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Alrighty, I guess I'm in. I rolled Tyago Half-Elven Fighter/Druid. I've had some interesting adventures already. Insane/SCS/Fixpack but with no double damage Good roll to start it off  Gonna sit back with our sling and pelt for most of bg1, plus support with spells  Picked up Xzar because I want to have him cast protection from petrification so I can get some xp off the Basilisks before forming my party  Naturally Xzar got killed by a random Kobold ambush, so I had to hoof it to a temple  Took no chances with Tarnesh. Montaron stabbed him in the back  Finally got myself to Basilisks. I had Xzar buff me with prot from petrify, then booted everyone from the party plus grabbed Korax. I killed the Basilisks to the south for some nice easy xp and then tried Mutamin  Mutamin did not go as well as hoped. Sometimes Korax can solo him while you hide a bit (don't want to get too close because SCS Mutamin may attack you with spells or worse dispel you), but this time Mutamin killed Korax. I had to run to the zone line and leave. This hurts my plans a lot because I wanted to hit 32k xp before recruiting my party and the Basilisk zone is a big part of that. The reason for that is bg npcs join your party at certain levels depending on your total xp. 32k xp is the max they can join at, so it can be good to hit that xp threshold and then recruit people. Now I'll have to find another way to get that xp. Maybe Ankhegs if I can figure out enough gold to get a wand of sleep which iirc any class can use. I'm currently at 13k xp so have a ways to go. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Dec 22, 2022 |
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Dec 22, 2022 23:25
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 Got some quick Firebeard xp  And took on the spider house with entangle  And did the ogres for the ring of prot +1 plus some more quick xp. Notice a theme here yet?  Picked up the wand of sleep to go Ankheg hunting  Ankheg hunting wasn't too bad. I got low a few times and the wand of sleep got resisted an annoying amount, but the 20 charges was just enough to clear the cave. Before going there I picked up the Ankheg Plate from Nashkel to feel safer.  I did the water elemental bowl quest as well for a quick bit of xp. After that I killed a few more Ankhegs (without any wand of sleep charges, but I could take them 1v1. If I got too low I just ran and casted sanctuary and healed up)  Finally hit 32k xp after killing a few zombies  Put together a bit of my party. Tiax is in Beregost because of NPC Project which I have installed. Not sure how I will round this party out. Edwin I think for sure but not sure who my 6th is. Maybe Baeloth Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Dec 23, 2022 |
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Dec 23, 2022 01:32
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Met up with Prism; I was a little worried about Greywolf, but then remembered I had Command. Proud owner of a new Varscona.  Mines went fine.  We convinced Mulahey we were here on behalf of Tranzig. Which gave us enough time to surround him and bonk him all at once.  We arose from the mines and took out the bounty hunter party with a well placed Horror. It happened so fast I didn't even take a screenshot. NarcillicusHarwilliger Neen sleeps with the slimes now.  Tricked Tazok into letting us us chill around his camp.  While running around his camp, I met a hobgoblin named Tersus and he didn't like my joke about his name being "Susret" backwards; so I had to rob him, which made him mad, which in turn alerted the rest of the bandit camp to the fact that "we are bad dudes and dudettes." One small massacre later, and the bandit camp is in shambles.  One our way to cloakwood, we swung by Peldvale? Larswood? and ran into Baeloth. Love the schtick, but I need your robe, man.  Onwards to cloakwood! e: missing timg
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Dec 23, 2022 01:44
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Goddess of the Bow Chapter 3  The Goddess decides to take the back exit of the mines.  We take out the Amazons without much difficulty.  The party returns to Nashkel  Nimbul dies to the power of Bow.  This is the exact moment I realized I left Evermemory on Neera.  Just a quick run to the Friendly Arm and... OH gently caress! This is an extremely dangerous potential grouping.  Okay, so my response here is a bit overkill. Luckily I didn't get the additional spawn this group sometimes gives.  Disaster averted.  At some point while I am sorting through all my gear at the Friendly Arm I get the Chapter 3 dream.  I head back to Nashkel and turn in some side quests. I also let Ajantis get uncursed since Xan spoils the all girls club.  I go south and take on Sendai. I charm her and her archer buddies tear her apart while my people tear them apart.  The reward, a big upgrade for Goddess.  Goddess also levels up. This was from a different zone, I was killing the first group of Sirens in the lighthouse zone.  This was after I fought Sil and her friends. At one point Ajantis, Jaheira and Imoen were all charmed. A clutch color spray from Xan saved the day though. My bow butchered the Sirens.  Of course recovering is easier said than done.  I very, very carefully clear the Golem cave.  Con Manual found!  Take that elven starting stats!  I talk to Tranzig, but while I'm there I also pick up Algernon's cloak. Which I failed on so I had to have Xan charm Algernon so Imoen could take another shot at it.  Ajantis sure is a pretty man now.  I infiltrate the Bandit Camp...  And Tazok kills Jaheira. Gonna be honest I hosed up here, and I wasn't done. I decided to rush the tent and try and get in and out quick.  Which led to me loving up again and getting Xan killed as he cast color spray on the enemy. And while the spell did make my victory certain, it also made the neutral guy in the tent hostile. And I didn't notice. Goodbye 10 reputation! But I'm not done!  That's right! I have Ajantis open the chest without checking it. Goodbye Ajantis and Dynaheir! Luckily Goddess had the lightning boots on and Imoen got hit only once. Guess I'm not getting no res run this time.  I somehow manage to get all the gear loaded on Imoen and Goddess, and make may way into Chapter 4.  Back at the Friendly Arm my party regroups. Chapter 4 awaits... after I re-equip everything. sweet geek swag fucked around with this message at 07:43 on Dec 23, 2022 |
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Dec 23, 2022 07:40
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Phoebe Bridgers died in Amn (skipped SoD) during Hexxat's terrible quest when a confused Jaheria decided to attack one of the ghost monks and suddenly have 20 enemies on me. Fatboy Slim Half Orc Berserker is ready to adventure.  Nice thing about half orc, I don't need to worry about str %.   After a lot of googling, I find out how to get a katana at the game start and find out it involves having very high charisma and being a good alignment. This allows you to get a +1 dagger, which you need to identify. My berserk has a lore skill of 0. Along comes the tutorial fight in the basement of that one building that gives you a temporary party to control. You cannot take any of their items out of the basement, but you can give the dagger to the mage in that part who has a high enough lore skill to identify it. Remember to take it back from him after, then just leave. Combined with the money from Firebeard and starting gold, this gives me enough for the katana.  Doing the standard no combat early game quests.  Melicamp dies again, none of my 2023 characters have had him live, including some I didn't even post to the thread.  We go and rescue Dynaheir, basically as a backup pairing. If other characters die, they might come off the bench, but I go and drop them off at the Friendly Arm Inn. Then I start finalizing my party. Safana I had grabbed while clearing out the sirens for the manual of bodily health, Kaigan is just a solid front liner, Viconia handles our cleric stuff, and I grabbed Edwin to make it to 5, the 6th slot I left open.  We blast through some quick XP doing the basilisks and going to Durlags to grab the tome of understanding and the +2 scimitar on the roof. Then we blast through the main quest until Cloakwood.  It nearly ends in disaster when the mage on the 2nd level gets a nasty lightning bolt off that kills Safana and Edwin, and nearly kills myself and Kaigan as we begin chugging potions and trying to stabilize things. Edwin had fired off a scorcher from a wand of fire at the mage before he died, and it kept ticking after he was dead and killed the mage, thankfully. I leave the mines and go and get them rezzed.  Go to grab the +1 katana just because and end up having a random slave get killed to tank my reputation a bit.  Fireballs from offscreen ends this fight before it begins.  We pick up Quayle as our 6th party member when we get to the city. I wanted a 2nd arcane caster and a second divine caster, and he fit the bill. We do the poisoning quest and a couple other minor things to raise some funds to buy the entire stack of arrows of detonation  We use these to kill Drizzt, I'll be using these +3 scimitars for the rest of the game.
