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[Grond0]

Dain - dwarf kensai (update 4)

 

In this morning's session Dain powered on with the following:

- cleared the beholder area and almost all the illithid city - in both cases largely using deathblows.

- he tried to rescue Phaere, but his icon got stuck between some rocks and his attempted deathblow was interrupted.  That meant he had to watch helplessly as Phaere was sucked to death. Rather than bother with the drow any more he just GWW'd Adalon and returned to Athkatla.

- forged the iMoD and the Wave before going to find Thaxy - it ultimately had no more answer to GWWs than Adalon, although PFMW allowed it to survive a few rounds while wasting its time on Ras.  That allowed Dain to forge Crom Faeyr.

- Bodhi and her vampires were quickly destroyed and Dain returned to Elhan to open up Suldanesselar.  He avoided most combats there (already near the level cap) and had no trouble gaining the Tree of Life.

- on the Tree Dain allowed his summons to do the hard work against Jon before finishing with a hammer GWW.  I did take this screenshot which made me want to shout at the AI - "enough already".

- Dain had no worries about turning evil in the hell trials.  However, for a change I decided not to get Blackrazor (thinking I should try out the Sword of Mask as an alternative).  He therefore gained: -2 saving throws, +20% elemental resistance, immunity to +1 weapons, -2 AC, +3 strength.

- for the final confrontation with Irenicus Dain immediately withdrew and used his throwing hammer on the demons before sending in summons one at a time as cover while he threw his hammer.  That eventually prompted Jon to make his final incorrect prediction.  

 

It was still quite early, but I thought that would be an appropriate place to end the session.

[Blackraven]

Congrats Grond0, on beating Jon! Lots of luck in ToB!

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 70 - (2nd and final update)

St John, human berserker (Grond0) & Vargus, human kensai (Gate70)

 

After a dodgy session last time things were looking pretty smooth today until an unfortunate chain of circumstances brought an abrupt end to the run.

 

Pai'Na was the first victim.  Vargus used a potion of speed there to outrun the avenging spiders and made best use of that by going to clear the Southern tombs nearby using Azuredge.  

 

Renfeld was then rescued and returned to the harpers, despite an immediate orog ambush on the way.

 

Moving on to Trademeet, St John picked up a decent spear for the first time courtesy of the trolls before raging his way through various druids and myconids to invite Cernd to dinner.  The Trademeet tomb was also emptied.

 

Back in Athkatla the berserker horn was obtained and the skinner murders solved.

 

The liches were then made vulnerable by opening up their various hiding places.  Vargus decided not to use the protection from petrification scroll that St John had carefully bought to protect against one trap - but got away with it.  The first link in the chain leading to doom occurred when St John used enrage to protect against the level drain trap near the lich in the sewers - only to get drained anyway (I think he must still have been just within the fatigue period that prevents further enrages after raging against vampiric mists earlier).  He had a restoration scroll available, but chose not to use it immediately.

 

The bones from two liches were then collected on the way to tackle Kangaxx.  That appeared to be going to plan when Kangaxx's first form gave his closing dialogue - but the demi-lich did not appear.  That can happen when the lich form is attacked after its dialogue: we're well aware of that danger and had attempted, apparently successfully, to break off combat.  However, even though no attacks were shown in the script, we were getting considerable lag in the game and it seems quite possible that the game treated one of our attacks as coming after the dialogue.

 

Once that bug is triggered Kangaxx becomes unkillable by further attacks.  However, Vargus thought perhaps allowing him to take some different action would change that, so summoned Kitthix.  Kangaxx immediately did his opening buffs and contingency spells - which include death spell.  That doesn't affect anything above level 8 and St John was level 10 - at least he would have been if he wasn't level drained .

 

Given we were aware of the danger of that bug and largely culpable for the death we didn't think it was appropriate to class the bug as justifying a reload.  However, it was still annoying for a bug to be partly responsible for cutting this pair down before they had even reached their prime, so we compromised by restarting them from Candlekeep .

