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Suspicious posted:I always have Cern do it, he doesn't have to be in your party and he always wins. That usually works but I guess it doesn't if your PC is a Druid of some kind. It didn't allow me to use Cernd to do that the way I normally would. It forced me to make the challenge. It's possible my mods made that change but I don't know for sure. I do know even with my mods that I can usually do what you describe as that has always worked when I haven't had a pc Druid. This is the first pc Druid I've run in a while
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Jan 16, 2023 04:20
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Okay now Jackie Daytona II has REALLY cleared up all the pre-Baldur's Gate loose ends (pretty much) So there's still a bit more to do in Firewine, though it all feels pretty anticlimactic post-Kahrk.  We found this sword. There are two more scattered around (and in one case inside) the bridge.  We deposit them here, inside an entrance midway through the top of the bridge. There's supposedly a note that points you in this direction, but I didn't find it this time so I fell back on Played_Mod_Before knowledge. It's all about laying fallen soldiers to rest or some drat thing. Our reward?  If I'm reading this correctly, it's essentially a full rest in a bottle. I haven't actually tested it out yet.  There's also this encounter, restored by Unfinished Business. This fellow wants us to stand by while his undead brother murders him. We can fight off the revenant, but Jackie's fine with letting unnature take its course in this case. Nothing much happens either way. We leave Firewine. Let us never speak of this place again. We head back to Beregost and decide to knock out the two easiest talisman acquisitions. The first one we don't even need to leave the city or break a sweat. We just have to answer a riddle...  ...and then we still have to trade this dude an expensive (sort of, it's like 2500 gold, not exactly bank-breaking to us these days) ruby for the talisman.  The talismans are essentially magic rings. This is one of the nicer ones.  The second is in the hands of this little girl's sister, who's been (in)conveniently kidnapped by some of Teldorn's finest. She's being held on the Temple map, near where the petrified lady is. We'll get right on that. For now, it's back to the Friendly Arms Inn to turn in the Great Karlini's spellbook.  So the deal here is that Karlini vanished after reciting something called The Great Formula, and Ygnatz is trying to find out what happened, in the interests of science. We have to head back to the site of Gorion's death YET AGAIN to re-enact Karlini's experiment.  So, uh, I have some theories about what happened to Karlini.  The Great Formula turns out to have been a sacrifical incantation meant to provide souls to this fine fellow. Karlini, in other words, donated his soul to science, and Ygnatz has just done the same. The Balor offers us the opportunity to trade our soul for the gnomes. We can tell him to (literally) go to hell, or we can attack him (lmao no)...or we can take him up on it. For science. Turns out he doesn't want any more scientists in hell, so as long as we stick to our story, we can talk him into just releasing everyone. Of course, there's a catch: we need to prove our scientific acumen by answering some trivia questions. (Don't get the answers wrong.) We did not get the answers wrong.  The Balor is as good as his word and releases Karlini...who promptly demands to be sent back immediately so he can continue his studies. Ygnatz talks him down, pays us for our trouble, and rewards us with a magical item besides.  That will do nicely. We give it to Breagar, on the grounds that a shiny shield will give him incentive to keep his new robot arm equally polished, and also on the grounds that we're heading back to Basilisk Hell.  We make a quick stop along the way to rescue the talisman, er, the little girl. I forgot to grab a screenshot of this talisman but it's basically another Ring of Free Action.  We head back to Basilisk Hell, now mostly bereft of basilisks (at least above-ground). The fight with the adventuring assholes ends with Helga caught in Neera's Vitriolic Sphere but she gets better. As you may recall, Shades adds a series of caves under this map with even more basilisks, as well as some spiders. And some decent treasure, including a Stoneskin scroll...which is completely redundant for us, since Imoen already got one thanks to Neera's quest.  There's also this, which is the hook for a completely separate Shades quest which we might get to at some point.  At the bottom of the cave system is this tree. The deal here is that we can trade experience for items. The flavor text is that the tree eats a bit of our most potent memories, not enough so that we forget, just enough to take the edge off. The items it gives us are nice, though mostly not useful for this party with the exception of  Otherwise there's a Bastard Sword +2, a returning dart that is less good than the one we already have, and a very nice scimitar. This all costs Jackie about 20,000 xp. Eh, plenty more where that came from.  After an uneventful side trip to clear out the Spider Forest, we head to a new area added by the Stone of Askavar quest  The reason we waited to come here is because there are a few basilisks here too. They're just appetizers though. The main course  This tower. You'll note the surrounding pillars. There are zones nearby that will send out lightning blasts when you step too near. (These used to be traditional lightning bolts that could take out some of the enemies here, but apparently that was too much fun.) There are plenty of Teldorn mercenaries in the area. In addition to the fighters (nbd) and stone golems (who will wreck your poo poo) there are archers (basically rebranded Black Talon Elites) and a couple of evil clerics. But the real fight is inside the tower.  This is probably the hardest fight in the mod with the exception of the end battle. It takes some doing but we prevail and  claim our reward.  Another new spot on the map. This is just another wilderness region that has nothing of note but some web traps, some spiders and skeletons, and a small adventuring party. I didn't get a screenshot of the fight with the latter, but it's a decent scrap.  One more talisman to go. This one's in a place we've been before, sort of. Just north of Nashkel we find that the Incredible Melting Man has been evicted from his cave. That's where we're headed.  It's full of spiders, and this wizard. Imoen flubs her backstab but it's still not too bad a fight.  And that's five. We return to Cearwin with the talismans and he tells us where the Stone is.  ...sort of. The entrance is very well-hidden in the ruins south of the main bandit camp.  You may well ask how they got inside without the talismans. You may well ask. Anyway, final fight time. Archers, fighters, a stone golem and three spellcasters.  This one comes down to the wire. You're seeing our people post-healing. We astonishingly didn't lose anyone but it came drat close, with a dying Helga kiting one of the fighters around til she managed to heal up a bit, and Neera magic missiling a cleric down to low health only to have him full heal himself twice. On the bright side, the mage wasted his resilient sphere cast on a couple of weasels.  And here's the Stone of Askavar. We trade it to Aranor for a lot of XP and gold. Before we head to Baldur's Gate, we take a jaunt up north.  Far north. The multi-wizard fight at the beginning is usually the toughest, but as usual they vent most of their worst spells at summons, and we mop up after. The ankheg wizard comes closest to ending our run, but we pull through. And as for Dezkiel  Okay NOW we can go to Baldur's Gate
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Jan 16, 2023 04:55
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^^^ Ice Island is always a little scary just because of fighting mages in tight corridors. I always feel a slight bit of nerves fighting in there. Tyago did a few more things  I accepted the Druid stronghold. I haven't done this in a very long time, so don't really remember it. The first quest involved me killing some trolls. Gave nice party xp upon completion.  Upon returning to Trademeet, Edwin got transformed back into a man, and we also completed Mazzy's quest.  We worked for the Lurraxols, which ended in a bloodbath.  My rep was up to 15 after turning in the Trademeet quests, so I decided I needed to lower it a notch. Sorry random peasant in a bed that I murdered, but I need to get back down a bit before my evil party members threaten to leave.  Beating Trademeet unlocked a useful scroll merchant and got me things like improved haste (woohoo). Also picked up Tansheron's Bow which is great for Mazzy. With my spell arsenal finally where I want it to be, I decided to tackle the Shadow Dragon.  SCS doesn't change these too much. It mainly gives them a lot more hit points so they don't immediately explode to a buffed party, and they will try to cast stoneskin/protection from magical weapons on themselves. They don't usually cast any other defensive spells though except maybe a few Dragons in TOB that do, so usually it's just a matter of breaching them and then fighting them like a normal dragon.  So that's what we did. We casted improved haste on Mazzy and my F/D and Korgan and took this thing on. Korgan got dispelled but Mazzy and my PC did not (thanks to Entropy shield). We kept breaching it and lowered its resistance as well with Edwin. It did a lot of damage to Korgan who I had to run out of the fight several times to slam potions, and it also casted its shadow breath on Vicky which was unfortunate because once she was de-leveled she didn't have heal any more. I had Negative Plane Protection up on my pc but not everybody else (because it annoyingly only lasts 5 rounds so by the time I finished buffing everyone it would start wearing off people). Without heal, I couldn't be that aggressive with Korgan. Still, even with Korgan not contributing a ton after he got damaged I was able to take the Dragon out. Once I lowered its resistances I landed an Insect Plague on it which helped, and Edwin and Jan fired a bunch of magic missiles at it. Dead dragon. Not sure where I'm going next. I think I might do De'Arnise keep. The final fight is buffed on SCS but my party should be capable of handling it. And Flail of Ages will be useful as a backup weapon on Vicky even though she only has 1apr as a Cleric. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Jan 16, 2023 |
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Jan 16, 2023 05:51
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 Tyago died in the stupidest fashion. So I picked up Neera to do her stupid quest because I wanted to pick up some items from it. There's a half orc in that camp who if you talk to him will attack you. If you damage him he's supposed to surrender and de-aggro, but I accidentally killed him which turned the entire camp hostile, and because it's a wild magic zone my PC got hit with a random fear and I couldn't get it off him since my own remove fears kept failing due to wild magic. Vicky had a heal queued up on him which also failed because of the wild magic. I never regained control of my pc before all the mages killed him. loving lol. I just googled this quest as well and apparently you can just let him swing at you for a bit and then he'll de-aggro, so apparently me hitting him at all was stone stupid. A really funny way to die but what are ya gonna do. I'll roll something else tonight when I get over it
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Jan 17, 2023 04:17
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EE content, never again.