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Dec 23, 2022 09:29
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Imogen and Imoen At Jaheria's insistence, the party discuses the situation in Naskell with the mayor and the mine foreman. However, they resolve to improve their equipment before entering.  gif uploadReturning to Naskell, the party is surprised to encounter another bounty hunter at the Inn. Imoen, however, continues to put the wand of Magic Missile to use. Imoen frequently remarks on how much better she was at packing for the trip than Imogen.  In the Inn that night, Imogen has a vivid but not unpleasant dream; she doesn't mention it to the others. Short on coin and having heard of a valuable white wolf in the region, the party travels west the next day.  In the rolling hills west of Naskell, Xarts attack!  A couple wolves are encountered, but Jaheria and Kivan remark that they're not unusual aside from the hostility that makes their culling a necessity, and likely not what the Naskell merchant wants. The party encounters a Xart stronghold in the hills and destroys it. The Xarts attempt to unleash a captive bear with misattributed divinity, but the enraged creature turns on them before falling to the party's arrows  Traveling North, the party rushes to aid a lone warrior mobbed by Gnolls. Kivan and Imoen hurry forward, but Khalid has reservations. Afterwards, the stranger suggests that Imogen use her mind as well as bow. She's a bit put out, since she felt quite the hero rushing forward to his aid.  Not long after, the party encounters another band that had likely observed the melee from a safer distance. The trio attempts to coerce Imogen's band but she refuses, partly because her own party out numbers them and partly because Imogen stubbornly resents the chiding she'd received earlier.  A fierce battle ensues; although the enemy mage falls quickly, the hobgoblin archer has poisoned arrows and Khalid is quickly given a grievous wound. Jaheria attempts to meet the opposing footman in melee combat, but is soon routed. The warrior subsequently rampages through the group; Kivan can only check him for a moment and then even Imogen has to face him, plying her quarterstaff in earnest for the first time outside of a Candlekeep sparring circle. By the time the dust settles, everyone is badly hurt and most of the healing potions are gone. [That was almost the end of things, good god] Badly hurt, the party returns to Bereghost to rest... But encounter a distressed mage in the streets and fall into a fight to the death... And are then ambushed when trying to drag themselves to the nearest Inn..  [Please, please just stop throwing fights at me] On the brighter side, the mage asks to join the band, and knows how to discern the properties of magical items, quickly confirming the party's suspicions about several of the more unusual pieces of gear they'd recently looted. Equipping some and selling most, the party suddenly has more wealth than Imogen ever imagined seeing, over a thousand pieces of gold.  Remembering the close call in the woodland between Naskell and Bereghost, they spend almost all of it on more healing potions. Next Time: Still eager for more coin, and the gear it will bring, the Party travels to the Friendly Arm Inn to find work as do-gooding mercenaries. Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Dec 23, 2022 |
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Dec 23, 2022 16:53
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Just wanted to say that I love this thread every year, even if I don't participate 
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Dec 23, 2022 21:13
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Updated the OP to here. Some more good progress, and Melicamp is proving especially vulnerable so far.
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Dec 24, 2022 02:57
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Tyago finished putting together the party, rounding it out with Edwin and Baeloth. Lots of casting power in this one. In fact 5 of my 6 party members can cast spells. Fun. After recruiting Edwin I decided to do his quest asap so he wouldn't complain. Baeloth blew up a Xvart village  And then we slew our way through the Gnoll stronghold. I actually left Dynaheir alive in case I want to use her later. Edwin is fine with this as long as you recruit Dynaheir into the party. But you can immediately boot her after.  That being done, I made my way to the mines. I almost wiped in here. SCS adds in a small mini boss Kobold encounter just before you enter the cave before Mulahey's lair, and two of these Kobolds cast spells. I was a little bit on auto pilot and one of them cast a lightning bolt that ricocheted a bunch of times and killed two of my party. It got me dangerously low as well. I knew that the kobolds could do this, but I was being lazy and thought my web/spells would be enough. Luckily, I didn't wipe or lose anybody permanently and was able to rez everyone at the temple.  Mulahey went down a lot easier. Even on SCS he's no match for a level 6 party that is decently well equipped. Won't bore you with a bunch of screenshots of me clearing the west. Nothing too notable happened there. Nimbul went down easily enough despite SCS beefing him up some.  This was one of the more notable encounters. This bounty hunter fight is normally in the zone next to the Nashkel mines, but SCS has a component that will make them randomly ambush you at some point after finishing the mines. I'm not even sure what triggers it tbh, as I've had it trigger in different places. Might be level based too? At any rate, these guys are no slouches in SCS as they'll show up with a few prebuffs and the rogues will pop invis pots to start and try to backstab.  I was ready for that, so I had Viconia and Tiax immediately cast sanctuary so they didn't get chunked. Meanwhile, Edwin/Baeloth cast mirror image and hoofed it a bit to the south. My Fighter/Druid positioned a bit to the east and started casting summon insects and call lightnings. For some reason the thieves went for Kagain instead of me or my mages. I was fine with that. They missed with their backstabs. Baeloth then cast a web. Kagain isn't immune to that, but with his low saves he saves more often than enemies do, and I was willing to sacrifice him if necessary to cc everyone else. It worked out, and he even survived. I cleaned the cced enemies up with spells and missiles.  Melicamp died   Speaking of SCS, here's Bassilus spawning in with a Blade Barrier lol. I suppose this is the type of stuff that might make some people say gently caress SCS, but tbh it happens less than you think, and it's more manageable than you think too. Still, I pelted him with a blind, silence, and as much magic missiles as I could muster pretty much immediately, and it was game over for him.  Poor Kagain died to the Siren's kiss. Then she rezzed him and the party killed the ogre to get that sweet helm of defense. Starting to get an appreciation for spook this run. It's a nifty little spell and is working more often than I expected. Single target horror is kinda not bad when you need some cc in a hurry. And that's that. The party is done with the West and getting ready to tackle the eastern zones and bandit camp. I'm going to save Ulcaster until near the very end of the game because improved Ulcaster is really nasty. I'm also going to save the Ogre Mage/Firewine for a little while too since Kahrk is devastating on SCS. I opted not to kill Drizzt in this run because I can't remember if SCS makes him more annoying or not and my Fighter/Druid is using sling more than scimitars so far anyways so don't need his weapons that badly. I am 100% going to die to something stupid and already almost have. All of my previous Ironmans have ended due to carelessness. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Dec 24, 2022 |
