16394 replies to this topic

[Epsil0]

Benoni(5), or 7, depending on how you want to count my rerolls. Two I just restarted since I didn't feel right with having the new incarnations of Benoni start at 18 STR. I'll still be going through the route marked by the previous story-tellings, 

Update 1: http://forum.bioware...nge/?p=19318007

Update 2: http://forum.bioware.com/topic/124374-baldurs-gate-1-no-reload-challenge/?p=19341020

Update 3: http://forum.bioware.com/topic/124374-baldurs-gate-1-no-reload-challenge/?p=19565765

Update 4: http://forum.bioware.com/topic/124374-baldurs-gate-1-no-reload-challenge/?p=19579361

As the story for BG1's more or less complete with those four posts, I'll just go into details on some specific fights that I've kept records of. SCS is being... interesting to me. I've been cutting across it with backstabs, though, mostly.

 

The only appreciable difference is the 15 STR over 14 of last run; the ability to wear Full Plate is just a bit too convenient to give up.

 

Shoal is darted, and I go to the FAI as I'm supposed to. I know Tarnesh can end runs with Sleep + whatever here, so I start off with a Backstab. It works: his morale breaks, leaving me and the guards to pick him off at our leisure:

 

I take a short detour from my story route to use the 9k gold to purchase the Cloak of Displacement and the Greenstone Amulet: I have no idea which SCS mages are going to be throwing out mind-disablers. Ogre and spiders are as easy/kitingly boring as ever, and traveling to Nashkel for the PFP scroll is uneventful, but Mutamin... Mutamin was interesting. He defeated Korax 1-on-1, as he'd hit me with a Ray of Enfeeblement somehow and I couldn't get in view of him, so Korax wouldn't attack. This left me in the awkward position of already having an 8-hour scroll on me that as far as I know is unrenewable, 7k experience just sitting there, and a hasted mage in between that I've seen use Remove Magic before in the past. I cleared the basilisks at the lower edge of the map first, no problem. Level 5 thief is important, since this gives me access to 3x backstabs. Then I head back to Mutamin, thinking that I could get him to cast a spell, I move back to stealth, and the spell would be wasted.

 

This failed, but failed in possibly the best possible way for a Thief:

I'm blinded. My sight range is now pathetic, but a Thief's Hide in Shadows is calculated by the character's Line of Sight, not the actual monsters! This means I can now hide literally in full view of everyone. Mutamin's book is now mostly tapped, I think, so a few more stealth-backstabs later...

Right. My only sword I have is broken, and I still have two basilisks to go. Solution? Mutamin drops a staff... The sad thing is that this takes so freaking long to finish off the basilisks using unproficient 1-6 damage x3 backstabs, the Blindness spell of 10 rounds wears off before I back...bludgeon the last one to death.

 

Onto Nashkel! Another longsword proves sufficient to kill Greywolf without issues: the rock outcropping is perfect for thieves to lose vision for a split second and hide for another backstab. Varscona is a welcome upgrade. Mulahey bugs out slightly: I think that if you straight-up attack him the NPC project or something causes a script to keep running, and he never attacks or calls for reinforcements. I'm kind of OK with this though: 

 

Stealth allows me to wait out Nimbul's stone skins peeling off by guards. 

 

A guard steals the kill, but I'm not too concerned at this point. 

I don't feel too bad at all for going in and out of the door to interrupt Neira's spells this time, since as a Thief I've been using the "activate spell, move away, hide in shadows" trick anyways: the outside of the inn just provides an easy place to hide in shadows. The end is inevitable: 

 

Tarnesh is backstabbed to break morale, falls to the end of my blade.

