@Wise_Grimwald Thanks Wise, but it's not that bad, just a set-back. And I normally lose characters in my Trilogy runs - adapt or die, as they say. But since Grond0 has a number of Trilogy successes with just one character, should be possible with my ad hoc party as well. And if a party member IS to get lost, it's MUCH better to be chunked in BG 2. Chunkings in ToB can be devastating - I have had several runs that basically lost because the party had so few HLAs due to the chunkings those runs experienced. As a result, they couldn't deal out the damage fast enough in the Final Battles and thus fell to Melissan's minions.
That is an unbelievable roll... but your F/T is suffering from "experiments" ... don't leave him caged!! He might run into a lich in a closet in Athkatla in the near future... but don't leave him to the exile!
That is an unbelievable roll... but your F/T is suffering from "experiments" ... don't leave him caged!! He might run into a lich in a closet in Athkatla in the near future... but don't leave him to the exile!
Errr... but... but... what about the charismatic voice.
(If *I* was my charname, I probably would have taken one of several suggestions by the Hooded Figure/Irenicus, uttering "Go on, I'm listening...".)
I've always wondered what the game would be like if you could ally with enemies... help Sarevok start a war and pile up carnage... That would be a mod to program. At the very least, fewer games would end in the Ducal Palace, since you could help kill Belt and Liia! Then you could join with the Shining Lady to lay waste to the Sword Coast before Irenicus interrupts the party...
The Exile is harder to imagine cooperating with, since he's so selfish. (If memory serves. I have only made it to BG2 once since I started attempting no-reloads.)
I vote F/T loose in Athkatla! Your 100 point charname isn't going anywhere in the meantime
The Exile is harder to imagine cooperating with, since he's so selfish.
I don't know about that. There are lots of references to Irenicus trying to get you to embrace your inner powers - I don't see why you can't work with him to do that (obviously with the intention of double-crossing him at some stage) .
While passing through a forest in Siege, three stray critical hits from three random orcs all found their mark. One second he had near perfect health, the next he was dead. But a death is a death, and the run must end.
I'll attempt again with a new class. I really enjoyed Cedvar, it'll be hard moving on T.T
I've started another go at this. As usual in the early stages all encounters involved blindness and lots of darts. In order to reduce the number of area transitions as much as possible until invisibility was available, I killed a number of low value XP enemies even prior to getting up to level 3 from Shoal. The 1,440 darts carried out of Candlekeep lasted long enough to kill several of the ogre clan as well. That meant that there was more than enough XP available in Beregost to get up to level 4.
Killing Greywolf pushed reputation up to 10 before Freya rested to get Bhaal healing and she went on to benefit from visits to Meilum (bracers), FAI (ring), ankheg nest (wand of fire). There was a mistake though when I mis-clicked on the conversation with the nobleman at the FAI and missed out on the pantaloons.
Moving on to the basilisk area Freya used the green scroll for protection. That wouldn't last long enough to dart all the basilisks in LoB, so she softened groups of them up with scorchers.
The last of the basilisks got her up to level 6 before recruiting Korax to deal with Mutamin. The higher HPs Korax has in LoB makes him more formidable than in standard BGEE and he successfully paralysed all Kirian's crew here - although several times after that one of them managed to recover as Korax attacked them in turn, each time they were quickly paralysed again.
With her newly-learned skull trap Freya went to Durlag's Tower and bombarded some battle horrors from out of sight (taking advantage of the fact enemies don't heal when resting in the same area).
She didn't have any protection against petrification, but web and blindness allowed her to kill the basilisks on the roof without that (getting up to level 7).
She picked up the tome using her new minor spell deflection.
She completed her collection of wands by drawing some ghasts out of their tomb to face a barrage of skull traps and magic missiles and will be heading for the Nashkel Mine next.
Edit: that was a shame. I forgot that in this version of BGEE while Mulahey can be killed by physical damage without talking any spells affecting him (whether he sees anyone or not) prompt his conversation to summon his allies. Summoned monsters would have made quick mincemeat of the cleric, but when Freya skull-trapped him he immediately teleported in kobolds and skeletons next to her and 2 quick hits before she had a chance to do anything ended her run.
I collected some gear from the bandits then kicked the pally, disarmed some traps and forced peons down the mine bosses face... this upset Viconia so I asked her to leave.
Just rolled a "100" while rolling a David Warner Cavalier.
Does this ever happen? (My first, I rarely remember exceeding 90 or some such.)
I think Tymora wants me to play this charname.
I once rolled 103. High rolls are easier for cleric/ranger, fighter/mage/thief and paladins due to the minimum rolls that you can have for some attributes.
For those classes 90 is not at all hard to roll. For other classes 90 can be exceedingly difficult.
While passing through a forest in Siege, three stray critical hits from three random orcs all found their mark. One second he had near perfect health, the next he was dead. But a death is a death, and the run must end.
I'll attempt again with a new class. I really enjoyed Cedvar, it'll be hard moving on T.T
I managed to get the antidote to drop from Marek (on the third reload)... Beamdog changed this quest to resolve when he drops | and you collect it then forgot to make sure he does,
The iron HQ is well guarded with divine casters so we buffed against moral to face them.. my base tactic is 'Doom' | 'wand' this removed the clerics so I could dispatch the others.
Hax is making steady progress. There is still the occasional death, but nothing Rod of Resurrection can't fix. Things accomplished:
Lonk, Spellhold Irenicus - Dispelling arrows we picked up in the area gave us victory in both encounters. Imoen was nice enough to use them for us. Minsc died, but he's been killed a lot this run and almost used to it...
