Watching the run now. Things I learned:
- You are much better at menuing than I am. This means that the true "best possible" time on unpatched is likely much better than mine.
- You get substantially more gold from selling the starting Robe of Fire Resistance than I remember doing in my runs. This may be a change in Diamond, or maybe I'm misremembering horribly (haven't done any attempts in a while). This explains why you don't bother to get the Rod of Frost off Jaroo (for later selling); I believe that doing so is cost-effective in unpatched,
- What's up with the floating text bubbles (and interface text elsewhere)? They look very different from in my or TheVelcronomicon's runs. Presumably you changed them to make the recording easier to read, but I'm not aware of where that setting is.
- If you're consolidating potions, consolidate onto the rightmost potion so that the quickbar reacts correctly.
- Waiting for caster level 2 before casting Expeditious Retreat is pretty clever (and comes at the right time to clear the goblins following you, too).
- There are two pillars in the start of the room with the Mysterious Mage (separating two halves of the room). You went between them; if you go to the right of both instead, it gives you a few fractions of a second less time in his LoS, greatly reducing the chance he gets off two rounds of attacks (most likely killing you). Not sure if this would make a significant difference to how often you get through the Prelude.
- On my unpatched route, I normally just melee the goblins, because substantially fewer follow me. This may be an AI difference between versions. The Wand of Fire technique might or might not be faster on unpatched; it seems definitely faster on Diamond, though. (Also, I play Sorceror / Barbarian / Rogue as my first three levels on unpatched in order to get Barbarian speed and a better Persuade check. The main disadvantage is that I have to use potions for invisibility, rather than spells. Sudden thought: what's the earliest you can get Extend Spell? If it's possible by level 3, you might want to use your L1 and L2 spell slots on Expeditious Retreat and Extended Expeditious Retreat, and potions for invisibility; the Docks is possible without.)
- There are various complex tricks you can do with Aribeth in unpatched in order to grab as many 100gp starting packages as you can. This is fixed in Diamond, but I think you have enough gold anyway from selling the Robe of Fire Resistance.
- Anyone know of a reliable way to stop Milly trolling you? As far as I can tell, it's simply random in what way she tries to block your path.
- You used a different route through Orrean than mine (bribery). You can save yourself some money via threatening instead (exact path depends on your character and may not exist for a non-human, but in my route, it's 22111).
- I didn't expect to see that Persuade check against Grommin failed. At least it doesn't waste much time.
- I'm pretty sure that one invisibility cast is enough to do No-Man's-Land as well as Meldanen's mansion. That might save you some resets when bad things happen in No-Man's-Land instead.
- Seems that Diamond fixed the pathing bug with that door in the Docks. In unpatched, your character runs up to the side of the door, and then is unable to reach it, meaning that you need a bunch of manual movement to compensate. (This may imply that mouse movement is faster in Diamond, but WASD in unpatched.)
- You're doing the Invisibility variant of the Docks clip that TheVelcronomicon uses. I use a distraction method where I bring Daelan into the area, then run up to the gate, summon my familiar, and clip while the Bloodsailors are busy attacking Daelan. I think my method can be theoretically faster, but it's also a lot more inconsistent, and the largest place for resets for me outside the Prelude. (I do it out of necessity, because I have no invisibility sources at that point.)
- My setup for the Callik clip is completely different from yours (I do a long-distance clip off the corner of the wall immediately in front of you as you enter). The clip I use has (AFAICT) never been shown possible on Diamond, but if it is, it's probably worth it, because it's slightly faster and slightly safer. That said, I've never seen that particular setup for a wall clip before, and am now very confused; the one consistent factor among the clips I've discovered in unpatched is that you always move backwards from the familiar's point of view, and that clip completely defies that. Suspicion: clipping mechanics are completely different.
- It's surely got to be faster to collect Daelan on the way to the Docks (and arrange for him to be killed somewhere, then pick him up again in the Temple of Tyr) than it is to pick him up on the way to Peninsula. I don't see any particular reason to do Blacklake before Docks on your route, meaning that it's almost guaranteed that you can have Daelan killed somewhere in the Docks or Blacklake.
- A clip in unpatched that saves tons of time over this route; instead of going up the ramp at the start of Peninsula, continue round to the right into the dead-end there, and then clip off one of the pillars in the wall, up to the upper level. The clip's pretty reliable and a pretty short distance horizontally (it just goes quite some distance vertically). Even though clipping mechanics seem to be different, it might be worth trying to get it to work, given the savings that would result.
- Getting past the stink beetles in unpatched is actually nearly impossible, to the extent that I find it faster and easier to clip through the wall near them instead. The hitboxes are different in Diamond, apparently to the extent that you two never have trouble; I feel a little envious as a result.
- I like this route through Lady Tanglebrook's. It doesn't work on unpatched because your HP are too valuable; you might get caught in a fireball messing around with monster summoning in order to get NPCs to move out of the way. Peninsula's much more straightforward in Diamond.
