@Demivrgvs: I've already left the Underdark. Can I still go back to the Beholder hive there? I don't think I actually will, since Crom Faeyr isn't a high priority for me (it's just more damage, and I can't have Maeruo dual-wield it if it has a ranged attack option), but it would be nice to know. I've never tried it before.
There are several files in my install with the name "Immunity: Divination." They are: DW#0D592 DW#0W592 DW#SW592 (cast previously) There are also some files named "Immunity: Abjuration." They are: DW#0D590 DW#0W590 DW#SW590 (cast previously)
Quick question: I'm looking to do a no-reload/SCS/insane challenge, but completely solo. I'm going to film/stream it, including all the advice and tips I can offer. I'm hoping to have the video as a guide along with a written synopsis of the adventure, and the solo and insane aspect of it really seems to ramp it up into its own category. Am I obligated to keep the run in this thread only, or would it not be in poor taste to make my own?
There are several files in my install with the name "Immunity: Divination."
Damn, why doesn't it copy the name of the spell while it copies everything else? I'll look into it.
@semiticgod I'm pretty sure you can go back into UD yes (at least I'm sure I could last time I played but it was ages ago). Btw, you can still dual-wield Crom within IR despite the returning property (same with all other magical returning axes, daggers, etc.). Just open the item abilities and one of them will quick switch it to a melee only variant - then you can re-switch to melee/ranged variant if you wish. It's hard to explain but easy if you check it in-game.
Quick question: I'm looking to do a no-reload/SCS/insane challenge, but completely solo. I'm going to film/stream it, including all the advice and tips I can offer. I'm hoping to have the video as a guide along with a written synopsis of the adventure, and the solo and insane aspect of it really seems to ramp it up into its own category. Am I obligated to keep the run in this thread only, or would it not be in poor taste to make my own?
I think plenty of people would enjoy watching that .
You are not at all obligated to post in here, especially as this thread is mainly written updates rather than videos. Feel free to start a dedicated thread, either here or in the Challenges & Playthroughs forum.
@Bynary_Fission: If you want to post your run here, please do so. If you want it someplace else, of course that's fine. There are no rules or etiquette about where to post your runs; this thread is just here to unite some runs that might otherwise be overlooked if they were on another web page. You're not going to offend anybody either way.
Why not upload the videos to Youtube and post the links here, so we can watch as you go?
Okay, thanks for the clarification. I'll be glad to post my links in here as they come.
...also, I will confess that I've actually completed that challenge three times now, with three different characters. But I want to do a properly documented run, with a character exactly as I want it to be. I feel that it will warrant its own thread, especially since I have allowed myself a little leeway on certain things. Thanks for the heads up, though! I'll be sure to begin in an hour or two, once dinner has been thoroughly consumed.
With the Fire Giants and golems gone, the rest of level 2 of Watcher's Keep was pretty simple. The one remaining obstacle was the Chromatic Demon, with his immunity to physical damage and constantly shifting elemental resistances.
I had Ivinhale lay a bunch of traps before the fight, and waited until the demon changed to ice form to set him free. The logic was that, at Ivinhale's level, her traps will do fire damage, and that should break through the Chromatic Deon's resistances in ice form.
They didn't seem to do much damage at first, but, to my surprise, they did lingering damage, which I thought only lower-level thief traps could do. The damage was quite extreme.
Plus, Sanchuudoku lowers acid resistance, which means Mae-mae could have kept dealing damage no matter what the demon's form was. The demon died before causing any problems.
I ventured down to the third level just long enough to cast Heal on Yakman and nab some loot from his camp. I need to figure out which demon lies behind the dead magic room, and have Horun or Maeruo (our only neutral-aligned characters) strike a deal with him. That will allow us to get both of the necessary gem doodads without having to fight lots of demons unbuffed.
I return to Athkatla and begin the Kangaxx quest. The Elemental Lich, to my disappointment, dies to trap damage.
I keep seeing that happen, and I don't like beating such a big enemy without fighting, but in a no-reload run, I'm not willing to give the enemy a fairer fight, not when it could spell the end of the run.
The Shade Lich survived our traps! Too bad Mae-mae is such a monster.
Pow.
I'm not sure if I'm ready for the pre-Kangaxx double Lich fight, so I decide to take on Sion instead. I enter the room while invisible, which I've never done before, hoping to disarm the traps before the fight begins. It doesn't work, as Stalman or Sion has a pre-cast True Seeing.
Sion gets a Time Stop off the ground, but not before we cast a couple of Earthquake spells. The tremors occur while time is still stopped.
Sion re-casts the spell, having accomplished little--his Breach on Maeruo got bounced by Maeruo's Ring of Spell Turning--and the tremors peter out. But they've dealt a lot of damage, and we've taken full advantage of the first few rounds of battle.
Soon, all the enemies save Stalman and Sion are dead. Varen is stuck--she cast Project Image and her clone was disabled by Symbol: Stun--Horun is mazed thanks to Sion's Shadow Door, and Ivinhale is hanging back, having had her buffs dispelled (she drank a Potion of Invisibility to get some breathing room), but the rest of the party is fully functioning, and with all of our buffs, we simply cannot be disabled, nor can the enemy deal anywhere near enough damage to be a threat. The battle ends without a single casualty on our part.
Now I want to take on the two Liches guarding Kangaxx, and the fellow grunts who guard them. There's a dwarf in this fight with a vorpal sword, who ended one of my last no-reload runs thanks to a bad save on my part. But now I'm approaching them in Chapter 7, with non-randomized characters.
Kolem Tao's Earthquake spell gets disrupted in the first round, but it's not a major loss, as he has a second one memorized. But then Horun Fallows gets targeted by a level drain spell, and I know he's going to lose his only Earthquake spell.
I was right, but for the wrong reasons: in an attempt to save that Earthquake spell, I had Horun start casting it right after the Time Stop ended, hoping to cast it before it was erased from his spellbook. But his casting was interrupted by a Horrid Wilting spell. And I realized soon after that Horun had not been level drained, as he was under the effects of Enrage--he could have cast his Earthquake spell if I had waited a few seconds to do so.
I avoid using any debuffing spells, as I want Varen to use Project Image, but I want to do so later on in the battle, when the Liches are drained by combat. Instead I just have Ivinhale dispel the Liches' illusions, and concentrate on slaying the enemy fighters. The dwarf, notably, is no longer a threat, as SR Death Ward blocks vorpal strikes. And as a Kensai, he's pretty darn easy to hit.
The Liches are trying to crowd out the space with undead summons. I manage to stop one spell with a Chain Lightning scroll from Ivinhale. Impatient to start casting debuffing spells, I have Varen cast Project Image, and have the clone cast PFMW to block any Minute Meteors from the Liches. Meanwhile, we finish off the dwarf.
Ekayne turns some of the undead summons, who try to leave the area. One of them somehow manages to push Varen's clone out the door, rendering Varen helpless.
But by now the Liches' defenses are running out and their wall of bones are collapsing. We rush in for the kill and take down the Liches one by one. The Liches have hit us with multiple Horrid Wilting spells, but we shrug it off. Maeruo has 50 MR thanks to the Ring of Spell Turning and his Greater Werewolf form, Horun Fallows has 50% resistance to magic damage thanks to IR Delver's Plate, Ekayne has 30% resistance from I don't know where, Ivinhale has 50 MR from Dispelling Screen, and both Varen and Kolem Tao are immune to magic damage due to a couple of Protection from Magical Energy spells cast beforehand.
I stop short of fighting Kangaxx, though. I don't think we're ready to handle him, since Horun Fallows' Enrage will only keep him safe from imprisonment for 10 rounds, and he won't be able to renew it for another five rounds after it ends. He can use the Rod of Absorption to hold off Trap the Soul for a couple rounds longer in SR (one round duration, can be used twice per day), but that's not enough even to outlast Kangaxx's PFMW spells. And Kangaxx's Time Stop spells will only do more to wear out Enrage.
We could probably take down Kangaxx's Lich form, but his Demi-lich form would imprison everyone but Varen, and she can't deal enough damage with Sanchuudoku to win the battle, even with an Oil of Speed and Time Stop (via Limited Wish) for automatic attacks, or using the Wand of Lightning trick with True Strike or Ghostform for better THAC0. Why is this? Kangaxx is wearing the VAMPREG1 item in both his forms, which gives him 1 HP regeneration per second, or 6 per round. With Sanchuudoku, I can deal maybe 12 damage per round assuming I land both hits every time (1 slashing plus an average of 5 acid damage), or a little more if I lower Kangaxx's acid resistance a bit, but I've only got 5 level 1 spell slots to use for True Strike, a necessity for reliable hits.
It means I'd have to dedicate 5 straight rounds to casting True Strike. And there are multiple other things I may have to do to stay alive, considering Kangaxx's various spells. I'd also be drinking healing potions, Oils of Speed, and Potions of Magic Shielding. It can be done, but the window of opportunity for beating Kangaxx is too small to be reliable. I will have to come back when I am at epic levels, and there are some more options available.
Back to Athkatla for Nadeem...he rescued the merchant being bullied at the Gates and then did a spot of shopping.
After selling all loot I don't need, I had 71k gold. After shopping (with the help of Friends) I have 2k left .
Bought all the low level scrolls which will be helpful for Nadeem from Galoomp, Lady Yuth and the Shadow Thief guildhall. That's things like Protection From Evil, Blur, Mirror Image, Slow, Improved Invisibility, Shadow Door etc. Also bought the remaining 2 Protection from Undead scrolls from the Temple of Talos.
Then went and bought myself a new offhand weapon to replace the Flail of Ages.
Now at base 5APR
Looking forward there are now 4 quests to do before choosing a side and starting Chapter 3. I will definitely do the following (probably in this order):
i) Mindflayers in the sewers ii) Planar Prison iii) Planar Sphere
That leaves iv) Unseeing Eye which I may or may not do in Chapter 2 depending on how confident I'm feeling after the above and depending on what items I find. Beholders are no joke, 50% MR and save vs death of 3 / vs spell of 2 don't seem up to scratch.
