Nabasu is a kind of demon. Not nearly as bad as a real Pit Fiend, which would have cast Fireball at your party constantly until you were all 100% crispy.
Next time have Ajantis cast Protection from Evil on himself (the Paladin innate power). This will make him invisible to the summoned demon.
I certainly would have, if I had known that, and if somebody hadn't inconveniently cast hold person on Ajantis right as Nabasu appeared.
If Nabasu isn't exactly a Pit Fiend, does anybody know the appropriate amount of XP for smiting Nabasu?
I mean, I want to at least be precise if I'm to go around second-guessing the mechanics of handing out XP in this game.
I am kind of curious as to how a potion of fire-breathing killed a Pit Fiend. I would think by it's nature it would be immune to fire of all sorts, or at least resistant.
As has been said though, no XP for summonables. Which makes sense even in the extreme situation you describe. Otherwise a hearty and prepared group could simply cast pro from evil and then summon monsters all day long just to kill them for the XP.
I remember once in PnP, my wizard tried that. He memorized several summon spells and tried to cast them to level up. I argued with my DM, but he wouldn't budge. In the end I got his point. It becomes an endless source of XP otherwise.
anyway, good story. At least you came away with it knowing that you survived the attack. Way to go.
I was thinking about that potion of fire-breathing this morning. I'm fairly positive that's what did in the Pit Fiend, but it's possible that it simply coincided with an ice arrow from Imoen. Wish I had kept the transcript to check.
I totally agree on no XP when you 1) intentionally cast a summon spell and then 2) intentionally attack the summons. That's just ripe for exploitation.
It just seems different when you 1) randomly summon a creature through a wild surge and then 2) the creature attacks you without your having a say in the matter.
Yes, in theory that could still be exploited. You could have Neera cast dweomers to trigger surges, rest, cast, rest, etc. Eventually you would likely see a pit demon, and if you were prepared with protection from evil, take it down. It's just much, much more difficult to do so when that event is random and rare and is different only in degree with farming standard monster spawns.
If a player wants to break the standard leveling and thus difficulty of sequential areas, it's really on them. That's the beauty of an open game system like Baldur's Gate.
I'm not saying this is a bug devs need to spend time "fixing," because it's a very rare thing. I personally might add XP to my characters because it seems like it would make sense to earn XP for this. But if others think, no, XP isn't justified, bully for them.
It's not a big deal to just use Shadowkeeper to add experience you feel you should have earned that the game didn't award. But keep in mind this is an important mechanism you're over-riding. This would be the mother of all exploits if you could get experience for all your own summons. This is the sort of thing that's far easier to deal with in PnP; a DM may rule that various summons and gate spells simply don't function (violates some sort of cosmic karma or something) if the caster is summoning things for experience harvesting. While the same DM might rule that a gated Demon that turns into a colossal battle yields maybe partial experience. The CRPG sees less nuance, and just applies a blanket rule of no experience for summons.
For all that though, I do congratulate the OP for actually fighting through that battle and dealing with the consequences. Honestly, the few times I've seen Neera gate in something like that I hit reload without even trying to deal with it. I keep telling myself it could be fun to play through it; but naturally, it only happens at the worst possible times, so I haven't played it out yet. So really, Grakkel, awesome story and thank you for sharing it with us!
I am kind of curious as to how a potion of fire-breathing killed a Pit Fiend. I would think by it's nature it would be immune to fire of all sorts, or at least resistant.
Hmmm. Searching for the XP of a Nabasu, I found a variety of numbers, but they're all from Pathfinder's Tome of Horrors, so hard to say that's comparable. They have one reference to 4800 XP, another to around 9600, and I think about 3600 for a Nabasu demonling. But they also have 300,000 or so XP for a pit fiend, whereas I found D&D references to 12,500 XP for a pit fiend. So really, anybody's guess.
Do Nabasu show up anywhere else, perhaps in BG2, where some actual XP amounts might be recorded?
It's one thing for me to pencil some extra XP for the experience, another just to make up some random number. I'm not really comfortable with that unless there's a decent source for the amount.
For all that though, I do congratulate the OP for actually fighting through that battle and dealing with the consequences. Honestly, the few times I've seen Neera gate in something like that I hit reload without even trying to deal with it. I keep telling myself it could be fun to play through it; but naturally, it only happens at the worst possible times, so I haven't played it out yet. So really, Grakkel, awesome story and thank you for sharing it with us!
