15228 replies to this topic

[Grond0]

Gate70 wrote...
He asks Carlig about two strangers. No, not Jon and Bodhi - the crazy mage and Planetar...have they been here yet?

Just caught up ...

Sal - elf wild mage (update 7)

Sal used Tazok's key to invade the illithid enclave.  A few summons (including a first use of a mordy sword) backed up by MMM and some energy blades and a few area damage spells managed to finish the opponents off.  She got to level 25 there - picking up her final HLA.

The final area in Athkatla was the Twisted Rune.  The planetar showed his merits there, killing all the opponents; taking on Layene's pit fiend turned it hostile, so Sal just waited for it to disappear before picking up the Staff of the Magi.

Off to Brynnlaw where Sal watched a planetar tear up Perth.  Sal spent a while looking through his spell book, before consigning it to the dustbin.

Into Spellhold.  A pit fiend caused her contingency to trigger when a fireball reached a bit further past some skeleton warriors than I expected, but she had no more problems in working through that level - getting a bit of revenge on Dace Sontan on the way.  She successfully learnt project image there, which is a handy spell for multiplying available summons.  It was a similar story on the next level where the contingency fired again when she was taking the paintings - I had expected a trap on the first one, but it didn't come, only for it to trigger after she took the second one (also trapped).  I noted here that surges can occur when using the SotM abilities - it was a nice one though that made sure there would be no need to rest before taking on Jon.  A planetar was successfully produced there and made short work of him and the follow-up murderers.

After taking ship with Saemon a couple of wiltings helped clear some Gith attackers, but that didn't prevent the ship breaking up and depositing Sal in the City of Caverns.  No problems there as Sal helped the king & the prince (into the next life) before shinning down a rope to the Underdark.  She successfully learnt Spell Sequencer and Freedom.

Edited by Grond0, 01 February 2014 - 06:58 AM.

[Grond0]

Sal - elf wild mage (update 8)

An early morning start meant I was getting a bit tired working through the Underdark and Sal has nearly died twice there already.  However, she's still going and has just entered the drow city.

On arrival in the Underdark summons led the way against a group of drow, some soul gem victims and a balor arising from the pit.  Sal helped a mage loot the elemental planes and then helped herself to the loot - Vithal's 3 time stops and 2 imprisonments protected him against summons, but not a couple of wiltings.  As might be expected, after seeing it in action so much, Sal successfully learnt timestop.

The first area to be cleared was the kuo-toa - with such large numbers of summons available now Sal had no problems doing that without resting.

Next up was the beholder area.  After going in invisible Sal produced some summons.  A planetar was imprisoned by the first elder orb, but she had plenty of other options.  The other elder orb was supposed to be killed by an energy blades assault during a timestop, but that appeared to be bugged and no damage resulted.  It fought off a few more summons before Sal eventually finished it off while it was concentrating on a fire elemental.

On to the illithids, where Sal nodded at the dessicated corpse of the last wild mage to venture in while picking up the last bit of XP needed to hit the level cap.  She had a glimpse of the same fate as Ludd when she was stunned in the final battle.  However, she had a full load of summons with her and they soon finished off the opposition - the planetar's vorpal eventually cutting the heads off the brain golems before despatching the brain.

Simyaz was annoyed that Sal had sold his favourite sword and paid the penalty for bad-mouthing her.  A drow ambush was mainly defeated with summons although Sal tested out an energy blades time stop on the last one - it worked this time.  I thought the drow killed by that was the last one, but another one appeared from behind a pillar and immediately stunned Sal with a crossbow bolt.  That could have been very bad news, but fortunately she had a contingency set and that kicked in to shelter her.  As soon as the sphere evaporated she went invisible (using a potion of invisibility for the first time as energy blades were blocking her staff and ring of Gaxx would take too long and risk getting hit again).

After finishing the drow off she reported to Adalon, but just managed to avoid blurting that fact out to the guards at the city gate.

Edited by Grond0, 01 February 2014 - 07:14 AM.

[Gate70]

You're on your own now.

