Candlekeep was less welcoming than Savras would have hoped and the party had to leave hiding like criminals. Back in Baldur's Gate they were treated exactly like criminals. Hard as that was, they gave themselves in, only to found Angelo, and not Scar in charge.
The bastard had Nimue killed only because he could!
After breaking from the Fist compound and learning of Sarevok's plans, Nimue found revenge in almost single-handedly dismantling the conspiracy against the dukes. Her magic (glitterdust+chant spell triggered plus slow to begin with) and Ajantis's bastard sword (bane of shapeshifters) gave a hard time to the doppelgangers. A face-off between Savras and Sarevok ended with the latter fleeing the scene, although Kivan and Coran's arrows had much to do with the victory.
Off I go to the maze and the final battle. I will be extra careful with traps and disabling spells, so I should make the no-reload challenge (BG1 at least) this time if Sarevok does not have it his way. Wish me luck.
I am impatient to get Celestial Fury for my Barbarian, but the party is still at level 9. We are in no condition to take on the Guarded Compound just yet.
But I'm going there anyway. I know how to steal Celestial Fury without having to survive a Comet from Sion.
First off, we have some trash summons on the bottom floor to take care of. Aerie blasts them with Cone of Cold.
Even if the Red Soul kit isn't worth the spell duration penalty, it's still a lot of fun to throw out high-damage spells. Normally I use mage spells as disablers and debuffers and other weird stuff, not for spell damage.
The enemy Efreeti, though, has strong damage spells as well, and due to the Red Soul's half spell duration penalty, we can't really achieve high fire resistance across the board for this party. We have to take the hit. Worse yet, our high damage output means very little for an enemy that can easily just turn to mist and regenerate the moment it gets close to dying.
The Efreeti is too resilient for us to take it down with brute force. Eventually, Blueberry disables it with a Web Tangle, allowing us to crush it before it can turn to mist.
Web Tangle really shouldn't prevent a critter from turning to mist like that, but it does.
We need some outside help if we're going to deal with the enemies upstairs. I go to the Slums and retrieve Jan and Korgan. I need Jan for Invisibility 10' Radius, without which we cannot safely approach the enemy; I need Korgan as a tank. We go upstairs and scurry away before divination magic can reveal us. Blueberry scouts them out, using the Cloak of Non-Detection to ensure she is not revealed, and Aerie starts sending out cheap summons, activating the enemy's pre-buffs.
The summons don't last long, so we have to keep summoning them. I need the enemy as weak as possible before we strike.
To take down Koshi, who has subzero AC and THAC0 and almost 100 HP, not counting his potions from SCS, we need to strike very hard and very fast. And to avoid getting crushed a round after we engage the enemy, we need a distraction.
That would be Korgan.
Korgan is beyond outclassed in this fight even with his Enrage ability activated. He won't survive long in this fight. But we only need him to buy us a bit of time.
While Korgan is getting torn to pieces, Aerie launches a Minor Sequencer at Koshi.
Enemies like Koshi--those who have no spell protections, invisibility, or magic resistance--are especially vulnerable to damage spells. The only reason this plan was viable was because of Aerie's Red Soul kit.
Seconds pass. Korgan is now doomed.
There's no way he's going to survive whatever Sion throws at him. But we see good news: Aerie's Melf's Acid Arrow continues to deal damage to Koshi during Time Stop, while Koshi is unable to drink a potion to recover.
Korgan lands a lucky hit on Koshi and finishes him off, before Sion's Comet turns Korgan to ash.
Korgan has been chunked, but we did not want him in the party anyway. He was a sacrificial lamb to us.
Before the enemy can crush the rest of us, Aerie downs a potion and we snatch Celestial Fury on the way out.
The best katana in the game is ours, and all it cost us was a Potion of Invisibility and Korgan's life. We send Jan home and continue on our way.
As long as we have Jan and can't find an Invisibility 10' Radius scroll for Aerie to use instead, we may as well use him to sneak past the Spirit Trolls of the Druid Grove. We break invisibility to nuke the bejeezus out of the local druid folk.
In a surprising twist, the fight with Dalok goes awry, but not because of nymphs and Fire Elementals. Dalok's buddies crush us with pure physical damage, likely a result of a potion of giant strength. Blueberry's inability to wear helmets once again proves crippling.
I forgot to mention that the Lightning Reflexes ability she gets as a Phase Spider imposes a -1 penalty to hit and damage, compensating for the +2 to AC and saving throws and +10 to MR. But Lightning Reflexes doesn't have such a big impact when Blueberry doesn't have the HP to survive many hits.
When we struggle to handle an Insect Plague and continued enemy melee pressure, we resort to kiting until we can cast spells again.
Aerie finishes the battle with a Magic Missile.
I can't tweak my install to let Cernd fight Faldorn, so I just do the next best thing.
I refuse the druid stronghold. This way, things operate as they would normally.
I finally head over to the Umar Hills, one of my standard early game quests. Aerie lands a sickening blow on a Shadow with a Lightning Bolt spell.
Most (but not all) Shadows are vulnerable to electricity.
Other encounters prove more trying. The moment a Bone Golem lands a hit on Poppy, I know we have to run.
If it can land such a strong hit on such a low attack roll, then Poppy won't survive for long. We end up dragging the enemy all the way outside, gradually wearing them down with bullets.
Normally I'm not fond of slings, but @Alesia_BH has pointed out that, unlike most missile weapons, they can be used with a shield--notably the Shield of Reflection, which makes a kiting character even harder to kill. Plus, a Barbarian's high STR will mesh well with a sling, since all slings in BG2:EE apply STR bonuses.
It's especially handy against the Shade Lord, who is extremely easy to kite. Poppy breaks invisibility so Aerie can buff her properly.
Death Ward blocks all of the Shade Lord's ranged attacks, and Enchanted Weapon lets us hit him with nonmagical ammunition. First, we take out the altar.
Then this happens.
After a moment, I piece together what happens. Apparently the Shade Lord fight has a curious mechanic I normally overlook: any summoned critter will turn into a shadow when slain. But there was a mis-targeting: that spell hit Poppy, the nearest character, instantly killing her despite full HP and immunity to death magic. Hence the Shadow appearing exactly where Poppy was. I think it's the replace critter opcode or something. Interesting bug, really.
I reload. I proceed same as before, but keep Poppy at a safe distance to avoid a mis-targeting of whatever spell does that. We zap Shadow Patrick with Celestial Fury's Lightning Bolt power, Sunfire the Shade Lord with Aerie under a short-lived SI: Necromancy buff to block Darkling Aura, and finally brain him with a bullet from Arla's Dragonsbane.
The Shade Lord used to be a nightmare for me, but there are actually a bunch of ways to handle him. Secret Word->Lower Resistance x2->Greater Malison->Hold Undead; a Cacofiend scroll; the Wand of Fire; and now, thanks to EE's new Enchanted Weapon spell, a simple sling and bullets.
One of the best things about Barbarians is their broad sweep of immunities. Unfortunately, they don't mean much if you forget to activate Barbarian Rage at the start of combat, and it only takes a second for an enemy to deal a fatal blow with Greater Command.
That's why we have Aerie.
One of the best things about the Phase Spider is the Lightning Reflexes ability. Too bad it only kicks in after the spider is already half dead.
That's what Raise Dead is for. Just kidding; she's there to bomb stuff.
This is why Charname here is our Barbarian, Poppy, and not our Phase Spider, Blueberry. Lightning Reflexes is no guarantee of safety when the spider can't wear helmets. The Phase Spider kit is proving more balanced that I would like.
I'm not willing to take on the Vampiric Wraiths of Watcher's Keep. Not yet. Instead, we go back to Firkraag's lair. Turns out Kamikaze Kobolds can harm their own master.
Rakshasas are awful. I hate facing enemies with undispellable spell level immunities. I bait him with summons, as usual, before closing in on him. Poppy has the HP to tank his later damage spells without being at risk for a Power Word: Stun kill, even if she didn't have Barbarian Rage to block it and Aerie's Remove Paralysis to cure it. We grind the rakshasa down.
The fight with Samia is a convoluted mess. We trade blows and lose lots of potions. In a crowded area without decent pre-buffs, Aerie can't bomb them very easily, and her Web only disables targets for 3 seconds, instead of a full round, due to her Red Soul penalties. We also learn that Aerie can't block her own Web spell with SI: Evocation.
Kaol survives thanks to his mage buffs, and gives us a lot of grief before finally failing a save against Laosha's Charm ability, though we lose a bit of its duration to Laosha's Feeblemind. We turn his spells against him--the battle is won.
The Seducer kit's Charm ability used to use a save vs. wand so it would have a chance of succeeding against liches and their base 1 save vs. spell. Now it uses a save vs. spell, with a +4 bonus, and a 20% flat chance of offering no save to begin with. Laosha's contribution to the party's success has actually been rather minor. As strong as the charm ability is, it's slow (12 seconds to activate), unreliable, and short-lived (only 6 rounds now, instead of 10). Thank goodness the only drawback of the kit is having even lower skill points than an Assassin.
Aerie and the Red Soul kit pick up the slack.
As usual, though, we get thrashed by the golems after the wolfweres. Spell damage is useless against them, and Blueberry in particular can't tolerate getting a bunch of punches. We have to use a couple of Potions of Invisibility to avoid any deaths.
Then I decide to use Blueberry to tank an Adamantite Golem afterwards, because she's immune to its poison cloud ability. But this version of EE apparently shrinks the iron golem animation's circle so it can fit through choke points. Blueberry ends up getting smashed by an arachnophobic titan.
Before EE, every Iron and Adamantite Golem in the game was inches away from a choke point. They were supposed to be fought from choke points. No longer an option.
We also suffer against Tazok and Chieftain Digdag. They just deal so much damage, and soak up so much damage. More potions down the drain.
We weaken Conster with Sunfire and Blueberry's poison holds off his spellcasting long enough for us to break through his Stoneskins.
After a few tough undeads that made me reconsider the UH as kit, the party makes it to the temple of Bhaal. I have used so few resources (consumables) up until now that I afford the luxury of taking the last group of bounty hunters with a multiple fireball overkill and a magic-immune Savras. He approached on Sanctuary, so when they became hostile, the archer almost did the job for me with his explosive arrows.
Temple of Bhaal. I am really nervous, but, again, I am well equipped to survive anything other than foolishly exchanging blows with Sarevok without backup or some retreats. I like picking on Sarevok's buddies one by one to make sure that all fall and all plots are closed. I decide to enjoy the fight and let my companions shine.
Coran uses a scroll of antimagic (this is the only time when I allow myself this item) and approaches Sarevok invisible, triggering the dialogue and making the mage teleport himself.
An archer with a few arrows of dissipation and magic-inmunity makes short work of any mage.
Out of frustation, he end up killing himself with a cloudkill.
Angelo killed Nimue, so she and Ajantis take on the bastard. Nimue dispels protections and dooms angelo while Ajantis (my fire immune companion, thanks to Balista passport x2 + helm of defense) has little problem dispatching the bully.
Savras (-11 CA) soaks up Tazok's punishment so that Kivan has his revenge. A split-second before the last arrow fells him...
Finally, they all team up to defeat Sarevok, although for roleplaying reasons Imoen, Nimue and Savras do more than the others. Savras has become a surprisingly good combatant: if not for Sarevok's perpetual haste, they would be pretty equal. Savras deals more damage per hit and hits just about as often; Sarevok is tougher to kill. But Sarevok does not have two mages with him. Nimue: doom x2, magic missile x2, chant x2 w/ spell sequencer; Imoen is magic missiling like crazy. Savras delivers the killing blow and turns his back on his fallen brother.
No-reload through BG1... CHECK!
Off I go to Siege of Dragonspear. I got it already; the install messed with some mods, hence Kivan's lack of portrait.
Since the Unseeing Eye quest failed to trigger before, I console in my favorite cleric guy.
It works; the quest finally starts. But I'm not quite ready to deal with Beholders yet. First, I pay a visit to Pai'Na. Aerie roasts all of the spiders, including poor Blueberry.
Aerie already comes with Spell Immunity, and Kitty isn't much use in a party run where there are better summons available, but the Pale Green Ioun Stone will improve Blueberry's terrible HP, though I'm not sure if it will still block critical hits in EE.
I'm not satisfied with Aerie's productivity here. She's plenty strong, but I want a better vessel for the Red Soul kit. I want Edwin, and to get him, we need to kill Rayic Gethras. Laosha, despite his lousy skill values, manages to reveal Ray-Ray, opening him up for a Web Tangle from Blueberry.
Web Tangle bypasses MR and spell protections, but not invisibility. And we still want to debuff him to deal serious damage, as his Mantle will block all of our current weapons. Aerie pulls out Secret Word, removing Ray-Ray's spell level immunities.
Ray-Ray fails a save vs. breath and gets webbed. He's wide open for one of the Red Soul's best spells.
Mantle is a problem for us, not PFMW. Blueberry deals poison damage on any melee weapon if the target fails its save, and her natural weapon strikes as nonmagical, so mages with PFMW are actually quite vulnerable, if we're lucky enough to get a failed save vs. death. But Blueberry can't break through Mantle or Improved Mantle, the latter of which is an SCS standard.
Why not get a +5 weapon like the darts from the Cloak of Stars or the Sling of Everard? Well, Phase Spiders can't use missile weapons, and even if they could, their poison only applies to melee weapons. Dimension Door won't let you kite anybody with the current spider kit.
On to Mae'Var. He has no Mantle, and so is completely vulnerable to Blueberry's poison. It robs him of two spells early on.
Blueberry and Laosha gets savaged by Mavis' assassin chums. Their AC is too high and their HP too low, and with Laosha's skills the way they are, we can't reliably stop them from backstabbing using Detect Illusions.
We can, however, just blast them with a party-friendly spell.
Laosha gets another lucky roll with Detect Illusions, opening up Mavis for a PW: Silence from our new friend Edwin.
It's all over.
I apply the Red Soul kit to Edwin as well. After some mental exercises, I decide that the Red Soul kit actually weakens the mage overall, and getting the opposite bonuses (half damage in exchange for double spell duration) would be much better. This means Imoen will be getting the Green Soul kit once we reach Spellhold!
Edwin tries out his newfound abilities on the way to the De'Arnise Hold.
Very nice. But Sunfire isn't the reason we're going to fight Trolls. The real reason is that, with our party so small and our XP so concentrated, Edwin enters the party already at level 12, with Death Spell on hand. What happens to those Spirit Trolls I so passionately despise?
This is the only way to fight Trolls. It works on all of them except for TorGal, who will be a bit of a problem for us.
TorGal shows us that ioun stones do block critical hits in EE. But that's not much comfort for Blueberry.
Then Blueberry, already in huge danger, receives a death sentence.
Lightning Reflexes improves her saves, but not enough to guarantee a saving throw, particularly since she can't wear rings or helmets to boost her saving throws. Without any means of curing her confusion, we can't save her. She dies shortly, unable to drink a potion or teleport away from her attackers.
Poppy, with gobs of HP and superior AC, gets in TorGal's face. Trolls pour in from the north, right into another Death Spell from Edwin.
There are survivors, but Edwin doesn't run out of spells. He tries our one other party-friendly area-effect damage spell--one I never use due to its low base damage.
Our Efreeti is keeping the Yuan-ti Mages to the north busy (I hadn't even noticed they were there before). TorGal finally collapses, but from unknown causes, netting us zero XP.
No matter. The real XP rewards come from Nalia. We clean up the room, the Yuan-ti Mages still out of sight, out of mind.
Poppy, with her crazy Barbarian HP and crazy Barbarian immunities, runs out to distract the Coiled Cabal while Edwin, who spent a spare round turning himself invisible for the saving throw bonuses, nukes everyone in sight.
We're making good progress, but then I see a Spirit Troll attacking Aerie.
Her Stoneskins are holding up, but on checking her inventory, I realize that another hit will root her to the ground due to STR drain weighing her down. I have to pull Edwin away to rescue her.
Aerie is now safe, and we have a moment to recover our advantage. The enemies dwindle, and Laosha leads the last of them into the hallway. Edwin gets just close enough to finish them off.
We finally take a stronghold. It's boring, and I'll likely never get any gold since I'm using a custom rest spell in lieu of actual resting (it's faster) that prevents time from passing, but I don't want a Barbarian Charname running the mage stronghold I normally prefer.
Congratulations on beating BG1, @lurith! Good luck in SoD! Also, good progress, @semiticgod ! Nice to see you kits in action. That Web Tangle on Rayic Getras
We head down to the graveyard and poke around the tombs. I don't know if Edwin will leave the party if you refuse to get the Nether scroll for him, so I'm going to have to fight Nevaziah.
On the way, Aerie reminds me that Holy Smite technically isn't party-friendly.
We have a large area here, which I will be abusing due to our poor levels. After all, Nevaziah is an epic-level lich, and the Seducer Charm ability is no longer as reliable as it once was. We memorize a bunch of trash summoning spells and hurl them at Nevaziah, who destroys them in short order.
Normally if I'm waiting out enemy buffs and draining their spells, I like to be at least partly vulnerable to give the enemy a chance to fight me. I only send out Blueberry so Nevaziah can attack somebody. For some reason he feels compelled to use a pointless debuffer before blasting her.
Blueberry is coded as an unkitted ranger; no SCS enemy should deem her worthy of a magic attack like Warding Whip. She doesn't have any spell protections active; none of her spider spells, including Lightning Reflexes and the spells that penalize her casting speed, are classified as spell protections or even specific protections.
I bring in Laosha to try to dispel the lich's invisibility, and send in Aerie under SI: Abjuration to absorb some spells. Nevaziah prefers damage spells to disablers, so we lose a lot of potions tanking his various spells. Round after round, Laosha fails to dispel the lich's invisibility, and Poppy hurls rocks at the lich hoping to break through his many, many Stoneskins.
Finally Laosha exposes the lich.
The battle has been going on for so long that the Enchanted Weapon spell on Poppy, which we used to empower her nonmagical bullets, has worn off! We have to switch to the handful of +1 bullets we have left. Blueberry tries to fight the lich in close combat, but the lich's Dragon Fear ability, or some other weird effect, pushes her THAC0 north of 20, apparently without a saving throw. I keep Poppy out of the way so her THAC0 doesn't get penalized.
Then I find out that, on top of the lich's PFMW spells, and his Stoneskins, and the THAC0 penalty, the lich also has a ridiculously high resistance to missile damage, just because.
The battle slows to a crawl as the lich swats at Blueberry, Blueberry flails helplessly against it, and Poppy throws rock after rock at the lich. Aerie and Edwin just stand there, powerless to do anything, until finally the lich gives in.
I don't like this battle. It's too much pressure too early in the game, and Edwin pushes you into it. Next time I might kill Edwin before entering the Graveyard district, in the hopes that he won't bother me about the Nether scroll. I think I'll do the same for Keldorn and the Government district, what with the miserable end to his personal quest.
One of the unfortunate things about Cloudkill and Chain Lightning are their low damage values. One of the nice things about them is that they bypass GOI and lich immunities, respectively, which makes them especially handy against mages.
Another nice thing is that Poppy is immune to poison damage and therefore Cloudkill. She makes a great Cloudkill tank, much like a Cavalier, a monk, or anyone with the Periapt of Proof Against Poison or the Ring of Gaxx.
What's even better is that she's also immune to web, and can cast her own level 0 Web spells, which use a save vs. breath instead of a save vs. spell, as per Spell Revisions practice.
The enemy cleric, however, is out of range of both Cloudkill and Web, and since I generally assume he's a non-issue in this fight, I fail to stop him from dispelling the cloud.
I keep neglecting the cleric, preferring to bring down the enemy mage, Aran himself, and Blueberry exposes herself to a nasty Unholy Blight spell, nearly dying in the process. Aran hits her with Power Word: Stun, but Lightning Reflexes comes to her rescue, blocking it with MR.
So far I've been letting Blueberry do the heavy lifting, since no one else can operate in the cloud or the web safely, but when Blueberry needs help and Aran's MGOI runs out, Aerie blasts him with Holy Smite.
