ok here we go - lets hope i manage to keep this up ;)

the details:
bgtutu
solo beastmaster (ranger kit)
there will be SPOILERS eventually

the story:
see below

Craick’s mind was a whirl as he followed Gorion out into the dark beyond Candlekeep. He replayed the moment when the first man had stunned him by pulling out a dagger and lunging at him with murderous intent. Shocked by the violent intrusion into the ordered calm of Candlekeep, Craick had acted purely on instinct, picking up a chair and smashing it into his assailant, knocking the man halfway across the room. The assassin quickly sprang back to his feet though and for the first time Craick looked into the eyes of someone who wanted to kill him. As the man closed Craick stepped back blocking a low dagger thrust with one of the chair legs remaining in his hands and slamming the other into his would be killer’s head. The man slumped to the ground, dead.

That had been hours ago and his stumbling run to Gorion, the genuine look of concern on the face of his usually serene guardian and their hurried departure had done nothing to calm him. Craick gripped the shaft of his bow nervously as he walked. He desperately needed to rest but Gorion seemed determined to put some distance between them and Candlekeep. Unfortunately for the old man they were walking into danger, not away from it. As the pair entered a clearing in the sparse woodland a huge armoured warrior stepped out of the shadows and confronted Gorion. The man, if man he was, was encased from head to toe in black steel plate armour with a terrible helm that completely obscured his features. Even he was dwarfed though by the two enormous ogres that flanked him as he strode forward demanding that Gorion hand Craick over to them. Craick stared in disbelief at the monsters – rooted to the spot his bow still in his hands as he faced what must surely be a nightmare.

A word and a gesture from Gorion broke the spell and sent him running from the scene. Craick ran as the sound of battle escalated behind him. Ran after all fell quiet. Ran in fear of the monsters who were surely now pursuing him. Too scared to cry out loud Craick silently screamed, “Help me please! Somebody help me!” He stumbled and fell forward slamming hard into the ground his breath knocked out of him. He sensed more than saw a disturbance in the air around him and fearing some form of magic aimed against him shook his head desperately to clear it and tried to stand. “Quickly!” he heard a voice nearby, “crawl towards me and lie still.” Craick didn’t recognise the voice. In his confused state he couldn’t be sure he had even heard it at all. But somehow he trusted it completely and did as it asked crawling towards it until he found himself hidden from sight in a hollow between a stand of thick bushes. As he lay there, still and exhausted, closing his eyes and trying to quieten his breathing he heard the strange voice again. “Sleep now master. I shall watch”.

Craick slept . . .

[img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] Great start Armen, Im intrigued! MORE MORE MORE :D

A traveller on the Sword Coast road the following morning might have been surprised to see a very grubby large young man staring at a very small dragon sitting in the branches of a small tree.

Craick finally reached out a tentative hand towards the image of the little dragon. Still not quite believing his eyes he was surprised when his fingers connected with the creatures tough hide. “scaley . . .” he muttered to himself as he slowly drew his hand away.

“Well, I’d have preferred Silverclaw or Shadowfang or something but I guess it’ll have to do,” said the dragon turning to look at Craick directly as he scrabbled back away a shocked look on his face. Finally Craick spoke.

“I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you are saying”

“The Naming. If you’d read a bit more you’d have realised the importance that some place on it but it doesn’t actually matter too much. ‘Scaley’ it is then.”

“It was you last night wasn’t it? The voice that showed me the hiding places.” Craick thought back again to the night before and a puzzled frown passed across his face. “Why did you call me ‘master’?” he asked.

“Well, I thought you were a mage at first. They tend towards the arrogant it helps to start off on the right wing with mages. I could tell you a thing or two about some of them”

“Have you had many masters then?” said Craick cautiously.

“More than I can even tell you, mainly mages of course and a few bards but the odd elven ranger. The last one was a high-ranking thief that had somehow worked out how to use a scroll and wanted me to lie on his treasure. They were all basically good people of course even the thief although he cut it a little bit close a few times.”

“Is that why you left him?”

