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[Blackmalkin]

BALANCE AND BLOODSHED: A DRUID'S TALE

Chapter III
in which party is ambushed, philosophy is discussed, mines are cleared and squirrels bleed

After the failed attempt on her life, Atavrksha led her party north to expand her balance restoration efforts. Just outside Beregost party was ambushed. Some other balance-haters no doubt. Only there was quite a lot of them and armed with bows. Raudra took one shot, Vrk two, but gulped a potion in between, so whole party managed to escape with their balance unrestored.

The incident has caused Druma doubt the party’s integrity.
“If we are so concerned about balance, why did we just run from it?” she asked.
”We could just lie down and die, to be sure,” Atavrksha replied “but that would be taking the easy path. A true druid knows the value of balance, but grieves for those who don’t. Thus, a druid should postpone his own balance, to be able to bring it to others.”

After reaching the Friendly Arm Inn party agreed to balance a few hobgoblins and fetch Joia’s ring. Just outside the Inn’s walls Vrk found a ring that looked extremely magical. Atavrksha told him to leave it be, as taking it would seriously distort the balance. Cuta agreed: “Selling it could be disastrous for the local market”. When the quest for Joia's ring was concluded, party rested. Outside, as that is what the druids like best. Most of them at least – Ashoka was very much eager to venture forth and have a drink, but he didn't manage to gather his party. Fortunately, one of the guards shared a bottle of wine with him.

On the next day, party journeyed south, to investigate this iron crisis that everyone was talking about. On their way to Nashkel and it’s mines, party brought balance to a band of half-ogres, grave robbers and Laryssa. After the fight with the latter, they were out of Entangle spells and decided to leave balancing Brage for the priests. In Nashkel Vrk was surprised to find out that he is already famous as a “Grey Wolf”. He didn’t know why “Grey”, but was happy to receive a gift of 200 gold pieces. Party went to the carnival to rest. But Ashoka was getting very thirsty so then they returned to town to visit an inn. Once inside they were attacked by a very aggressive cleric called Neira. The cleric was entangled before she got close, which allowed Ashoka to gulp a few drinks before the fight.



Battle proved to be an easy one. Vrk decided that giving enemy a fighting chance would be ten times better experience. Atavrksha shrugged and took party back to Beregost to buy a Dagger of Venom for Ashoka. Then, brave druids scouted the area around the Nashkel mines and found Prism, a sculptor. He was harassed by someone who called himself a “Grey Wolf”. Vrk wanted to severely punish the impostor, so he used his cloak to charm him and order him around a bit. Everyone was impressed by the cloak’s power, but before Vrk could use it again, Atavrksha stopped him:
“That would go against the balance. Once per day, max!”

Below the ground party had to face many kobolds, but easily balanced them all. There were also some traps but Druma disarmed them. She lost a lot of blood while doing it, which gave her an idea of dualing to thief, but her friends quickly talked her out of it. Finally, party found a person responsible for all that trouble, a cleric called Mulahey. He was entangled and embraced balance quickly, but his minions seriously hurt Druma before someone thought of entangling them too. Everyone apart form Ashoka achieved level 3 and Druma finally became a druid. Mulahey and his kobolds were just a part of a greater plot, but before party went to investigate the lead they found in late cleric’s letters, they went west, as Raudra needed to shoot some squirrels. During a fight with some skeletons that protested against squirrel extermination, Atavrksha used a Flame Blade for the first time.



Encounter with Sendai and a pair of archers was an occasion to test another new spell – Charm Person or Mammal. Sendai was charmed, balanced her companions then found herself entangled and achieved balance as well.

Back in Nashkel party met another assassin, Nimbul. But before he could attack he was cut down by a charmed berserker. Afterwards, the berserker turned hostile and had to be balanced. Unfortunately, some of the soldiers also took offense to being charmed and party had to evacuate before Ashoka got a chance to grab a drink.



Party status:
Atavrksha – druid 3, 27 HP, 15 kills (Mulahey)
Ashoka – fighter 2/druid 2, 22 HP, 76 kills (Greywolf)
Druma – warrior 3/druid 1, 31 HP, 50 kills (Neira)
Cuta – druid 3, 30 HP, 21 kills (half-ogre)
Vrk – druid 3, 19 HP, 18 kills (Laryssa)
Raudra – druid 3, 18 HP, 38 kills (Vax, but most of his kills are squirrels)

Entangle is everyone’s favourite spell.

Modifié par Blackmalkin, 26 juillet 2012 - 09:04 .

[Grond0]

Shylock (Grond0) and Kensai (Gate70). Session 1 (run time 2 10m)

Introducing the participants for our new multi-player run.  Portraits are taken from the end of our initial session.
- Shylock the gnome cleric/illusionist:


- Kensai the dwarf barbarian kensai:


We agreed to not go for a thief, but to take care when opening containers.

