunderbolts. Mr Picky!
We trotted off to the Temple district, although our two hours was up we felt obliged to give ourselves a clue as to what we should start with next time by standing outside the lair
Tar has picked up the missile container so between that and the bag of holding we had no inventory issues during the session and without visiting a store after Windspear Hills it looks quite manageable
High level abilities
Tar: Use any item (summoned a familiar), scribe scrolls, alchemy
Omen: Hardiness, whirlwind, greater whirlwind
Coreheal: Spike trap, summon deva
We've also treated ourselves to the shield of reflection; Tar realising she can use it rather than bagging it
On to session 12. We are taking in the ambience of the sewers outside a hidden illithid enclave so will be freshly ready, or not
Coreheal popped undead. Omen meleed adamatium golems. Tar kept out of trouble while making mischief for our enemies. Firkraag survived our initial snares as Tar intended to rest but Coreheal laid 3 more snares and they would misbehave if we rested. So Omen took a lot of damage before we eventually hauled the fiery dragon to the ground. Tar tagged and bagged more items so there is a lot of stuff to sell after the illithid lair and Cromwells forging complete. Then we could go after Bodhi unless we decide the guarded compound or Twisted Rune need to be investigated looted
Tar, dwaven bounty hunter (Gate70)
Omen, dwarven defender (Grond0)
Coreheal VII, gnome cleric / thief (Corey_Russell)
Tar had started a plan for session 12: Deal with the temple district illithid, get Crom Faeyr and the fire dragon armour forged, stop off at the guarded compound and clear the Twisted Rune before dealing with Bodhi. Plus stop in at the Slums to see if the Lathander quest could be progressed at night
First then the illithid. We cleared the initial room of fighters and laid snares from the door at the end of the passage back to this chamber. A special snare was placed last so we could get respite if pushed backwards. No need for this though, so we moved on towards the third and final chamber. Omen filled the doorway with his broad shoulders while Coreheal shot from behind. Tar hung back and when Omen suffered from a first braindrain (intelligence down to 6) Tar mazed the illithid
At this point I had to answer the door but the game was safely paused. By the time I came back the game was unpaused, illithid all dead, and the hammer of Thunderbolts was in my inventory. Talk about efficient delegation
Tar then decided to deal with the guarded compound as we were already in the vicinity and Cromwells forgings would not make a material difference there. Omen got the delight of asking for a lesson and we laid a few snares. Tar used her HLAs to make a potion and a scroll after laying snares. As she looked in her inventory and gulped a rogue speed potion she announced she was ready to start then realised Omen and Coreheal had already defeated the first enemies
We laid more snares and headed upstairs, the plan being to return downstairs and see who was lured with us. Coreheal took a hefty backstab from Ketta (12 hp of 77 left) so we encouraged him to run as Sion and Koshi blundered into snares. Koshi survived long enough to be mazed again but Sion died in traps and against skeletons Coreheal had left
A few more snares and we went upstairs again, and decided to drag enemies back downstairs again Ketta, Malafan and Olaf Rassmusen arrived. Ketta backstabbed a skeleton warrior so Tar used the book of spells True Sight. Malafan and Olaf died quickly and Ketta soon followed them
Upstairs again, lingering long enough for Tar to disable two enemy traps and only Stalman remained so we killed him - Coreheal clearing two more traps as we left to forge items courtesy of Cromwell
It was now not quite 10pm but Tar wanted to make sure she turned up at the slums. So we went into the Copper Coronet to sell loot from the end of the previous session and so far today. She used a Friends scroll for a charisma of 24 because Omen had asked about purchasing the Defender of Easthaven flail
It was 9pm then 10pm but nope the Talos contact was not biting. Tar could see the temple quest in her journal but Coreheal and Omen could not. We returned to the Temple district, confirmed the quest had been given, and back to the slums to confirm a no-show. Lathander is out of luck
Next then. The Twisted Rune. Snares for the lich. Omen did the summoning but Shangalar triggered a further maze snare which was intended for Revenak and possibly Shyressa. It died before the maze started, while Revenak and Vaxall the beholder were also being mazed. Omen 'rescued' Vaxall by killing it before the maze activated and turned to face Shyressa as Revenak was mazed. Omen had forgotten to swap weapons and took a level drain, so switched and destroyed the vampire. Layene had seen us earlier though so at this point we (not Tar she's still working on being a team player) were hit by a firestorm. We still got the kill for Shyressa then stepped out of the firezone. Layene and her pit fiend gave Omen a couple of hits, while Tar used her Firetooth dagger to almost kill Layene. She managed to cast wail of a banshee before perishing just as Revenak re-appeared. We raced to him but he was mazed a second time by a snare Tar had intended for Layene. He returned to land on a pair of normal snares and we looted to our hearts content
So Bodhi and the vampire nest. Omen used Azuredge and the mace, while Coreheal turned aplenty. Tar trotted along behind, keeping out of the way and dealing with traps. Omen battered Bodhi into submission and Tar looted the container. We returned to Elhan, then realised Tar had not picked up the Lanthorn. Two quick trips later we were on our way to Suldanessellar
Two adamantite golems appeared to be getting the better of Omen (88/171hp with dwarven stance active) but Tar decided to test them against a maze snare. Both disappeared and she decided to try normal snares for their return. Raamilat summoned a nabassu while Tar was tidying her inventory then cast timestop and firestorm. No real danger for us with Tar once more showing her team skills. Omen is mazed by Raamilat but just as Coreheal sends a deva in Raamilat is mazed by Tar with another snare and lands on another snare upon returning
Next are a group of golems, only iron and sand meaning short work is made of them. Tar decides it is time to deal with Nizidramanii'yt the dragon, tossing a special snare in and as it is mazed Coreheal and Tar lay a snare each. We intend to lay more but the dragon returns far quicker than we expect. Omen is in melee but Tar has retreated and throws another maze snare. Another 2 traps are laid despite being entangled and as one was a spike trap they are enough for the dragon to succumb
We'd like to say the rest of the city was a cake walk but Omen had to retreat from golems and rakshasa at one point. He had only taken 2 or 3 steps away before Coreheal healed him, and 2 seconds later all enemies were dead. We entered the temple of Rillifane and let the avatar obtain a victory there. Tar emptied her containers with the merchant outside and we moved on to the tree of life
Tar claimed one earth elemental and one fire elemental with the staffs she had been hoarding, but the air elementals were gone before she could see them. Irenicus made a grand speech then promptly died from excess snarekiness and dragged us into Hell
We collected all tears of Bhaal except one, used them up, collected the last one, and then faced Irenicus the slayer. Coreheal took mighty damage again, before healing himself. Irenicus put up a good fight and even mazed Tar once but we've seen all his moves and it did not end well for him. Go jump off a cliff into a fiery pit and good riddance
So we reached Throne of Bhaal, starting with Illasera. Or as we knew her, Illasera the mazed and (on her return, it's behind you) trapped. Tar stripped her of her boots and we were all speedy from this point
The first thing Tar did on meeting Cespenar was have him forge the Aslyferund armour and hand it to Coreheal. 40,000gp and she thought it to be better than the shadow dragon armour. Omen and Coreheal both thought otherwise, but we will never know as it disappeared between Tar and Coreheal. It's only money. Lots of money
We did the first Pocket Plane quest, the initial enemies determinedly chasing Tar. Eventually all attention switched to Omen and we made easy pickings from then. At the end only Ellisime arrived and Tar had held back. In the moments for her to move within crossbow range, Omen had completed the area
The entrance to Saradush was now open so we ventured there. Coreheal almost died while Tar was making distance, and as he too decided to run she snared the many enemies so they would be mazed instead of giving chase. Coreheal healed himself and laid snares. Tar had to caution him as he laid several, reminding him the enemies would return in dribs and drabs so 1-2 snares per time would be optimal. It didn't really matter as Omen was patiently waiting and cut enemies down in a steady arrival procession
Melissan greeted us and our two hours was up. It had been a good session but ToB enemies can quickly kill Coreheal or Tar, and even Omen can be in danger if swarmed. Tar needs to keep on top of her maze snares to deal with this scenario
Tar, dwaven bounty hunter (Gate70)
Omen, dwarven defender (Grond0)
Coreheal VII, gnome cleric / thief (Corey_Russell)
We've barely seen Tar in trouble recently but today ends that streak. Does she survive...
The session starts well with Omen and Tar tag-teaming conversations between the Saradush scroll merchant, Squip the thief and is taskmaster. With the store open for business we sell a few items. Tar fails to convince the local clergy of her decent nature, meaning Omen and Coreheal have to step in and obtain a secret key. Kisers plot is foiled and we clear out the vampires before heading into the castle cellars
Thieves aplenty down here, including two of us. Coreheal draws some attention away from Omen and pays with his life, so once the remaining thieves are downed we use a second rod of resurrection charge of the session, the first having raised a childs father outside
The orogs in the remaining cellar rooms are whittled down and then we can head upstairs into the castle
Our entry is a bit of a struggle, although we have two sets of True Sight running we have enemies split around. Omen is merrily axing away, while Coreheal uses sling and spells. Tar is not doing well though, trying a couple of snares but each time an enemy is in sight. Still, we (meaning mainly Omen and partly Coreheal) are victorious so we hide and head in to see Gromnir
His party start to chase Tar immediately. She initially suspects someone could see through invisibility but then realises her hide in shadows must have cancelled while in cutscene. Omen once more holds ground as Coreheal casts, and Tar runs around the edges of the room eventually finding somewhere to throw a special snare from. All are mazed except Gromnir who must be immune to it. Omen cuts him down and another snare or two are set for the returnees
Tar decides to visit the stores to sell loot of the fallen, and purchases a second bag of holding - she's heard if you get to the Oasis there are more lootables than you can hold and she intends to disprove that theory
With Gromnir dead we use the Pocket Plane to travel outside Yaga Shuras home in the Marching Mountains, and clear out a large number of troops. Omen and Coreheal are expecting to travel to the Marching Mountains next but instead Tar invokes the next part of her not very well thought out and entirely unspoken plan
Coreheal voices his confusion - we have already been to Watchers Keep. Omen is wiser and realises the fourth head of the Flail of Ages is our next objective. We soon have that in our grasp, having blundered our way around but safely and with no party deaths. Omen turns to go but Tar is also after the helm of the rock. So we complete the four corners at which point Tar looks at the caged chromatic demon and despite her concerns decides more combat is needed. It is duly released and would put up a tremendous effort were it not for the four spike traps that kill it immediately
Discretion being the better part of valour, and Tar having no valour, it is clearly time to leave the Keep. Only, Tar wants to obtain forge steal or borrow something that Coreheal will use unlike Aslyferund or horn of the rock. So after another Pocket Plane rest and Omen grumbling that we appear to have disposed of the cloak +2 for Cespenar to upgrade whoops we return to the Keep
If Tar can remember the path this might not be extreme suicide...
The next level starts with us following Yakman the mad elf. Tar stumbles from chamber to chamber, not able to recall where she should be heading. At one point we all prove unworthy of retrieving a holy bastard sword from a pillar, at another point we meet a group of alu fiends and a succubus. Tar has been half expecting this but not knowing exactly when, and throws Omen a potion of invulnerability. Omen gulps it but several seconds later he is charmed or dominated anyway
Tar has to admit she can't remember directions mentioned to her many years ago. It would be safe to retreat and foolhardy to continue... it may already be too late...
