The Durlag Experience Part I: Xzar and Montaron Die

Whew, it's been a little while since I last updated...but I have been playing.  I end up playing and playing waiting for something major to happen before I post a blog, but it always just seems that I update eventually with more than enough material to fill up a healthy-size post (due mostly to my rambling nature...on display right now).


Last time I left, I had set up the tour for Durlag's Tower in Ulgoth's Beard.  I had just found out I was a genuine true-to-life Bhaalspawn, I'm being hunted by the Flaming Fist, and I just had to battle my way through several dopplegangers that took on the form of murdered loved ones (just like Durlag!).  Also, most of my groupmates are getting very close to maxing out their experience levels here on the Sword Coast.  If now's not a good time to head to the Tower, I don't when a good time would be.

Traveling east through the carnival

So we traveled through Nashkel first...rested, sold off some wares, et cetera, then headed east to take on the Tower.  By the time we arrived at the gate, we were yelled at for being late.  Sorry?  Well, as most of you know, the tour started off alright, then started going horribly wrong.  Traps, demonknights, general chaos.

So my party took to adventuring ourselves.  Like every dungeon before this, I had Montaron scout ahead, alternating between detect traps and hide-in-shadows.  I know there are a lot of traps here, and that this is the most challenging dungeon in the entire game...so we took it slow.  I wanted to clear the superterranean levels first, which is the natural thing to do.  In the beginning, everything was going fine.  Ran into a couple of basilisks on some of the rooftops...found it was better to have Shar-Teel just use a Potion of Mirrored Eyes and absorb all the death gazes.

Everything was going pretty great in the beginning.  But of course, nothing good lasts.  We headed up to another floor, and ran into that ghost who had been indebted to Durlag.  He was able to cast Chaos at my closely-clustered unit of troops...this led to some disastrous consequences, as usual.  Most importantly of which was the killing of Xzar by Idaen.

Damn...at least I can still get him resurrected.  But now that I've mentioned that, let me sidebar for a second.  I've had NO perma-deaths that I can recall this entire game.  In my first game (for those that read playthrough 1.0), I had so many heart-wrenching perma-deaths I didn't know how I could carry on sometimes.  I am on core rules, so perma-death should still happen.  I ran some tests having to do with strength potions and Ajantis attacking weaker members of the party.  I found that the paladin could actually take characters below -10 hp, and their portrait would still be there for me to resurrect.  WTF?  Perma-death would still happen if hit points got really negative (like a 24-strength critical hit to someone with 7hp left...their hit points would decrease to maybe -30 hp or so, and then they WOULD disappear).  I'm not sure what's going on here.  Definitely something with BG2/Tutu rules being applied to BG1...but I'm not really sure.  Shrug.

So my plan was to keep trudging on with the five of us until we were out of spells or health, and had to rest.  Then I'd make the trek back to Nashkel to resurrect the necromancer, and we'd continue on.  Unfortunately, before we came to a "natural" break point, Montaron missed a trap and got fried by a lightning bolt.  Shit!  I was taking it real slow with him, but apparently not slow enough.  Time to cut our losses right now and head back.

The four of us remaining climbed back up the lobby and camped out...this seems like an ambivalent enough area for us to rest regularly...it will beat going outside every time, that's for sure.  Headed to Nashkel and got the Zhents breathing again.  We regrouped (literally) and headed straight back.  The tower may have won this past round, but we'll be able to conquer it...no doubt in my mind.  It's just going to take some time.  It's my first run through it, ever.

On our way back in, we had an opportunity to clear out the entire external surface...mostly skeleton archers and the like.  Once that was done, we head back inside.  That's where I'm at right now.  Here's the party:

Idaen, lvl 7 cleric/lvl 7 ranger
Shar-Teel, lvl 7 fighter
Ajantis, lvl 8 paladin
Montaron, lvl 7 fighter/lvl 8 thief
Imoen, lvl 6 thief>lvl 9 mage
Xzar, lvl 9 necromancer

More to come soon.

A Trip to Baldur's Gate and a Return to Candlekeep

I headed north toward the big city.  It's time to barge in on the Iron Throne and start bringing some of this chaos to an end.  Of course, there's always a quick detour...this time it's stopping at the Friendly Arm Inn, and Ulgoth's Beard.  I had to make it a point to travel to every town up the coastline to make sure there wasn't a long sword better than +1 hiding out in a shop somehwere.  In the end, no luck.  Shar-Teel is stuck with twin long swords +1.