Candlekeep
Kensai's positive side is immediately on show as parts of Carbos and Shank spray the walls.

Friendly Arm
Ring of wizardry and Joia's ring are picked up (latter not returned yet to keep reputation down for a while).  Shylock also summoned a familiar here (this is probably the last time you'll see it outside his pack).

Beregost
On the way south Algernon suffers a fatal accident.  His cloak won't be used much, but there are a couple of encounters (such as Dushai) where it may be useful in the absence of a thief.

Nashkel
Shylock picks up a suit of armour (mainly to quickly slip on in case of archer ambushes).  Neira is blinded and commanded for Kensai to finish off.  That's been a favourite tactic so far - Kensai has the option of using his special ability and few things at this stage of the game will survive a dual-wielding round of that after being commanded.

Shoal
Looking for an easy level the duo go to confront Shoal.  Trying to rest there 3 ghasts in a row appeared before eventual success.  Kensai got a bit bored of running rings round them and got held when he cut the corner a bit too sharply.  Fortunately the ghast was nearly dead already and collapsed before finishing him off.

Melicamp
Waded through some wolves to get to a talking chicken, but he proved to be of no use (except as a tasty dinner).

Gnoll stronghold
Worked through the Cloudpeaks taking out Val & Zax and helping a dryad on the way.  The latter encounter provided Shylock with a belt (Kensai already has belt of piercing from the ogre).

Left Dynaheir to rot and just recovered the tome at the stronghold.

Nashkel mines
Greywolf was another victim of blind/command though the strain was still too much for Prism.  In the mines Kensai showed his more vulnerable qualities as he used up the majority of the healing potions acquired so far to offset arrow wounds.  At one point he reluctantly downed a couple more, only to heave a sigh of relief that he'd done so as he was immediately hit with 2 criticals for 14 and 16.

In Mulahey's cave the duo went to the top of the cave to deal with the summons and leave Mulahey himself for last.  That proved not to be straightforward - Mulahey was blinded almost immediately, but was still close enough to Kensai to hit him with a rigid thinking.  With Kensai unable to move away Mulahey followed up by holding him, only for Shylock to return the favour by playing the same trick on him! 

Shylock was not quite able to finish Mulahey off before Kensai came to his senses and grabbed the glory with a single blow.

Nashkel
Back in Nashkel Shylock rested to get his second LMD Bhaal power (although not actually used the first one yet).  Then Nimbul was silenced and quickly taken apart by Kensai in the last action of the night.

Information to date
Kensai kills 113 (most powerful Shoal) - nearly all using his dual-wielded axes, with the throwing variety used on a select few (such as ghasts).
Shylock kills 37 (winter wolf) - most with sling, though a few got magic missiled as well.  Favourite spell command.
That sort of kills ratio is likely to remain I think in BG1 - Gate70's chance to have the fun at the front of the duo this run!

Reloads: 0
Kensai resurrections: 0

Afterword: first time we've hosted the game on my computer and the initial play suggests that lag will be less of an issue than in our previous runs.

Modifié par Grond0, 13 mai 2012 - 06:43 .

[corey_russell]

Grats Grond0 on making it as far as you did. It should be noted in my multi-player run, Dogdancing has 80% of the kills! Your setup is very similar to ours - I'm a cleric/illusionist as well as your character. Our tanks a bit different (Dogdancing a fighter/thief, Gate70 a Kensai). Should be interesting to see how our groups do -- and yeah we've got a lot of mileage out of command/sleep as well.

[Grond0]

Shylock (Grond0) and Kensai (Gate70). Session 2 (run time 1h 45m; total 3h 55m)


One amendment before we started.  For some reason Kensai got imported into the game with 20 HPs at level 1 (should have been 15).  The extra 5 HPs were SK'd out before this session ( I don't think Kensai was ever down to 5 HPs in the previous session anyway).

Travel ambushes
Up to this point we had tended to run away when ambushed, but with a few levels under our belts we're now much happier to confont attackers.  Here some bandits wished they'd stayed at home.


Ulgoth's Beard
With Shylock able to cast web now the duo headed to Ulgoth's Beard to get Dushai's ring of free action.  The ankhegs on the way were mainly left alone as a single critical acid attack would still be nasty for Kensai. 

Dushai was led away from villagers with Algernon's Cloak to prevent everyone going hostile.  Also bought cloak of displacement and green amulet (the latter will probably rarely if ever be used).

Bassilus
After using blind/command to help with hobgoblins, Bassilus and his support group were rendered harmless by the first of many uses of (the insanely powerful) web and quickly taken down.