That will still leave all Athkatla's set piece liches, Kangaxx, the Guarded Compound and the Twisted Rune still to do. I will have to think carefully if I want to go near those encounters yet.
Good progress both of you ! Did you try the Exploding Trap @Jaheiras_Witness ?
@Bynary_Fission I'm following your game on your stream, it's interesting !
Slight update : I'm not journaling my Sorcerer because I want to get to BG2:EE ASAP and it takes time to write on the forums. It's going great I'm nearly finished with the first game. I will post my spell choices and my feelings about them.
So far I've taken 2 spike traps and 2 time traps. The exploding trap is only really interesting for the knockback, the damage is comparable to a Fireball. Given that I'm trying to use traps in a way that is as non-cheesy as possible, ie set well away from enemies and lead them to it rather than setting it near them or within sight of bluecircled enemies, and given that I'm only using one HLA trap at a time, it might be difficult to incorporate the exploding trap into my strategy. Effectively I would need to lead a group of enemies to it for max benefit, which isn't always easy. I don't want to use it at a spawn point either.
I will think further how and when I might use an exploding trap. I might take one at least for the option and try it out, it's not like I'm going to be short of HLAs!
Should also add that I completed the mindflayers today, they weren't too difficult barring one scary moment when a group of 6 mindflayers / ulitharids dimension doored to me and trapped me in a corridor. I couldn't go forwards or backwards and since mindflayers are not fooled by invisibility, I literally had to fight my way out before I got INT drained to death (they could only hit me on a roll of 20 but they have lots of attacks). My solution was to keep swigging a Potion of Genius everytime I got hit (I bought several just in case). Also learned their ballistic attacks are very dangerous, they were doing 40-50 damage a pop and at one point I got hit by 3 in a row and was down to 30-something HPs. Had to use one of my very few Potions of Superior Healing there.
Gerry has successfully negotiated BG1 but stopped keeping his journal and Blackraven is short on time, so below just a couple of highlights of Gerry's adventures rather than a journaled update in the style of the first two updates.
Bassilus gave Gerry a real run for his money. Three rests were required. The priest, while easily Silenced, saved against six Hold Persons, and successfully held Gerry forcing the Gnome to consume a potion of invisibility.
Gerry discovered eventually that Skeletons and backstabs worked better against the Cyricist.
Greywolf was another foe that took Gerry by surprise. The hasted bounty hunter somehow resisted a Hold Person without having saved against it and without having quaffed a potion of freedom. Gerry took various hits before he made it to the area border.
A second encounter had a more favorable outcome for the Gnome.
(Skeletons helped Gerry finish Greywolf off.)
A preventive Sanctuary proved a life-saver in the pirate cave when Gerry triggered a trap instead of disarming it,
before the treasure stash could be secured.
Dark Horizons Duergar in the Nashkel Mines were ignored. Skeletons failed to lure all path blocking Kobolds away on the penultimate level, causing Gerry to use one or two Necklace of Missiles charges.
With a Wand of the Heavens charge and one ore two staff hits Greenstone-protected Gerry did Mulahey in.
Skeletons and Kobolds later surrounded Gerry but he solved that with WotH-Flamestrikes. Btw, Gerry had only circa 40k Xp when entering the Nashkel Mines, much lower than my Charnames usually have.
Nimbul had Gerry quaff a potion of clarity,
before Gerry fried his opponent.
Lamalha's and Molkar's bounty hunter parties failed to keep up with Gerry, and at the Bandit Camp, the Gnome used similar elusive tactics. He first looted Tazok's chest under Sanctuary,
and took the insufficiency of a critical backstab on Venkt as a signal to leave the premises
(even though he did slay Hakt, the only bandit to follow Gerry outside.)
At the FAI, a four (Dark Horizons) servants of Torm who were somehow convinced of Gerry's evilness by a letter containing defamatory statements regarding Gerry's person. Sadly, for Gerry sought no fight, their mistake cost them their lives. The cover of night allowed for easy backstabs while Skeletons and FAI guards helped distract the enemy. Interestingly, a Flamestrike not only fried and killed their leader, it also polymorphed him somehow.
In Cloakwood Aldeth was felled, Spiders shunned (Sanctuary facilitated the salvaging of Chelak's corpse), and Druids and Iron Throne guards as well. The Cloakwood Mine was very well-guarded, by Dark Horizons Black Talons, in addition to Drasus & Co. A pre-emptive strike meant the end of Kysus.
Previously summoned Skeletons occupied the other guards and, importantly soaked up Rezdan's spells, allowing Gerry to backstab first Drasus and then the other guards to death.
(The only survivor was Rezdan, whose Stoneskins Gerry didn't bother with.)
Inside the Cloakwood Mine stealth/sanctuary were only left to organize the release of slaves. Davaeorn's lair was better protected than expected, with extra warriors, a rogue, and a wizard. The latter's presence prompted Gerry to use a green scroll of PfMagic (because I didn't know what to expect really, and didn't check his spells in EEKeeper).
He used all of his Necklace of Missiles charges but one (in case he'd want to recharge, which in the end, he wouldn't), numerous Flamestrikes, and an Acid potion that gerry had bought from a Ranger in the Cloakwood, were used to overcome the guards, Morgan and Davaeorn.
In Baldur's Gate Gerry did a lot of thieving (guild quests, telescope, stat tomes, Helm of Balduran, failed pickpocket attempt Cloak of Balduran), and some of the more lucrative quests XP-wise in order to obtain the last BG1 levels (Marek/Lothander, Varci Roaringhorn, Basilisk in Docks District). He decided not to fight the Iron Throne crew, using stealth to reach and interrogate Thaldorn. With his conflict with the Iron Throne very close to escalation, Gerry paid a Bard in the Elfsong Tavern to create a more fearsome image of him, in hopes of making bounty hunters and assassins think twice about attacking him.
(Conveniently it also lowered the rogue's reputation, allowing for aTweaks' Divine Wrath Bhaalpowers rather than the superfluous DUHMs.) His changed reputation didn't keep a group of Ogre Mages from attacking Gerry though. A second potion of clarity neutralized the numerous Charm Persons and Dire Charms they cast at him by the entrance to Candlekeep.
In Candlekeep Gerry caused no blood to be shed except that of two Greater Basilisks. He also acquired the last two stat tomes for himself.
Back in Baldur's Gate, the Gnome nobly rescued Duke Eltan from Rashad's poisonous presence,
and slew Slythe the assassin with the help of three buffed Skeleton Warriors (whose piercing resistance was very convenient).
At the Ducal Palace Gerry summoned three Skeleton Warriors, buffed (with violet potion, potions of agility, mind focusing x3, fortitude, defense, power, speed, magic protection x2), placed two snares amongst the 'nobles', cast PfE 10' Radius on himself and his Skellies, and Remove Fear on Belt. One of five vials of poison purchased from Black Lily contributed to a remarkably easy win over the Doppelgangers.
I'm always a bit apprehensive at the start of the Ducal Palace battle, and this time even more due to the Shaman and the Mage, but both Belt and Liia Jannath survived (although Sarevok slaughtered the latter, who as expected, did nothing to defend herself. Gerry, eager to finish off Sarevok there and then, attempted a couple of backstabs at Sarevok, and was quite successful, even though the warrior had 50% damage resistance.
Gerry went straight after Sarevok, fighting his way past Battle Horrors and Skeleton Warriors, and snuck by the Iron Throne war party to reach Sarevok's sanctum. Diarmid fell fast thanks to posioned sling bullets.
Semaj removed Gerry's buffs, necessetating the consumption of two magic protection potions, before he too was posioned to death.
(The process was a lot faster than it would have been in BGT, because of EE poison penetrating through Stoneskins.) Angelo's inivisibility was dispelled before he was killed by, guess what, poison.
The Gnome had to stand still in order for Tazok to get his sneak attack (which didn't connect) and become visible.
He succumbed to +2 bullets (not poisoned). Backstabs then took care of Sarevok.
The following screenshot shows Gerry's inventory at the end of the game. The Helm of Balduran was dropped just before the Final-Save was made, so that Irenicus' Dungeon will offer Gerry the Claw of Kazgaroth.
I'm not sure what to do next and when. I think I'll be a bit busy this week so not much gaming I'm afraid, and I'll have to mod BG2EE or do a new BGT install, and decide whether to import Gerry into (Ascensionless) BG2EE or BGT-SoA.
Just had to stop after fighting the Master of Thralls to control my shaking. Let's just say this no-reload run came about as close to an end as is possible without actually ending.
I buffed with plenty of protections before entering the prison and facing the first group of bounty hunters.
[The 25 INT is a legacy of quaffing so many Potions of Genius while fighting the Midflayers!]
The first fight was fine although I lost most of my buffs to a Remove Magic. Some screenshots:
The next group was scouted.
Now this will not be a fun fight. 3 Yuan-ti mages plus some fighters. This will be a long fight that will consume a lot of my resources.
Unless I use a shortcut.
After dispatching the wyvern and thrall mage, this particular chamber looked like a battlefield.
And so to the Master of Thralls.
Now I've done this fight (with SCS) dozens of times. You kill the Air Elementals and then the Master of Thralls. You have to make sure you are immune to hold (or have negative saving throws) and you tend to take a bit of damage. But this has never been a particularly tough fight.
Until now.
First thing that went wrong is the Master of Thralls cast Remove Magic, removing my Invulnerability potion. I don't recall him doing that before (that's probably just a memory lapse on my part). But with positive saving throws, I had to spend the first round drinking another Invulnerability potion (I successfully saved vs 2 elemental whirlwinds while I was waiting to drink).
I then went after the Air Elementals. During this time I was taking a bit of damage from the Master of Thralls hitting me and from his Vampiric Touches. Each hit did c20 damage and the Vampiric Touches were doing 30+.
I killed the Air Elementals and was then fully focused on the Master of Thralls. Shouldn't take more than a couple of rounds with my 5APR.
