After several customized party runthroughs of IA (implying RB and R/C mostly), I decided to try something new and go for a rule as only bioware NPC in my group.
Finished a run lately where I went multi R/C instead of dualled, and even if I didnt have Cernd in my party I realized that GR was never actually needed as long as I was careful enough. Most of the time indeed, I was using it to heal only one character because I ran out of Natural Restoral.

I am no great IA player, and I always loved reading those epic adventures of you guys going for an insane run and stuff. This is a journal supposed to point out my tactical difficulties. Even though I'm pretty sure I can finish this run, I always eventually fall into some cheesy moves at some points, which I will write down here (usually it's the unfamous "Sir Robin ran away, bravely ran away away" thing that looks like "oh, my character tanking those golems just ran out of iron skins... run like the wind !").

And btw, "pardon my french", just writing stuff as it comes, no native english-speaker here.

This time, my party will consist of the following :

Necro protagonist
Korgan (grandmastery in axes, and quite a tank actually)
Mazzy (really wanna try the lass, will see how she goes - she'll go phosphorus off-hand for dps purpose at some point. I might actually avoid forging phosphorus actually... Giant's strenght might do the trick...)
Rasaad (I like monks in IA)
Jaheira (second two-hander dps, golem destroyer with rod)
Cernd (ihjealyou...)

As for a first glance, only 3 skinned characters kinda scares me, so I expect to rely on heavy summon meat shield early and mid game. No grandmastery either but for Mazzy short swords... we shall see if it gets me mad (mad enough to break free !).

I expect a pretty harsh early game. I'll try to gather as much xp before getting Mazzy with all other NPC quests around in the game. Probably starting with Jan so he can disarm some traps around.

Good thing that mid/end game I'll have 3 unsilencable characters (Jaheira's Avenger Kit HLA + the usual dragonslaying combo Necro + Cernd)

Playing on core difficulty. Will tone it down to easy for scroll scribing purpose.

Gonna update as the game goes.



SPOILERS AHEAD - usual



"No matter, they will only prove a slight delay" (David Warner < 3)

Kick Imoen, free Jaheira and join her, free Minsc and say goodbye to Boo. Dungeon-Be-Gone

Circus, keep guard's dialogue for + 1 reputation when needed. Slums, talk to Gaelan Bayle then get all quests from Copper Coronet. Join Korgan and Hexxat.

Government, Jan, Viconia, speak to Delon and get Valygar hunting quest.

Temple, get Unseeing Eye quest, Fallen Paladins quest.

Gates, get Trademeet location.

Cemetary, Hexxat's quest then kick her (this wee bag of holding will come in handy), get stuffed bear quest.

Bridge District, grab horn, start Murders' quest and speak to Reynald de Chatillon. Let's go to Trademeet, join Rasaad and Cernd. Check Umar's Hills, Madulf quest, Mimic's (killed the mage at the end for 4k gp, he's a cowled wizard after all !), scribe contingence found in closet.

Back to Athkatla, Tanner's basement (grotesque died mostly to acid and fire shields).

Sell some stuff in Copper Coronet, 15k gp achieved, turn it in to Gaelan Bayle.

Docks, grab Maevar's quest, speak to Aran Linvail and do his 1st quest. Clean Prebek's house. Sea's Bounty check in the process, Baron Ployer is happy to see us.

Back to Slums, kill him and his mage friends (2 of them dead before they could teleport in, bit cheesy maybe).

Temple, night time, grab pendant from Talos' temple, advance Fallen Paladin. Back to Bridge's district, kill Anarg (had to CLUA Reynald here, him and all paladins went missing from some reason, left them with entangle running on my previous visit. Assuming it's no hard fight I guess not fighting all the fallen paladins was fair enough. I loose a wee bit gold from their armors here, nevermind).

We then went for Druid Grove, duelled Faldorn, rest then first druid quest with the shamaness. Killed some Rashkshasas in the process, brang head to djinnis and did the 2nd part of the tanner quest while we were in Trademeet.

Back to temple district, turn in Fallen Paladin and join Keldorn. Mekrath's lair, killed imp (doom - malison - two emotions made it) and freed Haer-Dalis (didnt do the Yuan-Ti, minotaurs, Umber Ulk party yet. I hate this fight with a passion, so easy to get locked in with all those walls). Then went for the full Unseeing Eye quest. For some reason Yuan-Ti mage (which is the only actual threat in this quest IMHO) was not a problem here. Korgan soloed him (with the help of Clan Hunter) while all other Yuan-Tis fell to Malison/double emotion from Necro and Cernd.

Turned in Unseeing Eye and realized I had forgotten ore quest for the church, so I went for Cernd and Keldorn personal quests while doing it since it's basically in the same areas (also bought staff of Arundel for 18k, +3 blunt for Jaheira and extra spells, can't hurt at this stage). Since I was passing by Waukyn's Promenade, Korgan went for some Mencar Peeblecrusher crushing. Real easy time, Malison/double emotion, both mages down. Didnt even bother retreating Korgan tanking Mencar, just shrugged potion of healing twice and we were good. Grabbed Keldorn back at the Order when I went to turn in ore quest.
As far as Berserker kinda plays like a barb, the AC difference (Korgan has currently -13, - 15 under rage, can reach -18/-19 with proper buffs) really is noticeable. I like it, dunno yet if we'll forge improved flesh armor for him, or rather aim for high AC. (+4 to saves + some MR is solid though...)

Suna Seni was met at some point there. No problem at all, double emotion hit all of them but cleric and mage, necro retreats to take confusion all by himself by northern part of the map. Had to deal with pre-Harpers encounter right after this one. This second one was a wee bit tough cause we had used all our powerful spells already. Went ok though. Did Xzar quest while we were at it, nice xp this one !

Didnt know what to do next, so we went for full Mae'var questline and grabbed Edwin at the end, kicking Keldorn. Mae'var's dead, but we'll keep the turn in exp per character for a time when Mazzy's in party.

Since Korgan and Edwin personal quests are in the same place, went there, cleared a few spiders. Korgan soloed the vampire bride with berserker rage on, no problem whatsoever.

Edwin's lich was too tough for the party. Totally immune to blunt damage, 85-90ish resistance to slashing and piercing (that's weird for a skeleton-like enemy though) and the contengency 3xADHW can't be coped with at this point for my team, we had no PFME (necro still lvl 11). Will come back later when I can send a PFMEd fighter to him (don't wanna spend money on a scroll right now).

We were kinda mad so we kicked Edwin right after Pai'na was killed (death spell on sword spiders and usual pounding after a breach. Killed a few spiders before going on Paï'na thinking it'd be easier not to get free action dispelled, but then she had time to cast some insect plague. Had to shrug 2x potions on each character and Cernd mass healed twice, no one died though. Ioun Stone goes to Rasaad.) We then went for some minor quests in Graveyard, Tirdir and orphan child as such.

Necro, Korgan and Rasaad and 50kish from next level, might as well consider some lil-above easy fights there. Jan joins back for trap purpose. Dunno what we should do next. Lilarcor (I hate Shadow lover at this stage) ? Aran quest (vampire brides might be a wee bit hardcore unless I go for some cheesy door locking and wall hiding behind Gracen - and yet i could just chaotic command everyone and call it a day) ?
Necro had a bright idea and decided to lead the group to that amphitheater that strange monk told us about at the city gates. (Might as well do Rasaad questline as 5 members -no trap there IIRC - so Jan actually leaves for now after helping us with some above-average turnip tea at his family place).

Rasaad quest done without any problem - on final battle everyone including the mage fell to malison + emotion x2. Nice true seeing gem there.

Went to the hidden camp, joined Neera and started her quest. The Red Wizard compound was tougher than expected. We really wanted to go full infiltration mode and face them all at once, summons blocking the corridor to the red wizard chieftain (and wanted to welcome the newcomers with the usual malison + emotion x2 combo then Cernd raining chain lightning). Actually, too much wizards among them, they tended to go full nuke on my casters coming their way so I had to just clean them up before going for their leader (I could have just pulled some chaotic commands and resistances on that... was too lazy). Was clean enough and we finally get a +1 full plate for Korgan, reaching a decent - 15 AC, - 17 under berserker rage (other AC boosting buffs not included). Wizard leader tp out, then she's killed in half a round after a quick debuff. Free wild mages.

Korgan reminds us that we should check on Pimlico, he's right, we'll do that next. Our inventories are full, so we sell some stuff. Gold is 107k. Bye Neera.

Did Aran mission n°2 with 5-men, went super smooth, only Kittix got charmed by vampire bride (1 spawned, Gracen focused Jaheira under stoneskin the whole fight), necro is 4K away from lvl 12 so we might as well go for shadow temple, he should level up on the jailor fight, then we can grab Mazzy. Lilarcor and Slavers' ship will be considered next, I want this IH scroll ASAP.

Shadow Jailer no problem. 4xfire elemental + clan hunter, haste and giant strength as needed. Skeleton Lords focused summons and skinned characters. Join Mazzy. Might as well clear the rest of the dungeon but Nizi and Shadelord, should avoid the 2 liches spawns at this level (I don't mind avoiding fighting liches at this point).

Shadow Temple was easily cleaned, will be back later for Nizi and Shadelord.

Went for Lilarcor next, apart from Shadow Jailer who required some positioning, no problem at all. Slavers next, they were much tougher.

Started out with full buffs and some summons (mostly fire elementals) on lvl 6 druids spell, didnt work out at all, mage was coming real fast and even though downing the Captain and the cleric was ok, the caster was quite well protected from his stairs spot and was raining chaos and malisons on us, while also using his IH scroll which I did want to get real bad.
Changed tactic after a few unsuccesful attemps. Jaheira and Cernd memorized insect plague, and we filled all lvl 6 slots of necro and Cernd with chain lightning. Captain down in a round then full focus on cleric while we rain malison/emotion/slow/chain lightning on the crowd. Goal was to kill the cleric before mage comes in, which happened after a lucky save vs. greater command from necro.
As soon as mage pops in, Jaheira and Cernd cast insect plague on him, and necro goes for 3x cone of cold on the pack of thieves blocking access from the mage. Decent damage, mage is almost dead and necro & Cernd cast 2 chain lightning both, while fighters go for melee on the mage. He had time to cast a last chaos spell right before he fell (Jaheira, Cernd and necro failed their saves), so we scatter the party and kill assassins as soon as they spawn (2 of them appeared while chaos was wearing off).
Rest of the dungeon was easy, but for the annoying trap between the gnome mage and the yuan-tis' rooms, which I couldn't disarm. Quaffed a few potions to be safe, but everything went otherwise smoothly.

I'm usually quite a "full retard melee" player, and with this party I realize I'll have to rely much more than I used to on damaging spells, especially on crowds like this one (and yet this is not supposed to be a truly hard fight). Even though Korgan has a very decent damage output, Mazzy is still quite behind and has no decent equipment so far (she was still wearing non-magical chainmail - seems like she'll get phosphorus asap) and Rasaad is kinda suboptimal for now (average AC and only +2 fists, hence me having to postpone most golems fight until his fists are +3).

Fighters are 100k away from lvl 12, and most of the unmoded content is done by now. We might consider givin a shot to De'Arnise Keep, even though I feel like that Planar Prison could actually be easier with this party, especially since I have IH now. And finishing Planar Prison means I can grab Phosphorus. However, and I only have 4 scrolls for RRoR, and I don't plan to endure EBH's spell immunity just to save them.
There's still Bodhi's lair to be done, and apart from Tanova fight (which I always find kinda annoying), this could mean some decent XP without much trouble. Could then try out Pirates' hidout - they're not that bad as long as we are patient with the coordinator.

Let's have a look at the party :

Necro lvl 12 - 74 HP - AC (3) - MPV : Minotaur (sling +2 and quarterstaff + 2). Total Kills : 5%

Korgan lvl 11 - 146 HP - AC (- 14) - MPV : Unseeing Eye ( Axe +2 and Saving Grace, double axe +2 on dual-wielding mod, with a +3 club for blunt purposes). Total Kills : 38%

Mazzy lvl 11 - 114 HP - AC (-6) - MPV : Greater Crawler ( Short Sword + 3 of backstabbing and Shield of Harmony - Arbane off-hand when needed) Total Kills : 4% (just joined)

Rasaad lvl 11 - 125 HP - AC (-4) - MPV : Mencar Pebblecrusher. Total Kills : 20%

Jaheria lvl 12 - 96 HP - AC (0) - MPV : Pai'Na (Staff of Arundel - might switch this one with Cleric Staff from temple of Talos so that Arundel can be used by Cernd) Total kills : 19%

Cernd lvl 12 - 66 HP - AC (9) - MPV : Nilthiri (Oak of the Hight Forest). Total kills : 12%

Bodhi's lair went ok, Korgan endured Tanova under rage and quaffed potions when needed to handle summons and spells. Went through some weird bug though when we left Graveyard. Mazzy had been killed during Lassal and vampire brides fight. Not chunked, so nothing to worry about. Went to the temple so I could revive her, but when I did, even though she was technicaly alive, she had no more green circle and was invisible, while a little chunk effect was endlessly repeating its pattern where she got revived). Reloaded a few saves (tried to revive and kill her again, tried to sleep over the effect, even CTRL + R her, nothing worked), but had none before she would die. Decided to CLUA a clone of her and give her the xp she had through Shadow Keeper... Definitely cheaty but had no other way. Hopefully the IA engine won't take it into consideration. Btw, I got 12K extra xp or so by joining her again, so every party member has 2K of extra cheaty xp... Not much but I must admit it bothers me. Maybe this happened because she died of level drain but IIRC she just went all over the spiked place where you fight Lassal under panic, and she took a spike trap which killed her. Also noticed that instead of being revived near party leader, she would appear - not appear - over her death point. It basically looked like a chunk which didnt remove her portrait. We of course removed her extra personal items from inventory, don't wanna make money out of it.

Anyway, we turn in Bodhi's lair cleaning quest, and all fighters are close to leveling, which means fists + 3 for Rasaad. We head to WK so we can partially clear the 1st level.

WK1 was easy, only noble troll were annoying due to the lack of +3 weapons. So we used one of the doorways to go Spartans there. Loads of stoneskin and we were good. Rasaad and Korgan got lvl 12 ! (grandmastery on axes, frostreaver just became a very sexy thing in my mind).

Traveled to druid grove to check out if Chaos' quest is ready to be started : it is ! Rest there and load lightning spells. Head to Trademeet !

No problem with chaos, Mazzy was the runner wielding Shield of Harmony. Necro casts malison and takes insects far from the team, Jaheira dooms then lightning call, Cernd Lighting call. Chaos was taking 35-45 dmg each proc of the spell, was down after 7 casts or so. Necro had to quaff a few pots to stay alive, these insects bites hurt quite a lot.
Mazzy levels, she takes a * in morningstar, she's gonna use phosporus and probably FoA at some point, way before her shortsword becomes viable.

Seems like our next step is De'Arnise. Getting Frostreaver and FoA will grant everyone a +3 weapon, TorGal shouldn't be too much of a pain to handle (and necro might even level up in the process, only 80k away from 13).

