What was your worst defeat? (Survey #3)
Dee
Member Posts: 10,447
Tell us the story of your worst failure, and how you dealt with it.
Not every great story is a story of success. We want to know about the awful desperate moment when you realized you were going to fail. It could be a story moment, or simply a combat encounter that got out of hand. Did you reload, or carry on with gritted teeth?Why are we asking this question?
Throughout the month of December we’ll be asking a lot of questions about your experience with these games. We’ll post a new thread when there’s a new question to answer, and we’ll be reading (though not necessarily commenting on) your responses and discussion.We're looking for things about Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition that grabbed you, that made you sit up on the edge of your seat, that made you think "Yes, this, give me more of this!"
Me personally, I’m hoping it will make for some interesting holiday reading. But you also never know who might be reading along, looking for ideas…
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Damnit."
*reloaded 30 min old save game*
Probably my worst "defeat" was the Ogre Mage at Firewine Bridge. Killed everyone except my Mage/Thief (winning that one was a story in itself, scrambling from corpse to corpse using gear from fallen party members until finishing them off, but bleh).
I didn't actually have any money, and there was no way he could carry everyone's gear, so he heads north, runs straight into a squad of assassins and finally finishes them off with a few hitpoints to spare after a running battle that lasted for two in-game hours.
Finally he made his way back through Firewine dungeon itself, with virtually no resources, having discovered that there weren't actually any shops in Gullykin to sell for any money for raise dead (he'd just blown everything on a robe of the archmagi and a mountain of scrolls, as was his wont) he then ran into a wandering swordmaster, killed him and stole his stuff, then went West to find Durlag's Tower.
After vending everything he could to the seedy merchant there, he managed to make his way back to Firewine, back to Gullykin, and raise Kagain, whose regenerative hairy arse assisted in carting more loot to sell....
All in all it took days of travel, skin-of-the-teeth solo combats and stopping back off at Firewine to keep everything from despawning before everyone was finally back on their feet and alive.
After the second miserable defeat that turned into 'ok, what is this.. how did I just get owned? Time to pull out all the stops'. I go into the fight again trying to keep track of exactly everything, but it doesn't work. Aec is healing himself and coming back up, and my party members are turning against me. Around that moment I realized it wasn't just my lack of focus; the battle seemed unwinnable. I started pondering if I'd missed out on some secret part of the game, or failed to pick up an item that would have helped me.
In the end, I dealt with it in the tried-and-true fashion of hitting it again. It ended up taking several attempts more, and forced me to really observe what was happening, devote an entire attempt to his debuff and change up my tactics several times over. All in all, it was great - though you learn to appreciate the game in various new ways over the years, that particular feeling of being stumped and overcoming it does not return easily.
Bronze medal: The Ravager in ToB. Before him, I had played all of SoA up to the Reaver with about 5 reloads at most. Suddenly, I hit a brick wall. That number went from less than five to at least twenty.
Silver medal: The final battle of ToB, without Ascension. Gaaa, eye tyrants, eye tyrants, more eye tyrants! I had to resort to turning the difficulty slider to easy, (which stops the eye tyrants from spawning), and placing about twenty spike traps at you-know-who's last known spawn location, learned from several reloads, before I finally got to see the end epilogues, after at least ten reloads. This was the only time I ever beat ToB. I have not been in a hurry to repeat the experience.
Gold medal: The final battle with Sarevok in BG1. After at least two dozen replays over fifteen years, this is the battle that still fills me with ultimate dread. I don't think I've ever beaten it with the difficulty slider on Core. Semaj's tattoo, Angelo's arrows of detonation, Tazok, and Sarevok's haste with ability to rip through AC as though it were toilet paper. Two battle horrors if you don't find the pressure plates before all hell breaks loose.
The last time I beat it, it took three reloads with the slider on "easy", and some lucky dice rolls.
People who say "blah, it's easy" after memorizing some exact sequence of actions that control the encounter, just leave me shaking my head. I don't want to beat an encounter by metagamingly memorizing a sequence of actions - I want to beat it "fairly".
Honestly, to this day, I often just stop in front of those dreaded Temple of Bhaal doors, and export-import straight into SoA from there. If the game were real, Sarevok and I would be locked in eternal struggle, the snake eating its own tail, and I'd never even experience or know all of SoA and ToB.
Back in the vanilla days, I loved to cheese fights and during my first play through of SoA I had this down to a science of edging slowly forward in stealth, waiting for an enemy to appear stopping and then having a mage or two drop an AOE from a distance.
During the Windspear Hills dungeon crawl, I perfected this tactic. I finally made it down to the boss chamber while I slowly advanced Yoshimo in hiding until I saw the sprite of a mage, blue circled with no buffs. PERFECT. Move my casters up, drop a couple of fireballs and maybe even a holy smite I maybe able to drop him before he dialogs and chains up.
