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[BBMorti]

Anatole update:

Well I seem to have reached my limit with linking images from photobucket so this update will be without screens.

Pirase island was reached by Anatole and after a quick chat with a mage at the local inn she went and took down a local mage with a ~200 damage backstab.

Stealthed into spellhold after picking up some boots from a guy on the way in.
In the maze there was nothing of interest worth noting, I had Imoen with me through it but didn't make use of her.. I just wanted to free her for RP reasons.
Irenicus was defeated, I used two scrolls of spell immunity and improved invis in the fight as well as a death spell cast from simu to remove the clone he makes of you.
Shot arrows of dispelling + acid arrows and let the mages do the rest of the work.

I experienced some odd bugs with saemon, and could not complete the mini quest to get on a boat ride with him.. so no cloak of cheese I guess.
Went back and took the portal to the underdark.
Will update when im out, if I manage.. only thing I am considering skipping is mind flayer city

Level 39 Assassin, currently.

Modifié par BBMorti, 01 décembre 2011 - 07:08 .

[corey_russell]

BBMorti - skipping the Illithids city is probably a good idea. With no CC you need reliable stun protection, and not much protects against stuns. You going to rescue Phaere or do it the quick way and kill Adalon? Once my Imoen soloed Adalon by standing in the doorway and Adalon couldn't quite reach her. Took forever with her Tasheron's bow...

[Easymask]

Quick update on Canderon & his party's progress.


Things got a bit hectic after they saved Hendak and decided to go to Waukeen's Promenade to look at some of the gear for sale there. Ambushed by brigands, Aerie and Belatrice ended up getting held alongside Canderon - leaving only Minsc to fend for the rest of the group.


He did actually do enough to be the hero of the day, even though Aerie and Belatrice fell to backstabs - by holding off the attackers long enough for Canderon to break free!The slavers soon found themselves face down in the dirty streets - leaving their gear for the victors(though hurting the party's purses & potion reserve in the progress).

[Alesia_BH]

corey_russell wrote...

Not much protects against stuns.

That is very true in many installs. Running vanilla sans fixpack, there is a goodly number of options. With G3, and without Free Action Protects Against Stun, options are limited.

It's worth noting that as a UAI rogue, Anatole could equip the Sword of Arvoreen which offers Stun protection. Also, vanilla Mind Flayers can't detect the invisible via script.

Best,

A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 01 décembre 2011 - 09:36 .

[BBMorti]

corey_russell wrote...

BBMorti - skipping the Illithids city is probably a good idea. With no CC you need reliable stun protection, and not much protects against stuns. You going to rescue Phaere or do it the quick way and kill Adalon? Once my Imoen soloed Adalon by standing in the doorway and Adalon couldn't quite reach her. Took forever with her Tasheron's bow...

I actually wanted to do a bit of the questing in the drow city but a bug happened, I think, so things went slightly different. It was part of my plan to kill Adalon no matter what but it was done slightly earlier than I had planned, though. I wanted the armor :happy:

Update on Anatole the level 40 Assassin:

the underdark was not the place I enjoyed the most.. it felt like half the residents there saw through no detection stealth.
I cleared the air elemental portal by placing time stop traps, then pull the air elemental into range and backstab --> restealth and backstab one more.. with staff if striking it was one hit kills so two elements pr. trap... the other two elements does not see through invis so it was a simple task to restealth and take them one by one.
One fire element wandered off and cleared a bounch of fish people to the east =)

Killed the imprisoned mage for his stuff. Time stop trap.. but his protections somehow went off during the time stop, so I shot a arrow of dispelling at him and ran out of sight to restealth before time ran again.. then went back in and backstabbed him with staff of striking. ~230 damage was too much for him.

I went and helped kill a demon, Two spike traps and a timestop trap which allowed me to move in and give it two backstabs, badly wounded when time ran again, spikes hit it and dead.

I went and got drow disguise and entered the city.. bought staff of earth, rod of smithing, some great potions and a few spell scrolls, then took the first mission to save Phaere. Stealthed by ambush party and placed a spike trap out of their vision, then went andp laced a time stop trap at Phaere ambush site, equipped shield of baldurian and put on helmet of char protection and minor buffing. When the battle started I went out of sigh under time stop duration, ran in, backstabbed a mind flayer and out again to stealth.. then I heard Phaere yell something angry and the two drows were aggressive towards me (bug I guess...?) But I had bought the items I wanted from the town so not a huge loss.

