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 The time is upon us once more for the official(ish) 2024(ish) Something Awful Baldur's Gate* Ironman Challenge! As 2023 comes to an end, so too shall the adventures of many (but not all!) great heroes and heroines of the Sword Coast and similar regions. It is here that true champions will compete for honor, glory, and oh look it's a wolf and I have 4 hp runrunrun. Ahem. Gather your party and venture forth! You can buy the Enhanced Edition of the game and its sequels on Steam or on GOG.com. The EE editions are also available for tablets and have modern conveniences like widescreen support and zooming in and out of the game. Some people prefer to play the non-EE editions, but they're harder to come by. The older CD versions can be bought used off Amazon or something. ___ *The old ones, not the new one. Roll of Heroes Probably Somewhere Alive Postmodernist Beatings the Cavalier has liberated the Cloakwood Mines and made a mint in the process. Smartass the Berserker had his Powergaming manual upside-down. Best Buy Gamersclub (Ironling) the Elven Sorcerer has cleared the Beholder City in the Underdark. Alis the Kensai has begun her adventures. Aldren the Shadow Adept has cleared the Nashkel Mines and recruited Minsc and Xan. Zivio the Archer has avoided death and Imoen both, and is seeking some other friends to share his burdens. Beta Bequin, Agent of E.L.F. is in a tense battle with a wolf after an early training regimen. Dead And Out Of This World Angryface the Inquisitor was destroyed by the deadliest foe in Neera's introductory fight (Neera). Amazon Prime the Sorcerer buffed herself a little too well at Durlag's Tower. Marisol the Druid/Air Elementalist succumbed to a beta test gone awry. Rikan the Ice Priest of Auril has disappeared into the mists, perhaps to return one day. Silas the Firewalker of Kossuth/Thief survived an incident with a Greater Chaos Elemental, but not the subsequent ankheg spit. Skerin the Dragon Disciple misjudged the power of double-damage hobgoblins with bows. Madeleine the Berserker moved to a farm in upstate Amn where she and Xzar have plenty of room to run and play. Derrillee the Dragon Disciple was scared to death by Zordral. Nicodemus the Human Sorcerer was struck down by Seniyad's called lightning. Blind Faith the Dwarven Fighter/Cleric has vindicated the haters, alas, particularly the hater who was an ogre. Matilda "Not Daredevil" Murdock the Gnome Fighter Thief survived a precarious encounter with a basilisk and destroyed the bandits, only to be murdered by spiders in Cloakwood. Kangorolac the Dragon Disciple has fallen to the Wolf of Ulcaster. Jackie Daytona (Ironling) the Half-Orc Warhorn Shaman has fallen in honorable(?) single combat at the siege of Dragonspear Castle. Ramon Salazar (Ironling) the Gnome Fighter Cleric has fallen in combat with Ashatiel too! Joan d'Orc the Half-Orc Berserker was struck down by stray lightning on Ice Island. Windows XP the Lawful Neutral Mage has suffered a wolf-related hard crash outside the Nashkel Mines. Anders the Halfling Warlock got a bit overconfident in the Larswood and paid the pincushiony price. Gorok the Half-Orc Shadowdancer successfully infiltrated the bandit camp. Was less successful in exfiltration. Nothing There (Ironling) fulfilled its mission until it could no longer fulfil its mission. Moira Grimm and Mattea "DireDevil" Murdark (Ironlings) the Gnomish Evil Twins (Illusionist/Cleric and Fighter/Thief) managed not to fall victim to their new colleague, but did fall victim to an ill-placed trap. Cal (Ironling) the Elf Warlock did not have any remarkable adventures on his way to Dragonspear Castle before being eaten by spiders. Rogue AI Goddess the Elf Sorceress fell prey to the Cowled Wizard Rayic Gethras. Lyctor the Ninth the Fighter/Mage/Thief suffered a tragic death-by-ankheg. Grasped Victory Best Buy GamersClub the Sorcerer has defeated Sarevok with the power of invisibility and tactics, and made it to Amn! Honors: Ironling, Purist, Librarian, Honorable Trader, Iron Party, Battlemaster, Roleplayer, A God Among Men Ramon Salazar the Gnome Fighter/Cleric has braved the Cultists of Ulgoth's Beard, bypassed the Werewolves of Werewolf Island, and rescued victory from the jaws of an ill-timed chaos spell to defeat Sarevok! Honors: Ironling, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honorable Trader. Jackie Daytona the Half-Orc Warhorn Shaman has finally gotten around to defeating Sarevok after an ill-fated series of vacations. Honors: Ironling, Strategist, Double Damage, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honorable Trader, Battlemaster Mattea "DireDevil" Murdark the EVIL Gnome Fighter/Thief has killed Sarevok all on her lonesome, and is currently seeking level-cap-related medical care from David Warner, M.D. Honors: Ironling, Purist, Conan the Bhaalspawn, Honorable Trader, Iron Party, Battlemaster, Roleplayer, A Goddess Among Women. Dishonors: Don't Hurt Me! (Normal) Moira Grimm the Gnome Illusionist/Cleric has, after a narrow escape at Durlag's Tower, defeated her brother and avenged her ex. Honors: Ironling, Purist, Librarian, Honorable Trader, Iron Party, Victory for the Spiderqueen, Battlemaster. Dishonors: OP-ium Addict. Nothing There the RESOURCE_NOT_FOUND cunningly disguised as a Half-Orc Shadowdancer has murdered Sarevok and pretty much everyone else too. Honors: Ironling, Purist, Double Damage, Librarian, Melee Champion, Conan the Bhaalspawn, Honorable Trader, Iron Party, Battlemaster, Roleplayer, a God Among Men. Cal the Elf Warlock has overcome being framed for a crime he totally committed to defeat Sarevok and become the Hero of Baldur's Gate. Surely remarkable adventurers are in store for this lad... (Honors: Ironling, Strategist, Double Damage, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honorable Trader) Father Gascoigne the Shapeshifter has defeated Sarevok! (Honors: Ironling, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honorable Trader) Rogue AI Goddess the Elf Sorceress has defeated Sarevok with the power of books (and spells). Honors: Ironling, Purist, Iron Party, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Victory for the Spiderqueen, Honorable Trader, Roleplayer, Battlemaster Melicamp the Chicken Counter Melicamp Lived: 7 Melicamp Died: 10 Arabelle the Cow Counter Arabelle Lived: 6 Arabelle Died: FAQ Q: What exactly are the rules for an Ironman run? A: The rules of Ironman runs are simple. No savescumming or reloading games for any purpose other than resuming where you last left off, or in case of a gamebreaking bug or crash. If you are killed, your run is over. If you are unhappy with a dice roll or outcome of a fight and reload, your run is over. You may re-roll your stats and spend as much time as you'd like creating your character, but the moment you venture forth into the game proper, you are bound by the rules... Note that the whole thing runs on the honor system and is just for fun, so if your character dies and you want to keep playing your save file, feel free to, but please accept that for all intents and purposes, you are not Ironmanning anymore! Q: Can I post spoilers or discuss strategies in this thread? A: Absolutely. This is an Ironman thread, and it's assumed that everyone has played the series at least once. There are even people who have done a full Ironman run before! Discussion for approaching hard fights, surviving tough stretches of the game, or just talking about companions is welcomed. Q: How should I be posting or documenting my run? A: Many posters normally post screenshots of important events or fights to show progress, as well as write a few lines saying what they were able to do. Some may forego that and just say what they were able to accomplish, and others write up their runs like a short, simple Let's Play or present their run in a comical lens. Do whatever you'd like, but please don't be obnoxious about it. If you want to stream your run and link it here, feel free to let us know when you'll be going at it, and where you end up each session! Q: Can I use mods or play in a difficulty level other than Core Rules? A: Play your way, but please indicate what mods or difficulty you'll be using if not going for a vanilla core rules run. For fun, we have "honors" and "dishonors" so check those out if you want to get a particular accolade... or razzing! Q: Is this a competition? Is there any verification process? A: Like I said, this is purely for fun and works on the honor system. All we're playing for here is bragging rights and nerd cred, and some sweet, sweet honor badges that you can point to down the line and go, "Hell yeah, I Ironmanned one of the longest trilogies in CRPG history." If you really want to up the ante, like soloing on Insanity with a Shaman or something, that's up to you! Q: What do I get for finishing my run, or dying? A: You finished a run? Great! Look at the list of honors and dishonors below and list what "achievements" you were able to obtain in a well-deserved self-congratulatory post. You died? Boo! Say where and how you died (e.g. "Outside Candlekeep, to that goddamn wolf.") and your death will be memorialized in the Graveyard of Gorion's Wards. You can always try again with the same character or make a new one! Q: Do I have to start in Baldur's Gate 1 and end in Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal? A: No. You can start and end at any point you want. You'll be added to the Throne of Triumph if you succeed through at least one full game, and I'll indicate where you started and ended, as well as what (dis)honors you picked up on! Q: Can I do a solo run? Do I HAVE to do a solo run? Yes, you can, and no, you don't have to. People can and do play pretty possible party composition there is, and there've been some pretty memorable gimmick parties over the years (including a few attempts at a party full of wild mages). Q: Can I play through Baldur's Gate 3/Icewind Dale/Some Other Game Entirely instead? A: I mean, you can do whatever you want, but this thread is focused on the original Infinity Engine Baldur's Gate Trilogy-And-A-Bit. That being said, a run through Icewind Dale wouldn't be completely beyond the scope of things if you really felt like it, and I think someone played through the Baldur's Gate mod for one of the Neverwinter Nights games once. Q: How do I set up custom portraits? A: Thanks to biscuits and crazy for this copy-pasted answer. The measurements for player portraits are 38X60 pixels for the smaller portraits (8-bit color runs faster but it can be up to 24 bit color), and 110X170 pixels for the larger portraits. To use a custom portrait, place it in the Portraits directory (in the install directory for the game) and add an S to the end of the small portrait name and an L to the end of the large portrait - otherwise the two names must be identical. The names must be 1-7 letters long, maximum - so the filename with the S or L added to the end is no longer than 8 total characters. The portrait files must be in BMP format. For example: XXXXXXXS.bmp for small (38x60, 8-bit) XXXXXXXL.bmp for large (110x170, 24-bit) For the Enhanced Editions, the measurements for player portraits are 210x330 pixels. Portraits are automatically resized by the game, so you don't need to make small and large