Yet another Journal. Random crews & some uncommon tactics and techniques, One big spoiler from start to finish. Options

[pekkae]

Journal Part 1.


Welcome. Again.

I think this is the last journal, for now at least. It's much fun for me to tinker with the party composition and I think the last partial run starring a Berserker(13)/Mage I learned a lot again (though no journal that time). So here we are, yet again. I don't think there's that much that I would have not tried, but the one thing that I have not played since the very first attempt is my favorite character from the vanilla game as in the Cleric/Mage. So we've decided to build a crew starring a C/M. Her roman name is "tankius maximus", so that might give you a little bit of a clue where this is headed . And there's some new spells etc. we have not tried which we've only now beginning to figure out.

The 6.6. version changes things. We now have a clear idea on how to develop some of the underutilized characters in the game. And the changes bring some amazing capabilities and abilities for the crew, even if we are lacking a single class cleric. They just come a little bit later on. We are looking to utilize the revamped powers in their full extent and the highlight a few ways the newly acquired powers can be developed into "superpowers".

So yet again we are not aiming to survive, we are aiming to anhilate. Every an all content in the mod. We think we have what it takes. Ahem. Again.

The Rules

- No non-protagonist related forging (if we forge a protagonist specific thing, we'll reserve it if we change the protagonist)
- We rolled a 95 for our PC. (I have a screen cap to prove it, previous high was 93 pts)
- 92 pts for the custom character(s) we have
- We have tomes from bg1 to spread among the crew
- Max HP's for NPC's
- Rotating crew throughout
- Chromatic Demon drops the full circlet of netheril (not just the frame).
- 6.5 cloak for Hexxat (For late game comprehensively overpoweredness)
- We'll revamp blessing a little bit, or we reserve the right to do that
- Insane all the way

***

Cleric/Mage

The gnomish illusionist / cleric version. Get's her superpowers quite late in the game. We shall use variety of tactics from the start so should be quite useful throughout. We could have used Aerie for this, but we think the combination of her hammer + elven ancient experitse (+ IA) would off the balance, so we chose a custom PC for this. So we are thinking about giving the C/M IA + a little bit better stats in tradeoff for Aeries's superbly useful hammer + elven ancient expertise. And +1 Wisdom. A little bit more power later on, that's the way we like it. Gets IA at 6.8mexp, so our "cheat" comes in quite late. Plus we get to cast find familiar + we get vocalize in the beginnig. We'll be missing vampiric touches, a big minus.

Having a C/M though changes our composition, as we are used to playing with one full arcane & divine caster, one additional arcane + divine caster that is "half" the caster half fighter and two fighters. But the C/M sort of combines both the arcane & divine half-caster roles, leaving us with an additional fighter. How nice! We shall utilize this fully.

Ellidira Wildspring, gnomish Cleric/Illusionist: Str 11, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 18, Wis 18, Cha 14.


Jaheira

Early game comprehensively OP character. Summons Clan Spirits, so an additional damage dealing machine.


Neera

Because her personal item is superb. Early access to swords, trolls + 5 improved hastes.


Keldorn (Inquisitor)

The new armour makes Keldoen very, very deadly. Plus Inquisitor has numerous other fights where it shines. In the end Keldorn will trivialize the orcus fight, for example. Plus the instant access to 50% MR and 40% resistance to magic damage through the armour is tremendous. An additional bonus is that those dispel will be really handy in numerous fights as our dispelling powers are mostly down to Neera + Jaheira. So a third character with dispels is very welcome. We don't think C/M will have high enough levels to properly dispel, but we shall see when we are there.

(abtually Keldorn doesn't get along with Hexxat so we give Keldorns stats & equipment to Imoen. There's an additional bonus as we like having her around).


Hexxat

The most OP late-game character that is completely overlooked. Probably about 2nd powerful character in the game, after Cernd. And no-one uses her. It's silly.


The last slot

We would have wanted a Vagrant (so we would have taken a Vagrant PC). For the summons and late game superpowers. But we just could not do it. There's numerous fights where pure non-dispellable power rules over anything else. And this is what we are lacking and unfortunately Vagrant doesn't provide that, until little very, very late in the game. There's only one character, that completely rocks the "undisppelable" raw strength slot. That is the DD. Also the new improved abilities at 6.6 version & changes are tremendous for a DD. So we shall make a custom one to take along. We use Minsc as a template, for we like his dialogue . We have a pretty good idea how to supercharge this character to god-like levels later in the game, though it will definitely be a powerhouse from the start.

Dwarven Defender, STR 18:80, Dex 17, Con 19, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 18.


***

Chapter 0

***
DD takes constitution tome and dexterity tome. PC takes 3x wisdom tomes and charisma tome.
Skip the dungeon
***

Chapter 1

Kalah & circus tent

Chapter 2

Fite outside CC
Fite inside CC (just breeze through with cause serious wounds)
Join Nalia (the F/M)
Join Jan
De'Arnise Keep (clear first floor completely, make the stew etc. very easy xp + monies)
Killer Mimic thingy
Madaulf wants to make a deal with the village

***
Casting free action on DD doesn't make a difference with "defensive stance". The 50% movement rate still gets applied.
***

Faldorn (she has 0 chance against a C/M)
Druid Part 1 (gm+holy smite for the rats)
Adratha (null clouds, protecto from cold, clan spirit for kids & tank with c/m who has about -15 AC + skins + mirror images)
Heroes of Trademeet

***
We buy martial staff and ofc. the dwarven thrower! ooh la'laa! two weapons +3! We use the revamped ncause serious wounds / cause critical wounds extensively in the beginning. They work tremendously well here
***

Suna seni (requires numerous reloads, as we're ill prepared. interrupt cleric & emotion & spell theust away)
return neb's head
sir sarles

Chapter 3

mae'var questline talos (we visit the temple & buy the girdle of bluntness from her before activating this)
poisoned man
prebek (death spell)
xzar & montaron
return to harper hold
copper coronet backroom (beastmaster)
caretaker
tirdir
skinner murders
slaver stockade (we're quite early for this, it takes numerous tries... )

***
Forge Paws for Jaheira ofc. This approach with 4 offensive casters seems to work really well here. We can do a lot of damage by coordinating 4 flame arrows or so. One pure fighter is enough together with Jaheira, who can also buff.
***

Pai'na (so we can let go of Cernd soon)
Cernd's child
Book of Kaza (so join Korgan, then drop him)
Rasaad's quest
Neera's quests
Jan Jansen family troubles

***
Crew at 800kexp or so. 50k more to go before improved haste. Before heading of to next quest we forge cloak +2 for DD. With plate of the dark from fadel ironeye + shield of the lost DD now has effective -20AC vs all damage types (DD has ** in sword and shield style). Which we can drop with SoA + defensive harmony to -26. And of course then we have long lasting protection from evil, which gives attackers -2- So I think we're at -28 effective AC. Plus we have mirror images from ilbratha. That should be enough against pretty much anything at this stage.

The 6.6 changes in sword & shield style mean that shields are very effective in the early game. This is a game (tactic) changer. No more dual-wielding for all, as sword & shield - style is more powerful. Gold at 30k.

The crew is C/M, Jaheira, DD, Nalia (F/M version), Jan Jansen + Neera. This works wondefully well for we have enough fighting capability with extreme casting ability (hello 4x flame arrow per round).

***

De'arnise keep

DD is about non-hittable, as we can drop to -28AC vs. piercing (-23vs Crushing). And we can reach -45% DR already. So the whisperer spider is a breeze. We 1st disable spell protections then lower resistances + gm + hold monster the greater yuan ti. luckily the hold monster lands, we don't have many (both Jan + Nalia have it). The library room we manage to drop the yuan-ti mage with emotion/chaos. Vengenace trolls are weaponless against -28AC & 4xflame arrows per round. Glacius is a breeze. We get to 850k exp downstairs so we have IH for Tor'Gal. prebuff. Storm in. Neera takes the gem and the rest whack Tor'Gal, whose storm of vengenace & dispel both get interrupted. DD gets hit maybe 2 times or so. We don't even need defensive stance here. Then giant trolls & noble trolls and last we take out the gem. Much easier this way. Double SI:Abjuration (PC + Nalia) works tremendously well here. DD is amazing. We can throw him against noble trolls and don't even need defensive stance, with it we are at 35% DR.


Belm
Druid Grove part 2 (chaos, so pick up Cernd & drop Jan for a while)
Cult of the eyeless (We tried doing this earlier but a ghost spider blocks our way...?)
Fallen paladins


Start rescue garrens child

Rukh Conjurer - C/M can drop her AC to -24 or so. It's easily enough not to get hit. That plus skins, images + SI:Abjuration to keep the PfF up is easily enough. Super easy this way. DD takes the golem ambush with -24AC vs. crushing, but it isn't enough. We also need defensive stance and a few potions of rejuvenation. So no golem-tanking yet for DD, otherwise with super low AC the DD has been a revelation.


Mencar Pebblecrusher
Nalia's father's funeral
Riddle in the sewers

Sewer gang

DD with effective -28AC storms in. Gets hit once or twice. Low AC rocks. We have 3 RRoR's left.


