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Flowing Thot
Apr 1, 2023

:murder:
Best Buy Gamersclub is wringing out the last of the XP from chapter 2/3.



We start with Windspear hills and another dragon to kill.

Planetars make short work of most of the things in this dungeon.



I sent in the Planetar to eat the dispel, and then it didn't do much the rest of the fight. Best Buy went in with a time stop then a spell trigger with 3x lower resistance before doing a sequencer with 3x skull traps then a horrid wilting into another time stop and horrid wiltings.



I have so much gear stored in The Copper Coronet it took me about half an hour to sort through it all and see what I needed to keep and what to toss.



I stopped the mind flayers from attacking the city of Baldur's Gate wait I'm sorry I mean Athkatla. Did you know Planetars are useless against mind flayers? Swapped to Mordenkainens Swords and they cleaned up.



I never remember to do this, but I made sure I would this time.



I forgot to grab any screenshots of this part but, I dropped Korgan at some point and grabbed Mazzy, I did some small quest of hers where she duels a half ogre and apparently that's all I can do because the wiki seems to indicate if you don't have her in your party when you do the Umar Hills quest you can't do her companion quest. So I dropped her and did Cernd's quest instead.



Next we resolved Keldorn's quest which actually puts me in an interesting position. Apparently according to a post I read on the Beamdog forums, these two only fight when Edwin is in his male form, and the dialogue between them causing them to fight never triggers when Edwin is a woman. My game has Edwin stuck as a woman due some bug, so I could actually use them both together. I'm going to stick to Korgan as planned, but fun to think about.



I'm doing Rasaad's quest now which I hate all the EE companion quests, so I might regret this.

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Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

Flowing Thot posted:

I'm doing Rasaad's quest now which I hate all the EE companion quests, so I might regret this.

I do remember that quest being annoying. There is some good loot in it though iirc. Don't you get a true seeing 1/day gem? That's pretty nice.

Flowing Thot
Apr 1, 2023

:murder:

Ginette Reno posted:

I do remember that quest being annoying. There is some good loot in it though iirc. Don't you get a true seeing 1/day gem? That's pretty nice.

Turn's out when you have two party members with 10th level spells it's super easy hardly an inconvenience. You do in fact get the true seeing 1/day gem which is nice.

Also in other news: Anomens romance dialogues seem to have started triggering 3-4 months of in game time later for some reason. I'm just leaving the game running while I go AFK to let them trigger. I'm hoping Anomen's quest line will advance if I do this. I have literally nothing else to do in Chapter 2/3 except Hexxat, Dorn, and Neera personal quests. I can't do Hexxat or Dorn with Anomen in the party and I don't want to kick him out temporarily while his quest seems to be starting to work. I'm not doing Neera's because gently caress that quest I remember it being incredibly annoying and dangerous.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Jackie Daytona the Warhorn Shaman has been exploring the Sword Coast, knocking out mod content and vanilla content alike.



Between a sneak attack breaking his morale and a magic missile to the face finishing the job, Imoen deals with Nimbul so fast that we don't even have to talk to Rasaad afterwards.

We head immediately to the Gibberling Mountains.



This lady has the first piece of the Kerykeion, a magical staff with various snakelike properties that the leader of the Gorgon's Eye would like. She can't be talked out of fighting whatever we say or do, and she lets slip that we're not the first to make a play for the artifact piece. The fight's fairly straightforward, though she does do that bullshit 'advance time' trick to make sure we can't prebuff. Then again, she seems largely exempt from the prebuffing SCS does to mages so she's still a pushover and her summoned snakes aren't much more of a problem.



Faldorn doesn't have a lot of pre-Cloakwood content even with the NPC project but she does get pissy the first time we fight a bear. Telling her that the bear started it doesn't seem like it would impress her but telling her that keeping watch for hostile bears is her job now actually does.



Bentley, when presented with the request to give Zee the Kobold some space to open a shop, very sensibly tells us to ask his wife. (She says it's fine.)

And then with that detour out of the way, we're finally back in Beregost.



...what do you mean 'made'?

Breagar leaves the party at this point and heads to Thunderhammer Smithy. If we go visit him at night, we can watch while he creates his masterpiece, a Ring of Elemental Control.



It goes super well.

Despite having several healers in the party, we're sent to the Temple to get a cleric called Revaniel, who manages to save Breager's life, but not his left arm.



Breagar is, perhaps not unreasonably, in a bit of a temper about this when he wakes up, but we manage to calm him down and he, though clearly not thrilled about any of this, agrees to rejoin the party. He's down one arm and 2 points of constitution, and can't use shields or equip more than one ring. He used to still be able to use two-handed weapons but that's since been fixed.

While we're here, we meet up with the messenger from the Serpents of Abbathor whose note we found in Mulahey's lair.



He's not stoked to hear that Mulahey is dead and it turns into a fight. He's carrying a note that tells us that his organization plans to ambush someone called "Bashrik Sparklehammer".



We turn in our bit of the artifact and are given our next assignment for the guild, grab some magic rings from Nashkel woman called Karp.

But first, some different mod content, from Black Hearts



Illasera (yes, that Illasera, at least I think so) has decided that, after clearing out the Nashkel Mines, we're worth her time, or more specifically, that we're worth dealing with the sorts of bounties she can't be bothered to pursue.

The first one is a group of adventurer shitheads who trashed the Burning Wizard. We point out that this shouldn't be a capital offence, she points out that Beregost doesn't exactly have a police force (aside from the Flaming Fist contingent living in the Jovial Juggler, and the City Watch from a different mod, but fine, whatever) and we can try to talk them down if we want but it probably won't happen. Also she doesn't give a poo poo.



Speaking of the Passing Murderous Adventurer system of justice, there's Tranzig upstairs to deal with.

We ask at the Burning Wizard and are told that they talked about going to the temple next, and it didn't sound like they had atonement in mind. We get there and



They're not a particularly tough fight though Imoen gets herself cornered and killed. Fortunately we're in the right place to deal with that.



Our next targets are some Hobgoblin bandits who we're being paid to eliminate by an anonymous patron. Illasera suspects it's the Chill trying to get rid of the competition, but whatever, we're fine with that.



We're pointed in the direction of the Red Canyons, which is convenient because we need to deal with Bassilus anyway.



Drake's funeral service leaves a bit to be desired. He asks to stick around and we're happy to let him.

The portal there is one of the magic circles we've been asked to investigate.



Inside, there's an object for us to retrieve in the center, and retrieving it summons monsters, in this case Ochre Jellies. The catch is we can't cast spells or use items in here (though in practice this restriction is a bit hit-or-miss).

Don't mind the salamander, Faldorn's just showing off.



