Watcher's Keep w/ SCS low-level party challenge
Ballad
Member Posts: 205
I've been playing the Baldur's Gate trilogy for the better part of 13 years now and, like many of you, take great delight in coming up with creative ways to keep my gaming experience challenging and fun. In particular, I enjoy the feeling of being the underdog, of testing my mettle against high-level encounters with an underleveled party of limited resources. Some years ago, I finished Watcher's Keep in late Chapter 3, with a party of six characters in their mid-teens. While it was a formidable challenge, it left me wondering whether I could have done it even sooner, as one of my first quests in Chapter 2. Now, having just started my first playthrough of BG2:EE, I decided that time was ripe to make my plan a reality.
Oh, and I also decided to install SCS (along with Rogue Rebalancing) to make things a little bit more interesting. I don't usually run with mods and have never tried SCS before, so I guess this marks my first play-through of both BG2:EE AND SCS.
Anyway, down to business.
Like many of you no doubt know, you can travel to Watcher's Keep right after speaking to Gaelan Bayle. In fact, you don't even have to go through the city gates. My original plan was to do exactly this: hit the keep right after Waukeen's Promenade, in practice limiting my choice of party members and resources to those found in Chapter 1. Upon closer examination, I decided to cut myself some slack and do the Bard stronghold quest first so that my Blade charname could get hold of some usable armor and weapons. I also made a quick swoop on Trademeet and the Grove to pick up Cernd, Rasaad and the Belm scimitar. I did not bother with the quest itself and made special care not to accumulate too much experience on the way.
I eventually made it to Watcher's Keep at day 11 with a party consisting of my Blade charname, Keldorn, Aerie, Yoshimo, Cernd and Rasaad. With the exception of my charname and Yoshimo, who were both level 10, the average level of my party was somewhere between 8 and 9. Apart from the items I had gleaned during my excursion to Mekrath's quarters and the Planar Prison, my troupe was still very much in their starting gear - though I did pick up some potions and scrolls from one of the Bridge district merchants. Upon talking to Odren, I promised myself to not leave the keep for more resources unless I absolutely had to. I also vowed to refrain from cheating and excessive cheese such as fake-talk and luck-based tactics involving reloading until all the planets are lined up. I would, however, do everything in my power to outsmart the AI; often this meant employing roguish, crafty and non-violent strategies to survive the coming challenges. What follows is the account of my endeavors so far. Enjoy and feel free to comment and offer your input.
ENTERING THE KEEP
***
Even during ordinary playthroughs I often raid the first level of Watcher's Keep in early SoA for all the nifty, easily obtainable treasures. In hindsight it is easy to see that my entrance was tainted with overconfidence; without giving it much thought, I barged into the main hall with (figurative) guns blazing and... BAM! VAMPIRIC WRAITH TO THE FACE. After a quick and humbling defeat, I opted for a more careful approach, scouting the western corridor and rooms with Yoshimo, disabling traps and picking up items on the way. Apart from a lone Stone Golem (which I left alone) and a pack of mephits and a bunch of slimes, this part of the temple did not pose too many problems and yielded me the Golem manual and a bunch of welcome ammunition, potions, wands and scrolls.
The upper (eastern part) proved a bit trickier. The large room next to the priest's tomb had a host of devil shades who, seeing through Yoshimo's invisibility, quickly chewed the poor thief to bits. On my second try, however, the shades were gone and I instead encountered a much more benign spawn of sword and phase spiders. I thought this was strange, given that SCS is supposed to provide you with the toughest spawns. Anyway, I chose not to mind it too much and proceeded with my looting and detrapping business. Apart from a single Spellhaunt, which Yoshimo was able to dispatch with ease, I did not encounter any more monsters.
Next came the task of dispatching those troublesome Vampiric Wraiths in the main hall. Between their permanent haste, level draining, invisibility spamming and regeneration abilities, they proved fairly manageable. Using my newfound manual, I conjured up a flesh golem and had Aerie animate a couple of skeleton warriors. Using these as a (meat?) shield I had Keldorn cast True Sight and then just focused all my firepower on one wraith at a time. Despite their high regeneration rate, they fell relatively quickly. There were some more mists further down the hall, but they posed no challenge to my hasted and buffed vanguard of fleshy and bony summons.
