The Candlekeep Annex: RPed Baldur’s Gate No and Low Reload Adventures

[Alesia_BH]

Alena, Halfling Priest of Lathander, Canon Party Run: The Crooked Cane Lich

I know, I know: The Crooked Cane lich doesn't deserve his own post. He's not that scary. I'm only doing it because we're off to fight Kangaxx next, and I don't want to junk up that post.

So, why are we even here? Daystar, of course. Sunray is a Kangaxx killer and more is good. Also, Aerie is on the cusp of another level up and we figured we might as well lock that in before we fight the mean meanie.

First, I'd like to tell you about something that I like to do in party runs. The Flagons is our home, of course, but we also have a workout room. Its pirate cave in The Sea's Bounty. This is where we go to experiment with stuff, practice buffing, discharge unwanted sequencer, et cetera times two. Here we are getting rid of our L2 offensive sequencers so we can reconfigure for the lich fight. Fleshie is such a bud.

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To the Crooked Cane. My first instinct was to send the SI:A kids in to handle this on their own. That felt ever so slightly cheesy to me, though, so instead we just delayed the arrival of Jaheira, Minsc and Alena. I thought I had a clever plan. Maybe I was right. It wasn't clever enough for this adorable little lichy-poo, though. Kudos to him for at least making us sweat.

We sent in the SI:A kids first, so they could absorb any opening Contingencies or Sequencers. With the opening spells out of play, and the lich's aura clouded, we brought in the rest of the team. Jaheira opened with a Nature's Beauty. The lich was running Spell Shield and Spell Turning, along with some annoying specific protections, most notably Pro Magic Energy. Aerie went with Pierce to take down the Spell Shield. Imoen followed with Khelben's. Speaking of Khelben's, I think I've been misspelling that as Khleben's. I'm not sure and I'm too lazy to check right now, but if so I, apologize.

We're looking good here, but for some silly reason Jaheira, Minsc and Alena were deposited in front of the SI:A kids. We don't love that, not with those mordies incoming.

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We had hoped that Blindness would prevent the lich from targeting spells, including Remove. That didn't quite work. He targeted his mordy, which was in touch range. It's a good thing he's Breachable now. We need to end this quick.

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With ProMagic Energy out of the picture, we can unleash our Sunrays. Minsc and Alena go first, bringing him down to near death.

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Aerie has a Sunray, too, but with Aerie, Imoen and Haer'Dalis packing Melf's, the lich doesn't make it to Aerie's next turn. Haer'Dalis gets the kill.

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If I were to do this over I'd just let the SI:A kids handle it. There's no shame in that. This was just a weird spasm of meta avoidance, kind of like my decision to keep Alena, Jaheira and Minsc north of the Underdark balor instead of south of him. As in that case, this was a peculiar place to draw the line, and not worth the risk it entailed. We have no need to give these SoA blokes a fighting chance. We'll face enough challenges in ToB.

Best,

A.

 

[Alesia_BH]

Alena, Halfling Priest of Lathander, Canon Party Run: Kangaxx

Well, we won. That's the only positive thing I have to say about the Kangaxx battle. I did a straight up awful job in this fight, primarily because I haven't fought it in awhile.

How long is awhile, you ask? I have no idea. That's how long awhile is. Here's what I can say. I didn't fight him with Amara, Astrid or Alia, the only three characters I've finished SoA with since my multi-year break. The last character I played before my break, Aestica, didn't fight Kangaxx either, at least I don't think she did. It's been at least seven years then, and maybe a few years more. That's a long time.

My initial plan was to draw on the lesson learned in the Crooked Cane lich fight: there's no shame in sending a portion of the team up ahead. Alas, Kangaxx's crypt is a party required area, so it's everyone or no one.

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I was leaning toward no one, but then I decided that would be lame. We haven't had a close fight since, I don't know, Suna Seni, I guess? We might as well embrace the challenge of fighting Kangaxx for the first time in ages. Why not? It's good to challenge yourself every now and then. And, hey, if we're looking for a challenge, why not up the difficulty even more by fighting him half drunk on boxed wine?

Alena wasn't sure she liked the sound of that second part, and I can't say I blame here. In retrospect this should have been a 4pm fight, not a 4am fight. But, like I said, we won.

Here's Kangaxx the Lich. This went smoothish although I'd definitely do this differently if I were to do it again. For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to get the Firestorms going just before Kangaxx arrived, so our Remove vulnerable casters could be out of the action by the time the battle started. We figured he'd be running ProFire, but we also figured he'd be stripped super quick. That's not super dumb, but given the insane range of Firestorm there was really no reason to do this. Bad call. We wasted a couple rounds of Firestorm damage here.

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My next mistake was squandering too many resources on Kangaxx the Lich. Aerie opened with a Holy Word. That was satisfying, and it did effectively neuter Kangaxx the Lich, but now we're down three L7s, with Kangaxx the Demilich still to come.

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Imoen's Pierce Magic takes down Kangaxx's Spell Shield. She follows with a Khelben's. Note that there's a tactical error implied by that first sentence. This one is super high difficulty. I'll say it again: Imoen's Pierce Magic takes down Kangaxx’s Spell Shield.

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Haer'Dalis follows Imoen's Khelben's with a Breach. Now Kangaxx is cooking up nice. He still hasn't gotten a spell off, thanks to Holy Word.

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At this point we got jipped, like majorly jipped. It took an insane amount of damage to kill Kangaxx after he reached Near Death. It almost looked like one of those unkillable boss bugs that happen just before dialogues.

