The Candlekeep Annex: RPed Baldur’s Gate No and Low Reload Adventures

[WiseGrimwald]

Thanks for your support, M7600

These are the two that I was satisfied with at the start, Arcadia and Anne Jansen. Arcadia’s story was dramatic, Anne’s comedic. If I could have kept up the quality I would have continued them.

https://tavernrpg.com/threads/the-candlekeep-annex-rped-baldur’s-gate-no-and-low-reload-adventures.280/page-8#post-5464

https://tavernrpg.com/threads/the-candlekeep-annex-rped-baldur’s-gate-no-and-low-reload-adventures.280/page-6#post-5368

I can write a story or I can play the game. I just can’t do both at the same time. Writing well takes time. There’s no way I could keep up with my play unless I slowed to a crawls pace, and that wouldn’t be fun. It’s best to keep the two hobbies separate.

I enjoy reading the stories of your game.

Like you, I can write a reasonable story at the start, but I end up dropping it as the game is too enthralling to slow down to write well.

Journal of Burke

I should have kept Dorn a bit longer, but I did keep him long enough to kill Simmeon.

Afterwards Dorn left and I joined up with Tiax to get the Arkion/Nemphre quest. Upon completion of the quest, he left and we started doing a series of trivial quests in the Gate.

[In future runs, I think that I will stick to my normal routine of only keeping Xan until we leave Nashkel. I prefer smaller parties. 3 or 4 is ideal.]

 

[Alesia_BH]

Alena, Halfling Priest of Lathander, Canon Party Run: Nashkel to Beregost

In the current edition of SCS fighting Nimbul is an exercise in patience. Arrows are of little use, thanks to Shield and the Boots of Avoidance. Melee fighting is preferable, but Stoneskins and Mirror Images intersected with BG1 THACOs make that a lengthy process. What about spells, you ask? MSD foils the targeted ones, bystanders the AoE stuff. It's best just to wait.

The plan here was simple: overwhelm him with numbers. Between Alena's skeleton warriors, the Amish guard, Rasaad and a full party, Nimbul had no hope of reaching his target, Alena.

Spoiler

Since David's mages all force cast Vocalize, a Silence can only steal a round or two. It's worth tossing nonetheless, if only to shut up Rasaad.

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Eventually Nimbul fell, although he did get a few spells off first, including a Chromatic Orb that Held Dynaheir. Not to worry, Dynaheir. We have your back.

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In a solo run Tranzig must be treated with care. In a party game he's a formality. Alena bottled him up with Silence, at cost of quelling the party's spells, too. That's ok: we have bows and blades.

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With Tranzig down, our next target was bandit camp. I still hadn't settled on a strategy for that fight, but I did know I wanted to do some shopping first. To raise funds we visited the Black Alaric cave and, more importantly, Bassilus.

Seeking to avoid a confrontation with the sirenes, we opted for stealth raid of the Black Alaric. Alena, Imoen and Dynaheir broke off from the rest of the group. With her three L2s Dynaheir could cover the trio without needs to rest in the cave. Here we see the squad sneaking past the Sil's troupe.

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Upon entering the cave Imoen, still under invisibility, took care of the traps.

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With the traps cleared we sent in our skeleton warriors. They would run distraction while Imoen and Alena fired away with their ranged weapons. Dynaheir held back. She's only here to recast Invisibility on Alena and Imoen.

Spoiler

The Cloak of the Wolf is ours and, more importantly, the Wand of Paralyzation.

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Let's get out of here. You're up, Dynaheir.

Spoiler

In the Bassilus fight I was reminded of what a luxury it is to have six spell equivalent actions per round. For a slow character this fight takes a fair bit of buffing and planning. For a party it's a free and easy 5k.

Jaheira, Khalid and the skeleton warriors established a front line against the undead. Alena focused her attention on bottling up Bassilus with a Silence. Success.

Spoiler

Dynaheir followed with a fireball on the undead. Minsc and Imoen hung back. They'd target Bassilus after the fireball cleared the way.

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And there we have it: Bassilus is down.

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We're now at High Hedge, purchasing goodies in support of our Bandit Camp plan. I'll post on the battle later this evening.

Best,

A.

