73 réponses à ce sujet

[Carinna]

I re-created Aerie as I did Korgan by starting with a PC that had her stats: 10, 17, 9, 16, 16, 14.  I had to make her a half-elf in the character creator because elves weren't permitted to be multiclass cleric-mages (I changed her to elf via Shadowkeeper once the opening scene ended).    The mage spells the 6th level "real" Aerie had in her spellbook were: Charm Person, Color Spray, ID Item, Magic Missile, Protection from Evil, Blur, Detect Invisibility, Melf's Acid Arrow, Stinking Cloud, Power Word Sleep, Remove Magic, Lightning Bolt, Protection from Normal Missiles, Slow, Minor Spell Deflection, Fire Shield Blue, Improved Invisibility, Stoneskin, Shadow Door, Domination, Hold Monster, Spell Immunity, Minor Spell Turning, Improved Haste, and Contingency.  She was not able to cast all these spells (just up to 3rd level), but she had them written down.  I guess because I have BGT installed, it only allows me to select 1st level spells during character creation.  I added the others in with Shadowkeeper.  In addition, during character creation it wanted me to pick one more first level spell than the original had, so I chose Armor as she has this at a higher level.

IRENICUS' DUNGEON LEVEL 1:  This took an almost ridiculously long time because Aerie is virtually useless as a melee fighter and her spells ran out too fast.  To begin with, she had to rest after getting out of the cage (and freeing everyone) just to get her spells to work at all.   Then I had a learning curve on how to use them.  Turns out everyone who touts summons as the way to go is right!  I'd never done that before as I always had enough tanks (or sufficient numbers of spellcasters) to keep everything busy.  After painfully fighting all the way to Ilyich (going in by the side door, not past the otyugh),  she was finally forced to start using summons or never get out of the place.  The fight took several reloads before I learned my lesson, too.  Fortunately, she was able to get two skeletons for the price of one on more than one occasion, including the winning fight here:

Ilyich fight tactics:  Precast Armor and PfNM, then enter room.  Cast Slow as far into room as possible, followed by Silence 10' radius.    Charm the nearest dwarf and have him target Ilyich.   Walk farther in, then cast Hold at group of dwarves by further hall.  All three (including Ilyich) fail their saves.   Cast Animate Dead, and get two skeletons.  Sic them on the held dwarves while changing the charmed dwarf's target to his unheld partner.   Sling bullets first at Ilyich (until he dies), and then at the unheld dwarf slinger in front of her (who was't hurting her due to the PfNM).  Move skeletons around as necessary.   Walk farther into the room to reveal one last crossbowman, and sic the skeletons on him.  Fight concluded with both skeletons still standing.

Cambion: She was so successful with Ilyich, that I had her use the still standing skeletons on the Cambion.  They went to attack it right away, before it was out of its bubble.  She cast Animate Dead again, got only one this time, and set him on the Cambion too.  Then she cast Monster Summoning I from a scroll and got two Kobold Commandos.  She turned the machine off and they all started whacking; Aerie started slinging (she is better with a ranged weapon than a melee due to her high dexterity), and the Cambion was kept too busy to come after her.  It killed the original two skeletons but then fell.  The kobolds unsummoned, and she walked away with the remaining skeleton.

Otyugh:  She set the remaining skeleton on the otyugh and it got it down to "injured" before getting killed.  She ran back up the hallway where it couldn't pursue her as she had no more attack spells or summons left, and rested in the library.   Armed with Magic Missiles and Melf's Acid Arrows, she went back and stood on the platform and unloaded her magic into it.  When it tried to come close to her, she backed into the hall.   Finally it died, but she was out of magic.  She took on the three goblins in the next hall by slinging them (she had Armor and PfNM active) and made it to the dryads.

Guardian Golems: She almost stepped into Ellisime's room before remembering the guardian golems.  Not wanting to meet them both, she backtracked to them, rested to recharge her spells, and then cast Animate Dead.  Two more skeletons appeared and she instructed them to attack one golem (at which she also slung bullets).  Both skeletons went down before the golem, but her armor class of 2 (with Armor active) saved her long enough to get one more bullet into it and it fell.  She repeated this identically for the second golem.

Trapped rooms:  She walked carefully around the floor traps near the entry (from my memory of where they are, so metagaming), and then cast Minor Spell Deflection.  This allowed her to open the chest with the portal key as well as the nightstand.  it didn't hold up against the table, however, and she got Fireballed by the trap, but it wasn't enough to kill her.  She re-cast Minor Spell Deflection and opened the bookcases in Irenicus' bedroom to get the amulet (and whatever was in the other one; I've forgotten now).

Plane of Air: She rested to get two castings of Minor Spell Deflection back (primarily) and used the stone to open the door, cast her usual Armor (every time post resting) and then Minor Spell Deflection.  With that active, the mephits' special attacks did not hurt her.   She had enough Magic Missiles and Melf's Arrows to hit them each with two spells, so she conserved them and used bullets when she'd lowered their health with the magic.  This got her to the Summon Air Elemental scroll.  She took the scroll to the bottom of the stairs (where she could not see the crowd of mephits but could see the deck of the airship) and cast it.  It was friendly on the first try and started attacking the mephits (to Aerie sight unseen) immediately.  When it was quiet, she approached and found a lot of dead mephits and the elemental still alive.  From this point, it became a courier quest.


Aerie has actually gotten as far as Chapter 2 now, but I will post the rest of her adventures to date tomorrow.

[Dante2377]

nice use of Minor Spell Deflection, I'd never have thought to use it against the mephits.

[Shadow_Leech07]

(Shining Darkess)
I once solo-ed a cleric/mage, it's a fun class to play.

[HoonDing]

With the Crom Faeyr and cleric buffs like Draw Upon Holy Might, Armor of Faith and Righteous Might Aerie will become a superb fighter later on. Add to that PfMW, Blur, Mirror Image, Improved Haste and it just gets ridiculous.

Modifié par virumor, 14 juillet 2010 - 01:16 .

[Carinna]

virumor wrote...
With the Crom Faeyr and cleric buffs like Draw Upon Holy Might, Armor of Faith and Righteous Might Aerie will become a superb fighter later on. Add to that PfMW, Blur, Mirror Image, Improved Haste and it just gets ridiculous.

