69 réponses à ce sujet

[AnonymousHero]

Well done!

Grond0 wrote...
Oublek didn't want to provide a reputation boost.

He knows Greywolf isn't female .

[Grond0]

I've noticed on a couple of recent runs how effective throwing axes are.  I like the axe as a missile weapon, but I've always stuck to the standard BG1 parameters on weight for those, which makes inventory management a major issue for most characters.

I thought I would have another go at this challenge, but with a melee character rather than caster.  The intention will still be to fight as little as possible (running past things rather than using invisibility most of the time), but if fighting is required to make it short.  To deal with the axe weight issue I've rolled up a hefty dwarf with the carrying ability to take along a decent number of axes.

[Grond0]

Defeated Sarevok in 3 hours and 3 minutes.  This time round I took significantly fewer notes and screenshots than last time, which saved time, but I think the berserker character build was also rather better suited to a speed run.  There were still some significant errors in the run and I don't think it would be at all hard to get under 2 1/2 hours with that character - possibly even under 2 with some streamlining of the original plan.

My outline plan was as follows:
- shop at Candlekeep for basic equipment (leave Firebead alone as he takes too long to kill).
- go to High Hedge then coast to kill Naiad.
- at Beregost get Algernon's cloak, pacify Marl and return Perdue's sword (just run past Karlat).
- go to Nashkel to gain first Bhaal power.
- travel up to Friendly Arm (pick up ogre's belt and ring of protection on way) and pick up ring of wizardry. Donate to get reputation up to 11. Return Joia's ring.
- get Firebead his book
- South to Nashkel; pick up ankheg armour, talk to bounty manager for reputation boost.
- south to Dragon's run to get scroll protection from magic, ring fire resistance and save Samuel.
- save cow from xvarts.
- at Firewine Bridge challenge Meilum to get his bracers.
- return Brage to the temple.
- kill Greywolf for artist.
- deal with worgs for a worried mother.
- loot ankheg cave. Return farmer's son.
- buy necklace of missiles, magic axe, full plate.
- kill some sirenes / golems at the coast and loot pirate cave.
- up to Ulgoth's Beard. Get ring of freedom and buy green amulet (+cloak displacement if have the funds).
- Nashkel mine. Go through invisible as far as kobold roadblock, then use necklace missiles.
- Deal with Tranzig.
- Bandit camp. Go straight for main tent while invisible.
- run through cloakwood ignoring encounters. Use scroll magic protection to take boots of speed from Drasus. Leave the others and use potion invisibility to go down to Daveorn.
- at the city deal pick up tomes + helm of Balduran. Explore Iron Throne invisibly before leaving for Candlekeep.
- at Candlekeep avoid battle with Rieltar. Use scroll magic protection + potion to loot tombs and leave with aid of potion of invisibility.
- back in the city use potion absorption to deal with Cythandria.  Go straight into attack on Slythe to finish him off before Krystin gets going. Also get Cloak of Balduran.
- Buff up with potions and use arrows of dispelling on dopplegangers.
- run through the maze invisible and into the temple.
- arrows of dispelling to slow down Sarevok and detonations for others; berserk + axe for Angelo.

