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Rogue AI Goddess posted:...they said. But today's challenger, Blind Faith the dwarven fighter/cleric, is no man! That Charisma tho 
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Dec 30, 2023 01:34
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DisgracelandUSA posted:That Charisma tho
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Dec 30, 2023 03:33
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Jackie Daytona the Warhorn Shaman has entered the big city. We do have some loose ends to tie up before we commit to exploring Baldur's Gate.  For example, once we set foot outside the mines...  Breagar gets a celestial visitation! And a Holy Quest (TM). Specifically, the Silver Dwarf tells him that his accident wasn't so much an accident as sabotage, but that details of that will be forthcoming later (i.e. in Baldur's Gate II). A more pressing matter is a giant that's stolen some holy artifacts and would he please go kill it. On our way out of the Cloakwood, we turn in a few quests. The dryad that wanted the leopard dealt with gives Jackie a permanent 5% fire resistance boost. Amarande the Shadow Archdruid gives Faldorn a shield. And Perwell's mother gives us a magic bow that's basically an off-brand Dead Shot. Since Emily's already using the upgraded version and no one else can use longbows, we just stash it for now. We decide to pop into Baldur's Gate for a quick shopping trip before we go giant hunting.  On our way, we give Zee the good news that he can set up shop in the Friendly Arms Inn.  At the city gates, we get word that someone's looking for Drake.  Emily wants to start looking for her mother, which we will absolutely get around to doing at some point.  And Illasera sends us a singing telegram telling us to meet her at the Elfsong right away, there's someone she'd like us to meet.  This is Vance, aka Stoneheart. He and Drake have a history together.  But this isn't about catching up on old times, this is about dealing with a Shadow Thief incursion into Baldur's Gate. (This is completely unconnected to the OTHER Shadow Thief incursion we're dealing with in a completely different mod, but I still like to think of Jackie trying to keep a straight face.) We agree to meet Stoneheart in the sewers to pursue this lead. Later.  Illasera introduces us to her friend, a Red Wizard with some info to share, but he doesn't quite get around to telling us before someone explodes into spiders and kills him. Seriously.  Faldorn recognizes the handiwork as that of Reizen, a druid who was a bit too extreme even for her Shadow Idiots. Someone who's also a Harper. Illasera's got a contact called Nerys who might have some more info, so she's our next stop. Well, not our next stop.  One of our current Gorgon's Eye missions has us trying to track down some stolen books from the monks of Candlekeep. Again. Whatever. Alatos suggests we check out the local black market.  And Black Lily has some suggestions about ways to get leverage on the Flaming Fist Inspector who's proven to be a thorn in the Eye's, er, eye.  While we're here, we grab the Dexterity Tome for Jackie.  We then head to the Fire Leaf Forest before Breagar gets too impatient.  Yrrmyr is a giant berserker, and a hard hitter, but we beat him down without too much trouble.  The Silver Dwarf turns up afterwards to give Breagar his reward, which comes in two parts:  The Axe of Berronar, a (currently) +2 axe  And a loving ROBOT ARM. Yup, Breagar gets a golem arm grafted to his body. He still can't wear a second ring, but the arm itself functions as the equivalent of a +2 ring of protection.  Our celebrations are a bit short-lived as we get an urgent message. Revaniel, the cleric who saved Breagar's life a bit ago, has disappeared while out dealing with an undead infestation at a local graveyard. Breagar feels he owes her a favor so we go to check it out.  Yup, definitely got some undead in the walls here, yessiree.  We fight some mages in a cave, who don't appear the ultimate source of evil here. Also, Faldorn takes this moment to get a bit weird. Er. Weirder.  We find the petrified Revaniel a bit further in.  And...oh dear. That's a lich. A level-appropriate lich, but still a lich.  We manage to kill it. And among its treasures we find  A second dexterity tome! Jackie's now rocking 20 dex.  Taerom's extremely grateful for Revaniel's rescue. (We're pretty sure she's his girlfriend.) He offers us our choice of rewards, and we choose a magical returning throwing axe for Breagar. Next, we decide we should probably clear out the rest of Firewine. Which, remember, is a Wild Magic zone. So, at one point, someone gets hurt and Drake starts casting a healing spell because I very intelligently left the AI script that heals my people up running. And then we get the cow cutscene.  I'm bracing for a game over but it's really not that bad. We do pop back through the Firewine shortcut to get healed up at the Gullykin Temple though. (And fight a bunch of respawning kobold commandoes on the way there and back, of course.)  Oh here we loving go. I've got Protection from Magic on Emily - the wild magic zone doesn't effect magic from items, mostly - and an arrow of slaying, as well as a couple arrows of dispelling (since Kahrk comes preloaded with Protection from Magic Weapons).  He manages to score a few hits on Emily before she kills him, but that could have gone so much worse. We also turn in a few quests that I'm just gonna skip over in the interest of time, and do the Stone of Askavar quest mod which I'm also gonna skip over in the interest of time. But, remember those shards we've been collecting?  Combining them summons a demon knight, though he's nowhere near as tough as the one in Durlag's Tower and basically lives long enough to go AHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHA! (dies). He drops a few evil items that we can't really use. And now we're (really) on our way to Baldur's Gate
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Dec 30, 2023 05:47
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:...they said. But today's challenger, Blind Faith the dwarven fighter/cleric, is no man! Ok this is great.
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Dec 30, 2023 06:36
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Kangorolac the Dragon Disciple has continued his adventures on the sword coast. Kangorolac set out to go to the Nashkel mines, but before he did he wanted to stop by at one of his favorite spots: the carnival! Here is Kangorolac slaying Zordal the great mage. Zordal is actually kinda scary on SCS because my installation randomizes his spells so I have no idea what he'll spawn in with. If I let him get off the wrong cast in this small tent it could prove trouble. However, the party managed to neutralize him before he did anything too nasty.  Kangorolac went into the tents to do some serious gambling. In the midst of a terrible losing streak at roulette, Shar-Teel piped up with "this is the stupidity we get with male leadership". I couldn't really disagree. However, Kangorolac eventually won some gold.  Greywolf was pissed that Kangorolac stole his bounty, but Greywolf was unprepared for Baeloth casting spook on him. As he ran around in terror the party filled him with magic missiles and darts and arrows.  Here Kangorolac threw out a web against the group of Kobolds that guard the entrance to Mulahey's lair. SCS puts a kobold mage here as well as a chieftain and they're a bit tougher than normal kobolds. Sometimes the mage casts lightning bolt and that could kill my entire party here so I had to be careful.  Mulahey was put down with command and Baeloth nuked a bunch of kobolds and skeletons with a massive fireball.  Nimbul ate a silence here and then Kangorolac and company chopped through his protections to kill him.  Fresh off their spoils in the mines the party decided to murder a pack of wolves in the temple zone.  Kangorolac also fished out a ring of fire resistance so that he could  Narcillus Harwilliger Neen did not approve of Kangorolac wanting his jelly spell, which is a shame because Kangorolac would love to be able to summon jellies. A couple of hold persons and a silence took care of him though. I gotta admit, Vicky and Tiax have been carrying this run. The sorcs do a lot of work as you would expect but having two clerics is surprisingly nice. They're potent offensively in bg1, even on cranked up SCS settings.  On the way back to Beregost to sell some spoils Kangorolac was ambushed by the bounty hunter party lead by Morvin. A silence from the Clerics helped turn the tide early, but it didn't get everyone.  The gnome mage (Halacan?) got off a charm person on Kagain which took Kagain out of the fight and made the party have to kite around the meleers a bit.  Eventually additional cc was landed and the party gritted out the battle. Kangorolac has now completed the Nashkel mines and a number of eastern zones. Up next is probably Firewine, Peldvale, Larswood, and that one spider zone near Peldvale/Larswood, and then bandit camp + Cloakwood. Ulcaster will probably be left until much later in the game because with my mods it's a little overtuned.
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Dec 30, 2023 09:23
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 https://twitter.com/drewjanda/status/1734274493529628889
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Dec 30, 2023 15:31
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 What level where you when you decided to melee an Ogre?