Basilisks
In search of more quick XP the basilisks were next on the list.  Both characters were protected from petrification to minimise the risk.  The group of basilisks at the bottom of the map were taken out first providing Shylock with 3rd level clerical spells.  That meant some skeletons assisted against Mutamin and then the party - although web was the main contributor for the latter group.

Sirenes
Over to the lighthouse for more XP farming.  Didn't bother with charm protection here, but let the skeletons lead the way to battle the first group.  Sil and her 2 companions got stuck as well.

The flesh golems in the pirate cave were a slightly different proposition because of their magic resistance and heavy hitting.  Tactics here involved 2 or 3 skeletons buffed with strength of one (which didn't reduce Kensai's strength as he was outside the cave during casting) to occupy their attention.

Bandit camp
The individual bandits quickly fell, although there was a healing rest needed to repair the arrow wounds inflicted on Kensai.  Taugosz and those close to him were the latest victims for web.


Shylock went inside the tent under sanctuary and put up another web while out of sight of Raemon at the top of the tent, allowing Kensai to come in and wreak havoc.  There was a momentary concern when Shylock moved into the web when auto-chasing a scared Hakt (who had disappeared behind a tent pole), but within a second or two the last enemy was dead anyway.

Information to date
Kensai kills 205 (92 this session; most powerful Shoal).
Shylock kills 52 (15 this session; most powerful sirene).  Favourite spell command.

Reloads: 0
Kensai resurrections: 0

[Grond0]

Shylock (Grond0) and Kensai (Gate70). Session 3 (run time 0h 55m; total 4h 50m)

After spending a bit of time selling equipment from the bandit camp the duo went straight to the Cloakwood.  A fairly minimalist approach here with Centeol being the only challenge taken on during the journey.

At the mine an initial attempt to rest failed.  That gave Shylock an excuse to chuck in a web.  Here Kensai shows off his kai ability - killing two guards during its short duration. 

Webs also did the heavy work against the party, though Kysus did break free just long enough to force Kensai to make a save.

Avoided most encounters going through the mines on the way to Daveorn.  It took a number of attempts to rest down there, but skeletons dealt efficiently with the guards that turned up until they were eventually no longer needed.
 

An invisible Kensai sneaked up on Daveorn and quickly took him down.  Meanwhile the 2 battle horrors caused a few more problems, taking down 5 skeletons and advancing on Shylock.  A first use of wand of frost finished one off, but the other got a whack in on him as he ran past taking him to about 50% HPs (worst damage of the run so far).

Information to date
Kensai kills 277 (72 this session; most powerful Daveorn).
Shylock kills 69 (17 this session; most powerful battle horror). Favourite spell command.

Reloads: 0
Kensai resurrections: 0

Modifié par Grond0, 13 mai 2012 - 10:42 .

[corey_russell]

Russell the Paladin entering the Trilogy no-reload challenge...

Since Coremonk bit it, I got another challenger up. I decided to do another all paladin party. This means I had to generate 4 other paladins, as in vanilla, only 1 paladin in both BG 1 and BG 2.

Here's Russell's character sheet -- note that his native DEX is 13, but he's using the DEX gauntlets now:

Party role: Stay alive! Use shield and sling at all times to increase survivability. Packrat.

Keel the Strongman character sheet
Party Role: Front-liner. Use large swords and throwing axes for ranged. Shield equipped at all times (at least for BG 1). Packrat

Josh character sheet
Party Role: Front-liner. Use large swords and missile weapons (darts). Shield equipped at all times, Packrat.

Hannah character sheet
Party Role: Archer, halberd user. Backup melee.

Dogdancing Character Sheet
Party Role: Loremaster. Ranged (sling) at all times.

Ajantis, level 3 paladin - Role: Archer

The party has defeated the assassins at FAI, Beregost and Nashkel. They have cleared the road areas between Candlekeep and Nashkel, the Carnival, Nashkel Mines (surface), High Hedge, and the Gnoll fortress.

With the party's considerable melee/ranged power, nothing has been able to kill anyone quite yet. Joshua has gotten pretty hurt a few times though. Toughest battle was Greywolf I guess - Greywolf only got a single hit in. I did use a haste potion on Keel the Strongman and Heroism on Joshua, just to be safe. We even got 4 levels out of the deal.

On the same map Dogdancing leveled to 2 also. And Ajantis leveled to 3 when we turned in an emerald to Oublek.

I really enjoy a melee heavy group, it's been fun so far.

Modifié par corey_russell, 13 mai 2012 - 11:28 .

[corey_russell]

Goodguy (level 5 cleric/level 4 illusionist controlled by corey_russell) and Badgirl (level 5 fighter/level 5 thief controlled by Dogdancing) MULTI-PLAYER triloy no-reload continue their adventure...

