|
Kaltor the F/M/T has a lot of adventures to go over. I'll try to keep it as brief as I can since I did a ton of poo poo and I don't think everyone wants to hear every last thing I did probably   To start with, Kaltor and company took on the Bandit Camp and blew them up with webs and skull traps.  Next we did Neera's quest because we wanted to get a stoneskin scroll for one of our mages. In this case, we chose Xzar for it.  We decided to take on the Firewine ruins next. With Spell Thrust I felt confident we could tackle Kahrk. Xan also had greater malison available to help us land the wand of paralyze on him. We cast a malison on Kahrk but even after that he made his save against the wand of paralyze like four times in a row despite his lowered saves. At some point during this he cast sunfire and Xzar was a little too close and got permanently killed by it. Oh dear. Right after we just gave him Stoneskin too. What a waste. Feels bad. On future runs I will either avoid Kahrk or if I do fight him probably make sure I have arrows of dispel.  Our party is all about the next man up mentality, so we replaced Xzar with Baeloth. Baeloth is a little behind us in xp by this point but that's ok. He'll still be useful. With him, we finished Firewine.  I did something I don't always do and killed Drizzt. It's easy enough even on SCS with monster summoning. His chain will be useful for Monty (can still use thieving abilities with it on). His scimitars aren't that useful to anyone in this party, but Icing Death (or whichever one gives 50 fire resist) is a nice offhand weapon for our F/M/T to give fire resist. I rarely melee and usually use the bow for now as melee is dangerous until I get stoneskin.  Fast forward to Cloakwood. We took on Drasus and company, and Monty opened with a backstab. Taking out one of these mages tilts the fight heavily in our favor, and it's not long after before we finish the rest.  Monty one shot Davaeorn as well lol. I've done this fight straight up on SCS/Insane on some of my other runs so I don't feel guilty about it. Had Davaeorn survived this backstab (he does at least half the time it feels like) it woulda been a tough battle.  In Baldur's Gate city we picked up the gauntlets of Ogre power for Monty.  Vicky also got literally one shot by that Ogre bounty hunter in the inn. Not even a crit. He just hits hard enough on insane to do that. She didn't get permaed though.  We had 69 hp at this point. nice  Did all the other bg city quests. Here's some of the more notable moments. This one is us clearing the battle horror house. We also of course retrieved the helm of balduran during this quest and then kept it after.  On Ice Island we picked up another stoneskin scroll. Xan will take this one.  We fought the Iron Throne party and won. We had Baeloth spamming detect invis to make sure nobody got backstabbed by the two thieves. Xan used Greater Malison and Chaos to cause some issues for everyone else. Kaltor and Monty mostly sniped at the casters with arrows of dispel and biting.  Baeloth died to the ogre mage ambush, but we rezzed him after. This fight was otherwise not too bad. We got off a silence on three of them, which made it easy enough to control the fight.  We crashed Sarevok's coronation and took out his Dopplegangers. They're buffed on SCS and some can backstab and others cast spells. We were also buffed to the gills though and got off a good chaos on them here.  We invised past the Under City party as per the thread's recommendations. I was careful to make sure the mages didn't have detect invis or oracle. Sometimes on SCS they will have that spell, but it appears on my installation they did not (each new installation of SCS randomizes some of the spells enemies get iirc).  We dealt with Sarevok's cronies piecemeal while keeping him and Tazok distracted with summons. Arrows of dispel do work here, especially on SCS. I prioritized killing Semaj and Angelo first. My PC got silenced somehow. I'm not even sure how because I don't recall casting it with Vicky and that's not a spell mages get. That actually proved somewhat dangerous because I took some damage and didn't realize it until almost too late. I was at half health. I retreated and got healed though and we prevailed. Here is the money shot of Sarevok getting his head bashed in by an ogre. Kaltor is now into SOD Honors: Ironling, Strategist, Double Damage, Librarian  Didn't quite cap out xp-wise. As you can probably surmise from my updates I didn't do all of Durlags or Werewolf Isle. I usually will but I wanted to get into SOD faster this time. I will try to complete SOD. The extra xp there will be a big boon as a triple class. Along the way we should unlock those key level four spells for Stoneskin as well. I am going to be very careful in SOD and probably mostly snipe with a bow as I was in bg1. Jaheira will be my tank since she's the best at it in SOD. I Ironmanned SOD on my Fighter/Druid (albeit, not double damage) so I'm quite confident I can do it, I just need to be careful to not get bum rushed by the annoying SOD ai. Surviving should be easier with this character as he has a lot more hp than my assassin (thanks to vampiric touch and find familiar plus class) and of course has the mage buffs as well. Also good elemental resistances thanks to gear. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Feb 2, 2023 |
#
?
