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

[WiseGrimwald]

By doing killing Bassilus, Zargal, and all the quests from the ankheg nest to the Nashkel Mines and then westward to Ingot, we reached a reputation of 20.

We then bought Arkerym, a +3 long sword and Asgrim's Fate, a +3 hammer which are rather slow to use, but powerful.
On Ingot's body we found a +2 halberd which i gave to Sirene. I will use the hammer and Tina can use the sword.
With Varscona and Ashideena we are now pretty well armed.

We headedd west to the lighthouse area where skeletons buffed by chant, bless and protection from evil took on the sirines and then the flesh golems. They didn't actually hurt the flesh golems, but took their blows whilst we killed them.

Now approaching the archaeologist, but as Zebedee used to say, "It's time for bed."

EDIT

Helping him and Brage were straightforward.

We then went to the Basilisk and Medusae area, but beforehand bought this ring. It is equivalent to the green scroll but is reusable once a day. Rather expensive but I believe that it is worth it. It made the area relatively safe. Very restrictive as to who can use it: Lawful good monks and paladins who must be half-orc or human.

Upon returning to Beregost I came across two more tieflings who were much the same experience as the rest of the party: one being a fighter/thief, the other a conjurer.

They come from a very basic non-weidu mod that I made myself. I also included a tiefling blackguard in the mod, but probably won't use him in this run. He is a half-orc tiefling

EDIT

Now killed both Doth and Shoal.

It was too close for comfort! Down to 13HP.

 

[Borco]

¡Hola!

I've got good news and bad news and then hopefully some more good news. And then I've got a complaint to make.

The good news is that Iona's made significant progress in the past couple of sessions. In fact, she's into her 3rd HLA and has just completed Planar Prison as the last stronghold quest. She had couple of close calls - interestingly, the two major ones were both caused by a Stinking Cloud (one by Tolgerias' summoned djinni and the other one when we got ambushed from behind by an ooze mephit in the Old Sewers while fighting some shadows) - but otherwise she's been doing reasonably fine.

The bad news is that, despite my initial enthusiasm, Iona the Illusionist unfortunately hasn't matured into a fully developed character, or at least not in the manner I intended. I suppose that the main culprits here are Mislead and Simulacarum, whereby we repeatedly tried to incorporate them into our playbook only to always end up slightly disillusioned (sic!). With Mislead, I just couldn't find any proper use for it that wouldn't be 100% Gouda. Mage/thieves backstabbing with Mislead under Time Stop are cool, but everything else is kinda broken. Iona's Simmy, on the other hand, has been struggling with the EE's spell memorization system, whereby the spell slots are populated in an alphabetical order. This made any attempts at optimization of Iona's lower level self's book virtually impossible and, consequently, I gave up on using it. Our illusionist has become a part-time invoker and a part-time conjurer with Mirror Images and on that basis I've been gradually losing interest in the run (which in turn led to pilling of mistakes and playing fatigue).

Nevertheless, I still like Iona a lot, I just thought she deserves a better outlet in order to able to become who she's supposed to be. Therefore, I've decided to put her old self on hold and re-rolled her as a sorceress. And she's been spot on so far! In fact, I haven't had such a good connection with any character since Sorsha's run last year. She'll be building her book around some of the core strategies developed by Iona the Illusionist and I'm hoping that Project Image is somewhere in her future as well. I'll keep you posted.

And the complaint is that I just can't sleep, lol. I'm eager to play BG, but that'd be a disaster for Iona the Sorceress now and for her operator in the morning.

See ya!

B.

 

[Alesia_BH]

Glad to hear you're connecting with Iona, Borco! Looking forward to following her adventure!

 

[Borco]

Iona, Human Sorceress: Introduction

Game version: BGEE 2.6.6.0 (no SoD)

Difficulty: Insane

Mods: SCS (v34.3) with all tactical and AI components; BG Tweaks (cosmetic changes)

Modified SCS components: Giant Spiders (Tactical)

Following up on my previous post, please allow me to present to you Iona's new self as a sorceress:

Her stats are slightly better than Iona v1 (not that it would really matter for her class), but otherwise she's retained her alignment as well as her familiar Uki. To facilitate the transition, she was granted a Find Familiar scroll upon character creation so that she wouldn't have to wait until Nimbul to bring her beloved ferret into play.

With Iona the Sorceress, I have abandoned the illusionist concept originally intended for her predecessor, however she's still going to follow the footsteps of Iona v1 in terms of the actual tactics developed and deployed by her throughout late BG1 and SoA. While her style varied from one encounter to another (to the extent that I must have spent more time browsing through her spellbook and preparing sequencers/contingencies than actually playing), Iona the Illusionist has turned out to be particularly reliant on Evocation spells, which was mainly driven by her opposing school being Necromancy. Still, the present Iona has retained a certain fondness for illusions and is aspiring to become my first character to experiment with Project Image in case she ever gets that far in her career.