Goodguy and Badgirl got a lot done this session. For one, they cleared out Ulcaster School. The only enemy that was of any threat was the vampiric wolf. However, Goodguy picked up the fireball wand and immediately identified it. He then moved to a right angle and when Badgirl pulled the vampiric wolf, Goodguy just spammed the agnazer's scorcher ability of the fireball wand until the wolf died. This was effective.

We did have one amusing incident though. The fireball trap just before the room with dread wolves next to the vampiric wolf, Badgirl wasn't skilled enough to de-trap it. She tried to back off, but Goodguy said no! She must set it off. She had 45 HP so she would certainly survived and she did, but she didn't like this method of clearing the traps, naturally...just thinking about it now, could have loaned her my fire resistance ring, oops...

We were able to purchase the necklace of missiles. Now that we both have fireballs and decent armor/HP, seemed like a good time to deal with the Nashkel mines problem. The kobolds could do nothing to Badgirl with her full plate and large shield +1. The key event of course was Mulahey. Badgirl was very confused here, Goodguy kep telling her to melee Mulahey but she wouldn't do it. She was confused about all the new enemies that Mulahey summoned (been years since she's been to this point). Goodguy ordered her to attack Mulahey with her sword and Goodguy fired a perfectly aimed fireball via wand - it destroyed all of Mulahey's minions without hurting Badgirl in the process -- though if she hadn't followed orders, she would have been caught in the blast...

The ring of holiness of course was a great upgrade for Goodguy. We did a lot of inventory management, killed the two ochre jellies and left the mines. We of course turned left and up, not dealing with the amazons quite yet. We can certainly take them, but no room to loot their stuff at the moment.

We headed to carnival to identify, sell and rest. We then headed to Nashkel and gave ring to a poor lady who lost her husband in the mines. We reported our success to the Mayor of Nashkel and he was pleased. We approached the Nashkel store and summoned 10 skeletons. Badgirl moved up and dialogued with Nimbul, though just before Goodguy cast resist fear and chant. The battle commenced, Goodgirl took 1 round of magic missiles, but Goodguy's magic missiles plus the melee of the skeletons and Badgirl finished Nimbul.

We then decided to deal with Silke - very anti-climatic she was slain in a single round -- chanted skeletons tend to do that...We also took down Tranzig - that too was also a single round - Badgirl got a critical hit of 28 damage on him.

Our next purchase is the robe of good arch magi, but we need like 3000 gold or so. Decided to do some ankheg hunting/farming. Badgirl tanked the Ankhegs very well, though she did have some skeleton support. We could only loot 2 of them, came to Beregost and sold them, and repeat 3 times. Finally Goodguy got the robe of the good arch magi and the duo called it night.

No close calls at all this session - the duo is starting to get powerful.

Goodguy - 28 HP, -2 AC (-5 if using Ankheg armor)
Badgirl - 49 HP, -6 AC

Goodguy character sheet
Badgirl character sheet

[corey_russell]

Russell the paladin and his band of paladins continue their adventure...micro-update
The whole party is level 3 except Adjantis who is level 4.

The party cleared the Beregost Temple area without any trouble. They also encountered a rather aggressive archer group led by a melee named Sendai south of Nashkel. However, with our lead melees protected by boots of avoidance on one tank, and full plate and large shield +1 on the other, Sendai's fate was certain. We also battled the "fasted dart thrower" on the Sword Coast. However, our tanks quickly got into melee range of Vax -- once we forced him to switch to his halberd, we knew their defeat was certain, which is was. The long sword +1 from Sendai and the bracers of archery both went to Adjantis.

We had some extra gold now, so we went ahead and bought the composite bow +1 from Feldeposte's and gave to Hannah.

We will probably explore the gibberling area next.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Diary of Staff Seeker

I finally finished the quests at Bone Hill, (Or most of them) with a lot of help from forums helping me with the bugs.

I had to use Movetoarea a number of times. The enemies were not too difficult at all.

(When all the bugs are ironed out, it will be a great mod though there are a few too many freebies) Unfortunately I was planning to return to some areas to pick up the loot, buy more equipment etc but was unexpectedly returned to the sword coast.

(This is actually a good thing as it will reduce the plunder which was a bit excessive. I found three tomes and spells galore there, as well as a good staff . Since I have majored in the use of staves, this by itself is a major boon. I also bought a Tuigan Bow. I have no skill in using it, but it could come in handy.)

With the equipment available, I could have equipped a party of six though I would have ended up penniless.

Modifié par Grimwald the Wise, 14 mai 2012 - 11:27 .

