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  • Locked thread
Joebungaloe
Apr 3, 2007
Every year I think I've made it out, and every year you pull me back in, Ironman Thread.

God drat you. God drat you to hell for eating the next few weeks of my life.

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Mzbundifund
Nov 5, 2011

I'm afraid so.

netcat posted:

Sadly Gorion cheats so you can't spell-fail him. :(

You CAN charm him though, and since charm person for some reason doesn't count as an aggressive spell, you can keep resting at the inn and try over and over until he fails his save. Then just point him at Tethoril and Tethoril will obliterate him. It's impossible to leave Candlekeep if you do this, and if you ever run into Tethoril he'll obliterate you, but it is kind of funny to save Sarevok so much effort.

Ulvino
Mar 20, 2009
Stanczyk was tag teamed by a ghast and two hobgoblins:



The thing is, I tried to confuse the hobgoblins into tanking the ghast, since they all escaped Jaheira's Entangle, but I was on the phone at the time and got sloppy... and got stuck in the trees.

Oh well, I'm still up for another try or two.

netcat
Apr 29, 2008
Ahhhh I managed to beat the duchal palace fight without dying (or the dukes dying). That's a first time for me when soloing.

Ran around quaffing invis and stabbing.




So on to the maze...


e: Dio ready to brave the maze to the Undercity

netcat fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Jan 9, 2015

Rulebook Heavily
Sep 18, 2010

by FactsAreUseless
Doing another solo run wizard slayer, largely identical to my original aside from one thing.





I have no idea if the sword still bestows the immunities it used to but I'll have fun finding out. :getin:

psudonym55
Nov 23, 2014
Just started a Roleplaying, Insane difficulty, Born hero, Iron party run in enhanced edition with Jesty, the female, tn Jester, also running an extra pair of rules that if I recruit a character into my party I can't remove them unless I die and that when a character dies I have to recruit the closest character to me at the time who will not break the roleplaying rule.



It's already going "so" well.
Recruited Ajantis with no problem and then went to the FAI, killed the wizard with no issue and got Jaheira and Khalid and traveled to Beregost with no issue. So I was feeling pretty good that things were going so well and that of course is when everything went wrong.

I forgot all about Neera being in Beregost and accidentally triggered her recruitment event and that went fine and I added her to my party. This turns out to be a rather bad idea.

Ajantis then gets murdered by spiders in Beregost.



So I went to recruit Garrick. Garrick being the nearest non-evil character available.

The battle with Silke started well. I managed to get an early hit in on her and disrupt here spell. Then I had Neera cast magic missile, which she then of course wild surged and cast colour spray instead, catching the 3 thespians who turn up and making them hostile. Silke then lightning bolts Khalid killing him and injuring Jaheria causing here to run away due to morale failure. Then she killed Neera who by that point frankly deserved it, just before I was finally able to finish her off.



Then because I had turned the thespians hostile and had to kill them Garrick refused to join my party.
On the plus side Jaheria did level up and that's pretty much as far as I've gotten.

psudonym55 fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Jan 8, 2015

Rulebook Heavily
Sep 18, 2010

by FactsAreUseless
Dear Garon Half-Orcen's Solo Wizard Slayer Purist diary,


Today I exploded another half orc with my berserk sword. It keeps fighting even when I'm too afraid to! And I didn't even need to sleep first.


I found these boots that somehow I can use despite my Wizard Slayer training. Someone forgot to put it on The Big List Of Things Wizard Slayers Can't Have Fun With (third edition, abridged, compiled by Tethoril of Candlekeep). So I put them on and feel dandy.


I found a fortress down by the coast. There was a mean mage I didn't like but I rescued her anyway.


There was a book by the fortress that made me even prettier! Books aren't on the Big List either.


Then I hunted some bugs. Poor farm boy in the tunnels was dead though. :(


The trail of breadcrumbs so big they'd choke pigeons trying to eat them led to a bandit camp so I drew my berserk sword again.


