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Livewire42 posted:Davaeorn on twitch does Baldut's Gate Iron man steams and has been playing alot of characters with Rogue/Monk rebalancing on if you wanna see how it looks in practice. Yeah I follow him and he's probably my favorite bg streamer. Definitely worth a watch for anyone who hasn't heard of him before. He posts a lot of youtube content as well with spell guides and stuff like that which can be interesting even if you're a bg vet. He is actually who inspired me to think about trying RR because he's been playing with it and it looks fun
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Jan 10, 2023 20:29
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I will definitely need to check him out. I don't follow a lot of streamers because I get 10 minutes into a game stream and it just makes me wish I were playing instead, hahaha. I've used Rogue Rebalancing on occasion. It's pretty good but it's worth reading up on it first so you understand what you're getting. (I think I have some components installed at the moment but not everything.) It does make one rather fun change where you get a chance to talk your way out of being caught pickpocketing (in various ways based on stats and such), and some of the "I'm shocked, SHOCKED, to find pickpocketing in this establishment" options are great. I'm thinking of doing an all monks gimmick run sometime and I'm looking for some fun monk kits. Most of the ones I've looked at are crazy overpowered or just change too much but I haven't looked very far.
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Jan 10, 2023 20:39
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docbeard posted:I will definitely need to check him out. I don't follow a lot of streamers because I get 10 minutes into a game stream and it just makes me wish I were playing instead, hahaha. Yeah half the time I watch him for a bit and then end up just playing bg anyways. Most often if I'm watching him (or any streamer) it's while I'm working. He's had some good content though. A lot of it is stuff that veteran bg players already know but he has good insights especially into how useful things are on SCS as he's been Ironmanning that mode on Insane for years. I've been playing bg since it came out and I've still learned a lot from watching his videos One of the things I liked that RR apparently adds is Ioun Stones that can give crit immunity to Thieves/Monks. Not being able to eat a crit is one of the biggest weaknesses of vanilla monks and is one of the many things that makes them way worse than fighters. If you're doing a gimmick Monk run I'd consider that so you're a bit less fragile 
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Jan 10, 2023 20:51
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Ginette Reno posted:Yeah I follow him and he's probably my favorite bg streamer. Definitely worth a watch for anyone who hasn't heard of him before. He posts a lot of youtube content as well with spell guides and stuff like that which can be interesting even if you're a bg vet. He is actually who inspired me to think about trying RR because he's been playing with it and it looks fun I really enjoyed his spell analysis. It's actually kind of amazing how DSimpson was THE voice in Baldur's Gate for so long because of his first-to-market stuff on Gamefaqs and how completely WRONG so much of his poo poo is. Like 15+ years of being "the expert" despite being full of poo poo.
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Jan 10, 2023 21:31
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DSimpson for his documentation of quests is good but you need to ignore all his advice about balance and combat. Neko Case has made it through most of Act 2 in Amn.  I keep Yoshimo and ditch everyone else to go do some thieving.  After that it is time to go solo for a while.  Knocking out easy early game quests. I did Copper Coronet (not the slaver ship), bridge murders, the rogue paladins, the illithium quest, the ghost in the graveyard, killed a few of the other adventuring groups like in the sewers, the circus, and maybe a couple of other things I don't remember. Once I got to 1.25 million XP I had some mages memorize a bunch of spells. All of this got me high enough to have 7th level spells but I don't remember exactly how high.   Mordenkainens swords are making quick work of these guys until one of them cast death fog and kills them all and I say oh well and just leave because I had already killed the quest NPC.  Torgal is no match for the swords.  I went to the backrooms to summon the golems from limited wish and noticed too late there was a bunch of random peasants walking around but none of them got attacked so that's okay.  I buff to extreme's here and it turns out to be worth it. I thought my run was over when he stunned me but it appears to have been power word stun that only lasted a couple rounds. He then unloaded a bunch of attacks on me like horrid wilting but I had protection from magical energy up and none of the hurt me at all. Eventually he ran out of spells and my own horrid wiltings didn't really hurt him. I just summoned some Mordenkainens swords to finish him off as he tried to melee me and then them. Was kind of funny.  I went for the XP instead of the items and kind of regret it.  I reach HLA's and grab a Planetar first thing.  I start to assemble a party and decide my reputation is too high so we go murder the prisoner in the basement.   Our party is now secure. Up next is the planar prison.
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Jan 10, 2023 23:20
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FairGame posted:I really enjoyed his spell analysis. It's actually kind of amazing how DSimpson was THE voice in Baldur's Gate for so long because of his first-to-market stuff on Gamefaqs and how completely WRONG so much of his poo poo is. Yeah his guides are oriented towards the modes/mods he plays on but he usually for every spell also comments how it works in the base game and whether it's worth taking in those contexts
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Jan 10, 2023 23:25
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DSimpson's factual data is mostly correct. When he's evaluating stuff, though? Ooh boy. Incendiary cloud over horrid wilting? Aerie and Anomen are bad because their wisdom is low? Etc.
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Jan 11, 2023 00:12
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Neko Case is exploring a dungeon underground... An adamantine golem comes in through a door it should not fit through and kills Edwin and I get a game over screen. At this point I wake up and realize I was dreaming in real life about my ironman run ending. Back to reality... I went and did the planar prison and against my better judgement I did Hexxat's first quest where you get teleported. My other sorcerers run ended here before when Jaheria got confused and aggroed the entire tomb. This time I just sent ahead a planetar and a wizard eye and didn't send any party members at all. The Planetar got stunned or held or something and was useless and quickly killed. Mordenkainens swords however laugh at all that. Once that was done the rest of the tomb turned out to be pretty easy.  The party is investigating the cult of the eyeless for now.
