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[Wierdo]

Wierdo's Bhaalspawn Breteren

The Grey Clan Part 1( - Tattooed Man (reprise)

Wierdo's part found themselves in some strange spacial warp, which eventually sent them all back to outside the Friendly Arm Inn. There they found the Tattooed man waiting for them again! Except that he has changed his name to Graecus or something. Oh, and he had brought along some wind horrors and some of my mates now turned into undead knights. Just lovely. Fortunately, Wierdo's party was already invisible so they retreated, buffed, positioned themselves, then attacked. Immolation strategy to start with. Lots of fireballs.



This was a tough battle. Wind horrors hit hard and often. Many potions of healing used. Fireballs only did so much damage. Skeletons proved a good distraction, but they didn't last long.



Eventually, they managed to bring Graecus down. That means that they can now use his crystal to access the FAI. For now, however, the party will get a well-earned rest at the temple.

Modifié par Wierdo, 24 mars 2011 - 10:55 .

[The Fred]

The Adventures of Pallyn the Theurge

Meandered through the wilderness areas back to Baldur's Gate. Met Ramazith, and got a job from him (resuing a Nymph from another mage), had something of a bar brawl with the Maulers of the Undermountain (for which Imoen got up a level) and fought some mages upstairs in Sorcerous Sundries (for which Khalid got up a level). Unfortunately Immy at into over 3k of my gold by failing to scribe scrolls and insisting I buy more from Halbazzar Drin. However, she now knows Monster Summoning II.

Rested up and I'm not ready to do some merchant-investigating.

Party line-up:
Pallyn Cleric 5 -> Conjurer 6
Imoen Thief 4 -> Illusionist 7
Khalid Fighter 7
Jaheira Fighter 6 / Druid 7
Yeslick Fighter 5 / Cleric 5

With the super equipment I've given him, Yeslick is proving to be quite the asset. However, with him lagging a good chunk of XP behind everyone, I'm not sure whether to keep him on or go off with a party of four, again. I have to admit, it's really helped everyone level, but now if someone gets chunked, I have few options for replacements (the NPCs cap out at L6ish - Qualye is probably my best bet, but his health is poor).

[Wierdo]

@The Fred:

Yeslick can cast Protection from Evil 10' Radius (when he gets to cleric LV7). Jaheira can't.

Modifié par Wierdo, 24 mars 2011 - 03:58 .

[Gavn]

Okay so this is going to be my official "No-Reload Challenge". My character is as follows:

Orkai, a Neutral Evil Half-Orc Berserker. I think Chaotic Evil is too challenging to role-play, and I had Bounty Hunters after me by the time I made it to Nashkel that wiped my original party out. Neutral Evil should fit the game better anyway (I find the game is best played as either a hero or anti-hero). I chose Berserker because it's basically just a vanilla fighter + berserker rage.

PC -
Orkai
Neutral Evil
Half-Orc
Fighter: Bersker Kit
Str: 19
Dex: 16
Con: 19
Int: 16
Wis: 6
Cha: 8

NPCs -
I am going to use Imoen, Kagain, Viconia, Edwin, and maybe Shar-Teel. Bringing Shar-Teel into the party will be a little risky, but I'm confident that Orkai can beat the snot out of her. If I take Shar-Teel, she will probably have her proficiencies changed to use Two-Handed Swords Composite Long Bows, or maybe even Heavy Crossbows.
 
I'm going to play on Core Rules and only change the slider if my HP rolls on + are consistently ****ty.

Mods -
Okay so here are all the mods I use:

BG2 FixPack + EasyTuTu
BG2 Tweak Pack, tweaks as follows:
Cosmetic Changes: Mostly irrelevant, but some are installed
Content Tweaks: More Interjections, Make Cloakwood Areas Available (Except Mines), Add Bags of Holding, Exotic Items Pack, Reveal City Maps, Add Map Notes, Stores Sell Larger Stacks, Shapeshifter Rebalancing
Rule Changes: Universal Clubs, Allow Stealth and Theiving Abilities in Heavy Armor per PnP, Allow Arcan Spellcasting in Armor per PnP, Expanded Dual-class Options, Wear Multiple Protection Items, Alter Weapon Proficiency System, Cast Spells from Scrolls at Character Level, Shopkeepers Have Limited Identification Ability, Multi-class Grand Mastery, True Grand Mastery, Make +x/+y Weapons Consistent, Un-Nerfed THAC0 Table, Un-Nerfed PnP Spell Progression for: Mage, Sorcerer, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Add Save Penalties for Spells Cast by High-Level Chasters
Convenience Tweaks/Cheats: None
Joinable NPC Tweaks: Consistent stats for all NPCs, using BG2 stats.

