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[Grond0]

Gate70 wrote...

Grond0 wrote...
Could always go for the elvish party - Coran, Khalid, Jaheira, Kivan and Xan.

Not done that before. Viconia must qualify ahead of Jaheira; and could introduce some fun around Kivan / Xan from memory.

I was leaving out Viconia on RP grounds as all the others are neutral or good, although you could always justify including her on the grounds you can see a bit of good buried deep inside her!

In BG1 I would say that Jaheira is probably a better bet than Viconia.  Viconia's low HPs make her vulnerable in combat and her magic resistance is less of a benefit than in BG2.  However, I agree that she might be able to spice up the gameplay (and it looks like you're making good progress anyway - go backstabs).

Modifié par Grond0, 20 juillet 2011 - 07:53 .

[corey_russell]

In combat at least, Grond0, I agree Jaheira is a better choice as well. However, having access to cleric spells is still helpful. Animate dead, protection from lightning, and free action are all great spells to have access to. Call Lightning is great for the wilderness battles, but becomes less useful in the city of BG (indoors most of the time). So either can work, just depends on Gate70's play style.

[Gate70]

You could be right but I rarely if ever use Jaheira as lead person in BG1, used to do so regularly with Viconia where the 19 dexterity & DUHM really made a difference. I find her magic resistance often works in BG too but notice the cut-down summoning limits (usually 1 or maybe 2 skeletons per spell).

[corey_russell]

I use vanilla BG 1 so my animate deads aren't nerfed. I readily agree with you Gate70 that BG 2 animate deads are pretty weak until the caster is level 15. I don't use my summons to really kill anything, it's just the powerful enemies (like Sarevok) are killing them instead of me.

[corey_russell]

Lotan the Human fighter (for now) - Nashkel Mines, aftermath and Bassilus

Lotan finally decides his party is experienced enough to tackle the Nashkel Mines. Since he suspects there are a lot of traps, and also since the kobolds increasing the party's fighting skills so little, he decided to get to the bottom of the mine as directly as he could, just kiling whatever was in the way.

This went pretty smooth, and we finally encountered the master of the ore poisoning, Mulahey. The party rushed him, but Mulahey rushed past the party. This was fine for us, as this allowed Joshua to fire a shot of his necklace of missiles, killing all Mulahey's minions (who fell to Paja's sleep spell). Mulahey himself failed his save vs. command and fell asleep. Needless to say, this led to him being put to permanent "sleep".

We were having trouble looting everything, and we certainly didn't' want to trudge through these mines multiple times. So went and ahead and freed Xan who agreed to help us carry our junk. Mulahey had a nice divine caster ring which went to Hanna. We booked it out of there and headed to the carnival. We sold and identified our junk here. We then parted company with Xan on amicable terms.

After that we headed to Nashkel to report our success to the Mayor. He was happy with our work. We then countered Nimbul the assassin. He too failed his save vs. Hanna's command and was killed shortly thereafter.

Lotan read Mulahey's notes, and noticed there was a contact in Feldeposte's inn that the party should check up on. The mage Tranzig ended up being confrontational, but the party's melee/ranged was more than enough to take care of him, though am sure Paja's acid arrow didn't help him much. The ring went to Hanna, putting her AC at -4. Not bad at all for wearing basic plate mail.

Next up, we decided it was about time we took care of this rogue cleric named Bassilus. We had Joshua talk to him, but he couldn't calm him down and we ended up fighting both Bassilus and his undead army (leader's note: even Joshua had 18 CHA and gave the right answers, the undead didn't disappear. This might be a TotSC change, but I am not sure).

So the party stayed as far back as they could except for Joshua. Bassilus made all his saves vs. hold and also confused Joshua. We weren't too worried about Joshua, he is heavily armored and has bonuses to blunt weapons as well. We did try to keep our distance as he could be quite handful if he attacked party members, but that was unlikely with so many targets surrounding him. Since our spells weren't working we just used our ranged power. Paja had to hide behind one of the stone slabs as she got hurt, but Bassilus fell.

