I hate fights that I can only ever win by resorting to cheese. So it is Sirines that I dislike the most. If I try fighting them straight I always end up with half my party getting dire charmed and the other half running away from them.
Mage fights in BG2 can be trying. At the start, all their defenses go up so it's a few rounds of removing them. But sometimes their defenses are boosted again mid-way through the fight... then it's a few more rounds of removing them. I almost always have a PC thief who can detect illusions, because it helps remove lots of effects.
Jan Jansen has special glasses that give him 90 percent detect illusions from the start, and you can get him up to 100 at his first thief level-up, if you don't want to have to do the detect illusions with your PC. He gets more handy-dandy thief bonuses from his special equipment, and he can cast mage spells while wearing his special leather armor. I'm a huge Jan Jansen fan.
On the topic, I especially hate lich battles and dragon battles, the battle with the Reaver, and the vanilla battle against Mel. Eye tyrants with their Imprison also give me grief. And illithids. Pretty much everything in the final act of SoA and all of ToB, actually.
In BG1, it's Karoug and the final battle with Sarevok that I dread. Daveaorn can be pretty scary too, with that Ligthning-Fireball-Dire Charm-Monster Summoning script of his. Everything in Durlag's Tower, and sirens.
I guess I've got a lot more than just one "hated" monster to fight in a complete run.
I don't really like killing the Beholder in the Black Pits. Not because he's hard to kill or it's an annoying fight, but because we got along so well until then. Ok, he's trolling me before the Shadow Thief fight (or is it a bug that he specifically tells me I fight undead and should focus on divine magic?), but other than that, his insights are valuable. I don't like killing nice people like him.
You are actually fighting Night Knives which are all Vampires. So yes, they are undead.
O.o That's news to me. They don't react to turn undead, I can hit them with Hold Person and there is no level drain... What's the use of a cleric in that fight then, beyond the things a cleric would do in any other fight?
Fighting xvarts. Xvarts are just in the way, they can’t do much damage or really anything, but they still have to be fought. They’re just plain boring.
I hate fights that I can only ever win by resorting to cheese. So it is Sirines that I dislike the most. If I try fighting them straight I always end up with half my party getting dire charmed and the other half running away from them.
Sirines aren't too bad. Dead easy if you've got Minsc, or the Helmet of Charm Protection. A bit more challenging without, but sending in summons to absorb their charm spells works fantastic.
There is one particular Dead Magic room on the maze level in Watcher's Keep where you have to fight a bunch of Fiends using their innate ability to cause fear. There are also traps in the room before all four portals. Being unable to cast Remove Fear, and any buffs cast before entering being disabled, I usually end us with half my party running around like headless chickens setting off traps, while the others are trying to hold back a bunch of fiends. Grrrrrr......
Fighting xvarts. Xvarts are just in the way, they can’t do much damage or really anything, but they still have to be fought. They’re just plain boring.
Yes. I hate wiping out the Xvart village. If I'm playing a Good Charname it feels like a massacre and is very distasteful. I've done it a just because I know that there is a magic halberd just beyond the village. It is difficult in a crpg to get a good balance between meta gaming and role playing.
Fighting xvarts. Xvarts are just in the way, they can’t do much damage or really anything, but they still have to be fought. They’re just plain boring.
Yes. I hate wiping out the Xvart village. If I'm playing a Good Charname it feels like a massacre and is very distasteful. I've done it a just because I know that there is a magic halberd just beyond the village. It is difficult in a crpg to get a good balance between meta gaming and role playing.
I don't know, I sort of like ripping through the Xvart village.
I don't really like killing the Beholder in the Black Pits. Not because he's hard to kill or it's an annoying fight, but because we got along so well until then. Ok, he's trolling me before the Shadow Thief fight (or is it a bug that he specifically tells me I fight undead and should focus on divine magic?), but other than that, his insights are valuable. I don't like killing nice people like him.
You are actually fighting Night Knives which are all Vampires. So yes, they are undead.
O.o That's news to me. They don't react to turn undead, I can hit them with Hold Person and there is no level drain... What's the use of a cleric in that fight then, beyond the things a cleric would do in any other fight?
