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Dec 24, 2018 01:27
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Once more unto the breach, dear Goons. Time to unleash… The Pebble!  The Pebble, the solo barbarian is ready to crack some heads.  The Pebble feels nothing but contempt for scrawny assassins in Candlekeep. After Gorion kicks the bucket, The Pebble ventures into the wilderness, robs Imoen and Xzar blind and arrives to The Friendly Arms inn.  Welcome to Dead City Pop: Tarnesh Some quest solving and looting done in the inn and the surrounding areas, The Pebble arrives to Beregost. The most important lesson The Pebble has ever learned from Gorion is that talky old men known as mages are great xp pinatas!  The Pebble sells beatdown and beatdown accessories!  The Pebble hates poison!  Remember kids, winners don’t do magic! (yes, Silke managed to kill Garrick, the three men and herself at the same time!) After clearing Beregost of quests, time to make a quick trip to Nashkel and rob everything.  Sirines are dangerous even with The Pebble almighty rage! Luckily, clarity potions are a godsend.  The Pebble nearly got crushed to death by flesh golems, twice. At least The Pebble gets a body building magazine for his troubles. The Pebble is now so swole that he regenerates all damage!  Talky chicken-man Melicamp saved!  The Pebble, the solo barbarian is on his way to the Nashkel mines Angry Lobster fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 12:49
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cheesetriangles posted:Kala Has died in watchers keep. RIP Kala, the chromatic demon is a pain in the rear end.
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Jan 1, 2019 14:06
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I've been binging BG hard, already finished with BG1 and in BG2 (I'll write the report later). The thing is I've been playing fairly sloppy, especially towards the end of BG1, however this character has survived so many near-death situations by sheer luck it's disgusting.
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Jan 2, 2019 01:26
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JustJeff88 posted:Bloody hell man, how are you not dead of dehydration? The truth is I do not enjoy BG1 near as much as I do BG2, so whenever I play a solo character, once I get a few levels and items early on, I rush the main quest and finish as fast as possible. Of course this is pretty reckless and most of the time I pay for it. Now to the LP, giant post incoming. Let’s do this.  Mulahey went down with no issues whatsoever, The Pebble is just too overleveled at this point.  Bandit camp cleared, Tazok’s goons were easier than I expected. Cloakwood time.   Freaking spiders, I hate them so much. Barbarian rage doesn’t provide immunity to web and poison, so this could have been lethal. In hindsight I should not have risked death to get the sword. After this I rushed all the forest areas and didn’t stop until I reached the mines.  The Pebble lays down the beatdown on the bounty hunters at the mines. For once I’m not stingy with potions and it makes the fight a breeze. Also, The Pebble loots the boots and now has achieved VERY HIGH SPEED.  Sweet monkey balls I hate lightning bolt traps.  I hate Battle Horrors, they are mean, tough and hit like trucks.  Davaeorn finally goes down, the man himself was not hard, but the battle horrors were a mess and I had to go up to previous floors to rest and heal (with infinite ambushes in between, of course). Time to go to Baldur’s Gate (and a short shopping trip to Ulgoth’s Beard).  The Iron Throne headquarters battle was a mess, a long, annoying and potentially fatal mess.  The idea was to drawn out the melee goons to the lower floors and take advantage of the double stairs to go around and gank the mages separately. It worked pretty well but I overestimated The Pebble’s melee power and I had to get out of the building and rest in the sewers three or four times. Had a couple near death experiences, one to pathing issues and another when I tried to melee and got critted repeatedly.  VERY HIGH SPEED KITING The Pebble’s best weapons are his legs. To Candlekeep.  TRAPS!    Bugger me that was a close fight. Now to Baldur’s Gate, Iron Throne Headquarters boogaloo  Nearly got destroyed again. Can you guess what happened in the Undercellar?  You guessed right, another near death experience. Sweet monkey balls, note to past self: Don’t play so fast, eventually you’ll run out of luck. Amusingly, the doppelganger fight in the Ducal Palace was super easy and steamrolled them without any of the dukes dying. In the maze I made a huge mistake because I was in a hurry to get to Sarevok. I tried to skip the doom guards and skeleton archers there and run past them. When I was fighting Rahvin and his goons guess who appeared from behind?  Freaking doom guards followed me to the underground temple and poo poo hit the fan. I had to retreat to the maze and run away to the surface to rest and heal, about half a dozen time. It took me literally a real-time hour to kill both doom guard and the other fellas.  Again.  Finally all of them went down. What’s funny is that if I were more patient and not rushed so hard I would not have so much trouble. The barbarian’s speed and tons of HP saved my rear end again and again. FINAL BOSS First step, trigger the battle horrors from the right, clean them up and rest outside without triggering Sarevok and his mooks.  Buff up and try to lure someone. For some reason Tazok is the first to come after me. Some kiting and melee later, he dies.  Angelo and Semaj come next, this was funny because at first it was me and Angelo shooting explosive arrows at each other and Semaj was getting blown by all the area of effect. I buffed myself with fire resistance so it was fine.  The tough part was when he switched up to normal arrows, but in the end both of them went down.  Finally, Sarevok. I accidentally triggered another Battle Horror, but it didn’t matter at this point.  VERY VERY HIGH SPEED KITING  The end. The Pebble, the solo barbarian, has bested Sarevok Honors: Ironling, Purist, Conan the Bhaalspawn, Battlemaster, A God Among Men. I apologize for the long post. Angry Lobster fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 2, 2019 12:47