Feeling like I was cheated out of a proper Cleric battle, I go to finish off Bassilus. He's a bit trickier since I really would like to activate his dialogue to get him to destroy his own undead army... but that also lets all his prebuffs fire and his first spell to cast. First spell is an Invisible Stalker which I decide to sleep it out. After that, with all the skeletons down and the fact that it was now night and my HiS checks that less likely to fail, I take him on with the Wand of Magic Missile interrupting casts and the stone-henge-esque arrangement provides ample space to stealth. Two Sanctuaries are cast to heal, but he breaks both of them with spells that aren't allowed to make their mark, stealthing away or interrupting every one. The end is in sight:

 

Last event is the Amazonian ambush. Benoni immediately quaffs an Invisibility potion, then a Potion of Freedom and a Potion of Invulnerability under invisibility. A backstab almost kills one of them, but then the combined firepower of... 6 things, at this point, with two summoned Skeletons, proves too much to stay in melee, and I can't use backstabs anymore. The Fire Arrows make considerably damage on Benoni, and 6 or so potions have to be drunk to stay alive. Darts eventually slay all of them, and we headed back to High Hedge and the Temple to replenish potion stocks. Ben's approaching the Sirines now, and will finish that and the Ankhegs before approaching the Bandit Camp.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Bad luck ... btw until now I didn't knew that the golems are supposed to be hostile until you've talked to Thalantyr for the first time. Strange... never paid attention but never got attacked either.

 

You've been lucky then. There is a conversation with someone that warns you that you need to speak to him quickly, but I've forgotten who with.

[ussnorway]

Of course it is fine looking. It's me, as you probably realised.

Only 3 charisma? I don't think he looks THAT bad...

[Faazazel]

Maybe he's only rude?

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 90 - (update 1)

Fael, halfling thief (Grond0) & Nock, elf archer Gate70)

 

We just had time yesterday to generate a new pairing and send them off to sort out Shoal.  Thus far Fael has struggled to hit the side of a barn door, but fortunately is travelling with someone who knows which end to hold a bow.

 

 

Stats:

Fael, thief 73 20 HPs, 0 kills

Nock, archer 2, 21 HPs, 11 kills, 0 deaths

[Grond0]

Nippy - melee sorcerer {2} (update 1)

 

Nippy has restarted his quest to make progress while only killing things in melee.  Nippy's first attempt showed that should be possible with minimal risk at least up until Davaeorn and he will be trying to put the lessons learned into practise.  However, he has had a couple of undocumented further failures (being careless with Shoal and getting poisoned by Landrin's spiders), so will need to be more careful this time.

 

He avoided the risk of attacking Xzar and Montaron this time and headed for Shoal.  To minimise the prospects of her running away while blinded she was taken to near death with darts before being blinded and then chilled out.

Spoiler

 

In Beregost Algernon was killed with a view to getting LMD (a controllable source of damage to allow enemies to be taken a bit nearer to death).  Nippy then made his way on the back roads to find Brage and get a lift to Nashkel.  At the Carnival he killed Oopah to get to L4.  

Spoiler

Up to this point he could safely attack in melee only enemies with the very slowest weapon speeds, due to the random initiative roll in combat.  Now, with invisibility, he can get free attacks on wounded enemies as well as travel safely - so should be set to make plenty of further progress.

 

Sorcerer L4, 17 HPs, 16 kills

 

I thought I'd add to each post a list of the mage spells Nippy intends to take at each level with a brief rationale for their selection:

 

Level 1 spells

Blind

Provides the ability to soften opponents up before engaging in melee, although the SCS tendency to run all over the place when blinded can still make that quite difficult to do.

Chill touch

The +4 to hit and elemental damage are both helpful early on (the THAC0 penalty on opponents much less so).  The weapon is coded as non-magical, so may also be useful later against mages running PfMW.  Incidentally I haven't seen mentioned in previous posts about chill touch that it is possible to dual-wield while using it - the THAC0 of 32 off-hand for Nippy at 1st level may not look attractive , but could still be useful if opponents are disabled.

Identify

The first Nippy took shield here, but that's pretty easily provided by equipment and the effects in any case can be duplicated using other spells.  Identify saves a bit of money, but for my purposes its main benefit is to help manage inventory (I don't allow bags of holding in BG1, so am constantly struggling with backpack space).

Friends

Allows charisma to be boosted to 20 to maximise shopping benefits.