[Serg BlackStrider]

Update of Gloomy Face & Co

Upon arriving to the Nashkel Mines area Band cleared their surroundings - Graywolf was Doomed but nevertheless resisted first Blindness. The second one connected so in spite of the chaotic wandering he soon fell, handed his sword to Gloomy Face. Mulahey faced the same tactic, failed to Hold Khalid and fell even faster. Xan joined Minsc & Dynaheir in Joviar Juggler Inn whilst the Four Horsemen continued their quest. The Valley of Tombs left untouched at the moment, instead we went on Reputation quests - saved some cow from the xvarts hunting Ogres along the way, helped Dryad vs some tree-butchers, Drienne's Cat (Scroll Protection from Undead for the Valley of Tombs) as well as Sendai & Co (Entangled and fried by Necklace of Missiles), Vax & Zal (Bracers of Archery went to Gloomy Face) and some Winter Wolfs / Cave Bears hunting. Imoen hit level 6 in the process and was dualed to mage. 

Current Band state:

Gloomy Face: Mage 4/ Thief 5, 168 kills (Ghast)
Jaheira: Fighter 4/ Druid 4, 128 kills (Winter Wolf)
Khalid: Fighter 5, 237 kills (Greywolf)
Imoen: Thief 6 (inactive) / Mage 1, 117 kills (Winter Wolf)

to be continued...

Modifié par Serg BlackStrider, 14 mai 2012 - 12:44 .

[corey_russell]

@Serg: looks like you have a nice core group. Once Imoen gets to level 3 and learns web you can do what I did to enemy parties -- just walk right up to enemy parties and cast 2x web and range them to death (guess you could throw a fireball or two if you wanted). With Jaheira eventually could call lightning at the same time. Fun.

[Serg BlackStrider]

@Corey: yeah, that's my favorite core gang, thanks!  And I also love all those *magic fireworks* - that's why my protagonist almost always is some kind of a mage. That group definitely is fun, but I'm still perform a cautious approach against enemie's SCS pre-buffed mages, with their Shields, Mirror Images and MGoI, which allows them to ignore Web-approach ...

[corey_russell]

@Serg: Yeah it sort of bypasses the web approach - except the webs could lock down all their cronies, which means once they are webbed you can concentrate fire on the SCS mage...

[corey_russell]

Russell and his band of paladins continue their adventure...

The gang of righteousness has cleared out the enemies in Ulcaster School. The enemies were defeated pretty easily.

There were two fireball traps that couldn't be avoided -- Keel the Strongman has the fire resistance ring and set them off (with the party a suitable distance away, of course), and he took minimal damage each time. Got a nice result here - 4 paladins leveled killing the mustad jelly.


We continued to battle and when we killed the vampiric wolf then Dogdancing leveled.

After selling and such we decided that the Amazon assassins were our next target. I had meant to use magical arrows but forgot, so all ammo was normal. The entire party ranged, Russell and Dogdancing using their slings, Ajantis and Hannah their composite bows, Keel his throwing axes and Josh his darts. Can we guess who got held? Yep it was Josh since he had to move the closest to the enemies..poor guy got slaughtered way before anyone could do anything to help. So the party just redoubled their efforts vs. the enemy clerics, and took them both down with ranged fire. Still was a bit slow for our liking, so Hannah decided to throw a fireball potion into the mix, and that took down the thieves.


The rest of the map was cleared was cleared without a problem. For the tombs, we were sure to do protection from evil to minimize our chance of being held, but it didn't really matter as the damge dealing is so high the ghasts/ghouls were all killed in 1 round each.

With the cash from this area, we made our way to Ulgoth's Beard and got the greenstone amulet so we can go Sirine hunting soon. We also got the cloak of displacement for Russell.

We resupplied at Thalantyr's and we will be on Droth the ogre-mage map on the next update.

Modifié par corey_russell, 15 mai 2012 - 05:23 .

[corey_russell]

Goodguy (leve 5 cleric/level 4 illusionist controlled by corey_russell) and Badgirl (level 5 fighter/level 5 thief controlled by dogdancing) continue their trilogy no-reload adventure...

The duo it was time to deal the amazon assassins. Skeletons were sent ahead, then Goodguy started demonstrating the power of a cleric/illusionist -- he did web/silence/hold persons/magic missiles/acid arrows, and then decided sling would be enough for the last one standing and it was. Badgirl did support with her sling, however.

I let Badgirl choose the dialog options for the mage and its jellies -- the mage left without any incident. That was fine by Goodguy, the jellies could definitely kill Goodguy if they got two good hits in, and he would have to approach by melee range. The skeletons would be rather useless as well.

For the 3 ghasts tomb, corey_russell demonstrated a technique to dogdancing (by controlling her character) - he would hide in the shadows, get a hit in, pause, run out, hide in the shadows, go in the door, get a hit in, pause and repeat until all the ghasts were dead. Much better than being held by these guys...

For the single ghoul tomb, Dogdancing then used that lesson that Goodguy gave her and did the same strateguy previously mentioned to the ghoul -- she was successful.