Still a lot of undead to churn through, but Hanna and Lotan were beating them fine and Hanna even made level 5. We were real impressed with her level up, she can now cast 3 level 3 spells. Eventually Joshua regained his senses then we made short work with what was left. The party is strong enough to carry all the swords and heavy crossbows (leaders note: with NPCs, it's not unusual that I have to leave some of those behind, because they are weak compared to my party).

After selling the junk and reporting our success to the Mayor Beregost, we checked out Thalantyr's inventory to see on buying the robe of good arch magi for Paja. Note a chance yet, we have 13,000 gold but need 22,000.

[corey_russell]

Lotan explores South of Nashkel and some unfinished business in Xvart Village country...

So Lotan the Human fighter (to be dualed in BG 2) continues his adventures with his fellow Bhaalspawn, Joshua the Human Paladin, Hanna the Halfling cleric, and Paja the elven thief/mage.

I have a lot of respect for Sendai and her two fellow archers - I have some runs end there, as well as near disasters. What I do now is confront her with my tank AFTER he's been equipped with the boots of avoidance, full plate and large shield +1. Joshua was nominated to be the "target". They got one hit in but that was all. Hanna got 2 holds in, and one archer didn't last long thanks to Paja's acid arrow. Success!

Next up we encountered Vax and his fellow "fastest dart thrower" in the west. Joshua charged Zal immediately, and they talked to him while Joshua was in melee range of Zal (which in turn caused Zal to courteously switch to his pathetic melee weapon rather than make full use of his bracers of archery). The party just concentrated their fire and that was more than enough to fell both bandits.

In this same area, after returning Rufie the party got more good news, Lotan leveled to 5 and he got 10 HP putting his HP at 58. 10 is still much better than the 6 Joshua got in one his levels, so not complaining.

We realized now that Hanna has animate dead, it's time to finish up some unfinished business in Xvart Village country. We headed to the west side of that area and encountered Borda, the guy who is offering scrolls far too cheap. He offered a scroll of magic protection for 25 gold, but the merchant like high hedge will only sell to me for 1000 gold! He is either offering stolen goods or cursed items, and either way his ways end now. Joshua tells Borda to hand over his items (so we could inspect them to see if they are genuine). Knowing that's he's guilty he instead starts a fight. He buffs with mirror image and casts horror. Joshua fails his save, the party was far away so they weren't affected. We suspect magic resistance so it's missiles all the way. Joshua takes a huge hit of magic missiles. Our skeletons were bothering Borda, however, so switched targets and picked on them. That was fine with us. Right at the end, Joshua shook off his fear and slammed Borda with a bullet from his sling and killed him.

Party will fully explore the Beregost Temple area next.

[BelgarathMTH]

Good work, Corey. That was a close call with the merchant dude - very exciting.

I wonder if that Sendai you killed is any relation to THE Sendai from ToB? (I guess not, since the ToB Sendai is a dark elf mistress.)

Modifié par BelgarathMTH, 21 juillet 2011 - 04:16 .

[corey_russell]

No relation -- guess by the time ToB rolled around, they were having trouble picking new names for the characters. : ) It's also possible they forgot they already have a Sendai. But it's not a big deal though, since even in real life having 2 people with the same name is not unusual. Could happen in Faerun as well.

Thanks for the Kudos. If Joshua died, we were just going to pick up his stuff and resurrect him. Even though Lotan has the most HP of the party we didn't send him for obvious reasons.

[touch_of_the_void]

Arande & druids: Bandit Camp

This was a fun and crazy fight. I made no attempt to use stealth and instead simply marched into the camp and started killing bandits. It didn't take long before the rest of the camp came to join in



I was a little afraid of Taugosz so he was the first to fall (check that 46 point Call Lightning from by a level 6 druid...)



Venkt then showed up (in SCS the baddies in the main tent come join the battle outside).



