|
It is done. Kondor the Dwarven Defender has vanquished Sarevok! After spending a few thousand gold improving the lives of the little folk of Gullykin it was time to tackle Durlag's and I was a bit nervous since my last Dwarven Defender, that I played a few months ago, perished against the Demon Knight. Anyway, we start meeting the luckiest tourist in the Sword Coast.  Yes, he somehow survived the Fireball frenzy and was actually there when we returned to the surface (he did respawn back at the center, near the stairs). Whoops. Not a good place to get lazy while searching for traps. Riggilo did survive the bounce and we gave him a few extra bucks after that.  The temptress falls.  This is just because "Beholdermaster" cracked me up. If I make it to ToB I'm claiming this surname for Kondor. I feel this just jinxed this run, right?  Down below we get some friendly advice from some ghouls against Aec and... here it goes again:  Fortunately, the auto-pause let almost everyone chug a potion of absorption. I didn't take any screenshot of the fight against the DK but I found what ended my previous dwarven run. Power Word: Stun. Thankfully I'm running both Kivan and Coran with Arrows of Dispelling. After Durlag's we take a leisurely stroll back to Ulgoth's Beard righting some wrongs and pushing the party's reputation back to 19. Anyway, Cultists attack and I panic-Cloudkill a few of them (along with some poor chickens).  Wait, is someone else there? No, don't wander into the cloud you...  FFFFFFFFFFFFFF I swear I must have spent like 50000 gold on temples this run. (And also discovered that you cannot buy your way past 18). Anyway, Aec falls without causing too much trouble since I had been hoarding those yellow auto-save potions:  Then I tackle the rest of the TotSC content because I'm a completionist sucker. By this time everyone had reached the level cap besides Coran, who does it shortly after reaching into the skulls of the mages of the ice prison:  And the werewolves/wolfweres are put down:  Time for the final sprint. We rescue Eltan and take him to his buddy in the Harbor while chased by the Flaming Fist:  You're not getting a promotion anytime soon, Sherlock:  The dukes are saved and down to the Undercity. First Deheriana is avenged...  ...and then Sarevok falls. Also nice Critical Miss there for the final shot.  Honors: Ironling, Purist, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honorable Trader, Battlemaster, Roleplayer. Dishonors: none This is actually my second Ironling ever, and the first playing on a tablet. I will jump into SoD tomorrow (I've only made it to the dwarven miners last year I think), but will probably keep a slower pace since I'm going semi-blind and I will try to enjoy what is still new content to me.
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2019 03:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 17:08 |
|
|
The Nashkel Mines fell to Mi-guk. I tried to recruit Dorn but he died in his encounter, the idiot. The Bandit Camp went smoothly. After that, disaster fell, and I killed the Flaming Fist guy in the southern-most area of the map, not realising you lose reputation, this gave me despised reputation and Imoen and Kivan left IMMEDIATELY. I went and picked up Shar-teel so I had another meatshield. After that I went to Seawatcher under the belief that Safana was there, since I now needed a thief. I didn't find her, but I did find some Sirines:  And that was that:  Mi-guk the Fighter/Cleric has become foreverially charmed and is loving it, resulting in game over
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2019 17:12
|
|
|
Rayvek and the Flaming Fist have met up with the rest of the Coalition forces, and we can now consult with the finest strategic minds of the Sword Coast.   ...the finest strategic minds. We are in fact tasked with doing some scouting and engaging in a bit of pre-siege sabotage, involving some poison and the aforementioned Barrel of BWOOSH.  But first, antimagic ambush! This would be somewhat more dangerous if the antimagic affected potions or wands.  Caelar's seal lets us talk our way into most Crusade locations without a fight.  Not technically false! There's a lot of sidequesting to be done, both here and in the Coalition Camp. Also a fair bit of loot and potion ammo free for the taking. I didn't really bother with screenshots for most of that, but we exposed a spy among the Coalition (thanks to Safana's compulsive pickpocketing), rescued Skie again, ferreted out a Thieves Guild operation and got them onside, stole a bunch of stuff from the Crusade for a Coalition merchant, played Junior Detective for the Crusade, all the usual Important Hero stuff. Moving on...  Safana gets put in time-out after a vampire makes googly eyes at her.  She then gets put into, uh, a more permanent time-out, having gotten on the wrong end of some undead that shouldn't have been a problem for us.  We do a bit of party reconfiguration. (Viconia's fine, I just decided to swap in Jaheira for a bit more melee power.)  For once we find some druids who don't give us a ten-hour lecture and then try to murder us for walking in the woods.  We talk our way into the underground portion of the Underground River. We decide to explore a bit more before heading down, though.  M'Khiin runs into some kinsmen. They get a bit pushy, we get a bit pushy back.  We help some ogres with a leadership dispute. Turns out her mate, their former leader, is being held prisoner by the Crusade. We head underground. There's a sidequest that involves moving sacks of grain around. We...decline this particular honor.  David Warner pops by to be his usual mysterious and insulting self.  We find a ghost dragon. She's been bound to guard the passage down to Kanaglym, but her heart isn't really in it and her efforts to prevent us passing are limited to saying "no, wait, stop" in a deadpan voice.  Dear Penthouse... This ends up being a big fight against a bunch of dark magicians and a bunch of undead. And Kherrum, the person who did the less-than-perfect binding of the ghost dragon above. She's the most important person in this fight because if you do enough damage, the thing she's using to control the ghost dragon breaks. This is important because...  Ghost Dragon turns up partway into the fight. And if the thingamajigger is broken, then she's on our side, heh heh heh.  Afterwards, we chat a bit and she goes on to a better place. We, too, are soon off to a better place. But first:  There's a lich we can free and then murder. (Note that I had to buff Rayvek's intelligence to get the dialogue option that lets us fight him, otherwise he just teleports away.) This would be a tricky fight if not for the anti-lich rock we still have.  And this would be a tricky fight if we hadn't killed the lich.  We make our way into the Castle Dragonspear basement...and the seal trick doesn't work this time. (Jaheira still admonishes us for going straight for the murder option, because she's Jaheira.) We waste no time getting the food poisoned, going invisible in the process so that we can delay the inevitable a bit.  We find the spirit of Daeros Dragonspear, who (a) gives us some idea of what Hephernaan is actually up to and (b) points out some nice magic armor that's hidden here.  Hephernaan shows up along with like half the crusade. We have to fight our way out, and it's not easy, though it gets easier once we do enough damage to Hephernaan that he teleports away.  We get the hell out of dodge. Fortunately we manage to outrun word of what happened back there and make it back to the camp. Where we're immediately informed that Caelar wants to parley.  Rayvek actually offers herself up for this deal, but is overruled. There doesn't, unfortunately, seem to be much chance to lay out what we know about Hephernaan's actual agenda here. So I guess we're doing this the hard way. Next: Rayvek Does This The Hard Way.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2019 18:57
|
|
|
Matt Stryker quickly gets up to his old bullshit in Amn. Skeleton Squad gets the job done throughout Irenicus's dungeon, and the only reason I needed a party was for inventory slots.  There's got to be something ironic about enslaving the undead to defeat a group of slavers.   https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367104375 (12:04 for Skeleton Squad vs Copper Coronet) https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367104376 (6:37 for Skeleton Squad vs Slaver Leaders) After making a particularly annoying friend I go to put the amateur investigator skills honed in Dragonspear to good use.  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367108259 (4:05) Since Anomen proved he's best used as a pincushion I go to get him some better armor. It turns out I probably could have done this fight with just Skeleton Squad too.  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367108260 (4:27) Anomen continues making me regret my need for a pure-class good-aligned cleric.  False Dawn doesn't do as much damage as I'd hoped, and I lose Iron Party to a horde of shadows.  However, we trudge through the shadow dungeon and solve the boss with a barrage of Magic Missiles.  I think we'll be coming back for this.  Rayic Gethras comes down to greet his guests for once. He also died in a hail of magic missiles once that globe went down.  And while working for the thieves, I get hit across the face with a plot hook.  With those couple of quests down, Matt Stryker is going to see about that Cult of the Eyeless.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2019 20:43
