15228 replies to this topic

[Grond0]

Gate70 wrote...
Sad news Grond0. I tend to look for 100% MR against Abazigal for that reason.

But he uses remove magic a lot.  Doesn't that dispel a magic resistance potion (in which case the majority of classes can't safely stay at 100%)?

Serg BlackStrider wrote...
Sad news, Grond0... At least Killian is not alone wandering in the Maze. How many of your characters are there at the moment, I wonder?

It's certainly a popular way for me to end.  For my shorty characters their saving throws normally protect them against most magic and I reckon I'm pretty good at using movement to avoid death by weapons - so maze / imprisonment do feel like the main remaining problem for me.

Edited by Grond0, 18 November 2013 - 08:25 PM.

[Gate70]

Ah, good point. Trying to think who I've had face him recently.
A berserker in a party - no problem with enrage and buddies.
A couple of monks - 100%+ natural resistance.
Probably a cavalier with Carsomyr so 1 potion at a time. I rarely use them elsewhere.
Perhaps a kensai - who may well have been mazed...

Maybe I just plan it in my head and don't spot the big flaw because I rarely get that far.

Edited by Gate70, 18 November 2013 - 11:56 PM.

[polytope]

Wow Grond, you play fast. Shame to see your barbarian get mazed, their short duration rage is something to watch out for.

Grond0 wrote...

He then used a couple of GWWs with Soul Reaver to try and shut down Draconis' attacks.  I've not used that sword before, but either it's entirely bugged or it doesn't work on dragons as Draconis was still hitting easily, despite having been hit by the sword at least 10 times (which would be -20 to his THAC0). 

This seemed suspicious to me, as in earlier games I've used Soul Reaver to great effect against boss type creatures: Wouldn't you know it, it's another bug introduced by the G3 bugpack.

Edited by polytope, 19 November 2013 - 02:57 AM.

[WaterMane]

 Zakaril Solo Half Elf fighter/mage/thief update 2:

After acquiring my weapons of choice for the time being, Celestial Fury + Belm, I headed over to the graveyard to kill the Crypt King who I forgot to kill earlier, cleared out the accessible areas of the tombs and picked up Kithix. I also finished up Mae'Var's questline and hacked him up for Renal as was required if I was to run my own thieves guildhall, which I did accept. Putting a protection from undead scroll to good use I went about slaying the 2 lesser liches leading up to Kangaxx and the lich guarding daystar at the city gates. I figured I may as well get the De'Arnise keep over and done with though its always a painfully boring experience. I must admit though, the Keep has some damn fine music! The golems went down with the help of some ghast summon distractions and being careful not to loot more than one statue at a time. Torgal died whilst simply trying to breathe as the adjacent room makes for a great gas chamber.



I was contacted, telepathically it seems, by Renal who wanted his 500gp cut so I headed back to Athkatla to pay my thieves dues. Having not yet rescued Haer'Dalis from Mekrath I set out to release him. The party in the sewers on the way to Mekrath may as well be dealt with now. I sneak in quickly before the mage can get his true sight cast off and deal him a lethal blow.



Zakaril must be a master chugger of potions as he went unoticed after downing the mage with one hand and swigging an invisibility potion with the other. One of the priests is the next target. He takes a hefty backstab, 70 damage, but doesn't die, he does fall with the following swing of my blades. By now I'm discovered and the battle is on. I retreat to my ghast reinforcements and traps. The fight is quickly decided as the ghasts and Celestial Fury get to work stunning everything. 

Now to continue with the rescue mission. Mekrath has requested that I retrieve a mirror for him, easy enough. On my way back down to the sewers I move about the eastern rooms. I'm spotted by several Yuan-Ti, my positioning isn't great so I go invisible. The Yuan-Ti surround me anyhow and I'm boxed in. All thats left to do now is haste up and wade in trusty swords in hand. Moments after chopping up the nearest enemy I'm able to wiggle out and away from the pack and into a narrow corridor where the Yuan-Ti can be funneled. They have little chance in this position and all meet their end one by one. 

I descend and search for the imp. Sneaking up on him I slap him with a healthy crit, yet he does not get chunked, maybe he cannot be?



