@Pantalion Better Thac0 and apr, which adds to safety also. Don't know if M/C can tank Belhifet with LoB like F/M/C.
Doesn't quite work by the SoD cap, but have you considered Lesser Sequencer + DUHM/Spiritual Hammer + Spider polymorph self for SoA? 4+1 APR, +3 hammer, 20+ Strength.
In terms of the tanking example, I'd say the edge goes to an I/C, since they'll be sitting on an extra two level 5 mage spells and an extra level 1 through 4 along with gnome saving throws. Not quite the same capacity to counter attack in melee though.
@Pantalion Hmm no, but M/C is probably going to be my next class, so have to take something like that into consideration.
Playing F/M/C I've longed F/I actually more in SoA, and natural 9th level spells, so I could cast Chain Contingency onto myself without losing one of the scrolls. Cleric spells are nice, although I've only used like Sanctuary, AoF, Animate Dead (mage gets this too), and Harm for Gauth xp loop. But F/I would have better Thac0, more hp, better saves, natural 9th level spells and all the weapons at disposal, at the xp cap. F/M gets Skull Traps though, which is probably almost as good as better saves and more spells.
@Pantalion Hmm no, but M/C is probably going to be my next class, so have to take something like that into consideration.
Playing F/M/C I've longed F/I actually more in SoA, and natural 9th level spells, so I could cast Chain Contingency onto myself without losing one of the scrolls. Cleric spells are nice, although I've only used like Sanctuary, AoF, Animate Dead (mage gets this too), and Harm for Gauth xp loop. But F/I would have better Thac0, more hp, better saves, natural 9th level spells and all the weapons at disposal, at the xp cap. F/M gets Skull Traps though, which is probably almost as good as better saves and more spells.
Hm. Generally good cleric spells ignoring the obvious ones... Command - Amazingly useful through BG1 because many things don't get a save. Sanctuary - The best thief stealth skill. Weirdly. Doom - Sequencer it for a quicker cast time, -2 to saves wins fights. Remove Fear - Mages get it at level 2, but this is easier.
Silence 15' - You can break the plot with this, avoiding entire fights with blue circles as well as the obvious mage shutdown. DUHM - Self-cast sequencer with a Strength spell and you can have a 23+ strength Spider form to play with. Self sequencer DUHM/Chant is a good all purpose move that gives your magic damage a boost. Hold Person - Cast this on a friendly target next to an invisible enemy, since it's actually a party friendly AOE.
Holy Smite: Pretty much a party friendly fireball on most enemies.
Far Sight - Spotting enemies that can't spot you is extremely valuable. Poison - Mages have a terrible Death save, and this hits like a mule if they fail it. Combine with Doom/Malaison/Chant.
Greater Command - Basically a very slightly weaker Emotion: Hopelessness, which is in itself a great spell. When they're laying on the ground, hit them with Harm for an automatic connect. Magic Resistance - Like the mage's level 2 strength spell, cast this on enemies instead of your party to drop their MR.
False Dawn - No save confusion against undead such as Liches is extremely valuable.
Earthquake - Phenomenally high save penalty for a knockdown effect with extra damage. Symbol of Stun - Great crowd control. Holy Word: 2 casts gives 100% spell failure chance to pretty much anything. Deceptively powerful.
Implosion: Ignores MR, automatically stuns the target for 1 round, deals two types of damage, and fits on Spell Trigger or Chain Contingency, I forget which.
@Pantalion Forgot about Silence 15' which I've used also, and True Sight, and Farsight, very useful although mage gets this too. I play with LoB SCS, so some of those aren't really useful, because enemies get +5 saves, and x3+80 hp. Like Holy Smite mostly tickles them. Doom is good, especially with Greater Malison, but never needed it, and I'm chapter 6 for SoA already.
Algernon/Nymph cloak and Sandthief invisibility can pretty much charm everybody risk free who needs to be charmed in BG1, and with almost any class. SoA you get Staff of Command and Control Circlets which can dominate and charm without save (or even bypass MR for Control Circlet) for almost every class. PfU pretty much negates Undead for every class in the whole series.
Doesn't quite work by the SoD cap, but have you considered Lesser Sequencer + DUHM/Spiritual Hammer + Spider polymorph self for SoA? 4+1 APR, +3 hammer, 20+ Strength.