PfE

The AC improvement potentially helps a bit in combat.  Nippy would not want to be relying on that much, but it could be useful in larger scale fights - such as with the dopplegangers at the palace.

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 90 - (update 2)

Fael, halfling thief (Grond0) & Nock, elf archer Gate70)

 

This pairing made some decent progress yesterday.  

 

The early route was standard - through Beregost to Nashkel and then on to the basilisks.  The latter were quickly shot down and the same happened to Mutamin despite a critical miss on a backstab.

Spoiler

Korax allowed Kirian and Baerin to be killed, but there was a potential problem when Peter held Nock.  Fortunately he had been running away at the time and Peter did not investigate, while Lindin chose to run back to his compatriot rather than press the attack, so Fael did not need to provide a distraction.

Spoiler

 

Selling equipment at High Hedge the duo chose to shoot down the golems for a bit of extra XP before talking to the mage.  Moving on they took revenge on Zargal for a recent death

Spoiler

before a potion of clarity allowed Fael to occupy the sirines' attention while Nock shot them down.

Spoiler

 

A few reputation tasks were given a good start by the successful transformation of Melicamp.  While travelling round Fael made use of traps for the first time to badly wound Silke and allow Nock to finish her off before she could react.  

Spoiler

After that fight Nock was wandering round and accidentally activated Neera.  Fortunately the duo had plenty of levels by this time and killing the attacking mage was easy - Neera was then relieved of her gem bag.

 

Greywolf was surprisingly quick on the attack - hitting Fael twice as he ran away towards Nock.  However, the bounty hunter was quickly slowed down by the weight of arrows in his guts and Fael was pleased to inherit his sword.  

Spoiler

With reputation already up at 20 the tasks at Candlekeep just added a bit of XP - and a rare kill for Fael.

Spoiler

 

The ankhegs were cleared on the way to Ulgoth's Beard.  

Spoiler

We hadn't originally expected to attack them all, but they struggled to hit Nock dressed in his ankheg armour and he only took 2 lots of damage - one of those was by an ankheg switching to melee which proved hard to hit (it seems they can no longer continue to be targeted underground as in vanilla) and Fael had to resort to setting a trap.

 

The Nashkel Mine was very quick - stealthing down to Mulahey, a backstab then made his morale fail so that no creatures were summoned.  

Spoiler

Outside, a few traps were set for amazons in case they were getting the better of the exchanges and started chasing - but the traps weren't needed.  Backstabs one-shotted Nimbul,

Spoiler

while Tranzig tried (and failed) to run as a result of his backstab.

 

At the Bandit Camp the bandits consistently failed to get the critical needed to hit Nock.  Inside the main tent Nock managed to disrupt Venkt's mirrors and quickly killed him, while Hakt was chunked by an initial backstab to make finishing the others off relatively easy.

Spoiler

 

After stealthing through the Cloakwood Drasus was pulled into a couple of traps before Genthore was shot down.  The mages both attacked as he fell and managed to confuse Nock, but as they moved forward in unison they were both killed by the same trap.  

Spoiler

Inside the mine more stealth took the duo down to Davaeorn.  Fael managed to disarm the traps that generate battle horrors, allowing Nock to use stealth shots at Davaeorn and he fell without managing to complete any significant spells.  

Spoiler

The final action of the session was to flood the mine.

 

Stats:

Fael, thief 7, 38 HPs, 43 kills

Nock, archer 6, 69 HPs, 157 kills, 0 deaths

[Grond0]

Nippy - melee sorcerer {2} (2nd and final update)

 

Nippy started upgrading his reputation with an attack on Greywolf. He runs all over the place when blinded and Nippy had to rest invisible once before getting Greywolf to chase him, while blasting him 3 times with the wand of frost.  Invisibility and some chilling attacks then provided the finishing touch.

 

Back at the Carnival invisibility allowed him to take a critical miss at Vitiare and retreat without getting pick-pocketed, before getting it right the second time.

 

Nippy did a bit of work in the Cloakwood while increasing reputation.  His chill touch chunked the occasional victim, but luckily it was Vax there rather than Zal that was reduced to fragments.  He also took Samuel back to the FAI - taking advantage there of a ring-boost to his spellpower.