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Dec 24, 2022 06:53
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Well it took a few tries to get my mod setup up and running (including a hilarious turn of events where the Warlock kit mod, the broken gift that keeps on giving and breaking, completely removed my ability to add spells to my spellbook for some reason) but I'm finally able to begin my run: Meet Colin Robinson the half-elf I'm playing with SCS at Insane difficulty, though I haven't installed the improved Beholder, Mind-Flayer or Vampire components on the basis that I would like to have some very faint chance of surviving. Improved Mind Flayers because they're scary enough without becoming teleporting bastards, Improved Vampires for That Room in Firkraag's Dungeon, and Improved Beholders because gently caress beholders. Also using Spell Revisions among many, many other quest/kit/npc/tweak/ There's a bit more to do in Candlekeep to start out than usual, and I'm only going to show some of it.  This cheerful fellow is Breagar. We'll be seeing much more of him later, but for now, he needs us to go find the kid who ran off with his book. Which we eventually do.  There's also this lady (courtesy of Mini Quests and Adventures) who had an eventful journey to Candlekeep, culminating in her cutting off her knight boyfriend's arm to save him from being dragged through a portal to one of the hells. Colin shows off some of his trademark wit. Fun fact, she, unlike anyone else in the tavern, will call the guards if she sees you looting containers, so we have to be a bit circumspect.  This is one of the changes Spell Revisions makes. A lot of its adjustments are (mostly well-deserved) nerfs, but it also adds some new spells or replaces existing ones. (This for example is its replacement for the extremely useful Infravision).  Colin is quite often paid large sums of money to shut up and go away. (We are now just under halfway to our Starter Katana Set). Now, the keen-eyed among you may have noticed some traditional thieving skills beyond the usual pickpocketing on his character record. This is thanks to the Skills and Abilities mod which adds opening locks and finding traps to bards and monks. (It can do a lot more than that but I think those are the only components I installed. A little more flexibility for basic lockpicking/trapfinding stuff beyond the thief NPCs is a very welcome addition.) It's nothing impressive, but it's enough to get him into all the chests upstairs except the Star Sapphire one. And by the time Imoen is ready to enter Dual Class Hell, he should be able to handle traps and locks without without grabbing a different rogue. (Not that I might not anyway, I haven't decided yet.) One slightly purloined Potion of Clarity later and some random gold and jewelry and we have enough to pick up Winthrop's display katana and a few odds and ends.  Aside from the extra thief skills the only difference beyond non-vanilla is an addition from Bardic Wonders, which has a lot of fun-looking (and probably overpowered) kits but also a quality-of-life (and probably overpowered) option to turn bard songs into a fire-and-forget ability. I think it lasts 3 rounds and goes on cooldown for 5 rounds after it ends. Not that confusing Shank has any actual effect (I don't think) since he's alone but it's still funny. (Bardic Wonders also has the option to change the Jester song into something that causes spellcast failure but naah.) There are a couple other soon-to-be-joinable NPCs we can encounter here (Finch the Cleric and Recorder the Loremaster Bard) but I won't be recruiting them this time around. I completely forgot to do Recorder's intro mini-quest (which involves going back to the inn and telling her knight buddy to hurry up already) but I don't think it matters beyond getting 50 more xp.  One more thing before we blow this popsicle stand, we agree to take a message to a priest at the Temple of Lolthander or whoever. This is from Baldur's Gate Romantic Encounters, which I installed some components from against my better judgement. Let's see what sort of message:  Aww, okay, that's actually pretty sweet, Romantic Encounters. But I'm watching you. (Also, lmao Pink Lightning). There's also a rather extensive set of conversations added by this mod with Alec, who is Colin's childhood friend WHO HAS BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME. He's in training to be a priest and I'm waiting for it to turn cringy but (while I get some subtle vibes that Alec's more into Colin than he might be letting on) it's really just reminiscing about their childhood and saying goodbye to an old friend. Okay, I lied, one more thing before we go:  Here's Linda's boyfriend, minus one arm and plus a lot of existential despair. We help him realize that he's not just in shock from the amputation, he's in shock because he's never seen the side of Linda before that lets her make the very practical decision of 'He'd probably be short an arm than his entire self' and follow through on it, and that the only reasonable course of action is for him to take her on as his squire and get her some proper combat training.  ...yeah, it's time to leave.  I've given Imoen this kit from Artisan's Kitpack, which basically trades Called Shot and a few extra pips in bows for backstabbing. I plan to take her to level 8 before she duals so she will get some decent benefits. She also gets Rapid Shot which I think the kitpack gives to all fighters if you install its trueclass overhauls (which I did not; it used to be necessary to enable some of the kits but I don't think it is any more).  One of my favorite little additions that the BG1 NPC Project (which is otherwise something of a land of contrasts, though I find I can't do without it any more) adds is an option to ask the Gatewarden that Gorion be buried at Candlekeep. Not much to it, just a couple of little messages, but it feels appropriate. After grabbing the bit of loot in this area and dodging wolves and bears, rather than take the usual route (or even my usual route cutting across High Hedge's wilderness to go to Beregost before heading up to the Friendly Arms) we take a rather risky trip down to High Hedge itself because I want to turn that diamond I legitimately salvaged from a tree into some Protection from Petrification scrolls, for the usual obvious reasons. I don't particularly plan on maxing out at 32,000 xp before recruiting my party but I'd like some levels under me. It gets a bit precarious as we have to kite a spider around for a bit but we otherwise dodge anything we can't handle.  While we're here, we start in on this quest from Ascalon's Quest Pack, about which more later. We head across Beregost to the temple to drop off our letter on the way to Basilisk Hell.  Yup, I think this is the right guy. After some very convincing denials about certain pranks that someone who definitely wasn't either Colin or Pink Lightning may or may not have played, we chat about his long-distance relationship a bit and he gives us a gift for his girlfriend, a prayer book. It's probably not the sort of thing that will get us back into Candlekeep early but we promise to hang onto it til we can deliver it, if we can deliver it.  I'm doing my damnedest to avoid the adventuring party or (worse yet) Mutamin and just throw Korax and my Protected-From-Petrification Self at some basilisks for fun and profit. It actually works out...  ...for a while. Yeah, it's once more time to leave, but in addition to getting a decent assortment of Level 2 spell scrolls (including, in a touch of irony, Ghoul Touch) Colin and Imoen are both about halfway to Level 5. Future Plans: Recruit some folks and rob Beregost blind, not necessary in that order.
