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[Alesia_BH]

Serg BlackStrider wrote...
@Alesia: Ashanti looks nice (touching/knocking on wood...) as always!  

Thanks. Ashanti still hasn't reached the point where Beastmaster restrictions matter. She uses Blackblood instead of Ages, and wears Bracers of AC 3 instead of Full Plate, but those differences really don't amount to much ultimately. At this point she's basically just a warrior who trades a touch of power for a bit of style (and Mountain Bears!). Later on, her Elven saves combined with her inability to equip immunity granting weapons may cause problems around enemies that dispel/remove aggressively, but as of now she's perfectly fine. She's been fun. 

My eye caught Valygar, standing impassively (and looking the other way), while Ashanti fought Mogadish ... 

I know right? I find the Knights of Solamnia even more ridiculous: they're supposed to be Cavaliers and yet they just stand there and watch as my characters race by chased by Cornugons...

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 23 mars 2013 - 04:09 .

[Grond0]

Tiamat - wild mage

Reporting back to Sir Ryan Trawl he initially refused to talk.  I thought perhaps resting to cure Tiamat's injuries had caused the quest to expire, but talking to him again persuaded him to provide a reward.

With a bit of money to spare now, Tiamat invested in the Robe of Vecna.  I thought I still had a reasonable amount to spare for some more spells, until this happened - casting friends to get the best prices wasn't such a good decision there!

To replace the lost money Tiamat travelled to Trademeet.  First stop was to increase her summoning options.  Next he ploughed through the trolls - often using MMM to finish them off.  A surge here gave her a few extra of those.  A death fog and a few fireballs sorted out Kyland Lind, though I forgot the death fog would also kill Tiamat's own sword.  I left Adratha for now just in case I decide I need her potions at some stage and just finished off the remaining druids.  Cernd took a rather high 5 hits to finish Faldorn off.

Reported back to the mayor and then took on Rejiek.  Buffing for that he created what I think is his first genuine fireball surge of the run, but luckily I had remembered to buff out of range of innocents, so no great problem.  Also cleared the tomb before buying the cloak of displacement, belt of inertial barrier and some more scrolls to fill a few gaps in his spell collection.

Cast a newly learned Limited Wish and asked for an adventure before heading for the inn to rest up in preparation.  Tiamat's favourite room there was occupied, but not for long.  Brennan was hemmed in by swords and skeletons (I was actually expecting a skeleton warrior, given that he's 15th level and spell level was actually increased by 1) and died despite trying to run away.  The swords' buffs showing are spell immunity (abjuration) which was cast with a surge area effect.  A skull trap sequencer then killed everything except Mencar, who was finished off with magic missiles - the spreading effect meant Amon had a fraction of a second to mourn his familiar before dying himself.

On the limited wish adventure tracked a gong via Vittorio, Roger & Grae to Drush the ogre mage.  Tried to cast improved invisibility there, but failed twice so used RoAC.  That was not really required anyway - Drush running away following an opening sunfire and being finished off with magic missiles. Returning Tiamat got the Boomerang dagger and a bit of gold and XP, though I would probably have got more of everything by just killing Capt Dennis' party in the first place.

Visited the Government District for the first time and saved Viconia before talking to Sir Sarles.  Went to the ore merchant and, a day later, had to sell some equipment to pay his inflated prices for substitute illithium.  Neb supplied the real thing, which was briefly dropped while Tiamat spoke to Sir Sarles.  He received a bounty on Neb's head before reporting back to the temple.  Acting on further instructions he went on to recover a sacred ring of Lathander.
 
Tiamat has just arrived in Umar Hills and is within a whisker of level 16.

[Alesia_BH]

I'm pleasantly surprised to see Tiamat is still alive. May he surge to success.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 23 mars 2013 - 10:49 .

[BBMorti]

Sorry your incredible run had to end, Gate. I think you have taken a solo Kensai the furthest in this challenge, well done.

[Gate70]

I'm tempted to try it again - still more likely to make an error in SoA than in BG1 but getting to the stage where I can string a decent run together and try to get into ToB.

Watchers Keep 3rd level and beyond would be off-limits though (mainly the 3rd level with small rooms, traps, groups of enemies and wild/no magic zones). Just too risky with my playstyle.

[Alesia_BH]

@Gate. What were Engor's saves in the Succubus battle?

[Gate70]

I've trashed the install now but expect he was as per the previous screenshot which was;

-4 Paralyze/Poison/Death and Rod/Staff/Wand
0 Petrify/Polymorph
-5 Breath and Spells

I don't think the drain to 39 would affect those and I had potions that would have helped. Sloppy gameplay on my part as I didn't think they'd be much danger.

