Let's Play: Baldur's Gate Trilogy - Ch26 (Mae'Var)

[Spider]

You're not doing werewolf island? How about the end fight of TotSC, the one in the village after Durlag's tower? If you can do that one, the werewolves should be a breeze?

 

Considering how underlevelled the party is at the moment (just getting level 4 spells, something you usually have before finishing Baldur's Gate proper, and certainly a long time before doing Durlag's Tower) there should still be a good **** of XP out there to be had.

[Blarghagh]

I'm happy to take my chances at level 1 until I can get dragged up by the rest of the higher level party killing stuff. If I die I die.

 

Ditto. Death is inevitable, at least we get three second chances this time.

[Enoch]

You're not doing werewolf island? How about the end fight of TotSC, the one in the village after Durlag's tower? If you can do that one, the werewolves should be a breeze?

 

Considering how underlevelled the party is at the moment (just getting level 4 spells, something you usually have before finishing Baldur's Gate proper, and certainly a long time before doing Durlag's Tower) there should still be a good **** of XP out there to be had.

There should be lots of in-City quests and XP still available, but I can't remember the degree to which following the main quest to Candlekeep cuts you off from that.

[Tigranes]

Yes, there are half a dozen or so in-City spots I haven't hit, as well as the Gnoll Fortress, the Red Wizards encounter and a few other things in the world.

 

I'll reassess and see what to do after Durlag's Tower - hey, we might all come out alive! (Heh.) Again, if you want me to go somewhere, just say so and I will.

 

Update... sometime in the next 24 hours, I think.

[Walsingham]

If I come in then I say we should 'do' that witch near the bridge. And the subsequent barney in the docks.

 

Because I'm a wordkiller, you see?

[Spider]

Then I'll say I want you to go to werewolf island.

 

You can't be ready for BG2 before you've given some greater werewolves the boot.

[Tigranes]

11. We At Durlag's, Part Two

 

Here we be, at the second level of Durlag's Tower. We've only died a couple of times, so far, so all is well.

 

Oner: And that's exactly why governments are the problem. Once you have the power of life or death over many, it becomes easy to dispense with individual lives.

 

At least we're not in Jagged Alliance 2.

 

Initially, all doors are locked, save one filled with various stone sculptures. (This game really looks good... well, better than the KoA demo, at least.) Manipulating a few statue-heads, we are able to get some doors opening...

 

...and get to this one. You may note that we get some seriously phat loot in Durlag's Tower - pearls, silver necklaces, magical items, magical arrows, the lot. Hell, I think we picked up 14 antidotes or something from one chest.

 

And yes, everything, I mean everything, is still trapped. That room alone has 5 traps on the ground.

 

The third room has some freaky apparition of Durlag that teleports around longing after his wife, Islanne, before turning into a doppleganger and attacking us. I've done a bad job at focusing on story/plot throughout since most of us have played most of the game, but basically, by this point, we are told the basics of the tale of Durlag's Tower. Durlag was a dwarf adventurer who amassed some phat loot throughout his career; but he longed for a home, and not to die alone like his father did after his adventuring life. Thus he built this mighty fortress as a home for his family and clan. But its splendour eventually attracts enemies, and for some reason or another, dopplegangers end up invading his home. Durlag manages to defeat his enemies, but only by striking down dopplegangers that have taken the form of his friends, wife, son, everyone. And since then, Durlag's Tower has been haunted, filled with traps and monsters too daunting to be breached.

 

And so in the next room, we find another apparition longing after Kiel, his firstborn son... just as we pick up Kiel's helmet.

 

We send a gnoll ahead to find some traps. It does.

 

Sorophyx: I'm gonna need like, a hundred gnolls.

 

A doppleganger of Islanne, who was hiding out god knows where, suddenly reappears at this point and attacks us. Of course, it decides to cast a lightning bolt.... facing directly south. It rebounds about seven times and fries her good.

 

That, by the way, is why we haven't been using Deraldin's special ability for a while. It's impossible to aim those right.

 

Beyond that, the second floor is actually fairly comfortable, as long as you keep searching for traps. There is an optional challenge in the Dwarven Doomguards - an even hardier version of the battle horrors in terms of style, four of them lie dormant here unless you try to attack them or rob the chest. We're going to wimp out of this one - they pretty much eat through summoned monsters like butter (I think around 2.5 attacks per round, they can one-shot gnolls or skeletons, make good saves versus Web and other disabling spells, and have 100+ HP each.)

 

Level 3 greets us with a room of fireballs. One explodes every couple of seconds, just enough to time it and reach the other side.

[Tigranes]

There are three main paths to the other side of the level; the one we take is full of giant sculptures. Essentially, we touch one, and the spirit of the warrior returns, dire charmed, to fight for our cause; but if any remain standing after a while, they will turn on us. We are meant to use them strategically to defeat the other enemies on the level.

 

Of course, this is not a huge deal for us, because the wyverns eat through the warrior spirits like butter.