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Jan 11, 2023 04:26
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Tyago commences the final assault on Dragonspear castle. We duel Ashatiel because why not. We're not gonna back down. Gotta man up. We take her down without too much trouble.  The Crusades last defenses fall broken at our feet  Taking on Belhifet himself. I kept Caelar on my side because frankly she's a total hoss and this fight is much harder if you fight her instead of Hephernaan. The fight started off a little rocky. I let my Fighter/Druid eat the dispel - intentionally. This is because I had Entropy Shield up which is an IWD/SCS spell which protects against dispels. Or I thought I had it up...it must have wore off before the fight started because Belhifet stripped all of my defenses with his dispel. Oops. That long elevator ride is killer because it's hard to get a feel for when to cast those round/level buffs. Too early and they wear off. Thankfully my PC is still sturdy enough even unbuffed and I was able to quickly get up summons and start slamming potions to make myself tougher. Hephernaan is a chump and goes down really quickly. I think Corwin sniped him down in seconds. After that, I let Caelar tank Belhifet for a while while I worked on Belhifet's allies.  I thought I was going to have to cast some lower resistances on him in order to make use of spells on him, but it was honestly unnecessary. With all my buffs Corwin sniped the poo poo out of him. Caelar got in a few hits too but she actually died while tanking him. I had Viconia cast True Sight which is nice on this fight because Belhifet can cast Improved Invisibility at will and loves to do it. That gives him a big ac boost and we don't want that since he's already hard to hit. Corwin's +3 arrow supply proved enough (there was actually more than the 80 void tipped arrows I made...I found something like 50-100 more +3 arrows during the game). I don't think my PC did a ton of melee damage to Belhifet but he got a few hits in and tanked for a little while after Caelar died. My casters didn't do a whole lot this fight other than keep buffs up and slow/cc the devils as needed. I was actually working on lowering Belhifet's resistances to commence a magical assault but he died faster than I thought he would. Tyago has defeated Siege of Dragonspear and is on to Baldur's Gate 2 Honors: Siege Breaker: Complete the Siege of Dragonspear expansion (requires Ironling). Big Game Hunter: Kill the Green Dragon and both Liches in Siege of Dragonspear. Uh I guess I better plan for what I'm going to do in bg2 now. I hadn't really thought that far ahead yet. I'm bringing back Edwin and Viconia of course but beyond that I am undecided. I will almost certainly take Korgan because he's basically a better Kagain and Kagain was great for me in bg1. That leaves a thief slot to fill. That will probably be Hexxat or Jan. Maybe Yoshimo if I decide to take Imoen. Then my last slot could be...anything. I'm almost tempted to take Mazzy because Corwin fit my party like a glove and Mazzy is a lot of fun. I think she also has some amusing interactions with Korgan if memory serves. SCS bg2 is no picnic so I'll probably die horribly but the boost of xp I got from importing from SOD should give me a solid early start as long as I plan my quests out well Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Jan 11, 2023 |
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Jan 11, 2023 05:32
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Neko Case is making wishes and taking names. Incredibly useful.  This went real bad and gave us our first deaths of the run. I send a Planetar, Korgan, Jaheria, and Viconia into melee with a lich and figured Viconia would burn it down with a Sunray and have the melee finish off the lich. Instead Viconia and Jaheria are both stunned and die.  We get another stupid death here where I had Korgan with the Shield of Balduran and figured we would move in after him as he finished up. The last remaining gauth focused on Jaheria instead and killed her.  They were no match for our firepower.  For these liches I say screw it and send the Planetar alone with no support and hey it works. The Planetar on the second lich did get feared and I had to go cast Remove Fear before they would go and kill everything which I didn't know could happen.  Blinding the dragon makes this fight over in about 1 second combined with the traps.  Time Stop + Improved Alacrity + 5 Horrid Wilting's.  Start working on Kangaxx.  We finish off the Twisted Rune while we are in the neighborhood.  Ring of the Ram and Ring of Energy remain a strong combo.  I started doing this part of this quest and then realized I absolutely cannot do this quest. I'm sitting at 16 rep while I wait for the end of Jaheria's quest to finish so she can get the Harper Pin. You get +2 rep during this quest which would put me at 18 and cause most of my party to leave. I leave and head to Windspear to take on Firkraag instead.
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Jan 11, 2023 11:34
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Jackie Daytona II has destroyed the Bandit Camp While following up on the lead on the bandits that Tranzig gave us, we come across this, one of the magic circles we were asked to keep an eye out for. The general pattern of these circles is pretty much the same.  We go inside (remember that your main character has to be wearing the special ring we were given) and grab an item from the center.  Some monsters appear between us and the exit. In this case, Ettercaps. No big deal, really, except for this quest's special Go gently caress Yourself, Adventurer option: You can't use magic spells, abilities, or items inside. Potions still work though. If you were to send someone fast and expendible, for example a monk, to grab the item and run like hell, this part of the proceedings becomes much easier. Moving on. So, it'd been a bit and I hadn't seen a single wild surge out of Neera (who, remember, is a Chaos Sorcerer). I was starting to wonder if maybe there were yet another bug.  ...I needn't have worried. I guess Arghain isn't the worst monster to get a free globe of invulnerability, though. One of the fun changes that SCS makes to this part of the game is to move two of the assassin groups -- this group, normally found in Gullykin, and the group normally found in the Valley of the Tombs -- to random map encounters. Which is why I've taken to resting before moving between maps. They're not much trouble after we take out Halacan.  This isn't just an ancient pop culture reference any more, it's an, uh, ancient pop culture reference with a followup later!  I, somewhat ironically, can't remember what this armor (which we found in the Dryad Falls waterfall nestled lovingly next to the dead cat) is good for. I think it's a Shades quest item. We'll just hang onto it for now.  Also, if we come to the waterfall at night, we meet a ghost. Back in Nashkel, there's a woman looking for her missing son after he and his girlfriend's picnic was ambushed by gnolls. They found her body (and we've just met her ghost) but no trace of him, and she's stuck here til he gives her the special surprise he had for her. Fortunately we're off to the gnoll fortress anyway.  Oh Breagar, you lovable racist.  We find this on the body of one of the gnolls.  And Aaron himself in a pit. We return his ring and agree to meet him at the edge of the map when we're ready to go. Which, uh, won't be for a while...  ...because in that very same pit we find a gateway to the Plane of Shadows. This is one of several extra dungeons that Shades of the Sword Coasts adds, a recolored version of (some of) the Gnoll Fortress. We're meant to be looking for some magical notes that a former prisoner stashed here. And instead of gnolls and xvarts, we're fighting undead shadows and shade wolves and a couple of minibosses.  It all leads up to this fight with a shade wyvern and its boss (who I apparently didn't get a screenshot of). We manage to aggro the wyvern separately and it's easy enough to kill on its own without the Shadow Master casting spells (and in particular Teleport Field).  Meanwhile, as we explore the real Fortress area, we meet this person whose 'Psychopath' label is raising questions already addressed by, etc. This encounter goes pretty predictably, and we end up with, among other things, a crown of silver leaves, which will become relevant shortly.  We also gather our first Tome. Jackie is now a bit more charismatic.  Well look, a new area! We head there. There's not much to it, some random fights in a ring around the peak at the center. And on that peak:  These two lovelies. They'd like us to give them the crown we just acquired, some golden teeth, a ring of protection, an amulet of protection, and a star sapphire. Aside from the inconvenience and the sticker shock (we'd much rather have sold the star sapphire tbh) the only difficulty here is the golden teeth.  These are to be found in the OTHER new area over here, after we indulge in a bit of grave robbery.  The teeth are to be found in one of the graves here, and this epitaph also gives us a clue to another very tiny quest in the area. We find some dog bones elsewhere, bury them here, and get a bit of xp and a nice warm feeling.  There's also a cave with this rather nasty fight. He hits like a truck and is very spell resistant and Breagar gets killed in the process. He drops a rather nice +2 two-handed club, which we give to Jackie. I picked up some Raise Dead scrolls earlier so we bring Breagar back, deck out the Ormyrs, and collect our reward, which is information about a treasure cache in the cemetery.  We also pick up these bones. For later.  Among other things, the treasure includes some rather nice mage robes which we give to Neera. We finally get out of here, return to Nashkel with Aaron, break the bad news about his ghostly girlfriend, and lay her to rest with his engagement ring.  Assassin Encounter 2 of 2. This fight can get a bit scary but we charm the cleric and use invisibility purge to negate the opening backstabs from the two rogues, and it's just a bit of mopping up from there. In with their usual treasure we find what looks to be some sort of Kokazuran spices,. a quest object for another time.  Another circle where we kill Bassilus, this one with ochre jellies inside.  We're supposed to have been pointed to Borda as a key figure in the Brage incident, but the NPC who's supposed to do so never spawns for some reason. Eh, mods. Anyway, we kill this loser (a bit tricky since he manages to charm Breagar and we have to wait that out) and find both an uncursed +1 two-handed sword and: Even Oublek can't deny that this is some pretty solid evidence in Brage's favor, and we're told that next time we're in Nashkel there will be a hearing. Skipping ahead a bit because this update is already a bit out of hand, we mop up most of the wilderness areas, leaving only the lighthouse and the rocky shore areas in the west, and Ulcaster, Firewine, Gullykin and the Spider Forest in the east. (And Durlag's Tower, obviously).  Up in Peldvale, we find a golem missing its brain. We can find the brain elsewhere in the area and reactivate it. We, uh, do not do this.  Finally, we're off to Band(it) Camp itself. Before the main event, there's this appetizer, the Gorgon's Eye quest we ended with last time. This guy's about to spring an ambush on us, but...  The Shadow Thieves have beaten him to the punch. A certain amount of exposition and murder later and we end up with a second piece of the artifact. Neera ends up getting on the business end of some backstabs and we need to use another raise dead scroll.  It's been previously alluded to but SCS turns the bandit camp fight into a free-for-all, where we basically get to fight everyone at once. It's honestly my favorite fight in BG1 as a result, since we can go hog wild with AOE nukes and such. There are some very tense moments when Helga's Remove Fear gets interrupted and Venkt manages to get a horror spell off when Jackie is already very injured. We honestly get very lucky and (mostly) survive to mop everyone else up. Breagar dies again but everyone else makes it through and we have successfully completed Chapter 3. (Not pictured: An encounter with a 'Gardener' who can turn bandit scalps into healing items after we complete the Bandit Camp.)
