16409 réponses à ce sujet

[Gate70]

Hard luck Grond0, nice set of screenshots gunman.

Back with Nocast, LG male halfling wizard slayer.
Stats 17, 19, 18, 11, 8, 11. ** long sword, *** 2 weapon style.

Progress so far is Candlekeep, Marl, Firebead, ankheg armour, Brage, Noober, Mirianne, Bjornin and out-pointed Greywolf.

Level 4 with 11594xp, 3022gp, 37hp, THACO base 17 main 13 offhand 17, 5/2 APR.

[Grond0]

gunman78 wrote...

Tough luck.

Are you playing only solo? It seems very frustrating.

In my opinion it is more challenging but it takes away from the game (banters, more varied approaches to a given situation etc.) It seems a bit boring to use the same tactics only a single character provides over and over again for the whole game.

I very rarely play with a party these days.  The main reason for that is speed - I can complete most of the game in a few hours solo, but it takes a lot longer with a party.  I agree a single character can be a bit limiting, but you get some variety by playing with different types over time.

I thought I would try and run a barbarian character through.  On paper the barbarian looks like a strong character type, although I've never had great success with it.  Aiming to be a quick run - no particular restrictions.

[Grond0]

First update for Krak.

Quickly through Candlekeep - note the barbarian is useful there for stealing from the inn; rage can open a well-locked chest and speed takes him past the guard before he appears.


He started off by one-shotting Xzar and then headed for Shoal.  Her death gave him 2 levels and a very nice 31 additional HPs!

Some tasks in Beregost followed - the only even slightly difficult one taking on Silke - before going to the Firewine Bridge and acquiring Meilum's bracers.  Greywolf was the next to donate some equipment - his death getting Krak up to level 5.  Now has 69 HPs and specialises in staff and short bow with a pip in 2-handed weapons.  He is about to take on the Nashkel mines.

[corey_russell]

Grond0 - perhaps this is a silly question, but why are you specializing in shortbow in BG 1? Wouldn't a composite bow be more useful in the long term? In vanilla, the only really good shortbow is Marek's, but you don't get that until you got at least 1/2 the game completed. You got a nice mod shorbow to use?

[Grond0]

Not a silly question at all. I don't have any mods at the moment that give good shortbows, but Marek's is the best missile weapon in the game (as it provides strength damage on top of its normal benefits) so you could say it's worth waiting for. However, the reason is more that shortbows seem to be the better bows in BG2 and I'm always hopeful of getting there.

Hopeful, but my poor record with barbarians continues. I switched off for a few seconds when fighting an ankheg and got hit 3 times in a row. I actually looked at the screen again just in time to see the fatal blob on the way in the air, but the potion taken was not sufficient to save him. What was particularly annoying was that he was another character with exceptional HPs - 92 at level 6 - so really should have been given a chance to stretch himself in BG2.

Looking at Enuhal's recent run and bearing in mind a recent query about why I always play solo I thought I might give a random party a go to provide a change in tempo.

[Gate70]

I expect he is lining up the Tuigan bow in SOA. Edit, phew I'm on the right lines!

My question is why a human barbarian, have you got an extended dual class mod installed or just prefer the paperdoll? I'd have thought dwarf (con bonus, shorty saving throws), half-orc (con and str bonus) or gnome (shorty saving throws) would be better options, or an elf with dex bonus and bow/long sword innate +1.

Modifié par Gate70, 20 février 2012 - 06:52 .

[Grond0]

The human was to allow for the possibility of dualling, though I hadn't made up my mind whether to do that or not - I've got the component from BG2 tweaks that allows dualling of barbarians and wild mages. I agree that any of the other races (including halfling) would be better than human for a barbarian. The last dedicated barbarian I tried was a half-orc, but that was partly for RP reasons.

[Grond0]

Right, here's the promised random party.  Took a bit of extra time to generate as I had to uninstall and reinstall a few mods (multiplayer won't start except in windowed mode and that can't be done with widescreen installed).



The gender, race, character class and alignment are all from my Excel random generator.  Stat scores are the first roll made on character creation.  Skill and proficiency points have been manually assigned.

