I was thinking what was the best way to describe Corthief VI's progress - and the answer is, he's backstabbing his way success!
Using the sleep wand and necklace of missiles and stealth arrow shots, Corthief VI made his way to Mulahey - suprisingly, Corthief VI got a critical and one-shotted Mulahey - Mulahey didn't even get a chance to cast a spell or summon his minions.
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Next target, Nimbul - Nimbul was also one-shotted
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Using a haste potion and clarity potion, the sirines and golems guarding the CON tome were defeated. The CON tome doesn't actually help Corthief VI, except I can lose CON in the dream sequence in BG 2.
Corthief VI needed a bit cash, so he battled Ankhegs to get the loot in the Ankheg cave - VERY scary fights, as a thief. Once the loot was obtained, Corthief VI decided fighting Ankhegs is just way too risky, even with protection from acid. If I could stay at range, wouldn't be too bad, but they move into melee and trash Corthief VI - but Corthief VI managed to survive to complete his goal.
It was about time to deal with Karlat - opening backstab failed to faze him, so Corthief VI ran outside and Karlat followed him. Corthief VI tried to get enough distance to hide, but Karlat's morale broke when Silke got a staff hit on him. Karlat than ran inside the inn for protection - however, Corthief VI found him and backstabbed him dead.
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Perhaps it's time to deal with this Bassilus problem. While Corthief VI was protected, it didn't matter as Corthief VI backtabbed/ran/hid, and repeated until Bassilus was dead - Bassilus was never able to complete a spell before Corthief VI was already re-hid.
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Corthief VI found Tranzig, and a couple of backstabs sorted him out.
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For once, there was nothing at the Bandit Camp that my character needed. So Corthief VI joined the camp, talked Tazok down, and used a potion of absorption to loot the letters and re-hide before the enemy could talk to him - thus Corthief VI did not have to fight in Tazok's tent at all.
The Cloakwood was almost completely skipped - except the Hamadryad was taken out (easy experience and on the way). After the two guards of the bridge leading to the Cloakwood Mines were taken out, Corthief VI used fireballs-from-the-shadows trick to defeat all of Drassus' buddies - Drassus himself was taken out of his misery with a backtab.
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The Cloakwood Mine was mostly stealthed past, though Corthief VI did use some backstabs to finish off some ghasts. Davaeorn's guard had to be battled and defeated. Corthief VI de-trapped the 4 traps. Corthief VI then used stealth arrows shots on Davaeorn to whittle down Davaeorn's mirror images. Once clear, Davaoern himself was of course taken out by a backstab - Corthief's buffs were shield and potion of magic shielding.
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The way to Baldur's Gate is clear! Corthief probably won't do much there, as there's very little in terms of upgrades. So his stay is likely to be short. The run continues....
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Corthief VI the solo halfling thief - FINAL UPDATE!
I could comment on the tremendous progress Corthief VI had made since the last update, but all that really matters is his final battle. Once again, Corthief VI is at the Duchal Palace, Liia is dead, and Corthief VI is trying to use acid arrows to save Belt - there are two on him. However, there are 3 dopplegangers on Corthief VI, and with his bow equipped...
I'm not sure what to do here - if I run and save myself, Belt could die, but if I keep attacking the ones on the duke, then I die. This fight is so much easier for a solo fighter...
I have a reload just before entering the Palace, going to reload to see what I should have done (if anything...)
ussnorway, Epsil0, Blackraven and 1 other like this
Sorry to see that Corey - the Palace fight can be unforgiving, Setting traps before the fight commences is a possible way to even the odds for a thief.
Sorry to see that Corey - the Palace fight can be unforgiving, Setting traps before the fight commences is a possible way to even the odds for a thief.
Didn't have any available - used for Slythe, and was using same buffs for Duchal Palace fight. On reload, I succeeded. A thief just doesn't the dps needed to take the dopes fast (unlike a hasted, STR 25 fighter, using two hand weapons or dual-wielding). On my install the key is apparently my sleep wand. After two charges, all dopes are sleeping except one, and that one was chasing Corthief VI. Liia still died, but success.
If Grond0 can restart 11 times, guess I can restart twice, will restart Corthief VI.
Sorry about that Corey. My experience is that with loads of buffs a Thief can handle that battle like a fighter (violet potion from the Nashkel Carnival, fortitude, agility, 2-3 mind focusing, defense, speed, power, 2x magic protection). Arrows of dispelling to dispel their haste and melee attacks. Backstabs will kill in one or two hits, assuming you have enough invisibility potions or ring charges.
The Wand of Sleep surprised me. Never occurred to me, and now I think it works only in vanilla.
