We'd done the return to Candlekeep last time, so just had a few encounters left in Baldur's Gate to finish BGEE. Slythe and Krystin were both incapacitated by stunning darts before we accepted an invitation to the palace. The dopplegangers there managed to kill Liia, despite the attentions of several summoned skeletons. However, Belt was still in reasonable shape when the last of them fell.
There were no alarms in the maze and we circled round the back of the Undercity party before making a bit more use of our Necklaces of Missiles to ensure that Rahvin got a taste of his own fiery medicine.
In the old temple Sarevok charged towards us with the intention of killing us all single-handed. Crusher tried to tackle him head on, but had to withdraw for safety's sake a moment or two before Sarevok finally fell.
There was a slight interlude before starting BG2EE when it transpired that Gate70's installation had automatically updated. After a quick review it appeared easier for him to revert to the previous installation than for Corey and myself to update and that was soon done.
Escaping Jon's dungeon was no trouble, with the only slight glitch being that we'd forgotten to pick up the key to disable the lightning trap, so had to skirt the trigger on the floor. Ulvaryl was successfully taken down before she could get away.
The circus was duly restored before Crusher decided to go and pick on Mencar before heading for the Slums. Brennan was surrounded and cut down before he got any ideas about running away, while the mage and his familiar were silenced for easy disposal. However, Smaeluv's high HPs and damage were sufficient to send Crusher running downstairs. Initially that didn't seem too much of a danger, even though Smaeluv kept chasing. When Behemoth successfully commanded Smaeluv it looked likely that would be that for the near-dead warrior. However, he survived a couple of sling bullets and got to his feet again just as Crusher fell down unconscious - that was a result of me accounting for the loss of 15 HPs from the end of rage, but not also factoring in the reduction from the end of DUHM. For a moment it looked like the end of the run was nigh, but checking the battle text showed that Behemoth's next sling bullet had already been launched - and was hitting. That finally proved to be the end of Smaeluv before Behemoth and Crusher went back upstairs to finish off Mencar - who had been occupied by Brinholder and skeletons in the meantime.
There was just enough time remaining in the session to make our way to the Slums and help Hendak take control of the Copper Coronet.
Berserker 9, 124 HPs (inc. 5 from helm), 78 kills (+263 in BG1)
Figher 8 / cleric 8, 96 HPs , 18 kills (+127 in BG1), 1 death
Cleric 8 / thief 9, 58 HPs, 24 kills (+129 in BG1), 0 deaths
@aldain Great work so far. Regarding the problem with not all items on the table at the end of SoD: I've experienced the same issue before (a long time ago) and, as a result, made sure to not have anything else of note in my inventory at the end in all the runs I did after that, focusing on the importable items. Not sure of the exact mechanics, though. I've experienced numerous other bugs with exporting and importing gear over the course of the years, though I think there's never been anything gamebreaking.
Hey ho. My random run with Fall the Hexblade goes on ummm, chaotically. On the bright side he has taken over the administration of the DeArnise property and Imoen is now making some changes to the Thieves' Guild in the Docks. On the flip side... Fall has blown up several other quests through his mad behaviour, and very nearly died a few times to enhanced adversaries. To give a recent example he Limited Wish summoned a horde of vampires into the Council of Six building, dodging the enraged Cowled Wizards as he dealt with the vampires (mostly, some are probably still infesting the place! Brega tried to help but wasn't much use...), but then insulted Tanova while looking to get restored and ran from her into a Cowled Wizard Ambush, losing a few party members in the process, fleeing to the Temple District where much of the population is enraged against him already as a result of the lies spread by Draug Fea's band. He even has to evade Lanie... His current party is Lhannd (Fallen Ranger with Necromantic connections), Nalia (F/M), Imoen (Unkitted Thief), Yeslick (F/C), Garrick (Gallant F/M). Just need to go get some fallen party member's belongings back without dying now...
Starting an evil party which I think will have some new ideas led by a blackguard called Stygius who as proficiencies in katanas.
All of us knew from bitter experience that having divine blood, particularly evil divine blood results in being attacked by others. Gorion suggested that we would be safer in a like-minded party as those who were slain could be raised by the others, so that is what I opted to do.
I started out by looting as much as I could. This resulted in me being attacked by a watcher who paid for his folly.
Shank and Carbos also foolishly tried to take me out.
After being attacked outside Candlekeep, Imoen chose to remain with us until we reached the safety of the FAI.
It proved to be not as safe as we thought for we were attacked by a mage who proved to be not overly skillful.
Once inside we saw a couple of adventurous wanderers whom we slew for their equipment which was far too tempting.
Aldain, Human Conjurer: Update 3
Previous update found here
Next update found here
Importing into BG2EE goes smoothly (as far as I can tell... we'll see if all imported items pop up where they're supposed to).
There are two massive advantages straight off the bat from going through SoD; most notable of course is the difference in party power at 500k experience as compared to 161k.
But also not to be underestimated, at least when playing with an arcanist protagonist, is having access to Summon Lesser Air/Fire Elemental straight off the bat.
These things are lethal against most early enemies, as the Ogre Mage soon learns; he just can't hurt it.
I'll be brutal in my application of spellworks this time around, and using (abusing) Elementals to rapidly clear even large enemy groupings will be a standard tactic.
Two Lesser Air Elementals are enough to wipe out nearly the entire first level on their own; their circle is very large so they can't fit everywhere, but we just drag enemies back towards them.
The second level we just handle through hacking and healing (including Ulvaryl), though a final Lesser Air Elemental also does good work here, and we are free.
On exiting, we immediately pick up Anomen, followed by Jan.
We'd probably be better off with Mazzy in terms of party power, but I like Jan... and eventually we'll get HLA traps, which are quite handy for a few encounters.
Alright, standard early-game pattern: Off to the Copper Coronet, buy Bernard's Scroll Case before freeing Hendak, clear the Slavers.
No funny business here, just Bless + Chant + Prayer + Recitation + Emotion: Hope (+7 to-hit, and I forget how much + damage... but a lot), then charge in.
SCS improved random scroll drops kick in, and we find Improved Haste in the little groove in the wall near the Jansen home.
Nice, that'll save us some cash.
We refrain from reporting our success to Hendak just yet: Instead we will sit on all reputation quests until we can afford to bribe reputation to 16 (with Viconia in the party), then hand 'em all in at once.
Before that though, we need a license... I know you can muddle through without one, but I tend to forget I don't have one at a crucial moment, and I am not confident we'll fare well against the final Cowled Wizard enemies at these levels and with SCS; we'll just eat the 5k cost.
En route to bribe the local corrupt bureaucrats, we get the Suna Seni ambush, and promptly dismantle it.
Yeah, the early enemies barely even warrant buffing, given our high starting experience, though this'll change soon enough.
We also find and help Renfeld while at it, then take a detour to get our license; next on the chopping block is Prebek and Sanasha, and here we do prebuff a little.
They're not terribly dangerous, but are occasionally fond of Lightning Bolt, which can bounce badly if you're unlucky.
One did go off, but only bounced twice, so we come out on top.
Well, we have many spells remaining: Let's polish off the pirates while here (and accidentally trigger Jaheira's quest... we'll deal with that anon).
Sobering experiences are good! You shouldn't underestimate even supposedly simple encounters, though I recall actually losing several runs here before.
So we charged in with some fairly minimal buffs.
An initial Chaos was headed for Minsc, so I had him Rage... and of course, as happens every single time I deign to use it, Minsc finished off his enemy, then immediately latched onto Jaheira and wouldn't stop.
So Jaheira had to spend the fight leading Minsc around, and meanwhile Aldain got Confused, and the Pirate Mage even got a Lesser Fire Elemental up.
This could've gone very bad, but somehow we were able to turn things around even though half the party was out of commission; ultimately everyone came through in one piece.
Seriously, that Pirate Mage... and the leader, quaffing a Potion of Frost Giant Strength.
Nasty.
We rest up and commence invisibly travelling towards the Slums, triggering an Orog ambush which we mercilessly crush using Lesser Fire Elementals.
Fighting Ployer can turn bad, since it's three enemy Mages: We rested beforehand and buffed to the gills.
Round one: Annihilate Ployer while Spell Thrusting Terrece.
Round two: Take down one of the two minor Mages (they don't have any Mantles or the like) while breaching Terrece.
Round three: Victory.
Good stuff!
Graveyard next.
Again a random scroll, this time Chain Lightning... eh, doubt I'll ever cast it but sure.
Remove Fear for Crypt King is all the special preparation that's necessary above-ground, and we descend.
The big spider groups down here either get Cloudkill or a single summon to soak up the initial Web Tangle; Pai'Na takes half a second to speak to you so we have time to pause and successfully lob a Special Trap at her feet, with the result that all her Spider friends immediately die, and she's not far behind.
There's a slight mishap in the Lower Tombs as the pain-in-the-rear Vampyre runs around and manages to Level Drain both Minsc and Jan, but we were never in serious danger: Anomen clears it up following a rest, and that's the Graveyard done with.
More minor stuff: Circus (very easy by now), the Tanner (not so easy since the Rune Assassins nearly cap off Minsc, but not quite), dealing with Tirdir's kidnappers, Fallen Paladins (hopeless melee grunts)... and here, Aldain hits L12.
With the +15% Conjurer bonus, he's guaranteed to scribe any Conjuration spell, so he immediately learns Summon Fire Elemental which we picked up from Prebek's home.
We can now, once a day, put out four 12+ hit dice Fire Elementals (Jaheira gets two as well), which is enough to devastate any enemy without Death Spell available; if we're feeling particularly evil, they are joined by an Aerial Servant courtesy of Anomen.
Ah... Conjurer really is such a lovely class.
Next we swing by the Temple and pick up the Sir Sarles quest (he gets the alloy, of course), dealing with Neb quick and easy.
Now we treat Mencar and friends to elemental carnage: I waited this long because I wanted to make absolutely certain Brennan wouldn't be able to flee.
And indeed, he does not get to flee, instead literally exploding in two seconds flat, much to my amusement.
Try and keep loot from me, will you?
About nine seconds later it's just Sorcerous Amon left alive, and another three seconds later, there's just ashes left.
Good stuff.
We continue cleaning up odds and ends, relieving Officer Dirth of his Full Plate Mail, and clobbering the hopeless, backstory-less goons in the Bridge district (not Captain Dennis, we'll be doing the Limited Wish adventure so I'm leaving him alive for now).
Most of the little stuff is done, but we've yet to clean out the sewers: Skeleton Warriors handle the Gauths/Beholder to the southwest, then help us take down the Rakshasa (who isn't so dangerous when you're too high-level for him to dispel your buffs).
This leaves a single Near Death Skeleton Warrior, which we put down ourselves and replace with five Fire Elementals (one Lesser).
Good luck, Gaius: Your single Death Spell will at best kill one of them.
Heh... he didn't even manage that much.
Really smooth sailing that; usually this fight is a bit touch-and-go.
So let's fumble Mekrath instead: I talked to Raelis Shai before coming here, and if you do that, there's apparently no way to avoid fighting Mekrath when you first speak to him (or I just didn't pick the right options... I thought I was being quite diplomatic though), and he goes hostile.
At this point we had almost no spells left since we just cleared the entire Sewers, but thankfully Yoshimo eluded Mekrath by activating the Sandthief's ring; thank you Brennan.
We basically sit and wait for a bit (I went off and did something else for ~15 minutes) until Merkrath's Fire Elemental unsummons, then Minsc pops the Mustard Jelly Form from the Cloak of the Sewers... and amazingly, it lasts long enough to basically tank Mekrath's entire arsenal.
Seems he went heavy on Fire damage, and that Fire Elemental was his only summon, so once he wastes everything on Spell Resistance 125 Minsc in Jelly form, we just chop him down.
We were in no shape to finish clearing Mekrath's lair, so absconded and dealt with Borinall in the interim.
Freshly rested, we return, to find three Yuan-Ti Mages in the tiny bedroom.
I gambled they wouldn't have a Death Spell, and turns out I was right; that was a bit unexpected.
Anyway, they end up Elemental food.
We took a quick detour here and killed off Uncle Lester, and he dropped Prismatic Spray.
Not awful... as I recall it doesn't affect party members?
So might be worth casting for Aldain since it's Conjuration, as long as you don't target enemies with useful drops, since there's a small chance they might be Disintegrated.
Anyway, we've plenty of cash now, so temporarily drop Yoshimo in favor of Viconia, bribe reputation to 16, then bring in Korgan (reputation goes to 18); the Book of Kaza has a decent sell value and you get some gold during the quest as well, so it's well worth spending the 15 minutes or so it takes trudging around to finish it.