Yes, well, but I have to get her to "later on" first.  Spellcasters are tough going to start out, even if they pwn everything at the end of the game.  Not to mention I'm not exactly a power player; I'm lucky to be able to get through the game at all; the only item I've ever found cheesy was the Shield of Balduran.  Lots of other stuff is cheesy to many people on here, but in truth, "ridiculous" is relative to how good a player you are.   I happen to be not very.

IRENICUS' DUNGEON LEVEL 2:

Mephit Portals:  She cast Animate Dead twice, and got four skeletons out of it, then opened the door.  The skeletons ran into the room first, followed by Aerie.  This set the mephits after the skeletons so they virtually left Aerie alone.  The only difficult thing was to keep the skeletons focused on the portals as they wanted to turn and fight the mephits (well, they ARE skeletons, meaning they have an empty skull, so what did I expect?).  With Aerie helping out from behind by slinging bullets at them, the portals were dead in no time, and three of the skeletons were still standing.  Aerie had them kill the mephit and thief outside the exit passage, but they finally all died fighting the goblins past that.  She then rested as this brought her to the end of her spells.

Ellisime Clone:  She took more effort to kill than I would have liked, or that I planned on to begin with.  Again, Aerie cast Animate Dead, got one skeleton this time, and set it on her.  It didn't take her long to kill it, so Aerie cast Chromatic Orb (which she'd scribed to her spellbook before resting).  Unfortunately, the clone had Minor Spell Reflection active so the spell bounced back and hit Aerie.  Taking the hint, Aerie cast Minor Spell Deflection and PfNM, then started slinging against the clone's multiple mirror images, waiting for her protection to wear off.  After awhile it did and she cast Hold Person and the clone failed the save.  Aerie continued stoning her until she was dead.

Frenneden: Aerie had to cast Minor Spell Reflection just to open the chest with the key to his room without getting hurt.  With it still active, she went into his room, with him following closely, and opened the trapped chest there.  She was fine, but it was an AoE spell (Fireball, I think), and it got Frenneden down to Badly Injured.  She tried the bookcase as well, but it was just the mage Chain Lightning spell on the trap and only hit her (for no damage, though).   She forced him to change through dialogue (although I know it was out of character, but wanted the change to go ahead and take place) and then ended his life cleanly with a couple of Magic Missiles.

Duergar:  They were all standing together in the little room, so she chucked a Hold Person in and three of them (including the mage) failed their saves.  Animate Dead called one skeleton and it helped her kill the single active dwarf; then they both made short work of the others (as in "held" position, they appear to have a lower AC, 'cause they're lots easier to hit).  The skeleton did not even die.

Uvaryl:  As is usual in my games Aerie and her companion skeleton were not able to kill Uvaryl before she'd killed all the shadow thieves, so we lost the opportunity (Uvaryl turns into a puff of smoke when she's completed her kills).   Part of this (well, most of it) is due to Aerie being fresh out of attack spells and not wanting to rest just for this, though Uvaryl is worth 8000 XP if you get her.

[Carinna]

CIRCUS:

Peasants:  These turned out to be the toughest fight of the entire quest.  Aerie was saving her spellbook for Kalah, so she didn't want to unload it before she got there.  She cast Animate Dead and got one skeleton.  It hit on a peasant (NOT the one with the sword), but was not completely effective and the peasant monster killed it (its own health at badly injured).  Still conserving, she attacked it with her mace.  They stood facing each other, swinging, but neither could connect a hit for a very long time.  Once in awhile, one would manage, and she got him down to "near death," before remembering a scroll of Color Spray that she'd found.  Reading that scroll put the peasant monster right to sleep and she pounded it to death.  For the second peasant, she gave in and cast Hold Person; it failed and she stood and chuncked it with bullets until it dropped.

Downstairs:  She didn't stop to fight the shadows, but was able to get the treasure out of both vases before continuing up past the genie.

Kalah: She tried a Silence 10' Radius against Kalah, but he saved against it, and then he saved again against Hold Person.  By this point in the game, Aerie had gone up enough in level to have two level 4 mage spells, both of which had Stoneskin memorized.  This let her keep casting despite getting hit.  After failing twice, she gave up trying to stop him and just started attacking with Magic Missile, Acid Arrow and Chromatic Orb.  One of th Chromatic Orbs managed to stun him and finally fell to her without much of a fight.

Modifié par Carinna, 14 juillet 2010 - 09:14 .

[Carinna]

FREE HENDAK

Slave Guards:  Aerie pre-cast Stoneskin and Armor (after resting at the Copper Coronet), then opened the door to the cellblock.    She used the Ring of Human Influence's Charm ability to Charm the guard on the steps and set him on the closest fighter guard, who was approaching.  Next she cast Acid Arrow at the nearest mage and Domination at the remaining fighter, who she then set onto the other mage.  The hostile fighter killed the charmed one and the mage managed to kill the dominated one.  The three of them then came after Aerie, who ran back into the hallway to limit their access to her; the mages got in front of the fighter, but they evidently had run out of spells so were swinging their staffs.  She quickly switched to the girdle of bluntness (she'd been wearing the girdle of piercing against their arrows as she was saving PfNM for the Beastmaster), and cast Monster Summoning I, which produced two war dogs behind the fighter.  The dogs killed the fighter and Aerie (swinging her mace) helped them kill both mages.

Winter Wolf: Before even talking to Hendak, Aerie led the two summoned war dogs into the arena and had them attack the winter wolf, while she slung bullets at it.  They just barely managed to kill it before being unsummoned.

Beastmaster: Aerie opened the Gibberling's door and beat them to death with her mace.  Then she cast Animate Dead, got one skeleton, and opened the panther's door.  The skeleton managed to kill it with Aerie casting two Cure Light Wounds on the skeleton, ultimately leaving it at "injured" when the panther died.

