15228 réponses à ce sujet

[Alesia_BH]

Alesia_BH wrote...
Yes: Do that. And while you're making changes for the next edition, be sure to add a special quest for beastmaster PCs laden with references to The Beastmaster (1982). Perhaps Maax can show up and abduct Delon in preparation for a child sacrifice? Seth and Kiri as joinable NPCs? A ferret summoning talisman as a quest reward?

Btw. Just in case it wasn't clear David, I sincerely hope you'll do none of the above. 

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 Multiplayer attempt 25(4) - (update 2)
Tensor, human blade (Grond0) & Roche, human blade (Gate70)

The duet made significant progress today and can now cast 5th level spells.

After the dungeon the first port of call, as usual, was the circus - no problem there.  Tensor did sound a warning immediately after that though when he got told off by a Cowled Wizard for casting an invisibility spell.  The need to have spells available was demonstrated when the duet struggled a bit against Cohrvale and Bregg when tackling them with very limited buffs and they scraped together 5,000 gold and went to pay for a license.

Travelling to trigger ambushes generated first Suna Seni and then Renfeld.  Fireballs proved very effective in these and subsequent ambushes, though Tensor grumbled slightly about being included in the target areas several times (to be even-handed he also targeted himself a couple of times).  A couple of fireballs also helped with Prebek & Sanasha to allow the duet to explore Harper HQ.

Watcher's Keep was visited for a potion bag.  Exploring the top floor Roche tried to get the ammo container, using blur, spirit armour and improved invisibility to get his spell save down to 2 - but that proved insufficient.  After raising him at the handy local cleric the duet safely cleared the remainder of the top floor - picking up the crimson dart and golem manual among other things.

Liberating the Copper Coronet generated enough funds to pay for an introduction to Aran Linvail and the necessary tasks were soon completed to open up vampire HQ.  During those the duet also solved the skinner murders (stoneskin being available by this time negated the threat of backstabs from the Rune Assassins) and picked up the berserker horn (Roche's high intelligence making the maze duration short enough to prevent Tensor from investigating any trapped containers).

Tackling the vampires the duet used improved invisibility to protect against domination attacks.  Greater ghouls did hold Tensor twice, but only when buffed and Roche had no problems in quickly killing the attackers (being protected himself by Arbane).  Tanova's spells were drained by a series of summons (both blades memorising 5 monster summoning spells when resting) before she was meleed.  Bodhi didn't last long, though the final attacks demonstrate that she was ready to give up even earlier.

The duet came back to the Graveyard shortly after that to get the green ioun stone from Pai'Na.  A couple of fireballs doing most of the work there.

Deciding to target the ring of Gaxx, to reduce the need to heal after encounters, the duet started the Unseeing Eye quest to open up access to the lich there.  They also eliminated a sea troll and a rakshasa nest in the Temple Sewers.

They've also pre-opened a couple of lich doors to reduce the time taken to kill the various liches.  While doing that in the Docks they came across Sansuki calling for help.  As noted above Roche's idea of helping in ambush situations can sometimes be a bit painful - and so it proved for Sansuki.  He joined the hordes of thieves, muggers and vampires chasing our heroes and actually did most of the damage Roche took.  However, with the vampires all dead he did demonstrate his forgiving nature.

Stats (cont. from BG1):
Tensor, blade L13, 70 (12 from familiar) HPs, 287 kills
Roche, blade L13, 77 (7 from ioun stone) HPs, 259 kills, 1 death
Roche closed the gap significantly in that session.  Now using melee nearly all the time his strength advantage (19 vs 18) should see him take the lead in due course.

Modifié par Grond0, 26 août 2013 - 07:49 .

[Alesia_BH]

An aside: I was just watching Beastmaster 3: The Eye of Braxus when I noticed something familiar about the way the arch-villan sorcerer, Lord Agon, said "you will." Sure enough, it's David Warner: AKA Jon Irenicus.

Interestingly, the similarities go beyond the actor's innate voice- touching the realm of characterization: the phrasing and pacing are just like Jon's (especially around minute 35). It seems the artistic origins of Jon's voice can be traced to this (awful) film.   

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 24 août 2013 - 06:40 .