The deed was done, he took a beating but still survived. No problem. . . . WTF is that coming at me... oh crap. You have to be kidding me, I have to fight a mage AND a dragon at the same time. Seriously. Oh damn. Yoshimo was too close, dead now. OK, start breaching the mage, summon monsters to keep the dragon busy... why are all my guys being knocked back and out. All my spells miscast dammit. Crap Minsc just got chunked. Aerie's dead. No... no... Oh... ffs... thats it! Sorry Garren, I am not putting up with this crap, your daughter is staying here, I'm leaving.
This one defeat made me rethink the tactics I used.
It was bad.
Black Pits 2: Vampire fight. I was laughing to myself when I saw the vampires in the prep room after just having spotted Azuredge in the store. That one is going to be easy, I'll have my berserker with GM in axes taking them out 2-3 per round, maybe throw in a greater malison to lower their saves even more, have my blackguard be a support tank to soak up some damage and let my priest cast 2 sunrays. Wait, why are they swarming past my tank and going after my casters? Ooookay so blackguards are immune to level drain but not to charm? Good to know but please stop hurting your friends now! Time stop? Horrid Wiltings? Oh sh#t... Took 4 attempts to beat that one...
This darn Fire Giant in the Black Pits...
The first time I beat it, just barely, I still had the Fire Elementals to deal with... And the only one alive was my mage, who didn't have a magical weapon or enough spells left to kill them all, swinging at them with a wooden stick at 12 or so strength is totally useful... And I didn't want to cheat, wanted to beat the thing fairly... So it was just dying at the elementals and reloading to try again.
Oh, dragons have an innate ability to cast fear? Besides other nasty abilities. Wing Buffets. And teeth, and claws. Oooops...
I returned later in the game. Much later. With a much better plan.
Once I was convinced by a friend (who is a noob to this game, anyway) to play a Druid, things wen't wrong, and, well....
Talking seriously, I think it was Jon Irenicus from Ascension with SCS (OK, it was difficult indeed), he casted away waaaaaaaaaaaaaay so many spells I don't how I killed him (I still trying against the FIve ;( me no good without cheese), then, as I don't think the work by @DavidW counts, lets move to the one that gave me more trouble (but I want to tell @belgarathmth that I think that the creature he is referring is the Ravager, also, I copied his idea, a good example I would call it :P) @Skaffen I think the vampire battle in BP2 was the easiest of all, those Drow and the sorcerer with his elemental were the pain for me.
I will talk about the worst defeat, not the battle I made the most reloads, in that case, it would be against the Illusionary Werewolves in the Circus' tent, becasue in the BG2:EE version for iPad (beta v.1.2.2031), becasue the werewolves did Vorpal Hits, with no save.
@Montresor_SP I killed the Shadow Dragon in a similar way, but my plan worked, I didn't had Stoneskin even and I caster Haste in the middle of the battle.
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The Third Most Horrible Defeat Ever (without counting the one Jon Irenicus gave me in the Throne of Blood with Ascension and SCS, nor anything with Ascension and SCS together, which is amazingly complicated to beat):THE DEMILICH IN WATCHER'S KEEP (yeah, dat asshole), I couldn't beat him legally (aka I used thief traps, like I did with Demogorgon), never, having Spell Immunity: Abjuration and Death Ward, putting contingencies with 3 ADHW to self (he is a Demilich, duh, what a NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOB I was, oh god!) to bypass is MR, nothing, he Imprisioned me, he imprisioned Haer'Dalis and everyone else, no matter what. How I've beaten it; with traps, I went into the room with the PC and Hairy D, who got Imprisioned anyway, and the PC ran out of the room, the Demibasterdlich followed him out, and we've all watched him give us a lot of XP after springing 7 Spike Traps.
The Second Most Horrible Defeat Ever (without counting the one Jon Irenicus gave me in the Throne of Blood with Ascension and SCS, nor anything with Ascension and SCS together, which is amazingly complicated to beat):THE DRAGON WITH THE WORST NAME EVER DRAAAACONIS!!!!!!! (dat bazterd with permanent improved aclarity and -4 casting time), He was a tough fight, the Invisible Stalkers weren't much trouble, the trouble was damaging him, we had lots of HP as a human, and waay lot more as a Dragonis Baddie, who casts Invisibility ALL THE TIME WITHOUT MEMORIZATION LIMIT AND THROWS A BOMB OF ACID WITH HIS MOUTH, a little tip to newcomers, Spell Shield (level 5) stops all the Dragon's special attacks, have it in mind during a solo run, it WILL help a lot, then, he casts a lot of junky spells and tries to attack in melee, AND HE SUCCEDS IN THE KILLING, he is a ChEaTeR! CHEATER!! By the way, I love slaying Dragons, CUZ' THEY DIE FOR GOOD!!