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It was taking so long that I was on the verge of calling a bug reload. Then, to my shock, Kangaxx actually flipped. Damn. Now we're down 3 L7s and we've been robbed of five or so rounds of buff time. This is a problem.

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Kangaxx hits Haer'Dalis with a Khelben's. His Spell Shield catches it. Huge mistake here. I had given all the mages a reserve Spell Shield or two incase they were targeted with a remover. We even used Contingency: See Enemy- Spell Shield all around to insure we had enough. Nonetheless, I neglected to refresh Haer'Dalis's Spell Shield. I'm 100% blaming that one on the boxed wine.

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Since the demilich flip took so long Aerie's SI:A expired. Kangaxx targets her with Remove but Aerie, wearing Vecna, is able to refresh before it lands. That's actually why we gave Vecna to Aerie. Her SI:A will always be the first to expire, so we want her to be able to cast quick. Everyone else can use Aerie's SI:A as a timer for their own. Imoen is jumping the gun here, refreshing immediately. She could have waited a few rounds.

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This next screen shot takes place sometime later. Since I didn't refresh Haer'Dalis's Spell Shield, he was hit with Spellstrike. I tried to drop a Mass Invisibility on everyone to frustrate targeting. I'm not certain if I missed Haer'Dalis or if that doesn't work. In any case, Haer'Dalis falls to Trap the Soul. Alena is running Shield of the Archons with a second in reserve. Minsc and Jaheira have been removed, but we've gotten some buffs on them to keep them in the fight.

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Imoen loses her SI:A. She was just about to refresh when Kangaxx targeted her with Trap the Soul. Thankfully, Kangaxx falls soon after. Jaheira gets the kill with Everard. Kudos to Jaheira for reclaiming the most impressive Most Powerful Vanquished. Firkraag techincally has a higher XP value but he's a pushover compared to Kangaxx. Well, at least if you haven't fought him for, like, a decade. I'm not sure how they compare if you actually know what you're doing.

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Best,

A.

 

[WiseGrimwald]

Journal of Hal the Hunter

Imoen Tenya and I have safely arrived in the Ducal Palace.

However I forgot to hand over the moss.

 

[Alesia_BH]

However I forgot to hand over the moss.

I’m going to need a little help with this one.

What’s up with the moss?

 

[Alesia_BH]

Alena, Halfling Priest of Lathander, Canon Party Run: A Side Battle for Funsies- Kangaxx, 4pm Version

Ok. You saw the 4am version of the Kangaxx fight. Here's the 4pm version. What a different sobriety and recent experience can make.

Let's cover this quick.

Aerie opens with a Holy Word.

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Haer'Dalis takes down the Spell Shield with a Spell Thrust. Lich immunities do not apply to the Spell Shield.

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Imoen removes the Spell Turning with a Ruby Ray.

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Aerie lands her Breach. It's go time, everyone. Unload.

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Kangxx the Lich is taken down to Badly Injured quick.

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We finish him off and he flips- this time immediately, as he should.

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Aerie leads with a Spell Thrust, targeting the Spell Shield. Imoen follows with her Ruby Ray.

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Kangaxx launches his Cloudkill. Aerie disperses it with a Zone of Sweet Air.

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Meanwhile, Imoen takes care of the mordies with Death Spell. Haer'Dalis lands a Pierce to remove the MSD, clearing the way for Breach.

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Aerie's Breach connects.

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Aerie refreshes her SI:A.

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Haer'Dalis activates Sunray via Daystar. Aerie activates Sunray via the Helm of Brilliance.

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Haer'Dalis and Imoen refresh their SI:A. Alena is tossing Energy Blades from the relative safety of the north west corner, protected by Shield of Archons. Jaheira fires away with Everad, protected by Spell Turning from the Book of Infinite Spells. Since Minsc doesn't have a +4 range weapon and isn't protected from Trap the Soul, Boo distracts him with a game of hopscotch in the northeast corner.

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Haer'Dalis activates the Ring of the Ram.

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And done. That's how a demilich fight should look.

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Best,

A.

 

[Borco]

Orrin, human archer: Part 5 - Nashkel Mines

It seems that I might have finally recovered from the heavy partying last week, and so I thought this could be the right time to continue Orrin's story.

First things first! There's a noticeable crack in our party's only arcane spellbook and that's the absence of Invisibility. Necromancers are cool and everything, but this - along with the lack of Mirror Images - has been a major drawback throughout the course of the run. Given the limited supply of PoIs and the eye-watering price of the Sandthief's Ring, we've often been forced to take a rather direct approach towards some of the encounters and challenges. Of course, we can still leverage Orrin's and Monty's stealth or Viconia's Sanctuary, however being able to conceal the entire party or make disappear our most vulnerable party members (think of low level necromancers incapable of protecting themselves with MIs) would have been a completely different story.

In the Nashkel Mines, we had no other option but to laboriously carve our path through the kobold hordes. With Ajantis on the tanking duty and everyone else providing the all-important ranged support, we were able to navigate the first two levels without major complications. We even stopped by to say hello to miner Kylee, which is something I haven't done in a long long time.

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Down in the third level, we're in for some more intensive action, with a seemingly constant stream of kobolds answering the calls for help from their friends. While we suffered some minor damage here and there, the combination of our positioning, ranged attacks and an occasional Sleep (cast from Xzar's book or via Orrin's wand) was otherwise sufficient to fight them off.

