15228 replies to this topic

[C Barchuk]

Thanks for the vids Morti!!!

[AnonymousHero]

(This will probably be a bit sloppy in terms of levels and such. I'm trying to avoid spending more time writing things up than playing...)

I will be finishing up a Barbarian run -- he's currently level 30ish and has just killed Conster. The whole dungeon was cleared (including the souped-up vampires), but Firkraag was left alive.

Two major quest lines remain: the Planar Sphere and the Temple Ruins.

I'll probably go for the Planar Sphere quest first.

[Wierdo]

@Barchuk @BBMorti

Interesting comments there about assassins ... and all the more interesting as I intend to play one next time (1/2 Orc fighter/assassin, slightly modded to allow this to happen, but a legal class combo according to AD&D 2nd edition).

As noted by you just now, what has always turned me off playing assassins previously is that many of the boss monsters, and most of them in ToB, are immune to backstabs. If you add poison to that, then you have nullified two of the primary advantages of assassins when you really need them.

The other thing is that they only get 15 thieving skill points to distribute per level (vs 25 for a normal thief). One could engage in vigorous debate about whether the advantages of being an assassin (backstabs, poison, +1/+1 to hit and damage) outweigh the benefits. One flipside to this is that by the time you get to ToB, the number of thieving skill points accumulated becomes a bit moot. You should have enough to put in whatever you want by the time you get to ToB.

Back in my PnP days, a friend of mine who played assassins over several years argued very convincingly that ALL assassins would need to be good "fighters", and that they should all effectively be fighter/assassins. I have a lot of sympathy for that view, and obviously intend to play such a fighter/assassin soon.

@BBmorti

Good luck for the final confrontation with Melissan! I'll be cheering for you.

BTW, I notice that you use Time Traps extensively. On my currrent install I have the HLA Time Traps for thieves/assassins disabled/substituted. I have no prejudice one way or the other and, although I was playing a illusionist/thief in a party (rather than solo), this didn't really seem to matter one way or the other. But I am interested in your views, e.g. about whether the Time Trap is appropriate for an assassin or not

[Alesia_BH]

Quick Note on Alessandra's Game:

Alessandra is about ready to finish SoA. She has taken down Bodhi and only has a little item management left before heading to Suldanesselar. I'll post on her progress fairly soon.

Best,

A.

Btw. This will likely be my last game without stage-based experience caps. Minimally, I'd to keep the PC from getting HLAs during SoA in future runs. 

Btw II. Just a quick note on Assassins. All the thief variants are very powerful if played to their full potential. SCS and Ascension don't really change that. You're really free to pick whichever one tickles your fancy since they are all eminently capable.

I've personally never found the Assassin kit especially compelling simply because there aren't that many encounters where the extra x2 on the backstab multiplier and poison are going to make a substantive difference (I honestly can't think of a single fight in SCS Ascension that I could win with an Assassin but not an un-kitted Thief). That said, the poison has some interesting tactical uses and the kit can be fun/stylish. Those are perfectly good reason to use it. And as far as the missing thief point are concerned, it's easy enough to patch any gaps over through potion and item use.

Edited by Alesia_BH, 10 December 2011 - 06:37 PM.

[Vaclavc]

Valhyron, dual class Priest of Talos/Mage enters the fray.


He finished BG1 solo on insane difficulty and will continue in the same manner in SoA.
The only exception was Irenicus prison, where he used Imoen’s trap removal abilities.
Upon clearing the dungeon, he freed Jaheira and Minsc.
Valhyron currently rests in Mithrest Inn and ponders what to do next.He is currently Priest of Talos 7/Mage 10 with 66 hp (83 with Helm of Balduran and Familiar).

V

[Alesia_BH]

Best of luck V!

A.

[Alesia_BH]

Alessandra's Return to Athkatla

Upon returning to Athkatala, Alessandra forged the Silver Sword and then took down Bodhi.

I'll cover those encounters quickly.

The Gith essentially tried to go remove->disable->melee against Alessandra. That's a sensible approach for them. If you're slow of foot and lack meaningful ranged damage options, then you need to disable to have a shot. They gave it a try, but Alessandra had the disabler threat under control.

