15218 réponses à ce sujet

[Grond0]

Afaik no Freedom scrolls before the Underdark in BG2 vanilla. 

But Corarcher was coming back from the Underdark and therefore would have access to Ribald's special stock ...

[Blackraven]

Ah yes, you mentioned his special stock. Sometimes I read too fast. Sorry, and I believe you're right re: the Freedom scrolls.

[corey_russell]

Corarcher had an interesting encounter with Drizzt - apparently he was quite mad. (Joshua had pick-pocketed Drizzt for his scimitar +3 for Paja in BG 1). He was near determined to attack me and my party. I didn't want a big battle, just to give the weapons back. So managed to stay his wrath without fighting, and even enlisted his help vs. the vampires.

 

The party is in the docks - we are going to forge what items we want, as well as bring Paja back from her prison in the ground...We'll have to dismiss Cernd, but such is the breaks...

[Blackraven]

Corey, our only no-reloader currently active in Amn (although I hope to change that soon).
Good progress, best of luck with the vampires!

Re: Drizzt, my charnames always lie to him about stealing him or robbing him in BG1 (which I haven't done in a long time)

[corey_russell]

Corey, our only no-reloader currently active in Amn (although I hope to change that soon).
Good progress, best of luck with the vampires!

Re: Drizzt, my charnames always lie to him about stealing him or robbing him in BG1 (which I haven't done in a long time)

I usually leave him alone, so this dialog was new to me. I have never killed him yet (e.g., with or without reloads). I sometimes pick-pocket his scimitar +3 if I have a scimitar user in the group - with Joshua being a high level bard, it seemed like a good use of his skills.

 

And thanks for the luck! I'll take it. Things will be a little bit better when Paja returns, she had the AoP. Misty uses the IMoD to protect against level drains, everyone else has to use a restoration scroll if they get drained.

[Epsil0]

I've been procrastinating posting in this thread; let's see how much of a recap is necessary...

 

Tyson, Human dual-from-7-Ranger-to-Cleric, introduction and first update:

Here is my mod list again. Basically SCS, UB, RR, and Item randomizer are the big ones, outside of a few dialogue packs and such. Also the summon-limit has been lifted with BG2Tweaks, so that may come into play (but hasn't yet!)

 

I reinstalled IR, so I have no idea where any important items are.

 

Tyson enters the dungeon, and finds that, indeed, after Irenicus' torture, his power has increased manyfold, as he could now cast druidic spells and regained his old fighting prowess that he had left behind as far as the Cloakwood. I had already theory-crafted a bit for my potential team, and didn't want Jaheira or Minsc this time around: just as well, as since I technically entered the dungeon at level 7, their EXP totals were only at 89,000 rather than the 161,000 that I'm used to seeing. The dungeon is thoroughly trounced with Skeleton Warriors and one or two well-placed Silences. Silent mages are dead mages. The Nymphs again go hostile as I chase a Duergar whose morale failed past them; I took my characters through the portal hoping to not kill them, but the two Skeletons I left behind took care of them after I couldn't control them. I found one cool thing about the dungeon: the assassin's death facing the two duergar in the wand chamber isn't death from wand, but a scripted thing: Yoshimo disarmed the wands under stealth, and the assassin took two steps and collapsed dead.

 

Yoshimo died to dual backstabs from the last set of thieves, but besides that, all else was well. Tyson reaches level 9 and his last HP rolls; both his level 8 and 9 rolls were apparently 1s, so now his HP is wayyyy below average. But at least level 5 slots come online, the important one being Pixie Dust for handling the ambushes before arcane magic comes online in-city. Jaheira is dropped; Minsc would be as well, but the Kidnapping of Boo can give me a magic license instead of shilling out 10k. Yoshimo is kept dead for now.

 

A circus is set to rights, and a pale elven lass recruited for additional magic and divine spells. In the Adventurer's Mart, in the randomized setup, we find the Boots of Cheetah speed; apparently, Irenicus had not gone far to sell at least some of Tyson's gear. My entire coffer is spent for this, as I very much believe Ender's injunction to Dragon army: there is no combat without movement. So as we meet Gaelan Bayle with multiple "Coo"s, we are completely broke.

 

Next step is to fill out the party: Jan is quickly obtained, and Viconia freed and set on her way. I had intended to recruit and keep Keldorn, so we head to the Temple District. First ambush: we head up north invisibly before they can reveal us with their invisibility detection. Two skeletons, Stoneskins are set up, and Aerie and Tyson fire off their Silence spells into the darkness hoping to catch the mage. It wasn't quite enough: Minsc and Tyson were caught in a horror spell, though the mage died from two volleys of Magic Missiles. The battle was already won then, though, as the skeletons with ranged support demolished the rest of the crew.

 

We invisibly met up with Keldorn before getting ambushed for the second time in a much cleaner victory, and Renfeld brought back to the Harper's keep. We found Jaheira there: funnily enough, she's still in her Wolf form from when I released her. I attempt to get the Kidnapping of Boo to fire by constantly leaving and returning to the Docks district and it failed every single time, so we use this time to demolish the slaver presence in the Slums. Only moment of concern was when Tyson triggered the acid trap by accident, taking 43 damage of acid. Even the mages were quick to die, harried by Skeletons. 15k was obtained here, and we gave it to Gaelan immediately. The items are the Amulet of Power and the +2 ring, as I think I chose the option to not have IR move those items: apparently, Rogue Rebalancing scripts assume that Aran is using those two items and moving them would be too much of a hassle. NPP on casters is nice though.