The First Most Horrible Defeat Ever (without counting the one Jon Irenicus gave me in the Throne of Blood with Ascension and SCS, nor anything with Ascension and SCS together, which is amazingly complicated to beat):FROM WATCHER'S KEEP, THE EVER-COLD DEMON WRAITH!!! (yeah, a spellcaster that stands in his fortress of traps, by that time I was in chapter 3, very high level, but very low Enchanted weapons and that stuff) How I killed him?? Buffing in the room before where he was, in fact, I buffed after killing Aesegarath (the Gambling Cambion, I know it, I am a bit dyslexic with those names), so I had some weapons good enough to hit him, he killed my entire party 17 times, tthe first 3 without buffs, the other 15 completely buffed, died anyway, the traps were too much to desactivate in the middle of the battle, not saying Mage/Thief Charname was the one with Find/Remove Traps and the one with HL spells memorized, Jan had his points in other thieving abilities, and almost all his spells were to remove defenses and that stuff, so, I coudln't deal damage in the right time, so he was a real pain, mainly because of the traps and the Slave Wraiths and their Level Drain, not to mention the traps, and that this Demon Wraith is a high level wizard that sucks eggs like Xzar taught him, so it isn't an easy fight, he gives good battle, until he casts Time Stop, followed of some shitty Symbols at the nearest party member. How I've beaten him?? Using the Tome of Golem Summoning, yeah, with a Flesh Golem, who has 100 innate MR, all the party in ranged and protected against level drain, Jan, Charname dispelling protections, Anomen with the Sling of Erevard (we had money, one day, time ago, we had money...) and Mazzy with Tuigan Bow and arrows +3, Haer'Dalis didn't had a ranged weapon, so he kept firing Magic Missiles like Gorion in the vanilla BG1 prologue, but Haer'Dalis didn't died. Still with an amazing tactic like that, he casted Time Stop and the Symbols, but he directioned the Symbol, Stun to the Flesh Golem besides him, so he got stunned, Mazzy and Jan fell to the Slave Wraiths while stunned by the other symbol, Charname disarmed the traps and Anomen went in a rush, he crushed almost all the Hit Points form the Demon Wraith, but I forgot how foolish it was casting a Dispel Effecst in that moment, it succeed, and the Demon Wraith could cast spells again, luckily, Anomen landed a Critical Hit and Haer'Dalis a Magic Missile, DEAD UNDEAD BAZTERD. And they I got out and came back in chapter 6, it was an Odyssey to get out of the Maze Level, and luckily we had lots of items to sell, and raised our money to something like 90K.
The dude was awesome and I hate not having him.
In terms of an actual fight? My first time vs Kangaxx. Took me multiple attempts hearing "What? No effect? I need a bigger sword" to finally look up online what I needed to do (he actually did need a bigger sword).
I'd love to see more liches/dragons etc. but what I'd also love would be a fight where there is a HORDE of diverse enemies. I liked the fight against the Drow Priestess in TOB for that reason. Some kind of backs against the wall fight against sheer numbers (not necessarily strong creatures) that requires a lot of crowd control would be fun.
Part of the reason I had to run through the Firewine dungeon was because the extra 8 hour travel time would have probably despawned my equipment.
Not that I didn't try searching the entire area, and Firewine dungeon, for a container to use.
And then once again ... I'm with @booinyoureyes. Kangaxx. However for me I went a little more old school, I found "Demi-Lich" in a 1st Edition AD&D Monster Manual II. Yep. To my surprise Baldur's Gate was pretty consistent with said monster manual. So then I could beat him after reading up.
@belgarathmth your welcome!
Shelved the game for a long, long time.
I think I might do 2-3 insane runs using an Dwarven F/C, an Elven F/M and a halfling F/T, and try to keep running logs of them such that I can go back and later identify the best and worst moments from each.
I get woken up by enemies, and the FIRST GODDAMN SECOND of that fight, CHARNAME steps on a instant kill trap and dies. Then it was off to load from before the Wraith and try again...
I played BG2 before BG1, and so I had it in my head that level of enchantment (+1, +3, etc) was the determining factor for whether a mob could be hit. I had come across one of the swords with a bonus vs shapeshifters earlier in the game, but had promptly vendored it somewhere because I had weapons with higher enchantment (and because it was a bastard sword). I tried to kill this guy dozens of times before finally throwing my hands up in disgust and casting 'Power Word: Google'. Once I discovered that two of the three weapons in the game that could hurt the things were bastard swords - hands-down the most useless weapon category in the entire Baldur's Gate series, from beginning to end - and that one of them was IN THE ROOM BEHIND THE MONSTER, I stopped playing BG for a few weeks.
What makes this a particularly epic fail is that when I picked up BGEE earlier this year, I FORGOT AND DID IT ALL OVER AGAIN.
If I play through BGEE again, I'm going to tag every +2 or higher weapon as 'cold iron' and be done with it.