Revenant time! While the same technique would work, it would take quite a while. So instead, Goodguy had Badgirl use a haste potion and Goodguy spammed the fireball wand on the agnazer's scorcher setting. This was effective.

After selling and putting potions and such in our base in the carnival, we decided to deal with Sendai and her two archers. The enemies killed all 10 of our skeletons, so Badgirl had to approach to melee. Hold persons also were saved against. But Goodguy's sling and Badgirl's sword were enough to deal with the survivors.

We also dealt with Vax and his pal, with wardogs from the monster wand as a distraction. This was effective. Dogdancing was physically hurting so the duo stopped here for the night. Badgirl isn't too far from level 6 thief and Goodguy not far from level 5 illusionist.

Badgirl resurrections: 2 (Tarnesh, vampiric wolves at the Beregost Temple Map)

Modifié par corey_russell, 15 mai 2012 - 03:23 .

[Grimwald the Wise]

Diary of Staff Seeker Continued.

After arriving back on the Coast I was immediately attacked by mercenaries. They wiped out fifty per cent of my health, but I took 100 per cent of theirs, except for their leader who did a bunk. I went to High hedge for buying and selling equipment and was ambushed yet again! Fortunately I had healed myself in Beregost first.

To fight Tazok and his cronies I was already hasted, but used a potion of oil of speed as well. This enabled me to take him and most of them out with a wand of fire. It was expensive, but worked.

I then acquired a ring of freedom of action in the Beard by charming the owner, taking him to a quiet spot and getting him to attack some summoned monsters. I dis that wrong. I should have attacked them as he ended up hostile and I lost ten reputation points. It was quite expensive getting back to eighteen, but when I cleared the mines I was back to twenty.

I used web and area effect spells against the mages at the top of the mines. One however had used spells to keep out of harms way. Remove invisibility however meant that his tactic was in vain.

The mages on the way down to the bottom of the mines took me by surprise, but proved to be quite easy to deal with.

Due to being solo, I had to set off the traps at the bottom of the mines, but protections helped a lot. The guards actually got held by web which quickly led to their demise. Davaeorn was hurt by area effect spells, but did not die until some of his spells wore off and I was able to attack him with my staff.

In the Gate I bought dimension door spells. No more standing on traps! I have dealt with the doppelgangers as requested by Scar and he has now asked me to investigate some sewers.

[Grond0]

Shylock (Grond0) and Kensai (Gate70). Session 4 (run time 1h 30m; total 6h 20m)

A mixture of overconfidence and sloppy play in the City led to the first close escape of the run. 

Maulers of Undermountain
First port of call after a bit of shopping was the battle in the inn with the intention of getting a +2 axe for Kensai.  Although out of most spells Shylock boldly (foolishly) decided to take on the combat - putting his trust in web.  However, his targeting was awry and a small space at the edge of the room was exploited by the mage, who proceeded to send Kensai running off in terror.  Shylock tried to help keep him alive, but put himself in danger in the process and a mixture of spells and arrows took him down to 1 HP.  However, his near-sacrifice did allow Kensai to recover and after a few more nervous moments the enemies lay dead.

Ramazith
Ramazith's Tower was more straight-forward with a single hit from an invisible kensai ending the mage's challenge.

Iron Throne
After a quick trip out of town to get the tome from Durlag's Tower and a fire resistance ring from a hole in the ground the duo were back in the city.  The Seven Suns was cleared and they were sent to investigate the Iron Throne.  Kensai thought a potion of magic blocking would be useful to protect against spells from the party there, but was caught out by its short duration - and then caught by a confusion.  Intervening here seemed a fairly hopeless prospect and Shylock just stood and watched the first death of the run.  He then did a bit of running up and down the stairs to separate the enemies into bite-size chunks and used a mixture of blind and charges from wand of magic missiles / frost to deal with them.


Information to date
Kensai kills 326 (49 this session; most powerful Daveorn).
Shylock kills 89 (20 this session; most powerful battle horror). Favourite spell command.

Reloads: 0
Kensai resurrections: 1
Close escapes: 1 (Maulers brawl) 

Modifié par Grond0, 15 mai 2012 - 02:27 .

[corey_russell]

Boy you guys make some great time on your runs Grond0 -- Dogdancing and I are still working on the southern areas of the map! Haven't even hit the bandit camp yet.

Another question -- you put the reloads counter on there. Does that mean you guys will take it to the end of ToB with reloads? If you intend to end the run once you have to reload, what would the point of the counter be? Just curious...

Modifié par corey_russell, 15 mai 2012 - 03:25 .