 

And now that I'm not TRYING to trigger the quest by leaving the Docks, the hamster is finally stolen. Boo is recovered, and the magic license is obtained, so Minsc is released as well. Some script misfired here, and Minsc never gave his leaving-party dialogue, so he's sitting in the middle of the Government District. I'm not sure if I can get him back in my party ordinarily.

 

While in the Gov. district, Keldorn asks to visit his wife. Being Lawful Good and all, I eventually release Keldorn from my service as well: there aren't many things more important that saving Amn, but I think Keldorn being with his wife is one of them. This, however, has whittled down my party to 3; one of these rests, Tyson's level 5 went to Raise Dead to send Yoshimo to the Copper Coronet. Umar Hills is the easiest mega-dungeon in SCS in my opinion, and just so happens to offer two warriors... 

 

Tyson hit level 10 while doing the standard Umar quests, Mimic and Stone Golem. After this, we recruit Valygar; I'd had the party quickly go to his house and then to Suni Seya to find his location beforehand. From there, it's off to the Temple... Again, we travel invisibly, and then I abuse the fact that Turn Undead doesn't break invisibility: Tyson's level is just high enough to kill Shadows and Shade wolves, but only scares away Greater Shade Wolves and Shadow Fiends while doing nothing against the Skeletal Warriors. Those were dealt with by an invisible wall of characters, and Valygar running back and forth with the boots to hide in shadows before backstabbing again. Mazzy is freed and the spunky halfling is taken along as well.

 

I failed maybe... 12 times with the statue, using Valygar as the flame strike recipient. This is alarming, since there should only be 9 possible failures if I remembered my past choices correctly. Evidently, my memory sucks. The rest of the map is cleared normally, just hack and slash and turn. The Shade Lord took quite a bit of time; I think the MI's triggered at least 7 times during this "fight," (Mazzy just sniped him time and time again, waiting out the duration of the MIs.)

 

I'll stop this update here; we've done very little else since then.

[corey_russell]

Corarcher Update - Unfinished Business

 

The party first attempted to rescue Paja - this did NOT succeed!  Apparently the game treats Kangaxx's lair as a new area in chapter 6 - thus Paja is lost forever. We'll also miss two pieces of equipment she had, the AoP and a RoR - but we must press on.

 

Next up was the planar sphere. When possible we did summons - Misty tanked Lavok with her great saves. Joshua did the most damage to Tolgerias and pal, using a skull trap (very powerful with Joshua's high levels) and a death fog - that didn't quite kill Tolgerias. The party charged and defeated him - but Forrest died and had to be resurrected. The fire and ice rooms weren't too much problem for the fire room - granted for the fire room, we only used two fire elememtals and Misty, who with equipment that moment was over 100% fire resistance.

 

Golems in engine room were all attacked from range, with the exception of the clay golem - Misty used two blunt weapons at once to quickly kill it, though she took huge damage herself.

 

I was hoping Joshua could use Lavok's ring, but no he can't - so Hanna will use.

 

Next was the Twisted Rune Hide-Out. Our plan was 2x Sunrays for Shangalar - this didn't quite kill him, but he fell shortly there-after. The party then concentrated attacks, with Misty tanking the vampire, since only she is immune to level drain. The warriors then attacked Layene - but she killed Misty and Mazed Forrest, so the party had to assist - but Layene didn't live very long after that, and success! The Staff of Magi went to Hanna.

 

Hanna has been using a sling forever, but it's not +3 ammo - so we bought Tasheron's bow for her. Joshua is using Gesen's bow and Corarcher is still using the Firetooth Crossbow. Cernd uses the firetooth dagger. Misty and Forrest both have a large amount of weapons, depending on what they are facing.

 

The party is feeling brave enough to take on the Illithids in the sewers, so that will be our target next session.

[Grond0]

Wrecking Crew XIV (update 1)

 

Despite the disappointment of having one of the party killed at the end of their BG1 run I'll be trying to keep playing safely in BG2.  The Crew are continuing to play without using any potions or any other item-based active healing.

 

In the dungeon the lightning mephit that nearly ended the previous run failed to gate in any help and died almost immediately.  Resting regularly, the Crew kept HPs up and no-one was in danger thereafter.  Ulvaryl was again stunned by a chromatic orb from the battle mage, but this time she failed to turn into a bat in time to evade Hacker's killing stroke (only the Sword of Chaos could hit her).

 

After restoring the circus they reported to Gaelan Bayle then sorted out the Copper Coronet.  The Beastmaster there had the ring of djinni summoning, which I'll have to look after this time (if the djinni dies the ring is destroyed).

 

At the Docks Officer Dirth provided their first set of full plate and they did a bit of dodging in and out to beat up the pirates (level 9).  On their way to the Temple District to start Mae'Var's tasks they were ambushed by Suna Seni.  However, a volley of missiles killed the mage before he could react and the rest were quickly killed.

 

Back at the Docks a pre-emptive strike on Rayic Gethras just failed to kill him, so Beater ran right down to the ground floor while the others switched a couple of times between the 2nd and 3rd floor while shooting the mage down.  After completing the remaining tasks the djinni's stinking cloud made finishing off Mae'Var much easier.

 

On the way to Trademeet they came across Renfeld - and once more the speed of their missiles was greater than the mage's buffs.  Carrying straight on to Trademeet, Taquee spilled his guts in a stinking cloud to provide the efreeti bottle.  The other djinnis were left for a bit while the Crew returned to Athkatla and sorted out Prebek, looted the Harpers and punished Lucette.  Back at Trademeet Slasher, who has the best AC and saving throws, started off soloing the djinnis until they were out of spells and then the others joined in to help finish them off.

