15228 replies to this topic

[Grimwald the Wise]

Point taken.

Too bad I couldn't explain to her that the plan was rather that she could take a day off...

 

Some NPCs are hyper-sensitive like some women that I know. (Probably men too, but I have never dated a bloke.)

[Grond0]

Phantasmic 6 {53} - monks party (update 2)

 

The monks picked up the berserker horn in the Bridge District and solved the skinner murders.  They were unable to entice the Rune Assassins upstairs though and left that fight for later.  They did though bounce in and out of the warehouse to kill Dracandros and his cronies.  The mage turned invisible and ran away at one point and was tracked down by a wandering berserk warrior.  By that stage he'd used lots of spells, but it was still a bit risky to attack in a position where there was no clear line of retreat.  Chimera tried using LMD to interrupt a spell when the others attacked - Dracandros maintained his concentration through that, but was stunned almost immediately afterwards anyway.

Spoiler

 

The monks decided to try their luck at Watcher's Keep, but were ambushed by orogs.  They used a potion of firebreath and the ring of energy to do some early damage, but unfortunately couldn't kill the mage quickly.  

Spoiler

Spook's attempted lay on hands was interrupted by an orog and that nearly proved costly when the mage hit him with a critical MMM.  However, everyone just managed to survive until the mage was finally beaten into a pulp.

Spoiler

 

At Trademeet they rested up before a sneak attack killed Taquee.  Chimera stayed outside the tent while the others went inside and managed to stun both the other genies.  

Spoiler

After buying a few things though the monks just left - looking for something easier than large groups of spirit trolls to work through.

 

Back in Athkatla the Fallen Paladins saving throws were not up to defending against stunning blows.  

Spoiler

Captain Dennis and his crew would have been more of a danger, but they couldn't handle stealth attacks using the stairs.  An aerial servant summoned by the cleric was more of a problem due to it's ability to go invisible (and hit hard enough to one-shot any of the monks with a critical), but it was killed before any tragedies occurred and the Captain soon followed (giving Spook the chance to make use of the Boomerang Dagger this time).

Spoiler

 

Next up they went to Watcher's Keep to find something to store their growing collection of potions.  They didn't make much progress inside though before a vampiric wraith appeared and they made a run for it.  

 

Looking for something easier they went to Umar Hills and worked through some undead.  The main groups there were only shadow fiends and skeleton warriors, which made for easy enough targets and Chimera was pleased to pick up a ioun stone before everyone got to level 10 with the death of a bone golem.

Spoiler

For the Shade Lord they once more bounced up and down to avoid giving him a chance to attack.  

Spoiler

The monks were very tempted to try the same with Thaxy, but funny things sometimes happen when something the size of a dragon does area transitions and they decided to continue to play safe for now.

 

After picking up Valygar's body and reporting to the mayor the monks returned to Athkatla and dived into the Temple sewers.  They killed a couple of gauths there when one of them and the beholder were scared by Bhaal horror, but lost track of where the beholder ran to.  That nearly caused disaster when they didn't scout far enough ahead using stealth and the beholder proved to be hiding behind some goblins - Chimera was forced to make a saving throw and Wraith was petrified before it was finished off.

Spoiler

 

After buying a scroll at the temple and reviving Wraith they had a go at the rakshasa.  He saved against a first lot of stunning blows and the monks had to dodge a cloud kill and skull trap before hiding again and trying a second (and successful) stealth attack.

Spoiler

They then moved on to open up the Unseeing Eye quest.  At the bridge the efreeti badly damaged the 3 beholders while a horror made the gauths run to their deaths. I was hoping to finish off the 2 near dead beholders with a sneak attack, but only 1 died immediately resulting in one monk being paralysed and another sent flying by telekinesis before getting down to the last beholder.  Phantom was sent running in terror, but fortunately not towards the petrification trap, and the others managed to finish off the beholder without further damage - leaving them enough in hand to deal with the arrival of some undead despite another monk being paralysed by a shadow fiend.  

Spoiler

This time the monks chose not to go straight on to tackle more beholders though ...

