What Happens in Baldur’s Gate, …

Wow.  So much can happen.  I went to the Ankheg farm screen, killed as many of those as I could…but no one will buy the shells anymore.  All that lugging, for nothing.  I went back to Beregost and FAI, to find who I accidentally might have sold Minsc’s Ring of Animal Charming to, but to no avail.  It is lost.  So I head on to Baldur’s Gate, to get more treasures, start the multitude of quests, and hopefully get Imoen to level 7 mage before attempt Durlag’s Tower.

So the first screen – shops, right away. Sling+1 for both Yeslick and Dynaheir, awesome.  Also the Sorcerer’s Sundries – I kill the four mages upstairs, and Dynaheir dings 7th level, so she can cast 4th level spells now!  Nothing much besides Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere for her to use…so that kind of bites. And that spell is thanks to the TotSC expansion…wow.  Thank goodness both her and Imoen already have Cloudkill in their spellbooks. 

Everywhere I turn I am enbroiled in side-quests; the thieves’ guild; Narlen’s two thieves’ guild sub-quest robberies; the cleric with the dead son at Umberlee’s; and of course, Coran’s daughter poisoned by Yago.  I resolve all of these, killing the poor three women defending their pieces of the airship parts…not really what a paladin would do.  I also get the Tomb of Dex from the Thieves Guild, and of course become poinsoned, following Lothander’s sub-quest for the Geas.  I pick up the Tome of Wisdom from the Lady’s Temple…then kill all the Umberlee priests, rather than give it up (again, not at all paladin-like, but…they were evil, and I lost no reputation!).  I use the Wis tome myself, for 16 now.  Dex, well, 10 Dex won’t do much for me, so that goes to Coran – 21 dex means a +3 to hit, +5 to AC.  Nice.  I know, that means it’s a waste as soon as BG1 is over, but oh well.  Maybe I can take my Gauntlets of Dexterity over to BG II…

Yeslick dings a cleric level, and Coran a fighter one too.  Both are just 6. 

The wand presence is ridiculous now – I have 4 wands of Fire, two of Paralysis, two of Magic Missle, two of Frost, one of Fear, Monster Summoning, and Lightning.  I could survive without ever resting again.  Same with potions – so many potions of Giant Strength, invulnerability, etc.  It’s going to be hard to take me down. 

I’ll keep digging up sub-quests here in BG, but first off to actually visit the Seven Suns and do what I’m supposed to be doing.  As soon as I enter the Seven Suns, I talk to a fat merchant who leaves.  Then the others seem interested in me being all alone…and talk about their tummy rumbling.  Without any further ado, they turn in dopplegangers!  Well, time to put them to rest with the Bastard Sword +1, +3 vs. Shapeshifters.  I find Jhasso downstairs, killing two more Dopplegangers, then look in the chests…and there’s too much stuff to carry.  Gems, scrolls – I leave them all in the cupboard. 

I am wandering around to find the barracks and meet Scar, when I come upon a blurred Aldeth Sashenstar, whom I rescued from those evil druids.  Saving my game, I pickpocket him for another Bastard Sword +1, +3 vs. Shapeshifters, and also a gem and a potion.  Then I actually talk to him, and he convinces me to help him scout out his merchant league buddies for odd behavior.  Sounds like more doppleganger action – and it is!  Imoen dings Mage 6 as we clear out the 2nd floor (with that cleric’s help) and then the top floor with a fireball.  Again, too much loot – leaving gems on the ground.  The bottom floor I couldn’t get to finish before falling asleep – good think, because no matter what I did the dopplegangers all went for Imoen, who was all out of spells, and extremely susceptible to Doppleganger critical hits for 24 damage, apparently.  Maybe they are attracted to that ‘ding’ sound of levelling up. 

I’ll take this as far as I can, clearing out the Merchants and then Seven Suns, getting back with Scar, maybe robbing/killing Aldeth Sashenstar per the interesting guide.  Once close to the end of the BG sub-quest madness, I’ll head out to the Farm north of BG, and pick the last few chests open at the Bandit Camp that I didn’t get before, then Ulgoth’s Beard, then Durlag’s Tower before returning here to wrap this game up.  Woohoo!!

Shipwrecks, Safana, Brage, Mines. etc

Cleaning up more of these screens that I never got to finish completely before. Not much to them, really – the first screen with the shipwreck, and Mad Arcand’s Ring of Folly.  The map with Safana wasn’t so bad – the flesh golems hit Minsc and my paladin pretty hard, but Yeslick summoned some skeletons to take the brunt for the final one.  Con of 19!  Hooray!  After that we let Safana go, which is good, because she complained constantly about new leadership.  The Chaotic Neutral slutty chick doesn’t fit well with my uber-good, chaste-Paladin-led party.