Feb 2, 2023 05:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 5, 2024 03:04 |
|
|
Good job!! i've never tried an FMT before, I always figured it would level too slowly in a party. You've definitely got me curious though. I think I know what I will try next if Silas dies (not an FMT) but so far he's still going strong. I'm probably gonna dive straight into Durlag's/Cultists/Aec just to get it done after I clear up the basic stuff in the city. Even playing without an XP cap I don't think any of my folks are leveling again til SoD. If I can get through that I don't anticipate major problems with anything else in the game (he said foolishly)
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2023 18:10
|
|
|
docbeard posted:Good job!! i've never tried an FMT before, I always figured it would level too slowly in a party. You've definitely got me curious though. Thanks! FMT seems pretty good even in a party. For most of bg1 you'll have up to level 3 spells which is quite fine, and you can backstab and do good ranged or melee damage as you choose. By SOD you'll unlock level 4 spells and stoneskin is obviously a big survivability boost. The way I look at a FMT is it's like a F/T that can cast its own buffs instead of relying on scrolls/use any item (and those obviously unlock late). That's pretty handy imo. Sure the backstabbing won't be as potent as a F/T and it will lag behind it a little bit in thaco, but on no reload runs where you're more concerned about survivability than damage the spell buffs are nice. You can go in and backstab and then actually stay in for a little bit afterwards before getting out of there. A regular Thief or F/T has to be much more careful. Also, arcane magic is powerful and any class that has access to it is strong imo, even a triple multi. A FMC would be quite viable in a party and good as well I think. I think at high levels (if I get there) it also unlocks Thief HLAs. I don't believe it can get the xp required to do mage HLAs but it can get assassination I think and being an imp hasted meleer with assassination and mage buffs on seems pretty terrifying for enemies. So yeah, anything with mage in it is an S tier class in Bg imo. Magic is just so strong. As for Durlags/Aec, I do those more often than not but I was chomping at the bit to do some SOD/bg2 again so I rushed bg1 more than normal.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2023 20:05
|
|
|
If you don't have an XP uncapper mod I think an F/M/T tops out at 8th level spells, but you do get thief HLAs, so you can't cast Timestop, but you get Timestop traps.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2023 20:37
|
|
|
Shakira has just been sitting on hold for the past few days as I'm kind of overwhelmed with starting ToB a game I have only played a couple times. Playing BG1 as an archer as non ironman in this weird thing where I actually read all the dialogue and don't try to play hyper optimized. Just a fun relaxing time.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2023 21:37
|
|
|
F/M/T is a wand user, nothing else matters for BG1.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2023 02:25
|
|
|
Suspicious posted:F/M/T is a wand user, nothing else matters for BG1. True. Yet another reason why anything that can use arcane magic in bg is S-Tier at all times
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2023 02:49
|
|
|
Like, if you checked my videos a bit you'd see I took Garrick from BG1 start to finish. (I actually died twice trying to do Silke too early.) In an ironman. It wasn't a gimmick. He more than pulled his weight. Why? Wands. Also ID'ed 90% of the stuff I found for free. And pickpocket'd Algernon's cloak and the ring of freedom!! What the gently caress was Kagain or whoever doing? Hitting stuff with a sharp stick? loving loser. Next motherfucker who says low level mages are weak will get a stern talking-to!!!
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2023 03:05
|
|
|
Suspicious posted:Like, if you checked my videos a bit you'd see I took Garrick from BG1 start to finish. (I actually died twice trying to do Silke too early.) In an ironman. It wasn't a gimmick. He more than pulled his weight. Why? Wands. Also ID'ed 90% of the stuff I found for free. And pickpocket'd Algernon's cloak and the ring of freedom!! What the gently caress was Kagain or whoever doing? Hitting stuff with a sharp stick? loving loser. I can confirm that even on SCS wands are quite good in bg1. They're even good against mages that put up minor globes and stuff because wands of paralyze can actually get through that (they count as level 4 spells). Minor spell deflection can block wands but not every mage uses that.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2023 03:10
|
|
|
Yeah, that's why I was a bit upset that Morrigan failed to copy the only scroll of spell thrust in BG1, but it ended up not mattering. e: it was a stupid mistake too, I could have used mind focus + genius for 25 INT and avoided the possibility of failure in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2023 03:11
|
|
|
Suspicious posted:Yeah, that's why I was a bit upset that Morrigan failed to copy the only scroll of spell thrust in BG1, but it ended up not mattering. I gave mine to Xzar I think and he perma died but it ended up not mattering once I could buy arrows of dispel from Baldur's gate city. e: It's tough for me to figure out how to use the limited supply of genius potions in the game sometimes. Early on I sometimes use them because I really don't want to fail to scribe spells like sleep or protection from petrification. But you also want them later on for stoneskin and spell thrust and stuff like that. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Feb 3, 2023 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2023 03:34
|
|
|
There's the 50 gold red (or purple) potion from the Carnival that sets your intelligence to 25 that I use for my first batch of must-succeed scrolls.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2023 04:00
|
|
|
Suspicious posted:There's the 50 gold red (or purple) potion from the Carnival that sets your intelligence to 25 that I use for my first batch of must-succeed scrolls. Ah man I totally forgot about that. Good catch. I'll have to remember that.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2023 05:16
|
|
|
I was watching someone play BG1 who grabbed Eldoth and commented that they were useless which made me realize they didn't know much about BG1 because being able to use wands alone put him in the top quarter of all npcs in power.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2023 05:45
|
|
|
Garrick is legit a good NPC. 16 dex makes him a perfectly viable crossbowman with the light crossbow of speed. Bardsong is a great answer to death-by-horror that you face early on. And if you have crippling OCD like I do, his ability to ID everything so you never have to wear/use unidentified stuff is a godsend. And then there's the whole "can use wands" thing. Dude rules.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2023 06:16
|
|
|