 

Stats (cont from BG1)

Chimera - L10, 58 HPs, 514 kills

Spectre - L10, 65 HPs, 711 kills, 1 death

Phantom - L10, 67 HPs, 431 kills, 0 deaths

Wraith - L10, 71 HPs, 496 kills, 0 deaths

Spook - L10, 73 HPs, 450 kills, 0 deaths

Spirit - L10, 75 HPs, 497 kills, 1 death

[Grond0]

Phantasmic 6 {53} - monks party (update 2)

 

Up to this point death had been a rare event for the monks, but this session changed all that - even though the progress made ultimately proved fruitless .

 

After wimping out of more beholders for now the monks killed Mekrath in a sneak attack and then drew the yuan-ti mages over to the stairs where they could be finished off in relative safety. I'd actually bought some boots of grounding at the temple and Spirit used those when looting the area - making it slightly less of a game of russian roulette than usual.

Spoiler

 

In the sewers a sneak attack disposed of Gaius and the others wouldn't have had much chance of causing trouble even before Chimera's horror made a mess of them.

Spoiler

 

Back at the Bridge District the monks decided to risk the Rune Assassins.  Their backstabs hurt, but there were no criticals and everyone survived once more.  

Spoiler

Next door they then entered the Planar Prison with the intention of doing a sneak attack on the mage.  However, Spook's stealth broke as he was transitioning.  That left the monks really exposed with a difficult fight - not just with the bounty hunters, but other things joining in from each side as well.  Initially things went very well, with the mage taking a while to buff while invisible - allowing the monks to plough their way through nearly all of the other attackers.  When the mage did eventually appear he saved against a number of stunning blows, then managed to get a contingency stoneskin up to save himself.  The monks would still have beaten down his defenses pretty quickly, but then my heart sank as I saw the following:

 

Everyone tried to take either a potion of magic shielding or magic protection, although even with quick acting potions I was pretty sure that would be too late for those closest to the action.  I was concerned about Spook being chunked and wouldn't have been surprised if 3 other monks had been killed at the same time - so the following was as good a result as I could reasonably have hoped for:

Spoiler

 

The bounty hunter mage died before completing another spell,

Spoiler

but there was still an invisible thrall mage lurking.  The monks spread out so his chaos only caught one of them - though that led to an attack on Taggett that annoyed him.  The thrall mage then tried to finish Spirit and Wraith off with MMMs, but couldn't quite complete the job before Chimera found a way through his stoneskins and somehow the remaining 4 were still alive with a bit of respite (I don't allow the use of the rod of resurrection while in a battle situation).

Spoiler

 

After using the rod to bring back the dead, the monks were about to loot the bodies when a curious wyvern arrived to check out the commotion, but that didn't last long and the monks were able to rest up.  They then started making their painstaking way round the area, using long range stealth shots on the yuan-ti to pull them out of position so they could be attacked individually.  One of them managed to confuse 3 of the monks, but was quickly killed after that and the monks all survived easily enough.  The others all failed to cast any attacking spells.

 

However, the concentration required to deal with those mages took its toll when looking into one of the prison cells.  Wraith was trying to pop in and out, but got caught by the invisible Gish - who has an insta-cast maze .  That meant the game could not proceed without someone else intervening as the Gish just remazed her whenever she threatened to reappear.  Spook, Spectre and Spirit tried to help out with the result that they were all mind-blasted and died.  They did, however, move the Gish away so that when Wraith appeared next time she wasn't mazed - just also mind-blasted and killed .  The RoR then did its magic again before Spectre used stealth attacks to nip down and work her way through the enemies.

Spoiler

 

For some reason at this point the game was not allowing any more resting (possibly the result of the maze being cast in the trap and not properly shown as cancelled, or possibly the result of it going unstable).  That made things more difficult, but the monks soldiered on.  Spectre used a potion of invulnerability against status effects from the Master of Thralls and a potion of regeneration for her HPs with the intention of soloing it - but, as in the last run, the Master immediately teleported to the other monks and attacked the weakest ones - killing Wraith before being overcome.