The map below that with Brage and the Mine was interesting.  First, the Hobgoblin and his kobold sharpshooters – even with my negative AC rates, they were hitting my with every shot!  Yeslick and Dynaheir were constantly on fire, when they were stupid enough to (or I was stupid enough to let them) get near.  When we finally had that behind us, we went into the mine, saving the silly archaeologist from his diggers.  At the end I grabbed the idol, just to see how tough the Doomsayer was – and wow, he was tough.  He shredded my main guy pretty bad, at which point Coran took over, then Minsc, then Yeslick.  Finally, with all of us hurt and some skeletons crushed, he chopped into bits.  The idol is mine…nowhere to really sell it though.

Then there was Brage, an easy trip to the Temple to get a cursed two-handed sword +3.  I sold it for 500gp.  From there I sold off my overloaded stores again in Nashkell, and then headed to the map below – I think there is Albert and his dog Ruffie, maybe a few more side-quests to do and treasures to collect before heading to Baldur’s Gate.  I am thinking I will kill all the Ankhegs, then head into BG…then, perhaps, before I am stuck in plot, head back out to Durlag’s Tower and do a level or three there.  Not sure if I can do the whole Ulgoth’s Beard stuff, seems rather tedious and Icewind Dale is chomping at the bit to start going…

I can’t believe I’ve played this game so often – maybe 5, 6 startups in my lifetime – and never even made it into the titular city, the 10-map Baldur’s Gate itself.  Man, what a pain!  I’ve never even made it this far I don’t think.  But it is teetering, becoming like work to get through.  Maybe I have game ADD?  Gotta think so, when my mind wanders to baseball sims and Icewind Dale, and I have to make myself play through this.  But with promotions and band, and maybe family a few years down the road, I have to get the gaming out NOW!

Spider forest, back to Temple

Quick play during the Home Run Derby – I cleared out the remaining spiders and baddies on the Red Wizards screen, giving the guy back his cursed scroll.  Minsc, armed with Spider’s Bane is un-web-able, and he’s avoided poison almost every time, making him into a spider/ettercap Terminator of sorts. 

I thought I would head to that Temple screen, which I never completed, and wipe everyone out there, selling off my stuff to the priest – but he doesn’t but anything I have, jewelry and gems etc, so that’s out.  Instead I turned the stone chick back to human form, for the potion of mirrored eyes…great, since I already cleared all the basilisks.  Things I have not used yet: potion, scroll (other than to write magic), almost any of my wands.  I’m a saver!

I’ll just go frmo here to Beregost to sell off everything, and then head to the lighthouse, then down. 

Current party:

• PC – paladin, Adrian Alorn (lvl 6)
• Minsc (6, only 50 hp!?!)
• Coran (6)
• Yeslick (now 5/5)
• Dynaheir (lvl 6)
• Imoen (dualed to Illusionist, lvl 6/4 now)

NPC Locations:

• Xzar: Beregost
• Montaron: Dead
• Shar-Teel: Dead
• Kagain: Beregost, in his shop
• Ajantis: Beregost
• Kivan: Beregost
• Branwen: Beregost
• Garrick: Beregost
• Xan: left permanently
• Khalid: ?
• Jaheira: ?
• Faldorn: Cloakwood, untouched
• Eldoth: Cloakwood, untouched
• Edwin: Nashkell
• Viconia: Friendly Arm Inn

NPC collecting, Mines, Basilisks

Cloakwood in depth wasn’t as bad as I feared.  The spider map, Cloakwood 2, was tough in that final battle with the fat sitting web queen or whatever she was.  That took a few times to get right – fireball, summons, Coran doing archery.  I was rewarded for my hard work with the Spider’s Bane, and some other various treasure.  Other than that, not many enemies – the screen with all the druids is odd, in that I got to rob a house and kill a druid, the the rest were nice to me, pointing me towards Faldorn, who I opted out of getting.  I still walked past Eldoth, no need for him at all really.  Maybe later.

So I come to the mines, and am attacked by a party of mercenaries.  I had already charmed a guard, who I sent in to attack, but I also charm their mage.  Easy pickings after that – really, charm is the key to over half the tough battles in this game.  I wonder how a lone enchanter would do…anyway, the surface was easy enough, so I proceeded went to find the cave entrance.  I still had a full party, but figured I could at least clear out a level or two, maybe see what level Yeslick was – the DSimpson guide says 4/5, but most NPCs have experience similar to mine when I find them, and I was more like 6 almost 7.  So the first level is very easy – guards attack you in ones, maybe twos. The very first guard told me to prepare for his butt kicking – and then fell to Coran’s arrow in his neck.  Level 1 – clear!

