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Silas and his stick blitz through content you've all seen before, and are about to see again.  Before we head off in search of bandits, we decide to take in the circus, which, thanks to Garrick, I now realize doubles as a comic book convention.  I love the smell of sidequests in the morning. Smells like...XP.  Say what you will about the BG1 NPC Project, and it sure ain't all golden, but Jaheira's added reaction to Zeke trying to sell us the scroll to restore Branwen at an inflated price is worth the price of entry in itself. We conclude our business at the circus for now and head on our way. Our loose plan is to free Dynaheir from the gnolls and then work our way vaguely banditward.  I'd planned to take out Dart Man with a backstab, but things don't go quite according to plan.  Still, it all works out well enough and Garrick gets the Archery bracers.  Valerie intervenes on our behalf with these nobles and saves us from the burden of having to carry all that heavy, heavy loot. Thanks, Valerie.  I'd say this is the worst treasure trove in the game but I've done Neera's quest.  In the criminal justice system, tree-based crimes are considered especially heinous. On the Sword Coast, the dedicated spirits who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Dryads Unit. These are their stories.  Silas diversifies his stick portfolio. Goodie. (I don't even have club proficiency yet. I'm clearly missing a lot.)  Finally we're at the Gnoll Fortress. With the dexterity gauntlets we get here, Isra's well on her way to being decently tanky.  WE MEASURE OUR PROGRESS IN BODIES  We send Dynaheir off to meet up with Minsc at the inn. We'll catch up with those crazy kids at Dragonspear later.  Valerie auditions for Antiques Roadshow.  Yeah, about that...  It's that old bard again! Look man, no means no!  Prospective bards are sending messengers to me now? Did I register on Craigslist or something?  "He glowed red and spooky" counts as due process, right?  Imoen explained very convincingly that this cloak fell off the back of a cart. We make our way north but take a side trip to murder bugs for profit and also profit.  We've no openings for a paladin just now, but we'll keep your details on file should an opportunity arise.  Sure, we could run back and forth between Tenya and the fishermen as the quest wants us to, but Imoen opts for a shortcut. Onward, to Operation: Bug Murder  I feel like there has been a fundamental misunderstanding about Operation: Bug Murder. We get Valerie raised (one day, Iron Party honor, one day...), sell off the shells we've collected and arrange to have some armor made...  ... return Umberlee's tupperware... ...and then, at long last, we're off to bring the Word of the Stick to the Bandit Camp.  He's no fun, he fell right over. (He eventually fell right over, after a backstab, several magic missiles, and a bunch of weapon swings.)  Isra's sense of timing is impeccable. Sure, we seem to be standing on a pile of bandit leader corpses, a fight that went reasonably well, about to uncover the next bit of information about the plot we've been caught up in, but yeah, sure, let's talk families. Silas is off to the Cloakwood, but he's going to need a bigger stick first.  That'll do.
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Mar 19, 2018 22:41
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Oh lordy, Valerie's portrait isn't supposed to make her look so... orange. 
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Mar 19, 2018 22:53
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Cythereal posted:Oh lordy, Valerie's portrait isn't supposed to make her look so... orange. Hahaha, I think that's the fault of one of the portrait mods I installed more or less at random. (Enjoying finally having a party I can fit Valerie into, Sendai-related grousing aside)
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Mar 19, 2018 22:57
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docbeard posted:(Enjoying finally having a party I can fit Valerie into, Sendai-related grousing aside) That was one of the big problems writing Valerie's BG2 stuff that will probably never see the light of day (the BG2 and ToB component has been sitting at 80-90% complete for years), she's nominally an officer of Amnish law and that presents a significant narrative hurdle with many side quests. Just happy to finally see one of the mod NPCs I made being used in one of these threads.  Although the other was probably a mistake that no one in their right mind is likely to use. I was always baffled by fans of that mod.
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Mar 19, 2018 23:00
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Cythereal posted:That was one of the big problems writing Valerie's BG2 stuff that will probably never see the light of day (the BG2 and ToB component has been sitting at 80-90% complete for years), she's nominally an officer of Amnish law and that presents a significant narrative hurdle with many side quests. What's the other one, don't be shy. Someone will probably use it in a gimmick run.
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Mar 20, 2018 07:33
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Rina the Berserker is killing Mages doing side quests. Seeing as Baldur's Gate is now mostly devoid of quests and wizards, we move on to Ulgoth's Beard and promptly get teleported to an island full of Mages.  Welcome to another episode of Magical Mechanist Maiden Aura: All My Cherry Blossoms Bloom For Artificer-sama. Isn't Aura just the best? At everything?  The only notable item I find is a piece of enchanted ice that's dropped by the final mage to kill on the island. Aura doesn't react to it, though, so maybe it's from another mod altogether. We could visit another island now but instead decide to patrol the road between Beregost and Nashkel to trigger the Stone of Askavar mod. Which means getting into a fight with some people and a Stone Golem that killed a messenger.  We find a letter mentioning a bard in Nashkel.   The short version of the plot so far: Magical stone sealed in ruin; talismans needed to get to it but now in the hands of the Zhentarim. For more plot, we are told to see a wizard in Beregost.  We drink a lot and punctuate little. All Aranor really does is divulge the backstory of the titular Stone of Askavar: Askavar was an Elven city but fell to ruin. The stone was discovered recently and is said to hold awesome powers. As such it shouldn't be in the hands of the Zhentarim, so we better get the talismans back. To hear about where to find them we are immediately sent back to Cearwin in Nashkel.  He also mentions a watchtower where Teldorn's people are located and that someone called Kalindra was supposed to scout the area, so we go there first.  Stone Golems hit really hard for the level we're at right now, by the way, and there are about 5 or 6 of them to take care of in total. Inside the watchtower, we are informed about Kalindra's demise:  Pirn drops the first talisman and a Robe of the Evil Archmagi. The talisman can be worn like a ring and gives 30% cold resistance. All talismans give some bonuses, the best one being a Ring of Free Action by another name. We also pick up a lot of other decent loot. The stuff the mod gives you generally isn't gamebreakingly good on its own but it all adds up quickly.  We go through the note Cearwin gave us, starting with the old wizard in the Bluebell Wood, one of three entirely new maps for this mod (the watchtower and the cave north of Nashkel mentioned in the note being the other two).  The old wizard has two bodyguards and starts out hostile. One of the bodyguards carries the second talisman, while the wizard himself drops the second Robe of the Evil Archmagi of the mod.  The cave north of Nashkel harbors another Mage in need of killing so Quayle interrupts her privacy with the Wand of Fire.  She doesn't leave us a Robe of the Evil Archmagi. Neera rolls a quadruple wild surge while clearing out the cave, and I think that might be why this conversation between Aura and Neera triggers:   We move on to Beregost to find the beggar and the little girl the note mentioned.  The girl turns out to have some trouble discerning men and women but at least deals with the brutal murder of most of her family fairly well. The bandits are more of Teldorn's agents and another Stone Golem. The golem actually nearly kills Sirene. The beggar, presented without comment:  The ruby costs us about 4,000. Which might be as much as 10% of what we could sell all the loot the mod throws at us for. (I leave most of the loot where I find it in the interest of keeping this challenging. I've kept a bow that protects from petrification because Basilisks are boring but apart from a suit of Full Plate - one of two the mod hands you - for Sirene to replace her Ankheg Plate that's it.) With all five talismans now in our possession, it's time to get the Stone of Askavar. So we travel to the bandit camp, go to the ruins there, enter an underground area, and find out that the bad guys beat us there, magical wards or not. Many a mustache is twirled as we are greeted by the Zhentarim, but Rina has a sick burn for the occasion:   We lure Rondan outside where he relinquishes his life and a third Robe of the Evil Archmagi.  Back inside we use lots and lots of summoned monsters to distract the enemy fighters and especially golems while the party goes after the archers and remaining spellcasters. Besides the Stone of Askavar, the enemies leave a ring that can turn the wearer invisible for 2 rounds and appears to have unlimited charges.   And so ends the Stone of Askavar, a tale of nice maps and fights, ridiculous loot and callous disregard for proper punctuation.