Carthusian cleared out the beholder lair without issue; a bit risky against the 2nd elder orb as it casts ranged imprisonment and used a death spell against Kitthix and the wyvern,

On to the illithid lair. Went to collect a flayer from the control circlet area and got a psionic stun. 100% magic resistance doesn't help and a save vs spells of 0 isn't enough. Had an amulet that would improve the save by 2 and improved invisibility that would improve by 4 but was being lazy (thought I was safe).

If anybody knows what saves are required for flayers / ulitharid / Alhoon I'd appreciate that info. Thanks.

Edited by Gate70, 01 February 2014 - 10:39 AM.

[Grond0]

Sal - elf wild mage (update 9)

After yesterday's somewhat dodgy play I was more careful today and Sal had no problems in finishing off SoA.

A project image produced summons to deal with the ambush on the way to save Phaere (the images can also cast wizard eye to allow summons to be controlled at a distance).  The same summons, backed up by a wilting, successfully rescued Phaere.  Sal quickly ran through Phaere's tasks and met the Matron Mother at the temple.  I realised there I had forgotten to pick up the remains of an elder orb, but still had more than was needed.  Solaufein passed some fake eggs to Sal through the letter box of the temple door and she used those to ensure a happy end to a demon summoning ceremony.  A thing in a fish tank gave away her identity as she ran for the city exit, but too late to make any difference and Sal handed over the real eggs to Adalon.

Back in Athkatla Sal sorted out her equipment and bought a few new spells before going after Bodhi.  Most of her support were wilted, while she became yet another planetar victim.

On the way back to Elhan some Sal dopplegangers tried an ambush, but died in an incendiary cloud.  Elhan opened up Suldanesselar and Sal was soon working her way through that.  She had no problems there, although she was just too slow killing some rakshasa to save Demin.  Nizi died just as a project image disappeared.  After returning some things to the temple Sal was able to climb on to the Tree of Life.  He soon eradicated some pests there, with the help of a planetar.  That then occupied Jon while Sal chucked several wiltings in.  A skeleton warrior then took over as distraction while an incendiary cloud finished him off.

Sal followed the goody-goody route for all the Tears of Bhaal - providing some elemental and magic resistance, immunity to normal / +1 weapons (I remembered to cast remove fear - via NRD - to get that), -2 to saving throws and +1 wis/cha.  I still have in mind taking the evil route with a good-aligned mage some time to see if they can then cast both types of planetars, but Sal hit the level cap a long time ago, so I don't think that's an option for her.

For the final battle with Jon, Sal produced some initial summons.  Only the planetar was left by a death spell, but a wilting done at the same time deprived the slayer of support.  After it had had enough Jon produced another body, so Sal produced another planetar and helped it out with a ration of energy blades - eliciting one final defiant shout from Jon before he disappeared into the abyss.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Now finally great news here, Grond0! Well done with Jon and all the best with the remaining obstacles en route to glory!

[Grond0]

Thanks Serg.  Sal has made a decent start to ToB, though she has had to survive one careless moment.

Sal - elf wild mage (update 10)

Ilasera was quickly vorpalled.  For the first pocket plane challenge Sal tried essentially to just use the fire wand, but Bodhi's speed and magic resistance meant Sal also had to use a potion of speed to keep away until finally managing to finish her off.

In Saradush Sal bought a second bag of holding and a few more scrolls to go in it and then got some vampires to show her the way to the castle through the prison.  I was a bit careless going through there and didn't appreciate that a dispel magic trap had got rid of Sal's stoneskin - a thief backstab then triggered her contingency (though she was already invisible by then).  In response to that I decided it was time to get rid of the Claw and replace it with a +2 ring of protection - that provides an extra 10 HPs as a margin for emergencies.

In the Castle Sal quickly got out of sight while still invisible and then a single incendiary cloud killed all the enemies.  The approach to Gromnir was also done invisibly, but this time Sal produced a planetar and supporting summons.  A death spell left only the planetar, but while it occupied enemies 3 wiltings did the main damage.

Sal moved forwards on the trail to Yaga-Sura.  The North Forest had a bunch of enemies with follow-me scripts, so she used wand scorchers to dispose of them safely.  At the Temple of Mir the standard full collection of summons (3 skeleton warriors, a mordy sword and a planetar) made mincemeat of the Master Wraith.  A spot of summoned replenishment against skeleton armies saw Sal through to talk to Nyalee.

