Ryland (human blade) & Kalam (halfling assassin by @Finarfin), multiplayer run: Part 1 - From FAI to Beregost
With the tragic entrée to the Baldur's Gate saga behind us, we were finally ready for some action. First, we borrowed some adventure gear from Imoen - sorry girl, you're a friend and everything, but while your talents might be obsolete in our group, your wand and potions are not. Stay safe!
Monty and Xzar on the other hand actively tried bribing us with some of their possessions in an attempt to lure us to their cause. Our compliance department played it smart - we were allowed to accept the payment in-kind, but had to refuse to offer any service in return. Thanks, lads, that second studded leather and Oil of Speed will come in handy!
What next? Easter egg diamond - check. Elminster - check. First gibberling kill - check. Ring of Protection - check. Girdle of Piercing - che.. oh, wait!
Kalam's opening backstab on the belt ogre failed and we were on the run soon, trying not to get crushed into goo. We didn't want to risk setting a trap, since a critical failure could be fatal, and therefore had to rely solely on our ranged weapons for damage. And I can tell you, kiting in a multiplayer set-up is a serious sport - you don't get to pause each time to take your shot and retreat, as that would quickly deteriorate into an endless stream of "
Can I unpause now?", "
Ready" and "
Sorry, my bad!" kind of exchanges. Instead, you're forced to hip-shoot moving targets while trying not to run towards them too often. There's a primitive fun aspect to it though.
As a matter of fact, to facilitate smoother gameplay we're not even using any auto-pause options in this playthrough. I know there are players out there who sometimes impose certain pause restriction on themselves to introduce this action aspect into the single player context - I respect that, and it can certainly be a great practice for multiplayer sessions, however I guess I'll stick to the round-based format whenever possible.
Anyway, back to the combat. Ryland activated his offensive spin and managed to land two decent hits. I rarely go for crossbows, but man, they do hit hard for a ranged weapon with no STR stacking bonus.
Meanwhile, things got a tad spicy when a randomly spawned wolf joined the fray. No, not this one!
But just as Mr Wolf talks fast and drives fast, BG wolves move fast and strike fast. And while Winston solves problems, BG wolves can cause them, especially if you're a level 1 character.
With his buckler in hand, Ryland acted as bait, and Kalam used the window of opportunity to take down the ogre with his poisoned arrow.
Ryland then rushed to the ogre's corpse, picked up the Girdle of Piercing for extra AC vs. piercing, and lured the wolf further away from his sharp-eyed companion. Kalam's poison took its second victim of the day.
Further north at FAI, we collected the Ring of Wizardry and delivered Joia's ring to boost our PR. Taking down the slow hobgoblins was a picnic compared to the perils of the previous fight. We did float the idea of highjacking Tarnesh, however it was unanimously dismissed as too risky. Instead, Kalam attempted to enter the inn on his own under stealth, but he was denied entry because apparently he had failed to gather his party before venturing forth.
With not much else to do here, we moved to Beregost. At Feldepost's Kalam did the talking vis-à-vis Marl, while Ryland had to apologize to Firebeard for making away with that Identify scroll back at Candlekeep. We earned our first level-up by taking down the ogrillions south of town.
Since we're running two single class rogues, our level curve is going to be fully synchronized. It's almost like going to the same class together, which actually had been the case for 12 years straight, hehe. Ryland got his first spell slot, Kalam invested points into OL, and we were also permitted to take max HP (the future level-ups will be randomised).
Hunting down the hobgoblins in the area gave us access to Boots of Stealth for Kalam. Their two archers, one from the main group and another random spawn, were singled out as priority targets, while studded leather, Girdle of Piercing, and the recently boosted HP pool (16 HP each) kept us reasonably safe from their ranged attacks.
Our next task was to monetize the Ring of Wizardry with Thalantyr - we purchased Wand of Sleep, potion case, 2x Potion of Freedom, and a couple of cheap (but impactful) L1 scrolls to be hopefully scribed by Ryland (Blindness, Shield, ProPetrification). High Hedge also became the test grounds for our wands - Ryland's Wand of Magic Missiles against the missile-resistant skeleton and Kalam's newly acquired Wand of Sleep against the gnoll party.
Back in Beregost, our duo picked up the gem bag from Neera and delivered Roe's letter and Perdue's sword to their respective recipients. Thanks to a little bit of harmless burglary here and there, we also acquired the Stupefier, Potion of Heroism, as well as a PoI and Wand of Lightning from the manor.
We encountered our first close call of the run while battling Landrin's spiders. The plan wasn't bad - Kalam prepared a trap and entered the house, ready to deploy his Wand of Sleep. However, life is certainly tough without Autopause: See enemy - instead of seeing the wand's charge released, we saw this.
Even though only one spider followed him outside, the trap damage wasn't enough to take it down. With Kalam poisoned, Ryland quickly passed him our only antidote from his potion case. In turn, Ryland got hold of Kalam's wand, ready to deploy it in case more spiders would show up. Our nimble halfling switched to melee and managed to overtake the spider in the narrow corridor, quaffing the potion as soon as he had some breathing space, while Ryland finished it with his crossbow.
Following that, our second attempt at clearing the house was much more successful.
The trouble was eventually worth it, as we both reached our respective L3s. We'll just need to be mindful of the fact that we currently don't have any more antidotes, especially since we're planning to take on Zargal and his two elite hobgoblin bodyguards soon.
Attaching the current stats for the record:
Regards,
B. & F.