 

[Alesia_BH]

Alena, Halfling Priest of Lathander, Canon Party Run: Bandit Camp- The Best Laid Plans of Hamsters and Rangers

Our plan for Bandit Camp wasn't simple, but it was straight forward enough. I had executed it before. Serg may remember. It was the first Avatar run, and within the story, it was his idea: the character based on him was the one who suggested it.

The strategy was a classic: divide and conquer. We'd split the party into two teams. Four of us would enter the tent under invisibility, protected from fire. We'd enter the tent and unleash four fireballs simultaneously. In the unlikely event that Venkt survived, Alena, at least, would be protected from disablers by a Greenstone Amulet charge. Once the leaders were dead, the party would reconvene outdoors to take on Taugosz and the remaining bandits.

Here we see the strike team heading towards the tent. Imoen, Minsc and Dynaheir are under arcane invisibility. Alena is using Sanctuary.

Spoiler

A quick refresh halfway through the journey insured that Alena wouldn't expose herself unexpectedly. So far, so good.

Spoiler

After firing up her Greenstone Amulet charge, Alena readied her strike team for the final assault. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Someone -either David or the EE team- has changed the tent into a party required area. The logic here was probably to thwart the ever popular gambit of sending in a thief to steal the goods. I respect that choice, but I wish I had known sooner. We spent 3 potions of fire resistance and a Greenstone Amulet charge in the prep phase.

Spoiler

Time to rest, regroup and come up with a new plan. We ultimately settled on the standard Web based approach. We set up shop to the west. Imoen laid down her two traps, while Alena began summoning her skeleton warriors. Once the warriors were in place, we'd finish our buffing. Alas, I summoned the first warrior too close to the camp, starting the battle before we were ready. No matter. We'll make this work. Dynaheir, get that Web down. Everyone else, ready your artillery. The bandits are coming.

Here we see a shot from the early stages of the battle. Dynaheir's first Web is down. That fireball was either from the necklace of missiles or a potion of explosions. It was a sound opening, but there's a lot of bow fire in this fight, enough to pose a threat, even to the well protected. Our front line took a beating. Had we been properly ready for this charge, we would have deployed out wand of sleep on the southern bandits.

Spoiler

By now Dynaheir's second Web was down. Imoen, lacking a helmet, and therefore approaching the danger zone, healed herself. Khalid and Jaheira, our injured frontliners, held steady.

Spoiler

With the Webs winding down, and one principle, the dangerous Venkt, still lurking, we sent our skeleton warrior forward in search of the mage. There he is.

Spoiler

It was Alena's turn to lead the way. Taking a Greenstone Amulet charge for added safety, she approached Venkt and tossed a Silence. Success.

Spoiler

Thanks to Vocalize a Silence alone won't decide this fight. It was time for Imoen to move in with her darts of stunning. Nice work, Immy.

Spoiler

Down goes Venkt.

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The treasure is ours.

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The foreboding Cloakwood is our next target. Imoen, lead the way.

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Best,

A.

 

[Alesia_BH]

Alena, Halfling Priest of Lathander, Canon Party Run: The Cloakwood

On our way to the Cloakwood we met some unexpected guests.

Spoiler

I'm not being facetious. I really didn't expect this: not here, not now. David seems to have changed the deployment of the assassin groups and it was enough to catch me off guard. Fortunately, this crew, the Amazonians, didn't have the means to threaten us. In BG1 the best counter to a priest is a priest.

At this point in the battle I wasn't thrilled with our position. Maneira was invisible stalking Dynaheir. Both of the priests were harassed by warriors, but we had failed to identify incantations, meaning we didn't know who to prioritize for disruption. That wasn't the only mistake. Note Jaheira's position. Since we're outdoors, her spell are valuable now. She shouldn't be in Alena's Silence targeting zone. Up until this point I felt I was doing a reasonably good job of managing the party's resources. This battle made it clear that I have a lot of relearning to do with respect to party play.

Since we hadn't identified incantations, Dynaheir had to simply choose who to disrupt with her Laroch's. She went will Lamalha, since Zeela's odds of completing a spell were already low, what with Minsc and Khalid on top of her.

Spoiler

The keen eyed among you probably noticed that Alena and Jaheira weren't doing anything at all in that last shot. By then I had realized I'd made a mistake by positioning Jaheira where I did and I wasn't sure how to fix it. In retrospect, Alena should have started casting her Silence. The casting time of 5 would have given Jaheira enough time to get out of range. Once she and Khalid were redeployed, Jaheira could cast her Call Lightning. Instead I let Jaheira cast her Call Lightning first, in range of Lamalha's melee weapon, while Alena delayed her Silence. It was a bad call that worked out, but still a bad call.

Spoiler

Alena lands her Silence. With both of the clerics failing their saves, the battle is ours now. Note that we bottled up Jaheira, too. That shouldn't have happened, but by that point Jaheira's spells were of little importance and we were eager to shut the priests down.

Spoiler

Jaheira's Call Lightning finishes of Zeela.

Spoiler

With Lamalha Silenced, Khalid and Minsc charged the greater threat, Telka.

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Meanwhile, Alena has held the other thief, Maneira.

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With Maneira held and Lamalha on the run, this is by now a route. Still, this battle was sloppy.

Spoiler

Victory, but also a lesson learned.

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Our approach to Cloakwood was imperfect but solid in comparison. We sent Imoen up ahead under invisibility.

Spoiler

She disarmed the traps and retrieved Spider's Bane for Minsc.

Spoiler

Equipped with Spider's Bane, full plate and the Girdle of Piercing, buffed with a Protection from Poison scroll, Minsc was ready to lead the charge.

Spoiler

Thanks to Minsc, we cleared the way to Centeol quickly. Minsc led the way in Centeol's chamber, too. We sent him ahead to draw aggro and, more importantly, Web Tangles.

Spoiler

Once the first round of Web Tangles has fired we sent in the rest of the party. Fireballs and a Slow won the day.

Spoiler

All that remained were the phase spiders, love lovable bundles of XP. They can be dangerous, but not with a friendly priest tossing Commands. Easy, Jaheira: no need to Call Lightning on this one. He's dead already.

Spoiler

Thanks to Dynaheir's 3 L2s, we were able to travel invisible, letting us choose our fights. Wyverns are a yes: the risk reward is excellent here.

Spoiler

After repositioning ourselves to the north, Alena began summoning skellies.

Spoiler

Let's get this party started. Imoen, do the honors.

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With a steady steam of skellies from Alena, and Call Lightnings from Jaheira, this felt more like a hunt than a fight.

Spoiler

Khalid took a nick while we were waiting for that first skelly to appear but aside from that we were injury free. The Cloakwood Mines await.

Spoiler

Best,

A.

NW: As some of you may have inferred from the Haste icon on Khalid's portrait, the wyvern battle was posted out of sequence. We took down the wyverns after Drasus, not before. I placed the battle here mostly to fill out the Cloakwood post.

 

[Alesia_BH]

Alena, Halfling Priest of Lathander, Canon Party Run: Drasus and Co- Story Time

It's story time, boys and girls! Here's our title for the day.

Spoiler

Would you like to see the mistake? It's right here.

Spoiler

I know what you're thinking. Imoen is setting traps. What's the big deal? That just it. She's setting traps. That means she can set traps, and that in turn means she's allocated points to Set Traps. Why is that a problem? Because it crowds out Detect Illusions.

Were I soloing Imoen, allocating points to Set Traps would have been the right call. Placing the traps in that exact spot would have been the right call, too. A solo thief, protected by buffs, can position themselves behind Kysus, unleash a backstab, uncork a potion of firebreath, arc around Rezdan and take out both of the mages. I know because I've done it many upon many times.

By breaking for the traps and making a point of catching Drasus in the stream as they fall back, a thief can basically win this fight in the opening, left only with a Near Death Drasus and a hapless axe tossing Genthore facing Cloak of Displacement + Boots of Avoidance + Girdle of Piercing. It's a good plan. And what if something goes wrong, say Rezdan survives? The buffs take care of that threat. That makes it a great plan: It works even when it doesn't work.

In party play, the calculus differs. In party play, it's a middling plan because when it doesn't work it doesn't work. Suppose one of the mages survives: What then? How do we handle disablers? We could spread out and toss the Greenstone Amulet around, but that pins the cheese-o-meter so it's a pass. What then is the plan? Strip the caster(s) and take them down, sure, but without Spell Thrust and Detect Illusions that's a lengthy process. Too lengthy. Some of us are going to get tagged.