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The Pebble, the solo barbarian, sets out from Chateau Irenicus. First things first, the Pebble battles his nemesis. Also, some more minor questing in Athkathla to gather gold and xp (circus, slavers, etc.) The firt major quest I decided to tackle was the De’Arnise keep, I thought it would provide some major pay-offs. How hard it can be? I’ve done it dozens of times. Wrong. De’Arnise Keep should be renamed “The Pebble must suffer”  This rear end in a top hat gave a hell of a time. Couldn’t deal with him in melee no matter what, so I had to resort to trapping him in random rooms to rest and then try to kit him to death with a bow.  The problem was that random trolls kept spawning making it harder, also this fucker have massive amounts of ac and thaco. It took me literally more than an hour to kill him.  Tor’Gal was another problem, he was too tough in melee with his innate slow, even with the flail of ages, so I had to kill first his giant trolls, rest and then come back for him. It was only possible because I went back to Athkatla and bought the scepter of resurrection to heal myself. After all this struggling, I took it easy by doing the druid and rogue quests, probably the easier stronghold to deal with.  Next was the bard quest, once the boots of speed were acquired I realized that The Pebble had graduated from weakling to powerhouse.  Next I rushed the main quest, mainly to get the improved mace of disruption early. After this, the rest was pretty easy.   Killed the twisted rune and Kangaxx. Yes, I abused the scroll of protection from magic, sue me. The remaining stronghold quests were not an issue, even with the hilarious amounts of random spawns of adamantine golems and liches.   Slayed the shadow dragon and Fikraag.  The Pebble, the solo barbarian, sails to Brynnlaw.
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Jan 6, 2019 15:04
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Jay Rust posted:
 Softface posted:I didn't mean to make the clip 1453, but it's fitting. Where it went wrong was I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with the pull and ended up fighting Angelo and Sarevok simultaneously. If I'd been more conservative and pulled just Angelo I could've beaten him down and moved on to the big guy. If I'd been more aggressive I could've drawn out Angelo's Dispel Magic and had Sarevok chasing me around while he was casting it, so I could get out of his line of sight and keep him from attacking. Instead I ended up fighting both, and his Arrows of Explosion made it so there was nowhere in the battle area that was safe.  A pity Fulda could not make it when the end was so close. Angelo is a massive pain in the rear end.
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Jan 6, 2019 22:50
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biscuits and crazy posted:Meet Celeste, the half-elven Blade. That sounds awfully difficult. Good luck. cheesetriangles posted:Lizzy was cruising through the Lum the Mad level until the demi lich where my entire party except for lizzy got imprisoned. So that was fun. Rough. I suppose you will come back with freedom spells to get them back. What are you at this point? Lizzy will probably be pretty overleveled compared to her companions at this point.
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Jan 7, 2019 21:51
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The Pebble, the solo barbarian, keeps murdering Brynnlaw and the asylum completed without much trouble.  The only remarkable event was that The Pebble never forcibly changed into the Slayer when confronted by Bodhi in the Asylum, although the rest of the script went off as normal. It could have costed me dearly because I was expecting it go off so I didn’t use a barbarian rage immediately counting on the Slayer’s form natural defenses against the vamps domination gaze, luckily The Pebble made the save and when I recovered from surprise, I started chaining off rages as usual and murdered everyone. I follow Saemon out and went to the Sahuagin city.  No issues whatsoever here, I gotta say that event after nearly 20 years playing this game, I still love this area, just look at this dank architecture style Next stop of the murder train is the Underdark. I’m really looking forward to do the drow city quests, it’s my favorite part of the game. First step, cleaning the Kuo Ta Prince and this dudes:   This item is an underappreciated gem. Most people won’t even use it due to its alignment restrictions. The on-hit effect is super strong against single tough bosses like the Ravager or the final boss, because the effect keeps adding on automatically with each hit even if blocked by stoneskin. The Pebble will give put this to good use. Following the Kuo Ta murder, did the gnome town main quest, met Adalon, entered Ust Natha and started the first main quest to rescue Phaere. On my way to meet Soulafein that certain group of adventurers took me by surprise and gave The Pebble a good trashing (blindness is godly against melee only dudes), had to retreat and take them one by one in a hit-and-run battle. I was not looking forward to fight Illithids, they are the biggest assholes to fight with any kind of melee based character, by far.  The entire group jumps on The Pebble immediately. I was trusting to not lose much intelligence quickly with AC -8. Literally seconds later…   HOLY TESTICLE TUESDAY! LEG IT!  OOOOPSSS!  Bugger me. That’s why I hate Illithids and their super bullshit tentacle hentai attacks. The entire drow city quest chain goes down the drain. There’s only one sensible thing to do then.    VERY HIGH SPEED MURDER (yes, The Pebble has just turbo murdered an entire city out of spite.) Let’s finish this silly quest.    Must admit it’s been ages since I fought Adalon and she’s tough, had a bit of a hard time there. The Pebble, the solo barbarian, reaches the surface!
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Jan 8, 2019 13:13
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JustJeff88 posted:I really do like Blades and I might even venture to say that they are the most well-rounded single class character in the game, but their poor thief Thac0 progression is very frustrating throughout most of BG1. I played an illegal Blade (full Elf with 19 Dex) in my last runthrough, and the only way to consistently hit anyone was with a bow - this includes Offensive Spin. I realise also that Blades level up relatively quickly, but I still found it very frustrating to melee with a kit supposedly built for it. If BG supported Finesse melee weapons whose to-hit bonus was based on Dex rather than Str, it would probably be another story. Is a quirk of the ruleset, unfortunately early bg1 is especially unkind for melee, no matter what your character is.