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Dec 30, 2023 15:48
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Oooh I forgot to note at the end of my previous post my honours: Ironling, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honourable Trader. Anyway! On with the Ramon Salazar experience! We find ourselves in some sort of tomb under the city where the last of Sarevok's loyal followers has been chased.  Tiax will have a revelation soon and I get the sinking feeling our time together grows short.  We run afoul of two groups of mercs, both of which go down without much of a fight. I assume this room was some sort of stock room for fresh SoD characters.  Kagain also feels like it's time to go soon. The band's breaking up.  Alora is the best girl and I'm going to miss her chirpiness so much   A mummy wakes up and asks us all to turn down that beatbox music. We agree to support the mummy in its' crusade for a good afterlife's sleep.  Huh. Wonder what the giant skull on the floor is for?  We catch up with Korlasz, beat her to a pulp and then take her in as she surrenders, but before we leave there's a couple of loose ends to tie up. Alora.  Alora.   Okay bye Quayle hope someday you can reimburse me for all those times I dragged your carcass to the temple to raise you.  The mummy rewards us with gold and experience. Also, Tiax being Tiax.  With his reputation restored by accompanying the hero of Baldur's Gate I can only assume Kagain wants to go back to his business. Then the usual exciting stuff happens - Imoen is nearly assassinated, I marvel at Entar Silvershield's awful "French" accent. Corwin attaches herself to me so I can't evade the eyes of the law (bugger), and I join up with Minsc and Dynaheir! Since the list of shorties in SoD is shockingly... Err... Short... I'll need some mooks to accompany myself, Glint and M'Khiin as we go to take down Caelar Argent and her heretical crusade. Only Lord Saddler can offer true deliverance!  Ramon Salazar is bumming around a refugee-choked city looking for pals.
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Dec 30, 2023 15:50
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Jack B Nimble posted:
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Dec 30, 2023 15:58
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 Aldren the shadow adept is just about to leave Candlekeep. He has learned in secret to use the Shadow Weave, reading instructions in forbidden tomes. This class seems quite interesting. They get different versions of various regular spells, for example Aldren starts with good ol' blindness and magic missile, but there's also new spells that are only usable by the shadow adepts/sorcerers/bards/monks that the mod adds. They are supposedly not able to memorize normal spells, but I did a test and memorized identify just fine. I won't be doing that however, as it's definitely not intended behavior. Finnish Flasher fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Dec 30, 2023 |
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Dec 30, 2023 16:14
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  Aldren and Imoen make it to the outskirts of the friendly arm inn, where they meet Kryn Darkflame, who sells shadow magic scrolls as well as some gear. The duo does some small quests, returning a ring, returning a water bowl, bringing a chicken back to human form.  Melicamp lives!  Afterwards the duo kills some basilisks and recruits four people before going into the actual inn. Oh, an assassin was waiting, he didn't last long. A bit easier when you have a full party of level 4-5 characters.  Afterwards Aldren dismisses three of the companions and recruits those his foster father told him about. After leaving the inn, they are hailed by a wizard who asks them to find some magic circles for him. Might as well.
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Dec 30, 2023 21:53
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Meet Matilda "Not Daredevil" Murdock, gnome fighter/thief. A blind(-ish) run calls for an appropriate superheroine.  After what happened to Gorion, she told Imoen to stay away because it's too dangerous.  Tarnesh was no ogre, but killing him was still cathartic.  In Beregost, Matilda led spiders on a cinematic chase across the moonlit streets, before eventually backstabbing them all.  To keep the enemies equally blind, she stayed in the shadows, darting from tree to tree as she moved across the map.  She finally made it to Nashkel! Surely the assassins have lost the trail by now. Surely.  Welp. Is this the end of Matilda? Or will Neira's tangled pathfinding save the day? Find out in Not Daredevil: Episode 2 tomorrow!
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Dec 30, 2023 23:40
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Jackie Daytona the Warhorn Shaman has been bimbling around the city.  She'll take thieves (and ONLY thieves) to the Black Market between midnight and 4 AM. (This was a bit bugged in my EET install and I had to do some quick NearInfinity surgery to make the return trip work.)  The Black Market has afew vendors of thief equipment, weapons, potions, etc.  It also has this guy, who trades information. He's got info on both Isla Darkcloak, one of our bounties, and on the person who stole a particular tome from Candlekeep. For that info he wants some evidence out of Flaming Fist HQ and for us to report on a covert meeting of the Flaming FIst with some foreign merchants about a weapons shipment for the Fist.  Now, it transpires that Isla Darkcloak is standing right across the room, but attacking her here would be suicide. She offers to face us in honorable combat if we defeat everyone else in the Gorgon's Eye fighting pits first, but who has that kind of time? Soren instead tells us where she likes to go drinking and we confront her there. She's happy enough to challenge our entire party and while she's pretty tough, it doesn't go all that well for her. As for the missing tome, it's going to change hands tonight at the docks.  This would have been confusing one character ago. We intercept the transaction, it's another fight, and the tome is ours.  On our way out of town to turn in the quest, we interrupt a very intense D&D session on the top floor of Sorcerous Sundries. (I think they're actually Zhentarim, which makes me feel perfectly good about murdering them. I played the Gold Box games, I know ALL ABOUT Zhentil Keep, thanks)  Rigaldo's got nothing more for me for now. (If I remember correctly from the previous version, there's a specific trigger that gets us into the endgame for this mod, but I don't know if that's changed for the new version. We shall find out together, but in the meantime, there are still some side missions.)  We get poisoned by these losers in spite of Jackie being completely immune to poison thanks to various gear. Ah, DM fiat, is there anything you can't do?  These guys hunt extraplanar beings, and want us to help them track down an extraplanar elven archer. Something about their story stinks, but we agree to play along til we know what's going on.  Emily wanted us to ask around the Blade and Stars about her mother, so we do, only to be told that it's much more likely that someone like that is drinking at the unnamed tavern in the area.  This high-end courtesan is a favorite of the Inspector who's been plaguing the Gorgon's Eye. To get her on side we need to steal a particular necklace from the Silvershields. Fortunately we have to stop by the place to give them the bad news about their son anyway (and hope that no one asks any pointed questions about who helped their daughter run off with that idiot Eldoth).  Yup, elf, archer, apparently extraplanar. Unsurprisingly though, they were up to no good and we agree to deal with them for her. They put up a bit of a fight but we are frankly overleveled at this point. Afterwards, Emily asks about her mother.  Adalgisa gets a little cagey but gives Emily a journal written in a cryptic language that she seems to instinctively understand. Emily decides to take some time to read through it.  Part 2 of our plan for the Inspector is this very expensive wine.  While we're working on the poison cure, we come across this woman begging for coins. Turns out she's from Luskan and she got teleported here by the child she was caring for. We suspect there's probably more to this story.  Here's another Shades quest, we've got to infiltrate and destroy the necromantic Cult of the Dragon before they finish building...something.  At the Temple of Helm, we find word of the author of the journal we took off the corpse of the person the Serpents of Abbathor killed. We're directed to the sewers, where we'll soon enough be headed anyway. Oh joy.  Also in the Temple, we meet this fallen paladin who killed a child he believed to have been a demon in disguise. Turns out the child was only being controlled by the demon, and he's been praying for guidance (and hiding from an angry mob) ever since. We go talk to the child's parents and find out that their story is very similar to that of the teleported nanny from Luskan, and we share the news with Sir Dauron, who decides to go try to avert a second similar tragedy there. We wish him the best.  This is Nerys. She's an extremely enthusiastic gnomish bard. Right now she's spying on some apparent smugglers, though she's quite disappointed when it turns out that what they're smuggling was some exotic baby clothes because one of their wives is expecting.  She's also our contact about the Harper assassin that interrupted our meeting with Illasera.  We follow her to her house (or we try; there's another bugged cutscene that we need to fix before this works) and she digs up some info. Turns out our Harper is actually an ex-Harper, and he seems to have gone south mentally after a mission in the Underdark. He's apparently hiding out in a gorge somewhere but Nerys doesn't know where.  Illasera, however, apparently does. We go to talk to her and while she researches the Red Wizards, we're told where to find this gorge. We'll put a pin in that til we're cured of our poison and can leave town, though.  This dwarf is missing his halfling buddy. We agree to keep an eye out.  Ah, doppelgangers. Even SCS can't make you a real threat.  After fighting alongside Gorpel Hind and his loving Morons, we decide to turn in for the evening, and Emily shares what she's learned so far from Adalgisa's journal. Apparently she ALSO knew Emily's father, and didn't seem to have an especially high opinion of him during their adventuring days. She tells us that she's going to keep reading, but I'm pretty sure we can all see where this is leading.  Here's another bounty, an advisor to Lord Belt who's made some enemies at court. Enemies who seem to be trying to start a war with Amn, with mysterious backers among a merchant cartel...oh. Oh dear. We tell him it's not safe, but he refuses to leave town or back down. All we can do is let him walk away. Man, Liedrel's gonna LOVE this.  We make the rounds and deal with Ramazith, and Jackie's now slightly less of a mind flayer snack than before.  We meet up with a friend of Breagar's from back home. He shares some news about Reggik, an apprentice smith and a rival for the woman Breagar loves, who's trying to forge the same ring that cost Breagar his arm. He also tells us that the clan has signed a contract with the Iron Throne, and while he could never do anything to act against that contract, if I, a completely random individual, were to retrieve it, well, that would be different.  ...we're all trying to find out who did this, and who dressed Jackie up in this hot dog costume. (I haven't actually decided what I'm going to do with the Wisdom tomes yet. They're useless to Jackie, but my divine spellcasters won't be around for the entire trilogy, and that feels like a waste. My best options are either give them to Drake, who will at least be around through Siege of Dragonspear, or Emily (who IS in Baldur's Gate 2 and whose stats apparently carry over), who has 14 wis now, so the three tomes will put her within one point of using Wish spells with impunity.)  We sort out our poison problems...  ...deal with this baby-cursing fool...  ...and investigate this Shades-added ghost ship.  The ship itself has bones scattered all over the place. Put the bones in the captain's bunk, and we summon the captain, who's sticking around trying to find the remains of his sons. We have two of three of his son's bones already, so we'll come back when we have the complete set. For now we're going to head out of town to attend to a few matters before finishing things up in the city.