I tend to prefer playing fighter types, so the party is not really to my taste, but it should have the ability to perform well.  The priest of Tempus should enjoy his role as the party's tank.  I was a bit surprised to generate 2 half-elf mage/thieves in the party (odds of producing one are 0.66%), but it's a class with plenty of options.  The PC is Triage, so it was nice to see he has a constitution bonus.  The high strength is also potentially pretty useful, although I don't suppose he will get risked in a situation where this will count very often, at least until he gets some decent protection.

[Gate70]

Looks interesting. Enjoy.

Nocast, halfling wizard slayer.

A belted ogre and collected bounty make the horn of Kazgaroth affordable, meaning Nashkel mine can be investigated. Mulahey summons minions and runs away. It takes a while to kill them and search for him. My first attack misses so I blow the horn and continue. He casts rigid thinking affected then hold person blocked. I wander off, the horn effect expires and I'm left to resist a second hold spell.

I heal and return, striking and disrupting his next spell. Then another disruptive strike, then a miss allows him to summon a spiritual hammer. We flail about for a while, then I hit him again. He wants to surrender but no deal. Another hit panics him, and after a brief run-around I kill him. Horn blast two is enough to deal with Nimbul and blast three does the same for Tranzig.

I manage to kill two hobgoblins before Ardenor Crush and his gang chase me out of the bandit camp. I return to kill them all and then the bandits, only leaving when Taugosz Khosann arrives with a war hammer.

My next visit sees him repeat the hammering, so I start running and only stop after firing 27 arrows in his direction. He's not so tough now because he's dead.

Venkt fails to cast a single spell before perishing. I'm slightly wounded 43/50hp so move on to Hakt. A failed heal and a blue potion later he is dead and I'm still alive 34/50hp. Raemon takes two hits without retaliation and I'm alone with Britik. He draws first blood but I chunk him 22/50hp.

Aldeth Sashenstar watches me deal with Seniyad and his tree-huggers. After one spider poisoning and a more dangerous ettercap poisoning Cloakwood mine is reached. Drasus charges alone, but I require two minor healings and three blue potions before he expires.

Genthore is less dangerous but our battle rages for an eternity 3-4 minutes of mostly missing each other. Eventually he dies, and I rest before tackling the two mages.

Rezdan mirrors, but I hit him and run. His next spell is wizard-slayed, while I save against confusion from Kysus. Rezdan experiences another casting failure as I attack Kysus. He hits me with a flame arrow as I strike him, and a second arrow drops him. Rezdan has several mirror images left so I take a Melfs acid arrow before killing him.

Hareishan and guards are tough so I retreat. Hareishan doesn't follow so I cut the guards down, glugging all my blue potions to survive. I decide to go shopping before returning for the mage and a simple battle.

On the next level I hack away, resting various times and killing lots of guards who interrupt my sleep. Eventually I descend again.

Only to retreat as a battle horror is too tough for me to fight, forcing me to lead it away and lose it. I have to do the same for a second, meaning it is just me, Davaeorn and a mustard jelly left.

Blast four of the horn and boots of grounding are required against Davaeorn. A fireball is painful, and I heal before realising I should have used the horn again instead careless here as I had to save vs charm. I take the hint and blast the horn for a fifth time.

Davaeorn mirrors again as I hit, heal and hit. His next spell is slayed and I drop his remaining mirrors. Another slayed spell sees him resort to a quarterstaff. His robe and bracers may be strangely protective but eventually my swords do the job and I have the key to the mine plug.

[Shadow_Leech07]

good luck with your random party Grond0.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Grond0 wrote...

Right, here's the promised random party.  Took a bit of extra time to generate as I had to uninstall and reinstall a few mods (multiplayer won't start except in windowed mode and that can't be done with widescreen installed).
.

Just discovered that the hard way.

Also found that I don't like it as some of the buttons are so far away from the action so it means that you have to pause even more!

Some like it though, so chacun son goût.

[corey_russell]

Grond0 -- good luck with your random party. Btw, I can't see the character sheets for your party members, it's just too small for me. Would you mind posting links to your characters instead so I can take a look?

I made a random party in BG 2 one time. I had finished most of chapter two, was working on the planar sphere, when I got so bored with their general ineptness that I quit them -- hopefully that doesn't happen to you.