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Once Viconia patched all of our injuries with CLWs, we were ready to face the kobold shaman near the exit to the fourth level. Our buffs were Strength (Montaron), ProEvil (Montaron and Orrin), Remove Fear and Chant. Montaron and Orrin were sent ahead to take up their respective positions for our opening move - backstab and Darts of Stunning on the shaman who's running pre-cast Ghost Armor.

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The plan didn't work well, given that he both survived the backstab as well as made his initial save against stun.

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Time to call in the reserves! Our casters rushed in with Sleep + Silence, while Ajantis engaged in melee.

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Ever the troublemaker, the shaman not only successfully saved against Silence and another two darts, but also tagged Montaron with MAA.

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Eventually, we simply cut through his MIs with arrows and Magic Missiles, although he still managed to pull off another Melf's, this time targeting Orrin.

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Our reward for this clumsy fight was Orrin reaching level 5, thus earning meaningful bonuses to his saving throws.

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Wait a moment, level 5 you say?! Does that mean that he had just been completely exposed to the risk of Sleep? What a rookie mistake! Clearly, Orrin should have been running Greenstone Amulet here. I'll better get used to the slower level progression of a party real soon, otherwise this can end up badly.

Refusing to rest before getting the job done, we patched our wounds with Lay on Hands and healing potions and proceeded to Mulahey's cave. Here's the mapping of our positions ahead of the battle:

You can see Orrin in the northern room and Monty, wearing Girdle of Bluntness and carrying an emergency Potion of Freedom, in his backstabbing spot. Viconia takes up the center, ready to launch Hold Person as soon as the battle begins (that is unless we'd see Free Action on the list of Mulahey's pre-buffs), while her summoned skeleton stays takes the rear guard together with Ajantis (who's carrying the Necklace of Missiles in case we'd need some extra firepower). Unfortunately, Imoen had failed to set her trap, which meant that we'd have to deal with the six spawned kobolds as well. Never mind sister, I'm pretty sure that Xzar will be ready for them with his Sleep!

Here we go - our opening backstab on Mulahey landed without warning!

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The summoned enemies arrive and Mulahey initiates a necromancy incantation. I was expecting Unholy Blight, but then I realized that Montaron would be an unlikely target for that. So, what could it be? Holy Smite? I'd be very surprised to find that a Priest of Cyric's spellbook.

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Mulahey was tagged by Viconia's Hold Person and Montaron's Wand of Magic Missiles, however the former came too late to intercept the spell and the latter failed to disrupt him. Let's see… Poison!

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Fortunately, Montaron makes his save vs death, as this could have become ugly for him. On the other side of the court, Mulahey fails at his save against Hold Person.

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With their leader out of play, Xzar sprinkles some Glitterdust across the cave floor to smooth the way for a quick end to the battle.

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The rest was mostly a cleanup.

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Overall, we're pleased with the minimal costs to our resources, as well as with the new additions into our inventory - the Ring of Holiness for Viccy and Boots of Grounding.

We rested as soon as our party reached the surface and Montaron was then tasked with raiding the tombs, running ProUndead scroll and Strength. To show our appreciation for a job well done, he was granted Batalista's Passport that we recovered from the Gibberling Mountains soon thereafter, along with the green ProMagic scroll from Hafiz.

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I'll cover the events leading up to the Bandit Camp in the next post.

Regards,

B.

 

[WiseGrimwald]

Journal of Hal the Hunter

I'm in SoD and I have found all my party except Gavin. I couldn't find out if he is available by Google Search. Does anyone know if Gavin is available in SoD?

I liked the mod very much. If he's not available in SoD I'll drop him much earlier in my next run.

At least I have Tenya. Also Minsc is quite powerful particularly as I never recruited him in BG1.

 

[Borco]

Orrin, human archer: Part 6 - Getting ready for the Bandit Camp

Returning to Nashkel meant confronting my favorite supporting villain of BG1 - Nimbul. Viconia played the main role on our side, since the plan was to disable him L2 divine spells (both Hold Person and Silence are capable of bypassing his MSD), while her skeletons would act as decoys. Our entire party was running Remove Fear and Chant, whereas the risk of petrification via Chromatic Orb on Orrin was mitigated by Xzar's ProPetrification.

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Ajantis bravely took upon himself Nimbul's Emotion: Hopelessness, doing so in safe distance from the remaining party members.

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Eventually, Hold Person won the day. Thank you Viconia - all give it up for divine casters!

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Unlike Nimbul, Silke doesn't have Boots of Avoidance, which made her a much easier target for our Darts of Stunning.

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Tranzig was not afraid of rabble such as us - and he certainly deserves credit for that.

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Now he's dead and we know the location of the secret rave in the forest.

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When asked about our preparedness to face an army of archers with an arcane caster in their midst, Ajantis replied something along the lines of "You have my sword." That's very cute alright, but it'll not get us too far.

Orrin picked up the pop culture reference with the obvious "You have my bow." That's somewhat better, but still not good enough.

Monty had no axe to speak of, so instead he simply tapped his Potion of Explosions.

Knowing that her standard tactics would be of little relevance for such undertaking, Viconia thought for a while and mentioned fire resistance. Okay, now it seems that we might actually be onto something here!

What about you, Xzar? Huh? Xzar?! Stop touching me, you say? I know, it's hard to know that you're going to be the juiciest target and that you have no illusionary tricks up your sleeve to do anything about it. I feel you, really.