One indisputable benefit of passing the SoA XP cap with Iona's previous iteration is that I've become somewhat more comfortable with running a solo arcane caster in my current install (putting aside the relatively recent attempt with Rissa, my cleric/mage multiclass, the last time I ran a mage or sorcerer was in April 2023), which should provide us with a decent starting point for the present attempt.

With the intro out of the way, I'll now try to catch up with the progress up to date.

Regards,

B.

***

Spellbook (level 1):
L1 - Burning Hands, Shield

 

[Borco]

Iona, Human Sorceress: Part 1

You might've noticed that Iona's starting L1 spell pick was Burning Hands. Awkward as it may be, Iona v1 pushed me to reconsider the spell's value and I ended up making a 180 degree turn from completely disregarding it for its uselessness to actually appreciating its place in a mage's book and, even more importantly, enjoying using it.

The damage isn't actually that bad and at level 10 it will consistently outperform MMs, assuming saving throw failure, plus it doesn't get foiled by Shield (neither does Chromatic Orb, but I'm not a big Chromatic Orb fan). It's fire, which can be a situational advantage, and it's AoE, which not only further improves the cost-damage potential when compared to its L1 peers, but also bypasses Mirror Images, Invisibility/II, Spell Deflection/Spell Turning. The main reason why I had been avoiding Burning Hands for all those years was its post-casting recovery time, however I've found out that it's actually much much shorter than for example with Agannazar's Scorcher. Especially against enemies with slower weapons, the caster will enough time disengage before they can land a hit, which the approach that Iona's been exploiting in her BG1 days. Like this:

Spoiler

I'll try to squeeze the main highlights of Iona's build up for the Nashkel Mines into a single post, so apologies for the less detailed coverage here and there. We started by picking up the RoP+1 and the Ring of Wizardry and hiring Viconia to help us get past Tarnesh into the FAI to access Jaheira's PoI.

Spoiler

By completing various minor quests around Beregost (involving Marl's outburst, Firebeard's reading list, Zhurlong's missing footwear, Mirianne's overdue correspondence, a tragedy in Mr Colquetle's family, Perdue's stolen blade, Landrin's housekeeping issues, Bjornin's revenge, and Melicamp's transmutation), Iona was able to reach level 4. Combat-wise, she relied mainly on Burning Hands and darts for damage and on Blindness and Wand of Sleep charges for disablers (the purchase of wand and some other essential supplies from the High Hedge was funded mainly by selling the ankegh plate from Nashkel).

Spoiler

Armed with arcane ProPetrification scroll and her own Invisibility casts, we travelled to Mutamin's Gardens where Korax and Uki, Iona's familiar, worked overtime to earn us some cheap XP by clearing all the basilisks. Mutamin got "backstabbed" by Korax striking from under Invisibility.

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Here's a snapshot of Iona's inventory following her visit to Ulgoth's Beard.

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Delivering Barge to the Temple of Helm got us to level 6 and Iona's first L3 spell - Fireball. Thanks to this significant improvement to our arsenal, we were able to score additional XP from the battle horrors and basilisks at Durlag's Tower and quickly earn our second L3 spell at level 7 - ProFire. By the way, notice Uki taking advantage of the basilisks' ranged attacks and dishing out 10-14 damage per backstab - not bad for a cute little ferret! Iona's petrification immunity came via the second available arcane ProPetrification scroll from High Hedge.

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From that point onward, Iona simply blasted her way through the Sword Coast with Fireball + ProFire while using Burning Hands and/or MMs as finishers and running Shield + MIs for defense. Vax and Zal, Sendai, Caldo and Krumm, as well as Gnarl and Hairtooth with their valuable loot were all among the victims.

Spoiler

In case you would ever consider buffing a neutral character with ProFire before dropping a Fireball at their feet then don't do it. It doesn't really work, as Iona learned the hard way with the Dryad of the Cloudpeaks. Fortunately, she doesn't seem to have any spells or special abilities (which is presumably why she's asking for help in the first place, duh?!), so we simply got rid of the two lumberjacks and ran.

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Thanks to Invisibility (and a Greenstone amulet charge to foil the traps), we were then able to access the treasure in the Black Alaric's treasure, including the CON tome and the Wand of Paralyzation, without having to engage with the flesh golems in the cave or the sirines outside.

Spoiler

Rocking her newly purchased Claw of Kazgaroth, Iona was now ready for the mines.

Regards,

B.

***

Spellbook (level 7):
L1 - Burning Hands, Shield, Blindness, MM, ProEvil
L2 - Invisibility, Mirror Image, Resist Fear
L3 - Fireball, ProFire

 

[Borco]

Iona, Human Sorceress: Part 2

After passing through the mines under Invisibility, my botched efforts to buff ahead of the battle with Mulahey (when I omitted Greenstone Amulet) were luckily obsoleted by him failing his saving throw against Iona's opening Wand of Paralyzation charge.