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Jan 17, 2023 05:00
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Suspicious posted:EE content, never again. Knowing that i could have just let him attack me and he eventually stops makes me feel pretty dumb. On the other hand, whenever I die in these Ironmans, I prefer to die in a hilarious fashion so I'm glad my death was at least funny. I think I'm going to install Rogue Rebalancing for this next run because I've been meaning to try it, and I'm also gonna up the stakes a bit on myself and do Insane but with double damage. I've watched a lot of Davaeorn streaming and that's the settings he plays with. I'll post a new character update here when/if I actually make some meaningful progress
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Jan 17, 2023 05:55
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Ginette Reno posted:
Man, what a heartbreaking end to a really promising run. Also a grim spectre of things to come since the main reason I'm keeping Neera and Rasaad around is because I've never done their post-BG1 content, or in Rasaad's case, any of his content, before. Yes, yes, I KNOW but I'm committed now (I am in no way committed)
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Jan 17, 2023 11:01
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docbeard posted:Man, what a heartbreaking end to a really promising run. I've done all of the EE content so I mostly knew what to expect but I just forgot this little wrinkle with that orc npc. But that's how Ironmans get you. You get a little too confident and forget minor things that end up mattering. But I'm not too broken up over it because dying in a hilarious fashion is ultimately half the point of doing Ironman runs. The actual combat in the EE content isn't too hard especially compared to typical SCS stuff so as long as you pay attention you should be ok. I'll post an update on my next character once I get some meaningful progress. Since I'm doing actual double damage now I may die horribly a few times before getting far in bg1. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Jan 17, 2023 |
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Jan 17, 2023 15:40
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Aww, thats an unfortunate way for Tyago to fall. It looked like a very good run. I've never done the BG2 EE content either, I just haven't got around to it yet. Rogue Rebalancing is very good, its one of my core, install every time no matter what mods, along with SCS. Even when I'm soloing and not using a Thief or Bard at all I'll install bits of it. OP updated to here.
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Jan 17, 2023 17:58
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biscuits and crazy posted:Aww, thats an unfortunate way for Tyago to fall. It looked like a very good run. I've never done the BG2 EE content either, I just haven't got around to it yet. Rogue Rebalancing is very good, its one of my core, install every time no matter what mods, along with SCS. Even when I'm soloing and not using a Thief or Bard at all I'll install bits of it. Yeah, I don't always install everything but usually something gets in, if only the extra items. (I don't think I have the general thievery changes or the kit changes this time around.) I find it and Song and Silence compliment each other very well.
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Jan 17, 2023 18:36
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Ginette Reno posted:
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Jan 17, 2023 20:28
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anilEhilated posted:Is it bad that I pretty much read these threads for stories like this? Not at all. I have two Ironlings from past years but I think my biggest Ironman accomplishment to die to that Nabassu. I was waiting for a business trip to start a new run but it's been postponed so I I'll wait until I get in the mood to basilisk hunt again.
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Jan 17, 2023 20:41
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anilEhilated posted:Is it bad that I pretty much read these threads for stories like this? Nah that's why we do these runs! Getting to TOB and ascending is cool but it's the funny deaths on the way that everyone is here for.
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Jan 17, 2023 21:06
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anilEhilated posted:Is it bad that I pretty much read these threads for stories like this? It's all about the stories, both the near misses and the ones that didn't miss. Neera cow-ing Nimbul and killing drat near everyone in Nashkel but Nimbul is one of my favorite memories from my runs last year.
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Jan 17, 2023 21:23
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biscuits and crazy posted:Jackie Daytona II the Shaman has run out of quests to do and is heading to Baldur's Gate. Run out of quests, you say? Heaven forbid! But Jackie Daytona II has cleared up most of the outstanding sidequests in the city of Baldur's Gate. Most of them.  Imoen declares that today is Jackie's birthday, and even gives him a present. (It's a slightly rebranded amulet of protection, made out of something that used to be Gorion's). It's a cute moment, and one of the reasons I don't mind some of the excesses of the BG1 NPC Project.  We won't be jumping on this quite yet but we'll get around to it.  Here's a half-orc we met on the road ages ago. He's having cold feet about finally meeting his beloved, who he's only corresponded with til now. We give him a pep talk and send him on his way.  Look, if you want an autograph there's a kobold, an xvart, and a tasloi down south who are happy to oblige.  You know, for a seer you sure are willing to take any old sphene gem instead of the one dropped by one of the few Sword Coast basilisks we haven't murdered yet.  We meet a pair of urban fantasy novelists in the Blade and Stars and are invited to share some of our stories. You can go around in circles with them for a while. We eventually tell them that our story isn't done yet. I like to think we drop a discreet link to this thread in there somewhere.  Maple Willow Aspen gets a letter with some further tree puns. She is not impressed.  Hmm, this warehouse is quest-locked? Eh, it's probably not important.  We hit Southern Baldur's Gate just in time for some bullies to try to shake down Rasaad for his lunch money. Apparently this is all being organized out of the Blade and Stars. Where we just were. Of course.  New tailor shop? Hm.  Not much to do here now. There's a quest-locked back room so you can imagine we'll be back here eventually.  Gorpel Hind and his Blithering Idiots bring a little piece of Basilisk Hell home.  Breagar sorts it out.  So what you're saying is there are some free gauntlets out there somewhere?  One of a couple of Shades quests here in Baldur's Gate, this one involving a ghost ship. This fellow opens a portal so we can get aboard.  Once we're aboard, we can gather some skeletal pieces (two above deck, two below) and revive (ish) a skeleton captain.  As it turns out we've found the remains of two of his sons already, one set of bones in the Wertle Woo shipwreck on the Rocky Shore, and one in the cave with the Ettin Revenant in the graveyard section added by Shades south of the gnoll fortress. There's one more set of bones to find, so we can't really do anything else here now.  There are normally some ogre mages in here. SCS moves them elsewhere so we are free to empty the place of its rather dubious loot without incident.  Breagar meets an old friend from home who updates us on the storyline that will progress into BG2. I don't think I've captured it all in my updates but the executive summary is that the whole reason Breagar was trying to forge the ring that cost him his arm was to prove himself worthy of marrying Audhild, a woman from his clan. He's transgressing a bit because his family are bakers and he would much rather be a smith. Here we hear about Reggik, a rival smith who's trying to forge the same ring, for the same reasons. And the messenger from Berronar hinted that Breagar's failure wasn't exactly an accident. Hmmmmm.  