- There is a huge amount of luck in Containment Level, especially on unpatched. I'm guessing that was one of your worse runs through the level? That's approximately what it looks like when I have close to optimum luck (more likely I'd need to be summoning monsters to get NPCs to stop blocking my way with their slightly larget hitboxes).
- That door with three prisoners in the Pits is a good example of the hitbox changes; you managed to get through in a few attempts, I'd have needed to summon there (or wait like 10 seconds for the prisoners to randomly walk out of the way).
- Nasty place for invisibility to run out, good thing you survived. I typically refresh it in the chamber with the Door Lever just before the Pits; that lets it last long enough to do the Pits even if I get a little unlucky.
- Huh, you went right in the Pits. Is that route faster? I go the other way, and it feels faster, but haven't timed.
- Some day, someone's going to beat the WR by rolling a natural 20 on that slow trap. (I wonder if having Expeditious Retreat up at that point would save more time than for a typical cast, or less.)
- You're so fast at menuing on those guards that my effort to gain Persuade ranks probably wouldn't help much for that fight. (They still help, though, and I'm buying Persuade anyway for later on, so I don't think this is a deficiency of my own route. It's not like I'm short of skill points any more.)
- Pretty bad luck on Alaefin there (as you mentioned). Perhaps that route through Lady Tanglebrook's isn't such a good idea after all.
- From what happened after the Intellect Devourer killed you, I'm going to assume that you're sufficiently good at this game that you haven't had any practice at how to handle an unexpected death. (Sadly, I've had far too much.) The conversation with the priest is 321, by the way; it looks like you were actually reading it, but memorization is faster.
- Some faster way to beat the Intellect Devourer would be nice. I use summons and rage to speed it up a bit, but that doesn't help that much. The fight's slightly harder for me because I also need to find an opportunity to grab the +1 halberd for use as a crafting component later.
- Why did you memorize True Strike, then not cast it? (In particular, what was the intended target?)
- You don't need to be invisible until just before the Cultist Hideout anyway. The zombies can't catch you even at normal walking speed, and nothing else will attack you.
- I think it's theoretically possible to clip that door in the Crypts. I have never found a setup that's faster than just doing things the intended way, though.
- It's possible to go around the inside rather than the outside of that L-shaped trap. At normal running speed, this is faster. With Expeditious, it might require too much micromanagement, though, as you only have a pretty narrow gap to do so.
- In unpatched, it's possible to clip from that room with five zombies in (the first new room you enter on your route after picking up the Ancient Key) directly to Gulnan, without even hitting the triggers that spawn her zombies. You'd save a bunch of time if it's possible on Diamond, too. Might be worth testing.
- I assume it was just a mistake that Daelan was so far from the recall portal (I remember you messing that up earlier on), and on your actual route, he'd be standing right there after recalling from Gulnan?
- It's got to be possible to do your spell arrangement for Gulnan in parallel with something else (most likely running through Gulnan's levels), rather than having to actually wait for it. Also, once the rest has made that much progress, it's probably faster to wait for it to restore L2 spells (about halfway through the progress bar) than it is to quickrest.
- I like the use of Flame Weapon / True Strike to near-guarantee that you disrupt Gulnan's first spell. In unpatched, I don't have access to either, so I have to rely on barbarian rage and luck. It can go very well, but it can also go very badly, depending mostly on dice rolls; my best Gulnan fights are somewhat faster than yours here, but there's a lot of variation.
- You don't need to go through the conversations on any but the last of the four people you have to talk to at the start of chapter 1e. You can just click on the first three, then go through Nasher's conversation naturally (it's very short on the shortest path).
- Oh wow. I'm pretty sure someone cast Sleep at you during that fight at the start of chapter 1e, and that would have been run over if you hadn't made the save, as it'd have wasted far too much time. (Any tips on stopping that happening?)
- You're good enough at menuing to do the dialogue portion of the experience/item glitch without full pause-buffering? Now I'm both jealous, and a bit scared…
- I like the "level up on the run" strategy.
- Monk speed stacks with Expeditious Retreat? My mind is blown just watching it. (Of course, in unpatched, speed can't stack higher than 150% normal by any means, which is the main reason it's slower than Diamond and all the routes are completely different.)
- If you have the gold, might be worth just equipping one of those cloaks of movement in order to avoid paralysis from traps if you roll low on your save. Just going for it is not that bad an idea, though.
- Chapter 2 done by a Diamond epic monk is always hilarious to watch, and somewhere you save a ton of time compared to unpatched.
- Darktongue spawned? Some day, I'll figure out what the trigger for that is.
- I thought it was faster to recall at the start of chapter 2e, than run round. Maybe it isn't, if you run that fast. (Note that loading screens aren't included in timing, when SDA times things, although as we're posting realtime in this thread because it's easier to measure it does affect that.)
