I returned to the city in time to rescue the last two dukes from my half brother (not that I care about them) but the fact he wanted them dead was all the incentive I needed… I must admit he mounted a spirited defence however ‘cloudkill’ from Eldoth gave me an edge which proved decisive.
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A week or so later my party except Imoen (because her magical studies keep her too busy) regrouped to go on one last dungeon bash… a nice ‘turn’ shield for Viconia and guff documents about a mysterious hooded villain asking after me?
Well I’ll be ready for him if he shows his face around here again!
Note; the enemy forces in the dungeon were well trained and it was noticeably harder to outsmart them than any undead | bandits I’ve yet encountered on the sword coast… I wonder if the rumours of a female Paladin training an army could be behind this new zeal?
Gate70, Serg BlackStrider, Grond0 et 2 autres aiment ceci
A short session saw this pair properly underway in BG1. They followed our standard path with Shoal providing an early level. Both characters got maximum HPs on level-up, but a quick check of both difficulty level and option for max HPs showed we'd just been lucky.
In Beregost Treacletoes took on Karlat, but was made to struggle before eventually claiming victory.
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There were a few more tasks in and around the town before heading south to Nashkel - where Vitiare's death provided Robin with another level (and another good roll with 12 more HPs).
Arabelle's conversion into burgers was postponed on the way to get Meilum's bracers - Treacletoes making a first use of defensive stance there.
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Then it was on to clean up a severe infestation of basilisks. That went smoothly with both characters getting two more levels (again with excellent HP rolls). Treacletoes scorned the use of Korax for Mutamin and successfully saved against horror before shrugging off an acid arrow as the mage died. Robin suggested that Korax might come in handy against Kirian's party, but the dwarf was dead set on doing things his way. The result of that was that first Treacletoes became set (when held by the cleric)
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and then rapidly became dead just as Robin finished shooting down Baerin. Robin responded to the loss of his meat shield by going to fetch Korax and together they soon finished off the remaining opposition (at which point the grateful archer gave Korax a free arrow to keep as a memento).
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After the Beregost temple reunited the adventurers Treacletoes took his frustration out on a bunch of spiders. The final action saw a journey to the FAI where Tarnesh took some small consolation from making Treacletoes run as he died himself.
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Robin, archer 5, 61 HPs, 42 kills (that's 61 HPs out of a possible maximum of 65 )
Treacletoes, dwarven defender 5, 71 HPs, 24 kills, 1 death (71 out of 85 is still very good, even if not quite in Robin's class)
Blaggerd is at the temple again, still refusing to hand over cash for removing the cursed berserking sword. Instead he coughs up 800gp which is the going rate for removing poisoned arrows from the corpse of Oondol. Or Oondul. Blaggerd's not too hot on the name of lackeys, having to spend more of his time thinking about how to deal with Sirines in a more successful fashion (one killed, one badly wounded and one uninjured).
Cordruid and his band of fighter/druids entering Trilogy no-reload challenge...
Cordruid the half-elven figther/druid along with 5 other fighter/druids are entering the trilogy no-reload challenge. Here is Cordruid:
L]
If you wish, click the spoiler tag to see rest of his band:
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The bane of multi-class characters is the slow leveling, and wow was it slow. This is everything we had to do as level 1/1 characters until we got our first level:
* All of initial map
* most of Beregost quests
* all of the road to Nashkel
* reunite boy and dog
* deal with Krumm and Caldo
* return dead cat to little girl
* a few winter wolves
* Marl and buddy
* all of the lower level of Gnoll Fortress
* returning Lendarin's things
* doing all experience on FAI map
* all experience in Nashkel, except clearing mines experience and of course the greenstone ring quest
* restoring Melicamp
Finally, after restoring Melicamp we saw what we had longed for:
We leveled up in BOTH fighter and druid, which means most of us got some very helpful HP. And the quest continues...
I collected some temp companions to start this campaign then Minsc and Dynaheir insisted it was Viconia or them… they took it well. I sang lullabies to some rocks (don’t ask) and watched a bridge blow before helping some dwarfs kill two Liches.
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As a Sharman I’m very good at setting ambushes but today we (M'Khiin and I) discovered that Sharman’s are NOT immune to each other’s spells… trust me when I say the truth did indeed hurt.
Blaggerd was only charmed half a dozen times against the remaining sirines, his companions sometimes hanging around to kill off one of them and at other times running away from their companion. The cave of Black Alaric was no problem, other than the swashbuckler moving too far and charming herself in a snare.
A tome of bodily health is read by Blaggerd but Klaer takes a tumble...
