15228 replies to this topic

[Ygramul]

[double posting with the BG1 thread]

Dear Bioware Forum folks,

 

Greetings from the Beamdog forums "NO-RELOAD" thread. We have heard about the sad news that the Bioware forums are being closed. 

 

I have been reading (mostly lurking) the two no-reload threads here for some years. Found them so inspiring, in fact, to have started the current no-reload thread in the Beamdog forums a while ago:

https://forums.beamd...scussion/40393/

 

We want to extend you all an invitation if wish to consider continuing your no-reload runs over there. In fact, it is currently being discussed if and how the contents of the Bioware no-reload forums can be archived in the current thread. Your feedback, opinions, and most of all your contributions are very welcome.

 

Thanks for providing excellent narratives over so many years.

 

Ygramul

[corey_russell]

Duo Update 5 (Attempt #1) - (Corey_Russell, Gate70)

 

Axer and Vommar continue their adventure - this session had no deaths, although Axer got hit hard a number of times. Fortunately, when you have 161 HP like Axer does and high AC, you often can still press on.

 

First order of business was the planar prison to get haste boots for Vommar. The key was to make sure neither party could suffer from disintegrate - once we did that, the initial bounty hunters were doomed. The rest of the enemies didn't really do all that great either, though again they did hit Axer hard. But he either used RoR or extra healing potions to press on. We had a deva available for the Warden, but Vommar with his Carsomyr destroyed the Warden so this ended up being a successful venture. 

 

Vommar thought the Crom Faeyr would be real useful for Axer, so the party ventured into the Planar Sphere. The party played carefully and completed this area without any deaths. Interestingly enough, the enemies who did the best showing were the golems in the engine room area. Axer had switched weapons to go after the clay golem. But right then two stone golems appeared as well as an admantite golem which prevented Vommar from coming to Axer's aid. Because Axer had a dual-weapon set, he got hit hard fast and was badly wounded. So Corey_Russell paused and equipped the Sentinel shield and also girdle of bluntness, which gave an effective blunt AC of -16. But he was slowed...so he ran a bit to try to clear his aura to the dead end, then used an invis potion. Once the slow wore off, Axer used a RoR charge then charged the remaining golems, and the enemies were cleared without further incident.

 

Party made a brief stop in the druid grove to get all the haste potions there. They can be handy in Melissan battles if low or no HLAs left. Bodhi was the next target, but Axer wanted to dual-wield the IMoD and Crom Faeyr. So he got a charm helmet from a temple, as somewhat surprisingly the party had none yet. Axer and Vommar just utterly destroyed the undead. Vommar's turn undead finally did something useful and killed many of the vampires. With GWW, Axer just destroyed Bodhi.

 

After forging a few items from Cromwell, it was time to report to Elhan and get the main quest moving. Most of the enemies in Suldanesslar were pretty straight forward, as none of them had answers for GWWs or Vommar's deva with globe of blades active. The black dragon died fast. In fact, a lot of the summons weren't even assisting Vommar. Axer donned his Gesen bow to use dispelling arrows on the dragon, allowing Vommar to get clean hits. The dragon wasn't even able to cast his usual insect plague.

 

Axer remembered that there was one last thing he wanted to buy (and with 140,000 gold in their pockets they could certainly afford it). He wanted to get all the dispelling arrows from Waukeen's Promenade. They can be extremely useful for a melee heavy group like Axer's. So we had to backtrack through the annoying forest with pathing issues, get the arrows, and return. We had a few more trash enemies to deal with, and the duo had just cleared the rakshashkas outside the Temple before saving their session.

 

Pictures from this session:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

Party Stats (for session 07/31/2016):

 

Axer (Corey_Russell) - level 25 half-orc fighter, 161 HP, 781 kills, Bodhi

Vommar (Gate70) - level 22 human cavalier, 158 HP, 729 kills, Firkraag

 

Vommar has gained somewhat on the kill count - this is in part due to him having the strength belts that party finds, as well as Axer uses a shield a lot, to either range or to make sure he lives against hard hitting opponents (like Adamnite Golems). He may have some WW or GWW also, as the party has HLAs.

[KinginGreen]

A quick update. I have finished the Dearnise hold, switching in Nalia for Branwen in order to sweettalk her into giving Musa the extra stronghold and an extra 10,000 gold. I expect to rotate her out rather than completing the Dearnise romance, Musa tends to get cold feet and has already dropped Jaheira, Dace, & isn't sure on Branwen. 

