Make the following 3 battles harder

AceofWands

In my opinion (I would hazard a guess that I'm not completely alone) the following 3 fights should be increased in difficulty at least slightly. The items that you get afterwards are very powerful compared to the minimal effort required to get them.

1. Greywolf - he has the best 1H sword in the game (Drizzt excepted) and is very easy to take down with a low level party.

2. Meilum - again easy to take down even with a low level party and I'm sure no-one now would deliberately choose the 'wrong' dialogue option. Maybe his gauntlets (and sword) should be in the possession of an ogre not too far away.......or just give him a couple of friends.

3. Sunin - you already get one RoW for nothing and by the time you get to this fight it feels like this is a freebie too. I know the fight is harder depending on dialogue choice but still, the 'easy' choice is ridiculously easy and the alternative is of only average difficulty.

caruga

@AceofWands

I don't think any of these items change the tide of the game. The fact that they're among the game's best gear isn't saying much, as there isn't a huge spectrum of power differences to choose among. This is a campaign where +2 weapons are the exceptional.

sarevok57

@AceofWands i think that is actually a neat idea, last week, when i was recruiting team mates as fast as possible i killed greywolf with a level 1 team first try to get his sword so i could soar through the naskiel mines, and meilum is also pretty weak too, give those guys at least 5 more levels of fighter or something, and for sunin, they could do that bg II scripting where as soon as he goes hostile he is immediately proteced by stoneskin, mirror image and globe of invulnerabilty?

AceofWands

@AceofWands

I don't think any of these items change the tide of the game. The fact that they're among the game's best gear isn't saying much, as there isn't a huge spectrum of power differences to choose among. This is a campaign where +2 weapons are the exceptional.

Well I agree that they don't change the tide of the game (some wands are good for that). but my point is that the effort required to get these items is almost trivial and somewhat at odds with their relatively powerful nature.

@sarevok57 Yeah, either more levels or just some companions. Maybe another mage with Sunin - there aren't many instances in this game where you fight more than one mage.

Shrimp

I remember Greywolf (the guy near the Nashkel mines with the long sword +2), but who are Meilum and Sunin again ? From what you said, I'd assume Meilum is that "best swordsman ever" near Firewine Bridge (only enemy I remember being alone with a good sword and bracers), and Sunin is probably a mage, but I have no idea who he is.

Kore

You're right about Mellium @Shrimp.

Sunin is the mage found in a house in the southwest part of The Gate who has a Ring of Wizardry.

I'm all in favour of harder fights, but I do like have a wider range of equipment earlier on, so by all means make the fights more interesting, but don't make them physically inaccessible to newbies.

On a similar note it would be nice if it wasn't possible to see Sendai without leaving Alexander and Delgod in the fog of war. It trivialises the fight for the second best leather in the game. Also also Dax and Zal (the dart guy) could do with being harder.

scriver

Also also Dax and Zal (the dart guy) could do with being harder.

Are those the guys down in the southern, Amn-ways mountains? I always thought they were supposed to be a kind of joke encounter

Dee

That's kind of what I thought too, @scriver.

What if Greywolf had an actual wolf companion with him?

Kore

Also also Dax and Zal (the dart guy) could do with being harder.

Are those the guys down in the southern, Amn-ways mountains? I always thought they were supposed to be a kind of joke encounter

Well since they have a pair of very powerful bracers to loot from them I think they're a pretty serious encounter

Edit: They are found on the same map as the ogre mage that has lost his doggie though, so you might be thinking of that.

lansounet

That dart guy can be quite deadly to mages >< I would know lol

kamuizin

Greywolf - Don't see why he should be more harder, he's already strong enough, and besides he's alone, he's a lone wolf, that's his weakness. You can give him a party (what would hurt the plot, as he's a lone wolf) but 5 or 6 ppl like him would be insane.

What could be done, is a script to make him attack prism after his life pool reach a certain point (after all he live for his bounty hunter profession), if he kills prism he would take the gems and run from the party (as any inteligent person alone that dying and fighting a group of 4+ ppl would do), raise the challenge with an inteligent plot would be better than just raise his power.