Level 2 is harder, with some winding passageways and secret doors.  Oh, and the traps started.  I took the back way, through the secret doors where the Ghasts are, and came upon the prisoners – Rell, who I gave 100gp to, and then Yeslick.  Well, I saved right before, and luckily too, because Branwen again leaves, comparing me to ‘the Loki spawn she left behind’.  Hmm.  So I reload, and head to the Friendly Arm Inn to pile my NPCs together and figure this out.  On my way out of Cloakwood I get random encounters with Wyverns or Ettercaps every time – after 10 attempts, and dying every timne, I just rested up and healed, then tried it again.  That time, no encounters at all.  Apparently they only spawn when I am wounded, hah. 

So at FAI, I drop off Minsc and Dynaheir, all loaded down and everything, and pick up Garrick – the only NPC I had at FAI instead of Beregost.  I head to the Viconia screen with a party of 5, thinking that maybe the encounter will work this time – and sure enough, a Flaming Fist is there to initiate.  I kill him and get Viconia, putting my reputation down to 18.  I swap her and Branwen’s gear, then head to Beregost, where I drop off Garrick and Branwen to wait in line with everyone else.  Except…Ajantis and Kivan are there, but Khalid and Jaheira are gone.  This is like day 70 of my journey, so perhaps they got tired of not being used and wandered off?  I thought most NPCs stay where I leave them, but apparently there are some time limits (although it may be from me messing with the source files – I did do one or two updates, for my Ankheg mail and Kagain’s quest using BGUB).  Anyway, at rep 18, Branwen is happy to just sit and wait, and not leave in a huff – which is great for me, because I’m not sure one multi-class, slow leveling cleric is going to cut it for me.

So I head back to FAI with Viconia, and then drop her at the entrance for Minsc and Dynaheir, piling all my cleric gear across everyone’s packs.  Then it’s back to the mines – again, more random encounters – I find that going map to map is easier, less chance for the random encounters.  I head right down the mine, get Yeslick, equip him, and all is well.  Then it’s off to the Big Important Battle on level 2; this one takes some effort.  I have Coran go in hidden, then use Dynaheir to case a stinking cloud – but it doesn’t work, she keeps getting seen and hit by poison arrows.  It’s like every time I reload there’s another guard in this room.  Finally it works out, Yeslick entangles the room, Dynahier Stinking Clouds it, and then she webs it as well for good measure.  Coran, Minsc and my PC do the dirty work, while Imoen, Yeslick and Dynahier sling stones from afar.  It’s a tough battle, for this no-name mage guy who doesn’t even say anything.  Pshaw. 

Anyway, at this point I need to rest, so I figure this big room with all the dead bodies might be suitable.  I try, and there are 20 bandit archers suddenly in the adjoining rom – which Dynaheir takes out with one fireball.  Priceless.  I try again but the same situation arises.  Finally I find some other, less-travelled room and rest.  Now, onto level 3, where hobgoblin barracks and some other minor baddies hang out.  Most of these are a cakewalk, with some spells and lots of good archery.  The Ogre Mage doesn’t show up with Coran is hidden in shadows, but once I poke Yeslick’s head in, there he is, in murderous glory – he wallops Yeslick before I take him down.  Next is the mage with tons of hobgoblin guards, and then around to the massively-overpopulated Hobgoblin barracks.  Coran picks all the locks, takes all the jewels.  On to 4!

Daveaorn is here, but it’s not a tough battle.  Disarmed the traps, then he came out – Yeslick’s ability to dispel magic worked great on him, and from there we just quickly hacked him to bits.  Killed the slime, then spent 20 minutes trying to squeeze in all the treasure, learn all the scrolls (Dynaheir failed to copy one, a low level spell but I was still upset), and discard the items less valueable for the more valuable.  I rested up in the treasure/slime room to get enough identifies to weed out and drop the cursed scrolls.  Then, back up the quick elevator, up to level one to ask the guy to flood the mines.  Gave him the key, and voila, flooded mine, chapter 5 complete!

Back at the Friendly Arm I spent forever sorting, selling, discarding long swords +1 and morningstars +1 that I wasn’t using.  Some of the robes too, since I was carrying about 12.  I figure selling them to an inkeeper or in Beregost means I have a main place so I can buy them back if I ever need to – and with my rep back up to 20, prices are grrreat!  Once I am fully healed, rested, and packs are empty, I head out to the Basilisk screen, to kill off Shar-Teel and get some experience for Imoen and Yeslick.  That screen is a cakewalk, simply because Yeslick animates some dead, which serve as the first line for all basilisk and gnoll fights.  There are a ton of basisilisks on this screen – I was thinking 2 or 4, but there’s like 10!  lots of good experience.  I found Kirian and her adventuring group, but the dialogue was too peaceful – I killed on guy on his way out just to grab his gear, which wasn’t nice of me.  When I finally find Shar-Teel, the last part of the map, my PC fought her fairly, one on one, till she surrendered.  Then, since she is evil and fighting strangers, I put her to death. 

