"Hardcore" playing sensibility

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About HLA's - i'll keep that in mind.

Anyway - a qucik upade on my party: we kicked Maevar, then decided that Haer'Dalis would be very happy if he used Celestial Fury. Entered Guarded Compuond, buffed like crazy, ran upstairs and then downstairs, attacked Koshi and his friends and - we have the mighty katana. But I completely forgot about Kuroisan - ha wants it too ! He fled in the first fight and a day later we met againg. A lot of hiding, potions of invis., breaching, dispelling, ... went on and he finally fell after a Greater Malison + Emotion. Cool - another Belt of Inertial Barrier and Boots of Avoidance. Not to mention the cheesy katana - which I probably won't use unless really needed.

Oh, and with help of Shield of Balduran and a Scroll of Protection from Undead (there is nasty lich with a lot of friends guarding the DEX gauntlets - Tactics Mod) we completed the Unseeing eye quest.

 

I will stop posting in this topic and continue posting in the ToB forum here.

Edited:
I finished SoA today. Check the ToB thread for more.

[ October 05, 2003, 22:12: Message edited by: Earl Grey ]

 

About a year ago I soloed through a sorceror hardcore and I also soloed a monk hardcore no problems there either.

Strategy-Sorceror The main strategy to use for a sorceror is summons, and high level offense mixed with mid level defense.

Strategy- Monk This one is slightly more difficult and needs to be watched carefully at low levels. It has been reported that in some games the Monk can utilise wands, if your game supports this I reccomend utilising it if you don't mind a bit of cheese now and then (I didn't and that made it difficult). However once the monk reaches level 14 with magic resistance and quivering palm, opposition is mown down like wheat stalks falling to a scythe. The one problem with the monk is the lack of hit points as he still gets recieves the hit points of a [priest(cleric or druid). If you get stuck on a particularly hard mage or even just a difficult adversary hide in shadows, stealth up to behind them and then quivering plam them. Easy

 

Sorry to resurrect a year-dead thread, but this is where this post belongs. Plot spoilers within.

My extremely promising effort failed last night. I had installed Tutu and rolled up a sorceror, intent on completing the full Baldur's Gate run with no deaths (I don't have TotSC, though). Much has been said about the awesome power of the sorceror, but it definitely lets you see the other side of the coin when you are first level, running from a pack of dire wolves, naked, with 4 HP. Quite the inauspicious beginning for my little demi-god.

The parameters of my game were as follows: myself and Imoen as the party. Hiring of a "mercenary" thief allowed during Imoen's absence. I was allowed to resurrect Imoen if she died, but death of the PC meant game over (this felt pretty natural, since it essentially mimics the constraints that the engine imposes -- I just imagined some special Bhaal-ness in me disallowed resurrection from death).

Highlights of the character history:

The fight against Bassilus took place somewhat early (pre-Nashkel even), and before I had mastered my no-death style. I had a "should have died" moment here. Bassilus held Imoen, but instead of waiting for that to wear off, I had my PC continue the fight. Bassilus started casting another Hold Person, and my Magic Missile failed to interrupt his casting. I took off toward Imoen, running past her in a desperate attempt to get more than a screen away before the magic effect reached me. I barely succeeded in that, and failed my save. Bassilus took off in chase, stumbled upon Imoen first (which had been my plan...made me rethink my alignment choice right there), and easily killed her. Since I was more than a screen away (outside viewing distance), he just stood there after dispatching Imoen, allowing the hold effect to wear off of me. I was able to take care of him from there with the help of a Stinking Cloud scroll. This turned out to be one of three deaths for Imoen.

That fight also helped me to shape my overall strategy. I remember when I first started this thread, people kept commenting "you're going to fail a save eventually." Very true. So the answer had to be: don't *ever* put yourself in a position where you have to make a save. In practice, this meant never revealing the presence of my sorceror first -- always lead the attack with Imoen or a summon to give the enemy a distraction.

I completed Baldur's Gate I with no further close calls. I had never played it before, so I was pretty pleased to have accomplished a no-death win on my freshman effort. Imoen's second death occurred at the hands of that nereid (sp?) that gives you the kiss. Since the game gave me no chance at all to avoid it, and no warning beforehand, I really didn't count this as a true death. A "cheap" one from the designers to be sure.

On to BGII. In brief, before leaving to get Imoen, I did most quests that can competed entirely without leaving the city, skipping the most dangerous (Kangaxx, Twisted Rune, Unseeing Eye to name a few). No Robe of Vecna, by the way, and I never missed having it. If you put yourself in a position where your casting speed matters, you are probably doing something wrong. I sided with the thieves, and cleared Bodhi's lair with laughable ease while standing near the stairs to the graveyard. God bless Skeleton Warriors and Farsight.

At this point, I should probably make a confession. I've never finished BGII. I'm a chronic restarter. With various characters, I think I've done just about everything you can possibly do in chapter two, but I'd never paid off either Bodhi or Gaelan. So I was in new territory again, but now with a very powerful PC.

I lost Imoen again in Bodhi's "gauntlet," to that trap where the walls just collapse on you. Imoen detected a trap there, but in attempting to disarm it got a "trap not disarmed" followed a split second later by insta-death. Another cheapie, but fine. The resurrection stick had her up and running soon after.

I made it all the way to the first screen of the Underdark (by way of the Sahuagin city), and that's where I met with disaster. The bane of the svirfneblin village, the Baalor, feared the projection I had fighting it, and my projection led it on a chase somewhat near to my (projection-held) PC, close enough that at one point the Baalor was closest to me and switched targets. Now, I had a full Stoneskin running, and the Baalor was near death. If I'd kept my head, I would have had Imoen whip out her Tuigan Bow and start firing +2 arrows at three shots per round, while my held, stoneskinned self "tanked." But in a panic I charged Imoen in between myself and the Baalor, and it dropped her in about a round and a half. The Baalor resumed its way toward me, and started swinging. On its first hit, my contingency fired (Invisibility on self), but of course that accomplished nothing -- demons see the invisible. Not long after my projection expired, and I was no longer held, but it was too late -- I already had a fear effect on me. A few rounds of panic later, I was toast.

Well, I deserve it. Failure to cast Resist Fear has been a constant flaw in my style, and if I was going to die, this is how it should have happened. Maybe it will get that lesson through my thick skull! All that remains is to decide if I want to complete the game. I'm not sure if I will or not...the wind has really been let out of my sails. Once you internalize the whole "no-death" approach, a death really makes things feel illegitimate.

Postmortem:

I definitely think this can be done without too much trouble. The key is to always play smart, which is harder than it sounds. A high level sorceror is *so* powerful that it can lull you into a kind of arrogant casualness, to which I fell victim. About the only thing that would have posed a real potential threat to this character is a surprise encounter with limited maneuvering room (e.g., zone into a new, small area with a bunch of nasty hostiles, with no exit allowed until the fight was over). Much of my character planning and spell choices involved surviving such scenarios.

My run through the two games also reminded of the awesome power of a certain spell, one that carried me through countless situations with laughable ease. Invisibility. Best...spell...ever. Sure, it won't win fights for you, but if not dying is your thing, it's unbelievably powerful. Sleep in a dungeon with no fear, and laugh when you awaken to an ambush and your ambushers can't see you. Laugh again as you are ambushed while negotiating the map between game areas and the same thing happens. Laugh when Imoen sets off a web trap, but the ettercaps / sword spiders / whatever can't see her to take advantage of it. Laugh when all kinds of nasty spellcasters have their magic interrupted due to being unable to cast at a suddenly invisible creature. And so forth.

Well, that's my story. Hope you enjoyed it.

[ December 14, 2004, 17:42: Message edited by: Macready ]