The next time we camp, Breagar opens up a bit about exactly what brought him to the Sword Coast in the first place. He's from a family who are traditionally bakers, but he's in love with the daughter of the master smith of his clan (who's already been betrothed to someone else, the smith's apprentice). It's all very political, and his only option is to become a master smith himself, which is not a popular decision with his family. And now he's hosed that up and lost an arm beside. So naturally he's a bit down.



For those who've not used it, one of the, uh, enhancements that SCS adds is to turn two of the assassin parties into random encounters.

We deal with them easily enough. The Amazons too, though I forgot to grab a screenshot of them.



Breagar dies to the naiad's kiss (I thought this wasn't supposed to happen any more but that seems to only be true sometimes, I've had people die, I've had people get reduced to 1 hp, and I've had people save against the effect and be completely fine). She brings him back and we give Breagar the ogre mage's Helm of Defense as a consolation prize.



Constitution tome goes to Jackie.



We return Brage to Nashkel, but there's a bit more to this story thanks to the Mini-Quests and Adventures mod. He tells us a bit about what happened before he picked up the cursed sword, but doesn't have a lot to say.



We then chat with Oublek who would very much like this matter settled and could we PLEASE prove that Brage was not in fact the victim of a cursed sword and in fact did the crime? (We will be doing the exact opposite.)

The local Helm priest confirms that the cursed sword is indeed cursed and when we head back out of the temple...



Brage's cousin gives us some further clues, specifically that she's been looking into a merchant who sells cursed items, last seen at the circus. We talk to the dubious potion seller and he points us in the direction of, look, we all know it's Borda, right? We all know that.



Meanwhile, on the crime-committing side of things, we talk to Karp and, instead of trying to steal or trick the rings away from her, we level with her, and she in turn levels with us. She's trying to raise money to get herself and her child away from her abusive husband, and agrees to give us the rings if we can help her out. Fortunately we're on good terms with the smuggling specialist at the Gorgon's Eye so that's easy enough, and she gives us the rings as well as



This. It's not useful yet but it might be later.



And our next bounty from Illasera is sending us back to the Nashkel Mines. Hooray.

theshim
May 1, 2012

You think you can defeat ME, Ephraimcopter?!?

You couldn't even beat Assassincopter!!!
Just want to say that while I'm nowhere near good enough at the game to do a run, I appreciate this thread every year :buddy:

DisgracelandUSA
Aug 11, 2011

Yeah, I gets down with the homies

theshim posted:

Just want to say that while I'm nowhere near good enough at the game to do a run, I appreciate this thread every year :buddy:

But you're good enough to start one, fail and post about it~

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

theshim posted:

Just want to say that while I'm nowhere near good enough at the game to do a run, I appreciate this thread every year :buddy:

Join usssssss....

Finnish Flasher
Jul 16, 2008
Madeleine and her party go to high hedge to buy some scrolls, they also find the wizards bedroom.





Inside, a bookshelf requested she fetch a specific book for it. We'll see if we can find it.



The party then went to hunt for some basilisks. Unfortunately the sleazy bard got petrified while scouting ahead, and Madeleine didn't see any reason to un-petrify him.





They also found a cave with a greater basilisk, but decided to not venture further. She had a suspicion that the cave had dangerous monsters.



In Beregost, the party deals with another assassin.





And meets a flashy lady. She tells us to up our game.



Madeleine also recruits an insane gnome.



As well as a drow cleric and an angry woman. The party is almost to Nashkel.

------------

Seems I installed two separate mods that give drow nerfs during sunlight. Eh.

DeadButDelicious
Oct 11, 2012

Leave me to do my dark bidding on the internet!
Ramon Salazar and his party have been busy! They mopped up nearly all the quests in Baldur's Gate (except for returning the child's dead body because I did the Lothander and Marek stuff first and apparently that bugs out and the child who starts the quest chain doesn't spawn? Whatever).



Die, ogre mages! Tiax was turned into a pin cushion by a very confused Alora, so off to the temple to raise him...

After we were done, the party climbed the Iron Throne tower and smited the party up above. Again, I'm loving how creative the combined challenge of a shorty-only party and ironman rules is making combat. Very fun!



We return to Candlekeep! They let us in if we give them a book. I like to think the book was something like Everybody Poops because I'm very mature.



Oh, no! I'm the child of a dead god of murder! Well, that explains my murderous rampage. I thought it was just a phase or because I'm short.



After being accused of murdering the leaders of the Iron Throne, we escaped the catacombs under Candlekeep, picked up Good poo poo(tm) and murdered some more Iron Throne goons to find a way out, protecting ourselves from the enormous spiders and greater basilisks.

Ramon Salazar and co. escaped from Candlekeep and turn our eyes to the city of Baldurs Gate with revenge in our hearts.

jfenserty
Jul 16, 2008

Melicamp died, and Jaheira insists we go to Nashkel.


We skirt past Bassilus because most of us are still level 1 and I can't remember how hard the fight is.


Neira fails to assassinate us in the inn, but does hold person all the frontliners.

Derrilee is in Nashkel now.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe
Started a second dragon disciple. Meet Kangorolac.



Here is the mad lad. Surely there is more in store for him than hobgoblin arrows?



Kangorolac slew some Basilisks with his buddy Korax to get some early xp.



He also slew some spiders



Kangorolac did a few other things like the fisherman quest in the Ankheg zone. That plus a few other kills got him to 32k xp, and Kangorolac is now in the process of recruiting his party. Kangorolac is going the pure power route of Kagain, Vicky, Tiax, Edwin, Baeloth, + PC. 3 deadly mages plus a tank, cleric, and some thievery/extra cleric support. This party covers all the bases better than any other I can think of that tbh.

Sword Coast here I come.


edit: here's some more progress




Edwin was the last to join the gang here.



Those archers in the cloud peaks turned Kagain into a pincushion, but he survived....barely. Vicky and Tiax both got hold persons off which essentially won me the fight.



Vax and Zal went down a bit easier. Hold person once again did some work here. Clerics are carrying...mages slacking.



On the way to the gnoll stronghold the party rested and got ambushed by flinds and then a cave bear came out of nowhere to join the fight as well. Poor Kagain got mauled a bit. He really needs those dex bracers to get his ac in order.



After a big fight against gnolls (in which xvarts also spawned behind me) the party cleared out the gnoll stronghold and slew Dynaheir for Edwin. Now he's happy, and the party has no obligations to deal with except what they feel like doing.

Kangorolac is going to go explore the western hemisphere of the planet "Sword Coast" and will then maybe check out those Nashkel mines.

Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 10:39 on Dec 27, 2023

Finnish Flasher
Jul 16, 2008
I got frustrated by bad mod install order so decided to do a fresh install. Madeleine canonically stayed in Nashkel and married Xzar, and kept killing assassins every week.