[Blackraven]

Well my diehard no-reloading friends, shame to see your run end. May they fare better in their next incarnations.

[Grond0]

Well my diehard no-reloading friends

diehard or dieeasy

[Grond0]

Dain - dwarf kensai (update 5)

 

Dain has had an extremely difficult morning in ToB (admittedly much of the difficulty being self-inflicted ), but luck was with him and he's not too far away now from Mel.

 

After dealing with Illasera Dain breezed through the first pocket plane challenge - remembering to stay in melee against Duke Eltan this time.

 

In Saradush he helped Lazarus in order to be able to buy the scrolls required to upgrade the cloak of protection +2.  A few vampires then gave him the XP for his final level on the way up to find Gromnir.  Arriving invisibly there allowed him to kill both mages while they were casting true sight and the others didn't last long.

 

Finally going to Watcher's Keep Dain found some vampiric wraiths there, but they were now helpless against him.  The statues didn't fare any better, though Dain did have to be careful at one point to dodge no fewer than 4 creeping dooms chasing him and avoid letting the mage into touching distance.

 

Downstairs, Dain used the Greenstone Amulet for the first time to ensure he wouldn't get stunned while killing the giant snake and securing the poison head for the FoA.

 

After upgrading Foebane and the FoA Dain went to the Temple of Mir - using a PfU scroll there to speed things up.  On to the Fire Temple, where Dain rested several times to heal up rather than wait around for regeneration.

 

After a brief visit to Nyalee Dain went to confront Yaga-Shura.  When he reappeared he was stuck in the middle of some soldiers which meant Dain was not successful in luring him away while invisible. However, he still had no problem in dealing with a few soldiers before putting the giant down.

 

For the second challenge a single GWW finished off Dain's clone and the rest didn't then last long.

 

At the Oasis Dain stopped very briefly to pick up Jamis's sword before running on to Amkethran.  The smugglers there provided him with K'logarath and the Gargoyle Boots.

 

At Sendai's enclave he hit a bug when going into the cottage just after killing the drow captain.  The animation showing the enclave entrance opening then wouldn't complete (presumably because he had left the area), leaving the game hanging.  I decided it was fair to reload the autosave for that, but the cottage is a party transition so the autosave only took the game back to a point where the trigger for the enclave opening had already passed.  After spending a while looking at global variables without seeing anything helpful I went back to my previous save - which was just after leaving Saradush .

 

Having to redo areas already completed always carries the risk of being a bit careless, but I concentrated hard and avoided danger for the 40 minutes or so it took to get the enclave opened properly.  Dain then made rapid progress through that, using invisibility to avoid many combats.  Killing Odamaron provided an upgrade for the Short Sword of Mask, although Dain did have to retreat initially from him when I was surprised he didn't die after being pinned against the wall by K'logarath for some time.

 

With Sendai's statues I was careless against the thief thinking she was far enough away to throw an axe at a drow mage and picked up a nasty backstab as a result (thinking about it later I should have used the Gargoyle boots there to negate the possible backstab).  After running round and round trying to predict where the invisible thief was Dain managed to bring out the efreeti to draw out another backstab and then GWW'd the thief.  He then successfully killed the resulting drow out of the sight of the next statue to enable him to regenerate in peace.

 

The remainder of the statues were done safely, though that's the first encounter for a long time where Dain's abstention from potions felt like a real penalty (a potion of speed would have been helpful to make it easier to run round keeping out of touch range of casters).  Sendai herself was quickly polished off with 2 GWWs before she could take advantage of Dain's potential vulnerability to death magic caused by her malison.

 

Moving on to Abazigal's Lair I tried out the Short Sword of Mask hoping that would entangle Draconis - enabling him to be finished off from range.  However, despite being drained several levels he was not entangled and I presume he's actually immune to that effect - so Blackrazor would have been a far better option in that situation.  In the process of trying that Dain got taken down quite low on HPs and then had a long period of running round trying to avoid acid breath (constant remove magics had soon disposed of his 3 green protection scrolls) while getting the occasional HP boost from using Foebane on an invisible stalker.