Greater Yuan-ti : kill spider real fast, doom + malison then emotion. He fell to the first one. Pound and profit.

Glaicas : dead in 1 round. He didn't even have time to throw a hardiness in. Party dps is better than I expected. IH + giant strength make Mazzy and Rasaad pretty viable actually.

Frostreaver retrieved, FoA forged. Time for TorGal. Both Glaicas and Keep Viper never died that fast... With a bit of luck we might get TorGal down before he can dispel us (I'm pretty ambitious/optimistic there though).

Well, he DID die real fast ! He didn't cast dispel, nor the lvl 7 red annoying elemental tempest ! Giant troll fell to acid shields (one on Jaheira, Cernd, Clan Spirit + red shield on Rasaad). Gem golem was a joke with all those +3 crushing weaps. Never had such an easy time with this fight, maybe I'm a lil' bit higher on level than what I usually do this at... but still...
Pretty satisfied with the dps of this team, even though I do not have the dps masters like Kensai or RB.

Jaheira got lvl 13, Cernd is pretty close (will get 13 on quest turn in). Tbh I actually really feel the AC difference (2 heavy armors wearer with Korgan and Mazzy) with my previous runs, and as I already said, Giant Strength really make up for the weakish strength of the bioware NPCs.

I guess next step is Windspear Hills. Really could use those extra RRoR scrolls from Conster, and golem ambushes won't be a problem anymore. Especially now that I scribed Ray of Fragmentation : ) I'll just give a shot to the Founder of Trademeet in case Rhynn drops there. With the proper contengency this should be doable.

Founder fell (Mazzy and Korgan too), no Rhynn, nevermind that's some extra xp anyway.

Firkraag dungeon it is : Korgan under rage + 5 skeletons get mist horrors out of the way. Buffed Jaheira with amulet of power comes to help final cleaning on vampiric mists.

Ruhk : Korgan under fire resistance procs first double wave of kobolds, party gathers around ruhk waiting for him to cast a spell, he fires arrow on Korgan, so we got one round to pound him. DPS is decent, he falls before he can cast AI (or is it protection from magical weapons ?). Is that cheesy not to pound him too early so that we get 1 free round without protection ?

1st Golems ambush : 2 gems 1 coin 1 bone. Make sure they hit skinned characters... the usual. 1 or 2 reloads to make it right due to chunking and wrong spell selection (Jaheira with only 2 skins was not enough and I reallly dislike the "omg sir robin ran away away bravely ran away away" thingie when one of my unskinned fighters gets hit big and flees for his life around the room). Clan Hunter is a wonder and can already take a coin golem all by himself (he has up to 4 iron skins with wondrous recall).

Vampires : All under ID : Korgan raging, Jaheira amulet of power + chaotic commands, Clan Hunter with SotA. Usually doin this with 1 or 2 characters only, so with 3 it was real easy.

Golems Ambush N°2 and Vampires + Mists : same tactics as before, even though environnement layout makes it a bit more difficult to find a decent positioning golemwise. Took 1 reload, Korgan chunked on 1st try.

Conster & friends : piece of cake, dead in 1 round, blunt for all and many summons. Grab scroll of RRoR x 5, yay !

Did the paladin questline real fast. Mazzy claims Pride of the Legion.

We have 9 scrolls of RRoR, time for Planar Prison !

First skirmish dealt with pretty fast. 2 RRoR used on EBH. Grab second morningstar +2, smells like phosporus' comin soon !

Yuan-Tis and minotaur party : malison and emotion, the two mages fell on it. Dispatch their helpers and dispel them. Was a bit messy but everyone survived.

Warden : buff well, chaotic commands for everyone thanks to Cernd's wondrous recall and usual IH + giant's strength. Rush Warden with all melees, we almost kill him in a round (he didnt cast any PFMW). When he's almost dead he finally casts it, so we use RRoR x 3, breach and he's dead. Cernd casts mass heal x 2 and a heal spell on Korgan who tanked the warden the whole time. Gotta clean up those astral hounds, Jaheira died there (Rasaad was confused and punched her a lil' bit too hard).

Free Haer-Dalis and friends, claim the theater then head to slums. Gotta buy mauler's arm for phosphorus purposes (we got 20 reputation and 24 charisma with friends, shouldn't be too expensive).

Hey, we miss 1 pot of storm giant's strength. Let's go to the sewers and ask Roger the Fence if he got some. Let's salute the sewer party too since we're there.

Gaius required 2 RRoR scrolls, so back to 6, but we're gonna check the pirate hideout next so we'll get some more. Easy fight otherwise, not much to say, they were sliced without problem. Even triple chain lightning sequencer from Gaius did laughable dmg.

Forge Phosphorus after emptying bags, Mazzy's happy dual-wielding ! Gold's 237K (had 327 before forging phosphorus).

Next step is pirate hideout. Full buffs on everyone including prot. from fire. Goal is to dispatch all pirates ASAP, then to keep the coordinator busy with summons (to make him use PFMW) while his SI : Divination wears off.

Actually had to permanently refresh prot. fire on everyone 'cause coordinator tends to dispel very often. In the end Rasaad used gem of true seeing, Mazzy under PFME and haste comes to finish him. She took the 3xchain lightning sequencer but had time to quaff a pot before coordinator would PW : kill. Then, Clan Hunter got the kill. Scribed Larloch's interuptor. On the loot : Tansheroon bow and The Sleeper. Kinda meh but that's some extra money right ? And Mazzy can use an infinite amunition +3 bow so let's use it.

Met with Galvarey in Harpers' Hold. One of the mage was kinda annoying but not a difficult encounter anyhow.

Joined Valygar, opened sphere, kick Valygar rejoin Korgan (ach ! he asks for 500gp ! should have kicked someone else).

Start Planar Sphere (only thing I'm worried about his engine room with all those golems. I hate the room environment, pathfinding makes it quite difficult here).

No problem with halflings, insect plage put them at rest.

Northern golem encounter. 2 Gems 1 Coin 1 Bone. Use all room necessary for good positionning. Clan Hunter holds Coin during the whole fight. No problem here (1 reload due to Rasaad chunked though).

Lavok. No problem at all, used 5 RRoR scrolls 'cause he kept refreshing GoI and SI : Abj. Clan Hunter on him the whole fight, when he can be breached, PFME on Rasaad and a few breaches.

Tolgerias : had DW on necro who got breached, 3xFoD while Cernd was trying to refresh DW but... necro saved on all 3 of them ! Party dispelled so we back off, Korgan took a nasty ADHD (so did most of the party). Quaff a few pots and cast PFME on Rasaad who still has furry of blows on. Tolgerias falls. Clean up elemental rooms and let's travel to the demonic plane !

Lea' Liyil : Skeleton Lords > Maurhezi > Demon. No problem here, dps is solid, everything that could deal actual dmg was dead before the demon had dispelled/silenced us. Cernd immunity to silence real nice here, he could tank with iron skins. Scribe disrupt undead, will soon come in handy !

Engine Room : annoying as usual. However found that closing a corridor with Jaheira and Clan hunter, rest of the team hitting from the sides went quite fine. Took a few reloads 'cause it's easy to mess up there. Had one "omg run for your life" retreat from Jaheira on the last golem, was almost good and she was at 3HP, smelled the chunk. Worked out but I ain't proud of it.

Next is Thax (not Nizi as i said previously, but they use the same sprite so...). Whole team took first silence while necro stood away. Then RRoR x 1 and rain breaches. Took 2 reload to get it right and Thax healed twice on winning try. Only Rasaad died. No named loot there.

Shadelord... he's the fight I usually fear the most. Many attempts with full buff and IH (had to burn a scroll of spellstrike 'cause I had only 2 RRoR memorized, and no more scrolls). Those attempts failed patheticaly at the 3 ADHW. Then I figured I could just give up on IH and get PFME for every fighter. Taking Patrick and Skeleton Lords down this way leaves enough time for the shadelord to dispel us all though. So we just went melee on him anytime he could be hit so he would rather cast PFMW instead of dispel, letting the remaining Skeleton Lord hit us. Actually worked out very well and he was down right after Mazzy went for the killing blow on 2nd Skeleton Lord. I feel kinda dumb going without PFME all these times while it was obvious ADHW was what was wiping us, but I was really hoping for a fast enough pounding.
Anyway, he's dead so we go grab our reward !

Before we do the remaining stuff before Spellhold, a look at the party :

Necro lvl 14 - 81 HP - AC (5) - MPV : Gem Golem (sling of Arvoreen +3 and quarterstaff + 2). Total Kills : 4%

Korgan lvl 14 - 155 HP - AC (- 15) - MPV : Unseeing Eye ( Frostreaver + 3, club +3, Fortress Shield +3). Total Kills : 33%

Mazzy lvl 14 - 123 HP - AC (-9) - MPV : Thax'ssillya ( Flail of Ages + 3, Short Sword + 3 of backstabbing - Phosphorus off-hand) Total Kills : 10% (cf. bug after Bodhi's lair and joined late)

Rasaad lvl 14 - 131 HP - AC (-8) - MPV : Gem Golem (meh). Total Kills : 21%

Jaheria lvl 13 - 98 HP - AC (-4) - MPV : TorGal (Cleric's Staff + 3 - thinking about getting spear of Kuldahar for her, pretty cheap) Total kills : 20%

Cernd lvl 13 - 68 HP - AC (7) - MPV : Chaos (Staff of Arundel). Total kills : 9%

Gold is 367k and Necro xp is 1 900 000 - time to make Jaheira's gloves !

Actually made Paws of the Furious Cat, Master of the High Forest and a ring of protection +2 (goes to Mazzy). Gold is now 257k

Meet with Mazzy's family, her sister seems to have a problem, we head to Trademeet and help her out.

Time for Screaming Statue. Took a few reloads to figure out a way to deal with this without wasting too much resources. Realized at some point that IH scrolls were useless since I scribed it already, and without ranger, no need to craft boots of the ranger lord. Winning sequence was this way :

Round 1 : Korgan wielding frostreaver and phosphorus off-hand (raging) and Jaheira (amulet of power + potion of clarity) with 5 skeletons. All 7 hasted. Korgan kills vampire while Jaheira helps out skeletons on mists
Round 2 : Korgan (raging + IH) and Jaheira (IH + previous) with 4 healed skeletons. Korgan on vampires, Jaheria on mists with skelies.
Round 3 : Korgan (raging + IH + oil of resurgence), Jaheira (IH from scroll + new pot of clarity) with 2 skeletons and Clan Hunter (Acid Shield, Archons, haste). Skeletons keep mists busy while rest kills master vampire. Then we get surrounded, Clan Hunter dies quite fast, Jaheira tanks a bit with iron skins but soon falls, 1 vampire remaining and all mists. Korgan takes them all, starting with horror ones. Once they're dead, Rasaad and Cernd joined. Cernd refreshes Prot. from Neg. Plane. as needed.

Will now give a shot at Borinall, even though Amber Golem scares me (but I'll have to face 3 soon so better start getting use to it !). Spellbooks filled with prot. electricity and ray of fragmentation, including a spell sequencer x3 rays.

Well, I must admit I went bravely running around the room with Jaheira and Rasaad, but we made it without death on the first try. Always impressed by the Clan Hunter resiliance.

Did some stronghold quests, Ranger, Fighter, Bard, Mage, so that fighters would lvl up to 15 (aka 2 Millions xp). Also forged Necro amulet... ain't got nothing else to make, and if i wanna take down Firkraag before Kruin (which scares me like hell) once I'm out of underdark, it might and actually will come in handy.

SAMIA party : this is typically the kind of fights that reminds me I'm not a great tactician. The "pound Kaol in 1 round" tactic wouldn't work here for the same reason as the ShadeLord fight : I gotta choose between IH and PFME (only had 2 scrolls of it and 1 caster with 3 lvl 7 slots) and it's not like my party can survive a 3xADHW from contengency.
After several reloads and tactical changes, figured that Kaol had to be kept for the end.

We went as follow :
Clan Hunter + 4 fire elementals.
Necro blocks doorway to prevent Grandlords from coming in. He has sequencer 2xemotion + malison (ain't like it's reliable given their saves, and it wasn't !).
Cernd stands behind the fight so he can rain spells as needed.
All fighters were under oil of resurgence (spent 20k buying some, they come in handy for not very good players like myself - I think of you mithril golem !).
What made the difference here (for the first cleaning part that is) is the use of dolorous decay. 2 rounds of saveless slow is priceless vs Samia and Fenric Ironblade.

Had half of the team focusing Legdoril (cleric) and Chak (Fighter/druid I believe). If Chak manages to cast creeping doom we're done anyway so... Well they both died in the first round, while Jaheira and Cernd went for dolorous decay on their main dps. We switch to Akae real fast and he's down quickly too. Necro (under PFMW) casts SI : Abj. so that we have 1 extra round of doorblock before Kaol dispels him.
Samia was already being beaten by elementals and Clan Hunter, badly hurt so we switch to her, she didn't even have time to go for hardiness.
Fenric Ironblade just pops hardiness and necro just got his SI : Abj dispelled. Protagonist won't last a round so whole team goes for grandlords and Cernd refreshes Dolorous Decay on Fenric so that he's not too dangerous.
As expected, as soon as necro leaves the doorway he's breached by Kaol. Grandlords are fairly easily dispatched even though Rasaad dies in the process (critical hit - no chunk though yay !). As soon as Dolorous Decay fades on Fenric, we switch to him leaving 1 Grandlords badly hurt. Necro breaches Fenric and he dies fast enough. Last Grandlord falls, Kaol remains.

Then comes the part I'm not proud of, 'cause casters always scare me in IA. So we use summon clickies and the remaining elemental to hold him for a second while we heal a wee bit in the corridor, and buff Korgan back 'cause he's gonna be the one pounding Kaol. Realized at this point we all got dispelled.

Korgan goes for Kaol - dispel + comet. Buff him back.
Same happens twice again, we used our 2 scrolls of PFME (gotta admit I used one on necro unwantedly, so we go deep into our inventories and find 2 potions of magic shielding - or whatever it's called, the one that makes u always save and immune to malison). Korgan also quaffs another oil of resurgence, and potions of greater healing as needed (and he equips shield of harmony just in case).

Was messy and absolutely not epic, but it worked out in the end. After Kaol had launched his spell trigger 3xCL and his contengency 3xADHW, Mazzy joins in and he falls to her.

I really find this fight interesting because it's the only one I ever do pre-spellhold ('cause it's the only one I ever managed ahha !), while it's supposed to be tough enough. This is where I usually reach my limit and must rely on some luck to make it work. I usually make a special save for all those hardish fights right before I do them, so I can train and replay them at will with other tactics. I'd love to have some advices on how to make this epic and not messy - borderline cheesy.

We go meet Cromwell again, and make his well-deserved circlet (moar lvl 7 spells, yay !).