Windspear hills

Meh. It's quite straightforward. We milk all skeleton lords for Conster. We don't get Paladin stronghold, for some reason(?). We've gotten thief, fighter and cleric strongholds thus far. And we need the pride of the legion. So we console in the item, I wasn't looking forward to those quests anyway. DD fares quite well against Skeleton Lords as well.


Free Haer'Dalis

***
We forge cloak +2 and the chaos potion. After careful consideration, it goes to Jaheira. So she's perma confusion immune.
***

Planar prison

We breeze through this. DD works yet again extremely well, as we can easily drop our AC vs. planar hounds (piercing) to -28 or so. He doesn't get hit + he makes a level so additional 0,5APR, hooray. If I recall correctly the hounds dispel chaotic commands, but as DD is near-unhittable it doesn't make any sort of difference. RRoR wares up to 5 scroll again. And we are quite close with Neera to getting RRoR. Since she's our main caster, we'll take swords as the 2nd 7th level spell.


Planar sphere

Could we just steal the belt from the knights? We didn't try it. As we are AC maxing, it would be a fun item to have against the skellys. C/M's blade barrier destroyes the halflings and the spiders. We turn some golems into chickens and have some fun with the demons. C/M has vocalize, we have the amulet of whispers so it's not that big of a deal. C/M is really good at tanking golems as well, as we can drop her effective AC to around -22 or so. With that AC, skins last much longer. I'm used to blocking Lavok's way, but it takes a while for all of the entourage to materialize. So Lavok moves around. I didn't remember him casting just breaches, but ok. We'll take it.


Temple Ruins

Shadows are defenseless against holy smite. DD soloes Shadow Jailor + entourage (with giant strength + ih + defensive stance) with a little bit help from 2-3x holy smites from PC. And a chain lightning from Neera. We turn the first lich into stone, it never works the first time we try it but what the hell. Thaxll'ssillyia we just whack. We have too much of breach capabilities with combat capabilities. Thax chooses to silence Jan, for some reason. That's fine with us ofc.


Founder of trademeet
Mook
Assasins at Balthis Estate
Guild Contacts

***
At this stage it becomes too repetitive. While our crew is nice and we like it a lot, we're just not going to make it, because it becomes too uninteresting.

So we make a bunch of changes, trying out a few different combinations to circumvent some of the limitations / annoying mishaps of the different setups. The goal is to comprehensively dominate the following encounters. As always.

So we change the crew & continue with:

Necro (PC)
Jaheira
DD
Shaman
Swasbuckler(9)/Mage
Multiclass F/M

The plan is to drop the Swashbuckler/Mage for a single class Swashbuckler after underdark and switch the F/I for Kel-Dorn the Inquisitor. We'll probably also try the Berserker(13)/Mage dual at some point and Valygar the Vagrant version. This also means that we have the most effective summons in the game (that was the plan), but with Necro, Shaman, Jaheira, Hexxat, Kel-Dorn & Valygar the Vagrant, we are probably a little low on IH capabilities. We could switch the Vagrant with Berserker(13)/Mage, which would have both amazing summons + much help with IH capabilities but we're just not sure yet.
***

This post has been edited by pekkae: Aug 24 2023, 10:29 PM

[pekkae]

Journal Part 2

Crypt King & Queen

We're far too OP for this. DD takes queen's aggro with SoA (from cloak of Atonement), -28VS crushing & 35% DR.


Bodhi

DD with -23AC & Azuredge breezes through the Vampire Lair upstairs. We buff a little for Tanova and even use a negative plane protection on the DD for that part. We don't need SoA downstairs as Shaman entropy shields and DD is just unhittable & whacks about 50% of the vampires with the first hit. This feels like vanilla content a little bit.


Screaming Statue

We prebuff a little, then whack first 2 waves. Then prebuff properly and whack the last wave.


Samia

We can target Kaol but none of the spells have any effect? Like we can cast RRoR but nothing happens. This is new. Chak gives us trouble for we win if we can disrupt the Creeping Doom. If not, we lose. The Skellys are pratically weaponless vs. DD with -35 (or so) AC vs slashing + 50% DR + Healing Ward. Shaman + DD rule this fight completely. Kaol always gives us trouble but as the Skellys are not a threat (as long as they focus on the DD) it's not particularly difficult.

I have a feeling this sentence will said out many a times with the following encounters. Though we could just cast regen from a druid for the DD, but the ranged one is just superbly convenient at this stage.


Limited Wish Quest

Pirates

This goes very smoothly. Swashbuckler/Mage casts tenser's tranformation pre-fight. She's very good with it + stoneskins. Max buffs, necro goes SI:Abjuration and once pirate captain is down & coordinator starts RRoR we full on assault coordinator with everyone. And the coordinator falls within a single round.

Ashideena guardians

***
We're almost at 2,2 Mexp. So probably the rune-thingy and then off to Brynnlaw we march. We don't have any boots of speed even. We'll get our first pair from the boot machine. We drop F/M and take Yoshimo along. We immediately dual him to a Fighter and level him up. We take grand mastery in Clubs. We forge rings of protection, cloaks of protection, Water's Edge +4 ja Jaheira's pin.
***

Brynnlaw

Lady Galvena

We max prebufff including invisibility 10" radius. We go after the mage directly using with wizard slayer axe + blackblood, (or try to). They both disrupt spellcasting. While it's not nearly 100% we manage this perhaps on the 3rd try or so, but I'm not sure if we had other weapons when we made it. Not sure if they made any difference, but 4 capable fighter-esque is pretty good here. The reason we're doing this is because our RRoR capabilities are nonexistant. And we ofc. forget the we could have spirit shifted shaman, for a 5th fighter-esque character.


Perth

DD soloes the coin 1:1. Armor of Faith (AoF) + Defensive stance + defensive harmony + maybe one entropy shield. And a little bit of healing from Shaman.

***
We whack some mists and Desharik sends us to spellhold. Yoshimo betrays us. PC at 2.32MExp or so. So around 30k below the limit. We are joined with Imoen the Swashbuckler(9)/Mage. It's nice to have a character that can use Tenser's
***

Golem Ambush

I personally think this is by far the hardest fight in the Spellhold. We always get extra golems here and dominating this has been superbly difficult before. Well, not so much with these.

The DD + Shaman combination is so strong we can easily afford to even milk some golems from the elemental. We make it on the first try. DD + Jaheira are in the room with the riddles while F/I runs to the ambush (with periapt of life protection). F/I leads the golems to the center where we have ourselves a golem whacking feast. DD + Jaheira take out the Rakshasha + Greater bone golem as they are at the back of the pack, then join the rest. It's not particularly even close. Low AC dominates this fight as well. As it doesn't matter how much damage the golesm do per hit, if they can't hit you.



Lich + skellys ambush

DD drops his effective AC to -29 vs slashing and tanks all of the Skellys by himself. We activate defensive stance and Shaman drops a healing ward + entropy shield. The rest just proceed to turn the lich into stone. Necro Wharding Whip, dispel illusions + we flesh to stone it.

***
We can already reach 60% DR with DD for 15% DR innate, 25% Defensive stance, 10% AoF (Cloak of Atonement) + 10% entropy shield. That and -33/-35AC means DD can just solo some of the fights. DD also has saves between -5 and -9 (it has -10 bonus to saves including defensive stance bonus). It's rather ridiculous. I think the DD is by far the most effective early game tank in the game and it's not even particularly close. The F/I is very nice as well though it's very different. It's sort of a revelation that the DR will be sort of pointless, if we can further lower the AC of a character. A few skins will last for ages at a later stage, if we have around -30...-35AC.
***

Ancient Tome

It's a little bit difficult to optimize, for our IH capabilities are annoyingly limited. We try something new with the ghost spider as in we cast "prismatic spray" on the spider entourage, it doesn't affect party members. And oh boy, WHY WASN'T I AWARE OF THIS BEFORE? It whacks half of the spider summons. Our favorite spell vs, spiders changes immediately to "prismatic spray". That with some GM's should be comprehensively deadly. DD can tank easily the elemental throughout the spawns, but we have a little bit of difficulties finishing the spawns as we are not that adept with piercing and we are sparing IH's until the end. Had we sorceror instead of Necro, we would just blow through this part. Though ofc. we couldn't have prismatic sprayed em then. DD has active regen throughout either from Jaheira or Shaman. Also, DD is under elemental protections (ofc) + entrophy shield. We try to get AoF but we don't get it. Anyway, quite doable without. I think this is the first time we finish with all of the spawns without resorting to any cheesy tactics (as in running away).


Crystal Shard kobolds

I dislike this fight. The micromanagement is terrible, the most difficult thing is keeping the NPC tanking from attacking the amber, ditto for the summons. DD enters and takes the initial chain lightnings with Storm Shell, but it's electrical resistance get lowered(?) DD takes SoA + entropy shield and we're at -34VS crushing. And 40% DR. And what shouldbe non-dispellable 100% resistance to lightning. We turn 2 golems into chickens and later notice, that the setting was on easy (we learned protection from electricity before the fight). We're much too bothered to play through this again.