Sal kept summons going at the Fire Giant Temple and had no problems there.  She also used chain contingency triple wiltings a couple of times to speed things up.  The familiar did get a short outing for the first time in a long while to deliver a killing blow to the magic golem after Sal had beaten it unconscious with her fists.  Nyalee tried to switch sides, but was rapidly overcome by summons and Sal is now free to go after Yaga-Shura.

Edited by Grond0, 03 February 2014 - 09:08 AM.

[Grond0]

Sal - elf wild mage (11th and final update)

Yaga-Shura proved slightly more difficult than I expected.  He was wounded with a lightning bolt before Sal went invisible again, then pulled away from his support crew to face some summons.  However, the summons must have moved forward just far enough to activate the support and the Lieutenant Mage cast a death spell as a result while Yaga finished off the planetar.  He was already at near death though and a single blast from the lightning wand proved enough.

For the second pocket plane challenge Sal buffed up and led the way with a triple wilting from chain contingency - killing Semaj.  A follow-up triple sunfire spell trigger unfortunately just failed to kill Sal's double and I stupidly hadn't pre-cast energy blades, allowing the double to kill a follow-up planetar and heal up.  Some energy blades were belatedly produced and they accounted for Tamoko before Sal switched to wand scorchers.  After a few of those she had to use a potion of speed as her improved haste had run out, but with that she was able to keep away from her double.  There were no movement errors and eventually a combination of scorchers and the odd dart finished the job without Sal being hit at all.

At the oasis another wilting contingency cut down much of the welcoming committe and a follow-up planetar cleared the remainder.  Sal left the rest of the enemies and moved on to Amkethran.  After saving the bandits there from the monks Carras stupidly shot the planetar and, though Sal ran him round, the bandit meanwhile disappeared, so no shopping there.

Leaving the demi-lich alone Sal moved on to Abazigal's lair.  An opening wilting contingency badly wounded Draconis and a series of cloudkills from out of sight forced him to change shape.  Sal tried to use a project image to create some summons, but Draconis tracked her down and, ignoring the planetar and mordy sword that were closest, chose to breathe on her. 

My refusal to use acid protection proved costly once more - I thought as I paused the game that she was going to survive and her contingency would activate.  However, immediately after unpausing she died - I'm not sure whether that was due to another breath effect or whether the breath just bounced off something back onto her. 

Edited by Grond0, 03 February 2014 - 07:29 PM.

[Gate70]

Well done to get that far. You really should continue in the minimal reloads (but I know you won't)

[corey_russell]

Sorry to hear that Grond0 - I second Gate70's comment, great as solo to get as far as you did.

[Grond0]

Thanks Corey, but I think there's still room for improvement!

Sal {2} - elf wild mage (update 1)

After a quick trip through BG1 Sal's reincarnation is under way in Athkatla.  She had no real problem in the dungeon with summons being used extensively along with area effect spells.  There were quite a few wild surges, but nothing particularly nasty - although this one might have been a pain if she'd had more money.  I made a mistake when Sal edged forward too much near Ulvaryl and activated her before she had produced any summons - resulting in the vampire escaping.

She got 6 HPs with her final level up, giving her a healthy 62 at level 10 (average would be 58.5).

[polytope]

Gate70 wrote...

If anybody knows what saves are required for flayers / ulitharid / Alhoon I'd appreciate that info. Thanks.

Regular mind flayers: Unmodified save vs spell or be stunned (...and die).

Ulitharids: Save vs spell with a -4 penalty to avoid stun.

Dunno if their domination has a penalty to save, but that's no problem anyway for a solo monk or cavalier.

Oh, and Draconis must be right up there with mind flayers in ending Bhaalspawn's careers...

Speaking of which, had some time to play with Eryx and party of ex-Bhaalspawn and investigate for the eyeless cult, the beholder in the sewers is killed with the aid of my usual beholder distracting tactics.

A lengthy and epic battle with a party of Yuan-Ti follows. Of course the dreaded snake mage dispels all my buffs (need one more level to cast spell immunity). Time for a potion of invisibility!



