Anyone here tried a "no reloads" game?

Zink Whistlefly · 07-04-2005, 05:13 AM

After giving this a go in Baldur's Gate 2 a while ago, I recently decided to try and complete NWN SoU from start to finish without ever reloading a game (i.e. if you snuff it you start again from the beginning). I was just wondering if any of you guys had every tried this with NWN/SoU/HotU?

Having been laughed at by a fellow NWN playing friend and being told that such a thing was impossible, I decided to take up the challenge and see how far I could get in SoU on hardcore difficulty.

To my surprise I actually did very well, and recovered all of the stolen artefacts in chapter 1, successfully navigated the Anauroch desert and Tomb of Kel-Garas in the interlude, and got quite deep into the excavated ruins in chapter 3 before my character waved a little white flag and decided to fail his fortitude save vs a basilisk gaze (a few choice words were said at that point).

What made this enjoyable though was knowing that a single failed saving throw vs a powerful spell, or a single critical hit from a foe wielding a halberd/great axe/scythe would completely destroy my low level character, so I ended up using my fighter/wizard/arcane archer to sneak around maps and always prepare myself for larger battles using all the potions and buffs I could muster. It certainly added a new level of difficulty to playing the game and was immensely challenging and enjoyable. It made me actually force my character to be stealthy and tactical instead of charging all gung ho right into the fray and reloading until victorious.

Thoughts?

Jim

[ 07-04-2005, 06:10 AM: Message edited by: Zink Whistlefly ]

robertthebard · 07-04-2005, 04:52 PM

I have never actually tried it myself, but it does sound rather interesting. I may give it a go pretty soon.

Zink Whistlefly · 07-05-2005, 04:39 AM

Yeah it does add a new twist to the game, although I managed to get into chapter 3, I'm now struggling to get out of chapter one in subsequent tries - it's the very early stages that are the worst - the stages where a single Kobold can hand your ass to you if it scores a critical hit

.

Let me know how it goes if you do decide to give it a go [img]smile.gif[/img]

Jim

Zink Whistlefly · 07-13-2005, 09:33 AM

Hmm, I've finally had a strong run through chapter one again, and am now in the interlude, about to enter the ruins. There's a room in here somewhere that contains the petrifying basilisks. Having screwed up here on my previous attempt, I want to make sure my character gets through there this time round. Are there any effective counter measures against their petrifying gaze? I know that you need to make a successful fortitude save against DC-14 or something, but even with a 15+ fortitude save I'm reluctant to enter this room again, since I still have a 5% chance of getting petrified from each and every gaze attack regardless of how high I can get my fortitude save.

Any ideas? Any counter spells (other than flesh to stone, which is kinda useless after it has happened to you!) - my Rogue/Barbarian has a pretty good Use Magical Device skill so if I could get a suitable scroll from somewhere that would stop this I would be much happier!

Zink Whistlefly · 07-21-2005, 05:23 AM

Surprised no one had any tips for dealing with the basilisks! It turned out that I actually did fail a saving throw on a damn roll of 1 again despite having a fortitude save of 14 against DC 13, and got immediately petrified. Game over

Man I was annoyed.

Spoilers follow
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I pushed through the game again a little later, and actually had a successful run right through the game. SoU start to finish without dying once, without reloading on hardcore difficulty! Can't be too many people who've done that

I did have to reload the game once however, just before entering the lair of the shadow lich (on the level where you collect the shadow door and have to face a few shadow mages and healers). The only reason I did this is because my character became invulnerable and could not be harmed by any attack or any spell! I wasn't prepared to run unchallenged to the end of the game from there, I wanted to do it properly so fired up an auto save and repeatedly loaded until my character could be hurt again. What a horrible bug, and one which has plagued the game for years! A quick look on the Bioware NWN forum showed people discussing this problem back in 2003, for which there still has not been a fix yet. Apparently in the cut scene where you see the shadow lich capture the shadow wind, the PC is made invulnerable while the cut scene plays out. Occasionally, the invulnerability isn't removed after the cut scene has finished! Anyway, enough moaning...

The character I used was a Barbarian/Rogue, heavily weighted towards Barbarian.