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Mar 22, 2018 02:12
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Wizard Styles posted:Besides the Stone of Askavar, the enemies leave a ring that can turn the wearer invisible for 2 rounds and appears to have unlimited charges. Ha, I hadn't thought about the implications of that ring when I rolled Silas. Though it's not like he needs the extra help. Anyway, Silas is lollygagging instead of going to the Cloakwood, mostly because I realized not a single person in my party could cast anything above a level 2 spell because they're all multiclass casters, sorcerers, or bards.  Look man, I will get a goddamned restraining order. We decide to strike a blow for righteousness and clear out the bandit holdouts in Peldvale and Larswood.  We start with some good old-fashioned obstruction of justice. Viconia goes into Witness Protection in a cave somewhere.  The Antipode Belt, the Ankheg Plate, and the  Awkward doesn't begin to cover it.  I know this is just her usual "We're in the woods" bark, but I like to think that Isra, standing in the middle of a pile of webbed and scorched goblin corpses (goblins courtesy of, uh, whatever that mod that adds the boot merchants is called), has just discovered sarcasm. We clear some maps, kill some bandits, kill some spiders, and then head on down to Ulcaster, because we have quite a bit to do here.  Including, apparently, fighting EVERY KOBOLD ON THE PLANET.  Valerie takes an interest.  This fellow, a ghost bard, is part of Garrick's BG1 NPC sidequest, and apparently wants to commit suicide by adventurer. I'm not sure what level he is, but he can cast Confusion, and like a lot of spellcasters at this stage of the game, he can make fights super annoying if he gets some spells off.  We decline to give him that option. His entourage are just zombies, so no big deal.  Garrick gets some half-decent armor out of the deal. Meanwhile, down in the ruins themselves, we grab Ulcaster's book, but that's not all we're here for.  I'm not really comfortable with the whole 'give the revenge-crazed ghost a body' angle, and we've got a Protection From Undead scroll burning a hole in our pocket, so once again we all hide behind Isra for a bit. There's another book down here, past the jellies, added by Ascalon's Questpack. It belonged to someone called the Great Karlini, and we've been sent here for it...  ...by this fellow. We decide to help him further the cause of science.  I'd think there'd be something to acknowledge that this is where Gorion died, and it might be in a bit of bad taste to play around with some kind of Great Formula here, but, no, apparently not. Anyway, we hang out while he tries out his new formula.  ...it goes super well. We could fight, but lol no. We could let him have Ygnatz the gnome. But there's a third option. It turns out that he's had Karlini in the Hells for a few centuries now, and is extremely sick of science talk. So if you offer to sell him your soul in exchange and mention that it's for science...  It turns out to be a trivia contest more than a Test of Scientific Acumen. The balor is as good as his word, however, and will release Karlini if you answer his questions. (Getting them wrong is, um, bad.) The newly-released Karlini and Ygnatz head off to chat about the scientific nature of Hell or whatever. We get some gold and this:  I think a shield like that deserves a field test.  That'll do. But first...  I don't particularly want Shar-Teel around, but I think we've demonstrated at this point that we have ample time for such stupidity. So we agree to her duel.  Wait, she...what? She decides to fight the strongest man in the party (choice of two) and picks Garrick?!? Silas the Cleric/Thief has died of embarrassment. Well, no. But we do decide to go fight some goddamn petrification lizards to take his mind off things.  Well, there weren't any bards there, so... (Actually, there probably were.)  Man, between this guy, Prism, and the dude who has a petrified adventurer exhibit in his foyer in Baldur's Gate, this game kind of has it in for art lovers.  Valerie has a theory about the source of Silas's new superpowers. I'm sure she's right, and as long as this 'critter' isn't an evil god of some description, everything will be fine. But really, what are the odds of that?  I was a little afraid of some more Cowled Wizard funwrecking, but I guess we're outside of Valerie's jurisdiction. This fight goes pretty well even though I can't position Silas correctly to get a backstab in on anyone. He more than makes up for it with a well-timed Holy Smite, though.  So, uh, anyone remember Old Yeller? And on that rather depressing note, Silas is not dead of embarrassment but is really off to the Cloakwood this time.
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Mar 22, 2018 03:51
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After a bit of housekeeping (picking up some spells and recharging the fireball wands I've got, since I now have three people who can use them), Silas heads off to bring the good word to the Cloakwood.  Much as I wouldn't mind having someone else who can use a bow in the party (especially while Imoen's in dual class hell), there's really no space for Coran at this point.  Normally here you have to choose between the big-game-hunting 1%ers or the ecoterrorists, but with BG1 NPC and Jaheira in the party, there's another option.  Specifically, a rescue mission and/or an excuse to murder Shadow Druids (which I was pretty much going to do anyway).  Silas has, at this point, 110 in trapfinding (thanks to an item) and I waited around for a while before walking straight into this trap in the random encounter zone, so I feel like this is some bullshit. Still, it's not like waiting out a web is anything but annoying.  Speaking of webs, after sorting out the traps in the second Cloakwood map with a bit of invisible scouting, we take on the, uh, big boss of the area. And by 'take on' I mean 'flatten with three fireballs and a holy smite'. After mopping up the remaining spiders and giving both Isra and Jaheira a much-needed weapon upgrade (Spiderbane for Isra and a +2 scimitar for Jaheira) we head up to the druid map.  Thank you, Encyclopedia Jaheirica.  Someday I'll get Faldorn in the party. Today's not that day.  Excuse me, sir, but have you heard the good new-  If I could just have a moment of your time to talk about the blessings of the Stic-  Oh never mind.  So apparently the Shadow Druid philosophy is to show up and give ten-hour lectures about how walking through the woods is bad, right before the murder.  Another stick for the collection.  We actually dire charm him (Garrick has it prepared, on the basis that it felt right for a bard, and also it was the only third level scroll I had when he leveled up last) for about two seconds before someone's queued attack goes off but after Valerie's haste does, which adds a little extra spice to this fight. Still, no big deal, especially since Isra can tank wyverns all day, being immune to poison as she is. Off to the next map.  We come across this gang of roving druids, as part of Jaheira's quest. The dude they're beating up apparently has a history with Jaheira, but it's not something she particularly wants to talk about. (I wonder if it'd be different if Khalid were in the party too.)  This sends us back to the Tree House on the prior map to kill the other Shadow Archdruid. Or, well, hurt him. He surrenders, and you take a reputation hit for killing him anyway (but Jaheira doesn't really care). She's more anxious to report back to Seniyad, and we agree. What's a little extra time going to cost-  gently caress you, Cloakwood.  The good news is that we're rewarded with a stick. The bad news is that it's druid-only. Anyway, we sort out the wyvern cave on the next map (by which I mean we hide behind Isra and she sorts it out) and then we're off at last to the mi-  OH FOR gently caress'S SAKE  Silas prepares to minister unto these Iron Throne mercenaries.  They were not astonished by his doctrine. Silas's backstab does take out one of the wizards, and web neutralizes the other til we can kill them. Silas is off to the Cloakwood Mines. (Silas has actually already gone through the Cloakwood Mines but this post is long enough already.)
