BG2 SOA: As fast as possible challenge - SPOILERS GALORE

[Rav]

I wanted to see how fast I could finish the game (in game time). Here is a report of how my Female Undead Hunter fared. My party was Jaheira, Imoen, Anomen, Jan and Minsc.

I completed Irenicus’ Dungeon in 10 hours. I drank quite a few simple healing potions to keep going.

At Day 2 hour 5 I made my way to the shadowmaster (I did the slaver quest to get the money). Alas, daybreak was coming and mook’s quest would have to wait a while. I did the circus, Rejiek and the fallen paladins quests after resting. Then I did Mook and the defection quest.

I did Bodhi’s lair in two raids, resting in between and after. I bought some equipment (Belt of Hill Giant’s strength), and set sail for Spellhold at Day 4 hour 2. My Undead Hunter player character had 588534 XPs.

This meant I started at Brynnlaw at 12 days 0 hours. Imoen was rescued by 12d5h (I spent an hour fiddling with the Book of Infinite spells. It gave me Protection From Evil 7 times!).

13 days 11 hours: I ended up in The Underdark at this time. I snubbed Saemon and used the portal instead. I had to kill the Svirfneblin Demon with Harm/Magic Missile, and even had to retry that tactic quite a few times. I retrieved the Kuo Toa Prince blood for the ritual. I did do the trapped mage sidequest, but I didn’t bother with the machine of trapped souls. I also killed the creatures in the Drow Tavern when I needed to rest for a Raise Dead (mind flayer patrol killed Minsc and Jaheira) but still had a lot of spells and hit points left with my other characters. I also did those challenges because I needed the money for potions (yikes! Never bought healing potions before in my life!). That might have taken an hour or so, game time.
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15 days 17 hours: Out of the Underdark. XP: 1341438. Thank goodness I am an Undead Hunter, because now I am off to kill Bodhi while I am only 12th level. I enlisted all the aid that I could, but I used the old pause-and-watch-the-telly trick to get Anomen to be Sir Anomen before I went after Bodhi. However, this prompted Jan’s quest, which then prompted ployer’s quest. Sigh.

17 days 16 hours: Bodhi staked, which put me up to level 13.

18 days 17 hours: Head into Suldanesselar fully rested. I need to rest once to kill Irenicus (or actually, his annoying dragon). I had to run away and wait for Jon’s spells to expire before I could defeat him. Not very satisfying.

Day 20, hour 7: Throne of Bhaal Starts.My party is awarded more than 4.2 million experience points.

I think it could be done a bit faster (perhaps by soloing a monk or something), but with a regular party I think this time is pretty good.

Any takers for the BG2SOA ASAP challenge?

Rav

[Aule]

interesting, might try it sometime

[foot]

That's nuts :P

Isn't it possible to get past the drow guards at the underdark exit via bribing/persuasion? I'm pretty sure you can skip the whole adalon/ust natha quests.

[Luis Antonio]

No bribing, AFAIK.

I've soloed a fighter/mage once, in a pretty quick game, but I used to ged dead a lot. Also, my quickest game with a party involved a pure fighter, minsc, anomen, jaheira. All those who can fight. Casting spells is really not needed here, except for healing. Invisibility potions helps tons. But I cant remember how long did I take to beat it.

[foot]

All right, just checked the dialogue files. You can either bribe them with gold (at least 1000), or you can fool them if you have either 16 cha or 16 int. Either way, you have to be in drow form or you'll be attacked on sight. So you still have to kill the demon which is no easy feat at the low levels.

[Curdis]

This is very old but still germaine. Many hints and ideas.Speed Solo Challange - Curdis !

[Luis Antonio]

Originally Posted by Curdis

This is very old but still germaine. Many hints and ideas.Speed Solo Challange - Curdis !

Nice to see you mr Curdis. Still afraid of the K... K... Katana?

@all: dont you need to be evil or something to be allowed to bribe them?

[Thrifalas]

I think some kind of fighter/thief with ring of regen/gaxx and a decent amount of stealth can do it pretty much faster. Why fighting everything when you just can run through?

As for the Ust Natha thingie, you could just slay Adalon and take her scroll. Not as fast as Bribing, but will take you through Ust Natha without problem and is doable with whatever alignment and stats you have. (If you can kill a dragon and well... being lawful of chaotic good would probably not be the way of a dragonslayer)

Anyway, I'm up for this challenge no doubt. I'm thinking a fighter/thief, a thief/mage and a thief/cleric. I want to be able to sneak as much as possible.

Uh oh, by the way, are we allowed to create multiple characters, or are we limited to the PC and just add bioware's NPCs?

[Rav]

I did it with just the standard NPCs. I think that is a bit harder than just making all characters yourself. Still, for experiment's sake, I'd love to hear how you fare with all the stealth.

I find that an interesting idea because the thing about going faster by actually skipping fights might mean that you have even less XP than I had. It'd probably turn out okay if you play with one or two characters less though.

Rav

[Rav]

Reading that other thread made me really impressed with what some people here managed to find out. I went wrong by staying in the first dungeon too long, I didn't collect the money fast enough for sundown, could have done a lot less in the underdark, used absolutley no stealth, and generally rested far too often!

Less than 10 days... wow.

Rav

[fable]

Please don't place successive posts in a thread. Place one post that contains everything you want to say, or edit your post later. Thanks.