I'll be posting about Huntwen and his band of rangers soon.

[Charlestonian Knight Templar]

Wow Grond0, that IS a unique party.

Like you, I'm big on fighter types and clerics so this would be quite a challenge. Definately have to come up with new strategy's.

How does the party interaction work? Is there any when you make characters randomly like this?

I've often thought of generating all six characters so I could develop the 'perfect' party but losing the character interaction make me shy away. My perfect party would be a LG Paladin (PC), LG Fighter, LG Ranger/Archer, LG Cleric, LG Mage, NG Thief/Bounty Hunter (or Swashbuckler).

Thanks for the look into your new party and good luck!

CKT

[Grond0]

corey_russell wrote...
I made a random party in BG 2 one time. I had finished most of chapter two, was working on the planar sphere, when I got so bored with their general ineptness that I quit them -- hopefully that doesn't happen to you.

I agree that is a danger, but so far so good.

Charlestonian Knight Templar wrote...
Wow Grond0, that IS a unique party.

Like you, I'm big on fighter types and clerics so this would be quite a challenge. Definately have to come up with new strategy's.

How does the party interaction work? Is there any when you make characters randomly like this?

I've often thought of generating all six characters so I could develop the 'perfect' party but losing the character interaction make me shy away. My perfect party would be a LG Paladin (PC), LG Fighter, LG Ranger/Archer, LG Cleric, LG Mage, NG Thief/Bounty Hunter (or Swashbuckler).

Thanks for the look into your new party and good luck!CKT

No party interaction I'm afraid, but I tend not to pay too much attention to that anyway these days, so it's not much of a loss.

[Gate70]

corey_russell wrote...
 Btw, I can't see the character sheets for your party members, it's just too small for me. Would you mind posting links to your characters instead so I can take a look?

You can probably zoom in your browser, e.g. CTRL + 3 or 4 times (and - to return) in Firefox makes them perfectly readable.

[Grond0]

Update 1 for random party.

So far they have cleared the areas down the spine from the Friendly Arm to Nashkel and the areas to the south of Nashkel.  Initially nearly all combat was at range, but that requires a lot of micro-management with a party, which is a bit tiresome.  Most things are now engaged by Bulwark as the tank, while the others use missiles or spells.  I've used blind quite a bit, although chasing around all over maps after things is both time-consuming and potentially dangerous (you really need to clear the map before engaging potentially troublesome things to avoiding chasing them into range of archers).  I haven't been super careful and have had a number of deaths, although Triage has never been in danger.

As a cleric of tempus Bulwark is allowed to get grand mastery in hammers and has 3 stars to date.  Unfortunately this does not provide him with the extra 1/2 attack given to fighters (I think it really ought to, but it's probably difficult to code for this).  Whisper is the only one who's done backstabbing to date.  All his points have gone into stealth, but it will be a long time yet before he can reliably hide.  Triage opens locks, while Sanita cleans up traps.  Where pickpocketing is attempted all 3 give it a go at once.  Triage has an imp as a familiar, but this has only 18 HPs (all the others have 24) and is pretty vulnerable to criticals.  As a result it stayed in the backpack after dealing with Xzar and Montaron until recently.  The party is now in the Nashkel mines and the Imp's regeneration makes it possible to deal with most of the kobolds there on its own.  Sleep and color spray spells have been used fairly extensively as well so far by Tricksie and Anon, but will probably be abandoned for magic missiles once the mine is clear.

No magic items have been bought so far, although some ones found on travels are in use - particularly helpful are the bracers setting dexterity to 18 to improve Bulwark's durability.  I probably will get some other assistance (such as the green amulet) at some point.

A few screenshots from the adventures so far:

I wasn't sure whether it was possible to poison a wooden staff - it is


Even though Neira only had the inn to run in, it still took ages to finish her off after blinding.  Most of the party needed 20 to hit and at that stage Whisper had virtually no success in hiding.


I thought initially that this lightning bolt had actually killed a hobgoblin elite, but it looks as though a sling bullet just beat it.


Even though asking nicely with 17 charisma and 14 or 15 reputation Jared still didn't want to part with his boots.  However, he hung around too long and got his feet picked anyway.