The stats/mods I installed were for cosmetic changes and to make the Baldur's Gate experience more true to PnP D&D. I'm not sure if the tweaks will make the game harder or easier - some will def make the game easier, such as Bags of Holding and Ammo Belts, but monsters having Un-Nerfed THAC0 might get me chunked along my journey. We'll see. I start tonight and I'll keep everyone updated.

Modifié par Gavn, 25 mars 2011 - 03:44 .

[Jeff W]

The Fred wrote...

Party line-up:
Pallyn Cleric 5 -> Conjurer 6
Imoen Thief 4 -> Illusionist 7
Khalid Fighter 7
Jaheira Fighter 6 / Druid 7
Yeslick Fighter 5 / Cleric 5

With the super equipment I've given him, Yeslick is proving to be quite the asset. However, with him lagging a good chunk of XP behind everyone, I'm not sure whether to keep him on or go off with a party of four, again. I have to admit, it's really helped everyone level, but now if someone gets chunked, I have few options for replacements (the NPCs cap out at L6ish - Qualye is probably my best bet, but his health is poor).

Who DARES underestimate Tiax? He rules all. I know people don't like him because his wisdom = 13 and his thief skills are too spread out, but THESE ARE PETTY CONCERNS IN THE FACE OF TIAX'S AWE INSPIRING POWER. But seriously, he has -2 ac adjustment from dex, 46 starting hp at his highest incarnation and summon ghast is complete ownage. The low wisdom is a trivial concern. 

re: Party size. Remember your party size doesn't have to be static. You can roll with 4 and then pick up more npcs for tough areas/battles. That is the approach I use, though in the early game I stick to 1-3 characters. Even low level npcs will do in a pinch--a l1 priest can use wand of the heavens and l1 bards and mages can use wands or scrolls(which are cast as at l10). A l1 fighter or thief can even soak up offensive spells as a kamikaze and use wands of fear/sleep, necklace of missiles and oils of fiery burning.

[Grond0]

Congrats on taking out Graecus Wierdo.  I think that's one of the hardest battles of the game.

Bhryaen wrote...
I also have to agree with The Fred on The Grond0. You keep making things so hard for yourself but why don't you try Hard Times?

OK I fell for it.  Initially I thought I'd see what would happen if I added Hard Times on top of my existing installation and continued my game.  It had an immediate effect - Algernon's cloak no longer had infinite charges, but a mere 66,000 or so.  I thought to myself was this what Hard Times intended?  Probably not - there's a clue in the title.  The game seemed to work OK, so I suspected that just starting again might reset things better.  Here's a replacement (though slightly inferior) Unflappable.

In his run so far he has been taking virtually no risks, so there's not much of interest to describe.  Normal opponents are taken out with his sling.  Ones with magical danger tend to be handled using Lord Foreshadow's ring - either by charming them and letting enemies beat them up or by charming a tough opponent to attack them on my behalf.  By getting his familiar to start casting invisibility 10' before he uses the ring Unflappable remains pretty safe from retaliation. 

Problems can occur where opponents appear to be immune to charm.  For instance he spent more than a month (100+ attempts) trying to charm Zordral before giving up - this was probably the encounter he has taken the greatest risk in as he relied on scrolls to interrupt Zordral's casting.  I wanted to get the ring of free action in Ulgoth's Beard, but Dushai also seems to be immune to the ring and I've given up on that for the moment (though might see if I can charm Shandalar some time and use him as a hatchet man).

I've found it a bit annoying where magic items have gone - for instance Meilum's bracers, which would make a huge difference to Unflappable's sling ability, have disappeared. However, that's a minor issue - I'm prepared to accept that magic should be far rarer than in the vanilla game (and to maintain that I've not used any mod items or patronised any mod shops).  What is really irritating is that some magic items have been retained, but greatly nerfed.  For instance wands have 3 charges (and cost a king's ransom to recharge); this effectively makes them more like a hugely expensive potion than a wand and, I think, detracts from game balance as it takes away one method of conducting fights.  It's also going to make some of the later fights more difficult than I would like.