She opened by activating her ring of Air Control. That brought her save v. death to -4 and her save v spells to -7.



The Deva was then used to draw out their remove magics. Once the removes were out of play, Alessandra used a Potion of Invulnerability to keep her saves out of the danger zone for the rest of the fight. The Gith basically should have gone home at that point. Given Alessandra's movement rate and weapon speed factor advantages, they had little hope.



Onto Bodhi.

For the most part, Bodhi's lair just required deliberate melee fighting. The Ancient Elder Vamp spawn and the casters flanking Bodhi required a little finesse but neither were threatening ultimately.

Buffs heading into the lair.


The Ancient and Elder Vamps tore Drizzt's crew to pieces. To keep Drizzt alive, Alessandra used a Protection from Undead scroll on him, equipped The Defender, and buffed herself with Hardiness, and AoF. She was then able to absorb their attacks while leaving Drizzt free to flank.


Tanova caught a Dispel Magic cast from the Deva. Alessandra planned to engage if and when the dispel succeeded, but the Deva's MoD finished Tanova off before she could get in the action.


The only threat in Bodhi's inner sanctum was the Flame Arrow x3 Triggers. Those were intercepted with the Reflex.



Bodhi fell to a pair of Azuredge Whirlwinds.




I'll post again when Alesssandrs reaches Suldanesselar. I'm not sure, but I may do a session this evening.

Best,

A.

Edited by Alesia_BH, 11 December 2011 - 02:35 AM.

[polytope]

Wierdo wrote...
BTW, I notice that you use Time Traps extensively. On my currrent install I have the HLA Time Traps for thieves/assassins disabled/substituted. I have no prejudice one way or the other and, although I was playing a illusionist/thief in a party (rather than solo), this didn't really seem to matter one way or the other. But I am interested in your views, e.g. about whether the Time Trap is appropriate for an assassin or not

Time trap seems a strange ability for anyone except a mage/thief. However, if you want to use TT with Rogue Rebalancing, you'll need to modify the file setup-rr.tp2 as follows.

Open it with notepad, and under HLA revisions section find the line:

REPLACE_TEXTUALLY ~SPCL912~ ~RR#THL04~

And put it in between slashes with stars, like so:

/* REPLACE_TEXTUALLY ~SPCL912~ ~RR#THL04~ */

Which tells the Weidu installer to skip it. Now your thieves will get Time trap instead of Acid Trap.

Edited by polytope, 11 December 2011 - 01:40 AM.

[polytope]

Vaclavc wrote...
He is currently Priest of Talos 7/Mage 10

Sounds like a fine combination, I prefer dual classed cleric->mage to multi for the faster levelling and higher mage level cap.

Alesia_BH wrote...

The Ancient and Elder Vamps tore Drizzt's crew to pieces. To keep Drizzt alive, Alessandra used a Protection from Undead scroll on him.

This is one place where the improved vamps are most noticeable; they were no match for Drizzt in vanilla, even though level drain doesn't affect creatures outside the party so drastically (lowers THAC0 and saves but not hp)

Edited by polytope, 11 December 2011 - 01:37 AM.

[Alesia_BH]

@Polytope- Do you have much experience with the EXP progression nerfing options? Can you comments on implementation or compatibility issues with SCS?

I'd be especially interested in hearing comments on Zyraen's Stage Based Exp Caps.

Thanks,

A.

[Alesia_BH]

Quick Note on Alessandra's Game:

Alessandra will face Irenicus soon. I'll post on Suldanesselar later today.

I'll note that in addition to stage based exp caps or perhaps a 50% exp progression nerf, I've definitely become sold on the idea of nerfing Carsomyr. Playing a high level Paladin with an un-nerfed Carsomyr is a bit silly. I'll likely continue Alessandra's game, but it feels pretty broken.

Best,

A.

[ussnorway]

UD8;

@Alesia_BH, could it be your pally that is over-powered?

The trail led us to a deserted back alley where I encountered a ranger named Lorraine before killing some distracted guards & come across Ymmyrt while he was playing with his balls... don’t ask.