 

Other than summons they have no means to kill trolls at the moment, so left the Grove and returned to Athkatla to do the Fallen Paladins.  While in the area they also completed the skinner quest - only a single Rune assassin spawned initially and I'd just written up my notes saying that meant there had been no problems when the second Rune Assassin and a bone golem appeared - some micro-management was then needed, but the battle was still completed with a bit in hand.

 

Stats (cont. from BG1):

Slasher, fighter 9, 108 HPs, 255 kills, 0 deaths

Crusher, fighter 9, 92 HPs, 207 kills, 0 deaths

Hacker, fighter 9, 80 HPs, 306 kills, 0 deaths

Mincer, fighter 9, 83 HPs, 272 kills, 1 death

Beater (PC), fighter 9, 87 HPs (incl. -18 from Claw), 224 kills

Slicer, fighter 9, 94 HPs, 285 kills, 0 deaths

[Epsil0]

Urgh... Nalia's keep proves too much for me again as I left out Chaotic Commands as one of Tyson's buffs, and the rest of Torgal's gang came ahead of schedule. He was Confused and then Greater Command'd before I could get a potion of invisibility down, and Tyson has fallen.

[Gate70]

Sorry to hear that Epsil0.

 

Kaxir the dwarven kensai has made a start to his adventures in Amn, getting 12hp to reach 106hp at level 9. After escaping the chateau he finds Bala's Axe is able to hit shadows in the circus despite having the same THAC0 and damage as a regular axe. 3 purchases so far (gem bag, scroll case and RoAC).

[Gate70]

Kaxir thumbs through an ancient dwarven kensai journal rumoured to have been passed from generation to generation of his family although Gorion might have made that bit up. Kaxir had lovingly added his seal of ownership on the inside cover (below the seals of many of his predecessors, often also called Kaxir or a variant of).

 

Use the RoAC to turn the tables on Suna Seni.

Use her shortsword against any mad clerics hanging out at the docks.

Use Bala's Axe to rescue Renfeld from a hostile mage.

Use the RoAC and Axe to stop vile experiments near the Harper HQ.

 

Kaxir can't believe his luck, it's all written down and only a fool could fail to follow it. He gleefully turns to the next page which is blank and has a small leaflet pressed into the spine. "Weekly instalments, send 20gp per page to...". OK, time to make his own way.

 

The first thing to do is ransack the Harper HQ. As well as the usual valuables this results in 40 throwing axes which he pockets to strike up long distance relationships as required. After returning "Montaron" to Xzar, an assassin called Lucette suggests this is a lesson Kaxir should heed. Wise words, thinks Kaxir; wizards are indeed easy targets and carry valuable items that can be quickly traded on for a profit.

 

The Copper Coronet seems a good place to plan things out, turning into an adventure when Kaxir wanders into the back rooms. Bala's Axe claims another two mage kills before the Beast Master is given a RoAC DUHM Arbane hasted axing. His two bears are made of sterner stuff and a healing potion is used as a precaution (good call, ended with 23hp so would have been -4).

 

With just over 15000gp Kaxir almost steps outside but Bernard can smell the cash and asks for help re-arranging his merchandise. Kaxir is duly ensnared and can do nothing but hand over 7038gp for the Stonefire and Axuredge axes. Now he just needs to work on triple-wielding them with Bala's Axe

[Grond0]

Kaxir can't believe his luck, it's all written down and only a fool could fail to follow it. He gleefully turns to the next page which is blank and has a small leaflet pressed into the spine. "Weekly instalments, send 20gp per page to...". OK, time to make his own way.

Sounds like a bargain - let's hope he doesn't pay for not paying .

[Gate70]

Heh. Well...

 

The day starts off poorly; it is night, and Kaxir has incurred a warning from the Cowled Wizards about using his RoAC in the city. They seem unconcerned about Hareishan the vampire so it is left to Kaxir to switch from hurling Azuredge to trying melee. The axe fails to destroy her but Kaxir has been hitting hard in melee and she shuffles off while he still has 4 levels left. After a temple visit he heads to Umar and picks up the Ilbratha sword. The ogre problem is dealt with unconventionally after Kaxir accidentally says the wrong thing and is attacked by them. They don't put up much of a fight given their background, which may explain their desertion.

[Gate70]

Kaxir heads back into the city and grabs a few potions from Roger the Fence, while dealing with a rakshasa and sea troll. After a short while he realises he needs to prepare more before facing liches so considers his options. This involves grabbing a necklace for Mae'Var and (after the RoAC outlasts PfMW) using Bala's Axe against Rayic Gethras.

[Gate70]

Valen and Brus turn up on cue as soon as the reward for killing Mae'Var is handed over. A brief trip to Trademeet sees the Dao Djinn eliminated without heading to the Druid Grove, and there is just enough spare cash for the Belt of Inertial Barrier. He tries to pay a deposit for the Dwarven Thrower too but the merchant is having none of it so back to the city for a fundraising.

 

Pai'Na survives a potion of fire breath (unlike her spiders), but not criticals from Bala's Axe and Stonefire.

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 73 - (update 3)

Eyesore, gnome illusionist (Grond0) & Danya, elf fighter/mage (Gate70)

 

A couple of short weekend sessions saw some further progress for this duo.

