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

[Borco]

Alagar, halfling bounty hunter: Part 11 - continued

On the other side of the portal, we stole Yoshi's bow and arrows before dismissing him, and rested. Our buffs for the mephit portal room were Armor, Stoneskin, Haste, MIs, MGoI, while Alagar was also running Strength and DuHM. We prepared one special snare at the door and Imoen charged into the room, drawing the attention of the four mephits. Alagar used the window of opportunity to rush towards the most distant portal and destroyed it with a backstab (to the extent one can actually backstab such a thing as a portal). In fact, we should have removed the radiant mephit portal first, but luckily it did not matter.

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The rest of the portals came down quickly.

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To our surprise, we discovered an Improved Mantle scroll when looting the room - we'll be keeping that for Alagar's HLA phase (should it ever come to that).

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We rushed past the dueling assassin and mephit to remove the semi-dangerous salt mephit further down the corridor while Imoen's MGoI still lasted.

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There's usually a duegar group in here as well, though this time they didn't spawn, thus saving one Fireball for later use in the smithy.

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The resident mage was removed with a special trap in reprise of Alagar's move against Ilyich's mage earlier on. Alagar's current save vs spell (with the newly collected RoP +1) is down to 2, so low level spells such as Chromatic Orb or Charm Person are no longer a concern, but it's still his golden rule that casters are best removed before they can act.

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Ever since his stay in Baldur's Gate, Alagar can smell a doppelganger from a mile ahead. No mercy for Frennedan.

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Lastly, for the final shadow thieves blocking the exit we prepared Alagar's remaining traps and summoned an ettercap via Imoen's Monster Summoning II. Imoen led the charge under Stoneskins and MIs, while Alagar approached in the shadows, ready to chip in with a backstab at the appropriate time. It worked well.

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Athkatla awaits!

Regards,

B.

 

[Borco]

Btw, I don't intend to post on my current run, but a minimal reload Alastria run could be in the cards semi-soon.

Does that sounds interesting, everyone, or would you prefer a no reload attempt with a viable character?

Absolutely! Such an out-of-the-box character would be exciting to follow irrespective of how strict is the format.

 

[Alesia_BH]

We retrieved the Claw (for some reason the Cursed Item icon doesn't show on Alagar's portrait)

It's the same way in my install. The icon appears in BG1, not in BG2. I prefer the BG2 approach, at least for the Claw

 

[Alesia_BH]

In fact, we should have removed the radiant mephit portal first, but luckily it did not matter.

The farthest one is the radiant mephit portal.

 

[Borco]

Alastria v Mencar and Co: A Sample Battle Plan

Fun factor:

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[Borco]

The farthest one is the radiant mephit portal.

Then that makes me luckier than careful, lol!

 

[Alesia_BH]

Then that makes me luckier than careful, lol!

I've been backstabbing the farthest portal for, like, decades now. You probably noticed.

If you did copy me, then you could say you were lucky I was right. That's usually a good bet though, lol.

 

[Alesia_BH]

Btw, I have started noticing bugs in SCS v35. I'm using v35.17 so they may have been patched by now. Here's what I've found, as an FYI.

1) Installing the Revised Death Effects component made all of Alastria's saves unusable. The death screen would appear the instant the save was opened. Uninstalling the component solved the problem.

2) If you attempt to put Enchanted Weapon into a sequencer, trigger or contingency, the old version appears instead of the new version.

3) When you use Sunfire during Improved Alacrity the fire resistance component can fail, injuring the caster.

NW: This may be an EE issue.

 

[Borco]

Alagar, halfling bounty hunter: Part 12

After arriving to the Promenade and saying goodbye to Imoen, Alagar first donated 300+500 GP to the local Temple of Illmater to increase his reputation to 12. By selling the excess loot from Irenicus' dungeon, we were able to obtain couple of basic but important items from the A-Mart: RoAC, 40x arrows +1, 1x PoI, and 1x Potion of Freedom.

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We rented out the cheapest room at the Den of the Seven Vales to take a quick nap before heading out to see the circus. By the way, the fact that 'Fafhrd' is not an option when answering the djinni's riddle is a bit disappointing. Anyway, let's fast forward to the orcs, or peasants, or whatever they are - one was chunked by Alagar's Staff Spear, the other got held by his special snare. Nice and smooth so far.