Spoiler

 

After clearing some werewolves out of another cell Spectre broke the orb and then approached the Warden expecting him to be occupied with thralls.  However, I guess they had all been killed by the monks in the original battle with the bounty hunters as the Warden charged Spectre as soon as she came into sight - prompting her to turn tail and run.  The yuan-ti mages were also active and approached the other monks from the other direction and Wraith had to act as a decoy and use up an invisibility potion to allow the others to find a safe(ish) area. Some more hard work then managed to separate each of the yuan-ti mages and they were killed without any more casualties - though only just.

Spoiler

 

With just the Warden and a few yuan-ti left Spook borrowed the boots of speed and dragged the yuan-ti away before trying long-distance shots at the Warden.  He managed quite a few hits before being caught in a wilting - at which point Wraith (as the least damaged character) took over the duty.  She got rid of a number more spells and I was starting to look forward to the Warden snuffing it - when the game went wonky and started reporting text showing the death of the philosopher in Trademeet ages ago.  I've seen that happen a number of times before and it's always been followed by a game crash - and that's what happened this time.  I don't have a save since entry, which means all that effort was wasted and the monks will have to have another go at the Planar Prison ...

 

Stats (cont from BG1)

Chimera - L10, 58 HPs, 518 kills

Spectre - L10, 65 HPs, 719 kills, 2 deaths

Phantom - L10, 67 HPs, 434 kills, 1 death

Wraith - L10, 71 HPs, 503 kills, 2 deaths

Spook - L10, 73 HPs, 453 kills, 2 deaths

Spirit - L10, 75 HPs, 500 kills, 2 deaths

The deaths from the crashed session are included above, though the kills are not.

 

Edit:

The monks' re-entry to the Planar Prison started well when the Bounty Hunter mage was struck down by a stealth attack.  With I think only a couple of thralls joining in the battle this time, everyone survived - despite a couple of nasty flame strikes from the cleric.  Working their way round the area they had their first death when Spirit showed herself to bring a yuan-ti mage out of hiding and got fingered.  Otherwise things went according to plan though.  The Gish in the prison cell followed Spectre upstairs this time - making its maze attack pretty useless - and the yuan-ti, thralls and air elementals were all dead.  I expected the Master to teleport into the middle of some freshly-rested monks again - and suffer as a result - but when they tried to rest to do that I heard the dreaded sound of an assertion failing (and still hadn't remembered to save the game after entry) .  Will it be 3rd time lucky for the monks in the Planar Prison?

[Grimwald the Wise]

That's frustrating Grond0.

[Blackraven]

Will it be 3rd time lucky for the monks in the Planar Prison?

 

I sure hope so... Very frustrating this.

[ussnorway]

SEE2 -04, 

 

The fav four;

 

Hear text as mp3,

 

After a pit fight we unlocked the spear and finally purchased my glasses then I parked Jan and recruited Hexxat for a trip to the grave yard where Valygar backstabbed the boss repeatedly until the bugger stayed down.

 

Tactics;
As it turns out a sharman can dance whilst silenced… a fact I discovered in desperation but the interesting thing is how the Magic weave has changed on this world. Magic damage is hardly worth casting but disabling spells like charm or silence are extremely handy to have in a tuff melee.

 

Spoiler

 

We got ambushed on the way back to the slums and Viconia had to pop silence which led to a new discovery then Mazzy started complaining about the drow | Vampire direction our party has taken… something tells me a half-orc deathguard will be the straw that breaks this camels back so I need new tank capable recruit which all my party can at least, get along with. In the temple sewers we encountered a strong (well equipped) foursome… fortunately they had little understanding of retrograde tactics.

[corey_russell]

@Grond0 - That's terrible news. I hate re-doing areas, especially hard ones like the one you described. Are you playing EE? My game almost never crashes in Planar Prison (the place I get the most crashes is Firkraag's dungeon, for some reason).