Except it took a lot longer. Firstly I kept missing, rolling a bunch of low numbers (at one point I checked and my last 10 rolls were 1, 2, 4, 1, 1, 1, 9, 11, 1, 2 - only the 9 and 11 were hits). It's these kinds of streaks (5 critical misses in 10?!) that make me question whether my PC is actually fatigued even though there's no indciation on the Character Record. The Master of Thralls was hitting me c50% of the time and casting his Vampiric Touch every other round at least. My HPs were soon a mess and I sunk my final 3 Potions of Superior Healing as well as a few Extra Healings just trying to keep my HPs from dropping too low.
I then went through a good streak of rolls where I was hitting regularly and the Master of Thralls was badly injured, and soon Near Death. I was still drinking a health potion a round in between attacks. At this stage I was thinking "one more hit and he's dead". But after 6 or 7 more hits, he was still "Near Death". This is not good. The only thing I can surmise is that his health status reflects his original HPs but in reality he had tons more from all his Vampiric Touches stacking?
I was in deep trouble though. Having run out of Superior Healings, Potions of Extra Healing were a net loss, since each round I was taking more damage than the 27HPs they heal. I couldn't hide (I tried an Invisibility potion at some stage but demons see through it). And then I had to run. Immediately AFTER drinking a potion I had 50-something HPs. As I ran the Master of Thralls hit me with a physical attack and then with a Vampiric Touch.
Now that is Nadeem after running halfway across the map to put enough distance between him and the Master of Thralls to use the Rod of Resurrection. When he started running he actually had only 1HP left! The Ring of Regeneration has added 1 during the flight.
Blimey. How lucky can you get? If the hit or the Vampiric Touch had done even 1 more point of damage, it was game over.
Even after healing fully I still took a beating trying to finish the Master of Thralls off, who all this time was "Near Death". It took several more rounds and I had to dish out another 200HP(!) of damage before he died. During this time I had to drink even more extra healing potions. Sheesh. This critical hit finally did it.
That was ridiculous. I don't know if there was some kind of bug there that made the Master of Thralls more tough than he should have been? Over the course of the battle I must have dished out well over 500HP of damage, could his Vampiric Touches really have contributed so much? In any case, I thought it was game over when I was so badly injured...such fine margins!
I can't pretend I'm looking forward to facing the Warden...
Thanks for trying Saradas Magic, @Gotural and congratz on defeating him! He was indeed a great challenge in BG1 If you enjoyed the mod, consider trying the sequel, Saradas Magic 2, for your next playthourgh in BG:SoA and ToB.
As soon as I destroyed the Mastery Orb all hell broke loose in the Warden's chamber.
I crept forward to scout and discovered that the yuan-ti were moving around to the east of the warden, which allowed me to tackle them before facing the Warden. I used some area of effect spells to soften them up (Sleep cloud from the Staff of Air, Death Fog, Oils of Fiery Burning etc) and then some summons (including a Mordy's Sword) to try to split them up. This had the desired effect and I was soon able to dispatch the yuan-ti one at a time, using Arrows of Dispelling against the mages followed by backstabs.
I then sent a Wizard Eye to confirm that the Warden was now alone.
It's interesting to note that the Warden can see through invisibility but cannot see the Wizard Eye.
My opening gambit was to send a Simulacrum to face the Warden while Nadeem stood a little ways back to observe.
Naturally the Warden released a flurry of doom, pre-buffs, chain coningencies, sequencers, the works. He then followed up with a Time Stop.
I noticed an SCS bug here. Nadeem moved away while the Warden was casting the Time Stop (which other Alteration spell was he going to open with?). During the Time Stop the Warden did nothing, even though the Simulacrum was right in front of him. Even after the Time Stop the Warden did nothing, letting the Simulacrum chip away at his Stoneskins. However as soon as Nadeem moved back into line of sight, the Warden immediately cast more spells and began to attack the Simulacrum. I repeated this a couple more times to make sure, and confirmed that the Warden only acted when the PC was in his line of sight.
Rather than abuse this and let the SImulacrum swing away at the Warden, I moved back into line of sight. At that point the Simulacrum unsummoned anyway, so I ran away to prepare to face the Warden in person.
I buffed with Speed, Invulnerability and Spell Deflection. You will have seen in the previous screenshots that I have a Time Trap set to the east of the Warden which I want to lure him into. The plan will be to use the Time Trap to remove the Warden's defences (Arrows of Dispelling or Carsomyr) and then destroy him as fast as possible.
As I moved to face the Warden, he cast Mantle and moved to attack me. That rules out Arrows of Dispelling.
But Carsomyr isn't stopped by Mantle.
And a few hits, all within the Time Trap, and that was all she wrote.
Well that was easier than expected! Makes up for the Master of Thralls fight I guess.
Planar Sphere completed, very easy for Nadeem, no major difficulties. Here's a few screenshots of some highlights.
Have started Chapter 3 by siding with the Shadow Thieves. Completed the first 2 tasks and now been given the vampire clearout task.
I have found Azuredge during the Planar Sphere quest (it was in the possession of one of the demons) and still have illithium. So I can upgrade Azuredge to protect me from level drain. Only issue with that is 24 hours will pass, which may fatigue my character (I'm quite keen now to finish off Chapter 3 without resting). Also I am not proficient in axes, so fighting with Azuredge may not be too productive.
The alternative now is to do the Unseeing Eye quest and see what loot turns up. The question is can I take on a bunch of beholders with only 50% MR and positive saving throws? That sounds tough. But then we do need some practice in fighting beholders since there are plenty coming up on the main path. Tough choice.
Guarded Compound is also tempting. I have cleared out the ground floor, it's just the main battle to do. Do I want to fight a very high level party right now? I'm probably well enough equipped to make a decent job of it. I would do it in a heartbeat if Celestial Fury were there but it won't be (no tier 7 treasures in the Guarded Compound). Might find some good stuff though.
Decisions, decisions. What do you guys want to see?
I'm always afraid of the Beholders, I wouldn't do them in a no-reload run if given the choice.
I just completed the Unseeing Eye . I promise it's not because I'm ignoring you, I just had the time available and thought I'd get on with it.
So beholders are indeed scary and you cannot take risks with them. However the one weakness they have, even in SCS, is that they cannot see invisible (which seems a bit crazy to me given how many eyes they have!). They cannot be backstabbed but they cannot detect invisible.
Moreover while beholders are fearsome in attack, with all their eyestalks firing multiple spells per round and with the anti-magic ray that dispels all temporary protections instantly, they are weak defensively. Normal beholders do not put up any defences, nor do they have any magic resistance. Their HPs are decent but not particularly high.
My plan falls into place. I can hide almost at will as long as I am not in enemy line of sight. And I have about a dozen wands as well as many offensive scrolls. Therefore I can just pick off beholders with area effect and damaging spells and move away instantly (thanks to Boots of Speed) to hide again. Moreover I can wield Carsomyr while doing this for the extra 50% MR in case I do get spells fired at me while I'm unleashing my scrolls or wands (and which did in fact happen several times; I also used Potions of Invulnerability and some protection scrolls to keep me safe from things like Death Ray and Flesh to Stone).
I'm not going to mention the undead and other encounters, they were easy pickings for Nadeem (including another lich).
So the first group was 3 beholders and 2 gauths. I weakened them with Sphere of Chaos and Cloudkill and then picked off individuals with Wands of Lightning / the Heavens.
Then we were into the beholder lair. The individual gauths and beholders were picked off easily with Lightning / Scorcher / Heavens.
The main challenge was the group of 4 beholders and 3 gauths in the bottom section. However I managed to split them up by firing some cloud spells (eg Cloudkill) which meant they wandered off in different directions and I could then deal with them one at a time. I used up several wands and scrolls but the beholders were roundly defeated .
I prepped for the Unseeing Eye by setting up 2 spike traps: this was more than my norm of one trap HLA at a time but the Unseeing Eye summons 2 Death Tyrants when it's injured so I think I'm justified in using more than one trap.
One of the spike traps fired immediately when the Unseeing Eye came into view and I then fired the Rod. The Unseeing Eye was immediately near death but the Death Tyrants spawned in front of it and I couldn't therefore finish it off. One Death Tyrant died quickly from a spike trap and a shot from the Wand of Lightning. The other took longer, requiring several charges from wands.
The Unseeing Eye had wandered off and was putting up all sorts of defences, so I just fired Cloudkill at it multiple times (to which it was not immune) and that was that.
Gaal followed his god.
My reward from the Temple of Helm was the Mace of Disruption! This is excellent news as I would prefer to upgrade the mace rather than Azuredge (you can wield the mace in the offhand but you cannot wield Azuredge in the offhand). However I had spent my level 36 proficiency slot on Axes, rather annoyingly, which meant that goes to waste.
So now it's just the vampires. But maybe the Guarded Compound first .
My strategy for Beholders in normal runs is to just hit them with Fireball spells. If you have multiple mages, as I normally do, then you can bring a cluster down in a couple rounds.
My strategy in no-reload runs is to summon monsters, hide or turn invisible, and let my summons do the work. Sometimes it takes multiple tries, since my summons might fail too many saves or not deal enough damage quick enough, but it's safe.
@Jaheiras_Witness: A single summons is not going to take down a whole group of Beholders in any install of BG2. Not unless it's a Deva or a Planetar, or a properly equipped clone.
Kitty, Skeleton Warriors, Mordenkainen's Sword, Fire Elementals, Ras, animal summons... if you put these summons together in a group, haste them, turn them invisible, and send them out, they have a good chance of bringing down one or more of the Beholders, and might be able to take down the whole bunch.
Your character might not be able to summon all of these things without using a bunch of scrolls, but summons are still a viable strategy. Like I said, it's my strategy, not necessarily yours--your character, a non-caster, isn't quite as suited for that.
That said, if we're talking about your strategy, summons are still an option. You might consider using the Staff of Fire to summon Lesser Fire Elementals. A clone (do you have Vhailor's Helm?) could bring out over 10 of them without expending your own charges, and maybe turn them invisible as well with an Invisibility 10' Radius scroll. At the very least, they could soften up the Beholders and allow you to kill one or two of them before you get targeted yourself. A Wand of Monster Summoning could also buy you a few seconds of safety per charge.
Those are good suggestions but I think you're correct, you need a mage for proper summoning, not a thief using scrolls. I only have a limited number of scrolls so have to summon sparingly. In any case, the wand strategy worked fine.
