Let's Play - BGT with a Codex Crew

Chapter 7: Into the Great Wide Open II

At the Red Sheaf Inn in Beregost


OK I'm tired of squishy people dying.
I imagine they feel the same way.
What we need is someone who can put on some plate armor and take a hit for the team.
The Barbarian thinks plate armor is for little girls.
Well I'm tired of burying people so lets see what we can find.
Attention people! I am looking for someone who can wear plate armor.
I stand ready strangers!
Who are you?
My name is Wulfstand and I am a Cavalier.
The Barbarian wonders what a Cavalier is?
Well you see I am a Paladin specially trained in..
Yeah, yeah. You can wear Plate?
But of course. I also have the ability to..
Great. Welcome aboard.

Perhaps we should look for someone who can use that bow we found.
Good idea. Can anyone here shoot a bow?
My name is taplonaplo and I can use a bow.
How good are you?
I split my studies between the martial and mystic realms but I am a fair shot.
I guess you will do for now. OK now who do we want?
I suppose we should try to find a mage of some sort.
I'm a mage!
No you are our archer. Try to keep pace here.
We are looking for a mage! Any mage will do!
I am available to travel.
The Barbarian finds your looks very familiar.
My name is ScottishMartialArts and my Necromatic talents are ready for action.
We traveled with a, er, person named ScottishMartialArts before. You have a remarkable resemblance.
You must mean my poor confused cousin James. Ever since we were children he would dress up as a girl and pretend to be me. Where is James now?
Funny story. Paco here decided to charge this group of Kobolds without resting beforehand. So once we got..
Unforutntnly your cousin died saving us all. A true hero was SMA.
I'm SMA.
The Barbarian is confused and angry! Who is James, who is SMA? You little girl are now SMA II.
But I'm..
Best not argue with him SMA II. Just go with it.
Am I to understand we will be traveling with this vile magician of the undead?
Shut up Wulf. No one cares.




Grunker, Barbarian I have a plan.
Oh do tell.
We are going to take these three on a shakedown tour of the Cloudpeaks. If they survive we can continue on north again.
The Barbarian believes that the strong survive and the weak perish. It is the nature of the world.

We Travel to the Cloudpeaks










We must travel at once to Baldur's Gate to retrieve this poor mans reading candle!
Ehhhhh, soon Wulf soon.




Alright lets find his dog.
Dog is quite the delicacy where I am from.
What? No we are returning the dog to the boy. What's wrong with you?




Once again this battle is not my fault. I was being polite.
Must be something about your nature that pisses people off.




Ahh. Here is the little guy.
That's one baddass looking dog.




Did we just assist a devil?
Looks that way. Does that upset you oh-high-and-mighty one?
Do not address me foul mage. I must pray to my god for forgiveness.
Pray while we walk you ninny.








Take these bracers Tap. You are going to be a killer archer.
My magical abilities are quit substantial as well you know.
Ha, If you say so.

Tap and SMA II Level Up





We Head to the Western Cloudpeaks










Great we saved a tree.
This was the right and noble thing to do.
This was a waste of time.
Not completely. Look at this belt.



Oh. I used to have a kitty-cat. We need to find her.
Kitty-cat?



Found it.


And it all worked out in the end.







That's right! We promised that Red Wizard we would kill the witch. Let's go do that.
You know boss I don't really have many spells. Maybe we could go buy some before we go after the witch?
I'm aware of that. It's just that I don't know if we should make that kind of investment if...
If what?
Yes Paco, if what?
Nevermind. Let's go get spells.

We Travel to High Hedge


tap and SMA II Scribe Spells


Grunker Levels Up



We Travel to the Gnoll Fortress












Hear that Paco? Your head's so dumb you won't miss it.
I feel as if he would miss it.
Why are the pretty ones so stupid?






This is the second Tome we have found. At some point we need to decide who gets to use them.
The Barbarian is a man complete and needs no instruction.
I wouldn't mind using a Tome.
Who are you again?
Ah, tap the mage...
Hmmm..
the archer...
Oh that's right. We will decide later but you're not getting one.





You just let her go?
The Barbarian does not strike down helpless women.
Yes you do! I've seen you do it.
This was the just thing to do.
Shut up Wulf. Why didn't you tell us you were going to let her go?
The Barbarian's consul is his own.
Well next time maybe give us a hint so we don't need to cut our way through a hundred gnolls for no reason.


Paco Levels Up


Let's get the hell out of here.

