Is there a way to finish the Spirit Warrior sequence in Watchers Keep with LoB? I've tried bunch of different walkthroughs but nothing works, I always get killed by the War Dog, or even before that.
Hhmmm.... never tried it.... should check this later @histamiini. Hopefully i will get some time for Brakko this evening - still a long way to Sarevok! Whats up with your Stalker @Blackraven?
Damn it's bugged also because SCS. The Spirit Warrior has a normal sword which can break anytime, and then he just knuckles someone down, but this gets up eventually and kills the Spirit Warrior when he doesn't even defend himself.
EDIT: got through to the Mummy (without helmet) but he kills me.
EDIT2: now I got to the Mummy with all equipment but he still kills me. This is the sequence:
Ghost (helmet) Scroll War Dog (key and healing) Skeleton (Magic Missile) Poison (bracers) Gibberling (scroll) Healing Mummy
It depends on rolls if you get there, but the Mummy always kills me. Maybe it's possible with perfect rolls, but I don't know. Did LoB team think this through?
@histamiini, I read your updates, and almost everything looks so easy, like the dragons in Abazigal's lair. I however am scared shitless for my Stalker. I think I'll just play reload just to learn. For a no-reload solo character I'd probably stick to a class with more options.
Having said that, and this is also to answer @Harpagornis's question, Leon has been fending well for himself. He proceeded to slay all the basilisks in Mutamin's garden and on the roof of Durlag's tower, and he also slew two battle horrors with backstabs (using a frost giant strength potion for the thac0 bonus). This brought him to level 7.
He started out with ** in scimitars and ** in crossbows. The latter because I like crossbows a lot, but then I remembered the arrows of detonation being very important in Harapagornis's work with his warriors in SoD. For that reason Leon specialized in shortbows as well, if only because of the extra 1/2 APR. Normally I would have added a blunt weapon, but that will have to wait and I think that's fine. Being more than competent with both arrows and bolts can actually be advantageous. He stalked through the Nashkel mines and meleed Mulahey who went from hostile to neutral after a while, and kept begging for mercy, but Leon just wouldn't grant it. Nimbul was left to the Nashkel military, for his invisibility potions.
Equipment is about as good as it can get at this stage of the game: shadow armor (usable in my setup by Stalkers), boots of stealth, greenstone, fire protection ring, cloak of displacement, girdle of piercing, army scythe. He also deviously acquired Algernon's cloak, by charming the merchant with Lord Foreshadow's ring and having him fight Tranzig. Tranzig made short work of Algernon, but the mage was then brutally slain by backstabbing Leon. Greywolf was another victim of Leon's stabs. The stalker is now getting ready to deal with the bandits. (Probably just going to pick up the potion of magic blocking and open the trapped chest, without doing any fighting inside the tent, as there's no real need to).
@Blackraven Nah I wouldn't say easy but pretty straightforward. Cavalier can pretty much tank everything with right equipment and tactics, which is what I've been doing mostly. The Sendai boss battle being one of the exceptions. DoeH, Hardiness, Rod of Resurrection and retreat is pretty good insurance policy to pretty much everything. Cavalier also has some edge against dragon's (and demons). The dragon battles went surprisingly easy (because I expected worse) until Abazigail imprisoned, and then he had that bug (or feature) that he healed all the time. Throne of Bhaal has been pretty death free for me, and I can certainly see it been played no-reload, if you know what to expect, at least to the end battle. I've never played no-reload anything, but I can certainly see it being much more nerve wrecking.
Anyhow to the end. Again tested the battle few times to see where we stand. Aand we stand at letting Balty have his preferred suicide by going in a corner and luring everything onto himself, where as I parked my invisible ass to the opposite corner. All seeing Fallen Solars were the next nuisance with their dispelling arrows, which I countered with Reflection Shield. Then I had a melee battle with them, which was going nowhere as they constantly teleported and healed themselves. But I had to get rid of them, to have any kind of chance against the waiting mob. Enter my freshly made Ravager, which slayed both Solars in couple hits. Aren't I lucky that I arsed to beat that Spirit Warrior test.