This was an occasion where those sleep spells came in handy.  With 2 of the mages at level 1 and 2 at level 2 the spells didn't last that long.  In addition in my installation sleeping enemies wake on taking damage and hence sleep is not an automatic kill.  The encounter was thus not that easy and one of the mages actually got killed when being a bit slow in stepping back.


I took this as a warning to be more careful.  Whisper was a bit slow off the marks against a xvart and was one-shotted.  Even now the only character not vulnerable to death by a single blow from a gibberling is Bulwark, so the need for caution is still very much there.


As I normally play solo I don't very often take up the encounter with Shar-teel.  This is definitely a cheesy way to take her on!


Screenshots of current character records (in normal marching order):

[After5CST]

You can probably zoom in your browser,

With many browsers, CTRL + the scroll wheel on your mouse (if you have a scroll wheel) will zoom in an out, too.  Handly for guys whose eyes aren't as young as they used to be.

Modifié par After5CST, 21 février 2012 - 08:09 .

[Gate70]

Nocast, halfling wizard slayer.

A tome of leadership is obtained the usual way; blood, sweat and tears. The tome of bodily health is tougher, as neither fighting (risk of charm or excessive horn/amulet use), or stealth are options. Instead a shield +1 and boots of speed are used to nip past one visible and two nearby sirines, then avoid Sil and leap into a cave.

A flesh golem hits me once as I loot a treasure cache, then I complete my circuit of the cave and exit. Sil is waiting but I move towards the sea and then out-run her. Straight past the other sirine who casts dire charm as I see her. I blast the horn but I'm already charmed before the protective bubble appears.

Back we go again, thinking of a cursed run next.
Scrap that. I started a dwarven berserker, added the cursed sword of berserking and the girdle of gender. Then I went to see Mad Arcand and his ring dropped intelligence and wisdom to 3. After a couple of seconds the berserker became unselectable so just stood there. I rested a few times until a ghast turned up. Have to think of something else now.

Modifié par Gate70, 21 février 2012 - 09:37 .

[corey_russell]

Hard break there Gate70 -- thanks for the tip about CTRL +, I never knew that about firefox. And yes, using that trick I was then able to see Grond0's initial party's stats clearly.

Yikes Grond0 you have 4 mages a thief and a cleric? Pretty squishy party. If you can survive BG 1 though, BG 2 should get more rewarding with that kind of party. As I'm sure you are already aware, giving all your arcane guys wands should help quite a bit for BG 1. And I assume you are getting mirror image pronto for your PC ASAP, it could easily be a life-saver in ambushes or poorly executed battles.

And agreed, micro-managing 4 mages lot more work than say 4 melees.

[Shadow_Leech07]

A big problem for random parties is the cloakwood ambushes, the one that decimated my random party in particular. In hindsight however, several antidote potions would've come in handy.

Modifié par Shadow_Leech07, 22 février 2012 - 03:23 .

[After5CST]

I've learned to just run from all Cloakwood ambushes. You can run N to avoid the Ettercaps, and WSW to avoid the Wyvern/Spider ambushes. Otherwise, you burn too many antidote potions and (can) add a lot of risk for very little reward.

And my current perfect (losing) streak continues...

RIP, Kini II (M E Sorc)

Action Log:

(Currently in Spider Map)
(Kivan L5)
(Ajantis L5)
Returned Chilak's body to Tiber
(Kini L5)
(Coran F4/T4)
(Imoen L6 / Dualed to Mage)
Defeated Hamadryad
Defeated Wyvern Lair
(Imoen Mage L2)
Claimed bounty at Beregost temple
Freed Corianna from stone
(Coran T5/F4)
Attempted to return Gurke's Cloak
Killed Shaol and Droth
(Imoen Mage L3)
Returned Mad Archand's ring
Defeated Bassilus (despite him holding Kivan and Imoen)
(Imoen Mage L4)
Defeated Teyngan and his bandit friends
"Assisted" Drizzt
Defeated Sil and her Sirenes
(Kivan L6)
Claimed "Manual of Bodily Health"
(Ajantis L6)
(Coran F5/T5)
Found an idol, killed a Doomsayer (Web/Doom/Blind x4/Magic Missile x a lot)
Delivered Captain Brage to the Temple
(Kini L6 Sorc)
Defeated the "fastest dart thrower"
Reunited Albert and Rufie
Defended Prism
Killed the Renevant
Accepted a Dagger +2 from a crazy
Killed three ghouls
Defended self against crazy Neen and his jellies
Defeated the Amazons
(Coran F5/T6)
Took Samuel to FAI
Claimed Prism's Bounty
Proved "Skull Trap" is unhealthy to your own party
Managed to finish Ulcaster despite it, though
Finished Sarhedra's stupid Ogre-killing quest
Defeated Arghain and his band of half-ogres
(Finally) found Ulcaster and gave him his book
Killed Icharyd
Killed Kahrk with the help of Melium and Poe
Killed Melium (Poe died, too)
[Surprise! Poe has a +1 Spear... didn't know that!]
Killed Molkar and Assassin party
[Note to self: Dwarven saving throws don't do any good against a hailstorm of arrows]
Killed Jenkal, the halfling traitor
Killed Lendarn and the Ogre Mage
Reunited the ghosts in the ruins
Reported kobold success to Gandolar Luckyfoot
Survived a Basilisk/Hobgoblin ambush
(Branwen L7)
Killed Mutamin and his basilisk pets
Defended party from the Red Wizards of Thay
(Kini Sorc L7)
Killed Corsone and Osmadi (druids)
(Imoen Mage 6)
Killed Drasus & Co outside the mine ( Web/Stinking Cloud/Fireball/Skull Trap/Blindness )
Killed Hareishan (and nearly whole party) in narrow hall with Skull Traps
Killed Davaeorn
Killed Battle Horrors (and Imoen) with Skull Traps & MM
Freed Slaves
Flooded Mines
Leared Officer Vai had new orders
Killed by (of all things) a single Ankheg

Freak death. Popped down in the hole to get the Farmer's boy, and the Ankheg at the start of the map immediately locked onto my poor sorc. Two straight hits, and my attempts at drinking a healing potion didn't get through before death got there.

Grrr. Until then, things had become a cakewalk, with Coran & Kivan mowing things down with bows, Ajantis tanking, and Kini and Imoen blasting stuff with spells. Oh, and Branwen was there too.

[corey_russell]

Huntwen and his band of rangers update:

@After5CST - consolations there. Yeah, ankhegs are vicious to low AC characters. I've had at least two no-reload characters die to them. Good luck in your next run.

Huntwen and his band of rangers - Minsc(Ranger), Reb (Ranger), Twoone (Stalker), Kivan (Ranger), Huntwen (Ranger) and PinkHannasee (archer) continue to make progress. As some of you may remember, this is my first run through BG 1 using EasyTutu. In various ways, it is both harder and easier than vanilla BG 1.

At the start of this session, our cash was pretty good (15,000), so I thought it's time to get the greenstone amulet and the cloak of displacement. But before we could get it, we had to travel through ankheg country. In preparation, I had Minsc put away his two hand sword and use a mace and shield, since AC helps a lot against Ankhegs. All characters took damage here, including Huntwen. However, in every case I managed to either potion in time or kill the ankheg before it could get a killing blow in.

We helped the priestess of umberless while we were here, as well as obtained farmer Brun's boy's body -- tough break for Brun. We headed to Ulgoth's beard and got the two previously mentioned items, the cloak of displacement going to Twoone for now.

Next, we battled in Larswood. Most of the party got to level 6 here. We also had our first party death - PinkHannasee got mowed down quickly by the black talon elites. We returned to a temple to raise her and gave her the cloak of displacement to hopefully avoid a repeat of that.


Throughout both Larswood and Pelvale, various party members including Huntwen got hit hard by the black talon elites. Fortunately, was able to keep everyone alive - the sleep wand helped in this respect. Also noticed the bandits "clumped" together, quite unlike vanilla. I got the bandit liason, his group of normal bandits, as well black talon eltes all at once - if we were a party of mages it could have been a disaster.