Sorry about that Corey. My experience is that with loads of buffs a Thief can handle that battle like a fighter (violet potion from the Nashkel Carnival, fortitude, agility, 2-3 mind focusing, defense, speed, power, 2x magic protection). Arrows of dispelling to dispel their haste and melee attacks. Backstabs will kill in one or two hits, assuming you have enough invisibility potions or ring charges.
The Wand of Sleep surprised me. Never occurred to me, and now I think it works only in vanilla.
Good luck with your next attempt.
I was of course loaded with buffs (still died). No, definitely didn't have enough invisibilities. And no, I wasn't vanilla, I was using EasyTutu.
The characters are rolled, the story has begun, the first death has been registered. Let's do this. Full modlist: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=KtsMAEGR Of note: Rogue Rebalancing, full SCS + tactical components, but no upgraded kobolds. I just noticed I have both BGTweaks Improved Shapeshifting and SCS' component of the same name. I have no idea how they interact. This is also a run on the EE's. Rhapsodian, Half-elf Skald, introduction:
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And his companions, in order of being rolled.
Frightful, the Elvish Archer
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Fang, the Half-elvish Avenger
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Wyvern, the Human Dragon Disciple
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Starting spells: Blind and Protection from Petrification
Captain, the Dwarfish Swashbuckler
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Tilly, the Halfling Wizard Slayer
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I ultimately went for a WS here, despite my last post. Something to note is that while BG2EE has had a patch that allows the Miscast magic to apply to ranged weapons, BGEE has not had that same patch as I thought it did as I started playing. Oh well! BG2's where it actually matters.
For those that don't know/don't remember what a RR Skald does, here's the kit: the Skald's Song grants friendly listeners +2 to damage, -2 THAC0, and -2 AC. It also claims it grants an Immunity to Fear, but I haven't seen that in action. On the negative side, all spells take +1 casting time. The song upgrades to bonuses of 3 at level 9, 4 at level 18, and 5 as an HLA. I will consider the run a failure if Rhapsodian gets a single kill.
We start by heading straight for the FAI, killing the ogre for the belts in around 3 seconds flat from seeing it to its death. And then as luck would have it, as we're heading to the FAI...
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Worst ambush for a level 1 party ever. Wyvern at least only costs 100 gold to raise, 100 gold that I already have. Tarnesh finds that his precast of Armor doesn't really stop the 11 - 13 APR heading his way at a +2 to hit, and falls before succeeding in casting a single offensive spell.
Shoal is killed, and I get into my first real scrap as I elect to fight the ogres, half ogres, and ogre berserkers in the same map, SCS' calls for help notwithstanding. We eventually get them all, though having Tilly kite 3/4 of them out of sight of the others while my others focus-fired the ones chasing Wyvern was interesting, to say the least. First level-ups for Rhapsodian and Captain.
Saving Melicamp was worth more level-ups, and by the time we clear the spiders and do other Beregost tasks, all of us were either level 2 or level 3. Karlat almost kills Tilly, but she escapes to live another day while the song-boosted missiles finally do him in. Four castings of Pro. Petrification were used on Rhapsodian, Tilly, Wyvern, and Frightful to face the basilisks and Mutamin. A Blind from Wyvern (first successful all game...) shut the gnome down from being even a possible danger. Wyvern's last casting of Pro. Petrification for the day goes to Frightful as the others return to the safety of the side of the man, and she and Korax finish clearing out the bottom of the map.
Records and stats:
Rhapsodian, Skald 4, 33 HP. * Bastard Sword, ** Sword and Shield style. No kills.
And check that, as two Sleep spells from a random mage at the carnival spells the doom for this team. I really ought to get above level 4 before threatening anymore mages... Restarting from Candlekeep.
Alesia_BH, Serg BlackStrider, Blackraven and 1 other like this
And check that, as two Sleep spells from a random mage at the carnival spells the doom for this team. I really ought to get above level 4 before threatening anymore mages... Restarting from Candlekeep.
The carnival mage's thought process is for sure something like: "Let me set up shop at the carnival and be underestimated, I'll totally have the most PC kills". I always skip him when I absolutely do not want to die.
Didn't have any available - used for Slythe, and was using same buffs for Duchal Palace fight. On reload, I succeeded. A thief just doesn't the dps needed to take the dopes fast (unlike a hasted, STR 25 fighter, using two hand weapons or dual-wielding).
If you don't mind being a bit cheesy you don't need any buffs for Slythe - just stack up traps and lead him into them. You can then do the same at the palace - resting in between laying 7 traps.
The monks continued on to the basilisk area - getting up to level 5 there by finishing off Kirian's party.
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The only potentially dangerous moment in that area was when a basilisk turned up half-way across the map from its normal position (I presume having been activated by Mutamin when he ran away scared).