That done with, we take Yoshimo back into the group, and start handing in reputation quests: Six handins later, we've gained a single reputation point...
We take out our frustrations on the first Watcher's Keep level: Fire Elementals make mincemeat of the Trolls, Vampiric Wraiths, Spiders... there's even time to let them tackle the Guardian Golems.
I'll probably refrain from going through SoD next time, having this many Elementals available this early is very powerful.
Alright, we're lookin' good!
We've yet to sell anything (beyond some non-magical Light Crossbows/Longbows), but have still bought a license, spent 7200 on bribing reputation up, and we've got nearly 15k to spare: I'd say one major stronghold quest should be sufficient, then we can take off for Spellhold.
I'm leaning towards Trademeet, as Jaheira could use a decent main-hand weapon, and then Minsc can dual-wield Belm in the off-hand until Jaheira gets a second pip in Two-Weapon Style.
It's also a fairly easy stronghold, apart from the Rakshasa; but Jaheira and Anomen both have access to Entropy Shield now, so I'm confident they can handle it with the proper buffs (and a fully protected Aldain can enter as well and start summoning Elementals).
Yeah, sounds like a plan, but that's for next time.
Until then.
Aldain, Human Conjurer: Update 4
Previous update found here
As alluded to above, we went for Trademeet next, swatting aside another ambush en route.
I let the animals kill as many guards as they could, but sadly no delectable spell scrolls as random drops this time around.
Wilfred gifted us 1000 gold, and we were off for the Druid Grove.
A bit of chaos is part and parcel of these runs.
I had intended to deal with the weak spawns immediately upon entering, then send a horde of Fire Elementals to clear the map, but a Baby Wyvern called for help from a massive Troll pack.
Fortunately, I had my timings down pat, and we got Chaotic Commands up (vital to protect against Greater Command) along with Fire Elementals, then wreaked bloody vengeance on everything.
Yep, one buffed group of Fire Elementals basically torpedoed the entire Grove, apart from the final group of Druids, and then only because they unsummoned right before reaching them.
We had enough buffs left for Jaheira and Minsc to clear the Troll Mound on their own, and then unfortunately Cernd dropped dead.
No, it wasn't intentional: As we were passing a Fire Elemental tagged him with Shroud of Flame (which it had contracted from an enemy it was cast on), and Cernd was having none of it.
We conjure up some Skeleton Warriors, clear the final Druids, and rest up.
Ultra-buffed Jaheira soon clobbers Faldorn, and we head back to Adratha's cottage.
My plan was to have Jaheira and Anomen deal with the Rakshasa here, under Entropy Shield.
They are able to take down Jalaal swiftly, but then... a Secret Word removes Jaheira's Entropy Shield, followed by Remove Magic.
Even worse: Jaheira somehow got stuck in a corner between Anomen (who was also stuck) and Ihtafeer!
That could easily take a turn for the very worse, but the rest of the party charges in, and Fire Elementals once again carry the day.
Phew.
Not sure how Jaheira survived, but Rakshasa do have fairly low damage when they're not chucking spells.
Back in Trademeet, Jan successfully pickpockets the Efreeti bottle, and we get oodles of gold and gems... no reputation though, still.
We finish off the Skinner questline while here (no reputation), give the Mantle to Lord Logan (still no reputation!), then kill off Skarmaen for his Elven Chain, which goes to Jan.
Around here, Anomen gets Knighted, and we get the Orc ambush while dealing with Jan's personal quest.
That is naked Minsc successfully making a 50/50 save against Flesh to Stone, by the by.
Had he failed it, he would've been stuck here (I don't think we could even transition without destroying him, which would chunk him), and we had no way to undo it at present; hence why he's naked, so we could at least salvage his gear if it came to that.
This will turn out to be a portent of things to come, but for now, we lucked out.
Alright, let's get going.
We pay Gaelan, then get a Vampire ambush en route to the Shadow Thief traitors; fortunately, we have 2 seconds to cast something, which is just enough for a Negative Plane Protection and Haste.
Minor difficulties but we pulled through.
Beneath the Graveyard, we score Power Word: Silence from one of the guards (I forget the name, Doomsayers? No?) outside the heavy door.
Unfortunately, we moved in while invisible so Haz never talked to us beforehand: If you do this and kill the guards, Haz just ups and leaves!
No Staff Mace +2 for us. Boo.
Alright, the Vampires can't see through Invisibility, so Jan sneaks to the Pool of Blood and snags the Mace of Disruption.
Magic is impressive, but now Minsc leads!
Why is Jan at 5 HP?
Because Tanova was particularly nasty this time and prepared a 3x Skull Trap Spell Sequencer.
Fortunately, it only tagged Jan, who rather miraculously made three saves in a row... still stings though.
Hasted Minsc leads Bodhi around by the nose for a few turns, and she flees.
Before departing for Brynnlaw, I do a wide sweep of Trademeet and Athkatla, looking for something worth stealing.
Beyond what we've already looted, though, there's really only a few valuable gems in Saerk's estate.
That was time well spent... won't bother again.
Finally, I notice that Jaheira's quest has bugged out; she never spoke to the protagonist after the Bandit ambush, so I fix it with the console, and she is promptly summoned to the Hold.
We follow as instructed, gleefully chop down the two under-leveled enemy Mages, and get a Ring of Wizardry for our troubles.
Hooray!
Off to Brynnlaw: The welcoming party are treated to the Mace of Disruption, and the mood turns gnarly as a result.
We clear out Lady Galvena's Feasthall, where Vadek fails to buff with Protection from Fire and so is immediately scorched by Fire Elementals.
After looting the Pirate King's dwelling (just a Longbow +2 and some potions here), a somewhat singed Jan finally manages to entice Perth outside and into our traps, which combined with some Skeleton Warriors handily spells the latter's end.
The Book of Infinite Spells comes up with True Seeing after two page turns, and I figure I'll roll with it.
We head over the bridge, clear the spawns for ease of access later, then open the door and head back across the bri-... wait.
Why did we open the door?
That consumes the Ward Stone, and without the Ward Stone, the traps on the bridge are active.
I realize too late what's happening.
SCS revised death effects saves us from instant game over, but Aldain is petrified.
What can we do?
We had a scroll of Stone to Flesh, but it was in Aldain's scroll case (now inaccessible to us), and it was an arcane scroll at that... which we have no one who can cast, since Jan is now also a statue (as is Yoshimo).
I try everything I can think of: There are no potions that fix this, and we don't have a green Stone to Flesh scroll.
Raise Dead, Remove Curse, Remove Paralysis, Heal... nothing works.
I try resting: Doesn't change anything.
In desperation, I shatter Jan with a well-placed bullet; he drops the Rod of Resurrection.
Nope, that doesn't work either.
Also, Jan being chunked somehow bugged the trap out, and it's now constantly firing Petrify-projectiles at Aldain...
There's nothing we can do.
No Cleric or Druid spells of L6 or below can undo this.
If we could've resurrected Jan, he could've cast that arcane Stone to Flesh scroll on Aldain (if he had actually been carrying the correct scroll case...), but since Jan was carrying our Rod of Resurrection, that was never an option.
All we can do is watch as Aldain is perpetually petrified, over and over.
This is possibly the most ignoble end to a run I've ever had.
Poor Jaheira, Minsc and Anomen will just have to live out their days at Spellhold, accompanied by ceaseless Petrification noises.
Pfeh.
Back to square one.
Our latest session saw some early action when Suna Seni attempted to block the way to the Graveyard - though failing comprehensively at that.
The upper levels of the Graveyard offered some easy XP from undead as well as traps and locks - though Behemoth didn't always scan closely enough to identify the latter .
From the Graveyard we were attempting to get to Watcher's Keep, but were somewhat delayed by the need to rescue Renfeld from some thugs. Brinholder managed to restrain his temptation to cast silence on the mage there, so we were able to return Renfeld to the Docks a bit quicker than usual.
After relieving Officer Dirth of his burdensome armor we successfully travelled to Watcher's Keep to pick up the potion case. There were no vampiric wraiths there, though they would probably not have caused a problem for a raging berserker wielding Azuredge anyway. The guardian golems there had quite proficient poison - successfully infecting Crusher despite his saving throw of 1 - but it wasn't long-lasting enough to cause much concern. The statues guarding Foebane were duly disposed of and Brinholder was keen to move on elsewhere, but Crusher decided to clear the remaining statues as well. Despite the odd grumble, Brinholder joined in the attack and his successful use of a wand of the heavens managed to kill the archer just as he was threatening Behemoth. Brinholder also ran round the golem type statue allowing Crusher to finish it off with Azuredge.
Back at the Docks, Prebek & Sanasha didn't last long allowing us to loot the Harper Hold. Before reporting to Xzar, Crusher set up with the intention of killing Lucette before she could make her escape after assassinating Xzar. Unfortunately he got a bit too excited and attacked Xzar instead of Lucette - killing the former before the assassin could complete her work. That turned some of those nearby hostile, but thus far that hasn't proved much of a problem.
Dealing with a rogue thief guild in the area proved easy enough. Rayic can be a problem due to his insistence on targeting the protagonist with his finger of death, but that bounced off the death ward that Brinholder had kindly provided.
Moving on to the Bridge District, Crusher was once more a bit precipitate when he noticed Hareishan threatening some thieves. While targeting Hareishan with Azuredge was a perfectly reasonable thing to do, waiting until she had killed a couple of thieves would have made the encounter rather more lucrative. A few more encounters in the area included demonstrating to the Rune
Assassins why they should keep their attacks for less heavily armored targets.
The final action in the session saw a return to the Slums to pay Gaelan Bayle and investigate what was happening under the Copper Coronet. A bunch of slavers operating there didn't provide too much opposition. The game crashed when trying to report back to Hendak, but as there is an autosave on entering the Copper Coronet we won't have to repeat any fighting in the next session.
Berserker 11, 130 HPs (inc. 5 from helm), 185 kills (+263 in BG1)
Figher 9 / cleric 9, 104 HPs , 43 kills (+127 in BG1), 1 death
Cleric 9 / thief 11, 65 HPs, 42 kills (+129 in BG1), 0 deaths
@aldain Ouch, that's a rough one. Reminds of one of my runs ending in the planar prison because I didn't pick up the key from the Warden and walked straight to Raelis instead - which does the exact same, petrifying everyone who walks up on that path without the key in the inventory. A pretty bad way to go out, but at least something that is unlikely to ever happen to you again for a second time.
After making new portraits based on some old selfies and AI, I have started a new run with my twin bother and our mutual friend whose morals leave something to be desired, but whose heart is in the right place.
When our village was raided by orcs, my brother and I called on different deities for help, which probably accounts for the differences between us, despite having the same skillsets.
We were barely able to defeat them, but then Gorion turned up and took us to Candlekeep where we met Bounty, a neutral good fighter/Bounty Hunter.
In Candlekeep we needed all our skills to defeat the assassins there.
After the death of Gorion, Imoen was almost the next casualty due to encounters with wolves. She did however survive and we have just rested at the Friendly Arms Inn.
We decided to leave Imoen in the safety of the FAI due to her wounds.
In the FAI we killed the evil duo Jenna and Marek and by so doing got some useful equipment.
We made our way to the carnival where a another mage attacked us and das a result died.
We headed North again joinerd up with Tenya and killed a lot of ankheg with the help of her command spell.
We headed south again where we killed Greywolf.
Tenya told us of a witch who might be able to show us how to use Tenya's bowl. On the way we killed more assassins.
We then joined up with Dorn in order to deal with his betrayers. Tenya was replaced by Gavin.
We killed Kryll after which Dorn left and went to thew FAI.
Gavin agreed to go to his temple and we accompanied him.
We were asked to deal with Bassilus which we did with the aid of skeletons and "Silence"
The same skeletons aided us against Zargal as did a sleep spell from Conrad.
We helped Charlestonian and took Brage back to the Temple of helm which is where we are at the moment.
Whilst in the process of doing that, Gavin was asked to deal with Mutamin. This we decided to do first.
WE started off by killing a party of Assassins, and then turned to the basilisks and medusae together with Mutamin, all of which were killed by Thorin after using a green scroll to protect himself from petrification. However, we mages aided him against Mutamin himself.
We then killed the murderess Lady valeria before heading south to successfully prove that Brage is innocent.