Protection from petrify, shield of baldurian and spell immunity against maze was prepared and then entered and cleared the beholder hive. no biggie there.. usually I justm ake sure the hive mothers are never allowed to move into close range to avoid maze casting.. I cleared all but the beholders fighting ghasts in there and picked up the greenstone amulet.

Went and bought gear in drow form from dwarfs, they have good prices when they think you are drow and a few special items like mordy sword scroll, the only 100% of them in the game I think?

3 timestop traps, 2 spike traps and a super hasted slayer took down Adalon.. she never saw what hit her and lied dead at time started ticcing again. 19 rep still so no biggie

After that cleared my way out buffing up with tensers and some potions + greater evasion, stoneskin, mirror to crush through the fish people whom can see through no detection stealth anyways, killed the prince and the Doom knights with two time stop traps, no damage taken.
Stealthed the rest of the way out.. will collect some allies against Bodhi now and pickup some of the special equipment that now is opened up for, time stop scroll, shapechange etc.

Hope all are having a great friday btw! Im sorry for no screens

[BBMorti]

Alesia_BH wrote...

corey_russell wrote...

Not much protects against stuns.

That is very true in many installs. Running vanilla sans fixpack, there is a goodly number of options. With G3, and without Free Action Protects Against Stun, options are limited.

It's worth noting that as a UAI rogue, Anatole could equip the Sword of Arvoreen which offers Stun protection. Also, vanilla Mind Flayers can't detect the invisible via script.

Best,

A.

I can prevent stuns with Arbane in my install.. with oil of speed + boots I run so fast they hardly get a chance to get one off in any case
I have really enjoyed the alchemy skill in my run, a fair guess would be around 50% of all my potions made have been oils of speed! Much to me appreciation hehe.

[Gate70]

BBMorti wrote...
Well I seem to have reached my limit with linking images from photobucket so this update will be without screens.

Maybe you could edit your images to a smaller size? Can't see yours now but if they were BMP's just changing them to PNG or JPG or cropping them slightly reduces the size significantly and the message seems to be complaining about bandwidth rather than the number of views.

Also may help the no reload pages load quicker (those of you with good/better broadband speed may not notice this effect).

[ussnorway]

That's why I use the thumbnails... much more bandwidth friendly.

[Alesia_BH]

BBMorti wrote...

I can prevent stuns with Arbane in my install.

Yeah. Without a fixpack, Arbane works. 

I have really enjoyed the alchemy skill in my run, a fair guess would be around 50% of all my potions made have been oils of speed! Much to me appreciation hehe.

Lucky you! And I agree that Alchemy can be an excellent HLA choice simply for the Oils of Speed- doubly so in an Ascension run since it's usually wise to run Oil of Speed + Boots of Speed constantly at the Throne.

[Grond0]

Gate70 wrote...

BBMorti wrote...
Well I seem to have reached my limit with linking images from photobucket so this update will be without screens.

Maybe you could edit your images to a smaller size? Can't see yours now but if they were BMP's just changing them to PNG or JPG or cropping them slightly reduces the size significantly and the message seems to be complaining about bandwidth rather than the number of views.

Also may help the no reload pages load quicker (those of you with good/better broadband speed may not notice this effect).

My original BMP screenshots are about 3,800 KB.  Changing these to JPEG before uploading reduces them to about 80 KB, so quite a difference   As Gate70 says one reason for doing this is to reduce the annoyance of the webpage moving for quite a while after first being loaded as picture after picture appears.

[corey_russell]

Grond0 wrote...

Gate70 wrote...

BBMorti wrote...
Well I seem to have reached my limit with linking images from photobucket so this update will be without screens.

Maybe you could edit your images to a smaller size? Can't see yours now but if they were BMP's just changing them to PNG or JPG or cropping them slightly reduces the size significantly and the message seems to be complaining about bandwidth rather than the number of views.

Also may help the no reload pages load quicker (those of you with good/better broadband speed may not notice this effect).

My original BMP screenshots are about 3,800 KB.  Changing these to JPEG before uploading reduces them to about 80 KB, so quite a difference   As Gate70 says one reason for doing this is to reduce the annoyance of the webpage moving for quite a while after first being loaded as picture after picture appears.

Myself, I always paste my screenshot (after using alt + prntscrn key) into paint and save to JPG. I have more than 1000 images on my photobucket account.

[Easymask]

I probably should start converting my images instead of uploading them as .png - I guess I'm a bit lazy like that, but I'll be sure to do so in the future!

Quick update on Canderon and his party's journey.

After clearing out the Slaver's Den, the party has aided the Monsters and the Mage in the Umar Hills, solved the Murders in the Bridge District, as well as saving Trademeet from both the Druids and Djinni! Minsc earned himself quite the Shield in the process, while Canderon bought Tasheron's Bow, the Cloak of Displacement & the Belt of the Inertial Barrier. The group is feeling good about themselves by now, and will probably head over to the Temple Ruins next. They will not be fighting the Dragon though, of that I am certain!

The party at this point:
Canderon level 9 Stalker, 117 HP wielding Tansheron's Bow.
Belatrice level 8/11 Fighter/Thief, 77 HP wielding Azuredge.
Minsc level 9 Ranger, 89 HP wielding a Mace+1 and the Shield of Harmony.
Aerie, level 9/9 Cleric/Mage, 40 HP wielding a Sling.

Modifié par Easymask, 02 décembre 2011 - 08:06 .

[Vaclavc]

BBMorti wrote...
Update on Anatole the level 40 Assassin[/i]:

Nice and clean work as usually, BBMorti.

Easymask wrote...
The group is feeling good about themselves
by now, and will probably head over to the Temple Ruins next. They will
not be fighting the Dragon though, of that I am certain!

C'mon, if you can do it once, you can do it twice

V

Modifié par Vaclavc, 02 décembre 2011 - 11:09 .

[Easymask]

Haha Vaclavc! You're trying to get me killed, now aren't you?!

Quick update on Canderon and his party's journey thus far.

Having slain the foul Shade Lord and solving the problems for the community of Umar Hills, the party ventured onwards to Nalia's keep. The party quickly dealt with the horrors within, laying waste to both the trolls and yuan-ti. Against a group of Golems though, Minsc fell while Belatrice, Canderon and Aerie managed to run away(at 10-20% health each) - returning to Athkatla to ressurect their brave ranger companion. Upon their return to the keep, they oblitorated the Golems before taking down TorGal himself. As they where looking for Nalia's father, they where ambushed by Spirit Trolls - whom the quickly dealt with(these probably spawned since I am above 400k experience?).

They now find themselves back at Trademeet, purses brimming with gold and magical artifacts. What may be in store next for our brave adventurers? Time will surely tell.

(I picked up the Arrows of Dispelling from the fletcher(thank you Alesia!), the Aeger's Hide for Canderon(Imunity to Confusion goes well alongside his Helmet of Charm Protection!) as Belatrice could now use the Night's Gift I picked up from helping the Mayor in Umar.  I also did get a point in Short Swords for Canderon, so he can equip the Arbane's Sword he's carrying if things get rough. I'll probably go clear out the Unseeing Eye soon and pick up Keldorn instead of Minsc along the way - as he has more to offer the party as an Inquisitor, instead of having two Rangers).

Modifié par Easymask, 02 décembre 2011 - 12:10 .

[Wierdo]

corey_russell wrote...
Myself, I always paste my screenshot (after using alt + prntscrn key) into paint and save to JPG. I have more than 1000 images on my photobucket account.

PNG picture files seem to work the best for this - PNGs are sharper than JPGs and have brighter colours. Cropping is good to focus on the action and save everybodies bandwidth.

[corey_russell]

Wierdo wrote...

corey_russell wrote...
Myself, I always paste my screenshot (after using alt + prntscrn key) into paint and save to JPG. I have more than 1000 images on my photobucket account.

PNG picture files seem to work the best for this - PNGs are sharper than JPGs and have brighter colours. Cropping is good to focus on the action and save everybodies bandwidth.

You don't say whether PNG or JPG is the smaller file. JPG's are pretty small, be surprised if PNG can get smaller (if they are, guess I'll change).

As for cropping - I play on Vanilla BG 1 (640 x 480) - the only thing on the screen IS the action. In fact there are plenty of times the screen isn't big enough, such as the waylays. I suppose I could crop out the panels on the left and bottom, but that wouldn't save much.

But as for BG 2, I will strongly consider cropping as sometimes there is lots of wasted screen real estate that isn't helping the story.

Also, most of my images are links which take up no bandwidth while loading the no-reload thread, so cropping is irrelevant then. My last BG 1 post about Picenon for example, only had 3 IMG tags, but there were 9 other images accesssible by link if the reader wanted to.

[Easymask]

Greetings everyone!

The party marched onwards after the victory against TorGal, defeating the parties of Mencar Pebblecrusher as well as Draug Fea's - before destroying the cult of the Unseeing Eye(and a Rakshasa in the process!). Peace was at last given to the follower of Aumanator. With Keldorn now in the group, the party decided it was time to venture on to the Windspear Hills. 
Fooled and duped by Fiirkrag, they charged head on into his foul lair - using the traps that awaited them against his own followers! The party now find themselves ready to proceed deeper into the Dragon's Lair.

(I have a question concerning Fiirkrag himself, what's different in SCS from his normal firebreathing self? I'd love to challenge my party into a fight with their first Dragon - but not if he's *much* more powerful than I'm expecting!)

Canderon's party at this point:

Canderon - level 11 Stalker, 123 HP using Tansheron's Bow.
Keldorn - level 11 Inquisitor, 111 HP using the Flail of Ages & the Shield of Harmony.
Belatrice - level 9/12 Fighter/Thief, 79 HP using Hangard's Axe & the Reflection Shield.
Aerie - level 10/11 Cleric/Mage, 44 HP using Arla's Dragonbane & a Small Shield +2.

(Oh just realized, this is the point of experience my other parties have fallen. Maybe I should just leave Fiirkrag alone for now? Allthough Keldorn would really like that sword.. Decisions, decisions..) 

[corey_russell]

@Easymask - Alesia battled a SCS Firkraag with her characters not too long ago, and I though one of the most difficult things about him is his remove magic - no fire resistance, then the firebreath attacks will hurt.

That sword IS nice, but Firkraag definitely easier (and safer) with HLAs. You may want to read up on SCS Firkraag, Alesia seemed to have to be very prepared for it, though she was solo.

[Easymask]

Thank you for the tips and pointers corey!

I browsed back in the thread a few pages and looked at her encounter with Fiirkrag. Seemed quite horrid without her kit, experience and gear - so the party decided to leave the massive Dragon for now. Aerie only has access to level 5 Mage spells at this point, so I'm afraid he would kill us quite easily.

In the future though, I'll be sure to give him a run for his money!

[corey_russell]

Lilacor is a +3 weapon so will serve Keldorn quite well in the underdark. There's also a +2 sword in spellhold that Keldorn can use, has 10% magic resistance I think and does extra damage to evil oppoonents. I usually prefer the immunities of Lilacor though.

[Easymask]

Aye, those weapons would indeed serve him well - had it not been for him being mazed straight through his Free Action in the Astral Prison. Everything went well untill we encountered the Warden, but managed to get revenge on him at last!



Unfortunatley, the party no longer had a solid tank - thus Belatrice had to step up to the task against the group of Yuan-Ti. The party was quite lucky in only pulling the Warden(seems pretty random, this time he came running by himself), but without Keldorn the party could do nothing against the horde of Yuan-Ti Mages.

Canderon tried his best to win once his companions where dead, drinking potions of invisibility to backstab his enemies - but for naught, as he couldn't even scratch their Stoneskins. The Arrows of Dispelling did nothing against the stoneskins either, thus Canderon was powerless as his potions ran out. I enjoyed this party quite a lot, though I think I will leave Aerie out of the group for a while, seeing as a pure class would evolve much quicker and giving me access to spells that will make life much easier for me(no contingencies or anything at the point I entered the Prison, even after completing most of the quests pre-Spellhold).



(That fight is by far the hardest one for me. Everything else seems to be going quite well up to that point - but beating casters that reapply stoneskins every time they finally are down is just insanity. I probably should just hold off the Astral Prison and Planar Sphere untill I return from the Underdark.

If I would play as a Mage and get the Planar Sphere after the Underdark, will I still be able to do all the Stronghold quests? I didn't get any from the Ranger Cabin sadly, and I completed that rather early.

[corey_russell]

Er, Easy Mask, this isn't the 3rd time Planar Prison has eaten you, has it?

I know I said this before, but I use it heavily in the Planar Prison and it serves me well -- summons, summons, summons! Those yuan-ti mages are nothing if they used all their offense on some pathetic skeleton. You could also use the berserker warrior (horn), Kithix the spider, Genie Lamp, etc. Druids Fire Elementals are EXCELLENT summons, Clerics Aeriel Servants do well as well. Low level wizards have to settle for spider spawn spell or lesser elementals (which is still better than being killed). Level 15 casters animate dead are skeletal warriors are ideal, but that's asking a bit much for chapter 2.

In other words, if you can't take the heat, let your summons take it for ya!

EDIT: oh and Keldorn didn't get mazed, in the first fight in the planar prison one of the mages has a disintegrate in his script - it pays to be buffed to the max when you first enter it (chant, bless, death ward etc). I think death ward is the sure-fire defense to the disintegrate.

Modifié par corey_russell, 02 décembre 2011 - 10:40 .

[Easymask]

Aye, this is in fact the third time that hellish place has killed my party.

I was actually using summons this time around, paying heed to the tips you guys gave me - and had prepared quite well. I had Belatrice and Keldorn buffed with Death Ward and Free Action, as well as haste, protection from evil, moral boost, chant and bless - but Keldorn was quickly put in a box(I thought Maze looked like a box that tucks itself around the character then they disappear? Are you sure that's disintegrate?)

My summons where a Great Air Elemental, Three Skeletons and a Djinni - but the skeletons and Air Elemental died from a Cloudkill. I then summoned three ogres with the wand of summoning from the beginning of the game, but they got killed almost too fast by the Chaos'd Yuan-Ti warriors, along with the Djinni. It feels kinda harsh that I can only use 5 summoned creatures at a time, but that's ok I guess.

[Grond0]

Arrows of dispelling should get rid of their stoneskins. If that didn't work for you I suspect it was because they had protection from magic weapons up. That only lasts 4 rounds so running away briefly will let your weapons bit again. When fighting mages it's much easier to beat them if you keep an eye on the game text to see what spells they are using.

[corey_russell]

Easymask wrote...

Aye, this is in fact the third time that hellish place has killed my party.

I was actually using summons this time around, paying heed to the tips you guys gave me - and had prepared quite well. I had Belatrice and Keldorn buffed with Death Ward and Free Action, as well as haste, protection from evil, moral boost, chant and bless - but Keldorn was quickly put in a box(I thought Maze looked like a box that tucks itself around the character then they disappear? Are you sure that's disintegrate?)

My summons where a Great Air Elemental, Three Skeletons and a Djinni - but the skeletons and Air Elemental died from a Cloudkill. I then summoned three ogres with the wand of summoning from the beginning of the game, but they got killed almost too fast by the Chaos'd Yuan-Ti warriors, along with the Djinni. It feels kinda harsh that I can only use 5 summoned creatures at a time, but that's ok I guess.

Yeah the monster summoning wand pretty useless there (unless you can send the summons out of sight to soak the enemies spells, such as using Farsight, a great spell). Elementals are good and the ones I listed previously.

As to Keldorn, that graphic you said does sound like maze, but if that's so, couldn't you just wait till he came out of it, or were you in middle of a battle when that happened? It's tough for a melee to defend against maze...oh and by the way, if everyone has free action on them, there's no point in hasting them since free action does allow any movement change, slower OR faster. BUT if Keldorn's picture disappeared that means he was imprisoned - only freedom scroll can bring him back (which you can't get until the underdark I think)

Also Grond0, I can't remember who said this, might even been Alesia many months ago, but I thought I read somewhere that dispelling arrows don't count as magical? That is, if they had PfMW the arrow would hit, but if they had PfNW (or even that 4th level spell that protects against missiles) then it wouldn't. If it's latter the graphic is a pink sphere around the caster.