A Totemic Druid vs A Horrendously Modded BG1
OlvynChuru
Member Posts: 3,075
This playthrough stars Zisuso, a half-elven totemic druid who has to get through a game where most of the enemies have been given additional powers . Luckily, she gets to have some tricks of her own: she can cast Dolorous Decay 3x/day, and she has Aura Cleansing, but her casting times are increased by 2. I also gave her 18/00 Strength and 18 in all the other stats. The other playable characters have been powered up too, though most of them were given more interesting buffs than just better stats. Lastly, it's not a roleplaying playthrough.
So, to start off, Zisuso wandered around Candlekeep a bit and noticed that the cows were hissing. Since when do cows hiss? She didn't know what to make of it... yet.
She entered a building, then Shank came out of hiding and hit her with Harm, reducing her HP to 1. He was about to finish her off but then she killed him with a swing of her staff. After healing herself, she quickly went to Gorion and they left Candlekeep. Gorion died and she kicked Imoen out of the party. She also wasn't interested in meeting Khalid or Jaheira, so she headed toward Beregost.
Once Zisuso reached Beregost, she rescued Neera from the vicious magic bandits and had her join the party. They killed Silke, calmed Marl down, and headed further south. Oh, and I should mention what I did to Neera. I made her weak to certain damage types and highly resistant to others. She has 75% resistance to cold, acid, slashing, crushing, and magic damage, but she has -75% resistance to fire, electricity, piercing, missile, and magic. She also has very good saves vs wands, petrification, and breath weapon, but she has terrible saves vs spells and death.
At Nashkel, they went straight to the inn, ignoring the monk who was demonstrating his prowess to four hissing commoners, and Zisuso summoned a spirit bear right before Neira came out of her invisibility and tried to kill them. She instantly cast Rigid Thinking on Zisuso but luckily it was resisted (I gave Neira zero casting time but aside from that I left her spellcasting unchanged). However, that wasn't all that they had to deal with: one of the commoners in the inn was actually a doppelganger who reverted to its true form and attacked them. Now, these doppelgangers are really dangerous because they all have 25 strength and 5 attacks per round, so Zisuso had to be cautious around them. She cast Dolorous Decay on it and they exited the inn just before Neira's Hold Person landed. Zisuso went back in, quickly cast Dolorous Decay on Neira, and ran to the back of the inn while the two assassins died from the poison. They rested at the inn, and when they came back out they noticed that Rasaad was still performing in front of those hissing commoners. Now that they knew that the hissing came from doppelgangers who weren't masking their true form very well, Neera cast Magic Missile on one of the "commoners," and sure enough, all four of them revealed themselves to be doppelgangers and attacked! Zisuso and Neera had no choice but to run away and seek help from the Amnian Soldiers. These guards came in and did some good damage against the doppelgangers, but those shapeshifters could kill the soldiers in one hit. Luckily, they didn't attack the soldiers much, so they just kept chasing Zisuso and Neera while the soldiers pelted them with arrows. Once all the doppelgangers had been killed, Rasaad joined the party.
That's all for now. It's only going to get sillier from here.
So, to start off, Zisuso wandered around Candlekeep a bit and noticed that the cows were hissing. Since when do cows hiss? She didn't know what to make of it... yet.
She entered a building, then Shank came out of hiding and hit her with Harm, reducing her HP to 1. He was about to finish her off but then she killed him with a swing of her staff. After healing herself, she quickly went to Gorion and they left Candlekeep. Gorion died and she kicked Imoen out of the party. She also wasn't interested in meeting Khalid or Jaheira, so she headed toward Beregost.
Once Zisuso reached Beregost, she rescued Neera from the vicious magic bandits and had her join the party. They killed Silke, calmed Marl down, and headed further south. Oh, and I should mention what I did to Neera. I made her weak to certain damage types and highly resistant to others. She has 75% resistance to cold, acid, slashing, crushing, and magic damage, but she has -75% resistance to fire, electricity, piercing, missile, and magic. She also has very good saves vs wands, petrification, and breath weapon, but she has terrible saves vs spells and death.
