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I did, in fact, seriously want to do a second run this year, so I think it's time to get down to that. Meet Galina, a pure-class thief who is definitely going to stay a pure-class thief for the whole series.  Tarnesh goes down easily enough.  Melicamp dies, however, which I normally take as a poor omen.  At Edwin's behest we off Dynaheir, ruling out a canon playthrough.  I think Sendai is like Roger in the Forgotten Realms.  Xvart Genocide, always a strong indicator of the party's power curve upward.  Bandit camp cleared with a nice backstab.  Figuring out Davaeorn's weaknesses in my last playthrough helped me expedite the fight with him this time around.  Sorry miners, but I need to manage my reputation.  Gorpel Hind, the man who brought a Greater Basilisk into Baldur's Gate, dies in a minor barfight. I can't say the world is worse without him.  Drizz't also dies, because we need further reputation management.  We get waylaid by a basilisk while clearing out the wilderness areas, and luckily it's obvious who he'll be targeting.  I've also figured out pretty well how to deal with this fight, which will be interesting if I ever choose to install SCS.  Werewolf Island almost went bad when I forgot to turn off AI and my PC backstabbed the wizard up there. Luckily it was an auto-kill, and my PC was holding the potion bag with all the potions of invisiblity.  Oh poo poo, I lied, she's a mage now.  A nice bit of detail as to why Yago cursed Brielbara's child, though of course we still lifted the curse.  And of course we killed the Demon Knight.  Aec'letec comes  Aec'letec goes.  And with some backstabs, BG1 is complete. Sarevok is dead at Galina's hands Honors: Ironling, Purist, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honorable Trader, Iron Party, Battlemaster, Victory for the Spiderqueen Things I learned this run: Coran is really good! I thought he was a Ranger since I've never taken him, but as a fighter/thief with an illegal pip in longbows he's fantastic, and able to fill out find traps/open locks on his own. Quayle, since he's able to use wands, is also pretty good, though I'm not sure how they got from this character to Aerie's mentor in BG2. If you know how to pull precisely, the final fight isn't all that difficult.
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Feb 6, 2023 08:36
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^^^ Coran is low key one of the most busted npcs in the game. Absolutely lethal with a bow, and he can backstab too. I attempted to push through and finish SOD tonight with Kaltor the F/M/T  We infiltrated into Hephernaan's chamber and learned that he's a jerk who wants to open a portal to the hells. His two mage allies fell quickly but the reinforcements he brought were actually a bit of a problem. I fought my way south to the exit but one of the stone golems started blocking the door and that almost caused some trouble. However, we managed to kill it and get out of there before we got overwhelmed. Chaos and slow bought us some time as did a few well placed skull traps.  Caelar's forces attacked our camp next but they were ill prepared for me and Corwin firing Arrows of Detonation down their throats.  I didn't always use those arrows though. Baeloth also unleashed a spell sequencer that had three skull traps in it. That Lich robe is hilariously OP in SOD.  The final group of attackers ate an insect plague from Jaheira and countless arrows and skull traps from the rest of my party.  We then commenced our assault on Dragonspear Castle. We chose to duel Ashatiel, and she actually died so fast that she didn't even get buffs up. This is because I was using that longbow that procs cloak of fear, and it did proc and immediately feared her as the fight started. She got turned into a pincushion after that.  We chased Caelar into the portal to Avernus and slew many demons. We picked up the +3 longsword from the devil by the elevator. The battle against Belhifet began with Glint running towards Belhifet and being a nice juicy target for his dispel magic. I figured Glint was the most expendable if he got dispelled so he was my choice. The rest of my party ran south. Glint got dispelled, but nobody else did. With nobody else dispelled, my party was able to very quickly gun down Hephernaan and the other demons that Belhifet summoned. After that it was a simple matter of dispelling his improved invisibility when he casted it and then just keeping Jaheira (with Drizzt's +3 scimitar) my guy (with the +3 longsword) and Corwin (with +3 arrows) on him. Buffed to the gills as we were, he fell very quickly. I did have spell immunity abjuration on my guy and Entropy Shield on Jaheira just in case, but Belhifet never tried to dispel again after his first dispel. I didn't send Jaheira or my PC in first because it's always hard to tell how much time is left on my buffs because of that god damned long elevator ride.  Here is us thinning out his demon herd  And here's the killing blow. Caelar got it. We were at SOD xp cap anyways so even if she robbed us of xp it didn't matter.  We got arrested, Corwin dumped us, and then a thief broke us out of prison. We met the canon bg1 party outside of Baldur's Gate and hilariously they were all not too happy to see me. I'm not sure why that is. My rep was >10, but I definitely did my share of jerk poo poo on the way to Dragonspear Castle. I'm not sure how SOD weighs whether the town considers you guilty or not but it's apparently not reputation based as I didn't have a low rep. Must be based on what you do. I enjoyed my party a lot. Voghlin is extremely powerful. Rogue Rebalancing doesn't change Skalds a lot but does make the song slightly better (it scales a little faster. In my game, it's +3 thaco/ac instead of the +2/2 he'd normally be at. As a penalty RR makes Skalds cast more slowly). I found the combo of a Skald plus two Archer type characters (my F/M/T has mostly used a bow to this point) very potent. When fully buffed - or even partially buffed - we machine gunned down a lot of SOD enemies. The only ones that stood a chance were undead who are sometimes more resistant to piercing damage. Anything that wasn't resistant to that type of damage fell quickly. I'll miss Voghlin in BG2. Enjoyed the Skald a lot. He was a good tank too with his spells. Anyways, Kaltor the F/M/T is onto BG2 where I will probably die in my first play session and get depressed! Not entirely sure what party I will go with yet, but I will be playing insane/scs/double damage as I have been so it will be a spicy fun time. We're coming into bg2 as 8/9/10 fighter/mage/thief i think so we have level 5 spells, fun backstabs, and a good thaco. Solid hp as well. This character really came into its own a bit during Siege of Dragonspear. Kaltor unlocked level 4 and 5 spells during SOD, so he now has Stoneskin to go along with blur/mirror image. If he doesn't get dispelled, he's very hard to kill. The level 5 spell we unlocked will be quite nice in BG2 as SCS enemies will try to dispel my buffs a lot more often than SOD enemies did. Spell Immunity: Abjuration and Spellshield will be nice spells for us in bg2 to keep our buffs up and stay safe. Honors: Siege Breaker: Complete the Siege of Dragonspear expansion (requires Ironling). Double Damage: Complete the game on Insane difficulty. Honorable Trader: Do not steal any wares from merchants Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Feb 6, 2023 |
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Feb 6, 2023 09:14
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Congrats of the wins guys, well done. I gave the honor for insane difficulty to Silas, because beating BG1 with SCS on insane is actually quite hard, even without doubling all the damage you take, so its more than fair to award it. OP updated to here.