BG1: ettercaps, spiders, everything that poisons you BG2: beholders are quite nasty with their rays (without the shield of balduran) ToB: draconis is maybe the hardest dragonbattle in the whole saga and very frustrating opponent
I don't really like killing the Beholder in the Black Pits. Not because he's hard to kill or it's an annoying fight, but because we got along so well until then. Ok, he's trolling me before the Shadow Thief fight (or is it a bug that he specifically tells me I fight undead and should focus on divine magic?), but other than that, his insights are valuable. I don't like killing nice people like him.
You are actually fighting Night Knives which are all Vampires. So yes, they are undead.
O.o That's news to me. They don't react to turn undead, I can hit them with Hold Person and there is no level drain... What's the use of a cleric in that fight then, beyond the things a cleric would do in any other fight?
Hm, still quite misleading to give a hint "use a cleric", if any other hint would be more useful. I did try to find a strategy that puts more emphasis on divine magic (because I trust the Beholder, he's my friend), but nothing worked better than what I usually do. Not saying the cleric was useless, but the most useful "cleric" was a druid casting web. So yeah, thanks for the hint anyway.
Edit: According to Bug Reports, this is indeed a bug and the Beholder isn't supposed to give that hint.
BG & TotSC/BG: EE: -Firewine Ruins, because of the stupid kobolds respawning ERRYWHERE. Those things are sooo lucky that fireball doesn't function like in AD&D 1E, where it'd fill up the remaining volume of a chamber if there isn't enough room for it to do its thing. -Ogre Mage Assassins. They were too easy. Sure, my character would be frozen to the bone if the fight were P&P, but whenever I fight these dudes in BG, I'm like, "Alright, hun, see that cute girl who keeps summoning birds by accident, and the redhead/flamboyant elf/loud gnome? They trained their wands on you and your buddies the minute you started threatening me. Now do you get the power dynamic? Oh, wanna get cute?". And then a few rounds later, I'm a couple of experience points richer, and Vaprak gets some new petitioners! We all come out ahead!
BG II: SoA: Those guys who jump you in the Sewers. Mind, I just root and cloudkill, but still. -Some of the mage fights in the Planar Sphere are less-than-endearing... Abi-Dalzim's horrid wilting in my face.
The fights I hate the most are the ones that start out with my Wife nagging me about all of the time I spend playing Baldur's Gate. They always end up badly and I can't seem to ever win them no matter what I do.
I hate the illithid city. It is by far my least favorite part of both games.
Seconded. I remeber that I actually stopped two playthroughs there (not planned stop, just didn't get back to it for a very long time, than decided to do a new one instead) becasue I just didn't want to do those fights.
I don't see (anymore) the problem with Ilithids.
Chaotic Commands is almost mandatory for these fights.
With this spell, you'll only have to watch your intelligence stats as it is lowered 5 by 5 when you are hit.
other weapons like Lilacor, Carsomyr, Equalizers Blade of Psion make these fights very easy.
There's a tactic to defeat any enemy, although as @Permidion_Stark suggested above (here) (more or less), if you play the game according to a no-meta-gaming approach+role-played, then some fights can be very difficult.
The sirines is a very good example indeed. Unless a party member has relatively high Lore, would they be able to identify that these lovely creatures are sirines? Safana might, from having sailed with pirates. (This is the sort of thing that in my games, when it seems plausible, I roll dice to determine.) But I think it's safe to say that Minsc wouldn't. Etc.
So then, tactically speaking, that fight becomes a different kettle of fish. And that's at least in the same vein as what I think Stark was getting at with the reference to avoiding using cheese tactics.
But otherwise, in a garden variety game where one meta-games and/or uses cheese... I'm trying to think of some, but they all pose a fun challenge in their own way... and the ones that are hard, I tend to appreciate for the fact that they are harder... not coming up with anything, though...
The ones I fear the most are when playing a no-reload game and I lack the ideal resources to combat are any enemy that casts Hold or Horror. Then I'm praying that I can use a missile wand, timed just right, to disrupt the enemy caster at each spellcasting attempt. So that would be foes like Tarnseh, Nimbul, and Neira, early in the game.