 

The keep was fairly easy, although Kivan's attempt to hide in plain sight while holding a cauldron of dogmeat proved fatal, until Branwen revived him with a power ballad. Things were briefly dangerous for the party but luckily Nalia, Minsc, & Larry Lilacor saved the day for now. Our discovery of the Hammer of Thunderbolts in the keep will make a worthy weapon for her (as well as the Flail when I remember to make it!) if Musa does decide to have her rejoin. 

 

Musa has hit level 13, and without SCS I'm optimistic that he'll keep making progress. The biggest recent surprise was that the Wand of Fear summons Cowls in the middle of our chat with Dracandros. As a result we fled killing pursuing gang members across the Bridge District, but fortunately Minsc's quest triggered and we now have a magic licence.

 

Not sure where we'll head next, I suspect that Musa will make an early downpayment to the Shadow Thieves. 

[Dyara]

Dyara (Fighter/Mage/Thief) (Update 24 - Final)
 
When the fighting was over Dyara expected something to happen; but it didn't. Melissan was still within that stream of energy and while there she was invulnerable to harm and she wouldn't come out willingly but perhaps cutting off the three pools would do the trick...

Dyara laid all her three time traps, one at each of the three pools. After some more preparations she placed her hand into the pool in the middle. Immediately some demons appeared...

Spoiler

... but were (mostly) quickly dispatched...

Spoiler

... and not for the first time Dyara thought that sometimes Time Traps trigger twice(?). Once the remaining demons were taken care off...

Spoiler

... Dyara placed her hand within the energies of the pool and drew the essence into herself, diverting it away from Melissan. Boundless power filled her, and while most of it dissipated she was left with much of Bhaal's essence. For the moment, she had gained the ability to teleport freely throughout space and part of this ability meant she was now completely immune to the spells Maze and Imprisonment. Also she was able to fight for control of abyssal demons that were under Melissan's control and finally the energies restored the powers of both Dyara and Balthazar.

Immediately the two went to the next pool, again Dyara placed her hand into the pool, again some demons appeared, again a time trap was triggered and again the demons were more or less quickly eliminated. Dyara was about to place her hand into the pool when suddenly some other demons were drawn to this place...

Spoiler

... and this group somehow lasted much longer and after a while Dyara realized that it was because her ability to hit something had been crippled somewhat...

Spoiler

It went even worse...

Spoiler

... but in the end and with Balthazar's and some traps' (actually laid for another battle) help the fight was won...

Spoiler

Once more Dyara placed her hand within the energies of a pool, drawing the essence into herself and diverting it away from Melissan. Again boundless power filled her briefly, and while most of it just dissipated a portion fueled her inner energies making her immune to death magics and vorpal effects (that is after an old Ascension bug was fixed). Also she had gained the ability to unleash the power within her as a short burst of destructive power. Finally both Dyara and Balthazar were healed and restored (but not rested) and Melissan began to stir within the stream of divine energy.

Then Dyara and Balthazar went to the last pool and once the demons there were removed (and after some preparations for the final confrontation were made) she placed her hand within the energies one last time. This time she gained the ability to focus the energy within her to protect herself from Time Stop. Also the energies of Dyara and Balthazar were restored and then there were only moments before Melissan made her second short appearance, this time bringing along Sendai, Yaga-Shura, Abazigal, Illasera, Gromnir and Sarevok. Again Melissan left for more essence absorbing while Dyara was left with her siblings who turned hostile immediately triggering the first of the two pre-laid Time Traps and allowing Dyara to assassinate Gromnir (of course not the most dangerous one but besides Illasera and Sarevok he can be killed quickly and - on core difficulty - killing him does not make Melissan appear)...

Spoiler

... while Sendai and Yaga-Shura were kept busy by some elementals and Balthazar was in a fight with Sarevok. Dyara then attacked Illasera (another easy target, also I find her very annoying, I have to kill her anyway, I'm close to her and the next kill will make Melissan appear anyway), killing her quickly which as mentioned caused Melissan to join the fight...

Spoiler

Using her 'Focus' ability to make herself immune to Time Stop Dyara lured Abazigal (I would kill him first as he's - in my opinion - the most dangerous one of the six and killing him first would not call Melissan but he starts with Immunity to Magical Weapons so he has to wait until now) towards her second Time Trap...

Spoiler

... and while Melissan casted Time Stop herself Dyara (still immune to Time Stop) breached Abazigal slaying him in the process...

Spoiler

Next Dyara and Balthazar went for Sarevok (easy target, so why not) who died quickly leaving Melissan with just Sendai and Yaga-Shura (I always leave them for last, of course because of Yaga-Shura's immunities but mostly because I think them as the weakest ones)...

Spoiler

... while Dyara concentrated on being immune to either Time Stop (not sure how many Time Stops Melissan has up her sleeve) or Magical Weapons all the time.

Dyara went for Sendai next and the drow went down quickly...

Spoiler

After summoning some elementals with her Ring of Elemental Summoning Yaga-Shura became the next target...

Spoiler

... and then it was only Melissan against Dyara, Balthazar and three Elementals...

Spoiler

... and didn't took long...

Spoiler

... and the fighting was ended by the Solar despite Melissan at first refusing to accept her fate. Then both Balthazar and Dyara gave back her parts of Bhaal's essence and then it was all over and they lived happily ever after...

 

Name   Level                          HP    Game Kills XP  Game Kills  Strongest Kill  Deaths Pips
Dyara  Fighter(18)/Mage(17)/Thief(22) 142   16,033,030      3,109      Bodhi           -      Longsword(***),Flail(***),THS(**),TWF(**)

 
The End.

 

[Enuhal]

Congratulations Dyara! Very well done!

[Serg BlackStrider]

Congratulations, Dyara! Impressive run!

[corey_russell]

Dyara, can you give me the info I need so I can enter you in the Hall of Heroes? It's hard for me to find with many of your characters all called Dyara...note that I don't need links since the forums are closing down soon. You may be the last entrant into that Hall for a all BioWare run, unless Axer and Vommar can do it before time expires. But Axer only has 3 more sessions left (translates to 6 hours) at most, so he'd be hard pressed, but who knows him and Vommar are making rapid progress.

 

And congratulations as well Dyara, well done.

[Grond0]

... and they lived happily ever after...

Would that all our runs could end so well .  Congrats Dyara.

[Dyara]

Thanks for all the congratulations

 

Dyara, can you give me the info I need ...

 

Character: Dyara

Race: elf

Class: Fighter/Mage/Thief (solo)

Difficulty: core

Entered by: Dyara

Mods: SCS, Ascension, Item Upgrade,...

 

Candlekeep (21.2.16): https://forum.biowar...nge/?p=20094890
End of BG1EE (10.3.16): https://forum.biowar...nge/?p=20094890
Starting BG2EE (27.4.16): https://forum.biowar...nge/?p=20224136
End of SoA: (29.6.16): https://forum.biowar...nge/?p=20358921
Start of ToB: (7.7.16) https://forum.biowar...nge/?p=20372293
End of ToB: (2.8.16) https://forum.biowar...nge/?p=20425087

 

Anything else?

[corey_russell]

@Dyara - nope that should do it - will enter in today! Congratulations once again!

[corey_russell]

Dyara the Fighter/Mage/Thief has been entered into the Hall of Heroes! Congratulations on the greatest F/M/T in the history of the challenge, per Alesia_BH (whose knowledge of the history this challenge goes a long way).

[ussnorway]

yipee way to go out with a bang Dyara!

[KinginGreen]

Congratulations Dyara!

 

Alas to the mighty! Woe to the fallen! Musa and his brave band became the heroes of the Umar Hills and Minsc became the Ranger protector of the area....but he may not be seen for awhile. After the conquest of the Shade Lord and general quest solving in the area we wandered a little around Trademeet and Windspear considering our options (this was partially motivated by an EE world map bug which means we can't scroll and so must CLUA back to Athkatla). We also popped into the Silent Swamps (from the White Queen mod), only for Minsc to discover that the skeleton archers were in possession of arrows of petrification.....Retreat! (I have been somewhat scared of the EE content which I haven't tried as well as much of the mod areas for a no-reload- with good reason!)

Goodbye Minsc said Kivan sadly. Goodbye Lilarcor and the Mace of Disruption said Musa sadly....but then he had a good idea, or rather a very bad one. Time to assemble a B team of rejected companions, give them some stone to flesh scrolls and potions, and have them rescue Minsc! What could go wrong? Well, first of all back in Athkatla our failure to beg favours of Windspear and the Radiant Heart led to the intervention of a posse of Paladins in the Copper Coronent, egged on by that psychopath Bernard! Retreat!

So now Musa is waiting with Xan and Dace, for Skie Silvershield (from the Skie redone mod) to go 'shopping' and get the necessary before making a brave rescue attempt. The B team cannot fail! Of course, there is one insurance plan here....Skie as part of Lava's mod begins with a set of cursed armour. Of Missile Attraction to be precise. Fare thee well Skie. Fare thee well.

[ussnorway]

Los1- Start, 

 

A new start,

The bad news is SCS still isn't ready and whilst LoB breaks 'Turn' that’s sad of course but I can't play vanilla and we do have to keep going so… I’m re-entering the challenge with the lossers club;
· Ormaline is an Half-Elf Lawful Evil Mage-Thief
· Puk Darkstar a Half-Orc Lawful Neutral Priest of Tyr
· Sarah Darknight a half-elf Neutral Good Sharman
· katarina Twoblades... a Chaotic Neutral Wild-Witch (Elf Fighter-Mage).
· Imoen is just Imoen, a human thief included for plot reasons

 

So far its been an easy torture and exciting lets leave now sort of day 

 

Mods: this run has no mods, I’m only playing on LoB with extra damage turned off.

[Blind_Visionary]

Wow, some fine runs have gone down in the last year or two. Congrats Dyara!

 

So the Bioware forum is really going away? We should figure out a way to save the content.... this thread is filled with richness.

 

And of course we need a new place to continue the challenge. 

 

I'm agnostic about where we should move to, but it definitely needs to happen somewhere. Beamdog, Sorcerers place, wherever. But we can't lose the history posted in here....

 

I'd offer to do it myself, but I'm afraid I don't have the faintest idea where to start. Would Bioware let us download the raw guts of this forum? Or are we talking copying and pasting? 

 

Let me know if I can help somehow.

[corey_russell]

@Blind_Visionary: Some of us have already started double-posting (posting runs here and in the Beamdog no-reload thread). The Beamdog people have even started runs here and they have a relationship with some of us already (such as Alesia_BH). They have also welcomed BioWare no-reloaders with open arms, so to speak. So I'll be posting in that thread after Bio-Ware forums become read-only on the 26th this month.

[Serg BlackStrider]

I'm currently trying the HTTrack to save both our threads. Will see how it goes and how much space the result will take and then report here.

[Blind_Visionary]

@Corey, so you're saying that the content here on the forums will still be online, its just the ability to post that's going away? If so, that's a bit better of a situation than I thought. 

 

@Serg thanks for your hard work.

[corey_russell]

@Blind_Visionary - No. Per BioWare announcement, the forums become read-only 8/26/2016 then taken down 10/25/2016. You really should read their announcement if you haven't already.

[KinginGreen]

A problem solving session this time. A mirror-imaged, Stoneskined, Blurred, Hasted, Improved Invisibility'd Xan was sent in with supporting stealthed Dace & Skie to rescue Minsc from the Basilisk Skeletons. Happily Minsc chugged a potion as soon as he was unstoned and one oil of speed later the full plate and packing steel Minsc was clanking to the hills with his precious arsenal of weapons. The B team survived and were treated to a round of drinks and a pension plan payoff before the A-team of Angelo, Kivan, Branwen, Minsc, and Aran set off to deal with the Paladin infestation in the Slums. The Paladins were distracted by skeletons and then summarily slaughtered by a hail of missile fire outside the OK Coronet. One did escape pledging revenge, so we have paid a visit to Windspear and grudgingly agreed to keep an eye out for the missing Windspear brat. Slowly poking around the dungeons there for now...

[Alesia_BH]

Hey there, hi there again, everyone!

Lots of ground to cover. I'll focus on Dyara's run for now, and then talk about the closure soon.

I'd like to congratulate Dyara on her outstanding run. It saddens me that our forums will be closing, but I'm eminently pleased that we're ending on such a high note. Dyara's run demonstrates that the caliber of play here has never been better. Well done, Dyara! Excellent work!

@Corey. A footnote on my remark dubbing Dyara's the best F/M/T in challenge history. I didn't mean for that to be taken literally, really. IIRC, Saros ran an F/M/T, and I wouldn't want to be-little his characters accomplishment in anyway. Here's what I actually meant: "Yay! Whoo! Yay! Whoo! Yay!"

Anyhoo. If I'm not mistaken, Dyara's run is the first SCS/Ascension solo no reload by a character whose name doesn't start with A. That's cool. And I can't say I've ever been more impressed with any other run by any other character- irrespective of alphabetic orientation. That's cool, too. Yay! Whoo!

I'll be back soon to write about the closure. For now, just two remarks on that. First, thanks to Ygramul for his invitation. The Beamdog forum may indeed become our home going forward and we owe Ygramul our gratitude for his invitation and efforts. Gratzi! Second, I 100% agree that we should archive our content. My only concern is that some combination of lack of capacity and diffusion of responsibility will prevent that from happening. Perhaps we can use the Lounge to discuss methods and/or post frequent progress updates. This is an endeavour that would benefit from clarity and transparency. Let's do that.

Ok. Time to skidaddle.

Best,

A.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Second, I 100% agree that we should archive our content. My only concern is that some combination of lack of capacity and diffusion of responsibility will prevent that from happening. Perhaps we can use the Lounge to discuss methods and/or post frequent progress updates. This is an endeavour that would benefit from clarity and transparency. Let's do that.
 

Nice to hear from you, Alesia!

 

About saving our content - I already nearly ended to save both threads via HTTrack. Each occupies roughly 1.6Gb so about 3.2-3.5 Gb in total. So far I've checked what is already downloaded and seems everything works fine (I've tried to browse them offline and at the first glance I have all content available). Then I have about 20Gb free space on the hosting where my personal so called "site" (or rather homepage) resides so I'll upload both archives there and they will be available via links. I don't know if the "build-in" search in the threads will be working but I think that it could be done via google at least. I'll report the results and links in both BG1/BG2 no-reload threads and Adventure's Lounge (I'm going to save it as well as there are lot of useful stuff there) when it all be ready.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Congratulations Dyara.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Scythia Strongarm has forced his way out of Irenecus' Dungeon with the help of Imoen who has now been kidnapped.

[KinginGreen]

A risky session began with continuing to poke through Windspear. Running across the undead group the party was briefly in a very risky situation. Mummies in my set-up can paralyse with fear and this combined with vampire charm can make things risky. The group was glad to retreat from the area with no casualties after Aran was mind controlled and Branwen frozen with fear. After sending in some summons to cover the retreat we departed, and had to deal with some bounty hunters after Angelo. Fortunately the quartet of mages proved incompetent and angered the ogres they had summoned with unpleasant results. Musa took his time back at the keep after this, dealing with admin and having his measurements taken by the maids... and again.

The real trouble started when we returned to Athkatla and another group of far more competent bounty hunters met us at the gates of the Docks. Now I could have just fled this unknown content but for RP reasons I decided to fight at first. This proved to be a potentially fatal mistake as the mages present started throwing out some high level magic. While several of the opposing group were disabled Kivan and Branwen were stunned by Symbols, and Musa only just fled away with Aran and Angelo quickly enough to avoid the banshee wail which killed Minsc. This was looking very costly potentially, and things went from bad to worse when ANOTHER of Angelo's past legacies caught up with him and the Athkatla guard dragged him away to prison for crimes commited while under an alias. Musa and Aran were left in the Docks with an archmage and some high level flunkies to deal with. The first step was help. Jaheira! Just the lady we were looking for...sorry to keep you waiting but.....only for Jaheira to turn her back on the two and to walk off into the Harper Hold with Meronia slamming the door behind her.

Only one easily accessible candidate remained in the area (I didn't fancy tackling Rayic to get Edwin at the time!), Fade from The Shadow Thieves. We paid off the Shadowmaster as we were intending to anyway and dragged our new recruit off for testing. She seemed rather surprised that we weren't more untrusting of her but frankly her tattling to Aran was the least of our concerns. The flunkies were drawn away and killed, leaving one archmage who seemed so keen to collect Angelo's bounty that she flung killing spells the way of her allies as well as her foes. "He's not here" cried Musa, but the archmage was convinced that Fade was merely Angelo in a tail and a wig, the oldest trick in the book. Fade was able to sneak up and murder her only after Aran was turned inside out by a Prismatic Spray, and she was left fleeing from an Efreeti. After some thought Musa condescended to fling her a healing potion as she fled past The Sea's Bounty in a hail of fireballs, after all he didn't want to carry all those bodies to the temple of Oghma single handed.

After a night's rest who should show up but Jaheira... not at all shamefaced at her callousness. Branwen was rather puffed out from assisting with all the healing and raising and had gone quiet at Musa's preference for maids and nymphs to her homely charms, so Musa warily consented to wander along to the Harpers hold. On the way they were forced to deal with some vampires, and then were thoroughly displeased that Jaheira had dragged them into some sort of internecine Harpers squabble. Jaheira proved to be of little assistance, likely waiting to choose sides with the winner (I forgot to assign an AI script!) and Musa had had enough of her calculating treachery. She's gone for good, and who cares where she'll go. Tired of all these overdramatic struggles from the pasts of his companions Musa picked up Aerie from the circus. At least she shouldn't be as much trouble, her wings have already been pulled, and now Musa debates whether to allow Angelo to join again.... there is a code of sorts among thieves....