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 That’s right folks, it's time for the official 2021 Something Awful Baldur's Gate Ironman Challenge! As we leave behind behind the cursed year of 2020, we shall once again rise up and become legends or die trying. It is here that true heroes will compete for honor, glory, and the chance to not be killed by wildlife at level 1. Gather your party and venture forth! You can buy the Enhanced Edition of the game and its sequels on Steam or on GOG.com. The EE editions are also available for tablets and have modern conveniences like widescreen support and zooming in and out of the game. Some people prefer to play the non-EE editions, but they're harder to come by. The older CD versions can be bought used off Amazon or something. Roll of Heroes Alive, for now Apollo440 the Blade runs away from death and gets to the Nashkel mines. Sofia the Cleric has reached Baldur's Gate, but is still faffing about in the wilderness Grundle the Wizard Slayer is hunting crazy people in the wilderness. Frank the half-elven Fighter/Mage/Thief marches to war. Bort, the elf Sorcerer has cleared the bandit camp. Joe Average 2 the human fighter is questing in Amn! Gnomey the Gnome Illusionist/Thief is rolling into Cloakwood to search out the root of the iron problems. Elton John the Human Cavalier has arrived to Athkatla. The Fallen Wards Hera, the Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief died to hubris and Zordral's acid arrows. Inga, the Human Inquisitor received a love tap by the Belt Ogre. Cassandra Roguestone the blade died as she lived, screaming defiance and covered in odd substances. Ann Teuta the Swashbuckler failed to prevent the explosion of the Boareskyr bridge. Steve the Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief died to a finger of death while separated from his home plane. Gimmick, the human Jester was beaten down to a pulp by Dreppin for harassing his cow. Marabelle, the Half-Orc Cleric/Thief has died at the hand of ogre berzerkers. Hallys the Half-Orc Kensai felled by a fireball that was supposed to be sleep. António the most neutral of fighter/magese was stunned to death. Joe Average the human fighter got betrayed by Neera's wild magic. Pendergreens the Gome Dragon Disciple got murdered by a spider on his way to the Cloakwood. Bort, the elf Sorcerer (the second) commited suicide by magic. Matty the First got gibbed by the assassin at Friendly Arms Inn after every attack from him and the guards wiffed on his images. Matty the Second got oneshot by the gender swapped ogre. Matty the Third died to a hail of arrows in the bandit camp. Snori the Dwarven Defender fell under the sleep spell of Droth, the ogre mage. Hevn the Human Avenger was ambushed by ettercaps. Taylor Swift the Elven Sorceress unfairly vanished when a certain bridge exploded. Grasped Victory Ann Teuta the swashbuckler has vanquished Sarevok! Honors: Ironling, Purist, Librarian, Trap dodger, Honorable trader, Battlemaster, Roleplayer Dishonors: None Steve the Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief has killed Sarevok! Honors: Ironling, Strategist, Purist, Double Damage, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Melee Champion, Battlemaster, A God Among Men Dishonors: None António the half-elf Fighter/Mage and his diplomatic delegation has neutralized Sarevok! Honors: Ironling, Purist, Librarian, Trap dodger, Honorable trader, Battlemaster, Roleplayer, Swiss Valor Award Dishonors: None Arelia the Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief stabbed Sarevok to death! Honours: Ironling, Born Hero(ine), Purist (assuming that removing the level cap doesn't count here), Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honourable Trader, (Iron Party technically), Battlemaster, (Roleplayer technically) Dishonors: None Frank the half-elven Fighter/Mage/Thief melted Sarevok! Honors: Ironling, Strategist, Purist, Double Damage, Librarian, Melee Champion, Battlemaster, A God Among Men Dishonors: None Arelia the Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief defeated Irenicus! Honours: Iron(wo)man, Born Hero(ine), Purist (assuming removing the level cap is ok here), (strictly speaking Iron Party again), Dragon Slayer, Helm's Champion, Gaxkang's a Wuss, Legendary Arms, (strictly speaking Roleplayer). Dishonors: None Joe Average 2 the human fighter stunned and clubed Sarevok with his big wand. Honours: Ironling, Born Hero, Purist, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honorable Trader, Battlemaster, Roleplayer Dishonors: None Arelia the Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief has conquered the Throne of Bhaal and achieved godhood! Honours: Irongod, Born Hero(ine), Purist, Honourable Trader, Iron Party, Roleplayer. Dishonors: None. Taylor Swift the Elven Sorceress has vaporized Sarevok with skull traps! Honors: Ironling, purist, librarian, honorable trader, battlemaster(if skull trap doesn't count) Dishonors: none Elton John the Human Cavalier as burned Sarevok to a crisp! Honors:Ironling, Purist, Librarian, Honorable Trader, Battlemaster, Roleplayer Dishonors:None Melicamp the Chicken Counter Melicamp Lived: 8 Melicamp Died: 3 FAQ Q: What exactly are the rules for an Ironman run? A: The rules of Ironman runs are simple. No savescumming or reloading games for any purpose other than resuming where you last left off, or in case of a gamebreaking bug or crash. If you are killed, your run is over. If you are unhappy with a dice roll or outcome of a fight and reload, your run is over. You may re-roll your stats and spend as much time as you'd like creating your character, but the moment you venture forth into the game proper, you are bound by the rules... Note that the whole thing runs on the honor system and is just for fun, so if your character dies and you want to keep playing your save file, feel free to, but please accept that for all intents and purposes, you are not Ironmanning anymore! Q: Can I post spoilers or discuss strategies in this thread? A: Absolutely. This is an Ironman thread, and it's assumed that everyone has played the series at least once. There are even people who have done a full Ironman run before! Discussion for approaching hard fights, surviving tough stretches of the game, or just talking about companions is welcomed. Q: How should I be posting or documenting my run? A: Many posters normally post screenshots of important events or fights to show progress, as well as write a few lines saying what they were able to do. Some may forego that and just say what they were able to accomplish, and others write up their runs like a short, simple Let's Play or present their run in a comical lens. Do whatever you'd like, but please don't be obnoxious about it. If you want to stream your run and link it here, feel free to let us know when you'll be going at it, and where you end up each session! Q: Can I use mods or play in a difficulty level other than Core Rules? A: Play your way, but please indicate what mods or difficulty you'll be using if not going for a vanilla core rules run. For fun, we have "honors" and "dishonors" so check those out if you want to get a particular accolade... or razzing! Q: Is this a competition? Is there any verification process? A: Like I said, this is purely for fun and works on the honor system. All we're playing for here is bragging rights and nerd cred, and some sweet, sweet honor badges that you can point to down the line and go, "Hell yeah, I Ironmanned one of the longest trilogies in CRPG history." If you really want to up the ante, like soloing on Insanity with a Shaman or something, that's up to you! Q: What do I get for finishing my run, or dying? A: You finished a run? Great! Look at the list of honors and dishonors below and list what "achievements" you were able to obtain in a well-deserved self-congratulatory post. You died? Boo! Say where and how you died (e.g. "Outside Candlekeep, to that goddamn wolf.") and your death will be memorialized in the Graveyard of Gorion's Wards. You can always try again with the same character or make a new one! Q: Do I have to start in Baldur's Gate 1 and end in Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal? A: No. You can start and end at any point you want. You'll be added to the Throne of Triumph if you succeed through at least one full game, and I'll indicate where you started and ended, as well as what (dis)honors you picked up on! Q: How do I set up custom portraits? A: Thanks to biscuits and crazy for this copy-pasted answer. The measurements for player portraits are 38X60 pixels for the smaller portraits (8-bit color runs faster but it can