16409 réponses à ce sujet

[WaterMane]

@Grond0
That was a very fast run, I take it you have a specific route you use to efficiently get through the content and reach max xp?

Serg BlackStrider wrote...
- And finally the most interesting area in my new setup at the moment - improved Ulcaster. 

Are you also running the improved end of chapter encounters? If you have experience with them how are those battles compared to the originals?

Modifié par WaterMane, 16 décembre 2013 - 05:08 .

[Serg BlackStrider]

WaterMane wrote...

Are you also running the improved end of chapter encounters? If you have experience with them how are those battles compared to the originals?

Yup, I have all Tactical Challenges installed this time (WeiDU log is in the link below). And this is the first time I will try them so I have not a clue what to expect there. I know that *Improved Deployment for Parties of Assassins* changed them - the Amasons and the gang from Gullykin -  so they will strike only in the Chapter 3 (after the Mines) and they will trigger in random encounters (in-between the areas) so I'm trying to delay that moment as much as possible to be not slaughtered by them. So I'm going to explore all possible areas to get more levels before heading into the Mines.

Modifié par Serg BlackStrider, 16 décembre 2013 - 05:27 .

[Grond0]

WaterMane wrote...
@Grond0
That was a very fast run, I take it you have a specific route you use to efficiently get through the content and reach max xp?

Sort of in the sense that there's quite a lot of content that I very rarely do.  The route taken on the rest varies quite a bit, although most runs start with Shoal providing an early boost.

Serg BlackStrider wrote...

WaterMane wrote...

Are you also running the improved end of chapter encounters? If you have experience with them how are those battles compared to the originals?

Yup, I have all Tactical Challenges installed this time (WeiDU log is in the link below). And this is the first time I will try them so I have not a clue what to expect there. I know that *Improved Deployment for Parties of Assassins* changed them - the Amasons and the gang from Gullykin -  so they will strike only in the Chapter 3 (after the Mines) and they will trigger in random encounters (in-between the areas) so I'm trying to delay that moment as much as possible to be not slaughtered by them. So I'm going to explore all possible areas to get more levels before heading into the Mines.

Those assassins actually teleport in on the main map rather than between areas - they certainly have the potential to be a pain, e.g. if they arrive when you're in the middle of another fight. 

Of the other improved encounters I think Slythe and the dopplegangers at the palace are the ones where the challenge has increased most.  The relocated bounty hunters can also come as a nasty surprise if you're not expecting them.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Grond0 wrote...
Those assassins actually teleport in on the main map rather than between areas - they certainly have the potential to be a pain, e.g. if they arrive when you're in the middle of another fight. 

Of the other improved encounters I think Slythe and the dopplegangers at the palace are the ones where the challenge has increased most.  The relocated bounty hunters can also come as a nasty surprise if you're not expecting them.

That's good to know (and a sort of relief), thanks!

[Grond0]

Thinking about it you may also find the bandit camp a challenge. I think it's easy enough if you know what's coming and prepare accordingly, or if you're prepared to run away off the edge of the map a few times (my typical strategy with a solo character). If unprepared, then you risk getting swamped by the big increases in enemy numbers.

[Charlestonian Knight Templar]

He's dead now but I played a solo NE Fighter-Berserker & got all the way to Nashkel, killing just about everything in sight.

Only reason he died was by the time he got to Nashkel his reputation was '1'.

He killed two watchers in Candlekeep (Hull & Fuller - stole their plate mail), smoked Tarnesh, killed about 20 kobolds/xvarts twice, smashed Karlat & Silke and everything until he got to Nashkel. He was so bad Garrick told him to go pound sand - said he was as bad as Silke.

He killed the hobgoblins, three Flaming Fist Mercenaries and Shar-teel before getting to Nashkel.

Heck, he was 2nd level before he got to Beregost.

LOL - There was an Army of Amnish Guards (I have better calls for help installed) and a bounty hunter waiting for him. He tried to duck into the Nashkel Inn but Neira was there with the bounty hunter & the Amnish Army outside. Felt like Billy the Kid.