Here we see the prep phase. Imoen is buffed and ready for her daring raid. The party has fireballs prepped and ready. Imoen's buffs will protect her from enemy spells and the party's fireballs. After the opening barrage, we'll send those skeleton warriors forward and fire away with our arrows. If any enemies remain after the skellies are nixed, we fall back to Imoen's traps.

Spoiler

It doesn't sound like a horrible plan. Trust me it is.

Execution was part of the problem. Imoen should have had her strength buffed. More importantly, she should have actually landed her backstab, or at least tried. Instead I had her quaff her potion of firebreath before swinging her blade. It's been awhile since I've done a BG run and it showed here.

Spoiler

For the first time in forever Kysus survived the opening assault. That's a problem. Unlike Rezdan, Kysus has the spell slots and levels to dispel Imoen's buffs. Imoen needs to get out of there fast.

Spoiler

Imoen survives, albeit barely. Worse still, we're facing two more mages than we expected and we don't have an efficient way to peel those Mirror Images or MGoIs. Spell Thurst is in Dynaheir's spell case, but we planned to memorize that later, in Baldur's Gate. That was a misjudgment. We should have invested a potion of mind focusing in getting that spell into Dynaheir's book ASAP.

Spoiler

Imoen heals herself. Time to fall back behind the skellies. Khalid is the first to break for it.

Spoiler

Maybe this doesn't look awful to you but it does to me. On the bright side, Genthore is down, while Drasus is distracted and Badly Wounded. We still don't have an answer for those two mages but at least our spacing is sufficient to mitigate risk. We'll win this fight but it could get ugly.

Spoiler

In comes the ugly. Khalid is targeted with Chaos. He checks his southward progress and breaks north. Imoen, Alena and Dynaheir head south for the traps, while Jaheira and Minsc try to finish off Drasus.

Spoiler

Khalid is lost to confusion but we've contained the risk. Drasus is still standing but he's on the ropes, as Jaheira and Minsc rendezvous with the rest of the party at the traps.

Spoiler

An extra healer takes Drasus out of the danger zone but Imoen's traps bring him back to the brink of death.

Spoiler

He only needs a nudge now.

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That's all well and good but we still don't have an answer for those mages. All we can do is spread out and mitigate the disabler risk. Alena is under Remove Fear and she has the Greenstone Amulet so there's no chance we'll lose this fight but the party is scattered and broken.

Spoiler

Khalid is back, but we've lost Minsc, Jaheira and Imoen to charms. I don't think we made a single save in this fight. Bad luck all around, but that's no excuse.

Spoiler

Best to just wait this out. Kysus and Rezdan pummel the dire charmed Jaheira and Imoen.

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Jaheira and Imoen are down and Khalid is confused again, but our enemies are running out of spells and Rezdan, at least, has been stripped. He'll fall soon.

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Kysus has one more trick up his sleeve Pro Normal Missiles->Sunfire. I should have seen that coming and switched to magical ammo. New scripts, new lessons to learn.

Spoiler

Now that Kysus's MGoI and MIs are down, it's just a matter of time. Dynaheir finishes him off with a fireball. A victory, but a messy one. We should have been prepped and ready for the possibility of the mages surviving the opening assault. Dynaheir should have learned and memorized Spell Thrust. Imoen should have maxed out Detect Illusions and put that skill to use under invisibility. Instead we just hoped Imoen's raid would succeed and muddled through when it didn't. Sloppy fight all around, but we live to fight another day.

Spoiler

Since Dynaheir survived, we were able to make it back to the FAI without incident. We have much to talk about over ales tonight.

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Best,

A.

 

[Serg_BlackStrider]

Now that was rough indeed with too many *sould haves*, *ifs* and *hopes*, which is totally out of character for you But what is really matters is that your party survived to fight another day and learned a lesson.

 

[Alesia_BH]

I didn’t think the fight though, partly because I knew the margin of safety offered by a party of six would carry us through, even if things got sloppy. There was never a chance of losing that fight.

Still, I would have preferred to have taken a more efficient approach. If I had recent party experience I’m sure I would have. I’m equally sure it would go smoother if I were to do it again now.