Sadly for him no Globe means no hope (Hakt was also potentially annoying so got zapped).



Most of the party hit level 7 mid-battle. This was awesome. Well, bearsome.



Actually the lesser enemies posed more of a threat than their leaders... we ended up expending a number of Wand charges as well as quite a few healing potions and Antidotes. Shapechanging was great for boosting offensive melee power but not so good defensively since bears don't have good AC. Forgetting to pick up the Necklace of Missiles didn't help... Anyhow, in the end we pulled through without casualties.

Modifié par touch_of_the_void, 22 juillet 2011 - 06:45 .

[corey_russell]

Lotan the Human Fighter - continued exploration of the Sword Coast

Lotan and his fellow Bhaalspawn of Joshua the Human Paladin, Hanna the halfling cleric, and Paja the elven thief/mage continue their adventures.

We heard of dangerous wolves and hobgoblin bandits not too far from the Beregost Temple so we decided to secure the area. Before we did that we made sure the party all had magical ammo, in case it was needed. There were indeed many wolves here, including vampiric wolves, but Joshua tanked great yet again. Joshua was rewarded for his good work with level 5. He gained 13 HP, putting him only 4 behind Lotan we were happy about that.

We also secured the area NE of Nashkel, lots of Ogres, Ogre Berserkers, Ogrillioins, and some xvarts here. While clearing the area got some nice news - Paja got 2 levels off the same kill again, putting at level 4 mage/level 5 thief. Her lockpicking is now 100%, rest of the points going to her find traps. In the same area, ran into Billy and his fellow bandits. Since hitting Joshua with arrows is nigh impossible except criticals, these bandits had no chance.

That area of tombs that we briefly walked through when we exited the Nashkel Mines, we decided now was a good time to investigate that further. In the northern part of the area we encountered some Amazon assassins. Joshua fired his sling, Paja a stinking cloud, Hanna a silence, and Lotan had ONE arrow of detonation (which was a drop of a trash mob). We have been saving for a long time for a special occassion, think now qualifies. Joshua also gulped a potion of invulnerability. The Amazons were just clobbered. They should really pick their fights better. Their loot finally gave us enough cash to buy the Robe of the Good Archmagi for Paja. She will no longer wear leather, she's a caster all the way now.

In the tomb area we encountered a powerful revenant. The party used magical ranged attacks except Joshua tanked it with protection from evil. Joshua didn't even get hurt, and the Revenant fell

In this same area ran across a mage and his mustard jellies. We asked if he would be willing to share his jelly control spell with us, but he instead got belligerent and started a fight. He fell fast, and the party used their magical melee weapons and took down the jellies. Strangely enough, no one got poisoned, Joshua kept saving vs. the jelly attacks.

Even though we got a lot of experience, no one leveled, though Hanna is less than 2k experience from level 6. We will probably explore Ulcaster School next after getting stone to flesh scrolls.

[Grond0]

Grunt has been doing a bit of adventuring over the last few days and cleared virtually everything up to the Cloakwood. I haven't posted on his travels partly because he's been making use of modded items and they have made the game unbalanced - for instance he's been able to get an AC of -14 by making use of plate armour from a Lathander guard (not really appropriate for a barbarian).

As a reaction to that I've been making him take more and more risks against spell users. He got away recently with being confused by Kahrk, but came to a sticky end when confused again by the red wizards of Thay and hit with a succession of damaging spells. He was rather more vulnerable to damage than a good barbarian should have been anyway - he had 74 HP at level 8 compared to an average of 96.5.

[The Fred]

BelgarathMTH wrote...

Party of druids - cool.

Seconded. I don't think I could do it myself, Druids are just too slow to get going. From L4+ they get decent but in vanilla BG Clerics can cast all Druid spells anyway, so there's not much point.

corey_russell wrote...
I use vanilla BG 1 so my animate deads aren't nerfed. I readily agree with you Gate70 that BG 2 animate deads are pretty weak until the caster is level 15. I don't use my summons to really kill anything, it's just the powerful enemies (like Sarevok) are killing them instead of me.

Perhaps the undead in BG1 are a tad too powerful, but I was pretty upset when I played the BG2 demo to get only 1-3 skeletons each time. Skeletons are useful just as a meat shield (well, bone shield) but they're great against casters (even if they don't hit often, having one or more groups of them is great for interrupting spells) and are immune to lots of things. If you solo until about L5 and then pick up Viconia in her highest-level incarnation, you can easily clear the bassilisk area with little more than that one spell.

[corey_russell]

Ouch - sorry to hear about your unfortunate end, Grond0. Didnt have an invulnerability potion available, eh? You were after all battling 4 wizards...

[Grond0]

corey_russell wrote...

Ouch - sorry to hear about your unfortunate end, Grond0. Didnt have an invulnerability potion available, eh? You were after all battling 4 wizards...

I had a number of potions available actually, but like I said I was taking risks (the easiest option would have been just to use the green amulet).  His armour and weapons were so over-powered that I sort of felt it was only fair to balance that by leaving him with vulnerable saving throws.

[Grond0]

Started a new game with a sorceror.


Went to Beregost and talked to Marl, did an errand for Firebead, taught Karlat to mind his manners, cleared some spiders, returned a letter to a lonely wife and returned a lost sword.  Also tried out a potion on a slime - it didn't work, but love still kept the odd couple together.  Experience for creatures is reduced to 50% for this installation so that lot only just took Wisp to 5,000 XP and level 3.

Carried on down the road to Nashkel, where Lord Foreshadow was kind enough to provide a new ring.  In Nashkel found a suit of armour in the ground, whose strange composition protected it from rust.  Pawning that gave enough money to buy a ioun stone from High Hedge as well as a find familiar scroll.  That combination means Wisp is suddenly much less vulnerable, so will shortly head on up to the Friendly Arm without worrying too much about the possibility of bandit ambushes.

Modifié par Grond0, 23 juillet 2011 - 09:08 .

[corey_russell]

Lotan explorers Ulcaster School and Brage's area

Lotan continues his adventures. We explored Ulcaster School area. Lot of trash mobs (skeletons, hobgoblins, kobolds), so not much experience. Once we got to ruins on the surface we met the skeletal warrior Icharyd. He was crushed in two rounds.

A lot of junk loot, so we had to take two loads here. The battles in the lower level of Ulcaster School went pretty smooth, Joshua is a great tank.  Hanna got level 6 and got another 3rd level spell. I think we are ready for sirenes, she has two animate deads and dispel magic. The mustard jelly took a lot of heal potions - it targeted Hanna, and she gulped heal potions like they were going out of style, she also had to use an antidote. She survived, so that's the main thing.

Next up was Brage's area. We got attacked by a relative of Brage, then we failed his riddle and attacked him (leader's note: I got the answer wrong on purpose, as Joshua got hit with rigid thinking - I didn't want to go to the temple with him like that, massive rep loss not to mention loss of the potions the temple has). Even though Joshua was confused, Hanna tanked Brage just fine. We claimed our reward for Brage in Nashkel, sold our junk and came back.

We found some archaelogists - they found a cursed tomb it looks like and we had to kill the workers. Lotan thought the artifact was lots of superstition, though, and took it out of the tomb. That lead to a battle with the Doomsayer. Joshua tanked, Hanna used her +2 hammer, Lotan used +2 arrows, and Paja pumped the doomsayer with 6 sets of magic missiles. Joshua did have to potion a few times then the doomsayer fell. This got Lotan to level 6 and he got 11 HP of his level and stands at 69 HP at the moment.

Sirine's area will be our next area to clear.

