[twillight]

- in Ulgoth's Beard the rule is, if they see you, better not touch it. There's also a locked chest at Mendas, and in the inn.
- buy the cloak of displacement, it'll help against the ankeghs on the ice island. So you don't have to swap in the boots of avoidance, and you even get +0.5 attack (making it 3) from the boots of speed. Oh, and if you go there, bring a prot from magic scroll, because that's always how I do it.
- against the 4 mages in BG-W 2 charges from that energy ring solved them.

You know, the "sections" of the game really does feel. There's a definite "re-planning" halt after reaching the Friendly Arm Inn, then when you try to do delay to go to the Cloakwood Forest (darn lot of travel), then when you reach Baldur's Gate.
In BG I especialy hate the timed quests: the geas/being poisoned crap, the rob-the-museum quest for starters. And don't even start with the chain-quests (the mages conquest, the stolen nymph, anything involving the umberlee temple etc.). And there's the Helm/Cloak of Balduran what is just bloody hard...
At least at this pointI can finaly wear the Claw of Kazgaroth as all the poisoning enemies (spiders, wyverns) are done. It's mostly melee, or damaging spells from now on. Of course could check out Durlag's Tower if I wanna... I wonder if I could beat that demon... Probably not, atlkeast would have to use some throwing daggers toi get rid of the cultists...

My problem with the Enchanced Edition is, their additional content, I mean expansions. Siege of Dragonspear, and whatever more they added. They add stuff where it does not belong. More exp and item between BG1 and BG2? What for? The strength/difficulty-curve is already built for the story, so it makes things too easy. Probably.

Back to the playthourgh:
- Sphene Gems are a rarity. Found none outside BG. The Umberlee head priestess had one on her (killed during the gease/poison quest). In theory the seer refers to the gemfrom the basilisk, so it is in theory a quest item, not a gem. Whatever.
- aganst the mob at Gorpel Hind had to use a potion of speed (kill order: cleric, mage, archers, melee). While that lasted ran against the ogre mage assassins with some charges from the Energy Ring. That worked.
- for looting around the city of BG is a nightmare. What container you may or should not touch is entirely random, so it's mostly falls back to whatever you open, prepare to run away through an entrance to prevent the soldiers showing up. Boots of spees recomended for this.
- I'm mostly done with the place, only the helm of balduran, the Iron Throne, and the Other Merchant League Infestation remains. Here is a tip: if you realy want to try to open every single chest in the city of BG, first solve ALL possible quests (18 STR from a potion should bash open every building for the very least), then quaff that 25 STR Violet Potion from the Nashkel Carneval, and makea run for it. Even if a section would take 1 ingame hour, you'll have 24 ingame hours to spend. And as every bitchy section has chests unbashable with 19 STR, this is sure the place to use that thingy.
- against the sewer-ogra mage's crawlers of course a dose of potion of freedom was required. These things realy come in small quantity.
-a potion of defense made life easy at Degrodel. This still lasted, so went to the Iron Fist, where in the first round disrupted things with a fireball potion (whatever the proper name), then continued with an aganzanar's scorcher potion.
- time to go to Candlekeep. Items to bring there: put down Claw of Kazgaroth somewhere if you have 20 natural CON, so sleep-heal is possible. 1 dose of Storm Giant STR potion. 1 dose potion of mirrored eyes. The antidote potion you got during the Lathander's Geas quest. Ring of Free Action.


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So, done everything till theDucalPalace, for the Longtooth dagger. Then went to Durlag's Tower.
- getting in was no problem. And inside can sleep-heal.
- I actualy have 4 more prot. from undead scroll (2 used until now making it 6 in the game), so using one to avoid the ghasts. I'm not sure why I even bothering - ah yeah, the tome. The scroll lasted through the upper levels, and the first bottom level.

- note: battle horrors do not count as undead! (and half the supposed monsters tend to not appear occasionaly, what is good if they're ghasts)
- at this point I realised I odn't want to go TOO deep, or I'll have to figure out how to deal with the cult and the demon back in the city. Lol on me. I also don't remember what weapons I could use against the biggest-meanest werewolves.
- against the dwarven guardians (level -2) drank a potion of defense (just to be sure) and a potion of heroism (because I had plenty). Drank also some healing potions to be sure of it, and to preserve the 3 oversized pack of healing potions.
- what would be good to have, are items on the 5th floor: flametongue and the Cloak of Shield
- ah. Now I know youdon't have to bother with the ghasts, and the teleport at level -3. Now I know where the other connecting passage is. If you want to bother the ghasts,a scroll of prot from undead is reasonable though. Or you canpass with a potion of fire res (or wearing the ring, or casting greenscroll) as there are fireball traps on the ground and enough space to manouver.
- level -4 is a nuisance. If you want to clear it, here is what you'll need:
a) a charge of shield amulet to dealwith the skeleton archers
b) greater ghouls are not holding you, and the "sirens"around Bala's Axe do not charm you
c) in the air room a potion of defense is highly advisable. The fire room contains fire, obviously. To deal with the slime you need some fire damage potion. Strange fact: it dies from cold too. cold = negative fire dmg? Might be a bug, so be sure to use fire damage on it when near dead.
d) on the chessboard you need a potion of invisibility, and a potion of absorption.
*for the cold room took a shield amu charge along casting the special abilities (this was one of the rare cases where Kai is ok, but mostly talking draw upon holy might). Also some healing potions (I hada 5-pack on my belt). The air was left latest, took a potion of speed for that.