16394 replies to this topic

[Epsil0]

And I guess I'll slink back in after being absent for the entirety of the summer... Good to see that there's been a few more successes (a solo Wild Mage? And now attempting a monk? Impressive...) And all these Hard Time mods and SCS and randomizers... My poor setup looks so close to vanilla now.

 

Entering the challenge with Arkon, an Elven illusionist, after breaking a few rules via BG2 tweaks. My lack of experience in playing spell casters is definitely already showing, though he somehow hasn't died yet. Mods are BG1NPC, Rogue rebalancing, and BG2 Tweaks. 

 

One thing to note is that BGEE has released updates, one of which is that blinded enemies will run around erratically rather than standing still, making the spell quite a bit more dangerous to use in an open area: to start, Shoal led me on a merry chase into the ogre berserkers in the south. Had to zone out and zone back in, but eventually got the kill for the first two levels and... 10 hp, giving me 6 on 2d4. Not bad. Invisibility was bought to fill my 2nd level slots, and Arkon's been abusing the heck out of it. A couple of Beregost tasks and a successful dechickenator brings Arkon to 4.

 

Top half of the basilisks was kind of cleared. Korax critical-missed 3/5 times vs Mutamin and failed to hold him the other two, and was duly killed by the lunatic gnome. My familiar and I immediately draw back, and fortunately the Greater basilisk follows. Darts follow, familiar kiting, failing kiting, familiar gets poisoned... Fortunately putting him in my pack sets the poison off, and I start just run-attacking. Probably took me 10 minutes to kill it, but 7k exp is mine by the end. Level 5, don't recall the hit points. I'm getting sick of this low damage, and I don't have the CC spells to take care of Mutamin anyways, so I head north instead with the intent of buying the Returning Frost Dart up at Ulgoth's beard. It costs 5k gold... which I don't have. Raiding the Ankhegs gives me a much-needed Wand of Fire at the very least.

 

5k gold. Bassilus. Fireballs. Seems easy enough. 3 charges of the fire wand are burnt, (burnt, get it? I'm so punny. Shoot me now. ) holy symbol drops, reward get, Friends learned, and that dart is purchased with leftover of 1.5k gold from Ashideen. Not bad, not bad at all.

 

To whatsitcalled. Nashkel. Neira is blinded and then Hold Person'd in a moment of vengeful glee (one of the two level 3 spells I had. The other one was Spirit Armor, and guess what ended up filling my slots?) Greywolf is blinded and then he runs all over the freaking map while I try to throw darts at him... Fortunately we didn't run into any further mobs. Sell some stuff and enter the mines after getting the frost wand.

 

Traveling invisible, still nearly die to the last trapped zone: had 9 HP after the two arrows hit, and fortunately I zoned before the third unblockable-magic-missiles-trap hit. Resting invis gives me the time I need to heal. Mulahey is blinded, but he immediately goes hostile - another change of the EE upgrade, I think. Calls his minions, but I still have a Fireball wand. A couple more charges and they're done for. Web from the chest is fortunately learned, the first of my reliable CC spells. Amazons are likewise Fireball'd, and Tranzig poses little difficulty under Resist fear and Shield spells. Level 6 gives me 37 HP total. Shopping spree follows, most notably the mirroring cloak in Ulgoth's beard and the +1 Dex Ioun stone from the tower of high sorcery or whatsitcalled. Webs, Shield, Mirror image and Magic Missile are used to clear out the bandit camp... and after a bit more Web spam, I'm currently sitting in front of the second mines with my nice new set of boots.

 

I'm really going to struggle, I think, since even though I know the routines of Davaeorn and the others, I'm not sure if I can stop them. I don't have my wand of fire anymore - I sold it to recharge, but was staggered by the 23 thousand price tag. I don't have globes of invulnerability, so Davaeorn's usual script of scorching the area with fireballs is still going to work. I can stop the lightning with either Minor Spell Turning or Improved Invisibility, but I don't have the faintest idea how I'm going to kill that mage. With only 40 health, even with potions of fire resistance those spells are going to really hurt... Anyone more experienced in mages? How does this battle usually work?

