16400 réponses à ce sujet

[corey_russell]

Candar the dwarven fighter, the crossbow expert

Candar and the gang (Khalid, Minsc, Jaheira, Imoen, Dynaheir) continue to make progress on Candar's quest. We cleaned up the problems in the Nashkel Mines, and successfully thwarted Nimbul's assassination attempt on Candar. The bottom two rows on the map (except TotSC areas) are all explored, except for the Ogre area on the coast.

Speaking of ogres, they give this party huge problems, despite the decent armor of the front-liners (anhkeg armor for Khalid, full plate for Minsc). Part of the problem is both Minsc and Khalid got some pretty stinky HP rolls (when Minsc turned level 3, think he got 1 HP from the level). For quite a while there, Ogres could take either one out with one hit. When we explored the area NE of Nashkel, another ogre area, we had quite a few temple runs. We would explore just a bit, then would need to do a temple run. However, always kept Candar far from trouble, so the run didn't end, just a lot of party deaths. In fact most of the party has died multiple times except Imoen and of course Candar.

I am going to attempt to do this run without a cleric (unless Jaheira gets chunked). This makes the monster summoning wand you get early pretty important, so will definitely sell and buy back to recharge when I can.

Candar is only -1 AC at the moment, but being in the back, having the most HP being a dwarven fighter, and his script (he uses the ranged fighter script) has kept him from any close calls. I am really suprised that no party members have been chunked yet, with all the deaths.

Top two performers on the party achievement screens:
Candar:


Minsc:


What's a bit unusual for my parties is no one is just running away with all the kills. Khalid has 103 kills and Jaheira has 87 (not bad for a sling), so they aren't too far away. Even Imoen has 63 kills. Dynaheir only has 23 kills, but mages always have the lowest kills in my parties. I am using a different formation than usual this run the T-formation. Using this formation has rarely gotten the back 3 characters under attack first, which is what I want. It also means even if we get attacked from our sides, all the ranged party members have equal opportunity to hit the targets. Having the weaker party members (okay Candar is not weak, but pretty important since he can't die once) in single file also makes the tanks of the group reach the rear quickly to intercept melees headed for our mage, for example (with boxcar formation takes longer for the rear party members to get help).

Party Status:
Khalid, level 4 fighter, 28 HP, -3 AC
Minsc, level 4 ranger, 24 HP, -6 AC
Jaheira, level 4 fighter/level 4 druid, 38 HP, 1 AC (ankheg armor on order for her, she not using a +1 shield yet finances haven't allowed it plus need to keep a buffer in funds since the party members die often)
Imoen, level 5 thief, 29 HP, 1 AC (not good when a thief has more HP than the front 2 fighters)
Candar, level 4 fighter, 44 HP, -1 AC
Dynaheir, level 4 mage, 18 HP, 8 AC

Modifié par corey_russell, 03 janvier 2011 - 06:52 .

[Grond0]

Getty's Guidebook
An interesting game so far.
- Cleared the road down to Nashkel without trouble.  In the process assembled the intended final party of Imoen, Montaron, Edwin, Kagain and Viconia.
- Disposed of the gnolls without Drizzt's help (as I didn't want him in the party this game).
- Took on Bassilus.  Getty fronted the attack and Bassilus thought he'd got him dominated, but Getty shrugged off the assault thanks to his berserker tendencies and Bassilus got no second chance.
- Successfully raised Melicamp at High Hedge.
- With Edwin whinging set off for the gnoll stronghold.  The Dark Horizons party there are quite vicious so used strategy of putting a sacrifice up front to use up one of their invisibilities and then trying to charm the attacker.  The ogrillons acted as initial bait and disposed of the first of the party.  Then Kagain sucked in Alister and managed to get him charmed (at the cost of his life).  Alister then used a sunfire to kill another invisible attacker, but seemed to treat his own sunfire as an attack on him and went unfriendly.  Viconia died in getting him charmed again, but the remainder of the party were finished off.  Alister was sacrificed in a frontal assault on the gnolls and Edwin also died when he lost his footing just as a charmed gnoll leader became uncharmed.  The remaining 3 in the party were able to kill all the gnolls, but didn't kill Dynaheir then as I've found in the past that Edwin seems to ignore Dynaheir's death if he was dead at the time and then subsequently leave the party.  After a trip back to Nashkel to restore the party they were working through the obligatory ambushes on the way back to the gnoll stronghold when Edwin decided to leave in a huff - couldn't he see I was doing my best!  I quickly killed him so that I didn't lose the high level scrolls dropped by the DH party (also one of the gnoll leaders had 2 6th level scrolls in his inventory).
- With Edwin deceased Dynaheir was recruited (she didn't seem to realise how lucky she was) and the party set off back to Nashkel.  Decided to stop off on the way to get a belt, but found 2 ogre berserkers waiting at the map entrance.  Made a big mistake in trying to run rather than immediately leaving the map as the ogre berserkers were immediately hasted by an ogre mage and chased after us.  Dynaheir and Montaron were cut down almost immediately and Viconia joined them as a succession of 7 or 8 charm attempts on an ogre berserker failed.  Eventually one succeeded and with his help the ogre mage was brought into the party, which made finishing off the remainder of the map area straightforward.
- Next step Nashkel mines.

