15202 réponses à ce sujet

[corey_russell]

Well there are two single class Thieves, two or three Druids, three Monks, two Bards... I'd say another Ranger wouldn't be out of place. I'm surprised there's no Fighter/Thief. I think that's going to be my next (liberally metagamed) character. 

Quite a few fighter/thieves have come close. My character Picenon made it all the way to Balthazar before being cut down - I didn't know balthazar has a no-save stun, nor that he uses Bigby's Hand. He was solo too - will need to restart him again, he has a decent chance being solo.

[ussnorway]

Merry christmas guys!

[Blackraven]

Thank you USSNorway! Merry Christmas everyone!

[Grond0]

We've been waiting all the year

Now at last let's raise a cheer

Drink a bit of wine or beer

Finally Christmas is here 

[Grond0]

Thorin - dwarf kensai (update 1)

 

After completing BG1 this morning Thorin is off and running in BG2.  Thus far in the remainder of a pre-breakfast session he's:

- cleared the dungeon, including a nice one-shot on Ulvaryl.

- restored the circus.

- horrified some Suna Seni ambushers.

- used a PFU scroll to kill the City Gates lich and then wrapped charisma round to 25 using Rod of Horror on the Graveyard undead.

- rescued Renfeld and completed Xzar's quest.  Used the RoAC for the first time for Prebek, but an opening critical miss allowed him to buff and survive long enough to be treated to a Namarra silence as well.

- scared the Beastmaster into handing over the keys to the Copper Coronet.

- there was a mistake when going to attack Pai'Na and I forgot the phase spiders had an adjusted saving throw for their poison.  Thorin was attempting to leave the area to try and rest, but I think he probably wouldn't quite have made it even with the potion of speed he'd taken.  However, the poison stopped with a little bit of health remaining.  The RoAC ensured no problems with Pai'Na herself before a sunray immolated the spiders.

- freed the de'Arnise Hold from TorGal's domination, but left it to Nalia to manage alone.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Diary of Blade of Kaos

 

Upon coming to my senses in Irenicus's Dungeon, I enlisted Imoen's help to escape.

 

Due to the amount of equipment I collected, I got Jaheira and Minsc to help with porterage. Pity that there is np bag of holding in there.

 

At the exit, I came across Yasraena who also joined. After exiting the dungeon, Imoen was forced to leave and I encouraged Minsc and Jaheira to leave also.

 

I kept Yasraena in the party because he too is a drow. It's not that I am racist, (Well perhaps I am) but I do prefer to work with other drow as I understand how they think and these elves and humans particularly the druids are almost impossible to understand.

 

I am wondering what drow are available in Shadows of Amn. Clearly there are Viconia and Solaufein, but are there any others out there?

Solaufein comes rather late into the game, so I could do with a drow thief, a mage, or a thief/mage. This is for role playing purposes.

 

We sorted out the problem of the circus. Yasraena made a weird comment that I don't fight like a drow. I suppose that is because I was trained at Candlekeep.

[Grond0]

Thorin - dwarf kensai (update 2)

 

Thorin did a small amount of adventuring during a break in family activities on Christmas day - and was again fortunate not to die.

 

At Umar temple he initially worked his way through the external undead and then carried on to do the same to the area before the first barrier.  The idea of not using a PfU scroll up to that point was to ensure it didn't run out against the 2 main groups of undead, but that meant Thorin was badly injured by the time he came to confront the first of those (having used a scroll).   A bone golem (not counted as undead) came out to attack, but rather than rely on Azuredge Thorin waited for the golem to attack Kitthix and then went to melee it - at which point the golem promptly attacked him taking him down to a single HP!

 

Run and throw with Azuredge finished off that golem and did the same to 2 more later on, with still just enough time on the scroll to finish off the 2 undead groups.  It had run out prior to the Shade Lord though, so Thorin attacked with a hasted Daystar before using a sunray.  His opening attack was a critical miss, which allowed the Shade Lord to buff, but a further Daystar attack killed it despite its many mirrors.  Thorin left Thaxy alone for now.