I’m curious about Kysus’s survival. I’ve never seen that happen before, even without an opening melee strike. I wonder if David has bumped Kysus’s hitpoint total in order to thwart insta-kill tactics, and the potion of firebreath method in particular. David has read NR challenge runs in the past. Maybe he has noted that approach and implemented changes to thwart it. Bumping Kysus’s HP total and having him prioritize Remove would be a good way of going about it.

EDIT: In the current edition of SCS Kysus is a L11 mage with a con of 9 and 68HP. 68HP means he'll survive a potion of firebreath on average even if he fails his save. L11 gives him a better than 50% chance of removing potion buffs. In the original adventure he was at L9 with 24 HP. At 24HP his odds of surviving a potion of firebreath are pretty low. I'm not sure about earlier versions of SCS. I'm pretty sure he was at L11. I'm not sure about his HP total. I suspect it was lower than 68

 

[Serg_BlackStrider]

In the current edition of SCS Kysus is a L11 mage with a con of 9 and 68HP. 68HP means he'll survive a potion of firebreath on average even if he fails his save. L11 gives him a better than 50% chance of removing potion buffs. In the original adventure he was at L9 with 24 HP. At 24HP his odds of surviving a potion of firebreath are pretty low. I'm not sure about earlier versions of SCS. I'm pretty sure he was at L11. I'm not sure about his HP total. I suspect it was lower than 68

SCS v30 - L11, Con 9 and 41 hp;
SCS v34.3 - L11, Con 9 and 33 hp;

So it seems he still can’t make up his mind with that question. But anyway I don't think the idea of building your strategy on the assumption of a preventive strike while your foes are still neutral and not prebuffed is a right move. I prefer to think of the worst case scenario, when those foes a fully prebuffed, hostile and ready to strike with all their arsenal. Just like your team. So maybe instead of bumping hp it is better to do something like have them start prebuffed already somehow.

 

[Alesia_BH]

SCS v30 - L11, Con 9 and 41 hp;
SCS v34.3 - L11, Con 9 and 33 hp;

Makes sense. Those number are consistent with my experience. They're also within the distribution of rolls for a L11 mage. Maybe he just rolled for them in prior editions.

The current number, 68, does seem tailored to thwart a potion of firebreath stike, which is 6d10 x 2 with a save for half damage. It's also outside of the distribution for a L11 mage so it must have been a deliberate choice.

I prefer to think of the worst case scenario, when those foes a fully prebuffed, hostile and ready to strike with all their arsenal. Just like your team. So maybe instead of bumping hp it is better to do something like have them start prebuffed already somehow.

Noted. I prefer the flexibility offered by the current arrangement. It allows you to play it either way. If you'd like their pre-buffs to fire first, you can initiate dialogue and let them fire. If you'd prefer an ambush assault, for role play reason or other purposes, that option is available.

I go back and forth across runs depending on my character's class and or personality. With a solo thief ambush strikes are satisfying. With a paladin I'd prefer to announce my presence. In either case it's of course best to have a contingency plan if things don't go as expected. In this case my contingency plan was just to rely on our numbers. With proper spacing there wasn't any way Kysus and Rezdan could kill all six of us. They'd run out of spells before then.

 

[WiseGrimwald]

With a party I usually have a cleric ready to cast silence and a mage ready to cast web. In my game that is usually sufficient to disable the mages, who were badly hurt by fireballs. In my current run the protagonist is a berserker, so he went berserk before fighting melee with his venomous dagger in one hand and a +1 dagger in the other. The poison is enough to disable the mages still further!

Meanwhile at the Gate:

Journal of Burke

We completed many trivial quests and are about to enter the Iron Throne.

 

[Alesia_BH]

With a party I usually have a cleric ready to cast silence and a mage ready to cast web

Noted! They were running MGoI so neither of those spells would have worked. That’s why I needed Spell Thrust.

In my prior install, with SCS v34, that would have been a route. Both of the mages would have died in the opening and the warriors would have only lasted a couple rounds. David just tossed a little gotcha into v35 by upping the HP totals on the mages, especially Kysus. Now that I know how v35 works it won’t be a problem going forward

 

[WiseGrimwald]

Journal of Burke

Disaster Struck. Two inocents accidentally killed in th iron throne.