versions of the same portrait. (If downloading a portrait pack with multiple sizes of the same portrait, keep the largest one.) The portrait files must be in BMP format. The Portraits folder must be created in the game directory found in "My Documents." The file name cannot exceed 8 characters. If you're using a UI mod, it can get trickier, so look at your mod's instructions for details. Q: What are these "Melicamp the Chicken" and "Arabelle The Cow" counters? A: There's a sidequest in Baldur's Gate 1 with a chicken who is actually a polymorphed mage named Melicamp. The outcome of the quest has a 50-50 chance of turning him back into a human being or just killing him outright. For fun and as part of the tradition of whim and luck in an ironman world, we keep track of how often he lives or dies. Join in and let us know the fate of the man-chicken in your updates! There's also a cow called Arabelle who you come across being attacked by a group of xvarts. Someone had the idea to keep track of her survival rate as well one year. Other Information When you've made your character, include the name, class, and a screenshot of the character sheet upon creation (the Print Screen button will take a screenshot and deposit it in your Baldur's Gate folder). Irfanview is also an easy alternative. As the thread winds on we'll have a lot of images, so please use [timg] tags if you're posting large images. When posting an update for your character, please include his/her name and class in bold. For example, "Ashar the Assassin completed BG1". Also, if you post updates like "Krug the Barbarian has cleared the Nashkel Mines", I will update your status accordingly. The main Infinity Engine thread is over here... for now! If you want to check out mods, check out these sites. Gibberlings 3 Spellhold Studios Pocket Plane Group You can also look to the modding section of the Beamdog Forums and just generally ask around in the Infinity Engine thread here too, since there are folks there who use mods regularly. Below are the lists of honors and dishonors. Aim for them if you please, but feel free to ignore them if they aren't fun for you.   Ironling: Complete Baldur's Gate 1.Siege Breaker: Complete the Siege of Dragonspear expansion (requires Ironling).  Iron(wo)man: Complete Baldur's Gate 2 (requires Ironling, does not require Siege Breaker). Irongod: Complete Throne of Bhaal (requires Iron(wo)man). Strategist: Complete Baldur's Gate 1 with the Sword Coast Stratagems mod. Tactician: Complete Baldur's Gate 2 with either the Sword Coast Stratagems or the Tactics mod. Born Hero(ine): Do not reroll your stat total during character creation, take the first set given to you. Redistribution of stats is okay. If you choose not to reroll, say so and you'll get an "upgraded" honor! Purist: Do not use any mods that add/modify content (except Tutu, Ascension, SCS, or Tactics), do not create extra characters for your party, and do not modify existing NPCs. Using convenience mods like infinite stacks is okay. Double Damage: Complete the game on Insane difficulty.Lord of Murder: Complete the game on Legacy of Bhaal difficulty.  Overcoming Adversity: Complete the game as a Wizard Slayer, Shapeshifter, Beastmaster, or non-Blade Bard (requires Purist). Librarian: Find every stat tome in Baldur's Gate 1. Trap Dodger: Complete Durlag's Tower. Melee Champion: Complete Baldur's Gate 1 without member of your party ever using any missile weapons. Conan the Bhaalspawn: Complete the game without ever having an arcane or divine spellcaster in the party. Bhaalspawn powers and innate skills are okay. Honorable Trader: Do not steal any wares from merchants. Iron Party: Do not resurrect any dead party members (stone to flesh and freedom allowed) OR never have a party member fall in battle. Exception: Getting killed and revived by Shoal the Nereid does not invalidate this honor.Victory for the Spiderqueen: Kill Drizzt  Battlemaster: Kill Sarevok in Baldur's Gate 1 without summoning any creatures or laying any traps.Big Game Hunter: Kill the Green Dragon and both Liches in Siege of Dragonspear.  Dragon Slayer: Kill Firkraag, the Shadow Dragon, the Black Dragon at Suldanessellar, the Silver Dragon in the Undertark, and the Dragon in the underworld. Helm's Champion: Kill Saladrex and Demogorgon in Watcher's Keep.The End of Suffering: Destroy the leaders of the Twisted Rune.  Gaxkang's a Wuss: Kill Kangaxx in his demi-lich form. Legendary Arms: Acquire the Equalizer, Crom Faeyr, The Wave, The Silver Sword, and the Short Bow of Gesen. Swiss Valor Award: Complete the game with only neutral aligned characters in the party (lawful, true, or chaotic, must have at least 4 characters, requires Purist). Roleplayer: Do not have a good aligned character and an evil aligned character in the party at the same time (includes the PC's alignment, requires Purist). Leader of the Underdogs: Complete Baldur's Gate 2 or Throne of Bhaal with a full party of six without using Aerie, Keldorn, Edwin, or Haer'Dalis (requires Purist). A God Among Men: Complete the game solo. Do not remove or modify the level cap (requires Purist).  OP-ium Addict: Play as a Kensai/Mage, Kensai/Thief, Berserker/Cleric, Berserker/Mage, or Cleric/Mage. Scroll of Wuss: Use a scroll of Protection from Undead or Magic when fighting a lich, demi-lich or vampire. Don't Hurt Me!: Play the game on a difficulty lower than Core Rules.Note 1: Any honors that restrict choice of party members in any way (class, alignment, or anything else) do not apply inside Irenicus' Dungeon in Baldur's Gate 2. You may use anyone you want while inside it, but will have to boot the appropriate people once you reach Waukeen's Promenade. Note 2: Any honors/dishonors which do not apply to a specific game in the series can apply to any. For example, Double Damage can apply to any game in the series, and you can earn it up to four times if you go all the way from BG1 through BG2:ToB. Thanks to Gutrot for all the wonderful badges. (This has been shamelessly copied from biscuits and crazy's previous thread, which was shamelessly copied from Suspicious's previous thread, and I suspect it goes on like that for a while) docbeard fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Mar 4, 2024 |
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Dec 16, 2023 18:23
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Ground floor, huh? Well, I'll open the thread with a bog-standard OP class, the Cavalier. Once this one dies I'll do something goofier. Also, I am playing with because I don't want to bother with not learning scrolls or getting 3 HP per level   Anyway! Clicked reroll once, figured RNG was definitely loving with me, so here we go. Postmodernist Beatings the Cavalier departs Candlekeep.  Flawless victory.  And an ambush between the first two road areas? Thanks game. At least it wasn't bandits.  Rappaport 1, Tarnesh 0.  Silke did manage to fry Jaheira, at least it was only 100 euro for a rez.  And of course Xan walks into a kobold who instantly merks him  , missing out on the XP from Mulahey and the random ankheg we found top-side. But hey, 2nd ankheg plate if we murder Bassilus! And that's the first leg of the race, next up clearing Cloud Peak mountains and hopefully people will actually get XP from it.
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Dec 18, 2023 19:37
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After a bit longer playing the modding game than I'd intended, I'm now ready to play the actual game. This is Marisol, an Air Genasi Druid/Air Elementalist.  ...wait, what?!? I'm playing, as one might have gathered from my first sentence or, you know, knowing me, with a lot of mods, including one new one by the developer of SCS, called Talents of Faerun, which adds a lot of cool options. It's very much in beta and it's very much not been tested alongside a bunch of other mods, so this will be an adventure in every sense of the word (and already has been). A few of the cooler things it implements are subraces (including planetouched people), elemental (and other) specialist mages as well as the usual sort, and extra multiclass options for druids, including druid/mages.  So Marisol is an Air Genasi which gives her some fun stat bonuses and penalties, and a spell-like ability oh yeah and she doesn't need to breathe.  Elementalist wizards are pretty straightforward, they get bonus spells like any other specialist wizard, except instead of blocking out two or three schools of magic (ToF is a bit more brutal with specialist opposition schools than vanilla) Marisol loses access to spells that are earth-based or earth-themed. It's a real sacrifice (no stoneskin lmao, though hopefully her druid half will mitigate that some), but we'll see if it's worth it. I'm also playing with SCS with most of the tactical options enabled (with one notable exception) and at Insane difficulty. I also have a handful of NPC mods and a bunch of quest mods (one of which just got a major update and several that I've never used before. ADVENTURE!)  Meet Breagar, one of our guest NPCs. He's a bit cross because one of the other kids has run off to fetch his Book of Smithing and hasn't come back yet. (Breagar being a bit cross is going to be a recurring theme.) Anyway, off we go doing the usual Candlekeep intro stuff.  Check out Marisol's amazing bonus lightning damage. Hurray.  Here's Finch, an NPC cleric who we can recruit later but won't, but for now we can just chat with her about prophecies and books. She likes books. She really likes books. A lot.  After we recover Breagar's book for him he buys us a drink and wishes us well. We'll meet him again later. Skipping ahead a bit to when we get kicked out and watch dear old dad get got, and Imoen turns up.  I've decided to give Imoen the Sharpshooter kit from Song and Silence, which basically trades some extra bow proficiency and a poison weapon skill in for being able to backstab. The SCS customize NPC ability seems to work decently well these days, so I haven't installed the NPC customization mod I usually use in its place. You can't quite tell from this screenshot, but she's ALSO an Air Genasi for some reason. Eh, it's fine. IT'S FINE.  Thanks to the BG1 NPC project, we can go back and ask that Gorion get a proper burial. No mechanics here, but it's a sweet moment. Rather than take the usual route straight to the Friendly Arm Inn, we risk a detour down to High Hedge right away, because I want to do a bit of shopping. We meet someone on the way inside.  She's in a bit of a temper but she has good reason; her husband has come down with a bad case of werewolf, and we agree to try to find a cure. We pick up a sleep scroll but I'd forgotten that the restricted spells for my Air Elementalist kit included Protection from Petrification, so my plans to do a bit of early basilisk hunting hit a bit of a snag.  We get over this disappointment by raiding Thalantyr's bedroom. This is made possible by one of the quest mods (one I HAVE played before) called Shades of the Sword Coast.  In addition to a bit of minor treasure (seriously the most exciting thing here is an explosive potion) we meet a talking bookshelf, who would like us to keep an eye out for a particular book. After this, um, amazing adventure, we head on over to Beregost.  Which now has guards! I'm sure it's fine.