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Feb 7, 2023 14:14
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Kaltor has begun his adventures in Amn We backstabbed our way out of Chateau Irenicus  We kept Jaheira in our party as we intend to use her as our tank. So our short term goal after getting out was to hit 750k xp (the next companion xp tier) so that our other party members would join at a higher level.  We did some various quests to achieve that. Freeing Hendak was one of those.  We got ambushed at times traveling between maps. I used the spell invisibility 10 ft radius to help us travel more safely. Having that let's us go to the edge of these ambushes and buff up rather than get caught unawares. These ambushes can be deadly on SCS as these mages will use stuff like chaos and that can be bad. Buffed up and ready, they're no trouble.  We did some other minor quests and hit the xp tier we wanted. From there, we recruited most of our party: Korgan, Jan, Vicky, Jaheira, PC is what we had at this point. We also want to get Edwin, but don't have him yet at this point. We immediately set about doing Korgan's quest so he wouldn't whine about it.  After doing that, we proceeded to do most of the Maevar quest line. That included killing Reyic Gethras. SCS mages are scary, but we made sure to come prepared with spell thrust, secret word, insect plague, and breach. We got through his protections and took him down.  Jaheira got cursed by Baron Ployer so we took care of that as well. Bribed his mages to not show up to the fight because I can't remember how tough they are on my settings and didn't want to find out  Finally picked up Edwin. We bought him some scrolls. Now things are looking spicy! With a fresh Edwin, we decided to go fight Mencar and his goons at the top of the inn in Waukeen's Promenade  Oh no. So this fight started off fine for me. I was buffed, and got off an Insect Plague. My F/M/T was in there tanking. I got off a cloudkill to try and keep the mage from casting anything nasty. But he found just enough time to get a lightning bolt off, and said lightning bolt bounced and permanently killed Edwin. nooooooooooo. Korgan also got backstabbed and killed though not permaed.  We managed to finish the fight, but at what cost?  Well, we've been next man up mentality since bg1 so we regrouped and finished Maevar's quest. Our goal now was to hit 1 mil xp and replace Edwin. We finished Maevar's questline, but turned down the Shadow Thief stronghold.  We went and picked up Nalia. Not as good as Edwin, but she can still serve fine as a primary caster for this group.  We took on Dearnise keep and slew many a troll  Korgan got punched in the face by an Iron Golem for 70 damage just base. Insane dmg is hilarious. He crumpled like tin. Not permaed though! He really needs Defender of Easthaven though. Soon enough we'll be able to afford it.  Torgal is improved with my settings and his Yuan-Ti Mages can be tough to deal with. We choose not to fight him in his room. We lure him out and we put a cloudkill on the door to try and zone the Yuan-Ti Mages away and keep them from casting nasty spells. This works for most of the fight and we start whittling down the trolls. However the fight lasts for a while and eventually my spell immunity: abjuration wears off. One of the Yuan-Ti Mages - weakened but alive - returns and gets a dispel off on some of my party. But we prevail and with no deaths.  We're now in possession of a fine keep, and used some of our ill gotten gains to purchase Defender of Easthaven for Korgan, and Robe of Vecna for Nalia. Thoughts so far: 1) Not having spell immunity for all my mages yet is rough. I probably should use Minor Globe of Invuln more often when fighting enemy mages. That would have saved Edwin. They're all high enough to cast it, I just need to get the scrolls. I believe Trademeet has them. 2) Double damage is tough for pure melee types like Korgan to deal with. On these settings he's more of a dps than a tank. He simply can't stand against insane damage on SCS, and especially not without Defender of Easthaven. He'll eventually have DOA plus Hardiness and at that point he'll be a lot tankier. But hardiness is a ways away. 3) Jaheira is a hoss tank with Entropy Shields, Ironskins, etc. She is in vanilla too but with IWD spells she's honestly even stronger. Yes SCS is harder, but some characters get a lot stronger as well with these settings, and she's one of them. 4) My F/M/T is pretty fun. It's basically a Fighter/Thief with spells is the way I look at it. x4 backstabs is plenty to do damage, and the spells make it quite survivable. Having fun, will probably die to something dumb soon Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Feb 8, 2023 |
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Feb 8, 2023 03:39
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Silas the Cleric/Thief has had his vacation rudely interrupted by assassins from the Shining Lady. He and Breagar head downstairs and carve up the rest of the intruders while every Flaming Fist mercenary not named Corwin proves to be pretty drat useless. We connect with Duke Eltan for some good news and some bad news. The good news:   Scar's back! He's taken the hint and has decided to retire somewhere nice and safe. We recommend against any travel or tour arrangements made in Ulgoth's Beard. Romantic Encounters' last gasp played out, we move on to the bad news, which is of course the whole Crusade situation. The bad news, of course, is the Crusade. We do what heroes do the eve before a long journey at the head of an army of mercenary cops. We go drinking and hunt down some old acquaintances.  Like Minsc, who we've definitely for sure met before. Artisan's Kitpack gives him this Rashemaar Berserker kit, which is basically 'what if we put a ranger and a berserker into a blender'. Makes sense. I don't do anything to Dynaheir's class or kit. I often change her into a sorcerer (and occasionally into a cleric/mage) but I decide to stick with her as an Invoker this time. I may replace them with Jaheira and Khalid later, or I may not. They'll be back in BG2 regardless. (Well, one of them will...)  We put down a budding rebellion while we're in the neighborhood. We also pick up Safana (who I make into a Swashbuckler because hey why not, she won't be around long enough for it to matter), bum around the city a bit, and then come back to the palace to meet  He's been telling Imoen something about open palm slapping something into a slot, but we soon put a stop to that sort of talk.  ...there was a certain man, in Russia long ago... Oh wait, it's just Skie, informing us of her decision to join the Flaming Fist, which I'm sure won't have any negative repercussions for me whatsoever.  No, of course, everything will be fine.  Recorder's back! The new old gang is (almost)  We explore the region, Recorder plays the flute for some rocks, and we pick up our sixth, M'Khiin.  This is like our eighth ghost quest since we started adventuring.  I'd planned on backstabbing Teleria but she invisibles and stoneskins right before Silas can connect. Still she doesn't appear to get the full SCS Mage treatment and doesn't last long as a result.  This dead goblin encounter's a bit silly but I like it. I like M'Khiin. I wish she'd have appeared in BG2 EE, she'd be an improvement on most of the others.  Now look, the bridge was like this when we got here, that explosion was ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL (I don't think I'll be trying a fireburst on the next bridge.)  Is this vampire related to the Wolf of Ulcaster?  After mopping up the rest of the area(s) here, we head on down into the cave. I really do think that Breagar's entire SoD content is "he exists" because he'd definitely have something to say to Brother Deepvein and company if there'd been anything written for him.  I've seen this with a lot of the NPCs from this particular creator (Skitia), their names sometimes get screwed up in Siege. This is definitely Helga though, and she'd join us here if we wanted her to.  There're a bit more undead than I'm used to here, presumably courtesy of Insane Difficulty. We briefly get caught in a crude pincer movement, but some weasels keep one group distracted til I'm able to mop up the others.  Summons are pretty critical to my strategy in here to, for example, absorb most of the confusion rays from the Umber Hulks. Recorder gets got at one point but M'Khiin snaps her out of it.  In the second area, things go...bad. We get overwhelmed by two of the big groups of corporeal undead and shadowed souls and mummies at once. Silas gets himself feared and conveniently runs out of range of Recorder's only Remove Fear spell (and right into the midst of yet another group of undead, aggroing them). M'Khiin just gets herself dead, and Recorder and Dynaheir come drat close to joining her. Fortunately I regain control of Silas before he takes too much damage, we make a tactical retreat to heal up and use the stone golem figurine before the horde finds us again. It takes some doing, but we make it through the other side, raise M'Khiin (I'm glad I bought all those Raise Dead scrolls because I suspect I'm gonna need them), and get on with things.  We give Brother Deepvein the bad news, pick up the Secret Revealed, and go on back to confront the lich Coldhearth. And then something that's never happened before happens:  Well not Breagar tanking like four friendly fireballs including one of M'Khiin's spiritfire specials. That actually happens quite a lot. Breagar has axe grandmastery, high magic and fire resistance, con 20 and the requisite shorty saves, and a pretty low AC to boot. He's by no means indestructible but he's pretty drat tough and we make good use of him for several more of these huge undead groups.  I'm sure this is fine.  One hit off the lich-killing rock turns him into a pushover and we, well, push him over. And that's when the thing I alluded to happens, or rather doesn't happen. I send most of the party toward the fire portal while Silas (with boots of speed) goes up to collect the philactery. I figure between stealth and speed he can outrun Coldheart when he revives. Except he doesn't revive. The only thing I can figure is his revival is tied to him seeing the party, and since Silas was hidden when he zipped past, there was nothing to see.  This also means that he doesn't teleport in when we throw his phylactery into Mount Doom. It's already scrolled past in this shot but we got both the quest XP for destroying the phylactery and his death XP. I honestly didn't know that could happen, but I'll take it!  I'll also take the reward and the promise of aid against Caelar. Silas the Cleric/Thief is on his way to Boarskeyr Bridge which we will probably not blow up.
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Feb 8, 2023 05:26
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docbeard posted:Silas the Cleric/Thief is on his way to Boarskeyr Bridge which we will probably not blow up. Arrows of dispelling if you have em will make short work of that mage at the bridge. Just make sure someone has detect invisibility memorized because she likes to go invis off the start of that fight. Also that damned crypt is one of the hardest areas in the game imo. All those undead with their resistances to piercing damage and huge mobs of them. Web and aoe always do work for me there. It's hard to fight those big gangs of undead straight up.
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Feb 8, 2023 05:30
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Ginette Reno posted:Arrows of dispelling if you have em will make short work of that mage at the bridge. Just make sure someone has detect invisibility memorized because she likes to go invis off the start of that fight. I'm used to playing on a lower difficulty where there just aren't quite as many of them. Summons (mostly beetles from M'Khiin) saved my bacon more than once combined with the usual aoe stuff. I'll definitely keep the dispelling arrows in mind.