There were some important looking bandits in my way. A wizard tried to make me panic but the sword kept fighting even when I was going to the bathroom in my pants and I exploded all of them. I need to go to Cloakwood next.


But I went to Ulcaster to make this ghost happier instead. :unsmith:


I'm feeling pretty cool! Next time it's cloakwood and some other stuff probably!

e: Garon has cleared the Mines and Bandit Camp and is resting in Beregost.

Rulebook Heavily fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Jan 9, 2015

psudonym55
Nov 23, 2014
Wow Insane is a lot rougher on low level parties than I remember. At the rate I'm going at I'm not going to have enough characters to see me to the end of the game even with the ones added with enhanced edition.

Jaheria was stabbed to death by a random Xvart.



The have also almost killed Minsc like 4 times already. One hit from them leaves him with like 1 hp. All it's going to take is a crit and he'll be chunky salsa.

Kivan was murdered trying to save a tree.



I haven't even got to the mines yet and I've had 5 people die. Apart from Branwin and Rassad who is going to die I don't even know what non evil party members I have left that I have access too. It's certainly making things interesting.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Didn't take any screenshots between Candlekeep and the Friendly Arms Inn, but nothing really exciting happened. Shank came down with a sudden case of Chromatic Orb To The Face, Carbos and Dunworthy missed each other for about a week, and then D cast Entangle, which accomplished nothing useful whatsoever. Eventually Carbos died, possibly of boredom.

Picked up Xzar and Montaron, though we'll be sending them on their merry soon enough. Montaron was kind enough to get seriously hurt stabbing while Tarnesh in the face. However, Tarnesh, too, came down with a mysterious case of Chromatic Orb To The Face, I think there's an epidemic going around. He then fled into the Friendly Arms Inn, whereupon D's party pursued and slaughtered him. A patron rushed over in light of all this chaos to tell some pointless story about his uncle.

We have now picked up Khalid and Jaheira.



Up next, we will be getting on with investigating whatever's going on in Nashk- hahaha I mean we'll be looting the inn.

Taliesyn
Apr 5, 2007

psudonym55 posted:

Wow Insane is a lot rougher on low level parties than I remember. At the rate I'm going at I'm not going to have enough characters to see me to the end of the game even with the ones added with enhanced edition.

*snip*

I haven't even got to the mines yet and I've had 5 people die. Apart from Branwin and Rassad who is going to die I don't even know what non evil party members I have left that I have access too. It's certainly making things interesting.

Yeah, I remember from the last thread that Insane Ironman is a bitch and you go through a LOT of party members.

Pvt.Scott
Feb 16, 2007

What God wants, God gets, God help us all
My female blackguard, Pumpkin-Spice Latte got trounced by some dudes from Thay. gently caress wild mages.

GorfZaplen
Jan 20, 2012

Playing OG Baldur's Gate here.





Everything was going fine until Tarnesh. I forgot to rest before taking him on so I didn't have my useful spells prepared.


I survived, though.

After that I recruited Khalid and Jaheira and on the way to Nashkel I forgot about the Flaming Fist Mercenary.


RIP Gargamel.

Parts Kit
Jun 9, 2006

durr
i have a hole in my head
durr
Took another stab and made a halfling Kensai named Tiny. He inexplicably felt the need to murder the poo poo out of two wolves outside of Candlekeep, then meandered down to Beregost for a bit. After poking around a little for items he then wandered back up to the Friendly Arm Inn and with some luck caved Tarnesh's head in and then proceeded to sell the ugly rear end ring he found in the dirt outside the inn. With his new pile of gold he headed back down to Beregost and was killed by a forgettable dwarf bounty hunter in one of the seedier inns.

He made it about 30 mins, a decent bit more than Not Frodo though. Man I suck at this game. :shobon:

Tuxedo Ted
Apr 24, 2007

RIP Pumpkin-Spice, Gargamel, and Tiny. The first few hours are a real meat grinder. Once you get safely within double digit HP then it'll happen less often. And feel five times worse when you do slip up. I do love seeing the original BG1 being played, though!


