15228 replies to this topic

[Dante2377]

wise grimwald wrote...

I have Anomen in the party. A fighter/cleric. Keldorn is no longer in my party as he was needed at home.
Currently, I have Radiant, Jahiera, Anomen, Saerileth, Mazzy and Nalia. It seems reasonably balanced.
I suspect tht Saerileth might object to lies. She has VERY high moral standards.

Perhaps of more note is the fact that Radiant is an undead hunter (no level drain) and he is the only one other than Mazzy who can use Azuredge. (Saerileth cannot use ranged weapons) Mazzy has NO proficiency points in axes.

Cavaliers can use throwing axes, unless you've got some mod that changes how they are flagged.

[Thrar]

Second and final update on Vennon (Ranger/Cleric) and Amber:

Vennon and Amber did some more of the Athkatla quests, without much of note happening. We tried to solve the Sarles quest with the fake Illithium, but when we got back to the temple after Sarles left, our quest giver "has nothing to say".
Has anyone had this happen before? I have UB installed but haven't been to the temple ruins yet to pick up Unger's brother. Anyway, I guess we can try it again after retrieving the real Illithium, maybe it'll work then.

Shortly after, while walking the streets of Athkatla running some final errands before leaving town, Amber gets kidnapped. In my previous run with her, the kidnapping happened after doing the slaver quest and I found the ship to be repopulated (by different slavers), so I thought doing the slaver quest might be a precondition for the kidnapping. Turns out it wasn't, so Vennon was on his own now. Even worse, Amber took with her the wolfskin bag containing all our backup items as well as almost all our potions - besides the gear he was wearing and some healing potions, Vennon himself had little left.

So he needed to find a way to do the slaver ship and Ymmyrt's house, which as I recall had several pretty tough battles. Yoshimo was recruited to help out with traps and some backstabbing, then off they went to the slavers. It quickly became obvious how much weaker Yoshimo is compared to Amber: His cloaking skills suck (at about 60/60), so does his THAC0, and his damage (particularly the minimum) is much weaker than Amber's with Namarra.
Still, we managed to do the slaver ship and find a note leading us to Ymmyrt's house. The initial fight against Lorraine and the guards was easier than expected, Vennon just focused on her and, fully buffed, did sufficient damage fairly quickly.
After entering the complex, a few casts of Holy Smite damaged most of the guards, but failed to kill any of them. However, we managed to separate them into smaller groups by running back outside, so eventually we were able to take them down without too much risk.

Up on the first floor, the demon was waiting. PfE didn't work against him, but a fully buffed Vennon still has STR 21 and 4 attacks (hasted), so he should be able to do some melee damage well enough.
As it turns out, that assumption was wrong. I don't remember what his THAC0 was, but connecting hits was never a problem so far (a level 8 ranger with STR 21 should be fine I'd have thought). However, in this battle, it was. He barely managed to hit the demon, who in turn managed to damage Vennon very quickly. Running up the stairs he got some time to heal (the demon would follow him down, but not back up), but still it didn't look like he was getting anywhere.
At one point in the battle, the demon managed to hit Yoshimo with a stun. At first that was no big deal, Yoshi didn't help much anyway, but when Vennon tried to escape up the stairs once more, I found out that apparently that was a "you must gather your party" transition - and Yoshi was standing too far away. Vennon now being trapped in the stairway between the demon and the stairs he couldn't use, he fell shortly after.

Later I realized that I might have kicked Yoshi out of the party after he got stunned, but even then I'm not sure Vennon would have had a chance against the demon. The damage he dealt was just so much less than what he received, and while he had a good deal of healing potions, those wouldn't last forever either.
I could have tried bringing in some more NPCs solely for the demon fight, but they wouldn't have had any decent equipment and I didn't have the budget to buy +2 weapons for them first.

I really enjoy Amber, her skills are quite useful (especially now that I could see what a difference she makes over Yoshimo) and she's a very interesting character. Her quest is more difficult than most others at this point in the game, but with a full party, it's definitely doable (I did in my previous run). I'd highly recommend her for anyone interested in a thief alternative, just make sure you're prepared well before doing her quest in a no-reload!