The broad outlines of that were followed, though there were quite a number of minor things done not documented there.  Issues and problems during the run included:
- the only significant mis-click of the run was when confronted by Billy's gang - I didn't really mean to give them all my hard-earned money!  That loss caused problems all the way through the game with anticipated equipment not being available.
- Ergot gave Tanya a quick tap with his axe expecting her to surrender, but she didn't.  A further tap proved too much.
- Molkar's ambush was at the Friendly Arm en route to the bandit camp.  Ergot would have stayed to slug it out, but was out of enrage, so decided to flee.
- At the bandit camp a potion of invisibility took him into the tent and Venkt fell before he worked out what was happening.  On exit from the tent Ergot was intending to just run away anyway, but that became doubly the case when he saw Lamalha and the Amazon assassins had joined the audience.
- There was something of a mistake outside the Cloakwood mines.  Ergot should just have used a scroll of magic protection to beat up Drasus and go on, but thought he would try and kill the mages first.  That ended up with him being blinded and wasting time (I didn't think until later that reading the scroll would have abolished the blindness and stopped him having to fumble his way up to the mine).  The scroll was eventually read anyway to deal with Daveorn, so there was no real saving earlier.
- At the Iron Throne Ergot used a potion of invisibility to get past the party initially, but let them see him on the way out.  I wasn't sure if they would disappear by the time he got back from Candlekeep (scroll + strength potions to loot tombs and invisibility potion to exit).  They were still there, so he initially had to deal with the party, while under attack from the golems (protected by potion of absorption); then dealt with Cythandria herself (all taking a bit longer than it should have).
- Slythe went according to plan - just rushed him.  He took a useless potion of magic shielding initially and didn't get the chance for a further action.
- Didn't get a screenshot of the palace fight, but that was a bit closer than I would have liked.  Ergot was buffed up and just tried to beat the dopplegangers attacking the dukes up, but Liia died and Belt was hit a number of times.
- After going invisible down to the temple the final fight was also messy.  The initial exchange was to slow down Sarevok with arrow of dispelling and also got off a couple of arrows of detonation (only had 10, partly as a result of the slight slip referred to above).  Angelo eventually appeared and unfortunately got a remove magic to bite.  Ergot killed him before having to retreat, but then had to spend a while rebuffing - and I made a mistake by giving him a potion of freedom so that his boots of speed no longer worked.  That meant Ergot was restricted to running round in circles and just giving Tazok, Diarmid and Semaj the occasional slash with his axe before Sarevok whacked him in return.  That worked OK, but was slow.  After a while doing that I twigged that Ergot should use a potion of invisibility to put Sarevok in the corner (the others following) and then lure the others out (still had 7 of these potions at the end of the fight, so should not have been conserving them).  Once Sarevok was alone Ergot put a few shots into him, but then closed and used potions of extra-healing to keep his own hits up until Sarevok fell.

Edit:

AnonymousHero wrote...
He knows Greywolf isn't female .

Thanks for that tip by the way - partly why this character was male.  I think I did know that in the past, but had forgotten.

Modifié par Grond0, 15 octobre 2011 - 08:15 .

[corey_russell]

Nice work Grond0. But as I said before, berserker is real powerful for BG 1. Try to do it with a plain fighter, with no innate immunities to hold.

[AnonymousHero]

Wow, those goons sure got lucky... 12K gold.

[quote]corey_russell wrote...

Nice work Grond0. But as I said before, berserker is real powerful for BG 1. Try to do it with a plain fighter, with no innate immunities to hold.[/quote]
[/quote]
Plain fighter isn't that different since you can get Dushai's Ring of Free Action very easily and the Greenstone Amulet accounts for almost all other sources of instant death. Sure, it'll be a little bit slower at the start, but it's not a huge deal, I find.

[Grond0]

I agree there's not much difference. The way I played it probably the only encounters which would have been altered were Bassilus and the sirenes. Both of those should have been able to be delayed until after the green amulet was obtained without any effect on the time required (there would have been a small effect in my game because losing gold to Billy meant I couldn't get the amulet when I should have been able to).

The rage also gives combat bonuses as well as immunities. The only fight where that might have made a difference was with the greater dopplegangers at the palace - it wouldn't have changed my strategy, but it's just possible it could have affected the outcome.

Of course the whole point of this challenge was to complete it quickly, so I was bound to choose an easy character to do it with! I also had one eye on BG2 - you'll be glad to know Corey that I'm intending to take Ergot through the whole of SoA (at last he says).

[corey_russell]

Grond0 wrote...

Of course the whole point of this challenge was to complete it quickly, so I was bound to choose an easy character to do it with! I also had one eye on BG2 - you'll be glad to know Corey that I'm intending to take Ergot through the whole of SoA (at last he says).

