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[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 73 - (update 4)

Eyesore, gnome illusionist (Grond0) & Danya, elf fighter/mage (Gate70)

 

A fair amount of progress today, though at a cost of 1 death for Danya, one close call for Eyesore and one bizarre passage of play following an imprisonment ...

 

At the Planar Prison things started off well with the Bounty Hunters being dealt with quickly.  Umber hulks and thralls along the way caused no real problems, but the same couldn't be said about the Master of Thralls.  He paralysed the attacking Danya and finished him off before Eyesore could do anything about it.  After a first use for the Rod of Resurrection Danya tried again - and got paralysed again.  However, this time there were some better quality summons in play - which was fortunate when Eyesore was also paralysed shortly afterwards.  The game would probably have ended at that point if Kitthix had not come up trumps with a successful web, but that provided enough breathing space for both characters to recover.  That wasn't the end of the story though as Danya was paralysed for a third time and there was then a race against time to see whether Eyesore and the summons could kill the demon before it could drain him of life - they could.  The Warden proved much easier after its buffs were dispelled - its attempted mislead proving ineffective as it was already dead.

 

Starting in on the main quest the duo saw off Lassal and the Guild Contact before invading the vampire hide-out.  Tanova was well and truly crisped by a sunray and Danya made short work of the vampires downstairs before Bodhi failed to deal with summons quickly enough and had to flee a series of heavy blows from Daystar.

 

After sailing to Brynnlaw Perth reacted too slowly to an assault to get any buffs up.  He left behind a book of true seeing.  There were no real problems in Spellhold, though Danya did have to rely on summons finishing off a mind flayer quickly after being stunned.  The undead were led by a greater mummy, which proved easy pickings.  Eyesore got a pair of Boots of Speed there to allow him to keep up with Danya.

 

After emerging into the asylum the duo chose to fight Lonk - that proved to be quite difficult and both were wounded before the confrontation with Jon.  He survived an initial assault and clung on long enough to do more damage before Aphril finally saw him off with a mundane magic missile.

 

After taking ship with Saemon the duo found some Githyanki attacking.  However, the captain got stuck on the gang plank and all his followers died before he eventually got free to signal the break-up of the ship.

 

In the City of Caverns the Cloak of Mirroring was a prize on the way to find the Prince.  He was promoted to king - but only briefly.

 

In the Underdark some ambushing drow were softened up by area damage on the way to deal with a balor.  Vithal was then freed from prison and aided to raid the elemental planes before coming under fire.  However, he had apparently spent all his time in jail scribing time stop scrolls as the battle progressed something like the following:

- 1st time stop and Danya imprisoned.

- 2nd time stop and summons Wilted.

- Vithal affected by chaos, but that didn't stop him casting a 3rd time stop.

- Eyesore releases Danya from imprisonment and Vithal reacts with a 4th time stop.

- still clinging to life Vithal creates a Gate before immediately producing a 5th time stop.

- Vithal then appeared to dimension door away, but the damage was done with the pit fiend attacking Danya and turning her hostile.

- after finishing off the other opposition I thought it would be a good idea to kill Danya to reset her status effects.  Gate70 though pointed out (very patiently in the circumstances) that Danya was no longer in the party and death would be, well, death.  

- Eyesore tried charming Danya, but she was bearing the Shield of Harmony, so that couldn't work.  Finally he resorted to petrifying her.  That still left him with a hostile statue, but saving and reloading at that point just left the normal neutral stone and a scroll later Danya was welcomed back into the party.

 

The final action of the session was clearing the kuo-toa tunnels.  The duo were unable to do damage quick enough to cope with the prince's regeneration initially, but a spot of tadpole tainting did the trick.

 

Stats:

Eyesore, illusionist 16, 77 HPs (incl. 7 from ioun stone), 433 kills

Danya, fighter 12 / mage 13, 110 HPs, 584 kills, 1 death

[corey_russell]

@Grond0/Gate70: Very interesting account, thanks! Never heard of freeing a party member from imprisonment mid-battle - and that was an inventive use of petrify to get the party member back. Guess it's a good thing not much protects against petrify...

[Blackraven]

I second Corey's remarks. Compliments on your accomplishments in the Planar Prison and the Underdark particularly.