Aerie cast PfNM and they both moved up to see the Beastmaster.  She cast Slow back at him and Slowed the Beastmaster, the minotaur, and two of the animals (a bear and the mountain lion).  Tabitha attacked and the skeleton intercepted her.  Aerie cast Stinking Cloud from a scroll back at the Beastmaster to further slow down the crowd.   The skeleton went down and Aerie's Stoneskin (her last) collapsed about the same time; she solved this by shutting herself in the nearest empty cell and healing up, then (with the cell door still closed) casting Animate Dead twice, getting a total of 3 more skeletons.  She put the skeletons in front of the door and opened it, then stood in the back of the cell.   Tabitha was in front with a bear right behind (the two unaffected by the Slow spell); she unloaded an Acid Arrow into each.  With the skeletons' attack added to that, both Tabitha and the bear went down, in that order, but so did the skeletons.  Aerie came out of the cell and the Beastmaster met her.  She cast Chromatic Orb at him and stunned him with it, then hit him with bullets from her sling until he died.  Once dead, she collected the key (and anything else that looked interesting) and ran out of the cell block with the remaining bear following (the minotaur and the mountain lion never came out of their cells).

She released both children, although by the time she got to the girl, the bear had caught up and would bite her every time she ran past it.  She let Hendak out of his cell, but he was too bent on revenge to bother with the bear, so she followed as quickly as possible and just barely managed to slam the door in the bear's face, pinning it in the cell block.

She fired her last Acid Arrow at the hostile guard with the sword (i.e. not arrows); he followed her into the public area but died near the grill.  With PfNM still active against the remaining three archer guards, she watched Hendak kill Lehtinan.    She led the three to the other side of the inn (near Anomen) until they were grouped together, and tried to cast Hold Person at them, but her PfNM chose that moment to run out and they interrupted her spell casting.  With nothing else useful left to cast, she ran out the door.  They followed.  She ran back in the other door to the inn and they did not follow, so she rested to recharge her spells.  But when she went back outside, they were no longer there (they probably will return in the future, though).

Modifié par Carinna, 15 juillet 2010 - 01:28 .

[Morbidest]

How many hit points does Aerie currently have? I once kept her in a party all the way to the end of ToB and she did indeed become the most powerful member of the group, but her vulnerability to getting killed with one tough wallop never went away. Solo Aerie takes real guts

[corey_russell]

Without a doubt, the early going is the roughest for a solo Aerie. Once she gets 6th level spells, whether mage (Earth/Fire/Air elementals) or 6th level Cleric (Ariel Servant) things should get a lot easier for her.



I think a solo Minsc would be more difficult. Yeah he does good against melee, but magic just seems to own him all the time when I use him. Aerie at least can summon help for herself and various protections/buffs, and can breach the enemies/dispel invisibility, etc.

[Carinna]

Morbidest wrote...
How many hit points does Aerie currently have?

I just looked; she has 56 hit points and is level 9 in both cleric and mage.  This is after completing the two runs described in this post and the ones listed above (no others yet).

ATTACKED!

Suna Seni:  Before leaving the Copper Coronet, Aerie Identified the wands of fire and monster summoning, and sold both to Bernard for recharging.  She was only able to afford to buy back the wand of fire, and it took almost all her gold (only 55 left).    But it came in completely handy.  She set it to Fireball before setting off for the Gate district, and when she was interrupted by Suna Seni's gang,  she chugged an oil of speed, ran ahead of them, and then used it to fling a Fireball into their midst.  The mage and archers (except Eldaran) fell.  One guy with a sword had chased her fairly far and wasn't affected; she reset the wand to Aganazzer's Scorcher and targeted Suna Seni, then walked back and forth in front of the the closer fighter to get him injured too.  Neither of them died, so she did it again and the fighter fell.  Only Suna Seni and Eldaran were left; she targeted Eldaran with the same tactic and caught Suna Seni in the crossfire; she died and a short time later, so did Eldaran.  The loot helped to start replenishing the gold she'd shelled out on the wand.

Renfeld's kidnappers: Here she could not use the Fireball effect of the wand since Renfeld would have gotten caught in it.  But she did use Aganazzer's Scorcher again, targeting the mage and walking around in a circle to get as many of the others as possible.  One of the fighters got too close and her Stoneskin went down (with no others to replenish it); she cast Chromatic Orb and stunned him, then kept him in the fire stream.    This group died much easier than Suna Seni and Eldaran.

Renfeld himself posed somewhat of a problem for Aerie with her low strength since she couldn't carry him.  She was able to Draw Upon Holy Might (Bhaalspawn power) to raise her strength to 12, whereupon she could drag him with difficulty (slow movement rate).  This took her back to Athkatla, but then the effect wore off and she had no more of those to cast.  However, the kidnapper mage had a single Strength scroll; she cast it.  Naturally, a cowled wizard appeared with the warning (so now she cannot cast again in town without fighting them until she has enough saved for a license).  But the increased strength enabled her to easily carry Renfeld to the Harper base.

Incidentally, Lawful Good Aerie has no desire to help Xzar, so she won't be doing the Harper quest as it required Xzar to be helped.  Nor will she do the thief stronghold quest or free Viconia (remember her reaction?)

[Incantatar]

Hey, i just failed a solo no-reload with a M/C in the underdark (imprisoned :'( ). I have few tips you perhaps can use. For a few coins you can make yourself permanent invulnerable to missiles with Ribald's reflection shield. It's so cheesy it even kills everyone attacking you.^^

You can buff yourself even now with cleric spells to a pretty good melee fighter, which also helps with opening chests. try haste, holy power, duhm and righteous magic in that order. Get Flail of Ages and MoD+2. Or for fun cast ghoul touch or harm after. Don't forget to try and destroy undead when you encounter them or use the protection scrolls and kill liches. Also demons->bolt of glory. Acid fog, protection from acid and melee buffs is a great combo against spellcaster. Or webs and free action..or..or M/C is so godlike. My buff routine after resting was stoneskin/spirit armor/Protection from acid/fire/electricity/magic energy/death ward/chaotic commands. You don't no reload but for mage heavy fights and traps you can use that perhaps, it's long lasting. You should get the staff of cheese. It's uber powerful and from there on it's cakewalk. Except if you think you can heal mad mages before they imprison you, which is faster than you can say si:abjuration or spell trap.

[Carinna]

Jaheira's Curse:  Aerie saw Jaheira standing beside the Harper building after she dropped off Renfeld, so she invited her to the nearest inn for a drink.  While there, Baron Ployer inflicted his curse on Jaheira.  Nothing came of asking around at the Copper Coronet, so they tried the government district.  While they were there, a representative of the curse-inflicting mages appeared and offered to not be present for any battle with Ployer if they paid 1000 gold.  Aerie offered him 500 and he accepted the lowered amount.

