How Much Harder Is SCS?

unkinhead

I played with it in BG1 for a short time, but it kind of frustrated me...Smarter mages was so ridiculous with no breach...Anyways i got to the last battle in BG1 and couldn't beat it, i posted for some tips, got some really good ones which knowing now im sure i could beat it, but still i kinda gave up on it and never beat that last battle

Regardless, in my mind i thought "Smarter mages would not be a big deal at ALL with breach" considering thats what you need anyways...

So how much harder is it really?

To get a base for my skill level

I beat BG1 normal twice, Core Rules twice, once core rules solo (Archer)
I beat BG2 + TOB Three times, once normal, twice core rules

My last playthrough of BG2 was kind of a breeze. Don't get me wrong, it certainly has its challenges that i feel will never go away unless i cheese battles, but it was certainly done with much more ease than i had before...I actually got through the Melissian fight without a single reload for once, and without abusing wish...lol

Anyways, my question is, could i handle SCS? How much harder is it really? And will it be frustrating?

Am i correct in believing that BG1 SCS without breach is a nightmare? P.S. I figure if CHARNAME was an inquistor with true sight, it would be much easier .

Anyways let me know...Thanks

vangoat

The good thing about it is that there's plenty of options when installing so you can determine the difficulty.

For example if you got rid of mages pre-buffing it'll be a lot easier. If you don't nerf the inquisitor dispel then Keldorn will still be a mage slaying beast.

Don't install stuff like hardest random spawns, unless you like getting your level 8 party wiped by random liches.

There's one or two things I find frustrating, like every random thief backstabbing/invis potion (and they instantly chug another potion as soon as you dispel it), but overall it's such an improvement the one or two annoying things are worth overlooking.

Beating the final battle without a reload certainly makes it sound like you could handle SCS without too much trouble though!

I'm already worried about Ascension (When it's compatible) + SCS fiends and mages in the final battle!

unkinhead

vangoat said:

The good thing about it is that there's plenty of options when installing so you can determine the difficulty.

For example if you got rid of mages pre-buffing it'll be a lot easier. If you don't nerf the inquisitor dispel then Keldorn will still be a mage slaying beast.

Don't install stuff like hardest random spawns, unless you like getting your level 8 party wiped by random liches.

There's one or two things I find frustrating, like every random thief backstabbing/invis potion (and they instantly chug another potion as soon as you dispel it), but overall it's such an improvement the one or two annoying things are worth overlooking.

Beating the final battle without a reload certainly makes it sound like you could handle SCS without too much trouble though!

I'm already worried about Ascension (When it's compatible) + SCS fiends and mages in the final battle!

Whew! Im fueled to play now, i just beat Sarevok SCS Core Rules finally...Jesus...I have to say, that it was the singe most difficult fight i have done thus far (perhaps excluding final battle).... Looking at my equipment, i instantly noticed i wasn't even close to metagame material equipment, i guess a couple of months ago when i was playing i didn't take SCS "too seriously" and thought it would be easy regardless, heh...So, that made it harder only having 4 oils of speed total, a mage with only 1 slot for level 3 spells (haste), and a Druid just shy of level 5 druid spells (IE Insect Plague) made it all the more difficult...It was quite hilarious how he died...My whole party was dead, and i had like 5 HP, so one more hit would have killed me, but i had oil of speed, and ran like hell, he was near death, oil of speed wears off, and im screwed, so i take a shot by using Magic Missie Wand, i do 4 damage with it, and he dies :DDD Epic win...

Therefore, i will give it a try with SCS...And i won't install that, I hate random fights anyways...lol. I do like the smarter mages, and even the precasting, just found it to be a nightmare without breach...

And ya, some of the things on SCS seem silly, but to each their own i suppose.

More Resilient Trolls? Bah...No thanks, they are in the "Not strong enough to make them more annoying" box. Idk, to me its like making Kobolds more challenging...Its like, they are a semi-easy enemy, no reason to make them slightly harder...just seems odd...

aldain

In BG1, surprisingly, it's not that bad. Yes, mages are a lot tougher, but they've still typically got access to no higher than 5th level spells (there are something like 3-4 exceptions to that rule in all of BG1, and those mages typically devote their 1-2 L6 slots to defensive spells like Protection from Magical Weapons).