That last sentence made me laugh out loud. Good for you. Your BG 2 no-reloads will work a heck a lot better when you know what's coming! Of course, if you read the BG 2 no-reload threads you probably know a lot from that...

About fighter vs. berserker - yes there's free action ring from dushai and greenstone amulet, but first you have to negotiate Ankheg territory level 1? Death. Yet there are many places in the game, such as ghouls, ghasts, amazons, Neira, Bassilus, etc. where a plain fighter is at a disadvantage vs. the berserker.

I'm not saying a fighter can't do a pretty fast run, only that a berserker is uniquely qualified to do a speed run through BG 1. Too bad Guiness doesn't track this stuff, Grond0, because I wouldn't be suprised if that's the fastest BG has ever been defeated. Though perhaps your run doesn''t count since you aren't using BG 1 vanilla (e.g., in BG 2 engine, characters run about twice as fast). Vanilla BG 1 would take longer for that alone.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Grond0 wrote...

I've done several no-reload speed runs for BG1 in the past, but all of them have been based on minimising the amount of game time taken to crush Sarevok.  I was thinking this time I would have a go at completing it as fast as possible in real time - my initial thoughts are that this should be possible in less than 3 hours.

In order to do it as quickly as possible (without cheating such as moving by cheatkeys or CLUA) I think it will be necessary to minimise fighting (and talking).  The easiest way to do that would probably be invisibility, but stealth would also be a possibility (though probably only a thief would get good enough at that in BG1 for this purpose).

Where fighting is necessary I'm minded to do this using wands as being probably the quickest way to win a fight.  That suggests using an arcane character.  At the moment I'm torn between:

Blade - I've never played one of these, but a blade would provide the option for melee damage if magic doesn't seem suitable for a particular fight as well as offering a good defense.
Specialist mage - allows the PC to be a gnome (with the improved saving throws).
Sorceror - gets multiple invisibilities early on.
Dual fighter to mage - can wear good armour + helmet to keep out of trouble while using wand and has better HP.

Anyone got any better ideas?

Try googling. I found a speed run done in 18 minutes.

Haven't watched it though.

[Grond0]

I had a look at a couple.

One was done in 26 mins as a single run-through. There were some good ideas in it, but the basic approach was to exploit engine weaknesses, e.g. through infinite duplication of potions and scrolls and force-talk attacks. There appeared to be some sort of exploit to scroll through dialogue quickly as well, but I don't know how that works.

The exploits wouldn't work with the patched BG2 engine and nor would some of the strategies, e.g. abusing dimension door and taking advantage of the different behaviour of dispel magic and magic protection. However, it does suggest a couple of approaches to me:
- that stealth might be a better approach than invisibility use
- that there are significant chunks of dialogue I thought were requirements that may not be, e.g. no need to talk to get Seven Suns quest or talk to the Iron Throne leader or Cythandria (number of others as well). I'd need to check whether that's true in current installations as well.
I might have a go at a thief character some time in the future.

The quicker runs I saw advertised were all done in small segments relying on multiple reloads to try and perfect each bit - I didn't bother watching any of them.

[Gate70]

Grond0 I agree about stealth. Maybe a ranger kit (e.g. stalker) instead of thief, they seem as good as thieves imo and should only take a few seconds to grab the boots of stealth from the different coloured hobgoblin south of Beregost. By the time you reach Drasus they'll have done their job.

If you like berserker one of the extra kits added by the BG2 UB mod, feralan, could suit.

Advantages:
- +10% to stealth
- +1 to Armor class for every 5 levels of experience (starting at 1st level)
- May use the 'Feral Rage' ability once a day per 10 levels. The enraged state lasts for 60 seconds, and grants a bonus of +2 to hit, damage, and AC, and immunity to charm, hold and fear, maze, imprisonment, stun and sleep. He also gains 15 temporary hit points
- May use the 'Call of the Wild' ability once a day. This unique ability summons an animal companion who will fight for the caster for 3 rounds + 1 round/level. More powerful creatures are summoned at higher levels.

