I hope Freya the 42nd will have a better time dodging Gibberlings, Xvarts etc. I'm interested in doing a LoB run as well, probably with a party though.
Best of luck. You may find making progress with a party hard work and a bit tedious early on - you might want to consider getting a few levels with your PC before recruiting your party.
Freya{43} - LoB sorcerer (update 1)
Despite Blackraven's hopes run 42 was ended by a skeleton archer ambush in the first area transition .
Starting again and this time Freya was not ambushed on the way to find Shoal. She has successfully got up to level 4 in that area after killing Shoal, all the ogre clan and Mad Arcand.
That's not necessarily straight-forward and on a couple of occasions she had to put her running shoes on to get enough distance from ambushing wolves to be able to rest and get her blindness spells back. However, with invisibility now known it's possible to complete the rest of BG1 without risk. To try and persuade myself to do that I'll be aiming to avoid her taking any damage in BG1 and making some use of summons to make a few fights easier and quicker.
Rather than follow her normal routine Freya went straight to the FAI this time to get the Ring of Wizardry. The extra spells from that mean that she will normally be able to do some significant damage with magic missiles after things are blinded - thus speeding up encounters considerably. Further north she looted the ankheg nest invisibly and got some more easy XP by killing the fishermen for Tenya.
Some easy work around Beregost was not quite enough to get to level 5, which meant that a talk with Noober in Nashkel did the honours.
For a change at the Carnival Freya killed the Great Gazib rather than the exploding ogre, but took a reputation hit as a result - she repaired that by donating at the local temple before resting to get CLW as a Bhaal power (though she was aiming not to need that, she already knew LMD as a spell anyway).
Meilum can be troublesome to blind, but on this occasion he was tagged at the first attempt - his bracers providing a bit more oomph for Freya's sling shots. In the Valley of the Tombs she magic-missiled the Revenant to death (resting halfway through - still in the area so that it didn't heal) and pulled the ghasts out of their tomb for disposal so she could pick up the Wand of Monster Summoning. She also used web for the first time there in order to blind Narcillicus.
Blindness and invisibility were used for the major encounters in the Cloud Peak Mountains, though she did use web at one point on a dire wolf for convenience.
However, I failed in my aim to not take any damage when I didn't bother with web inside the xvart cave - a xvart saving against blindness and then doing its annoying trick of exiting the cave without being required to get to the normal exit point and appearing beyond Freya so she couldn't avoid an attack.
That lot got Freya up to close to level 6 and once she's got that and access to skull traps she'll be off to Durlag's Tower. Sorcerer L5, 26 HPs, 63 kills
Adamant, Half-Elf Fighter/Mage, BG1EE Update 4 Previous update found here Next update found here
As previously discussed, a good deal of gold is used up in purchasing scrolls, some potions (intelligence potions and several Potions of Freedom, where one of the latter will prove rather important later on), a Robe of the Good Archmagi and finally a Full Plate Mail. Imoen scribes with potion-augmented 24 INT. Now well equipped for the task at hand as regards both gear and available spells, the party sets off to put an end to the infernal bandits.
This time, the camp is disposed of smoothly. While Imoen doesn't have Web (the first guaranteed scroll of it is available in Mulahey's chest and was scribed by Adamant, but the second one is in a locked(!) chest in the Bandit Camp, and we simply cannot force it with our meager strength...), by the luck of Drizzt's Gnolls dropping weird scrolls, she does have Stinking Cloud. A double Web from Adamant paired with Imoen's sole Stinking Cloud and an Entangle from Jaheira for good measure sees the entire camp caught up in a very small space. Fireballs, ho!
Lacking a thief for the time being, Khalid is sent to spring the lightning bolt trap in Tazok's tent, Boots of Grounding ensuring he survives the experience. The rest of the camp is cleared of enemies (always some stragglers, plus the Gnolls in the cave) but left un-looted, as I'd rather get it all in one fell swoop once Imoen can pick locks again.
So, what next? It is decided that Ajantis could really do with a magical weapon (there are no magical bastard swords before reaching Baldur's Gate if you use Replace Magical Weapons with Fine Ones, and we obviously haven't got Dorn in our party for his quest). So, off to Cloakwood to liberate the Spider's Bane.
On the way, Seniyad and his Druid cronies meet with an untimely demise. Silence 15' Radius is my go-to spell for the handful of Druid encounters throughout the Sword Coast... they always seem to fail their save and are then essentially helpless.
We proceed to the spider lair map. As we have no way to disarm the web traps, we must proceed with caution. We remain accident-free for a long time and have almost cleared the entire map, when our luck turns! Fighting a gaggle of Ettercaps, Ajantis moves a smidgeon too far to the east, and sets off a trap. EVERYONE apart from Imoen fails their save, and things look very bleak indeed. Only 2 Ettercaps are still alive at this point, but they are happily scratching away, one at held Ajantis, one at held Adamant. Imoen has a Wand of Fire though... but Khalid is in the path of the Scorcher, should we use it. After a nano-second considering, it is decided that Khalid's horrific death is a far more palpatable scenario than Adamant's horrific death, and Imoen blasts away (of course targetting the Ettercap that is slowly killing Adamant)!
Success! The Ettercap falls! What's better, Khalid makes his save and manages to move out of the way before a second Scorcher drops his HP dangerously low. One Ettercap remains. Imoen targets the Wand, Scorchers it into the ground (singeing Branwen in the process)... but not before it manages to poison Ajantis. Can Ajantis make it?
Apparently not. While somewhat tragic, it's a lot less bad than it could've been. Had Adamant been poisoned, it'd likely have been the end of our run. The party retreats back to the FAI and raises brave Ajantis. Upon our return, we clear out the last pockets of many-legged resistance, including Fireballing Centeol (Adamant had quaffed a Potion of Freedom just in case as Centeol summons a few Giant Spiders, but every single enemy died in the initial blasts, so we were fine regardless).
Finally, Ajantis has a worthwhile weapon. He tests it out on the Wyverns in the forest (we clear the Shadow Druids on the way but leave the nasty Archdruid alone.. not worth it for a paltry +2 Club), to good effect. We hand in a head for 2000 gold from Keldath in Bregost, and while we're in the area, decide to clear out a few more nasties we left for later. The Wolf of Ulcaster suffers a vicious critical hit courtesy of Adamant and dies before its attendant Ghouls manage to rise up and join the fray.
It also spawned some 6 Dread Wolves in the adjacent room... nice, as Dread Wolves are almost completely harmless, yet for some reason worth 650 XP, when the much more dangerous (though still not very) Dire Wolves are worth only 120 XP.
Narcillicus and his Mustard Jellies are next on the chopping block. Despite having L4 spells available, he proves a pushover as he spends ALL his L4 spell slots on defense (Stoneskin, MGoI, II) and so can do almost nothing while being cut down.
Not pictured: The Doomsayer falling to Magic Missiles. Alright. Imoen is still very far from regaining her Thief abilities (in fact, I'd say there's no way she'll have them back until we're almost done with the entirety of Baldur's Gate. The city, not the game), we need more XP! Good thing we've left the Basilisk Gardens alone until now. Korax teams up with our 3 Skeleton Warriors and clears every Basilisk on the map, as well as Mutamin, without issue. To our great sorrow, he falls while fighting a pack of Gnolls (we wanted his meager XP!), so Kirian and her friends are taken care of with Web and Stinking Cloud as opposed to chain-stunning Ghoul.
You'll notice our tactics tend to follow a rather simple pattern. We either Fireball everything, or Web everything, or if we feel like overkill, Fireball AND Web everything. There's just not a huge amount of tactics that work equally well at this level, and no-reload is all about surviving... BG2EE, should we make it there, will be more varied.
Anyway! As the Gardens are comprised mostly of Lesser Basilisks, they did not produce the XP chunk I had hoped. We opt to clear the last remaining area, occupied by Red Wizards and Spiders. Here, that Potion of Freedom comes in very handy. Again, there are a few web traps here, so Adamant keeps the potion in his quickslot. Suddenly a trap is triggered! Reacting with lightning speed, Adamant manages to chug his potion moments before the Web hits, entrapping everyone but Adamant himself, Ajantis (immune thanks to Spider's Bane) and a fatigued Branwen. Adamant resolutely moves to intercept the enemy, and they are eventually dispatched (though that very nasty Wraith Spider drains Adamant's Strength down to 13 before then! Had forgotten they could do that).
Spiders cleared, I try a different tactic with the Red Wizards: 3 Skeleton Warriors are sent to trigger their prebuffs. My intent was to let invisible Adamant and Ajantis swoop in to pick on the knaves once their buffs expired, but after dealing with the Skeletons, 2 of them inexplicably home right in on the party in the western part of the map. We do get to fight only 2 of them at once though, and once their MGOI expires (which happens rather rapidly) said Mages are no match for a good Scorcher or two.
Ah, fresh loot! Not much to look at though, apart from a scroll of Remove Magic. Maybe the 2D6 damage charge ring can be useful against Davaeorn? I'll test it at least, though I reckon his Stoneskin will stop it.
On our way back to the FAI, we actually get a really weird ambush: An Ogre Mage! I thought they all hung out down near Nashkel. He bravely attempts to Horror us, but Branwen has enough time to drop Remove Fear before the Horror connects, and the Ogre yields his massive stash of jewelry (including a Laeral's Tears necklace, nice).
