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Ginette Reno posted:And I'm off to Baldur's Gate! I've been surprised what an easy time I've been having of it this run. If I do ever gently caress up and die I might try to up the ante next time and install SCS as well. I'm going to post some famous last words here but I'm pretty confident I am going to get to Dragonspear now. With 100+ hit points and Dwarven Defender abilities I don't see why I would die at this point. The Deathknight in Durlags can be somewhat nasty I guess so that might be where it could end. Or perhaps I'll blunder into one of those insta kill traps in there. Anndddd I'm dead. I was fighting Basilisks on the roof of Durlag's Tower, and I got just a little careless and popped a potion of mirrored eyes instead of a protection from petrification spell. My potion wore off just before I finished killing the last Basilisk, and it turned me to stone. Kinda tilted because I should have used the spell which lasts a lot longer. Oh well! Turns out 100+ hit points don't matter when you're careless around a Basilisk :/. Back to the drawing board  edit: Alright. Attempt #2 is live! Kangorolac the Dark Moon Monk is going to attempt to punch (but probably mostly throw darts and daggers at things in bg1  ) his way through the sword coast.
Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Dec 27, 2021 |
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Dec 27, 2021 04:13
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Abbie the Chaos Sorcerer has also fallen in Durlag's Tower. We were walking down a hallway when this weird voice said "remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer" and oh right there were like eight traps I'd forgotten about there even though the pile of bodies in front of it should have reminded me. Next character soon! Not sure what yet.
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Dec 27, 2021 15:08
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I'll try this at some point. Using a halfling cleric, like always. Maybe this time I'll go Talos just so I can shoot lightning bolts. I'll regret my decision by BG2, but BG1 clerics are just so good.
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Dec 27, 2021 16:24
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Next character now, in fact! Meet Tovo, Human Wizard Slayer 
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Dec 27, 2021 17:33
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I like the wisdom 3 because ya gotta have a low wis to be playing a Wizard Slayer I say as I play a Monk in bg1 in an Ironman  Recruited Montaron/Xzar early on for extra muscle until I could get the party members I really want. Montaron died several times on the way to the Friendly Arm Inn. The first time he died because I got caught in a Bandit ambush which is a terrifying thing to have happen before you even have a party or access to the sleep spell. The second time Tarnesh got him.  Kagain and Vicky were picked up next, and I used them to help do the Beregost quests. I was a little scared of grabbing Vicky since Peldvale has Black Talon mercs which will absolutely murder a level one character. However, I thought it was a necessary risk since I needed a healer and remove fear/command are indispensable in Bg1  On to Nashkel where I picked up Dorn and Edwin, replacing Monty and Xzar. Now my party is complete. Kagain is an excellent tank (or will be once I get him the bracers of dex) and Dorn is a solid off tank who can dps well. Vicky/Edwin provide terrific casting backbone. I will likely keep Imoen. She's an excellent thief and anyways I usually take her even in evil parties as the narrative doesn't make a lot of sense to me otherwise. But also I just like her in bg1/2. And so I go. I am being careful about when and how to enter melee with my monk so far. I mostly use darts/throwing daggers. I might enter the fray a bit more often around level 5 or 6. The nice thing about Monks is despite their poor defenses in bg1 they do get a bonus vs missiles, so nasty melee enemies are really what I need to fear most. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Dec 27, 2021 |
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Dec 27, 2021 20:24
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Ginette Reno posted:I like the wisdom 3 because ya gotta have a low wis to be playing a Wizard Slayer "Wisdom is only possessed by the learned" CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
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Dec 27, 2021 20:51
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Tovo the Wizard Slayer has cleared the Nashkel mines.  I've changed things up a bit and made Imoen a Sharpshooter this time. This kit is added by Song and Silence, and essentially trades backstab ability to make her a mini-Archer. She'll still dual to Mage at some point.  This is Finch, Hero and Librarian. We have an initial encounter with her in Candlekeep, but she can join us after helping us foil the assassination attempt in Beregost. We also recruit Breagar again, save and (temporarily) recruit Neera (Wizards Slain: 1), defeat Silke (WS: 2), and generally rob Beregost blind before heading north to deal with Tarnesh (WS: 3) and bring Jaheira on board. Then it's south again.  This is a cute little quest from Ascalon's quest pack. Her pet rabbit has run off. We are...skeptical about the magnitude of the reward she promises.  We find her pet's been adopted by an ogre. We manage to talk him into returning "Little Ugh" with the promise of acquiring a new friend for him. (Spoilers: We do not get a thousand million gold pieces. Or any gold pieces.) Onward to Nashkel. Neira's a cleric, so doesn't get included in the count. (My criteria for the count is anyone who casts arcane spells, so mages, sorcerers, bards, but not clerics or druids).  The Nashkel mansion ties into Finch's quest, which is to acquire books for the soon-to-be Nashkel library.  Another Ascalon quest hook. This one ends up being less cute.  And here's our final, uh, recruit. Flara, from Glam's NPC pack, is a Dragon Disciple who believes herself to be a dragon stuck in human form. She's taken offense to the name of the Belching Dragon, but has nonetheless graciously allowed us to accompany her in sorting out the Iron Crisis. I'm sure it'll be fine.  We make progress in finding a replacement rabbit for our ogre friend.  What's Aerie doing here? (It turns out not that much. She's not recruitable but has a bit of a hook into the hostage situation in the nearby tent, and gives us a store/temple services here afterwards.)  (WS: 4) We head to the mines, dealing with Greywolf along the way.  This is Isra, a recruitable paladin (and one of my favorite mod NPCs, but we won't be taking her with us this time. Maybe in BG2).  Mulahey's also a cleric, so the count doesn't go up.  Nimbul, on the other hand... (WS: 5)
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Dec 28, 2021 14:15