 

Their work started with a trip to the de'Arnise Hold.  Most of the enemies there proved no problem, though Danya did irritate the iron golem accidentally before being properly prepared.  As a result she took significant damage and Eyesore had to step into the front line for once to hold the golem up with his stoneskin while Danya finished it off.  TorGal was dragged out alone to his doom.

 

Next up was the Umar Hills.  There were no liches in the temple, which made progress there relatively easy.  Eyesore put his newly learned Call Wyvern spell to use there on the second big group.  The problem of pausing in MP meant the assault on the Shade Lord was delayed a bit, but its initial spell was disrupted by a MMM, buying a bit of time for Danya to get in there with a deadly sunray.

 

Back in Athkatla the kidnappers were given short shrift on the way to pick up some pantaloons.  The reputation drop resulting from that was addressed by talking to the guard outside the circus tent and reporting to Lt Aegisfield after finishing off the Rune Assassins.

 

In the Temple Sewers Tarnor and his gang had no answer to a mixture of webs and stinking clouds followed up by area damage and malison - none of them emerged.  Mekrath then found PfNW was not a good choice of buff before a single cloudkill killed a group of umber hulks who failed to push an invisible Danya out of the doorway.  Danya then did suffer a nasty acid burn while getting the portal gem, but the ring of Gaxx had healed that by the time they returned it to Haer'Dalis and they're ready to enter the Planar Prison at the start of the next session.

 

Stats:

Eyesore, illusionist 13, 73 HPs (incl. 6 from ioun stone), 330 kills

Danya, fighter 10 / mage 11, 79 HPs, 419 kills, 0 deaths

[Alaestr]

Mods didn't change: the newest SCS, BG2 Tweaks. Playing with 45 max fps, core rules, nwn-style hps on levelup (doesn't matter though, since Dominique has already finished her dice hp levelups, I think). I spawned Bag of Holding in her inventory. 

 

What's left of Dreadful Department - only the blade Dominique - has awoken in Jon's Chateau in BG2. You probably don't remember her, so here is her character record. Withour further ado, please welcome.

 

The Dancing Blade Dominique. Update No.1

 

 

     Dominique used Nalia to open the safe in the storage room, grabbed the key, double long swords, put on chain mail armor. She released lost souls who were caged near her to quickly boot them from the party. Gosh, Nalia is so clingy. Go away already. 

     

     The beautiful blade told the djinn to get lost. His looks were too lewd for Domi's taste. First group of duergars, tackled them suatee. Second group floored with one Offensive Spin (OS). Third and fourth did with second OS. Unfortunate rolls (a few hits and one 22 damage critical) forced Domi to gulp 3 potions of extra healing while fighting with enemies in the library. Otyugh didn't survive a dance with Domi who cast Wraith Form before the encounter. I unfortunately opened the container which was trapped in the Otyugh room, but the poison was short-lasting and Domi was able to outheal it with 2 potions. She quickly killed two packs of duergars in the northern part of the level and came back through library to snipe Illyich. The girl had help from oil of speed and armor scroll. She cast glitterdust in the beginning of the fight, just after killling the mage. Thus the enemies were incapacitated and simply ran around uselessly while she picked them one by one. Cambion fight was very unfortunate and it ended in a running skirmish. Domi finally was able to rain enough arrows at him, he conceded. 

 

     The mephit plane was a drag as well. The blade killed the 4 southern mephits to acquire scroll of air elemental summoning. She used it, but the elemental remained unallied (it had a blue circle around it and while hovered above an option to talk appeared). I can't remember when was the last time I had used an elemental summon, so please tell me - are they supposed to just stand there? I couldn't control it, it behaved as any other neutral npc. 

 

     Despite this portent the girl advanced - she cast Grease from a scroll, two mephits followed, one cast a Scorcher and I was able to harm the elemental with it. It attacked the mephit, so I guess the summoning works to some extent. She was also held for 3 rounds, but only one mephit was attacking her. The other one who followed was bound in a fight with the elemental. Soon the two stray mephits were sent to the other world and the girl followed with a fireball from a scroll killing all of remaining enemies.

 

     A little bit of running back and forth bore a fruit - Varscona + 2 felt handy in the blade's hand. Promising a return of the acorns for dryads leveled up the girl to 11th blade (reduction in thac0 and an additional level 3rd spell). There hatched a need to detrap fake Ellesime's room. Firstly golems had to die. Domi was left with one Defensive Spin (DS) and a Haste spell, so that's what she used to kill the two guardian golems. This time I got lucky and had to use only 1 potion of extra healing, since Domi landed a beatiful 34 damage critical on one of the golems killing him in one hit. I waited till the haste expired, since there is a poison trap in Ellesime's room and I found impossible to use Neutral Posion while posioned with haste (the spell is simpy interrupted by the damage, which ticks in double the rate of non-hasted character). Unfortunately while I was detrapping a poison trap, and was in the process of casting Neutral Poison a distasteful stun trap triggered. Since Domi was out of healing potions and had 14 hps I decided to rest having the spellbook adjusted. 