We don't leave for Brynnlaw yet. I never got around to the Planar Sphere, which has the Gauntlets of Ogre Power that Poppy could really use (I don't like the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength because it's incompatible with the Girdle of Piercing/Bluntness that Poppy needs to survive). We send out Blueberry against the halfling cannibals, hoping to web them and poison them with Cloudkill, but then Blueberry fails a save.
As a spider, she's immune to Charm Person and Dire Charm, but not Domination or Mental Domination. She turns on us, and the enemy no longer feels compelled to stay within the cloud to fight. They all advance on the party.
Edwin brings out Sunfire and nearly breaks the encounter, but Kayardi lives long enough to restore his buffs and his invulnerability.
We narrowly avoid a stoning, and finally break through Kayardi's Stoneskins.
We try the Web+Cloudkill trick again on Necre and Taibela, and discover that Blueberry isn't actually immune to her own web spells.
Notice the enemy mages still using magic attacks on a character with no spell protections. To keep the enemy from pursuing the party out of the cloud, I send in Valygar. I know he can't survive, but if we let the enemy approach, those webs and cloudkills won't do us much good.
Lavok is the second deadliest enemy around here, with epic-level mage spells and a very small space to fight in, making it much harder to escape his grasp, like we did with Nevaziah. But now we're better situated.
SCS enemies rarely pre-buff with Protection from Cold, making them very vulnerable to Cone of Cold. We trigger the fight with Blueberry, teleport her away to escape Lavok's Horrid Wilting, and bring our mages just close enough to cast Cone of Cold. I time the spells so Aerie casts her spell 3 seconds after Edwin casts his, increasing the chance of spell disruption.
This was the easiest fight against Lavok I've ever had.
Tolgerias, though, has always been harder, and I tend to underestimate him because he doesn't bring out a Planetar right off the bat like Lavok does. More Cloudkills and Webs, but once again Blueberry gets disabled by her own spell.
I really should grant her immunity to it. Tolgerias tries to debuff Edwin, but the nice thing about Spell Immunity is that you can cast it even if your aura isn't clear, ensuring a quick refresh, assuming you have an extra copy of the spell on hand.
Tolgerias uses a nastier debuffer against Aerie, who has no defense against it.
He tries to follow up with an HLA, but Dragon's Breath is easily dodged if you see it coming.
Tolgerias's defenses hold up; we don't have much pressure to apply besides Cloudkill. He takes another shot at Edwin, but Edwin gets lucky.
When Tolgerias leaves the cloud, Edwin punishes him with Cone of Cold. But the cone doesn't even hit him.
We try Sunfire instead. Tolgerias gets fried.
We stop by Mekrath's lair and make further use of Edwin's safe MGOI-bypassing damage spells, Cloudkill and Chain Lightning.
We purchase the Shield of Balduran and send out a Vhailor's Helm clone with the shield in hand for extra safety. We throw damage spells to speed up the fights in the Unseeing Eye quest.
When we notice a lich in the Pit of the Faithless, we run away, but the Beholders are no problem with the SOB in hand. A Simulacrum tank and damage spells are enough to handle normal enemies in this area.
Same goes for the Unseeing Eye. The SOB keeps Poppy safe long enough to slay the Unseeing Eye and his cohorts with bullets and spell damage.
With the Planar Sphere complete, the Planar Prison awaits. I want Kundane for Blueberry (phase spiders can specialize in short swords, and have no penalties for dual-wielding) and the Boots of Speed for Poppy.
I load up the game, but something is wrong.
Something screwed up my SCS strings, probably an EE update (my game updates to the most recent version automatically). But the solution is simple. All I have to do is back up my dialog.tlk file and paste in @Blackraven's old one. Success!
Valygar is out of the party (not sure why his buff durations are displaying here) because I am keeping that slot open for Imoen, who will get the Green Soul kit, reducing her spell damage by half but doubling her spell duration.
We have a new development in the party, which I am very excited about: Edwin has hit level 14 and can now cast Prismatic Spray. We blast the first enemies of the Planar Prison with a flood of pretty colors.
I like area-effect spells that have cone-shaped or line-shaped projectiles. It makes precise targeting more important. The nice thing about Prismatic Spray is that it's a party-friendly spell. On top of that, it strikes as a level 7 spell, bypassing GOI and lich spell level immunities.
We have a bunch of Yuan-ti Mages to the east to deal with. I decide to try out Web once more, even though Blueberry is not immune, because it might help us take down the Coiled Cabal. Blueberry sneaks into their midst and fires off both of her Web spells in a single round. I keep the rest of the party back; I want the Yuan-ti to waste their resources on Blueberry before the rest of us move in.
Blueberry's Lightning Reflexes ability finally comes into play. She is buffed with Protection from Fire and can hit the Yuan-ti's Fire Shields safely, but each hit she takes, even if it deals no damage, triggers Lightning Reflexes, a cumulative +2 to AC and saves and +10 to MR for 2 rounds. Her own Web spells also trigger Lightning Reflexes, which I will need to fix, further improving her defenses. I take a look at the numbers, and the bonuses she gets are ridiculous.
For once, Blueberry's vulnerability to her own Web spells is coming in handy. The Yuan-ti fighters can't touch her and the Yuan-ti Mages can't disable her. She only takes very small amounts of damage. Improved Alacrity allows her to drink a potion and cast a healing spell in the same round, but only in that order (IA doesn't speed up potion and item use).
Eventually Blueberry lets a Yuan-ti Mage slip by and approach the party. Edwin and Aerie leap into action.
See that second screenshot? That's the Ring of the Ram, which apparently does nonmagical magical damage as a level 0 spell in EE. Damage which the Red Soul kit boosts. We have confirmation: the Red Soul damage bonuses apply to items as well as spells, which means we can do terrible things to enemies with a fully charged Wand of Cloudkill.
The Master of Thralls is no threat to this party. Poppy has the saves and immunities to resist Death Gaze, and Aerie and Edwin have SI: Abjuration to prevent the Master of Thralls' Remove Magic spell from dispelling their Chaotic Commands buffs.
Only one foe is left, an epic-level fighter/mage in the form of the Warden.
I don't want to rely so heavily on kiting the Warden to wear him out, so instead of sending a summons after the Warden, I send Poppy with the Sling of Everard.
The Warden disappears, and then Poppy gets hit.
Where's that coming from? If the Warden was under the effects of Improved Invisibility, we'd be able to see his red circle, but there's nothing there. As if the Warden could hit Poppy with Adjatha's Drinker from long range.
I pull Poppy back and notice the Warden casting an alteration spell. Poppy can't survive a three-round thrashing during Time Stop, so we throw out Kitty in the hopes that the Warden will attack her instead.
The Warden doesn't attack; he gave up when we left his field of vision. I send out Blueberry to check, with a Web to try and snare the Warden, but she fails her save vs. breath and gets tangled herself. The Warden strikes her while she's vulnerable, but still does not appear.
I bring out the rest of the party, and mercifully the Warden lets Blueberry recover, turning his attention to Laosha instead.
Laosha, our Seducer, has always been the weak link due to his poor AC and HP. Laosha stays on the move in the hopes of avoiding some attacks, with Detect Illusions active to reveal the Warden. The Warden pulverizes him despite his running around, and pins him down when he's weak.
We have a problem here. Putting aside Laosha's predicament, it seems that the Warden is perpetually invisible, even when he attacks. I'm guessing it's a Mislead+SI: Divination combination, and apparently Detect Illusions can't dispel Mislead, unless perhaps the clone is within sight.
I'm not familiar with Mislead beyond using it to stack songs (no longer possible in the most recent version of EE), but I understand that it can make a character untouchable if the clone is hidden someplace the enemy can't reach it. Yet I've never seen an SCS enemy stay perpetually invisible with Mislead before, including the Warden. And I thought the Mislead trick only made the caster undispellably untargetable by spells; I didn't think it made the caster impossible to attack with weapons either. So this is all very new to me. It's like Improved Invisibility from Icewind Dale 2.
Blueberry finally escapes her Web spell and downs a potion, using her Improved Alacrity to hop out of the web before it has a chance to disable her again.
We abandon Laosha for dead--I don't consider a Rod of Resurrection+Remove Paralysis combo to get him back--and hurry away to the east. The Warden, oddly, doesn't bother finishing off Laosha, much as he neglected to finish off Blueberry. Instead, he chases after Poppy, slicing her from his undispellable invisibility.
His movement rate is so high that we can't actually escape his attacks. This is very frustrating; SCS magic attacks are supposed to be able to bypass invisibility, allowing mages to take down SI: Divination, but if Mislead prevents the Warden from even flickering into view, then we can't touch him.
The Warden is 100% invincible. Only area-effect spells could hit him, but he has his mage buffs up, and we can't dispel his mage buffs if we can't target him. This isn't fair.
Frustrated with the Warden's invincibility, I settle in a corner and throw out Teleport Field. But even with Teleport Field active, the Warden moves so fast that he can still land attacks.
And since he's still invisible, we can't even run away from him, because we don't know where he is. With absolutely no options at our disposal, we are forced to sit and wait until we can start fighting back.
Finally, finally the Warden appears. His Mislead clone evidently vanished. For the first time after so many rounds, we can actually target him.
Aerie and Edwin hit the Warden with debuffers while Blueberry and Poppy keep him occupied. It is a costly endeavor to tank a high-level fighter who has Improved Haste AND Greater Whirlwind Attack.
I try to follow up with Sunfire, but the Warden just barely escapes its reach.
Then, the moment Mantle wears off and we can hit the Warden with Celestial Fury, he brings out an HLA.
That's basically 6 seconds of invincibility for him, because we can't afford to fight him when he has 10 APR.
We restore our defenses, the Warden debuffs tries to remove them, and then he blasts us with Horrid Wilting.
The Warden's offensive output is extreme. With casting speed penalties hobbling her healing and Dimension Door spells, Blueberry can't do much to heal herself besides running away and drinking our increasing limited supply of potions. And with the Warden dealing so much damage per hit, Blueberry just isn't getting enough Lightning Reflexes bonuses to keep her safe, either from the Warden's sword or his spells.
Edwin loses his Stoneskins without my noticing, and quickly approaches death. After paying such close attention to Blueberry, and with so many buffs on Edwin's portrait, I didn't even notice Edwin was hurt. He decides to flee, apparently forgetting that there is nowhere to go in the Planar Prison.
Notice that Laosha is back. Since the Warden never killed him, the Power Word: Stun just wore off eventually. We try to Charm the Warden and disable him with Feeblemind and Sleep, but he just keeps making his saving throws. We struggle to break through his defenses, and the Warden just keeps restoring them.
Laosha, failing to make any impact with his psionics, brings out the Efreeti, who reveals that the Warden has immunity to fire. Aerie discovers that he's still vulnerable to magic damage.
The Ring of the Ram knocks him away, giving us some space. With the Warden out of the way, we break out our Rods of Resurrection and bring back Blueberry and Edwin. It takes some extra time, since Rods of Resurrection in my install have separate charges for Raise Dead and Heal.
We might have a shot against the Warden now. We buff ourselves up a bit before heading north. Notably, Blueberry uses Ilbratha to give herself an extra barrier, as Mirror Image works well with Lightning Reflexes.
Our attack is short-lived. The Warden confuses Blueberry and Laosha both.
But his spell defenses are finally down, and Aerie is no longer alone. Now we have Edwin, a vast well of damage spells that the Warden no longer has the defenses to block. Poppy holds the fort. Her Barbarian damage resistances aren't much help; her huge HP pool is the only thing keeping her alive.
Melf's Acid Arrow does lots of damage in the hand of a Red Soul mage. Without his Stoneskins or his spell protections, and with his potions already empty, the Warden does not have the HP to withstand our attack.
There are still some Yuan-ti Mages chilling at the Warden's chamber. We rest up and approach them, but Blueberry fails a save against her own Web and gets killed when the Yuan-ti descend upon her.
Once again, a bad roll ruins our Web+Cloudkill strategy. I really need to make Blueberry immune to that spell; it's absolutely fatal when she fails a save, and it's rather overpowered when she makes her save, since it also triggers Lightning Reflexes. We stay out of the cloud and the Yuan-ti Mages' MGOI spells vanish. I decide to pull out the scorcher loop, just for fun.
The scorcher loop is already strong enough, but combining it with the Red Soul kit is just silly. I only wish it could harm fire-immune enemies, like those Efreet, which we had to kill using Celestial Fury and magic damage. I don't think I'll be using the scorcher loop for serious battles in this fight unless I'm really desperate, since I already used it a lot in my old IWD run.
I'm getting overloaded with ammunition, so I stop by Watcher's Keep to nab the Ammo Belt. I don't fight the last few guardians since they have such high MR and much of our damage is magic-based, but when fighting the first few statues, I find that they have no immunity to poison damage.
Only the Iron Golem statue is immune. That damage comes from Prismatic Spray, incidentally.
Now we're ready for Spellhold. We get bad news when we reached the graveyard.
I like Edwin's voice, but Edwina's voice is just grating. We'll have to put up with it for a little while.
We issues some justice at Brynnlaw, taking advantage of Prismatic Spray's ability to bypass spell level immunities.
No doubt a lot of sailors will be sad to find the local brothel suddenly without leadership, though the courtesans themselves likely will find a better boss. The important thing is we got some loot from Galvena's corpse.
We take on Perth, because I can't leave the Book of Daily Spell behind. He blasts us with a Horrid Wilting Chain Contingency, as most high-level SCS mages do.
It's an excellent way to get players to spend their first round's aura on drinking a potion instead of breaching the mage's defenses. They could throw in three Horrid Wilting spells instead of just one, but that wouldn't leave any room for short-duration defenses like Improved Mantle, and Horrid Wilting can always be blocked outright by a Protection from Magical Energy spell, so SCS mages have their priorities straight.
Edwin returns the favor with Prismatic Spray, but it's hard to land a hit against an invisible enemy. Perth dodges it outright.
Laosha fails to reveal Perth, even though his Detect Illusions skill is very high (I think at 100%). Perth is free to launch a Time Stop, but doesn't hurl out any HLAs for some reason.
I would have expected a Fallen Planetar by now.
Now that Edwin has level 7 spells, he has access to one of the best debuffers in SCS: Khelben's Warding Whip. It won't take down Spell Trap, but it's an excellent way to bring down GOI and SI, which are the biggest threats.
Perth finally brings out the Planetar, though, which is why we already had Teleport Field on the map. Perth is vulnerable now, but so are we.
Poppy is immune to vorpal strikes due to her subzero save vs. death, but Planetars still do lots of damage and have instant-casting, unstoppable spells, which means we need a better defense against this one. Edwin provides it.
We evade the Planetar and focus on Perth, the less powerful but more vulnerable enemy. Teleport Field stymies Laosha's efforts to reveal Perth using Detect Illusions, which means we can't use Breach on him, which means his weapon immunities are still holding out. But his GOI spell is finally gone, rendering him vulnerable to our faster-casting, lower-level area-effect spells.
Poppy tries to stun the Planetar with Celestial Fury, but it keeps making its saving throws. Celestial Fury and Darts of Stunning boosted by Enchanted Weapon (to make them strike as +3 weapons to bypass celestial weapon immunities) are one of the few reliable ways to disable to disable Planetars, as they have no immunity to stun and their MR blocks most spells. A successful save means no stun, and no stun means we have to deal with some very nasty spells.
Edwin dies (I forget how) and we lose all spellpower. Even Laosha, whose psionic abilities are supposed to be uninterruptible, can't get a spell off the ground.
Aerie still can use items, so she finishes off Perth with the Ring of the Ram.
I could flee the area by now, but I don't like using area transitions to escape Planetars. I decide to fight it out for a little while. But as much as Poppy strikes it, the Planetar refuses to fail its save against Celestial Fury, and it starts to wear us down. Aerie narrowly avoids a vorpal strike.
Blueberry has fantastic AC due to Lightning Reflexes, but we just can't stop the Planetar from nailing her. This is the AC the Planetar keeps bypassing.
The Planetar keeps up the pressure on Aerie, and after making its save against Celestial Fury yet again, it nearly slays Poppy.
Poppy runs, and the Planetar turns to Aerie. She barely survives a Flame Arrow.
As much as I hate area transitions, we don't have much choice. We flee the area, but Aerie doesn't make it out.
I've been avoiding the WoL trick so far, but I decide to use it on the Book of Daily Spell to duplicate the thing, because I hate getting stuck with Burning Hands. After duplicating it over 10 times, I fail to get either Burning Hands or Farsight. The last time I tried this, I also failed to get Farsight after even more duplications, so I'm not sure it's possible to get Farsight when using the WoL trick (though I can't imagine why). I likely won't use the duplicates anyway, and I might not use any of them at all, but if I do, I'll probably stick with a single use of the Spell Turning page, since that's the first one I got during the duplication.
We bring back Aerie with the Rod of Resurrection and get her to raise Edwin, and move on to Desharik, who is unimpressed with our claims of insanity.
I remember the dialog here being much weaker and less realistic than it was, so maybe Beamdog revised Desharik's lines.
We meet Irenicus as the Coordinator and I try to speed up the process by attacking him, which normally triggers the cutscene early. Instead, he just teleports away.
Not sure what this is about. All the previous times I've done Spellhold, I've found that attacking or failing to pickpocket anyone in the area causes Irenicus to appear and put you to sleep before you have a chance to kill any of the inmates. It might be a bug, because that behavior is there to prevent the player from breaking the post-labyrinth cutscene where you rally the crazies to fight Jon-bon.
Whatever. I reload, let Irenicus give his spiel as normal, and wait for him to appear naturally. In the dream sequence, Poppy sacrifices a point of Wisdom and kites Bhaal mercilessly.
Bodhi takes us down to the maze. Imoen joins the party and I give her the Green Soul kit, doubling the duration of all of her spells while cutting her spell damage in half. Now we have Invisible Stalkers that can last for two rest periods, saving us lots of spell slots, and later we'll be able to use Skeleton Warriors instead.
Since we've been doing fairly against Yuan-ti Mages lately, I decide to hurry up and take down the ones guarding the entrance to the next area, without bothering to buff beforehand. Edwin should be able to destroy them with spell damage, and our Invisible Stalkers will absorb the enemy's spells.
But two of the mages steer clear of Edwin's Cloudkill, and Aerie loses her own Cloudkill when she strays too close.
We fall back, only to find that a hostile Efreeti has slipped past the choke point to flank us.
And Aerie had no fire immunity at the time.
We stun-lock and slay the Efreeti, while Blueberry, to the southwest, monitors an Invisible Stalker that's keeping the other Yuan-ti occupied.
Blueberry breaks invisibility, but she can't keep the Yuan-ti Mages from escaping the choke point and approaching our weakened and unbuffed party. She fails a save against Flame Arrow from yet another Efreeti at the back. Things are looking bad.
The Yuan-ti Mages close in on us. To stop an incoming enchantment spell, Edwin fires off a Sunfire spell. But Blueberry was too close, and even after downing a potion, she couldn't survive the hit. Not when she failed her save vs. spell.
Blueberry has been chunked by friendly fire. Such is the cost of the Red Soul kit.
A long grind goes by. Our party is weak and badly damaged, but we pull through thanks to Celestial Fury.
Soon the last enemy Efreeti goes down as well.
But Blueberry is lost. I didn't make any conscious decisions regarding chunking before, which means I have no justification for reversing it. Also, I'm not sure I feel comfortable re-creating her as a level 7 character. This means Blueberry, our most interesting character, is now gone. Her late-game potential will go unexplored. 2 million XP down the drain.
I have had enough with chunking, though. Having seen it multiple times, it has lost its novelty and is simply no longer interesting. From now on, I will not suffer any character to be chunked, whether by pure damage or a Planetar's vorpal strike. My purpose in these runs is to test out experimental builds, and chunking is an unacceptable threat to that goal.
I'm not sure who will take Blueberry's place, but it will have to wait, since there won't be any joinable NPCs for a while. Until Chapter 6, we will be limited to five characters: Poppy, our halfling Barbarian; Laosha, our halfling Seducer; Aerie, our Red Soul Cleric/Mage; Edwin, our Red Soul Conjurer; and Imoen, our Green Soul Thief(7)->Mage.