DeadButDelicious
Oct 11, 2012

Leave me to do my dark bidding on the internet!
Do people usually try for Ulgoth's Beard/Durlag's Tower/SoD on ironman runs or just go right through to BG2 because I can imagine that there is a very high rate of death in the TotSC and SoD content - oh hey look a mind flayer aaaaaargh

FairGame
Jul 24, 2001

Der Kommander

DeadButDelicious posted:

Do people usually try for Ulgoth's Beard/Durlag's Tower/SoD on ironman runs or just go right through to BG2 because I can imagine that there is a very high rate of death in the TotSC and SoD content - oh hey look a mind flayer aaaaaargh

I've always done Ulgoth's and Durlag's. I've never gotten past "going shopping" in SoD because the only time I saw it was in an ironman a few years back. Something in SoD was coded to make the flaming fist hostile that wouldn't have made them hostile in BG1/TotSC; I forget what.

In any event, it summoned a battle wizard who immediately mazed me for a game over, Arkanis Gath-style.

Debating entering this. Might as well, right?

e: cripes. Yeah, I'll give this a go.

FairGame fucked around with this message at 14:11 on Dec 27, 2023

Jack B Nimble
Dec 25, 2007


Soiled Meat
Oh hell yes, I can't wait to make a character. Last year I listened to the Wild Mage's tale of woe, nodded, then promptly forced a burning hands scroll into her hands and got myself incinerated in the Naskell mines.

Rappaport
Oct 2, 2013

Postmodernist Beatings the Cavalier has cleared out Cloakwood and her mines. Yes, I am still salty that the guy you recruit before the trappiest place in Cloakwood (or the early game, really) has a whopping 26 find traps out of the gate :argh: I sent Yeslick away, I guess I could swap Viccy for him later but :effort: So this is our group, barring accidents. Anyway, the woods were uneventful; I bought Thalantyr's 3 potions of perception before going in, so Coran could handle the spider woods under an invisibility potion, and nothing else in the woods was particularly scary. I almost messed up with the (a?) hamadryad, sending my cavalier in alone with their charm immunity, only to get held. But the RNG took pity on me, and the dryad's dagger broke (I should've screenshot this) and Coran just shot her to death.



Cheesed the mercenary squad at the mine entrance, Minsc wading into the web with Spider's Bane and Xan blinding folks, with Coran giving covering fire, and well :effort:



Xan keeps delivering.



And then some; apparently trying to sleep in the mines is a signal that I'm trying to megaman-grind XP, I guess?



Davaeorn managed one lightning bolt before being overpowered. The re-bound hit Xan and Dynaheir, but I guess they saved since no one died :ohdear: I'm also thinking I'll try a spellcaster CHARNAME next time around, being the main tank in an ironman game is starting to feel like a silly idea to be quite honest, I keep getting owned by freaking mages and magical creatures. (Or rather, failing saves, but either way!)

As a minor curiosity, the party had amassed some 30 thousand GP before heading to Cloakwood, so I just bought the archmagi robes for Xan and Dynaheir before we embarked. Now, after visiting the Friendly Arm post-Davaeorn, we have another 30 grand and change, and I haven't even off-loaded all our loot yet, for one thing Minsc has a disturbing collection of wyvern heads to his name :iit:

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Jackie Daytona the Warhorn Shaman has explored the Western Sword Coast and cleared out the Gnoll Fortress.

Oh man did we clear out the Gnoll Fortress.



To start with, though, we head back into the Nashkel Mines to deal with a necromancer that's set up shop. The guards are kind enough to escort us right there.



Yup, one necromancer, a poo poo-ton of "crumbling skeletons" and some leftover kobolds for good measure. Not a big deal for us and we're more than happy to grab his spellbook (the trophy Illasera wants as proof of the deed) and beat feet.



We beat feet quite a ways, in fact (and Arabelle lives).



Enhanced Extra Etc. Encounters adds a wizard slayer called Bimmy to this band of idiots but it's not really a problem, possibly because we're a tad overleveled at this point. Like we'd be close to brushing up against the XP cap if such a thing existed.



Here's the custom Level 4 spell for Warhorn Shaman, basically a lightning-based fire shield.



So you may recall that among the things we're heading to the Gnoll Fortress to sort out is a kidnapped boy called Aaron who was ambushed while having a picnic with his fiancee. She wasn't fortunate enough to be taken alive, but even worse, her ghost has stuck around because he told her to stay awake and wait for him to give her a gift just before they were attacked.



I do like Faldorn's directness sometimes.



On our way past genociding a xvart village, we encounter Borda, who has already heard that we're looking for him. He's a bit more trouble than you might expect because he's got some magic resistance but he gets his in the end, and we find a nice incriminating letter on his person (as well as the uncursed +1 sword that Brage was supposed to have gotten from Amazon Waterdeep).



There's something about this encounter that makes me laugh.



And now we're at the Gnoll Fortress. There's a component of Extra Encounters that adds some additional gnolls.



Okay a lot of additional gnolls.



Okay a LOT of



You get the idea.

(That Black Pudding in the pit proved to be surprisingly difficult because it splits when you do anything but blunt damage to it. Which includes electrical damage so Drake's hammer and Jackie's spell-enhanced club were a bit counterproductive.)



About a hundred gnolls after rescuing Dynaheir and sending her on her way, we come across this ring.



And here we find Aaron himself.

So we're done, right? Lol no of course not.



There's also a portal here to the Plane of Shadow (where you may recall we've been asked to retrieve some lost research material). The bad news is, instead of gnolls we have shadows. That's also the good news because I am really tired of gnolls at this point.



The fights here aren't too bad for us at this point, mostly shadows and shade wolves, and there's a bit of decent treasure including a diamond and a fear wand (with 1 charge). We finally make our way inside through a crack in the wall and find our way to this Shade Wyvern



And his owner, a shadow mage. (That big electrical blur is Jackie trying out his new spell. Good lord.)

We recover the notes (there are three note and book items scattered throughout the place) and head back to the real world where we next head down to grab the Charisma tome.



Oh look more gnolls.



We also meet this conveniently-labeled psychopath.



Among some other minor treasure he's carrying this. This will become relevant here in a bit.



There's some extra bears in the tome cave (and a named Red Bear in one of the other ones that drops a specific hide).



Jackie is now one point hotter.

So are we done now? Oh, don't be silly, there's a new area transition here to Orrmyr Peak.



Some snakes and bugbears are about as bad as it gets here, and there's a bit of minor treasure to be had (like some hidden darts of stunning).



But the real main event are these two orrmyr skeletons whose spirits have stuck around. They'd like us to decorate them (seriously) in exchange for some news about a hidden treasure cache.




