Question about Ascension... *Spoilers*
Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask.
I am about to finish chapter 6 of SoA (Waiting on Edwin's quest line, right now he is still a she). I will then be moving onto Chapter 7 and then to ToB.
I have played through both a couple of times now so I was wondering if I should install this ascension mod that I have heard about.
Some things sound cool:
Forced Sarevok and Imoen talks: I have always missed these and never been able to get Sarevok to change allignment.
Sword of Chaos: Giving Sarevok the Sword of Chaos now (slightly) boosts it stats and you get some added banter from Sarevok about it.
Chance to get the LG Monk not to attack you: This sounds quite cool, I never liked fighting him.
Improved Illasera fight: Excellent, the original is LAME!
Bhaal Spawn powers: Sounds kinda cool aswell.
Some things I am not fussed either way:
Increased difficulty in the other Bhaal spawn fight: I guess thats OK, I am not to fussed either way.
Something that is TOTALY putting me off using it:
Final battle: Bringing Jon and Bohdi back? I REALLY dislike this, seems to really irk me from an RP stand point. Brining the other spawn back... Kinda lame... Really? Just throwing EVERYTHING at you because OMGWOULDNTITBE COOLIFWEFOUGHTEVERYTHINGATONCE!!!!111! It seems really un-imaginative to me, like its there for 12 year olds and power games to get off on. I am surprised they didn't throw in Kangaxx and Firkraag in aswell.
What opinions do people have on this mod? Is it good? Is there a way to install it without ruining (In my opinion) the final fight?
I am about to finish chapter 6 of SoA (Waiting on Edwin's quest line, right now he is still a she). I will then be moving onto Chapter 7 and then to ToB.
I have played through both a couple of times now so I was wondering if I should install this ascension mod that I have heard about.
Some things sound cool:
Forced Sarevok and Imoen talks: I have always missed these and never been able to get Sarevok to change allignment.
Sword of Chaos: Giving Sarevok the Sword of Chaos now (slightly) boosts it stats and you get some added banter from Sarevok about it.
Chance to get the LG Monk not to attack you: This sounds quite cool, I never liked fighting him.
Improved Illasera fight: Excellent, the original is LAME!
Bhaal Spawn powers: Sounds kinda cool aswell.
Some things I am not fussed either way:
Increased difficulty in the other Bhaal spawn fight: I guess thats OK, I am not to fussed either way.
Something that is TOTALY putting me off using it:
Final battle: Bringing Jon and Bohdi back? I REALLY dislike this, seems to really irk me from an RP stand point. Brining the other spawn back... Kinda lame... Really? Just throwing EVERYTHING at you because OMGWOULDNTITBE COOLIFWEFOUGHTEVERYTHINGATONCE!!!!111! It seems really un-imaginative to me, like its there for 12 year olds and power games to get off on. I am surprised they didn't throw in Kangaxx and Firkraag in aswell.
What opinions do people have on this mod? Is it good? Is there a way to install it without ruining (In my opinion) the final fight?
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Comments
So! You can control what is and isn't added to the game.
Her vampire self was totally destroyed, stake through the heart, turning to dust, etc.
Even if you did somehow find a part of her that you could use for ressurection, you would be bringing back her live elven self, NOT her vampiric self, and that would only work if her soul wanted to/had a choice about coming back.
It just doesn't work!
You have the option as evil to bring her to fight for you, while the good alignment can end up with balthazar. Ascension handles it very well story wise IMO.
And i'm sorry to say but there are so many flaws in the game if you look at it from that point of view.
I don't want to spoil you too much but me along with many other people don't play ToB without Ascension. It is such a great mod and it repairs some of the stuff they did to the original ending. ´
And for the part with bringing Irenicus and Bhodi back : Bhodi is he antagonist through early to mid game and after that Irenicus takes over as the antagonist for the rest of the game. Those two people are probably the stuff CHARNAME got nightmares about, why wouldn't you bring back those two?