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Jan 8, 2019 23:44
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The Pebble is back in Amn. New suit of armor acquired. After killing Bodhi, I decided to start Watcher’s Keep.  I hate this stupid level.  The Pebble clobbers the Chromatic Demon, it’s not even hard, it’s just long a boring, stupid fat dobber. Left after this level and rushed the main quest. Elf city is nothing more than a formality at this point.  A formality filled to the brim with Adamantite golems, Jesus Christ, how can there be so much adamantite in this world to build this assholes.  Black dragon bites the dust. After defeating Irenicus in the Tree of Life, I wanted to fight the dragon in Hell.  Bugger me, this freaking bastard hits hard and fast. Had to heal a lot in this fight.  Still got dunked hard, though.  The Pebbles fall, Irenicus dies.  Honors: Ironman, Purist, Conan the Bhaalspawn, Battlemaster, A God Among Men, Kangaxx a Wuss. Dishonors: Scroll of Wuss
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Jan 9, 2019 22:58
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cheesetriangles posted:Congrats man. Glad to see we both made it through. I'm gonna be starting TOB tonight I think. Yeah, same to you, Lizzy is doing great. I've just cleared Illasera and the first challenge. I'll go to Watcher's Keep at the first possible chance, but dunno if it's worth it, I've lost too many characters there.
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Jan 9, 2019 23:06
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The Pebble starts Throne of Bhaal. Crushes Illasera.  The Pebble turbo murders a lot of people in Saradush.  The Pebble is now The Rock.  Gromnir Il-Khan bites the dust. Now to Watcher’s Keep to get the final items. Firt, the teleport maze.  Fighting for the first gem.  The Pebble suddenly dies.  Who knew that stupid random demon had vorpal attacks. Bugger me, what a way to end a great run. Also, let me quote myself: Angry Lobster posted:I've just cleared Illasera and the first challenge. I'll go to Watcher's Keep at the first possible chance, but dunno if it's worth it, I've lost too many characters there. Another corprse. RIP The Pebble, the solo barbarian, good night, sweet prince
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Jan 11, 2019 15:45
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JustJeff88 posted:I'm sad. As much as I don't really care for solo runs, I really wanted you to go the distance and I'm worried that nobody will finish the marathon this year. It's really unfortunate, I've never seen this guy do a vorpal effect nor I've seen it documented. Still I have faith Cheesetriangle will be able to go the distance. cheesetriangles posted:Lizzy is still alive and well and in Saradush I'm just taking a few days break from the game after having spent a solid 2 weeks grinding it out. It's always sad to lose a run so near the end line, I suppose I've just need to start again with a stronger character. I hope you will be able to win this. Angry Lobster fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Jan 12, 2019 |
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Jan 12, 2019 10:17
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Falling to the final boss sucks so much, what happened there exactly?
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Jan 16, 2019 10:26
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Murder her at max range (Imoen wand is good for this), solves the issue and you can loot a gem bag from her
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Jan 16, 2019 19:01
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Mountaineer posted:Good luck with your next run! The most notable one was the wild mage who accidentally summoned a pit fiend when dealing with Shanks/Carbos
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Jan 17, 2019 08:48
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How are you gentlegoons. After the unfulfilling death of The Pebble, I’m ready to do this once again. I’ll try to be as quick with BG1 as possible. It’s time for more pain and death  Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist is ready to solo. This time I’m not going to refrain myself when it comes to cheese. I spend the first twenty minutes in Candlekeep questing and doing some good ol’ cheese.  Repeatedly spawning and killing watchers. It turns out that if no one sees you doing evil things, even if everybody knows it (reputation loss), no one cares if you have enough money  Basically, rest in an isolated place, aggro the watcher that spawns, use your familiar to kite it and kill him. Loot the armor and sell it for a truckload of money, rinse and repeat. When I hit level 2/2, I use all the accumulated money to get my reputation back to normal and have some spare money to boot. After Candlekeep, I do my usual routine.  Basilisk hunting and miscellaneous questin.  Wand fetching.  Clear the Nashkel mines and kill Mulahey.  Nearly dying to rear end in a top hat bounty hunters.  Clearing the bandit camp.  More bounty hunters. Also, have I mentioned how much I hate the Cloakwood forest?  Davaeorn goes down.  Before I get to Baldur’s Gate, I make a quick trip to the ice maze to get my scroll of stoneskin. I hit level cap. This is the only TotSC I’m going to do.  Candlekeep redux. Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist has cleared the Candlekeep Cathacombs
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Jan 21, 2019 23:22
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docbeard posted:Well, this update, unlike my last few, will be short and, well, short. RIP Rayvek That's why I stopped playing SCS, so many years ago, it turns into a tedious minigame of dealing with protections and never ending contingencies. I have the utmost respect for all of you folks who play ironman with this kind of mods. Now, my update, Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist returns to Baldur’s Gate  Iron Throne Headquarters boogaloo.  I ambush Slythe in the Undercellar. If you attack him before he talks to you, the mage doesn’t aggro you nor she breaks invisibility so you can kill Slythe with impunity.  The fight in the ducal palace went well enough. Next stop, the maze.  I really hate Doomguards.  This skeletons are just too swole. Also, always chug an absorption potion before doing this part, whoever designed this map had a murderboner for lightning bolt traps, they are absurdly lethal in such confined spaces.  The fight against the group outside the temple went well, it started with me throwing monsters at them.  And it ended with me summoning even more monsters from outside their view, then the mage went crazy and casted a cloudkill at monsters, who were meleeing their group, so everyone died. Neat. Bonus: Because Tomoko never talked to me, she doesn’t show up here so I don’t have to kill her either. FINAL BOSS  Standard stuff, I prebuff and accidentally trigger some doom guards on the sides, so I clean them first. After that, I send a bait, nominally, a fireball to the right edge of the dais, outside the fog of war. Samaj and Sarevok take the bait and come charging at me.  I throw some monsters at Sarevok to keep him busy while I deal with the mage.  Semaj, being the colossal rear end in a top hat that he is, dispelled all my buffs. I needed more time to deal with Semaj, but Sarevok was mulching through tides of monsters like a goon eats doritos, what a pain in the rear end.  Trusting to make my save rolls from Semaj arcane poo poo, I decided to cast a malysson to Sarevok and use the wand of paralization. Worked like a charm.  With Sarevok dealt with, I dispelled Semaj’s protections with an arrow of dispelling and started shooting explosive arrows at him. He didn’t like the idea, because after taking a few explosions, he teleported away and never returned.  Last step, gangbang Sarevok and after a while, he dies. Wands are life, wands are love. Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist has bested Sarevok Honors: Ironling, Purist, A God Among Men.