You've got to take more care around encounters with mages than in vanilla, for sure, but even the specialist enemy mages typically don't have enough slots to kill off your entire party. They'll start off looking big and scary with Confusion/Lightning bolt/Chaos etc, but that very quickly dwindles down into them taking pot-shots with magic missile. Why? Because they devoted something like half their spellbook to defensive spells...

In BG2, it's a different story. Mages are monsters, and Liches become absolutely devastating. You have to either metagame the crap out of every single encounter with arcane casters, or abuse summons something fierce to soak up the killer spells. Why? Because you're hopelessly, hilariously outleveled for most of the game. Once you catch up and get L7-8-9 arcane spells, things start evening out a little.

Clerics/Druids are also improved, but since their spells typically aren't as lethal as arcane magic, it's not that bad... they're slightly more of a challenge given insta-buffing and much better spell picks is all.
And I agree with @vangoat, it is annoying that every no-name thief seems to have at least 2-3 invisibility potions.

With the above in mind, once you start using SCS, you typically never go back. In my mind, it's what the higher difficulty settings *should* have been. Smarter enemies, not just boosting their hitpoints and damage.

vangoat

aldain said:

And I agree with @vangoat, it is annoying that every no-name thief seems to have at least 2-3 invisibility potions.

I've at least worked out a strategy now, I pump up direct illusions ASAP on my thief (or cast true sight), then just run around constantly in circles with whoever the weakest character is (they always get targeted). Eventually after a few cycles of detect illusion/invis pot they run out and I happily chunk them. It's a little silly but so is the fact they can instantly turn invisible after I just detected them.

unkinhead said:

More Resilient Trolls? Bah...No thanks, they are in the "Not strong enough to make them more annoying" box. Idk, to me its like making Kobolds more challenging...Its like, they are a semi-easy enemy, no reason to make them slightly harder...just seems odd...

Yep, I wish I hadn't installed this component, but I'm too lazy to change it now. You have to do like 8 fire/acid damage to kill a spirit troll. If I'm facing big clumps of trolls I just have one fire resistant tank to engage the trolls, then my mages spam fireballs until they're all dead. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

ScotGaymer

I agree with @Aldain, once you get used to it SCS in BG1 is pretty fun in a challenging "rogue-like" sort of way.

SCS in BG2 however is just insane. I couldn't even get out of Athkatla before rage-quitting and uninstalling the damn thing because its just that fragging hard. And as someone who completed BG1 with it, it wasn't because I didn't know what I was doing.

The only way I found to "win" in SCS BG2 is through cheats and cheese. And given that the mod is supposed to encourage you to play more carefully and tactically then it makes the thing a darned failure IMO.

Endarire

I've played so far as a Solo Sorceress (Soloceress) with BG2EE and SCS. I had enough EXP banked from BG1EE to start at level 13. I'm playing on Hard (which means Smarter Mages activates), and I've already noticed Sorcerous Amon (the first caster fight in Athkatla, in the Seven Veils upstairs) to be... more difficult.

So far, nothing's been punishing, but the Black Pits 2 on Hard was [i]quite[/i] the interesting puzzle. Anything in the Pits not magic immune lost to [i]invisibility[/i] + spells, possibly with [i]time stop[/i] involved. (The last tier 4 fight had me understand the literality of "unload your spellbook on your enemy before he gets a turn." Anything magic immune normally required minions (especially from [i]summon planetar[/i] and [i]animate dead[/i]) and [i]energy blades to defeat. Sometimes, [i]lower resistance[/i] and [i]pierce shield[/i] spam was employed.

I've also noticed that a single high level character (especially an arcane caster) is better suited to this game than an army of lower level characters. The differences in options and surviability really make a difference.

mumumomo

Yes solo is actually much easier than group play.
At 3M xp, your level 18 sorceror is basically a god.
That or you can have a 6 man 500k xp team (levels 10-11. Yeah!)

nano

It's not much harder than the vanilla game unless you really want it to be. If you didn't rely on cheese and have a solid defense I think you will find it pretty straightforward. The fights are supposed to be reasonable and I think David's done a good job of keeping it so. I like it not so much for the difficulty but because it makes enemies feel more realistic and alive. But you should probably avoid the Tactics components because those are supposed to be harder, unless you want the challenge.