[wise grimwald]

Dante2377 wrote...

wise grimwald wrote...

I have Anomen in the party. A fighter/cleric. Keldorn is no longer in my party as he was needed at home.
Currently, I have Radiant, Jahiera, Anomen, Saerileth, Mazzy and Nalia. It seems reasonably balanced.
I suspect tht Saerileth might object to lies. She has VERY high moral standards.

Perhaps of more note is the fact that Radiant is an undead hunter (no level drain) and he is the only one other than Mazzy who can use Azuredge. (Saerileth cannot use ranged weapons) Mazzy has NO proficiency points in axes.

Cavaliers can use throwing axes, unless you've got some mod that changes how they are flagged.

Cavaliers might be able to use throwing axes, but Saerileth cannot. Apparently Tyr doesn't like ranged weapons of ANY kind. If you try to equip it, she protests and it ends up in a backpack. I think it's hers.

Radiant has now come to what I think is the D' Arnise mod quest, killing Isnea. He had the option of kissing Nalia, presumably starting a romance, but I can well imagine what Saerileth's reaction would be!!

Hell hath no fury etc. !!
The battles werer actually a bit tame.
It's obviously time to fight something a bit more difficult, such as Firkraag.
Might help a certain bard first however.

Here are the links to the screenshots that I have taken to date:

A test to see if they work.







Well that worked

Now all I've got to do is see how to do it as links, as not everyone will want to wade through my screenshots.

Edited by wise grimwald, 22 July 2010 - 09:32 AM.

[Argent77]

wise grimwald wrote...

Now all I've got to do is see how to do it as links, as not everyone will want to wade through my screenshots.

You can switch to BBCode in the text editor. Then you can add your links directly in the form {url=your-URL-to-the-screenshot}Your link text{/url} (with square brackets instead of curly ones).

It might even be possible to combine both methods, e.g. {url=your-URL-to-the-screenshot}{img}your-URL-to-the-screenshot{/img}{/url}, but I haven’t tested it yet.

Edit: It seems to work. Click on the smiley!

Edited by Argent77, 22 July 2010 - 10:56 AM.

[corey_russell]

Bipp the gnomish cleric/thief entering the challenge...



Bipp has successfully completed a no-reload run for BG 1 and is now entering BG 2/ToB no-reload. Here is his character sheet, he is still in Chateau Irenicus:

[Dante2377]

@ Wise Grimwald, nice pic out of the Tad Williams book.

[Irrbloss]

Arimanes - Wild Mage(10)
Imoen - Thief(6)->Mage(10)
Minsc - Berserker(10)
Jaheira - Fighter(8)/Druid(10)

(Some people use Dungeon-Be-Gone. I give excruciatingly detailed renditions of the dungeon. Well, maybe not that excruciating, hopefully.)

Imoen frees Arimanes from his cell and they free Minsc and Jaheira from their cells. Jaheira had apparently followed them south from Baldur's Gate for some reason. She's allowed to accompany them even so.

They make their way part the Lightning Mephit by dangling Minsc and Jaheira in front of it while Imoen sneaks in behind it and kills it with a backstab. Aataqah's Ogre Mage prebuffs and Imoen tries to nail it with a Fireball. Unfortunately the Ogre Mage hasted itself and escapes the blast. The Ogre Mage Spooks Arimanes and starts laying into Jaheira. The battle drags on until Aataqag breaks it up. On ahead they find a party of duergar (SCSII replaces the goblins with duergars). Jaheira charms one of the duergar, who gets to charge another group of duergar. The fighting is brutal and all the duergar soon lie dead.

Further on they encounter more mephits and two more groups of duergar. Arimanes expends his two Skull Traps in dealing with the latter. The library holds a third group of duergar and a mephit. Imoen casts Monster Summoning III and the duergar charge. The duergar are laying into the summons and Minsc uses the distraction to slip by the melee duergar and pulp one of the crossbow duergar. The fight drags on but eventually the last duergar falls. Fortunately they find some healing potions in the shelves.

