Easymask wrote...I have learned that when waiting for a potion to be glug'ed or a spell to be cast and Rigid Thinking hits - the character will do that next even under the effect of the spell
Strange, I learned that myself yesterday. I had queued
Command, fell under
Rigid Thinking, and then
Command was still cast (while
Rigid Thinking was under effect) anyway... it appears
Rigid Thinking just blocks you from giving future commands and then when your action queue is empty will start doing its behavior. But not quite, since characters in melee will stop fighting as soon as they are
Rigid Thinking affected.
Anyway, I'll muse about the engine later. For now,
UPDATE: Tiela F HE Cleric/Ranger(vanilla btw-weidu + BG1NPC )
After defeating the Ogre with the belt fetish, the next task was to recruit Kivan (as early as possible, I like to pick my NPC proficiencies myself rather than have the upper-level NPCs who are already set). Going to High Hedge, Kivan refused to talk with Tiela. She returned to Beregost, helped Firebead with a book ( +1 Rep ), bet even this higher reputation was insufficient to sway Kivan into dialog.
So, instead she worked down towards Nashkel, helping Mirianne (+1 ring, no Rep) and then skipping down to Lord Foreshadow, who give Tiela a helpful ring: leaving the rest of the maps pretty much unexplored. Tiela went back and successfully recruited Kivan.
From there, the pair travelled to Nashkel, met the mayor, found some Ankheg armor, and headed straight to the mines. (I normally prefer some extra levels before attempting the mines, but Tiela is apparently somewhat reckless and I want to get to Xan and Coran as early as possible). This being my first attempt at the Nashkel mines without a thief, I was a little nervous but things went just fine. She triggered the bridge traps one at a time (healing between each one) and they worked around the traps at the bottom of L3.
Working their way through the meagre kobold resistance to Xan, the party added Xan, let him learn whatever scrolls were accumulated thus far, and managed to rest in Xan's prison before taking on Mulahey. Since Mulahey insists on walking up to the top of the room after his dialog, we took advantage of the fact and rushed everyone to the bottom of the room pre-dialog. Mulahey started his walk up to his casting spot after calling for reinforcements, but a thick layer of
Grease slowed his movement significantly, a
Command spell stopped him for another moment, and Kivan quietly and quickly just plugged him full of arrows. He was in bad shape even before trying to cast his first spell, and bullets and arrows quickly downed him.
At this point, I had planned to twalk back up through the mines and not take the secret exit: but Tiela seemed to disagree... for some reason I just couldn't help but take her out the back exit and attempt the Amazons. With only L2 cleric spells and two L1 Wizard spells ( no evocations due to Xan's specialist restrictions ), I was convinced this was entirely foolhardy, but had to make the attempt... it just seemed in line with Tiela's adventures thus far.
The plan was simple, as I had little to work with. Cast
Remove Fear, approach from the non-priest side of the group, use Kivan to draw fire and return ranged attacks, and use Tiela to
Silence the clerics and then hopefully
Hold the archers before moving in. Xan had really nothing to do, since he had no ranged weapons, and
Armor and
Sleep weren't going to be that helpful in the battle (although he did cast
Armor in advance), until I remembered the
Wand of Frost (which in bgt-weidu seems to do
Cone of Cold as an area effect instead of the previous column of ice for single target).
The opening gambit went OK, but not as well as I would have wished. Kivan did draw fire, but unfortunately also fell to a
Rigid Thinking spell that one of the clerics fired before Tiela could finish her
Silence... effectively taking him out of the rest of combat except as an archer target for a round or two.
Silence did work on both clerics, and Xan's
Wand of Frost damaged the entire Amazon party. Still, it was four on two, although Tiela's group was the only one with any spellcasting ability.
To even the odds, Tiela had Xan use a second charge from the
Wand of Frost while she fired off a
Hold Person spell to incapacitate the ranged attackers. The spell held one (but not both), but the wand still worked well, killing one of the clerics, and forcing the other ranged attacker to panic.
Tiela and Xan closed to melee range, and Xan managed to quickly kill off the
Held dart thrower (first time I've ever really used Xan's
Moonblade), while the silenced cleric (Lamalha) chased Tiela around, who was using her sling to attack and eventually kill the panicked archer whenever she had enough space to work with. Things were finally looking good, with mostly-spell-dumped Tiela and Xan vs. one silenced Cleric (Lamalha).
...and then,
Silence wore off. Lamalha immediately went for the jugular with
Hold Person, and Tiela tried to counter first with
Command. Lamalha managed to save, but Tiela didn't: leaving her completely defenseless against Lamalha's flail. Xan was thrown into melee again, in the vain hope that his
Moonblade would be sufficient to finish off the badly wounded Lamalha before she could kill poor held Tiela.
Xan vs the Amazons on Flickr
It became obvious quickly that this was a bad idea, as Lamalha was hitting Tiela without trying and Xan was unable to make a strike. Deperate, Xan lined up and then used a third charge from the
Wand of Frost, hoping that his aim was true and he didn't kill Tiela with the area attack.
Xan defeats the Amazons on Flickr
Thankfully Xan came through for the party, and saved the day. (There's another sentence I've never said or written before!)
After recoving Kivan, healing, and resting, the party then headed back to Nashkel to talk to Oublek (+1 rep), the mayor (+1 rep, reward) and then take on the assassins NIMBUL and Neira. NIMBUL got his mirror images up, but
Command took him out for a round... and it only takes a round to kill him, mirror images or not. Neira saved against
Command, but Tiera and Kivan just kept hitting for damage, forcing her to never get a spell off before dying.
After that, the party rested in the inn, traveled to High Hedge, and has just finished clearing the map, in the process giving Xan a big pile of
throwing knives to use at range for future encounters.
Next steps: Travel to Beregost, and deal with the three combats there: Karlat, Silke, and Tranzig.
I don't know why I'm playing Tiela so aggressively, but it's teaching me to actually use (instead of hoard) items: so even though she'll probably not make it at some point it's been a fun run thus far, and I think I'm still improving at the challenge.
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