Eventually, the suggestion that we all needed came from Imoen, as is often the case when things are beginning to look tough. Can you repeat that again for our dear forumites, Immy? You're absolutely right, we should get the Claw of Kazgaroth!

I personally know very little of gastronomy and even less so about wine pairing, but I'm pretty sure that the Claw is best served together with the Manual of Bodily Health. Okay everyone, we're going to Alaric's Cove!

Our path lead along the shoreline from the north. That's where we also encountered Shoal. It's been a while since I last fought the ogre mage, but I was curious about his helmet and so we decided to try and have him summoned. As it happens, when it comes to scripted events, I often seem to botch things up and this time was no exception. Ajantis got handpicked for the sirine's kiss and instead of dropping unconscious with 1HP, as anticipated, he got killed immediately. Maybe the former only applies to the protagonist? I don't know.

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Anyway, I've been expecting the triggered dialogue after which the ogre mage would finally show up. Instead, Shoal remained hostile and started attacking the rest of our party. That, unfortunately, provoked a defensive reaction. I'm saying unfortunately because Orrin had his Darts of Stunning equipped in anticipation of a mage fight. And thus the poor sirine got stunned and we saw no other way of resolving this but to put her out of her misery. It was a truly sad moment, and even Viconia held back her cynicism.

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Butchering some evil ogres did improve our mood a bit, as did the fact that Xzar had already reached level 5 and was now capable of casting L3 spells.

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After paying an 800gp worth visit to Kelddath Ormlyr, Ajantis was back among the living. It all seemed to be jolly and beautiful again, however just as we were about to return to the coast, our party got ambushed by Molkar's band.

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Orrin immediately activated his Greenstone Amulet, Xzar opened with Wand of Monster Summoning on Halacan and Viconia targeted Molkar with Hold Person.

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Viconia's Hold Person bites and we spread out. Orrin keeps pounding the paralysed Molkar, while Imoen is tagged with Halacan's Glitterdust and fails her save. In the meantime, Xzar follows up with his own Hold Person on Drakar.

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Molkar falls first. Morivn keeps chasing our casters around the field, but otherwise he's not much of a threat. Meanwhile, Halacan pulls off Charm Person, but he messes it up and targets Orrin who's sitting safely behind his amulet charge.

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Note that the Hold icon on Morivn on the previous screenshot is just the animation resulting from Viconia's second Hold Person attempt - in reality, he made his save and wasn't held. Feeling lucky, he also made his save against subsequent Glitterdust by Xzar. Drakar's less fortunate since he's already dead.

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When Viconia's Silence landed on Halacan we knew what this was over.

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I see you're tired, but good job everyone, especially you Viccy. And you as well, Xzar - it seems that you can prove your worth when there are no ranged attackers around to bother you. Enjoy it, as it's not going to last for long.

 

[Borco]

Orrin, human archer: Part 6 - Getting ready for the Bandit Camp (continued)

With the ambushers out of the way, we could finally let Orrin retrieve the CON tome. He used stealth to bypass the sirines, Greenstone Amulet charge to foil the traps and +1 arrows to take down all the three flesh golems.

Now, what's that supposed to mean? Don't even think of bringing that infravision topic onto the table ever again Xzar! We've heard enough of it and after all, you have your silly little spell.

We stopped by at High Hedge to purchase the Claw for Orrin and also couple of Potions of Regeneration, Potions of Explosions and Potions of Fire Resistance. We'll be needing those.

He's the snapshot of Orrin's inventory. Does he look ready for the bandits to you? I'll explain later what I now believe had been a mistake.

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At that time it occurred to me that we still owe a visit to Kirian's party. We prepared couple of traps and approached them under the cover of darkness. Here's the opening of the battle - Xzar goes Horror and Viconia launches Silence, breaking her Sanctuary. Montaron lands a hit on Baerin, but is unable to make it a backstab due to his positioning.

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Everyone but Peter panics. Since he's not been silenced, he tries to turn the tide by Remove Fear, but gets interrupted by Orrin's arrow.

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Imoen's been stunned by Kirian's opening Chromatic Orb, but her traps waiting further to the west still manage to catch fleeting Baerin.

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Peter gets held by Xzar's Hold Person is swiftly shot down by Orrin.

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Lindin follows suit.

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What remained was to find Kirian. Ah, there you are!

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We collected the loot and proceeded to FAI to top up Xzar's spellbook with some newly found scrolls (most notably Web and Spell Thrust) by quaffing Potion of Genius and Potion of Mind Focusing from Gellana.

Finally, the Bandit Camp awaits!

Regards,

B.

 

[Borco]

@Alesia_BH I'm pondering this one: "Imoen's Pierce Magic takes down Kangaxx's Spell Shield. She follows with a Khelben's. Note that there's a tactical error implied by that first sentence. This one is super high difficulty. I'll say it again: Imoen's Pierce Magic takes down Kangaxx’s Spell Shield."

Normally, it'd be more efficient to remove Spell Shield at as low spell level cost as possible, including Spell Thrust or Secret Word, thus saving Pierce Magic for the actual Spell Protection removal up to L8 and/or lowering of MR. I'd assume that neither of the two lower level spells would bypass the L1 to L5 spell immunity of a lich, unlike Remove Magic with its power level 0, however you have implied elsewhere that these actually work insofar as Spell Shield removal is concerned.