We then swing back down south and enter the city.  I stopped at Sorcerous Sundries for the reason above, visited the Hall of Wonders (something I hadn't done my first time around, and a place I had wanted to return to one day), then headed to the Iron Throne headquarters.  A bloody, violent mess in the end.  Everyone in the Iron Thron's employ saw though my cover stories almost instantly, and most left me no choice but the slay them.  For all this trouble, I learned that the executive leadership of this organization was spending time in Candlekeep down south.

With little hesitation, I bring the news of this directly to Duke Eltan, and he suggests I head to Candlekeep immediately.  Not a problem!  I show up there four months after I had left, and so much has changed if everything stayed exactly the same.  And after making the obligatory rounds, I head into the library.  I encounter the Iron Throne leaders on level 3.  Can't particularly remember their names, but I know Rieltar is there.  These men have wanted to kill me from the beginning, and so far my overarching mission now is to protect the Sword Coast by destroying the Iron Throne.  So what do I do?  I nonchalantly apologize for interrupting them...then send a fireball in, following by Shar-Teel and Ajantis.  And you know what?  I slaughter them all, without direct provocation and with no regrets.

This gets my arrested as soon as I ascend the stairs to the fouth level.  I'm completely indignant to ths whole process.  I've been making my own rules for justice traveling the coast, now all of a sudden I'm on trial?  Psshhht, I just need to get out of here with no apologies.  Thank God Tethtoril comes to rescue us.

We battle through the catacombs, slaying dopplegangers, as well as the likenesses of those who were previously loved.  Hmm...seems very similar to a story I heard up north about a dwarf down south.  Either way, it was relatively smooth sailing until I hit a powerful contingent of Iron Throne mercenaries in the cavern area.  They were so formidable they even managed to kill Ajantis.  He is out of the picture for the time being until I head into some temple far away from here.

Eventually I break out and head east away from the coast.  My first two nights camping out: plagued by dreams.  Apparently it never had to be spelled out for me...the combination of long-dormant memories and the feeling of something terrible awakening inside of me was enough to figure out the truth all my own...I am a child of Bhaal.  I will need time to make peace with this new, introspection-driven revelation.

So the return to Baldur's Gate can wait.  My final challenge will always be waiting for me.  But what I can do to prepare is take on the most dangerous dungeon in the region, increasing my group's skill and strategy to levels we've never seen before...and interestingly, Durlag had a similar plight to one I just had...being forced to murder shapeshifters that appear to be your best friends and family.  And after going through I just did to escape from jail, it's probably safer for now to spend time in Amn rather than the shadow of Baldur's Gate, where I'm sure the Flaming Fist is on high alert looking for us.  Taking all the factors into consideration, my group's conquering of this tower is the only natural choice right now.  From the standpoint of pscyhological progression, this coming adventure will undoubtedly help my PC get in touch with his darker side...a necessary step if we're to be victorious in battles to come.

So after resurrecting Ajantis at the Beregost temple, and selling most of our magical items and wares in Beregost, we headed north to the Beard.  Since we're fugitives and all, I stay off the main roads and head through Larswood, Peldsvale, and the old bandit camp...eerily quiet, but still occupied by someone...the campfires were burning.

Once I reach Ulgoth's Beard, I rest up and book a tour for the tower.  Let me get the tourist treatment at first...I don't mind.  I also talk to the dwarf who wants his magic dagger back, and the woman who lost her son.  As long as I'm going there, I might as well fix other people's problems, too.

So down I go.  Party members are beginning to become maxed out...looks like the game is indeed wrapping up.  Here are the levels:

Idaen, lvl 7 cleric/lvl 7 ranger

Shar-Teel, lvl 6 fighter

Ajantis, lvl 8 paladin

Montaron, lvl 7 fighter/lvl 8 thief

Imoen, lvl 6 thief>lvl 9 mage
Xzar, lvl 9 necromancer

Basilisks, Shar-Teel, Firewine, and Ulcaster

It's been a little while, and I've played on-and-off periodically in the last few weeks.  I really can't lie, nothing too interesting has seemed to happen.  My party is just tying up loose ends right now...biding our time until we return to Baldur's Gate to confront the Iron Throne.  I can feel the itch to head back up there...we've been out of the city long enough, and the excitement surrounding our initial foray into town must have died down by now.  To use a cliche, now's the time they'll least be expecting us.