Spoiler

I didn't forget about it completely, it's just that my characters in such situations would typically open by attacking with weapons, e.g. Darts of Stunning, keeping their aura clear for a potential counter against the enemy's opening move. In this instance, I took a very last minute decision to tap the WoP instead, on account of being more reliable thanks to its heavy save vs. wand penalty (thus being especially effective against priests and fighters) and no attack roll. That would have been a reasonable course of action with the exception that the move has closed Iona's immediate counter window. A big mistake right there, but we were fortunate enough that it went unpunished.

With an active ProUndead scroll, Iona was then able to raid the tombs at the surface and take down the Revenant with ease.

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Back in Nashkel, we had an appointment with Nimbul. This time we played our hand right. Buffed with Shield, Resist Fear, ProFire, MSD (via scroll from High Hedge), and ProEvil, Iona approached the assassin with a clear aura, which allowed her to counter his opening Emotion: Hopelessness by activating her Greenstone Amulet.

Spoiler

Iona's follow up sequence of 3x Burning Hands took care of the rest (conveniently including Rasaad). By the way, this is a particularly good example of how a lowly L1 spell can single-handedly outplay Shield + MIs + MSD + Invisibility.

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There were three more targets on Iona's hitlist before the Bandit Camp - Tranzig, Silke, and Meilum. Meilum came first and Iona's WoP got its second kill.

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Trying to force a mage to fail his inherently strong save vs. wand is a long shot. Even more so, the original Iona's experience from fighting Tranzing has only served to solidify my opinion that this guy is an impenetrable fortress when it comes to his saving throws. We decided that it'd be more efficient to just blast him into oblivion, while making sure to keep our counter window open (Iona had to burn another charge from Greenstone Amulet to foil his opening Hold Person).

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At one point during the fight, Tranzig seemingly got the upper by landing Ray of Enfeeblement (nice move!), but Iona just stood her ground and continued her assault without bothering to counter with Potion of Strength.

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Silke got dispatched with a single Dart of Stunning. That's a very decent price to pay for a Potion of Defense.

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After that we did some last minute shopping at High Hedge and FAI temple to purchase the Robe of Neutral Archmagi and several scrolls and potions. I'll cover Iona's assault on the bandit camp in the next post.

Regards,

B.

***

Spellbook (level 7):
L1 - Burning Hands, Shield, Blindness, MM, ProEvil
L2 - Invisibility, Mirror Image, Resist Fear
L3 - Fireball, ProFire

 

[Alesia_BH]

Great start, Borco!

Burning Hands is an interesting choice at L1. You make some good points regarding its ability to bypass single target spell protections along with illusionary defenses. Historically I've favored COrb in that slot, mostly due to its damage type at high levels, acid. These days, under SCS, that benefit is gone, but its efficacy as a disabler is pretty impressive now that the save penalty has been removed.

Since BG1 is straightforward, and sorcerers are pretty powerful in SoA, I tend to build my sorcerer books for the endgame (see below). For that reason I'll almost certainly continue to skip Burning Hands. It's a lower value damage type, offers a save for half damage, and it doesn't play well with IA. That said, when I'm pumping out L1s under IA in ToB I'm typically using MMs- likely more so now, since COrbs don't offer damage type diversity. Burning Hands could be an interesting utility pick for the early game that doesn't hurt too much later on.

NW: The Throne can be dicey for sorcerers, due to all the dispelling arrows. As a sorcerer you're OP until the very end, at which point you're confronted with your achilles heel.

 

[Borco]

Iona, Human Sorceress: Part 3

Iona's execution of our plan against the bandits was pretty solid and as she's managed to clear the entire camp without suffering a single point of damage. Here we can see her just before storming the main tent, buffed with Potion of Mind Focusing, ProCold (green scroll) + Potion of Cold Resistance, Potion of Defense, Shield, ProFire (spell), Resist Fear, Oil of Speed, Potion of Regeneration, ProEvil, MIs, and Luck (scroll):

Spoiler

We opened with Darts of Stunning on Venkt, followed by a Fireball via Wand of Fire aimed at the main group of bandits. We were looking good there (and even managed to avoid friendly fire on Ender Sai, which had been a common issue in some of my previous runs).

Spoiler

Iona equipped her two daggers and charged Venkt at 3 APR (she's not proficient in using them, but stunned enemies don't really care), although our dual-wielding efforts here were foiled by his MI pre-buff triggering over and over again. This is not a completely uncommon occurrence in my install and it sometimes happens when the caster gets disabled before the scripted pre-buffs fire away. When it's only Mirror Images then it's relatively fine, but I've seen it happening with a stacking Armor of Faith that made the priest in question temporarily invulnerable to any damage.