After getting Amber back from the colour gleaner * & dispensing the loot I returned to the temple district with the intention of grabbing Celestial Fury for Mazzy. I dreamed about a dwarf swashbuckler that met his demise at the claws of a Glabrezu here so I decided to fudge our way past the down stairs guards. Basically the idea was for the group to hide whilst Keldorn (with 'Protection from Evil') tripped the summon trap... This part of the plan worked like a charm i.e. the daemon found itself deprived of a legitimate target so vented its rage on the other guards. Unfortunately that previous adventurer never made it upstairs so I had no way of knowing what to expect... With heroic veneers on we took a peak;

Retreat... [Amber] Run for it... [A’Lisia] ERRKKK!


I counted no less-than THREE ‘Time Stop’s in the four steps between us and the stairs but the {PfE} buffs proved fortuitous again when daemon-boy acted as a rear guard for our retreat {orderly withdrawal}.

We’re currently parked back at the copper waiting for Mazzy to make up her mind before talking to Hendak... The trouble is that would make her level up, of course we botched the Celestial Fury hence Katanas are off the wish list so she can’t decide between frails or axes.

Bugs/issues encountered;



This “no response error” almost startled the wee out of me but it revealed itself to be just a script-pause issue... what a relief.
* [Amber]... actually I escaped on my own if the truth be told!

Edited by ussnorway, 11 December 2011 - 08:53 AM.

[BBMorti]

@Wierdo thanks for the good luck!

I definitely agree with you that the discussion about what kit is the most powerful (Pure thief or Assassin) is moot when we talk as high a progression at to the ToB end game. Both kits will have plenty of skill points, items, and abilities to cover the gaps that could be found between the two kits.

What your friend says about Assassins needing to be good fighters comes down to play style, I think. They definitely will find themselves in situations where they need to be good fighters, but such situations can be covered in other ways than through the mixture of a fighter, core, class, imo.

I would say that a Cleris/Assassin could cover the need to be a fighter + more for example. I have made big use of tensers transformation in my run, too for such situations. Mainly my style have been to avoid having to take the fighter role as much as possible, which is a reason why you have seen the usage of time traps by me.

I am not completely sure what you mean by your question if time traps are appropriate, my personal view of time traps are that they are situational. The assassin having them can definitely be defended through lore even though it would be, maybe, even more fitting for Bards and thief/mages to have them.
The assassin as I picture them is a character that will always pick her fights, and to the best of her abilities fight them out on 'her turf' which I think the time traps is a great tool for.
A great tool for keeping a battle under her control.

In a group I see less use for time traps as it will freeze the rest of the party, they can't use its duration to position, manoeuvre or protect themselves on the battle field. In the end game where you start meeting bosses with immunities to time stop they might turn out even worse a choise to make use off.

Using the time traps are fine in my world, and easily makes sense too, especially since they open up at the same time [Use Any Item] comes into play. If they can read time stop from a scroll then I don't see why not the creation of such a trap

In the end it comes down to style imo, are they vital? Not nessesarily, but they are a tool and it is up to each individual persons flavor if that tool fits their play style.

Edit: Vaclavc good luck in amn!

Edited by BBMorti, 11 December 2011 - 09:32 AM.

[BBMorti]

Final update on Anatole the level 40 Assassin;

There was no getting around it, I had to resort to a bit of melee toe to toe fighting in this one, the first fight was the most vital part.. if just I could get through that one, then traps could get into play.

I buffed up making her immune to 5 schools of magic, 100+ resistance to all types of magic, any protection scroll and potion she could find in her bags, it took quite a while but it would be a shame to take any chances when she got this far.

Weapons of choise was black blades of disaster (Flail of ages/Grom if they got dispelled).. simu from helmet with powerful scrolls of breech and spellstrike was cast at the start of the battle and constantly cast those spells at Mellisan as full attack was put on her.

Tensers + time stop was used for clearing out many of the minions at the pools.

Wish was not allowed in the battle.

Video with a few clips of the tactics used in the final battle: www.youtube.com/watch
(I sadly had some corrupted footage.. especially my end footage was quite bad, I suspect the end video triggering was part of the problem.. so I could not add the ending..She chose to absorb the essense)

Level 40 Solo Assassin
Difficulty - Insane
Slightly modded Vanilla game (Unfinished business etc.)