With the high xp rewards out of the way and significant XP to the next cleric level, Blaggerd forks out an additional 500gp to rid himself of his sword. Maybe the next session will be a little cleaner.
Cordruid and his band of level 5 fighter/level 5 druids update 2:
Cordruid is making good progress. We finally have access to level 3 spells, which we put to immediate use against the Amazon assassins. Success, no deaths. Mulahey wasn't able to do much.
Oddly enough, our levels seem to be moving faster now that we are higher level. It might just be the better weapons/Thac0 speeding up the kills, so making it seem faster, plus of course can can engage tougher opponents now (like Ankhegs and Sirines)
Here are some screenies of the adventure:
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We wanted Poe's magical spear for Forrest - but we didn't want the Rep hit - so we charmed Poe and had Melium kill Poe - then we avenged Poe by killing Melium. : )
Incidentally fighting Narcillicus jellies were very hard - mainly because we didn't have weapons that could hurt the 2nd one except Misty's +1 quarterstaff - so we hasted Misty and had her used invulnerability potion and tried to keep her alive - that worked.
I wish I could say our plan against the Amazon assassins was deep - it wasn't. We had a few buffs, but the keys were 4x call lightning and 1 insects on each cleric. All spells got off except a call lightning got interrupted - as you can see the Amazons did not fare well once the spells finished generating.
And their demise is in this spoiler
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I forgot to mention that in order to even get level 3 spells we needed top off our experience - we used the flesh golems in High Hedge for that.
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The last thing of note is that only Hanna didn't have innate magical melee weapon - so after a few deaths we got her scimitar from Durlag's Tower - it was rough, we probably won't come back.
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We still have lots of things to clear in Chapter Three, so will keep at it.
Cordruid and his band of fighter/druids - update 3
I had meant to post party stats and comments - first their stats - in order of line-up:
Hanna - 52 HP, 217 kills, Shoal the Nereid
Primary weapon(s): +2 scimitar, scimitar
Joshua - 51 HP, 294 kills, Greater Basilisk
Primary weapon(s): dagger of venom, +2 dagger
Forrest - 37 HP, 109 kills, Taugosz Khosann
Primary weapon(s): +1 spear
Misty - 38 HP, 131 kills, Mustard Jelly
Primary weapon(s): martial staff
Cordruid - 37 HP, 101 kills, Battle Horror
Primary weapon(s): + 1 sling
Paja: 42 HP,, 86 kills, Battle Horror
Primary weapon(s): throwing daggers
Analysis:
For a long time, Hanna had two unechanted scimitars, while Joshua had two +2 daggers - this no doubt is why Joshua is a big leader in kills at the moment. Hanna has recently acquired the gauntlets of weapon expertise as well as the +2 scimitar - she may start to catch up. But it's no surprise at all that Joshua and Hanna are big leaders in kills, as they dual-wield.
Forrest's kills, on the other hand, are very misleading. He may not get a lot of kills, but he's a big reason fights don't last long - if an enemy has a lot of health, Forrest is the most likely person to get a critical and finish the enemy (Forrest has ** in Two-Hand Weapon fighting).
Due to her poor DEX (9), Misty has been in the back throwing darts. However, with the upgrades of the DEX gauntlets, ankheg armor and martial staff, she is now in the front lines. With the party's only +3 weapon, she has already overtaken Forrest in kills. The stats don't show it, but Misty has 18 WIS making her a potent spell slinger.
Cordruid is also a potent spell slinger, but has the slowest weapon of the party (a sling). He's done solid contributions though, and will even be more valuable to the party has he gets more powerful spells.
Paja is handicapped both by the fact she has low DEX (9) as well as her ranged weapon isn't magical. She does get 2 attacks per round, but it's just not enough. However, with her 18 WIS, she too, is a potent spell slinger, and will have more and more impact as the party get more powerful spells.
After playing using that namby-pamby magic for a while I decided it was time to give the monks another shot. They've made an excellent start and, by the time someone took any damage (hit by a kobold arrow in an ambush), they were already at level 3 with very good HP rolls up to then. Shortly after that they went to the basilisk area where shooting down Mutamin got the last of them to level 4 - another good set of rolls means every character is above average at this point .
Spoiler
Although ultimately all encounters will be done and all maps fully explored (with the exception of the underground areas of Durlag's Tower), Kirian's party were left alone for the moment.
The only mistake so far was just at the end of the session when I mis-clicked on Shar-Teel's dialogue and missed the chance to get a bit of XP for defeating her.