After three secret word spells from Randolph the sorc (though the hasted Yuan-Ti mage may have wandered out of the radius of one), his globe is still up... was he prebuffed with spell shield? The snake is also protected by mantle, so no chance with any of our weapons.

Well, Eryx and party retreated and distracted this mage with summons until his globe wore off, then took a stab at silencing him with Namarra and a couple of Holy Smite casts... had no luck here, Yuan-Ti magic resistance kicks in at the most inopportune times, but he was out of ProMW type spells and could be interrupted by Frostreaver + arrows of ice.

The 3 beholders and gauths beyond the bridge were showered with fireballs (from Eryx, Efreeti and sorc with wand of fire) and 2x Holy Smite. Only two were left standing, I mean floating, but they were finished of quickly...

Eryx got a much needed level up while fighting the undead in their city. So did Aleks the PoL (who DC to fighter immediately) upon defeating the blind priests... Hmm, beating up blind priests, never realized how lame that sounds.

This meant one less Holy Smite spell (though even as a low level fighter, Aleks can contribute by lobbing potions of explosions) when tackling the second spawn of beholders. It ended up being an actual battle, rather than an ambush!



Anyway, the beholders were softened up enough by AoE damage that they died before putting Eryx in any danger.

Immediately afterwards I ran the party back to the entrance (to the ghoul city) and cast Invis-10-foot (I rely on this spell a lot, thanks for noticing) Upon returning to the beholder lair, we find a straggler (who normally comes to join in while fighting the other beholders), THIS time my party got the drop on him.

The Unseeing Eye himself is crisped with the scroll of wilting we found in Umar temple, plus a couple of oils of firey burning while the Eye and his death Tyrants are distracted by a Nishruu (summoned by the scroll from Lehtinan), those death Tyrants soaked up quite some damage though...

Thus ends the anticlimatic tale of fighting beholders with cheese, I'd leave it till later and do it properly but a six-person party really needs the XP now.

After returning the rift device and reporting back to the temple three of the party level up! I went with Protection from Magic Energy rather than Improved Haste for our sorcerer's first 6th level pick.

Current party:

Eryx, blade 13

Aleks, priest of Lathander 11 -> fighter 7

Randolph, sorcerer 12

Leksa, swashbuckler 10 -> cleric 10 (just 75k more xp to regain her thief abilities)

Artemisia, archer 10

Aragrish the Cliched, barbarian 11

No deaths yet...

Edited by polytope, 05 February 2014 - 04:55 AM.

[Grond0]

Sal {2} - elf wild mage (update 2)

A session before work showed steady progress, though mainly against low value enemies so it seemed pretty slow.  Now that level 6 spells are available Sal's summons will become much better and things should speed up.

Progress is summarised below with a hint of the major tactics used.   There was one nasty moment caused by carelessness, but it was generally pretty serene.

Circus - buffed up and moved invisibly upstairs so only 1 shadow could see Sal.  Then MM for Kalah - level 11.
Gaelan Bayle.
Suna Seni - invisibility.
Paid for a license.
Renfeld - invisibility (successful despite the mage saving against 4 successive chaos spells).
Mad cleric - MGoI.
Cohrvale & Bregg - monster summoning.
Amalas - chaos.
Hendak - GoI (via surge).
Orog ambush - chaos (had a caster becomes target surge here, but fortunately only on magic missile).
Graveyard surface - undead protection (Uncle Lester was killed; Nevin was scared and ran away without talking, but reappeared later.  More gold also vanished).
Southern tombs - part done with undead protection, but had to rest to finish it off.
Pai'Na - sunfire (also provided Kitthix and spell immunity).
Bought Robe of Vecna.
Watcher's Keep.  No vampiric wraiths so should have been easy, but Sal tried to rest inside and got trapped by undead that could see through invisibility - she was lucky there was no surge on either of the two spells used to blast a way out.  Also got to level 12 there.
Berserker horn - spell immunity.