The party then arrives at the Friendly Arm Inn. There is truly no choice now in what to do. We can go to the lower levels of Durlag's ('tis trapped, I tell you!), or try the Ice Dungeon ('tis also trapped, you know!), or proceed with the plot and clear out the Cloakwood Mines. Also trapped, of course, but mostly the lowest level, and you can survive the damage from those. Despite Imoen still only being a Mage, we won't miss out on any loot by flooding the place either: Davaeorn has a scroll of Knock in his stash guarded by the Mustard Jelly. We'll sneak past using Invisibility, swipe it, and have Imoen scribe it. We'll then Knock everything we couldn't force before finally dealing with Davaeorn. I'm thinking Adamant, with a Scroll of Protection from Magic, and invisible Imoen + Khalid with Necklace of Missiles ready to fireball the crap out of the swarm of guards that will eventually appear.
Anyway, that is for next time! The party is currently safe at the FAI. Adamant is now a L5/L5 Fighter/Mage, although getting access to 1 3rd level Mage spell per day was not as earth-shatteringly powerful as you'd expect (though frankly that's because our selection of available spells isn't spectacular... Haste or Slow would sure be nice).
I have just had a string of very short games. First a reasonably powerful Cavalier killed by the ankheg near Tenya. That was just greed on my part. Then another killed by Mendas in Candlekeep. I think that I may have "Improved" Mendas TOO much! Then Tarnesh killed an Inquisitor. Fear had her running around like a headless chicken and then magic missiles finished the job. What was annoying was that Tarnesh was almost dead himself. Two of those runs were ended by my own impatience, so I am the only one to blame. In this next game I intend to be slightly more careful. Character is another Elven Inquisitor called Roquin Moonblade. She would have started as a Moonblade bearer, but her Moonblade was stolen by an assassin called Mendas in Candlekeep.
Journal of Roquin Moonblade.
Mendas was winning the melee battle, so Roquin ran to get some rats between them and then one-shotted him with his bow. No skill in that weapon, but that didn't matter. Speed to get away from Mendas was generated by taking oil of speed whilst in the training room.
She almost died when a wolf got too close!
She did however reach the Friendly Arms Inn where she rested for 72 hours non-stop. Despite being quite powerful, she has decided to head to Nashkel in the hope of becoming stronger without too much risk. I suppose that I should have realised that she wasn't very tough when I saw her portrait! I have just been able to help Mellicamp, marl and Firebead and as a result have reached level three. One * in longbows now.
EDIT I proceeded southwards killing hobgoblins on the way. I then reunited Rufie with his owner, helped a dryad and proceeded to the gnoll stronghold. There I killed Gnarl and his companion, but was attacked by a mage and a thief as well. I was able to kill the thief despite being confused. The mage was another story. My demise was caused by my inability to use my healing potions.
Freya was hoping to get to level 6 by reviving Melicamp, but after webbing and blinding a skeleton to get a skull mis-clicked on the conversation with Thalantyr to miss the opportunity. Instead she got the level from killing the first of Bjornin's half-ogres.
Before she left the area she killed the remaining 3, but only after activating Drizzt and waiting for the gnolls to kill him so she could grab his equipment.
At Durlag's Tower Freya killed the first 2 battle horrors with skull traps from out of sight. The third is trickier due to all the skeleton archers guarding it, but she took the easy route this time by using summoned monsters to help with those. I wasn't intending to kill all the ghasts, but needed a bit of XP to get up to level 7 and use MSD to protect against traps - so a few ghasts provided that.
The normal web + blindness tactics then dealt with the basilisks on the roof.
Next Freya looked to push her reputation up. While doing that she skull trapped the doomsayer before nicely judging when to attack Laryssa - who was being hacked down from behind by Brage - in order to get to level 8.
With reputation at 19 Freya went to the Nashkel Mine and sneaked through to find Mulahey. Invisibility would be sufficient to sort him out, but I made doubly sure there would be no problems by using stoneskin this time - before sending in the skull traps on his gathered troops.
Nimbul was webbed and blinded and Freya made use of his scroll to generate a familiar. Tranzig's saves are too good for blind to work and rather than take any risks using the stairs against him Freya used her monster summoning wand again.
After a bit of shopping Freya returned to the Lighthouse and used some more monsters to ensure the sirines would cause no trouble. Only ogres could hurt the golems directly, but other monsters were still useful as shields against them.
On her way back to High Hedge Freya couldn't resist providing a fond hail and farewell for Bassilus.
With her constitution boosted by the tome Freya put on the Claw of Kazgaroth. With her preparations now all complete she'll be looking to crack on with the main quest next.
Sorcerer L8, 65 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 139 kills
At the Bandit Camp more monsters were used to work through the external bandits. Inside the main tent all 4 of the enemies were successfully blinded, so there was no need for any additional support.
Freya skipped invisibly through the Cloakwood before using skull traps to kill Drasus & co. After sneaking down through the mine I was wary about trap damage, so Freya used a potion of magic blocking to set those off invisibly. It took a while as resting without ambushers appearing was difficult, but eventually more skull traps went unanswered by Davaeorn and his battle horror buddies - Freya getting her 9th and final BG1 level during that.
In the City Freya picked up the dexterity tome. She then did the poison quest to get the wisdom tome - Jalantha being blinded and struck down by wands there, before Marek failed to deal with some summoned monsters.
Not to my surprise Ramazith proved difficult to blind and Freya resorted to monsters there as well before sneaking up the Tower to get the intelligence tome. She didn't bother with any other encounters and just sneaked into the Iron Throne in order to get a free trip to Candlekeep.
Sorcerer L9, 68 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 160 kills
This is a report for a recent successful BG2+ToB-only no-reload run that I started to explore the new content in BG2EE (the new companion quests, mostly). I didn't document this run because of a lack of time and because it wasn't a full trilogy run, as I decided to start in BG2 (I had already explored the new content in BG1EE + SoD recently). Also, this being a vanilla run, it might not be very interesting to a lot of people here.
Still, it was a success, so here's a "short" report. I will mostly focus on the few instances where things went wrong, because they are the most interesting.
The Bhaalspawn: I decided to try out another new kit, this time the Priest of Tyr. This is Nelari, a lawful good halfling priest of Tyr:
My planned party was: Jaheira, Minsc, Jan, Haer'Dalis. No sixth party member, because I wanted to do all the companion quests and always kicking out someone didn't feel right. I started off with non-stronghold content in Athkatla. Going for Haer'Dalis right away seemed way too risky. Levels were high enough after completing all non-stronghold quests (with Jaheira having her two fire elementals, my most important tool for many fights), so I challenged and killed the Warden:
Party complete! Now I finished all of the stronghold quests except for the Planar Sphere and Firkraag's Dungeon. I felt ready to take on the new content. First, I recruited Rasaad. His quests went fairly well, no deaths, no trouble. Dorn was next. His second ques was tough, but I made it:
But the third Dorn quest was where things went really wrong for the first time, though mostly because the dialogue during the "sacrifice" you have to make at the end is completely confusing. Intending to sacrifice the druid, I ended up accidentally sacrificing Minsc:
I was really annoyed at the game at this point, and I was baffled that Jaheira had nothing to say about this. The ensuing fight against Ur-Gothoz and Azothet was pretty rough as a result - Dorn died, but the others won the battle:
And when Xachrimos showed up, Dorn died again:
I was glad to be done with his quests. Instead of Minsc, I decided to recruit Rasaad, because I was reaching a point in the game where monks are actually starting to be really powerful. Neera's quest was next, and while searching for her refuge I literally ran into trouble because of the various traps:
The rest of her quests went rather well. While the final part was somewhat difficult, it ended up being much easier when I realized I could just exit the red wizard hideout, rest, and return. Hexxat's quests aren't worth mentioning, no problems there (mind flayers stood no chance against Nelari's chaotic commands).
Now, I completed the Planar Sphere and Firkraag's Dungeon. With my party being unusually high level (because of only 5 party members and the additional npc quests), I also did the more difficult fights - killing dragons, liches, the guarded compound, the illithid hideout, the twisted rune (I wasn't really that invested in the no-reload aspect of this run, so I was ready to take some risks). No trouble here - with chaotic commands, death ward and remove fear for everyone, there aren't a lot of things capable of affecting my party.
Nothing of note happened in Spellhold or the Underdark. I killed Bodhi (where a high level turn undead was enough to kill all the other vampires instantly), cleared the elven city, defeated Jon once, and here is his final stand in hell:
Early ToB went well: No trouble in Saradush, with Yaga-Shura or in Amkethran. Sendai was able to kill Rasaad, but was defeated a couple of rounds after that:
After Sendai, I went for Watcher's Keep (I already did the first two levels in SoA, so I started with level 3). This is were things went really bad again: There's this no-magic zone where you have to fight a Balor. With my death ward purged by the no-magic zone and no ability to recast it, the Balor's vorpal strike actually hit and chunked Jaheira:
This is the first time this ever happened to me. Well, down to four. I looked in my bag of holding for weapons while deciding on another character to recruit (I wanted it to be a fighter-type). With the short sword of mask +5 being the best weapon I still carried around, I added Mazzy to my party. The rest of Watcher's Keep was smooth sailing.
Now, I decided to go for the new ToB-content. Rasaad was already in my party, so I did his quest first. The beginning was easy, though the fight in the shadow plane was relatively rough, because I didn't know what to do at first (I just tried to kill Alorgoth). I had to use a RoR-charge to resurrect Rasaad and another one to heal Mazzy during the battle, but eventually, the shadow dragon was defeated:
I encountered a bug when trying to do Neera's quest next (it didn't start), so I went for Dorn's instead. I avoided any battles until I had to fight two silver dragons at once - a fight I wasn't prepared for, with no protection against breath weapons. I had to use a LOT of healing potions, but eventually managed to succeed:
Also, the irony of completing Dorn's ToB quest while playing a Priest of Tyr is not lost on me. Well, this is obviously a no-roleplaying run.