Disadvantages:
- Becomes winded after Feral Rage. While he's winded he receives -2 to hit, -2 to damage and a +2 penalty to armor class
- Can only be proficient with bastard swords, long swords, short swords, two-handed swords, katanas, scimitars, halberds, flails and crossbows
- Cannot wear any armor or use large shields
- Maximum Charisma is 2 points lower than a standard member of the race

From memory they can equip large shields (I chose not to do so) and bracers of AC6 can be used to help with armour class.

Also, do you still play at faster than "normal" game speed. I'm tempted to give short solo runs a go once I get my game working again so would be interested to know if I'm comparing like for like.

[Grond0]

Good thought about the ranger or feralan - I agree that they should be able to perform better than a thief for this purpose. I don't have UB in my current installation, but might well add it back in the future and a berserker with stealth would certainly be formidable!

I haven't played at less than maximum (60) speed for a long time. I also have the impression, although I'm not certain about this, that the GOG version of the game I've got now is slightly quicker than my old disc version.

Good luck if you do have a go. If I try it again I would be aiming to go for a much more streamlined plan - most of the encounters I did (though individually quick) were aimed at reputation / XP increases. I suspect the equipment you really need is limited enough that you don't need to maximise reputation and similarly by greatly limiting the amount of fighting you may be able to get away with a much lower level.

[corey_russell]

Grond0 wrote...

Good thought about the ranger or feralan - I agree that they should be able to perform better than a thief for this purpose. I don't have UB in my current installation, but might well add it back in the future and a berserker with stealth would certainly be formidable!

I haven't played at less than maximum (60) speed for a long time. I also have the impression, although I'm not certain about this, that the GOG version of the game I've got now is slightly quicker than my old disc version.

Good luck if you do have a go. If I try it again I would be aiming to go for a much more streamlined plan - most of the encounters I did (though individually quick) were aimed at reputation / XP increases. I suspect the equipment you really need is limited enough that you don't need to maximise reputation and similarly by greatly limiting the amount of fighting you may be able to get away with a much lower level.

Saros once did a no-kill run. That is, he didn't kill anything, got no experience, and defeated Sarevok as a level 1. So yes, it's not necessary to max your level beat the game.

[Grond0]

Interesting idea. I can see a few possibilities to defeat Sarevok at level 1 even with SCS installed, e.g.
- repeated stealth round pillars
- use of various wands you can pick up together with potions of invisibility
- use of Algernon's cloak to get companions to turn on Sarevok
- coaxing Sarevok into a corner and then using arrows of detonation on him and his companions
Though each approach has significant problems a F/M/T able to combine them all would be in with a definite chance.

However, I thought one of the chapter triggers was linked to Daveorn's death. Was his no-kill run allowing indirect killing, e.g. charm Daveorn and let his guards kill him?

Edit: just realised that I was thinking of this in the context of a no-reload game, as that's the way I've been playing for some time now.  Not sure if that's what you were talking about - if reloading is allowed then I would have thought a no-XP run should be pretty simple (though perhaps I need to test it sometime).

Modifié par Grond0, 17 octobre 2011 - 05:40 .

[Gate70]

Something like that, no xp more like. Frabjous did a similar run but both will have been on the old forums.

[corey_russell]

Grond0 wrote...

Interesting idea. I can see a few possibilities to defeat Sarevok at level 1 even with SCS installed, e.g.
- repeated stealth round pillars
- use of various wands you can pick up together with potions of invisibility
- use of Algernon's cloak to get companions to turn on Sarevok
- coaxing Sarevok into a corner and then using arrows of detonation on him and his companions
Though each approach has significant problems a F/M/T able to combine them all would be in with a definite chance.

However, I thought one of the chapter triggers was linked to Daveorn's death. Was his no-kill run allowing indirect killing, e.g. charm Daveorn and let his guards kill him?