[Alesia_BH]

Ashanti, Elven Beastmaster: Kangaxx

Fighting SCS Kangaxx always makes me nervous. Not nervous as in cowering in fear, but nervous as in on edge. I always find myself wondering whether the risk is worth the reward, and that's saying a lot given that the reward is so high. True, my Kangaxx fear may be a little overblown: I've never actually lost a character to him and most of the battles haven't even been close. But I'm glad to see Kangaxx commanding a bit of healthy respect. Kudos to David for getting the balancing right.

Ashanti's battle with Kangaxx was one of the easiest I can recall. Perhaps that's a result of my prior experience? Or maybe it's due to the magic and mystery of the one true warrior known as the Beastmaster (I really have to stop watching those awful movies. I was planning to watch Beastmater 4: The Apex of Stupidity tomorrow afternoon, but now I'm thinking I should hold off...) 
 
Anyhoo. Here's Ashanti's battle with Kangaxx.

Ashanti opened her fight with Kangaxx running moderate buffs: shield, potion of storm giant strength, resist fire/cold, protection from fire, potion of regeneration, and oil of speed. Kangax was a little more liberal with his buffing, ut he doesn't have to worry about a remove from a beastmaster now does he?


Kangaxx's opening offensive move was a wish. He got "magical defenses utterly destroyed" which is not exactly a stellar use of a level nine against a solo beastmaster since it does noticeably less that a L3 remove would (it does remove specific protections however).


Kangaxx's wish was followed by Time Stop->Comet. Fortunately, our protagonist had patially countered Kangaxx's wish by re-erecting partial fire resistance so the comet did only moderate damage- exactly enough to be countered with an extra healer.


Then it was demon time. After seeing a pair of fallen planetars from the Elemental Lich, Ashanti was pleased to see only cornugons from Kangaxx. A potion of absorption removed the lightning bolt risk and Seeking took Kangaxx's pets out of the picture almost as fast as he could summon them.
 

Once the demons were slain, and the ProMWs tapped, it was time for Ashanti to go on the offensive. Kangaxx is immune to lightning, but Gessen still disrupts in my pre-Tobex install.


On to daddy.


The story was similar here: patience, counters, and sling bullets got Ashanti through Demi-Kan's ProMWs- setting up a Gessen offensive and, finally, a Staff of Rynn finish.


I'll post on Bodhi next.


Best,

A.

Btw. Ashanti's inventory following the acquisition of Gaxx's ring.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 24 août 2013 - 04:55 .

[Alesia_BH]

Ashanti, Elevn Beastmaster: Bodhi

Wow. This was a blood bath: I've never seen anything like it. Seeking to conserve resources, and feeling less then enthused with the prospect of meleeing oddles of improved vampires, I had Ashanti recruit all possible allies for the raid on Bodhi's lair. I expected this to be overkill. And it was in the end in a sense: it led to an overabundance of allies killed.

Eric Van Straaden's support paladins survived since they left before the serious combat began. But aside from them and Ashanti everyone -and I mean everyone- was slaughtered.

In the opening scripted scene, Drizzt lost two of his party members.


Oddly, Catti Brie and the rest hung around while Drizzt enganged the ancient and elder vampires in the next room: they were all masacared. Drizzt himself seemed surprisingly upbeat as he bid his dead friends adieux and then soldiered on with the already critically injured Eric Van Straaden to face Tanova. 

Tanova quickly level drained Van Straaden to death -followed by Arkanis, Kachiko and the entirety of the Shadow Thief contingent. And as Drizzt screamed "Fight together, friends!" while wailing away at the ProMWed Tanova's fireshield, it was clear that he would soon join them in death. You'd think the legendary hero would be a bit more cunning...


Ashanti's allies didn't die in vain, however: they had successfully destroyed the coven of ancient and elder vampires. And in the end, it was just Ashanti and Tanova mano-a-mano. Ashanti prevailed, but it was sobering to see the corpses of all her friends laying on the floor before her. 


Kneeling down and surveying Drizzt's corpse, Ashanti noticed his fabled blades: Twinkle and Frostbrand. She couldn't help but admire them- and not for what they were, but for what they stood for. As a tribute to her fallen friend, Ashanti decided to wield them in her showdown with Bodhi- despite her aversion to metal weapons. First a test seemed in order.


And it was good. Ashanti now felt ready to take on Bodhi in the name of her fallen friend.


Buffed to the nines, Ashanti charged her adversary with reckless abandon. Bodhi fell quickly. But the question remained: would Ashanti survive? In her haste, she had surrounded herself with hostiles.