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Dec 24, 2022 19:17
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docbeard posted:Well it took a few tries to get my mod setup up and running (including a hilarious turn of events where the Warlock kit mod, the broken gift that keeps on giving and breaking, completely removed my ability to add spells to my spellbook for some reason) but I'm finally able to begin my run: SCS Beholders aren't so bad as long as you just sit off screen and throw skeleton warriors at them, but gently caress fighting them straight up otherwise. I am doing Insane but without double damage so I gave myself a bit of a break that way. I do have the improved stuff on otherwise though. I think the only one I didn't do was Improved Trolls because I remember that being incredibly tedious. Throwing Korax at Mutamin was my strategy as well. It's a good way to get early xp. Sometimes Mutamin wins on SCS though which is unfortunate. So I usually clear as many of the other Basilisks I can before trying that. My eventual goal with my F/D is to combine hardiness + Greater Earth Elemental Token + armor of faith for 100% physical damage reduction  . It takes until three million xp to get there though. I'm definitely dying to something stupid long before then.
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Dec 24, 2022 19:27
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Let's fork the SCS project and replace the word "Improved" in all component names that have it with "Tedious".
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Dec 24, 2022 19:35
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Suspicious posted:Let's fork the SCS project and replace the word "Improved" in all component names that have it with "Tedious". Having tried them all there's only a small amount that I consider tedious. These are: Bg1) Improved Ulcaster - Stupidly overtuned. Doable if you wait until near end game, but kinda silly that you need to wait that long to do it. Darkside Kobold Upgrade - It's not too hard but Nashkel Mines are an early area and I could see this frustrating people if they don't come prepared and with some levels/gear. Bg2) Imp Beholders - You can't cheese them with the shield any more but can cheese them with skeleton warriors. But Beholders just suck, mods or no. There's no fun way to fight them. Imp Mindflayers - I use this and it is doable but I don't think most players would enjoy making an already tedious enemy even more annoying. Imp Trolls - Just makes trolls incredibly tedious. Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold The rest make stuff harder but not usually in an annoying way. But of course it's all to taste I guess. Fully admit what I enjoy might not be the same as everyone else. And I 100% would not recommend blind running SCS on an Ironman unless you've done it before and know what to expect.
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Dec 24, 2022 20:11
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Goddess of the Bow met her fate in a random encounter in cloakwood, swarmed by ettercaps while caught in a web trap.
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Dec 24, 2022 21:12
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Ginette Reno posted:SCS Beholders aren't so bad as long as you just sit off screen and throw skeleton warriors at them, but gently caress fighting them straight up otherwise. I am doing Insane but without double damage so I gave myself a bit of a break that way. I do have the improved stuff on otherwise though. I think the only one I didn't do was Improved Trolls because I remember that being incredibly tedious. Yeah, I just find them more annoying than interesting to fight, 'improved' or no so I'd rather just get it over with. I've definitely done the Wall Of Skellingtons tactic before. One of the things that the Warlock kit offers is an undead-summoning invocation, and while it takes a while for skeleton warriors to become available, you can summon a LOT of them (the invocation has them explicitly not count against the summon limit) I might do a Warlock solo run later just because it's so ridiculously broken in the good way, but I'll have to rework my install for that because of the many ways it's broken in the bad way. Ginette Reno posted:Having tried them all there's only a small amount that I consider tedious. These are: Improved Minor Encounters in BG1 adds some tedium as well, in particular disabling the shortcut to the ogre mage in Firewine Dungeon out of what I assume is just pure spite. I never really minded Improved Trolls but I also disabled Improved Vampires this time around. It makes vampires potentially VERY powerful which is fun and interesting when you're fighting them in small numbers and, um, less so when you're fighting a small army of them like that one area of Firkraag's dungeon. (Though again sending in skeleton warriors works pretty well.)
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Dec 24, 2022 21:15
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sweet geek swag posted:Goddess of the Bow met her fate in a random encounter in cloakwood, swarmed by ettercaps while caught in a web trap. Oh nooooo. Were you worried the second the fight started?
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Dec 25, 2022 02:33
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Jack B Nimble posted:Oh nooooo. There's a certain way you can run to avoid springing web traps in those random ambushes but I forget which way it is. I think north but don't quote me on that. Someone pointed out the right way to go in the last Ironman thread iirc
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Dec 25, 2022 02:48
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Ginette Reno posted:There's a certain way you can run to avoid springing web traps in those random ambushes but I forget which way it is. I think north but don't quote me on that. Someone pointed out the right way to go in the last Ironman thread iirc It's north.
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Dec 25, 2022 07:22
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cheesetriangles posted:It's north. I remembered that... right as I triggered the trap.
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Dec 25, 2022 07:54
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Colin Robinson has made it to the Friendly Arms Inn and things are definitely going according to plan. We first meet up with an old friend.  He's as cheerful as ever. As a smith, he's taking the Iron Crisis a bit personally (we'll get more into why later), and he'd like to go find some actual decent iron down in Nashkel. Since we'll be (eventually) heading there ourselves, we invite ourselves along.  Decent stats, and a refreshingly normal kit. 'Ghost Hammer' is just a rebranded Spiritual Hammer. I think one of my selections from Tweaks Anthology overrides his Single Weapon Style only restriction but it'll be a while before he's dual-wielding axes. For reasons.  Our encounter with Neera is going well. Thankfully Breagar is a solid high-con dwarf and saves against drat near anything so he mops up while Imoen and Colin run around uselessly. We collect our fee in the form of one (1) gem bag and send Neera on her way. Not today, inconvenient wild magic surges. Not. Today.  We come across some adventurers from Ascalon's Quest Pack trying to work out a minor payroll dispute who, in time-honored tradition, resort to asking a passing stranger for help. It's good for a bit of experience.  Mercenary, adventurer, person you have to pay to go away, we go by many titles. This is the first appearance of Shades of the Sword Coast, probably the biggest quest mod we have installed. It adds a large number of sidequests of varying degrees of difficulty. Most of them are pretty interesting, and in particular they give you a lot of reasons to explore places you might otherwise skip over. This person would like us to find a rare magical flower so he can brew it into a healing potion.  Most of the things in Mini Quests and Adventures are little nonviolent story quests, and this one is no exception. The Dudley family are having a dispute about whether to sell off an heirloom necklace because times are tough, and oh dear the necklace has disappeared and each of the adults think the other has hidden it. It turns out that Annie has hidden it because she doesn't want something that belonged to her grandmother to go away. We resolve this by buying the necklace ourselves.  