Mithril Golem

DD tanks. It's not even particularly close this one, even on insane. We can drop DD's AC so low that the golem has a little bit of troubles hitting the DD. That 40% non-dispellable DR is quite nice thing to have here. The most troublesome thing here is positioning the rest of the crew so that they don't get targetted. We try to summon for distraction but the Mithril golem just stays on DD, for some reason. It doesn't make a difference. 5-6 regen's + non-dispellable DR overpower the golem.

No oils of resurgence used. No potions of regeneration. We even forgot that we had the green dragon potions (great for the character whacking the golem, IH + FA + Green dragon potion). And we would have 2 potions of barbarian essence, so we could up DD's nondispellable DR to 80%.


Irenicus

Asylum scouts are no match against a DD with 50% DR & -36AC vs crushing. (Base -20, defensive harmony -22, SoA -26, Girdle -30 + entrophy shield -36).


City o Caverns.

DD dominates these fights but we also insect plague & creeping doom the groups. Breeze through prince Vinyardi on back of DD tanking and the rest dishing out damage. It's very nice to have ADHW here, as we're usually with a Sorcerer so no high level damage dealing spells (for quite some time). But they seem to work quite nicely here. Even our F/I is really good here, for she reaches quite low AC which means her skins last forever.

***


Drow ambush #1

I recall this being quite the tight fight but, ah, no.

So we PfFire, IH + summon some help. CC for Shaman. We take AoF for DD, which is a mistake as whisper spider removes it. DD runs into the ambush from the right side to get improved web's, DD has such great saves that he doesn't get webbed. Necro + S/M (Swashbuckler/Make) run from the south with contigencies:sunfire on hit. Necro runs to the bunch, and we release sequencer GM+Emotion+Confusion + ST:3xsunfire. That's 5 simultanious sunfires + the sequencer. They do real damage here. The rest run from south to start whacking while Necro + S/M ADHW away. We forgot to strength up but it doesn't matter at all. DD defensive stances + shaman drops a healing ward on him and he takes pretty much everyone's aggro. We completely overpower the ambush and didn't even use SoA/Entropy Shield. We get a drow full plate which we equip immediately, now DD has base AC of -23. Nice!

Shaman makes a level and gets it's first HLA here? So we don't level him up for we want the easier version of dracolich. I'm not sure if it works like that. (edit: it does seem to work)


Drow Ambush #2

DD SoA & tanks the the Drow. For spiders we 4xanimate dead + CS + summon a sword. Max non-dispellable buffs (GS's & SoA's). Contigency Stoneskin on sight. Shaman drops a healing ward for DD. First whack spiders, then the drow. DD gets hit a few times. He has -33 Vs Slashing (-39 with entropy shield).


Dracolich

Muah. DD tanks the lich throughout, defensive stance all the way + SoA in the beginning. He's at -34 or so vs piercing starting the fight (non dispellable) plus that 40% non-dispellable DR. We quaff a few oils of resurgence and some healing from Shaman. Send in summons, DD whacks. Once it's out of death spells / fogs we start bringing in the proper summons - Skelton Warriors work really well here, especially when they are in a cloud of soothing fog, a superb passive healing method. Our Death Ward + Zone of Sweet Air capabilities are a little low, only Jaheira has them. But with 5x wondorous recall very doable. Essentially Jaheira pretty much death wards and zone of sweet airs throughout the fight.

Necro takes initial silence, we can nullify it with Shaman - if needed (we don't need to). Greater doom's are primal warded. Dracolich really doesn't have weapons against us.

Clear all common areas
Enter Ust'Natha
Rescue Phaere
Mage's proposal
Tavern
Eye-Tyrant
Svirneblin
Kua-Toa Prince
Mystery of the third colour

***
Yay, Necro makes a level here. So we can get 9th level spells. We have four sixth level spells still. Sorceror is so much better IH wise.
***

Efreeti
House Jael'lat
Swap eggs
Free slaves & Dolan Fadoon
Empty merchants

***
Efreeti falls to CO's + sequencer of AA's and 3xCone of Cold trigger. Maybe a hit or two from DD as well. Super easy with caster under IA. House Jael'lat is always such a fun fight. We do something we've never done before as in we buy the spear of withering. It's quite cheap as in 30k and it gives us a legitimate +4 weapon. We'll get Ixil's Spike in ToB but I think we're good spear-wise until then. We should have 3 (usable) weapons +4 after under dark so 2H Sword +4, Spear +4 and Water's Edge +4. Plus we have Kneecapper, which works as a +4 weapon vs golems. We should be ok.
***

Rest
Lesser Demon Lord
Anhilate city on the way out
Return eggs

Demon Knights

I think here we by mistake 3xRRoR a knight who has SI:Divination + II instead of ST+Goi+SI:Abjuration. So the RRoR does nothing . Well, it makes no difference whatsoever.

We remove magic a little bit (we have a sequencer with 3xremove magic). PFME under ST+GOI+SI:Abjuration for Swashbuckler/Mage + F/I (it's actually just a regular F/M, I think we've mistakenly called it a F/I previously). Necro takes PfE. Protection from fire, protection from cold and all the usual shabang (so armor, protection from evil) etc. for the crew. We summon two earth elementals, anaconda, smilodon and clan spirit. S/M takes tenser's partial transformation. S/M + F/M are very good here for their buffs are hard to dispel and they are immune to everything while having good/great thac0's & great durability).


Master Brain

We can easily tank an elemental to milk all of the spawns. Just move to the area where the dispels can't get us and we're good. Summons handle the brains golems, we focus on the elemental. It just takes a lot of time IRL. Anyway, we're almost in full health when elemental + 6 spawns are down, then we whack a few remaining brain golems (necro takes the first dispel with boots of speed).


Chapter 6.

WK Level 1.

DD Soloes.


Golem + Skelly ambush (fireplace room)

€#"€"#%€#%&#€&&%€!!!! We're used to just storming this, but no. We reload like 5 times. Then we make change the tactic. DD storms by himself and tanks as much as possible (with -30...-35 AC or so. The rest just pick up enemies one by one. Then it's not even close. DD makes it with one healing ward, a few entrophy shields and a few defensive harmonies. The warlords (or grandlords?) are troublesome for we are lacking weapons +4. We don't have a single +4 crushing weapon with us, since Rhynn wasn't with founder of trademeet. Well, disrupt undead works together with triggers & sequencers of disruptors. Swords fighting in soothing fog is stupendously good combination. Double soothing fog means they heal almost 25% every round automatically.


***
After the ambush we "cheat", as in we drag the drow chain +3 from underdark so Swashbuckler/Mage has it. The armour isn't where it used to be, so it might have been omitted. Well.

We're prebuffing for Firkraag a little bit and yeah, I don't think even our Shaman can dispel Kruin without 3 additional levels or so and that's a tall ask. Maybe we're just going to suffer through it and accept we're not going to get all of the spawns out of the fight. But we really don't want to do that.

Then we could just forge some of our "OP" stuffs as in at least supreme shelter, weapons +4 / +5, the uber-ioun stone etc. We need to change the crew quite soon after this, so we're looking to add the hexxat and maybe kel-Dorn the undead hunter. Why didn't I take keldorn the inquisitor, Kruin would be so much easier with him... oh, that's right, because everything else thusfar has been so much easier with the crew we hae.

We would probably venture out to WK, I see us clearing it until Green Wyrm but missing staff of Rhynn here makes a big difference. We have only the demon knights 2H Sword, Water's Edge + Spear of Withering we can use e.g. vs Spider Queen. And as spider queen will be much easier after Kruin, but Kruin won't be after spider queen we're not really sure on hot to play this out.

We try to sneak to the temple district to get it, but it doesn't look like it's possible.
***


Firkraag

Anyway, we prebuff for Firkraag, we are a little bit careful with spells selections. We prepare to anhilate the dragon with Necro, but forget the Skelly-summons. And how many rounds there is. DD is great against the Skellys, ditto for Jaheira (we perform ritual on her). We summon a few earth elementals, smiilodon and CS. F/M takes the initial silence, then moves to whacking away with a 2H Sword. Swashbuckler/Mage takes the 2nd one, which we then nullify with sense of limbo. Jaheira takes the third one (under ritual so nothing harm done) and then it get the 4th one away just before it collapses. How many does it have?

AC maxing DD overpowers here. Ditto for the Shaman.

***
We're at 3,9 MEXP. Any serious dispelling attempt starts at 4.25Mexp.

EDIT: Haha, we play-test this a little bit and manage on the first try. Then fail the next 12 tries. Not sure if I want to play this as a "once in 10 tries" tactic.
***

Kruin

Maximum prebuffs, as in all of DD, Jaheira, Swash/Mage + F/M have protection from all elements + skins + the whole shabang. Clan Spirit, Fire Elementals + A sword. Potions of storm giant strength for DD + F/M. Whack entourage, DD takes elementals, summons on Kruin. Necro stays on Kruin while everyone else whacks elemantals. DD + Shaman can dominate even a few elementals + a few summons. That's quite a lot at this stage. We milk 3 spawns per elemental and then whack the first elemental. Swords in a soothing fog, the combination is great. Low AC works wonders here again, especially perhaps we combine it with attaqcks from Soul Reaver.

Everything is fine until now until we lose, on our first try, for we don't even know why? On the 2nd try everything fine until thus far, but then an errorneous sequence botches us (Kruin suddenly death spells, Jaheira's Anaconda gets interrupted, I don't know why the elemental suddenly went after her). Necro's imp. mantle, which we just put up so that Kruin would target the summons, blocks Kruin so he breaches & whacks Shaman, who just doesn't get skins away fast enough.

RRRAAARRRRGH. While LOW ac keeps us very safe and we have a margin, this sort of mistakes collapses the fight.

We consider this fight done though, it's not that bad even for we are quite safe tanking with the DD and supporting with a Shaman. So we switch to easy, quaff a few potions of rejuvenation for DD and whack away both Kruin & the remaining elemental, which then spawn a gem still. We cheated and we're not proud of it. I'm though fairly confident that it's easily doable like this. The only thing that requires enormous consideration is how to strain one's resources as far as possible. I'm not sure if Soul Reaver works here vs the elementals, but if it doesn it's a great way of supporting low AC strategy.


***
At cromwells we forge Supreme Shelter, Indigo Ioun Stone and all the boots of speed we can. We find the grandmasters armour on Kruin, which is anoher pure cheat. But it's a nice item is quite usable but comes in way too late. And we need the shadow armour.
***

Ancient Priest

SI:Illusion doesn't work against deafness. It should. But it doesn't. DD takes aggro, he is without entropy shield -37VS slashing. The skellys can't really hit him at all. So it sort of takes away the difficulty-edge of it.

***
We forge adamantite staff of strength. Jaheira takes it. We are itching a little bit to change our crew. But we would like to try the Illithid hideout in the sewers, I don't think we are supposed to do this quite yet. But. Since were here, and we have a shaman... Well, we should get Wish, MotA and Crom Fayer out of this upping our "op" level to "comprehensively OP. So why not. We should be able to hit the GEG quite well already, for everyone besides necro has a weapon +4 and the GeG robably can't hit DD. Ditto for the Ambers.

hmh.
***

Finish Paladon Stronghold
Return Yoshimo's heart

Illithid hideout + Alhoon & GeG

The first room is irritating. And that's because our triggers are overly random. If we get the cleric before storm of vengenance, we're fine. We try this maybe 10 times but it gets botched every time for something like "PFMW on see enemy" doesn't trigger and a skelly interrupts our IA. Or something. Or ADHW triggers too early and doesn't hit anything. Finally we just IA with NEcro before entering the room and then we whack away. Drop cleric with breach + acid arrows (from sequencers). Mage is already on it's last legs, as 3xADHW hits it hard. We release 2xSS GM+emotion+slow/confusion triggers when entering (with F/M + S/M). DD takes as much aggro as possible, as usual. Shaman heals & entrophy shields & creeping dooms. CD is useless as everything it can affect is dead before it lands.

Next up is Alhoon + Geg. We prepare immensily. Then we give it about 100 tries. And no, we can't get past the beginning - no matter how we try to play it using the DD as a "runner". Our hypothesis was, that DD can tank the GEG which is true, but as it doesn't exactly "rock" the int-score, it's somewhat vulnerable to devour brain. Most of our attemps fail since the enemies move just enough to block the way, or something. So we don't really even get to test our approach, for something seems to come up every single time.

So it just doesn't work. Comprehensively annoyed, after 2 hours we give up and change tactics. This fight, in a long time, is one where our AC maxing DD can't just overpower the fight. Our plan was to DD run in to take the first dispel, then gets regen from Jaheira (start casting before entering so the sequence goes DD runs in, gets dispelled, gets regen from Jaheira and then takes ADHW with potion of magic shielding). Then draw the GEG out but we don't manage it until that, because x, y and z all the time.

Our hypothesis is that this might work, but the micromanagement of everything is probably far worst of any fight in the game. It's superbly difficult to manage everything you need to do while making sure the summons don't do something stupid like blocking the doorway or the corridor or in the wrong room or something. In the end we change the Necro to take the first dispel. To keep the enemies from moving, we use 4x potions of invisibility. for Necro, DD, F/M + S/M. It works much better, as the regular mind flayers don't see our creq coming but Alhoon & Geg do.

If we manage the following, we win (like 80-90%)

1. Necro manages to get the first dispel alone & manages to launch triggers to protect itself (they don't auto-launch on hit when dispel hits us)
2. We can whack the flayers before something nasty happens, umber hulks we deal with double 3xflame arrow sequencers (both F/M + S/M have them).
3. Geg should then aggro DD and we can separate Geg & Alhoon, Geg is lured to the previous room while summons go for Alhoon.

Lure geg south, keep summons on Alhoon. We dodge the second dispel with almost everyone, leave Smilodons and DD tanking the GeG (Smilodon's don't have anything to dispel.). S/M re-ups DD's IH while Shaman re-ups regen via healing ward and then entrophy shields. Then entourage back on Geg and we whack it before it gets the third dispel away. I think it was quite close. After 2nd dispel necro IA's, we try to use it as a backup to re-up IH's should it get the 3rd dispel away but we end up whacking a coin golem with minor drains, vampiric touches and rays of fragmentation. Geg stays on DD through the fight and DD doens't get thrown back not even once. Low AC overpowers the GeG.

(hmh. if we would manage to get past the first room this fight should be doable pre-spellhold as well. As we didn't really use HLA's here, besides the double smilodon)

***
We get our superpowers and we forge Crom Fayer, Memory of the Apprenti + Dragon Scale armour, Equalizer and Silver Sword. We don't need euqalizer for anything so I don't know why we forged it.

We say goodbyes to our friend the F/M and join Hexxat (which one can accomplish via the console). Our monies are near zero so we reach to the bottom of our bag to sell stuffs in order to buy Hexxat her complete cloak. We also say goodbay to our Swashbuckler/Mage, which has been a tremendous character thus far. We replace her with Berserker(13)/Mage, later on abbreviated only as "B/M". We're much looking for the next fights with our superpowers. We still haven't converted Amulet of Power, so we can use it against Vampires. We will be missing soul reaver, that is a tremendous minus.

Some notes thus far:

AC maxing is a viable strategy in the early game. It's super powerful, once you learn how to stack bonuses on top of bonuses on top of bonuses. The combination of DD + Shaman is especially superbly strong in the early game, even on insane. They trivialize many of the encounters and it's sort of fun that one can tank something like dracolich without need to worry or micromanage all the time. Soul Reaver is a tremendous weapon to support the low-ac strategy, as the Thac0 bonuses should stack up. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that's why the GeG couldn't hit our DD, as on top of DD's enormous AC the GeG had thac0 minuses.

Cloak of Atonement is superbly useful item for DD, for we can either Shield of Archons prefight or alternatively Armor of Faith, both of which bring quite the early game benefits for the price of 1 con. We mitigated this by givinbg DD the CON tome from BG1. Also the DD has super saves so it is quite difficult to get caught in spider (improved) web for example. As far a raw strength goes, this is combination is superb. And the access to SoA sort of removes any edge the Barbarian would have over the DD.

So we change the crew & continue with:

Necro (PC)
Jaheira
DD
Shaman
Hexxat
Berserker(13)/Mage
***

This post has been edited by pekkae: Aug 29 2023, 01:06 PM

[pekkae]

Journal Part 3

Bodhi

With 5 x weapons +4 (CF, Staff of Strength, Clan Spirit & 2 x Smilodon) this is a breeze through. Jaheira & DD take SoA's. PFMW for B/M (+ enrage) and Necro. AoP for Shaman. Hexxat is immune to level drain.

DD takes Bodhi. He gets hit once during the fight. Once.


Spider Queen

DD overpowers. First half of the fight we fight in the improved web. DD doesn't have FA and he doesn't get webbed even once. Towards the end start moving a little bit just so that DD won't be webbed.

Swords are wonderful here. Swords in soothing fog overpowers here. And a few Skeleton Warriors.


Chromatic Demon

Necro dominates with -3. Start. Lower resistances, gm, doom and we use triggers of hold monster + 2x Polymorph Other, the demon gets turned into a chicken before it's held. Necro finishes with AA's or MM's (not sure which gets the final blow). Basicly Necro soloes.


Marvella Part 1 (steam elemental prince)

No chance.

***
We try to go forge noble spider figurine but Limak block our way. And we don't seem to be able to sneak in a wharding whip. We decide to postpone it for a little bit. There's Green a
Wyrm, Umar Witch, Troll Mound and Assasin's at Windspear Hills to do. And TheShal, Guarded Compound, Twisted Rune etc.

***

Umar Witch

I didn't realize we could milk Skeleton here. Well, we milk 2 golems + 12 Skellys. It's nice. I think we got about 45kexp out of this. DD simply dominates.


Troll Mound

I think we got all of the spawns here. Enter, death spell first waves. Then buff. Shaman interrupts Queen with horn of blasting (or tries to), Necro IA debuff queen and whack it with lower resistances + acid arrows. DD + B/M + summons fight in the storm. They are all buffed up, so they don't take any damage. Vengeance troll start spawning so we double adhw away and release Necro CC of 3xADHW + drop some 15 flame arrows on them. That's pretty much it. Then just whack the King.

***
Protector of the second here, how nice. Now we just need Aegar's Hide to say goodbyt to the DD ... Our easily and by far the most difficulty breaking fighter we've had. But, we do have a plan.
***

Turnish Leader + etc

They have 0 chance.


Marvella part 2 (jewel casket)

Necro is already level 21, the noble marilith is level 22 but we can use remove magic in triggers and spellstrike + breach. it's over in one round or so.

***
Monies at 190k. We can buy Noble Spider Figurine, fix Valygars armour (we'll just cheat with Aegar's hide as we're not looking to do everything to find the missing piece) and forge a ring of protection +2 and maybe ring of greater djinn summoning. There's only Limak to deal with. We are going use DD for Limak. After that, I think it's time to go adventuring with Valygar the Vagrant. We just don't know what we should do with CF, as in probably the 2nd most powerful weapon in the game.
***


Limak

Prebuff at Copper Coronet. Sneak in Khelben's Warding Whip before Limak materializes. Once talk is done Necro and B/M both IA. DD takes aggro, with -37 (or so against crushing). We turn ambers into chickens, true sight and breach limak. Activate CS's and Limak is done. This was easy.

***
We pick up Valygar the Vagrant, who doesn't have a sensible weapon +4, argh (edit:we ended up giving the flaif the ages for Valygar). We forge noble spider figurine, ring of greater djinn summoning and Valygar's armour.

Our rationale for the switch. DD has been our MVP thus far together with the Shaman. But with revamped Sword & Shield style we can almost reach DD like AC with Valugar the Vagrant, we will be missing -2 vs slashing and -3 vs piercing. Though mostly we will be missing the 45% non dispellable DR and the ability to drop to 80% DR (90% with Defeneder of Easthaven). But what the Vagrant brings to the table is starting to surpass what the DD brings. Quite soon Valygar will have almost 100% non-dispellable resistances to all elements (with supreme shelter, though DD could reach decent figures with supreme shelter + imprived dragon helm as well) + 50% resistance to Acid. And 50% resistance to magic damage. And Swanmay's, whom don't count to the summoning limits. It's a different kind of raw power and we think it will be more powerful. Threre's numerous fights where this will just overpower everything. And Valgar the Vagrant will get a few really nice items as in the Axe and permanent improved haste boots. And really decent HP's after we get the stuffs. Oh, and we don't need to AoF from Cloack of Atonement anymore.

With Valygar's armour we can drop Valygar's Base AC -to 22 (DD had -23) t's close enough. Vs gaolems, they are on even grounds.

We should be Ok. But still, it's *scary*
***


Marvella Part 2 (why is it so cold down here)

Whack ice golem on the back of 12xrays of fragmentation. Then the elemental. We don't milk the spawns for we re constantly slowed, for some reason.

(edit: this would have been so much easier with the DD....)


Marvella Part 3 (Pasha etc.)

We completely overblow this bit. So we summan Clan Spirit, Noble Spider, Greater Djinn, Smilodon (x2), Greater Swanmays (x2), Swanmays (x2), Anacondas (x2) and Noble Trolls (x2)... Then we prebuff them. All 3rd level spell slots are remove magics. Elemental Golme's entourage is down, in no time and we only lose the Anacondas. We buff Pasha and milk all of the coins/gems. Shaman has to heal the elemental golem 4 times and we're not even trying to get it.

***
We forge Necro's amulet. She's beginning to be scary.
***

Green Wyrm

This is such a fun fight. Necro soloes, it doesn't even matter that our 3xCone of Cold trigger fails.


Hybrid Tiefling

We are comprehensively protected vs. confusion (Jaheira potion, Valygar armour, B/M berserking + Solemn Duty + I think Hexxat is naturally immune). The only problem is that our minor sequencer, we were planning on using to realese trigger of 2xRRoR on Hybrid Tiefling gets a wild surge.


Slave Wraith

We have to wait a bit so we can get the spawns. B/M is starting to be uber.

***
We get stuffs from Gambion and to level 4 we go. Monies at 50k or so, but we have Swashies armour, Club +4, Cutthroat +5, Recast Vital Energy, Boots of the ranger lord, Gitzhxerai Blade, Golem Slayer and probably plethora of other stuffs that I just forgot. Shiish.

Our #1 priority here is to supercharge Hexxat. So that we can just tank golems endlessly, at will. We sell stuffs, so we are 150k or so. We forge Swashies armour + Rimed club.
***

Story of the Old Ones

Necro whacks.


Kangaxx

We have a berserker so Kangaxx doesn't have a chance. Jaheira gets imprisoned though.

***
We get our scroll of RvE. Muah. We keep forgetting that we have it. We can like supercharge with it. How nice.
***


Assasin's at Bridge District

Proper prebuffs & Necro enters with -5 & IA. They don't have a chance. We 12xSunfire here, its very convenient.


Mystery of the shimmering light

We just overpower our way through here.


***
We forge Cutthroat +5. We can now drop Hexxat's AC to -22 (so effective -29 vs. crushing). Without Entropy Shield. This should be about enough to dominate them elemental gollems.
***

Ancient Mage

Valygar tanks initial golems, hexxat tanks the elementals throughout. Yes, Hexxat can already dominate the elementals. This is very promising.

(edit: here we figure that the ultimate weapon for Hexxat would have been the Githzerai blade. But after testing we notice, that we can't use it for Hexxat. Dammit)


Chapter 7.


Suldanesselar

We summon (edit: this is so much fun)

Greater Swanmay (x2)
Swanmay (x2)
Smilodon (x2)
Trolls (x2)
Greater Yuan-Ti
Anaconda
Sunnis
Noble Spider
Clan Spirit
Greater Djinn

And buff them with IH / Giant Strength / Regen (if applicable, at least Noble Spider gets all 3) + Haste for the rest.

Then we just anhilate everything. We also take PFME's from wish, easiest that way. And have a fre trieggers with "remove magic"'s.

***
Summoning "to the max" (sort of) is stupendously efficient. Shaman isn't that good though, while it worked great together wtih DD it seems to lack now a little bit, as it doesn't have a role that much. Hmh. We could forge Valygars Katana giving him non-dispellable -24AC + some healing capabilities. But its 75k and the Githzerai Blade is just so much more versatile. We can't forge it yet for we don't have the required permanency scrolls. We just hae one and we're looking to forge the golem slayer, which requires 2 scrolls (one for quarterstaff +3 and one for golem slayer itself).

Anywaty, time to use Deck of many things. We've been pondering this for quite some time. So, Jaheira takes the Wisdom and Hexxat takes the hit points.
***


Black Dragon

Turn golems into chickens (while they are on our summons), then whack the dragon.



Geg + Rakshashas

Valygar runs to take the dispel with -31 non-dispellable vs crushing. Entropy Shield follows. He takes the ADHW and then we just summon, summon, summon ... but we don't even get to use even half of our summons before we've reached about 8 spawns from the geg. Then we decide to whack it.



Assasin's at Windspear Hills

(edit: this was so much fun)

Yea.... Summon Noble Spider, Greater Djinn, Clan Spirit & whack initial batch with 3xADHW ("see enemy"), make sure guildmaster & master assasoins survive. Then IA, remove magic on Assassin coordinators who get whacked by B/M (under PfME) & Valygar the Vagrant (with BoIB). Then we summon swords, drop a few regen's on 'em and basicaly sit back and milk spawns. We get 8-9 golems here + all of the assassins spawns (we think). Those swords, either under regen (from Jaheira) or soothing fog (from Shaman) last for ages. If a sword is in trouble, the easiest solution is to drop an entrophy shield on it, that way it has 100% DR (vs specific damage type). Or just heal a little bit. Even the mid-level divine healing spells work really well here, I never use them for much anything else.

The only trick is to be careful with positioning as we don't want the assasins or guild master targetting our crew. It's overly convenient and easy while not even being that cheesy.

We get 120k monies + the stuffs and some 150k exp / character here. I'm not sure if we could have gotten even more, but those spawns seem to run out. And towards the end we're lacking resrouces a little bit so we whack the master assassins & the guildmaster. We don't get any absolute immunity scrolls though .

(we also try charming / dire charming / dominating assasins but it doesn't seem to work. then we have mass invisibility as a backup, but the assasins seem to be able to see invisible creatures)


Twisted Rune

We lose on our first try for Vagrant get Stellar Gravestone('d). We had 100% fire resitance but we forgot DR.

Summon half an army, IH through Wish. Start the fight with active true sight and whack away. Swanmays whack Shangalar, that was nice. Our summons whacked the fighter, shangalar and vaxall. Muah. (edit: I think it was the IH'd greater Swanmay with PfF & regen that did it)


***
We get permanencty scroll which we immediately use to forge the Ranger boots. We need one scroll for Judgement Day and one more for Githzerai Blade.
***


3x elemental golems + 2 greater bone golems (wk machine of lum the mad - level)

Hexxat tanks throughout with a little help from the Shaman. With basic stuffs she's at -16 AC, which is in no way intimidating. But with armour (enahnced armour of stamina) and girdle, we have an additional -7 vs crushing. Then we usually take potion of defence (additional -2 to base), switch hood of the honorless with crimson ioun stone (additional -2) and we defensive harmony (-2). So our base is -22 so we're at -29vs crushing. Then we can either acrobatic combat for additional -6 or drop an entrophy shield for another -6. And ofc we can also hardiness. with -41 hardiness is a little bit irrelevant though, she's not gonna get hit thrice in a row.

This time we start with wish:hardiness, as Hexxat's innate hardinesses easily last throughout the fight that way then.

***
If we give hexxat +1 con from the machine (so we can cloak of atonement without minuses) and we get her the rest of the stuffs we probably don't then need a Shaman anymore to support Hexxat tanking. Also, Jaheira is starting to surpass the Shaman in some areas, as her mass cure's heal more and her regen's last longer. Also she has *so much more* spell slots for buffing purposes limiting Shaman's role immensely. Or alternatively, Shaman can only focus on healing spells.

Monies at 60k or so. But we have some stuff to sell though. We forge Nature's Gift here and ring of protection +2 (after selling some stuffs). We have 2 manuals of elaboration and we'll get one more pre-demo fight. We need 2 manuals, 1 for JD and one for The Truth. So we have an extra one. We won't have the permanency scrolls to forge Githzerai Blade pre demogorgon though. Monies at 2k.
***


Grandfather of Assasins

Contigency: PFMW on sight. Necro CC 3xADHW while B/M CC 3xSwords (on hit (use minor drain)/ enemy in sight). Usual prebuffs. B/M runs to coordinators to whack em while Necro goes IA, remove magic & then spell thrust Coordinator 1. For Coordinator 2 we remove magic, spell thrust, lower resistances + gm + geeblemind it. Then B/M comes and gives it a whack. Swords fight them assasins.

So a single sword under regen can tank the entire posse. After coordinators are down we move to the bridge and have 1-2 swords fighting the fight for us, just before the bridge. They block the whole way, we get a few spawns every now and then though. I think we use 4-5 swrods here and maybe 4-5 regens / healing wards. After no more spawns we send a few ADHW's away together with 6x chain lightnings (both triggers). And whatever remains, we whack. We get 180k+ monies in coins alone + items, scrolls, potions etc. No SSoM here. But grandfather had the entangling effect.

***
We sell them potions and meet with the knight at Temple district and monies at 300k+
***


Supreme Leader

No problems here, goes extremely smoothly. I recall having enormousdifficulties with this previously. Well, we can't get limited wish globes for it's broken so we create a girdle of minor invulnerability with 4 charges and Hexxat, Shaman, Valygar the Vagrant + Jaheira use that to get the globes. We deduct a 7th level spell from memorized spells.

The super easy way of doing this:

Enter, Necro runs to the 2nd room near the doorway which will get blocked quite soon. Then goes IA. Then Necro Comet, remove magic + gm + 6x chain lightning (cc: 3x chain lightning on hit) +6 lightning bolt to clear the way. The githyaki are on their last legs before the comet arrives to finish them. Necro stays on Supreme Leader. The rest minus Valygar walk past. B/M releases 3xSwords near Necro (CC: on hit) which stay to fight the leader. Valygar clears Githyakis in the first room (he doesn't have anything they could even dispel and is -33VS Slashing), Hexxat, Jaheira + B/M run to whack golems. Stone/Clays fall to CF + Golem Slayer. Summon Greater Djinn (and B/M drops IH on it) which goes to fight supreme leader. So there's the greater djinn + a sword/swords fighting the dear leader. We whack the smith making coins first, as Gem's are more profitable & easier for us. Just before it dies we summon a Noble Spider & Shamans Smilodon, Jaheira drops regen on it Noble Spider & it goes for supreme leader. Smilodon goes for in inquisitor (with healing ward). We leave inquisitors + supreme leeader battling the summons who are supported by the Shaman. Shaman drops a healing ward on Noble Spider, which tanks here until it gets unsummoned.

The leader death spells a few swords and dispels maybe once or twice. Luckily, we have oodles of swords (and a lot of healing as well). Once one blackmith is down we milk a few golems, but since we only get the money and no exp it's not really worth it. So we whack the 2nd blacksmith and then inquisitors one by one. They don't really last for long vs 4 capable fighters. Once leader is one it's own we summon greater Swanmays & Swanmay queen, we double regen the queen & IH her so leader is surround by a sword, Noble Spider and the Swanmays. Then they just battle the leader until the late stage where it's all out of hardinesses, CS's & whirlwinds. Then our fighters move in and Jaheira (who just buffed up) whacks the leader with one critical strike.

Swords are really good here, except vs. the inquisitors. Noble Spider is great as is the Swanmay Queen. Our "max summons" - tactic seems to be working out quite nicely.

***
We are a little bit wondering about the Shaman, I'm not sure of we could switch him for a cleric perhaps? The Shaman is ofc. our best healer and it is a great reactive character. But it's role is quite limited at this stage and some of it's best weapons are of very limited use to us.
***


Saladrex

CC's + triggers for mages. Max prebuffs including RvE HP's + Regen. In the end we whack it with non-magical weapons.



Demilich

Half of our crew gets imprisoned.



Rock & Garrock

Summon army. Power attack to stun.


***
Machine of lum the mad. Necro takes Cha + Int + Dex. Jaheira takes Wis and Hexxat takes Str. Valygar takes the magic resistance. So Valygar should have with equipment 40% MR together with 50% magic damage resistance. All non-dispellable. We can buff with AoF for additional 10% mdr. This should keep Valygar safe until the end. Jaheira now has 25 wisdom, making her a tremendous prebuffer + those 10 regens are really nice, especially since we have other offensive weapons for damage dealing.

Monies at almost 400k. Good, we have oodles of stuffs to forge.

We visit Cromwells and forge enhanced ring of Gaxx, Rings of protection +3, +2 and Girdle of Lordly might & green wyrm plate. Monies at 10k. Fast it goes.
***


Ancient Golem

Buff up Valygar the Vagrant.

It has 0 chance. It can't hit buffed up Valygar, who starts the fight with -26AC (base) with -8 vs crushing. Valygar gets hit maybe 6-8 times during the whole fight. And we milk all of the spawns. The AC limit is a little bit broken, as it should be only -24. I don't think it makes a big difference though (I think this is because of the revamped S&S style, though it kind of makes sense that it lowers the ac limit as well. Then again this jsut makes AC maxing even more powerful). Hexxat whacks the spawns together with B/M & Jaheira. Valygar is really good tanking here for he really doesn't have anything to dispel, as in resistances are innate, so is AC and he has permanent IH from the boots. And SoA from cloack of atonement is also non-dispellable. We drop a few entrophy shields just to be safe though.

An additional permanency scroll + manual of elaboration here, how nice!


***
We are now not sure what do with the Shaman. We are close to getting judgement day, so we can take KelDorn / Kensai / RB with us, but whom do we drop? Shaman's role is starting to be quite limited and we could replace him with a cleric, which would have both dispelling capacity as well as h2h & tanking capability, but the Cleric can't use JD. We could give JD to Vagrant, but it seems rather pointless as the Vagrant is quite safe (it'll soon have almost 250HP's + great AC + innate resistances to almost everything).

Necro
Jaheira
Vagrant
Hexxat

=>

And then we have three(/four) characters for the last two slots. All of them are great, as in the B/M, Keldorn and the Shaman and the Cleric (or any version of the Cleric). This is a tough one to crack.
***



GBU

We play this through a number of times to get it right, sort of.

We summon our army (no wish:rest though, thanks for that tip Bulian!). Send in wizard eye. Send in summons between Aeriel & rocks. Move in & ultra has to materialize where there is space, so "down" from Aeriel. This is crucial as it gives us more surface to attack. We send everything vs. the Ultra, which falls before it gets the first dispel away. Then we milk 10 golems from the elementals or so. We have the wrong spells (a little bit) so we don't risk it that much. Aeriel gets the killing blow of the last elemental effetively robbing us of 60k exp.

This annoys us immensely.


Wk level 5

Bone golems + elementals

Hexxat tanks. We milk all of the golems. Even when surrounded by 4 elementals (and we can't even AC max that much for crimson ioun stone is with our apprentice) Hexxat stays on top quite well. And we can regen with Jaheira, who has 10 (or so at this point) and they last quite long.


Globe Machine

Everything else is quite straightforward except the GeG + Ultra encounter. We have to figure this out a little bit, what to do with it.



Demon Lord (pre-judgement day fight)

The Death Lords can hit Valygar the Vagrant with relative ease, as he starts the fight with -30 vs slashing. We reload and drop it to -34 (with SoA from CoA). Much better that way. Noble Spider + Greater Djinn are really good here again. We 2x regen the Noble Spider & IH & GS it, so it does real damage as well.



Lavok's Postmortem Request

This one is quite tough, for we do not have the proper tools for it. We would have, had we a cleric / pally with us, who could remove paralysis. Still, the pre-greater bonegolem fights are a breeze, as we just summon the army. Then we fail a number of tries for something always botches us, like Hexxat quaffs potion of magic shielding but it doesn't have any effect. When we finally make it we get exaxtly the 2 RvE's we were looking for as in "remove disabling effects" and then a regen. Valygar and Hexxat were stunned. Maybe 10 tries or something like that. That is mostly because of ill preplanning.



Viper Queen

It has no chance whatsoever. We don't even buff. Well, IH's but ...



Zallanora + gang

No milking for we don't get any rewards. Whack them before they get to use any scrolls, to max our rewards. -5 Necro dominates here. Debuff, gm then sunfire + chain lightning away. Drop coin with vampiric touches & rays of fragmentation and 1-2 hands of undoing.



Ancient Dragon

Down the entourage (by the way of whack the salamander, AA's & CO's for the eftreeti & CS'ing for elite nishruu). Then breach dragon and whack.


***
Here we would have changes our crew. We had been planning this for a long time. Shaman would become priest of tempus (for combat prowess + long lasting buffs) and B/M would become a Kensai (Elf). But. Major reason for the change would have been priest's super long lasting buffs as in regen's that last almost 2 turns, undispellable holy powers & righteous magi'c (for almost 4 turns), Aura's of Flaming Death for almost 2 turns but like every spell that we were counting on using is capped at level 20, so they are not nearly as useful as we thought. While Cleric has purify aura, which is immensely useful with spiritual link we just can't make it. At least yet.

Hmh. We really like our crew as it is of course and it's super hard to improve. At the same time it feels somewhat silly to just not use the most effective H2H weapon in the game in Judgement Day. And I really don't want to use it as an off-hand weapon for Valygar the vagrant.

So we make a switch. And we drop Shaman for a Kensai and drop Hexxat and take a shadowdancer/cleric instead. The Shadowdancer part has 2 HLA's as in "use any item" and "shadown twin". The end results is extremely resilent character with decent casting ability + the best summon in the game. Shaman becomes a Kensai. We blow through guarded compound only to notice that the Shadow Twin is broken, as it has a broken duration thus limiting it's usefulness comprehensively. Rrargh... So back to the drawing board.
***

Guarded Compound

S/C tanks the greater elemental, as it has -33 vs crushing without any buffs. So we can SoA to -37 or so. If we can block a doorway so that we are attacked by two golems (coins/gems/ambers) we are safe. Trap Geg. When all spawns are out summon an army. Buff. Anhilate.

S/C tanks the Master Vampire while we move out to milk skellys off of the ancient lich.

***
Back to the drawing board

So we tinker with everything and try to balance it out. We would love to have a completely buffed up elvish Kensai but as it isn't that compatible with our crew (we have Hexxat already), we can't take it. Hmh. Or ... Well, we are going to completely revamp blessings to fit our "misfitted" crew better. Anyway, our main change comes from getting a little bit back to the starting point as in we change our amazing Berserker(13)/Mage to a Priest of Tempus(20)/Mage. It looks again like a really versatile character with nice casting potential though the number of spell-slots does limit the character quite a lot.

So we have Necro, Keldorn, Jaheira, PoT(20)/Mage, Valygar the Vagrant and Hexxat. We forge Keldorns armour, holy avenger and dragon helm.
***

The Shal

They don't have a chance. We milk all of the bone devils and whack the lich by the way of "whack away".

***
Forge Judgement Day
***

Judgement Day - fight

We get mostly elementals and we are quite competent versus those with Jaheira + Hexxat. And of course PoT/M & KelDoen can whack away as well. We first try to max out the coin/gem spawns from the elementals but we lose the fight. The next try we just whack away. And since we can already dispel the prince, the and part is rather simple as well.


Orcs

Finally we have a tactic that works and doesn't rely on wish:rest. Ooh!

So we AC max, potions of defence, kel-dorn takes potion of agility. Jaheira with senses of the cat + ox-tail belt. Then we SI:div + II both Necro and Pot/Mage. PoT Mage is super nice here, as it has really low ac and it can mirror image away. So it's very safe throughout the fight. And it has enough levels to dispel from both cleric & mage parts.

Anyway, since we have rogue alchemy we have potions of regen. Hexxat + Vaygar keep on quaffing them throughout the fight, they don't really get hit but they both need a little bit of regen to keep them safe. Valygar has consistent -30 (or so) VS Slashing & -35 vs (or so) missiles. And I don't even bother to check on Hexxat. Keldorn is safe because of judgement day. Necro take pretty much all 7th level spells as "limited wish", ditto for Pot/Mage. We have about 20 7th level spells so that means 40 extra remove magic's (every limited wish gets us 2 remove magic's), so all in all we have something like 58 remove magic's, Keldorn's dispels + Jaheira + Valygar's. It's easily enough. We didn't use a single RvE or Wish here (except the ones we get from JD + we started the fight with Wish:IH).

And since improved mantle works here Necro is pretty much using improved mantle for big parts of the fight. We are really starting to appreciate Necro big time. Though with a sorceror this is easy as well as it can just SI:Div + mirror image away.

The only troublesome part is we don't have good visibility to how many skins Necro has. That single feature would be extremely valuable, as if we get hit casting anything we are dead. We end up using only 3-4 skins through, we had 9 or so. So much room to get memorize emotions. Greater command doesn't seem to do anything here.

***
We are going to make a few changes though now. Kel-Dorn the Inquisitor is obviously great, but since we are looking to supercharge a Kensai we want to try that. So we make another change as in we switch KelDorn with and elvish Kensai. The main reason for this is that while KelDorn is amazing with the revamped armour and very versatile (hello 70% MR & 40% magic damage resistance + amazing abilities whether the undead hunter or the Inquisitor version), it really has just one main job and that is to anhilate. And the elvish Kensai is vastly superior in that regard + it will be better able to wield judgement day.

Though this change means that we will say goodbye to dispelling Rozvankee, most likely. Well, we'll try it with Jaheira or we'll just suffer through it. I think it's going to be a fun fight anyway, with our crew.

So we give blessed bracers to PoTempus(20)/Mage + since it's being played by Imoen we'll also give her Imoen's amulet. She'll be comprehensively awesome.
***

This post has been edited by pekkae: Dec 5 2023, 05:47 PM

[pekkae]

Journal Part 4

We seal demo to it's pit and whack Irenicus and close the book on this run. We didn't make it to try the prince with our maxed out elvish Kensai. We'll see if we make it in the future.

I think it all started to go awry a little bit after the DD switch, as it was by far our most fun character at that time. Hexxat was fun, but it's quite vulnerable without the Shaman. What I don't like is numerous crew members trying to excel at something similar and thus ending up competing for the same stuffs. As in Vagrant / Hexxat in this case.

And the character we really wanted to play as in the Pot(20)/Mage was a little bit disapointting. We ended up cheating a lot with it and even then it wasn't that powerful. My recommendation is not to create such a character.

In any case, we've learned a lot yet again. And I'm planning a little bit next run, as I have some time in the upcoming weeks. We'll see.

**

Some final notes.

DD is ridiculously effective and fun character to play. It's silly no-one uses it.

I always preferred sorcerors over Necro, but Necro's flexibility wins in the end I have to admit.

Cloak of Atonement is overly powerful, especially when "abused". Then again, it doesn't really work that well so numerous reloads are needed in any case.

60% DR in chapter 4 is rather nuts.

Low AC is very safe & effective strategy with 6.6. changes.

Mending is a little bit too powerful I think. And a little bit unnecessary at least in the early chapters.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Dec 13 2023, 09:56 PM

[pekkae]

Journal, extras etc.

"Bugs"

Sometimes elementals do not summon correctly (fire elementals & earth elementals)

When "spell turning" is cast two mini-icons appear on the portrait if the character. Spell turning and spell deflection.

Limited Wish doesn't produce minor globes for the whole party, only for the caster.

Elemental Golem in air library @ WK level 2 didn't give any exp. We consoled in the missing exp plus rewards (we were half way through when we noticed that it didn't gibe neither exp nor rewards).

Secret word doesn't seem to work. There's no "spell protection removed" note nor did it work on a party member (tried to remove Swash/Mage's spell turning at firkraag's to get sense of limbo through but no). We play tested this later on then it worked.

Firkraag tried to silence Jaheira while she had her ritual active

Bonuses from "cloak of the shield" are cumulative. I don't think that's supposed to happen.

Mind Flayers can devour the brains of skeleton warriors, which do not have brains.

Lesser Demon Lord us Ust'Natha summoning ritual didn't drop blackmist, though now the door worked perfectly fine.

Death Lords (Demon lord fight, the pre judgement day fight) released triggers with SI:Abjuration + Spell shield.

The Sword "The Truth" has only one "true sight", it is supposed to have 3.

Cavaliers resistances are broken. They set the resistances to +20 (for fire / acid), equipping the dragon helm doesn't change the resistances. Not even to +25% (assuming both "set the base" of resistances, the edge should probably go to the equipment has higher base). We fixed this locally by changing the type of the resistance to give +20%, instead of forcing the +20% as unoverrideable base.

Holy Power caps thaco at 1, even though fighters reach 0.

Shadowdancer's "Shadow Twin" is broken. It only lasts for 5 rounds or so (it's supposed to last for 2 turns)



*** updates & cheats and suggestions ***

Theres plenty of potential cheats with Control Circlets. One of the most powerful ones is leaving a party member in WK/Demogorgon level and then use the mind flayer control circlet to gain an additional crew member for the fight.

Sunnis isn't an elemental prince. She's an elemental princess

Most of Clerical buffs are capped at level 20, even though the descriptions say otherwise (aura of flaming death, regen etc.)

The C/M could get improved alacrity. After all, it's not a fighter nor is it a thief. So in a way it's a pure caster. It would make the character very powerful but the nerfed spellcasting tables ensure that it would not be OP. I think it still far, far behind the usefulness of a caster like cernd.

Bottomless containers would be great (potions, scrolls & bags of holding).

Include a bottomless bag of holding from the start. The inventory game is terrible.

Drow City is way too soft. Should you want to attack it. I mean the whole city is supposed to attack you but there's like 20 characters. Where's the massive deadly security? How about some proper spiders etc.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Dec 1 2023, 01:32 PM

[SparrowJacek]

We can target Kaol but none of the spells have any effect? Like we can cast RRoR but nothing happens. This is new.

Are you using v2.6 of the game? One change introduced there enables all dispelling spells (RRoR, Breach(?), Secred Word etc) to target invisible characters. IA overwrites most spells, but some are untouched, which makes them benefit from that 2.6 change. In vanilla BG2 you could target invisible characters only with scrolls, and the battles against II+SI:Div characters were meant to be difficult and not just a matter of "do I have enough scrolls to remove his protections, because scrolls are overpowered and can target anyone", a change has been made. II that the enemies use grants them immunity to all forms for single target spells that remove protections, that's why you see it doing nothing. Improved Anvil's AI never used scrolls against invisible characters, it plays fair in that regard, so the above mentioned implementation was the only way at the time to prevent players from abusing such mechanics. Luckily EE games have an additional flag, that enables/disables using certain items on invisible enemies, so all this will be fixed at some point.

[pekkae]

Hi,

Yes - my version is the 2.6.6.0.

And obviously IA 6.6.

[critto]

IA currently does not support 2.6, so unpredictable things might occur. I'd recommend sticking with 2.5 for now.

[pekkae]

Ok, good to know.

So far I haven't found anything that peculiar, well, besides elementals sometimes not spawning correctly. And the targetting thing with II + SI:Div.

I can list out these inconsistencies if there's more.

[critto]

Please, do. It wouldn't hurt to know what to look for.

[SparrowJacek]

Hmm, I am reading your journal with raising interest. It's funny, that some of the hardest encounters of IA can be called "easy" with proper player skill, game knowledge and party

I see that AC is becoming meta in the mod, good to hear that there are other ways to improve parties except just increasing their damage. And while we're on this subject, I have a question. You wrote: "The 6.6 changes in sword & shield style mean that shields are very effective in the early game. This is a game (tactic) changer. No more dual-wielding for all, as sword & shield - style is more powerful" - is this -2 to AC from reworked S&S really making such a huge change? That was my goal, to improve other fighting styles, so that dual wield becomes an option, not a must-have, but I consider this change to S&S a rather minor one.

Also we might think of some way to "scale" AC better, as you can get very low AC from the start and that doesn't improve (well, it improves for Swashbucklers ) throughout the game that much, while enemy thac0 improves considerably.

[pekkae]

Hmm, I am reading your journal with raising interest. It's funny, that some of the hardest encounters of IA can be called "easy" with proper player skill, game knowledge and party

Well, party composition makes an enormous difference in the fights. Especially now that Shaman has quite the unique skills-set.

I see that AC is becoming meta in the mod, good to hear that there are other ways to improve parties except just increasing their damage. And while we're on this subject, I have a question. You wrote: "The 6.6 changes in sword & shield style mean that shields are very effective in the early game. This is a game (tactic) changer. No more dual-wielding for all, as sword & shield - style is more powerful" - is this -2 to AC from reworked S&S really making such a huge change? That was my goal, to improve other fighting styles, so that dual wield becomes an option, not a must-have, but I consider this change to S&S a rather minor one.

I though about that myself. But it seems that the reworked S&S style does make a (big) difference. Like shield of harmony in itself is rather useless as an AC item (-3), but with S&S it's -5. And -5 is a big help. The reworked S&S makes low AC very compelling choice. And it's just not the shields, but it's really worth while to AC optimize. I never AC optimized when dual wielding that much, because it seemed rather pointless. Sure the enemies sometimes had a little more difficulties hitting you but the difference isn't that big. Now with reworked S&S, we can get down to -25 .. -35 AC quite early on and then the low AC makes a big difference. And then it's worth while.

So it's just not the -2 but also the -5 (sentinel), defensive hamony -2, SoA (from CoA) -4, and if you have a shaman, -6 from entropy shield. All in all that's -19 AC. And that's a lot. IA is easiest always when you find ways to stack bonuses on top of bonuses on top of bonuses.

Also we might think of some way to "scale" AC better, as you can get very low AC from the start and that doesn't improve (well, it improves for Swashbucklers ) throughout the game that much, while enemy thac0 improves considerably.

I think it's fine like this. After all, one does give up quite a lot if you're not dual-wielding. Even though it's true it doesn't scale that much.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Aug 23 2023, 06:30 PM

[SparrowJacek]

Well, party composition makes an enormous difference in the fights. Especially now that Shaman has quite the unique skills-set.

A strong and new class with unique skills. My dream is to rework all classes and kits to be at least somewhat usable, we'll see how it will turn out in the future, but seeing your ideas for party compositions and strategies is very motivating!

I though about that myself. But it seems that the reworked S&S style does make a (big) difference. Like shield of harmony in itself is rather useless as an AC item (-3), but with S&S it's -5. And -5 is a big help. The reworked S&S makes low AC very compelling choice. And it's just not the shields, but it's really worth while to AC optimize. I never AC optimized when dual wielding that much, because it seemed rather pointless. Sure the enemies sometimes had a little more difficulties hitting you but the difference isn't that big. Now with reworked S&S, we can get down to -25 .. -35 AC quite early on and then the low AC makes a big difference. And then it's worth while.

So it's just not the -2 but also the -5 (sentinel), defensive hamony -2, SoA (from CoA) -4, and if you have a shaman, -6 from entropy shield. All in all that's -19 AC. And that's a lot. IA is easiest always when you find ways to stack bonuses on top of bonuses on top of bonuses.

Thanks for the answer, now I understand it better and I'm glad, that such a small change to S&S makes it that much more useful. Also Weaken Undead spell was designed to work especially well with low AC characters, as it disables the possibility to critical hit (auto-hit) from some enemies, and if you have low enough AC, that means, they will have 0% chance to hit you

[lroumen]

wait, that is how Weaken Undead works now? I had not properly understood that.

[SparrowJacek]

wait, that is how Weaken Undead works now? I had not properly understood that. ohmy.gif

Well, it decreases enemy chance to critical hit by 1 which is 5%. I am not entirely sure, but I assume, that it should remove any chance for critical hit from creatures that don't have any bonuses to it (like Skeleton Lords that specialize in 2-h weapons).

[pekkae]

I'm not 100%, but I think Protection from evil helps here as well.

If a skelly needs a "20" to hit, and it can only reach 18, as protection from evil gives it -2. it shouldn't be able to hit.

Put weaken undead on top and ... late game party should be pretty good vs Skellys.

(edit: I take that back. With low enough AC Protecion from evil seems to be useless, it doesn't give bonuses)

(edit2: that might be because skeleton lords are lawful neutral?)

This post has been edited by pekkae: Aug 23 2023, 10:54 PM

[lroumen]

protection from evil should only give an AC bonus and maybe save bonus vs evil. it should not reduce critical hits.

bleh, in SOA and the enhanced editions it gives a thac0 penalty, but it does not affect critical hits and misses.

It is the same with negative luck: you can still roll a 20 to critical
and with positive luck: a 1 is still a critical miss

This post has been edited by lroumen: Aug 23 2023, 11:22 PM

[lroumen]

BTW, which armor or robe do you use on the F/I to get the AC down yet keep spellcasting available? Assuming you use a shield and Improved invisibility plus helmet plus rings and max dex, I still find it difficult to get to - 35 unless I overlook something.

[pekkae]

BTW, which armor or robe do you use on the F/I to get the AC down yet keep spellcasting available? Assuming you use a shield and Improved invisibility plus helmet plus rings and max dex, I still find it difficult to get to - 35 unless I overlook something.

We're in underdark so naturally drow chain +5. In a tight spot, we might want to use potion of defense.

F/I has -19 unbuffed (with potion of defence / drow chain), which we can then drop to

Base:

- 21 (defensive harmony)
- 25 (tenser's) (blur / foreknowledge later on)

Vs. Specific weapon type:

- 28 (shield / armor)
- 32 (girdle)
- 38 (entrophy shield from Shaman)

and if we really want to AC max we can drop to -42 with SoA from Cloak of Atonement. But then we give up 9hp for 8hours.

I'm not sure if there's a -4 penalty for Improved invisibility, which we forgot. And then we can ofc get -2 from protection from evil in specific cases.

EDIT: Defensive harmony is a little bit broken, the base should only go to -24. (Instead of -25).

This post has been edited by pekkae: Aug 24 2023, 12:56 AM

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[lroumen]

ah, of course, drow armor.
thank you