- The way you enter Kurth's lair looks a bit slow. My current method is a long-range clip (which leaves the enemies as an amusing mix as peaceful and hostile), but that's unlikely to work well with your strategy. An older strategy of mine was to attack a random enemy at range then turn invisible. I suspect the fastest strategy for you may be that, possibly without the "turn invisible" part.
- Getting through that door before Kurth is pretty slow. Because I'm invisible at that point, I just pick the lock (picking it's fast, the lock itself is easy).
- Being visible also slowed you down when getting the first portal stone; because you went into combat, you couldn't start conversation. Basically, my brain is telling me "it's faster to be invisible through the start of chapter 2e".
- The clip pattern you did on Host Tower 9 is one I use at various places in the game, but it's precise enough that I can only really do it in places where I have a reliable setup. Seeing you just casually pulling it off with no apparent setup is pretty impressive.
- I wonder why the undead in the chapter 3 ruins were just regular skeletons. Your utter epicness may have confused the encounter generator, or something; they're much more powerful when I play. Now I see why you just casually kill them rather than trying to clip with them watching.
- Not the cleanest Door of Three clip, but you got it second try, which is pretty reasonable.
- Huh, I thought Diamond-epic monks were faster at that Balor fight than that. That wasn't much faster than my unpatched runs. (On the other hand, my unpatched runs have to craft a weapon specifically to be able to kill things quickly through typical resistances, so the fight adds a bunch of cost elsewhere.)
- Your cloning pattern on the Words of Power is essentially the same as the one I'm using now (and faster than the ones used in earlier runs). I don't think it's possible to do much better than that.
- You can Persuade three potions of Heal off Aarin as you turn in the third Word. (Although, playing Monk, Persuade isn't a skill you can easily purchase, so you'd need to level up once more just to buy it. At that point, you'd have to evaluate whether it's faster to buy the skill, or just buy the items.)
- I like this solution to the door in Chapter 4. On my route, I use Knock, because I go shopping at Ch.1 Eltoora for Invisibility and may as well pick it up while I'm there. I take it you're using the "bash with elemental damage" method because the required shops are directly on your route?
- Aribeth's room contains the #1 easiest clip on unpatched, and it's worth seeing if this one works on Diamond too because it's so easy on unpatched (to see if long-distance clips are more viable). First, you disable Aribeth's combat somehow (e.g. DCRing her by bashing the door you entered by as she comes up to fight you; at your speed, you may also be able to DCR her by bashing the entrance door from outside then running right up to her). Then, you run to the far left corner, and to the right, so that you end up wedged behind the torture device. Then you familiar clip in the normal way (the familiar's facing approximately towards the door, but there's such a wide range of angles that work in unpatched that specific setup instructions are hardly needed). If you get things right, you end up in Maugrim's room, behind the trigger that makes him run up to you. (Then I cast Silence on myself, run up to Maugrim, and bash him to death.) Diamond players, please test this; if it doesn't work, probably none of the other unpatched-only clips will, but if it does, its an indication that you may well be able to save much more time.
- That Cloak of Movement may well help. Unless you have some other source of paralysis immunity I missed, you had a 1 in 4 chance of getting paralyzed by that acid trap, which is dangerously high that late in a run.
- Oh wow. That is a method I hadn't thought of of preventing Maugrim casting Time Stop. How reliable is it? (Based on the True Strike and pause-buffering, I'm guessing that it only just works, but there isn't much luck involved.)
- Another thing that amused me: you managed to run out of the Temple of Tyr entirely before the healing effect on you triggered.
- Oh, you got hit by another acid trap later on, and it didn't paralyze you with "Immune to Mind-Affecting Spells". This looks like a glitch to me, but as it's there, it seems fine to exploit.
- In unpatched, it's possible to clip from the land extending out at the far right of the double dragons fight (that seems to have no purpose), directly to the goal. This clip is very hard and I fail it once on my PB; I have a setup that makes it possible at all (involving standing in a particular place, then summoning familiar, so that the familiar ends up in the right place for the clip), but even then, I often screw it up. Given that there's no chance it works exactly the same on Diamond, there's probably not much point in trying it unless you feel really confident in your ability to find new clips. There's an alternative clip through the left hand side of the two gates, which is much easier and probably does work on Diamond, but I'm not sure it'd save time; you'd need to screw about with Time Stop to help pull it off.
- In the Inner Sanctum, in unpatched, you can clip directly to the Protectors by moving forwards and to the right (as you spawn), and wedging yourself against terrain there. This completely screws up Morag's AI, mostly in ways that benefit you.
- I'm shocked at you doing the Morag fight the intended way, after all the crazy workarounds that have been seen in this thread (there are a lot). That said, it's probably fastest given how high your stats are. Actually, one deviation from intended: did you skip the barrier just by outracing it spawning? (Not that I'd expect it to actually be able to kill you anyway.)