A bit of a bizarre report. Fall went on with various quests, doing the G3 pub crawl, clearing the Druid's Grove (gaining a Djinni servant after a hard fight with some Rakshasha) and also started to take care of Aran's tasks. However something called him to take care of a quest in Tangled Oak... and that's where things went even more wrong than usual. Fall's random responses left his party fighting the ghost of a Silver Dragon Great Wyrm at confined quarters, and when it breathed most of the party were chunked and frozen into statues of ice (with the loss of most of their equipment as well!) Even more oddly the game had a sort of brainfart where far-off Ust Natha abruptly became enraged and Fall and Xan were pronounced dead and out in the void of unselectability despite being quite hale and hearty. Much work with Near Infinity later I have a game that I can go on with, though Fall shall now see the error of his chaotic ways and recruit a much more elvish party that will show the proper respect for nature... for now.
A bit of a bizarre report. Fall went on with various quests, doing the G3 pub crawl, clearing the Druid's Grove (gaining a Djinni servant after a hard fight with some Rakshasha) and also started to take care of Aran's tasks. However something called him to take care of a quest in Tangled Oak... and that's where things went even more wrong than usual. Fall's random responses left his party fighting the ghost of a Silver Dragon Great Wyrm at confined quarters, and when it breathed most of the party were chunked and frozen into statues of ice (with the loss of most of their equipment as well!) Even more oddly the game had a sort of brainfart where far-off Ust Natha abruptly became enraged and Fall and Xan were pronounced dead and out in the void of unselectability despite being quite hale and hearty. Much work with Near Infinity later I have a game that I can go on with, though Fall shall now see the error of his chaotic ways and recruit a much more elvish party that will show the proper respect for nature... for now.
Indeed, I'm playing this one without SCS but with various difficulty enhancing mods and so I think that Fall is not long for this world unless I treat any and all adversaries with the proper respect, have been much more happy go lucky in my play than usual!
When fighting the Silver Dragon I once had a battle where a portrait was intact, yet there was no avatar of the character, only some left-over graphic. I believe they got chunked but the portrait wasn't properly removed from party list - this sounds like what happened to you @Mantis37
OK, thanks for the info, I'll treat the run as being over then due to the uncertainty. Things were getting so buggy that I was spending more time fixing the game than playing it anyway! If I do a random run again I'll rethink it a bit, there are too many psychopathic dialogue options for a fully random game to avoid lunacy .
As an alternative to doing random, you can do a run where you choose the dialog options that you personally would choose if you were in that situation -- this can lead to a different game, where sometimes you get in a risky fight that normally you don't, or also missing rewards that you might otherwise normally do. It would be a true role-play run where you are playing your real self.
Arriving at the de'Arnise Hold, Crusher realised he'd disposed of the bow used in the pirate ship to kill trolls. Fortunately there was one to loot near the back door to use until the Flail of Ages and Frostreaver were acquired. Behemoth one-shotted the yuan-ti mage there. We didn't rest before taking on TorGal, which meant Crusher had to be careful not to get too close to his vicious claws.
Next up was Trademeet, where Taquee bequeathed a first summoning option for Crusher. There was no trouble making our way through the Druid Grove, with Kyland Lind waiting silently for his doom before C ernd made short work of Faldorn.
Some tidying-up work saw us collect the Amulet of Power at the Thieves Guild before sending Sir Sarles off in a huff at being offered an illithium substitute. Neb's head was collected with a minimum of fuss thanks to a critical backstab and duly handed in to Chief Inspector Brega. Some former paladins were subdued and quickly cut down to size with the help of clerical spells. Below the Graveyard Pai'Na was persuaded to provide us with another summoning option. Behemoth saw an opportunity to boost his kills there by using a glyph on the horde of spiders. However, Crusher had already summoned the efreeti to immolate them and the glyph's only victim was the efreeti itself. Behemoth found a nearby trap the hard way, but still managed to get the XP for disarming it.
Part of the reason for doing those bits and pieces was to spin out time until Travin was due to appear. He can be a bit unreliable in MP, but this time he arrived on cue and allowed us to recover the Dawn Ring. With the end of the session closing in we made short work of Captain Dennis and his not-so merry men before sending Lassal on his way.
Berserker 12, 133 HPs (inc. 5 from helm), 296 kills (+263 in BG1)
Figher 10 / cleric 10, 106 HPs , 90 kills (+127 in BG1), 1 death
Cleric 10 / thief 12, 67 HPs, 62 kills (+129 in BG1), 0 deaths
As an alternative to doing random, you can do a run where you choose the dialog options that you personally would choose if you were in that situation -- this can lead to a different game, where sometimes you get in a risky fight that normally you don't, or also missing rewards that you might otherwise normally do. It would be a true role-play run where you are playing your real self.
An interesting idea, I imagine that I'd be a bit too peaceable! My randomising got me a LG Thief (Ninja kit), which makes me think of the old Way of the Tiger gamebooks... don't think there's any Monk Ninja kits. I may try to solo it through BGEE, which I've never done. The Ducal Palace fight is hard to reliably beat alone!
The Drow Triplets
Having escaped the cruelty of Lolth, the Gritz clan relocated to a nearby unconnected cave system, supplementing their diet of fungi with deer and rabbits from outside. Of course, this brought us into contact with elves and this led to conflict with them which ultimately led to all the adults of the clan being killed.
I and my siblings fled to the interior of the caves which were too constricted for the elves to follow. It was there that we started to worship Bane as we didn’t want cruelty for cruelty’s sake, just the power to prevent such disruption in our lives again.
I and my sister are identical twins who just chose different paths. Our brother was born at the same time, but was very different.
It was Gorion who rescued and raised us at Candlekeep and we grew to care for him, thus when he was killed, we vowed vengeance.
As an alternative to doing random, you can do a run where you choose the dialog options that you personally would choose if you were in that situation -- this can lead to a different game, where sometimes you get in a risky fight that normally you don't, or also missing rewards that you might otherwise normally do. It would be a true role-play run where you are playing your real self.
An interesting idea, I imagine that I'd be a bit too peaceable! My randomising got me a LG Thief (Ninja kit), which makes me think of the old Way of the Tiger gamebooks... don't think there's any Monk Ninja kits. I may try to solo it through BGEE, which I've never done. The Ducal Palace fight is hard to reliably beat alone!
In the original BG 1 game you could use the sleep wand on the dopplegangers. And the sleep wand is usable by anyone as long as they have at least 9 INT. Not sure if this strategy still works for EE BG 1.
Well my solo efforts have proceeded interestingly. My installation is moderately modded, with no SCS but with randomisation of many items, encounters (e.g. Borda is at the Friendly Arm), and traps. The protagonist's class, race, alignment, kit etc. are randomised also, and I accept the first roll that comes up. However I roll a d20 for each stat at level-up and if I roll over then they get a +1.
This can be a tricky set up but Baz the LG Human Ninja perished by user incompetence when I chose wrongly in Marl's dialogue. A CE Halfling Sorcerer was then atomised by an Ogre Mage's lightning bolt in a Faery Dragon grove. His successor however, a LE Human Acid Dragon Disciple called Lessandra has actually got some levels. She has been relying others to do her dirty work, getting Korax to kill some basilisks and charming Karlat into getting the spiders out of Landrin's house. While she steals her share she does however also stand up for other women when some of the asshole guys of the Sword Coast are throwing their weight about. Hopefully invisibility will keep her alive for a little longer.
I decided that I needed a break from Baldur's Gate. It's been a while since I went to Icewind dale and I decided on a party of 5. I have just changed the party slightly and ensured that I haven't got any equipment from the Heart of winter expansion. ( I was a bit overpowered)
After leaving Easthaven, I decided that the portraits weren't all that suitable for Icewind Dale so with the help of DuckDuckGo's AI, I created new ones. I downloaded Dalekeeper and changed the gender of my dwarven cleric and also used some portraits that used selfies of myself. See above.
Alright, clearly that nefarious end cannot be... well, the end.
Let's have another go.
Starting: In BG1EE.
Difficulty: Insane with no level-dependent damage increase.
Mods: Full SCS 35.21.
Protagonist: Aldain, Human Conjurer (again).
I'll make it snappier this time around: No SoD (though that's mainly since the experience boost is too big an advantage), and I'll go through BG1EE solo.
Have at thee!
Aldain, Human Conjurer Redux: Update 1
So I said solo, but I'm not incredibly strict about it; I'll utilize a few NPC's, particularly early on.
Imoen, Montaron and Xzar are recruited to help me deal with Tarnesh, though only Imoen survives the encounter.
Next, Aldain heads east alone, picking up Viconia.
She loots the Ankheg's hoard under Sanctuary, then helps put down the Ankheg to the north of Tenya's hut, and is finally dropped off at the FAI.
Priority one here is hitting L3 and learning Invisibility; the experience from Tenya -> Zombie Farm -> Wolf Pack (using the Wand of Fire Viconia secured) -> Thalantyr's Flesh Golems (+2 bullets from Ulgoth's Beard) will allow for that easily.
Indeed, Aldain hits L3 just from the Zombies, but let's keep blazing through this easy early experience route.
Bit of excellent luck with the Belt Ogre: He dropped a scroll of Melf's Minute Meteors, which is very potent at this stage (Aldain will soon hit L5 and make good use of it).
While in Beregost, Aldain picks up the Scroll Case, a Sling +1, and temporarily recruits Neera, after she deals with her attackers (she's immortal during this encounter... at least in my install).
Why recruit her? Because she starts with Identify, which mends the single chink in Aldain's armor of spells.
Once she identifies some stuff, she promptly gets ditched (queue entitled bratty teenager rant...) and Aldain resumes questing:
He hits L5 by clearing the local spider infestation, and we're off to the south to pick up the Red Potion in preparation for some scribing.
I actually took a bit of a risk here since progress had been so rapid, and cleared some additional minor encounters: Notably traversing the wilds without Invisibility active, but it panned out.
This was to earn the cash to bribe reputation up (with Viconia in the group, of course), but then it was finally time for scroll shopping.
We came away with 2k+ gold left over, so all's good, and now we are essentially immortal if we play our cards right, as Invisibility is just that powerful in BG1EE.
Next, Aldain heads far to the east and picks up some bracers off Meilum; that's basically all the equipment we need for now sorted.
I had hoped to pick up a Scroll of Protection from Undead by turning in a mangled cat corpse and so did a brief circuit of the areas west of Nashkel, clearing some of the encounters; alas, Aldain is not so handsome and so did not get a scroll, but rather an allowance of 23 gold.
Well, the Charisma tome will do as a consolation price.
Things are going smoothly: Really, I've barely even used the Wand of Fire, as Aldain's spellworks (Magic Missile/Chromatic Orb/Melf's Minute Meteors/Ice Lance/Skull Trap) are usually enough to solve any encounter.
So let's have a close call with some bisarrely dangerous Diggers worth 7 experience each.
Those friggin' Elves.
They've always been an oddity: They hit hard, they hit often, and above all they hit FAST (do they have 2 or 3 APR?), yet they're worth almost no experience... probably since they have almost no hitpoints.
Anyway, I take my frustrations out on the Doomsayer, netting Aldain L6.
Next, we pony up for Potions of Freedom at Thalantyr, which lets us stomp the Revenant in the Valley of the Tombs essentially risk-free; he uses a ranged attack that can paralyze/hold on a failed save.
Not sure why I bothered, but probably because I realized belatedly that the Wand of Summoning (which I was after) is only guarded by three Ghasts...
Still, we now have all the essentials gathered, so let's advance the plot, capping off Greywolf on the way.
I place a preparatory Skull Trap where Mulahey's reinforcements are to appear, fry his elite Kobolds with a Wand of Fire Scorcher, then just Magic Missile the Half-Orc into the ground; I popped another Potion of Freedom to protect against Hold Person here.
Now then, leave Nimbul alone and head instead for Tranzig.
Charm Algernon (Charm Person/Dire Charm until it sticks), and let Tranzig dispose of him: Hooray, we now have Algernon's Cloak!
Tranzig seems less enthused as he is treated to a Stone Fist.
Algernon's Cloak means we can lift 3000 gold off Oublek, using the same procedure and letting Nimbul do the honors; the latter exhausts most of his spells on Aldain's Minor Spell Deflection, and the final Lance of Disruption didn't deal much damage.
Aldain can now afford the Robe of the Good Archmagi (though the Good part of his alignment might be considered debatable at this point), as well as Aule's Staff and the Cloak of Displacement; we're now well and truly geared, all that remains is eventually picking up Cloak of Balduran... and of course, some speedy boots.
Anyway, on towards the Bandit Camp, and it's Amazon Ambush Time!
Yeah, I popped some summons from the wand to be on the safe side; even so, Aldain had Hold Person incoming so quaffed another Potion of Freedom, but other than that it went smoothly.