I have been playing SOD these days. Some things I love, others not so much, but the experience of a new Baldurs Gate is being awesome. So much so, that I played a few sessions without even thinking of taking screenshots or documenting So I will rush through the introduction and give more detail later on.
I don't know what the policy is regardin SOD spoilers, so just in case I will treat everything as spoiler until told otherwise. I know that as I was following this thread, a couple of times I had to avoid looking at SOD content. Not that it's a big problem, mind you.
I start SOD with the team that defeated Sarevok: Ajantis, Kivan, Coran, Imoen, plus Nimue and Savras. Imoen decides to take it easy and focus on her magic and Safana joins instead (never really talked to her this time around in BG1). With Tazok killed and Deheriana avenged, Savras lets Kivan go. Coran, Ajantis and him can take care of this dungeon by themselves. Nimue is overkill. Not high expectations on Safana yet, but they let her tag along. As a note, Savras is still a Cleric dualed to fighter. I will make the transition to paladin in BG2. Still not sure which way but probably cavalier if he ends SOD being deserving.
The team kills lots of undead (Undead Hunter +1) and lackeys of Sarevok. Those that surrender are treated fairly and handed to the Flaming Fist. The Fist is still a mercenary force, but Sarevok learned to trust them to an extent.
At some point, Ajantis mentions that he has to leave soon because he is preparing to officially become a paladin of the order. Savras is proud and a little jealous. Will be sad seeing him go.
Korlasz is the mage that they were after. The fight against her is brief (Coran still had some arrows of dispelling) and they let her in hands of the Flaming Fist officials. I don't remember much else of interest happening before we come back to the Ducal Palace.
All companions (but Nimue) left. They took lots of valuable items with them (Spider's Bane, bow of markmanship, etc) but from a roleplaying perspective they were theirs to take and from a metagaming perspective Savras is relatively overpowered as it is, coming from BG1. No big deal. During recruitment I met briefly Coran again, but he does not wish to travel with us. Nor does Tiax (not that Savras would want him, regardless of what Nimue says). Minsc and Dynaheir, and later Safana, complete the group.
Savras lost all his money, but it ended up in hands that needed it more. The thieves had to respond for their crimes nevertheless, and were told to turn themselves in. Ready to go and face the Shinning Lady.
The Fist is camped in the middle of nowhere, on their way to Dragonspear Castle. Savras and friends come with. Glint joins because the group is in need of a healer (Nimue is cleric-mage but if you call her a healer she will kill you and then raise you as a level 1 skeleton).
Safana sings to some rocks (?), the group promises to help some people and they find themselves in a very dungeon-y cave. Of course, undeads.
Sanctuary-Glint and Invisible-Safana scout searching for traps, but we still eat one. Minsc is killed by a Skull Trap.
A while later, Safana learns the hard way that some skeletons see the invisible and Dynaheyr is downed by a ghast or some other undead critter. Savras is more decided than ever to clean this hole of undead vermin.
The party is forced to back up and heal the fallen companions before going deeper. They return angrier than ever. The group is almost overwhelmed again by a huge group of undeads behind a secret door.
Traps are the least of their worries in this cave. Somehow they get to the dwarven liche and a terrible fight starts.
The liche is killed three times, thanks to the artifact that the dwarves gave them, but he comes back to life faster than expected. He comes back for good (the artifact is spent) and the party is forced to fight him the hard way.
He kills the party one by one, Glint and Dynaheir, then Safana, then Minsk, finally Nimue (it continues to amaze me how though and resourceful she is).
Savras is left alone with the liche badly wounded but then I realize that he is not attacking anymore.
Savras takes the time to heal himself and kill him taking down layer after layer of stoneskin. Phew!
Note: I wasn't prepared for a liche in SoD. He is weaker than any liche in SoA, but he still Abi-Dalzim'ed and Incendiary Cloud'ed my party while wearing infinite Stoneskins. Of course, you are not expected to kill him old-school, but without reading guides I didn't figure out the phylactery puzzle in time. I still don't know if the liche ran out of spells (don't think so), or if my bless/protection against evil had something to do but he just ignored Savras like he didn't exist. Maybe he is scripted to do it because he could easily TPK you, or maybe it was a bug, but that is probably the only reason why I didn't lose the no-reload.
Not that it feels like a great victory, but I will take it and continue the no-reload. A voice in my head is yelling "Undead Hunter".
Oh gods, I hated that lich dungeon. I figured out the phylactery puzzle just fine, but I never found the room with the furnace where it could be destroyed. I wound up looking it up online. I didn't know it was in any way possible to destroy him without destroying that phylactery. It sounds like some sort of glitch. While trying to find the solution online, I read about lots of tpk's happening.
Moving on with Spellhold. We have a lich to deal with in the south, but it ends up dying in a rather boring fashion. Edwin fails to get more than one spell off the ground with a Skeleton Warrior's Ice Arrows and the lich's Minute Meteors to pester him. The lich ends up succumbing to Edwin's Death Fog spell.
Death Fog has always been a strong anti-lich tool. It's just high enough level to bypass a lich's spell level immunities, it deals acid damage, which almost nothing is ever buffed against even in SCS, and the damage itself is respectable, at 80 damage over 10 rounds, enough to dissolve a lich with two castings by the time it runs out.
We more or less blast our way through Spellhold with Prismatic Spray and Holy Smite, but Irenicus will be a little more complicated. His defenses are fairly lax compared to other SCS mages, especially with other mages to help us debuff him, but our clones could be an issue, as I no longer disarm my party before the fight to keep the clones underequipped and weak. Before speaking with Lonk the Sane, I buff our mages with SI: Abjuration, even though Edwin and Aerie's Red Soul spell durations will keep them from lasting for more than the first few rounds of combat.
Laosha tries to charm Irenicus, in the hopes that we can take advantage of or simply Jon-bon's best spells. Edwin fires off a Warding Whip so we can hit him with Acid Arrows and Breach later on. Aerie's role is most important: disrupting Irenicus' first spell.
Our experience with Lavok was very helpful. Cone of Cold works well on SCS mages.
The clones don't come buffed, but with Irenicus to distract us, we don't have very heavy pressure on them, and the Edwin clone's Robe of Vecna makes it even easier for them to get spells off the ground. A nasty Chain Lightning spell reveals that our clones get the Red Soul bonuses, too.
The Imoen clone's spell thrust sets off the real Imoen's Emotion contingency, knocking out a couple of the clones. While Irenicus' weapon immunities are still active, I turn Poppy's attention to her clone, who could do awful things to us with Celestial Fury. Since Poppy's saving throws are so excellent, she uses the Flail of Ages against her clone, as the clone would be very likely to resist Celestial Fury. Meanwhile, Edwin falls back to catch more enemies in his first Prismatic Spray.
Irenicus debuffs Laosha and Poppy. Warding Whip continues to break down Jon-bon's defenses, opening the way for Breach, while our allies, the inmates, grow weaker. The Edwin clone keeps blasting away with his high-damage spells.
With Irenicus Breached, we can hit him with the Flail of Ages. Edwin takes down his clone with the help of the Red Soul kit, while the enemy's Red Soul kit brings Laosha close to death.
Irenicus' weapon immunities return with PFMW, but he's still vulnerable to spell damage. Poppy switches to a nonmagical katana until Aprhil Breaches Irenicus.
Irenicus teleports out and slays the remaining inmates. The battle is won! I celebrate with a scorcher loop to clean up the surviving clones.
Edwin hits level 16 and gets 8th level spells, which means double damage Incendiary Cloud. We try it out on some drow, and it does terrible things to them.
We do get debuffed due to carelessness on my part, and the drow resist most of our spells, but a Red Soul's damage spells are strong enough to make a strong impact anyway.
MR in general is the main reason the Underdark is so tough for my parties, who are usually magic-heavy. Thankfully, Teleport Field bypasses MR, which makes it a required rescue option for fights with Mind Flayers, though with 4 APR, Mind Flayers can destroy a stunned character like Laosha even with multiple Teleport Fields on the map.
The Ring of the Ram also bypasses MR and spell protections, but is only single-target. We try it against Alchra Diagott, who survives it and nukes our Berserk Warrior while Poppy stays out of the way.
Alchra wastes spells on cheap summons. I do this too much, really.
We start debuffing Alchra, but can't disrupt his spells. When I see him casting a Conjuration spell, I get Teleport Field ready for a Fallen Planetar, but it turns out to be a Dragon's Breach, easily dodged by Poppy.
Warding Whip keeps debuffing Alchra during Time Stop, which he largely wastes. Our party is immune to Incendiary Cloud, while Poppy is resistant to Comet (her Protection from Fire buff, naturally, got dispelled).
Edwin's Prismatic Spray fails, but without a Fallen Planetar, Alchra can't apply enough pressure to the party to stop a Breach. He dies to a bullet to the head.
We move on. Death Spell works on most Kuo-toa, but not the more dangerous ones. Thankfully, Sunfire does.
Then something truly extraordinary happens. Poppy fails a save against a disabler.
It takes a special kind of incompetence for me to let a (1) well-equipped (2) high-level (3) halfling (4) Barbarian (5) Charname get disabled. We struggle to bring down the enemy before he can slay Poppy with damage spells or bolts, but in the end he only stops when Laosha's Charm ability takes effect.
The Balor in the svirfneblin settlement debuffs Poppy and renders her vulnerable to fire damage (both its Aura of Flaming and Fire Storm spells bypass MR, by the way), but we lower its MR and blast it with damage spells, bringing it down with little trouble.
We free Vithal and use Invisibility to keep him alive during the fights with the elementals (he does NOT have Stoneskins), and pressure him into giving us an extra reward, including a scroll of Horrid Wilting for Edwin. Ask him for more rewards and you have to fight him, and though the reward is excellent (more high-level scrolls, I think), he is an epic-level mage who uses Imprisonment, and I've seen him use it on the player during Time Stop.
We start the Ust Natha questline. The first fight goes normally: I sneak past N'ashtar to get to Solaufein more quickly, cover the area with Teleport Fields before the Mind Flayers arrive, and then deal with N'ashtar on the way back, focusing on Boz as the most damaging enemy. And, since we have some time before the next deadline, I decide to take on the Demon Knights. Several of them die to traps; others fall to spell damage that happened to get past their MR.
I also take on the drow guarding the entrance, who can make things really complicated if you fight them after the quest is over (you end up taking them on when you're weakened by the flight from Ust Natha). We send out Poppy's clone first, since it has lots of immunities and HP that will absorb a lot of the enemy's initial attacks.
The enemy debuffs Poppy herself, since she has to stay within range in order for us to direct her clone to attack. While Poppy deals with the golems and Glabrezus, Edwin launches Horrid Wilting spells from afar. They absolutely destroy the drow.
As always, I sneak past Taso Kala before she can make us take down the ooze priests to the southeast.
Before reporting to the temple for the last section of the questline, I drop the Kuo-toa Prince's Blood, since having it on your person automatically hands it over, locking down the city and preventing resting. I take the extra time to set up some traps by the Egg Guards. Poppy chunks one of them; the traps slay the other.
If you fail to bring them down, you have to kill Matron Mother Ardulace to escape the city. I prepared Lower Resistance, Pierce Magic, and Breach to take down her defenses (she's a very high-level cleric with very high MR), with multiple Invisibility 10' Radius, Haste, Teleport Field spells to slip past the drow on the way out. It wasn't necessary, but these measures are necessary in no-reload runs to adapt when things go wrong.
I snatch the eggs with Sanctuary, and stay hidden using a few of our many Potions of Invisibility.
We escape the city without anyone turning hostile. Success! The most stressful part of a no-reload BG2 run is over.
I did figure out the phylactery puzzle, it just took me too long and I spent all three charges of the artifact that makes him weaker, so I ended up having to fight him for real (no insta-dissipation and HP drop) before destroying the phylactery.
After being harmed and having his spells dispelled by the artifact, he is not too tough. You just have to move fast and get the phylactery and burn it. I guess that is the way you are meant to face him. However, if you waste the charges being too slow, or never collect the artifact to begin with... Lots of ways this fight can go wrong.
Back to Athkatla. I finally get around to slaying Koshi's buddies. Sion has no defense against Aerie's Holy Word. Half his spells will fail completely.
We tear up everyone else with damage spells. Seeing those damage values is just so gratifying.
We break through Sion's defenses, but I neglect Poppy's HP and she nearly dies in the process, surviving only thanks to her subzero saving throws. We finally Breach him and finish him off before he can do anything else.
Time for Bodhi. I decide to break invisibility to deal with Bodhi's vampires even though I can simply rest until it's morning. My reward is a Horrid Wilting from a suddenly-charmed Edwin.
Poppy is immune to level drain thanks to Barbarian Rage, but SCS vampires can drain CON on hit, which can be easily fatal even on a high-CON fighter.
We bring in Edwin, who torches the opposition.
But some escape the area of effect, and Poppy can't get rid of them fast enough. Aerie busts out an old favorite of ours.
Then I realize that some friends of ours are getting murdered offscreen, and apparently aren't fighting back.
I hurry over. Wulfgar is dead, and Drizzt is at Near Death already.
I couldn't care less about Wulfgar, but we need Drizzt to help us with Bodhi. I bring out a party-friendly spell to avoid antagonizing Drizzt and the gang.
We heal up Drizzt with the Rod of Resurrection, saving him. Soon the enemy goes down.
Then Tanova appears, only to get disabled, debuffed, and destroyed.
We rest and prepare ourselves. I don't know the specifics of the install I got from Blackraven, so this might be the full Tactics-style upgrade. Sure enough, Bodhi is flanked by Hazarmaveth and Manasseh, who will be an ongoing nightmare thanks to their high defenses and spellpower. Right off the bat, we get hit by spell failure, as I buffed our mages with SI: Abjuration but not SI: Conjuration.
With his spellcasting disabled, Edwin doesn't have much he can do anymore. I pull an undisruptable option, only to see it fail against the most important target. Edwin, shorn of his Stoneskins by Cloud of Bats, succumbs to pure crushing damage.
Aerie struggles to survive. Her defenses are spectacular, rendering her invulnerable to enemy magic attacks, but Cloud of Bats means her Stoneskin is gone. She could die just as quickly as Edwin has. Poppy tries to make some progress while Aerie recovers, and Imoen throws out Chaos from the southwest doorway, to little effect.
I notice Bodhi has gone missing. Since Poppy is blind, I have Aerie investigate. She reaches half HP just as she discovers Bodhi in separate room, triggering her Teleport Field contingency. Desperate to avoid a sudden death, Aerie used a scroll of Protection from Undead on herself, and quickly props it up with SI: Abjuration.
Poppy also buffs with Protection from Undead. Both Hazzerbazzer and Manasseh waste their debuffers on Aerie--but the fact that they could target her indicates that her Protection from Undead scroll isn't keeping them off her back.
With Manasseh's PFMW down, however, we can finally make real progress against the enemy (doing so before wasn't possible with our primary mage dead and our secondary mage unable to cast spells). Poppy breaks through Manasseh's Stoneskin, and is quickly rewarded with a triple Flame Arrow sequencer and two Mordenkainen's Swords hacking her apart.
I pull Poppy back and hand her a few Arrows of Dispelling. She has no pips in shortbows, but her THAC0 is still zero.
But she makes horrible attack rolls over and over again, only succeeding the second after Manasseh gets PFMW back up.
THAC0 really does matter.
We lose all of our summons to a Death Spell. Things are looking bad. Finally, Aerie decides to cast Sunray. She gets it off the ground without disruption.
Laosha loses a spell to a quick Magic Missile. His Seducer abilities aren't instant-casting.
I'll change them to have a zero casting time later; they already pause the Seducer for several seconds afterwards.
Manasseh and Hazzerbazzer are still alive. Poppy brings out the Helm of Brilliance to blast them with a second Sunray. Hazzerbazzer escapes, but Manasseh is within range.
I keep Poppy out of the way. The vampires' CON drain has taken its toll on her, and she is only two strikes away from death.
I shift gears to focus on Bodhi. She has high MR but no spell protections, making her relatively vulnerable to spell damage. We use Holy Smite and slings to remove some minor enemies.
We resurrect Edwin with the Rod of Resurrection, but he arrives at 1 HP. He's not hard to knock out.
We use a second charge from the rod to heal him before the enemy can snuff him. Just in time, too.
I check our screens for CON drain. Aerie is one shot away from death--I didn't realize she was in such poor condition.
Normally PFMW is supposed to keep off those attacks, but Aerie only gets 2 rounds of immunity out of it. Red Souls are true glass cannons.
We turn Edwin against Hazzerbazzer, who slips away at the last second. He tries to control his attacker, but Edwin resists it despite his lack of Chaotic Commands.
I switch around some items; I want Aerie and her Vhailor's Helm clone to slay Hazzerbazzer with the Ring of the Ram. But I fail to put the ring on Aerie before she summons her clone, and Edwin fails a save.
I hoped Edwin could use his many damage spells to bring down Bodhi. But Aerie's Lower Resistance will likely wear off before he'll have a chance to take advantage of Bodhi's lower MR.
Making things worse, the Teleport Field puts Edwin right in the way of Aerie's Holy Smite, and Hazzerbazzer escapes once more.
Bodhi's MR will increase again soon, if it hasn't already. Aerie turns her attention to damaging Bodhi while we still have a chance to. With her assistance, Drizzt brings Bodhi into the next phase of battle.
Then I realize how we can deal with Hazzerbazzer, who has no spell turning or deflection spells active. Imoen nails him with the Wand of Lightning. It works! Meanwhile, Poppy uses the Sling of Everard to avoid getting too close to Bodhi and her CON drain attack.
Aerie hits Bodhi with the Ring of the Ram, pushing her away. Drizzt loses interest and attacks Edwin instead, who is in no condition to stand up to the attack.
Bodhi teleports away, so we take the opportunity to finish off Hazzerbazzer, bring back Edwin, and heal the party with Limited Wish.
We send an Efreeti after Bodhi in the next room and attack from afar with Holy Smite, killing our decoy.
Bodhi comes out to attack us, but she has no allies left to distract us. She doesn't have a chance.
This fight was a nightmare. Two deaths from Edwin, two wasted scrolls of Protection from Undead, lots of lost HP, and a near death by both Aerie and Poppy due to our lack of full-duration PFMW spells. This would have gone much better if I had managed to keep Edwin alive. The Red Soul is only powerful as long as it's alive, and Red Souls aren't very sturdy characters.
In my other runs, I always forgot to take care of some final quests before the Tree of Life. This time I'm determined to get everything out of SoA that I can. This means we have to deal with Firkraag. Due to the lack of certain spell slots, we won't be relying on Feeblemind like we normally do. Instead, we're going to slay Firkraag through sheer force of damage. We haul out a Glabrezu to absorb Firkraag's first few attacks.
A moment later, I realize that I forgot to buff everybody properly.
Firkraag goes after our weakest link, Laosha, so we send Laosha running, pelting Firkraag with ranged spells and weapons. Neither of us makes much progress due to strong defenses all around.
Then Firkraag stops moving for a second. I know what's about to happen. At the last second, I have Poppy equip the Ring of Fire Resistance, as her Protection from Fire spell has been dispelled.
Poppy kites Firkraag for a moment, as she's not quite tough enough to survive more than a few rounds against him, considering how few potions we have. Then we have a breakthrough--Laosha's Charm ability takes effect! Firkraag is under our control, albeit only for 6 rounds. That means very little for a melee-based boss enemy who has no spells we can waste, but it gives time to bring back Aerie.
I send Aerie away so she can heal and buff herself, and have Poppy take down the Glabrezu, which Firkraag has been ignoring.
Firkraag proves unresponsive. I can't tell if he failed a save against Feeblemind without me noticing or if he's just struggling with the Charm spell, but it gives us time to weaken him. We slay the dragon through spell damage.
Carsomyr is ours! I head to the Radiant Heart to pick up Keldorn, and Edwin's quest finally comes to an end.
Keldorn joins the party and equips Carsomyr. I go to Cromwell to forge some stuff, and discover that Blackraven has Item Upgrades installed.