The amazon bounty hunters after you leave the Nashkel Mines. At the time my party is mostly level ones with one or two level twos, and those magic arrows and darts hurt. A LOT. I know a Stinking Cloud would make the fight so much easier but I can never find or afford one. Anything else I can handle.
The amazon bounty hunters after you leave the Nashkel Mines. At the time my party is mostly level ones with one or two level twos, and those magic arrows and darts hurt. A LOT. I know a Stinking Cloud would make the fight so much easier but I can never find or afford one. Anything else I can handle.
You know, one of the spell scrolls that is dropped just prior to that encounter (or found in a chest to be specific) is one that I rarely use, but I had forgotten how it works--and it makes all the difference for that fight, provided that you have an arcane caster for it:
I had forgotten that Web results in Hold Person intermittently in addition to keeping targets rooted to their position. That at least makes their ability to attack or spellcast sporadic. And that, in turn, grants the opportunity to cast disabling spells upon them such as Blindness, Charm Person, Command, and Doom (or Glitterdust and Horror if your casters have level 2 spells). They are then easy pickins for ranged weapons. In sum, Web makes this fight a comparative cakewalk to what it is without it.
The amazon bounty hunters after you leave the Nashkel Mines. At the time my party is mostly level ones with one or two level twos, and those magic arrows and darts hurt. A LOT. I know a Stinking Cloud would make the fight so much easier but I can never find or afford one. Anything else I can handle.
Again, why would you (amongst other) want to fight them when you're obviously underpowered compared with them at this moment of the game ? You are not forced to do so when you exit the mine ;-)
Comments
On the topic, I especially hate lich battles and dragon battles, the battle with the Reaver, and the vanilla battle against Mel. Eye tyrants with their Imprison also give me grief. And illithids. Pretty much everything in the final act of SoA and all of ToB, actually.
In BG1, it's Karoug and the final battle with Sarevok that I dread. Daveaorn can be pretty scary too, with that Ligthning-Fireball-Dire Charm-Monster Summoning script of his. Everything in Durlag's Tower, and sirens.
I guess I've got a lot more than just one "hated" monster to fight in a complete run.
But you gotta love Kagain.
Right from PlanetBaldur'sGate, which was right from 2e AD&D.
Wait, they are not vampires, but are not human either. I would guess they would be "Special" then.
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Night_Knives
BG2: beholders are quite nasty with their rays (without the shield of balduran)
ToB: draconis is maybe the hardest dragonbattle in the whole saga and very frustrating opponent
Edit: According to Bug Reports, this is indeed a bug and the Beholder isn't supposed to give that hint.
-Ogre Mage Assassins. They were too easy.
BG II: SoA: Those guys who jump you in the Sewers. Mind, I just root and cloudkill, but still.
-Some of the mage fights in the Planar Sphere are less-than-endearing... Abi-Dalzim's horrid wilting in my face.
Did you mean "badly" in the same terms Viconia understands this word? The fights you talk about... personally I like them!
Chaotic Commands is almost mandatory for these fights.
With this spell, you'll only have to watch your intelligence stats as it is lowered 5 by 5 when you are hit.
other weapons like Lilacor, Carsomyr, Equalizers Blade of Psion make these fights very easy.
The sirines is a very good example indeed. Unless a party member has relatively high Lore, would they be able to identify that these lovely creatures are sirines? Safana might, from having sailed with pirates. (This is the sort of thing that in my games, when it seems plausible, I roll dice to determine.) But I think it's safe to say that Minsc wouldn't. Etc.
So then, tactically speaking, that fight becomes a different kettle of fish. And that's at least in the same vein as what I think Stark was getting at with the reference to avoiding using cheese tactics.
But otherwise, in a garden variety game where one meta-games and/or uses cheese... I'm trying to think of some, but they all pose a fun challenge in their own way... and the ones that are hard, I tend to appreciate for the fact that they are harder... not coming up with anything, though...
The ones I fear the most are when playing a no-reload game and I lack the ideal resources to combat are any enemy that casts Hold or Horror. Then I'm praying that I can use a missile wand, timed just right, to disrupt the enemy caster at each spellcasting attempt. So that would be foes like Tarnseh, Nimbul, and Neira, early in the game.
Second used to be Firewine but I just stopped doing it except: