v7/Sibel mageless run, TOB melissan complete Options

[bulian]

Mages rule supreme! Well at least their buffing (IH, PFME, etc.) and debuffing (breach) powers do. I've long wanted to see whether a mageless and bardless party was possible. In 6.5 I took a solo avenger through the underdark but got stuck on Kruin's undispellable hardiness (journal posted here somewhere), so dealing with hardiness is a key factor for a game.

Here are the custom rules:

- Mages can be joined for their quests but cannot participate in battles,
- Mages can be joined to cast freedom spells as well as limited wish spells
- Mages can be joined to trigger Zallanora encounter
- No XP granting tweaks or mods besides Tower of Deception (v 3.2, IA canon), which can't be accessed until Ch 6
- Custom classes for NPCs allowed. Specifically, Korgan (wizard slayer), Valygar (Vagrant), and Imoen (Riskbreaker)
- Hard version of spellhold will be in effect if XP is too high
- I may use godbow item once an encounter is beat to save RL time. For example, spiders in undertomb of graveyard district.
- BG1 tomes and bags from Tweaks, no simplified economy
- Happy NPC tweak from IATweaks so Korgan doesn't leave.

Party design and strategy:

Since V7.0 game has a new druid stronghold and I haven't played the finalized druid final fights, we'll go with an Avenger PC, targeting dual wield (even though nerfed still powerful).
We will also be relying on powerful summons to help augment APRs and need another source of IH (ritual, whirlwind). Therefore, Jaheira (avenger) will fill the second slot. She will join almost immediately since she is buggy if joined later.
Since Sibel mod requires Sibel, we'll go with Sibel S->C.
The wizard slayer purge ability fills a big gap on the debuffing side. We'll use Korgan (wizard slayer) for this, though Keldorn is also an interesting potential NPC here.
There is still the problem of party APR. A riskbreaker (Imoen) and a late game vagrant (Valygar) will help quite a bit.
It may be that we mix in Cernd, let's see.

Overall the party comprises 6 excellent melee characters, 4 of which have self-IH (2x Avenger, vagrant, riskbreaker) and 3 of which have APR boosting items (Sibel, wizard slayer, avenger) with 4x big summoners (2x clan hunter, swanmay queen, arch deva) and a purge ability up to 3x per day that can take down hardiness, SI:A, PFMW, etc.

I will take the route of least resistance for XP and also try to maximize total party XP by arguably exploiting the scripts that give NPC XP upon joining the party. Therefore, this means I'll keep the party as small as possible, ideally just Sibel/PC/Jaheira (since Jaheira does not get XP if joined after prison), and we'll postpone joining Valygar (therefore planar sphere), Korgan, and going to Spellhold as long as possible.

This post has been edited by bulian: Aug 23 2024, 02:42 AM

[nicoper]

@bulian: Impressive attempt! Was once tempted to try mage-free run, but RRoR and Breach prevented me to, as well as my poor skills at using dispel magic without triggering it on party

Just for info you can trigger mage/Zallanora ambush without a mage, there is a belt (Rassad or Neera quest, do not remember precisely) that triggers minor globe on hit (with a %), and mages in city react to it

This post has been edited by nicoper: Jul 29 2024, 06:56 PM