* Saemon - this is a very buggy encounter in vanilla, but we managed to get through it
* City of Caverns - this was an important stop for several reasons. For one, we got the cloak of mirroring, without which beholders will be a big pain to deal with. Just as important, Imoen got to 22 CHA and then we sold all the Spellhold junk we were carrying, especially ammo. This got our gold to 96,000 - now we aren't in such critical shape gold-wise anymore. The actual battles were pretty straight-forward. We used an undead scroll for the undead in this area. We assisted the King (which is what Corey_Russell usually does).
* Underdark Caverns - we made sure to be buffed if appropriate, but otherwise our cleric summons did well here. Anomen can finally create skeletal warriors now. We freed the mage and allowed him to keep the bulk of the loot. We didn't free all souls, though of course we did free the svirfbelin child in there.
* Kua-toa Lair - theses enemies are annoying as always, but we did destroy them. Using maximum buffs and summons (and some snares), we also destroyed the demon knights without casualty. The strength belt in particular was very welcome addition for Mazzy.
* Beholder Lair - the party assisted some of the time, especially the group by the Mind Flayers. Then Mazzy did what she could but stayed away from the Elder Orb - we don't want to have the face the beholders if Mazzy got imprisoned. Picked up Greenstone Amulet.
* City of the Illithids - Mazzy tanked great here - her sword quite useful this area. Her AC was -14 - she still got hit plenty in which case she did genius potion gulping. Poor Minsc died again, but RoR got back to speed once more. Hax did a lot of scouting this area, to prepare our assaults. The party did assist, once Mazzy had the enemies attention. We were able to do the entire map before our CC wore off. The fire resistance ring went to Aerie, don't want her chunked by fire which happens a lot otherwise.
* Rescuing Phaere - protecting Imoen buffs then having her do death spell works well. However, the party and summons were doing pretty good anyways, because by the time Imoen's spell generated only two of the eight enemies were even left alive. Some party members got stunned but didn't die.
So only thing left to keep working on the rescuing the Dragon Eggs quest, then when finished we will leave the Underdark.
With Gromnir dead, Goibniu fought his way through the wilderness to the temple of Bhaal. There, the power of three sunrays was unleashed once again to kill the master wraith and his minions:
After entering Yaga-Shura's Lair (under mass invisibilty), the party moved to the north, where Owain summoned Mordenkainen's sword as an invincible tank against the massive physical damage:
This tactic trivialized most fire giant battles. Aside from that, I had Luna use lots of protection from fire spells, and she summoned a fallen deva now and then. Eventually, Berenn, the last fire giant here, was killed:
Goibniu was protected from fire and killed Imix in one hit, using The Wave:
Now, it was time to visit Nyalee again. A couple of traps and attacks later, and she was dead:
The party returned to the pocket plane after entering Yaga-Shura's camp, buffed, wounded the giant, ran around for a bit and just focused him down with GWW's when he showed up again:
The gigantic bhaalspawn was quickly defeated, and Goibniu fought his way through the oasis next. Owain helped out against the initial group with a dragon's breath spell, the party cleared out the remaining area:
The name is strange, I know. It's been assigned to the character via the random name generator which I use for my randomized party challenges (I task it with assigning random mythological names, and they can be from any mythology, which is why there also are roman, greek, germanic, egyptian and welsh names in the party). It's the name of a smithing god in irish mythology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goibniu).
After enjoying the countless sagas in these no-reload threads, I've decided to throw my own hat in the ring.
Starting, at the beginning Insane difficulty (no difficulty-based damage bonus) No-reload canon(ball) run - companions will be Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, Dynaheir Companion resurrection permitted Mods installed - NPC Project, Unfinished Business
This will be a major challenge for me. I am NOT used to the caution required in no-reload runs or playing a support-type protagonist. I also have limited experience with some of the companions I have stuck myself wi...er, ummm, decided to adventure with. It'll definitely force me to think outside the (normal Baldur's Gate) box, which is my ultimate goal. I intend for this no-reload run to be nicely storied. So, without further adieu, I present to you -
A star is born
Magastar remembers nothing of her father and very little of her mother. There is one memory though that is vividly, almost suspiciously, clear. It is of her mother singing a song, a lullaby. Something about her father coming from a 'star'. She guesses that that's where her name comes from. She knows that Gorion and her mother were friends but she has no recollection of her mother 'leaving'. One day it was just, only Gorion. It's been that way ever since.
Magastar, ½-Orc Shaman
Adventure awaits!
Someone wants Magastar dead! The only real problem here was retrieving the axe once it had been buried, up to the shaft, in her assailants skull.
Magastar's world crumbles with the death of Gorion. Luckily, her best friend Imoen, followed them out of Candlekeep. With Imoen at her side, she feels safe (well, safe-er).
Gorion made Magastar promise to travel to the Friendly Arm Inn and that's exactly what she intends to do. Along the way, she practices her nature 'song and dance'. Imoen calls it a 'neat trick' but Magastar can tell she's impressed. Especially when they discover how useful her attunement really is.
...and how powerful.
Coming from Candlekeep, Magastar has some measure of a mage's power. When she saw someone who looked like a mage, walking directly towards her, with the sickly sneer of a smile on his face, she did what anyone in her situation would do - she drank a potion!
Her not-so-friendly arm was more than enough to interfere with his casting, and his life.
Alright, I'm in. Won't be terribly active, but 1-2 updates per week should be doable. Since this post turned out to be a lot longer than I had envisioned, I'll leave the entire thing in a spoiler.