Cordruid and his band of fighter/druids - update 4
Cordruid and gang have made tremendous progress. In fact, the only non-TotSC areas pre-chapter 4 left is the zombie farm the Wizards of Thay area (this latter area is the area we are working on now).
In general this is a very effective team - so effective, there are many times the melee/ranged takes out enemies before we can get a spell off. But we definitely have bane. We don't have access to resist fear, and as such, the horror spell is a real pain for us half-elves. This happened in Tazok's Tent, with only 2 people making their save vs. horror. Fortunately, one of the people who saved was Joshua, who was quite a problem to Venkt with Joshua's two +2 daggers. Also, Paja got an insects on Venkt - after that, victory with no deaths was no longer in any doubt.
If parties DON'T use horror on our team, they get absolutely destroyed. We have a lot of insects and call lightnings. Molkar's group managed to disable 2/3 of the party with horror, but still couldn't survive the two party members who had their wits.
Another bane is web. Most of our party fails their save vs. web, which was quite a problem in the Wizards of Thay area - two party members died to web/poison. We purchased a lot more antidotes ASAP. Especially since very soon we will be venturing into the Cloakwood.
Our gold for pre-chapter 4 (well actually we are in Chapter Four, but we just aren't working on Chapter Four areas quite yet) is excellent (44,000). We will probably sell/buy back the Wand of Heavens, but we rarely use it - so far the important enemies we use it on is things like battle horrors/doom guards.
Most of the party is level 6 fighter/level 6 druid, however, just before I got to work this morning, Forrest leveled to 7 in druid. So the rest of the party will be following him to that level shortly. He has our first level 4 spell. Wasn't sure what to get, so just got Nymph.
Will keep at it.
@Grond0 - good luck with the monks. Hopefully our themed parties can go far...
ussnorway, Serg BlackStrider, Grond0 et 2 autres aiment ceci
Thanks Corey - I just had my first slice of luck and will probably need to stretch that a bit further ...
Phantasmic 6 {51} - monks party (update 2)
Continuing on, the monks worked on their reputation while ticking off the odd area as complete. A few winter wolves in the mountains helped push them up to level 5
Spoiler
(still everyone keeping above average HPs) before continuing deeper into the Cloudpeaks - that risks an ogre mage ambush (which indeed they got), so being above level 4 is helpful to be immune to sleep.
With those areas cleared, and reputation at 18, they took side roads up to the FAI. Helping out Joia then allowed reputation to be maximised by robbing the ankheg nest (leaving the monsters untouched for now). After buying everything they wanted at Ulgoth's Beard they returned south to clear the Nashkel Mines. Up to that point they had been fairly careful, with no-one having been at worse than 'injured' status. However, I didn't use the wand of sleep or necklace of fireballs after Mulahey managed to call for help and Spook came within a whisker of being a casualty from a kobold commando critical.
Spoiler
The kobolds also did a fair amount of damage to others before being overcome, but at least it didn't take long to heal up as Chimera learnt CLW when resting.
Sadly Manteia was not meant to save the Sword Coast. She worked her way through the Cloudpeaks without any trouble, and picked up the CHA tome before she sealed her own fate in the Lighthouse Area. She slew Sil and her two Sirine friends with what would turn out to be two Skull Traps rather than three and with her throwing daggers. It was only when she moved to pick up the pearls and arrows, that she learned a third Skull Trap had never been triggered. That single Skull Trap sufficed to kill the Elf at full health.
Spoiler
I considered giving up my attempts with a single class Mage. I even considered giving up trying with any class or kit for another while. However I found a fantastic portrait of a Dwarf that just screams at me: "Blackraven, I want you to play another badass Bounty Hunting Dwarf." I also decided to first give myself one more try with a single-class solo Mage. He must be number six or so.
Wynter, LN Human Invoker
Here is Wynter:
Spoiler
I'm going to keep this short, because my posts would otherwise become very repetitive. Setup contains SCS with full enemy prebuffs, full HPs for all characters in the game, and insane difficulty. Wynter started with Blindness, Find Familiar, and Shield as his known spells and darts as his weapon proficiency. Here's a chronology of his exploits.
- Beregost via High Hedge: all quests done there and in area directly south; two randomly spawned Ghasts killed. -> level 3. Algernon slain after ferret failed to pickpocket cloak.
- Road to Nashkel: Lord Foreshadow's CHA ring received, Coquetle family necklace retreived.
- Nashkel: easter eggs found and sold, reputation boosted at temple, Oublek informed of truth, Noober tolerated, Amazing Oopah slain, red and violet potions bought.