They found Ployer in the east slums, and, after discovering that his mercenaries weren't minions, he attacked them with his two-handed sword.  Aerie handed Jaheira her sling and bullets (since Jaheira had no attack spells memorized that could be used indoors), cast Stoneskin and Armor (I know, she should have done that beforehand).   By the time she'd finished Armor, her Stoneskin had collapsed and she had to recast it.  Then she hit Ployer with Acid Arrow.  She tried to Hold him, but he saved against it; likewise, he saved against the stun effect of Chromatic Orb.  She cast Magic Missile; he was still standing.  With no other real attack spells that didn't involve summoning something to hit him, she cast her last three Acid Arrows and he finally fell down.

She took Jaheira back to the Copper Coronet and they stayed there a full day until Jaheira was completely healed.  During that time, Aerie stocked her 1st level spell slots with Identify spells, and identified all the junk in her inventory.  That done, she was able to sell them for enough to cover the cost of a magic license, which she went out and bought immediately.

She said goodbye to Jaheira after she had recovered.  I plan to do all the NPC quests it's possible to do without having them in your party for a specific length of time first, unless they are quests Aerie would not get involved in.  For instance, she will not be doing Edwin's quest (the "find" part, which is the part that can be done without waiting) because she will not be doing the Mae'var quest set, so Edwin will not become available to her.

@Incantator -- I might get her the reflection shield; however she may need to wait until she finds a belt of strength to hold it.  Right now she's using a buckler, but most other shields are just too heavy.  So far as opening chests goes, she's got the knock spell, which works quite well (but yes, I know it takes up spell slots).

[Carinna]

Amendment to Aerie's hit points as described above:  Actually, at that point she had 54 hit points, not 56.  Some spell or other had raised the amount, I suppose (Strength of One?)

Sir Sarles:  Aerie had actually gotten the quest from the temple of Lathandar before meeting Jaheira, and had gone to see Jerlia and paid the 1000 gold to find out the name of her source.  Unger Hilldark had then directed her to Neb; however she had been unable to open the door to his house and did not dare to use a knock spell in public at that time.  With her newly minted magic license, however, that restriction no longer applied, so she presented herself at his door, cast stoneskin and armor, and knocked.  With the door now open, she cast true sight and walked in.  Neb sicced his "children" on her and drank an invisibility potion.  Aerie promptly turned the children (turn undead) and her true sight revealed Neb's location.  When the children were suitably distant, she cast monster summoning I (could not cast animate dead with turn undead needed repeatedly) and got two war dogs, which set upon Neb.

They did not do much damage, however.  She tried to hold him, and stun him with chromatic orb.  Neither worked.  She fired an acid arrow and barely did any damage.  A magic missile did not add much more.  Having run out of damaging spells from her spell book (except for three more acid arrows that probably wouldn't have done much more than the first), she let him have it with the aganazzer's scorcher from the wand.  That did a bit more damage, but it took about 4 charges to finish him (with him at "near dead" for the last three, quaffing potions as she fired).

Upon his death, the children were released and thanked her, casting greater restoration on her (although she didn't need it), and leaving their pearls and 2500XP per child.  She took Neb's head to Brega in the Council of Six building and dropped the illithium off with Sir Sarles, then went to the temple to collect her reward.


Incidentally, it took me one and a half tries before I remembered she could use turn undead on the children.  The first time she died to a complete level drain before she'd got Neb down to more than "injured."  I count the second as a half try because I thought of the solution in the middle of it and reloaded even though she hadn't died yet in that attempt.

[Carinna]

Tirdir:  Aerie paid her respects to the fallen and discovered a man had been buried alive.  She promised to find the people responsible and followed the clues to the Bridge district.  When she confronted the man in red, his compatriots killed him and tried to run away.  They were faster than Aerie so she hit them with an aganazzer's scorcher from the wand to make them mad enough to come back and fight.  Then she dominated one and turned him on the other.  Unfortunately, she had chosen the human (not the dwarf) to dominate as she figured he had lousier saving throws, and he didn't last very long.  On a long shot, she threw a hold person on the dwarf and he actually got held.  To save further spells, she started beating on him, but he was still fairly hard to hit and the hold person wore off before he died.  Finally she used another charge of the wand to finish him off, then went back inside the building to free their next victim.

Wellyn: In the graveyard, Aerie also discovered the ghost of a murdered boy who wanted his stolen stuffed bear back from his killer.  She went to the Copper Coronet; the murderer returned the bear, but she couldn't let him go lest he kill another child.  Another dwarf, another hold person that didn't quite hold until he was dead, and she used yet another charge of the wand to kill him, then took the bear back to the ghost.

Dawn Ring:  Aerie is so gullible she gave the informant 400 gold for information she could have had for free.  He refused to return it despite her hitting him with another agannazzer's scorcher as he ran away (he did not even turn hostile, just kept running). 

She used knock to open the locked door of the house; unable to swear allegiance to Talos, she declared herself from Lathandar and they attacked.  She dominated one of the three crossbowmen and set him on the head thief, then cast PfNM.  With two acid arrows left, she gave one to each of the still-hostile bowmen.  The head thief continued to attack her with a sword despite being targeted by one of his own men, so she tried to hold him, and when that failed, she tried the stun effect of chromatic orb, but he saved against that too.  The other bowmen finally killed the dominated one; she tried to charm another using the ring of human influence but he saved against it.  She then tried a scroll of color spray that she'd found, but he was too high a level to be affected.  Finally she retorted - again - to the aganazzer's scorcher from the wand; it killed the head thief in one hit; the other two needed a second shot.

Edited: sheesh, I can't spell anymore...

Modifié par Carinna, 17 juillet 2010 - 02:04 .

[Argent77]

I’d make use of the Holy Smite spell more often. It does fair damage and bypasses most protection spells.

[Carinna]

Well, unfortunately Holy Smite doesn't bypass magic resistance, although it did have some utility.  See below.  Aerie was waaay too low a level for me to do this quest; I can't even count the times I had to reload - especially once she'd gotten to the Shade Lord.