*Bows*

Edited by BBMorti, 11 December 2011 - 10:01 AM.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Congrats, BBMorti! Impressive run and so - welcome to the Hall Of Fame =)

[Thrar]

Wow, two finished runs in just a few days! Congrats, Wierdo and BBMorti!

[Alesia_BH]

Congrats BBMorti! Well done!

Cheers,

A.

ussnorway wrote...
@Alesia_BH, could it be your pally that is over-powered?

Yes. That's a generic SoA problem in my experience. Whether solo or with a party, if I compete all the quests, I end up overlevelled and the latter half becomes trivial. Carsomyr is noticeably compounding the problem. That's why I'm looking at both exp progression nerfs and item revisions for future runs.

As is, there are essentially 3 fights for my characters: the Duchal Palace, Tougher Abazigal, and Ascension Mel. I'm content with the way BG1 and Ascension play out but my SoA install needs some tweaking.

Edited by Alesia_BH, 11 December 2011 - 12:38 PM.

[Gorthaur X]

Congratulations to Wierdo, it seems like just yesterday you were at Candlekeep.

[Alesia_BH]

Quick Note on Alessandra's Game:

I've uploaded a little video on Alessandra's time in Suldanesselar. It can be found here.



I'll try to post a text and pic summary soon.

Best,

A.

Edited by Alesia_BH, 11 December 2011 - 12:57 PM.

[AnonymousHero]

Hrothgar the solo level 30ish Barbarian:

As it turned out, Hrothgar had actually already completed the Planar Sphere quest, so he went straight to the Temple Ruins instead.

There he met a Lich. The Lich was lured into wasting spells and died shortly afterwards.

Something similar happened to the second Lich, but he summoned a Glabrezu which Hrothgar had to get rid of before killing the Lich. Hrothgar skipped the Shadow Dragon, and killed the Shade Lord with effective use of a GWW with the Sling of Seeking+2.

Having been so successful at killing Liches, Hrothgar went to the Gate District to battle yet another lich who was stuck behind a wall. Things immediately went Pear-shaped when the Lich started chain-summoning fiends while under PfMW -- this is a very bad thing in such a confined space. He summoned three Pit Fiends which Hrothgar was thankfully able to fend off (GWW helped a lot here), and at least two Cornugons as well -- those were dispatched too. Not to be outdone, the Lich refreshed his PfMW, summoned two or three Bone Fiends and an Efreeti. His last line of defense was a PW:Blind which blinded Hrothgar, but Hrothgar had sensed that the Lich was no longer protected from Magical Weapons any longer, and was able to finally kill the Lich with a single blow. He ran away from the remaining summons and came back later when they'd been unsummoned.

Hrothgar went to Watcher's Keep level 1, where he easily cleared everything except the statues.

He triggered the first batch of statues, being careful to have his Simulacrum disrupt the mage while he himself went for the cleric. The Simulacrum was sicced on the cleric while Hrothgar took care of a melee foe. Once the cleric was gone, the last statue was mopped up with Sling of Seeking+2 GWWs. Needing a rest,  Hrothgar left the altar and had a nap.

(Hrothgar reached level 31. Picked Smite as the HLA -- I though it may come in handy for battlefield control later on, but we'll see.)

The second batch of statues was a little more tricky. The mage had plenty of PfMW and cast Time Stop a couple of times. Fortunately, there wasn't really much for the mage to do during those time stops, so all it accomplished was wasting a couple of HLAs on the part of Hrothgar and the statues. The rest of the battle was basically just Hrothgar running around avoiding the mage, and killing the other statues from a distance using his trusty sling. This proved very effective.

The mage was still around, but had used up most of her spell arsenal, though she did try getting a cheap kill with Maze. Hrothgar's aura was clear and he of course countered immediately with a Barbarian Rage. Having finally run out of stoneskins and PfMW, the mage was taken down quickly.

Due to its lack of mobility the Golem statue remained, but it couldn't put up much of a fight in physical combat.

Hrothgar will probably go down to L2 of Watcher's Keep next. (Actually, I'm tempted to just go all out for the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization, but it might be suicidal.)