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Jan 29, 2019 11:04
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Big update incoming. Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist starts BG2 After leaving Chateau Irenicus, the first thing I did was to head up to the inn and kill Mencar Pebblecrusher and his goons.  I’m kind of proud about this because it was super clean, not even a single point of HP lost and 0 kiting done. Basically it was a combination of a scroll of protection from poison, cloudkill and invisibility, they even killed each other, it was wonderful. Anyway, after selling their junk I completed the circus quest and the first part of the Copper and freed the Copper Coronet slaves without much of a problem. The slaver’s compound, on the other hand, was a tad bit more problematic.    Holly molly I’m so weak at this point in the game, that was a lot of kiting. After all this crap, I decided that I needed to do one of the stronghold quests, but most of them were too hard for poor Cheeseburguer, also I needed gold, huge amounts of gold, badly. So I went to Trademeet and started the druid quest. You see, the only tricky part of the first part of the druid quest is some encounters in the forest, so I just casted invisibility and run through the entire forest and skipped all the encounters. Cerd killed Faldorn, as always.  The second part, Ithafir, was trickier, but if you protect yourself from evocation and/or electricity it’s easier, even thought Rakshasha hit like a truck, but you can always run away and get out from the hut to heal and rebuff without penalty. The reward from completing those two quests is huge, a ton of xp, lots of gold and the shield of harmony are all great for a solo character. The amulet of immunity to poison you loot from Ithafir is also super handy for mage characters. What did I do with that gold?   I used the limited wish to try again the shapechange exploit I used in the last year challenge, but I fumbled the timing and wasted the scroll, oh well whatever. Time for more xp and loot. But how does Cheeseburguer deals with most encounters?  Poison gas, lots of it.  This one was fairly tough however.  Killed the lich in the city gates inn with my usual cloak of the sewers cheese. Gimme your wands baby. Next major quest: the rogue guild.  The only difficult part of this quest chain is Rayic Gaethras and his golems. It went better than I thought, and yes, I cheesed Rayic himself with a scroll of protection from magic, I regret nothing  From there, I decided there was no point in delaying the main quest anymore, so I paid Gaelan Bayle his gold and got the amulet of power. I wanted the improved mace of disruption so badly.  It turns out that when you are immune to vampire’s life drain and domination they are not much of a threat. With the mace of disruption, I went on a lich killing spree.  THUD!  Chumped the Twisted Rune as well. The Staff of the Magi and the Ring of Gaxx are some of the most potent items in the game, getting them early is pretty important. Note that the ring of Gaxx provides poison immunity and the staff gives unlimited on-demand invisibility, so in combination with spell immunity: Divination and cloudkill it means I can cheese most encounters in BG2 by gassing people out and stand there while everything dies.  GAS!  GAS GAS!  GAS GAS GAS!   For Fikraag, I decided to go for the good ol’ feeblemind cheese. At this point, I completed most of the major quests except the ranger and cleric ones. I was delaying this ones because they have a lot of random encounters that scale with the party’s experience, and more high level undead means more chances to get high level scrolls as loot.  Another good way to get high level spell scrolls ahead of curve is by abusing the bridge of death puzzle in the cleric quest. You just keep failing the second riddle, the skeleton warriors it spawns have a decent chance of giving you high level spell scrolls. I farmed them for a bit and got some nice ones, but once I tired from it went on and completed the cleric quest.  And the ranger quest. The shadow dragon goes down by brute force. At this point Cheeseburguer has surpassed the BG2 xp and is getting epic abilities. Spellhold awaits. Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist sets sail to Spellhold! Edit: Fixed a duplicated link. Angry Lobster fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Feb 2, 2019 |
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Feb 2, 2019 19:17
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Wizard Styles posted:That kiting distance is impressive. Did you use the temple services during the fight? No, I had the rod of resurrection so I could full heal on demand, the reason I got into the temple was to cast spells without triggering Cowled enforcer squads. Still this guy gave me a lot of grief.