Thanks to Gate70, I was able to start Neera's quest after this. It was relatively easy, though during the final battle Mazzy died (an avoidable death, I just didn't pay enough attention to her):
Hexxat's quest was really easy once again, nothing to say here. After all companion quests were completed, I decided to add a sixth party member - my party (except for Mazzy) is almost max level anyway. Once again I looked at my stored weapons and went for Korgan because I really like the Axe of the Unyielding +5.
Korgan proved his worth by getting the final hit on Draconis right away:
No problems with Abazigal, Balthazar or the Ravager. I was ready to face Melissan - her first two forms were easily defeated, I skipped the third battle with some spike traps. Here's Jan preparing to take down the fallen Solar:
While I could have killed Mel's final incarnation with spike traps, I went for a fair fight instead and defeated her mostly with GWWs:
And here are Nelari's final stats:
Some thoughts on BG2EE: I experienced some new bugs in the starting Dungeon (involving companion dialogue), and some of the new NPC quests were also slightly bugged (especially Hexxat's). As for the new NPCs, I'm still not invested in Rasaad's story and his dialogue felt relatively bland. Hexxat is a non-character, the writing is basically nonexistant - I have no idea why she was even included. Dorn is kind of a one-note character, he is just evil for evil's sake (I honestly liked him better in BG1EE). The one character I actually ended up liking now as I got to know her better was Neera - her dialogue got my attention, and if she weren't a wild mage (and thus a terrible choice for no-reload runs) I would propably play with her more often.
In Candlekeep Freya used a Minor Globe as protection against traps while knocking open the tombs. She didn't bother killing anything except the basilisks - in order to get a bit of value out of the green scroll she had.
Back in the City Slythe ran into a wall of summons before failing against a second blast from a wand of paralysation. At the palace I was hoping for some dopplegangers to attack Freya, but none did so after she started the combat by putting improved invisibility on Belt. With most of the dopplegangers attacking her Liia died quickly, but I hoped the protection would keep Belt going for a while until the dopplegangers were disabled. He did indeed last a while, but the dopplegangers refused to go away . Malison was followed up by a first chaos that affected 2 of them, but even with -8 to their saves a further 4 chaos spells affected no-one at all, before a sixth and final one tagged one more of them. By this time Belt was in serious trouble, but Freya did manage to take out the last active attacker using a wand of paralysation to give me hope. With Belt down to 13 HPs there was only a single confused doppleganger left as I and a hobgoblin attacked it hoping it would attack back as it emerged from chaos. Once more though it made a beeline direct for Belt. He was still under the influence of the original improved invisibility, so I couldn't protect him like that and he did surprisingly well to survive for a couple of rounds, while the doppleganger shrugged off two more attempts to paralyse it. Finally though the sword of Damocles fell ...
While paused, I selected all, then clicked on a Flind to attack it (with sword cursor), then with the hand cursor (so no accidental attack) I selected the near dead familiar to move it to a different location and unpaused.
What happened, as you can see in the attached screenshot, was that my main character Valderis (who was the familiar owner) attacked the familiar instead, and killed it. This, in turn, lowered his CON by 1 point, and due not having full HP, killed him and showed the death screen. Do you have any explanation for this? I think it must be a bug. Would you continue from the last autosave or it's time for a new game?
Adamant, Half-Elf Fighter/Mage, BG1EE Update 5 Previous update found here Next update found here
Not a great deal of progress has been made in game terms, but there are still several hair-raising incidents to report.
The party moves back into the Cloakwood, intent on delving into the mine at its heart. First, we must deal with Drasus and friends. Not willing to risk ignominious defeat at this point, the choice is made to stick with our traditional overkill tactic: Web/Stinking Cloud followed up by Fireballs. As a precaution, we buff a little, but nothing spectacular (Chant/Remove Fear/PfE). Spell slots are filled with Shield, Blind, Web, Stinking Cloud, Skull Trap for Adamant and Imoen. Jaheira gets mostly healing (we are fully expecting to head into the mines proper without resting, after all) as well as two Strength of One. Branwen, who actually made L7 Cleric during a Wyvern ambush (Yay! 5 HD Skeleton Warriors and 4th level spells!), picks buffs, a few Silence 15' Radius and Hold Person, Holy Smite x3 (to help with area bombardment) as well as Animal Summoning I x2.
As an extra precaution, Branwen pops her two ASI, in case things go horribly wrong. Which, of course, they will. Adamant initiates conversation, falls back, and we drop Stinking Cloud + Web on the knaves. Initially, all is well. We fire off a round of Skull Trap + Holy Smite, cause some damage, but are rather surprised to then see Kysus make both his saves in one round, stumble into our party, and throw up a set of defenses we have no way of countering.
That's Remove Magic he's casting. He'll toss out a lot more lethal stuff before he's through. Alright, things aren't great, but they're not totally lost either. The party backs off and sends Branwen's paltry summoned dogs/wolves at Kysus. He responds by a Chaos (which unfortunately tags Khalid too, rendering him moot for the entire fight), and starts to kill the summons off. Meanwhile, Imoen is using the time to finish Fireballing the rest of the team. Drasus and Rezdan fall after another two Fireballs, which is good because Imoen's wand is now down to 1 charge. At least we only have to worry about Kysus now (Genthore is a total pushover).
Notice that he actually Petrified one of the dogs in the second screenshot! I'm almost certain that was a Chromatic Orb, and am glad he didn't target anyone important with it. Anyway, dogs disposed off, Kysus happily follows the party, casts Dimension Door to teleport into us, and begins systematically proving why you should be very afraid of any SCS Mage. He leads with a Sunfire. Miracolously, no one dies (everyone made their save). Not happy with the outcome, Kysus drops another Sunfire... (it's hard to dodge as he moves around randomly). Again, almost everyone saves. Except Khalid and Branwen. Khalid is reduced to 3 or so HP, Branwen to 11, and they both panic and start running around aimlessly, our Remove Fear having been stripped by Kysus' initial Remove Magic.
So, inbetween killing off Khalid and reducing Branwen to 3 HP using his Melf's Minute Meteors, Kysus hits Adamant with a 2x Acid Arrow Sequencer. Combined with the damage from 2x Sunfire, Adamant decides to perform a tactical retreat well outside Kysus' field of view to (slowly) heal up with potions. Kysus continues his mad rampage, firing off a Fireball at his own feet, killing Jaheira and singeing Ajantis who along with Imoen are now all that stands against the mad Mage. I thought Kysus MUST be running out of spells now, but nope.. he pulls out a Flame Arrow directed at Imoen. At 11 HP, she pops an Invisibility scroll to avoid dropping. Ajantis stands alone... and eats a Flame Arrow, too, but survies handily (I think Ajantis made every save during the fight, which would explain why he managed to keep up his HP using just crappy healing potions and Lay on Hands). By now, however, Adamant has healed up enough that he rejoins the fray, and (thankfully) his mighty Longswords are enough to cut through Kysus' Stoneskins before he claims another victim.
Not pictured: Ajantis and Adamant chasing after Branwen for 2 minutes as she apparently did her darndest to find a spawn or wolves or something to finish off her last 3 HP. Finally, she regains her nerve and heals up a bit. We finish off Genthore, and actually manage to carry ALL loot, including the gear of Jaheira and Khalid. We retreat back to the FAI, raise our fallen, and return.
After that close brush with death, the rest of the mines go better. Hareishan dutifully fails her save against Web AND Stinking Cloud, and drops to a few Skull Traps. With no Mage backup, her retinue of guards are no threat.
The second level has another nasty moment, but not for Adamant, thankfully. We send 3x Skeleton Warriors after Natasha, but to speed things up, I let Khalid borrow the Boots of Speed to get in a few potshots with his Arrows of Biting. One actually connects and poisons Natasha! Of course, Natasha need not worry about such plebeian matters as taking continuous poison damage, and responds by frying Khalid with a Lightning Bolt to within an inch of his life. This picture is after he quaffed a healing potion, so he was actually reduced to 2 HP... some Lightning Bolt, and it must have bounced back at him once, as otherwise it couldn't have done that much damage, being 10D6. Not entirely sure why Khalid didn't panic... anyway, the Skeletons finish off Natasha on their own.
So, after some minor setbacks, the path is now cleared to Davaeorn. The party will sleep on how to best approach him, but as I've said: Adamant with a PfM scroll and Potion of Power + the best Giant Strength potion available will probably be my solution. Adamant is still a L5/L5 Fighter/Mage, but once we get to Baldur's Gate experience will come fast.
Yet another paladin run came to a sticky end fighting Mendas in Candlekeep. He was buffed up as well as is possible too. I can't think of any way to improve my chances either. I got trapped by rats so couldn't run to use ranged weapons. Therefore fought melee and he was too powerful. My buffs were Bless, Protection from evil, and oil of speed.
I started another paladin using the same roll as last time. This time I tried to lure Mendas out of the store so that I could use ranged attacks. He couldn't be fooled. He stayed inside the storehouse. As he was winning when I used a +1 Long Sword, I tried a dagger. Æthelberht won this time. Whether by luck or good judgement I don't know. He didn't even have proficiency in daggers. It might have been the speed factor that made the difference. Perhaps this time he will not die so quickly. Anyway, having escaped Candlekeep alive, this time I will post some images.
