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

[greylord]

Looks like my death was fore ordained...My avatar seems to have died on the forums too!!!

 

But never fear, I think I got one to come back with...

[Walsingham]

Keep up the good work. Maybe steal stuff from the big museum?

[Blarghagh]

The fight for goodness must continue bump.

[Gorth]

Yeah, need to kill something... fast!...

[sorophx]

bumping to the next page!

[Walsingham]

Ba-bump

[Gorth]

"So, are we gonna kill something now?"

[Nepenthe]

Noober: "How about now?"

[Oner]

He gave up after I died, how sweet.

[Tigranes]

13. Cleaning Up

 

Walsingham: Look, I'm not backing down from this. The pie is the single greatest invention in the world of pastry and I will punch you in the face until you admit it.

Sorophyx: You can punch me, but that won't change the fact that you're stupid and your pies are even stupider.

TrueNeutral: Great. Next he'll say your mom after every freaking sentence-

Tale: Guys! I think we're filming again!

Gorth: I thought we got cut due to low ratings?

Tale: We must be getting government subsidies or something. Come on, back in character.

Nepenthe: But I forgot what my character was, now.

Sorophyx: A loser with an inactive phallus, pretty much.

Nepenthe: Yeah, and you're the bastard everyone hates and eventually dies horribly.

Sorophyx: It's the journey that counts, not the destination.

 

Because nobody remembers, here's a recap: the Obsidianites somehow survived Durlag's Tower, though they lost half the party in the process. Now fairly high-level Tale, Nepenthe and Sorophyx are carrying low-level Walsingham and Gorth, and totally low-level TrueNeutral as we try and crowd-source some XP for the endgame. I think Wals/Gorth are level 3, and TN level 2 at this point. Yeah. They have like 30 hp between them.

 

As part of that, here we are in the city of Baldur's Gate, the mysterious questgiver mage that wants Balduran's fabled helm and cloak. The knights on the left are a fair challenge, but even worse are the invisible stalkers that keep popping up to attack the soft underbelly of the party.

 

Gorth cops it, I believe for the first time. Sadly, the high casualty rate of recent days has inured the party against any outcries of grief.

 

In the end we resort to Tale running around furiously, waving the wand of paralysis every six seconds and hoping to land some save fails.

 

It works, and we manage to avoid further deaths. Remember, kids, cheese will get you further than love, intelligence or money.

 

Usually, there are two options with this quest; return the items only to have the questgiver teleport away and hand us some measly XP/gold, or refuse to complete the quest and fight the mage. Here, we break the RPG mold with a revolutionary third option: procure all the items beforehand then kill the dude for XP.

 

Yeah, give me a break. Between 3 underleveled characters we've got at least 100,000 experience points to catch up on.

[Tigranes]

The mage proves just as cheesy as us with insta-spawns of helmed horrors. We open with wand of the heavens and a wand of the paralysis - you can see it has gotten one of the horrors in the first turn, making things easier.

 

All is going well until the mage throws a confusion spell. Tale, Gorth and TN (who is, you can see, now level 3. Woo.) fail saves.

 

Gorth starts shooting TN in the face. The latter doesn't even have any armour, being a shapeshifter.

 

I believe that took a total of two hits. We all gotta go sometime, buddy.

 

All that done, we take care of a couple of other things in the city, being careful not to be seen by any Flaming Fist guards (who will go hostile and attack us now). Walsingham employs his ol' blighty silver-tongue to avoid a fight with an ogre bounty hunter.

 

Walsingham: It sort of helped that he thought I was Tale, to begin with.

[Tigranes]

Finally, we're back at the High Hedge, to pick up a Robe of the Archimagi for Tale. Of course, we don't have the 20k+ that he's demanding, after all our recent expenses.

 

Tale: Wait, then why did we even come?

 

Oh, it wasn't my idea...

 

Sorophyx: BANZAI, CAPITALIST SCUM!

 

Dude, you told me you can get him in one hit!

 

Sorophyx: Sorry. He must have munchkin'd his CON score.

 

Tale lends a helping hand, and Thalantyr expires with no chance of defending himself.

 

Tale: Wait, what? I didn't do that!

Sorophyx: Ha! You landed the killing blow!

Tale: I didn't- he made me do it! He made me cast magic missile!

Sorophyx: Yes, yes. Now take the bloody robe from his corpse, and EMBRACE THE DARK SIDE!

 

Tale: Wait, this isn't the robe of the archimagi! It's a standard traveler's robe!

Gorth: One of the mods must have replaced his inventory to prevent griefing. Fascinating.

Sorophyx: Well, that's alright. We still got some XP.

Tale: But now I can't even buy a robe of the archimagi! I'm going to be stuck with positive AC all the way through!

Sorophyx: Oh, who cares? You never do anything anyway.

 

I should note, by the way, that at late game I don't see the point of having to identify everything, so I dropped some gold on the ground and gave myself 99 identify scrolls. It's an interesting mechanic when you have no gold and few items, but later, it's just a chore.

