Gwendellwyn´s Tale - solo play in IWD with a Thief/Mage

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Hi, I´m new here.

Background
I played IWD about half a year after it was released. I played through with a full party of humans, covering all 8 character classes in the game (thanks to substantial dual-classing). About a year later, I played with a party of three, but apparently got bored and quit about 3/4 into the game. I had not touched the game after that.

I am a big fan of Baldur´s Gate and BG II. Right now, I am playing the BG II expansion (Throne of Bhaal) for the first time. I am about halfway (I think) through that expansion. I love it, but it´s a lot to take in (all the high-level abilities and spells, wonderful equipment and nasty monsters, etc.) so I take it slowly for better enjoyment.

However, I felt the need for a break from all the "Oh, another big badass demon...(yawn)". I yearned for the early game again, when both you and the enemies are complete wimps, and a +1 weapon is a MAJOR discovery. But I didn´t want to play Baldur´s Gate for the umpteenth time...

Then I thought of Icewind Dale. Knowing all the rules, but having forgotten almost everything about the game (especially what items are in the game and when and where I might find them!) and never tried to solo it, I had the feeling I might enjoy that a lot.


The character
I am playing another incarnation of my main character in the aforementioned Baldur´s Gate II party.

Gwendellwyn (Gwen for short) is an elven Thief/Mage. Thief/Mage is by far my favourite class in this type of games. They are really crappy early on but have the potential to become one of the most versatile, interesting and powerful character types possible in the late game.

I am usually not an extreme powergamer, but in the case of a solo character in a game I have almost forgotten, I´ll take every edge I can get!

So I was prepared to reroll stats for quite a while. It´s usually not hard to at least roll up a character of 'Imoen class', i.e. a total sum of 87. After less than two dozens of rerolls, my jaw fell down when I looked at a sheet full of really high numbers - a sum of 95. Wow, excellent. I redistributed the points to get:
STR: 18
DEX: 19
CON: 16
INT: 18
WIS: 10 (No Lore penalty, please)
CHA: 14

Weapon proficiencies? Hmmm. One melee and one ranged, of course. Bows seems to be an obvious choice, and Long Swords and the like have the best backstab damage potential. Being an elf, Gwen has an extra +1 to hit with both of these weapon types. Yep, Bows and Large Swords it is! My item finds will decide future proficiencies.

Thieving skills. Gwen MUST use a lot of backstabbing early on, so her Stealth must have priority. I brought it up to 50% and put the rest in Find Traps.

Starting lvl 1 spells, then. Hmm, I recognize them all from BG, BG II (and some from PS:T as well), although some of them (Chromatic Orb in particular) varies a lot between the games. This version of Chromatic Orb does not mention any save bonus (nice!), and it looks like it starts to become really useful from level 5 and onwards (three rounds of stun is not be sneezed at). Magic Missile is a staple, of course, but the level 1-2 version doesn´t do more average damage than a plain arrow...So that can wait.

Since I don´t know what scrolls to expect early on, I decided to pick the two spells I have come to trust the most for early Baldur´s Gate play: Armor and Sleep.

Appearance. When she can, Gwen likes to present herself as a calm, collected and serious lady, so she prefers formal black attire with classy light purple accessiories. "All the better to sneak up on you as well", she usually says, with a sly smile.

Voice. There is no voice in IWD that I felt really captured Gwen´s 'essence'. Most of them either made the character sound stupid, or they were just too damn noisy. There was really only one decent choice, the one that has a battle cry that goes: "Make peace with your gods".


I am playing Icewind Dale (patched) without expansions. The only tweaks I use are an XP cap remover (I hate XP caps), the tweak that lets you write level 8 and 9 scrolls plus the rules tweak that is adapted to high-level characters.

I will play each area without walkthrough, but some time after I´ve played a particular area, I will take a look in Dan Simpson´s walkthrough and see it there was anything I missed. If items and quests can be done/found/claimed afterwards, I will take that opportunity before I continue with the game.

When you read my updates and comment on them, NO SPOILERS, PLEASE!! It is very important for my enjoyment of the game that I don´t get spoiled in advance. However, you are allowed to make vague hints along the way. If presented in a clever way, hints can make this journey more interesting and fun for both you and me. VAGUE hints, that is.


Gwendellwyn now takes her "mighty" 7 hit points and travels to Easthaven. Expect a first update soon.