Of more immediate concern, we find out that Grothir has just signed a contract on behalf of the clan with the Iron Throne. Once he hears about our concerns about them, he naturally has second thoughts and asks us to retrieve the contract.  This idiot's been breeding mutant gibberlings in his home and it's gotten out of hand, because of course it has.  We head to his house and find a couple of gibberlings, but he was expecting there to be more like twenty of them there, which means they've escaped, and guess whose job it now is to hunt them down?  Elminster's, apparently! (Don't get too excited. Elminster is his trained bird who we get to carry around, and who will start squawking whenever there are mutant gibberlings nearby.)  Since we killed Aldeth in the Cloakwood this dude turns up for revenge. It goes super well for him.  We begin the poison quest. I've never been sure if it's the encounter with Marek that actually triggers us being poisoned or this one, but either way we're committed to see this through now.  We also find out about a kid in Luskan who spontaneously developed magic powers and teleported his nanny here. This will become relevant in time.  Outside the Blushing Mermaid, we meet a dwarf whose halfling buddy has gone missing.  And here at the Temple of Helm we find out about a child-murdering ex-paladin who's hiding inside.  Before we talk to him, though, we get our next piece of the Serpent's of Abbathor quest. We need to connect with Wostok Hammerhead to show him the diary we found, and the priest here directs us to the sewers. We'll get right on that.  Turns out the fallen paladin killed the child because he thought she was a demon in disguise. Unfortunately she turned out to be merely demon-possessed instead, a possession that manifested as sudden magical powers, hmmmm. After talking to the child's parents, we come back to talk to him further, and let him know about the similar situation in Luskan. He decides to head there to try to sort that out in a less lethal fashion and hopefully redeem himself.  Near the Silvershield estate, we meet this fellow who asks us to sort out the Cult of the Dragon, who are actually more into the undead than dragons, but I guess Cult of the Skellington didn't sound as impressive.  Turns out there are fans of everything.  We head to the Helm and Cloak, and the big fight that awaits us there. Then one of Gorpel Hind's Silly Morons takes offense to Imoen's pickpocketing and they all turn hostile too. Oops. Fortunately no one much seems to care that we've slaughtered them.  We deal with Degrodel's guards and get the quest for the Helm of Balduran.  I just like this dialogue choice.  We get the geas cure from the Temple of Umberlee (and the kid's body too) and completely fail to turn over the Tome of Wisdom, which goes to Helga.  I'm sure this Dark Moon informant at the Blade and Stars won't betray us or anything.  No one could possibly have seen this coming.  We get directed to an Evil Monk Stronghold in the Cloud Peaks.  I don't remember Marek being a spellcaster but it's SCS so who the gently caress knows.  Check out the changes that Spell Revisions makes to Shadow Door. I had been wondering why Rasaad kept getting mazed.  We deal with Ragefast's unrequited nymph love, sort out Ramazith, and get the Intelligence tome which goes to Imoen.  We head down to the Undercellar to grab the Cloak of Balduran, only to realize that I forgot to actually ask Vail to point us here. We just pickpocket the cloak off Quenash. However, we also find this Shades quest. There's an old sex dungeon under the Undercellar, which, hey, Jackie's not one to judge. It's been closed down because its owner-operator got himself murdered, and in the usual Sword Coast law enforcement tradition, they farm out the investigation to some random strangers. We find a dagger among a few other odds and ends that belongs to someone called Syja. This quest is a bit annoying because you actually have to go through the motions of investigating, i.e. you have to click on everything that has a tooltip in the dungeon to get the dialogue options to solve this.  Once we've done that though, we can talk to Syja at the other end of the Undercellar, whose story starts to fall apart over time until she finally confesses. She was friends with the proprietor, but then she found out that her husband was one of his clients, and she snapped and murdered him. She's overcome with guilt now and agrees to turn herself in.  Imoen's been getting up to some thief-type fun with Narlen Darkwalk, and it pays off. And that's it for now. We're off to wrap up Rasaad's quest and do one or two other things (I might do the top half of Durlag's Tower because another point of wisdom for Helga certainly wouldn't hurt) before moving on with the main quest. Oh, and there's the small matter of one mod we've barely started on yet.
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Jan 18, 2023 10:03
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Alright Torgum the Half-Orc assassin is live. Given I'm doing actual double damage this time and still scs I will probably die horribly and be rerolling within a day. Here's how Rogue Rebalancing changes this class:  The extra backstab multiplier earlier is nice, and death attack at 16 will be nice if we ever get there although probably overkill on a lot of enemies since a x7 backstab will kill most people dead anyways  The man himself  Did my usual early xp questing to hit level 32k xp. Forgot to ss but I got a nasty backstab off on Mutamin which was fun  Recruited my party, did Edwin's quest. We picked up Alora this time too. Alora was moved to Gullykin because of tweak pack. The +2 luck modifier on her necklace actually makes her quite good. If we can get her a strength belt from rasaad's quest she'll be nearly as effective a backstabber as my Half-Orc. Better even because of how powerful luck is. But we mainly picked her up because Assassins with RR still get precious few thieving points so we need someone to tackle traps.  Here's me backstabbing some dudes in Cloud Peaks.  Mulahey down  Nimbul exploded  Melicamp lived  My biggest number yet. I picked up Aule's Staff + 3 from Ulgoth's early. It's a great backstabbing weapon. Great weapon period.  Ogre Berserkers hit extremely fuckin hard on insane. I had to be careful even with Kagain.  Took out one of those bounty hunter ambushes. Going pretty well so far, but my 58 hp or whatever I have makes me feel awfully squishy.
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Jan 18, 2023 20:37
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Ginette Reno posted:Going pretty well so far, but my 58 hp or whatever I have makes me feel awfully squishy. Make sure you grab a crit protection hat from Ulgoth's Beard!
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Jan 18, 2023 21:10
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Livewire42 posted:Make sure you grab a crit protection hat from Ulgoth's Beard! Good call, I definitely will as soon as I get some more gold. I've got Shadow Armor and Aule's staff now so that's probably my next purchase. Crit immunity would go a long way towards not getting exploded into tiny giblets if I accidentally get caught in melee.
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Jan 18, 2023 22:29
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Ginette Reno posted:That usually works but I guess it doesn't if your PC is a Druid of some kind. It didn't allow me to use Cernd to do that the way I normally would. It forced me to make the challenge. I don't know if it got fixed in the EE but you used to be able to put all of your equipment on a different PC then move it back to you inventory when the duel starts. If you're quick enough you can even pause the game before combat officially starts so you can put on armor. Used to do that with Jaeheira all the time.