Clearing a path with a whirlwind and then quaffing a potion of invisibility Ashanti darted to more favorable ground. Begining with the summoned demons, Ashanti whittled her way through her many foes.


And when it was all over, the Lanthorn was hers.


Suldanessellar is next.

Best,

A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 24 août 2013 - 08:48 .

[Grond0]

Alesia_BH wrote...
I was planning to watch Beastmater 4: The Apex of Stupidity tomorrow afternoon, but now I'm thinking I should hold off...) 

You really should watch it.  Otherwise you'll miss the relevance of the main plot line in Beastmaster 5: The Epitome of Atrocity.  Alternatively, tou could of course just settle for watching the 66 episodes of the TV series.

[Alesia_BH]

Grond0 wrote...
You really should watch it.  Otherwise you'll miss the relevance of the main plot line in Beastmaster 5: The Epitome of Atrocity.  Alternatively, tou could of course just settle for watching the 66 episodes of the TV series.

Oh don't get me started on the TV series Grond0...

But seriously, after seeing Braxus I don't think I can stand another second of Beastmaster screenage.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 24 août 2013 - 06:04 .

[Grond0]

Tiamat Redux {2} - elf wild mage (first & final update)

Tiamat started promisingly in BG2, but became an untimely victim of my twitchy finger.

He made it through the dungeon despite quite a few surges - there were only a couple of occasions when Tiamat cast spells in view of enemies that were not already disabled.

He liberated the circus using buffed melee and went on to clear the Copper Coronet, the sewers and the slaver ship. 

With enough funds to buy back charges wands of cloudkill and fire I tried to prevent the Cowled Wizards from interfering further with Tiamat's spell casting.  Things went well until the final group of top-ranked wizards arrived.  They failed to spot Tiamat moving away and a couple of webs and a couple of cloudkills were sufficient to kill all the wizards, although Zallanora had managed to summon a pit fiend before he died. I was right at the edge of the map, so assumed I would have time to run away if necessary.  However, I was shocked when the pit fiend appeared right next to Tiamat.  There was no message about teleportation and I suspect the sudden appearance was just a result of the huge pit fiend icon somehow managing to hide behind the pillars there.  I reacted to the surprise by pressing the space bar - immediately after the autopause on enemy sight kicked in, thus restarting the action!  The next instant Tiamat was dead.  I'm not sure what the cause of death was; looking at the screenshot Tiamat didn't have stoneskin active, so it may just have been a critical hit.

Modifié par Grond0, 24 août 2013 - 05:11 .

[Alesia_BH]

Ashanti, Elven Beastmaster: Suldanessellar

(Miracle of miracles: Ashanti's post are almost up to date. Just two more remain now: Jon-Jon in hell and Illasera.)

Single mindedly focused on pursuing Jon, Ashanti was all business in Suldanessellar: she established a stronghold at the House of the Horn, made contact with Denim, and then promptly collected the artifacts required to summon Rillifane. Niz was, of course, the most formidable guardian.

Having sent Cerebus to die horribly at the hands of two dragons, Ashanti felt it was time to give him a chance at glory. This time a trio of panthers and a pair of winter wolves ran distraction while Ashanti locked in her movement rate advantage.


And once Niz's haste was dispelled...


Ashanti went to work with her sling.


Setting him up for the finish by Cerebus.


On to the showdown with Jon at the Tree of LIfe.

In my install Tree-Jon is a shameless demon spammer. Ashanti spent the vast majority of the fight punking demons with sling bullets while trying to evade Jon's magics.


A few were taken down in melee, but Seeking did most of the work.


Jon's demons and abjuration spells could only delay the inevitable, however: Gessen finished him quickly once his bag of tricks ran dry.



Best,

A.

 
 

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 24 août 2013 - 05:33 .

[Alesia_BH]

Grond0 wrote...
Tiamat started promisingly in BG2, but became an untimely victim of my twitchy finger.

That's a shame Grond0. I had just dropped by the BG1 thread to wish him luck. I guess I was a bit late...

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 24 août 2013 - 05:36 .

[Grond0]

Yes, I did smile wryly when I read your post just after completing mine.

I've just generated a new wild mage character so perhaps your wishes can transfer to her ...