Anyway, I think you've pretty much cracked the solution for a good time in Diamond: "be very good at menuing and mashing, bring your stats very high as a result". I have the feeling that a fully optimized unpatched run will look more interesting than a fully optimized Diamond run, because there'll be more room for unusual stuff rather than just running through everything with epic stats. I'd recommend testing some of the clips I mentioned to see if it can be made even faster, but apart from that, the route looks pretty solid.

Oh, aha. I kill the Protector Against the Lessers in every route I've tried (because in the Cleric route, I do "Lessers"-typed damage for the kill, and on the Barbarian route on unpatched, I use the glitch with Weird (which was patched out in Diamond) and that Protector is caught as collateral damage).

Sadly, I can't really upload video of the clips; the computer I play NWN on isn't online. So I'm settling for describing them. (Also, if you couldn't replicate the Aribeth clip, most likely the clipping mechanics are different enough that it wouldn't help much; the only clip I've seen in either your or TheVelcronomicon's runs that looks even remotely similar to how it looks in unpatched is the Door of Three clip, which is pretty unique among clips.)

If you're interested in playing around with AI glitches on Morag, I recommend getting her to initiate conversation with you while you're in combat. This breaks her script in various interesting ways, which I've exploited in unpatched and seen exploited in Diamond. I'm not sure it'd break it in exactly the way you like, although if you can kill the Protector Against the Lessers quickly, it might buy you enough time to stunlock her.

With respect to the time cost of True Strike, I suspect it's 6s if you're doing nothing but standard actions, but less if you're also moving. I think it triggers both lag periods, and the long lag period will block you attacking. (Interesting question: is there some way to cancel action lag, e.g. with a quicksave? Although it'd be slower in realtime, it might be faster under SDA timing to save-buffer combat to get in three times as many actions, if that works.) Haste would affect this, but you don't reasonably get access to that in chapter 1 (unless you're doing clipless, when it's not that far out of your way in the Docks, but that's only relevant in very outdated routes).

A very, very interesting thing. I yet again timed the time saves of using Expeditious Retreat and found this: the normal one still as I've been saying saves 5 seconds, but the Extended version - due to just one cast time, freeze period and having to accelerate again - actually saves up to 14 seconds. That's almost triple the normal one. Now, please correct me if my logic is wrong, but doesn't this also mean that actually it is faster to always use the Extended version instead (saves 14s) and abuse the quickload resting (lose 5-7s on my computer depending on the area size) to regain it (where possible)? I'm thinking in real time here.

