Idea:The "who killed whom?" competiton. spoilers.

[Black Baron]

The recent posts about the demise of elminster (BG1 forum) gave me an idea.
People kill everyone they meet. Gorion, Drizzt, Elminster...
Lets have a competition!

The competitors will post the pictures of the killed, and pictures of their statistics. The way (how and when) must be posted too.
The one that will kill the most known person/monster (It is not limited to the three above, one can kill, let's say improved tor'gal while straight out of Chateau irenicus. beats me how, but one can try ) whith the most weak char/s in a most non cheesy way, will be awarded the honorary powergamer title.

The requirments for the judges must be: the ability to check the claim (otherwise one will post the picture of "tactics final battle" while he is solo fallen beast master-cleric levels 2/9. With the use of SK and "clua" one can do it relativly quick).
Having acess to all the saga of BG-ToB. (optional. we can do it per forum, but it will be problematic).
Ofcourse knowing the game well enough, will be rather helpful.
The competition may be time limited and held several times (with the old battles with the same tactics removed from the competition).
Comments? suggestions?

Also we will need to choose our judges.
Let's say that they will be 3 in number.
I do not match the criterias, so i am not a judge.
Chock will award the winner.

I suggest SixOfSpades and Dundee Slaytern. The third is unknown ( to me anyway. i do not know much people around here). <_<

Let's have some fun!! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 05-27-2004, 04:09 PM: Message edited by: Black Baron ]

[mad=dog]

Drizzt killed by Imoen.
Stats:
http://www.dsr.kvl.dk/~maddog/Baldr011.gif
Drinking the red potion and potions to counter cons and dex plus a potion of mind focusing will accomplish these stats. Then she placed a stack of oils of speed in the quickslot and donned the boots of speed. By using this combo she could outrun old Drizzt. Moving behind him while H.i.S and backstabbing will hit on 15-20 for app. 30 points of damage. She is fast enough to disengage and outrun him to hide again before he can hit. He goes down pretty fast with near 100% success rate. I have only done this twice because I find Drizzts personality in BG1 horribly selfish.
Imoen will crit for 120 dmg or so on ordinary foes in this setup, so it might be wise to save it.
The kill:
http://www.dsr.kvl.dk/~maddog/Baldr010.jpg

Note that this particular instance was done at level 8 with TotSC installed.

[Tyrion]

Is drizzt the one kill that gives the most XP in the game?

[Black Baron]

No, we have sarevok (15000) and elminster (!!!!!) 26000.

[mad=dog]

I have never found a way to kill El in regular unmodified BG1. I be glad to hear how it's done.
I have to emphasize that I do not try to kill everybody in my path. I have never killed Thylantor(sp!) or Thunderhammer even for fun. El is a pain in the rear end so I have tried to whack him with darts of stunning, but his saving throws are too good.

I just read the thread in the BG1 forum and I can say that it is not (to my knowledge) possible to down him with neither darts of stunning nor darts of biting in regualar BG1, I have not succeeded even with an entire invisible party.
I have frequently killed Tazok in the bandit camp though to get his gauntlets of weapon expertise and the 4000 XP, so I am not completely inept in this technique.
Perhaps it is possible if you are persistent, but as above I like near 100% fool proof methods.

[ 05-29-2004, 03:20 AM: Message edited by: mad=dog ]

[mad=dog]

Just to show that Elminster cannot be killed in BG1 I went in and shot him with bolts of biting to no avail. He does not get any damage whatsoever even though he missed his saving throw this time. No damage. It just records the hit.
http://www.dsr.kvl.dk/~maddog/Baldr014.jpg

[Cerek the Barbaric]

I don't know how to save the screen shot or feedback at the bottom of the screen, so I'll just have to tell you about my latest battle without those sources to back up my account.

My character:
Gabriel Stone - Skald (Level 9)
Str: 16
Dex: 17
Con: 16
Int: 18
Wis: 10
Cha: 15
Hit points: 72

Battle - Improved Ilyich 20

Gabriel is my first serious attempt to solo through Chateau Irenicus (and possibly beyond - depending on how he does).

My strategy with Ilyich centers around the use of Dire Charm. Experience has taught me that Ilyich and Karamazov are the two characters that are most susceptible to the spell (which is odd since they are the two dwarves and should have a natural resistance to spells due to their race).