Every npc in the game is viable even on Insane SCS imo. Even Rasaad. It's a shame there's not more bards in bg2 because that's when they really hit their stride as spellcasters. They can tank awesomely well thanks to their high caster level meaning they get tons of stoneskins and the durations on their buffs are great too. It's weird but Bards are among the best tanks in the game when they start to unlock the more powerful mage buffs. I guess HD Is enough to fill that void but I'd love if a Skald were there too.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2023 06:51
|
|
|
Alright I guess I should do some SOD updates: Kaltor the F/M/T is starting his SOD adventures  Korlasz dungeon was completed largely with web, chaos, and skull traps/fireball wands.  After doing all the boring palace stuff we embarked on our crusade against Caelar. We picked up Baeloth and Edwin as well as Vicky, Glint, and Corwin. This won't be our final party but it will do for now. Having two mages was nice for the crypt with Coldhearth because there's massive groups of undead there and web and aoe does work. I was careful this time to not put my guy into compromising positions. It helps that he has stoneskin now and vampiric touch (Insane makes it do double damage to my own party members) is a nice 1 hour buff of my hp.  Coldhearth was slain easily enough with the lich killing gem. I'm going to hold onto this and hopefully remember to use it against the lich who has the spell sequencer robe, although I'm somewhat nervous of even trying that fight on insane difficulty. I might just not do it as it's very risky without protection from magical energy as if he gets off a horrid wilting that will likely one shot me even with my 100+ hp. Maybe a protection from magic scroll will come in handy there, which I believe can only be dispelled on scs via spellstrike.  We fought the crusaders near the bridge and then gave Caelar our meanest stare.  We also slew our first vampire.  And took out some trolls in a cave. Trolls in SOD are annoying and bum rush the backline so we were careful to start this ambush with most people invis.  Up next we picked up Jaheira and Voghlin. They will be our tanks for the rest of the game. Mage tank bards are fantastic so long as they don't get dispelled, and not much in SOD will dispel. Voghlin's Skald song will also be extremely useful for the party. The extra ac and other bonuses are big.  With our party together we slew yet more trolls. In the tight corridors of this cave we relied on greater malison plus slow to control these trolls and keep our squishies safe.  We also cleared that spider cave with the big beetle in it. We used a malison, insect plague, and some skull traps to obliterate these huge packs of spiders.  We also killed our first dragon. She died before she could do much. Her MR isn't as high as many dragons in Bg2, and a quick strike on her with magic missiles, arrows, and wands of the heavens can take her down fast. We did have protection from poison/acid up on my party just in case she did live through that initial burst.  We then proceeded into the bugbear cave and slew many of them. The only thing to worry about here were some of their thieves who can backstab fairly hard. Baeloth's detect invis prevented that from happening.  In the Bhaal temple, we murdered all the cultists. Between insect plague and breach and two deadly archers in my F/M/T and Corwin not much could stand against us there.  The Neolithid killed Jaheira. I think it got off some sort of aoe breath weapon? I couldn't tell what it did but I thought it was acid damage. I think I might have accidentally stood in its slime too with her which weakened her. After killing it, we went back to the Flaming Fist camp to rez her. Always annoying to have your only character with rez die.  Next we fought the Mind Flayer and its cronies. We opened with a web, malison, some skull traps, and insect plague. I had two nymphs summoned which both cast confusion as well. That tilted the fight massively in our favor and we won quickly.  Here's the aftermath of most of that  Finally, we took out the Shadow Aspect. I toyed with not trying it because it can one shot many of my party members with backstabs. Then I remembered I had protection from undead scrolls and also true seeing and maxed detect illusions on my F/M/T. I used these and took it out easily. In retrospect I could easily kill it without those scrolls as I think all you need are detect illusions and true sight to quickly slay it but imo gently caress this thing. It's ended several of my runs and it's a cheesy enemy, so I cheesed it in kind. So there we have it. Kaltor is surviving and is going to wrap up the Bridgefort stuff and hopefully not die to the exploding bridge setpiece (I think I won't, I have arrows of dispelling ready for that mage)
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 00:14
|
|
|
Ginette Reno posted:The Neolithid killed Jaheira. I think it got off some sort of aoe breath weapon? I couldn't tell what it did but I thought it was acid damage. I think I might have accidentally stood in its slime too with her which weakened her. After killing it, we went back to the Flaming Fist camp to rez her. Always annoying to have your only character with rez die. Buy a stack of raise dead scrolls. It will allow Glint to raise and Jaheira won't have to memorize it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 00:41
|
|
|
Suspicious posted:Buy a stack of raise dead scrolls. It will allow Glint to raise and Jaheira won't have to memorize it. Good idea. I dunno why I didn't think of that. I'm sure one of the merchants in camp sells some.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 01:00
|
|
|
Yeah, those are chaotic command scrolls are handy, esp. when Glint is your only cleric.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 01:03
|
|
|
Suspicious posted:Yeah, those are chaotic command scrolls are handy, esp. when Glint is your only cleric. Yeah those are nice. I usually remember to buy those late game but for some reason I hadn't thought to buy rez scrolls. I still have a whole stack of arrows of detonation in my pack too that I forget to use a lot. I'll probably use at least some of those in the Bridgefort fight though.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 01:06
|
|
|
Is the Shadow Aspect actually undead? I know its really annoying to fight on insane or LoB with Mislead and that blinding cloud it has so I usually ignore it. I've only ever killed it twice. Both with a Cleric of Helm, once in a party and once solo. (I know, pointless to kill it solo when all you get is a sword you can't use, but I wanted to see if it was possible) On demand True Sight is amazing and basically hard counters it. Updated the OP to here.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 02:53
|
|
|
biscuits and crazy posted:Is the Shadow Aspect actually undead? I know its really annoying to fight on insane or LoB with Mislead and that blinding cloud it has so I usually ignore it. I've only ever killed it twice. Both with a Cleric of Helm, once in a party and once solo. (I know, pointless to kill it solo when all you get is a sword you can't use, but I wanted to see if it was possible) On demand True Sight is amazing and basically hard counters it. According to the bg wiki it is. And the scrolls seemed to work. It didn't attack me.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 03:00