|
|
|
Rayvek Beat Up The Devil, And All She Got Was This Lousy Murder Rap We go back to camp and find out that we're already under attack. The attacks come in convenient waves, and we get extra troops to deploy against each one.  We face down the trolls with fire-arrow armed archers. This is the only wave I got a screenshot of, alas. The others are wizards (against whom I deploy wizard slayers), some footsoldiers (I send in the rogues), and then a band of adventurers. One of the footsoldiers gets past our lines and everyone screams about retreating but nothing comes of it. After this, we bring the fight to Dragonspear. Now, I've played through Siege of Dragonspear before...up to this point. My last time through, during last year's Iron Man run, my longest-living character died during the siege. Let's see if history repeats itself?  It does not. Caelar isn't interested in surrender, and neither are we, so we chase her inside.  Hephernaan reveals his true colors.  We go to hell.  We answer a fiend's riddle and get this nice upgraded quarterstaff, which we'll get to use for all of one fight. And I won't even use it for that fight because I'll be using the Staff of Striking instead.  We ride an elevator for like a year.  And here we go. It's been years since I've played through Baldur's Gate but I haven't forgotten you, buddy. (Huh. According to IMDB they actually got David Ogden Stiers back for Behlifet. Cool.)  Behlifet's a tough fight, but he falls before repeated blows from the Staff of Striking.  Yeah, it's all you, buddy. We pass from regular Hell to Cutscene Hell. David Warner frames us for murder, we get exiled from Baldur's Gate, Imoen and the classic gang join up, we get ambushed by the Shadow Thieves, and that's all she wrote. Next: Baldur's Gate 2! Dragonsiege Honors: Siege Breaker, Honorable Trader, Iron Party. Strategist, technically though SCS doesn't do much here beyond the standard AI components.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2019 21:14
|
|
|
Arnaldo the Shaman has scalped some bandits. After taking care of the Gnoll Fortress, Arnaldo moves on to explore the coastline for a bit. Gibberlings, bears and Neville the fairest of all bandits alike fall before our might.  Neera brings her own Ogre to a fight against two Ogre Berserkers courtesy of a surge.  This is the Lure of the Sirine's Call mod, which adds a little quest to the lighthouse area. It turns out said lighthouse has been taken over by pirates that have antagonized the local Sirine population. We side with the Sirines.  Xan charms the enemy Mage, who proceeds to cast Horror and hits most of his crew with it. Soon after, the second stat tome is ours as a reward for getting rid of the pirates and Arnaldo's ruggedly handsome features are now so rugged they restore themselves as he gains inherent regeneration. Perhaps more importantly for the immediate future, we also get the Wand of Paralyzation.  Khalid kisses a mermaid and it doesn't kill him, which I guess is a 2.5 change (?).  A fight against some random Ogres goes spectacularly wrong but luckily, the Surgeon is nearby. Another detour sees us go west of Nashkel where we pick up some loot including the Wand of Monster Summoning and our two Mages (plus aspiring Mage Imoen) engage in arcane discourse with one Narcillicus Harwilliger Neen.  He drops scrolls of Lightning Bolt, which Neera learns, and Web, which would be great except Neera already knows the spell and Xan can't learn it. We also do Neera's quest.  I'm not sure if this bear is supposed to be hostile or if this is a bug (possibly caused by an SCS component messing with bears) but the Goblins including our guide attack the bear and we have to kill it.  I think it's a little late for that.  I'm playing the fight against Ekandor extremely aggressively to make sure he doesn't get to use his Stoneskin scroll. Xan pays for it with his life, but it does work. (Xan doesn't get the scroll, of course, Neera does.)  Of course those would show up when I'm down a party member. Neera gets backstabbed through Mirror Image, which kills her instantly, but the fight isn't actually that tough. The main challenge is arranging my inventory to make sure I get the gear of my two dead Mages to the nearest temple. What follows is a shopping spree; we buy a Wand of Sleep for Imoen, all the magic Molotovs we can find, and some other things including scrolls.  Xan's literacy remains under question. This was Hold Person, too, which he should get a bonus chance to transcribe. He gets it right when we buy him a second scroll, at least. And then, it's time for the bandit camp. We are about as geared up as we can be and pretty overleveled for it - Jaheira, Neera and Xan can all cast level 3 spells. But I did have some trouble there during last year's ironman run.  Layering Web and persistent AoE damage is still good.   The Sleep spell saves some dogs. This is an Unfinished Business component; you get a scroll of Animal Summoning I as a reward which would be pretty good to have at this point in the game but when I use it in the bandit camp it does nothing.  It's an absolute slaughter anyway. We're not just overleveled, we're also bringing lots of AoE damage so the archers and Raemon the Mage go down quickly. Jaheira and Khalid are both on a Potion of Absorption so Taurgosz Khosann, who is easily the most dangerous individual enemy we've fought so far, can't touch them. We close the chapter by selling 90 scalps to Vai.  Next up: Ulcaster, Gullykin and the Cloakwood. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Jan 21, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2019 09:17
|
|
|
How are you gentlegoons. After the unfulfilling death of The Pebble, I’m ready to do this once again. I’ll try to be as quick with BG1 as possible. It’s time for more pain and death  Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist is ready to solo. This time I’m not going to refrain myself when it comes to cheese. I spend the first twenty minutes in Candlekeep questing and doing some good ol’ cheese.  Repeatedly spawning and killing watchers. It turns out that if no one sees you doing evil things, even if everybody knows it (reputation loss), no one cares if you have enough money  Basically, rest in an isolated place, aggro the watcher that spawns, use your familiar to kite it and kill him. Loot the armor and sell it for a truckload of money, rinse and repeat. When I hit level 2/2, I use all the accumulated money to get my reputation back to normal and have some spare money to boot. After Candlekeep, I do my usual routine.  Basilisk hunting and miscellaneous questin.  Wand fetching.  Clear the Nashkel mines and kill Mulahey.  Nearly dying to rear end in a top hat bounty hunters.  Clearing the bandit camp.  More bounty hunters. Also, have I mentioned how much I hate the Cloakwood forest?  Davaeorn goes down.  Before I get to Baldur’s Gate, I make a quick trip to the ice maze to get my scroll of stoneskin. I hit level cap. This is the only TotSC I’m going to do.  Candlekeep redux. Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist has cleared the Candlekeep Cathacombs
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2019 23:22
|
|
|
Matt Stryker has been incredibly busy in Amn. He sets off to do the Unseeing Eye quest, but then Aerie whines that we should go see Quayle's friend. And since we've already started the quest, I figure I might as well do the whole Planar Prison. The return of Skeleton GANG.  The fight does not go well for Skeleton GANG.  Luckily, Skeleton GANG was a bunch of dupes to get the Warden to unload his high-level spells and keep the Umber Hulks away from me, and Spider GANG finishes the job.  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367681742 (7:32) Anomen passes his test by not going on a vengeance-fueled rampage.  Mazzy's quest fires, so I head over to Trademeet to knock that and the rest of the Trademeet quests out when...  Jan's quest fires! Before going on to that I finish Mazzy's quest, since it's pretty short.  We head back to Athkatla to do Jan's quest. I don't remember ever doing it before, and even though I was incredibly frustrated (I had been playing about 3 hours and still not gotten to the Unseeing Eye quest) it's very cool.  Too bad it has a bad ending   I reunite a wild mage with his cats before starting on Neera's quest, because at this point why the gently caress not.  Her quest introduces us to some colorful characters.  On the way to meeting this guy, we run into a violent group of sailors. After some initial success we suffer a severe reversal and have to retreat, then come back with Skeleton GANG. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367681739 (10:01) But mostly, just red ones.  I can see that this is going to be a rough one, so to buy some time I call up Skeleton GANG for backup.  Things got dicey for a while, with a horde of mercenaries easily overwhelming Mazzy and Anomen. Luckily I always keep 2 Invisibility spells memorized on my PC for scouting.  Skeleton GANG comes back.  And this fight was supremely annoying. My Nishruu gets iced before it can take out many of her spells, and she spends a lot of time going invisible and running around.  