Now, I actually find that Wand of Lightning works rather well at the Bandit Camp; there are enemies everywhere, and the Lightning Bolt bounces wildly, so usually fries half a dozen or so in one charge.
A small force led by Venkt eventually catches up, but a single Scorcher removes the only real threat here.
I loot as best I can given the sharply limited inventory space, and abscond.
Ulcaster's gets a visit next, purely to swipe the Wand of Fire: You can loot things on the floor without
breaking Invisibility if you stand basically on top of them and pick them up from inside the inventory screen.
En route to Durlag's Tower, it's Molkar time; of course, being invisible, Aldain just buffs up and lets loose
with a Scorcher.
Now, I start working my way through Durlag's exterior; Magic Missile in combination with Melf's Minute Meteors
is quite sufficient for the Battle Horrors and their ilk.
Aldain soon hits L7, and takes off for the balcony (there's just a resetting Chromatic Orb trap in the way, no
worries), cleaning out the local Greater Basilisks with relative ease, and then swipes the Tome of Wisdom
on the way back down, safe from the trap's Dire Charm effect owing to Minor Spell Deflection.
Now, of course we could just sprint towards the finish even now and still end up at the experience cap.
But it's annoying arriving in Amn with a less than stellar spellbook; one should make the most of all
available resources.
There are a number of L5 arcane scrolls only available in Durlag's Tower (Hold Monster, Domination,
Monster Summoning III, Feeblemind), meaning we'll be plumbing down to the third below-grounds level.
Protection from Fire, Minor Spell Deflection, Shield and Mirror Image will keep you safe from all the traps
on the way (as long as you don't get a terribly unlucky Lightning Bolt bounce), so it's fine to do this, just a bit tedious grinding through all the enemies.
Of course, this will require dealing with the Warders as the scroll of Domination is sequestered in Islanne's
room on the next level down, for which I'd like Aldain to be at the level cap... so after clearing out most
of the enemies, Aldain promptly leaves, but he'll be back.
After a quick detour to pick up the Manual of Bodily Health, it's off to the Red Wizards.
Technically there are two scrolls of Remove Magic, so we could just get the one off Andris since we'll
be heading for Ice Island anyway to score Stoneskin... but Andris is a lot more trouble than Denak,
and the latter also has The Victor, so let's just deal with Denak instead.
I'd actually rather not fight four spellcasters head-on, so use (abuse?) Algernon's Cloak some more: Denak's three companions Brendan, Diana and Lasala are all fed to the local Spider population, making the final fight against Denak that much more predictable and easy.
Great! Now time for some boots, I think.
Aldain makes it all the way to the Cloakwood Mines without resting (plentiful Invisibility), and though Kysus makes his first save against Algernon's Cloak, a rest later he fails the second go-around.
Imagine my surprise, though, as Drasus and cohorts do not react at all to Kysus being chopped down by the two guards at the bridge.
Well, I don't really mind.
A rest later, Rezdan is similarly charmed; this time Drasus does go hostile, but only once Rezdan dies.
With no arcane backup, Drasus doesn't last long.
And Aldain descends into the Mines.
I could technically just skip everything here except Davaeorn, since the spell scrolls are available for sale at the Sorcerous Sundries, but still opt to clear some things; Hareishan (Wand of Fire Scorcher), Natasha (Wand of Paralyzation), and the Ogre Mage (also Wand of Paralyzation).
Aldain had been saving a casting of Cloudkill, so once all five waves of Davaeorn's guards are clustered, I pop it... and they all just drop dead within a few rounds.
Dave is eventually worn down by summons (didn't even need many wand charges, Aldain is a Conjurer after all) and amusingly ended by a Magic Missile.
I head for Ice Island next, skipping everything except Dezkiel.
Seems to only be Magic Missile and Lightning Bolt traps here, for reference.
OK, so there really aren't that many Potions of Genius available in BG1.
Barring a really lucky random drop, there's 11 in total: FAI 4, Sorcerous Sundries 3, Jardak 1, Iron Throne basement 1, Ulcaster's 1, Durlag's third level above-ground 1.
We could make up the difference with Potions of Mind Focusing, but I'd like to save those for boosting Dexterity during the final fight, and there's only 8 of them: FAI 4, Sorcerous Sundries 3, shelf in the Shop to the north of the Merchant's League Counting House 1 (Thalantyr also has one you can pickpocket though that's never guaranteed).
Basically, let's wait to scribe until we've got all the important scrolls.
So, Aldain rampages through the Gate.
Bit tedious to mention everything, but basically any encounter that gives a unique spell scroll, an ability tome, or some still-useful gear, notably the Nymph's Cloak with 40 charges.
There's a lot of resting, of course, since even with a full set of spells Aldain can typically only handle 1 - 2 encounters, but there's not much danger; the Sewer Ogre Mage gets a Charm Person off, which I think had a 5% chance of taking hold (Aldain's aura was clouded), but luckily it didn't stick.
Basically, summons plus Melf's Minute Meteors and the occasional Spell Thrust coupled with wand charges allows for dismantling the City enemies in comparative safety.
So, why bother with the 40 charge Nymph's Cloak, since it's touch range only?
Well, it makes the Iron Throne fight a bit easier, though to be fair I could've just kept resting to recharge Algernon's Cloak.
Not sure what happened there at the end: Usually when I do this charm 'em all and let the initially hostile Thieves kill 'em off schtick, Zhalimar eventually turns hostile... as he did this time, but now he finished off one of the Thieves on his own.
Wonky script.
Anyway, with so few enemies left alive, waves of summons coupled with wand charges finish things off nicely.
Not much left to do, but Aldain swings by Sorcerous Sundries, sells and re-purchases some wands: That set us back about 67k, but doing it this way means the wands come with extreme amounts of charges (I think all but the Wand of Fire had 100 charges, and that one got 50 charges), which'll last us the rest of the game.
So, off to Candlekeep.
Aldain chugs a Potion of Invisibility, moves off to the side, then meticolously cleans out the Ogre Mages; I don't want to risk forgetting they're there, eating a Horror on the way out, and being slowly Melf's Acid Arrow'ed into oblivion.
With Knock available, it's no issue looting the tombs; the only things here we need are the two ability tomes (there's also a scroll of Shadow Door available in the library you're teleported into, which Aldain of course swipes).
Sakul has a scroll of Wraith Form: I don't think I've ever used that spell, but it's still arcane knowledge, so I must have it.
No dice with Algernon's Cloak this time, and there're no pillars blocking Prat's line-of-sight so we can't really utilize the Nymph Cloak; let's just attack instead.
I cleared the entire area out beforehand, so just run around for a bit until most enemy buffs expire, then wand them down (summons providing distractions).
Now then, it's literally just Durlag's left: Aldain can only muster two Skeleton Warriors, but they'll have to do.
Love is pretty simple, as for some reason it's not reflecting missile weapons (which I thought it did...).
Avarice is pretty harmless and eventually just drops without accomplishing anything.
This splitting-up of the Warders wasn't intentional; the first assault failed miserably, so Aldain retreated towards the surface... but only Fear and Pride followed, and they stopped at the cellar where you meet the Elf Thief whose name escapes me.
Barnyard? No, but something like that.
Anyway, Fear regenerates, but other than that and its stunning ranged attack, it's not a big deal.
Pride is quite dangerous (persistent Haste, keeps reapplying Clerical buffs), but interestingly is vulnerable to being Blinded; it takes a bit of finagling but Aldain triumphs.
And the way is open to the next level.
If you're just after the scrolls, you actually don't have to worry about traps here: Turning the statue to the south will open the door to Islanne's room, and the scrolls are in the un-trapped wardrobe. Huzzah!
Again, it's just Domination, which I rarely if ever use... but still! A spell's a spell.
Alright, let's get a move on; we've tarried in BG1 for far too long.
Duke Eltan is easily rescued; Cythandria surrenders after getting a few Melf's Minute Meteors to the face, and Slythe is mowed down (I leave Krystin to stew in the juices of her own ineptitude... she has plenty of scrolls but none we don't already know).
Now then, time for the one battle that is potentially game-ending as a solo arcanist: The palace Dopplegangers.
The Doppleganger Mage here is capable of casting Chaos, so it's risky using any summons apart from Skeleton Warriors... but it's even riskier to just have two summons help with handling the Dopplegangers, so Aldain takes the plunge.
First thing that happens is that Belt is unceremoniously sheared in half: The Doppleganger Shaman had a Greater Command prepared, and Belt failed his save.
Aldain's first move was Chaos, which knocked out the Greater Dopplegangers, but did nothing against the named ones.
Still, the Doppleganger Assassin soon reveals itself, and is shot down.
Next, the Doppleganger Shaman: It doesn't have much in the way of physical defenses, so our summons suffice to mob it.
Yeah, the Doppleganger Mage summoned some help of its own.
I don't mind; I much prefer that to him dropping Chaos/Confusion.
With everything bar the Mage defeated, Aldain can tear down its defenses and get to work: We soon prevail.
I was a little worried that Sarevok would punch straight through Liia's remaining (meager) defenses, but he teleported out after just two rounds.
Aldain gives chase, ignores the bounty hunter party, talks Tamoko down, and prepares for the final showdown.
As a solo arcanist, I don't think you have so many options here; the safest route is just abusing Invisibility and Wand of Monster Summoning...
though I am able to knock Semaj out by Fireballing from out of sight range.
Now it gets trickier; the Skeleton Warriors introduced by SCS when an acolyte falls have too high magic resistance for that to work, and several of them have Arrows of Dispelling as well... which could be our end if they hit at a bad time.
So, I end up just slowly sniping enemies down: Summon some monsters, toss a few bullets (Oil of Speed), retreat, repeat, go invisible as required.
It's very slow, but very reliable; once there are no credible ranged threats left, I switch to Aule's Staff to help bludgeon the Skeleton Warriors down faster.
Eventually, it's just Sarevok, and though he chews through a single Monster Summoning charge in about two rounds, there are still plenty of charges remaining by the time he falls.
And that's it, one solo run of BG1EE completed.
Looking back, I vastly over-optimized, i.e., should've just gone for Basilisks early, then rapidly rounded up the spell scrolls/ability tomes and rushed for the ending; there was no need to aim for 20 reputation, nor to sell so much crap (2 Wands of Monster Summoning from Sorcerous Sundries would have sufficed for the final stretch).
I'll keep that in mind for the next go, but right now, it's BG2EE time... where Aldain will of course travel with a party.
@aldain Well done! I have nowhere near the same knowledge of the game that you do. I rely on experience rather than knowing where everything is. I prefer it that way. My Icewind dale Party has reached Kuldahar.
We'd chased Lassal away at the end of the last session, so started this one by reporting in to Aran Linvail. We also did the Guild Contact quest, but rather than continue on to the vampire hideout headed for Umar Hills instead. There were no problems with the minor quests on the way to the old temple, but there was a nasty moment there when fighting the first major group of undead. The initial enemies were all dead and Crusher went into his inventory to tidy up a few things. His companions may have wondered why he was taking no action against the bone golem that had been attracted from further into the complex by the noise - but if they did wonder they didn't do so out loud. Fortunately Crusher emerged in time to deal with the golem before it became a real threat.
Thaxy generously allowed us to sleep in her cave, which meant Behemoth could set a full quota of 7 poison traps - making the eventual fight something of a walkover. The Shade Lord was no match for our attacks and we collected Valygar's body on the way back to report to the mayor.
Wanting to get rid of the body before his backpack was permanently stained, Crusher headed for the Planar Sphere next. He expressed confidence that the occupants of that could be easily enough handled, but was quickly handed a bit of a reality check when confronting Kayardi without full defensive buffs and having to retreat rather than take more damage from fire shields. A skeleton provided an alternative focus for the mage to waste his spells on while our shots worked through his defenses. Tolgerias was another potentially problematical mage. Behemoth tried to remove him with a backstab before he realised he was being attacked, but didn't do enough damage. Pre-summoned skeletons helped put him under pressure though and another backstab eventually proved fatal.
One further incident of note occurred while we were in the engine room. Neither of the two groups of golems appeared initially as Crusher explored the area. However, once he decided to go after the clay golem near the trapped treasure chest, the nearby group materialised - blocking Crusher away from his companions. That necessitated the use of an invisibility potion to get the golems to switch focus and allow them to be dealt with one at a time. After they were all dead, Behemoth went to get the treasure - though he did it the hard way by not bothering to disarm the trap first.
Time was running out in the session, but we did make our way to the Windspear Hills and do the first few rooms of the dungeon there. Behemoth was badly hurt in an encounter with the Ruhk when he backstabbed a kobold only to find it was wearing an exploding suicide vest. Fortunately he had enough HPs in reserve to survive the follow-up Death Fog from the Ruhk. Just after that Crusher was badly hurt when he was hit twice by a lightning bolt from a kobold wizard.