With mirror in hand Haer'Dalis is soon freed and I follow him back to the playhouse to watch as they are stolen away and taken to the planar prison. To follow and save them now or wait until I'm more certain of my strength? Boots of speed beckon, I must have them. First I must carefully lay out battle plans for I will be surrounded the instant I arrive through the portal. After quaffing many a potion to improve thaco, hps and magic resistance it appears as if they were not necessary. I zoned in invisible so I successfully laid a time stop trap and hid in shadows. I raced over to the Yuan-Ti casting true sight and landed a stunning blow to interrupt the cast. A couple more hits and that enemy was down. The next opponent I backstabbed triggered the time stop trap. A few lucky successive hits later after casting assassination and there were only a couple of enemies remaining. Boots of Speed obtained, Mmm delicious. The rest of the zone is straight forward. 

Edited by WaterMane, 19 November 2013 - 07:31 PM.

[Grond0]

polytope wrote...
This seemed suspicious to me, as in earlier games I've used Soul Reaver to great effect against boss type creatures: Wouldn't you know it, it's another bug introduced by the G3 bugpack.

OK, thanks for the information.  It's a weapon I've been planning to try for ages, but never quite got round to: I'll attempt to remember to have another go with it after the next Fixpack iteration is released.

[Grond0]

Gonz - dwarf barbarian (update 1)

I had half an hour available before work, so Gonz has made a start in SoA.

Unlike Killian I don't intend to do everything available with Gonz.  So in the dungeon he refused to help the nymphs and didn't bother with the elemental plane.  High HPs meant he was never severely injured, even by opening traps. Even though he gains no real benefit by it, I couldn't resist using a potion of firebreath to kill Ulvaryl on the way out.

Restoring the circus was a 2 minute job and Gonz has just sold surplus equiment, bought the RoAC and gem/scroll containers and reported in to Gaelan Bayle.  The only mistake so far was selling the girdle of bluntness rather than identifying it.  I won't bother getting it back as I'm unlikely to micro-manage equipment to the extent that it would do any good.

[DeeKayNL]

Sad news Grond0 looking forward on your new run with Gonz!
Great progress Watermane.

You all play so fast!!

A little update on Anthal and his party.

We made one crucial mistake. We threw 2 cloudkills in our fight with Maevar. Resulting in the deat of a innocent who was locked in a cage. (REP went down by 10!!!) Had to donate a lot of gold to get my rep up a little bit.



After doing the Renal Bloodscalp quest we went to save Haer'Dalis and rescue him and his company from the Astral Prison. This went very well!

Sold a lot of equipment and am now ready for the next quests. Probably Umar Hill, Planar Sphere and last Windspear Hills before trying to pay Gaelan Bayle.

Here some new updated stats on my party:

Anthal:



Ungus:



Sir Anomen:



Viconia:



Nira:



Jan:

[WaterMane]

DeeKayNL wrote...
We made one crucial mistake. We threw 2 cloudkills in our fight with Maevar. Resulting in the deat of a innocent who was locked in a cage. (REP went down by 10!!!) Had to donate a lot of gold to get my rep up a little bit.

Gotta be careful with those area of effect spells, this sort of thing would cause many a reload in the past!

[Serg BlackStrider]

WaterMane wrote...

DeeKayNL wrote...
We made one crucial mistake. We threw 2 cloudkills in our fight with Maevar. Resulting in the deat of a innocent who was locked in a cage. (REP went down by 10!!!) Had to donate a lot of gold to get my rep up a little bit.

Gotta be careful with those area of effect spells, this sort of thing would cause many a reload in the past!

Yup! And while those new cloud animations looks great they are a bit more vague in terms of determine the borders of the area of effect (and this is pretty inconvenient, imo). 

Edited by Serg BlackStrider, 19 November 2013 - 01:47 PM.

[DeeKayNL]

Serg BlackStrider wrote...

WaterMane wrote...

DeeKayNL wrote...
We made one crucial mistake. We threw 2 cloudkills in our fight with Maevar. Resulting in the deat of a innocent who was locked in a cage. (REP went down by 10!!!) Had to donate a lot of gold to get my rep up a little bit.

Gotta be careful with those area of effect spells, this sort of thing would cause many a reload in the past!

Yup! And while those new cloud animations looks great they are a bit more vague in terms of determine the borders of the area of effect (and this is pretty inconvenient, imo). 