 

At Trademeet things went more smoothly with Thorin killing the genies with no trouble (Kitthix successfully webbing both those in the tent) before making his way through the Grove.  He bought a few potions before killing Ihtafeer then watched Cernd snack on Faldorn.  Back in Trademeet he cleared the tomb before returning to Athkatla.

[Grond0]

Thorin - dwarf kensai (update 3)

 

Thorin has made good further progress in a pre-breakfast session, with no alarms today.

- he opened up access to the 3 remaining liches and picked up the Ring of Gaxx using a PfU scroll (used dual-wielding for the first time doing that).

- he cleared the temple sewers (Kitthix webbing Gaius to make him easy) and bought a few potions from Roger.

- Mekrath died in a stinking cloud and Thorin took the gem to Haer'Dalis.

- Thorin entered the Planar Prison invisibly and got out of sight before True Sight activated.  A bit of preparation then resulted in an easy victory over the Bounty Hunters (ensuring I won't forget Boots of Speed this run).  He worked his way round the area with the help of a rare potion use (Stoneform to protect against Chaos).  His opening improved invisible assault on the Warden failed so he retreated and picked off the following enemies before finishing off the Warden after his buffs expired.

- continuing his planar adventures Thorin went to the Sphere.  He had no problems there in picking up the heart or using it to escape.

- Windspear Hills also proved pretty straight-forward, with Thorin picking up his first HLAs there. Samia's group were comprehensively beaten, though Firkraag was left alone for the moment.

- back in Athkatla the illithid hide-out was exposed.  Most of the illithid were destroyed by greater deathblow - Alhoon is immune to that, but not to Azuredge.

- Thorin finally paid off Gaelan Bayle and then made up for his delay there by speeding through Aran's tasks (Azuredge making short work of most of the vampires, with Daystar dealing with Tanova then Bodhi).

- he went to get a coating for his new mace from Neb and pick up the berserker horn (using 2 potions of magic protection).

- next he returned to Umar to deal with Thaxy.  An opening attack got the dragon to badly injured before Thorin recovered from being buffeted away to find he hadn't got any normal weapons.  However, that was no problem as he punched Thaxy unconscious before the air elemental killed him with a whirlwind despite being scared at the time.

- Firkraag was even less successful than Thaxy.  Thorin's opening Gaxx haste attack was uninterrupted when Firkraag's wing buffet failed to cover the area just behind him and that killed the dragon just as it was turning on him.

- Thorin then took ship for Brynnlaw.  He recovered a book of True Seeing from Perth and has just arrived in Spellhold (giving up a point of wisdom on the way). 

[Grond0]

Thorin - dwarf kensai (4th and final update)

 

As with the earlier session today Thorin had been making comfortable progress - until he wasn't .

- in Spellhold he successfully manipulated the machine to get a couple of pairs of elemental protection boots.  After persuading Lonk to release the inmates Thorin used a hammer GWW to do over 200 damage to Jon, which was more than enough to make him run when Wanev's timestop finished.

- moving on to Fish City Thorin picked up a couple along with the scalps of the king and prince.

- in the Underdark he killed a balor for the deep gnomes before invading the kuo-toa caverns.  Motivated principally by a desire for revenge for Toxic he killed everything in there.

- for the beholders a single GWW accounted for the elder orb at the entrance and Thorin went to get the Greenstone Amulet before retreating.

- he didn't quite vacuum the illithids, but killed most of them on the way to the Master Brain.

- Thorin managed to resist the temptation to boast about his friend the silver dragon and quickly ran through Phaere's tasks before watching her immolated (though I did mis-click on the gnome patrol conversation and had to kill them all).

- back in Athkatla Thorin sorted his equipment out and made Crom Faeyr, the Equalizer and the Wave before going to deal with Bodhi.