Starting stats were:
STR: 16
DEX: 14
CON: 14
INT: 12
WIS: 10
CHA: 10

All subsequent points were pumped into STR.

The final build was:

Barbarian(9) (taken at levels 1-3, 7-9)
Rogue(4) (taken at levels 4-6, 13)

With feats (taken in this order): Power attack, Cleave, Blind Fight, Knockdown, Improved Critical Great Sword and finally Great Cleave.

I decided to skip a weapon focus feat since a +1 attack bonus is pretty minimal when there are lots of other good feats available. Blind fight is amazing against mages and other creatures with concealment (or if you are blinded or fighting in darkness). Knockdown is also great for removing spell casters, since they have very poor discipline and can fall prone very easily. It was at times like that when I could use my 2D6 sneak attack to full effect on the already large damage from my Great Sword and high strength.

Each barbarian level I jacked up Discipline, Taunt, Lore, Heal, Intimidate and Listen.

Each Rogue level I jacked up tumble, hide, move silently and use magical device (with a couple of points going into set traps).

I took Dorna along who was my open locks/disable traps guru, although with power attack locks weren't too much of a problem for my anyway!

I tended to use hide armours (with the minor -1 armour check penalty) and so could easily sneak around with my high stealth skill, and then sneak attack for 2D6+11+2D6 damage when raging with my +2 Great Sword [img]smile.gif[/img] .

I was very careful with my money, and saved up for Torias's Belt of Agility +1 (which gave me immunity to entangle/web, paralysis and movement speed decreases), as well as the Boots of the Shifting Sands from Musharak to get Haste [img]smile.gif[/img] . Combined with the (Greater) Amulet of Health I was immune to disease/poison/level drains/ability drains which was a godsend! Potions of clarity helped shield my mind when attacking dangerous mages or creatures with mind attacks.

Most notable trouble spots for me were:

Skeleton Black Guard. More than a few times he handed me not only my ass, but Dorna's too. Ended up hiding behind a heavily armoured Dorna and being buffed up on strength and constitution from potions, barkskin, bless, aid and rage and even then it was close.
Basilisks, Basilisks and err Basilisks! There is no guaranteed protection from their gaze, so I ended giving Dorna and me a potion of Invisibility, and sneaking right past them all to the room with the machine. From there I equipped both of us with ranged weapons and powerful ammunition (combined with every buff under the sun) and using a summoned Air Elemental (very high fortitude save!) to distract them whilst we peppered them from afar! The power stone I gained from this part of the map cast improved invisibility on me (the concealment was great against powerful melee foes) as well as an insta-kill effect on those around me.
Greater Wind Zombie - OH MY WORD. This was the toughest mother clucker in the game. Immune to physical damage, high spell resistance, all the resistances of normal undead creatures, and as if that wasn't enough, a difficult DC gaze attack which leaves you stunned! Now then combine all this with unbelievable attack bonuses (something like +20/+15/+10) and improved critical on a Scythe! Poor Dorna lost 85 HP in a SINGLE BLOW from this guy, followed by a Cleave: Critical Hit on me which knocked around 75 HP off me. That was my cue to get the hell out of his way. His DC 16 or something gaze just caught me as I ran but somehow I made the save despite having a poor will save (otherwise I would have been a sitting duck!), after which my supply of potions of clarity shielded me. His one weakness is elemental damage (especially acid) so I nailed him from afar (since his movement rate is ultra slow) with arrows of acid/lightening/fire and finished off my Sunbeam spell from the Crystal that has 30 charges or so. If he didn't resist the sunbeam, it tended to knock him for around 30-50 damage. All this hassle for a "Moderate" challenge rating and around 100 XP!
Shadowvar the Shadow Lich - Damn death magic which was the only thing (along with petrification) that I could not protect myself against. Ended up using a summoned Skeleton Chieftain from the Death Wind which is of course immune to negative energy and death magic which is a blessing and a half in his lair [img]smile.gif[/img] The necklace of fireballs took care of the rest of them.