 

     Dominique used a portal and prepared to fight mephit portal room. She used a Monster Summoning scroll and ended up with an Ogrillon friend. She then cast some buffs on herself (Blur, Stoneskin IIRC), opened the door, sent the summon to engage mephits, retreated so the aggro would change, used OS and rushed past busied enemies to destroy Radiant Mephits' portal. The clone didn't manage to cast a single spell - Domi interrupted three of them with first magic missiles, then Chromatic Orb scroll and finally Minor Larloch's Draining scroll. I already summoned Domi's familiar so she used it to advance to wand traps room. The trap just before it ate the last charge of Stoneskin so no damage was recieved. Wraith Form was used before the trap, becuase I wanted to try if the spell could nullify the damage. Apparently not. Next stop - the doppelganger meleed while still under the WF. Ulvaryll was fallen this time, but the blade failed a save vs Horror spell cast by the mage, so a little bit of running around ensued (she was under Oil of Speed, so I was a little bit scared she would wander in the bunch of yet not killed enemies). After a couple of rounds she regained her composure and killed both the mage and the thief. WF was used and while it still lasted the northern group of duergars were killed. Fireball scroll read to kill the mage from out of LOS. Assassins didn't pose a threat since the blade's hp pool was high and I kept it that way with potions of extra healling to mitigate the backstab damage. Weeeeeee! Fresh air!

 

     You might notice I usually describe the starting dungeon in the smallest detail. Well, it might not be the smallest, but I certainly sacrifice a lot more text than to other parts. I do it because I believe the most valuable AAR's are of the hardest parts of the games and since I believe a Jon's chateau to be one of the most difficult locations for the solo it takes a significant portion of a post. Well, enjoy anyway. 

 

     A quick visit to Circus to dispel a certain gnome's dream, the blade reunited a lost child and his mother. She headed to Slums, heard Gaeylan's offer, straighten up street thugs, revolutionized the management mentality in Copper Coronet (no spells used, I was scared of Cowled Wizards), had a few running fights with the animal menagerie, but safe all the way through. 

 

     Sold loots, still not able to rebuy the wand of cloudkill to take care of Cowled Wizards, so Domi travelled to City Gates and was ambushed by Suna Seni. They should have known better. In Government District grabbed the quests and also freed Viconia (she died btw because Domi was rigid thought and started bashing at her). While venturing forth to Umar Hills the Renfeld encounter triggered and was approached in the same way as Suna Seni. Returned the body to Harpers, killed officer Dirth. I wanted to buy the wand at that point but still was 3k short, so ordered the girl to explore Umar Hills. 

 

     Dominique did the quests in Umar Hills - acquired Illbratha and worked succesfully as a negotiator between ogres and humans. She came back to Athkatla to sell loots, solve skinner murder, rob a cutpurse in Bridge District (level 13th blade). Finally the blade bought the wand and cheesed away Cowled Wizards to the choir of Amnian guards: "No trouble out of you." Sure, mate.

 

     Sold loots, bought some scrolls. Next stop for Domi: Trademeet. She killed the trio of djinnis (protection from petrification always on) which advanced her to level 14th blade, recieved the Cernd mission.  I ended the session on arrival at Waukeen's Promenade to sell loots.

 

     On the side note: I have never been so unlucky when it comes to the starting dungeon - the rolls were atrocious and potions usage was as high as ever.  

[Grimwald the Wise]

Urgh... Nalia's keep proves too much for me again as I left out Chaotic Commands as one of Tyson's buffs, and the rest of Torgal's gang came ahead of schedule. He was Confused and then Greater Command'd before I could get a potion of invisibility down, and Tyson has fallen.

 

Sorry about that Epsil0. At least I'll have company in the Gate.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Corey, our only no-reloader currently active in Amn (although I hope to change that soon).
Good progress, best of luck with the vampires!

Re: Drizzt, my charnames always lie to him about stealing him or robbing him in BG1 (which I haven't done in a long time)

 

A good character can't lie!!

[Alaestr]

Tough luck, Epsil0. Torgal is not only extremely dangerous in SCS, he also is buggy as hell. Looking forward to your next character!

[corey_russell]

Corarcher Update - Illithids in sewers, Fallen Paladins, Bodhi's Last Stand

Traveling with: Misty (halfling fighter), Forrest (Human Ranger), Hanna (Swashbuckler 9 dualed to mage), Joshua (Jester), Cernd

 

The team got a lot done. Our first task this session was dealing with the Illithids in the Sewers. The initial group we took piece-meal and that worked well. The 2nd group was pretty bad, both Misty and Forrest dying. Joshua cast mirror image and was our tank - we  manage to kill this group of illithids.  I eventually remembered the best way to tank many illithids at once is to have high AC - so Misty gulped 3 potions of genius, like last time, but this time instead of dual wield she had a shield with -10 AC - we destroyed the last of the illithids without any deaths this time - Joshua had cast cloudkill to speed up kills and also to destroy the umber hulks. The biggest reason we did this was for the wand of wonder - we are low on cash.

 

Speaking of cash, we got a few last things - reflection shield, RoR (Ribald's) and finally got mirror image for Hanna. We decided to get boots of grounding too.

 

When recruiting the paladins for Bodhi, we noticed we hadn't done the Fallen Paladins quest - so we did that. We did 3x call lightning that encounter - unsurprisingly that was pretty devastating.

 

For the initial vampire ambush at the graveyard, we did 2x sunray - no level drains. We rested to refresh everything and ventured. This was probably unnecessary but to be ultra-safe, Corarcher put protection from undead on himself at the entrance. Using Azuredge (melee form) and IMoD, Forrest and Misty tanked the vampires well. Summons were used on the vampire mage.

 

For the lower level, we did what buffs made sense (not many) and confronted Bodhi - Forrest was level drained and killed, but Misty tanked great. Hanna was killed as well - she got charmed and killed by Drizzt. But we did prevail and our new RoR brought our fallen back.

 

We reported to Elhan our success, and will venture into Suldenessar next session.