I forgot about this entirely! Three things:
1. It's entirely possible to use the spider gnome trick in SoD. You only need 7 mage levels to do it; all it takes is Polymorph Self and a Shocking Grasp Minor Sequencer to remove the spider weapon, allowing you to equip any weapon as a spider with 4 base APR. A cleric/mage can hit level 9/10 by the end of SoD, so their DUHM will give them 21 STR if you use the lich's robe to put Holy Power in a Spell Sequencer. 2. An EE update removed this exploit entirely from SoA, and I would think that v2.5 removed it from SoD by now. 3. Since Holy Power will only last 9 rounds for a maxed-out cleric/mage, the spider gnome trick will only take 300 HP out of Belhifet if using the +3 hammer and all the relevant bonuses and buffing spells. When Holy Power runs out, your damage output will drop dramatically, even if you use Detect Illusion scrolls to deal with Belhifet's Improved Invisibility. The fight would easily take 50-70 rounds, enough to outlast a set of Potions of Power. The cleric/mage will probably need some critical hits from the Martyr's Morningstar to take down Belhifet in relative safety.
Implosion: Ignores MR, automatically stuns the target for 1 round, deals two types of damage, and fits on Spell Trigger or Chain Contingency, I forget which.
It should fit in a Chain Contingency but not a Spell Trigger, unless your SCS install makes it into an innate spell, in which case it will fit into neither. Bear in mind that Implosion uses the "hold" opcode, opcode 109, not the stun opcode, opcode 45, which means it will work against demons who would be immune to stun effects.
Doesn't quite work by the SoD cap, but have you considered Lesser Sequencer + DUHM/Spiritual Hammer + Spider polymorph self for SoA? 4+1 APR, +3 hammer, 20+ Strength.
I forgot about this entirely! Three things:
1. It's entirely possible to use the spider gnome trick in SoD. You only need 7 mage levels to do it; all it takes is Polymorph Self and a Shocking Grasp Minor Sequencer to remove the spider weapon, allowing you to equip any weapon as a spider with 4 base APR. A cleric/mage can hit level 9/10 by the end of SoD, so their DUHM will give them 21 STR if you use the lich's robe to put Holy Power in a Spell Sequencer. 2. An EE update removed this exploit entirely from SoA, and I would think that v2.5 removed it from SoD by now. 3. Since Holy Power will only last 9 rounds for a maxed-out cleric/mage, the spider gnome trick will only take 300 HP out of Belhifet if using the +3 hammer and all the relevant bonuses and buffing spells. When Holy Power runs out, your damage output will drop dramatically, even if you use Detect Illusion scrolls to deal with Belhifet's Improved Invisibility. The fight would easily take 50-70 rounds, enough to outlast a set of Potions of Power. The cleric/mage will probably need some critical hits from the Martyr's Morningstar to take down Belhifet in relative safety.
Let's not pretend that any of the other classes are adding much to this particular equation.
Only with lots of prep before hand. Any Archer or ranged wizard slayer can take them down easy before a single spell gets off.
Invisibility is "lots of prep" now? Because neither of those two things has any means of dealing with a mage they can't see and invisibility lasts longer than resting does.
Let's not pretend that any of the other classes are adding much to this particular equation.
Only with lots of prep before hand. Any Archer or ranged wizard slayer can take them down easy before a single spell gets off.
Invisibility is "lots of prep" now? Because neither of those two things has any means of dealing with a mage they can't see and invisibility lasts longer than resting does.
Think your mage can cast invis before the Archer kills you?
Invisibility is instant-casting with the Robe of Vecna, and even if you just have the Amulet of Power, it should be fast enough to activate before the first arrow hits, unless the Archer is right next to the mage. At higher levels, the mage will have Stoneskin active at all times, and at higher levels still, the mage will have Invisibility or Stoneskin contingencies.
Or you could just drink a Potion of Invisibility. But that speaks to the power of those potions more than it does to the power of any class.
@Pantalion: I'm not referring to the hammer from Spiritual Hammer; I'm referring to the +3 Earthquake hammer from SoD. Assuming the spider gnome trick still works, you can equip any weapon in spider form by simply dispelling the spider weapon using a Shocking Grasp spell via a Minor Sequencer. When you expend the Shocking Grasp weapon, you'll be left with no magical weapon, allowing you to equip any weapon you want.
Also, the Enchanted Weapon spell can make a +2 Spiritual Hammer strike as +3, allowing you to hit Belhifet with it.