Apologies. I forgot to take a screenshot when Mendas died and had to re-enter the store after claiming my reward for killing the rats.
Adamant, Half-Elf Fighter/Mage, BG1EE Update 6 Previous update found here Next update found here
A short update, but lots of progress.
It turned out that the Violet Potion from the Nashkel merchant (yes, I've saved it all this time) and its 25 STR means you can force every lock in the Cloakwood Mines, apart from the one on Davaeorn's chest (said chest only contains a Wand of Fear... but I ended up having Imoen scribe Knock and open the chest anyway). Nice.
It was decided that Adamant, being our best melee combatant by a wide margin, would tackle Davaeorn alone. Aided by a PfM scroll, a Potion of Power and a Potion of Cloud Giant Strength, the brave Half-Elf went to work. Davaeorn's attendant Battle Horrors could not even hit Adamant, and while Davaeorn did a good job of running around randomly, he was ultimately helpless against the PfM effect. That didn't stop him tossing a completely pointless Lightning Bolt at Adamant, though... which of course bounced at an unfortunate angle and electrocuted Jaheira (who after quaffing the Violet Potion to force all those locks temporarily had 3 CON and so about 40 HP). I swear, sometime I am going to get through this battle with no NPC deaths. The enemy reinforcements started pouring in, but Adamant managed to finish Davaeorn before they had time to converge. Hooray!
We flood the mine and rush off towards Baldur's Gate, where we indulge in steamrolling a ton of quests and enemies. We had literally no trouble at all: Adamant along with Khalid means we have the APR to just punch through any Stoneskin/Mirror Image, and we typically employ a screen of summons anyway.
One interesting thing though: Even with 19 CHA, Adamant failed to persuade Ragefast to let Abela the Nymph go, and we had to kill him (which took a while: He literally spammed the entire party with his Wand of Paralyzation, so that by the end there was just Khalid left unfrozen). I guess Adamant's epically poor Wisdom (now at 5 after 2 Tomes of Understanding) had something to do with his silver tongue failing him.
While disposing of Degrodel's guardian monsters, we reached a milestone: Imoen hit L7 Mage, meaning she now has regained her thief abilities! Hooray, hooray! Our next course of action will be to finish what we haven't already in Baldur's Gate. Thereafter we'll advance the plot (we haven't cleared the Iron Throne Tower yet, that fight can end up pretty hairy), and do the whole Candlekeep thing including the very desirable Strength Tome for Adamant. It turns out we actually forgot to clear out the Lighthouse, so that'll mean +1 Constitution for Adamant as well as we'll swing by there after Candlekeep. Lovely. Then it's TotSC content for XP and spell scrolls, until we near the cap.
All of that is for next time. For now, the party is situated at the Elfsong tavern. Adamant is now a L6/L6 Fighter/Mage. His proficiency point at L6 Fighter went to Shortswords in preparation for wielding Kundane in the off-hand come BG2EE, and he now has ++ Longswords, +++ Two Weapon Style, + Shortswords for proficiencies.
@aldain You may already know this, but IMO if you are soloing without a thief, it is best to save the violet potion for Candlekeep. The goodies there are far more important. (Two tomes for instance). I hope that you will find Imoen's lock-picking up to the job in your current run.
@aldain You may already know this, but IMO if you are soloing without a thief, it is best to save the violet potion for Candlekeep. The goodies there are far more important. (Two tomes for instance). I hope that you will find Imoen's lock-picking up to the job in your current run.
I never solo We'll be fine. 85 Pick Locks is enough for all but something like 2 locks in all of BG1EE, and we have a small stash of Potions of Master Thievery for when we run into these aberrations (and we can always just memorize Knock otherwise).
Actually, you can just use a potion of strength (the 23 or 24 ones) and DUHM to open the locks in Candlekeep. That's what I usually do, since I usually forget about the violet potion.
Anyone playing solo no reload like me and thinking about playing with atweaks look very very carefully at the docs. I lost my lvl 12 Conjurer (SCS- solo no reload since Candlekeep) to damned Mephits. I wasn't aware they changed them to all bypass GoI with their breath attacks, giving no save to stun effects and replaced e.g. Ice Mephits in Gethras' house with Steam Mephits who happily stun your negative save, GoI buffed mage. I'm not sure why I prepared a Improved Inv. contingency at 50% hitpoints when it was basically the second time a noreload character died where it fired much to late or not at all.
Sorry to hear that @Incas. I agree that contingency can be very slow to activate - I imagine you will have seen many times stoneskins suddenly appearing on dead enemy mages and it's no better for you. For that reason with low-HP characters I would suggest a contingency - helpless instead to give it a better chance of activating in time.
As for the mephits I agree they are really vicious. The reason GOI doesn't work is that their attacks tend to be coded as natural effects rather than magical ones and thus bypass magical protections (including even scroll of PfM).
Sorry to hear that @Incas. I agree that contingency can be very slow to activate - I imagine you will have seen many times stoneskins suddenly appearing on dead enemy mages and it's no better for you. For that reason with low-HP characters I would suggest a contingency - helpless instead to give it a better chance of activating in time.
I wonder if it's possible to fix slow contingencies? Contingency helpless is not ideal since the helpless state happens often willingly, like conjuring an elemental or Project Image. I guess preparing it every day is an option but it's a lot of hassle.
As for the mephits I agree they are really vicious. The reason GOI doesn't work is that their attacks tend to be coded as natural effects rather than magical ones and thus bypass magical protections (including even scroll of PfM).
The mod readme says the attacks are supernatural abilities not spell like ones. I looked in the books and while in 3e D&D they explicitly have spell-like abilities in 2e they have breath weapons. Breath weapons can only be stopped with 6th level Antimagic-Shell. Unfortunately the spell doesn't exist in BG 2. Might try to just create this spell for playing with aTweaks. Mephits in AD&D 2e are absolutely hardcore for 3hd monsters. Water Jet is better than Power Word: Stun.
Edit: Had a look at IWDEE's Antimagic Shell. Would be possible to adapt it to BG but that means adapting around or over a 100 effects to BG's spells, items and monsters.
If they are 3HD, aren't they supposed to be massacred by Death Spell? That sounds like a good alternative to me.
That has a casting time of 6. Not a good idea if in sight. But I remembered the Mustard Jelly form from Polymorph Self. That is immune to stun of course. The Troll form from the Sewer Cloak should be too.
Ok, my next run is planned. Hehe.
Anyone finished a noreload run with full aTweaks? I worry about the fiends and undead a little bit.
Anyone finished a noreload run with full aTweaks? I worry about the fiends and undead a little bit.
I nearly do (I have a run stopped for a moment in the Demon's Maze of Watcher's Keep). Pure aTweaks fiends (not with SCS' stats) are not that bad as they are vulnerable to (Greater) Deathblow so pretty much a pushovers if you have a warrior with those abilities. Mazzy, Jaheira and my Fighter/Illusionist PC cleared the Tanar'ri area (the one after dead magic room, so you can't prebuff beforehand) of all those gated fiends in one or two rounds with ranged weapons and Greater Deathblow. That's why I plan my current run with aTweaks' scripts fiends but not altered stats (i.e. with SCS' stats). I don't have too much troubles with aTweaks undead. Just make sure you don't catch a Disease from Mummy or any other creature (Ghoul Lord, Greater Mummy, Sea Zombie) (The scabrous touch of a Mummy infects the victim with a rotting disease which is fatal in 6 days. As the disease progresses it causes the victim to lose 2 points of Charisma per day. Cure Wounds spells have no effect on a person infected with mummy rot. Any person killed by mummy rot cannot be raised from the dead.) or have Cure Disease spell at the ready. And Remove Fear spell is also essential as many undead have Fear Aura.
I am halfway through a solo inquisitor run and came unstuck in Baldur's Gate when going for Marek's potion. I think that it was rigid thinking. I killed Marek and then went on a killing spree. Being solo, nothing that I could do. Reputation down to 2. Is there any way of restoring his paladin abilities before BG2? Reputation already back to 19, but that is no help. I have a ton of mods in there along with Dragonspear and am wondering if any mods would do the trick. Will post the run later. EDIT I have now defeated the doppelgangers in the ducal palace and now have to decide whether to do the mod quests since I have already reached the level cap and will lose all possessions upon reaching SoA. I am thinking that I will go straight to the final battle once I have done some serious shopping for potions and the like, though defeating the section base in Beregost does have some merit.
Atweaks undead were a vicious surprise first time out.
After lots of trouble getting a Might and Guile install going I had to settle on BG2 EE. Currently a mod heavy party with Whitworth, Arath, Angelo, Kivan, Haldamir, and Aerie. In my head canon Irenicus murdered Finch & Shar (hence Angelo for now) while Valerie was one of the Cowls slaughtered at Waukeen's promenade. Kagain may or may not have betrayed Whitworth, but his current whereabouts are unknown. Kivan, who left to die after killing Tazok, is ironically the one who has continued on...
So far Circus, Tanner, Copper Coronet done. Want to be careful about the Slavers place & Sewers due to the traps. Spending funds on emergency potions for Whitworth, but generally slow progress as I get over a cold and don't have the concentration to play carefully for too long...
I was playing through Legacy of Bhaal mode with Item Revisions and Spell Revisions installed and I was trying out SCS's improved Ust Natha component which is supposed to be impossible through normal means. The goal of the run was to kill everything in the entire game, to the extent that it is possible, and that included Ust Natha.