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Jan 18, 2023 23:32
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The absurdly high-point barbarian was boring as heck and wasn't going to see an interesting payoff until BG2, so I rerolled a character I've never played before: Haley, a fighter-druid. I still had a good roll. A pity about the strength, but no matter. As you can see, she's gotten to level 2. No getting eaten by wolves outside Candlekeep. I'm planning on getting the swiss valor award this time around--meaning neutrals only. And since I've got some horrible OCD where I can't split up pairings, that means if I want a full party it's gonna have to be Garrick/Branwen/Neera/Safana/Quayle (I'll probably dump Safana for Alora depending on when I reach Baldur's Gate; that rabbit's foot is no joke). This also means I'm running a 4-person party until after Cloakwood, which doesn't bode well for Alora's pre-generated HP total. Also something I'm trying this time around: usually I just try and go for an incredible AC. But getting the drop on people AND doubling crits (and successful hits this early in the game when you swing and miss constantly) is another way to have good offense. So I put 2* in Quarterstaves and 2* in Two-Handed. That gives me -4 speed factor, and staves already have a speed factor of 4. So I'm always gonna get the first word in a fight, and that's a big deal. We'll see why momentarily.  Here's the other crippling OCD thing with me that makes ironmans so tough. I have to do EVERYTHING. Clear all fog of war. Fight everything. It's real bad. That ogre can one-tap anything except a half-orc warrior with max con OR a barbarian with decent con at level 1. So I used the wand of magic missles to kill it. Thankfully got a few max rolls on the missiles and finished it with 1 charge to spare. Cleared the whole area east of Candlekeep, and then the Belt Ogre map. Wasn't planning on getting Khalid and Jaheira, but I wanted the easy XP from Joia's quest as well as turning in the belt. And to get the free antidotes b/c I planned to fight spiders in Beregost. So I bumped up to the Friendly Arm.  My plan vs. Tarnesh was simple: I'd get the first lick in. If it connected, I'd probably one-shot him or at least have a good chance of the guards finishing him without a mirror image and wounded. If it didn't, I'd just drink the oil of speed and run away, letting the guards do the work. But a speed factor 0 critical hit will explode a mage. That was that for old Tarnesh.  This made things easier for me since it meant I'd have the oil of speed in Beregost. Bopped into Taerom's to buy a +1 Quarterstaff (kind of a waste since Silke drops one, but it's not that much money and it's not a real big deal--I'd rather have the +1 to hit and damage immediately). Drank the oil of speed outside the spider house, and then rushed for a doorway where they'd have to fight me one-by-one. Screwed it up a bit and they fought me two-by-two. But still, they fell rather easily. Took 2 hits and made the poison save both times. Thanks to the oil of speed I could always have retreated had I needed to antidote. Killing the spiders got me the XP needed for level 2, where I got 11/13 HP. Not bad at all. It's always worrisome playing a warrior in BG ironman. You can leave a LOT of HP on the table at early levels. With a fighter/druid I'll be more about mitigation down the line anyway with iron skins, though. Though if my playthrough with Jaheira 20 years ago is any indication, I'm gonna be incredibly frustrated between 1.5 million XP and 3 million. But ha, that's a problem for if/when I get that far. Anyway, with the spiders dead I rushed to pick up Neera in the north section of town. Wanted to maximize the oil of speed, y'see.  The only threat here is the mage, and he got splattered with ANOTHER speed 0 hit to start the fight. It's really cool. So then I had Neera--who could also cast from scrolls and give me a chance to interrupt Silke while I tried fighting her.  Neera got the killing shot with the last charge from the wand of magic missiles, though that's because I crit her with ANOTHER fight-opening speed 0 crit. Just incredible luck. Which means now I have Garrick, who joined at level 3 and is the most senior member of the party.  With the oil of speed about to wear off, and with Haley having enough HP to shrug off a hit or two from the dwarven assassin at one of the inns, I figured I'd pick up his XP (and get a cheap suit of chainmail for Garrick to wear). He took a little longer to kill but went down without any particular danger. I'm now within striking distance of level 3 for Haley. Next stops: 1.) High Hedge to pawn off Evermemory and pick up some gear that'll make life easier--the wand of sleep, the potion case, some protection from ankhegs since rushing for the wand of fire will make Garrick a pretty nifty guy to have around once I can reliably put them down. (via Branwen's command + the wand of sleep) I guess some protection from basilisks too but that might be a bridge too far; that adventuring party on that map is scary until I've got enough wands of fire/necklaces of fireballs to just immediately remove them from play. 2.) Nashkel and the Nashkel Carnival. Here's hoping I can remember the dialogue sequence to talk the mage at the carnival down. Pick up Branwen and the necklace of missiles 3.) Go fight some Ankhegs. I guess do the Tenya quest while I'm out that way. 4.) If I can reach Ulgoth's Beard (I *think* you can only get there once you can reach the other side of the bridge to Baldur's Gate), pick up the +3 quarterstaff. 5.) Nashkel mines
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Jan 19, 2023 06:27
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FairGame posted:4.) If I can reach Ulgoth's Beard (I *think* you can only get there once you can reach the other side of the bridge to Baldur's Gate), pick up the +3 quarterstaff. You can get to Ulgoth's Beard any time. Good luck! That'll be a pretty solid party for you once you get there.
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Jan 19, 2023 14:49
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Jackie Daytona II has been a supportive friend. So after a bit of trial and error involving map locations, we get to the new Cloud Peaks area just in time to witness a bunch of Dark Moon washouts.  She's singin' our song. Basically nothing in this section is a serious problem for our party at this point. The few non-monk spellcasters don't seem to be very high level and aren't especially well-buffed, certainly not by SCS standards.  Turns out Rasaad's dead brother is slightly less dead than previously reported. There is a heartwarming family reunion and we all part ways in peace...  Lmao nope. It comes out that Rasaad occasionally let his brother win fights when they were growing up in the monastery which is apparently a deadly and unforgivable sin for some reason.  Cursed strength belt that makes you stupid? Eh, we put it on Breagar, he already runs at things with his head. (Seriously this is a massive powerup for him, his natural strength is 17 and all this means is he can't use green scrolls or the wand of sleep any more,.)  We come across a classic logic puzzle.  Wait, that dude was a spy? Eh, who cares.  Well I call upon the power of weasels and two superstrong dwarves, so what do you have to say about that? Nothing! Because you're...not dead because for story reasons Rasaad has to kill you in a cutscene, but I still feel my point has been made. As BG1 EE content goes this whole sequence isn't horrible. It's certainly better than the fight at the end of Neera's quest. And honestly, even though he has the highest death count in my party by a considerable margin, Rasaad hasn't been nearly the liability I was expecting. I've been treating him as a dedicated throwing dagger/dart person for the most part, and his sun soul abilities (especially the sun ray that bypasses most mage defenses and hits very fast) are actually pretty useful. I'm not sure he's really a superior choice to, you know, anyone, but he earns his keep. A few other things to clear up while we're out of the city.  Shilo Chen told us about some ogre mages in the Larswood. We go take care of them, and just in time, they appear to have forged an alliance with the gibberlings.  There's also a cave in the Rocky Coast map that we couldn't get into until now. Inside is  THE CULT OF THE DRAGON No actual dragons in evidence but they have trained gibberlings. WE WILL GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS GIBBERLING CONSPIRACY So the mission here is to wipe out the cult and grab the holy symbols they're carrying as proof.  Sixteen cultists, sixteen of these. They also drop robes that we can use to disguise ourselves to get past a certain encounter later. We don't bother with that. The main chamber (and the little huts to the north, I think this is a repurposed Icewind Dale map) have 15 out of our 16 foes. The last one is in a cavern beneath the cavern, but before we get there we find:  A giant skeleton, described as Tanar'ri Bones. This is the enemy we could have snuck past with the cultist robes, but killing him's not a big deal, especially since he isn't immune to Bombardier Beetle farts. (Giant Insect was a fantastic spell choice for Jackie.)  So here's the cult leader and his...thing...that he built. I'm still not sure what it's supposed to be but we throw everything we have at them both and they die without much incident. Moving on.  Shades adds this encounter at the end of the zombie quest in Upper Chionthar, where basically the zombies' mum turns up to complain. Then in Ulgoth's Beard...   Yup. Lighthouse ghost, boyfriend killed by zombie pirates, kill zombie pirates to lay to rest, etc.  Do you? Do you really?  We find a bit of treasure down here, as well as the last set of bones for a completely different undead pirate in Baldur's Gate.  Back upstairs, we realize that the ghost's boyfriend has long since left this mortal coil as either flesh or spirit, and we surmise that the scent of his perfume might be enough for our ghost here to follow.  Look you can just say it's the Friendly Arms Inn, we all know that's what you mean.  We head to the Inn. There's a perfume merchant in the corner where we can buy the necessary perfume and...you know I am not sure I shared this before, but there's a kobold outside of Baldur's Gate called Zee who wants to open a shop. Bentley's fine with it if his wife agrees (spoiler: she is).  We stop off to give Zee the good news. Now next time we're at the Inn we can stop by his shop in a little tower beside the main keep. He doesn't have much but there are a few neat items. And we'll meet him again in Siege of Dragonspear.  Back in Ulgoth's Beard, we give the ghost the perfume.  After all that running around we decide that a quick tour of Durlag's Tower is just the thing to unwind. Despite Breagar's grousing, he's interested.  One of the doppelgangers we fight on the way in drops this very useful scroll. Though check out the much-nerfed duration, thank you Spell Revisions.  You'll note that I sent Breagar up to talk to Ike at the end of the tour. You may think this is because of his high fire resistance. You would not be wrong.  Not much to speak of upstairs. Ghost fight is a little annoying thanks to SCS, but it's nothing we can't handle.  I'm honestly not sure what mod quest this relates to. I suspect a Romantic Encounters thing.  I'd planned on using her hair to trap the looter below because Jackie is exactly that sort of shithead but I can't remember which dialogue option doesn't end in a fight so this ends in a fight. Helga gets charmed just as Kirinhale dies, but Imoen reverses it. (Spell Revisions changes Remove Curse to Break Enchantment, which can, among other things, cure charm, making it actually worth keeping prepped on a regular basis.. It also removes curses.) We decide we've had enough of Durlag's Tower for now and head back toward Baldur's Gate. Next: We run through the Balduran's Sea Tower mod and then get on with the story.