[corey_russell]

Coremonk III the Monk Update - Chapters 4,5

Traveling with: Kagain, Branwen, Imoen, Xan

 

Coremonk III's team has done very well so far. Coremonk III and Kagain are usually in the front lines, with everyone else ranging and spell/wand support when needed. All areas have been explored, that aren't TotSC areas. Party at about 101, 000 experience, we need about 110,000 each for almost everyone to level except for Kagain and Xan.

 

For chapter 4, since no one can use Khossans full plate (Branwen too weak), we just looted the camp and took out Tazok's tent guys. Branwen dealt the melees, while everyone did what they could against Venkt - this worked.

 

A ton of ambushes occurred in the Cloakwood  - Xan was using wands everywhere to try to keep the party safe. Magical ammo was certainly helping as well. Coremonk III got hurt a lot in the front lines, poisoned too (his AC is just 1)  - however, running away if badly hurt and keeping his aura clear so he can pop an antidote has kept him in one piece.

 

For Drassus and pals, we threw everything we had, potions of explosions, necklace of missiles, silence, skull traps - the mages eventually died without killing us, and then Drassus and Genthore had no chance.

 

The Cloakwood Mines were carefully cleared. A heavily buffed Kagain nearly died fighting Heirashan and pals - it was only Branwen/Coremonk III spamming heals on him and passing him a new set of 5 blue potions (Kagain ran out), kept him in one piece - barely. This run, buying blue potions everywhere, few exist (maybe none), good thing the big City has more for us.

 

For the mages in the Mines, Kagain would solo, buffed up with what we could. He's had pretty bad HP rolls (66 HP when max would be 105), so that hasn't helped him.

 

For Davaoern, buffed to the max Kagain was able to get it done.

 

The party has finally reached the City of Baldur's Gate, and are ready to progress in our Quest.

[Grond0]

Neira is blinded and then Hold Person'd in a moment of vengeful glee (one of the two level 3 spells I had. The other one was Spirit Armor, and guess what ended up filling my slots?) 

Ghost armour perhaps?

 

I'm really going to struggle, I think, since even though I know the routines of Davaeorn and the others, I'm not sure if I can stop them. I don't have my wand of fire anymore - I sold it to recharge, but was staggered by the 23 thousand price tag. I don't have globes of invulnerability, so Davaeorn's usual script of scorching the area with fireballs is still going to work. I can stop the lightning with either Minor Spell Turning or Improved Invisibility, but I don't have the faintest idea how I'm going to kill that mage. With only 40 health, even with potions of fire resistance those spells are going to really hurt... Anyone more experienced in mages? How does this battle usually work?

It doesn't look from your mod set-up that he will get lots of spells (unless rogue rebalancing makes some changes).  A scroll of magic protection will do you, or a potion of magic blocking (covers traps, fireball and lightning but you may need something else for charm or hold later).  You can use your invisibility to draw the battle horrors into the side room and leave them there.  Once Daveorn's spells are gone you can just run and shoot.  If you get tired of doing that what about using the wand of monster summoning from the valley of the tombs?

[Grond0]

Spectre - human monk (update 2)

 

I see Spectre is hard on Coremonk's heels as part of the monk invasion of Baldur's Gate!

 

He's had an excellent start to his adventures.  Shoal got him off to a flyer by presenting him with 16 HPs for 2 levels before Marl provided another 5.  He took his first damage of the run when a peasant blocked Joia's doorway and prevented him from running away from a Tarnesh magic missile.  Shortly after that he was rather more badly damaged by a meaty critical from Meilum when his icon didn't respond to a movement order click after failing to stun Meilum and he finished the encounter with his sling (8 HPs).

 

Spectre doesn't normally have the intelligence to read scrolls, but bought a potion of genius to allow him to melee the basilisks (10 HPs).  After that he robbed some ankhegs on the way up to Ulgoth's Beard.  Then, with the Greenstone Amulet acquired there, Spectre attacked the sirines at the lighthouse area (9 HPs) before shooting the golems with magic bullets.