[polytope]

Grond0 wrote...

Alister then used a sunfire to kill another invisible attacker, but seemed to treat his own sunfire as an attack on him and went unfriendly. 

Yes, charmed/summoned creatures go hostile from friendly fire (lame pun, I know), even if they're immune to the damage - sunfire actually inflicts fire damage to the caster as well, but grants 100% fire resistance for 3 seconds... For this reason, never cast sunfire during a time stop.

Btw. I was very impressed by your progress with a monk through the BGII section of SCS, I had trouble with some of those fights even with a fighter/mage.

[corey_russell]

Candar the dwarven fighter the Crossbow expert update 4 - A disaster strikes

We decided it was about time we got the skull that we know we will need for Melicamp, so we headed to the high hedge area. The fights outside Thalantyrs home?/store? were quite simple and safe. After clearing the map, I noticed that Candar was pretty close to leveling.

Therefore, I decided it was time for someone to take down those two flesh golems of Thalantyr's. Candar with his high HP was the logical choice since he could survive a critical hit. So did some equipment shuffling, borrowed Minsc's full plate and +1 large shield. Wasn't going to take any chances, so gulped a potion of absorption and a frost giant potion, and headed in. He headed in and dealt with the golems, out of sight of Thalantyr of course. He killed them without taking any damage at all and Candar succeeded in his mission and leveled with the 2nd golem dead:



Candar got another great HP roll and is now level 5 with 59 HP I am happy with that. He has far more HP than anyone in the party - but he still stays in the back!

So Candar went outside with the rest of the party. We were toying with the idea of returning Perdue's sword next, but remembered all the swords we are carrying from clearing High Hedge. So we headed to Thalantyr to sell, the whole party. But when we got in a big surprise awaited us - two hostile flesh golems were in melee range! I did not know these guys respawned. Everybody was in a bad position so told the party to leave - but for some reason we couldn't (flesh golem in the way? not sure). The delay was fatal for Dynaheir and she was permanently chunked. Still tried to leave but couldn't but then Jaheira and Khalid took big damage. I still had the buffs on Candar, so decided enough was enough let's attack the golems. Candar chunked both golems (guess that's justice/revenge for Dynaheir's chunking). Imoen was killed though not chunked.



So we finally did what we came in here for, to sell our High Hedge junk. We gathered our stuff, which was difficult couldn't see Imoen's stuff. Finally found it near the door icon and we left.

We resurrected Imoen, recruited Garrick to replace Dynaheir, and returned Perdue's sword. Khalid hit level 5 from the turn in, that was a nice suprise. His level 5 HP of 33 still doesn't hold a candle to Candar's level 5 HP of 59.

Garrick was level 4 when he joined the party. A bard's damage dealing is pretty pathetic, but I noticed that if we killed Basillus we could get a light crossbow of speed for him. So that's what we did. We showed Basillus the truth (or rather Imoen did with her 17 CHA) and he ended up fighting our party by himself. He had no chance but he cast I think rigid thinking on Imoen. Imoen started targeting Candar and started shooting her unenchanted shortbow at him. What a joke. I completely ignored her and worked on looting Basillus and the 2-hand swords and heavy crossbows lying around. As suspected she can only get a singe hit in and low damage at that.

So we headed to the Beregost Temple and the mayor was quite happy at our success. We were too, we got that lightcrossbow of speed for Garrick, and the adventure continues...

Modifié par corey_russell, 05 janvier 2011 - 05:00 .

[Grond0]

polytope wrote...

Grond0 wrote...

Alister then used a sunfire to kill another invisible attacker, but seemed to treat his own sunfire as an attack on him and went unfriendly. 

Yes, charmed/summoned creatures go hostile from friendly fire (lame pun, I know), even if they're immune to the damage - sunfire actually inflicts fire damage to the caster as well, but grants 100% fire resistance for 3 seconds... For this reason, never cast sunfire during a time stop.