[Alesia_BH]

Gate70 wrote...
-4 Paralyze/Poison/Death and Rod/Staff/Wand
0 Petrify/Polymorph
-5 Breath and Spells

Which leaves me wondering about the mechanics of Succubus Charm Person (I know little about it since they only target males).

Is it a Save v. Spells with a nasty penalty?

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 24 mars 2013 - 02:43 .

[Grond0]

I have a vague memory that succubi ask for a save at -8. Also I'm not sure that being drained would not affect things; the mechanics for recalculating saves are not based on the actual saves from a previous level, but on a theoretical calculation - as a result I think it might disregard item save bonuses.

Edit: googling showed a response by Polytope on these forums that it is a save vs spell at -8 for male characters (no penalty for female).

Modifié par Grond0, 24 mars 2013 - 06:36 .

[Grond0]

Tiamat, wild mage

Alesia_BH wrote...
I'm pleasantly surprised to see Tiamat is still alive. May he surge to success.

Surprised me too.  However, all good things come to an end.

Tiamat cleared the Umar Hills, including Thaxy and moved on to Windspear.  In the dungeon there I had originally thought of killing the vampires with a first use of a spell trigger triple sunfire (scroll dropped by one of the Twisted Rune mages at Umar).  However, I had actually loaded it with something designed for Firkraag!


After killing 1 chasing vampire I came back invisible to try an old favourite - but the skull trap sequencer didn't fire.


Running away again, Tiamat's wild magic finally betrayed him.


Of course that's not the whole story.  He had carried around a contingency for quite a while that used Otiluke's when helpless, but that had been triggered by a wing buffet from Thaxy.  In that instance it was a poor choice as it kept him out of the combat while Thaxy killed all the summons out of sight and that's probably partly why I hadn't renewed it.  My normal contingency has been invisibility when helpless, which would actually have saved him there.

Anyway, Tiamat had been extremely fortunate to survive numerous surges in combat up to that point.  I was being stubborn about still making him use spells even in many situations where items would be more effective (as well as safer) - that at least made for an interesting run.  However, I'm minded to have another go at a wild mage, but this time being careful, i.e. no combat casting at any time and no casting at all at lower levels (where something like a lightning bolt or fireball is likely to kill). 

[Serg BlackStrider]

Sad news about Engor and Tiamat... That was impressive run, Gate and I'm looking forward for your non-casting mage run, Grond0.

[Alesia_BH]

Grond0 wrote...
Edit: googling showed a response by Polytope on these forums that it is a save vs spell at -8 for male characters (no penalty for female).

Makes sense. After my earlier post, I had nosed through the Charm Person files and found one that was a -8. I hadn't confirmed that that was the Succubus version yet, but I was assuming it was since none of the others could have ended Engor. Glad to have confirmation.Thanks Grond0!

[Alesia_BH]

@Grond0. Condolences.

(Btw. I'm kind of amazed that you are considering another Wild Mage. Have fun though!)

[Grond0]

I was actually surprised at how effective Tiamat was. With increasing HPs and decreasing saving throws the surges become less of a problem, so that you can probably get 99.9% safe when casting outside combat. I'm thinking of the next run as being a way to put my belief that the wild mage can be played safely to the test.

[Gate70]

The real danger is if you use dweomers, otherwise you have something like a 5% chance of surge and of that 5-10% of it being a nasty one (flesh to stone) and hopefully a decent saving throw. Good fun until you go pop. 

Rhane: Lawful Good male dwarf kensai
After a scrappy run through BG1 seeing 268 kills and a couple of near-death experiences Rhane is “rescued” by Imoen. He breathes a sigh of relief and suggests Jaheira and Minsc are decent travelling companions. No sir, Imoen has other ideas and says the best option is to split up.

Rhane questions the logic so Imoen explains how Jaheira will use the available flora and fauna to fashion an escape while the man mountain that is Minsc cannot be caged. Rhane points out that Minsc is, in fact, caged right now but Imoen blithely retorts that everybody else is in a cage and Minsc is the only one outside (but that Rhane shouldn’t think about it as it will make his head hurt).

Imoen modestly adds that she will slip to safety under magical protection while others draw attention elsewhere. Rhane asks how he will escape, what with not being a follower of nature, magic or stealth. Imoen shrugs and says he will think of something, if not could he try to at least make a reasonable diversion for her sake. 

[Alesia_BH]

Gate70 wrote...
The real danger is if you use dweomers, otherwise you have something like a 5% chance of surge and of that 5-10% of it being a nasty one (flesh to stone) and hopefully a decent saving throw.

Understood. Given my playing style, the occasional waste of spell equivalent actions and the effect of miscasts on spell slot budgeting are both major concerns. Or so I would think: I haven't fiddled with the kit enough to know how it works out in practice.