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Feb 2, 2019 19:36
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Livewire42 posted:How does the mustard jelly cheese you used on the lich work? Use the cloak of the sewers to shapechange into a mustard jelly, now you are 100% resistant to magic, just sit there and let him unload all his spells at you. He will also gate a demon (who typically will fight the lich because never protects itself against evil) and an efreet. After he has unloaded all of his most dangerous spells and summoned his minions, you can just get out of there, go outside the inn and wait five or ten minutes for his creatures to unsummon, and return to kill him. JustJeff88 posted:That was a fun update; I have a fondness for dual-class gnome illusionist/whatevers from my tabletop days. Oops, thanks, will fix it asap.
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Feb 2, 2019 22:43
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JustJeff88 posted:Does anyone have any suggestions for the Twisted Rune fight? Vanilla, in my case. I've always struggled mightily with that one, yet I love the Staff of the Magi so I carry on regardless. I prefer to avoid cheese (by which I mean tactics; it's wonderful food) if at all possible. Lure them one at a time. First, huddle your team in the little room of the entrance, you can also set traps there for good measure. Send one npc to trigger Shandalar's dialogue, then return quickly to the entrance, Shandalar will teleport there, if you are fast enough, no other enemies will follow you there. Kill the lich as fast as possible, use standard anti lich tactics, but a mix of traps, second dawn (daystar) and the ring of the ram should work well, also put your main character in the rear so he doesn't get mazed. Once Shandalar is dead, try to lure the enemies on at a time, the naked fighter can be safely ignored. The vampire should be easy enough if you have azureedge or improved mace of disruption. The beholder is best dealt with the shield of balduran. For the mage, you can send a rogue stealthed and backstab her, although my favorite way to deal with her is get into her field of view, trigger her script (time stop+gate) and then leave, so she starts fighting with the summoned demon (protection from evil helps here). As long as you don't attempt a frontal assault you should be fine.
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Feb 8, 2019 09:55
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Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist sets sail to Spellhold! Cheeseburger time in Spellhold was like a walk in the park, only with tons of poison gas.  Warcrimes never get old. Also it’s nice to know that the xp exploit of that statue has not been fixed by the EE. After Spellhold, went through Sahuagin city, but I literally forgot to take screenshots ooops. The Underdark was a pretty smooth experience.  Screw this assholes. I need the belt to craft Crom Faeyr, the sword is just a bonus. Blazed through the drow city and did the usual triple crossing routine with my buddy Soulafein.  I truly hate this fight, mind flayers are the biggest assholes in this game, period. In ye ol’ good times you could cheese this encounter with a single death spell, a pity it was fixed. Once I returned to the surface, I made a quick trip to the sewers and paid this fuckers a visit.  Choo choo! The mind flayer pain train has arrived! God bless Mordenkainen’s swords. Seriously, this is one of the most evil areas in the entire game. One of the best things to do once you get to the surface is visit Ribald and go on a purchasing spree. Good thing I leveled up to fighter/mage 20/18 pretty much immediately in Athkatla, that means 9th level spell slots!  Oh shapechange, sweet sweet shapechange, how long I’ve longed for you.  IT’S CHEESE TIME (copy pasted from the last ironman challenge thread) quote:Shapeshifting has always been kinda buggy in this game and it turns out that while the EE fixed some exploits it also introduced others. This is one exclusive for the EE version.   Due to how shapeshifting mechanics in general work in the EE version, you can do some nifty things. Buffs carry over to you new form, and you can swap items in your new form (except weapons/shields, though some modifiers like thac0 bonuses or dual wielding still apply). If you reequip items once you have shapechanged that affect attributes like a girdle of strength or gauntlets of dexterity, they will reapply the effect, which is fantastic for a physically weak form like a mind flayer.  Hello vampires! Give me your brains please. Next stop, Elf city!  Adamantite golems are Crom Faeyr-immune assholes.  Skeleton braaains! (don’t aske me how or why this makes sense)  Hey, demon brains are fine too.     Yes, I've planned this dumb joke since level 1. Don’t judge me please. Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist is ready for the final boss
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Feb 8, 2019 16:45
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docbeard posted:Heh heh heh I love this so much. You can also use a limited wish scroll and choose the unique wish to shapechange, so you have at least two opportunities to pull it off with scrolls if you miss the timing in the first try.
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Feb 8, 2019 20:10
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Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist fights Irenicus!  I decided to go with the “summon crap from out of view strategy, just like the first time I beat Irenicus”, so many years ago. When he’s out of good spells, I go in, a gentle tap with the staff of the Magi and the job is done. Hell is pretty straightforward.   I licked the dragon a couple of times and it drops dead, poor thing didn’t even had time to attack once. Now, for the final battle.   I lobotomize the five demons fairly quickly, still, I need to be careful in this form because AC is not exactly stellar and I get hit fairly often.  As much as I want, I can’t devour Irenicus brain, because he’s not supposed to die while in the Slayer’s form, but the mind flayer’s devour brain attack can kill the unkillable, thus breaking the script and make the game unwinnable. I resort to just bash his brain out with the staff of the Magi and Crom Faeyr.  The end. Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist has crushed Irenicus! Honors: Ironman, Purist, Dragon Slayer, Gaxkang’s a Wuss, A God Among Men. Dishonors: Scroll of Wuss.