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367681741 (19:46) Since I already started the drat thing I go ahead and do Trademeet.  For some introduction to this: I don't use Lightning Bolt. I don't use Wands of Lightning. They don't bounce off walls as you would predict, and generally strike me as elaborate ways to kill off your entire party by accident. I don't have the same problem with Fireballs and other AoE attacks, so I rely on those. But while outside, with no backstop, I figure sure, why not throw off a lightning bolt. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367681743 (0:33) The lightning bolt bounces off NOTHING and flies halfway across the map to hit Cernd, turning him hostile. I try to Dominate and Charm him so that I can talk to him to go through with the challenge, but no dice. So I take a break from the quest and go back to pick up Jaheira. As soon as I recruit her, the Harper's Hold poo poo starts. So I go to the nearest inn to rest and get her back... which is of course the one with Baron Ployer, which I missed in my frustration. So I do her quest AND the Galvarey fight before going back to the Druid Grove. I am out of patience at this point.  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367681740 (2:53) Then when we go back Cernd has turned neutral again (didn't know that would happen, fun fact for next time!) and we have him easy mode the Druid Challenge. gently caress off, Rasaad.  NOW, after six hours, I can get to the Unseeing Eye quest.  All the questing between when I wanted to start this and actually getting to it has caused some irregularity with the spawns.  I've worked in a place like this once. For real though, these guys are part of the reason I love this quest so much, I really feel for them. The Gauntlets of Dexterity for Anomen are a nice bonus.  But I got the device, and nuke this fucker into oblivion. As an aside, I really like the Beholder areas, the architecture here is really cool.    To celebrate a new spell level I go to fill out the spellbooks of all my casters. Unfortunately, there's a hiccup in between.  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367685651 (3:49) Now that I'm all hosed up on level 7 spells I head off to de'Arnise keep, where Jan tells the greatest story I've ever heard.  Anomen doesn't much like it, but I do.  This is gonna be rough.  This was very rough. I had to Resurrect Mazzy mid-combat and have her stab it with the Sword of Backstab while I moved my PC in to melee, and tried some Lower Resists on the Iron Golem.  Finally, we get to TorGal, who's a breeze with Sword GANG.  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/367686229 (2:52) Yeah that sucks Nalia.  Tune in tomorrow when Matt Stryker goes dragon hunting!
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2019 23:23
|
|
|
 Made a new one, who promptly died just as fast as Malia did.  BUT. There is hope! This lady, here, has made it all the way to Beregost, got past the Neesha fight and the silly Silke situation. I had to stop there, though, so there's not much to report this time--but at least Sophia got farther than the others!
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2019 04:48
|
|
|
Ok, I've started a new campaign with Mon-gol the Blackguard. Only notable things are killing the usual assassins and killing Unshey for fun. Rolling around with some meatshields and grinding a little exp before doing the Nashkel Mines.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2019 15:29
|
|
|
Rayvek is in Amn The less said about Chateau d'Irenicus the better. It's been a few years since I've properly played BG2, but I still have the entire drat thing all but memorized. I've two mod-related observations: First, the SCS component called "slightly improved starter dungeon" upgrades the random goblin encounters to random duergar encounters, oh and you're not allowed to rest more than once. I do not consider either of these to be improvements, slight or otherwise. Second, the mod Check The Bodies about which I know very little aside from "it adds stuff", apparently believing that this dungeon wasn't tedious enough, put in an extended reminiscence that is one part extended clip show for the first game and one part "let's make the player navigate babby Bhaalspawn through doing a bunch of chores in Candlekeep." Fortunately an option was included to skip the chores, which I did.  Anyway, welcome to Athkatla, Rayvek and assorted bereaved party members oh and Yoshimo the conveniently-available substitute thief. We do what any self-respecting adventuring party would do when dumped unceremoniously in the middle of a big city...we hit up the nearest pub.  Where we find an old friend. We can't recruit Isra just yet, we have to go to the Government District for that.  Man, after everything I went through to get a single Stoneskin scroll in BG1 and now they're just dropped in the middle of the street.  We head off to the circus to rescue Aerie. She's not my favorite writing-wise but at least there's no chance of romance, and she's one of the best casters in the game, so we'll be keeping her around for a while. (Hey, did anyone hear any kind of ominous music?)  Kind of our reaction too, Uncle Quayle.  I think this is Unfinished Business that gives us an extra hook for Kalah's deal.  We head up to the slums to start the next chapter and deal with this bit of, uh, inspired voice acting, before we divert to the Government District.  Goddammit, Viconia, I turn my back on you for five minutes... We rescue her, but do not at this time recruit her.  This woman, being accosted by thugs, happens to be Isra's sister, and the reason she's here in Athkatla. (Isra is from somewhere else in Amn, Crimmor, I think.) We recruit her and start looking into who's trying to put the squeeze on Sister Ghadir-Jysstev and her husband.  We also recruit Jan who, even if he weren't the broken combo that is illusionist/thief, is one of my favorite NPCs in the game. He'll be staying for the long haul. (Man, there's that ominous music again.)  We also get recruited for Valygar's quest, which we'll get to, time and weather permitting.  Finally we make our way to the Copper Coronet, give Anomen a firm handshake and a firmer "no" (at least for now), recruit Nalia (probably only temporarily), and start digging into the sinister slaver dealings here. I somehow managed not to take a single screenshot of the slaver HQ but, uh, we scoured the place clean with relatively little harm done to our heroes. (Okay, now some dude is saying something about overconfidence being a slow and insidious killer. Is no one else hearing this?)  We take the injured Renfield back to the Harpers' complex, which Xzar promptly asks us to infiltrate. Yeah, buddy, we'll get right on that. But first we're off to: Trolltown!  I don't really get why the Yuan-Ti were working with trolls, but then I don't really get why they do anything they do.  We de-charmify Nalia's dad's bodyguard  Forge the best weapon in the game (which no one can presently use), and it's all smooth sailing til the SCS-beefed-up fight with Tor'gal...  Tor'gal hits like a truck but it's really the two Yuan-Ti mages and their summons on top of every drat troll in the hemisphere that cause trouble. Rayvek Is No Longer Pursuing The Iron Party Honor.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2019 01:49
|
|
|
Matt Stryker has slain some dragons. I start out talking to some townspeople to see how things have been in my absence.  Well yeah, what was I going to do, NOT buy teenagers a keg of beer and weapons? Yeah buddy, that's right. We're back.  We deploy ourselves for the battle ahead.  For someone we have completely surrounded, it's quite smug.  And down he goes.  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/368328810 (4:09) In order to get to the only other dragon, we have to go through Firkraag's dungeon. But I promised you good people dragons today, and that's what you'll get. After getting my revenge on Ajantis for being the worst tank on the Sword Coast I get started on the dungeon proper, by blowing up some hobgoblins with AoEs.  Sword GANG lets me deal with Iron Golems with relative impunity. At least, nobody dies as a result.  Skeleton GANG takes over for Sword GANG once their time is up, and we get ready to take on a whole pile of undead.  I didn't realize just how big the pile was so I didn't screenshot until the battle was over, but here's the aftermath.  Oh a Beholder, I know what to do! Unfortunately it doesn't have a gaze attack and just fires magic missiles at Mazzy until it thankfully runs out when she's within an inch of her life.  These people were planning to betray us? Well I never.  Old tricks and Skeleton GANG get the work done.  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/368328813 (4:44) An Iron Golem is no match... but what about an Adamantite Golem?  Sword GANG was busy, so we dealt with it ourselves.  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/368328811 (3:23) We'll be coming back for you too.  Mazzy demonstrates a perfect understanding of Jan.  Again, we array ourselves for battle.  We cut through his magic resistance and open up with a broadside of magic missiles.  And we end the feud.  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/368328812 (2:49) - The game glitched out after killing him. Anomen died, and I when I raised him he was invisible (no paperdoll even)  , and rooted in place. I reloaded, did everything the same, and this is the result. I think he was supposed to explode but didn't, and the game no longer knew what to do with him.With only a little experience left to go, I move the story forward to chapter 3 so I can hit level 15.  It's better than the alternative, trust me.  Tomorrow, Matt Stryker claims the Planar Sphere, or dies trying.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2019 04:07
|
|
|
docbeard posted:Second, the mod Check The Bodies about which I know very little aside from "it adds stuff", apparently believing that this dungeon wasn't tedious enough, put in an extended reminiscence that is one part extended clip show for the first game and one part "let's make the player navigate babby Bhaalspawn through doing a bunch of chores in Candlekeep." Fortunately an option was included to skip the chores, which I did.  Even with Ctrl + J it was incredibly tedious. I've never installed that mod again. I'm kinda surprised it's still around/was updated for the EE.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2019 05:40
|
|
|
Wizard Styles posted:The Candlekeep chores were the only part of Check the Bodies I got to see when I installed it a long time ago. I still remember that for some reason you're not just spending several days walking around Candlekeep, baby Charname also has a reduced walking speed. Haha, yeah, I was wondering if I was imagining the slower walkspeed. (I only put up with it long enough to trigger the "yeah, I'm not doing any chores" option.) It also gave me a bunch of extra 1/day powers that I'm not touching because even my tolerance for cheese has its limits and giving a Kensai Offensive Spin for no drat reason is a bit on the edge of that (though Improved Haste isn't exactly unavailable to me right now). I haven't really done any of its other sidequests yet; I'm trying to avoid too much mod content til I level my characters up some, since I think most of them expect your character to be a bit higher than the 9-11 range most of my party is in.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2019 12:10
|
|
|
Celeste the solo Blade has thwarted Sarevok's plot  First things first, killing Drizz't by accidentally finding a new way to trigger an old bug. I'm not proud of it, but its much less dull than using a longbow and a wand of Monster Summoning for 20+ minutes.  Celeste is now, as far as I know, completely set for equipment for the rest of BG1. Actually using the chain mail instead of immediately selling it is a nice change of pace.  Moving into Baldur's Gate, Cythandria's ogres are changed to stone golems by SCS. They hit really hard (Around 30 damage per hit) but they're not too tough to hit themselves with Offensive Spin, and they died quite quickly. Cythandria is an Invoker, her spells were useless against Celeste's buffs, and it was just a matter of time before she surrendered.    Slythe and Krystin were easier than I expected. Slythe missed on a x4 back-stab then took a pair of massive critical hits back to back, and promptly exploded. Krystin lasted a while longer, but even level 13 Conjurers (A very high level by BG1 standards) run out of spells eventually and she died after a short period of melee combat.  A double Web Sequencer bought just enough time to reduce the amount of enemy dopplegangers from 6 to 3, which allowed me to just about keep both Dukes alive. SCS changes this encounter to give the dopplegangers a mage, priest and an assassin, which adds a little variety to things. Honestly, I have no idea who killed what here, its incredibly hectic and almost impossible to keep track of, but it didn't really matter in the end. It would be nice if Liia Jannath actually defended herself instead of standing there like a mindless idiot, though.  I, and a couple of unfortunate members of the Flaming Fist, kept Sarevok occupied for just long enough to keep the Dukes alive before Winski teleported him away to the Thieves Maze, but he can wait. Celeste has business to attend to in Ulgoth's Beard. Edit, might as well add the Ice Island to this post, since its so short I only got 3 screenshots.   Every single mage on the Ice Island was vulnerable to the Wand of Paralyzation. It was incredibly simple to clear, it was all a bit disappointing really.  I'm really going to get some good use out of this one. Next up is Balduran's Island. Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? biscuits and crazy fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Jan 23, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2019 17:04
|
|
|
Rufus is still moving slowly with many evil casualties. Managed to kill Unshey’s ogre and head down to Beregost. Survived Silke’s betrayal by surrounding her. Recruited Kagain. Killed Liandrin’s spiders then decided to head down to Nashkel whereupon to ogrillons outside of Beregost made short work of Kagain and Montaron. Considering I’m doing my pseudo NPC Ironman (barring characters who turn up Irenicus’s dungeon) they will stay dead. Perhaps I’ll be left with only Imoen, Minsc, Jaheira and Khalid by the end of the game due to my inexperience and incompetence.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2019 08:27
|
|
|
Updated the OP to here. Great progress by (almost) all so far, only a couple of deaths since last time!
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2019 11:05
|
|
|
Rufus’s unhappy band of expendable were buried under a pile of stabby kobolds. If only his first sleep spell had succeeded.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2019 13:14
|
|
|
Celeste the solo Blade has returned to the Sword Coast  Balduran's Island is pretty simple, all things considered. The wolfweres are not really threatening, with the exception of Karoug, who has incredible regen and is immune almost all weapons. (I think there are 4 in the entire game that can damage him) I was fortunate enough at the start of battle to lure him to a lower floor alone. I'm really glad I didn't sell Aldeth's bastard sword, even with the stun Celeste would never have got through Karoug's regen with the Werebane dagger alone. For whatever reason, the mage disappeared entirely after Karoug's death, but I'm fine with that.  SCS lets you talk your way past Kaishas without a fight, so after doing just that and returning to the mainland, I confronted Mendas/Selaad. Baresh did his usual turn into 2 werewolves trick but they were both stunned and killed fairly quickly. Fortunately, Mendas's magic was largely ineffective during all of this.   That was very fortunate timing on that stun. I really should be more careful with things like this, especially this late into BG1.   I love that this guy gets the name wrong. Shame, I was enjoying the tour until this dude arrived.  8 out of 8 Tomes found. Celeste has ludicrous stats now.  I've lost count of how many mages I've killed this way.    This wand is amazing. The real fun begins now. Might have to rest up first, though.  Next up is Durlag's Tower.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2019 18:53
|
|
|
Rayvek Has Gone Back To Her Roots Roots? Get it? Because she duals to a druid in this update...enh. So somehow at the end of the Tor'gal fight, I managed not to save my game before quitting. I distinctly remember hitting Q but maybe there was an ongoing spell or something and I didn't notice that it didn't let me save. So I had to redo it, and that time I came through with no casualties. But of course this is an Iron Man run so the original party deaths stand. So we'll just sort of assume that I raised Aerie and Jan somewhere along the way and that my Iron Party honor is gone gone gone. We return to the city and stop to cool our heels in the Crooked Crane, where we come across this bit of local gossip.  Everyone tells us not to get involved. So we don't.  Upstairs, we find the dude who sold Kalah the lamp, who turns out to be a rakshasha. No relation to Verr'sza as far as I know. We buy the command word for one final wish from him, and I'm sure this won't blow up in our faces or anything.  We also get a hook for a mod-added escort quest which, as I mentioned above, I'm trying to steer clear of for now. Though there is one mod-added quest I can't really ignore; the matter of Isra's sister, who's husband is being targeted by someone. All we have to go on is a set of initials and something pointing in the general direction of the Cowled Wizards...  Who are as helpful as you might expect. But once we go outside...  We'll find out later that this seems to be standard Cowled Wizard practice, officially deny anything and then hit you up when it can be a less official conversation. Anyway, she offers to send us to the perpetrator's house...  Where negotiations break down. We're still not really sure what this is about, but the threat seems to be gone for now, and Isra decides to travel with us for the time being. We head back to the Crooked Crane for one more bit of unfinished business...  You can't tell from the screenshot but Rayvek's rocking a Protection From Magic scroll. (My alternate title for this update was "Rayvek Abandons Honor(s)". Even with the scroll, this fight goes on forever because he has a ton of Protection From Magic Weapons and Stoneskins and at one point he somehow manages to Fear Rayvek in spite of the PFM, so I have to send Isra in (sans scroll, but by this point it doesn't matter much) to do damage control. Good thing too, since I think it's Azuredge, which she's wielding, that actually kills him.  