Since giving up on Dushai I've started working my way through some of the reputation challenges to try and get up to 20 and see if by that time I can afford the green amulet - I think it was something like 43,000 when I looked previously.  I've only got a few thousand at the moment as most of the cash earned to date has gone on the shield amulet. 

The only time Unflappable has actually cast one of his own spells was using a sleep to subdue the xvarts after a cow.  There was no wild surge than, but I did see one quite recently when use of a Bhaal ability turned a xvart into a hasted wolf.  That seemed odd (note the understated quality of my English response) as use of an ability should not cause a wild surge and my impression of a buzzing bug was strengthened when the next use resulted in detecting magic in the vicinity.  At that point I saved and quit the game and then restarted the programme.  Thus far no more surges - hope that continues.

Unflappable is now at L6 and gently working his way across to the gnoll stronghold for the next series of challenges.

[Grond0]

And the end comes for Unflappable; once again it's Dark Horizons goons responsible - this time the ones at the gnoll stronghold.  I was unwilling to try and just sneak past them as they were likely to cast detect invisible so charmed one of the ogrillons to try and get the baddies to reveal themselves.  This was initially successful and I left the familiar to check what they would do next while Unflappable retreated to the other end of the bridge.  Alarm bells did not ring when Allister cast Shadow Door, but they should have done!  With well-honed meta-gaming instincts he headed straight to the other end of the bridge and cast chaos on Unflappable.  The familiar immediately responded to the call for an emergency invisibility (I know - why didn't I do this immediately after casting the charm rather than use him as a scout?), but only got there just in time to be caught in Allister's horror spell and that was the end of that.

I still fancy getting a wild mage into BG2 and I have had some thoughts about how a solo character could do it - I'm sure it is possible, although not necessarily easy in a no-reload!  However, I'm a bit bored with sometimes taking several minutes to kill a single gnoll so I think the next wild mage will resort to travelling with some helping hands to speed things up a bit.

[Jeff W]

I think I'm throwing in the towel on this run. I might start over and change some of the SCS settings. I don't think the mages pre buff component is appropriate for bg1. Every mage battle degenerates into "send in skeletons and wait for protections to wear off". Enemies are generally much higher level than the party even in vanilla bg, so dispel magic doesn't work. A pre buffed mage is invulnerable to all 1-3 level spells including dispel magic, has numerous mirror images, immunity to missile weapons from the "fix" for protection from normal missiles and improved invisibility for +4 AC/saving throws. At the very least, I think I need BG2 spells added so that I can bring down protections reliably. This opens up a whole new can of worms with contingency, spell sequencers and stoneskins, though... *shudder*.

[The Fred]

I have a mostly good party, so I'm not sure Tiax would fit in. His Wisdom does suck, but so does Quayle's, to be honest. I'm still thinking of taking Safana, but the DH gauntlets Immy has allow unlimited casting of Knock, so it seems uncessary. The only thing might be if she gets chunked at all, which I would hope won't happen, but might.

EDIT: Unlucky, guys.

Modifié par The Fred, 24 mars 2011 - 10:06 .

[Grond0]

I have rolled up a new character as shown below:

I seriously considered breaching my principles on the use of shadowkeeper by allowing a fighter to dual to wild mage.  There is a good argument for this as:
- dualling to a specialist class was allowed in the original BG1.
- dualling from a specialist class is allowed in BG2, so it seems odd it isn't allowed the other way round.

However, I finally decided to go with dualling, but the other way round, i.e. she will dual from wild mage to fighter at level 2.  Arguably this is a good deal even for a standard fighter (a familiar makes up for the reduced hit points as well as possibly having other useful abilities and there is also a wider range of usuable magic items).  However, a wild mage has the ability to cast any level spell with Nahal's Reckless Dweomer - so even a level 2 mage could gate in a pit fiend.  Also as my play style is geared to might rather than magic anyway a limited number of spells available should suit me.