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Feb 8, 2023 05:45
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...I will eventually keep the dispelling arrows in mind. Silas, well, um... Spider cave, right before the dragon cave. I'm focusing on my dragon strategy and I figure that this cave will be a speed bump like it usually is. There were a lot of spiders but it's fine, really, all I need to do is throw this potion of explosions and... Oh, Silas's HP is looking a bit low... Oh. Oh dear. Silas, the Cleric/Thief blew himself up with a potion of explosions It's the way he'd have wanted to go. I'd be pissed but I'm honestly laughing too hard to care. I've got at least one more character in me, I think.
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Feb 9, 2023 03:05
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docbeard posted:...I will eventually keep the dispelling arrows in mind. Oh no! You had a great run going too  . At least it was a funny death.If it makes you feel any better I *almost* blew myself up doing some of Neera's quest. Here's a SS for reference:  I forgot that stupid cart was trapped and mindlessly clicked it. The ensuing explosion nearly one shot me because of insane damage. Normally I have prot from fire up everywhere I go but this is a wild magic zone so I didn't try to buff. Neera trying to kill me again. I just want the stupid shield from her quest.
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Feb 9, 2023 03:47
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Oh man, thats an unfortunate way for a run to end. RIP Silas. The crypt is a massive spike in difficulty on Insane, Shadowed Souls are a pain in the arse when there's multiple in almost every monster spawn. Still, getting to the 500k XP cap before you even get to Coldhearth is always nice. biscuits and crazy fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Feb 9, 2023 |
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Feb 9, 2023 03:53
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Ginette Reno posted:Oh no! You had a great run going too Oh dear. I've definitely run into that one before too. Yeah, it was a good run but it was also a good (stupid) death so I can't complain too much! (Maybe I'll just blame Neera for this one. Somehow.) Think I'm gonna do a new mod installation before I embark on my next character. No major changes probably, but I want to see if I can get Isra installed properly and there's a different version of Dragonspear UI++ I want to try.
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Feb 9, 2023 03:57
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Lol Neera did in fact get me killed. I died fighting a pack of those Red Wizards in the Thayan Enclave in Waukeen's Promenade. My spell immunity wore off mid fight and then the mages dispelled me and killed me. I'm not upset either. I was honestly feeling a little burnt out on that character anyways. I too think I have one more good run in me and then I'm probably taking a break from bg for a little bit. rip Kaltor. Neera 2, my runs 0
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Feb 9, 2023 05:22
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Ginette Reno posted:Lol Neera did in fact get me killed. I died fighting a pack of those Red Wizards in the Thayan Enclave in Waukeen's Promenade. My spell immunity wore off mid fight and then the mages dispelled me and killed me. Neera will never give you a game ending wild surge unless you are doing an Ironman run.
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Feb 9, 2023 07:21
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sweet geek swag posted:Neera will never give you a game ending wild surge unless you are doing an Ironman run. I only ever take her to do her quest because that merchant in the Red Wizard enclave is nice for scrolls and you can get a really good shield. I usually dump her after. She's too risky for an Ironman otherwise imo. I'd only take her if I absolutely had to or if I were feeling particularly risky. Ironically enough she hasn't yet killed me with a wild surge but she probably will next time I try to do one of her quests.
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Feb 9, 2023 08:11
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Well, I'm not really ready to make a full post yet but my new character (a kensai who I'll eventually be dualing to druid) so far has: a) Had her main weapon break when fighting Silke b) Get hit by a Confusion spell cast by Silke just as she died and murdered everyone nearby with her backup weapon, including Garrick. (Fortunately no 'innocents', I guess Feldepost's dudes don't count.) So we're off to a great start! (This is Neera's fault somehow)
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Feb 10, 2023 04:21
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docbeard posted:Well, I'm not really ready to make a full post yet but my new character (a kensai who I'll eventually be dualing to druid) so far has: It's definitely all Neera's fault. I started a Dwarven Defender and things are going well enough for him so far. I got a sick roll with him:  I dunno why I can't stop playing this game. I may force myself to take a break if(when) this one dies. I went with DD as I haven't done a pure melee in a while and it's one of the few pure fighter classes that can actually take hits on insane damage. It's pretty refreshing just walking up to things and smashing them in the face with my flails.
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Feb 10, 2023 05:08
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docbeard posted:
Assuming you haven't already, I think this mean you have to recruit her.
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Feb 10, 2023 05:40
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Ginette Reno posted:It's definitely all Neera's fault. I really want to try out a DD sometime. (I usually make Kagain one but I rarely have him in my party for longer than five minutes). And yeah, I know the feeling. I could play one of literal dozens of games I've never touched or I could play Baldur's Gate for the 3,258th time. ...heya, Imoen. Skwirl posted:Assuming you haven't already, I think this mean you have to recruit her. Been down that road once this year. I have different party plans this time out. I did take on her forced encounter earlier than I should have and it actually went well, though! (She got a wild surge - hold on the wizard).
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Feb 10, 2023 14:53
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docbeard posted:I really want to try out a DD sometime. (I usually make Kagain one but I rarely have him in my party for longer than five minutes). DDs are pretty strong. If you think about it, their defensive stance ability is insanely good. Hardiness gives 40% damage reduction. Defensive Stance gives 50%, and is available from level 1. It also gives a bonus to saving throws. That's nuts. You're basically walking around with an HLA quality ability from the start of the game, and you get another use every four levels. The stance makes the class good from level 1 all the way through tob. When you start SOA and pick up Defender of Easthaven you're sitting on 70% damage reduction when you pop stance. And then you have the innate physical resistance of the class too so that's really more like 80% since you'll probably have at least 10% physical resistance by the time you pick up DOA. By the time you do the Ascension trial in TOB you can become completely immune to physical damage. That's late in the game, granted, but it's still the icing on the cake. By the end of SOA when you're level 20 you're sitting on 90% physical reduction with stance active. And you're really not going to care too much about magic either since you're a Dwarf with high con and d12 hit points and have hilarious saving throws. And if you're evil that gets even funnier with the man coat and its +4 saves. By TOB you can be basically setup so that you'll never fail a saving throw unless you're loaded down with malison and doom (and possibly not even then) and physical damage is no threat to you. That being said, the slow movement from Defensive Stance is a pretty massive drawback. If you pop defensive stance and get into a bad situation, you're hosed. Haste and boots of speed do not in any way shape or form make up for the movement speed malus. By late TOB you probably won't care too much about that but prior to that you do have to be a little careful.
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Feb 10, 2023 16:04
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So, it will doubtless come as a shock after that checkered start that my Kensai didn't live long enough to be worth writing up. Commence a bunch of waffling over what I wanted to do as my next (possibly last, dunno) character til I remembered that my last attempt at a shapeshifter didn't really go anywhere thanks to mod bugs. So, meet Nadja the Shapeshifter  A Born Hero astonishingly enough, and she does all the usual starting-out hero things on her way to being able to recruit a party at max XP.  Melicamp lives!  Don't think I showed this Romantic Encounters mini-quest before, but we chat up Thalantyr a little and he drops a hint at what might chip away at that crusty exterior of his.  As I mentioned before, in my last attempt my character got confused and proceeded to murder all of Feldepost's thugs and Garrick before she snapped out of it. Well, this time, we turn the tables on Silke and Nadja hits her with a Rigid Thinking (I love how fast druids level)...and she murders Garrick. Welp. We grind our way up to 32,000 XP without much real incident beyond the above. Actually, I take Nadja to 35,000, because that gets her to level 7, which means  Better werewolf form! This is what we'll be stuck with til Level 13. Perma-haste (so actually a total of 3 attacks), and attacks that hit like +1 weapons. Remember, with SCS shapeshifting, she gets an equippable 'token' that lets her shift between forms at will. Can't cast spells as a werewolf, and strength and dex are set in stone (more or less). Once we're done a-grinding, we start recruiting.  Breagar, as always, is in a fantastic mood. We grab Kagain as well, though he's just here temporarily to provide a bit of muscle.  Just capturing this for Breagar's fantastic use of 'wannabeard'  We also pick up Quayle. He tells us he's the world's smartest living being, and I guess being the world's smartest living being, he would know.  We do not-recruitable-in-this-game Aerie's mini-quest (basically just adding some flavor to the Zordral/Bentha encounter, and a temple/shop in her tent afterwards). But when we talk to her afterwards...     It was apparently important to the mod author to clarify that our Quayle isn't Uncle Quayle (even though he so clearly is).  We grab Isra next, now (hopefully) free of dialogue bugs  And after we clear out the mines, we take Breagar's sarcastic endorsement at face-value and recruit Xan. Kagain's left with a long walk home. So are we, but we'll be travelling separately.
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Feb 12, 2023 04:04
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Shapeshifter sounds fun. I've been thinking of doing one but I never follow through. Guess I should post some updates too. I've done a lot of playing, but haven't been quite as reliable about taking screenshots because I've admittedly done a bunch of bg1 writeups already so got a bit lazy with it this play. I'll post more updates if I get to bg2 with this character. It may be my last for a while. Anyhow: Devekk the Dwarven Defender who hopefully can stand up to Insane/SCS/double damage. Also Rogue Rebalancing still.  18/00 roll with decent stats otherwise? Didn't need to sell me on this character any more than that  Devekk went basilisk hunting. I recruited Xzar to buff him with protection from petrification and the booted him from the party. Then I grabbed my pal Korax. I got lucky and Mutamin got stunned by Korax. That made this fight an easy win.  I didn't want to gently caress around with Tarnesh solo even with my huge hp so I popped a potion of clarity to make sure he didn't kill me.  I assembled a party: Tiax, Vicky, Baeloth, Edwin, Kagain. Then, I did pretty much all the western zones. I didn't take a lot of screenshots there. Nothing notable happened. This party pretty much face rolled all of that. After doing all of that, I made my to the mines. I unleashed a hellish aoe on the kobold shaman (SCS puts a kobold mage just before the entrance to Mulahey's lair) and his cronies in there because that rear end in a top hat always seems to get a lightning bolt off on me and I didn't want anybody permaed.  After slaying Mulahey, I started working on the eastern zones. Along the way, I fought both of the bandit groups. I don't think anybody died during those fights. As usual, silence, command, and spook/blindness (lowkey love these two spells) did work for me.  I saved Arabelle. I don't think I've ever failed to do so....or at least, not in a looong time. I always have sleep so it's hard for those xvarts to kill the cow before I get them.  The bandit camp met its usual fate: skull traps and webs.  I did Firewine (but not Kahrk...yet). I'm always scared of these mages in these tight corridors, but I managed to take them out without any bad shenanigans happening. Because I had done the bandit camp I had spell thrust which made this easier.  I did Ulcaster as well. SCS improves this, and Icthayrd and the Wolf of Ulcaster (basically, a named Vampiric wolf with a few abilities) were not too challenging for this party. Ictharyd after losing some health fast forwards time (and so your party loses all its buffs) and then buffs himself. He also starts doing a call lightning. It's kinda absurd and makes this fight dangerous. Nevertheless, I was high enough level for it and took him down. Nobody died. After the buffs wore off due to his time skip shenanigans I quickly got up another haste and other buffs and smashed him.  I made my way through Cloakwood next. I did not fight the Druids. Too much risk for next to no reward. I fought the Drasus fight straight up for the first time in a while. Normally I have someone backstabbing here. It was actually quite the brawl. It got a little hairy. I used summons to distract Genthore, and dpsed down Drasus. Meanwhile, I tried stripping the mage's protections and tried ccing them. I couldn't land a silence unfortunately, and they did land a chaos that confused Kagain. That made things trickier, but after stripping their protections I eventually landed wands of paralyze on both mages, and won the fight. I don't think anyone died though Tiax almost did.  I lured Hareishan into some webs and skull traps. My pc wore a ring of free action and slew many webbed guards.  Davaeorn I also straight up fought. He hit Baeloth with a remove magic but I ran Baeloth far enough away from my party to not have everyone else get dispelled. Davaoenr also fired off a minor sequencer with web/stinking cloud but it was far enough south to not hit most of my party. After that it was a matter of stripping his protections. I actually got a silence off on him after that, and we beat him to death.  Around this time I decided to swap Coran for Tiax. I wanted someone who could use arrows of dispel. Those are so useful in late game bg on SCS. After recruiting him, we killed Drizzt by summoning a horde of summons and shooting him with ranged. I can now off hand Drizzt's scimitar which pushes my Dwarf over 100 fire resist (with helm of defense/batalista passport). That's super nice.  We did a buncha poo poo in bg, including curing ourselves of poisoning  We killed countless adventurers and other mages in bg city. We picked up gauntlets of ogre power, ring of wizardy, and Balduran's' artifacts. Did not do the Iron Throne....yet  With arrows of dispelling, we took on Kahrk. For some reason Coran had trouble landing an actual hit through Kahrk's protections, so I had to resort to spell thrust/malison/wand of paralyze. That won it for us.  I did ice island to get Edwin stoneskin I'm now busy with Durlag's Tower. I forgot to take screenshots apparently but while fighting the riddling Dwarves Coran got backstabbed and permanently killed . So Tiax is back in the party. This is going to make the final part of the game a little harder as I have no bow user so hard for me to land arrows of dispel. I can try with my Dwarf and with his thaco he might still be able to hit mages even with not having pips in it (my Dwarf uses flails). But I don't necessarily need them. Arrows of detonation don't require hit rolls, so I can still use those against Sarevok or other nasty caster heavy fights if needed. Also Edwin has chaos/cloudkill now which also helps in those scenarios.My Dwarven Defender has been holding up well on insane damage. The stance goes a long way, his saving throws are absurdly good (shorty saves +20 con = great saves) and he has a ton of HP as well. I still need to be careful against some enemies (Ogre Berserkers, Skeleton Warriors, probably Sarevok/Demonknight, maybe Greater Wyverns) but the character can absolutely hold his own as a tank on insane. By bg2 when enemy damage ramps up I'll have defender of easthaven and even more resist from levels. So I'm looking forward to that. It's been refreshing just bashing poo poo. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 05:11
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Nadja's been busy and so have I, hence no real updates for a bit. Well, that and no one really needs to see early-mid Baldur's Gate for the thirty-seventh time this thread. Not that I'm letting that stop me now! Though I'm mostly gonna focus on NPC mods with a few nods toward actual progress.  This is what Isra is SUPPOSED to say after we're done at the mines. I still don't know what happened before. (Well, I kind of know what, I just don't know why. No matter, it all installed right this time.)  We definitely made the right choice electing Xan our morale officer.  Isra is a Paladin of Sune, from Amn (but not from Athkatla), and this is her getting her orders to stick with us.  And this is her falling to a wandering band of assassins and costing us the Iron Party honor, because no way am I ditching her after all of this.  Dubious voice acting aside, I generally like Isra's writing. We chat about our respective homes. She's from Eshpurta, which I gather is a fortress city (I don't know from the Forgotten Realms outside of the places that appear in the actual game), and her dad's a career soldier.  ...well, thanks for trying, brother. I've never really used Xan before. There are obvious advantages to having an Enchanter around (basically nothing saves against his sleep and charm spells and we're caster-heavy so losing the direct damage spells isn't really a problem here). I've also got a friendship mod as well as the BG1 NPC project, so he's SUPER chatty.  Arabelle lives! Sleep is basically an I Win button for the first half of the game, even with Spell Revisions making things wake up the instant they take damage.  ...thanks, Xan. (Also pictured, me trying out Cloak of Fear for the first time on Wandering Assassin Band #2. ...I really really like Cloak of Fear, it turns out.)  This is after some AI healing but even so this is probably the easiest this fight has ever gone for me, because all I have to do is walk up to things with Cloak of Fear going (ideally as a werewolf) and there's a chance they'll panic. And I'm usually faster than them in werewolf form so them running away isn't especially annoying. It's an especially good anti-caster strategy (if a bit risky) because it's a level 4 spell and an aura, so most of the SCS default spell protections won't do poo poo against it. When we return to mop up Basilisk Hell with Xan in the party, we meet  Some poor merchants! (This is Xan's BG1NPC sidequest.) We send them on their way and  Some elfy Moonblade poo poo happens. The doe wants us to follow her, and Xan wants us to follow her, so...  Turns out those merchants didn't really elaborate on the nature of their merchandise. They're human, well, elf traffickers. Xan feels compelled to object to this, being a Moonblade-Wielding Greycloak of Evereska.  ...I'm starting to rethink the whole Morale Officer thing, to be honest. The merchants and the mercenaries are a bit of a fight though we're more than capable at this point. (Based on some reading, we can tell Xan to go to hell and he'll leave the party, or we can talk him into backing down for now because we're not capable, or we can be super-evil and end up fighting Xan and any other elves that happen to be in the party at the time.)  Instead, we offer to escort the elf ladies to safety. Well, Xan does, and we can either meet up with him later (or not, I guess) or go with him. We end up at the Friendly Arm Inn, and that's that.  ...well, almost. Xan (and only Xan) gets a reward for doing the right thing, in the form of 10,000 quest XP. Also in tthe realm of BG1NPC Xan content, there's  This encounter. It appears no matter what, and normally you can just fight the ogres and rescue Jan Jansen's cousin. But with Xan around you can talk them into a vegetarian diet, pick up some grain and turnips at the circus, and get a magic show from David Jansen for your trouble. Seriously.  ...moving on.  At the archaeological dig, Isra proves that, in spite of being a paladin of the goddess of love and beauty, she's still a paladin.  Bandit camp falls, and Xan nearly cheers up for a few moments.  He also dispels Centeol's illusory curse and she fucks off to seek her revenge against Jon Irenicus, whoever that is. This cheats us out of the wand of cold she was carrying, and we still have to fight the spiders, but eh, it's all good.  Davaeorn is clever enough to teleport right into the middle of us just as we dispel a bunch of his spell protections, and gets beaten to death for his trouble. And that's our update. Nadja has freed the Cloakwood Mines and put up with a whole bunch of whines. (Oh, we've also grabbed the Charisma and Constitution tomes along the way.)
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Feb 18, 2023 05:13
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I got my Dwarven Defender all the way into bg2 and got decent progress there but died to a Lich in the Shade Lord dungeon that dropped a comet on me after dispelling me. There's two spots that a lich will spawn in that dungeon. I actually killed the first lich despite it summoning a planetar (my Dwarven Defender with Defender of Easthaven could tank it even on Insane difficulty) but the lich in the second spawn smartened up and got a dispel off on me and then hit me with a comet which I did not have the FR to absorb. Even with my massive pool of hit points I couldn't survive that and I couldn't get away in time because I had stance active. In the future I should probably avoid that and the Unseeing Eye quests until I'm better prepared to fight a SCS lich. Was good fun but that's probably my last run for the thread this year. Or at least for a long while.
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Feb 18, 2023 09:51
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Kronar the Sorcerer is stumbling towards the endgame. I screw up the fight with the Zhentarim mages, despite silencing two of them before the fight beings.   Creep on some ladies to get the Gauntlets of Ogre strength.   Follow up on Aldeth:  Bar fight goes well.  Ramazith would have been upset when we told him we didn't bring him the nymph, so we simply kill him without telling him:  I forget to cast resist fear again:  Iron throne goes fairly well, despite most of my melee getting confused:  At this point I decide I'm going to skip Durlag & co and just head straight for the endgame. Candlekeep goes fine for a while, until:    And his friend too for good measure. Thankfully, this is not low enought for people to start leaving the party. Jaheira dies on the way out:  A fun side effect of unintended acts of murder:  Arguably more useful for me than Draw upon holy might, though I most likely won't be using either. And after dumping some money at the temple, we're all set to begin the final act:  Kronar the Sorcerer is going after Sarevok. Nostalgamus fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Feb 18, 2023 |
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Feb 18, 2023 14:40
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Devekk was doomed, unfortunately. Comet actually homes in thanks to that hard-coded game engine glitch that affects basically all AI spells. Even with double haste it will hit whoever the target is, no matter what. The one exception to this is Dragon's Breath, thanks to its long animation which delays the damage long enough for the target to not be in the AoE anymore. OP updated to here.
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Feb 18, 2023 14:53
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Ginette Reno posted:In the future I should probably avoid that and the Unseeing Eye quests until I'm better prepared to fight a SCS lich. drat, BG2 SCS really is a meat grinder. I think my goal with Nadja is just getting there, and anything beyond that is a bonus.
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Feb 18, 2023 18:40
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biscuits and crazy posted:Devekk was doomed, unfortunately. Comet actually homes in thanks to that hard-coded game engine glitch that affects basically all AI spells. Even with double haste it will hit whoever the target is, no matter what. Ah yeah I knew Dragon Breath you could dodge. I wasn't sure about comet. I would have probably been fine with fire resist gear. I didn't have any yet. Should have killed Firkraag first. docbeard posted:drat, BG2 SCS really is a meat grinder. I think my goal with Nadja is just getting there, and anything beyond that is a bonus. It's not too bad other than with my settings any mage who can cast level 9 spells can also use HLAs. So liches, the Planar Warden, and a few other mages in bg2 can all be scary if you don't have a way to deal with planetars or dispel their defenses and quickly kill them. Usually my strategy is to pull the undead near the liches and then wait out their buffs and then go kill them. For some reason this Lich decided to dimension door near me. Never seen them do that. Guess it's yet another thing I need to worry about with liches now  .I couldn't resist and started another run that I'm messing around with but I'm a little burnt out on posting mostly the same updates about bg1/sod. I might start posting updates if I get this (or any other) character into bg2.
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Feb 18, 2023 21:09
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Yes, I'm still playing. Isra's having to come to terms with the idea that evil isn't all just romanticized notions of demon knights and dragons, and it's weighing on her a bit.  And later on, while we're doing modded sidequest comment, she opens up a bit. Her father is a career military officer and she loves him but she doesn't always like who he is during battles.  We meet again, just-out-of-Candlekeep wolf! But this time, the advantage is mine!  Firewine's wild magic surges never fail to deliver. Lendarn manages to double his hit points and summon an army of squirrels and blind Breagar, but also manages to paralyze himself.  Kahrk falls to our usual bullshit (and also I finally remember I have wands of paralyzation, which work as advertised).  Y'know, Xan...  The cultists of Ulgoth's Beard and their dread master (and Aec) all fall before our overleveled might.  I'm not a...well technically I AM a shapeshifter but...look, do you want out of your cell or not?  For once, I'm playing a PC with high enough wisdom to talk Kaishas down from her unnecessary death.  Selaad on the other hand is still a stubborn idiot.  Isra's reaction to our own parental issues is a little hesitant but ultimately supportive.  We initially get to the end of the Ducal Palace fight with everyone just standing around and I'm briefly afraid it's broken because, you know, it breaks all the loving time. But it turned out there was one last invisible doppelganger just chilling out, and once we kill it, things go on as they should, with both Grand Dukes surviving. And one unnecessary maze and a spiteful murderer of some completely avoidable mercenaries later...  Nadja the Shapeshifter has defeated her brother and completed Baldur's Gate! Honors: Ironling, Strategist, Born Hero, Double Damage, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honorable Trader. Not technically Overcoming Adversity because this is in no way a Purist game (and I think SCS Shapeshifter is good enough that it's not really adversity to play it anyway).
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Feb 23, 2023 11:24
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Kronar the Sorcerer has been reminded what "Minor globe of invulnerability" does. This is why you should always kill Aldeth Sashenstar. Killed the assasins wtihout incident:  And from there everything is uneventful until I decide to take on the group in front of the temple. The plan is to have Khalid run in first with enough fire resist to soak the arrows of detonation, while throwing in fireballs from wands and potions. This part goes...reasonably well:  After that I add Silence+Web, which shuts down the survivors - except the Mage with Minor globe of invulnerability, who proceeds to confuse and kill everyone:    Kronar the Sorcerer has died to the wizard in the Undercity ambush.
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Feb 26, 2023 20:32
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Against mages with protections + minor globe up your best is one of the following: 1) Arrows of dispel, which will knife through most of the mage's spell protections and let you just shoot them to death. Only protection from magical weapons will stop this and unless you have SCS installed no mage in bg1 will use that spell 2) Arrows of detonation, which hit through damned near anything 3) Any spell level four or higher. So confusion will work, chaos will work. Cloudkill will work. Wands of paralyze (count as level 4 spells) will work. You may have trouble landing confusion or chaos if they have other spells up that boost their saves Also, you can just invis your whole party and run past that ambush. I typically do that now, because it's a tricky one and while quite doable I don't feel like dying to the last fight before Sarevok in my runs.
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Feb 26, 2023 20:40
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Ginette Reno posted:Wands of paralyze (count as level 4 spells) will work. May be better for the "main" thread, but I really wonder why this is. All the same, an amazing wand.
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Feb 26, 2023 21:38
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Ginette Reno posted:Against mages with protections + minor globe up your best is one of the following: I want to say that flamestrike wands (level 5) will work too. The math if you're using Spell Revisions is a little different since Protection From Normal Missiles becomes Protection From Missiles thus rendering dispel arrows all but useless, but the other tricks pretty much still work, and if you've got Spell Thrust and/or Secret Word available, they'll take down Minor Globe of Invulnerability (level 3 spell or no in Spell Thrust's case). Rappaport posted:May be better for the "main" thread, but I really wonder why this is. All the same, an amazing wand. I wonder if it's modeled off Hold Monster instead of Hold Person
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Feb 26, 2023 21:49
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docbeard posted:I want to say that flamestrike wands (level 5) will work too. Well, it does hold Monsters, so probably.
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Feb 26, 2023 22:04
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Nadja the Shapeshifter has ruined two bridges. As before, with Endless BG1 installed we can keep Imoen around for Korlasz's dungeon.  Being a druid, Nadja doesn't have to run around the whole drat place looking for cobalt moss.  And being played by someone half-awake and forgetful, she also doesn't have to swing back here after killing everything to give this dude some peace and quiet. No Shield of Egons, but I wasn't going to use it anyway.   Just before we head on to Siege proper, Quayle and Xan make it clear they won't be sticking around. In fact no one in my current party will be sticking around for Siege except Breagar. Isra and Imoen (eventually) will be back in BG2, as will Quayle (sort of). Xan we'll never see again unless I installed his BG2 NPC mod without realizing it (which is entirely possible). We trigger the beginning by telling Belt we want to go upstairs and rest, assassins attack, etc. Breagar rejoins right away and we pick up Minsc and Dynaheir. Like last time, Minsc is a Rashemaar Berserker from Artisan's Kitpack, and it basically just gives him real rage instead of his innate berserk ability. I leave Dynaheir as an invoker this time too. We pick up Safana too, but only temporarily.  I don't see how you possibly could, since Silke murdered you thirty seconds after we met.  Don't worry, sir, I'm sure she won't get murdered by David Warner or anything.  We recruit  HE'S A DOPPELGANGER, GET HIM!  We replace Safana with Glint, and that's our party. M'Khiin is my favorite but I can't really justify a second druid caster. There's ways I could shove someone else in if I wanted (making Dynaheir a multiclass cleric/mage, using Recorder to do thief stuff thanks to Skills and Abilities) but honestly this is a very solid party as-is.  This is a hook for Emily, another NPC by the person who made Recorder and Helga (and a couple of others). I like her a lot but won't be picking her up this time. You can't really tell in the background but this is after the Crusader assholes blew up the bridge, which was entirely not Nadja's fault very much.  I never really thought about it before but this stash of standard dwarven equipment is a neat bit of foreshadowing. I assume it used to be Coldhearth's.  I was able to replicate the thing that happened last time, where Coldhearth the Lich doesn't respawn if he doesn't see your party, so I only have to use The Secret Revealed on him once before destroying his phylactery. This dungeon also goes a lot better for us this time, probably since I actually thought before wandering into giant masses of undead.  Cloudkill is extremely useful in Siege of Dragonspear.  I question this lady's sense of timing. And biology. These are definitely not spiders.  Nor these.  Okay, fine, she was right about the spiders. Nadja very adeptly does not blow herself up this time.  That beetle dude from Beregost is vindicated at last!  We're all protected from poison one way or another and also fearproofed, so Morentherene isn't too much trouble.  I love that the first dragon we ever fight in the trilogy (unless you're, uh, fortunate enough to have installed Dark Side of the Sword Coast) is followed up by...bugbears.  We beat up the half-dragon lady too and steal her keys, and use them to free the Crusader prisoners and also this completely stable individual. (I actually really like her voice acting.)  Oh what the f-  OH WHAT THE F- A summoned stone golem, AOE spells, and a bunch of Chaotic Commands scrolls later, and we've bagged our first mind flayer.  I very intelligently decide to risk the Shadow Aspect without checking to see if I have any glitterdusts memorized first. Glitterdust more or less makes this fight manageable and without it it's very dangerous but the Aspect mostly focuses its backstab spam on Minsc (who's got Kiel's Goblet and Helmet so can full-heal more or less at will) and we have enough anti-illusion magic that we're able to kill it. (A few times, thanks to its Mislead shenanigans). Our reward is of course a short sword that none of us can use.  We avoid a fight by killing the mind flayer before confronting her. I know she's a Cyric priestess so letting her be isn't the best idea but we've shed enough blood for the moment.  We're allowed to wander freely in the Crusader Camp which lets us scout and loot and trivializes the whole Evil Magic Rock thing later, and also lets us recruit Dorn (hurray). We go through all the Bridgefort stuff, give Neera her potion ingredients, sort out the Evil Magic Rock and the zombie cultist, and kick off the big fight. Since we haven't ever recruited Khalid and I'd feel bad if his level 1 self died, he goes into the bubble bfore the fight.  Look who didn't prepare Protection From Missiles today! Nadja scatters the troops with general werewolfiness and good ol' Cloak of Fear and Minsc takes down the mage before the portal opens. And then Nadja passes out and vandalizes the bridge anyway. Next: Dragonspear Castle
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Feb 27, 2023 16:30
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OP updated to here. I've said this before, but that Undercity party is very dangerous and should be ignored at all costs imo. And more good progress for Nadja, I've never used the SCS Shapeshifter myself but its obviously more powerful than the vanilla version. It would be a fun class to solo, but thats probably true of all 3 Druid kits tbh. biscuits and crazy fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Feb 28, 2023 |
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Feb 28, 2023 03:02
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Nadja and company have set up camp outside of Dragonspear Castle, and in preparation for the titular siege, we're being expect to wander all over the drat place.  We reconnect with an old Shades of the Sword Coast friend, Zee the Kobold Merchant (who you may recall that we helped set up shop at the Friendly Arms Inn, though he's back on the road now). He has slightly more things for sale than before.  Oh well thank goodness Skie's safe now, there's no telling what her father might do if anything happens to her.  We pick up a Crusader badge, wipe the blood off it, and that's enough to get us in the front door AND let us participate in traditional Ask A Passing Stranger To Sort It Out justice.  This dude has some of the least inspiring voice acting in the game. I guess not every guest voice can belong to a legendary actor of stage and screen who played the villain in a previous Infinity Engine game. (It's kind of amazing that Siege has two of them.)  Ah, good old fashioned Drow courtesy.  Ghost dragons only obey the letter of the law when bound to necromancers, so her efforts to stop us going inside consist entirely of saying "No. Stop. Don't." in a deadpan voice.  I get a bit worried for a moment when Halatathlaer shows up before we damage Kherriun enough to break her ghost jar and is initially hostile to us, but soon things are put to rights.  Ah but did any of them have a magic lich-killing rock? Things go relatively smoothly til we reach the basement of the castle itself We've planted the Barrel of Bwoosh so all we have to do is  Oh and chat up still another ghost I guess. I have most of the party at the entrance, and send Glint in to loot everything with a bag of holding because he can go invisible more or less at will between items and potions, and he's currently got my boots of speed.  It goes super well. We all make it out though, with half the goddamn army on our heels.  Uh...he's a doppelganger, get him?  ...oh for fucks sake. We somehow manage to talk these idiots out of siding with the Crusade and get a nice sword for our trouble.  Hey guys, we're back from preparing for the battle oh are we negotiating now?  Oh, it's that sort of negotiation.  The one thing I find frustrating about Siege is that the writing is a bit clumsy, and never more so than here. I want the opportunity to, if not side with Caelar, at least shove the evidence we've got that Hephernaan is using her in her stupid glowing face. But the plot says we fight so we fight.  Oh sure, exploding barrels, that's this game's answer for everything!  IMPOSSIBLE!  We finally take the fight to Dragonspear Castle. One thing SoD is fantastic at is massive setpiece battles, the kind we won't really see again til Throne of Bhaal. Of course we interrupt this setpiece battle to fight this cheating cheater. "No hiding from sight like a coward" but apparently casting Sanctuary every time you break a nail doesn't loving count.  Like this.  We eventually defeat her, mop up, and track down Mizhena's father for good measure.  OH WHAT A SHOCK HEPHERNAAN BETRAYED YOU I WONDER WHY WE DIDN'T MENTION THIS BEFORE We go to hell.  This elevator ride seems to exist almost exclusively to make it difficult to pre-buff, but I manage to get a few things up and running, including a dispel screen to make sure Hephernaan doesn't dispel it all in the first two seconds of the fight.  I'm honestly impressed that they got David Ogden Stiers back to voice Belhifet.  I guess it couldn't have taken long to record "HA HA HA I AM UNSTOPPABL- urk" , in fairness. (This fight can be tough, though I think SCS Sarevok is the harder one. I mostly focus all our energy on Belhifet and make sure to keep the party's health up when he breaks out that fire AOE of his. We get through it without casualties, which isn't always the case.)  And from here we proceed from actual hell to cutscene hell.  Oh, David Warner, you rascal  Okay, I know this looks bad...  My Lord, the Defense would like to submit into evidence at this time THE FACT THAT I JUST SAVED THE WORLD TWICE IN ONE MONTH  Last time I ever listen to Minsc. OH, BOO'S A FINE LEGAL MIND, he said. HE'LL GET YOU OFF WITH TIME SERVED, he said.  Oh, that thing? Well this is easy, just start a new cult in Ulgoth's Beard, we'll have her out of the dagger inside a month, tops. No?  Skipping ahead a bit, Belt decides to give us a fond farewell and a quick trip out of the city, where Nadja meets up with Imoen, Minsc, Dynaheir,  Breagar, and these two other losers who I kind of know. AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER, THE END  ...well, poo poo. Nadja the Shapeshifter has completed the Siege of Dragonspear Honors: Siege Breaker, Born Hero, Double Damage, Honorable Trader, Big Game Hunter
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Mar 4, 2023 22:16
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Yeah I don't hate SOD but some of the writing is really sloppy and in general a lot of Beamdog's writing doesn't match the tone of the rest of the series. Congrats on getting to bg2. You've got some fun spells to look forward to. level 5-7 Druid spells own. I've been tooling around still with Ironmanning this game. Had a Mage/Thief I got into bg2 but I got a little bored of it and quit it (also because Edwin got permaed by a Rakshasha and I didn't feel like replacing him ). I'm playing a Cleric/Illusionist now and it's been pretty fun. Haven't been screenshotting or streaming these runs. Just enjoying them on my own. Maybe if I do one I really like I'll start posting about it again.Ironmanning is a lot of fun. Dying is always unfortunate but it's really breathed new life into this series for me.
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Mar 5, 2023 03:12
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Ginette Reno posted:Ironmanning is a lot of fun. Dying is always unfortunate but it's really breathed new life into this series for me. Word. So I've spent most of the last two weeks moving to a new apartment (100% completion) and unpacking from said move (...somewhat less than 100% completion) but I've also made some progress with Nadja.  Ah, lovely Chateau Irenicus, where they just leave half-dead people lying about in the corner. That particular half-dead person is Khalid, who, thanks to the appropriately-named Khalid mod, we have the option of saving instead of Jaheira. (It's still one or the other.) I'm sticking with Jaheira for this run (though almost certainly not for the entire game) but I've played through most of this mod in the past and I generally like it, though I wish there were a bit more variety in the friendship track dialogue than "generic supportive" and "SHUT THE gently caress UP AND NEVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN". Still, it's not like that criticism couldn't be leveled at basically every conversation in the game.  And here we see that David Warner just leaves his old trash lying about. (Another mod, "Skie: The Cost Of One Girl's Soul", about which more later)  We find this potion at the same place we find the key to Jaheira's cage. Whichever we help first, the other gets teleported away.  Only showing this post-rest chat with Imoen to point out that, thanks to SCS, this is the only time we will be allowed to rest in this dungeon. (Also all the goblins have been replaced by duergar, which makes for a generally tougher time but it's really nothing we can't handle.)  We meet Breagar locked in the clay golem room. And not only have they captured him but they stole his holy axe, the recovery of which will be his next major plot arc. He joins up again, of course.  I don't think this actually pays off in any way.  Breagar really, REALLY doesn't care for duergar. This will become relevant later.  Poor Khalid. I really love the performance of Jaheira's voice actor here. (If we'd taken the other path, this is also where we'd find Jaheira's body.)  I'd forgotten how much I love the mosaic art style for the chapter screens in BG2.  Dude.  We meet another old friend in the Den of the Seven Vales. She won't join us quite yet. Isra, you may recall, has a couple of sisters. Alia, who she's arguing with here and now, and Rana, who's married to Quentin Jysstev. Rana's having some trouble at the moment, but we'll have to go to the Government District to find out more.  Okay, as long as he's really Uncle Quayle this time and not Cousin Queasy.  Thanks to Unfinished Business, there's a bit of, erm, unfinished business involving Kalah that we'll pursue a bit later.  We ask Ribald about getting the Soultaker fixed so that we can maybe make a few things right. He doesn't really have any leads for us...  ...but one of his regulars does, and points us in the direction of someone called Nem, who hangs out outside the Copper Coronet.  I'm honestly not sure what mod adds this, but Arledrian has a very nice anti-vampire dagger. Our only recourse if we want it (as far as I know) is to pickpocket it with a limited chance of success, and I'm not really that desperate at the moment.  We recruit Nalia, and then head off to the Government District. Nalia and Nadja. That won't get confusing at all.  Breagar, as you might imagine, has a lot on the subject of saving Viconia, and why we shouldn't. We do anyway (but we don't recruit her).  I'm probably going to swap in Jan for Nalia at some point later, but for now we just get him out of trouble with the government.  Here's Isra's other sister, and here are some hired goons attacking her.  We take her home and meet up with Isra. If we hadn't met her in the first game she'd still be friendly and amenable to joining up but this way it's a much happier reunion.  Our only lead is a letter from someone called "GD", and some protestations from Rana that this isn't really a big deal and she doesn't want to make a fuss. Still, we agree to investigate.  Isra recognizes GD's ex-enforcers from the Den of the Seven Vales.  While we're in the neighborhood, we pop into the local observatory and kick off some more mod content, this one from I Shall Never Forget. This dude, Orion, is looking to resurrect his wife, and there's the slight catch of not having an intact body. He asks us to check in with some local temples to make sure that's not going to be a problem. The priest at the local Temple of Waukeen tells us that (a) it's not possible and (b) Orion's been asking about this for a while now and probably hasn't told us everything about the situation, but (c) we could ask at the Temple of Sune as well. There's a Temple of Sune in Waukeen's Promenade now.  We go there, but there's not really any further help to be had.  We ask about the thugs that attacked Rana's sister (after cleaning up a bit of a mess upstairs, you can see that we're still well-buffed from that), and are pointed in the direction of the Cowled Wizards. Before we go ask about that it's back to the Copper Coronet.  Goddammit, Baeloth, if this is you... (It's not.)  We free the slaves and prepare to head out to beat up the slavers. But more importantly, we grab Azuredge for Breagar. Grandmastery-In-Axes-Having Breagar. I've been looking forward to this for a while now.  Oh, moan moan moan.  There's a tiny mod I have installed that adds a bit of texture to this sewer encounter. Nothing much to it but it's neat. Anyway, we grab Lilarcor, murder the slavers, and head on our way. But first...  After we talk to her a bit, Nem agrees to look into repairing the Soultaker Dagger for us and asks us to meet her back here in three days.  On our way back to the Government District, Breagar is accosted by a hooded dwarven figure, who casually mentions that the Shadow Thieves might know something about his stolen axe.  We also give the bad news to Orion, who shares a bit more about what happened. Basically his wife was an adventurer and got chunked by a trap.  He's not looking to give up, and we agree to keep helping him. Our next task is to find a necromancer, apparently someone with whom he shares some history, in the sewers. He asks us to avoid violence if we can, but he doesn't seem to think that's likely.  Our investigation at the Cowled Wizards follows the usual pattern. Officially we get stonewalled...  ...but someone JUST HAPPENS to overhear us and meets us outside. She's willing to aid and abet our confrontation with Gelion (the "G" in "GD") for the low low price of making sure that confrontation is a lethal one.  We do ask him nicely to stop harassing the Jysstevs but it goes about the way you'd expect.  We report back to the Jysstevs, and in spite of there still being some loose ends here, they give us a small reward and a firm goodbye.  The keen eyed among you might notice two additional areas in town, Southern Edge and Tangled Oak Isle. We'll get to them later. For now, we pay a visit to the Shadow Thieves. We trust that Breagar understands that he has to play it cool and subtle-   ...dude.  Marina clearly has no loving idea what we're talking about, but agrees to look into matters for us, for either some money or a harper amulet. (We go with the money option in the interest of saving time.)  We also agree to help out Renal Bloodscalp with his little Mae'var problem. Isra is not super enthusiastic.  Oh right. This guy.  It's not long before the Shadow Thieves send a messenger to let Breagar know they have a lead, a weapons dealer called One-Eyed Arnold.  Breagar's usual diplomatic instincts kick in and we end up prying a note out of Arnie's corpse.  So, backstory review time. Breagar was in love with Audhild, the daughter of the master smith of his clan. Breagar's family are bakers, and it's not the sort of society where you just change jobs, or marry outside of your caste. So Breagar was already on thin ice trying to court Audhild, which is why he went to the Sword Coast to forge a ring of elemental control, which as you may recall did not go super well for him. Reggik, the master smith's apprentice and his rival for Audhild, was also trying to forge such a ring, and (it's been implied) may have sabotaged Breagar's work somehow. And now it looks like he was also behind the theft of Breagar's holy axe.  Breagar thinks that Cromwell may know more about this Tower of Anstinus. In the meantime we are pursuing the early bits of the Mae'var questline and dealing with Jaheira's curse, and the Harpers, and all that stuff.  Also we get started with the Unseeing Eye, though it'll be a little while before I pursue that.  This little addition to that quest comes courtesy of Ascalon's Questpack's lone contribution to Baldur's Gate 2. This lady's son has been taken in by the cultists. We agree to try to rescue him.  We also get sent off to find some Illithium for a  I think the option to get the Talos priestess to give us a fake amulet for Mae'var comes with some mod or another, but I don't recall which one.  We've paid off Ployer's magical mercenaries to not turn up, so this all ends rather pathetically for him, and Jaheira is (eventually) uncursed.  Normally I run into Renfield and his attackers on my way out of the city for the first time, but this time it kicks in before I'm even able to leave.  Cromwell puts the Tower on the map for us, and tells us it was built by a mage with an interest in metallurgy.  As we leave, we get ambushed by some duergar. Hmmm.  We deal with all of the Harper bullshit, culminating in our confrontation with Galvarey. Jaheira sides with us.  Isra always has the best conversational timing. But sure, let's have a heart-to-heart while we're up to our knees in the remains of former Harpers who tried to Imprison me. Nadja the Shapeshifter is up to her knees...in adventure! (And Harper remains)
