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[Serg BlackStrider]

Excellent job, V and Grond0! Congrats and see ya in Athkatla!

[Grond0]

The SCS improved greater dopplegangers cast horror at the start of the combat (and sometimes during it) as well as mirror image on themselves, but the main problem from them is that their attack confuses on touch (magic resistance does not protect against this). The green amulet, or an equivalent, is therefore pretty essential in a combat with them. The potion of invulnerability was of benefit in this combat only for its improved AC.

[corey_russell]

Grond0 wrote...

The SCS improved greater dopplegangers cast horror at the start of the combat (and sometimes during it) as well as mirror image on themselves, but the main problem from them is that their attack confuses on touch (magic resistance does not protect against this). The green amulet, or an equivalent, is therefore pretty essential in a combat with them. The potion of invulnerability was of benefit in this combat only for its improved AC.

Ah, no wonder, that explains a lot, thanks.

[Vaclavc]

Big congrats, Grond0!

Gate70 wrote...
V, for your hit/run in the ship were you hiding (must be tough after 1 go with the ring), or just running after a hit which again seems risky in a cramped area, or dropping to another level to hide and return. I'm asking as I'd like to run a thief next and would have thought that part would be very difficult.

With Oil of Speed and Boots of Speed, you can easily outrun just about everything in the vanilla game. After backstab, I often managed to run into the fog of war behind some corner, pillar, crates, etc, before enemies could react. This requires some planning and scouting before every battle and sometimes I had to run from the stairs and hide in lower level (especially in the battle with Karoug). For emergency cases, I had Potions of Invisibility and Ring of Invisibility.
Werewolf island is indeed difficult, but not as much as I thought. Battle with Aec'Letec and some parts of Durlag's Tower were much worse.

V

[Gorthaur X]

Cleared the mines. Hareishan caused a bit of trouble by confusing Elvira and Kagain, and then charming Mal and, again, Kagain. Viconia's freeze ray way was of great use in the fight, turning the tide in out favour.

Davaeorn managed to kill Kivan with a fireball, but again, Viconia managed to disrupt him on a few key occasions, after which Mal's illusion detecing and swordsmanship did the rest.

There definitely appears to be something wonky with my install, however. Natasha almost killed Mal with a lightning bolt, even though he went invisible while she was casting, which should have canceled the spell, and Dave was stoneskinned and chucking Melf's meteors throughout the fight, even though SCS is set to remove BG2 spells from the game and have enemy mages only use magic present in the orginal BG1.

Modifié par Gorthaur X, 17 septembre 2011 - 11:46 .

[Gorthaur X]

Did a few odd quests on the way to Baldur's Gate, and then went to Ulgoth's Beard to spend some of the piles of gold we'd looted from the mines. Mal now sports the Cloak of Displacement, allowing the Boots of Avoidance to be replaced with the Boots of Grounding (Elvira now has the former, as she has previously been the favored target of enemy archers), and the Greenstone Amulet to protect him against mind-affecting magic - thus far, his greatest weakness.

With Mal's fire resistance now at 90 (40 from a ring, and an undocumented 50 from Frostbrand) and electricity resistance at 50, I feel relatively safe from surprise fireballs and, more importantly, the often game-ending bouncing bolts of lightning.

Passing the Wyrm's Crossing, we also killed Imanel Silversword, whose stylish-looking armor now graces Imoen. I may have said this before, but Imanel is one of the coolest mod-added NPCs; I almost, almost wish I could have her join my group in Kivan's place.

The state of the party:

Mal: Level 8 Swashbuckler, 56 HP
Elvira: Level 7 Sorcerer, 40 HP
Imoen: Level 5 Thief / Level 7 Mage, 51 HP
Kivan: Level 7 Archer, 54 HP
Kagain: Level 7 Fighter, 81 HP
Viconia: Level 6 Cleric / Level 6 Mage, 34 HP

Oh, and since it occurs to me that I have forgotten to give my current run's mod setup, here it is.

[The Fred]

The Amnish Soldiers killed the Baby Wyvern for us, so no XP there. Raising Immy also cost me most of my cash, but we sold its oversized head along with some other stuff so are now on over 700gp. Luckily the confrontation with the creature's owners left us with enough XP for Eirn to reach L3.

Rescuing Melicamp went pretty smoothly this time - we were interrupted whilst resting by a lone skelly, who Eirn rushed with his short sword whilst Imoen used her sling (this is better since he's more proficient with a sword than darts, the skelly can hit you with daggers anyway, and missile weapons do very little damage to skellies). Sleep did for the single wolf chasing the poor chicken. He also survived the transformation this time, boosting Imoen to L2.