SHADE LORD QUEST

Prelude:  Visiting the ogres and visiting Merella's cabin were trivial.  Once Aerie got to the temple ruins, she met Anarg, finally believed her about the Shade Lord, and continued on.  With Turn Undead active she was not bothered by anything on the way.  With Turn Undead still active she walked up and turned on the mirror; she did have to dodge to get to the stairway; Turn Undead did not work on quite all the shadows, and she was ability score drained by the time she got inside.  Still, she Turned the shade wolf in the passage, and waited out the ability score deficit.

First room: I almost gave up and had her return to Athkatla as it took forever to devise a strategy for this area.  Turn Undead worked fine on the shade wolves and shadows, but would not work on the skeleton warriors.  In addition, they were highly magic resistant so that no matter what she cast (including holy smite), they were not damaged.  Since she was unable to survive a melee session with two skeleton warriors, that did not leave many options (no, she doesn't have the spell Lower Resistance, but even if she did, she couldn't learn it in quantity yet anyway). 

Strategy that worked:  Drink oil of speed and open the door.  Cast repulse undead.  This works like wing buffet and there is no save and magic resistance does not apply, PLUS it repeats every round for as long as the spell is active.   Run through to Mazzy's cell; target the shadow jailer with holy smite and 2 magic missiles (he is not magic resistant).  Pick up key, release Mazzy and send her on her way.  Run into the statue room.  (At this point repulse undead wore off.)  Take Amanuator's three tests (I always manage to fail the middle one on the first try, so she got flamestruck and used a potion to heal), keeping Turn Undead active (it at least works on some of them).  Get the symbol piece and run to the light gem.  Swipe it and run all the way back out (Turn Undead active while running).  When she got to the door, she slammed it behind her, caught her breath and walked down to open the shadow door with the light gem.  As she approached the next area I suddenly remembered I'd forgot to have her pick up Amanuana's bones, so she went back, opened the door, made a mad dash for the bones, ran back out, and slammed the door in the face of something or other (forgot what, but she made it).

Amanuana crypt area:  Turn Undead worked here to avoid the shadows that appear on the bridge and in the lava area while she recovered the pearly white ioun stone.  Then she gave the bones to Amanuana's guards and recovered the sun bullets.  She did not go into (or near) the back room.

Floor puzzle area: Aerie cast invisibility and crept past two skeleton warriors and two shadow fiends that were lurking in the doorway waiting for her.  She made her way across the floor puzzle and into a back room, where she found the last piece of the symbol being guarded by a shadow.  It tried to attack her when she refused to assist it, but she cast invisibility again and crept away.  She was somewhat taken aback when she saw a huge bone golem waiting in the adjacent chamber, but crept invisibly past it anyway and took what was in the statue's offering.  This removed her invisibility, but the bone golem was facing the other direction, and she quickly gulped down an invisibility potion that allowed her to continue the rest of the way through the dungeon, all the way to the stairs up to the Shade Lord.

Shade Lord:  Aerie rested in the Shadow Dragon's lair (safe from the dragon with Amanuana's stone ward) before heading up to confront the Shade Lord.  As I said, this took uncounted reloads; what I've written here is the successful final one.

Aerie buffed herself with stoneskin, armor, death ward, resist fear, protection from evil, chaotic commands, and free action.  She cast true sight from a scroll and headed outside.  One sun bullet disabled the shade altar; she cast pierce magic at the Shade Lord from a scroll at the same time he cast remove magic at her and took down her stoneskin.  She cast silence 15' radius behind him and he failed his save (so did Patrick).  She cast holy smite; this damaged Patrick and the lone shadow, but not the shade lord.  Now unable to cast spells, he approached (and his silence was relative as it didn't stop him from gloating).  She put her stoneskin back up but he blinded her.  She cast shadow door to give herself some breathing space and ran to the other side of the terrace.  Once there, she threw a fireball from the wand at them.  Again, it damaged Patrick and the shadow, but not the shade lord.  She then tried holy smite again, and this time the shade lord was affected as well.  Another fireball and the shadow and Patrick were toast (but the shade lord remained resistant).  At this point the shade lord caught her and she got level drained and blinded again (failed save against breath weapon).  In desperation, she cast flame arrow.  Magic resistance.  Another flame arrow, and this time a HEAP of damage (about 6 lines worth).  It was enough to leave him near death, but unfortunately, it also kicked in his contingency, which was: mislead, spell turning, and mirror image.  Aerie's true sight had worn off long before and she didn't have another.  Remembering her old tried and true method of dealing with super-buffed mages, she ran back into the shadow dragon's lair.  He did not follow.

She took the opportunity to heal herself with potions and cast minor spell turning and blur.  She waited a little while longer (not too long or her own buffs would wear off) and then, with trepidation, went back outside.  His mirror image had worn off, though she couldn't be sure about mislead.  Nevertheless, she swung back and whacked him with a sun bullet.  One hit, and he fell; the curse was broken.

Edited: Forgot to add: Even though she was level drained, when the dust cleared and the sun came out, she was somehow restored (although she had to rememorize dropped spells).  This may have appeared in the text window and I overlooked it, but it didn't seem to say who was responsible for the restoration.  Amanuator?

Modifié par Carinna, 17 juillet 2010 - 10:47 .

[corey_russell]

Congrats at making it through there, you were inventive there, Corrina. Is there really no way to melee a skeletal warrior? I don't know what your levels are, but if you were to cast righteous magic > holy power > DUHM while stoneskin/blur/mirror image you might be able to kill them. Again depends on your level, but Protection from Magical Weapons would buy you some more time to whack them as well. Bolts of Glory bypass magic resistance but you probably aren't high enough level yet.

[Carinna]

corey_russell wrote...

Congrats at making it through there, you were inventive there, Corrina. Is there really no way to melee a skeletal warrior? I don't know what your levels are, but if you were to cast righteous magic > holy power > DUHM while stoneskin/blur/mirror image you might be able to kill them. Again depends on your level, but Protection from Magical Weapons would buy you some more time to whack them as well. Bolts of Glory bypass magic resistance but you probably aren't high enough level yet.

Thank you!