Btw. I was very impressed by your progress with a monk through the BGII section of SCS, I had trouble with some of those fights even with a fighter/mage.

Thanks for the info; I hadn't realised that was how sunfire worked, although I knew about the effect on summoned creatures - it always annoys me in BG2 that you can't cast a fireball on an area including a fire elemental without turning them hostile.

I had a long-running monk in the pencil and paper version of AD&D around 30 years ago, so have a fondness for them from then.  Personally I think their armour class should be a bit better and their hit points are definitely too low for a martial class of character (I think they are far more likely than an average fighter to be able to take advantage of a good constitution).  However, once you get to L14 the magic resistance is a valuable benefit.  The hide in shadows ability also makes them a surprisingly good solo character - the first time I ran one through BG1 I was struggling against Sarevok, but regularly managed to hide behind pillars in the final battle, even though Sarevok was significantly faster (having taken a potion of speed).

[Grond0]

Getty's Guidebook
Continued making good, though rather risky at times, progress.
- took a detour to Ulgoth's Beard to pick up a ring of free action.  Also bought a helmet of charm protection as it will be a while before I can afford the green amulet.
- at the mines Kagain took the punishment at the front to take out the opposition on the 2nd level.  On the 3rd level initially charmed all the duergar and then got them to annihilate each other.  When only Gorken Bloodaxe was left he finally got wise to this and turned hostile.  As he had 5 potions of speed there was a long period of waiting + short journeys between levels to let these wear off before finishing him off.  The large group of kobolds were shifted thanks to 3 stinking clouds from dynaheir and the remaining opposition on the level caused little trouble.  Mulahey himself went down quite easily, although Viconia was bumped off by a flaming (arrow) kobold.  During the journey in the mines Imoen dualled to a mage.
- couple of minor setbacks in Beregost.  First Firebead refused to initiate his quest for some reason.  Then, in killing Tranzig in Feldepost's inn, the party inadvertently chased Algernon downstairs.  As he was still angry with me for pickpocketing his cloak he made everyone else in the room angry as well so I no longer have access to the shop there.
- off to the coast on the hunt for Brage, but were ambushed by the amazons.  Two were put out of action by a stinking cloud and a third went down to concentrated fire, but Maneira got in a fatal backstab on Dynaheir.  After picking up the remains I forgot about the need to keep backpack space available and dropped Brage's sword and a gem bag when he gave us a lift back to the temple.  After raising Dynaheir I was keen to visit the store and get back to see if the items were still on the ground - but had forgotten Nimbul was still lurking.  He didn't cause too much trouble, but a magic missile was too much for Dynaheir - the temple priest looked at us a bit strangely as Dynaheir was brought in for treatment for the second time in 5 minutes.  Back at the coast the ground items had all evaporated, except for the gem bag (which I think gets treated as a permanent quest item).  As we were there anyway took out the Doomsayer; a full collection of magic missiles was not quite enough so Kagain had to apply the coup de grace.
- up the coast scared some wolves away from a little boy and then looted a treasure cave.  Kagain dealt with the sirenes on his own (thanks to his helmet) and Montaron was deputed to fetch out the flesh golems and shoot them up.  At one point he got careless in a turn and lost his head to a golem swipe - deaths coming thick and fast at the moment, although Getty is successfully staying out of trouble.
- further up the coast stopped off to get the helm of defense.  I hadn't raised Montaron at this point and wondered whether he would be raised by the naiad as well as the one she killed and indeed he was.  Something to remember if you're ever too poor to pay the temple fees.
- rather than go straight back to town headed for the Cloudpeaks to finish a couple of quests bypassed on the way to the gnolls.  Unfortunately was ambushed by the other wandering party.  Imoen was killed immediately and Kagain taken down to 1 HP and running for his life.  Dynaheir used a stinking cloud to take Drakar out of the action and Halacan was badly wounded and fell soon after, but Dynaheir was then out of spells and it was a struggle to survive against the 2 fighters, who had taken speed potions.  Montaron led one a merry chase across the map before eventually being cut down.  Meanwhile Dynaheir was leading the other round and round while Viconia and Getty took pot-shots.  Although not easy to avoid being attacked by a faster opponent it can be done with extreme micro-management.  Dynaheir did make one tiny mistake and paid the price, while Viconia had to take over leading Molkar around as he dashed back from finishing Montaron.  However, at length Kagain regained his senses and the battle swayed back our way.  Morvin went down and a potion of speed recovered from his body made it relatively straightforward to polish off Molkar.
- although the ambushing party was heavily enhanced by SCS, Zal and Vax had received no such benefit and the 3 remaining characters had no hesitation in finishing them off.  Sendai might have received the same treatment, but had already talked to Kagain during his fearful running (and I was glad to placate her - a long time since I've been interested in that dialogue option!).  Then it was finally time to return to Nashkel and a spot of recuperation (and revivification).