I don't have Vhailor's Helm (tier 7 treasure!) nor the Staff of Fire...it's just scrolls at the moment.
I can't seem to stop playing at the moment! So I thought I'd give the Guarded Compound a whirl. It's only one fight...
I decided to go with the thorough buffing approach.
For those who want details, those are:
Oil of Speed and Potion of Invulnerability Stoneskin Mirror Image Blur Shield Protection from Normal Weapons Protection from Normal Missiles Protection from Evil Fireshield Red Protection from Electricity Minor Globe of Invulnerability True Sight Spell Immunity Abjuration Spell Shield Improved Invisibility
That pretty much covers everything I might get thrown at me!
Since the mage would likely be untouchable for a while, I went for the cleric first.
And dived into a side room as the poison finished the job and the mage was casting an Alteration spell.
I wonder which spell?
Koshi bit the dirt as the others blocked the room exit.
The mage was casting all sorts of spells, including this Wish.
I waited for some of his weapon defences to expire before firing some Arrows of Dispelling.
That persuaded the mage to move away from the door, which allowed me to escape the room and set up to do this.
Trying to backstab Maferan didn't work out too well.
So I went for Ketta instead.
Olaf was next.
Before Maferan was lured into a spike trap and dispatched.
Main loot was the Tuigan Bow and Aeger's Hide. I decided to sell the former (prefer Tansheron for the +3 unlimited arrows rather than the extra APR) and the latter replaced the Skin of the Ghoul.
Revised equipment.
Just need to upgrade the Mace of Disruption and then I can go for the vampires .
We had a little problem with Bodhi and her cabal. Things went well for the first few rounds, until Bodhi's mage friends turned the situation around. Her mage friends are from Tactics, and they have lots of high-level mage spells to screw things up. There's a female mage named Mannasseh, and a male mage named Hazama-hazama-harmaveth. Or Hazama-hazama-harma-habbaloobadoobie-veth, to be perfectly correct, but Hazama-hazama-harmaveth is shorter.
Basically, Hazzerbazzer used a triple Breach Spell Trigger on Varen, and the other vampires descended upon her as soon as her NPP was gone. Ivinhale was about to hit Varen with Resilient Sphere, but at that very moment, Bodhi cast her Cloud of Bats spell on Ivinhale, ruining her spellcasting. And since Varen had already used Sunfire that round, her aura wasn't clear to drink a Potion of Invisibility.
Sigh...
Just kidding. We mopped the floor with Bodhi. Maeruo killed her single-handedly with Sanchuudoku. We even kept Drizzt from landing the final blow, by having Ivinhale block his path. The only Cloud of Bats spell in the fight hit Maeruo, who regenerated all the damage and didn't need to cast any spells in the first place, and Hazzabazzah's Breach spell was bounced back at him due to Mae-mae's Ring of Spell Turning. The other Breach spell in the battle, as I recall, didn't even remove the target's NPP spell; apparently Breach can't do that in SR. And most of the vampires died in the third round anyway, when Kolem Tao cast Holy Word, with his caster level boosted by the Amulet of Power.
To be honest, I just got tired of the run, even though there were only a few battles left in SoA. But I thought the people who were watching this run would be upset if I just said I was starting over, so I thought I should emphasize the positive: hey, at least Varen didn't get level drained to death!
My new run is a solo, unkitted thief. But she has more going on than that.
I may go back to Varen's run, but it would require some messing with my install. After much thought, I decided to uninstall Spell Revisions and Item Revisions, since they make it impossible for a solo thief or fighter to get guaranteed saves against disablers, unless they use a very precious Potion of Magic Shielding or are dwarves, halflings, or gnomes:
With (1) the save penalties in SR spells (2) several save bonuses removed from items (3) the save bonuses reduced in Potions of Invulnerability (4) save bonuses removed from Potions of Stone Form (now a Stoneskin potion) (5) Potions of Magic Protection's MR bonus reduced from 50 to 20, and (6) the fact that no potions in IR except for Potions of Regeneration stack, it would not be possible for my thief to make reliable saves until very, very late in the game. SR and IR balance out the game a lot, but it's not really compatible with a solo no-reload SCS2 run with an unkitted non-gnome, non-dwarf, and non-halfling thief.
Instead, I just have SCS2 installed, with some Tactics options on top. Now who is this unkitted thief?
I turned the matter over in my head a while and eventually decided that none of the normal classes held my interest. Nor did I want to try out a multi-classed Druid/Thief or dual-classed Bounty Hunter/Druid, for which I'd have to tweak a Cleric/Thief build. Finally I decided to play something I've been meaning to play for a long time.
Meet Viora, the Phase Spider Thief. She also goes by Vivian.
She's SO cute! Don't you just wanna give her a tiny, tiny kiss on her fuzzy little head? I googled "cute spider" and naturally a bunch of jumping spiders came up. Jumping spiders need excellent vision to aim their jumps, so they have unusually large eyes. Their squinchy little legs also make them look extra cute. I picked one of the first images I found and photoshopped it up to give it pretty blue eyes. I have a soft spot for blue-eyed critters.
Did you know the jumping spider bagheera kiplingi is the only mostly vegetarian spider in the world? It lives off of nectar! Like a butterfly! And males and females raise the young together! Isn't that just darling?
Anyhoo... Viora's exact parentage is unclear. Her mother was humanoid, but there are spider and drider genes mixed in as well. Viora has a humanoid form she uses for day-to-day stuff, but she can't maintain it for very long, and spends most of her time in spider form. The Candlekeep regulars got accustomed to her, but she had an unfortunate habit of scaring the bejeezus out of visiting scholars, and developed a crippling shyness in response. But she hasn't had much trouble making friends. Once people get past the extra legs,* they take one look into Vivian's pretty blue eyes and just want to hug her and buy her presents.
*Vivian doesn't view them as extra legs, of course. She does not believe that two legs should be considered the standard. She can get very huffy when people get all anthro-centric and stuff.
I had to find a way to implement the phasing feature, so I mapped Infravision to a hotkey and replaced the spell with a clone of the Phase Spider's Dimension Door spell. I also added Improved Alacrity to Vivian and made the Dimension Door spell refresh itself on cast, and tagged is as non-disruptable. The spell still has a casting time of 2, so she can't flit around the map instantaneously--not until she gets UAI and the Robe of Vecna--but it will do a lot to improve her mobility. I also added a movement speed bonus, just enough to give her a human walking speed, since spiders avatars sluggish in BG2.
After examining a Phase Spider's abilities and comparing them to those of other classes at the same level (level 5), I determined that they're basically fighters with an extra 0.5 APR and a 2 bonus to THAC0. Accordingly, I gave Viora specialization in daggers, the same proficiency as her natural weapon, and an extra 0.5 APR. As a Phase Spider, she has 5 base AC and delivers a nonmagical poison on a failed save vs. death, for 2 poison damage per second for 20 seconds. She also is immune to the hold I and web effects, but not poison.
It's pretty nice, which is why she's not a Bounty Hunter--a Bounty Hunter Phase Spider would be too overpowered for my tastes. She will do well in the early game, relatively speaking, but she won't have the same potential as a kitted thief in the late game, since Assassins have septuple backstab multipliers and poison damage that offers no save, which they can apply to any weapon (Viora's weapon is just a +1 dagger without to hit and damage bonuses), Bounty Hunters have ranged Maze spells that bypass MR, and Swashbucklers are basically Fighter/Thieves in terms of damage output and durability, and won't struggle against backstab-immune enemies. Instead, she will have to use her superior mobility to screw around with her opponents. I imagine it will be much more fun, since I love having fast and mobile characters.
As a spider, though, she has some drawbacks. Human equipment isn't designed to fit her, and she doesn't fight in humanoid form, so she can't use as many items. She will never have any proficiencies in any weapons besides daggers, darts, clubs, slings, and short bows, and she won't even be able to use any other weapons, proficiencies or no, until after she gets UAI. And I think two-handed weapons are a no-go even with UAI, so even Staff of the Magi and Carsomyr may be out of the question. She can wear leather armor, but other forms of armor could not be fit over her abdomen (not even with UAI). She can't wear helms until UAI, but she can wear a shield by strapping it to her back. No boots until UAI, either. It takes some creativity to get magic boots to work when they're not on your feet.
The run gets off to a good start. She lands a critical hit on her first backstab.
She has the same number of points invested in Open Locks and Find Traps as Imoen, to make sure she can do all the thiefy stuff in Chateau Irenicus, while the rest of her points are invested in stealth. I have her sneak around the Duergar, though I don't have the option of sneaking around the Otyugh, since I've got a hallway of Duergar just beyond the Otyugh lair that would chase me into the Otyugh's cavernous maw if I tried to sneak past them.
I teleport out of the Otyugh's reach and hide in the southern hall. From there, I can sneak back out and backstab it. The primary use of the phasing will be setting up backstabs--I can't use it to kite until I get UAI, since the speed factor, at 2, makes Viora's teleportation only marginally faster than walking.
While pondering my options after getting the Portal Key, I get ambushed by a Duergar coming from the western hallway.
I decide to teleport to the eastern hall, lock the door behind me, and move on. I'd like to help the dryads, but Ilyich is too dangerous. Viora is immune to the mage's Charm Person spell, since she's a spider, but there's still a lot of potential damage between all of those dwarves, and I'm not confident she can survive it. Her AC is good, but she doesn't have the fighter-type THAC0 she would need to keep the battle short and in her favor.
I can't summon any critters to distract the Mephits in the Mephit Portal room, nor do I have any guaranteed way of making a save against Color Spray, which could otherwise spell the end of my run. So, I plan to make use of Vivian's phasing to lock the Mephits in the room with the portal--which I've done on multiple previous runs where I could not rely on saves or summons to survive.
I run out into the Mephit Portal room, linger just long enough for everyone to target me, then run back into the room with the portal (it's confusing--there's a Mephit Portal room on one side, and right next to it is a room with another kind of portal). As the Radiant Mephits close in, preparing to cast Color Spray, I begin casting Dimension Door. To my surprise, they interrupt it--and suddenly I am out of spells.