Berserker 14, 139 HPs (inc. 5 from helm), 485 kills (+263 in BG1)
Figher 11 / cleric 11, 108 HPs , 131 kills (+127 in BG1), 1 death
Cleric 11 / thief 13, 69 HPs, 90 kills (+129 in BG1), 0 deaths
Hi all, a quick report. My LE Acid Dragon Disciple Lessandra, who had just reached 4th level, proceeded on her solo adventures around the Sword Coast. At first she performed several of the easier quests around Beregost, and also broke open most of the chests to be found in the area, without finding much of value. Then she began to range a little further afield, using her wand of paralyzation to deal with high XP targets. The following near deaths occurred…
Bassilus got off a Rigid Thinking but she saved.
She also saved against a Power Word Sleep from a hag whom a dubious character had led her to.
In Beregost she wandered out of a house only to find a Green Slime (that she had previously caused to be summoned by Narcillus…) waiting for her.
In Gullykin Shoal was waiting outside a door but was similarly evaded. (My install has the location of many encounters randomised.)
She was almost mauled by some gibberlings, and then a spider, but both times she got off a cast of invisibility.
...but somehow she survived. She has moved from looting the ankheg nest invisibly to returning, webbing them, and then unleashing hordes of hasted gibberlings upon them. Annoyingly she killed the Doomguard but the game crashed (just as she saved against Brage’s companion’s Rigid Thinking!) and then on the reload the Doomguard was struck by lightning at near death … Talos consumes his own… I was so annoyed that I chose the wrong answer for Brage and had to kill him . The gibberlings also swarmed Tenya too quickly for her to surrender...
Lessandra has now wandered through much of the wilderness, and has just poked her head into the Gnoll fortress, reaching level 8. Her hp are in the 70s because her con is good but she stubbornly refuses to train her Dex! Apart from her larceny she has committed just a few extra unprovoked homicides, of Algernon and of Dushai but neither of them had been randomised items that she can use so she’s currently got 20,000 in the bank. She has Dimension Door, Battering Ram, and Minor Spell Deflection for dealing with many traps so I may let her poke her head into another dungeon soon… but probably she can get another level first.
My drow run ended on emerging from the Nashkel mines. For a while my character hasn't been following my commands. This time he walked into the amazons when instructed to use the wand of fire. Since it is so buggy I'm not going to reload as something similar is bound to happen.
I will therefore switch back to my Icewind Dale game and delete my drow game completely from the start.
I'll have to think of a new idea for Baldur's Gate.
Lessandra continued gathering experience, paying a cautious visit to the outskirts of Durlag's Tower, nipping into Firewine, and exploring the further reaches of the map, gathering more treasure and more trinkets for her defence. She cleared out a zombie infestation, only for a parasitic entity to at once fear her, paralyze her, disease her, and at last kill her, despite the efforts of one of her faithful gibberlings. I could have been more cautious about the encounter, but have had complicated feelings about the level of metagaming I was employing already. It was very interesting to play with a solo character and to try to make the best use of all the tools at their disposal but it definitely made the game much more of a puzzle to be solved than an experience to be enjoyed. I certainly felt conscious that I lack the fine knowledge of edge cases with regard to game mechanics at certain points when a single error could end the run. Probably time for a break as I might want to redo the install if I play again in the near future.
Lessandra continued gathering experience, paying a cautious visit to the outskirts of Durlag's Tower, nipping into Firewine, and exploring the further reaches of the map, gathering more treasure and more trinkets for her defence. She cleared out a zombie infestation, only for a parasitic entity to at once fear her, paralyze her, disease her, and at last kill her, despite the efforts of one of her faithful gibberlings. I could have been more cautious about the encounter, but have had complicated feelings about the level of metagaming I was employing already. It was very interesting to play with a solo character and to try to make the best use of all the tools at their disposal but it definitely made the game much more of a puzzle to be solved than an experience to be enjoyed. I certainly felt conscious that I lack the fine knowledge of edge cases with regard to game mechanics at certain points when a single error could end the run. Probably time for a break as I might want to redo the install if I play again in the near future.
Just wondering how you made a halfling sorcerer, using Keeper or via a mod.
I used to have a mod installed that allowed any race to be any class. Is that how you did it?
Comments
Crusher - dwarf berserker (Grond0)
Brinholder - dwarf fighter/cleric (Corey_Russell)
Behemoth - half-orc cleric/thief (Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1224377/#Comment_1224377
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1224625/#Comment_1224625
We'd done the return to Candlekeep last time, so just had a few encounters left in Baldur's Gate to finish BGEE. Slythe and Krystin were both incapacitated by stunning darts before we accepted an invitation to the palace. The dopplegangers there managed to kill Liia, despite the attentions of several summoned skeletons. However, Belt was still in reasonable shape when the last of them fell.
There were no alarms in the maze and we circled round the back of the Undercity party before making a bit more use of our Necklaces of Missiles to ensure that Rahvin got a taste of his own fiery medicine.
In the old temple Sarevok charged towards us with the intention of killing us all single-handed. Crusher tried to tackle him head on, but had to withdraw for safety's sake a moment or two before Sarevok finally fell.
There was a slight interlude before starting BG2EE when it transpired that Gate70's installation had automatically updated. After a quick review it appeared easier for him to revert to the previous installation than for Corey and myself to update and that was soon done.
Escaping Jon's dungeon was no trouble, with the only slight glitch being that we'd forgotten to pick up the key to disable the lightning trap, so had to skirt the trigger on the floor. Ulvaryl was successfully taken down before she could get away.
The circus was duly restored before Crusher decided to go and pick on Mencar before heading for the Slums. Brennan was surrounded and cut down before he got any ideas about running away, while the mage and his familiar were silenced for easy disposal. However, Smaeluv's high HPs and damage were sufficient to send Crusher running downstairs. Initially that didn't seem too much of a danger, even though Smaeluv kept chasing. When Behemoth successfully commanded Smaeluv it looked likely that would be that for the near-dead warrior. However, he survived a couple of sling bullets and got to his feet again just as Crusher fell down unconscious - that was a result of me accounting for the loss of 15 HPs from the end of rage, but not also factoring in the reduction from the end of DUHM. For a moment it looked like the end of the run was nigh, but checking the battle text showed that Behemoth's next sling bullet had already been launched - and was hitting. That finally proved to be the end of Smaeluv before Behemoth and Crusher went back upstairs to finish off Mencar - who had been occupied by Brinholder and skeletons in the meantime.
There was just enough time remaining in the session to make our way to the Slums and help Hendak take control of the Copper Coronet.
Berserker 9, 124 HPs (inc. 5 from helm), 78 kills (+263 in BG1)
Figher 8 / cleric 8, 96 HPs , 18 kills (+127 in BG1), 1 death
Cleric 8 / thief 9, 58 HPs, 24 kills (+129 in BG1), 0 deaths
Hopefully SoA will go well
All of us knew from bitter experience that having divine blood, particularly evil divine blood results in being attacked by others. Gorion suggested that we would be safer in a like-minded party as those who were slain could be raised by the others, so that is what I opted to do.
I started out by looting as much as I could. This resulted in me being attacked by a watcher who paid for his folly.
Shank and Carbos also foolishly tried to take me out.
After being attacked outside Candlekeep, Imoen chose to remain with us until we reached the safety of the FAI.
It proved to be not as safe as we thought for we were attacked by a mage who proved to be not overly skillful.
Once inside we saw a couple of adventurous wanderers whom we slew for their equipment which was far too tempting.
Previous update found here
Next update found here
There are two massive advantages straight off the bat from going through SoD; most notable of course is the difference in party power at 500k experience as compared to 161k.
But also not to be underestimated, at least when playing with an arcanist protagonist, is having access to Summon Lesser Air/Fire Elemental straight off the bat.
These things are lethal against most early enemies, as the Ogre Mage soon learns; he just can't hurt it.
I'll be brutal in my application of spellworks this time around, and using (abusing) Elementals to rapidly clear even large enemy groupings will be a standard tactic.
Two Lesser Air Elementals are enough to wipe out nearly the entire first level on their own; their circle is very large so they can't fit everywhere, but we just drag enemies back towards them.
The second level we just handle through hacking and healing (including Ulvaryl), though a final Lesser Air Elemental also does good work here, and we are free.
On exiting, we immediately pick up Anomen, followed by Jan.
We'd probably be better off with Mazzy in terms of party power, but I like Jan... and eventually we'll get HLA traps, which are quite handy for a few encounters.
Alright, standard early-game pattern: Off to the Copper Coronet, buy Bernard's Scroll Case before freeing Hendak, clear the Slavers.
No funny business here, just Bless + Chant + Prayer + Recitation + Emotion: Hope (+7 to-hit, and I forget how much + damage... but a lot), then charge in.
SCS improved random scroll drops kick in, and we find Improved Haste in the little groove in the wall near the Jansen home.
Nice, that'll save us some cash.
We refrain from reporting our success to Hendak just yet: Instead we will sit on all reputation quests until we can afford to bribe reputation to 16 (with Viconia in the party), then hand 'em all in at once.
Before that though, we need a license... I know you can muddle through without one, but I tend to forget I don't have one at a crucial moment, and I am not confident we'll fare well against the final Cowled Wizard enemies at these levels and with SCS; we'll just eat the 5k cost.
En route to bribe the local corrupt bureaucrats, we get the Suna Seni ambush, and promptly dismantle it.
Yeah, the early enemies barely even warrant buffing, given our high starting experience, though this'll change soon enough.
We also find and help Renfeld while at it, then take a detour to get our license; next on the chopping block is Prebek and Sanasha, and here we do prebuff a little.
They're not terribly dangerous, but are occasionally fond of Lightning Bolt, which can bounce badly if you're unlucky.
One did go off, but only bounced twice, so we come out on top.
Well, we have many spells remaining: Let's polish off the pirates while here (and accidentally trigger Jaheira's quest... we'll deal with that anon).
Sobering experiences are good! You shouldn't underestimate even supposedly simple encounters, though I recall actually losing several runs here before.
So we charged in with some fairly minimal buffs.
An initial Chaos was headed for Minsc, so I had him Rage... and of course, as happens every single time I deign to use it, Minsc finished off his enemy, then immediately latched onto Jaheira and wouldn't stop.
So Jaheira had to spend the fight leading Minsc around, and meanwhile Aldain got Confused, and the Pirate Mage even got a Lesser Fire Elemental up.
This could've gone very bad, but somehow we were able to turn things around even though half the party was out of commission; ultimately everyone came through in one piece.
Seriously, that Pirate Mage... and the leader, quaffing a Potion of Frost Giant Strength.
Nasty.
We rest up and commence invisibly travelling towards the Slums, triggering an Orog ambush which we mercilessly crush using Lesser Fire Elementals.
Fighting Ployer can turn bad, since it's three enemy Mages: We rested beforehand and buffed to the gills.
Round one: Annihilate Ployer while Spell Thrusting Terrece.
Round two: Take down one of the two minor Mages (they don't have any Mantles or the like) while breaching Terrece.
Round three: Victory.
Good stuff!
Graveyard next.
Again a random scroll, this time Chain Lightning... eh, doubt I'll ever cast it but sure.
Remove Fear for Crypt King is all the special preparation that's necessary above-ground, and we descend.
The big spider groups down here either get Cloudkill or a single summon to soak up the initial Web Tangle; Pai'Na takes half a second to speak to you so we have time to pause and successfully lob a Special Trap at her feet, with the result that all her Spider friends immediately die, and she's not far behind.
There's a slight mishap in the Lower Tombs as the pain-in-the-rear Vampyre runs around and manages to Level Drain both Minsc and Jan, but we were never in serious danger: Anomen clears it up following a rest, and that's the Graveyard done with.
More minor stuff: Circus (very easy by now), the Tanner (not so easy since the Rune Assassins nearly cap off Minsc, but not quite), dealing with Tirdir's kidnappers, Fallen Paladins (hopeless melee grunts)... and here, Aldain hits L12.
With the +15% Conjurer bonus, he's guaranteed to scribe any Conjuration spell, so he immediately learns Summon Fire Elemental which we picked up from Prebek's home.
We can now, once a day, put out four 12+ hit dice Fire Elementals (Jaheira gets two as well), which is enough to devastate any enemy without Death Spell available; if we're feeling particularly evil, they are joined by an Aerial Servant courtesy of Anomen.
Ah... Conjurer really is such a lovely class.