[corey_russell]

Lotan explores Sirine Country, Firewine Bridge (surface), Gullykin

Since we have 2 spell sets of animate dead, and Hanna has a dispel magic, we decided to explore sirine country. This was a profitable excursion:

* Joshua hit level 6 here. I had a almost close call, Lotan and Paja got dire charmed. Luckily a nicely aimed dispel magic by Hanna got rid of the dire charms. The rest of the battles went smoothly.

* Also in Sirinine country, battling Sil and her buddies, Paja leveled to 5 mage/6 thief. For now, her 3rd level spell is dispel magic.

* We head to Firewine Ruins (surface). We encounter Melium the "greatest swordfighter". He decided to fight us, but a successful command by Hanna spelled his doom. The gauntlets went to Joshua.

* We found a lady with a jar. Clearly the jar wasn't doing any good so we asked if we could examine it for her. She instead somehow summoned a powerful Ogre Mage. Skeletons and Joshua were in melee range. Lotan was using acid arrows and Paja arrows of biting. I don't even think Kahrk got a spell off. Hanna's dispel magic which dispelled all of Kahrks buffs didn't help him either.
Predictably, Kahrk fell.

* Since Gullykin was close we headed there. Encountered an assassin named Molkar who said he wasn't like the other assassins, he was much better. Except this is what happened: Paja fired a fireball from her wand, silence from Hanna, fireball potion by Lotan, and Joshua of course charged. Lotan was still using his acid arrows and Paja her arrows of biting. Molkar and buddies were clobbered.

* We headed to Beregost and sold our junk then returned to Gullykin. We found a halfling house where the halfling was letting in kobolds in the village. We investigated and it lead right to another Ogre Mage. The party concentrated fire and the Ogre Mage fell almost instantly, despite the Ogre's boast. Joshua gulped a potion of absorption, strength potion and charged the enemies. He completely destroyed them. I realized that in order for Paja to cast cloudkill she would need 135,000 experience to get level 9 mage but that is impossible being a multi and 161,000 experience cap. So instead we will save the scroll for the end-game.

Next up: Ankheg country

[Grond0]

Wisp got up to level 4 without alarms and learnt invisibility then went to explore the Nashkel mines. Successfully got through the kobolds, but then came unstuck attacking Mulahey; she tried to take a potion of freedom when she saw a hold person coming, but didn't manage to drink it quickly enough.

[BelgarathMTH]

Good work, Corey.

Sorry for your bad luck, Grond0.

[corey_russell]

Tough luck Grond0. I am a little surprised though you don't gulp the freedom potion at the beginning of the battle with Mulahey, rather than trying to rely on fast fingers to save you. Hold person is his most dangerous spell after all for a solo character.

[Gate70]

Gulping is dangerous thanks to the delay after previous actions.  Difficult to balance safety against potion availability - particularly with a party but at least a group has options if someone is incapacitated.

Dyff, LG male elf stalker.

The bandit camp is located from clues on the body of Teven. We have to kill a couple of ankhegs on the way, then I backstab Ardenor Crush. Khalid hits him then Kivan claims the kill.

Xan sends a group of bandits to sleep as Viconia dooms and commands Taugosz Khosann. We hit hard and fast before I add him to my list of kills (level 4, 28hp) while Khalid grabs his armour.

I add Credus to my tally, then we rest outside the largest tent, buff and step inside. Raemon and co attack us. As Khalid engages him I sneak behind Venkt. Viconia dooms the mage and Xan starts casting sleep.

I follow up my backstab with a killing blow, then move on to Hakt who has poisoned me with an arrow. Viconia cures the poison as Kivan kills Hakt, allowing us to focus on Britik. He is the first named victim of Xan's moonblade (although he did kill an ankheg earlier).

Back to Raemon. I swing first and he falls to the ground. Ender Sai warns us of a trap and I flick back through my journal to remember where we left Imoen. We bump into Hentold on the way and borrow his dagger.

Where is Imoen. Who are these amazons. Khalid gets himself held while Maneira takes a nap. I backstab Lamahla then kill her with my offhand follow-up. Telka is my next victim, but Zeela saves a command and kills Khalid. I retaliate, killing her then Maneira.