Personally my mages don't tend to spend much time not invisible. Again, it lasts longer than resting does, and it's a great bugout spell so there's no reason not to keep a few slots dedicated to it. As semiticgod says, with RoV it casts fast enough that as soon as "Attacks f00" shows up you can be invisible and untargetable.
@Pantalion: I'm not referring to the hammer from Spiritual Hammer; I'm referring to the +3 Earthquake hammer from SoD. Assuming the spider gnome trick still works, you can equip any weapon in spider form by simply dispelling the spider weapon using a Shocking Grasp spell via a Minor Sequencer. When you expend the Shocking Grasp weapon, you'll be left with no magical weapon, allowing you to equip any weapon you want.
Also, the Enchanted Weapon spell can make a +2 Spiritual Hammer strike as +3, allowing you to hit Belhifet with it.
Ah. I was referring to Spiritual Hammer under the belief that they'd "fixed" the mage spells but left cleric spells intact.
Hm, the new Enchanted Weapon is a good point I hadn't considered actually, at least in BG2 when it gets the no save poison it's hardly worth replacing anyway.
There will be a live speedrun of Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn at Awesome Games Done Quick, a week-long speedrunning event that raises over a million dollars a year for charity every year, including fighting cancer and supporting Doctors Without Borders. You can view the raw stream on Twitch and donate to the event for a chance to win prizes. The BG2 speedrun is scheduled for January 13th and should begin around 6pm, GMT (the schedule linked above adjusts to your local time zone), right after the Diablo speedrun.
Speedrunner KowalLazy is expected to beat the entire game in 26 minutes.
The run is over! KowalLazy completed the game in only 24 minutes and 31 seconds. If you missed it, you should be able to view it on Twitch or Youtube when the full video is posted online in the coming days.
Awesome Games Done Quick is still ongoing, so there's still time to donate and see some other cool runs.
My only disappointment was that the speedrunner clicked on Charname instead of using the hotkey "1." That one key could have saved literally seconds of time.
Talking less would also have helped. I only did not know about the scroll swap trick, that it takes longer for the scroll to be consumed than to have the spell cast. The rest was just the generic boring familiar and dialogue tricks.
Guys, the dude was playing to raise money for charity. That deserves an applause no matter how he (or she?) did it.
Depends on the charity. If it's to encourage the survival of people who drive slow in the passing lane, then no. If it's a charity that pays for people to go around and slap celebrities, then I'm all for it.
Sure. I like charity and you are right to correct us. I had no idea it was about charity though.
It's just that speedruns have been done like this for so many times I expected something new and exciting. Perhaps the knowledge of past methods and having read up on bg speedruns quite recently (having done one for bgee using non standard methods) is holding me back from being wowed.
Artona said:Well, um, technically, dying to Shank counts as finished speedrun, no?
semiticgod said:I just checked the total and by the end of the final run of Breath of the Wild, AGDQ raised over $2.2 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation That's Greeeaat!!
Did you know that Franciscus Irenicus, real name Franz Fiedlieb, was a 16th century German historian and humanist? And that it was thorugh him that the movement of Irenicism got its name?
Did you know that Franciscus Irenicus, real name Franz Fiedlieb, was a 16th century German historian and humanist? And that it was thorugh him that the movement of Irenicism got its name?
"...using reason as an essential attribute" and "being rooted in the ideals of pacifism". Sounds like good old Joneleth all right.
Speedruns are a weird spot for me. I usually would rather go completionist all the way, but once every decade or so, a game comes along that I just HAVE to speed run a few times.
Comments
In terms of the tanking example, I'd say the edge goes to an I/C, since they'll be sitting on an extra two level 5 mage spells and an extra level 1 through 4 along with gnome saving throws. Not quite the same capacity to counter attack in melee though.
Playing F/M/C I've longed F/I actually more in SoA, and natural 9th level spells, so I could cast Chain Contingency onto myself without losing one of the scrolls. Cleric spells are nice, although I've only used like Sanctuary, AoF, Animate Dead (mage gets this too), and Harm for Gauth xp loop. But F/I would have better Thac0, more hp, better saves, natural 9th level spells and all the weapons at disposal, at the xp cap. F/M gets Skull Traps though, which is probably almost as good as better saves and more spells.
Command - Amazingly useful through BG1 because many things don't get a save.
Sanctuary - The best thief stealth skill. Weirdly.
Doom - Sequencer it for a quicker cast time, -2 to saves wins fights.
Remove Fear - Mages get it at level 2, but this is easier.