 

After stealthing through the Nashkel mine, Mulahey was attacked from the shadows to give him no chance to talk.  He got scared and tried (and failed) to run through a wall to get away.  A couple of necklace blasts then left only 1 of the amazons standing and she quickly went rigid from a stunning blow.  Soon afterwards Nimbul did his own imitation of a statue (as did Neira).

 

Tranzig was scared by several stealthy blows before Spectre moved on to the Bandit camp.  He just steathed in there to loot the main tent (using a potion of absorption against the trap) before leaving.  He used a potion of freedom to avoid any hassle with the Cloakwood web traps while moving on to the mine there.  Three fireballs softened the party there up for a series of stealth shots to leave only Drasus.  Spectre tried and failed to stun him and was hit a couple of times before running for it and using his 2 LMDs to finish the job.

 

Spectre stealthed down to Daveorn (he left the ghasts alone, but used his monk find traps ability to find the secret door before he came out of the shadows).  Rather than mess with the battle horrors he just decoyed them out of the way using stealth, then used a potion of magic blocking to go and confront Daveorn.  He topped that up with a charge from his amulet before giving Daveorn a good kicking.  He hadn't brought along a weapon that could hurt the mustard jelly, but just used the boots of speed to loot a couple of containers before it knew what was happening.

 

He's just rested, to get his second Bhaal horror, prior to flooding the mine.

[ussnorway]

snip... Anyone more experienced in mages? How does this battle usually work?

Charm the guards… burn his spells on them instead of you.
Wand of monster summoning… as above.

[Grimwald the Wise]

If you cannot afford the wand, there is a necklace of missiles at Nashkel Carnival.

 

You can charm Davaeorn as I did in my last game and get others to kill him or at least seriously weaken him.

Charm is seriously undervalued. You can charm the ogre with the belt fetish. Get him to kill Xvarts, wolves etc. then you can kill him when he is weak to get the belts.

 

You can get Algernon's Cloak which is very powerful as it charms enemies. You can kill Algernon to get it (taking a big reputation hit) or get Karlat or spider to kill him for you. Since you have BG1 NPC project, you get the ring just north of Nashkel which rasises Charisma to 18. If you get it identified you can use it for charm person once per day.

 

Get Karlat to follow you to Algernon. Charm Algernon. Get Algernon to attack Karlat. He will die. Grab the cloak. Run or use the cloak to charm Karlat.

 

As a mage you don't actually need the ring to charm Algernon. You can use the spell, With the above method, anyone can get him killed.

 

Note: charming neutrals is a good way of getting their loot. Charm them and get them to attack an enemy.

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 53 - (2nd and final update)

Praes, halfling priest of Talos (Grond0) & Dally, gnome illusionist (Gate70)

 

After taking the previous run to ToB this one proved (yet again) you must never let your guard down.

 

The session started with an assault on the basilisks - Praes initially meleeing them and then stepping back a bit with his sling after taking a couple of hits.  There was one oddity when Praes used her special lightning ability on a basilisk at the top of the map and the lightning rebounded all the way south to hit Kirian!  As a result, after Mutamin had been silenced and disposed of, Kirian's party were hostile.  However, blind and silence worked their magic and a couple of skeleton warriors helped hunt down the blinded enemies.

 

After saving Arabelle the duo were on their way to Firewine Bridge to confront Meilum.  I wasn't paying close enough attention and when an ambush triggered a basilisk got a gaze attack away before I paused - by that time it was too late to use a potion of invisibility and Praes was left by Dally to decorate the landscape.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Hard luck Gate/Gron0. Or should I say Hard Intelligence as luck runs out.

 

I am trying anoher no killing low experience run, this time with a fighter illusionist thief which my set-up allows without using Shadowkeeper.

 

Fit the Squeamish is a Svirfneblin. This gives a hard hit on experience but gives extra dex and wisdom at the expense of constitution and charisma. This explains the 1 charisma and 19 dexterity.