Slayer Imoen changed and she left like she did in Asulym, isn't she beauty? Bodhi wasn't interested doing anything and Irenicus after spending all his spells was walking which ever way he could. With invisibility I lured the Succubus and three Alu-Fiends to my corner and hacked them down. Then waited Irenicus to waltz onto me and Gww'd him down, like millionth time, how about staying dead? Then I lured the four Mareliths on my corner, went invisible and left them there. Used PfU and said adios to Bodhi.
Next up the four Mareliths, and I'm once again stuck. How can you beat them, they have infinite PfMW and Summon Skeletons? At least I tested them to have like seven of them. So here Sir Vanderley is currently waiting and thinking what on earth to do?
Edit: With AC build I'm able to pretty much tank them infinitely, but I can't damage them either when they refresh PfMW again and again. Only thing I've found to damage them is Sunray and I've only one of them.
Enter Wand of Wonder (literally), which petrified all four Meriliths in no time. Then I let the AI wipe the skelis off, because they couldn't even hit me.
First onslaught cleared, time to activate the pools. The best tactic I can think of is to activate them invisible and immediatelly retreat to other side of the room, which lures Balors and Nabassus onto you. Which you can then slay with Ravager pretty easily. Then I noticed Cambions stealing my equipment, also slayed with Ravager. Alu-Fiends, Glabrezus and their mirror images I dealt with Carsomyr. There was also one Marilith, who I dealt with FoA as it didn't have but one PfMW, which suggests that it was a scripting error previously. Not even scripting errors can stop Sir Vanderley now. Got some goodies, immunity to Maze and Imprisonment, Dimension Door, Control Demon (what ever that is) and Pocket Plane was back on.
Next pool, same stuff. After slaying couple Cambions, something happened and I couldn't hit anything, at all. I looked my Thac0 and it was pretty normal, what was going on? After some time I noticed that my base Thac0 actually was 53. Quick rest in Pocket Plane fixed that though. Next something logged that I wasn't expecting: Balor: Keldorn dies defending Sir William: Sir Vanderley. Umm ok?
I was expecting this to be Sir Vanderley vs. Melissan, not Sir Vanderley vs. Scripting Errors.
I hadn't thought about the Wand of Wonder. It's a 12% chance of petrifying the target with no saving throw, bypassing magic resistance. Not very reliable, but since it bypasses saving throws and all that, it's a flat 12% for any enemy that's not immune to the petrification opcode.
Looking at the thing in Near Infinity, it seems that the petrification now strikes as a level 1 spell in EE. So it won't bypass spell level immunities or spell protections like it did in vanilla.
Dragons are not immune to petrification. You could use it like the basilisk XP loop, repeatedly petrifying Firkraag for a bunch of XP, but I'm guessing it would be slower and less reliable than resting in the Unseeing Eye beholder hive to kill Gauths, or repeatedly summoning Ghoul Lords in the riddle bridge of the same quest to farm XP in early SoA.
@semiticgod It didn't bypass magic resistance for me, or at least it said magic resistance multiple times. Or was that for the other effects?
Ok figured out something, Babaus steal items, Cambions steal Thac0. The bastards, quick death for them from the Ravager. Got some more goodies from the second pool, immunity to death magic and vorpal effects. Third pool was exactly like the previous, the reward being focus against Time Stop.
Now comes the interesting part, after completing all the pools, you can actually teleport back to Pocket Plane if you stand right in the corner. In which case Amelyssan appears in there also, and the whole band. And if this wasn't funny enough, there's now two Sarevoks in the room. You can also teleport back to empty Throne of Bhaal if you wish. Ok I think this is enough funny stuff for one day...