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Jan 11, 2023 13:48
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Neko Case died to a lightning trap I forgot existed in Firkraags dungeon.
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Jan 11, 2023 14:52
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cheesetriangles posted:Neko Case died to a lightning trap I forgot existed in Firkraags dungeon. Oh no. Forgotten traps are one of the worst ways to go.
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Jan 11, 2023 15:37
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cheesetriangles posted:Neko Case died to a lightning trap I forgot existed in Firkraags dungeon. RIP; that's an extremely believable end in a world where these characters can't load a save - hit a trap, die in hole somewhere.
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Jan 11, 2023 15:39
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Jack B Nimble posted:RIP; that's an extremely believable end in a world where these characters can't load a save - hit a trap, die in hole somewhere. BG2/TOB scare me because there are numerous flesh to stone/disintegrate traps and forgetting about even one of those can be a gg Gamebanshee has all the traps in the game listed in their walkthroughs if you're entering an area and can't remember what's there trapwise
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Jan 11, 2023 15:43
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Ginette Reno posted:BG2/TOB scare me because there are numerous flesh to stone/disintegrate traps and forgetting about even one of those can be a gg Don't forget about the completely un-disarmable instakill trap in Spellhold. Also don't ask me what happened to me in my last (non-Iron Man) run through Spellhold.
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Jan 11, 2023 15:54
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docbeard posted:Don't forget about the completely un-disarmable instakill trap in Spellhold. Ooof. My favorite rear end in a top hat trap in the game is the one in Durlag's that keeps firing arrows at you over and over and over until you're dead. I'm actually not sure if it ever stops. Possibly you might be able to zone out and live if you trigger it but I've never tried. That trap is in the same mini area that has those assassins that repeatedly go invisible and backstab you.
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Jan 11, 2023 15:58
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Ginette Reno posted:Ooof. My favorite rear end in a top hat trap in the game is the one in Durlag's that keeps firing arrows at you over and over and over until you're dead. I'm actually not sure if it ever stops. Possibly you might be able to zone out and live if you trigger it but I've never tried. It stops. I've had a cavalier get through it with a potion of regeneration and durlag's goblet.
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Jan 11, 2023 18:45
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Throne of Bhaal isn't particularly long, so I decided to wrap it all up in a single update. First order of business is, of course, blowing up Gromnir with 6 Skull Traps cast simultaneously.  Keeping a bunch of Sunrays memorized comes in handy more than a few times.  There probably is a way to buff yourself to such an extent that you can win this fight without having to go back and forth through the doorway. I didn't reach that though, and had to zone a couple times to heal but still made it.  I find it appropriate that I used Jaheira to take out an elemental prince.  The fight against Nyalee could have gone better, but it also could have gone worse, so who can say? Regardless, I got through it.   The humble Skull Trap still pulls its weight at higher levels, you just need enough of them.  Sarevok gets his revenge, in a way.  With the fate of the Sword Coast hanging in the balance, what better time could there be to go dungeon delving?   Lawful Good Paladins (I suppose as opposed to Fallen Paladins) don't get a chance to avoid these fights, not that I would have anyway. Level 3, while annoying, isn't quite as annoying as I remembered.  This demilich doesn't just lock on to whomever's closest! I had the Bhaalspawn wait outside until it was at Near Death on this one, and luckily it focused on Aerie.  I don't make friends with Saladrex.  I accidentally triggered the most difficult fight first. Whoops! But the Planetar makes this fairly easy.  There's simply no reason to deal with liches using anything but double-cast Sunrays once you can.  Landing the last hit on Demogorgon is enough to soothe Anastasia's ego after Yeslick finished off her first demon.  Always. Effective.  Being nice to people pays off in the long run!    The fight against Sendai the Bhaalspawn, as opposed to Sendai the adventurer in BG1, doesn't go too well. My front line aside from Anastasia gets stunned, bodyblocking her in that little pod leaving the Planetar to finish the job.  Luckily no one is permakilled, and I'm able to finish her off solo.   Abazigal is usually my most difficult fight, but this time it's a piece of cake. That probably has something to do with the planetar, elemental prince, and finding out that Hardiness is a pretty useful ability.  Balthazar gets clowned on. Two people went down to auto-kill attacks, though, reminding me why I always keep Death Ward up on the main character.  Sorry, Mazzy. I'm not sure if this means you'll be consigned to oblivion or if you'll get to chill with me.  The third fight against Amelyssan goes pear-shaped. She kept casting Time Stop and summoning new enemies, and I had to keep running to stay ahead of them. At one point I had to fully withdraw the Bhaalspawn from combat for healing, which had not great results for the rest of the party. However, Aerie survived with me, and with a chain of raise dead and resurrections I get to Imoen, who can cast Wish and get my spells back.  The last fight goes much better than the one before it.    I was planning to give up my essence, but the Solar talked me into keeping it. I don't think I've ever seen this dialogue before, so that was neat.  Anastasia's character sheet from just before the final showdown. Through long hours, careful trap checking, a pile of magic items and resistances, and always casting Chaotic Commands and Death Ward, Anastasia has achieved godhood. Honors: Irongod, Purist #4, Honorable Trader #3, Helm's Champion. I think my Sarevok was broke since I never got the redemption dialogues. Oh well!
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Jan 13, 2023 05:46
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Grats on the full run. I think that's the first one in a few years of these. Don't think anyone succeeded last year iirc.
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Jan 13, 2023 06:13
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Ginette Reno posted:Grats on the full run. I think that's the first one in a few years of these. Don't think anyone succeeded last year iirc. Thank you! I kind of want to try a run with a different character now though, one with less inherent immunities.  Here's hoping my luck holds!  Nope.
