16405 réponses à ce sujet

[Easymask]

Thank you Grond0, it sure did feel good to import the characters into Amn.

I have a question rulewise to the challenge though. Drizzt's Armor, Scimitars and the helmet of Balduran was brought with me - and Carnak still has those items equipped. Am I allowed to use said items? I wont pick up a second Helm of Balduran though, that would be wrong.

[corey_russell]

@Easymask: normally items are removed when Irenicus first tortures you do you have a mod that changes this?

In any case, these items alone I don't believe would be tremendously imbalancing. After all, mods introduce powerful items such as this as well. The rules don't talk about it, so you can is what I would say. I think someone takes them later too, so might be all moot...

[Easymask]

Thank you for the reply Corey!

Nope, I just imported the character from the "Final Save" folder in my EasyTuTu into Baldurs Gate 2. I've seen some people bring the Claw from High Hedge with them, and even the Greenstone Amulet - but I didn't get those with me. Only the Helmet, the Chainmail and the two Scimitars came along this time around(I didn't have the Claw).

Guess I'll just allow Carnak to keep his gear then, seeing as the party did beat Drizzt fair and square.

[Alesia_BH]

Easymask wrote...

I have a question rulewise to the challenge though. Drizzt's Armor, Scimitars and the helmet of Balduran was brought with me - and Carnak still has those items equipped. Am I allowed to use said items?

That's essentially your call. From outset, the challenge was designed to be flexible and accomodating to the needs of various players. Do whatever makes sense to you and then simply let us know what you've chosen. So long as you are satisfied personally, I'm sure others will enjoy following your adventure.

Good Hunting in Amn.

A.

[Grond0]

Gate70 wrote...

AnonymousHero wrote...
I think poverty has generally meant "ditch all start items" and "don't pick up any items of any kind"... which basically makes it impossible for anyone except Sorcerer.

Monk? Possibly druid e.g. shapeshifter or even cleric?

Thought I might take a leaf out of Berric's book and try and shapeshifter.  Created one and ran with it while acquiring about 1,900 XP, i.e. just short of level 2, before dying to a kobold.  The problem with it is that without the ability to do nearly all the quest mods it takes a long time to get up even a single level.  As all the combats require engaging in melee (without a helmet)  even weak creatures like gibberlings are highly dangerous - with the ability to one-shot on a critical up to around level 6 on insane difficulty (though by that time useful spells would be available).

By timing attacks and retreats it is often possible to get a creature to waste their attack for a round and then get a free attack in.  However, I've never been able to do this totally reliably and in the hundreds of combats required to make progress the chance of survival would be extremely small.

Therefore I've decided to put the slider back onto core difficulty.  That will still make early levels very challenging, but will give the shapeshifter at least some chance of survival.

[corey_russell]

Cody and his band of cleric/mages make it to the City of Baldur's Gate...

The party finally recruits their last party member, Quayle. His default mage spells were actually pretty handy, magic missiles, melf's acid arrows and monster summoning. We deal with Borda and also head out to the area with the 4 Thay Red Wizards. This area went pretty smooth, except we hit a web trap and Paja and Hanna got held and killed. The remaining party members summoned massive number of summons, both animate dead and monster summoning I. Then slinged and magic on the spiders. We were BARELY able to loot everything - left for FAI, resurrected and returned. Next battle of note was the 4 Red Thay Wizards. I think this encounter was my safest encounter with tthem EVER. The reason why is the party cast FIVE silences first round! The enemies might have got a single spell off a skeleton then the mages went to melee. Our skeletons were giving them heck, as well as the party members using their slings to finish them off.

Incidents in the City of Baldur's Gate itself:
* DEX tome went to Paja. Paja finally got rid of the Gauntlets of Dexterity she was using. She also let Quayle use her robe of Neutral Arch Magi and the GoD, putting Quayle's AC at -2.
* Battle with the 4 mages on top of sorcerous sundries - we did remove fear and sent in two sets of skeletons and slinged. The enemies couldn't do much except cast horror on skeletons uselessly.
* Gave Nephre a bloodstone amulet. She gave us vampiric drain, which Hanna promptly failed to scribe.
* Battle with Deserta and Vayya - via careful pulling we were able to fight them separately. Deserta was trashed by magic missiles and wand of heavens. Vayya managed to confuse Hanna and go irmproved invisible, except Paja dispelled both Hanna's confusion and Vayya's invisibility, which led to a prompt death by Vayya now that she can be targeted.
* Battled a greater basilisk - nothing magic missiles, wand of heavens and Hanna with mirror eyes couldn't handle.
* Battled 5 ogre mages - this was a fun battle. We used "immolation strategy" - ™ Wierdo. That is six fireballs. We used the horizontal line formation to avoid being hit by our own fire.