 

[Alesia_BH]

Normally, it'd be more efficient to remove Spell Shield at as low spell level cost as possible, including Spell Thrust or Secret Word…I'd assume that neither of the two lower level spells would bypass the L1 to L5 spell immunity of a lich…however you have implied elsewhere that these actually work insofar as Spell Shield removal is concerned.

Correct. I gave up the game in the 4pm version of the Kangaxx battle, lol.

Lich immunities don’t apply to the Spell Sheild. Since L3 isn’t very useful in a lich battle, generally speaking, our mages should have been packing Spell Thrusts at L3 to free up L6s.

 

[Alesia_BH]

Orrin is looking great, by the way! I love the way you’re handling the encounters, with straight up fair fights. You’re playing BG1 with a lot more command and confidence than I did. Excellent work. Keep it rolling!

 

[Antimatter]

Does anyone know if Gavin is available in SoD?

It doesn't seem like he is. BG1 & BG2 only.

Great progress, Borco!

 

[Alesia_BH]

Alena, Halfling Priest of Lathander, Canon Party Run: Suldanessellar- Aerie Get Out Your Cane, Part 2

Apologies for reusing this post's subtitle, Aerie Get Out Your Cane. I can't help myself. I kind of love it. For those who don't know, it's a reference to a lyric from a song, Carey, off my favorite album of the seventies, Joni Mitchell's Blue. Here's the song.

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The reference seem doubly fitting right now, because I'm feeling Blue. I'm feeling Blue because I'm looking over the screenshots from my last session, and I'm kind of embarrassed. My play was sloppy and decidedly unstylish. The cause is no mystery. I'm getting antsy. I'm looking ahead to finishing SoA, and consequently over looking the present. That's never good.

Before we cover Suldanessellar we need to talk about the alhoon. This is where the sloppy, sloppy started. Things started off well enough. Firestorms and GDB Fireseeds really mess mind flayers up.

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So do vorpal hits. Bold move there, Minsc, meleeing an ulitharid with your Int of 9. The damage to Aerie occurred because her Stoneskins from the prior night had worn off, exposing her to Ballistic Attack.

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I don't fight the alhoon often. An invisibility detecting, stat draining enemy with L9s is in theory insanely dangerous to anyone not running ProMW. As for the upside, it's a little underwhelming from my point of view. I've never embraced the Wand of Wonder use pioneered in the Beamdog forum's LoB thread. I've also long been ambivalent about Crom Faeyr. Crom is a great weapon, sure, but losing the Gauntlets of Ogre Power is kind of a big deal for me. My characters typically have low strengths. A strength boosting item that doesn't crowd our the BoIB is super nice. I don't remember the last time I've forged Crom. I probably will in this run, but I haven't done it yet. I'm still debating. I'm saying this to give myself an excuse for forgetting that the alhoon is undead, and that he stocks a frack ton of Abjuration school stuff. We ended up kitting and fumbling through the scroll case when we should have been Sunraying this bloke into never, never land. Whatever. He's dead and we have the goodies, whether we intend to use them or not.

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Before heading off to Suldanessellar, I debated doing L3 of Watcher's Keep. With my solo characters I typically race through the stone pillar room running item based fire resistance, allowing me to reach Tahazzar in full health. I spent some time in Watcher's Keep dragging my party through the portals just to see how easy they are to navigate. I wasn't please with the result- I definitely wouldn't trust myself to drag everyone through the portals expediently in a race to Tahazzar, and I also don't want to deal with a balor Firestorm sans buffs right now. Waiting for the cornugons to kill the balor and then nixing the cornugons is probably the move, but then there's the matter of fighting Tahazzar unbuffed with a party that's highly dependent on buffs. We're going to hold off on this until later. Much later.

Ok, time for what's purportedly the main subject of this post: Suldanessellar.

Am I the only one who thinks Suldanessellar is whacked? Seriously. The game makes a huge deal about Jon-Jon's pact with the drow. When you get to Suldanessellar, however, there is only one drow, and then a bunch of random monsters. Golems? Skeleton warriors? Trolls? Rakshasas? What are these things even doing here? In my view Suldanessellar is SoA's biggest misstep, and it's not even close. It needs a full on, bottom up makeover. Honestly, I'm kind of shocked that the modding community hasn't done this already. The golems near the entrance can be kept. It kind of makes sense that a sorcerer would animate golems to patrol the entrance way. Aside from that, there should be elves fighting drow, maybe with some minor demons assisting the drow, other houses having executed a less ambitious version of House Despana's plan. The illusionary shrouding of Suldanessellar provides an entrance point for rakshasas, but that needs to be motivated and explained. A named rakshasa party with dialogue as a last line of defense in front of the Temple of Rillifane makes sense to me. He could explain the deal he made with Irenicus, shrouding the city in exchange for something. He could then explain why he can't allow you to enter the temple. Maybe there could be an avenue to bargain with him or intimidate him. If he's made a bargain, he's in this for his self interest, so it should be possible to appeal to that self interest. As you can tell, I haven't thought about this much, but in the few minutes I have thought about it, I feel confident that I've come up with something better than the original. That's no surprise. It's not that hard. Suldanessellar is a mess.

Anyhoo, let's talk about Suldanessellar as it is. Here's where our subtitle comes into play. Aerie got out her cane.

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Her cane, in this case, is the Rod of Smiting. A little Blade Barrier here, some ProMW there, a bit ofSI:Alt for golem slow, the Ring of Gaxx for gas clouds. This was a satisfying and pleasurable no damage beatdown.