Once Pelvale and Larswood were clear, we hit the bandit camp. We ran into various ambushes doing this, but so far the ambushes seem somewhat weaker than vanilla -- I never get any more 12 bandits + 4 melee ambushes with EasyTutu. Bandit camp was noticeably harder -- in vanilla BG 1, I can often just fight 2-3 bandits at a time. But using BG 2 engine, either the aggro radius is larger or perhaps they are doing calls for help -- in any case, we ended up fighting two large clumps of bandits, one at our arrival into the camp, the other with Khosann and his many friends. Khosann battle was a mess, our front-liners were taking lots of damage, and Twoone almost bit it, but we managed to pull through without deaths. Had I known they would clump, I would have prepared a fireball for them.

As for Tazok's tent, we attacked Venkt the mage immediately, even when he was still blue circle. Venkt managed to get mirror image up, with with 4 bowmen hitting him, his images and ultimately himself went down fast. Reb got poisoned by the hobgoblin archer, but was ready with that and used a potion. As for the trapped chest, Reb used a protection from lightning scroll and set it off. After looting the rest of the camp (what we could bash open, anyways) we rested at the FAI and sold our junk. Also restocked on potions, everyone having 5 antidotes and 5 blue heal potions. Our gold is at 5500.

We still have baslisks and sirines to take care of, so probably will do those soon.

Modifié par corey_russell, 22 février 2012 - 07:07 .

[Grond0]

Update 2 for random party

corey_russell wrote...
Yikes Grond0 you have 4 mages a thief and a cleric? Pretty squishy party.

Yes - I noticed that, but they are still soldiering on!  Thus far none of the mages have successfully learnt a single spell (only tried about 4 or 5 times with level 1 spells).  That's partly to conserve intelligence potions, partly to wait until reputation is maximised and partly because I think characters should do a bit of hard work before depending on magic (party hasn't used any wands yet either).


They came through the Nashkel mines without much trouble from the kobolds - the imp earning his corn by acting as scout and taking on forces where it seemed safe.  He also took jelly shape to confont the kobold shaman and encourage him to waste his spells.

The battle with Mulahey was more risky as Triage was exposed when Mulahey called for his minions.  Most of the kobolds were slept, but they seemed to all be targeting Triage first and he took a couple of nasty hits.

Mulahey followed out of the door, but ran straight into a couple of blinds and caused no more trouble.


Back in Nashkel Nimbul saved against a couple of silence attempts, but got no benefit after being treated to Whisper's first triple damage backstab.


Travelling North from Nashkel the party ran into their first bandit ambush.  Again this had the potential to be nasty, but all the bandits missed with their initial shots and then most failed their spell saving throws.


The battle with Tranzig should have been easy, but I failed to control the pathfinding of the group properly and they got targeted with spells by Tranzig.  Here everyone is suffering from either sleep or horror (or both).

Fortunately Tranzig latched mainly onto Bulwark and the party escaped with a couple of deaths.  On their way to the temple to recover they were ambushed by Lamalha and her assassins (cleric, 2 invisible thieves and a fighter). 

This battle will need some preparation, e.g. everyone invisible except some skeletons to absorb the backstabs - so the temple has been declared off limits for now.

Bassilus was not so lucky in avoiding silence.

That made him an easy target - here he was already blinded before being held as well. 

I haven't tried this tactic before, but my expectation was that the skeletons would only become hostile if they heard Bassilus call for help (which he obviously could not do).  That seemed to be the case: in fact all the skeletons in hearing range died after Bassilus was killed.

Tried to give Melicamp a second lease of life, but without success.

Modifié par Grond0, 22 février 2012 - 07:48 .

[corey_russell]

Looking good Grond0 - hopefully you can keep it up. I'm feeling good about my all ranger party - oh forgot to mention something -- I gave Thunderhammer Smithy an ankheg shell for 500 gold, then he never let me get that option again! Tough lesson to learn, but I'll remember it now. Would have nice for him to craft some armor, but now that option is gone. This is a bit different than vanilla. The armor wasn't critical to my game plan, and everyone's strong, so plate plus ring +1 is good enough.

[Grond0]

I normally go for the plate + ring anyway given the choice (to get the saving throw bonus). That's not an option in my current game as only Bulwark can wear metal armour and he's not strong enough to wear normal plate. The ankheg armour has been a real benefit for him!