* Battled dopplegangers at the seven suns - the battle vs. the dopplegangers went smoothly here.
* Battled dopplegangers at the merchants consortium - the battle on the 3rd floor was touch and go - even though we opened with "immolation strategy" - ™ Wierdo which broke the morale of the dopplegangers, both Paja and Hanna got hit quite a bit despite their -5 and -6 AC. I think the dopplegangers were getting lucky. So we got some extra summons to help then we cleaned the up mess effeciently after that.
* Battled some thieves in a thieve's guild - we unloaded into the mage attacking us (yep MM again), used some summons to distract the archers then was a clean mop-up.
* Battled Sunei the Mage - he was again finished by wand of heavens/MM, while his partners were stopped cold by hold persons/command. The ring of wizardry went to Joshua.

Feel good about the party so far. The party is level 6 cleric/6 mage at the moment, except Quayle who is quite a bit behind everyone in experience, if not levels.
[

Modifié par corey_russell, 10 décembre 2011 - 01:00 .

[Gate70]

Great screenshot there Corey.

[Melchom]

Just to announce that my Stalker has bit the dust. After clearing the mines the party tracked down the bandit camp and cleared it without too much trouble. However when leaving the camp the party was ambushed by etter's and, it being a while since I'd fought them, I forgot about the trap they sometimes set and got eaten alive before the party could finish them off... So a little bit of an embarassing end to a promising young hero!

[Gate70]

Condolences, ettercaps are a tough enemy imo. I find running north/up for ettercap, wyvern or spider ambushes works best (caveat; not sure how SCS changes that "strategy").

Modifié par Gate70, 10 décembre 2011 - 06:08 .

[corey_russell]

My usual strategy for ettercaps is to have the 2 best tanks get the attention of 2-3 of them and then the one, the rest of the party blasts them with everything we got (frost wand, wand of heavens MM, melf's etc.) OR put some skeletons/summons inbetween the casters and the ettercaps. I generally don't move just in case we set off a web trap.

[AnonymousHero]

Gate70 wrote...

Condolences, ettercaps are a tough enemy imo. I find running north/up for ettercap, wyvern or spider ambushes works best (caveat; not sure how SCS changes that "strategy").

It doesn't really, except if you have the improved spiders component installed. If you have that, the spiders themselves will throw webs. (In early versions of the component they are AoE webs, in later versions single-target.)

[Melchom]

Thanks for the kind words and suggestions

And now - something completely different!

Tezrian (Human, Monk, Solo)

Str: 18
Dex: 18
Con: 16
Int: 10
Wis: 9
Chr: 18

Proficiencies: Dagger, Single-weapon.

I did have a couple of early attempts/deaths while working out a starting strategy for a monk run (the class is quite vulnerable at the start - I didn't expect to be running around getting nearly killed by Xzar and Montaron!) but this one is promising.

Rejected Imoen after having accepted her equipment then moved south to High Hedge then east to Beregost (always the safer route ). After talking to Marl and providing the Lucky Coin to the sage from Candlekeep Tezrian reached lvl 2.

Assassinating Algernon and taking his cloak, Tezrian then used it to defeat the spiders infesting the house to the south. The victorious (and charmed) spider was then taken north to meet the witch who wished to hire my services. When she turned on me the spider attacked while I used Imoen's wand. Unusually she ran inside the tavern so I had to go in after her as the spider cannot transition .. this drew out the dwarven assassin and Silke followed me back out into the street. Again the spider and I did more damage to her however the spider fell to the dwarf's axe before the witch was slain. I was able to charm the dwarf into accepting her last lightning bolt and then introduced my fist to her face - taking my monk to lvl 3

So far it looks like I'll have to use the cloak heavily to survive with my low AC. Next moves will be north towards the Friendly Arm Inn so I can collect the belt from the Ogre and get the Ring of Protection +1. Having starting with 18 Chr I already have a Dagger +1 which is helpful. I have some throwing daggers as well but they haven't seemed that useful so far. What weapon proficiency should I add next level - and does anyone have any hints/tips on surviving as a monk ? I'm putting all my skill points into hide in shadows at the moment.

[corey_russell]

I'm no expert with monks, but watching Grond0's monk runs, he seems to either attack from the shadows, hide, re-attack, etc. or use missile weapons, depending on the situation. But no matter what use stealth heavily. I even seem to recall him taking down Sarevok but mostly attacking him from stealth.

[Gate70]

Stealth gives +4 to attack. I have a monk on the go at the moment, a bit early to post as he's still level 2.

Edit
Candlekeep then helping Marl, Firebead, Brage, Joia, Mirianne. Then splatted by the belted ogre coming out of the shadows.

Modifié par Gate70, 10 décembre 2011 - 10:20 .

[Grond0]

I agree that stealth is very helpful for monks - the combination with fast movement works well. At the start of the game stealth ability is very low so it can get a bit tiresome trying to hide. Hence I would recommend using mainly missile attacks for the first few levels. As you've already discovered Algernon's cloak can be used to help any character. Other easy sources of XP are quests - Samuel, tree nymph, cat resurrection, saving cow, killing zombies, revenging Bjornin among a number of others are all easy for a character using missile weapons (so is killing Shoal to get a huge amount of XP). Throwing daggers or sling both work well as proficiencies for missile weapons, though you need to accept that you'll be doing lots of running round and shooting to kill things with lots of HPs (like ogre berserkers). You may want to go and kill Meilum fairly early (stealth past the kobolds and then run round and shoot him up). His bracers give a major boost to missile damage.

Surviving as a monk is just like any other character - don't take on combats unless you're sure you can win. Anything without distance capability (missile or spell) is easy meat for a monk and spell users are also easy if there's a house or similar handy (stealth, attack and retreat). You can also use things like rock formations to get out of sight of opponents and hide in safety.

By the way you said that your spider could not get into the inn. It is possible to drag charmed things with you by setting them to attack you just before your PC enters the inn. This technique works almost everywhere except when moving between areas on the outdoor map.

[Grond0]

My poverty run shapeshifter is underway.  Here's his starting stats:


Went to Beregost and pacified Marl for a nice bit of XP. Also killed Algernon out of habit (actually to reduce reputation to get the evil Bhaal power for a small amount of distance damage capability).

Pawper was glad that Noober had a nice chat with him and resting allowed him to drain life with more than just a slash from his paws. By popping in and out of the inn door he was able to attack Neira pretty safely and gained 6 HPs for an extra level. Cleared area N of Nashkel using drain life, Bless and Armour of Faith to help against potentially dangerous opponents such as kobold guards. Went up the road towards Beregost and cleared that area as well. Took a slight risk here as even with drain life and AoF active a maximum critical from the ogrillons would have been fatal, but he got away with it. Viconia was left to fend for herself and the Fist placated.

Back down to the carnival area and the Amazing Oopah paid for his slow weapon speed. Pawper needed just another 80 XP for his next level and got them by clearing the map of kobolds - getting a miserable 3 extra HPs. Decided that Zordral was too much of a risk until level 3 spells are available.

[polytope]

AnonymousHero wrote...

Gate70 wrote...

Monk? Possibly druid e.g. shapeshifter or even cleric?

I don't want to be too categorical, but I don't think a monk could ever get through a no-reload without potions (items). The BG1 portion is clearly the most dangerous, but a monk without items can at most attain 78%+5%=83% MR (SoA+WK) and 93% MR in ToB, but I don't think that would be sufficient given the number of saves/MR checks you have to make.

Apart from save-or-else effects, I think a solo monk with no means of regeneration/healing (besides 1/day lay on hands) would simply run out of hp in certain ToB fights; particularly the final battle since there is no possibility of resting.

I think the combination of no-reload + poverty would be tough even for a sorcerer, as your saving throws will not be safely negative without protection items.

Grond0 wrote...
Thought I might take a leaf out of Berric's book and try and shapeshifter.  Created one and ran with it while acquiring about 1,900 XP, i.e. just short of level 2, before dying to a kobold.  The problem with it is that without the ability to do nearly all the quest mods it takes a long time to get up even a single level.  As all the combats require engaging in melee (without a helmet)  even weak creatures like gibberlings are highly dangerous - with the ability to one-shot on a critical up to around level 6 on insane difficulty (though by that time useful spells would be available).