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Mar 25, 2018 00:58
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Rina the Berserker has completed the Tales of the Sword Coast. So the Wraith Spider egg quest seems to have bugged out. Since it didn't do anything despite being in my inventory and mostly worn by somebody since the Cloakwood I tried talking to Halbazzer Drin in the Sorcerous Sundries again. This immediately spawned a Wraith Spider (sorry, Halbazzer) but didn't destroy the egg or progress the quest. So I went through the quest dialogue again and agreed to let him turn it into a proper magic item. The resulting ioun egg protects from Hold but lowers Charisma by 3. I would have liked a Wraith Spider pet but I'll take it. Anyway, Rina gets involved in the struggles of werewolves and wolfweres and deals with both of them the Berserker way.   Kaishas' regeneration speed may or may not have bugged out. Either way I couldn't get any real damage on her until I just brute forced it by having Quayle and Neera shoot their Wands of Paralyzation at her until it stuck. The same happens with Selaad back in Ulgoth's Beard. At some point between killing packs of lycanthropes of some description I remember that Aura can craft items through player-initiated dialogue, which also turns out to be what the magical piece of ice we found on the last island we depopulated is good for - she turns it into a wand with one charge.   I also let Aura combine the Staff Mace and the anti-lycanthrope dagger into...an anti-lycanthrope Staff Mace. Neither dagger nor Staff Mace is in any way useful because my fighter types aren't proficient in them, although I let Neera carry the thing. Aura can also craft potions. Here are some highlights:     It costs money to make them, though, so that means they're balanced. (Truth be told, I'm not sure these even break the game any more than it can already be broken with consumables.) With the werewolf quest taken care of, there is only one thing left to do before the grand finale. So on we go to Durlag's Tower.  As far as annoying SCS mage fights go, this is a fairly high-ranking one. It is designed almost entirely to abuse the Ghost's innate resistances and immunities by way of Protection from Magical Weapons, Stinking Cloud and Cloudkill. Also, the "run around to maybe eat a few less melee attacks" AI is pretty obnoxious in areas that confuse the pathfinding like this one. But he can pretty easily be countered by just sending in skeleton after skeleton. Or in this case parking Aura's Automaton in front of him.  This, on the other hand, is a fun fight, and all four enemies, maybe with the exception of Fear, are pretty credible threats on their own. I don't pay attention to the fight for a moment at some point and Pride actually manages to kill Sirene. The next major hurdle to take is that the game fails to register that I killed all four elemental guardians and doesn't teleport me to the chess board. This is due to a (known, ancient) SCS bug so it at least doesn't take long to fix.  Aura, bless her heart, doesn't understand the finer points of magical dungeon chess and mistakes them for cheating.  Rina has no such shortcomings and gives orders to open fire. This is why Fighters can become Grand Masters and Thieves can't, by the way. Soon after, we find ourselves facing a Demon Knight. Who has Power Words.  Including that one. On the way back to Ulgoth's Beard we, apart from raising Neera, spend all our money on potions and special arrows and darts. Back in Ulgoth's Beard, cultists await. For me, this has always been one of the hardest fights in the game with SCS installed, because these guys get their levels jacked up. (Cultist Enforcers become level 15/15 Fighter/Mages, although they  only memorize up to level 5 spells.)And they're prebuffed while your party has to travel a day to get to Ulgoth's Beard and essentially goes in naked. This is especially nice since Fighter/Thieves start close to your party and will pretty much immediately go after your squishier party members, so you can either get your defenses against the impending backstab up or try and do something against the spellcasters that will immediately proceed to gently caress the party up with every kind of CC BG1 has to offer. But Potions of Invisibility solve many problems and let you position your party a bit better and engage on your own terms.   Quayle and Neera unleash all they got, from Slow to Chaos, while Ajantis keeps the spellcasters that don't get chunked immediately locked down with poisoned arrows.  Aura practiced her Set Traps skill in this house earlier. Most of the damage the party suffers is a direct result of her Automaton running into the traps the cultists didn't activate, actually. Time for Aec'Letec. Aec'Letec himself isn't buffed by SCS but the Cultists in the basement are, mainly the Wizard. She still starts in a fairly exposed position, though.  She dies before her pre-buffs go up. Aec'Letec may not be buffed, but he is smarter about using Remove Magic with SCS installed and the effects of Potions of Mirrored Eyes will often be dispelled. So the fight turns into the party killing as many Cultists as they can until I see the Remove Magic casting animation. Then everyone runs up the stairs, waits for a bit, runs back down to kill more cultists, rinse repeat.   Eventually, he does catch the party with a Remove Magic, but by then he is also out of Cultists. I throw some summoned monsters at him while the three people in the party that can kill things drink a few potions. They go downstairs again and successfully damage race him, although Sirene nearly dies.  The bards will sing of the battle of some basement in that one fishing village for ages. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Mar 25, 2018 |
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Mar 25, 2018 02:38
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docbeard posted:
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Mar 25, 2018 02:47
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At least with the Wyverns you can just hoof everyone to the far side of the screen and get out of there. No such luck with the Ettercaps and web traps everywhere.
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Mar 25, 2018 04:01
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Rina the Berserker returns to the main quest after loving off and doing whatever for a couple weeks. I originally wanted to do Rasaad's and Dorn's quests after Durlag's Tower but ultimately can't be bothered at this point because after Aec'Letec, anything but going after Sarevok would feel anticlimactic. I also don't need the items or XP - everyone is at the level cap at this point and I'm swimming in gear. The 19 Strength belt you get from doing Rasaad's quest is nice but Rina and Sirene have been drinking potions giving them the Strength of some kind of giant like water for the last couple of weeks.  So we kill Sarevok's acolytes and the first Iron Throne leader and return to Candlekeep.  Where we are greeted by five Ogre Mages. Much like the battle against the Cultists that jump you in Ulgoth's Beard, you get to go up against fully buffed CC-happy enemies without getting a chance to prepare yourself.  In this case, letting everyone drink a Potion of Magic Blocking trivializes the entire fight.  Doppelgangers.   Paladins reading personal letters and having opinions about Rina's potential future as the goddess of murder.  Justifiable homicide that lands us in jail and then a basement full of more Doppelgangers. We also find the last two stat tomes down there, but mostly Doppelgangers.  Some henchmen are disposed of using the sophisticated tactic of explosions everywhere and we return to Baldur's Gate.  oooooh boy  We're somewhere between incinerating henchmen and killing a Doppelganger to retrieve Duke Eltan when Sirene has something to say. After taking care of Eltan, we also kill Sarevok's girlfriend to steal his diary.  Slythe and Krystin expertly counter the explosions everywhere stratagem by making sure everywhere is unfortunately full of innocent bystanders. The Wand of Paralyzation takes care of Slythe, though, and Krystin gets pumped full of poison the second she becomes visible. Rina now has the Short Sword of Backstabbing, which is a minor upgrade now but will be very helpful in the final battle of SoD, assuming she makes it there.  Yet more Doppelgangers. Including a Doppelganger Shaman.  More totally justifiable homicide that costs us 10 Reputation. Ajantis won't stop bitching for the last half hour of the game.  A last hurrah for the tried and tested tactic of explosions everywhere. Such a hurrah in fact that Ajantis nearly blows up half the party with his Arrows of Detonation.  Okay. Yeah. Sure.  Sorry, Aura, but you're serving under a Berserker, you knew how this was gonna end.       A look at the party before the final battle.  The requisite 10 minutes of pre-buffing. I get close but ultimately fail to cover Rina's entire portrait.   Sarevok has some more acolytes - SCS adds Diarmid, who first appears in Candlekeep, as an extra one - that need to be killed before he even deigns to start taking damage. And they come back as Skeleton Warriors. But even such dark magic cannot stand against the power of hundreds of stockpiled potions, wands and scrolls.  Eminently justifiable fratricide. Rina the Berserker has killed Sarevok. Dragonspear awaits. Honors: Ironling, Strategist, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honorable Trader.