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Feb 16, 2019 18:08
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I've been testing illusions in Bg2EE to see what has been changed in the EE version and I'm pretty disappointed from what I've found. Beamdog has fixed a lot of the fancy cheese I wanted to do just for giggles, yet not everything has been patched out, but some of them are just not worth it due to the amount of loops you need to hop through to pull off. Don't get me wrong, some of that crap was hilariously OP and should not exist, however I get some fun breaking the game not for power, but just for the heck of it.Wizard Styles posted:Also: Irenicus  Also I'm really looking forward to Arnaldo getting to Bg2, I'm interested in shamans and see what can they do in the higher levels.
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Feb 18, 2019 12:13
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Curse you, Cheeseburger!
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Wizard Styles posted:Yeah, that's why I'm playing a Shaman myself. That and there's a mod adding a stronghold for them. Agreed, the shaman is an interesting idea but the druid spell list (and class) is pretty luckluster in BG compared to IWD. Speaking of IWD, that would be nice to watch someone ironman, only beaten it twice and is, by far, my least played Infinity engine game. Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist starts Throne of Bhaal Meanwhile, in a remote forest in Tethyr. Cheeseburger! I’m Illase… *THUD*  I wonder who was that. Anyway let’s teleport to Saradush. I got a nasty surprise when I faced Gromnir’s mooks. I got too distracted with brain sucking shenanigans and did not realize my stoneskin was down and receiving too much damage.  Got so low that my chain contingency fired up, luckily I have so many magical defenses that I’m the equivalent to a magical Abraham battle tank. I have to be more mindful about how hard hitting everything is in ToB. Anyway, I quickly proceed to assault Gromnir’s fortress.  And suck his tiny brain. Once I’m free from Saradush, it’s Watcher’s Keep time. I hate it.  I didn’t remember the guardians on the first floor to hit so drat hard, I’m starting to notice a trend here.  Again, I’m surprised in the second floor, this time by the drat giant snake and its pesky stun. Luckily, it’s duration is rather short and my defenses kept me alive through it.  The chromatic demon dies in a few hits, which is super satisfying, screw that bugger.   This two are relevant to my interests. I need only one more thing from Watcher’s Keep and I’ll be done with it.  I hate the third floor and I hate this dude, he killed The Pebble! This fight was a major pain in my butt. The combination of hastened respawning demons, mind controlling succubus, invisible dudes and the big, vorpal hitting balor was a explosive combination. In the end I killed them all, but I had to kite and run away a lot. The rest of the floor was pretty straightforward, aka run through it and not fighting even once.  Finally, I met the gambling cambion and we played for his wish scroll.  Yes! Won it with the first try. I don’t care about the rest because I’m done with this hellhole, I have everything that I wanted from it. Yes, I’m not going for the full chevos this time, I’ve learned my lesson, I’m racing to the end of ToB taking as few risks as possible.  The forest and the temple of Bhaal. As you can see, I realized I’m not longer ahead of the power curve and I start to lean more heavily on the planetar to not get focused so much.  The marching mountains, aka Fire Giant City.  More fire giants.  Even more fire giants, what a silly place. Chateau Yaga Shura is a short simple dungeon, but full of super annoying critters.  The man (giant?) himself is super easy in comparison.   I like the oasis, exterminating an entire army makes you feel badass. Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist arrives to Amkethran!
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Feb 20, 2019 11:08
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Balthazar has killed Cheeseburger, the solo fighter/illusionist!   He was nearly dead but suddenly I get killed from full health to 0 in less than a second, so I guess some kind of instant death effect (quivering palm?), what a bullshit way to kick the bucket, especially after the hellish fight with Abazigal. I'm out for this year, I don't have it in me to try again. Maybe I'll play Black Pits 2 or just start anew with a normal group to play with the EE characters, dunno.
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Feb 21, 2019 12:42
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JustJeff88 posted:Genuinely saddened by this, Lobster. I have never participated in this thread because I don't have a deep knowledge of these games nor how to best prepare and post the screenshots of an LP, but I follow it every year. I often wish that more Ironman runs that eventually fail would be converted into standard LPs but, for people that know the games inside and out already, that's probably a boring prospect. Don't mind me, I'm just a bit burnt off, it's kind of tilting to lose a character in such an unexpected way and so close to the end line. To be fair, I've not played ToB in a long time, and my memories of the Balthazar fight were a bit hazy. I've just replayed that fight and died again to pretty much the same thing, stun attacks and instant-death attack. Then I replayed it for a third time, slightly changing my tactics and weapons, and worked like a charm. In conclusion, my approach was incorrect and I learned something new again, which is kinda amusing because I've been playing this game on and off for nearly two decades and I still learn new things every time. I wanted to do a couple runs to explore the EE characters after the challenge, so I might pitch them as iron man run and continue to play them as normal if I die. As per your LP comments, yeah, well written LPs are amazing and I enjoy them a lot, but they require a lot of effort and devotion to do. I'd really like to make an LP or two someday, but for now I lack the time and dedication to do so (also I'm a crappy writter and it scares me a bit  )Edit: TL;DR Hubris killed me, as always. Angry Lobster fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Feb 21, 2019 |
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Feb 21, 2019 18:22
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Wizard Styles posted:drat. Dying to a Quivering Palm at that level is unlucky Maybe, however I've continued to play a bit and Amelyssan has spanked my rear end. Mind you, it's the first time I play through that fight in the EE and without most of the old cheese, it's a super hard fight for a solo character, especially in ironman due to high variance. After some tries finally got the tactics/cheese right and beat it without reloading. I realize now that poor Cheeseburger was never fated to win, but hey, at least I learned something new. On the other hand, I'm never going to do a solo run for an ironman challenge again.
