15228 replies to this topic

[Gate70]

ussnorway wrote...
There’s a list? With the obvious exception of the randomiser mod I’ve always found the Helm of Balduran in this box.

See http://www.forgotten.../miscellany.htm

[Grond0]

Gate70 beat me to the draw by a few seconds - glad to see that we were both quoting the same site though.

Edited by Grond0, 06 August 2011 - 10:37 AM.

[ussnorway]

Gate70 wrote...

Krap, CG male dwarven assassin. Yoshimo is a temporary packhorse.

More duergar, a vampire, fun fun fun.

Yoshimo sets a pair of special snares outside Frennedans room then laughs as I trigger a lightning trap. I lie gurgling as he declares he is free, then my hand starts to crumble away.

(well that was stupid, could probably have detected the trap but had forgotten about it)

O crap! Sorry Gate70... hope you climb back on that horse soon.

[Gate70]

Thief killed by a trap in the dungeon is lame imo.

Just got to decide on a class/kit. Assassin was good fun but done two in a row. Wizard slayer is the only one that doesn't really appeal to me, anything else is fair game.

[ussnorway]

Elf Stalker(?) or perhaps a Dwarf Priest of HELM.

[Grond0]

You're in good (or bad) company Gate as Sylvio just got taken out as well. He was working his way through a bandit ambush one by one and had reached the cleric type. The cleric started casting a spell and Sylvio hit him for a critical - this caused the screen area to fly off out of shot and I wasn't sure for a moment whether the game was paused or not. By the time I realised it wasn't Sylvio was held and dead meat.

I had been finding the play with him a bit tedious anyway - the opponents in BG2 normally need multiple hits to kill them and Sylvio was too fragile to stand and face them so there was a lot of ducking and diving around to use his stealth, which made progress rather slow.

[Thailog]

Gate70 wrote...

Wizard slayer is the only one that doesn't really appeal to me, anything else is fair game.

It's actually a pretty decent kit, especially against SCSII mages. I've played one through the entire game and the innate spell failure penalty on hit owns mages even in ToB.

If you find the vanilla version too weak, try the Wizard Slayer Rebalancing mod. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but the description looks promising.

Edited by Thailog, 06 August 2011 - 12:32 PM.

[Gate70]

ussnorway wrote...
Elf Stalker(?) or perhaps a Dwarf Priest of HELM.

I really want to backstab some more but I checked back and lost an elf stalker in the wyvern cave 13 days ago. Dwarf priest of Helm looks like a strange one to play so will give that a go.

Thailog, had a look at the WS mod. Think I might have to go for the vanilla one at some point in case it works out better than I expect.

[corey_russell]

Wow Grond0, BG II is not nice to your reload characters. Should we rename BG II the "Grond0 Take Down Game"? : )

[Grond0]

corey_russell wrote...

Wow Grond0, BG II is not nice to your reload characters. Should we rename BG II the "Grond0 Take Down Game"? : )

Sounds like a challenge - I've got a good feeling about my current attempt.

[corey_russell]

Lotan the fighter druid adventure continues...

Lotan and party defeated all of Gromnir's minions and Gromnir himself - though the battle took a while.

Melissan's next bright idea was to find and somehow nullify Yaga-Shura's invincibility. So we headed to Forest of Mir and battled our way to Nylee. She said she could do it if we found her heart and Yaga's, probably in a temple that Yaga's followers have setup.

So we travel to Yaga's Temple. We destroy all opposition, and we are ALMOST done with the temple battles. Paja went to de-trap the last area, but then this happened - Paja gets chunked by Imix! In my entire run this is the first chunking. She always had the lowest HP, so knew she was most likely it would happen to her, but still a great loss - our family is finally broken up. But the quest must continue, so we recruit Imoen to replace Mama.

Imoen is a better mage than Paja, but Paja was a far better thief, and had 5 spike traps HLAs. Imoen has big shoes to fill, we hope she is up to the task...