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Jan 19, 2023 15:29
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docbeard posted:zombie pirates Hey how does that quest start / where are the zombie pirates? I'm doing 2 non-ironman casual runs with shades mod on but haven't seen this stuff yet.
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Jan 19, 2023 15:59
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Finnish Flasher posted:Hey how does that quest start / where are the zombie pirates? I'm doing 2 non-ironman casual runs with shades mod on but haven't seen this stuff yet. There's a lighthouse in the northwest corner of Ulgoth's Beard. The ghost is inside, and there's also an entrance to a set of caverns below with zombies, ghouls, and the pirate captain. The entrance to the caverns in the lighthouse is a bit hard to see, CTRL+4 will highlight it though.
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Jan 19, 2023 18:08
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Torgum the Assassin has had quite a few adventures  I picked up Darkveil. This is a helmet that Rogue Rebalancing adds to the game. The gaze immunity is whatever. The most important thing is it gives my Assassin physical crit immunity like a normal helmet which is a huge survivability boost on insane difficulty.  We encountered the other Bounty Hunter ambush, and handled it well.  We cleared the zone with a few tombs east of the Nashkel mines  In another zone, we didn't fool around with the Ogre Berserkers and cast a web there  That rear end in a top hat noble in the temple was an enticing target for me to lose rep and keep my evil members happy  We went to Durlags to do a few floors and get some quick xp + gold  Did you guys know that you can go onto the ramparts outside of Durlags? I legit didn't know this until I saw Davaeorn do it on a stream recently. There's a few Doom Guards up there and some skeleton archers. Legit probably haven't seen this content ever, or if I did, it's been probably a decade since I remembered it.  Some carefully placed aoe killed many a Kobold in Firewine  We also backstabbed some mages in here  We pick pocketed Dushai's ring of free action to more easily deal with all the annoying spiders in the game  We exploded the bandit camp with webs and fireballs and skull traps as we normally do  Into Cloakwood we go  We started this fight off with a backstab. Even with one mage down, it was still a brawl afterwards. These dudes are tough. I ran my Assassin out of LOS and back in and got a huge backstab on Drasus, and after that we cleaned up the remaining two.  Check out this big one here  Insane reminds me that nothing is ever easy by this guard literally one shotting Edwin with a 60 dmg crit. Luckily he was not permaed.  Hareishan and her cronies were herded into a corridor and assailed with webs, skull traps, and fireballs.  Davaeorn doesn't have a ton of health. It's very possible to one shot him with backstab. Of loving course I critically miss. Sidebar: For those who haven't played the mod, SCS mages precast buffs when combat starts, to simulate pre battle casting. However, they often do not have spells up until combat starts, so backstabbing them can be a very effective tactic if they don't cast detect invis or true sight. In bg2 many tough enemies like liches and mind flayers just flat see through invis so it becomes harder. Occasionally an enemy will spawn in invisible or with stoneskin up. Hareishan for instance starts invis even if she doesnt see you. More often though you can just backstab away even at SCS mages. As long as you can one shot them their pre buffs won't get off.  Anyways, after the critical miss the fight was on. Davaeorn summons reinforcements periodically, and with his buffs actually up he's tough. He dimension doors around, has two battleguards (these aren't tied to traps as in the basegame) and will use all kinds of nasty spells. Edwin got dispelled by Davaeorn and then killed by a Battleguard, but we gradually got in control of this fight and wore him down and won. A well timed spell thrust by Edwin stripped his minor globe which helped a lot so we could land spells on him. Torgum is preparing to go to Baldur's Gate. He does still need to kill Kahrk and do Ulcaster, but every other wilderness map is cleared. This runs going fairly well so far. A little worried about some of the later game fights on insane but we'll see how it goes. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Jan 20, 2023 |
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Jan 20, 2023 05:30
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Dugash and his gang entered the Nashkel mines where they immediately realized their error in not buying any antidotes.   The sleazy bard succumbs to poison and the rest are injured. They manage to kill the rest of the kobolds but realize they need antidotes for poison and either raise the bard or replace him. They head back to Nashkel.   They find a woman causing a scene in the tavern who decides the local iron crisis needs some sorting out. They accept her into the party, dumping the bard's corpse in the woods.  Now properly equipped to deal with the kobolds and their poisons, they manage to find the source and kill Mulahey, the half-orc who was in charge of the kobolds. They then kill a wizard named Tranzig in Beregost and learn that there is a bandit camp somewhere near Larswood and Peldvale. They decide to inflitrate.  The battle is chaotic, with all sorts of spells flying around. The enemy wizard manages to kill Flara and put Xzar to sleep.  It gets worse. Dugash is blinded and surrounded by enemies.  He gets cut to death unceremoniously. ------------------- Well, I wanted a challenge and I definitely got one. Next time I'll probably do the whole basilisk cheese myself to get 32k exp and make sure to get some better gear and spells. Can't wait for next christmas.
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Jan 20, 2023 13:11
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Eagle Eye the Archer was singleminded while going through the Cloakwood, only stopping to mediate when a group of hunters and druids were going to come to blows. After blitzing to the mine and making it to the third floor, he had the mildly embarrassing realization that he ran out of bolts on the second floor. After an awkward, week long trip to the Friendly Arm Inn to restock then return to the mine, they finished the mines without further issue. Then they went back to the Friendly Arm Inn to rest and sell off the rest of the loot. Baldur's Gate awaits. Also, because I forgot to mention it last time, the chicken lives!
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Jan 20, 2023 13:48
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Capfalcon posted:Eagle Eye the Archer was singleminded while going through the Cloakwood, only stopping to mediate when a group of hunters and druids were going to come to blows. After blitzing to the mine and making it to the third floor, he had the mildly embarrassing realization that he ran out of bolts on the second floor. After an awkward, week long trip to the Friendly Arm Inn to restock then return to the mine, they finished the mines without further issue. Heh heh heh, it wasn't for ammo in my case but I have definitely done that mid-Cloakwood walk of shame before.