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Nice work, Aerie. You're a mean old mommy but you're out of sight.

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From here on out things got sloppy. The first thing I messed up with the Raamilat encounter. I did this in the pathetic cheesy way, despite not meaning to. First, I inched a little too close to the platform, pulling the demon and separating him from Raamilat. That was lame move one. Lame move two was worse. Raamilat tried to divine us. Divination is an offensive action. Countering it is fair game. We wanted to disrupt him, though- not kill him. That's not how it played out. Damnit, skeleton warriors, we wanted a fight here. You're ruining our fun.

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It only got worse from there. For the first time in forever I decided to skip the Demin encounter. Unfortunately my brain never told my fingers and I clicked my way through the door out of habit. We tried to withdraw ASAP, but we ended up pulling Adsaan. Sigh. I guess we're taking the Girdle of Stone Giant Strength and leaving Demin to die? Can you think of a lamer way of handling that encounter? I can't.

Next up we had Aerie on golem duty once again. At least we get to have some fun.

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The Niz fight was awkward. It was both easier and harder than I expected. It was easier because Niz didn't use Remove or run any protections to speak of. It was harder because his script has gotten much better in v35. He's using plant growth again, along with his insect spell- the later of which was timed nicely to thwart a ProMW cast from the ToD. Aerie was not running a Fireshield because it was crowded out by spells that we didn't end up using anyways. Very poorly played. I was also caught off guard by the intelligence of NIz's breath weapon targeting, along with the range. We had sent the love birds ahead, running Protection from Energy and Protection from Acid (scroll). We had thought we could keep the rest of the party far enough back that they wouldn't be targeted. That turned out to be wrong. All told, this was a sloppy, sloppy fight in a sloppy, sloppy Suldanessellar run. It's been about two decades since I've fought Niz with a mixed parry and this is the first time I've faced the v35 scripts. I guess the missteps are understandable here. Still, I would have liked to have done a better job. Kudos to Niz, I guess, for making things interesting.

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We survived and all, but I'm still not happy. If this is the Baldur's Gate Olympics, I'm Raygun and I don't love that. I'd rather be, I don't know, Tonya Harding.

Best,

A.

 

[WiseGrimwald]

Journal of Hal the Hunter

We killed the vampire in the coast way forest and had no difficulty with the trolls on the way back.

So far SoD has been easier than usual. I did have to spend some time delving through my treasures for the helmet of truth as none of the party has infravision.

EDIT

Helping the dwarves has proved to be trickier. Minsc was killed by the bronze sentry. Raising him cost half of our gold!

We will have to more careful and be prepared to run if necessary.

I have just seen Coldhearth transform into a lich and been given "The secret revealed."

We have since killed quite a lot of undead.

 

[Borco]

Orrin, human archer: Part 7 - Chapter 3 finale

Looking in retrospect at the screenshots from the Bandit Camp battle, I think that they don't do justice to how messy and troublesome this entire endeavor actually was. But let's follow the chronological sequence of events.

Despite the initial protests from Ajantis, we take advantage of Raiken's escort and talk our way out of Tazok's interrogation attempt. We'll see you later, oaf!

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As soon as we're settled in, Montaron raided the outside containers to acquire our first Potion of Firebreath among others.

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With not much else to do, we started to buff. The list comprised Remove Fear, Potion of Heroism (Orrin), Shield (Xzar), Shield Amulet (Imoen), Hill Giant Strength (Montaron), ProFire (Ajantis, Orrin, Viconia, Xzar), Potion of Fire Resistance (for Montaron, paired with Batalista'a Passport for 90% resistance), ProEvil (Ajantis, Montaron) and Chant. We waited 6 seconds after the last spell to clear aura and entered the HQ tent. Time to burn this place to the ground!

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We open with 3x Potion of Explosions + Horror + Darts of Stunning on Venkt.

One…

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Two…(so much for the Remove Magic threat)

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Three!

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The mage and the majority of Black Talons are dead before the end of round 1. Despite the initial bombardment, Hakt or one of the other hobgoblin archers still managed to tag Xzar with a poisoned arrow and he now has to quaff an emergency Elixir of Health, while Ajantis charges the frontline in melee to intercept further ranged attacks.

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Sloppy positioning on my part allow Britik to take a hit on Ajanits, however he soon gets shut down by Orrin's Darts of Stunning.

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Everyone okay? Good, that was the easier part.

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Now wait a minute, shouldn't there be Ender Sai? Ohh, could this be him?

Sorry mate, we would have notified you in advance, but I admit that I completely forgot to include you in our scheme. Rest in peace and rest assured that the steep reputation loss is going to hurt us big time too. Let's loot this place, patch our wounds and be out of here.

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Hello Taurgosz, how do you find Imoen's traps? Does it hurt even with that full plate on?

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And what about your saving throws vs. wands? Can you roll that it -4 against Wand of Paralyzation?

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With the big baddie contained, the question was what to do next. Our party was intact, but the enemy seemed to be approaching from all directions. When soloing, I always use an Oil of Speed here. Without haste, the incoming bandit army immediately looked much more threatening.

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We’ve barely even decided whether to stand our ground or retreat when Xzar gets killed by a single arrow. I told you that MIs and Invisibility are of utmost importance in BG1, but you never listened!

