16402 réponses à ce sujet

[The Fred]

Nice tip. Shandalar is another one with some nice treasure (Robe of the Grey Archmagi), but I don't think it's pick-pocket-able. The reputation hit you take for killing him is worth it, imo, but it might be tricky in a no-reload since he teleports away after a couple of rounds of spellcasting.

Anyway, Aertsalzeth finally headed up to the FAI. He was attacked by another assassin, but quickly dispatched him (Remove Fear made this one easy, though the guards did the killing so no XP unfortunately). Met Jaheira and Khalid inside (who are L4/4 and 4, respectively!) and set off again.

I wanted to get Minsc and will probably take Safana to replace Imoen (I believe with a tome, she can dual to mage, too), but I don't want to get either of them until I'm sure I can complete their quests.

[Wierdo]

That is a nice tip about Shandalar too. Shame I can't do it - I seem to always play good characters (or neutral with good tendencies). Don't enjoy playing evil.

[Wierdo]

Rediscovered the value of the spell Grease:

With SCS installed, you get much tougher wolves near the temple of Lathander. Namely, a pack of 2 vampiric wolves, 4 dread wolves & about 4 wargs. Not all are visible in the image below, some are out of sight. There are also some worgs & dread wolves a bit further away that will join any fight.



I almost bugged out and ran away until we got to higher level, as we we average LV4 and didn't have any 3rd level spells like fireball and all the 2nd level mage ones we had were pretty crap. No Stinking Cloud, Horror or Web yet. Sniff. And Starria still has the scars from when she almost died fighting two vampiric wolves by themselves, without a pack as well.

But then I remembered Grease. And I figured that Sleep would probably work well on the worgs.

So, we had an attack plan. Starria whipped out a quick Chant spell to get everyone fired up. Then Wierdo crept up and cast Sleep at the main pack. Then she hid in shadows again and crept a bit closer to survey. At least 2 worgs sleeping - good. Then Wierdo carefully aimed her bow and ... missed. Nevermind.

The wolves noticed her and wanted blood. She ran ... and shot (hit!) and ran ... and ran back to the party [Rule #1: Cardio], who were waiting lined up with their missile weapons ready.

By now Wierdo could cast again, and she let loose a Grease spell (followed by another arrow). This had the wonderful effect of slowing many of the wolves down, so that the party was able to kill/weaken them more with missile fire before they closed in to melee range - and they didn't come all at once. Most importantly, it caught the two vampiric wolves badly, so that I could deal with them last.

And that was pretty much it! Grease can really rock if used properly. Lots of experience from that battle. Each vampiric wolf is worth 2000xp, and I think the dreads give about 650xp each. Nashkel mines next!

Modifié par Wierdo, 01 février 2011 - 07:57 .

[DMWW]

I don't think those wolves are anything to do with SCS, actually.

[Wierdo]

You could be right, maybe they aren't SCS. But they were not that many in vanilla BG.

[Wierdo]

We have explored the first two levels of the Nashkel mines so far. The miners are scared. We have come across a quite few kobolds, especially on level 2. A few fights, wounds and spells erupted. we have decided to take a rest for now, near the Amnish soldiers in a big round chamber, before we go down to level three. It can only be worse further down.

We were interrupted during the night by a patrol of kobolds, but a sleep spell took care of them and gave Buddha a chance to practice his kung-fu techniques. The Amnish guards helped out too! Rather nice of them.

On entering the third level, we noted an eerie silence. Then a dead body! Smells of a trap, and Imoen found one. Great. That tells us that the kobolds basically own this level.

Finished the Nashkel mines. nearly lost my party to the kobold shaman. He put my party all to sleep or held except for Imoen. But we won through in the end as Annakin & Wierdo woke up eventually to help Imoen.

Mulahey was relatively simple. He and his minions died pretty easily, in the end. We rescued Xan, rested and then escaped the mines..

Modifié par Wierdo, 01 février 2011 - 12:59 .

[Wierdo]

Starria just died......

After escaping the mines, I htought life would be simple. Oh, so wrong. We ran right into two ankhegs, and they just took my part apart. 2-3 hits and Buddha was on 1hp! We healed him quick but then 2 quick blows took Starria from 40hp to nothing ....

I don't remember ankhegs ever being this tough .... they were doing like a total of 22hp or so each hit! Yikes.

Modifié par Wierdo, 01 février 2011 - 01:03 .

[Wierdo]

Gone to Beregost and recruited Finch. I've played with her before and she has performed well as a member of a team. Her ability to identify 3 items each day is useful, and she is a decent cleric. And a cleric is what we need. She weas even happy that we had already found one of the books for her library in Nashkel.