I've also found that a successful outcome hinges on "charming" Ilyich first. Once he is charmed, I simply have him attack his friends, then I retreat back to the Sewer Room until he is dead. For some reason, his cohorts go back to their roving patrol rather than pursuing me down the hallway once Ilyich is killed. This means that I am usually able to sneak back into the hallway and grab Ilyich's gear for myself. So I returned to the hallway and recovered Ilyich's hammer, club, the acorns and (most important) some more Potions of Extra Healing.

I then headed up the hallway until I got just inside the library. Then I simply waited for the next member of his crew to spot me on their patrol. The Jailkeep Golem was the first one to come by. I headed back down the hallway to try and lure him away from the main group, drank a Potion of Speed, then attacked him with my new Club +3 (which I took a proficiency when I created Gabriel). With the club and my extra speed, the Jailkeep Golem went down pretty quickly. Now it was time to find the rest of the group.

I started back towards the library, but didn't get far until I saw Karamazov. I immediately tried my Dire Charm spell on her (I had used a scroll on Ilyich). While I was casting, Rasputin comes running down the hallway towards me and the group's pet demon also showed up. Admittedly, it took a number of reloads before I managed to get the spell off AND have Karamazov fail her Save. In the past, I've always had the Wizard Slayer switch to her short sword when attacking her friends so that I would have as many of those +3 crossbow bolts as possible for my own use - but with a solo character, it was more important to use her best weapon to kill Rasputin (who is incredibly difficult to kill in melee' combat). Since the demon was also in melee' with me, I retreated from the hallway into the Sewer Room to get some distance between us. I then headed down the hallway to the left so that I could line up my spells and shots directly at the demon, but he turned around and went back into the library instead of following me down the second hallway. In the meantime, Karamazov and Rasputin managed to kill each other and the Meteor Swarm cast by Zhivago's Fallen Diva did far more damage to them than it did to me, because I had already cleared the hallway before the spell went off. I waited until the Deva was unsummoned, then went back into the hallway. Zhivago was hurting pretty bad from his Deva's spell and I was able to make short work of him with the club.

That just leaves the glabrezu. While I waited for him to come back down the hallway, I cast Draw Upon Holy Might (innate ability) on myself for an extra combat edge. Unfortunately, he hasn't come back down the hallway yet and my spell expired. So I've Saved the game and will finish him off later.

I realize some members will say this effort doesn't really count since I Saved the game at different stages of the combat and had to do some reloads and that is fine. I'm not interested in any "powergaming title" and I really don't care if others "approve" of my tactics or not.

But I have managed to defeat Ilyich and his companions (except for the demon, and I will kill him later when I have more time) with a solo Skald and without using the dryad's acorns to summon the moose and nymphs for help, so I'm happy with that.

[mad=dog]

"I Saved the game at different stages of the combat and had to do some reloads and that is fine."
Ultimately you'll have to ask yourself if it isn't better to challenge yourself by not saving than using (rediculously) powerful monster foes. You get an enormous sense of danger and accomplishment if it's back to casa Irenicus when you die. Or alternatively your last autosave.
I have yet to finish the game this way. An awful lot of the game is designed to accommodate reloads or at least it seems like it.

Regardless my congratulations. You set your goal and you met it.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by mad=dog: Ultimately you'll have to ask yourself if it isn't better to challenge yourself by not saving than using (rediculously) powerful monster foes. You get an enormous sense of danger and accomplishment if it's back to casa Irenicus when you die. Or alternatively your last autosave. I have yet to finish the game this way. An awful lot of the game is designed to accommodate reloads or at least it seems like it. Regardless my congratulations. You set your goal and you met it.

I don't fully understand the last part of your statement that I highlighted, mad=dog. It may be a mis-type or part of the language barrier, but the last part just doesn't make sense to me.

As for having to ask myself if I'm satisfied with my tactics, the answer is "Of course I am." I play the game to satisfy ME and nobody else, so I honostly don't care one bit if somebody else considers my tactics cheating, cheesy, or anything else. I'm married with 3 kids and I simply don't have a whole lot of free time to play on the PC under the best of circumstances....so I haven't played through the game 20 dozen times like some others here. In fact, I've only completed BGII ONCE - and that was with a Wizard Slayer that I dualed to a Thief (which many consider cheesy). I have two games currently in progress - one with an assassin and one with a kensai that I will most likely dual to mage.