“I didn’t leave him master he died. They all died – eventually”

“Died?”

“People die all the time master – adventurers more often and more quickly than most. Actually one of the mages didn’t actually die as such but he became a bit evil and, well undead. I don’t work with evil so we parted company but we saw some things before that – demons, elemental forces, even a god once. Happy days. Actually not exactly happy now I think about it but interesting, always interesting”

“Why haven’t you died then?”

“Because I’m careful. And I’d suggest you do the same. More importantly I suggest you’re careful with me. I don’t know exactly what happens to you if I die but its something bad apparently and my guess is it’ll hurt. Remember, I’ve been around a bit – don’t get me wrong master, you’re in charge and I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do, but well – I’d like to think I can help with some of the tactical details if you know what I mean”

Craick paused and tried to digest what the dragon was saying. And why, he wondered, why was he sat talking to a dragon? He voiced the question.

“Because you called me.” Scaley answered as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

“But I don’t even know what I did. How can I just call out and a make dragon appear?”

“I was wondering that as well – are you sure you’re not a mage?”

“No – I don’t think I’m anyone much”

“Found a scroll? Some sort of powerful magical item?”

“No”

“You’re a beast talker then”

“Am I?

“Definitely. Elves have them I know for certain – you don’t look elvish though – were your parents both human?”

“I don’t know – my mother was I think but Gorion took me in when I was a baby – I don’t know anything about my father”

“Hmm,” mused the dragon looking suddenly quizzical. “Practically an orphan then. You don’t have a birthmark in the shape of anything do you?”

“Birthmark?” echoed Craick, “why do you say that? And what’s a beast talker?” he added.

“Just a thought master, just a thought. Don’t worry about the beast talking now – it’ll come to you in time. Right shall we get on with it then?”

“Get on with what?”

The dragon, Scaley, locked his amber eyes onto Craick. “Surviving” he said quietly, “and avenging Gorion.”

Craick stared at the small dragon wondering at the course his life had taken. He looked into Scaley’s eyes – eyes that had looked out at the world for generations – eyes that had seen things beyond his imagination. And as he looked he found himself strangely reminded of Gorion. Usually the face of his mentor had been full of humour and affection. Gorion had seemed just one of the many scholars in Candlekeep. But now he wondered who Gorion really was and what those kindly eyes had seen. The thought of those eyes now being closed forever filled him with sorrow but also with a determination to enact the revenge of which Scaley had spoken. His thoughts were interrupted by Scaley’s voice.

“There’s a girl dressed in the most ridiculous purple outfit I have ever seen trying unsuccessfully to sneak towards us along the side of the road. Shall we go and see what she wants?”

Well Craick has come a long way in a short time. Scaley (a pseudo dragon familiar by the way – beast masters get find familiar as an innate ability) has saved his life a couple of times now – mainly in battles with magic users. The little dragon managed to disrupt the assassin at the FA inn long enough for Craick and the guards to wear though his mirror images. The assassin in the inn at Nashkel nearly killed us both (I’m very susceptible to hold person and never seem to make my save which usually means death) and it was only Scaley catching the assassin’s attention and taking a couple of hammer hits in the process that stopped me dying. Similarly with Bassilus the little fella managed to make himself the target of the rigid thinking and the hold person while Craick pounded away with the his staff.

We’ve searched every inch of the wilderness south of the beregost and west of the main road, all of the larswood region and we’re most of the way through cloakwood now. I’ve found Ettercaps a difficult and dangerous foe taking the most arrow hits of anything short of ogre berserkers.

Kit-wise the beastmaster is playing like an archer and attacking from stealth a lot. An actual archer would be a good bit tougher and the addition of stalker backstab would be insane. I’m 8th level now so have a monster summoning 1 slot that I’ve used once.