 

Nice, just a question what about alignement?

Elf is a good choice but Gnomes can be really good in IWD (like in BG they are the only ones who can be specialized and multiclassed).

 

Welcome to SP, jiansonz!

This could be rather interesting, I will be looking for updates. Just don't lose interest before completion.

Randomisation rocks.

 

Gwen is Chaotic Good. She thinks that laws and societies are good and all, but only when they are the best way to serve the Greater Good.

I did consider a Gnomish Thief/Illusionist. They are better than elves with locks and traps, but elves make better archers and are stealthier. But most importantly, I like to play a specialist mage only when I have another arcane spellcaster that can cover the opposing school(s). Illusionists can´t learn Necromancy spells, and some of those spells are among my favourites.


(NOTE: I played yesterday and the day before that and I write this from memory. Some details about which order I did things, level-ups, exactly where different items were found, etc. may not be entirely accurate. Bear with me.)


When I fired up the game, I noticed a few things:

* Nice graphics. Looks a lot like BG1, but a little less "rough". And Gwen looks like a black-clad Imoen! Whee. I´ve so missed that look since BG1 (The first incarnation of Gwen solo played BG1. She eventually reached Mage level 11 and Thief level 13 (about 1.35 million XP)).

* Crap, only one weapon slot! I tested if time is running if I pause and fiddle in inventory. It isn´t. Good. So I guess I will switch weapons this way thousands of times...

* A quarter staff and some GPs. And no XP at all. Not particularly generous if you ask me.


So, you have a bug infested cellar, eh? Time to bust some heads! Gwen snuck down in shadows, but found herself unable to place herself in a backstab postion. All bugs had their back against a wall. She attacked nonetheless. Whiff, whiff, whiff, whiff, whiff, whiff...Hm, I guess that is to be expected with a THAC0 of 22...

*BITE!*

Panic retreat up the stairs! Holy smoking tomato juice, that bug just chew off six of her seven HPs! I need to get some better weapons before I go back down there, it seems.

Pomab´s Emporium. Sounds good. I purchased:
* Long Sword
* Buckler
* Short Bow
* 200 arrows

Gwen found the Inn, and she could rest her life up. Looks like she got to rest up to full life (that took 6x8 hours) for the price of one stay. Interesting. BTW, I hope this game doesn´t have too many timed quests. I have a feeling I will need to rest a LOT.

When I was fighting that bug before, I noticed that the other bugs didn´t move towards me. I guess they don´t move at all. Thus, arrows made the 'rematch' trivial.


Some monsters took your fish? Well, let´s find them. I could leave the E side of the map here (no world map and no travel time). Snowy wilderness. Let´s play it safe and hide in shadows. Three wolves. I didn´t think Gwen was up to killing them at the moment, but I decided to try anyway. Snuck behind one. Backstab hit, great damage roll (I rolled a 7 on the d8, making it a 7*2+2=16 points hit). Wolf dead. What a confidence boost!

But now the other two wolves are pissed. Looks like suicide to fight them with AC=5, crappy To Hit and 1 attack per round. Instead, I cast the Sleep I have memorized. Both wolves fall asleep. I decide to get some distance and use arrows so I can retreat if they wake up. First hit woke that wolf. Aha! Big difference compared to BG. Sleep is not so über in this game. Much more realistic, of course.

Pure instinct made me flee back to the village. Hmm, I wonder if I can hide in shadows and travel back, still unseen? Yes! OK, this 'dart-in-and-out-serial-backstabbing' will be the master plan for the time being. Cheesy, but you gotta do what you gotta do to grow up, eh?

Another killing backstab (they wolf was hurt by the arrow, so I was less dependant on a good roll this time). The last wolf required 5 passages between the areas in order to score a killing backstab. 3 misses (2 critical misses) and one backstab that only did 6 damage.


A cave. Maybe this is where the fish thieves hide? Ah, I recognize those critters from BG2. They are orcs. I must have seen them in this game first, then.

Another entrance to use for a hiding base, making the first orcs easy pickings. Oh, they have archers, too. Nasty if the backstab fails or if there is more than one. Got killed once, by a critical hit, perfect damage roll arrow (12 damage!).

Slow progress (scrap that, very slow progress) in this cave. Really crappy XP as well. Orc Shaman? Hm, I didn´t think orcs had that kind of brain power. Well, it was only capable of a single Curse spell, then it was time for staff fighting. Ha!

The shaman was flanked by two archers, and that combo seemed like an insurmountable obstacle for poor Gwen at this stage. Eventually I managed to backstab an archer to death, then run screaming (and half-dead from a 4 damage arrow) out of the cave to rest. Backstab the other archer to death, then work on the shaman. The reward was a crate with a Horror scroll and a girdle. I quicksaved (could be a cursed item) and tried it out. I got a Bless icon on the portrait. That can´t be bad!

I hadn´t found any fish yet, but some scouting had shown me a lot of remainings orcs in the cave, and all containers were guarded. I decided to go back later, when Gwen has levelled a bit, and has the HP to be able to survive at least 1-2 hits. That will make it much easier. Maybe there are some other quests to be done in Easthaven?

to be continued

 

Coolness!

-There are a lot of other quests in Easthaven. Just be sure to visit every place and talk with everyone. (especially, talk with the guys with a name) This is a general strategy and hint for every RPG.

-Grisella or some of her customers may have useful information to share with you about the quests around. Just chat with them, Grisella may not want to talk at first, but once you start buying some ale she will...

-Umm, how come you did not find the kid's fish yet? Remember where the kid was running from? A bridge? Go for it!

-Easthaven has fantastic sea shores along the coast. Be sure to travel the sea shore exclusively and listen to the sounds of waves pounding this nice little place. You will find serenity!

 

it's you nub?
nice solo like always

 

I passed the bridge, and I couldn´t see anywhere to go except off the map. That seemed to be the logical way to go...


However, once she got back, Gwen walked a little bit more to the south, and suddenly got attacked by Goblins. Almost killed, she ran back to the Inn to rest. I switched her spell to Armor.

It took a while (sneaking, backstabbing, running all over the place firing arrows backwards, etc.) to clean out the goblins, but it wasn´t really hard. And there was (what was left of) the fish! Gwen returned it to its owner. Got rewarded so much that she levelled up. Yay. All thieving points to stealth. With that at 70%, and with 11 HP, I figured the rest of the orc cave would be much less annoying.

I was right. It was still a lot of work, but it was quite doable. The Ogre at the end was easy. I started off with a backstab, then let the ogre chase me around an obstacle while I shot arrows. Gwen was a little faster than the ogre, so it never had a chance. Caravan contract? Ah, so the goods are all stolen by the orcs.

Also found a scroll of Protection from Petrification. What can petrify a character in this game, huh? Basilisks? Spells? MEDUSA?? (shudder)

Back in Easthaven, I took my time to fully explore it, and do some quests. I brought wine to Jeb (I think it was Jeb...), found someone interested in the missing caravan, cleaned out a wolf in a house...and then the really cool water-elf quest. Call me sentimental, but that quest moved me quite a bit. It was also interesting - I got the feeling that the game developers really tried to make me take the hostile path. I got so many chances for that, but Gwen´s good heart won out. (Plus I was wary of what awesome powers an aquatic elf might have... )

Everard was not particularly funny to converse with. He seemed so set in his ways. Hmm.

I had to consult my journal to get a clue as to where Hrothgar´s house was placed. Apparently, I had failed to spot the entance.

Ha, nice little note there in the foot locker! Of course I´m pilfering everything I can (and your other container gave some arrows I actually needed. So there.).

All the quests had Gwen reach two 'double' level-ups. Double level-ups will happen 5 times now, with the thief level being ahead the whole time.

Did Hrothgar´s shopping quest (very generous XP for such little effort!) and got ready to hop on his expedition. Level 4/3 and 25 HP now, Armor, Sleep and Horror memorized. Bring it on!

to be continued

 

Good going, jiansonz.

Agreed, that was a very nice touch.

 

Coolness, I am glad you are having fun!

I will be around here if you need vague hints in the future. Just ask!

 

Looks like Gwen missed out on the chance to get to know other members of the expedition...

OMG, this place is swarming with goblins! Plenty of archers among them, at that. With Armor on, Gwen has AC=1 with her sword setup (2 with the bow), so thankfully they don´t hit all the time. But criticals hit, and she has no protection from critical hits, they do double damage (I really hope to find some special headgear she can use soon). And when she fights 3 at a time, there is likely to be at least one lucky bugger that scores a critical hit, if the battle lasts several rounds...