 

After successfully getting back to full health he tried using the dozens of invisible stalkers as a shield between him and Draconis while throwing axes to wear away stoneskins.  After doing that a few times he eventually decided to follow it up by coming into melee with his last hardiness.  Draconis went invisible, but fortunately then attacked Dain again almost immediately and paid the penalty.

 

In the tunnels I encountered a second bug of the day when Bondari accepted his quest, but then just stayed there doing nothing.  Fortunately this time there was no problem with the autosave and within a minute or two Bondari had been successfully sent on his errand.

 

Abazigal looked like he was going to be easy when Ras occupied his attention while Dain whacked him from behind.  However, with him only a hit or two from death Ras unsummoned and Abazigal immediately buffeted Dain away and healed himself.  Dain couldn't win in a straight melee fight and without potions was finding it hard to stay away from Abgazigal.  He equipped the amulet of cheetah speed to try and get a little speed boost from that and did a couple of laps before seeing the dreaded maze coming.  He put the amulet of Seldarine back on and equipped the Sword of Balduran to boost his MR to 30%.  I considered breaking my rule over potions to take a potion of magic resistance, but eventually let him take his chances - and he lucked out.

 

In my games I normally avoid using the Staff of Fire / Earth for summons before the final battle with Melissan, but decided that Dain's other options here were pretty much exhausted and ran round putting up elementals for Abazigal to kill while regeneration healed him a bit.  He used up 28 of those before attempting to kill Abazigal again.  This time he got him to near death again, but was once more buffeted away and had the frustration of seeing the dragon heal again!  With his fire elementals exhausted he started in on earth ones - and 13 of those proved unlucky for Abazigal when this time, after buffeting Dain away at near death, he forgot to heal.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Swiftblade enters Amn from Baldur's Gate

 

[ussnorway]

@Wise, well done... Go the Pallies!

[Grond0]

Dain - dwarf kensai (update 6)

 

Dain started the session by tidying up the 3rd challenge using GWWs on the Slayer.  For the 4th challenge he then equipped the Gargoyle boots, making that straightforward.

 

At Amkethran Saemon let Dain into the palace, where a single GWW was too much for Balthazar.

 

For the fifth challenge Dain tried using missile protection items to reduce damage.  The Ravager was still hitting easily until Dain added a charge of the shield amulet - taking him to an adjusted -26 AC.  An uninterrupted spell of GWWs while Ras was distracting the boneblades got the Ravager to near death and Dain was able to finish him off with something in hand.

 

At the Throne of Bhaal Dain attacked immediately with the FoA and 3 GWWs successfully sent Mel on her way.  After running Yan-C-Bin and his elementals round Dain produced a few summons as an initial distraction and then attacked again.  Initially he tried to avoid using too many GWWs, but Mel took a surprisingly long time to make a move and it wasn't until Dain was forced to retreat that she attempted to heal and then ran when that failed.

 

Up to this point he'd used 6 GWWs and a WW - leaving him with just 9 GWWs to finish the job.  After hanging around until he'd regenerated he ran round throwing axes against Cryonax and his cronies.  Then he summoned some fire elementals and started on Mel's 3rd incarnation.  That proved a problem when he tried to chase Mel north, but started moving incredibly slowly - I suspect that was due to the free action effect of the FoA, although normally that does not over-ride the improved haste of a GWW.  As the slayer shadows were moving much quicker than Dain, he tried attacking one with the FoA to slow it before continuing north.  However, that delay proved costly as Mel completed a timestop spell (I'm not used to her successfully finishing that in this incarnation) and the combination of timestop and blade barrier saw Dain sliced and diced before time recommenced.