Since I had the Bhaalspawn dream earlier on, I went and tried my hand at nabbing Algernon's cloak - luckily I was able to pick-pocket it (somehow) so no rep loss. We then acquired a book for Firebead and delivered a letter to Mirianne.

Next stop is probably the FAI. I also need to get Immy Blindness so we can take on such foes as Karlat in the Red Sheaf (and thus complete the slime quest and Perdue's quest). Should have bought her a scroll at High Hedge but I forgot, so it can wait.

[corey_russell]

Just wanted to mention Fred that yes, piercing missile weapons are mostly ineffective against skeletons, but bullets from slings is still viable.

[Grond0]

Risque fell to rakshasas in BG2, so I've started a new character.  Tumble is a dwarf berserker - unusual for me to play a single class character, but I didn't really want anything with magic and this should provide a nice bit of hack and slash.

Thus far he has been to the Friendly Arm and Beregost, but not got to Nashkel yet.  Nothing of particular note to report - just reached L4 and has grand mastery in axes.  He's currently in the lighthouse area on the way to get the constitution tome, which will allow him to regenerate.

[corey_russell]

Just wanted to comment Grond0 that it's good to see you bounce back so fast. You've been doing a lot of berserkers this year, but it's a great class so don't blame you. While my run didn't end tonight, I did lose my wife Paja in my paladin run, she got chunked by Thaxxssyllyia. Keldorn replacing her.

[Grond0]

So I noticed - hope doing all those good deeds will enable you to carry on despite your grief.

[Grond0]

Tumble nearly came to grief in the Lighthouse area.  Started the game up, while still half-asleep and forgot about the sirenes' confusion on touch ability.  Tumble was duly confused after his berserking ran out, but fortunately he was tough enough to finish off the sirenes despite that.  That also gave him level 5. 

After making use of the constitution tome he finally made his way to Nashkel to do a few chores and get his first Bhaal power.  Clearing Drizzt's lake area provided level 6.  Made a slight mistake with Thalantyr in attempting to kill the flesh golems after already speaking to him (causing him to go hostile) - guess I'll have to sell Melicamp into slavery then.

Shoal the nereid, ogres and sirenes made a nice XP boost on the sword coast and a horde of ankhegs got him to level 7.  Helped Tenya and then killed a couple of elven assassins on the bridge.  Their equipment funded the acquisition of ring of free action, cloak of displacement and green amulet in Ulgoth's Beard.
Finishing off the elven assassins on the way back south funded full plate and a mithril axe and Tumble is now ready to crack on with the main quest.

[Grond0]

Tumble duly attacked the Nashkel mines and got through there without any real problems.  The duergar did enough damage to make him retreat a couple of times, but without really being threatening, while the kobolds and Mulahey went down easily.

A brief stop in Beregost to discover the location of the bandit camp and then travelled straight there.  Tumble was met by the Amazon assassins, but they were unable to do more than slow him down slightly.  The outside bandit crew evaporated pretty quickly under fire from Tumble's throwing axe, while the ones in the tent didn't fare much better - Tumble just diving out and back in once to avoid a spell from Venkt.

Back at the Friendly Arm Tumble was in the middle of dealing with Najara and Vallius when Molkar and his wrecking crew arrived.  Tumble managed to kill both spell users in the initial melee, but was forced to run for it when both fighters hit at the same time - that's the first time he's been dangerously down on HPs since being confused by the sirenes early on.  After healing on the run he had no further problems with finishing off the opposition and headed into the Cloakwood.

Only did the few battles necessary to proceed through the maps in order to get to the mine area.  Here he used a scroll of protection from magic and beat up Drasus to get his boots of speed.  Then he ignored the rest of the opposition and hot-footed it through all the guards into the mine (I had another scroll of magic protection, but wanted to use only 1 if possible).  In the mine Tumble weaved through Hareishan's guards - didn't try and kill any, though a number fell victim to their own lightning trap - and went straight through the next level to get to Daveorn.  I knew all the guards bypassed would follow on down, but thought Daveorn's spell protections would make it hard for them (which they did).  Daveorn fell before Tumble needed to do any healing and he immediately took the elevator up, ignoring all the remaining opposition and treasure (he's got more money than he needs anyway).  Tumble hadn't talked to Rill, but pretended that he had in order to flood the mine - which didn't do his reputation much good. Still with his scroll protection up he just ran back past all the guards and headed for the big city.