[Alesia_BH]

 Ashanti, Elven Beastmaster: Irenicus in Hell

This fight -like the Kangaxx battle- always makes me nervous: nervous without reason perhaps, but nervous nontheless. There's something about hell that makes a solo character suddenly feel alone. And there's something about endless streams of spell effects that leaves me ill at ease even when the saves and resistances are set. Fortunately, Ashanti wasn't alone for her entire stay in hell: in the end she had friends.

As per usual, the first hurdle was to evade Jon's time stop->melee. That was achieved by running south under invisibility (It's a good thing Jon doesn't detect the invisible via script).


The next step is to evade a gaggle of demons and a plethora of spell effect while waiting for Jon-Jon to burn his ProMWs. In the early going, RoAC II kept Ashanti's saves out of the danger zone. Later, she used a Potion of Invulnerability. 



Running alone doesn't get you very far of course, so Ashanti was constantly looking for opportunities to make progress on the demons. Jon-Jon did his best to keep Ashanti bottled up, however- here foiling a Seeking whirlwind with a PW:B.


But it'll take more than that Jon...



Before long, it was just Jon and Ashanti. The pair traded magic arrows. The problem here for Jon, of course, was that his were finite while Ashanti's were infinite.


Once the skins were spent it was time for the sling...


followed by the Staff of Striking finish.


The trickiest part of the battle was figuring out how to get animals into the final shot of Jon's demise. I figured that Jon would just death spell them or otherwise anihilate them if they were summoned early so instead I had Ashanti start her summoning spell the instant Jon-Jon flipped. It wasn't entirely obvious to me that the engine would allow Ashanti to finish her spell during the cut scene, but happily it did. Here's how Jon reacted when he realized he'd been posterized by winter wolves.


Anyhoo. I'm looking forward to taking on ToB with Ashanti. This should be a fun one.

Best,

A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 24 août 2013 - 08:56 .

[ussnorway]

Update 2.12; Trust Noone!

@ Alesia_BH Is it just me or does Ranger hell look too nice? Still, the lack of trees could cause a problem for her pups.

"Do you remember sunlight?";
Cassia started (and ended) a bar fight with a male after he made an unfortunate comment about "Lady-puss"… this lead to two battles against Tashia… one of which she managed to win.



We swallowed our pride and got back to the business at hand until Jarlaxle asked us to get his gems past a nasty Lich… "no problem"* says Puk and we all must have been thinking that he looks to be losing his mind but what the hay, no guts no gory, right?



We had no chance of even hurting a Lich at our level so we all cloaked and Puk pushed Deirex into a corner with his 'Repulse Undead' so we could safely get de-bootee… the Drow didn't transport us away as agreed when we grabbed his gems so we decided on the better part of valour and quickly rapped up our affairs before saying ta-ta to Ust'Natha.



Lady Silver betrayed us as expected and there will be a reckoning sometime but for now our Bounty Hunter has just been given a new target… seams Bodhi needs another spanking!

*I pressed the wrong button during the rope talk.

[Grond0]

ussnorway wrote...
 no guts no gory, right?

Surely the more guts the gorier it gets.

[ussnorway]

So the sign of a coward is neatness?

[Grond0]

I was more thinking of guts in the sense of the insides of your stomach being on view.

[Alesia_BH]

ussnorway wrote...
@ Alesia_BH Is it just me or does Ranger hell look too nice?

Ranger hell is pretty awful actually. What you can't see in the snapshots are the big screens showing Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus on a continuous loop. No one -and I mean no one- can handle that. 

Still, the lack of trees could cause a problem for her pups.

Not so much: we keep Jon-Jon's corpse around for that.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 25 août 2013 - 05:45 .

[corey_russell]

 Corey_Russell/Dogdancing Multi-Player No-Reload
Loqi - level 16 fighter/level 17 cleric (protagonist)
Gum - level 7 berserker > level 20 thief
Bait - permanently deceased

City of Caverns:

The duo did pretty well here, though there were a few instances of miscommunication - luckily the team outclasses our opponents. The ghoul lord did massive damage to Gum, but Loqi managed to keep Gum alive. The only reason the team was here was for the cloak of mirroring so that Loqi can help Gum with the beholders. Luckily for us, Loqi actually made level 15 cleric on our departure, which meant the underdark saw ton of skeletal warriors

Underdark:
Not everything was done here. Beholder lair cleared out simply enough, with the best play by Gum, who summoned a berserker via the horn of Valhalla, and that zerker got imprisoned. Only one Elder Orb encountered, so was smooth sailing here, plus big sling upgrade for Loqi.