be up to 24 bit color), and 110X170 pixels for the larger portraits. To use a custom portrait, place it in the Portraits directory (in the install directory for the game) and add an S to the end of the small portrait name and an L to the end of the large portrait - otherwise the two names must be identical. The names must be 1-7 letters long, maximum - so the filename with the S or L added to the end is no longer than 8 total characters. The portrait files must be in BMP format. For example: XXXXXXXS.bmp for small (38x60, 8-bit) XXXXXXXL.bmp for large (110x170, 24-bit) For the Enhanced Editions, the measurements for player portraits are 210x330 pixels. Portraits are automatically resized by the game, so you don't need to make small and large versions of the same portrait. (If downloading a portrait pack with multiple sizes of the same portrait, keep the largest one.) The portrait files must be in BMP format. The Portraits folder must be created in the game directory found in "My Documents." The file name cannot exceed 8 characters. Q: What is this "Melicamp the Chicken" counter? A: There's a sidequest in Baldur's Gate 1 with a chicken who is actually a polymorphed mage named Melicamp. The outcome of the quest has a 50-50 chance of turning him back into a human being or just killing him outright. For fun and as part of the tradition of whim and luck in an ironman world, we keep track of how often he lives or dies. Join in and let us know the fate of the man-chicken in your updates! Other Information When you've made your character, include the name, class, and a screenshot of the character sheet upon creation (the Print Screen button will take a screenshot and deposit it in your Baldur's Gate folder). Irfanview is also an easy alternative. As the thread winds on we'll have a lot of images, so please use [img] tags if you're posting large images. If this thread gets going in full it is possible I will occasionally miss posted updates about characters. When posting an update for your character, please include his/her name and class in bold. For example, "Ashar the Assassin completed BG1". Also, if you post updates like "Krug the Barbarian has cleared the Nashkel Mines", I will update your status accordingly. The main Baldur's Gate thread is over here... for now! If you want to check out mods, check out these sites. If you have more sites, let me know! Gibberlings 3 Spellhold Studios Pocket Plane Group Here's a list of mods used before, again courtesy of biscuits and crazy: ToBEx - Hardcode hacks to change things normal mods can't (not compatible with the Enhanced Edition). Assassinations - Extra content in BG2, especially for the Evil characters. BG1 Unfinished Business - Restoring cut content for BG1. Unfinished Business - Restoring cut content for BG2. Almateria's Restoration Project - Goon-made mod to restore even more BG2 cut content. SCS - AI and challenge mod for both BG1 and BG2. Requires hotfixes (Already applied on the download on that page) to work on current versions of the Enhanced Editions of BG1 and BG2. BG2 Tweakpack - Options for changing your game galore. Rogue Rebalancing - Changes Thieves and Bards to be more like in PnP, adds extra items for Rogues, and adds a very challenging and optional encounter to BG2. aTweaks - Tweaks various creatures, including demons and elementals to be more like in PnP. Also has a wide variety of other tweaks not found in other tweak packs. Modmerge - Required to mod the Steam and GOG versions of BG:EE with the Siege of Dragonspear expansion. Feel free to post any mods you think should be added here. Below are the lists of honors and dishonors. Aim for them if you please, but feel free to ignore them if they aren't fun for you.   Ironling: Complete Baldur's Gate 1.Siege Breaker: Complete the Siege of Dragonspear expansion (requires Ironling).  Iron(wo)man: Complete Baldur's Gate 2 (requires Ironling, does not require Siege Breaker). Irongod: Complete Throne of Bhaal (requires Iron(wo)man). Strategist: Complete Baldur's Gate 1 with the Sword Coast Stratagems mod. Tactician: Complete Baldur's Gate 2 with either the Sword Coast Stratagems or the Tactics mod. Born Hero(ine): Do not reroll your stat total during character creation, take the first set given to you. Redistribution of stats is okay. If you choose not to reroll, say so and you'll get an "upgraded" honor! Purist: Do not use any mods that add/modify content (except Tutu, Ascension, SCS, or Tactics), do not create extra characters for your party, and do not modify existing NPCs. Using convenience mods like infinite stacks is okay. Double Damage: Complete the game on Insane difficulty.Legacy of Bhaal: Complete the game on Legacy of Bhaal difficulty.  Overcoming Adversity: Complete the game as a Wizard Slayer, Shapeshifter, Beastmaster, or non-Blade Bard (requires Purist). Librarian: Find every stat tome in Baldur's Gate 1. Trap Dodger: Complete Durlag's Tower. Melee Champion: Complete Baldur's Gate 1 without member of your party ever using any missile weapons. Conan the Bhaalspawn: Complete the game without ever having an arcane or divine spellcaster in the party. Bhaalspawn powers and innate skills are okay. Honorable Trader: Do not steal any wares from merchants. Iron Party: Do not resurrect any dead party members (stone to flesh and freedom allowed) OR never have a party member fall in battle. Exception: Getting killed and revived by Shoal the Nereid does not invalidate this honor. Battlemaster: Kill Sarevok in Baldur's Gate 1 without summoning any creatures or laying any traps. Dragon Slayer: Kill Firkraag, the Shadow Dragon, the Black Dragon at Suldanessellar, the Silver Dragon in the Undertark, and the Dragon in the underworld. Helm's Champion: Kill Saladrex and Demogorgon in Watcher's Keep. Gaxkang's a Wuss: Kill Kangaxx in his demi-lich form. Legendary Arms: Acquire the Equalizer, Crom Faeyr, The Wave, The Silver Sword, and the Short Bow of Gesen. Swiss Valor Award: Complete the game with only neutral aligned characters in the party (lawful, true, or chaotic, must have at least 4 characters, requires Purist). Roleplayer: Do not have a good aligned character and an evil aligned character in the party at the same time (includes the PC's alignment, requires Purist). Leader of the Underdogs: Complete Baldur's Gate 2 or Throne of Bhaal with a full party of six without using Aerie, Keldorn, Edwin, or Haer'Dalis (requires Purist). A God Among Men: Complete the game solo. Do not remove or modify the level cap (requires Purist).  OP-ium Addict: Play as a Kensai/Mage, Kensai/Thief, Berserker/Cleric, Berserker/Mage, or Cleric/Mage. Scroll of Wuss: Use a scroll of Protection from Undead or Magic when fighting a lich, demi-lich or vampire. Don't Hurt Me!: Play the game on a difficulty lower than Core Rules.Note 1: Any honors that restrict choice of party members in any way (class, alignment, or anything else) do not apply inside Irenicus' Dungeon in Baldur's Gate 2. You may use anyone you want while inside it, but will have to boot the appropriate people once you reach Waukeen's Promenade. Note 2: Any honors/dishonors which do not apply to a specific game in the series can apply to any. For example, Double Damage can apply to any game in the series, and you can earn it up to four times if you go all the way from BG1 through BG2:ToB. Thanks to Gutrot for all the wonderful badges. (This has been shamelessly copied from cheesetriangles previous thread) Angry Lobster fucked around with this message at 19:03 on May 8, 2021 |
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Dec 20, 2020 16:15
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Ann Teuta the swashbuckler enters the fray. Took a bit of a head start but that's all I got for now, I'm not in ToB or anything.  Assembled the neutral crew ASAP and got Xan at level 1. I decided Jaheira could keep her husband 'till he croaks because I had a vacancy in the party and I didn't want to pick up Neera. The rest of the neutral NPCs aren't available till chapter 5.   Did the usual strat of starting to grind ankhegs in their lair using sleep and command till level ~4 and then shift to basilisks.  This had never happened to me before. He always accepted the lie no matter how low my reputation and charisma were. EE change?  Melicamp LIVES!  Anyway, I cleared a bandit camp and blew up the Cloakwood mine.  The way back from cloakwood was, uh, scary. I had to leave a lot of loot behind. Which way are you supposed to run from the ettercap ambush with traps again? It's definitely not left.  Blew up the Iron Throne building, on my way back to Candlekeep. Ann Teuta the swashbuckler returns to Candlekeep.