[Grond0]

Sal {2} - elf wild mage (update 3)

Progress in the last session, was significantly quicker - summary as follows:

Skinner murders - summons waiting at top of stairs.
Kidnappers - summons (air elemental immunity to normal weapons proving irresistable there).
Prebek & Sanasha - got out of sight inside house and produced summons.
Lucette - surrounded by summons and couldn't get away (Xzar also had a nice mordy sword scroll).
Paid Gaelan and collected goodies from Aran Linvail.
Helped Roger - summons; they went on to kill the rakshasa and kobolds and open up the Unseeing Eye quest.
Attacked the liches - forgot to put up undead scroll protection on Shade Lich and wasted time waiting for it to become visible again. That meant Sal used 2 speed potions (+ a scroll of undead protection and several phantom blade spells), rather than just 1.  There was another error when I reached Kangaxx and realised I didn't have a potion of power.  The lower rate of hitting meant Sal used 6 of her 7 scrolls of MMM, rather than just the 1 or 2 I expected - level 13.
Rayic Gethras - MGoI / skull trap for mephits, summons downstairs for golems, summons from out of sight for Rayic.  Sal's contingency also got triggered for the first time here when mirror images failed to thwart the acid trap.
Invading Mae'Var's guild - summons + skulltraps (I had forgotten the captive in the cage, but fortunately the skull traps were cast far enough forward to miss him anyway).
Went to de'Arnise Hold.  Didn't do everything, but summons led the way, with a first use of a mordy sword ending Torgal's reign - level 14.
Bought bracers AC3 and girdle of hill giant strength - the latter will free up a 2nd level spell slot.

[Grond0]

Sal {2} - elf wild mage (update 4)

In contrast to today's subsequent MP experience, Sal made some more generally easy progress earlier this morning.

The first stop was Trademeet.  Sal did the bare minimum there to open up shopping - going invisibly through the druid grove to reach Cernd (who took just 3 swipes to cut Faldorn in half).

Next was Umar Hills.  Sal picked up the beljuril, but didn't otherwise bother with the side-quests in the town.  She also missed out a lot of the encounters in the ruined temple, though putting the Symbol of Amaunator together still got her to level 15.  Thaxy was a lot harder than I expected.  With the help of a project image Sal summoned 5 skeleton warriors that I thought would work well against him.  However, they found it very difficult to hit and even with all her other summons and attacking spells Sal was unable to kill the dragon (it didn't help that her fire elemental turned hostile).  Thaxy did get to near death eventually, but promptly healed.  Rather than settle in for a long battle throwing the Crimson Dart from underneath the canopy Sal ran away and rested before coming back to try doing the job with her own spells.  The first attempt was foiled when Thaxy healed again at near death (Sal also had a petrification surge there, but had a spell saving throw of 0 so there was no danger). However, the next attempt proved third time lucky.  By contrast the Shade Lord was simple - PW:silence disabled him and MMM and sunfires soon polished him off.  Sal picked up Valygar's body on the way back to Athkatla.

After upgrading the berserker horn and buying the Staff of Rhynn + a few spells (successfully learning spell sequencer this time), Sal moved on to the Planar Sphere.  Summons and area effect magic cleared that with no problems or risks - level 16. 

Sal moved immediately on to the mage stronghold quests.  Sending the knights back home got her to level 17.  She acquired a new dagger and scroll from the apprentices, but once again they were killed in an unsuccessful attempt to make a staff of power.  Sal was eventually asked to return to the Sphere where she was ready to run away and produce some summons to defeat an ambush.  Then she went to put the instigator somewhere where the sun don't shine - he begged for assistance, but none was forthcoming.

On to Windspear Hills where once more progress was swift and trouble-free.  Sal got to level 18 fighting greater wolfweres there and picked up the ability to summon a planetar.  That got a first outing tearing Samia's party apart.  Conster was silenced before the planetar returned to deal with Firkraag with an immediate vorpal.  Reporting that combat to Garren Windspear got Sal to level 19.

Edited by Grond0, 06 February 2014 - 06:25 PM.

[Grond0]

Grond0 wrote...
In contrast to today's subsequent MP experience, Sal made some more generally easy progress earlier this morning.

It's never wise to tempt fate!

Sal {2} - elf wild mage (5th and final update)

Sal's final objective before going to Spellhold was the Twisted Rune.  I thought that would be easy enough to do in a brief session, but it proved otherwise with some strange things going on.