[Wierdo]

@Grond0: Why not take her up a few more levels first? It won't take long - Lv3 gets a mage 2nd level spells like Blur, Invisibility & Mirror Image will be handy for a brawler, and lv5 will get you the 3rd level spell Vampire Touch, maybe Ghost Armor or good-old Fireball would be useful. At Lv5 you will get 3 magic missiles, which is when the spell starts to get useful.

[DMWW]

Jeff W wrote...

I think I'm throwing in the towel on this run. I might start over and change some of the SCS settings. I don't think the mages pre buff component is appropriate for bg1. Every mage battle degenerates into "send in skeletons and wait for protections to wear off".

I think it might be better to say that it's not appropriate for you in bg1. As always, people vary quite strikingly in what they find easy or difficult. That's why almost everything in the mod is optional. (I'm saying this only because I normally interpret "this isn't appropriate" as advice to the modder that something should be changed, and I'm not persuaded that's true in this case.)

If you're bored of skeletons, I recommend just piling on wizards. Enough fighters will pull down a MI fairly quickly. (I've played through it twice without ever using Animate Dead.)

This opens up a whole new can of worms with contingency, spell sequencers and stoneskins, though... *shudder*.

Indeed. My general impression from feedback is that SCS is slightly harder, not easier, with BG2 spells available.

[Wierdo]

DMWW wrote...

Jeff W wrote...
I think I'm throwing in the towel on this run. I might start over and change some of the SCS settings. I don't think the mages pre buff component is appropriate for bg1. Every mage battle degenerates into "send in skeletons and wait for protections to wear off".

I think it might be better to say that it's not appropriate for you in bg1. As always, people vary quite strikingly in what they find easy or difficult. That's why almost everything in the mod is optional. (I'm saying this only because I normally interpret "this isn't appropriate" as advice to the modder that something should be changed, and I'm not persuaded that's true in this case.)
If you're bored of skeletons, I recommend just piling on wizards. Enough fighters will pull down a MI fairly quickly. (I've played through it twice without ever using Animate Dead.)

This opens up a whole new can of worms with contingency, spell sequencers and stoneskins, though... *shudder*.

Indeed. My general impression from feedback is that SCS is slightly harder, not easier, with BG2 spells available.

Minor globes of invulnerability, stoneskins & mirror images aren't a problem if your party has enough things hitting the mage. For this reason darts can be good against mages as they allow 3 attacks per round, and some of the magic darts have extra effects like wounding and stunning. If you have a barbarian or a fighter generally immune to mind effects (e.g berserk rage; various potions, some wearable magic items like helms), supported by missile fire from a party, then a BG1 mage won't last long, even with SCS.

Certain weapons that do extra elemental damage (e.g. cold, flame and acid) will still hurt the mage, even past stoneskins (this might depend on your mods). Greywolf's sword 'Varscona' (does +1 cold damage) is a good example, and there are various axes, bows, swords etc that do similar things).

Acid arrows add acid damage every time they hit, with no saving throw! Ice arrows are also good for this reason. Flame arrows are OK, but there is a saving throw. Poison arrows are good if you can hit with them as they do ongoing damage, but I think they don't penetrate stoneskins and there is a saving throw. And if you can hit the mage then it is likely to be game ove rfor them pretty soon. You don't see Protection from Normal Missiles often in BG1, but even so this is a minor hindrance as you can always use magic arrows.

Where mages get a lot trickier is when they have significant 'grunt' support, so that you can't take them down quickly. Likewise, they would be hard for a solo player as it would be difficult to hit them often enough to take down their defences. Either wait, get more party members or summon help.

If you think that SCS is too cheesily in favour of mages/clerics (which is fair enough), there are installation options that let you select for how enemy mages pre-buff in SCS, so consider how you apply them as well.

[The Fred]

Yeah, on the one hand, I always pre-buff before fight, so why shouldn't enemy mages? On the other hand, having every one spawn with Mirror Images, Stoneskins and Globes makes them way, way scarier.