It was super fun, and my most memorable moment from this playthrough so far. I figured I had to at least make a go of it, as my characters are decently powerful. Doing so while another band of adventurers were trying to assassinate my CHARNAME just made it extra interesting.
I think I forgot to mention that one of the assassins (Molkar?) decided to help me kill the Pit Fiend in the midst of the battle. I thought it was such a nice touch that a NPC decided, wait, the bigger threat is that giant demon thing right now.
@Grakkel - the unfortunate fact is that it is a computer game. There is only so many situations that the programmers can anticipate and program for. I agree that it is analogous to a really bad random encounter, but as you say it is still possible to exploit. and as atcDave indicated, simply shadowkeeper in the XP if you feel that strongly about it.
@Nifft - I don't know my lower planes monsters enough to be able to tell the difference. It seems to me six of one and half a dozen of the other, but I take your word that there is a difference in resistances.
It's Nabassu, with 2 "s". Btw it's hard to say how much xp you should get for killing one, it depends on its level. Consider that Aec'Letec is a Nabassu itself and it's worth 16k xp.
@Nifft - I don't know my lower planes monsters enough to be able to tell the difference. It seems to me six of one and half a dozen of the other, but I take your word that there is a difference in resistances.
Yuppers. Also in what spells it can cast, its HP, AC, and generally its power level. Also, of course, a Pit Fiend is a devil, which is a different "species" from demons in D&D.
@Grakkel - the unfortunate fact is that it is a computer game. There is only so many situations that the programmers can anticipate and program for. I agree that it is analogous to a really bad random encounter, but as you say it is still possible to exploit. and as atcDave indicated, simply shadowkeeper in the XP if you feel that strongly about it.
I want to be really clear that I'm not miffed about this. I'm glad that the devs made a great game system that allows this sort of random and memorable encounter to occur. This event was rare, and I don't think many people will run into it, so there is a large list of other more important things for the devs to work on as opposed to this, which certainly could be exploited, and thus "fixing" it may or may not be a good idea.
The title of the post implies more anger and disappointment than the mix of bemusement, awe, desperation and a titch of frustration that I actually felt in the moment.
Yeah, the best option is Shadowkeeper if I want to do something, which I may or may not do, since it's unclear what the appropriate XP would be if XP were appropriate.
Thanks for the guideline of 10k XP, @SpaceInvader. Just curious, what's the source of that number? Not questioning that it's the appropriate amount, just curious.
LOL. BG1 XP is insane anyway. I am playing BG2 ATM and the first time I scribed a scroll I was like @#@#, I get HOW much XP? Pick a lock and you get 450, which isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things at that level but it is much more than the 10 you get in BG.
LOL. BG1 XP is insane anyway. I am playing BG2 ATM and the first time I scribed a scroll I was like @#@#, I get HOW much XP? Pick a lock and you get 450, which isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things at that level but it is much more than the 10 you get in BG.
Try that while playing BGT. You get the BG1 experience for locks, etc. through the entire saga. Getting 90 XP for learning Absolute Immunity doesn't exactly move the needle.
You only get experience for enemies that provide some sort of challenge to kill. I mean, you wouldn't get experience for smashing a chair, right? Why would you get some for fighting a giant demon?
As per @SpaceInvader's guidance on the XP for Nabassu in BG2, I manually added 10K XP, or 2K XP per surviving party member, to recognize their glorious deeds in vanquishing a demon accidentally summoned and subsequently intent on seeking their death.
As for the "most powerful enemy vanquished" for my cleric/illusionist, that will remain unfixed. He knows. I know it. That's good enough for me. This may or may not be because the most promising suggestion was to change the demnabsu.cre file, and when I tried to look at it, the code terrified me more than the Nabassu did.
Wasn't a pit fiend, as there is no way your party would have beaten one of those. A pit fiend is the demon a lich gates in, and if it was indeed that one, then you're probably the luckiest person on this board.
Back in the vanilla game and such you could gate in a demon and kill it for experience, i did this on my cleric and just used 2 bolts of glory and then got my 18 000 (Or something like that, can't remember). There is a reason they changed this, and now you don't get any experience from summoned creatures anymore.
I can understand your pain, but when you're that high level, 2 000 experience each really isn't that much. I'm sure it's possible to edit so you get XP for summoned creatures.
Wasn't a pit fiend, as there is no way your party would have beaten one of those. A pit fiend is the demon a lich gates in, and if it was indeed that one, then you're probably the luckiest person on this board.