 

Str 18/61 Dex 19 Con 17, Int 19, Wis 16, Cha 1

 

Fit had to leave Candlekeep very quickly as Sir Trun got angry when he was pickpocketted. However, he did not react immediately and at a second attempt, Fit was able to steal a medium shield +1 before running. Fortunately he had already used oil of speed in the training room.

Edit

Forgot to mention that svirfneblin also cast invisibility, blur and mirror image once per day. This will be highly useful for non-violent character.

[corey_russell]

Tough break there Grond0/Gate70. I hope Tcos/Zaxxon don't meet a similar fate...

[Grond0]

Spectre - human monk (3rd and final update)

 

Before going to the City Spectre quickly completed a number of reputation tasks, bought the Claw and Horn of Kazgaroth and collected the charisma and wisdom tomes.

 

On to Baldur's Gate to track down more tomes.  Jalantha was stunned and subsequently scared and chopped down.  Handing over her sphene gem to G'axir the Seer got Spectre his last BG1 level.  The 9 HPs for that took him to 67 - a whopping 11.5 above average.  This is definitely a character to try and look after.  

 

Marek failed to even test Spectre's amulet protection and the strength potion used to get into Ramazith's Tower made a nasty one-shot mess of the mage - the intelligence tome there allows Spectre to now use wands and scrolls.  

 

At Candlekeep he used his new ability to read scrolls and added a cloud giant strength potion to loot the tombs (topping off with DUHM for the one with the strength tome).  Just in case of contingencies he'd brought along a protection from poison scroll, but that was not required.  He did. though, make use of the protection from petrification one after stealthing past the doppleganger and Prat - the basilisks both failed against horror anyway and were quickly killed in the close confines of the cave.

 

I remembered to go and get a few things out of storage before commencing the final series of battles.  Slythe was drawn away from Krystin and stunned.  At the palace Spectre potioned up before showing himself.  His first horror affected 1 doppleganger and his second none, but several of the dopplegangers attacked him rather than the dukes.  They did get a couple of criticals on him, forcing him to run and use darts of stunning on the last 2 active ones, but he successfully saved both the dukes. 

 

He used a potion of absorption for protection in the maze, but left most of the enemies alone and moved on to the temple.  As usual Sarevok was pulled out alone using a sling bullet before Spectre played hide and seek round the pillars until Sarevok grew too tired to play any more.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Congrats Grond0

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 54 - (update 1)

Jackie, halfling thief (Grond0) & Pariah, dwarf cleric (Gate70)

 

After the abortive end to our previous run we made a start with a new pair of randomly selected characters.  Our play was a bit experimental, checking out a few things about the way the BGEE works and there were a few risks taken  though nothing proved fatal.

 

There was the usual start with Shoal before going via Beregost to Nashkel.  Greywolf was held in order to get his sword, before the expedition moved into the Cloudpeaks.  Sendai took advantage of a lag hit there to kill Pariah, though Jackie got immediate revenge.  After a trip to the temple Sendai's archers also proved a problem with 2 rapid hits from Delgod putting Jackie in danger - fortunately though Pariah landed a hold person to end the danger.

 

There were no more problems in the Cloudpeaks, but on return to Nashkel Neira was a potential danger when she successfully cast rigid thinking on Pariah.  However, he had already commenced a hold person spell and that continued to stop Neira in her tracks.  Pariah then exposed himself a couple of times to set up backstabs.  First he showed himself to Bassilus and picked up another rigid thinking as a result - fortunately he didn't run into any further enemies and Jackie found a critical hit backstab to end the danger.  Shortly afterwards Zargal was hitting Pariah hard until he became a victim of another critical hit backstab.

 

One of the experiments carried out was to see whether silence would stop sirines casting charm.  It did, but the result was that the first group of sirines all targeted Pariah with arrows and he had to take a number of healing potions while getting into melee with them.  He was then affected by their feebleminding touch, but his AC proved good enough to keep him going until Jackie's arrows could finish off the sirines.  Pariah got to level 5 as a result of that encounter, so some skeletons became available to make the encounter with Sil much easier.  The flesh golems were mainly taken down by arrows, though Pariah did a bit of tanking as well.

