16409 réponses à ce sujet

[After5CST]

RIP Ranke, H M Barb
Note from Jaheira:

"We succeeded in our quest to discover what was wrong in Nashkel, in the end I failed in my quest to protect Gorion's ward. The mines were infested with kobolds and an evil cleric, poisoning the mine. While I would prefer the mine be abandoned, poisoning Mother Earth is not to be tolerated. Mulahey fell through Doom and brute force, without ever managing to cast a spell.

"However, on exiting the mine, we were attacked by an agressive Ankheg. Ranke was always the one to be conservative with his healing potions, and this time he paid the price. I don't know why the Ankheg singled him out, but for whatever reason Mother Earth had decided to test his mettle, and he was not nearly quick enough to down our healing potions to stay alive.

"Khalid is off digging the grave now,and Imoen gathering flowers, but I have warned her not to wander too far. There are more dangerous creatures in the area, most of all a group of two-legged ones to the NE."

I'm going to take a break from the challenge for a little bit at this point. Maybe play with a character generator (I like Charlestonian's "old style" rolling of generating the stats first, and then picking from the available options) or mess with Grond0's spreadsheet. Or -- who knows -- maybe something else altogether.

I'm just getting too sloppy.

Modifié par After5CST, 23 février 2012 - 03:10 .

[corey_russell]

Yikes! Another Ankheg death -- they seem to have your number. Consolations there After5CST. Good luck with your future endeavors.

[gunman78]

Ankhegs are too tough for a level 2/3 party, which happens if the player takes the classic route. After defeating Mulahey I prefer to be safe and exit the mines the way I came

[corey_russell]

Ankhegs can be dealt with fine, as long as your tanks have -5/-6 AC and you make sure they are seen first. Even with levels under your belt, Ankhegs are always dangerous to casters. I had a solo level 5 fighter/level 5 mage before, and he was viciously taken down by an Ankheg (he foolishly wasn't using a shield for AC).

But exiting the way you came is certainly the safest option.

[Grond0]

They can be safely dealt with if you want to take the time and micro-management. They don't have a very fast weapon speed so you can use the following:
- use autopause on enemy sighted
- when you see them let them activate and then move back to make them burrow underground.
- move forward with 1 character to get them to switch to a melee attack.
- that character can then let the ankheg come up, wait a moment, and then move back (sending the ankheg underground again). In the interval the ankheg is up other party members can use spells or missiles (note that missile attacks still target ankhegs while they are underground).
- a similar strategy can be used by solo characters as well.

[Grond0]

Final update for random party.

They had recently got up to reputation 20 and were just finishing off the basilisk area prior to going to Ulgoth's Beard and doing some shopping.  The party there were gone and the last basilisk almost dead when I lost concentration (I blame my son who was hassling me to get off the computer).  I didn't notice that Triage's spell protection had run out and reacted too late when the basilisk turned round to target him.

[corey_russell]

Sorry to hear about your "random" demise. If I'm going to use a party to clear the basilisks, I put the scroll on the PC then user the spells to protect the fighters, this way if I don't notice it running it out, no biggie just a scroll of stone to flesh and some healing and they are back in business.

Too bad. It would have been nice to see your guys get far.

[Grond0]

There should have been loads of time as I didn't cast the spell until only the portion at the bottom of the map containing basilisks was unexplored. The first group of 3 were dispatched quite swiftly, but I think I must not have paused the game while I was talking to my son (ironically including telling him about the importance of protecting the main character from the basilisk gaze attack)!

I'm not planning to play it, but out of interest I just generated another random party to see what it would look like. Instead of no fighter-types at all this one had 4 single class fighter types and 1 fighter/thief - quite a variation.