Coreheal runs from Omen, as ordered by Tar. He runs past Tar, making her realise she should have stated where to run, primarily around the chamber and not into a corner. Instead, Tar runs as she had intended Coreheal to and we both gulp potions of invisibility but it appears all enemies can see through invisibility. Tar continues running but is also charmed and the enemies teleport to Omen and kill him slowly - Coreheal unable to help as Omen would turn on him with deadly effects - before focusing on Coreheal
Coreheal takes hits aplenty forcing him to use the tree of life nuts and healing potions. After a short while it is clear Coreheal will die before Tar is uncharmed, and if that happens the game is up. Omens ethereal remnants suggest Coreheal should pick up the cloak of the sewers and use rat form. This gives Coreheal survival time and Tar comes to her senses. There are three important things she does at this point. Firstly, use the rod to resurrect Omen. Secondly give Omen a helm of charm protection. Thirdly throw a special snare near the alu fiends and stop the ongoing attack on Coreheal
We lay more snares, Coreheal retreats and Omen takes his place. It does not end well for the Alu fiends. That was a very close call, and although we have five minutes remaining Tar decides the session will end early. It is heresy to suggest between now and next week she will consult "Mike's" RPG oracle and that we should travel NW, NE, NW, NW arriving with some sort of protection from nasty stuff
(but will she remember that)
Postscript:
While looking at party gear for next time I observed Grond0 did not have the Flail of Ages, maybe he lost it when he died in Watchers Keep after Cespenar upgraded it. Then I thought more, and can't remember him mentioning it or I missed his comment. Then I remembered I never handed it back to him. Then I had a good look at the screen recording - snips below
This was my inventory about a minute before Cespenar
Then I picked 3 potions of fire resistance up, followed by the helm of the rock and fire scepter
Then we Pocket Planed and spoke to Cespenar, where you can clearly see the flail and head disappearing but no replacement flail mentioned
I had assumed Grond0 received the flail but don't believe that is how the game worked. After forging the flail and upgrading the helm I went into inventory to give the items back and you can see there is no flail. I didn't check Grond0's inventory at the time but assume he lost it then
& using items BLUN14 and BLUN30A on a retest I can see the +4 flail should be mentioned and returned to the protagonist so this feels like a bug to me
I was unable to recreate the issue (from the latest save, with full inventory, with item equipped by Omen, with Omen controlled by a client character). I have added item BLUN30C to Grond0's inventory and he has the choice of whether to use it or not - I don't know quite how or why but the poor flail rarely remains in our multiplayer games
(suspect it might be due to a long running session of 2 hours and three of us in multiplayer from 2 countries, as we often see odd quirks during games)
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Anyway, we begin by scribing, using up (I think) a good dozen Potions of Genius in the process, what with our silly number of arcanists.
Options enhanced, we embark upon clearing the random crap all over these maps, but not before the Shadowy Figure waylays us (and is promptly killed by a Potions of Explosion barrage). Next, some no-name Ogre Tribe knocks off Blade and do a good job of almost forcing us to flee the map.
We were a bit low on spells at the time, which is almost a death sentence for us... and happens sooner than you think, since we need a good 4-5 Fireballs/Skull Traps to kill anything.
Anyway, we press on, and in customary fashion, almost meet our end in the Spider Cave (the one with the Killer Mimic that spits its glue clear through walls...).
I always trip the same land mines in SoD, yet always bumble through somehow. Maybe next time I'll remember to either have everyone quaff a Potion of Freedom, or have those that do not just wait invisibly until the Mimic is dealt with.
There are thankfully no more close calls for a while.
Well, that was a lie. Our Detect Traps is so shoddy we can't really disarm much, and Cleric pays the price. Good thing I never send Fighter/Mage/Thief to open stuff, a bad roll on that would've probably chunked him.
With all outdoor areas cleared, we engage the Crusaders guarding the entrance to the Underground River.
Things of course go smoothly with a full contingent of summons and buffs, but it's quite exhausting to play like that (lots of clicking and planning), so usually we just play it fast and loose.
The enormous amount of trash mobs in the southwest parts underground are just disposed of using massed Skull Traps; inside Kanaglym, Skeleton Warriors do a good job of holding the local undead and Necromancers at bay while we just unload some Potions of Explosion (these go straight through MGoI).
On the way out, Zhadroth gets a taste of The Secret Revealed, and we pick up Spell Sequencer for four out of five arcanists (Blade can't use the robe), as well as the Ring of Regeneration to reduce our dependence on Potions of Healing. I wish the ring was available much earlier, it's such a nice convenience item.
The northwestern parts of the river are painstakingly cleared: We're not taking chances anymore now that we're so close to the end, and retreat many times to rest up. Ultimately, we make our way into the Castle proper, though not before ripping off Crusader Priest Polvi for everything he's got: 180 Pick Pockets is enough to steal from him with 100% success rate.
He's got some decent stuff, notably scrolls, potions and lots of magical bullets, though as a result we are now suffering severe inventory congestion.
In the castle basement, we set some traps near the entrance to hopefully slow down reinforcements a bit, summon Skeleton Warriors to hold off the big blob of Crusaders to the east, and walk in on Hephernaan.
Both his Mages are swiftly undone, Hephernaan flees, and so do we (though not before looting his room thoroughly).
Yes, you can just loot it later if you want, but I prefer scribing the quite valuable scrolls found here before invading Dragonspear Castle proper.
We avoid any further combat; we've something like 40 Potions of Invisibility, so just slip past the Crusader Mage/Cleric at the river that cast invisibility detection spells.
Since we've managed to amass a gargantuan amount of Potions of Genius, we scribe our valuable hoard of rare scrolls carefully: It's actually a bit of an optimization problem when you have five casters vying for scrolls.
After a bit of thinking, Fighter/Mage/Thief gets the lion's share of the defensive ones; we will be relying on him as our frontliner for dangerous fights in BG2 until Invoker recovers from dualing, so Fighter/Mage/Thief really needs SI+SS.
I skip questing in the courtyard: There's no loot there we need, and nothing you get there can be imported to BG2 either, so we just trigger the invasion instead.
I'll summarize: Potions of Explosion, Potions of Explosion, Web, Skull Trap.
Gotta do something with all those potions, they're pointless in the Hells.
The courtyard battle is handled via even more Potions of Explosions alongside Skull Trap and some clerical buffs; Ashatiel challenges us.
Ah, crap on a stick. Invoker fails his save against Greater Command: My mistake, I really should've had him quaff a Potion of Magic Shielding the moment the duel started. Fortunately, he managed to get off a Monster Summoning III first, so Ashatiel spent quite some time dismantling summons, and her clerical level should be low since she's a triple class. Will Invoker's defenses outlast the Greater Command's duration even though he's suffering auto-hits?
Just barely. Ashatiel was hitting fairly hard and often, but Invoker's CON bonus kept him alive. Phew.
I play it safe and have him quaff a Potion of Invisibility; who cares about honor, we're going to survive this no matter what.
Ashatiel and her cohorts get to feel the full force of Spell Sequencer (Skull Trap x3!).
That, along with the Killer Mimic debacle, was the closest we've been so far to losing the run.
Shaken yet not stirred, we press on, and safely (?) reach the Nine Hells.
The enemies here use Hold Person, Fear and Charm (but have no means of dispelling), so Potions of Clarity and Freedom all around keeps everyone safe.
We arrive in good order at the Hellevator, and start putting our ludicrously bloated inventory to use.
Everyone gets protected against everything the Devils/Demons/whatever they are can throw at them: There are enough protection scrolls throughout SoD to turn an entire party of six immune to Fire, Lightning and Poison.
Hold Person/Fear/Charm is covered by Chaotic Commands, or just a Potion of Clarity.
That done with, we apply basically every potion that grants some kind of bonus (Potions of Fortitude/Agility/Strength/Defense are very useful for our party, given our abysmal stats); save the one hour and less duration ones for the ride up the Hellevator, and only apply the very short duration buffs like SI after the third wave.
Potions of Magic Shielding are best kept in reserve, in case someone drops and has to be revived mid fight, or your buffs get dispelled by Belhifet (see below).
I write the above mostly for my own benefit so I won't forget next go around...
There's only a single Dispel Magic in play during the Belhifet fight: Belhifet himself force-casts it first thing, and he can easily be coerced into targetting whoever's closest if he can't see protagonist (just scatter, it'll at most affect one character assuming everyone has an Oil of Speed running).
This time, Belhifet threw it at Fighter/Mage/Thief, who had SI: A running. Lucky.
We let Caelar aid us, but she fails her save against something (I'm not sure what) that knocks her unconscious for a few rounds.
Amazingly, Cleric spamming scrolls of Greater Restoration at Caelar (with the Battle Tankard equipped to keep her from going fatigued immediately) actually keep Caelar alive long enough for the latter to recover.
With his reinforcements dealt with, we turn on Belhifet, and he pops Infernal Conveyance, teleporting away and going invisible.
We counter the invisibility, and Enchanter + Mage/Thief both pop Lower Resistance, bringing Belhifet's magic resistance down by 81% (!). I'm fairly sure he has a lot less than that to start with, so he's now completely vulnerable to magic.
This is what we have been waiting for. Belhifet has no acid resistance at all... but every party arcanist knows Vitriolic Sphere, and every party arcanist except Blade has access to Spell Sequencer owing to Zhadroth's robe.
You can guess the outcome.
Belhifet was already wounded following our tender ranged mercies, so he has no way to stand up to what is basically an instant 90 x 3 = 270ish acid damage. Great success, and a good showcase of just how incredibly lethal this party can be with proper planning. No spell defenses? No chance.
That's all she wrote. We escape hell, leaving Caelar to stew there, and return home to Baldur's Gate after being framed for a crime we did not commit. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them... maybe you can hire the A-team Arcanist-team.
We escape uneventfully, are captured equally uneventfully, and BG2 awaits.
We leave SoD at the cap of 500k experience: The next batch of level-ups comes only at 660k, and 750k (L12) will see Invoker dual.
I feel he really needs Protection from Magical Weapons to stand a chance at tanking come ToB, so it'll be a late dual, though not exceedingly so: He'll regain his abilities at L13 Fighter, so 2 million, which is late mid - early late SoA.
Assuming we make it that far, but here's hoping. See you in BG2.