 

The final area investigated included a mine site where Charleston Nib was given a helping hand.  We confirmed that the doomsayer was unaffected by missile weapons and cadged a lift with Brage back to Nashkel in order to get away from him.  That took reputation up to 19 and we'll be heading up to Ulgoth's Beard next time.

 

 

Stats:

Jackie, thief 6, 37 HPs, 57 kills

Pariah, cleric 5, 39 HPs, 34 kills, 1 death

[Epsil0]

Good luck with your new duo, Grond. And good luck with that monk... They're so bloody fragile in BG1 and halfway at least into BG2 before Ioun stones come online.

Arkon the Elven Illusionist, second and final update

Around five minutes of further sloppy play seals Arkon's fate. The first wizard battle in the Cloakwood mines proves too much to handle with the Black Talon elites and their arrows: Arkon ate a flame arrow, a Scorcher, and two arrows that bypassed my +10 AC vs missiles. The mage died, but Arkon died with her. I think I'm done with spell casters for a bit... Somehow I vastly prefer the "beat of them with a piece of metal" style of playing to the save or die style.

 

Which leads to my next character:

Plat the Human Cavalier, first update

Stat total of 93: 18/29, 18, 18, 9, 13, 17. Proficiency points: 2 in dagger, one in longsword, one in two-weapon fighting. Plat's barely started out on his journey, just completing the standard ring-around-the-rosie of Shoal, gaining 23 HP for his troubles (and her larger trouble.) He also fought the wolf guarding Melicamp in melee, and lost half his health due to being unable to roll higher than a 10 for 4 rounds...

[corey_russell]

Congratulations, Spectre! I see Coremonk III will need to get to work to catch up...

[Grimwald the Wise]

Fit the Squeamish has got as far as the Gate and been told to go to the Iron Throne.

Current experience 315.

Method much the same as the last game except that he deliberately set off one trap before charming Davaeorn. The guards that arrived by setting off the trap were far more effective in killing Davaeorn.

 

Edit.

 

Koveras has just given me a ring. Now time for bed.

[corey_russell]

Coremonk III the Monk - FINAL BG 1 Update!

Traveling with: Kagain, Branwen, Imoen, Xan

 

Coremonk III's party handled the quests/battles in the Gate pretty well. When we talked to Degrodel, we chose the "We want to die." option - this leads to more experience. We just made sure to put Kagain in the room by himself, and the party carefully worked their way back into the room - a few gnoll distractions helped Kagain do the job.

 

The 5th floor of the Iron Throne building was defeated by spamming fear wands for 3 rounds and also fireballs for 3 rounds. Then straight melee/ranged finished off the survivors.

 

Candlekeep was pretty easy with Imoen's excellent thief work. For Prat, Kagain charged, heavily buffed, then Xan and Imoen threw in a few fireballs for a few rounds to finish it up.

The last level we wanted (level 9 for Xan) was achieved, so we skipped the nearby spiders. Mirror eyes potion used for Kagain to take out the baslisks.

 

We tried out a new spell in the Gate - Xan cast feeblemind on Slythe - Slythe just stood there to take a beating and not fighting back! That works great, might use it again some day...

 

Time for Duchal Palace. Haste potions on everyone strength potions for Coremonk III and Kagain, who were going to get into the melee. We failed to save Liaa, but Belt survived. A slow by Xan was pretty helpful.

 

Fighting in the maze was pretty straight-forward, with Imoen once again doing fantastic thief work. We got Kagain 100% cold resistance then he threw axes at the skeleton warriors - very slow, but eventually the skeleton warrior ran out of arrows, so that was the cue the party used to charge, and finish off these undead.

 

Iron Throne Undercity Party was skipped (e.g., went to the Temple of Bhaal the long way).

 

Sarevok Battle

We didn't have a lot of buffs, though we did have fire resistance and haste potions. Imoen was charged with dispelling Sarevok's haste and triggering the battle. However, Imoen did far better than that - she pulled Sarevok by himself! Sarevok wasn't able to call for his buddies!!!