[Jianson]

Martha, level 14 half-elven Totemic Great Druid, adventuring in Chapter 2 with Minsc, Yoshimo, Aerie, Edwin(a) and Mazzy 

 

We've been to the Guarded Compound and cleared out the bottom floor. That was scary because of the efreeti, who was invisible and surprised us all with a fireball. Good thing for the low-HP Aerie that she has 60% fire resistance on her equipment. Martha lost half her life and she used a superior healing potion for the first time. We went outdoors to fight the efreeti. Highly annoying - it turned into a sort of cloud (that we couldn't damage) every time it got hurt. Didn't manage to kill it until two strong summons, Minsc and Mazzy surrounded it in melee and Aerie throw MMMs.

 

Back inside, the Glabrezu was killing some other summons, Ogres and a Nishruu. We got 1000 XP for the Nishruu even though we didn't kill it. I sent in Minsc and his Simmy (from Vhailor's Helm) to kill the Glabrezu. I have no fiend boosting components installed from either of my two major mods, other than the basic smarter AI from SCS. Glabrezu died but gave no experience.

 

Yoshimo removed all four of these:

 

 

but we didn't try our luck here yet. When I do, the plan is to set up camp in a back room, set up plenty of traps, have summons ready in several spots and start off with some stealth bombing.

(is that a Glyph of Warding I see in the screenie? And if it is, why doesn't it go off on the people standing next to it?)

 

We went to the Promenade to fight the Cowled Wizards for fun and profit. Yoshimo is now level 16. He enjoys the boosted damage on his standard traps (they now have fire-based extra damage) but the special traps are both good and bad:

 

 

I think I liked the Hold traps better - they always did damage even if the enemy saved. But the situation in the screenie wasn't bad, usually. A reasonably well-timed double cast of Death Fog usually killed at least 2-3 of them before they could escape the cloud.

 

It got a little dicey a few times, and really out of hand one time for Yoshimo:

 

 

That was one of the initial guys, those that are worth a measly 120 XP and only carries a staff. But they are every bit as powerful as the other three in a pack.

 

When it was time for the final pack, we drew a jackpot:

 

 

The haul was overall very rewarding. Plenty of valuable loot to sell (+2 Mace, Laeral's Tear Necklace, etc) and all these scrolls (in order of lowest to highest level):

 

Burning Hands

Spell Shield

Mantle

Project Image

Spell Sequencer

Cacofiend x2

Ruby Ray of Reversal

Summon Fiend

Symbol, Fear

Spell Trap

 

We've dropped Mazzy off again and have moved to the de'Arnise keep. Edwina was surprised that one of her spells was this powerful:

 

 

Hopefully I can do better than the last time I was here. I got half of the party killed in that Tor'Gal battle. I think the key is to face him alone. Not sure if that is possible with the mods I'm running, though.

[Aasim]

 

(is that a Glyph of Warding I see in the screenie? And if it is, why doesn't it go off on the people standing next to it?)

It might be a Symbol:whatever spell.

[Grond0]

@Grond0 - That's terrible news. I hate re-doing areas, especially hard ones like the one you described. Are you playing EE? My game almost never crashes in Planar Prison (the place I get the most crashes is Firkraag's dungeon, for some reason).

This run is on a BGT-based installation.  Generally it's pretty stable, but I suspect there's a problem with the underlying save game at this point - I again got up to the Master of Thralls and again suffered an assertion failure there.  I'll try again after work later today, but it may be that the run's heading into a dead end ...

[Dyara]

Dyara (Fighter/Mage/Thief) (Update 3)

Dyara had worked off the more or less boring parts of the Athkatla quests in the previous update so now it's time for the fun part. In search of Mekrath's Lair Dyara came upon Tarnor the Hatchetman and his bunch of ruffians demanding a fee for letting her pass through. Of course that wasn't really a smart idea. Again Dyara opened with a chaos spell (in SCS v30 the encounter is broken so Dyara had to throw a bullet first the make them hostile)...

Spoiler

and the confused Draug Fea became the first to go down. Dyara had hoped that the confusion would make them fight each other but that did not happen so Dyara tried another spell...

Spoiler

Tarnor and Gallchobhair tried to search for Dyara but in the dark tunnels they became easy targets...

Spoiler

The remaining ones stuck together hiding behind stoneskins and sanctuaries so Dyara sent in the 'Berserk Warrior' and added some lightning bolts...