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With our wizard gone, the AoE capabilities of our party got significantly reduced. We’ll have to improvise. Imoen activates Wand of Sleep, targeting the northern flank, and Viconia takes down the lone hobgoblin approaching in melee with Command. Meanwhile, Orrin finishes Taurgosz with arrows and uncorks an Oil of Fiery Burning towards the main group approaching from the west.

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The problem is that the enemy ranks are still spread too thin in order for those area effects to really make an impact. Seeing a window of opportunity to reposition ourselves, we start moving alongside the eastern end of the tent, just in time to intercept the incoming Ardenor Crush.

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The Blacktalon Elites keep trailing us from the south, dishing out significant amount damage. Realizing that we either need to quickly break the enemy lines or retreat, we risk deploying our aura for one more offensive sequence: Viconia->Wand of Fear, Montaron->Oil of Fiery Burning, Orrin-> Necklace of Missiles.

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That seems to have relieved most of the pressure and we can shift our focus on healing up the injuries and taking down the survivors.

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And that’s it, really. As mentioned in the beginning of the post, in reality the battle had felt much more dangerous and out of control, with reddening character portraits, clogged combat log and all of that.

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If I were to do this again, I would allow one of our characters to quaff an Oil of Speed and try and lure the bandits outside into forming a tightly packed group before unleashing the AoE damage/disablers. Also, I’d be less conservative about Orrin’s missile AC – he’s been wearing the Claw, Cloak of Displacement, Girdle of Piercing and Boots of Avoidance, which clearly is overkill given that he’s also rocking the highest HP in our party. The relative benefits of granting at least one missile AC boosting item to each of Xzar and Montaron would have outweighed the risks. We’d splash few more potions into our prebuffs, specifically Potions of Regeneration and Potions of Defence, given that the risk of getting dispelled by Venkt’s was always very remote, and finally, we’d be more careful with our AoE targeting in the main tent on account of Ender Sai’s wellbeing.

The way it actually went is going to require a long debrief for Orrin's party before proceeding to Cloakwood.

Regards,

B.

 

[Alesia_BH]

Also, I’d be less conservative about Orrin’s missile AC – he’s been wearing the Claw, Cloak of Displacement, Girdle of Piercing and Boots of Avoidance, which clearly is overkill given that he’s also rocking the highest HP in our party. The relative benefits of granting at least one missile AC boosting item to each of Xzar and Montaron would have outweighed the risks.

Agreed. That's part of the transition from soloing to partying. Many of the items we soloist concentrate on our PC should be distributed among characters in party play. The missile weapon AC items in BG1 are the first and best example.

Anyhoo, glad to see Orrin making progress!

 

[WiseGrimwald]

I’m going to need a little help with this one.

What’s up with the moss?

It's a minor side quest. A woman asks you for some blue moss and there are some benefits to completing the quest. Experience and wand of monster summoning.

Tome of Great Value

The Tome of Great Value is a quest provided by Ammon, in which you have to bring her some Cobalt Moss to complete a potion she is creating. When you deliver it she will ask you whether or not you could help her get into Candlekeep for which you can sign a recommendation, if you wish. If the main...

baldursgate.fandom.com

Journal of Hal Continued.

The battles against the trolls were tough, dangerously so. So far I have survived, but by the skin of my teeth.
But now "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;"

 

[Borco]

Orrin, human archer: Part 8 - Through the Cloakwood Forest

No sooner had our party finished licking its wounds suffered in the Bandit Camp at the Friendly Arm Inn than when we're under attack again, this time by Lamalha's amazons. We start the fight by activating Orrin's Greenstone Amulet, while Xzar and Imoen put their Shields up.

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Although Lamahla initially saves against Viconia's Hold Person, she immediately gets stunned by Orrin's dart. Meanwhile, Xzar has quaffed a PoI to avoid being targeted by her necromancy spell - we'd seen that Poison move from Mulahey before, although I'm not sure that Lamahla is high enough level to deploy L4 spells, so it could have been Holy Smite or Animate Dead. Nevertheless, the invisibility would also protect him from the lurking backstabbers - Telka and Maneira.

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With Xzar safe, all the remaining party members switch to melee weapons in anticipation of the incoming backstabs. Eventually, the rogues chose Montaron and Imoen as their respective targets. As it happens, the iron crisis seems to have affected our would-be assassins' equipment as well. One can hardly fail to see the irony in that…

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With her melee weapon broken, Maneira is forced to disengage and is quickly shot down at range by Orrin and Imoen. Meanwhile, Viconia and Zeela exchange Hold Persons, each of them unsuccessful.

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Xzar rejoins the action with a Skull Trap, eliminating the second rogue.

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I'm not sure what caused that additional damage to Immy on top of the initial backstab, but I'm glad that we've prevailed without casualties this time.

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At that stage, our reputation was still in tatters due to that Ender Sai incident. We had bills to pay and the fact that our party wanted to keep the majority of high value items that we had recently acquired (most notably the full plate and the Dead Shot for Ajantis as well as the second pair of Gantlets of Weapon Expertise) was not helping our cash flow either.

To try and wash away our past sins, we choose to combine the more straightforward approach of monetary church donations with the more complex endeavour of helping other people (or at least trying).

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Regarding the latter, our good intentions lead us to Larswood, where we're confronted with Corsone's scheming. We end up killing both druids, relying on Acid Arrows + Magic Missiles to bypass their Iron Skins, while Silence + Hold Person act as disablers (note that Hold Person seems to work on the shapeshifted animal forms as well).