[Enuhal]

New update for Arinja! A couple of strange things happened in this session...

Well, first, I completely explored Larswood and Peldvale. Met Osmadi, and, after killing, rested before talking to Corsone (because he had an Ironskin active at this point) and eventually Commanded him and killed him. Nothing of interest here.

When I entered the Bandit Camp (this time with the intention to kill everyone), I wandered around for a bit, and eventually I encountered what should have been the Amazon Party, but instead it was a quickly commanded and killed single amazon. I searched the whole area for the others, but they were nowhere to be found. Did anyone else experience such a strange thing yet? I actually want to fight them...

Far more interesting and dangerous, though, was my attack on the bandits camp - I decided to attack from the upper right corner for no specific reason.
I was not familiar with the mechanics of the SCS bandit camp, so I was a little bit shocked when suddenly all bandits teleported right to my group. I answered with Sleep, Glitterdust and Blind on Taugosz (successful), then used Holy Smite.
However, there came more and more bandits, and especially the black talon elites were giving my party a hard time. Luckily, I suddenly remembered the Wand of Fire Mulahey dropped for Arinja, and started spamming the thing. By the time I did this some of the Hold and Sleepspells already stopped working again, so eventually I lost Jaheira and Imoen and I had to retreat, even though I managed to slaughter pretty much veryone but ~4-5 Bandits and Taugosz himself.

Went to friendly arms inn to resurrect Imoen and Jaheira, buy new arrows and bulllets and rest. When I returned, all the bodys and all the loot were gone (as expected). Really a good thing that Taugosz was still alive, as I blinded and killed him - finally - Full Plate for Khalid. He also had a new belt against bludgeoning weapons and normal shield +1 and a war hammer +1.
Explored the tents, but no bandits left but a few gnolls - I really wondere where the few surviving regular bandits after the big battle went.

Maybe they decided to team up with the lost amazons...

Modifié par Enuhal, 05 janvier 2011 - 05:59 .

[Grond0]

Enuhal wrote...
When I entered the Bandit Camp (this time with the intention to kill everyone), I wandered around for a bit, and eventually I encountered what should have been the Amazon Party, but instead it was a quickly commanded and killed single amazon. I searched the whole area for the others, but they were nowhere to be found. Did anyone else experience such a strange thing yet? I actually want to fight them...

There was one game I had when both the ambushing parties tried to teleport in at the same time.  The result was that 3 from one group and 2 from the other turned up.  I didn't get a definitive answer on why this was, but my theory was that it was the result of a summoning limit of 5 being applied to the groups.  In your case this might also apply because the 4 characters who normally stay in the bandit HQ are teleported outside to join in the assault on you.

[corey_russell]

Candar the dwarven fighter crossbow expert - Update 5

Candar and friends (Minsc, Khalid, Jaheira, Imoen, Garrick) continue to explore the sword coast. Accomplished this session:

 We got some magic ranged ammo and then secured the Beregost Temple area. Nobody in this area gave us any trouble, including the various friends of the vampiric wolves.

Thinking ahead, I bought what stone to flesh scrolls we could afford (3) from the Beregost Temple. The reason why is we are headed to Ulcaster School, we've heard some interesting rumors about that area. However, there's a chance an ambush with a lesser basilisk can spawn. If that happens, want to be be able to turn party members back to life.

We headed to the Ulcaster School area. A ton of kobolds, goblins and skeletons. None of them proved to be any danger to the party. There's a lot of "junk" to be looted, we had to leave and sell and come back. We encountered a powerful skeleton warrior. We used our magic melee/ranged weapons and I had Garrick use the wand of missiles rather than use his light crossbow of speed, since the wand is a sure hit but with his Thac0 he could easily miss the skeleton warrior. This seemed effective as the skeleton warrior fell quickly. Imoen leveled to level 6.