@Watermane Hell yeah haha was only the second time I used Cloudkill. First time on the party in the Temple sewers. I mainly did it to view the new animation and of course I am punished for it This is a very valuable lesson!! Same as provoking Nalia's Mother. I did that once and my REP took the same dive downwards

@Serg I didnt have real trouble staying at the edge of the cloudkill( Maybe because I coulndt see the edge well I stayed clear of the edge). I usually dont use AoE spells except for Abi Dalzhims Horrid Wilting and Fireball/Skull at larger group of enemies. I usually use Cloudkill when dealing with Umberhulks and Mages (for example agains Tolgerias). This was a very stupid time to test the new graphics of the Cloudkill.

[Grond0]

Gonz - dwarf barbarian (update 2 - total time for run 1.5 hrs)

Another hour's session saw:
- Copper Coronet change hands (bought Blade of Roses and Azuredge)
- picked up berserker horn
- killed the rakshasa and Roger's troll
- scared the Suna Seni ambush
- killed the 4 liches to get Kangaxx's ring
- wrapped charisma round to 25 with the Rod of Terror
- paid license fee to Cowled Wizards

Stats (cont. from BG1)
Barbarian L10, 117 HPs (+5 from helm), 357 kills

[Grond0]

Gonz - dwarf barbarian (3rd and final update)

A lapse in concentration proved costly just as Gonz was looking forward to travelling to Brynnlaw.

He had picked up Ilbratha and a beljuril at Umar Hills, cleared de'Arnise Hold and reforged the FoA and sorted out troubles in Trademeet in order to buy the Dwarven Thrower, Ras, BoIB and necklace of missiles.

With spare money Gonz paid Gaelan Bayle and replaced the Claw with +2 ring.  He quickly ran through Aran's tasks and went to the Graveyard.  Kitthix was obtained from Pai'Na on the way to vampire HQ, but his lack of buffing proved costly there.  First, I forgot to put rage on against one of the early vampires - resulting in Gonz being drained a level.  That error was compounded when I didn't rage before taking on another vampire next to the pool with the MoD in.  I was thinking that there would be plenty of time to rage before it came in to melee - if it survived an Azuredge attack - but didn't stop to consider that after draining Gonz no longer had an automatic saving throw against domination ...



Looking at the screenshot, Gonz has actually got rage active, so he must have been in the process of casting it when the domination hit.

Edited by Grond0, 19 November 2013 - 08:50 PM.

[Epsil0]

I'll be joining in with a graduate from BGEE, once I get things fully working. A straight import seems to be failing, so I'll be making Lacon the TN Male Totemic Druid as a new character and modifying the stats to his original stats from the completion of BG1. Going to cave and use SCS if I can get it to work; the only other mods I have installed are UB and a couple dialogue/flirt packs that were used for testing purposes. Going to play as a party, Core rules with gore on.

Edit: Hard luck, Grond. Domination being an run-ender is definitely not fun... Have a plan for your next character?

Edited by Epsil0, 19 November 2013 - 09:14 PM.

[corey_russell]

Sorry to hear of Gonz going down Grond0. But this is why I always wear charm protection helmets when fighting vamps, it's more important than saving throws for most of the enemies there, bar Tanova. edit: er, at least it is if solo.

Edited by corey_russell, 19 November 2013 - 09:25 PM.

[WaterMane]

Welcome Epsil0 and good luck in Athkatla and her surrounding wildernesses!

[polytope]

Yes, good to see a new participant Epsil0. What SCS components are you using?

WaterMane wrote...

I retreat to my ghast reinforcements and traps. The fight is quickly decided as the ghasts and Celestial Fury get to work stunning everything.

Which mod allows you to summon ghasts? (I can see it's not a return of Tiax mod anyway)

WaterMane wrote...

I descend and search for the imp. Sneaking up on him I slap him with a healthy crit, yet he does not get chunked, maybe he cannot be?

Certain creature animations cannot be gibbed by melee damage (spiders, imps, golems, dragons and most animals).

Aleks update: Had my first major - as in, causing me to repeat a playing session - reload (had one back in Athkatla when Nalia was being abducted, I accidentally clicked an area transition causing the game to hang in cutscene mode). Halfway through the shark city a priestess crashed the game by casting an (uninterruptible) summoning spell, I suspected it would be an invalid creature reference and it was - quickly fixed with near infinity. I wonder if ANYONE has played through the series without at least one bug induced reload, it sort of undermines the premise of this challenge.