Nearby, we find someone who's understandably concerned because her neighbor has turned into a slime. We find a few clues on his, uh, person, an empty potion bottle and a journal referring to someone named 'T'.  I swear, we can't take two steps in this town without tripping over someone in need of some running and fetching, but multidimensional beetles are a bit new. Another Shades quest, one which will play out over time. Pontag here thinks he can see into other dimensions, beetle-heavy dimensions. His daughter thinks this is probably not actually the case. We can either indulge him or try to convince him that he needs to go home with his daughter. We are going to indulge him.  I'm not even sure WHAT mod this is from!  Feldepost has a few interesting things for sale, including this book which describes a rather nifty artifact that lets us basically do magical e-commerce. Getting it put together is a bit involved.  A katana you say? Do you think your friend would be annoyed if Colin were to wield it in spite of being a jester with no particular melee prowess? I think you'd better come with us.  Aura is, in this case, a multiclass artificer/priestess, a frankly ridiculous custom NPC kit. She's limited to mage hit dice, but has some very useful abilities. I was actually planning on recruiting a different cleric, but what the hell?  The Silke fight can be dangerous in SCS, but in spite of her saving against drat near everything we throw at her, she also can't get a spell off and falls without much incident. You can also see Bubb's Spell Menu in action here.  Here's the guy who's tied up in the slime transformation quest.  Breagar's diplomatic skills get the story out of him. Turns out he sold a vanity potion and the guy drank too much of it. He sells us the antidote.  Taerom can help us construct the Magic Store artifact, but he needs some copper ore to do it. Fortunately we're heading to a mine, and it's not exactly called the Copper Crisis, is it?  We find that tunnel behind the inn and find we've stumbled into a local thieves guild, the Gorgon's Eye. I've never played this one before so we'll see how it goes.  We join up and get a couple of test missions, one to pickpocket a gem from someone in Feldepost's inn (which we've conveniently already done), and one to shake down the guy who owns the mansion that was the temporary home of my lightning wand for protection money. It involves murdering his guards, but since they started it, there's no reputation loss.  On our way to do some petty larceny, we deliver the antidote to our slimy friend, who confesses that he was doing it to impress his neighbor, who then confesses that she already is kind of sweet on him, and it's good vibes all around. Back at the Gorgon's Eye, we've passed the test, we're officially guild members, and the boss has a special job for us. We also have access to some merchants, as well as some bounties we can collect. Or not collect, as the case may be.  Our job for the boss involves searching for pieces of a powerful magical artifact, and I'm sure this won't go badly for anyone at all.  One of the bounties is for a courtesan named Aisha, who fills us in on the reason someone wants her dead. We decide to sort her attacker out instead, naturally, and I half expect to get told we botched the job but the only reaction from the quest-giver is that the bounty is no longer available, so she presumably was either sympathetic to the situation or just doesn't give a poo poo. We finally FINALLY get out of Beregost, stopping to recruit a bit of extra muscle (and not just because we want to loot his shop, but mostly because of that).  Next to the raided caravan, we find a dying messenger who would like us to deliver some letters for him. Sure, we're not really up to anything in particular, after all.  That's...quite a few letters.  You said it, brother.  Tarnesh is basically a speed bump at this point. So now we can just...  ...so NOW we can...  ...so NOW...  SO NOW WE CAN JUST COLLECT THE FRIENDS WE CAME HERE TO MEET. This is the person we were supposed to meet, right? Next Time: Things go further off the rails.
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Dec 26, 2022 18:12
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 Dugash, the neutral evil half orc berserker. Running SCS/tweaks with a whole bunch of other mods, including new companions and kits/kit overhauls. I enabled dual classing as non-humans and loosened equipment requirements in cleric/druid multi/dual classes in tweaks so Dugash here is going to dual to a druid at level 9 and eventually wear the human flesh armor while swinging soul reaver and or foebane. RP-wise, Dugash can't have chaotic good or lawful good partymembers for too long in the party (maybe just finishing their personal quest/getting their equipment like the dagger with Kivan in bgee). And probably only 1 or 2 lawful neutral, neutral good or chaotic neutral ones. Rest are going to be evil or true neutral. Edit. Playing the difficulty level just below insane, forgot its name. No double damage Finnish Flasher fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Dec 27, 2022 |
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Dec 27, 2022 11:52
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 Well, that went better than expected. Dugash picked up the dynamic evil duo and Eldoth, who was right outside friendly arm inn due to this mod. Never had Edoth for more than a couple hours, might actually have him for longer this time. While Imoen is obviously a childhood friend, Dugash knows she probably wouldn't appreciate the kind of people he plans on having in his party. He needs ruthless killers if he's to survive, and he doesn't think Imoen is one. Imoen will stay in friendly arm inn for the time being. Finnish Flasher fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Dec 27, 2022 |
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Dec 27, 2022 18:37
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Holidays got in the way of Bonk.V2's epic tale, but I've come with a minor update, though some screenshots were lost over the holidays. Last we left off, Bonk was headed to the Cloakwood Forest. I was pretty hesitant of this part, as I'm aware of the perils of spider forest. Needless to say, I wasn't aware enough. No sooner than I entered the forest, I triggered the trap and nearly ended my run: That's okay, this is salvageable, this is salvageable...  But only just barely. Several more attempts had my continuously getting poisoned, triggering web traps, losing Sharteel and/or Viconia (but not Kagain thanks to his -5 AC!), and then getting ambushed by ettercap's on the way back and forth from the Friendly Arm Inn. Ultimately, I decided Centeol gets a pass for now and made my way to the Cloakwood Mines. Aldeth lives, bad druids die, a couple of wyverns bit the dust and Bonk.V2 snagged a Quarter Staff +2 from Laskal  It's surprising how easy Cloakwood Mines are compared to Cloakwood itself, except for Drasus and co. and Davaeorn. Drasus proved no problem, but Davaeorn about caused a heart attack with his lightning bolts:  He went down, but Bonk.V2 couldn't be assed to haul it back to FAI to raise Safana to come back and loot his chambers, so we simply flooded the mines. The miners lived, Yeslick lived, Rill lived and we got some much needed reputation (6 -> 8). I never noticed there's the weird skull logo in Davaeorn's room! I wonder if this is special????  And with that, Bonk.V2 has made it to Baldur's Gate. Bonk putzed in Baldur's Gate a bit, but lost screenshots of the fun times I had...
and ultimately getting frustrated with the wide open nature of Baldur's Gate. So I decided to head to Ulcaster and Firewine Ruins. Sadly, these were also among the the lost screenshots (thanks power outage~). Those were done with few difficulties, except Carsa killed Sharteel and Safana thanks to some precision lightning bolts, which is mostly a pain because I don't think the party has enough space to carry all their stuff home. Which coincidentally is where we left off!  Bonk is currently level 7 and more charming than ever, and is going to meander around the Sword Coast looking for easy experience before he gets back to the big city grind. 