Initially there were problems caused by the planetar's refusal to obey orders.  It's not unusual for a creature to get fixated on a particular enemy and not respond to instructions to attack something else, but normally you can reset the AI by moving them.  That didn't work and I couldn't get the planetar to attack Vaxall and turn off the stream of beholder rays directed at Sal.  It was also surprisingly ineffective against Shyressa and Revanek when I gave up trying to direct it, although it did eventually kill the latter just before it disappeared. 

Sal, a simulacrum and a project image all tried at various times throwing skull traps, but none of them did any damage, either to Vaxall (the main target) or Revanek or Shyressa (who were in range at least some of the time).  I suppose it's possible that was some aura of anti-magic Vaxall has, but I've not noticed that before and suspect it was just a bug.

The killer blow, however, came after Sal's contingency fired.  I was expecting that time in that would allow her to heal a bit and still have a chance when the action restarted.  Unfortunately Shyressa didn't appear to have got the message that Otiluke's sphere makes you invulnerable to all damage (possibly some interaction with the beholder anti-magic ray there?) and her attacks swiftly brought an end to Sal's adventures.

[corey_russell]

Sorry to hear that Grond0. Your screenshot clearly says "Sal: dispel effects" so maybe your sphere got dispelled? Being a mage, I do understand why you would want to deal with Twisted Rune before spellhold (on demand invis and +5 weapon to boot) - still so easy to die there...personally I always wait until chapter 6 to deal with them myself, and this has worked well for me so far doing that way. It does require patience though to do it this way, and I understand you can be short on that sometimes...

Regardless, best of luck in what-ever is your next attempt.

[Grond0]

Yes, I suspect that the anti-magic ray was counted as a dispel magic for that purpose. The effect was still rather odd though as Sal was unable to move even after that screenshot.  Edit: though come to think of it the mouse I was using is starting to not respond to some clicks - so that could have given the impression of inability to move.

Edited by Grond0, 06 February 2014 - 09:31 PM.

[Gate70]

Sigh, see you back in Candlekeep.

[Grond0]

Frasier - gnome kensai (update 1)

Frasier's journey has restarted in Athkatla.  She survived the dungeon without too many problems - a couple of kai strikes and a follow-up LMD getting the bonus XP available for Ulvaryl.

The circus provided a charisma upgrade and she bought some bags and the ring of air control before going to the Slums.  The Copper Coronet has just been cleared there, allowing her to purchase Azuredge and the Sword of Flame.

[corey_russell]

Russell V (that is Russell the fifth) the Inquisitor Update 1
Traveling with: Hanna (Undead Hunter), Misty (Cavalier), Joshua (Undead Hunter), Forrest (Paladin), Paja (cleric/thief)

For character stats see this post. The intent is to let the paladins of the group do most of the work, but Paja will still assist as needed, mostly with locks/traps, summons, and buffs,and oh well healing too. If Paja gets chunked, intend to allow recruiting of a thief or cleric. If a paladin gets chunked then Keldorn can join. If I lose so many paladins only two are left, will then in that case allow non-paladins to join.

SETUP:
Vanilla BG 2
Throne of Bhaal
official ToB patch
core rules at all times
"gore" on (means my characters can get chunked)

We have just arrived in Irenicus' dungeon and are working our way through here.

[Grond0]

Best of luck Corey - seems like a good time for another paladin victory parade.

[corey_russell]

Grond0 wrote...

Best of luck Corey - seems like a good time for another paladin victory parade.

I agree. My paladins have come close, but never could finish the job. Perhaps with this slight group change they can be successful. If this run can be successful, I can then stop the all paladin runs and well, do something else.

[corey_russell]

 Russell V the Inquisitor - Update 2
Traveling with: Hanna (level 10 Undead Hunter), Misty (level 10 Cavalier), (level 10 Joshua),  Keldorn (level 10), Forrest (level 10 Paladin), Paja (level 9 Cleric/level 11 Thief)