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Dec 19, 2023 04:03
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So uh, I've only beaten the trilogy once, a couple years ago. But I wanted to try this anyway and I know a lot about Baldur's Gate from reading internet posts for 20+ years, and restarting BG1 and 2 a bajillion times back in the day. And uh, it looks like I did something wrong because all my screenshots so far were black. I did a mod install for this, mostly some basic tweaks like arrow stacking, plus the Artisan's Kitpack, Bardic Wonders, and a few of the same mod author's NPCs. Here's a summary for Derrillee, Dragon Disciple. She picked Sleep and Shield as a starting combo of sorcerer spells. Also, CON 18 because of a little tweak in one of the mods that makes CON above 16 do something for any character. We met Eldoth on the way to the Friendly Arm (mod tweak to move the late-game NPCs), and as a level 3 bard he seemed like a strong dude to drag along, plus Gorion's old buddies and the hidden wizard ring. We picked up Neera in Beregost, then tried to help Garrick. Silke's lightning bolt promptly killed Khalid, Jaheira, and Eldoth, and completely chunked Neera. Seeking somewhere to rest before we went resurrecting, the survivors ran into the dwarf assassin Karlat in Red Sheaf, who's too high level for Sleep and killed my remaining party of Garrick and Imoen. Then I grabbed some stuff from my friends' corpses and ran east to the temple to hide. There I resurrected Khalid and Jaheira (level 3 Eldoth was too expensive), and recruited Sirene, mod Paladin who comes with a +1 sword to help. We went back and killed Karlat by shooting him and having the level 2 paladin tank (Jaheira still died again). Also here's Derillee's character sheet so far, since I just figured out I can at least screenshot if I window the game.  I always played this game in the past by reloading when someone died to avoid schlepping their items, so this should be interesting.
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Dec 19, 2023 10:42
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I have no screenshots, but Angryface the Inquisitor doesn't deserve screenshots after his ignoble end. I got a great roll (94, with an 18/96 strength), and did the usual starting stuff at Candlekeep, FAA, and then moved down to Beregost. I figured I'd pick up Neera real quick and didn't think there would be too much difficulty there. Of course, I misclicked and Neera's color spray hit Angryface which knocked him unconscious and then he was stabbed to death by the remaining mooks. RIP Angryface, killed by the red wizard's thugs in Beregost.
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Dec 19, 2023 19:09
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Postmodernist Beatings the Cavalier has cleared out the (western) Cloud Peak mountains, rescued Dynaheir, murdered a village of xvarts, the usual. And no one died once! I usually play with Xan in melee range because he has a light saber, but this seems risky in iron man mode  But he's a fighter, not a lover, look at 'im  Although I did not let him wade into packs of gnolls or xvarts, I know you're feeling down buddy but geez!Speaking of Xan's fragility, we recruited Dynaheir at level 4. While Xan was still level 2.  Oh well, he was going to be using the Ring of Wizardry anyway for shotgunning Sleep, and some random monster dropped a Web scroll so Dynaheir is looking useful already.Since we kept running into ambushes, winter wolves and getting sleep interrupted, and selling all the magical junk we found in the southern wildernesses, the party had about 15 000 GP after we got back to Nashkel  So I was wrong, we'll get a 2nd ankheg plate before trying to merk Bassilus. And Xan hit level 3 too, so Tranzig's Glitterdust went to good use. I guess we'll go clear out some more of the western wilderness now, and try not to get killed by Bassilus. Not sure how I feel about the sirines jfenserty posted:And uh, it looks like I did something wrong because all my screenshots so far were black. OK, 2 potential tips. If you're running BG EE and hit "Print Screen", it makes a .bmp file in a folder (I'm assuming Windows) in your "Documents" called "Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition\ScrnShot" or something like that, in numbered order. Alternatively, if you're using Steam, you can hit your Steam screencap button, default is F12, and they'll go into your Steam screenshot thingy you can access from Steam's interface.
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Dec 19, 2023 20:26
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Like Docbeard, I'm pretty into modded BG these days. So naturally, I installed the beta "Talents of Faerun" mod which adds a lot of classes and makes a bunch of other changes like adding 3e+ style feats and new spells and races. I opted to roll a Cleric with this new mod. Rikan, Ice Priest of Auril. One of the changes that ToF brings is giving a wider range of deities to choose from for Clerics. Each deity gives a variety of special spells and abilities. ToF also implements a new system for Cleric spells similar to how it works in traditional D&D which is that each deity/Cleric kit has spheres of influence. Spheres are basically ways in which spells get organized. So a Cleric with the "Evil" sphere might have access to a lot of harmful magic, for example. Because Clerics can only cast spells from the Spheres their god/goddess grants access to, they get somewhat more limited compared to base BG. For example, as a Cleric of Auril I don't seem to have access to command. But I do have access to other special spells. As you can see from my screenshot I chose Auril for my deity. Auril (as those who know the Forgotten Realms/IWD etc may realize) is a cold bitch of a goddess, so naturally most of the bonus spells I get access to with this kit focus on cold.  A solid 91 stat roll  I chose Water Genasi for my race. That's a new race added by the mod. It's a Planetouched race which essentially means that it's a human who has some extra planar origins in their family tree. In this case, one of Rikan (my pcs) ancestors apparently had sex with a water elemental or some type of water spirit. I don't want to know how that works, but I'm sure someone somewhere has imagined it in the dark corners of the internet. Water Genasi get a pretty powerful racial bonus of 15% resistance to slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage. Frankly that's a pretty OP ability, however I am playing on insane with insane damage + SCS soo...well, I'm still gonna get hit hard if I get hit.   One of the new spells introduced by this mod is shown here. This spell grants +4 strength to me temporarily which was greatly handy in enabling me to bash the chest open upstairs in the Candlekeep Inn. The gem inside sells for 1k gold...plenty enough to fund some early gear.   Next I picked up Xzar and Monty and made my way to High Hedge to buy the protection from petrification scrolls. That being done, I made my way to the Basilisk zone.  The plan? To use Korax and Xzar's protection from petrification scroll to farm some early xp before recruiting my party.  While killing the fat petrifying lizards I quickly gained some levels. One of the new concepts introduced with this mod is feats. If you've played Baldurs Gate 3 or any DND version past 2e you'll know how these work. They're special talents that a character can pick which grant bonuses to the character. These are gained at a rate of every three levels I believe. Here's an example of some of them.   Mutamin is always the scariest part of farming Basilisks. SCS gives him some random spells so sometimes he'll come equipped with something nasty that - if you're not careful - could easily kill your PC. I try to wait almost out of range while Korax goes to work on him. Once Korax lands a paralyze on Mutamin, it's all over. Korax can usually eventually do this, though sometimes Mutamin will kill him before he can. This time, Korax won.  After doing that, I killed a few spiders in Beregost and got the Marl xp.  Tarnesh fell to me plus my Skeleton Warrior. He actually interrupted almost every spell I cast which was annoying, but I have enough xp/levels that he wasn't able to plow through my hp even with the insane damage bonus. My skeleton eventually got him. And I'm now close to 32k xp, after which I'll recruit my party. ToF is in beta and a little buggy so far so I'm not sure how far I'll end up getting with this run. I've been able to figure out workarounds for some of the bugs I've encountered but I feel like it's only a matter of time before I encounter a showstopper. All the new stuff is cool as hell though even if this mod is a bit of a buggy mess being still in beta. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Dec 19, 2023 |
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Dec 19, 2023 21:12
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Rappaport posted:
oh yeah that works. They're all in the Documents folder! Anyway here's the one I got from the Silke encounter:  I was careful to reposition Derrilee in case of aoe spells but was pretty reckless with everyone else.
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Dec 19, 2023 21:17
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The problem with using F12 for screenshots is that it's also a hotkey for changing party formation.
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Dec 19, 2023 21:41
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Here is the short tale of Amazon Prime elven sorcerer.  Used auto roller for a while.     Did some early game quests. Resucing Melicamp was dicey.  He lived.   The classic cloudkill off screen.   Killed Neera for her gem bag. At this point I was feeling really good and thinking I was ready to maybe actually beat the game over the next hour or so. Once I got a wand of fire things start to really cook.    The world was my oyster and I had 50 charge wand of fire and thought I would kill the basilisks at Durlags then go do the rest of the game. I also thought okay I know there is a trap in front of that stairwell so I will grab a couple potions to make me immune to the trap and then buff myself with the remaining protection from petrification scroll and go on with my life. Ooops you idiot the potion makes you immune to that protection from petrification spell you are dead.
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Dec 20, 2023 03:11
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So I've decided I can't deal with fighting the bugs and/or weird interactions in the drat Talents of Faerun mod every three seconds, so alas poor Marisol, uh, fell into a rift or something. I'll be back with a new character soon (and will update the OP here in a bit). Glad to see other people are having fun at least!
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Dec 20, 2023 03:39
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Best Buy Gamersclub elven sorcerer has cleared the cloakwood and is heading for Baldur's Gate.  Forgot to take screenshot at the end of creation. I go and do all the easy early game things I can gain a few levels.  The run nearly ends early when I get a bad random encounter and barely make it out alive.  Ol reliable of tossing a cloudkill at these assassins off screen.  Melicamp died.  Went and cleaned up the garden.  This time I made sure my potion to protect against the trap had worn off before I cast protection from petrification and did not repeat my last mistake. Grab the wisdom tome while I'm here.  Ah yes level 7 the traditional level where you go to Friendly Arm Inn for the first time.  Went and grabbed the charisma tome.   Enemy spell casters just cannot deal with improved invis creatures at all and both of these go quickly.  I bought some potions just for this trap to protect me from electricity.  Tossed fireballs from offscreen until he died. Currently level 8 almost to level 9 and going to stop there for the night.