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Dec 27, 2022 23:58
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Alright, finally had the courage to try. Didn't go finding last year's save (yet), and since last time I took the very OP Archer, I figured I'd try the humble Blade this time around. After a couple of minutes of rolling: Meet Mr. Strangeson, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the Bow. I dumped his wisdom stat so he's useless for lore, only realized this a wee bit into the game  I also pretty much immediately regretted my gimmick name, it makes the message log horribly spammy. But ah well, we suffer for our art, don't we Strangeson? Anyhoo,  First obstacle: Conquered.  With my 8 HP, Tarnesh seemed scary  , so I brought some muscle. Though it was a battle of the mages, in the end, Xzar got the kill. Ditched the bad boys, but went to get a racially persecuted friend instead.  Then, the game scared me quite effectively, going back to FAI, I am greeted with the wilderness encounter screen!    Strangeson's suave diplomacy got our first level up for Jaheira, so at least one person can theoretically take more than 1 hit!  We braved Silke, and Viconia kept putting her to sleep, which was sufficient.  This also felt like a tense moment. Neira just wouldn't die and kept casting holds, the second or third took and welp. And then she proceeded to cast Spiritual Hammer, which I don't remember seeing much in this fight. But now I was worried that we'd have corpses on our hands. Um, corpses of friendlies. So, Viconia and her general anesthesia to the rescue, again. No one died. Except Neira.  Then, mad mage Zordral. He decided to pick on Khalid with his arrows, and since Khalid is still level 1, this cost me a hefty portion of our healing potion pile. But, mr. Z is dead. Also I accidentally picked the "wrong" answer when he greets you, and the "witch" died instantly, but then I realized this was the right choice all along, she drops some nice loot. Sorry, ms. Witch, no take-backsies. I didn't grab a screen of it, but we tried to proceed to the mines map at this point, but got the Dorn encounter, which was nice. Viconia gained a level, and most importantly 2 casts of Hold Person. So, we went back to Nashkel, sold our new pile of loot, and tried the mines again.  Welp. I figured this was it, and why does the game hate me. We shot a couple of hobbos, but I figured ...better part of valor! and decided to just bolt, I don't need their arrows.  Mr. Strangeson, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the Bow and his sorry crew are about to... Cross Greywolf 
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Dec 28, 2022 02:44
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Tyago the Fighter/Druid and friends continue their journey, this time exploring the eastern side of the map. We stopped in Beregost to sell some loot that we got while rampaging across the West coast. We also gave ourselves a rep hit while we were there because our reputation was starting to get pretty high and most of the party does not like that.  We also paid Tranzig a visit while we were there. A silence hit him so he didn't even get a chance to surrender. We probably wouldn't have accepted his surrender anyways though.  We went back to the Basilisk zone to finish it. Mutamin and his group of baslisks came at us at the zone line about 20 seconds after zoning in, but we were prepared.  We then explored the Temple zone. Some wolves chased us into the temple. I think this is because I accidentally aggroed them while I was trying to go the Baslisk zone at the start of the game. I ran/zoned out at that time but when I came back this time the wolves were still hunting for me and found me in the temple which made for an amusing battle. The temple guards/sirens did not help me btw. Jerks.  We killed some Ogres for a Dwarf lady. Easily done at this point with our party being somewhat powerful.  We found a ring of fire protection and gave it to Tyvar. With his gear now he has decent elemental resistances and a very solid armor class as well. Decent hit points too thanks to his 19 con from the con book. Should be fairly sturdy except for save vs [x] effects. Fighter/Druids don't get particularly great saves so that's about their only weakness. We picked up Samuel as well to bring back to the Friendly Arm Inn.  While on the way to the inn, we got ambushed by the Bounty Hunter encounter from Gullykin. We had to drop Samuel on the ground during this fight because nobody had the encumbrance to carry him lol.  We handled this one with a combination of spook, silence, hold person, and kiting when needed. No thieves in this fight so it's a little more straightforward than the other encounter. Just need to silence/cc the casters and go to town.  After turning that quest in I went back to the Basilisk zone again because I forgot that there was the Waterdavian Adventuring Party encounter(TM) there. They talked trash, we talked trash back. The fight was on.  I webbed them and silenced them. Good game, better luck next time fools.  We took on the spider zone next. This zone scares me not only because of the web traps but because SCS gives Giant Spiders the ability to single target web. I didn't have a ring of freedom or potion of freedom yet so needed to be careful that my PC didn't get killed. I invised the entire party (thanks Baeloth) and disabled the traps, then carefully fought the spiders, keeping my PC back so he wouldn't hopefully get targeted. Worked out.  Next we killed those two Druids in Larswood (or is it Peldvale? Always forget which one)  Then in whichever of Peldvale/Larswood this was we took down scores of Black Talons.  Finally, we made our way to the Bandit Camp. On SCS the whole camp will get alerted when you attack so you basically fight the entire zone at once. It's pretty hilarious, but not as scary as it sounds so long as you have crowd control. We do, and web did a lot of work here. Web, fireballs, silence, and a few call lightnings for good measure. In order to keep the enemy from rushing us and potentially get past our webs we used our protection from magic scroll (from Hafiz in that south east zone) in order to make Kagain immune to magic. He stood in the webs and kept enemies busy while we blasted with fireballs and anything else we could muster. We also picked up some important loot from the Bandit Camp including Spell Thrust. Spell Thrust will be of particular importance the rest of the way because from here on out some of the enemy mages like to use minor globe of invuln and that makes it hard for us to land important spells like silence and web. We're going to have Edwin pop potions of genius to make sure he can scribe it. In the east, we still have Firewine, Ulcaster, the jellies/mage zone, and Gullykin to explore. We will probably do all of those zones before Cloakwood except for Ulcaster, which we'll save until near the end of the game because I have the improved component on and it's stupidly overtuned. I'm a little nervous about Firewine because SCS casters with no room to maneuver can be a little scary and Kahrk in particular is a hoss on SCS. But we should be ok with Spell Thrust and usually we can also eventually land a wand of paralyze on him. Sidebar: Man do I love web and silence. Those two spells are doing work for me. Silence comes with a whopping minus 5 saving throw penalty so it's great against any caster that doesn't put up a minor glove of invuln.
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Dec 28, 2022 04:52
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Terrible news, ironpeople: Vera has fallen to a near-dead Lavok getting off a Horrid Wilting. This comes after clearing the Shadow Temple and when she was on the verge of HLAs.  All is not lost, however, since it means her cousin, the cavalier Anastasia, can venture forth.
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Dec 28, 2022 06:38
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So instead of continuing to putz around Baldur's Gate, Bonk.V2 has headed to Ulgoth's Beard. We meet a nice fella named Shandalar who offers to pay us for getting his cloak back. Kill a polar bear. Find some mages, kill the mages.  Bit of a close call there!!!!! Sharteel dies, but I came prepared with a scroll of ressurection, so no big deal. '  I don't know how I feel about this place, but at least we got to the end.  I could've sworn that there was another wizard here, but I guess we're done. Oh so I thought, before getting teleported to a blue skinned version of the tunnels at the end of the Candlekeep Catacombs. No matter.  Back to Ulgoth's Beard and we get... 500 experience? That's it????  Oh well. Maybe we'll have better luck in Durlag's Tower (Narrator: They would not have better luck in Durlag's Tower). Tower approach went fine. The Battle Horrors went fine, so I passed the level check. Levels 1-4 go okay, I mess up the quest with the Succubus, but no problem, I don't mind killing her and the rogue. Kill the wizard just fine. Make it down to Lower Level 1:  This seems fine!!!! So far so good, remember this part. Level 2 goes okay until a I confuse not finding a trap for a trap not existing and Kagain eats it to a trap that keeps on hitting him for too much damage.  Whoops, back to town to get a resurrection.  While messing around in the armor room, the cloud kill trap goes off and somehow I lose both Kagain and Safana. Great.  Level 2 finishes fine I keep making way through the dungeon okay, but there's some dumb rear end battle dwarfs in my way. I want to kill the dwarfs. Engage the battle dwarfs and forget what I'm doing and manage to lose Viconia and Safana. No cleric, no thief means it's time to leave Durlag's.  Come back from getting ressurected, confront the dwarfs.  Viconia uses the Amulet of Missles; Safana throws exploding potions and Edwina uses the Rod of Fire to make quick work of them. On to level 3! I get started by killing all the 'help'; it's a shame they need to die in pursuit of power gaming, but if god didn't want me to slaughter them for experience, he wouldn't have made them worth 3000 each. I pull the Wyverns but accidentally get two. Which is bad. Very bad. I feel like there's some cosmic justice or something going on here.  Kagain goes down, surprisingly, and Viconia follows. Queue full retreat, Edwina breaks out the paralysis wand and we manage to salvage the fight. But not without scooping as much loot as we could and having to wade back through the fireball trap. Come back and head for the other wyvern (Not pictured: losing someone to the fireball trap and having to leave to get ressurected yet again). Send Kagain in to deal with the skeletons as they can hit his -12 AC against ranged attacks, no problem. On to the chessboard. Not pictured: my run almost ending to the exploding guy in the fire elemental fight. The chess fight goes... less than well.  Edwina starts getting chased by the King and while juking gets singled out by two rooks. The king goes down, but not before Edwina becomes a pin cushion. But level 3 complete! Time for level 4. A quick chat with Islanne's spirit and we're back upstairs to get another resurrections and call it a night. Edit: Editors Note: I don't know what level you're supposed to do Durlag's Tower; we were all level 7 and I was feeling pretty powerful when I went in, but I think I've only ever done Durlag's Tower... once? maybe twice? I figured I would be fine with a guide to help me remember but boy was i wrong. I almost wish the run was ended with how painful all the trips back to the temple were.