[Grond0]

I decided it was about time I had another proper attempt at BG2 so I'm trying again with a fighter / thief.  I've run him through BG1 tonight (just over 5 hours play, so not that quick, but was emphasising safety over speed).  Order of encounters I noted down was as follows:

Got 2 rings at Friendly Arm.
Stole ankheg horde - returned body (level).
Returned bowl to Tenya - (2 levels).
Karlat, Slime quest, Spiders, Marl, Letter (level), Firebead book, Stealth boots.
Revived Melicamp (level), Bjornin, Xvarts cow, Caldo & Krumm, Lighthouse wolves (rep 20).
Sneaked into pirate cave; used money to date to buy martial staff and green amulet.
Landrin's stuff (level).
Noober, Neira, Vitiare, Zordral, Bought necklace missiles + shield amulet, Greywolf (level).
Killed Algernon + another innocent (wanted evil Bhaal powers).
Mulahey, Mayor, Nimbul.
Ring of free action, Drasus (level), Daveorn (level).
Dex tome, Ramazith, Helm Balduran, Jalantha (level), Varci, Marek (level), Cloak of Balduran, Searched Iron Throne.
Durlag tome, Prot magic to rob Candlekeep tombs, Cythandria, Slythe, Palace (level), Sarevok (level).

The only screenshots I took were of what I think was his best backstab

and the final moments for Sarevok


Incidentally I've realised in writing this that Quis only got his first 3 Bhaal powers - drat and double-drat. It's not unusual for me to forget to get 1 or perhaps 2, but missing 3 is a bit much.  I really must get into the habit of resting more often!

Edit: here's his character record taken from the beginning of BG2. 

He actually got to the XP cap with the death of Sarevok, so that was a nicely judged progression.  He managed a grand total of 134 kills in the game.

Modifié par Grond0, 24 février 2012 - 12:56 .

[corey_russell]

Nice work Grond0 - you speed is just amazing. Good luck in BG 2.

[Shadow_Leech07]

Very nice Grond0.

[corey_russell]

Huntwen and band of rangers update:

Huntwen and gang have finally cleared most of the sword coast areas of enemies, including sirines, basilisks, Melium (and NOT Karhk), firewine bridge ruins and Gullykin area. Everything went smoothly except for one hitch with the battle with Molkar and his band of thugs. Minsc got held and killed, Huntwen failed his save vs. horror and took some magic missiles -- up to this point was on AI, I had enough of the AI though targeted the mage then cleric, then the battle was won quickly.


We are intentionally leaving the red wizards area for later - there's a few web traps there, and we'd like to have the spider's bane before we try to venture there.

We will brave the Cloakwood in our next session.

[Charlestonian Knight Templar]

Wow Grond0. It can take me five hours to work through Lions Way, Coast Way and FAI.

I bow to the BG Master of Speed!

CKT

[Charlestonian Knight Templar]

On the North Nashkel Road we easily destroyed another group of Bandits. 


                                                       South Beregost Road, North Nashkel Road (Chapter 1)

We headed south to the South Beregost Road (SBR) to recon that area before heading further. We continued to have to beat of Gibberlings like gnats. On the SBR we also battled quite a few Hobgoblins (Orecai), one of which was in possession of a set of Boots of Speed (or so I imagine). We’d met a Hobbit at the FAI, who besides pilfering 15gp from me, told us he’d had a set stolen by some Orecai in the ‘badlands’ south of Beregost.  We also killed a couple of Ogrillon's, one of which had a letter from a man named Roe to his wife Marianne. We'd met Marianne and later returned the letter to her. She was very relieved. We also returned the boots, got our own 15gps back plus another 100gp. That works!

Key Event: Our most difficult battle was versus just two Ghasts. These things are just utterly nasty. I tried to hold back Ajantis but eventually had to let him go. Sure enough one of them landed an attack and he was ‘Held’ (See Leader Note). Jaheira sounded the alarm and everyone attacked that Ghast and killed it before it could hurt Ajantis further. Then we quickly took out the second.

In the North Nashkel Road we ran into a woman who wanted to duel our best male swordsman. I took the challenge and she attacked me using two Long Swords. She never laid steel on me and after my second Two-Handed bash into her armor she surrendered and offered me her sword. I declined. Aside from that there was nothing of note other than battles with quite a few Orecai, Gibberlings, and Wild Dogs etc.

We headed back to Beregost & returned the boots and letter I mentioned above.

Treasure Acquired: (Legend: Sold (S); General Party Use (GP); Seth (Se), Imoen (Im), Khalid (Kh) etc; Spellbook (Sb): Ring of Protection +1 (Se); Potions: Healing (GP); Misc Weapons, Armor,gems (S); ~150gp

Leader Notes:. Anytime a party member is Held or otherwise helpless, whoever in the party sees it first is supposed to holler, “HELD” to alert us all that one of our number is helpless. Everyone, if possible is admonished then to turn their attacks on the creature who is attacking our helpless party member.