[Grond0]

Quad multiplayer attempt 2 - (update 2)

Grond0, Dogdancing, corey_russell, Gate70

 

Another outing for the Quad today saw some decent progress, though with the odd bit of tragedy thrown in.

 

After talking to Gaelan Bayle last time they started this session by hacking Officer Dirth to death - in the process cutting his armour down to size to fit Corthief.  Then they returned to the Slums to help Hendak at the Copper Coronet.  That didn't go entirely according to plan, with first Wewa and then Carthus demonstrating that monks aren't really equipped for frontal assaults in the early stages of BG2.  After a visit to the local temple they rested and then oversaw a change of ownership of the tavern. 

 

After acquiring Arbane from Suna Seni they decided to make a frontal assault on the slavers.  Corthief led the way, with Arbane foiling the attempts of the slaver mages to hold him.  Captain Haegan then had little chance.  Coming back through the sewers though the group had further trouble when Wewa was first held by one of the hobgoblin shamans and then poisoned by an archer.  Static tried to help out with a cure poison, but was held himself in the process.  However, it looked like Wewa was going to be saved when Corthief successfully cut down an attacker - only for the final shot from an hobgoblin archer to fatally poison her again while Static stood there impotently.

 

A trip to Trademeet produced an instant benefit when Taquee gave up the efreeti bottle.  Corthief then disdained any need for protection from petrification and successfully tanked the 2 genies inside the tent long enough for the others to help out - Carthus stunning the sidekick before Wewa did the same to the Khan.  Before going to the Druid Grove they briefly returned to Athkatla to pry Namarra from the Crypt King's cold dead hand - with the intention of shutting up some of those talkative druids.  Back at the Grove they didn't make it to the druids, when Wewa came out worst in a close encounter with a giant troll.  The connection quality was a lot better this time than last week, but there was still a bit of lag and that made it difficult for her to respond when the others told her to run, run now!

 

An Athkatla temple put Wewa back together again before she took the opportunity to hand back Renfeld's body to the Harpers.  While in the area the final action of the session was to cleanse the local inn of a pirate infestation.

 

Stats (cont. from BG1):

Grond0 - Static, fighter 8 / thief 10, 81 HPs, 416 kills

Dogdancing - Wewa, monk 9, 55 HPs, 79 kills, 5 deaths

corey_russell - Corthief, fighter 8 / thief 10, 87 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 229 kills, 4 deaths
Gate70 - Carthus, monk , 54 HPs, 194 kills, 4 deaths

[Grond0]

Wrecking Crew XIV (update 2)

 

The Crew had their first difficult fight when ambushed twice in a row on the way to the de'Arnise Hold.  The efreeti was used during the first ambush, which meant it wasn't available against the orogs.  When 2 characters were affected by chaos in that battle the first BG2 casualties looked likely, but I had been doing extremely well to avoid that and thought that victory was imminent when chaos appeared to have expired on Slicer.  However, the chaos indicator was just hidden by foliage (I didn't look on the NPC icon) and when Mincer moved into range he got shot down.  Soon after that chaos did expire and the remainder of the Crew were victorious.

 

In response to that, after going to a temple the Crew headed into the Copper Coronet sewers to go and find Lilarcor.  With that in hand they continued to deal with the slavers - picking up the berserker horn there.  Before reporting back though they went to the Graveyard and then to pick up a ransom for a kidnap victim (in order to avoid wasting the reputation increase).  Finally going back to Hendak they all got enough XP for level 10.

 

Looking for a ring of invisibility they went to call on Mencar.  The dwarf took a nap in a stinking cloud while his associates struggled.  Brennan got in one nasty backstab before trying to run away, but the exit was blocked and he was shot down.  Other equipment gained there included another full plate and a blur deck.

 

Moving on to the de'Arnise Hold the Crew made pretty light work of the trolls.  After clearing the top floor apart from the iron golem I intended to make a first use of the blur deck against him, but couldn't find it - I presume I was so busy gloating over its acquisition in my notes that I forgot to actually pick it up !  However, the efreeti helped tank it without any problems anyway.  This time I remembered to feed the umber hulks before tackling the others.  Torgal and 2 giant trolls followed Crusher who had the boots of speed (as last time), but this time the umber hulk elder got into the room as well before Crusher closed the door.  Despite the rapid shooting down of the giant trolls that made things a bit more complex and TorGal nearly killed Crusher when he scared him and then trapped him in a corner, but the others were able to intervene in time.  The Crew intended to rest in the chapel, but when they went upstairs the yuan-ti mages followed them even though they were not in the room with the stairs.  Given that cheesy behaviour I had even less qualms than usual about going back downstairs and then up again to avoid their spells while shooting them up.

 

After accepting the Stronghold the Crew travelled back to Athkatla to trade in their looted items.  Doing that I was surprised to find that an unidentified mace found next to Nalia's father was in fact the MoD - obviously given a smart new icon by one of my mods.  That's welcome as the first source of negative drain protection for the Crew.

 

In search of illithium they went to Umar Hills and got far enough into the ruined temple to find Gorje Hilldark (also picking up the useful Black Wolf Talisman from Icewind Dale).  After that encounter they got directions to find Neb.  Initially Beater couldn't open the door to his house, but one of my mods provides a 2-handed sword that boosts strength and constitution by 1 - together with divine might that got his strength to 22 in order to kick the door down.  Once inside their missiles took down Neb before he could disappear.  In addition to illithium he had the ring of air control.  The illithium was soon taken to Cromwell to produce the iMod.  I also noted he could produce various other things, though the Crew didn't yet have the required components for any of them.  They did though fully upgrade the berserker horn.