I was making great progress, fighting inside the temple itself, and though my druid got chunked by a Comet spell, my sorcerer and my Seducer were in good shape. Problem is, I cast Wish too many times during a Time Stop, and a curious bug prevented the wishes from being granted.
Basically, instead of being cast instantly, each Wish had to be cast at its normal speed--by my sorcerer. This meant my sorcerer was locked into casting a string of slow-casting spells that were supposed to cast instantly--at the exact same time a Balor was trying to dispel my buffs with Remove Magic.
I should have been able to escape it because I had three double-duration Time Stop+Improved Alacrity wishes coming up. But none of them triggered in time, and my sorcerer was left with nothing but Mirror Images and 0 AC to defend himself, in an environment with 20-40 enemies who all had THAC0 well below 10. When the wishes refused to trigger, I had to cancel them and hurry away to cast Moment of Prescience, but despite having a full set of Mirror Images and -20 AC, the enemy managed to kill my sorcerer with critical hits before he could either heal himself with a potion or cast Stoneskin.
Basically, I got robbed of three Time Stop wishes that would have saved me and kept the party on the path to victory. Do you think this warrants a reload?
Did you actually wish for the time stop with the dialogue? Or the dialogue just did not trigger at all? If the former it is a bug, a reload is warranted clearly. If the latter, dialogue trigger may have been skipped in the chaos of the battle if you ran around too much, and it is not even %100 certainty that you were going to get a time stop wish. It is more debatable if a reload is warranted, then.
Ofcourse it is your game and you should do what you decide. I would like to see your run to the completion, though.
@lunar: The dialog showed up and I picked the time stop option, but the spell did not cast properly. All the Wish options work using spells (they all start with SPWISH in Near Infinity). My sorcerer started casting it on his own, but it's supposed to cast instantly.
The dwarves continued to cut rapidly away at kneecap height - though taking a few blows in return as well.
They started off by clearing the remainder of the Graveyard. Pai'Na was quickly hacked down and her spiders were helpless against dwarven constitutions.
The Copper Coronet was soon sorted out.
Diving down into the sewers a kobold shaman did manage to hold Calis, but with Juto on the job there was no danger there.
Captain Haegan and the slaver wizards didn't last long either, though their archers did a bit of damage - meaning Juto was looking fairly sick after choosing to run out through the poison trap.
While opening up the liches Calis inherited a cloak from the rakshasa.
Also in that area Mekrath was reminded of the danger of dealing with mercenary types. Looking at his guards, Calis asked Juto whether he was up to dealing with umber hulks. The answer came in two parts - rushing into action and a whisper from beyond the grave asking whether Calis had picked up Mekrath's rod of resurrection.
With Juto back on top form Calis chose to attack first himself next time - using Lilarcor to avoid being confused and relying on his better AC to avoid Juto's fate. The intention was for Juto to snipe round the edges of the conflict, but a bit of MP buffeting saw him teleported into trouble again. After almost being killed by umber hulk hits he eventually expired when his rage ran out and the extra constitution bonus disappeared.
After another use of the rod the duo took on the Fallen Paladins next. They also put up a good fight and forced Calis to retreat and made a rare use of a missile weapon to help finish them off.
Next up was to open up access to all the liches. A strength potion + DUHM allowed Calis to break down a couple of doors, while Juto just bulled his way through the petrification trap without worrying about protection. Kangaxx failed to survive a single hit from the improved MoD.
Deciding that Juto could do with some better armour before taking on any more umber hulks the next stop was Umar Hills. There were no liches there, so progress was swift down to Thaxy. Some potions were consumed prior to attacking him and fortunately the dragon focused his remove magic on Kitthix, which allowed the potion effects to survive - unlike Thaxy.
The Shade Lord then saw death coming as a sunray erupted from Daystar, but avoided that fate by being destroyed first by the iMod.
After picking up Valygar's body the duo returned to Athkatla to make up the dragon scale armour before moving on to Trademeet. Some nice smooth play left a trail of dead trolls behind on the way to find some druids. Kyland Lind's group managed to infest them both, but not otherwise cause much damage
and shortly after that Cernd was tucking in to Faldorn.
Tiris got his girlfriend back and clearing the tomb pushed reputation up to 19.
Normally we tend not to purchase goods until reputation is at 20, but with coffers already over-flowing we stretched a point and bought a cloak and belt in Trademeet and also splashed out for Azuredge back in Athkatla.
Calis, fighter 14, 128 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 340 kills (+177 in BG1) Juto, barbarian 14, 146 HPs, 240 kills (+196 in BG1), 4 deaths
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Freya{43} - LoB sorcerer (update 1)
Despite Blackraven's hopes run 42 was ended by a skeleton archer ambush in the first area transition
Starting again and this time Freya was not ambushed on the way to find Shoal. She has successfully got up to level 4 in that area after killing Shoal, all the ogre clan and Mad Arcand.
Sorcerer L4, 20 HPs, 22 kills
Previous updates at:
Rather than follow her normal routine Freya went straight to the FAI this time to get the Ring of Wizardry. The extra spells from that mean that she will normally be able to do some significant damage with magic missiles after things are blinded - thus speeding up encounters considerably. Further north she looted the ankheg nest invisibly and got some more easy XP by killing the fishermen for Tenya.
Some easy work around Beregost was not quite enough to get to level 5, which meant that a talk with Noober in Nashkel did the honours.
Meilum can be troublesome to blind, but on this occasion he was tagged at the first attempt - his bracers providing a bit more oomph for Freya's sling shots. In the Valley of the Tombs she magic-missiled the Revenant to death (resting halfway through - still in the area so that it didn't heal) and pulled the ghasts out of their tomb for disposal so she could pick up the Wand of Monster Summoning. She also used web for the first time there in order to blind Narcillicus.
Blindness and invisibility were used for the major encounters in the Cloud Peak Mountains, though she did use web at one point on a dire wolf for convenience.
That lot got Freya up to close to level 6 and once she's got that and access to skull traps she'll be off to Durlag's Tower.
Sorcerer L5, 26 HPs, 63 kills
Previous update found here
Next update found here
As previously discussed, a good deal of gold is used up in purchasing scrolls, some potions (intelligence potions and several Potions of Freedom, where one of the latter will prove rather important later on), a Robe of the Good Archmagi and finally a Full Plate Mail. Imoen scribes with potion-augmented 24 INT. Now well equipped for the task at hand as regards both gear and available spells, the party sets off to put an end to the infernal bandits.
This time, the camp is disposed of smoothly. While Imoen doesn't have Web (the first guaranteed scroll of it is available in Mulahey's chest and was scribed by Adamant, but the second one is in a locked(!) chest in the Bandit Camp, and we simply cannot force it with our meager strength...), by the luck of Drizzt's Gnolls dropping weird scrolls, she does have Stinking Cloud. A double Web from Adamant paired with Imoen's sole Stinking Cloud and an Entangle from Jaheira for good measure sees the entire camp caught up in a very small space. Fireballs, ho!
Lacking a thief for the time being, Khalid is sent to spring the lightning bolt trap in Tazok's tent, Boots of Grounding ensuring he survives the experience. The rest of the camp is cleared of enemies (always some stragglers, plus the Gnolls in the cave) but left un-looted, as I'd rather get it all in one fell swoop once Imoen can pick locks again.
So, what next? It is decided that Ajantis could really do with a magical weapon (there are no magical bastard swords before reaching Baldur's Gate if you use Replace Magical Weapons with Fine Ones, and we obviously haven't got Dorn in our party for his quest). So, off to Cloakwood to liberate the Spider's Bane.
On the way, Seniyad and his Druid cronies meet with an untimely demise. Silence 15' Radius is my go-to spell for the handful of Druid encounters throughout the Sword Coast... they always seem to fail their save and are then essentially helpless.
We proceed to the spider lair map. As we have no way to disarm the web traps, we must proceed with caution. We remain accident-free for a long time and have almost cleared the entire map, when our luck turns! Fighting a gaggle of Ettercaps, Ajantis moves a smidgeon too far to the east, and sets off a trap. EVERYONE apart from Imoen fails their save, and things look very bleak indeed. Only 2 Ettercaps are still alive at this point, but they are happily scratching away, one at held Ajantis, one at held Adamant.
Imoen has a Wand of Fire though... but Khalid is in the path of the Scorcher, should we use it. After a nano-second considering, it is decided that Khalid's horrific death is a far more palpatable scenario than Adamant's horrific death, and Imoen blasts away (of course targetting the Ettercap that is slowly killing Adamant)!
Success! The Ettercap falls! What's better, Khalid makes his save and manages to move out of the way before a second Scorcher drops his HP dangerously low. One Ettercap remains. Imoen targets the Wand, Scorchers it into the ground (singeing Branwen in the process)... but not before it manages to poison Ajantis.
Can Ajantis make it?
Apparently not. While somewhat tragic, it's a lot less bad than it could've been. Had Adamant been poisoned, it'd likely have been the end of our run. The party retreats back to the FAI and raises brave Ajantis. Upon our return, we clear out the last pockets of many-legged resistance, including Fireballing Centeol (Adamant had quaffed a Potion of Freedom just in case as Centeol summons a few Giant Spiders, but every single enemy died in the initial blasts, so we were fine regardless).