But not yet.  After returning to Beregost from wrapping up a few things on the coastline, we rested at the Jovial Juggler like usual.  I had been hearing about Ulcaster for months, so I decided if we really wanted to call ourselves Sword Coast adventurers, we had better check it out.

So we headed east and tromped around those areas.  Before we know it, we're facing a psycho gnome with pet basilisks.  Luckily, I usually have Xzar memorize Protection from Petrification.  With this, we were able to survive the first couple of encounters while making sure our flesh remained non-stonelike.  Eventually, we decided to rest for the night so Xzar could memorize the spell a few times, to ensure none of us would be left like statues.  In fact, Idaen the PC has several Stone-to-Flesh scrolls, so the worst-case scenario wouldn't have even been that bad.

Sometime during all of this, we ran into a fighter named Shar-Teel.  My PC soundly beat her in a fair match, and she pledged to join the group.  She's a lvl 6 fighter with high dex, something I had been looking for since Cloakwood or around there.  Yeslick's great with the hit points, no doubt about that, and Shar-Teel's at about 46 hp.  However, the only way Yeslick has respectable AC is if he's using a shield, so all his damage would be done by one one-handed weapon that he has two proficiency points in.  Hmm, but I'd rather have that same respectable AC with a fighter doing high-master type damage with two swords.  That being said, I decided to enlist the help of Shar-Teel, and leave Yeslick to find his own way.

Yeslick performed very well and I had very few complaints other than the one directly above, but events are soon going to be getting intense...confronting the Iron Throne, somehow finding out the truth behind my past, and at some point rolling into Durlag's Tower.  I need to always look to be improving and trading up, and this personnel change fits that method of thinking.

So...Shar-Teel gelled nicely off the bat, I'd say.  And now, I had 3 spellcasters to manage, not 4.  It will make action a little more fast-paced from here on out.  After a few days camping out in the wilderness and destroying monsters when we ran into them (and making a slight detour down to Nashkel to see if the shopkeep had any long swords more powerful than the +1s Shar Teel was using), we stumbled upon Gullykin.  Podunk little village.  I immediately got the impression that my crew outclassed anyone, friendly or enemy, within a few miles.  And I wasn't too far off the mark in the end...but before then, I ran into some major trouble due to my hubris...

We were drawn to the local ruins, obviously, and entered through the winery/temple entrance.  I had Montaron moving too fast and not being careful enough, and within minutes he let off a lighting trap...the bolt bounced around the tiny corridor for what seemed like a few minutes, and thoroughly fried my party.  Monty, Imoen, and Xzar all were corpses by the end.  Luckily, none were burnt badly enough that they couldn't be resurrected by the halfling priestess, conveniently on the other side of the nearby trap door.

So I made my donations to the temple to have my party members brought back to life, and we headed back in.  This time, I made sure to be careful with the traps and we cleared the entire dungeon in a cold, methodical fashion.  Even had time to liberate all the ghosts knights down there.  After this were a few more areas.  The Firewine Bridge ruins were alright to explore...skeletons, ogre mages, bards on bridges.  And we could have handled Ulcaster if we were all half our current levels...but still, it was important for us to do.

So we head back to Beregost to sell everything in our packs...they were bulging with gems, items, armor, scrolls, weapons, everything.  I got back up to a nice 21kgp after spending most of my Baldur's Gate money buying Imoen her Robe of the Good Archmagi.  Next move?  Well, easy to say.  I'm going to travel up to Baldur's Gate real soon, and make a direct line to the Iron Throne headquarters.  See where that gets me...

And a lot of members in my party, including my PC, are about to level.  Right now, my party is the following:

Idaen, lvl 7 cleric/lvl 6 ranger
Shar-Teel, lvl 6 fighter
Ajantis, lvl 7 paladin
Montaron, lvl 7 fighter/lvl 7 thief
Imoen, lvl 6 thief>lvl 8 mage
Xzar, lvl 8 necromancer