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Dec 28, 2022 06:39
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Softface posted:Terrible news, ironpeople: Rip to a real one. Dying that close to HLAs is rough.
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Dec 28, 2022 07:03
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TIL Lavok can cast level 8 spells.
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Dec 28, 2022 08:14
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Lavok is level 21, and can cast Time Stop too, according to the wiki. He also has 5 pips in blunt weapons for some reason. And RIP Vera, it was a good run to get that far. This is why I always over-prepare for mage fights, just in case the game decides it needs to break its own rules and force a big AoE nuke like Horrid Wilting. Edit. Updated the OP last night to our handsome friend Bonk in Chapter 5. biscuits and crazy fucked around with this message at 13:03 on Dec 28, 2022 |
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Dec 28, 2022 13:00
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Fatboy Slim has defeated Sarevok and is heading to Amn. I get to Baldur's Gate and grab Quayle who I have never used before.  We go and kill Drizzt who's weapons I really want.  Grab these.  Go and do some side content I had skipped.  This I had apparently never done ever because I got the Steam achievement for it.  We head to Candlekeep.  Edwin gets beat down by the teleporting spiders, and I'm not happy about it. We get back to the city and do the ducal palace, and I decided a party is just holding me back.  I realize I need 2 potions of invis for my Sarevok plan to work, so I go and find some with help of the wiki and Dudleyville.  I now go and kill 407 ankhegs. This puts me at around 507k XP to take into BG2.  Sarevok dies to the cheese invis / protection from magic strat.  Honors: ironling, purist, librarian, honorable trader, victory for the spiderqueen, battlemaster Dishonors: None
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Dec 28, 2022 15:42
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biscuits and crazy posted:Lavok is level 21, and can cast Time Stop too, according to the wiki. He also has 5 pips in blunt weapons for some reason. Once you get it protection from magical energy is a good spell to keep up on your PC whenever you expect to face enemy mages. It lasts a turn/level so will stay up a while and it could save your life against a big horrid wilting or skull trap, etc.
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Dec 28, 2022 19:12
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Dugash continued his adventures, having dropped of Imoen at the friendly arm inn with Jaheira and Khalid, who Gorion told him to meet. They seemed like they would take care of Imoen just fine. They also stole something that Eldoth needed for a scheme to kidnap his lover or something. Dugash didn't really like the guy, he had the mannerisms of a used-carriage-salesman. But Dugash needed bodies to throw at would-be assassins, so the sleazy man would do. They happened to eavesdrop a conversation mentioning a nearby area that was riddled with great loot, left behind by those petrified by the local basilisks. Luckily they had a necromancer who could protect them from such attacks. As long as Dugash was protected from the beasts gaze, he was confident he could hack it to pieces with his sword and the chances a big beast like that would ambush them in the open terrain were almost non-existant.   Luckily Dugash acted quick, ordering the necromancer to cast the protections on him while the bard and the halfling ran away. The beast fell shortly afterwards.  After they reached the actual area where the loot should be, the halfling drank an invisibility potion and began scouting the area. They sent a charmed ghoul to deal with the basilisks, since everyone knows a ghoul can't be petrified. They killed some deranged gnome and plenty of other basilisks and found gems and magic scrolls. All useful loot, to be sure. The halfling also found a cave. Dugash ordered the necromancer to protect the three of them from basilisks, just in case the creepy cave in a basilisk infested area happened to contain more basilisks.  Fuckin knew it. The fight was tougher than expected, since the ghoul refused to follow them into the cave. Maybe the cave had some sort of magic effect that prevented undead from entering. Dugash hacked the ghoul to pieces since the necromancer couldn't be sure how long the charm would last.  They headed further into the cave and found more basilisks.  Way more basilisks. After killing all of them the halfling scouted around the unfamiliar ruins.  "Ey big lad, the cave's full of spiders." The halfling whispered after returning. "Spiders? I ain't loving with no goddamn spiders. We out." And thus the group left for Beregost, where the sleazy bard said their next contact for the kidnap would be. Finnish Flasher fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Dec 28, 2022 |
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Dec 28, 2022 19:36
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Tyago and friends continue their adventures We slew a Mage and his slimes. With spell thrust we can get rid of his nasty minor globe and go to town with our own spells.  Edwin hit level 7 around this time, so we made a detour to Ulgoth's to purchase some things there. Emotion: Hope (added by SCS/Iwdification) is a really nice spell. + 2 to thaco/saves is very nice and it lasts a decent time (1 hour). Greater Malison is always welcome too.  We take on Kahrk and Firewine ruins. Hope it goes well!  It goes well enough. Spell Thrust gets rid of Kahrk's minor spell deflection meaning we can keep spamming wand of paralyze until he fails his save. He eventually does, and we win. He's a mean fighter/mage though so I keep my PC well away. Even Kagain struggles to hold the line against him until we land our wand.  Inside Firewine we battle with Lendarn and the Ogre Mage. After removing their protections we are able to take them down with fireballs and the like.  We go to the zombie farm and easily clear that, but it's raining and Edwin almost dies to a random lightning bolt. Bg loves to troll me.  We prepare for Cloakwood. Before going there, we stop by Durlag's Tower to purchase some potions of thievery. We stack these and pickpocket the Gnome who has the ring of free action. We'll use this in Cloakwood to protect ourselves from webs.  Ring in hand (and a few potions of freedom for good measure) we make short work of Centeol and her pets.  We make peace with the Druids, in part because Tyago is one, and in part because I don't want to deal with getting hit by nasty call lightnings. I think Amarande might even cast Insect Plague with my settings too. Didn't want to tangle with that.  We blow up some wyverns. Static Charge (added with Iwdification) is basically an indoor call lightning. Level 4 though, but still, fun!  Next up we meet Drasus and party. This is a nasty fight on SCS.  We use some summons to keep Drasus and Genthore busy while we try to start stripping mage protections and getting our own offense in.  It's quite the brawl. Our wall of summons doesn't hold forever and Kagain dies trying to hold the line. But we eventually prevail. Tyago spent a lot of this fight tossing around lightning and insects. Baeloth landed a charm on Genthore at one point which helped as he kept Drasus and the mages busy. Edwin focused on stripping mage protections. Vicky and Tiax eventually silenced one of the mages (Resdan I think). It was a rumble.  We travel back to the temple to rez Kagain and then into the mines we go. Hareshan nearly proved to to be a problem. She dire charmed Kagain who was buffed to the gills. Baeloth nearly died but managed to invis himself. I eventually webbed her and took her out. Got scared for a moment when Kagain got charmed.  For Davaeorn, we invised our party, disabled his traps, and moved into position. On SCS his Battle Horrors come with him (they aren't tied to the trap) and guards periodically arrive to try and reinforce him. We summoned some monsters to start the fight and in case Davaeorn had a sequencer. Sometimes on SCS he does. This time he did. He had a minor sequencer with a stinking cloud and web in it. Our summons ate the brunt of that while our party attacked Davaeorn from the flank. He still dimension doors around on this, so sometimes we had to wait when he teleported behind his web/stinking cloud. We eventually took him down. Tyago landed an insect swarm on him at one point which helped.  The aftermath of our brawl. We then flooded the mines and traveled to Beregost to rest. Up next: the city of Baldur's Gate. We'll plan on tackling all of that except for the Iron Throne and then we will begin the expansion content. Things are about to get more dangerous.