 

Stats (cont. from BG1):

Slasher, fighter 10, 121 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm and 10 from Black Wolf Talisman), 255 kills, 0 deaths

Crusher, fighter 10, 95 HPs, 207 kills, 0 deaths

Hacker, fighter 10, 83 HPs, 306 kills, 0 deaths

Mincer, fighter 10, 86 HPs, 272 kills, 2 deaths

Beater (PC), fighter 10, 90 HPs (incl. -18 from Claw), 224 kills

Slicer, fighter 10, 97 HPs, 285 kills, 0 deaths

[Alaestr]

The Dancing Blade Dominique. Update No. 2

 

 

     New day began with killing the Mencar's party. Used a usual 2xWeb sequencer. Then cleared Graveyard. Pai'Na fight was a mess, since a lucky critical from a spider interrupted casting Sunfire. Moreover Pai'Na managed to chaos Domi, so there were a few rounds of dread, but it all ended well. Southern tunnels proved no match to Domi with ProUndead scroll and Azuredge. The blade traveled to Bridge district to find the red man and collect the horn of valhalla. The cut-scene in the kidnappers home bugged though, so I had to reload an autosave. Killing Sanasha and Prebek advanced Domi to level 15th blade. 

 

     The girl helped homophobic Harpers to eradicate even the slightiest suspicion of a budding bromance between a necromancer and an assassin, she stole the necklace from the high priestess of Talos, solved some internal problem in the Order of the Radiant Heart. Continuing the Mae'Var's questline: killed Rayic Gethras after a succesful Web from Kitthix (level 16th blade - another weapon proficiency and first 6th level spell). Mae'Var fell to 2xWeb. He once again found time to cast PfMW, but this time I was smarter and ordered the blade to punch him with fists. Yeah! 

 

     A pack of mercenaries in Bridge District turned out to be a bunch of sexist so Domi took her justice (level 17th blade). The party in the Temple sewers also didn't like my character. Rakshasa yielded his cloak after a brief encounter, the blade stole all useful potions from Roger's. She also cleared the way to the lich. I found out in this playthrough that SI:Necromancy protects from Level Drain traps. Useful, I wonder if it works against vampires' attacks as well. 

 

     I prepared liches beforehand while visiting locations, so Domi decided to take advantage of the fact. Starting from Temple Lich, Bridge lich (had some trouble there), City Gates lich (rested before this one). Kangaxx summoned a bunch of crap - Pit Fiends, Cornugurus and finally Fallen Deva. All of them Domi waited out upstairs. The finish was under ProMagic (the demilich dispelled one scroll with spellstrike, but the second stayed on) with Daystar. Even the undead can't resist the delights of Dominique. Advanced to level 18th blade. 

 

     Next location to have been cleared was Druid Grove. Domi tackled enemies with ease and advanced to level 19th blade while killing rakshasas. She watched Cernd melee Faldorn and she recieved a proper hero treatment back in Trademeet. She also helped a young couple in the town and gave the mantle to High Merchant.  

 

     Temple ruins were done with a ProUndead scroll since Domi had the pleasure of getting to know two liches there. Didn't engage the dragon yet, but as soon as the girl would have had a level drain protection Thaxxy would die. The whole ordeal let the blade level up - 20th blade (yet another proficiency point - bastard swords).

 

     The girl paid off Gaelan, which gave her level 21st blade. I immediately rushed her to get Amulet of Power from Aran - yay level drain protection.

 

     Dominique traveled to DeArnise keep and there helped to get rid off a troll plague. Clearing trolls on level 2 got Domi to level 22nd blade. Torgal fell. This time he spared me a usual plentiful of bugs related to his troll reincarnation. Reporting to Nalia advanced my character to level 23rd blade. 

 

     Windspear Hills: rushed through the content. Used ProUndead on the vampire group. Levelling up to 24th level blade granted Domi her first HLA - UAI. Samia's party was trivial after the initial critical on the mage, which proved fatal for the poor guy. The rest of the fight was choppy choppy under IH. Killing werevolves advanced the girl to level 25th (Spike Trap). Decided to kill Firkraag. Prepared a contingency with PfMW, a sequencer with MI and blurr, cast IH, stoneskins, blur, IM, gulped Potion of Invulnerability, Clarity and Power. Domi removed dragon's stoneskins with remove magic and the beast soon fell. Carsomyr not even that useful since Remove Magic is such a fantastic spell and it takes 3rd level slot. Returning to Garren got Domi a level-up to 26th (2nd Spike Trap). Thaxxy followed suit, but BG2 crashed, so I had to redo the battle. 

 

     Finally freed Athkatla of the shlaver shcum and moved forward the main quest. Also by accident gave up 17k gold to the robbers. Well. They are not going to die from starvation. Akthatla's thieves, the richest thieves. Dwelling in the bowels of vampires' HQ Domi advanced to level 27th (Enhanced Bard Song). Started a fight with Bodhi, but I noticed that Domi's constitution was 4! I didn't know if it was an effect of her ability, so I started to run her around and during a second lap, Bodhi decided to leave. I didn't even touch her, but the fight was finished. Well, I am not going to question that result!

 

     Mekrath's death was swift, struggling with the zoo in his bedroom Domi got to level 28th (3rd Spike Trap). Killing Warden (three spike traps) advanced the blade to level 29th (4th Spike Trap). 