 

Doing a bit of cleaning up he was passing through the lake area where Drizzt is when he decided to kill Teyngan's party.  All of them were successfully blinded, though it took 4 attempts to do so against Teyngan.  He then started using missile weapons to wear Teyngan down, but needed criticals to do that and I wasn't paying attention to how long that was taking.  It was thus a total surprise when Nippy was suddenly affected by a horror spell - Jemby had been left half a map away, so shouldn't really have been able to track him down.

Spoiler

 

He did manage to run away from Jemby after suffering a chromatic orb, but then activated some dogs and one of those finished him off.

 

For the second time I would count that as rather an unfair death, so will start him again ...

[ussnorway]

That Mage dress looks good at parties but not when dogs are after you... good to see you get back on that horse mate!

[Grond0]

Thanks ussnorway - so far, so good ...

 

Nippy - melee sorcerer {3} (update 1)

 

Last time I was letting Nippy develop more or less naturally.  However, after the unfortunate end of his second incarnation this time I decided to give him the hot-house treatment. Shoal provided an opening 2 levels (a good omen there with a rare triple-critical helping to speed her on her way)

Spoiler

and he then got a lift to Nashkel with Brage.  There was a mistake there when I expected to be able to get an attack in on a blinded Vitiare before he pick-pocketed Nippy and disappeared - but failed to do so.  

 

After using side roads to get back to Beregost, Mirianne's ogres got him to level 4 and the ability to disappear.  He used that to get to Meilum - blinding him at the 5th attempt before using darts and chill touch to finish him off.  

 

He took a quick trip to collect the Ring of Wizardry from the FAI - unfortunately while there he chunked the hobgoblin with Joia's ring, so missed out on a reputation increase there (he also did the same to Tarnesh, but that just cost a bit of money).

Spoiler

 

Then he moved on to the basilisk area where darts and chill touch quickly took care of the monsters.  Korax sorted Mutamin out

Spoiler

before Nippy used Mutamin's stinking cloud scroll to give Korax a huge advantage over the others.  

Spoiler

That enabled him to paralyse Kirian and Peter and take them to near death before the stinking cloud evaporated.  Meanwhile Nippy blinded the others before coming in to finish things off - getting up to level 6 in the process.

 

Sorcerer L6, 26 HPs, 44 kills

[Grimwald the Wise]

Only 3 charisma? I don't think he looks THAT bad...

 

 

Maybe he's only rude?

 

Judicious use of a certain staff changed the charisma somewhat, first to 1, but then it changed dramatically, look further down the page:

 

One of the reasons for getting the Cloak of Algernon.

 

http://forum.bioware...llenge/page-601

[Grond0]

Judicious use of a certain staff changed the charisma somewhat, first to 1, but then it changed dramatically, look further down the page:

 

One of the reasons for getting the Cloak of Algernon.

 

http://forum.bioware...llenge/page-601

You can link to a specific post Wise - by clicking on the post number on the top right of each post and then copying the link from that, e.g.

here's superman

[Grond0]

Nippy - melee sorcerer {3} (2nd and final update)

 

In Beregost Nippy had no problem with Karlat.  However, getting Silke to hold still long enough to target a slow proved impossible and he had to chase her around for a long time (always a bit nervous due to the possibility of being targeted by a sequencer if he got too close) before finally getting the opportunity for a killing blow.

 

Nippy then did the rounds, cleaning up areas while raising his reputation.  Melicamp failed to survive, which was a shame, but he did have the satisfaction of taking revenge on a blinded and slowed Jemby.  There was one nasty moment when he was a bit impatient trying to finish Greywolf off and let him get an attack in - a critical taking away 25 of his 26 HPs!  After that he made sure he attacked from invisible for the last couple of hits needed on him.

 

He did the Cloud Peak mountains without problems - this time chunking the right one of Caldo & Krumm.  Killing a mountain bear for a scared merchant got him to level 7.