Aldain, Human Conjurer, Update 1 Next update found here
Starting in BG1:EE Core rules Random hitpoints on levelup
Mods: Only SCS, pretty much everything that makes the game harder, Weidu-log in spoiler:
// Initialise mod (all other components require this): v30 // Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v30 // More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v30 // Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v30 // Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v30 // Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): v30 // Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v30 // Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v30 // Replace BG1-style elemental arrows with BG2 versions: v30 // Replace +1 arrows with nonmagical "fine" ones: v30 // Replace many +1 magical weapons with Fine ones -> Fine weapons are affected by the iron crisis: v30 // Faster Bears: v30 // Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v30 // Improved shapeshifting: v30 // Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: v30 // NPCs go to inns: v30 // Ease-of-use party AI: v30 // Move Boo into Minsc's pack: v30 // Ensure Shar-Teel doesn't die in the original challenge: v30 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v30 // Smarter general AI: v30 // Better calls for help: v30 // Smarter Mages -> Mages cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v30 // Smarter Priests -> Priests cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v30 // Potions for NPCs -> All of the potions dropped by slain enemies break and are lost: v30 // Improved Spiders: v30 // Smarter sirines and dryads: v30 // Slightly harder carrion crawlers: v30 // Smarter basilisks: v30 // Improved doppelgangers: v30 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v30 // Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v30 // Dark Side-based kobold upgrade: v30 // Relocated bounty hunters: v30 // Improved Ulcaster: v30 // Improved Balduran's Isle: v30 // Improved Durlag's Tower: v30 // Improved Demon Cultists: v30 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: v30 // Improved Bassilus: v30 // Improved Drasus party: v30 // Improved Red Wizards: v30 // Improved Undercity party: v30 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: v30 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: v30 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: v30 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: v30 // Improved final battle: v30 // Improved minor encounters: v30
I give you Aldain, the creatively named charismatic Conjurer:
93 is a decent roll. I considered going for high strength instead of charisma, but I do not want a mage protagonist fighting in melee, ever. It would've given his sling attacks a bit more oomph, true, but at 1 APR and mage THAC0 he's never going to contribute much to a fight in the physical sense regardless. Besides, I've come to enjoy high charisma... it seems fitting for the protagonist. And yes, I'm boring enough to use the stock portraits.
Aldain swiftly makes his way through Candlekeep's inner grounds. One assassin fails his save against Sleep, the other one is pin-pricked into oblivion by Lord Marshal Cuddlepaws, Aldain's Fairy Dragon familiar, protected by its innate Mirror Image spell. Carbos and Shanks are actually pretty silly in SCS. They both get Poison Weapon (so if they land a hit on you, you're almost certainly done for), they have good THAC0, and if you let them get out of sight (which is possible in the priest room due to the fireplace in the center blocking line of sight), they'll hide in shadows (at which they always succeed) and backstab you! Thankfully, no such problems this time around.
Following Gorion's demise, we pick up Imoen, along with Xzar and Montaron. What is this, you say, are we aiming at a mixed good/evil party? Of course not! We simply need meatshields, excuse me, a skilled vanguard for the fight ahead.
Nothing worse than a diseased gibberling interferes on our journey to the Friendly Arm Inn. Now is Montaron and Xzar's time to shine! Monty stealths and moves up behind Tarnesh, and Xzar is sent forward to initiate conversation, while our real party members (Aldain and Imoen) stay well back. Despite a quick Larloch's Minor Drain, Tarnesh manages to get a Horror off... but Xzar makes his save! Montaron is fruitlessly whiffing, Xzar fires his second and last LMD, to which Tarnesh responds with a Melf's Acid Arrow! Bolstered by temporary HP, Xzar survives and engages in melee. A Magic Missile puts an end to this, and Xzar falls. Montaron takes a blow to the head (so a minor injury), but lands a blow in return. It's looking bleak, but spiteful as ever, Montaron deals the killing blow.. just as a final Magic Missile kills him off!
Note: Abusing NPC's as disposable meatshields is pretty cheesy. I do it because there's almost no way for a mage/thief duo to reliably beat Tarnesh. And we need reliability, as this is no-reload...
We bury Montaron and Xzar (well.. not so much bury as unceremoniously dump them) behind the temple at the FAI, ever thankful for their sacrifice. From here on out it is mostly smooth sailing. We meet up with Khalid and Jaheira, clear the FAI map of hobgoblins (picking up, but not handing in, Joia's ring), purchase a Stone to Flesh scroll for 190 GP (I love high Charisma early on when you're dirt poor), and talk to the female gnome lady whose name escapes me to get 6 antidote potions (did I mention I love high charisma? These will actually turn out to be very handy). Head south, take out the Ogre with the belts using a combination of Sleep (which he saves against), Doom, Bless and ranged fire + kiting.
Onwards to Beregost, where we avoid any and all fights/quests. What's the deal here, you ask? Well, I've got a small compulsion towards getting my entire party together before earning any XP. I'm strange like that. I make a small allowance for clearing the hobgoblins/belt ogre and very minor stuff like that on the way south, but I save all the quests. No doubt you've deduced we want Branwen due to the Stone to Flesh scroll, so that leaves us with one slot. Maybe Kivan? No... it's too easy! A real archer (Kivan/Coran) is awesome, which is precisely why we don't want one. The choice is perhaps somewhat unorthodox: We will pick up Xan. So do we intend to rush through the mines, and kill Mulahey at level 1? Nope. We'll rush through the mines, but leave Mulahey alive, because killing him starts Chapter 3, and with Chapter 3 comes (thanks to the component Improved deployment for parties of assassins) two powerful parties of assassins that may attack any time you travel, starting once you attain level 3. I don't need that kind of love with a mage protagonist, not yet. So we'll resort to some very minor cheese to get Xan without dealing with Mulahey. Towards this end, we swing by High Hedge and purchase a single Invisibility scroll (yeah, you see where this is going).