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However, it didn't get a chance to focus its gaze before Spook arrived to tank it with his green scroll protection. There was a similar story in an ambush after leaving the area.
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With no casualties to this point I took the precaution of giving Spook green scroll acid immunity to take on the ankhegs - that probably saved his life when I decided to explore the farmland a bit after clearing the nest.
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Shortly after that Wraith had taken over tanking duties to kill the required ankhegs for Gerde's quest and was hit by a critical. While running away another shot targeted her and she was about to die - but I decided to save her with a first use of a healing potion (actually an extra-healer, although as it turned out a standard one would have been just enough).
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After shopping at Ulgoth's Beard the next stop was Durlag's Tower. The Wand of Heavens did some good work there, before they hit a ghastly problem. First there was a close call when playing with one lot of ghasts.
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Then, while trying to rest to heal the damage from that, Phantom ran down to the bottom area while dodging some ambushers. There he triggered a confusion trap that I'd forgotten about and 4 new ghasts homed in on him. With his life measured in seconds the others tried using a couple of last-ditch fireballs, but it was too late to save him.
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Deciding to carry on anyway the party went to find a temple before returning and immediately ran into further problems when Spook put in a run of poor attacks and was petrified when his potion ran out against one of the greater basilisks on the roof (he should really have been given Meilum's bracers, though he would have expected to win inside 10 rounds anyway). I had noticed that his attacks had been poor and a couple of the other monks had already been moving up stealthily to support - but they were slightly too slow.
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No scroll was immediately available, so there was another trip to the temple before returning to recruit him again.
That action was done last night and I've just been reading about Arkona's exploits: will her story inspire me to take more care of the monks ?
Chimera - L5, 33 HPs, 56 kills
Spectre - L5, 28 HPs, 81 kills, 0 deaths
Phantom - L5, 30 HPs, 48 kills, 1 death
Wraith - L5, 40 HPs, 44 kills, 0 deaths
Spook - L5, 41 HPs, 55 kills, 1 death
Spirit - L5, 35 HPs, 28 kills, 0 deaths
ussnorway, Serg BlackStrider and realmuzzy like this
My experience is that with loads of buffs a Thief can handle that battle like a fighter (violet potion from the Nashkel Carnival, fortitude, agility, 2-3 mind focusing, defense, speed, power, 2x magic protection).
I've soloed the SCS version of the fight with thieves on multiple occasions and I've found the same.
I don't allow potions to stack, so I don't double up on Potions of Mind Focusing, etc, but I use a similar brew. The only addition would be a Potion of Regeneration. I skip the Potion of Magic Protection and use Potions of Clarity or a Protection from Magic scroll depending on the install.
The Golden Girdle also helps, as does wearing unenchanted studded leather in the armor slot so that the -2 adjustment to slashing can be taken along with the -2 from a protection item and the 0 base from a Potion of Defense
Backstabs will kill in one or two hits, assuming you have enough invisibility potions or ring charges.
Agreed. In one run, I chose to expend most of the Potions of Invisibility in this fight. That worked out nicely.
The Wand of Sleep surprised me. Never occurred to me, and now I think it works only in vanilla.
That won't work in SCS with the Improved Dopplegangers.
Another approach I've taken with a thief is to fade, use Arrow of Dispelling->Dart of Stunning, and let the Flaming Fist finish the stunned doppelgängers.
Eriax and the freshly revived Dorn return to the place of Dorn's death to see if any of his leftover items remain. Sadly they find only two scrolls. Eriax summons his army of protectors and they continue on. Nearby they are surprised by a huge group of ogres and similar creatures. Fortunately they are all slow and easily taken care of using hit and run tactics.
Further south they hear sirine song. Eriax blesses his skeleton army and sends them scouting. They indeed find sirines and attack while Eriax persistently casts silences in their direction. When the sirines are silenced he and Dorn join in with missile attacks
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and the sirines die soon after.
After a rest they head south when they are yet again ambushed by a mercenary party. They see clerics casting and since there's no sign of other spell casters they decide their first action should be taking their potions of free action. Dorn charms one of the rogues and sets her on interrupting clerics, while Eriax prays for help and malisons the other enemies.
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Unfortunately Dorn gets afflicted with rigid thinking but Eriax and the charmed rogue are more than enough to finish the encounter. They wait out for Dorn to come to his senses and execute the remaining assassin. (*This is a minor problem with using PnP free action, the clerics were spamming hold into free action before in the end going for rigid thinking*)
They rest and go further south where they encounter an entire tribe of sirines. They kill them, including their chieftain Sil and claim their nasty arrows and precious pearls. In the area they find a cave guarded by flesh golems, clearly a wizard's stash. They kill the golems and loot the treasures for themselves. Thalantyr informs them they found a manual of bodily health which Eriax uses to improve his stamina, while Dorn finally gets to the next level of bow using ability.