[Grond0]

The reload indicator is a bit of a hang-over. In our last run (first no-reload attempt) I think the idea was that we could continue in the minimal reloads thread once the no-reload ended. We didn't really discuss doing that in the event, but my own reasoning was that we had already proved that a multiplayer no-reload was quite feasible and therefore it made more sense to have another attempt at that than continue as minimal reload.

I left the indicator there this time to point up the difference between protagonist and support character deaths.

In relation to time taken our first (reload) run involved doing virtually everything, but we're now being considerably more selective.

[Grond0]

Shylock (Grond0) and Kensai (Gate70). Session 5 (run time 1h 20m; total 7h 40m)

Candlekeep
The first order of the session was to get Kensai raised and equipment sorted out.  Then it was off to Candlekeep.  We allowed ourselves to be framed for a few murders there and sentenced to transportation to the catacombs.  This was unfortunately a life sentence for Kensai, who perished from some quick-acting phase spider venom.  Kensai's relatively poor AC showed up the weakness in the class here.

That posed something of a problem for Shylock who didn't see how he was going to make 2 lots of inventory fit into one backpack.  Eventually he decided he didn't have to; his cat familiar was let out of the bag for the first time and went on a pickpocketing spree (this took a long time as it only has 30% pickpocket ability).  I vaguely remember reading somewhere that familiars had unlimited carrying capacity, but if so that must just be in BG1, as the cat finally said it was full.  However, it had taken enough that only relatively low value stuff was left behind.

Ankhegs
After sorting out equipment (again) the duo paid a call on an ankheg nest.  Here Kensai was playing to his strengths - hacking down most of the ankhegs before they (or Shylock) even got an attack in.  He was attacked once or twice, but never hit.

Information to date
Kensai kills 339 (13 this session; most powerful Daveorn).
Shylock kills 92 (3 this session; most powerful battle horror). Favourite spell command.

Reloads: 0
Kensai resurrections: 2 (Iron Throne, Catacombs)
Close escapes: 1 (Maulers brawl)

Modifié par Grond0, 15 mai 2012 - 05:59 .

[Gate70]

Yep rubbish play on my part, although Kensai did manage to get back from one side of the map to the other after two spiders switched targets to poison Shylock, and got there in time to throw an antidote to Shylock. So in a poor way he kind of did what he needed to.

My mistake was to use green antidotes and blue healing potions instead of the (purpleish?) elixirs of health, meaning dirty aura prevented him from recovering.

Cost : Not getting the only throwing axe for an axe-wielding kensai. Also we've misplaced or sold the boots of avoidance (this type of thing is regrettably too common in my runs. Usually the wardstone to get into Watchers Keep goes missing, most recently the original scroll to imprison Demogorgon).

(Oh, and a heads-up for Corey and his wife. Be careful if you're playing in multiplayer inventory when another party member gets into a conversation. I was happily clicking away to move items around then got booted from inventory to game which then meant my click was on an quick-slot oil of speed I'd been saving!)

Modifié par Gate70, 15 mai 2012 - 09:04 .

[corey_russell]

Gate70 wrote...

(Oh, and a heads-up for Corey and his wife. Be careful if you're playing in multiplayer inventory when another party member gets into a conversation. I was happily clicking away to move items around then got booted from inventory to game which then meant my click was on an quick-slot oil of speed I'd been saving!)

Thanks for the tip. That explains what happened the other day. We were at our "base" (chest at the Carnival) and Badgirl was putting some things we didn't need at the moment into the chest. At that moment, Goodguy talked to the merchant (who knows why, he knows he can't buy anything until she's in the same room together) and that brought Badgirl to her main screen and the next thing that happens is I hear her voice (Dogdancing recorded a soundset in her voice) is "Ouch". Well apparently her click activated a potion of explosion! Fortunately no bystanders nearby, nor was Goodguy. She also had the ring of fire resistance at the time, so she only took 9 damage out of her 49 total.

We'll definitely keep this behavior in mind in our travels...

Modifié par corey_russell, 15 mai 2012 - 11:18 .

[corey_russell]

Russell and his band of paladins continue their adventure...Droth the Ogre-Mage map

Well, it certainly WAS an adventure on this map. We met a large number of dire wolves mixed with dread wolves, but the party managed to kill those without casualty.

Next up was Neira (Droth's nymph whatever her name is...). Ajantis was chosen to offer our assistance to her and she kissed him dead. The AI was off, and Keel got a single hit in for 12 damage then she had enough. We demanded she raise Ajantis and she did. We also offered to free her.

{in a previous run I had a rezzed character get chunked here. So this time around I healed Ajantis some and had him stay out of the way the entire time.}

We opened fire on Droth. His response? Put Keel and Josh to sleep! Uh, oh. Hannah moved in close with her halberd. Oh forgot to mention before the fight commenced put protection from evil on everyone...Russell used his sling, Dogdancing used her wand of missiles since it's a guaranteed hit so might interrupt Droth's casting.  Hannah got dire charmed...and....I could still order her to attack Droth with her halberd? What? Oh, protection from evil protecting from charm effects is a VANILLA behavior! I never knew that, always thought it was a result of a mod...in any case, the party did prevail without casualty.