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Dec 20, 2020 16:44
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I've decided to make my first run a bit of a gimmick mostly-custom party. And by that I mean returning to a gimmick run I did in 2018 and committing harder to it. And by that I mean the return of: The greatest, baddest,, goodest, neutralest, chaoticest, alt-prog-dance-emo-fusion-hard rock band in all of Faerun! (Or in other words, an almost all-bards party.) I'm running a fairly modded install, nothing too fancy, some quests, some tweaks, and SCS at Insane difficulty (without smarter beholders, vampires, or mind flayers, because when consulting my SCS-To-English dictionary I found that "smarter" quite often translates directly to "bullshit"). I reserve the right to adjust SCS's granular settings on the fly (probably toning down pre-spellcasting on magic users when I get into BG2). Of note for this run, I've unlocked racial restrictions for classes and kits so that I could have a more diverse party of bards, and I've also installed Rogue Rebalancing and Song and Silence, for some of their adjustments, but also for a couple of extra kit options so I could have five bards without doubling up. My sixth character and only Bioware NPC will be Imoen (in this timeline, a Shadowdancer). Assuming I get that far, Siege will be my main's solo album, and I will probably reassemble the band for BG2, with a few auditions of canon NPCs to fill in for Imoen while she's off doing her Spellhold Sessions. (Basically this is my one concession to game mechanics over gimmick; I cannot play without someone who can disarm traps. It just irks me. And Shadowdancer still fits the band aesthetic.) Rather than starting with a full party, I'm going to be playing in Multiplayer mode for the first bit and recruiting new band members when I'd normally hire on NPCs or at other opportune moments. Everyone's pregenerated, it's just a question of when I bring them in. There's a new mod that purports to put custom characters into the world to be recruited but it doesn't have enough location options for my tastes, so I'm doing it the old-fashioned way. I'll probably swap back to single-player mode once everyone's in the party because there's some annoyances that come with the multiplayer interface, but for now, I will deal with it. That's too many words. So, without further ado, I present the once and future frontwoman of Alaundo's Chosen... Cassandra Roguestone, the Half-Elf Blade  (Ignore the "Haste" effect, that's just from a QOL mod that increases walking speed while not in combat.) Cassandra is the official Bhaalspawn of this run. If she kicks it, it's all over. We start out doing all the usual Candlekeep stuff. Including very nearly almost ending this project before it began:  (Poison damage courtesy of SCS). Candlekeep is kind of a poo poo venue anyway, and it's long past time for the Chosen to hit the big time (and indeed to exist at all outside a dream in Cassandra's head) so she says her goodbyes, completely fails to deliver that antidote to the cow, steals everything that isn't nailed to the ground, and heads out into the wide world, all alone.  ..."Heya, it's me, Imoen!" C: "Okay, I guess I could use a roadie." Oh, yeah, and her dad died while seeing her off, straight up murdered by someone who looks just like the posters of the lead singer of IRONTHRONE that Cassandra has up in her room at Candlekeep. That's probably just a coincidence.  They won't let her back in, because apparently her impromptu ballad: Gorion's dead in a field but me, I'll never yield I'll take this all in stride still, let me back inside!!! didn't count as a "tome of great value". Ingrates. They did offer to have Gorion put in a proper grave at least, so there's that. Cassandra and Imoen make their way to Beregost, where they proceed to rob the entire place dry. There's a reason I gave Cassandra bastard sword proficiency, and it's not the "free" one you get in the smithy, but that certainly doesn't hurt.  These berries will come in handy later.  Goddamn groupies. This fight does not go super-well, but thanks to a few healing potions and the timely intervention of an NPC cleric I won't actually be recruiting for this run, Cassandra stayed on the right side of the ground. However, we are picking up our next band member here:  Findley Crow, a halfling Chorister. Chorister is one of the new kits added by Song and Silence, and she's going to be the closest thing we have to a cleric in the band. Here's the kit description:  Basically a smattering of cleric spells added to her list, and the usual bard kit penalties of her lore and her pickpocketing being bad. F: So is this band going to be a Contemporary Lathandrite Music group? C: "...no." F: "THAT'S A YES" Cassandra Roguestone is halfway to getting the band
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Dec 20, 2020 17:48
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Sure, I thought, let's die horribly on the first day to get the thread started. Well, things got a bit... Dicier than I anticipated. Admittedly I was playing like an idiot since I am one. Okay, here goes. Our hero: As I semi-recently discovered, blades are pretty bad-rear end in BG2 once they reach mid-levels, but I was fairly certain this guy would be... Vulnerable, in BG1. Anyway, we do the usual, and beeline for the Friendly Arm Inn, as our foster-dad told us to, and we do our first Actual Hero Quest! Wow bazinga!  This means we'll become a demigod any day now, right? Onwards we go, finding new  This guy isn't friendly at all  The thread told me that we should use the wand of magic missile on this dude, so I did, but I messed up the timing, and he still got his mirror image off. Gosh darnit! So we run away. Nice rolls there, Vic!  Oh dear.  At this point, we're trying to lure the guards at him, but Tarnesh's AI (I suppose in character appropriately) just beelines his attacks on ME   He did manage to club Viconia to death first, though. This guy is a JERK!  In the end, the guards manage to murder him, and miraculously my sorry rear end isn't dead yet.  After spending every gold piece I had to bring back my murdered pals, we made some new ones finally! And I finally had someone to stand in the front of the group who isn't me, the valuable asset here.  We wander southward, and after solving a bar fight of sorts, in a reversal of our bad fortunes so far we actually kill Silke without her getting a single spell off. Nicely done, crew! Jaheira gets a magic stick for our troubles, too.  We kill some mean ogrillons, and find a letter. And someone actually levels up! Oh boy!  ...And then things turn back to the way they were. I remembered that there was a ghast running around the cave mouth in this area, but for some reason (EE change?) the game decided to spawn two. Well, that didn't really work out well for team not-undead.  This is me running to the edge of the map, wondering how long the stuff everyone dropped as they freaking died would stay on the ground once I got everyone resurrected, AGAIN. (Why yes, it did cost me ALL OF MY GOLD, AGAIN, thank you for asking.)  Then we fought Greywolf, and that went just super, as you can tell.  Our plucky little band decided to call it a night here, because woof, this sure was a wild ride so far. I'm sure by level 2 of the mines kobolds will have one-shotted at least 2 characters.
