Black Pits FInal Battle (v.2014): wow, that got harder

Nifft

This battle was MUCH harder than what I recall in the previous version.

Two applications of Insect Plague didn't buy me enough time to off Baeloth.

ScytheKnight

really? even harder? wow... i found it plenty freaken hard as it was.

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Fardragon

It hasn't changed.

I find Magic Resistance poitions the best way to defend against Baeloth until I'm ready to deal with him.

Debaser

@Nifft @Bhaaldog @ScytheKnight

It's not any worse to my knowledge,

I solo'd it again after the patch, but if you don't kill Baeloth fast enough he summons the beholder...then if you don't kill the beholder and baeloth fast enough again...he summons two Clay Golems, and he'll continue to summon Golems infinitely every so often if you don't make short work of everybody.

The trick is as @Fardragon says, magic resistance absolutely helps, but so does the belt of inertial barrier, with both you can get to 100% magic DAMAGE resistance. If you kill the flunkies first FAST with improved haste from the improved cloak o protection and cut Baeloth down with some lucky crits you can skip the Beholder, if you don't you'd better have potions of mirror eyes ready to pop so you can beat the beholder down in a few rounds and try to get Baeloth before the first wave of Golems.

Usually I have to kill at least two Golems. With SCS they are stronger (Cursed Wounds), but I've pretty much beaten the Black Pits maybe ten times now...and solo'd it at least 8 of those times.

To be fair I was using a Beserker again...it's absolutely a great class to pick for a solo run due to protection from confusion.

SpaceInvader

Debaser said:

The trick is as @Fardragon says, magic resistance absolutely helps, but so does the belt of inertial barrier, with both you can get to 100% magic resistance.

There's a bug or you're a little bit confused...

Fardragon

The Belt of Inertial Barrier is supposed to give resistance to magic damage, not magic resistance. Potions of Magic Blocking do likewise, but since they also cause you to always make saving throws, they pretty much make you immune to beholders.

I didn't know Baeloth could spawn clay golems, I've never seen him last that long.

Kulgorn

Is this since the last patch that introduced the new kits? If so I done it solo with a Shadowdancer/Fighter combo, I leveled it to max level and started with it, solo, from the first fight. Clay Golems were a pain and I had to switch out to weapons that would hurt them but aside from that it was straight forward.

Having said that, Shadowdancer feels incredibly cheesy. 110+ damage per crit with Drizzt's scimitars and even if you do fail to restealth you just chug a invis pot. /shrug

SpaceInvader

Kulgorn said:

Having said that, Shadowdancer feels incredibly cheesy. 110+ damage per crit with Drizzt's scimitars and even if you do fail to restealth you just chug a invis pot. /shrug

Do you like werebears by any chance?

Kulgorn

SpaceInvader said:

Kulgorn said:

Having said that, Shadowdancer feels incredibly cheesy. 110+ damage per crit with Drizzt's scimitars and even if you do fail to restealth you just chug a invis pot. /shrug

Do you like werebears by any chance?

Didn't try those I must admit, it was getting late.

I'll see how that goes.

By the way, I'm assuming a cloak of non-detection would stop anything from revealing stealthed characters in BG?

SpaceInvader

Kulgorn said:

Didn't try those I must admit, it was getting late.

I'll see how that goes.

Thanks, and let me know how it worked.
I heard shadow step-ing werebears can deal up to 150 acid damage.

Kulgorn

I might try it with a staff of striking for ultimate cheesy-ness

I'm due to get in from work in the next hour or so. If I've still got a save I'll give it a quick try and list my character+equipment.

Nifft

Ah-hah, I bet I know what happened.

Last two times we prioritized Baeloth and took him down before we killed his helpers. This time we killed his helpers first, which meant we triggered the Beholder and the Golems -- which were significantly harder than his helpers.

ScytheKnight

Yeah, when I played Black pits I really zeroed in on Baeloth, then the Durger, then the Rakshasa.

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Debaser

@Bhaaldog @ScytheKnight @Nifft @Kulgorn @SpaceInvader @Fardragon

My apologies, that should have read "100% Magic Damage Resistance"

I take whichever the cheaper potion is that grants another 50% Magic Damage Resistance.

With the Belt of Inertial Barrier on a Bersker, and some potions of Mirror Eyes for the Beholder...Baeloth is not that hard, as long as you take both the Improved Cloak of Protection +2 for the Improved Haste...AND whatever the cloak is that grants 100% Electrical Resistance which you swap too after using the Improved Haste.

(So no random bolts can kill you this way, you're fast enough to get around...and you're not getting chipped to death by magic missile or petrified when the Beholder comes out)

It's confusion that will kill you on a solo run if you have no way around it. But with a party you can easily kill Baeloth prior to the Beholder and the Golems being released.

Nifft

@Debaser - I just chugged one of the potions which granted the effect "You make all saving throws for the next 5 turns." -- one of the magical protection ones. That meant the Beholder could hurt me, but no insta-kills allowed.

Zarakinthish

@Nifft Using that potion was the first thing I did for that battle. After that the battle was fairly easy. I found it much easier than some of the earlier battles.

Nifft

@Zarakinthish - it really depends on how long you take to kill Baeloth.

I went through the Pits again last night, and prioritized Baeloth in the final battle, and it was easy.

If you don't prioritize Baeloth, it can turn into a very nasty battle where attrition is NOT on your side.

Zarakinthish

When I did my final battle with Baeloth, he was actually the last to die. After everyone drank their potion, my fighter/druid cast Insect Plague on Thardek. Why Thardek you might ask? The reason is that by not casting it directly on Baeloth, I avoid the possibility of his magic resistance canceling the spell. In hind sight, I should have cast it on Elan Garaq. In any case, the rest of the battle was fairly simple after that. My frontliners (a fighter/thief and fighter/cleric, both half-orc) focused on Baeloth's friends, while my fighter/druid, fighter/mage, and thief/mage showered Baeloth with poisoned missles of various types with the help of my skald's song.

Boron

I found this fight very difficult compared to the others. I ran it with a party of 6: My PC an avenger, vanilla mage, illusionist, barbarian, archer, priest of talos. i had the 2 mages spam the spell that lowers magic resistance on baeloth while the cleric and PC showered him with dispels. Archer picked at him from far away while the barb went in for a suicide charge (Ice storms). The warrior went down first, but i believe it was from friendly fire nobody was focused on him. Soon enough baeloth went down but I was down to my archer, PC, and illusionist. The Rakasha (sp?) was untouchable by both magic and arrows, but thankfully he was out of spells and his scripting prevented him from coming and cutting us down in melee. At this point the PC and illusionist wore him down slowly with slings for about 20 minutes. Going into melee range resulted in being beat down by his sword, and for some reason giving the sling to the archer made it completely ineffective even though his thac0 was lower than the other two, maybe something to do with alignment? Took me 3 tries and it could have gone better if I had purchased some better items.