Oldman has been busy!

The mines were a breeze, Mulahey had a brainfart and kept waffling between retreating to his skeletons and closing distance with the archers. The result was a human pincushion that didn't cast a single spell. Xan was recruited and immediately given a sleep scroll.


Which he used to devastating effect on Lamalha and her bunch. Between sleep and Branwen's hold person the group didn't last long.


Speaking of Hold Person, some ghasts took down Branwen. I left the party outside this tomb and baited ghasts out to get pincushioned, but I forgot that Branwen was stuck with melee. A little while earlier I killed the revenant instead of giving back the dagger because I'm greedy for XP and GP. It was immune to normal weapons and only Ajantis and Oldman had +1 stuff so far, so I used her innate spiritual weapon ability to lend a hand. But you can't turn it off, and when I commanded everyone to fire arrows on the ghasts Branwen closed distance and got held immediately.

BUT IT WAS WORTH IT:
[Img of a summon monster wand missing, dammit].

She was revived ASAP and helped neuter NIMBUL:


Whats-his-face the mage in Beregost went down so easy I didn't take a screenshot. I can see why they gave every mage enemy in BG2 pre-cast spells, they just are no challenge if you know they're coming.

I decided to keep on trucking straight toward the bandit camp after buying that shiny suit of full plate armor from the Thunderhammer smithy.

The first attempt to sneak into the camp went rough.

Diplomacy has failed! Plus I failed to pull his bandit buddies away from him before he gave his spiel which would have prevented me from looting their scalps, that's easy money. Plus I remembered he had a magic weapon of some kind, more money in the bank.

Also there was this jerk:

He ended one of my Ironman runs in a previous thread once with a lucky hold person, I've been wary of him ever since. I recruited a local bear to eat any spells he tried to throw at my MC.

The next recruitment opportunity the next forest over went better. I was able to loot his buddies, and he didn't have any magic items worth stealing.

This line is especially funny with all his fellow bandits strewn about like that.

I didn't take any screens of the actual camp, though. It went swimmingly, and Kivan seemed to have no problem with just letting Tazok go after meeting face to face. The battle in the tent was a little touch-and-go, I wasn't able to stop the mage from casting fear and Branwen was of course too frightened to cure herself with a courage spell. I really need to start pre-casting that since it also prevents fear from taking hold in the first place.

On the way out the party went ahead and cleaned house. Taugosz was successfully Commanded into sleep and happily gave us our second suit of full plate armor, so nice of him.

The next step was the cloakwood, but I decided to wait on that until Imoen was set to dual-class into mage so I could swap Xan for Coran and never be without a thief. Instead the party would sweep around the western half of the sword coast and collect all that loot I passed on at first.

I love skeletons. Fearless and eternally loyal, they can't be charmed or scared away.

Even poison arrows cannot stop them. Just one cast of Animate Dead was enough to clear out a whole nest of sirens.

They are the most superior undead ally.

They can't be diseased or held either. A little fragile, though, the ghasts eventually were able to take down my little boney buddy, but they weren't able to get close to the party before being taken down. Your sacrifice will be remembered, Sg. Scapula.

For real, if you find yourself having trouble with all those nasty spells and effects, consider using Animate Dead for your cannon fodder use. Not even the gods can stop you!


NO WAIT I'M SORRY, NOT LIKE THIS, NOT LIKE DRIZZAW!
(Oldman is fine)

Anyway. from there the party went to the area south of High Hedge, I hosed up the dialogue tree with Bassilus and had fun fending off his army of skeletons (see, he knows what's up, skeletons are great), got his hammer for Branwen, and found a talking chicken.


RIP Melicamp. Has anyone here kept him alive yet? Anyway. that's all for tonight. Feeling pretty good, though, this run might be the one! BG2 is probably impossible for me, but I've managed an Ironling win before and I want to do it again.