- on the way to find General Eltan he stopped off at Watcher's Keep to butcher some statues then went down to the second level to recover a flail head.  I'm not familiar with the second level and that looked it might be costly when Thorin was stunned by something.  Possibly that was the giant snake attack, though he appeared to be saving against death vs that so it would need to have had an adjustment of at least -6.  Alternatively, perhaps it was something else associated with the room that doesn't offer a save.  I kept pausing at small intervals, although I didn't expect that to help as his HPs ratcheted downwards, but he did actually recover with HPs (once again) down at 1.  He ran away and took a potion of power to get a few HPs back before killing one of the 2 poison mists following him with Azuredge.  He would have been able to use a GWW, which would no doubt have killed the other one and they don't anyway do much physical damage, so he could have safely meleed it.  Unfortunately he chose to run a bit further and this happened ...

 

I'm not sure if that was intended to be a repeating trap.  I suspect it was just one that should have triggered earlier, but failed to do so when Thorin ran over it with his boots of speed.  That was therefore probably a bit unlucky, but he'd had more than his share of fortune to get that far anyway .

[Blackraven]

What a pity Grond0. I'm pretty sure it's the snake that does the stunning. That is, my experience is that once the snake is dead, nothing else will stun you there. No idea how it works though, i.e. whether there's a save and if so, at what penalty, or maybe a percentile chance (as with the FoA's slow effect). The Save v Death might have been against something else?

My condolences.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Hard luck Grond0

[corey_russell]

@Grond0 - not that it helps now, but I remember in our Quad Run, Gate70 had me put chaotic commands on everyone in the group, so presumably he had me do that to save vs. the stun effect of something. I would be surprised if there was no save, but perhaps there's a big penalty - maybe potion of invulnerability plus stone form? Regardless, sorry to hear the demise of your Kensai.

[corey_russell]

Just a brief note - Corarcher and his gang are continuing to make progress - we've just solved the problems in the Umar Hills area. No problems to speak of. We skipped the dragon for now - considering my recklessness in the Government district, I decided not to take on the dragon - I was pretty sure we could win, even at this point, but not certain at all about chunkings - and if I can get a solo character level drain immunity, I won't need to bother with risk anyways. Nothing I need this second, though Corarcher would love the shadow dragon armor. The Night's Gift is good for now, and Corarcher always travels in stealth anyways, so he is almost never targeted.

 

Hanna made level 10 here - one more level and she will unlock her swashbuckler abilities - we badly need her thief skills, so trying to do things that don't require dealing with much in traps. Unusual for me, we bought the Mauler's Arm (a +2 mace) - due to Misty's odd skills (only with mace and bastard sword), it seemed to make sense to get that - also it improves her strength and she is always in melee so helps there too. Finally, Misty doesn't have any +2 weapons with any skill, this will address that as well.

[Grond0]

Thanks all for the good wishes / commiserations.  I'll see if this one can do better!

 

Thorin{2)- dwarf kensai (update 1)

 

Thorin is under way in BG2. Thus far he's just escaped from the dungeon and restored the circus.  

 

I'm going to tweak a couple of things this time to increase his chances.  First, I'll organise his early progress to make things as safe as possible, rather than following a more natural order.  In addition I'll try and buff more.  Typically the only buff used much in the early game is improved invisibility (for the saving throw benefit), while later on Gaxx haste and HLAs are the mainstays.  That means for a kensai I would often retreat from fights and use fast weapon speed or missile fire to kill things (or run away and rest or regenerate to recover HPs).  That makes fighting more interesting to me, but it can occasionally go wrong - as against the kuo-toa recently where Toxic was not fast enough to retreat.  

 

This time I'll aim to use buffs (such as the Amulet of Shielding and Ilbratha mirrors) and summons much more so that Thorin should very rarely be forced to retreat. 

 

[Grond0]

Thorin{2)- dwarf kensai (update 2)

 

Thorin has made good initial progress in improving his equipment, though with one bad mistake that delayed progress a bit.  I don't think he's been in any danger so far.

- horror helped him pick up Arbane from Suna Seni and funded the purchase of glasses of identification

- frost giant strength + DUHM got him into the City Gates lich hide-out and a PFU scroll allowed him to acquire Daystar.  Also got the Rod of Terrror and used that on the undead in the Graveyard to wrap charisma round to 25 (and get Namarra).

- coming back from that rescued Renfeld (with a full inventory so needed to leave various treasure).

- went to Watcher's Keep just to buy the potion case.

- provided Hendak with a new livelihood and bought Azuredge and Stonefire.

- used the RoAC on Pai'Na to get Kitthix and a ioun stone.

- the kidnappers led to the Silver Pantaloons in addition to some Boots of Avoidance.

- reputation was restored by talking to the guard outside the circus then doing the Sir Sarles quest.  However, while thinking about what to do next I didn't drop the real illithium and Sir Sarles took it - retrieving the metal dropped reputation back down by 10 points.

- temple donations restored reputation to 17 and solving the skinner murders added another.

- at Trademeet Kitthix helped Thorin kill the genies before he used invisibility to bypass opposition at the Grove and watch Cernd snack on Faldorn.

- clearing the crypt maximised reputation and the bargain prices allowed Thorin to buy a belt, cloak and hammer along with Ras and a fiery necklace.

- at this point Thorin tried to return Renfeld, but his body had not stood up to the strain of the extensive travelling done.

- took another cloak off a rakshasa, then helped Roger and bought some of his potions.

- used another PfU scroll to kill the remaining liches and get the Ring of Gaxx.

- took a couple of potions of magic protection to get the berserker horn.

- webbed Mekrath and used the proceeds of his treasure to buy Roger's remaining useful potions.

- he followed Haer'Dalis to the Planar Prison to collect some boots of speed and the Staff of Air.

[Gate70]

I knew the snake stuns but not the mechanics so have had a look. The attack (skull) has a random chance with no save, as the snake can only move 20' from the poison you should be able to pick it off from a distance.

 

(n.b. looks like snake poison also has no save, so the save is probably against the poison cloud)

[Grimwald the Wise]

Diary of Blade of Kaos

 

We were approached by Nalia concerning regaining her keep. It seemed that it could be quite profitable and so we ent along with her. She proved to be quite adept in two areas where my party had a weakness, these areas being thievery and arcane magic. As a result we had no major problems in completing the task despite there being three Ettin there. Not only did we get gold, but we also got useful equipment which meant that when I returned to Amn, all that I bought were some bracers of defence for Nalia. I had been planning for Nalia to leave, but until I can acquire a drow mage of some sort, she will be needed.

[Grond0]

Thorin{2)- dwarf kensai (update 3)

 

Progress felt a bit tedious this morning, but Thorin still moved on grimly:

- cleared out the de'Arnise Hold, picking up the FoA and Shield Amulet on the way.

- did Umar Hills (left Thaxy alone and there were, surprisingly, no liches there) in order to get Ilbratha and upgrade the Horn.

- paid Gaelan Bayle and ran through Aran's tasks (the ring of protection +2 and the iMoD being the main gains).

- at the Planar Sphere the one moment of danger in the session occurred when I was slow to realise that Mogadish had physical mirror up.  However, I eventually did so when Thorin was badly damaged.  The Staff of Fire was the main benefit, though the ogre gauntlets can be used for Crom Faeyr and the Ring of the Ram might possibly be used somewhere.  He also picked up his first HLAs there.

- deciding it was time to progress Thorin took ship for Brynnlaw.  Perth's book offered spell turning and farsight, but neither were taken before the book was discarded.

- Spellhold posed no problems.  Jon did actually manage to spawn a clone this time, but was still sent running by a single hammer WW.

- the final destination in the session was Fish City, where Thorin picked up a new cloak as well as a part for the Wave.

[Grond0]

Thorin{2)- dwarf kensai (4th and final update)

 

Regrettably I saw that one coming.  Progress had been a bit of a chore in the Underdark, though Thorin had cleared the kuo-toa and beholder areas.  He'd nearly finished the illithid, although I hadn't been careful about avoiding their sucking and in the last room before the brain Thorin attacked two of them with his intelligence already drained to 9.  One of them hit him and he turned to run - but didn't manage to take the necessary step away before the other's tentacles lashed out ...

[Grimwald the Wise]

Hard luck Thorin. Maybe someone should have wished you intelligence as luck runs out.

[ussnorway]

Bg2 run update 2S1.16,

 

Hear text as mp3,

 

Be it ever so humble; by Sarah,

 

Ok it’s a fixer upper and the location isn’t exactly the Rizzt but I’m from out of town and it does come with some ready-made apprentices.

 

The preprep consisted of getting a halberd made for Sarah and we finally got rid of that heart belonging to Yoshimo… the spear is designed to be locked until we evicted the squatters so I also parked Valygar inside as a back-up against disaster but it all went by the numbers.

 

 

Massive aoe damage from the shadows convinced Lavok to see things my way and we sicked the pets onto a Tanar'ri to get the fuel for a return trip… simple. Sarah can use the strength until we make the hammer and I’ll probably give Imoen the ring… looking around, I can see enough slavers to keep me in the neighbourhood for the foreseeable tenday.

[corey_russell]

 

Thorin{2)- dwarf kensai (4th and final update)

 

Regrettably I saw that one coming.  Progress had been a bit of a chore in the Underdark, though Thorin had cleared the kuo-toa and beholder areas.  He'd nearly finished the illithid, although I hadn't been careful about avoiding their sucking and in the last room before the brain Thorin attacked two of them with his intelligence already drained to 9.  One of them hit him and he turned to run - but didn't manage to take the necessary step away before the other's tentacles lashed out ...

 

 

@Grond0: I am sorry to hear about your Kensai. Silly question though - why in the world would you mess with Illithids when you are a solo player? You don't need the experience...the only item of note is the ring of fire resistance, but that doesn't seem like worth the risk...my solo characters always skip the illithids. In fact, most of them skip most of the Underdark, only staying long enough to get equipment I need.

 

EDIT: Okay maybe you need the piece for the Equalizer, but you get it so late, and there are better weapons in ToB/Watcher's Keep.

[Grond0]

I agree that there's nothing particularly useful there, but that's the case with many encounters.  The illithids are not dangerous for a solo shorty character if you're being even moderately careful - they're slow and can't see through invisibility, so it's always possible to retreat from them safely and you can easily kill them with just missile fire if you want to.

 

As with most of my runs I found just completing the game was not enough incentive and therefore gradually increased the level of risk taken to keep me interested - that trajectory is of course likely to end in death, but it makes playing the game more fun in the meantime ...

[Grimwald the Wise]

Diary of Blade of Chaos

 

I helped the slaves, Xzar and Montaron and after letting them leave I helped Edwin.

I then tried to solve the problem concerning people buried alive.

Upon killing the perpetrators, I tried to get the ransom but was immediately set upon by a law enforcement squad. I killed them all, my reputation falling to 2. We went inside the copper coronet to rest and upon recovery we ventured outside once more. Once again we were set upon by a law enforcement squad and we killed them also. we sold the armour and raised our reputation to 10 at great cost. We were very badly hurt but judicious use of potions allowed us to survive.

 

(This is the first time that I have played a really evil character and so is the first time that I have come across the silver pantaloons.)

 

Nalia was kidnapped and recovered

 

(I am certainly finding playing evil a challenge as I have no idea about the results of any action,)

[corey_russell]

@Wise - just so you know, if you carefully read the note, it tells you it would be unwise to return to kidnap victim after you recover your ransom (pantaloons) - thus you would know game-wise not to return, unless I guess you were looking for a fight with the law...