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Dec 20, 2020 18:43
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For my first try, I decided to return to a gimmick I started and then lost interest in last year: Priests only. Of course, the further I get through the series, the more generous my definition of "priest" will become, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Here's Sofia, cleric 1. I got a generous first roll of 78 and decided to keep it, forgetting that my initial idea was melee-only clerics. Oh well!  Kiting can take you a long way, and I peel away hobgoblins one by one until I meet Wolverine.  Due to my low Strength, I have to choose between AC and a helmet for now. Obviously, I chose AC. As for these boots, I decided to actually return them for once.  AC was a good idea! I managed to escape this ambush and live to adventure another day.  Neira can't take her own medicine and gets slowly plinked to death.  Despite playing solo, I figure a Stone to Flesh scroll might come in handy.  Imagine that! I add Branwen to my party as Cleric 2 and decide to call it a night. Intact and with another godbody, Sofia has reached Nashkel.
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Dec 21, 2020 08:08
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docbeard posted:I've decided to make my first run a bit of a gimmick mostly-custom party. And by that I mean returning to a gimmick run I did in 2018 and committing harder to it. And by that I mean the return of: It's always nice to see someone tackling SCS in an Ironman challenge. docbeard posted:However, we are picking up our next band member here: Nice spell selection, it gets all of this on top of regular arcane casting? Pretty decent kit. Rappaport posted:
That's an awful lot of running, poor Apollo440.
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Dec 21, 2020 09:55
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Angry Lobster posted:It's always nice to see someone tackling SCS in an Ironman challenge. Yes. Nice. Nice is what it is. And yeah, the Chorister kit still gets regular spellcasting on top of it. This (and the Dirgesinger kit from Song and Silence that I'm also using) are definitely full-on upgrades to vanilla bards (like all the kits save maybe Jester, which is more of a different flavor), and could be considered a bit overpowered on paper but (a) Blade still exists and (b) they're still bards. In practice so far, Findley's definitely my MVP right now because she can heal at all, but she's no substitute for a proper cleric or druid.
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Dec 21, 2020 11:41
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Looks like this year's theme is gimmicks so I'm a little sad that my gimmick is so basic compared to everyone participating thus far: its gonna be a shorty run! Our dashing hero is the diminutive Grundle  I haven't tried wizard slayer before, so this should be interesting. I have also never used crossbows before. This is not optimal, since I'll be limited to 1 attack per round. A proper wizard slayer should be stacking as many attacks as possible to mess up casters.  Stocked up on ammo for any occasion and an extra hammer before leaving Candlekeep. Be prepared. To kill magic users. Very smart, except I'll soon realize that I should have bought an extra shortbow...  The wizard seems unhinged, but I like the halfling. Looks like he knows how to work a blade. Or a shortbow if I had remembered to buy one. It all goes fine though, the party handily kills a wolf and several little blue men on the way to...  A warehouse??? Look I know a guy OK, he needs help doing a job and he said he could loan me some cash. Kagain comes along for the ride and generously loans 200-odd gold and some gems to the cause.  Time to stop by the Friendly Arm inn like Gorion said. We have some trouble with a human outside, but nothing a hail of darts, arrows and bolts can't solve. Kagain deals the final blow. Next episode: Kagain has a job to do. Xzar has an accident. A new friend! docbeard posted:Yes. Nice. Nice is what it is. Good luck  Really SCS isn't so bad once you know what to prepare for, but some of the ambushes can be a serious problem. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Dec 21, 2020 |
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Dec 21, 2020 16:54
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What are the rules on solo? I forgot to take a pic of my character sheet, so I'm treating this as a trial run, but then I also picked the wrong dialogue option and imoen joined the party, and then I accidentally took all her poo poo before telling her to go home. I assume that's not allowed! When I die or get bored I will try to submit an actual (DD solo) run.
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Dec 21, 2020 20:25
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It's fine in my book, so long as she didn't participate in any fights. I'm not sure if something changed in the past year or what, but the pathfinding is significantly better. It's not good, but party members no longer take insane detours to get around each other.
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Dec 21, 2020 20:53
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I'm having trouble getting the game to scale properly. Playing the EE via Steam, but it's in a very tiny window and if I stretch it the playable area remains the same and I just get a bunch of background stone. Anybody know how to fix this? I've got tons of time and would love to participate this year again. (I usually die early in BG2 to something stupid.)
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Dec 21, 2020 21:10
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Chapter 2: Things Do Not Go According To Plan Kagain's caravan has been attacked. Well, that was a short quest! He offers to tag along and gives me even more money. 600g and I've barely been 2 days outside of candlekeep! Dwarves know how to make it rain.  We take a quick trip to Nashkel because Xzar and Montaron keep nattering on about some mines or something. Honestly it sounds like something above this groups pay grade, but we do find an amazing suit of armour just laying about in a field. This is when I take a good long look at Kagain's stats. AC of 0, actually -2 vs missiles. The guy is a tank already and that's the least of it. Kagain has 20 con, technically illegal according to d&d and that means he regenerates. Pretty brilliant for a party with no healer, he takes a hit and 5 minutes later the dude is back to full health. It's loving wolverine in full plate. Green, short, evil wolverine. Those stats are perfect for what I want to do next. Only... 15 hp. That's good for level 1, but what if he takes a crit? Especially against what I'm planning to tackle. hmmm I'm going to talk not so briefly about DCSS, short for Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It's an ASCII roguelike, and it's exceptional for what in my opinion, is the coolest mechanic ever. Classes don't mean much in that game. Races make a bit of a difference, but the defining choice is what deity one worships. They bestow incredible powers on their worshippers and terrible vengeance on the unlucky bastard who forsakes them. Cheibriados (Chei for short) is the god of time, or loving with time or poo poo, maybe it hates time, I don't know. Worship Cheibriados and time changes. You start to go slow. Really, really slow. At first it's subtle. Monsters move 2 steps for every step you take. Grow in Chei's esteem and soon the world will move 10 times as fast as you. Blink, and every monster in the room has run up and gotten in a couple hits. It doesn't matter. The slower you are, the stronger you are. Blows that would kill a normal character barely make a dent in the health bar. You swing a sword slowly and and through sheer time fuckery it lands 10 minutes later in the exact spot a giant's head was going to be at that exact moment and atomizes them. Things look a little dicey? Decide to take all the hits 30 minutes later, or hell, why not just remove yourself from time for a day? The brilliant thing about Chei is that every move matters. You can stop time, blow a hole through the biggest baddest opponent but you can't take single misstep, because everything else has eons to capitalize on it. Waste a turn moving and a flock of titans halved your hp, you have 3 new mutations and something banished you to the abyss. The point is, worshipping Chei trains you to go slow. Every move matters. If things are going south, stop and think. If I'm confident that everything is fine and under control, stop and think. Go slow. TL;DR 16 hp is not enough.  Time to go bar-hopping instead! Some jerk started a fight with us.  Another rear end in a top hat tried to trick us into killing some random merchants.  This dickweed tried to assassinate me! Beregost sucks.  Nashkel isn't better. After the barcrawl, we cleared the other maps we had passed through and then I made a terrible mistake by accidentally travelling to Fisherman's Village instead of the Xvart Massacre. I didn't go slow  See, there's an ambush there by three npcs, 2 of which (Deyngan and a hobgoblin archer) are challenging but doable. The third is a mage who really likes to spam horror, which a level 1 group has little to no chance of resisting. By a stroke of luck, Deyngan landed an early crit on Kagain who panicked and ran. The mage blew 2 horrors on the already feared Kagain before the group was able to put her down. Didn't get a screenshot as I was busy with damage control, unfortunately. This bear past the Xvarts was my actual goal, and gave just enough xp to put Kagain over the top. 29hp! This was enough to make an end-run past the ankhegs to the north, one of which did 16 damage before I could heal him. Thank Chei I stopped to get another level first.  Oh uh, where's Quayle? ...ohh I didn't install a mod to move him. Right, so my plan was to dispose of Xzar as soon as I got an alternative that better fit a "little people" playthrough. I was gonna keep Imoen for a while cause she's cool (brother to a dwarf, steals things, she's good in my book). This playthrough is entirely sans mods because I had to move an improbably large sofa up 5 stories and simply couldn't be arsed to gently caress around with mods after that. Turns out I forgot that Quayle is only accessible in Chapter 5 in vanilla and my bro Yeslick is still a long way away. So apologies, there are gonna be some tall people in the group for a little while. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Dec 21, 2020 |
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Dec 21, 2020 23:16
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FairGame posted:I'm having trouble getting the game to scale properly. Playing the EE via Steam, but it's in a very tiny window and if I stretch it the playable area remains the same and I just get a bunch of background stone. Anybody know how to fix this? I've got tons of time and would love to participate this year again. (I usually die early in BG2 to something stupid.) Have you tried the Steam or official forums?