- Coquetle necklace returned in Beregost for 20 rep.
- High Hedge: 14 spells bought.
- (Road to) FAI: +1 Ring found, Rogue Ogre (Blindness + darts), Ring of Wizardry found, Joia/Hobgoblins.
- North of FAI: Brun (using Invisibility) and Tenya (two Wand of Magic Missiles charges), -> level 4.
- Ulgoth's Beard: Ankheg hoard loot sold, Greenstone Amulet and Returning +1 Frost Dart bought. Dart was very welcome after soloing a low level Invoker had proved rather tedious without Sleep and with darts instead of throwing daggers (less damage, less range).
- High Hedge: Wand of Sleep.
- North Coast: Shoal, Mad Arcand.
- South Coast: Charleston Nib and Brage, -> level 5.
- Firewine Ruins: ferret pickpocketed PfMagic scroll, Meilum defeated with magic after he became first enemy to injure Wynter who took a tad too long in firing a Magic Missile.
Spoiler
- Lighthouse Area: Black Alaric's cave looted (Greenstone Amulet against traps, and Invisibility).
- High Hedge: Deep Red Ioun Stone, for +1 DEX (i.e. +1 ranged Thac0).
- Mutamin and Basilisks, -> level 6. Gnome's Remove Magic did nothing.
Spoiler
One Greater Basilisk dropped Slow scroll. Kirian & co. spared because of full inventory.
- Greywolf (damage spells and wand scorchers).
- Melicamp restored.
- Ulgoth's Beard / High Hedge: Cloak of Displacement, scrolls bought.
- Durlag's Tower: 3x Battle Horrors (MMs, wand scorchers), -> level 7. Basilisks, Tome of WIS with Greenstone charge.
- Cloudpeaks cleared (damage spells, i.e. Magic Missile, Skull Trap, Flame Arrow, plus Wand of Fire).
- Winter Wolf ambush survived.
Spoiler
- High Hedge: Robe of Neutral Archmagi.
- Gnoll fortress: CHA tome, Hairtooth and Gnarl.
- Ulgoth's Beard: Aule's Staff (with staff being Wynter's second weapon proficiency).
- Lighthouse Area: 5 Sirines, 1 had wandered off (Skull Traps, Magic Missiles and Frost Dart; Improved Invisibility to be untargetable for Dire Charms). -> level 8.
- Bassilus: Skull Traps, Magic Missiles and wand scorchers to hurt/interrupt and eventually kill.
- Ulcaster School: new Wand of Fire picked up.
- North Coast: 3 Sirines with same tactics as in Lighthouse area.
- Neera's Red Wizards (Skull Traps and MMs), Neera briefly accepted into the party for gem bag.
- Neira (Blindness followed by returning dart).
- Nashkel Mines: Invisibility, Wand of Paralyzation on Mulahey before minions could arrive.
- Nimbul: left to Amnian soldiers until he panicked, then finished off with Magic Missile.
Spoiler
- Valley of the Tombs: tombs raided with PfUndead, Narcillicus wand scorchered to death.
- Deep South: Star Sapphire & Ring of Fire Resistance, PfMagic scroll from Hafiz, Samuel picked up for Lena.
- Amazon ambush while traveling invisibly: potion of freedom + Web, Skull Traps, Magic Missiles, dart.
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- Tranzig: Shield & Improved Invisibility, damage spells.
- Molkar ambush: same as amazon ambush, with initial focus on Halacan.
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- Silke: Web followed by ranged magical and physical attacks.
- Claw of Kazgaroth.
Highlighted: Bandit Camp.
Tthis was a messy affair. Buffs were potion of defense, oil of speed, and potion of freedom, Shield, MI, II. Battle was initiated with a Web. Wynter managed to cast one or two Skull Traps, and he Slowed several enemies (as they would save against the Web time and again). He got rid of Venkt with Skull Traps and his dart, and accidentally slew Ender Sai as well, which cost him a -10 reputation dip. When the Web expired, Wynter suffered an almost inevitable Hobgoblin poisoned critical, which he remedied with an elixir of health, only to suffer a second poisoned arrow a few moments later. Wynter's run would have ended with the second critical if it weren't for his Ioun Stone crit protection. Without such protection I think he would have just entered the tent, emptied the chest and walked off, which was what he ended up doing anyway. Health had dropped into single digit territory as he left the tent.