Dorn approaches Eriax with some information about one of his ex-party members, and Eriax agrees to go hunt her down. They find her far south surrounded by an undead army she raised. Eriax has undead of his own, and even though the necromancer miraculously resists his silence she immediately gets poisoned by Dorn and dies
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Afterwards the duo decides to go check out the Firewine ruins. They are impressive but there doesn't seem to be anything of value left there anymore. They do find a peasant claiming to be the most skilled swordsman of the Sword Coast. Dorn immediately attacks him to demonstrate what a ludicrous notion that is and the peasant is split in half in two massive hits
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Xvim smiles on putting peasants in their place and Eriax gains an access to an even greater level of power. They spend the night in the halfling village of Gullykin before returning back to Beregost.
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Their next stop is the ruined Ulcaster school. As they approach the ruins Eriax summons some skeletons and they start exploring. They are intercepted by an ancient skeletal warrior who immediately attacks. Eriax equips his girdle of blunting and drinks a potion of absorption to protect against this unknown threat and they comfortably beat the skeleton down.
The skeleton has some tricks up his sleeves however, as he gets invigorated mid fight and thunderbolts start shooting down on them. Fortunately, Eriax has another potion of absorption, Dorn has his boots of grounding and the skeletons are naturally resistant so this new tactic does not benefit the skeletal warrior much.
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They rest and enter the underground level of the school. Eriax immediately summons help and they start exploring. Nothing particularly eventful happens until they reach an antechamber to an obviously larger room. Eriax detects a trap using his divine sense and Dorn protects himself and goes to diffuse it. Sensing danger they use all of their battle prayers. Since Eriax is powerful enough now to make them act freely under any circumstance and they are both naturally immune to fear they fear comfortable stepping in. A giant wolf appears, who they fight head on without taking too much damage. The wolf summons some undead minions and other wolfs but they can't really do much to the heavily armored duo.
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After the wolf is dead they loot the treasure he was guarding including a tome that they give to a ghost outside because they have no use for it. Back in Beregost they sell and identify the various items they acquired. That night Eriax decides he can't avoid the question of the iron crisis and his involvement in it any more. The best plan is to infiltrate the bandit camp from inside and find the leaders of the organization. Eriax heard reports of brigands in Larswood and Peldvale so that's where they go, in search of a group they could approach as recruits.
They find on in Larswood and their intimidating presence and obvious strength quickly convinces the brigands they mean business. The brigands take them to the camp and introduce them to their superior Tazok. Tazok immediately attacks and as he's hasted and Eriax is loath to use his potion of speed he takes quite a few hits before Tazok gives up and decides they are worthy to join. Eriax spends the night praying over his many injuries and readies himself for the confrontation next morning.
In the morning they easily find the tent of the bandit leaders and Eriax silently prays to Xvim for guidance. As they enter they immediately start the fight. They survey their opponents and decide that with their heavy armor and good stamina they can tank the physical damage with health potions as long as they disable the mage.
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Eriax uses the quick casting malison to insure that nobody can resist Dorn's poison
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while Dorn zeroes in on the biggest orc archer. He chunks him in one massive critical hit and from there the fight is straightforward. They do take heavy damage but prevail in the end.
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They interrogate the rogue in the tent and after looting everyone and everything they go out. Eriax under cover of sanctuary and Dorn with his fingers on an invisibility potion. There's no need for the potion though because they mange to charm the mercenary captain Taugos
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who very effectively covers their retreat. They escape safely from the area even managing to return under the cover of night for the captain's beautiful armor.
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The letters they found in the bandit tent talk about an operation deep in the cloakwood so that's where they head next.
ussnorway, Serg BlackStrider and Blackraven like this
In Cloakwood their first encounter is with a group of druids who are threatening a hunting party. They kill the dirty forest dwellers who are powerless once Eriax silences the in the name of his god.
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The noble heading the hunting party rewards them with a potion and an invitation to visit if they are ever in Baldur's Gate. Going further into the woods they come up to a spider infested area. They are well prepared with both alchemical and divine ways of dealing with paralysis and poison. They clear out many spiders before coming upon a cave. As experienced adventurers they strengthen themselves as much as possible before entering. Inside, they find an abomination surrounded by many spiders. They draw the spiders out to finish them off with the assistance of Eriax's skeletal bodyguard
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Then they go back in and attack the abomination. The creature is clever enough to use a wand of frost, but the belt of antipode negates any threat such a wand might pose and they kill the creature looting the treasure it was guarding.
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They decide they had enough of spiders and head further into the woods. There they find a druid enclave. A couple of druid parties try to curtail their movement through the woods, which they are punished for.
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They also meet a strange man named Peter of the North who they kill. A hamadryad also tries to stop them from progressing through the forest but after a tedious hide and seek they kill her as she's running from Eriax's undead army.
Finally deep inside the forest they find a mine. They spot a few patrols so Eriax goes to investigate under the cover of sanctuary. Right at the entrance to the guarded compound he finds well armed mercenaries of the kind you kill without asking questions. The duo uses all of their prayers, and then Eriax asks for silence on the enemy party. They proceed to fireball them until the wizards are dead, unable to mount any defenses in the confusion. The duo then swoops in with their skeleton minions and they finish the wounded fighters.
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(*this was cheesy but that party would be really difficult for my guy without expending a lot of resources I might need later*) As their bags are full and supplies are dwindling they decide to go back to Beregost and return. They find out that now they are in possession of a Spider's Bane sword and boots of speed. Then they return to the mine.
ussnorway, Grond0, Blackraven and 1 other like this
To reduce brain strain I ignored strategy with the monks and concentrated on tactics as they cleared a few map areas to get up to level 6 - everyone got decent rolls there to move the overall party HPs back to just above average. They didn't have any real problems during that phase - the hardest fight was probably going back to finish off the Doomsayer,
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though there were a couple of big criticals from hobgoblin elites while clearing the lighthouse area.
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For a change no-one was either charmed or confused by either of the sirine groups at the lighthouse.
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Continuing to clear areas the monks returned to Firewine Bridge. A PFM scroll was used to defend against Kahrk's initial attacks, although that was a bit wasted due to his refusal to spend spells on it and a disappearing act requiring the others to show themselves. Getting the criticals needed to hit him and batter down his stoneskins was taking too long, so the Wand of Heavens (freshly recharged) did the damage.
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In the Firewine Ruins Spectre used green scroll fire and electricity protection to solo the maze, using potions to repair other types of trap damage. Lendarn followed him a long way and was stunned by stealth attacks from most of the others
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before a wand blast helped the ogre mage on his way.
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On exiting, Jenkal was stunned before the monks invested a strength potion to obtain another +1 sling.
I'd nearly finished clearing the areas south of Beregost and got a bit blase when taking on the final group of sirines. I didn't check stealth indicators properly and one of the monks became visible while approaching, leaving them rather exposed. An attempt to stun the sirines into submission proved costly when a charm turned a stunning blow against the party for the first time, resulting in Spook's death.
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With only 2 characters under control, Chimera used a potion of magic blocking to protect against another charm before running away - with the effect of dragging the charmed characters away to safety before the charm wore off.
The remaining party got some healing from the Surgeon and stealthed back to kill one of the sirines before I realised that was opening up a further XP gap (Spook already had the lowest XP). As a result they went to find a temple to get him raised - at which point I realised the others had not picked up his equipment. I expected that to have evaporated when they returned, but got lucky this time
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and the final sirine was stunned a few moments later.
Deciding that I'd been lucky to get away with a single death after a poor passage of play I took a break there ...
Eriax and Dorn are finally ready to go into the Cloakwood mine. First they travel just outside the mine area to give Dorn opportunity to rest because he gets tired easily with his relatively low constitution. Once they enter the mine itself they blaze through the first floor without much opposition. On the second floor they discover a secret tunnel that they hope leads directly to the next level. (*Improved calls for help didn't trigger the guard swarm I'm used to on this level. I don't know why it worked just fine in the bandit camp*) At the end of the tunnel is a prison though, not an exit. They ignore the slaves and prisoners and pray for help before opening the door.
There are guards on the other side that they start working through, but unfortunately the sounds of fighting attract a mage who manages to send a chaos spell their way.
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They both drink potions of invisibility, their investigation will have to continue in secret. They both save and immediately find the entrance to the next floor. Invisible, they easily navigate their way to the lowest floor which is clearly the residence of the master of the mine. They kill the bodyguard before he has a chance to react
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and prepare to face the one they are looking for. Dorn sets off a trap and immediately reacts with a scroll of magic immunity
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A mage greets him together with two animated suits of armor. Eriax asks for sanctuary while Dorn works on the guardians
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Dorn, not doing his best work, takes a long time to whittle them down and Eriax joins him for the final hit.
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In the meantime the mage has summoned a huge number of guards who are all forming a protective circle around him in one of the rooms. They all eat a series of fireballs for their effort, significantly thinning the number of the guards.
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The mag disappears and after drinking some healing potions appears immediately behind Eriax who is contending with the constantly incoming reinforcements. This forces a potion of magic blocking
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Dorn in the meantime uses his best poisoned arrows to shoot at the mage, poisoning him
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They chase the mage down and kill him
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and as they are running low on healing potions Eriax uses his mysterious ability to instill horror in the guards enabling them to pick them off one by one
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After such a draining fight they take a moment to recover before they loot the place, killing one of the mage's apprentices on the way. As they are escaping they arrange for the mine to be flooded. A slave approaches them to protest the killing of many innocent people in the mine, but they are too tired to punish him and hastily return to Beregost. There they rest for a long while and buy the relics of Kazgaroth before deciding on their next move.