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Well, today's adventures with Nixon's Ladies weren't very exciting. We went back to mop up, so after some more basilisk culling, there was a bunch of dead wizards and spiders, and some elf himbo tried to get me to use a cursed scroll on myself, what a doofus.  Went to Gullykin; was it always this hard to find? I tried three different maps to exit from before Mutamin's south exit finally opened it up. I didn't dare venture to Durlag's map yet, even if it's just the overland one  Anyhoo, I saw those sprites and bolted after murdering the wizards, but they were just ogrillons, silly me! Some dead ankhegs later, we helped a little girl have vengeance. Uh, how... Sweet? But, this is pretty much all the wilderness XP claimed for our group, we're all level six-ish except Dynaheir (  ), so I guess next time Nixon's Ladies and friends will finally see if we kill Davaeorn, or will he kill us. Coran's detect traps is 49 at this point. docbeard posted:"Wisdom is only possessed by the learned" It slightly bugs me that I can hear so many of these BG1/2 lines in my head every drat time I read them 
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Dec 28, 2021 15:29
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Kangorolac the Monk is punching his way across the coast I landed a command on Mulahey from Vicky and that made this easy enough. Dorn and Kagain did get killed by kobolds during the course of the rest of the dungeon so I had to make the long haul back to Nashkel to rez them before continuing.  These bounty hunters went down. A combination of sleep + hold + silence won the day  Dorn popped a potion of power + haste to carry me through the mustard jellies. I also managed to interrupt the mage here before he could cause any problems  Edwin making liberal use of the wand of frost on anything I find threatening. Ghasts fall under that category  This was kinda scary. I got randomly ambushed near the gnoll stronghold by an ogre mage. He got a stinking cloud off on my party and things nearly went ill for me, but I made it  Here's a whole pile of dead gnolls The party is now in the process of clearing the western part of the map. My monk is starting to come into his own a little bit. For one thing, I have a minus 9 modifier to rolls vs missile weapons. This is because I'm wearing the + 3 piercing belt, the boots that have + 5 vs missiles, and the inherent monk bonus (+1 armor versus missiles every 3 levels). So my Monk should be pretty safe against ranged attacks. The main threat to him is melee attacks. So I try to make sure my Monk is never the first to a melee combat. I think Monks are probably one of the weakest bg1 classes. Their attacks/round take a bit to ramp up and unlike say a Bard they don't have a lot of useful things to fall back on. The blind spell I have is very nice, but it's only 1/day. I also have blur now which is helpful. One nice thing about Monks is I think they can use Wands of the Heavens. I need to grab some of those soon. Honestly I'm not sure even that Monks totally pay off later either. They do get a lot better in bg2/tob, but other classes I think still scale better thanks to the crazy strong equipment you can get, and in the case of melees improved haste + haste are just so good and Monks are immune to that. I'm enjoying it though.
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Dec 28, 2021 21:45
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Yeah, Monks are just horribly underpowered for most all of BG 1 and 2. Hell even at their best they're not great. But I just like the idea of them.
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Dec 28, 2021 22:12
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Monks get a massive power spike at level 14 or so, when they suddenly get a bunch of magic resistance out of nowhere. They're pretty good at dishing out melee damage by that point too. Really tempted to start run attempts soon, I was going to do a Legacy of Bhaal run to get the final 2 achievements (One each from both games) as my next play-through of the saga but I've been enjoying reading the thread and I've got the Ironman bug again. biscuits and crazy fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Dec 29, 2021 |
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Dec 29, 2021 00:01
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Disclaimer: I have some cheaty tweaks like turning off all traps and all locks (since I couldn't find a way to turn off just traps, or even better just have them auto revealed). This is because I hate waiting six seconds every five steps to detect traps in dungeons and I just don't want to do it so I don't. I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to do this after having beaten BG once ever but I did and it went as expected. Made this character twice and died in Beregost with both. I'm also terrible at screenshots  First trip was clearing out the area east of Candlekeep by kiting and using ranged with Imoen and Silanah, sadly Imoen died to a bear because I got clumsy but not before I poisoned it to the point of it dying too. Then I went south, picked up Kivan before going to Beregost and stumbling upon a bunch of spiders when looting. Oops. Second time was similar but Imoen lived until Beregost and I skipped Kivan. Then I ran into Neera who I forgot was here and came with a fight, so Imoen died there and I replaced her with Neera. Used her sleep to kill spiders, replaced her with Kagain and went to the Friendly Arm In, did some quick quests, leveled up a bunch, picked up Neera again to have someone who can use wands mostly, went back to Beregost to rest on the way to Nashkel, god ambushed by Karlat who killed me in two hits. Whoops. I forgot about him too  This is fun though, I'm gonna make the same one again and see if I can get further before trying something new. Man with Hat fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Dec 29, 2021 |
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Dec 29, 2021 00:28
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 Melicamp lived.  Rest of the west was cleared without much incident  Onto the east, where Ulcaster is fairly easily cleared  I also saved a cow  Nearly died here. Kahrk honed in on me and lit my rear end up. When I got really low I used my monk speed to get the gently caress out so he would target someone else.  Here is where I made a real lovely mistake. Viconia and Kagain died to Kahrk. I went to a temple to rez them and left their gear on the ground, thinking it wouldn't disappear. It did. I lost gauntlets of dex, two ankheg plates, ring of holiness, axe +1, shield +1 permanently. Of those, only the dex gauntlets/holy ring are truly irreplaceable. So that sucks. But I lived and learned an important lesson that I can apply to this and future runs (let's be serious, I'm a monk, no way I'm not wiping on this run at some point )
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Dec 29, 2021 04:26
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 And I'm down again. I had fought my way to Baldur's Gate and things were going pretty well. I wanted to go get the Ogre gauntlets which are a really nice item. Unfortunately the mage there cast confusion (or chaos...one of those two) which hit Dorn and my pc. Both got confused. I had to stand there and helplessly watch as Dorn crit my monk twice for 40+ damage, exploding him into tiny bits. I *probably* should have had all of my casters have a dispel magic memorized, just in case. Or should have popped some magic resist pots before doing that fight. This is not going so well *sigh*. Well, time to consider attempt #3. I am nothing if not persistent.