Due to our save vs. spells, Loqi decided to pass on the Illithids Lair. Kua-Toa not completely cleared, just the way out (of course) and the demon knights destroyed. Gum almost bit it there, but a RoR heal kept her in one piece. 

The team allowed Adalon to do her thing, then we bought a few items from the Drow - we then left their city, and battled Adalon - Prep? 7 snares and pro-cold on each team member and resist fear, and a Deva. The Deva did not last  very long, but the snares hurt Adalon. The team eventually retreated to the entrance and Adalon couldn't reach us with her powerful melee - thus we traded ranged attacks. With Loqi's new sling, he got quite a few criticals, and after a long slog Adalon finally dies.

The duo then battle their way to the surface with many of their summons helping them - success!

Team ended session after talking to Elhan, was getting late.

Modifié par corey_russell, 26 août 2013 - 06:19 .

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 Multiplayer attempt 25(4) - (update 3)
Tensor, human blade (Grond0) & Roche, human blade (Gate70)

There was another good session yesterday with the duet clearing much of their workload prior to departing for Spellhold.

The first order of business was to get Roche the Ring of Gaxx.  A green scroll each and a potion of speed were used on the City Gates, Shade & Elemental liches on the way to Kangaxx.

The most significant danger of the session was shortly after that when the duet were attempting to torture and murder Rayic Gethras.  Roche moved out from his corner into Rayic's sight and had to save against finger of death.  His return dispel magic spell proved more effective and Rayic went down shortly afterwards.  Mae'Var and his thieves were no danger against stoneskins as the duet got up to level 14.

The Sir Sarles quest was done to get the IMoD for level drain protection for Tensor.  While doing that Roche fancied having a go at the Guarded Compound a bit earlier than our typical runs would.  The efreeti downstairs used gaseous form to survive a while, which meant the duet decided to rest and put on fresh buffs before moving upstairs.  The intention was to skull trap Sion - that worked, though Roche moved through an acid blob trap in the process and suffered a momentary worry as a result.  Sion also got off a dispel magic just before he died, which stripped Tensor's buffs - so she had to keep moving until she could get stoneskin up again.  The rest of the party were fairly straight-forward, although Roche did decide to try and finish off the annoying Ketta with a skull trap - ouch, those things hurt.

The Dawn Ring was returned to the temple of Lathander before the duet remembered they promised Hendak some time ago to clear out some slavers.  That was done without problems, though there was a comic touch when considering how to trigger the acid blob trap - after resting, both blades looked at each other asking why the other one hadn't learned vampiric touch in order to do it safely.

The Fallen Paladins found there's always a bit further you can fall to give the duet level 15 - helpfully falling into line here to make using a scorcher easy.  After releasing a kidnap victim (for a small consideration) the duet bought a few spells in order to try and improve their 5th level selection.  Tensor promptly failed to learn 6 in a row (and 7 out of the 8 purchased) - this magic lark is a bit expensive.

At the Graveyard a teddy bear was returned, a new family created and a longsword upgrade for Tensor provided by the Crypt King.

Off to Umar Hills to do the quests there.  The vendor in charge of human flesh was not there - presumably because we never got around to reading the letter telling us where to find him - but everything else was done.  There were, a bit surprisingly, no liches in the ruined temple which made progressing through to Thaxy pretty easy.  The dragon's death spell was coaxed out with the berserk warrior before other summons (including a couple of skeleton warriors - the one scroll of the eight purchased learned by Tensor) joined in the assault.  Thaxy soon went to near death, but hung around for long enough to use a chaos spell that confused Tensor - good job that Roche chose that moment to finish the job with a vampiric touch.  The Shade Lord was taken to near death by a pair of skull traps (Tensor getting a bit of revenge on Roche there by including him in the target area) and Tensor managed to get a hit in on him fast enough to kill him before his buffs fired.

After selling equipment and using Valygar's decomposing body to oil the locks on the Planar Sphere the duet moved on to Trademeet.  The genies were relieved of their bottle before they travelled on to the Grove.  They've just finished the Troll Mound there - the giant trolls have often caused our characters trouble, but not this time.