This treasure had better be worth it, those are some pricy adornments. We already have everything with us (including the silver crown we just got) but the golden teeth.



There's a small graveyard to the south. Those sparkly bits are the corpses of some Mountain Lights, which are a bit of a pain but no real threat. Note also the empty grave of someone whose headstone says he loved dogs.



We find the golden teeth in another grave. Look, game, this wasn't our idea okay?



In a cave to the south we find this Ettin Revenant who is a pretty nasty customer. He hits like a truck and is magic resistant.



And he drops, among other things, this absolute justification for taking 2 dots of club proficiency.



There's also some bones that we'll find a use for later.



There's also some dog bones lying about that I forgot to screenshot and when we add them to the dog friend's grave we get a bit of XP and a nice warm feeling.




Y'know...

They are at least as good as their word and they send us back to the graveyard armed with the location of a hidden cache beneath one of the headstones. (It's inaccessible without doing the quest.)

In addition to a decent amount of gold and a rogue stone we get



Okay yeah that's worth it.



Truer loving words, Aaron.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

DeadButDelicious posted:

Do people usually try for Ulgoth's Beard/Durlag's Tower/SoD on ironman runs or just go right through to BG2 because I can imagine that there is a very high rate of death in the TotSC and SoD content - oh hey look a mind flayer aaaaaargh

I have done TotSC content before on Ironman runs but normally I skip it. SoD depends on if I'm in the mood for it or not. Starting bg2 with 500k xp is nice. But honestly if I'm doing Ironman runs I tend to skip totsc/sod because it's kind of a grind to get all the way to bg2, die, and then have to do those expansions again. Sometimes I want to get more actual bg2 in.

Also the Ulgoth's cultist fights are the most dangerous fights in bg1 other than the final boss and/or the iron throne so avoiding those is the better part of valor when it comes to succeeding

Suspicious
Apr 30, 2005
You know he's the villain, because he's got shifty eyes.
I've done TotSC content enough times not to worry about it. SoD is still very scary.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

I pretty much always do everything, unless it's like my fifth attempt and I want to finish at least once. Besides, Durlag's Tower is my favorite dungeon in the entire series.

The Ulgoth's Beard cultist fight can be a real meat grinder (though I'm not running with Spell Revisions this year so hooray for unnerfed invisibility durations).

DeadButDelicious
Oct 11, 2012

Leave me to do my dark bidding on the internet!
Well, based on the feedback, Ramon Salazar took a sojourn over to Ulgoth's Beard:



Yeeeeeah, Shandalar remembers how I massacred his daughters for some flying ship parts and is none too pleased. He flings us to a frozen island in the middle of nowhere. I open by killing a polar bear which makes me sad because bears are my favourite animals :mad:



I- or rather, Alora, lets off some steam by stealthing and backstabbing Andris, Beyn and Marcellus into tiny chunks with her dagger of venom +2



... And also Tellan.



Aaaaand Cuchol for good measure. Good for you, Alora. :unsmith:



Garan and his pet ankhegs prove to be a loving problem as they don't like to be lured around the corner into Cuchol's room to get murdered one by one. They eat Quayle (quelle surprise...) but regurgitate his body so I can rez him when we get off this drat island. I've lost count of how many times he's died now but it's way, way, way more than anyone else.



Alora finishes off her halfling bloodspree with Dezkiel and we get to leave, looting several lovely wolf pets for sale and a scroll of stoneskin for Quayle! He can't quite use lv4 mage spells yet but when he can I imagine he might be a bit more resilient than a greasy paper bag.



Freedom! Horrible, horrible freedom! We trudge our way down to Durlag's Tower and take a guided tour of questionable value which ends with a demon knight murderising everyone with fireballs while we conveniently wait outside of his field of vision. Having left the party bereft of a means to claim a refund, we shall have to delve deeper into the basement layers of Durlag's Tower - after ransacking anything up top and murdering basilisks for more delicious experience points.



We made it to the first sub-floor! Alora and Montaron died to hasted greater doppelgangers because Quayle is a moron who can't win a dispel roll due to being a multiclass. :mad: After a quick trip to Beregost temple, the rest of the floor goes surprisingly smoothly - I've set Tiax up to be my trap-disarmer and general "saboteur" in combat with debuffs and animate dead while Alora is able to pick pockets, locks, and hide decently enough to set up most enemies with a lovely dagger between the shoulderblades. In an unthemed game I probably would've taken Khalid or Coran or even Kivan instead of Montaron who mostly sits back with a longbow +2 and pings arrows at things, occasionally reminiscing about the long-since murdered Xzar.



The floor is clear and we're ready to descend. Once more, say it with me - animate dead wins.

The second sub-floor, again, goes quite well since I'm familiar enough with this part to know where the greater doppelgangers are hiding, so it's a fairly brisk pace to the end. The dwarven doomguards who aggro towards the exit take some time to wear down, but between the slow, doom, hold, skeletons, and Ramon & Kagain tanking, things do work out in the end. Somehow.

I didn't get a screenie of the third sub-floor but I remember that horrible hedgemaze so instead I opt for the greater wyvern route. After clearing the four elemental chambers and teleporting to the chess board, I say "gently caress it" to rules, chug 6 potions of absorption, and proceed to flip the board by running around and making a ton of lightning bolts through illegal moves while Tiax holds the enemy king and we bludgeon him to death. Exactly how I remember Kasparov vs Deep Blue going in 1997.



I was getting tired so I stopped on the stairs of the fourth sub-floor where the ghost of Durlag spouted some cryptic nonsense at me before I saved and stopped to make a sandwich.

Ramon Salazar and co are currently exploring Durlag's Tower for profit

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe
You guys are tempting me to finish all of Tostc + SOD this time.

Meanwhile, Kangorolac the Dragon Disciple continued his adventures.



Kangorolac avenged Skerin by taking out Neville and his hobgoblin buddies.



I decided upon reflection to tweak my party. I got rid of Edwin for now and recruited Shar-teel. I wanted a bit more physical damage for my party and also I really do want someone who can use arrows of dispel/detonation as those are incredibly clutch on some of the later SCS fights.



I have an addiction to the Dragon Disciple breath weapon. I can't stop putting myself in dangerous spots to use it. Here I used it to crisp up some xvarts.



Those miners at the excavation site hosed me up a little bit. I dunno why but these guys have a knack for rolling natural 20s.



The party murdered many a siren as well.



Despite his dwarf saving throws Kagain got charmed multiple times. I kept having to cast hold person to keep him from smashing my party.



Flesh Golems hit very hard on insane and even with his 90 hp Kagain still took a beating here. I had to kite the last one around a bit to kill it.