Edit: just realised that I was thinking of this in the context of a no-reload game, as that's the way I've been playing for some time now.  Not sure if that's what you were talking about - if reloading is allowed then I would have thought a no-XP run should be pretty simple (though perhaps I need to test it sometime).

There was HEAVY use of Algernon's cloak, as you might imagine. He must have killed Mulahey and Daveorn, but that was all. As you say if you can charm them you can have their own allies fight them.

[Grond0]

After a fairly lengthy delay to explore the possibilities of completing BG1 with a no items level 1 character  I thought I'd have a go at the streamlined speed version.  My hope is that he can get completion down to significantly less than 2 hours.

This time the attempt will be made with a stalker that I rolled up for this purpose a week or so ago.  If successful he will also continue on into BG2.

[Grond0]

My slimmed-down plan for Impatiens is as follows:
- shop at Candlekeep for basic equipment.
- travel up to Friendly Arm (get ogre's belt and ring of protection on way) and pick up ring of wizardry (to fund purchases).
- head south past Beregost towards Nashkel - get stealth boots on the way.
- at Carnival buy necklace of missiles, amulet of shielding and violet potion.
- hop back to Beregost to buy +1 axe and get Algernon's cloak. Talk to Marl and get Firebead's book. 
- at Nashkel pick up ankheg armour and talk to bounty manager. Rest to gain first Bhaal power.
- Nashkel mine. Go through under stealth as far as kobold roadblock, then use necklace of missiles; and again to deal with Mulahey's supporters.
- travel to Samuel's area to get scroll of magic protection and ring fire protection; on to Firewine Bridge for another scroll + Meilum's bracers.
- Deal with Tranzig.
- Bandit camp. Go straight for main tent and search chest and leave again under stealth.
- run through cloakwood ignoring encounters. Draw Drasus away and get boots of speed from him.  Leave the others and stealth down to Daveorn - use scroll magic protection to kill him.
- at the city pick up tomes + helm of Balduran + eagle bow. Explore Iron Throne under stealth before leaving for Candlekeep.
- at Candlekeep avoid battle with Rieltar. Use scroll magic protection + potion to loot tombs and leave under stealth.
- back in the city use Iron Throne party to deal with Cythandria.  Go straight into attack on Slythe with backstab + firebreath potion to kill him before Krystin finishes buffing and he uses invisibility potion. Also get Cloak of Balduran.
- Buff up with potions and use arrows of dispelling on dopplegangers.
- stealth through the maze and into the temple.
- arrows of dispelling to slow down Sarevok and then potion of invisibility to put him in a corner.  Draw out Angelo and then use scroll magic protection while beating him up. Necklace of missiles / arrows of detonation to kill others next to Sarevok before finishing him off.

[Grond0]

I've had 2 abortive attempts at this. In the first Impatiens had no healing potions when taking on Mulahey and was already damaged (at level 1) by the traps in the mine. A shot from one of the summoned kobolds finished him off.

Starting again, this time I picked up the healing potions from the cave near the boots of stealth and was going nicely - travelling to the bandit camp after 23 minutes - but was ambushed on the way by wyverns and spiders; Impatiens had no defence against the spiders web attack.

Here's hoping for 3rd time lucky.

[Grond0]

Or not! Third run was ended by a bandit ambush. The first salvo missed, but he got caught by the follow-up just before he reached the map edge. Then a fourth run failed when his stealth broke when between 2 large groups of kobolds. He tried to use the necklace of missiles to blast a way through, but the targeting was slightly out and he fried himself.

I'll have another go later on.

[Grond0]

Not having much joy here - had 3 further attempts:
- got to the bandit camp, where the Amazon ambushers were waiting.  This is a major problem as they follow even through stealth.  However, Impatiens managed to get enough space to stealth into the main tent and read the letters there.  Exiting was always going to be hard because of the number of bad guys gathering while in the tent, but having this lot turn up as well was just taking the mickey.  Impatiens was surrounded and killed as soon as stealth broke.
- tried to go to High Hedge to get potions of freedom.  Again the Amazons intervened.  Managed to purchase and get back under stealth and it looked like the escape route was clear.  However, there was an invisible thief blocking the archway and again things ended in tragedy.
- this time did actually get potions of freedom and get part-way through the cloakwood.  One potion had already been used to run through webs to get away from teleporting phase spiders.  There was another available, but Impatiens waited to see if the ambushing spiders would use their web attack before taking it.  Regrettably the spider next to her did and she was held before she moved more than a step.