Spoiler

Unfortunately these bolts are really unpredictable...

Spoiler

Dyara then used backstabs to get rid of Rengaard and Zorl...

Spoiler

... and Gaius was poisoned with darts to prevent spell casting and finally killed as well...

Spoiler

At Mekrath’s lair Dyara traded a broken mirror for Haer'Dalis' release but to get the gem she had to get through a bunch a Yuan-Tis. As calling a fiend for help wasn't really successful Dyara lured most of the Yuan-Ti into the sewers where she used backstabs and her remaining poisoned darts to kill them one-by-one...

Spoiler

With the gem Dyara returned to the Five Flagons inn where Raelis Shai immediately opened the planar portal. Then a bounty hunter appeared and after a short discussion he abducted all the actors including Haer'Dalis. Dyara didn't follow through the portal yet but went for the Graveyard instead. Delivering the broken Spider Bane sword to Pai'Na got Dyara the Kithix figurine and saving the missing fence Arledrian got her a well needed reputation increase and a bag full of valuable gems...

Spoiler

The diamond (the only diamond available without leaving the city - besides the one already used for upgrading the Silver Horn of Valhalla) was required for Cromwell to merge the Guard's Ring and the Ring of Regeneration into the Ring of Preservation +2 (+2 AC, +2 saving throws, regeneration 1hp/round). After buying the Mercykiller Ring Dyara returned to the Graveyard where the (normal, not SCS enhanced) vampires were destroyed...

Spoiler

Luck was stretched slightly when Dyara forgot to re-equip Arbane while fighting a Greater Ghoul but twice she saved vs. game over.

Spoiler

Then Bodhi had seen enough and Dyara reported to Aran Linvail who already had booked a passage to spellhold but Dyara wanted to stock on supplies first.

At the Bridge District Drancandros and friends provided some combat training before Dyara felt ready to go through the planar portal. Apparently the portal led to some sort of planar prison and visitors weren't really welcomed but Dyara was well prepared and she started the argument about visiting hours with a chaos spell...

Spoiler

Next Dyara claimed one of the souterrain apartments for herself...

Spoiler

... but unfortunately it was without a sleeping room (there's only one pit where you can rest but its location, especially the exit isn't really convenient). Dyara then started to walk around a bit but soon she saw herself overrun and pushed back...

Spoiler

... but using her apartment as a refuge she managed to win the fighting...

Spoiler

Success was on the edge when Dyara failed to save vs. a chaos spell but fortunately she didn't fell in one of the pits (still inhabited by SCS enhanced Giths) ...

Spoiler

The master of thralls and his two air elementals then didn't put up much of a fight...

Spoiler

Dyara destroyed the orb; this set all the thralls free and weakened the Warden. A chaos spell and a wand of lightning helped to overcome the Yuan-Ti guards...

Spoiler

A breach spell removed the Warden's combat protections and then he was dead...

Spoiler

 

Name     Level                           HP           Game Kills XP     Game Kills  Strongest Kill   Deaths Pips
Dyara:   Fighter(11)/Mage(12)/Thief(13)  104 (+5)        857.382           428      Bone Golem       -      Longsword(***),Flail(**),TWF(**)

 
To be continued...

 

[Jianson]

This run is on a BGT-based installation.  Generally it's pretty stable, but I suspect there's a problem with the underlying save game at this point - I again got up to the Master of Thralls and again suffered an assertion failure there.  I'll try again after work later today, but it may be that the run's heading into a dead end ...

 

I suggest you make another save once you're past the first fight. If your savegame is indeed somewhat corrupted, that problem may not carry over if you make a new one. 

[Grond0]

Thanks Jianson - good advice, but I'll have to try and remember for a future game.

 

Phantasmic 6 {53} - monks party (3rd and final update)

 

Last night once more the monks entered the arena Planar Prison and once more their stealth broke before they could attack the mage.  At least this time rather than a skull trap sequencer he only had a flame arrow one - resulting in just Spook's death.  The others did well to finish off the attackers - Chimera quickly identifying the Wand of the Heavens the priest had for Spirit to put to good effect against the mage.  The monks then brought back Spook and rested - and I remembered to save the game at that point.  Once more I got to the Master of Thralls without further trouble and once more an assertion failed - so it looked like there might be a fault in the underlying game.