So Corthief VII is underway (same picture/stats). Since he will be doing almost the exact same things as Corthief VI, will probably not post much about him until he gets where Corthief VI had problems, the Duchal Palace fight.
A quick update and question for the community. My character got bugged without me noticing, with the potion of magic blocking he drank at Daveorn's becoming permanent. So as I was fighting the Dorn quest encounter
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I'm like wait it says charmed but he's not charmed. In fact he has no buffs I just gave him either (the ones you can see on Dorn). Now as Dorn had negative saves with the claw and potion of invulnerability and the mage was just getting killed by the skellies I'm fairly certain I could have won the encounter but I guess I did benefit from the bug.
Should I continue? It turns out drinking another potion of magic blocking in game fixes the problem.
@realmuzzy: I'd say continue. Sometimes a bug works in one's favor, and sometimes a bug puts one at a disadvantage (without necessarily justifying a reload if things go south). Thankfully the former happened to you. Also, you weren't aware of the bug and you repaired it as soon as you noticed it.
Strange bug btw, and slightly annoying I'd say. Maybe you could report it over at the Beamdog forums.
A quick update and question for the community. My character got bugged without me noticing, with the potion of magic blocking he drank at Daveorn's becoming permanent. So as I was fighting the Dorn quest encounter
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I'm like wait it says charmed but he's not charmed. In fact he has no buffs I just gave him either (the ones you can see on Dorn). Now as Dorn had negative saves with the claw and potion of invulnerability and the mage was just getting killed by the skellies I'm fairly certain I could have won the encounter but I guess I did benefit from the bug.
Should I continue? It turns out drinking another potion of magic blocking in game fixes the problem.
Realmuzzy: You are not required to reload on bugs, it's just an option. By all means continue.
Great then! No retirement for Eriax. So I played some more and here is where the story continues.
Last we heard of Eriax and Dorn they killed Daveorn and shut down his mine. After returning to Beregost they bought the relics of Kazgaroth for Dorn and moved north to investigate this Irone Throne organization in Baldur's gate. On the road they killed a lot of ankhegs, including clearing out their lair. They also agreed to kill someone for the local fishermen and did so. As they were about to enter BG, Dorn warned Eriax that his nemesis was close so they prepared and killed the blackguard and his escort.
Having their bags full they decide to return to High Hedge and sell excess gear. Thalantyr recommends they check out his colleague in Ulgoth's beard, a village up north, and they do. There, when asking for directions a halfling woman rudely refuses to speak to Dorn who splits her in half. Nobody is particularly alarmed by this, she must have been rude to everyone in the village, so the two continue to Thalantyr's colleague and buy the greenstone amulet and a wand of heaven from him. Then they finally go to Baldur's Gate.
At the entrance they run into Elminster again, who Eriax doesn't really listen to. They decide to check out the closest tavern to the gates, where they immediately get approached with a business proposition. As the person approaching them is a gnome, and Eriax has a softness for the little folk not befitting his beliefs, he agrees to help the man for a fee. Outside the inn they are approached by a thief working for the local thieves guild who takes them to the guild leader. The guild leader has a similar business proposition that they also accept.
They decide to get rooms somewhere and wait for nightfall, and they settle on the inn in the fanciest part of town. There they share a drink with an adventuring group when a man interrupts them. The man dares to address them rudely so they attack. Everyone focuses the man except Eriax who is summoning skeletons, which are keeping the man's friends at bay.
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Unfortunately Dorn gets controlled and kills one of their allies who promptly turn on them.
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In the end they have to kill everyone, although they are satisfied with the result as they get double the useful items.
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On top of that they find an amazingly fine helmet hiding behind a painting.
When night falls they go to Sorcerous Sundries, the local wizard shop, where they discover their helm is the famous helm of Balduran and they also buy a sorely needed bag of holding. Then they go to the temple of Gond to steal the contraption needed by the gnome from the tavern by the city gates. At the temple they find a halfling woman, also trying to steal something, who is very chatty and clearly a bad rogue. Eriax has a weak spot for the little folk though so he agrees to work with the halfling. He gets his stuff, she presumably gets hers, and they part ways. He returns to his gnome employer who is very happy with the outcome and rewards them adequately. Xvim rewards his success with more power.