We found a non-hostile ghost who said he needed a book retrieved from the school -- why was the school built underground, anyways? Or was that the basement? But in any case, being the adventurers that we are, we went down below. We encountered some dire wolves, dread wolves, some jellies, and some huge spiders. The party dealt with all these threats easily. We found a vampiric wolf guarding the cache were the book was and when we killed it we got a nice result as you see here:



Jaheira is now finally a level 5 druid. She will now be able to cast call lightning and invisibility purge, both quite useful spells. I had her memorize those spells immediately. We intend to fight the sirenes on the coast in the near future. Speaking of Sirenes, we went to Ulgoth's Beard and had just enough funds to purchase the greenstone amulet to protect Minsc when he gets ready to solo the Sirenes. It should be noted that along the way to Ulgoth's Beard we had to fight some Ankhegs. Khalid was killed despite our best efforts. Appears the fighters saves aren't quite good enough yet to do Ankheg hunting - this is good to know.  We found a wand of fire at the Ulcaster School. This was good news, Garrick will keep that equiped. Our necklace of missiles is running low on charges, and we dont' have the funds to recharge it any time soon.

We went to the coast and found an area with lots of Ogres & Half-Ogres with some hobgoblin friends. It was necessary to use a lot of heal potions here. I had wanted to sell the necklace of missiles (which only has one charge left) and buy it back to recharge. However, safety dictates that I better use the funds for healing potions instead (which I did).

Modifié par corey_russell, 06 janvier 2011 - 07:52 .

[corey_russell]

Candar the dwarven fighter, crossbow expert update 6 - The Fallen

The party continues to explore the Sword Coast, both to gather more gold and to become more experienced.

Our first stop was to the coastal area that had quite a few ogres and Sirines on the map, and some miscellaneous wolves. The ogres are still dangerous to my party, but one tactic we did was to tell the party to retreat 20 paces and have Garrick fire a fireball from his wand of fire. It wouldn't kill the ogres but sure made their fall much faster (and hence less healing needed). We encountered Neriayd (spelling might be off), who kissed Khalid and killed him. But we convinced her to raise him back to life. Her master, and Ogre Mage appeared. The party defeated him, and we got a nice helmet for Khaild. As for the Sirenes, Minsc attacked with greenstone amulet protection. What's interesting is Minsc would successfully get dire charmed, but still in control with the mind shield buff active. But as soon as a turn expired, the dire charm would still be in effect and Minsc would turn hostile. Fortunately I kept the party far away during this, and just waited out the dire charm.

We still had a lot of looting space, so we explored the coastal area just south of this area. Lots of Hobgoblins, but they mistake of being too close together and were blasted by Garrick's fire wand. We encountered a somewhat uncooperative mage, so the party got in position and Imoen got her first backstab of the game. I usually only let her try to backstab if there's a good chance she can survive the retribution of showing herself.



Next up was a group of Sirenes with Sil. The party kept their distance and Minsc approached protected by the greenstone amulet. When he got close he also went berserk. Took him a while to kill the 3 sirenes, but he did it. He again got successfully dire charmed with the greenstone amulet protection active. When it wore off he still attacked (he was still berserk).

After that we entered a pirate cave and found some flesh golems. Some interesting loot, but useful being a paralyzation wand, which Garrick later found quite useful to protect himself. The CON tome went to Candar, naturally. After killing the 3 flesh golems, I noticed one more golem kill would level two party members, so we rested in the cave and sure enough we killed one more flesh golem and got the fruit of our labor:



Both Garrick and Candar hit level 6 with that kill. Garrick now has 60 lore - just awesome for IDing things. He identified the CON tome without needing the identify spell, and most of my runs need the identify spell for that.

Now that the party was level 5 and above, I believed now was a good time to hit the bandit camp (I prefer level 5+ so that we have good chance of surviving the possible wyvern ambushes). I am not going to say we powered through the camp, because we did not. That is, we were victorious, but our front-liners took quite a beating doing so, even from the supposedly wimpy bandit archers. Originally my plan was for Candar to take the full plate, but Khalid really needs the extra piercing protection. Candar so far has stayed out of trouble in the back, plus his script keeps him out of trouble as well. Decided to give the full plate to Khalid after all. The next decision I needed to make was to either use Ankheg armor, which means can't use a +1 ring, or use plate mail and a +1 ring. Basically a choice of one extra AC or one extra save. Decided saves were more important for Candar so took the latter option.

I took the fight against Khosann Tausgauz seriously. I made sure everyone except the 2 tanks to have magical ranged ammo equipped, both for extra damage and extra Thac0. For that fight at least, Garrick was the man of the hour as Khosann failed his save against the first shot of Garrick's paralyzation wand.

Next up the bandit tent. Wasn't much buffing we could do, except for the all important remove fear buff of Jaheira's. We entered and started the battle. Battle went longer than they usually do. Despite quite a few people shooting the mage, he was casting spells for quite a while. Khalid and Minsc had to down a number of potions and get healing from Jaheira, but no one died.

This battle leveled Khalid and he he gained another proficiency point which I put in bows. Garrick IDed a +3 longbow. It's shame to let this go to waste, so had another decision to make. Decided to give Khalid the girdle of piercing, that plus his full plate puts his piercing/missile attack at -6. I gave the shield to Candar and Candar gave his 2-hand sword to Khalid and Khalid equiped the +3 bow. Now Khalid can bow or tank, whichever we need most.

In a chest in the tent found out that the Iron Throne has been sending those bounty hunters/assassins after me, and also involved with the Iron Crisis. They have a base in the Cloackwood Forest. We will go there, but not before being well prepared.

Throughout our travels, heard stories of Firewine bridge, so explored there next. We encountered a swordsman who thought he was much better than our party - he wasn't.

Next target was Khark. Up to this point in my no-reloads, I have used masses of summons but that isn't an option with no animte dead. We have a monster summoning wand, but think it's low charges. We are going to sell and buy back when funds allow, don't want to use it up. So the strategy was everyone would have magical ranged ammo, Minsc would get Khark's attention and use the blue magic potion. This potion blocks all level 5 spells and below, but only for 5 rounds. We were hoping we could kill Khark by then. Garrick knows the dispel magic spell, but ironically isn't high enough level-wise to cast it, so will have to do without.

So we start the battle, and so far so good, lots of mean stuff being launched at Minsc, such as lightning bolts. But Khark is still alive when the potion wears off, and now Minsc takes a beating. Jaheira puts heals on Minsc and he potions. Then Khark starts to melee. Minsc was getting low so him run and potion and Jaheira kept healing him. But a moment before Jaheira's heal was going to hit this happened:



Yep Khark dies, but with his last blow chunks Minsc. (I feel a bit sorry for Minsc - he by far is my most chunked character in both BG 1 and BG 2). Time for a replacement tank, who should we get? Kagain would be a good choice, but we are at 20 rep, and still have things to buy so don't want to lower it just so he will be happy. So we recruit Ajantis instead. I was PLEASANTLY suprised at what we got when we recruited him - he was level 6 with 46 HP! (ok 46 is not fantastic for level 6 fighter, BUT even so is quite a bit more than Minsc had). We will miss Minsc pack-rat ability, but fortunately Candar is still a good packrat.

Modifié par corey_russell, 07 janvier 2011 - 05:24 .

[Grond0]

Getty's Guidebook
- Finished off the remaining areas south of Beregost without much trouble.  Kaahrk took a fair while to kill due to the large number of protective spells he has, but never really threatened.
- Headed for the bandit camp.  Failed to kill Tazok, but the rest of the outside crew were easy as the defenders inside the main hut stayed there and waited for their fate to come to them.
- In the Cloakwood Montaron was killed by Centeol's cone of cold.  On heading back to the Friendly Arm to get him raised we were ambushed by Najara and Vallius and it took a while to get through their quality armour.  Burned most of a wand of magic missiles in trying to stop Vallius's spells.
- In the Cloakwood mines got a bit careless in the first battle with Hareishan - she confused all but 2 of the characters and there were huge numbers of guards attacking.  Ended up losing Dynaheir, Montaron and Imoen and had to take the weary trip home to the temple.  Montaron and Imoen didn't last too long on their return as Daveorn killed them with successive sunfires, but the route to the big city was now open.
- In Baldur's Gate spent a while doing tasks before invading the Iron Throne.  Invis 10' allowed a good position and a few fireballs softened up the opposition enough to make the fight easy.
- On into the catacombs.  Viconia got confused by a greater doppleganger and killed by a trap she ran through, but the remainder pressed on.  Needed to rest when I realised that 1 potion of mirrored eyes was the only protection against petrification available to the party, but no-one disturbed their beauty sleep.
- Now party is back to full strength at the Friendly Arm ready for the final push to the palace next time.

[corey_russell]

Looks like you are making good progress there Grond0 - good luck for your final stretch!

[Enuhal]

After exploring Ulcaster and Gullykin, Arinjas no-reload attempt ended at the Firewine Ruins, were the Ogre Mage Kargh killed her without any effort whatsoever. Turns out he can cast sixth level spells with SCS, including improved haste, and he has at least 2 chaos spells, stoneskin, mi, shadow door, minor globe of invulnerabilty, a minor sequencer with two instantdeath-chromatic orbs etc. etc. - well, the group didn't really stand a chance since I had no effective way of dealing damadge to him, and I messed up using the invisibilty potions in time before everyone got confused and killed.