At Nashkel, they went straight to the inn, ignoring the monk who was demonstrating his prowess to four hissing commoners, and Zisuso summoned a spirit bear right before Neira came out of her invisibility and tried to kill them. She instantly cast Rigid Thinking on Zisuso but luckily it was resisted (I gave Neira zero casting time but aside from that I left her spellcasting unchanged). However, that wasn't all that they had to deal with: one of the commoners in the inn was actually a doppelganger who reverted to its true form and attacked them. Now, these doppelgangers are really dangerous because they all have 25 strength and 5 attacks per round, so Zisuso had to be cautious around them. She cast Dolorous Decay on it and they exited the inn just before Neira's Hold Person landed. Zisuso went back in, quickly cast Dolorous Decay on Neira, and ran to the back of the inn while the two assassins died from the poison. They rested at the inn, and when they came back out they noticed that Rasaad was still performing in front of those hissing commoners. Now that they knew that the hissing came from doppelgangers who weren't masking their true form very well, Neera cast Magic Missile on one of the "commoners," and sure enough, all four of them revealed themselves to be doppelgangers and attacked! Zisuso and Neera had no choice but to run away and seek help from the Amnian Soldiers. These guards came in and did some good damage against the doppelgangers, but those shapeshifters could kill the soldiers in one hit. Luckily, they didn't attack the soldiers much, so they just kept chasing Zisuso and Neera while the soldiers pelted them with arrows. Once all the doppelgangers had been killed, Rasaad joined the party.
That's all for now. It's only going to get sillier from here.
Post edited by OlvynChuru on
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So, here's the deal with Rasaad: he starts with 0 base THAC0 at Level 1, and he gets two of Dradeel's special abilities: he can cast Selune's Blessing (a minor globe of invulnerability effect) three times per day, and he can cast Selune's Curse (a powerful blue fireball that does magic damage) once per day. Normally monks are pretty boring in early on, so I wanted to give him some cool abilities.
They went over to Minsc and agreed to help him rescue Dynaheir. Now I should talk about Minsc: he now has 18/00 Strength, 12 Dexterity, 18 Constitution, and extremely good saves vs death. He also deals maximum damage, can cast Earthquake once per day, and wields halberds instead of two-handed swords. Now it's time to venture forth to the Gnoll Stronghold!
On the way, they encountered a dryad who wanted them to protect the tree from Caldo and Krumm, the latter of whom was nowhere in sight. Zisuso agreed to help. She summoned a spirit bear, but then she had the party back off so that Rasaad could safely fire Selune's Curse at Caldo. The magicball didn't hit Krumm, who burst out of invisibility and destroyed the spirit bear in a single critical hit (now Krumm crits on every attack). Zisuso cast Dolorous Decay on him and he was easily taken down by Minsc and Rasaad. Minsc equipped Caldo's Splint Mail +1 (I gave a lot of additional magic items to enemies, particularly stat-increasing tomes).
Later on they encountered two bandits: Vax the spear-wielding kensai, and Zal the dart-thrower with 10 attacks per round (now he really is the fastest dart thrower). Minsc cast Earthquake on them and Rasaad cast Selune's Curse on them (yeah, I'm using Selune's Curse a lot, but luckily there are a lot of battles later on that it doesn't win outright). Vax survived both attacks (he has 126 HP) but he didn't have much HP left, and he was quickly finished off. The party got Boots of Speed and an unidentified tome from the corpses of the two bandits.
They were waylaid by an invisible winter wolf, which stayed invisible even after it attacked. Earthquake and Selune's Curse had already been used for the day so they had no choice but to run.
Soon they encountered the gnoll Ingot, who they attacked. Ingot has 25 Strength, -20 THAC0, the effects of the HLA Smite, and a very damaging halberd. However, he's still only level two and he doesn't have much HP, so Neera cast Color Spray on him, knocking him unconscious, and then the rest of the party killed him.
(One note: for some reason I decided to turn Sendai into extremely powerful juggernaut on par with Drizzt, Sarevok and Aec'Letec. I'm not fighting her right now, if at all.)