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Jan 20, 2023 14:18
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Torgum died to a lightning bolt trap on Ice Island because I'm a big dumb dumb and wandered a little too far down the corridor trying to detect it and accidentally set it off and didn't click a potion of immunity fast enough. Whoopsies. edit: Not sure what I'm gonna roll yet. Maybe another Assassin. Maybe not. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Jan 20, 2023 |
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Jan 20, 2023 22:49
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Eagle Eye the Archer continued his blitzed the rest of the game after I realized that level six is more than enough to just... do everything, and I didn't need anything else to really beat the last fight. Notable events are: An excursion to snipe the high XP monsters in Durlag's tower, which unfortunately got Safana killed by a confused Kagain. Picking up Alora and bemoaning how many pickpocket points she has auto-alocated. Dodging the 10 day poisoning quest, which I've never actually done before, but seems pretty obvious in hindsight. Giving every relevant tome to Eagle Eye (Wisdom and Intelligence rotted in their graves). Getting Alora the poison dagger and a brace of invisibility potions. I'm not actually very good at the game, so I've never used rogues as anything other than a poor man's archer, but she melts mages with it. Unfortunately, Alora and Dynaheir ate it in the last fight, but it's better than my last attempt where everyone but the PC died. I'll take it! Awards: Ironling, Purist, Honorable Trader, Iron Party, Battlemaster
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Jan 21, 2023 01:31
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Jackie Daytona II has returned to Candlekeep You know the old line attributed to Ginger Rogers that she had to do everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels? Well, Jackie's not in high heels (as far as YOU know) but he sure feels like he did some backtracking. As of the end of this update, we'll have finished pretty much all of the major quest mod content in Baldur's Gate. (I often have Northern Tales of the Sword Coast installed which adds a mini-expansion's worth of endgame quests but I decided I didn't want to contend with it this time.) I think there's one more Shades encounter in Candlekeep and a bit of post-Sarevok roleplay shenanigans and who knows what Romantic Encounters adds from here on out, but after this update it's mostly (SCS-enhanced) vanilla stuff for a while. And by 'for a while' I mean 'until Baldur's Gate II'. Shades adds a few encounters to Siege of Dragonspear but I don't really have any dedicated SoD mods (not that there are many) installed, I don't think. Anyway. That's AFTER this update, which is about 75% Balduran's Seatower content. We return to the city and turn in the Dragon Cult quest (which nets us some gold and XP) and return to the ghost ship captain with the remains of his sons (which nets us the choice between a returning dart and a scimitar, both cursed).  Then we head south from the docks in Baldur's Gate...  And enter Balduran's Seatower. This mod has a bit of a storied history, the short version of which is that there are actually two versions of it out there, the original, and a version that was, uh, scavenged by either Roxanne (of Sandrah Saga infamy) or one of her buddies. I had the misfortune of playing through that one once, and it's, um, a trip. This is the good one. It's supposedly in 'early access beta' because that's the sort of language we use for unfinished mods now but it's a complete, if not completely polished, experience. We start right away with a quest hook that will take us back out into the city. There's sort of a main quest chain here, as well as a handful of individual sidequests. This is the quest that starts the chain, a search for a guard's missing girlfriend. She's a monk of Ilmater and she disappeared while distributing alms in the city.  Most of the usual services can be found within the grounds, temples, merchants, an inn, etc. Every one of whom wants a favor of some sort. I'm not necessarily going to go through all the sidequests here, or else we'll be here forever.  Instead we'll skip ahead to the Shrine of Ilmater in the city proper, where a couple of named beggars tell us that Martina disappeared behind the shrine with one of the Seatower guards. We find her body and have to break the news to her boyfriend, who asks us to speak with the Abbot at the Seatower's monastery.  He sheds a bit of light on the incident; anotther of the guards stole money from the monastery and appears to have robbed and killed her as well. We find out from the Seatower commander that he's been arrested and has asked to speak to us, for some reason. We're given authorization to enter the prison (if we try before this we just get kicked out) and speak with Shuck. He tells us that he did all this to raise money to ransom back his brother, who's fallen afoul of some smugglers. We're sent to Nashkel to pay his ransom. But first  We find some Myconids in the back halls of the prison, deal with them and a colony of spores...and find a tunnel leading into some caves.  We also find what appears to be the corpse of the commander's adjuctant...who seemed to be very much alive a moment ago. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Well, if you're thinking "doppelgangers", you're right, but if you're thinking we're going to ignore this to traipse off to Nashkel, you're also right.  Your 'Innocent Looking Berry Picker' T-Shirt is raising questions etc.  No loving way  We find out that Shuck's brother has been sold into slavery because of course he has. Since we paid off his debts, we're at least given the slaver contact back at the Tower. There are a couple of ways this can go, ranging from 'let's join up with the smugglers' to 'murder them all'. We choose to just go our separate ways with this news.  Turns out we can buy the brother back...for 20,000 gold. Now, we could spend our own money on this (we can afford it, technically) but we certainly don't need to. So we're off to see the Commander  ...you know, Doppelganger Conspiracies would be a bit more frightening if they didn't drop character at the first available opportunity.  Our next order of business is to thoroughly explore the caves we found earlier, but we can also get the Commander to spring for Shuck's brother's release, on the basis that this might give us enough evidence to break the slave trade wide open. This evidence comes in two parts.  The first is the freed brother himself, who can share some details.  The second is in the form of some documents we, uh, acquire from Leonhard  As for the caves, there are a couple of exits, one leading to the outside of the tower, one leading to the temple of Umberlee (which is looking mighty empty for some reason coff coff), and one leading to  More caves! We find some orcs working down here, and as we progress further, we find  Smugglers! (If I recall correctly, if we decide to join up with the smugglers in Nashkel we're eventually asked to look into the disappearance of this group of them.)  It's not a surprise. We knew some of you were doppelgangers. It was obvious. You're failures as evil shapeshifting infiltrators.  Oh, and remember that tailor shop? The locked back room has a baby mimic, a development that seems like it will go somewhere but doesn't. We can sell the mimic blood to the Tower mage though, so that's nice.  Our last order of business is to flush out any other doppelgangers in the tower itself. To do this, we report to the garrison.  The tower mage exposes all the doppelgangers among the guard and we do what we do.  We're also given some mimic powder that will cause other nearby doppelgangers to revert to their natural form as if we'd said something or done something or otherwise were present when the three seconds that they could hold a plan together was up. We can either wander around the tower, or ask the tanner to pump the powder into the air causing the doppelgangers to all reveal themselves at once. We do the latter, kill the doppelgangers, and that's our show.  Meanwhile, once we turn in all the slaver evidence to the commander, we're asked to work with the Flaming Fist to intercept the slavers themselves. This all goes down just south of the bridge into Baldur's Gate.  We come to the end of all of this a fair bit richer. But it's time to leave the Seatower behind (technically there are still a few fetch quests we can turn in but eh) and get on with things.  We clear the doppelgangers out of the Seven Suns, who show as much willingness to stick to a plan as their Seatower brethren.  We have the opportunity to befriend Scar (or more than befriend, though we keep it friendly) though he's not interested in taking a break until we sort out the missing persons situation in the sewers.  Normally I just let the Sewerfolk be but Jackie doesn't take kindly to a slime reading his mind.  Two things, both from Ascalon's questpack. The first, that KIWITT! noise Jackie is making is actually part of the quest to hunt down the mutant gibberlings that Geraldo the idiot artist was breeding. The bird he gave us makes that noise when they're nearby, and they're all in either the sewers or the Iron Throne's basement. The second is that we meet up with Wostock Hammerhead, our next (and final) contact for the Serpents of Abbathor quest, the last major mod quest we'll be dealing with. He sends us to kill the Serpents' frontdwarf, name of Draglon. Draglon is in the Undercity but when we try to kill him he just goes invisible and fucks off. We kill the ogre mage in the sewers, as well as all the gibberlings.  Our reward from Geraldo is everything we might expect.  Meanwhile, back at the Temple of Helm, Wostok sends us to collect a dwarven artifact that the Serpents are after.  We get there too late but are directed toward a warehouse that they're using as a headquarters.  Once we turn in the missing persons quest, we can go have a drink and chat with Scar before we meet with Duke Eltan.  When we get to the Serpents' headquarters, we run into a decent-sized fight. The Serpents' troops mostly consist of fighters and a couple of clerics, as well as Draglon who's a swashbuckler or something. And someone called Lugosch, who teleports away immediately, and who we have never met or even laid eyes on but who the quest expects us to believe is now our archenemy. This quest is honestly a bit opaque.  We find out that apparently the artifact can summon undead dwarves, and that the Serpents are ready to do their major field test in the cleared-out (thanks to us) Nashkel Mines. See what I mean about backtracking?  We head there to find a new version of the Nashkel Mines map. We come across a dying Wostok who tells us the Serpents have cut a bloody swathe through the place.  Emerson's holed up in the guard hut, and he tells us that some of his miners are missing, as are his operational notes for the mine. Worse, he says that the Serpents have been bringing in Umber Hulks for some drat reason. We descend into the mines. The first level consists mostly of cultists and traps. We find Emerson's notes on a party just before the entrance to level 2.  When we enter level 2, we run into this rather nasty encounter. Those skeletal archers are all armed with fire arrows. Breagar, draws their fire and even with his quite high AC and fire resistance he takes a pretty severe beating.  We find an evil priest and some summoned skeleton warriors holding some miners hostage. We free them.  We start running into dwarven shadows on Level 3. These aren't the usual strength-draining shadows, and honestly they're a bit of a letdown after some of the fighting we've done getting this far.  There are indeed a couple of umber hulks down here. We sort them out.  Man I don't even know who you are.  Lugosch is a cleric and honestly is the only real threat here. The other cultists are pretty tanky but we're never in especially serious danger. We get a text crawl, and a bit of a reward from Emerson, and that's it for the Serpents of Abbathor, Part 1. (As far as I know, there is no Part 2.)  You said it, brother I somehow manage to botch every single dialogue check on the way upstairs.  Who the gently caress is Nortuary?  No seriously, who the gently caress was Nortuary?  And we're off. SCS adds a couple of extra people to this fight. It's a tough'un, and Imoen dies at one point. (I think the web spell I had her cast was partly to blame for that, sorry kid)  Rasaad comes drat close to dying too, and both Breagar and Helga went through quite a few healing potions. But in the end, we prevail, and are left with one very important question.  ...who the gently caress is Sarevok?  We retrieve the contract that Breagar's clan made with the Iron Throne.  We also find reference to a collector of Bhaal artifacts in the sewers. This actually ties into another Shades quest that I'd forgotten about.  We find an entrance in the sewers  Oh gently caress I don't know if this dude is actually a lich or what, but he's a pretty tough fight, at one point breaking out a Sphere of Chaos (the level 7 spell that Spell Revisions replaces bog standard Chaos with). Still, no casualties on our end, and we walk away with a bit of loot (none of which we can really use).  This is the other quest that ends up here, the dwarf who asked us to look for his missing halfling friend. The artifact collector had his body. We deliver the sad news. We then head back to Duke Eltan to report on the Iron Throne, and are sent back to Candlekeep, where we receive a warm welcome  Oh, hey, remember that ogre mage ambush that SCS relocates? We, uh, found them.  And, after all that, we're back home.