THE RITUAL
***
After lighting the fireplace, entering the tomb and giving the lich-priest his slippers, it was time to perform the ritual. I had already noticed that SCS had increased number of statues in the hallway. I counted four mages, five fighters, an archer, a thief and a golem. After placing the needed items on the altar, four of these, two of the fighters (one of which had a weird AoE fear ability) and two of the mages, came to life. Since the mages were low-mid-level and would mostly cast enchantment spells like greater malison, chaos, domination and the like, I figured that casting immunity: enchantment on Aerie and then countering them with their own medicine might be an effective prescription. Sure enough, it was quite easy to disable them with malison + confusion/hold person and pummel them to death while having a second, fear-protected character distract the fighters, who were quite easy to handle without the magic support.
The next batch of statues proved significantly harder. The two high-level mages were the main threats as I had no way of getting around their simulacrum-spell trap-absolutely immunity-based protections, not to mention their time stops and other arcane nasties. Even without the mages, there was no way I could take on the rest of the statues at once, especially the big-ass golem which could easily decimate Keldorn, my main front liner, with one elbow drop.
In the end, I resorted to the less-than-honorable strategy of trap setting and divide and conquer. I had Yoshimo place his two alchemic snares next to the mages, hoping that the resulting poison would keep their spellcasting at bay. My Blade and Keldorn would then pull the lower batch of warriors and the golem down to the library in the western wing, go invisible using potions and trap the (literally) dumb-as-bricks creatures behind two sets of doors. Meanwhile, Cernd would cast insect plague on the mages while Aerie would do her best to land an enchantment or two on the remaining fighters. It took me a few tries, but after I finally got the mages, the rest of the statues went down rather easily, especially after Aerie landed a slow spell on one of the toughest fighters. As for the golem, the dumb bastard got stuck in one of the doorways, allowing Keldorn to pelt him with infinite bolts +1. Cheesy, but oh so satisfying. The statues left behind some good gear, including the Purifier+3 and Usuno's Blade+4, my first weapons with higher than +2 enhancements. The experience yield I received for completing the ritual was also a welcome blessing, and everyone except Keldorn had gained a level or, in Aerie's case, two.
THE ELEMENTAL LEVEL
***
In comparison to its predecessor, the Elemental level turned out to be an easy one, almost like a freebie in terms of loot and experience. I managed to complete it with a fatigued, spell-depleted party without any rests and too many reloads.
After making the pact with the Chromatic Demon, I headed for the fire library to speak with the imp. I was surprised to find it empty of critters; however, when I came back a little while later, two Fire Giants had popped out of the nowhere to greet me! Ouch. After a little empirical research, I discovered that the libraries only have monsters if you take time entering them - it is as if the spawn needs a heads-up to pull up its pants or something. I used this to my advantage: by giving Yoshimo the Boots of Speed, I managed to loot the air and slime libraries without fighting a single creature. I then had Aerie cast sanctuary on herself and lure the air elementals from the fan room simply by getting them into her line of sight, then walking back to the air library. As soon as the sanctuary expired, the elementals came floating out, one by one, with convenient six-second intervals. I suppose it is part of the improved AI that SCS comes with, but all it did was make my day easier since I did not have to figure out how to deal with the two fire giants along the way. After obtaining the Air Scepter and turning up the fan, I had the gas blow out of the slime laboratory into the library below, conveniently dispatching a belated spawn of mutated spiders on the side. The creatures in the slime lab were nothing to write home about, though I did lose Rasaad due to careless positioning. Thankfully, all it took was one charge from Mekrath's rod of resurrection to bring him back up again.
The rest of the labs were not that hard either, though the critters in the ice room seemed to require weapons of +3 or greater to hit. Luckily I had a found a stack of +3 bolts on the previous floor. I had Keldorn equip his crossbow, positioned him in one of the doorways and then just sniped the ice golem and his fellow mists to death. They never seemed to come too far out of the room either; using hit and run tactics, Keldorn could easily dispatch them all without seriously risking his hide. The same strategy worked for the fire room; after luring the fire elementals from the ice room, the fire giant soon fell to Keldorn and his bolts.
I was initially a little worried about the Chromatic Demon, but he did not turn out to be fairly easy in the end. I waited him to shapeshift into his ice form before inserting the scepter keys, then promptly hurled every fiery spell or projectile I had at him. I had my Blade, stoneskinned and mirror imaged, tank him while having Rasaad pummel him with his flaming fists, Yoshimo shoot fire arrows and Aerie and Cernd chain-discharge their Wands of Heavens. Whenever he shapechanged into one of his other forms (the air one was particularly nasty), I would pull back, wait it out, then rinse and repeat. He was dead in no time.
After the battle, I decided to rest up but was rudely awakened by two devil shades, which I was both unwilling and ill-equipped to fight. Luckily I managed to flee through the portal before they could do too much damage.