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Jan 13, 2023 07:33
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Tyago has begun their adventures in Amn Beat up a few Golems in Chateau Irenicus. Brought Minsc/Jaheira/Imoen for the ride even though I don't intend to keep them long term.  Kicked them to get some solo xp once I got out of there. I got to 750k xp which is one of the thresholds for companions joining the party. Time to assemble the dream team.  Enter Korgan  Enter Vicky  Jan joined too. And we got ambushed by some bandits. They can actually be decently dangerous on SCS so need to be careful traveling between maps  Fast forward to me stealing some stuff for Maevar since my goal is to recruit Edwin. I accidentally aggroed the morninglord Temple and had to kill some of them. Fortunately I didn't lose any rep for doing so? Didn't know I could get away with it like that. I didn't clear the whole temple though...just the ones that chased me outside. Not sure if anyone inside makes me lose rep and not willing to find out just yet.  Just north of me is Dawnmaster Kreel's body. But there's another Dawnmaster Kreel talking to Gaal lol. I don't think the game expected me to do events in this order. I won't be able to talk to this Dawnmaster though...he leaves after the Gaal cutscene.  Did the first Slaver quest as I wanted some quick xp/gold and also to pick up the Stonefire +3 Axe for Korgan. We'll need that to fight the Golems in Reyic Gethras' house (Edwin quest)  Speaking of Mr Gethras, here's me butchering him. Decently leveled mages are a bit scary on SCS but can be dealt with as long as you know how to counter their spells.  Finally, Edwin joins  That being done, we put the finishing part of Maevar's quest on hold because Korgan started complaining about not doing his quest yet. So we went and did that, but Vicky actually died to a Skeleton Warrior in there. We also finished Edwin's Nether Scrolls quest. The lich in there fortunately does not cast too many crazy things even on SCS, so we were able to beat it relatively easily. It didn't cast many protections and it didn't take us long to breach it. Were it a true SCS Lich I would not have dared, but the mod presumably keeps it somewhat lower level as Edwin's quest would be near impossible to do for a long time otherwise. My party is almost complete. I think I'm going to round it out with Mazzy. The Shadow Temple shouldn't be too difficult at this stage. The only thing that scares me is one of the random monster encounters in there can be a lich if you're high enough level, and that could be a gg for me. I'm not sure what the level threshold is to spawn it with my mods but I have seen it before. That being the case, I probably need to pick her up asap to avoid that. Shadow Temple isn't too hard otherwise (and I will avoid the Dragon for now) though the final encounter is a little buffed with my mods, but nothing too bad.
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Jan 13, 2023 09:55
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Jackie Daytona II has entered the Cloakwood! Also he's now the Guildmaster of the Gorgon's Eye. Good thing too, else this would have been an extremely short update! This update is pretty much all mod content (unlike all my other updates coff coff...eh, never mind). I did make some progress in the actual canon game too, but only to the extent that I cleared out the last two areas of the western Sword Coast (the ones with Sirines in) and nabbed the Constitution tome (which I forgot to screenshot but I gave it to Breagar. One of the few real benefits of EET (that in no way makes it worth the trouble but who cares it's not that much trouble these days) is stat continuity of NPCs through the trilogy so it's actually worth thinking about giving tomes to NPCs. Jackie's not really going to benefit from a 17 con but Breagar will ABSOLUTELY benefit from a con boost now and will benefit even more later when, well, later.  Anyway. We return to Gorgon's Eye HQ and report to Baldwin what the Shadow Thief we met had to say about the Kerykeion, the artifact he's been looking for (namely that assembling it is a bad bad idea and Baldwin shouldn't do it and it will either kill him or drive him mad then kill him and seriously don't do it you idiot). He rather predictably dismisses this as Shadow Thief lies and sends us off to work out our next assignment with Rigaldo.  Which turns out to be drug smuggling. Not really my thing but Jackie doesn't give a poo poo. Into Nashkel, so once again we're picking a fight with a rival guild. We're told to stay off the roads and to use stealth in the Circus to avoid Flaming Fist patrols and Shadow Thief ambushes. This turns out to be just a bit of flavor, because you can't avoid those things. There's a Flaming Fist patrol as a random encounter which we deal with in the usual fashion and, after we drop off the shipment at the Black Lotus tent  Some Shadow Thieves turn up. They don't really care about the drugs so much as they want us to turn against Baldwin because seriously oh poo poo you guys if he puts the Kerykeion together it will be bad, for him and also for everyone else. The idea of ever working with the Shadow Thieves at this point is laughable to Jackie, why they'd have to be our only hope of recovering a kidnapped childhood friend or something for that to even be an option, and how likely is that ever to happen? It all turns to violence and report in and get our cut of the proceeds from the completely harmless delivery of fantasy opiates. We're told to cool our heels a bit and ask around the Guild to see if anyone else needs help. That's right, it's sidequest time!  There's a few more bounties, including an escaped slave (!), a dryad who's causing trouble for some hunters, and a necromancer who we can either help, assassinate, or both.  There's also a problem at the Guild gambling den; someone's been spreading around false coins. We get a couple of leads and are sent to the Guild's brothel manager to find out more about one of the patrons.  But before she'll talk to us she needs us to find one of her missing girls. She was last seen visiting a client next door to the smithy, so we head there and find the client's dying wife, and no sign of the girl. Seems her husband killed her. We find some clues on the scene that point us toward the Nashkel garrison, so that's where we head next.  Well, eventually next. This is the necromancer we're meant to either help or kill. He's only out at night. He's researching a cheaper resurrection spell, which sounds great if it works, but he's a necromancer so it won't work. He's also asked us to murder some innocent fellow just because his hair is blue, which we're probably not going to do, but we agree just to humor Zhontac.  The innocent blue-haired fellow, name of Magnus, however, actually wants to die for science (and in general).  We decide on an alternative solution.  Off in the Larswood, we meet a dryad. The hunters don't want her dead, just gone, and by an astonishing coincidence she wants the hunters gone, and she offers us to pay us more than they're offering. Sounds good to us.  This feels like a bit of an overreaction to "please hunt somewhere else" to us. Maybe the Shadow Druids have a point.  This is our reward. Definitely worth changing sides, and the Guild isn't going to give a poo poo. Finally, there's the matter of Europa, the escaped slave. We're told the reward will be doubled if we return her alive, but we'll get something if we return her slave collar to prove that she's dead. I'm sure you can guess what our actual solution to this is going to be.  Yeah, pretty much.  Europa is already in pretty bad shape. We agree not to take her back and she passes out, talking about a 'castle to the north'.  There's one pretty obvious place that fits that description. We drop her off, Gellana helps us get her collar, and we turn it in for the bounty, in the hopes that this means no one's going to go looking for her now.  We then head off to Nashkel and...oh right. Brage's trial.  Unsurprisingly, he gets exonerated, but also discharged from the guard. We offer him the uncursed sword we recovered from Borda, but he's good, thanks.  Behind the garrison, we find this real piece of work. There's a bit of a standoff where he threatens to kill Ilena if we make a move, but Jackie's able to win a quick-draw contest with his shortbow. I think this might be a stat check. Having rescued Ilena, we return to the Guild where Meredia is now willing to talk to us about the other matter.  We were pointed in the direction of Xevec by the gamesmen. He had been spreading around a lot of what turned out to be counterfeit coins at the tables, and it turns out that he did the same at the brothel. He hangs out on the streets of Beregost so that's where we look next.  Turns out he got all his money from a woman who hired him to kill someone. The clues for this quest are a bit obtuse (and it turns out a bit buggy) but we're ultimately pointed in the direction of the manor in Nashkel. On our way there...  