I think I'm going to have to accept the need for a slightly more cautious approach.  I'll also roll up a new character to see if that will help change things.

[Grond0]

Right - time to see what the stronger sex can do.

[Grond0]

Made it in the end.  This version of Impatiens had a couple of deaths herself, but it did prove 3rd time lucky for her.  Final time was 2 hours 11 mins, which was a bit slower than I was looking for.  That was partly down to increased caution and partly because I had half an eye on BG2 and was hence doing things in the city that were not actually necessary.  Also had my virus checker running in the background and I think that slowed the game down slightly.

The main departure from my original plan was to go straight from Gorion's death to the coast and kill Shoal - providing instant level 3 and protection from a stray arrow or two.  Also went back to High Hedge to get some potions of freedom to take on the giant spiders.

Progress included:
- Mulahey was taken down with the help of a couple of necklace fireballs.
- Went on to take the bracers from Meilum, though I don't think that was a good use of time.  Attempted a first stalker backstab there, but no luck.
- In earlier failed attempts I had noted that the roving ambushers are a real pain when the idea is to sneak into the bandit camp (as they follow you everywhere).  The first ambush takes place once Tranzig is dead, so I did a bit of unnecessary travelling until that one triggered in a harmless location.
- Sneaked into the bandit tent, took the letters and sneaked out again.  The next set of ambushers were waiting outside, but too slow to intervene.
- Used 2 potions of freedom getting through Cloakwood.  At the mine charmed a couple of guards and drew Drasus away to fight them.  He killed them easily, but Impatiens did manage a backstab on him and managed to kill him just before having to retreat.
- Stealthed down to Daveorn and used movement rate advantage to do a whole series of backstabs on him (to get through mirror image and stoneskins).
- After picking up tomes from the city (I wasn't sure if defeating Sarevok would make some things no longer accessible) Impatiens went back to Candlekeep.  A slightly nervous moment in the catacombs when phase spiders stopped her stealthing and it was her 4th attempt, just before the basilisks, when she managed to hide.
- Cythandria was a much longer battle than I hoped for.  The idea was to finish her with a backstab + firebreath, or at least make her submit, but that failed.  Impatiens then tried to beat up the golems using potion of absorption, but was hit twice in succession by criticals and only managed to gulp an invisibility potion just in time.  No trouble from there, but it still took a while as Cythandria used several sorts of invisibility.
- Slythe, however, did go to plan.  Backstab, firebreath and follow-up whacks finishing him before he disappeared.  Got Krystin to make the cloak of Balduran available as Impatiens didn't want to become a fallen ranger.
- Nothing fancy at the palace - just potion buffs and dual wielding attacks - both dukes survived.
- At the temple Impatiens dispelled Sarevok's haste and then led him into a corner (knowing all the others but Angelo would follow).  Used potion of magic shielding against Angelo (to try and stop him from going invisible in response to scroll of magic protection).  This did mean he did a bit more damage than was comfortable and forced Impatiens to run away and heal a bit before applying the finishing touches.  She had just enough arrows of detonation to kill the other 3 acolytes near Sarevok (firing from stealth) and then half a dozen or so quick backstabs round the pillars accounted for the big guy.

These are her stats at the end of the battle, though she probably will pick up the tomes for constitution and wisdom before reporting to Belt for duty in Athkatla.

I still feel there's a task not quite finished here - I'd like to get under 2 hours.  Probably at some stage I'll try this with a character purely designed for BG1 and see if that does the trick.

[Grond0]

I've generated another character to try and beat the 2 hour mark.  Sumer is a Feralan (ranger kit in Unfinished Business), who has elements from berserker and kensai kits built into the ranger build - see description.


The strategy is similar to my previous attempt with a stalker:
- shop at Candlekeep for basic equipment.
- kill Shoal for XP.
- travel up to Friendly Arm (get ogre's belt and ring of protection on way) and pick up ring of wizardry (to fund purchases).
- head south to Beregost and donate at temple to get reputation to 13.  Get Firebead's book.
- On down to Nashkel - get stealth boots on the way.  Talk to bounty manager.
- at Carnival buy necklace of missiles, amulet of shielding and violet potion.
- hop back to Beregost to talk to Marl.  Buy +1 axe and get Algernon's cloak.  Rest to gain first Bhaal power.
- Nashkel mine. Go through under stealth as far as kobold roadblock, then use necklace of missiles; and again to deal with Mulahey's supporters.
- travel to unwanted areas until first SCS ambush triggers.
- Samuel's area to get scroll of magic protection.
- get second scroll from Bentan at Firewine Bridge.
- Deal with Tranzig.
- travel to unwanted areas until second SCS ambush triggers.
- buy potions of freedom at High Hedge.
- Bandit camp. Go straight for main tent and search chest and leave again under stealth.
- run through cloakwood ignoring encounters. Draw Drasus away and get boots of speed from him.  Leave the others and stealth down to Daveorn - use scroll magic protection to kill him.
- at the city explore Iron Throne under stealth before leaving for Candlekeep.
- at Candlekeep avoid battle with Rieltar. Use scroll magic protection + potion to loot tombs and leave under stealth.
- back in the city use Iron Throne party to deal with Cythandria.  Go straight into attack on Slythe with force attack + firebreath potion to kill him before Krystin finishes buffing and he uses invisibility potion. Also get Cloak of Balduran.
- buff up with potions for dopplegangers at the palace.
- stealth through the maze and into the temple.
- arrow of dispelling to slow down Sarevok and then potion of invisibility to put him in a corner.  Draw out Angelo and then use magic shielding for protecton while beating him up. Necklace of missiles / arrows of detonation to kill others next to Sarevok before finishing him off.

[Grond0]

Not much joy with this so far. First 3 attempts were with difficulty on insane - this is annoying because damage after rage is double normal (30 HPs) and that killed me on one attempt. Also died due to damage from the 2 traps on the bridge in the Nashkel mines and then to an unholy blight from Mulahey.

Moved the difficulty back to core (as in previous runs on this thread) and made a bit more progress:
- died in Nashkel mines when stealth broke and couldn't re-establish.
- died in bandit camp when stealth broke and spotted by a bandit - once spotted a lot of the guards home in whether PC is invisible or not so that's either a death sentence or a requirement to spend a lot longer clearing things than I want.
- died in bandit camp when got into main tent successfully, but unable to re-establish stealth.

It may be clear from the above that Sumer's relatively poor ability to hide compared to the previous stalker attempt is a problem. I'll probably try a couple more times, but I think I might need to bite the bullet and get an invis potion for the bandit camp. My experience is that things get generally a lot easier towards the end of the game, so hopefully if I can get Sumer past the bandit camp he can go all the way.

[Grond0]

Most of my play has been on multiplayer, but still squeezed in a couple more attempts. First time was going well when I got over ambitious in trying to get the party outside the Cloakwood mine to kill each other. One mage died according to plan, but the second just survived the initial assault and got a confusion off, which eventually proved fatal.

Second attempt got through to the fight at the palace, but on arrival I realised that Sumer didn't have a potion of clarity. Even with other potion buffs I thought that would probably make the fight impossible, but I wanted to try and defeat Sarevok in under 2 hours and was already 1 hour 50 mins at that point (and things would have had to go absolutely perfectly to do the remainder in less than 10 mins) so gave it a go rather than go and get a potion. Sumer was indeed quickly confused and finished off.