[corey_russell]

Sorry to hear of the end of your run. Even in Vanilla, that Khark is one mean son-of-a-gun. My party recently engaged him and defeated him, but at the cost of Minsc being permanently killed (chunked). I have also had a run end there as well.

[corey_russell]

Candar the dwarven fighter, the crossbow expert, Update 7 - Basilisks area

Normally don't do an update for one area, but this was pretty significant, could have been a huge disaster. Normally for this area, I summon ton of skeletons and have a single fighter with protection from petrification, a STR potion, and sleep wand for the gnolls (so they don't slaughter the skeletons). But with no cleric that wasn't an option. In addition, we need to buy back our monster summoning wand, but Thalantyr wants 26k to recharge.

So the party had to do the dirty work. I put protection from petrification on Candar, and Garrick cast the same via spell on our 2 front-liners, Khalid and Ajantis. Initially, the plan was working fantastic, no one got petrified. We had cleared most of the map (including the bragging adventuring party, who couldn't even survive a single fireball and a single call lightning), when we ran into Mutomutin (spelling might be off) and his basilisk pets. As it turned out, just before contact with him, the 2 front-liners protection from petrification wore off (uh-oh).  While we killed mutomutin quickly the same cannot be true of of the baslisk pets. Khalid and Ajantis got petrified quickly. I had everyone (including Korax) kill the lesser basilisk. Then we went after the greater. Right at this point, Jaheira got petrified and Korax turned hostile (uh-oh). Things were looking bad, I had Garrick fire a fireball from his fireball wand while he still had a chance, this killed the greater basilisk (whew) but not before it petrified Imoen.

Korax then chased Garrick. Candar got some distance, Garrick tried to use the wand of fire for aganazer scorcher but got held and killed almost immediately. I am not playing Tutu so if I go into my inventory it will unpause. There was nothing to do but charge with his melee weapon and hope I save vs. hold - forturnately I did and killed Korax.  Below was then the situation (notice the petrified party members nearby).



This could have been horrible disaster. But Candar was ready for this, he had 5 stone to flesh scrolls. Didn't expect he would need 4 of them...so he used them and got everyone alive, though badly hurt. Even if I burned all my heal potions, I couldn't get everyone to 100%. BUT now that the adventuring party is no more, it's much safer for a solo person to do the rest of the map. Didn't want the protection from petrifcation to go to waste, so Candar equipped a shield, put down his crossbow, and cleared the rest of the map himself.

The party managed to get to Beregost without an ambush..close call. Repleneshing our healing potions and stone to flesh scrolls will be our first order of business.

[Grond0]

Enuhal wrote...
After exploring Ulcaster and Gullykin, Arinjas no-reload attempt ended at the Firewine Ruins, were the Ogre Mage Kargh killed her without any effort whatsoever. Turns out he can cast sixth level spells with SCS, including improved haste, and he has at least 2 chaos spells, stoneskin, mi, shadow door, minor globe of invulnerabilty, a minor sequencer with two instantdeath-chromatic orbs etc. etc. - well, the group didn't really stand a chance since I had no effective way of dealing damadge to him, and I messed up using the invisibilty potions in time before everyone got confused and killed.

Yes - he's actually got several stoneskins, mi etc so is very difficult to take out in a straight-forward combat.  You might get lucky with wand of paralyzation or you could use wand of frost (though you'll lose all his items if you do that).  What I normally do is try and clear the rest of the map first (to allow room to move around without interference) and then depute a single character to approach him, while the rest stay well away (also a bit separated in case he dashes for them and uses an area of effect spell).  Protect the character from fear and confusion and they have a reasonable chance of using up his spells (Viconia is often helpful with her innate magic resistance).  If that character does fall send in another single character and so on until he only has melee ability and can be safely shot up from distance (which will probably take a fair while).

[Gate70]

Corey, vanilla multi-player allows paused inventory access at the expense of being a bit more laggy and probably having to start the game in windowed mode. Just thought I'd mention it but you probably already know.



If you decide to try it all you need to do is copy the savegame to the MPSAVE folder.

[corey_russell]

Gate70 wrote...

Corey, vanilla multi-player allows paused inventory access at the expense of being a bit more laggy and probably having to start the game in windowed mode. Just thought I'd mention it but you probably already know.

If you decide to try it all you need to do is copy the savegame to the MPSAVE folder.

Thanks for the info. When I mentioned I couldn't pause, was just saying it so people knew my setup. I don't mind the challenge of no pausing in inventory (makes more sense - "Hey bad guys, hang on a sec while I dig through my inventory!")