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Dec 31, 2023 03:33
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Thread is updated to this point. Good luck to our blind runner! Finnish Flasher posted:
I don't think I've ever used this mod before, and will be curious to hear your impressions!
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Dec 31, 2023 03:54
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:Level 1. I needed the XP, so I took what seemed to be a level-appropriate quest at the time. So, are you rolling up again? Please say yes 
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Dec 31, 2023 07:21
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Best Buy Gamersclub is adventuring in the underdark. Why does Spellhold have so many riddles?  Making sure to clear all the content.  We bring Irenicus low, but he manages to escape taking my soul with him.  We decide to party up with the man that brought us to the island and then betrayed us. Surely he will never betray us again.  The primary reason we agree to work with the guy that betrayed us.  We meet a friendly beholder and everyone walks away happy.  The party reaches the underdark and sets out to do some questing. We help out some gnomes because they offer a lead on Irenicus.  Best Buy wastes a time stop because this dude was dead before she ever cast the spell. He was killed instantly be Jans traps.  Anomen decides the middle of a beholder lair is a good time to have a romantic talk. I don't think these are supposed to trigger outside of act 2/3. The beholder lair was something I was dreading. Edwin and Best Buy bother dropped dragons breaths as soon as they loaded in and the beholder and elder orb at the start were dealt with. Then came a long slow clear of the remaining enemies. I used planetars to clear out most of the enemies but the other elder orb imprisoned my planetar at some point meaning I could not summon a new one in that area. I started using magical swords instead. I read on reddit that a beholder typically only has one cast of death spell memorized, and it turns out this is correct. I would sacrifice one sword to the death spell then send the others to deal with them. Elder Orbs also only had one spell of each of theirs memorized so no swords got imprisoned. The party is likely to tackle the mind flayer dungeon next.
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Dec 31, 2023 09:45
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DisgracelandUSA posted:So, are you rolling up again? Please say yes I already did. The last time we saw Matilda "Not Daredevil" Murdock, gnome fighter/thief, she was held immobile by a killer intent on slitting her throat in an unladylike manner.  Apparently the local law enforcement took an exception to that. At the local carnival, she got robbed twice - first by a pickpocket, next by a potion seller. When some mage-hating mage decided to be the third and tried to rob her of her life, she ran away from the circus.  Found the working class woman's husband.  And avenged my first character.  Mellicamp lives! I guess my beginner's luck must have rubbed off on him.  I'm not good at classic RPGs, but stealth games are very much my jam.   And so Matilda "Not Daredevil" Murdock has ended the iron crisis, ensuring continued proliferation of deadly weaponry among the local populace.
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Dec 31, 2023 19:44
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Jackie Daytona the Warhorn Shaman is finally going home. We have a lot of poo poo to wrap up before we go, though.  Emily has some more info from Adalgisa's journal to report, mostly about how the planar hunters are capital-B Bad. She resolves to keep reading.  We head back to Beregost with Ishani to lay our trap for the Inspector. The plan is that she'll contact him to ask for a meeting at the Jovial Juggler, with the promise of dirt on the Gorgon's Eye, and will order the expensive wine, which is now expensive drugged wine.  Ariosh has a bit of an insurance policy in mind, though, in the form of a bomb that we plant in the back. If things go seriously south we can detonate the bomb and kill the Inspector (and a bunch of bystanders so, er, let's not.)  While we're here I realize I never turned in the quest where we saved Ilena. Madame Meredia is sufficiently grateful.  We also turn in the two of our outstanding three bounties that we've managed to complete. As expected, Liedel is not thrilled with our mercy toward the Duke's advisor, but it turns out not to matter, because someone else offed him anyway, and we still got paid. Hooray? Isla's bounty is a more straightforward reward since we, you know, actually killed her.  The Inspector comes to the meeting and...of course, he knows it's a trap. Rather than blow the place sky-high, we challenge him to a game of riddl-, naah, we just kill him. (After the game crashes because there's another bugged cutscene we need to fix. Ah, newly-updated mods.)  Not the most elegant of solutions but Ariosh seems fine with it. Our next job is to take out the Watch Commander's two lieutenants, ideally as stealthily as possible. There's no actual penalty as far as I can tell for "not stealthy" but we manage to pull it off. Backstabbing and then using a potion to go invisible again is not just a trick that SCS-enhanced NPCs can use, it turns out.  Finally, we're tasked with taking on the Commander herself, and we're aided by dissension in the ranks of the City Watch. There's fighting in the streets as we make our way to the Temple where she and her Templar Knights are making their last stand.  You know, it's maybe just possible that we are in fact the baddies.  Yup. We're the baddies. But we're baddies who still have a 20 reputation, so that's all right then.  There's still a bit more Gorgon's Eye stuff to do but for now we're moving on.  Specifically, we're moving on to finally track down the ex-Harper assassin for Illasera. And yeah, sure does seem like we're dealing with an evil druid.  And here he is. We can chat a bit, but...  ...it turns out he's read the Evil Overlords list and won't tell us poo poo.  After the fight, we find yet another coded journal.  When we reconnect with Illasera, she tells us that Nerys has requested a meeting at nightfall outside the Drakon Tavern.  While we wait for night to fall, we hit the sewers to deal with this Completely Original Ogre Mage Scheme, Do Not Steal.  Oh, and with Drake's ex-friend (who we find out later is in fact his ex) Stoneheart, who leads us to the Shadow Thief incursion that he's been tracking. It's a bit of a fight and afterwards...  Stoneheart had assumed they were here to partner with whoever's trying to stir up tensions with Amn. Turns out they were in fact investigating those tensions and we were (sort of) on the same side. Well that's a bit awkward. Stoneheart heads back to Amn but not before rewarding us with, among other things,  This rather nice amulet that used to be Drake's (and now is again). We head topside again to make our meeting with Nerys.  ...well, poo poo.  I cannot express how little I care about whatever the gently caress the Red Wizards are up to, that's Illasera's jam. But Nerys is a relative innocent and we're not going to let her suffer for this, so off we go to the rescue. Er, eventually. We do still have one last Gorgon's Eye bounty to deal with, an alchemist called Alaric who's created a cure for some disease that he refuses to part with. We've been ordered to separate him from the cure by whatever means necessary, and have been told that he's been doing animal experimentation so, you know, anywhere the wildlife is acting strange is a good place to start.  I think this may be the place.  We offer to buy the cure, but no dice, he doesn't want to cure diseases, he wants to Jackie Daytona has fallen to a mad poultry alchem... just kidding. No, he's a pushover.  We feel like a little redemption so we decide to give the cure to the healers rather than just sell to the highest bidder. Liedel's not 100% on board but she'll follow our lead.  