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Mar 25, 2018 14:27
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 He's right. Silas gets a splinter while murdering him. Welcome to the Cloakwood Mines. Slaves, poorly-equipped guards...  ...inappropriate conversations...  ...and sidequests! This one also courtesy of Ascalon's, we encountered Perwell's mother at the start of the Cloakwood, and she's asked us to rescue her son who's been kidnapped by the Iron Throne. For, er, some reason. I think there's an opportunity to hold him for ransom ourselves if we're eeeeeevil, but we're, not, so we send him to wait for us outside.  ...this is fine.  I actually really dig Yeslick, but there's no real place for him in this party, so we do the old "recruit then send off to cool his heels in the inn" trick.  A NEW STICK- oh wait, never mind, it has a point. Points are heresy.  CONFUSATRON!  Davaeorn's dialogue triggers even though Silas is invisible and nondetectable. He doesn't actually attack, though.  I'd actually just about given up on Silas's (low) Detect Illusions dispelling Davaeorn's mirror image when it finally works.  Silas's backstab doesn't kill him, and he manages to teleport away even though he's unconscious thanks to a Command spell, but he falls quickly to three simultaneous magic missiles.  We loot the place, flood the mines, meet up with Perwell and prepare for a nice uneventful jour-  ...  Perwell's mother rewards us with another +2 longbow, more or less identical to the Long Bow of Marksmanship.  This is one thing I like about Isra's writing. She's a paladin of Sune, and while she's fairly down-to-earth, she still had this romantic ideal of fighting evil being about battling horrible demons and dragons and such, and seeing an operation of simple institutionalized human misery like the Cloakwood Mines really throws her for a loop. Baldur's Gate is open to us now, and while we've got a fair bit of sidequesting to do outside the city yet, we head on in for a shopping trip.  Garrick approves of this plan.  We have a court order! Says right here, you have to stay 1d6 x 100 feet from us at all times!  Garrick can get an upgrade to his sparkly bard armor, but it would cost us the Golden Pantaloons, so NEVER MIND.  Why hello there, beautiful We head back south and start mopping things up.  Silas gets caught in the fireball blast radius but it's all good.  Yes, Garrick, we know.  Oh good. It's Safana.  With Lure of the Sirine's Curse installed, we get a chance to side either with Sil or with some pirates. We choose Sil, on the grounds that pirates are much less annoying to fight. Plus I guess it's less evil or something.  Hello, beautiful, part 2. Silas is clearing up some loose ends.
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Mar 25, 2018 15:09
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That's an interesting choice of portrait for Davaeorn. Kinda suits him, though.
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Mar 25, 2018 15:16
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Hey can people still jump in on this or has interest died down? Always fancied doing s solo run and this looks like as good a reason as any to do so.
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Mar 26, 2018 16:40
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DeadButDelicious posted:Hey can people still jump in on this or has interest died down? Always fancied doing s solo run and this looks like as good a reason as any to do so. Joinnnnnnn usssssssssss I'M NOT A DOPPELGANGER OH SHI-
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Mar 26, 2018 18:18
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docbeard posted:Joinnnnnnn usssssssssss I'M NOT A DOPPELGANGER OH SHI- So it begins. Gather round, yon folk of Baldur's Gate, and let me tell you a tale...  A tale of a man they call Buggrit. Originally I couldn't decide whether to go with a Human Stalker, or a Gnome Thief/Cleric. Then I noticed we already had one of those on the go, so that kind of sealed the deal. Anyway, Buggrit is rather nifty with a This is a first for me, playing solo, and Ironman no less, so apologies if screenshots are few and far between until I bind them to a more comfortable button.
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Mar 26, 2018 22:29
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Silas Gets Sidequests Out Of The Way, Pt. 2 I'm kind of in "checking boxes" mode at the moment so I can focus on the stuff actually in BG city for a while, so this does get a little scattershot. Garrick falls hard for Shoal. I elect not to go for the backstab, since the last thing I want to do is actually kill her before she can resurrect him. Besides, I have a feeling I'll want Silas stealthed for this next bit.  I can't blame the kid for being skittish, he did just die after all.  Speaking of just dying... We move on to the ancient ruins.  Isra's not normally this bloodthirsty. I chalk it up to either ambient Kozah radiation or the stress she's been under.  Now look, all I asked is whether you wanted to read this Stick Tract.  This is the last sight most of our enemies see, these days. While we're in the neighborhood, we drag Brage back to seek redemption.  Valerie gets drunk and rails against the plot.  Melicamp ends up in a better place. (The Jovial Juggler's half-price chicken dinner, probably.) In the Valley of the Tombs...  I wouldn't say "about to", no.  I just wanted to document every second of this.  Also, after grabbing the ring from the Gibberling map, Isra is now fireproof. Not that we would ever take advantage of such a thing.  Arabelle lives!  We meet the Gullykin assassins.  They were about as much trouble as the rest of the rabble we killed.  I kind of like the little halfling psychopath ("You're not happy enough! I'LL TEACH YOU TO BE HAPPY!" but we're very well served in the thief department right now.  This little halfling psychopath on the other hand... The less said about the Firewine Ruins the better. (I do get a lot of fire arrows, though.)  And speaking of NPCs we're not going to recruit, this is Indira, a fighter/mage whose adventuring party did not fare well against the ogre mage in the Firewine Ruins. She seemed all right the last time I had her in my party.  Garrick and Jaheira have a neat little conversation around this poem that I didn't manage to capture.  I have a bunch of spells queued up for Kahrk in case Garrick manages to flub the Arrow of Slaying. Fortunately, he doesn't, and our hasted and buffed party absolutely murderates some zombies afterwards. And that's pretty much it for overland map stuff, aside from TOTSC and mod content. And we're off to Baldur's Gate at last.  ...after we make one stop. Imoen needs some skin care products, of the stone variety.
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Mar 27, 2018 01:40
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The adventure of Buggrit is but an admittedly short tale, sadly... (Well it's still lots of screenshots and about 2hrs of gameplay). We'll skip the Candlekeep nonsense because we've all seen it before. Being the masochist that I am, Buggrit decides to sojourn alone, but not before relieving Imoen of her potions, wand, arrows, and bow, saving quite a bit of coin in the meantime. He gibbers unintelligibly at her until she flees back to the relative safety of Candlekeep.  More agents sent by the man to keep Buggrit down. Not falling for it, Buggrit promptly accepts the healing potion and agrees to travel with the two, using it as an opportunity to steal their meager equipment, and introduce them to his beating stick.  This fatso interrupts Buggrit from a feast of gibberling to kindly tell him about the dead bodies in the woods nearby. Sensing an opportunity to rifle through belongings, Buggrit heads over immediately, finding a nice belt that stop the cold somewhat. Can't explain it. Must be magic.  Beregost! Civilisation! More things to loot that haven't been nailed down! We start rifling through houses...  And come across an old friend from Candlekeep. We give him a book we acquire from the tavern across the street and he gives us a magic book to hold more books. What a nice old man. We leave Beregost after picking up a few more quests and pestering a few locals and getting thrown out of a LOT of houses...  These guys are ugly. Yackety Sax ensues! After filling these twerps with arrows we find a love note from one of the Ogrillons, and bring it back to some old bat in Beregost. She gives us a ring that lets us do things betterer and we head back into nature to forage for berries and maybe poo poo on a squirrel if we have time.  More ugly people! We give them a good whack upside the head and steal the sneaky git boots. We use them for sneaking and now we are sneakier.  Heading further south we find some more hobgoblins trying to enjoy a barbecue. We ask to join and are promptly attacked. They lose their nerve once we crack open a few skulls however. There's a nearby pendant we bring back to Beregost in the vain hopes the broken husk of a man who just found out his family is dead will offer us shelter. No such luck. Buggrit returns to the woods.  Buggrit runs afoul of a Drow. Some nearby gnolls dogpile him. It doesn't end well for them. I didn't manage to grab a screenshot of it due to the sheer speed of rolling combat text, but I was very impressed that one actually managed to land a hit on Drizzt. Naturally Buggrit stood back and observed from a safe distance, then ran off with a dozen more shinies. If only I had a bag to put them in... We kill some half-ogres, and a party of idiots that want to part Buggrit and his stick.  That does not happen. Onward! We discover Melicamp the chicken, and bring him to his master. After acquiring a nearby skull...  Thank you kindly. (And yes I did change his avatar, I wanted something that looked a bit more... Vagrant-y, and this fits well enough).  Melicamp lives! Buggrit heads back into his beloved woods to find... At this point, anything really.  It's a digsite! Buggrit sneaks in and offers to stand guard after displaying how poor the diggers defense systems are. Some berk tries to bribe him with gold instead of delicious mold, so we get shot of him and go back to guard duty.  Gesundheit. After murdering the possessed diggers and leaving the murderous insanity artifact rightfully where it belongs, we head off back to Beregost to empty the bags. It's at this point Buggrit gets cocky, and thus seals his fate...  Why yes, I will follow you for an employment opportunity...  But... But they haven't done anything wrong. Zounds! This is an ambush for these hapless dweebs! Time to run away and hide from Silke until she runs out of spells-  Ah, yes. As you can see, Silke got invisibility off, and while she was casting that, I ran away to stealth (success!), and waited for her to de-stealth. This would have taken a whole 24 hours apparently, but for some reason she dropped stealth. I took a chance to backstab, missed, and ate a lightning bolt to the face, slaying Buggrit in one shot. Buggrit the Stalker was slain by Silke in Beregost streets. What a chump. Maybe a new hero will rise to take his spot? Who knows. Any advice on good/entertaining solo iron man classes to take would be greatly appreciated. It was fun to put a new spin on an old classic, but the Candlekeep start is murder on the attention span.