It seems that tagging the spell as "no spell failure" just means it's not affect by spell failure--damage can still interrupt it. Since the spell got interrupted twice already, I'm out of Dimension Door spells, which isn't supposed to happen. The Dimension Door is supposed to be an at-will ability. To get around this, I just use CTRL-J, and run to the door to lock the Mephits behind me.
I can then slay the Mephit Portals at my leisure, which is quite easy, as they have guaranteed failed saves against Viora's poison.
I backstab Ellesime's clone, kill Frennedan with brute force, and slay the northernmost Duergar with traps and poison. I sneak past the Assassin guarding the exit (or rather, I use CTRL-J to get past him), and emerge in Athkatla.
Jon-bon squabbles with some creepy men in hoods and Imoen gets teleported away. Viora fails to intervene--at all happened so fast--and is once again on her own, as spiders usually are.
She visits the circus and finds that the illusions help her hide in plain sight: the orc Peasants have blue circles and therefore Viora can hide right in front of them.
There's a fellow spider nearby named Hannah, but Hannah is freaking out about the "extra legs" thing and isn't much fun to be with. It's just Vivian's luck that the last spider she's seen since the Cloakwood is arachnophobic.
Bregg and Cohrvale fall to traps, needing only backstab and a bite to the neck to collapse. Since Viora is doing so well, I decide to take a risk, and take on Amalas in the Copper Coronet. She gives him one look with those big sparkly and he just falls into a deep blue sea of contentment. The Ring of Human Influence might have helped, too. While Amalas is busy falling in love, Viora sets up a bunch of traps around the ring before pouncing.
The Hobgoblins downstairs aren't too dangerous, either. Normally this is a very dangerous place for a solo no-reload character, but Hold Person spells don't work on spiders.
An Otyugh joins the battle, and to avoid its diseased tentacles, Vivian teleports back and forth, trying to hide and get in a backstab. She fails to hide in 9 rounds of 10 (I can tell because she had a DUHM that kept track of time) and rolls a critical miss on the one time she does evade notice. Finally she gets lucky on both rolls.
I'm not willing to go any further than collecting Lilarcor, however. The Slavers can be pretty tough at low levels. Besides, we have a better plan for gathering XP.
We take the safe route out of Athkatla, Promenade to Slums to Government District (meet Jan, talk to Delon, save Viconia) to the Gate District (talk to Flydian) to the Umar Hills. Since Viora is immune to hold I, she can fight the Killer Mimic without a Potion of Freedom. After helping organize a meeting between the mayor and Madulf and killing a "Juggernaut" Golem, she headed to the Temple Ruins and used a scroll of Protection from Undead to make it through the area safely.
But some Shadows didn't get fooled by the magic, and attacked her as soon as she removed the Sun Gem from its pedestal. Since one of them had drunk an Oil of Speed somehow, her own Oil of Speed was not enough. She had to teleport to safety.
The rest of the dungeon wasn't too hard. She had to wait until her resting period before talking to Dettseh and the other ghost, since I've failed in the past to receive the right piece of the Symbol of Amaunator while under the effects of a Protection from Undead scroll (maybe because Amuana and her friends are all undead).
I did some math and found that I would be just barely able to kill the Shade Lord with one Protection from Undead scroll, and might have to use a second one if I had bad luck. But to my surprise, the Shade Lord is vulnerable to Viora's most dangerous weapon.
When the Shade Lord falls, the whole fortress of shadows goes down with her.
Congratulations, @Blackraven for beating BG once again. Although it's your XX's attempt, it doesn't become less sweet after all. A solid performance, bravo!
@semiticgod - I'm sorry for your loss ... The king is dead... long live the king (Viora!)
Comments
There are several files in my install with the name "Immunity: Divination." They are:
DW#0D592
DW#0W592
DW#SW592 (cast previously)
There are also some files named "Immunity: Abjuration." They are:
DW#0D590
DW#0W590
DW#SW590 (cast previously)
@semiticgod I'm pretty sure you can go back into UD yes (at least I'm sure I could last time I played but it was ages ago). Btw, you can still dual-wield Crom within IR despite the returning property (same with all other magical returning axes, daggers, etc.). Just open the item abilities and one of them will quick switch it to a melee only variant - then you can re-switch to melee/ranged variant if you wish. It's hard to explain but easy if you check it in-game.
You are not at all obligated to post in here, especially as this thread is mainly written updates rather than videos. Feel free to start a dedicated thread, either here or in the Challenges & Playthroughs forum.
Good luck!
Why not upload the videos to Youtube and post the links here, so we can watch as you go?
...also, I will confess that I've actually completed that challenge three times now, with three different characters. But I want to do a properly documented run, with a character exactly as I want it to be. I feel that it will warrant its own thread, especially since I have allowed myself a little leeway on certain things. Thanks for the heads up, though! I'll be sure to begin in an hour or two, once dinner has been thoroughly consumed.
Ghostform! Yeah!
I think I will abuse this at some point.
I had Ivinhale lay a bunch of traps before the fight, and waited until the demon changed to ice form to set him free. The logic was that, at Ivinhale's level, her traps will do fire damage, and that should break through the Chromatic Deon's resistances in ice form.
They didn't seem to do much damage at first, but, to my surprise, they did lingering damage, which I thought only lower-level thief traps could do. The damage was quite extreme.
Plus, Sanchuudoku lowers acid resistance, which means Mae-mae could have kept dealing damage no matter what the demon's form was. The demon died before causing any problems.
I ventured down to the third level just long enough to cast Heal on Yakman and nab some loot from his camp. I need to figure out which demon lies behind the dead magic room, and have Horun or Maeruo (our only neutral-aligned characters) strike a deal with him. That will allow us to get both of the necessary gem doodads without having to fight lots of demons unbuffed.
I return to Athkatla and begin the Kangaxx quest. The Elemental Lich, to my disappointment, dies to trap damage.
I keep seeing that happen, and I don't like beating such a big enemy without fighting, but in a no-reload run, I'm not willing to give the enemy a fairer fight, not when it could spell the end of the run.
The Shade Lich survived our traps! Too bad Mae-mae is such a monster.
Pow.
I'm not sure if I'm ready for the pre-Kangaxx double Lich fight, so I decide to take on Sion instead. I enter the room while invisible, which I've never done before, hoping to disarm the traps before the fight begins. It doesn't work, as Stalman or Sion has a pre-cast True Seeing.
Sion gets a Time Stop off the ground, but not before we cast a couple of Earthquake spells. The tremors occur while time is still stopped.
Sion re-casts the spell, having accomplished little--his Breach on Maeruo got bounced by Maeruo's Ring of Spell Turning--and the tremors peter out. But they've dealt a lot of damage, and we've taken full advantage of the first few rounds of battle.
Soon, all the enemies save Stalman and Sion are dead. Varen is stuck--she cast Project Image and her clone was disabled by Symbol: Stun--Horun is mazed thanks to Sion's Shadow Door, and Ivinhale is hanging back, having had her buffs dispelled (she drank a Potion of Invisibility to get some breathing room), but the rest of the party is fully functioning, and with all of our buffs, we simply cannot be disabled, nor can the enemy deal anywhere near enough damage to be a threat. The battle ends without a single casualty on our part.
Now I want to take on the two Liches guarding Kangaxx, and the fellow grunts who guard them. There's a dwarf in this fight with a vorpal sword, who ended one of my last no-reload runs thanks to a bad save on my part. But now I'm approaching them in Chapter 7, with non-randomized characters.
Kolem Tao's Earthquake spell gets disrupted in the first round, but it's not a major loss, as he has a second one memorized. But then Horun Fallows gets targeted by a level drain spell, and I know he's going to lose his only Earthquake spell.
I was right, but for the wrong reasons: in an attempt to save that Earthquake spell, I had Horun start casting it right after the Time Stop ended, hoping to cast it before it was erased from his spellbook. But his casting was interrupted by a Horrid Wilting spell. And I realized soon after that Horun had not been level drained, as he was under the effects of Enrage--he could have cast his Earthquake spell if I had waited a few seconds to do so.
I avoid using any debuffing spells, as I want Varen to use Project Image, but I want to do so later on in the battle, when the Liches are drained by combat. Instead I just have Ivinhale dispel the Liches' illusions, and concentrate on slaying the enemy fighters. The dwarf, notably, is no longer a threat, as SR Death Ward blocks vorpal strikes. And as a Kensai, he's pretty darn easy to hit.
The Liches are trying to crowd out the space with undead summons. I manage to stop one spell with a Chain Lightning scroll from Ivinhale. Impatient to start casting debuffing spells, I have Varen cast Project Image, and have the clone cast PFMW to block any Minute Meteors from the Liches. Meanwhile, we finish off the dwarf.
Ekayne turns some of the undead summons, who try to leave the area. One of them somehow manages to push Varen's clone out the door, rendering Varen helpless.
But by now the Liches' defenses are running out and their wall of bones are collapsing. We rush in for the kill and take down the Liches one by one. The Liches have hit us with multiple Horrid Wilting spells, but we shrug it off. Maeruo has 50 MR thanks to the Ring of Spell Turning and his Greater Werewolf form, Horun Fallows has 50% resistance to magic damage thanks to IR Delver's Plate, Ekayne has 30% resistance from I don't know where, Ivinhale has 50 MR from Dispelling Screen, and both Varen and Kolem Tao are immune to magic damage due to a couple of Protection from Magical Energy spells cast beforehand.
I stop short of fighting Kangaxx, though. I don't think we're ready to handle him, since Horun Fallows' Enrage will only keep him safe from imprisonment for 10 rounds, and he won't be able to renew it for another five rounds after it ends. He can use the Rod of Absorption to hold off Trap the Soul for a couple rounds longer in SR (one round duration, can be used twice per day), but that's not enough even to outlast Kangaxx's PFMW spells. And Kangaxx's Time Stop spells will only do more to wear out Enrage.
We could probably take down Kangaxx's Lich form, but his Demi-lich form would imprison everyone but Varen, and she can't deal enough damage with Sanchuudoku to win the battle, even with an Oil of Speed and Time Stop (via Limited Wish) for automatic attacks, or using the Wand of Lightning trick with True Strike or Ghostform for better THAC0. Why is this? Kangaxx is wearing the VAMPREG1 item in both his forms, which gives him 1 HP regeneration per second, or 6 per round. With Sanchuudoku, I can deal maybe 12 damage per round assuming I land both hits every time (1 slashing plus an average of 5 acid damage), or a little more if I lower Kangaxx's acid resistance a bit, but I've only got 5 level 1 spell slots to use for True Strike, a necessity for reliable hits.
It means I'd have to dedicate 5 straight rounds to casting True Strike. And there are multiple other things I may have to do to stay alive, considering Kangaxx's various spells. I'd also be drinking healing potions, Oils of Speed, and Potions of Magic Shielding. It can be done, but the window of opportunity for beating Kangaxx is too small to be reliable. I will have to come back when I am at epic levels, and there are some more options available.
After selling all loot I don't need, I had 71k gold. After shopping (with the help of Friends) I have 2k left
Bought all the low level scrolls which will be helpful for Nadeem from Galoomp, Lady Yuth and the Shadow Thief guildhall. That's things like Protection From Evil, Blur, Mirror Image, Slow, Improved Invisibility, Shadow Door etc. Also bought the remaining 2 Protection from Undead scrolls from the Temple of Talos.
Then went and bought myself a new offhand weapon to replace the Flail of Ages.
Now at base 5APR
Looking forward there are now 4 quests to do before choosing a side and starting Chapter 3. I will definitely do the following (probably in this order):
i) Mindflayers in the sewers
ii) Planar Prison
iii) Planar Sphere
That leaves iv) Unseeing Eye which I may or may not do in Chapter 2 depending on how confident I'm feeling after the above and depending on what items I find. Beholders are no joke, 50% MR and save vs death of 3 / vs spell of 2 don't seem up to scratch.
That will still leave all Athkatla's set piece liches, Kangaxx, the Guarded Compound and the Twisted Rune still to do. I will have to think carefully if I want to go near those encounters yet.
Suggestions and feedback welcome as always.
Did you try the Exploding Trap @Jaheiras_Witness ?
@Bynary_Fission I'm following your game on your stream, it's interesting !
Slight update : I'm not journaling my Sorcerer because I want to get to BG2:EE ASAP and it takes time to write on the forums. It's going great I'm nearly finished with the first game. I will post my spell choices and my feelings about them.
I will think further how and when I might use an exploding trap. I might take one at least for the option and try it out, it's not like I'm going to be short of HLAs!
I intend to do Planar Prison next.
Gerry has successfully negotiated BG1 but stopped keeping his journal and Blackraven is short on time, so below just a couple of highlights of Gerry's adventures rather than a journaled update in the style of the first two updates.
Bassilus gave Gerry a real run for his money. Three rests were required. The priest, while easily Silenced, saved against six Hold Persons, and successfully held Gerry forcing the Gnome to consume a potion of invisibility.
Greywolf was another foe that took Gerry by surprise. The hasted bounty hunter somehow resisted a Hold Person without having saved against it and without having quaffed a potion of freedom. Gerry took various hits before he made it to the area border.
A preventive Sanctuary proved a life-saver in the pirate cave when Gerry triggered a trap instead of disarming it,
Dark Horizons Duergar in the Nashkel Mines were ignored. Skeletons failed to lure all path blocking Kobolds away on the penultimate level, causing Gerry to use one or two Necklace of Missiles charges.
Btw, Gerry had only circa 40k Xp when entering the Nashkel Mines, much lower than my Charnames usually have.
Nimbul had Gerry quaff a potion of clarity,
Lamalha's and Molkar's bounty hunter parties failed to keep up with Gerry, and at the Bandit Camp, the Gnome used similar elusive tactics. He first looted Tazok's chest under Sanctuary,
At the FAI, a four (Dark Horizons) servants of Torm who were somehow convinced of Gerry's evilness by a letter containing defamatory statements regarding Gerry's person. Sadly, for Gerry sought no fight, their mistake cost them their lives. The cover of night allowed for easy backstabs while Skeletons and FAI guards helped distract the enemy. Interestingly, a Flamestrike not only fried and killed their leader, it also polymorphed him somehow.
In Cloakwood Aldeth was felled, Spiders shunned (Sanctuary facilitated the salvaging of Chelak's corpse), and Druids and Iron Throne guards as well. The Cloakwood Mine was very well-guarded, by Dark Horizons Black Talons, in addition to Drasus & Co. A pre-emptive strike meant the end of Kysus.
Inside the Cloakwood Mine stealth/sanctuary were only left to organize the release of slaves. Davaeorn's lair was better protected than expected, with extra warriors, a rogue, and a wizard. The latter's presence prompted Gerry to use a green scroll of PfMagic (because I didn't know what to expect really, and didn't check his spells in EEKeeper).
In Baldur's Gate Gerry did a lot of thieving (guild quests, telescope, stat tomes, Helm of Balduran, failed pickpocket attempt Cloak of Balduran), and some of the more lucrative quests XP-wise in order to obtain the last BG1 levels (Marek/Lothander, Varci Roaringhorn, Basilisk in Docks District). He decided not to fight the Iron Throne crew, using stealth to reach and interrogate Thaldorn.
With his conflict with the Iron Throne very close to escalation, Gerry paid a Bard in the Elfsong Tavern to create a more fearsome image of him, in hopes of making bounty hunters and assassins think twice about attacking him.
His changed reputation didn't keep a group of Ogre Mages from attacking Gerry though. A second potion of clarity neutralized the numerous Charm Persons and Dire Charms they cast at him by the entrance to Candlekeep.
Back in Baldur's Gate, the Gnome nobly rescued Duke Eltan from Rashad's poisonous presence,
Gerry, eager to finish off Sarevok there and then, attempted a couple of backstabs at Sarevok, and was quite successful, even though the warrior had 50% damage resistance.
Gerry went straight after Sarevok, fighting his way past Battle Horrors and Skeleton Warriors, and snuck by the Iron Throne war party to reach Sarevok's sanctum. Diarmid fell fast thanks to posioned sling bullets.
Backstabs then took care of Sarevok.
The following screenshot shows Gerry's inventory at the end of the game. The Helm of Balduran was dropped just before the Final-Save was made, so that Irenicus' Dungeon will offer Gerry the Claw of Kazgaroth.
I'm not sure what to do next and when. I think I'll be a bit busy this week so not much gaming I'm afraid, and I'll have to mod BG2EE or do a new BGT install, and decide whether to import Gerry into (Ascensionless) BG2EE or BGT-SoA.
Just had to stop after fighting the Master of Thralls to control my shaking. Let's just say this no-reload run came about as close to an end as is possible without actually ending.
I buffed with plenty of protections before entering the prison and facing the first group of bounty hunters.
[The 25 INT is a legacy of quaffing so many Potions of Genius while fighting the Midflayers!]
The first fight was fine although I lost most of my buffs to a Remove Magic. Some screenshots:
The next group was scouted.
Now this will not be a fun fight. 3 Yuan-ti mages plus some fighters. This will be a long fight that will consume a lot of my resources.
Unless I use a shortcut.
After dispatching the wyvern and thrall mage, this particular chamber looked like a battlefield.
And so to the Master of Thralls.
Now I've done this fight (with SCS) dozens of times. You kill the Air Elementals and then the Master of Thralls. You have to make sure you are immune to hold (or have negative saving throws) and you tend to take a bit of damage. But this has never been a particularly tough fight.
Until now.
First thing that went wrong is the Master of Thralls cast Remove Magic, removing my Invulnerability potion. I don't recall him doing that before (that's probably just a memory lapse on my part). But with positive saving throws, I had to spend the first round drinking another Invulnerability potion (I successfully saved vs 2 elemental whirlwinds while I was waiting to drink).
I then went after the Air Elementals. During this time I was taking a bit of damage from the Master of Thralls hitting me and from his Vampiric Touches. Each hit did c20 damage and the Vampiric Touches were doing 30+.
I killed the Air Elementals and was then fully focused on the Master of Thralls. Shouldn't take more than a couple of rounds with my 5APR.
Except it took a lot longer. Firstly I kept missing, rolling a bunch of low numbers (at one point I checked and my last 10 rolls were 1, 2, 4, 1, 1, 1, 9, 11, 1, 2 - only the 9 and 11 were hits). It's these kinds of streaks (5 critical misses in 10?!) that make me question whether my PC is actually fatigued even though there's no indciation on the Character Record. The Master of Thralls was hitting me c50% of the time and casting his Vampiric Touch every other round at least. My HPs were soon a mess and I sunk my final 3 Potions of Superior Healing as well as a few Extra Healings just trying to keep my HPs from dropping too low.
I then went through a good streak of rolls where I was hitting regularly and the Master of Thralls was badly injured, and soon Near Death. I was still drinking a health potion a round in between attacks. At this stage I was thinking "one more hit and he's dead". But after 6 or 7 more hits, he was still "Near Death". This is not good. The only thing I can surmise is that his health status reflects his original HPs but in reality he had tons more from all his Vampiric Touches stacking?
I was in deep trouble though. Having run out of Superior Healings, Potions of Extra Healing were a net loss, since each round I was taking more damage than the 27HPs they heal. I couldn't hide (I tried an Invisibility potion at some stage but demons see through it). And then I had to run. Immediately AFTER drinking a potion I had 50-something HPs. As I ran the Master of Thralls hit me with a physical attack and then with a Vampiric Touch.
Now that is Nadeem after running halfway across the map to put enough distance between him and the Master of Thralls to use the Rod of Resurrection. When he started running he actually had only 1HP left! The Ring of Regeneration has added 1 during the flight.
Blimey. How lucky can you get? If the hit or the Vampiric Touch had done even 1 more point of damage, it was game over.
Even after healing fully I still took a beating trying to finish the Master of Thralls off, who all this time was "Near Death". It took several more rounds and I had to dish out another 200HP(!) of damage before he died. During this time I had to drink even more extra healing potions. Sheesh. This critical hit finally did it.