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Dec 29, 2021 23:07
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In the city, I buy the one potion of clarity available and use it to immediately kill the 3 mages that cast uninterruptible confuse/chaos: the child cursing rear end in a top hat, the ogre gauntlet rear end in a top hat and the rear end in a top hat that poisons you.
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Dec 29, 2021 23:47
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Suspicious posted:In the city, I buy the one potion of clarity available and use it to immediately kill the 3 mages that cast uninterruptible confuse/chaos: the child cursing rear end in a top hat, the ogre gauntlet rear end in a top hat and the rear end in a top hat that poisons you. I normally am more careful than that as well but I got a little complacent. Complacency is the true killer of Ironman runs. You gotta be on point all the time and never get lazy. I figured I could dispel her illusion fast enough with find illusion (Dark Moon Monks can get that) and then chunk her down before any trouble, but I couldn't. Not sure yet what I'm gonna do next. Lately I've been very into doing single class kits so probably something like that. I usually at least make it into SOA or TOB before I get killed so I'm a bit disappointed in my last two runs. Gotta be better!
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Dec 29, 2021 23:57
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I promised I wouldn't go back to XCOM/Diablo/Baldur's Gate before playing at least 1 new(ish) game over my holiday. I finished Disco Elysium last night and I loved it so much. But that also means I can go from Superstar Communist Cop to Halfling Cleric of Lathander. I wasn't expecting to have a handful of nice looking new portraits that look like the old style. Did they add new characters, too? Or did they just happen to add some new art and voicepacks just for the hell of it? No matter; so long as my typical leveling path is available it should be fine. The nice thing about clerics, of course, is that they absolutely dominate the entirety of BG1--especially at lower levels. Mages don't get additional spell slots (though evermemory + sleep is a potent combo), whereas clerics do. And things can't save against Command if they're < level 5. So if you have a cleric, you're toting an "I win" button against most of the early threats. Tarnesh? The belt ogre? Karlat? All of them can be knocked out for a round at will while everyone else peppers them with stuff. Then you get Hold Person at level 2, begin summoning skeletons at level 3...just a stupendous class. The challenge, then, is that I play core rules, and 2E can *really* screw you with HP rolls.  So I was pleasantly surprised to get a perfect 8+2 on Alis' first level. I pretty much follow critical path early on: pick up Xzar and Montaron, kite the belt ogre , beat up Joia's hobgoblins after picking up Khalid and Jaheira. Head south, do Firebead/Spiders/Marl/Silke (all good/peacefully, save for the spiders). Continue south to Nashkel, talk to Noober, burn a charge of Command on Neira the assassin (because I've had Rigid Thinking *really* screw up my game as Khalid murders an entire inn), head to the carnival and pick up Branwen for more Command goodness.  Unfortunately, I don't remember the dialogue tree that saves the lady mage, and this is actually a pretty scary fight--his acid arrows will mess you up. But with Garrick's bardsong I can at least guarantee he won't get a horror off meaningfully. Also used Command on that jerk pickpocket at the carnival, which got me a potion of agility. My business at the carnival concluded, I planned to give that potion to Ajantis along with the potion of defense from the Silke quest. Then have him chug an oil of speed and be my frontline against some Ankhegs while I leveled up. Among Neera's sleep, Alis' command, and Branwen's command, it's usually foolproof.  But sometimes you just eat a nasty crit. There's not a lot of strength in this party, so I had to lug the dead kid's body out very slowly. Eventually got Branwen and Ajantis rezzed, finished out all the Ankhegs above/below the ground, sided with Tenya, and got another level up. Alis is now level 4, with 38 hitpoints. I've returned to Nashkel and picked up Minsc, who...has a whopping 17 HP. He actually sucks quite a lot in BG1, but that strength early on is nothing to sneeze at. Especially when I can disable folks with sleep and Command. But it'll do for now. Gonna go to the gnoll fortress to pick up Dynaheir (and the dex gloves!), who I'll drop Neera for. Dynaheir sucks too tbh and I'll probably just do Coran and Yeslick when it's all said and done. But for now? Alive, with a nice strong base. Party of level 3 and 4s (and a crummy level 2 Minsc) headed to the gnoll fortress!