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Feb 22, 2019 13:02
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Let’s try this again. BigMac, the dwarven defender starts his journey This is going to be a full group evil playthrough, I want to play with some of the new EE npcs.  The first thing BigMac does is kill Watchers in Candlekeep. *cue training montage*  A lot of them. By the time he has enough money to buy enough reputation back to not be hunted by the Flaming Fist, he’s nearly level 3. The most obvious immediate benefit is that all npcs will join at level 2, at a minimum, like dear Imoen. Goodbye pesky level 1 AD&D combat. The first priority is to get some tough goons for our party.  Imoen and BigMac reach the Friendly Arms inn and deal with Tarnesh without any issue. Then they sprint to Nashkel.  Once there, Edwin is recruited for our glorious evil cause. Let’s recruit Dorn.  This encounter is bad, is super easy for Dorn to be killed before we have a chance to recruit him. Color spray works wonderfully though. Next stop, Larswood.  Get in here, Vicky. Our party is complete for now, the final member will join up later.  I clear the gnoll stronghold and kill Dynaheir so Edwin will shut up and stop bitching. What do you do with a group of level 2/3 who need a quick powerboost? You guessed right. *cue another training montage*   I love this little buggers. After cleaning up Mutamin, BigMac has reached 10k xp, so it’s time to recruit our final mate.  Hello gorgeous. At this point in the game he’s so OP it makes me cry tears of joy. With our team assembled, our next objective is to acquire currency, items and experience.  Bassileus is a good start and is a rather easy fight if you disable his skeleyfriends through dialogue. Did some more questing and decided to do the Nashkel mines next.   Mulahey goes down.  MELICAMP DIES.  At some point I grab the wand of monster summoning, clear the pirate cave for the manual and the wand of paralization and dive in the ankheg nest for the wand of fire. I even considered going after Drizzt, but finally decided not to because he’s he biggest Mary Sue ever and if I slip up my party is going to get wrecked, not worth it at all. Next: the bandit camp.
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Feb 25, 2019 12:28
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biscuits and crazy posted:It really is, the extra THAC0 and double HP is fantastic, and the downside of not being able to cast spells is eliminated by casting it last in a pre-buff, and just putting on some full plate. Agreed, Tenser's is amazing for bards, and moreso for blades. I really look forward to see what kind of shenanigans Celeste pulls off in ToB, can't imagine how annoying SCS will be in the expansion. Wizard Styles posted:
Congratulations Keep it up.
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Feb 25, 2019 19:02
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Keldulas posted:So the IWD remake stuff has BG2 kits to use in it? Yeah, and kits are really strong in IWD. In my last run, I had an archer and she was a monster. Also, good luck Wizard Styles in your IWD run. Angry Lobster fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Feb 26, 2019 |
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Feb 26, 2019 14:32
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Easthaven, lovely place, they make good flails there.
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Feb 27, 2019 18:11
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Nice, Celeste is doing work. A question out of curiosity, I know nothing about SCS, how are you casting horrid wilting with a blade? Scrolls?
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Feb 28, 2019 20:44
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biscuits and crazy posted:I'm using Rogue Rebalancing, one of the components gives Bards more spells per day, and lets them use up to level 8 spells. Celeste has 7 spells at levels 1-6, 6 at level 7 and 2 at level 8. I'm limited to what few level 9 scrolls I find or buy, though. Interesting, I missed that mod. With access to level 8 spells you can do a lot of shenanigans. I imagine you know this already, but unless SCS has changed something in the base game engine, if you are hurting for scrolls, you can do a lot of cheese with the illusion system, having up two simulacrums using quickslot items can really be a boon for a solo caster, including wish resting. Great job on the Chosen of Cyric encounter, seems to be a pretty tough battle. Wizard Styles posted:Time to continue the Shaman experiment and find out what Arnaldo can do in Baldur's Gate 2. You are also using Ascension? Dang, you crazy man, I wish you luck. Both of you are doing great, keep up the great work! My update is not nearly as exciting. Let’s get down to business  Plowing through the bandit camp, although Imoen appears to be a magnet for danger.  The fight with the goons in Tazok’s tent is easy and clean.  After this, I have acquired enough loot to finally recharge the wand of monster summoning, hereby I declare this game already won (famous final words, you smartass). Next stop, Cloakwood forest, god I hate this place.  Of course, I step into a web trap just when giant spiders attack. Dorn bites the dust almost immediately to poison.  Somehow I also managed to aggro another group of enemies in the middle of the fight.  Welp, at least BigMac is alright. The biggest problem is carry all that heavy equipment back to a temple and resurrect everyone. Also, thanks to this glorious mess, I’m pretty much bankrupt.  The hammadryad flanks the group instead of coming from the front, luckily she just charms Dorn, instead of BigMac, so Edwin just dire charms him back to his senses.  The encounter with the super goons outside the mines goes smoothly, just swarm them with minions and bombard them with magic artillery remains a viable strategy.  Remember kiddos, never rest outside the first floor of the mines or you will be ganked by huge groups of teleporting thugs. For Davaeorn, my idea was to sent someone alone protected by a magic blocking potion to exhaust the worst of his spells, it worked well, at first.  Somehow that ricocheting lightning bolt failed to hit anyone, better lucky than good.  