 

He finished off the southern areas at the Valley of the Tombs.  Narcillicus was blinded and hunted down, but it took 4 lots of summoned monsters from the wand found there to provide enough distraction for Nippy to kill the mustard jellies the mage left behind.  

 

Back at the lighthouse area he used MSD, along with a shield amulet charge, blindness and mirror images to deal with the first group of sirines - despite the attempted interference by some carrion crawlers.  One of the second group managed to poison him and take him down to 3 HPs (he would have tried resting if the poison had continued) before he buffed up and slowed the sirine to take his revenge. Sil had already been blinded and was killed as well (getting Nippy to level 8). After levelling up he managed to blind the last sirine with his final spell of the day and couldn't resist trying to finish it off - succeeding, though the sirine did miss with one attack in response.

 

After resting up (using LMD to heal up quicker), he sorted out the golems.  With both mirrors and stoneskins now available he just used his staff +1 rather than bother throwing darts at them.  

 

Deciding he should rely on the idea that 'practice makes perfect' Nippy went to find the sirines up the coast.  However, he fell into the trap instead of 'familiarity breeds contempt' and stuck around too long while attacking one of them - getting affected by confusion as a result.  That could well have been that, but he ran out of sight of any sirines and the shield amulet and stoneskins protected him from an attacking wolf.  When he came to his senses he killed the nearby sirine before resting and going to find the remaining two. 

 

At Durlag's Tower he killed the battle horrors by softening up with the wand of frost and then using slow, blindness and chill touch.  He left the ghasts in peace, but did go up onto the roof to take on the basilisks.  They react to the blue scroll used by turning to melee, but he got all 3 greater ones with a good frost blast which would allowed him to comfortably finish them off this time before the scroll ran out.  However, it appeared that I had made a teeny, tiny mistake by resting before going on to the roof.  There had been lots of running round while killing skeletons and battle horrors and more time had obviously passed than I had expected.  As a result he had no stoneskin as 3 enraged basilisks surrounding him attacked.  That became clear when one of them hit him.  Possibly a potion of invisibility could have saved him, but he tried to cast stoneskin - and failed.

Spoiler

[Grimwald the Wise]

My quest for justice has finally been realised. First at the Cloakwood mines, I found that defeating Davaeorn was relatively easy after he failed to save against web.

 

He got badly injured, and when he finally saved against web, he came rapidly towards the party, presumably so he didn't get webbed again. (Is the AI that good?)

He then tried to cast dimension door but was just too late.

 

The other mage did us more harm due to a little impatience. We lured his thief allies into the web and killed them, but meanwhile the mage cast acid arrow and the like.

 

It wasn't enough to cause serious concern, but it was certainly painful.

 

We had no further serious problems until we fought the assassins in Baldur's Gate. Several in the party got confused, so Valerie had the gumption to cast web. This was partially successful in that all the party but one got webbed.

 

This led to Imoen and Valerie being killed which wouldn't have been such a problem if a courtesan had not then been killed also.

 

Ajantis was NOT happy.

 

We helped Samuel, but he was STILL not happy so we went to the temple to regain our hero status and bring our dead back to life.

 

Somehow two sets of boots of speed got lost in the process.

 

Upon going to the duchal Palace, we fought Sarevok with THIS outcome.

 

 

This is the first time in all the times that I have played the game, that this has happened.

 

Presumably, if I go to the final battle, he will have been resurrected along with Tazok.

 

However, I will first deal with those DSoSC guys in Beregost.

 

Edit:

 

I have just discovered that the dukes won't talk to me and that I can't get out of the door.

 

Do you think that I should I use this as the final save as Sarevok has been killed, or should I CLUA my way out.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Thanks for the info about posting Grond0

[Grimwald the Wise]

 

Nippy - melee sorcerer {2} (2nd and final update)

 

For the second time I would count that as rather an unfair death, so will start him again ...

 

 

Hard luck. Hope things go a bit better next time. Death often seems unfair. The ones who deserve it survive and the innocent get killed.

[realmuzzy]

Do you think that I should I use this as the final save as Sarevok has been killed, or should I CLUA my way out.