Tar, dwaven bounty hunter (Gate70)
Omen, dwarven defender (Grond0)
Coreheal VII, gnome cleric / thief (Corey_Russell)
Tar looks around - we're in Watchers Keep on the maze level
NW to a room with no enemies
NE to a room with enemies. We ignore them and head NW (we are near that exit)
NW to a room with enemies. We ignore them, pick up some items from the floor and head NW
Tar scratches her head - she'd not thought this far ahead. Aesgareth is facing us and engages in conversation. Tar plays along and tells him she will have to think on the matter. Then she uses the Pocket Plane to never return again (although see below)
Cespenar wants 5000gp to forge some armour which is duly passed to Coreheal and for once he receives it and wears it
So now we can proceed. Tar looks at her map and decides we should visit Nyalee in the swamp. A host of undead swarm us - Omen moving ahead a bit quicker than Tar would have liked as she cut-scenes her way to the front and is heavily level drained after a conversation with the Master Wraith. She runs away and tries to cast True Sight but a wraith hits her again. She continues running while Omen smashes and Coreheal uses Turn Undead before casting restoration on her
The next group of undead enemies have all their non-casters snaremazed, and the casters put up a good fight but are ultimately pummeled as their support starts to return. We learn of Yaga Shuras heart from Nyalee and make room in our backpacks for it by emptying a few snares onto the ground. As we depart more undead try to greet us but Coreheal turns and destroys them
The Marching Mountains is next and while the outside and lower level of the fire giant temple are not as difficult as normal in a trio we still make slow work of it. Coreheal dies at one point, Omen and Tar are badly wounded at other points, an attempted pocket plane rest freezes the game so we have to clear the middle two rooms twice, and the top left room has an offset staircase meaning Omen gets stuck and surrounded by fire trolls and salamanders. His hardiness keeps him alive and after Tar despairs of hitting salamanders with the Wave halberd she suggests Coreheal can use Crom Faeyr on the trolls. This speeds matters up
The temple interior is better but still ragged around the edges. Or at least to Tar who is fairly ineffective with her weapons and if she cannot get snares into action is reliant on her companions. Berenn is defeated mainly by a low door, while Imix forces us to retreat before making the mistake of chasing us - he did not see the three snares we had laid for such an occasion
Coreheal confirms he has both hearts so we return to Nyalee. She attempts to turn on us but our earlier traps spike her and maze most of her supporting cast. They eventually return to face Omen, then we attempt to rest several times in more than one area. Coreheal had suggested using the pocket plane, the game hints might have also done so and Omen finally jokes about whether Tar has thought about it. She obstinately chooses to rest outside Watchers Keep - does that count as returning
Yaga Shura then. We sort of clear the bridge, scare Yaga Shura off and lay a few snares for his return. We fend off several enemies to keep the snares intact and on his return we bait him in and down he goes. Tar knows what this means - loot his corpse and make our way to the armourers emporium known as the Oasis. At that place she convinces Omen and Coreheal to drag enemies away briefly then uses three special snares to start mazing enemies. She wants to add in spike traps but dribs and drabs of enemies continue to arrive so must patiently wait for Omen and Coreheal to kill them the old fashioned way. Crude but effective, and two bags of holding prove more than adequate to stash armour bows swords and shields
Amkethran next, helping the cleric and thieves in two arguments with monks, protecting the mayors daughter and once more being set up by Saemon Havarian. Tar buys the Klogoroth axe for Omen, and bags gargoyle boots and Enkidus Plate in case we ever meet Cyrics followers in the pocket plane. Then we continue towards Sendai's enclave, laying snares near the woodcutter
Not enough snares, nobody is killed and despite a few summons and a deva we are soon forced onto the back foot. Tar tries another book of infinite True Sights but is backstabbed so forced to run. Coreheal is badly wounded, Omen more badly wounded. Tar feels terrible about retreating round the base of the building so summons a golem and then Kitthix. Omen and Coreheal are steadily deteriorating but finally Tar gets a snare or two working and we claw our way back on top. Tar decides we should rest in the Pocket Plane this time, mainly because Cespenar can upgrade the Rune Hammer for Omen
It doesn't look like we've done a huge amount in the two hours available to us but it was a lot of hard work with many dangerous enemies. At one point Coreheal died - Tar thinking it might have been in the lower area of the Fire Giant temple but not certain. We purchased a second Rod of Resurrection with the primary one down to four charges remaining
It's official - we have more money than sense now
(about 100,000 less than I expected but Klogoroth, Enkidu and Gargoyle may not have been cheap)
Edit: oh and we completed the second Pocket Plane challenge - Tar managing two special snares so the enemies can be separated. Angelo fails to be snared so perishes first. Semaj returns first so is spike trapped, Anti-Tar is next and duly Omened, while Tamoko survives two spike traps and only survives attack by Omen thanks to Coreheal nipping in for the kill
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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
Move or modify some overpowered magic items: 35.21
Replace +1 arrows and other projectiles with nonmagical "fine" ones: 35.21
Replace many +1 magic weapons with nonmagical "fine" ones: 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
Allow the Cowled Wizards to detect spellcasting in most indoor, above-ground areas in Athkatla: 35.21
Remove unrealistically helpful items from certain areas: 35.21
Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from the game -> Remove all ammo from random containers: 35.21
Delay the arrival of the "bonus merchants" in the Adventurers' Mart and the Copper Coronet: 35.21
Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): 35.21
Ease-of-use party AI: 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 golems: 35.21
Improved fiends and celestials: 35.21
Smarter genies: 35.21
Smarter dragons: 35.21
Smarter beholders: 35.21
Smarter mind flayers: 35.21
Smarter githyanki: 35.21
Improved Vampires: 35.21
Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: 35.21
Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: 35.21
Improved Shade Lord: 35.21
Spellcasting Demiliches: 35.21
Tie difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings to the difficulty slider: 35.21
Improved Random Encounters: 35.21
Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix"): 35.21
Improved Unseeing Eye: 35.21
Improved Bodhi: 35.21
Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold: 35.21
Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: 35.21
Improved Sahuagin: 35.21
Improved Beholder hive: 35.21
Rebalanced troll regeneration: 35.21
Improved Drow: 35.21
Improved Watcher's Keep: 35.21
Improved Fire Giant temple: 35.21
Improved Sendai's Enclave: 35.21
Improved Abazigal's Lair: 35.21
Improved Minor Encounters: 35.21
Now that they're in some sense accomplished adventurers, the entire party are given proper names:
Clarice the Cleric, Burton the Blade, Figaro the Fighter/Mage/Thief, Mathias the Mage/Thief, Envor (?) the Enchanter and Ioalus the Invoker.
I had intended to import Krotan's Skullcrusher +2 for Figaro, but forgot that Staff Mace +2 is higher in the priority list, and since Ioalus had the latter equipped at the end of SoD, that's what we ended up with... eh.
7HD Skeleton Warriors and some use of occasionally successfully laid traps prove quite adequate in clearing most of Irenicus' dungeon, but cannot help much when it comes to our atrocious Find Traps skill(s).
Guess we're resting early whether we like it or not... let's just have Clarice spring the traps, she should have decent odds of survival. Better than Mathias, at any rate.
Once Mathias is back on his feet, the rest of the dungeon is uneventful, as is clearing the Circus (True Sight and Magic Missiles for the Werewolves and Shadows, respectively).
We remember to pick up the disappearing scroll case from Bernard, and clear the Beastmaster's pen with a single Cloudkill.
Cloudkill proves quite helpful in a number of encounters here, as enemies in the Sewers are low hit dice.
We still have lots of spell slots available, as Ioalus won't dual until L12.
A few Skull Traps and a suitably buffed Figaro dismantle Captain Haegan and his band.
Here we run into a first major issue: There's a resetting Prismatic Spray trap in the beached ship blocking our path that we simply can't disarm (to the far north of the corridor, north of the two Slaver Wizards). Fortunately, we can just send Skeleton Warriors under the supervision of invisible Mathias to deal with the remaining slavers..
Ugh, completely random Thief skill points are a serious pain. Even if I give Mathias the Bracers of Dexterity at some point, he won't break past 50 Find Traps unaided. We'll need the Ring of Danger Sense (which ironically is quite dangerous to retrieve), and even then probably will have to depend on Potions of Perception. We'll see how we handle things.
Having freed the slaves, we've ample gold, so invest in a magic license, and free Viconia while at it.
Suna Seni and friends get a big ol' helping of Skull Trap while we're en route back to the Promenade.
At the Promenade, we mess up a bit: Brennan Risling manages to escape. Should've prepared some 2x Magic Missile sequencers for this, but figured we had the damage to take him down quickly. I figured wrong: We've almost no damage at all! In fact, we must resort to Magic Missile'ing Mencar into the ground, since we just can't hit him (but he can assuredly hit us).
I run into another behavior I've never observed before at the City Gates: The two Shadow Thieves being recruited by a Vampire that attack you (and have some decent scrolls including Contingency) disappear on us.
What happened was that the time went from night to day right after they turned hostile, and apparently they just despawn then... never to reappear. Irksome.
En route to Watcher's Keep, we get to save Renfield. Sasha and Prebek are too low-level to have much in the way of defenses; the traps in their home are far more deadly.
We just can't disarm anything. Clarice will have her work cut out for her...
Xzar is assassinated, and we collect the odds and ends of loot.
We expose Reijek Hidesman next, getting a lovely scroll of Spell Deflection as random loot.
Speaking of random loot, we also pick up a scroll of Spell Sequencer in the graveyard.
Even with one dual-to-be and a Blade, there's still three party members that can (eventually) use that, so yes, I'll gladly take it... along with the Protection from the Elements scroll found in the Crypt King's, well, crypt.
We delve further underground; Pai'Na and her brood succumb to a Cloudkill and some focused fire (she has no armor so even our paltry THAC0 is sufficient).
The Vampyre in the southern tombs is a real piece of work, as usual: Not content to whail ineffectively at a Skeleton Warrior, it tries to seek out better targets. We eventually take it down, though Figaro takes a heavy hit (level-drain wise).
We actually have to retreat back to the Graveyard and rest up, but return under cover of Skeleton Warriors.. and finally hit a milestone.
At 750k experience, Ioalus hits Invoker L12 (picking up * in Quarterstaff), and immediately duals to Fighter.
I realized after the fact I had forgotten to cast Find Familiar, so he will be down 12 HP for a long time...
Will we beat the odds and actually pick up a specialization? Or will we forever be doomed to single-pip misery?
Ioalus rolls the dice once, twice, thrice, quice (?), and ends up with...
Long Sword *, Scimitar / Wakizashi / Ninjato *, Spear **.
OK, it could've been worse. I'd say spear is the third worst proficiency given my play style.
Club is the worst, since the only weapon better than +3 requires you to keep everyone around immune to fire at all times.
Dagger is second worst, since it's just such puny damage.
Spear... is Spear. It'll be OK. I hope? There are good spears available, though it'll be some time until we see them, and I am a little wary of Piercing as a damage type. But let's just forge ahead; at least we got a specialization, which is a minor miracle in itself.
Ideally, I'd like to go straight for the Ring of Danger Sense now, but I realize it's a bit risky to brave the Planar Sphere in our current state: Let's instead focus on big quests with little to no traps. Trademeet!
Lots of mooks at the Druid Grove, but a simple strategy of massed Fireballs works here: Frontliners need Chaotic Commands to protect against Greater Command, and Protection from Fire to protect both against Flame Strike, and our own Fireballs. Then you're golden.
Cloudkill clears the Spider infestation to the west, then we use five Skeleton Warriors to help clear another couple of Troll spawns (reducing us to a single badly wounded Skeleton Warrior left).
The Troll Mound is actually a bit tough, as the multitude of Trolls have an easy time hitting us; I end up using our single Potion of Fire Breath to help clear the field.
As you note, Ioalus has a hitpoint problem: One good hit is enough to send him into dangerous territory, as he's unlikely to survive two hits, and all but certainly dead if he has to take three hits. I need to be careful when using him for a long time, but we desperately need his THAC0...
We loot and (I think for the first time ever, for me) equip the Spear of the Unicorn +2, as well as the Bracers of Archery (the latter on Burton). Well, that improves things ever so slightly, at least.
The Greater Earth Elemental to the north of the Mound is trapped into oblivion, and we let the local Trolls narrowly defeat the Shadow Druid and his cohorts.
Kylan Lind and friends are helpless against Skeleton Warriors, and the enormous blobs of continuously spawned Red Myconids on the bridge are treated to Cloudkill (Myconids have strangely good THAC0 and can get quite dangerous if you let them swarm you).
We're almost out of spells here, and actually end up having to do a running battle against the Adherent and the Shadow Druid at the entrance to the Druid Grove: Dalok somehow didn't follow. The reason is that the Adherent has stupidly good AC, and both the Shadow Druid and Dalok popped Entropy Shield, rendering our ranged weaponry null and void... so we had to wait out their buffs.
Not the party's proudest moment, or it wouldn't have been if they had any pride. They do not, in fact: Survival is the priority here.
Cernd defefats Faldorn, and we rest outside Adratha's cottage under Invisibility 10' Radius; there's no way we could engage Adratha and friends on the same rest as that used to clear the entire Grove.