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Dec 30, 2021 07:01
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I was thinking about playing a cleric of Lathander when my current character inevitably dies. Seems like a very decent kit.evilmiera posted:Yeah, Monks are just horribly underpowered for most all of BG 1 and 2. Hell even at their best they're not great. But I just like the idea of them. Monks get a sweet powerspike at 14 and fall off a bit in epic levels, still pretty fun to run around super fast and punching people in the face until they explode.
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Dec 30, 2021 14:09
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Clerics of Lathander are quite good and I would consider one for a future run as well. I started a Blade as my next attempt. Or rather, several Blades. Blade #1, Tyago The Blade had this happen:  One hit KO by a fuckin gibberling before I even got to the friendly arm inn lol At this point I remembered that Blades can use ranged weapons. Blade #2, Thorn is learning the lessons of his brother Tyago and is going to use a Longbow and stay far away from melee combat until enough levels/spells are acquired to make that safe. Honestly, might not even melee at all until I get stoneskin. Ranged weapons are actually quite strong on a Blade in bg1 because ospin does not work on them. With ospin + Longbow you've got 3 attacks/round with a solid thaco and can put on a hurting to enemies.   So here we are. Thorn the Blade has made his way to the Nashkel mines and will soon be trying to clear them. I wanted to give a Blade an honest effort before I try something else. I might also do something soon which I don't think has been attempted in an Ironman thread before which is to try a multiplayer run with my brother. But for now we'll see how this Blade goes. e: Lol Blade #2 died to Mulahey getting a Hold Person off on me. I don't think this Bard thing is gonna work out for me. I might honestly just try another Monk. I was getting pretty into my Monk before I died. I do enjoy the idea of them. It would probably be wiser to do something that doesn't suck in bg1 though Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Dec 30, 2021 |
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Dec 30, 2021 21:43
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I'm still going to work on a singleplayer run once I figure out what, but I also started a multiplayer run with my brother who wanted to experience the joys of ironmanning. Byron The Entangler, Avenger of some repute, is off to clear the swordcoast. At his side is his trusty Wild Mage ally BJ Surlyhoff  Things were going pretty well. We picked up Xzar and Montaron, killed Tarnesh, and were in the middle of doing Joia's flamedance ring quest when this happened:  I don't think you can tell what happened here from the screenshot, but a cow fell onto my Druid and killed him. The Wild Mage wasn't even using Nahals - it was just a random wild surge. We were laughing pretty hard when that happened. At least it occurred early and not late in the run! Onto attempt 2 for us, which included Franz the Stormcaller, also an Avenger, and Mary Blue, a base class Mage so that we can avoid dropping cows on me this time around    Things went better so far this time around. Viconia was acquired, as was Kagain. Tarnesh and Beregost cleared without incident. Garrick picked up and died and booted from the party on the way to Nashkel.  And now the party waits in Nashkel, resting between adventures. My Avenger is getting close to level 2. Once he gets a level or two under his belt things should become a little safer. We're probably going to pick up Edwin as well. I hope you all are enjoying my tragic attempts at Ironmanning. I used to be a lot better at this.
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Dec 31, 2021 01:19
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Alright no more Salty Sarah. She didn't die, I just didn't feel like playing a mage/thief. I'll do something different. I'll play a fighter/thief but I'll actually use backstabs and traps and poo poo. Oh and weapon proficiencies I never really use, like daggers and crossbows. So here's Anorag, the half-orc fighter/thief.  A modest roll of 82 will suffice. Not born hero, unfortunately.     HOT TIP if Tarnesh keeps ruining your day. Recruit Xzar. He has 2 casts of minor drain memorized. Use them. Imoen has a wand of magic missiles. Use it too. Minor drain casts fast enough to interrupt his mirror image and horror casts. The wand is just guaranteed damage. Anyway, acquired the party asap. Branwen's on board. Stopped by Greywolf to get my free long sword +2. Went much better this time!   "Rescued" Xan, had him learn Sleep and took a nap in Mulahey's cave to have him memorize some casts of it. Mulahey didn't mind.  Mulahey DID mind being forcibly put to sleep and murdered. Ah well.  Rassad/guards DIDN'T kill steal Nimbul!!!! Party is assembled. Time to hit the Ankheg cave!