Finally, Ajantis has a worthwhile weapon. He tests it out on the Wyverns in the forest (we clear the Shadow Druids on the way but leave the nasty Archdruid alone.. not worth it for a paltry +2 Club), to good effect. We hand in a head for 2000 gold from Keldath in Bregost, and while we're in the area, decide to clear out a few more nasties we left for later. The Wolf of Ulcaster suffers a vicious critical hit courtesy of Adamant and dies before its attendant Ghouls manage to rise up and join the fray.
It also spawned some 6 Dread Wolves in the adjacent room... nice, as Dread Wolves are almost completely harmless, yet for some reason worth 650 XP, when the much more dangerous (though still not very) Dire Wolves are worth only 120 XP.
Narcillicus and his Mustard Jellies are next on the chopping block. Despite having L4 spells available, he proves a pushover as he spends ALL his L4 spell slots on defense (Stoneskin, MGoI, II) and so can do almost nothing while being cut down.
Not pictured: The Doomsayer falling to Magic Missiles. Alright. Imoen is still very far from regaining her Thief abilities (in fact, I'd say there's no way she'll have them back until we're almost done with the entirety of Baldur's Gate. The city, not the game), we need more XP! Good thing we've left the Basilisk Gardens alone until now. Korax teams up with our 3 Skeleton Warriors and clears every Basilisk on the map, as well as Mutamin, without issue. To our great sorrow, he falls while fighting a pack of Gnolls (we wanted his meager XP!), so Kirian and her friends are taken care of with Web and Stinking Cloud as opposed to chain-stunning Ghoul.
You'll notice our tactics tend to follow a rather simple pattern. We either Fireball everything, or Web everything, or if we feel like overkill, Fireball AND Web everything. There's just not a huge amount of tactics that work equally well at this level, and no-reload is all about surviving... BG2EE, should we make it there, will be more varied.
Anyway! As the Gardens are comprised mostly of Lesser Basilisks, they did not produce the XP chunk I had hoped. We opt to clear the last remaining area, occupied by Red Wizards and Spiders. Here, that Potion of Freedom comes in very handy. Again, there are a few web traps here, so Adamant keeps the potion in his quickslot. Suddenly a trap is triggered! Reacting with lightning speed, Adamant manages to chug his potion moments before the Web hits, entrapping everyone but Adamant himself, Ajantis (immune thanks to Spider's Bane) and a fatigued Branwen. Adamant resolutely moves to intercept the enemy, and they are eventually dispatched (though that very nasty Wraith Spider drains Adamant's Strength down to 13 before then! Had forgotten they could do that).
Spiders cleared, I try a different tactic with the Red Wizards: 3 Skeleton Warriors are sent to trigger their prebuffs. My intent was to let invisible Adamant and Ajantis swoop in to pick on the knaves once their buffs expired, but after dealing with the Skeletons, 2 of them inexplicably home right in on the party in the western part of the map. We do get to fight only 2 of them at once though, and once their MGOI expires (which happens rather rapidly) said Mages are no match for a good Scorcher or two.
Ah, fresh loot! Not much to look at though, apart from a scroll of Remove Magic. Maybe the 2D6 damage charge ring can be useful against Davaeorn? I'll test it at least, though I reckon his Stoneskin will stop it.
On our way back to the FAI, we actually get a really weird ambush: An Ogre Mage! I thought they all hung out down near Nashkel. He bravely attempts to Horror us, but Branwen has enough time to drop Remove Fear before the Horror connects, and the Ogre yields his massive stash of jewelry (including a Laeral's Tears necklace, nice).
The party then arrives at the Friendly Arm Inn. There is truly no choice now in what to do. We can go to the lower levels of Durlag's ('tis trapped, I tell you!), or try the Ice Dungeon ('tis also trapped, you know!), or proceed with the plot and clear out the Cloakwood Mines. Also trapped, of course, but mostly the lowest level, and you can survive the damage from those. Despite Imoen still only being a Mage, we won't miss out on any loot by flooding the place either: Davaeorn has a scroll of Knock in his stash guarded by the Mustard Jelly. We'll sneak past using Invisibility, swipe it, and have Imoen scribe it. We'll then Knock everything we couldn't force before finally dealing with Davaeorn. I'm thinking Adamant, with a Scroll of Protection from Magic, and invisible Imoen + Khalid with Necklace of Missiles ready to fireball the crap out of the swarm of guards that will eventually appear.
Anyway, that is for next time! The party is currently safe at the FAI. Adamant is now a L5/L5 Fighter/Mage, although getting access to 1 3rd level Mage spell per day was not as earth-shatteringly powerful as you'd expect (though frankly that's because our selection of available spells isn't spectacular... Haste or Slow would sure be nice).
In this next game I intend to be slightly more careful.
Character is another Elven Inquisitor called Roquin Moonblade. She would have started as a Moonblade bearer, but her Moonblade was stolen by an assassin called Mendas in Candlekeep.
Journal of Roquin Moonblade.
Mendas was winning the melee battle, so Roquin ran to get some rats between them and then one-shotted him with his bow. No skill in that weapon, but that didn't matter. Speed to get away from Mendas was generated by taking oil of speed whilst in the training room.
I have just been able to help Mellicamp, marl and Firebead and as a result have reached level three. One * in longbows now.
EDIT
I proceeded southwards killing hobgoblins on the way. I then reunited Rufie with his owner, helped a dryad and proceeded to the gnoll stronghold. There I killed Gnarl and his companion, but was attacked by a mage and a thief as well. I was able to kill the thief despite being confused. The mage was another story. My demise was caused by my inability to use my healing potions.
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/833643/#Comment_833643
Freya was hoping to get to level 6 by reviving Melicamp, but after webbing and blinding a skeleton to get a skull mis-clicked on the conversation with Thalantyr to miss the opportunity. Instead she got the level from killing the first of Bjornin's half-ogres.
At Durlag's Tower Freya killed the first 2 battle horrors with skull traps from out of sight. The third is trickier due to all the skeleton archers guarding it, but she took the easy route this time by using summoned monsters to help with those. I wasn't intending to kill all the ghasts, but needed a bit of XP to get up to level 7 and use MSD to protect against traps - so a few ghasts provided that.
Next Freya looked to push her reputation up. While doing that she skull trapped the doomsayer before nicely judging when to attack Laryssa - who was being hacked down from behind by Brage - in order to get to level 8.
With reputation at 19 Freya went to the Nashkel Mine and sneaked through to find Mulahey. Invisibility would be sufficient to sort him out, but I made doubly sure there would be no problems by using stoneskin this time - before sending in the skull traps on his gathered troops.
Nimbul was webbed and blinded and Freya made use of his scroll to generate a familiar. Tranzig's saves are too good for blind to work and rather than take any risks using the stairs against him Freya used her monster summoning wand again.
After a bit of shopping Freya returned to the Lighthouse and used some more monsters to ensure the sirines would cause no trouble. Only ogres could hurt the golems directly, but other monsters were still useful as shields against them.
On her way back to High Hedge Freya couldn't resist providing a fond hail and farewell for Bassilus.
Sorcerer L8, 65 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 139 kills
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/833643/#Comment_833643
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/833780/#Comment_833780
At the Bandit Camp more monsters were used to work through the external bandits. Inside the main tent all 4 of the enemies were successfully blinded, so there was no need for any additional support.
Freya skipped invisibly through the Cloakwood before using skull traps to kill Drasus & co. After sneaking down through the mine I was wary about trap damage, so Freya used a potion of magic blocking to set those off invisibly. It took a while as resting without ambushers appearing was difficult, but eventually more skull traps went unanswered by Davaeorn and his battle horror buddies - Freya getting her 9th and final BG1 level during that.
In the City Freya picked up the dexterity tome. She then did the poison quest to get the wisdom tome - Jalantha being blinded and struck down by wands there, before Marek failed to deal with some summoned monsters.
Sorcerer L9, 68 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 160 kills
L1 - blindness, magic missile, Larloch's minor drain, spook, protection from evil
L2 - invisibility, web, mirror image, blur
L3 - skull trap, minor spell deflection, haste
L4 - stoneskin, improved invisibility
This is a report for a recent successful BG2+ToB-only no-reload run that I started to explore the new content in BG2EE (the new companion quests, mostly). I didn't document this run because of a lack of time and because it wasn't a full trilogy run, as I decided to start in BG2 (I had already explored the new content in BG1EE + SoD recently). Also, this being a vanilla run, it might not be very interesting to a lot of people here.
Still, it was a success, so here's a "short" report. I will mostly focus on the few instances where things went wrong, because they are the most interesting.
The Bhaalspawn: I decided to try out another new kit, this time the Priest of Tyr. This is Nelari, a lawful good halfling priest of Tyr:
My planned party was: Jaheira, Minsc, Jan, Haer'Dalis. No sixth party member, because I wanted to do all the companion quests and always kicking out someone didn't feel right.