 

Anyway. We now have no choice but to return to Ulgoth's Beard; most big pockets of XP have been plundered by now. We are immediately confronted by mysterious cultists that demand the dagger we found on the Death Knight's body in Durlag's Tower.

[Tigranes]

With Sword Coast Strategems this is an extremely difficult battle. They start with an invisible assassin that could easily chunk most of our party, mages capable of casting confusion and other disabling spells, and of course we cannot pre-buff at all. We take the safe route by having Tale and Sorophyx gulp invisibility potions.

 

The party then retreats to better ground. This proves sensible; the assassin soon reveals himself with a strong but not fatal hit on Nepenthe, and Sorophyx backstabs her in turn to eliminate the primary chunking threat.

 

TrueNeutral's call lightning is unfortunately too late and lands on the assassin's corpse, but it will now periodically strike a random enemy, so all is well. More importantly, Tale manages to get in a Greater Malison + Emotion combo to down several enemies.

 

And in the next turn, slow. Tale's pretty useful now, actually.

 

Improbably, we get through the entire fight with no losses, though I'd say it is actually more dangerous than the House of Helmed Horrors before.

[Tigranes]

My original intention was to go straight to the cultists' den and take on Aec'Letec, but we are horribly underleveled and somebody told me to go punch some werewolves. So, we take a blatantly suspicious quest from someone who weirdly oscillates between perfect English and Asian English.

 

A quick trip to Baldur's Gate to pickpocket the sea charts...

 

...and some more Captain Obvious foreboding story mechanics. Hey, stick some bloom and ring-a-ding sounds on there and it's a nextgen game already!

 

May yer bait be most delectable, man.

 

And so we head towards Mystery Island. These storyboard narrations are nothing special, but the voice acting is quite excellent. The most striking one, of course, is when you exit Irenicus' Dungeon at the beginning of BG2. We'll get there. Someday.

 

 

Gorth: Wait, so we're predestined to end up tortured in a dungeon?

TrueNeutral: Well, you always need to start Season 2 with a bang.

[Tigranes]

Too long, didn't read? You're the reason we have "I want to be a Dragon" now, instead. *fist*

 

And so here we are, still horribly underleveled, in the island of angry, hasted, regenerating, immune to normal weapons Werewolves. This should go swimmingly.

 

(Oh wow, I can only post 5 images per post now? THIS CALLS FOR A REVOLUTION)

[Gorth]

"Helmed Horror - Critical Hit Averted By Helmet"

 

So, we've gone from being the stuff of legends to becoming violent home invasion thugs. How the mighty have fallen

[Deraldin]

http://i975.photobuc...iea/BGT13/2.jpg

Gorth cops it, I believe for the first time. Sadly, the high casualty rate of recent days has inured the party against any outcries of grief.

 

Gorth died to the mirror fiend on the last level in Durlag's. He joins Sorophx and Nepenthe on their last lives.

 

Current Party Death Count:

Gorth, Nepenthe, Sorophx: 2 deaths

TrueNeutral: 1 death

Walsingham: No deaths

Tale: Innumerable

 

Next up is Pidesco and then we start back at the beginning! Soon I'll be back! And with BG2 spells! AHAHAHA! Too bad evil clerics get the terrible rebuke undead instead of being able to destroy them outright.

Edited February 26, 2012 by Deraldin

[Gorth]

I suddenly feel very vulnerable. Anybody got a spare platemail and a scroll of stoneskin I can borrow?

[Deraldin]

I suddenly feel very vulnerable. Anybody got a spare platemail and a scroll of stoneskin I can borrow?

Watch your step.

Edited February 27, 2012 by Deraldin

[Nepenthe]

I suddenly feel very vulnerable. Anybody got a spare platemail and a scroll of stoneskin I can borrow?

I'm starting to feel the whole thread is an excuse for libel, so I'm kind of looking forward to dying by now.

[213374U]

You're going to bad doggie land with a bunch of level 3 characters? With SCS on? Yeah, what could possibly go wrong? :D

[Gorth]

I'm an archer for effins sake, I shouldn't be anywhere near the front line. If the enemy can shoot back at me, somethings wrong

[Deraldin]

You're going to bad doggie land with a bunch of level 3 characters? With SCS on? Yeah, what could possibly go wrong? :D

 

At least he's only playing on Core rules. I'm pretty sure that place is actually impossible on insanity. Those werewolves spawn in groups of six and it's not possible to pick them off one at a time. Maybe if I could run down to grab that Quiver of Plenty +1 from Watcher's Keep. >_>

[Blarghagh]

Maybe Shapeshifter was not such a good idea after all. Ten bucks* says that I die twice and get replaced before Gorth, Nepenthe or Sorophx. Either that, or I take revenge on Gorth somehow. He did shoot me in the face.

 

*Not really.

Edited February 27, 2012 by TrueNeutral

[Gorth]

Maybe Shapeshifter was not such a good idea after all. Ten bucks* says that I die twice and get replaced before Gorth, Nepenthe or Sorophx. Either that, or I take revenge on Gorth somehow. He did shoot me in the face.

 

*Not really.

Well, you *are* a shapeshifter... maybe I thought you were somebody else