Spoiler
Thankfully his aura was clear on time for a second elixir of health, and Wynter got himself into safety (Invisibility) before the bandits closed in on him. He roamed about the camp for a while with the enemies somehow sensing his presence. They followed him around. Wynter nevertheless re-entered the tent (hoping the other bandits wouldn't pursue him there), quaffed a potion of absorption, looted Tazok's chest, quaffed an invisibility potion, and left. (The bandits did indeed not follow Wynter into the tent.)
- Cloakwood: all encounters until Mines skipped.
Highlighted: Drasus & co:
Wynter opened with a few Fireballs cast from beyond visual range, saw Genthore coming for him alone, buffed with Shield and MI to be protected as well as possible against the warrior's throwing axes and finished his foe with wand scorchers and a Skull Trap.
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Rezdan had gone Invisible. Wynter dispelled this using a Detect Invisibility scroll and finished the wizard with a Skull Trap.
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I used quick-save here to determine Rezdan's whereabouts: waiting for the message "You cannot save at this time.... Monsters are about" to make sure Rezdan was within range. Kysus and Drasus were webbed. Kysus saved twice before he first got held. Wynter first kept his distance and threw a Skull Trap at the remaining duo. When Kysus got held, Wynter finished him with a wand scorcher.
Spoiler
Drasus was treated to frost wand charges but quaffed a potion of magic shielding as soon as he could, prompting Wynter to go invisible in order to wait for that potion's effect to wear off. Wynter was low on damage spells, on wand fireballs (for attacks from outside the fog of war), and on disablers. One disabler he still had memorized was Grease. Thankfully it worked wonders on Drasus, allowing Wynter to finish his foe with Magic Missiles and a Chromatic Orb, cast from scrolls.
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Wynter decided not to enter the Mine yet.
- Durlag's Tower: wand of fire bought from Erdane (for twelve fireballs he would want throw at Davaeorn's henchmen).
- Perdue, Karlat (Blinded and finished with range attacks)
- Two Ankhegs, with one of them painfully reminding Wynter that he ought to have arrived with his Cloak of Displacement and Claw of Kazgaroth equipped instead of his CHA boosting gear.
Spoiler
-> level 9.
Highlighted: Davaeorn
Wynter fought no one on the upper floors. He buffed with 2 potions of magic protection, an oil of speed, a potion of defense, and potions of absorption and fire resistance (2). This might have been overkill, but I'm pretty sure I've seen Remove Magics remove some buffs whilst not affecting others on my Thieves. Either way, Wynter safely triggered Davaeorn's traps, and the latter's Remove Magic wouldn't remove a single buff. Wynter slew at least one of the Battle Horrors with the Wand of Frost, and all the guards (in groups) with wand fireballs. Davaeorn went invisible once or twice. Wynter wasted one Detect Invisibility scroll, but then made sure his remaining scroll(s) were put to better use with the quick-save trick. He finished his foe with his returning frost dart.
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Wynter is currently in Baldur's Gate where he's already acquired a DEX tome at the Thieves Guild and lots of potions and scrolls from Halbazzar.
Btw I'm enjoying Gate's run. I'm glad to see Corey back in action. Grond0, I think you did well with your human Mage, hopefully your Monks will do even better. USSNorway, nice to see someone playing a 'Sharman'. Safe travels everyone!
Gate70, Serg BlackStrider, Grond0 et 1 autre aiment ceci
Cordruid and his band of fighter/druids - Update 5
Cordruid and gang have cleared out all Chapter Three areas, except TotSC areas. So we were ready to venture into the Cloakwood. The team weathered the ambushes quite well. Having call lightnings, wand of heavens, and also lots of antidotes meant the party always pulled through.
Clearing areas 1-4 were pretty straightforward for the team. The only dangerous moment was when the arch druid managed to hold Cordruid. However, the party laid into the arch druid with everything they had (especially insects spell) - this carried the day. Actually, Cloakwood Area 2 could have been pretty dicey. However, I used my standard tactic of giving someone a freedom potion, turn off AI, and use invisibility potion - then run all over the place setting off all the web traps. Then they returned and then clearing the enemies in this area were much easier and smoother. We did max buffs for Centeol and her pets and this won as well. Loot was rather useless, but we are trying to get every shred of experience we can, as we are trying to avoid going into TotSC areas if we can help it (we'll see).
For Drassus and gang Joshua gulped a lot of potions and attacked. The rest of the party then assisted with spells - this worked well. The melee/ranged enemies in the Cloakwood Mines had no chance - for the mages (including Davaeorn), Misty used a protection from magic scroll. With no thief, we had to battle the Battle Horrors - but we want the experience anyways - with wand of heavens, they weren't too much trouble. We used a fire giant potion to help loot the chests.