Modifié par Grond0, 18 septembre 2011 - 12:23 .

[Grond0]

Final update for Tumble. 

In the city he acquired the tomes and helm & cloak of Balduran.  Together with the +2 ring from Ramazith that brought Tumble's standard save against spells down to 1 at 8th level - got to love those dwarves.  Used potions of invisibility to bypass the Iron Throne party and open the way to Candlekeep.  Again avoided combat there, except with one doppleganger and a few phase spiders.  Used scroll of magic protection and storm giant strength to loot the tombs and then a potion of invisibility to sneak out.

Back in the city potions of invulnerability and insulation dealt with Cythandria and her golems.  With them still up, speed, heroism, storm giant strength and mind focusing were added for Slythe & Krystin.  Slythe missed his first backstab and didn't get a second chance.  Krystin successfully removed those buffs, which enraged Tumble.  Krystin then cast greater malison, so Tumble countered with magic shielding.  Krystin still managed to get several licks in with magic missiles, Melfs and skull traps, but ultimately in vain.

Before heading to the palace took a detour to Durlag's Tower and picked up the tomes there.  Then back to the palace and buffed up - invulnerability, speed, heroism, power, storm giant strength, regeneration, divine might and of course enrage.  With that lot Tumble sliced through the greater dopplegangers like a hot knife through butter.  I was confident enough to try, successfully, to keep Liia alive as well as Belt.

An invisibility potion took Tumble into the temple with all the potion buffs still active and he immediately set about Sarevok.  This time Sarevok did not get held in Semaj's web, but Tumble with a THACO of -4 still hit him every time.  Sarevok went down in less than 3 rounds.

Realised too late that I had forgotten to get Tumble to rest to acquire his last Bhaal power, but never mind - a berserker shouldn't really need it anyway.

Here are his final stats - constitution is being affected by the Claw of Kazgoroth and HPs are up 5 due to helm of Balduran.  Tumble had 454 kills in BG1.

[The Fred]

Imoen and Eirn the Swashbuckler attempted to travel North to the FAI. Unfortunately, a band of Kobolds got in their way. Imoen unleashed a Sleep but at the same time, they loosed arrows at her and shot her down almost immediately. It transpired that these guys actually included some DH Kobold Guards and a Kobold Commando. Ouch. Well, luckily they'd all been hit by Sleep, so Eirn was able to grab her stuff and flee.

What with buying Blindness (twice) at High Hedge and the cost to raise Immy (again), we were pretty out of pocket. However, we were now able to take on Karlat - the second Blindness hit and, after AGES of throwing darts at him, he gave up the ghost. The Slime Quest and Perdue's Short Sword quest were then completed.

We took a different route to the FAI the second time. A band of gibberlings gave Eirn his fourth level, and a second point in Short Swords (with hindsight one in Large or something and one in Missile might have been better, since by the time he gets his second mage one he'll be a Swash again so should be able to put two in Short Swords then, right?). After using two more Sleep spells on Xvarts, we had to flee the final gibberling pack but made it intact to our destination. Hooray.

The pair now:
Eirn, Chaotic Good Human Male Swashbuckler 4
HP: 28, AC: 0
Profs: Small Sword **, S&S *
Skills: Find Traps 80, Open Locks 70

Imoen, Neutral Good Human Female Wild Mage L2
HP: 11, AC: 6
Profs: Missile *
Spells: Blindness, Sleep (also Chromatic Orb and NRD)

[corey_russell]

Congratulations, Grond0 on taking down Sarevok! Is that like some kind of record run? Your wild mage just died yesterday yet you are already in Amn again!

[Grond0]

Yes - I didn't set out trying to do it particularly fast, but as you pointed out earlier the berserker is an easy character to progress. I was actually thinking towards the end of my run that I might try a run next time with the specific aim of completing it as quickly as possible in real time (I've done several speed runs before, but all based on game time rather than real time). Given that I've got my installation running at maximum speed I reckon I could probably do it in something like 2 hours - certainly less than 3. However, first I need to see whether I can last more than a few hours in BG2!

[The Fred]

Forgot to mention Eirn got Joia's Flamedance ring and Gurke's cloak back for them.

However, it didn't make much difference as he came to a rather sticky end. We were headed to clear out the half-ogres, and ran into a group of skellies in the Bassilus area. We quickly fled but some hobgoblins blocked our path, and they all saved vs Sleep. Imoen was shot down. Eirn fled, but I wanted to get her stuff, so I went back. The bad guys were still there, so I fled again, and returned again. This time a hobgoblin scored a crit. I tried to heal, but I didn't realise the Bhaalspawn power under TuTu doesn't cast quickly like it did in vanilla BG. Whilst he was casting, he was cruelly slain.