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Dec 20, 2023 08:15
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Dualing a min roll berserker into druid while picking the most smartass dialogue options. And throwing darts.
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Dec 21, 2023 01:45
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Best Buy GamersClub elven sorcerer has defeated Sarevok and made it to Amn. Went to the city and set about doing the poison quest line. He just kind of stood there and let me kill him because of improved invis. Went and did a bunch of side quests to get to the maximum XP and get a bit of money for the gear I needed for the final push to the end. Did it all in one long session while extremely tired because I wanted my carryover XP.  Wand of Fire and Improved Invis trivialize another fight.  Good to be back.    I prepare some specific buffs and invis past all the fights. Needed fire resistance, electricity resistance, shield, and free action to be basically immune to everything down here. I only had 90% fire resistance, so I take a little bit of damage but only a few points. I stopped and killed the basilisks for some free xp.  Getting this last book was a little dicey. I forgot that the first trap in the cave is a stun, and the second trap is a charm. I had used one of the potions of clarity, which doesn't protect against stun, so I was stunned (but invis) after the first trap which is fine. The problem is I then yolo'd over the second trap which is a dire charm without checking to see if my potion of clarity was still active. It thankfully was active, but it was reckless. Having your only party member charmed is a game over.  For the Ducal palace I went with a Wand of Monster Summoning, hasting them, casting a Chaos from a scroll on the Dopplegangers and a little bit of luck. The lady duke who's name escapes me nearly died but didn't, but the guy (belt?) barely took damage.  Basically the same setup as underneath Candlekeep. Make yourself immune to everything, invis and run past all the enemies.  The stolen from speedrunners technique of Protection From Magic scroll, pull Sarevok, take an invis potion and let the traps kill him. Honors: Ironling, Purist, Librarian, Honorable Trader, Iron Party, Battlemaster, Roleplayer, A God Among Men Dishonors: None
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Dec 21, 2023 02:22
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Congrats to our first victory! I'm waiting out what I hope to god is my final installation and hope to get back to playing soon
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Dec 21, 2023 02:30
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Rikan the Ice Priest of Auril has finished gathering his party and is adventuring across the sword coast. I first decided to go find Baeloth to add some arcane might to the party. On the way, I got ambushed by Black Talon elites. They...hit hard on insane. But we survived. Vicky's hold person helped.  Here's ole Baeloth  And welcome Edwin. Edwin we turned into a Force Mage. What is a Force Mage? Below is what they do. You can't see the disadvantages there but they're rather lengthy. Essentially they're unable to cast most any elemental spells but in exchange for that they get an additional spell per level and they do more magic damage than a normal mage might.  Here's Edwin using one of the IWD spells that the mod adds. Lance of Disruption. 5d4 +1 magic damage per level (max 20) and it shoots off a lance that hits everything in its path. Probably strictly worse than Skull Trap or Fireball but it casts relatively fast and it's got a cool graphic.  The fastest dart thrower in the west popped a potion of speed and hosed me up a little bit. SCS gives npcs potions sometimes and they aren't afraid to use them.  We killed Dynaheir, thus completing Edwin's quest.  One of Auril's spheres apparently gives me access to Call Lightning. It does pretty devastating amounts of damage, as anyone playing vanilla or modded bg can attest to.  I took on Bassilus next. This is the closest I came to dying so far. SCS works with Talents of Faerun and will even use its components. That means that Bassilus had their new Priest of Cyric cleric kit assigned to him. One of the spells that Clerics of Cyric have access to is Chaos. Bassilus had it and used it on me. Oh dear. I did not know that was coming. Luckily the effect only hit my pc. Unluckily Bassilus came pre buffed with Circle of Bones. Circle of Bones is basically a lower level version of Blade Barrier. It does 1d6 crushing and 1d6 slashing per round to anyone in the Priest's melee range. Naturally, my confused PC wandered near Bassilus and took a hefty amount of damage from Circle of Bones. However, despite that, I was able to kill Bassilus before he was able to get me. Vicky landing a silence on him helped. It seems that I'd better have Vicky and my PC memorize the new spell "Exaltation" which can remove fear/confused states of mind. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Dec 21, 2023 |
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Dec 21, 2023 04:58
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Best Buy GamersClub elven sorcerer is doing very well for herself in Amn.  The state of her at the start of BG2. I remembered my pants which I usually forget.  I forgot to loot one of the keys for the Monster Summoning wand and I couldn't remember where it was so we just walked around it. After finishing just about everything else I invised Best Buy and just walked to the end of the dungeon bypassing the final fight.  We kick out some party members for now.  Then we grab the gloves of pickpocketing and a bunch of master thievery potions and go about stealing from the merchant. Going to be honest I used to do this part manually, but I have some carpal tunnel now and cannot put my arm through that much repeitive motion anymore so I just opened the console and gave myself a few million gold after I did about 20 steals manually.  I figure it's just safer to buy the license.   At this point I'm just doing the easiests quests I can to try to reach 1.25 million XP. Circus, Skinner murders I catch him in the act and then don't actually follow him downstairs to the fight and instead just go turn it in. You can go do the fight later and it doesn't change anything. This avoids all combat in this quest and makes it a nice solid chunk of easy XP. Copper Coronet I solved with liberal use of wands cast from offscreen.  Noticed I don't have screenshots for the rest of the thieves guild quest line but I always found it one of the easier quests. The fight against the coweled wizard can be made trivial with invis, cloud kill wand and spell immunity. He will just stand in the cloud kill helpless and do nothing else. The fight against Maever goes about the same way just be invis and toss fireballs or cloud kills or skull traps from off screen and run round faster than they can catch you. Sprinkle in some scorchers.  Cleaning up some sewers stuff.   Skeleton summons, mislead, scorchers fireballs and so on make these pretty easy. I also realize I need a different way to take screenshots.    Still trying to grind out every last bit of easy XP I can get. I often forget about this random house with enemies in it but they are worth around 35k. Looking up the Gamebanshee guide to remind me of things. I decided to install EEEX during the middle of this run to make my life easier. Being able to see what buffs someone has instead of trying to read through the combat log to keep track of it is too nice an upgrade and the spell menu mod is also nicer.   Doing the druid grove at this point of the game solo is also kind of risky. The Rakasha can be extremely hard for me to take down solo, relying on multiple casts of mislead and all my casts of minute meteors and then barely doing it. I didn't bother trying to touch the others one with them and just looted the head and left.   Around this time I was trying to think of what super easy XP was there to get when I remembered hey idiot go to Umar Hills just talking and picking up a book is around 50-70k XP. This got me over 1.25 million and it was time to recruit a party. First was getting some scroll scribing done though. Grabbed Edwin and made him learn everything he could, then Jan, then Aerie, I didn't bother trying to track down Nalia or Neera. I didn't erase anything to learn it multiple times, but I did feed them every scroll I could. By the time Aerie was done I had leveled up again.   After all that I grabbed my party for real and moved to secure Korgan, Edwin and Jaheria.  With that wrapped up (Jaheria's problems will come back later of course) I decided to go move to act 3 entirely for the XP and Amulet of Power. I was also worried this might possibly be the end of my run. When I did the thieves guild quest a long time ago I didn't finish off any of the people on the upper floors and just did the bottom floor and left. Well next time I came here they were all standing in the street and hostile. I was invis so they ignored me. However once I came here for Jaheria they all attacked me and it seems a bunch of random NPC's were also hostile including just normal civilians. It didn't seem to come to anything thankfully and the thieves up by the main building weren't hostile and everyone inside was normal as well.   Wish you could ask Nalia about the torture stuff in the basement.  Anomen nearly died, but the Mordekainen's swords got aggro and tanked it well allowing him to spend the rest of the fight chugging health potions. The random civilian lady I didn't notice until it was too late did not get harmed at all. Not sure what I'm going to do next.
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Dec 21, 2023 13:40
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Postmodernist Beatings the Cavalier part 3: Right-o. Today's quest was the west coast, and we started out with Bassilus's / Melicamp's map. One of the ghast packs (!) dropped a scroll of Agannazar's for Dynaheir, how polite. They also Held Postmodernist Beatings twice, so that was exciting.  Bassilus went down easy enough.  Another exciting time, a pack of ghasts, again, Holds my character, and also a pack of spiders aggroes nearby. Xan is out of Sleeps. Swell. But Xan got Glitterdust last time, and apparently blind spiders weren't that dangerous.  Melicamp died   Arabelle lived  Random scroll loot gave Xan a Fear, nice. Going around the coast was dangerous though, we kept getting ambushed, including 2 (!) bow bandit gangs. Neither of our mages died though. I feel so naked without Stoneskin    A touch un-ladylike, but we merked Shoal for some sweet XP. And the Gift of Peace from Droth! The sirines gave me another scare, I did not know/remember that they feebleminded! But the wiki told me it wasn't the permanent kind (nor was there a game over screen when my paladin lost all motor control), so I just waited it out instead of rage-quitting. And my hubris of sending my paladin in alone with a couple of archers hanging in the back wasn't done; for some reason one of the sirines wandered over to a tasloi herd, but no harm done in the end.  We finished the round with the Brage quest, and since I wanted Batalista's Passport to go with my snazzy new helm, saved Samuel too. Here's my question for game designers circa 1998: Why does the Brage quest teleport me to Nashkel, which is next door to the archeology map, but the Samuel quest makes me walk 2 days to the Friendly Arm Inn, meeting yet another freaking bandit ambush? Also I remembered Imoen was lugging this junk around, so the Beregost gnome (?) gave me some piddly XP too. Party's now level five-ish, guess I might as well do the bandit camp next time. Or, there's the eastern wildernesses left.