[I used a tactic that I have often used in the past, leaving skull traps near one set of steps, goping upstairs and then luring the leaders downstairs. Some of them usually go down the stairs to the traps and get killed. Not this time! They stayed upstairs and non-combatants walked into the traps so that I lost 14 rep! What's more panicked party members walked into other traps getting seriously injured!

Just as well that there were no paladins or rangers in the party! A pity that I had not gone to the throne earlier as that would have given me a chance to easily regain rep. Fortunately I had left three quests in the south undone, so with a combination of doing them plus temple donations I am back up to 17, heroic staus regained!]

Note to self, do the iron throne as one of the first quests in the Gate! Now back at Candlekeep.

 

[WiseGrimwald]

As I looked at the party, I realised that Burke would only be accompanied by Dynaheir. I am therefore considering starting again with a party of three who would be accompanied by Minsc and Dynaheir, the final sixth spot being taken by other NPCs on rotation. I'll be watching England v Slovenia tonight so that gives me time to decide. Some things ARE more important than computer games, or is that sacrilege?

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

Some things ARE more important than computer games, or is that sacrilege?

In this house it's France vs Poland but I see your point. Sacrileges are healthy.

BTW if you're watching live, come over for a beer afterwards, I live half an hour from where England vs Slovenia are playing tonight

 

[WiseGrimwald]

In this house it's France vs Poland but I see your point. Sacrileges are healthy.

BTW if you're watching live, come over for a beer afterwards, I live half an hour from where England vs Slovenia are playing tonight

Ours wasn't the best of games, but we did end up as top of our group so we shouldn't complain, though people are doing just that. We have a lot of excellent players, but we don't yet have a team! That could change of course. The Slovenians were over the moon as they have gone beyond the group stages for the first time ever.
I was at home drinking a dark beer called "Old Peculier." My wife says that it is apt as I am old and peculier!

 

[WiseGrimwald]

A new run which I intend to proceed with as far as I can as I like the concept. The protagonist is a Chaotic Neutral fighter/thief who is completely unpredictable, sometimes showing kindness, at other times ransacking peoples' homes.

Helm is hoping to turn him from evil and to do so has sent two half-sisters to help him so to do. One is an Inquisitor: the other a half-elf who is a Fighter/Cleric of Helm.

I installed the book-tomes mod to enable kits for multi-class characters. I also slightly improved the equipment of the assassins in Candlekeep to make Candlekeep a little more interesting.

The Fighter/Cleric has hardly any elven blood, but enough to prevent her becoming a Cavalier, and also enough to allow multi-classing.

 

[WiseGrimwald]

Note: I have added some major additions

Journal of Helmata
It came as quite a shock to me when Helm appeared to me in a vision and said that his wish was that I and my half-sister Helen would accompany Theo, a dwarven Berserker/Thief and do all that we could to stop him following an evil path. Whilst I knew that Helm did make such appearances, I didn’t expect him to appear to me, a low level Fighter/Priestess of Helm. It seems that he had indeed been watching Helen and me and had decided that we were suitable for the task. Time will show as to whether or not his faith in us was misplaced.

At first I wondered why we, relatively unskilled Helmites had been tasked with influencing a Bhaalspawn. However I then realised that there were hundreds if not thousands of Bhaalspawn, so the fact that Helm had to use the likes of us was probably not at all unusual.

It seems that Candlekeep has become more dangerous: twice we were accosted by assassins.

In the end, Gorion decided that leaving was the best option. Even after we left, we weren't safe as we were ambushed in the wilderness and Gorion killed.
There Imoen joined us, but as soon as she had been given armour and a sword and she was safely in Beregost, we bade her farewell.

It was then that Theo began to ransack the town. Despite our protests he stole several hundred gold pieces worth of jewelery and equipment. When we remonstrated, he said: "Look, I'm a thief. I'm neither Lawful nor Good. Stealing is what thieves do! Get over it!" I suppose that we should be gratefiul that he is a thief, not a murderer, after all, if he had read a different book he could have been a Fighter/Assassin.

We realised that he had a point, so when he headed southwards we just accompanied him. On the plus side he was kind to Marl and Firebead, though after being kind to the latter, he ransacked his house.

It was the same with Mirianne, he was considerate enough to give her the good news concerning her husband, but then stole her possessions. We realised that keeping him out of trouble was going to be a major task!