Next we swing by the Temple and pick up the Sir Sarles quest (he gets the alloy, of course), dealing with Neb quick and easy.
Now we treat Mencar and friends to elemental carnage: I waited this long because I wanted to make absolutely certain Brennan wouldn't be able to flee.
And indeed, he does not get to flee, instead literally exploding in two seconds flat, much to my amusement.
Try and keep loot from me, will you?
About nine seconds later it's just Sorcerous Amon left alive, and another three seconds later, there's just ashes left.
Good stuff.
We continue cleaning up odds and ends, relieving Officer Dirth of his Full Plate Mail, and clobbering the hopeless, backstory-less goons in the Bridge district (not Captain Dennis, we'll be doing the Limited Wish adventure so I'm leaving him alive for now).
Most of the little stuff is done, but we've yet to clean out the sewers: Skeleton Warriors handle the Gauths/Beholder to the southwest, then help us take down the Rakshasa (who isn't so dangerous when you're too high-level for him to dispel your buffs).
This leaves a single Near Death Skeleton Warrior, which we put down ourselves and replace with five Fire Elementals (one Lesser).
Good luck, Gaius: Your single Death Spell will at best kill one of them.
Heh... he didn't even manage that much.
Really smooth sailing that; usually this fight is a bit touch-and-go.
So let's fumble Mekrath instead: I talked to Raelis Shai before coming here, and if you do that, there's apparently no way to avoid fighting Mekrath when you first speak to him (or I just didn't pick the right options... I thought I was being quite diplomatic though), and he goes hostile.
At this point we had almost no spells left since we just cleared the entire Sewers, but thankfully Yoshimo eluded Mekrath by activating the Sandthief's ring; thank you Brennan.
We basically sit and wait for a bit (I went off and did something else for ~15 minutes) until Merkrath's Fire Elemental unsummons, then Minsc pops the Mustard Jelly Form from the Cloak of the Sewers... and amazingly, it lasts long enough to basically tank Mekrath's entire arsenal.
Seems he went heavy on Fire damage, and that Fire Elemental was his only summon, so once he wastes everything on Spell Resistance 125 Minsc in Jelly form, we just chop him down.
We were in no shape to finish clearing Mekrath's lair, so absconded and dealt with Borinall in the interim.
Freshly rested, we return, to find three Yuan-Ti Mages in the tiny bedroom.
I gambled they wouldn't have a Death Spell, and turns out I was right; that was a bit unexpected.
Anyway, they end up Elemental food.
We took a quick detour here and killed off Uncle Lester, and he dropped Prismatic Spray.
Not awful... as I recall it doesn't affect party members?
So might be worth casting for Aldain since it's Conjuration, as long as you don't target enemies with useful drops, since there's a small chance they might be Disintegrated.
Anyway, we've plenty of cash now, so temporarily drop Yoshimo in favor of Viconia, bribe reputation to 16, then bring in Korgan (reputation goes to 18); the Book of Kaza has a decent sell value and you get some gold during the quest as well, so it's well worth spending the 15 minutes or so it takes trudging around to finish it.
That done with, we take Yoshimo back into the group, and start handing in reputation quests: Six handins later, we've gained a single reputation point...
We take out our frustrations on the first Watcher's Keep level: Fire Elementals make mincemeat of the Trolls, Vampiric Wraiths, Spiders... there's even time to let them tackle the Guardian Golems.
I'll probably refrain from going through SoD next time, having this many Elementals available this early is very powerful.
Alright, we're lookin' good!
We've yet to sell anything (beyond some non-magical Light Crossbows/Longbows), but have still bought a license, spent 7200 on bribing reputation up, and we've got nearly 15k to spare: I'd say one major stronghold quest should be sufficient, then we can take off for Spellhold.
I'm leaning towards Trademeet, as Jaheira could use a decent main-hand weapon, and then Minsc can dual-wield Belm in the off-hand until Jaheira gets a second pip in Two-Weapon Style.
It's also a fairly easy stronghold, apart from the Rakshasa; but Jaheira and Anomen both have access to Entropy Shield now, so I'm confident they can handle it with the proper buffs (and a fully protected Aldain can enter as well and start summoning Elementals).
Yeah, sounds like a plan, but that's for next time.
Until then.
Previous update found here
I let the animals kill as many guards as they could, but sadly no delectable spell scrolls as random drops this time around.
Wilfred gifted us 1000 gold, and we were off for the Druid Grove.
A bit of chaos is part and parcel of these runs.
I had intended to deal with the weak spawns immediately upon entering, then send a horde of Fire Elementals to clear the map, but a Baby Wyvern called for help from a massive Troll pack.
Fortunately, I had my timings down pat, and we got Chaotic Commands up (vital to protect against Greater Command) along with Fire Elementals, then wreaked bloody vengeance on everything.
Yep, one buffed group of Fire Elementals basically torpedoed the entire Grove, apart from the final group of Druids, and then only because they unsummoned right before reaching them.
We had enough buffs left for Jaheira and Minsc to clear the Troll Mound on their own, and then unfortunately Cernd dropped dead.
No, it wasn't intentional: As we were passing a Fire Elemental tagged him with Shroud of Flame (which it had contracted from an enemy it was cast on), and Cernd was having none of it.
We conjure up some Skeleton Warriors, clear the final Druids, and rest up.
Ultra-buffed Jaheira soon clobbers Faldorn, and we head back to Adratha's cottage.
My plan was to have Jaheira and Anomen deal with the Rakshasa here, under Entropy Shield.
They are able to take down Jalaal swiftly, but then... a Secret Word removes Jaheira's Entropy Shield, followed by Remove Magic.
Even worse: Jaheira somehow got stuck in a corner between Anomen (who was also stuck) and Ihtafeer!
That could easily take a turn for the very worse, but the rest of the party charges in, and Fire Elementals once again carry the day.
Phew.
Not sure how Jaheira survived, but Rakshasa do have fairly low damage when they're not chucking spells.
Back in Trademeet, Jan successfully pickpockets the Efreeti bottle, and we get oodles of gold and gems... no reputation though, still.
We finish off the Skinner questline while here (no reputation), give the Mantle to Lord Logan (still no reputation!), then kill off Skarmaen for his Elven Chain, which goes to Jan.
Around here, Anomen gets Knighted, and we get the Orc ambush while dealing with Jan's personal quest.
That is naked Minsc successfully making a 50/50 save against Flesh to Stone, by the by.
Had he failed it, he would've been stuck here (I don't think we could even transition without destroying him, which would chunk him), and we had no way to undo it at present; hence why he's naked, so we could at least salvage his gear if it came to that.
This will turn out to be a portent of things to come, but for now, we lucked out.
Alright, let's get going.
We pay Gaelan, then get a Vampire ambush en route to the Shadow Thief traitors; fortunately, we have 2 seconds to cast something, which is just enough for a Negative Plane Protection and Haste.
Minor difficulties but we pulled through.
Beneath the Graveyard, we score Power Word: Silence from one of the guards (I forget the name, Doomsayers? No?) outside the heavy door.
Unfortunately, we moved in while invisible so Haz never talked to us beforehand: If you do this and kill the guards, Haz just ups and leaves!
No Staff Mace +2 for us. Boo.
Alright, the Vampires can't see through Invisibility, so Jan sneaks to the Pool of Blood and snags the Mace of Disruption.
Magic is impressive, but now Minsc leads!
Why is Jan at 5 HP?
Because Tanova was particularly nasty this time and prepared a 3x Skull Trap Spell Sequencer.
Fortunately, it only tagged Jan, who rather miraculously made three saves in a row... still stings though.
Hasted Minsc leads Bodhi around by the nose for a few turns, and she flees.
Before departing for Brynnlaw, I do a wide sweep of Trademeet and Athkatla, looking for something worth stealing.
Beyond what we've already looted, though, there's really only a few valuable gems in Saerk's estate.
That was time well spent... won't bother again.
Finally, I notice that Jaheira's quest has bugged out; she never spoke to the protagonist after the Bandit ambush, so I fix it with the console, and she is promptly summoned to the Hold.
We follow as instructed, gleefully chop down the two under-leveled enemy Mages, and get a Ring of Wizardry for our troubles.
Hooray!
Off to Brynnlaw: The welcoming party are treated to the Mace of Disruption, and the mood turns gnarly as a result.
We clear out Lady Galvena's Feasthall, where Vadek fails to buff with Protection from Fire and so is immediately scorched by Fire Elementals.
After looting the Pirate King's dwelling (just a Longbow +2 and some potions here), a somewhat singed Jan finally manages to entice Perth outside and into our traps, which combined with some Skeleton Warriors handily spells the latter's end.
The Book of Infinite Spells comes up with True Seeing after two page turns, and I figure I'll roll with it.
We head over the bridge, clear the spawns for ease of access later, then open the door and head back across the bri-... wait.
Why did we open the door?
That consumes the Ward Stone, and without the Ward Stone, the traps on the bridge are active.
I realize too late what's happening.
SCS revised death effects saves us from instant game over, but Aldain is petrified.
What can we do?
We had a scroll of Stone to Flesh, but it was in Aldain's scroll case (now inaccessible to us), and it was an arcane scroll at that... which we have no one who can cast, since Jan is now also a statue (as is Yoshimo).
I try everything I can think of: There are no potions that fix this, and we don't have a green Stone to Flesh scroll.
Raise Dead, Remove Curse, Remove Paralysis, Heal... nothing works.
I try resting: Doesn't change anything.
In desperation, I shatter Jan with a well-placed bullet; he drops the Rod of Resurrection.
Nope, that doesn't work either.
Also, Jan being chunked somehow bugged the trap out, and it's now constantly firing Petrify-projectiles at Aldain...
There's nothing we can do.
No Cleric or Druid spells of L6 or below can undo this.
If we could've resurrected Jan, he could've cast that arcane Stone to Flesh scroll on Aldain (if he had actually been carrying the correct scroll case...), but since Jan was carrying our Rod of Resurrection, that was never an option.
All we can do is watch as Aldain is perpetually petrified, over and over.
This is possibly the most ignoble end to a run I've ever had.
Poor Jaheira, Minsc and Anomen will just have to live out their days at Spellhold, accompanied by ceaseless Petrification noises.
Pfeh.
Back to square one.
Crusher - dwarf berserker (Grond0)
Brinholder - dwarf fighter/cleric (Corey_Russell)
Behemoth - half-orc cleric/thief (Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1224377/#Comment_1224377
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1224625/#Comment_1224625
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1224896/#Comment_1224896
Our latest session saw some early action when Suna Seni attempted to block the way to the Graveyard - though failing comprehensively at that.
The upper levels of the Graveyard offered some easy XP from undead as well as traps and locks - though Behemoth didn't always scan closely enough to identify the latter
From the Graveyard we were attempting to get to Watcher's Keep, but were somewhat delayed by the need to rescue Renfeld from some thugs. Brinholder managed to restrain his temptation to cast silence on the mage there, so we were able to return Renfeld to the Docks a bit quicker than usual.
After relieving Officer Dirth of his burdensome armor we successfully travelled to Watcher's Keep to pick up the potion case. There were no vampiric wraiths there, though they would probably not have caused a problem for a raging berserker wielding Azuredge anyway. The guardian golems there had quite proficient poison - successfully infecting Crusher despite his saving throw of 1 - but it wasn't long-lasting enough to cause much concern. The statues guarding Foebane were duly disposed of and Brinholder was keen to move on elsewhere, but Crusher decided to clear the remaining statues as well. Despite the odd grumble, Brinholder joined in the attack and his successful use of a wand of the heavens managed to kill the archer just as he was threatening Behemoth. Brinholder also ran round the golem type statue allowing Crusher to finish it off with Azuredge.
Back at the Docks, Prebek & Sanasha didn't last long allowing us to loot the Harper Hold. Before reporting to Xzar, Crusher set up with the intention of killing Lucette before she could make her escape after assassinating Xzar. Unfortunately he got a bit too excited and attacked Xzar instead of Lucette - killing the former before the assassin could complete her work. That turned some of those nearby hostile, but thus far that hasn't proved much of a problem.
Dealing with a rogue thief guild in the area proved easy enough. Rayic can be a problem due to his insistence on targeting the protagonist with his finger of death, but that bounced off the death ward that Brinholder had kindly provided.
Moving on to the Bridge District, Crusher was once more a bit precipitate when he noticed Hareishan threatening some thieves. While targeting Hareishan with Azuredge was a perfectly reasonable thing to do, waiting until she had killed a couple of thieves would have made the encounter rather more lucrative. A few more encounters in the area included demonstrating to the Rune
The final action in the session saw a return to the Slums to pay Gaelan Bayle and investigate what was happening under the Copper Coronet. A bunch of slavers operating there didn't provide too much opposition. The game crashed when trying to report back to Hendak, but as there is an autosave on entering the Copper Coronet we won't have to repeat any fighting in the next session.