Equipment wise the lack of any (that’s ANY) magical clubs and the near constant archery has sent me down the quarterstaff route so no particular benefits from dual wielding for me. I’ve also run into the ‘getting into ulgoth’s beard problem’ so the mighty +3 staff will have to wait until after I’ve opened the BG bridge (I’m avoiding doing anything drastic until I’ve checked all the usual ways in). I’m also still using the studded leather I bought in Candlekeep (and I still think rangers should be able to buy the shadow armour!). I’m not spending money on anything except a few arrows of biting (reserved for magic user battles), healing potions and antidotes so I have ~60K gold built up for when I get to the proper shops.

Bgtutu wise everything seems to be going well. The increased movement speed makes the wilderness areas a joy even without the boots of speed (I’ve raced for the boots before in previous games but have taken my time in this one). Also once I’d been to FA Inn, Beregost and High Hedge I cheated in one each of scroll case, gem bag and potion case (and donated 3K gp to a temple) which I thought was just about acceptable.

The only bugs I’ve seen were one funky one where all of my stealth disappeared (I thought it was a XP cap issue but it happened between level ups?). SK put them back but I need to dig around a bit more as it looks a bit like the kit bonus of +15% wasn’t implemented. The other was that Scaley sent the guards in Naskel hostile which was funny but obviously a bit inconvenient so he stays in the backpack in towns now.

I currently have about ~200K xp and it will be interesting to see what level I am for the final battle (I need 300 for level 9 for example).

I am LOVING playing BG 1 again and I’m already half planning to exploit the admittedly unbalanced XP rewards for scribing scrolls and locks and traps with a thief/illusionist game as well - its very nice doing things in BG1 that you couldn't before (dual-wielding and find familiar in this case) and i reckon that set traps would be interesting too ;)

Sorry to break the story – I’ll try to pick it up again.

Craick was drawing near to the Iron Throne’s mines when he came across a huge bloody cave mouth in a clearing in the forest. Thinking of the Elven wyvern hunter he’d met a few days ago he slipped quietly into the cave to be confronted with two of what he now realised were baby wyverns and two fully grown beasts. They were enormous and Craick wondered for a second what he thought he was doing as he let fly the first arrow. The enchanted shaft sunk into the neck of the nearest big reptile and his eyes snapped up to lock on Craick as he knocked and fired another after the first.

Before the wyvern could take off in pursuit Craick dived out of the cave ran across the clearing and hid silently in the undergrowth watching as one each of the large and small wyverns flew out and looked around for him. Carefully picking his escape route and next hiding place he drew back the bowstring again for the third time sending a magical arrow of ice into the wing muscle of the large monster before breaking cover and running hard through the congested woodland – the wyvern’s pursuit slowed by the densely overgrown battleground that Craick had selected. Eventually, Craick’s stealth and patience won this dangerous and exhausting game of cat and mouse and the wyvern’s all lay dead. Craick stowed one of the wyvern heads in his pack (much to Scaley’s disapproval) and set off back to Beregost to claim his reward.

[img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] keep goin!

Nice! When you come to BG II prepare for the most miserable days of your life. You will DIE and DIE and DIE and DIE and DIE! ARGH!!!!!!! :D :D


With a little sarcasem... good luck! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Cast:
Thalantyr (a mage & shopkeeper)
Craick (a beastmaster & adventurer)
Scaley (a pseudo dragon, familiar to Craick)

The scene:
High Hedge. Craick, recently returned from Cloakwood, has engaged Thalantyr to identify some magical items that he has recovered.

T: It’s a Wand Of Fear.
C: What does it do?
T: It instils fear in you enemies causing them to flee in panic.
C: That sounds useful - enemies that flee can be hunted down at leisure.
T: Yes but you won’t be able to use it I’m afraid. I’ll give you 300 gold for it.
C: Why can’t I use it?
T: Because you do not have the skills and knowledge of a mage of power.