Sadly, I'm missing key ingredients for the best stuff, and it's not possible to go back and retrieve all of them. There's no way to get a Demon Heart or Mithril Tokens or the Staff of Earth, but I can still get the Periapt of Proof Against Poison and the Amulet of Spell Warding.
Time to go back to the Underdark. We have Beholders and Mind Flayers to take down.
The Beholders aren't too complicated. Although Poppy can easily tank Beholders without the Cloak of Mirroring or Shield of Balduran, I want to play it safe, and therefore send out a Vhailor's Helm clone equipped with the SOB. Skeleton Warriors and Poppy's clone tank the Beholders while Aerie and Edwin blast them with spell damage.
Done! Now for the Mind Flayer city. Edwin finally hits level 18 and chooses Dragon's Breath as his first HLA, as it does nonmagical fire damage. After dealing with the gladiator fights, we buff up the party--this time, without an auto-buffing spell, since the slightly increased spell durations might actually matter in an extended fight like this one. To save on Control Circlets, Laosha charms a Mind Flayer using his own psionic abilities, though it nearly costs him his life.
We conserve Edwin's Dragon's Breath spells and deal with the first few encounters with melee attacks. Aerie, unfortunately, has poor AC, and a couple of Mind Flayers landed good rolls before Aerie had a chance to react.
Edwin exacts vengeance.
Aerie restores some spells to get her buffs back. We drink some Potions of Defense to improve our lackluster AC.
We use Dragon's Breath to clear the way for a few other fights we can't win quickly through Poppy and Keldorn alone. Edwin has four castings of the spell at level 18 thanks to his absurdly overpowered amulet. Only one fight is left.
To conserve another Control Circlet, I decide to use Slayer form to open the next door. But I find something very surprising.
Poppy never got the Slayer change ability, because I've been using a custom rest spell in lieu of actual resting. We never triggered the dream sequence that grants access to Slayer form.
So we just use a Control Circlet and torch the last group of enemies.
Edwin has crossed a line. He is now far too powerful for his own good.
Edwin turns Dragon's Breath against the rakshasas of Suldannessellar. It's really not fair.
We also find that Mass Raise Dead heals a lot more than I thought it did.
It seems to be a Mass Resurrection spell instead, as it healed Poppy to full health when she was very, very badly hurt.
We prepare for Nizidramanii'yt.
We spread ourselves out and initiate combat.
And then?
Then something terrible happens.
We failed to buff the party against acid, even though I specifically got Protection from Acid for Edwin way back in Chapter 2. Now Laosha has been chunked by sheer acid damage.
As I mentioned earlier on, when Blueberry got chunked, I decided in advance that I'd re-create any character that got chunked in the future. So we will have Laosha back. But not for this fight.
Edwin blasts Nizidramanii'yt with Dragon's Breath, against which the black dragon has no defense.
But then, the dragon goes friendly. Laosha's Charm ability worked! Now we can attack him without fear or reprisal, at least for a few rounds, though it does mean we can't hurt him with party-friendly spells.
Turns out, a few rounds is all we really needed, with Edwin around.
We move on to the temple and slay Suneer with Dragon's Breath...
... only to find that we only killed his clone. The real Suneer stops time...
... only to fail his save against Laosha's Charm ability.
We have him bring out a Fallen Planetar, who will be on our side even if Suneer goes hostile again. The rest of the fight is a crushing defeat for Suneer, who sees his best spells turned against him.
Suldanessellar is complete. But we have more business to take care of. I want a Wand of Spell Striking, which means we have to go to Watcher's Keep, and finish off the Statues.
It was a long and complicated battle, but nothing new really happened. We took over one of the mage Statues with Laosha's new Domination ability (a Seducer HLA that's a slightly stronger, area-effect version of Charm), burned most of the Statues to death with repeated Dragon's Breath spells, and gradually wore down the survivors.
We went downstairs, fetched the Wand of Spell Striking, burned our way through most of the second level, and then blasted the Chromatic Demon, who is helpless against a Red Soul.
Now we have to deal with Kangaxx. That's going to be a treat.
Like the entrances to the Mind Flayer and Beholder dungeons in the Underdark, I always confuse the entrances to the Twisted Rune and the Elemental Lich's hideout. To avoid running into the Twisted Rune unprepared, I drop the Rogue Stone first. Turns out that was a good idea.
If I hadn't, I'd have cicked on the wrong entrance and had to deal with Shangalar and Vaxall and Layenne and Shyressa. And also Revanek but nobody cares about him.
The Elemental Lich almost dies to trap damage.
Aerie imposes 50% spell failure on the lich, but it fails to stop its first spell.
Then Laosha's Domination takes effect. The lich is ours. Since he's already so damaged, though, all we need is one more hit to take him down.
Boring. Time for the Shade Lich!
Warding Whip and Breach nearly end him, but he restores his buffs and hurls damage spells at us, slaying Laosha.
The advantages shifts back and forth: we slay the Cornugon; we nail the lich with Imoen's Planetar's Holy Word; the lich disables the Planetar with its passive Dragon Fear effect; Aerie casts Remove Fear; and then the Shade Lich succumbs to Charm, where Domination had failed.
We have the Shade Lich summon a pair of Fallen Planetars, who are more than enough to kill the lich and bring back Laosha.
On the way out, I enter the Mind Flayer lair in the sewers. I don't need the Hammer of Thunderbolts or the Wand of Wonder, but we may as well take advantage of Dragon's Breath from Edwin.
The Alhoon somehow escapes the Dragon's Breath spell's area of effect, and Absolute Immunity holds off all of our other attacks. Worse, the Alhoon got Improved Alacrity off the ground.
But then, the Alhoon goes friendly. Domination worked! We conjure a new Mordenkainen's Sword, kill the Alhoon's old one, and then repeatedly start and stop casting spells in order to drain the Alhoon's spellbook while Improved Alacrity is still active.
The Alhoon is still charmed when his spellbook is empty. Nothing left to do but kill him.
I like these kits. They're fun.
I want to gain one more level before we take on Kangaxx, so I head to the Temple Ruins to take down Thaxll'ssillyia. Edwin and Aerie absolutely destroy him.
Dungeon-crawling done, Savras goes back to camp and spends a fortune in resurrecting his friends. Done the courtesy, he lets Glint go. The group was not impressed by the abilities of the gnome, and he ran like a coward when he was most needed, against the liche. Judging by a few comments, Minsc is crazier now than ever. More blows to the head, although ultimately it was a spell that fell him. Not far from the camp, the party rebuffs a drow and rescues a female goblin. Low creatures, but this one was being treated unreasonably. Thankful, M'khiin heals the party, and they all decide to share road for a while. Party of six and they have a healer again. Traveling around, Savras meets Isabella, a vampire hunter and the most awesome paladin they have found so far. The party is honored to help her defeat a real vampire! An undead foe almost as dangerous as the liche.
Savras even delivers the killing blow, and Isabella, surely feeling potential in him, lets him finish off the vampire forever with a stake. (Vampire hunter +1!) On our way to the bridge we kill many orcs and ogres. The group is seriously beat up in a troll cave, but Savras and Nimue (fire spells galore) save the day. We offer to scout for the Fist. To infiltrate among the crusaders we need to find some missing soldiers. The party heads to the temple in ruins and fights giants, spiders and a few wyverns on the way.
The party was strong and the game had been going great. Savras even defeated another vampire in a basement (Undead hunter +1) and his very first dragon! (Cavalier +1)
The dragon was a challenge and I must admit that when I saw it sleeping I got out of the cave to prepare for the combat. The party was tired, wounded and almost out of spells by then, so they were realistic. Buffing and healing with the many potions that they had, plus having handy some spell scroll they didn't need to rest.
But, long story short, the neothelid in the Bhaal temple got me. Correction: Savras never actually died, but he was dire charmed by the neothelid. Thank bugs or old friendship, but Savras didn't attack anyone in the party (they were a little away, I guess). He just stood there, looking how his friend were eaten alive by the monster one by one (as usual, Dynaheir fist, Nimue last). They fought well and for a long time (it felt like the dire charm lasted forever). Sadly, the last of them fell before the spell on Savras wore off, so it counted as a defeat.
Two lessons: I had become too reliant on my mainchar. Savras is a very solid combatant, well-equipped and extra flexible thanks to 4 cleric levels + a mix of evil & good bhaalspawn powers. The one time that he got disabled, I couldn't trust the rest of the party (wounded, tired) to deal with a foe like the neothelid. I had been careful, and I usually protect myself against mind attacks, but when I looked at the neothelid I saw a big, dumb worm and I faced it accordingly. The psionic powers were an unpleasant surprise.
A blind no-reload was way out of my league so I am happy with how far I got. I had been enjoying SoD and I will continue the playthrough as a minimal reload. When I get to SoA I will start again as a no-reload. Not sure if it would technically count, but I still want the personal achievement of defeating the original trilogy no-reload.
Night of the Living Redshirt: The No-Reload Adventures of Redshirt Ricky
Chapter 1: The Great Escape
Behold, Redshirt Ricky the Kensai, facing all of Faerun with nothing more than the red shirt on his back.
Ricky descends from a long line of unsung television heroes. But he plans to break the trend. HE WILL NOT DIE.
Clubs and daggers only. He will have to shiv his way to glory.
As you can see, he's level 10. Let us pretend, however, that we don't know he survives Chateau Irenicus. The XP value alone shows that he does... but at the time it was far from certain.
My WEIDU log.
// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods // The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod // ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version] ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Initialise mod (all other components require this): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1910 // Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Allow Spellstrike to take down a Protection from Magic scroll: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2020 // Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2030 // Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2041 // Modify the Harm spell so it does damage rather than reducing target to 1 hp -> Enemy and player Harm spells both do 150 hp of damage: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2050 // Allow individual versions of Spell Immunity to be placed into Contingencies and Spell Triggers: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2070 // Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades only affect hostile creatures: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2080 // Cap damage done by Skull Trap at 12d6: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2090 // Make Power-Word: Blind single-target: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2120 // Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2160 // Add an extra copy of some hard-to-find spell scrolls: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2170 // True Sight/True Seeing spells protect from magical blindness: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2180 // Prevent Simulacra and Projected Images from using magical items: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3010 // Replace +1 arrows with nonmagical "fine" ones: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Make the healing and resurrection powers of the Rod of Resurrection into separate abilities: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Change Carsomyr so that its Dispel on contact power grants a saving throw: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4010 // Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4040 // Make party members less likely to die irreversibly: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4180 // Make Freedom scrolls available earlier: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4240 // Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5000 // Ease-of-use party AI: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5010 // Move Boo into Minsc's pack: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5020 // Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5030 // Remove animation from the Cloak of Mirroring (leave it for other spells and effects that use the same graphic): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6020 // Add high-level abilities (HLAs) to spellcasters -> Only selected spellcasters in Throne of Bhaal get HLAs: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6032 // Smarter Mages -> Mages never cast short-duration spells instantly at start of combat: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6042 // Smarter Priests -> Priests never cast short-duration spells instantly at start of combat: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs -> All of the potions dropped by slain enemies are recoverable: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6521 // Smarter genies -> Genies have normal hit points: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6531 // Smarter celestials -> Celestials have normal hit points: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6541 // Smarter dragons -> Dragons have normal hit points: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6570 // Smarter githyanki: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6590 // Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8000 // Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8010 // Improved Shade Lord: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8020 // Spellcasting Demiliches: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8050 // Improved Random Encounters: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8061 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix") -> Enhanced spirit trolls (as in Tactics): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8110 // Improved Sahuagin: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8140 // Slightly Improved Drow -> Upgrade Ust Natha's defences: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8160 // Improved Fire Giant temple: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8170 // Enhanced Sendai's Enclave: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8180 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8190 // Improved Minor Encounters: v30 ~SETUP-DUNGEONBEGONE.TP2~ #0 #0 // Dungeon Be Gone V1.6
I'm actually running a fairly light install of SCS2. I'm considering running a full install soon, I just need the 3 hours to do it. My computer is... not very good. SCS takes a looooooong time to setup, or re-setup in this case. Also might wait till I get Dragonspear (it comes with 2.0, right?).
Also notice the final entry in the WEIDU log. That's Jasper, yep. I have been using Jasper for a while because I got tired of Chateau Irenicus. However, I don't feel justified in doing a no-reload run without starting right from the beginning. Skipping to Waukeen's definitely feels like a cheat.
I had no idea how important this would become. Because I'd been using Dungeon Be-Gone, I was completely unfamiliar with Chateau Irenicus and Ricky died 4 times as I tried to muddle my way through, restarting the game each time from scratch.
Here is the 5th attempt.
Things go well initially with little need to metagame. The only exception is Ataaqah's challenge. Ricky chooses the cowardly option to save his own skin. If he faces the genie he instantly gets charmed and it's game over. Given that he comes from an illustrious history of facing off against the universe and terrifying aliens with little more than a piddly phaser and a red top, I think we can forgive him this one moment of wanting to save his own skin.
Ricky lays waste to all opposition in the traditional way, by slicing and dicing. His skill with daggers is unmatched. He takes a lot of damage with high AC, but there are enough healing potions to keep him going, though he hovers at about 50% HP most of the time.
As far as I can tell, there are only 20 throwing daggers in Chateau Irenicus. This makes them more precious than gold. I save some of them for the cambion, putting him down at range. With Ricky's damage bonuses it doesn't take many to do the job, which is really really really good. Those throwing daggers are essential; without them, there's no way to adequately beat the dungeon with daggers-only.
Also notice the corpse of Illyich's mage; that mage ended two previous no-reload attempts. I think SCS randomly determines spell lists at game start. As Ricky is a humdrum human, and there are no resources for enhancing saves on the Dungeon 1st level that I know of, it's a total crap shoot. It's just game over if that mage happens to have charm person, since it's not easy to make that save. This time, the mage had magic missiles.
Ricky has no protection against the Otyugh, since throwing daggers don't work against them. He's forced to shiv the monster at close range, suffering disease and slow. More healing potions down the drain. The Kensai has very little protection initially.
The attrition makes the whole escape attempt very touch and go. Here's a picture from a previous attempt, when things were very dark indeed. It was way too easy to guzzle every healing potion and end up with nothing.
Shortly after this picture was taken, Ricky got sniped not three feet inside the door. It was back to the beginning all over again.
Things went a bit better this time around.
Daggers can't reach the mephits in the cages, so I had to make sure I could save every throwing dagger possible for when I needed to take them out. Ricky had only just enough to do it.
By this point in the game Ricky was perpetually at 30-40HP. All healing potions were being consumed as soon as they were found; it was just enough to keep up with damage taken. Barely.
Must say though, the uncertainty of playing without reloads makes the game much more intense and engaging. It was a lot of fun. Every step around the next corner could have been Ricky's last.
Ricky unwittingly enforces the spellcasting ban in Athkatla. I don't know what spell the ellesime clone was casting, but it probably wasn't going to be good. Ricky expends his last three throwing daggers on the clone. From now on, he's back to shivving people prison-style.
This put the fear of god into me. I knew there was a trap there, but the type and amount of damage dealt had long since passed from my memory. I was almost too afraid to continue playing. Ricky only had 36HP and no healing options to speak of.
In the end he makes a leap of faith and takes only 17 damage from a steam trap. I must admit I was breathing easy at this point... until I opened that door and Ricky was reduced to just 5HP by a deurgar's crossbow bolt.
OUCH.
With no other options, I use Draw Upon Holy Might to temporarily boost Ricky's HP. This means Ricky has 1 turn of life left, unless I can find healing potions somewhere. I had no idea where to look, but the simple fact was that a menacing deurgar stood between Ricky and his potential salvation. At this point even escape wasn't much of an option. No matter where he went there were ranged enemies that would get at least one shot off before he closed in to shiv them. Assuming they did more than 5HP damage, that would probably kill him when DUHM wore off (I'm assuming, I actually have no idea, which was why DUHM was a last resort).
So ya, Ricky was on borrowed time.
Astoundingly, the deurgar trips a trap when Ricky approaches, taking enough damage to panic. Ricky thanks his amazing luck and finishes the dwarf easily. So at least now the pressure is off; Ricky won't die when DUHM wears off. He'll go back to 5hp.
Ricky shivs Frennedan and loots his pad for healing potions. At last, some HP!
Everything is coming up Milhouse.
It's funny how much of a rodent you become when you have no trap abilities. Scurrying along walls like a hamster...
Shivving an assassin on the way out yields an invisibility potion. Ricky's survival is assured. He drinks it immediately before he can get backstabbed by the assassin's lurking friends.
But then Ricky started wondering. How could he deal with those backstabbers? Sure, wisdom told him he should just walk out of the joint unseen and claim his freedom... but a little experimentation might be useful. Ricky will need all the resources he can get. He needs experience, potions, and wants to explore how far a potion of firebreath can be used...
Good to know. Might come in handy at some point. A firebreath potion can target an object on the ground just like the wand of fire/lightning. The jet of fire can then be stretched as far as you want it to go. Stafing side to side, Ricky sweeps the fire in a circle around the targeted corpse and fries the invisible assassins.
He gets 2 invisibility potions for his trouble. Those are greatly needed.
On the 5th attempt, Ricky tastes freedom. What a relief.
I cannot believe how difficult that was. Note to self: don't use mods to skip stuff.
After we left Baldur's Gate we are somewhere on the road to Dragonspear castle. Melissa starts exploring the forest in the east and comes across the Dwarves of Dumathoin. They invite her to go through a dungeon to save their expedition. No pictures shown of the easy parts, but we save a Verbeeg and clear out some undead. They are easily dispatched with the dwarves pitching in a bit (hey, they heal the party for free when in battle. Nice!). Some umberhulks cross our path and they are really vicious.
.
We venture deeper into what seems like a hidden library. Mostly infested with undead and what we cannot kill with fire, we kill with ranged weaponry. Wand of fire is too strong. Melissa's scrolls of fireball and aganazzar's scorcher clear the path.
BOOM!
Melissa helping Minsc in battle but Corwin doing most of the work.
One tank and one use of the wand is often enough...
This is a lot more fun! Melee-wizard is soo funny.
We clear out the library and the Lich below, who fell before I thought of taking a screenshot. One use of the Eyes of Secret or whatever they were called and he was insect plagued (or alike) and a few rounds later killed. We took the phylactery to the plane of fire and that was it. We got the dwarves to join us in the end fight (or so the achievement says).
Outside we walk through the forest and solve the missing person mystery as well as the singing menhir (dragonteeth!) mystery without any problems. Just a little bit more to explore and talk with in this area before we move to the next one (inn quest is still open).
I actually found Safana to be epically useless as a pure class thief, especially since Glint has maxed open locks and find traps, now going to max set traps. Safana just has the ability to shoot arrows, backstab is not that great yet, set traps not specialized yet and her kiss useless on undead.
I position Aerie close to the lich so she can deafen him with Holy Word. The Cloak of Mirroring blocks Horrid Wilting, allowing Aerie to stay so close.
Edwin takes out the Magical Sword to lessen the future pressure on us. Imoen summons a Planetar via her Project Image clone. That Planetar will prove vitally important in the next round.
I trigger a Chain Contingency to debuff Kangaxx. Imoen has recently hit level 18, allowing us to hurl out a full suite of debuffers all at once. Better yet, Holy Word takes away one of Kangaxx's first spells, and SCS mages like to use their best options first.
Kangaxx retaliates with Skull Trap, but Poppy is nearly indestructible now.
We compound Kangaxx's spell failure using the Planetar. Holy Word is one of its best powers, and it gets to cast it three times before vanishing.
Kangaxx will soon be defenseless. We solidify our advantage.
Kangaxx's Dragon Fear disables both Imoen's Project Image clone and Aerie's Vhailor's Helm clone. We restore both with Remove Fear, but then Aerie's clone vanishes--just as Kangaxx transforms.
I had a perfect strategy for Kangaxx's demilich form. Aerie would summon a clone via Vhailor's Helm before Kangaxx transformed, then both Aerie and her clone would nail him with the Ring of the Ram. The Ring of the Ram deals 5d6 nonmagical magic damage as a level 0 spell, and Aerie's Red Soul bonuses would make that into an instant death for Kangaxx. But the Red Soul kit also shortened the duration of her Vhailor's Helm Simulacrum spell, despawning her clone before it had a chance to strike.
