Welcome. Again.

So we succumbed into "Insane".

We are looking to obliterate, again.

Our last crew with Vagrant spearheaded by Riskbreaker & Kensai was quite OP, except for the most difficult fight(s) as in the demogorgon-fight, which was extremely difficult. In the end H2H rules in almost all fights. However we botched our approach as in we didn't read the rules clear enough, so we managed to inflict quite a lot of pain for ourselves in the early parts of the game most notably in chapters 4-5, but we wanted to "play by the rules". In the end we obliterated though. That was the plan and it worked for some (most) parts at least. But in the end we weren't completely happy with our crew though.

However, we managed to dig a hole for ourselves forcing to re-think strategies and to survive, with very, very sub-optimal setup for good parts of the game. Managing to do this though, we think we have enough not to play on Core anymore - we can do it and do it easily. So we will up the difficulty. However, we think that with increased difficulty comes slightly different challenges. For example we think in we can't really tank with anything else than skinned characters, besides the DD ofc since it has about 50% physical resistance quite early. In that way it's about similar to tanking with a regular fighter on core rules, the result should be about the same. And since we did that already, we think we should be quite Ok tanking with a DD (with quite the increased divine spellcasting power that is)

But everyone else we need to protect we think. And we really need CS's, in the few difficult fights. So how do we construct a crew that has max skins, CS's, extreme spell casting capabilities together with great H2H (APR's & Thac0's)?

We think we have this solved. Ahem. Again.

The Rules

- No non-protagonist related drops & forging, though ...
- We get to forge MotA (as we don't get to forge anything else and it actually isn't even a drop, as we'll get the required items)
- We have 91 pts to distribute with the custom character we have
- We have the tomes from bg1 to spread among the crew
- Protector of the Woods is fixed to be usable by a Druid as well (it also fits the lore and it would be a shame to let it unused, since it's such a great item for a druid)
- Max HP's for NPC's
- We'll bend the rules just a little bit regarding a specific item later on in the game, but we are a bit hesitant to call it "cheating", since we can actually do it within the game's rules & it fits the lore as well. We won't abuse it though.
- A few (2-3) non-IA bonus items, to supplement item classes that don't have a lot of choices (two amulets & a belt).
- Rotating crew of party members in early chapters, as usual

***

Voilá our crew, we'll end up with:

Kensai (PC), the best damage dealer in the game we think. Needs to be protected, as otherwise will be toast immediately. Kensai gets the nod over Riskbreaker because it can use staves, so we can actually protect it in the early chapters, when RB is limited to dual wielding without range thus being subject of constant near-death experiences (due to myself being not that good of a player perhaps). Will get JD for dual wielding purposes later in the game for game breaking damage dishing. Will have skins in the end through JD. Gets the PC slot for early game superpowers. Played as Half-Orc with maxed stats from the beginning: (STR 19, DEX 18, CON 19, INT 9, WIS 18, CHA 9)

Korgan the Dwarven Defender. The only character that can tank in the game throughout all of the chapters, sort of. Is able to get about 40-50% physical resistance quite early in the game though abilities + innate physical resistance. This type of resistance also cannot be dispelled nor breached - a major, major bonus over any other type of (phys. resistance) tank. Combines very low AC with up-to 70% resistance to physical damage, which should keep him quite safe until the very end. That and 250-300 HP's with 100% fire resistance and so on. And ofc some timely healing from Cernd. Would play Korgan, but we don't like him so we take Minsc with Korgan's stats. So essentially we're playing a Korgan, who's nice and who carries a miniature giant space hamster around. We'd love to see that hamster in a fight one of these days.

Jaheira the Avenger. The best early game (H)2H damage disher. Amazing complimentary items and abilities, able to get to 6 APR with staffs / spears in chapter 2/3. Gets to summon the Clan Spirit. Gets Critical Strikes. Plays like a fighter, but with superpowers in the early game. Can tank in almost all fights and the one where she really can't, we have a plan for that fight. Gets the Golem Slayer, for... well, golem slaying purposes.

Imoen the Sorceress. Our archmage for top-notch arcane spellcasting superpowers. Will get MotA. A Necromancer gets +1 spells per level through levels 1-7 somewhere around level 30 or so we are thinking about giving her the same bonus spells. Can be silenced, so that's a big minus. Early access to amazing difficulty breaking spells though. We'll use them fully!

Cernd the Auramaster as the ultimate divine spell caster for prebuffing, debuffing & tanking golems and for summoning greater elementals, anacondas and the Smilodon. Will dominate encounters especially in chapters 4 & 5. An amazing healer & lich-killer. Insane amount spell slots. In later stages it will be Cernd's job to disable enemy casters and keep the crew alive with heals, regenerations & natural restorals. Especially those regen's will be in high demand, we think. Also, by the end he will be arguably the most powerful spellcaster in the realms, on par with a Necromancer, a lot better in a number of encounters, as powerful as a demi-god so a very worthy companion for a realms-roaming bhaalspawn.

Up to this point the crew is quite "conventional", as in nothing special besides the choice for the PC & the double-druid perhaps, though very, very powerful and almost solely NPC's with their original (IA) classes. What we are still lacking is H2H capabilities together with casting capabilities. We think there's only one character that we can use for this. Gets to cast everything besides ADHW, which it wouldn't cast anyway. Gets +1 spells per level. Gets critical strikes. Gets fighter Thac0's. Gets amazing equipment. Doesn't have great hit points but it's offset by being able to tank with skins & pfmw's & mirror images. Can also chain contigency properly & use triggers. We think she'll be great! Doesn't get IA but then again, without minuses in casting time IA is almost useless. Can also breach and tank enemies like a boss and is able to summon powerful allies for help. So a custom made gnomish Fighter/Illusionist, welcome! We think she'll be great! (STR 13, DEX 18, CON 18, INT 17, WIS 12, CHA 13).