That was ridiculous. I don't know if there was some kind of bug there that made the Master of Thralls more tough than he should have been? Over the course of the battle I must have dished out well over 500HP of damage, could his Vampiric Touches really have contributed so much? In any case, I thought it was game over when I was so badly injured...such fine margins!
I can't pretend I'm looking forward to facing the Warden...
If you enjoyed the mod, consider trying the sequel, Saradas Magic 2, for your next playthourgh in BG:SoA and ToB.
As soon as I destroyed the Mastery Orb all hell broke loose in the Warden's chamber.
I crept forward to scout and discovered that the yuan-ti were moving around to the east of the warden, which allowed me to tackle them before facing the Warden. I used some area of effect spells to soften them up (Sleep cloud from the Staff of Air, Death Fog, Oils of Fiery Burning etc) and then some summons (including a Mordy's Sword) to try to split them up. This had the desired effect and I was soon able to dispatch the yuan-ti one at a time, using Arrows of Dispelling against the mages followed by backstabs.
I then sent a Wizard Eye to confirm that the Warden was now alone.
It's interesting to note that the Warden can see through invisibility but cannot see the Wizard Eye.
My opening gambit was to send a Simulacrum to face the Warden while Nadeem stood a little ways back to observe.
Naturally the Warden released a flurry of doom, pre-buffs, chain coningencies, sequencers, the works. He then followed up with a Time Stop.
I noticed an SCS bug here. Nadeem moved away while the Warden was casting the Time Stop (which other Alteration spell was he going to open with?). During the Time Stop the Warden did nothing, even though the Simulacrum was right in front of him. Even after the Time Stop the Warden did nothing, letting the Simulacrum chip away at his Stoneskins. However as soon as Nadeem moved back into line of sight, the Warden immediately cast more spells and began to attack the Simulacrum. I repeated this a couple more times to make sure, and confirmed that the Warden only acted when the PC was in his line of sight.
Rather than abuse this and let the SImulacrum swing away at the Warden, I moved back into line of sight. At that point the Simulacrum unsummoned anyway, so I ran away to prepare to face the Warden in person.
I buffed with Speed, Invulnerability and Spell Deflection. You will have seen in the previous screenshots that I have a Time Trap set to the east of the Warden which I want to lure him into. The plan will be to use the Time Trap to remove the Warden's defences (Arrows of Dispelling or Carsomyr) and then destroy him as fast as possible.
As I moved to face the Warden, he cast Mantle and moved to attack me. That rules out Arrows of Dispelling.
But Carsomyr isn't stopped by Mantle.
And a few hits, all within the Time Trap, and that was all she wrote.
Well that was easier than expected! Makes up for the Master of Thralls fight I guess.
Planar Sphere next
Have started Chapter 3 by siding with the Shadow Thieves. Completed the first 2 tasks and now been given the vampire clearout task.
I have found Azuredge during the Planar Sphere quest (it was in the possession of one of the demons) and still have illithium. So I can upgrade Azuredge to protect me from level drain. Only issue with that is 24 hours will pass, which may fatigue my character (I'm quite keen now to finish off Chapter 3 without resting). Also I am not proficient in axes, so fighting with Azuredge may not be too productive.
The alternative now is to do the Unseeing Eye quest and see what loot turns up. The question is can I take on a bunch of beholders with only 50% MR and positive saving throws? That sounds tough. But then we do need some practice in fighting beholders since there are plenty coming up on the main path. Tough choice.
Guarded Compound is also tempting. I have cleared out the ground floor, it's just the main battle to do. Do I want to fight a very high level party right now? I'm probably well enough equipped to make a decent job of it. I would do it in a heartbeat if Celestial Fury were there but it won't be (no tier 7 treasures in the Guarded Compound). Might find some good stuff though.
Decisions, decisions. What do you guys want to see?
So beholders are indeed scary and you cannot take risks with them. However the one weakness they have, even in SCS, is that they cannot see invisible (which seems a bit crazy to me given how many eyes they have!). They cannot be backstabbed but they cannot detect invisible.
Moreover while beholders are fearsome in attack, with all their eyestalks firing multiple spells per round and with the anti-magic ray that dispels all temporary protections instantly, they are weak defensively. Normal beholders do not put up any defences, nor do they have any magic resistance. Their HPs are decent but not particularly high.
My plan falls into place. I can hide almost at will as long as I am not in enemy line of sight. And I have about a dozen wands as well as many offensive scrolls. Therefore I can just pick off beholders with area effect and damaging spells and move away instantly (thanks to Boots of Speed) to hide again. Moreover I can wield Carsomyr while doing this for the extra 50% MR in case I do get spells fired at me while I'm unleashing my scrolls or wands (and which did in fact happen several times; I also used Potions of Invulnerability and some protection scrolls to keep me safe from things like Death Ray and Flesh to Stone).
I'm not going to mention the undead and other encounters, they were easy pickings for Nadeem (including another lich).
So the first group was 3 beholders and 2 gauths. I weakened them with Sphere of Chaos and Cloudkill and then picked off individuals with Wands of Lightning / the Heavens.
Then we were into the beholder lair. The individual gauths and beholders were picked off easily with Lightning / Scorcher / Heavens.
The main challenge was the group of 4 beholders and 3 gauths in the bottom section. However I managed to split them up by firing some cloud spells (eg Cloudkill) which meant they wandered off in different directions and I could then deal with them one at a time. I used up several wands and scrolls but the beholders were roundly defeated
I prepped for the Unseeing Eye by setting up 2 spike traps: this was more than my norm of one trap HLA at a time but the Unseeing Eye summons 2 Death Tyrants when it's injured so I think I'm justified in using more than one trap.
One of the spike traps fired immediately when the Unseeing Eye came into view and I then fired the Rod. The Unseeing Eye was immediately near death but the Death Tyrants spawned in front of it and I couldn't therefore finish it off. One Death Tyrant died quickly from a spike trap and a shot from the Wand of Lightning. The other took longer, requiring several charges from wands.
The Unseeing Eye had wandered off and was putting up all sorts of defences, so I just fired Cloudkill at it multiple times (to which it was not immune) and that was that.
Gaal followed his god.
My reward from the Temple of Helm was the Mace of Disruption! This is excellent news as I would prefer to upgrade the mace rather than Azuredge (you can wield the mace in the offhand but you cannot wield Azuredge in the offhand). However I had spent my level 36 proficiency slot on Axes, rather annoyingly, which meant that goes to waste.
So now it's just the vampires. But maybe the Guarded Compound first
My strategy in no-reload runs is to summon monsters, hide or turn invisible, and let my summons do the work. Sometimes it takes multiple tries, since my summons might fail too many saves or not deal enough damage quick enough, but it's safe.
The first beholder fired Death Ray and the sword was gone instantly.
So I didn't bother with summons after that.
Kitty, Skeleton Warriors, Mordenkainen's Sword, Fire Elementals, Ras, animal summons... if you put these summons together in a group, haste them, turn them invisible, and send them out, they have a good chance of bringing down one or more of the Beholders, and might be able to take down the whole bunch.
Your character might not be able to summon all of these things without using a bunch of scrolls, but summons are still a viable strategy. Like I said, it's my strategy, not necessarily yours--your character, a non-caster, isn't quite as suited for that.
That said, if we're talking about your strategy, summons are still an option. You might consider using the Staff of Fire to summon Lesser Fire Elementals. A clone (do you have Vhailor's Helm?) could bring out over 10 of them without expending your own charges, and maybe turn them invisible as well with an Invisibility 10' Radius scroll. At the very least, they could soften up the Beholders and allow you to kill one or two of them before you get targeted yourself. A Wand of Monster Summoning could also buy you a few seconds of safety per charge.
I don't have Vhailor's Helm (tier 7 treasure!) nor the Staff of Fire...it's just scrolls at the moment.
I decided to go with the thorough buffing approach.
For those who want details, those are:
Oil of Speed and Potion of Invulnerability
Stoneskin
Mirror Image
Blur
Shield
Protection from Normal Weapons
Protection from Normal Missiles
Protection from Evil
Fireshield Red
Protection from Electricity
Minor Globe of Invulnerability
True Sight
Spell Immunity Abjuration
Spell Shield
Improved Invisibility
That pretty much covers everything I might get thrown at me!
Since the mage would likely be untouchable for a while, I went for the cleric first.
And dived into a side room as the poison finished the job and the mage was casting an Alteration spell.
I wonder which spell?
Koshi bit the dirt as the others blocked the room exit.
The mage was casting all sorts of spells, including this Wish.
I waited for some of his weapon defences to expire before firing some Arrows of Dispelling.
That persuaded the mage to move away from the door, which allowed me to escape the room and set up to do this.
Trying to backstab Maferan didn't work out too well.
So I went for Ketta instead.
Olaf was next.
Before Maferan was lured into a spike trap and dispatched.
Main loot was the Tuigan Bow and Aeger's Hide. I decided to sell the former (prefer Tansheron for the +3 unlimited arrows rather than the extra APR) and the latter replaced the Skin of the Ghoul.
Revised equipment.
Just need to upgrade the Mace of Disruption and then I can go for the vampires
We had a little problem with Bodhi and her cabal. Things went well for the first few rounds, until Bodhi's mage friends turned the situation around. Her mage friends are from Tactics, and they have lots of high-level mage spells to screw things up. There's a female mage named Mannasseh, and a male mage named Hazama-hazama-harmaveth. Or Hazama-hazama-harma-habbaloobadoobie-veth, to be perfectly correct, but Hazama-hazama-harmaveth is shorter.
Basically, Hazzerbazzer used a triple Breach Spell Trigger on Varen, and the other vampires descended upon her as soon as her NPP was gone. Ivinhale was about to hit Varen with Resilient Sphere, but at that very moment, Bodhi cast her Cloud of Bats spell on Ivinhale, ruining her spellcasting. And since Varen had already used Sunfire that round, her aura wasn't clear to drink a Potion of Invisibility.
Sigh...