Edit: Oh right. Oldman the Human Ranger has cleared the Nashkel Mines and wiped the bandit threat from the Sword Coast, and are currently on vacation.

Tuxedo Ted fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Jan 9, 2015

Rulebook Heavily
Sep 18, 2010

by FactsAreUseless

Tuxedo Ted posted:


NO WAIT I'M SORRY, NOT LIKE THIS, NOT LIKE DRIZZAW!
(Oldman is fine)

Gets the blood flowing, doesn't it? Good job surviving that.

Mountaineer
Aug 29, 2008

Imagine a rod breaking on a robot face - forever
Brief update on Lady the Archer.

We did the usual Baldur's Gate stuff, Ramazith and the Nymph, Helm of Balduran, etc. We even did Degrodel's house which got pretty dicey, but with two mages, a cleric, and a druid we had plenty of buffs and firepower to pull through.



Iron Throne mercs demonstrated a critical weakness to fireballs and a mace to the head. Love the action shot of Branwen splattering the last guy here. She becomes quite good with 4th level spells and the ability to cast Holy Power.



Later in Candlekeep Caverns I killed those assholes who ended my last run, and gloated over their corpses.
(Not pictured: getting caught stealing in Candlekeep and having to pay off the guards with all my money)

And now, Lady returns to Baldur's Gate, hopefully to put an end to Sarevok.

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011
Holy hell and I thought I was going through the game quickly.

edit: Still wondering if anyone has any thoughts on how inadvisable the inside of Firewine Bridge is in Ironman. Probably not a good idea but idk.

Tuxedo Ted
Apr 24, 2007

I remember the Firewine bridge being a slog of traps and kobolds with fire arrows and no good loot. Just take the shortcut from the halfling village to the end of the maze and slay the ogremage and his cronies. I think they're the only one with worthwhile loot and xp.

Tuxedo Ted fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Jan 9, 2015

psudonym55
Nov 23, 2014
Honestly the only thing I can remember about the Firewine Bridge dungeon is being really really annoyed with it due to bad pathfinding and narrow corridors.

Semi-mental
Feb 5, 2007
You must be a couple of pansies
Quick update: Liana is in Beregost. Picked up Kagain, took down Silke and grabbed Garrick for fodder purposes, very nearly lost him straight away when dealing with Karlat in the inn, but he scraped through with 1hp!

Aiming to finish looting Beregost and then head up to the FAI to trigger Dorn's quest. Feeling very squishy at the moment!

Comstar
Apr 20, 2007

Are you happy now?
Comstar the First continued his wanderings of the Sword Coast. Arriving in Beregost he saved a man who had been turned into a slime who just wanted a bigger...love life with his girlfriend.

Silke wasn't a problem, struck down before she could get off a lighting bolt. The assassin in the tavern next door wasn't much of a problem either.

A bar fight started in the best Inn in town (I ALWAYS stuff that up on the first time I try it, but this IRONMAN Baldur's gate). I knocked him out (and almost died in the process) but then the rest of the party killed him when they walked in the door. Rest in peace Marl. You win the Darwin award. It's a pity you don't get XP from just knocking him out.

I am continuity reminded that not having being a thief is very annoying until Imoen can get some levels.

Neera showed up out of nowhere and had to be rescued. Personally I like her character and writing. Kagin got sent back to his shop.



Going out of town to the nearby Temple showed another addition I haven't seen before - I delivered a mail message from a person in Candlekeep and got asked to return a book. Nothing special or amazing or another way into Candlekeep - just a book.

While clearing out the wild dogs (poor puppies) I used most of my spells on the CHILL Hobgoblins...and forgot that Vampire Wolves can't be hurt by normal weapons. The only one I have is a +1 Buck-and-a-Quater-Quarterstaff, but I forgot Neera had it until Ajantis and Khalid were both already dead. The battle ended with one vampire wolf needing only 1 hit to kill me, and I needed critical's to hit it. Using every potion I had and about 10 minutes of real time combat it went down.