Ok first real battle, and I'm doing very well. I used PfM on both Sendai and Abazigal, and charmed Sarevok with control circlet. Somebody had time to summon a Planetar, was it Sarevok and could that be used against the others? Anyway I Ravaged it in no time. Then it was just a matter of tanking others, keeping Sarevok hitting Yaga-Shura and keeping him alive with RoR. This tactic is quite good as it's fairly easy to keep Sarevok alive with his over 1000 hp.
Then when all were in one health bar I wasted Abazigal. Mel appeared, and I wasn't really ready for it. Had no protections on, low health and she used Time Stop, and killed me. Why is she doing slashing damage, when she has a piercing weapon?
Damn killed everybody and got Mel alone in one of the pool areas, and then the game crashed after last of the big six died. Also found out another advantage, like previously you can actually teleport to Pocket Plane in the middle of the final battle, and get a save in by luring everybody to down left corner, invisibility, speed potion, and running to top right corner and just teleporting away. This will help considerably as you only have to hack the big six to one health bar once.
I finally decided to screw no reload runs for now and started an archer. I want to make it thru SoD for once and can't do it no reload anyway, so why halt my progress in BG1by dying silly deaths.
Yeah, i was thinking the same after Brakko died earlier @Victor_Creed_SFV but then - something - grabbed me back to no-reload. Its like an obsession and - yes - its all @Grond0´s guilt.
While @histamiini is bringing Amelyssan down to her knees poor little Brakko cleared the Cloakwood forest. Can it really be that i died here in the past with a full party on Core Rules? Really? Must have been another life. Funny what 20+ years can change - no?
However: His Skeletons cleared not only the Spider nest but also the Wyvern Cave. Scared about the big ones? Get some SKels and they are dead meat in no time. Its really significant how much more powerful the Undead are once Brakko hit level 7. More damage, more HP and - the best - no more broken weapons!
While Drasus and Genthore were quickly charmed and feeded to the Guards Brakko had some fun with the Mages. Charmed and Silenced they got slaughtered without any resistance for some more loot. After that Brakko quickly sneaked through the Mines heading directly to Davaeorn.
He charmed the guard (which lured the Battle Horrors away) and soaked up all magic thanks to a Potion of Magic Blocking. This time Davaeorn chose another room which made things even easier. Once all guards had streamed in some wonderful Fireballs from the Necklace of Missiles brought them down one after another. With Davaeorn alone Brakko summoned his beloved Skeleton Warriors. The poor Mage could do nothing against them and went down two minutes later.
In Baldurs Gate Brakko had already aquired Baldurans Helm and Cloak. Time to investigate the Iron Throne. Candlekeep is near and Sarevok for the first time is also showing up on the horizon. Very smooth run with - so far - flawless execution. Lets hope death isnt waiting around the next corner!
I've had a bit of a cold the last couple of days, which has meant I've not been playing my current BG game (the combination of playing with a party, in a poverty run and in a part of SoD I don't know is too much of a brain strain at the moment ). Instead I thought I'd have a go at this challenge with a bit of mindless violence, where I don't have to think much (and of course if I'm taking the same medicine I don't need to feel guilty about the possibility of Brakko dying ).
Highlights of Frack the barbarian's progress to date: - killed Shoal for her XP - killed Algernon for his cloak - picked up Drizzt's scimitars - killed an ogre for its belt - killed some fishermen for their bowl - killed Dushai for her ring - cleared the basilisk area (scroll for basilisks, Korax for Mutamin, Cloak for Kirian)
He's currently at level 6 and doing a general tour round picking up all the reputation quests along the way.
And died. Went for a quick fight with Gnarl, but wasn't paying close enough attention and he hit 3 times in a row before I reacted ...
@histamiini. OK - I didn't check on that. I suppose it's possible though that her custom spear has been given the same attributes as a halberd (or perhaps it's just a bug).
@Grond0 Yeah I think it's feature too, she does both slashing and piercing damage.