We grab Imoen, get Khalid raised at a temple and return to the camp. After learning of a dwarven mine deep in Cloakwood I ask Imoen to guard the camp and the rest of us set off.

A druid called Seniyad survives Khalid and my backstab, only for Kivan to kill him before a spell is cast. As we rest Viconia tries to be nice to Kivan, and is rebuffed. Uh-oh.

Coran the thief is recruited, only to trigger a trap near some huge spiders. His hide in shadows keeps him safe for a while but after four attempts to escape the spiders notice him. Xan casts sleep, Viconia commands another spider and Kivan uses his longbow. It is no good, although we kill the spiders one has poisoned Coran and all we can do is watch him die as we finish them off.

We grab his belongings and press on, knowing the next few traps could well be fatal.

Modifié par Gate70, 23 juillet 2011 - 09:04 .

[BelgarathMTH]

@Gate, congrats on your good progress. Sorry to hear about Coran - are you carrying his "corpse" with intention to Raise, or did you decide he was dead for good and leave him?

How do you get Xan to even try to use that Moonblade safely? Mirror Image? Mage Armor? Items of Protection? Spirit/Ghost Armor? Just curious. The thing that's always made me sad about Xan's blade is that even if he gets powerful enough to protect himself in melee, he is rarely going to hit and only gets one try per round!. I think the BG2 mod gives you the option to make him a fighter/mage so that he actually has a shot at using that thing effectively.

[Grond0]

corey_russell wrote...

Tough luck Grond0. I am a little surprised though you don't gulp the freedom potion at the beginning of the battle with Mulahey, rather than trying to rely on fast fingers to save you. Hold person is his most dangerous spell after all for a solo character.

Normally I would have gone back through the cave entrance to avoid the spell if attacking him failed to disrupt it, but on this occasion I got slightly too far into the cave (when hunting kobold elites) and got cut off from the entrance when Mulahey summoned reinforcements.

I've made a clone of Wisp (called Wasp).  Only change is that I've removed the nerfing of XP.  Progress to date is:
- killed Firebead in Candlekeep to get level 2.
- did all the normal quests in Beregost and surrounds.
- a Chilling experience in the temple area provided Wasp with level 4 and access to invisibility.

[BelgarathMTH]

@Grond0, "a Chilling experience". LOL

[Gate70]

BelgarathMTH wrote...
@Gate, congrats on your good progress. Sorry to hear about Coran - are you carrying his "corpse" with intention to Raise, or did you decide he was dead for good and leave him?

He's greyed out, wouldn't spot the next couple of traps anyway. Safana is as bad as Coran from memory and Skie is locked-out. I think Tiax and Alora are moved in my game so I now have to take a risk, restore Coran and do some high-value side quests such as a basilisk / sirine hunt or temporarily recruit them or pinky (stinky & Xzar will have vanished by now).

How do you get Xan to even try to use that Moonblade safely? Mirror Image? Mage Armor? Items of Protection? Spirit/Ghost Armor? Just curious.

Them's the options, plus barkskin if Jaheira was around and potions if I was a gulper. He has mage armour, moonblade bonus and a ring of protection +1 giving an ac of 2, 8hp at level 3 but THACO is pretty good for a mage at 17. He trails Khalid or Dyff and steps back to re-engage if attacked. This works OK without any AI mods but I expect he'll die several times before getting bracers or a robe.

The thing that's always made me sad about Xan's blade is that even if he gets powerful enough to protect himself in melee, he is rarely going to hit and only gets one try per round!. I think the BG2 mod gives you the option to make him a fighter/mage so that he actually has a shot at using that thing effectively

True, but no worse than a sling. I'd usually give him darts or bullets to keep him out of danger but have found him strangely effective in melee on previous runs.

Modifié par Gate70, 23 juillet 2011 - 11:03 .