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Dec 21, 2023 21:12
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So a few rearrangements and reinstalls later, I think I've returned to a stable(ish) mod configuration just in time for the long holiday weekend! Which means it's time to meet... Silas, Half-Orc Cleric/Thief using the Firewalker of Kossuth cleric kit from Divine Remix. Just because I've set Talents of Faerun for the moment certainly doesn't mean I can't indulge in some unbalanced modding fun! Like most cleric kits, this one's benefits are pretty straightforward. Some free fire resistance, and a 1/day Sunfire. Which is very nice at low levels, to be sure, though since I'm no longer using Spell Revisions I no longer get the party-friendly version of Sunfire so I need to be a bit careful, which is as it should be.  As before we run into our future best bud Breagar indulging in some casual Dwarven swearing. He gives us a small quest to recover a book for him, which nets us a whopping ten gold and a beer. (We did it for the beer)  We also give Firepants the Noober treatment. It pays off. (It was an embarrassingly long time before I found out this was possible. I also have to turn the volume down when I do this because my roommate once threatened me with death because SO HARD TO FIND GOOD HELP NOWADAYS was boring its way into her soul.)  Some might suggest that a virtuous soul would actually wait for the assassin to threaten me in any way before striking, but mine is not a god of virtue, but of vengeance, chaos, and hitting people with sticks.  This dude has Breagar's book.  This is Recorder, a Lorekeeper bard. We could recruit her later. We won't in this playthrough probably, but I like her a lot so I wouldn't be surprised if she found her way into a future one. For now, we can go back to the inn and rouse her knightly companion, which nets us her heartfelt thanks and a lore potion. We did it for the heartfelt thanks.  Don't mind me, just using a divine miracle to avoid the consequences of stealing a healing potion from a locked cabinet. Moving ahead.   I'm using NPCs Enhanced for Everyone rather than SCS's customization component because I find it to be a bit more functional (and honestly a bit more reliable). I've just used it to assign the Arcane Trickster kit to Imoen. This is a multiclass mage/thief kit from Artisan's Kitpack, and it gives her some benefits to casting from stealth and an ability to steal spells (sort of) from enemy casters in exchange for decreasing her sneak attack power and thief skill point allotment. Very much a worthwhile tradeoff. We take a detour to High Hedge and while we're in the neighborhood, we head south to see a man about a chicken.  Or something like that.  Sadly things do not end well for poor Melicamp.  This is definitely not the worst random encounter we could have gotten on our way to Basilisk Hell.  You know, after fighting a bunch of basilisks and Mutamin without any real problems (nailing Mutamin with Hold Person before he could even notice us ftw), this is just embarrassing. Anyway, back to Beregost, post powerleveling.  This is an early hook to the Gorgon's Eye mod, which adds a thieves guild to Beregost. I've played an earlier version of this mod but it's just had an update with a lot of new content.  This is Emily, an arcane archer we could recruit. Not today, Emily.  This is Tonder, a werewolf we can try to cure but for now we'll just run.  This is a component of the cure, or at least one of the possible cure options.  And this is Illasera who, before becoming a speed bump at the start of Throne of Bhaal, is the protagonist of Black Hearts, a quest mod I've never tried before. For now she just gives us the brush-off, but suggests that we come back after we've made a bit more of a name for ourselves (i.e. after we've cleared out the Nashkel Mines).  This guy sees interdimensional beetles. We can indulge him a bit if we want (and we will).  This is the Captain of the Beregost City Watch, who's part of the new Gorgons Eye content. I gather from reading that we'll eventually have to pick sides, but for now she's just someone to talk to.  Breagar's in Taerom's smithy, and he's in a good humor about the Iron Crisis. This is his initial hook for joining the party, he wants to find some decent iron for a special project and figures that Nashkel's the place to look.  I end up fighting Silke a bit sooner than I'd intended thanks to a pickpocket check going south, but a well-timed Horror spell completely neutralizes her and I just miss out on getting the potion(s) of defense from Feldepost's guys.  This quest (like the beetle guy's) comes from Shades of the Sword Coast, which I HAVE played before and which I really enjoy. He'd like us to find an amber flower for use in a disease cure.  And here's a new assassin, added by something called Epic Enhanced Encounters or some poo poo like that. Another one that's generally new to me (though I think I've played part of an older version in the past).  We treat Tarnesh as he deserves.  This is who we came here to meet, right?  Eldoth's just recruited us to help abduct Skie Silvershield a lot earlier than we normally could, courtesy of a mod fittingly called The Vanishing of Skie Silvershield. I haven't yet decided if I can be bothered since I have no intention of having her in the party, though there's some decent treasure in it for us so we may as well. But that's for next time.
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Dec 22, 2023 06:51
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Best Buy Gamersclub is still questing in Amn. I forget exactly when I did this, but I guess I forgot to take any screenshots so I won't know now. But at some point I went and did the Planar Prison to rescue Haer'dalis. This did not go without problems because I easily beat all the enemies and then got to the final room and Raelis was no where to be found leaving me trapped inside the prison. Only Haer'dalis had spawned in. I spawned Raelis with the console and the quest proceeded as normal from there. No idea what happened with her and the other theater members because none of them got killed or controlled or anything like that in the fight before they get kidnapped.  I dropped off Korgan for a bit and went and recruited Valgyr, had him open the door to the Sphere and then ditched him. I didn't want him in my party, but I didn't want to perma kill him just in case either. Nothing too exciting in the Sphere so far.  I used mass invis on the party and the coweled wizard just kind of stood there doing nothing all fight was pretty anti climatic. The hardest part of the quest was in the final chamber with multiple clay and adamantine golems.  After that Jans quest triggered and we decided it was time to check out the rich treasure in the Five Flagons while we were there. I was rewarde with a Spell Trap. I had gotten Project Image from another rich treasure earlier in the game I forget where, so I'm doing nicely so far with that.  I usually rememeber all these puzzles, but also decided to just look up the answers eventually and save myself the hassle.  I laid traps with Jan before starting the fight and then sent a couple of skeleton warriors to draw off the Dispel magic and then sent in the melee. After that I hit the dragon with 3x lower resistance and then just chain casted skull traps until they died. I had put protection from magical energy on the whole party so was able to be pretty free with it. In the end it was the poison dot from Jan that got the killing blow.  Here is a fight I reget. My reputation was about to hit 17 and I wanted to lower it a bit. I said okay I will go kill this lady and then buy up my rep a little bit up to 12 so I can get the good outcome from Anomens quest. Killing this lady didn't drop my rep. It did aggro the nearby fence. Thankfully I had already bought out his entire inventory of anything good earlier in the game. He didn't drop my reputation either. Then I killed a peasant and that did. Sorry to everyone I murdered. Not sure what I am going to do next.
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Dec 22, 2023 18:44
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Well, I think I'm giving up on my current run. I didn't die yet but sadly I'm encountering too many annoying bugs to continue with it. ToF is a very cool mod but I think I'm gonna have to give him a while to get it stable before I try it again. So sadly, you can add Rikan the Ice Priest to the list of dead. He'll be back...some day. Time to clean up my installs and get a new run going. What to roll what to roll...
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Dec 22, 2023 21:31
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After wading through the funky business of modding for the first time ever, I installed the Tweaks Anthology with the only update being to move NPCs and send them to taverns in BG1. This is because for as much as possible I want to aim for a shorty party - We accept dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and goblins, although this rule might convenient disappear during SoD to give myself a fighting chance. We are playing on core rules. I do an annual playthrough of BG1 & 2 and their associated extra bits and I went with Shao Kahn, who was a chaotic evil human barbarian. Please welcome Ramon Salazar,  After escaping Candlekeep Ramon immediately robbed Imoen of everything she had and she decides to stay here on the road. Maybe she'll be eaten be a wolf. Exciting!  Sorry, Xzar, you are approximately too tall to join this party. Monty can come along, though. I like the cut of his jib.  In much the same manner as Imoen, I rob Khalid and Jaheira blind of their goodies (including some splint mail. Fun fact - the flail I bought at the start of the game broke on the first rat I flung it at, which meant I couldn't afford to buy splint mail at the outset. ) I forgot to grab a screenie for it but I picked up Kagain and Quayle on the road. The shorties are amassing!  Ending the night at the end of the Melicamp quest. He did not make it, but we have our full team of shorties - Salazar, Kagain, Montaron, Quayle, Tiax, and Alora.