Good fun until you go pop.

Makes sense- though I'm not sure I'd personally find it fun. 

I'm glad to see Grond0 enjoying it. 


Anyhoo. Best of luck with Rhane Gate!


A.


Btw. Ashanti will likely resume her adventures within the next couple days.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 25 mars 2013 - 01:32 .

[Gate70]

Rhane: Lawful Good male dwarf kensai
Rhane only has one DUHM per "day" (must have only rested once between escaping the BG1 catacombs and killing Sarevok).

He then makes a meal of Ilyich and his duergar, glugging a healing potion then an emergency extra healer as he runs. They have followed him to varying degrees so he picks them off one by one.

After a poor battle with an Otyugh Rhane is starting to lose his cool but maybe his luck is about to turn (level 9, +16hp). Then he walks into an acid blob trap on his way out of a bedroom (7hp left) and decides to hang with the dryads until his attention returns.

[Gate70]

Rhane: Lawful Good male dwarf kensai
Yoshimo does his usual grab and run, leaving Rhane with less items to lug around. An oil of speed is used to shut down four mephit portals (out-running a radiant mephit colour spray) before turning back to risk a mephit plane which sees some friendly fire help him.

After scaring Ulvaryl away Rhane panics and has to wait for an opportune moment against the remaining spellcaster. He escapes into a nearby circus tent, only to have to kills a few shadows (and an illusionary werewolf as they have blocked him in) then a troublesome gnome. A quick trip to the Adventurers Mart sees him pick up a gem bag, scroll case and a ring of air control.

Rhane is busy drawing up his early shopping list, of which Ribald only has one item in stock and for which Rhane cannot stump up the cash;
- RoseBlade (Blade of Roses), sword of flame (in stock).
- Arbane.
- Potion container.
- Ioun stone.
- Boots of Avoidance.
- Lilacor.
- Cloak of the Sewers.
- Azuredge.

[Gate70]

Rhane: Lawful Good male dwarf kensai
All paths lead to Gaelan Bayle, and from there Rhane decides to go straight to Watchers Keep. Suna Seni has worked this out and laid a near-perfect ambush with only one minor flaw (yes, picking on a kensai). Rhane uses two healing potions and two extra healing potions to shrug off a lightning bolt, 2 flame arrows, a Melf Acid Arrow and various physical attacks. He emerges bloodied but victorious, with some loot and a offhand upgrade.
(Rhane also rolled 8 against horror, his save vs spells was 5 so should have used ring but forgot).

Odren is told in no uncertain terms that Rhane can deal with Watchers Keep, then Sister Garlena is convinced to sell a potion container at a reasonable price, although two lesser restoration scrolls bump the cost up. Rhane tells Odren to keep guard for a little longer and returns to the city.

Cash is tight so Rhane decides to wash-up at the Copper Coronet before helping Hendak sell the RoseBlade take charge for the cost of 5 more potions. Hendak shares a few gladiator tactics too (level 10, +3hp). Rhane stashes anything vaguely valuable, sells anything worth trading and uses the influential ring to purchase two long swords. Skint, but happy!
[/b]

[Blind_Visionary]

Rhane, welcome to the Copper Coronet! I hope they don't discriminate against shorties upstairs Best of luck!

[Gate70]

Rhane: Lawful Good male dwarf kensai
Hendak asks for help dealing with another group of slavers so Rhane heads into the sewers. Two healing potions are required against a group of hobgoblins and he vaguely recalls a suitable quotation (Lazenby: This never happened to the other fellow). The hand of Vallah is gamely retrieved despite an otyugh slowing Rhane, disease setting in and a mustard jelly hitting for 36 which forces another extra healing potion to be consumed.

Rhane decides to head back to the inn and seek advice (identify Arbane to make haste available). With an urgent need for funds he notices Yoshimo and retrieves the pile of loot taken earlier. Purchasing the glasses of identification means Rhane can release more funds. He decides to buy a couple of items because another idea has popped into his head - aptly enough this is about protecting his head from all those hobgoblin weapons.

Down into the graveyard tunnels he goes, cursing as a sword spider wounds him but glad he used a scroll to protect himself from poison. He curses more when a second sword spider badly wounds him, then steps inside a huge room after glugging a few healing elixirs. Pai’Na is less than welcoming so he hits her with a potion of firebreath and moves to roast most of the spiders (a move picked up from Grond0) before killing Pai’Na, grabbing her gear and emptying a nearby container. Kitthix is summoned to help defeat the few remaining spiders.

After resting Rhane realises he has ruined his plans for the remaining poison immunity, so uses the ring of air control to sneak back to the surface. He unfurls his shopping list, crosses off the items retrieved to date and adds a few more.