The same night they go to acquire the items needed by the thieves guild. They storm through the house where the items are but the sisters guarding them are reluctant to give them up. Fortunately they are weak mages and get split up and easily killed
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Killing the guards is something that will get out in the general public absolutely ruining their reputation so they spend some money at the temple of Gond to cover that up.
The next day as they are exploring the city two men approach them and warn them not to investigate the Iron Throne. Eriax wouldn't take notice of this, except one of the men appears again and says that he's under a geas and they are poisoned. The only way to remove the geas is using a scroll the high priestess of Umberlee has. They seek her out and she tells them she will give it to them only for the holy book of Tymora. She is really testing their patience. When they go to see the priests of Tymora and they refuse to give them the book Eriax suddenly realizes he is failing his god by being subservient to these people and slaughters everyone in the temple. Then he goes to the temple of Umberlee and slaughters everyone there, picking up what he needs from the corpses.
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They bring the scroll of geas to the man who requested it and he gives them the location of the assassin with the antidote they need. On the way to the inn where he is at they accept to kidnap a nymph for the mage Ramazith. In the inn an ogre tries to stop them from going upstairs but he is overmatched. Their target turns out to be a mage, but they are well prepared with an army of skeletons and the mage is soon dead.
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They drink the antidote and, safe again, they go and identify their newly acquired magical items.
There is so much to do as mercenary adventurers in the big city and so they also solve the case of a peeping tom, acquire Balduran's cloak from a prostitute whose lover they free from stone, kill some worshippers of entropy and more. More memorably they kill the mage Ragefast and take the nymph he's holding.
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They take the nymph to Ramazith, but there she beguiles them with her voice and they kill Ramazith on the spot
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The loot his body and his tower and then go to rest. They do eventually remember their purpose in Baldur's Gate and go see the commander of the city guard, Scar, to get some information. He sends them to investigate the Seven Suns merchant coaster. It turns out the place is infested with shapeshifter who they exterminate. Working within a system suits Eriax and it pays very well, so he accepts another assignment.
For this one they discover an ogre mage hiding in the sewers who's been killing people. He is surrounded by carrion crawlers but as Eriax and Dorn are both protected by free action they wade into melee countering the ogre mage's spells mainly with poson.
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Scar again rewards them well and introduces them to the Grand Duke who has need of their services. The job is to investigate the Iron Throne which suits Eriax perfectly. They spend the night planing and in the morning go to the Iron Throne building. There they find chaos, as the merchants are fleeing warning the duo about dangerous magics being performed on the top floor. They prepare well summoning lots of allies and using all of the prayers to Xvim they know. Dorn is the one to scout the top floor but he is seen and immediately attacked. A cleric follows him as he escapes downstairs, but is late to realize how foolish that decision was
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A brutish warrior is next but he is not prepared for the army of skeletons and falls quickly
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A mage and a hidden rogue come as backup, but the mage eats an arrow of dispelling
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and they are both torn apart by angry skeletons
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Another mage comes down, who they kill the old fashioned way
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Finally, evening the numbers they come upstairs and finish the stragglers. Cowardice is not rewarded.
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They return to the Grand Duke with what they've found and he immediately sends them to Candlekeep
*This fight is a little anticlimactic when you cheese it like this, compared to how fun it can be head on but I can't see another way to do it with a cleric and a blackguard. I'd love to read more interesting strats*
*This fight is a little anticlimactic when you cheese it like this, compared to how fun it can be head on but I can't see another way to do it with a cleric and a blackguard. I'd love to read more interesting strats*
I normally use the same strategy (not least because I mostly play rogues, the class that relies on surprise attacks). I'm sure it can be done with Dorn and a Cleric, but it might not be worth the expense of resources. Dorn would benefit from a PfMagic scroll, Cleric would have to quaff several anti-magic potions since they'll likely get dispelled. You'll probably also expend potions of healing, defense/invulnerability, heroism, invisibility, speed, strength, fire resistance, Necklace of Missile charges, Wand of Heavens charges, dispelling/detonation/elemental arrows and possibly more.
Rhapsodian and company (2), introduction and update 1:
Repost of the team, I had a save at Candlekeep from the MP port and didn't bother rerolling.
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And his companions, in order of being rolled.
Frightful, the Elvish Archer
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Fang, the Half-elvish Avenger
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Wyvern, the Human Dragon Disciple
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Starting spells: Blind and Protection from Petrification
Captain, the Dwarfish Swashbuckler
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Tilly, the Halfling Wizard Slayer
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Even though nobody really asked for it, here's my reasoning behind the team that I've formed. It's a bit weird to see a Wizard Slayer in a group specifically meant for power gaming, but I think it's logical in this case. It's built around the pros and cons of the RR Skald.
1.) Skald is a class that loves having friendly APR on its side, and is my CHARNAME. It's the one being built around.