I stayed the hell away from Bassilus and his circle of bones and threw skull traps, fireballs, silence, and hold person at him. Silence and Hold Person landed. Gg Bassi.



Melicamp died. And it took me forever to find a skull for him too. Those skeletons always spawn and attack me when I'm going to High Hedge at level one to buy a prot from petrification scroll for Basilisk leveling. But when I need a skull? Nowhere to be found.



I killed that Ogre mage and his siren companion because gently caress her (and also I want that 4k xp).



After killing a few more Sirens down south I think I am finally done with sirens unless I go to Werewolf Isle and/or there's others I'm forgetting.


The party has completed the West except for Drizzt's zone. I'm undecided if I want to kill him or not so I'll leave that zone on hold for now. Kangorolac is now level 6 and throwing skull traps at fools.

Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Dec 28, 2023

Flowing Thot
Apr 1, 2023

:murder:
Best Buy GamersClub had a quiet few days over Christmas but she's back to kick rear end.



Continued doing Rasaads quest and killed these guys for the XP the loot wasn't anything special.



None of the fights were a match for our party and I didn't remember to talk a screenshot until I was about to exit the map and I didn't feel like walking back.



Next we grabbed Hexxat to do her quests. I just let the swords handle most of this dungeon.



Again our over leveled party makes quick work out of every encounter. We quickly wrap up all of Hexxat's SoA content then grab Dorn.



Dorn was nearly dead in this fight and I put the Boots of Speed on him to run away and then a cutscene played and I thought Dorn had died. Turns out the boss died instead and he was saved.

Next up we are going to Spellhold finally.

Rogue AI Goddess
May 10, 2012

I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees.
That was a joke... unless..?
How good/bad/ugly of an idea would it be to do a blind ironman run without mods?
I never got to play BG1 beyond Candlekeep as a kid because my CDs were too scratched. :smith:

FairGame
Jul 24, 2001

Der Kommander

Rogue AI Goddess posted:

How good/bad/ugly of an idea would it be to do a blind ironman run without mods?
I never got to play BG1 beyond Candlekeep as a kid because my CDs were too scratched. :smith:

Awful.

It's an extremely fun game even now but you will absolutely eat poo poo to things you need to know about.

Basilisks are probably top of that list but so too are the end bosses of totsc content. And frankly the sarevok fight can be awful too.

At least durlag's absurd traps are telegraphed by everything in the game.

The totsc bosses are just "oh, you can't equip the relevant weapons with your party and don't have much magic? Guess you're gonna die." Or "oh here's an enemy with abilities you've never seen before and which are oddly coded. Have fun turning into a ghast."

Or hell, "you initiated dialogue with your main character with this random creature in the woods? Guess you die."

Don't play Ironman blind

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe
You can look up traps on Gamebanshee or something like that and be prepared for those that way but yeah you will probably get screwed over if you don't know what fights are coming or how to approach them.

Doesn't mean you won't have fun trying though. Most of us have been playing this game since it came out and we still die to dumb poo poo whether modded or unmodded. But I would probably suggest beating the game once or twice before trying to Ironman it even on vanilla

Flowing Thot
Apr 1, 2023

:murder:
Yeah I have played for literally thousands of hours and beaten the games dozens of times each and still die to dumb things. But hey give it a try you don’t learn unless you do it. We learn from our failures most of all.

Rappaport
Oct 2, 2013

Rogue AI Goddess posted:

How good/bad/ugly of an idea would it be to do a blind ironman run without mods?
I never got to play BG1 beyond Candlekeep as a kid because my CDs were too scratched. :smith:

I don't disagree with the above replies, but this was a fun question that got me thinking a little bit. My analogy would be, how fun would it be for someone used to "modern game design" (and what that concept implies) to pick up Nethack blind? I am aware it is possible to win that game without consulting spoilers, but it's very rare. Baldur's Gate has a lot of 90's game design stuff in it, and it's using the sometimes less-than-intuitive D&D rule-set.

If the player knew nothing going in, I think ironmanning wouldn't be that much fun. The game has a lot of teaching by showing moments, i.e. enemy spellcasters will make Khalid your party poop their pants and stop responding to your omnipresence, or get Held and bludgeoned to death by a group kobolds, etc. BG1 isn't anywhere near the level of funky nonsense Nethack has, but there's a bunch of nasty surprises in store and I think it would diminish the fun of Baldur's Gate the game as intended. And there are things that can certainly be learnt from game documentation, such as a 3rd level wizard spell with a hum-drum name like 'Slow' being a more useful and devastating spell than their classmate the 'Fireball' in many situations, but which might not occur to someone just coming in wanting to blow people and dragons to bits.

If a person is familiar with at least some of the concepts of 2nd ed D&D and turn-of-the-millennium expectations of what's difficult and 'fair', then it sure would be a way to experience BG1 I guess? Pre-buffing just in case when going up against a group of enemies, scouting ahead with a stealthed character to see if there are spellcasters around, etc. would certainly be an exciting way of playing a computer role playing campaign. I know beforehand that there's an assassin in this doorway/tavern/piece of desert and act accordingly (most times, I still forget stuff :ohdear:), but I suppose it's possible to use the game engine to suss this stuff out. Looking at some of the BG2 ironman runs from past years, people seem to cover their party members' portraits with protections and buffs anyway.

The last thing is that modern (even -ish) roguelikes are designed so that usually the player only loses a relatively short amount of playtime when a bull-poo poo enemy one-shots them or something similar. BG1 in particular has a lot of wandering around if played blind, assuming the player actually wants to see a good bit of the content the game contains, so for example reaching the Big City would involve several hours of blind gameplay. I imagine it'd be a nasty kick in the video game knees to lose your run at that point due to someone unforeseen, like Davaeorn's nonsense. I've sometimes thought a funny companion thread to this one would be a "Let's ironman Fallout 1/2!", because I posit that would be an extremely exhausting exercise in frustration due to that game's critical hit tables among many other things :haw: Getting mulched by an Enclave Patrol after 12+ hours of wandering around, woof.

Jack B Nimble
Dec 25, 2007


Soiled Meat
I'll post the actual details later, but my level one character encountered a more or less mandatory enemy five real life minutes into my play through. That enemies first attack hit her for 12 damage, which would kill almost all characters, and literally couldn't miss. So, that could have been the end of a run, right there. There's a TON of that in BG1 - you're very fragile until you get your second and third levels.

DeadButDelicious
Oct 11, 2012

Leave me to do my dark bidding on the internet!
Ramon Salazar and associates continue their rampage up and down the Sword Coast.



We defeated the Demon Knight! He was... Not hard. Didn't even bother with the mirror. Skeleton warriors, a Doom and backstabs from Alora made it very straightforward.