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Dec 31, 2021 02:53
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I successfully rescued Dynaheir from the gnoll fortress. Upon returning to Nashkel, I dismissed both her and Minsc, since you get Dorn on the way to the mines. The Dorn encounter was pretty easy--a hold person on one of the assassins, an Aganazzar's Scorcher from the wand of fire (the other reason I like to do the ankheg cave early on) to deal with the bow users. Apparently the patch made Dorn either immortal or nearly immortal in that encounter, which is good. I've definitely had some ironman runs where he dies before I can do anything. Anyway, picked him up and then did the mines.  No trouble with Mulahey at all. Since he was held, he didn't even get to beg for his reinforcement wave.  I backed out of the mine instead of doing the amazon map. Nimbul can be a pain. Wasn't really expecting much danger since Garrick's bardsong prevents panic, but I thought there was a chance I'd eat magic missiles. Dorn, apparently, though otherwise.  After dealing with Tranzig (with Branwen in the party it's a mandatory fight) I started clearing out the 2 bandit woods areas. A nasty hold person from the druid in one of them ended up getting Xan and Dorn killed, so I had to backtrack to rez them. But more importantly, 4 people worth of experience on the balance of that map was just enough for Alis to hit level 5 before completing that map. Not only did she get the full 10 HP (getting REALLY lucky so far; let's hope it holds) at level 5, and not only can I summon skeleton warriors now, but that also meant I could just mosey to the bottom of the map and recruit Baeloth. Which I did (after sending him back to the FAI first; I wasn't about to boot out Xan's corpse. I'm not a monster.)  The bandit camp proved surprisingly easy. Garrick lobbed a fireball at larger concentrations of bandits, and I got a lucky hold on Taugosz. Baeloth also connected with a Spooks, so either way I wasn't gonna have to go toe-to-toe with that jerk.  The bandit tent was also pretty easy. Baeloth comes with haste. Add in a bless from Alis and a chant from Branwen, and the fight was pretty much over the moment it started. Mage got cut to ribbons, archer got panicked, and the two other guys got held. I'm pretty happy with my current team composition, but Yeslick is an absolute improvement on Branwen. That said, I might skip the Cloakwood for a bit and clear out some other areas first. Anyway, level 5 and doing just fine.
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Dec 31, 2021 04:17
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From my runs so far I'd say Clerics/Mages are absolutely indispensable early unless you're some thaco monster class like an Archer or something. Command/Sleep just absolutely carry, and remove fear makes some of the nastier mage encounters a breeze. And yeah definitely recruit as many people as possible as early as possible even if you do not intend to use them long term. The perfect party is no good if you die before you get to assemble it. Use Montaron/Xzar every time imo until you can get who you really want.
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Dec 31, 2021 05:15
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After "a few" test runs, I think I got the hang for the early game of a Swashbuckler run: it involves Korax, throwing daggers and basilisks: He was a good dog...  Yes, that should be enough. Zagal the Swashbuckler is off to assemble a party.
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Dec 31, 2021 13:13
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After failing miserably at playing an Asssassin I decided that I'm terrible at this game and should use a good class instead so here's Judeau the knife throwing Kensai  I talked Firebead into buying me and Imoen some equipment  Melicamp Lives  Cleared out some wildlife, a bunch of stuff in Beregost, including picking up Kagain and went to the friendly arm inn to recruit Jaheira for some healing abilities. Somewhere along the way Imoen dual-classed into Mage as soon as possible. I've tweaked traps and locks away so thief levels seem like a waste. This is very much cheating but whatever, I don't like traps, they're very unfun for me. Soon after recruiting her Jaheira dies so I use this opportunity to ditch Kahlid before resurrecting her  I convinced Shar-Teel to join me with a single dagger throw and thought that was pretty funny. I see why this is considered an OP class.  And then I ditch her too. Kagain dies to an Ogre Berserker and won't be coming back, but we did save a cow!  Then we run into some bandit we're not ready for at all. Jaheira dies and I chug two potions of invisibility and one Oil of Speed to take them down. This is when I decide I should look up encounters a bit more before doing them.  At this point I go to Nashkel and replace Kagain with Minsc and bring Jaheira back again. After that we kill a wizard at a carnival and that's as far as we got so far.  I still need to learn to prebuff and stuff, I'm awful at it so far. That wizard nearly killed me but I got lucky with saves vs Horror. The wand of Magic Missile is a great tool for disrupting spells but I think I put too much stock in it. This is fun!
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Dec 31, 2021 15:46
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 Nixon's Ladies and friends are finally here. Before clicking on the Cloakwood mines map, I remembered that I never bought the necklace of missiles from Nashkel, so we took a nearly week-long detour just walking around the map, but here we are.  My over-kill ways continue; I threw two fireball potions and a charge from aforementioned necklace into this crowd, and Dynaheir threw some grease down on top, and... None of us even got hurt in the "fight". This is ridiculous.  I saw we gained a whopping 1 XP from something in the message log, and scrolling back, turns out Minsc napalmed an innocent squirrel. Dangit,  The mines themselves weren't eventful at all, was this originally playtested so that even someone just beelining the main quest and doing nothing else at all could succeed? Anyway, the ogre mage was the only bit where I kind of fumbled, he managed to confuse Minsc and Coran, but they just stood around not killing the rest of my crew, so yay!  Going against Davaeorn was another exercise in over-kill, the only thing he hurt were Viconia's skeleton buddies. Also even with 6 party members I spent more time here playing inventory tetris than bashing skulls in, who thought this was fun design? Never mind that originally arrow stacks were 20 arrows high, etc.   Now Nixon's Ladies has finally arrived in the city of Baldur's Gate, and I decided to call it a day here, there's so much to do in the city proper that I'm not sure where to even begin. Also, I honestly didn't think I'd manage to ironman this far, even with an OP class like archer  Ginette Reno posted:From my runs so far I'd say Clerics/Mages are absolutely indispensable early unless you're some thaco monster class like an Archer or something. Command/Sleep just absolutely carry, and remove fear makes some of the nastier mage encounters a breeze. Hey!  But yeah, disabling trash mobs and heavy hitters slash enemy spellcasters is super powerful. I'm absolutely terrified of charming/confusing/holding/whatever-slinging enemy casters, BG1 just doesn't have that many hard counters to that nonsense.Speaking of OP THAC0 monsters, for fun I looked at the stats after this session. Nixon's Ladies the archer has netted 42% of the kills in the party, and 38% of the XP. Strongest kill is Shoal, who is worth 5000 XP so that won't be surpassed soon. Minsc has 21% of kills, Viconia just raised her XP percentage a bit by landing the fatal bullet in Davaeorn's skull, 6% kills and XP. Coran was recruited fairly recently, but he's responsible for 21% of our total kills and 30% of XP gained throughout the game  Bows are awesome. Xan is about as deadly as Viconia with 5%, and Dynaheir seems to be a supporting caster still with just 2%. Though I suppose in a full party blowwy-uppy wizards won't really shine until fairly late in BG1.