Once they arrived at the Gnoll Stronghold they were assailed by Gnarl and Hairtooth. I gave Gnarl a powerful monk fist along with Gauntlets of Crushing and a Big-Fisted Belt. As for Hairtooth, each round he instantly casts Fireball on Gnarl, and both of them are immune to fire. The fireballs killed a few party members so I had to reload once or twice. I didn't end up needing to use Selune's Curse; Zisuso cast Dolorous Decay on both of them (luckily I'm still at a point in the game where enemies have bad saving throws) and Neera picked them off with Magic Missiles before they got near the party. Gnarl and Hairtooth were slain, and the party received some nice equipment. However, there was a much bigger threat in the Gnoll Stronghold: the vultures.
Each round, each vulture in the area summons a hostile Death Shade (all the vultures in the game do this now). Here's how I made the Death Shades work: they have 1 HP and 20 base AC, but they are hasted, they have -20 THAC0, and anyone they hit dies instantly with no saving throw. Each one gives 200 experience when killed. If one of them sees a party member they will quickly rush in and attack, so I have to react fast. The good news is that anything can kill them, even a Wand of Missiles. Sometimes I would rest so that all the Death Shades would be unsummoned. I also had to deal with the gnolls. Although I didn't make the basic gnolls any stronger, I did make the elites, the slashers, the veterans and the chieftain a good deal tougher (though not in any interesting way). They were all still vulnerable to Color Spray, and they weren't that tough to deal with.
Eventually the party reached Dynaheir and she joined the party. She is now immune to fire, cold, and electricity, and her level is increased by six for purposes of determining spell power (so she can launch five Magic Missiles at level 3). She also has +10 damage and THAC0 with fists (which would make the Gauntlets of Crushing somewhat useful even if your party doesn't include a monk), but she still only has 11 Strength and one attack per round.
Next up is the Nashkel Mines!
Before the party went to the Nashkel Mines, they explored another wilderness area. There they encountered a hostile cave bear. I made it so that cave bears cast Sunfire whenever they get hit by an attack or a damaging spell. In addition, their weapon deals 4d8 damage, plus they have 25 Strength and do maximum damage. Of course, this simply made the bear a more useful ally after Minsc charmed it! I had the bear go all over the area, and it destroyed all the enemies in its path... that is, until it met another cave bear. They fought it out, and both of them died to the sunfires.
After that, the party traveled to the mines, but before they got there, they were waylaid by a polar bear! Polar bears don't hit nearly as hard as cave bears, but they cast Cone of Cold on the attacker whenever they take damage. In order for most characters to damage it without getting annihilated, they have to equip the Belt of Antipode, though Dynaheir already has 100% cold resistance. Neera equipped the belt and the two of them fired magic missiles until they ran out, then Rasaad equipped the belt and finished the bear off.
When they arrived at the mines, they found that the miners were really had no idea what was causing the problems. Some of them thought that there was a dragon in the mines, considering the fact that many of the dead miners that had been retrieved from the mines seemed to have died from severe burns. The party went inside to find the truth.
Everything went as normal until the party reached a trapped bridge over a gorge. On the other side were three kobolds, one of which was a kobold commando. You see, I turned quite a few of the regular kobolds in the game into kobold commandos and kobold captains, and I gave most kobold commandos an Arrow of Detonation which they will fire before switching to their normal fire arrows. They will drop that arrow if they are killed before they fire it. Since I had no thief to disarm the traps, the best thing I could do was to have Minsc take off his armor, enter stealth, trigger the traps, and cleave the kobold commando. The rest of the party came along and helped the unarmored Minsc take care of the other kobolds.
After resting and killing some more kobolds, they came across two huge spiders. Each one has -20 THAC0 but also another, much stranger perk: when they get hit, they turn invisible and instantly cast Greater Malison on the attacker, making them more vulnerable to the poison. Rasaad cast Selune's Curse, killing them both in one hit before they could do any really nasty things.
They also encountered a ghoul, which starts invisible and also has -20 THAC0. It burst out of invisibility and paralyzed Zisuso, but the rest of the party killed it quickly. I made much more interesting changes to the ghasts than I made to the ghouls, but I'll get to that when I encounter one.
In the next area, there was a stream, and on the other side was a kobold commando as normal, but also a kobold captain. I made it so that all the kobold captains in the game have -20 THAC0, and some of them have additional tricks, but this one is just a kobold archer with -20 THAC0. Minsc entered stealth, went up to the kobold captain, killed it, and approached the commando before it fired its exploding arrow so that it would switch to a melee weapon.