We claim the Soultaker dagger and promptly gently caress off back to Ulgoth's Beard where we are greeted by... Assassins. I was dreading them being smart enough to target someone like Tiax or Quayle but nope, they have it in for Montaron. Thankfully he doesn't explode so after landing a couple of choice fear and hold spells we mop up the cultists, go back to the Friendly Arm Inn and rez Montaron. Then, we go back, enter the cultist hut, and... Montaron dies to another backstab. This is silly, but we go back to the Friendly Arm Inn, rez Montaron, and come back to Ulgoth's Beard. hope the ritual is going to take a while!

We buff up, and head down into the basement for the bullshit fight that is Aec'Letec.



Skeletons, some distracting ogres, and Alora getting stabby on cultists by running to the far corner, stealthing, running back in to backstab clears up the room fast, and Aec'Letec goes down without much of a fight. We saved the sword coast from a Nabassu, huzzah!

... I can't be hosed with werewolf island and their bullshit so on with the story. We head to the Flaming Fist HQ, turn ourselves in, and Angelo murders Kagain because we backtalked him. Neb lets us out, we tell Tamoko to stick her offer, beat up Sarevok's new flame Cythandria at the top of the Iron Throne HQ, Husam from the Shadow Thieves gets us into the Undercellar to kill two assassins as part of the plot for Sarevok to usurp control of Baldur's Gate, yadda yadda yadda, hitting the fast forward button on everything to the final confrontation.



A chaos spell nearly fucks the entire run as Ramon, Tiax and Quayle fail their saves but Kagain manages to finish the job that Alora started before Ramon caved her head in. And with that, deep underneath the city of Baldur's Gate, Sarevok's plans have been undone.

Ramon Salazar and co have slain Sarevok and moved onto the SoD content!

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Thread's updated to this point.

On the topic of a completely blind Ironman attempt, I say do what you like, but yeah, understand that it's a very uphill challenge (and also that this is not a spoiler-free thread).

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Jackie Daytona the Warhorn Shaman is off to Bandit Camp.



We break the bad news about his fiancee to Aaron when we get back to Nashkel, and promise to deliver his Engagement Ring of Protection to her ghost, which we will get around to doing eventually.



We also return Sistrya's notes and get a Wand of Hold Undead in return.



We get our next mission from the Gorgon's Eye, and this one's pretty straightforward, just do some pickpocketing from the Gamesmen in the tents at the Nashkel Carnival. The fact that Nashkel is in Shadow Thief territory gives us a little pause but we're told that psh it's fine.



We also get our next bounty from Illasera, this one hitting a little close to home. Seems an Ogre Mage has been mugging travelers for their books, though weirdly he hasn't actually hurt anyone.

On our way to this confrontation, we arrive just in time for the (cutscene) ambush of Bashrik Sparklehammer by the Serpents of Abbathor. We're too late to do anything but loot the bodies, and in addition to his, er, sparklehammer (a +2 electric hammer identical in nature but not in appearance to the one we got off Bassilus) we get



his journal. We'll just hang onto this for now.



We head to the site of Gorion's murder to find the ogre mage in question, calling himself The Gentleman. Seems he was denied entry and has been conducting what he believes to be civil disobedience and what everyone else believes to be book-specific highway robbery.

It turns out that the book he wants (a) is essentially the Elf Kama Sutra and (b) that our old friend Firepants has a copy, so there's a peaceful resolution possible here, and since gently caress fighting an ogre mage that we don't have to, we go for the peaceful resolution. The Gentleman agrees to hand over all the books he's 'borrowed' but



welp. He's still got the particular book that Illasera wants though, which is convenient enough.



Up next, more troublemaking adventurers, this time a group that was hired to protect some archaeologists and ended up slaughtering them instead. This group has a reputation for rowdiness but this level of ultraviolence is a bit outside their motif.



We don't really get a chance to talk it over til most of them are dead.



Apparently a PC cleric or one of the vanilla NPCs can cure her of the evil influence from the artifact she's holding, but this does not extend to NPC clerics from mods and we have to 'cure' her like Ol' Yeller.

We head back to Nashkel to get on with things.



Vitiare get's a...personal...lesson from Breagar about the perils of pickpocketing dwarves.



Eight pickpocket checks later, and our guild folks are ready to do the robbery. We don't have to participate in this, we just head back for our reward.



On our way we check in with Oublek who is completely thrilled that Brage might actually deserve a fair trial after all.



Illasera pays us off and tells us that she's headed north to Baldur's Gate so that's all the bounties from her for now. She has a drink and a chat with Jackie before she leaves.



Bolstered by our initial success, the Gorgon's Eye has decided to formally expand into Nashkel, and we're going to be the ones facilitating that expansion. As before, we're told that the Shadow Thieves aren't likely to pose a problem.

We're also told that Liedrel has more bounties for us and that Gilbald who runs the gaming annex might have some work. And sure enough



Someone's been spending counterfeit gold both at his tables and at the brothel. We're pointed in the direction of someone who frequented both called Xevec.



He appears, however, to be a victim himself of someone who hired him to kill someone in Nashkel called 'Sam' and paid him with that counterfeit coin.



One of our bounties is this charming fellow, a necromancer. We're told that we can double-dip on this one, as he'd like the Guild's help in securing a body for his research, and we can both help and kill him for double the payoff. However, we decide we're not going to help him murder some rando just on the basis of having blue hair so Imoen just stabs him and we call it a day. Liedrel isn't entirely happy with our choice but eh, whatever, if she wants to put up with annoying psychopaths she can do these bounties herself.

We deduce that 'Sam' is probably Lady Samantha in Nashkel and sure enough





We convince her to turn herself in and tell Xevec that we'll explain that he was duped to the Guild and let them sort it out, which he seems to think is more reasonable than summary execution.



Here's our contact for the next couple missions. Job 1 is establishing a base of operations, which involves encouraging the owner of the nearby merchant tent to leave. We throw a bit of money his way and that's that.



Job 2 is recruiting some fresh blood, most notably this would-be pirate captain. She agrees to join up if we liberate some incriminating evidence that the Amnian Guard has in their barracks. Again, pretty simple.



Especially since we have a good reason to be in the barracks anyway, as we witness Brage's acquittal.

Job 3 involves getting some operating capital in the form of some bags of coin that are stashed here and there. Once again, pretty straightforward.



We decide to take the scenic route back, cutting through Ulcaster.



This is where we could recruit Recorder if we were of a mind to. We won't be doing that just now but we do still agree to go into the ruins and rescue her friends.



SCS turns this throwaway fight into a bit of a nuisance, since halfway through he gets a powerup and advances time wrecking any buffs we've got going on. He still gets his in the end, though.