This handsome fellow also works for the Gorgon's eye, and he intercepted some Shadow Thief intelligence that is going to blow this whole thing wide open, specifically the identity of the person who hired the Shadow Thieves to attack us to begin with. (They were already interested because of the Kerykeion artifact, but we were told at some point that someone had sicced them on us too.) We're given explicit instructions to go straight to Baldwin with this coded intelligence. We'll get right on that.  We pickpocket a counterfeit coin from her. (And then we discover that there's a bug that actually wants us to have more than one counterfeit coin to get the dialogue options. I don't think this is an intentional requirement. I just spawn in an additional counterfeit coin using the console in lieu of any more complicated NearInfinity fuckery.)  There are a few ways to handle this, but we choose to have her turn herself in and have Xevec throw himself on the mercy of the guild because he really was just a dupe. We could kill one or both of them, but there's no actual need to. We collect our reward and report in to Baldwin  Okay I wasn't really expecting that. We go to confront Gerard  Baldwin murders him and he's now got the last piece...well you can read. He tells us that he plans to use the artifact to make war on the Shadow Thieves and offers to make us Guildmaster while he's away. We tell him that this might not be the smartest idea and then the Shadow Thieves turn up to reinforce the point. He doesn't listen.  Turns out everyone else was right. Go figure. Snake Baldwin isn't that tough, but he is somewhat fire resistant and magic resistant and has some sort of stunning attack that nails Jackie and makes this a bit scarier than it needed to be. Still, we win the fight, and are left with a broken artifact and one slightly used thieves guild. And that's the mod, as far as I know. We're given the option to set guild priorities (similar to the thieves stronghold in BG2) but I don't think there are any more quests (though the modder is planning on adding some). We are also told to check in every week for our cut of the profits. There is an opportunity for some item upgrades and to turn the artifact into a more reasonable superweapon, as well as the chance to hand over ludicrous amounts of gold for volumes of the Thieves Compendium, a series of tomes that are similar to stat tomes but which buff thief skills instead. We drop 20,000 gold for a 10% boost to finding and setting traps for Imoen. We head up to the Rocky Shore to clear it out.  Breagar doesn't like the ocean. Or ships. Or sailing. He'll make his thoughts on this extremely clear later.  It's your lucky day, Rasaad!  Well, arguably lucky. (She didn't kill him outright, because she mostly doesn't do that any more, but then she hit him while he was unconscious and at 1 hp.) At the wertle woo shipwreck, we find a few additional items.  This is the sort of cursed item design that I love. I don't think we'll be equipping it though.  And more bones! We'll just set those aside for now.  Down at Seawatcher, the Lure of the Sirine's Call mod lets us intervene in a little dispute betwen Sil and her Sirines, and some smugglers.  We get the chance to pick a side. We decide to side with the Sirines, since the pirates are a much less annoying fight. The loot isn't much to speak of though. As mentioned earlier, we grab the Constitution tome and  Well said, brother
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Jan 13, 2023 16:38
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Meet Shakira who is also an elven sorceress. She lived a long time unlike 2 others who died and I didn't post about.    Knocking out the usual early quests.  Chunks of XP with minimal combat is the name of the game.   melicamp dies.   I always take invisibility as my first level 2 spell and then always cast it before traveling. Makes life last a lot longer. I end grinding up to level 9 solo before doing any of the plot. Improved invisibility breaks so many of the combat encounters when enemies just have no idea how to deal with you.   I just kind of blitz through the main plot.   Cheese Sarevok with protection from magic + invis potion.  Stats at start of BG2.  Go and sell all our crap then ditch everyone but Yoshimo and go steal a lot of money. Then I ditch him.  Go solo through easy quests. The mage here can't do anything to me because of improved invis and spell immunity divination. Drop a few cloudkills on him and just wait as he stands helpless.  I barely reach 1.25 million XP and it is time to find a party. Honors: Ironling, purist, librarian, honorable trader, iron party, battlemaster, roleplayer, a god among men Dishonors: none
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Jan 13, 2023 22:04
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Brief update here Tyago is continuing his adventures in Amn I forgot to screenshot my fight with Maevar so here's one of me call lightninging some mugger for 70 damage.  Came out here to recruit Mazzy. Before coming out here I stole a bunch of scrolls. I didn't do the steal/re-sell tactic because I think that's cheesy but I did steal enough scrolls to outfit Edwin and Jan with some good spells. Also picked up a few useful weapons from Bernard.  Into the shadow temple we go  We finally get our bff Mazzy. I'm at one million xp now so she joins with that which is nice.  And here's where my run nearly ended, and still might. A god damned lich spawned in the room next to the lava, plus some greater mummies and skeleton warriors. SCS plus lich = rough times.  I ran out to the room south of that room and luckily the Lich did not chase me. It did fire off a sequencer or contingency that hit Korgan with a horrid wilting and nearly killed him. The rest of the undead did chase me into the room, and we had a protracted battle in there. Mazzy has Azuredge which helped a lot. We eventually won, but Vicky died which was inconvenient because I had to leave and go rez her since my F/D can't rez (envious of Jaheira with harper's call). As for the lich, while we were fighting down there it's protections wore off, so it was a simple matter to breach and smash it to bits when I went back in there. Also luckily, liches on my settings with SCS don't have HLAs I think. Or at least, I'm pretty sure most of the ones in Amn don't. I believe the streamer Davaeorn has his settings cranked even above mine (which are maxed out) with some optional settings that do that, but gently caress that lol. And that's where I had to stop to do some other stuff. I am about 99% sure that the other random spawn in the temple (the puzzle room) is going to give me a Lich too. Gonna be scary. Will probably need to kite it around as fighting one straight up is a tall order for my party at the moment. I should be ok if I buff up and prepare the right spells but I'll have to be exceedingly careful here. Luckily Entropy Shield (added with IWD spells) protects against remove magic which SCS liches love to cast, so I should be relatively safe from dispels on my PC at least. edit: Quick update. There was indeed another lich. And I killed it!  As I suspected, another lich lurked near the puzzle room.  I pulled it poorly and the horrid wilting hit my PC. I meant to pull with Korgan but accidentally sent my PC forward like an idiot. Oops. If I'd failed my save here I think I would have died. I really need to find a protection from magic energy scroll for Edwin asap. He doesn't have the spell yet. The horrid wilting that hit my pc is probably the closest I came yet to death. The finger of death/symbol were no danger because I had Death Ward up  As before, the mummies/skeletons chased my party into the other room. The lich did not. So this fight played out similarly to the other one, except this time my tanks were able to hold the line and Mazzy slowly sniped them all down with Azuredge. That being done, we then proceeded down to fight the lich. My Entropy Shield had worn off by this point so I had to hold my PC back in case the lich targeted him with a save vs death effect. I didn't want to rest because the lich might get its spells/sequencers back. I really need to get a protection from magic energy scroll for Edwin and probably prot from fire too. I came way too close to dying in here. I think the only other random Lich encounter that is possible is in the Unseeing Eye though, so I'll probably be saving that quest for much later. Tyago is holding on by the skin of his teeth and is most likely gonna die to some SCS Lich or Mage at some point... Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Jan 14, 2023 |
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Jan 14, 2023 01:36
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Well done on killing the 2 Liches. Especially after being ambushed by the first one. Impressive. And huge congratulations Softface. A full Irongod run is a really rare achievement, its been a couple of years since the last one. Skull Trap really is an amazingly powerful spell, it does obscene damage for a level 3 spell. It gets nerfed slightly with SCS, to 12d6 damage, but its still amazing despite that. Updated the OP to here.