 

 

I would use it as a final save. If your party is strong enough to pump out enough damage into Sarevok at that point then they deserve their victory.

[biowherewolf]

@Grimwald: I agree with realmuzzy...in fact, I think you may *have* to use it. I've had the experience where the dukes won't talk and haven't ever found a way around it. 

--BW

[biowherewolf]

Update on Tony
When last we left Fat Tony, the MU/Thief (who thought he was a Fighter) he had just recovered from a user-headspace error in Cloakwood, where the party lost almost all of their newly-purchased equipment. 
His recovery went smoothly enough. 
Got through the Cloakwood mines, got through a few missions in the Gate, killed some assassins to get their items. 
Then.... *user head-space error #2*

Spoiler

 
 
I was tired. I was only 1/2 paying attention. I was making excuses  
 
But I decided to try werewolf island (or... as I call it "Bio-Wherewolf Island") 
 
I hadn't done that quest in like 10 years, so my memory was a bit foggy (yeah...more excuses). 
 
Things were gong well. I came across the mage-room. 
 

Spoiler

 
 
I sent in skeletons, prepared spells and got ready. 
And forgot to protect against fear and confusion.... doh!
 

Spoiler

 
Everyone in the party was either confused or horror-ed except the cleric. She didn't have any "get rid of bad things" spells; mostly, she had been focused on defense and animate dead.
 
then....this:
 
So..
RIP Fat Tony. Cause of death : Player stupidity. 
 
Pity... Ah well... for every ending, there is a beginning. 
--BW

[realmuzzy]

Sorry about Fat Tony. Those mages can be very difficult.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Update on Tony
 
I was tired. I was only 1/2 paying attention. I was making excuses  
 
But I decided to try werewolf island (or... as I call it "Bio-Wherewolf Island") 
 
I hadn't done that quest in like 10 years, so my memory was a bit foggy (yeah...more excuses). 
 
Things were gong well. I came across the mage-room. 
 
I sent in skeletons, prepared spells and got ready. 
And forgot to protect against fear and confusion.... doh!
 
Everyone in the party was either confused or horror-ed except the cleric. She didn't have any "get rid of bad things" spells; mostly, she had been focused on defense and animate dead.
 
then....this:
 
So..
RIP Fat Tony. Cause of death : Player stupidity. 
 
Pity... Ah well... for every ending, there is a beginning. 
--BW

 

I was a bit luckier than you. When the assassins did that to me I was at least able to get off a web spell before things went totally out of control.

[Grimwald the Wise]

@Grimwald: I agree with realmuzzy...in fact, I think you may *have* to use it. I've had the experience where the dukes won't talk and haven't ever found a way around it. 

--BW

 

The other way is to use the CLUA command "Movetoarea" It would work and I COULD use that. However, having killed Sarevok, I feel that the battle is won. Getting stronger is not something that I want to do, though the quests still to do would have been interesting.

 

It was an interesting end of game however.

[Grond0]

Nippy - melee sorcerer {4} (update 1)

 

I've started Nippy again, but with one significant difference in the rules.  Previously he was only allowed to kill things using melee, but could otherwise attack in any form.  This time he will be even more restricted to melee and will not be permitted to cause any damage at all (including via summons) apart from in melee.  My experience to date suggests that will make the start harder, but should still be possible without needing outrageous good fortune.

 

After leaving Candlekeep the restriction to melee meant Nippy could not realistically attack Shoal yet.  Instead he made his way to the FAI to pick up the Ring of Wizardry, picking up a belt from an ogre on the way (taking advantage of the ogre's slow weapon speed).  Tarnesh was left for now though as too dangerous.

 

Nippy went back south to Beregost, where helping Firebead and pacifying Marl got him to level 2.  He also returned Zhurlong's boots (hobgoblins also being slow to attack) before going to High Hedge.  A few gnolls were another easy target there and he also checked out the price on a wand of sleep, but couldn't afford that yet.  Instead he made his way south to Nashkel, thanks to a lift from Brage.  Talking to Noober and sorting out the Amazing Oopah there was enough to take him to level 3.  