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Mar 27, 2018 22:05
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Wizard Slayer with a goal of taking down Elminster before he disappears
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Mar 28, 2018 20:28
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Silas the Half-Orc Cleric/Thief's winter sojourn proceeds mostly without incident.  Not pictured: Silas eating a point-blank fireball in the earlier room with three mages. It does not work out great for him, but it works out even less well for the other guy. While we're in the neighborhood, we clear out that map with the farm beset by zombies, because why the hell not. We at last head properly into Baldur's Gate...  Where Silas discovers probably the worst stick yet.  A gnome asks us to steal a telescope. He's a bit too into it.   This is a bit like having two angels on Silas's shoulders instead of the traditional one angel and one devil.  Imoen makes you a birthday present. (This is basically a reskinned Amulet of Protection +1).  I wasn't going to do this quest for him but I honestly forgot we were still carrying the body we found in the Ulcaster Ruins that we didn't let the scary revenge-crazed ghost have, so we get a little extra XP out of the deal. Then Imoen (somehow) fails her pickpocketing check to grab his amulet and we end up killing him anyway. He won't be missed.  Oh god...  Here's something else from Ascalon's. This We go over to his house (one of the random commoner houses in the game, only now it's magic-locked til you get this quest) but only find two gibberlings, not the twenty or so he described. Which means they escaped. Which means SIDEQUEST. Which means...  Elminster? I mean, um, there is pending civil litigation...  Oh. That's much better. The gibberlings are all in the sewers and related areas, so we'll get to that in a bit. Meanwhile...  We're absolutely quaking in our very expensive magical boots.  Brave and/or foolish, huh? CHALLENGE ACCEPTED  Are you REALLY the head of the Quickie-Mart?  Not as bad as the dead cat, but not exactly treasure for the legends.  Here's a hook for the magnum opus of Ascalon's Quest Pack, the Serpents of Abbathor. This actually started a bit earlier, where you find a note among Mulahey's possessions where the aforementioned Serpents, a cult of evil dwarves or something, are seeking an alliance with the Iron Throne. Through a few minor encounters, we get a diary which points us to the Temple of Helm in Baldur's Gate. There are two paths we can take from here, whether we want to hook up with the cult or try to destroy them. Our general feeling is that evil cults dedicated to evil gods are, well, bad. Either path requires us to hit up either the sewers or the Undercellar, so we'll get there in time. Moving on...  The fight against his guardians (a bunch of helmed horrors and invisible stalkers) is tough but we can handle it. He'd like us to find the Helm of Balduran for him. We agree to, well, half of that. He gives us a lead in the form of some petrified adventurers in a mansion elsewhere in town, but we decide to take a chance on the aptly-named Helm & Cloak. (Except it's not a chance because I know exactly where the drat thing is.) Also in the Helm & Cloak are Gorpel Hind and his band of Screaming Idiots, or whatever.  They're, uh, service ghost snakes.  Pardon us, we just need to borrow your wizard for a moment. (You can't really tell, but Garrick's Dire Charm just worked.)  This poor waiter, just trying to serve drinks while we fight a pitched battle in his front room. We head upstairs, and sure enough...  We give this to Jaheira for now. Don't worry, Degrodel, we'll, uh, rush back with it. Do hold your breath waiting.  That ear is MINE, I TELL YOU, MINE! (We agree to get his friend's body back from the Umberlee temple.)  Three fireballs to the face make short work of these ogre mages.  Hey, remember when I returned your dish? Well now I need a favor.  This quest breaks, and I have to use some console trickery to convince them that I have indeed killed every doppelganger inside the Merchant League.  I love this line. Well, after all that (and some other encounters I didn't bother to document), we feel like we could use a rest, and Ye Olde Inn sounds like just the sort of relaxing place we need.  Or maybe it's just one big health code violation. Garrick gets himself slimed, but we sort that out with an antidote right awa-  Well, gently caress.  RAMAZITH! I never thought I'd say this, but Silas needs to go avenge a bard.
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Mar 29, 2018 16:41
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There's vengeance for poor young Garrick to be had. But first there's the small matter of oh yeah we're loving poisoned.  The high priestess of  We offer her a compromise. We keep the book, get the cure to Lothander's geas, and they get, um...to be horribly murdered?  Silas puts the book to good use.  We get Lothander sorted out and then we get Marek, uh, sorted out. Before we go to face Razimith, we decide to fill the recent opening in our organization. There are a few options, but in the end we decide on...  We don't really need another thief but we do need another archer, and given the choice between him and Kivan, I'll take Flirtface over Sir Mopesalot. (Besides, we had Kivan in the party for a bit which means he's all of level 3, whereas Coran's a much more respectable level 6ish). We're down to two fireball wand users now, but we also have access to arrows of detonation, so on the whole, I think we've broken even. Now, back to Baldur's Ga-  Well, at least it wasn't wyverns.  Look man, it's not just that you wanted to turn a nymph into spell components. It's not just that you petrified a bunch of adventurers for Degrodel (who for all we know was lying about that). It's not even that you conjured up a bunch of green slimes in a tavern for no goddamn reason.  You made me care about a bard. (Also, on our way up his tower)  This heartwarming bit of racism is brought to you by the BG1 NPC Project. (I do appreciate that he, an elf, is trash-talking elves an orcs to a half-orc though.)  Imoen gets this book. Garrick is avenged! And Silas is off to...um...wasn't there a main quest or something we should be doing?
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Mar 30, 2018 11:29
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docbeard posted:wasn't there a main quest or something we should be doing? Yes. Yes there was. Not that we're going to do it right now  Well, we'll do some of it.  Yes DEAR we're doing it DEAR We head down into the sewers to hunt ogre mages and carrion crawlers and also to trigger the next bit of the Serpents of Abbathor.  Silas starts screaming KIWITT!!! for no goddamn reason. (It's because of the gibberling-sniffing bird he's carrying.)  There was a DM at a D&D MUSH I played on back in the day that had everyone absolutely loving terrified of kobolds.  Rather than risk being, uh, Garricked, we deal with these slimes through the completely safe means of throwing fireballs around in an open sewer.  It's a bit hard to tell from the screenshot, but we've just found a gang of dwarves, Wostok and company from the Serpents quest.  They are, believe it or not, the good guys.  They send us to the Undercellar to kill this guy, though I'm not sure it's possible to do so at this point. (You hit him once and he says a few things, drinks an invisibility potion, and fucks off). He's also your main contact if you're taking the evil path through this mod (which I never have). We sort out the ogre mage, retrieve the body of his noble victim (because who cares about commoners, amirite) and get sent on to sort out the Iron Throne. Which we'll do. Eventually. First, though, it's back to the Temple of Helm where we meet up with Wostok again. He sends us to a tavern in Northwest Baldur's Gate where we are to retrieve an artifact that the Serpents are after. Now, I'll bet you're wondering what this artifact is and why the Serpents want it, and just what their actual plan is. Uh, get used to that.  Predictably, the Serpents got there first, and we walk straight into an ambush. The biggest challenge in this fight is that there's no real room to move.  So few evil cults ever bother printing up tracts.  FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK! The cult is headquartered in one of the warehouses, so we head there.  These guys aren't slouches, mostly because they all carry extra healing potions. On the bright side, they all carry extra healing potions.  We kill off some of the cult's higher-ranking folks and intercept their notes. And we're done! Except...no. No we're not. Because they've taken over the Nashkel Mines with their whatchamajig. Silas is off to liberate the Nashkel Mines. Again.