Silence 15' - You can break the plot with this, avoiding entire fights with blue circles as well as the obvious mage shutdown.
DUHM - Self-cast sequencer with a Strength spell and you can have a 23+ strength Spider form to play with. Self sequencer DUHM/Chant is a good all purpose move that gives your magic damage a boost.
Hold Person - Cast this on a friendly target next to an invisible enemy, since it's actually a party friendly AOE.
Holy Smite: Pretty much a party friendly fireball on most enemies.
Far Sight - Spotting enemies that can't spot you is extremely valuable.
Poison - Mages have a terrible Death save, and this hits like a mule if they fail it. Combine with Doom/Malaison/Chant.
Greater Command - Basically a very slightly weaker Emotion: Hopelessness, which is in itself a great spell. When they're laying on the ground, hit them with Harm for an automatic connect.
Magic Resistance - Like the mage's level 2 strength spell, cast this on enemies instead of your party to drop their MR.
False Dawn - No save confusion against undead such as Liches is extremely valuable.
Earthquake - Phenomenally high save penalty for a knockdown effect with extra damage.
Symbol of Stun - Great crowd control.
Holy Word: 2 casts gives 100% spell failure chance to pretty much anything. Deceptively powerful.
Implosion: Ignores MR, automatically stuns the target for 1 round, deals two types of damage, and fits on Spell Trigger or Chain Contingency, I forget which.
Algernon/Nymph cloak and Sandthief invisibility can pretty much charm everybody risk free who needs to be charmed in BG1, and with almost any class. SoA you get Staff of Command and Control Circlets which can dominate and charm without save (or even bypass MR for Control Circlet) for almost every class. PfU pretty much negates Undead for every class in the whole series.
1. It's entirely possible to use the spider gnome trick in SoD. You only need 7 mage levels to do it; all it takes is Polymorph Self and a Shocking Grasp Minor Sequencer to remove the spider weapon, allowing you to equip any weapon as a spider with 4 base APR. A cleric/mage can hit level 9/10 by the end of SoD, so their DUHM will give them 21 STR if you use the lich's robe to put Holy Power in a Spell Sequencer.
2. An EE update removed this exploit entirely from SoA, and I would think that v2.5 removed it from SoD by now.
3. Since Holy Power will only last 9 rounds for a maxed-out cleric/mage, the spider gnome trick will only take 300 HP out of Belhifet if using the +3 hammer and all the relevant bonuses and buffing spells. When Holy Power runs out, your damage output will drop dramatically, even if you use Detect Illusion scrolls to deal with Belhifet's Improved Invisibility. The fight would easily take 50-70 rounds, enough to outlast a set of Potions of Power. The cleric/mage will probably need some critical hits from the Martyr's Morningstar to take down Belhifet in relative safety. It should fit in a Chain Contingency but not a Spell Trigger, unless your SCS install makes it into an innate spell, in which case it will fit into neither. Bear in mind that Implosion uses the "hold" opcode, opcode 109, not the stun opcode, opcode 45, which means it will work against demons who would be immune to stun effects.
Or you could just drink a Potion of Invisibility. But that speaks to the power of those potions more than it does to the power of any class.
@Pantalion: I'm not referring to the hammer from Spiritual Hammer; I'm referring to the +3 Earthquake hammer from SoD. Assuming the spider gnome trick still works, you can equip any weapon in spider form by simply dispelling the spider weapon using a Shocking Grasp spell via a Minor Sequencer. When you expend the Shocking Grasp weapon, you'll be left with no magical weapon, allowing you to equip any weapon you want.
Also, the Enchanted Weapon spell can make a +2 Spiritual Hammer strike as +3, allowing you to hit Belhifet with it.
Hm, the new Enchanted Weapon is a good point I hadn't considered actually, at least in BG2 when it gets the no save poison it's hardly worth replacing anyway.
Awesome Games Done Quick is still ongoing, so there's still time to donate and see some other cool runs.
I only did not know about the scroll swap trick, that it takes longer for the scroll to be consumed than to have the spell cast. The rest was just the generic boring familiar and dialogue tricks.
It's just that speedruns have been done like this for so many times I expected something new and exciting. Perhaps the knowledge of past methods and having read up on bg speedruns quite recently (having done one for bgee using non standard methods) is holding me back from being wowed.
In case you missed it, you can view the BG2 speedrun here:
semiticgod said:I just checked the total and by the end of the final run of Breath of the Wild, AGDQ raised over $2.2 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation
That's Greeeaat!!