I gave my Wizard Slayer an awesome item from Arundor's Abode because it (a) fit the character kit perfectly, and (b) helped compensate for the severe restrictions the kit has on magic items it can use. I also gave my assassin a non-standard sword that I designed (but another member actually created) that fits his persona perfectly. In the meantime, I have an elven ranger in BGI that I plan to import to BGII eventually. I gave him (and the rest of the party) elven chain mail and I plan to use the PAUSE/FREEZE trick in the opening scene of BGII that allows you to keep your items from BGI because I feel my elven ranger deserves to have his elven chain mail.

On the other hand, I created the Skald with the sole purpose of seeing if I could defeat Ilyich and his crew with a solo character using nothing more than the items I found in the dungeon. I also created a female elven fighter/mage for the same purpose in case I wasn't able to defeat Ilyich with a bard. I don't have a problem with Saving the game after killing some of the members. Watch any movie where one guy (or gal) has to kill an entire group of enemies (Die Hard comes to mind off the top of my head). Does the hero just charge into the group's HQ with guns blazing? Nope. He tries to pick them off one or two at a time. And when he DOES kill off one or two, he doesn't get and rush right after the rest of the group. He usually takes what he can use off the ones he killed, then falls back to regroup and reevaluate what move he should take next. That's basically what I did.

Besides, like I said, it took many attempts before I actually managed to get my spell off on Karamazov AND have her fail her Save. The idea of having to go ALL the way back to the beginning of the fight from that point and start over from scratch just doesn't appeal to me. And - as I said before - I just don't have that kind of spare time either.

I don't mean to RANT, but I really do get peeved when I see veteran members here take a condescending tone towards others because they used tactics that are considered "cheesy" or they maxed out their fighters physical stats and gave them Grandmastery in a weapon only because they know they will find a powerful version of that weapon in the game. Well so freakin' what??? If somebody else wants to play a shapeshifter druid that never attacks with anything but a sling, fine, go ahead...but don't take an attitude with me because I max out my tank and give them a heavy duty warhammer in each hand so they just pulverize the enemy.

Each person has to decide for themself what brings them the most enjoyment from the game. Aside from that, I really couldn't care less what anybody else thinks of how I play the game. Sure, it's nice to get the praise from other members for defeating a particularly powerful monster - but I am just as satisfied with my tactics and accomplishments whether I receive the praise or not.

Just as a point of clarification, I am not directing the RANT specifically at you, mad=dog, and I sincerely apologize if it comes across that way. I've never seen you make the type of post I'm ranting against (and I certainly didn't take your response to my post in that manner). But I have seen those types of posts here frequently in the past (by many different members) and my RANT is directed at those posts in general rather than being directed at any specific member.

[mad=dog]

Right, I think it would be in order if I explained a little further.
I was not suggesting that you cheated or cheesed or anything of the sort, but you'll have to understand that I was born and bred rogue and roguelike CRPGs and still play ADOM and occationally Angband. If you do not know what that means then try to imagine a game with the scope of BGT where you cannot save AT ALL. You die and you are back at the character creation screen. Needless to say such games are very very difficult and challenging and you have to consider every single action carefully.
Now I am observing how people keep generating harder and harder enemies resulting in more and more reloads "just to get it right" and in the mean time the roleplaying aspect is slowly slipping away.
I merely tried to suggest making the game more challenging by avoiding reloads and hence acknowledge the danger instead of doing it by increasing the slaying power of the enemies. (This sentence prooves my inadequacies in English I suppose - hope the meaning came through).
Just to give an example. You have drunk 5 pots of master thievery and have 210% in pickpocket. Still you sit with sweaty palms and the game on pause carefully considering: "Is this worth it? I'll have to take down the entire Mart if I fail. On the other hand - I could use that ring...." and so on.

People should play the way they prefer, however one must always be open to new ideas.

I am NOT trying to take your victory away from you and I am NOT ranting. This is merely me speculating because something in your post apparently triggered these thoughts.

Let me reiterate. Congratulations. I have never faced Ilyvich 20 but from what I hear it is quite a battle.

I must apologize, because this was not minted on you in person and was not a critisism of your tactics. I am far too blunt to be that subtle.