I suppose it doesn't really matter, the place is fairly easy with our levels/equipment even with SCSII (didn't screenshot anything). Brought some scrolls here including Larloch's minor drain (to trigger chain contingencies!).

The rebel prince had the ring of free action and the king gave us belm - I won't be exploiting that "use belm in the offhand for an extra attack with a better weapon" bug, but belm is not a bad weapon in itself so Valygar will use it for a while (except when he's using his family sword for backstabs).

In the underdark, lazily wandered up to the air portal unbuffed and was surprised by the large army of air elementals and aerial servants attacking us. Going to have to be careful with earth portal... did I mention that aTweaks greater earth elementals can cast earthquake? Because they very well can. Chaotic Commands prevents the knockdown but there's no defense from the damage with SoA levels unless of course you're a mage with stoneskin. 3 elementals spawning at a time and spamming earthquakes cause a lot of damage.



Imoen with fireshield and SI:Evocation acts as a target for the elementals, while Nalia casts incendiary cloud on them and the two mages then shower them with lightning bolts, aiming to rebound them as much as possible. Imoen also tries hitting them with the staff of earth (and ofc misses regularly). The incendiary cloud expires with quite a few elementals left standing (one moment I really wished I had a sorcerer or Edwin instead of Nalia, who's got only 1 8th level slot).

So, Aleks and Valygar join in, assisted by a mordy sword... we take a lot of damage but we carry the day.



(The glowy ones are the earthquake casters.)

The drow ambush at the bridge, pretty straightforward, only thing to mention is that dual sunfires are useful for clearing the horde of drow and getting at the mage after Keldorn dispelled his buffs. I just had to make sure Immy and Nalia were not too close together or I'd trigger fire shield feedback (more on this bug later...)

The balrog troubling the village; because of his high level remove magic, combined with his fireshield and instadeath attack he is dealt with as follows:



Keldorn absorbs the inital - predictable - remove magic so that not all my fighters get debuffed, after which Aleks enters and quickly casts Death Ward on Keldorn, the balor fell without managing to do more than scratch him.

Note: It's possible to instakill balors (or any other fireshielded creature who isn't immune to cold) with fire shield feedback, provided you're protected from fire and have a blue fireshield; when the creature strikes you the two fireshields set up a feedback loop, killing the unprotected one instantly. I regard this as a bug, and don't want to exploit it.

Exploring the western tunnels, we scope out this group of bad guys (I never turn the book of infinite spells pages if I get farsight):



The smartest idea seems to be to approach them with a buffed Nalia, as they'll cluster around her thus staying in place for Keldorn's dispel magic.



Oops, that wasn''t such a smart idea, since the opposing mage's first move was spellstrike, removing Nalia's SI:Abjuration and causing all of her buffs to be dispelled as well. Good thing I gave her the boots of speed.

Then one of the glabrezus gates in a balor, time for um... a tactical retreat.

The wizard with the group dimension doors after us and is quickly slain in spite of his Absolute Immunity spell. I don't intentionally try to break up groups by running away, but if he's going to teleport over to us...

Nalia rebuffs with some scrolls, and not a moment too soon as the balor has finished off the skeleton warriors we left behind and comes after us!



I accidentally cast fireshield:blue instead of red but triggering fireshield feedback here would be a BAD idea, as Nalia is no longer protected from fire. So, after the balor teleports next to her she casts ProMW (instantaneous with the drow chain), causing him to switch targets to our fighters, we've got one round to finish him before he can use another spell, which turns out to be enough. This leaves us to mop up the glabrezus and the rest of the drow with relative ease...

Or so I thought, but then the Kuo Toans joined in. Including their prince. He was particularly annoying as he had many invisibility potions, which combined with his regeneration rate made him very hard to injure.



I was half expecting the demon knights to teleport over at this point.

Well, the demon knights were left for tomorrow. Almost got Imoen killed crossing the bridge, I thought that flamestrike only hit the closest person.

Kitthix is sacrificed - poor spider, always being sent on suicide missions against dragons and things.