Current Disposition: Resting at the Burning Wizard in Beregost.

Next Steps: Travel to Fisherman’s Lake to avenge Bjornin.

Game Notes/Questions: None

Promotions: Kivan advanced to 3rd Lvl Rgr/Arch & increased to *** w/Lbow; Ajantis advanced to 3rd Lvl Pal & increased to ** in LSwd; I advanced to 3rd Lvl Pal(Cav) & added a ** to 2HWS.

Current Party: (Reputation: 14 - Popular)
Seth:3rd Lvl Pal (Cav);(18/00,17,18,10,13,18);ChMail/2HSwd/Flail (Prf: 2HS, Flail, 2HWS**, SWS)
Ajantis: 3rd Lvl Pal, SpMail/LSwd/Mace (Prf: LSwd**, Mace, SS**)
Kivan: 3rdLvl Rgr (Archer); St Ltr/LBow/Spear (Profs: LBow***,Spear, 2HWS)
Imoen: 3rd Lvl Thf (Swbklr), Std Ltr/Dag/SBow (Prof: Dag,SBow)
Khalid: 1st/1st/1st Lvl Ftr/Mage/Thf(BH); LB/BSwd(Prof: BSwd**,LBow**)
Jaheira: 2nd Lvl Drd; Std Lthr/Club/Slg(Prof: Club,Slg)

Reloads: 0

Mods Used: E. Tutu/TOB; Hard Times, BG1 UB; NPC 1 Pr; Randmzr, BGII Twk Pack, SCS, Level 1 NPCs

Modifié par Charlestonian Knight Templar, 24 février 2012 - 03:36 .

[After5CST]

Charlestonian Knight Templar wrote...

Wow Grond0. It can take me five hours to work through Lions Way, Coast Way and FAI.

I've sped that part up lately.  There's just not that much on the Lion's Way, and the combats are either inane (diseased gibberlings) or likely to kill you (wolves of various flavors), and neither are worth enough XP to take a risk. 

As a result, I now hit the bottom map edge (to gain access to High Hedge), walk up to Gorion's body in the hope that one of the Ogres had a 2nd level mage scroll on it, and then across to the diamond tree carefully (there is a wolf on that leg).  After that, I hit the right edge of the map (to gain access to the Coast Way) and either go there or to High Hedge depending on if I'm planning to head towards the FAI or Beregost.

The dude that's "thinking" about jumping off the cliff can find someone else to talk to, and the rest of the map is either too dangerous or too unrewarding to bother with.  (Except the bear, and for some reason I've developed a soft spot for bears and don't deliberately aggravate them).

I also use CLUAConsole:ExploreArea() to clear the black from the Beregost, Nashkel, and FAI maps.  The first two have no hostile encounters (outside) on first exploration, and the last has only the statc placements of hobgoblins (with no respawns).  I've walked the black off on those maps too many times and at this point I just don't care.

I bow to the BG Master of Speed! CKT

+1

[corey_russell]

Huntwen and his band of rangers update:

Cloakwood:
Huntwen's party had no trouble with the ambushes. We had a lot of acid arrows for just this occassion, and with 4 bowmen with acid arrows, even the wyverns fell fast. For some reason we didn't get the real bad one at all (e.g., the 2 wyverns and 4 spiders), possibly due to our formation. I've noticed formations can influence what cloakwood spawns you get or don't get. In any case, the toughest ambush was two wyverns, but they were no problem.

The 2nd cloakwood area (spiders) was tough at first, we tried to set it off the first trap via stealth but then Twoone got stuck in the resulting web which was OK at first, but then he failed his hide in shadows and was seen by 8 spiders. Unless I wanted to let him die (which I didn't) the party had to charge into the web and try to whittle those spiders down. I constantly had to give orders every round since people who could attack would fail their save vs. the web and others would make it and need to know what to do. But miraculously Twone survived.

Centeol and her friends with poison -- we equipped our best ammo, then let the AI do its thing...I'm not certain but it feels like there might have been a few less enemies than vanilla. Spider's Bane went to Minsc. Once we got this sword the rest of the spider area went much smoother.

The Hamadryad was impressive - despite 6 ranged attackers it managed to get a charm off on Minsc - the party quickly ran away and waited it out.