2.) Skald is meant for bruisers and dealing with things that strike at AC.
3.) Unlike the RR Bard, though, they don't get a bonus to saving throws.
Conclusion: I'll be hitting ridiculously low ACs with my warriors, but I'm not going to be as hardy at surviving spells. Two ways around this: I either get several more mages to engage in a wizard's battle, or, as in my case, go for the Wizard Slayer armed with darts. 5 APR by level 9 at some ludicrous bonus gives a 50% miscast rate in the first round, MIs and Stoneskins notwithstanding. After IH, that's already 10 APR at approximately 90 - 100% spell failure. A combination of Pro. normal missiles and Pro. Magical weapons is going to make life difficult, though.
So the rest of the team is built for APR and role-filling. Archer is obvious, and the absurdity of this combination is already kind of apparent with a THAC0 of 7 at level 4. She'll be my lategame damage threat, able to hit basically anything that doesn't have some sort of missile protection up.
Divine role: Probably not needed, but I like having SOME healing without using potions. The Avenger is my early-game helper, with access to Webs to shut down problematic BG1 battles and later, Sword Spider form for that delicious 4 APR coming at level 7. Barkskin mitigates the awful armor selection. Also, he gets to summon powerhouses as a druid later, and I think that missing out of Skeletal warriors is worth it for Fire elementals. The other option for this role I thought about was Cleric of Helm, since they can get 3 APR with their Seeking Sword, but the additional casts of II and Web won me over.
Thief role: while I can see the appeal in Skald-assisted backstabs, I'm lousy at controlling thieves in large battles for backstabs. Thus Swashie it is, with the bonus AC, though Fighter/Thief was certainly a choice I could've gone for. It's mostly Benoni's demise that made my choice for me. Dual-wielding is going to be the next thing I'll build for Captain.
Mage role: Because, like it or not, I don't think I can run a full party in SCS without some sort of arcane backup. Rhapsodian doesn't really count, since he really doesn't have enough spell slots to keep both himself alive and the party buffed. In this case, I'm limiting myself to memorizing no direct-damage spells, instead going to be going for non-standard stuff like Spirit Armor, or IH. Really, IH's going to murder things this game... Dragon Disciple is probably actually weaker than Sorcerer STILL in this situation, but the laughs and giggles of getting an additional -5 AC alongside the Skald Song's eventual -5 AC, and that's before any DEX or bracers or spells... I think I can pull this off.
Anyways. Back to the update.
Route is still basically the same early-game, though we aren't ambushed and Wyvern doesn't die. Tarnesh actually gets a spell off this time, but it was a disabler while the fatal missile was already midair. Melicamp died too, otherwise that part was the same. We did get a casualty at the Basilisks though as Mutamin cast Remove Magic at Tilly, and she failed her saving throw vs Petrification. No chunk, so we finished Mutamin after he finally ran out of spells, and ran back to get a scroll after Korax died; calls for help managed to turn two of Kirian's party aggressive without talking while Frightful with the last Pro. Petrification chased down Mutamin.
I don't feel too bad about offscreen bombing if I have an invisible character scout them out first. Their fault for having no divinations, right? So utilizing Fang's kit's perks...
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Well then.
We complete a couple more fetch quests before heading south and west. First, Greywolf is blinded and summarily executed for a sword that no one's proficient with and his experience, and then we have the joy of transitioning and trying to rest while 10,000 Flinds try to wake us up. I have absolutely no pity for Sendai's small in-the-past-fatal-to-me squad of archers, and Web them, but that's not why I'm showing this screenshot.
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See that 10 damage? That's from a dart. Here's Tilly's character record at the time:
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6 - 8 damage. This is a minor bug that I can't really do anything about, but it's absolutely beneficial to me. It turns out that the duration of the Skald's song is minutely, minutely longer than the 6-second round, and so the song can and will stack, so if something is thrown the instant a new round begins, there's an additional Skald's Song bonus attached. I do wonder, though, how this will interact with Extended Song, a HLA that supposedly makes the song last for 3 rounds. We'll see, if we ever get that far...
Stats:
Rhapsodian, Skald 5. 39 HP (6 from Familiar) * Bastard sword (his strength's too low to even wield one of these...), ** Sword and Shield style. 0 kills
Wyvern, Dragon Disciple 4. 26 HP. * Sling. 14 kills, Ghoul. New spellbook additions: Shield and Invisibility.
Frightful, Archer 4. 30 HP. ** Shortbow, *** Crossbow. 79 kills, Shoal the Nereid. THAC0 of 7 without the stacking Skald's song, and dealing 7 - 12 damage with regular arrows. I should've named her Machine Gun or something like that...
ussnorway, Serg BlackStrider, Grond0 and 1 other like this
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This is also a run on the EE's.