After killing the kobolds and the ghoul in that area, the party entered Mulahey's lair. There, there were a bunch of kobold captains under the effect of Minor Globe of Invulnerability. Each one cast Lightning Bolt on Zisuso and she died. After reloading, I had Dynaheir (who has 100% electricity resistance) go absorb all the bolts, but Xan died as collateral damage (I wasn't planning on having him join, though). Zisuso, Minsc and Rasaad then finished off the kobolds.
The party confronted Mulahey, who summoned a group of skeletons and kobold captains. These kobold captains give whoever they hit a THAC0 penalty of 20. The skeletons are slowed, but they do 20 flat damage with each hit. In addition, whenever one of these skeletons dies, it summons an evil floating skull which casts Horror and then attacks with a near-endless supply of Chill Touches. However, each skull was no more durable than the skeleton, and all the enemies in the fight aside from Mulahey could be killed in one hit. After a few reloads, the party killed Mulahey and took his ioun stone.
They left the mine and found a group of female assassins. Telka backstabs on every hit, Maneira is permanently under the effects of Poison Weapon, Zeela casts Silence: 15' Radius on whoever hits her, and Zeela and Lamalha are immune to silence. However, none of that matters, as all it took the party to kill them was for Rasaad to cast Selune's Curse, which killed all four of them in one hit.
Back at Nashkel, the party encountered Nimbul, who started with Mirror Image up and immediately cast Horror upon seeing them (I made Nimbul this way because I have a hard time believing that an assassin, upon seeing his/her target, would say "hi there, now I'm going to kill you" before killing them, especially in a place that's full of guards). Rasaad cast Selune's Blessing, making himself immune to Nimbul's spells, and he beat Nimbul up. It's a good thing that I took care of Rasaad's four doppelganger commoners earlier; otherwise I would have to fight all four of them here along with Nimbul.
That's how far I've gotten so far. I actually did all this a month or so ago; I haven't used Zisuso in a while. However, I have made some changes since then:
*Now Selune's Curse deals 12d6 damage, save for half (previously it did 20d6 damage, save for half).
*Neera can cast Improved Chaos Shield, Sphere of Chaos, and Ruby Ray of Reversal once per day each.
*I changed the spell Ruby Ray of Reversal drastically. Here's the spell description:
Ruby Ray Of Reversal
(Alteration)
Level: 7
Range: 120 ft.
Duration: 2 turns
Casting Time: 5
Area of Effect: 1 creature
Saving Throw: None
The magical ray produced by this spell will invert the target's resistance to all damage types except for poison and magic damage. Thus, if the spell were to be cast on a fire elemental with 100% fire resistance and 50% weakness to cold, it would then have 50% cold resistance and 100% weakness to fire. This spell only affects innate resistances; resistances from items and other spells do not get reversed.
*I changed the spell Burning Hands so that it produces a cone of fire. It can be cast on any point in sight, and the farther that point is from the caster, the larger the cone is. It still does the same damage that it normally does, just with much longer range.
*I added a new level 1 druid spell, Flame Stones. Here's the spell description:
Flame Stones
(Invocation)
Level: 1
Sphere: Elemental
Range: 60 feet
Duration: Instant
Casting Time: 1
Area of Effect: 30 foot radius
Saving Throw: None
The Flame Stones spell shoots one flame stone per level. Each one explodes in a fireball that deals 2 damage with no saving throw to all creatures within 30 feet. The caster can choose where each stone goes.
(So basically it works like the Wand of Lightning in BG2)
Also... Pretty much everything I've mentioned so far, aside from the spell revisions I just talked about, was done using EEKeeper. In order to make it so that characters turn into doppelgangers, I gave those characters the Cast Spell on Condition effect so that they would cast one of the doppelganger shapeshift spells if either they took damage or they saw an enemy. I gave them 1000 HP so they wouldn't be killed before they transformed. As for the Death Shades, I edited the Nishruu heavily so that it would be a Death Shade, then I made it so that each vulture instantly casts Summon Nishruu each round (I had to make it so that the Death Shades are hostile regardless of who summons them).
By this point, I've learned to use NearInfinity pretty well, so I'm starting to do a lot of modding with it.