Edited by AnonymousHero, 11 December 2011 - 01:05 PM.

[corey_russell]

Cody the cleric/mage and 3 other cleric/mages joining the challenge...

Cody is doing a Trilogy no-reload. He and his band of cleric/mage friends managed to defeat Sarevok, though sadly one of their friends, Paja, was permanently killed in the thieve's maze. The intent is to use cleric/mages ONLY for the entire run. This means only Aerie will be joining the team. This my setup:

Vanilla BG 2
Throne of Bhaal expansion
Official ToB patch
Core Rules at all times
"Gore" on - this means PCs can be chunked. VERY relevant for a party of low HP casters such as this one.

The party made it out of Chateau Irenicus as well as defeated the Suna Sunei ambush. The hardest part in Irencus' dungeon was the mephits guarding the genie lamp -- well as it turned out I found out yet another target for hasted, blessed, chanted skeletons, they did great clearing the mephits for us. The rest of the dungeon proceeded without incident. Although Hanna almost died to the trap by the big pipe before the room with the wand traps - if she didn't have armor of faith active I think she would have died.

As for Suna Sunei, the party opened with silence, emotion, skull trap, glitterdust. This was decisive.

Tanking Order/Characters:

Hanna's character sheet
Belle's character sheet
Joshua's character sheet

Cody (Protaganist):

[Vaclavc]

@BBMorti: congratulations! Your run was simply amazing and very educational. From my point of view, you played your assassin perfectly - choosing pragmatically when/how to fight your battles and using all the tools necessary to win.
If I may say so, Alesia_BH, Weirdo and you all have very distinctive play styles.

@Corey: good luck with your merry band of cleric/mages. I am very interested in how they will turn up in SoA.

V

Edited by Vaclavc, 11 December 2011 - 06:43 PM.

[corey_russell]

Vaclavc wrote...

@BBMorti: congratulations! Your run was simply amazing and very educational. From my point of view, you played your assassin perfectly - choosing pragmatically when to fight your battles and using all the tools necessary to win.
If I may say so, Alesia_BH, Weirdo and you all have very distinctive play styles.

@Corey: good luck with your merry band of cleric/mages. I am very interested in how they will turn up in SoA.

V

Thanks for the well wishes Vaclavc. In one respect, cleric/mages almost sound overpowered, since we have access to both cleric and mage spells, but our low HP makes us vulnerable to PW: Kill and ADHW. But we will have only access to the lower level spells for a long time, and won't reach power ceilings such as level 15 for skeletal warriors any time soon - I think  a single class or dualed would be stronger quicker.

My plan is only Hanna will wear armor - the rest will use armor spell and bracers and eventualy robe of vecna. We are a little bit more survivable than a straight mage since we can use helmets and large shields. For the tougher fights, Hanna will blur/MGoI/mirror image/stoneskin/armor of faith then put her armor on, and the rest of the party will support. In a lot of ways will play Hanna like a fighter/mage, she just won't have a fighter/mage's APR.

@BBMorti: Congratulations! I've only been following the no-reload for a few years, but yoru assassin run was the most successful one I've ever heard of -- ton of assassin runs died early in BG 1.

Edited by corey_russell, 11 December 2011 - 06:50 PM.

[corey_russell]

Cody the cleric/mages and his band of 4 other cleric/mages - early results

Perhaps cleric/mages will get stronger later. But the early results aren't encouraging.

The first major challenge was dealing with the beastmaster and his many pets. We had to use a lot of heal potions. We didn't have much direct damage spells (that wouldn't hurt ourselves too), and had less options since our enemies weren't humanoid.

We sent 5 skeletons toward the beastmaster and Tabitha the cat - we didn't expect them to win, but to give us time. Cody held then attacked the two gibberlings. Someone cast entangle at the beastmaster, more to restrain the pets that direction than him. Hanna tanked a bear and everyone else tried to burn down that cat by the entrance to the beast cells. We eventually got a hold person on the beastmaster, but we used a bit too many heal potions. We did succeed without any deaths - this time.

The rest of the small fry guards were beat easily, though we did have some summons to speed things along.