Drassus party only required a few changes from our normal ranged/melee attack. For one, Minsc switched to his light crossbow of speed. Only Paja will melee and her only buff is the greenstone amulet. The party of course concentrated on the mages. Paja had to use heal potions about 3 of them, but other than that was a clean victory.

The Cloakwood Mine itself went pretty smoothly as well. Before dealing with Heirashan, Minsc gulped a potion of aborption - this proved prophetic because he got hit a few times with her lightning bolt -- but Minsc being immune, she and her minions fell without much trouble. Should be noted we went AROUND the traps, e.g. through the ghast infested passage. Ghasts/ghouls are pretty harmless, since they are Huntwen's racial enemy.

The female mage and ogre mage on the next level were dealt with by a magic shielding potion each. We had cleared everything on the 4th level but had to return to FAI to sell, we were full.

We came back and had to battle two battle horrors since we can't de-trap. Each time, the horrors whack Minsc hard, he has to retreat both times, and it "seems" the party is missing -- assume they have high AC, and each time they also targeted Huntwen. However, Huntwen isn't bad with his +1 two-hand sword, and the party beat both them down.

As for Davaeorn himself, Paja used a protection from magic scroll and engaged him until he started to melee - that was the party's cue to engage. He had no chance.

The party is about to enter Baldur's Gate. Everyone just leveled to 7. Level 8 is 150,000 experience, but most of the party is at about 75,000 -- don't think I will worry about experience anymore, and just get upgrades/cash. Level 7 is the important level for us anyways with the extra 1/2 an attack.

[Grond0]

Initial update for Remus - Feralan.

I still feel that my best chance in BG2 will be making use of thief skills, so the intention is for the Feralan to dual to thief at some point.  The Feralan class already has very good stealth skills - will be over 100% at level 9.  I'm not sure what will happen to stealth in a dual class situation (thieves use separate HiS / MS, rather than the combined stealth score), but will aim for the thief to use skill points in other areas in the hope that stealth will become active again eventually.

So far Remus has just quickly explored the area from the Friendly Arm down to Nashkel and the carnival, with an additional side trip to bury Shoal.  She's now at level 4 and has picked up very nice HPs so far to add to some good starting stats. 


Will go and get Meilum's bracers next and then venture into the Nashkel mines.  The bracers should be particularly beneficial as Remus is using darts as her missile weapon.  I normally steer clear of these as the short range makes them less effective for a stealth user, but they seemed appropriate for a Feralan - particularly given she appears to be holding one in her picture.

She has also used dual wielding a few times, taking advantage of her ranger heritage.  In her encounter with Xzar her left hand strike not only interrupted his initial spell,

but finished him off in the next round.  Neira and Tarnesh were also victims of the fast-moving maces.


For those who may not know the Feralan is a mod-added kit from Unfinished Business.  This mod tries to put into the game functionality that was dropped during the Bioware development process.  I got some evidence for this yesterday when looking for information on weapon proficiencies and seeing that the Bioware tables include the heading for Feralan (though the stats are for the archer ranger sub-class).  The Feralan kit is described as follows:

FERALAN: What happens to children who wander in the wilderness and are never recovered? Or worse, those who are abandoned there? Many succumb to the dangers of the wild, but a fortunate few are taken in by animals, raised as a part of a lion`s brood, or a wolf`s litter. Cut off from civilization, they gradually take on the characteristics of the creatures who adopted them, forming some kind of unity with the spirit of the wild. In the process they become feralans, beings who combine the savagery of beasts with the intellect of man.

Due to their wild nature, Feralans may not be of Lawful alignment. As Rangers, they are limited to Good alignments.

Advantages:
- +10% to Stealth ability
- Gains +1 AC at first level, and a further bonus of +1 AC per 5 levels
- May go into a Feral Rage once per day per 10 levels. The enraged state lasts for 60 seconds, and grants a bonus of +2 to hit, damage, and AC, and immunity to charm, hold and fear, maze, imprisonment, stun and sleep. He also gains 15 temporary hit points
- May cast Call of the Wild once per day. This summons an animal companion who will fight for the caster for 3 rounds + 1 round/level. More powerful creatures are summoned at higher levels

Disadvantages:
- Becomes winded after Feral Rage. While he's winded he receives -2 to hit, -2 to damage and a +2 penalty to armor class.
- Limited to one proficiency point in Bastard Sword, Long Sword, Short Sword, Two - Handed Sword, Katana, Scimitar, Halberd, Flail and Crossbow
- May not wear any armour or use Large Shields
- Maximum Charisma is 2 points lower than a standard member of the race

[gunman78]

 Roland continued...

After resting at the Friendly Arm Inn, the party headed straight to bandit's camp. They swept the map of bandits and hobgoblins with ease. Taugosz Khosann was blinded and finished off without trouble.



Before entering the large tent which was obviously sheltering some high ranking bandits, Roland cast protection from fear and protection from evil on himself and on Minsc. It was a good move, as the wizard inside the tent managed to cast horror before being disrupted. However he didn't manage to cast anything after that and was one of the first to fall. One by one, the bandits were slain.



In the tent there was a captive and documents inside a trapped chest. Investigation revealed that an organization named Iron Throne had a base in Cloakwood mines.



Traveling between different areas of the Wood of Sharp Teeth, the party of Roland meet for the first time a Wyvern. The spell Blind proved to be one of the most useful spells until now, as once disabled, the wyvern was little danger.



In that wilderness, Roland encountered a band of bards, and they sat together around a campfire. After listening to songs and drinking a keg of wine, Roland was offered a harp as a gift.



The Wood of Sharp Teeth hid many dangers besides bandits. Some of the fearsome were wolfweres. They hit hard, so Roland needed to cast Protection from evil on Minsc to improve the odds agains them.



The raid on bandit camp and Larswood and Peldvale delivered a heavy blow to the bandit activity in the area, and yielded an abundance of enhanced arrows:



After turning the bandit scalps for ransome and resting in Beregost, the party headed east of the temple, in the fields known to be infested with basilisks. Having a wand of monster summoning in inventory, one of the tactics employed against basilisks was using summons as cannon fodder:



However, the area hide other dangers besides basilisks, such as skeleton warriors, undead of imense strength that could take half of Minsc's HP in one hit. When fighting them, Roland made plenty of use of Protection from evil on Minsc.

Minsc taking friendly fire from an wand of ice:



Roland quickly learned that skeleton warriors are magic resistant, so magical weapons were the only way to deal with them. The experience earned allowed Roland to advance to level 6 and learn his first third level spell: haste.
Then the party proceed north, to an area infested with spiders of all sorts: giant, wraith, phase, sword. Some necromancers were performing their evil ritual in that area. The leader was pelted with arrows and magic missiles and Dynaheir's fireball wiped his henchmen.

Despide the dangers, the party found time to admire the beauty of the landscape:



After exploring the area, the party returned to Beregost before heading to Ulcaster.

Modifié par gunman78, 25 février 2012 - 12:34 .

[Shadow_Leech07]

My Fighter/Mage/Cleric named Greta has reached chapter 5. I will post more details on her later. Right now I'm pondering whether to bring the rest of my characters up to speed to Chapter 5.

[corey_russell]

Grond0: I'm confused about something -- isn't a Ferelan some type of ranger? And I thought dual classes can only be valid multi combinations. A ranger/thief is not a vaild dual class. You have some trick around that?

[Grond0]

You're quite right Corey. I do use the TobEX mod, which has a component removing all dual-class restrictions, but haven't installed that one. So if Remus was going to dual she would have to become a cleric.

[corey_russell]

Huntwen and his band of rangers update:

Huntwen and band have finished what quests they will do in Baldur's Gate. Both the Mountain Maulers and Degrodel's minions required  use of some heal potions, but otherwise went smoothly. Kivan had to run all over the room as an invisible stalker was taking a liking to him, but he pulled through.

For the building with the 5 ogre mages, the party threw 6 fireballs - this was sufficient as you can see, but we got hurt a bit in the process.


Eventually it was time to deal with Sarevok's acolytes on the 5th floor of the Iron Throne headquarters. Huntwen used some arrows of detonation and soloed the fight, taking some damage and having to heal about 3 times...almost all of the damage was dealt by Gardush -- good thing Huntwen had a haste potion and strength potion to tilt the odds his way.


We reported our success to Duke Eltan and was sent to Candlekeep. Huntwen left the Iron Throne leaders alone, and rested for days until he got his DUHM (yeah Grond0, I don't have your weakness here...).

