"Hardcore" playing sensibility

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Whew!! That’s a relief, Kralizek! I’m glad your monk’s still alive, and I’m glad you would let us know if he wasn’t. (I had kind of figured you would, but since I had thought the same of those stinkers Macready and Malovae ( ), and was apparently wrong, I thought I might have misjudged you as well.)

Anyway, I don’t feel so alone anymore (but of course, it’s too soon to count Earl Grey out). I’ll update you sometime the week of Sept. 22, after I’ve had some playing time. Hopefully by then you’ll have made some progress (make sure you’re sober when you play, though )

 

That's exactly why my game does not progress as quickly as it could during the weekends, especially Sundays.
I whish you a good time away from your game Splunge !
Oh and btw, maybe someone should try to PM Macready and Malovae. Who knows, maybe they forgot about this thread ?

 

Don't panic.

I started my solo sorceress today. Finished Irenicus' Dungeon and the Circus. Didn't have time to play more today. This will be a piece of cake.

Str 9
Dex 19 (Elf)
Con 16
Int 18
Wis 18
Cha 9

Starting spell selection:
1st level spells
Magic Missile
Identify
Friends
Shield
Prot f Evil

2nd level spells
Mirror Image
Knock
Resist Fear

3rd level spells
Melf's Minute Meteors
Skull Trap

Proficiencies:
Staff*
Dart*

 

Heh, your right, I got hit by a finger of death spell....damn liches!! Oh well thats what you get for taking a beserker.

 

I play on Core rules (don't think I wrote that earlier).

Update from day 2:

- Finished the Copper Coronet Slavers quest.
- Bought a "magic license" from Corneil.
- Released Viconia.
- Released Jan Jansen after getting him in jail.
- Finished Riddle in the Sewers.
- Finished Free the Slaves.
- Killed Mencar Pebblecrusher and his gang. (Five Spiders from Spider Spawn, three Web and I could almost stay and watch. It was extremely easy that way).
- Ambushed by Suna Seni and her gang.
- Did the "pirates in the wall" (Docks).
- Ambushed by Renfeld's kidnappers.
- Finished the Montaron quest.

Stopped playing for the day after becoming level 12.

Major equipment:
Robe of Vecna
Bracers AC 3
Staff of Rhynn
Girdle of Hill Giant Strength

New spells selected since start:
- Level 2
Melf's Acid Arrow (at level 9)
Web (at level 11)

- Level 3
Haste (at level 9)
Remove Magic (at level 11)

- Level 4
Spider Spawn (at level 8)
Stoneskin (at level 9)
Farsight (at level 11)

- Level 5
Breach (at level 10)
Spell Immunity (at level 11)

- Level 6
True Sight (at level 12)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

edited - September 14/15

Game over! (sort of)
I went straight into a vampire Domination and it was an instant game over. How obvious was that?

Well, I'm sure not going to let this little setback stop me, so after a restart I've finished Irenicus' Dungeon and will likely do some more gaming tonight (Sunday).

A tip: There is no such thing as too much preparation!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Edited again - September 16/17
Another couple of days after the restart and my new sorceress is at level 12 with a slightly different spell selection than the first one.

1st level (Same as before)
Magic Missile
Identify
Friends
Shield
Prot f Evil

2nd level (Same as before)
Mirror Image
Knock
Resist Fear
Melf's Acid Arrow
Web

3rd level
Melf's Minute Meteors
Skull Trap
Haste
Flame Arrow (instead of Remove Magic)

4th level
Spider Spawn
Stoneskin
Polymorph Self (instead of Farsight)

5th level (same as before)
Spell Immunity
Breach

6th level
Mislead

Comments:
I choose Polymorph Self for the 100% MR from the Mustard Jelly.
Flame Arrow is so I have a single target damage spell on 3rd level.
Mislead is... well, horribly good.

I've done all the stuff I did on the first try - more or less in the same order too, the most notable change being that I bought the Magic license directly after the Circus quest instead of later - as described above, but instead of paying Gaelan Bayle I choose to continue the following way:
- Caretaker for Risa
- Buried alive
- Uncle Lester
- Put the spirit of the child Wellyn to rest
- Killed Pai'na and her 20 small spiders
- Kill Roger's Sea Troll
- Killed the party in the sewers
- Ambushed by Orogs
- Animal Trouble in Trademeet

After getting Mislead an extremely good tactic is to cast Mislead (and spells like Mirror Image, Res Fear, Spider Spawn just to be safe) and Spell Immunity - Divination, then move in and attack with Skull Traps etc. It's a bleeding massacre since the enemies typically can't see you and thus can't do anything. Also it's good to have the cloak of Non Detection.

At level 14 Project Image becomes available...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Edited again - September 18
Now at level 15 and the following has been done since last time:
- Madulf's proposition
- Mimic's blood
- Juggernaut Golem
- Collect the fee for Gaelan Bayle
- Pirates in the wall
- Skinner Murders
- Valeria and her goons (Bridge dist)
- Neb
- Sir Sarles (pure Illithium)
- Mae'var's first task
- Fallen Paladins
- Nalia's Keep

Current spells:
1st: MM, Pf Evil, Shield, Identify, Friends
2nd: MI, Knock, M Acid Arrow, Web, Res Fear
3rd: MMM, Skull Trap, Haste, Flame Arrow
4th: Spider Spawn, Stoneskin, Polymorph Self, Farsight
5th: Spell Immunity, Breach, Lower Resistance, Animate Dead
6th: Mislead, Death Spell, True Sight
7th: Project Image, Mordenkainen's Sword

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Yet another edit - September 21

At level 17 and everything is going ever so smoothly now.

The following spells have been added since level 15:
7th - Delayed Blast Fireball (Lich killer)
8th - Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting
8th - Spell Trigger

Using Project Image & Skeleton Warriors & Farsight & Skull Trap & Abi-dalzims Horrid Wilting to do almost everything. Not putting my sorceress in any danger.

Here is what have been done since last time:
- Another mission for the Temple: the Dawn Ring
- Guarded Compound
- Ihtafeer
- Hero of Trademeet
- Dueling families of Trademeet
- Helping Tiris
- Acorns returned
- Free Haer'Dalis
- Planar Prison
- Firkraag's Dungeon almost completed, will go meet with Firkraag at start of next playing session.

Equipment normally worn:
Staff of Rhynn
Sling of Everard
Robe of Vecna
Amulet of Power
Bracers AC 3
Ring +2
Ring of Earth Control
Girdle of Hill Giant Strength
Boots of Speed
Cloak of Non-detection

Will get Ring of Gaxx and Staff of the Magi before leaving for Brynnlaw.

[ September 21, 2003, 16:25: Message edited by: Earl Grey ]

 

Well, I'm back, and I've had a bit of playing time. I just started Underdark; Chapter 4 was no problem - buff, fight, rest, repeat.

@Earl Grey:

That's the spirit!
You appear to be beating the crap out of this game (as I thought you might). Keep up the good work.

You've got that right!
P.S. - Good luck with the twisted rune - the staff is pretty hard to pass up.

@Kralizek - You were silent all week. I hope that's not a bad sign.

@Malovae
You took on a lich with a solo berserker? And a low-level (probably) one at that? As Jay Leno said to Hugh Grant, "what the hell were you thinking?" Oh well, are you gonna try again?

EDIT:

My game is over

I was in Ust Natha. I got the quest from the thing in the tank to get Qilue's brain. Well, I don't recall the battle being too difficult in my previous games, but even with all my advance buffing, I got nailed by one of the mages; I'm not even sure what killed me, since it was my "main" PC that died, so I got the death screen.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I guess it's up to Earl Grey (and hopefully Kralizek) to do this thing. Good luck to both of you, and please give updates since I'll still be watching this thread.

[ September 22, 2003, 04:21: Message edited by: Splunge ]

 

Just a very quick update. Sadly, real life has pretty much catched up with me the whole week, so I had no quality time to spend on any hardcore sessions.
My monk is still running around Athkatla trying very hard not to get killed. I will hopefully have more time this week, so be on the lookout . I must say however that sofar the monk class has been a disappointment, far less powerful that I expected.

@ Splunge: Well, you went very far at least. I hope I will manage at least what you did. I hope you enjoyed the try !

@ Earl Grey: hope you will have better luck this time around. Seems like you are getting things in order though.

 

@ Splunge

I was quite angry at the lich so I reloaded and killed it - but it was still a hollow victory. I thought (for some unknown reason) that berserk would protect me from death magic and the lower saving throws would help as well. I was lvl 12 by the way. I might give it another go in the future and will either start a new thread or resurrect this one. In fact I might even start tonight. See how I feel later

 

Hello -

My apologies for my extended absence. I was on vacation for over a week and then...

Death happened to all of my characters (both the Swashbuckler and the Sorcerer), but not in the manner I had originally envisioned. A devious foe named "Maxtor" cast a finger of death at itself, and failed the saving throw. Or, in RL terminology, my hard drive crashed completely...do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not boot the computer again without a boot disk.

Of course, in true "hardcore" style, I had no backup of my games. The combined aggravation of having to rebuild my development machine from scratch and losing my BGII progress has made me swear off the project for the time being.

I hadn't done much of note. My sorcerer was still tinkering around Athkatla, doing the gravy quests that allow for quick and easy experience. I am going to take some time to let the BGII bug bite me again of its own accord, and then I'll reinstall it and have at it once more.

Anyway, now that I'm back up and running, I did want to let everyone know that for now I am out of the running, but I am still interested in the idea and have enjoyed catching up with all of your progress. It turns out to be a good thing that EG picked a sorcerer as well...all our arcane hopes rest on his shoulders!

 

@Macready
Thanks for the update. Now that we know you didn’t just disappear, my faith in humanity (or at least you) is now restored. Sorry to hear about your computer; hopefully you’ll get “bitten” again soon. And please post elsewhere on these Boards if you feel like it; new, intelligent (ie unlike me) members are always welcome.

@Malovae
I know what you mean about the hollow victory – I did the same thing with my game.

 

@Macready
Sorry about that HD crash. Hope that won't happen to you again.

@Splunge
When that thing happened in Ust Natha, would you say that you were being careless, or was it something that you would have had trouble avoiding? For example, were you prepared with defensive spells?
You got quite far so it's understandable if you don't try again, but you really should, you know!

@Malovae
Single class fighter type is IMHO putting himself at high risk too many times for this kind of exercise. Berserker/Mage is probably a brilliant choice though! Why don't you try it?

@Kralizek
Monk is IMO an excellent soloing character. However in this case he probably suffers from having to put himself at risk all the time, like all other meleers. Things like Quivering Palm is save-or-else so not quite as great as when you can reload.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Here is what my sorceress has done since last time:

- Killed Firkraag (Lower Res / Abi-Dalzim / Mordenkainen's Swords)
- Twisted Rune (Project Image / DB Fireball / Skull Trap)
- Unseeing Eye
- Shade Lich
- Elemental Lich
- Mae'var's Treachery
- Kangaxx (Skeleton Warriors w P f Magic cast from scroll via Project Image / Melf's Minute Meteors / Mordenkainen's Swords / Spell Immunity-Abjuration)
- Planar Sphere
- Bohdi's lair

So, I'm about ready to leave Athkatla having acquired the Ring of Gaxx, Staff of the Magi and Ring of the Ram.

 

@Earl Grey
It wasn't so much a matter of being careless as underestimating the difficulty of the fight and therefore not having enough buffs on. My usual buffs were stone/iron skins, chaotic commands, spirit armour, resist fear, chant, prot evil 10', and haste. This usually is enough, and if I think the fight will be more difficult, I will add improved haste and improved invisibility. In this particular case, I had underestimated the difficulty, and only had the basics; plus the fact that I was caught a bit by surprise probably cost me once the battle started. After I died, I reloaded and added improved invis., and it went fine, but of course at that point my game was over. I have to say that I think that my death was going to happen eventually anyway, since as I said in an earlier post, I haven't played the later chapters as often as the earlier ones, so it was very likely that I would be caught off guard sooner or later.

As far as trying again, I might at some point, but not right now. If I can't do it with the party I had, I'm not sure what I would change to improve my chances. Of course, I suppose I could start the same party over again, but frankly I think I would get bored pretty quickly given that I would be playing the 1st 4 chapters basically identical to this time.

But enough about me. Earl Grey, you are doing great here. I'm feeling pretty confidant that you have a good chance of going all the way, so my fingers are crossed. But I'm curious - why did you decide to take on Firkraag? Was there something he had that you wanted, or did you just feel like kicking some dragon butt, and were confident you could do it without putting yourself in any real danger? (P.S. I saw your Firkraag strategy in the other thread, so I suspect you just wanted to teach the bastard a lesson. )

 

Ok, I can't help it.... i'm giving it another shot. This time i'm taking a socerer the same as Earl Grey.

Name - Geldin
Elf
Lawful Evil

Stats:

Str - 9
Dex - 19
Con - 16
int - 9
wis - 18
Cha - 18

Currently level 11

Spells:

Magic Missile
Identify
Chromatic Orb
Spook
Shield

Melfs Acid Arrow
Knock
mirror image
Blur
Web

Skull trap
Melfs Minute Meteors
Dispel
Prot from Normal missiles

Stoneskin
Imp. Invisibility
Greater Malison

Breach
Sunfire

Mislead


So far I've done these quests/encounters:

Dungeon
Circus
Mencar and gang
Slavers
Lirlicor
Bought Magic Lisence
Wellyn's bear
Risa and the Goody two shoes
Crypt king
the Spider Queen
Uncle lester
Skinner murders (part 1)
Kidnappers in Bridge District
The hideout of Valeria and gang
Two Random Encounters
Xsars Quest
Jaherias Harper Hold Qeust. then killed the arrogant wannabe
Watched Viconia burn
Recruited Jan then kicked him out for the XP
Wiped out the radient Heart ala shura

(Prelate weaslen only gives 25000 xp and the other knights give either 2500, 3500 or 7000 xp.)


update later

 

i may have to give this a shot it sounds intresting

 

For those considering to give this a go I can recommend Berserker-dual-to-Mage (for SoA only, not for ToB). That would give a decent fighting skill when needed, some special protective ability via Berserker Rage and then the spell power from being a mage.