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Jan 14, 2023 02:56
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biscuits and crazy posted:Well done on killing the 2 Liches. Especially after being ambushed by the first one. Impressive. It was touch and go with some kiting. I do really need Prot From Magical Energy as Horrid Wilting is a near death sentence for me without it. I was hoping to avoid fighting Liches for a while but with my settings it's possible to see them in the Shadow Temple and I think in Ghoultown during the Unseeing Eye quest. I don't think there's any other random spawns that will give me a lich. Maybe in Firkraag's Dungeon? Can't remember. Entropy Shield makes me pretty safe against casters as long as I have other elemental resist spells up and prot from magical energy. But I apparently need to prioritize getting it now for Edwin as I almost wiped due to not having it yet. I believe there's a scroll of it in Trademeet. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jan 14, 2023 |
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Jan 14, 2023 03:27
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Ginette Reno posted:It was touch and go with some kiting. I do really need Prot From Magical Energy as Horrid Wilting is a near death sentence for me without it. I was hoping to avoid fighting Liches for a while but with my settings it's possible to see them in the Shadow Temple and I think in Ghoultown during the Unseeing Eye quest. I don't think there's any other random spawns that will give me a lich. Maybe in Firkraag's Dungeon? Can't remember. Firkraag's has that nasty room with a bunch of vampires for sure. I don't think I remember any liches though. (Then again, my last run that got that far wasn't on Insane either). I will definitely be prioritizing Entropy Shield for Jackie if/when he gets to 6th level spells. Shaman's not exactly blowing me away but there are a few druid spells it will eventually be nice to be able to spam.
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Jan 14, 2023 04:25
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docbeard posted:Firkraag's has that nasty room with a bunch of vampires for sure. I don't think I remember any liches though. (Then again, my last run that got that far wasn't on Insane either). Being able to spam Insect Plague/Entropy Shield/Heal etc at will is kinda nice. Favored of the Spirits is also one of the best high level abilities in the game. If memory serves it will go off once you hit 10% health and it will trigger even if you've taken enough damage to die and will just auto heal you. I haven't tested it out in a while but I believe that was the case. It's not like contingency where you could set one to go off at 50% and sometimes it won't actually go off until you're about dead.
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Jan 14, 2023 04:39
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Jackie Daytona II has conquered the Cloakwood and defeated Davaeorn. And discovered alliteration, apparently. I'd say Baeloth was being a bad influence but we sent him packing ages ago. Oh and there are developments on the Breagar front but we'll get to those in due course. Oh, and also, I realized I hadn't triggered a necessary step in an unnecessary quest:  You may or may not recall that we murdered a representative of the Serpents of Abbathor, who appear to be a cult of, and for, evil dwarves. We aren't sure quite what they're up to except they were seeking an alliance with Mulahey and were plotting to ambush someone called Bashrik Sparklehammer. Said ambush is revealed via cutscene the next time we enter the Lion's Way map. There's nothing we can do but pick up the pieces afterwards. Said pieces include Bashrik's, uh, sparkle hammer (a rebranded Ashideena) and  There's nothing much we can do with this til we get to the Temple of Helm in Baldur's Gate so we'll just hold onto it for now.  So we're not two steps into the Cloakwood before someone accosts us. She's not an enemy, though, just a desperate mum in search of her missing, presumably kidnapped by Iron Throne assholes, son. We agree to keep an eye out. Meanwhile, there's doin's a-transpirin'.  With the BG1NPC project installed, there is a peaceful solution to the confrontation between Aldeth and Seniyad...but only if Jaheira's in the party. Instead we make like a tree and...well, okay most trees don't murder rear end in a top hat big game hunters who murder druids, but I'm sure some do in this forest. Anyway we do that.  We move on to Cloakwood Falls, Home Of A Million Billion Spiders. (Not pictured: Inviso-Imoen disarming a million billion web traps). Shades adds a cave here. Inside we meet  A soldier and his friend the myconid. The myconid apparently saved his life but has been hurt in the process. One healing spell later and  Hooray!  Hip hip loving hooray! The wand has 3 charges and we don't really have the funds to recharge it right now, but this is going to be helpful.  Diplomatic relations quickly break down with Centeol.  In the Shadow Druids map we come to our fourth and final magic circle for the Shades magic circle quest. This one has ankhegs inside. We don't pick fights with the shadow druids (again, if Jaheira were with us we wouldn't have a choice and there is indeed a rather extensive quest involving them, but she's not here, so.)  After defeating the hamadryad and waiting for the charm on Rasaad to wear off while keeping a safe distance, we meet another dryad, courtesy of Shades. She tells us that the mercenaries introduced an apex predator into the area around the mine entrance and she'd like us to restore the balance.  The fight with Drasus and company sees Rasaad die again, but it's otherwise not too big a deal. We did use a charge off our Cloudkill wand to soften them up first.  Here's our apex predator. There is theoretically a way to deal with this nonlethally with a polymorph spell or wand, but I've never actually made this work, and it's not a big deal either way. (And I just realized I forgot to turn this quest in before leaving the Cloakwood. Goddammit. Eh, no rush.)  Breagar unsurprisingly has opinions about mines in general and this one in particular.  Down on level 2 we find Perwell. We release him and tell him to wait outside. Don't, uh, flood the mines with him inside.  Hareishan is the only real threat on this floor. Charge #2 of our Cloudkill wand sees to pretty much everything else in this room, Hareishan burns most of her(?) spells on my summoned critters (though she does briefly dominate Helga, which Jackie promptly Dispels), and Imoen indulges in some rare (but not all that rare thanks to SCS) BG1 Mage Battle, wiping out Hareishan's defenses with a Spell Thrust and a Detect Illusions.  Next floor, once again, Natasha's the real problem but she wastes most of her spells on summons again and it turns out we have a spare Spell Thrust scroll handy. An acid arrow from Neera does the rest.  And then it's the main event. SCS changes the parameters of this fight a bit, allowing Davaeorn to prebuff, making the Battle Horrors a certainty rather than a consequence of not disarming the three thousand traps in his hallway, and summoning guards and Black Talon Elites every so often. He still dimension doors (or Dimension Step in this case, thanks to Spell Revisions) around and that honestly helps because he fucks off for long enough for his non-lesser globe of invulnerability to wear off.  It takes time, and Rasaad dies AGAIN, and Helga gets drat close and goes through most of our supply of Extra Healing potions, but in the end Neera and Imoen kill Davaeorn. Fortunately, upon his death his crew decides to vacate the premises rather than continue to fight us.  Just showing this off because it's Spell Revision's replacement for Knock. We loot Davaeorn's crib, flood the mines, save the miners, and are about to head on our merry way when   Breagar gets visited by a Dwarf Angel.  Who has some things to say about the accident that claimed his arm and nearly his life. Namely that it wasn't an accident. We won't see the resolution for this until Baldur's Gate 2, but there's still a point to this sequence:  Breagar's given a bit of a pep talk and, more importantly, a Holy Quest. He (and by that I mean we) need to kill a giant who's stolen some artifacts from a temple of Berronar.  There's still the matter of escorting Perwell back to his mother at the Friendly Arms Inn. For once, we get out of Cloakwood with only one random encounter, and it's spiders rather than ettercaps or wyverns.  It's a happy reunion, and we get a magic longbow as a reward. None of us use longbows but still, it's nice to be appreciated.
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Jan 14, 2023 06:20
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Kronar the Sorcerer is currently roaming the sword coast, gathering loot. Killed Mulahey without incident.  Rassad got a kill-steal in Nimbul, but considering how the fight was going I shouldn't complain too much.  I also pick up the scroll case. I tried to get this earlier, but I didn't know you can only get this quest by having CHARNAME be the one who talks to him.  I really enjoy this little addition.  And finally, Melicamp Dies.