 

Edit: loaded the autosave to see how realistic that combat was without potions etc.  The first attempt had no problem in killing Mel's first 3 incarnations - the slowdown I experienced above against the 3rd incarnation didn't occur.  It did though take 3 attempts to deal with the fallen solar: the first 2 were defensively geared, but even with -20 against missiles the fallen solar was hitting too easily, so for the 3rd attempt I switched to the kensai's strength and just GWW'd the solar with K'logarath immediately.  Mel's final form was also no problem, so with the right tactics I think it would be viable to do a no-reload kensai from Candlekeep without ever using any sort of potion (or any item-based healing).

[Grimwald the Wise]

When Swiftblade awoke in a dungeon, she immediately panicked because most of her equipment had vanished. All that was left was a suit of armour, a couple of swords +2, a pair of golden pantaloons, a throwing dagger, and Gavin's ring. Where was her Moonblade? Without it she would gradually die. Clearly she would have to seek it out.

 

With her was Imoen, her friend that she hadn't seen since before the death of Gorion. Seeing her there was more than enough compensation for the loss of her equipment. She gave Imoen the throwing dagger and went in search of a way out. To her Mzemen Imoen had developed the use of magic. "How did she do that?" she wondered.

 

She hoped that she would find her beloved Ajantis again.

 

Progressing through the dungeon they found sword and staff +1, Balduran's helm, and a helm of infra-red. She wondered if they were the same ones that she had found earlier.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Feel sad of Dain's misfortune, Grond0...

[Grond0]

Feel sad of Dain's misfortune, Grond0...

Thanks Serg, but I think he was quite lucky to get that far - especially resisting Abazigal's maze.  I think I now have tactics with a pretty high chance of success against every opponent though, so should have a decent chance with just one more kensai ...

[Grimwald the Wise]

 

Dain - dwarf kensai (update 6)

so with the right tactics I think it would be viable to do a no-reload kensai from Candlekeep without ever using any sort of potion (or any item-based healing).

 

 

For you, maybe!

[Aasim]

 

Dain - dwarf kensai (update 6)

 

 combination of timestop and blade barrier saw Dain sliced and diced before time recommenced.

 

 

Cheesy b****.

[corey_russell]

Sorry to hear of Dain Grond0 - he had a great run though.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Swiftblade will I think shortly be leaving the dungeon in the company of Imoen, Minsc, Jaheira, and Jasraena. No major problems, but have discovered that it was the equipment that made her such a powerhouse in BG1. She has repeatedly got injured ihn Amn.

 

Imoen through a mod has become a thief/conjurer, Minsc a Fright of Liches (Paladin Kit), Jaheira a Kensai/Druid, and Jasraena a Fighter.

 

Looking at their stats, I notice that some of them have illegal stats and am wondering if I should roll up their characters and apply them with Shadowkeeper to make them legal.

 

Is that the best option?

[Grond0]

I wouldn't bother Wise.  Quite a few of the original Bioware NPCs were illegal in one way or another, so I don't see why modded versions should be treated too strictly - just assume that your characters have sneaked a look at a few stat tomes during the course of their wanderings ...

[Grimwald the Wise]

It isn't so much that their stats are too high. Sometimes they are too low. Minsc's Charisma for instance is way too low for a paladin. I suppose that he could have been playing with the rod of terror, and similar things could have happened to the other character's stats.

[corey_russell]

There are a few cursed items/scrolls/potions that can lower stats - perhaps Minsc was a bit careless what he picked up/used - he just didn't know better. Quite believable with his INT.

[Grimwald the Wise]

I'll go with that then.

[Blackraven]

Wow Grond0, just read about your Kensai... sad to see him fall when the throne was in his grasp.
I do agree that knowingly relying on a mere 30% MR to avoid getting mazed was a bit crazy. Why do you like placing so much trust in Lady Luck? I always try to limit the luck factor as much as possible (even though it cannot be fully eliminate of course). I rather see my characters done in by my own lack of knowledge (less likely in your case) or focus than by the roll of the dice. Maybe it adds to the challenge for you? 