(Craick appears to be listening to his backpack for a minute)

C: Can’t mages do that sort of thing anyway? Why make a wand for it that only mages can use?
T: Mages can do many things that are beyond the likes of you! But a wand is a conduit if you like a storehouse of power . . .
C: Have you got any wands that I can use?
T: Yes, I have this Wand Of Sleep, only 1,500 gold
C: 1500?! What does it do?
T: It instils sleep in you enemies causing them to fall insensible to the floor.
C: That sounds even more useful – enemies that don’t flee don’t have to be chased around and can be smacked round the head at leisure. Why can I use this one but not the fear one?
T: It would take to long to explain woodsman – now do you want the Wand Of Sleep or not?
C: Go on then I’ll give it a go – its not like I can’t afford it . . .

(Craick wedges the wand in his belt and sets off for the Coakwood mines)

like the shop roleplay, put some more of them in!

Craick sat back against the palisade in the now deserted iron throne mine complex in cloakwood, blinked in the bright sunlight and emptied the water out of his boots.

He had spent the day before resting hidden near the compound entrance waiting for the darkness he would need to mask his approach. After drawing off a couple of guards he had crawled over the drawbridge and taken up a position to watch the routine of the guard party of two armoured warriors and two mages that blocked the way. He briefly considered sneaking past the group but worried about making his escape if he was successful underground and knew he would have no better advantage than he did now. He smiled as the rain started. It would help to mask any slight noise he might make. Moving quietly and decisively he drew a poisoned arrow from his quiver, checked his escape route, and sighted along the shaft at the first warrior. . .

Moving through the upper levels of the mines Craick realised that, as in Nashkel, the miners here were no more than slaves and desperate to be freed. From them he learnt that the mines had been part of an underground river system and that if he could secure the key to the barrier holding back the waters then the whole operation could be shut down. After systematically removing the guards in the mines to allow the slaves to get safely to the surface he headed down to the lower levels.

He was surprised to find not the rough hewn walls of an iron mine but the well constructed, almost comfortable walls of an underground complex far larger than the small stockade on the surface. There were dozens of soldiers quartered in the complex but Craick moved though it like a shadow never giving the mercenaries a chance to take advantage of their superior numbers. He was greatly aided in this by the magical boots looted from one of the warriors on the surface that greatly increased the speed he could run. He struck hard into the centre of groups, often killing the leader or magic users, and then outpaced them all, hid and, when they had split up to search for him, returned silently to pick them off one by one.

Craick’s confidence grew as he slipped cautiously down the stairs to the lower level. “We might just make this", he thought as he stepped round the corner into the sight of four armoured guards and four hobgoblin archers. Craick froze. They hadn’t noticed him yet but he knew that if he moved they would. He could run past them but he had no idea what lay beyond them and he was too far from the stairs to retreat out of sight. Craick briefly thought about drawing his staff and charging at the archers but he had learned that the guardsman hit hard and his light armour provided little protection. It was then that he remembered the wand of sleep he had bought from Thalantyr. He wished he had had the opportunity to test it in a less dangerous situation but reasoned that it should at least even the odds a little. Craick activated the wand and looked with amazement as all of the archers and half of the guards fell insensible to the floor. The nearest guard turned back into the room at the sound of his companions and then quickly back to Craick in time for two arrows to slam into his chest knocking him back off his feet and down. The last guard standing fell to a few swings of Craick’s quarterstaff then he turned to the unpleasant job of despatching his sleeping opponents. If anything this level of the complex was larger than the last but fortunately there had been no alarm raised due to his quick victory at the entrance and Craick was able to pick his way through the barracks systematically until the way to the lowest level was clear.

I struggled with Dvaevorn :(

Well to be more accurate I struggled with the battle horrors. I knew it was going to be tricky so I rooted through my potion bag and drank everything I thought might be useful (mind focussing, heroism, giant strength . . ). I crept forward in stealth, bit down the damage from a couple of traps, and sighted the first of the monsters and drew him (it) out with a couple of arrows of ice that did no damage! I gripped my staff and braced myself for his approach before engaging him. I’ve got 140-odd hitpoints but he burned through them (literally) in about 3 rounds during which time I got him down to ‘injured’. Healing potions just kept me alive and for the next one I tried again this time running in an out of the door of the bedroom in the entrance hall – run round the corner – hide - whack – run round the corner – hide – whack, over and over again. It wasn’t pretty.