This is a member of Recorder's party, who gives us a bit of info about what happened. Basically they were all betrayed by the party wizard, Rick Harris.



At the end, we find Rick as well as two other survivors from the party, the paladin Mark and Ruby whose class I don't know. We also find the WOLF OF ULCASTER, which is what SCS did to the vampiric wolf that's normally at the end of these dungeons. This is a fairly challenging foe, since in addition to the usual vampiric wolf stuff it can cast Horror, Dispel Magic, and summon both ghasts and wolves more or less at will.



We win in the end, but it's too late for Mark.



Thanks to Shades, there's a level below the ruins where we meet some ghosts who've been plagued by a ghost spider because hey, why not?



This area's a bit of a maze but it's not too bad. Some higher-level spiders including one Astral Phase Spider that proves a bit of a challenge.



And this spellcasting spider. We defeat it and the ghosts turn up to finish the job.



Second-rate bounty hunters, that's us.

The 'prize' in question is an escaped slave and we've been told to either return her or her collar (which can normally only be removed when she's dead). And yeah, gently caress this, we take her to the Friendly Arms Inn instead, get her collar removed in a nonlethal fashion with the help of Bentley's wife, and even though Liedrel is skeptical about our story about finding her dead, she also isn't thrilled about the whole slavery thing either and lets it go.



Our last bounty involves this dryad in Larswood. We've been asked to convince her to leave one way or another.



She's been trying to convince these hunters to go somewhere else (and they're the ones who took out the bounty). They have a bit of a strong reaction to "hey could you please maybe hunt elsewhere" and it all ends in violence. The Dryad gives us a periapt of proof against poison, and Liedrel gives us the stinkeye about taking matters into our own hands. Like I care.

Our next job from the Guild proper involves convincing Borland, who's been dealing black lotus out of his boardinghouse, to partner up. Or we can just put him out of business and take his stock for ourselves. We decide on a partnership.

But no sooner do we return with the good news than



...well poo poo.

There's shadow thieves all around the city. This used to be much more of a pain in the rear end with SCS installed as they would basically all be invisible. Now only a few of them are. It's still a pain in the rear end, but we eventually clear them out and find some coded instructions on their leader's person.



Their 'true plan' is to intercept the second piece of the Kerykeion from its owner...at the Bandit Camp. That's where we're headed next.

Flowing Thot
Apr 1, 2023

:murder:
I forgot to mention in my last update that for full disclosure I ended up spawning with the dev console the quest NPC Anomen needed for his quest to progress. I tried all the methods available to me to not have to do that and none of them worked.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Flowing Thot posted:

I forgot to mention in my last update that for full disclosure I ended up spawning with the dev console the quest NPC Anomen needed for his quest to progress. I tried all the methods available to me to not have to do that and none of them worked.

If I had to guess based on what you were describing I'd say something hosed up your timer variables. I think I ran into the exact same problem with Anomen once (and I think I used the same solution you did).

jfenserty
Jul 16, 2008
Derrilee decides to visit the circus! There's an exploding ogre we handle easily.

Then we wander into a tent where a man is threatening to kill a so-called witch, and after an exchange, he attacks!

We foolishly don't use the wand of magic missile to interrupt his spell, so this happens:



I'm at the mercy of the characters randomly running around and him randomly picking targets until the horror wears off.
He acid arrows Khalid twice, killing him, and then acid arrows Jaheira and Larlochs Derillee. Two more of those minor drains and my run is over.



Derrilee the half-elf dragon disciple has been slain by Zordral. If only Garrick had been a regular bard with fear resist song, instead of a modded Troubador. Or if someone had cast remove fear. Or if we'd walked outside the tent before he cast a spell. etc.

Probably gonna try again in a sec.

Flowing Thot
Apr 1, 2023

:murder:
Best Buy Gamersclub has a rather short update today.



After ditching Anomen for a while so we could do Dorn and Hexxat quests he is finally back into the main party. The party makes their last minute preperations and clears out their bags of anything they don't need and makes sure they have the things they do need going forward.



Then it is time to set sail for Spellhold and see what adventures await us there.



The vampires play a nice trick and mind control Anomen who had the Mace of Disruption +2. They died anyway, but it was a clever move.



I go and kill this guy for the Book of Infinite Spells, but we intend to go thru the pirate lord route anyway.



We take the pirate lord route because you get much more XP doing it that way.



After a sword fight I lose my Bhaal powers forever.



We'll hopefully meet again someday Imoen.

We stop there for the time being and will do the remainder of Spellhold next time.

Jack B Nimble
Dec 25, 2007


Soiled Meat

jfenserty posted:


Derrilee the half-elf dragon disciple has been slain by Zordral. If only Garrick had been a regular bard with fear resist song, instead of a modded Troubador. Or if someone had cast remove fear. Or if we'd walked outside the tent before he cast a spell. etc.

Probably gonna try again in a sec.

Interesting story, I was in suspense over whether or not it'd wear off, of he'd run out of juice, or what. Dang. That's probably how a lot of ironmam runs end ; hit by a save or suck and then tpk.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Jackie Daytona the Warhorn Shaman has conquered his last mine lol no

So we've still got to clear out Peldvale before we hit up the Bandit Camp, or at least we need to pass through to get there, so we may as well.



Kind of an odd thing to leave lying around.



...okay not even we are this stupid.

(This just results in a tough fight, since it takes +3 or better weapons to hit the resulting golem, and there's no particular reward other than XP, so yeah, gently caress that.)

Nothing much else to speak of here, the usual Black Talon Elites are the only real threat.

We head north.



...uh, okay, man.



This guy's here to sell his piece of the Kerykeion to the Shadow Thieves. We try bluffing like mad, and it doesn't go super well.



...for him either. The Shadow Thieves have already arrived, taken out his men, and murder him in front of us. He seems willing enough to talk, though, and talk we do. Apparently the magical artifact that Baldwin's had us searching for is a bit dangerous, and they're just trying to prevent a disaster. Not sure I really believe him, and anyway it doesn't matter, there's nothing to be done but fight.

He also lets slip that the attack on Beregost wasn't just a distraction, they were hired to do it by someone unknown. We don't get a name, unfortunately.

It's a bit touch and go like most rogue fights where they come pre-equipped with invisibility potions (which, thanks to SCS, is ALL OF THEM) but we win in the end.



Also in the area, this, uh, Gardener. She's apparently especially annoyed at Garclax the Gnoll who, uh, vandalized her garden. Frankly she had us at "please kill some gnolls".



The fight against the Bandit Camp is one of my favorite things that SCS does. Instead of doing it piece by piece, we're basically left to fight everyone at once. It's a chance to absolutely cut loose and it's challenging, but quite fun.

Looting everything afterwards takes some time, though.