Rappaport fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 16:34
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So Tovo, uh, fell into a dimensional rift? (Translation: I had to reinstall some things and it broke my save.) Instead, meet Camina, Human Wizard Slayer because I just love the experience of playing a poorly-designed class with one cool trick, I love it. Love. It.  Just getting started.
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Dec 31, 2021 17:32
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No screenshots, but got through the basilisk area unscathed. Being able to summon 3 skeleton warriors to go with Korax and a protect-from-petrification Dorn (who is also always immune to Mutamin's fear) does wonders. OK fine. ONE screenshot.  Aganazzar's Scorcher (and its cousin, the potion of firebreath) is just obscenely strong and you can walk around and nuke down anything that might beat up your immune-to-basilisks undead army. I'm close enough to level 6 in this party that I'm gonna just bum around in some of the wilderness areas before I tackle Cloakwood.
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Dec 31, 2021 17:33
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  Restarted the multiplayer party I had going because my brother wanted more spells than the piddly amount a base class mage gets. So he rolled a Sorcerer instead. I'm still an avenger. Hans the Avenger  Picked up Vicky. Beregost mostly went smoothly other than Karlat who killed several npcs. This was seconds away from going very badly. If Montaron had died I think Karlat would have beelined towards my Avenger next.  Later we picked up Dorn and this is the final intended party. With all our spellcasting power Dorn makes an excellent choice for main tank. His con is a little low which is concerning but most fights enemies are so disabled by our spells that he's an excellent clean up guy.  Took out Mulahey  This was a rowdy fight. Dorn almost died right off the start from the volley of arrows he took, but he just barely survived and then we started to land our disabling spells. I also wisely rushed my Druid to the north to avoid the glyph of warding those Clerics like to spam at the party. After this we decided discretion was the better part of valor and did not to do to the Narcillus Neen/jellies fight or the Ghasts. We'll come back later for those.  We ended having cleared a few zones of the southwest. Party is now level 3 or so. A multiplayer run is interesting. The biggest challenge is that pausing is slower than in multiplayer so it's very hard to reliably land interrupts as quickly as I would solo. Having another player made character in the party is a nice advantage though. His Sorc has been invaluable so far. ------------------------------ Separately I started my own singleplayer run with...yet another Dark Moon Monk. Yes, I am insane, why do you ask?  Sakai, the Dark Moon Monk is going to try to avenge his brother Kangorolac's death.  Picked up Vicky asap. I think picking her up early might become part of my routine with any party simply because remove fear + command pretty much guarantees a Tarnesh win. Only risk here is going to Peldvale might cause a random encounter between maps (or in Peldvale proper) which could be lethal  Killed Tarnesh  Ogre no match for command  Cleared Beregost + picked up Dorn Ended that session having cleared out a few zones to the West. Didn't do Nashkel mines yet. Decided to do Gnoll stronghold first to keep Edwin happy and just for a change of pace. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 22:07
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Anorag the half-orc fighter/thief  The ankheg cave paid off in spades.  I had exactly one cast of identify memorized just for this sexy thing.  Zargal & gang stood no chance vs an enchanter's sleep spell.  Neither did Bassilus.  Yay Melicamp lived!
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Jan 1, 2022 01:37
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I have completed Dorn's questline, beaten the Cloakwood mines, and walked into Baldur's Gate. I have also dualled Imoen to mage, so I have no rogue right now. Will drop Garrick for the cute little halfling thief, then when Imoen gets her levels back I'll go get Quayle. Or maybe just stick with Alora. Dunno. Anyway, will be screwing around in Baldur's Gate for a while. Can't leave the city until I deal with the poison quest, anyway.
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Jan 1, 2022 03:52
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Hans the Half-Elf Avenger and his sidekick, The Sorcerer Blue Margaret, multiplayer ironman run. So this run is basically a normal ironman except multiplayer. His character can die, but mine (Hans, being the main character) cannot.  Imoen dueled a Gnoll and won  The gang cleared the gnoll stronghold  And murdered some xvarts. Blue Margaret actually died here due to a Xvart critting her for 20 damage . Hans was just fine, though. We rezzed her at the temple and kept going Took out some golems and sirines. Used potion of magic blocking on Dorn to more easily facilitate that. Forgot to screen grab but we also stole the idol and killed that Battle Horror that spawns. That guy is always a little scary (Dorn took some hits) but we prevailed. Hans is now level 5 and can take some hits, so we should be good to go for a while yet with this run. Meanwhile my Dark Moon Monk is still going and I'll have updates for him soon (hopefully good ones). We'll see how long I have the stamina to do multiple bg runs . The multiplayer run is pretty fun so far though.