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Dec 22, 2020 01:05
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FairGame posted:I'm having trouble getting the game to scale properly. Playing the EE via Steam, but it's in a very tiny window and if I stretch it the playable area remains the same and I just get a bunch of background stone. Anybody know how to fix this? I've got tons of time and would love to participate this year again. (I usually die early in BG2 to something stupid.) Is "Scale User Interface" in your Graphics options checked?
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Dec 22, 2020 02:19
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Cassandra Roguestone the Blade has assembled the band. Back in Beregost, we run into this young ingenue being harassed by Thayvian record label executives.  It's a bit rough (a description that can be applied to most of our fights so far, tbh) but we chase them off, and a grateful Neera Which is where we're headed but first we need to do some shopping, so we head back over to High Hedge. About half the fights here are okay even for a lowish-level party so long as you have access to Sleep. Which, er, we don't, hence our presence here. Some persistence, the Lightning Wand we "acquired" in Beregost, and a whole lot of healing potions, like way too many, see us to the front door. Where we find:  She's upset, and she has every right to be, because her husband is a bit of a werewolf at the moment and Thalantyr is the only one who might be able to offer a cure, but he's being his usual standoffish self. We go in and chat him up and give him most of our money for some scrolls and stuff, and, remember those berries we got? Turns out there are a couple different potential cures for lycanthropy that he's willing to offer, each with varying levels of success. The potion involving Guril berries offers us basically a coin flip; the only way to get better odds involves a visit to Werewolf Isle and lol why would we ever go there? (Thousand-yard stare.) There's also the option of the other traditional cure for lycanthropy, of course, which would leave Aiwell unhappy with us. Thalantyr doesn't give a poo poo. But we decide to try the humane option and head up to the normally-abandoned house in the northeast part of the map. Which is when things very nearly come to a very bad end for Cassandra:  It's blended into the foliage pretty well but if you squint you can just about see the giant spider corpse, which managed to both web (thank you SCS) and poison Cassandra. Findley had already used up the one cure spell she could cast and of course Cassandra was paralyzed so I was left to watch the screen helplessly while her health went down and down and wondering if it was time to roll my next character. Thankfully both poison and web wore off at the literal last possible moment. (Also there was a ghast which we nuked with lightning.) We headed inside and rolled the dice.  If the antidote fails, welp, we're fighting a werewolf. It's appropriately leveled for low-level parties but it's still a werewolf and we're a pair of bards who are out of spells and a thief who can't backstab yet.  Fortunately it doesn't fail, the happy couple are reunited, and we get rewarded with a +1 flaming longsword, which we deem acceptable compensation and then some. We then head up toward the Friendly Arms Inn to meet up with a potential bass player. Oh, and I guess dad's best friends are waiting for us there or something, man, whatever.  On our way, we stop in at the temple for more healing potions. C: "So, gotta ask, is it pronounced LOWthander or-" F: "Don't even start." C: "Oh, it's like that." F: "You have no idea. entire schisms and religious wars have been fought between the Low Faith and the Lay Faith." C: "So what's your take?" F: "Well...I see value in a god who's there when we're at our Lowest, or one who finds us wherever we may Lay, but to me, a singer, thinking of my god just makes me want to La La La..." C: "I'm so glad I asked."  Oh look, a ring none of us will ever be able to use unless and until I dual-class Imoen, if I even do that this game.  C: "Brother, we're here for the band!" Tarnesh: "Oh. And here I thought you might be the adopted daughter of a Candlekeep wizard who was just murdered and who not coincidentally has a bounty for her own head." C: "...nope!" Tarnesh: "That's a yes!" A speedy arrow from Cassandra disrupts whatever spell he was trying to open with, we nail him with Sleep, and it's all over from there. Inside, we meet up with Khalid and Jaheira and tell them politely that we're not interested in joining their band, and meet:  Our bass player. He's a bit on the emo side, but that's all right.  Dirgesingers, unlike Choristers, don't get extra spells but do get a couple of nice once-a-day abilities and a song that's basically a curse aura for enemies rather than a bless aura for allies. This is definitely a straight-up upgrade for a bard but nothing that couldn't be outdone by a vanilla mage-thief. We sell off Evermemory because we need 9000 gold a hell of a lot more than we need a useless ring, and head off toward Nashkel. On our way we pick up a Wand of Sleep, because spell slots are kind of at a premium still.  THIS SPELL KILLS FASCISTS!  C: "HELLO, NASHKEL!" Bardolan: "Circus is that way." We manage to keep Neira incapacitated long enough to beat her down but it takes multiple spells and quite a lot of time. After a well-deserved rest and picking up (and selling) the Ankheg Armor that none of us can wear, we recruit the scary barbarian-looking dude hanging out in the thoroughfare. No, not that one.  This one. Folks, we just found our drummer. Then it's off to the circus.  Ammon takes furious notes here.  No, she's not recruitable here, she just ties into the Bentha/Zordral encounter a bit, and sets up shop in Bentha's tent afterwards. Zordral himself isn't exactly a pushover but multiple magic missiles, a color spray, and a generous beatdown deal with him. And finally, hiding behind the Branwen statue that we liberate, is this charming fellow, our keyboard player:  And thus, the roster is complete: Cassandra Roguestone: Frontwoman and Lead Singer Findley Crow: Backup Singer, Lead Guitar, Chaplain Ammon Arngyre: Bass Player, Open Mike Poetry Night Enthusiast Radd Ragnarok: Drummer, Mosh Pit Enthusiast Critical Mister: Keyboards, EDM (Enchanted Dance Music) DJ Imoen the [Pending]: Roadie, Backup Dancer, Self-Appointed Talent Scout
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Dec 22, 2020 03:13
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docbeard posted:Is "Scale User Interface" in your Graphics options checked? This fixed it; thanks! I'll post an update soon. (Runs don't count until I get past the Nashkel Mines, so we'll see how that goes.)