I headed to the next screen up, where the Red Wizards of Thay are, and happened upon them after some Ettercaps.  I wasn’t really prepared for it, but I’m sick of reloading to get things perfect – so Dynaheir approaches them from the south and fireballs them.  But the main wizard gets some sick confusion spell out, and the other 5 party members are all feared into uselessness – running around in their yellow circles.  So, Dynaheir launches another fireball, then stinking cloud.  She pelts a mage to death with sling bullets, then the rest of the group recovers to kill any remaining mages.  Dynaheir just about took down 4 mages on her own…that’s some powerful stuff. 

Next is some other areas – Lighthouse, Safana’s golem cave, back south to some missed places, and then on to either a) baldur’s gate, b) ulgoth’s beard, or c) durlag’s tower.  Now that my party is complete it’s time to start running through everything…but how, and in what order?  Hmmm…

Notes – Portraits, Other Blogs

While wandering around these here internets to see who else had blogged about a Baldur’s Gate playthrough like I am, I found some awe-inspiring examples:

Baldur’s Gate: Unhinged – an unabashedly evil, multiplayer party romps through BG, beating and evil-ing everything in its path, with hilarious writeup by someone with even more time than me.  This is about the best blog-thru of BG out there – and he’s moving on to BG2: SoA now.  Someone else, blogging the same 11-year old game as I am?  Awesome. 

Baldurdash – a few years old now, and confined to BG2: SoA and ToB, but still a great, complete blog-thru of the games.  What’s great about this is that’s it’s done solo, with a mage…which is oh-my-god hard, and yet he does it.  Pretty good. 

Baldur’s Gate: The Zero Reload Saga – another BG2:S0A blog-thru, but this one with absolutely NO reloading.  this guy blogs more like I do, taking 6-month breaks here or there.  Excellent. 

Palin’s Plunderers – another evil-party walkthrough, and not nearly as high-minded or witty as the first, but still a BG read, if you’re bored at work or something. 

NPCs

A good site I stumbled on recently is The Silver River, which has all the NPCs in the party, a quick review of each, and also their alignments – allowing you to configure your ideal party for any run-through – good, evil, or neutral. 

Another good part about this site is that you get to see all the character portraits, and can see them in full, ugly detail.  Now before I began playing, I knew I wanted to use Branwen for at least part of the game; so I replaced her normal portrait, the sad, disinterested, maybe-I’m-a-Druid-with-bad-makeup one:

 

With a nice handy one from Amaurea at Gibberlings3:

Sure, it has to be shrunk to size, and it zooms in on the face much more than the rest – but Branwen is now 10x hotter, more fitting her voice, and can be visualized with armor and shield, at least.   Thanks!

So this leads to looking at the other portraits that are, let’s say, hideously ugly?  Or do not match the characters/voices in any way.  You know who we’re talking about.  Coran, Faldorn, Safana, and Viconia. 

                

Let’s work with Coran first.  A chaotic good fighter/thief, elf, charisma of 16.  So good looking, ladies’ man, elfy.  The picture looks like an Insane Clown Posse reject, maybe some bandit camp weirdo clutching gold.  So, alternate maybe?  gibberlings3 provides two awesome choices, one being more animated and green.  Since he will use the Shadow Armor if he’s in your party, I choose this one from Melisah:

Voila!  Handsome, elfy, dark clothes, and the look of a ladies man.  Excellent.  Next up – Faldorn.  What were these folks thinking?  Faldorn is already about the most under-powered characters in the game stat-wise, paling next to the cuter Jaheira, and placed in a forest that you really should only take on as a full party, with 4 other NPCs to collect!  They offset this by having the oddball, sometimes-friendly sometimes-not, aloof and unhelpful Druidic guys recommend you take her…but with that scary evil aunt portrait?  Looking like some evil wench got punched trying to slice open a small child with her claws?  No thanks!  Now, maybe one that might lead to more Faldorn-loving parties, showing a cute nature-loving chick with an animal, from XVII:

WIN!  I’d take that in my party.  Next up, Safana – the flirty, cute chick in the game, charisma of 17, every guy falling all over themselves for this crazy pirate-loving slut.  Now, check out the picture again:

Slutty, thief, human – all check.  But hot?  17 charisma hot, every guy falling all over themselves hot?  No.  This is Duke Squarejaw with a red wig.  Again, Jaheira is cuter than her, but no one’s falling all over themselves for her – and it’s not because they’re scared of the stuttering boyfriend.   Luckily, a talented artist – again, XVII – took the time to create a Safana a little easier on the eyes, and less manly:

Mmmm, now this is a slut that is a lot more desireable.  Even the cleavage got better lighting – hats off, brother!  Now I can imagine everyone wanting to hit that – just some cheekbone and squarejaw improvements, and you have hotness!  Like a Nip/Tuck episode, all between two photos.  😀  So all that leaves ia Viconia, really – an evil drow elf cleric.  Well, the portrait appears to be a chubby chick stabbing downward, while in armor, and possible in hell.  But clerics don’t stab, really…and it doesn’t appear like she’s going to bring down a hammer or mace in that photo.  Also, drow elves are supposed to have dark skin, to stick out on the surface; the BG2 game used a different portains, so I’ll use XVII’s modified version:

Hair, eyes, skin all much more matching to the character.  Now the only real ugly portraits left are Skie, who I’ll never ever use, and Shar-Teel and Xzar, both of which should probably be somewhat ugly.  Perfect!  Now my game will look good, no matter what my party choices are.  🙂

Other Parties

In addition to my main runthrough, I’m also trying to prep/spec out run throughs as an Evil party (with Shaconia, my human evil cleric) and a neutral party – probably Chaotic Neutral, to just be wacky as heck the whole game.  In grouping the neutral characters, it appears there are literally no neutral fighters – everyone in the game is either good or evil, Minsc, Kivan, Coran, Ajantis, Khalid, Kagain, Shar-Teel, Yeslick, Montaron.  Only sole Jaheira would fit in a neutral party (which means I may have to accidentally ‘off’ Khalid), and even then she’s multi-class.  So a dwarven fighter gives me an alternate race, and a chance to chop things up using axes all the time.

Neutral party thoughts:

• Me – fighter, dwarf?
• Garrick – Bard
• Quayle – Cleric/Illusionist
• Safana – Thief
• Faldorn/Jaheira – Druid
• Xan – enchanter

This would allow me to complete the game with some fun alternates, and gives me the possiblity of 3 people wielding mage spells, and 2 with cleric – but leaves me tremendously weak in the tank department.  My main dwarf would have to be incredibly good, and Jaheira/Garrick would have to be my second line.  Icky. 

Evil party thoughts:

• Shaconia, evil cleric
• Caern the Black – import fighter -> Shar-Teel – fighter (E of Beregost temple)
• Kagain – fighter (Beregost)
• import – elven thief/mage -> Montaron – fighter/thief (1st panel)
• Maelva – import enchanter ->Xzar – mage (1st panel)
• Edwin – mage (Nashkell)
• Others: Viconia?  – and much further down the line:  Eldoth?  Tiax?

This setup is great with tanks – Kagain and Shar-Teel should combine to something awful up front – and two mages, in Xzar and Edwin.  Edwin is supposedly the best mage in the game, due to high Int and his amulet, and I read somewhere Xzar can summon skeletons at will as an ability, which is fantastic if true!  My own casting as a cleric complicates matters – first of all, we miss out on Viconia, one of the best NPCs, and secondly the only thief is Montaron, a multi-class.  Hrm. 

So I have a few options:

1. Swap out Shaconia for a thief instead.  Viconia can come on board, but we’re weak in heals until she does.  And going through with a thief would be tough…but hey, thats what multiplayer is for until NPCs get in.  But then I lose out on a spellcasting PC altogether, which royally bites. 
2. Dump Monty/Xzar, and instead use Viconia/Tiax?  But then we have no theif until BG, i lose out on two mages, and lose the best evil duo for banter.  Hmm.

A lot of folks on these internets just completely bypass Montaron and Xzar, but I’d like to work them in…but how…oh well – the Tiax thing I can avoid till later, at least.  Maybe things will sort themselves out and someone will go and get killed. 😀

Cloakwood, first run

I will do Cloakwood in two parts – first, the quick and dirty run through, to pick up Coran, get all the areas accessible (including the Mines), and dispatch the Wyvern nest to get the skulls and reward.  That will keep Coran a happy member of my party – with the buggy NPC interactions, I don’t want to build him up and then lose him due to some mod glitch. 

So I go to Cloakwood 1, and for some reason I’m expecting to be overwhelmed by enemies…but it’s rather peaceful.  I wander through to the northeast, find Coran, and agree to his wyvern-hunting deal.  His voice track is quieter than everyone else’s – wonder why that is?  Anyway, I equip him with the Longbow of Marksmanship from the bandit camp, the Brachers of Archery, and Imoen’s Shadow Armor and Boots of Stealth – and instantly, an AC 0 archer/thief.  Best parts of Kivan and Imoen, all in one package.  Now that I have a serviceable thief/archer, I no longer need Imoen to be a thief.