We clear some ogrillons and hobgoblins south of Beregost (mainly as I don't want to have to visit this map again.. the xp is very minor anyway, so Branwen and Xan will forgive us for excluding them from it). Further south, we clear yet more hobgoblins and pick up Colquetle's amulet. Finally, we reach the Carnival, free Branwen, and rest up. We swing by Nashkel and speak to the mayor so Jaheira won't complain, but leave Noober/the inn-assassin alone, to conserve the XP.
So, we almost have our party together. All that remains is brute-forcing our way through the mines to reach Xan. As we spoke to Dorn while at the FAI, we are of course ambushed while moving to the mines. This is as per our plan; the plate mail from Dorotea will be very valuable when descending into the mines (in that it'll drastically improve Khalid's chances of surviving an unspecified amount of fire arrows. Note that I say improve, not guarantee, as you'll find out). This fight can be a little dicey for those of us with exceptionally squishy progatonists, as the two bandit archers that survive invariably target mages. Fortunately, Branwen Commands one of them and the second one is too far away to reach Aldain (Aldain having wisely retreated to the back just as the combat started). We pick up our platemail and other goodies, and reach the mines.
Now comes the pain. Descending when 3/5 of your party is level 1... well, it tries your patience. We've loaded up on 2x Sleep, 1x Command (one got used in the bandit encounter), 4x + 1x Cure Light Wounds, and 1x Remove Fear (on the off chance we make it to the Chieftain/Shaman encounter this rest). Unfortunately, you can't make full use of the CLW's at level 1, since if Khalid gets hit, he pretty much has to gulp a potion immediately, or risk dying to a second hit (the virtues of having 13 HP). We do have 15 or so healing potions, so we should be alright.
We're not quite alright. Judicious application of Sleep, Command and focused fire lets us fight our way down to the bridge on the third level. Here, we're completely out of spells apart from Remove Fear, so figure it's just as well to retreat. Still a good effort for the first rest, considering our low level. Since moving from the mines to Nashkel/the Carnival almost always ends in a Hobgoblin Archer ambush (very bad for a level 1 Conjurer!), we risk resting at the mines, and succeed. Same spell layout as before, we proceed past the bridge. And are again forced to turn back almost immediately, as Khalid deftly catches a fire arrow with his mouth and dies to the ensuing 13 damage.
So after trudging all the way back to Nashkel (somehow not getting ambushed by hobgoblins), raising Khalid, resting at the Carnival, and returning to the mines, we are ready for a third go. We fare somewhat better, and have cleared a path all the way to the Chieftain/Shaman. These guys are surprisingly nasty: They have decent HP, the shaman casts Horror and Mirror Image (but thankfully not Dispel Magic, so it's enough with one Remove Fear), both have poison daggers, and the Chieftain has poison arrows to boot. They also have about half a dozen kobold cronies kicking about.
Still, we've got our spells in order (2x Sleep, 1x Remove Fear, 3x Command, 3x CLW on Jaheira). We begin by sleeping the cronies. All but 1 make their save... but we stand our ground. The shaman and chieftain join their underlings, Khalid moves to engage the chieftain (who made his save against Branwen's Command) to keep him from shooting at us. At which point the little bugger retreats through the small lake below him (and again, makes his save against a second Command)! I didn't know that was possible. We fire a second sleep, and thankfully all the cronies fail their saves. And the chieftain makes his save against our third and final Command.
Now we have a problem. Aldain is level 1, so we only have 5 rounds before the sleep wears off. Retreat seems the best course of action. We move back to the spider den, chieftain/shaman follows (this forces the chieftain into melee as we broke his LoS), and we duke it out. And simply cannot hit the chieftain! Our poor level 1 THAC0 is no match for his AC. After a few rounds of whiffing, during which Khalid gets poisoned twice (I'm really glad we picked up those antidotes), we resort to using Imoen's Magic Missile Wand, and two scrolls of Larloch's Minor Drain. After emptying almost the entire wand and using both scrolls, we finally kill the chieftain with a lucky crit (Khalid gets poisoned twice more, but somehow survives with Jaheira expending all her CLW's on him):
The shaman is somewhat easier to take down. So, we're completely out of spells, down to about 5 healing potions, and still have the cronies (who fortunately did not follow us when they woke up after the sleep spell) to deal with. Off to the surface, again... Rest up, return, clear out the cronies and the kobolds outside Mulahey's lair, and finally our party is complete:
Mulahey can't see through invisibility. I had Imoen stealth past him (after many attempts to hide in shadows... she's still L1 after all), and talk to Xan to recruit him. This is where our invisibility scroll comes in: We just have Xan cast it on himself, Imoen stealth back up, and they sneak off under Mulahey's nose! Hooray, we have our party together!
With a full party, we do the simple stuff in Nashkel (Joseph's Ring, Noober, inn-assassin who is simple since she's L5 and thus completely vulnerable to Command) and return to Beregost. Spiders are cleared out, Marl is calmed down, Firebead helped, Neera helped (and subsequently let into our party, taxed in the form of her robe, staff and gem bag, and removed from our party)... all that jazz. Again, this is a little cheesy, but she has the only gem bag in the game, at least as far as I know. We also slip by the FAI to hand in spider carcasses and return Joia's ring. And finally we start to level a little, including Branwen. Second level Cleric spells will be very useful. As a crowning achievement, we take out Silke:
Silke can be a nuisance. She made her save against our initial Command, and so managed to Haste herself, but after a Doom failed her save against Xan's Charm Person. So, she got to buff Khalid with Improved Invisibility, nice! Then she turned hostile again almost immediately (I'm not sure why, I didn't hit her with anything) but failed her save against Hold Person, and that was that.