@Splunge
You are right in asking about Firkraag. I did it because I felt it was safe and wanted to try and beat him. In case things would not have gone as planned my back-up plan was to hightail it out of there before he had a chance to do any damage.
What I feared was that he would get in a Heal just in time to avoid death. My tactic depended primarily on Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting and once those were depleted I had decided to escape.

@Malovae
Haste is excellent for the summons. IMHO for a soloing sorcerer there are three level 3 spells that you need: MMM, Haste and one area damage spell (like Skull Trap or Fireball).

Improved Invisibility is hardly useful once you get Mislead.

Spell Immunity is a lifesaver, especially when you have some knowledge of what to expect.

Which summons are you planning to use? As you have seen I'm heavily dependant on summons both to do the fighting and to keep me out of harms way.

 

I'm not sure about my summons because I've rarly used them before. I normally take Animate Undead but that would mean dropping an important spell. mordeikans sword is a must but other than that i've never been tempted to take them.
Sunfire is a must for me - I know its not that powerful but theres nothing better than beimg swamped by enemies and and setting off a damage free fireball
This is the first time i've used mislead alot and I like it - just have to get spell immunity and I'm sorted.

Anyway, i just got in from work 2:30 AM and decided to complete :

Animal Trouble in Trademeet
skinner (part 2)
fueding families of trademeet
Head of Ihtafeer

Next I'm off to the D'Arnise Hold - wish me luck!

 

After leaving Athkatla, my sorceress has "done" Brynnlaw, The Asylum and the Sahuagin city.
There is absolutely no dangerous fight in any of those places - at least not for a high level character - so there's not much to say. I think the only way you could screw up in there is if you got careless with some trap.

Sunfire is nice but it's bugged. It erroneously disregards magic resistance, which makes it quite excellent. I chose not to take Sunfire for that reason, but have some scrolls of Sunfire... just in case.

Because defense is vital my Spell Trigger is typically loaded with Mirror Image - Mislead - True Sight. Using pause on seeing enemy (of course ) this gives me the opportunity to become almost invulnerable in an instant by firing the Spell Trigger on myself.

I don't have Contingency, but buy all the Contingency scrolls I can find and cast it with: when at 50% HP - Stoneskin - Self. Being reduced to 50% HP's should never happen, but it's a nice little insurance that might save the game. My point is that Contingency is nice, but IMHO not worth a spell slot in SoA.

Today, it's time for the Underdark!

 

@Malovae:
I remembered clearly that unlike IWD2, BG2's sorcerer primary stats is int instead of cha....

 

Ok, today I've completed:

All Nalia Quests
Cult of the Eyeless
Party in sewers
Rodgers sea troll
Shade Lich
Mekrath (only got gem - and have not done the astral prison)
Illitium
Neb's head
retieve the lathander ring for talos
destroyed the Lathander Temple for fun
Guarded compound
Mae Var Quests and destroyed him
Mimics blood
Madulfs proposition

Have just started the Planar Sphere after using Valygar's body to get in.

Spells picked:

lvl 4 - Polymorph self for the 100% magic res. handy agaist liches mainly and other high level mages.
lvl 5 - Spell Immunity for various purposes
- Animate Dead still not sure if this was a wise pick (I would prefer lower res)
lvl 6 - Death Spell to get rid of summons and annoying low level enemies (random encounters and goblins etc)
- True Sight
lvl 7 - Mordiekins sword
- Finger of Death
lvl 8 - Abi's Horrid Wil...need I explain??

@ Skywind

I didn't take charisma because I thought my sorcerer depended on it - it was so I wouldn't have to keep putting on the Influence ring all the time . Intelligence does not have any real effect on anything for a sorcerer other than possibly spell failure if its too low.

Next i'm off to kill the Elemental Lich and then Kangaxx. I'm not doing the Shade Lord quest or Windspear Hills. Nothing really important there, and I've almost hit the XP cap for SoA (I will go past it but this is the SoA forum which is kinda annoying....

....hey Earl Grey are you moving onto 'you know what' because there is a thread already in the ToB forum which we could move onto) - sorry Tal

oh and I must remember to get the Staff of the Magi

 

So, I decided to take from thought to Action and join the "hardcore" club, but as a "newbie" I'll try to fill in whats going on

So, I decided to create a 2 pc MP game, creating a mage/thief elf and Fighter/Cleric Half-elf, and so far I've been in a lot of trouble (and haven't advanced nearly at all in Irenicus dungeon ).

So I bet my first survival will be brief, and offcourse please do send me tips on making money/getting those super quest items etc

I bet my next add on this forum will be my chars death, but hey, practice makes the champion, eh?

Wish me luck

*already lost nerves on my lousy chars*