Spoiler

He also rested to get CLW (in earlier runs he would have preferred LMD, but can't use that this time).

 

With more money (particularly from selling the ankheg armour), friends to boost reputation to 20 and a slightly higher reputation, Nippy was able to buy the PfP scroll, shield amulet and still afford the wand of sleep along with a potion of magic blocking for emergencies.

 

Moving on to the basilisk area Nippy killed the southern group - getting to level 4 by chunking the greater basilisk.  

Spoiler

That provides him with invisibility to both travel safely and get free attacks even on enemies with faster weapon speed.  That should give him the chance to make quite a bit more progress from here if he continues to pick his targets carefully.  He went on to kill the remaining basilisks apart from the 2 near Mutamin (where attacking them will activate the mage) - that was just enough to get him to level 5.

 

Sorcerer L5, 22 HPs, 31 kills

 

Level 1 spells for this run

Blind

Makes it a bit less likely that opponents will retaliate while Nippy nips in and out to attack and makes it significantly less likely they will hit if they do retaliate (although the dangerous criticals are unaffected).  The SCS tendency to run all over the place when blinded can still be a problem, though it's less of an issue this run where all attacks are in melee.

Chill touch

THAC0 +4 and cold damage are both helpful early on (the THAC0 penalty on opponents less so).  The weapon is non-magical, so could be used in BG2 against mages running PfMW.  Note that you can dual-wield with it - the THAC0 of 32 off-hand for Nippy at 1st level may not look attractive , but is still potentially useful if opponents are disabled (for instance by the wand of sleep).

Friends     

Boosts charisma to 20 to minimise shop prices and provide occasional better reactions from characters.

Identify

The first Nippy took shield here, but that's pretty easily provided by equipment and the effects in any case can be duplicated using other spells.  Identify saves a bit of money, but for my purposes its main benefit is to help manage inventory (I don't allow bags of holding in BG1, so am constantly struggling with backpack space).

PfE

The AC improvement potentially helps a bit in combat.  Nippy would not want to be relying on that much, but it could be useful in larger scale fights - such as with the dopplegangers at the palace.

[Grond0]

Nippy - melee sorcerer {4} (2nd and final update)

 

Nippy worked on building his reputation - starting off by saving Arabelle thanks to a first use of the wand of sleep.  Typically while doing reputation quests I also do lots of other work on the way, but this time I concentrated just on those tasks and Nippy rapidly maximised his reputation.  He then used invisibility to rob the pirate treasure and the ankhegs before shopping at Ulgoth's Beard for the Cloak of Displacement, Greenstone Amulet and Martial Staff. 

 

Next up, Meilum was blinded and attacked.  I wasn't sure how quick his retaliation would be and was a bit concerned about his ability to one-shot Nippy with a critical.  However, in fact he was slower to respond than I expected and only managed one attack (which missed), while Nippy wore him down over the course of 5 castings of chill touch.

 

He picked up Samuel and intended to get a scroll of PfM from Hafiz, but I mis-clicked and had to use the potion of magic blocking to protect against a chromatic orb attack.  That seemed to be his only spell though and Nippy stayed at the edge of the map and beat him up to get the PfM scroll the hard way.  While at the FAI he beat up Tarnesh - attacking twice from invisibility.  That reminded him to do Landrin's spiders.  They can react quickly and poison could be fatal (Nippy is not using healing potions or antidotes), so he only attacked from invisibility - and thus took a couple of days to complete the job.

 

After buying a replacement magic blocking potion Nippy travelled to the Cloud Peak Mountains.  A blinded Sendai was too slow to react to chill touch attacks and the same was true about her archer friends (blinded from invisibility).  He did the same to Vax, but finished Zal off attacking invisibly with his staff to avoid the chance of chunking his equipment - that fight got him to level 6 and gave him the ability to use his staff properly (I didn't bother changing the original starting save that gave him dart proficiency to start with).