As we leave our intrepid adventurers, they are resting up at the Jovial Juggler, preparing to head into the wilderness. There's talk of half-ogres in them there mountains...
Aldain is now a level 2 Human Conjurer, and rolled a 5 for his hitpoints on levelup, lovely!
I killed the iron leaders and headed into the caves. Sarah gets the books and Imoen hit level 7, the switch to mage leaves her underpowered so I gave her a red potion... 25 intel makes learning scrolls a certain thing.
The ambush is very hard on lob.. my base tactic is to 'Oliluke's Resilient Sphere' one of the leaders so I can dispatch the bad guys in my own good time.
Note: my install has a working copy of 'Oliluke's Resilient Sphere'
Comments
Does this ever happen? (My first, I rarely remember exceeding 90 or some such.)
I think Tymora wants me to play this charname.
(If *I* was my charname, I probably would have taken one of several suggestions by the Hooded Figure/Irenicus, uttering "Go on, I'm listening...".)
The Exile is harder to imagine cooperating with, since he's so selfish. (If memory serves. I have only made it to BG2 once since I started attempting no-reloads.)
I vote F/T loose in Athkatla! Your 100 point charname isn't going anywhere in the meantime
While passing through a forest in Siege, three stray critical hits from three random orcs all found their mark. One second he had near perfect health, the next he was dead. But a death is a death, and the run must end.
I'll attempt again with a new class. I really enjoyed Cedvar, it'll be hard moving on T.T
I've started another go at this. As usual in the early stages all encounters involved blindness and lots of darts. In order to reduce the number of area transitions as much as possible until invisibility was available, I killed a number of low value XP enemies even prior to getting up to level 3 from Shoal. The 1,440 darts carried out of Candlekeep lasted long enough to kill several of the ogre clan as well. That meant that there was more than enough XP available in Beregost to get up to level 4.
Killing Greywolf pushed reputation up to 10 before Freya rested to get Bhaal healing and she went on to benefit from visits to Meilum (bracers), FAI (ring), ankheg nest (wand of fire). There was a mistake though when I mis-clicked on the conversation with the nobleman at the FAI and missed out on the pantaloons.
Moving on to the basilisk area Freya used the green scroll for protection. That wouldn't last long enough to dart all the basilisks in LoB, so she softened groups of them up with scorchers.
With her newly-learned skull trap Freya went to Durlag's Tower and bombarded some battle horrors from out of sight (taking advantage of the fact enemies don't heal when resting in the same area).
She completed her collection of wands by drawing some ghasts out of their tomb to face a barrage of skull traps and magic missiles and will be heading for the Nashkel Mine next.
Edit: that was a shame. I forgot that in this version of BGEE while Mulahey can be killed by physical damage without talking any spells affecting him (whether he sees anyone or not) prompt his conversation to summon his allies. Summoned monsters would have made quick mincemeat of the cleric, but when Freya skull-trapped him he immediately teleported in kobolds and skeletons next to her and 2 quick hits before she had a chance to do anything ended her run.
New faces,
I collected some gear from the bandits then kicked the pally, disarmed some traps and forced peons down the mine bosses face... this upset Viconia so I asked her to leave.
For those classes 90 is not at all hard to roll. For other classes 90 can be exceedingly difficult.
poisoned,
I managed to get the antidote to drop from Marek (on the third reload)... Beamdog changed this quest to resolve when he drops | and you collect it then forgot to make sure he does,
The iron HQ is well guarded with divine casters so we buffed against moral to face them.. my base tactic is 'Doom' | 'wand' this removed the clerics so I could dispatch the others.
Traveling with: Minsc, Mazzy, Anomen, Aerie, Imoen
1st Post
Last Post
Hax is making steady progress. There is still the occasional death, but nothing Rod of Resurrection can't fix. Things accomplished:
Lonk, Spellhold Irenicus - Dispelling arrows we picked up in the area gave us victory in both encounters. Imoen was nice enough to use them for us. Minsc died, but he's been killed a lot this run and almost used to it...
* Saemon - this is a very buggy encounter in vanilla, but we managed to get through it
* City of Caverns - this was an important stop for several reasons. For one, we got the cloak of mirroring, without which beholders will be a big pain to deal with. Just as important, Imoen got to 22 CHA and then we sold all the Spellhold junk we were carrying, especially ammo. This got our gold to 96,000 - now we aren't in such critical shape gold-wise anymore. The actual battles were pretty straight-forward. We used an undead scroll for the undead in this area. We assisted the King (which is what Corey_Russell usually does).
* Underdark Caverns - we made sure to be buffed if appropriate, but otherwise our cleric summons did well here. Anomen can finally create skeletal warriors now. We freed the mage and allowed him to keep the bulk of the loot. We didn't free all souls, though of course we did free the svirfbelin child in there.
* Kua-toa Lair - theses enemies are annoying as always, but we did destroy them. Using maximum buffs and summons (and some snares), we also destroyed the demon knights without casualty. The strength belt in particular was very welcome addition for Mazzy.
* Beholder Lair - the party assisted some of the time, especially the group by the Mind Flayers. Then Mazzy did what she could but stayed away from the Elder Orb - we don't want to have the face the beholders if Mazzy got imprisoned. Picked up Greenstone Amulet.