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Jan 1, 2022 06:39
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Beefslab enters the Candlekeep catacombs.  Stupid traps  Traps nearly kills me, again why I always forget about the stupid lightning bolt traps? (because I'm dumb, obviously)  After I loot all the valuables, I just drink a potion of invisibility and skip all the remaining encounters, I literally gain nothing by fighting at this point. Back to Baldur’s Gate and chasing Sarevok.  The Iron Throne 2: Electric Boogaloo. Easy fight.  The fight in the Undercellar is pretty easy as well, because I manage to lure Slyth away from the mage and kill him for the invitation. Now for the actual hard fights, the Ducal palace:  I was dreading this fight, it’s very rng for a solo character and I might lose this one even if I play it well. My strategy was simple, buff myself to the gills, spend the first couple rounds firing dispel arrows to remove the haste from the doppelgangers and then go for melee. This fight is basically a DPS race and I hate it.  The mage Grand Duke goes down almost inmediately, fortunately the priest holds out for a bit while I do my thing.  That was pretty close but I barely get there and save the stupid Grand Duke. Sarevok flees. Time to finish this.  I use another potion of invisibility and skip the entire Thief’s Maze and the fight against the Iron Throne mercenaries in the undercity. Screw them all. The final fight.  Beefslab’s stats. My plan is simple, buff with everything I got (although now I realize I forgot casting Draw Upon Holy Might, ooops), lure Sarevok alone if possible, or at least trying to lure them piece meal, use dispel arrows and arrows of detonation before finish them.  I approach the dais after drinking a potion of invisibility. With my 100% magic resistance, I can safely ignore the traps in the floor seal. Sarevok triggers his dialogue and I immediately go back to the entrance and wait for someone to come after me.  Semaj teleports in, and more importantly, he fails to dispel my buffs.  Semaj casts a cloudkill while I chase him around (or I trigger a trap, can’t remember), I’m completely immune while the puny mage chokes to death while I hack him to pieces. Semaj goes down, great start.  Tazok and Sarevok start chasing me around, I trigger more traps that hinder my enemies while leaving me unscathed. I dispel Sarevok’s buffs with an arrow of dispelling and start kiting him while softening him down with arrows. Apparently decided to sit this one out, luckily for me.  It takes some time, but the mix of special arrows, poison gas and traps whittle Sarevok down.   Sarevok dies. Beefslab, the dwarf barbarian has defeated Sarevok Honors: Ironling, Purist, Conan the Bhaalspawn, Honorable Trader, Iron Party Dishonors: None Next: To Amn!
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Jan 1, 2022 11:23
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New year, new character. What if the benevolent foster father wasn't so benevolent, and instead wanted to unleash a horde of savagery upon the entirety of the sword coast? Behold, the tale of Gorion's Waaaagh.  Just starting out.
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Jan 1, 2022 18:45
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Judeau the Kinsai still lives to my great surprise! This Xvart genocide is brought to you by the wand of sleep  One of the fuckers snuck around later and killed Imoen though. I later got her the amulet that lets her cast Armor from the carnival. Hindsight's 20/20  I finally got rich enough to buy a new toy for Judeau! I understand this dagger is amazing vs mages on top of just being a generally great upgrade from my +1  I ran into Dorn and Jaheira got killed by lightning which just felt unfair. His 19 strength and generally higher AC made him seem like a better Minsc so I replaced Minsc  Jaheira Death Count: 3 Resurrection cash: 700 Got hit real loving hard by Greywolf when trying to land poison on him so had to resort to throwing daggers to finish the fight but we won!  Wand of sleep for the Kobolds, Spook on Mulahey and good ol' clubbing for skeletons made this fight work well  Got a good reminder to turn off scripts for my people. This NPC was hostile because earlier I knocked out the lady of the house to rob her room.  Finished off today with killing an assassin I completely forgot could use magic. TIL Dorn is immune to fear so that was lucky.  I think the plan now is to clear general areas for XP. I'm still only lvl 3 and would like to not be before continuing the main quest. As far as I know there's no time limit quests ticking now at least so I can take my time. Man with Hat fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Jan 1, 2022 |
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Jan 1, 2022 19:22
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Well, I sure wasn't wrong about the city having a boatload to do. Nixon's Ladies and friends have been running around Baldur's Gate doing quests like XP meth crystals. Since we decided to kill the Cloakwood druids, we started with killing off some doppelgangers from a couple places, which got us cash, XP and more quests. Amidst killing ogre mages, a run-away basilisk, solving various fetch quests etc. we took out the "entropy women" in advance before  "helping" Coran out of a bind  and his kid, too.  I was sort of worried about this bar brawl with innocents all around, and I see a dead peasant in that screenshot, but somehow my reputation wasn't dinged. I did focus on blinding and disabling as many of the evil adventurers as I could, not least because I don't want Gorpel and his goons stealing my XP  There's a lot of mages to kill in the city, too. We took out Sunin first for a 2nd Evermemory for Dynaheir, and there's those Zhent jackasses upstairs of Sorcerous Sundries, and there's also these two quarreling idiots. I killed Ragefast for the XP and his wand of paralysation, not remembering that the game just throws the drat wands at you, the party has 3 of the things already (and they're as rare as hen's teeth in BG2)! We killed the peeping tom wizard for his wand of "gently caress you, you're a squirrel now", though I suspect it won't really work that well on anything worthwhile since it's a straight save vs. wand   Ramazith's tower was a bit tense, the mustard jellies