Next up the mass of ogres. I foolishly did not put protection from evil before everyone, and Josh was getting hammered. I kept fighthing his AI too...eventually ran him out of the mass of ogres..only one followed the ranged party members took it down for him. So he lives...Keel on the other hand was having fun tanking all those ogres, and he did great in fact. Fortunately "The Surgeon" healed us all back up, so didn't need to use heal potions (we were out of spells fixing up Ajantis earlier).

I decided to try out this protection from evil/immune to charm business again against the 3 sirines in the bottom left hand corner of the map. Yes, strong man got dire charmed but it had no effect! He still helped to slay the sirines, which got Ajantis level 5. I even retained control when the dire charm graphic was still on him but the protection from evil expired. I was a little bit nervous about that though - Keel could do a lot of damage if he was out of control, so we moved him away from the party.

However, this lead Keel into a problem - 2 ghouls! He bravely tanked them, putting on protection from evil. But it didn't help. He got held -- the party raced to defend him and they managed to kill the two ghouls - one SECOND after his death. Hmmm...Poor Keel...his 3 INT bit him this time. If he had used the greenstone amulet instead of protection from evil, he wouldn't have died!

After looting everything (barely)...time for a temple run. We are carrying around way too many things that we don't need all the time, so stopped by the base to unload some things, like Nestor's dagger.

[corey_russell]

Goodguy (level 5 cleric/level 5 illusionist controlled by corey_russell) and Badgirl (level 5 fighter/level 6 thief controlled by Dogdancing) continue their adventure...

The party had just defeated Vax and Sendai in the last session. They sold their junk and resumed clearing Sendia's area. No problems doing so at all. However, Goodguy leveled to 5 illusionist and despite having 2 level 3 slots available, knew zero level 3 spells! So after clearing here the party headed to High Hedge.

At High Hedge, Goodguy got invisibility, mirror image, strength, flame arrow and detect invisbilility. Strength in particular could be important -- if Badgirl gets slain, Goodguy may need that to get her stuff and run. We also bought cloak of displacement for Badgirl. Soon, Goodguy will use a cloak +1 to free up a ring slot, as he is using a +1 protection ring at the moment. Once that happens, then maybe the party could buy back that ring of wizardry that we sold long time ago to the FAI innkeeper...

Finally the party gets to more action. We cleared the Ankheg Nest. Goodguy was very careful to stay out of aggro - he let Badgirl always get the attention of the Ankhegs. And with her -6 AC (not counting the various bonuses she gets to missile weapons) she did great. We didn't use skeletons down here as they often get in the way. But Goodguy did assist with things like commannd, magic missiles, acid arrow, flame arrows. We found the cache of loot, including replacing the party's fireball wand which poofed just recently. The party of course returned Farmer Brun's son to him as well as spotted him 100 gold. The party was carrying two ankheg shells - they headed to Beregost to sell them and the various gems they picked up.

The party decided to end the session here.
Badgirl - level 5 fighter/level 6 thief, 54 HP
Most powerful vanquished - vampiric wolf, 72% of all kills
Goodguy - level 5 cleric/level 5 mage, 30 HP
Most powerful vanquished - revenant, 27% of all kills

The stats are very misleading. Even though Badgirl gets majority of the killing blows, Goodguy does a ton of support, both with disabling spells like entangle/web/sleep/hold persons, as well as direct damage with agnazer's scorchers/magic missiles/acid arrows/flame arrows, not to mention his skeleton army he will summon for the tougher encounters. He's not too bad with his sling, due to his DEX and being a +1 sling.

Party coffers not too bad, about 6000 gold.

Badgirl resurrections: 2 (Tarnesh, vampiric wolves at the Beregost Temple Map)

Modifié par corey_russell, 16 mai 2012 - 03:12 .

[Grimwald the Wise]

Interesting run Corey.

Staff Seeker, the Svirneblin Fighter Illusionist had no problems in Baldur's Gate or at Candlekeep.

The resistances certainly make up for the loss of experience.

I have been sent to Restenford again so have bought a few items that I would have bought last time.

I would make a good paladin. I am penniless. (Well I have almost a hundred gold pieces)

This mod definitely requires a reinstall, but will try and complete this game before doing so.

I have found dispell invisibility and secret word to be invaluable.

I didn't realise how easy soloing would be, not that I will make a habit of it as I like role playing too much. The staff that I picked up at bone hill was not as big a help as I thought. I still get badly hurt by lightning.