So in the end ...

=> 5/6 are able to skin up (6/7 if we count the Clan Spirit).
=> The one that can't skin up has the best physical resistance & about the best AC in the game
=> 4/6 can go about critical striking awee'
=> 2/6 can clense auras with tremendous casting time bonuses (aura clensing without casting time bonuses is well, pointless)
=> We have the best casting ability both arcane & divine in the game
=> Effective use of the most powerful gear in the game

We think we'll break it, even on insane!

****

A few abbreviations we use in this Journal

Spells:

MS Minor Sequencer
SS Spell Sequencer
ST Spell Trigger
MS7 Monster Summoning 7 (7th level spell)
MS8 Monster Summoning 8 (8th level spell, troll)
MS9 Monster Summoning 9 (9 the level spell, greater yaun-ti)
CS Clan Spirit, Jaheira's summon
CC Chain Contigency (9th level arcane spell) / Chaotic Commands (5th level divine spell)
PfMW Protection from Magic Weapons
PfME Protection from Magic Energy
PftE Protection from the Elements
PfE PRotection from Energy
PfF Protection from Fire
PFL Protection from Lightning
PfC Protection from Cold
PfA Protection from Acid
GOi Globe of Invulnerability
ST Spell Truning
PO Polyomorph Other
IH Improved Haste
GM Greater Malision
DUHM Draw Upon Holy Might (Bhaalspawn ability / 2nd level divine spell)
IA Improved Alacrity (the 9th level arcane spell)
RRoR Ruby Ry of Reversal (the level arcane spell)
ADHW Abu Dalzim's Horrid Wilting (8th level arcane spell)
CoC Cone of Cold (5th level arcane spell)
AA Acid Arrow (2nd level arcane spell)
MM Magic Missile (1st level arcne spell)
SoA Shield of Archons


Stuffs & other's

AoP Amulet of Power
CF Crom Fayer
DoE Defender of Easthaven
CotW Circlet of the Woods
CotGF Citclet of the Golden Flowers
MotA Memory of the Apprenti
CS Critical Strike (Warrior HLA (high level ability))
F/M Fighter Mage, our custom made gnomish fighter/Illusionist
F/I our F/M
DD Dwarven Defender
OoR Oil of Resurgenrece

This post has been edited by pekkae: May 19 2022, 08:03 AM

F/M vs. Berserker->Mage vs. Nalia

We've had quite a long thought about this, as we've played a number of fighter mage types through the mod including various iterations of the Berserk/Mage version together with Illegal Fighter/Necromancer and the tweaked Jan Jansen and latest with probably most powerful of them all (outcounting the illegal Fighter/Necromancer, which is a full-blown Necro with some h2h capabilities) in Nalia the fighter/mage. But we never were really happy with that character type.

Sure, their spell progression is great, they reach high spell levels, get IA and if playing Nalia, she gets oodles of spells thanks to her personal item + the ability to use the Githzerai blade. So on paper they look like "best of the both world" - in one package. But every single one of those character types plays about the same; they will never reach the high end of either fighting power or spellcasting power.

Every single time I've had a character like that along they have a few moments when they shine, but in the end they are relegated to decoy & summon responsibilities, for they lack essential abilities to be really useful. With such a character one is trading greatness for mediocrity, a bad tradeoff in the world of IA. With dual-classed F/M you are never able to reach high end Thac0 to hit properly. Casting TT is out of the question since your character is most likely toast quite soon, if it can't protect itself with spells. And ofc. you have a single chosen weapon with grand mastery and you pretty much suck in h2h even more with every other weapon type, further decreasing the characters utility. While you can clense aura, it's not that helpful because you are lacking casting time bonuses, an essential thing to have when going spell-hurling. And ofc. you don't have access to full version of Wish and RvE is out of the question. So because of these traits in my games such character types are usually decoying a little bit, then buffing a little and summoning, where they arguably are good especially when playing a character with added spell slots.

We are hoping to change all of that with our F/M. I don't really see any single downside to playing multiclass F/M versus playing dual-classed one. This is where the multiclassed one will easily and by far surpass the effectiveness of the dual-class even though the multi-classed version is stripped of some powers like improved alacricity. The only downside to a multi-class vs. dual-class is the slower level progression but even in that case it comes with amazing bonuses down the line in proper warrior & mage HLA's. And if you take the gnomish version, you even get +1 spells per level, further diminishing the only real benefit of the dual-classed version.

We'll see how this plays out. But I'm really looking forward to my demon-killing F/M with 9APR & Thac0 of -20 without buffs .

This post has been edited by pekkae: Apr 18 2022, 04:31 PM

Good luck! Looks like quite the powerful class. The main downside to the multi-class is that hitpoints are quite a bit lower vs the dual.

Is your Minsc/Korgan going to be a dwarf for the shorty saving throw bonuses? If Minsc/Korgan is good aligned, one trick is to pass JD between the fighters periodically to share the stoneskin procs.

It should be, about as powerful as one can get (imo ofc.). We can fix the hitpoints a little bit by giving that char 19 con (from the tome) + girdle of lordly might, but we'll see. Minsc is good aligned ofc, but with Korgan's stats & class (so we switch him to a Dwarf). We don't want to use the JD-trick (thanks for it nevertheless) because Korgan is originally evil and we play that character like that.