The party is worried about their lack of fighter grunt. Now that Starria is gone, Annakin (LV5 berserker) is the only fighter-type. Everyone looks at Buddha (LV5 monk), who is impassive, and then at bookish Finch (LV5 cleric)However, everyone keeps their thoughts to themselves. Except Xan (LV4 sorcerer), of course, is negative - as always.

Modifié par Wierdo, 01 février 2011 - 02:14 .

[Grond0]

Wierdo wrote...
I don't remember ankhegs ever being this tough .... they were doing like a total of 22hp or so each hit! Yikes.

Ankhegs are nasty if your armour class is poor because they can do a lot of acid damage.  However, they are also stupid and therefore will fixate on the lead character even under SCS.  That means that you only need one character with a decent armour class and they will only hit with a 20 while you pour in missile attacks on them.  As there are usually at least a dozen of them in their cave and spread around the area they provide a pretty large and easy XP boost for a prepared party.

[Wierdo]

Buddha has AC1 and Starria had AC-1 so you would think that they would not get hit so easily - but they did get hit. And Starria got hit twice in quick succession for lots of damage as there were 2 ankhegs there (and they spit acid some distance). There was a bit of bad luck involved.

[Bhryaen]

Wierdo wrote...
Buddha has AC1 and Starria had AC-1 so you would think that they would not get hit so easily - but they did get hit. And Starria got hit twice in quick succession for lots of damage as there were 2 ankhegs there (and they spit acid some distance). There was a bit of bad luck involved.

I apologize in advance if this is off-topic, but I was curious about this myself given what a beating I've taken from ankhegs and looked it up.

At this D&D site and this BG site it seems to indicate a THAC0 for 8 HD ankhegs of 13. I don't really know what HD the BG ankhegs are since both sites list their HD as a variable between 3-8, but judging by how tough they can be, I'd assume they're 8HD. Correct me if I'm wrong but THAC013 means that with a -1AC opponent they can hit with a 14- or 35% of the time. With 1AC, they can hit you with a 12 or 45% of the time. Those aren't such great odds. You can pretty much count on being hit every 2-3 rounds at AC-1, about every other round with AC 1. With 2 ankhegs that would mean at least one hit per round, statistically speaking. With my typical luck at dice rolls it would mean two hits every round at that AC... The optimal AC to have would be at least AC-7 so that they would only hit on a 20- 5% of the time, or once in 20 rounds. (Which means they'd hit me 3 or 4 times in 20 rounds...)

Grond0 wrote...
However, they are also stupid and therefore will fixate on the lead character even under SCS.  That means that you only need one character with a decent armour class and they will only hit with a 20 while you pour in missile attacks on them.

I think I recall a different behavior from the SCS ankhegs in Shandalar's prison where I noticed them breaking away from the char directly engaging them to go after someone else or at least turn on a different (worse AC) melee attacker. I know they were fighting a lot more erratically than I'm used to, forcing me to keep running about, but I'm not sure exactly what the difference was.

Modifié par Bhryaen, 01 février 2011 - 11:44 .

[polytope]

Ankhegs have a base THAC0 of 13, but receive an extra +4 to hit with their ranged attack, which also does more damage (4d4 missile, plus 4d4 acid on a failed save) - I find them an exception to the rule of ranged combat in BG1, best rush in melee and don't give them a chance to spit acid.



It's always a shame to lose a character, but this game can be quite luck dependent at low levels.

[The Fred]

Indeed, their stats are as polytope said. In fact, their melee attack does 3d6 + 1d4 acid I think, meaning they're probably less dangerous in melee (though from my experience, they tend sometimes to spit acid even when they're at melee range). They really can tear apart a low-level party, though. I remember being truly terrified of them, and I'm still pretty cautious about them today.

[Wierdo]

polytope wrote...
Ankhegs have a base THAC0 of 13, but receive an extra +4 to hit with their ranged attack, which also does more damage (4d4 missile, plus 4d4 acid on a failed save) - I find them an exception to the rule of ranged combat in BG1, best rush in melee and don't give them a chance to spit acid.

It's always a shame to lose a character, but this game can be quite luck dependent at low levels.

I wasn't analysing the die rolls too closely, but I do remember seeing that one ankheg hit Starria with a 15 and thinking WTF!!? But it all makes sense, of couse, as they are 8HD creatures. What happenned is that one of them 'rushed' the party (underground) and came up next to Buddha - the lowest AC character nearby. But after I pulled him out at 1HP they then got Starria. Even so, a bit of bad luck and perhaps not enough caution on my part.