Berserker 11, 130 HPs (inc. 5 from helm), 185 kills (+263 in BG1)
Figher 9 / cleric 9, 104 HPs , 43 kills (+127 in BG1), 1 death
Cleric 9 / thief 11, 65 HPs, 42 kills (+129 in BG1), 0 deaths
When our village was raided by orcs, my brother and I called on different deities for help, which probably accounts for the differences between us, despite having the same skillsets.
We were barely able to defeat them, but then Gorion turned up and took us to Candlekeep where we met Bounty, a neutral good fighter/Bounty Hunter.
In Candlekeep we needed all our skills to defeat the assassins there.
After the death of Gorion, Imoen was almost the next casualty due to encounters with wolves. She did however survive and we have just rested at the Friendly Arms Inn.
We decided to leave Imoen in the safety of the FAI due to her wounds.
In the FAI we killed the evil duo Jenna and Marek and by so doing got some useful equipment.
We made our way to the carnival where a another mage attacked us and das a result died.
We headed North again joinerd up with Tenya and killed a lot of ankheg with the help of her command spell.
We headed south again where we killed Greywolf.
Tenya told us of a witch who might be able to show us how to use Tenya's bowl. On the way we killed more assassins.
We then joined up with Dorn in order to deal with his betrayers. Tenya was replaced by Gavin.
We killed Kryll after which Dorn left and went to thew FAI.
Gavin agreed to go to his temple and we accompanied him.
We were asked to deal with Bassilus which we did with the aid of skeletons and "Silence"
The same skeletons aided us against Zargal as did a sleep spell from Conrad.
We helped Charlestonian and took Brage back to the Temple of helm which is where we are at the moment.
Whilst in the process of doing that, Gavin was asked to deal with Mutamin. This we decided to do first.
WE started off by killing a party of Assassins, and then turned to the basilisks and medusae together with Mutamin, all of which were killed by Thorin after using a green scroll to protect himself from petrification. However, we mages aided him against Mutamin himself.
We then killed the murderess Lady valeria before heading south to successfully prove that Brage is innocent.
A bit of a disaster!
Crusher - dwarf berserker (Grond0)
Brinholder - dwarf fighter/cleric (Corey_Russell)
Behemoth - half-orc cleric/thief (Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1224377/#Comment_1224377
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1224625/#Comment_1224625
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1224896/#Comment_1224896
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1224985/#Comment_1224985
Arriving at the de'Arnise Hold, Crusher realised he'd disposed of the bow used in the pirate ship to kill trolls. Fortunately there was one to loot near the back door to use until the Flail of Ages and Frostreaver were acquired. Behemoth one-shotted the yuan-ti mage there. We didn't rest before taking on TorGal, which meant Crusher had to be careful not to get too close to his vicious claws.
Next up was Trademeet, where Taquee bequeathed a first summoning option for Crusher. There was no trouble making our way through the Druid Grove, with Kyland Lind waiting silently for his doom before C ernd made short work of Faldorn.
Some tidying-up work saw us collect the Amulet of Power at the Thieves Guild before sending Sir Sarles off in a huff at being offered an illithium substitute. Neb's head was collected with a minimum of fuss thanks to a critical backstab and duly handed in to Chief Inspector Brega. Some former paladins were subdued and quickly cut down to size with the help of clerical spells. Below the Graveyard Pai'Na was persuaded to provide us with another summoning option. Behemoth saw an opportunity to boost his kills there by using a glyph on the horde of spiders. However, Crusher had already summoned the efreeti to immolate them and the glyph's only victim was the efreeti itself. Behemoth found a nearby trap the hard way, but still managed to get the XP for disarming it.
Part of the reason for doing those bits and pieces was to spin out time until Travin was due to appear. He can be a bit unreliable in MP, but this time he arrived on cue and allowed us to recover the Dawn Ring. With the end of the session closing in we made short work of Captain Dennis and his not-so merry men before sending Lassal on his way.
Berserker 12, 133 HPs (inc. 5 from helm), 296 kills (+263 in BG1)
Figher 10 / cleric 10, 106 HPs , 90 kills (+127 in BG1), 1 death
Cleric 10 / thief 12, 67 HPs, 62 kills (+129 in BG1), 0 deaths
An interesting idea, I imagine that I'd be a bit too peaceable! My randomising got me a LG Thief (Ninja kit), which makes me think of the old Way of the Tiger gamebooks... don't think there's any Monk Ninja kits. I may try to solo it through BGEE, which I've never done. The Ducal Palace fight is hard to reliably beat alone!
Having escaped the cruelty of Lolth, the Gritz clan relocated to a nearby unconnected cave system, supplementing their diet of fungi with deer and rabbits from outside. Of course, this brought us into contact with elves and this led to conflict with them which ultimately led to all the adults of the clan being killed.
I and my siblings fled to the interior of the caves which were too constricted for the elves to follow. It was there that we started to worship Bane as we didn’t want cruelty for cruelty’s sake, just the power to prevent such disruption in our lives again.
I and my sister are identical twins who just chose different paths. Our brother was born at the same time, but was very different.
It was Gorion who rescued and raised us at Candlekeep and we grew to care for him, thus when he was killed, we vowed vengeance.
In the original BG 1 game you could use the sleep wand on the dopplegangers. And the sleep wand is usable by anyone as long as they have at least 9 INT. Not sure if this strategy still works for EE BG 1.
This can be a tricky set up but Baz the LG Human Ninja perished by user incompetence when I chose wrongly in Marl's dialogue. A CE Halfling Sorcerer was then atomised by an Ogre Mage's lightning bolt in a Faery Dragon grove. His successor however, a LE Human Acid Dragon Disciple called Lessandra has actually got some levels. She has been relying others to do her dirty work, getting Korax to kill some basilisks and charming Karlat into getting the spiders out of Landrin's house. While she steals her share she does however also stand up for other women when some of the asshole guys of the Sword Coast are throwing their weight about. Hopefully invisibility will keep her alive for a little longer.
We have just left Easthaven.
Let's have another go.
Starting: In BG1EE.
Difficulty: Insane with no level-dependent damage increase.
Mods: Full SCS 35.21.
Protagonist: Aldain, Human Conjurer (again).
I'll make it snappier this time around: No SoD (though that's mainly since the experience boost is too big an advantage), and I'll go through BG1EE solo.
Have at thee!
Aldain, Human Conjurer Redux: Update 1
Imoen, Montaron and Xzar are recruited to help me deal with Tarnesh, though only Imoen survives the encounter.
Next, Aldain heads east alone, picking up Viconia.
She loots the Ankheg's hoard under Sanctuary, then helps put down the Ankheg to the north of Tenya's hut, and is finally dropped off at the FAI.
Priority one here is hitting L3 and learning Invisibility; the experience from Tenya -> Zombie Farm -> Wolf Pack (using the Wand of Fire Viconia secured) -> Thalantyr's Flesh Golems (+2 bullets from Ulgoth's Beard) will allow for that easily.
Indeed, Aldain hits L3 just from the Zombies, but let's keep blazing through this easy early experience route.
Bit of excellent luck with the Belt Ogre: He dropped a scroll of Melf's Minute Meteors, which is very potent at this stage (Aldain will soon hit L5 and make good use of it).
While in Beregost, Aldain picks up the Scroll Case, a Sling +1, and temporarily recruits Neera, after she deals with her attackers (she's immortal during this encounter... at least in my install).
Why recruit her? Because she starts with Identify, which mends the single chink in Aldain's armor of spells.
Once she identifies some stuff, she promptly gets ditched (queue entitled bratty teenager rant...) and Aldain resumes questing:
He hits L5 by clearing the local spider infestation, and we're off to the south to pick up the Red Potion in preparation for some scribing.
I actually took a bit of a risk here since progress had been so rapid, and cleared some additional minor encounters: Notably traversing the wilds without Invisibility active, but it panned out.
This was to earn the cash to bribe reputation up (with Viconia in the group, of course), but then it was finally time for scroll shopping.
We came away with 2k+ gold left over, so all's good, and now we are essentially immortal if we play our cards right, as Invisibility is just that powerful in BG1EE.
Next, Aldain heads far to the east and picks up some bracers off Meilum; that's basically all the equipment we need for now sorted.
I had hoped to pick up a Scroll of Protection from Undead by turning in a mangled cat corpse and so did a brief circuit of the areas west of Nashkel, clearing some of the encounters; alas, Aldain is not so handsome and so did not get a scroll, but rather an allowance of 23 gold.
Well, the Charisma tome will do as a consolation price.
Things are going smoothly: Really, I've barely even used the Wand of Fire, as Aldain's spellworks (Magic Missile/Chromatic Orb/Melf's Minute Meteors/Ice Lance/Skull Trap) are usually enough to solve any encounter.
So let's have a close call with some bisarrely dangerous Diggers worth 7 experience each.
Those friggin' Elves.
They've always been an oddity: They hit hard, they hit often, and above all they hit FAST (do they have 2 or 3 APR?), yet they're worth almost no experience... probably since they have almost no hitpoints.
Anyway, I take my frustrations out on the Doomsayer, netting Aldain L6.
Next, we pony up for Potions of Freedom at Thalantyr, which lets us stomp the Revenant in the Valley of the Tombs essentially risk-free; he uses a ranged attack that can paralyze/hold on a failed save.
Not sure why I bothered, but probably because I realized belatedly that the Wand of Summoning (which I was after) is only guarded by three Ghasts...
Still, we now have all the essentials gathered, so let's advance the plot, capping off Greywolf on the way.
I place a preparatory Skull Trap where Mulahey's reinforcements are to appear, fry his elite Kobolds with a Wand of Fire Scorcher, then just Magic Missile the Half-Orc into the ground; I popped another Potion of Freedom to protect against Hold Person here.
Now then, leave Nimbul alone and head instead for Tranzig.
Charm Algernon (Charm Person/Dire Charm until it sticks), and let Tranzig dispose of him: Hooray, we now have Algernon's Cloak!
Tranzig seems less enthused as he is treated to a Stone Fist.
Algernon's Cloak means we can lift 3000 gold off Oublek, using the same procedure and letting Nimbul do the honors; the latter exhausts most of his spells on Aldain's Minor Spell Deflection, and the final Lance of Disruption didn't deal much damage.
Aldain can now afford the Robe of the Good Archmagi (though the Good part of his alignment might be considered debatable at this point), as well as Aule's Staff and the Cloak of Displacement; we're now well and truly geared, all that remains is eventually picking up Cloak of Balduran... and of course, some speedy boots.
Anyway, on towards the Bandit Camp, and it's Amazon Ambush Time!
Yeah, I popped some summons from the wand to be on the safe side; even so, Aldain had Hold Person incoming so quaffed another Potion of Freedom, but other than that it went smoothly.
Now, I actually find that Wand of Lightning works rather well at the Bandit Camp; there are enemies everywhere, and the Lightning Bolt bounces wildly, so usually fries half a dozen or so in one charge.
A small force led by Venkt eventually catches up, but a single Scorcher removes the only real threat here.
I loot as best I can given the sharply limited inventory space, and abscond.
Ulcaster's gets a visit next, purely to swipe the Wand of Fire: You can loot things on the floor without
breaking Invisibility if you stand basically on top of them and pick them up from inside the inventory screen.
En route to Durlag's Tower, it's Molkar time; of course, being invisible, Aldain just buffs up and lets loose
with a Scorcher.
Now, I start working my way through Durlag's exterior; Magic Missile in combination with Melf's Minute Meteors
is quite sufficient for the Battle Horrors and their ilk.
Aldain soon hits L7, and takes off for the balcony (there's just a resetting Chromatic Orb trap in the way, no
worries), cleaning out the local Greater Basilisks with relative ease, and then swipes the Tome of Wisdom
on the way back down, safe from the trap's Dire Charm effect owing to Minor Spell Deflection.
Now, of course we could just sprint towards the finish even now and still end up at the experience cap.
But it's annoying arriving in Amn with a less than stellar spellbook; one should make the most of all
available resources.
There are a number of L5 arcane scrolls only available in Durlag's Tower (Hold Monster, Domination,
Monster Summoning III, Feeblemind), meaning we'll be plumbing down to the third below-grounds level.
Protection from Fire, Minor Spell Deflection, Shield and Mirror Image will keep you safe from all the traps
on the way (as long as you don't get a terribly unlucky Lightning Bolt bounce), so it's fine to do this, just a bit tedious grinding through all the enemies.