Clarice and Figaro go immune to very nearly everything, and enter. Ihtafeer and Sadaat both pop protections galore, but Jalaal is lower level, and doesn't last long. Fortunately, the protections do not include Spell Shield or Spell Immunity: Abjuration, so Breach is sufficient to make them vulnerable; Sadaat soon joins Jalaal.
But Ihtafeer herself remains a thorny issue. She's clever too: I thought her out of almost everything, but she was conserving her strength. As the party closes in for the kill, a Sunfire erupts, nearly killing several of us.
Still, that was all she had left, beyond some Magic Missiles. Some potions later, we finish the job.
That was harsh. We used almost every spell slot we had, and still had some difficulties.
Yet a win is a win.
Back to Trademeet, where we successfully pickpocket Taquee for the Efreeti Bottle (Burton was poised to instantly speak to Khan Zahraa in case of failure).
We are showered with rewards, and also duly clear the local crypt, earning a random drop of a scroll of True Sight for our efforts; soon, Envor will be scribing scrolls, I imagine.
I want the Elven Chain Mail for Figaro, but grossly overestimate the noble magelings: They both die to a combination of Sunfire and Fireball before amounting to anything.
We also finish up the Reijek Hidesman quest while here, finally gaining a point of reputation in the process; we're still only at 18 reputation, even though we bribed it all the way to 17 fairly early on.
That was quite a bit of adventuring; we return to the Copper Coronet, and this seems a good place to stop.
Burton, Clarice and Mathias are all within earshot of leveling; another major quest should do it.
Ioalus is trotting along at a steady pace, though it'll be a long time until he reaquires his true powers.
Envor is a pure arcanist: Now that he's L12, it'll be a very long time until he markedly improves again.
Figaro is almost at a standstill: His THAC0 will basically not improve much for the foreseeable future, nor his spell slots, really.
He has just enough arcane juice to handle a single major battle per day; the rest of the time, he's a poor-AC poor-HP poor-THAC0 Fighter without weapon specialization. And yet, he's still our best combatant... though Ioalus is catching up.
Things are looking a bit grim! The party is quite demanding to play as well. We have plenty of spell slots, but nearly all of them must be devoted to defenses and/or buffs in order for us not to get absolutely crushed by anything tougher than a throng of Goblins. Hopefully things'll improve as we level. Let's hope we get some good luck on those random HLA's too...
The party is sitting at roughly 850k experience; next up will likely be the Umar Hills, since there are barely any traps there.
With the experience from that, we will likely brave the Planar Sphere next. Not just for the Ring of Danger Sense, but also the Ogre Strength gauntlets: Everyone except Ioalus is frightfully weak, after all. Maybe we should invest in the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, that should help our melee a bit...
Anyway, until next time!
The hill gIant strength belt would certainly be ideal to get, it's always been a huge turning point for at least one fighter in any of my randomized groups - and if maces are a good choice for your F/M/T, it seems like Mauler's Arm might be an option to save another level 2 slot for strength. Of course, if you dare to venture into the Unseeing Eye questline early - which imo is not as impossible in practice as it might sound in theory, especially with the level 11 version of skeletons available, and a lot of good anti-undead tools in existence - you can build your own ideal fighter in terms of stats, with the dexterity gauntlets, the fortitude girdle (which lasts for 8 hours, making it essentially permanent outside of ambushes during/after travel if one remembers to use it after every rest) and the hill giant strength belt.
It'll be a big boost for Figaro. I've also considered the Unseeing Eye: Ioalus is in the odd position of not benefitting at all from increased CON, but Figaro will become a (non-specialized) powerhouse with 19 STR, 18 CON, and 18+ DEX (usually only requires 1 - 2 Cat's Grace, as he gains 1 - 8 points owing to being part Thief). I am a bit wary of the traps there: Then again, there will be traps in the Planar Sphere too. I think going shopping for a fair number of Potions of Perception is also a priority... looks like we'll be spending some gold.
Previous updates:
A slip back into risk-taking behaviour resulted in the death of the monk soon after starting the next section of progress. The disappointment of that led to a 6 week or so break in the action before continuing with the cleric/mage. There were then few problems with the rest of the characters, except the final one who paid the price for a moment's loss of concentration.
Summary points of interest for each class
Monk - as expected, the undamaged status of the monk was measured in only seconds when I got underway again and stealthed through the traps in the Nashkel Mine. The freedom to take damage after that, or perhaps just starting the series of characters afresh though immediately plunged me back into carelessness / risk-taking behaviour. I nearly died at the Bandit Camp when, after retreating from Tazok's tent I ran out of sight and tried twice to hide without success. The second time was in another tent and I was surprised when Venkt managed to follow that far and appeared inside with me. That resulted in getting the timing of my exit wrong and Venkt was able to follow me outside while casting horror - fortunately I saved. At the Cloakwood Mine I intended to just stealth downstairs, but a guard came to find me after I opened the door near Hareishan - I thought I was in stealth when I did that, but I guess that must have failed and I didn't notice. Hareishan then arrived, but I managed to disrupt her opening spell and run away to hide. I could then have used stealth shots or necklace of missiles to kill her safely - or just ignored her and gone downstairs as I'd originally intended. Instead though I attacked with fists hoping to finish her off with one punch. The attack was successful, but I rolled low damage and she survived. I immediately retreated at speed, but not fast enough to avoid a bouncing lightning bolt cast through about 4 different walls.
Cleric/mage - eventually continuing with this series of runs I had no problems in this session with the cleric/illusionist. I'd already taken damage with this character in the previous session, so didn't have to worry about minor injuries and skeletons did the bulk of the work in clearing enemies. I only took progress up to arriving at Baldur's Gate for the first time. That's a much shorter session than the previous one, but I thought that would help give me the feeling of making progress.
Stalker - the stalker also had a pretty easy ride up to arriving at Baldur's Gate. Most of the time I was using backstabs, but there were a few uses of stealth shots - such as against Davaeorn - in order to keep things safe.
Dragon Disciple - I'd already taken damage in the first session, but avoiding that with this character is so easy that I did so in this session - that just cost a couple of potions to prevent potential trap damage. Once again there were no alarms on the way to Baldur's Gate.
Cleric dualling to thief - this was another easy session. In order to get horror as a Bhaal power, this character had left a few more things to do than most of the others. That was no problem though with skeletons to lead the way and there were no alarms.
Diviner - after a number of straight-forward sessions, I was a bit more aggressive with this one. However, the only real hint of danger was when battling mustard jellies with my staff. After retreating twice against one of those in the Cloakwood Mine, I decided to continue the attack even after being hit and another hit on me could potentially have been fatal. I used a potion of absorption, so it needed a critical to hit and failed to get one in the couple of rounds it took to finish it off.
Kensai - the kensai had not taken any damage in the first session, but a despairing attempt to jump over the traps in the Nashkel Mine using an oil of speed failed. After that he took plenty of damage and I really need to try and keep things a bit safer. He managed to join the queue waiting outside the walls of Baldur's Gate though.
Blade - the blade took no damage in the first session, so provided a good incentive to stay safe this time. I had a moment of anxiety when going through the traps in the Nashkel Mine when I'd forgotten that bard song now makes you visible. The luck bonus from the song though means that hits automatically target mirror images and those protected from a hit by a nearby kobold as well as the traps. I also got a bit of luck when targeted by wandering bandit archers twice while clearing the Camp, but they both missed and I've managed to get to Baldur's Gate unscathed.
Cleric - the cleric was another who took his first damage from the traps in the Nashkel Mine. Without the need to worry about the odd hit progress was pretty serene through to Baldur's Gate.
Abjurer - the final character should have been easy, but a moment's loss of concentration proved fatal. I hadn't been bothering with using invisibility when travelling, which means you need to be ready to act quickly in case of an ambush. Going through the Cloakwood I was ambushed by spiders and didn't react quickly enough - as a result I died of poison just before reaching the edge of the map ...
Tar, dwaven bounty hunter (Gate70)
Omen, dwarven defender (Grond0)
Coreheal VII, gnome cleric / thief (Corey_Russell)
Tar Omen and Coreheal are still standing after 14 sessions. Today looks like we will make an entrance into Sendai's enclave having previously defeated the drow "woodsman" in a close run encounter
It starts so well, killing the few guards outside and the colony spores inside. A bit further inside are small spiders and umber hulks. Omen takes a battering while Coreheal finds his armour suddenly not up to scratch and this causes him to die. Tar uses snares to help Omen and once the area is secured we use a rod of resurrection charge (3 remain on rod 1, 10 on the spare rod)
The remaining enemies in this opening area are dealt with more carefully, and we cross off encounters with the drow weapon master, Odamaron the lich, sneaking past the many guards in the tunnels and so on. At some point Ogremoch survives snares (for once we apply an insufficient quantity as more would have done the job but Omen is the veritable immovable object and just outlives Ogremoch
On the other side of this small area are a random group of enemies. The first couple are dragged into snares, the next few are taken in a fair fight and the hive mother is pinned to the back wall thanks to the Klogarath axe
Tar forgets the order of this area, was that before or after she played cat and potion mouse with the drow captain. She used an oil of speed to create distance then a potion of invisibility as the captain used the Spectator Beholder to block her escape. Once invisible the Spectator was bumped out of the way and Tar had enough room to use snares. A single spike trap was not enough so she used a special maze snare and set two more spikes
The room with illithid in was no concern to Omen either
We rested in the Pocket Plane before a final confrontation with Sendai. This was a bit scatty on our part but we were never in danger from Sendai's statues. Plenty of chance for Coreheal and Tar to liberally use snares while Omen stomped on anything that moved. Eventually Sendai decides to do it herself and as we are clearing minions to use more snares she uses an earthquake to hold Tar. This could be bad
Omen has reacted, using Klogorath to push Sendai away and Tar breaks free. Sendai is almost killed by Omen but gets a stoneskin up then mirrors and more protections. She looks menacing and Omen could be facing a world of pain but Tar gets another maze snare and we set some spike traps for her return. Tar loots everything in the chamber and we depart
Abazigals enclave is next, Draconis thinking he can best us. Tar lays spike traps at the southwest and Coreheal lays an exploding trap at the southeast. These for Draconis and invisible stalkers respectively, but such plans rarely work out as intended
A deva distracts Draconis in his human form, allowing us to missile him. When he transforms to a dragon this means none of us are encircled by him. He hits Coreheal hard then chases after Tar. She is delighted to see the summoned stalkers destroyed by Coreheals trap, and more soto see Draconis fall onto her traps. So the plan actually worked! We bag his head and Tar equips his gauntlets
Inside the enclave a greater wyvern occupies Omen for a brief while, then a group of earth elementals are killed. We swim through a tunnel and arrive at a chamber containing frost salamanders. It's been a long time since we were last here, as we'd mistaken it for the Kuo Toa tunnel. The salamanders put up a brave fight and deserved to win having badly wounded Omen and being in control of the situation
Not quite though. Tar finally gets enough space for a special snare and the salamanders are mazed. Our first set of traps are too close together and all used on the first returnee meaning the rest return moments later and turn the screw on Omen
Tar gets them mazed again and we spread our snares out making an efficient kill room. At the end Coreheal mentions the Wave halberd and Tar remembers it is in a bag of holding - not much use there
Tar hides and enters the next room expecting bone golems. No silly girl, they are bone fiends and can see you through invisibility
She retreats and the fiends follow only to run into Omen
After looting the area we can use a breath potion to cover a longer tunnel and this is where the Kuo Toa are. No real problems here either but they spread out and do a good job of stopping Tar from trapping them. Up to Omen then
The third area is flaming skulls. Coreheal lends his cloak to Omen who badly needs the kill-count to keep up with us (no he doesn't). Once Omen has cleared the area we sub-contract a job to Bondari, release an trapped dragon and open up Abazigals chamber
Omen finds the frost salamanders within are not being Waved so hands the halberd to Tar. Same for her so we are forced into a slightly more pained clearance than intended. Not long afterwards we have the chamber cleared apart from the bit at the centre. We lay snares near the entrance and use missiles to relieve Abazigal of his human form
The dragon is not happy. Tar is almost immediately incapacitated but able to stand up and run. She races past her companions meaning Coreheal takes damage from the next attack. It's not far to the entrance though and Abazigal must surely be thinking we are trapped as the entrance will be blocked. He's certainly not thinking what are those spiky things on the floor. Five spike traps are enough to kill him leaving two remaining
We loot the chamber, less to grab here, and return to Amkethran. Once there we get the Big Metal Unit forged and Coreheal tries it on. Look at that armour class (from -12 with the white dragon scale to -20 with the unit). Tar takes the Big Metal Rod, and checks it works (Omen confirms the scorcher projectile is warm...)