Back in the vanilla game and such you could gate in a demon and kill it for experience, i did this on my cleric and just used 2 bolts of glory and then got my 18 000 (Or something like that, can't remember). There is a reason they changed this, and now you don't get any experience from summoned creatures anymore.
I can understand your pain, but when you're that high level, 2 000 experience each really isn't that much. I'm sure it's possible to edit so you get XP for summoned creatures.
Yes, it was a Nabussa rather than a proper pit fiend, despite Neera's dialogue. I did edit in the XP as a one-time DM ruling, since this wasn't an intentional summoning.
Also, it depends on where the extra-planar creature was killed - if on the Prime Material, then one gets the lesser amount of XP, because all that killing does is banish them back to their plane of origin, normally for a set amount of time. Killing them on their plane of origin normally gives you the bigger XP amount, because that permanently destroys them.
And in this case, normally one should get the lesser amount of XP. It is not a deliberate attempt to summon a Nabussa demon! It is the result of a miscast spell. This is NOT the same as a Summons spell, because the creature that is brought in (I believe that in this case it is actually a Gate-type of effect, and not a Summons-type because we are dealing with extra-planar beings here) was brought in accidentally, with absolutely no protections or rituals active to help control it.
Thus, one is actually really facing a true, uncontrolled Nabussa demon, exactly as one would if it had been gated in by either one of it's own kind, or some other method or being and you had to fight it.
One has no chance of attempting to bring it under control, or being able to dismiss it according to a proper Gate-type effect.
It would be like activating an item, without realizing that it would gate in extra-planar monster X. If defeated, it should grant XP.
Attempting to farm Summons, on the other hand...that is obviously a deliberate, set-up event that one has take steps to have all advantages beforehand. This means that the actual defeat of said monster does not have the same XP value as encountering one without such advantages. Thus, one should not be getting much, if any, XP, as the experience does nothing to help advance one's abilities to defeat said monster in a normal environment, under normal conditions.
While I understand the intent of not giving XP for summons, I find it silly. Again, balance in a single-player game is unnecessary. If someone was willing to start the game in candlekeep, summon a beastie, kill it, rest and reload until they maxed XP, I say let them. What do I care if they choose to make every battle a cake-walk (until the late game ones).
Then, again, the reverse argument could be made (essentially): since there is an XP cap, you'll get all of your XP - just not yet.
http://lomion.de/cmm/tanagnab.php here is the stats for a Nabassu, according to PnP. Aecletec is a Nabassu as well, with its dreaded Death gaze. It says it requires a save vs spells, but back in BG1 it required a save vs death. I still did not fight it in BG:EE so I don't know what save it uses.
The nabassu you summon via spell or wild surge does not have death gaze, IIRC, but can hold person and vampiric touch.
Comments
If Nabasu isn't exactly a Pit Fiend, does anybody know the appropriate amount of XP for smiting Nabasu?
I mean, I want to at least be precise if I'm to go around second-guessing the mechanics of handing out XP in this game.
As has been said though, no XP for summonables. Which makes sense even in the extreme situation you describe. Otherwise a hearty and prepared group could simply cast pro from evil and then summon monsters all day long just to kill them for the XP.
I remember once in PnP, my wizard tried that. He memorized several summon spells and tried to cast them to level up. I argued with my DM, but he wouldn't budge. In the end I got his point. It becomes an endless source of XP otherwise.
anyway, good story. At least you came away with it knowing that you survived the attack. Way to go.
I totally agree on no XP when you 1) intentionally cast a summon spell and then 2) intentionally attack the summons. That's just ripe for exploitation.
It just seems different when you 1) randomly summon a creature through a wild surge and then 2) the creature attacks you without your having a say in the matter.
Yes, in theory that could still be exploited. You could have Neera cast dweomers to trigger surges, rest, cast, rest, etc. Eventually you would likely see a pit demon, and if you were prepared with protection from evil, take it down. It's just much, much more difficult to do so when that event is random and rare and is different only in degree with farming standard monster spawns.
If a player wants to break the standard leveling and thus difficulty of sequential areas, it's really on them. That's the beauty of an open game system like Baldur's Gate.
I'm not saying this is a bug devs need to spend time "fixing," because it's a very rare thing. I personally might add XP to my characters because it seems like it would make sense to earn XP for this. But if others think, no, XP isn't justified, bully for them.