Bit annoyed about that, especially the slow healing. With hindsight, the stuff probably would have lasted if I'd gone and raise Immy first, and the guys might have gone. The skellies also seem bugged under the Walking Speeds mod since they go at full speed. I might try and do something about that, it's a bit of a pain.

[corey_russell]

Consolations there the Fred. You say it was slow, but you sure it wasn't something to do with a "round" check. e.g., did you do something a moment before and need to wait 6 seconds for the next round before your heal would kick in?

[Gorthaur X]

Went to the Firewine Bridge, where some fool challenged Mal into a duel. He accepted the challenge, and defeated the man one on one. Nice bracers he had.



Then we went back to Durlag's where Elvira slaughtered Kirinhale, after which we cleared the first underground level.




"Pride hit hard, and this fight cost us a few extra healing pots, but ultimately, the trusty combo of Doom & Blindness won the day."

Then it was back to the city, where we ran a few errands, of which the only one worthy of note was Ramazith's tower - sadly, Viconia froze and shattered the mage along with his +2 ring. For shame, Viconia. Still, we soon decided to hit the Iron Throne.


"Boom! These guys had nice saves - six fireballs in a round and none of them even died."

Following that, we decided to deal with the last Throne stragglers, namely the two would'be poisoners. Mal was initially refused the Book of Wisdom, but fortunately, Elvira was received much better. Mal used the book on himself, lied to the priestess and ran with the cure, after which we went to kill Marek.


"Detect Illusions: a really nice skill."

As an afterthought, we decided to clean the Merchant League building of Doppelgangers and killed Sunin for his Ring of Wizardry.

We're just about ready to leave for Candlekeep, and with everyone at around 120k experience, we may not even have to finish the TotSC areas.

[The Fred]

corey_russell wrote...

Consolations there the Fred. You say it was slow, but you sure it wasn't something to do with a "round" check. e.g., did you do something a moment before and need to wait 6 seconds for the next round before your heal would kick in?

No, though that seemed to happen with Immy when she tried to gulp a potion quickly - I think perhaps it was still the same round she'd tried her Sleep. He cast it right away, but in vanilla BG the Bhaalspawn CLW has an extra-fast casting time of 1 or something, whereas this cast at normal CLW speed. Possibly how it should be, but not what I was expecting. Oh well. It's a bit annoying since I had been thinking of picking up another char for protection (maybe Branwen) anyway, but that's that I guess.

I've also copied the Walking Speeds code and changed it to work on Skellies and Imoen, so hopefully there'll be no more of these crazy steriods undead dagger-throwers/bowmen speeding around all over the place.

[The Fred]

Entering the challenge with Sidarus, Chaotic Good Human Male Beastmaster L1
Stats: 18/92, 18, 18, 7, 18, 9 (first roll; I hate playing low-Int chars, but min/maxing...)
Profs: Missile ** Blunt ** TWF ** (will dual to Cleric at L3)

Beastmasters are meant to stink, but Sidarus' Fairy Dragon familiar could be pretty useful early on, thanks to Invisibility 10' Radius. He'll also be able to use very few weapons by the time he becomes a Cleric, but oh well. He will get all priest spells, and I don't know whether he'll be able to cast his Beastmaster Animal Summoning spells with low Cleric slots, because that'd be awesome.

[Grond0]

I've set up a blade to do a speed run (details in separate thread), but want some uninterrupted time for that - which I should be able to do tomorrow.  In addition I'm really only seeing that character as doing BG1, so in the meantime I've started another character, who is intended to progress to BG2.  The plan is to dual him to a bounty hunter at level 7.



So far he has done various tasks around Beregost and just reached level 3.

@corey_russell.  I can see you're concerned for my sanity, so will be trying to take good care of this one and make some decent progress.

[corey_russell]

That looks like a pretty decent roll there Grond0, how long you take to get that? But in any case, good luck with your fighter/bounty hunter. Do you have the TotSC experience cap? Will you be able to get to level 8 thief with it on if so? Or intend to regain fighter levels in BG 2?

[Gorthaur X]

Mal's journey ends in the Candlekeep Catacombs, where he decided to use his new 127% fire resistance to lure a bunch of ghasts into a fireball trap, but made a poor saving throw.

So many ways this could have been avoided. Supreme arrogance on my part.