I drank every healing potion I had left before going after the big man but in comparison Dvaevorn was a push over. We played cat and mouse around his maze until he’d run out of images and run out of spells before we settled it staff to staff. I’d had enough by now and only stopped long enough to pick up the key and some kit, sneak up and smack someone who I assumed was his assistant, pull the plug on the river and get the hell out.

I can enter Baldur’s Gate now but I’ve still got unfinished business in south east so with a short diversion to the now accessible Ulgoth’s Beard to spend a little gold (Staff +3, Cloak of Displacement, Ring of Invisibility & Greenstone Amulet!) I headed back to Nashkel.

(I’ve sailed past the ToTSC XP cap – I’m level 9 now with 300K and need 600K to make level 10 which I guess I’ll probably get with the ToTSC areas – not too unbalancing I don’t think for this character as a solo as I haven’t got any killer abilities (by which I mean magic, traps or backstab) and even with loads of HP I still need to be a bit careful as my normal AC is only 2)

Veary nice story!

Good work Armen.
I agree that the Battle Horrors are more of a problem to a small party than Daevron himself. My solo and duo parties have had no end of trouble with them.
But 140 hp is more than enough for anyone - I could share that between a party of six!

i know, the HP are a little excessive but they are a beastmaster bonus what with warrior CON and the familiar and all so . . .

i'm on the threshold of baldur's gate now having tidied up the bit of wilderness and the couple of dungeons in the south east - things will probably slow down a bit now as i've tended to race through the city in the past but i'll try to have more of a look around this time

OK – I’ve played a lot but I’ve got busy again during the day so I can’t really keep the story thing going. Some highlights:

Baldur’s Gate – I’ve never really taken the Gate apart before – tending to whiz through the main plot and unavoidable subquests but out of interest and with the lure of the rapidly rising XP under TuTu I took Six’s advice and knocked on every door. I loved the bar room brawl in the helm and cloak inn and the helmet from upstairs! Funnily enough when I’d battled through to the mage who gives you the job of finding it he didn’t notice that I had it on my head. And how cool is the cloak? It wouldn’t be out of place on an end-game SoA character.

Ulgoth’s beard – nice dialog twist with Shandalar after the misunderstanding in Baldur’s gate : )

Mendas’ Island – oops. I’d got used to not being able to open locks and rarely being able to force them (including the strength tome in the catacombs – sob!) but nothing had been game breaking so far. However as a solo beastmaster I could find nothing that could kill the greater wolfwere – I emptied my necklaces of missiles on him but he regenerated faster than I could hurt him – and I can’t use metal weapons including the sword. I left him thrashing around in his boat and thought I was ok when the gate guard welcomed me back like a hero but the headwoman still wanted to know if I’d killed all of them. I really thought that this would be the end of me but, being a bit suspicious, I smacked her assistant round the head and he turned causing her to leave and triggering the plot (although she didn’t take the sea charts). On my return I couldn’t touch ‘Mendas’ either so I snuck out and, wedged all the doors and windows shut and left the sword with the innkeeper suggesting he advertised for a strong arm to swing it. I haven’t turned into a werewolf yet – the protagonist doesn’t I understand . . . fortunately.

Durlag’s tower – oh lordy. I’d only done the upper levels on my last run. Gosh. A solo beastmaster probably isn’t the best character for this dungeon but I got a fair way through it by the simple expedient of nearly getting killed by traps over and over again, drinking healing potions like my life depended on it and resting in corners. When I heard the level up chimes on the floor with the greater wyverns I figured it was time to leave but I was stuck and couldn’t get out of the level above. I was secretly a bit pleased and carried on past the chess game [img]smile.gif[/img] When the dwarf spirit offered me the chance to leave I didn’t have to think about it very hard - I was out of there in seconds and am on my way back to the city. It was good though – I’m going back with a thief. The cleric spell scrolls were a nice surprise too but I’m saving those for the big guy.