We were arrested but then sent to the crypts by Tethoril. Huntwen was in front for once, only so he could use the bastard sword that is +3 against shapeshifters. With lots of heal potions and under 100% fire and lightning protection, Huntwen set off the traps and obtained the tomes.

For the next area, since we don't care about experience we headed straight to the dopplegangers blocking us, after dealing the the few dopplegangers that attacked us along the way. We had to fight 6 instead of the usual 3 in vanilla -- the greater doppleganger actually got some means spells off, but Huntwen and Minsc pulled through.

As for Prat, Huntwen dealt with his gang using haste potion, arrows of detonation (with 130% fire resistance) and greenstone amulet and 100% lightning resistance -- this was effective. Since we are not going after experience, we left the spiders alone and dealt with the Basilisks by Minsc and Paja using Mirror eyes potions.

The party will try to stop Sarevok's plans in the city of Baldur's Gate next...

[Grond0]

Oh well Remus has just died anyway so dualling questions are rather academic. He was ambushed by Molkar and co at the Beregost temple and successfully fought them off, though taking quite a bit of damage in the process. A bit later, just prior to going to the bandit camp, he was ambushed in the same spot by Telka and the amazons. I was intending to run away from the invisible thieves, but ended up barging straight into them - and both hit with their backstabs.

[corey_russell]

Who would have thought it -- assassins who successfully assassinated! Sorry you're their success story Grond0.

[corey_russell]

Huntwen and his band of rangers - FINAL update

The party is in chapter 7. We travel through the sewers exclusively.

First stop is 5th floor of the Iron Throne building. We equip our best arrows then attack the ogres and Cythrandria. She and her minions fall, Sarevok's diary is now ours.

Next stop -- the Undercellar. Again best arrows equipped - Slythe fell quickly. We had a wait for Kristin but once she showed herself she also fell quickly to our ranged power. Invitation ours.

We crash the party at the Grand Duke's coronation. We equipped our best arrows and walked right into the middle of the fray and attacked. The party was able to kill all the Greater Dopplegangers before they could kill either duke.

We showed our evidence, or tried to at least, but Sarevok started attacking, putting quite a beat down on Reb. She retreated and the party assisted to force him to vacate the premises. Belt then trasported us to the thieve's guild. We did some purchases and rested, getting Huntwen's last Bhaal power.

The jellies were easy, as were the battle horrors. For the skeleton warriors, Reb used a protection from magic scroll and set them all off. She was fine but despite the fact the party was on the OTHER side of the wall of the skeletons and far down the hall, a bolt still managed to do lots of damage to the party. Fortunately no deaths. We healed, the skeletons showed themselves and were quickly slain by the party. We ventured further into the maze, Reb set off some more traps, still protected by the protection from magic scroll and got out of the maze.

Huntwen got to 100% fire protection, haste, greenstone amulet, strehgth potion moved forward alone and soloed the Iron Throne party in the Undercity using arrows of detonation.


We don't have spells, so decided we would take advantage of Reb's protection from magic scroll which is still active and entered the Temple of Bhaal.

Lots of potions/scrolls, see our buffs here if interested.

This is the first time for me to do this battle with the BG 2 engine -- I was sure it was going to be different, but didn't know how. Reb used a necklace of missiles (out of sight) and this used to pull only Semaj and Sarevok -- however with the new engine, Angelo was called too.

Sarevok was in our face almost immediately. I completely spaced and forgot to target him with dispelling arrows (and I had them, equipped too, but forgot to select the arrows). As a result, Paja was dieing fast. Semaj appeared and used a sequencer, charmed Minsc and dispelled ALL of Huntwen's buffs -- fortunately Huntwen still had 100% fire resistance due to equipment.

Reb was forced to run away from Sarevok so she did, she had a sliver of life left. Angelo finally appeared, but no exploding arrows our direction yet - I made a little bumble and forgot to purchase extra fire resistance scrolls so only Huntwen and PinkHannasee had any fire protection. Nevertheless, the moment Angelo appeared, Twoone got the killing blow on Sarevok...


Huntwen, along with his Bhaalspawn friends, Reb, Twoone and PinkHannasee will continue to BG 2 as this is a trilogy no-reload.