 

Starting the game again this morning from the new save I found it hard to raise the enthusiasm to play safely and the first yuan-ti mage the monks dragged away killed everyone except Chimera.  The monks did finally manage to kill various thralls, yuan-ti and githyanki on the way to the Master of Thralls, but met their doom there.  I had intended for Spectre to just briefly show herself to the Master and then draw away the appearing air elementals to be disposed of before everyone ganged up on the master.  However, impatience led to a slight error in movement that meant Spectre was exposed to a death gaze and held before she could withdraw.  It would have been sensible for the others to just give her up for dead, but they attempted a rescue against the odds.  The delay in attacking the Master while hunting elementals soon proved costly as all of them found themselves frozen.  

Spoiler

 

Spectre did recover before the end and killed a thrall which had joined in the fun, before trying to lead the Master away from the last two paralysed monks.  SCS has a general provision that enemies prioritise attacking active creatures over incapacitated ones and that can sometimes be used to advantage.  However, some particular enemies have scripts that over-ride that provision and will prefer to attack helpless creatures and it seemed this demon was one of those.  It would turn to attack Spectre if she was actively attacking, but as soon as she stopped doing that it would carry on feasting on things that didn't wriggle ...

[Dyara]

Seems it was not meant to be

[ussnorway]

SEE2 -05, 

 

Wingless Wonder;

 

Hear text as mp3,

 

After a visit to the bridge we had a new trinket and arranged to meet up with the wild mage afterwards… I’m recruiting again so decided to kick the backstabber for Aerie (as a gap plugged in case my Bard spits his dummy) and the better shop prices.

 

Spoiler

 

p.s, I may even replace Jaheira with a certain monk… unlocks Wilson but I suspect Haer'Dalis isn’t willing to wait that long to return to his beloved theater.

[Aasim]

 

 

 

5 dead to a single demon....???

[corey_russell]

I'm sorry to hear about the Monks, Grond0. What's next?

 

Corey

[Dyara]

5 dead to a single demon....???

One-by-one ... but I wonder why none of the monks (for example the main char) was using Arbane. Should have made him/her immune to the death gaze's hold effect.

 

I'm sorry to hear about the Monks, Grond0. What's next?

 

Corey

Phantasmic 6 {54}?

[Aasim]

I find it odd that there were so many failed saves, given monk saves are decent enough....

Anyhow, how about 4 monks? Imo, they'd be more powerful than 6 monks for a large part of the game.

[corey_russell]

One-by-one ... but I wonder why none of the monks (for example the main char) was using Arbane. Should have made him/her immune to the death gaze's hold effect.

 

Phantasmic 6 {54}?

Right, Arbane. Also, the freedom potions from Ribald's would also be of help.

[Grond0]

I find it odd that there were so many failed saves, given monk saves are decent enough....

Anyhow, how about 4 monks? Imo, they'd be more powerful than 6 monks for a large part of the game.

 

Right, Arbane. Also, the freedom potions from Ribald's would also be of help.

 

I think the death gaze is described as paralysation and I wasn't sure that Arbane would work.  I think it protects against hold effects 109 and 175, but not 185 - and I thought the latter might be the active one.  The death gaze is an area attack effect, which multiplies its effectiveness against melee attackers, so it's not terribly surprising that a bunch of level 10 monks (mainly with saving throws of 4 vs death) got into trouble against it after taking several rounds to dispose of other attackers.  Originally I planned for the Master of Thralls to see Spectre and then teleport into the middle of the others.  In that situation I think they would have had a high chance of killing it and I wouldn't have used any potions initially.   If several people had immediately been held following that strategy I probably would have reacted by using potions of freedom or invulnerability.  By the time they got to the Master for the 4th time though I wasn't really in the mood for playing safely ...