But keep in mind this is an important mechanism you're over-riding. This would be the mother of all exploits if you could get experience for all your own summons. This is the sort of thing that's far easier to deal with in PnP; a DM may rule that various summons and gate spells simply don't function (violates some sort of cosmic karma or something) if the caster is summoning things for experience harvesting. While the same DM might rule that a gated Demon that turns into a colossal battle yields maybe partial experience.
The CRPG sees less nuance, and just applies a blanket rule of no experience for summons.
For all that though, I do congratulate the OP for actually fighting through that battle and dealing with the consequences. Honestly, the few times I've seen Neera gate in something like that I hit reload without even trying to deal with it. I keep telling myself it could be fun to play through it; but naturally, it only happens at the worst possible times, so I haven't played it out yet. So really, Grakkel, awesome story and thank you for sharing it with us!
Do Nabasu show up anywhere else, perhaps in BG2, where some actual XP amounts might be recorded?
It's one thing for me to pencil some extra XP for the experience, another just to make up some random number. I'm not really comfortable with that unless there's a decent source for the amount.
I think I forgot to mention that one of the assassins (Molkar?) decided to help me kill the Pit Fiend in the midst of the battle. I thought it was such a nice touch that a NPC decided, wait, the bigger threat is that giant demon thing right now.
@Nifft - I don't know my lower planes monsters enough to be able to tell the difference. It seems to me six of one and half a dozen of the other, but I take your word that there is a difference in resistances.
Btw it's hard to say how much xp you should get for killing one, it depends on its level.
Consider that Aec'Letec is a Nabassu itself and it's worth 16k xp.
Let's say that in general:
Nabassu 10k xp
Glabrezu 12k xp
Pit Fiend 16k xp
Balor 26k xp
Some of them can have different stats and xp
Oh, you did...
The title of the post implies more anger and disappointment than the mix of bemusement, awe, desperation and a titch of frustration that I actually felt in the moment.
Yeah, the best option is Shadowkeeper if I want to do something, which I may or may not do, since it's unclear what the appropriate XP would be if XP were appropriate.
Thanks for the guideline of 10k XP, @SpaceInvader. Just curious, what's the source of that number? Not questioning that it's the appropriate amount, just curious.
I'm playing through SCS for the first time, and I am CONSTANTLY saying to myself "I get that LITTLE xp for this!?"
As for the "most powerful enemy vanquished" for my cleric/illusionist, that will remain unfixed. He knows. I know it. That's good enough for me. This may or may not be because the most promising suggestion was to change the demnabsu.cre file, and when I tried to look at it, the code terrified me more than the Nabassu did.
Thanks for all your help, folks! Jolly good fun!
That seems fair. If I were DM, I'd allow it (just this once).
Back in the vanilla game and such you could gate in a demon and kill it for experience, i did this on my cleric and just used 2 bolts of glory and then got my 18 000 (Or something like that, can't remember). There is a reason they changed this, and now you don't get any experience from summoned creatures anymore.
I can understand your pain, but when you're that high level, 2 000 experience each really isn't that much. I'm sure it's possible to edit so you get XP for summoned creatures.
And in this case, normally one should get the lesser amount of XP. It is not a deliberate attempt to summon a Nabussa demon! It is the result of a miscast spell. This is NOT the same as a Summons spell, because the creature that is brought in (I believe that in this case it is actually a Gate-type of effect, and not a Summons-type because we are dealing with extra-planar beings here) was brought in accidentally, with absolutely no protections or rituals active to help control it.
Thus, one is actually really facing a true, uncontrolled Nabussa demon, exactly as one would if it had been gated in by either one of it's own kind, or some other method or being and you had to fight it.
One has no chance of attempting to bring it under control, or being able to dismiss it according to a proper Gate-type effect.
It would be like activating an item, without realizing that it would gate in extra-planar monster X. If defeated, it should grant XP.
Attempting to farm Summons, on the other hand...that is obviously a deliberate, set-up event that one has take steps to have all advantages beforehand. This means that the actual defeat of said monster does not have the same XP value as encountering one without such advantages. Thus, one should not be getting much, if any, XP, as the experience does nothing to help advance one's abilities to defeat said monster in a normal environment, under normal conditions.
Then, again, the reverse argument could be made (essentially): since there is an XP cap, you'll get all of your XP - just not yet.
The nabassu you summon via spell or wild surge does not have death gaze, IIRC, but can hold person and vampiric touch.