[The Fred]

The Adventures of Pallyn the Theurge

We rescued Abela from Ragefast, who attacked us. We made short work of him and took him to Ramazith, but it seemed like the guy wanted to disect her! He fled to the top of his tower after throwing a lightning bolt at Jaheira (ofc DH armour "Stormcloud" + DH ring, Ring of Conduction + Boots of Grounding = 150% electricity resistance), so we climbed up and dealt out some justice. My tactic her was to send up Khalid, Jaheira and Yeslick first, then have Pallyn and Immy follow up shortly after (so that ranged foes didn't target them). At the top, Khalid switched to bows to interrupt Ramazith, and he fell soon after.

2k XP for freeing Abela, 2 x 2k XP for the Mustard Jellies and 4k XP for Ramazith have meant that Pallyn is now close (<2k) to getting to L7, but with the XP now being split 5 ways, we'll need another such encounter first. I'm tempted to start the Grey Clan for its XP, but I don't want to cut of the FAI without being able to finish it, and I'm pretty sure I can't manage the battle with Grachus yet. I might check out the Helm of Balduran quests, though - although trying to kill the guy (forget his name) with impunity will be hard in a no-reload (if you kill him quickly enough you can finish the quest and still get the helm back).

[Grond0]

Wierdo wrote...

@Grond0: Why not take her up a few more levels first? It won't take long - Lv3 gets a mage 2nd level spells like Blur, Invisibility & Mirror Image will be handy for a brawler, and lv5 will get you the 3rd level spell Vampire Touch, maybe Ghost Armor or good-old Fireball would be useful. At Lv5 you will get 3 magic missiles, which is when the spell starts to get useful.

My theory was that with the dweomer I could cast those anyway.  Using a (minor) sequencer for chaos shield would then mean that only the spell target is subject to nasty results from a surge - so her spells would be expected to be all offensive rather than used for buffing.  The advantages of mage levels of more 1st level spells, extended spell duration and more damage from many spells would then need to be set against the loss of 6HP (on average) per level and the delay in getting decent fighting ability. 

However, having experimented a bit more with a dummy character I've realised that dweomer can't be put into a sequencer and hence a character would need to be at least 3rd level to use chaos shield in a sequencer.  More seriously it is possible to cast a sequencer using dweomer, but having used it my dummy character still showed it as active (and hence can't generate a new one).  This appears to be a result of casting a spell above normal level (so the cancellation process doesn't work properly) as the same character can clear the sequencer if raised up a few levels.  I also noted that a sequencer cast with dweomer will not cause a wild surge on initial casting (when it would be relatively easy to protect against nasty effects), but on activating the sequencer, i.e. it is treating this as a delayed spell cast rather than as use of a special ability.  I think this also means that activating a normally cast sequencer would count as a spell (and hence have a 5% chance of a wild surge).

All of the above indicates to me that the drawbacks to wild mages will be greater than I had anticipated in a no-reload, even if at high level, and certainly that it would not be worth having a low level wild mage in a dualled character.  Hence I think I'm going to revert to the earlier idea considered of using a fighter and dualling via shadowkeeper - but don't hold your breath in case I change my mind again.

[Gavn]

Character Update:

After rolling my character, the stats came out different. I had enough for max Str and Con, but lowered Dex in favor of Intelligence (it makes sense, being raised by a scholar). So the stats are updated.

Chapter One, Log One:

Orkai pilfers some chests and barrels while running errands for the foppish oafs in Candlekeep. Gorion dies later that night...

Orkai found a diamond in a tree, and made his way to the Friendly Arm Inn as per Gorion's advice. Gorion may have been weak, but Orkai learned long ago that Imoen and Gorion often gave advice worth following. After dispatching the mage at the door, Orkai dismissed Khalid and Jaheira, because they appeared weak. The diamond sold for a whopping 500 gold, enough to afford Noble rooms for the night. When morning broke, Orkai found the magic ring under the tree, and briefly wandered east, where he encountered and accepted the drow elf, Viconia, into his party. The party was ambushed again by a Flaming Fist Mercenary, but dispatched him quickly.