Because Buddha (monk LV5) uses darts, and darts havea shorter ranger than bows, he usually moves forward just a little more than everyone else when using missile weapons. This is probably why he got targetted in the first place, instead of Annakin (berserker LV5).

I could ressurect Starria ... but I think that is against the no-reload rules for PC-made characters. I guess the rules change for each person. Anyway, I can always bring her back in TOB if I ever get that far (because technically you should be allowed to summon old allies, alive or dead).

[The Fred]

If she's resurrected in-game, that should be OK, right? You can res other characters, as long as you have the gold.

[The Fred]

Damnit. Just did a bit more myself - headed down to the coast way to take on the assassins there. We dealt with the bowman in short order, but Aertsalzeth and Khalid fell prey to Confusion. Khalid still managed to take out the invisible wizard but Aertsalzeth got held and killed in two hits. Game over.

[The Fred]

OK, enter Iuladus, Elven Fighter/Mage. Stats 18/45, 19, 17, 17, 10, 9. Went with specialisation in Long Swords and Missile Weapons (would have prefered bows, but with a sling I can use a shield, which will be valueable at low levels). So far I've run a bunch of errands around Candlekeep and am about to head off with Gorion, into who knows what?



(Actually, I know what, but Iuladus doesn't).

[Wierdo]

Good luck Iuladus.

Thanks for your view Fred that I can resurrect Starria. However, I have already moved on and started getting attached to Finch. What I may well do is re-introduce her in BGII or TOB, if I ever get that for (e.g. she is in Irenicus' dungeon with the same xp as Jaheira/Minsc). But I'll plough ahead on BG without her, while she 'recovers from her wounds' with Bjornin the Paladin. Sniff.

Technically, Buddha (monk LV5) is a fighter-type. He is starting to be good but probably won't really start kicking butt until lv7-8 at least.

Modifié par Wierdo, 02 février 2011 - 04:04 .

[Wierdo]

Went down to Nashkel and encountered the Assassin mage Nimbul. We had an interesting and at time humorous fight. At one point we had held Nimbul but he was invisible and we had no magic to detect him ... so we went shopping!

After that, he turned the tables and managed to CONFUSE THE ENTIRE PARTY before we could hit him! What saved us here was the Amnish soldiers in Nashkel who also took a dislike to Nimbul and finished off killing him for us (we missed the 650xp!), while trying not to kill each other. Nimbul managed to get Imoen to 10hp.

Rather embarrassing for us, but very funny nonetheless. A lesson for me is to take the spell 'detect invisibility'. Can't let this stuff happen.

Went back up to Nashkel and we decided to have another go at wizard bashing. This time we went after Tranzig at Feldpost's. After Wierdo 'shadowed' herself and scouted upstairs, she asked her fairy dragon familiar to make the party invisible first (with her invisibility 10' radius ability) and Finch threw in a bless as well.

Tranzig got quite a surprise when we went to see him. At first he was acting tough and this lasted about half a second before Annakin appeared out of mid-air and whacked him hard. Then he begged for mercy. Despite our goody-twoshoedness, we exercised prudence and denied him. After all, his colleague Mulahey also asked for mercy and then used it as an opportunity to summon more bad guys - we didn't want Tranzig doing the same thing. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Hard decisions in a hard world. Anyway, in the end we were merciful and killed him quickly.

Modifié par Wierdo, 02 février 2011 - 04:56 .

[Wierdo]

Wierdo's Bhaalspawn Bretheren

Off to Valley of the Tombs again (where Starria died).

We got ambushed by the amazon ladies. However, they were all bluff and no substance. Except that their two thieves both managed to land backstabs on Imoen. Never mind, she will be OK with a bit of healing.

The first thing we did was for Wierdo to throw a web spell and Xan threw a Stinking Cloud. That double-action took Zeela out, and Lamahla found herself a target and Buddha exercised some martial arts skills on her. She landed a hit on Buddha, but he got her in the end. Here is a snapshot of the action:

Modifié par Wierdo, 10 avril 2011 - 10:28 .

[The Fred]

Iuladus' progress:

Helped an injured paladin and his fiance in Candlekeep, then headed out. We were ambushed and Gorion killed, but met up with Imoen and travelled to Beregost. Settled a family quarrel, found a man transformed into a slime by some rip-off potion, and saved a talking chicken called Melicamp. Unfortunately, Thalantyr's spell to save him failed (AGAIN!) leaving me battered from various scrapes (including being waylaid by enemies, which nearly killed both me and Imoen) and without the XP I really need. Luckily Imoen is L3 now, though. Next stop, either the FAI or Nashkel, I guess.