Sigh, can't see really way out from this. I can't damage Melissan fast enough, she has over 1500 hp and 75 dr meaning I have to do 6000 damage, excluding even regen. Isn't she supposed to lose some of her hp when ever ally dies? I can dimension door pretty much infinitely, but I just can't damage her fast enough. Also the BMU seems to be bad idea against her, as the animation stops making hits I think when you get growded.
@histamiini when you're in a crowded situation you may find your icon being bumped away from your target - which can lead to an inability to actually hit it (particularly if you're using a range 1 weapon).
Have you tried Soul Reaver? If it's Mel's attacks that are the problem and not others then that will quickly force her to get a critical to hit you.
In Ascension, Melissan's spear does slashing damage because otherwise you could become immune to her attacks by using Polymorph Self and switching to jelly form.
The spear is SPERMEL.itm in Near Infinity. It's a +5 spear that deals 1d8+5 slashing damage, 1d10 cold damage on a failed save vs. spell at -4, penalizes all saving throws by 1 for 12 seconds with no save (dispellable), instantly kills illusionary clones, instantly kills undead of level 8 and below, and has a 15% chance of stunning the target for 15 seconds on a failed save vs. polymorph at -2. All effects bypass spell protections, and everything but the stun effect bypasses magic resistance.
Her darts can be blocked with the Shield of Reflection, but if you don't have the shield, they deal 1d4+4 missile damage, 1d6 cold damage, have a 50% chance of stunning the target for 15 seconds on a failed save vs. polymorph at -2, a 50% chance of dealing 1 disease damage per second for 15 seconds on a failed save vs. death at -4, and a 25% chance of lowering CON by 1 for 30 seconds on a failed save vs. death at -4 (disease immunity will block the CON drain). The cold damage bypasses MR and spell protections; everything else can be blocked by MR and strikes as a level 8 spell.
@histamiini Don't forget that she's not immune to stun. Her saves are massive in LoB, but if you can find a way to lower them somewhat, maybe you could stunlock her with Power Attacks.
@Arctodus I've only one power attack and smite so I don't think that will be enough. I tried Rod Of Terror, but she's also immune to weapons +4 and below.
Ok did some digging, she has ring called finabaz.itm which gives immunity to +3 and +4 weapons, and she should lose it when Abazigal dies. But I don't seem to hit her with Rod of Terror which is +3.
EDIT: finmel01.itm amulet gives immunity to +3 weapons, so no go RoT.
Comments
I am really curious how Sir Vanderley will deal with Amelyssan @histamiini. Maybe its far easier than expected? We will see!
EDIT: got through to the Mummy (without helmet) but he kills me.
EDIT2: now I got to the Mummy with all equipment but he still kills me. This is the sequence:
Ghost (helmet)
Scroll
War Dog (key and healing)
Skeleton (Magic Missile)
Poison (bracers)
Gibberling (scroll)
Healing
Mummy
It depends on rolls if you get there, but the Mummy always kills me. Maybe it's possible with perfect rolls, but I don't know. Did LoB team think this through?
Get the scroll, scare Gibberling away, attack Mummy. You can take about 20 hits before dying, but depending on rolls you can beat it just like that.
Now I can actually complete the Ravager.
Having said that, and this is also to answer @Harpagornis's question, Leon has been fending well for himself. He proceeded to slay all the basilisks in Mutamin's garden and on the roof of Durlag's tower, and he also slew two battle horrors with backstabs (using a frost giant strength potion for the thac0 bonus). This brought him to level 7.
He started out with ** in scimitars and ** in crossbows. The latter because I like crossbows a lot, but then I remembered the arrows of detonation being very important in Harapagornis's work with his warriors in SoD. For that reason Leon specialized in shortbows as well, if only because of the extra 1/2 APR. Normally I would have added a blunt weapon, but that will have to wait and I think that's fine. Being more than competent with both arrows and bolts can actually be advantageous.
He stalked through the Nashkel mines and meleed Mulahey who went from hostile to neutral after a while, and kept begging for mercy, but Leon just wouldn't grant it.
Nimbul was left to the Nashkel military, for his invisibility potions.
Equipment is about as good as it can get at this stage of the game: shadow armor (usable in my setup by Stalkers), boots of stealth, greenstone, fire protection ring, cloak of displacement, girdle of piercing, army scythe. He also deviously acquired Algernon's cloak, by charming the merchant with Lord Foreshadow's ring and having him fight Tranzig. Tranzig made short work of Algernon, but the mage was then brutally slain by backstabbing Leon. Greywolf was another victim of Leon's stabs.
The stalker is now getting ready to deal with the bandits. (Probably just going to pick up the potion of magic blocking and open the trapped chest, without doing any fighting inside the tent, as there's no real need to).
Anyhow to the end. Again tested the battle few times to see where we stand. Aand we stand at letting Balty have his preferred suicide by going in a corner and luring everything onto himself, where as I parked my invisible ass to the opposite corner. All seeing Fallen Solars were the next nuisance with their dispelling arrows, which I countered with Reflection Shield. Then I had a melee battle with them, which was going nowhere as they constantly teleported and healed themselves. But I had to get rid of them, to have any kind of chance against the waiting mob. Enter my freshly made Ravager, which slayed both Solars in couple hits. Aren't I lucky that I arsed to beat that Spirit Warrior test.
Slayer Imoen changed and she left like she did in Asulym, isn't she beauty? Bodhi wasn't interested doing anything and Irenicus after spending all his spells was walking which ever way he could. With invisibility I lured the Succubus and three Alu-Fiends to my corner and hacked them down. Then waited Irenicus to waltz onto me and Gww'd him down, like millionth time, how about staying dead? Then I lured the four Mareliths on my corner, went invisible and left them there. Used PfU and said adios to Bodhi.
Next up the four Mareliths, and I'm once again stuck. How can you beat them, they have infinite PfMW and Summon Skeletons? At least I tested them to have like seven of them. So here Sir Vanderley is currently waiting and thinking what on earth to do?
Edit: With AC build I'm able to pretty much tank them infinitely, but I can't damage them either when they refresh PfMW again and again. Only thing I've found to damage them is Sunray and I've only one of them.
Next pool, same stuff. After slaying couple Cambions, something happened and I couldn't hit anything, at all. I looked my Thac0 and it was pretty normal, what was going on? After some time I noticed that my base Thac0 actually was 53.
I was expecting this to be Sir Vanderley vs. Melissan, not Sir Vanderley vs. Scripting Errors.
Looking at the thing in Near Infinity, it seems that the petrification now strikes as a level 1 spell in EE. So it won't bypass spell level immunities or spell protections like it did in vanilla.
Dragons are not immune to petrification. You could use it like the basilisk XP loop, repeatedly petrifying Firkraag for a bunch of XP, but I'm guessing it would be slower and less reliable than resting in the Unseeing Eye beholder hive to kill Gauths, or repeatedly summoning Ghoul Lords in the riddle bridge of the same quest to farm XP in early SoA.
Ok figured out something, Babaus steal items, Cambions steal Thac0. The bastards, quick death for them from the Ravager. Got some more goodies from the second pool, immunity to death magic and vorpal effects. Third pool was exactly like the previous, the reward being focus against Time Stop.
Now comes the interesting part, after completing all the pools, you can actually teleport back to Pocket Plane if you stand right in the corner. In which case Amelyssan appears in there also, and the whole band. And if this wasn't funny enough, there's now two Sarevoks in the room. You can also teleport back to empty Throne of Bhaal if you wish. Ok I think this is enough funny stuff for one day...
Then when all were in one health bar I wasted Abazigal. Mel appeared, and I wasn't really ready for it. Had no protections on, low health and she used Time Stop, and killed me. Why is she doing slashing damage, when she has a piercing weapon?
Her inventory also states the weapon as "Spear" - funny!