 

He put his newly learned slow spell to use to ensure that things like cave bears and winter wolves wouldn't have a chance to fight back as he finished his work in the mountains.  He didn't bother killing any gnolls at the Stronghold, but did release Dynaheir to try and sneak out past them all .

 

Greywolf runs all over the place when blinded, but a couple of slow spells kept him under attack enough to be able to finish him off.  While in that area he decided to do the Nashkel Mine.  Getting past the kobold road-block was trickier than I expected - 3 times Nippy had to kill something nearby and re-establish invisibility before one of them moved to open up a gap.  He used a first shield amulet charge to kill the kobolds in Mulahey's cave before attempting the cleric.  His first blind failed, but shield, greenstone amulet and wand of sleep combined to allow him a successful second attempt.  He was hit by a couple of critical arrows and had to use another wand of sleep charge to finish things off.

 

Back in Nashkel Nimbul was blinded after using his aura to detect invisibility, but tragedy then struck.  I had intended to only attack from invisibility and preferably after the guards had worn down his stoneskins.  Nimbul had hasted himself after being blinded though and I was thus not expecting to attack until that had worn off in any case.  I should of course have cast invisibility anyway, but was just trying to follow him round when he caught me out with a sudden change in direction.  Before I could react to pause the game he was close enough for a magic missile minor sequencer and all Nippy's hard work had proved in vain.  He had a chance of surviving the 8 magic missiles, though his 26 HPs were a bit below average and that could well have proved costly.  Annoyingly, he did already have the funds to buy a Robe of the Archmagi and would have gone to do that next - doing it first to get a small amount of magic resistance could also potentially have saved him.

[Grond0]

Nippy - melee sorcerer {5} (update 1)

 

After a promising previous run was ended by a moment of carelessness I had an undocumented attempt that failed to get out of Candlekeep!  

 

This time things are looking rather better with the dangerous opening period when Nippy was vulnerable to ambushes safely negotiated.  Nippy has followed his track in the previous run reasonably closely, though with a couple of exceptions to maintain greater safety:

- he's picked up several potions of invisibility for emergency use.

- he bought the Robe of the Good Archmagi once he had enough money.

 

The only nasty moment so far was on the way to Ulgoth's Beard when he was trying to knock some sense into Tenya.  A mis-click meant he failed to run away from a hold person, but fortunately saved and managed to hit her with his next attack.

Spoiler

 

He's again completed the Nashkel Mine - this time without problems after Mulahey was blinded at the first attempt.  

Spoiler

This time things also went according to plan with Nimbul - Nippy watched invisibly while the guards attacked him and, when Nimbul ran scared into the inn, he slowed him and inflicted a final chilling touch.

Spoiler

 

He's got the advantage of slightly higher base HPs this time and, with the help of Nimbul's find familiar scroll, is much better able to cope with the odd critical now.

 

Sorcerer L6, 42 HPs (incl. 12 from familiar), 114 kills

 

Level 1 spells

Blind

Makes it a bit less likely that opponents will retaliate while Nippy nips in and out to attack and makes it significantly less likely they will hit if they do retaliate (although the dangerous criticals are unaffected).  The SCS tendency to run all over the place when blinded can still be a problem, though it's less of an issue this run where all attacks are in melee.

Chill touch

THAC0 +4 and cold damage are both helpful early on (the THAC0 penalty on opponents less so).  The weapon is non-magical, so could be used in BG2 against mages running PfMW.  Note that you can dual-wield with it - the THAC0 of 32 off-hand for Nippy at 1st level may not look attractive , but is still potentially useful if opponents are disabled (for instance by the wand of sleep).

Friends     

Boosts charisma to 20 to minimise shop prices and provide occasional better reactions from characters.

Identify

The first Nippy took shield here, but that's pretty easily provided by equipment and the effects in any case can be duplicated using other spells.  Identify saves a bit of money, but for my purposes its main benefit is to help manage inventory (I don't allow bags of holding in BG1, so am constantly struggling with backpack space).

PfE

The AC improvement potentially helps a bit in combat.  Nippy would not want to be relying on that much, but it could be useful in larger scale fights - such as with the dopplegangers at the palace.