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Mar 31, 2018 13:43
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One task yet remains. Well, a few. But essentially one. Now where were we?  Oh right. This is technically a new dungeon using/temporarily overwriting the Nashkel Mines maps, kind of the same way the Grey Clan mod overwrote the Friendly Arms Inn for a while. (Which meant that any NPCs you sent to cool their heels there were inaccessible until you finished that particular bundle of joy.) Basically, the Serpents of Abbathor, a cult dedicated to the evil Dwarven god of Greed (I think), have taken control of the mines and are using an evil artifact to...do...stuff. Anyway, they're bad, we're good, so it's time for the Old Time Stick Gospel Power Hour. They've trapped the gently caress out of the map surrounding the mine, and they've also left poor Wostok to die. He asks you to give him an honorable  Emerson and some surviving miners are holed up in the outbuilding that normally has feral guard dogs. He tells you broadly what you already know, but also that there are still miners being held hostage, and also that he was forced to leave some operational notes behind in the mines. Sidequests for the sidequest. The first level of the mines is basically all traps and cultists, nothing particularly noteworthy or dangerous if you're careful.  The second level opens with this bullshit. You can't really see because I got this mid-fireball, but there are ten skeleton archers up there with fire arrows, right at the point where you enter the mine. They can and will focus-fire on whatever's in front the instant you load into the map. Fortunately, in this case, that was mostly sweet tankish fireproof Isra (though she still got about half her HP chewed through in about half a second). There are a few other similar ambushes throughout this level (though smaller groups), but this is by far the most dangerous one because you're basically in a killbox.  The other noteworthy thing on Level 2 is the hostages we mentioned earlier, guarded by this wizard and some summoned skeleton warriors. Fireballs aren't really an option here, but summon wand spam certainly is. Except that my summons immediately panic when the undead show up. It's still not a big deal. On Level 3, the enemy du jour is dwarven shadows. These aren't the annoying sort of undead shadows, they're just dwarf spirits of some kind. We get no XP for killing them at all, which makes me think they're some sort of illusions or something, but I don't actually know. I gather they're what the evil artifact is summoning, though. Oh, and also:  Oh HELL no.  The quest ends where it began, in Mulahey's old HQ. It's even a fairly similar fight, except that Lugosch (the big boss, and I think a cleric of some description) summons those shadow things instead of standard undead, and we're dealing with well-equipped cultists instead of kobolds. It all ends up the same way, though, and we're left with, well, basically a teaser for a Part 2 that never happened. This actually, occasionally cryptic translations aside, ended up being a pretty fun sidequest, better than a lot of mod-added quests I've tried. And the fights mostly hit the right balance between "challenging" and "gently caress you" (and the loot was never really anything game-breaking, though I'm swimming in Invisibility potions dropped by cultists at this point). Wizard Styles just showed off the Stone of Askavar mod, and we've all seen Werewolf Isle and Durlag's tower like twenty times at this point. So I'm going to show you the most important things only:  Silas has a new stick.  It's pretty good.
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Apr 1, 2018 23:57
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A mighty fortress is our Stick, a basher never failing... So, after braving the treacherous traps of Durlag's Tower, the werewolfweres of Werewolfwere Island, and the comma thieves of the Stone of Askavar, Silas finally decides it's time to sort out this Iron Throne mess once and for all.  You talk almost as much as a shadow druid I once killed.  I assume that this fellow, like the person you meet upon leaving the Seven Suns, is there to steer you back toward the main quest if you ignore Scar and just berserker your way to the Iron Throne.  One more sidequest to resolve. If you recall, we were hunting the gibberlings this idiot bred in his basement. He promised us a magic item if we rid the city of them all.  It's super good.  We're baaaaaaack!  So, and I'm just throwing this out there, but how would you feel about turning Candlekeep into a trap-infested murderfortress?  Look, "Koveras", I may only have the bare minimum intelligence required to use scrolls and wands, but I'm not actually an idiot, okay? That being said, I am totally willing to put my trust in an impartial justice system when we are framed for murder. I mean, so long as the person in charge of determining our fate isn't an rear end in a top hat wizard who's always had it in for us.  ...goddammit. Blah blah blah, we get free...   ...complete our self-help book collection...  ...kill all our friends...  ...murder Elminster...  ...deal with this bullshit...  ...get arrested again...  ...walk straight into the palace with no-doubt bloodstained invitations in spite of being the most notorious criminals of the Sword Coast at this point...  ...save the remaining Grand Dukes...  ...deal with this bullshit...  ...and astonish Sarevok with our doctrine. Silas is victorious. Honors: Ironling, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honorable Trader.
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Apr 4, 2018 03:00
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After a break while I've been busy, let's see how Liz is doing. Still killing party members, I see.  I think the only one left is Dorn, since he escaped me earlier.  Backstab on demand makes the hamadryad much less annoying than usual.  These guys, too.  And also him.  And thus falls the last potential party member prior to SoD.  Iron Throne: Rusted.  Demon Knight: Busted (and apparently can't see hidden creatures like I thought for sure he'd be able to).  Neither can Aflac.  On-demand backstab (plus the usual fire breath potions) actually makes this the fastest I've ever killed this guy, even with only one party member's worth of attacks per round.  Liia dies, Belt lives.  Sarevok can't see through invisibility either, somehow??? Oh well, that just makes him a piece of relative cake. Liz the Murderer's honors: Ironling, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Conan the Bhaalspawn, Honorable Trader, Iron Party, Battlemaster
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Apr 5, 2018 09:18
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Rina the Berserker is continuing her travels. We're dropped straight into the family tomb of Korlasz, one of the last remaining acolytes of Sarevok. It's full of undead and mercenaries.  We do what we do. At some point Rina meets a fellow Berserker.   They shake hands the Berserker way. So yeah, this is not really all that challenging. I later realize this is because I left the difficulty on Core Rules when I meant to put it on Insane (but disable the extra damage from higher difficulty). And so we rampage through the tomb unchallenged; no quarter asked, no quarter given.  Not to Korlasz...  ...and not to her little pet, either. With that taken care of, Rina's party disbands and Rina retreats to the Ducal Palace.  Cutscenes happen, and the palace is revealed to still be the impenetrable fortress it was during the BG1 finale. Since these assassins were sent by one Caelar Argent, up-and-coming warlord, Rina quickly agrees to join the fight against her. And so we go on a recruiting drive.  Tiax unfortunately can't be recruited.  Sirene is back in SoD, though. There's some questing and shopping to be done as well, and we do all of it.  I totally forgot about this fight and Safana and Dynaheir (naked and without memorized or even just learned spells) nearly die. After that there's only the first of way too many Irenicus cameos left and off we are to march on Castle Dragonspear.  We're slightly delayed by the main bridge being blown up. But since we're behind schedule now anyway, we might as well forget about it altogether and go off to:  Sing at rocks to awaken the spirit of a Bard and solve other side quests in the area. (Not pictured: Safana nearly dies fighting some spiders.)   Kill a baby vampire. (Safana nearly dies again when his wolf reinforcements come in.)   Watch as Aura reintroduces herself with a cutscene that triggers the second Rasaad comes into view. I don't intend to use Aura in SoD, in case anybody's wondering, but I didn't unequip her poo poo after the Korlasz Family Tomb, so she is holding on to the Shadow Armor, the Claw etc. I relieve her of all of that and give it to Safana so Safana can hopefully nearly die slightly less frequently.  Safana would go on to nearly die during this fight.  The main dungeon du jour.  At this point I definitely have Insane difficulty spawn numbers enabled.  In the end, the baby lich goes down even easier than the baby vampire, thanks to the protection spell removal gem. I don't even get to take a screenshot of the fight since there really isn't much of a fight. I'm a little worried as I cast his phylactery into the elemental plane of fire since the cutscene takes control away from me as the party gets attacked by a couple of mephits that just gated in, but all is good in the end.  We also play around with a scrying pool and get to watch a cutscene of Imoen's mentor explaining to her that dual-class hell means she'd be entirely useless to our efforts. So, yeah, at that point, Rina is at slightly over 249,000 XP, so I have the party walk around killing respawning spiders and peaceful bears until...   Rina the Berserker is now Rina the lovely Mage. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Apr 9, 2018 |