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Jan 14, 2023 16:14
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Jackie Daytona II has cleared up all remaining loose ends before heading to Baldur's Gate (well most of them) (would you believe some of them) We still have Ulcaster, Gullykin and Firewine, the Spider Forest, and the mod-added Stone of Askavar quest to get through. Also there's the small matter of the caves beneath Basilisk Hell. But our first order of business is Breagar's Holy Quest. You'll hear about it if you lollygag on this one, it's like we're in Baldur's Gate 2 already! We do actually head to the city first, to do a bit of shopping, and to pick up  the Tome of Dexterity, which goes to Jackie.  See what I mean? We are in fact in the map where the giant is, the Fire Leaf Forest.  And there he is. He's a tough fight but nothing we can't handle at this point.  Breagar gets the killing blow, as it should be. (This actually makes no difference but it feels right.)  Breagar gets two rewards. First, a blessed axe of Berronar (a +2 axe with a chance of knocking a foe unconscious for a round). This axe is Breagar's and you will hear about it if he ever doesn't have it. Even if you end up giving him a better weapon you'd better keep this in one of his quickslots, or at least his inventory. There will be an opportunity to upgrade this axe rather late into Baldur's Gate 2 (and I think one more upgrade is available in Throne of Bhaal though I've never played that far with Breagar).  His second reward? Oh, nothing much, just a goddamned ROBOT ARM!  In addition to restoring his lost constitution (which is now 20 thanks to the earlier tome) he gets what is effectively a permanent +2 ring of protection. (Which is good since he still can't wear any other rings on that arm.) Also he can equip shields and off-hand weapons again. Most importantly, his confidence has received a good shot in the, er, arm.  It's about to be put to the test. As soon as we transition maps (we've returned to Beregost but the messenger will find us anywhere I think) , we're directed to Thunderhammer Smithy, where we're told that the cleric who saved Breagar's life a while back vanished while doing some adventuring work for the Temple.  A priest at the Temple of Lathander will take us to the graveyard where she vanished. As you can see it's not a very restful place. We do our bit to change that.  Just inside this cavern, there's some mages. TRIPLE MAGE FIGHT. Two of them flee once things go south for them and we take down the last. Further into the caves, we find Revaniel, stoned out of her gourd. Er, turned to stone. Fortunately we've got a petrification cure scroll on our person.  She can't tell us much about what did this to her, only that it was Capital B Bad. Looks like we've still got some work to do.  Welp. This is a level-appropriate lich but it's still a loving lich.  After a long protracted battle that kills Neera and drat near ends our run (Vitriolic Sphere is SCARY, which is why I've just had Neera learn it), we destroy it. Among its treasure:  An extra Tome of Dexterity! This also goes to Jackie. There are some mods that hand out extra stat tomes like candy but I think this is the only extra one in anything I have installed, at least in Baldur's Gate 1. When we return to Taerom, he is best pleased (there's some not-so-subtle not-so-subtext that he and Revaniel are very close) and offers us our choice of magical gear as a reward, mostly +1 or +2 weapons or armor.  In the map north of Nashkel, we run into our introduction to the Stone of Askavar quest. These are mercenaries in the service of someone called Teldorn. The stone golem there is the only real threat. It hits like a truck but doesn't have most of the usual golem immunities so it's not that bad.  We find this among their belongings. This quest likes to waste your time. We go talk to Cearwin, at the Carnival, who sends us to talk to Aranor, in Beregost, who sends us BACK to talk to Cearwin before we can even get started. The tl;dr is that the Stone of Askavar, another magical artifact, is sealed behind a lock opened by five magical talismans. We need to recover those talismans and get to the Stone before Banite cultists do.  Here are the clues Cearwin gives us to four of the talisman locations. He also tells us about Dystra's Watchtower, where he's lost contact with an ally who was guarding the fifth one. We'll get right on that.  Remember all those magic circles? We return with the items we recovered to Mal'meto, the quest-giving wizard at the Friendly Arms Inn, and he brings us to the magic circles where Gorion died. We can actually tell him this is a place of emotional significance, but this is still the only place he can do its ritual. Which as you can see didn't go especially well for him. Turns out the planar energy he summoned didn't really mean to kill him, and it's very sorry and would like to make it up to us by becoming a pretty nice ranged weapon for Neera. (For anyone really but she has the stats and no better weapon options right now).  We accept its apology. We head on to Ulcaster  This is where we could recruit Recorder if we were going to. I'm not planning on it in this run but we can still accept the quest to rescue her friends in the Ulcaster dungeon.  Right after we deal with this bullshit. SCS makes this rather uneventful fight into a rather nastier piece of business. Once he's been hurt a bit  Icharyd gets several buffs (including a free Call Lightning spell) and worse he advances time to strip us of all of our buffs. When we kill him time advances again.  When we descend into the ruins, we get warned about what happened to the previous expedition, namely that the wizard they recruited wasn't especially trustworthy.  Yeah, I don't think we're gonna do that, buddy.  This is a quest item for a gnome we met way back at the beginning.  There's something refreshing about a villain named Rick Harris in a D&D game. (Those of you familiar with SCS know what ELSE is lurking here, but we manage not to aggro it while we're dispensing with Rick.) Which is good, because it's the Hound of Ulcaster, a spellcasting vampiric wolf that can use Horror, Dispel Magic, and summon both ghouls and wolves.  We beat it, but things get pretty tense there for a while.  But wait...there's more! There's a passage leading downstairs, where we meet a ghost of one of the old students. Seems that death hasn't brought her peace since spiders keep stealing her ghost friends.  We end up in a maze of twisty and spider-infested passages, all alike. It's mostly the usual spider fare, with wraith spiders being the worst of it. But navigation is a pain.  Some persistence gets us to this boss. It's not that bad a fight, certainly not by comparison with the Hound.  The ghost kids it abducted turn the tables on their captor once we soften it up for them, and we head on our way.  Breagar's got his priorities straight, as usual.  ...and that's when I decided to take a detour to Ulgoth's Beard to grab the Ring of Free Action.  Another sidequest! Seems a dog's been trying to get her attention at night. We agree to wait with her and follow the dog to see what he wants.  We're lead to this cave.  Where we find a body.  Seems we helped put the spirit of her friend to rest. So that's nice. Now, normally the primary reason to come here is to take a shortcut to the ogre mage in the Firewine Dungeon  This might be the most spiteful thing SCS does in the entire game.  So we decide to go in the old fashioned way (through the Temple shortcut). You may notice a wild surge as Jackie summons some beetles. That's not a coincidence or a bug, that's Shades of the Sword Coast making the Firewine region into a wild magic area. (The last time I played, the ogre mage killed himself with a falling cow. History sadly does not repeat itself.)  (Not pictured: a million billion kobold commandos and a minotaur for some reason) We use honorable tactics such as baiting the spellcasters to burn all their spells with summons in the hopes that they'll wipe themselves out with wild surges. This doesn't happen but they're still pretty easy pickings after that.  Oh here we fuckin' go. Now, one of the reasons we waited this long to come here is so we could pick up the arrow of slaying to do for Kahrk. Normally even with his SCS buffs this'll work. Except this time...it did not. I think his Protection From Missiles (which thanks to Spell Revisions protects from all projectiles, not just nonmagical ones) was responsible, but the point is that we're left to do this the hard way. And he's ridiculously powerful, probably the toughest fight in the game, and to make matters worse, we can't reliably strip away his spell protections due to the wild magic zone. But where mods taketh away, they also giveth, and in this case they giveth us a horribly cheesy strategy. You may remember that we got a wand of cloudkill as a reward. We have since paid to recharge it. Imoen also has a head item at the moment that makes her immune to poison, courtesy of either Rogue Rebalancing or Song and Silence, I can't remember which. She's also of a high enough level that cloudkill doesn't instakill her. Finally, we've got a decent stack of invisibility potions and an oil of speed (important because Kahrk comes pre-buffed with Improved Haste) Fun fact: magic items like wands and potions do not trigger wild magic surges. So we just drop a cloudkill and have Imoen kite him around in it til she can turn invisible, repeat as necessary, and hope for the best. She's immune to poison, but he's not, and it's just a matter of time and a bit of luck. (A lot of time because at one point he does get a spell off that wild surges into a full heal for him. Better than whatever the spell would have actually done, I guess, but still annoying.)  gently caress you Kahrk, gently caress you Firewine. This feels like a good place to end this update in fact. I'll deal with the bulk of the Stone of Askavar quest and some other mod stuff next time.