The next job the Eye has for us is...drug smuggling? Ugh.  We ask if there's a not-drug-smuggling job we can do instead, and just this once, Rigaldo agrees. Turns out there's someone at the Lotus Tent who's been there for days and his wife would like him to come home badly enough that she's enlisted the Eye's help. As before, we bring up the whole Shadow Thief thing and as before we're told 'pshh, it's fine'.  We get to him and he's very insistent on getting to the exact right stage of being high to achieve enlightenment. We figure, sure, why not, we'll help him with that.  Oh look a Shadow Thief ambush who could ever have seen this coming. They're here once again to warn us off the Kerykeion, and in fact we could choose to betray the Guild at this point. Naah, though. At this point there's no more work for us, at least til A Thing happens. But first  Emily read in Adalgisa's journal that a friend of hers was staying at Feldepost's Inn, so we head there for maybe some more info about her mother. Which, yeah, he does...  oh i can't believe this how could  Oh yeah and it's ALSO a Planar Hunter trap. They kill Rodwyn. We kill them.  I think this is pretty much the end of Emily's story stuff for this game. Her race changes to Aasimar on her character sheet too.  This encounter is supposed to trigger when we leave Beregost next. We have to take matters into our own hands though, more bugs, joy. Anyway, we meet this dying Gorgon's Eye agent, who gives us a coded note for Baldwin.  CRAVENSWORTH, er, TRAVENHURST! He's the one who sicced the Shadow Thieves on us, it turns out, AND he has the last piece of the Kerykeion. So we're off to pay him a visit.  Except it's a Shadow Thief ambush. And not just any Shadow Thief, but Baldwin's brother, who once more tries to warn him just how dangerous the Kerykeion is.  Uh...boss?  Oh. Well. Okay then. We call an emergency truce with the Shadow Thieves so we can collectively beat down this super-snake who used to be Baldwin. He's pretty formidable in this form with a stunning poisoning attack and a bunch of resistances, but  we prevail, this weird dude who's spent most of the mod hanging out in the corner tells us we're Guildmaster now, and that's it for the Gorgon's Eye mod. (There is technically stuff we can supposedly do with getting income from the Guild but I can't be hosed.) While we're out and about, we decide to take down the Cult of the Dragon, who are holed up in a cave in the Rocky Coast area.  These cultists, sixteen in all, are building a monster, and we would rather they didn't. The cultists themselves are pushovers.  This...is not a pushover. It's a mini-Aec, though thankfully not quite as dangerous. (It's still got the ol' death gaze though.) We could dress up in cultist robes and sneak past but gently caress that. Instead we just kill it before it kills us.  And here's the lead cultist and the...thing...they were building. We're not sure what this thing is and we don't care. We kill them both, and then head up to Ulgoth's Beard to deal with a few matters, like Shandalar's quest.  Breagar is not thrilled about this development. (Wait til you see how he feels about Werewolf Island).  It's hard to see even with the highlighting on, but here's a bit of magical ice that a questgiver asked us for in Nashkel about a thousand years ago.  I guarantee you this is not the last joke we will ever make. As usual for Ice Island, the biggest threat is the group of mages near the entrance, and we deal with them by nuking them from invisibility before they can do much more than start a conversation. The other individuals mostly don't get one-shot by Imoen's backstabs but it's enough to easily sort them out after.  And Imoen gets a backstab crit on Dezkiel.  Emily picks now to have a I Like U Do U Like Me conversation. We tell her she's a good friend. I might pursue a romance later (if I haven't just locked myself out of it, but I think the BG2 romance track is completely separate) but for now, let's keep it profesh.  We're not going to Werewolf Isle yet, just getting the ball rolling for later.  We do, however, get a tip on a ghost in the lighthouse. Apparently there's some restless dead underneath that won't let her get any rest either.  We...have some fun.  And find the third of the Ghost Pirate's sons, who apparently fell in with a bad crowd at some point. (We get a cursed scimitar for our trouble. Yay.)  She still can't be at peace though, apparently she needs to catch the scent of her boyfriend, and we're sent to the Friendly Arms Inn to buy some perfume he used to favor. We pick some up and will swing by when we're next in Ulgoth's Beard.  We finally reconnect with Illasera, who is less concerned about Nerys being kidnapped by the Night Knives than she is about the Red Wizard hideout. But she sees how one is connected to the other, and she at least has some advice, namely that we should check in with either the local Thieves Guild or the Flaming Fist to see where they might be holed up. Thieves Guild is closer, but Alatos has hosed off since we finished his quest, so we head to Scar.  He points us in the direction of a warehouse in the Docks district. But first..  Okay, just one question. Who the gently caress is Sarevok?  SCS adds a couple of additional enemies to this fight, and it's a tough one, but we come through the other side in pretty good shape. (You're seeing us after everyone runs around like an AI-scripted healbot, of course.) Before we head on to Candlekeep there are a couple matters left. Most immediately, rescuing Nerys and dealing with the Red Wizards.  Scar's intel is good and we come across the Night Knives holed up in this warehouse. For vampire spawn, they're not much of a threat, even if they did trap the place.  Nerys tells us about a secret passage in the sewers into a Thayvian hideout.  This is one of two big fights inside the compound (aside from some mooks along the way). This guy summons portals which in turn summon mephits, imps, quasits, and other such things til we kill them. (There are for some reason two of the same ogre mage here. It doesn't really help him.)  And here's the big bad from Thay. She's about to wipe the floor with us when...  ...turns out we were just one prong of a two-pronged attack. Cherise fucks off to try to deal with what I assume to be Illasera, while we mop up her lackeys.  We find a letter left behind from a mysterious S, and an equally mysterious gem.  We reconnect with Illasera who tells us about her side of the fight, which was inconclusive. The gem, she thinks, will let her get back into Cherise's astral sanctum, but it's going to take a while for her to do the research. I'm gonna skip ahead a bit, because this is getting long, but there's really just one last loose end to tie up: the Serpents of Abbathor quest. Through a long and convoluted series of encounters, we end up back at the Nashkel Mines, which have been taken over by the Serpents. We find Emerson holed up in one of the nearby buildings, but really we're here to stop the schemes of the Serpents' boss, a cleric called Lugosch.  Trust me, this would not make much more sense if I'd shown you the entire quest. The Gungmator is an artifact that summons Dwarf Shadows, or something. Anyway we kill them.  Emerson tells us after all this that if we go back and rest at the inn, the next time we come back things will be back to normal. Lol we're never coming here again.
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Dec 31, 2023 22:21
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Cliffhanger moment:
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Jan 1, 2024 02:29
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:Cliffhanger moment: You're almost certainly dead. I'm surprised how much you've gotten done with just one character though, and if you get out of this I'll be impressed.
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Jan 1, 2024 05:05
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If you have autopause on enemy sighted, you can escape the basilisk ambush to the south before it has time to react and petrify you.