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Our second Wand of Fire charge wiped out most of the enemies on the field, leaving only Venkt, Britik, and Raemon.

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Venkt's MIs kept popping up, but Iona simply continued her AoE assault and finished him with Burning Hands.

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Britik and Raemon fell shortly thereafter.

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We looted the trapped chest under Potion of Insulation + Boots of Grounding, refreshed our MIs, and prepared to move outside. By that time, Iona has also reached level 8, although her first L4 spells would have to wait until we have concluded today day’s agenda.

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Taurgosz gets charmed via Dire Charm scroll from the ankegh lair.

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He's kind enough to assist us by taking down several of his comrades.

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Eventually, he succumbs to the concentrated archer fire.

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With her appointed champion dead, Iona could now unleash her Fireball barrage into the dense bandit ranks.

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All that remained was to dot the i's and cross the t's with Burning Hands.

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Chapter 4 awaits.

Regards,

B.

***

Spellbook (level 8):
L1 - Burning Hands, Shield, Blindness, MM, ProEvil
L2 - Invisibility, Mirror Image, Resist Fear
L3 - Fireball, ProFire
L4 - Improved Invisibility

 

[Borco]

These days, under SCS, that benefit is gone, but its efficacy as a disabler is pretty impressive now that the save penalty has been removed.

Wow, I didn't know that! Is that some Spell Revisions inspired change introduced by SCSv35?

Since BG1 is straightforward, and sorcerers are pretty powerful in SoA, I tend to build my sorcerer books for the endgame (see below). For that reason I'll almost certainly continue to skip Burning Hands. It's a lower value damage type, offers a save for half damage, and it doesn't play well with IA. That said, when I'm pumping out L1s under IA in ToB I'm typically using MMs- likely more so now, since COrbs don't offer damage type diversity. Burning Hands could be an interesting utility pick for the early game that doesn't hurt too much later on.

Understood - that's a very fair point. Here's what I've been thinking when contemplating Iona's damage dealers. First of all, we're keen on getting Death Fog at L6 as the main source of "alternative" damage (the other one being MAA at L2). The flipside of using Death Fog is that we'll also need to take ProAcid at L5, which in turn will squeeze out Sunfire. To bridge the lack of fire damage during mid levels, we've opted for Fireball at L3 (also with the view of respecting the former Iona's limitations as Illusionist) and, ultimately, Burning Hands at L1. With that, missing out on the acid damage via Chromatic Orb seemed an acceptable outcome. For the time being, the biggest unknown ahead of us is L8 - the sensible choice here would be ADHW, however I'm still slightly biased in favor of iCloud which has featured prominently in the book of Iona v1.

 

[Borco]

Iona, Human Sorceress: Part 4

Upon returning from the bandit camp, Iona was approximately 40k XP away from her level 9. Our plan was to try and close as much of this gap as possible before heading into Cloakwood, mainly to ensure that she'll be able to hit that 135k XP mark just in time for Drasus and Davaeorn.

Since we now had access to II, we could jump onto some of the more challenging encounters, starting with Kirian's party. Running Shield, ProFire, Resist Fear, ProEvil, MIs, and II, all that Iona had to do was to blast her way to victory with Fireballs and Burning Hands.

Spoiler

Molkar's ambush came next. Arriving invisible, Iona took the time to prepare her defensive buffs, equipped her newly acquired Golden Girdle, and opened with Darts of Stunning on Halacan, albeit unsuccessfully.

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Morvin quaffed an Oil of Speed and that had him singled out for Wand of Paralyzation. It took two charges to pin him down.

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Iona switched to her dual wielding set up, targeting the stunned Morvin, and began dropping Fireballs at her feet whenever her aura permitted.

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Molkar was finished with Burning Hands, because there’s never enough fire damage in Iona’s book (literally).

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Moving on to Bassilus, we used our standard set of defensive buffs and showered the priest with Fireballs and MMs, making sure to stay well out of range of his Blade Barrier.

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Our final target before heading into Cloakwood turned out to be Greywolf, whom we had completely forgotten about during the earlier stages of the game. He was deemed worthy of a WoP charge.

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With still more than 28k XP to go, we turned to Aldeth for help with our level progression. Or was it that he turned to us for help with the druids? Either way, Seniyad alone is worth 4k and we couldn’t let that opportunity slip.

Should Seniyad ever commission third-party market research to better understand why the majority of players are siding with the hunters instead of his druids, he’d quickly realize that their biggest issue is not his personal XP value but rather that silly immersion breaking dialogue option that one has to click in order to back them up. Unless they can do something about it, they’ll keep getting the short end of the stick.

The battle itself was fairly straightforward, with Iona staying safely behind her II and ProFire and chugging Fireballs and MMs.