Still, any fight you can walk away from, huh?  We head over to the Bridge District to meet someone in the Five Flagons and get dragged into the Skinner Murder Tour.  We also meet up with a Lathandrite who wants a bit of off-the-books wetwork done in exchange for providing us an alternate route to Spellhold. We don't commit to anything yet.  Welp, nothing suspicious here, we're convinced. (We are not convinced.)  On my way out, after sorting out the murder house, I run into Neera. Well, eventually. I first run into a cutscene where she is supposed to appear and absolutely refuses to, grinding everything to a halt and making the game unplayable. I end up having to dig into it with NearInfinity (the use of which I am absolutely not an expert in) to determine that somehow a global variable got hosed up. No idea what caused it, though I guess that's how we have to roll in modtown.  Raelis sends Aerie a note, so I suspect there's a Planar Prison somewhere in our near future. But not yet.  Instead, we infiltrate the Harpers on Xzar's behalf. We have the opportunity, this time, to agree to work with them to assassinate him rather than just be duped into it, which I happily take, because gently caress that creepazoid. It all plays out more or less as usual except we get handed the Montaron Bird outright instead of finding him.  We could also betray them to him, but obviously I'm not doing that.  Speaking of betrayal, we also infiltrate the Shadow Thieves Guild because, I don't know, we were in the neighborhood. (Isra isn't thrilled about any of this.) On our way to rob the Temple of Talos for Mae'Var, we stop in for a rest. Wait, wasn't this the inn where that rear end in a top hat who curses Jaheira is holed up?  Yup. So now we've got that to deal with. (We deal with it.)  Just in time for Jaheira to run off.  While we wait for her to come back, we get the Unseeing Eye quest, and steal the Talos Priestess's necklace.  Jaheira comes back and drags us back to Harpertown, where Galvarey has decided we're his meal ticket. Jaheira has some objections to this, and frankly so do I.  Dude, we literally went to hell together like a week ago.  A few sidequests later, and Mae'var gets his. Just before this fight, Rayvek hits level 13, and dual-classes to druid.  Yup, it's Raelis Shae time, I guess. Next: Rayvek the
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2019 02:05
|
|
|
You're a brave man, docbeard... Rayvek is going to be nearly bloody useless for a long time. I'm too much of a coward to dual-class; I've never done it in pen and paper 2nd edition nor in any video game. I actually can't think of another 2nd edition D&D video game that allows dual-classing apart from BG and IWD, but you get my point.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2019 02:19
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:You're a brave man, docbeard... Rayvek is going to be nearly bloody useless for a long time. I'm too much of a coward to dual-class; I've never done it in pen and paper 2nd edition nor in any video game. Eh, at least the early levels go by fast especially for a druid, but yeah, it'll be a while until she's anything but an underleveled caster. The Gold Box games let you dual-class too but they weren't even 2nd Edition, I think. And of course multiclassing was completely different afterwards.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2019 02:32
|
|
|
With my other chars dead, I've started a new run, Ayeol the Sorceress Rolling with Minsc, Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, and Neera and am about the genocide the xvart village on my way to rescue Dynaheir
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2019 17:09
|
|
|
docbeard posted:Eh, at least the early levels go by fast especially for a druid, but yeah, it'll be a while until she's anything but an underleveled caster. Heh, I forgot to account for how BG2 hands out XP like candy. One major quest later and she's back to level 11 and I didn't even abuse scroll scribing (much). Of course, given the way Druid XP works, those last 3 levels are going to take significantly longer to make.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2019 17:15
|
|
|
Why'd you choose level 13 anyways to do it at?
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2019 20:55
|
|
|
Keldulas posted:Why'd you choose level 13 anyways to do it at? My original plan was to dual at 9 but that would have had her as a low-level druid going through Durlag's Tower, the fight against the Demon Knight, Aec, the endgame BG1 stuff, etc. which felt like a bad idea for an Iron Man run. Waiting til 13 got me an extra +1 bonus to the Kensai attack/damage bonus (for a total of +4 attack/damage) and an extra half-attack and whatever those 4 fighter levels give me in terms of THACO and such. It probably wasn't worth it but whatevs.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2019 21:09
|
|
|
Rayvek Has Sent A False God To Hell, Sent A Real God To Heaven, And Sent A Prison Warden To...Hell Again, Probably The prison warden was the worst of the lot. By a considerable margin. For those following Project Dual Class, I can't recall exactly what level Rayvek was at the end of the last update, something like 7 or 8, just off the strength of wrapping up the Mae'var questline. Which sounds about right, 60K XP, 3/4ths of which was that last bout of quest experience. My broad agenda, which I pretty much stuck to, was to do the Unseeing Eye and the Planar Prison quests this update.  Though first I decided to check out an unfamiliar underground area in the Slums, and found this delightful fellow. He's got a quest for us to gather fungus from the fungus monsters on the next level. Watch how fast I go. (Hint: not fast. Or at all, at least not yet.)  We abandon these sewers for some other ones, where we find these fine fellows and murder the poo poo out of them.  You'll see here a teleport field (annoying as gently caress), a hidden door we can't open, and a mostly healthy party. If I'd gotten that screenshot like three seconds before, you'd not have seen a mostly healthy party, but thanks to AI scripting everyone who can cast a healing spell runs around like little healbot maniacs after every combat. It's kind of fun to watch.  We meet up with Keldorn, and I make a decision that Jaheira, having recently sided with me against a top secret intelligence network, needs to go into Witness Protection.  She does not take it well. (I wasn't actually expecting her to leave forever, and while I had no plans to pick her up again, since I don't really need two fighter/druids, I'm still feeling a little conflicted. Oh well!) We come up for air, and to check in with Raelis Shae for Aerie's sake (and get the quest to rescue Haer'Dalis).  This reminds me of the time I was playing Oblivion and I'd just gotten back from one of those Daedric towers only to be accosted by an idiot highwayman. DO YOU NOT SEE THAT I AM ON FIRE AND CARRYING THE HEAD OF A DEMON, SON?  This encounter with some vampire thieves proves a bit more of a hassle, and necessitates a visit to a temple to get back some of Aerie's and Keldorn's missing blood and experience.  Raelis tells us a sob story about her missing actor friend and the planar gem he definitely didn't steal.  Back to the sewers, where we find this potion scientist. (He wants us to bring him a bunch of potions. Watch how fast we etc.)  I was not expecting beholders up here. But fortunately I came prepared. (Of note: I did not install the SCS components that 'improve' beholders or their areas. And I sure as gently caress did not install the component that removes the admittedly overpowered Shield of Balduran from the game. Because, and I cannot stress this enough, gently caress beholders.)  We make our way further downstairs, deal with shadows and traps and gas chambers and meet up with Gaal, who sends us even further down to recover an artifact for his, um, god.  Hey, sleeping beauty in the sarcophagus. We'll be back for you later.  We meet monsters, and a talking bridge.  I actually really like this story hook; eternal guardians of a temple so old that the god they worship is forgotten by everyone, even the god itself, and no one, including them, gives a poo poo any more.  We use the power of love on the manifestation of hate, chat up the forgotten god, and get his forgotten rod.  A bit of intrigue and an exchange of code phrases later and we're hip deep in mummies. Azuredge proves to be worth every penny, as do Isra's 20 casts a day of Remove Fear. We head to Beholderville, Aerie cheeses a bunch of beholders with the Shield of gently caress You Beholders...  And we've got the full godrod.  Even with it, the Unseeing Eye manages to get a Horrid Wilting off before its untimely death, causing Nalia's untimely (if temporary) death. Once we sort that out and loot the rest of Beholdertown, we mop up what's left of the cultists and head back to the Temple of Helm to collect our reward, and our next quest.  But first we return the artifact to the forgotten god and his whiny guardians to be destroyed, and thus restore hope and freedom and the name of the ancient god of the sun. It's very cool.  Our next stop is  We recruit Haer'dalis and send Nalia off to the Copper Coronet. She, at least, doesn't storm off forever.  While we're on our way back to the Five Flagons, we stop off in the Government District to meet up with an artist about a contract, and Keldorn insists we meet the fam.  ...it could have gone better.  I feel like you might be overreacting a bit, buddy.  Uh...yeah. Definitely overreacting.  Yeah, sure, buddy. Watch how fast we go.  We take a shortcut through the Graveyard and, oh yeah, she wants to make us an offer. (The paladins in the party really are not on board, for obvious reasons.) We, uh, tell her to watch how fast we go.  We also find someone who got himself buried a bit before his time.  Some doppelgangers hit us in a random encounter. We destroy them with, well, rather than overkill I prefer to think of it as justenoughkill.  We return to the playhouse, the company prepares to return home, and I totally space on the fact that Haer'Dalis is gonna get yanked out of the party with the rest of his troupe. Oh well!  I do not like the Planar Prison. The encounters are both tough and fiddly, but we persevere, and it mostly works out.  We kill the Master of Thralls without too much problem, and the general plan is to let the freed Thralls soften up the Warden a bit til his pre-cast buffs wear off and we can go in and mop up. ...it does not go according to plan at all. Keldorn ate an Imprisonment and Jan and Aerie are killed. At one point I'm sure it's gonna be a Game Over, since it's just Isra and Rayvek against a Warden who hasn't even been hurt yet and a bunch of summoned monsters, none of which are ours. Then, somehow, we turn it around.  I Rod of Resurrection Jan back, he manages to partially debuff the Warden and nails some of the summons with a Hold Monster, and while it takes a while and a bunch of healing potions, at last the Warden falls. (Thankfully, I thought to buy a Freedom scroll a while back. Also thankfully, Freedom scrolls are a thing already thanks to an SCS module that, presumably is meant to compensate for stuff in this chapter casting Imprisonment.)  Isra decides that this is the perfect time to talk about the good ol' days.  Keldorn's a bit disoriented by his trip to Imprisonment Land.  YOU GOT THAT RIGHT, LADY On the bright side, Rayvek is now Level 12. Only...1.2 million XP to go. Next Time: Um...I Dunno, Maybe A Dragon.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 04:16
|
|
|
Celeste the solo Blade has cleared Durlag's Tower and killed Aec'Letec.  The 4 Warders were isolated and killed one at a time, they're tough but manageable this way. I had to kite Pride, his damage is way too high to beat in melee combat.  The 2nd floor was not a problem, the 4 Doom Guards aren't great fighters and didn't even get through all of Celeste's Stoneskins.  On the 3rd floor, luring the greater wyverns and ashirikuru to the fireball room let me deal with them with very little hassle.  Chess is very simple if you buff up and use lots of Fireballs until the King is left alone.  Poor Grael died quickly, Free Action makes his attacks much less threatening.   Hahahahaha. Even without the stun, the Demonknight was a piece of cake. He was long out of spells by this point, and kiting him with Prat's +2 Throwing Axe was working quite well, so it was just a matter of time either way. The wand unexpectedly working just sped up the inevitable victory.   Back in Ulgoth's Beard, the cult fell to the same strategy every other large group of enemies did. Buffs, then Webs + Fireballs works every time.    Luring Aec'Letec upstairs made killing the cultists downstairs a simple task, then I returned upstairs to kill the demon. He and the last cultist were both stunned, they didn't last long at all after that. So that's all the Tales stuff done, only one thing left to do in BG1 now. Next up is Sarevok in the Undercity. biscuits and crazy fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Jan 26, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 20:28
|
|
|
Alas, the only dragon in this update is the way that Rayvek Is Being Dragged In Every Direction At Once. (I am so so sorry.) After Keldorn got a taste of Imprisonment while in, fittingly enough, the Planar Prison, I realized that, wow, he really is just a week away from retirement, and decided to attend to his family problems, namely the dude his wife's been stepping out with while he was away on Radiant Heart business.  He is cheerfully unapologetic and does his best to talk some sense into Keldorn. I send Keldorn off to be with his family, and I'd like to think that Rayvek discreetly placed some literature for a good anger management counselor in his belongings before he went.  Speaking of anger management... We hire him on to do his quest as a diversion before we head off to the Umar Hills.  I...what...you weren't even in the party when we agreed to do that! It begins.  We knock over a pirate hideout behind the Sea's Bounty. Way to hide in plain sight, guys.  We also engage in some epic heroism.  Epic. Heroism.  I have enough mods that add miscellanous quests that I have no idea where this one comes from. This one's pretty straightforward, though; find his wife and reunite them so they can say goodbye.  The sorts of undead this place throws at us aren't a significant threat now, though we still have to keep on our toes for the level-draining and stat-draining critters. Mummies are the most dangerous things here, though, and having a Cavalier in the party more or less neuters them. Well, and the traps obviously, but Jan's more or less on top of those.  Of course.  Of course.  On our way back to sort out Korgan's pals, we find the dude who's been having people buried alive. We also do not REPEAT DO NOT go anywhere near that trapped door right now.  Okay. Now that that's sorted out, we can go off to the Umar-  Or we can do this instead. I don't think I showed off the start of this quest, but it's part of the (it turns out) aptly-named Dungeon Crawl mod. Some adventurers (who aren't us) have been hired to find a lost treasure chest. They outsource some of the legwork to some other adventurers (who are us). Unfortunately, we're not the only ones hunting for this info; we come across the guy who's supposed to have the info being accosted by this lovely group, known as the Shadow Pack (who come across as basically the D&D equivalent of Team Rocket). They kill him but drop a hint of where to go next before teleporting away.  This guy's one of the adventurers we're working with. We're here (well, they are, we're just sort of coming with) to meet up with a captain whose ship they're chartering to go after the treasure chest. We can, if we're total heels, side with Team Shadow at this point. We don't, and they teleport away, never to be seen again.  I hadn't necessarily planned on going with them quite yet, and yet here we are.  And of course it all turns out to be a trap. We're now in the dungeon crawl portion of the Dungeon Crawl mod. The other adventuring group decides we should split up and meet at the top of the dungeon. I'm not even sure what the point of them is at this point; I think we're probably just looking at people from the mod creator's D&D campaign. We make our way up through the dungeon, which is the usual trap-filled monster-filled sort of thing. Monsters are undead, and golems, oh and a lich and a beholder. The lich eats an early death thanks to Azuredge before it can even get a single spell off, and the beholder falls victim to the Shield Of gently caress You Beholders. They actually start off non-hostile so there might have been an alternative path here, but gently caress it.  We meet the dungeon's big boss. An evil rabbit.  He ain't all that. He runs off to, presumably, fight (someone else, one hopes) another day.  The other adventurers show up while we're in cutscene hell to teleport us back to Athkatla. (Why they couldn't do that before...though I guess they didn't have the treasure chest then. Which I guess we now have. I guess.) So all that remains is to go inside, and turn the treasure off to the guy who hired them, and find out just what's inside.  Ahem. Moving on.  Speaking of pants... Funny story here. So normally the way to get these is to collect the ransom on a noblewoman that the Graveyard kidnappers were holding. You can kind of get around this by pickpocketing the guy who shows up to deliver the ransom and then going back to set her free. Which is what I do. Except that when I went back and set her free, the guy showed up to give us a reward. In the form of some silver pantaloons. So now I have two of them. Okay, so now that that's dealt with, we can head off to the U-  Yeah okay. Turns out that there's more to the story of Isra's sister's husband (one Quentin Jysstev) and the wizard who was harrassing them; Quentin's been arrested for smuggling, and Isra's other sister thinks he's innocent. Isra is now Rayvek's girlfriend so I guess we should help her out. (I'm...wary of mod-added romances but this one's pretty innocuous so far, and Isra is generally pretty well-written. The biggest annoyance is that Isra demands a kiss or something literally every five minutes or so, but it's still so far never been either inappropriate or creepy, which puts it ahead of most mod romances and frankly ahead of the stock Bioware romances.)  This sidequest is not super convoluted but it does involve a lot of running around.  I can't remember why we were back in the graveyard district; I think it was to turn in the teddy bear quest. But we meet another ghost with unfinished business. He tells us he'll turn up at midnight and give us the details then. I'm not sure why he can't just do it now but, eh, ghosts.  