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Jan 1, 2024 07:45
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Jack B Nimble posted:You're almost certainly dead. I'm surprised how much you've gotten done with just one character though, and if you get out of this I'll be impressed. Edit: in other news   Edit 2: welp  Matilda "Not Daredevil" Murdock has perished in Cloakwood, webbed and alone. Rogue AI Goddess fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 14:29
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Sorry I haven't updated in a day or so, I took a break to track down and kill Chaos. Anyway, Ramon Salazar continues his adventures.  Picked up Safana because why not? And by the time the loose ends in the city were all tied up, it was morning, so we agreed with Corwin to go back to the Duchal Palace for a nap. There's a sinister looking dude in a robe who meets me by the bed Imoen's poisoned body had been dumped on. Awkward. She says he claimed to be an old friend which is 100% possible for Ramon Salazar to associate with weirdos in hooded robes. Skie wakes us up to say she's coming along too, and I could not care less and want to go back to sleep.  Except daddy Entar says that everyone is to treat her as a normal bum, except me who is expected to look after her and bring her back safe. Gulp.  This is Audamar, Corwin's dad. He's looking after Corwin's daughter, because she's a working lady who brings home the bacon. He has extreme retired cop vibes so I don't like him too much.  We move out! Some berk decided to sling slanderous accusations at Ramon of being in cahoots with Sareovk. Salazar, being a villain with good publicity, tells the crowd that he's going to go deck The Shining Lady and make everything alright. They seem to rally behind this, and we can only hope that berk got dumped in a barrel of rainwater.  Looks like that Sinister Looking Dude is checking in with Caelar Argent as well. Wonder what he's up to, hmm. As soon as we make camp, we take a nap and have a dream.  I mean, I had hoped? We have a cryptic nonsense dream before waking up, having a hearty breakfast and head off to snoop around the woods!  Seems like an inn was burnt down and ransacked by crusaders, so I agree to help out in order to recruit more followers to Los Illuminados. He doesn't look too hard, it seems, because two of three heirlooms he wants are still in the vicinity of the inn.  A riveting fight pit is broken up by a goblin who can summon ghosts. Salazar likes the cut of this goblins jib so will bring her along.  Getting bored of this particular forest, Ramon naffs off to a similar forest to the west, bumps into Skie, and sends her back to the camp. Thankfully she can somewhat take care of herself. After slaying a vampire and getting a shield that was an heirloom for the innkeeper, we head back and wish him the best of luck with his wife who buggered off with his kids.  Exploring the woods a bit more brings us to a mine where some dwarves are being attacked by zombies! Egads! Lets go put some souls to rest and find some loot.  The dwarves brought along a giant, too. Good for them. He's a nice giant so we send him back to his dwarf friends.   Going in deeper, there's a magic scrying pool. Sticking some rods in the side and dropping some water in lets us spy on some folks! We start with Imoen.  Imoen is learning magic. Boring. Next!  That's a big army Caelar appears to be amassing. I might have my work cut out for me.  Sinister Looking Dude has a chinwag with Caelar's right hand man. There's discussion of demons and something called the Umbral Accord. I adore David Warner's delivery of "lickspittle". Anyway in keeping with avoiding screenshots of key points, turns out there was a dwarf lich. We killed him, tossed his phylactery into the elemental plane of fire, and twisted the dwarves collective arms to help us at Dragonspear Castle. Which means more giant later. Yay giant!  Heading northeast to a bridge we come across a Crusader blockade. They collectively panic as Ramon Salazar and Los Illuminados (please assume everyone here who isn't a shorty has been infected with Las Plagas for continuity reasons) and blow up the bridge. After a short skirmish, Caelar herself deigns to join the battlefield... On the other side of the bridge. She tries to coax Ramon to join her cause but he's having none of it and sends her packing. The next crossing is apparently at Boareskyr Bridge, where daddy Bhaal was slain during the time of troubles. Sure it'll be a fun romp!  Ramon Salazar has made it to Bridgefort and Boareskyr Bridge.
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Jan 1, 2024 14:49
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So, Jackie and crew meet up with Duke Eltan and he sends us first-class Teleport Without Error to Candlekeep's gates, with a book to secure our entry.  Oh look, the welcome wagon. One of SCS's fun little pranks is to move the ogre mage assassin's party. Of course there's no chance to prebuff because why would there be? Still, they're not really much of a threat to us at this point. We waste little time heading into the library.  Breagar has an appreciation for the finer things.  "Koveras The Human?" Checks out.  We decide not to murder Rieltar and company and content ourselves with Imoen pickpocketing them blind.  So, uh, anyone notice that? Anyone? Thoughts?  It's not long after that we find the letter from Gorion explaining our heritage, and then get arrested for a murder we probably didn't commit.  So your theory is, and let me be clear about this, that I, who GREW UP HERE AND KNOW YOU PERSONALLY, am an agent from Amn?  Thanks, Imoen, that's really...that's helpful.  Most NPCs are pretty supportive when we learn about Dear Ol' Dad, if they react at all. Breagar is a bit more pensive about it.   Our (almost) last tomes. Breagar gets the Strength one and Emily gets the Wisdom one (and the one from Durlag's tower, which I forgot to screenshot)  ...man, can you imagine if this had been real?  I like to think these later doppelgangers are taking the form of the Tutorial Monks. "Click Here To PERISSSSSSSHHHHHHHthsthsths"  Breagar decides our heroic reputation and sunny personality are more important than our death-god heritage. We leave Candlekeep and decide that getting out of town for a while sounds like just the thing. Yes, a nice little salvage mission to clear our heads.  Some are more skeptical about this plan than others.  This is the last loving time I fly ShandalAir.  In case it weren't quite clear, Breagar, uh, is not fond of the sea. Or sea travel. Or anything related to the sea. Or anything at all, really.  Wow, it sure would be a shame if all of us and this Selaad, who we've probably never met, ended up at each others' throats as a result of some stupid misunderstanding that either of you could clear up at any time, huh?  Oh, what is there really even to say about Werewolf Isle? We kill Karoug, make our escape, actually manage to talk Kaishas down (because of a timely Wisdom potion and some adjustments that I think SCS makes)  Oh. Okay then, Faldorn.  And then negotiations break down with our employer. Turns out that even if we're not proficient, the anti-werewolf weapons are the only things for this particular fight. Well after that disaster, we're still hoping for some R&R so we sign up for the Durlag's Tower Adventure Tour.  Hi our tour guide and most of our tour group was murdered and we were wondering who to see about a refund  Breagar, your sarcasm IS NOT HELPING...or was that not sarcasm?  Well this clearly wasn't the information desk.  Look we did not sign up for the escape room  So that's a no on the refund then?  Okay that's just uncalled for. We want to speak to your manager.  Turns out giving someone 4 stars out of 5 really does ruin their life  This is an odd overreaction to filing a complaint with the travel agency.  At last, the manager.  We decided we've put things off long enough. It's time to clear up this Sarevok mess once and for all.  It's VERY NEARLY time to clear up this Sarevok mess once and for all. (There is actually a decent pretext for interrupting the endgame to deal with Cherise, namely that it's better to fight her now than have her helping out Sarevok at the end.) Illasera can't join us in hunting Cherise in her astral hideout, since Cherise has warded the place against her specifically after her first attack, but she does give us some idea of what to expect, namely trolls, ice salamanders, and golems.  Most of these bodies were already here, a result of Illasera's previous invasion.  We come across one of Cherise's lieutenants, who, after a bit of talking, figures out that Cherise's mission wasn't exactly sanctioned by Thay. She's not willing to help but she'll give us one of the four gems that will unlock Cherise's panic room. She also tells us that Cherise has a cambion and a rakshasa on standby, and that there's a giant being held prisoner. The other gems are scattered around, mostly on corpses, some surrounded by freed monsters like this small army of golems and shambling mounds.  We at one point find a fiery wardstone that doesn't seem to be one of the portal keys. And here's a prisoner, a Herald of Yaga-Shura, whoever that is. He agrees to both give us a magic item and take out Cherise himself if we set him free.  But apparently he gets a message from his god that we're a Bhaalspawn and that he should probably kill us. He summons some souped-up fire elementals, which makes this a really annoying fight.  I'm glad I packed some Raise Dead scrolls.  We collect the last gems and make our way to Cherise. She reveals that she's an ex Bhaal cultist and some Mysterious Assassin I Wonder Who It Could Be killed most of her colleagues and set her on this path. She wants to ally with Sarevok for safety's sake, I think. Anyway, we finish the job that Illasera apparently started.  Illasera turns up when we're done and sends us back to deal with Sarevok himself.  "Hi, we have an invitation, ignore the blood and the crossed out names."  Belt and Liia Jannath both survive the fight. Liia gets the benefit of SCS mage enhancements so she's quite hard to kill. (The teleport field is her doing.) We go through the Thieves Maze as susual, and I decide to sneak past the mercenary group. I usually fight them but I really want to be done. I might double back and fight them later (which I can do because of the Endless BG mod) but for now, let's get this done.  Oh good, she's here to help. (She actually in fact is here to help, which is a welcome surprise.)  "But of course, you know my crew. Angelo, Semaj, Tazok, Diarmid, Count Rapula..." SCS makes this fight a bit tougher. Sarevok can't be hurt until all of his acolytes are dead. (And after they die they come back as skeleton warriors.) Faldorn falls at some point during the fight and I'm basically force-feeding half the party healing potions every few seconds.  That's right. It ends here underneath BALDUR'S GATE CITAAAAAAAAY  It takes some time, but we are victorious, and Sarevok falls to Jackie's hand (and poison from Jackie's club). Jackie Daytona the Half-Orc Warhorn Shaman has defeated Sarevok! Honors: Ironling, Strategist, Double Damage, Librarian, Trap Dodger, Honorable Trader, Battlemaster (I don't think Jackie even danced during this fight). And then a straggler skeleton warrior killed Emily. Whoops. Good thing I packed even more Raise Dead scrolls!