Stats (cont. from BG1):
Tensor, blade L16, 76 (12 from familiar) HPs, 403 kills
Roche, blade L16, 83 (7 from ioun stone) HPs, 357 kills, 1 death
Tensor actually stretched her kills lead a bit in that session.  That will be largely as a result of being the designated troll-killer, but I think she also benefited from Roche concentrating on disabling enemies with Celestial Fury (allowing Tensor to often get the kill with sword or spell).

Modifié par Grond0, 26 août 2013 - 07:50 .

[Gate70]

Axrik wakes up as Imoen hands him a long sword and a strange weapon she calls a katana.


By the time he gets his head together Imoen has left. Minsc, Yoshimo and Jaheira all grab some gear and depart too so Axrik makes his own way out of the chateau. Imoen and Irenicus are arrested for unsanctioned use of magical energy and Axrik decides he should rescue one of them or kill the other. Or both.

After sorting out a minor issue at the circus Axrik finds himself 2gp short and is unable to purchase the ring of air control so heads to the slums with what meagre gear was left for him in the cells. Gaelan Bayle cuts a deal then Cohrvale and Bregg cut up rough. Then Axrik is ambushed by Suna Seni and her slavers.

Cursing himself for not travelling with DUHM the only option is to kai and attack Suna Suni herself. The kai is disrupted but Suna Seni doesn't last long. Axrik flicks her magical shortsword into his offhand and attacks a cleric, as he glugs his one and only healing potion, only to get scared by a mage.

The wounds mount up as arrows and acid arrows find their mark, and a chromatic orb is shrugged off as Axrik recovers his composure. The cleric is quickly killed but Axrik is dangerously close to arrow-bait and the mage is casting again. Eldarin and the remaining slavers are left to their own devices as Axrik returns to the promenade and purchases the ring without second thought.

(should have either cast DUHM or purchased a couple of potions before travelling, lucky to survive the ambush)

[Gate70]

Axrik carefully takes the potions off one table and places them onto the next. Minsc and Yoshimo don't even wake up, but try as he might the dwarf cannot get the Sword of Chaos away from Boo (Minsc might as well keep it). After a quick trip to Watchers Keep Axrik stores the potions into his potion case, alongside those taken from the Renfeld kidnappers.

The glasses of identification are purchased next, allowing a few stored items to be sold to release funds. Introductions are made with a mad cleric, Renal Bloodscalp and Mae'Var before dropping Renfeld off. Prebek, Sanasha and Xzar all die under mysterious circumstances shortly afterward. Sir Sarles has taken his pretentiousness elsewhere too.

Axrik briefly visits Trademeet before heading to Umar Hills instead. As soon as he obtains the Ilbratha sword he returns to the docks and Mae'Var before considering some murder and torture for Edwin. Mephits are easy prey but Axrik realises stone golems will require better weapons so he heads into the temple sewers instead. After picking up a cloak he thinks again and heads back to the surface.

[corey_russell]

Nice save with Suna Suni - looks like your dwarven saves saved your bacon (the chromatic orb). Best of luck with the rest of your run Gate70.

[Grond0]

Doppel {2} - dwarf kensai (update 1)

This version of Doppel took no real chances in BG1.  His progress in BG2 is likely to be a bit harder as I'm aiming not to allow him any healing potions (or RoR).

He came through the first test in the dungeon, although he had a scare in the elemental plane - he was stunned twice by the steam mephit and low on HPs before finishing off the rest of the mephits (a third stun would probably have killed him).  He demonstrated that, even though his main weapon is a dagger, he can still do decent damage.  That was put to good use, along with a firebreath potion, to eliminate Ulvaryl.

After restoring the circus Doppel invested in the RoAC and glasses of identification and did a few area transitions until the Suna Seni ambush triggered.  A few more transitions resulted in saving Renfeld.

I wanted to get Neb's dagger so took a bit of a risk in tackling him fairly early.  Neb managed 2 backstabs and it was a good job that Doppel's daggers caught up with him before he could take another invisibility potion to try for a third.  Given the difficulty of killing him I didn't fancy Doppel's chances against the Rune Assassins so went to Watcher's Keep - dealing with some orog ambushers on the way.  Bought the potion bag, but the inside of the Keep was guarded by 2 vampiric wraiths and Doppel ran immediately.

Back in the City he helped Hendak take over the Copper Coronet.