Now we have to take down Kangaxx the normal way.
Laosha tries to seize control of Kangaxx on the first round. Aerie uses the Ring of the Ram, which seriously injures but fails to kill Kangaxx.
Edwin has started casting Improved Alacrity in the hopes of debuffing Kangaxx quickly. I was saving this for his second form, figuring the debuffing Chain Contingency would be enough for his first--and wary that Kangaxx's Time Stop would rob Edwin of the duration of Improved Alacrity.
Poppy gets in a single hit before Kangaxx's prebuffs trigger.
Edwin finally casts Improved Alacrity. We use Limited Wish to block level drain, which I've noticed will happen in SCS even if somebody resists the imprisonment effect of Trap the Soul.
Kangaxx gets Time Stop off the ground. Edwin's Improved Alacrity will run out during Time Stop, wasting the spell.
Kangaxx starts debuffing us. He imprisons Laosha, our least protected party member.
Kangaxx maintains his PFMW and Stoneskin buffs. Edwin tries to break them down while Kangaxx increases the pressure.
Imoen's Planetar adds another Holy Word. It won't block Trap the Soul, but it might block his other spells.
Sure enough, Trap the Soul works just fine.
Kangaxx targets Aerie next. She restores her buffs. Thankfully, Spell Immunity, like Nahal's Reckless Dweomer, can be cast even when one's aura is not clear. Edwin also bolsters his defenses.
Kangaxx targets our Planetar instead. Apparently the spell offers a saving throw!
Kangaxx hits Aerie with Dragon's Breath, which she barely survives due to being debuffed. Our Planetar makes another lucky save, but I'm not sure how long its luck will last. I have it cast Improved Invisibility to improve its saves, though I'm not sure the save bonuses or the AC bonus from Improved Invisibility apply to enemies who can see through invisibility.
Kangaxx's defenses will run out soon. I have Keldorn down an Oil of Speed to get ready, forgetting that his armor blocks haste effects. We keep attacking with ranged weapons (to avoid Kangaxx's Fire Shield), waiting for PFMW to run out. But Kangaxx restores it, and starts debuffing Edwin as well, prompting a re-cast Spell Shield.
Edwin's extra spell slots are almost all dedicated to his defenses, so we have at least one mage left to cast Freedom when this is over.
Kangaxx, unable to break through Edwin's spell defenses, tries to make a dent in Poppy's deep HP reserves. But even HLAs aren't enough.
Kangaxx restores his defenses once more--he is a tough nut to crack. Finally, our Planetar fails its save vs. death, and vanishes.
The struggle goes on. We can't break through Kangaxx's defenses, he can't break through ours, and neither of us can damage one another.
Finally, something happens!
Aerie and Edwin still have SI: Abjuration active, Keldorn is protected by his strong save vs. death, and Poppy, as our Charname, will never get targeted by Trap the Soul anyway in SCS. Kangaxx doesn't have much left to throw at us.
Kangaxx's Fire Shields run out. Keldorn moves in for the kill with Carsomyr. But Aerie's SI: Abjuration runs out. Red Souls are lousy at defense. It costs Aerie her freedom.
Kangaxx is in no better shape. He's reduced to throwing out level 1 spells. Finally, Poppy does him in.
Edwin casts Freedom and our party is restored. The Ring of Gaxx is ours.
Comments
The bastard had Nimue killed only because he could!
After breaking from the Fist compound and learning of Sarevok's plans, Nimue found revenge in almost single-handedly dismantling the conspiracy against the dukes. Her magic (glitterdust+chant spell triggered plus slow to begin with) and Ajantis's bastard sword (bane of shapeshifters) gave a hard time to the doppelgangers. A face-off between Savras and Sarevok ended with the latter fleeing the scene, although Kivan and Coran's arrows had much to do with the victory.
Off I go to the maze and the final battle. I will be extra careful with traps and disabling spells, so I should make the no-reload challenge (BG1 at least) this time if Sarevok does not have it his way. Wish me luck.
But I'm going there anyway. I know how to steal Celestial Fury without having to survive a Comet from Sion.
First off, we have some trash summons on the bottom floor to take care of. Aerie blasts them with Cone of Cold.
Even if the Red Soul kit isn't worth the spell duration penalty, it's still a lot of fun to throw out high-damage spells. Normally I use mage spells as disablers and debuffers and other weird stuff, not for spell damage.
The enemy Efreeti, though, has strong damage spells as well, and due to the Red Soul's half spell duration penalty, we can't really achieve high fire resistance across the board for this party. We have to take the hit. Worse yet, our high damage output means very little for an enemy that can easily just turn to mist and regenerate the moment it gets close to dying.
The Efreeti is too resilient for us to take it down with brute force. Eventually, Blueberry disables it with a Web Tangle, allowing us to crush it before it can turn to mist.
Web Tangle really shouldn't prevent a critter from turning to mist like that, but it does.
We need some outside help if we're going to deal with the enemies upstairs. I go to the Slums and retrieve Jan and Korgan. I need Jan for Invisibility 10' Radius, without which we cannot safely approach the enemy; I need Korgan as a tank. We go upstairs and scurry away before divination magic can reveal us. Blueberry scouts them out, using the Cloak of Non-Detection to ensure she is not revealed, and Aerie starts sending out cheap summons, activating the enemy's pre-buffs.
The summons don't last long, so we have to keep summoning them. I need the enemy as weak as possible before we strike.
To take down Koshi, who has subzero AC and THAC0 and almost 100 HP, not counting his potions from SCS, we need to strike very hard and very fast. And to avoid getting crushed a round after we engage the enemy, we need a distraction.
That would be Korgan.
Korgan is beyond outclassed in this fight even with his Enrage ability activated. He won't survive long in this fight. But we only need him to buy us a bit of time.
While Korgan is getting torn to pieces, Aerie launches a Minor Sequencer at Koshi.
Enemies like Koshi--those who have no spell protections, invisibility, or magic resistance--are especially vulnerable to damage spells. The only reason this plan was viable was because of Aerie's Red Soul kit.
Seconds pass. Korgan is now doomed.
There's no way he's going to survive whatever Sion throws at him. But we see good news: Aerie's Melf's Acid Arrow continues to deal damage to Koshi during Time Stop, while Koshi is unable to drink a potion to recover.
Korgan lands a lucky hit on Koshi and finishes him off, before Sion's Comet turns Korgan to ash.
Korgan has been chunked, but we did not want him in the party anyway. He was a sacrificial lamb to us.
Before the enemy can crush the rest of us, Aerie downs a potion and we snatch Celestial Fury on the way out.
The best katana in the game is ours, and all it cost us was a Potion of Invisibility and Korgan's life. We send Jan home and continue on our way.
In a surprising twist, the fight with Dalok goes awry, but not because of nymphs and Fire Elementals. Dalok's buddies crush us with pure physical damage, likely a result of a potion of giant strength. Blueberry's inability to wear helmets once again proves crippling.
I forgot to mention that the Lightning Reflexes ability she gets as a Phase Spider imposes a -1 penalty to hit and damage, compensating for the +2 to AC and saving throws and +10 to MR. But Lightning Reflexes doesn't have such a big impact when Blueberry doesn't have the HP to survive many hits.
When we struggle to handle an Insect Plague and continued enemy melee pressure, we resort to kiting until we can cast spells again.
Aerie finishes the battle with a Magic Missile.
I can't tweak my install to let Cernd fight Faldorn, so I just do the next best thing.
I refuse the druid stronghold. This way, things operate as they would normally.
I finally head over to the Umar Hills, one of my standard early game quests. Aerie lands a sickening blow on a Shadow with a Lightning Bolt spell.
Most (but not all) Shadows are vulnerable to electricity.
Other encounters prove more trying. The moment a Bone Golem lands a hit on Poppy, I know we have to run.
If it can land such a strong hit on such a low attack roll, then Poppy won't survive for long. We end up dragging the enemy all the way outside, gradually wearing them down with bullets.
Normally I'm not fond of slings, but @Alesia_BH has pointed out that, unlike most missile weapons, they can be used with a shield--notably the Shield of Reflection, which makes a kiting character even harder to kill. Plus, a Barbarian's high STR will mesh well with a sling, since all slings in BG2:EE apply STR bonuses.
It's especially handy against the Shade Lord, who is extremely easy to kite. Poppy breaks invisibility so Aerie can buff her properly.
Death Ward blocks all of the Shade Lord's ranged attacks, and Enchanted Weapon lets us hit him with nonmagical ammunition. First, we take out the altar.
Then this happens.
After a moment, I piece together what happens. Apparently the Shade Lord fight has a curious mechanic I normally overlook: any summoned critter will turn into a shadow when slain. But there was a mis-targeting: that spell hit Poppy, the nearest character, instantly killing her despite full HP and immunity to death magic. Hence the Shadow appearing exactly where Poppy was. I think it's the replace critter opcode or something. Interesting bug, really.
I reload. I proceed same as before, but keep Poppy at a safe distance to avoid a mis-targeting of whatever spell does that. We zap Shadow Patrick with Celestial Fury's Lightning Bolt power, Sunfire the Shade Lord with Aerie under a short-lived SI: Necromancy buff to block Darkling Aura, and finally brain him with a bullet from Arla's Dragonsbane.
The Shade Lord used to be a nightmare for me, but there are actually a bunch of ways to handle him. Secret Word->Lower Resistance x2->Greater Malison->Hold Undead; a Cacofiend scroll; the Wand of Fire; and now, thanks to EE's new Enchanted Weapon spell, a simple sling and bullets.
That's why we have Aerie.
One of the best things about the Phase Spider is the Lightning Reflexes ability. Too bad it only kicks in after the spider is already half dead.
That's what Raise Dead is for. Just kidding; she's there to bomb stuff.
This is why Charname here is our Barbarian, Poppy, and not our Phase Spider, Blueberry. Lightning Reflexes is no guarantee of safety when the spider can't wear helmets. The Phase Spider kit is proving more balanced that I would like.
I'm not willing to take on the Vampiric Wraiths of Watcher's Keep. Not yet. Instead, we go back to Firkraag's lair. Turns out Kamikaze Kobolds can harm their own master.
Rakshasas are awful. I hate facing enemies with undispellable spell level immunities. I bait him with summons, as usual, before closing in on him. Poppy has the HP to tank his later damage spells without being at risk for a Power Word: Stun kill, even if she didn't have Barbarian Rage to block it and Aerie's Remove Paralysis to cure it. We grind the rakshasa down.
The fight with Samia is a convoluted mess. We trade blows and lose lots of potions. In a crowded area without decent pre-buffs, Aerie can't bomb them very easily, and her Web only disables targets for 3 seconds, instead of a full round, due to her Red Soul penalties. We also learn that Aerie can't block her own Web spell with SI: Evocation.
Kaol survives thanks to his mage buffs, and gives us a lot of grief before finally failing a save against Laosha's Charm ability, though we lose a bit of its duration to Laosha's Feeblemind. We turn his spells against him--the battle is won.
The Seducer kit's Charm ability used to use a save vs. wand so it would have a chance of succeeding against liches and their base 1 save vs. spell. Now it uses a save vs. spell, with a +4 bonus, and a 20% flat chance of offering no save to begin with. Laosha's contribution to the party's success has actually been rather minor. As strong as the charm ability is, it's slow (12 seconds to activate), unreliable, and short-lived (only 6 rounds now, instead of 10). Thank goodness the only drawback of the kit is having even lower skill points than an Assassin.
Aerie and the Red Soul kit pick up the slack.
As usual, though, we get thrashed by the golems after the wolfweres. Spell damage is useless against them, and Blueberry in particular can't tolerate getting a bunch of punches. We have to use a couple of Potions of Invisibility to avoid any deaths.
Then I decide to use Blueberry to tank an Adamantite Golem afterwards, because she's immune to its poison cloud ability. But this version of EE apparently shrinks the iron golem animation's circle so it can fit through choke points. Blueberry ends up getting smashed by an arachnophobic titan.
Before EE, every Iron and Adamantite Golem in the game was inches away from a choke point. They were supposed to be fought from choke points. No longer an option.
We also suffer against Tazok and Chieftain Digdag. They just deal so much damage, and soak up so much damage. More potions down the drain.
We weaken Conster with Sunfire and Blueberry's poison holds off his spellcasting long enough for us to break through his Stoneskins.
Temple of Bhaal. I am really nervous, but, again, I am well equipped to survive anything other than foolishly exchanging blows with Sarevok without backup or some retreats. I like picking on Sarevok's buddies one by one to make sure that all fall and all plots are closed. I decide to enjoy the fight and let my companions shine.
Coran uses a scroll of antimagic (this is the only time when I allow myself this item) and approaches Sarevok invisible, triggering the dialogue and making the mage teleport himself.
An archer with a few arrows of dissipation and magic-inmunity makes short work of any mage.
Out of frustation, he end up killing himself with a cloudkill.
Angelo killed Nimue, so she and Ajantis take on the bastard. Nimue dispels protections and dooms angelo while Ajantis (my fire immune companion, thanks to Balista passport x2 + helm of defense) has little problem dispatching the bully.
Savras (-11 CA) soaks up Tazok's punishment so that Kivan has his revenge. A split-second before the last arrow fells him...
Finally, they all team up to defeat Sarevok, although for roleplaying reasons Imoen, Nimue and Savras do more than the others. Savras has become a surprisingly good combatant: if not for Sarevok's perpetual haste, they would be pretty equal. Savras deals more damage per hit and hits just about as often; Sarevok is tougher to kill. But Sarevok does not have two mages with him. Nimue: doom x2, magic missile x2, chant x2 w/ spell sequencer; Imoen is magic missiling like crazy.
Savras delivers the killing blow and turns his back on his fallen brother.
No-reload through BG1... CHECK!
Off I go to Siege of Dragonspear. I got it already; the install messed with some mods, hence Kivan's lack of portrait.
It works; the quest finally starts. But I'm not quite ready to deal with Beholders yet. First, I pay a visit to Pai'Na. Aerie roasts all of the spiders, including poor Blueberry.
Aerie already comes with Spell Immunity, and Kitty isn't much use in a party run where there are better summons available, but the Pale Green Ioun Stone will improve Blueberry's terrible HP, though I'm not sure if it will still block critical hits in EE.
I'm not satisfied with Aerie's productivity here. She's plenty strong, but I want a better vessel for the Red Soul kit. I want Edwin, and to get him, we need to kill Rayic Gethras. Laosha, despite his lousy skill values, manages to reveal Ray-Ray, opening him up for a Web Tangle from Blueberry.
Web Tangle bypasses MR and spell protections, but not invisibility. And we still want to debuff him to deal serious damage, as his Mantle will block all of our current weapons. Aerie pulls out Secret Word, removing Ray-Ray's spell level immunities.
Ray-Ray fails a save vs. breath and gets webbed. He's wide open for one of the Red Soul's best spells.
Mantle is a problem for us, not PFMW. Blueberry deals poison damage on any melee weapon if the target fails its save, and her natural weapon strikes as nonmagical, so mages with PFMW are actually quite vulnerable, if we're lucky enough to get a failed save vs. death. But Blueberry can't break through Mantle or Improved Mantle, the latter of which is an SCS standard.
Why not get a +5 weapon like the darts from the Cloak of Stars or the Sling of Everard? Well, Phase Spiders can't use missile weapons, and even if they could, their poison only applies to melee weapons. Dimension Door won't let you kite anybody with the current spider kit.
On to Mae'Var. He has no Mantle, and so is completely vulnerable to Blueberry's poison. It robs him of two spells early on.
Blueberry and Laosha gets savaged by Mavis' assassin chums. Their AC is too high and their HP too low, and with Laosha's skills the way they are, we can't reliably stop them from backstabbing using Detect Illusions.
We can, however, just blast them with a party-friendly spell.
Laosha gets another lucky roll with Detect Illusions, opening up Mavis for a PW: Silence from our new friend Edwin.
It's all over.
I apply the Red Soul kit to Edwin as well. After some mental exercises, I decide that the Red Soul kit actually weakens the mage overall, and getting the opposite bonuses (half damage in exchange for double spell duration) would be much better. This means Imoen will be getting the Green Soul kit once we reach Spellhold!
Edwin tries out his newfound abilities on the way to the De'Arnise Hold.
Very nice. But Sunfire isn't the reason we're going to fight Trolls. The real reason is that, with our party so small and our XP so concentrated, Edwin enters the party already at level 12, with Death Spell on hand. What happens to those Spirit Trolls I so passionately despise?
This is the only way to fight Trolls. It works on all of them except for TorGal, who will be a bit of a problem for us.
TorGal shows us that ioun stones do block critical hits in EE. But that's not much comfort for Blueberry.
Then Blueberry, already in huge danger, receives a death sentence.
Lightning Reflexes improves her saves, but not enough to guarantee a saving throw, particularly since she can't wear rings or helmets to boost her saving throws. Without any means of curing her confusion, we can't save her. She dies shortly, unable to drink a potion or teleport away from her attackers.
Poppy, with gobs of HP and superior AC, gets in TorGal's face. Trolls pour in from the north, right into another Death Spell from Edwin.
There are survivors, but Edwin doesn't run out of spells. He tries our one other party-friendly area-effect damage spell--one I never use due to its low base damage.
Our Efreeti is keeping the Yuan-ti Mages to the north busy (I hadn't even noticed they were there before). TorGal finally collapses, but from unknown causes, netting us zero XP.
No matter. The real XP rewards come from Nalia. We clean up the room, the Yuan-ti Mages still out of sight, out of mind.
Poppy, with her crazy Barbarian HP and crazy Barbarian immunities, runs out to distract the Coiled Cabal while Edwin, who spent a spare round turning himself invisible for the saving throw bonuses, nukes everyone in sight.
We're making good progress, but then I see a Spirit Troll attacking Aerie.
Her Stoneskins are holding up, but on checking her inventory, I realize that another hit will root her to the ground due to STR drain weighing her down. I have to pull Edwin away to rescue her.
Aerie is now safe, and we have a moment to recover our advantage. The enemies dwindle, and Laosha leads the last of them into the hallway. Edwin gets just close enough to finish them off.
We finally take a stronghold. It's boring, and I'll likely never get any gold since I'm using a custom rest spell in lieu of actual resting (it's faster) that prevents time from passing, but I don't want a Barbarian Charname running the mage stronghold I normally prefer.
On the way, Aerie reminds me that Holy Smite technically isn't party-friendly.
We have a large area here, which I will be abusing due to our poor levels. After all, Nevaziah is an epic-level lich, and the Seducer Charm ability is no longer as reliable as it once was. We memorize a bunch of trash summoning spells and hurl them at Nevaziah, who destroys them in short order.
Normally if I'm waiting out enemy buffs and draining their spells, I like to be at least partly vulnerable to give the enemy a chance to fight me. I only send out Blueberry so Nevaziah can attack somebody. For some reason he feels compelled to use a pointless debuffer before blasting her.
Blueberry is coded as an unkitted ranger; no SCS enemy should deem her worthy of a magic attack like Warding Whip. She doesn't have any spell protections active; none of her spider spells, including Lightning Reflexes and the spells that penalize her casting speed, are classified as spell protections or even specific protections.
I bring in Laosha to try to dispel the lich's invisibility, and send in Aerie under SI: Abjuration to absorb some spells. Nevaziah prefers damage spells to disablers, so we lose a lot of potions tanking his various spells. Round after round, Laosha fails to dispel the lich's invisibility, and Poppy hurls rocks at the lich hoping to break through his many, many Stoneskins.
Finally Laosha exposes the lich.
The battle has been going on for so long that the Enchanted Weapon spell on Poppy, which we used to empower her nonmagical bullets, has worn off! We have to switch to the handful of +1 bullets we have left. Blueberry tries to fight the lich in close combat, but the lich's Dragon Fear ability, or some other weird effect, pushes her THAC0 north of 20, apparently without a saving throw. I keep Poppy out of the way so her THAC0 doesn't get penalized.
Then I find out that, on top of the lich's PFMW spells, and his Stoneskins, and the THAC0 penalty, the lich also has a ridiculously high resistance to missile damage, just because.