So, it’s time to Dual-class Imoen!  Sure enough, she can be a specialist mage; after some careful deliberation, I choose Illusionist, because it fits her pesky, thief nature, and because that will net all the schools that Dynaheir’s Invoker class can’t get.  The Baldur’s Gate code doesn’t restrict the extra spell to actually being of that school, which is a nice loophole.  So Imoen’s non-mage equipment is dropped, I give her a new robe and the bracers of AC 8 I just bought, and set to copying down all the scrolls I’ve been saving into her spellbook.  Soon, she has more level 1 spells than Dynaheir (!!), decent level 2 offerings like Web, Stinking cloud, Invisibility – and a few level 3 goodies like Flame Arrow and Fireball.  She can only memorize 2 level 1 spells to start, until I get her the other Ring of Wizardry, so there will be a lot of bullet-slinging when Sleep and Magic Missle are both used up.  🙂

I quickly run through Cloakwood 2, fighting some spiders, summoning skeletons to save us when hit by a web trap and overrun by huge spiders.  I meet Tiber and get the story about his brother Chelak, but put that on ice for now.  It’s on to Cloakwood 3, where I walk right past Eldoth, ignoring him, to find the western edge and pass into Cloakwood 4.  Here is what I wanted – I wander around this quiet, almost serene area, with hardly any creatures attacking.  I tell you, for all the fear Cloakwood inspires, it’s a pretty quiet wood! 

The wyvern nest isn’t that big a threat, but Branwen conjures some skeletons to assist and to take some Wyvern hits.  Coran is injured, but overall we survive and grab the loot off the body near the humungous, dead wyvern/dragon.  Anyone know what that huge, green, dead worm thing at the top is?  Did the huge Wyvern and another creature get into a fight or what??

From here I exit west again to expose the Cloakwood Mines, then head right to the Temple to deliver the Wyvern head, get 2000 gp, and finish Coran’s quest…after which he says nothing.  Man, why don’t these NPCs actually SAY something when they piece of work is done?  Oh well – still a great game.  So I sell off all the spare loot again in Beregost, and rest up, preparing to go through Cloakwood a second time in excruciatingly slow detail.

Current Party:

• Adrian Alorn (PC, Paladin)
• Minsc (tanking 2-handed sword)
• Branwen (2nd line fighter, cleric)
• Coran (Archer/Thief)
• Dynaheir (Invoker, fireballs and the like)
• Imoen (fairly useless for now, now DC’d to Illusionist)

I don’t think I ever made it to Cloakwood in my run-throughs of this game back in the ;ate 90’s or early 2000.  I know I was big on buying it, and made it to get Dynaheir and such, but most of the time playing was spent in failed multi-player games over Adam’s or Kias’ houses, or trying to game the system by donig the sing-multiplayer to get tons of NPCs and import in treasure – something even easier in Icewind Dale, where you can simply re-import a character when they die, assuming you export them every level or close to it.  Having a D+D game for the PC that was so in-depth was great, but at 17 or so, I couldn’t keep focused – too much going on with band, girlfriend, school.  Now it’s almost the same – band, girlfriend, work, life.  I’m just making a concentrated push to get BG done and out of the way, so I can close this video gaming chapter in my life, and move on to Icewind Dale or BGII with a clear conscience next time the RPG bug hits me.  🙂

Peldvale, Bandit Camp

Peldvale was decidedly uninteresting – just a lot of bears around, which we tiptoed past. There were some bandit swarmed, especially ones that swarmed from one direction while we rested. A fireball from Dynaheir killed about 10 at once, and we went back to sleep. the bandit Raiken approached us, and I made a half-hearted ploy at wanting to join…but bandits must be punished, and he attacked (albeit alone, how silly was that). I picked up his warhammer +1, the second I have now – I will sell both off soon.

I also met up with Viconia, and though she asked for my help, no Flaming Fist soldiers came. I just stood around, and she wouldn’t initiate any more dialogue. Seems a side effect of the mods I installed, or my 20 reputation…I certainly didn’t kill any Flaming Fist, I was all set to aid them in capturing Viconia. Blargh.

So I head to the bandit camp, and I have Imoen sneak all around to browse the place – then Minsc gets killed somehow and I have to restart. So I just blaze on in there, slaying bandits, Branwen summoning skeletons to help, and the whole place is a pushover. Imoen can’t open 3 or 4 of the safes, but everything else is easy pickings – the lead guy, Taugosz Khosann, is just standing around, and despite being hard to hit he eventually falls. Tons of bandits, some hobgoblins, Flinds, all fall, tent by tent. Anti-climactic.

Saving and building myself up, I enter the final tent, but those 4 enemies are pushovers. The mage casts mirror image and is otherwise harmless. The hobgoblin and flind drop too, and I plunder Tazok’s tent for notes, Agannazer’s Scorcher, and some other misc spells and potions. Endar Sai gives me his shpeel, not realizing I’m not a bandit, even though I just killed the whole camp, heh. I check the last treasure chest – without disarming it, giving Minsc a final lightning bolt to the face. He isn’t fazed.