[Grond0]

Just wondering. Have you got the mod installed that forces pause for dialogue? If not, it might be worth installing.

Here it is, but as was seen it wasn't entirely effective .

~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #130 // Force All Dialogue to Pause Game: v16

[corey_russell]

Corarcher Update - Initial ToB encounters

 

For Illsaerra, we used our best summons and 3x call lightning - as well as Joshua casting dispel magic at her (Joshua can dispel almost anyone with his high levels) - this was devastating to the enemies, the battle was over in about 1 round...

 

The 1st challenge was a bit bloody than normal - both Joshua and Cernd kept getting charmed and getting killed by enemies as well as fellow party members - and it happened more than once. We eventually just let Joshua die and brought him back after the enemies were clear.

 

We didn't do too much for the initial battle in Saradush - we figured 3x call lightning should easily carry the day. Melissan decides to talk to us with our lightnings still going off - guess she isn't fazed.

 

Some soldiers picking on a waitress - they paid the price for that. We also cleared Mateo as well as rescued the Countess' son. We solved a stolen spell book mystery, as well as found shelter for some elves (poor saps  - they don't know they won't live long thanks to Yaga Shura...).

 

The vampires in the Jail were rather simple - Misty, being the only person who can be immune to level drain (IMoD), soloed the entire place, even the vampires at the end.

 

The mass of enemies that you meet when breaking into Gromnir's Jail, we had a single planetar deal with them - amazingly it beat them all....if even lasted long enough to draw out a nearby mage's time stop (which ended being wasted). We did a few more summons to finish the mage. The party then battled their way to the level below Gromnir's Throne Room.

 

For Gromnir, we did a lot of buffs, everything that really  made sense (Corarcher's save vs. spells is -2). Corarcher and Forrest were in particular well protected, thanks to Armor of Faith and Hardiness stacking. Joshua and Hanna used mirror images/stoneskins, and Cernd just had to fend for himself. Our initial plays was insect plague at Gromnir and his mages, horrid wilting at the flankers - this was absolutely devastating, no one came close to dying.

 

We'll go to the forest near Nylee's temple next session.

[Alesia_BH]

Kaxir had a bit of time to think about the Master of Thralls, and some help in confirming his saving throws and hit points would both be beneficial. The entire battle...

 

What's the issue? Did it seem like he fell too soon?

 

Unmodded, he only has ~60 hitpoints, so three thwacks from Kaxir should have done it.

 

Maybe that hit on an offhand 6 surprised you? What was Kaxir's THAC0 at the time?

 

Best,

 

A.

 

EDIT: Just checked his CRE file. Vanilla, he has 54 hitpoints, with an effective AC of 1. I can't say whether the  EE changed him at all.

[Alaestr]

My master of thralls has 81 hps with an AC of -5 and thac0 of 4. He also has some beastly elemental and magic resistance though his saves are not that good. 

[Alesia_BH]

Understood. Mine is like yours, except for the hitpoints. In my setup he has 114 hitpoints, an AC of -5, and a THAC0 of 4.

 

In my reply to Gate, I was looking at what I believe to be the original PMASTER.CRE.

 

Best,

 

A.

[Grimwald the Wise]

The Gnasty Gnomes from BG1 now enter the fray. My first evil party in Amn. Amn had better watch out. I am going to play with a party in Amn, just because it is so much more interesting. No Saerileth this time though. I am wondering whom my gnomes will be able to romance. Any ideas?

[corey_russell]

Aerie will romance gnomes. In the vanilla game I think that would be it, but who knows with all your mods, Wise...

[Grimwald the Wise]

Here it is, but as was seen it wasn't entirely effective .

~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #130 // Force All Dialogue to Pause Game: v16

 

I will have to remember that for my game. I think in that situation, re-loading should be acceptable. It is a bug.

[Alaestr]

Dominique, the dancing blade. Update No. 3 and finale. 

 

 

     After rushing through the spellhold, skipping all unnecessary fights, Dominique died at the hands of Jon. I didn't know Jon would have at his disposal HLAs amongst them fallen planetar who wrecked Domi in melee after chasing her in to corner. RIP in pepperonis as twitch chat likes to say. 

[Blackraven]

I will have to remember that for my game. I think in that situation, re-loading should be acceptable. It is a bug.

 

I second this. I suspect the "Your character has died" screen means the end of Grond0's latest Crew, and I would understand his position (I had something similar once with the BG2 Fixpack component that makes Free Action include protection from Stun; my character got stunned by a Chromatic Orb while wearing a Ring of Free Action, and I abandoned that run). But if the game is clearly not doing what it's supposed to do according to one's install, without one being aware of it, I'd say a reload should be allowed.

[Blackraven]

Dominique, the dancing blade. Update No. 3 and finale. 

 

 

     After rushing through the spellhold, skipping all unnecessary fights, Dominique died at the hands of Jon. I didn't know Jon would have at his disposal HLAs amongst them fallen planetar who wrecked Domi in melee after chasing her in to corner. RIP in pepperonis as twitch chat likes to say. 

No, I'm sorry Alaestr
SCS allows the user to decide if (and which) SoA enemies get access to HLAs. You might want to review your WEIDU-log to be sure what options you picked.

[corey_russell]

I second this. I suspect the "Your character has died" screen means the end of Grond0's latest Crew, and I would understand his position (I had something similar once with the BG2 Fixpack component that makes Free Action include protection from Stun; my character got stunned by a Chromatic Orb while wearing a Ring of Free Action, and I abandoned that run). But if the game is clearly not doing what it's supposed to do according to one's install, without one being aware of it, I'd say a reload should be allowed.

 

I've divided on this. On the one hand, some merchants do pause when you talk to them in single player, and some don't, at least one Grond0 found. Granted Grond0 has a mod which theoretically forces one behavior for all merchants, but obviously it doesn't. There's quite a few dialogues in the bridge district (citizens rambling by dead shadow thieves, Carbos and Shank, the muggers) and I wonder if code-wise they needed it to not pause for all of this other stuff to work.

 

The other detail is in Vanilla BG 1, I can remember being killed while taking to a merchant, e.g,, the action still continued and didn't care you were "shopping" - which really is realistic behavior. Can you imagine the two fallen paladins chasing Bob saying, "Wait a minute, we can't attack Bob, he's in the store - sure he might get upgrades or more ammo and even killed our other members of our group, but can we really kill him while he's doing that?" I don't think they would say that, but do exactly what they did - take advantage of Grond0 not paying attention to them.

[Blackraven]

Good point, and I fully agree with you on the realism aspect. I know I would probably have accepted the game over for my character, as in the example with the Free Action not doing what it was supposed to, but I wouldn't mind if others allowed themselves a reload in this case.

Anyway I'm not completely clear on the rules that apply here. I get the impression people here deal with these things on a case-by-case basis, which is something I'd probably better leave to the veterans, who have much more experience with such cases as the present one. 

[Grond0]

Personally I would never expect to reload just because something unexpected happened in my game - whether that could be described as the result of a bug or not.  That's on the basis that you should always 'expect the unexpected'.  Not everyone feels the same way of course ...

[corey_russell]

Certain kinds of bugs, I absolutely think should be reloaded - it depends a bit on what kind of bug it is. In Grond0's case it might be  a bug, but it was also a realistic consequence (talking to a merchant when still in battle) - I think I could accept that. Grond0 seems to be saying so can he.

 

I've run in to that bug where my character looted the 2nd half of the rod of Amaunator for the Unseeing Eye quest and without any control, it ran my character of the lair, the game said I tried to remove the rod from sewers, then killed me because it said I removed the rod (I didn't the AI did that). That's ridiculous, I didn't do anything wrong. That should be a reload.

 

Alesia reload a Sendai battle because her magic damage resistance wasn't working - but this was a vital part of her solo, SCS strategy (it was later determined to be a ToBex bug). The community agreed with her decision.

 

Per the rules, Grond0 can reload, but he isn't required to.

[corey_russell]

Corarcher Update - Yaga Shura Quests

 

The party battled Yaga's men in the glade - they were no match for Corarcher's team. Then we headed to Nylee's place to have her tell us how to beat Yaga-Shura. But first you have to talk to that spectre and his buddies. We opened with 2x sunray (via items) but that was NOT decisive - it ended up being a rather bloody battle but we did win - whew. Corarcher then used a protection from undead scroll to solo the nearby undead.