Parts of Baldur's Gate have been cleared.
* DEX tome to Cordruid
* corpse given to Nemphre's "buddy"
* thieves cleared out of a house
* sphene gem given to the Seer
* a sirine who murdered a family was slaughtered
* Vaya and Deserta were taken out
* Basilisk cleared with hep of a potion of mirror eyes
* five Ogre Mages were defeated (very hard battle, we were badly wounded, Joshua had to retreat he was nearly chunked - but no deaths)
* a mage and fellow thief archers in a thieve's guild were taken out
* Seven Suns cleared
* Ogre Mage and carrion crawler pets in a sewer were defeated (as a precaution, used a freedom potion on Cordruid so the crawlers couldn't hold him)
* Sunin and pals defeated (Joshua died - but think the only reason he died is he got caught in the firebreath potion Hanna had used!)
We had put Joshua back together at the Beregost Temple, and then we ran out of time.
EDIT: Forgot to mention we had battled the mages at the top of Sorcerous Sundries. We know those mages love the horror spell, which we have no defense. So we used lots of summons, then far sight, and sent the summons to attack the enemies. Sure enough all summons running in fear. We waited two rounds to make sure they were out of horrors (sure enough one mage had another horror), but then the party attacked - the mages were killed super fast.
Also it was fantastic that we battled those 5 ogre mages in the south-south section of Baldur's Gate - because we picked up a magical scimitar for Hanna! Now entire party all has magical melee weapons.
Gate70, Serg BlackStrider, Grond0 et 2 autres aiment ceci
Nimbul didn't survive initial attacks, but Silke proved unusually resilient in Beregost - shrugging off multiple stunning blows. Chimera had initially stayed out of melee range, but eventually decided he needed to join in and did the trick.
Spoiler
Tranzig failed to survive a stealth attack on him, but rather than go on to the Bandit Camp the monks decided to look for more XP first.
A program of clearing areas followed, mostly without any concerns, though a slight lack of concentration at one point allowed an ogre berserker to get a hit in on Phantom - the 24 damage would have been fatal with a critical. They made use of magical missiles for the first time in the Temple area (against the vampiric wolves). Shortly after that a first use of magical melee weapons disposed of the Revenant. That wasn't quite enough for everyone to get to level 6, but a few skeletons and the ghoul in the second tomb tipped them over (a first set of below average rolls there, though only marginally).
With only 4 weapons that could hit mustard jellies Narcillicus was left briefly while the monks returned to the basilisk area to take on Kirian's party - they were torn apart with the help of Korax.
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Narcillicus was then persuaded to summon a couple of mustard jellies and they were pulled away and surrounded for successful disposal. The mage then failed to survive a stunning attack.
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With most of the other southern areas complete it seemed like time to have a go at Durlag's Tower. The Wand of the Heavens sorted out the battle horrors before the monks ventured inside. Slight carelessness combined with nasty positioning of the ghasts to allow them to get an attack on Spook.
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With him paralysed the others had to go into melee to save him - which they did, though not with much to spare.
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On the roof Spectre managed to save one mirror potion by stunning both the last 2 greater basilisks - allowing the others to finish them off.
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Chimera then opened the trapped container to get a scimitar for Wraith to use - wearing the ring of fire resistance saved him from death there.
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I picked up the tome, but left Kirinhale and the ghost for later.
Over at the coast the Doomsayer was wand magic missiled to death before the monks went to try their luck at the Lighthouse. That went pretty well. The first sirine managed to confuse Spook, but the second died immediately in a stealth attack
Spoiler
and the third didn't do much better. Sil's group were done together, but only managed a single charm between them, which was no threat.
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After shooting up the golems the monks went further north to clear the remainder of Shoal's area. I thought I'd remembered from a previous run that there was no reputation loss associated with Mad Arcand, but it appeared that was incorrect (at least after completing his quest).
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That's no great loss though as they've already purchased pretty much everything they want prior to going to the city. The final group of sirines managed to confuse 2 of the monks and charm another and that caused a severe problem when a charmed Chimera and confused Spectre locked together in combat.
Spoiler
Initially I was unable to get them to change target and Chimera was severely injured by a critical, but fortunately attacking Spectre from behind (rather than the side) got her to change target until Chimera came back under control again (I'd briefly considered using a scroll of PfM on Chimera, but decided I didn't want to do that).
Spoiler
There are just a few more areas left to do now prior to going to the Bandit Camp - by which time the monks should be up to level 7.