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Dec 22, 2023 21:52
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Silas the Firewalker of Kossuth/Thief has made his very roundabout way to Nashkel. This is going to be mostly a mod content update, focusing predominantly of The Vanishing of Skie Silvershield and the first bit of the Gorgon's Eye. But before we get to that, I forgot to mention last time that I (a) recruited Neera and (b) changed her from a Wild Mage to a Chaos Sorcerer (from the mod of the same name), which is essentially a wild magic sorcerer. I haven't given Eldoth a kit since he won't be here long enough for that to matter. (Oh, and Kagain's here too I guess.)  Bentley is not super thrilled to see Eldoth here at the Inn. While he's in the party, we only get peasant lodgings and no gear to speak of for sale. (He'll talk normally to us if we send Eldoth way across the room though.)  Bentley does have some extra work for us (courtesy of Shades of the Sword Coast). Apparently some ne'er-do-wells have invaded the Inn's basement and he'd like us to sort them out. We'll do so (eventually). But for now we head upstairs to retrieve a figurine that's the key to Eldoth's plan to infiltrate the Silvershield estate.  We find the figurine easily enough, and are able to talk our way past its extremely drunken owner without a hitch. Step 2 will take us to Beregost to meet up with an old acquaintance of Eldoth's.  On our way out we're recruited for still another Shades quest, this one involving several magical circles throughout the Sword Coast.  This fellow by the name of Jiggy Moose agrees to smuggle the figurine (which has been inscribed with a magical symbol) into the estate. We're left to cool our heels for a couple of days til the deed is done.  We spend some of the intervening time over at High Hedge, getting a potion that has a chance of curing the Beregost werewolf. Basically a coin flip as to whether it will work or not.  We bum around for a bit until Eldoth announces that it's time to go ahead.  His associate, Urnn Indigospit (god, the names in this mod) teleports Eldoth and Silas into the estate, where we pick up Skie. This doesn't really let us sequence-break because we can't leave the building, or even the floor we're on. Though we can get a bit of decent loot for our trouble.  Once we're done, we're teleported back to the Friendly Arms Inn and we bid Eldoth and Skie a fond farewell. Kagain also parts ways with us and we recruit Khalid and Jaheira. I give the Totemic Druid kit to Jaheira, and Khalid becomes an Eldritch Knight, a multiclass kit from Artisan's Kitpack. In exchange for a slower spell progression he gets some fun benefits:   This is definitely a pretty major powerup for Khalid, but really, who deserves it more than him?  Back in Beregost, we agree to go to the temple to do drugs with an old man in the hopes that we'll see some interdimensional beetles. Eh, why not? We also find our way into a tunnel behind Feldepost's Inn which leads to...  The headquarters of the Gorgon's Eye, a thieves guild operating out of Beregost. A much smaller outfit than the main Guild up in Baldur's Gate, much less the Shadow Thieves, but they're trying to make a name for themselves.  This is Baldwin, the guild leader and the driver for the mod's main quest. He welcomes us to the guild but tells us that we need to pass a couple of trials before we can properly join.  Said trials are assigned to us by this fellow, Rigaldo. The first one involves stealing a diamond from a traveling merchant in Feldepost's Inn. In the previous version of the mod, this was just a straight pickpocket check that we could do even before getting the quest. Now it's a little more elaborate. He's got guards throughout the Inn, and if they spot us with the gem, we're hosed.  Unless, you know, someone were to charm one of the guards, steal the gem, and sneak back out invisibly.  Trial#2 involves a visit to Gerard Travenhurst, who's been showing a bit of disinterest in paying protection money. We're off to teach him a lesson by stealing an heirloom and confronting him with said stolen heirloom to convince him that he needs the Guild's protection.  Only when we get there, we find that someone else has beaten us to the punch. So we, er, beat them to the punch.  We try to use this independent operator's attempted theft to convince Gerard to get back on the Gorgon's Eye Train. I suspect this is a charisma check, which we fail, and we're forced to kill his guards to browbeat him into playing ball. Rigaldo's not super impressed that things got messy but he's fine with it in the end, and we're in the guild proper now. While we're in the neighborhood, we decide to see if Thalantyr's potion cures our wayward werewolf.  ...it does not.  We are forced to administer an, um, alternative cure. With swords. Meanwhile, back at the Gorgon's Eye, we have a couple of additional quest givers:  Ariosh has some general thieving jobs around the city for us. (These quests are completely new to me.)  Leidel has some bounties for us to collect, or not collect, as we please. Most of these bounties have multiple approaches  Baldwin, meanwhile, fills us in on his ultimate goal, the acquisition of a powerful and dangerous magical artifact called the Kerykeion, which is presently in a couple of pieces. The first piece is in the Gibberling Mountains near Nashkel, conveniently enough for us.  But before that, we have a couple of local jobs to do. The first one involves separating a couple of nobles from their coinpurses at a party outside of the Jovial Juggler. Again, this is a bit more complicated than sending someone over and just hitting the ol Thievery button. There's a bouncer watching them like a hawk. There are a couple of things we can do, first of all convincing one of the courtesans, who've been ordered to stay away from the staff, to go against those orders, and second, convincing the bartender to serve heavier liquor so that we can instigate a drunken brawl. This allows us to collect the coinpurses in the confusion and no one's the wiser. This update is already getting quite long and I'm not going to go through chapter and verse of all the sidequests, but this is some truly impressive and elaborate work so far. The previous version of the mod was good, but much much simpler. In any event, after picking up some cached valuables without alerting the City Watch, dealing with a traitor within the guild, and bringing some independent thieves into the fold, we decide it's time to make our way south at last, washing the slightly illicit taste of thieves work out of our mouth with some epic heroism.  Epic. Heroism.
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Dec 23, 2023 02:10
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Still more questing for Best Buy GamersClub I remembered I never actually went into the below part of the Tanners house and did the fight there or anything because I skipped it when I was solo not wanting to deal with the fight while solo and you can finish the quest by just going and talking to the guard.  Turns out when I went down there the Tanner had never despawned and was now immortal. I tested it and even the cheat kill hotkey wouldn't kill him. I ended up doing mass invis and looting everything with Jan going to the bottom floor doing the fight and then doing another invis to leave. I'm sure he is still there to this day. Oddly I also already killed him in Trademeet.  Collecting lich parts.  I had sent Korgan ahead with the Shield of Balduran solo, but wanted to speed things along because of the shadows spawning and didn't want him to get stunned if his enrage wore off so I told Edwina to go toss a couple skull traps up into the mix to help out. They then decided to ignore Korgan and kill her. Ah well there goes the iron party award.  Korgan did just about everything this quest.  I get the scroll of Horrid Wilting for Edwin and then doom two out of the three of my apprentices to get a second Ring of Wizardry. You lose out on a bunch of XP, but that ring is best in slot for mage.  More lich parts.  I grabbed this while I was nearby.  Kangaxx actually bugged out on me. I told him I brought the parts, it played the animation for him to spawn, then it went back to the dialogue and he thought I said I wouldn't bring the parts, he never actually spawned and it said the coffin was empty. I reloaded at this point and it worked the second time.  Three Sunfires (Anomen, Korgan with Daystar and a Simulacrum) took care of the lich form, then I hit him with double Ring of the Ram from Korgan and Ring of Energy from Jan and Kangaxx went down without too much trouble. Also you can see where I placed the traps in the wrong spot and they never went off. He died just before Korgans enrage ended which is good because I didn't want to lose him. I'm about 3000 XP away from 9th level spells on Best Buy, Edwin has 8th level spells now, Jan lagging behind at only 6th level. Jaheria still about 1.5 million XP behind Best Buy and about 1 million behind everyone else.
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Dec 23, 2023 05:18
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Alright I did a more normal install of RR/SCS/Tweaks/Iwdification andd I think I'm good to go. Meet Skerin the Dragon Disciple  Uh I guess I forgot to take a SS of his portrait. Well, meet his stats. A nice solid 93 roll.  I wasted little time making my way to Basilisks to get some early xp. I took protection from petrification as one of my first two spells. A waste on a Sorc? Eh, I don't think so. It has some uses on SCS and the only "must have" spells for me at level 1 are magic missile, shield, and sleep, all of which I have enough slots to get. Find Familiar I can cast from a scroll. Identify I can have other mages for.  I did the spiders in Beregost and the hobgoblins in Friendly Arm Inn and then went north to do the Umberlee bowl quest. I used my breath weapon to incinerate those jerk fishers.  Next, I recruited the party. One of my mods moves Tiax to Feldepost's inn, so I was able to get him early to be my thief. So the party is PC Dragon Disciple, Kagain, Vicky, Baeloth, Neera, and Tiax.  Neera is a told wild card on no reload runs, but I find wild magic hilarious. However, I'm taking at least some precautions here. As a Dragon Disciple I have built in 25% fire resist already, and I quickly made my way to pick Batalista's Passport to get another 40%. Between that and my increased hp I should *hopefully* be able to survive if Neera accidentally fireballs my own party. The rest of them might have some issues though.  I did some other poo poo like killing Zordal (who is kinda scary in that enclosed space on SCS as sometimes he'll use nasty spells like Lance of Disruption which could easily one shot me).  Also killed those Amnian adventurers in Cloudpeaks  As well as my good friend Vax  Finally, Kagain dueled a gnoll. A cave bear decided to crash the party so while Kagain was dueling the gnoll my party was busy killing the bear. The party is currently exploring the western side of the map and then it will be time to do the mines.
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Dec 23, 2023 05:28
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Best Buy GamersClub has knocked off another boss. I got a statue ?? (I forget) made for the church and then a demon appeared and killed the artist and he dropped the ore. Oh no.  Despite dying as soon as we gave him the ore we still got rewarded for having the statue made.  The harpers kept bothering Jaheira, but they are pretty outmatched by our party.  I have no one that will use Celestial Fury, but knocked it off the list. Sadly no rare spell scrolls spawned in the rich treasures.  This dude showed up and gave Jaheira her harper pin. Ignore the murders I've done I donated to the church so it's all forgiven.  Sure they died, but I got a really good item. That means it was all worth it.  The twisted rune was no match for the party.
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Dec 23, 2023 09:23
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Ginette Reno posted:Neera is a told wild card on no reload runs, but I find wild magic hilarious. It's true, she just for example hilariously summoned a hostile greater chaos elemental while trying to put some ankhegs to sleep. Fortunately we managed to deal with the situation but it was a bit touch and go. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, Silas ended up mulched by an ankheg in a completely unrelated incident.
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Dec 23, 2023 10:46
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I feel like my game might be bugged I've had Anomen in my party for like 2 months of game time and his quest never triggered. Looking it up on the wiki it seems he is supposed to spawn after 5 days. Unless you are romancing him then a certain love talk needs to play. However the romance never triggered either and he has been basically silent all game. Might just live with it, but I'm also tempted to just spawn the messenger. Also the Thayian wizard never showed up to turn Edwin back into a man and it's been 2 months as well.
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Dec 23, 2023 11:05
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docbeard posted:It's true, she just for example hilariously summoned a hostile greater chaos elemental while trying to put some ankhegs to sleep. Fortunately we managed to deal with the situation but it was a bit touch and go. Oh man. I was trying to finish up hitting 32k xp so I could recruit my party and I thought about killing the Ankheg near that Umberlee priest to do it. But even with mirror image + sleep all it would take is one bad hit on double damage to mulch my pc so I opted to take the safe route and kill a few ogrillions instead. Neera is just such a funny character on no reload because if you can get her to TOB she's actually quite dominant but it's a long road of potential gently caress ups to get there. She's a lot safer in bg2 when you have long lasting protection from fire though.