Now, this suddenly becomes more complex when we factor in 1) the loading zones: they probably take something like 0.5s away from the time saved since there's always a small time period that you're unable to get your commands issued in although (I assume) the spell duration timer is still running, and 2) having to open doors. I think the whole Chapter 1 will need lots of thinking on how to use the haste spells to their maximum potential...

In actual D&D, True Strike just affects your next attack. It seems like the developers faked it with a short duration, but this explains why it isn't marked as extendable.

I also use a female character (and the same portrait as you), basically for the reason that there's only so many ways you can represent "wizard with greatsword".

Alternating between Extended Expeditious Retreat and quickresting is probably going to be faster realtime, and even faster gametime. It might make the run a bit less watchable, though. (Presumably you start doing this in chapter 1, because you don't have the spell slots to extend it in the Prelude.)

Looking GREAT! I got a -1,17 gold split from Peninsula. Sum of bests UNDER 40!

EDIT: Got a new run, not a PB, but a gold End split. Clipped both dragon doors really fast, I think I got like -50s. Sum of bests:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18542862/nwn_sumofbests_30_11_2014.png

Still some to be saved on Beggar's Nest...

At this rate you are going to break the 30 minute barrier by Christmas

daaaaaaamn, a year ago I never thought times like this would ever be possible. Fantastic work

Doesnt sound like it'd be worth it in the end, too much sidetracking to get the necessary gear and invis potions.

New run, new time. 39:22. Still not happy, died to Morag

Okay, I looked at Morag's scripts in the editor:

1) Morag's throne is surrounded by a trigger: if a PC enters it it will set NW_L_MELEEMODE to a value of 10
2) Morag has an OnCombatRoundEnd script that checks what Morag will do based on the NW_L_MELEEMODE
    a) if NW_L_MELEEMODE = 0, Morag will have an infinite spellbook with Lightning Bolt, Enervation, Flame Arrow, Mordenkainen's Disjunction and Horrid Wilting and will randomly cast those spells at the PC
    b) if NW_L_MELEEMODE = 10, Morag will automatically next round cast a Quickened Time Stop. Then she has a 15% chance to cast another Quickened Time Stop, after which a variable is set so that she cannot no longer cast any Time Stops.

So an archer/mage could range her to death without her ever casting Time Stops, or a henchman/summon could melee her to death, or some kind of a way to skip triggers should be found. (Does this sometimes happen? A lot of times for example the Chapter Four trigger in Aribeth's room doesn't work and she never tries to have a dialogue with you. Is this related to the character bugging or the actual script not triggering or what?) Anyway it's good to know that she has a maximum of two Time Stops. Alternatively, you can just be super lucky with Morag failing her concentration check..

Other things to note: no need to buy those healing potions. Every barrel in Source Stone Inner Sanctum has one by default, and I can grab one while waiting for the Old One Cleric key to appear. With this current route I need just one, if even that, anyway. (The blade barrier in front of Morag's Throne does 150 + 1d100 worth of damage (minus 20 damage resistance), by the way. I normally have 230-270hp so it's quite rare to actually die to it)

Balor fights: I was watching TheVelcronomicon's run again and noticed that I should use True Strike in order to do them more consistently faster. This applies to both Balor Lord at Chapter 3 Word of Power and Half-Dragon Baalor at Chapter 4 War Zone (both have 30 AC). Morag has only 14 AC and Old One Cleric 15 AC so for them it's not worth it.

I will probably attempt more runs sometime later this month. I want to grind it out but right now speedrunning is kinda low on my priority list.

Breakthrough in Morag fight. The solution was ultimately simple: just abuse the monk speed.



Morag follows you to the throne and you never have to pass the blade barrier. She has an extremely consistent AI here: she attacks for two rounds and then the script kicks in and she attempts a Time Stop. During these two rounds you negate her Premonition, and it seems like her 23 Concentration isn't enough when her protections are down. She practically always fails her Concentration check, only time she didn't during testing was when I rolled two 1's in a row.