Damn killed everybody and got Mel alone in one of the pool areas, and then the game crashed after last of the big six died. Also found out another advantage, like previously you can actually teleport to Pocket Plane in the middle of the final battle, and get a save in by luring everybody to down left corner, invisibility, speed potion, and running to top right corner and just teleporting away. This will help considerably as you only have to hack the big six to one health bar once.
I want to make it thru SoD for once and can't do it no reload anyway, so why halt my progress in BG1by dying silly deaths.
While @histamiini is bringing Amelyssan down to her knees poor little Brakko cleared the Cloakwood forest. Can it really be that i died here in the past with a full party on Core Rules? Really? Must have been another life. Funny what 20+ years can change - no?
However: His Skeletons cleared not only the Spider nest but also the Wyvern Cave. Scared about the big ones? Get some SKels and they are dead meat in no time. Its really significant how much more powerful the Undead are once Brakko hit level 7. More damage, more HP and - the best - no more broken weapons!
While Drasus and Genthore were quickly charmed and feeded to the Guards Brakko had some fun with the Mages. Charmed and Silenced they got slaughtered without any resistance for some more loot. After that Brakko quickly sneaked through the Mines heading directly to Davaeorn.
He charmed the guard (which lured the Battle Horrors away) and soaked up all magic thanks to a Potion of Magic Blocking. This time Davaeorn chose another room which made things even easier. Once all guards had streamed in some wonderful Fireballs from the Necklace of Missiles brought them down one after another. With Davaeorn alone Brakko summoned his beloved Skeleton Warriors. The poor Mage could do nothing against them and went down two minutes later.
In Baldurs Gate Brakko had already aquired Baldurans Helm and Cloak. Time to investigate the Iron Throne. Candlekeep is near and Sarevok for the first time is also showing up on the horizon. Very smooth run with - so far - flawless execution. Lets hope death isnt waiting around the next corner!
Highlights of Frack the barbarian's progress to date:
- killed Shoal for her XP
- killed Algernon for his cloak
- picked up Drizzt's scimitars
- killed an ogre for its belt
- killed some fishermen for their bowl
- killed Dushai for her ring
- cleared the basilisk area (scroll for basilisks, Korax for Mutamin, Cloak for Kirian)
He's currently at level 6 and doing a general tour round picking up all the reputation quests along the way.
And died. Went for a quick fight with Gnarl, but wasn't paying close enough attention and he hit 3 times in a row before I reacted ...
Sigh, can't see really way out from this. I can't damage Melissan fast enough, she has over 1500 hp and 75 dr meaning I have to do 6000 damage, excluding even regen. Isn't she supposed to lose some of her hp when ever ally dies? I can dimension door pretty much infinitely, but I just can't damage her fast enough. Also the BMU seems to be bad idea against her, as the animation stops making hits I think when you get growded.
Any advice on how to damage her?
Have you tried Soul Reaver? If it's Mel's attacks that are the problem and not others then that will quickly force her to get a critical to hit you.
The spear is SPERMEL.itm in Near Infinity. It's a +5 spear that deals 1d8+5 slashing damage, 1d10 cold damage on a failed save vs. spell at -4, penalizes all saving throws by 1 for 12 seconds with no save (dispellable), instantly kills illusionary clones, instantly kills undead of level 8 and below, and has a 15% chance of stunning the target for 15 seconds on a failed save vs. polymorph at -2. All effects bypass spell protections, and everything but the stun effect bypasses magic resistance.
Her darts can be blocked with the Shield of Reflection, but if you don't have the shield, they deal 1d4+4 missile damage, 1d6 cold damage, have a 50% chance of stunning the target for 15 seconds on a failed save vs. polymorph at -2, a 50% chance of dealing 1 disease damage per second for 15 seconds on a failed save vs. death at -4, and a 25% chance of lowering CON by 1 for 30 seconds on a failed save vs. death at -4 (disease immunity will block the CON drain). The cold damage bypasses MR and spell protections; everything else can be blocked by MR and strikes as a level 8 spell.
EDIT: finmel01.itm amulet gives immunity to +3 weapons, so no go RoT.