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Jan 1, 2024 19:36
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Congrats on the victories. I've been slow going but I'll do another update at some point.
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Jan 1, 2024 22:06
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Matilda was too good for the realms, and so it falls to her evil twin to finish the job. Meet Mattea "Dire Devil" Murdark, EVIL gnome fighter/thief.  Melicamp lives.  Tarnesh doesn't.   Neither do these clowns.   Neera, Neira, all these assassins sound alike. Mattea Murdark has cleared out Nashkel mines. Rogue AI Goddess fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Jan 3, 2024 |
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Jan 2, 2024 07:03
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Kangorolac the Dragon Disciple has had a number of new adventures. To start with, Kangorolac and company explored a zone with some ogres, some bandits, and a cow in need of saving.  Next up: the dreaded Firewine ruins. This was not even 1/10th of the Kobolds that Kangorolac and company slew. I think my mods jack up the spawn rate to insane levels, because I legit killed something like 100 kobolds in here. I'm not joking.  Fighting SCS mages in close quarters is a terrifying prospect, but the group took them down before they got off too many nasty spells. I actually think in some ways this guy might be more dangerous on vanilla because iirc on vanilla he always lobs a lightning bolt at you and it will bounce and kill you and everyone else including him lol. I don't remember what he tried to cast on me here. I think I had to rely mostly on Shar-teel and Kagain because I think he had a minor globe fire off on his prebuffs meaning my mages couldn't do much to him. I really ought to have taken spell thrust on Baeloth or Kangorolac, but I spaced out and didn't do it. Nevertheless, Baeloth does have dispel magic which sometimes works and Vicky can also try and do that. Shart will eventually have arrows of dispel as well which should get me through the later tough mage fights. I did not kill Kahrk yet. Saving him for when I have arrows of dispel.  The party returned to Kangorolac's Basilisk hunting grounds. However, this was not to kill basilisks, but to whoop the rear end of those cocky Waterdhavian adventurers.  Enjoy that web ya jerks  Next up it was spider hunting time. A dangerous prospect because giant spiders with my mods can fire off individual webs at party members. They work the same way as the spell but are just single target abilities they have. Vicky can cast freedom now though which helped keep Kagain safe.  I decided to roll the dice and fight those red wizards. They're very tough. They're all level 7 or so mages who of course prebuff with minor globe and mirror image. Some have stoneskin. I was able to eventually dispel a few of them with Baeloth, but this fight took a lot of kiting and careful spacing with my party in order to take these guys down. Despite the scary protections Shar-Teel can mow through even these protections with magical arrows. And Kagain was able to tank the magical onslaught.  At least for a while. Despite a heroic effort on my part to keep him healed he eventually went down. But we won the day.  The party was ambushed by the group of lady bounty hunters. Baeloth used detect invis to keep the thieves from backstabbing and the rest of the party used silence, command, and a few magic missiles to keep the Clerics off balance.  Next up was some Druids in Larswood. Or is it Peldvale? I always get the two mixed up. I was quick to launch a magical assault on these guys to ensure they didn't get off a nasty call lightning or insect plague on me. I forget if these guys can do insect plague, but I'm always terrified of Druids using that on me, and with my mods I'm not putting it past them being able to do that.  Here is a nice pic I caught of Baeloth turned bandits into ash  The party finally made its way to the bandit camp. Here I employed webs, fireballs, skull traps, and hold persons to keep the vast array of bandits at bay.  Here's Ramon talking about how much trouble Kangorolac is causing right as Kangorolac breathes a massive blast of fire breath in his face. Oh Kangorlac you knave.  It actually got a little hectic. It felt like the bandits never stopped coming, and it took me a while to blast through them all. I'm not sure if this area got tougher on my recent install or if I'm just rusty but it was harder than I remembered it being! Still, Kangorolac prevailed. He has looted a massive pile of corpses, hit level 7, and is now going to rest and re-arm in Beregost before conquering Cloakwood proper.
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Jan 2, 2024 22:36
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Ginette Reno posted:Next up was some Druids in Larswood. Or is it Peldvale? I always get the two mixed up. I was quick to launch a magical assault on these guys to ensure they didn't get off a nasty call lightning or insect plague on me. I forget if these guys can do insect plague, but I'm always terrified of Druids using that on me, and with my mods I'm not putting it past them being able to do that. I've definitely seen them cast Insect Plague before, yeah.
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Jan 2, 2024 22:45
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docbeard posted:I've definitely seen them cast Insect Plague before, yeah. I know for sure the head Druid guy in Cloakwood will do that. And some of them are high enough level to petrify with chromatic orb. And call lightning is lethal on double damage. Druid enemies actually scare me a lot more than mages. Mages generally won't one shot me in bg1, but Druids can.
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Jan 2, 2024 22:52
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Kangorolac the Dragon Disciple has a bonus update for you because I felt like getting some more g8 in Onto Cloakwood we go. Took out some hunters and got a nifty bastard sword out of the deal. I forget what it's called but I know we want it for Werewolf isle  After that we went spider slaying. I should note that before I went to Cloakwood I made a pit stop to recruit Alora and have her pick pocket that ring of free action from the gnome in Ulgoth's Beard. It came in handy in Cloakwood with all the spiders.  I decided to make peace with the Druids. They only attack on sight if you take the wrong dialogue options and/or have Jaheira in the party. I had no interest in dealing with them and their nasty spells, especially since they give little xp and crap loot.  Peter of the north was killed for illegally raising Wyverns in the Cloakwood.  See what happens when these things get raised in the cloakwood? You gotta deal with big ones. And they steal cows!  The party cleared out a whole nest of them. The head will come in handy for 2k gold at the temple of Lathander.  And now for the big showdown with Drasus and company. Things started out evenly on both sides. They had their spells up, and I had mine.  I opted to try and focus fire Drasus first because he's annoying with his boots of speed. He also loves to slam a giant strength potion and he hits very hard with that, so he had to go.  However, leaving the enemy mages free to do their thing poses its own challenges. They eventually dispelled Kagain and then landed a charm on him.  The party focus fired Rezdan down with missile projectiles since I couldn't dispel his protections. Baeloth tried a few dispel magics but didn't succeed. However, Kangorolac's minute meteors helped burn through Rezdan's mirror images and stoneskins. He went down. Then, Tiax's Ghast managed to land a paralyze on Kysus and we took him down. During all of this Baeloth landed a spook on Genthore. In the end, the party prevailed (though Tiax died - thankfully not permanently).  Inside the mines there were more mages to deal with. Hareshan and her goons were lured into a choke and pelted with webs and skull traps. Hareshan didn't prebuff with minor globe so rip to her.  After a few more slain mages it was time to deal with the head honcho himself. Davaeorn fired off a minor sequencer with stinking cloud and web in it, which zoned my party to the north. However, Davaeorn's guards also periodically show up from the northern entrance with SCS. We also had the doom guards to deal with. So we were in a rock and a hard place. Baeloth used the wand of monster summoning to help add some bodies. Davaeorn came at us and cast a lightning bolt, which was terrifying. Luckily it was targeted at one of my summons, and I was able to get the rest of my party away from the bounces. Also luckily it didn't take a bad ricochet. Another close call came when Davaeorn lobbed a fireball at Shar-teel. Luckily she was not next to anyone else, and I popped a potion of magic blocking with her to tank that. I'm not sure I *needed* it, but I was afraid of her getting permaed. She doesn't have a ton of hp. We eventually burned through Davaeorn's protections with our bows and meteors and other projectiles. Tiax did die...again. Not permanently. I think he got felled by black talon arrows. Kangorolac has conquered the Cloakwood and is now on his way to Baldur's Gate