I forgot to take into account the duration of the potion, so Dorn gets hold and killed by Savaeorn minions. Oh well, whatever, I kill everyone else fairly quickly after that.  On my way to Baldur’s Gate I do a pit stop and cleared the final battle of Dorn’s quest, pretty easy, and you get some phat loot. I’ve been fairly content with Dorn, his tendency to die like a bitch aside. He’s an invaluable pack mule and has some amusing interactions with the rest of the evil crew. Once I got to Baldur’s Gate, I decided to evaluate my financial situation. I’m fairly poor, but I have accumulated a ton of loot, and I have some rather valuable items, so it’s time to get filthy rich. BigMac loves money, that’s why he’s evil. How do you get incredibly rich I buy eight potions of master thievery and go to Nashkel. Imoen chugs four of them, increasing her pickpocket skill above 200 points. Then I sell all my weapons, armor and accessories to the vendor and then steal them back. After getting everything back, I travel to Gurlag’s tower and sell to the merchant there everything that I do not want, as he’s a fencer. This scheme gets BigMac around 90k gold, a fair amount to set me right for the rest of the game, even after doing some purchases here and there. A rich dwarf is a happy dwarf. I do some quests here and there, but let’s focus on the main quest.  The ogre mage battle does not go as well as I thought, I’m too slow and he gets to confuse my group before I kill him. Luckily, Edwin and Viconia are unaffected by the spell and clear the room of enemies. Everyone recovers and no one dies, still a pretty sloppy battle.  The Iron Throne headquarters battle cleared easily.  Ouch, I forgot that if you speak with Elthan you get teleported to Candlekeep without any alternative option. I wanted to delay the main quest for a bit. BigMac, the dwarven defender returns to Candlekeep
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Mar 2, 2019 18:37
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biscuits and crazy posted:SCS has a component that prevents project images/simulacrums from using quick items, which I have installed. Its a big thing to miss, but that nerf applies to enemies too so its not all bad. Dang, I suppose it was to be expected. Also, congratulations on winning Bg2. Wizard Styles posted:90k for the rest of the game? I got a ton of money after completing the main quest and Durlag's tower, my biggest expense really was recharging wands. I got some special arrows and potions here and there but almost never used them. Let’s continue the tale of BigMac.  Candlekeep crypts cleared without much trouble, except for a friendly fire incident as shown in the picture, not that I needed that reputation anyway. Before returning to Baldur’s Gate, I decide to do the ice maze.   Stupid ankhegs.  Iron Throne redux.  The ducal palace fight could have gone very bad fast, luckily only Imoen died. After completing most of the main quest, I decide to let Sarevok rot in the Undercity while I do some more questing to get closer to the level cap. In one of the inns of the city (Helm and the Cloack, I think?) I get into a fight with a group of adventurers and it went south really fast.  Dorn gets hold and killed. I’m starting to notice a trend here. After a while, I decided it’s time to go to Durlag’s tower and vacuum all that sweet sweet xp.   Was a fairly smooth ride during most of the way, except for the second to last level where Imoen died to the infinite fire trap due to messing up the timing, and Dorn died again in the fight with the skeletons and the stinking cloud traps (forgot about taking screenshots). Recovering the bodies and going back to resurrect them were a giant pain in the rear end.  The fight against the demon knight was anticlimactic, BigMac got stunned in the first few seconds of the fight and did nothing else, the rest of the group just pelted the knight with crap and distracted it with summons until it died.  I forgot about this fuckers.  The fight with Ulgoth’s bead demon was a mess. It went south almost immediately when half the party got held by the demon, Dorn and Imoen died shortly after (who else could it be?)  But then, Baeloth jammed his wand of paralyzation into the demon face and stunned him, rendering it defenseless. Baeloth is the loving main man of this run. Let’s skip to the Final boss This fight was a colossal mess. I was in a hurry and got too lazy.  It begun with me screwing up badly and pulling the entire group of baddies. Angelo got there and did what Angelo does best, firing exploding arrows like a machinegun and causing mayhem. Semaj, being the giant rear end in a top hat that he is, teleported in and dispelled buffs, and casted chaos with leisure. BigMac got hit by the chaos spell and gets confused, crap.  Things go even worse, because Dorn dies, again, when focused by Sarevok and Angelo. At least BigMac focuses Sarevok and pummels him hard while confused. But then a miracle happened again, Baeloth, being the swag drow that he is, hits Sarevok with his big, stiff, wand of paralyzation and makes him stare in awe at his sorcerer might.  Sarevok is nearly dead and defenseless, but so is BigMac, and Tazok gets close to BigMac with the intention to peacefully culturally enrich him with his sword. It all boils down to a race of who can kill who first.  I win, by a hair’s breadth. Also, notice stupid Imoen in the right side triggering a battle horror trap while confused and getting pummeled. The true MVP of this run was, without a doubt, Baeloth, what a champ. BigMac, the dwarven defeats Sarevok Honours: Ironling, Purist, Trap Dodger.
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Mar 5, 2019 10:32
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Really looking forward to the boss battle of Dragon's Eye. And about my lack of updates lately, I'm a bit burnt out and giving it a rest. Also, I blame Kenshi
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Mar 11, 2019 15:44
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RIP Arnaldo, that was a very unfortunate way to go.
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Mar 29, 2019 10:43
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