|
|
|
Interesting, I'll keep it in mind for future runs. Amazing to think I've learned 2 new things about this game from this thread alone.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 03:34
|
|
|
docbeard posted:Silas the Cleric/Priest has defeated one of the final bosses of Baldur's Gate! Do you have a list of the mods you're running? I've never used very many content mods, just like rules tweaks and stuff and it seems like a lot of the new content you're using is way higher quality than I expected.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 09:16
|
|
|
Skwirl posted:Do you have a list of the mods you're running? I've never used very many content mods, just like rules tweaks and stuff and it seems like a lot of the new content you're using is way higher quality than I expected. I'll try to dig out the full list later, but the highlights: Enhanced Edition Trilogy. It basically merges all of the games into one giant one, for no actually good reason. I honestly just keep this installed out of inertia at this point, though it's nice not having to muck about with importing my character between games. (It also makes it possible to revisit areas from previous games/chapters, though I have yet to find an especially compelling reason to do so.) Tweaks Anthology. Tweaks Anthology is probably the only one I would consider absolutely essential even for an otherwise vanilla run, just being able to increase stack size is worth it even if you don't use any of its other stuff. I also have EET Tweaks and aTweaks installed, though I don't really use much from the latter (mostly just its thief AI script). One of EET Tweaks' options lets you lower overall XP gain from monsters and/or quests in content-heavy installs, which I should probably be using. (I am not.) Sword Coast Strategemsis as much a tweaks mod as a difficulty mod these days, and it gives you a lot (arguably too much) granular control over its many many options. A lot of people think it's too annoying, and sometimes I agree with them, but I find it hard to play without, any more. This time I have most of its components installed except for Improved Beholders, Vampires, or Mind Flayers. Spell Revisions and Spell Revisions Revised. Also kind of a 'no fun allowed' mod as it eliminates some spell-related cheese (for example, Invisibility only lasts 8 hours now, Invisibility Sphere only a turn, and the first level Blind spell doesn't even exist now), but I find it gives as much as it takes, and I've grown to like it. (There's also Item Revisions which I haven't gotten 'round to trying yet). It's one of the reasons Kahrk is a much more formidable challenge than usual, since one of its changes turns Protection From Normal Missiles into just Protection From Missiles which (I think) is what's countering the Arrow of Slaying. The other contributing factor is Shades of the Sword Coast. An extensive mod that adds something like 20 new quests and encounters to Baldur's Gate 1. Most of them are fairly straightforward with a couple that are a bit more elaborate. It also adds a few new monsters (bugbears, werebadgers, and snakes being the notable additions) to random areas. Oh and it turns the Firewine region into a Wild Magic zone. I really like this mod, even with the craziness of that last option. Ascalon's Questpack. Another pretty solid quest mod, though not nearly as extensive as Shades. It's translated from German. Romantic Encounters. I installed a few components from this because there's one specific quest I wanted to try (something to do with avenging, or possibly resurrecting, Scar in the endgame) but I've been pleasantly surprised by most of the encounters. Any mod with 'romance' in the description tends to make me leery but everything I've seen in this one has been more on the side of sweet than gross. Then again, I didn't install everything. Mini-Quests and Encounters. The quests in this one tend more toward non-combat, occasionally somewhat silly encounters, though there are a few more elaborate things (like the questline to prove Brage's innocence) in here that make it worthwhile. The Gorgon's Eye. This is a pretty new one, and I think it's still being actively developed. It adds a thieves guild and associated questline to Beregost, and it could use a bit of polish in places but I found it to be pretty impressive. It also adds a pretty significant (optional) money sink for thieves. Endless BG1. This one makes the transition between BG1 and SoD a bit less abrupt, and also allows you to have Imoen in the party for Korlasz's dungeon. (There's also another mod called Transitions that does similar stuff, but I like it less. And yet ANOTHER one called Imoen Forever or something like that, that lets you keep Imoen around for SoD and most of early BG2, but I've never tried it.) Those are the big content ones I have going on. I also have quite a few NPCs and some Kit/class mods that I may go into more detail about later, and also some BG2-specific stuff that I'll get to when (if) I actually get there. I'm also using Project Infinity as a mod manager these days. It's imperfect but I'm finding it pretty useful. Having NearInfinity available is also pretty essential for when (not if) you run into a game-breaking bug or conflict. e. A couple of smaller quest mods I forgot before: The Lure of the Sirene's Call: Adds a bit of a questline to the Seawatcher map. Basically Sil and her sirines have been at war with pirates, smugglers, or possibly pirate-smugglers, and we have the opportunity to take a side. I usually side with Sil since it means one less sirene fight. The Stone of Askavar: I covered this one pretty fully in Jackie's adventures, but it's a pretty reasonable questline with slightly unreasonable loot and extremely unreasonable grammar. [b]Balduran's Seatower/b]: Adds an extra area and a decently involved questline to Baldur's Gate. Not to be confused with the absolute wreck of stolen assets and Roxanne's bullshit of the same name. docbeard fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Feb 4, 2023 |
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 11:37
|
|
|
I'll do a proper update later but Silas has conquered Durlag's Tower, slain Aec, and most importantly avenged Jackie Daytona II. Aec was a rough fight, especially since spell revisions LIED and said that Protection from Petrification protected from gaze attacks WHICH I FOUND AN EXCEPTION TO. But we didn't lose anyone (permanently). Whew.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 17:23
|
|
|
I think it's the potion of mirrored eyes that's supposed to provide gaze protection.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 17:41
|
|
|
Suspicious posted:I think it's the potion of mirrored eyes that's supposed to provide gaze protection. Yeah, in vanilla. Spell Revisions adds that effect to Protection from Petrification as well but apparently it doesn't work on Aec's gaze. Oh well!
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 17:50
|
|
|
Doesn't Aecletec's gaze thing have a save? I thought potions of magic shielding worked against it. Those last longer than mirrored eyes, though there are only 5 in the game iirc. Also helps against that vampiric touch or life drain thing he does.
Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Feb 4, 2023 |
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 20:10
|
|
|
Ginette Reno posted:Doesn't Aecletec's gaze thing have a save? I thought potions of magic shielding worked against it. Those last longer than mirrored eyes, though there are only 5 in the game iirc. Also helps against that vampiric touch or life drain thing he does. There are 6 in the game and they do protect vs his gaze. The one you're missing is in the Cloakwood barracks. e: Might as well list where the others are: 3 at sorcerous sundries, 1 at the thieves' guild shop, 1 in those nameless potion shops in Baldur's Gate that all share the same inventory. Suspicious fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Feb 4, 2023 |
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 20:27
|
|
|
Silas the Cleric/Thief has slain demons. Or possibly devils. He's a cleric, he should definitely know the difference! Ah, Firewine. We were so much younger then. So much more innocent. So much...pretty much the same level with the same equipment as we are now. Anyway, we leave Kahrk's cooling body behind, wrap up a few minor loose ends in the area, and bid a fond farewell to the Firewine Ruins.  I often forget about this quest entirely when I don't have Coran in the party.  The crit-backstab combo is so so satisfying, especially with the Vhaillor soundset.  Exactly what was Melicamp up to when he was a chicken?  We visit Sir Mark Harmon's sister and brother-in-law, at Recorder's request, to return his sword to them. As you can see, she's not entirely thrilled to see us but she and Recorder talk a bit and she segues from bitterness to grief, and it's all okay in the end.  We attend to all the usual business in Baldur's Gate, and some unusual business such as delivering a letter to Skie Silvershield (and her dead brother's pin to Mrs. Silvershield) (and their family treasures into our pockets). Bartleby's ghost turns up to tell us we did a good job.  Wisdom tome #1 goes to Silas. When I'm not playing a divine spellcaster these tomes usually go to Jaheira but I need them more than she does this time around.  Intelligence tome goes to...Breagar? It takes his int from 10 to 11 which makes him a more hearty mind flayer meal. Many NPCs that appear in all the games have persistent stats thanks to Enhanced Edition Trilogy but I believe Imoen's an exception, so giving her the tome wouldn't do her any good.  And then we're off to Durlag's Tower. I usually don't do this quite this early but I'm probably gonna do a quick push to the endgame after all of this. I'm not sure I'm even going to werewolf island, though I've already grabbed the sea charts, so I may as well. It's not that long.  Normally the backstab-fireblast combination is very effective. Normally. (This ghost fight is an absolute loving pain in SCS.)  Wisdom Tome #2, also for Silas Floor #1 of Durlag's goes off pretty much without a hitch. Floor #2 on the other hand...  I probably didn't need to pick a fight with these doom guards. (Not pictured, Imoen's similarly untimely death when she 1v1'd a greater doppelganger and NEARLY won.)  Extreme Chess goes about the way it usually does.  I love the storytelling in Durlag's Tower so much. I think this is the most blatant hint we get about the Aec fight, too.  Silas will be putting this to good use.  This is what Spell Revisions gives us instead of Spell Immunity. Not quite the same, but it'll come in handy for sure.  The Demon Knight falls, but not before he gets off an Unholy Fireball. Not sure what's so unholy about it but Recorder sure doesn't look happy. Before we head back to Ulgoth's Beard, we stop in at the Gorgon's Eye. One of the things it adds is an opportunity to buy copies of the Thieves' Compendium, a series of very expensive tomes. The first set, for 20,000 gold apiece, gives you slight bonuses to your thief skills, usually 10% to one or two of them. The second set, for 50,000 gold each, will give you some slight resistance boosts, a permanent +1 attack/damage/ac boost, and  This. I wasn't actually aware this was there but hell yes I will take it. There's a 100,000 gold tier too, which I think is stat tomes. I can't imagine I'll see them.  Now, as I've mentioned before, Spell Revisions nerfs the duration of the various invisibility spells, which means we can't go into this completely invisible.  We do however have a ton of invisibility potions at this point so we all just drink up and walk away after he yoinks the dagger.  We sneak off to buff up til an assassin comes by to see what's going on. We get through this fight without any real trouble. The next obstacle is the guard on the door to the building who will call up more cultists for us to fight.  ...in theory.  This fight is arguably as hard as or even harder than the Aec fight. The traps I left in place don't seem to do much of anything for some reason.  This is what happens when one of their wizards drops a sequencer with three goddamn skull traps on us. Protection from Magic Energy can't come soon enough.  Still, we prevail, and a couple of raise dead scrolls and a trip to the inn later, and it's time for the Main Event.  SCS Tracea Carol is definitely the most dangerous thing down here, with the possible exception of Aec. So we go in invisible and take her off the board before she even gets a chance to talk, much less trigger her pre-buffs. That's about the only thing to go right in the fight. Recorder gets paralyzed and then murdered by Aec because of the aforementioned FILTHY LIES Spell Revisions told about Protection from Petrification protecting from all gaze attacks. Everyone else either has equipment or Potions of Mirrored Eyes protecting them. I definitely should have used potions of magic shielding, especially since Aec's opening Silence cuts off most of my spellcasting for the first half of the battle, but I always forget about those for some reason. We keep him distracted with summons and Breagar while we kill the rest of the cultists. Jaheira also falls at some point.  But we get him in the end. The Sword Coast is a little bit safer today, and we'll use our last handful of raise dead scrolls to  lmao I swear to god I didn't stage this. Her mirrored eyes potion must have worn off right before the end. I'm kind of surprised she didn't permadie, I think she must have mod-related plot armor or something. Up Next: We pick up the pieces
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 20:44
|
|
|
docbeard posted:Silas the Cleric/Thief has slain demons. Or possibly devils. He's a cleric, he should definitely know the difference! Man, I respect your hustle with doing all the content. Did it on my first few runs but got impatient on this one and wanted some SOD/bg2. And you're playing with even more content than I do since I'm just running Rogue Rebalancing/SCS/Tweaks. Suspicious posted:There are 6 in the game and they do protect vs his gaze. I think this one might be in the potion shop in the Flaming Fist quadrant of the city but I'm not 100% sure.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 20:48
|
|
|
Ginette Reno posted:Man, I respect your hustle with doing all the content. Did it on my first few runs but got impatient on this one and wanted some SOD/bg2. And you're playing with even more content than I do since I'm just running Rogue Rebalancing/SCS/Tweaks. I am admittedly probably going to skip a few things as I push to the end of BG1 but I really needed this victory after Jackie Daytona II.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2023 20:56
|
|
|
I've never seen a Spell Sequencer in BG1 before, even with SCS the cultists are normally limited to level 5 spells. Triple Skull Trap is devastating, even when nerfed to 12d6. Nice job getting through Durlag's and Aec.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2023 00:40
|
|
|
biscuits and crazy posted:I've never seen a Spell Sequencer in BG1 before, even with SCS the cultists are normally limited to level 5 spells. Triple Skull Trap is devastating, even when nerfed to 12d6. Many enemies on SCS/Insane in bg1 will use minor spell sequencers, but the amount of damage they can do with those is thankfully not too bad. But eating a double melfs or double magic missile can still be nasty on insane damage, especially if you're a class with lower hp. And yeah in bg2 Protection from Magical Energy becomes one of those must have buffs pretty quickly because eating a 3x skull trap is a gg and Horrid Wilting is even worse.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2023 01:57
|
|
|
Kronar the Sorcerer has cleaned out Cloakwood. Having reached Cloakwood 2, the plan is    Wyvern ambush - arguably tougher than the Wyvern cave. The fight outside the mine goes...acceptably  Fortunately everyone decided to randomly stand around instead of randomly attacking.  The Ogre Mage went similarly, although in this case Imoen nearly died.   Plan: Remove the traps, haste everyone, and rush Davaeorn.  Davaeorn teleports around a lot before dying, but doesn't get tome to cast any offensive spells. I ended up getting stuck after a spider ambush on the way back. The interface refused to acknowledge any move commands (except when i opened the map), so it was impossible to leave the area. Ended up reloading in order to progress - and getting a wyvern ambush instead.  Kronar the Sorcerer has reached Baldur's Gate.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2023 12:19
|
|
|
We decide to in fact go to Werewolf Island Breagar has some thoughts on the matter.  It's not a terribly eventful trip tbh.  THIS IS A LOCAL ISLAND! FOR LOCAL WEREWOLVES! THERE'S NOTHING FOR YOU HERE!  We send both Kaishas and Selaad on to their next lives where hopefully they will learn the value of a five-minute clarifying conversation. There's still some mod stuff I could do, most notably the Serpents of Abbathor quest and most of the stuff at Balduran's Seatower. But meh. Let's get on with things.  Sure okay buddy.  YES DEAR WE'RE DOING IT DEAR HOW CAN WE DO IT IF YOU KEEP INTERRUPTING  We take the direct approach to solving the sewers' Ogre Mage problem  We also wander off to have a drink with Scar. A completely platonic one, alas. Still, this may become relevant later.  I love this guy's confidence...  ...misplaced though it may be. Sarevok should really consider hiring mercenaries from Ulgoth's Beard.  Who you calling pink, brother We spend some time relaxing at home before confronting Rieltar and company.  Recorder raises a valid point.  Breagar has other ideas. We don't fight them though.  Y'know...  Well, that would explain the weird dreams.  Eh, it'll be fine, it's not like the sole arbiter of the law here has had a lifelong grudge against me or anything.  