 

Quite a few healing potions had to be used at Yaga's temple, but the team prevailed without any deaths. As is my practice anymore for my parties, I always put the arcane fire resistance on all characters, kept up at all times - this helps quite a bit to avoid chunked party members here. The opening battle inside the temple went very well - we opened with a planetar, plague of insects and a horrid wilting - that plus our attacks did the job. The rest of the temple was no problem - we also kept up resist fear here - Hanna as always did great job disarming/detecting traps. With the amulet from Imix, she also has -12 AC natively - even better than our tanks! A bit sad, maybe...

 

Regardless after getting the hearts we rested and returned to Nylee's Glade. We had a few traps, set some down. The party was heavily buffed, and destroyed both Nylee and her minions fairly easily.

 

Next session will deal with Yaga-Shura himself....

[Alesia_BH]

Go get Yaga Corey!

 

Best,

 

A.

[corey_russell]

Corarcher Update - Yaga-Shura, Oasis, Draconis

 

The party continues to press forward. We had lot of defense and summons, and used our various spells to good use against Yaga's Army - Yaga himself was hit with everything we had and he even failed his save vs. plague of insects, but we did not let him escape.

 

The Oasis was pretty straight-forward, with our tanks (Misty and Forrest) doing a good job running interference. We summoned a planetar to assist and these enemies just couldn't stop us.

 

We didn't do too much in Amkethran, mainly to get to items from the smugglers and stop a few mercenaries and monks. I never really used the Gargoyle boots, but they look extremely helpful for a melee solo character, will definitely keep it mind for future solo runs...

 

We decided to pay Draconis a visit. It took a long, long time to force him to Dragon form - Misty and Forrest nearly died, and only lived because of RoR heals. Eventually we get the dragon to spawn and then we lead him to some traps - he didn't take the full damage though, because some stalkers got in the way. But the party pressed their attacks including things like called shot and GWWs - the mages were both running true sight - yes Draconis falls!

 

We clear the entrance and decided to take a break before we press further.

[Alesia_BH]

Arcadia, Half-Elven Fighter/Mage

 

Welcome Arcadia to Amn, everyone.

 

Despite the fact that I still haven't written up ~90% of her BG1 adventures.   Arcadia has made progress in the City of Coin. She has rounded out her spellbook, built an early potion collection, and picked up a couple levels. She's broke -and she's furious with me for being totally inefficient and wasteful- but she's nonetheless ready for her first adventure outside Athkatla.

 

 

Current Proficiencies: Long Sword x2, Bow x2, Darts x2, Slings

 

Favored Spells:

 

Level 1: Shield, Pro Evil, Friends, Blindness

Level 2: Strength, Blur, Mirror Image, Invisibility

Level 3: Ghost Armor, Minor Spell Deflection, Vampiric Touch, Haste

Level 4: Improved Invisibility, Stoneskins, Spirit Armor, Polymorph Self, Enchanted Weapon, Minor Sequencer

Level 5: Protection from Normal Weapons, Spell Immunity, Sunfire

 

Current Inventory:

 

I'll flesh out the details as soon as I get the chance.

 

Best,

 

A.

[Alesia_BH]

 

Draconis falls!

 

Congrats Corey!

[corey_russell]

Congrats Corey!

Thanks Alesia. I hope Arcadia makes it far for ya...

[Gate70]

Kaxir has hacked his way through Spellhold, pausing briefly because the lich in the maze has 2 greater mummy pals. Looks familiar.

 

http://forum.bioware...-grond0-gate70/

2 Nadir and Kaxir.  Companion chunked by Spellhold greater mummy while in inventory! (dead link)

 

Revenge is sweet, if somewhat painful.

 

The lich is one-shotted with the improved mace, then Lonk and Irenicus both get Bala'd (the latter surviving long enough for Kaxir to retreat and hurl Azuredge but teleporting away before it can reach him).

 

The next key events are carefully grabbing the tooth of Sekolak in the city of caverns, then almost perishing to the group of sahuagin close to where their prince is hiding. Only a switch to sewer mustard jelly form helps, although doing so sees Kaxir move and stand in a pile of water.

 

Bhaalspawn defeated by wall... After returning to normal form Azuredge deals with the fish but the perils of being a shorty mean he is stuck with no means of escape other than a jump:(