The battle slows to a crawl as the lich swats at Blueberry, Blueberry flails helplessly against it, and Poppy throws rock after rock at the lich. Aerie and Edwin just stand there, powerless to do anything, until finally the lich gives in.
I don't like this battle. It's too much pressure too early in the game, and Edwin pushes you into it. Next time I might kill Edwin before entering the Graveyard district, in the hopes that he won't bother me about the Nether scroll. I think I'll do the same for Keldorn and the Government district, what with the miserable end to his personal quest.
Another nice thing is that Poppy is immune to poison damage and therefore Cloudkill. She makes a great Cloudkill tank, much like a Cavalier, a monk, or anyone with the Periapt of Proof Against Poison or the Ring of Gaxx.
What's even better is that she's also immune to web, and can cast her own level 0 Web spells, which use a save vs. breath instead of a save vs. spell, as per Spell Revisions practice.
The enemy cleric, however, is out of range of both Cloudkill and Web, and since I generally assume he's a non-issue in this fight, I fail to stop him from dispelling the cloud.
I keep neglecting the cleric, preferring to bring down the enemy mage, Aran himself, and Blueberry exposes herself to a nasty Unholy Blight spell, nearly dying in the process.
Aran hits her with Power Word: Stun, but Lightning Reflexes comes to her rescue, blocking it with MR.
So far I've been letting Blueberry do the heavy lifting, since no one else can operate in the cloud or the web safely, but when Blueberry needs help and Aran's MGOI runs out, Aerie blasts him with Holy Smite.
We don't leave for Brynnlaw yet. I never got around to the Planar Sphere, which has the Gauntlets of Ogre Power that Poppy could really use (I don't like the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength because it's incompatible with the Girdle of Piercing/Bluntness that Poppy needs to survive). We send out Blueberry against the halfling cannibals, hoping to web them and poison them with Cloudkill, but then Blueberry fails a save.
As a spider, she's immune to Charm Person and Dire Charm, but not Domination or Mental Domination. She turns on us, and the enemy no longer feels compelled to stay within the cloud to fight. They all advance on the party.
Edwin brings out Sunfire and nearly breaks the encounter, but Kayardi lives long enough to restore his buffs and his invulnerability.
We narrowly avoid a stoning, and finally break through Kayardi's Stoneskins.
We try the Web+Cloudkill trick again on Necre and Taibela, and discover that Blueberry isn't actually immune to her own web spells.
Notice the enemy mages still using magic attacks on a character with no spell protections. To keep the enemy from pursuing the party out of the cloud, I send in Valygar. I know he can't survive, but if we let the enemy approach, those webs and cloudkills won't do us much good.
Lavok is the second deadliest enemy around here, with epic-level mage spells and a very small space to fight in, making it much harder to escape his grasp, like we did with Nevaziah. But now we're better situated.
SCS enemies rarely pre-buff with Protection from Cold, making them very vulnerable to Cone of Cold. We trigger the fight with Blueberry, teleport her away to escape Lavok's Horrid Wilting, and bring our mages just close enough to cast Cone of Cold. I time the spells so Aerie casts her spell 3 seconds after Edwin casts his, increasing the chance of spell disruption.
This was the easiest fight against Lavok I've ever had.
Tolgerias, though, has always been harder, and I tend to underestimate him because he doesn't bring out a Planetar right off the bat like Lavok does. More Cloudkills and Webs, but once again Blueberry gets disabled by her own spell.
I really should grant her immunity to it. Tolgerias tries to debuff Edwin, but the nice thing about Spell Immunity is that you can cast it even if your aura isn't clear, ensuring a quick refresh, assuming you have an extra copy of the spell on hand.
Tolgerias uses a nastier debuffer against Aerie, who has no defense against it.
He tries to follow up with an HLA, but Dragon's Breath is easily dodged if you see it coming.
Tolgerias's defenses hold up; we don't have much pressure to apply besides Cloudkill. He takes another shot at Edwin, but Edwin gets lucky.
When Tolgerias leaves the cloud, Edwin punishes him with Cone of Cold. But the cone doesn't even hit him.
We try Sunfire instead. Tolgerias gets fried.
We stop by Mekrath's lair and make further use of Edwin's safe MGOI-bypassing damage spells, Cloudkill and Chain Lightning.
We purchase the Shield of Balduran and send out a Vhailor's Helm clone with the shield in hand for extra safety. We throw damage spells to speed up the fights in the Unseeing Eye quest.
When we notice a lich in the Pit of the Faithless, we run away, but the Beholders are no problem with the SOB in hand. A Simulacrum tank and damage spells are enough to handle normal enemies in this area.
Same goes for the Unseeing Eye. The SOB keeps Poppy safe long enough to slay the Unseeing Eye and his cohorts with bullets and spell damage.
I load up the game, but something is wrong.
Something screwed up my SCS strings, probably an EE update (my game updates to the most recent version automatically). But the solution is simple. All I have to do is back up my dialog.tlk file and paste in @Blackraven's old one. Success!
Valygar is out of the party (not sure why his buff durations are displaying here) because I am keeping that slot open for Imoen, who will get the Green Soul kit, reducing her spell damage by half but doubling her spell duration.
We have a new development in the party, which I am very excited about: Edwin has hit level 14 and can now cast Prismatic Spray. We blast the first enemies of the Planar Prison with a flood of pretty colors.
I like area-effect spells that have cone-shaped or line-shaped projectiles. It makes precise targeting more important. The nice thing about Prismatic Spray is that it's a party-friendly spell. On top of that, it strikes as a level 7 spell, bypassing GOI and lich spell level immunities.
We have a bunch of Yuan-ti Mages to the east to deal with. I decide to try out Web once more, even though Blueberry is not immune, because it might help us take down the Coiled Cabal. Blueberry sneaks into their midst and fires off both of her Web spells in a single round. I keep the rest of the party back; I want the Yuan-ti to waste their resources on Blueberry before the rest of us move in.
Blueberry's Lightning Reflexes ability finally comes into play. She is buffed with Protection from Fire and can hit the Yuan-ti's Fire Shields safely, but each hit she takes, even if it deals no damage, triggers Lightning Reflexes, a cumulative +2 to AC and saves and +10 to MR for 2 rounds. Her own Web spells also trigger Lightning Reflexes, which I will need to fix, further improving her defenses. I take a look at the numbers, and the bonuses she gets are ridiculous.
For once, Blueberry's vulnerability to her own Web spells is coming in handy. The Yuan-ti fighters can't touch her and the Yuan-ti Mages can't disable her. She only takes very small amounts of damage. Improved Alacrity allows her to drink a potion and cast a healing spell in the same round, but only in that order (IA doesn't speed up potion and item use).
Eventually Blueberry lets a Yuan-ti Mage slip by and approach the party. Edwin and Aerie leap into action.
See that second screenshot? That's the Ring of the Ram, which apparently does nonmagical magical damage as a level 0 spell in EE. Damage which the Red Soul kit boosts. We have confirmation: the Red Soul damage bonuses apply to items as well as spells, which means we can do terrible things to enemies with a fully charged Wand of Cloudkill.
The Master of Thralls is no threat to this party. Poppy has the saves and immunities to resist Death Gaze, and Aerie and Edwin have SI: Abjuration to prevent the Master of Thralls' Remove Magic spell from dispelling their Chaotic Commands buffs.
Only one foe is left, an epic-level fighter/mage in the form of the Warden.
The Warden disappears, and then Poppy gets hit.
Where's that coming from? If the Warden was under the effects of Improved Invisibility, we'd be able to see his red circle, but there's nothing there. As if the Warden could hit Poppy with Adjatha's Drinker from long range.
I pull Poppy back and notice the Warden casting an alteration spell. Poppy can't survive a three-round thrashing during Time Stop, so we throw out Kitty in the hopes that the Warden will attack her instead.
The Warden doesn't attack; he gave up when we left his field of vision. I send out Blueberry to check, with a Web to try and snare the Warden, but she fails her save vs. breath and gets tangled herself. The Warden strikes her while she's vulnerable, but still does not appear.
I bring out the rest of the party, and mercifully the Warden lets Blueberry recover, turning his attention to Laosha instead.
Laosha, our Seducer, has always been the weak link due to his poor AC and HP. Laosha stays on the move in the hopes of avoiding some attacks, with Detect Illusions active to reveal the Warden. The Warden pulverizes him despite his running around, and pins him down when he's weak.
We have a problem here. Putting aside Laosha's predicament, it seems that the Warden is perpetually invisible, even when he attacks. I'm guessing it's a Mislead+SI: Divination combination, and apparently Detect Illusions can't dispel Mislead, unless perhaps the clone is within sight.
I'm not familiar with Mislead beyond using it to stack songs (no longer possible in the most recent version of EE), but I understand that it can make a character untouchable if the clone is hidden someplace the enemy can't reach it. Yet I've never seen an SCS enemy stay perpetually invisible with Mislead before, including the Warden. And I thought the Mislead trick only made the caster undispellably untargetable by spells; I didn't think it made the caster impossible to attack with weapons either. So this is all very new to me. It's like Improved Invisibility from Icewind Dale 2.
Blueberry finally escapes her Web spell and downs a potion, using her Improved Alacrity to hop out of the web before it has a chance to disable her again.
We abandon Laosha for dead--I don't consider a Rod of Resurrection+Remove Paralysis combo to get him back--and hurry away to the east. The Warden, oddly, doesn't bother finishing off Laosha, much as he neglected to finish off Blueberry. Instead, he chases after Poppy, slicing her from his undispellable invisibility.
His movement rate is so high that we can't actually escape his attacks. This is very frustrating; SCS magic attacks are supposed to be able to bypass invisibility, allowing mages to take down SI: Divination, but if Mislead prevents the Warden from even flickering into view, then we can't touch him.
The Warden is 100% invincible. Only area-effect spells could hit him, but he has his mage buffs up, and we can't dispel his mage buffs if we can't target him. This isn't fair.
Frustrated with the Warden's invincibility, I settle in a corner and throw out Teleport Field. But even with Teleport Field active, the Warden moves so fast that he can still land attacks.
And since he's still invisible, we can't even run away from him, because we don't know where he is. With absolutely no options at our disposal, we are forced to sit and wait until we can start fighting back.
Finally, finally the Warden appears. His Mislead clone evidently vanished. For the first time after so many rounds, we can actually target him.
Aerie and Edwin hit the Warden with debuffers while Blueberry and Poppy keep him occupied. It is a costly endeavor to tank a high-level fighter who has Improved Haste AND Greater Whirlwind Attack.
I try to follow up with Sunfire, but the Warden just barely escapes its reach.
Then, the moment Mantle wears off and we can hit the Warden with Celestial Fury, he brings out an HLA.
That's basically 6 seconds of invincibility for him, because we can't afford to fight him when he has 10 APR.
We restore our defenses, the Warden debuffs tries to remove them, and then he blasts us with Horrid Wilting.
The Warden's offensive output is extreme. With casting speed penalties hobbling her healing and Dimension Door spells, Blueberry can't do much to heal herself besides running away and drinking our increasing limited supply of potions. And with the Warden dealing so much damage per hit, Blueberry just isn't getting enough Lightning Reflexes bonuses to keep her safe, either from the Warden's sword or his spells.
Edwin loses his Stoneskins without my noticing, and quickly approaches death. After paying such close attention to Blueberry, and with so many buffs on Edwin's portrait, I didn't even notice Edwin was hurt. He decides to flee, apparently forgetting that there is nowhere to go in the Planar Prison.
Notice that Laosha is back. Since the Warden never killed him, the Power Word: Stun just wore off eventually. We try to Charm the Warden and disable him with Feeblemind and Sleep, but he just keeps making his saving throws. We struggle to break through his defenses, and the Warden just keeps restoring them.
Laosha, failing to make any impact with his psionics, brings out the Efreeti, who reveals that the Warden has immunity to fire. Aerie discovers that he's still vulnerable to magic damage.
The Ring of the Ram knocks him away, giving us some space. With the Warden out of the way, we break out our Rods of Resurrection and bring back Blueberry and Edwin. It takes some extra time, since Rods of Resurrection in my install have separate charges for Raise Dead and Heal.
We might have a shot against the Warden now. We buff ourselves up a bit before heading north. Notably, Blueberry uses Ilbratha to give herself an extra barrier, as Mirror Image works well with Lightning Reflexes.
Our attack is short-lived. The Warden confuses Blueberry and Laosha both.
But his spell defenses are finally down, and Aerie is no longer alone. Now we have Edwin, a vast well of damage spells that the Warden no longer has the defenses to block. Poppy holds the fort. Her Barbarian damage resistances aren't much help; her huge HP pool is the only thing keeping her alive.
Melf's Acid Arrow does lots of damage in the hand of a Red Soul mage. Without his Stoneskins or his spell protections, and with his potions already empty, the Warden does not have the HP to withstand our attack.
There are still some Yuan-ti Mages chilling at the Warden's chamber. We rest up and approach them, but Blueberry fails a save against her own Web and gets killed when the Yuan-ti descend upon her.
Once again, a bad roll ruins our Web+Cloudkill strategy. I really need to make Blueberry immune to that spell; it's absolutely fatal when she fails a save, and it's rather overpowered when she makes her save, since it also triggers Lightning Reflexes. We stay out of the cloud and the Yuan-ti Mages' MGOI spells vanish. I decide to pull out the scorcher loop, just for fun.
The scorcher loop is already strong enough, but combining it with the Red Soul kit is just silly. I only wish it could harm fire-immune enemies, like those Efreet, which we had to kill using Celestial Fury and magic damage. I don't think I'll be using the scorcher loop for serious battles in this fight unless I'm really desperate, since I already used it a lot in my old IWD run.
Only the Iron Golem statue is immune. That damage comes from Prismatic Spray, incidentally.
Now we're ready for Spellhold. We get bad news when we reached the graveyard.
I like Edwin's voice, but Edwina's voice is just grating. We'll have to put up with it for a little while.
We issues some justice at Brynnlaw, taking advantage of Prismatic Spray's ability to bypass spell level immunities.
No doubt a lot of sailors will be sad to find the local brothel suddenly without leadership, though the courtesans themselves likely will find a better boss. The important thing is we got some loot from Galvena's corpse.
We take on Perth, because I can't leave the Book of Daily Spell behind. He blasts us with a Horrid Wilting Chain Contingency, as most high-level SCS mages do.
It's an excellent way to get players to spend their first round's aura on drinking a potion instead of breaching the mage's defenses. They could throw in three Horrid Wilting spells instead of just one, but that wouldn't leave any room for short-duration defenses like Improved Mantle, and Horrid Wilting can always be blocked outright by a Protection from Magical Energy spell, so SCS mages have their priorities straight.
Edwin returns the favor with Prismatic Spray, but it's hard to land a hit against an invisible enemy. Perth dodges it outright.
Laosha fails to reveal Perth, even though his Detect Illusions skill is very high (I think at 100%). Perth is free to launch a Time Stop, but doesn't hurl out any HLAs for some reason.
I would have expected a Fallen Planetar by now.
Now that Edwin has level 7 spells, he has access to one of the best debuffers in SCS: Khelben's Warding Whip. It won't take down Spell Trap, but it's an excellent way to bring down GOI and SI, which are the biggest threats.
Perth finally brings out the Planetar, though, which is why we already had Teleport Field on the map. Perth is vulnerable now, but so are we.
Poppy is immune to vorpal strikes due to her subzero save vs. death, but Planetars still do lots of damage and have instant-casting, unstoppable spells, which means we need a better defense against this one. Edwin provides it.
We evade the Planetar and focus on Perth, the less powerful but more vulnerable enemy. Teleport Field stymies Laosha's efforts to reveal Perth using Detect Illusions, which means we can't use Breach on him, which means his weapon immunities are still holding out. But his GOI spell is finally gone, rendering him vulnerable to our faster-casting, lower-level area-effect spells.
Poppy tries to stun the Planetar with Celestial Fury, but it keeps making its saving throws. Celestial Fury and Darts of Stunning boosted by Enchanted Weapon (to make them strike as +3 weapons to bypass celestial weapon immunities) are one of the few reliable ways to disable to disable Planetars, as they have no immunity to stun and their MR blocks most spells. A successful save means no stun, and no stun means we have to deal with some very nasty spells.
Edwin dies (I forget how) and we lose all spellpower. Even Laosha, whose psionic abilities are supposed to be uninterruptible, can't get a spell off the ground.
Aerie still can use items, so she finishes off Perth with the Ring of the Ram.
I could flee the area by now, but I don't like using area transitions to escape Planetars. I decide to fight it out for a little while. But as much as Poppy strikes it, the Planetar refuses to fail its save against Celestial Fury, and it starts to wear us down. Aerie narrowly avoids a vorpal strike.
Blueberry has fantastic AC due to Lightning Reflexes, but we just can't stop the Planetar from nailing her. This is the AC the Planetar keeps bypassing.
The Planetar keeps up the pressure on Aerie, and after making its save against Celestial Fury yet again, it nearly slays Poppy.
Poppy runs, and the Planetar turns to Aerie. She barely survives a Flame Arrow.
As much as I hate area transitions, we don't have much choice. We flee the area, but Aerie doesn't make it out.
I've been avoiding the WoL trick so far, but I decide to use it on the Book of Daily Spell to duplicate the thing, because I hate getting stuck with Burning Hands. After duplicating it over 10 times, I fail to get either Burning Hands or Farsight. The last time I tried this, I also failed to get Farsight after even more duplications, so I'm not sure it's possible to get Farsight when using the WoL trick (though I can't imagine why). I likely won't use the duplicates anyway, and I might not use any of them at all, but if I do, I'll probably stick with a single use of the Spell Turning page, since that's the first one I got during the duplication.
We bring back Aerie with the Rod of Resurrection and get her to raise Edwin, and move on to Desharik, who is unimpressed with our claims of insanity.
I remember the dialog here being much weaker and less realistic than it was, so maybe Beamdog revised Desharik's lines.
We meet Irenicus as the Coordinator and I try to speed up the process by attacking him, which normally triggers the cutscene early. Instead, he just teleports away.
Not sure what this is about. All the previous times I've done Spellhold, I've found that attacking or failing to pickpocket anyone in the area causes Irenicus to appear and put you to sleep before you have a chance to kill any of the inmates. It might be a bug, because that behavior is there to prevent the player from breaking the post-labyrinth cutscene where you rally the crazies to fight Jon-bon.
Whatever. I reload, let Irenicus give his spiel as normal, and wait for him to appear naturally. In the dream sequence, Poppy sacrifices a point of Wisdom and kites Bhaal mercilessly.
Bodhi takes us down to the maze. Imoen joins the party and I give her the Green Soul kit, doubling the duration of all of her spells while cutting her spell damage in half. Now we have Invisible Stalkers that can last for two rest periods, saving us lots of spell slots, and later we'll be able to use Skeleton Warriors instead.
Since we've been doing fairly against Yuan-ti Mages lately, I decide to hurry up and take down the ones guarding the entrance to the next area, without bothering to buff beforehand. Edwin should be able to destroy them with spell damage, and our Invisible Stalkers will absorb the enemy's spells.
But two of the mages steer clear of Edwin's Cloudkill, and Aerie loses her own Cloudkill when she strays too close.
We fall back, only to find that a hostile Efreeti has slipped past the choke point to flank us.
And Aerie had no fire immunity at the time.
We stun-lock and slay the Efreeti, while Blueberry, to the southwest, monitors an Invisible Stalker that's keeping the other Yuan-ti occupied.
Blueberry breaks invisibility, but she can't keep the Yuan-ti Mages from escaping the choke point and approaching our weakened and unbuffed party. She fails a save against Flame Arrow from yet another Efreeti at the back. Things are looking bad.
The Yuan-ti Mages close in on us. To stop an incoming enchantment spell, Edwin fires off a Sunfire spell. But Blueberry was too close, and even after downing a potion, she couldn't survive the hit. Not when she failed her save vs. spell.
Blueberry has been chunked by friendly fire. Such is the cost of the Red Soul kit.
A long grind goes by. Our party is weak and badly damaged, but we pull through thanks to Celestial Fury.
Soon the last enemy Efreeti goes down as well.