For the record I have a whooping 900K XP and am a level 11 ranger which should make the final battle and the transition to SoA interesting ;)

and so this poorly maintained and selective tale comes to an end

i had to do the doppleganger battle in the palace a few times as even my monster summoning II friends didn't get through the dopplegangers quick enough

the saviour in the end was, yet again, my trusty wand of sleep - the dopplegangers were surprisingly susceptible to it once i' turned to it in desperation and with repeated blasts of the wand interspersed with arrows of biting i kept them back long enough to save the dukes

perhaps magic really is the way forward . . .

after my unpleasant experiences in durlag's i drank every protection potion and read every protecion scroll drank loads of buffs and just walked through the thief maze smacking people (i am level 11 mind)

i avoided the party in the ruins and headed for the temple

i confronted sarevok and then scooted back behind the pillar to prepare - i'd bought some arrows of dispelling (something i'd never used before) and my first experience was stripping all, that's all of the mage's protections - i couldn't believe it - 3-4 arrows of biting and he was gone - his contingencies still fired for greater malison but i'm immune to pretty much everything at this point

i sent the panthers in against the dias next (they do look very cool) - angelo got a bit overexcited and ended up wounding sarevok and getting hacked to death for his trouble

tavok (sp? sorry) just seemed to disappear - i'll probably catch up with him later - so it was me and sarevok

i retreated again to rebuff and this was when i learned perhaps the greatest (powergaming) lesson of this run - potions (strength, mind focussing etc.) stack with draw upon holy might - i had no idea - so it was with 25 STR and 25 DEX i strode out to face sarevok - it didn't last long [img]smile.gif[/img]

all in all lots of fun although i do struggle mentally with wading though traps - i'm going to stay with tutu for a while (it was loads of fun)and do the rest of durlags's and kill the goddammed wolfwere but craick will be graduating to SoA and dualling to cleric and with a starting XP of 1,000,000 that'll be a whole lot easier to do ;)

cool, nice story. So do you mean you are gona finish Durlags with craick before going to SoA or with another character? I think you should do............both! :D

Also since you were wondering its actually Tazok but no biggie.

Good story, you should carry it on into BG2.

Nice story. You should continue it through BG2.
Just a quick questions that I thought about since you mentioned the cloak and tutu. The cloak gives 25% magic resistance, so sometimes, using beneficial spells (cure light wounds or heal potions) will have no effect because you've got magic resistance. Since you're running the BG2 engine, does that still happen? Or are beneficial spells not affected by magic resistance anymore?

Great story. [img]smile.gif[/img] Keep up the good work in BG II: [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

Nice work Armen. But when I solo'd BG1/TOTSC I got about 500K of XP - so how come you got so much more. Now you have twice as much XP AND twice as many HP as me, this isn't fair!

My solo warrior had about 700,000 or 800,000 xp with out ToTSC. If you basically do every quest you come upon (and there's a lot in the city of BG), then you can get a lot of XP. I'm waiting to see how much you can get in ToTSC.

thanks all - before i reinstall BG2 i'm going to have another go (at least) with tutu and i've started a fighter/thief (female elf with the thief avatar Shadow Keepered) which i reckon will be the perfect dungeon raider for BG1 - i didn't dual wield at all with Craick in the end so that'll be fun by fighter level 6 and with any luck i'll have enough thief skills for traps

XP: i did go everywhere, including all of BG and most of durlag's tower - i didn't use any XP exloits like the flesh golem cave resting but there is a spawn 'bug' in tutu that can sometimes double the amount of monsters you face and also cause the same spot to respawn for ever - usually when you're running back over what you thought was safe ground to escape the next lot! - to give you an example the spider respawning in cloakwood was worst than the firwine kobolds - that might have made a difference compared to a BG1-with XP-cap-remover run through . . .

cloak: the cloak stayed on as soon as i got it and i never had a resist magic for spells cast on me (heal, bless, AoF, DuHM, potions) but i did get a MR message at least once when i targetted a bless on one of my bears though - hope that helps

OK. I hope you will do it soon. I am anxious to see you in BG II forums. [img]smile.gif[/img]