Stats:
Doppel, kensai L9, 86 HPs (-9 from Claw), kills 281

[Gate70]

These "ladies" of the night are a blessed pain. Parisa level drains Axrik twice before he is convinced to run, hiding in an inn for two days while he works out the options. There is nothing for it but to purchase the Azuredge axe.

On his return to the docks Parisa resumes her attack but Axrik glugs his first oil of speed, moves away and destroys her with a single toss of the axe. So much for daggers...

Lassal has blocked Axrik in, meaning one level drain before he can escape, making saves vs domination extremely worrysome (6). After a few axe hits the vampire retires and Axrik goes to deal with Neb. The RoAC > mirror > efreeti is enough to get his head, but Tanova is waiting outside with friends. Two more dominations are fired so Axrik glugs a potion of clarity and sees multiple domination and fear effects safely neutralised. The oil of speed wears off so he glugs a second and kills the three attackers.

He heads to a temple for a spare clarity potion and sees the green protection from undead scrolls. Why didn't he think of that before, and bags two. Time to deal with this vampire problem.

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 Multiplayer attempt 25(4) - (update 4)
Tensor, human blade (Grond0) & Roche, human blade (Gate70)

The duet continue to move closer to rescuing / abandoning Imoen.

The session started at the Druid Grove as the duet moved past a couple of groups of shadow druids to collect Belm.  Another group of druids proved no obstacle before they watched admiringly as Cernd tore Faldorn apart.  After being acclaimed as Heroes of Trademeet the duet celebrated by helping Tiris and clearing a local tomb.

The next challenge was Windspear Hills.  After struggling slightly to get past the first lot of golems the duet settled into the swing of things and moved rapidly on through the dungeon.  A line of skull traps were bad news for the would-be trappers, although one of them appeared to trigger late and damage Roche as well.  Feeling in confident mood the duet confronted Conster, though Roche only did so briefly.  Grond0 wondered whether Gate70 might have been better using spirit armour and improved invisibility on Roche, but didn't pursue the discussion when Gate70 enquired whether Tensor had got any buffs on.  After the skeleton warriors had done their jobs, items were stashed in a container while Tensor went to find a cleric. 

Back in the dungeon the duet moved to confront Firkraag.  Initial attacks proved less effective than hoped when repeated breaches seemed unable to affect Firky's stoneskins.  However, the weight of attacks eventually proved decisive and the dragon crashed to the ground.

The next destination was the Temple sewers.  Tarnor and his gang of cut-throats were softened up with dual skull traps before a melee assault with a pair of skeleton warriors made a mess of the survivors.  The illithid lair proved a bit more challenging.  Most melee opponents struggle to do damage through mirrors and stoneskins, which tends to disguise that bards are considerably easier to hit in melee than warrior types.  The illithids' brain-sucking ability was not put off by protections and Roche was twice taken down to intelligence of 3.  After the first occasion Tensor experimented with a teleport field, but concluded that did more harm than good (at least while Roche was trying to melee rather than mix archery and spells).  However, the old stand-by of skull traps proved effective and the job was eventually done.

Mekrath was assaulted with MMM and failed to get a spell away.  Two of the yuan-ti mages also struggled, but the third did manage to get a confusion spell off that took effect on Tensor just before the mage died.

Following Haer'Dalis' instructions the duet returned a portal gem and then ventured into the Planar Prison.  The first encounter was done with full buffs and was no problem, but Tensor moved up slightly further than intended when trying to cloudkill the yuan-ti mages and got confused again (she really should learn to take hold of Lilarcor in those situations!).  Roche had the situation more or less under control, though Tensor did take about 50% damage.  Roche enquired a couple of times if she wanted to rest or heal, but she felt quite capable of standing in the background looking on while Roche and some summons ploughed through the remaining enemies.
 
Back in Athkatla Tensor took control of the bard stronghold, though it's doubtful that we'll get very far through developing it.

Stats (cont. from BG1):
Tensor, blade L20, 84 (12 from familiar) HPs, 489 kills
Roche, blade L19, 90 (8 from ioun stone) HPs, 472 kills, 2 deaths
Roche is still closing in on Tensor, despite her notching up a few more trolls.  She has just inherited Kundane, which may partially offset Roche's previous Belm advantage, though he also now has the boots of speed to get quickly into the thick of the action.