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What’s this, by the way? Some sort of a solstice ritual?

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Permission denied.

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With this little Cloakwood intro out of the way, we moved on to the Spider Forest. Taking an inspiration from Alastria, we first tripped the Web traps on the map under Invisibility, unloaded our day's worth of spells on the ettercaps and the sword spider, and rested.

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Following that, we applied the green ProPoison scroll + Potion of Freedom on top of Iona's arcane buffs and proceeded to clear Centeol's lair.

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We concluded our stay in the area by incinerating the phase spiders.

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[Borco]

Iona, Human Sorceress: Part 4 - continued

With less than 3.5k XP to go till level 9, we were seriously hoping for the appearance of Lamalha and her amazons, whom were already overdue with our appointment. I suppose that "Be careful what you wish for!" doesn't really apply in BG1 when you have II and a party friendly AoE. And show up they did!

Spoiler

We were almost there...

Following the ambush, Iona backtracked to FAI to cash in the accumulated loot and purchase the remaining Extra Healers and Potions of Mind Focusing from the temple. Eventually, she got her level up by hunting down a cave bear in the third Cloakwood area shortly before reaching the mines.

Spoiler

Armed with her newly acquired Stoneskin spell, she was ready to face Drasus. Our intention here was to charm the guards at the bridge with our three available Charm Person scrolls and send them ahead as a vanguard, but we only manged to charm one of them and the other one had to be blinded.

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As it happened, even the one that had joined our cause eventually decided to abandon us in the critical moment just before talking to Drasus. He had to be put on hold with Blindness as well.

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It was time to deploy an alternative diversion. Enter Wand of Monster Summoning.

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The purpose of our summons was to draw out some of the spells and, most importantly, Drasus' Potion of Magic Shielding. Iona kept her distance, staying invisible, and observed the log and counted. We registered Chaos, Slow, Telefield, one Lightning Bolt, and Genthore's broken weapon

Spoiler

We waited for 3 turns to pass, waiting for the signal that the duration of Drasus' potion has expired. Iona then equipped her Girdle of Bluntness, buffed with Resist Fear, ProFire, Potion of Absorption, ProEvil, and MIs, and revealed herself to Drasus by breaking her invisibility by picking up an item from the ground. Good, that got his attention!

Spoiler

We tried to separate him from the rest of the group by exploiting his speed. Genthore, who had quaffed an Oil of Speed earlier, was able to keep up the pace, but we didn't mind him too much - instead, Iona was focusing her offensive spells on Drasus while continuously retreating further to the south east.

Spoiler

Even though Iona was making good progress, we could hear that the mages were not far behind. As soon as we have reached the dead end by the river, Iona quaffed her own Oil of Speed and raced past the casters back towards the palisade, applying her II on the move.

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By keeping him in sight and maintaining sufficient distance from the trailing mages, we were eventually able to finish Drasus with our remaining MMs and Fireballs.

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We picked up his boots before the others caught up, disappeared under Invisibility, and raced into the mines.

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I'll cover the show down with Davaeorn in the next post.

Regards,

B.

***

Spellbook (level 9):
L1 - Burning Hands, Shield, Blindness, MM, ProEvil
L2 - Invisibility, Mirror Image, Resist Fear, Melf's Acid Arrow
L3 - Fireball, ProFire, Melf's Minute Meteors
L4 - Improved Invisibility, Stoneskin

 

[Alesia_BH]

Wow, I didn't know that! Is that some Spell Revisions inspired change introduced by SCSv35?



Understood - that's a very fair point. Here's what I've been thinking when contemplating Iona's damage dealers. First of all, we're keen on getting Death Fog at L6 as the main source of "alternative" damage (the other one being MAA at L2). The flipside of using Death Fog is that we'll also need to take ProAcid at L5, which in turn will squeeze out Sunfire. To bridge the lack of fire damage during mid levels, we've opted for Fireball at L3 (also with the view of respecting the former Iona's limitations as Illusionist) and, ultimately, Burning Hands at L1. With that, missing out on the acid damage via Chromatic Orb seemed an acceptable outcome. For the time being, the biggest unknown ahead of us is L8 - the sensible choice here would be ADHW, however I'm still slightly biased in favor of iCloud which has featured prominently in the book of Iona v1.

Noted. If you’re restricting Necromancy on RP grounds I respect that.

Just be sure that you have a solid plan for fighting demons, especially at the Throne.

 

[Borco]

Iona, Human Sorceress: Part 5

I believe I owe you several updates on Iona's progress, so apologies for the radio silence recently. For now, let's continue with the Chapter 4 finale.

With Drasus dead, we wasted no time and rushed through the mines under Invisibility with the majority of our combat buffs still intact. Iona removed the lone guard in Davaeorn's lobby with the help of Blindness and rested to restore her now depleted spellbook.