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Does that count as a good deed? Apparently not. Nevertheless, we possess sufficient funds to purchase the coveted Army Scythe for Imoen, as well as to replenish our Darts of Stunning supplies with Erdane and obtain Bolts of Lightning and some last minute potions and scrolls from High Hedge.

With our coffers empty, we could no longer delay our journey to Cloakwood. The recent experience from Larswood implied that where there are druids, there'll be trouble. This stereotype was only confirmed when Seniyad decided to attack while we were trying to broker a deal between his sect and Aldeth. Our team played their opening hand well: Acid Arrows + Bolts of Lightning + Glitterdust + Silence.

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With that, the rest of the battle was just slaughter.

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The spider forest was next. You might not have noticed, but spiders are actually Orrin's racial enemy. Honestly, I have no idea what's the deal here. Maybe some childhood trauma turned into resentment? Overexposure to inapt bedtime stories? An allergic reaction to things with more than two eyes? Difficult to say. All I know is that the subject of spiders has featured prominently in his lengthy disputations with Viconia and also that Orrin's wouldn't dare touching the Kitthix figurine with a six-foot pole.

As Ajantis was taking the lead, he was allowed to use Orrin's Girdle of Piercing for the job and also carried a ProPoison scroll and Potion of Freedom. Imoen took care of the traps and we began to fight our way through the spiders and ettercaps to the spider nest.

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For the record, that extra damage bonus shows!

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Montaron hijacks Centeol's entourage with Oil of Fiery Burning and lures the monsters outside, where they are quickly disposed of by the rest of the party with the help of Xzar's Glitterdust.

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[Borco]

Orrin, human archer: Part 8 - Through the Cloakwood Forest (continued)

We collect Spider's Bane (which could have been a fitting nickname for Orrin, actually), report to Tiber and seek out the remaining phase spiders in the area for some extra XP. This turns out to be somewhat chaotic when five of them (plus one giant spider) appear at the same time, although miraculously we come out of the fight unscathed, thanks to Xzar's Horror and our efficient damage output.

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There's not much to report with respect to the next Cloakwood area - we had already seen enough aggressive druids, so we just collected the Potion of Invulnerability, whacked Peter of the North to get some wyvern fighting practice and proceeded deeper into the forest.

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Hamadryad is a foe that I don't remember to have ever fought in a no-reload context. With our current party, I decided to change that, only to reconfirm that she totally is more trouble than she's worth, not to mention the bitterness of the whole confrontation from the RP perspective.

Assuming that, as a dryad, she’d primarily rely on enchantments, we decide to send in Xzar, who’s running MSD, accompanied by two skeleton warriors. If that seems like a bold move, than it certainly is. More like stupid. Of course, the enchantments would also include MSD bypassing spells, such as Hold Person for instance.

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Great, now what? Having the entire party rush to Xzar's help could certainly result in a disaster, with charmed party members fighting each other all over the place. At the same time, the last thing we'd want to do would be to backtrack through the entire Cloakwood just to have our mage revived in a temple.

While we still had our skeleton warriors on the field, they've been struggling to chase the teleporting hamadryad within the entanglement despite their MR. Meanwhile, it’s become evident that the defenceless Xzar will be the priority target.

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We needed to act super-fast. Armed with acid arrows and Greenstone Amulet, Orrin is sent in as the rescue team. Surprise, surprise, guess who’s immune to acid in addition to running Iron Skins?

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Our Arrows of Ice are with Ajantis, but bringing him into the Dire Charm zone is out of question. Instead, Orrin activates his amulet and switches to Arrows of Fire in the hopes of being able to still save the day.

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It’s just a matter of pure luck that the hamadryad continues to target Orrin with her spells instead of trying to finish his companion. With just 2 HP left, Xzar manages to escape death by a hair’s breadth.

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Well, I'm never doing this again!

We couldn’t possibly proceed to the mines with this debacle still fresh on our minds. We needed an encouragement, some form of success to improve the team’s morale before they’ll be facing Drasus. The wyvern lair sounded like the perfect place to go, also given that we’re already eying Orrin’s and Ajantis’ approaching level-ups.

Conveniently, we still had the green ProPoison scroll which had been spared in the spider forest and could now be applied by Ajantis.

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We’re hoping that both our skeletons as well as that charmed cave bear would follow us into the cave, but transitioning in between areas with summons is ever unpredictable and we’d have to make do with 1 out of 3. With Ajantis taking the front, Orrin opens fire with +2 arrows, supported by Montaron and Imoen, while Xzar and Viconia start working on their opening spells.

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Xzar’s Skull Trap lands, but all of our other spells (Confusion and Glitterdust) run into the wyverns’ impressive saving throws, which is definitely something to noted in our bestiary for future purposes.

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Nevertheless, aside from some minor damage suffered by the tanking Ajantis, we’re able to score a relatively clean victory at marginal cost.

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What was it that Coran had said earlier? You bet!

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With just one baby wyvern short of Orrin’s level 6, the party returns outside in search of the beast. Ah, perfect timing!

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Since the Claw's CON penalty affects the HP pool at level-up, we first take a rest and have Viconia cast Remove Curse on Orrin. I'll also note that, for archers, level 6 marks the second stage adjustment to their THAC0 and damage with ranged weapons. For the record, here's a high level overview of our party ahead of the Cloakwood Mines:

Orrin: level 6

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Ajantis: level 6

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Montaron: level 5/5

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Viconia: level 6

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Imoen: level 6

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Xzar: level 5

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Regards,

B.