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Dec 22, 2020 03:46
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Sofia is back at it, and immediately has two hammers break in consecutive fights. So I go after Bassilus and his magic hammer. I'm not very efficient with spells, but holding and silencing him means he's neutralized for the entire fight.  Melicamp DIES  Not so touch without the quickest dart thrower in the west at your back, are you Vax?  Craving experience, I roll back to the FAI and demolish Tarnesh.  Hold Person and Command make Greywolf (and many other fights) incredibly simple.  I foresee a lot of casting Sanctuary to close gaps in the future.  With my skeletons holding the entrance, it's really easy to take out Mulahey.  Holding and killing one person at a time makes these fights very time (and spell) intensive, and I have to use Sanctuary to close once I'm out of Hold Persons.  Without his spells, Nimbul is just a thief. Anyway, that's it for now, and Sofia has cleared the Nashkel Mines.
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Dec 22, 2020 07:47
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Ann Teuta the swashbuckler wraps up TotSC and Sarevok.  Ann left her mark on Durlag's tower...  ... and informed a demon cult that their plan was dumb as poo poo.  Mendas' werewolf invasion plan or whatever the gently caress was somehow even dumber.  Hit the exp cap just in time for the final battle. Yay.  Just a speed bump on the way to Sarevok.  The final fight started off so well with Semaj dying super fast, but  it could have quickly ended in tragedy if I didn't have a backup plan. Arrows of dispelling no longer remove Sarevok's haste, which is, well, was, my go-to strategy to handle him. Fortunately he can still be stunned, and with greater malison + a bit of wand of paralyzation spam from Garrick and Xan, he was quickly disabled and quickly cut down. Angelo and Tazok didn't have time to join the fight. It wouldn't have been so close if I hadn't been stubborn with the arrows of dispelling and immediately switched to greater malison + wands when the first one that hit failed to remove his haste. I gotta say that Xan was really handy in this run, he's an enchanter and all the best BG1 spells are enchantments. Garrick as a wandbot and backup archer also did very well. Let's go team neutral!  And bam, I'm in SoD now. Ann Teuta the swashbuckler is pursuing the last of Sarevok's followers e: honors: ironling, purist, librarian, trap dodger, honorable trader, battlemaster, roleplayer Suspicious fucked around with this message at 11:01 on Dec 22, 2020 |
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Dec 22, 2020 10:58
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I've updated the roll of heroes and congratulations to Suspicious for the first Sarevok win.
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Dec 22, 2020 11:59
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Time to actually participate in one of these. Seems like a perfect occasion to play a solo character for the first time ever. Meet Hera, elven fighter/mage/thief  ...with 18 Dexteritiy, because I forgot what I was doing during all the rerolls.  Summoned a familiar ASAP. Candlekeep is otherwise unveventful, apart from Shank exploding.  (I thought the Chaotic Good familiar had AoE inivisibility, but that seems not to be the case. Is that an EE change?) Ditching Imoen without taking her stuff - gonna be properly solo  Also grabbed a diamond and told two crazy people to gently caress off. Doing low-risk quests to stop being level 1:  (Also got the book for Firebead.)  Grabbed the Ring of Wizardry while i was in the area. I guess I'll have to deal with Tarnesh at some point, might as well do it now.  I attacked him with the familiar while he was still neutral, which prompted him to blow most of his spells on a tiny dragon with magic resistance. Belt Ogre fell asleep, and then died.  As long as I can just make the spiders fall asleep, they should be a - oh dear.  Thankfully, being stuffed in a backpack grants poison immunity. Interrupted a lightning bolt cast just in time:  Still need a little bit more XP to get a decent spell capacity  Hera is going to look for a chicken.
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Dec 22, 2020 13:07
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Steve the Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief enters the fray  spent some time rolling up stats because Steve will be going through the game alone on Insane SCS. He has a long journey ahead of him.   I start off by heading over to basilisks and picking up Korax, the best dog, who murders everything for me.  Poor Drizzt had a bit of an accident, I guess I'll pick up his gear and carry on his legacy of fighting evil.  Running around doing quests for reputation, sadly none of them give me any so I'm left at only 16 after giving away 10k to the church. At least Melicamp survived.  I suppose I should get around to dealing with this iron crisis thing. Fighting kobolds is awful so I sneak by them and assassinate their boss, that should be enough to deal with the issue.  Turns out haste potions don't work well when you already have a potion of freedom running. Backed into a corner and surrounded by a million spiders. With a little luck, some healing potions, and a fireball wand I manage to survive the situation.  Poked the spine of some pompous wizard. They don't like that much.  Hunted down the leadership of the Iron Throne and escaped the frame job. Time to track down this Sarevok and have my revenge, well, maybe not time yet... tomorrow.
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Dec 22, 2020 15:28
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Hera has rediscovered the concept of hubris. Successfully found Melicamp.  Skeletons are kinda nasty at this point, since they ignore sleep and are resistant to arrows. Ended up chugging a potion of defense and doing close combat instead, which worked out alright.  Melicamp lives.  Which bring me up to a comfortable 4 Sleep spells at the ready. Tip to Nashkel is fairly uneventful, mostly sleeping hobgoblins to deal with. Free XP? I'll take it!  I should probably have have skipped the inn for a while.  Not shown: Getting lucky and resisting Hold Person. Sold off the Ankheg armor, then made a quick trip back to Beregost for a Shortbow+1 and matching longsword+1. Got what I understand to be one of the most critical pieces of equipment for a character that can't wear armor and doesn't bring meatshields.  And then I got a reminder that a mage that can be killed by a level 1 party can quite easily kill a solo level 2 character.  RIP Hera, killed by Zordral's acid arrows. (Frankly, I lasted longer than I thought I would.)
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Dec 22, 2020 15:39
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Alright, let's give it another (non-solo) try. Meet Inga, Human Inquisitor:  Since you can't really dump charisma on a Paladin, I'll just take the Dex hit and beeline for the gauntlets. I suppose there are a lot of strength potions available, but I need somebody in the party to be a good pack mule, and I was thinking of skipping Minsc since I already fill that role. Lawful Good + 18 Charisma nets you a few positive reaction rolls around Candlekeep:   10 extra gold and a +1 dagger, not all that impressive. A full party should have less troub...  Well, we're off to a good start. Tarnesh is not a problem: Now that I've got everyone kitted out with bows/slings, I can take on the belt Ogre, right?  welp RIP Inga, one-shot by the belt Ogre. Probably gonna take a break before the next attempt.
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Dec 22, 2020 17:15
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drat. No doubt more will join Hera and Inga in the grave.
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Dec 22, 2020 17:17
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Updated the list of Fallen Wards with the first casualties, dying to the Belt Ogre is a time-honored tradition by this point, however falling to Zordral, now that's new.