[AnonymousHero]

(I too was glad see lots of people join the thread from BG1... but then all of a sudden everyone died . Condolences to everyone. )

Serena the Monk (L25):

Last time we heard from her, Serena had just left the Planar Prison. Since she was quite close to level 26, so she went to kill Mae'var for a quick big EXP reward. With Shadow Stance running there really wasn't much danger, but she used Quivering Palm to finish things as quickly as possible. The priest also died from the Quivering Palm. When Serena turned in the quest for her reward, she reached level 26 (78% MR, another milestone!). HLA pick: Flip Resistances. This changes MR to physical resistance and provides immunity to backstab -- not hugely useful in general, but it might come in handy in a couple of later encounters.

Serena's fists had become +4 at L25, so it was now feasible to go after Kangaxx for his MR-increasing ring. Serena couldn't see any alternative to a Scroll of Protection from magic, so that was her chosen method. She killed the Shade Lich and the Elemental Lich, and finally Kangaxx the Demi-lich.

Given her incredible walking speed, Serena estimated that the Protection from Magic would last long enough to travel over to and kill the lich at the city gate. It did.

Serena could now get to 103% MR with equipment: 78% base MR, 5% from the Amulet of Magic Resistance, 10% from the Sword of Balduran and 10% from the Ring of Gaxx. This would make things a lot safer.

Suddenly Beholders became free EXP. Serena reached level 27 during the Beholder hunt in the Unseeing Eye lair. HLA pick: Second Wind. Instantly heals the monk completely.

Next, she went to the Temple Ruins to kill Liches with impunity. She wanted to avoid any mishaps with equipment swapping (fists instead of Sword of Balduran would mean 93% instead of 103% MR), so the other undead were first lured away and killed separately. Once they were dead, Serena just had to stand in sight of the Lich and wait until the Lich ran out of spells. During the second Lich encounter this pattern was repeated. The Lich fell in due course. Serena reached level 28 during all of this. HLA pick: Lunar Stance (2 casts per day).

The Shade Lord proved to be completely trivial. Serena buffed with DUHM, Shadow Stance, Lunar Stance and used Quivering Palm. Her opening blow was a critical, so it's hard to tell what actually did him in, but die he did. Once he's dead everything else is easy. Serena returned to the Umar Hills to receive a little EXP reward from the mayor.

Serena suddenly remembered a certain trapped chest in the bridge district... and went to open it (100% MR means Maze traps don't matter) to obtain the Horn of Valhalla. She spend a little gold and had Maheer upgrade it twice.

Edited by AnonymousHero, 07 August 2011 - 05:00 AM.

[ussnorway]

Gabrielle 2 UD3

Umr Hls/Tmpl Ruins;
I arrived in the middle of the mayor’s speech, enlisted the two rangers & searched the cabin before proceeding to the ruins. Gabrielle used her supreme stealth to trick several shadows into the light trap (no experience but you get the loot) then released/ recruited a L8 fighter whilst the others played with the skellies… Jan found a sweet spot in the lava from which to cast fire at some shadows and Mazzy said “no thanks” to the shade lords offer to make her his consort.



The towns folk rewarded me with the ranger cabin, I then realised I’d stuffed up by not taking Madulfs’ offer to the mayor first… the experience loss is annoying but not a game breaker.

de'Arnise Keep;
Nalia was so happy to see us that she offered to assist with removing the squatters and suggested we help ourselves to the armoury. Torgal is smarter than dog-dip with SCS2 but still not the brightest… Jan let him run pass then closed the door before his guards could catch up.



Umr Hls/Tmpl Ruins part2;
We recovered the Mithril Amulet for Lord Tombethen and received an urgent message for Mazzy now we’re off to Trademeet… stay tuned.

Edited by ussnorway, 07 August 2011 - 09:51 AM.

[corey_russell]

The continuing adentures of Lotan the human level 9 fighter dualed to level 26 druid...

So we returned two hearts to Nylee as she requested. She broke Yaga-Shura's invinciibility but then immediately attacked. We suspected treachery, however so we were well prepared with lots of summons to assist the fight. Her foolish attack failed.

Next up was Yaga-Shura himself. We again had lots of summons. This battle raged for a long time, partly because Yaga re-appeared behind some wood, and no one could get access to him. And when I told my characters to attack him they went to a wall next to him but could't attack with the wall in the way. So had to run off the AI. The massive adds had a lot of difficulty with Jaheira's and Lotan's call lightnings and insect plagues. Finally Hanna could see Yaga-shura and cast implosion at him - killing Yaga instantly.

Next up was 2nd challenge. We had lots of summons again, but horrid wiltings, insect plague, storm of vengeance and the party's melee power was way too much, the enemies had no chance.

Next target was Senda's Enclave. The drow at the surface I did NOT take lightly - Nalia got chunked here last run. By playing carefuly, they were cleanly defeated. We battled lots of enemies in Sendai's enclave, but most of them were no match. For the first time ever, I have been using energy blades spell, and am very pleased with it. The party actually defeated Gilgamesh in a straight- up battle. I usually use mordy swords, but Imoen doesn't know that spell.

For Sendai's priestess we sent 5 summons whch got slaughtered. We made 5 summons but the party AI intervened and moved up to intercept. So just moved the whole party to attack and sure enough all enemies including Sendai's priestess were destroyed.

We breezed thorugh a few mind flayers then it was Sendai herself. This battle was VERY long - mainly because her first clone got off an insect plague, and we were unable to put up any summons nor any area effects while that was active. The party took a lot of fireballs and such, ton of heal potions/resurrection wand charges were used. Joshua was resurrected mid-battle. Even naked, his true seeing and dispel magic still useful. We rearmed him when we could, though of course he couldn't wear armor. Jaheira helped a little, she put barskin on him. The battle raged and raged, but finally Sendia was defeated - though Sarevok and Hanna were killed.

I did a new but ended up being a very effective strategy vs. the 3rd challenge (Slayer). I had 4 bears and a deva up, and the plus the 2 melees boxed in the slayer. The slayer never landed a hit. Also used energy blades with Hanna and Lotan and that helped speed up the kill quite a bit.

Next up was our battle with Draconia. For once, the battle was NOT chaotic, this ended up being our cleanest kill of Draconis ever. Used lots of summons again, Sarevok switched weapons to the water halberd. We never even had to use rod of resurrection for a heal, which is real unusual for this battle.

[ussnorway]

Well done corey_russell! Drac can be a major pain sometimes... what spell effect are you using in that slayer screenshot?

[corey_russell]

Lotan the human fighter/druid - FINAL Update

Lotan and party battled their way through Abaziga's domain. Eventually we got to Abazigal himself. Battle against the dragon form lasted a while, but we eventually go through his stoneskins then Sarevok used greater whirlwind with his water halberd and finished Abazigal.

As for Balthazar, his monks were no match for our party. When we Balthazar himself, he fell in TWO rounds. The shortest win ever (for me)

Against Ravager, three party members were using slings using +4 bullets, Imoen the Gesen's bow. Joshua and Sarevok did a number of whirlwind, and Hanna cast a few helpful spells and Ravager fell.

One of our most important steps is to sell/buy back all three rods of resurrection for the confrontation with Melissan.

Then we challenged Melissan. The first battle with Melissan went quickly, and the first pool handled mostly by summons though Hanna helped with a Sunray. As for the 2nd Melissan battle, took a long time she summoned lots and lots of reinforcements - she did eventually fall however.

The 2nd pool went nicely thanks to a timely firestorm by Hanna. The 3rd battle with Melissan went pretty quick. Now for the dreaded 3rd pool battle...massive heals via RoR and potions...multiple times characters were near death, but someone had managed to heal the hurt character in time. The party did prevail but was a long slog to do so.

The final battle with Melissan went a bit anti-climatic. Lotan dispelled Melissan's buffs and the combined firepower of the party and the summons was too much for her - Lotan has defeated Melissan.

This is my 2nd Trilogy no-reload I have ever completed. Need to up the difficulty in some manner, so for BG 1 and BG 2 will attempt to solo next time I try a no-reload.

Edited by corey_russell, 08 August 2011 - 01:27 AM.

[ussnorway]

Congratulations corey_russell, I’m sure glad you managed not to get any of the family members chunked (bet you’d never hear the end of it!)… I personally find solo play easier but good luck on your next attempt.

[corey_russell]

@USSNorway: Thanks for the congratulations. You must not have read my posts carefully, I mentioned that Paja got chunked (7 posts before this post) and had a screenshot. : )

I'm not very good with solo play in BG 1. Just tonight, I already have had 2 failed attempts, though I didn't post them. Wanted to see if they could get past the early assassins (they couldn't - one got killed by the ogrillions just outside Beregost).

Just re-found out that free action potion does not protect against hold person spell, though you think it would based on the description. Yeah I know fixpack fixes this. : )

What this means though, is I probably won't be able to go into the Nashkel Inn with any of my solo melees for some time unless I have a potion, maybe haste or magic blocking of some kind.

Edited by corey_russell, 08 August 2011 - 05:42 AM.

[corey_russell]

ussnorway wrote...

Well done corey_russell! Drac can be a major pain sometimes... what spell effect are you using in that slayer screenshot?

Imoen is firing a shot from her Gesen Bow - the white effect on the slayer is the after-effect after being hit by Lotan's and Hanna's energy blades (HLA spell that creates number of discs for each level of the caster)

I consider the energy blades a much improved MMM.

[Grond0]

corey_russell wrote...
What this means though, is I probably won't be able to go into the Nashkel Inn with any of my solo melees for some time unless I have a potion, maybe haste or magic blocking of some kind.

Neira is easy if you're willing to go in and out of the inn to avoid her spells.  If you think that sort of dodging is cheesy, solo will be significantly more difficult - you will need to carefully plan in advance what combats you take on and where you may need to use potions to protect yourself!

However, best of luck - you've obviously mastered the basic game now.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Great job, Corey! Congratulations! Another Hall of Heroes Record well earned!

[ussnorway]

Gabrielle 2 UD4

@corey_russell; It depends on the class you chose to play but its surprising just how much you can accomplish with stealth and at least one good wand.

Trademeet;
We solved the poison mystery without taxing the little grey cells too much… I gave Mazzy the day off to celebrate whilst we escorted Cernd out of town & collected some hush money from dear old Wilfred.



Umr Hls/Tmpl Ruins part3;
Once Mazzy rejoined us, we raced back in time to save a small child from some marauding Orogs… the mayor thanked us and hinted that they shouldn’t need our help again for about a week.

Druid Grove;
A pretty basic slugfest cleared this area of trolls & whatnot… we just put the ‘cloudkill’ spells to use on the trolls whilst Mazzy did the tanking until we reached the druid cave proper then she sat out so Cernd could complete his challenge. “Thanks m8, c ya round… time for some shopping!”  lots of goodies to collect now that the shops in Trademeet are open again but I did manage to save 5grand for the licence fee… Jan needs to return to Athkatla for his quest but first we finished the ranger stronghold.



Umr Hls/Tmpl Ruins part3;
A simple undead bash put pay to the want’a’be Umar Witch plans… think I’ll call him wolffi “who’s a pretty doggie?... Yes you are!” with my ranger duties finished it’s time to swap Haer’Dalis for Jan & take back me kindred!



Warning; a lot of people come to grief with the ranger quests (normally because they fail to read it)… you have to stay in/ protect the area from their troubles eg. Don’t go trekking through the Underdark and then wonder why nobody likes you when you get back.

Edited by ussnorway, 08 August 2011 - 08:36 AM.

[Wierdo]

@Corey congratulations on completing the challenge!

[corey_russell]

Grond0 wrote...

corey_russell wrote...
What this means though, is I probably won't be able to go into the Nashkel Inn with any of my solo melees for some time unless I have a potion, maybe haste or magic blocking of some kind.

Neira is easy if you're willing to go in and out of the inn to avoid her spells.  If you think that sort of dodging is cheesy, solo will be significantly more difficult - you will need to carefully plan in advance what combats you take on and where you may need to use potions to protect yourself!

However, best of luck - you've obviously mastered the basic game now.

Hmm well since my run was over and tried it out from the auto-save -- your are right, that strategy works even in vanilla BG 1. Yeah Neira easy to beat then once you get her to waste her 3 hold spells. Also realized that I should have cast blindness on the assassins first and even if they save exit, rest and try to blind again.

Edited by corey_russell, 08 August 2011 - 09:43 AM.

[Wierdo]

Wierdo's Bhaalspawn Bretheren

Watcher's Keep - Demogorgon

Finally Wierdo's crew had gotten throught the hordes of high-level demons, liches, beholders etc to battling the Demon Prince Demogorgon. Everyone was fully buffed beforehand, and many monsters were summoned for the occasion e.g. 2 devas, Cerebus (Moon Dog), Zaaman Rul, a normal fire elemental, 2 bottled efreet, a Mordy Sword and a wyvern)



The party's fairly standard longer-term (several turns+) buffing was:

Longer-term (hour or more)
- Stoneskins / Ironskins for all except Bruce & Mazzy. Cast it before sleep.
- Meif's Minute Meteors for Annakin. Cast before sleep.
- Revise spells and sleep. Then go to the dungeon and ...
- Protection from Evil 10' Radius (essential).
- Protection from Fire on all (by mage spell, or have it available through items like shields, rings & helmets etc.)
- 4 * Chaotic Commands on Wierdo, Bruce, Starria & Mazzy (Anni can rage and just Jaheira misses out )
- all protected by Death Ward (cleric spell)
- Remove Fear on all
- P/f Magic for both mages (Wierdo & Annakin)
- Spirit Armor for Annakin
- Potion of strength for Mazzy (we collect & Wierdo steals lots of surplus potions of hill/stone/frost strength, and sometimes buy them when cheap enough)

For Demogorgon, they also buffed with medium and short-term buffs.
Mid-term (3+ turns)
- Spell Turning for both mages
- Spell Shield for both mages
- Blur for both mages
- Shield of the Archons for Jaheira

Short-term (1-2 turns at most)
- Mass Invisibility
- SI: Abjuration
 for both mages
- SI: Divination for Wierdo
- Shield of Faith for both priests
- Draw Upon Holy Might for Starria
- Haste (all but Bruce!)
- Improved Haste (Mazzy)
- Chant
- Bless
- Defensive Harmony

No Minor Globe of Invulnerability this time as it also blocks friendly spells. Spells level 1-4 don't really worry the party much anyway at this stage of the game.

Carefully, Wierdo sent the summonses down first. The characters all came down a closely behind. 



Next moment, Wierdo's traps went off. They did a lot of damage, bringing Demogorgon to 'injured'.



Pf Fire definitely proved useful as Demogorgon liked to use Aura of Flaming Death, as well as PfMW and Spell Turning.

The party just kept on trying to hit him with weapons and magic and whatever they had. The key was the two mages (Wierdo & Annakin) working together to remove spell protections (Pierce Shield, Pierce Magic) and then Breach him. Followed up with Lower Resistance and Magic Missiles.

Meanwhile, Demogorgon summoned some of his demon friends to come and join in the party. It became a real mess of demons! Made it difficult to know what was going on.



Fire seemed to have some effect on him, and Flame Arrows from the Efreeti worked well. Flail of ages did some damage, even through stoneskins. Bruce's fists (and feet, presumably) are now +4 weapons.

With his magic resistance lowered so much by the mage spells, Demogorgon succumbed to the two Devas' Globe of Blades, which inflicted an enormous amount of damage.



Soon enough, Demogorgon was dead and good riddance to him! Fortunately the Devas' GoB also took care of the Baalor and Marilith. Cleaning up the remaining demons was easy after that.



Unfortunately, Starria died dramatically at the very end of the battle (again <sigh>) due to a severe case of Demogorgon's special rotting attack. For some reason Cure Disease didn't work and the party couldn't heal her or try anything else quickly enough once this had become apparent. But otherwise the party found the battle to be not as hard as originally feared.

Would have been better to let Bruce and Mazzy melee Demogorgon, as both of them are immune to disease.

This encounter netted the party lots of nice quest experience, and some normal everyday experience from the summoned demons. After the battle, the party averaged about 4 million exp each:

Wierdo   Illusionist(15)/Thief(19)
Annakin  Human Berserker/Mage (12/18)
Bruce    Human Monk(26)
Starria  Half-Elf Ranger/Cleric (14/16)
Jaheira  Fighter(16)/Druid(16)
Mazzy    Paladin(21)

Good to keep in mind that Wierdo is still in SOA Chapter 2! That's right, she hasn't gone to Spellhold yet!

Edited by Wierdo, 08 August 2011 - 12:10 PM.