It might be possible for a druid - 90,000 xp for Ironskins sounds achievable - but if you intend to take him to ToB you'll need to be very lucky with Harm spells.

Modifié par polytope, 11 décembre 2011 - 01:06 .

[corey_russell]

Cody and party of cleric/mages finishes the Baldur's Gate quests/battles

We did almost every fight we could (without rep loss). Here's an update on the most interesting battles:

Preparation for Mountain Maulers:

We had a HUGE skeleton army deployed. We didn't even bother with buffs. The battle began the party spammed silence and hold persons, and some magic missiles as needed. The maulers didn't even have a tiny chance. Here is a picture of my army at the end:


Since we can't use arrows of detonation OR emotion OR MGoI, the battle with the Sarevok acolytes on the Iron Throne building, fifth floor was very interesting. The party did standard buffs, one important one is protection on fire on everyone (via spell). Our opening spells were 2x animate dead, 1x monster summoning I, slow and 2x silence. The enemy countered with confusion - 1/2 the party disabled. Yikes. However we try some more silences, and more summons, and the enemy tries confusion again - 5/6 of the party are confused!


It's up to Joshua now. He did some great plays. For one, he disabled one of the melees via hold person. He also got hold person on the archer. He did a command on another guy, not sure which character. He tried a silence and I think it must have worked partially as he saw some of the enemy casters melee our summons. Joshua cast his last animate dead, and started slinging. The acoylytes were dropping like flies...near the end there were getting less and less summons, but then the party shook off their confusions and finished the enemy. A great many dead summons, but victory achieved.

The party reported their success to Duke Eltan, and the party will proceed to Candlekeep.

Modifié par corey_russell, 11 décembre 2011 - 01:43 .

[corey_russell]

Cody the Cleric/Mage and his band of cleric/mages - FINAL BG 1 Update

In the Candlekeep Crypts, Cody obtained both tomes via knock spell. Himself, Paja, and Hanna carefully walked past the repeating lightning trap, though they did use potion of absorption for safety.

The dopplegangers were no trouble, nor were the skeletons who took quite a few fireballs.

I didn't have arrows of detonation this time around, so I had to be a bit more inventive against Prat's group. I had Joshua creep to the side and open with web and cloudkill (via scroll). This worked pretty nice, then Hanna moved up, still out of sight and used quite a few shots from her fireball wand. Prat moved up and got mowed down by the party. Belle accidentally moved into the cloudkill and was INSTANTLY slain! Yikes! Tough to move the loot/equipment around but we did it.

We then were going to send Paja and Hanna against the spiders. I was just about to send them off, but felt like I was missing something...I couldn't place it so sent them to find some spiders. Paja and Hanna battled some phase spiders and Paja got killed almost instantly by the poison. Belatedly, I realized what I forgot - protection from poison! I had the scrolls too. Time to leave most of the loot behind and just loot the equipment. I had enough and just wanted out of here. So we crept up to the Basilisks. I had protection from petrification (spell) and gave to Hanna and she attacked. We summoned some skeletons as distractions then helped Hanna burn those basilisks down. We finally escaped these crypts without further incident.

We headed to FAI, to resurrect our fallen, re-equip, sell and head to the City of Baldur's Gate. We kept to the sewers the entire time, the fist never saw us. First stop was Cynthrandria at the Iron Throne 5th floor. We hasted, blessed and chanted 3 batches of skeletons - that plus our slings was more than enough to deal with both Cythrandria and her summmons.

Next up was Slythe and Krysin. We had some many skeletons Slythe couldn't talk to us - he was slain with our slings. Cody dispelled Krystin's invsibility then our slings/skeletons made short work of her.

Next up was Duchal Palace fight. We put skeletons around the dukes, started the fight and used wand of heavens almost exclusively. For good measure Cody also dispelled the haste of the dopplegangers. Belt believed our evidence and Sarevok was forced to run.