She's a level 9 cleric, so not high enough for bolts of glory.  So far as I could tell from the description, the combo you mentioned would greatly improve her strength for increased damage, but any benefit to her THAC0 would be minimal and that's where she really lacks.  Not to mention, she only gets one 5th level spell, so spending righteous magic on one skeleton warrior would be of dubious benefit when there were four in the dungeon.    She doesn't have PfMW (not high enough level) although there was a scroll of it in the vampire-curing altar.  However, that is well beyond all the skeleton warriors.

I know tons of people (or maybe only a few, repeatedly?) talk about how great a "tank" Aerie is.  Well, if that's so, they are talking about a high-level Aerie.  It irritated me a bit for someone above to dismiss this run as fluff because Aerie is so great at the end of the game.  Yes, she can buff up to the gills, but at a low level she can only do it once.  And I feel silly enough resting her as often as I do.

Usually I do d'Arnise keep near the beginning, but I don't think she can really handle the trolls as she can't shoot arrows and will run out of spells quickly (or entirely deplete that wand, which is going fast enough as it is.  Probably Lilarcor and the rest of the slavers will be next.

Modifié par Carinna, 17 juillet 2010 - 11:37 .

[polytope]

Carinna wrote...

spending righteous magic on one skeleton warrior would be of dubious benefit when there were four in the dungeon.    She doesn't have PfMW (not high enough level) although there was a scroll of it in the vampire-curing altar.  However, that is well beyond all the skeleton warriors.

Fire shield red works well against magic resistant skeletons, stone golems too. Being a self targetted spell it ignores magic resistance (like sunfire).

When I soloed a mage I found the most annoying creatures were the regenerating ones, vampires for instance, a mage just doesn't match a fighter in damage output until late in the game.

[corey_russell]

Carrina if I am not mistaken, I believe Righteous magic makes your Thac0 like a fighter. Also the combo I mentioned would make 25 STR at at 25 STR and at that STR each hit is max. But I think a level 9 Aerie is probably too low, she really needs to be 11 for level 6 spells (false dawn for cleric or aeriel servant/good elemental summon, mage)

[Shadow_Leech07]

polytope wrote...

Carinna wrote...

spending righteous magic on one skeleton warrior would be of dubious benefit when there were four in the dungeon.    She doesn't have PfMW (not high enough level) although there was a scroll of it in the vampire-curing altar.  However, that is well beyond all the skeleton warriors.

Fire shield red works well against magic resistant skeletons, stone golems too. Being a self targetted spell it ignores magic resistance (like sunfire).

When I soloed a mage I found the most annoying creatures were the regenerating ones, vampires for instance, a mage just doesn't match a fighter in damage output until late in the game.

Carinna I'm not sure what level your Aerie is at, but are you summoning creatures and hasting them? This should clear most of the early SoA quite easily and you'll get Aerie up to good mid level where she can tear things apart with sheer power. 

The combo is holy power> righteous magic >and draw upon holy might because holy might grants the caster 18 strength(and fighter thaco) and then righteous magic boost the strength and HP up furthur, while finally DUHM ups it to 25 or something. Has to be done in that order. In my questing, holy power is the important one because of the thaco improvement. If you need something else for the righteous magic slot then go for it. Another question, are you using melf's magic meteor? That spell tears through golems and trolls. Skull trap is nice as well, but melf is preferable level three. Make use of confusion and greater malison for large groups as they will fight amongst themselves.

I admittingly haven't read through this entire thing so the tactics I mentioned you may have already came upon so I apologize in advance.

[Carinna]

Thank you all.  Y'know I usually do get my mage melf's meteors asap, so I don't know why I haven't bought it for Aerie.  That has now been corrected (but not until the quests below were completed; you'll see why).  So far as the fighting combo is concerned, I see now that THAC0 is improved to a fighter's of the same level by that spell.  However, at the time she went through the temple ruins, she could only have memorized a single instance of that combo, which would not necessarily have lasted even through a fight with one skeleton warrior if she got bad attack rolls during the fight.  And it just seems excessive to have her go in, fight one skeleton warrior, run out, rest, and then go back in to fight the next one, etc. etc.

Anyhow, to continue:

LILARCOR AND THE SLAVERS

After nearly getting killed fighting the Shade Lord, Aerie knew she needed better equipment and spells before attempting a rescue of Imoen, so even though she now had the money to pay Gaelan Bayle, she reluctantly went shopping instead (she was also approached by Valen, but something about her warned Aerie that Gaelan was a better option).  The Robe of Vecna beckoned to her and she bought it; however it took all but 45 gold of her money.  Now, with no need to memorize Armor (the Robe increased her AC past what Armor could do), and the ability to cast faster, she plunged into the labyrinth beneath the Copper Coronet in search of the slavers' route.

Hobgoblins (both groups):  Aerie cast fireball twice from the wand.  They all died.

Slime room:  She cast animate dead and set the two skeletons that appeared onto the otyugh.  They were slowed and did little, if any, damage, but successfully kept the otyugh's attention away from Aerie.  She cast magic missile at it twice, taking it down to near death.  At that time, the last skeleton died and it came after her.  She hit it with an acid arrow and ran back into the main hallway.  It followed her and expired from the latent damage about halfway to the lover's statue.  She then used the same tactics (using flame arrow instead of magic missile) on the ochre jelly, which died in approximately the same spot as the otyugh.  Then she ran in, ignoring the mustard jelly, grabbed the hand out of the drain, and ran back.  This presented an issue later on, when she was leaving to go rest back at the Copper Coronet; the mustard jelly did not like being ignored and had followed her; however it could not fit in the constricted area next to the lovers' statue.  It did, however, effectively block her path.  While she did possess a +1 mace, she could never hope to defeat it in melee, and the thing was virtually immune to a magical attack (even presuming she wasn't on her way to rest because her spells were depleted).  On the good side, so long as she stayed fairly well back, it could not approach her because it was stuck.  So she made use of the sun bullets and slinged it to death.  When all was done, she had used up all but 2 of the sun bullets.