 

I agree that 4 monks would be easier - I'm pretty sure that compared to a party of 6 that would be the case right to the end of ToB.  However, I still feel optimistic about a party of 6 eventually making it so will be trying that again in due course.  First though Gate70 has been suggesting to me it's about time we had a go at Siege of Dragonspear.  Thus far I've deliberately avoided reading anything about that in order to savour the joy of trying to take on a completely unknown adventure with a solo character.  To make that challenge a bit more manageable I've generated a fighter/illusionist character and made a start on BG1 with that last night ...

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 101 - (update 3)

Sean, half-elf stalker (Grond0) & Joak, elf diviner (Gate70)

 

The first action of the session was taking on Thaxy.  We didn't just rush in heedlessly though - Joak taking the time to search out and learn lower resistance and protection from magic energy first.  The latter was cast on Sean before a skull trap sequencer landed on Thaxy's head and a minor sequencer full of magic missiles soon finished the job.

Spoiler

 

Moving on, the duo arrived at Windspear Hills as the last major area available outside the city.  Joak got into trouble in the dungeon there when he was caught in a golem sandwich (the adamantite golem there no longer being restricted by the open door) and had to hastily drink a potion of invisibility.  

Spoiler

Sean killed most of the vampires with a sunray and the MoD soon finished off the remainder.  

Spoiler

Moving on Sean was again impressed by the ability of Cerebus (the moon dog) to act as tank - allowing him plenty of time to sort out another adamantite golem.

Spoiler

 

Conster was left to the tender mercies of some skeleton warriors.  

Spoiler

A rest then allowed more of those to occupy Firkraag while Joak used lower resistance and some damaging spells on him.  

Spoiler

The genies were helpless against an attacker protected against fire on the way to find Samia.  We obviously hadn't zapped some summons earlier as only one skeleton warrior answered the call for that fight - but that proved sufficient anyway.

Spoiler

 

After forging the black dragon armour it was time to dive into the Temple sewers again.  Sean tried a pre-emptive strike there against Gaius: the mage managed to activate a spell sequencer there - but only after he was dead and the others didn't last long.  

Spoiler

Another sneak attack meant Mekrath died without a whimper, but Sean just stealthed past his yuan-ti guards rather than bother with those.

 

At the bridge the skeleton warrior assault team was bunched too closely together and 4 of them died to a death spell by the beholders.  The final one was supplemented by a few other summons though and soon got revenge.  Moving on, the duo found a lich heading up the defenses on the way to the main beholder area and sent a stream of summons in to sort him out.  The Unseeing Eye will be waiting for our next session.

 

Sean, stalker 15, 144 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 505 kills

Joak, diviner 15, 57 HPs, 158 kills, 3 deaths

[Dyara]

I think the death gaze is described as paralysation and I wasn't sure that Arbane would work.  I think it protects against hold effects 109 and 175, but not 185 - and I thought the latter might be the active one.  The death gaze is an area attack effect...

Strange, in my game (BG2EE 1.3, SCS v30) death gaze (spin996.spl) is hold (effect 175) and it's not an area effect (I think at least). Not 100% sure what effect 185 is for but even ring of free action doesn't protect so perhaps it's not meant to be used in normal combat spells. For example it's used in Otiluke's Resilient Sphere to immobilize the target or in the Test of Selfishness to immobilize the hostage.

[Grond0]

Strange, in my game (BG2EE 1.3, SCS v30) death gaze (spin996.spl) is hold (effect 175) and it's not an area effect (I think at least). Not 100% sure what effect 185 is for but even ring of free action doesn't protect so perhaps it's not meant to be used in normal combat spells. For example it's used in Otiluke's Resilient Sphere to immobilize the target or in the Test of Selfishness to immobilize the hostage.

Thanks Dyara.

- I hadn't checked what effect it used, so Arbane would have provided protection (maybe I'll take advantage of that next time ...).

- it was definitely an area effect in my installation, though targeted at an individual (like hold person).  The last 3 monks active all failed their saving throws simultaneously, which was a bit of a pain!

[Aasim]

 bunch of level 10 monks

Eh, I missed that part of info. Level 10 is really low for Prison - doable, but taxing on resources and includes a decent chance of not ever getting out.