[Grond0]

Wierdo wrote...
I wasn't analysing the die rolls too closely, but I do remember seeing that one ankheg hit Starria with a 15 and thinking WTF!!? But it all makes sense, of couse, as they are 8HD creatures. What happenned is that one of them 'rushed' the party (underground) and came up next to Buddha - the lowest AC character nearby. But after I pulled him out at 1HP they then got Starria. Even so, a bit of bad luck and perhaps not enough caution on my part.

Tried to respond yesterday, but the site seemed to be out of action for a while.  However:
I would expect a tank at this stage to have a minimum of -4 AC (plate mail, dex 18, ring prot +1 and shield +1).  In addition they would have some extra protection against missiles - choose from, e.g. boots (5), belt (3), shield (1), cloak (4).  Even without plate armour, special abilities, potions or spells it is thus easy to give an ankheg a to hit roll of more than 20 with their spit attack.  Sometimes ankhegs will tunnel into melee range - if they do you can just step back a couple of paces, while other party members continue to shoot the ankheg up (while it's underground!).

Because Buddha (monk LV5) uses darts, and darts havea shorter ranger than bows, he usually moves forward just a little more than everyone else when using missile weapons. This is probably why he got targetted in the first place, instead of Annakin (berserker LV5).

That is a potential drawback with darts.  To avoid this happening make sure your tank is ahead of the rest of the party while in ankheg territory.  As soon as they see an ankheg move forward a bit then wait until the ankheg attacks - it's then safe for everyone to attack with missiles (just make sure no-one gets closer than your tank in case the ankheg goes into melee mode and attacks the nearest character).  If you use Kagain as your tank he would average 46.5 HP at just 4th level (60 if using max HP).  At this level he would have to be really unlucky to get killed by 2 critical hits even if you didn't give him a potion in between them (he also regenerates his own HP which saves on potions and spells if you don't like resting too much).

Bhryaen wrote...
I think I recall a different behavior from the SCS ankhegs in Shandalar's prison where I noticed them breaking away from the char directly engaging them to go after someone else or at least turn on a different (worse AC) melee attacker. I know they were fighting a lot more erratically than I'm used to, forcing me to keep running about, but I'm not sure exactly what the difference was.

That could be because your other characters got too close.  Although it's not the default SCS behaviour it's also possible it's the result of the SCS component something like "Improved Ice Island" - I think I've only played this once and might not have noticed strange behaviour by ankhegs as my party was overpowered and would have killed them very quickly.

[The Fred]

Dam damn damn.



Everything was going more or less OK with Iuladus, but we got waylaid by bandits on the way back from Nashkel to Beregost and there was little I could do. Possibly if I'd have rested beforehand and used Sleep (though I didn't trust myself to do the Nashkel Inn yet) or got the belt from the ogre, things might have been different, but having 3+ archers on you is pretty tough at L1.

[Grond0]

The Fred wrote...

Dam damn damn.

Everything was going more or less OK with Iuladus, but we got waylaid by bandits on the way back from Nashkel to Beregost and there was little I could do. Possibly if I'd have rested beforehand and used Sleep (though I didn't trust myself to do the Nashkel Inn yet) or got the belt from the ogre, things might have been different, but having 3+ archers on you is pretty tough at L1.

My sympathies.  I've found that the bandit ambushes are probably the most dangerous encounter (that you can't avoid) at low levels.  This is to such an extent that in a no-reload I no longer recruit magic users until they will be at least 4th level.

As a fighter/thief you could help yourself hugely by wearing armour when travelling - won't eliminate the risk, but plate mail would probably turn something like a 50% chance of death into less than 5%.  Once you go up a few levels you could also get into the habit of travelling everywhere invisible.

[The Fred]

Yeah, I got hit like three times in quick succession (and Immy at least twice) by arrows. Perhaps some armour (I couldn't have afforded plate, but perhaps splint or something) would have just saved me.

Anyway, given this, I've decided to try once more with a human Cleric with a view to dualing to Mage later on. The rationale here is that a Cleric will get past that vulnerable first level much more quickly than a multi-classed character, has a bit more HP than a mage, and will be able to heal a little (something which was becoming a pain in my previous game). Probably I will dual at 3rd level or something, once I have some more party members for protection.

My new character, Pallyn, has Str 10, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 17, Wis 18 and Cha 10 and has currently just got out of Candlekeep (still on the Coast Way). Probably the most annoying thing I've run into so far is not having the carrying capacity for things like armour, though now I have Imoen it's not quite so big a deal.

Modifié par The Fred, 03 février 2011 - 08:12 .