Spoiler

Iona prepared with Stoneskins, Shield, Resist Fear, Potion of Mind Focusing, ProFire (arcane), Potion of Insulation + green ProElectricity scroll, ProEvil, and II. Even though we were expecting to get tagged by a dispel in the early stages of the battle, we still wanted to make sure that Iona's not caught by surprise in case Davaeorn opens with an offensive spell in lieu of Remove Magic. We intentionally skipped cold resistance, since we only had one ProCold scroll and one Potion of Cold Resistance at the time (and also because the Cone of Cold targeting can be avoided, if needed), as well as Greenstone Amulet on account of SCS Davaeorn being an invoker (unless I'm mistaken of course).

Spoiler

We approached invisible and opened with a Dart of Stunning, although we didn't really expect that the stun would land. And it did not.

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Davaeorn triggered his pre-buffs including MGoI, MST, MIs, and Stoneskins, and teleported into the northern chamber. Keeping her aura clear, Iona closed in with acid darts and waited for his next move - interestingly enough, it turned out to be an invocation spell.

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He went for Lightning Bolt, which bounced off Iona's 100% electricity resistance.

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The dispel came in the next round. We waited for the Remove Magic projectile to land and immediately quaffed a PoI.

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Iona then took the time to refresh her buffs, this time also adding MIs, MMMs, and 100% cold resistance into the mix.

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Meanwhile, Davaeorn's reinforcements had surrounded him in the corridor, which made them perfect targets for our Fireballs (3x in total). Stoneskins, MIs, cold resistance, and missile AC kept us safe from the archers.

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When the majority of the guards were dead, we moved on to remove Davaeorn's Minor Spell Turning with MMMs and then tagged him with Wand of Fire scorcher, followed by Melf's Acid Arrow.

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He got to "Near Death" thanks to the self-inflicted pain via his own Fireball.

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Iona finished with acid darts and is on her way to the Gate.

Regards,

B.

***

Spellbook (level 9):
L1 - Burning Hands, Shield, Blindness, MM, ProEvil
L2 - Invisibility, Mirror Image, Resist Fear, Melf's Acid Arrow
L3 - Fireball, ProFire, Melf's Minute Meteors
L4 - Improved Invisibility, Stoneskin

 

[Alesia_BH]

Looking good, Borco! You seem very comfortable and confident playing Iona v2.

 

[Borco]

Iona, Human Sorceress: Part 6

The agenda for Iona's first visit to the Gate was fairly light. We collected the DEX tome, did a little shopping at Sorcerous Sundries for potions and scrolls, and attended the rendez-vous with Ramazith who directed us towards Ragefast. After crashing the latter's home with the help of a Strength scroll and persuading him to release the captive nymph, we returned to Ramazith to break the news.

Spoiler

Given that Iona's spellbook lacked the right tools for mage duels at the time (notably Spell Thrust, SIs, and Spell Shield), we had to tap into our collection of Potions of Explosions to bypass Ramazith's MGoI pre-buff. Meanwhile, his MSD was getting peeled away by our meteors and Iona's arcane buffs and Greenstone Amulet took care of the defense. Things were admittedly made easier here by the fact that we had resisted his opening dispel.

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With the Amulet of Metaspell Influence newly occupying Iona's amulet slot and RoP+2 tucked away in her gem bag, we recovered the INT tome and made haste for the Iron Throne offices at the docks. Invisible in, invisible out, Iona got all the evidence she needed for Eltan and was on her way to Candlekeep shortly.

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Overall, there's not much to report as far as the Chapter 6 is concerned - we countered the ogre magi ambush with Potion of Magic Blocking, got arrested, retrieved the tomes in the catacombs with two Knock scrolls from the Gate (using Shield, ProFire, and Potion of Absorption to foil the traps and Invisibility to bypass the Web trap and avoid the phase spiders), and escaped undetected without engaging a single enemy.

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Back in the city, Iona prepared for Slythe in the safety of the Blade and Stars inn by pre-casting her Stoneskins and MMMs prior to resting. When she arrived to the Blushing Mermaid the next day, she was already rocking her new Cloak of Protection +2 from the Candlekeep catacombs in place of the Cloak of Displacement (in addition to the Claw and the Ring of Wizardry in the ring slots and Girdle of Piercing).

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Apart from the Stoneskins and MMMs, our other buffs were Shield, Spirit Armor (scroll), Resist Fear, ProFire, Blur (scroll), ProEvil, MIs, and II. All of this made Iona well protected against a backstabber like Slythe, however she was still vulnerable to the dispel threat. Consequently, our battle plan got reduced to two basic principles - to keep a clear aura whenever there's an imminent risk of Krystin's Remove Magic and to use any window of opportunity in between to stun Slythe with Wand of Paralyzation. Here's the opening scene of the fight - Krystin triggers her PfMW, while Iona tags Slythe with MMMs and a WoP charge.

Spoiler

As Slythe quaffed his first PoI and closed in, we moved back a bit towards the exit and waited for his backstab to land. With Krystin nowhere in sight, Iona attempted her second WoP charge.

Spoiler

Seeing that we might actually get longer one-on-one time with Slythe that we had anticipated, Iona prepared her Malison scroll to grease the wheels a bit before expending any further WoP charges. Meanwhile, Slythe activated his Poison Weapon. Iona wasn't running ProPoison here, but because in my install it's only the initial poison damage that gets through the Stoneskins/MIs and the lasting poison is in turn absorbed by them, it only posed minimal risk.

Spoiler

With his saving throws debuffed via Malison, our third charge of the Wand of Paralyzation landed.

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Iona finished him with MMMs and MMs before Kryistin finally showed up. We didn't want to bother with her, so Iona just grabbed the invitations and ran for the Blade and Stars.

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We proceeded into the palace the following morning. Despite the fact that Liia currently seems to be on the top of her game, using robust defenses and multiple dispels, I was still slightly concerned about the battle ahead. Here Iona's own AoE capabilities were irrelevant, while on the other hand her vulnerability to Remove Magic was extremely valid because of the doppelganger mage. We had considered several strategies before the fight, mainly revolving around the use of various arcane scrolls, but most of them were eventually discarded.

Debuff approach (with Malison + Chaos/Slow) was deemed too slow and unreliable in light of the greater doppes' saves and Liia's dispels. Telefields + meteors seemed too unpredictable. Monster spamming via Wand of Monster Summoning was dismissed due to the risk of turning the entire palace hostile should they become confused via the mage's Chaos and attack/kill any of the Flaming Fists or the dukes (note that Iona had refused to use the wand earlier on in the Undercellar for the very same reason). Polymorph: Self was one of the better options on the table, especially if it were to be the flind form buffed with the Violet Potion, but the threat of having our buffs stripped away by a dispel while polymorphed* (without having any emergency sequencer ready) seemed too real. *Note that the dispel in my install doesn't affect Polymorph: Self - the character may lose other buffs, but the ability to morph is not affected.

Eventually, we ended up cherry-picking the most viable aspects of each of these approaches and settled on some sort of a sushi-samba fusion styled battle plan. To begin with, we opted for Animate Dead scroll instead of Wand of Monster Summoning as the confusion-immune skeleton should be safe to use here.

Spoiler

Running Stoneskins and MMMs from the previous day, Iona then equipped the Golden Girdle and applied her other buffs comprising Shield, Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Defense, Oil of Speed, Resist Fear, ProFire, Potion of Power, Potion of Regeneration, Blur (scroll), Polymorph: Self (scroll), ProEvil, MIs, II, and DuHM. While we didn't intend to use the polymorph proactively, it could come in handy in a dispel scenario to accelerate Iona's comeback into the fight.

Spoiler

[

 

[Borco]

Iona, Human Sorceress: Part 6 - continued

In case you've noticed the Haste scroll in Iona's quick slot then the answer is yes - instead of attempting to debuff the doppelgangers with questionable results, we decided to open the battle by hasting our allies.

Spoiler

Iona also kept the following items at the ready: Potion of Magic Shielding to counter the mage's Chaos or other disablers, Wand of Monster Summoning to be used once the Chaos threat would be gone, and a Mirror Image scroll to eventually assist polymorphed Iona with her defenses should she get dispelled. By prioritizing the shaman with our MMMs, we managed to take him down just before both Liia and the doppelganger mage finished their respective Remove Magic casts.

Spoiler

The mage's dispel targeted Iona, which gave us the opportunity to retreat from the main hall and thus avoid getting the Flaming Fists' stripped of their haste. Iona waited for the projectile to land, preparing for her counter-move. We'd need to re-apply Stoneskins, quaff the Potion of Magic Shielding, and then gradually restore our other defensive buffs while staying engaged in the combat - our allies were holding the line for now, but that could all change in an instant with a Chaos cast by the mage. Nevertheless, we were lucky that day and the dispel came out unsuccessful, so instead of rebuilding her defenses Iona could continue focusing on her offense.

Spoiler

We quickly refreshed our MMMs and attacked the remaining melee doppes, keeping our aura clear for the Chaos counter.

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Interestingly, we never got to see it at play and the mage went straight for Sleep casts. I'm not sure whether Iona's movement around the field foiled his targeting, but in any event we won't complain.

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Here's Iona finishing the mage with her acid darts while everyone else is taking a nap.

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We used the Wand of Summoning to distract the rampaging Sarevok and that was it.

Spoiler

I'll cover the BG1 finale in the Temple of Bhaal in the next post.