Chimera - L6, 49 HPs, 201 kills
Spectre - L6, 51 HPs, 326 kills, 0 deaths
Phantom - L6, 42 HPs, 173 kills, 0 deaths
Wraith - L6, 44 HPs, 177 kills, 0 deaths
Spook - L6, 44 HPs, 198 kills, 0 deaths
Spirit - L6, 45 HPs, 168 kills, 0 deaths
Gate70, Serg BlackStrider, Blackraven et 1 autre aiment ceci
Cordruid and his band of Half-Elf fighter/druids - Update 6
So I had a question to ask myself: Can a band of fighter/druids with poor saves defeat the Iron Throne 5th floor, using only their own buffs from spells and equipment? (e.g. no green scrolls or potions).
So here is the outcome of trying to answer that question: (Battle Summary):
All fighter/druids buffed with pro fire/lightning, and armor of faith (which only helps us 10%). Hanna buffed with shield amulet and Cordruid buffed with greenstone amulet (I knew this last buff was important - even if the party died, he could retreat, resurrect and regroup if needed).
The druids opened with things like insects and some summons. Joshua and Hanna very quickly got into the melee. Paja did a rigid thinking on Cloudewulf. The pro fire buffs were helping a lot to keep party members alive. However, after a few rounds, the entire party was held, running in fear, or confused, with the exception of Cordruid! (BG 2 might be a problem, there's a lot less potions there for defense) Cordruid had a lot of spells (he gets all Wisdom tomes) and kept casting. He also spammed Wand of Heavens on Gardush to protect a confused party member being attacked by him. Summons were helping a little, Cloudwulfe wandered upstairs (though I didn't know it at the time). Two party members died in all this. Mercifully, Cordruid was hardly targeted by anything, so was to keep casting spells/wand of heavens. Eventually, however, the three other party members still alive regained their senses - and when they did the few iron throne survivors were utterly destroyed.
I had then immediately went to a temple (looting nothing) to resurrect Joshua and Paja. We then returned to re-equip and loot. But I didn't see halberd in the loot - where's Cloudewulf? Hanna went upstairs by herself and found him - she soloed him, getting badly hurt - she wouldn't have made it I don't think, except she used up a lot of blue potions.
Here are the screenies of the battle with the 5th floor of Iron Throne baddies:
Spoiler
So the answer to the question? Kind of! Yes, the fighter/druids can win on their own without any help from potions/green scrolls, but not without casualty. We will be headed to Candlekeep soon.
Gate70, Serg BlackStrider, Grond0 et 2 autres aiment ceci
In the south the Ulcaster School and Kahrk & the ruins at Firewine were left for now. While at the latter though I did kill Bentan and Poe and that caused an unanticipated problem back in Beregost when I tried to sell some scalps to Officer Vai.
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The whole inn immediately went hostile, but fortunately none of them followed outside. I thought to go and report to the mayor in Nashkel to pick up some reputation there, only to find all the soldiers there already hostile. Most of the commoners were also hostile, but the mayor himself was still prepared to see good in the monks.
The final source of good XP for the moment was a bunch of ankhegs. Spectre prepared for that by reading a couple of protection from acid scrolls, though he only got one scratch from the final ankheg in the nest anyway. Keen to get enough XP for a level Spectre showed himself to a succession of ankhegs in the fields. He took one critical there, but a wand charge helped ensure the ankheg didn't have time for a follow-up
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and a first use of a potion of regeneration allowed him to contine to take the lead for the few more ankhegs required for the level (getting average HPs there).
After getting a lift to the Bandit Camp with Teven, Tazok made a pretty good attempt at dodging, but was eventually once more successfully englobed when he tried to run away - Wraith grabbed his bracers.
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After exploring the area the monks all used the Shield Amulet for the first time, then opened hostilities by attacking some of the Black Talons. Fireballs successfully disrupted Venkt's opening attacking spell and he died before he could try another.
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Taugosz chased them too far from support and was stunned when they turned to attack
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- the stragglers were then finished off without alarm.
After looting the camp the monks were on their way to sell surplus junk when they had their first wyvern / spider ambush. Wraith was immediately webbed there and Chimera also targeted with a web. That seemed pretty dangerous, so he took a first potion of freedom.
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In fact though the monks performed well there and no-one was poisoned or seriously injured.
The only real danger in the first Cloakwood area was from Seniyad, but he was stunned immediately after talking.
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In the second area a first use of ring invisibility was used to trigger the web traps. I'd realised too late after the Bandit Camp though that I hadn't put reputation back up and had received horror rather than slow poison as a Bhaal power. For a solo, non-SCS run that's a far better option, but in this party that meant the combination of giant spider webs and poison was incredibly dangerous - particularly with the amount of respawning from encounter points. On the first occasion someone was poisoned they only managed to reach the map edge when Phantom successfully cast lay on hands while poisoned - something far from guaranteed.