weren't a problem, but the ghasts managed to hold Xan because there actually isn't a z-axis in the game I forgot to screencap the knobgoblin level because Dynaheir was poisoned not once but twice And then we prepped like mad for mister wizard himself, and he died to an arrow barrage without casting anything. We got a bunch of other stuff like the helm of Balduran, various bracers and gloves, etc., and the group is pretty well kitted out now. I gave Coran a pip in daggers, and he tried back-stabbing three different wizards (the "entropy" wizard twice, even!) with the dagger of venom, and only 1 poison attack out of 4 went through their saves. WIZARDS I am likely forgetting a bunch of things, but off the top of my head we still have the party poisoned quest, the thieves' guild wizard slaying quest, and Scar's ogre mage killing to do, before kicking the Iron Throne's teeth in or die trying. Also, despite me just buying stuff like shadow armor, poison dagger +2 and 2 archmage robes, and various consumables, we're still drowning in gold. Rappaport fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jan 1, 2022 |
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Jan 1, 2022 20:11
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Sakai, Dark Moon Monk Killed Mulahey without incident  And the bounty hunters  And the mage with the long name and the mustard jellies. I've gotten pretty good at handling this zone after the mines. I have my melee pop the accumulated potions I've had by this point (haste + power + str pots) which lets me carry the day. Narcillus Neen isn't so bad as long as you have magic weapons and kill him quick. At that point you just need to be in melee range of the mustards so they don't do too much damage with their attacks. The biggest hurdle to this fight early on is having enough magic weapons to handle the mustards. Sometimes I don't and have to delay doing this. Proceeded to the west where I killed some sirines with lots and lots of web + summon monster usage. I honestly forgot how broken web is. I've been using it on my Avenger multiplayer run a lot and while it can be dangerous to use it also can flat out win a fight easily. I intend to abuse the hell out of this in both runs once Dorn gets Spiderbane.  Also cleared out the golems  I think the Lighthouse is the last zone I finished so have Drizzt (I'm not killing him, too risky) + Bassilus + NW zone with sirine/ogre mage left to go. And of course get to see if Melicamp lives or dies. Then it's off to the east. Sakai is up to level five. Mostly using a sling on him so far but I'll enter melee on occasion if I think it's safe enough. With 50 hit points I should be good to enter melee combat now against most enemies in BG1 but there are a few that hit hard enough to give me pause. Part of the problem with Monks is they wear no helmets and don't have especially great AC in bg1 so they are susceptible to crits. So it's mostly a careful dance of making sure I'm never the first to a melee fight, and only entering melee combat when things are on my tanks and I think it's safe to do so. It's not unlike playing the 3e and onward version of a Thief where you wait until enemies are pinned before entering combat from a flank. Fortunately Monks do have great speed even in BG1 so as long as I don't get surrounded I can hit and run as needed. Feeling pretty good about this Monk now that he's level 5. We'll see how far I get. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jan 1, 2022 |
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Jan 1, 2022 21:56
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Ginette Reno posted:I don't think you can tell what happened here from the screenshot, but a cow fell onto my Druid and killed him. The Wild Mage wasn't even using Nahals - it was just a random wild surge. We were laughing pretty hard when that happened. At least it occurred early and not late in the run! Heh, funny you should mention that, I'd just gotten Camina back out of the Nashkel mines and was already starting to compose my update post in my head when there was a bit of an exploding cow incident involving Nimbul and Neera. That killed drat near everyone in Nashkel (including Neera) except for Nimbul somehow. RIP Camina the Wizard Slayer, Died Of Embarrassment, Also Explosion I think that's my Wizard Slayer itch scratched AND my wild magic itch scratched for now. But not my ironman itch. Just need to figure out who's next.
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Jan 1, 2022 22:25
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docbeard posted:Heh, funny you should mention that, I'd just gotten Camina back out of the Nashkel mines and was already starting to compose my update post in my head when there was a bit of an exploding cow incident involving Nimbul and Neera. That killed drat near everyone in Nashkel (including Neera) except for Nimbul somehow. RIP Camina the Wizard Slayer, Died Of Embarrassment, Also Explosion Yeah lesson learned for me on that one. I don't think I'll be taking a Wild Mage or Neera again on an Ironman lol. If my run is gonna end I want it to be of my own incompetence and not from random chance . Then again I'm still playing a Monk right now so it's not like I'm not still a huge idiot.If (when) this run ends in disaster I'm not sure where I'll go next either. I did like the idea of a Blade a lot but died several times before even finishing the mines so I gave up on it for now and went back to my Monk dreams. I was playing kind of sloppy those runs though.
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Jan 1, 2022 22:39
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Ginette Reno posted:If (when) this run ends in disaster I'm not sure where I'll go next either. I did like the idea of a Blade a lot but died several times before even finishing the mines so I gave up on it for now and went back to my Monk dreams. I was playing kind of sloppy those runs though. My first BG1 ironman victory ever was as a blade (in a gimmicky almost-all-bards party, no less), so it is possible! My general feeling is that, just as the game is winnable with any class, the ironman variant game is losable with any class so pretty much just play what you want.
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Jan 1, 2022 22:50
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