After some bags emptying session, gold is back to 255k, so we might as well have some crafty fun before going to SpellHold.
Forged :
Circlet of Golden Flowers
Nature's Gift (to be drank by Cernd once we are in the Asylum - this way he'll have 4 lvl 7 spell slots pretty soon)
3 x Ring of Protection +2 (we got 6 of these now).

Gold's back to 15k, imma buy some extra oils of resurgence, and let's sail !

Brynnlaw, nothing worth mentionning (but that I could have waited for 1 more golem spawn on Perth...)

Oh yay... when I rest into the Asylum i get some spawning enemies... seems like I'm in for improved asylum : D Thought xp cap was 2350000, but reaching lvl 15 pops it hehe !

Cleared Yuan-tis/minotaur near the way out, trying to get Cernd to lvl 14 asap. (he's 20k away from it. Golem-rakshasa room will do it)

WHAT ???!SPOILER!
Gonna give that a shot but heh... seems like we might skip this one if I can't handle it... I just hope it ain't like all the fights are that improved or I'm f***ed. And even if I do, something tells me those extra monsters might not even give experience !

Ahahaha Twist of fate ! Elemental and bone died to the crushing trap 'cause I had blocked the door with my skinned characters. Unwantedly cheesy but I don't see why a "GM wouldn't allow that". Ain't like golems have 25 intelligence right ? Faced the rest as intended so...

Lich and Lords easy in comparison, Dace's master too (Korgan raging, Clan Hunter SotA, both IH, necro breaches). Gotta wait for 30 sec anytime I rest in case some enemies are spawning, so I don't have to fight them in addition to the normal content. Time for Cat and Librarian.

Golem down with only haste, Mazzy tanks cat with watchful thing from her kit, shield and regen from Cernd.
WOW ! WOW WOW what's wrong there ? Librarian going for a straight dispel, and sooo many helpers. Well.. and those extra guys coming up from nowhere... we got sliced in seconds.
I'm in for some reloads... managed to do some stuff by having everyone quaffing oils of resurgence... I'm so glad I bought these. Though I'm definitely underleveled for Improved Asylum. If Amber Golems are improved too I might have to get an older save and start all that again with lower xp.

Oooh, let's be honnest, I found the variable with ShadowKeeper. I just have to reset it to 0 anytime I switch area.

Could do Librarian this way, and Amber Golems weren't THAT bad. Necro, Cernd and Jaheira take one each without hitting. Jaheria was given circlet of golden flowers to insta cast skins. Cernd casts regeneration on all fighters to cover early damages, necro and himself drink 1 oil of resurgence to cover electrical dmg going through skins. Everyone uses slashing against golems (scarlet ninja-to for Rasaad, Korgan on axes obviously, and water edge +3 with phosphorus off-hand for Mazzy) Kobolds taken down 1 by 1, then we focus ambers. Jaheira 1st 1 (she has only 1 skin left). Then necro 1 (so he can spam ray of fragmentation and other goodies on the last one when our electrical resistances will be depleted). Take time between each golem to get everyone to 100 electrical resistance again. Good positioning (lord, I wish I had a 2-handed user, my characters tend to hug enemies...).
It was definitely ok - maybe my smoothest time ever there - but I couldn't have done it with other enemies spawning due to improved asylum.

Ouch, Mithril Golem was something. Start with 4 skeletons and Clan Hunter (who tanked quite a lot of hits with all his skins), IH, free action, regeneration and oil of resurgence on all fighters. Took several reloads due to some unlucky crits (103, ouchy !) chunking characters. Mazzy died to bleeding on winning try because she was scared and ran away when golem was almost dead. Figured it'd be safer to let her die from the bleed and not get a chunk, letting the round for Jaheira to cast combat trance instead of remove fear. Golem fell before Mazzy even died, hardly summoned anything but from clickies, 2 skeletons still alive at the end. Mazzy and Korgan tanked the most of it, good regen and Cernd mass cures made it. Cat figurine was used at some point. Rasaad gets the killing blow.

Forge some boots, paws of Cheetah to Korgan.

Asylum Tests. Jaheira hits 14 and Necro hits 16

Irenicus fight in Asylum :

Loaded Sequencer emotion-malison-slow for clones, and a Spell Trigger PFME-Giant Strength-IH for the fighter that'll eventually go for Irenicus final.

Took some reloads, I find the start of this fight terribly hard not to mess with, quite the chaos with all those spawning, finding a way to get a good positionning as fast as possible was hard.
Had Korgan Mazzy and Rasaad retreating among the inmates. Jaheira stands right in front of Irenicus, Cernd backs south and Necro stands in the middle of the golems about to pop.
We summon our clickies + Clan Hunter and as soon as golems are in Jaheira starts with the closest to her, Korgan Mazzy and Rasaad join immediatly and Cernd start casting creeping doom : Irenicus is hit ! We can take down at least 2 or 3 golems before he can cast again ! (which happened).

Jaheira and fighters take down 1st golem real fast, second one follows.
Necro tanked 4 golems (kiting them a bit at some point cause 4 golems hitting, stoneskins don't last a round and aura is not cleansed. Didnt abuse of that, just the time he could safely instacast stoneskin when needed).
Jaheira and fighters take down 1st golem real fast, second one follows.

Fighters and Jaheria join Necro, Jaheira takes aggro of golems one after another, they all fall pretty fast. We pretty much got 1 golem per round, fight lasted 6 rounds overall. Last golem hit Rasaad a bit though and he got power word : killed. It's ok, no chunk and we don't need him at this point.

We scatter party waiting for Irenicus' SI:Divination to expire. Was veeeery long, but not rly risky, he was busy trading spells with the 4 remaining inmates (who are not actually doing anythin... why don't they have IA-casters behaviour by the way ? That aint fair and they wouldn't be able to dispel Irenicus anyway, and without means to dmg golem they're not dangerous at all... well it's just they felt kinda stupid just standing there doing nothing hehe). Had Clan Hunter hitting Irenicus so he'd waste PFMW scrolls.

As soon as we can breach Irenicus, we get Korgan that PFME/GS/IH on spell trigger... which gets dispeled right away (sigh), and he doesn't even have time to back off, Irenicus throws spell trigger 3xCL + contengency 3xADHW all at once. Korgan dead, but not chunked (! i didnt even had time to get scared about it, happened to fast).

Since he has nothing else nasty, Mazzy hastes herself and finish him with Clan Hunter.

Sahuagin city, all easy but prince, and still he wasn't a problem Cernd goes creeping doom on the casters, Rasaad cleans up while rest of the team is on vipers. Had regeneration x 3 but didnt use them at all. Fight was easier than I remembered. Everyone has a decent AC so dmg income is fairly easy to control.
Lovely gauntlets for Rasaad, awesome spear for Jaheira. Fighters got lvl 17, Cernd lvl 15. Time for Underdark !

Clean some Kuo-Toas.

Elder Orb : 4 x RRoR from Cernd and Necro, Necro Trigger 3xLower Resistance, Jaheira and Cernd cast Creeping Doom x3. Party retreats out of range of ADHW (but Jaheira who has still her PFME) and Rasaad gambling on his high magic resistance.
Rasaad dies on 3ADHW, party joins back in. Elder Orb dead.

Clean rest of the lair, leave those stairs for now (gotta be careful though with xp and HLA, don't want the improved version).

1st drow ambush. Korgan was the hero here. Fighters went for spiders cleaning, we lost Jaheira and Mazzy in the process. (possibly due to the fact that Necro hit Mazzy with 3xSunfire Trigger, which helped tremendously damagewise though). Necro breaches cleric and Korgan + Rasaad run back to Cernd and Necro with 3 skeletons fighters. We slash the rest of the enemies while Cernd rains mass heal. Korgan's AC was absolutely brilliant here (-25 or so, + modifiers). Mages casted their single ADHW, which weren't taht dangerous (Cernd healing well). Then we RRoR one of the mages, and wait for buffs to expire on the second.
Was messy but Korgan was really shining into that terrible melee from which he went out hardly scratched. At some point I'll have Mazzy tanking this way as well. They don't have stoneskins but with proper HLAs they'll be fine.

2nd drow ambush : easier than the first. Necro tanks spiders with PFMW. FIghters take down priestess while summons (anaconda x 3 + clan hunter, 1 other anaconda on mage so that he uses death spell on just 1) take care of fighters popping on the platform. As soon as priestess is dead, Cernd goes free action on Korgan who joins necro against spiders. Then free action on Mazzy, joins too, then Rasaad.
Mage used trigger 3xCL, almost got Jaheira killed, spiders easily dispatched. Fighters join back in and Mazzy got killing blow with a normal shortsword.

Decided to clean up Kuo-Toas lair, for some xp. Funny thing is that due to enemies running around panicked with creeping doom (such an awesome spell in there), I proced a second group and had no more creeping doom. So we face 2 groups at once, all their fighters blocking the way (lil corridor) to their caster. So party took all the mage's spells, Mazzy and Jaheira died from it (3xCL + ADHW). No chunk so all good.
All fighters are lvl 18, Cernd hits 16. I might do the maze next so I don't have HLA-version of the master below.

Kuo-Toan prince : no problem. Fight was super messy but Cernd healed so well that no one died, even though everything went wrong (Mazzy takes double crit from Kuo-Toan Dukes from the start, has to use cat figurine while the fight is not even started. Jaheira runs panicked for almost the whole fight). Necro unleashed trigger slow/malison/emotion, Cernd Creeping Doom x2 and then used his 5 mass heals. Clan Hunter tanked some early spawns including the planetar. Creeping Doom makes these fights trivial, it truly does.

Demon Knights : that was something ! Took 2 reloads to make it right. Need PFME so no IH but for Rasaad. Had a Spell Trigger with 3 minotaurs, i wanted druids lvl 7 slots to be filled with regenerations.
PFME on Jaheria, Mazzy, Korgan and Cernd. Rasaad has 54% magic resistance so we gamble on that. Regeneration on all fighters (and Jaheira).
We had Clan Hunter, 1 Anaconda, 3 minotaurs (we sacrifice 1).

Cernd goes left so he doesnt get ADHW since he got breached right away (obviously, why did I PFME him anyway... ?). Necro activates True Seeing from gem. Korgan tanks Knight on the right, Jaheria the one right above it. Party focuses bottom Knights. Cernd rains mass cure x 6 under alacrity (with a well chosen spot so he was hitting everyone).
Rasaad goes cat figurine at some point.

Once bottom Knights are down, Jaheira drags hers to the bottom while Cernd tanks the "chief" (the one with the extra items) while still raining mass cures (alacrity it is, iron skin is 0 cast time). Jaheira's Knight soon dead, whole party but Korgan and Clan Hunter focus the "chief", while our dwarvy friend is almost done with his own Knight which he tanked the whole fight without a scratch (AC it is !). His Knight falls before the chief, party regroup on him, Cernd and Jaheira low HP back off from a possible ADHW, chief dead !

Cernd Alacrity expired right at the end of the fight. Belt goes to Rasaad, he's a real machine now !

Maze Time ! I feel confident with this party, I really count on Korgan to pull out some great tankiness vs. our friend the dracolich. He's gonna have a scroll of protection from lvl drain and some 30ish AC, in addition to very decent saves.
If it seems to be too tough, I might consider quaffing 1 or 2 potions of barbarian essence, but I'm pretty sure that under regeneration, he should be fine. We shall see !
Unbuffed AC for Korgan vs. piercing is - 26. AS we enter, he is given regeneration, IH and DW... but after a few tries figured Mazzy would be better.

Fight was messy only in the end. Well it was under control until we had to start the pounding. Tanking was switched sometimes between Mazzy and Korgan (goin to top of the stairs so Cernd can give them regeneration, then Clan Hunter at some point (under Archon). We tried to have always 4 skeletons fighting the dracolich and then he ran out of PFMW. It's right at this point where Mazzy couldn't get a fresh DW which just ran out. Dracolich wails and Mazzy falls. So does Cernd (who get critted by dracolich while desesperatly trying to cast DW on Mazzy. Korgan tanks as he can but falls too while Rasaad is under IH dealing quite decent dmg.
Jaheira buffs herself, necro IH her and she goes in.
In the end it was Rasaad + Jaheira with some skelies hitting the drake under silence (i'd have loved a safety skin on Jaheira here but nvm). Rasaad gets the killing blow. Was close, but we made it.

Mazzy had drank 2 potions of barbarian essence. Dunno if they were needed but she did so...

On the loot : Flame of the North, mana bow, periapt of proof against poison (noice !), Azuredge and Rhynn (very noice, goes to Jaheira).

Necro scribes Hand of Undoing and Limited Wish.

Say hello to Adalon, Drow city, retrieve eggs and speak to Adalon again. Kill her for her blood, just in case we wanna make armor for Korgan (and 54k xp for free is always nice).

Illithid Lair. Master Brain wasn't a problem. We had Clan Hunter, Smilodon and 3x Anacondas. Jaheira with critical hit and necro with alacrity raining rays of fragmentation and hands of Undoing. Cernd under alacrity rains mass heal. Rasaad had the focus of several golems and his Ac isn't that great (just -13) so he eventually died, right before elemental fell and spawned a gem (only spawn, right at the end).
Necro tanked the gem was party disposed of the brain, then brain golems. We had loads of skins left, and Mazzy just like Korgan had -25 AC vs. crushing so they were in no danger at all.

On the loot : well, nothing. But it's ok it was some nice xp. Mazzy and Rasaad get lvl 20 ! They both take Power Attack, we want to have critical hit on all fighters asap for Kruin.

Flee Underdark. Time to get xp before Kruin. Aaaand... crap. Met Dermin so now anytime I sleep outside Jaheira will get away to Harper Hold and I can't go to dock unless I wanna meet Kruin + Cowled Wizards...
Gonna have to be careful where I sleep.

Went for Umar. We went a bit too full retard, she was dead before golems would spawn. Lost some xp there, nvm.

Gonna try Firkraag now.
ROFL, he's so easy with Necro and Cernd. Cernd got killing blow with Unleash Energy.

Gonna do Windmaster too since we're there. Alacrity, rain spells. Boom, dead.

Troll Mound next I guess. Fairly easy no reload either. Alacrity Cernd and Necro destroy Queen. Korgan tanks king with Mazzy's buff (protection from stun). Vengeance troll are dealt with creeping doom, ADHW, and heavy melee focus. No one died, never had such an easy time here.
Sling of Everard on loot, goes to Necro. (Unicorn spear, gnasher, dale protector, gesen shaft... won't use this stuff. Would be cool btw to have gnasher into a recipe that is not the FODW, since u need a vagrant.).

Yet, we need moar xp !

We then went for undead town, which was pretty straightforward. We had regeneration on fighters. Made sure that Necro/Cernd/Jaheira would tank most hits from Grandlords. Double comet from Necro cleaned the easy trash, then we RRoR the lich and tried some spells. Wasn't really effective so we just wait and pound at the right time.

Since our fighters lack 100K xp for an extra HLA (that could make the difference for Kruin fight), we try out 1st lvl of WK.

Golems and mists room. Was messy but doable. Mostly due to mists and stun from bone golem. Akwardly, on the winning try (took 2 reloads due to chunk), we had necro, Jaheira and Cernd all stunned, but only our summons got focused.
Realized post-fight that 2 golems were stuck (it's a bug that happens sometimes, espcially in planar sphere) where 2 characters lock themselves on the exact same location, which happened this time to 2 golems, which made the fight real easier since they didn't join in. Cheesy but unintended.

Spider Queen next. Rasaad fists, Rhynn and Phosphorus made it. Had Korgan use Soulreaver. Worked out really well, we made sure we would have a bunch of summons between spiders spawns and our fighters.

End of WK1, fighters got lvl 21 ! Very good level especially for Mazzy since she now has access to Righteous Magic. Korgan takes mastery in hammers (Crom inc !), Mazzy grandmastery in shortswords.

Felt like going for some stuff in WK2, but realized in fire room that I litteraly had no space left in inventory, all 4 bags full ! (got dragomir's respite as 4th). That's a good incentive to go try Kruin. If we manage to land creeping doom on him it should be ok. And we've got muuuuch to forge : D !

Let's have a look at the party :

Necro lvl 19 - 106 HP - AC (-4) - MPV : Gem Golem (sling of Everard +5 and quarterstaff + 3). Total Kills : 3%

Korgan lvl 21 - 176 HP - AC (- 12/-17) - MPV : Adalon ( Frostreaver + 3, club +3, Stonefire +3, Soulreaver + 4, Darksteel +4). Total Kills : 29%

Mazzy lvl 21 - 144 HP - AC (-12/-17) - MPV : Thax'ssillya ( Flail of Ages + 3, Short Sword + 3 of backstabbing - Phosphorus off-hand/Fortress Shield) Total Kills : 16%

Rasaad lvl 21 - 145 HP - AC (-8) - MPV : Spider Queen. (fists + 4, scarlet ninja-to +3, pixie prick +3) Total Kills : 26%

Jaheria lvl 18 - 108 HP - AC (-4) - MPV : Elemental Golem (Rhynn+4, Impaler +3) Total kills : 17%

Cernd lvl 19 - 80 HP - AC (7) - MPV : Firkraag (Staff of Arundel). Total kills : 6%

So we head to Tethyr forest, and meet Kruin. Wasn't pretty. Not at all.
We had Clan Hunter, Smilodon and 3 Trolls. Regen on all fighters and full buffs overall. We just rush the first EG, fighters critical hit, Necro unleashes Trigger and Sequencer 6xRay of Fragmentation. Golem hardly last 1,5 round. Cernd had started with creeping doom which hit Kruin, so we shouldn't be debuffed for second golem. We go for it and Cernd/Necro go for Alacrity. Mass heal rain, and necro goes for remaining rays and vampiric touch... CRAP, 3xADHW, Kruin wasn't even wounded but he unleashes it anyway. Well Mazzy and Cernd fall for it. Korgan resists with 30 HP and use cat figurine. Rasaad was well positionned and still regenerating, and he probably had some magic resistance saving him there. Necro was far enough to not be hit, so was Jaheira.
Fortunately, we still have 2 Trolls and second golem falls faster than I expected. Creeping doom had almost cleaned the githyankis, so we're in for a 4 vs. Kruin. Korgan tanks a bit, but I wasn't careful enough and he get power word killed. Had Jaheira tank Kruin with skins, at some point we had to switch to Rasaad who kited a bit (meh, I didnt want to start again). Eventually SI:Divination runs out. 2xRRoR and Rasaad + Jaheira go full in. Monk gets the killing blow.

It's definitely time to see Cromwell !

Forged Indigo Ioun Stone and Golden Spider Figurine.
I miss 1 item for most of the core build items I wanna make, so I'll keep the gold for now.

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't need powdered body of a dracolich for any item that I might use, so I'll just go for the flesh armor for Korgan.
Makin it tier 1 for now, will see later if I want to upgrade it.

We did Kangaxx and his liches. No problem here with enough blunt +4 and HLAs. Rasaad awesome for undispellable IH.

We also spoke to some squirrel and went for some ruby chase. Had to fight someone fond of lightning spells.

Cleared some cowled wizards encounters and got humiliated by Zallanora and friends. Will do that later (honestly I could do it, it just would require me to think too much which I dislike - and mostly to count rounds so that I know when her AI wears off. I'm lazy. I wonder if her golems give xp, I might sponge some there if they do).

Went to sewers instead, felt like we should try Illhitid Lair, even though it might be a wee bit tough for us : no hardiness, no wish, even less RVE, just 1 critical hit per fighter.

First fight was really interesting ! Had Smilodon, Clan Hunter and Noble Spider. We pull regen on all fighters and usual buffs.
Rasaad (super speed) and Jaheira (stoneskin, equipped with circlet of golden flower for instacast) go for the cleric right in his room followed by summons. They go critical strike and kill him in half a round. Summons are just a meatshield so that they can retreat back to the entry room. Necro casts comet to help them find an easy path out.
Without Cleric in the way, no risk for tempest, so we can just tank at the end of the corridor. Cernd and Jaheira do that, while necro under alacrity casts sequencer malison/slow/emotion and unleash 4 x ADHW. During the process, Cernd backs off a bit, alacrity and rains mass cure on the party cause those golems and Grandlords hit real hard without hardiness. He also casts a creeping doom at some point. Mage fall to the ADHWs or Creeping Doom, I dunno. He's out of the way so it's just easy tanking vs meleers now (yay). They're dispatched fairly easily.

On the loot : blade of roses, bone dagger (goes to Rasaad, piercing purposes), wish (hell yeah !), VECNA ! YIPPY !

I was kinda worried about the GEG and Alhoon in the last room, but now I'm sure it can be done with Vecna casting speed boost and a Wish spell. I must admit I'll probably rely on the "hardiness for all party members" wish for the first rounds of the fight. Good thing Rasaad IH (furry of blows) should not be dispelled by the initial purge. He'll be a good beacon for that.

Jaheira got lvl 19, she takes Perform Ritual (she had taken critical hit x2 so far, really handy since my fighters had to take Power Attack as first HLA... Might have been a mistake, Hardiness really helps out but I was thinking "Kruin and his debuffs").

Won't try the fight right now, but as I foresee it, it should go as :

Usual buffs to maximize dmg output on the first 2 or 3 rounds so that GEG dies ASAP. Will use my best summons (Smilodon, Clan Hunter, Noble Spider and 2 x Troll) to take care of trash and possibly keep Alhoon busy a bit. I wonder if Necro and Cernd could unleash their spellbooks to clear all Illithid trash. I don't expect GEG to fall before his second purge, so I'll have to time a good alacrity on Cernd so that he can rain mass cure, same for necro so he can refresh buffs (he'll have a spell trigger with IH and a 4th extra IH in lvl 6 Spellslot). Korgan can get IH from Ring of Gaxx and I'll probably use those IH bracers from Kuo-Toa Prince for Mazzy. This is assuming I can't rely on a Wish for rest.
I dunno yet if I'll go Alacrity and Wish for lvl 9 slots on Necro, or 2xWish and accept that it'll take a round to buff other fighter with IH.
If I knew I could take GEG down before second purge I'd probably go for regeneration on fighters, but it'd be kind of a waste to have it dispelled.
I'll think about all this, fight coming soon !

It actually worked out well ! GEG down before second purge : D Jaheira died of intelligence drain while tanking the 2 golems that spawned thought it would be worth anyway since she was tanking both on her spot allowing rest of the party to pound them. Remaining summons then charged Alhoon even though he had no nasty spells remaining. Necro was charmed in the process but he wouldn't be attacked then so all good. He casts remaining Wish as soon as he's uncharmed and debuffs Alhoon, rebuff party. He was out of PFMW when Korgan and Rasaad charged him.
Easier than my usual time here. Maybe my tactical skills are getting a lil' bit better game after game.

On the loot : Hammer of Thunderbolts (usual), Master of Discipline (usual, Rasaad equips right away, too bad I forged Circlet of Golden Flowers I'd rather have Grandmaster collar, since circlet already naturally gives -1 casting speed. Nvm, my bad). Ring of Air control (cool ! thought it was only dropping in WK).

We got much to forge. I won't make Memory of the Apprenti as long as I didnt take care of Zallanora. Which means we'll make :

Crom Fayer : Korgan claims his, he has master in hammers, gonna be a great weapon before he dual-wields it with that new axe.
Ring of Greater Djinni Summoning (best summon in game period, can't miss it)

Necro is... 2 exp from leveling up : p !

Went to Cromwell, and actually made :

Cernd's staff +4
Adamantite Horn of Valhalla
Crow Fayer (Korgan really buffed up with this one !)

Our next step might be Guarded Compound, since we managed this GEG pretty well. If we can take him down as fast as we did with the one in the sewers, it should be quite ok. Even though I'd like to farm some amber pieces.

Bodhi seems tempting as well, even though I tend to struggle with end fight for some reason. Tbh most of the fights I usually struggle with went quite fine this run, I might as well try it but...

Zallanora should totally be doable at this point, even more with Vecna !

I don't feel confident enough to try the assassins in Firkraag's lair...

Zallanora it is ! But we need 2 more xp for necro so we head to Trademeet and turn in Mantle of Waukeen to the mayor. We had saved it in case we needed extra reputation after killing the mage in underdark, but turned out we got them with Umar witch and Illithids (underdark). Necro lvl 20 takes Planetar HLA and gets +1 lvl 9 slot.

Well it was actually easy. Kollynus Pacc debuffed with Spellstrike from Necro, RRoR from Cernd (after an initial creeping doom to clean the 2 extra cowled). Dead in no time. Clear stuff while being careful with that dispel magic of Zallanora, who actually kept breaching Cernd tanking a golem with skins (ain't like I wanted her not to dispel, was ready for it, but couldn't NOT skin Cernd if he was tanking...).
Always had a melee rdy to hit her once to see if weapon was effective or not. Rasaad showed the way, everyone cast critical hit, Zallanora dead. 2 golems and 2 Cowled enforcers spawned.

Bigby's Clenched fist we don't scribe and keep for Mazzy shield. We're 1 +1 buckler away from it : )

Since we can get hardiness from Wish, and Regeneration from our two beloved druids, we go clean WK2, loads of xp and gold, fighters might even lvl up, they're hardly 100K away from it. Will just make other fights easier.

Chromatic Demon dead, fight itself was real short, 1,5 round or so. Maybe we did it a bit early, could've milked more amber but party was a bit weak to want to stand a fight that long.
Necro had sequencer and spell trigger loaded with ray of fragmentation. As soon as Demon pops, him and Cernd start alacrity, then throw ray of fragmentation x 12 on him and have party focus it with critical hit (he'd deal more overall than the demon anyway, so might as well have him dead asap). While Cernd keeps party heal through mass cure - alacrity, Necro goes for 3xLower Resistance on demon (Amber is dead by that time, party back on it). Rasaad died a fraction of second before a Natural Restoral would hit him, no chunk no problem. Necro then unleash full lvl 3 spells of Vampiric touch, and Cernd goes for unleash energy. Both on demon. He died right when their alacrities went off.

Did that fight now 'cause I wanna take on Green Wyrm (armor = resistance from poison = good vs. assassins). With Cernd and Necro he's a walk in the park.

Indeed it was compared to a Vagrant run. I went a bit full retard there, overconfident. Jaheira and Rasaad died but we just outpowered him.

Sell some stuff, gold is 333k, we go go Cromwell's. We forge :
Ring of Greater Djinni Summoning
Improved Cat Figurine

Hard Nut to Crack 2 : Decided to go full spellpower on this one. Necro and Cernd under alacrity rain their full spellbook on everyone, necro casts comet to give us a few instants of respite and cast easily. We focus Dracandros first, then cleric, then whatever was close to death. Fight was over before our alacrities ended (we had cast it before entering). No healing spells used at all, everyone was full hp at the end. The GR was actually proced from a random assassinator under the assault of our 4 fighters with critical hit, most of our spells hadn't touched their targets yet : p

Well... Bodhi was actually really easy... She didnt last a round, those heavy assaults under alacrity take care of everything, critical hit finish the remaining trash and if something still stands in the way double comet to open a wide place for all our fighters and summons to pound Bodhi in half a round. Rasaad and Mazzy had Protection from Negative Plane, and they didnt even get dispelled. They still had it when last Grandlord fell.
Dunno what I was affraid of.

Tasty XP there ! Bring Lanthorn back, fighters and Cernd lvl up. Now that all fighters got 2 critical strikes and 1 hardiness, we can probably go to Guarded Compound safely.

Let's just visit Cromwell before.

Oh ! I must have found an extra scroll of memory boosting, I can make Memory of the Apprenti ! Too good of an item to pass up.
Also made :
Improved Dragon Helm
Green Wyrm Armor
They both go to Mazzy

We empty bags and get back to 136k

Guarded Compound :

LVL 1 : Hardiness and Regen, was just some cleaning with melees
LVL 2 : Cernd and Necro Alacrity go nukefest. Natural Restoral anytime someone is in bad shape. Necro and Cernd litteraly obliterate Sion in a second as soon as his magic resistance is lowered. Rest was just some random pounding. Fun.

Now I need to at least get 1 Amber to make the GEG fight worth. And I'll actually need 3 more amber chunks if I want hammer of Thor AND Necro quest.
Was easy, 2 spawns including 1 amber. No purge n2. Amber was nuked by necro mostly.
Jhor the bleeder on the loot, and holy scabbard. More money.

While I was expecting to meet Limak, messenger from the keep tells me that Lord Roenall is at the gates ! We run that and right when we are about to face him, Terminsel appears and gives Jaheira a nice amulet (did the whole romance btw, god it's everlasting).

Lord Roenall no problem at all. Nice loot to sell : )

Meet Limak, he was kinda disapointing. Greater Djinni, Noble Spider, Clan Hunter and Smilodonx2 tanked him the whole fight. Used a Natural Restoral from time to time. In the end, Necro under alacrity buffs everyone, breach, pound, dead. He didnt cast anything nasty (a few comets but easy to heal over) and I didn't even bother casting protection from elements and such.

Brewed his brain intae a potion, and made that helmet for Jaheira out of Chaos essence.

Rune Assassins : Party under full buff. We don't summon anything. Necro under alacrity unleashes Trigger, Sequencer, Contengencies of best damaging spells and the rest of his spellbook on assassins while Cernd tries to cast creeping doom on mages.
Every single assassin dies in half a round at most. End of the first round GuildMaster of Assassins was dead fighters under critical hit destroyed him without mercy (he didnt cast hardiness nor PFMW, I think he went for some offensive HLA). Necro dispels mages and debuff one of them, then casts a bunch of anti-golem spells on the golems. Party rushes the breached mage with the same critical hit that killed the Master. Cernd's busy tanking the only remaining Master Assassin. Party finishes golems while Cernd goes Natural restoral on wounded. Korgan uses cat figurine at some point for a GR-like effect. Then they all rush the Master Assassin tanked by Cernd, he's dead. Only 1 mage remaining. He breaches Cernd from scroll. Party gives a shot at him in case his PFMW ran out. It was out. Few seconds later he's dead.
Smoothest time ever here from all my runs.

Sold stuff, gold is 250k. Got a +3 sword for Mazzy's sword, the third scroll of bless I needed for Rasaad's boots, and probably enough for Mazzy's shield too. Gonna see what we can make here.
Forged :
Talisman of Greater Protection
True Sword of Arvoreen +5
Defender of Arvoreen +4

Why is it so cold down here ? : Mazzy, Jaheira and Rasaad immune to slow. Was just like a random encounter with strong enemies. Korgan used free action from cat figurine for the group after NEcro had taken purge for himself. Cernd heals under alacrity, NEcro unleashes spellbook on ice golem.
Was tough, but not hard.

Did WK3 : Tieflings room was quite a problem, until I decided to just obliterate the mage first, waiting for her to cast a spell that is not PFMW. Was uber easy then.

Demon Knights. Tried them without prebuffs due to previous entropic room, and without HLAs, got wiped with their fireball triggers (meh). After a few reloads, decided to buff from another room, went well, Cernd healed too fast for them.

Demon Wraith room : Mazzy being able to restore levels with her lay on hands, we didnt really had problems here. Necro engages with alacrity and buffs the party after the initial dispel magic, we make sure Grandlords are attacking skinned characters. Demon Wraith debuffed and taken care of without any contengency triggered.

WK4 : Cleaned the level and the Illithid level. Nothing worth mentionning but the random golem encounter which proved quite tough. Full buff including pre-hardiness and regeneration. We prevailed, only 3 coin golems spawned, but all these guys hit quite hard. Mazzy and Korgan were on their AC mode to prevent too much dmg from being taken. Not enough skinned characters in for them not to tank some hits (a lot of hits ?), so we made sure we'd share the aggro of all, and Cernd spamming mass cure and Natural Restoral as needed saved the day as usual.

Not gonna do Githyankis' lair for now. It's the fight that scares me the most of the whole mod (had very bad experience on it in my previous runs), so Imma go find some friendly enemies with a lot of valuable items (on the other hand, Necro can probably dispatch the inquisitors efficiently given his spellbook). So we think : Orcus (this guy never was a problem whatsoever with enough scrolls of protection from level drain - I don't think I ever drank a barbarian essence for this fight, and all our casters are protected from silence), Twisted Rune (You'll see me Layenne, ye won't make those twisted friends of yours spawn) and maybe a bit of Suldanessalar (Nizi will be fun with Necro and Cernd - GEG shouldn't be an issue as long as I clean Raskhasas fast). Oh and I might give a shot at Marvella last fight, even though I don't like the debuff part of it.

Sold some stuff and forged :

Harper's Ward
Gracious Steps

Did Marvella Last Fight.

Fight itself was ok. What was NOT ok is that Pasha Mamhoud kept doing crap (such as hitting rashkassas making them proc their AI...) and was dying real fast. Had one attempt almost perfect, killed all Raskhassas and Marilith without problem then "but where is Pasha ?". Meh.
So we had Cernd babysitting him.

As for the fight. Everyone is prebuffed with undispellable things. GS on everyone, Archon on Cernd and Jaheira. Korgan Rages, Rasaad Furry of blows.
We summon Clan Hunter, 2x Smilodons, Noble Djinni, Noble Spider (that's our usual "best summon configuration").

We stack north but Cernd and Jaheira (who might die from the initial ADHWs). As soon as enemies pop, Necro goes south and start alacrity. Cernd stacks alacrity, Jaheira stoneskin. Fighters and summon focus elemental golem for a second (I want Raskhasas to cast something else than AI). As soon as Raskhasas cast whatever they wanna cast, fighters pop critical hit and we geronimo them. Noble falls, Necro ends alacrity casting and IH everyone, then starts RRoR Noble Marilith. Cernd goes Natural Restoral on Pasha ('cause he's not a "great fighter" ! : p Didn't choose that line after the fight, couldn't bear his crappy focus. I give him that he tanked a few hits, for sure) and RRoR Noble Marilith.
1 noble and 1 horrid Rashkassa down, 1 horrid near death. I'm glad I had planned that, Necro had 2 instances of PW : kill. Second Horrid dead. Party refreshes critical hit and down Noble Marilith who was freshly breached. Cernd goes Mass Cure fest and keeps his Natural Restorals for Mr. Pasha. Had to juggle between Abyssal Escorts 'cause our timing on breaches was close to their aura cleansed, so they kept refreshing PFMW (and they're naturally immune to normal weapons if Sikret followed litteraly the usual monster manual). We manage to down one but we had ran out of breaches. Necro disapointed goes for Wish, hoping for a rest.
Since we couldn't kill her right away, figured we might as well kill the elemental golem, who had spawned a gold one. He's down in 1 or 2 rounds and other monsters vanish. Yaaay : D Could've done the rest anyway, Necro 3rd Wish was a rest (he got it after Pasha end dialogue). So we don't need to rest, Necro levels, so does Korgan who takes Smite as HLA. Not always useful, but 2 rounds crits and stun is good vs the biggies. Tbh I hope it'll work on Vaxxal when doing Twisted Rune, this beholder is always the one making my time difficult there.

Scribe Foreknowledge (finally !) Monster Summoning V.

I'm also after a potion of fortitude, last item needed for Korgie axe (which I really, really, really wanna try out !)

Dunno when Old Ones Fight proc, so we sit around the table in the sphere, and take a bit of rest. Notice the Knights of Solmania still standing there, and remember that helping them might bring me an item I need for a certain girdle that might come in VERY handy.

Did the lich in the gates district. Had to rely on double TS + alacrity Wish to make it right. Fighters finish him 'cause his PFMW had ran out during TS, but well.. was kinda tough.

Old Ones Fight : kinda use to this fight, nothing difficult (but to run around Akhatla in order to find a protection from cold scroll I never found yet this run) kinda proud I managed to land the killing blow on 2 of them : )

Morid starts his researd for a new spell, I hope it's a good one (and that my 50k gold and manual of elaboration spent on Limak's brain to get 19 wisdom will make me have some nice cast of it).

Party feels confident 'bout Orcus. Even though we might wanna wait for RVA.

Necro is kinda tired after this Old One fight, he decides to take a well-deserved three days rest in his sphere. After, it's not like an elven city if being assaulted by evil forces led by a powerful exiled in the mean time. We use these 3 days to send Solmanian Knights home "I'll have no vagrants sleeping in my sphere" ! Funny thing is that we were convinced we'd killed some Khollynnus Paac in the past.

RVE scribed, time to tackle some noice fights (Orcus, Twisted Rune)

Forged Girlde of Lordly Might (goes to Mazzy for now, Rasaad might like it at some point), now ahead to Orcus' lair.

Orcus :

Never had real trouble with that fight, and we technically have a good team for it (3 unsilencable casters).
Necro has amulet of Hades, Cernd and Jaheira Archons, Korgan rages, so we just use 2 scrolls of protection from lvl drain for Mazzy and Rasaad.
Every fighter including Jaheira will have at the very least - 20 AC vs. the Grandlords attacks once buffed.
We'll rely on our best summons at start, and Necro will keep loads of troll for the end tanking Orcus. We gamble on 3 Wish spell memorized for a rest, but it shouldn't be necessary.
Everyone has crushing weapons :
Korgan : Crom Fayer
Mazzy : Phosphorus
Rasaad : Fist lover (+4)
Jaheira : Rhynn
Cernd got his improved staff, but he will be probably be busy doing something else than hitting. He still will get a Giant Strength just to fasten Grandlords phase.
Fighters will go in with Hardiness on, and regeneration from the druids (I don't see other spells truly useful there on their lvl 7 anyway, and necro takes care of summoning midfight).

Smite will be nice here against Grandlords : I don't think they can be repelled by the effect, but that's 2 round of critical hit, saving their 2 other critical hits for other phases.

Necro Cernd and Jaheira are loaded with stoneskins.
Necro has a "safety comet" memorized in case someone gets surrounded, and 2 dragon's breath for vampire cleaning. I'll have a 3sunfire trigger and 3fireball sequencer in case our prot. from fire doesn't get dispelled (vampire cleaning always).
Necro won't use Disrupt Undead, lvl 7 slots are mostly used for end summoning. We got enough melee power to dispatch them fast as it is.

Indeed, no reload needed, everything went as planned. Even tried to prevent summons from attacking at the end (so someone could have Orcus as MPV : p ) but for some reason Greater Djinni got the kill, grr.
Really, nothing special. Grandlords wave was dispatched as soon as the first vampire spawned.
Vampires didnt last a round, Necro under alacrity went to refresh Jaheira Prot. from fire (which got dispeled since she had skins on). He then went Malison, Trigger Sunfire x3, Sequencer Fireball x3, Sunfire x3, Fireball x3 while Korgan was lauching Sunfray from the sword that bothers Orcus so much... Sunray did get cast, but they were all already dead.
We sat around for 1 or 2 round while Orcus had proced his PFMW (heh, what else could we do apart hitting him a bit).
Skelies lord spawn 1, dispatched easily. Same for spawn 2. Spawn 3 was kinkier 'cause Orcus just dispelled us all, and Korgan got stunned but heh, we deal with these guys since we're lvl 11 so they were no match.
Then boring time vs. Orcus. Necro summons his army, Mazzy tanks a bit under a refreshed Regeneration from Cernd.
Orcus goes death spell. It's ok we got like 10 more summoning spells at our disposal.
We resummon and get our best summons back (necro has wished for rest, lucky, midfight. Not necessary I was rather hoping for some healing to cover a possibly not aura cleaned Korgan using cat figurine).
They tank the everlasting Orcus PFMW, we even cast regen on the Clan Hunter who grabbed Orcus' attention quite a lot.
Eventually he falls (to Greater Djinni as I said).
Real cosy, real easy. All that for a demon Lord, sigh.
Had 1 scary time when I was drinking my beer, and Orcus sent 3xFoD on Necro. No auto-pause triggered there (no reason to) but we got lucky, Necro saved on all 3 : D
He was aura cleansed and could drink a potion that makes all saves a success anyway. We did that for the rest in case he'd do that again, and pulled a SI : Necromancy over that. Cernd kept aura cleansed for the rest of the fight rdy to Deathward.

Time for Twisted Rune !

I honestly fear this fight, because the first time ever I did it Layenne was quite a kinky one with me and I didnt know what to do.
Will see how this goes. Since I won't need any other protection from lvl drain scroll I might use them here on Mazzy and Rasaad for comfort.

We made it on our first try. But. Oh god. That was ugly.

Started out real well, Necro and Cernd focus fires took Layenne down pretty fast. We had Korgan on the Revanek (fighter), Rasaad on the Shylessa (vampire), Jaheira on Layenne (cause I forgot her there : p didnt see her behind Layenne's buffs effects), rest of the team on Vaxall.
Korgan had Revanek almost dead when Layenne wished for rest (but srsly it takes forever for her to proc it, had time to kill her 5 times, but it's fair game I guess). Then she fell to Cernd flame arrows. Didnt know what to do next really, everything was fine as it was, but I decided to cast Wish. That's what fucked us up.
Necro got TS x 2 + alacrity. Thought "yay that must be good" ! Took it, went Disrupt Undead on Shangalar who had been ruby rayed by Cernd... 61 HP ! (went to ShadowKeeper to check his max hp... I admit it, then made the computation). Couldn't cast PW : Kill ! Crap !
Then figured I'd go Lower Resistance on Revanek and throw him and ADHW or 2. Did that, retreated back from Vaxall's sight and waited end of TS.
Didnt really do much overall. Revanek resisted pretty well, so I had Rasaad who was tanking Shyressa join Korgan on him thinking we could take him down.
Vampire follows Rasaad and finds Cernd... whom Archons shield had been running out. At the mean time he got dispelled and spell-failure debuffed from Vaxall.

"That's when I realized I had fucked up"

All party but some summons staying on Vaxall went for Revanek and Shyressa. Cernd bravely ran away (and survived actually - good thing otherwise I was fucked up even finishing the fight, couldn't raise anyone and too much stuff to loot). Revanek fell, Shyressa took FOREVER to die even though Necro breached through her hardiness and had 3 fighters with critical hit pounding her (might have had been dispelled there so no more IH... can't remember).
Shyressa falls to. Let's go Vaxall. Necro wishes again, PFME for the team, that is good !

Just at the right time, Shangalar went for a dispel magic on all my fighters. Right time cause they took 3xADHW from Vaxall and some spell trigger from Shangalar. We had healed through a few comets and such with cat figurine and regeneration, but there, that was too much.
Everyone dead but Rasaad (full HP, 85ish% Magic resistance).
Rasaad takes full debuff (lower resistance notably) from Shangalar, heals through with potion and Natural Restoral from Cernd (from afar).
Rasaad is affraid, necro cast remove fear. He goes back in and finish Vaxall. Necro was kinky there and try to steal the kill with PW : kill. He got the Vaxall anti-magic ray, yay.
Time for Shangalar. Oh. God. He still has so many PFMW. Nevermind, he doesn't hit hard and his fireshields ran out. Oh. Feared again. Oh, necro under anti-magic. Oh, Shangalar sequencer chaos on Rasaad.
Rasaad attacks Cernd - no more iron skins. Cernd runs for his life.
Necro tanks Rasaad a bit with his own skins.

At this point I really thought we were done. I checked all spells to see if I had a summon somewhere, after all Shangalar had ran out of spell he was auto-attacking everyone for over 3 rounds.

I did forgot to cast Smilodon from Cernd. Go my battlecat ! Go !

Smilodon single-handlely took care of Shangalar.

Now that I think of it, Cernd could've raised someone there. Chunk risky, but could've.
Anyway, they're dead, we loot. Now Mazzy looks much better with that blue armor ! : D

Went by Mrs. Cragmoon in bridge district to sell some stuff. She Happened to have 2 potions of fortitude, and I needed 1 for Korgie axe. Here it comes !

Forge Tireless Rage + 5

We head to Suldanessalar for xp purpose. Shouldn't be too much of a challenge at this stage.

Nizi was rather Neasy. Hardwood still hit hard and we had to kite one of them a bit with Jaheira 'cause insect had removed her skins. Cernd eventually tanked the running one and died of it but we cause dispose of it easily then. Nizi was dead at the start of the fight in a round or two.

GEG and Rakshasas. Kill Rakshasas in the first round after the cast a random spell that is not AI. Rasaad had taken initial purge going left of the room with insane speed. Necro was loaded with golem killing spells, and took a spawning amber all by himself (12 rays + 4 Hands of Undoing). We had 2 gems 1 coin spawning otherwise, nothing real difficult. One extra purge landed on GEG badly hurt but Cernd had alacrity on so he could heal over it, so did necro who could rebuff real fast.
I wish we had more ambers spawning. We lack 2 amber pieces (1 for necro quest, 1 for hammer of Thor).
Yamato + 4 on the loot (goes to Korgan, he has no piercing weapon yet. Not that he needs it but well).

Rest of Suldanessalar was a piece of cake. We go onto the tree and kill 2 parasites.

Forged Lord of The Underworld.

Giths were a nightmare... as usual.

Successful attempt was like 1 hour of micromananing - and a final bit of luck.
The painful part is the supreme leader himself, 'cause anytime I made it to him my resources were depleted.

We ran directly to the golem makers, clearing the door path with a comet and making sure supreme leader would leave us for some time, we summoned Greater Djinni and he kept him busy quite a long time !
Meanwhile, Jaheira and Mazzy on Piercing guy, Rasaad and Korgan on Blunt guy. They were down in a round, and since leader and most of his troups were on Djinni, we sent some helpers (necro skeleton from Lord of the Underworld and Smilodon from Cernd.).

This gave us some time to kill spawned golems (just 1 coin, 1 gem and 2 Lesser summoned) and only 2 anti-inquisitors went our way, other were busy with my summons out of screen at the door with supreme leader. We slash them and clear everything, make sure everyone is buffed and so on. NEcro and Cernd depleted all their lightning spells.
Djinni falls half a round later and Supreme Leader comes in with 2 anti-inquisitors and almost his full army (15ish lesser giths).

Rasaad get chased by Supreme Leader and 1 anti-inquisitor. Jaheira, Korgan and Mazzy take care of the bunch with Necro spamming ADHW on the army which fell fast, leaving them with 1 inquisitor to deal with, the other being on Rasaad south of the room. They kill him fast enough and switch to the one chasing Rasaad with Supreme Leader. Down pretty fast too but Supreme was a pain.

We had used most of our resources keeping 1 critical hit each for Supreme Leader final pounding, but we ultimately ran out of everything and I was like OK... everyone is alive (Cernd died to a comet > PW : kill, raised by Jaheira, then Jaheira died of a heavy focus of supreme, raised by Cernd) but we have no mean of harming the Supreme Leader fast enough, and our Wishes and RVE weren't that Great (had heal party/Hardiness on everyone (good, right when we went for final anti-inquisitor)/Magical Rest (from RVE, but quite early so it just refreshed my lightning spells basically and alcrity, strill something).

Then I remembered I had a scroll of Wish in my scrollbag... Thought that at this point it was worth gambling on it : all the best options went out !!! Including Rest for all !
With their resources renewed, Supreme Leader was no match. We took no risk and used all our best summons while Cernd could finally go into alacrity - heal mode.

Supreme Leader fell.

I both love and hate this fight, but it's extremely satisfying to end it !
This being said it could be done at higher lvl with 2-3 more HLAs, that would be great, but I really wanna sponge all xp I can from WK before takin on Time Machine quest.

Demilich no problem; Cernd refreshes DW at the speed of light. Had 1 reload there 'cause Mazzy got imprisoned, and even after she was freed with Freedom spell, couldn't talk to her to get her back. So we made sure she'd have DW this time and no one got imprisoned : )

Saladrex : prebuffs outside (regen for all and IH mostly. Fire prot. ofc.). Normal weapons pounding with Cernd and Jaheira unleashing Creeping Doom x 8 after Necro had thrown his trigger 3x Lower Resistance and sequencer malison/dispel magic/acid arrow (lel).
No problem here. Korgan died to the 3ADHW 'cause he was kinda hurt when it proced.

On the loot : Foebane, Staff of Ram (Jaheira claims it !)

Ancient Dragon was much much more annoying than expected.
Not that I couldn't kill him, but he had this annoying tendency to chunk someone with firebreath anytime I was getting close to his death (after his unstoppable heal while virtually immortal).

We eventually got him, but a wish for rest was somehow necessary.

Forge Ancient Dragon Armor

Did the sphere Room, letting the tier 3 and 4 of golems, and tier 4 of undeads.

Nothing worth mentionning. Apart of a funny barbecue time with vampires, necro killed em all but masters (badly injured) with 8 dragon breath and 12ish sunfires and fireballs. Korgan went under rage to finish masters, getting a natural restoral when needed.

Now I must be careful with golems because I want at least 2 ambers to spawn.

The 2 ice golems + EG were extremely easy. We were prepared well, Jaheira Rasaad and Mazzy immune to slow. We had very luck wishes. No problem at all we just went full reard pounding and no healing was used (we had regeneration on).

UG and GEG. We took GEG down fast, letting Rasaad take the initial purge and procing his hardiness right after, he's gonna tank a bit.
We had Clan Hunter, Smilodon, Greater Djinni, Noble Spider and Skeleton Lord. Everyone under regeneration and usual buff sequence. We also had a very lucky +50% HP on party from RVE (Korgan reaching 320 HP).
GEG spawns a coin pretty fast, we ignore it.
Then 2 ambers spawn. NEcro take 1 down under alacrity (and realizes he should've picked some vampiric touches, would've made all that easier). GEG is down pretty fast (hardly 2 rounds).
We face Ultra, 1 amber, 1 coin. Necro had spellbook loaded with wishes, so he eventually get 1 wish for rest. He made sure he was under alacrity the whole fight.
At some point Cernd grabbed the attention of the remaining amber and kept him for the whole fight.
Ultra purged 3 or 4 times, including a final purge on his death. He had time to spawn an extra amber (that makes it 3, we needed 2 so all right).

Was a good fight. Quite tedious due to the unexpected damage that may come at any time, but we prevailed. Cernd had Natural Restoral when needed, and used cat figurine at a time when all fighters were badly hurt, making it worth the shot. Here is the point where I realize even more Greater Restoration is hardly needed. It's not that reliable and hardly useful but for a general heal, though if u position well u know most of the time who's gonna get hit. Cat Figurine is enough imo to compensate it, and for the very endgame, upgraded Hindo's Doom will add another clickie.

We got Usuno's Blade on the loot. Seems like someone is gonna have some endgame Hammer soon : )
We are extremely careful while taking down final ambers, they still do hurt !

Forge Hammer of Thor (had to wander to all my usual stores, had sold celestial fury to someone. Was Deirdre). & Girdle of Cloud Giant Strength



We didn't have a look at the party since Spellhold, so here at is !

Necro lvl 25 - 122 HP - AC (-13) - MPV : Amber Golem (sling of Everard +5 and Staff of Rhynn +4). Total Kills : 5% (game) 18% (chapter) (All HLAs)

Korgan lvl 28 - 203 HP - AC (- 14) - MPV : Green Wyrm ( Hammer of Thor, Short Sword of Mask - Tireless Rage off-hand). Total Kills : 26% (game) 17%(chapter) HLAs : 2Hardiness 5Critical Hit 1Smite

Mazzy lvl 27 - 162 HP - AC (-22) - MPV : Ancient Dragon (True Sword of Arvoreen, Phosphorus, Angurvadal +4 - Defender of Arvoreen +4) Total Kills : 16% (game) 13% (chapter) HLAs : 2Hardiness 4Critical Hit 1Smite

Rasaad lvl 28 - 178 HP - AC (-20) - MPV : Limak the Mastermind. (using fists most of the time. Still has bone dagger +4 and scarlet ninja-to +3 just in case) Total Kills : 27% (game) 32% (chapter) HLAs : 2Hardiness 5Critical Hit 1Smite

Jaheria lvl 26 - 134 HP - AC (-7) - MPV :Greater Elemental Golem (Impaler +3, Staff of Ram +4) Total kills : 16% (game) 15% (chapter) HLA : Perform Ritual, Critical Hit x 5 Globe of Blades, Storm of Vengeance, 1Natural Restoral, Smilodon

Cernd lvl 27 - 106 HP - AC (-2) - MPV : Firkraag (Oak of the Hight Forest +4). Total kills : 5% (game) 1% (chapter) HLA : 3Natural Restoral 3Fists of Naturel Smilodon, Globe of Blades, Storm of Vengeance, Implosion, Energy Blades

We can see there how Rasaad definitely outrange anyone in term of actual damage, given his percentage of kills, while Mazzy and Korgan remain quite close to each other, a good picture of Mazzy actual dps in comparison to a fully damage oriented berserker. Jaheira is not at rest with her 15%.
Necro really shined in terms of damage for chapter 6, where he made some fights all by himself under alacrity.

We tried the 4 grave liches. Thing is, Cernd could dispel them, so it wasn't that hard.
Necro starts foreknowledge and mental agility. He insta casts 8 RRoR and Cernd goes dispel.
Then it was just a matter of pounding (without haste) while Cernd was raining dispel magic. It was working 50% of the time.
Last lich managed to kill Jaheira and Rasaad, but no chunk so we were good.
Wasn't as tough as expected.

Did the three WK5 key fights.
Only Azamantes is worth mentioning. Made sure he was surrounded by our best summons, RRoRed a few times and sent Rasaad to help our helpers. He cleaned 2 grandlords and GBG by himself, then Cernd casted repetedly dispel magic. WOrked eventually so Rasaad managed to get Azamantes almost dead and to use his 3ADHW (while our monk as 98% magic resistance).
1 Grandlord and 1 GEG spawned then, Rasaad dispatched them again and after another sucessful dispel we sent full party on Azamantes : dead.

Open the final seal, and decide to keep Demogorgon for later. I really want to try to win this fight this run.

Time for Time Machine quest !

Battle vs. Force done without reloads ! No one died, we got some close calls but we got somehow lucky on wishes (which necro was loaded with).
Balor wave was mostly made thanks to a smite for all fighters, and a -5 casting speed on necro breaches, along with Cernd under alacrity refreshing DW (he only had to do it once, but he was rdy to pull 2 more). Necro took a few FoD without protection but he saved on them so all right.

As for battle vs. force itself, I guess critical hits did the trick, and notably Hammer of Thor procing for some 40ish dmg every round, which helped tremendously.
We kept refreshing remove fear through necro.
Only necro got stunned during the fight, right after first wave of GBG so we temporized a bit there so we could have him back for 2nd wave.
Mazzy was feared at some point but Jaheira grabbed her back with remove fear.

Force fell pretty fast once all the GBG were dead (necro got us a lucky regeneration on party there, making the cleaning trivial).
We didnt rely much on IH here 'cause of the purges, but it wasn't needed.

Quite an easy time as opposed to my usual runs here. This being said party is of a MUCH higher level than I usually do this at, so good saves helped (Necro had 0 on saves vs. death when he was fully debuffed during Balor wave).

We come back to primary plane, and we say farewell to Cromwell after some craft. Forged :

Carmine Ioun Stone
Gauntlets of Devastating (they're not THAT much of an improvement from their crushing version, but we had extra gold).

Now Rasaad hits for 2D10 + 25 with 8 APR (undispellable) : )

We had forgotten to do Lady Vanya second quest, so we do that real quick. Not a challenge tbh.
We also went to clean some noble trolls in North Forest. Necro under alacrity raining a full repertoire of fire-based spells. Cleaned them all in a quarter of a round - decent extra xp.

Went back to Suldanessalar, Irenicus is to be taken care of.
Hardwood golems hit real hard, and we had 4 of them (thought they were 3, maybe higher level than usual ?). Had a reload there, Jaheira got chunked.
Had to raise Mazzy on the second try, they do hit hard and summons don't last long vs. them.

Hell challenges and final battle. We went Balor > Death Knight > Marilith (Noble first) > Elemental golem (spawned 1 coin) > Slayer Irenicus. Party took a 3ADHW unprotected but everyone survived, we had +50% HP on party.

TOB starts ! PC is at 7 071 676 XP

Illasera was Quick enough, didn't even notice Korgan killing her, thought she was some trash mob.
I used to struggle a bit in this fight, but with alacrity and casting time -5, mage was down real fast after fighters had taken care of northern druid.
No challenge there.

Did first pocket plane challenge.

Forge Enchanced Oak of the High Forest +5

Saradush minor quests, clear the sewers too (Devil Shades quite annoying)

Gromnir was no match to our team. Prebuffs were overkill.
Jaheira and Cernd took care of soldiers joining the fight under Globe of Blades, Aura of Flaming Death and various other buffs, helped by necro under alacrity. Fighters took care of Il-Khan ancestor and necro debuffed the mage on the right real fast, sliced in seconds by our fighters once they were done with the ancestor.
By that time Soldiers were dead and Gromnir was on Jaheira (under iron skins). Fighters come and destroy Gromnir while rest summons stuff to keep Karun the Black busy.
He tried to nuke necro under alacrity at some point, but his damage was laughable and necro was hardly lightly hurt (he was regenerating over that anyway with almost 300 HP : +50HP on party and he went for some vampiric touches on a summoned salamander).
We went safe for Karun the Black. Summoned kept making him pop his PFMW, when his 2 SIs had ran out, Rasaad went in with critical hit to finish him. No ADHW, maybe Rasaad dealt too much or it didn't cast since he has 100% magic resistance.

We go back to our pocket plane and forge :

Ixil Spike + 6 => Jaheira
Staff of Ram + 6 => Jaheira
The Truth + 5 => Goes to Mazzy, an actually good dps alternative to her dedicated sword (+1 to THAC0 with it and same APR - I might make her dual-wield those on easy fights)

I'm considering giving a shot to Demogorgon... Party got 6 critical strike + Smite, Necro has loads of spells and even on a higher level we won't have much more stuff to display there.
Never managed this fight before so it will probably take some reloads. I intend to use a few barbarian essences too. Just used 2 on dracolich so far.

Actually went for Yaga-Shura temple and killed Nyalee. Killed skeletons lord forever cause he ghould had been cometed away during the fight, didn't notice it. No problems there. Everyone got another level.

Time for Demogorgon !

Demogorgon's too strong. Could manage 4-5 followers out of 6, but I couldn't help but getting surrounded by (extremely strong) summons... This could be manageable with lucky wishes, maybe, but... ourgh.
We decided to read the scroll : p

Yaga-Shura seemed easy in comparison.
We went full buff including RVE Regeneration & 50% HP party.

Mages bodyguards were taken down first, we didnt need to debuff them, team damage was enough to kill them before they could cast PFMW (but the last one, necro debuffed him under alacrity to be safe).
Most of the fight happened on the bridge, and then Yaga-Shura propelled someone on the arrival spot so we fought him near the bridge there. Avoided too many propelling.
We changed Cernd spellbook midfight so he'd have some implosions (7). Necro sucessufly wished for rest, so Yaga could be hold most of the fight thanks to those implosions. They really helped a lot.
Didn't feel like the party was in any real danger, Yaga-Shura surrounded. Given the spot, maybe we didn't fight all the Elite Fire Giants as intended (IIRC we killed 2, maybe 3).
Guards coming his way were dealt with under alacrity with a double ADHW.
He fell to a blow from Clan Hunter.

Oasis went quite ok.
Necro starts alacrity, Cernd summons Djinni near Jamis, fighters proc hardiness, Jaheira goes for a Storm of Vengeance hoping to bother their casters a bit.
Necro buffs under alacrity while fighters destroy whatever comes near for the first round, while Djinni is being surrounded and tanks decently.
Cernd goes alacrity while Necro starts debuffing mages, and a breach on priests. Then nukefest from Necro and Cernd (after a 2xLower resistance on both mages).
1 mage and 1 Priest fall, the remaining 2 they are to be finished when our fighters go in. Necro manages to pull a regeneration on party. When all their casters are dead, the situation is as follow :

Cernd tanks 2 gems near the arrival spot.
Necro tanks one south
Korgan (who got stunned/propelled on north wall) ends up with 2 gem golems. He takes them down by himself during the fight.
Jaheira, Mazzy and Rasaad take down golems at the speed of light (like, almost 2 golems per round, if not more). They're soon joined by Korgan. Jamis was ignored during this phase.
We clean remaining golems tanked by our casters, then we enter the boring "Jamis immune to damage" phase, temporized with our remaining summons (Trolls, Clan Hunter, Smilodons, Skeleton Lord as needed).
We clean the remaining pikemen and go for some wonderful looting session.

On our way to Amkhetram, we got some bags to empty ! : )

We pretty much emptied everything, we won't forge a lot of stuff after this crafting session.
We have roughly 500k gp

Forged :

Improved Ring of Gaax
Cloak of Arcane Imortality
2 x cloak +2
1 x ring +2

Everyone got at least a +2 item on slots (ringx2 and cloak), only optimization possible at this point would be a +4 ring for Cernd(or)Necro and Rasaad. And yet it wouldn't grant him more AC, just +2 to saves (he has a standing -23). +3 might do at all since I really don't see what else I could forge, and the upgraded version of vanilla weapons are real good.
It's pretty nice not to have a 2-hander around, saves a lot of money (Poseidon, Dragon Halberd, Warblade and so on).

We'll probably go for Abazigal first, he shouldn't be hard at all with a Necro protagonist, conjointed with Cernd.

Draconis (both forms) was taken care of with 3RRoR/Breach/Lower Resistance then nuking from Necro and Cernd with flame arrows (alacrity ofc). Fighters helped a bit with critical strike, no problem whatsoever.
Same went for Abazigal... was not really epic. He was dead in half a round in his dragon form.

We forged flail of ages +5, actually better than phosphorus for Mazzy, and we gave her a third star in two-weapons fighting, her shortsword is a good off-hand weapon too : )

Time for Sendaï !

I remember drow barracks to be quite a chaotic mess from my previous run with vagrant. Here it went smoother than I could imagine.
Necro under foreknowledge and alacrity goes Dragon's breath x6, sunfire x8. Rasaad uses Cat Figurine for free action on all. Cernd rains cures under alacrity.
No one got str-punctured with the bolts, drows were falling like flies while fighters were going full retard under critcal hit.
No problem at all.

Tunnels (both) : spiders were no match to our Free Action from cat figurine. No way to dispel us and those who could were dead with Dragon's Breath and ADHW under alacrity from Necro. Army of Derros was cleaning with sunfires under alacrity, followed by 6 Dragon's Breath focused on the general (or whatever his name was). Everything clean and fast.

Drow ambush : Dragon's Breath x8 under alacrity, then debuff/pound mage.

Odamaron : at this point, he was no threat. We just endured him as long as we could (he ran out of PFMW scrolls at the end). Jaheira got imprisoned but Necro had scribed Freedom a long time ago so no problem.
We kinda sponged all xp we could from this fight, not that it was truly intended, we just didnt manage to kill the lich before. Didn't count how much spawning there was, but fight lasted 30-40 rounds easily (according to the number of times Korgan used Berserker rage). We were in no danger even without buffs. Necro had a very lucky +50% HP on party as first RVE, then he just used RVE once (regen) and a wish at some point which (wish ? : p) happened to be a greater restoration right when we could use it.
No one got scared because of bone golems. Korgan got stunned once but Rasaad countered that with a cat figurine free action. Spawns were killed on the spot by Mazzy (FoA +5 - True Sword of Arvoreen off-hand) Korgan (Rune Hammer + 5 - Crow Fayer off-hand) and Rasaad (fisting maching).

Fight was more of a flavour than anything, it didn't feel like Odamaron stood a chance on the long run (fighters had 4 critical hits each at the end of the fight, no wish for rest. Necro 4/5 wish remaining in spellbook).

I checked on my auto-save before entering Odamaron's lair : everyone made around 130k XP on this fight (but Jaheira who was imprisoned in the middle of it).

Duel with the captain : no problem. Contengency PFMW on sight. Necro casts alacrity, foreknowledge, Lower Resistance x 3 (could've stocked a trigger there nvm) then 10xchromatic orb 8xAcid Arrow. He's dead.

Let the Beholder go (he's too funny to be killed and if I need a few more xp to get a lvl before EDE I'll go murder some people in Amkhetram).
Forged :

Short Sword of Mask + 5 : goes to Korgan
Angurvadal + 5 : goes to Mazzy (might be useful to dual-wield longswords vs. those web golem, slashing is good vs. them IIRC).

Ouch, Sendaï hurts. 1st phase is ofc not a problem. Getting her pet out of the way is ok. Web Golems are NOT ok. Only Mazzy and Korgan have a decent dmg output with slashing. Rasaad divides his APR by 2 using Hindo's doom, and his dmg is terribly gimped too. Jaheira could dual-wield Water'sEdge +4 (i'd have to forge it. it's ok) and maybe spectral brand +5 (which I'll have to buy back, that's ok too). I'll have to go into some forging session if I want that, I don't see any other way to deal with those web golems.
Ideally I could have Rasaad kiting 1 golem... Ideally. It's not like he can tank 1 (unless he drinks 2 barb essences... I might do that actually).

So far the tactic was : we enter slightly buffed and truly buff only when we got 1 statue alive (it's a rogue 1), rest cleaned.
Everyone positions so that we can take the spider down at her spawn (so no extra spawn nor web if we're lucky) and Cernd procs Improved Cat figurine free action just in case.
Then we take pet down (that one goes down fast enough, 2-3 rounds max - Jaheira Ixil's spike +6, Mazzy with her sword, Korgan with Shortsword of Mask +5). I'll make sure (once we have our needed items) that Rasaad grabs a golem or two. His superior movespeed should be safe enough, and he'll have drunk 2 barb essence, with Cernd rdy to go regeneration on him when needed.

Once well-buffed, Jaheira reaches 10 standing APR with -25 THAC0 main-hand (so - 20 off-hand) for 3 rounds (spectral's brand pierce armor ability). That should add some web golem destroying power : )

Sold the stuff we had found in Abazigal and Sendaï's lairs. Gold is back to 160k or so.

Forged :

Spectral Brand +5
Water's Edge + 4
Boots of Speed (they go to Cernd, he was the only one without a hasting item)

Cernd also memorized some extra Disco Blades (Energy Blades, right ?). That's slashing. Slashing is good. We want slashing dmg.

So does Jaheira in case she has to retreat or if i wanna use her from far away.

1st try with new items : We managed to take 1 down and get the other to badly injured, when Sendaï casted a comet on a held Korgan in very bad shape : chunk (Mazzy and Rasaad had died at some point, but Mazzy just got revived, rdy to go again (her lay on hand is awesome after a revive btw)). Mazzy was just an instant away from healing Korgan was lay on hand. Might have managed the fight then.
But those golems... ouch ! This fight is definitely easier with Vagrant, as he can tank one by himself with Judgment Day.

Thing is, I'm pretty sure these 2 web golems could take EDE down just by themselves : p I have this feeling sometimes that some enemies would take extremely hard encounters all by themselves while they are just random adds to a harder boss. I mean, that's the way of immunities but lord ! They're stronk !
Strategy seems legit however, even though we had some pretty lucky Wishes - RVE so far (but 1 wish with only bad incomes. Best one was party loose 10k gp - feels weird with 21 wisdom).

Also noticed that those golems reduce crushing resistance, and I can't afford drinking too much barbarian essences if I want to manage EDE.

I am also in a run with Bioware NPCs only. My team is:
- Necro
- Minsc (finally he is good in IA)
- Rasaad
- Jaheira
- Cernd
- Valygar

I was thinking to change Jaheira to Mazzy but I still do not save Mazzy, so I think it is too late. I also like her summon and when Jaheira is buffed, she is really awesome. My party level is now between 10 and 12. Until now I had no issue with my party performance.

XP gain should be adjusted to be more flexible so it's never too late. Keldorn is definitely for more experienced players since some encounters that feature paladin turning might become painful.

would it be that whenever an NPC join to the party it's XP is equal with the protagonist XP? This way you can freely change party memeber whenever you like to do. But maybe it is too power gamer.

True dat, it's among the challenges I want to try out. In case it's truly too painful, I'll possibly grab Valygar instead (who would make good use of STR-boosting 1-handed such as Crow or Phospho) but apart from his lvl 3 kit spell that happens to be a life saver sometimes, he kinda bores me as a character.
Might also try Korgan, love the character (+ with Mazzy along I'm in for some nice banters), maybe Jan or even Neera, even though I'd like some melee power since I kinda lack of it overall (no grandmastery nor kensai or riskbreaker).

Which character would you recommend instead of Keldorn ? (I'd like to avoid Minsc and Valygar, I had em for almost all my runthroughs)

Korgan should be a beast with his newly introduced axe(I mean tireless rage) + Mazzy's greater malison on hit and her shield. They're almost destined to be used as a team! (Not to mention those great banters ). Axe + some blunt weapon will work wonders for him, trust me.

I tried the Rukh Conjurer in Firkraag's lair but I have no chance again him. I think it should be doable at this level but I have too much difficulties. I will wait until my necro can cast IH.

I think I've only done it on initial join, but this scenario could be implemented as well.


Korgan is fun. Rasaad is good too (monks are cool), but he's even more boring than Valygar.

I'm right at the end of Planar Sphere, before the engine room. Will probably do Nizi + Shadelord next and then go for Kangaxx liches, ranger stronghold, Screaming Statue, Samia party and maybe some Bard, Fighter stronghold so that I almost reach the Spellhold cap.

Only made Phosphorus so far (which on the long term is not THAT of a good purchase since I'm not even sure someone will wield it endgame). Anyway, I was wondering which items i should make before Spellhold.

So far I thought (estimating 350k before sailing for SpellHold) :

- Circlet of Golden Flowers for Cernd
- Jaheira gloves (?) - already made them tier1 but I think investing 1 permanency scroll for an extra +2 APR (IH) is worth.

I won't make :

- Amulet of Charon (only place I foresee needing immunity to silence is dracolich... and he is immune to breach anyway + I can have immunity to level drain on someone else than necro this way)

Items I might make :

- Cernd cloak (+4 to saves is + 4 to saves, period)
- Water's Edge (heeeh, what for actually ?)

Realizing most items I'm after are post spellhold crafts. Sounds like I'll make some +2 cloaks and rings, they can't hurt.

If ye guys got advices I'm in for some.

I used to go for cloaks/rings since many party members could benefit from it. Getting Cernd's stuff might be worthwhile if he's your main caster.

Thought so indeed, and extra spells on Cernd are indeed quite a boost given his kit.

Another question, what's the ideal xp to leave to SpellHold with ? Was aiming for some 2 100 000 but I really don't wanna face the Improved Asylum.

2M-2.1M should be OK, I think. Some people pushed it even further. 2M is definitely safe.

Went with 2.09, but with the exp per character Necro reached 15 and got Improved Asylum. Did the first area with it, in a cheesy way admitedly (see journal, ctrl + f "crushing trap"), then found the variable I should switch to 0... Cheat it is, definitely, but I was terribly underleveled for these improved enemies, and was not intended (just 20k over the limit, which didnt help anyone at all, Cernd would have gotten 14 anyway with potion).
My ignorance calls for a "fair enough", though I did use Shadowkeeper heh : )

AFAIR your MAIN character has to be ovr 2.35M OR 15lvl for improved asylum, other characters don't matter, so Cernd could quaff the potion without triggering it. You could also leave your main character on lvl 14 even after he leveled up And don't worry, we all have improved asylum, so avoiding it when your main is still not above 2.35M is 100% acceptable using any means necessary (I used shadow keeper the first time I played IA)

Make sure you keep a save game before using the Shadowkeeper. It was wonky and there has been known for messing up a few other things inadvertently. It's always safer to switch the responsible variable manually in the game console.

In fact 2.09 Mxp, with a party of 6, is ok for spellhold cap regarding XP cap (2.35 MXP for protag when meeting imoen in asylum)
From memory, upper limit is something like 2.230 MXP before leaving for spellhold for a party of 6, doing all quests in spellhold

Regarding level, your protag should not be 15 or more if you want to avoid improved spellhold. Which means for a necro protag for example that if you reach 2.15 Mxp (IIRC), DO NOT trigger level-up!!!! (a level 14 necro with 2.2 MXp meeting imoen does not trigger improved spellhold, a 2.2 Mxp level 15 necro will)

hope I'm clear, sorry if answer comes too late. I think what happens to you was to trigger level 15 on Necro before Imoen meeting.

True, it's either the XP threshold or character level.

I think it would be a good idea to include this info into the readme. There is a hint there but I think precise info would be a big help to someone who do not read this forum.

Yes you are definitely clear : ) I'll take that into account for my next run - I just shouldn't have triggered my lvl up. Just finished Irenicus and Asylum Scouts battle, don't wanna go through Spellhold again.

Just finished Sahuagin city, and I was thinking it's kinda weird given the "act good" incentive of IA, that killing the prince instead of helping him is much more rewarding. Could there be a way to improve the King as well ? On the other hand, I guess most IA players being greedy for experience end up killing them (and so do i definitely. but I was mostly thinking about the gauntlets the king gives as reward...).


Another random idea : instead of rincing elemental portals of all their elemental experience, what about some elemental prince spawning with lackeys or so ? Not really for experience or true challenge, but just for the flavour. Feels kinda lame to just go spawn-cleaning for hardly 30k xp each. I'd rather fight 1 stronger enemy for the same amount.

Korgan will probably get that new axe asap, though it requires Kiel's Morningstar and I never ever found it in one of my run ? Any tips on its possible location(s) ?

SPOILER!


if it's not there you can probably CLUA it in, there was a bug that I fixed but it is in the internal build

Somehow felt like it should be there indeed.

SPOILER!

I think SPOILER!

SPOILER!

Tanks for the tips !

Got another tactical question. Was thinking of going for improved flesh armor on Korgan. Is it worth it (thinking +4 saves and magic resist mostly), or should I skip it and wait for some good dragon armor ?

As I see it, AC will get irrelevant at some point and the bonuses this grant are truly viable, or was this item made for barbarian purposes ?
I guess it's a decent call, I just would like your opinion 'bout it.

For role playing purposes giving Korgan some heavy armor would be really fitting. Also AC is vital for whole game, skeleton grandlords (they have only like 1/5 chance for critical hit), spiders which dispel on hit, golems(GEG also can dispel on hit and their hits hurt badly, especially right after dispel).

Human flesh is IMO the best armor you can wear for EDE because you need constant -5 saves against Prince's shield, but other than that - it's situational, if you have spare money you can certainly invest in that! Or just go with non-IA-upgraded Human Flesh, it still has most of the benefits.

Pink Korgan is priceless.

That's something I like about IA. Best armor items make you look like you just went to some gay pride, instead of the usual badass looking crap. No harm meant ofc ! I love it : )

Hahh yeah, that pink Vagrant for example is epic!

I'd love to read more about Mazzy, how do you like her, her class and how useful are her items since you have already forged them. Please tell me when you test that stuff enough

So far I just did WK3 and some encounter in WK4 with her new stuff, in addition to Why is it so cold down here ?
Her damage is definitely viable, but she shines pretty much like Valygar, not as a full brutish dmg dealer like RB or Kensaï, but rather as a mobile and single target saver/buffer when needed. She's immune to pretty much anything that might be an annoyance (due to permanent free action. At this state of the game it's simply golden !).

When it comes to Why is it so cold down here, she was obviously quite awesome, since we was immune to slow. However, so where Jaheira (Combat Trance) and Rasaad (monk, obv.), so the encounter, even if quite dangerous, was made pretty much trivial (full retard dps, Cernd heals as he can, didn't need to think much more).

She's tanking quite decently overall, -20 unbuffed AC with shield for now, 10% undispellable dmg resistance (shield too).

Where I found her the most useful, however, is to compensate the lack of cleric in my party. Her lay on hands (on higher lvls) is like a single target greater restoration, and since she's in the middle of the fray anytime, she pretty much brings the utility of an Improved Natural Restoral, making her - to my taste - very complementary with a dual druid party (Cernd and Jaheira as it is).

Thought more than once "as for Bioware NPCs party goes, she'd make a great pair with Valygar too, making your group ready to fight back whatever debuff or annoying state they must face".

Last but not least, since IA forces you to be as kind as possible (20 reputation and so), she keeps saying how happy she is in banters, so I can't complain : )

More to come about her when I'll face enemies on which greater malison from her sword will have a potent effect (only had golems and fast skirmishes so far).

Dunno if that's intended but I might have found a little bug : On the website, Mazzy's improved shield includes sentinel in its recipe. Made her shield but I still have Sentinel in my inventory (payed that 40k or so : p).
If it's not included I might drop it somewhere and give me the gold back through CLUA, had no reason to buy it but for Mazzy's shield.
If it is indeed supposed to be included, then Cromwell didn't make it disapear when crafting.

It should disappear. We'll fix that in next release, thanks for spotting it!

Had a question about the Disrupt Undead spell : for it to work, does it requires the caster to perform a successful hit ? 'cause when I use it, it feels like it works 1 times over 3.

Had this time with the Gate Grave Lich, where I wanted to go full debuff and then unleash DU, but it would never hit. Had to Wish for double TS and alacrity to actually hit 2 (over 9 !) DU casted. Thing his, lich PFMW had ran out so fighters finished it, but heh, nothing in the spell description says it should include a successful hit, apart from "the caster performs a touch".

Both disrupt undead and hand of undong require you to touch the enemy as the spell is cast and they have high casting time, so enemies can either interrupt you or simply move away from caster and the spell won't work.

that's probably a bug, will be fixed at some point in the near future

With a necro, I always enjoyed (in my former runs) destroying grave lich solo (alacrity was enough with amulet, MOtA and under foreknowledge)
Some things I remember that could break this, meaning wasting DU spells were:
- not being protected from fire/cold, so lich shields backlashing DU did cause failure (interrupting spells),
- not removing SI: Nec (which is cast by lich after inititial SI:Abj and ST dispelled), this makes DU non efficient,
- being a victim of larloch Interrupter (even during alacrity this can interrupt spells), IIRC TS does not affect hostile LI, result is most spells interrupted.
Are you sure you were not victim of one of those? (Shields which caster is not protected from or LI do interrupt most of spells you cast under alacrity)

DU was never interrupted by PFMW (or any hit protection) AFAIK.

Nah, made sure everything was dispelled. Had to reload a few times there 'cause I couldn't get it right (double TS + alacrity made the day). Usual sequence was (Cernd & Necro under alacrity) :
Cernd : RRoR
Necro : RRoR
Cernd : RRoR
Necro : Spellstrike
Cernd : RRoR
Necro : goes for lich (under PFMW, Prot. Fire, Prot. Cold and other buffs) and start casting DUs.

Pretty much overkill (AFAIK 2 RRoR are enough to dispel SI : Necromancy on Grave lich and I could even start Spellstrike it'd do it, but with 1 casting time I didn't care)

I kept checking combat info and there was no "spell interrupted" or "spell ineffective". Just "Necro cast DU".

Hence me thinking it requires a successful hit, which SparrowJacek seems to agree on.

Even tried with GS and Tenser on Necro so his THAC0 would be better (he had -4). Didn't work much better though.


Thing being, during Old One fight, Necro was always hitting his DU, no matter what. Was 8/8 against 2/9 vs. gates lich.

OK, I am at a loss, should be some bug, gate lich should not react different than other graves , no reason for me that you score 8/8 on old one fight and 2/9 on gate grave...
Casting DU with no effect only happens IIRC when casting it on an non-undead or immune (dracolich!) enemy

At some point, I thought it might be some v7.2 change, but Old One fight made me change my mind. I really had many reloads on the gates lich, and I was always unable to hit her most of the time.
We took her down eventually, but it bothers me not to have an actual tactic for every strong enemy in the game. And liches are my terror. Hate' em with all my heart (probably just because I can't breach' em).

Maybe just a bug, but I remember having the same difficulties on my previous Vagrant run, on a very, very melee-oriented party (Vagrant, Barbarian, RB, Jaheira, R/C-dual, Neera) and while Neera had enough to take her down the way my necro intended to, we were forced to be patient and melee her out.

Felt weird to go 5-10 reloads on a random caster, while Orcus was almost a walk in the park a few moments later. (a long walk, but a walk still)

Between Necro Time Machine quest and Githyankis' lair in WK4, which one is supposed to be the hardest given my party ?

I'd say Time Machine (We got enough crit. hit and Cernd + Necro can unleash so much lightning spells vs inquisitors. In no time with that) but I'd like your opinion : )

I would say the same (though my memories are from long ago). For Gith lair Cernd and Necro can make space very fast to reach final room, and then execute anti-inquisitors fast, you have quite decent fighting power...

For time machine, I always have a nightmarish moment with balors, if you have a feedback of this fight with your party I'm quite interested. Last fights with greater bone golems, mazzy should be of great help (Necro and cernd might suffer from laugh and awakening them should change the tide then)

Gonna try Giths right now : )

I love even more Mazzy right now. I find her kit extremely balanced (unlike some others), with a great equilibrium between melee power and utility, and even tankiness. Paladins might get quite interesting by being reworked in regards to her kit (which went the other way rather AFAIK). In other games she'd be refeered to as some kind of utility/tank, which is kinda what a paladin is supposed to be to me.

I find quite ironical that they get so nerfed in IA in comparison to other kits (not even mentioning the turn undead thing) while the game pushes you to be as good as possible (unnecessary slaughters for xp excepted of course : ) ).

The armor of faith implemented on the shield is an amazing idea, totally fits the character (and paladins in general) - if she was even more of a damage dealer I'd even find her sword too powerful, giving permanent Free Action for ToB and some hard fights, but that's her point I guess. (un)Fortunately, most powerful enemies are immune to greater malison, so it's more of a +5 shortsword giving free action.

I'm thinking of some mix of Mazzy's kit and Avenger (giving those clerical spell making the druid a real beast in fight) that could bring some decent paladin thing - at the price of their immunities maybe ?
Might give it some thoughts.

A paladin with access to clerical spells up to lvl 6 (why not 7) but gaining them at a REAL slow rate could be interesting for runs without a cleric - while being nerfed HLA-wise maybe. Maybe statwise too.

Just random ideas, but Champion of Arvoreen is the most balanced kit I've played in IA so far (Necro being considered as a kit for the stupid amount of overpowered items he gets - not complaining here - and Vagrant is... vagrant but he's got too much in his inherent kit by itself).

And since R/C is a very much played character, his main advantage for most of the game being iron skins (I also think of high lvl dispel and early access to lvl 7 druid spells), I'd find interesting to work out a kit for Viconia for example, or Aerie, so that there would be a bioware character able to do what a R/C does (Anomen comes to my mind of course but no iron skins makes all the difference).
Viconia being a priest of Shar IIRC, she could have some illusion/darkness based spells, and maybe shadow-like summoning as innate improving with levels.

In a nutshell, something Avenger-like, but cleric/divine-oriented (which makes me go back to that paladin idea).

Just ideas, just wanted to write them down somewhere. (even though this is a discutable place to do so).

I really wonder - are those giths really that difficult? I usually got debuffed pretty quickly(torturous inquisition?) and my casters were useless so I just hacked and slashed those inquisitors, but had no problems with that. Lesser force on the other hand - really frustrating, did that quest only once, but defeating those balors was immensely fun after I figured out how to do that!

Paladins aren't really that nerfed compared to some other classes - thieves(apart from swashie) and bards(I used skald and monk before he was reworked in one of my games - was really interesting!) not to mention pure clerics. It's extremely hard to balance everything at once, that is why each IA release introduces some changes - it gradually moves towards better balance but it takes tons of time and sadly we don't have that resource any more(not to mention manpower).

Thinking of ways to improve certain classes/kits is entertaining and if you have some ideas - please share them

And great to hear that you like Mazzy's kit that much! Critto did really good job introducing this composition of skills for her as I see! (I have yet to start a run with her in party)

It's the fight (at least one of) I personaly find the most difficult of the game, unless you go for it in ToB, then you have enough HLA to hack'n slash. But there fighters only had 2-3 critical hits.

Made it eventually but Supreme Leader himself is always truly a pain in the darkest past of my anatomy.


Regarding classes, it's just that I'd really love to have every Bioware companion being somehow viable in IA. So I'll think of some customed kit considering their backgrounds and gods (if divine).
In the fashion of Champion of Arvoreen which is - again - just perfect : )

Thought yesterday of some "Priestess of Shar" thing for Viconia, a kit favoring flails (as drow priestess) and oriented toward tanking (to make it an alternative to the usual R/C) - maybe including some illusion/darkness based spells or abilities. Thought of a "cloak of shadows" thing that could act like a iron-skins spell, maybe mitigating damage instead of blocking it. Like a hardiness that gets removed skin by skin (maybe that's uncodable).
Thought of an item that would include Flail of Ages in its recipe, to fit the three-headed serpent flails of the drow priestesses in the D&D lore.

I'll make a review of my opinion of all Bioware NPCs in IA 7 (for example making Minsc a barbarian was a GRAND idea ! Korgan is fine as he is but could be twisted in some BattleRager thing, making him closer to a barbarian maybe ?). General idea being that Bioware NPC deserve - IMHO - to be as efficient as customized characters, even though it's cool if they have a weakness (Most of them not having 18/90+ str for example, as for fighters that is). Aerie "caring" personality could be made into a slightly nerfed mage, with some healing-supporting abilities as HLAs or innates.

Must think of all this it's really clumsy so far, but Viconia is really the one character motivating me to think of all that. Must also take into account her freaky 50% natural magic resistance that makes her quite strong (but her stats are horrid).

Not including class-quest related fights, I would say it is for sure, for me, most often on the top 3 at least of most difficult fights
I do not rank demogorgon, I never beat the new version of the fight.

I would also say, according to party composition one is used to, rating most difficult fight has to be taken with a lot of "relativity". IIRC, with a Riskbreaker protagonist and no unsilencable caster, ancient dragon was THE fight for this party, some players consider fights I always have trouble with as no more than minor nuisances, etc.

All I can say is that end of WK4 (gith/lich /dragon) and WK5 are in terms of density of difficult fight my favourite moments in any IA run.



Nicely said

Random input about Mazzy : the healing effect of her lay on hand is countered by magic resistance. Thought several times that I had targeted the wrong character but it actually says "XXX : magic resistance" when she casts it, and no heal effect (but the removal of negative effects does apply).

I don't know if it's intended, but I guess not.

That's a bug as well.

Just about gate district grave lich, I did not find any trouble:
my mage was Neera, after some rounds spent waiting for silence to wear off, all DU landing, lich dead under TS+ alacrity sequence, only thing I noticed (since I did not play for a long time) was that DU spell indicated "crushing damage" wich I did not remember from past runs.

So I fixed the Alicorn Lance projectile bug, as well as the Mazzy stuff. We'll probably push out 6.4 soon since it contains some fun stuff we've added the last time we've worked on the mod. Then I'll see if I can give the druid stronghold another go after 57 years that it has been in development already.

Done it without problem.

For the Balor part, as I point it out in the journal, I think having a party of pretty high level really helped on some saves. I don't know if you can protect yourself against all FoD, but you can cancel most of them and rely on saving throwns for those going through.

Can't give a better advice to start this fight than to have as much spell defense as possible. Under alacrity and casting speed -5, u can refresh SI : "whatever you need" (aka necromancy or abjuration) depending on the spells targeted toward you.

Necro had (IIRC) spellshield, GoI, Spell Turning, SI : Necromancy, and other various buffs (DW ofc). He also had a potion that makes saving throws automaticaly a success in his quickslots (didn't use it but could have). Also had a spellshield on contengency hit.
With -5 casting speed, idea was to down balors as fast as possible, ofc. So Necro went alacrity right after the dialogue with force that annouces the Balors.
It's easier, IMO, to refresh SI : Necromancy under alacrity than to wait for a well-timed DW from Cernd, even though I had this option considered and Cernd had alacrity on.
Necro had 2 SI memorized, and 1 SI under contigency : hit.
I went more for something like "i try to be protected vs. those FoD most of the time" rather then "I want to be protected at the right time".
Saves vs. death were good : Necro had 0 while debuffed by Balors (including doom, or greater doom, dunno).

The fight lasting a few rounds at least (more than 4 that is) having breach on most lvl 5 spellslots is not that necessary. Balors PFMW will wear off for the last 2 or 3 of them, so with a bit of luck they are poundable in a round without a PFMW refreshed (we could kill 2 of the last 3 that way).

I also noticed that having the balors being hit by someone tend to prevent them for trying to FoD you down, so that's another way to limitate the number of focus you'll get on your PC.

Balor are not affected by the knockback of smite, so it's a 2 round auto-crit for fighters, which we started with. I might be wrong here but I wonder if a balor or two didn't get stunned by smite. They seem to be immune, but they were on a hold-like effect animation some times so... I dunno. I think they're immune still.

I also made sure to have 1 remaining alacrity so that I could rebuff fast for the grandlords wave.


Fight seemed easy compared to my previous runs, so I might be a bit overconfident in the description, but it looked like this.

Possible gold exploit in Deepstone Clanhold (Rasaad's quest in ToB) : when you sleep and get attacked inside the Clanhold, fighters carrying each +1 bastard sword + 1 platemail and +1 shield spawn.
Easy to make 1k gold out of each fighter spawning.
Assassins may spawn too, carrying +1 shortsword each.

Monks can also spawn, and they don't carry anything.
Making only monks spawn might be a way to counter that.


Sleeping in the mine itself spawns Umber Hulk Elders, giving 6k xp each.