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Dec 23, 2023 18:18
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Postmodernist Beatings wound up clearing the bandit camp. Is there normally a timer on Tazok, or does the BG1 NPC banter thingy do something to him? I hitched a ride to the camp from Larswood after merking the shadow druids, and Tazok hit me in the face a couple of times and then just walked off, telling his goons to merk me. This aggroed the entire camp, but they didn't all wade in. So I just killed them off in small packs, even got a Hold off on Taurgosz.  I guess we were over-leveled for it anyway, everyone in the party is level 5 now except Xan and Imoen hit level 6 in Tazok's tent. Oh well, Cloakwood awaits. Flowing Thot posted:I feel like my game might be bugged I told you man, I warned you bro, I told you about bypassing triggers
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Dec 23, 2023 21:31
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Best Buy GamersClub is closing in on the waning hours of chapter 2/3. Decided it was time to hit up Watchers Keep level 1 mostly becaused I wanted the ammo case.  Does anyone ever fight this guy?  I think I forgot to put protection from magical energy on Jaheira and then set off a spell sequencer with skull traps in it right on her face. Sorry.    So a few dozen hours later I decided it time to go rescue Viconia. I know Anomen and Hexxat don't get a long so I put him on the sideline while I rescued her. I ditched her after I got her bag of holding and that's the last we will be seeing of her.    I wanted a nice big chunk of XP that was easy to get and finishing up the rival guild quest line I knew would do it. I'm not ready to leave chapter 3 just yet though.  The rival guild didn't get me all the way to 3 million XP but it got me close and my scroll cases were getting incredibly full so I figured let's clear out some of these and push me over the finish line. I guess next I will go to Windspear Hills and clean up any outstanding stuff in chapter 2/3, but I don't think there is much left undone.
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Dec 23, 2023 22:32
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 Madeleine the chaotic evil berserker has reached the friendly arm inn where she promptly left Imoen. She's like a sister, which is why she won't be coming with Madeleine, not with assassins on our trail. Instead, she picked up some people of dubious moral standings who'll have no problems killing some folk. Using a bunch of mods, notably tweaks and scs.
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Dec 23, 2023 22:42
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Whats up with the color grading?
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Dec 23, 2023 22:52
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Tonight, Ramon Salazar and his band of miniature marauders did a little bit of rambling until deciding to tackle the mines of Nashkel. They slew the mad cleric Bassilus by collectively posing as his father!  They slew the detestable Mulahey and his kobold commandos deep within the mines of Nashkel!  They saved Arabelle from a xvartish reckoning!  They left the bandit camp in a bloody mess after fighting their way across the entire map to get to the leader's tent! Who needs the subtlety of blagging our way in? Not pictured: Alora (who is the best girl) failed to pickpocket the leader of Gullykin despite having 100 pickpocket so now he's permanently hostile unless I burn a charm spell on him every visit. And I still can't hand in the quest to him! We bumped into Neera! We helped her, stole her gem back, and then told her to gently caress off. Quayle is allowed to keep his space because he's the only diminutive arcane caster! We killed some red wizards who were loitering around some sort of ruins! Move along, chumps. We had to murder a commoner in her own home to drop my reputation before everyone except Quayle and Alora decided to gently caress off!
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Dec 23, 2023 23:38
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Time for some real grade-A OP-ium powergaming.  ...am I doing it right?  Meet Jackie Daytona who is a perfectly normal human who also happens to be half of an orc. (Never mind which half.) He's a Warhorn Shaman, which is a custom kit from Artisan's Kitpack.   He basically gets Barbarian rage, the ability to specialize in a few weapons, and a higher hit die, and a different set of unique Shaman spells in exchange for a bit of Detect Illusions prowess and 1 spell/level/day. Definitely a bargain, and definitely an upgrade to the vanilla class, and it all almost, almost makes up for the Shaman class in general being hot dogshit with a signature ability designed by an absolute loving sadist. I'm also using the Improved Shaman Dance mod which lets you move at half speed while dancing. Which is good because the AI script I'm using likes to kick him into Dance Mode every time someone looks at him funny. The warrior spirits this kit summons are actually really good, if they can be bothered to wander toward or attack the things that are attacking the party.   The first and second level spells are decent combat buffs. I go through the usual early game rigamarole, including a trip to Basilisk Hell to get some XP under my belt. I didn't actually intend to do the Mutamin fight now but I accidentally wandered into his line of sight.  It went super well. Figured it was time to start over when Jackie got nailed with that Icelance but then Korax managed to paralyze him and beat him to death while Jackie watched, frozen. But let's skip past all the boring stuff and introduce (most of) the party. Imoen's an Arcane Trickster again, and we've recruited Breagar the Dwarven Smith once more.  This is Emily. We've made her an Arcane Archer/Mage, another Artisan multiclass kit. (The NPC mod she comes from actually has the option to install her with the class but it's really fiddly and it's much easier to just assign it with NPC EE.)  And this is Drake, an extremely reverent Priest of Tyr (and we won't be adjusting his kit or anything) who would like some help with the Bassilus contract.  We won't be picking up our sixth member for a little bit. Mostly because I haven't 100% decided who it will be, plus I need to grab Kagain long enough to get the Entar Silvershield brooch quest, and then deal with Eldoth's nonsense and...yeah.
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Dec 24, 2023 01:00
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Skerin the Dragon Disciple perished to Hobgoblins. How embarrassing. I thought I had mirror image up and went up to do my dragons breath and just got absolutely gunned down by two crits. Get a little complacent on insane damage and that's all she wrote: 
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Dec 24, 2023 04:59
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Jackie Daytona the Warhorn Shaman has either rescued or kidnapped a noble teenager and cleaned out a basement. I forgot to mention in my previous update, but Melicamp died. Bit of a meat grinder for poor ol Chickenman this year. Before we headed up to the Inn, we decided to do the initiation rites for the Gorgon's Eye. Since I don't think I showed it last time, we do get a bit of a cool reward for passing the first trial (pickpocketing the gem off the fence without getting spotted).  Between this ring and her natural points, Imoen is now at 100 pickpocketing, and while I know that higher is eventually better, this will definitely do for now.  As for the second trial (convincing Gerard Travenhurst to resume his protection payments) Jackie has much better charisma than Silas did (though I think there are other attribute checks that would have worked and I just picked the wrong one last time) and actually manages to talk him into cooperating without murdering his guards. We give him back his heirloom necklace as a gesture of good faith. ...and then Imoen pickpockets it right back, lol. I half-expected this to break the quest but the mod had foreseen her (my) larcenous ways and we get a pat on the back from Rigaldo. No fun magic items for this quest but we get some gold.  I grab the bounties but hold off on the other quests because their language suggests they may be timed (though this mod likes to say that things are urgent when there is no timer or anything enforcing that, so who knows).  Emily starts chatting us up as we head north. She's from a noble family, and is in a bit of a succession war with her brother, complicated by the fact that it's an open secret that she's an illegitimate daughter, the product of a dalliance her father had with an elf in Baldur's Gate. (Her father's wife acknowledges her as her daughter, but, well, she's pretty obviously a half-elf so people have largely figured it out. OR IS SHE...) She's taking some time away from home at her father's suggestion (more of a mental health break than an exile, from the way she describes it), and is hoping to meet her birth mother, about whom she knows nothing beyond her name.  This is Helga, another NPC by the same person who created Emily. We don't recruit her but she tells us about an ogre chief she wants to bring down and we agree to keep our eyes open.  We find a hidden cave (prominent enough to have a map marker) but there's nothing inside. I suspect future mod content so we'll just make a note of this for now.  Oh Breagar, you lovable racist.  Just wanted to mention this spell, a level one spell for mages and druids, added by the aptly-named Weasels! mod. The cut off text here points out that these summoned weasels only do nonlethal damage so they're primarily useful as a distraction. I haven't picked it up for Jackie but Imoen's learned it off a scroll Tarnesh dropped.  In addition to his open hatred of Eldoth, Bentley's not exactly stoked to see Drake either. Fortunately in his case it's just a bit tense rather than open warfare. Apparently Drake is not just a frequent drunk, he's a rather obnoxious one. He's also from Amn. He mentions this. A lot.  While we're in the neighborhood, we look in on one of the Gorgon's Eye's bounties. This fellow owes the Zhentarim some money and decided that an all-you-can-eat buffet was a better choice than paying his debts. Rather than execute him, we agree to pay his debt ourselves, because he's honestly too pathetic to kill.  Also while we're in the neighborhood, we head back up to Ankheg Country to do a bit of dumpster diving. Imoen also takes the opportunity to pursue the accelerated path through Tenya's quest by just pickpocketing the Water Elemental Bowl.  Among other things in the treasure cache in the Ankheg Dungeon, we find this Unusual Shard. We'll find more of them later.  Emily has a chat with us about how she feels almost literally compelled to do good. We suggest she's just a decent person with a conscience, but she doesn't think that's the whole story at all.  Our guild contact isn't super impressed with our act of leniency but it's fine, really.  Thalantyr's cure for "Lycantrophy" fails again. I swear this thing sometimes works! This fight's a bit of a dice roll early on because while Tonder is a low-level werewolf, he is still a werewolf and is immune to nonmagical weapons, hence my scrounging trip so that I could afford magical ones for at least our heavy hitters. Speaking of magic weapons, I don't think it showed up in the initial screenshots, but Jackie's proficiencies are in shortbows and clubs. I want to mostly do one-handed weapons with him so I can use a buckler (currently the +1 con one from Bentley's store) and Breagar's an axe specialist, so my choices were clubs and daggers. So I naturally chose the shittier option. Though honestly, there are some nice clubs in the game, and there's one in particular I'm about to grab from Larswood.  On our way we rescue some dogs from some dire wolves.  ...y'know...  Eldoth makes himself vaguely useful and hits Osmadi with a horror spell that sends him (and us) screaming halfway across the map. At which point we confront his not-so-fellow fellow druid, who's (gasp) a Shadow Druid! We kill him and take his club, The Root of the Problem, which is a +1 club that's actually +3 vs Anything Where That Would Matter. We'll be hanging onto this for a while. Jackie hits Level 6 around this point, and that means third level spells, including this bit of kit-based goodness:   I love the way this spell description is written. "Blah blah enhancement bonus blah blah bonus elemental damage (oh yeah and it hastes you)" I don't know that I'd call this broken by any means since it brings us to a whopping two attacks per round, but it's definitely nice.  Thanks to the relevant piece from Tweaks Anthology, we can dip our toes into the Cloakwood early, and while most of this stuff can wait, there are a few things I want to pick up now.  This was not one of the things.  After grabbing the Nondetection Cloak which basically breaks the cheating mage gently caress YOU I KNOW YOU'RE THERE, INVISIBLE PERSON ai that SCS likes to deploy, we head to the second region and grab not only a free +2 scimitar but this Shades encounter, a soldier who's befriended a wounded myconid and asks us to heal her. We do so and get a loving WAND OF CLOUDKILL in return. Hell yeah. It's only got three charges though, and recharging it is expensive, but what are the odds that we'll ever have a frankly ridiculous amount of gold at any point in this game? It's about this time when Eldoth announces it's time to 'rescue' his 'girlfriend', so we had back to the Inn to do that, send them packing, and then come back to the third Cloakwood area. I've decided who our sixth permanent party member will be. (It's Faldorn) I've never had her in the party long-term before so this will be an adventure in many ways. I've given her the Avenger kit, which I feel fits her motif perfectly.   We also deal with a couple of chatterbox Shadow Druids. Since Jaheira's not with us we can tell them we're here to hunt bandits and they leave us alone.  That portal in the screenshot is tied to the circles quest in Shades of the Sword Coast, which we're not going to do quite yet.  Instead, we head back to the Friendly Arms Inn, dealing with three goddamn random Cloakwood encounters on the way, and clean out Bentley's basement. There are a few monster-infested levels, mostly dire rats and spiders but there are a couple of carrion crawlers to keep us on our toes, and it all culminates in the ruins of an old Bhaal shrine, complete with Bhaal-specific treasure hunters. Any actual treasure (aside from Bentley's old cloak of protection) has been absconded with, and the treasure hunters decide to take their frustration with this fact out on us. We sort them out, grab the cloak, and Bentley rewards us with said cloak and a bit of ominous exposition about how there's a symbol of Bhaal out there somewhere.