EDIT: The difficulty class for her Concentration check is 10 + damage received + spell level, that is 10+27+9 = 46. She needs two natural 20's in a row, or my two attacks have to roll 1 or some combination of that. If my calculations are correct, she has a ~0,5% chance to be able to cast a Time Stop. Not too likely.

http://i.imgur.com/ym2NapG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Dw1HfpG.jpg

Also now I found out a great visual cue for some of the hard clips I've been having trouble with, namely the Warren and the Dragons. Basically whenever your character's left leg is half inside the door you're clipping, you'll know for sure the PC is in correct position.

Strangely enough, we have crossed messages: I've also been analyzing the Morag fight and Old One Cleric fight in detail.

I don't have time to post all the reasoning here right now (I'll put it on the wiki later), but I'll post the conclusions (as always, I test on unpatched, Diamond might be better):

* Against the Old One Cleric: Open the door before the cleric. Move to the right, while staying on the same side of the door (so you're standing at the right-hand side of the corridor you arrived along). Attack the Old One Cleric with any single-target ranged attack, then immediately run into the room (you have around 2-3 seconds to do this). Then go to the locked gate, allowing the Old One Cleric to follow you but not get into melee range (i.e. you have to stay ahead of him/her, but not too far, which means going slower than typical haste speed). Once you get near the gate, turn round and attack (with any form of attack you like, so long as it doesn't have a large enough AoE to hit the Morag protection). In unpatched, this is guaranteed to allow you to fight the Old One Cleric 1v1 without any of the other lizardfolk (or the Morag projection) joining in.
* I also found a strategy for Morag with no Time Stops involved. You have to be able to take out the relevant Protectors at range, but can use melee attacks on Morag. Bash down the door before Morag and immediately run past her (or if on unpatched, clip to the other side of the door); you need to run right past her (so she's right next to you at one point), not round. Kill the relevant Protectors without stepping beyond the barrier (or the area where the barrier should be). Equip a ranged weapon, and use the force-attack command to fire two shots at Morag (normally 2; sometimes it takes 3, you know you've done enough when she starts running towards you). Then switch to a melee weapon / fists if you want to, and attack. Advantages: Morag ends up stuck in a weird mix of her early-fight AI and the normal monster AI, meaning that she never casts Time Stop and her attacks are mostly jokes. Disadvantages: Morag's Hands wake up; they won't attack for around 12 seconds, which may be enough, but they also don't despawn properly at the end of the fight.

Your Morag strategy makes more sense than mine on Diamond because you can't just oneshot everything with Weird; mine makes more sense on unpatched because I don't have that sort of speed.

Another discovery: I managed to clip from the second room to the last room of Academy in the Prelude. I don't yet have a reliable setup for this, or even an unreliable one. This is unlikely to work on Diamond. I'm internally groaning now because it almost certainly saves a lot of time, meaning that I'm going to have to learn how to do it.

Finally, I found a setup for the double dragons skip on unpatched which is a) easier; b) faster; c) less RNG. I start by casting Time Stop from the room before, then clicking on the portal; the room loads completely black (so I can only navigate via the minimap), but apparently this prevents the dragons seeing me either until the Time Stop ends. Then I run towards the far-right corner of the room; once I'm in the last map square (again, determined via minimap), I end the Time Stop by pressing R. At this point, I'm out of the dragons' perception range so they don't chase me and/or interfere with the setup. The corner in front of and to the left of me right now is actually two corners, very close to each other, which together form an approximately 90 degree angle. The correct one to wedge myself in is the one further to the right; it's a bit sharper than the other one (also, it's a little "slippery" when you're not in there properly; I know I'm wedged in it correctly when I can't dislodge myself with Q or E). Then I summon my familiar, and the summon consistently places it in exactly the right position that I can clip both doors by immediately possessing it and pressing D, D, D, S.

Absolutely amazed at how fast Acts 2-4 go.  Never thought in my wildest this game could be done that fast.  This may have been answered somewhere in the previous 22 pages of comments, but does the game specifically look for the four elixir components?  I take it the dupe glitch done in Acts 2 and 3 would not work in Act 1, but I figured I would ask.

Is there a possibility that the game would overlook specific components once certain requirements are met in Act 1?

Hypothetical: Getting a required cocatrice feather, but then duping the next component to get past this area because a particular trigger has been hit and unlocked further glitches?

P.S. - Would LOVE to see this done to Hordes of the Underdark, Velcronomicon.