I love Ulraunt's theory here that we're all secret agents from Amn, who sent Imoen and Silas here as babies to grow up here just to get everyone to let their guard down.    Breagar has been thinking about the revelation of our parentage. I don't know if he can actually turn against you here or not, I suspect he might if you're evil.  Third tome of Wisdom, to Silas of course.  Tome of Strength to Breagar. I have about eight ways of boosting Silas's strength as a cleric.  This fight against Prat's crew can get a bit hairy in SCS, so we come locked and loaded and buffed. (You'll also note that, thanks to our lack of an XP cap, Jaheira can summon fire elementals now. Thanks to Spell Revisions, the duration on the summons is a bit lower making it less of a now-brainer, but still a welcome ally.)  Breagar decides to stay with Team Silas for now.   She survives the initial backstab but doesn't last long after that. And neither do her golems. Yes, golems. Thank you, SCS.  Slythe and Krystin are more annoying than dangerous. Imoen gets the short sword of backstabbing, for all of the ten minutes she'll get to use it.  Hi, we have an invitation for  Belt survives the initial foray. Liia gets most of the SCS enhancements of any mage so she's a lot more likely to survive even if Belt falls. The downside is she's also more likely to catch him (or us) in a bit of friendly fire (or cone of cold, as it were) which is why I had Silas use a Protection from Cold scroll before the fight.  Fortunately she (I think it was her, it might have been a dopple-mage's dying words) decided to go with the more annoying but less lethal Teleport Field instead. (I think Sarevok manages to kill Belt in the next fight, though that might just be a Flaming Fist dude. Was hard to tell in all the chaos.)  Before we head into the maze, we go to check on Duke Eltan and find out a bit more about Scar's murder. We have bigger fish to fry at the moment than avenging our buddy, though.  I guess it wouldn't be a labyrinth without a minotaur.  Recorder and I have a little chat over the bodies of that annoying mercenary group. I know I don't have to fight them but gently caress those guys.  And we're off. SCS does fun things to this fight. You have to kill all of Sarevok's minions before he will become vulnerable, and they turn into Skeleton Warriors when they die. We're also fighting three SCS-buffed mages with all that that entails, and one of them (Semaj, I believe) even starts out with Protection from Magical Weapons. It could be worse, though. The last time I played with Dark Side of the Sword Coast installed Angelo was throwing around Power Word Kill somehow. We've gone in with basically every buff spell and potion we had left, including Magic Resistance and one Magic Shielding potion. I also used a bunch of Potions of Absorption, planning to spam lightning wand charges for a bit. Then I forgot to do that (though it wouldn't have mattered much anyway, I think only Tazok would have been vulnerable).  They do all fall though. Recorder's high caster levels makes her Dispel Magic casts very good indeed, with Breagar and Khalid (who has Durlag's helmet and goblet) take the brunt of the damage.  Sarevok drat near one-shots Silas (you're seeing him a potion or two later) but Khalid kills him. Whew.  Normally this would drop us straight into SoD, but I have Endless BG1 installed which gives us a bit of a chance to lick our wounds and clear up a few loose ends. But for now, Silas the Cleric/Thief has defeated Sarevok, ended the Iron Crisis, averted war, and taken his first step on the path to ultimate power, or to rejecting ultimate power. One of those. Honors: Ironling, Strategist, Double Damage (? the honor doesn't specify that you have to have the extra damage turned on, so I'll leave this one up to the judges), Librarian, Trap-Dodger, Honorable Trader (we never stole from merchants). docbeard fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Feb 5, 2023 |
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2023 17:22
|
|
|
A bit of a BG1 epilogue... Endless BG1 mercifully grants us the ability to bypass the Thieves Maze on our way out. (I think this only works once, but that's okay. We're not going back there.)  It also lets us loot Sarevok's body. Just this, his helm (which grants an additional 5% MR) and  His sword. Just a quest item, since canonically it gets stolen. We are now free to wander the BG1 world as we please, do unattended sidequests, etc. There's only one thing I'll be doing before we move on though, and that's tracking down Scar's body. This is the quest I installed Romantic Encounters to try out. Basically, when we visited Duke Eltan before chasing down Sarevok for the last time, he told us that in the confusion after Scar was killed and he took ill, Scar's body (which had been preserved in the hopes of raising him) went missing.  We have one obscure lead and it's in the inventory of this dude who does estate sales.  Specifically it's this vase, which we saw (and nearly destroyed) when we went to have a drink with Scar earlier. When we ask him politely what the gently caress, Donnerjan points us in the direction of one of Scar's Flaming Fist charges...  ...who points us to the laborers who brought in Scar's body...  ...this is getting a bit long...  Finally, some answers! He basically found Scar's body in the refuse pile because Angelo's a dick that way, and sent it to one of the warehouses for slightly-safer-than-that keeping, the same warehouse we were just at. One last trip and  We have Scar's body. Now we cam head on over to the Ducal Palace.  