We find this letter among the wreckage. I think it's something related to Black Hearts, since the Redwaters are the band of hobgoblins that we killed for Illasera earlier. But she never told us anything about "creepy priests", though we've certainly been finding holy symbols of Bhaal among the bodies. I wonder if there's something she's not telling us?



Not only can Emily make good use of this bow, she can upgrade it. (She basically gets to upgrade one 'named' missile weapon per playthrough.)



Look, it would be a pleasure even if we hadn't been asked.



The Gardener rewards us with a healing flower, and offers to give us more in exchange for bandit scalps (5 per flower). Not sure if it's technically better than selling them and using the gold to buy potions but it seems like a good deal.



In case we needed even more evidence about Brage's innocence, I guess.



You know, a 'thank you' costs nothing, Baldwin

We chat a bit more and he tells us that his ultimate ambition is in fact to displace the Shadow Thieves as the pre-eminent thieves guild in this part of the world, and that they're just trying to mess with us telling stories about the Kerykeion being dangerous. He also tells us there's a lot of guild business to attend to.

Most of the new quests (and these are mostly completely new to me, with the latest version of this mod) require us to have access to Baldur's Gate, but there are a few things we can do now.



The first is to collect the dues from the local innkeepers. One pays up without question, but the other three have a bit more nuance. One just plain doesn't have the gold, and we let him off with a warning. One supposedly already paid, and we have to hunt down the person who pretended to be us. And one pays, says something cryptic about only doing what he had to, and we're jumped by the City Watch outside.



We're told next that there's a new Flaming Fist Inspector in town and he's a bit more dangerous than the local rabble in the Watch. We're tasked with infiltrating a meeting at night and assassinating him. Not really our style, but eh, AFFAB.

Except it turns out to be a setup, the 'Inspector' is a dupe, and the whole thing was a ruse to flush out our mole in the Watch.

The next leg of this quest sends us to Baldur's Gate as well.

However, there's still one matter to attend to. One of the girls, Ilena, has gone missing from the Eye's brothel, and we're asked to investigate. We find out that the person she was with, a soldier called Isley, has killed his wife and abducted Ilena. We track him to Nashkel and there's a tense standoff that we resolve with our amazing quick-draw skills. (There are a bunch of possible stat checks and it can be quite tricky to resolve this without Ilena dying, but we're able to do so this time.)

So it's off to Baldur's Gate. But first



Shades adds a couple of additional quests to Gullykin, and this one's the most interesting



A mysterious dog has been showing up at her house every night. We agree to follow it.



It leads us to a cave where we find a halfling's body, apparently that of a friend of hers who disappeared a while back. We report in and she gives us a magic flute for sharing the bad news.

The real assignment here of course is Firewine Dungeon. And normally we could just pop in through the secret entrance, deal with the ogre mage, and be back in time for an early supper.



But of course SCS can't allow that. This is not, however, the worst mod-added trick that Firewine has to play. Shades of the Sword Coast turns the entire area into a Wild Magic zone. This makes the dungeon an absolute nightmare, even more than normal, but there are some upsides.



The first time I played this mod, the ogre mage killed himself with a falling cow. No such luck here, though the wizard here throws treasure at us rather than magic.

There's more to do in the Firewine region but like gently caress am I taking on Kahrk without an Arrow of Slaying now that they should actually work on him. (I've previously used the Spell Revisions mod, which turns Protection From Normal Missiles into Protection From Every drat Missile Weapon And Effect In The Game. SCS now turns it into Protection From Slightly More Than Just Vanilla Arrows but Arrows of Slaying should still be fine.)

We head off to Cloakwood.



Normally if we have Jaheira around, there's a peaceful solution possible, but no such luck this time. That's okay though, seriously gently caress this guy.



Emily takes a couple days to upgrade the Dead Shot bow, giving it a minor dexterity bonus as well.



Not sure what Jaheira has to do with anything, but whatever. We're told to come back to visit the archdruid after we've cleared out the mines.

We do all the usual Cloakwood stuff, dealing with Centeol, the idiot Wyvern Breeder, and



Something new. There's a too-strong wild animal around the mine entrance that the Iron Thrown have brought in and we have to restore the balance of nature something something.



Something else new. She's not much of a threat on her own, though and the couple of Black Talon Elites with her barely count as not on her own.



The Wyvern Cave is a bit scarier though, with a couple of Greater Wyverns and a Fire Drake. Nothing we can't handle and there's decent loot



Including our fourth and final Unusual Shard. We hold onto it for now.

Once we're at the mine itself



Faldorn gets a bit...enthusiastic.



Despite some issues with a web spell getting out of hand, we put these jokers in the ground.



And here's the animal we've got to kill for the greater good. It's apparently possible to polymorph it instead but I've never gotten that to work.



Breagar may be a grump but he's got a good soul, and he's really taking this personally.



Yeah okay buddy.

Not really much out of the ordinary in the mines. Hareishan is the only real threat on the way down, and things get a bit hairy because she spams Chaos and there are only so many anti-confusion spells and effects to go around. No one dies though (except her).



I don't think I captured this earlier, but when we first got into the Cloakwood, we're met by a woman whose son has been kidnapped. This is the son. We free him and send him outside to wait for us.



And eventually it's the big event. Sometime SCS Davaeorn can be very tricky.



Not this time, though. Imoen gets off a decent backstab and while Jackie and Breagar fight off the Battle Horrors (in the SCS version of this fight, they're always there, not triggered by the traps) Emily finishes the job before he has a chance to do much of anything but cast Slow on Imoen.



Hooray!

Next stop, Baldur's Gate, where we'll finally get on with things (and still do a bunch of mod content).

Lucas Archer
Dec 1, 2007
Falling...
Nicodemus the Sorcerer has been killed by Seniyad outside the Cloakwood Lodge. Neither Branwen's Command nor my casting of Magic Missile was able to interrupt his casting, and he called down a lightning strike that murdered me in one hit.

One more time into the breach for 2023. I'll give it a short break while I consider what my last attempt is going to be.

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Rogue AI Goddess
May 10, 2012

I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees.
That was a joke... unless..?

FairGame posted:

Don't play Ironman blind

...they said. But today's challenger, Blind Faith the dwarven fighter/cleric, is no man!



Given how heavily the deck is stacked against her, she opts for Normal difficulty.



Out of Candlekeep for the first time!



I've heard stories about that wolf, and I can see how this could've gone much worse.


This is not happening, I'm going to my happy place, I'm going to my happy place...

The guards chopped him down while I ran in circles, terrified and untargetable (and so did my character).



I sold all loot and bought a stinky little buckler with the proceeds. I'll file that under "investment into Not Dying".



I'm a dwarf, Jaheira. You had me at "trouble in the mines".

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