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Jan 21, 2023 06:10
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I've always liked that SCS moved that Ogre-Magi fight to outside Candlekeep. Hired assassins hanging round an empty house makes no sense at all, and its not too tough for a party in Chapter 6. Ordinary Ogre-Magi are not very strong when you really think about it, even 5 of them at once. Icharyd or Kahrk would eat them for breakfast. OP updated to here.
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Jan 22, 2023 00:31
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biscuits and crazy posted:I've always liked that SCS moved that Ogre-Magi fight to outside Candlekeep. Hired assassins hanging round an empty house makes no sense at all, and its not too tough for a party in Chapter 6. Ordinary Ogre-Magi are not very strong when you really think about it, even 5 of them at once. Icharyd or Kahrk would eat them for breakfast. Yeah, by that point in the game they should just be an annoyance rather than a real threat, but having them jump you when you have no chance to pre-buff at all evens the odds a little.
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Jan 22, 2023 00:34
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biscuits and crazy posted:I've always liked that SCS moved that Ogre-Magi fight to outside Candlekeep. Hired assassins hanging round an empty house makes no sense at all, and its not too tough for a party in Chapter 6. Ordinary Ogre-Magi are not very strong when you really think about it, even 5 of them at once. Icharyd or Kahrk would eat them for breakfast. I enjoy that they make the other bounty hunter fights ambushes as well. They're not too bad even with the prebuffs those enemies show up, but you have to actually fight a bit instead of stomping them into the ground with all your prebuffs and that's fun. ------- Telgrim the Half-Orc Assassin is exploring the sword coast and trying to avenge his brother, Torgum. We won't speak of their other brother Turgrim who critically missed his backstab and died to SCS Tarnesh. Same mods. Rogue Rebalancing/SCS/Insane/Tweaks let's goo  Nothing special about the roll, but it will do  Usual Basilisk shenanigans to get towards 32k xp so I can recruit my party  Shoved my staff between Mutamin's ribs  Did not miss Tarnesh this time  Killed spiders in Beregost and turned in for xp  Hit 32k xp after doing the water bowl quest and then killing a zombie or two  Recruited Vicky  And Baeloth  And Alora  Edwin too. We immediately set about doing his quest so he wouldn't complain. Here's us wrecking some fools in Cloud Peaks  Winter wolves are kinda scary on insane dmg. I got a touch careless with Vicky and she got literally reduced to 1hp by one Winterwolf blast. Was a lil more careful after that.  Killed Dynaheir, now free to do what I want  And "what I want" includes getting some quick gold and xp to outfit the party. Bassilus and his 5k gold will come in handy even though he's not a complete pushover on SCS. Landed a blind on him which made this much easier. Used a lot of the gold I'd accumulated to this point to get Aule's Staff + Darkveil for my PC.  Melicamp died  We made our way to the mines where we blasted our way to Mulahey (quite literally, many fireballs/skull traps used because I failed to mem both sleep scrolls and so Edwin only has color spray)  We fought Nimbul straight up instead of backstabbing him this time. I don't know why, it would have been easier probably to just kill him. But I was afraid of another critical miss, and he does sometimes come equipped with a level 3 damage spell like Ice Lance etc which could one shot my pc if I failed a save.  The Ogre Mage Droth fell to a spicy backstab. We then backstabbed the Siren for good measure (5k xp is more than her quest gives + gently caress her). In the same zone with Droth we fought that gang of ogres. I got a little cute and tried to backstab two of them to start the fight. One turned around and hit Alora because I wasn't quite fast enough to get her out. Luckily, it didn't crit her and she made it out alive. I then casted a few webs to try and cc the ogres, which helped. However, an Ogre Berserker eventually broke free. I tried to have Kagain tank it, but it killed him. Even with 90 hp he can go down so loving fast to these things. They're terrifying. I don't think SCS boosts them beyond giving them the actual berserker rage ability, but that bit of thaco/dmg boost on top of their already high str/thaco makes them quite scary.  On my way to the temple to rez Kagain, I got ambushed by the Amazons. This was a little trickier than normal because Kagain was dead, but I managed. Baeloth cast detect invis to make sure none of my party got backstabbed. Edwin landed a blind on one of the thieves. Baeloth landed a spook on one of the priests. Vicky silenced the other. My Thief ran out of combat far enough so that he could actually stealth. I did this twice, and backstabbed both of the enemy thieves and killed them.  We prevailed, and managed to rez Kagain. We're now working through the rest of the wilderness map + Bandit Camp. Hopefully I can avoid triggering any bad traps this time! I'd like to at least get into Bg2 with this Assassin, but if I fail again in bg1 I'll probably pick another class for my next attempt...if I do another attempt (who am I kidding, I loving love this poo poo). Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Jan 22, 2023 |
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Jan 22, 2023 01:47
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Man. So close, but Jackie Daytona IIdied to the end boss of Baldur's Gate 1 (the cultists inside Ulgoth's Beard post-Durlag's). Going in invisibly is a bit trickier thanks to Spell Revisions so I had to improvise and then one of those assholes kept spamming a cone of cold wand and I just couldn't keep up. Once more unto the breach? Oh absolutely, though I will have to have a think about what.
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Jan 22, 2023 05:09
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docbeard posted:Man. So close, but Jackie Daytona IIdied to the end boss of Baldur's Gate 1 (the cultists inside Ulgoth's Beard post-Durlag's). drat, seemed like you had a good run going. SCS Ulgoth's Beard cultists are nasty for sure. Nastier than the actual Aec fight.
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Jan 22, 2023 05:14
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Haley the Fighter/Druid's adventures are going just fine. Scroll of acid protection meant I could handle the Ankheg lair. Got Branwen and more importantly, the necklace of missiles. Now between the necklace, Garrick using the wand of fire from the Ankheg lair, and 3 potions of explosions I grabbed from High Hedge after pawning Evermemory, I can nuke basically any rude adventuring party. The group is level 4/5 right now. Will do the zombie farm and the priestess of umberlee, I guess do Durlag's, and then pick up Safana and deal with Sirines via Branwen summoning skeletons. Once I've got all that I'll head to the Nashkel mines and dump Neera for Xan because holy poo poo she makes me incredibly nervous.