But seriously, I don't play ToB without it either.
@Orchestration
If you want difficulty done in a tasteful and strictly non-cheesy, non-cheating way, you should definitely check out SCS and SCSII. SCSII should certainly make Illasera a more respectable foe [1]. You won't get the extras from Ascension (which you said you were interested in), but the stuff about Sarevok/Imoen, Balthasar and the final ToB battle all come as a single item. The additional Bhaalpowers are available from Unfinished Business if you are interested.
1. Ascension makes her difficult by throwing undroppable equipment at her that would pretty much be game-breakingly powerful if the player were to obtain it.
- She has a bunch of spurious immunities and abilities, like invisibility detection, poison resistance and immunity to stun, sleep, instant death, charm, intelligence drain and fear.
- Her HP is about the double of the legal amount, even if she were to have rolled max at all opportunities.
- She has a 4 point bonus to AC.
- She has 50 % MR.
- She has a 2 point luck bonus (+2 to hit and minimum weapon damage, and she takes e.g., d4 damage instead of d6 damage from spells and certain other sources).
- She is wearing magical armour and a ring of protection at the same time.
- She is an archer, yet she is wearing metal armour.
- She in an archer, yet she is specialised in daggers.
- Her bows (she has 3) give her 1 APR more than a normal bow would and have infinite ammunition. They are also +9 to hit and damage, but she should have +6 from being an archer, so this is only a problem if she is not really an archer.
- Bow #1: Dispels, causes 40 % casting failure and temporarily lowers MR by 5 % each hit.
- Bow #2: Causes an extra 10 points of magic damage each hit. heals Illasera by 10 points and raises her max HP by 5 points. Also causes stun and slow (save at -4 against petrify/polymorph to avoid).
- Bow #3: Causes 2d10 extra magic damage and lowers target's THAC0 each hit (save at -4 against paralyze/poison/death for half damage and no THAC0 penalty). Also causes sleep (save at -4 to avoid) and knockback on the target (save at -6 to avoid).
- She can go ethereal up to 5 times. Naturally, this is uninterruptible.
- She can cast uninterruptible Cure Critical Wounds 2 times.
- She lacks Called Shot. I guess after all the cheese, Gaider didn't think that puny ability was worth the effort.
Some of this you could chalk up to her being a Bhaalspawn. Other things (notably the HP) is not all that unusual for enemies, especially when "difficult" is part of the mission. Whether all of it is acceptable is of course a matter of opinion. Personally, I strongly prefer honest difficulty (á la SCS) and think mods like Ascension and Tactics are cheap and cheesy in how they do it.(Yaga-Shura and Abazigal I am willing to cut some slack, since one's a magically enhanced giant and the other is a dragon, and Sendai is not modified by Ascension, but Balthazar is an even greater cheese fest. The final-battle versions of them are different from the regular version, but replete with corniness as well.)
and anyone who asks why you would bring back Bodhi as an Elvish Ladie. I have only one thing to say. Darla!!!
Is there a way I could get just these two things? Sarevok is different, his soul still exists, it is in with the essance of Bhaal but the link between the two of you is enough to reform it/draw it to you, to some degree. There is a soul for a physical shell to form around.
Vampire Bodhi has no soul and her body is totally destroyed, there is NOTHING to bring back.
SCS has some much more challenging components than Ascension does. Improved mages in SCS is much more difficult than anything ascension can throw at you.
A mage can solo through ascension on insane. Mages are powerful so ofcourse this isn't that much of a statement, but when you reach ascension you should be as high level with a party of 4-6 as you are with the mage.
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1.) She always had many immunities, this is so you won't one shot her and think "Well... That's anti climatic"
2.) She needed more HP To start with as if you have 2-3 fighters with 10 APR And critical strike she would go down in a few seconds.
3.) 4 AC bonus and 50% magic resistance is less than the monk gets, and with lower resistance + your high AC end game it's not a problem.
4.) The point about ring of protection and being an archer is illegal but doesn't change the difficulty.