Most of my party is level 5 now, and there wasn’t much of a challenge here. I head back to Beregost to sell scalps to Officer Vai, and then she leaves the inn to spread the news. I sell off all my jewelry, gems, and extra magical items I won’t use – hammers +1, studded leather +1, chain +1, etc. I have to remember to get the necklaces and rings off of Branwen and Minsc, who wear things when they have no more room in their pack.

Eventually I am a lean, mean machine, and I strip Kivan of his wares in preparation for Cloakwood. I line him up in Beregost, next to Jaheira, Khalid, and Ajantis (and Xzar, still hanging out a block away) and dump him: he says that he is eager to hunt the bandits and for me to stop dilly-dallying. Odd…I thought we just killed all the bandits…huh.

From there I head up to Cloakwood, to pick up Coran and later Yeslick. I have to figure out how to lose 2 reputation points to set down Branwen, without making it permanent, in case Yeslick’s multi-class doesn’t cut it as a cleric. But first, I have to get to Cloakwood – I keep getting random encounters with Wyverns and either spiders or Ettercaps, which never fail to kill at least one party member, argh. Reset, reload, argh.

Ulcaster, on to Bandits

I met the Hobgoblin with the Stealth boots on the Ulcaster map…now I have two pairs, one for Imoen, one for Kivan. Kivan can’t sneak with his full plate anyway, but maybe I’ll give him some Studded Leather +2 later.

A large part of this game is Adventures in Inventory Management – who will carry what, how much will you take, etc. I’ve tried to appoint my PC as the potion-carrier, in addition to important quest items (bandit scalps, the Pantaloons). Dynahier carries wands and mage scrolls, but there are so many they overflow to most of Imoen’s pack.  Branwen carries jewels, so that she picks them up and they stack, in addition to cleric scrolls and weapons. Kivan carries arrows, which are piling up fast, and Minsc the remaining magical armors and weapons. I find that I always can improve it – if things get bad, they wear plain rings and necklaces instead of carrying them, put oddball weapons and ammo in slots.

The hard thing for me is that I’m so good at getting by with nothing in these games. When I get potions, wands, scrolls, magic arrows – I just set them aside. I never use them. Anything perishable or special I just keep, for the harder battles…and end up never or rarely using. Dynaheir has 5 wands – in her quick slots is Magic Missle, Frost, and Lightning, with Fire and Monster Summoning in her pack. There’s another Wand of Fire north of the Friendly Arm Inn, so I’ll have 2. I haven’t used a potion or magic arrow yet the entire game, and the only scrolls I’ve used are for Dynaheir to write magic. The rest I am saving for when Imoen goes dual-class, which I’ll do when I get Coran to take over theiving duties from her.

Anyway, I was attacked by an assassin, the cleric Icharyd, at Ulcaster, but the Charm ability of my cloak works on almost everyone, making things ridiculously easy. Charm him, fire some spells and sync up an attack, and poof, death, yielding a Flail +1. I finally find Ulcaster, and he accepts one of the books from Gullykin for 1000 xp – but no others, and I’m carrying like 3 books. So it’s on down to the dungeon – Imoen dies once due to Fireball trap I missed, but other than that the jellies and wolves aren’t too much trouble.  Kivan helps by charming a wolf, which helps immensly in fighting the giant spiders.  Soon I finished and find the other book, returning it to Ulcaster. Ghost happy, I return to Beregost and sell everything non-magical.

From there I head up to Larswood – time to actually do Chapter 3. I will move on with all 6 in the group – Kivan has hit level 3 already and is close to 4, and having him with the Bracers of Archery is doing a lot of missle damage. Besides, I’m not going to pick up Viconia, so I have no NPC pickups until Coran, then Yeslick to complete my party. It should be a piece of cake, but might as well keep Kivan around for now.   The tough thing is figuring out what to do with Viconia – help her, capture her, kill her?  I guess I’ll find out what the options are and do the right ‘paladin’ thing.

Larswood was easy, just some nicely spaced Bandits, Black Talon Elites, the lying druid, and wolves and Ettercaps.  At one point I am overwhelmed with an army of Ettercaps, so Branwen animates dead for the first time.  Four or five Skeletons become my front line party, and I charm a loose Bandit to scout ahead for us as well.  🙂  Minsc and Kivan also both charm wolves at one point or another.  Once Imoen is a mage, we could theoretically have about 20 controlled creatures – Algernon’s Cloak is good for one or two, she could cast a spell or two to charm, Branwen can animate dead, Dynaheir can summon monsters, and Kivan and Minsc can both charm animals.  I see a very, very fun end battle with the Bandit camp coming up!  😀

Firewine, Gullykin, Kivan-Xan trade, S of Ulcaster

Quick hits: cleaned out the Firewine ruins, god lots of Kobolds and traps. Died a few times. Came out in the basement of the winery in Gullykin…chatted with everyone there, and figured out the other halfling’s place smelled like Kobolds. Killed him, and the Ogre Mage behind the secret door…then tried about 5 times to kill Lendarn, but kept dying via lightning.

