Vagrant's journal, Building as OP crew as possible Options

[pekkae]

Welcome.

Playing like it was planned to be played. As I have some time on my hands until the end of January and it's like a lockdown here in Finland, what else am I going to do? ( I could ... read books, finish school or something else but ... oh well)

The rules

- No non-protagonist-related drops (no Necro's stuff etc.).
- Our Custom Characters get 90 points to divide among attributes.
- We have the tomes from bg1 to spread among our crew
- Simplified economy + we'll console in the trinkets we need
- No personal stuff, except for the NPC's we are using
(EDIT: - We learn all spells (so we lower difficulty when scribing scrolls)
(EDIT2: - Forging restrictions in place as well)

The exceptions

- We will most likely give our sorcerer (sorceress) the same bonus spell slots as other mages get. I don't get why sorcerers spell slots are not developing in later levels where as every other arcane caster's slots will. Though this will be at such a late stage that it doesn't probably matter at all.
- We have a few supplementing items we'll use throughout the game (described below).

****

Thoughts on the crew

I think I have this figured out.

We are not looking to survive the mod. We are looking to obliterate all opposition and in every and all possible encounters to milk away as many summons as possible to max out our rewards. Our plan is to once again do the demogorgon fight as fast as possible and then just dominate the rest of the way. Demogorgon with my style requires enormous spellcasting capabilities up front while enormous H2H capabilities throughout the fight. We'll try to construct our crew so that every character will be completely and insanely OP once they are fully developed.That's the way we like it. That's the plan. I'm not sure how it will work out. The 2nd thing is that we like characters who can fill out multiple roles, even though in some cases we lose out on some uber-powers.

For Chapters 2-3 we'll just take on rotating crew members so we'll ave as easy time as possible as we want to maximize fun while minimizing endless reloads & trying to figure out tactics. Or our tactic boils down to maximize strengths, enter, obliterate, repeat.

Since we are playing with a Vagrant we won't have a Necro with us. That means we could be somewhat more powerful in chapters 1-5 as plethora of characters are much more powerful than a Necro throughout chapters 1-5 (think: Berserker/Mage, Auramaster, Thief/Mage or even Nalia or especially Edwin). Edwin can easily wipe the floor with a Necro until chapter 6 (+2 spells per level, mirror images, II's). However, since we'll still need 2 spell casters and we absolutely need a sorcerer for early access to all lvl 9 spells, we won't bring Edwin along to spellhold. Most likely. And we want our supporting arcane spellcaster to be able to do something else than just casting, so Edwin won't fill that spot either.

****

Composition

We have our "tank" covered in Vagrant, who by chapter 7 will be better at tanking than any other character in the game. So no DD this time around though we will take one for chapters 2-3 but we most likely won't bring a DD around for spellhold so our tanking capabilities there will take a big hit. Gladly warrior HLA's won't be that far away once in chapter 4 but for a few key fights we'll need a way to survive. As the fights in chapters 4&5 are dominable with 2,5 fighters (that means 2 full fighters +a dual classed / multi-classed one), our plan of bringing along 3-4 full fighters (or characters who count as such under buffs) means we should be more than equipped to handle those encounters.

We are quite set on Vagrant obviously. After that it's Jaheira and Neera. Those are the locks. Neera because of the nice extra quest in ToB and also because she has great stats & personal item. Jaheira because we've never played it and we need healer. She's supposed to be great and she can fill out both "healer" spot as well as dish out huge amounts of damage in H2H (while buffed).

Vagrant is the best tank in the game and can deal & absorb an insane amount of damage as well, but we do need some help up front so we'll take either one of the ultimate damage dishers, so either Riskbreaker or a Kensai. I can't wrap my head around why RB is better than a Kensai, but I've had a Kensai / a version of a Kensai with previous runs so I'm really too familiar with it - I've done everything I wanted with it. Riskbreaker would be a nice change. That's the only reason we are leaning towards a RB.

We need a supportive arcane caster, so we'll do a custom thief/mage, who'll join in Spellhold. This character will fill out a number of roles, it can support in h2h and will fill out the role of supportive arcane caster. It can also hide in shadows and backstab. Yay!

Then it's just the last slot. We have 3 fighters already in Vagrant, RB ( or Kensai) and the Avenger (so 3 chars who can critical strike already). We have our arcane spell casting covered in Neera + Thief/Mage. We have "only" Jaheira as a healer so we have quite the doubts about our healing capabilities, as we are lacking a Necro & Cernd. So we would likely be looking into healing as well as H2H capabilities.

Pure Cleric's are out of the question because the dual classed version is superior in every way, even getting a 7th level fighter dualled to cleric pumps the cleric to a whole new level. So our choices boil down to dual-/multiclassed fighter-cleric characters where a character like Dwarven Fighter/Cleric would probably fit perfectly. Normally we would be looking into Fighter/Druid combinations, since it's easily and by far superior to the cleric-combinations but ... we already have that in Jaheira and I don't want two very similar characters. Also various Paladin's (or a blackguard for it has permanen NPP + immunity to fear) would be a possibility but since they are quite terrible as healers and lose out to a regular fighter in H2H, it will most likely be a smoother ride with another type of a character on board. And last but definitely not least is the Ranger/Cleric combination, enabling the OP version (where the char will get druidic spells as well). We don't really see why if druidic spells aren't enabled would anyone play that class, as losing out grand mastery and/or faster level gains hurts. A lot.

We are leaning towards the R/C or the dwarven F/C. The F/C could easily utilize staves until chapter 6 when it gets the warrior HLA's. It won't be any sort of a problem protecting that character unitl then. Also Rasaad could be an option.

So we would end up with the following, where last changes will be made in Spellhold. It would be easier if we postpone the last changes until chapter 6, but that feels a little bit like cheating.

PC: Vagrant
Jaheira the Avenger
Neera the Sorceror
Custom T->M
Custom RB (or a Kensai)

And the last slot (most likely) goes to;

Custom Dwarven F/C
Custom Ranger/Cleric combination
Mazzy Fentan
Blackguard (possibly Dorn)
Rasaad

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Non IA Item's we'll use.

I think compliment IA's items quite nicely while not being OP (with the possible exception of Aegis of Torment)

Tymora's gift (belt +10MR, +3Luck, ch 3)
Black Wolf Talisman (amulet, +10HP, +10Resistance to Cold, +1 AC, ch 2)
Clasp of Bron's Cloak (amulet, +5 phys resistance, ch 3)
Aegis of Torment (amulet, +3AC, +2CON, +15HP, ch 6)
(Edit: we also upgraded the reaching ring to a version that has bonus spells from levels 1-7, instead of levels 5,6 & 7)

+ possibly

Amulet of Ilmater (amulet, +1 AC, +3 Saves, immunity to poison, chapter 6)
Sash of the Black Raven (for a monk, +2 thac0, +2 AC, chapter 6)
Heaven & Earth (mace +4, +2 str, ch 6)
(EDIT: ^We only used amulet of Ilmater)

(EDIT: If anyone is interested the item packs are "Item Pack by Daulmakan 1,8" & "Item upgrade mod pack by Westley Weimer v 4.0". In addition to the items up above they do introduce items that are completely OP, which we do not use & new ways of forging (like rings of protection +2 for 5k), which we do not use either).

This post has been edited by pekkae: Feb 23 2022, 06:55 AM

[pekkae]

Bodhi
Vagrant & Jaheira complete the "upstairs", Vagrant with AoP, Jaheira with Shield of Archons. Sleep @ downstairs.

Prebuff to the max, max summons, max prebuff for summons so the normal routine. Some troubles here with the ambush. Mostly because we're lacking +4 weapons so whacking the skeletan warlords is quit the pain. We use 1 scroll of protection from level drain, it goes to Valygar. AoP is on Vagrant, Jaheira gets shield of Archons and Imoen uses Staff of Rhynn. From exp. points this is enourmously succesful as everyone gets about 250k and almost everyone levels up. Every single level is very hepful at this stage as every


Ancient Golem
It goes very smoothly. We're too bothered to stand around and get whacked around by ancient golem so Vagrant goes for a jog. We are lacking the heroic way of doing this, which is to have a DD, activate defensive stance, stand in front of ancient golem while it whacks the DD around. Oh, and cast a few heals every now and then.

Spawns are baited to the centre and exterminated by the crew. Very, very, very simple this way. After all 10 golems are spawned we face the Ancient Golem. Neera IA's and drops IH's on everyone & wishes (we get 25 stats on the 2nd try). Jaheira holy powers & combat trances. Imoen, Valygar + Jaheira also CS. Ancient golem is no more within 2(?) rounds.

We are very very good at "enter, obliterate", not so good at "enter, milk out everything & whack".


Kruin
Goes very smoothly. We prebuff JAheira with PfF. PfC, PfA & PfL. Initiate fight, whack githyaki. Vagrant takes an elemental and goes for a jog, Jaheira takes another one (she has oodles of skins). We milk 9 gems/coins out of the elementals. Then we finish them. Finishing them at this point is quite trivial, they don't stand a chance.

***

We forge
Corthala family true blade (Valygar)
Robe of Greater Invocation (Neera)
Red Coral Armour (PC)
Pendant of recovered light (and fix it locally) (Imoen)
Quarterstaff +3 & Golem Slayer (Jaheira)
Ring of greater djinn summoning (T/M)
Equalizer (Imoen)
We also buy Tymora's Gift (Neera)

***

Green Wyrm
No prebuffs. Neera & Jaheira stay out of GW's sight. So do fighters mostly. We bait out death spells with inconsequential summons, then clan spirit, smilodon & Swanmays tank it until the end. At various stages the GW is surrounded by what must be 6-8 summons. Zone's of sweet air for horrible clouds. Wake up characters wth Barad Ding's Collar Bell (!!!). At various stages & even towards the end, and even with 1 arcane caster + 1 divine the GW looks like it's completely overrun. Regenerating Smilodon is super effective. Clan Spirit is awesome.

When it's out of PfMW's we, IH & enter and CS & whack, it doesn't last for long.

Twisted Rune
Not much problems here, even though we have to play this through a number of times (maybe 5) because every time we botch some detail like we are low on arcane spellcasting capabilities and Neera unintentionally walks into the sight of Vaxall and gets anti-magic ray'ed. Once Layenne gets whacked with Frostreavers cold-damage and Vecna gets destroyed.

Prebuff to the max, Whack Revanek & Shyressa while Neera takes out Layenne's protections. Then Whack Layenne. Then Vaxall. Leave Shangalar the last.

Wk compass level
Not much problems here, besides the Slave Wraith. We find out here, that Imoen's pendant also doesn't protect from level drain so we fix it manually.


**

We forge
Elven ancient expertise (we consoled this item in, because we forgot where it was and we didn't get that drop. Had we known, we would have gotten the drop but...)

**


WK level 4
Finish everything besides the 3x elemental + 2x greater bone & supreme leader

We do Ancient Mage
2xRRoR, then St Breach+2xLR, then SS GM+Emotion+Hold person & hpld person sticks. Great! FUN!

Mystery of the Jewel Casket

Squirreled away assassin's @ bridge district
Prebuff. Enter Exterminate. our h2h too great, our cs's waaay too many + Neera is awesome. It's such a nice fight and we enjoy it to the max.

Lord Roenall
We always end up with Lord Roenall who is completely immune to damage. It seems like completely overblown, considering that this is a fight that should be done in chapter 3. Hmh. After we've whacked him for quite some time (say 2 turns or so), we just manually remove his protections and he's gone in no-time. I'm not sure how this fight is supposed to go but I'm quite sure a Lord Roenall you can't hurt isn't part of the equation.

***

T/M is about 1m exp points away from reaching awesome superpowers. Then we visit IA's items page and notice something that completely destroys our approach. The line is "Memory of the Apprenti: Protagonist is a single class mage or sorceror". And ofc. we don't have that, as we're playing a Vagrant. We can't get MoA.

We thought MoA was forgeable by any protagonist.

This is the one absolutely essential Item that would make our crew + T/M an all-world force to reckon with. Without MoA, she just doesn't have enough spell slots to be awesome. Our crew composition is destroyed, it doesn't work. Our T/M, while she could reach quite ok stats in H2H (thanks to us bending rules & her utilizing cloak of the daywalker), just doesn't pack enough punch to be a completely overblown character like pretty much everyone else in the crew. I mean she'd be an ok & quite diverse character, but just nowhere near to what we were looking for.

Our approach to Arcane spellcasting was to create a completely overblown & absurdly OP archmage from Neera. You see Neera with MoA + AoP + spells + rewards could by 8m exp reach -6 in casting time with vast amounts of spell slots. This would be probably/arguably the most powerful arcane spellcaster available in the game, even more powerful than a Necro with Necro's stuff. She would have been supported by T/M who could utilize circlet of the woods & MoA (depending on the fight), who could reach -4 in casting time if needed with vast amount of spell slots as well. (then Neera would drop to -5 with GRoI). So we would have 2 úber spellcasters where one could also do insane amounts of damage in H2H by small changes to equipped items. Since we've always run out of remove magic's this character could just SI:Abjuration, enter & whack in numerous fights and we would have been free to cast dispel magic' around her since she would be immune. That's why the scrolls we were gathering. Also, the small differences in levels would have meant that T/M would be able to freely cast dispel magic on enemies (say Mariliths) without the other crew members fearing that their buffs would be dispelled when dispel hits. Finally would have reached pretty good Thac0's with decent APR's so the T/M could have been backstabbing & using assassination from grandfather of assasin's ((or what's it called) & It would have worked on a number of different levels. But no. So. Bummer.

That was the plan. Now we're at 5,5mexp and we find out that our plan doesn't work. We could just bend the rules, but since we are "playing as it's meant to be played", it's a "nono". We'll stick by our original promise of playing by the rules, though with this change in mind we'll go back to the drawing board to fix this as we need to make changes to our crew composition. Big changes.

This also means that we were dragging along a completely useless character in chapters 4-5 for nothing. We could have had it so much simpler, even though we were still quite OP in almost all of the fights.

Stilll. Argh. Like complete argh.

***

This post has been edited by pekkae: Jan 29 2022, 08:14 PM