Just kidding. We mopped the floor with Bodhi. Maeruo killed her single-handedly with Sanchuudoku. We even kept Drizzt from landing the final blow, by having Ivinhale block his path. The only Cloud of Bats spell in the fight hit Maeruo, who regenerated all the damage and didn't need to cast any spells in the first place, and Hazzabazzah's Breach spell was bounced back at him due to Mae-mae's Ring of Spell Turning. The other Breach spell in the battle, as I recall, didn't even remove the target's NPP spell; apparently Breach can't do that in SR. And most of the vampires died in the third round anyway, when Kolem Tao cast Holy Word, with his caster level boosted by the Amulet of Power.
To be honest, I just got tired of the run, even though there were only a few battles left in SoA. But I thought the people who were watching this run would be upset if I just said I was starting over, so I thought I should emphasize the positive: hey, at least Varen didn't get level drained to death!
My new run is a solo, unkitted thief. But she has more going on than that.
Instead, I just have SCS2 installed, with some Tactics options on top. Now who is this unkitted thief?
I turned the matter over in my head a while and eventually decided that none of the normal classes held my interest. Nor did I want to try out a multi-classed Druid/Thief or dual-classed Bounty Hunter/Druid, for which I'd have to tweak a Cleric/Thief build. Finally I decided to play something I've been meaning to play for a long time.
Meet Viora, the Phase Spider Thief. She also goes by Vivian.
She's SO cute! Don't you just wanna give her a tiny, tiny kiss on her fuzzy little head? I googled "cute spider" and naturally a bunch of jumping spiders came up. Jumping spiders need excellent vision to aim their jumps, so they have unusually large eyes. Their squinchy little legs also make them look extra cute. I picked one of the first images I found and photoshopped it up to give it pretty blue eyes. I have a soft spot for blue-eyed critters.
Did you know the jumping spider bagheera kiplingi is the only mostly vegetarian spider in the world? It lives off of nectar! Like a butterfly! And males and females raise the young together! Isn't that just darling?
Anyhoo... Viora's exact parentage is unclear. Her mother was humanoid, but there are spider and drider genes mixed in as well. Viora has a humanoid form she uses for day-to-day stuff, but she can't maintain it for very long, and spends most of her time in spider form. The Candlekeep regulars got accustomed to her, but she had an unfortunate habit of scaring the bejeezus out of visiting scholars, and developed a crippling shyness in response. But she hasn't had much trouble making friends. Once people get past the extra legs,* they take one look into Vivian's pretty blue eyes and just want to hug her and buy her presents.
*Vivian doesn't view them as extra legs, of course. She does not believe that two legs should be considered the standard. She can get very huffy when people get all anthro-centric and stuff.
I had to find a way to implement the phasing feature, so I mapped Infravision to a hotkey and replaced the spell with a clone of the Phase Spider's Dimension Door spell. I also added Improved Alacrity to Vivian and made the Dimension Door spell refresh itself on cast, and tagged is as non-disruptable. The spell still has a casting time of 2, so she can't flit around the map instantaneously--not until she gets UAI and the Robe of Vecna--but it will do a lot to improve her mobility. I also added a movement speed bonus, just enough to give her a human walking speed, since spiders avatars sluggish in BG2.
After examining a Phase Spider's abilities and comparing them to those of other classes at the same level (level 5), I determined that they're basically fighters with an extra 0.5 APR and a 2 bonus to THAC0. Accordingly, I gave Viora specialization in daggers, the same proficiency as her natural weapon, and an extra 0.5 APR. As a Phase Spider, she has 5 base AC and delivers a nonmagical poison on a failed save vs. death, for 2 poison damage per second for 20 seconds. She also is immune to the hold I and web effects, but not poison.
It's pretty nice, which is why she's not a Bounty Hunter--a Bounty Hunter Phase Spider would be too overpowered for my tastes. She will do well in the early game, relatively speaking, but she won't have the same potential as a kitted thief in the late game, since Assassins have septuple backstab multipliers and poison damage that offers no save, which they can apply to any weapon (Viora's weapon is just a +1 dagger without to hit and damage bonuses), Bounty Hunters have ranged Maze spells that bypass MR, and Swashbucklers are basically Fighter/Thieves in terms of damage output and durability, and won't struggle against backstab-immune enemies. Instead, she will have to use her superior mobility to screw around with her opponents. I imagine it will be much more fun, since I love having fast and mobile characters.
As a spider, though, she has some drawbacks. Human equipment isn't designed to fit her, and she doesn't fight in humanoid form, so she can't use as many items. She will never have any proficiencies in any weapons besides daggers, darts, clubs, slings, and short bows, and she won't even be able to use any other weapons, proficiencies or no, until after she gets UAI. And I think two-handed weapons are a no-go even with UAI, so even Staff of the Magi and Carsomyr may be out of the question. She can wear leather armor, but other forms of armor could not be fit over her abdomen (not even with UAI). She can't wear helms until UAI, but she can wear a shield by strapping it to her back. No boots until UAI, either. It takes some creativity to get magic boots to work when they're not on your feet.
The run gets off to a good start. She lands a critical hit on her first backstab.
She has the same number of points invested in Open Locks and Find Traps as Imoen, to make sure she can do all the thiefy stuff in Chateau Irenicus, while the rest of her points are invested in stealth. I have her sneak around the Duergar, though I don't have the option of sneaking around the Otyugh, since I've got a hallway of Duergar just beyond the Otyugh lair that would chase me into the Otyugh's cavernous maw if I tried to sneak past them.
I teleport out of the Otyugh's reach and hide in the southern hall. From there, I can sneak back out and backstab it. The primary use of the phasing will be setting up backstabs--I can't use it to kite until I get UAI, since the speed factor, at 2, makes Viora's teleportation only marginally faster than walking.
While pondering my options after getting the Portal Key, I get ambushed by a Duergar coming from the western hallway.
I decide to teleport to the eastern hall, lock the door behind me, and move on. I'd like to help the dryads, but Ilyich is too dangerous. Viora is immune to the mage's Charm Person spell, since she's a spider, but there's still a lot of potential damage between all of those dwarves, and I'm not confident she can survive it. Her AC is good, but she doesn't have the fighter-type THAC0 she would need to keep the battle short and in her favor.
I can't summon any critters to distract the Mephits in the Mephit Portal room, nor do I have any guaranteed way of making a save against Color Spray, which could otherwise spell the end of my run. So, I plan to make use of Vivian's phasing to lock the Mephits in the room with the portal--which I've done on multiple previous runs where I could not rely on saves or summons to survive.
I run out into the Mephit Portal room, linger just long enough for everyone to target me, then run back into the room with the portal (it's confusing--there's a Mephit Portal room on one side, and right next to it is a room with another kind of portal). As the Radiant Mephits close in, preparing to cast Color Spray, I begin casting Dimension Door. To my surprise, they interrupt it--and suddenly I am out of spells.
It seems that tagging the spell as "no spell failure" just means it's not affect by spell failure--damage can still interrupt it. Since the spell got interrupted twice already, I'm out of Dimension Door spells, which isn't supposed to happen. The Dimension Door is supposed to be an at-will ability. To get around this, I just use CTRL-J, and run to the door to lock the Mephits behind me.
I can then slay the Mephit Portals at my leisure, which is quite easy, as they have guaranteed failed saves against Viora's poison.
I backstab Ellesime's clone, kill Frennedan with brute force, and slay the northernmost Duergar with traps and poison. I sneak past the Assassin guarding the exit (or rather, I use CTRL-J to get past him), and emerge in Athkatla.
Jon-bon squabbles with some creepy men in hoods and Imoen gets teleported away. Viora fails to intervene--at all happened so fast--and is once again on her own, as spiders usually are.
She visits the circus and finds that the illusions help her hide in plain sight: the orc Peasants have blue circles and therefore Viora can hide right in front of them.
There's a fellow spider nearby named Hannah, but Hannah is freaking out about the "extra legs" thing and isn't much fun to be with. It's just Vivian's luck that the last spider she's seen since the Cloakwood is arachnophobic.
Bregg and Cohrvale fall to traps, needing only backstab and a bite to the neck to collapse. Since Viora is doing so well, I decide to take a risk, and take on Amalas in the Copper Coronet. She gives him one look with those big sparkly and he just falls into a deep blue sea of contentment. The Ring of Human Influence might have helped, too. While Amalas is busy falling in love, Viora sets up a bunch of traps around the ring before pouncing.
The Hobgoblins downstairs aren't too dangerous, either. Normally this is a very dangerous place for a solo no-reload character, but Hold Person spells don't work on spiders.
An Otyugh joins the battle, and to avoid its diseased tentacles, Vivian teleports back and forth, trying to hide and get in a backstab. She fails to hide in 9 rounds of 10 (I can tell because she had a DUHM that kept track of time) and rolls a critical miss on the one time she does evade notice. Finally she gets lucky on both rolls.
I'm not willing to go any further than collecting Lilarcor, however. The Slavers can be pretty tough at low levels. Besides, we have a better plan for gathering XP.
We take the safe route out of Athkatla, Promenade to Slums to Government District (meet Jan, talk to Delon, save Viconia) to the Gate District (talk to Flydian) to the Umar Hills. Since Viora is immune to hold I, she can fight the Killer Mimic without a Potion of Freedom. After helping organize a meeting between the mayor and Madulf and killing a "Juggernaut" Golem, she headed to the Temple Ruins and used a scroll of Protection from Undead to make it through the area safely.
But some Shadows didn't get fooled by the magic, and attacked her as soon as she removed the Sun Gem from its pedestal. Since one of them had drunk an Oil of Speed somehow, her own Oil of Speed was not enough. She had to teleport to safety.
The rest of the dungeon wasn't too hard. She had to wait until her resting period before talking to Dettseh and the other ghost, since I've failed in the past to receive the right piece of the Symbol of Amaunator while under the effects of a Protection from Undead scroll (maybe because Amuana and her friends are all undead).
I did some math and found that I would be just barely able to kill the Shade Lord with one Protection from Undead scroll, and might have to use a second one if I had bad luck. But to my surprise, the Shade Lord is vulnerable to Viora's most dangerous weapon.
When the Shade Lord falls, the whole fortress of shadows goes down with her.
Spiders are awesome.
@semiticgod - I'm sorry for your loss ... The king is dead... long live the king (Viora!)