I was just goofin' but I can NOW see how you could do this thing solo if you played seriously.

CKT

[WaterMane]

No-Reload Entry number 9:
Difficulty: Core
Mods: SCS v21

It looks like I was a bit confused with the installation of Sword Coast Stratagems but I think I understand it now. Previously I had SCSII installed for Easytutu but now I have regular SCS installed. I've opted to increase the difficulty of some encounters such as the end battles for chapters 2, 3 and 4 but have left the rest alone for now. General AI is improved as well as various minor encounters, better calls for help, etc. 

Brutus, a Half-Orc Fighter/Cleric, will be entering the challenge. He plans to lead a group consisting of Imoen, Kivan, Ajantis, Edwin and Xan. I've got some xp already since the skip candlekeep guard reached me before I could take a screenshot of my record.

[Grond0]

Xen - human wild mage (update 1)

The early exit of my barbarian this morning meant there was a bit of time to pull another wild mage off the conveyor belt before work.  

She has progressed quickly via Shoal, Beregost and Nashkel, as well as acquiring Meilum's bracers.  She's got a fairy dragon familiar, so is able to travel invisibly using that.  As a result she hasn't bothered buying invisibility (or any other 2nd level spells) yet.  She has cast plenty of 1st level spells - mainly blind / sleep / magic missile - but I don't think she's had any surges at all yet. 

There's been just the one mistake - when I clicked on the wrong conversation option with Prism and lost the chance to get Greywolf's sword.  So far Xen has the minimum possible HPs.  HP's are relatively unimportant for a mage, although there's always the danger for a wild mage that low HPs will lead to death by fireball, cowkill etc.

[Grond0]

Xen - wild mage (2nd and final update)

Xen didn't last long in her second session.  She went up to the FAI to pick up the ring of magic missiles and help Landrin and Joia.  Then packed in a few more reputation quests (only getting a free chicken dinner from Melicamp).  She was then heading for the basilisks, but I was being lazy and not always travelling invisible and paid the penalty in a bandit ambush.

Here the familiar kicked the bucket.  It was only a fraction of a second later that Xen died - I'm not sure if that was the result of the HP loss from the familiar dying being applied or from a bandit arrow.

Modifié par Grond0, 17 décembre 2013 - 04:45 .

[WaterMane]

Brutus Half-Orc Fighter/Cleric Update 1:
Traveling with: Imoen, Edwin, Kivan, Ajantis
Difficulty: Core
Mods: SCS v21

Brutus has recruited everyone he had in mind except for Xan which we'll rescue once the party is assuredly prepared for end of chapter 2 fight. At the FAI Tarnesh failed his save for a casting of command. Although the duration of the effect is short it was long enough to make sure Tarnesh wouldn't be getting back up. From this point the party traveled south doing a number of quests and killing all they could to prepare for the Nashkel Mines. Better calls for help was clearly seen in the Xvart village as they swarmed toward us. We sniped down Shoal before she could land a kiss of death on anyone and retrieved the constitution tome for Brutus nearby. Edwin was getting impatient with his bloodthirst in dealing with Dynaheir so we hastily completed that task as well. The level of comfort I'd like to reach before delving into the mines would be hitting lvl 5 on Brutus's cleric profession so we'll be able to summon in some skeleton fodder. Presently Brutus is F3/C4 which means a bit more wandering of the wilderness before progressing with the main story.

[Grond0]

Xena - human wild mage (update 1)

I've re-rolled this character, although the result is virtually indistinguishable from Xen.  With a name like Xena she should of course be a fighter type, but I think my wild mage should be close enough.  This time I'm determined to take no risks in BG1 - oi, less of the sniggering at the back there if you please - so she'll be doing her share of fighting (with darts).

Xena emerged from Candlekeep, having cast what will probably be her only spell in BG1 (find familiar) and darted Shoal to get a couple of levels (+9 HPs).  In Beregost Karlat thumped his head against a brick wall invisible familiar until he was dead, while Xena took a complete turn around the town in order to finish off the last of a pack of chasing spiders.  More running round allowed her to acquire a letter from some ogrillons (level 4 - +6 HPs).  She also picked up some stealthy boots, but just sold those (charisma too low to talk to Zhurlong).

Travelled invisibly down to Nashkel where Oopah got the run around; Vitiare and Zordral were nibbled to death by the familiar while Xena stayed safely out of sight (normally my characters would show themselves when Zordral is almost dead to allow him to kill Bentha for her potions, but this time I took no chances).

Went to High Hedge to buy the wand of sleep and used that to save Hulrik's cow from some xvarts.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Best of luck with Xena, Grond0! Take care of her.

With Molkar's gang removed from Gullykin and Firewine Ruins unaccessable from  Jenkal's home there is nothing to do here (we can't even loot with Imoen's thief's skills unavailable) so we headed to the Firewine Bridge to check what Meilum has - he has junk for our current state/equipment. Well, at least Silke provided us with our very first Tome (of Charisma).
I didn't want to explore trap-loaded Firewine Ruins without Imoen's thief's skills active and there are only Spider Wood and Ankheg Farm left but we aren't going to check them for now so onto Nashkel Mines at last. With heavy purse of gold (and nearly nothing to purchase with Randomiser active) we loaded Wand of Fire with 50/50 charges and bought all crucial/useful spells/potions. Even being improved the Mines aren't that difficult at our exp level. Upon entering Mulahey's chamber we began to layer our buffs near the entrance but looks like we were too loud with that so Mulahey approached to check what is going on. That was a bit unexpected so we were forced to act quickly - Khalid hit with Fire Arrows, Jaheira add some heat with Wand of Heavens and Dynaheir with Blindness while Impish Face put some Mulahey's minions on sweet deep slumber. Mulahey fell in one round nearly before Viconia finished her Chant casting. He had a Ring of Clumsiness and Mace +1 on him and Splint Mail +1 in his chest (which went to Viconia while her Ring of Protection +1 went to Dynaheir). 

to be continued...

Modifié par Serg BlackStrider, 19 décembre 2013 - 07:29 .

[WaterMane]

@Serg
In your Tome pic it looks you have well over 5 skeleton minions, do you have a mod that disables the minion limit?

[Serg BlackStrider]

WaterMane wrote...

@Serg
In your Tome pic it looks you have well over 5 skeleton minions, do you have a mod that disables the minion limit?

I don't think I have such mod (intentionally at least). May be it's due to tutufix component
*~SETUP-TUTUFIX.TP2~ #0 #5 // BG1 Summoning Spells*
being installed:

from readme:
- BG1 SUMMONING SPELLS: One of the first things that can be noticed in BG2 is how veryweak the Monster Summoning X spells are.  This component strives to bring things morein-line with how they were in BG1.  Monster Summoning I will summon either 8 level 1creatures, or 4 level 2 monsters.  Monster Summoning II summons a total of 12 levels ofmonsters.  That's either 6 level 2 monsters or 4 level 3 monsters.  MS III will summon16 levels.  5 level 3 creatures and a 1 level 1, or 4 level 4s, or 3 level 5s and alevel 1 creature.
Animal summoning works in the same manner.
Animate Dead will summon 1 skeleton per level of the caster, and now they come equipped
with a random variety of helms, shields, and weapons.  They're also not green.

 

Viconia is level 6 so she cast Animate Dead twice *6 skeletons for 12 total. Wand of Monster Summoning in my install has the limit of 5 creatures per charge but not for the number of charges - I can fill the area with 5*n creatures. 

Modifié par Serg BlackStrider, 19 décembre 2013 - 09:21 .

[Grimwald the Wise]

After not being able to access this site for ages, I'm back.
Playing vanilla ToSC plus DSoSC.

I have a paladin with pretty good statistics which are becoming VERY good.
This is due to a problem that I am having with the game.