Eventually killed him, restored Gullykin to order, and then took down my assassins. There were 4 of them, so I charmed 2, then weeded them out slowly. Fun.

Now I went back to Beregost, to sell off all my crap – jewels, bandit scalps, amulets, everything. I picked up the Ankheg armor I apparently ordered (??) from the smithy, and made sure Ajantis, Khalid and Jaheira were still there. But no Kivan, which was annoying, because it’s either him or Coran from here out…where did he get off to…

I tried to drop Xan, but there was no way to keep him available without killing an innocent, dropping my rep down to 6..so I just stripped him of stuff and let him go. With my reputation being a full 20, any Neutral character takes the opportunity to bugger off entirely – Jaheira, Branwen, Xan, etc.  Xan told me he considered his debt repaid, and that was it.  Then I went to High Hedge to make sure I got Kivan – yet, the area is empty. So did he leave, because I wasn’t killing bandits yet or something? No, sure enough, he is in Nashkel, I just forgot I left him there. So I pick him up, my poor level 2 ranger with 16hp, and head South of Ulcaster to pick up a 2-handed sword +1 for Minsc. The two of us are green armored, low-ACs tanks, but he gets both hands free. Side point: Kivan’s proficiency in Spears comes in handy for the Halberd +1, good stuff!  Still Coran has thieving skills, which will be necessary once Imoen dual-classes, and his dex is 20…so I’m thinking of leaving Kivan off at Beregost with everyone else. 

We clear the map South of Ulcaster, and now I’m going to head there, to deliver those two books to Ulcaster’s ghost.

Firewine, crawling…

Got a little further – took out Melium on my second try. One thing I never realized, until reading other Baldur’s Gate players’ blogs; Algernon’s cloak casts Charm on command. So I could charm Melium mid-attack! I was already having Xan memorize Charm spells regularly, but this will help!

I also detected evil (Melium is evil! I feel better killing him), and protected myself from evil, but on charms like Aid and Bless as well. We took him down, getting his longsword (+1 im assuming, but out of Identifys), and gauntlets of weapon expertist. Now I have a dilemma: I have gauntlets of Dex 18, and gauntlets of weapon expertise. Both should be on fighters, myself and Minsc, until better gauntlets come along. So do I:

– have the PC wear gauntlets of weapon expertise, when he only uses longswords + shields anyway, or
– have Minsc wear them, to be able to use the Halberd +1 and other oddball weapons more effectively, while my PC gets Dex 18, and AC -5?

For now, I give my PC the Gauntlets of Dex, making him an unhittable AC -5 target, while Minsc becomes ever more the bone crushing damage dealer.

Next up I want to clean out Firewine, so I go into the ravine and meet Carsa, the last survivor of a band of adventurers fom the Firewine ruins. She complains of someone coming to kill her, screaming his name – Karhk – and poof, she dies. Then the Ogre Mage Karhk tramps right up to us, sending magic missles and lightning bolts at my main PC. I try silencing him, charming him, holding him, Command-ing him, magic-missling him…his resistances are obscene. So Xan makes himself invisible, and my PC runs while Branwen, Imoen and Minsc pelt him. I am literally down to single-digit HPs by the time he finally drops, and I collect the Knave robe and some minor treasures.

Next step is the Firewine ruins – a place I hear is deadly due to the respawning Kobold commando sharpshooters. Sure enough I only survive a few minutes before everyone is in the red, and we head back to the surface to rest. I’ll rest up and give that a second try, before heading on to Gullykin.

I’m having second thoughts – thinking maybe I should dump off Xan somewhere, and maybe even Branwen, to not waste so much XP on folks that will not be in my final party. Xan is expendible – his Charms can be replaced with my cloak, and Invisibility has its severe limits. But I have no good replacement for Branwen. If I drop Xan now, he’ll leave forever, since my Reputation is at 20. Sigh! Maybe I should go kill a townsperson to get it down a bit.

Long term character plan:

• 1st line tank, minor healing – Main character (paladin)
• 1st line damage dealer, tank – Minsc
• Archer/Theif – Imoen for now, possibly Kivan, Coran, Alora, or Ajantis once Imoen goes mage…but which…
• 2nd line fighter, healer – Branwen for now, replaced by Yeslick
• Damage-dealing mage – Dynaheir
• More rounded support mage, dual-classed? – Xan for now, Imoen once she is dual’d