...which it usually does. I did a seach before on soloing with a Mage/Thief. Most threads I found were about Fighter/Mage/Thief. Those will level more slowly, but will be more powerful. That is not so much because of the extra HP, the better THAC0 (although that helps quite a bit in the early game) better weapon selection or the better saving throws in the endgame, but the fact that these characters a.) can wear a helmet and b.) get more attacks per round, so they won´t be stuck in battle for as long as Gwen has to.

Anyway, when Gwen reached the right-hand side of the map, she was out of spells, and down to 6 HP. She cursed at the remaining goblins and vowed to return soon.

Ah, Kuldahar. I remember this place well, and those are fond memories. The music here is excellent as well.

Strange tower, with a non-hostile goblin and Orrick the mage in it. Ooh, he has scrolls! Nice collection of level 1-2 ones. And a hint that he might sell others when Gwen gets more 'advanced'. Sounds promising.

That 'Robe of Enfusing' sure looks yummy, but the price is steep indeed! I´d better be very careful with my money for a while. Maybe explore the rest of Kuldahar Pass and the next area a bit to see if I will find some of those scrolls I want anyway, so I won´t need to buy them. If I don´t find a Friends scroll soon, that will certainly be my first purchase in this town!

Orrick is interested in written material about something called Mythals, and he´s willing to pay well for that. Noted.


A sort of curiosity shop. Nothing I want here...

Whoa! A guy who is pursued by two yetis. It sure took many arrows and laps around town to bring them down.

Found Conlan the smith, and could sell the yeti pelts to him. Not many tempting items for sale in his shop, though. No magical arrows or enchanted weapons and armor Gwen both can use and wants to use.
Conlan has a tempting locked chest Gwen can´t open. Yet.


Oswald´s ship next. Oh yes, he sells some useful potions indeed. Gwen feast her eyes on healing potions, Oils of Speed and Fiery Burning, and especially the awesome (for a thief) Invisibity potions. I´ll be back for sure when I´m richer and with a more clear idea of what I want.

Visited the temple and the bar for some chats. OK, so we are up to at least four people missing: Conlan´s son, Mirek´s family member, plus Evgenia and Poquelin from the temple.

Visited Arundel the druid as well. Didn´t get much wiser about what´s ahead, really...

The small guy at the inn was a bit of a sourpuss, but he did let me stay there and rest, so I did.

Return to Kuldahar Pass
Talked to the non-hostile goblin outside the mill. He talked about headaches, voices and an intense hunger. Creepy...

Hid in shadows and passed through the orc-infested floor of the mill and down the stairs. Found a boy hiding in a closet. "That´s OK, just get back to Kuldahar. Don´t mind the orcs on the way out. Thanks for the XP!"

Cleared out the basement, then I went up to the orcs and insulted them enough to turn them hostile. I ran back down the stairs to get into the shadows. When I came up again, I found I was trapped by the orcs. Quite embarassing, because I was almost out of spells and a little hurt. And because they had chased me to the stairs, all orcs had their backs away from me. I resorted to 'frontstabbing' (= free attack from shadows, no backstab multiplier, rinse and repeat) one of the orcs to death, then I used the next one as a shield from the other two, so I could shoot them down (including the leader). The leader dropped a weird stick I couldn´t identify.

Insulted the ogre as well. It was easy to beat because the entrance was close. Cleaned up the little goblin/beetle area to the north. Very easy, since those monsters were busy feeding and burping, so they moved slowly.


Back in Kuldahar, I bought the Friends scroll, rested to get Friends memorized, then used that when I bought some healing potions and Identify and Mirror Image scrolls. Rested to memorize identify. Identified the mysterious stick. It was an item capable of casting Bless 1/day, usable only by bards. Ha, I have permanent Bless anyway. It was good for a nice sum of cash, though.

Gwendellwyn now rested a third time to memorize her 'battle' spells again, then she stocked up on arrows and got ready for the first journey to the Vale of Shadows.

to be continued...

[ June 07, 2007, 17:31: Message edited by: jiansonz ]

 

Indeed, Kuldahar is a nice place. Its inhabitants have rather deep pockets and always looked rather burdened down with items. Helpful guy that I am, I was always quick to help them out with that particular problem.

A less subtle bit of advice here. Pelts will drop in price the more transactions you do. Selling many a once results in more gold.

 

I'm also soloing an elven mage/thief (CN) through IWD, a game that I've never completed. Still in Easthaven, at level 2/3 and just about to set out.

My character is a bit less savoury, very choosy in who he respects and which pockets he picks, airing towards good but too much of an individual, also highly intelligent and cunning and it's quite a dangerous mix.

Update - at 4/5 mage/thief and currently (verrrry slowly) getting through the Vale of Shadows, currently stopped at Therik the skeleton guardian, he's hitting me quite hard.

[ June 11, 2007, 19:43: Message edited by: Morthond ]

 

Haha, more like 'Slap in the face' subtle there.

I had already figured out what you hint at, so I had no help from the "hint" (the playing is waaay ahead of the writing at the moment (I´ll try to correct that, details get forgotten quickly))

But I didn´t figure it out right away and, strangely enough, not all at once either. I´ll get to that.

Ah yes, the dreaded depreciation thing. I should have thought of this (from BG), really. I guess I royally screwed up with the pelts, selling only two for the best price.


Just like Morthond´s character, Gwendellwyn had a very tough time in the Vale of Shadows. The good thing was that she soon levelled up to 4/5, which improved the backstabs a lot. Now she could slay a Shadow from full life on good damage rolls. The Yeti are a little sturdier, but running and firing arrows made it possible to beat them.

Scored a lucky critical backstab on the one Shadow that wasn´t Lesser (40 damage - instant victory!).

Therik´s tomb was the first Gwen entered. After she had killed two zombies (with backstab assaults from the entrance) she decided to leave Therik for later since she couldn´t get behind him for a backstab, and he had the annoying habit of re-occupying his original starting spot if I had let him chase me towards the entrance. I have later learned that this is normal behaviour for many enemies. Quite different from BG.

I began to clear out two smaller tombs. I noticed that my sword did very little damage to the skeletons. Quite often, they wouldn´t die even from TWO backstabs! Something needed to be done about that.

I had anticipated the need for blunt intruments, and I had been clever enough to give Gwen poficiency with Clubs back in Easthaven. Bought a Club for 1gp. Nice price.

Re-visited Orrick, and started to drool (again) over that Robe of Enfusing. Then it hit me: this mage may have cool items and Gwen can pickpocket stuff! She only has 35% and I normally don´t try pickpocketing with a score less than 60% (excessive reloading just to score a succesful pickpocket feels like cheating to me). But like I said before, this lady takes any chances she can get...

Touchdown!

I recognized the graphics right away, and the visible effects confirmed it: Gwen had nicked a Metaspell amulet and a ring of Free Action from Orrick! No Identify needed at the moment. Those may well be end-game worthy items. Yowza!

Hmm, Free Action works very nicely with...Web!
"Hey Orrick, a Web scroll please."


OK, it didn´t work so well against the skeletons. They could only get stuck for one round, just when the Web hit. But it was great in the Yeti cave.

But Horror was another story. It´s awesome in BG2 for a solo character (plus, any class can get it as a Bhaal power) but here it was a major disappointment. Yeti fails its save and the circle turns yellow. But that doesn´t stop it from attacking me! Uh, I really can´t see the point here. Can anyone help in enlightening me if I´m doing something wrong?

The new Club was useful. Most skellies now died from a backstab, or from 2 hits in melee.

Gwen levelled up again halfway through Therik´s tomb. Since she was hurt and out of both storage space and healing potions, she headed back to Kuldahar again. Triumphantly, she visited Orrick, ready to drool over level 3 scrolls...

Nothing new in his selection! "Hello, I am Mage level 5 now! I am advanced enough for level 3 spells." (Grumbles). Maybe I need to reach the next chapter? It feels like that can take a while. I guess this will be something that will bother Gwendellwyn through a large part of her adventure - not having found a single scroll for the highest level spells she can memorize.

Gwen was a little frustrated (myself, too), and I took out my anger by pickpoteting every creature in the city. I scored some really nice items:
* Another Ring of Free action, from Arundel
* A load of cool potions from Oswald, plus an awesome +2 Ring of Protetion(!). Yikes, I had not seen a +1 RoP yet...

I only need one Ring of Free Action, so I identified one of them and sold it. For 6000 gold! Now then...with some help from Friends, Gwen could finally purchase the coveted Robe of Enfusing. There was money left over for some scrolls, too. I grabbed Chromatic Orb, Magic Missile, Agannazar´s Scorcher and Melf´s Acid Arrow.

Back in the Valley, I realized that the new robe was even better than I had thought. It does not give Gwen a natual AC of 8 (or 4 when you include her DEX bonus). Just like the description says, it has a bonus of AC 2. This means it stacks with the Armor spell! That, plus the new shiny ring took Gwen´s AC down to a very respectable -3. The skeletons and other mundane monsters now pretty much needed critcals to hit her. She still does not want to melee a crowd, for reasons I´ve explained earlier.

Gwen could now clear out Therik´s tomb with relative ease. BTW, I think that the BG graphics for Ghouls and Ghasts are so much cooler than the 'ragged hippie' look they have in this game.
(I hope that´s not a blasphemous statement in this forum... )

On her way out of the tomb, Gwen ran into her first encounter with respawning monsters. A large Skeleton force had respawned on the righthand side of the narrow bridge. And this was just when Gwen was fleeing from the last Ghoul in the tomb she had Critically missed with a backstab. Crap!

A quick Mirror Image and some careful maneuvering got her past all undead, who chased her onto the bridge. If ever there was a time to test the usefulness of Agannazar´s Scorcher, this would be it. The description says it has a pretty good casting speed. Aim at the skeleton furthest away. Here we go...

"KA-ZAAAAFF!"
OMG, the Ghoul and three skellies fried to oblivion! But now Gwen can´t move! What the...
"KA-ZAAAAFF!"
It stroke again. Heh, that was skellie #4 dead, and some damage to yet another bony fellow.
"KA-ZAAAAFF!"
#5 down, and now Gwen can move again. The last skeleton in view got Clubbed down.

Mage level 5 also meant I got more mileage out of Chromatic Orb. Picture 3 melee skeletons. Gwen is outclassed if she wants to melee all at once. Hide in shadows, backstab the first to death, fire an Orb at the second. If it fails the save, Gwen now has 3 rounds to finish it off while only one skeleton is hacking at her. Since the skeleton she´s bashing is held, she can only miss on criticals, and the damage from Orb means it usually dies from one bash of the club. Then she can take down the last skeleton one vs. one wihout too much trouble (usually).

The tombs gave her some new spells. However, two of them were so bad she sold the scrolls rather than scribing them:
* Luck. 3 rounds duration. Try again, not worth using up a slot I can have for another Invisibility or Mirror Image.
* Strength. Non-warriors can´t go above 18. That´s Gwen´s base STR. Totally useless spell for her. But maybe I can use it on a summoned critter later...


Next update is mostly about the final tomb in the Vale. Gwen made many many trips between this tomb and Kuldahar. Joe and Jack the Respawning Lesser Shadows got slain every time she passed by.

to be continued...

[ June 12, 2007, 23:06: Message edited by: jiansonz ]

 

Yep. His stuff is Chapter based.

 

If you attack a yellow circled monster it may attack you back. I know, this sucks.
But this spell is still useful in tight situations.

Aganazar's Scorcher is a solid area-damage dealer in early levels. But do not underestimate Burning Hands, it is capable of doing outstanding damage isntantly to a large radius. It should do 1d3+10 dmg right now, enough to toast all the skeletons you face, as long as they fail their saving throw vs the spell. It has the shortest casting time, and if they are crowded enough a group, you can kill lots with this spell! Try it!

You are right, Luck and Strength spells suck big time. Heh. You are doing fine. Keep up the good work!

 

Heh, I forgot about the radius of Burning Hands when I first used it. Imagine my horror when my mage toasted the majority of the party in addition to the yeti!

Friendly fire indeed.

Please excuse the downright awful pun.

 

But it only hits one target in BG series for some reason.

 

Hi everybody ! This thread inspired me to try a solo adventure - right now my char finished chapter one - how is Gwen doing ??

 

And tell me you sold the Protection from Petrification scroll you found early on. You could use the $$ and tactics keep you from being petrified.

 

Gwendellwyn needed many trips to Kuldahar before she had cleared out the first two floors of the big tomb. Most of the time, it was the need to sell stuff that made her go back, but the need for more healing potions and even arrows was often obvious.

Early on the first floor, she made an excellent discovery: a +1 Long Sword! (her Lore was enough to ID it) Easily better than the High Quality Long Sword she found in one of the smaller tombs.

She sneaked into a room to the west, and got scared. A WIGHT! Now, in most RPGs, wights are known for two things:
- requiring magical weapons to hit
- level-draining touch attack

Gwen does not yet have any magical arrows, so I was a little worried. But a good backstab followed up by a Flaming Oil (bought from Oswald´s) made for a swift victory. Really good XP by the way.

Gwen found her first level 3 spell: Haste! However, if was not as useful as I had thought it would be. Short duration, and she got fatigued afterwards. That is worse than in BG2; there you only get fatigue in the amount similar to having been awake for about half a day. Haste was relegated to be used after she was out of other spells, as a fun little diversion before getting out to rest.

Three other very good finds on the two first floors: a Short Bow +1, Gauntlets of Weapon Skill and a scroll of Burning Hands. Burning Hands was indeed a very good spell against skeletons and such. When Gwen had the option to choose between that spell and Agannazar´s Scorcher, it was the placement of the enemies that decided it. Agannarzar´s if they were chasing her in a line, Burning Hands if they were bunched up around her.

The big vats of mysterious liquid in the central part of the first floor provided a good obstacle to run around and shoot arrows backwards at enemies.

Lots of keys and key-like thingies in the tombs. Standard procedure was to store them in a container in the area she was playing in (in order to be able to carry back and sell more loot per journey). When she encountered a door that wouldn´t open, she would run back and forth from the storage container to the door. Once she found the key that fit, she took that key to another container (the "trash can"). I figured a particular key would only need to be used once, and if not, she could always find it later...

Damn how those 'imbued' Wights with their lvl 5 Magic Missiles were annoying! I didn´t think of it at the time, but a Shield spell or two could have saved her from a lot of pain. But then there would be fewer Burning Hands memorized, though.

Gwen used up all her three Oils of Fiery Burning in the biggest room on the second floor. She ran around and drew attention from a huge herd of undead, continued to run and tried to throw the potions where they hurt the most (without hurting her ). Plenty of Flaming Oils were also used in this manner, but it was hard to hit more than one enemy, because of the small radius.
Here is how Gwen´s equipment looked like when she entered third floor. I decided to actually wear the wolf charm. At this time, I valued +1 AC and +10 life higher than an extra second level spell. Gwen still needs any edge she can get, fighting-wise.

Man, those Spectral Guards were a lot of work to bring down! (still using the 'backstab from entrance' main plan). An unthankful job, since they required about 3 backstabs to die, and they gave only 100 XP each.

Sneak into the next room, ready for some thick action.

"Oh my, that´s a friggin´ DEMONKNIGHT!!"

But he´s not hostile, thankfully. Better back off, save, then walk up and hear what he has to say. Ah, he knows things, but wants a favour. "Very well, I will do as you ask."
(Hehe, he didn´t really mind that I have slayed his entire cadre of underlings...)


A cold place, eh? I examined the left side of the Vale, trying to look for an entrance I hadn´t seen before. It felt like something would fit in there, but I didn´t find anything. Then I thought of the yeti cave. Whoa! New population in there. Here is some nice Web + Mirror Image fighting going on. I managed to take this fight out of sight from the priestess. Later, she got owned by arrows and the occasional Magic Missile.

Auril. Where have I heard that name before? Oh yeah!:
"By the ice breath of Auril,´tis good to see new friends and taste freedom again!".
Let´s see who can place that quote.

I went back to Kuldahar, because I had now read in the walkthrough that I had missed the small quest involving the legacy of the inn. Gwen had apparenly not been socializing enough in the pub...

Turns out I had sold the legacy ring to the temple, so I had to buy it back, but I could indeed finish that quest.


By now, Gwen was good enough with locks so she could open Conlan´s chest. A smithing hammer, useless to her. A bit embarassed, she returned it to Conlan, who (surprisingly) wasn´t mad at her; he even gave her over 1000 gold for it!


Back to Kresselack with the news of the dead priestess. Good XP reward, but the stuff in his chest was geared towards fighters.


Time to visit Arundel again. A new lead, an old temple.

"My, that guy is HUGE!" He was running from something anyway. Hmm, how should that make me feel. "Uh, I have a bad feeling about this..."

[ July 17, 2007, 22:54: Message edited by: jiansonz ]