The prebuffed mages sound scary but they're really not that bad. They're pretty hard to kill now but their offensive capabilities haven't been upgraded much, if at all. Just protect yourself or give them alternative targets for their spells and all the protections in the world won't do them any good.

Thieves are pretty vicious now with their chained backstabs. I've started taking Keldorn for his True Sight rather than his Dispel. If you have your own thief you can use detect illusions but be warned that it's not that fast and you will probably eat the first round of backstabs. These guys can and will kill you while mages are generally more interested in staying alive than trying to hurt you.

It's pretty easy to get invisibility potions with all the thieves that carry them so make good use of them. Seriously, these are like the best potions in the game because of how plentiful and useful they are.

kryptix

The real hard part comes down to the prebuffed mages. Breach actually doesn't help that much because in BG2 they come prebuffed with spell immunity and spell turning so you can't breach them until you remove like 3-4 layers of protections. Until you get Ruby Ray, your pretty much stuck with outlasting them in half the mage fights. The problem then is the chain contingency 3x horrid wilting that sometimes comes your way... Also Spell Triggers with 3x skull traps.

Viconia with her easy 100 Magic Resist is very useful.

I didn't use Keldorn but I had 3x arcane casters, so I pretty much relied on each one with mostly anti magic for the first half of the game. Then eventually Viconia gets to level 30 and her dispell magic takes down most things. Also, Robe of Vecna, Timestop, Improved Alacrity, pretty much can have Neera win any single 1v1 fight before the other person moves.

That said, early on I needed some real cheese and abusing the fact that you can pick up tons of invis potions to win quite a few fights.

Twani

It makes the AI smarter, basically. How smart? Generally a bit less smart then your average player, and less like a gibbering. Mages will buff themselves and use all the spells they have at command. Thieves will target your mages for their backstabs. Fighters will prefer to fight those with higher AC. It is harder, definitely, but I don't think it's *that* much harder.

RedWizard

Frankly, it's nice that the enemies aren't dummies anymore but some options like mages prebuffing with short duration spells are just cheesy as hell. And I mean really cheesy, not to mention being nonsense in most cases, and yeah I don't think every mage you encounter was somehow divining every single of your steps.

CrevsDaak

Well, now with SCS the game his worth playing with the multikit mod, if not it was too game breaking to play with more than one kit.

bill_zagoudis

SCS is great, what you have to do to beat it though is either study spell protections or bring an inquisitor to spam dispel magic...(if you didn't choose the option that nerfs it that is)

shadow85

Ok so I have installed Ascension+SCS v31, and I cannot even kill the first lightning mephit!

I have installed most if not all of the hardest options in the mods, and I selected LOB mode, but my character at the start cannot even hit this mephit. Only Imoen with dagger+1 can manage to scratch it every few rounds.

Whilst the mephit will slowly but surely shock my party down in time.

Is it suppose to be like this?

I feel like the only chance I have is casting magic missile on this mephit until it dies. Ill have to memorise it several times then.

Enuhal

What you're experiencing has nothing to do with Ascension and SCS - it's due to LoB, which raises both enemy hitpoints and armor class to rather insane levels. From what you're describing I'd recommend playing on a different difficulty level, such as core rules.

brunardo

Just finishing my first SCS run with ascension and SCS was challenging but best thing ever and will use it now everytime...having trouble with ascension final battle but all worth it and for BG2 important to take on easy tasks/quests to level up as fast as possible before the tougher encounters...watch out for Bodhi!

Artona

I think that SCS makes game substantially harder, but not to the point of being impossible or demanding some crazy strategy skills to beat it. I managed to finish it many times, and my favourite tactic is to rage my barbarian, and then proceed to hit things until they die.
But seriously, SCS can be frustrating if you don't pay attention to details - spells descriptions, using proper potions, tracking how long your protections last, etc. Enemies (with some exceptions, like Ulcaster's Wolf) don't have crazy amount of HP, so as long as you figure them out, they are definitely killable. If you try to be a little creative, then SCS is incredibly fun.