Next challenge was the slavers in the moored ship. We approach by the door, we have to pass a repeating poison trap - with no way to detrap it, that's not a good route. So instead we had to do the Lilacor quest. Lilacor quest was handled without any issues.

Next up was Captain Haegen and his cronies. We used skull trap, emotion, entangle, hold persons to devastating effect as you can see below:

We had a ton of buffs active as well, which I'm sure helped. We then had to deal with the trolls. Hmm, can't use fire arrows, no weapons that can kill trolls - oh I know! MMMs! Sure enough the MMMs killed the trolls easily and quickly. By the way, I purchased the +2 mace from Bernard that gives 18 strength -- the carrying capacity boost is quite welcome, and Hanna is tanking nearly every fight so it's no problem to keep it equipped.

For the next part of the ship, I had to pass that color spray trap that repeats forever. Hanna actually got within visual range of the enemies through south door, so the battle happened before I was ready. I couldn't very well help Hanna as we had to pass the color spray trap. So Hanna retreated the way she came and stood at the door to the cells with the two children. This lead to a log jam and Hanna was getting hit from multiple enemies. We tried some hold persons but they were resisted partially. Hanna had to potion repeatedly, but then a mage fired a lightning bolt when her aura wasn't clear. It hit her, bounced off a wall and she was pinned by both the enemies and our own people and died.

Tried to pick up what we could (not everything), and head to the Temple above the Copper Coronet to resurrect Hanna. We were ALMOST inside the temple when the muggers spawned - unfortunately they trained all their weapons on our weakest party member, Aerie and she was quickly killed. Joshua tanked and we fired what few hold persons we had left and all the summons we could - even with the help, took forever for us to whittle down the muggers with our 1 APR. I cast an arcane spell, forgeting that I hadn't paid the license yet and got a warning -- I've got to get that license as soon as we finish taking care of the slaver ship.

We left Aerie's stuff on the ground for now, resurrected our fallen and looted what we could from the ambush and sold the junk, so we could make another run to the slaver ship. Passing past that permanent petrify trap was annoying, as I had to micromanage the walking to avoid it, one party member at a time.

So we get to the permanent color spray trap again, and Joshua and Hanna were waiting int the room for the rest of us, when one of the Yuan-tis saw them and attacked. I brought the whole party to assist, right over the trap - you guessed it, it activated for each person passing it and killed Joshua - another temple run.


We painstakingly make it way to the temple (passing the two permanent traps in the way), resurrect and return and finish our final looting. After reporting to Hendak our success, everyone but Aerie can cast level 5 mage spells - but no one knows any! Will make some spell purchases after we get our spell casting license.

So all in all, still alive, but our power curve better start climbing if we hope to survive beholders and illithids in the future.

All party members level 8 cleric/level 9 mage except Aerie, level 8 cleric/level 8 mage.

EDIT: I thought I'd mention how I'm dealing with trapped chests. Cody keeps 3 knocks permanently memorized. He knocks then Hanna puts up MGoI -- this has protected her from most traps so far - and it is is really bad, it's Hanna and not Cody risking his limb - :happy:

Edited by corey_russell, 12 December 2011 - 12:41 AM.

[Alesia_BH]

 Quick Note on Alessandra's Game:

Alessandra has defeated Jon at the tree and will face off with him in hell later in the afternoon.

The fight was very straightforward. Jon's strategy was essentially to summon improved fiends while running Absolute Immunity. That made sense since Alessandra had the damage and disabler spell threats under control. Unfortunately for Jon, the demons could neither land nor withstand Carsomyr hits so they couldn't help much. He didn't have any hope really.

Jon began by taking his pre-buffs. For the curious...




He then summoned about 5 demons which were dispatched in turn.


With the demons dead, Alessandra disappeared. Jon kept refreshing his Abjuration school weapons defenses. When they ran out, he went Shadow Door. Alessandra sent the Deva (which detects the invisible via script) after him, let it dispel his invisibility, and then finished him with a Carsomyr Whirlwind. Clean and simple.


Best,

A.

Btw. It was interesting to see Rilifane stymied by Suneer's pre-buffs...

Edited by Alesia_BH, 12 December 2011 - 05:33 AM.