 

Tale: Wait, does that mean...

Deraldin: Yep. Giant wyvern corpse.

Nepenthe: It might have been fun to fight that one.

Deraldin: Fun? It would kill us all in one turn!

Nepenthe: Not necessarily. You could get a cutscene where I jump up and stab it in the eye or something. Blood everywhere. Me looking brooding and dark and heroic. That would be so AWESOME.

 

Deraldin: Yeah. Nothing impresses the ladyfolk like exploding your enemies, right?

 

Well, actually...

 

Beyond the three corridors, we have the four rooms of elemental themed challenges. Yeah, the dungeon design gets pretty screwed up on this floor. First is the ice room, which we greet with multiple fireballs.

 

Then the acid room, where slimes split upon death if not killed with fire. Greylord delivers fire.

 

Greylord: Badass Fire.

 

Air is the most challenging, because there are 3-4 invisible stalkers that come out of nowhere, and do hefty damage. We manage to have skeletons soak up most of the damage, while Deraldin goes nuts with the wand of the heavens.

 

Finally, the fire room is pretty easy if you have an archer - just get them down from a distance to avoid the fireballs. But you will notice that in the meantime the party has been buffing up. That's because immediately upon completing the four rooms, you are..

 

...transported into a game of human chess. In the full SCS version, this would probably have wiped our entire party within 3-4 turns; enemy bishops and queens cast some pretty high level spells, and the rooks are as durable as battle horrors. Here, our trusted meatshield + fireball combo does pretty well.

 

We silence a bishop before they're even in view...

[Tigranes]

Then the King decides to walk all the way over, so we spam it with fire. I can't believe I wasted potions of heroism on this!

 

And finally, the fourth and last (and the biggest) level of Durlag's Tower. Durlag's ghost has, apparently, been chilling out here for a few hundred years.

 

Our main task here is to knock some sense into the emo Durlag by visiting several key locations, answering some questions to statues, and in the process learning more about Durlag's past and his angst. In short, a dungeon representation of dwarven psychoanalytics.

 

First, we trace the path of his fear. I really like the writing in Durlag's Tower in general - the actual lore of the place is nothing complicated. We don't find out any conspiracies about the dopplegangers, or that Durlag is not what we thought he was, or any stupid crap like that. It's a very simple story; through the doppleganger invasion, Durlag is made to lose the very thing he dedicated his life to defending, and he loses it through the very fear of losing them. See what you can do when you don't try to write freaking 'twists' into every storyline?

 

The next Q&A session is scheduled in a room with some spiders. These are usually a walkover, but for some reason, they seem to do pretty high poison damage. We pop out some antidotes.

 

Oh, okay. That's not good.

 

Holy crap!

 

Okay, so before Deraldin accuses me of negligence, I did have everyone pop down antidotes - but these spiders keep teleporting around to attack various characters, and they seem to poison everyone with pretty much every hit. Poison does ~5 damage twice a turn, not once, and we can only pop one antidote every turn (during which we can't cast healing spells or drink them). Now Deraldin is dead, and Oner has retreated bt the poison is building up...

 

The spiders are all dead, but Oner remains in critical condition. After the last screenshot, he took a healing potion; but now he's back again at 2hp. (Yes, it would have been smarter to take an antidote instead, but Deraldin had kept them and Oner didn't have enough time to walk over to his corpse and pick them up.)

 

Tale, through the Bhaalspawn dreams, has two cure light wounds per day; this is his last. But as soon as Oner is healed, the poison hits again. Tale picked up the potions, so Oner's on queue to drink an antidote once his turn arrives again, (all this is pretty much one turn = 6 seconds) and I call over Nepenthe, who has a pretty useless Lay on Hands ability but it remains our only other form of healing...

 

But he doesn't make it. Moments before he's able to quaff an antidote potion, our fierce, anarchist philosopher-Barbarian hits the dust.

[Tigranes]

Oh, Oner, we hardly knew you.

 

And... seriously? Ten kills? You've been with the party for half of the adventure and you have ten kills? You've killed an average of one enemy every six days? I mean, you've killed ONE thing in the entire Durlag's Tower!

 

Two new Obsidianites ride the magic elevator down the tower to join our beleaguered heroes. The first is Gorth, who is here to challenge Greylord's existing market share in Badassery. Just to diversify, I've made him a crossbow specialist; we only have one light crossbow Sorophyx currently wields, but we can get hiim the Light Crossbow of Speed in Beregost if he's alive by then.

 

The second is Walsingham the Third, descended from the great Walsinghams that saved Icewind Dale. Twice. Because we're currently swimming in two handed swords, Wals is assigned the role of the party phallic symbol.

 

The newcomers' first task is to brave the second Q&A session while the party cuddle and comfort each other.