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Apr 9, 2018 23:16
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Rina the lovely Mage is hunting monsters and connecting with her father. The Flaming Fist marches on and makes camp in the Troll Claw Woods. Rina is warned that here there be trolls. Luckily, we have Aura.   Like most mod items, I just ignore they exist. I can't sell them, so I let Corwin pump them into the first pack of enemies we come across. I would like to note, however, that you can buy at least 20 more, they have a damage over time effect, and Mages have pretty poor saves vs. Death. Also, Sirene, the other, much more tolerable mod character, seems to have bugged out to some extent.  Her banters trigger all the time and I haven't even seen one that doesn't involve her at this point. Accordingly...  ...I recruit Jaheira to replace her. I had originally planned for Jaheira to replace Glint or Safana, but Sirene's got to go for now. Jaheira gives us the next part of the main quest: she mentions some wardstone that could get us into an allied fort Khalid is currently defending against the Crusade, which reportedly got stolen and might just be in an ancient temple of Bhaal in the area. But first, trolls.  Also, assorted displacer beasts, hobgoblins and ogres. Thanks to 10k XP from starting a new chapter and trolls being giant XP bags, Rina reaches level 5 in no time at all. That means level 3 spells. She's almost a proper Mage already. We move on to scout the Crusader camp and the allied fort the Crusade is besieging.    En route, we find goblins, mushrooms and foreshadowing.  Rina is not really someone for covert ops, but the game insists. So we leave to search for that patrol and the wardstone Jaheira mentioned.  But first, allow me to nearly get a game over in some lovely spider-infested cave before moving on to the dungeon that actually advances the main plot.  Said plot dungeon starts with us killing a dragon in two rounds of combat. I manage to take one screenshot of the fight but it gets corrupted, so enjoy this tasteful shot of the party posing with their trophy. The dragon did actually manage to hit Glint and Safana for a lot of damage and poison them because I misjudged how quickly she'd get to the party after waking up, but after that failed to get through Jaheira's Ironskins and went down within seconds.  Despite her career change, Rina has not forgotten the finer points of Berserker diplomacy.  We find the Crusader patrol and a convenient, humane method of execution. I think there's no way of taking them prisoner and I don't need more potential enemies in the camp, so, you know, completely moral course of action.  It's a shame Tiax isn't with us. I would have loved to see him have a theological debate with this lady. Instead, we just mercy kill her.  It's not often that you get to tell a gloating villain that you just descaled her dead sister, but it's always good when it happens.  Ziatar gets hit by a Hold Monster spell and goes down about as easily as her sister. Her Mage friends manage to stay alive a bit longer but without the half-dragon they just have nothing to really harm the party.  Behold, the one new sprite Beamdog made. The thing puts up a fight but Jaheira is just a really good tank and Corwin does ridiculous damage. This dungeon also includes a secret room that we found a hint about in the tutorial dungeon. The treasure inside it includes a short sword that Rina will use as soon as she remembers how to hit people with weapons:  It's perfectly possible just sneak into the secret room, get the treasure, go invisible and run away again, which I do. And I probably should have left it at that, because the room is guarded by a Shadow Aspect. The Shadow Aspect is a Fighter/Thief of levels 12/12. It's permanently hasted and blurred as far as I can tell. In my party, Safana and Glint are at risk of dying to a single backstab. On Insane difficulty, which I'm nominally playing on, it uses Mislead with a two round cooldown. And it can bring in some reasonably dangerous adds. I have definitely wiped against that thing before. But we have a lot of explosives.  ...which it is nearly immune to.  So yeah, I forgot that the Shadow Aspect also has 90% resistance to all elemental damage types. Luckily, I picked up Jaheira, who has True Seeing up.  And Corwin, who does what Archers do. That's 60% of the Shadow Aspect's total HP gone in one hit. And with that, we have the high priestess left to take care of.  She leaves us the wardstone.  The voice in her head also dies.  The main problem in this fight ends up being that the mage the mind flayer enslaved casts Teleport Field and it extends just far enough to prevent my party members from entering the room without getting teleported around, which creates some LoS issues and other general awkwardness. But by the time the Teleport Field goes up the mind flayer is already dead and the umber hulks graciously both failed their saves against the Wand of Fear, so the main threats are gone. e: Rina, by the way, is a level 7 Mage already after that fight. So not really lovely at all anymore.   Edwin seems to be somewhat inspired by this encounter with a mind flayer, which is a little alarming. Probably best to just move on quickly. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 04:33
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Let's check in with Liz the Shadowdancer. Scroll of Wuss dishonor ain't say nothing about any other kinds or number of undead.   Safana dies again.  So do Minsc and Dynaheir.  Werewolf kills Rasaad so I don't have to.  Does anybody anywhere actually like Garrick?  Or Tiax?  And off to... Wait, they're back again? Sigh. Fine. I'll re-re-murder them, I guess.  Semahl lives.  I pickpocket the dwarves for their amulets to give to the lich, then kill the lich. Then I kill the dwarves anyway.  More NPCs down.  And two more. Voghiln actually took two hits, even with a backstab. Tough dude.  Immunity to poison makes Charlize Morentherene a snap, though she still hits hard enough with her melee attacks that I still have to down some potions. Too bad she's immune to backstab (and can see through invisibility anyway) though.  Her daughter tosses up a Sanctuary, but that doesn't work against AOE.  This was probably my least favorite fight in this entire run so far. It just stayed hidden for round after round after round until eventually I lured it out here often enough that I could just pop it with some firebreath potions and stab it a few times.  Another one do  And we're in. Liz the Shadowdancer has infiltrated Boreskyr Bridge. Tumblr of scotch fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Apr 17, 2018 |
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Apr 16, 2018 05:12
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And a double post to finish off BG1. Time to put these goggles to use. Abduct a genie, buy his poo poo, then tediously kill him.  Save a dragon ghost from an unlifetime of boredom.  Send a lich back whence he came (Miami).  I decided since I haven't used them much I'd break out the arrows of detonation I duplicated who knows how long ago.  I like them.  Crusade attacks the camp as usual, and doesn't last long.  The Crusader camp itself is made short work of.  Idyletia the planetar is tedious enough to kill with a full, well-rounded party. Here it involved a boring amount of kiting.  Once Belhifet got low, I decided to focus on his periodic summons until I leveled up again. Eventually they started spawning faster than I could take care of them so I just focused on him. Not shown: Intentionally sabotaging my own trial so I can go through the sewers for a little more XP. Liz the Shadowdancer's honors: Siege Breaker, Conan the Bhaalspawn, Honorable Trader (random non-merchant folks, on the other hand...), Iron Party
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Apr 17, 2018 08:17