I don't have enough money to resurrect anyone, but Imoen went up two levels after 2 battle's, so there's that. I should probably go and get an archer to replace Khalid and Branwen to replace Jaheria.

Pvt.Scott
Feb 16, 2007

What God wants, God gets, God help us all
My current character encountered a bear, two wolves, a dire wolf, a dread wolf and a few gibberlings outside of Candlekeep, all singly. I was clearing the screen with the MC and Imoen before recruiting others to get them an xp boost towards level two. I think it worked. Dread wolf came one point shy of killing Imoen due to a misclick while kiting. Used all of the wand of magic missile charges. Two characters can effectively kite a single melee opponent rather effectively. I think my post-tutorial survival rate will shoot up due to this knowledge. It doesn't hurt that I have a pretty cautious amount of pause settings enabled (enemy sighted, weapon broke, cast spell, target gone and a couple others). I've never gotten very far in BG and haven't played BG II, so there's a nice thrilling terror to the whole thing. I'll post some pics and stuff later if I live very long.

Jenner
Jun 5, 2011
Lowtax banned me because he thought I was trolling by acting really stupid. I wasn't acting.
Birchwin shelved, so to speak. I will complete the game with her off screen with cheaty bullshit so I can show you guys the godawful male romance in BG2 but for my own HAVING FUN AND PLAYING LEGIT sake I NEED to be a Ranger/Cleric. I love the druid spells so much. I've remade Cedric. We're heading through the mines right now. I dual classed Khalid into thief just to get pick pockets up high enough to steal the cloak just so I could make Sparkle Paladin's triumphant return. Trying to remember what the reputation limit is for Viconia because I may bring her this time. She's been squabbling with Batman Kivan this whole time and I like their banter.

Things of note in the mines: Khalid's short sword broke after the first battle and I had to give him Imoen's.
Kivan keeps swapping to his Halbred even though he has arrows.
Arjantis always blocking my way.
Viconia appears to cast heal spells slower than Branwen. Maybe it's just bias.

Entangle still overpowered.

The Doomhammer
Feb 14, 2010

quote:

Going out of town to the nearby Temple showed another addition I haven't seen before - I delivered a mail message from a person in Candlekeep and got asked to return a book. Nothing special or amazing or another way into Candlekeep - just a book.

Ha, Pretty sure that's from the Romantic Encounters mod, you sly dog.

Forgot to take screenshots, but my current character is Galatea the human dwarven defender (not going for a purist run here ha), with her merry band of Ajantis, Khalid, Jaheira, Imoen and Isra (Mod Paladin, similar stats to ajantis but uses two-handers... and continues the grand paladin tradition of having shite dexterity.) No mages until Imoen duel-classes... and I just realized I won't have a thief when that happens. Oh well, what could possibly go wrong? I'm sure I remember where every trap is.

Just finished Naskel Mines, went pretty smoothly except for Ajantis and Isra almost dying after getting swarmed by the additional adds Mulahey summons after his fake surrender.

Onto... wandering around the countryside, I guess. And getting Ajantis his dex bracers.

The Doomhammer fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Jan 9, 2015

Tuxedo Ted
Apr 24, 2007

Jenner posted:

Birchwin shelved, so to speak. I will complete the game with her off screen with cheaty bullshit so I can show you guys the godawful male romance in BG2

Please do. I'm sure the tender side of Anomen is just magical.

Tzarnal
Dec 26, 2011



Took much longer than I planned to get this first update up, I blame AGDQ for everything.

To starts off, rounded up the tutorial stuff in Candlekeep, cheating with Stratagems to get DOUBLE the money and gold. Okay that is not actually that much. But it the thought of the thing. Damnedest thing was that I broke my shiny new two-handed sword on the Rats and apparently old Puffguts only stocks one of those.



Then I took a quick detour south and had a short little chat with Kivan about his one man quest to kill all bandits before having him join my party.