We are ambushed on the way to Beregost

The Barbarian Levels Up



In Beregost
Here you go Grunker.
What's this?
I'm tired of you always almost dying. Since you're so weak you can't wear decent armor or carry good shields. This should help though.
How nice of you to point out my flaws while presenting a gift.
Ahh.. Are you guys going to hug?



At the Red Sheaf Inn in Beregost

Alright men I think we are ready to take on the bandits again.
Again? What happened the last time?
Death, slaughter, the violation of a corpse. You know the usual.
We both know Satori would have enjoyed that. Regardless I have a good feeling about this.
You need to stop saying that.

Next we hunt some bandits and based on our track record people will probably die.

1 Kodex kool kredit says SMA Mk.II will be the first to fall.

Excellent LP, think that would sum it up good. Though there seems to be alot of more "phat lewts" in this mod than the standard game.

Merkwürdigliebe said:

1 Kodex kool kredit says SMA Mk.II will be the first to fall.

Excellent LP, think that would sum it up good. Though there seems to be alot of more "phat lewts" in this mod than the standard game.

Click to expand...

The bow is the only item that I can tell has been imported in. The bracers and belts were there before. Not sure about the spears but since no one uses them they go by the wayside anyway. I will give an equipment rundown at the start of the next update I think.

Black Talon Elites,I foresee horrible things in my near future
Paco's kill stats are impressive considering he is butt naked! How many XP you get for scribing scrolls per spell level? That's a nice bonus for having to start over mages from scratch.
edit: BTW how did you manage to get 25HP from a level 4 mage :D?

Yeah, you should have reduced the amount of XP gained by scribing scrolls to the spell-book. The amount you use is suitable for BGII, so we get LOADS from the level-ups. 1000 per level of the scroll is essentially loads more than we'll get from mobs in ToSC, so right's now it's basically an insane cheat

I foresee new scroll-investments everytime someone dies becoming a real money-sink though

Grunker said:

Yeah, you should have reduced the amount of XP gained by scribing scrolls to the spell-book. The amount you use is suitable for BGII, so we get LOADS from the level-ups. 1000 per level of the scroll is essentially loads more than we'll get from mobs in ToSC, so right's now it's basically an insane cheat

I foresee new scroll-investments everytime someone dies becoming a real money-sink though

Click to expand...

Yeah I noticed this. I thought the XP was reduced but apparently not. The other problem is that monsters don't randomly drop scrolls anymore so we need to buy them from high hedge and he is about out after 4 mages.

edit: BTW how did you manage to get 25HP from a level 4 mage Big Grin?

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i have no idea. I rolled the stats, imported at lvl one, then added the xp with SK. Is it a necromancer thing?

edit: Hmm I apparently have some sort of HP maxing deal installed. Going to have to change that at some point.

Thread update!

The cavalier got in before my inquisitor though..

Guess it can't all go my way.

SMA Mk. II uses Penny Arcanes portrait?

Guess if/when she shows up, you should change PEnnys portrait to avoid confusion then.

The +3 spear and the +3 leather armor you can cast spells in are both from BG2. I'm fairly certain BG1 only has +1 and +2 items. If there were any +3's, they weren't until the endgame.

Ulminati said:

SMA Mk. II uses Penny Arcanes portrait?

Guess if/when she shows up, you should change PEnnys portrait to avoid confusion then.

Click to expand...

Whoops. I just randomly chose one that looked a little like SMA I. I don't generate anyone until they are going to be added into the game.

Sorry about that.

Azira said:

The cavalier got in before my inquisitor though..

Guess it can't all go my way.

Click to expand...

I had you down as a pure Paladin. Updated the list. People have a better chance of getting in with a kit of some sort.

edit: BTW how did you manage to get 25HP from a level 4 mage Big Grin?.

Click to expand...

i have no idea. I rolled the stats, imported at lvl one, then added the xp with SK. Is it a necromancer thing?

edit: Hmm I apparently have some sort of HP maxing deal installed. Going to have to change that at some point.

Click to expand...

I think if you used larloch's minor drain it's possible, but why the hell would you use that crappy spell? I don't know of a static necro HP bonus, and 1hp is pretty insignificant really. It's just funny that the mage has more HP than the fighter/mage (but perfectly legit).
Anyway, if you only set xp, you might be better off with using the LUA cheat to add it in.

oldmanpaco said:

Azira said:

The cavalier got in before my inquisitor though..

Guess it can't all go my way.

Click to expand...

I had you down as a pure Paladin. Updated the list. People have a better chance of getting in with a kit of some sort.

Click to expand...

A pure paladin would not be much fun.

Azira said:

The cavalier got in before my inquisitor though..

:

Click to expand...