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Good to see you Aerie! Would you mind doing this together? I knew you wouldn't - before we proceed, let's maybe just reorganize your spellbooks a little.

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Our buffs were Stoneskin (Aerie), Remove Fear, Pro Evil 10', MSD (Aerie), Strength of One, Chant, II (Alagar), and DuHM (Alagar). Prior to entering Kalah's throne room, Aerie looted the flowerpots in the foyer for spell scrolls under Sanctuary.

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Somewhat anti-climatically, Kalah fell to Alagar's opening backstab.

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It still was nice meeting you Aerie. See you around!

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It was already dark outside when we got out of the circus tent, meaning that Alagar could improve his finances by triggering the first guild war encounter. We added 2x Potion of Strength and 1x Potion of Firebreath from the A-Mart into our potion collection and moved on to the Slums.

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For solo characters, the absence of a potion case can cause inventory bottlenecks early on, and so we decided to try and reach Watcher's Keep as soon as Alagar left Gaelan's house. You don't have to pass through the City Gates to travel there and I wanted to test whether it's possible to obtain the potion case before triggering the first ambush.

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Ok, so apparently Suna Seni will ambush you even before you've had any dealings with the slavers in the Slums.

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Alagar will be transitioning from all Athkatla areas under stealth, so no city ambush would catch him unprepared - he should always have several seconds to move away from the enemies before becoming visible, as in this instance. With that, we had the time to prepare two snares and buff with Potion of Strength, Oil of Speed, and DuHM (with Pro Evil being a leftover from the circus). Alagar opened by tossing one special trap towards the enemy party, hitting the shadows before the snare could land.

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He observed the situation, noting that both the mage and the cleric were dead, while the two fighter types got held. We attempted to rush in with a backstab on Suna before she could quaff an extra healer, but the hit landed a few moments too late.

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Her fast sword caught us when disengaging on our retreat towards our traps, although the damage was fairly light as she didn't have the opportunity to quaff any strength boosting potion yet.

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Alagar dashed for his traps, but the invisible rogue got to them first - he triggered them both and survived, albeit was in panic. Hopefully, our traps' poison will be quicker than his resolve to continue fighting.

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Time to make some progress with the helpless fighters, while Suna Seni keeps chasing us around.

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The poison ticks and the rogue falls dead.

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Suna Seni and Eldarin were finished with a second special snare.

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With Arbane in (off)hand, we eventually made to the Watcher's Keep and back to the Slums without further delays. Alagar was already eager to meet the Copper Coronet beastmaster, for whom he a little surprise waiting in his gem bag.

Regards,

B.

 

[Borco]

If you did copy me, then you could say you were lucky I was right. That's usually a good bet though, lol.

Thanks to you I'm consciously aware that the radiant mephit is there, though if I were to bet which portal it is before you've told me than I'd have 75% chance of losing. That's why I usually check in front of which portal it has spawned, though this time I just rushed in blindly. Never again!

 

[Borco]

Alagar, halfling bounty hunter: Part 13

As soon as Alagar entered the Copper Coronet, he was overwhelmed with various requests for proposals for his services before he could even commander one of the crates inside the main room as his personal storage*. Nalia? Declined, at least for now. Anomen? Declined. Firkraag? Declined. Give us a call later. Hexaat? Please stop already.

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*Quick poll: Do you have any particular preferred containers that you use for storing gear? For the majority of my characters it's usually this exact box until they can get their own secure place in a stronghold. In BG1, it's the chest at Firebeard's house in Beregost.

Anyway, our aim here was not to talk to people, but to hunt them down. The bad ones, that is. Starting with the Copper Coronet muscle near the cells, Alagar allowed the first guard to initiate his dialogue so that the other four grunts would spawn as well. These guys can drop interesting random loot, including mid-level scrolls, and we didn't want to miss them by insta-killing their envoy too soon. We eventually did precisely that, but only following the dialogue so that should count as fair play, right?

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Hiding in the shadows, Alagar passed undetected behind the doors leading into the pits from where he tossed a special snare back towards the cells. With both guards held, he finished the caster with a backstab via Staff Spear and the other by dual-wielding Arbane and Short Sword +1.

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Moving on to the pair of guards waiting further to the northwest, we deployed another special trap. This time the caster made his save, so Alagar equipped the Girdle of Bluntness and closed in with a backstab. While the hit landed, it wasn't enough for a killing blow.

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Our foe fired off his MIs, to which we responded by activating Alagar's Detect Illusion and switching our target to the other guard with Arbane and the off-hand short sword. I'll note that Charm Person and Chromatic Orb was of no concern due to Alagar's save vs. spell of 2 and possibly the only L1-L2 spell that could present any remote risk here would be Ray of Enfeeblement (for which we had a counter in the form of Potions of Strength). Few points of Magic Missile damage we could swallow.

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After finishing the first guard, we decided to wait out the MIs in the shadows and later re-engaged.

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Wearing his Girdle of Piercing once again, Alagar took down the winter wolf with a single backstab before moving on to meet the beastmaster.

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At L11, Alagar currently gets six traps per day in total (3x normal snare and 3x special snare), meaning that we could prepare two normal snares within the narrow corridor and still retain one snare of each type for situational use during the upcoming fight. Alagar then buffed with Arbane's Haste, waited for his aura and Hide in Shadows cooldown to clear, and approached the beastmaster out in the open. As soon as he opened the cells, our first trap sprang and Alagar activated Charm Person via his Ring of Human Influence.

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We retreated back to the pits, luring the black panther towards the second trap, and disappeared in the shadows.

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Watching Tabhita tear apart her former master was deeply satisfying.

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With a heavy heart, Alagar then undertook the ugly task of putting the tortured beasts out of their misery. The black panther already fell dead to the trap's poison, while the fast moving grizzly bear ventured into the pits and had to be taken down by a special trap and a sequence of backstabs.

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So long, Tabitha. You've been a friend.

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RoAC II + Staff Spear backstab removed the other leopard and the black bear got outsmarted in a hide-and-seek game.

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Lastly, the minotaur fell to our newly acquired Tuigan.

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With this nasty piece of business concluded, Alagar released the slaves and cleared the rest of the guards in the inn (scoring a Potion of Mind Focusing through random loot) to make way for Hendak's assault on Lehtinan.

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By reaching L12, we invested the skills points into Detect Illusion and earned a proficiency pip in short swords. With the aim of keeping our spending under control until we can raise enough funds for Bracers of AC 3, our only purchases from the Copper Coronet before heading out to the Bridge District were 2x Potion of Strength and a stack of 40 acid arrows.

Regards,

B.

 

[Alesia_BH]

*Quick poll: Do you have any particular preferred containers that you use for storing gear? For the majority of my characters it's usually this exact box until they can get their own secure place in a stronghold. In BG1, it's the chest at Firebeard's house in Beregost.

In BG2 I usually use a table at the Flagon's. With edgier characters I use the table near Unger Hilldark in the Copper. The table near Unger is the most efficient location because you can use the door with the shorter walking path.

In BG1 I usually use a chest at the carnival.

We probably all think our chosen spots are eminently reasonable, even if they'd make zero sense to others. lol. It would have never occurred to me to use Firebeard's place, but I guess that makes sense, in a way. He's a friend from home, after all.

 

[Serg_BlackStrider]

Quick poll: Do you have any particular preferred containers that you use for storing gear? For the majority of my characters it's usually this exact box until they can get their own secure place in a stronghold. In BG1, it's the chest at Firebeard's house in Beregost.

As for me it's always the same chest right outside of Copper (close to the area enter/exit, no need to go inside, so less loading screens) for BG2 just to store gear I don't want to sell (yea, I'm a hoarder just like that... =)
For BG1 I don't have any particuar store since I always run a full crew and there are far less unique items I want to save, so I carry all of them with me.

 

[Borco]

Alagar, halfling bounty hunter: Part 14

For low level characters, Athkatla'a Bridge District can be a great place to earn early XP and raise funds without having to land a single hit in combat. We started by freeing the Horn of Valhalla from its trapped home and continued our trap-finding and lock-picking spree at Saerk Farrahd's estate to maximize the gains from quaffing a Potion of Master Thievery.

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Actually, we did land one hit - with the unfortunate victim here being the lone Saerk's guard protecting his safe.

Alagar isn't proud of the act, but I say that the end justifies the means and we've got a large bill to pay should we ever hope to see Imoen again. Conveniently, that DuHM buff also enabled us to crack the safe open before moving on to the ground floor to pick up the emerald from the trapped altar.

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To fix his karma a bit, Alagar assisted the authorities with the murder investigation by exposing Rejiek and removing all the traps in his house (barring the cellar with Rune Assassins, which will have to wait for later).

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After reporting to Aegisfield, and ensuring that we avoid triggering Neera's cutscene at all costs, we made a quick stop at the Promenade to purchase the Bracers of Defense AC 3 and continued to the Copper Coronet sewers in search of the secret entrance to the Slave Boat.

In order to get Lilarcol, Alagar first collected the hand and the ring under stealth, murdered the carrion crawler, and finally took out the kobold shaman with a backstab + normal snare combo.

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For Haegan and his slavers we prepared with Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Strength, Oil of Speed, and RoAC II. Upon entering the boat, Alagar opened with a backstab on the divining cleric. Unfortunately, not even our second attack in the opening round was enough to finish him.

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Spotting Haegan, we thought about replicating that Ring of Human Influence move that we had used earlier on against the CC beastmaster, however this time it failed.

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With the element of surprise gone, we saw no better option but to retreat back into the sewers and disappear in the shadows. The slavers were smart enough not to follow us there - instead, they regrouped near the entrance while the cleric healed under Sanctuary.

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This could be the opportunity that we needed. Alagar rushed towards the stairs, removed the acid blob trap, and managed to find a nice spot overlooking the room below from where he tossed his special trap in the cleric's direction.

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Haegan got held and we dashed in for a quick backstab on the nearest guard.

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That spurred the remaining slavers into action, but Alagar was already retreating back to the top of the stairs, readying his second snare.

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We were pleased to see that this time the majority of our enemies got caught in the trap and failed their save. The priest was quickly finished with a backstab.

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Switching to Arbane dual-wield, Alagar then moved on to Haegan while activating his DuHM.

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In this manner, he worked his way through the other helpless slavers, trying his best not get distracted by the remaining two enemies that actively pursued him (although he did have to quaff a healing potion after suffering a crit from the archer).

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Since two on one isn't fair play, we had to even the odds with some stealth and backstabs.

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Before engaging the trolls in the cell, we prepared one normal snare and summoned the berserker via Horn of Valhalla. His task was to distract them while Alagar could backstab the first troll and finish the other with Tuigan + fire arrows.

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[Borco]

Alagar, halfling bounty hunter: Part 14 - continued

My desire to spend our remaining traps and take advantage of the Oil of Speed duration eventually got us into a sticky situation. It all began by sending the berserker warrior to engage with the second group of slavers led by the the two mages. Right here.

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Had we not removed that Prismatic Spray trap earlier on, we could have tried to trigger it against the enemies, but as it was we had to find other means. Our summon drew out a Remove Magic cast, but the mages were now running MIs so we decided to wait those out first before taking any further action.

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Here we can see Alagar checking on the current situation a bit later - the MIs were gone and our enemies were nicely packed together in a tight formation. Exactly the right conditions for our last special snare of the day.

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Unfortunately, both of the mages made their saves and started chasing us. We retreated back towards the late Captain Haegan under stealth and considered our next move. Eventually, only one of the mages showed up and seemed perfectly exposed to Alagar's fatal backstab...

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...only to realize that he had his Stoneskins on. I must have missed it in the log, plus I'm not very good in identifying the Stoneskin animation through the PfNM cylinder. We panicked and ran towards the stairs, hoping to find a place to hide before the other slavers appear. That got us cornered in this spot, facing the second mage intoning his enchantment incantation.

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Despite carrying Arbane to counter a possible Hold Person, our safest option was to quaff a PoI.

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I was inclined to take it as a sign - go home, take a hot shower, and leave our revenge for the wasted resource for another day. But Alagar would have none of it. After taking a very uncomfortable nap in the sewers, he insisted on returning to the boat. Have it your way then!

Alagar scouted the area, marking the location of all the enemies (noting that both mages were lurking in the first room where we first met Haegan), and prepared his battle plan. Standing at his fave spot behind the top of the stairs, he covered the doorway the northwest with two normal snares, buffed with DuHM, RoAC II, and - with extreme precision - managed to toss his special trap towards the mages. It killed one of them and held the other.

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Time to get down there and finish this. First, we attempted to land a killing blow with the Staff Spear on one of the fighters to make ourselves some space - he survived, but started to panic.

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Alagar moved on to the mage with his short swords, however his Stoneskins kicked in before we could land the first hit.

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Shortly after that we heard that our pre-set traps got tripped somewhere ahead, with the second one killing the incoming guard. Meanwhile, Alagar switched to Tuigan with acid arrows and started to peel away the mage's Stoneskins at 3 APR.

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With all the skins gone, we closed in with our swords once again to get the kill.

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Finishing the rest of the slavers as well as the yuan-ti* was more or less a clean-up.

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*Question: Just out of curiosity, would you pronounce it as "yuan-ti" or "yuan-t(h)ai"?

Reporting the results of our efforts to Hendak earned us L13, an important milestone because of the 5x backstab multiplier and additional boost to saving throws, meaning that Alagar's unbuffed saves vs. spells now sit at 0.

We're currently gearing up for our trip to the Umar Hills.

Regards,

B.

 

[Borco]

As for me it's always the same chest right outside of Copper (close to the area enter/exit, no need to go inside, so less loading screens) for BG2 just to store gear I don't want to sell (yea, I'm a hoarder just like that... =)

I totally understand!

Alagar, as prospective UAI-er, has been struggling with a serious hoarding condition since his very first days in Amn. But it's not only useful staff that goes - for instance, he's been collecting rogue stones as well (probably to be able to show off at the monthly guildmasters' meeting).

 

[Borco]

We probably all think our chosen spots are eminently reasonable, even if they'd make zero sense to others. lol. It would have never occurred to me to use Firebeard's place, but I guess that makes sense, in a way. He's a friend from home, after all.

I'm not sure there's anything reasonable in using an unlocked crate in one of the most infamous den of unsavory types in all of Faerun to store your wealth, but I get your point! Although laying it out on a table is probably so ballsy, that no one will even dare to touch that stuff, lol.

 

[Enuhal]

*Quick poll: Do you have any particular preferred containers that you use for storing gear? For the majority of my characters it's usually this exact box until they can get their own secure place in a stronghold. In BG1, it's the chest at Firebeard's house in Beregost.

Nowadays I rarely use extra storage space at all (at least not when playing with a party, which I usually do), but when I do, I use a barrel near the blacksmith in Beregost, transferring to one near the Elfsong Tavern in Baldur's Gate once I unlock the big city. In Athkatla, I use this ornamental container thing above the adventuring mart at Waukeen's Promenade. These are just the places I've gotten used to, there is no specific reason for those choices that would hold up today.

 

[Serg_BlackStrider]

*Question: Just out of curiosity, would you pronounce it as "yuan-ti" or "yuan-t(h)ai"?

/juːɑːnˈti/ yoo-an-TEE - this.

I totally understand!

Alagar, as prospective UAI-er, has been struggling with a serious hoarding condition since his very first days in Amn. But it's not only useful staff that goes - for instance, he's been collecting rogue stones as well (probably to be able to show off at the monthly guildmasters' meeting).

Now you should see my collection of Pathfinder: Kingmaker's goodies stored in kingdom's treasure chest - every single unique named item is there!

 

[Alesia_BH]

I'm not sure there's anything reasonable in using an unlocked crate in one of the most infamous den of unsavory types in all of Faerun to store your wealth, but I get your point! Although laying it out on a table is probably so ballsy, that no one will even dare to touch that stuff, lol.

As a reminder, Hendak is standing right there. If someone wants to take on a legendary pit fighter to steal the possessions of the person who freed said pit fighter they're welcome to try.