[Gate70]

Yes, understand your point. Have played many times like this and it certainly makes you think. e.g. slings over darts, constantly replenishing missiles, potions of healing/cure poison for everybody, etc. I usually struggled in a few areas though (Aec'letec mainly but also Sarevok and greater wyverns).

[Grond0]

Getty's Guidebook
Final update for Getty.
- no problems at the palace.  A few summoned skeletons helped the party save both the dukes.
- off to the Friendly Arm to deal with the Grey Clan.  The fight with the necromancer was probably the most difficult encounter to date due to the number of allies he can summon.  Fortunately a lot of these were duped into attacking the mold golem and the party eventually triumphed, though Imoen and Montaron were killed.
- once back to full strength the party went into the Friendly Arm and had no difficulty with that fight.  Then used the golem to get an intelligence upgrade for Getty.
- made a major error in resting without a visit to the temple and gained a second vampiric drain rather than a rather holier power.
- did enough of the Dark Side of the Sword Coast to get manuals for constitution and dexterity, but didn't feel the need to finish that off this run through.
- then heading underground for the final confrontation.  This was more difficult than I expected - partly as I did no buffing and partly because I forgot that I had some arrows of dispelling that would probably have allowed the magic users to be put down much earlier.  By the end half the party had been killed, but the remainder were amply sufficient to finish off Sarevok - who couldn't believe that he had lost (again).

Final party stats:
Kagain, L9 fighter, 104 HP, 35% kills
Getty, L9 berserker, 98 HP, 15% kills
Viconia, L8 cleric, 38 HP, 9% kills
Montaron, L7/9 fighter/thief, 52 HP, 22% kills
Dynaheir, L9 invoker, 44 HP, 8% kills
Imoen, L6/9 thief/mage, 59 HP, 8% kills
Next stop Athkatla!

[corey_russell]

Congratualtions, Grond0! Good luck in Amn!

[wise grimwald]

Well done Grond0. Serves you right with the vampyric Drain though. You must have been a naughty boy.

I tend to keep rep at 20, so that I rarely have that problem. (Only if someone in my party accidentally kills an innocent.)

[Gate70]

Yes, well done.

[Grond0]

wise grimwald wrote...

Well done Grond0. Serves you right with the vampyric Drain though. You must have been a naughty boy.

I tend to keep rep at 20, so that I rarely have that problem. (Only if someone in my party accidentally kills an innocent.)

I tend not to rest a lot and was going through the quests quite fast towards the end so the special abilities came pretty much together.  I had deliberately reduced my reputation to 9 to pick up a horror instead of a second slow poison and then vampiric drain, but had intended to visit the temple immediately thereafter.  Unfortunately tea-time intervened and I then forgot on the restart (obviously must be my wife's fault and not mine).
 
By the way best of luck in Nepal.  I have fond memories of a walking holiday there as part of a year's world travel about 20 years ago.

[corey_russell]

Candar the dwarven fighter the crossbow expert - Update 8

The party contineues their quest. Pelvale and Larswood successfully cleared without incident. My last run ended in these areas due party to a poorly aimed fireball, was much more careful with my area effect aiming.

We found some wizards of Thay who said we had to die. Their analysis was pretty flawed however, the party used their ranged power to kill their leader and Garrick fired two shots of his fire wand, well-aimed. With the loot from here were FINALLY able to afford Thalantyr's recharge cost of our wand of monster summoning, a cool 22,500 gold.

Candar feels confident now to braving the cloakwood with summons available to act as a screen. Candar was correct, 4 areas of Cloakwood cleared, and numerous ambushes, but the party prevailed with no deaths.

In fact in exploring these 4 cloakwood areas, there was only one death, Imoen. How did you happen you say? Well I remember my fighter/thief Kraq one-shotted Hamaryd the dryad. So Imoen stealthed and gave it shot. Her backstab was for a whopping 5 pts...she kept getting dire charmed so we tried to wait it out. But then the 3rd spell cast was hold person. The party charged to Imoen's rescue but not in time and she was killed. No wonder I don't have her backstabbing more often.

One ambush had a really nice result, 2 party members leveled:


Forgot to mention earlier, Molkar and fellow assasins were defeated by a single fireball to soften them up, and a call lightning. After that Ajantis tanking with the party contributing ranged firepower was more than enough to cleanly win the battle.



Whenever possible, Ajantis tanks by himself, and Khalid supports with his bow. I think he will over-take Candar soon in # of kills, those two are my top performers:





The rest of my party has good amount of kills, think my formation is allowing everyone to contribute. Jaheira has 214 kills, Imoen 171 and even Garrick has 151.

Modifié par corey_russell, 09 janvier 2011 - 02:56 .