When I go back to some areas it as if I have never been there before. Thus, items that have been stashed disappear. On the plus side, items such as tomes which have been used disappear. I have therefore lost a lot of equipment but gained in stats.

I have cleared the Cloakwood mines and picked up Jet Laya at the Friendly Arms. However the equipment that I would have given her is gone, so I will have to see if the bad guys who were killed to get it have been miraculously raised from the dead.

I am wondering if the problem is caused by inadequate cache size. If anyone has any ideas about that please let me know.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Hi Charlstonian. I see that you were playing NE. I thought that you only played LG.

I have switched to only having good players in the party except for a very short time to do some pick-pocketing.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Good to see you back again, Grimwald!

A bit more news of Impish Face & Co:

Out of the Mines we cleared the rest of Valley of the Tombs including Narcillicus and his Mustard Jellies. He had escaped our initial Skellies/Flamestrike/Stinking Cloud assault invisible but that only allowed us to finish his Jellies in safety and then deal with him personally. The loot of scrolls is quite nice so all our mages now have crucial spells of Invisibility and Mirror Image.
 
Back in Nashkel Nimbul was hit by Khalid with fire arrow before his pre-buffs fired. He responded with Slow on Khalid but then traped himself with our skellies and poor-placed Web, Imoen revealed his Invisibility which soon led to his demise. Found a nice scroll of Haste and the Dagger +2, Longtooth for Jaheira on him.

Tranzig tried to cast Hold Person but  Dynaheir hit with Scorcher, Imoen with Horror and Jaheira precisely fried him right though his Mirror Images. Got some more protection items from him and now Peldvale and Larswood are our next destinations.

to be continued...

[Grimwald the Wise]

One of the most unusual things about my current game is the number of mages that have killed themselves with lightning bolts, five altogether, and one of them Gervisse, killed Voltine as well.

It has meant missed experience, but that is not a problem with so many enemies coming back to life.

[corey_russell]

Corey_Russell/Dogdancing Multiplayer No-Reload
Hewitt, protagonist, controlled by CR
Wewa, controlled by Dog

Setup:
EasyTutu
No mods
Core rules at all times

Corey_Russell and Dogdancing are going to give trilogy no-reload another shot, this time with these characters:
Hewitt:


Wewa:


The duo has escaped Candlekeep, battled to Nashkel, survived Noober and Neira and Tarnesh, gave Landarin her stuff, and about to try to get Joia's ring for her. While we did have some mis-communication issues, no deaths so far. We are trying to do this fast as we can (for us anyways). So we did recruit Kivan to talk to Shoal so we could then shoot her up. One problem - Kivan got killed by dire wolves before we could talk to Shoal. So instead we recruited Imoen and let her be kissed dead, booted her out,and killed Shoal, which got each of us a level. All other encounters so far have been by the book.

Modifié par corey_russell, 21 décembre 2013 - 05:17 .

[Grond0]

Have a good run Corey & Dogdancing.

Xena - human wild mage (update 2)

At the Nashkel mines Greywolf was softened up with a blast from the wand of frost before being darted while he chased the familiar in circles.  Meilum then got the same treatment - his bracers will more than double Xena's dart damage, so make future similar encounters rather quicker.

Samuel survived a rest on the way to the FAI (allowing Xena to use familiar invisibility past all the bandits).  Tarnesh was nibbled by the familiar, while Xena returned Joia's ring and sold the Ring of Wizardry.  I realised I'd forgotten to loot Landrin's house in Beregost, so went to do that (darting an ogre on the way for his belt collection).  After satisfying Landrin, Xena picked up a pair of dirty pantaloons.

Despite not being supposed to take risks I started playing after a long day at work and failed miserably.  First I succumbed to temptation against Teyngan and associates - I wanted Jemby's fire protection robe, but didn't realise the group would go hostile as soon as they saw the familiar.  After Teyngan was darted that meant the familiar had to save against 2 horror spells, but it did so successfully.  As I wasn't worried about Zekar's equipment remaining intact he was treated to a dose of the wand of cold.  The half-ogres in the area were cleaned out for Bjornin.