Of course, this will require dealing with the Warders as the scroll of Domination is sequestered in Islanne's
room on the next level down, for which I'd like Aldain to be at the level cap... so after clearing out most
of the enemies, Aldain promptly leaves, but he'll be back.
After a quick detour to pick up the Manual of Bodily Health, it's off to the Red Wizards.
Technically there are two scrolls of Remove Magic, so we could just get the one off Andris since we'll
be heading for Ice Island anyway to score Stoneskin... but Andris is a lot more trouble than Denak,
and the latter also has The Victor, so let's just deal with Denak instead.
I'd actually rather not fight four spellcasters head-on, so use (abuse?) Algernon's Cloak some more: Denak's three companions Brendan, Diana and Lasala are all fed to the local Spider population, making the final fight against Denak that much more predictable and easy.
Great! Now time for some boots, I think.
Aldain makes it all the way to the Cloakwood Mines without resting (plentiful Invisibility), and though Kysus makes his first save against Algernon's Cloak, a rest later he fails the second go-around.
Imagine my surprise, though, as Drasus and cohorts do not react at all to Kysus being chopped down by the two guards at the bridge.
Well, I don't really mind.
A rest later, Rezdan is similarly charmed; this time Drasus does go hostile, but only once Rezdan dies.
With no arcane backup, Drasus doesn't last long.
And Aldain descends into the Mines.
I could technically just skip everything here except Davaeorn, since the spell scrolls are available for sale at the Sorcerous Sundries, but still opt to clear some things; Hareishan (Wand of Fire Scorcher), Natasha (Wand of Paralyzation), and the Ogre Mage (also Wand of Paralyzation).
Aldain had been saving a casting of Cloudkill, so once all five waves of Davaeorn's guards are clustered, I pop it... and they all just drop dead within a few rounds.
Dave is eventually worn down by summons (didn't even need many wand charges, Aldain is a Conjurer after all) and amusingly ended by a Magic Missile.
I head for Ice Island next, skipping everything except Dezkiel.
Seems to only be Magic Missile and Lightning Bolt traps here, for reference.
OK, so there really aren't that many Potions of Genius available in BG1.
Barring a really lucky random drop, there's 11 in total: FAI 4, Sorcerous Sundries 3, Jardak 1, Iron Throne basement 1, Ulcaster's 1, Durlag's third level above-ground 1.
We could make up the difference with Potions of Mind Focusing, but I'd like to save those for boosting Dexterity during the final fight, and there's only 8 of them: FAI 4, Sorcerous Sundries 3, shelf in the Shop to the north of the Merchant's League Counting House 1 (Thalantyr also has one you can pickpocket though that's never guaranteed).
Basically, let's wait to scribe until we've got all the important scrolls.
So, Aldain rampages through the Gate.
Bit tedious to mention everything, but basically any encounter that gives a unique spell scroll, an ability tome, or some still-useful gear, notably the Nymph's Cloak with 40 charges.
There's a lot of resting, of course, since even with a full set of spells Aldain can typically only handle 1 - 2 encounters, but there's not much danger; the Sewer Ogre Mage gets a Charm Person off, which I think had a 5% chance of taking hold (Aldain's aura was clouded), but luckily it didn't stick.
Basically, summons plus Melf's Minute Meteors and the occasional Spell Thrust coupled with wand charges allows for dismantling the City enemies in comparative safety.
So, why bother with the 40 charge Nymph's Cloak, since it's touch range only?
Well, it makes the Iron Throne fight a bit easier, though to be fair I could've just kept resting to recharge Algernon's Cloak.
Not sure what happened there at the end: Usually when I do this charm 'em all and let the initially hostile Thieves kill 'em off schtick, Zhalimar eventually turns hostile... as he did this time, but now he finished off one of the Thieves on his own.
Wonky script.
Anyway, with so few enemies left alive, waves of summons coupled with wand charges finish things off nicely.
Not much left to do, but Aldain swings by Sorcerous Sundries, sells and re-purchases some wands: That set us back about 67k, but doing it this way means the wands come with extreme amounts of charges (I think all but the Wand of Fire had 100 charges, and that one got 50 charges), which'll last us the rest of the game.
So, off to Candlekeep.
Aldain chugs a Potion of Invisibility, moves off to the side, then meticolously cleans out the Ogre Mages; I don't want to risk forgetting they're there, eating a Horror on the way out, and being slowly Melf's Acid Arrow'ed into oblivion.
With Knock available, it's no issue looting the tombs; the only things here we need are the two ability tomes (there's also a scroll of Shadow Door available in the library you're teleported into, which Aldain of course swipes).
Sakul has a scroll of Wraith Form: I don't think I've ever used that spell, but it's still arcane knowledge, so I must have it.
No dice with Algernon's Cloak this time, and there're no pillars blocking Prat's line-of-sight so we can't really utilize the Nymph Cloak; let's just attack instead.
I cleared the entire area out beforehand, so just run around for a bit until most enemy buffs expire, then wand them down (summons providing distractions).
Now then, it's literally just Durlag's left: Aldain can only muster two Skeleton Warriors, but they'll have to do.
Love is pretty simple, as for some reason it's not reflecting missile weapons (which I thought it did...).
Avarice is pretty harmless and eventually just drops without accomplishing anything.
This splitting-up of the Warders wasn't intentional; the first assault failed miserably, so Aldain retreated towards the surface... but only Fear and Pride followed, and they stopped at the cellar where you meet the Elf Thief whose name escapes me.
Barnyard? No, but something like that.
Anyway, Fear regenerates, but other than that and its stunning ranged attack, it's not a big deal.
Pride is quite dangerous (persistent Haste, keeps reapplying Clerical buffs), but interestingly is vulnerable to being Blinded; it takes a bit of finagling but Aldain triumphs.
And the way is open to the next level.
If you're just after the scrolls, you actually don't have to worry about traps here: Turning the statue to the south will open the door to Islanne's room, and the scrolls are in the un-trapped wardrobe. Huzzah!
Again, it's just Domination, which I rarely if ever use... but still! A spell's a spell.
Alright, let's get a move on; we've tarried in BG1 for far too long.
Duke Eltan is easily rescued; Cythandria surrenders after getting a few Melf's Minute Meteors to the face, and Slythe is mowed down (I leave Krystin to stew in the juices of her own ineptitude... she has plenty of scrolls but none we don't already know).
Now then, time for the one battle that is potentially game-ending as a solo arcanist: The palace Dopplegangers.
The Doppleganger Mage here is capable of casting Chaos, so it's risky using any summons apart from Skeleton Warriors... but it's even riskier to just have two summons help with handling the Dopplegangers, so Aldain takes the plunge.
First thing that happens is that Belt is unceremoniously sheared in half: The Doppleganger Shaman had a Greater Command prepared, and Belt failed his save.
Aldain's first move was Chaos, which knocked out the Greater Dopplegangers, but did nothing against the named ones.
Still, the Doppleganger Assassin soon reveals itself, and is shot down.
Next, the Doppleganger Shaman: It doesn't have much in the way of physical defenses, so our summons suffice to mob it.
Yeah, the Doppleganger Mage summoned some help of its own.
I don't mind; I much prefer that to him dropping Chaos/Confusion.
With everything bar the Mage defeated, Aldain can tear down its defenses and get to work: We soon prevail.
I was a little worried that Sarevok would punch straight through Liia's remaining (meager) defenses, but he teleported out after just two rounds.
Aldain gives chase, ignores the bounty hunter party, talks Tamoko down, and prepares for the final showdown.
As a solo arcanist, I don't think you have so many options here; the safest route is just abusing Invisibility and Wand of Monster Summoning...
though I am able to knock Semaj out by Fireballing from out of sight range.
Now it gets trickier; the Skeleton Warriors introduced by SCS when an acolyte falls have too high magic resistance for that to work, and several of them have Arrows of Dispelling as well... which could be our end if they hit at a bad time.
So, I end up just slowly sniping enemies down: Summon some monsters, toss a few bullets (Oil of Speed), retreat, repeat, go invisible as required.
It's very slow, but very reliable; once there are no credible ranged threats left, I switch to Aule's Staff to help bludgeon the Skeleton Warriors down faster.
Eventually, it's just Sarevok, and though he chews through a single Monster Summoning charge in about two rounds, there are still plenty of charges remaining by the time he falls.
And that's it, one solo run of BG1EE completed.
Looking back, I vastly over-optimized, i.e., should've just gone for Basilisks early, then rapidly rounded up the spell scrolls/ability tomes and rushed for the ending; there was no need to aim for 20 reputation, nor to sell so much crap (2 Wands of Monster Summoning from Sorcerous Sundries would have sufficed for the final stretch).
I'll keep that in mind for the next go, but right now, it's BG2EE time... where Aldain will of course travel with a party.
Crusher - dwarf berserker (Grond0)
Brinholder - dwarf fighter/cleric (Corey_Russell)
Behemoth - half-orc cleric/thief (Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1224377/#Comment_1224377
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1224625/#Comment_1224625
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1224896/#Comment_1224896
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1224985/#Comment_1224985
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1225084/#Comment_1225084
We'd chased Lassal away at the end of the last session, so started this one by reporting in to Aran Linvail. We also did the Guild Contact quest, but rather than continue on to the vampire hideout headed for Umar Hills instead. There were no problems with the minor quests on the way to the old temple, but there was a nasty moment there when fighting the first major group of undead. The initial enemies were all dead and Crusher went into his inventory to tidy up a few things. His companions may have wondered why he was taking no action against the bone golem that had been attracted from further into the complex by the noise - but if they did wonder they didn't do so out loud. Fortunately Crusher emerged in time to deal with the golem before it became a real threat.
Wanting to get rid of the body before his backpack was permanently stained, Crusher headed for the Planar Sphere next. He expressed confidence that the occupants of that could be easily enough handled, but was quickly handed a bit of a reality check when confronting Kayardi without full defensive buffs and having to retreat rather than take more damage from fire shields. A skeleton provided an alternative focus for the mage to waste his spells on while our shots worked through his defenses. Tolgerias was another potentially problematical mage. Behemoth tried to remove him with a backstab before he realised he was being attacked, but didn't do enough damage. Pre-summoned skeletons helped put him under pressure though and another backstab eventually proved fatal.
Time was running out in the session, but we did make our way to the Windspear Hills and do the first few rooms of the dungeon there. Behemoth was badly hurt in an encounter with the Ruhk when he backstabbed a kobold only to find it was wearing an exploding suicide vest. Fortunately he had enough HPs in reserve to survive the follow-up Death Fog from the Ruhk. Just after that Crusher was badly hurt when he was hit twice by a lightning bolt from a kobold wizard.
Berserker 14, 139 HPs (inc. 5 from helm), 485 kills (+263 in BG1)
Figher 11 / cleric 11, 108 HPs , 131 kills (+127 in BG1), 1 death
Cleric 11 / thief 13, 69 HPs, 90 kills (+129 in BG1), 0 deaths
Bassilus got off a Rigid Thinking but she saved.
She also saved against a Power Word Sleep from a hag whom a dubious character had led her to.
In Beregost she wandered out of a house only to find a Green Slime (that she had previously caused to be summoned by Narcillus…) waiting for her.
In Gullykin Shoal was waiting outside a door but was similarly evaded. (My install has the location of many encounters randomised.)
She was almost mauled by some gibberlings, and then a spider, but both times she got off a cast of invisibility.
...but somehow she survived. She has moved from looting the ankheg nest invisibly to returning, webbing them, and then unleashing hordes of hasted gibberlings upon them. Annoyingly she killed the Doomguard but the game crashed (just as she saved against Brage’s companion’s Rigid Thinking!) and then on the reload the Doomguard was struck by lightning at near death
Lessandra has now wandered through much of the wilderness, and has just poked her head into the Gnoll fortress, reaching level 8. Her hp are in the 70s because her con is good but she stubbornly refuses to train her Dex! Apart from her larceny she has committed just a few extra unprovoked homicides, of Algernon and of Dushai but neither of them had been randomised items that she can use so she’s currently got 20,000 in the bank. She has Dimension Door, Battering Ram, and Minor Spell Deflection for dealing with many traps so I may let her poke her head into another dungeon soon… but probably she can get another level first.
I will therefore switch back to my Icewind Dale game and delete my drow game completely from the start.
I'll have to think of a new idea for Baldur's Gate.
Just wondering how you made a halfling sorcerer, using Keeper or via a mod.
I used to have a mod installed that allowed any race to be any class. Is that how you did it?