(EDIT: I think we might actually end up using the JD on the DD at some point)

***

Start is trivial:

Kalah & Circus tent- quest
Animal trouble in trademeet
Trademeet genies / Adratha's cottage
Druid Grove part 1 (the troll)
Suna Seni
Baron Ployer
Sir Sarles
Return neb's head
Do all of the thief stronghold quests (the Mae'Var quest - line & reject stronghold)
Jaheira's poisoned man quest
Xzar & Montaron
Return to the Harper Hold
Solve Skinner murders
The "fallen paladins" quest
Wellyn

****
Early notes:

Crew works as we though it would. Faldron chose to challenge a staff-wielding grand master Kensai to a staff-wielding contests. I don't think she thought this through as she got oblitirated before she could say "creeping do.....". PC's exp value in kills is 50% atm, so the Half-Orc Kensai is really, really effective in the early stages. We're also looking forward to Jaheira getting hersuperpowers, so we'll have 2 characters that are just nuts.

The F/M is an amazing tank thanks to low ac (through buffs, ghost armour & blur & ii) + skins + mirror images. Clan hunter is a great tank as well. F/M tanks mostly, especially in the solve skinner murders where she just outclasses the rest of the crew (ghost armor + blur + mirror image + skins. And she can dish out the damage as well. Without her, we would be in difficulties quite often.
****

This post has been edited by pekkae: Apr 20 2022, 07:08 AM

Clear Graveyard
Clear spiders from lower levels
Cernd's child
Start druid grove part 2
Dryads at Windspear Hills
Clear windspear hills & start rescue garren's child
Help Tiris in Trademeet
Join Rasaad & do all his quests
Book of Kaza (so Join Korgan The Berserker)

****
Still quite trivial. These encounters play much like they would on core. GM + emotion for spiders. We can't tank with DD, but since we got the Dwarven Thrower for him he's really good in all of the fights. We're having some second thoughts about the DD, it's amazing at lower difficulty levels but here it too is in trouble quite fast if he gets targetted in melee. F/M is usually in the lead. If she equips the shield of harmony + AoP she's very well protected against pretty much any trick the enemies throw at us
****

Insane, without a Necromancer. Oh boy that Ancient Dragon fight is going to be something.

Good luck!

Thanks! I have a plan for that fight .

****

Chapter 3

Clear the sewers below Copper Coronet
Mook
Guild Contacts (that's good exp right there, don't milk all of the vampires)

****
We're lacking +3 weapons so the guild contacts was a little bit of a struggle. We can already drop F/M's AC to -16 against crushing (or so), that together with mirror image & stoneskins & permanen npp (from AoP) is very, very good at this stage. She also gets to use the "phantom blade", a spell I've never used before. We've bought the spear of Kuldahar for Jaheira. Still, moneys is about 120 atm.

Cernd is about 45k above PC in exp, since he got a boost after his personal quest. That's great, amazing even - that exp' will help us a lot little bit later on.
****

This post has been edited by pekkae: Apr 21 2022, 02:50 PM

Madaulf wants to make a deal with the village
Pick up Valygar (to open the sphere, drop Valygar)
Join Clara, do hexxat's quest
Wild forest & Join Neera
All of Neera's quests with max exp incl. the enclave in Waukeen's Promenade
Kidnappers who buried Tirdir
Riddle in the sewers

****
Couldn't hurt Dragomir with the Phantom Blade for some reason. Doesn't matter. Positioned PC well under CC & Dragomir doesn't have a chance, while F/M is taking the aggro. F/M is quite the OP character at this stage. She plays like a regular fighter, with fighter like HP's, Thac0's but with all of the necessary defensive buffs. Neera's quest with attacking everyone in the bar @ enclave requires tremendous preparations & max prebuffs, otherwise we are in trouble all the time. Lilarcor goes very smoothly, emotion for the rats & lover is tanked by skeleton warriors (and DD, who got held (should've used the shield of harmony for this) and only whacked in the very end of the fight, luckily not permanently so we raise him and off we go).

We reach 850kexp for Neera, thus giving her improved haste. Great. Now for the actual quests.
****

Slaver Stockade

Requires planning on insane. Max prebuffs. Free Action for Jaheira + PC. Enter. We interrupt cleric with a flame arrow (Cernd), then GM cleric (neera), then launch 2xWeb (F/M from a minor sequencer) to Cleric. Summon the Berserker Warrior near Heagan for fodder, Berserker (Iron Horn version) + DD + F/M move in to take down Haegan. PC behind them. Once CS is summoned they are joined by Jaheira. And CS ofc. Then breach cleric, emotion & emotion. Haegan taken down, PC goes to whack the hapless webbed slavers. Jaheira heals DD. DD takes down enemies with Dwarven Thrower, we summon skeleton warriors (we took animate dead for Neera). Once the mage appears Jaheira PfF's herself & F/M hastes summons. Neera + Cernd emotion. Just to be sure. We like this fight a lot. The permanency scroll goes to immediate use. Jaheira gets paws of the furious cat, making her ridiculously good in H2H.

Crypt King & Queen
Mencar Pebblecrusher & Gang
Pain'Na


Cult of the eyeless

Drop Gauths with mirror imaged characters casting gm + emotion + emotion. We have 1 PFME scroll, that we got from early parts. We don't know where other such scrolls are in early parts of the game so our options are limited. Unseeing eye: F/M takes strength + IH + skins + mirror image + SI:Necromancy, PC takes IH + PWME (from the 1 scroll we have). DD takes IH + uses dwarven thrower. Max summons in 3 elementals + clan spirit. All hasted. Done before Unseeing Eye gets an ADHW away.