We obtained what supplies we though we were going to need, and entered the thieve's maze. Everything was going fine until we met the skeletal warriors. We had some skeletons running interference and we were using our slings, things were working if a bit slowly. But then someone stepped on a lightning bolt trap - then the inevitable happened - Paja was CHUNKED! There goes our packrat. The party got badly hurt and retreated. The skeletons followed. Hanna then equipped her ashideena and atttacked. After healing, the other party members hasted themselves (they had to do it twice) to help kill the enemies quicker. This succeeded. Then the party moved down to the other passage. Joshua used our protection from magic scroll and set off the traps. There was one more set of traps for Joshua to set off then the party was out of the maze.

Next challenge, how to handle the Undercity Iron Throne party? No arrows of detonation again. We decided to lay a trap for them. We summoned all the skeletons we could, then Hanna with her 100% fire resistance crept forward and fired two shots from her necklace of missiles to draw out the enemy's arrows of detonation. She retreated and the enemy followed, only to find this trap we laid for them:

Everyone used their wand of heavens to speed up the kills, the enemy had no chance and the party was completely safe, as you might imagine. We pressed forward, we didn't have to meet Tamako, because we didn't meet her at the Fist compound.

Time to set the spells for the final battle and rest. We entered and did the prep shown below:


Joshua moved to the left, as did Quayle. Quayle fired a dispel magic via scroll at the dais (out of sight), Joshua fired a fireball via wand and then the both of them moved back to the party's position.  Sarevok appeared first and started whittling down the skeletons. Semaj then appeared. The party used 2 rounds of magic missiles to finish off Semaj.

The party then cast 4x web at Sarevok, plus greater malison. Sarevok would then fail his saves sometimes and get caught. From then on, everyone used magic missiles, chromatic orbs or wand of heavens every round. Took a number of rounds from this point (maybe 4-5) and then it happened - Sarevok was defeated!


Hanna, Belle, Joshua and Cody are moving onto Amn, as this is a trilogy no-reload.

Modifié par corey_russell, 11 décembre 2011 - 06:01 .

[Grond0]

Well done for dealing with Sarevok, though shame about Paja. Keep those skeletons rolling in Amn!

[Serg BlackStrider]

Congratulations, Corey! Good luck in now cleric/magish Amn territory =)

[Melchom]

Well done Corey - I'm liking the skeleton army screenshots

[BBMorti]

Great run Corey! I hope your family does just as well in amn

[Melchom]

Tezrian (Human, Monk, Solo)

Decided to head south first to pick up the boots of stealth and first charmed the ogrillons feasting on the halfling. Unfortunately my minions quickly fell to hobgoblin arrows so I needed to get involved directly. Again used the cloak to disrupt my foes and cleared the area without too much trouble. Amusingly I was questioned by the Flaming Fist while my hobgoblin lackies were just out of sight. Not sure they would have helped my case for not being a bandit

Heading back into Beregost I collected the Ring +1 from the worried wife and moved north. Won't kill the pickpocket in Beregost yet as my rep is only 6 so he'd probably just pick my pocket and leave rather than give the quest.

Moving north I discovered Dread Wolves appear to be immune to the charms of my cloak in a near fatal accident. Lucky I hadn't gone to see the Vampiric wolves to the east of the Temple!! However with my monks movement I escaped their fangs and cleared the rest of the area. Ordinary wolves are charmable though.

Entering The Friendly Arm Inn compound I accepted the quest to recover the ring and, in completing, it kept two hobgoblins to help me kill the mage assassin. With the help of the hobgoblins and a couple of shots with the Wand of Magic Missile (only a couple of charges left now ) the assassin fell. With my Cha of 20 I was able to collect the potions of antidote from the old homeowner whose property I cleared of spiders as well as the rewards. This also took me to level 4

Equip: Ring +1, Belt of Piercing/Slashing Protection from Ogre, Cloak of Algernon, Dagger +1, Boots of Stealth. I'm also keeping 5 healing potions equipped with another 5 in inventory plus 6 potions of antidote. Any other thoughts as to what will be useful in a solo run ? 

Planning to get the dagger of venom when I have the money but with my reputation now 7 I should probably think about heading south before it gets too high.

Modifié par Melchom, 11 décembre 2011 - 10:18 .

[Gate70]

Well done, a couple of questions though.

No access to protection from lightning (priest level 4 spell?)
You could have at least one character use invisibility or sanctuary to explore the Iron Throne HQ and summon minions from the back room before combat starts.