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Jan 22, 2023 14:29
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Ginette Reno posted:drat, seemed like you had a good run going. SCS Ulgoth's Beard cultists are nasty for sure. Nastier than the actual Aec fight. In retrospect I probably could have gotten off an Invisibility Sphere after combat started that would have at least given me some breathing room. Ah well, next time. Speaking of (several times after the) next time:  This is Silas, a Half-Orc Cleric/Thief. I've given him the Firewalker of Kossoth kit from Divine Remix which gives him a 1/day Sunfire (or, per Spell Revisions, Fireburst but it seems to be pretty much the same spell) ability and a bit of fire resistance. Which is very nice, especially at lower levels, though I think most of the vanilla kits are a bit better in the long run, especially Helm and Lathander.  Poor Shank never stood a chance. We get on with the usual business of collecting loot and chatting up future NPCs in Candlekeep, and head on to High Hedge to do a bit of early shopping.  I don't think this is what "start as you mean to go on" means. During our powerleveling phase, I take a huge risk taking on Silke early because I want a magic quarterstaff for Silas, and gently caress paying for things.  She of course saves against everything Silas throws at her, except for the two crits in a row he throws at her. Imoen, meanwhile, is already shopping around for other parties to join.  Now that's more like it. And unlike some of his predecessors who didn't live long enough to be worthy of reporting to the thread, Silas doesn't end up as basilisk chow afterwards.  Melicamp lives! Now that we're maxed out for NPC recruiting, we pick up Kagain and Neera (who are both ringers til we can get to the NPCs I actually want). We head to the Inn, Tarnesh falls to a backstab and we recruit Khalid and Jaheira. (Yes, both of them.) I give Jaheira the Totemic druid kit, and Khalid becomes a fighter/mage with the Eldritch Knight kit from Artisan's Kitpack. This kit gets a few nice abilities (most notably armored casting, limited to studded leather or below right now) in exchange for a substantially slower spell progression. (The text of it is that he gets access to higher level spells one level later than usual, which I think the kit pulls off using spell slot adjustment shenanigans, but the end result is he sees his first level 2 spells at level 4, level 3 at level 6, and so forth). We head straight south to Nashkel, deal with Neira (who falls to a barrage of spells), take out Dorn's introductory ambush, and head to the mines to pick up our fifth.  After facing Greywolf and living, we get a bit of commentary from this lady, who joins us. This is Isra. She's a Cavalier. No kit-change shenanigans here, Cavalier's probably my favorite paladin kit as it is, especially for BG1. Fear and poison immunity are amazing, and being able to spam remove fear even more so. Undead Hunter is probably the better long-run choice, and of course Inquisitor replaces mage rock-paper-scissors with a big ol' I WIN button (though less so with some of Spell Revisions' anti-dispel shenanigans) but I like what I like. We have one more recruit but it's going to require going somewhere we shouldn't be this early.  Namely, the Ulcaster Ruins to pick up Recorder. The rest of her adventuring party were exploring the ruins when they were betrayed by one of their own, and she expects us to mount a rescue mission. Right now. (Actually I am not 100% positive she won't join the party wait for us to get around to it but she certainly doesn't seem so inclined.) This is of course complicated by SCS's addition of a pretty nasty boss fight to the end of this dungeon, the Hound of Ulcaster, a named and buffed spellcasting vampiric wolf that can summon dread wolves, ghouls, and spam horrors and dispels. Unrecorded-for-posterity run #2 ended because I thought we could handle it and was very very wrong. But this time I have a Plan.  THIS WAS NOT PART OF THE PLAN!  Recorder herself is a Lorekeeper, a bard kit that focuses heavily on spellcasting and not so much on the usual bard stuff. She's essentially a Junior Mage. (Honestly I'm not sure why the mod creator didn't just make her a mage, but eh, whatever).  We head inside and meet up with one of the survivors from her party who confirms that the party mage, Rick Harris, was a necromancer who has betrayed the rest of them and probably killed Recorder's buddy Mark. We press on, fighting wolves and spiders until...  Now here's where the plan comes into play. I've sent most of the party to the entrance. Silas is invisible. My hope is to get a backstab on Rick without aggroing the Hound and then immediately Sanctuary. (I don't want to risk a sunfire because there are friendly NPCs about). Isra's waiting in the wings with a Protection from Undead scroll in case things go too far south. Rick does have some dialogue here but Silas isn't really interested in anything he's got to say at this point, also I don't want to deal with his pre-buffs. Now we're all protected from horror (and Isra can spam remove fear if need be, thank you Cavalier kit) and can still run like hell if we aggro the Hound but its wolf and ghoul summons will home in on our party wherever they are, so I really hope we get lucky.  Well I'll be damned. That actually worked! Mark has a few dying words (which conveniently include the phrase, 'don't bother magically healing me, even though you absolutely could, because it's more dramatic this...aargh'. Not in those exact words, but we get the gist). We're asked to take his sword to his family in Baldur's Gate.) One Sanctuary spell later and all the pre-summoned undead are left to cool their heels and the Hound is none the wiser. We'll come back later and mop this place up but for now, Silas and Company are off to seek out some more level-appropriate encounters.
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Jan 23, 2023 14:22
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Telgrim the Assassin is getting stuff done We explored the wilderness maps. Here's a shot of me stabbing a bear.  We opted not to steal the idol. Let it lie undisturbed, we just want the xp  While exploring the siren zone I took them down easily enough but when I rested I got ambushed by more sirens. I didn't even know that was a thing here. It caught me a bit off guard and Kagain got charmed and killed Vicky (luckily not permanently).  Later on we fought a Bounty Hunter ambush and won  We also picked up a ring of fire resistance  Many maps later we took on the bandit camp  And we blasted them to bits  We fought Kahrk, and got a Greater Malison off on him and then hit him with Wand of Paralyze. That's a gg for him.  Took on the ruins as well  Fighting these scs mages in tight corridors is somewhat scary but we took them out  Took a side trip to do some of Durlags for xp and loot. We did all the top floors and the first two bottom floors. We didn't fight the riddling Dwarves just yet - we'll save that for later. We did everything else there though  Onto Cloakwood  Centeol and her brood fell to our might  We started off the Drasus fight by exploding both mages with backstabs. I felt a little guilty doing this but it was quite funny watching them both explode to start the fight. With no mage backup, Drasus and Genthore fell easily enough.  Hareishan and her cronies were lured into a corridor and webbed and skull trapped to death  We tried to have Alora start the fight vs Davaeorn with a backstab. I didn't want to risk my Assassin in case I missed. Unfortunately Alora did hit him but not quite enough to kill him, so the fight was on. He got off a fireball that nearly caused me problems but luckily I had potions up and even though it hit the rest of my party everyone made their save and had enough potions/resistance up to shrug off the damage even on insane. We eventually took out Davaeorn and won. I apparently forgot to ss it.  We next went to Ice Island. First fight was tricky. Three high level mages. Edwin's remove magic worked on one of them, and we gradually took out the other two after. Andrus dimension doored away at one point to rebuff (he almost always does this on SCS unless you kill him quickly enough). Unfortunately for him, when he came back, he found an arrow of dispelling waiting for him, and he fell.  Staff to the back hurts  One of the mages in here fired off a minor sequencer with two acid arrows in it, but Vicky resisted both. Get wrecked  We battled our way through the dungeon and actually disabled that annoying lightning bolt trap this time. We came away with our prize: a stoneskin scroll. Edwin and Baeloth can now both cast it, vastly improving their survivability. Next up: Baldur's Gate, the rest of Durlags, and Werewolf Island. Need to be careful in the end game. There's a lot of enemies that can end this run in a hurry on double damage.
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Jan 24, 2023 02:01
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A real shame about Jackie Robinson, I was really enjoying the run. The mod content was an interesting read. And some good progress with Haley and Telgrim. I've never done a Fighter/Druid (Jaheira is really good, so its obviously powerful), but Assassin is a really good class in BG1. Its a tough solo in BG2 though, especially the early game. You really miss all the gear from late BG1 at the start. OP updated to here.
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Jan 24, 2023 16:41
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