Ava, Halfling Swashbuckler: Early Adventures, Part 1
Ok! Let's get this party started!
Once upon a time I was good a BG1, at least in a relative way. Many years ago, when I started my first run in the Bioware forum's original Baldur's Gate 2 no reload thread, I casually mentioned that I had completed BG1 as a minimal reload. I hadn't thought much of it. To me it was just a footnote. To others it was a revelation. Unbeknownst to me, BG1 was believed to be impossible to no reload back then. I had only tried because of ignorance.
Heartened by the enthusiasm of my fellow forumites, I started the first BG1 no reload challenge thread and, with it, the first trilogy no reload challenge. In those halcyon days I was, it is fair to say, a guiding light in the BG1 no reload space. I was the one who knew the tricks. I was the one who could navigate the Sword Coast with confidence and ablomb. Oh how times have changed. I'm terrible at BG1 now. Fracking awful.
Ok, awful isn't exactly right. I'm not destined to fail each and every time. But I'm not destined to succeed either. Most of my runs end up looking smooth. Trust me though: they never, ever feel that way. I always feel as though I'm one step away from death, one critical hit away from going back to the library.
That, I suppose, is the nature of BG1. It's unforgiving. In BG2 you can always recover from a couple bad rolls. In BG1, not so much. That is especially true when you can't wear helmets.
Setting aside potions and scrolls and amulets and the like, the most powerful items in BG1 are helmets, wands and bows in that order. And to be clear, when I say helmets I don't mean the Helm of Baldruan or the Helm of Defense or Kiel's Helmet. I mean any old chunk of metal that will stop a crit arrow from cratering your dome.
You may be thinking that wands, for example, are clearly stronger than helms, but I ask you: How many times have you been killed by a crit? And how many times have you been killed because you didn't pump out enough AoE damage? If your experience is anything like mine, then that first number is way bigger than the second.
The point I'm making here is that this wasn't exactly an easy run. I suck at this game and any character that can't wear a hat sucks at surviving it, making Ava and I a dubious team. And yet we survived or, at least she did. I'm not so sure about myself. I believe I had a heart attack once or twice, and I'm not entirely certain this isn't the afterlife.
So, yes, there is drama to come. Ava's early adventures, however, were mostly uneventful. That's because I did them twice.
The Ava I am posting on is actually Ava the Second. Ava the First was struck down by not one, not two but three mother-fracking lightning bolts. And in case you're wondering about the nomenclature, one lightning bolt is a lightning bolt. Two lightning bolts is just two lightning bolts. Once you get to three, though, they become mother fracking lightning bolts. Why? Because three is just wrong. I mean give me a break: Three?
Truth be told, that trio of MFing lightning bolts spared me some embarrassment. Rusty me made more than a few mistakes in that first run, mistakes that I was at liberty to correct in the second.
Here we see Ava rectifying mistake number 1. With a chaotic neutral alignment, starting at rep 10, temple donations are an undeniable bargain in the early game. Ava the First spent weeks and months just shy of a rep of 20. Ava the Second did not.
After buying our way to a rep of 12, we immediately went to work on pushing that higher, aiding Joia. Firebead and Marl followed, granting us a peaceable level up and a greatly appreciated 6 additional HP.
Our next level up came soon after, courtesy of, among other things, Mirianne's quest. As long time readers know, I'm fond of posting a pic of the ceremonial punking of the first ogrillion. You can see clear evidence of my rustiness here, in that I failed to kill my ogrillion in the clear, away from the trees, yielding this deeply unsatisfying screenshot.
Ah, but that's not that type of rustiness that kills, is it? Don't worry. We'll see that soon enough...
Our second level up granted us 7 more HP and 25 more thieving points to dump into Set Traps. Ava's thieving point priorities were Set Traps and Detect Illusions. The rest were largely ignored, with Open Locks and Find Traps receiving just enough attention to insure they'd reach 100 under PoMT + PoP + PoMF.
IIRC, we tried using a trap on Mellicamp's wolf in the hope of saving a Wand of Sleep charge. Juding from this screenshot, that rouse failed. Instead we see Ava slicing and dicing with her wakizashi and ninja-to combo while Mr. Wolfy-Wolf takes a nappy-poo.
For those of you who are wondering where the wand of sleep came from, the answer is, of course, High Hedge, funded by easter eggs. And, yes, Ava robbed Imoen and all the other NPCs blind, as one does. I just inexplicably decided to share those details here, out of sequence, instead of when they happened. Rustiness takes many forms, including in presentation.
A successful anti-chickenator brought us a cool 8HP and a proficiency point, which went to darts. Set Traps was raised to 95, positioned to reach 100 when we collect our dex tome.
Against the belt ogre, our traps did save us a wand of sleep charge. Very good. Nineteen left at this point is fine by me.
Our economy didn't last long, I'm afraid. Shorly thereafter we started using charges willy-nilly. Case in point, the boots of stealth hobgoblins. At 29HP this feels lazy to me.
Charges 18 and 17 were spent soon after on Landrin's spiders.
We were down to 14 already against Caldo and Krumm, since we had used one on the dire wolf guarding the cave to the south. More laziness, for sure.
Gnarl and Hairtooth were next. Traps took care of them, but I spent a ridiculous number of charges on the xvarts. This being my second consecutive run through the early game, I had little patience for kiting, especially to the soundtrack of "Eeeeeee!"
By now we were ready for our basilisk hunt. I very nearly botched this.
Ava was never in danger, but we were at risk of leaving a ton of XP on the table. Since Ava has a proficiency point in scimitars/wakizashis/ninja-tos, Rasad's Talon was a priority. That, in turn, meant saving the Protection from Petrification scroll for Durlag's Tower, and mirroring Korax from the shadows in Mutamin's garden. This is a move that I picked up only recently, inspired by Borco. For many years I fought alongside Korax under Pro Pet. I still feel more comfortable that way especially if I'm under HiS instead of proper invisibility.
Awkward though it may be, the HiS approach is destined to work if -if- you don't get Korax killed in some damn fool way like, for example, leading a gnoll straight too him.
The embarrassing thing about this is that it wasn't negligence. It was incompetence. Protecting Korax was my first and foremost priority. I just failed at it hard. He barely survived.
To make matters worse, I had failed to rest before the hunt so I had no way to heal him. We just had to plod on with Korax at near death, hoping he'd survive all the way to Mutamin.
I could say I'm surprised he made it, but this is Korax we're talking about. And who, I ask you, is more reliable than Korax? Not I. Not you. Not anyone I've ever met. Korax never fails.
Had I remembered that sooner, I'd probably have a screenshot of Korax taking down Mutamin. Alas, I was totally expecting him to get zonked by an MM, so I didn't take any screenshots at all. Happily, he succeeded, like he always does, bringing us to level 6, and to the end of our first installment.
Semi-soon I'll circle back and bring us up to Mulahey.
Best,
A.
Absolutely brilliant and hilarious at the same time!