This is the prisoner whose testimony got Isra's brother-in-law arrested. He won't talk to us unless we bring him his favorite drink from the Sea's Bounty. But we get some info on him (namely that he had it bad for a married woman...hmm...) that negates the need to talk to him. This, and Isra's examinations of some financial records, leads us to...  It turns out that the actual smuggler is Isra's sister, who let her husband take the fall for it. (There's a lot of texture here about how Isra never got along with the Jysstevs, and how she and her older sister used to be close but now are not, and so forth that I'm not really doing justice to.)  Isra goes to turn her sister in. We agree to meet up later at the Den of the Seven Vales, where she is understandably a bit bummed about the whole thing. Fortunately, we have a trip to the Umar Hills planned that should be a suitable distra-  Sigh.  Jan's ex-girlfriend's daughter is sick, which leads us to hunt down some githyanki at the behest of a mind flayer. I don't really get the Amnish health care system  But all's well that ends well. So now can we...no. No we cannot. Because, and I didn't get a screenshot of the start, but we agreed to find some special wine for someone, and we've got ten days to do it. And there's no actual indication of this in the game but some googling tells me that this is part of the White Queen mod.  So we're off to deal with that next. Our journey takes us to a swamp that's actually, conveniently, right next to the Umar Hills. There's nothing particularly dangerous, but there is a pain-in-the-rear end fight with a hamadryad who dimension doors around Davaeorn style, and has a dagger that Mazes (thankfully it's just Maze) Rayvek. This turns out to be a bit buggy because, when Rayvek returns from Mazeland, the "hey you've been mazed" visual effect keeps firing. And keeps firing. And keeps firing. I had to remove it with EEKeeper because the duration on it had been set to "permanent" for some reason. Anyway, a little farther into the swamp, we find what's left of a village.  And this dude. He gives us the basic gist of things; a necromancer came to town a while back and did something to their countess, who has now declared herself the White Queen and murdered basically the entire village. He, it turns out, is the only one left, and he needs our help to kill her.  He is NOT JOKING about this barrier, but fortunately the artifact he gives us negates it.  We find the wine. This had better be worth it.  This ends up being a fairly straightforward dungeon crawl, with us mostly fighting "White Servants", who are mostly monks and spellcasters. The production values are pretty high here, good music, areas that aren't, at least, obvious reskins of existing locations (or at least not ones I recognize), but the writing's a bit odd in places, and the plot feels a bit railroady, especially since it turns out that the White Queen, of course, wasn't so much a sinner as sinned against (or at least both in equal measure, she did still murder a bunch of innocents), but there's absolutely no chance to side with her, because that wouldn't be tragic enough I guess.  These loving White Golems can spam Cone of Cold. This becomes relevant later.  ...yeah. Definitely some things that could have been worded better.  So we finally meet the White Queen, who fills us in on her side of things, which is that a family in town died, the village blamed her, the druid outside stole her baby and gave it to a swamp hag, and things kind of escalated from there. Her brother was the necromancer that turned up, and...did something...but now she wants to die. We oblige.  We feel like she could have made it easier on us though. Korgan got chunked by one of those aforementioned White Golems, and I'm drat lucky that Aerie and Jan didn't meet the same fate. Fortunately I'd been planning to swap Korgan out for Valygar, oh, for ages now. We go outside, the old druid shows up to gloat, and we tell him to go gently caress himself because all this death was as much his fault as hers.  He takes this about as well as you'd expect. He's mostly dangerous because of his summons, and a Greater Command and a Hold Monster from the newly-raised Aerie and Jan deal with most of them. He's otherwise just a big ol' bag of HP, and he dies.  Finally, the swamp hag he gave the White Queen's kid to turns up to deliver the moral of the story, a bit of "what fools these mortals be" themed poetry. There's no fight to be had here. We leave.  Fuckin' finally. The kicker is that we're actually just here to recruit Valygar and deal with the planar sphere before we come back and sort out this region's troubles. But that's for next time. e. Oh, and after all that, Rayvek is still a level 12 druid, because the leveling curve is at this point more of a wall. docbeard fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Jan 27, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2019 14:51
|
|
|
Celeste the solo Blade has killed Sarevok and completed BG1 No. Not doing that, got more important things to deal with.  Stats from right outside the Temple of Bhaal. Almost 1,500 kills, Bhaal would be proud. Onto the final battle, SCS changes things a bit here. Sarevok gets an extra ally (Diarmid from the Candlekeep Catacombs, a fighter with a Protection from Magic scroll), and hes unkillable until all 4 of them are dead. You can leave the skeleton warriors they become after their deaths alone, but I prefer to kill them. After buffing with pretty much everything a Blade can use, I started the battle. I quickly lured Sarevok into a corner, and attempted to engage his allies, one by one wherever possible.   Angelo was more than happy to oblige. His Remove Magic failed, which was a huge bonus for me, and his spells were ineffective against Celeste's 75% magic resistance. His attempts at melee combat were equally laughable, and the stun only hastened his death.  The rest of Sarevok's allies all followed him to his corner, which was great for me because I knew they wouldn't be a hassle there. Next to die was Semaj, his buffs wore off at the same time as Angelo's, so the Necklace of Missiles made short work of him.  Tazok went the same way as Semaj. I would have preferred to use cold damage here, since Tazok has 0 resistance to it, but I was unable to do so without attracting Sarevok's attention, so I had to play it safe.  Unexpectedly, Sarevok is vulnerable to stun! I used this time to kill Diarmid, his Protection from Magic wore off around this time, so he was an easy kill.  Sarevok has insanely good saves, so he saved against 9 of my next 10 stun attempts, but it only had to work once and victory was assured.    So much for Sarevok being the next Lord of Murder. I had planned to go straight into BG2, but may as well give SoD a go. Honours earned: Ironling, Strategist, Double Damage, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honourable Trader, Battlemaster. Next up is the start of Siege of Dragonspear.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2019 16:18
|
|
|
Well, this update, unlike my last few, will be short and, well, short. So here I am, going through the Planar Sphere, and we come upon the possessed Lavok, which is not a fight I ever remember being that difficult before (but of course that was pre-SCS). And like two chain contingencied instakill spells, a horrid wilting, and a failed save later...  RIP Rayvek Like, seriously, look at his opener. (From a reload, which you can tell because of the scroll of protection from magic that Rayvek is sporting)  I probably am gonna keep playing Rayvek outside the Iron Man paradigm, since it's genuinely been a while since I've played all through BG2. Might do another Iron Man run of some kind too, dunno yet.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2019 23:35
|
|
|
docbeard posted:Well, this update, unlike my last few, will be short and, well, short. RIP Rayvek That's why I stopped playing SCS, so many years ago, it turns into a tedious minigame of dealing with protections and never ending contingencies. I have the utmost respect for all of you folks who play ironman with this kind of mods. Now, my update, Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist returns to Baldur’s Gate  Iron Throne Headquarters boogaloo.  I ambush Slythe in the Undercellar. If you attack him before he talks to you, the mage doesn’t aggro you nor she breaks invisibility so you can kill Slythe with impunity.  The fight in the ducal palace went well enough. Next stop, the maze.  I really hate Doomguards.  This skeletons are just too swole. Also, always chug an absorption potion before doing this part, whoever designed this map had a murderboner for lightning bolt traps, they are absurdly lethal in such confined spaces.  The fight against the group outside the temple went well, it started with me throwing monsters at them.  And it ended with me summoning even more monsters from outside their view, then the mage went crazy and casted a cloudkill at monsters, who were meleeing their group, so everyone died. Neat. Bonus: Because Tomoko never talked to me, she doesn’t show up here so I don’t have to kill her either. FINAL BOSS  Standard stuff, I prebuff and accidentally trigger some doom guards on the sides, so I clean them first. After that, I send a bait, nominally, a fireball to the right edge of the dais, outside the fog of war. Samaj and Sarevok take the bait and come charging at me.  I throw some monsters at Sarevok to keep him busy while I deal with the mage.  Semaj, being the colossal rear end in a top hat that he is, dispelled all my buffs. I needed more time to deal with Semaj, but Sarevok was mulching through tides of monsters like a goon eats doritos, what a pain in the rear end.  Trusting to make my save rolls from Semaj arcane poo poo, I decided to cast a malysson to Sarevok and use the wand of paralization. Worked like a charm.  With Sarevok dealt with, I dispelled Semaj’s protections with an arrow of dispelling and started shooting explosive arrows at him. He didn’t like the idea, because after taking a few explosions, he teleported away and never returned.  Last step, gangbang Sarevok and after a while, he dies. Wands are life, wands are love. Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist has bested Sarevok Honors: Ironling, Purist, A God Among Men.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2019 11:04