In the smithy they encounter Ilyich and his friends. His henchmen take up position in front of him but retreat when Minsc and Jaheira engage them. Imoen drops a fireball in the back of the room. Most of the duergars die, but Jaheira was pursuing one of the retreating duergar and also gets caught in the blast. Well, that acquaintance was fun while it lasted. Minsc pulps Ilyich and the party continues, leaving Jaheira's scorched body behind.

The party makes its way past the otyugh. The path leading to Irenicus' room is lined with duergar and there's another pack in front of the portal. The party makes its way past them with only a few scratches. In the portal room they find a scroll of Fireball (yay). They loot Irenicus' elf room and while making their way back to that locked door they can probably now unlock, they run into the Lesser Clay Golems. Some monsters are summoned and the golems go down.

Before they go through the locked door they engage the cambion. The cambion tries to cast a few spells but does not succeed in causing any damage before it dies. In the plane of air Imoen and Minsc kills the lone mephits and Arimanes summons monsters to help in dealing with the group of mephits. One ogre survives but the mephits all die. They retrieve the genie's flask and go through the portal to the second level.

They accept Yoshimo's company and the party takes on the mephit portals by dangling Imoen and Yoshimo in front of the mephits while Minsc destroys the portals themselves. The escaped clone falls to a mighty blow from Minsc (for shame). The duergar in the passage leading to the trapped chamber are dealt with by a Chaos spell. Yoshimo hides, disarms the first two traps in the chamber and backstabs one of the duergar there to death. The Shadow Thieves all die and Ulvaryl disappears. Frennedan pulls some doppelganger tricks but dies.

The battle in the forge room goes awry when Minsc fails his save against a Horror spell. Imoen confuses two crossbow duergar and Arimanes nails the enemy mage with a Hold Monster spell. But not before the mage successfully Slows everyone but Imoen. Yoshimo is forced to beat a retreat and Imoen and Arimanes kill the held mage. Imoen unsuccessfully tries to Dire Charm a duergar with a scroll. The duergar manage to make their way through her defences and she flees. Meanwhile, Arimanes has affected the duergar with a Greater Malison spell and uses a Hold Person scroll on one of them. The duergar switched their target to Minsc, who is taking heavy damage from the crossbow bolts and is too scared to drink potions.

Fortunately the fear wears off and Minsc manages to chug a potion before he dies. Arimanes uses one of his Divine Wrath abilities and with the help of Minsc the battle appears to finally be in hand. They run across some more Shadow Thieves and Yoshimo backstabs and is backstabbed in turn (three times).

The party finds the exit to the surface, Imoen and Irenicus are taken away and the party checks in at the nearby hotel for their first good night's sleep in what feels like forever. Arimanes gains a level from it all.

Edited by Irrbloss, 22 July 2010 - 06:11 PM.

[wise grimwald]

Hard luck Thrar. I agree with you about Fade.
Radiant Attacked Firkraag and was doing fine.
Indeed he was successful. 
Unfortunately Mazzy got chunked.



Looks like I will have to pick up Keldhorn.
The thumbnail is clickable.
I think that's probably the way forward in posting as the full sized screenshots are a bit much.

Edited by wise grimwald, 22 July 2010 - 07:19 PM.

[Irrbloss]

wise grimwald wrote...
I think that's probably the way forward in posting as the full sized screenshots are a bit much.

Yes, please.

[corey_russell]

How do I do thumbnails? All I know how to do here at this site is the img tags and links. Hmm well I looked farther up and see to combine url and img tags to make thumbnails. I will try that. Not much point in me posting if it will offend everyone.

Edited by corey_russell, 22 July 2010 - 11:50 PM.

[wise grimwald]

corey_russell wrote...

How do I do thumbnails? All I know how to do here at this site is the img tags and links. Hmm well I looked farther up and see to combine url and img tags to make thumbnails. I will try that. Not much point in me posting if it will offend everyone.

I think offend might be too strong a word. It certainly is as far as I am concerned, but it does fill up the pages rather quickly and even makes it more difficult to read.
The thumbnails give you enough information to decide whether you want to see the picture in detail.
In photoshop you click on the link "share" and then clicking "link options" gives you options, one of them being thumbnails.
The result comes in the form:

{URL=http://s460.photobucket.com/albums/qq329/wisegrimwald/baldur/Radiant/Radiant%20Amn/?action=view&current=DeathofFirkraag.jpg}{IMG}http://i460.photobuc...jpg{/IMG}{/URL}

except that the brackets are square.

IMO this is the best method for people like me who don't post many screenshots. For those who post twenty in a post, perhaps links would be better.

I haven't sussed how to do that yet.

Further input giving peoples' input on the best way of posting would be good for gaining a consensus. 

[Pelleas14]

I prefer the links myself as sometimes I'm in a bit of a hurry when I'm reading so I can skip them if I want or select the ones that have particular interest to me. And corey_russell, don't you dare stop posting your runs!

Back to lurking...

[corey_russell]

Hmm don't have photo shop or anything like that. Will just do links then maybe with a better description like Irrbloss does and see if that works a bit better.

[polytope]

I'm returning to this challenge after a short break and re-install. I'm using a lot of mods, pertinent to this playthrough:



Ascension - all components

Spell revisions

Questpack - just creature improvements, revised hell trials and improved Oasis

Rogue rebalancing - just the thief and bard kit/HLA changes

Tashia

Sword Coast Stratagems II - all difficulty enhancing options except toughest random spawns and HLAs for SoA mages

aTweaks - everything except the revised fiends which I leave to SCS

Wisp's item randomiser - I really recommend this one, adds great replayability

BG2 tweaks - convenience and cosmetic tweaks + multiple strongholds



My PC Eliza is a fighter/mage/cleric here is her current character record shortly after escaping opening dungeon. I usually play LN if I'm an arcane caster because I want the ferret familiar. Could have had less charisma and better intelligence but I don't like to min/max... I guess I'll need to rely on potions of genius if I actually want her to learn any spells.



Haven't actually done any interesting quests yet but I'll update again soon.

[corey_russell]

Bipp the thief/cleric update 1: Survived Chateau Irenicus, saved D'Arnise Keep

Bipps party made it out of Chateau Irenicus in one piece. Several interesting things did happen on the way. We met a sister (Bhaalspawn) who was also captured by Irenicus named Dogdancing. She tells us her whole life she has been a fighter, but she's ready for a change to dive into the Arcane. We accept her into the party. (note from corey_russell: if I am not playing an evil character, I prefer to play to roleplay a good aligned party. However, the only non multi-class mages are Imoen, Nalia and Edwin. Edwin is out if good party, Imoen is unavailable for a while, especially if I want to do as much as I can in chapter 2, which only leaves Nalia. I'm finally getting tired of her, and I hardly need a 3rd thief. Dogdancing has ** Two-hand sword and **** short bow so even if fighting a magic resistant enemy she more useful than Nalia)

Since my character was a cleric who could cast free action, I found a good use for Minsc's berserk ability. Several different times Imoen cast web, Bipp casted free action on Minsc, then Minsc charged the enemies by himself and activated his berserk ability. This took very little resources (read: didn't need to use heal potions) which was nice. Here is an example of Minsc trashing enemies this way

Once out of Chateau Irennicus, Bipp and Dogdancing didn't have any magical weapons, so had to use what little we had to get some. Then we solved the circus problem without incident. We found a female elf claiming to be an avariel. Bipp seems to getting along good with her, we will see if anything happens between them.

We encounter Galen Bayle and agree to his proposal to raise the 20,000 gold. We made a stop at the Copper Coronet and got a quest to clear out a keep of some unknown enemy. But first we explored and encountered some slavers. We had to fight a beastmaster and his pets. We had use a ton of heal potions and had a some trouble. At one point Bipp was pinned (couldn't move) between 2 gibberlings and a bear. Minsc had to disengage from the enemy he was fighting to charm the bear to save Bipp. The party got the key for Hendak, but got battered.

We then get underway to D'arnise dealing with a few ambushes on the way and saving a Harper, and finally arrived to the Keep's palisade. The party did not need a 3rd thief or 3rd mage of Nalia, so the PC told her he would take care of the problem without her company. Minsc was dual-wielding Stonefire and a +1 mace, and by now Dogdancing has regained her fighter abilities and has a whopping 4 attacks with Tuigan's bow. The trash trolls we encountered were beat pretty cleanly.

The hardest fight was against the Iron Golem. Our only +3 weapons are Stonefire and Flail of Ages, no two hand ones. This meant Minsc would have the fight golem by himself. We buffed him with a haste potion and a STR potion, however he had to withdraw many times to get healed, take a few swings, and repeat. We used a ridiculous amount of potions re-healing him, as the 3 divine casters in the party ran out of heals. However, Minsc was eventually victorious. We got some upgrades. The frostaxe went to Minsc, as did the elven bow. The anti-giant warhammer went to Bipp.

We used the dog stew to deal with the umber hulks - Bipp did the honors with his really good hiding in shadows/move siliently. One may ask why do I keep Yoshimo in the party. He gives the party two backstabbers, but more importantly since Bipp has lock picking/trap detecting covered, Yoshimo is putting all his points into setting snares which am sure will come in handy.

Speaking of snares, was supposed to set some before pulling Torgal, leader of the trolls, but he forgot. Woops. But Yoshimo made up for that with a helpful backstab.

For the final two trolls guarding a cache of wealth, the party cast a whole slew of disabling spells 2x web, 3x entangle, stinking cloud. Bipp cast 3x glyph wards, each mage cast a single skull trap, then the party ranged. Took a long time, but we did win without any taking any damage.

We reported Nalia our success and got a measly 650 gold for our risk. She had the gall to ask to join our party after such a small reward. We let her join for a second, then told her to head to Copper Coronet. She actually agreed to do that with no complaints...good riddance.

We head back to Athkatla and mull our options. Jaheira's tanking weapon and Bipps backtabbing weapon are both non-magical. While we might help Hendak rid the remaining slavers first, but after that we will help with the Trademeet problem that should get some magical clubs which both Jaheira and Bipp need. But if Jaheira is going to tank in the druid grove, she needs better AC so spent almost everything we had on a Tower Shield for her.

Party Status:
Minsc Character Sheet
http://i550.photobuc...rSheet3-BG2.jpg

Jaheira Character Sheet
http://i550.photobuc...rSheet3-BG2.jpg

Bipp Character Sheet
http://i550.photobuc...rSheet3-BG2.jpg

Yoshimo Character Sheet
http://i550.photobuc...rSheet3-BG2.jpg

Dogdancing Character Sheet
http://i550.photobuc...rSheet3-BG2.jpg

Aerie Character Sheet
http://i550.photobuc...rSheet3-BG2.jpg

Edited by corey_russell, 23 July 2010 - 06:34 AM.

[wise grimwald]

corey_russell wrote...

Hmm don't have photo shop or anything like that. Will just do links then maybe with a better description like Irrbloss does and see if that works a bit better.

Sorry. I meant Photobucket not Photoshop:

It's a place for storing your photos on the web, a bit like Image Shack.

It's FREE and available here:

http://photobucket.com/

[Argent77]

wise grimwald wrote...

In photobucket you click on the link "share" and then clicking "link options" gives you options, one of them being thumbnails.

The disadvantage of this method is that it doesn’t link to the image directly. And the loading time of that page is abysmal.

A possible solution could be to use the direct link address for both {IMG} and {URL} tags and add the prefix 'th_' to the {IMG} address manually, e.g.
{URL=http://i766.photobucket.com/albums/xx303/argent77/bg2_no-reload/Baldr000.jpg}{IMG}http://i766.photobuc.../bg2_no-reload/th_Baldr000.jpg{/IMG}{/URL}

which looks like this:

Edited by Argent77, 23 July 2010 - 09:15 AM.

[wise grimwald]

This seems to work.


On the Share this image page, copy from the clickable thumbnail address and paste as below
{URL=http://s460.photobucket.com/albums/qq329/wisegrimwald/baldur/Radiant/Radiant%20Amn/?action=view&current=DeathofFirkraag.jpg}{IMG}http://i460.photobuc...jpg{/IMG}{/URL}
Then delete the ?action=view&current= part. That speeds it up considerably as you are not loading up adverts etc. as well as the picture.



Compare and contrast the two methods! 2second versus 42 seconds on my computer!!




Radiant picked up Valgyar instead of Keldhorn, since Keldhorn wanted to take his family to the circus. He then entered the Planar sphere, but unfortunately the halflings killed, but did not chunk Saerileth.

Does anyone know if it ruins the romance?

Edited by wise grimwald, 23 July 2010 - 12:17 PM.

[corey_russell]

Interesting info there Wise. I will try that on my next post, as I also use photobucket.

[corey_russell]

Bipp the cleric/thief update 2: Slaver Ship, Viconia, and Dao Djinns

So the party helps out Hendak and battles the slavers in the moored slaver ship. It didn't start out so great, as Bipp did a quadruple backstab for...11 damage?


The battle rages with a lot of things like snares, hold persons, skull traps and glyph wards being cast. The party was victorious but Jaheira, Minsc, AND Dogdancing got held by a single hold person spell! Fortunately Bipp, Aerie and Yoshimo were able to clean up the enemies without any one dying.

We freed all the children without further incident, and gave Hendak the cell keys and now Jaheira says she can cast a fire elemental. That's great.

We had the money so we went and got our magic license. While in the government district, found a drow who appeared to be unjustly accused. We freed her, but really don't need a 3rd cleric, so she will wait in the graveyard district until we have need of her.

I then went to trademeet. We got into a lot of bandit ambushes along the way, and the party often got battered (yeah the party could use some better equipment).


We finally get to trademeet. Before dealing with the Dao Djinns we took a couple of precautions. Bipp bought 5 stone to flesh scrolls, and also before entering the Dao Djinn tent Dogdancing put protection from petrification on Bipp, as we know that one of the Djinns likes to cast a flesh to stone spell.

Sure enough Dogdancing got petrified. However, using one of the scrolls that Bipp just bought, Bipp restored her and the party was back in business.

The reward was a nice shield which Bipp will use. In case of disaster he will never be held/confused so he can escape, though we hope it will never come to that. We also talked to the mayor of the city, and agreed to help them with their druid problem, though we don't need Cernd in our group.

Next update: Druid grove

Edited by corey_russell, 23 July 2010 - 12:58 PM.

[wise grimwald]

Yay! It wortked Corey!

Yes it does look like you need better equipment if bandits do that to you!

By the way, is dogdancing your wife?

[corey_russell]

wise grimwald wrote...

Yay! It wortked Corey!
Yes it does look like you need better equipment if bandits do that to you!
By the way, is dogdancing your wife?

The picture of Dogdancing is my real wife, yes. She often uses the name Dogdancing for her names in role-playing games, such as Everquest. I am playing the character, but it's nice to have my wife instead of Nalia (surprise, surprise). In my setup I also have recorded her voices for Dogdancing's various events (critical miss, critical hits, when she gets selected, etc.) and so get to hear her voice while I play.

Edited by corey_russell, 23 July 2010 - 03:46 PM.

[Crippled Jack]

Your wife must be really pleased about that and by pleased I mean flattered and by flattered I mean...you know...hehe

[corey_russell]

Bipp the cleric/thief update 3: Druid Grove, Cernd's personal quest, Umar Hill/Temple

So the party battles through the druid grove, encountering trolls, spiders and shadow druids. The enemies were beat cleanly. The tower shield was a great investment for Jaheira, she took only minimal damage. Minsc would finish off the trolls with Stonefire. While exploring the grove, we found a scimitar that added an extra attack for the main hand. Minsc uses that with Stonefire primary hand.

So eventually we found the source of the trademeet problems, a shadow druid who had taken over the druid grove. Jaheira challenged her and it seemed to be going well at first, though her insect spell was resisted, so she kind of wasted a spell:


But then Faldhorn got some good hits in Jaheira was near death but so was Faldhorn! Couldn't decide if I should let her continue to attack and see if she got lucky. I tried to back off and heal but that got her killed and I LOST the challenge. I haven't lost this battle in a long time...then it came on me - this is no re-load, if I fail that's too bad...what to do.

Eventually decided to kick Yoshimo out and recruit Cernd. Despite only being a level 9 druid, he kicked Faldhorn's posterior..however he had EXTRA help! Jaheira's fire elemental was still there! So Cernd had his 4 summons and the elemental beating down Faldhorn. Without a doubt once that was the case, changing to werewolf form should just crush Faldhorn and it did.

We reported our success back in Trademeet and were hailed as heros. We had just BARELY over 15k gold. Decided would pay off Galen so that the rest of our funds can be for upgrades. Cernd's quest activated so we did a run around and eventually retrieved his child for him. Cernd decided to leave and then mulled what to do next. While in town, we paid a stop to the Crooked Crane and Bipp sanctuaried, and picked the lock and looted the daystar (a cleric/thief is really the best thief in the game, as far taking stuff without being detected is concerned).

I had intended to do the Umar Hills/Temple battles/quests anyways, decided having Cernd leave is actually convenient now we have open spot for Mazzy to join. So off to the Hills we go. Was in town getting ready to depart to the temple, and noticed a problem, we have a shortage of magical ammo and with our low gold and merchants not having any arrows for us (that we could afford anyways), need to melee. So Dogdancing meleed that area with her sword of chaos. Minsc was using Belm and Daystar and despite not being proficient with long swords, were killing the undead fairly quickly.

Mazzy joined us, and realized got too many people trying to use 1h weapons, now what? Also Mazzy is wearing pathetic chain mail. Jaheira still had the unicorn spear so gave her armor and shield to Mazzy, put Mazzy in #2 spot, and had Jaheira use her spear. This actually worked very well, with 4 melees the undead were going down quick.

We fought our way to the shadow dragon and considered our options - fight or pass for now? Jaheira leveled and so now can summon 2 fire elementals and some bears, Dogdancing can cast a earth elemental, and just for distraction Jaheira summoned a Nymph. Misnc and Mazzy are good tanks, and Mazzy has the Ilbratha (mirror image for fighters) and last but not least we have 3 lightning wands, and lightning works pretty well on the shadow dragon.

As Lantier would have said, "No guts no glory" so we put our people/summons into position and then attacked. Oh should mention Bipp summoned some skeletons so that the shadow dragon would waste its death spell on them. Our opening phase:


Mazzy had to gulp a heal potion, Bipps slinged, and the mages fired their lightning wands. Should be mentioned that the mages do not have lower magic resist spell yet. The strategy seemed to be paying off..


Couple more rounds then success. Aerie got the kill shot in, and also hit Dogdancing for a ton of damage, guess she was mad at something Dogdancing said.


We did what buffs we had (which weren't much) then attacked the shade lord. Both he and his undead went down very fast...may have to consider using 4 melees on a permanent basis. Patrick's chain mail (AC 2) replaced Jaheira's "excellent" chain mail.

So we headed back to town of Immesvale to report to the mayor the good news, sold our junk/rested, went to trademeet to get the Tasheron's bow for Dogdancing and then remembered...I didn't loot the dragon! I headed back but the gems were gone and so was the scale. The Crom Faeyr scroll was there but can't use that for a long time. Oops.

Bhaalspawn character sheets:




I found it interesting that the character with the most HP in our party...is our mage!?

Edited by corey_russell, 24 July 2010 - 05:16 AM.

[wise grimwald]

Interesting post Corey.
Just wondering.
Did you buff Jahiera up BEFORE the challenge?
Iron skin and the like.
You can use your mage to give her haste, strength, improved invisibility etc.
This gives you a chance to get lots of summons before she gets attacked.
You can use other party members to give chant, bless etc.

Also, insect swarm seems to be more effective than summon insects. No doubt the experts would be able to say why.

Edited by wise grimwald, 24 July 2010 - 08:11 AM.