 

[corey_russell]

Wow Grond0, just read about your Kensai... sad to see him fall when the throne was in his grasp.
I do agree that knowingly relying on a mere 30% MR to avoid getting mazed was a bit crazy. Why do you like placing so much trust in Lady Luck? I always try to limit the luck factor as much as possible (even though it cannot be fully eliminate of course). I rather see my characters done in by my own lack of knowledge (less likely in your case) or focus than by the roll of the dice. Maybe it adds to the challenge for you? 

 

Since A Kensai can't use armor, it would be pretty tough to get 100% MR. Let's see a potion of magic protection, blade of balduran, and the MR amulet in Ust Natha would get 70%, which is not a sure defence. A number of armor pieces/shield offer MR, but no love for the Kensai. Really only 100% defence is a pro magic scroll, but only two in the entire SoA/ToB. Theoretically you could get infinite use with Vhailor's Helm, but a Kensai can't use the helm.

 

If the Cloak of Balduran carried over to BG 2, that could help the Kensai, but of course that didn't happen in vanilla.

 

Other than magic resistance, only other reliable way would be to get Spell Turning from book of infinite spells, which by definition requires luck to get. It would also require luck in actual use as well, since maze cast is pretty short at 3.

[Blackraven]

Since A Kensai can't use armor, it would be pretty tough to get 100% MR. Let's see a potion of magic protection, blade of balduran, and the MR amulet in Ust Natha would get 70%, which is not a sure defence. A number of armor pieces/shield offer MR, but no love for the Kensai. Really only 100% defence is a pro magic scroll, but only two in the entire SoA/ToB. Theoretically you could get infinite use with Vhailor's Helm, but a Kensai can't use the helm.

 

If the Cloak of Balduran carried over to BG 2, that could help the Kensai, but of course that didn't happen in vanilla.

 

Other than magic resistance, only other reliable way would be to get Spell Turning from book of infinite spells, which by definition requires luck to get. It would also require luck in actual use as well, since maze cast is pretty short at 3.

What you say is true, but Grond0 willingly did the following...

 

 

Dain couldn't win in a straight melee fight and without potions was finding it hard to stay away from Abgazigal.  He equipped the amulet of cheetah speed to try and get a little speed boost from that and did a couple of laps before seeing the dreaded maze coming.  He put the amulet of Seldarine back on and equipped the Sword of Balduran to boost his MR to 30%.  I considered breaking my rule over potions to take a potion of magic resistance, but eventually let him take his chances - and he lucked out.

I would have definitely quaffed that potion (for its instant effect before the maze would reach Dain) and I would have equipped the items, to get 80% MR. That's what I meant with limiting the luck factor.

[Grimwald the Wise]

The other way of getting better MR is to have a sub-race with high MR. Drow and Svirfneblin come to mind. They lose a LOT of experience, (-20% for drow and -30% for svirfneblin)  but it would be worth it, unless he doesn't want to use a mod like that one. I like the sub-race mod as it allows you to make a larger variety of characters. Not only that, it changes their appearance accordingly. The experience modifiers etc show that the mod attempts to be fair to the game. Whether or not it succeeds is for us to decide.

[Grond0]

What you say is true, but Grond0 willingly did the following...

 

I would have definitely quaffed that potion (for its instant effect before the maze would reach Dain) and I would have equipped the items, to get 80% MR. That's what I meant with limiting the luck factor.

In the past I agree I would have happily quaffed the potion, but in that run I was experimenting with not using potions at all.  Abazigal's ranged maze attack is a major potential problem for a solo player, but I would expect to counter that next time by pre-summoning some elementals while he is in human form.  I would also expect to use Blackrazor in that fight next time (having tried out the enhanced Short Sword of Mask as an alternative with Dain and concluded it was of little benefit against ToB bosses).