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On the second occasion Spook wasn't going to make it that far, but they were fortunate that an attempted rest was successful (saving them the need to use one of their 2 green PfP scrolls - I'm not allowing the use of healing potions or antidotes). Lots of use of stealth and stun allowed the rest of the map to then be cleared other than Centeol's lair. Popping in and out of that under stealth encouraged the opposition to come out gradually and although the final group of 2 giant spiders and 2 ettercaps managed to web Chimera, they were killed before being able to take advantage.
Spoiler
In the third area Izefia was stunned in a stealth attack. Takiyah saw them coming at the last moment, but was still immediately stunned anyway. Amarande was pulled downstairs and failed to cast an initial chaos. An extra-healing potion didn't really help him and he died in attempting another chaos.
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In the fourth area the hamadryad was stunned as she tried to teleport away.
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The remainder of the area was done without fuss before the monks returned briefly to civilisation to restock ammunition. After running the ambush gauntlet once more they arrived at the mine and have cleared all the surrounding area prior to having a go at Drasus.
Cordruid and his band of fighter/druids - FINAL Update!
Well Cordruid and pals finally made it to Sarevok. But some major problems: 1) with no dispelling arrows, we couldn't get rid of Sarevok's haste 2) our fire resistance got dispelled. As a result, Sarevok and Angelo were devastating. Eventually it was just Cordruid.
But Cordruid couldn't get ahead of Sarevok (thus couldn't run and shoot). As a desperate measure, Cordruid activated a protection from magic scroll and tried to use the traps to finish Sarevok (who was injured by that point). That didn't work, and his quest fails.
What's next: I've yet to get a thief success. Will roll one up.
Blaggerd and his horde are cutting through the opposition with a determined lack of note-taking. Nashkel Mine and the Bandit Camp are closed down for good so Blaggerd loosens his purse-strings to buy some gear.
Blaggerd: Army Scythe +1 Crossbow, Cloak of Displacement.
Garla: Shadow Armor +3.
Klaer: Aule's Staff +3.
The wyvern cave is tackled with a couple of buffs (Chant -> Bless) and that's enough to emerge unscathed.
Drasus and Genthore lived long enough to see their mages shot to pieces, but not much longer.
A frontal-assault against Hareishan and her gang went well. Max zoom screenshot below, and the next steps after this were a Horror/Hold Person combo that left three defenders unaffected. Once they were down their companions were hunted down.
Davaeorn gave Blaggerd a hefty shock, but he who laughs last loots the corpses.
Into the fine city of Baldur's Gate. So far, an ogre mage was swept away in the sewers and four of Degrodel's guardians have been dealt with.
Corthief VII has survived assembling his team. I wasn't sure which Corthief I was really on, though I knew it was quite a bit up there, I've had a lot of Corthief's over the years (all failures). So guessed VII and sticking with it. : )
Because I wanted Ajantis early, as well as Khalid and Jaheira's help until I was able to recruit both Minsc and Dynaheir, I traveled to the FAI pretty early (as in, right after Candlekeep). It was pretty scary.
But eventually Khalid, Jaheira and Ajantis were recruited and then of course Montaron and Xzar left. We then traveled south and then recruited Kivan. We then traveled on the road, until eventually we made it to Nashkel. There we recruited Minsc which gave us 7 characters - had to boot out Imoen (don't really need her, since I'm a thief - plus I always use her, time to give some other character a chance).
We then headed south, then straight west until we ran into the Gnoll Fortress. Ajantis and Minsc's two-hand swords kept breaking here though - of the 4 we had altogether (which we only had that many because at night Corthief VII had broken into the Thunderhammer Smithy to get the magical bastard sword - he took some extra two-hand swords too - good thing he did that), only one survived until we left the area.
When we returned to Nashkel, bought some maces so Minsc could dual-wield those. When Ajantis got to level 3, I had him get skill with bastard sword - which we have a magical one, so got a shield for Ajantis so he can use that instead. Eventually we will get Arghain's sword, but party too fragile to go for that just yet (we still have several level 1 characters).
Finally, we got to the Carnival, and used a stone to flesh scroll to put Branwen back together, equipped her with basic equipment, and ran out of time for session.
Here is Corthief VII at the end of the session:
EDIT: according to my photobucket account, this looks like this guy should be Corthief IX - will update him next session.
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