And a terrifying Inquisitor he is too

oldmanpaco said:

Whoops. I just randomly chose one that looked a little like SMA I. I don't generate anyone until they are going to be added into the game.

Click to expand...

Eh, it's no biggie. It was more to make sure there was no confusion down the line. I dug up the first non-wow magey-elfy picture the interwebz threw at me and cropped it. Let's just pretend that was the portrait I suggested for Penny Arcane all along.

Large:

Small:

[edit]

Also, can I call dibs on the intelligence tome? Maybe that way, I won't be used as a meat shield

Is it not too late for a newcomer to apply? Seeing how your mages die like fiies wasting all valuable scrolls in the process (as if you couldn't salvage theirs spellbooks after their die [stupid gameplay limit is stupid].) I think you could use an arcane spellcaster that has no use for spell-scrolls.

Mrowakus
Human Sorcerer
Chaotic Neutral

Str: 8
Dex:17
Const:17
Int:15
Wis:12
Cha:18

Edwin's portrait please.

On the second thought you could "cheat up" a few scrolls saying that they come from what remained of the deceased character's spellbooks.

Plenty of cheating up already with XP from scribing new scrolls and mods dropping über-loot from mid-late BG2 in early BG1

Needs to be SOMETHING holding the party back, or they'll bitchslap Sarevok at level 5.

Good LP

If there's ever place for a bard


Hyuk
Human bard, Jester
st 8
dx 18
con 16
in minimum
wisdom 8
cha 18

DramaticPopcorn said:

Ah, forgot to mention, it seems that you made much more progress with this LP than you ever will with your mod.
Faggot boiware apologist popamole quarian mabari

Click to expand...

The mod work goes on you ungrateful bastard. Next opening you're back in for some 'raped to death by ogres' action.

A couple of things about this build. Yes there are some decent items and XP was not scaled down quite enough (75% kills, 75% quest, apparently 100% scribing) but the random spawns are brutal.

We don't just get a hobgoblin Elite and an archer or two. We get 2 hobgoblin Captains, 3 hobgoblin Elites, 2-3 Archers, 2-3 hobgoblin Slayers, and a Shaman. In every encounter (this is what got Satori). Another example – we went into the forest east of Larswood to hunt some spiders. First random spawn consisted of 2 giant spiders, 2 phase spiders, a wrath spider, and two enticorps. Seriously? After retreating out of that area we were attacked by skeletons. Not your basic skeletons though. A skeleton warrior with two lackeys shooting fire arrows at us. We have an average lvl of 5 right now and not everyone has a +1 weapon yet!

Anyway I have finished through the bandit camp and some random exploring after that. Will post an update after work today.

So? As long as you don't mess with basilisks the gear will remain intact, and you have endless supplies of meatbags.
Can't wait for the update. I will be really surprised if i survive it with my pathetic 27 or so hp.

Ouch. Ok, with those monsters, you'll need all the help you can get then. :/

I just hope the plot encounters are scaled up accordingly as well. It'd be dissapointing to see the villains go down faster than random bandits.

Important story encounters usually feature a caster that can mess things up real bad with SCS, but i don't think the encounters themselves scale.

taplonaplo said:

Important story encounters usually feature a caster that can mess things up real bad with SCS, but i don't think the encounters themselves scale.

Click to expand...

Well the bandit camp was one large cluster fuck. Just saying.

Also 5 out of the 6 deaths have been aided by SCS caster enhancements. Really need to get to those bastards fast or you will be screwed.

taplonaplo said:

So? As long as you don't mess with basilisks the gear will remain intact, and you have endless supplies of meatbags.
Can't wait for the update. I will be really surprised if i survive it with my pathetic 27 or so hp.

Click to expand...

The problem is that it takes all our resources to fight the stupid random encounters. Really irritating having to rest after every battle. And since we get about 1/4 the potions of the original game we need to rely on spells for almost all healing and save the potions for when things really go to hell.

On the plus side we do get a lot of XP.

Don't temples have unlimited in store (now that would suck)? I can't say i'm surprised, as your team composition is really not what i would consider optimal for BG1 (however that makes it all the more interesting for me to watch so i'm definitely happy about it). I never considered melee oriented group a viable choice in BG1, since the basic AI is stupid and almost always attacks the nearest enemy and you only need one bait. I guess your version has a somewhat more intelligent AI, but the fact remains that melee damage output won't be worth the risk until the middle of BG2, when you technically never miss anymore.

taplonaplo said:

Don't temples have unlimited in store (now that would suck)?

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Stores sell for 25% more and buy for 25% less. There is also 50% less gold from monsters and quest rewards.

Basically not a lot of disposable income at the moment.