After picking up Kivan and I was on my way to a fateful and unavoidable encounter with Big E there was an ambush that actually scared me a little, so I recorded it, in retrospect it wasn't that dangerous. None of us even took any damage. Never forget the potential power of ranged weaponry in BG1.



Made my way over to the Inn, picked up the two hidden rings along the way. Once there I tried to make quick work of Tarnesh, but he panicked and fled inside the inn. I can honestly say in many years of playing this game that is the first time that has happened to me.



Once safely inside I recruit Khalid and Jaheira. I don't really want them in my part but they'll make good "ablative" front liners for now.



Grabbed the Golden Pantaloons because, why not. Murdered the belt fetishist ogre and turned that in back to Unshey which pushed Jaheira into leveling up, and she managed a very solid 11hp.



Finally arrived in Beregost, Had a little argument with Marl, got Firebeard his book and murdered some spiders. That was enough to push Vin and Imoen into level 2. HP rolls shook out pretty decently.



Oh and I picked up Viconia south of Beregost... south of Beregost ? Yes, becuase Stratagems moves some party joinable characters around to make them easier to get.

Murdered her Flaming Fist handily though, free plate. Viconia does not make a great front liner, in many games I mod her to be a fighter/cleric multiclass and shuffle her attribute scores around. Well she doesn't make a great front liner yet, if I can get here some Str boosting items so she can wear decent armor she is going right to the front ranks. But for now she gets to sit safely in the back and sling.

Tzarnal fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jan 9, 2015

Pvt.Scott
Feb 16, 2007

What God wants, God gets, God help us all
Slings are the kings of the battlefield. If an encounter went badly, you didn't have enough slings.

Catgirl Al Capone
Dec 15, 2007

Pvt.Scott posted:

Slings are the kings of the battlefield. If an encounter went badly, you didn't have enough slings.

I think darts are really underrated. They have good APR that helps a lot in spell interruptions and the two utility darts (stunning, poison) are very handy.

Mountaineer
Aug 29, 2008

Imagine a rod breaking on a robot face - forever
Lady the Archer has confronted Sarevok! But did she survive the encounter?



The duchal palace always worries me because you have to protect some NPCs, but it went well.

I blew through the final dungeon with Invisibility, not bothering to fight anything.



And so it was time for the end. Oh god, I'm so bad at this fight.



Semaj died quickly thanks to arrows of dispelling. Then we buffed up and headed for Sarevok himself. And then nearly everyone died. Does protection from fire not protect you from arrows of detonation? With both Angelo and Lady firing them off, it seemed to kill Jaheira and Branwen in a hurry. Lady ran like a coward, sending her thieves and spellcasters to die in her place.



Now alone, she was reduced to running around, occasionally putting an arrow into Sarevok.



But she won! Hurrah!

Final stats (taken just before the final battle):




With over 500 personal kills, more than the rest of the party combined, Lady is a worthy successor to the Lord of Murder!

Honors earned:
Ironling
Purist
Honorable Trader
Battlemaster
Roleplayer

Recycling Centerpiece
Apr 28, 2005

Turn around
Grimey Drawer
Cruithne (Purist, Iron Party so far, Normal Difficulty (so Afraid of Pain and Don't Hurt Me!)) starting out with the basics. Got Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Ajantis, and Edwin because roleplaying's for nerds. Ran around doing the easy xp quests: belt ogre, Melicamp, Marl, etc. Nothing interesting or dangerous yet because I'm scared of everything.

Gotta say I'm impressed (at low levels anyway) by the Totemic Druid's spirit animals. Snake poisons on hit, and completely shut down Tarnesh, Silke, and whatsherface in Nashkel Inn. Some sources say they're immune to normal weapons, which would help explain how spirit bear soloed belt ogre while I was gone for a few minutes, having thought I paused. So in BG1 they're definitely a huge asset.

edit: WELP. Forgot the siren kills whoever talks to her.

Recycling Centerpiece fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Jan 9, 2015

psudonym55
Nov 23, 2014
Well it looks like I'm onto the evil party members.
Rasaad was murdered seconds after I recruited him. He got held and beaten to death by Neira who I then only managed to beat by shooting to death after she got caught in her own entangle spell.



Then I went and recruited Branwen before heading into the mines. Where she promptly got murdered by a Kobold.



Then soon after everybody but Jesty was murdered by kobolds and all there equipment including the ring of wizardry was lost.



So now it's time to go recruit all the evil party members and hope I have far more luck with them than I have had so far. At this rate I'll be doing a solo run of the latter part of the game. If i survive that long.

FairGame
Jul 24, 2001

Der Kommander

Sworder posted:

Cruithne (Purist, Iron Party so far, Normal Difficulty (so Afraid of Pain and Don't Hurt Me!)) starting out with the basics. Got Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Ajantis, and Edwin because roleplaying's for nerds. Ran around doing the easy xp quests: belt ogre, Melicamp, Marl, etc. Nothing interesting or dangerous yet because I'm scared of everything.

Gotta say I'm impressed (at low levels anyway) by the Totemic Druid's spirit animals. Snake poisons on hit, and completely shut down Tarnesh, Silke, and whatsherface in Nashkel Inn. Some sources say they're immune to normal weapons, which would help explain how spirit bear soloed belt ogre while I was gone for a few minutes, having thought I paused. So in BG1 they're definitely a huge asset.

edit: WELP. Forgot the siren kills whoever talks to her.


The spirit animals gain new abilities and stats a levels 1, 3, 5, 7, and 10. Immunity to normal weapons doesn't happen until 10.

I think the wolf gets level drain or something at 10, too.

inscrutable horse
May 20, 2010

Parsing sage, rotating time



So I started a completely dumb gimmick run of BG1:EE, and after I'd left Candlekeep, I though I might as well make it an Ironman run. It's an MP game (core rules) where I created a full party, so there's a couple of cheevos down the drain already, but that's hardly the focus of this run anyway.

Still, let's meet the actors in this extraordinarly dumb play:


Perra N'Oya, a CN halfling fighter/thief and Bhaalspawn, who dualwields shortswords...


...and her five TN human cleric clone bodyguards: Alfeyr, Beyton, Geamon, Deltin and Eppson. I tried to make them as generic as possible, with no exceptional ability scores. This actually took a few rerolls, because getting that 78 total for all 13s was surprisingly elusive.

Anyway, everyone knows Candlekeep, so I'll just summarize the "highlights": The inn was thoroughly burgled, Shank and Carbos were squashed by the Clone Companions, Dreppin's cow is still sick, Hull was chewed out for not carrying his sword, and Perra and her crew left the place reasonably well outfitted.


(Forgot to grab a shot of Perra's gear. It's nothing major - two shortswords, studded leather armor and a helmet, plus the various potions and jewels you can get in Candlekeep. And Hull's sword, of course)

The dawn was especially cruel after Gorion got ganked. Imoen was promptly rebuffed, and when she tried to worm her way into the party, I had to forcibly remove her. Well, that's not strictly true. I forgot empty her inventory, so I had to kill her to get her potions.


...Xzar and Monty fared little better. Still, more healing potions and oils of speed for me!

At the crossroads, I (rightfully) told Elminster that he was a loony git, and went straight for the ring of protection. I left Hull's sword as a replacement.Who knows? Maybe the future king of Baldur's Gate will be chosen at that very spot? I didn't feel like going after the belt ogre just yet, so I went straight for the FAI, remembering to pick up the spell ring.


Tarnesh was... Annoying. I'm not all that used to the MP interface, and how the pause works, so he managed to frighten the bejeezus out of everyone but Geamon before I could Command him. Geamon would soon realize, that bravely allowing his mistress and fellow clones to escape has its price, as Tarnesh magic missiled him to death.


Alfeyr discovers that death by magic missiles is highly infectious.


Beyton fails to observe proper quarantine protocols, and pays dearly.

Still, by now Tarnesh is all out of spells, and the remaining clones + bhaalspawn are scattered all over the inn's courtyard - some more literally than others. More importantly, everyone's morale recovers, so it doesn't take long until Mr. T is pulped. The clones are raised, the rings are identified, and the loot is pawned off. I celebrate by outfitting the clones with some fancy suits of armor.



Clone fatalities so far:
  1. 1
  2. 1
  3. 1
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NPCs killed for sport and/or pleasure: Imoen, Xzar, Montaron.

biscuits and crazy
Oct 10, 2012

Tzarnal posted:

You are a brave brave man, willing to reroll frequently I suppose.

Yeah, I've got a fair bit of free time right now. I've soloed an Assassin through BG1 + SCS before, but I'll be doing that in BG2 for the first time. My only succesful BG2 + SCS solo was a Berserker, several years back before the two SCS mods were merged.

A small update for Mr. Kipling.

Tuxedo Ted posted:

RIP Melicamp. Has anyone here kept him alive yet?

Yeah, I managed it last night.


I also killed the flesh golems. They're immune to backstab, so it took longer than I expected, but they're slow movers so it wasn't difficult. The whole thing netted me 6,000 xp, good haul for 5 minutes work.

I picked up the Charisma tome, and those cold resistant boots on the way back to Nashkel. I then bought a Ioun stone (Exotic Item Pack from BG2Tweaks) and the Wand of Sleep from Thalantyr, a Thief skill enhancing belt from the Thunderhammer Smithy (Rogue Rebalancing adds this and some more items in Baldur's Gate itself) and the Necklace of Missiles and Shied Amulet from the Carnival. Cost me most of my cash, but those items should make the rest of the game considerably less stressful.

biscuits and crazy fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Jan 9, 2015

netcat
Apr 29, 2008
Dio finally enters the Undercity for the final confrontation...


Quickly dealt with the Iron Throne mercenaries thanks to the old poison weapon + arrow of detonation combo:


Resting up before entering the temple.


Sneaking up to Sarevok. Luckily his dialog triggers even if he can't see you and then Semaj will teleport away so you can deal with him alone.


That didn't really work out for him.


Then it's time for the man himself. Two backstabs brings him down to Near Death...


... and uh, a third finishes him of. Kinda anticlimatic.


Final stats and inventory:




Honors/dishonors so far I guess:
Ironling, purist, conan, battlemaster, god among men (?), afraid of pain (lowered difficulty for hp rolls ;))

psudonym55
Nov 23, 2014
O joy I've run into the big problem with Thieves in BG1 the game has auto leveled Monty



Look at that thief skill point distribution and weep, time to walk into every trap in the game.

The game also gave him axe proficiency and some throwing axes which really isn't helpful either.
On the other hand he has the most hp of anybody i've had in my party to date so maybe he'll survive a little longer than the rest.

Xzar is however either seriously bugged or rolled gently caress all for hit points as he is level 4 and has 8.

psudonym55 fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Jan 9, 2015

Sylphosaurus
Sep 6, 2007

Ilyich posted:

Yeah, I managed it last night.
What affects his chances of survival? Is it random or is it tied to your stats?

Pvt.Scott
Feb 16, 2007

What God wants, God gets, God help us all
Does a belt ogre have more hitdice than a normal ogre? Where is he anyway?

Catgirl Al Capone
Dec 15, 2007

Sylphosaurus posted:

What affects his chances of survival? Is it random or is it tied to your stats?

Antichickenator is a powerful spell that puts your exp bonus at the mercy of the cold, unfeeling RNG gods.

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Mountaineer
Aug 29, 2008

Imagine a rod breaking on a robot face - forever

psudonym55 posted:

O joy I've run into the big problem with Thieves in BG1 the game has auto leveled Monty

Xzar is however either seriously bugged or rolled gently caress all for hit points as he is level 4 and has 8.

Yeah, Xzar and Montaron you either take at level 1 or not at all since their auto levels are terrible. You may be better off taking Shar-Teel and dual-classing her.

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