The demon knights dispel all of our buffs including Nalia's improved haste - I guess they're quite high level. Time for another tactical retreat... Recast the needed boon of Lathander on Aleks for level drain immunity (maybe should've recast death ward as well, hp aren't great, and a couple of hits would put me in PW:Kill range), and remove fear - just as a demon knight shoots symbol fear at us. Valygar gets PW:Blinded, so drinks a potion of heroism, which in addition to normal effects cures the THAC0 penalty of blindness - why, I don't know, but it does.

Keldorn is drained of four levels and Valygar of two, but we manage to defeat the remaining knights after they've destroyed our skeleton warriros - these are still the best possible summon to use against demon knights becuase they are resistant to slashing and immune to power words and level drain. One of the knights had a particularly awesome sword, a nice sling, and the cloak of cheese (not going to use that).

Edited by polytope, 20 November 2013 - 06:08 AM.

[corey_russell]

Corbeast the Human Beastmaster - Update 2
Traveling with: Korgan, Minsc, Anomen, Nalia, Yoshimo (Jaheira)

Corbeast has made it out of the dungeon and is still alive. He and his team has weathered many ambushes and completed Korgan's quest. Though the team has won against all comers, and no deaths, that is not to say the opponents didn't sometimes put up a pretty good fight. This screenie shows the party beat up from an orog ambush for example.


One sad piece of news (for Corbeast anyways) is that after forging the Ankheg armor, we found out Corbeast can't use it. He will just have to be happy with leather apparently. Circus problem solved easily with everyone having magic weapons/ammo. The team also did the talking required in Umar Hills to get the shield of the lost, Minsc will use for now. We managed to scrounge enough to purchase the +2 medium shield for Korgan - think we are armored enough to tackle D'Arnise Keep, so the team made it there.

Next session will try to clear this Keep. Arm is physically hurting, so going to take a break here. Best of luck to the current going runs.

[Epsil0]

Well… Hard to say, for now. I'm struggling to mod this thing without crashing the game, since SOMETHING I do always ends up crashing it at the initial Irenicus spell cast. Trying a new install to see what happens; regardless, will be using most, if not all, of the difficulty mods. I won't be adding pre-battle buffs though, since from all accounts that adds quite a bit of lag, and my laptop probably can't handle that. And I hear that Improved Vampires is a little… silly, so that's staying off for now as well.

EDIT: Well, nope. Everything works fine until I install SCSII, and then it always crashes at the same spot. Nothing else is installed save a dialogue pack.

Edited by Epsil0, 20 November 2013 - 12:35 PM.

[Serg BlackStrider]

@Epsil0: are you trying to mod vanilla SoA/ToB or BG2:EE? If the latter try latest stratagems v27 (scsii v21 doesn't work with EE).

[Epsil0]

Vanilla, though there may be slight complications due to it being a Windows version wrapped in Wineskin for a Mac. Actually, that may be the exact reason: I don't recall if I downloaded the mac or Windows version of SCSII, and I'm not sure which one I should have downloaded. Anyways, too late to change it now, since I've successfully started into the dungeon after a bit of manipulation with Shadowkeeper to fix my stats and memorized spells. Will have a more full update later: a partial differential equations test, unfortunately, comes first.

[Serg BlackStrider]

I think, Alesia might be of some help as she is running BG/BG2/SCS/SCS2 on Mac but she is out at the moment.

[DeeKayNL]

Final update on Anthal

I was already near death a few times cause i wasnt paying enough attention. Few minutes later with the shadow dragon I failed. Could have defeated him if I paid more attention en reacted quicker.

Defeated when trying to slay the Shadow dragon. Had him on near death but somehow Ungus and my pc were level drained like crazy and died.

In all fight with the shadowdragon I never have seen him level drain! Is this really vanilla BG? Or is this something I installed without knowing?

I will be starting over with an Assassin,

Edited by DeeKayNL, 20 November 2013 - 06:47 PM.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Sorry to hear of Anthal's grim fate, DeeKayNL... Thaxll'ssyllia indeed level drains with his/her breath, even in vanilla. That drain is painful but temporal and relatively short-lived (one turn).

Good luck with your next run!

[Sapphire_13]

DeeKayNL:
Shadow dragon´s breath weapon does level drain (huge, might I add). However, it is lasting for only limited time (possibly one turn), so if you survive and dragon not, it is not necessary to do restoration.

[Sapphire_13]

Ah, Serg was faster.