I started off with non-stronghold content in Athkatla. Going for Haer'Dalis right away seemed way too risky. Levels were high enough after completing all non-stronghold quests (with Jaheira having her two fire elementals, my most important tool for many fights), so I challenged and killed the Warden:
Party complete! Now I finished all of the stronghold quests except for the Planar Sphere and Firkraag's Dungeon. I felt ready to take on the new content. First, I recruited Rasaad. His quests went fairly well, no deaths, no trouble. Dorn was next. His second ques was tough, but I made it:
But the third Dorn quest was where things went really wrong for the first time, though mostly because the dialogue during the "sacrifice" you have to make at the end is completely confusing. Intending to sacrifice the druid, I ended up accidentally sacrificing Minsc:
I was really annoyed at the game at this point, and I was baffled that Jaheira had nothing to say about this. The ensuing fight against Ur-Gothoz and Azothet was pretty rough as a result - Dorn died, but the others won the battle:
And when Xachrimos showed up, Dorn died again:
I was glad to be done with his quests. Instead of Minsc, I decided to recruit Rasaad, because I was reaching a point in the game where monks are actually starting to be really powerful. Neera's quest was next, and while searching for her refuge I literally ran into trouble because of the various traps:
The rest of her quests went rather well. While the final part was somewhat difficult, it ended up being much easier when I realized I could just exit the red wizard hideout, rest, and return. Hexxat's quests aren't worth mentioning, no problems there (mind flayers stood no chance against Nelari's chaotic commands).
Now, I completed the Planar Sphere and Firkraag's Dungeon. With my party being unusually high level (because of only 5 party members and the additional npc quests), I also did the more difficult fights - killing dragons, liches, the guarded compound, the illithid hideout, the twisted rune (I wasn't really that invested in the no-reload aspect of this run, so I was ready to take some risks). No trouble here - with chaotic commands, death ward and remove fear for everyone, there aren't a lot of things capable of affecting my party.
Nothing of note happened in Spellhold or the Underdark. I killed Bodhi (where a high level turn undead was enough to kill all the other vampires instantly), cleared the elven city, defeated Jon once, and here is his final stand in hell:
Early ToB went well: No trouble in Saradush, with Yaga-Shura or in Amkethran. Sendai was able to kill Rasaad, but was defeated a couple of rounds after that:
After Sendai, I went for Watcher's Keep (I already did the first two levels in SoA, so I started with level 3). This is were things went really bad again: There's this no-magic zone where you have to fight a Balor. With my death ward purged by the no-magic zone and no ability to recast it, the Balor's vorpal strike actually hit and chunked Jaheira:
This is the first time this ever happened to me. Well, down to four. I looked in my bag of holding for weapons while deciding on another character to recruit (I wanted it to be a fighter-type). With the short sword of mask +5 being the best weapon I still carried around, I added Mazzy to my party. The rest of Watcher's Keep was smooth sailing.
Now, I decided to go for the new ToB-content. Rasaad was already in my party, so I did his quest first. The beginning was easy, though the fight in the shadow plane was relatively rough, because I didn't know what to do at first (I just tried to kill Alorgoth). I had to use a RoR-charge to resurrect Rasaad and another one to heal Mazzy during the battle, but eventually, the shadow dragon was defeated:
I encountered a bug when trying to do Neera's quest next (it didn't start), so I went for Dorn's instead. I avoided any battles until I had to fight two silver dragons at once - a fight I wasn't prepared for, with no protection against breath weapons. I had to use a LOT of healing potions, but eventually managed to succeed:
Also, the irony of completing Dorn's ToB quest while playing a Priest of Tyr is not lost on me. Well, this is obviously a no-roleplaying run.
Thanks to Gate70, I was able to start Neera's quest after this. It was relatively easy, though during the final battle Mazzy died (an avoidable death, I just didn't pay enough attention to her):
Hexxat's quest was really easy once again, nothing to say here. After all companion quests were completed, I decided to add a sixth party member - my party (except for Mazzy) is almost max level anyway. Once again I looked at my stored weapons and went for Korgan because I really like the Axe of the Unyielding +5.
Korgan proved his worth by getting the final hit on Draconis right away:
No problems with Abazigal, Balthazar or the Ravager. I was ready to face Melissan - her first two forms were easily defeated, I skipped the third battle with some spike traps. Here's Jan preparing to take down the fallen Solar:
While I could have killed Mel's final incarnation with spike traps, I went for a fair fight instead and defeated her mostly with GWWs:
And here are Nelari's final stats:
Some thoughts on BG2EE: I experienced some new bugs in the starting Dungeon (involving companion dialogue), and some of the new NPC quests were also slightly bugged (especially Hexxat's). As for the new NPCs, I'm still not invested in Rasaad's story and his dialogue felt relatively bland. Hexxat is a non-character, the writing is basically nonexistant - I have no idea why she was even included. Dorn is kind of a one-note character, he is just evil for evil's sake (I honestly liked him better in BG1EE). The one character I actually ended up liking now as I got to know her better was Neera - her dialogue got my attention, and if she weren't a wild mage (and thus a terrible choice for no-reload runs) I would propably play with her more often.
Enuhal
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/833643/#Comment_833643
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/833780/#Comment_833780
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/833865/#Comment_833865
In Candlekeep Freya used a Minor Globe as protection against traps while knocking open the tombs. She didn't bother killing anything except the basilisks - in order to get a bit of value out of the green scroll she had.
Back in the City Slythe ran into a wall of summons before failing against a second blast from a wand of paralysation. At the palace I was hoping for some dopplegangers to attack Freya, but none did so after she started the combat by putting improved invisibility on Belt. With most of the dopplegangers attacking her Liia died quickly, but I hoped the protection would keep Belt going for a while until the dopplegangers were disabled. He did indeed last a while, but the dopplegangers refused to go away
While paused, I selected all, then clicked on a Flind to attack it (with sword cursor), then with the hand cursor (so no accidental attack) I selected the near dead familiar to move it to a different location and unpaused.
What happened, as you can see in the attached screenshot, was that my main character Valderis (who was the familiar owner) attacked the familiar instead, and killed it. This, in turn, lowered his CON by 1 point, and due not having full HP, killed him and showed the death screen. Do you have any explanation for this? I think it must be a bug. Would you continue from the last autosave or it's time for a new game?
Previous update found here
Next update found here
Not a great deal of progress has been made in game terms, but there are still several hair-raising incidents to report.
The party moves back into the Cloakwood, intent on delving into the mine at its heart.
First, we must deal with Drasus and friends. Not willing to risk ignominious defeat at this point, the choice is made to stick with our traditional overkill tactic: Web/Stinking Cloud followed up by Fireballs.
As a precaution, we buff a little, but nothing spectacular (Chant/Remove Fear/PfE). Spell slots are filled with Shield, Blind, Web, Stinking Cloud, Skull Trap for Adamant and Imoen. Jaheira gets mostly healing (we are fully expecting to head into the mines proper without resting, after all) as well as two Strength of One.
Branwen, who actually made L7 Cleric during a Wyvern ambush (Yay! 5 HD Skeleton Warriors and 4th level spells!), picks buffs, a few Silence 15' Radius and Hold Person, Holy Smite x3 (to help with area bombardment) as well as Animal Summoning I x2.
As an extra precaution, Branwen pops her two ASI, in case things go horribly wrong. Which, of course, they will.
Adamant initiates conversation, falls back, and we drop Stinking Cloud + Web on the knaves. Initially, all is well. We fire off a round of Skull Trap + Holy Smite, cause some damage, but are rather surprised to then see Kysus make both his saves in one round, stumble into our party, and throw up a set of defenses we have no way of countering.
That's Remove Magic he's casting. He'll toss out a lot more lethal stuff before he's through.
Alright, things aren't great, but they're not totally lost either. The party backs off and sends Branwen's paltry summoned dogs/wolves at Kysus. He responds by a Chaos (which unfortunately tags Khalid too, rendering him moot for the entire fight), and starts to kill the summons off.
Meanwhile, Imoen is using the time to finish Fireballing the rest of the team. Drasus and Rezdan fall after another two Fireballs, which is good because Imoen's wand is now down to 1 charge.
At least we only have to worry about Kysus now (Genthore is a total pushover).
Notice that he actually Petrified one of the dogs in the second screenshot! I'm almost certain that was a Chromatic Orb, and am glad he didn't target anyone important with it.
Anyway, dogs disposed off, Kysus happily follows the party, casts Dimension Door to teleport into us, and begins systematically proving why you should be very afraid of any SCS Mage.
He leads with a Sunfire. Miracolously, no one dies (everyone made their save). Not happy with the outcome, Kysus drops another Sunfire... (it's hard to dodge as he moves around randomly). Again, almost everyone saves. Except Khalid and Branwen. Khalid is reduced to 3 or so HP, Branwen to 11, and they both panic and start running around aimlessly, our Remove Fear having been stripped by Kysus' initial Remove Magic.
So, inbetween killing off Khalid and reducing Branwen to 3 HP using his Melf's Minute Meteors, Kysus hits Adamant with a 2x Acid Arrow Sequencer. Combined with the damage from 2x Sunfire, Adamant decides to perform a tactical retreat well outside Kysus' field of view to (slowly) heal up with potions.
Kysus continues his mad rampage, firing off a Fireball at his own feet, killing Jaheira and singeing Ajantis who along with Imoen are now all that stands against the mad Mage.
I thought Kysus MUST be running out of spells now, but nope.. he pulls out a Flame Arrow directed at Imoen. At 11 HP, she pops an Invisibility scroll to avoid dropping. Ajantis stands alone... and eats a Flame Arrow, too, but survies handily (I think Ajantis made every save during the fight, which would explain why he managed to keep up his HP using just crappy healing potions and Lay on Hands). By now, however, Adamant has healed up enough that he rejoins the fray, and (thankfully) his mighty Longswords are enough to cut through Kysus' Stoneskins before he claims another victim.
Not pictured: Ajantis and Adamant chasing after Branwen for 2 minutes as she apparently did her darndest to find a spawn or wolves or something to finish off her last 3 HP. Finally, she regains her nerve and heals up a bit. We finish off Genthore, and actually manage to carry ALL loot, including the gear of Jaheira and Khalid. We retreat back to the FAI, raise our fallen, and return.