Moving on to Ulcaster the robe was used to minimise damage from fire traps on the way to picking up a wand of fire among other things.  However, I absent-mindedly used Bhaal healing on Xena - fortunately the resulting surge only resulted in a colour change.  Gave the Ghost his book back on the way out.

More invisible thieving then saw Xena acquire a few potions and a wand of monster summoning from the valley of tombs - the wand was put to immediate use on Narcillicus.  I used another charge on Bassilus.  I was thinking that the familiar could trigger a conversation to dispose of the undead, but Bassilus didn't have much to say to it.  However, some summoned ogres were too much for him anyway.  Xena recruited Melicamp, but failed to put him back together.

Ardrouine, Brage and the Dryad of the Cloudpeaks added to Xena's growing reputation on the way to the basilisk area.  After darting all the hostile basilisks Xena freed Tamah (reputation 20), then recruited Korax to deal with Mutamin.  I was prepared to use a charge of summoned monsters on Kirian, but the stinking cloud scroll from Mutamin proved enough - here Korax has paralysed 3 of them and Baerin is taking heavy damage from darts.  That encounter got Xena to level 7 - exactly on the average of 45 HPs.

[Serg BlackStrider]

Safe travels for your duo, Corey and Dogdancing!
One thing I don't understand though - why sentence Kivan and Imoen for death if you are going to kill Shoal anyway (and miss the Helm of Defense)? That's not really *good* approach for Hewitt in my opinion and if your aim is just good exp burst early on you could just kill her without talking (she is sirine after all...).

Modifié par Serg BlackStrider, 21 décembre 2013 - 10:07 .

[corey_russell]

Serg BlackStrider wrote...

Safe travels for your duo, Corey and Dogdancing!
One thing I don't understand though - why sentence Kivan and Imoen for death if you are going to kill Shoal anyway (and miss the Helm of Defense)? That's not really *good* approach for Hewitt in my opinion and if your aim is just good exp burst early on you could just kill her without talking (she is sirine after all...).

We did kill her for the experience burst. Trying to deal with Droth at our levels would be extremely unwise as Droth uses the sleep spell which we are vulnerable to at level 1. Also, Dogdancing and I are NOT confident of being able to kill her without her getting in talking range - if we don't use a sacrifice, WE could be the ones she talks to and kills.

[Serg BlackStrider]

@Corey:
I see your point. This is your game of course (and I know Grond0 also likes such approach in his runs) but if you ask me I don't see the wasting of opportunity to get the second best helm in the game for mere 3000 exp (which you could easily get by hunting slow-mo Ghasts south of Beregost) as a great bargain...

[Grond0]

I normally play strictly solo, i.e. no recruiting. That means the only way to get the Helm is to sacrifice a familiar - not such a great bargain. In addition the 5,000 XP for Shoal provides 2-3 levels which is enough to make all characters almost immune to potential ambushes if you're careful (arcane types can buy invisibility at High Hedge). To get to Beregost you have to run a risk (albeit a low one) of having an archer in an ambush and even when you're there hunting ghasts is not necessarily risk free as they tend to have hobgoblin archers accompanying them ...

[Serg BlackStrider]

Grond0 wrote...

I normally play strictly solo, i.e. no recruiting. That means the only way to get the Helm is to sacrifice a familiar - not such a great bargain. In addition the 5,000 XP for Shoal provides 2-3 levels which is enough to make all characters almost immune to potential ambushes if you're careful (arcane types can buy invisibility at High Hedge). To get to Beregost you have to run a risk (albeit a low one) of having an archer in an ambush and even when you're there hunting ghasts is not necessarily risk free as they tend to have hobgoblin archers accompanying them ...

Yes, playing strictly solo is completely different story. But even then is traveling to the Shipwreck's Coast less risky in terms of ambushes compared to the traveling to the Beregost?