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Dec 24, 2023 06:36
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Jackie Daytona the Warhorn Shaman has cleared the Nashkel Mines and made a certain grouchy dwarf very happy.  Breagar and Imoen form a fun friendship based entirely off (his) annoyance, and we're at the point where he's teaching her to speak Dwarvish.  That's really a sidebar to the main event, which is us taking drugs with a possibly-delusional old man and possibly hallucinating some interdimensional giant beetles that may or may not actually be there.  Pictured, the one spirit out of three summoned by Jackie's dance that can actually be bothered to participate in the fight doing a credible job against a vampiric wolf.  Pontag's a bit down since the Beetle Sighting, and says he'd like to meet us back here in a few days after he tries something else.  After sorting out some Gorgon's Eye quests in town, we head north for a shopping trip of sorts. Along the way we meet Zee, a kobold who's more interested in setting up shop somewhere than he is in loving around with iron in mines. We agree to help him realize his dream. We make our way up to Ulgoth's Beard and legitimately acquire a ring of freedom of movement, which goes to Jackie for one specific reason. So the Improved Shaman Dance mod, as I've mentioned, allows him to move at half-speed while dancing. Well, with this ring, he's immune to slowing effects, so he can in fact move at normal speed. (It should technically make him immune to haste effects too but I have another mod to, uh, fix that.) Still can't cast spells or attack or do literally anything at all while dancing, but at least he's not trudging along behind the party while his summoned spirits do their best to ignore him any more. There are some mechanical exploits I would feel bad about, but making Shaman Dance slightly remotely tolerable to use is absolutely not one of them.  Back in Beregost, we meet up with Pontag's daughter instead of him. Turns out he's died in the last few days. But she tells us he's been more engaged and happy these last few days than she's seen him in years. So bittersweet, but not miserable. She gives us a gift from him, a beetle figurine that casts Detect Invisibility once per day. Which...yeah, makes sense.  So, uh, Breagar, he, uh, the thing is, he's not fond of Drow. We still rescue Viconia and send her on her way in peace.  Once we're in Nashkel we're asked to recover some magical ice from, you know, wherever you get such things.  You may recall from like two characters ago that Thalantyr's bookshelf wanted a particular book. It's this one, found in the manor house here.  Another Shades quest, this one at the gnoll fortress where we're being asked to duck into an adjacent shadow dimension and recover some notes.  And another quest, this one from Ascalon's quest pack, also at the gnoll fortress. There's a lot to do there. A lot. But first there's the whole mine situation to deal with.  Yeah, that's...that's helpful.  Breagar insists on picking a fight with Mulahey and won't take "I surrender" for an answer. Which is fine, neither would we, and now he's in the ground.  In addition to the usual expository notes, we find this note on a dead messenger from a group seeking an alliance with the Iron Throne. We gather that Mulahey declined.  We also find this intriguing note that suggests there might be more to the story of Commander Brage.  Finally, we come across this kobold trying to sneak away. On his person we find both a magic shortbow and  Apparently the last good chunk of iron in Nashkel.
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Dec 24, 2023 23:29
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Ramon Salazar continues his adventures - featuring ogre magi! A nymph (or siren? I'm always mixing them up) murdered Kagain with a kiss, so we killed the ogre mage that had enthralled her. She also stayed hostile, so we killed her too just to be safe. Kagain was brought back to life after checking several times and ensuring that this did not, in fact, violate the rules of the Ironman.  This crazy lady outside Firewine bridge let out an ogre mage! They were both slaughtered but I can't stress how much of a loving struggle it was when you don't have remove magic available - Quayle is my only arcane spellcaster and he couldn't cast lv3 arcane spells yet! Skeleton warriors and summoned monsters saved the day.  The fight outside the Cloakwood mines. Well, the aftermath. I play BG once a year and one of my favourite things about it is I learn something new about the game. It took me longer than I would like to admit to discover how broken Sleep is as a spell and not just load up my lv1 arcane magic page with Magic Missile and a couple of Identify spells. Crowd control is king in this game! Prior to this fight I had Alora sneak into range so I could fire off a quick Silence 15' Radius which neutered the spellcasters, and then Blinded the melee fighters. Child's play!  I never knew you could go into the hut next to the guard barracks outside the Cloakwood mine, but it's some sort of store house where the occupant is partaking in a little nose candy. Unfortunately I can't join him so I just bludgeoned him to death. I'm a hero!  The aftermath of the Davaeorn fight. Very strange as I sent two hasted and chant-buffed skeleton warriors after him and every time he popped Dimension Door they just homed in on him. Eventually he ran out of spells and we beat him to death. Quayle accidentally died on the floor above as I took a chance to rest and got woken up by a dozen bandits. With no Sleep spells charged I fled to another room with a door I could close but not before Quayle bit the dirt, so I had to drag his carcass and belongings back to the Friendly Arm Inn for a quick rez before heading back, and everyone knows that Cloakwood has very high waylay chances, especially from wyverns and ettercaps. It's mostly why Cloakwood is my least favourite part of the game, and delayed me going out and getting dinner by a good forty minutes, at which point it was raining  The gold gained from this venture was enough to buy a Dagger of Venom for Alora, and a Robe of the Neutral Archmagi for Quayle. Now Alora can open fights with a poisoned backstab and gently caress up spellcasters all day long, with a cheery smile on her face.  . Remember I said I learn something every year I play this game? Well, this year taught me the following:1) Command is busted and is an amazing clutch interrupt for a level 1 spell. 2) Hide in Shadows dictates your ability to, well, hide in shadows, but it's move silently that keeps you in there. 3) You can swap equipment after you've successfully hid in shadows, so after using the Worn Whispers on Alora I could swap to the Paws of the Cheetah for her to zoom around, backstab a pesky caster with the Dagger of Venom, and then hightail it out of line of sight. This made murdering sirens on the coast an absolute doddle.  Ramon Salazar and his party made it to the city of Baldurs Gate. But not before an Ankheg decided to murder Quayle so I had to march back to the Friendly Arm in and rez him. I think I'm up to 3 Quayle deaths now, but I don't mind - it's funny to hear him go OHHHHHH DEEEEEEAR! And it makes Tiax happy so it's always worth it.
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Dec 24, 2023 23:48
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Nicodemus, Human Sorcerer has ventured forth from Candlekeep and is leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake. I kept Imoen, and picked up Ajantis and Branwen for the classic adventuring party feel. I grabbed Garrick on the way south, and rapidly began to clear out the quests in the areas before heading to Nashkel. Melicamp Lives!. The Nashkel Mines were pretty easy, and I was super lucky on the fight outside of the mines where Branwen's Hold Person nabbed two of the mercenaries before they could ruin my day. Garrick was the first to fall, as I went after the constitution tome. Ajantis got charmed and immediately swung around and bashed Garrick into a pulp. I left his broken body on the beach and continued on my adventure. I went north and assaulted the bandit camp, where both Imoen and Ajantis were killed in the tent battle. As per my usual ironman tradition, I immediately dropped them from the party and abandoned their corpses, leaving only myself and Branwen to keep investigating the iron crisis. Currently Nicodemus is resting in the FAA, and pondering if I want to go get myself up to level 5 before entering Cloakwood. Dead NPCs so far: Garrick, Imoen, Ajantis. I've no doubt they will be the last.
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Dec 24, 2023 23:52
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