After that close brush with death, the rest of the mines go better. Hareishan dutifully fails her save against Web AND Stinking Cloud, and drops to a few Skull Traps. With no Mage backup, her retinue of guards are no threat.
The second level has another nasty moment, but not for Adamant, thankfully. We send 3x Skeleton Warriors after Natasha, but to speed things up, I let Khalid borrow the Boots of Speed to get in a few potshots with his Arrows of Biting. One actually connects and poisons Natasha! Of course, Natasha need not worry about such plebeian matters as taking continuous poison damage, and responds by frying Khalid with a Lightning Bolt to within an inch of his life. This picture is after he quaffed a healing potion, so he was actually reduced to 2 HP... some Lightning Bolt, and it must have bounced back at him once, as otherwise it couldn't have done that much damage, being 10D6. Not entirely sure why Khalid didn't panic... anyway, the Skeletons finish off Natasha on their own.
So, after some minor setbacks, the path is now cleared to Davaeorn. The party will sleep on how to best approach him, but as I've said: Adamant with a PfM scroll and Potion of Power + the best Giant Strength potion available will probably be my solution. Adamant is still a L5/L5 Fighter/Mage, but once we get to Baldur's Gate experience will come fast.
Anyway, having escaped Candlekeep alive, this time I will post some images.
Apologies. I forgot to take a screenshot when Mendas died and had to re-enter the store after claiming my reward for killing the rats.
Previous update found here
Next update found here
A short update, but lots of progress.
It turned out that the Violet Potion from the Nashkel merchant (yes, I've saved it all this time) and its 25 STR means you can force every lock in the Cloakwood Mines, apart from the one on Davaeorn's chest (said chest only contains a Wand of Fear... but I ended up having Imoen scribe Knock and open the chest anyway). Nice.
It was decided that Adamant, being our best melee combatant by a wide margin, would tackle Davaeorn alone. Aided by a PfM scroll, a Potion of Power and a Potion of Cloud Giant Strength, the brave Half-Elf went to work. Davaeorn's attendant Battle Horrors could not even hit Adamant, and while Davaeorn did a good job of running around randomly, he was ultimately helpless against the PfM effect. That didn't stop him tossing a completely pointless Lightning Bolt at Adamant, though... which of course bounced at an unfortunate angle and electrocuted Jaheira (who after quaffing the Violet Potion to force all those locks temporarily had 3 CON and so about 40 HP). I swear, sometime I am going to get through this battle with no NPC deaths. The enemy reinforcements started pouring in, but Adamant managed to finish Davaeorn before they had time to converge. Hooray!
We flood the mine and rush off towards Baldur's Gate, where we indulge in steamrolling a ton of quests and enemies. We had literally no trouble at all: Adamant along with Khalid means we have the APR to just punch through any Stoneskin/Mirror Image, and we typically employ a screen of summons anyway.
One interesting thing though: Even with 19 CHA, Adamant failed to persuade Ragefast to let Abela the Nymph go, and we had to kill him (which took a while: He literally spammed the entire party with his Wand of Paralyzation, so that by the end there was just Khalid left unfrozen). I guess Adamant's epically poor Wisdom (now at 5 after 2 Tomes of Understanding) had something to do with his silver tongue failing him.
While disposing of Degrodel's guardian monsters, we reached a milestone: Imoen hit L7 Mage, meaning she now has regained her thief abilities! Hooray, hooray!
Our next course of action will be to finish what we haven't already in Baldur's Gate. Thereafter we'll advance the plot (we haven't cleared the Iron Throne Tower yet, that fight can end up pretty hairy), and do the whole Candlekeep thing including the very desirable Strength Tome for Adamant.
It turns out we actually forgot to clear out the Lighthouse, so that'll mean +1 Constitution for Adamant as well as we'll swing by there after Candlekeep. Lovely.
Then it's TotSC content for XP and spell scrolls, until we near the cap.
All of that is for next time. For now, the party is situated at the Elfsong tavern.
Adamant is now a L6/L6 Fighter/Mage. His proficiency point at L6 Fighter went to Shortswords in preparation for wielding Kundane in the off-hand come BG2EE, and he now has ++ Longswords, +++ Two Weapon Style, + Shortswords for proficiencies.
As for the mephits I agree they are really vicious. The reason GOI doesn't work is that their attacks tend to be coded as natural effects rather than magical ones and thus bypass magical protections (including even scroll of PfM).
Contingency helpless is not ideal since the helpless state happens often willingly, like conjuring an elemental or Project Image. I guess preparing it every day is an option but it's a lot of hassle.
As for the mephits I agree they are really vicious. The reason GOI doesn't work is that their attacks tend to be coded as natural effects rather than magical ones and thus bypass magical protections (including even scroll of PfM).
The mod readme says the attacks are supernatural abilities not spell like ones. I looked in the books and while in 3e D&D they explicitly have spell-like abilities in 2e they have breath weapons. Breath weapons can only be stopped with 6th level Antimagic-Shell. Unfortunately the spell doesn't exist in BG 2. Might try to just create this spell for playing with aTweaks. Mephits in AD&D 2e are absolutely hardcore for 3hd monsters. Water Jet is better than Power Word: Stun.
Edit: Had a look at IWDEE's Antimagic Shell. Would be possible to adapt it to BG but that means adapting around or over a 100 effects to BG's spells, items and monsters.
Ok, my next run is planned. Hehe.
Anyone finished a noreload run with full aTweaks? I worry about the fiends and undead a little bit.
I have a ton of mods in there along with Dragonspear and am wondering if any mods would do the trick. Will post the run later.
EDIT
I have now defeated the doppelgangers in the ducal palace and now have to decide whether to do the mod quests since I have already reached the level cap and will lose all possessions upon reaching SoA. I am thinking that I will go straight to the final battle once I have done some serious shopping for potions and the like, though defeating the section base in Beregost does have some merit.
After lots of trouble getting a Might and Guile install going I had to settle on BG2 EE. Currently a mod heavy party with Whitworth, Arath, Angelo, Kivan, Haldamir, and Aerie. In my head canon Irenicus murdered Finch & Shar (hence Angelo for now) while Valerie was one of the Cowls slaughtered at Waukeen's promenade. Kagain may or may not have betrayed Whitworth, but his current whereabouts are unknown. Kivan, who left to die after killing Tazok, is ironically the one who has continued on...
So far Circus, Tanner, Copper Coronet done. Want to be careful about the Slavers place & Sewers due to the traps. Spending funds on emergency potions for Whitworth, but generally slow progress as I get over a cold and don't have the concentration to play carefully for too long...
I was making great progress, fighting inside the temple itself, and though my druid got chunked by a Comet spell, my sorcerer and my Seducer were in good shape. Problem is, I cast Wish too many times during a Time Stop, and a curious bug prevented the wishes from being granted.
Basically, instead of being cast instantly, each Wish had to be cast at its normal speed--by my sorcerer. This meant my sorcerer was locked into casting a string of slow-casting spells that were supposed to cast instantly--at the exact same time a Balor was trying to dispel my buffs with Remove Magic.
I should have been able to escape it because I had three double-duration Time Stop+Improved Alacrity wishes coming up. But none of them triggered in time, and my sorcerer was left with nothing but Mirror Images and 0 AC to defend himself, in an environment with 20-40 enemies who all had THAC0 well below 10. When the wishes refused to trigger, I had to cancel them and hurry away to cast Moment of Prescience, but despite having a full set of Mirror Images and -20 AC, the enemy managed to kill my sorcerer with critical hits before he could either heal himself with a potion or cast Stoneskin.
Basically, I got robbed of three Time Stop wishes that would have saved me and kept the party on the path to victory. Do you think this warrants a reload?
Ofcourse it is your game and you should do what you decide. I would like to see your run to the completion, though.
Calis, dwarf fighter (Grond0) & Juto, dwarf barbarian (Gate70)
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/832940/#Comment_832940
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/833419/#Comment_833419
The dwarves continued to cut rapidly away at kneecap height - though taking a few blows in return as well.
They started off by clearing the remainder of the Graveyard. Pai'Na was quickly hacked down and her spiders were helpless against dwarven constitutions.
The Copper Coronet was soon sorted out.
While opening up the liches Calis inherited a cloak from the rakshasa.
After another use of the rod the duo took on the Fallen Paladins next. They also put up a good fight and forced Calis to retreat and made a rare use of a missile weapon to help finish them off.
Next up was to open up access to all the liches. A strength potion + DUHM allowed Calis to break down a couple of doors, while Juto just bulled his way through the petrification trap without worrying about protection. Kangaxx failed to survive a single hit from the improved MoD.
Deciding that Juto could do with some better armour before taking on any more umber hulks the next stop was Umar Hills. There were no liches there, so progress was swift down to Thaxy. Some potions were consumed prior to attacking him and fortunately the dragon focused his remove magic on Kitthix, which allowed the potion effects to survive - unlike Thaxy.
After picking up Valygar's body the duo returned to Athkatla to make up the dragon scale armour before moving on to Trademeet. Some nice smooth play left a trail of dead trolls behind on the way to find some druids. Kyland Lind's group managed to infest them both, but not otherwise cause much damage
Calis, fighter 14, 128 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 340 kills (+177 in BG1)
Juto, barbarian 14, 146 HPs, 240 kills (+196 in BG1), 4 deaths