We close the session 5 minutes early rather than get messy with Balthazar. Next time
Tar and Coreheal have 283 and 290 kills. It's a close run thing between the three of us but Omen pulled ahead slightly due to his flaming skull spree (no seriously he's been a killing machine all through the run) and just pipping us with 1353 kills
It’s a really fun and very effective class.
Previous part found here
We also take care of the Sir Sarles quest here: I'm intending to make things easier by forging the Improved Mace of Disruption +2.
I managed to remember that the painting in Neb's hideout has an Acid Blob trap on it, so Clarice had the appropriate resistances up (the new SCS spell Resist Acid/Corrosion? I think it's called), and survived handily.
Turning in Neb's head got us to 19 reputation, which I think is fine to start shopping at.
We also dealt with sundry minor encounters: Tirdir, slaying Officer Dirth for another suit of Full Plate Mail, clearing out Valeria and her goons.
There are a few decent scrolls in the cupboard here, notably Breach if you don't want to pay for it, although we've already got it due to going through SoD beforehand, as Dracandros learns much to his dismay.
I don't want to start the whole Unseeing Eye quest yet, so we settle for just clearing the first part of the sewers; indeed, Beholders/Gauths are more or less helpless against Skeleton Warriors (there's one teleporting spawn of them here to the southwest).
The local Rakshasa is annoying, but much lower level than the ones at Trademeet, so a single critical spells its end, following a successful Breach.
Now we shop a little. I find out that apparently (?), there are only seven Potions of Perception available in all of Athkatla! Roger the Fence carries three, and one of the Shadow Thieves (I forget which one, maybe Arledrian?) carries a further four. This could be troublesome...
Anyway, we also pick up a number of key scrolls: Envor gets Improved Haste, Protection from Magical Weapons from the Shadow Thief at the Bridge district, and Protection from Magical Energy from the smithy in Trademeet.
I also grabbed Minor Sequencer for him from the Shadow Thief: Apparently the SCS component which changes the spell schools of sequencers/contingencies doesn't make it possible for an Enchanter to cast from the scrolls, but Envor could actually scribe them. Good! That'll be useful.
We celebrate our newfound arcane power by going ham on Tarnor the Hatchetman and his band.
Skeleton Warriors, Cloudkill, the odd Breach... it all adds up.
OK, so the plan now is to grab the IMoD +2, then use that to facilitate clearing out Imnesvale, as I'm sure we'll get some seriously nasty undead spawns there.
We pay Gaelan Bayle, and with the cost of the previously purchased scrolls along with putting aside 7 500 gold for later forging, we can't afford the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength yet; we'll make up the difference with potions, as we have a fair few such by now.
Lassal flees in shame, Shadow Thief traitors are dealt with, and we begin our assault on the crypts.
The Vampires aren't that bad this time around, in that they don't keep going invisible ("stealthing"), but mostly just stand and fight.
Buffs and Skeleton Warriors sees us through until we can pick up the Mace of Disruption from the blood pool.
Man, the mace is just wonderful. Tanova disagrees, though.
We handle Bodhi by just running away for a few turns, and that's it. We don't report to Aran yet, but rather forge the IMoD +2 as alluded to, and make preparations for Imnesvale.
Preparations are actually quite timeconsuming for this party; even with Ioalus still caught up in dual-classing hell, we have five characters whose spellbooks need frequent rearranging. I think I spent something like 20 minutes figuring out a good setup...
Anyway, Imnesvale itself is easily cleared; we arrived there and immediately got fatigued, so figured we might as well just go overboard with the arcane solution (read: Fireball until nothing is moving anymore).
A rest later, we depart for the temple.
We've prepared some Fireballs specifically for this, so don't turn the mirror on the enemies at the entrance, although the experience was so paltry (it's almost only Shadows and Shadow Wolves, at 420 and 500 experience a pop) we might as well not have bothered.
Normally, you'd abuse having a pure Cleric to the max here, but charming Undead just isn't that useful. Seems a bit buggy, in that they will turn red, then green, then red... I much prefer just blowing them up. Though I suppose it might be helpful if there was a spawn you just couldn't handle using standard tactics.
The first room inside the ruins is just Skeleton Warriors, which our own counter just fine.
Heading further in, it's dread incarnate.
There's no good way for us to handle a Lich at present (although we did come semi-prepared).
Ideally, I'd like seventh-level spell slots, but we'll have to somehow make do.
Fortunately, this particular Lich is rather passive.
... but still very much lethal.
I was hoping to separate the Lich from its massive attendant spawn, but it had a Symbol: Death prepared, and in our no-CON party, there are still two members susceptible to that.
Clarice didn't prepare Wondrous Recall, so we head outside, rest on the fourth try (by the crystal, so it's not an issue should we get interrupted), and get Mathias back in his feet.
This time, we sacrifice a Skeleton Warrior to get things rolling: The Lich is content to stay in its room, but its servants start looking for us, which is exactly what we wanted.
Turns out 7HD Skeleton Warriors can actually hit Bone Golems (but not Greater Mummies).
Alright, let's try this then. The Lich initially popped a Spell Trap, but that has expired by now; it didn't put up any defensive Illusions, so I'm all but certain it's a Necromancer. This is good, since SCS Necromancer and Enchanter Liches are the weakest, by my reckoning (fear the Conjurers and their endless hordes...).
We bait out two Death Spells using Kitthix and the Berserk Warrior, then buff up a bit, and engage: The plan is to wear the Lich down using Skeleton Warriors, then move Figaro into position for a killing blow.
No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
The line-of-sight here is wonky: Envor doesn't suffer the ADHW, but Mathias does, and croaks.
It's fine: Envor has enough anti-Mage spells memorized to carry us through this. I hope.
We retreat a bit though; let some of the Lich's better buffs expire, I say. The Lich says otherwise.
Crap. OK, no worries. Apply emergency buffs, what we can get off in a single round, and scatter a bit.
Use Skeleton Warriors and Figaro (who does have full protections up) to occupy the Lich, and we'll be fine.
Clarice is quite sturdy, so it's alright for her to be in line-of-sight. I'm sure that Abjuration the Lich is casting is just Spell Turning or something.
Or not. Clarice is Imprisoned.
We wreak our horrific vengeance, but Liches are immune to spells below sixth level (except Breach): We have no way to dismantle its defenses as we've yet to scribe Pierce Magic, and so are reduced to just swamping it with Skeleton Warriors.
It turns out that Imprisonment was its last big spell; it flails about ineffectually with Suffocate, Magic Missile and Melf's Acid Arrow, then just crumbles unceremoniously beneath the Skeleton Warrior onslaught.
I scouted ahead after this, and confirmed there was another Lich waiting for us at the other spawn point.
Even had we dodged this (optional to fight) one, the same tragedy would likely have been in store for us.
I also went back and verified: There are no Freedom scrolls available prior to the Underdark.
I think it's theoretically possible to make our way through the Underdark with this party, but we would either have to take some risks, or just skip a lot of content. Even then, it's maybe a 50/50 shot with no Clerical buffs at all? And once we got Clarice back, she'd be far behind everyone else.
I'll consider this the end of the no-CON party, unfortunately.
Some thoughts on this run.
One, the trap situation wasn't as bad as I feared. You can dodge most of the damage by resistances, Minor Spell Deflection or Stoneskin. Though not a run-ender it was extremely annoying not being able to disarm most traps, and I imagine it also led to some loss of experience (though not that much). Would prefer to be able to disarm, all things considered.
Two, the worst part about full-random is the lack of melee/ranged power. No specialization (barring Spear...), no Blade with three pips in Two-Weapon Fighting, not even a proficient ranged weapon for Mathias.
Even with Strength and Cat's Grace making up for our woeful stat deficiencies, it was difficult for us to actually kill things without resorting to spells.
Also, we kind of had to hang on to any non-generic magical weapon, because we might end up with a specialization in it.
Three, CON is really nice because it let's you play without always paying extreme attention.
Four, dualing at Invoker L12 was not a good idea. Ioalus had sincerely crappy HP as a result, and a Fighter with crappy HP can't really do much; I should've taken the advice to dual immediately at L2, I think the party (even had they made it far enough for Ioalus to finish his dual) would have benefitted far more from that.
Five, I really need to adjust my SoA tactics to account for the risk that Imprisonment represents.
The only places where this cannot be countered are Lich spawns (Lavok and possibly Tolgerias can use Imprisonment, but they can't see through Invisibility, so just pop a Potion of Invisibility and you're good); beyond the fixed encounters, Liches are to my knowledge only present in the Temple Ruins, the Unseeing Eye quest, and the Spellhold Maze, and then only if you're high enough level, 1 million experience perhaps?
So instead of soaking up as much experience and loot as possible before going to Spellhold, finish 1 - 2 crucial (in the sense of securing important gear) major quests, then just take off? Most importantly, you want to avoid fighting a Lich in Spellhold, as it seems the only potentially unavoidable one before the Underdark, and so you actually want to keep your level down.
I still enjoy random runs, though will likely not do full-random again, at least for a while.
Maybe another go at some variation of best-out-of-three, that seems a fair compromise, we'll see.
Trio 71 Session 16 PLACEHOLDER (links to session 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15)
Tar, dwaven bounty hunter (Gate70)
Omen, dwarven defender (Grond0)
Coreheal VII, gnome cleric / thief (Corey_Russell)
Tar used her Sunday ability to schedule a pocket plane rest while Omen and Coreheal were otherwise occupied. She went as far as forging the Blue Dragon Plate and upgrading Gram the Sword of Grief neither of which will see any use - in fact remembering Coreheal bemoaning electric resistance from the plate was only available after you needed it
If she thought really hard, Tar could make a case for doing Sendais enclave after Abazigals, then there would be minor benefit for the plate. Or doing the second level of Watchers Keep later than we did. Or perhaps other uses but yes Abazigal himself is the main user of electricity
Tar has handed Coreheal three sets of bullets, expecting one back and the other two to be placed in missile slots alongside the bag of bullets +2. She has also unbagged the frag grenades for the Big Metal Rod, figuring Omen might like some collateral damage. Also the Pixie Prick has finally been bagged, while the staff of the magi very briefly felt nice she decided a single handed weapon plus the shield of reflection was a preference. A brief disappointment after Cespenar pointed out Hindos Hand had no Hindos Doom +3 to upgrade to +4 (it is deeper in Watchers Keep than she intends to go) but Usunos Blade +4 will do nicely and just edge out Celestial Fury
(such an easy change she thinks. Usunos blade. As she saves the game waits for another weekend, she can't help herself haul both Celestial Fury and The Equalizer longsword out of a bag. Before she knows it she has equipped Celestial Fury instead. Spoilt for weapon choice)
& hoping even against ToB enemies Celestial Fury goes Boom Boom Boom like Baldrick says in Blackadder goes Forth
Although a few songs Boom Boom by Outhere Brothers or Boom Boom Pow by Black Eyed Peas or Boom Boom by John Lee Hooker spring to mind - no doubt many more also
No presents for Omen - in fact Tar stored the fifth flail head in the pocket plane as she had asked Omen if he preferred the +4 flail so he could run around with speedy boots and be further hasted, or the +5 version with extra damage but permanent Free Action. Speed it is
It is possible for us to do Balthazar, the remaining three pocket plane challenges and get to Melissan within two hours, I think. Time, roll of the dice, and avoidance of party fatality, will tell.