Angry Lobster fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Dec 22, 2020 |
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Dec 22, 2020 19:22
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Cassandra Roguestone and Alaundo's Chosen have played a few minor gigs in preparation for their big debut at the Nashkel Mines. C: "So the Mines are some kind of dive bar, right?" Bardolan: "Circus is that way." This update's just a lot of boring grinding so I won't belabor it too much.  C: "Oh, you're gonna rock OUR world? No dude! No! We're gonna rock YOUR-" Senjak: "No WE'RE gonna rock YOUR-" C: "No, dude! No, dude!" Senjak: "Yes! Yes...uh, who the fu-" (Not too much)  Cassandra's pyrotechnics get a little out of hand and knock out Dorn as well as the bandits. Not actually a problem. Later, Greywolf finds out what a lot of solo enemies are going to find out for a bit: that four out of my five bards routinely have magic missile prepared. It's still a little hairy but we come out okay. After this we head up north to deal with some bugs. Critical Mister lifts this for later.  (Pickpocketing this now basically saves us a trip back and forth later when we decide to deal with Tenya.) In one of the houses behind Sonner and Co., there's a little mod-added quest. (I think. I don't ever remember running into it in Purist land.) Basically this woman wants to hire us to deal with a zombie hanging out in her backyard. Only this zombie isn't hostile, it's just going on and on about how the woman "signed the contract."  Basically it turns out she promised to remain faithful to her husband even past the traditional "til death do us part", at least so long as she lived in his house. Which is kind of sweet but also a bit weird, but probably harmless. Except in a world with necromancy where the husband can have himself brought back as the walking dead. Naturally she wants no part of this. I think the quest author thinks the "good" option here is to enforce the terms of the contract and force her out of her home but yeah gently caress that. The whole thing appeals to Ammon's doom-and-gloom brand of nihilism but everyone else votes to kill the zombie. I don't know if there's anything more to this quest or not. Perhaps we will find out together. Anyway, we go dumpster diving and deal with a bunch of ankhegs. Sleep's hit or miss but we can mostly take them down. A few close calls when one gets a lucky acid spit off but no one died. We're mostly here for:  And the experience. And the rest of the treasure sure doesn't hurt anything. We have no reason to make Ankheg Armor but the shells themselves sell for a decent amount so we take what we can carry. We get on with clearing out the areas on the road between the Friendly Arms Inn and Nashkel.  A noise complaint? A goddamn NOISE COMPLAINT?!?  Imoen wants to bring on a new band member. We...decline. Silke is formidable but four magic missiles to the face are also formidable and this is probably the easiest this fight has ever gone for me. (In the interest of full disclosure I had to fight her twice, because my game crashed afterwards. It went pretty much the same both times; if anything the second fight was a little tougher.) Back in the wilderness, we run into Viconia and her Flaming Fist stalker.  C: Word to the wise And the Flaming Fists The name of the song is THIS SPELL KILLS FASCISTS F: "I thought the name of the song was "Lathander, Joy of Morning's Deli-, oh, sorry, casting magic missile now."  This is the best random treasure drop from a hobgoblin ever! Cassandra now has a pseudodragon.  Thanks to the Deep Gnomes of the Sword Coast mod, this spot that normally looks like a cave but isn't a cave...is a cave.  A cave full of goblins! These fights aren't too bad though there's a goblin shaman at the end who's a bit tricky when he hasn't just had a fireball and four magic missiles to the face. (Bard party is squishy as gently caress but they are very capable of bringing it.) Our reward is:  A magic shield that none of us can use! Hooray! Next: HELLO, NASHKEL MINES!
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Dec 23, 2020 05:23
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Nostalgamus posted:(I thought the Chaotic Good familiar had AoE inivisibility, but that seems not to be the case. Is that an EE change?) That's an EE change, Find Familiar didn't exist until BG2, so Find Familiar was balanced around being level 7ish when you cast it. When it was added to the first game in EE they made it so you don't get the more overpowered powers straight out of Candlekeep. The hitpoint bonus is smaller too.
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Dec 23, 2020 08:47
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Sofia gets right back to it. Now that we can raise skeletons at will, the main drive now is getting more party members so we can fill out the God Squad. Get lost, Rasaad, we're not THAT desperate for godbodies.  Tranzig shook off SIX castings of Hold Person. Luckily, he still has a hilariously low amount of HP, so with some in-fight healing I was able to take him down without losing anyone.  The risk of summoning skeletons is that they'll aggro enemies beyond my line of sight. Luckily if they do, they're shooting at the skeletons and not my party members.  This guy is basically free XP, and I didn't realize until recently that you can goad him into fighting!  It's not the most powerful spell, but Glyph of Warding can still take out groups of mooks.  I also tell Baeloth to beat tracks. Sorry, but we're only interested in magic if it comes from a deity. Also, alliteration annoys anyone, rear end in a top hat.  I only move with a skeleton crew now.  Taurgosz proves too much for my army to handle and has to be restrained.  I get good and juiced before barging into the big tent, including loading everyone up with fire resistance...  for the Potions of Explosions the party throws at its feet to clear out the room without killing Ender Sai.  With everyone dead, I release Ender and eat the lightning bolt trap on the chest to get the documents I need. Traps are going to be an issue going forward, I expect, but I'll deal with that when I get there. For now, Sofia is off to the Cloakwood.
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Dec 23, 2020 09:04
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Steve begins his unstoppable quest to hunt down Sarevok, but first I need some cash. A little bit of theft never hurt anyone, hopefully I haven't crashed the local economy too horribly.  A little trip to some prison island. I keep hearing about these powerful mages but a sword in their spine always seems to work.    Gathered some evidence and presented it to the Grand Dukes. I really hate the Ducal Palace so I may have over prepared a bit. After saving them I assassinate Belt to grab his sandthief's ring, he owed me his life anyway.  A bit of a mistake trying to get into Durlag's Tower, I guess I'll just kill this guy instead of sneaking past. He quickly reminds me *why* I like to sneak past.   Whisked away to a magical chessboard. I don't think this is how the game is supposed to be played, but I'll accept my new title as Chess Grandmaster  I get the pleasure of watching the Demon Knight kill himself, then snipe off the remaining copy.  It all leads to this, the final showdown with my brother. Pretty sure my liver is giving out after drinking all these potions, but there's probably a potion to fix that. 5 invis potions and 8 charges of the sandthief's ring and Sarevok falls before me, probably very confused and frustrated as to what just happened. Honors: Ironling, Strategist, Purist, Double Damage, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Melee Champion, Battlemaster, A God Among Men
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Dec 23, 2020 15:00
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Chapter 3: The Gauntlet I ended the last update on a bit of anti-climax, having realized that I wasn't able to get a shorty healer until later in the game.  So Grundle travelled the long way back to Nashkel where he rescued Branwen. She's all right for a human. Petrified for ages and the first thing on her mind is a good fight.  Didn't expect to run into an ogre mage this early! Thankfully this isn't an scs run or the group might have been in trouble.  Despite being easy, this is low-key one of my favourite fights because the gibberlings can run in from unpredictable angles. There aren't many fights like it in the series, a missed opportunity IMO  Xzar, a necromancer, cannot memorize invisibility. Annoying in a couple situations where an invisible thief can scout ahead for traps. The Nashkel mines are cleared without incident, apart from Kagain somehow melding into Mulahey and spazzing out while the rest of the group fought on.  The start of Chapter 3 is always tense, with the group running low on spells and healing after the fight with Mulahey. It's a desperate dash to the nearest inn, or gambling on being able to rest uninterrupted in area that can have some pretty nasty surprises at this point in the game. I decided to run for it and actually managed to scout a safe path to the edge of the map with Montaron, but Xzar wandered too close to the assassins so I was forced to fight them anyways. They started by casting shocking glyph at their feet, which was a net win for me.  The gauntlet isn't over, as there's another assassin waiting for Grundle and co. outside the inn. Kagain finshes him off and the group takes a breather for a couple days while Xzar sorts through a mountain of magic items.  Melicamp lives!!! Next up, Grundle goes hunting for crazy people in the wilderness. An insane priest, a possessed paladin and a maniacal mage. You know what this land needs? An asylum for magic users.
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Dec 23, 2020 15:34
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Ann Teuta the Swashbuckler made a mistake but decided to live with it Right, so, Korlasz. I remember her surrendering so, like a genius, I walk into her room completely unbuffed. Turns out she surrenders *after* you kill everyone and bring her to near death. Oops.  Before leaving the intro dungeon, unequip the assholes that won't be coming back and put their gear in their inventory. Their inventory items will appear in the stash chest that follows the siege camp. What they have equipped is gone forever. Fine, Xan, you can keep your moonblade.  Turns out you can only cancel a dual-class on the first screen. If you click a class to check out its skills, guess what? You have to follow through! I guess Ann Teuta is a swashbuckler/mage now.  Most important thing first: summon my cat.   Being alone as a level 1 mage is, uh, interesting. Fortunately wands of paralyzation still work just fine.    Nothing interesting in chapter 8 other than the huge side area with the lich and bronze sentry. The latter is a murder machine, so summon some cannon fodder and hit it with cold damage. 2 or 3 shots of the frost wand is all it takes.  Decided to kill the lich instead of siding with it because holy moley that's a lot of exp.   Toasted all the trolls in the first chapter 9 area and thought that was enough for an update. I also got rid of Dynaheir because holy poo poo, no enchantment spells is crippling. The skald is, no joke, more useful.  We're getting there! Can cast level 4 spells now. Ann Teuta the Swashbuckler/mage is on her way to the ruined Bhaal temple
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Dec 23, 2020 22:17
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As is customary (having not played any of the BG games in... a long time) I'm doing a solo FMT. To make things more interesting, I took the very first roll I got, which turned out to be pretty decent (after redistribution): Ah, the joys of low level combat  (No fooling, it took me 19 rounds to kill this gibberling that I needed a 9+ to hit with it needing nat 20 - I've used all my healing potions because it kept on succeeding) State of play in Beregost:  Hopefully I'll have another level soon 
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Dec 24, 2020 00:51
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Welp, the gig at the mines went fine for Alaundo's Chosen, but the afterparty, not so much. First some surprise Ankhegs in the Valley of the Tombs led to some surprise ODs on acid for Radd and Critical Mister, then on our way limping out we stumbled across that damned ooze mage. With a scream of ROCK AND ROLL, we incinerated the mage. His oozes,, on the other hand... RIP Cassandra Roguestone, died as she lived, screaming defiance and covered in odd substances.
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Dec 24, 2020 03:26
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Steve the Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief awakes to find himself in a dungeon, and not one of the fun dungeons but a torturey one.  Fortunately Irenicus keeps a stash of armor and weapons nearby for any escaped prisoners. Very thoughtful of him really.  Do you think he does his own decorating? That plant really ties the room together.  I manage to escape just in time to see Irenicus get arrested and locked away forever, crisis averted world is saved.  120,000 gold?!?!? I guess I'll just go to the land of magical gold trees then, or just go on a crime spree. Hopefully the local economy can support this madness.   Fireball and cloudkill wands get me through all the trolls and spores so I can trap myself a rakshasa and watch Cernd beat up a shadow druid.  Afterwards it's time to wind down with a trip to the circus. Curses, it's a murder circus. Why does this always happen?  Apparently reentering the area after being forced to run away counts as beating Bodhi. I guess I'll take it. No need to rush though, Imoen isn't going anywhere and there's much yet to do.  Bamboozled! I've been tricked into killing a bunch of guards and then someone was kidnapped before my very eyes. I should probably do something about this, you know, eventually.
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Dec 24, 2020 16:01
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What a great way to level up I really need to stop face tanking traps  Having emerged from the Nashkel mines, I slightly misjudge the next fight meaning Lamalha is essentially undamaged after I finish off the others with a necklace of missiles and some traps. After burning off her spells through the classic method of running out of sight just before she casts them (and waiting patiently for then to wear off), I get out my trusty darts and throw one at her. And then run away.  And then run away some more.  All in all, plinking away at her for a single damage a pop when the amount of space I have lines up with when the attack wants to happen in the turn takes over fifteen minutes. Spend some time clearing the nearby wilderness areas (at least the not-nasty ones), and have another good way to level up:  Except I forgot that the +2 AC sword needs good aligned characters, so I guess that's getting sold then. Even after taking on Drizzt, I still need to resort to the "throw dart, run away" dance, especially when I pick up multiple bears while dealing with the first group  All in all though, going well. Next stop: the bandit camp! (After more mucking around) 
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Dec 24, 2020 21:32
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Ann Teuta the swashbuckler/mage tackles the ruined temple of Bhaal.  There's an optional dragon fight on the way to the temple. Let's give her a rude awakening!  Uuuhh guys I think this might have been a bad idea...  Whew, a second wand salvo finished her off.   Her sister was slightly upset. Unfortunately for her, wands of paralyzation immediately worked their magic.  The loving neothelid wouldn't show itself and kept summoning mordy swords. I had enough magic missiles memorized to kill all but one of them, and the last one was thankfully unsummoned when the aberration showed itself and died.  The temple had been hijacked by a mind flayer. I bought scrolls of chaotic commands and cast it on everyone and the fight was pretty much a joke.  And because I'm a loving idiot I also decided to pick a fight with the shadow aspect in the secret room. It was fortunately distracted by summons long enough to be killed before it would start exploding my party with its 4x backstabs and ability to turn invisible at will.  I was helping this young dragon in its fight against hill giants when it recognized Safana was wearing green dragon armor and turned hostile. I... wasn't expecting that.  Alright let's mop up the crusader camp with the help of the flaming fist, let's go!  Hmm.. this isn't going well.  This is DEFINTELY not going well.  After traveling to another area, raising everyone and coming back, I managed to mop up the remaining crusaders. Unfortunately, every single flaming fist and fort defender (including Khalid) was dead. And.. I failed to stop the mage in time. I had no idea it was possible to fail this objective. I thought they just said to hurry/be careful to create tension. Nope, you really gotta kill the mage quickly (and not with AoE) or everything goes kaboom. Lessons learned: 1. Don't attack with the flaming fist, they're useless and prevent you from spamming AoE spells. 2. Don't gently caress around with the bridge mage. Ann Teuta the swashbuckler/mage failed to prevent the explosion of the boareskyr bridge. RIP Suspicious fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Dec 24, 2020 |
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Dec 24, 2020 21:50
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RIP Ann Teuta, what a sad way to lose an ironman run.
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Dec 24, 2020 22:49
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How do you even fight the dragon in SoD? At that level you don't really have access to most of the really broken stuff yet.
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Dec 24, 2020 23:24
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She's a rather weak dragon. 112 HP, 15% magic resistance, 50% acid resistance and nothing else, defensively speaking. (3 attacks per round, 6 THAC0 and 20 strength so don't try to melee lmao) Also she's completely optional. You can get past her as long as you don't do anything but go from the entrance to the exit of her cave.
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Dec 24, 2020 23:35
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| # ? May 8, 2024 00:15 |
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Suspicious posted:She's a rather weak dragon. 112 HP, 15% magic resistance, 50% acid resistance and nothing else, defensively speaking. (3 attacks per round, 6 THAC0 and 20 strength so don't try to melee lmao) Wow only 112 hp? I remember the dragon going down relatively easy but not that easy. In any case, I'm also expecting my run to end somewhere in SoD (if I don't make any big mistakes in BG) for similiar reasons. A lot of encounters I've only done once or twice, so its hard to plan for surprises.
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Dec 25, 2020 00:03
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