We headed south picking up some boots of stealth for Theo as well as the Colquetle Amulet on the way. The ankheg armour in Nashkel made us feel much safer, however that safety turned out to be an illusion when we got into conflict with Greywolf! Greywolf's very first blow reduced Theo's health points to just one. If he hadn't still been level 1, he'd have been dead. As Theo moved away he gulped down a healing potion and evaded Greywolf as best he could. Meanwhile Helen and I attacked with ranged weapons. Greywolf did manage to land one more blow on Theo before he died. Again Theo's health was reduced to one point, but one point is enough. Again he used a healing potion as an ambush in transit would have been a disaster. At the Carnival we rested before fighting Zordral. The buffs that I chose proved to be sufficient. [In the past I tried using Command which Zordral usually saved against!]

When I headed east I came across Lena and Samuel and as a result we saved Samuel. On the journey we came across an ogre upon whose body we found a useful belt.
After saving Samuel we were attacked by Tarnesh. I used a remove fear spell, and Helen used "True Sight." As a result we prevailed.

We then headed North where we founnd Joia's ring before returning it.

Further North we fought Sonner and his cohorts. After killing them we returned Tenya's bowl and killed an ankheg.

As we returned southwards we killed several more ankheg and after returning the body of his son to Farmer Brun, we gave him 100gp to get him back on his feet.

We returned the Colquetle amulet and are now heroes. Don't ask me how that came about! In my eyes Theo is definitely not a hero!

Our next quest was a bit more heroic, namely killing Bassilus. Helen approached him whilt protected from evil. Bassilus cast "Rigid Thinking" which Helen saved against. I used "Silence," after which Helen and I fought him in melee. He died and as a result I now have a melee weapon in which I have * proficiency. We then took on Zargal and defeated his party. We tried to help Melicamp and failed after which we did help Brage.

 

[Alesia_BH]

Alena, Halfling Priest of Lathander: Davaeorn- So Sayeth the Wise SergBlackstrider

Hey there, hi there, everyone! I'm pleased to report that the prophecy of SergBlackstrider has not yet come to pass: I have not become bored with my party game and abandoned it. Alena is alive and well.

I am, however, getting bored with BG1, so I’ll likely dart through the endgame, win or lose.

It’s been a long time -a long, long time- since I’ve fought my way through the mines. With a solo character this is more trouble than it’s worth. For a party, in contrast, it’s super straightforward. Put a tank up front and kill at your leisure.

Spoiler

Against the mage, Hareisham, the strategy was the same, the only distinction being that a skeleton warrior took the lead instead of Khalid. The next time I roll with a party I’ll definitely max out Detect Illusions and memorize Spell Thrust early. That way I won’t need to rely on lame tactics against the Cloakwood mages.

Spoiler

We used a Pro Magic scroll against Davaeorn. Going forward we'll have dispelling arrows so Spell Thrust and Detect Illusions probably won't play a prominent role in this run. It would have been nice to have them for this phase of the adventure, though. Here we see Alena helping the party take down Davaeorn's battle horrors.

Spoiler

Once the horrors were down, Alena activated her Pro Magic scroll and went on the hunt for Davaeorn.

Spoiler

Meanwhile, the party took care of the guards and black talons. Keep the goon squad occupied and we'll win this.

Spoiler

With little pressure from guards, Alena used her wand of the heavens to finish Davaeorn. No need for fireballs with so few enemies on the field.

Spoiler

Down goes Davaeorn. As for the party, they acquitted themselves well against the guards. Don't let that damage fool you. I was just conserving healing potions, secure in the knowledge that Khalid is nigh unkillable right now.

Spoiler

This mustard jelly has given a few of my characters grief over the years. It stood little chance against Minsc, Khalid and Jaheira.

Spoiler

We're now at the Elfsong, plotting our next move. I foresee a homecoming in the very near future.

Best,

A.

 

[Alesia_BH]

@Borco Welcome back! Any chance we’ll see a run from you?

 

[Serg_BlackStrider]

I'm pleased to report that the prophecy of SergBlackstrider has not yet come to pass: I have not become bored with my party game and abandoned it. Alena is alive and well.

I’ll be immensely happy if my 'prophecy' will never come true.