5.) Bows are weak in BG2 so that she gets an uber bow will still be worse than if she had a Ravager +6.
6.) With positioning she won't be going after your casters and only the fighters so MR drain isn't a problem. Also with absolute immunity /PfMW you're immune to all her shots. Mages can solo this fight so the magic part isn't a problem.
7.) 10 extra damage isn't that much, and she will never outheal your party with those shots. The slow and stun will get removed by free action and chaotic commands.
8.) All of those status effect she uses can be made immune to except knockback which really isn't all that bad.
9.) Ethereal is annoying but not a gamebreaker unless you're talking about the succubus in Durlag's tower
10.) Cure critical wounds heals her for 27 points of damage. One critical hit from a weapon will null this effect.
Ascension requires a certain amount of Meta gaming, but this has been true for everything in the original game too. The thing with ascension is that it's END GAME so by the time you fight her you'll have the best gear in the whole game. The normal melissan was such a pushover and having a full team of 4-6 with the best gear in the game and close to highest level, you could steamroll her easily. Ascension just made a very easy and quite boring turn into an interesting one, even for the power gamers.
I'm sure that the ogre mage at the start of Irenicus dungeon with SCS improved mage has killed much more people than ascension Melissan.
Do you think it's easy to compensate the experience and intelligence of a player w/o giving NPCs a boost like that?
David managed, with his SCS/SCSII, to improve their AI with amazing results.
Still, NPCs will never outsmart a good player. That's the problem.
So you can accept that your enemies have something unique that you can not have (finding as many RPwise reasons as you want), or you can abandon the hope to find a challenge in the next fight.
And talking about ToB... You are supposed to walk a path to divinity, defeating demi-gods and entire armies... What did you expect?
As for this Bodhi thing. Amelyssan is nearly a goddess by that point, she has power over everything that influences and has been influenced by Bhaal's taint (excluding Charname, ofc). Bringing back a strong vampire that shared this taint should be an easy and wise move to stop Charname. Her body should have been destroyed? Sarevok's body even became dust. Her soul shouldn't exist? Sure, but we're talking about the taint that touched her.
Should I remind you that when Irenicus stole Charname's soul he could still transform into the Slayer because of the taint? The soul has nothing to do in this matter, imo.
Of course, SCSII does do it remarkably less than other comparable mods but I think you are overemphasising the difference a little. And part of the reason the difference is less for TOB sections is because DavidW has designed SCSII to be installed with Ascension if you want the most challenge (just like his improvements on Bodhi and Irenicus are built on tactics, which was another mod following this "old-school" philosophy). Not that you can't prefer what you prefer, I prefer DavidW's approach generally as well, but I think his own mod shows he would agree these older mods still brought some things of value to the table.
SCS mages are incredible fun to fight against, and they are very clever. Also those ambushes by the thugs in SoA can murder your party with backstabs for 50 damage each.
It's not out of the realm of possibility for you to have to fight them, since Big Angry is basically pulling all your previous foes out to fight you anyway. But there is no real way to make them on your side since their whole reason for existence at that point is to fight you. What little speck of divine essence you have is all that protects her from just unmaking you and the whole party with a thought.
I do agree that some of the fights are pretty cheesy and should be re-worked, since being a Bhaalspawn can only be taken so far as an excuse. Especially since your character is technically the strongest and didn't get $%#^ for powers. Even the advanced powers are pretty lack luster compared to some of the crap the other BS can pull (but at least do go a long to make you feel special, rather then just a normal character with a last resort anti-demilich, door opening power).
But if some mad genius should ever create a mod that gives NPCs extra-long scripts, making them able to handle and counter players tactics, well... I would prefer it.
As a do everything-possible, explore-every-cranny, open-every-chest kind of player, i'm usually close to max level and geared extremely powerfully by time I hit TOB's endgame; as such the enjoyment i've pulled from Ascension over the last near decade has been from it adding depth to an otherwise shallow experience.