 

I have decided not to do any cheating or cheesing for now; the two newcomers start with zero experience, and we will try to survive the remainder of the tower nevertheless. About half of this level is filled with creepy subterranean cave networks that are mainly populated by ghouls, carrion crawlers and acid goo. They should provide good XP. There's a tricky moment when Nepenthe is on low HP and paralyzed, but Tale paralyzes a Ghoul with the wand, while the party takes care of the other one.

 

After about a dozen kills, they've levelled up. Maybe this won't be so bad, after all...

[Gorth]

The second is Walsingham the Third, descended from the great Walsinghams that saved Icewind Dale. Twice. Because we're currently swimming in two handed swords, Wals is assigned the role of the party phallic symbol.

Yeah, trust the shortest guy to want the biggest... sword. Not compensating at all

 

Hmm... crossbow? Interesting choice. Not something I normally bother with in my own games, mostly because of their abysmal fire rate.

 

Make room for Gorthelm Tell, slayer of Apples

[Deraldin]

Okay, so before Deraldin accuses me of negligence, I did have everyone pop down antidotes - but these spiders keep teleporting around to attack various characters, and they seem to poison everyone with pretty much every hit. Poison does ~5 damage twice a turn, not once, and we can only pop one antidote every turn (during which we can't cast healing spells or drink them). Now Deraldin is dead, and Oner has retreated bt the poison is building up...

I guess I can't really blame you for Phase Spiders. Those are probably my most hated enemy in the game. For some reason they always, ALWAYS seem to teleport to my mages. Spiders with teleport and deadly poison shouldn't be smart enough to go for the squishy characters first!

 

And... seriously? Ten kills? You've been with the party for half of the adventure and you have ten kills? You've killed an average of one enemy every six days? I mean, you've killed ONE thing in the entire Durlag's Tower!

 

Cut me some slack man! I'm CC not DPS! I'm kinda surprised I only got one kill in the tower though considering the wand of heavens spam. At least I managed to get something decent for my toughest enemy slain.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Deraldin

[greylord]

Hey, when I bite it I want to see my kill stats too, just to see how much (or little) of a slayer I really was!

[Deraldin]

Hey, when I bite it I want to see my kill stats too, just to see how much (or little) of a slayer I really was!

 

I hope greylord makes it through the second game just so we can see how crappy his kill stats become in BG2 when arrows are no longer magical kill machines.

[Blarghagh]

So did that leave the party without a healer? Two archers, mage, wizard slayer, thief, umm...

 

EDIT: Oh yes, a Paladin. So, I guess that's somewhat of a healer, I guess?

Edited January 20, 2012 by TrueNeutral

[Walsingham]

Two handed style? WTF? Are you completely insane?

 

I demand I be given axes to back up the swords, then at least I can throw the occasional axe. Need some low level character fire support up in here. Or throwing knives or something.

 

Surprised to see I'm not already dead.

[Blarghagh]

Only potions, bhaalspawn abilities and lay on hands to heal you and you're worried about what weapon you have?

[sorophx]

a lv 1 cleric wouldn't be of much use anyway

[Tigranes]

Lay on hands heals like, 4 HP. I have no idea why it's so useless in BG1, or is that how it really is?

 

I'll put some points into axe for ya, Wals. If you live.

[Blarghagh]

Wait, can Wals use healing potions? Wizard Slayer's can't, can they?

[Deraldin]

Lay on hands heals like, 4 HP. I have no idea why it's so useless in BG1, or is that how it really is?

 

I'll put some points into axe for ya, Wals. If you live.

2 HP per caster level. SHould be doing what 12HP now?

 

Wait, can Wals use healing potions? Wizard Slayer's can't, can they?

 

He can use healing potions. No other potions though.

[Oner]

;_;

 

*cough* I've seen things you people *cough* wouldn't believe. Battle Horrors on fire off the side of Durlag's. I've watched Lightning Bolts bounce in the dark in Baldur's Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like *cough* -like tears in rain. *wheeze* Time to die.

 

 

Rosebud.

 

x_X

[Oner]

On another note, I never really got what Durlag's is supposed to be about. Doppelgangers kill his family and friends, he goes mad, makes his fortress of impenetrability (IIRC he upgrades the thing after going mad?), okay. Then a bunch of people find their way down, and there's still living doppelgangers, slimes, undead, spiders and some random demon guy who did 60 damage per attack.

And there was much confusion.

[Gorth]

On another note, I never really got what Durlag's is supposed to be about. Doppelgangers kill his family and friends, he goes mad, makes his fortress of impenetrability (IIRC he upgrades the thing after going mad?), okay. Then a bunch of people find their way down, and there's still living doppelgangers, slimes, undead, spiders and some random demon guy who did 60 damage per attack.

And there was much confusion.

There are a few pointers to the background story in Ulgoth's (sp?) Beard. The Dopplegangers did not act on their own, but as part of a scheme to infiltrate his tower. That's why he turned it into trap 101. Well, part of the reason.

[Tigranes]

Good news: we made it out of Durlag's Tower.

 

Bad news: