The Arcane Army (update 13)
The Army killed all but one of the Bhaalspawn rejects in the Fire temple area, Chinchilla being the one that managed to scamper away. Inside the temple a number of area damage spells, including a first use of chain contingency, helped cut the fire giant welcoming committe down to size. A mix of area damage and shooting behind summons allowed them to work around the lower temple without any real alarms.
Upstairs, a few giants tried and failed to squeeze through a small gap in a wall - their deaths allowed the Army to all level up to level 19. Imix was tanked by summons,
but still struck out with a couple of flame strikes before he died. Pepper's luckily bounced off his robe's MR, but Parsley was badly hurt - her contingency eventually activated, although it would have been too late to protect against any follow-up spell.
Back at the Temple of Mir Nyalee's MR saved her from a first use of PW:blind. However, her companions all wilted away and she didn't last long under a stream of MMM.
At the Siege Camp the party successfully ran away from Yaga-Shura immediately he reappeared. However, one of his lieutenants obviously got a good enough sight of them to cast insect plague just before they went mass invisible. The effects of that, on top of a previous blow from a fire giant, were enough to trigger Pepper's contingency
and he hung around while the others defeated all the enemies appearing to the west of the river. After a bit more waiting for regeneration to heal everyone they buffed up a bit, produced new summons and then went to see whether Yaga would wilt under the pressure - he did.
My early experiences with the second pocket plane challenge were not happy ones, but I didn't really expect any problems this time - wrong again! Chain contingencies were set in advance, with a total of 6 wiltings in, but unfortunately they only caught Tamoko.
However, I thought concentrated attacks on Sage's duplicate had still killed her, but she had apparently only been invisible or lost in the screen clutter and eventually emerged after buffing and started chasing Sage. That still didn't seem like too much of a problem as it looked like Sage should be able to stay ahead, but then the extra reach of a 2-handed sword allowed the duplicate to get a dispelling hit in. Another hit would now be fatal and Sage became the first of the Army in the run to date to resort to the use of a PFMW spell.
A round or so later and her contingency kicked in - allowing the others to swiftly clean up.
At the oasis the chain contingencies did a better job - initial wiltings wiped out Jamis and opened a hole for the chained summons to appear. The mordy swords then lasted long enough to clear most of the area with the Army virtually untouched.
With funds still being chronically short Rosemary took the time to loot all the bodies before proceeding on to Amkethran. I was a bit surprised to see there that a bunch of mercenaries all had high MR,
but that didn't help them against summons. More mercenaries in the area were persuaded to donate their equipment and selling everything raised nearly 250k - most of which went on scrolls, although the gargoyle boots were also purchased.
The final action in Amkethran was going to take on Vongoethe. I'd forgotten that banshees might be there, which was dangerous for the Army as they were all vulnerable to death effects and it was no surprise when Pepper keeled over.
With the banshees down and summons targeting Vongoethe the planetar came back to first raise and then heal Pepper before a concentration of fire took down Vongoethe.
However, shortly afterwards Thyme fell down dead
- nothing had been cast recently, so I initially suspected a sphere of chaos cast right at the beginning of the battle, although everyone seemed to be outside its area of effect. However, an instant later Nutmeg fell down too
and I realised it was a symbol death spell - I had noticed one of those being cast a while earlier, although it must have been significantly delayed in triggering. Note that Sage's HPs, boosted by the familiar to over 60 HPs, make her immune to danger from that - though not to Wail of the Banshee, so she was lucky to survive at the start of the conflict.
Before moving on to another of the Five the Army will take a detour to Watcher's Keep to do a bit more work there.
Stats (cont. from BG1):
Rosemary, mage 19, 57 HPs, 5 deaths, 764 kills
Parsley, mage 19, 61HPs, 1 death, 562 kills
Thyme, mage 19, 58 HPs, 8 deaths, 534 kills
Sage (PC), mage 19, 67 HPs (incl. 12 from cat), 439 kills
Nutmeg, mage 19, 55 HPs, 4 deaths, 445 kills
Pepper, mage 19, 56 HPs (incl. 5 from ioun stone), 6 deaths, 513 kills
Retour en haut
).
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. I only hoped Gaius won't trigger those...
), and do the slaver's boat. Unfortunately, we couldn't "finish" the job since Haegan escaped through the door which was "barred from the other side". 
Sigh - we do the CC slavers first then, descent in sewers, kill Haegan there, release the children, and that was it. Azara seems to really gain some serious power - Moebius is mostly a buffer/tank, but the real damage comes from massive AoE damage my sorceress wields.
I am just in awe that ya'll can keep up w/all these PCs on both BG1/TotSC & SOA/TOB too. It just takes me hours & hours to do what little I accomplish - I try to find half hour to an hour a day, usually after work while watching one of my shows & probably 75& of that is writing my journals or researching old AD&D guides, folio's, handbooks or information on my PC - like Sir Gawain (I bought the short poem/book, Sir Gawain & the Green Knight to get an idea of his persona), reviewed AD&D info on him & read thru articles I could find just to make him realistic. . Ya'll are the one's that I look to to help me get better @ actually be successful - all three of you & so many of the regulars here. It sucks to spend hours building a persona & having him assume room temperature before I get him past Coast Way Kobolds. 