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Jan 15, 2023 20:56
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SCS Kahrk with a wild magic zone is pretty hilarious. gently caress that lol. You should still be able to land a wand of paralyze on him unless wild magic zones affect that (I don't think they do but I don't usually use wands too often in tob so never tested this). Kahrk will typically have minor spell deflection up on SCS which blocks wand of paralyze but once that wears off you can just spam it until it works. It will get through his minor globe.
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Jan 15, 2023 21:14
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Ginette Reno posted:SCS Kahrk with a wild magic zone is pretty hilarious. gently caress that lol. In retrospect I could have also just used a Protection from Magic scroll on my fighter. Kahrk is pretty dangerous in melee too but much less so if his spells aren't a factor. Wands don't seem to trigger wild surges (or at least my cloudkill wand didn't). I never remember to use my wand of paralyzation for some reason. docbeard fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Jan 15, 2023 |
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Jan 15, 2023 21:39
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docbeard posted:In retrospect I could have also just used a Protection from Magic scroll on my fighter. Kahrk is pretty dangerous in melee too but much less so if his spells aren't a factor. Wand of Paralyze is nice because it hits as fourth level spell so it goes through Minor Globe. Some of the other wands might count as that high level too but I forget off the top of my head. Wand of Paralyze will not go through minor spell deflection though, so keep that in mind. Tyago continued his adventures in the Shadow Temple  We skipped the dragon for now and fought the Shade Lord. SCS improves him somewhat (gives him a few protective spells) and he has a level drain mechanic. He wasn't too difficult though. His defenses are removed easily enough, and we took him out. I probably should have used negative plane protection. I forgot that SCS gives him a level drain ability. I don't recall him doing that in the base game but maybe I'm wrong. Haven't played vanilla in a while.  Here's the aftermath. As you can see, we took some licks, but we made it through.  Next we did some stuff around the city, including the Harper/Xzar quest.  Also did the Lilacor quest. Both of these are easy sources of xp and gold for our party.  We also finished the Hendak/Slaver quest.  Then we went to the Bridge district in order to solve the murders there for yet more easy xp.  After that, we decided to do the Trademeet quests. I think we're strong enough for it. We want to unlock the merchants here for some much needed items and spells. Protection from magical energy for one, which will be a necessity when fighting higher level mages on SCS as horrid wilting is common.  Death spell is nice in the grove. It works on normal trolls. Doesn't work on spirit trolls, but thinning out these groups is helpful. The spirit trolls cast some spells on SCS. Nothing too terribly threatening. They do flame strike sometimes so I made sure Tyago had prot from fire up.  Here's me bashing some trolls.  And here's me turning the tables on some enemy druids. Insect Plague? Yeah, how my  Decided to take on the Rakshasha. It was...messy. And nearly a mistake. They maintain their spell immunities on SCS, however SCS changes anti spell defense spells so that they always work on enemies like Liches and Rakshasha. So Breach etc work on them even though they're immune to most normal level 5 spells. Remove magic also appears to work, as does Secret Word (needed to take down Minor Spell Deflection which would otherwise block my Breaches on SCS). These guys casted a lot of spells during the fight that made it difficult. They casted several ice storms which nearly killed Edwin and Jan. I had to dance them around the room. My PC and Korgan took some hits too. They also dispelled us once or twice, though not my PC or Vicky who had Entropy Shields active. But Edwin and Jan had to back into corners and get emergency buffs back up. In all, we eventually grinded them down, and by some miracle nobody died, though I had to chug potions and heal spells to make it through.  Look how hosed up we all were after the fight.  We also picked up Belm from a nearby house, which should turn Korgan into a meatgrinder, especially once I find some Improved Haste scrolls.  Finally we challenged Faldorn for supremacy of the grove. I wanted ot use Cernd to do this, which is why I recruited him and booted Mazzy temporarily. But it wouldn't let me, so I had to have my F/D take this fight instead. It was pretty scary! I got off my Insect Plague before she got off hers, and I managed to summon a fire elemental. She got an insect plague off on me (which did a lot of damage and was almost gg for me) and also charmed me. My fire elemental finished her off. As you can see I took a decent amount of damage in this fight. Lesson learned I guess which is to be careful about when to fight her on future Druid playthroughs. It was doable, but it would have been very easy to lose. I'm wondering now if my buffs would have stayed up when I entered the ring. My Ironskins did, so maybe if I'd prebuffed with Entropy Shield and so on before entering, I would have been good. Not sure. Will need to test in the future, but regardless...I prevailed. I've nearly died the past two updates. Wondering how long I can keep threading these narrows before I make a mistake and die
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Jan 16, 2023 00:15
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I think buffs do persist in the ring, yeah, though it's been a long time since I've fought that fight myself. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure I ever have, aside from having Jaheira do it. )
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Jan 16, 2023 00:31
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I love it when mods accidentally combine in weird ways. SCS Kahrk in a wild magic zone, thats terrifying to be honest. Imagine triggering that fight accidentally, it would be carnage. Updated the OP to here. biscuits and crazy fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Jan 16, 2023 |
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Jan 16, 2023 00:48
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Eagle Eye the Archer had a few rough spots, losing Imoen and Khalid to the Red Wizard attempted abduction and losing Minsc to the rescue of Dynaheir. But, now that she's got a full brace or magic missiles due to the Ring of Wizardry, they've gone siren hunting, and gotten everyone to level four. With a replacement thief in tow, they're currently setting sights on the mine that seems to be the center of all the issues in the area. Kagain's been grumbling about their goody goody nature, so they may have to do something to appease him sooner than later... Current Party: Eagle Eye Jaheria Dynaheir Safana Kagain
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Jan 16, 2023 01:04
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docbeard posted:I think buffs do persist in the ring, yeah, though it's been a long time since I've fought that fight myself. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure I ever have, aside from having Jaheira do it. ) I wanted a npc Druid to do it since it's not a gimme and my guy could have died. Although if buffs persist into the ring I would have had a much easier time if I'd remembered that. I think you might be right and that they do. I'd say the only PC Druid that's gonna have a slam pick easy time with that is a Shapeshifter since Greater Werewolf form will obliterate Faldorn even on SCS
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Jan 16, 2023 01:20
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I always have Cern do it, he doesn't have to be in your party and he always wins.
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Jan 16, 2023 02:20
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