Hideous, could you please tell me how does Dispel Magic behave in your game in that regard? I am investigating the issue right now and therefore really curious.

Dispel Magic won't remove MI either. I cast it with my B>C since my 2 Sorcerors only have Remove Magic. And the mage I cast it on had no protections up.

Yes it is!



Pathfinding is hell, and very often party chars get stuck (like if their "circles" were magnetized with each other), Think for the future I will stick to vanilla (until beamdog eventually solves bug). This is really bad since nice items and tweaks made for new NPCs.
Remove magic does not dispel MI, MI does not protect anymore from ADHW (and some other spells)...


Well, I hope hardiness, CBS and RD (and buffs, regen) will help cope with Greater Elemental golems, but my first meeting with an elemental in underdark makes me wonder...
Good point is that my aim to have power to destroy enemies fast seems to come to fullfilment (elemental did big damage, RD saved both my RB, but elemental was dead long before second purge)
Stoneskins I have R->C to stand in front

I will not finish without reloading, that is sure, but (hopefully) I will at least have tried once to make an insane run with as few reloads as possible. My only (small) motivation is to try this without rehearsal with a shadow party.

Insane no-reload is not my greatest enjoyment, I much prefer having a run with a weird party on core and I definitly think (apply this to me, make no claim to convince anyone) it is much harder (and fun) to discover how to win fights with such parties than repeating many attempts to find a perfect way to win on insane (with or without using cheats and cheese).

Updated journal

It is alas a no-reload no more, I had one reload, don't spoil where (will make a sum up of all reloads at the end of this journal when I finish it, with details)
Of course I judge this reload silly and avoidable , but reload it was, only thing I can say (to tease those who are interestd with this uninteresting fact) It has nothing to do with insane (at all!).


good reading

Don't pick pocket items. Stealing is bad m'kay?

Stealing is not that bad (if you have patience), but very limited cash from it (IMO)
I once did a run with 2 thieves (Swash and assassin), one had high pickpocket skills, pickpocketed nearly all I could do and apart from 3-4 good picks (some 300-900 gp IIRC) nothing worth (apart quantity)
Here I don't pickpocket to avoid hostile behaviour

You can still get any item you want. Dominate the one you want to pickpocket, summon something powerful (like an Elite Troll), attack the summon (summon turns hostile), cast Invisibility, watch. The summon will kill the dominated NPC and you will get all of its items, even the non-pickpocketable ones like full plates. There is actually quite a lot of money that can be obtained this way, although naturally you won't get any xp. This tactic is much safer than a pickpocketing attempt, which (if unsuccessful) will turn everyone in the area hostile (not to mention the reputation loss).

There also are non-joinable NPCs that can be killed without any reputation loss for both xp and gold, like all of the clerics and paladins inside the temples in the Temple District.

The only ones which you may want to skip are the harpers from Xzar's quest, since after that Jaheira will turn hostile and her quest will be unavailable.

As far as I remember, in v6 there is almost nothing rare to loot from NPCs save from a couple of Frost and Fire Giant potions, so unless you need money badly, you don't have to do pickpocketing.

Edit: Ribald has a Ring of Regeneration, but it cannot be used as ingredient. Still worth 1200 gp when sold though.

This post has been edited by Krell: Jun 23 2015, 11:32 AM

You won't get the ones that are undroppable, though.

Haha. So serious. I was just guessing why he might have reloaded . I know picking pockets can be nice income. I do it often

Did you get hit with a Finger of Death or PW:Kill? I always try to keep Death Ward or SI:Necromancy active but it doesn't always work out that way.

OK I spoil it, you are very close (though for enemies which cast FoD, PWkill or Imprisonment I always take appropriate measures):
R->C was hit by a disintegrate from wyvern cultists in Tethyr forest!
This is a group I not always fight, did not remember this, and paid it cash (with minimum buffing, saves or DW if paranoid, this would never happen)
The horrible thing was that I activated button (EE specific) that shows loot automatically on screen (so that it can be picked without moving around), and during the fight I saw a potion case and a scroll case suddenly appearing in it, and my mind couldn't cope with what it meant.....

I noticed that a lot of mages cast Disintegrate in EE. That sucks, you made it really far though...good work!

The serious fights haven't even begun yet though. And despite what some may think, it's very, very hard to win all improved (and non-improved) fights without losing (chunk) even one NPC on Insane. The slightest mistake may cause a restart, and no offense, but so far nicoper made quite a lot of those (looking at the description of his fights). It was just a matter of time for his luck to fail. The most important thing any no-reload player should to is to eliminate the luck factor included in all fights. If he\she keeps taking unnecessary risks, no matter how small they may seem, then failure is the only logical thing that will happen.

This post has been edited by Krell: Jun 24 2015, 12:34 PM

Thanks for hindsight, I mistakenly thought some were even VERY serious . Namely: suna unexpected, shadow dragon, screaming statues, shade lord, Umar chapter 3, Crystal shard, mithril golem, Bodhi chapter 6 (early), Illithid compound, Teshal....
Let me know which fights you consider serious so that I pay attention to record how they went and we can exchange later on on those.




I am not among those who think it's easy not to be chunk on insane, in fact (but you are welcome not to agree with me) I even built a party taking into account I should try my best to mitigate this when picking chars.
Of course, I also tried to take into account the way I am at best ease to handle fights in IA (which may and do differ from other players way, but does not mean IMO one way is better than another)



No offense taken, but apart Suna (and I did not expect her on wilderness) and Umar (one char away when I messed with CC 3*ADHW timing) I don't think luck had a part in it, and I never started a fight relying on luck.
I thought tactic definition also includes the capacity to adapt to fight circumstances, don't you agree?
For the fight where I reloaded, I don't blame luck, I just blame myself for 1) not having respected the principle (written in first post) to never neglect buff before any fight 2) not having systematically fought cultists in my previous runs so that I remembered disintegrate was used there (which as said in some post above is after all a frequent spell used by mages in IA).
I did not kept count of all PWKILL, disintegrate, improsonment, FoD... I escaped unarmed since I begun this run, which adds to frustration for this reload.
Hope next one will be more "glorious"

However, I'm open to discuss about luck. I would just say you cannot blame bad luck for repeated failure, neither can you put repeated success on simple luck factor, don't you agree?

Eliminating 100% luck factor (luck being save results, hit results, spell results,...) can IMO only be achieved only through repeating an already validated sequence for each fight. Already validated does not mean no-reload for me.

Maybe if you (Krell) were starting a no-reload run with a party like mine and make a journal of it, we could better appreciate (myself at least) your comments.

OK, so R-C is disintegrated... why not pick up an NPC and keep going? If you put Cernd in your 6th character slot, you'll have most of your divine spell needs covered. So you have some flexibility in replacing the R-C. If you pick a non-caster, I think you can even ensure you'll never face a Greater Silence against dragons and such. So someone like Korgan might work well. Valygar too could be a nice choice as well. They'll be a bit behind in terms of development, but they'll get most of their offensive capabilities by level 20 anyways.

This is actually a curious idea. In JA2 community (an old-school tactical turn-based strategy which like BG2 still has huge popularity, thanks to devs who at a certain point released the source code to the gamers who've made a whole new experience of it), people like to play no-reload too ("iron man" in game terms). The game presents a huge pool of mercenaries you can hire, and if someone dies, people hire another one and move on. Of course, the game is better suited for that sort of action, but still.

Whenever I run a noreload (no way I will do it on ia), I go through numerous assortments of npc combinations because they keep dying on mee by disintegration, chunking, flying icecubes, imprisonment (with no freedom around) etc. you never know what you are going to get. This is the charm of noreload. Embrace it

Actually, only thing I considered was to keep going on with one less Char (level-up faster do pay a lot, remeber that from my run with party of 4), even my healer. On core, for sure (even no reload Wise) would have done this, on insane, at the moment it happene, considered this impossible.
ButI don't say if I have another reload later I won't do that (all the more if Necro already has RVE )

Cernd would have been ~2 Mxp behind, too much for me to cope with, but your idea (or Valygar as you mentioned) is sound IMO

Twisted Rune, Red Globe Challenges, Supreme Leader, Ancient Dragon, fights against Hardwood golems in chapter 7, Firkraag, Saladrex, Yaga-Shura, the Oasis, and naturally the EDE.

EDE you can not win in a no-reload insane game unless you've tested extensively first. Probably valid for other fights too. Even Draconis, Abazigal and Sendai may cause a reload, if you mess things up even with a single spell.

You actually won some serious fights - all fights vs golems without Hardiness are serious on Insane. Suna Seni, however, is not.




No, I actually don't agree. You had luck quite a lot of times because of poor planning ahead and risked chunking warriors on several occasions. The fact that they died instead of being chunked is a great luck, which you don't appreciate. It was bound for chunking to happen one way or another. BTW you can live without a R/C at present. Other chars will at least level up faster. Still, it would be far better if the (IMO) useless Barbarian died instead. To summarize, first you need extensive planning and a good knowledge of a 100% winning strategy. Thinking on your feet and adapting (a bit) in the combat comes after that.




No-reload challenge means one thing: Run the game from the beginning to the end without reloading because of character death, chunk or unfavorable game conditions (losing a fight). This doesn't say anything for previous test runs, of which you also have quite a lot, so in your own terms, your game wasn't a no-reload either from the very beginning since you had knowledge of IA enemies and you had developed your own relatively successful tactics vs them.



Here is the final fight of an already won successful no-reload attempt several years ago. If you want to, look through the entire topic for more details.
At the moment, I am in the middle of another no-reload with a solo Kensai-Mage, it's possible when I finish it I will pick a party just like yours for a no-reload run, without exploits, but will most likely cut the Barbarian. The easiest possible no-reload run is with a Necro PC and 2 Riskbreakers. It's way harder with another protagonist, even a mighty Vagrant.

Changing your mind?

Twisted Rune, Red Globe Challenges, Firkraag, Saladrex, Yaga-Shura : prejudice I have is those will be OK (at the time I choose to fight them that is)
fights against Hardwood golems in chapter 7: First one (with dragon) I am confident, second with Jon, much less (close quarter and 4 instead of 3 hardwood is bad)
Ancient Dragon: May be I will be shamed, but I think he has no chance at all
Supreme Leader, the Oasis, and naturally the EDE: OK those ones are definitely serious (My personal fear is Supreme Leader)
I would also add Second travel to plane (Balors!!!!) on my personnal list of serious fights, this one can be skipped though (I will not skip it)



Just for your information, I have not been chunked (yet), only disintegrated !
Why do you consider my planning so poor and my luck so great? (OK, had you made a positive comment on this, I would have believed your account at BWL to be hacked )

Don't be mistaken though, most often my chars went down next to "non potentially chunking" attacks (poison, PWKILL, AA, FA, MMM, ADHW, vengeance storm...) the (very few) times 1 char went down next to a blow (which can be chunk case I agree), I honestly think luck was not on my side (comes to mind RB who was downed while figting shade lord and skeleton lords, 3 critical hit from enemy nearly at the same moment, no time to move away or drink a potion, and only solution for enemy to reach my RB, some -24 AC against slashing IIRC...)
This to say, consider it poor planning as you wish, but relying on luck it was not.

(Barbarian is not useless, how can you say that? )