But Blueberry is lost. I didn't make any conscious decisions regarding chunking before, which means I have no justification for reversing it. Also, I'm not sure I feel comfortable re-creating her as a level 7 character. This means Blueberry, our most interesting character, is now gone. Her late-game potential will go unexplored. 2 million XP down the drain.
I have had enough with chunking, though. Having seen it multiple times, it has lost its novelty and is simply no longer interesting. From now on, I will not suffer any character to be chunked, whether by pure damage or a Planetar's vorpal strike. My purpose in these runs is to test out experimental builds, and chunking is an unacceptable threat to that goal.
I'm not sure who will take Blueberry's place, but it will have to wait, since there won't be any joinable NPCs for a while. Until Chapter 6, we will be limited to five characters: Poppy, our halfling Barbarian; Laosha, our halfling Seducer; Aerie, our Red Soul Cleric/Mage; Edwin, our Red Soul Conjurer; and Imoen, our Green Soul Thief(7)->Mage.
I don't know what the policy is regardin SOD spoilers, so just in case I will treat everything as spoiler until told otherwise. I know that as I was following this thread, a couple of times I had to avoid looking at SOD content. Not that it's a big problem, mind you.
The team kills lots of undead (Undead Hunter +1) and lackeys of Sarevok. Those that surrender are treated fairly and handed to the Flaming Fist. The Fist is still a mercenary force, but Sarevok learned to trust them to an extent.
At some point, Ajantis mentions that he has to leave soon because he is preparing to officially become a paladin of the order. Savras is proud and a little jealous. Will be sad seeing him go.
Korlasz is the mage that they were after. The fight against her is brief (Coran still had some arrows of dispelling) and they let her in hands of the Flaming Fist officials. I don't remember much else of interest happening before we come back to the Ducal Palace.
All companions (but Nimue) left. They took lots of valuable items with them (Spider's Bane, bow of markmanship, etc) but from a roleplaying perspective they were theirs to take and from a metagaming perspective Savras is relatively overpowered as it is, coming from BG1. No big deal. During recruitment I met briefly Coran again, but he does not wish to travel with us. Nor does Tiax (not that Savras would want him, regardless of what Nimue says). Minsc and Dynaheir, and later Safana, complete the group.
Savras lost all his money, but it ended up in hands that needed it more. The thieves had to respond for their crimes nevertheless, and were told to turn themselves in. Ready to go and face the Shinning Lady.
Safana sings to some rocks (?), the group promises to help some people and they find themselves in a very dungeon-y cave. Of course, undeads.
Sanctuary-Glint and Invisible-Safana scout searching for traps, but we still eat one. Minsc is killed by a Skull Trap.
A while later, Safana learns the hard way that some skeletons see the invisible and Dynaheyr is downed by a ghast or some other undead critter. Savras is more decided than ever to clean this hole of undead vermin.
The party is forced to back up and heal the fallen companions before going deeper. They return angrier than ever. The group is almost overwhelmed again by a huge group of undeads behind a secret door.
Traps are the least of their worries in this cave. Somehow they get to the dwarven liche and a terrible fight starts.
The liche is killed three times, thanks to the artifact that the dwarves gave them, but he comes back to life faster than expected. He comes back for good (the artifact is spent) and the party is forced to fight him the hard way.
He kills the party one by one, Glint and Dynaheir, then Safana, then Minsk, finally Nimue (it continues to amaze me how though and resourceful she is).
Savras is left alone with the liche badly wounded but then I realize that he is not attacking anymore.
Savras takes the time to heal himself and kill him taking down layer after layer of stoneskin. Phew!
Note: I wasn't prepared for a liche in SoD. He is weaker than any liche in SoA, but he still Abi-Dalzim'ed and Incendiary Cloud'ed my party while wearing infinite Stoneskins. Of course, you are not expected to kill him old-school, but without reading guides I didn't figure out the phylactery puzzle in time. I still don't know if the liche ran out of spells (don't think so), or if my bless/protection against evil had something to do but he just ignored Savras like he didn't exist. Maybe he is scripted to do it because he could easily TPK you, or maybe it was a bug, but that is probably the only reason why I didn't lose the no-reload.
Not that it feels like a great victory, but I will take it and continue the no-reload. A voice in my head is yelling "Undead Hunter".
Death Fog has always been a strong anti-lich tool. It's just high enough level to bypass a lich's spell level immunities, it deals acid damage, which almost nothing is ever buffed against even in SCS, and the damage itself is respectable, at 80 damage over 10 rounds, enough to dissolve a lich with two castings by the time it runs out.
We more or less blast our way through Spellhold with Prismatic Spray and Holy Smite, but Irenicus will be a little more complicated. His defenses are fairly lax compared to other SCS mages, especially with other mages to help us debuff him, but our clones could be an issue, as I no longer disarm my party before the fight to keep the clones underequipped and weak. Before speaking with Lonk the Sane, I buff our mages with SI: Abjuration, even though Edwin and Aerie's Red Soul spell durations will keep them from lasting for more than the first few rounds of combat.
Laosha tries to charm Irenicus, in the hopes that we can take advantage of or simply Jon-bon's best spells. Edwin fires off a Warding Whip so we can hit him with Acid Arrows and Breach later on. Aerie's role is most important: disrupting Irenicus' first spell.
Our experience with Lavok was very helpful. Cone of Cold works well on SCS mages.
The clones don't come buffed, but with Irenicus to distract us, we don't have very heavy pressure on them, and the Edwin clone's Robe of Vecna makes it even easier for them to get spells off the ground. A nasty Chain Lightning spell reveals that our clones get the Red Soul bonuses, too.
The Imoen clone's spell thrust sets off the real Imoen's Emotion contingency, knocking out a couple of the clones. While Irenicus' weapon immunities are still active, I turn Poppy's attention to her clone, who could do awful things to us with Celestial Fury. Since Poppy's saving throws are so excellent, she uses the Flail of Ages against her clone, as the clone would be very likely to resist Celestial Fury. Meanwhile, Edwin falls back to catch more enemies in his first Prismatic Spray.
Irenicus debuffs Laosha and Poppy. Warding Whip continues to break down Jon-bon's defenses, opening the way for Breach, while our allies, the inmates, grow weaker. The Edwin clone keeps blasting away with his high-damage spells.
With Irenicus Breached, we can hit him with the Flail of Ages. Edwin takes down his clone with the help of the Red Soul kit, while the enemy's Red Soul kit brings Laosha close to death.
Irenicus' weapon immunities return with PFMW, but he's still vulnerable to spell damage. Poppy switches to a nonmagical katana until Aprhil Breaches Irenicus.
Irenicus teleports out and slays the remaining inmates. The battle is won! I celebrate with a scorcher loop to clean up the surviving clones.
We do get debuffed due to carelessness on my part, and the drow resist most of our spells, but a Red Soul's damage spells are strong enough to make a strong impact anyway.
MR in general is the main reason the Underdark is so tough for my parties, who are usually magic-heavy. Thankfully, Teleport Field bypasses MR, which makes it a required rescue option for fights with Mind Flayers, though with 4 APR, Mind Flayers can destroy a stunned character like Laosha even with multiple Teleport Fields on the map.
The Ring of the Ram also bypasses MR and spell protections, but is only single-target. We try it against Alchra Diagott, who survives it and nukes our Berserk Warrior while Poppy stays out of the way.
Alchra wastes spells on cheap summons. I do this too much, really.
We start debuffing Alchra, but can't disrupt his spells. When I see him casting a Conjuration spell, I get Teleport Field ready for a Fallen Planetar, but it turns out to be a Dragon's Breach, easily dodged by Poppy.
Warding Whip keeps debuffing Alchra during Time Stop, which he largely wastes. Our party is immune to Incendiary Cloud, while Poppy is resistant to Comet (her Protection from Fire buff, naturally, got dispelled).
Edwin's Prismatic Spray fails, but without a Fallen Planetar, Alchra can't apply enough pressure to the party to stop a Breach. He dies to a bullet to the head.
We move on. Death Spell works on most Kuo-toa, but not the more dangerous ones. Thankfully, Sunfire does.
Then something truly extraordinary happens. Poppy fails a save against a disabler.
It takes a special kind of incompetence for me to let a (1) well-equipped (2) high-level (3) halfling (4) Barbarian (5) Charname get disabled. We struggle to bring down the enemy before he can slay Poppy with damage spells or bolts, but in the end he only stops when Laosha's Charm ability takes effect.
The Balor in the svirfneblin settlement debuffs Poppy and renders her vulnerable to fire damage (both its Aura of Flaming and Fire Storm spells bypass MR, by the way), but we lower its MR and blast it with damage spells, bringing it down with little trouble.
We free Vithal and use Invisibility to keep him alive during the fights with the elementals (he does NOT have Stoneskins), and pressure him into giving us an extra reward, including a scroll of Horrid Wilting for Edwin. Ask him for more rewards and you have to fight him, and though the reward is excellent (more high-level scrolls, I think), he is an epic-level mage who uses Imprisonment, and I've seen him use it on the player during Time Stop.
I also take on the drow guarding the entrance, who can make things really complicated if you fight them after the quest is over (you end up taking them on when you're weakened by the flight from Ust Natha). We send out Poppy's clone first, since it has lots of immunities and HP that will absorb a lot of the enemy's initial attacks.
The enemy debuffs Poppy herself, since she has to stay within range in order for us to direct her clone to attack. While Poppy deals with the golems and Glabrezus, Edwin launches Horrid Wilting spells from afar. They absolutely destroy the drow.
As always, I sneak past Taso Kala before she can make us take down the ooze priests to the southeast.
Before reporting to the temple for the last section of the questline, I drop the Kuo-toa Prince's Blood, since having it on your person automatically hands it over, locking down the city and preventing resting. I take the extra time to set up some traps by the Egg Guards. Poppy chunks one of them; the traps slay the other.
If you fail to bring them down, you have to kill Matron Mother Ardulace to escape the city. I prepared Lower Resistance, Pierce Magic, and Breach to take down her defenses (she's a very high-level cleric with very high MR), with multiple Invisibility 10' Radius, Haste, Teleport Field spells to slip past the drow on the way out. It wasn't necessary, but these measures are necessary in no-reload runs to adapt when things go wrong.
I snatch the eggs with Sanctuary, and stay hidden using a few of our many Potions of Invisibility.
We escape the city without anyone turning hostile. Success! The most stressful part of a no-reload BG2 run is over.
After being harmed and having his spells dispelled by the artifact, he is not too tough. You just have to move fast and get the phylactery and burn it. I guess that is the way you are meant to face him. However, if you waste the charges being too slow, or never collect the artifact to begin with... Lots of ways this fight can go wrong.
We tear up everyone else with damage spells. Seeing those damage values is just so gratifying.
We break through Sion's defenses, but I neglect Poppy's HP and she nearly dies in the process, surviving only thanks to her subzero saving throws. We finally Breach him and finish him off before he can do anything else.
Time for Bodhi. I decide to break invisibility to deal with Bodhi's vampires even though I can simply rest until it's morning. My reward is a Horrid Wilting from a suddenly-charmed Edwin.
Poppy is immune to level drain thanks to Barbarian Rage, but SCS vampires can drain CON on hit, which can be easily fatal even on a high-CON fighter.
We bring in Edwin, who torches the opposition.
But some escape the area of effect, and Poppy can't get rid of them fast enough. Aerie busts out an old favorite of ours.
Then I realize that some friends of ours are getting murdered offscreen, and apparently aren't fighting back.
I hurry over. Wulfgar is dead, and Drizzt is at Near Death already.
I couldn't care less about Wulfgar, but we need Drizzt to help us with Bodhi. I bring out a party-friendly spell to avoid antagonizing Drizzt and the gang.
We heal up Drizzt with the Rod of Resurrection, saving him. Soon the enemy goes down.
Then Tanova appears, only to get disabled, debuffed, and destroyed.
We rest and prepare ourselves. I don't know the specifics of the install I got from Blackraven, so this might be the full Tactics-style upgrade. Sure enough, Bodhi is flanked by Hazarmaveth and Manasseh, who will be an ongoing nightmare thanks to their high defenses and spellpower. Right off the bat, we get hit by spell failure, as I buffed our mages with SI: Abjuration but not SI: Conjuration.
With his spellcasting disabled, Edwin doesn't have much he can do anymore. I pull an undisruptable option, only to see it fail against the most important target. Edwin, shorn of his Stoneskins by Cloud of Bats, succumbs to pure crushing damage.
Aerie struggles to survive. Her defenses are spectacular, rendering her invulnerable to enemy magic attacks, but Cloud of Bats means her Stoneskin is gone. She could die just as quickly as Edwin has. Poppy tries to make some progress while Aerie recovers, and Imoen throws out Chaos from the southwest doorway, to little effect.
I notice Bodhi has gone missing. Since Poppy is blind, I have Aerie investigate. She reaches half HP just as she discovers Bodhi in separate room, triggering her Teleport Field contingency. Desperate to avoid a sudden death, Aerie used a scroll of Protection from Undead on herself, and quickly props it up with SI: Abjuration.
Poppy also buffs with Protection from Undead. Both Hazzerbazzer and Manasseh waste their debuffers on Aerie--but the fact that they could target her indicates that her Protection from Undead scroll isn't keeping them off her back.
With Manasseh's PFMW down, however, we can finally make real progress against the enemy (doing so before wasn't possible with our primary mage dead and our secondary mage unable to cast spells). Poppy breaks through Manasseh's Stoneskin, and is quickly rewarded with a triple Flame Arrow sequencer and two Mordenkainen's Swords hacking her apart.
I pull Poppy back and hand her a few Arrows of Dispelling. She has no pips in shortbows, but her THAC0 is still zero.
But she makes horrible attack rolls over and over again, only succeeding the second after Manasseh gets PFMW back up.
THAC0 really does matter.
We lose all of our summons to a Death Spell. Things are looking bad. Finally, Aerie decides to cast Sunray. She gets it off the ground without disruption.
Laosha loses a spell to a quick Magic Missile. His Seducer abilities aren't instant-casting.
I'll change them to have a zero casting time later; they already pause the Seducer for several seconds afterwards.
Manasseh and Hazzerbazzer are still alive. Poppy brings out the Helm of Brilliance to blast them with a second Sunray. Hazzerbazzer escapes, but Manasseh is within range.
I keep Poppy out of the way. The vampires' CON drain has taken its toll on her, and she is only two strikes away from death.
I shift gears to focus on Bodhi. She has high MR but no spell protections, making her relatively vulnerable to spell damage. We use Holy Smite and slings to remove some minor enemies.
We resurrect Edwin with the Rod of Resurrection, but he arrives at 1 HP. He's not hard to knock out.
We use a second charge from the rod to heal him before the enemy can snuff him. Just in time, too.
I check our screens for CON drain. Aerie is one shot away from death--I didn't realize she was in such poor condition.
Normally PFMW is supposed to keep off those attacks, but Aerie only gets 2 rounds of immunity out of it. Red Souls are true glass cannons.
We turn Edwin against Hazzerbazzer, who slips away at the last second. He tries to control his attacker, but Edwin resists it despite his lack of Chaotic Commands.
I switch around some items; I want Aerie and her Vhailor's Helm clone to slay Hazzerbazzer with the Ring of the Ram. But I fail to put the ring on Aerie before she summons her clone, and Edwin fails a save.
I hoped Edwin could use his many damage spells to bring down Bodhi. But Aerie's Lower Resistance will likely wear off before he'll have a chance to take advantage of Bodhi's lower MR.
Making things worse, the Teleport Field puts Edwin right in the way of Aerie's Holy Smite, and Hazzerbazzer escapes once more.
Bodhi's MR will increase again soon, if it hasn't already. Aerie turns her attention to damaging Bodhi while we still have a chance to. With her assistance, Drizzt brings Bodhi into the next phase of battle.
Then I realize how we can deal with Hazzerbazzer, who has no spell turning or deflection spells active. Imoen nails him with the Wand of Lightning. It works! Meanwhile, Poppy uses the Sling of Everard to avoid getting too close to Bodhi and her CON drain attack.
Aerie hits Bodhi with the Ring of the Ram, pushing her away. Drizzt loses interest and attacks Edwin instead, who is in no condition to stand up to the attack.
Bodhi teleports away, so we take the opportunity to finish off Hazzerbazzer, bring back Edwin, and heal the party with Limited Wish.
We send an Efreeti after Bodhi in the next room and attack from afar with Holy Smite, killing our decoy.
Bodhi comes out to attack us, but she has no allies left to distract us. She doesn't have a chance.
This fight was a nightmare. Two deaths from Edwin, two wasted scrolls of Protection from Undead, lots of lost HP, and a near death by both Aerie and Poppy due to our lack of full-duration PFMW spells. This would have gone much better if I had managed to keep Edwin alive. The Red Soul is only powerful as long as it's alive, and Red Souls aren't very sturdy characters.
A moment later, I realize that I forgot to buff everybody properly.
Firkraag goes after our weakest link, Laosha, so we send Laosha running, pelting Firkraag with ranged spells and weapons. Neither of us makes much progress due to strong defenses all around.
Then Firkraag stops moving for a second. I know what's about to happen. At the last second, I have Poppy equip the Ring of Fire Resistance, as her Protection from Fire spell has been dispelled.
Poppy kites Firkraag for a moment, as she's not quite tough enough to survive more than a few rounds against him, considering how few potions we have.
Then we have a breakthrough--Laosha's Charm ability takes effect! Firkraag is under our control, albeit only for 6 rounds. That means very little for a melee-based boss enemy who has no spells we can waste, but it gives time to bring back Aerie.
I send Aerie away so she can heal and buff herself, and have Poppy take down the Glabrezu, which Firkraag has been ignoring.
Firkraag proves unresponsive. I can't tell if he failed a save against Feeblemind without me noticing or if he's just struggling with the Charm spell, but it gives us time to weaken him. We slay the dragon through spell damage.
Carsomyr is ours! I head to the Radiant Heart to pick up Keldorn, and Edwin's quest finally comes to an end.
Keldorn joins the party and equips Carsomyr. I go to Cromwell to forge some stuff, and discover that Blackraven has Item Upgrades installed.
Sadly, I'm missing key ingredients for the best stuff, and it's not possible to go back and retrieve all of them. There's no way to get a Demon Heart or Mithril Tokens or the Staff of Earth, but I can still get the Periapt of Proof Against Poison and the Amulet of Spell Warding.
Time to go back to the Underdark. We have Beholders and Mind Flayers to take down.
Done! Now for the Mind Flayer city. Edwin finally hits level 18 and chooses Dragon's Breath as his first HLA, as it does nonmagical fire damage. After dealing with the gladiator fights, we buff up the party--this time, without an auto-buffing spell, since the slightly increased spell durations might actually matter in an extended fight like this one. To save on Control Circlets, Laosha charms a Mind Flayer using his own psionic abilities, though it nearly costs him his life.
We conserve Edwin's Dragon's Breath spells and deal with the first few encounters with melee attacks. Aerie, unfortunately, has poor AC, and a couple of Mind Flayers landed good rolls before Aerie had a chance to react.
Edwin exacts vengeance.
Aerie restores some spells to get her buffs back. We drink some Potions of Defense to improve our lackluster AC.
We use Dragon's Breath to clear the way for a few other fights we can't win quickly through Poppy and Keldorn alone. Edwin has four castings of the spell at level 18 thanks to his absurdly overpowered amulet. Only one fight is left.
To conserve another Control Circlet, I decide to use Slayer form to open the next door. But I find something very surprising.
Poppy never got the Slayer change ability, because I've been using a custom rest spell in lieu of actual resting. We never triggered the dream sequence that grants access to Slayer form.
So we just use a Control Circlet and torch the last group of enemies.
Edwin has crossed a line. He is now far too powerful for his own good.
We also find that Mass Raise Dead heals a lot more than I thought it did.
It seems to be a Mass Resurrection spell instead, as it healed Poppy to full health when she was very, very badly hurt.
We prepare for Nizidramanii'yt.
We spread ourselves out and initiate combat.
And then?
Then something terrible happens.
We failed to buff the party against acid, even though I specifically got Protection from Acid for Edwin way back in Chapter 2. Now Laosha has been chunked by sheer acid damage.
As I mentioned earlier on, when Blueberry got chunked, I decided in advance that I'd re-create any character that got chunked in the future. So we will have Laosha back. But not for this fight.
Edwin blasts Nizidramanii'yt with Dragon's Breath, against which the black dragon has no defense.
But then, the dragon goes friendly. Laosha's Charm ability worked! Now we can attack him without fear or reprisal, at least for a few rounds, though it does mean we can't hurt him with party-friendly spells.
Turns out, a few rounds is all we really needed, with Edwin around.
We move on to the temple and slay Suneer with Dragon's Breath...
... only to find that we only killed his clone. The real Suneer stops time...
... only to fail his save against Laosha's Charm ability.
We have him bring out a Fallen Planetar, who will be on our side even if Suneer goes hostile again. The rest of the fight is a crushing defeat for Suneer, who sees his best spells turned against him.
Suldanessellar is complete. But we have more business to take care of. I want a Wand of Spell Striking, which means we have to go to Watcher's Keep, and finish off the Statues.
It was a long and complicated battle, but nothing new really happened. We took over one of the mage Statues with Laosha's new Domination ability (a Seducer HLA that's a slightly stronger, area-effect version of Charm), burned most of the Statues to death with repeated Dragon's Breath spells, and gradually wore down the survivors.
We went downstairs, fetched the Wand of Spell Striking, burned our way through most of the second level, and then blasted the Chromatic Demon, who is helpless against a Red Soul.
Now we have to deal with Kangaxx. That's going to be a treat.
If I hadn't, I'd have cicked on the wrong entrance and had to deal with Shangalar and Vaxall and Layenne and Shyressa. And also Revanek but nobody cares about him.
The Elemental Lich almost dies to trap damage.
Aerie imposes 50% spell failure on the lich, but it fails to stop its first spell.
Then Laosha's Domination takes effect. The lich is ours. Since he's already so damaged, though, all we need is one more hit to take him down.
Boring. Time for the Shade Lich!
Warding Whip and Breach nearly end him, but he restores his buffs and hurls damage spells at us, slaying Laosha.
The advantages shifts back and forth: we slay the Cornugon; we nail the lich with Imoen's Planetar's Holy Word; the lich disables the Planetar with its passive Dragon Fear effect; Aerie casts Remove Fear; and then the Shade Lich succumbs to Charm, where Domination had failed.
We have the Shade Lich summon a pair of Fallen Planetars, who are more than enough to kill the lich and bring back Laosha.
On the way out, I enter the Mind Flayer lair in the sewers. I don't need the Hammer of Thunderbolts or the Wand of Wonder, but we may as well take advantage of Dragon's Breath from Edwin.
The Alhoon somehow escapes the Dragon's Breath spell's area of effect, and Absolute Immunity holds off all of our other attacks. Worse, the Alhoon got Improved Alacrity off the ground.
But then, the Alhoon goes friendly. Domination worked!
We conjure a new Mordenkainen's Sword, kill the Alhoon's old one, and then repeatedly start and stop casting spells in order to drain the Alhoon's spellbook while Improved Alacrity is still active.
The Alhoon is still charmed when his spellbook is empty. Nothing left to do but kill him.
I like these kits. They're fun.
I want to gain one more level before we take on Kangaxx, so I head to the Temple Ruins to take down Thaxll'ssillyia. Edwin and Aerie absolutely destroy him.
Now, finally, we are ready for Kangaxx.
Judging by a few comments, Minsc is crazier now than ever. More blows to the head, although ultimately it was a spell that fell him. Not far from the camp, the party rebuffs a drow and rescues a female goblin. Low creatures, but this one was being treated unreasonably. Thankful, M'khiin heals the party, and they all decide to share road for a while. Party of six and they have a healer again.
Traveling around, Savras meets Isabella, a vampire hunter and the most awesome paladin they have found so far. The party is honored to help her defeat a real vampire! An undead foe almost as dangerous as the liche.
Savras even delivers the killing blow, and Isabella, surely feeling potential in him, lets him finish off the vampire forever with a stake.
(Vampire hunter +1!)
On our way to the bridge we kill many orcs and ogres. The group is seriously beat up in a troll cave, but Savras and Nimue (fire spells galore) save the day. We offer to scout for the Fist. To infiltrate among the crusaders we need to find some missing soldiers. The party heads to the temple in ruins and fights giants, spiders and a few wyverns on the way.
The dragon was a challenge and I must admit that when I saw it sleeping I got out of the cave to prepare for the combat. The party was tired, wounded and almost out of spells by then, so they were realistic. Buffing and healing with the many potions that they had, plus having handy some spell scroll they didn't need to rest.
But, long story short, the neothelid in the Bhaal temple got me. Correction: Savras never actually died, but he was dire charmed by the neothelid. Thank bugs or old friendship, but Savras didn't attack anyone in the party (they were a little away, I guess). He just stood there, looking how his friend were eaten alive by the monster one by one (as usual, Dynaheir fist, Nimue last). They fought well and for a long time (it felt like the dire charm lasted forever). Sadly, the last of them fell before the spell on Savras wore off, so it counted as a defeat.
Two lessons:
I had become too reliant on my mainchar. Savras is a very solid combatant, well-equipped and extra flexible thanks to 4 cleric levels + a mix of evil & good bhaalspawn powers. The one time that he got disabled, I couldn't trust the rest of the party (wounded, tired) to deal with a foe like the neothelid.
I had been careful, and I usually protect myself against mind attacks, but when I looked at the neothelid I saw a big, dumb worm and I faced it accordingly. The psionic powers were an unpleasant surprise.
A blind no-reload was way out of my league so I am happy with how far I got. I had been enjoying SoD and I will continue the playthrough as a minimal reload. When I get to SoA I will start again as a no-reload. Not sure if it would technically count, but I still want the personal achievement of defeating the original trilogy no-reload.
Night of the Living Redshirt: The No-Reload Adventures of Redshirt Ricky
Behold, Redshirt Ricky the Kensai, facing all of Faerun with nothing more than the red shirt on his back.Chapter 1: The Great Escape
Ricky descends from a long line of unsung television heroes. But he plans to break the trend. HE WILL NOT DIE.
Clubs and daggers only. He will have to shiv his way to glory.
As you can see, he's level 10. Let us pretend, however, that we don't know he survives Chateau Irenicus. The XP value alone shows that he does... but at the time it was far from certain.
My WEIDU log.
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Initialise mod (all other components require this): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1910 // Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Allow Spellstrike to take down a Protection from Magic scroll: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2020 // Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2030 // Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2041 // Modify the Harm spell so it does damage rather than reducing target to 1 hp -> Enemy and player Harm spells both do 150 hp of damage: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2050 // Allow individual versions of Spell Immunity to be placed into Contingencies and Spell Triggers: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2070 // Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades only affect hostile creatures: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2080 // Cap damage done by Skull Trap at 12d6: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2090 // Make Power-Word: Blind single-target: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2120 // Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2160 // Add an extra copy of some hard-to-find spell scrolls: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2170 // True Sight/True Seeing spells protect from magical blindness: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2180 // Prevent Simulacra and Projected Images from using magical items: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3010 // Replace +1 arrows with nonmagical "fine" ones: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Make the healing and resurrection powers of the Rod of Resurrection into separate abilities: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Change Carsomyr so that its Dispel on contact power grants a saving throw: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4010 // Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4040 // Make party members less likely to die irreversibly: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4180 // Make Freedom scrolls available earlier: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4240 // Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5000 // Ease-of-use party AI: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5010 // Move Boo into Minsc's pack: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5020 // Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5030 // Remove animation from the Cloak of Mirroring (leave it for other spells and effects that use the same graphic): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6020 // Add high-level abilities (HLAs) to spellcasters -> Only selected spellcasters in Throne of Bhaal get HLAs: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6032 // Smarter Mages -> Mages never cast short-duration spells instantly at start of combat: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6042 // Smarter Priests -> Priests never cast short-duration spells instantly at start of combat: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs -> All of the potions dropped by slain enemies are recoverable: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6521 // Smarter genies -> Genies have normal hit points: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6531 // Smarter celestials -> Celestials have normal hit points: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6541 // Smarter dragons -> Dragons have normal hit points: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6570 // Smarter githyanki: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6590 // Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8000 // Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8010 // Improved Shade Lord: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8020 // Spellcasting Demiliches: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8050 // Improved Random Encounters: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8061 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix") -> Enhanced spirit trolls (as in Tactics): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8110 // Improved Sahuagin: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8140 // Slightly Improved Drow -> Upgrade Ust Natha's defences: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8160 // Improved Fire Giant temple: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8170 // Enhanced Sendai's Enclave: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8180 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8190 // Improved Minor Encounters: v30
~SETUP-DUNGEONBEGONE.TP2~ #0 #0 // Dungeon Be Gone V1.6
I'm actually running a fairly light install of SCS2. I'm considering running a full install soon, I just need the 3 hours to do it. My computer is... not very good. SCS takes a looooooong time to setup, or re-setup in this case. Also might wait till I get Dragonspear (it comes with 2.0, right?).
Also notice the final entry in the WEIDU log. That's Jasper, yep. I have been using Jasper for a while because I got tired of Chateau Irenicus. However, I don't feel justified in doing a no-reload run without starting right from the beginning. Skipping to Waukeen's definitely feels like a cheat.
I had no idea how important this would become. Because I'd been using Dungeon Be-Gone, I was completely unfamiliar with Chateau Irenicus and Ricky died 4 times as I tried to muddle my way through, restarting the game each time from scratch.
Here is the 5th attempt.
Things go well initially with little need to metagame. The only exception is Ataaqah's challenge. Ricky chooses the cowardly option to save his own skin. If he faces the genie he instantly gets charmed and it's game over. Given that he comes from an illustrious history of facing off against the universe and terrifying aliens with little more than a piddly phaser and a red top, I think we can forgive him this one moment of wanting to save his own skin.
Ricky lays waste to all opposition in the traditional way, by slicing and dicing. His skill with daggers is unmatched. He takes a lot of damage with high AC, but there are enough healing potions to keep him going, though he hovers at about 50% HP most of the time.
As far as I can tell, there are only 20 throwing daggers in Chateau Irenicus. This makes them more precious than gold. I save some of them for the cambion, putting him down at range. With Ricky's damage bonuses it doesn't take many to do the job, which is really really really good. Those throwing daggers are essential; without them, there's no way to adequately beat the dungeon with daggers-only.
Also notice the corpse of Illyich's mage; that mage ended two previous no-reload attempts. I think SCS randomly determines spell lists at game start. As Ricky is a humdrum human, and there are no resources for enhancing saves on the Dungeon 1st level that I know of, it's a total crap shoot. It's just game over if that mage happens to have charm person, since it's not easy to make that save. This time, the mage had magic missiles.
Ricky has no protection against the Otyugh, since throwing daggers don't work against them. He's forced to shiv the monster at close range, suffering disease and slow. More healing potions down the drain. The Kensai has very little protection initially.
The attrition makes the whole escape attempt very touch and go. Here's a picture from a previous attempt, when things were very dark indeed. It was way too easy to guzzle every healing potion and end up with nothing.
Shortly after this picture was taken, Ricky got sniped not three feet inside the door. It was back to the beginning all over again.
Things went a bit better this time around.
Daggers can't reach the mephits in the cages, so I had to make sure I could save every throwing dagger possible for when I needed to take them out. Ricky had only just enough to do it.
By this point in the game Ricky was perpetually at 30-40HP. All healing potions were being consumed as soon as they were found; it was just enough to keep up with damage taken. Barely.
Must say though, the uncertainty of playing without reloads makes the game much more intense and engaging. It was a lot of fun. Every step around the next corner could have been Ricky's last.
Ricky unwittingly enforces the spellcasting ban in Athkatla. I don't know what spell the ellesime clone was casting, but it probably wasn't going to be good. Ricky expends his last three throwing daggers on the clone. From now on, he's back to shivving people prison-style.
This put the fear of god into me. I knew there was a trap there, but the type and amount of damage dealt had long since passed from my memory. I was almost too afraid to continue playing. Ricky only had 36HP and no healing options to speak of.
In the end he makes a leap of faith and takes only 17 damage from a steam trap. I must admit I was breathing easy at this point... until I opened that door and Ricky was reduced to just 5HP by a deurgar's crossbow bolt.
OUCH.
With no other options, I use Draw Upon Holy Might to temporarily boost Ricky's HP. This means Ricky has 1 turn of life left, unless I can find healing potions somewhere. I had no idea where to look, but the simple fact was that a menacing deurgar stood between Ricky and his potential salvation. At this point even escape wasn't much of an option. No matter where he went there were ranged enemies that would get at least one shot off before he closed in to shiv them. Assuming they did more than 5HP damage, that would probably kill him when DUHM wore off (I'm assuming, I actually have no idea, which was why DUHM was a last resort).
So ya, Ricky was on borrowed time.
Astoundingly, the deurgar trips a trap when Ricky approaches, taking enough damage to panic. Ricky thanks his amazing luck and finishes the dwarf easily. So at least now the pressure is off; Ricky won't die when DUHM wears off. He'll go back to 5hp.
Ricky shivs Frennedan and loots his pad for healing potions. At last, some HP!
Everything is coming up Milhouse.
It's funny how much of a rodent you become when you have no trap abilities. Scurrying along walls like a hamster...
Shivving an assassin on the way out yields an invisibility potion. Ricky's survival is assured. He drinks it immediately before he can get backstabbed by the assassin's lurking friends.
But then Ricky started wondering. How could he deal with those backstabbers? Sure, wisdom told him he should just walk out of the joint unseen and claim his freedom... but a little experimentation might be useful. Ricky will need all the resources he can get. He needs experience, potions, and wants to explore how far a potion of firebreath can be used...
Good to know. Might come in handy at some point. A firebreath potion can target an object on the ground just like the wand of fire/lightning. The jet of fire can then be stretched as far as you want it to go. Stafing side to side, Ricky sweeps the fire in a circle around the targeted corpse and fries the invisible assassins.
He gets 2 invisibility potions for his trouble. Those are greatly needed.
On the 5th attempt, Ricky tastes freedom. What a relief.
I cannot believe how difficult that was. Note to self: don't use mods to skip stuff.
I should try no-reload more often.
Some umberhulks cross our path and they are really vicious.
We venture deeper into what seems like a hidden library. Mostly infested with undead and what we cannot kill with fire, we kill with ranged weaponry. Wand of fire is too strong. Melissa's scrolls of fireball and aganazzar's scorcher clear the path.
BOOM!
Melissa helping Minsc in battle but Corwin doing most of the work.
One tank and one use of the wand is often enough...
This is a lot more fun! Melee-wizard is soo funny.
We clear out the library and the Lich below, who fell before I thought of taking a screenshot. One use of the Eyes of Secret or whatever they were called and he was insect plagued (or alike) and a few rounds later killed. We took the phylactery to the plane of fire and that was it. We got the dwarves to join us in the end fight (or so the achievement says).
Outside we walk through the forest and solve the missing person mystery as well as the singing menhir (dragonteeth!) mystery without any problems. Just a little bit more to explore and talk with in this area before we move to the next one (inn quest is still open).
I actually found Safana to be epically useless as a pure class thief, especially since Glint has maxed open locks and find traps, now going to max set traps. Safana just has the ability to shoot arrows, backstab is not that great yet, set traps not specialized yet and her kiss useless on undead.
I position Aerie close to the lich so she can deafen him with Holy Word. The Cloak of Mirroring blocks Horrid Wilting, allowing Aerie to stay so close.
Edwin takes out the Magical Sword to lessen the future pressure on us. Imoen summons a Planetar via her Project Image clone. That Planetar will prove vitally important in the next round.
I trigger a Chain Contingency to debuff Kangaxx. Imoen has recently hit level 18, allowing us to hurl out a full suite of debuffers all at once. Better yet, Holy Word takes away one of Kangaxx's first spells, and SCS mages like to use their best options first.
Kangaxx retaliates with Skull Trap, but Poppy is nearly indestructible now.
We compound Kangaxx's spell failure using the Planetar. Holy Word is one of its best powers, and it gets to cast it three times before vanishing.
Kangaxx will soon be defenseless. We solidify our advantage.
Kangaxx's Dragon Fear disables both Imoen's Project Image clone and Aerie's Vhailor's Helm clone. We restore both with Remove Fear, but then Aerie's clone vanishes--just as Kangaxx transforms.
I had a perfect strategy for Kangaxx's demilich form. Aerie would summon a clone via Vhailor's Helm before Kangaxx transformed, then both Aerie and her clone would nail him with the Ring of the Ram. The Ring of the Ram deals 5d6 nonmagical magic damage as a level 0 spell, and Aerie's Red Soul bonuses would make that into an instant death for Kangaxx. But the Red Soul kit also shortened the duration of her Vhailor's Helm Simulacrum spell, despawning her clone before it had a chance to strike.
Now we have to take down Kangaxx the normal way.
Laosha tries to seize control of Kangaxx on the first round. Aerie uses the Ring of the Ram, which seriously injures but fails to kill Kangaxx.
Edwin has started casting Improved Alacrity in the hopes of debuffing Kangaxx quickly. I was saving this for his second form, figuring the debuffing Chain Contingency would be enough for his first--and wary that Kangaxx's Time Stop would rob Edwin of the duration of Improved Alacrity.
Poppy gets in a single hit before Kangaxx's prebuffs trigger.
Edwin finally casts Improved Alacrity. We use Limited Wish to block level drain, which I've noticed will happen in SCS even if somebody resists the imprisonment effect of Trap the Soul.
Kangaxx gets Time Stop off the ground. Edwin's Improved Alacrity will run out during Time Stop, wasting the spell.
Kangaxx starts debuffing us. He imprisons Laosha, our least protected party member.
Kangaxx maintains his PFMW and Stoneskin buffs. Edwin tries to break them down while Kangaxx increases the pressure.
Imoen's Planetar adds another Holy Word. It won't block Trap the Soul, but it might block his other spells.
Sure enough, Trap the Soul works just fine.
Kangaxx targets Aerie next. She restores her buffs. Thankfully, Spell Immunity, like Nahal's Reckless Dweomer, can be cast even when one's aura is not clear. Edwin also bolsters his defenses.
Kangaxx targets our Planetar instead. Apparently the spell offers a saving throw!
Kangaxx hits Aerie with Dragon's Breath, which she barely survives due to being debuffed. Our Planetar makes another lucky save, but I'm not sure how long its luck will last. I have it cast Improved Invisibility to improve its saves, though I'm not sure the save bonuses or the AC bonus from Improved Invisibility apply to enemies who can see through invisibility.
Kangaxx's defenses will run out soon. I have Keldorn down an Oil of Speed to get ready, forgetting that his armor blocks haste effects. We keep attacking with ranged weapons (to avoid Kangaxx's Fire Shield), waiting for PFMW to run out. But Kangaxx restores it, and starts debuffing Edwin as well, prompting a re-cast Spell Shield.
Edwin's extra spell slots are almost all dedicated to his defenses, so we have at least one mage left to cast Freedom when this is over.
Kangaxx, unable to break through Edwin's spell defenses, tries to make a dent in Poppy's deep HP reserves. But even HLAs aren't enough.
Kangaxx restores his defenses once more--he is a tough nut to crack. Finally, our Planetar fails its save vs. death, and vanishes.
The struggle goes on. We can't break through Kangaxx's defenses, he can't break through ours, and neither of us can damage one another.
Finally, something happens!
Aerie and Edwin still have SI: Abjuration active, Keldorn is protected by his strong save vs. death, and Poppy, as our Charname, will never get targeted by Trap the Soul anyway in SCS. Kangaxx doesn't have much left to throw at us.
Kangaxx's Fire Shields run out. Keldorn moves in for the kill with Carsomyr. But Aerie's SI: Abjuration runs out. Red Souls are lousy at defense. It costs Aerie her freedom.
Kangaxx is in no better shape. He's reduced to throwing out level 1 spells. Finally, Poppy does him in.
Edwin casts Freedom and our party is restored. The Ring of Gaxx is ours.