To be continued
25 minutes of gameplay later...
We defeat the Slayer pocket plane challenge (Coreheal sets 7 spike traps, 3 are enough)
Plus the faithful of Cyric (coreheal using Enkidus plate, Tar the Gargoyle boots, Omen his resistances)
On to Balthazar
who we finally defeat before realising Coreheals death was a chunking (8hp, 33 damage from Balthazar)
He realised too late who was attacking him and was unable to retreat to his traps quickly enough
So the run was over
Being a halfling allowed me to be semi competent at locks and traps while pouring all my points into traps and then the stealth skills.
I think dwarf is a better choice in the long run, as that 19 STR is such a jump in power.
Now, TDE is more a lot more grounded in "fantastic realism" and lower fantasy compared to D&D. A lot of classes and kits available in D&D are straight out, because they'd be able to do things no human could to in TDE, and most magical items would be unrealistically powerful. I took the time to make a short document to see which spells would still be available to me for a potential mage character, same for divine spells (both work quite differently compared to D&D, but there's at least some overlap with some RPG staples - you do get a type of fireball effect or a type of mirror image defensive spell, just to name a few). Well, I created my party, which included a Knight and a Priest of Rondra, the goddess of honor and war (created as a Paladin - cleric weapon limitations would make no sense here, and clerics would get way too many spells compared to what they can do in TDE).
Well, after all those elaborate preparations, the run ended almost immediately. When we encountered the belt ogre, I decided that those characters would never back down from a battle against an ogre in Aventuria (the setting of TDE) and would charge into melee combat. While an ogre can still knock out a PC in one hit in TDE, they generally don't outright kill them - also, you get an active parry attempt in TDE, so there's always a bit more counterplay against getting hit, especially if you outnumber your opponent. However, considering that I was actually playing a D&D game at level 1, I wasn't too surprised to immediately get oneshot by the ogre upon its very first attack (well, I was a bit surprised, because I would've expected level 1 protection to kick in, but we all know that this mechanic is very flawed and doesn't always work - I think if the specific amount of HP the character has is rolled by the enemy, the protection fails, for example).
Anyway, this quickly dispelled the idea of trying of roleplaying a TDE party through the BG series. Back to playing Age of Mythology for now
Junker, dwarven bounty hunter (Gate70)
Duplo, dwarven kensai (Grond0)
After our unfortunate demise with our last run, was time to roll new lambs to the slaughter. I chose archer as their stealth is pretty good and keeping at range for most enemies seems to make sense. Things we got done this session:
1) Candlekeep chores completed without incident, though we almost forgot to pick up our free potion. Corarcher finished the session with a large number of blue potions so apparently this wouldn't be critical even if we missed this.
2) Corearcher took his friends to FAI to pick up +1 ring for Corearcher and another ring for some cash. Bounty hunter trap and a backstab was just too much for Tarnesh. Grond0 says what about ankegs but considering the party can't wear armor better than leather no way.
3) We worked our way to Shoal to cut her down with missiles, with Junker getting our first level. Our CHA is lousy so can't do the Mad Arcand just yet.
4) We managed to kill Neera with a single missile which enabled us to pick up the gem bag - we also picked up the scroll case. two traps, a backstab and missiles was enough to take down Silke. Corearcher let Junker take the +1 staff since Junker sometimes backstabs.
5) Took down coupe of ogrillions, did some running and shooting with the hobgoblins with stealth boots going to Junker.
6) Returned to Beregost to report to Merrianne and also to pick up crossbow of speed for Coreacher who is *** in crossbows and eventually ***** in crossbows. He gets a lot of kills. Also killed Karlat.
7) Made it to Nashkel, with noober being our next victim. We had to sell the ankheg armor as none of can use it. Granted, Gate70 could use it when he has 3million experience but he will have much better options by then.
8) We stopped by Arghain's area to pick up his two hand sword for Corearcher. We also visited Melium who is nearby and he didn't live long. We also tried to do Greywolf but Grond0 mis-clicked and we lost the +2 sword and a lot of experience and reputation. Well could have been worse I suppose. Just so this trip south wasn't a total loss we picked up the +2 dagger in the valley of the three tombs and also the ring of fire resistance and Samuel.
9) Samuel returned to FAI Temple. We also talked to Landarin for her rewards and the pantaloons.
10) We headed south once again and found a "dog" for a "boy". Corearcher asked if we were strong enough to take on Vax and Zal and Grond0 said it would be easy. While it was easy enough for Vax but Zal nearly killed Grond0, close one.
11) Next area cat returned and we even got the undead scroll despite our charisma - we belatedly realized our REP is at 20 which is no doubt why.
12) We went to gnoll fortress, mostly to pick up the goodies in a cave and also to give Gauntlets of Dexterity to Junker. By the time we got to edge of zone it was time to save and end the session.
Duplo is the kill leader, but no real surprise there, especially since he is often at range and using fast range weapon (throwing daggers).
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 selection of party gender/race/class/alignment; best out of two selection for initial stat set, proficiencies, Thief skills, and known spells.
Party in spoiler (protagonist at top).
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Class: Necromancer
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Stats:
STR 11 DEX 12 CON 15 INT 16 WIS 16 CHA 13
Proficiencies:
Dagger *
Starting spells:
Burning Hands, Larloch's Minor Drain, Shield
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Class: Beast Master
Alignment: Lawful Good
Stats:
STR 13 DEX 16 CON 15 INT 9 WIS 16 CHA 6
Proficiencies:
Longbow ** Crossbow * Shortbow *
Racial enemy:
Kobold
Gender: Female
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Fighter / Thief
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Stats:
STR 11 DEX 13 CON 16 INT 9 WIS 9 CHA 18
Proficiencies:
Axe * Two-Handed Weapon Style ** Crossbow *
Thieving skills:
Detect Illusion 15 Find Traps 15 Move Silently 5 Open Locks 5
Gender: Female
Race: Elf
Class: Mage / Thief
Alignment: True Neutral
Stats:
STR 14 DEX 15 CON 14 INT 16 WIS 9 CHA 11
Proficiencies:
Crossbow * Shortbow *
Thieving skills:
Move Silently 5 Detect Illusion 25 Set Traps 5 Pick Pockets 5
Starting spells:
Reflected Image, Sleep
Gender: Male
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Druid
Alignment: True Neutral
Stats:
STR 16 DEX 7 CON 15 INT 9 WIS 13 CHA 18
Proficiencies:
Dagger * Sword and Shield Style *
Gender: Male
Race: Elf
Class: Enchanter
Alignment: Neutral Good
Stats:
STR 14 DEX 15 CON 12 INT 11 WIS 9 CHA 16
Proficiencies:
Sling *
Starting spells:
Blindness, Larloch's Minor Drain, Sleep
I've seen much worse, as at least the frontliners (if you want to call them that) have a little bit of a CON bonus.
Proficiencies are a mess, but Beast Master is almost immune to it; she has so few available weapon choices that she manages to immediately pick up specialization in Longbows, the best choice for a ranged weapon in BG1 (and her pitiable STR doesn't matter, since she'll be using The Dead Shot +2).
Having a machine gun available will make the whole game easier, which is good, since we're oh so squishy otherwise.
I dislike Fighter/Thieves as frontliners due to the incessant armor swapping, but there's not much to do:
It will turn out that Fighter/Thief (yes, they are named after their classes; if they make it to BG2, they get proper names) lucks out when it comes to Find Traps and to some degree Open Locks, while Mage/Thief goes heavy on Detect Illusion.
We are a bit light on divine, but there's a solution to that: Necromancer has (with a single Tome of Wisdom) the stats for dualing into Cleric, and shall do so at Necromancer L9. So we'll be without Clerical buffs for essentially all of BG1; hopefully hefty abuse of Sleep, Call Lightning and Summon Insects will make up for it. And let's hope Fighter/Thief picks up a (weapon...) specialization at some point.
Be warned, this is a fairly long update.
No Cure for the Armor-Swapping Blues: A Random Run, Part 1
Interestingly, Tarnesh went very light on damage; his second-level slots seem to have gone to Mirror Image, Horror and Glitterdust, which means we take no casualties when just gunning him down (as we lack the customary Command to render this encounter trivial).
Normally, if we had the Clerical muscle, early Ankhegs would be a must. It would still be possible given Enchanter, but it's risky: You have to show yourself for the Ankhegs to surface, and there's a chance they'll get an attack in before the Sleep hits them (and they might even save...).
We still head north, but just use the Potion of Invisibility we relieved Jaheira of in order to raid the Ankheg hoard; Beast Master has decent base stealth so could sneak in.
We return Tenya's bowl, and risk horrific death against the Ankheg to the north of the shack, but thankfully it fails to get an attack off before Sleep overtakes it.
It even obliges by dropping a Melf's Acid Arrow scroll: Might not seem like much, but that's very useful early on against enemy spellcasters, as typically you wouldn't get it until the end of the Cloakwood Mines.
Clearing the Zombie infestation further north nets a little more gold and experience; we swing past Ulgoth's Beard, where I for reasons unknown invest 500 gold towards Delswirftanyon's liquidation sale. I had it in my head that he gives you Studded Leather +1 (intended for Beast Master), but it was actually Leather +1. Meh.
Still, we've gold enough, so purchase half a stack of Arrows +2 while in the area, and head back south towards Beregost.
Spiders and Hobgoblins (to the east) are no issue with Sleep available, and similarly the Flesh Golems at High Hedge duly fall to our Arrows +2 as presented by Beast Master; we of course also deal with the local Gnolls while here.
There are some things we can't do without Command: Karlat is too dangerous (he might have an Oil of Speed he quaffs), Neera is too dangerous owing to the Mage, and Silke is absolutely too dangerous, period. So, we just head further south.
We'll be back this way once we've identified the Wand of Fire we're carrying: The plan is to use the Red Potion to have Enchanter scribe some vital scrolls including a purchase of Identify. He has such abysmal INT that we won't be able to scribe very often, so we'll just have to pony up and buy as many critical 1st/2nd level scrolls as possible while at it, even though our reputation is in the gutter.
Sleep of course makes the minor areas to the south not-so-challenging, and we arrive safely in Nashkel, to Neira's rather shortlived delight (we just shoot her down, the worst she can do is a Hold Person).
Having grabbed the Red Potion and rested up, we head back north, though swing by the area with Bjornin's Half-Ogres and deal with them; we leave Teyngan alone for now, since Jemby has access to 3rd level spells and again... we lack Command!
At High Hedge, we first buy a Friends scroll and cast it with Enchanter, whom at 22 CHA yields the maximum non-reputation based discount possible (with 2 CHA to spare).
We spend 3024 out of our 3039 gold here. I don't want to have to scribe with Enchanter again until we reach Baldur's Gate, so he gets every useful spell available within our budget.
With Identify available, the Wand of Fire comes into play, and we gleefully deploy it against the Wolf Pack at the Beregost Temple.