Eltan takes the body off our hands and says he'll look into either burial or resurrection. Turns out to be 'burial', though with a hint that one of Scar's friends thinks there Might Be A Way. It'll have to happen without us, though, it was a nice drink but we have places to go, people to see, soul-destroying murders to be framed for.  Belt, who's alive after all, takes Sarevok's sword into custody (where it is stolen about ten minutes later I guess), draws us into a brief YOU ARE NOW THE HERO OF BALDUR'S GATE cutscene, and asks us to do him one more favor.  You know the one. You'll notice that Imoen's still in the party. Other than that, though, this is the basic Korlasz Dungeon Experience, and despite the undead hordes being somewhat more ferocious than we've grown accustomed to, we sweep through without much real trouble. We decline to accept Korlasz's surrender, and it's not because of my metagamey knowledge that it would just mean we'd have to 1v1 her later on, it's...for another reason. Yes.  Well, I mean, last time I was there the head librarian declared I was a spy from Amn despite having never set foot outside Candlekeep prior to six months ago, but sure lady, I'll sign your letter.  Liia's still a little trigger happy, I guess. (She hasn't turned hostile, she just...does this for some reason.)  She's appeased when we hand over some research Korlasz had been doing into Bhaal.  We report our success, which definitely didn't involve any manual updates to any global variables because the scripting in this mod is a little quirky, no sirree. NOW Silas the Cleric/Thief can start the Siege of Dragonspear.  ...NOW Silas the Cleric/Thief and Guest can start the Siege of Dragonspear. (Breagar doesn't really have a lot of SoD content as I recall, but he's here.)
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2023 01:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 5, 2024 03:04 |
|
|
Grats on the Sarevok kill, Docbeard. Kaltor is still pursuing Caelar  Kaltor did all the minor Bridgefort quests, and then commenced the assault.  We kinda rolled through here. Voghlin's song plus two characters with longbows = enemies turn into pincushions. Nobody ever really got into too much danger here. Jaheira took some damage from being on the frontline and drawing the fire (Idk how with her minus 12 ac or whatever) but I she was fine.  Then came the moment that gives every Ironman player pause. This set piece is gameover if you let the barrels get blown up. Fortunately, we have arrows of dispelling. The mage cannot get the spell off with two archers spamming those at her. She goes down in seconds, and we easily win this fight.  After taking a Bhaal-shaped poo poo on Boareskyr bridge (sorry coalition, I really had to go) we commenced with the final preparations for assault on Caelar's fortress at Dragonspear. We explored the forests around Dragonspear, and slew many an ogre.  We also killed a bunch of spiders.  Inside this cave was our first mimic of the series. I remembered this mimic causing problems on my last run so this time I had my frontline with rings of free action on and I buffed up. Much easier that way.  We fought some treants as well, but with our magical and ranged power they went down without too much trouble. The shambling mound was resistant to a lot of things but magic helped there.  Irenicus sent some goons to harass us in the dead magic zone, but we promptly said gently caress this and zoned out. You can use wands and potions here (but any potion with duration instantly expires after a round iirc) but we opted not to gently caress with this. Backstabs on Insane damage with us not being able to cast detect invisibility or have stoneskins up = no thanks Beamdog. I wasn't going to have one of my mages or worse my pc get killed by such bullshit. So we took the safe route and zoned out.  We next prepared to infiltrate Dragonspear Castle via the Underground River. That involved slaughtering many crusaders. With buffs, skull traps and some archery work, that is easily done. A few enemy thieves did join the fight and actually got off backstabs on Glint and Corwin which was scary but they were only x3 backstabs and not crits so thankfully those two survived.  Within the Underground River we slew an evil Druid  We also took on the Necromancers of Kanagyrm. This is where we tapped into our stock of Arrows of Detonation. They blew up quickly with me and Corwin firing a few of those at them.  Finally, we buffed up and took on the Lich which has the Spell Sequencer robe. This time I remembered that you can use the Gem from the Dwarven Priest on this guy, and it went much more smoothly. The gem stripped his protections and he was quickly filled with arrows by me and Corwin. The prize: a robe which can cast spell sequencer 1/day which will be a huge survivability boost for my F/M/T. With a spell sequencer in my back pocket I can basically have a Stoneskin/Mirror Image/Blur on standby in case I get dispelled in any of the upcoming tougher fights. I also have Minor Spell Sequencer as well so that's two extra buffs to toss up if I ever need to. We're going to finish up the Underground River and then get ready to repel Caelar's assault and then finish SOD. We have some +3 arrows made from the smith at Bridgefort, we have Jaheira with one of Drizzt's +3 scimitars, and my PC will be able to pick up a +3 longsword from Thraxx in hell. We should be well positioned to give Belhifet a hurting.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2023 05:46
|
|