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Jan 3, 2024 04:06
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Jackie Daytona the Half-Orc Warhorn Shaman has not left a campsite better than he found it. So what's a perfectly normal human who is also half of an orc to do when he's just killed his murdergod-worshipping half-brother (and has the Endless BG mod installed)?    Loot that body, of course! The sword is a quest item only, there to be given to the Grand Dukes so it can be stolen by Korlasz's folks later. We get to keep the armor and helmet, though, and between the armor and the Cloak of Balduran, Breagar is now rocking 55% magic resistance. Endless BG does a couple of things, most immediately delaying the transition to Siege of Dragonspear so we're left to go back to the Ducal Palace under our own power. (Some Flaming Fist troops turn up to secure the Bhaal Shrine, and heal us up, though I'd already used scrolls to raise Faldorn and Emily so I dunno if they'd have done that for us.) I elect not to swing back after the mercenaries in the area just outside (or the high-level monster group added by Enhanced Extra Encounters Etc. or whatever the gently caress it's called) and instead sneak over to the exit. We're thankfully able to bypass the Thieves Maze completely this time (this will only work once).  On our way back to the palace, we get one last encounter with Elminster the Exposition Wizard.  Belt throws us a quick ceremony where he names Jackie the Hero of Baldur's Gate.  We have a couple options here, including 'loving off and doing anything we haven't already done in BG1' and 'skip straight to BG2'. I elect Option 1 which sends us straight to Korlasz's Tomb (which has an entrance in Central Baldur's Gate now).  Notice that Imoen is still in the party. This is the other thing that Endless BG does. She's still gone for the bulk of Siege of Dragonspear though. (Imoen 4Ever would let her stick around but I don't have that installed.)  This mummified dude wishes to lodge a noise complaint.  Goddammit, Faldorn, I'm glad I'm never gonna see you again after this unless we inexplicably end up on opposite sides of a conflict in Amn later on or something, but how likely is that?  If we let her surrender we just have to fight her later, so we opt to end things now.  Liia just likes casting Teleport Field I guess.  Again, we can choose to stick around, skip to Chateau Irenicus, or just get on with SoD. We choose the latter.  Breagar sticks around for SoD. He doesn't have a lot of specific content til BG2 but he's still a welcome good-aligned non-Minsc fighter for our ranks. (Nothing wrong with Minsc, but he and Dynaheir aren't ultimately going to fit into the party I've got in mind).  I love that our options here are "ultra-noble" and "a bunch of whining".  Oh well I guess I'll just have to fall back on my small fortune in gems. Commander Corwin of the Flaming Fist (who is either unaware of our Gorgon's Eye shenanigans or doesn't care) thinks we'd like to meet up with some old friends.  Sorry, no, never met any of these people.  I'm pretty sure I spoke to them once apiece.  Nope, not ringing any bells.  We do in fact run into a familiar face at the Three Old Kegs. Drake actually does have some SoD specific content, and he'll be coming along. We do all the boring preliminary stuff, and I recruit all the people available to me at this time (though Safana's the only one who will be sticking around, I turn her into a Swashbuckler).  Oh good, a mysterious hooded figure.  Oh come on, Mr. Silvershield, how likely is it that, for example, your daughter might be irrevocably killed and her soul sealed inside of a magical artifact and we're left to take the fall? You know, just as an example.  Recorder (and several other modded NPCs) are available in SoD, and we'll take her along this time since without Imoen or Emily (who will turn up later) I'm a bit short on good-aligned casters. She's a Lorekeeper, a Bard kit that gets more spellcasting and less fighty stuff.  Solid castery stats. You'll also notice that she's got ranks in Open Locks and Find Traps, thanks to the Skills and Abilities mod that gives Bards these options. So I don't technically need Safana and I may swap her out later but she's fine where she is for now.  ...he's a doppelganger! Get him!  Recorder is a mostly gentle and contemplative soul, and she'd like to know more about Caelar. So would we.  I don't have a lot of SoD-specific mods installed (NPCs aside), but there is one I'm trying out called Road to Discovery, which basically lets us pool and share the information we've gathered about Caelar and the Crusade. This guy is a junior exposition wizard and we can tell him whatever we learn throughout the journey. I'm hoping this will address the thing I like least about SoD, which is that it seems to insist that we play dumb about Hephernaan's plans long after we've blown them wide open.  Recorder can play her flute at the Menhirs.  Drake shares some backstory about a raid on the village where he was living with his uncle as a teenager. He's taking the absolute destructive swathe that Caelar's Crusade is cutting a bit personally as a result.  ...okay this is mostly not our fault.  Not pictured: Drake dying because the Call Lightning spell that the mercenaries cast kept going during the cutscene with Caelar.  Oh great, these losers again.  They don't really take "we killed some of you already" that well, but elect not to start anything while our army is just over the hill.  And here's Emily. She was trying to head home but the Crusade got in her way. She was also traveling with another Aasimar named Jacob that we agree to keep an eye out for, since she's afraid he might have been receptive to Caelar's pitch.  Emily could also sing to the Menhir but we stick with Recorder.  Oh good. It's hard not bringing M'Khiin along, since she's my favorite Beamdog NPC by a considerable margin, but it's really hard to justify two shamans (and I think the spirit summoning gets wonky if there's more than one shaman in the party, especially since because of Jackie's kit there'd be different summons entirely and it would just be a mess).  It is...somewhat easier not bring Rasaad along.  We could recruit Helga (though her name's hosed up in a mod bug that I thought had long since been fixed) the dwarven cleric if we want. I like her, but we're good, thanks.  Safana gets knocked out by a stinking cloud and then arrowed to death before I can do anything about it. Therre's a reason I'm stocking up on Raise Dead scrolls at this point. (Jackie's kit doesn't get the free Raise Dead spell that Shamans normally do.) This dungeon can be a real meat grinder especially at Insane SCS levels, but we persevere and eventually  Coldhearth got some 'splaining to do  Yeah, not so long and prosperous after we and our magic lich-killing rock get through with you, buddy. We kill him, grab his phylactery, kill him again, and chuck the thing in the fire, destroying him with (and this is important) one charge left on the lich-killing rock. Up next: Bridgefort.
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Jan 3, 2024 18:35
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Thread is updated to this point.
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Jan 4, 2024 01:28
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docbeard posted:Mattea Marduk the Gnome Fighter/Thief has eviled her way to a victory over the Nashkel Mines  Guys like Tarnesh and Nimbul are the reason for my new policy: if someone dressed like a spellcaster starts rushing forward to talk with me, and their name is not Elminster, then I immediately run away, stealth up, and backstab them before they can open their mouth.   : Hello, Potion Seller, I am going into battle and I want your strongest potions. : My potions are too strong for you, traveler.: *drops a sack with 10,000 gold on the floor*: I retract my previous statement in light of new evidence. Look at this perfectly timed restealth. To all observers, he just had a fatal heart attack.  She then proceeded to backstab the rest of the leaders without the rest of the camp being none the wiser. In Cloakwood, she stealthed past the first area, popped a freedom potion and stealthed past the second one, and didn't stop until she hit the mine zone. The forests have already claimed one twin, no sense giving them the shot at another.  Trading two invisibility potions and an oil of speed for the Cheetah boots was an excellent bargain.  As was trading two potions of magic blocking for Davaeorn's head.  Quayle hosed around and found out.  Mattea "DireDevil" Murdark, the EVIL Gnome Fighter/Thief, has made it to the city of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition.
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Jan 4, 2024 15:11
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:"Murdark." As in "murder + dark". She is an ~edgy~ Evil Twin. (It is still pronounced "Murdock", so the rest of the family had no idea.) Whoops, sorry about that! Fixed now. Also, congrats on making it to the big city!
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Jan 4, 2024 15:24
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Again, apologies for the delay in updating - one pain in the arse with an iron man is that if the game locks up or crashes you have to go back and redo stuff, and I didn't feel like redoing stuff. I felt more like this: But it's cool, I did a couple of sessions and I'll just jam them together here for an update on Ramon Salazar, Gnomish Fighter/Cleric. After heading north from base camp in Troll Claw woods, we found, well, take a guess. And murdered them all. I'm starting to miss the game just throwing wands of fire at me and telling me to let fly, Dynaheir has a paltry 4 lv3 spell slots and I need those for haste and slow!   It's Jaheira! And a... Viking who can't seem to decide whether he's Scandinavian or German. Both get sent back to camp, as the party is full and I don't particularly feel like taking anyone with me (although if I did it would probably have been dropping Minsc for Voghlin.  Spiders. I hate spiders.  So I immediately march the party into a spider-infested cave, hoping for loot. There was some!  It's around this time I'm starting to really get fed up with Corwin being such an unlikeable jerk to everyone. I get what Beamdog were trying to go for here - a no-nonsense woman who's surpassed the "straighten up" part and is now fully in "fly right" territory who's married to her job but she's so thoroughly bland and prickly that I'm starting to question why I keep her around in the first place. Oh yeah, because Archers are murder machines.  It's just like FF6, only without the witless child and the stuffy samurai!   Oh boy, another cave! Probably more spiders to squash, nothing to worry about-    We coerced a shade from another plane of existence into slaughtering some bugbears for the party, because fighting bugbears is dull. It's just hobgoblin+. It couldn't even do that successfully so we mop up the stragglers and press further in.  A Temple of   This lady is Madele, an adherent of Bhaal, back when this was a temple to Bhaal and not Cyric. She's absolutely mad at a sack of rats.  A sack of rats. She has apparently been hearing voices but it's likely to be delusions right? ... Right?  After clearing through the cultists, there's some sort of drakonid lady called Ziatar. We kill her and I'm perplexed at how a fighter/cleric is able to wield a two-handed sword. Hm. She drops a couple of keys that we use to free the crusaders and Madele. --- This is where the game initially hung after freeing Madele and I had to force-close the game, that would have taken me back to the start of the post, but I still had autosaves on and there was a save point between the bugbear caves and this ruined temple, so I used to that only lose 20-30 minutes progress as opposed to 1hr 30 minutes progress. Please don't disqualify me for cheating!---  Bags were getting kind of heavy, so picked a fight with the green dragon and decided to head back to camp to sell before delving deeper into the ruined temple. Minsc bought the farm but wasn't chunked, and M'khiin knows a resurrection spell.  We got waylaid, feared a *ton* of goblins (oh for the love of a Death spell right now) and cleaned house before going in that big suspicious pit off to the left. It was full of myconids who confused Corwin and Minsc. Corwin shot Minsc to death and then went to go stand in a corner. After the fight we resurrected Minsc again because nobody else wanted to carry all his crap, went back to town and emptied our bags, then went back to the Temple of Bhaal.  A neolithid! I don't know what these are but it probably won't go down without-  Never mind. We push onwards and slay Akanna for the Bridgefort wardstone. She's the high priestess of Cyric and ostensibly the one in charge but she's also talking about hearing voices.  Having salvaged a scrap of Sarevok's diary from the Korlasz crypt waaaaaay back, there's a simple puzzle on the wall needing you to press the first, third, and fourth holes in the wall in a specific order to open it up. A Shadow Aspect has been lurking inside the secret room and absolutely wrecks out poo poo, killing Corwin in the process, but we do eventually put him down. It's at this point I realise how truly reliant on Remove Magic I am and there hasn't been a single scroll of it in the entire expansion so far.  Egads! A mind flayer and a party of other ne'erdowells! Through suitable cheese involving buffed skeletons, silence spells, LoSing we win the day and the mind flayer threat is over.  Taking our newly claimed wardstone to the magic circle just outside Bridgefort we teleport in but thankfully have time to explain before having our heads removed from our necks. Khalid is here, leading the defense, and at this point I get tired so decide this is a good place to stop. Ramon Salazar and friends have slain a mind flayer, a neolithid, a green dragon, and many cultists of Cyric, and have now managed to arrive inside Bridgefort Keep.
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Jan 4, 2024 17:55
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Kangorolac the Dragon Disciple has nestled off of the Wolf of Ulcaster. I'm not sure if I misclicked or if he reflects ice damage but I cast Ice Lance on him and somehow hit myself and stunned myself and then it was a gg from there because the extra wolves he summoned tore through my mirror images before I could save Kangorolac. I kinda hosed up the fight though. The way it works on SCS is that the wolf of Ulcaster is a buffed vampiric wolf and he periodically howls which summons a few dread wolves as reinforcements (and also 1x during the fight a couple of ghouls). The howl also can fear you. My remove fear wore off before the fight ended and half my party got feared. I think I was still gonna be OK until I stunned myself though. Still not sure how that happened. I'm 99% sure I clicked on the wolf with that but maybe I spaced out and didn't. I've never tried ice lance on him or any ice spell for that matter so perhaps he does reflect it? Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jan 4, 2024 |
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Jan 4, 2024 22:26
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Mattea "DireDevil" Murdark, EVIL Gnome Fighter/Thief found the city of Baldur's Gate to be a land of contrasts. It started off so well. A large open city to explore! A string of capers to perform for the local thieves' guild! A bunch of highly backstabbable rich wizards in isolated soundproof houses! Things took a weird and scary turn when Lothander made her an offer she couldn't refuse, and the subsequent quest asked to bring a book that she has already stolen and read. Fortunately, it was a problem easily remedied via the murder of the questgiver in question.  Honestly, she had it coming. The slow-acting poison turned out to be a mere prelude for a much more dangerous affliction. Where once Mattea had found savage joy in violence, she now had only bitterness and apathy. Victory wine turned to ashes in her mouth and overwhelming sadness pervaded her every waking moment.  Even the retail therapy brought no reprieve. In desperation, she turned to the only mage she had a non-stabby working relationship with: : Help me, Antichickenator Thalantyr, you are my only hope.: Are you suffering from anxiety, apathy, general discontent, guilt, hopelessness, loss of interest, pleasure and experience points from activities?: All of the above.: A rare form of depression. The sages of Netheril had a name for it: the "level cap". : Yikes. Is there a cure?: Generally, no, unless it stems from a singularly traumatic stressful event during your formative moments.: Like having my foster father brutally murdered by an armored goon?: That would do it, yes.: So what's the cure?:  : My heart's not really in it at the moment, but okay.From that point on, Mattea's actions became very frugal. She stealthed through the streets, the merchant compound, and the Iron Throne HQ, leaving most enemies untouched. Back at Candlekeep, she briefly unstealthed to say "Hi, I'm Mattea Murdark!" to Rieltar before running away. Apparently that made a strong impression on him, because she got arrested for his murder shortly afterwards. : My name is a killing word.She half-heartedly looted the catacombs, stealthed past all the doppelgangers, ghasts and basilisks, and got out.  Mattea "DireDevil" Murdark, EVIL Gnome Fighter/Thief, is heading back to Baldur's Gate to kill Sarevok and cure her level cap.
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Jan 4, 2024 22:31
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Mattea "DireDevil" Murdark, EVIL Gnome Fighter/Thief, has killed Sarevok. Honors: Ironling, Purist, Conan the Bhaalspawn, Honorable Trader, Iron Party, Battlemaster, Roleplayer, A Goddess Among Women. Dishonors: Don't Hurt Me! (Normal)  Lesson of the day: a backstabbing Fighter/Thief with a bag full of potions can remain invisible longer than you can remain solvent. I've never played BG1 past Candlekeep prior to this challenge, and this was my 4th attempt. I think it well pretty well, all things considered. : Nooooo!Ah, crap. : I did everything, everything that was asked, and it's still not enough!: The bastard's death gave me nothing. : No joy. No closure. No XP. : Therapy is a powerful tool, but it has its limits. : In a case like yours, a pharmaceutical intervention is clearly in order.: Who are you?: Someone with experience in curing the Level Cap. : I don't trust nameless invisible benefactors.: Fair enough.  : Here's my business card. : If you ever find yourself in Amn, drop by my clinic.: "Dr. Irenicus", huh...: Please, call me Jon.
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Jan 5, 2024 00:29
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Congrats on the BG1 win, beating Sarevok solo in an ironman is no mean feat, and with only 4 attempts too. Very well done.
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Jan 5, 2024 02:39
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:Mattea "DireDevil" Murdark, EVIL Gnome Fighter/Thief, has killed Sarevok. Wow, congratulations! Not sure I'm going to get to any OP updates tonight yet, but the record of history shall soon, uh, record your mighty deeds
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Jan 5, 2024 03:57
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