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Dec 28, 2022 22:24
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Huh. Learn something new every once in awhile! I had picked a stupidly long name as a dumb joke, but upon reloading the game for the first time, BG1 had decided to truncate my character's name into something sensible. I mean, okay, good enough, but why doesn't it check the character limit on character creation? Anyway. Last time, Mr. Strangeson and friends were about to test the claim in the thread title!  We had a plan. Jaheira would cast Doom on Greywolf, then Viconia would Hold him. The kiting part of the plan worked out OK, Greywolf didn't even manage to smack anyone. And here we go,  the plan is a smashing success.  Then onto the main part of this area, the dang mines. Everything goes as usual, but then disaster strikes.  Both of the two kobolds guarding these traps roll a hit on Imoen, and merk her. God loving damnit.  I take advantage of lil'sis's dirt nap, and go murder the two spiders, and Mr. Strangeson gets a level, yaaaaay. Anyway, then we haul Imoen's corpse back to Nashkel, come back, clear the third level, and then it's Mulahey time. Since we already worked out a nice plan for Greywolf, let's try it again, shall we?  Smashing success, well done Viconia!  No ankheg Then it's the usual, back to Nashkel, loving Rasaad stole my NIMBUL XP  , I ditch Khalid and Jaheira naked on the streets of Nashkel, and we agree to help our new friend find his wizard.  I love the smell of a sleep spell in the morning.  Mr. Strangeson becomes prettier.  And Dynaheir is saved  Without casualties! Though a gnoll chieftain evaded Xan's sleep spell and punched Minsc in the face pretty hard. On the way back to Nashkel, another drat random ambush, but we got a 500 gp pelt and Viconia leveled, so who am I to complain (this time)?  Now that Dynaheir has something besides her fists, and everybody has some ammunition, I guess we'll do the rest of the western Cloudpeak Mountains next. I want to exchange some words with gentlemen Zal and Vax...
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Dec 29, 2022 03:02
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Fatboy Slim is questing in Amn and I got to find out that the program I was using to take my screenshots was screenshotting my web browser instead. Start BG2, do Irenicus dungeon, kick everyone out except Yoshimo, steal a few million gold and kick him out, do bridge murders, Copper Coronet, Harper poisoned dude, part of Umar Hills but not the part that involves the temple itself, thieve's guild, and maybe a couple random fights I forget to reach 1.25 million xp. Grab Edwin, load him up with spells until I level up at 1.5 million xp. Start grabbing other people: Viconia, Jan, Korgan so far. On our way to secure Edwin and Korgran in our lone screenshot I took at the very end after I realized none of my others saved. 
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Dec 29, 2022 04:17
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With a clear head, we returned to Durlag's. Bonk made it to the trap generator and turned that off; a little bit of trouble with the spiders and ettercaps, but being careful, cautious paid off. Found a nice upgrade for Viconia with a large shield +2, and now she's at a whopping -6 AC. Turns out I had been using a Buckler +1 for a long time even though she has gauntlets of ogre strength. I started working my way down through the slime tunnels.  Ran into a fellow named Grael.  Things got a little dicey!!!! but, somewhat surprisingly, Grael didn't want to focus any particular party member, so we were able to get hime down. Finished up the slime tunnels and snagged the Staff of Striking for an extra +6 damage!!!! over the staff I grabbed in Ulgoth's Beard.  Headed to the last chamber to buff up.  And buff up we did. But it seemed it wasn't enough for Sharteel.  I'm a little worried about Bonk, so I moved him away, but not quickly enough to not eat a fireball and wreck Bonk's world. In fact, it wrecked everyone's world. Edwin got gibbed and Kagain also went down.  Bonk.V2 has died to the Demon Knight in Durlag's Tower.
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Dec 29, 2022 05:57
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Separate post-death commentary:
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Dec 29, 2022 06:01
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DisgracelandUSA posted:Separate post-death commentary: Yeah it can be an effort after a while. My advice is take it slow and don't be afraid to take a break from doing it if it's feeling grindy to you. I usually clear the whole map and do everything except for the Iron Throne tower and then take on Durlag's. A lot of Ironmanning for me comes down to just being...I dunno, present? A lot of my deaths are due to carelessness more than how hard something is. But it's hard to be "on" all the time, and that's how Ironmans get you. Forgetting a key buff or being just a little careless. That sorta thing.
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Dec 29, 2022 06:32
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| # ? May 5, 2024 05:10 |
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I find the key to ironman is: have everything memorized and know what is coming up and how to fight it. When you start getting into unfamiliar content and might not know what to do and have to improvise, things can quickly slip away. Like when I went and fought Sarevok solo, I knew I needed 4 things and only 4 things. I needed two potions of invisibility, I needed a scroll of protection from magic, and I needed a potion of absorption. The 4th one might catch you by surprise if you are trying my strategy (which I copied from a speedrun of BG1 done for AGDQ), but if you know that there are a bunch of lightning bolt traps in the thieves' maze, you will know you need that. On my characters that have died so far, my cavalier just picked the wrong dialogue option in SoD and suddenly had 50 enemies attacking me. If I had that game memorized like BG1 or 2 that would have never happened. My sorc in BG2 that died doing Hexxat's quest died because I wasn't totally familiar with the content added by the EE and I made some bad plays. I knew the umber hulks and mind flayers were around the corner, but it never occured to me it was possible for a confused party member to aggro the entire god drat temple.
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Dec 29, 2022 06:54
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