|
|
|
Celeste the solo Blade has left Baldur's Gate with the Flaming Fist.  The SoD prologue is simple enough. The monster groups are quite large on Insane, but they're all vulnerable to Fireball, so its not all bad. Its nice to be getting XP again, at least.  How very mysterious.  Outside the city, I did a few small sidequests, including helping a vampire, and cleared a cave of trolls.  The main sidequest in this area is the Dwarves of Dumathoin quest. The first part of the cave was cleared easily, with liberal use of fireballs. Next up is the wonderfully named Repository of Undeath.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2019 19:27
|
|
|
Updated the OP to here! I realized I missed out a few heroes and short posts so I caught up on those. Sucks to hear about Rayvek falling to Lavok, though. Like Angry Lobster said, screw SCS's love for super-buffing mages. I'll never play with it because it really makes the combat encounters sort of a tedious spell-stripping game that never changes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2019 08:38
|
|
|
Olive Branch posted:Updated the OP to here! I realized I missed out a few heroes and short posts so I caught up on those. Sucks to hear about Rayvek falling to Lavok, though. Like Angry Lobster said, screw SCS's love for super-buffing mages. I'll never play with it because it really makes the combat encounters sort of a tedious spell-stripping game that never changes. Yeah, BG2 in particular is a bit tedious that way, though I think SCS improves more than it doesn't. The newest (still in beta) version of SCS is a lot more granular in its settings. As I've played on I dialed back the mage prebuffing and it's definitely made a difference (though I don't think that would have helped here as that atrocity on Lavok was a chain contingency). I wonder in retrospect if it thought my party was much higher level than it was because I had Haer'Dalis and he was something like level 18 (to everyone else's level 12 or 13) because bard XP. Ah well, c'est la vie (which as I understand it is French for "maybe I'll reroll a solo fighter/mage/thief")
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2019 15:31
|
|
|
I've been enjoying my near invincible waltz through SoD and hoarding screenshots for a big rear end post but, uhh... No, not again!  Kondor the Dwarven Defender has been eaten by a Gargantuan Spider in Cloakwood 2.0 Never meant to be a master of beholders, he held the line. I think I still have fuel for a final run but I need to sit out for a day or two and look for ideas. I also have to uninstall SoD and reinstall BGEE because these games are huge.
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2019 18:53
|
|
|
Well, Sophia made it farther than the others: She reached the Friendly Arms, picked up Jaheira and Khalid, and a whole slew of sidequests. Then reached Beregost, and I ran around poking into people's houses and dealing with NPCs, including Silke and Neesha.  Then right on the heels of that, I went into the Red Sheaf Inn where I promptly got killed by an rear end in a top hat dwarf. This was all a while back, and I've played more characters since then but haven't reported on them because none of them have gotten anywhere. I don't know what I'm doing wrong or if the RNG just hates me that much, but I've gone through so many characters since Sophia that I'm about ready to throw in the towel and bow out of the challenge. I'm gonna give it one more try later today.
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2019 19:51
|
|
|
Rosemont posted:Well, Sophia made it farther than the others: Honestly? You aren't doing badly. Low levels are brutal because you just don't have the hp to survive. Ironmanning this game is largely about knowing what enemies with what are going to be where, doing easy stuff first, and getting lucky with the RNG. Trying to learn the layout of the game at the same time is really beyond difficult.
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2019 04:01
|
|
|
Celeste the solo Blade has reached the Coalition Siege Camp. This bronze sentry was dealt with easily, cold damage softened it up enough, then a short period of kiting finished it off.  The monster packs are quite large on Insane, this is the last one before the Lich and Celeste had already reached the XP cap of 500,000. Luckily, AoE fire damage doesn't care if you're against 1, 2 or 15 foes, enough uses and it just kills regardless.  The Secret Revealed dealt with the Lich, and stacking the boots of speed with a Haste spell meant I was able to destroy the Phylactery without the Lich respawning.  One more easy plot battle before heading further north to Bridgefort.  40 spiders and one giant beetle later, Celeste has a set of plate she can't use. Oh well.  I wanted the dragon scale armour, which Celeste can use, so I started combat after buffing outside.   Kiting and fire damage dealt with it, and the other monsters very easily.  The MVP strikes again. Her 2 mage friends were almost as ineffective.  The Neolithid was more irritating than dangerous, but fire damage eventually ended its life.  The final fight here was simpler than I expected, thanks to the mage refusing to follow me outside. Once the fighters were dealt with, the mage was simple to deal with alone. Thanks to killing the Mind Flayer before talking to her, the high priestess gave me the Bridgefort teleport stone without a fight.  Letting the Flaming Fist take the brunt of the melee fighting while supporting with lots of fireballs made the Bridgefort fight relatively simple. The Barghest could have been a challenge, luckily he was blinded almost immediately. The fighters from Bridgefort itself were little more than cannon fodder for the Crusader mages, but this meant they were very low on spells and easy kills by the time I got to them.  The fight on the bridge was very easy. The fighters were weak and the mage got stunned immediately, so his summoning spell never finished. Another chat with the hooded man followed.  14 days of travel later, I finally reached the Coalition Camp and Chapter 10. Next up is more plot. SoD is quite linear, really. biscuits and crazy fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Feb 1, 2019 |
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 16:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 17:08 |
|
|
Once more unto the breach. Well, several times more unto the breach, this is attempt number, uh, three I think since Rayvek (speaking of whom, in non-Iron land...SCS Kangaxx is, um, something), and the first one that's actually gotten anywhere. Meet Doctor Herbert West,  (I obviously did a little fiddling with EEKeeper to make this work.) He's a solo character, for Science needs no bedfellows! Well, except for his boon companion, bodyguard, familiar, and low-level cheese factory, Snidge the Imp. (Imps can cast Polymorph Self once per day, you see. Heh heh heh.)  Or, as seen here, Snidge the Mustard Jelly, dealing with an inconvenient assassin. We tool around Beregost, though robbing the place blind is a bit of a challenge. Or at least until I figure out that Snidge the Ogre is a genius at breaking down doors. (I still don't have the patience to really rob the place blind since polymorph only lasts so long.) Then I head up to the Friendly Arm Inn, as per usual. I snag the Ring of Wizardry and deal with Tarnesh...  ..who falls to a combo of a Command spell and Snidge the Spider's poison. I then head north. I'm not really up for fighting Ankhegs yet...  But fortunately I don't have to. One of the regrettable downsides of being a necromancer is no Invisibility, but Sanctuary will do. I load up on goodies, including one particularly fun new toy, and reflect that I could really use a gem bag. I wonder where I might find one of those?  Oh right.  My new toy is pretty good. I also deal with Silke with the new toy, though that's a bit more touch and go since she saves against my Command spell. She melts fast though.  Don't even need the new toy here, Sleep did for all the spiders. Doctor Herbert West is well on his way to being as much of a pain in the rear end as any SCS Mage. docbeard fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Feb 2, 2019 |
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2019 04:55
|
|