 

Good girl, Imoen! Strategy was simple - everyone ranged attacked, with whoever Sarevok is targeting running all around, but careful to not be seen by the still inactive Sarevok acolytes - this got him to near death, and a little more range attacking/evading and Sarevok falls!

 

Coremonk III did a lot of melee this run, but it was scary at times, with his health dropping rapidly many times, but running away to heal and then return to the action always worked - at least for BG 1 it did.

 

Final Coremonk III stats:

[Grimwald the Wise]

Corey. Are you aware that if you take him the helm, he sets another bunch of monsters on to you?

 

Admittedly, I usually attack him without provocation after he has given me the scrolls.

[corey_russell]

In my install, if I take him the helm, he will take it and disappear - I prefer to keep the helm most of the time.

[ussnorway]

Well done cory_russell... does Monk still add wisdom bonus to armour with your build?

[corey_russell]

Thanks USSNorway - I don't think so, I didn't read anything like that in the kit description. I'm just EasyTutu.

[Grond0]

Well done with Coremonk, Corey.  See you at Mel's place!

 

In vanilla monks could wear Keldorn's armour (if stats were high enough), but there was no wisdom bonus as such so the monk's natural AC was better than the armour at high levels (the wisdom bonus is 3rd edition I think).

[Grond0]

Good luck with your new duo, Grond. And good luck with that monk... They're so bloody fragile in BG1 and halfway at least into BG2 before Ioun stones come online.

Thanks Epsil0.  I agree monks are very fragile for a long time in the game, but that can be addressed by taking advantage of their speed and stealth abilities.  Given patience I think getting one through SoA should be easy enough, though I don't have enough experience of their HLA use to know how doable ToB will be.

 

Sorry to hear Arkon didn't make it - I hope you find Plat more to your taste.

[corey_russell]

Well done with Coremonk, Corey.  See you at Mel's place!

 

Thanks! I hope I make it there, will try to take better care of this monk. Already I think I'm on a good start for that, I brought the claw over to help with spell saves.

[Epsil0]

Plat's definitely more to my taste, which is kind of a pity, since I LIKE the idea of spell casters and that great game of chess against each other... But I don't have the patience to dart things to death afterwards. Might have to just be a blaster to get it to work.

 

Plat: Human Cavalier, second and final update.

The rest of the Sword Coast proves relatively easy, if nowhere as quick as some of you others. Only touch-and-go moment was forgetting Davaoern's sequence of spells: EE adds a Hold Person that's not normally there, but a quick potion of Freedom puts an end to that. Other than that, Plat got in danger a few times from hard hitting melees, but potions while kiting slowly whittled them away... Throwing daggers end Sarevok's life as Plat plays merry-go-round-the-Bhaal-symbol after finishing off his help. Sadly, a mage teleports in front of him and suddenly Plat's memory goes blank... Let the torture via Jon begin.

 

Moving on to BG2EE, final stats of 19/19/19/9/13/18, double pips in dagger, two-weapon-fighting, and single pips in Longsword and Flails. I don't intend to use Carsomyr, thus no Bastard sword proficiency in the works. He ended with 91 HP, rolling 41 on 7d10, which has an average of 38.5. 2 1/2 HP above average.

 

I'll actually start to role-play Platt in SoA: we'll see how this turns out... 

[Grimwald the Wise]

Fit he Squeamish managed to get the invitation. He buffed up so as not to be vulnerable to Slythe's attacks and then charmed Slythe. He tried to pickpocket the invitation but that proved to be impossible. Fit therefore moved Slythe so that his erstwhile cohort could attack him which was done with Cloudkill and lightning bolts. It worked, but a nobleman and a courtesan also got killed in the process.  

 

Now for the palace. Current experience 609.

 

EDIT

 

The palace was a bit easier this time. Used the wand of sleep and the wand of fear. Healed Belt twice.

 

We were down to three doppelgangers all unconcious due to my fists. However, nobody would attack them, with the result that when they started fighting again Lila was killed.

 

Fit is now going shopping for the shadow armour which i can now afford, plus arrows of dispelling and other items. Fit will then be poor again.  

 

Experience still 609. Favourite weapon is of course fists.