Druid grove part 2 (Chaos)

Skeleton warriors & clan spirit - all hasted tank. We also summon kitthix & berserker warrior when we're able. Double druid call lightning away. Insect Plague kills F/M, we rescue her immediately. DD makes his saves against chaos. We visit the Smithy in Trademeet ang aaarrrgghh.. there's PFME scrolls for sale, which we would have appreciated in the up above quest. (we also could have probably used Spell Immunity for the F/M in the cult of the eyeless quest... which would have made it really easy, but we just forgot we had it).

De'Arnise Keep

Greater Yuan-Ti + Whisperer Spider, chaotic commands + Ih's on fighters, then secret word + gm + emotion for greater Yuan-Ti. No problem.

Tor'Gal fight has giant trolls, noble trolls + a gem golem. We divide 'em. Cernd + PC take gem, death spell for giant trolls, F/M runs straight into the horde of trolls with -19AC against crushing, mirror image + skins + SI:Abjuration. And Thac0 of 1 with 4 apr & FoA, so she can do damage as well. Then she breaches Tor'Gal. Summons + F/M + DD take out Noble trolls 1 by 1, Jaheira summons more fodder. Once Noble trolls are down & gem is down, move in for Tor'Gal. Storms of vengeance do a lot of damage at this level. Cernd gets whacked for he gets hit by the storm even though he isn't in the storm ... ? The value of "protection from elements" just grows and grows.


Dawn Ring & Borinali

Max prebuffs, enter, summon fodder, F/M goes to tank Borinali. Jaheira takes amber's aggro. Mages turn it into a chicken (we buy 2 scrolls of LR for this & use a few scrolls of PO). DD & Kensai take care of assassins. The F/M is sooo goooood.

****
The F/M is the one character that keeps us in the play for in a number of fights thus far she's been an absolute monster. The combination of Ok Thac0 & Ok APR's with really low AC through spells and other buffs is a deadly combination. That and the ability to go Spell Immunity (thanks Pai'na). Our plan is to get Phosphorous for her to fix the Thac0. She's 400k away from reaching level 6 spells on her mage side.
****

Windspear hills

Mists: Buffed F/M handles with Skeleton's & haste, F/M tanks with -20AC (max prebufs, then equip a full plate). Minsc supports under IH with dwarven thrower, Cernd chain lightnings. Rukh Conjurer: Buffed F/M handles with SI:Abjuration, mirror images & skins & pff. Neera drops little enemies with an occasional fireball (from scrolls). once absolute immunities are out, the rest of the crew follows (under pff & haste / ih). Golems; let 'em in and whack. F/M uses a scroll of Iron skins here because the coins just flat our refused to target anyone else. Vampires: F/M tanks & whacks together with CS, both under ih. DD support with Dwarven Thrower, a few skeletons are summoned and hasted, for support. Conster; we prebuff, fighters take care of spawning lords & mages RRoR, secret word + breach + doom + gm + hold monster & hold person. We milk 4-5 rounds of summons and then whack Conster.


Sewer Party

Complete reload from the start as we forgot the triple chain lightning, that kills us on this level. F/M is true class yet again in this fight, she runs together with CS to the middle of the pack of enemies, fully buffed of course. Remove magic, chain lightning, gm + emotion, then breaches and so on. The frontline with F/M, clan hunter, Jaheira +DD & PC works wonders. We are really, really good in H2H already, even though we are lacking our superpowers, Kensai is limited to a 2H weapon and we don't have a Riskbreaker.


****
Party at 1,4MExp. The golem fights are especially nice as we don't need to barricade or anything else. We have 5 skinned characters when including the clan spirit and DD can tank just enough that he can take 2-3 hits. It's enough. Kensai plays as in pretty much every other level, protect at all times & if she gets aggro she's toast.
****

Planar Prison

Max prebuffs, strip EBH (2xRRoR, from scrolls, then breach, then whack), emotion for the rest. Summon a few fire elementals + CS, haste for everyone & CC's (wonderous recalled) and storm the next rooms. They don't stand a chance. Ditto for master of Thralls or what's it called & the Warden himself. We have to use 2 scrolls of PFME here for the warden, as we want to be sure that it gets whacked and we don't get ADHW'd into oblivion. Planar Prison with adequate powerfull summons is a breeze, even on insane.


Planar Sphere

The halfling with bow & arrows of piercing almost kills PC, but it doesn't live long enough to finish her, as it gets the aggro of a buffed up Jaheira, Clan Spirit, DD & PC. Yet again buffed F/M runs straight into to the horde of enemies, this time under Shadow Door + SI:Divination, skins, mirror images & IH. And ofc giant strength (from Jaheira).

Lavok, 1 gem for Neera, 1 for Cernd. 3 fire elementals, CS + Jaheira + DD + PC whack skeleton lords. Then gems. F/M debuffs Lavok, then SI:Necromancy & whack.

Engine Room: We get aggro of 2 groups, but we make it. We first enter through ice chamber and take care of 2xcoins & 2xgems. Then we rest & re-up buffs and enter from the fire chamber F/M stands pat in the narrow corridor to the east blocking it. The other part is taken care of by CS & Cernd (with 1 golems aggro Cernd has 4 skins in memory + 2 wonderous recalls, he can easily tank for soooo long). Jaheira & PC behind them. In the end Jaheira has 1 skin left ditto for Cernd (both wonderous recalled 2 skins). Golems are so fun with this group.

Demons: Summon to the max (so 4 fire elementals + CS . F/M with IH, Skins, PfF, Mirror Images + Blur + SI:Abjuration helps tremendously here. Use ring of Ram to knock back one maurezhi or what's it called. Summons for demon / skeleton lords, crew takes out the minot demons -> skeleton lords -> the demon. F/M re-hastes the crew after dispel hits us (everyone else besides the F/M). The F/M's ability to buff + then protect the buffs through SI:Abjuratin is really string here yet again.


Cleric 3
Cleric 4
De'Arnise Keep part 1
Founder of Trademeet

Pirates

Pirate coordinator doesn't cast absolute immunity until you attack him. So we full buff our frontline (PC, Jaheira, DD & F/M) incl. PFME (use a scroll for this) & PfF & PfC on whole front line. Enter. Pirates fall easily, Jaheira summons CS. Cernd elementals, then drops resists fire / cold on CS, then elementals. Neera remove magic's, breach pirate chief, IH on SC (or so). F/M is yet again the key as she puts up SI:Abjuration + GOI. The coordinator RRoR's em, then she sets up SI:Abjuration again (at his point also the pirate chief is dead) and coordinator starts RRoR / Breach on F/M or Jaheira=> Our whole frontline storms him together with 4 hasted elementals + CS (under IH). We whack him into oblivion within a span of a single round. We could just do it - great! We get 4 absolute immunities, that's 12k more for our items, potions & buffs. And we get the all important scroll of memory boosting. It makes me wonder, could we do Samia now (the crew is at 1,8mexp approximately).

This post has been edited by pekkae: May 1 2022, 05:33 PM

Samia

Cleared on the 1st try. How nice. Max prebuffs, 4 elementals (hasted) and the CS of course, IH's for fighters (also for CS). 25 STR for PC (fire giant ptn + duhm)& Jaheira (through Holy Power + Fire Giant str potion + Righteous Magic). F/M with ghost armour, mirror image, both fire shields, skins, ih, goi + SI:Abjuration is in the middle, along with Jaheira & Cernd & CS. Neera has a trigger (through scroll) of GM+Emotion+Slow, F/M has contigency emotion on hit.

Start: Fighters whack away, starting from Samia, Ironblade and Kaol. Summons are on the other side on the cleric, giving it hell (forgot his name). Neera releases trigger + breach (on the druid guess) + PFMW's and jams the doorway. Her skins just run out before PFMW is activated, so Skeletons are just about to get her. Then 2x emotion. Cernd insect plague, insect plague, emotion, emotion. First enemy spells are interrupted by sunfire from F/M (everyone has PfF incl clan hunter, so our crew doesn't take damage). The 6th (or 7th) emotion gets Kaol. Then it's just summon distraction so Skeleton have something to go after, everyone goes after the Skeletons besides DD who's using the Dwarven Thrower on Kaol, Kensai who gets PFME from F/M and F/M who takes SI:Necromancy, the three take down Kaol.

Solemn Duty & BOIB among the loot. How nice. We double check our difficulty setting twice after the fight. Yea. It's on "insane". The only one who got hit was Kensai from a Skeleton, since they have equal range to her staff. No Vecna. Dammit.


Temple Ruins

Shadow Jailor is toast with prebuff, summons & storm.

Liches: they have multiple weapons and we can't kill 'em with spells. So we prebuff, whack the enclave, PfF, PfL & Use BOIB + potions to protect from magic damage. Summons keep attacking, when out of PFMW's we attack under all buffs. Luckily Cernd has oodles of PfF's & PfL's and fire elementals. Thaxll'ssillyia: Full on buffs, 25 str for Jaheira (Holy Power + Potion of fire giant strength + DUHM) + PC + PfF, PfA & the whole shabang. Neera takes greater silence, F/M breaches 2-3 times. It doesn't get "heal" away before it dies. Noice. No "vocalize", but all the same for us since we don't really need it for anything. Shade Lord: Not much troubles. F/M tanks Patrick, while RRoR'ing shade lord, Neera RRoR shade lord. Cernd summons then death spells, then summons more. Jaheira summons CS, then goes in Skeleton whacking spree. In the end PC whacks Shade Lord while under PFME. All good. Well, F/M gets whacked by the trigger, I think her SI:Necromancy just runs out (we make sure it's up before we move her to whack Shadel Lord). Luckily not permanently, so we just harper's call her up.

Ranger Protector Part 1 (Tombhelten)
Playhouse part 3
Apprentices Part 2

Bodhi

Very straightforward all the way. Upstairs: F/M under giant strength, blur, mirror image + skins + ih solos parts while dual wielding FoA & Solemn Duty. The whole crew partakes in taking down the mage. Sleep downstairs. Summon a horde of skeleton warriors (+ CS of course). Max Prebuffs, also for the summons. Storm the ambush, immediately back up stairs, storm Lassal, stake, whack bodhi before she materializes. Done.


Ranger Protector Part 2
Belm
Order Robe of the Apprenti
De'Arnise Part 3 (I guess)
Ranger Protector Part 2 (Madaulf inna cave one)
Paladin Part 1
Paladin Part 2
Paladin Part 3

Screaming Statue

Very difficult without limited wish. We use maybe 3-4 scrolls of chaotic commands, 3-4 scrolls of PFMW and a scroll of protection from level drain here. The first wave gets tanked by F/M + a few skeletons, the second by F/M (under PFMW) +Jaheira (AoP) supported by DD (Dwarven Thrower) and PC joins for the third one. Hasted skeleton warriors & fire elementals as summons. Requires many a reloads this one, as it's super easy to screw up. Berserker/Druid would be an awesome character for this.

****
We are about 100k/per caharacter short of our target of 2.2Exp. That we need to scrape that together somehow. One option is Hexxat, but that would mean dropping Neera which we don't want to do yet.
****

This post has been edited by pekkae: May 8 2022, 09:54 AM

We visit Watcher's Keep and clear most of the 1st floor.
Mage Stronghold finale (the imprisonment rune thingy)
Clear some trolls from the entrance of Troll Mound
Ashideena Guardians
Bard Stronghold (the barbarians)
Finish Watcher's Keep level 1 (everything beside Spider Queen)

****
We're good! Crew at 2.2MExp or so. F/M gets to fighter level 12, giving her * proficiency which we'll use on scimitar. Before heading out we drop Neera and pick up Yoshimo, We forge Water's Edge +4, 2x Boots of Speed and Nature's Gift. Cernd is at about 2.24k (pre- Nature's Gift). The only mage we then have is our multiclassed F/M (or F/I to be precise). We'll see how this works out.
****

Chapter 4

All of the minor things
Galvena
Perth
Desharik sends us to Spellhold
Yoshimo betrays us and we find Imoen, Yay! (So we have more than 2 improved haste's )

****
Cernd gets a level up with Galvena's last guard, in the corridor before Galvena herself. How convenient. Then Cernd gets aura clensing + RRoR, which we'll really need for Galvena, as we're not looking to use any scrolls here. She & her mage fall for RRoR, LR + Hold monster. We milk everything. Cernd with AoP + circlet of golden flowers is -4. He's so effective it's nuts
****

This post has been edited by pekkae: May 10 2022, 08:49 AM

Ancient Tome

Cernd tanks here as he's got 8 skins + 5 wonderous recalls (under PfF, PfC, PfL + PfA). We milk 5-6 spawns (lost tract at some point and accidentally picked some loot so...). We distract the elemental a little bit with summons at some point to buy a few rounds for Cernd to wonderous recall skins back. F/M helps, as she can tank for some time. Ditto for Jaheira. We consider elemental golems our friends, for they are our help with monies & exp and very easy to control. Insanely thin margin for error though so sort of annoying.


Crystal Shard kobolds

Whack the mage - imp under PFME with our H2H crew. Summons go for an amber, Cernd tanks one and so does Jaheira. Turn two ambers into chickens. The last one we whack + LR + magic missile (we run out of PO's) until it's no more.


Mithril Golem

DD goes to tank it, starting the fight with 3xregen + 3xOoR (2xRegen & 1-2 OoR's and DD is whacked in no-time). Cernd follows to drop additional 2 regens on him. Then he quaffs about 3-5 OoR's starting from the beginning of the fight on every round. If my calculation is correct, our DD is regenerating about 130-140hp/rd, with 40% phys resistance and yes, he can then tank the mithril golem then. To make sure Cernd is behind him casting heals & summoning every now and then. Didn't use F/M, she can't risk getting golem's aggro* as she's toast immediately. And the only weapon with range she has is a halberd*. We take the boots. All of the boots. They will come in handy later on.

( *We could have PfMW'd her though probably, as she's got a few 6th level spell slots & we have oodles of PFMW scrolls but ... we didn't think of it )


Irenicus

We PfF, PfL + PfME + IH on selected characters. Limited Wish CC for trolls & swords for help. Cernd Aura Clenses clones unconscious & creeping doom's Irenicus. We dodge triggers by separating the crew (after scouts are down) and use potions & BOIB and ofc the boots we just got in the up-above fight. Stormlord's heel are oh'so nice when one needs to dodge triggers of chain lightnings.

Boots <3.

Chapter 5


Prince Vinyardi

We march into rebels HQ and initiate the fight there, as we usually have taken the fake heart and then whacked everyone within the king's premises so this is new. We are a little bit ill-prepared as in quite sub-optimal spell choices, but we make it after a couple of tries. Our hilariously OP Cernd starts the fight with Aura Clensing, then dooms everyone, then drops 8 emotions and 8 flame arrows (they are wonderful vs vipers), then summons a bunch of anacondas while buffing the crew. If we get the spawned sahuagin mages before they can death spell us too badly, the fight is won. Our F/M tanks 3 vipers & the king in the beginning. When buffs run out she PFMW's. When that happens we have an entourage of CS, anaconda + trolls + swords + our groups advanced h2h capabilities. It's easily enough.


Underadark

A bunch of very nice fights here, yay!

First drow ambush goes very smooth, almost all the way. Cernd takes care of the spiders (doom, emotion, flame arrows + chain lightnings), then warriors whack the fighters. We're a bit hesitant to send our frontline against the priestesses and mages, so we try to get em with summons. A bad strategy that results in us dodging symbol:stun's, hold person's, spell sequencers & triggers. In the end F/M together with Clan Spirit (both IH, CC, PfF etc. ) take down the mages, prietesses and warriors. Everyone else is stunned or held.

****
Cernd makes a level, he's less than 250k away from HLA's. That means we'll need to go visit Dracolich next, for we want the pre-hla dracolich. This is where the F/M starts to lag the rest of the crew, as her level progression is a lot slower. So she's missing 7th level spells while lagging levels so without bonuses she's -6 or -7 vs a pure fighter Thac0 wise. That is alleviated by her very low strength, so without spells she's pretty much -10 in Thac0 here. It doesn't matter that much, we can giant strength her and we're gaining levels fast so she'll start to catch up. But here the difference is at it's largest. Then again, she has enoug defensive buffs to be super useful still, with skins + blurs + mirror images + SI's we can drop her AC to -16 ... -20, so she's very difficult to hit.
****

Beholder lair

We PFME SI:Necromancy + full buffs. Max summons. Storm in, obliterate. The one nasty spot in the lair, with 5-6 beholders + gauths is taken down by Cernd who walks in, aura clenses and first dooms everything and then drops 10 emotions on them.

Cernd is U-B-E-R at this stage, we don't know how we'd manage without him.


Dracolichy

No troubles, though a few tight spots requiring a little bit of moving around, as we can't tank it at all (DD can take tank half a round at this stage). Luckily Clan Spirit rescues us (under skins, IH, PfC). We send in summons, nullify clouds & aggro with dwarven thrower. When it's out of PFMW's, buff the crew & whack. In the end Dracolich is tanked by 2 anacondas, a sword & a troll together with our frontline.


2nd drow ambush

It's a nightmare. Anyway, we use a simple trick to do this -> f/m again saves our crew by luring drow warriors + a bunch of spiders (not ghost spider though) to northern side together with the clan spirit, then she PFMW's (and has solemn duty off-hand making her immune to confusion) and then she just whacks away, as she can buff herself. The rest of the crew takes out the casters + ghost spider.


Ust'Natha

Nothing special here. Rescue Phaere, Do everything in the tavern then Qilue (Cernd makes a level when we're at Qilue's so we have the Smilodon now! Olé!), Mage's proposal, Spelljammer eye-tyrant, Patrol leader, Solaufein, Deirex (falls to 6xunleash energy + 2xadhw (from scrolls)). Cernd takes the ADHW trigger with BOIB + AoF (and goes -50% in HP's), Noble Efreeti, Taso Kala, House Jael'lat, Kua'Toa prince, swap eggs, anhilate city on the way out and return eggs to Adalon.

****
Especially the house jael'lat is very nice - our characters don't even take a hit. This is mostly thanks to our extremely efficient summons. Regenerating Smilodon under IH is really, really good at this stage. The only thing better than a regenerating improved hasted Smilodon is two regenerating improved hasted Smilodons. The other really nice thing about house Jael'lat is that there's a drop we've been looking for quite the time in drow elven chain, the ultimate armour for a F/M. She dons it immediately! YAY!!!

We're not actually sure where there were these armours as we have the simplified economy installed. But IIRC this was a sure spot.
****

This post has been edited by pekkae: May 16 2022, 11:17 AM

Demon Knights

Preparation is the key. So we PfF, PfC, PfME, IH and everything. F/M takes also GOI + SI:Abjuration + Spell Turning, to keep the good knights busy with RRoRs. Cernd takes BoIB + AoF + Magic Resistance (5th level spell) which puts him up to 75% resistane vs. magic damage & 60% resistance vs magic, he still gets hit quite badly with the ADHW trigger (-50% HP's). Kensai activates critical strike, which stuns 2 knights. Smilodon's are yet again über in this fight.


Master Brain

Controlling a single elemental is quite easy at this stage. Summons (CS, Smilodon(both under IH) + trolls / swords) overpower the brain golems and once da golems are down they go for the brain.

We try to distract the master brain to get dispels out of it but it just keeps sending the whiplashes (or something like that). Cernd / Jaheira tank, F/M helps now and then. We milk some 5-6 golems out of the elemental. Then finish the brain, which is near death already.

No problem.

***
The F/M is still quite far behind in terms of Thac0 and she's very, very far away from HLA's. On the bonus side, our fighters are fighters instead of Rangers / Paladins, which have slower level progression so we start to gain HLA's quite quickly. Once F/M gets there, in a million or two extp points she gains a little bit of the ground back, at least compared to Rangers/Paladins. Also the F/M doesn't really need any "Hardiness" 's, as she quite well protected already so she can focus solely on offensive fighter HLA's + the useful Mage HLA's.

We move into Chapter 6 during the nighttime with our precious drow elven chain tugged deep into our bag. We are extra careful that no sunlight hits so it stays intact. While it's AC isn't very good the -1 in casting time is extremely valuable.

SPOILER!

There's two ways to smuggle the armour out. One way is exit, drop it to the ground immediately & make a chain out of your characters and move it between inventory screens. Pick it up & exit immediately. The other option is to give it Imoen and meet her again in Copper Coronet.

***

This post has been edited by pekkae: May 14 2022, 12:37 PM

Chapter 6

Kruin

We play this through for a long time, the first fight in the game where we need many a reloads (many, many a more than Screaming Statue). It's mostly due to us wanting to milk many golems out of the elementals, we end up milking 7 to 9 (or something like that, we lost count). Cernd can tank until the end of days but with insane the margin for error is very, very low. Missing skins even once is an enormous distraction for the overall game for us. DD can't tank, even under hardiness + 2x regen, which is a bit surprising and / or worrying. So essentally DD is running around, Cernd and jaheira tank. Imoen is duelling Kruin (so buff, Kruin de-buffs, we re-buff and so on...). We drop the githyaki (Cernd with -4 in casting time dooms & emotions), then get creeping doom / insect plague to hit Kruin to interrupt him a little bit.

A game changer on lower levels in RvE is rather useless in this fight. It would have been better for us to take Wish instead for our 1st level 9 spell. (The 2nd we always take Chain Contigency).


Firkraag

Not much troubles here, once we get the rhytm of it. F/M takes the initial silence, Jaheira performs her ritual so Firkraag doesn't target her with silence. Imoen stays out of sight & Cernd is immune. Summon double-smilodon (+ regen on 'em) + clan spirit (ih'd). Prebuff. Whack the skeletons, make sure they don't aggro Kensai, Cernd tanks, distracts & everyone else takes em out 1 by 1. Firkraag falls to non magic weapons while ciritical striking.

***
We forge enhanced oak & staff of strength & adamantite horn of valhalla, monies still at 400k after those to be forged supreme shelter, indigo ioun stone and Golem Slayer (once wk level 2 is done or so)
***

Spider Queen

We're lacking our oh so close powers as well as some weapons +4, but still this isn't that big of a problem. We dodge initial improved web, then swords for spider queen. Whack + GM & emotion combinations, with an occasional chain lightning. Cernd is casting CC's, free actions and emotions mostly at some point going aura clensing & dropping a group of the Queen's spawns with flame arrows which are very effective. in the end the queen is yet again surrounded by swords, they work very, very well in this fight.


Wk Level 2

We whack some golems and find the missing ray of fragmentation scroll for Golem Slayer. How convenient. We visit Cromwells and come back with Golem Slayer + Supreme Shelter and the Red Dragon Scale armour. DD can now drop his effective AC to around -26. It's quite maxed already, as we can drop the effective AC as low as -28/-30 after Ancient Dragon, Steam Prince falls to DD taking him head on with Red Dragon Scale + Supreme Shleter + Dragon Helm + Talos's Gift (= 110% resistance to both fire & electricity, that can't be dispelled).

****
We get our missing scroll of memory boosting thus we'll venture out to get Vecna, for we can then get MotA. We'll also get C(rom)F(ayer) for DD. We can already hit GeG quite well with Kneecapper (DD), Golem Slayer (Jaheira), Staff of Strength (Kensai) & Dragon's Breath (F/M). Also Cernd has enchanted Oak so that works as well. We should have enough do it. Even on insane.

Since our party has been together from the start mostly, out counting Imoen ofc. we have some interesting stats to showcase. Currently our crew is at

total exp value chapter / game followed by percentage of total kills in the party chapter / game

PC 39% / 39%, 31% / 33%
DD 11% / 15%, 11% / 16%
F/M 21% / 17%, 28% / 20%
Jaheira 22% / 21%, 20% / 18%
Cernd 3% / 4%, 5% / 8%
Imoen 2% / 1%, 2% / 2%

PC is in the lead, as expected. I'm a little bit surprised that F/M tied with Jaheira for the 2nd place, especially since she's been at quite the disadvantage for quite some time. Then again, our F/M is rocking Water's Edge off hand through most of the previous chapters giving her a big advantage in APR's over anyone else. When she'll slowly claw back Thac0-wise & get HLA's, she'll be even more deadly.

We're used to giving Water's Edge to Kensai, but we're not sure if that's wise. We could get "The Truth" for Kensai or "Hesperus".

****

Alhoon

It's quite frustrating at insane, as the margin's are very, very thin However, Cernd with his enhanced Oak is good at tanking. That together with RvE:Regen is the key in this fight, as Cernd can manage the dispels while moving around a bit (= read running around the compound), the elemental damage is the problem.

We have 7 level 9 spells already, so we whack the Illithid, separate GeG & Alhoon (DD runs from the right side to get GeG's aggro, summons from the left), leave summons battling Alhoon and mostly RvE:Regen (2-3 times) Run around in the compound with Cernd for some time to milk out a few golems. The Enchanced Oak mitigates the elemental damage while we're moving around. We have five Critical strikes atm, so we can whack the GEG between dispels, if we time it right and do not get thrown around too badly. It works, luckily.

(we lose the fight once after 6 spawns because we just missed renewing skins and Cernd gets permanently killed .... rraaarrgh )

****
We forge MotA giving Imoen her superpowers. And CF Now we'll dominate. More.
****

Bodhi

Max prebuffs, with SoA for Jaheira & Cernd & Clan Spirit. Cernd is the key as he walks in, aura clenses => that's immediate npp's for PC & DD, who do not have non-dispellable NPP's. Imoen blocks the corridor with PFMW's. We have oodles of crushing weapons +4 or +5.


Troll Mound

We're quite OP for this already. Enter, death spell, buff - Imoen foreknowledges& takes mental agility, so she and Cernd are both at -4

Meet King & Queen, I(moen)&C(ernd): 3xRRoR, then LRx3 (trigger), then breach, then take down queen with acid arrows (they do 100% damage, imoen has both minor & spell sequencer loaded with AA's). Vengeance trolls start spawning so we use our reserve of flame arrows to take down the initial batch. F/M tanks the King with both fire shields & doesn't get hit. The second batch of the vengeance trolls go after Imoen, a mistake, she moves around a bit with 3-4 swords following her. Then PFMW's so the trolls go for the swords. Swords last for ages against Vengeance Trolls. Once king is down fighters pound the Vengeance trolls one by one, they are still attacking the swords. We try "smite" against them but they don't get blown away. Doesn't matter.


Chromatic Demon

Imoen soloes with -5 in casting time. She turns Amber + Chromatic demon into chickens (6xLR, 2xGM, 5xPO) and then drops the princes with acid arrows & co's. It's over before they even properly materialize.


Green Wyrm

Imoen pretty much soloes with "just" -4. Enter. Summon some distractions. Cernd goes aura clensing & 2xRRoR's the Wyrm. F/M enters and breaches (and gets silenced). Imoen: Wish, we get "double length time stop and ia" on the first try and then Imoen just moves to hug the wyrm, casts 3xLR, 1xBreach, moves a bit and drops 3xCoC, 12xFlame Arrow, 13xAA, 11xMM. (Unfortunately the Wyrm is immune to Acid Arrows). Once time stop is over they all hit at once. it just has a few hit points left (really, we could have cast 6xCoC and Imoen would have gotten the kill*). Kensai comes in to give the Dragon a bit of a push and it falls to 12pts of crushing damage. Minsc took 33 pts of damage from a "horrible cloud" and berserker + anaconda got death spelled. We didn't even really get hit.

(*we also had 3xFlame Arrow sequencer & 2xMM minor sequencer which would have worked as well but we forgot we had 'em).


****
We have to double check that the difficulty setting is on "insane" and yes, it is on "insane".
****

This post has been edited by pekkae: May 19 2022, 12:28 PM

Amazing run! I'm really happy, that you decided to share your journal with us (and not 1 but many!). Today's update covers some of my favourite encounters and I am amazed at how easy they seem with this party, even on insane! Good job! Can't wait to read about your fight against Demogorgon at some point