While pilfering houses in Beregost, the party encountered Kagain, and agreed to help him on his quest. Kagain joined the party, and after giving up looking for the caravan, the party made it's way south to Nashkill, picking up Edwin and digging up green Ankheg Armor +2 on the western edge of a farm. The part decided to make it's way along the coast to hone their skills before taking on the Gnoll Fortress. Here the party picked up Safana and, though she complained, continued south to slay Dynaheir. The party felt confident, having suffered not even a scratch while clearing the fotress, and decided to make it's way north again to the coastline. Thought it was challenging, Orkai and Kagain were able to use Orkai's Berserker Rage and a stolen Potion of Clarity to dispatch the groups of Sirens with the aid of ranged attacks. After that, it was a simple task for Imoen to stealth, pilfer the items in the cave, and use an oil of speed to make a quick getaway.

Orkai decided to sell the Tome of Charisma because he doesn't lead by suave influence... he leads by muscle. The Tome of Health, however, proved useful, and Orkai now regenerates at the same rate as Kagain. Kagain has Bracers of Dexterity now, which has improved his defenses, and having two theives should prove useful. Safana is going to train in pickpocketing and dispelling illusions. Imoen will be our foward scout, disarming traps and backstabbing powerful foes.

The party has now made it's way to Nashkill once again, and has been hired by Major Ghastkill to clear the minds. It should be a lucrative venture....



(This is the first time I ever beat those Sirens without cheats. I feel proud!)

Modifié par Gavn, 25 mars 2011 - 04:01 .

[Jeff W]

Grond0 wrote...

Hence I think I'm going to revert to the earlier idea considered of using a fighter and dualling via shadowkeeper - but don't hold your breath in case I change my mind again.

How can you dual to a specialist mage with shadowkeeper? I would love to get this to work with Imoen, but you have to add the bonus spells manually and redo the bonus spell slots at every level up.

[Jeff W]

DMWW wrote...

Jeff W wrote...

I think I'm throwing in the towel on this run. I might start over and change some of the SCS settings. I don't think the mages pre buff component is appropriate for bg1. Every mage battle degenerates into "send in skeletons and wait for protections to wear off".

I think it might be better to say that it's not appropriate for you in bg1. As always, people vary quite strikingly in what they find easy or difficult. That's why almost everything in the mod is optional. (I'm saying this only because I normally interpret "this isn't appropriate" as advice to the modder that something should be changed, and I'm not persuaded that's true in this case.)

I don't know if I should blame the modder, because the mod is so customizable that I probably did this to myself, lol. I especially think the protection from normal missiles blocking magical missiles was way over the top in conjunction with all the other pre-buffs. 

This opens up a whole new can of worms with contingency, spell sequencers and stoneskins, though... *shudder*.

Indeed. My general impression from feedback is that SCS is slightly harder, not easier, with BG2 spells available.

Yeah, I figured so. It appears that you don't get stoneskin and other higher level scrolls until you kill davaeorn or all the mages in ice island. I'm guessing this isn't a problem for my enemies, though. Still, I don't mind challenge at all, I just don't like things to be too repetitive.

[Jeff W]

Wierdo wrote...

Minor globes of invulnerability, stoneskins & mirror images aren't a problem if your party has enough things hitting the mage. For this reason darts can be good against mages as they allow 3 attacks per round, and some of the magic darts have extra effects like wounding and stunning. If you have a barbarian or a fighter generally immune to mind effects (e.g berserk rage; various potions, some wearable magic items like helms), supported by missile fire from a party, then a BG1 mage won't last long, even with SCS.

Certain weapons that do extra elemental damage (e.g. cold, flame and acid) will still hurt the mage, even past stoneskins (this might depend on your mods). Greywolf's sword 'Varscona' (does +1 cold damage) is a good example, and there are various axes, bows, swords etc that do similar things)...

You don't see Protection from Normal Missiles often in BG1, but even so this is a minor hindrance as you can always use magic arrows.

The problem is I had the tweak that made protection from normal missiles give immunity to magical missiles. So, the only thing that could hurt the mages were varscona and ashideena until the mirror images came down. This gives mages more than enough time to do all sorts of nasty stuff to my front liners.

If you think that SCS is too cheesily in favour of mages/clerics (which is fair enough), there are installation options that let you select for how enemy mages pre-buff in SCS, so consider how you apply them as well.

Yeah, I'm noting giving up on SCS, I just had to throw in the towel on that run. I might take off pre buffs for mages, but use bg2 spells so they'll at least have stoneskin up. The only spell I really have trouble with in the pre buffs is minor globe of invulnerability. Maybe with bg2 spells I can handle it with spell thrust, though there is only 1 copy apparently.