* City of the Illithids - Mazzy tanked great here - her sword quite useful this area. Her AC was -14 - she still got hit plenty in which case she did genius potion gulping. Poor Minsc died again, but RoR got back to speed once more. Hax did a lot of scouting this area, to prepare our assaults. The party did assist, once Mazzy had the enemies attention. We were able to do the entire map before our CC wore off. The fire resistance ring went to Aerie, don't want her chunked by fire which happens a lot otherwise.
* Rescuing Phaere - protecting Imoen buffs then having her do death spell works well. However, the party and summons were doing pretty good anyways, because by the time Imoen's spell generated only two of the eight enemies were even left alive. Some party members got stunned but didn't die.
So only thing left to keep working on the rescuing the Dragon Eggs quest, then when finished we will leave the Underdark.
Goibniu, human paladin, update 33
Continued from https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/818816/#Comment_818816
With Gromnir dead, Goibniu fought his way through the wilderness to the temple of Bhaal. There, the power of three sunrays was unleashed once again to kill the master wraith and his minions:
After entering Yaga-Shura's Lair (under mass invisibilty), the party moved to the north, where Owain summoned Mordenkainen's sword as an invincible tank against the massive physical damage:
This tactic trivialized most fire giant battles. Aside from that, I had Luna use lots of protection from fire spells, and she summoned a fallen deva now and then. Eventually, Berenn, the last fire giant here, was killed:
Goibniu was protected from fire and killed Imix in one hit, using The Wave:
Now, it was time to visit Nyalee again. A couple of traps and attacks later, and she was dead:
The party returned to the pocket plane after entering Yaga-Shura's camp, buffed, wounded the giant, ran around for a bit and just focused him down with GWW's when he showed up again:
The gigantic bhaalspawn was quickly defeated, and Goibniu fought his way through the oasis next. Owain helped out against the initial group with a dragon's breath spell, the party cleared out the remaining area:
And now we're in Amkethran!
Enuhal
The name is strange, I know. It's been assigned to the character via the random name generator which I use for my randomized party challenges (I task it with assigning random mythological names, and they can be from any mythology, which is why there also are roman, greek, germanic, egyptian and welsh names in the party). It's the name of a smithing god in irish mythology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goibniu).
Enuhal
Starting, at the beginning
Insane difficulty (no difficulty-based damage bonus)
No-reload canon(ball) run - companions will be Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, Dynaheir
Companion resurrection permitted
Mods installed - NPC Project, Unfinished Business
This will be a major challenge for me. I am NOT used to the caution required in no-reload runs or playing a support-type protagonist. I also have limited experience with some of the companions I have stuck myself wi...er, ummm, decided to adventure with. It'll definitely force me to think outside the (normal Baldur's Gate) box, which is my ultimate goal. I intend for this no-reload run to be nicely storied. So, without further adieu, I present to you -
A star is born
Magastar remembers nothing of her father and very little of her mother. There is one memory though that is vividly, almost suspiciously, clear. It is of her mother singing a song, a lullaby. Something about her father coming from a 'star'. She guesses that that's where her name comes from.
She knows that Gorion and her mother were friends but she has no recollection of her mother 'leaving'. One day it was just, only Gorion. It's been that way ever since.
Magastar, ½-Orc Shaman
Adventure awaits!
Someone wants Magastar dead! The only real problem here was retrieving the axe once it had been buried, up to the shaft, in her assailants skull.
Magastar's world crumbles with the death of Gorion. Luckily, her best friend Imoen, followed them out of Candlekeep. With Imoen at her side, she feels safe (well, safe-er).
Gorion made Magastar promise to travel to the Friendly Arm Inn and that's exactly what she intends to do. Along the way, she practices her nature 'song and dance'. Imoen calls it a 'neat trick' but Magastar can tell she's impressed. Especially when they discover how useful her attunement really is.
...and how powerful.
Coming from Candlekeep, Magastar has some measure of a mage's power. When she saw someone who looked like a mage, walking directly towards her, with the sickly sneer of a smile on his face, she did what anyone in her situation would do - she drank a potion!
Her not-so-friendly arm was more than enough to interfere with his casting, and his life.
Aldain, Human Conjurer, Update 1
Next update found here
Starting in BG1:EE
Core rules
Random hitpoints on levelup
Mods: Only SCS, pretty much everything that makes the game harder, Weidu-log in spoiler:
// Initialise mod (all other components require this): v30
// Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v30
// More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v30
// Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v30
// Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v30
// Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): v30
// Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v30
// Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v30
// Replace BG1-style elemental arrows with BG2 versions: v30
// Replace +1 arrows with nonmagical "fine" ones: v30
// Replace many +1 magical weapons with Fine ones -> Fine weapons are affected by the iron crisis: v30
// Faster Bears: v30
// Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v30
// Improved shapeshifting: v30
// Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: v30
// NPCs go to inns: v30
// Ease-of-use party AI: v30
// Move Boo into Minsc's pack: v30
// Ensure Shar-Teel doesn't die in the original challenge: v30
// Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v30
// Smarter general AI: v30
// Better calls for help: v30
// Smarter Mages -> Mages cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v30
// Smarter Priests -> Priests cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v30
// Potions for NPCs -> All of the potions dropped by slain enemies break and are lost: v30
// Improved Spiders: v30
// Smarter sirines and dryads: v30
// Slightly harder carrion crawlers: v30
// Smarter basilisks: v30
// Improved doppelgangers: v30
// Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v30
// Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v30
// Dark Side-based kobold upgrade: v30
// Relocated bounty hunters: v30
// Improved Ulcaster: v30
// Improved Balduran's Isle: v30
// Improved Durlag's Tower: v30
// Improved Demon Cultists: v30
// Improved Cloakwood Druids: v30
// Improved Bassilus: v30
// Improved Drasus party: v30
// Improved Red Wizards: v30
// Improved Undercity party: v30
// Tougher chapter-two end battle: v30
// Tougher chapter-three end battle: v30
// Tougher chapter-four end battle: v30
// Tougher chapter-five end battle: v30
// Improved final battle: v30
// Improved minor encounters: v30
I give you Aldain, the creatively named charismatic Conjurer:
93 is a decent roll. I considered going for high strength instead of charisma, but I do not want a mage protagonist fighting in melee, ever. It would've given his sling attacks a bit more oomph, true, but at 1 APR and mage THAC0 he's never going to contribute much to a fight in the physical sense regardless. Besides, I've come to enjoy high charisma... it seems fitting for the protagonist. And yes, I'm boring enough to use the stock portraits.
Aldain swiftly makes his way through Candlekeep's inner grounds. One assassin fails his save against Sleep, the other one is pin-pricked into oblivion by Lord Marshal Cuddlepaws, Aldain's Fairy Dragon familiar, protected by its innate Mirror Image spell.
Carbos and Shanks are actually pretty silly in SCS. They both get Poison Weapon (so if they land a hit on you, you're almost certainly done for), they have good THAC0, and if you let them get out of sight (which is possible in the priest room due to the fireplace in the center blocking line of sight), they'll hide in shadows (at which they always succeed) and backstab you! Thankfully, no such problems this time around.
Following Gorion's demise, we pick up Imoen, along with Xzar and Montaron. What is this, you say, are we aiming at a mixed good/evil party? Of course not! We simply need meatshields, excuse me, a skilled vanguard for the fight ahead.
Nothing worse than a diseased gibberling interferes on our journey to the Friendly Arm Inn. Now is Montaron and Xzar's time to shine! Monty stealths and moves up behind Tarnesh, and Xzar is sent forward to initiate conversation, while our real party members (Aldain and Imoen) stay well back.
Despite a quick Larloch's Minor Drain, Tarnesh manages to get a Horror off... but Xzar makes his save! Montaron is fruitlessly whiffing, Xzar fires his second and last LMD, to which Tarnesh responds with a Melf's Acid Arrow! Bolstered by temporary HP, Xzar survives and engages in melee. A Magic Missile puts an end to this, and Xzar falls. Montaron takes a blow to the head (so a minor injury), but lands a blow in return.
It's looking bleak, but spiteful as ever, Montaron deals the killing blow.. just as a final Magic Missile kills him off!
Note: Abusing NPC's as disposable meatshields is pretty cheesy. I do it because there's almost no way for a mage/thief duo to reliably beat Tarnesh. And we need reliability, as this is no-reload...
We bury Montaron and Xzar (well.. not so much bury as unceremoniously dump them) behind the temple at the FAI, ever thankful for their sacrifice. From here on out it is mostly smooth sailing. We meet up with Khalid and Jaheira, clear the FAI map of hobgoblins (picking up, but not handing in, Joia's ring), purchase a Stone to Flesh scroll for 190 GP (I love high Charisma early on when you're dirt poor), and talk to the female gnome lady whose name escapes me to get 6 antidote potions (did I mention I love high charisma? These will actually turn out to be very handy). Head south, take out the Ogre with the belts using a combination of Sleep (which he saves against), Doom, Bless and ranged fire + kiting.
Onwards to Beregost, where we avoid any and all fights/quests. What's the deal here, you ask? Well, I've got a small compulsion towards getting my entire party together before earning any XP. I'm strange like that.
I make a small allowance for clearing the hobgoblins/belt ogre and very minor stuff like that on the way south, but I save all the quests.
No doubt you've deduced we want Branwen due to the Stone to Flesh scroll, so that leaves us with one slot.
Maybe Kivan? No... it's too easy! A real archer (Kivan/Coran) is awesome, which is precisely why we don't want one. The choice is perhaps somewhat unorthodox: We will pick up Xan. So do we intend to rush through the mines, and kill Mulahey at level 1? Nope. We'll rush through the mines, but leave Mulahey alive, because killing him starts Chapter 3, and with Chapter 3 comes (thanks to the component Improved deployment for parties of assassins) two powerful parties of assassins that may attack any time you travel, starting once you attain level 3. I don't need that kind of love with a mage protagonist, not yet. So we'll resort to some very minor cheese to get Xan without dealing with Mulahey. Towards this end, we swing by High Hedge and purchase a single Invisibility scroll (yeah, you see where this is going).
We clear some ogrillons and hobgoblins south of Beregost (mainly as I don't want to have to visit this map again.. the xp is very minor anyway, so Branwen and Xan will forgive us for excluding them from it).
Further south, we clear yet more hobgoblins and pick up Colquetle's amulet. Finally, we reach the Carnival, free Branwen, and rest up. We swing by Nashkel and speak to the mayor so Jaheira won't complain, but leave Noober/the inn-assassin alone, to conserve the XP.
So, we almost have our party together. All that remains is brute-forcing our way through the mines to reach Xan. As we spoke to Dorn while at the FAI, we are of course ambushed while moving to the mines. This is as per our plan; the plate mail from Dorotea will be very valuable when descending into the mines (in that it'll drastically improve Khalid's chances of surviving an unspecified amount of fire arrows. Note that I say improve, not guarantee, as you'll find out). This fight can be a little dicey for those of us with exceptionally squishy progatonists, as the two bandit archers that survive invariably target mages. Fortunately, Branwen Commands one of them and the second one is too far away to reach Aldain (Aldain having wisely retreated to the back just as the combat started). We pick up our platemail and other goodies, and reach the mines.
Now comes the pain. Descending when 3/5 of your party is level 1... well, it tries your patience. We've loaded up on 2x Sleep, 1x Command (one got used in the bandit encounter), 4x + 1x Cure Light Wounds, and 1x Remove Fear (on the off chance we make it to the Chieftain/Shaman encounter this rest). Unfortunately, you can't make full use of the CLW's at level 1, since if Khalid gets hit, he pretty much has to gulp a potion immediately, or risk dying to a second hit (the virtues of having 13 HP). We do have 15 or so healing potions, so we should be alright.
We're not quite alright. Judicious application of Sleep, Command and focused fire lets us fight our way down to the bridge on the third level. Here, we're completely out of spells apart from Remove Fear, so figure it's just as well to retreat. Still a good effort for the first rest, considering our low level. Since moving from the mines to Nashkel/the Carnival almost always ends in a Hobgoblin Archer ambush (very bad for a level 1 Conjurer!), we risk resting at the mines, and succeed. Same spell layout as before, we proceed past the bridge. And are again forced to turn back almost immediately, as Khalid deftly catches a fire arrow with his mouth and dies to the ensuing 13 damage.
So after trudging all the way back to Nashkel (somehow not getting ambushed by hobgoblins), raising Khalid, resting at the Carnival, and returning to the mines, we are ready for a third go.
We fare somewhat better, and have cleared a path all the way to the Chieftain/Shaman. These guys are surprisingly nasty: They have decent HP, the shaman casts Horror and Mirror Image (but thankfully not Dispel Magic, so it's enough with one Remove Fear), both have poison daggers, and the Chieftain has poison arrows to boot. They also have about half a dozen kobold cronies kicking about.
Still, we've got our spells in order (2x Sleep, 1x Remove Fear, 3x Command, 3x CLW on Jaheira). We begin by sleeping the cronies. All but 1 make their save... but we stand our ground. The shaman and chieftain join their underlings, Khalid moves to engage the chieftain (who made his save against Branwen's Command) to keep him from shooting at us. At which point the little bugger retreats through the small lake below him (and again, makes his save against a second Command)! I didn't know that was possible. We fire a second sleep, and thankfully all the cronies fail their saves. And the chieftain makes his save against our third and final Command.
Now we have a problem. Aldain is level 1, so we only have 5 rounds before the sleep wears off. Retreat seems the best course of action. We move back to the spider den, chieftain/shaman follows (this forces the chieftain into melee as we broke his LoS), and we duke it out. And simply cannot hit the chieftain! Our poor level 1 THAC0 is no match for his AC. After a few rounds of whiffing, during which Khalid gets poisoned twice (I'm really glad we picked up those antidotes), we resort to using Imoen's Magic Missile Wand, and two scrolls of Larloch's Minor Drain. After emptying almost the entire wand and using both scrolls, we finally kill the chieftain with a lucky crit (Khalid gets poisoned twice more, but somehow survives with Jaheira expending all her CLW's on him):
The shaman is somewhat easier to take down. So, we're completely out of spells, down to about 5 healing potions, and still have the cronies (who fortunately did not follow us when they woke up after the sleep spell) to deal with. Off to the surface, again... Rest up, return, clear out the cronies and the kobolds outside Mulahey's lair, and finally our party is complete:
Mulahey can't see through invisibility. I had Imoen stealth past him (after many attempts to hide in shadows... she's still L1 after all), and talk to Xan to recruit him. This is where our invisibility scroll comes in: We just have Xan cast it on himself, Imoen stealth back up, and they sneak off under Mulahey's nose!
Hooray, we have our party together!
With a full party, we do the simple stuff in Nashkel (Joseph's Ring, Noober, inn-assassin who is simple since she's L5 and thus completely vulnerable to Command) and return to Beregost. Spiders are cleared out, Marl is calmed down, Firebead helped, Neera helped (and subsequently let into our party, taxed in the form of her robe, staff and gem bag, and removed from our party)... all that jazz. Again, this is a little cheesy, but she has the only gem bag in the game, at least as far as I know.
We also slip by the FAI to hand in spider carcasses and return Joia's ring. And finally we start to level a little, including Branwen. Second level Cleric spells will be very useful. As a crowning achievement, we take out Silke:
Silke can be a nuisance. She made her save against our initial Command, and so managed to Haste herself, but after a Doom failed her save against Xan's Charm Person. So, she got to buff Khalid with Improved Invisibility, nice! Then she turned hostile again almost immediately (I'm not sure why, I didn't hit her with anything) but failed her save against Hold Person, and that was that.
As we leave our intrepid adventurers, they are resting up at the Jovial Juggler, preparing to head into the wilderness. There's talk of half-ogres in them there mountains...
Aldain is now a level 2 Human Conjurer, and rolled a 5 for his hitpoints on levelup, lovely!
New territory,
Hear text as mp3,
I killed the iron leaders and headed into the caves. Sarah gets the books and Imoen hit level 7, the switch to mage leaves her underpowered so I gave her a red potion... 25 intel makes learning scrolls a certain thing.
The ambush is very hard on lob.. my base tactic is to 'Oliluke's Resilient Sphere' one of the leaders so I can dispatch the bad guys in my own good time.
Note: my install has a working copy of 'Oliluke's Resilient Sphere'