I've just imported this character into HoTU, although I do not intend to play this game without reloading. SoU was very tough and stressful (yet highly rewarding and strangely entertaining at the same time). BG2 is slightly easier to play without reloading since it's pretty much unlinear so you can do what you want when you want, where as the NWN modules tend to be pretty linear. The 3E rules of always failing a saving throw on a roll of 1 despite how high your saves are also leaves too much to chance in this game compared to BG2. I'll see how far I get into HoTU before I die, but I've got a load fo premium modules to take care of too at some point. Then I think I'll give Ziroc's Undermountain a go with this guy [img]smile.gif[/img] .

Jim

[ 07-21-2005, 08:25 AM: Message edited by: Zink Whistlefly ]

J'aran · 07-21-2005, 01:02 PM

That's one hell of an achievement, Zink. I don't think I'll be trying it anytime soom.

Kakero · 07-22-2005, 05:38 AM

Can save the game? I would imagine it'll take more than a day to finish the game from start till end. no sleep...no eat...no toilet...all day play the game...

Zink Whistlefly · 07-22-2005, 06:31 AM

Haha! Yes you can save and load the game as and when you want to play it, but just not reload once you start playing, and start again from the beginning if you die. You basically play it through as if you only have "1 life" and have to preserve it right to the end of the game. At least that's how we did it in the good old BG2 days [img]smile.gif[/img] .

T-D-C · 07-22-2005, 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zink Whistlefly:
Then I think I'll give Ziroc's Undermountain a go with this guy [img]smile.gif[/img] .

Jim

Just FYI with you on this point so you don't get your hopes up. EfU is a server vault mod so you will have to start this guy over from Level 1 in EfU.

philip · 07-23-2005, 05:51 PM

I didn't intend it but I think HotU might not be that hard. The only thing I can really remember got me killed was the spider with the kill armor thingie and the room with a time stop casting mage. Other than that I can't remember many tough fights. So I think it's probably more about being a bit 'careful

07-04-2005, 04:52 PM	#2
robertthebard Xanathar Thieves Guild Join Date: March 17, 2001 Location: Wichita, KS USA Age: 60 Posts: 4,537	I have never actually tried it myself, but it does sound rather interesting. I may give it a go pretty soon. __________________ To those we have lost; May your spirits fly free. Good Music: Here. Interesting read, one of my blogs.

07-21-2005, 05:23 AM	#5
Zink Whistlefly Avatar Join Date: March 20, 2005 Location: North Yorkshire, England Age: 43 Posts: 520	Surprised no one had any tips for dealing with the basilisks! It turned out that I actually did fail a saving throw on a damn roll of 1 again despite having a fortitude save of 14 against DC 13, and got immediately petrified. Game over Man I was annoyed. Spoilers follow * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I pushed through the game again a little later, and actually had a successful run right through the game. SoU start to finish without dying once, without reloading on hardcore difficulty! Can't be too many people who've done that I did have to reload the game once however, just before entering the lair of the shadow lich (on the level where you collect the shadow door and have to face a few shadow mages and healers). The only reason I did this is because my character became invulnerable and could not be harmed by any attack or any spell! I wasn't prepared to run unchallenged to the end of the game from there, I wanted to do it properly so fired up an auto save and repeatedly loaded until my character could be hurt again. What a horrible bug, and one which has plagued the game for years! A quick look on the Bioware NWN forum showed people discussing this problem back in 2003, for which there still has not been a fix yet. Apparently in the cut scene where you see the shadow lich capture the shadow wind, the PC is made invulnerable while the cut scene plays out. Occasionally, the invulnerability isn't removed after the cut scene has finished! Anyway, enough moaning... The character I used was a Barbarian/Rogue, heavily weighted towards Barbarian. Starting stats were: STR: 16 DEX: 14 CON: 14 INT: 12 WIS: 10 CHA: 10 All subsequent points were pumped into STR. The final build was: Barbarian(9) (taken at levels 1-3, 7-9) Rogue(4) (taken at levels 4-6, 13) With feats (taken in this order): Power attack, Cleave, Blind Fight, Knockdown, Improved Critical Great Sword and finally Great Cleave. I decided to skip a weapon focus feat since a +1 attack bonus is pretty minimal when there are lots of other good feats available. Blind fight is amazing against mages and other creatures with concealment (or if you are blinded or fighting in darkness). Knockdown is also great for removing spell casters, since they have very poor discipline and can fall prone very easily. It was at times like that when I could use my 2D6 sneak attack to full effect on the already large damage from my Great Sword and high strength. Each barbarian level I jacked up Discipline, Taunt, Lore, Heal, Intimidate and Listen. Each Rogue level I jacked up tumble, hide, move silently and use magical device (with a couple of points going into set traps). I took Dorna along who was my open locks/disable traps guru, although with power attack locks weren't too much of a problem for my anyway! I tended to use hide armours (with the minor -1 armour check penalty) and so could easily sneak around with my high stealth skill, and then sneak attack for 2D6+11+2D6 damage when raging with my +2 Great Sword [img]smile.gif[/img] . I was very careful with my money, and saved up for Torias's Belt of Agility +1 (which gave me immunity to entangle/web, paralysis and movement speed decreases), as well as the Boots of the Shifting Sands from Musharak to get Haste [img]smile.gif[/img] . Combined with the (Greater) Amulet of Health I was immune to disease/poison/level drains/ability drains which was a godsend! Potions of clarity helped shield my mind when attacking dangerous mages or creatures with mind attacks. Most notable trouble spots for me were: Skeleton Black Guard. More than a few times he handed me not only my ass, but Dorna's too. Ended up hiding behind a heavily armoured Dorna and being buffed up on strength and constitution from potions, barkskin, bless, aid and rage and even then it was close. Basilisks, Basilisks and err Basilisks! There is no guaranteed protection from their gaze, so I ended giving Dorna and me a potion of Invisibility, and sneaking right past them all to the room with the machine. From there I equipped both of us with ranged weapons and powerful ammunition (combined with every buff under the sun) and using a summoned Air Elemental (very high fortitude save!) to distract them whilst we peppered them from afar! The power stone I gained from this part of the map cast improved invisibility on me (the concealment was great against powerful melee foes) as well as an insta-kill effect on those around me. Greater Wind Zombie - OH MY WORD. This was the toughest mother clucker in the game. Immune to physical damage, high spell resistance, all the resistances of normal undead creatures, and as if that wasn't enough, a difficult DC gaze attack which leaves you stunned! Now then combine all this with unbelievable attack bonuses (something like +20/+15/+10) and improved critical on a Scythe! Poor Dorna lost 85 HP in a SINGLE BLOW from this guy, followed by a Cleave: Critical Hit on me which knocked around 75 HP off me. That was my cue to get the hell out of his way. His DC 16 or something gaze just caught me as I ran but somehow I made the save despite having a poor will save (otherwise I would have been a sitting duck!), after which my supply of potions of clarity shielded me. His one weakness is elemental damage (especially acid) so I nailed him from afar (since his movement rate is ultra slow) with arrows of acid/lightening/fire and finished off my Sunbeam spell from the Crystal that has 30 charges or so. If he didn't resist the sunbeam, it tended to knock him for around 30-50 damage. All this hassle for a "Moderate" challenge rating and around 100 XP! Shadowvar the Shadow Lich - Damn death magic which was the only thing (along with petrification) that I could not protect myself against. Ended up using a summoned Skeleton Chieftain from the Death Wind which is of course immune to negative energy and death magic which is a blessing and a half in his lair [img]smile.gif[/img] The necklace of fireballs took care of the rest of them. I've just imported this character into HoTU, although I do not intend to play this game without reloading. SoU was very tough and stressful (yet highly rewarding and strangely entertaining at the same time). BG2 is slightly easier to play without reloading since it's pretty much unlinear so you can do what you want when you want, where as the NWN modules tend to be pretty linear. The 3E rules of always failing a saving throw on a roll of 1 despite how high your saves are also leaves too much to chance in this game compared to BG2. I'll see how far I get into HoTU before I die, but I've got a load fo premium modules to take care of too at some point. Then I think I'll give Ziroc's Undermountain a go with this guy [img]smile.gif[/img] . Jim [ 07-21-2005, 08:25 AM: Message edited by: Zink Whistlefly ]

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07-04-2005, 05:13 AM	#1
Zink Whistlefly Avatar Join Date: March 20, 2005 Location: North Yorkshire, England Age: 43 Posts: 520	After giving this a go in Baldur's Gate 2 a while ago, I recently decided to try and complete NWN SoU from start to finish without ever reloading a game (i.e. if you snuff it you start again from the beginning). I was just wondering if any of you guys had every tried this with NWN/SoU/HotU? Having been laughed at by a fellow NWN playing friend and being told that such a thing was impossible, I decided to take up the challenge and see how far I could get in SoU on hardcore difficulty. To my surprise I actually did very well, and recovered all of the stolen artefacts in chapter 1, successfully navigated the Anauroch desert and Tomb of Kel-Garas in the interlude, and got quite deep into the excavated ruins in chapter 3 before my character waved a little white flag and decided to fail his fortitude save vs a basilisk gaze (a few choice words were said at that point). What made this enjoyable though was knowing that a single failed saving throw vs a powerful spell, or a single critical hit from a foe wielding a halberd/great axe/scythe would completely destroy my low level character, so I ended up using my fighter/wizard/arcane archer to sneak around maps and always prepare myself for larger battles using all the potions and buffs I could muster. It certainly added a new level of difficulty to playing the game and was immensely challenging and enjoyable. It made me actually force my character to be stealthy and tactical instead of charging all gung ho right into the fray and reloading until victorious. Thoughts? Jim [ 07-04-2005, 06:10 AM: Message edited by: Zink Whistlefly ]

07-05-2005, 04:39 AM	#3
Zink Whistlefly Avatar Join Date: March 20, 2005 Location: North Yorkshire, England Age: 43 Posts: 520	Yeah it does add a new twist to the game, although I managed to get into chapter 3, I'm now struggling to get out of chapter one in subsequent tries - it's the very early stages that are the worst - the stages where a single Kobold can hand your ass to you if it scores a critical hit . Let me know how it goes if you do decide to give it a go [img]smile.gif[/img] Jim

07-13-2005, 09:33 AM	#4
Zink Whistlefly Avatar Join Date: March 20, 2005 Location: North Yorkshire, England Age: 43 Posts: 520	Hmm, I've finally had a strong run through chapter one again, and am now in the interlude, about to enter the ruins. There's a room in here somewhere that contains the petrifying basilisks. Having screwed up here on my previous attempt, I want to make sure my character gets through there this time round. Are there any effective counter measures against their petrifying gaze? I know that you need to make a successful fortitude save against DC-14 or something, but even with a 15+ fortitude save I'm reluctant to enter this room again, since I still have a 5% chance of getting petrified from each and every gaze attack regardless of how high I can get my fortitude save. Any ideas? Any counter spells (other than flesh to stone, which is kinda useless after it has happened to you!) - my Rogue/Barbarian has a pretty good Use Magical Device skill so if I could get a suitable scroll from somewhere that would stop this I would be much happier!

07-21-2005, 01:02 PM	#6
J'aran Mephistopheles Join Date: December 12, 2001 Location: Fryslân, The Netherlands Age: 44 Posts: 1,493	That's one hell of an achievement, Zink. I don't think I'll be trying it anytime soom.

07-22-2005, 05:38 AM	#7
Kakero 40th Level Warrior Join Date: March 24, 2002 Posts: 10,215	Can save the game? I would imagine it'll take more than a day to finish the game from start till end. no sleep...no eat...no toilet...all day play the game...

07-22-2005, 06:31 AM	#8
Zink Whistlefly Avatar Join Date: March 20, 2005 Location: North Yorkshire, England Age: 43 Posts: 520	Haha! Yes you can save and load the game as and when you want to play it, but just not reload once you start playing, and start again from the beginning if you die. You basically play it through as if you only have "1 life" and have to preserve it right to the end of the game. At least that's how we did it in the good old BG2 days [img]smile.gif[/img] .

07-23-2005, 05:51 PM	#10
philip Galvatron Join Date: June 24, 2002 Location: aa Posts: 2,101	I didn't intend it but I think HotU might not be that hard. The only thing I can really remember got me killed was the spider with the kill armor thingie and the room with a time stop casting mage. Other than that I can't remember many tough fights. So I think it's probably more about being a bit 'careful

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