Meilum - to me is a Buffoon, a decent swordsman that get his hands in a bracer of weapon expertise. As game benefits no item in the game (BG here) is capable of change the tides of power, but as history plots, many items have in their background some funny stuff, as in BG2 the 5% Magic Res necklace the unseeing eye drops, that has in his background that it protected someone that used it from many magics... with 5%... bitchs please!

Sunis - Is a good item the ring but really i have no opinion about this matter.


Speaking in BG powers, no way Shandalar comes back in BG2 to a little payback? I really feel that he hurt my feelings when he forced me to work for him (with BGT installed is near impossible to kill him, as he has dozens of lvl 6 spells and even 7 maybe, don't remember well).

sarevok57

protection from magic scrolls if ya want to take out shandalar, but i believe he has a rocking AC though, and around 300 or so HP with 75 % damage resistance but it be a nice 26 000 xp

elminster

Idk, to be honest I can see why you would want to make these encounters more difficult, but I think the general difficulty is something that can be addressed more broadly. Greywolf I think is a fair one to make more difficult, purely because his sword is very strong, he can be killed early in the game, and he is not off the beaten path. I mean, he is located on the same map as the nashkel mine entrance, so he's not like meilum where a new player actually has to put some effort into locating him. I'm on the fence about Sunin. To me Sunin probably isn't noteworthy enough to justify focussing on increasing his difficulty, even though he has that ring.

See, I recently played BGT and tried to kill Shandalar, and I left the encounter thinking it was like trying to kill Gorion. Do-able, but way more difficult than I remember from the vanilla game. I'm glad I'm not the only person to have noticed that.

caruga

protection from magic scrolls if ya want to take out shandalar, but i believe he has a rocking AC though, and around 300 or so HP with 75 % damage resistance but it be a nice 26 000 xp

His hp is a lot lower than that.

lansounet

96 HP / AC -20 / 80% physical resistance / 100% (magic-)elemental resistances. What a beast lol, I've never tried to kill him but next time I will! And he teleports away after some time.

caruga

I always like how Shandalar was mentioned before ToSC with a quest involving his daughters, and then they worked him in later.

I do hope they make him into a real high level wizard; BG1 was notorious for 'cheating' npcs that have stats way outside of the ruleset or even flat-out not adhering to the normal game mechanics.

sarevok57

like elminster being a level 29 mage in bg 1, even in SoA you couldnt reach that level now thats hacking, isnt that right @elminster

AceofWands

@ kamuizin Well that's another thing about the Greywolf emcounter - not only go you get the sword but two emeralds and an increase in reputation. I quite like your idea though.

Shandalar (vanilla) could be killed by spamming him with magic missiles although you needed at least 3 mages if I remember correctly (and possibly a dipel magic).

sarevok57

yeah you need a dispel magic, he casts globe of invulnerability on himself, casting level 6 spells in bg 1, good times

caruga

@sarevok57 I've done it w/o dispel magic, you just need lots of mages and a haste spell (it speeds up spellcasting in the BG1 engine even though it's not supposed to).

sarevok57

yeah i guess if you get enough missiles in before globe of invulnerability comes up, i've only killed him 2 different ways, 1 level 20 fighter, and a normal team with resiliant sphere cast on him, then knock him all silly like unconcious, enemy owned

caruga

yeah i guess if you get enough missiles in before globe of invulnerability comes up, i've only killed him 2 different ways, 1 level 20 fighter, and a normal team with resiliant sphere cast on him, then knock him all silly like unconcious, enemy owned

What were you doing with a lv20 character in the BG1 campaign?

AceofWands

Hmmm , does anyone know if you can still get the helm of opposite alignment by killing the demon knight when he first appears in DT? I know you could in vanilla by spamming him with skull traps. Never tried it in Tutu.

So, in a vain attempt to get this thread back on track, how about making the end battle of Ice Island more challenging? A party of 6 versus one mage is a bit of a damp squib. And put a useful item down there. I hardly ever bother with that place anymore.

sarevok57

@caruga eons and eons ago, i used to play with the level cap remover, and i only had a level 20 one at the time, @AceofWands i agree, i dont think that fights are to bad, but they definately need to put something usefull there, i never do that quest anymore because its kind of a lot of hassle for very little reward, maybe they could have put the helm of charm protection in there with shadow door and cone of cold scrolls mayhaps?