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Time to give an update on the trials and tribulations of Rina the adequately capable Mage. After getting the Bridgefort wardstone, we enter Bridgefort, where we pick up a slightly haunted Neera. Who, way back in BG1, managed to cast Cloudkill through Nahal's, deciding the Bandit Camp attack and earning her place at Rina's side forever. Anyway, we do all the quests we can and then put a very cunning plan in motion to break the ongoing siege.   Neera can cast Cloudkill without using Nahal's now, and the Crusaders are not in any way, shape or form prepared for chemical warfare.  The sort-of secret of Rina's heritage is no longer a secret and Irenicus decides this is just the time to rant about the sheeple. We move on to the coalition camp.  Where we spend some time sidequesting. Also, we pull a genie and a tiefling into the material plane.  At some point our sidequesting is interrupted by a mysterious but flammable assassin.  Aura can give you a sleeping potion to use instead the poison you originally get to incapacitate the Crusaders, conveniently removing any moral quandary from the situation. I take it because the dialogue with Aura is triggered automatically and there isn't really a good argument for taking the poison.  We return to the main plot for a bit.  Rina becomes the champion of a distressed ogre damsel in an effort to recruit more allies.  Reconnaissance in Castle Dragonspear gets a bit strange.  And once more it's back to the main quest.  Rina doesn't really seem to understand that the dragon is on her side, panics, and spends the entire fight running away. Which is fine, not like I could have used her Breach and Secret Word spells.  We solve Neera's quest, and Adoy offers some foreshadowing for her BG2 quest. Ordinarily I'd say something about how there's only one way for a Berserker to react to an attack, but Rina is still panicking, so, you know, timing is a little awkward here. As soon as Rina gets her poo poo together we finish up the Vision Quest by pulling a lich into the material plane. I am reasonably confident because we still have the anti-lich gem the dwarves gave us at the start of SoD, but still a little nervous.  So, naturally, he dies before I can even use the gem. A few restless souls are laid to rest, some ogres freed, we spend 50k on potions, etc., and then it's time to infiltrate Dragonspear Castle proper to use the sleeping potion and figure out what the Crusade is actually up to. (Although we kinda already know that because we've found a couple of assorted documents detailing Hephernaan's necromantic experiments and infernal allegiance.)  The fight against Hephernaan is completely uneventful. One of his Mages dies before her protections go up and Hephernaan and the remaining Mage are completely neutered by Jaheira's Insect Plague. I let Safana loot the room and have a chat with the ghost of Daeros Dragonspear while watching Hephernaan, who is sanctuaried, fail spell after spell. But then it's time for the reinforcements. I have only gotten this far into SoD once before, and I remember that the fight against these waves of reinforcements took me at least two tries to pull off without losses.  I let everyone drink an invisibility potion and run for the lift. Then I notice that Rina is very, very close to getting her Berserker levels back. Also that I have a lot of assorted magical explosives.  What follows is a massacre. It's not quite enough to get Rina to Mage level 10, so I intend to repeat the same downstairs in the warrens, but the game slows down and crashes at some point and I have to reload the latest autosave. (Also, none of my screenshots are saved.) So I decide to leave the warrens without killing everyone. To be honest, the fight was going pretty badly anyway, so I'm not too upset about it. Not bad enough to be threatening, but it was costing me too many good consumables. And Khalid was below half health when the game crashed and, although he had a lot of invisibility potions, he might have died.  The failed parley with Caelar finally gets everyone to 500k XP, and Rina is a proper Berserker/Mage at last.  Caelar sends some Crusaders her way to let her test her newfound battlemage abilities.  And it's time to take the fight to Caelar. The battle for Dragonspear Castle is somewhat uneventful because I play it in the most boring, cowardly way possible, letting the party stay at range while the soldiers and a lot of summons soak up hits for me.  A man called Axe Poet would undoubtedly have deserved to die in a better, more exciting battle than this, but this is an ironman playthrough and there are a lot of Fireball- and CC-happy Mages around. Another gate is blown up, and we confront Caelar.   It goes super well!  Rina and Thrix get off on the wrong foot, and in the ensuing fight Rina gets held and reduced to half health despite being on a Potion of Invulnerability. But in the end she earns a nice +3 sword for Khalid after betting her soul.  Behold, the greatest challenge in SoD: timing short to mid duration buffs just right so they don't run out before the lift reaches the final boss arena. I kinda gently caress it up, but the most important one, Rina's Spell Immunity:Abjuration, is still up when we finally reach Belhifet.  Rina convinces Caelar to fight on her side, and Caelar proceeds to tank Belhifet while Rina tears Hephernaan apart. The rest of the party retreats to take care of the first wave of summoned devils, and also to evade the Dispel Belhifet starts the fight with (that he wastes on Rina). And that's pretty much all there is to the fight. Everyone has drunk a dozen potions and has +3 weapons to hurt Belhifet with, so the fight - unexpectedly, since I remember it being pretty hard for me the first time I played SoD - isn't much of a challenge.  A Water Elemental Neera summoned nearly dies, but Belhifet is denied even that small victory as it tactically retreats. In the end Neera kills him with her last Minute Meteor. Caelar decides to stay behind to seal the portal, and the day is saved.  Then everything goes to poo poo.  The End. Rina the Berserker/Mage's honors: Siege Breaker, Honorable Trader, Iron Party (as much as Safana tried to die early on, she didn't). And that's the end of the ironman. I'll post one short update about Rina's adventures in BG2 in the future, but to be honest I know I'm not good enough to pull off a BG2 ironman with SCS and other mods installed. At the same time, I don't want to play without SCS. And after taking Rina through BG1 and SoD, I want to finish the trilogy with her. So I'll keep playing with Ironman rules until Rina dies for the first time, report where her run ended, and that'll be it.
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Apr 23, 2018 00:44
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I'm too lazy to upload screenshots, but Liz the Shadowdancer has died trying to rescue Haer'dalis and his acting troupe, after things had been going so well. That's probably going to be my last solo attempt for a while, but I'll probably do another non-solo attempt.
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Apr 26, 2018 06:38
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I lied, I'm trying another solo run with Sarah, halfling archer. ...Who is apparently a born hero.  I would've liked at least two more points, for the times when I have to melee, but potions (and later belts) will do.  I actually hadn't planned on making it a solo run until I picked up Imoen, so she ended up outfitted.  After heading south for some questing to grab a couple levels, Tarnesh falls.  Melicamp lives.  The skellies and zombies do not.  The quick way to Nashkel.  With kiting and duplicated acid arrows, Greywolf goes down easy.    Left Silke until after the mines so I can have a good stash of assorted potions first. Turned out not to matter.  After clearing the mines, it's time to clear out the coast.  And I think Sarah exploring Ulcaster is a good point to stop for now.
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May 14, 2018 02:50
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How did you duplicate all of those acid arrows? Perhaps I just haven't been paying attention, but I wasn't aware of that
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May 14, 2018 03:57
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JustJeff88 posted:How did you duplicate all of those acid arrows? Perhaps I just haven't been paying attention, but I wasn't aware of that
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May 14, 2018 05:10
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Alright, after a couple weeks of moving house plus Pride festivities, it's time to get this show back on the road. Sarah the halfling archer continues questing up and down the Sword Coast.  And then a bit in the city.  Yeah sure whatever just pay me.  Who ever says you can't go home again?  Oh. Them, I guess.  Sarah takes a quick jaunt way up north.  Then starts preparing for a party.  But first things first,  because there are a few  loose ends to tie up. Also I wasn't fast enough to get a screenshot but Sarah has killed Sarevok. Honors: Ironling, Born Hero, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Conan the Bhaalspawn, Honorable Trader, Iron Party, Battlemaster
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Jun 10, 2018 20:52
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| # ? May 3, 2024 19:04 |
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The Death of Caelar: A Story in One Act: Sarah the archer gets started.  Scroll of Wuss doesn't say anything about using one during dungeons of undead without liches or vampires.   On the road again.  Semahl lives.  The Coldhearth lich does not.  Just can't wait to get on the road ag--oh gently caress off.  Ziatar goes down easier than her mom did thanks to knowing how to get around a Sanctuary.  The neothelid is a pissfucker as usual.  Surrender Bridgefort and kill the crusaders there? Sure.  Let's make camp.  I decided to try to tackle the tomb of (greater) shadows without protection from undead active. It almost turned out extremely poorly.  L8r friendo.  Will the real Slim Zhady please gently caress off?  Alright, let's do this.  The Solar fighting in the Hells meets her match with someone who just wants to go home and sleep.  Ask not for whom the Bel folds.  And off we go, because Sarah the halfling archer is on her way to Amn. Honors: Siege Breaker, Conan the Bhaalspawn, Honorable Trader, Iron Party
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Jun 23, 2018 21:03
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