Kobolds and Carrion Crawler:  She did not have even 100 gold to offer them for the staff and did not really want to wipe out an entire group of non-hostile creatures, so she put off getting the staff until after she'd been to the slavers' base.  Similarly, since she didn't have all the components, she left the carrion crawler alone until after she had the staff so as not to make Quallo more lonely than he already was.  When she got back, she offered 2000 gold for the staff; the shaman took it and his compatriots killed him for it, though they did not blame Aerie and she simply picked up the 2000 gold again, plus a +1 sword he'd had.   The carrion crawler fell to a single flame arrow. When she had the sword (to sell for cash), she talked to Quallo again to make sure he would be all right.

Slaver storage room:  This took about 5 tries to get right, but nowhere near as many as with the temple ruins.  Before entering, she pre-cast chaotic commands, free action, stoneskin, resist fear, and PfNM.  Upon entering, she threw a slow spell into the back of the room by the priest of Cyric and managed to slow everyone in that area.  She followed this with a fireball from the wand, and then a hold person at the slavers who had finally gotten up to her.  Two of the four were held; she cast dominate on the other two, successfully, and set them after two others who were approaching.  Animate dead summoned two skeletons that she sent after the head slaver.  The priest had made it over to that side of the room and cast control undead on the skeletons.  One of them switched sides, but the other continued to attack the head slaver, but he quickly killed it and came after Aerie.  Her stoneskin went down and he was hitting her too fast for her to raise it without being killed first, so, with no other options apparent, she ducked out the door.  Three of them, including the head slaver, followed her, but it gave her enough breathing room to renew her stoneskin, and then she hit him with an agannazer's scorcher from the wand, making sure it damaged all three of them before she ran back inside.  They didn't follow, but another group of about 5, including the priest, were on the side of the room by the cage, and started towards her.  She cast chromatic orb three times and petrified three of the fighter-types (meanwhile, the priest's control on the skeleton wore off and he started attacking the slavers again), and then fireballed the rest, which also destroyed the petrified ones (the skeleton had died already).  The priest was still standing, but a single flame arrow took him down.  Unfortunately, none of them had the key to the cage, so she went back out the door and zapped the two left standing there with another agannazer's scorcher, and they died.

Trolls: They came out one at a time and Aerie took advantage of this. She cast acid arrow, and then ran around the stack of crates in the middle of the storage area with the troll following her until it finally fell down, near death.  A second acid arrow finished it.  Repeat identically for the second troll.  Then she went in, released the girl, and gave her 100 gold of the slavers' money so she could get back home.  She also released the other two kids (after reloading since the first time, the floor trap killed her).

(Aerie went back to the Copper Coronet to rest before continuing with this quest).

Yuan-tis:  She set off the prismatic spray trap but stayed in the far corner of the room where it didn't reach until its effect had passed.   Then she tried to throw a fireball from the wand into the yuan-tis' room but she had to walk too close to target it and it damaged her more than it did the magic-resistant yuan-tis.  Wanting to save her spellbook for the mages in the next room (and realizing her spells would likely be wasted on the yuan-tis), she cast fire shield blue both for protection and attack.  Once it was active, she walked into the yuan-tis' chamber (they followed as they had both already come out), and then deliberately walked as close to them as possible, around and around in a circle, renewing stoneskin whenever it wore off (which was two more times and then she was out).  Then she started to take on damage faster than she could recover from it, so she cast sanctuary to give herself time to heal.  This cancelled any offensive use of the fire shield; however the yuan-tis were at badly damaged and near death, and the badly damaged one lost morale at the same time she cast sanctuary.  The other one didn't like deserters, so he killed it.  Since the remaining one was at near death, she thought she could kill it with the fire shield, and attacked to cancel the sanctuary.  Unfortunately, the fire shield ran out at that exact moment.  She continued to swing her mace, and managed to hit him once before he killed her.  Once was all it took and he was dead.

Dining room:  Before she got into range, she cast animate dead twice and got three skeletons, and then cast PfNM.  Then she walked them all as close as possible to the doorway without being able to see anyone inside and threw a slow spell in.  Only a single wizard got slowed (or was in range).  She walked closer, got their attention, and chucked in a fireball, then sent the skeletons after the mobilizing fighters.  While the skeletons kept the fighters busy, she sent an acid arrow into each of the two wizards.  The skeletons all died about the same time, and she fireballed the room again, killing the archers and one of the wizards.  Chromatic orbs turned everyone else to stone except a single fighter who had fled in panic.  On her way back out of the place, she found him in one of the cells; he fell to a bullet from her sling.

Edited to add:  Aerie went shopping again with the money from the reward and the spoils, and bought the following:  Armor class 3 bracers, and the spells mirror image, melf's minute meteors, skull trap, lower resistance, and sunfire.

Modifié par Carinna, 18 juillet 2010 - 05:38 .

[Carinna]

DRUID GROVE

Trolls and spiders:  The guy that normally meets you and tells you what's going on did not show up; however that did not kill the game - the dialogue was simply a bit different when Aerie met Cernd.    Aerie had melf's minute meteors memorized four times and she cast it when the first troll appeared.  The first casting lasted through two ice trolls and  1 1/2 regular trolls.  She cast again and killed the trolls and three of the smallest spiders.  Then she cast the remaining two to finish the spiders off, so she was completely out of melf's meteors by the time she got near the troll mound.  She handled the next two trolls the same way:  blast  with an agannazer's scorcher from the wand, troll falls down, finish off with acid arrow.  

Kyland Lind:  She walked past the ongoing fight, met some hostile druids and cast silence 15' radius.  Three of the four, including Kyland Lind, failed their saves.  She followed this up with emotion, and three of them (not the same three, but including Kyland Lind) failed their saves.  The fourth started beating on her (and her stoneskins had all been used up in fighting trolls and spiders) so she cast sanctuary and moved beyond him, then cast animate dead and dominate.   She wanted the two skeletons and dominated druid to kill the unconscious ones on the ground, but they had other ideas and kept wandering off to the troll fight to help the trolls kill the druids there.  The dominated guy got away but I tried to micromanage the skeletons and did get a bit of damage on the intended targets from them.  Around that point, emotion wore off and the skeletons and dominated guy were a bit more enthusiastic about fighting them.  Aerie helped them by slinging bullets and finally all three of the hostile ones were dead, the skeletons and dominated guy still standing.  Aerie left the dominated guy on his own and took her skeletons with her.