[Grond0]

Jeff W wrote...
How can you dual to a specialist mage with shadowkeeper? I would love to get this to work with Imoen, but you have to add the bonus spells manually and redo the bonus spell slots at every level up.

That's my understanding yes.  Adding recognition of the mage as specialist can be done just by choosing the appropriate kit in the 'Characteristics' tab.  However, that will not give the bonus spell per level due to a specialist mage - you can change that on the 'Memorization' tab, but as you say that change will be lost when the mage goes up a level.  I was planning on just changing at each level (probably not the first 6 or 7 levels as advancement is so quick through them in BG2), but if you are capable of modding you could do this by changing the attributes of an item the character is using anyway to give an additional spell per level.  Alternatively you could find an existing modded item that only affects number of spells memorizable and equip this in shadowkeeper.  I've had a brief look through my item list and can't immediately find one that gives a spell at every level and nothing else, but you might have one if you've got different mods.  You might perhaps want to use the Halruuan Component Pouch (belt that gives extra spell at levels 1-5) to start with - by the time this is redundant you won't be going up levels quite so quickly anyway. 

[The Fred]

You could probably actually mod the character file to give them bonus spells without the need for an item, as an effect (like the movement speed tweaks on certain creatures). I'm not sure how to do this for a player char, though - you could probably just do it through Near Infinity, I guess, but I haven't tried it.

Good luck on beating the Sirenes, Gavn! I was OK with them this time because I have a DH shield which grants Protection from Evil, but I remember having serious issues with them in the past.

Jeff, I don't think PfNM should block magic missiles, but if that's a component you installed, that explains it. I think the spell would be far too powerful if it blocked anything more than normal missiles, though. As it is, it already offers players complete protection from a large number of ranged enemies and enemies protection from players such as myself who are too stingy to use magic arrows. Even for those who aren't, it still costs you. However, you do need some way of bypassing it.

[The Fred]

The Adventures of Pallyn

Headed south to the Coast Way, where we were ambushed by Davenport and some cronies. They were worth good XP, getting Pallyn to L7, and a lot of valueable items (no surprise there). After re-assigning my equipment, I've managed to get Yeslick down to -13 AC, and his saves vs death are actually -1 (something is giving him like -5 to them). So, though he's a lower level, he's well kitted out. Khalid is using a bow and so I'm going to use him as the damage-dealer and Yeslick as the rock. This is all pretty cool, but what with all the bonus XP and cool items, I feel I could probably do the top of the Iron Throne now with ease... basically it's getting a tad boring, because any death now would likely be due to some foolish slip-up. I'm tempted to start yet again with some other mods, but I do want to try out Stone of Askovar first.

EDIT: Heh, maybe I will try a Poverty Challenge next.

Modifié par The Fred, 25 mars 2011 - 07:56 .

[SpiffyKeen]

Well, Vardamir did not make it.  He was clearing out the basilisks really efficiently with the skeletons and his trusty fire wand.  However, in a non-basilisk battle with the Waterdhavian adventurers, Vardamir got held.  It was really annoying, since he had 3/4 of the group disabled or killed.  But Peter managed to get an uninterrupted Hold Person off in between blasts of the fire wand. 



Vardamir almost made it, but eventually Peter made it over and hammered him to death. 

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I am thinking about trying again with a Cleric/Mage.  It is early enough that I am mad I did not make it farther, but I am also not too interested in ending runs in the middle of BG1 like this.  I am thinking I should try a Lawful Evil character with a thief minion that I can "boss" around ("Yes, master.  You are so clever, master.").  I could make it a semi-solo run, as the thief could help with traps, and, because I'm so evil, I could kill him and raise him (later on) as needed!!! Muh-hahahahahah!!!  On the other hand, part of my problem with this run was always wanting to solo as much as possible, thus being more vulerable to/always the target of disabling spells.  Perhaps choosing a different class would be better... perhaps a single class or an early dual class.    I'll have to think about it. 

Modifié par SpiffyKeen, 25 mars 2011 - 09:54 .

[The Fred]

Unlucky, SpiffyKeen. I have to say, I don't think I can fathom soloing yet. Playing the majority of the game with four people is hard enough for me right now.