Existing; Boots of Avoidance, Lilacor, Cloak of the Sewers, Azuredge.
New (relatively easy to get and big benefits for a kensai); Ilbratha, Improved Mace of Disruption.

edit
thank you Blind_Visionary.

Also, the screenshot shows a harm cast but no effect - Rhane had moved away and didn't return for a while and he can hit quicker/more effectively than her...but I hadn't noticed that spell cast. Reckon I was incredibly lucky not to get hit with it...

Modifié par Gate70, 26 mars 2013 - 10:46 .

[Gate70]

Rhane: Lawful Good male dwarf kensai
The plan, as it is, is foiled by Renfeld. He must be returned to the docks but orog slavers have an ambush on the way. They want to gang up on him, so he runs around and picks off stragglers instead. A mad cleric is hacked down after having two spells disrupted, then Rhane opens a trading account in the Thieves Guild by selling various items.

After dropping Renfeld off it is time for Xzar to demand assistance, this being journaled but as a low priority due to there being little in it for Rhane. Back to the plan instead; a quick visit to the government district followed by a jaunt to Umar Hills via the City Gates where a job at Trademeet is also journaled. Rhane can see signposts to Windspear and the de’Arnise Hold too so plenty of work lined up.

At Umar it turns out that the mayor and Madulf are in need of aid while Kitthix helps deal with a killer mimic but a pack of shadows chase Rhane away from a ranger hut. Instead he helps Jermien by commissioning then de-commissioning a stone golem. After identifying Ilbratha he crosses it off the shopping list.

n.b.
Rhane isn’t “deliberately avoiding vampires”, he just likes a good sleep each night. 
Also, trying to remember what was the biggest help for Engor, suddenly realised Ilbratha was very important.

[Grond0]

Tiamat - wild magev2 (Update 1)

After passing through BG1 using just 3 or 4 of his own spells, Tiamat has immediately changed style for BG2.  The intention now is to use buffing spells regularly as well as the odd area damage spell when out of sight range.  That did mean that he triggered quite a few surges in the dungeon (none in BG1), but only 1 was potentially deadly - a lightning bolt bouncing across a corridor narrowly missing him on its return path.  He did get held once when buffing, but with no one in sight was able to rest in peace until active again.  

There was a slight moment of concern in the elemental plane; I thought a chromatic orb from scroll had dealt with the steam mephit, but it appeared to be immune to petrification.  With II still up from his buffs Tiamat had negative saving throws at that point, so was safe enough running.  After re-buffing he came back and this time made no mistake.

For the mephit portals Tiamat put on his usual buffs and summoned some meat shields.  He also used a spell in sight of the enemy for the only time (thinking the summons and buffs would probably protect him long enough even if he was held).  All the summons were put out of action by a colour spray from the radiant mephit, but with opposition reduced by the chaos Tiamat was able to destroy the portals on his own easily enough.

No further problems, although Ulvaryl managed to get away at near death.  On exit Tiamat was just below level 11.

Modifié par Grond0, 27 mars 2013 - 04:05 .

[Grond0]

Tiamat - wild mage v2 (final update)

Thanks for the good wishes Corey, Blind_Visionary.  Unfortunately Tiamat has failed to really get going in BG2, though his demise was a bit unfortunate.

He did the circus and went to speak to Gaelan Bayle and then started to dispose of the Cowled Wizard threat by summoning groups by casting invisibility, running away and resting.  That works with all but the last group.  He was in the process of killing them by sending in a series of summons one by one, but wanted to draw away 3 skeleton warriors that had been summoned to strand them somewhere and prevent them from interfering.  They were following when he passed where Cohrvale and Bregg challenge you - Tiamat was in the process of telling them politely to go away when he died ... 

In my SCS installation I have a mod component that pauses the game during conversations so that that sort of death can't happen and had forgotten it could in this game (grrr).

I still think the wild mage should have a decent shot at progressing through BG2 and don't really want to leave the attempt in this slightly wimpish fashion, so will go back to BG1 again.

Modifié par Grond0, 27 mars 2013 - 04:05 .

[corey_russell]

Er Grond0, aren't you solo? Surely money wouldn't be hard to come by for solo character, it's not like you need to buy any warrior armor or weapons or potions, plus you could sell any warrior equipment you looted. I.e., pay the Cowleds their magic license and get on with the main quest. Also experience is plentiful for a solo character as well, so you don't need to fight the the cowleds for that either. I suppose if you defeat them all you get bragging rights, but is that really worth death?

Regardless, my condolences - I noticed your BG 1 placeholder post, good luck with v3 - third time's the charm?