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Mar 12, 2023 22:53
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This update is (mostly) a lot of noodling around in and around Athkatla.  While picking up the quest to go to Trademeet and (hopefully) eventually grabbing Nadja's stronghold, we pick up this quest to raid someplace called the Tower of Deception for an old spellbook. Nothing fishy there, we're sure!  Some crossmod content mod or another lets Breagar comment on this non-vanilla sidequest in his usual fashion. We're not going on this particular journey just yet.  Between Azuredge and a Protection from Undead spell (I wear the Scroll of Wuss (dis)Honor with pride) the lich guarding Daystar is really not a problem.  Upstairs in the inn is the disguised Rakshasha who sold Kalah the magic lamp that gave him illusionist superpowers, more or less just to see what would happen. He agrees to do the same for us. We're not really interested in fighting this dude so we take him up on it. Sometime I'll get around to actually using the lamp.  It begins...  In the Forgotten Realms criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate and yet equally important groups. The magistrates who rule on criminal cases, and the random adventurers who are just passing through who investigate crime. These are their stories. Speaking of crime, following the, ah, Harper Incident, it's time that Jaheira went into Witness Protection.  She takes it super well.  We pick up a lunkhead priest and head off to fumigate Nalia's home.  Breagar proves he's not just about axes. (I actually have given him a dot in Flail proficiency but that's mostly so he can use the Defender of Easthaven.) Anomen gets the Flail for now (or will once we've reforged it).  SCS adds a lot of spectral and spirit trolls which make this somewhat tougher, but we're honestly pretty overleveled for early BG2 so there's nothing much that's a real threat here.  Yuan-ti Mages are a bit of a pain though.  This fight is nasty but Nadja's got Greater Werewolf form, Stoneskin and Entropic Shield available to her by now so she's equally so. We prevail without any losses though the goddamn Yuan-Ti mages take their sweet time letting us kill them. Since I'm not a fighter, that's pretty much it for the De'Arnise Keep (unless I installed a mod that lets me come back later, which I think I may have, who the gently caress even knows any more)  We move on to the Tower of Anstinus, the last reported location of Breagar's axe. If you think that Anstinus and Durlag may have shared an architect, well, you're not wrong. There's a bit of a minor sidequest involving a half-orc and his adventuring/life partner but the focus here is on finding the Axe of Berronar.  There's a magic forcefield preventing us from getting access to the basement, and a welcoming party of duergar. For now, the only direction we can go is up. The treasure is unremarkable, aside from a Wisdom Tome(!) and some odds and ends that we'll make use of later.  We also find a fragment of a book. This will be important later.  We finally meet the tower's owner, or rather his ghost. He's apparently stuck here until he's able to complete a potion commission he received in life. And, being a ghost, that's a bit tricky. Reggik apparently made a deal with him to make the potion if he'll seal off the basement. Naturally he has in no way completed the potion. Reggik is also seemingly working with a duergar priest called Forres. We agree to complete the potion if he'll let us inside. This is a bit tricky, and involves following a recipe that we found on the way up here, in the precise order, from memory. Through the magic of Putting Screenshots Up On My Other Monitor, I manage it just fine and it's off to the basement we go.  Reggik is long gone but Forres is here...and apparently not interested in a fight. He has apparently been working with Reggik to find an above-ground home for his duergar clan (specifically this tower), because he and his people are tired of dodging evil spiders and mind flayers all the time. As a show of good faith, he hands over the axe. Breagar has some complicated feelings about this but ultimately accepts the situation, and we part ways in peace. We also find Reggik's journals, which not only give us his perspective on this whole thing -- basically he's been planning on forging peaceful relations with the duergar for ages, and Breagar's romantic aspirations nearly ruined everything, and that's why basically everything that's happened so far has happened. It also says that Reggik and Gailthur (the clan leader, I think?) are in Trademeet.  Why this fine and upstanding citizen couldn't possibly be the serial murderer OH WAIT  Anomen seems to be unstuck in time? (His quest stuff proceeds normally after this so hosed if I know)  After sorting out the skinner, we interrupt Neera interrupting this magical kidnapping.  Breagar gets a bit meta while we watch the play  Isra's romance finally kicks off. As mod romances go, it's fine.  Anomen's sister is dead, and we talk him out of pursuing the sort of vigilante justice we normally favor. I'm basically just keeping him around til we get through his quest, but I want to leave him a bit better than we found him, you know?  We hook back up with Nem, who tells us that she can in fact get Skie out of the damaged Soultaker Dagger, but it will require (a) a willing* soul to take her place in there and (b) a bit of fighting from us. (The soul doesn't actually need to be willing, but she won't force anyone into living inside a dagger, so here we are. I don't know if there's an evil path here.)  We don't have to go far to find that willing someone. He's facing death regardless, and as long as we agree to take care of his family, he'll agree to oblivion inside the Soultaker instead of whatever fate awaits him after death.  Now that everything's settled, we still have to teleport inside the dagger and fight off monsters until we can get Skie's soul and leave.  We do that. There are four waves of monsters, none of which are a real threat to us at this point. We also have to sacrifice some of our total HP when it's all said and done.  And that's that. Skie can now be resurrected back in Baldur's Gate, and the Soultaker is basically ruined forever. (...or is it?) For now, we head off to our next adventure in Athkatla's new Southern Edge district. There are a few mini quests and encounters here and one larger main quest, which begins almost immediately with being greeted by this fellow.  He opens with those three beautiful little words: "I can pay".  The gist is that there's a parasitic book that can affect the minds of its readers. We need to recover and help destroy it. This is complicated by the (later-revealed) fact that the parasite has actually split itself into four pieces.  But before we get on with sorting that out, we meet an old friend. He doesn't have a quest of his own for us but he'll be instrumental in a sidequest later.  This bard has one of the evil manuscripts, apparently under the impression that he wrote it. He attacks, we defend ourselves, and collect one piece of the parasite.  Wow, it's Old Home Week here in Athkatla. (We can get the special antidote from an NPC in the slums.)  Well this isn't suspicious at all. She'll trade us "her" book for a toy. We can buy a doll at the inn but what she wants is a wooden sword that we can procure from the carpenter.  Part 3 is in the hands (?) of this talking cat, who just wants some fish bones instead of this stupid paper stuff. (The fishbones are lying around here somewhere)  Part 4 is in a house with a broken door. Apparently this fellow had his entire collection of historical artifacts stolen and is feeling a bit down, and the parasite is taking advantage of this to take the form of a suicide note. We take that off his hands and hook him up with Charleston Nib who just happens to have one Kozah idol (slightly used) to help kickstart his new collection. I'm going to skip ahead a bit here. Having collected the four parts of the manuscript, we need to collect some magic wood to build a vessel to contain the parasite's essence. Like killing a lich in reverse. We collect the wood, get the local carpenter to build us a box, and then return one last time, so that we can go kill the parasite's physical manifestation while Marlo binds its spirit into the box.  It casts Blade Barrier and summons some spiders, and then we beat it up until it dies. That's enough adventuring for now. Nadja the Shapeshifter is making the rounds in Athkatla
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Mar 18, 2023 22:56
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Nadja died to SCS Firkraag. Honestly I'm satisfied, this is easily one of my better efforts. I'm gonna keep playing but I'm done Iron Manning for the year I think.
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Mar 20, 2023 03:58
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