Regards,

B.

***

Spellbook (level 9):
L1 - Burning Hands, Shield, Blindness, MM, ProEvil
L2 - Invisibility, Mirror Image, Resist Fear, Melf's Acid Arrow
L3 - Fireball, ProFire, Melf's Minute Meteors
L4 - Improved Invisibility, Stoneskin

 

[Borco]

Iona, Human Sorceress: Part 7

Because the final battle involves two arcane casters (and, consequently, multiple dispels), we decided to adjust our strategy a bit. Instead of relying on Iona's own buffs, we opted for the green ProMagic scroll to effectively shut down Angelo's and Semaj's spellcasting.

Spoiler

Now the question was what do we do to protect ourselves against physical attacks. Without her Stoneskins, II, and MIs, Iona would be very vulnerable. I'm usually hesitant about casting spells from scrolls under ProMagic, because while it's technically possible, it does seem to cut across the intended purpose of that blue anti-magic globe. Therefore, taking our buffs via arcane scrolls was not on the table. On the contrary, my characters have always been allowed to quaff potions and use other green scrolls while under ProMagic. While I appreciate that such approach is very arbitrary, there was no reason to deviate from it now to Iona's disadvantage.

Apart from the ProMagic scroll, Iona used green scrolls of ProFire + ProAcid + ProUndead, Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Fire Resistance, Potion of Defense, Oil of Speed, and Potion of Power. In terms of equipment, Iona was wearing Girdle of Piercing + the Claw + Cloak of Displacement to maximize her effective missile AC against Diarmid's bow. Since our spellbook was obsolete because of the ProMagic, we also ditched the Ring of Wizardry for the first time since Chapter 1 in favor of RoP+2.

Spoiler

For the record, here's Iona's inventory shortly before revealing ourselves to Sarevok.

Spoiler

We opened by summoning couple of monsters via our Wand of Monster Summoning to run the distraction and waited for the other goons to arrive.

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Our first Potion of Firebreath allowed us to check that we have everyone on the field.

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We did not have the means for dispelling Sarevok's haste, and while we could still outrun him with Boots of Speed + haste, it seemed safer to keep him occupied with more summons.

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Iona used the window of opportunity to burn two more Firebreaths.

Spoiler

Unfortunately, our summons' half-life was barely a single round, so Sarevok managed to catch up with us during one of Iona's scorcher loops. And because we were far too careless in our movement, he managed to land an ugly hit. I was instantly reminded of Alastria and Iona was only few hitpoints away from suffering the same fate.

Spoiler

While the HP boots via Potion of Power certainly helped, we had to get away from Diarmid's range as soon as possible, because a critical hit with his bow could be fatal. Iona's aura was still clouded from the Potion of Firebreath and therefore our only hope was her speed. Both Angelo and Semaj fell under the fire damage, but it still took couple of hair raising moments before Iona was able to quaff her PoI.

Spoiler

We healed up, quaffed a Potion of Regeneration, and re-engaged. It took one more Firebreath and three Potion of Explosions to finally finish Diarmid.

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4x Wand of Frost charge then took care of Tazok.

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With only Sarevok left, we decided to bend the rules for using ProMagic outlined above a bit. Instead of simply bombarding him with wands and Oils of Fiery Burning, Iona searched her case for a Malison scroll and summoned one more batch of monster fodder to distract him long enough to be able cast it.

Spoiler

It took five charges of our Wand of Paralyzation, but eventually Sarevok failed his saving throw and got stunned.

Spoiler

To make his death a little more diverse, we deployed a combination of acid damage via MAA scroll, missile and poison damage via Darts of Wounding, and crushing summoned ogres.

Spoiler

See you in Amn!

Regards,

B.

***

Spellbook (level 9):
L1 - Burning Hands, Shield, Blindness, MM, ProEvil
L2 - Invisibility, Mirror Image, Resist Fear, Melf's Acid Arrow
L3 - Fireball, ProFire, Melf's Minute Meteors
L4 - Improved Invisibility, Stoneskin

 

[Antimatter]

Congrats! That was a smooth ride! And your commentary is insightful and fun to read!

 

[Alesia_BH]

Congrats! That was a smooth ride! And your commentary is insightful and fun to read!

Agreed!

You're definitely at the point where I see a success in your future, Borco. Your execution is consistent and you're doing an excellent job of planning and analyzing.

I'm worried that there may be a problematic knowledge gap in the end game, especially with a sorcerer, but that may just be because I haven't seen much of your ToB play. Maybe you've done some off thread work that leaves you well prepared there. In any case, I look forward to following Iona's adventure. Congrats on a fine BG1 run!

Cheers,

A.

 

[Alesia_BH]

Borco, does your version of SCS have the modified Energy Drain?

I need to experiment more but it may be a game changer, especially for sorcerers.