 

     Planar Sphere: completing the golem let Dominique grab level 30th blade (5th Spike Trap, the more the better, right?). There was a scary moment during the fight with northern mages, when one of them unloaded a sequencer full of fire arrows at the blade. She dropped to 30 hps and I quickly retreated her to heal up and reengage. Lavok and Tolgieras were both happy to exhaust their spellbook on summons. I shielded Boni with SI:Conjuration and SI:Abjuration amongst other just for the good measure. Feeding the demon heart to the machine levelled up the blade to 31st (6th Spike Trap). Lavok had seen the sky of his home plane for the last time before he passed away. 

 

     Dominique is ready to sail to Brynnlaw. 

[Grond0]

Wrecking Crew XIV (update 3)

 

The Crew completed the Sir Sarles quest and then recovered a relic of Lathander - on the way not giving Travin much time to contemplate how close he had come to death .  Then they returned to Umar to do a bit more work there - picking up Ilbratha and then the Horn of Blasting while working through the ruined temple.  They wimped out of facing Thaxy or the Shade Lord for now though.

 

Back in Athkatla an examination of what the temples had for sale produced a few goodies - including a helm of charm protection and a negative token (giving another option for level drain protection).

 

I decided the party was now strong enough to clear the Graveyard and they did that fairly easily despite the effects of mummy fear.  I noted here that the iMoD now inflicts damage on the user when disrupting undead, so that will need to be used with some caution.  In another tomb 4 of the Crew were paralysed by fear, but it doesn't last very long and Beater had no trouble keeping the enemies occupied (he was protected by the Greenstone Amulet).

 

Downstairs a giant spider successfully webbed Slasher, but it's friends were all killed before they could finish feasting.  The Crew then invaded the Southern Tombs, where I was pleasantly surprised that the vampyre didn't answer calls for help from the other undead - in fact it turned out that the vampyre had been replaced by a spectre, which was easily killed.  The mummies caused some more paralysis, but never more than 2 at a time and the rest of the area was cleared with no trouble.  Inside the hive a concerted attack on Pai'Na quickly killed her, while Mincer made a first use of the ring of energy and borrowed the boots of speed to clear the spiders before they could bite anyone.  That provided the party with Kitthix.

 

Deciding it was time to see what Aran Linvail had to offer the Crew paid Gaelan Bayle 15k gold - all getting to level 11 in return.  After preventing Lassal from feasting on Mook's body they set off for the Bridge District, although they had a hard fight getting there past their first fully fledged SCS random party.  After sorting out the Guild Contact they told Aran they would go straight to the vampires, but decided to do a few other things first.

 

In the Temple sewers Silliria and her allies caused no problems this time, but the rakshasa's spells proved pretty painful and it was a relief when Crusher found a critical that picked out the right image among his mirrors - the Horn of Silence found on him could be useful as well.  Going to find the Sea Troll Slasher saw a gauth and thought that would be no problem, only to hurriedly reverse course when a beholder and another gauth appeared.  Once Beater was safely away from danger Slasher returned to the attack and managed to kill the beholder while some summons helped with the gauths.

 

After opening up access to the lich the Crew decided to have a go at Tarnor and his gang, despite them being responsible for a decline in the previous Crew's fortunes.  This Crew though were freshly rested and ready for the fray.  The djinni's stinking cloud kept Gaius quiet while he was finished off and the others didn't last long either - failing to generate an aerial servant.  Prizes there included the Cloak of Displacement, another full plate, another Helm of Charm Protection, a throwing axe +2 and Chimandrae's Warded Slippers.

 

Moving on to Watcher's Keep the Spyglass revealed some vampiric wraiths waiting.  The Crew therefore buffed up and produced their summons.  The vampiric wraiths seemed to be happy to attack the 2 characters immune to level drain, which made for an easy victory.  There were a number of containers Beater couldn't break into there, but they did pick up an ammo container and Quiver of Plenty +1 (Slasher using the Horn of Kazgaroth to make his saving throw safe against FoD).

 

I didn't fancy activating all 12 statues, but Slasher did remove the book from the altar - the 4 of them that brought out to play was plenty!.  The statues produced 2 aerial servants and also had HLAs.  One of the fighters used a warcry to scare Slicer before it died from a concentration of fire, which prevented a retreat.  However, the efreeti successfully managed to lead a cleric, mage and one aerial servant away, while the 2 fighter statues were being killed near the entrance.  The aerial servant was eventually killed as well between invisibilities, but Slicer by then had run back into view of the others and he was finally entangled by the other aerial servant and swiftly taken to his first death.  One of the statues then came to find the Crew, but carelessly didn't bring its summons along and elemental weapon damage was able to interrupt its spells and kill it.  Hacker then used the RoAC to go and get Slicer's equipment - that was not that easy as a bear was sitting on top of it, but he managed to distract that away, pick up the equipment and get back to the others without being attacked by the aerial servant.

 

After resting the party came back in and found the mage easy after it was silenced by a first use of the Horn of Silence.

 

Stats (cont. from BG1):

Slasher, fighter 11, 124 HPs (incl. 10 from Black Wolf Talisman), 386 kills, 0 deaths

Crusher, fighter 11, 98 HPs, 247 kills, 0 deaths

Hacker, fighter 11, 86 HPs, 379 kills, 0 deaths

Mincer, fighter 11, 89 HPs, 409 kills, 2 deaths

Beater (PC), fighter 11, 93 HPs (incl. -18 from Claw), 290 kills

Slicer, fighter 11, 100 HPs, 346 kills, 1 death