This fairly safe, fairly rapid early-game experience loop means everyone is now at least L2, with Beast Master and Druid at L3.
Beast Master picked up a pip in Quarterstaffs for her proficiency, which is still better than Sword and Shield Style (which was her other available choice...).
Now we can return and deal with Teyngan! Things turn a bit dicey though, with several party members knocked out by Sleep and Teyngan himself running wild, so we use the Wand of Fire to level the playing field.
Lots of sources of magical damage means we can also take care of the Red Wizard harassing Neera, and the latter doesn't even try to kill the entire party with a Burning Hands/Color Spray. Good times, though we still steal her belongings.
We're still picking up odds and ends of experience; the Revenant to the east of Nashkel is famously vulnerable to Fire damage, so down he goes to a Wand Scorcher. We're also here to pick up some early gold (Chain Mail +1 and Pearl Necklace), as well as an insurance in the form of the Wand of Monster Summoning. We're gunning for gold since we want to bribe reputation up before turning in a bundle of reputation quests.
There's another 1k gold easily available in Samuel's area (gem hidden alongside the Ring of Fire Resistance), so we swing by and swipe that too. Apparently, you can trigger the Dorn ambush without actually traveling to the mine, as we realize belatedly when trying to return to Nashkel: Still, we were able to get Necromancer out of harm's way before she took a ranged attack.
Every pure-class is L3 now, so we feel up to tackling Bassilus, whose reward should be sufficient for our purposes: An initial Fireball clears out almost all the attendant undead, and Bassilus himself is interrupted by a timely Acid Arrow (ha!), and never recovers.
Since we're swinging by Beregost anyway, we note that Silke is carrying another 400 gold, and has no defense against massed magic damage spam. By now Karlat is no threat either; every little bit helps.
We've gathered close to 12k gold, and so it is not so difficult to bribe reputation up to 17. You'd have to shop for >100k before reaching Baldur's Gate (home to a lot more reputation quests, and a guaranteed reputation +1 if you save the slaves in the mine) for it to be worthwhile to invest the final 5k gold to reach 18, and we've no such plans.
We start handing in reputation quests, though six hand-ins later we've obtained only a single reputation point... this is not statistically unlikely, unfortunately. We pilfer Algernon's Cloak in annoyance, and are somewhat placated by a fortunate drop of Find Familiar from some Gibberlings in Samuel's area. Handing in Samuel nets another point, so we're now sitting pretty at 19, which I think is fine to start shopping at, though there are still options available.
One such option is the Doomsayer area; the northernmost Gnoll tribe just succumbs to Sleep, and Charleston Nib finally yields the last coveted reputation point. The Doomsayer itself doesn't amount to much in the face of wand damage, and we return Brage to the garrison. With a bit of money once again, we invest in some minor items: The One Gift Lost at the carnival, some potions at High Hedge (Explosions and Freedom), Excellent Short Bow at the Thunderhammer Smithy.
Now we begin gathering crucial items: Start with the Legacy of the Masters from Meilum, who deals surprising amounts of damage.
Those will be used for the rest of the game by Beast Master. I've thought it over and think I actually prefer Helmet of Defense over Helm of Balduran for a frontline tank that's not expected to be the major damage dealer (like Fighter/Thief): The 20% fire/cold/electricity resistance means you only need to take >25 damage from one of those sources in order to benefit more from that then the 5 HP of the Helm of Balduran, and from my experience sudden massive elemental damage is not uncomming.
This also means we can bestow the THAC0 boost on someone more worthy... such as Beast Master. So, let's grab the Helmet of Defense!
Well.. figures. Shoal obliges by raising Fighter/Thief, but Droth proves a handful: He's got almost no spells, but is still an Ogre in close combat, although we do come out on top.
There's a gaggle of Sirines to the south here; while en route, we pick up another Melf's Acid Arrow scroll from some Ghouls. Nice!
Not so nice: Sirines have high resistance to Fire.
We've no Skeletons and no Potion of Clarity, but Dire Charm only lasts for five rounds, so we initiate a fighting retreat. Fighter/Thief gets Dire Charmed once but can't catch us, and the Sirines end up separated: Easy prey.
That was a nice bit of extra experience.
Of course, with 13 DEX, the Bracers of Dexterity are needed as well, so its off to the western Nashkel hinterlands.
By now the motley collection of enemies here are way too low-level to pose a meaningful threat; the worst that happens is Sendai getting a few good licks in before dropping.
And I think that's gear and money enough. We still haven't bothered to scribe anything beyond a few easily-replaced scrolls (Magic Missile, Armor, some others) with Necromancer and Mage/Thief. We have to be ever so stingy with INT potions, after all, and to be fair, wands provide us with enough arcane power for the moment.
We'll rectify this once we've gained access to the bandit camp, as there are some decent scrolls (Web, Fireball, Agannazar's Scorcher, and even Spell Thrust though this will be reserved for later scribing by Enchanter) available there.
So, let's head towards the bandit camp; first off, we'll need to clear the Nashkel mines.
The only potential snafu here is of course the Kobold Shaman, so we thoughtfully set up a Spike Growth in a pertinent position.
That made the whole thing a lot easier, as the Shaman preferred backing off into the Spike Growth rather than try to stand toe-to-toe with Fighter/Thief.
Mulahey is even more pointless than usual (the spawning adds are just Wand of Fire'd, and his attendant guards get a Sleep), and that's the mines cleared.
Oh, I forget when it was, but Fighter/Thief reached Fighter L3 at some point, and got... a pip in Darts.
That's almost as useless as useless could be, but the alternative was (again!) Sword and Shield Style.
As has become customary, we employ Algernon's Cloak to convince Oublek to battle Nimbul, and then help ourselves to the former's impressive gold reserves (3k if you haven't turned in the emeralds).
Nimbul soon runs out of spells and just plops over.
Well, time for Tranzig.
We were literally (potentially) inches from the run ending there. Notice that Enchanter took 26 damage: One more point would mean more than 10 damage above his HP pool, which could've chunked him. 26 is also precisely equal to Necromancer's HP, so she dodged what might have been a fatal blow by moving out of the room at the last second. Friggin' Tranzig.
Alright, let's be a little bit more careful. Larswood goes smoothly, as both local Druids are inundanted by Magic Missile and fail to recover.
Though not before getting Insect Plague off at poor Enchanter, who runs around in such a frenzy that Druid can't reach him in time for a heal. When it rains it pours, I guess; we shell out for another Raise Dead.
Peldvale, at least, presents no real obstacle, and we reach the Bandit Camp. We're low on supplies though (the SCS mechanic to limit outdoors-resting), so head back towards the FAI to recover, which triggers the Amazon ambush.
Alright, good! Let's get this over with: Quick and clean.
This is why charname travels invisibly from clearing the Nashkel mines until defeating the Amazons: Maneira and Telka both have stupid high damage (seriously, 14 damage with a dart?! Is she part Giant?), and famously tend to ignore melee attackers while shooting at vulnerable party members. Of course, they usually go down pretty quickly, but still a real nuisance. Yet another Raise Dead for us.
In comparison, there's no real problem with the Bandit Camp: Entangle, Spike Growth and some Wand of Fire Fireballs are, as always, sufficient.
Alright, NOW we can scribe a bit (although I am certain we could make it through the Cloakwood with just the arcane spells on Enchanter).
There really aren't that many great scrolls at High Hedge, so we can easily afford the Robe of the Neutral Archmagi for Necromancer while we're at it, with 10k to spare.
Cloakwood is Cloakwood: Lots of encounters, none of them too dangerous.
We'll deal with the Shadow Archdruid later, but the other Druids are just kept interrupted by magical damage; Centeol and her Spider lair are dealt with by Potions of Freedom, and having cleared everything up to the Mine's bailey, we start the trek back to civilization, again due to the rest restrictions.
This triggers the Molkar ambush, which is fine by me: The only real threat here is Halacan getting a Sleep off if you happen to be low-level, but it's far too late in the game for that to matter anymore. I don't know Halacan's level, but I've never seen him toss a 3rd level spell (and he's vulnerable to Command, if we had it available), so the whole encounter is over almost before it begins.
Now, for some reason (I think we were close to a nearly party-wide leveling threshhold?), we decide to finally clear the Ankheg area.
Ah yes, Druid gains a level and can now eek out two (with the Ring of Holiness) 4th level spells per day. Good! That'll be helpful against Drasus and his cohorts. Fighting our way back into Cloakwood, Beast Master hits L6, and grabs... Two-Handed Weapon Style. Which was still a better choice than Single-Weapon Style! We can't catch much of a break with proficiencies, it seems.
We also take down Amarande, which isn't so difficult: He does have a single L6 slot available, but spent it on Dolorous Decay.
This is potentially lethal, but Fighter/Thief makes her save, and then Amarande is completely open to ceaseless spell damage.
Not sure what to do with the Club +2, but we'll save it for now, since you never know what proficiencies you'll end up with under these rules (sounds ominous...).
OK, let's carefully prepare with buffs and summons before engaging Drasus. Or accidentally bump a party member into view to start the encounter before we're ready, whichever comes first.
I wonder if I'll ever beat Drasus in style.
So, we accidentally triggered everything too early by moving into sight range. Drasus came charging in along with Genthore, but we at least had some beetles from Summon Insects up, which distracted the Mages.
Aiming for a quick resolution, Druid popped Call Lightning. Apparently, this will strike outside the caster's sight range, which in this case meant it targetted Kysus... who had Minor Spell Turning up. The rest is apparent.
We do come out on top, thanks largely to the Wand of Monster Summoning, but it's aggravating eating a death this far into the Cloakwood.
But eat it we must. We make our way out of Cloakwood, raise Druid, and make our way back.
On the second level of the mines, we get the entire guard room streaming north in response to their comrades' calls, which occasionally happens. We're able to get off a Spike Growth blunting the enemy edge, followed by several Fireballs which definitely puts a damper on things. Still, it got dicey there for a second, since we ran out of antidotes (the archer guards wearing leather armor have some kind of poison effect on their shots, though it's fairly mild).
In comparison, the third level goes smoothly, mainly since Natasha fails her save against the Bombardier Beetle's Release Acidic Vapor and is Stunned. Yes, I gleefully abuse this; we've no Animate Dead, after all, so we'll take what we can get.
The Beetles decide themselves when to use it, but usually pop it first thing when they see an enemy and don't have a command they're following, so just give them explicit move orders so they wind up next to the target before telling them to attack.
Having cleared a path to Davaeorn, we retreat to rest up. The plan is the same as always: Trigger D by moving into sight range (invisibly), he'll give his speech, send two Battle Horrors north after you, then stand there and twiddle his thumbs while you destroy five waves of four guards each. Easy enough, and D meets his ignominious end at the hands of the Wand of Monster Summoning; I didn't even take a screenshot, it was that anticlimactic (though you do need to shuffle invisible party members to the south, so D won't notice them while he's teleporting about).
And that's that! We flood the mine and depart, having just about enough inventory space to store all the loot.
We start wrapping up some loose ends before going to the city: Zordral, Narcillicus, pickpocketing Bentan, etc.
This includes dealing with the Wolf of Ulcaster; this time I did it a little bit different.
Some beetles were sent north to intercept reinforcements, and Fighter/Thief got Protection from Fire, then got sent to the southeast. She's swarmed by Dread Wolves and the Wolf of Ulcaster, so we just firebomb her position.
Worked very well to quickly clear out the mobs, but the Wolf managed a dispel followed by a fearful Howl before going down.
OK. We spend nearly all our gold at this stage: There's almost nothing in Baldur's Gate we need apart from scrolls, so we grab the Robe of the Good Archmagi as well as some potions, magical ammunition and the Sandthief's Ring.