Door guard:  As she passed Cernd on her way to the druid grove (to "prepare" it), he did not recognize that the skeletons were friendly and tried to first charm them and then hold monster on them.  Both tries failed.   As she approached, she sent the skeletons ahead to attack, cast mirror image, and threw another silence 15' radius at the guards.  All failed the save, so they began fighting and the armored one came after Aerie.  She cast holy power, and then tried to cast righteous magic, but her spell was interrupted.  She got interrupted during DUHM too, so just tried to hit him with her fighter's THAC0 of 6 and the increased strength.  It was better than before, but she still did not hit very often and she was getting hurt faster than she was hurting him.  One of the skeletons went down, but so did one of the other druids.    The other skeleton didn't last much longer.  As it died, she cast sunfire and killed the remaining druid (the one she was not fighting herself).  Another sunfire and one in front of her died too.

Cernd and Faldorn:  Aerie gave him an oil of speed to drink before he challenged Faldorn.  In the ring, he cast monster summoning I, and then without waiting for the monster to appear first, shapechanged to his werewolf form.  The monster turned out to be a dire wolf, and together they attacked Faldorn quickly enough to prevent her from shapechanging, and so won.

Edited:  making it look pretty.

Modifié par Carinna, 18 juillet 2010 - 10:58 .

[wise grimwald]

Only just discovered this forum. Thanks Irbloss for pointing me this way.

Must say that your run is fascinating.

You're obviously far more experienced in BG2 than I am, even if you're not as experienced as others.

That's probably what makes the run more interesting. That, plus the fact that you don't pretend to be something that you're not.

[Carinna]

wise grimwald wrote...
Only just discovered this forum. Thanks Irbloss for pointing me this way.
Must say that your run is fascinating.
You're obviously far more experienced in BG2 than I am, even if you're not as experienced as others.
That's probably what makes the run more interesting. That, plus the fact that you don't pretend to be something that you're not.

Glad you like it.  I wondered if maybe I was just boring people getting this detailed.  So far as me being more experienced than you, I haven't yet made it through a no-reload run (even just through SoA), whereas I notice you are already much further along than I've ever gotten.

Anyhow, it's been slow going through d'Arnise keep.  So I don't forget what I did, I'm going to be posting it in parts.

D'ARNISE KEEP FIRST FLOOR

Meeting Daleson:  Aerie used knock to get through the locked door, picked up the contents of the crate and barrel, and then opened the door to meet the first troll.  On the first try, she went through all three stoneskins and all four melf's meteors on this ONE troll.    After walking into the main hall and finding out what was waiting for her there (see below), I decided to reload the game from just outside the keep and try for better odds.  On the second try, she did much better.  The troll did not even completely take down one stoneskin and she used up only 1 melf's meteors.  Also, on this try she found a scroll of summon earth elemental laying on the table that was not there on the original try.  She picked up the magic bullets out of the armory and opened the door to the hall.

Main hall:  Probably due to Aerie's relatively high level for this quest, the main hall contained 4 regular trolls, 1 giant troll, and a spirit troll, which is the largest and most powerful group of trolls I've ever encountered here (yes, I've never played on any difficulty setting higher than core).  And the reload did not change that composition.   At first she tried using melf's meteors on them, but they ripped through her stoneskin and she was not even able to raise it again before she was dead.  Then she tried throwing a fireball from the wand into the room ahead of time, but one fireball wasn't enough to kill them and ended in the same result.  She tried summoning the earth elemental from the scroll into the room ahead of her, but the trolls tore it apart in a couple of rounds.   Finally, she tried running into the room and unloading two sunfires.  This made the four regular trolls fall down; however the others still hit her hard enough that she was unable to recast stoneskin before dying.  Trying to recast stoneskin between the sunfires did not work either.  In the end, I reloaded from inside the armory and just snuck past the main hall, ignoring what was inside.

Courtyard, pre-drawbridge:  Aerie used her regular bullets to kill the four dogs, which took two hits each.  She managed to kill all of them before encountering the otyugh.  When she saw the otyugh, she cast melf's meteors and unloaded three of them into it before it got too close for her liking.  She backed away, turning now and then to toss another meteor onto it.  Finally, her back was to the door and she had to recast, but managed to do so before it got too close and she ran around the side of the courtyard behind some barricades that she hoped would slow it down.  Whether they did or not, she never knew because two more meteors killed it.  At the top of the stairs going up on the wall, she met another troll and killed him with the remainder of her meteors, then flipped the switch to open the drawbridge so that the guards could re-enter the castle.

Courtyard, post-drawbridge:  As she reached the lower set of stairs, she could hear the fighting going on and pre-cast melf's meteors to prepare herself again.   As she started down, a giant troll ran at her, but a single meteor finished it off (no doubt helped by the guards fighting below).  More difficult was a greater yuan-ti who approached with a sword.  She unloaded some meteors into him before he reached melee range, taking him down to injured, and then managed to run around him and get down the stairs.  Of course he followed, but she now had more room to maneuver and try to keep herself out of melee range.  She hit him a couple more times before she used up her last meteor (completely; that was her last melf's meteors spell),  so she unloaded a sunfire, which took him to near death.  He ripped her stoneskin off in retaliation, so she ran away to give herself time to recast it, then, as he approached again, she cast burning hands and finished him off.

Mopping up:  Inside, the guards were fighting a troll in the hallway.  One of them died, but they had it down to badly injured, so she unloaded an agannazer's scorcher charge from the wand on it and it fell down.  An acid arrow finished it.  The remaining guard went on her way, and Aerie ducked into the kitchen, where she prepared the dog stew.  Before opening the door to the stairwell, she used monster summoning II to summon two panthers.  Then she opened the door and they both charged in, right at the troll.  The troll itself started to defend itself from them, but the stupid peasant it had been terrorizing didn't know when to shut up and screamed "help me, please," which reminded the troll that it was there, so, ignoring the panthers for the moment, it went back and chunked the peasant anyway.  All this at least let the panthers get a few more hits on the troll (and Aerie get a couple more hits on it with her bullets from the doorway), and take it down to badly injured before it whacked the last panther and rushed Aerie.  When it rushed her, she unloaded an agannazer's scorcher on it and backed into the kitchen.  It kept coming, but finally fell down, and she finished it off as she had the last, with an acid arrow.