Russell V has made a lot of progress:
* solved circus problem - pretty easy with true sight
* Freed Hendak
* Obtained Lilacor
* Defeated slavers in moored ship - true sight once again very useful here. We accidentally ran into a few traps due to AI, but no one died.
* First level of Watcher's Keep (we did this at level 8) - the only part not done is the 2nd group of statues - we only engaged the 1st group for the Foebane for Hanna
* Solved Umar Hills murders problem - we defeated the shade lord, but ignored the shadow dragon - once again, Russell's V's 17 INT coming in handy here - with 4 INT paladins always attack and die vs. that dragon...
* We had enough money for the Shield of Balduran so we got that.
* Found "Montaron" for Xzar - it didn't work out as Xzar had planned.
* Exposed and elimated Maevar - no difficulty at all with this part.
* Defeated Rayic Gethras - he got a sunfire off, did lots of damage to the party, but he died shortly there-after.
* Russell V heard a rumor of DEX gauntlets in the sewers, but if doing that need to deal with Tarnor's gang. Paladins can now de-cloak and attack with sanctuary spell. BUT against Gaius, Tarnor's mage, that doesn't work because of true sight. However, if Paja had cloak of non-detection she could draw out those true sights with her decent stealth. 

Thus, we engaged Mencar's gang. We can see below how we prepared the de-cloak paladins on Mencar's mages' heads:

It ended up being a very bloody battle - Forrest got killed by Risling and Orcslicer (first death in BG 2 for this run), and Brennan Risling escaped through a window apparently, the doorway was blocked. However, we did get the cloak of non-detection for Paja. Here's our status after that bloody battle.


Next up, we went to the Temple Sewers and Paja stealthed and drew out Gauis true sights - we waited them out. Then we buffed the de-cloakers (Misty, Hanna and Joshua). The three hidden warriors get into position:


They de-cloak and attack Gaius. Some skeletons and the ranged party members also attack, trying to focus on Gaius. We lose him though to a shadow door, so tun on AI. Paja casts anything useful, 2x hold and 2x silenece. These were a big help, but shortly before Gaius death he created a perma death in vengeance - Joshua got CHUNKED! (distingrated probably). We did win though. Good thing a paladin nearby to replace him, which we recruit immediately.

EDIT: Forgot to mention I lost some equipment permanently when Joshua died. Things of note:
* Full Plate
* Lilacor
* Sword of Chaos
* Patrick's Halberd
* ring +1
* charm helmet
* Tuigan's short bow
* unlimited +1 arrow ammo item from WK

Edited by corey_russell, 09 February 2014 - 12:53 AM.

[corey_russell]

Russell V the Inquisitor - Update 3

More progress was made. Russell V tried to take down Kangaxx, and got a minor coup here - Paja managed to pick-pocket Kangaxx a split second before the fight, and Keldorn killed Kangaxx with the firetooth crossbow.

We also took care of the Unseeing Eye problem - Keldorn got the DEX gauntlets,since he is in the front lines. Only hiccup was Paja got killed by power word:kill by the Eye before we killed it. This always seems to happen to my thieves...fortunately a RoR we picked up from Mekrath got her back to speed.

Speaking of Mekrath, since Keldorn's pro magic scroll was still active from the battle with Kangaxx, the gang booked it to the sewers and tried to have Keldorn solo Mekrath. As I feared, the scroll wore off mid battle - right when Mekrath was throwing lightning bolts everywhere and Keldorn had no protection at all! Keldorn tried to avoid the richochets, and got to a sliver of life - but he healed and pursued the attack and did in fact defeate Mekrath - close, Keldorn could have easily been chunked if I had mis-clicked.

Paja checked out the other side of the lair and some some Yuan-tis. Paja buffed Misty to the max and Misty charged by herself. Misty was chosen for her stonefire - she might interrupt spells due to the elemental damage - she does in fact win the fight with little trouble.

Now that Keldorn has the DEX gauntlets, he is in the front-lines (#3), with Forrest using the Firetooth crossbow. No 2-hand sword that is +3 or later until we are strong enough to take down Firkraag. So using dragon halberd if Keldorn needs +3 weapon, even though he has no skill with it.

[Grond0]

corey_russell wrote...
Now that Keldorn has the DEX gauntlets, he is in the front-lines (#3), with Forrest using the Firetooth crossbow. No 2-hand sword that is +3 or later until we are strong enough to take down Firkraag. So using dragon halberd if Keldorn needs +3 weapon, even though he has no skill with it.

Good stuff Corey.  How about Lilarcor for a temporary sword - should be simple for your party to get?