Speaking of scrolls, let's obtain that of Stoneskin: We should be able to handle Ice Island comfortably now.
Smarts a bit.
So, the plan was (since we've got plenty of PfM scrolls) to let Fighter/Thief and Beast Master clear the whole thing on their own. Again, because we lack Skeleton Warriors.
Worked rather well, until Andris teleported back in; to save some time, I sent in Thief/Mage to Detect Illusion away his Mirror Images.
Necromancer was tagging along since Andris always teleports to charname, and I wanted him to pop near the bruisers.
Andris, however, had a Sunfire lying in wait: Not sure why he bothered since it couldn't harm the party members he could see, but it could definitely harm Thief/Mage. The only reason Necromancer didn't get hurt, or potentially end up dead, is due to the 5% magic resistance from her robe. Lucky...
The rest of Ice Island goes smoothly though: Thankfully Tellan wasn't a Conjurer this time around, so he couldn't really do anything.
And now we can actually clear the city! Much to my delight, Niemain does not kill off his own allies with his Wand of Fire this time. He's unable to, given that he himself keels over to a massive Beetle acid barrage... along with his friends.
We clear encounters in rapid succession: It really helps to have a good archer.
Lothander is unable to get away, and now both frontliners have Boots of Speed.
One of the major encounters, Sunin, always leads with a Remove Magic if you're buffed; we use that time to get Thief/Mage into position to Detect Illusion away his defenses, and then mage slayers (Acid Arrows +1...) finish the job.
And now for something completely stupid.
Yes, a Fighter/Thief with 16 CON and 13 DEX is fragile and reasonably easy to hit, even when wearing Full Plate: It wasn't a good idea to send her in with no accompanying debuffs or Fireballs.
We just leave her gear where it lies, run off to raise her, then return with a (buff- and offensive magic-induced) vengeance.
In contrast, stuff like Degrodel's guardians (Wand of Fire Scorcher), the Maulers of Undermountain, Drelik/Jardak all go off without a hitch.
Alright, we previously cleared all of the Iron Throne except the top level; there are literally no other encounters left in the city, so time to progress.
We slip invisibly into the southern room and bait out the two SCS-added Thieves; beyond Kaalos taking Mage/Thief down to 4 HP with a backstab, they are duly disposed of.
Now, we've no Skeleton Warriors available here, so beetles will have to do (though they'll crumple almost instantly under this kind of melee/ranged pressure). We set up five of them in close proximity to as many enemy arcanists as possible, buff a bit, then trigger Cloudwulfe.
It's a mixed bag: Naaman is stunned, but everyone else makes their save. Diyab is dumb enough to wander off to the south on his lonesome, so we quickly pick him off, but by now the beetles are no more and the Iron Throne party is looking for us: Of course, they find us almost instantly.
Aasim was badly hurt by the initial Acidic Vapor barrage, and so doesn't hold up for long. Cloudwulfe and Gardush are both still going strong, and they're putting heavy pressure on us: Druid manages to take out Alai just as the former unleashes a successful Hold Person in return, and things aren't looking so hot. Fighter/Thief is essentially kiting Gardush, and we're exploiting Cloudwulfe's tendency to pop through the door, spot us, retreat a few steps to get range before starting to shoot, lose us, then repeat this pattern.
But now it's just the fighters left. Fighter/Thief pulls Gardush to the side, allowing Necromancer a clear shot at Cloudwulfe. Success!
Moments later, Gardush drops to a Magic Missile barrage from Mage/Thief, and we just about manage to down Cloudwulfe before the three round stun wears off. Great success, but our Benny Hill-esque tactics leave something to be desired.
Still, we got the win.
We rest up, head for Candlekeep, and beyond Mage/Thief eating a double Magic Missile (and dying...) just outside its gates, most of the chapter is uneventful. Necromancer of course gets the WIS tome as she got the one in Baldur's Gate and will get the one in Durlag's Tower: Going from 13 to 15 WIS on a Druid is fairly pointless.
There are literally no good candidates for the STR tome, so after much agonizing I give it to Fighter/Thief: 12 STR will let her naturally equip Plate Mail and Medium Shields, but really, it won't matter at all long term.
Oh, we also got a scroll of Spell Thrust from a Doppleganger here, nice!
Prat and party are an absolute pain to fight properly, mostly due to the bad line-of-sight down here, and we take a serious amount of damage, but come out on top. Crypts evacuated, and we're into the end game. Well, almost: We've still Durlag's Tower to do.
We need the experience, after all. We clear the upper levels without incident, as well as the Warder level (minus the Warders themselves), then head back to Baldur's Gate under Pixie Dust: We've amassed a good amount of scrolls, and so use up all the Potions of Genius we've got to do a massive bout of scroll scribing for all arcanists. Now we're prepared.
Let's see how the Warder fight goes without Skeleton Warriors; we of course have a bunch of beetles. Buff up with everything, and engage.
We left some traps near Fear, and they do the job: He takes a lot of damage, and is dispatched within a round from simple ranged fire. Fighter/Thief is meanwhile attempting to bludgeon Love. Yes, she got stuck with a pip in Clubs for her Fighter L6 proficiency.
If ever I see a random run of mine where most of our proficiencies aren't Club, Spear or Sword and Shield Style, I shall be wholly surprised.
Avarice is quite weak once exposed, and duly drops. By now, though, Pride has turned his tender mercies on Fighter/Thief. I make a brief attempt to hold the former with Thief/Mage, who takes a brutal hit straight through Spirit Armor, Blur and Mirror Image before beating a hasty retreat. You're on your own, Fighter/Thief.
Love has taken a lot of damage though, and goes down. Pride stands alone, but not for long: The beetles occupy him long enough for a double Slow to neuter him, followed by massed ranged fire.
A bit hectic but not really that dangerous. We descend further.
The Dwarven Doomguards are a hassle when you forget to memorize multiple Webs, but we do a fighting retreat again, and wear them down with wands in due time.
The Greater Dopplegangers to the east are an absolute pain: One in particular starts as Islanne (lots of defenses), then turns into Durlag (lots of damage), then turns into Islanne again (completely renewing all defenses!).
Annoying and dangerous, but we just muddle through somehow...
Alright, this next level is pretty straightforward. We use the heroes (who all perish in the attempt) to help us against the Greater Wyverns, use massed Wand of Fire Fireballs to kill the Skeleton Archers from outside sight range (to retrieve lots of Arrows of Dispelling), and just brutalize everything else.
This includes the chessboard: Six Fireballs from varying sources is enough to wipe almost the whole thing clean, with all party members having quaffed a Potion of Absorption beforehand so we can move freely.
Notice Necromancer leveled there. Yep, she's L9 now: Time to dual. She'll be weak for a little while but pick back up pretty quickly; in particular, it'll be nice to have access to Chant/Prayer and eventually Recitation/PfE10'.
We actually saved some experience for this: The Greater Basilisks on the roof, for starters, gets her to second level Cleric spells.
A good rest later, we return to finish the final Durlag's level, which isn't that difficult: Some source of Free Action on the frontliner and you're golden.
We ignore the Demon Knight and just teleport out. And that's it for Durlag's, far as we're concerned.
Next, let's finish the three areas we left untouched: First up is Mutamin's garden, which really isn't that much experience when split six ways.
Enchanter can raise two Skeleton Warriors, who together with Fighter/Thief and Beast Master clear the whole thing in less than a single duration of Protection from Petrification.
Alright, off to get the CON tome for Necromancer: She reached Cleric L5 and so (with her WIS bonus) can now animate two weak Skeleton Warriors. With a total of four, aided by Improved Invisible Fighter/Thief and Druid running True Sight, we swiftly clear these as well, and Necromancer is at 16 CON.
Just the Red Wizards left. Beetles effectively destroy Denak, and the rest of them aren't nearly as frightening, though we drop in an Insect Plague for good measure.
We're basically at the cap now, so won't be bothering with Balduran's Island: The Chain Mail +3 isn't all that important, so we just return to Baldur's Gate.
I ran into a funny bug here: We snuck in invisibly to save Duke Eltan, but it completely slipped my mind that the entire party was now visible after having ranged attack the Greater Doppleganger. So naturally, we got Mercenaries spawning when we tried to leave. A Chromatic Orb stunned one of them almost instantly, and he then proceeded to constantly renew his Armor of Faith prebuff. Apparently, this renewal stacked: He wound up with 100% resistance to physical (and magical) damage. Thankfully the Armors of Faith wore off pretty quickly, but here's a screenshot of an enemy worth 150 experience with 80% resistance to all forms of damage.
Cythandria didn't even manage to fire her prebuffs, on account of a Boring Beetle landing a nasty crit on her. Same thing happened with Slythe: The beetles are no joke, and even hold off Krystin until we can Confuse her and grind through her Stoneskins.
Alright, time for the palace fight. We muster our paltry four (two of whom are quite weak) Skeleton Warriors, buff up, and charge in.
We actually needn't have bothered so much with the buffing, as a single Insect Plague absolutely destroys the Dopplegangers.
We take next to no damage, but Sarevok makes up for it by bugging out and refusing to leave. Once he slices up Belt, though, he decides discretion is the better part of valor and flees: Liia still had all her defenses going and so survived the ordeal.
Oh, Belt also dropped a (single charge) Sandthief's Ring. Never knew he had one.
The maze is navigated uneventfully. The Iron Throne party down here are of course treated to massed Fireballs: Shaldrissa survives, but spends her solitary action casting something Divination-like (True Sight? She does have access to 6th level spells) and so succumbs unceremoniously.
Fighter/Thief, with her now natural 19 CHA, is able to talk Tamoko down, and we rest up before starting the final showdown.
Since this time we have two fighter-types, they both activate a PfM scroll and apply every concievable potion buff.
The other four party members apply elemental immunity (by potions and scrolls), and just hide invisibly to the south, after summoning four Skeleton Warriors.
Fighter/Thief and Beast Master lead the charge, and to no surprise given her extremely good THAC0, Beast Master immediately tags Sarevok with an Arrow of Dispelling, essentially removing him as a threat.
But there are other things to contend with here. Semaj and Angelo can't really do much owing to PfM (Semaj didn't go for summons, it seems), so we swiftly bring down Tazok and then turn on Diarmid, as the latter carries Arrows of Dispelling.
It takes a while, but we bring him down. Now Semaj's PfMW has expired, so we hit him with an Arrow of Dispelling, and Angelo finishes the job for us. Angelo: There's no point in casting Cone of Cold at someone under PfM, but thanks for the assist.
We actually had to destroy Semaj's frozen corpse with a Magic Missile spell to get his Skeleton Warrior to spawn.
Anyway, Angelo also gets an Arrow of Dispelling, and soon joins Semaj, or rather the frozen pieces formerly known as Semaj, on the floor.
With just an un-hastened Sarevok and some Skeleton Warrior cronies (his, not ours) left on the field, Wands of Monster Summoning are sufficient to hold everything off as we indulge in a ranged barrage.
BG1EE, cleared.
Not surprisingly, things were reasonably smooth, barring some deaths mainly attributable to abysmal HP owing to no CON bonus.
Beast Master was the absolute star of the show with 42% experience value, 49% of kills; as expected of a good archer in BG1EE.
We've had rotten luck with proficiencies, really, with Fighter/Thief picking up entirely useless Darts and almost as useless Clubs, and Beast Master still only having specialization in Longbow. Still, there's a theoretical chance of at least achieving one specialization. At some point. Maybe. Please don't let it be darts.
Anyway, that's all she wrote, for now. I'll be away until the new year, so the next update won't be for some time.
Most likely I'll go for SoD next, though might also just go for SoA... we'll see.