(To be continued...)
Oh, and I also decided to install SCS (along with Rogue Rebalancing) to make things a little bit more interesting. I don't usually run with mods and have never tried SCS before, so I guess this marks my first play-through of both BG2:EE AND SCS.
Anyway, down to business.
Like many of you no doubt know, you can travel to Watcher's Keep right after speaking to Gaelan Bayle. In fact, you don't even have to go through the city gates. My original plan was to do exactly this: hit the keep right after Waukeen's Promenade, in practice limiting my choice of party members and resources to those found in Chapter 1. Upon closer examination, I decided to cut myself some slack and do the Bard stronghold quest first so that my Blade charname could get hold of some usable armor and weapons. I also made a quick swoop on Trademeet and the Grove to pick up Cernd, Rasaad and the Belm scimitar. I did not bother with the quest itself and made special care not to accumulate too much experience on the way.
I eventually made it to Watcher's Keep at day 11 with a party consisting of my Blade charname, Keldorn, Aerie, Yoshimo, Cernd and Rasaad. With the exception of my charname and Yoshimo, who were both level 10, the average level of my party was somewhere between 8 and 9. Apart from the items I had gleaned during my excursion to Mekrath's quarters and the Planar Prison, my troupe was still very much in their starting gear - though I did pick up some potions and scrolls from one of the Bridge district merchants. Upon talking to Odren, I promised myself to not leave the keep for more resources unless I absolutely had to. I also vowed to refrain from cheating and excessive cheese such as fake-talk and luck-based tactics involving reloading until all the planets are lined up. I would, however, do everything in my power to outsmart the AI; often this meant employing roguish, crafty and non-violent strategies to survive the coming challenges. What follows is the account of my endeavors so far. Enjoy and feel free to comment and offer your input.
ENTERING THE KEEP
***
Even during ordinary playthroughs I often raid the first level of Watcher's Keep in early SoA for all the nifty, easily obtainable treasures. In hindsight it is easy to see that my entrance was tainted with overconfidence; without giving it much thought, I barged into the main hall with (figurative) guns blazing and... BAM! VAMPIRIC WRAITH TO THE FACE. After a quick and humbling defeat, I opted for a more careful approach, scouting the western corridor and rooms with Yoshimo, disabling traps and picking up items on the way. Apart from a lone Stone Golem (which I left alone) and a pack of mephits and a bunch of slimes, this part of the temple did not pose too many problems and yielded me the Golem manual and a bunch of welcome ammunition, potions, wands and scrolls.
The upper (eastern part) proved a bit trickier. The large room next to the priest's tomb had a host of devil shades who, seeing through Yoshimo's invisibility, quickly chewed the poor thief to bits. On my second try, however, the shades were gone and I instead encountered a much more benign spawn of sword and phase spiders. I thought this was strange, given that SCS is supposed to provide you with the toughest spawns. Anyway, I chose not to mind it too much and proceeded with my looting and detrapping business. Apart from a single Spellhaunt, which Yoshimo was able to dispatch with ease, I did not encounter any more monsters.
Next came the task of dispatching those troublesome Vampiric Wraiths in the main hall. Between their permanent haste, level draining, invisibility spamming and regeneration abilities, they proved fairly manageable. Using my newfound manual, I conjured up a flesh golem and had Aerie animate a couple of skeleton warriors. Using these as a (meat?) shield I had Keldorn cast True Sight and then just focused all my firepower on one wraith at a time. Despite their high regeneration rate, they fell relatively quickly. There were some more mists further down the hall, but they posed no challenge to my hasted and buffed vanguard of fleshy and bony summons.
THE RITUAL
***
After lighting the fireplace, entering the tomb and giving the lich-priest his slippers, it was time to perform the ritual. I had already noticed that SCS had increased number of statues in the hallway. I counted four mages, five fighters, an archer, a thief and a golem. After placing the needed items on the altar, four of these, two of the fighters (one of which had a weird AoE fear ability) and two of the mages, came to life. Since the mages were low-mid-level and would mostly cast enchantment spells like greater malison, chaos, domination and the like, I figured that casting immunity: enchantment on Aerie and then countering them with their own medicine might be an effective prescription. Sure enough, it was quite easy to disable them with malison + confusion/hold person and pummel them to death while having a second, fear-protected character distract the fighters, who were quite easy to handle without the magic support.
The next batch of statues proved significantly harder. The two high-level mages were the main threats as I had no way of getting around their simulacrum-spell trap-absolutely immunity-based protections, not to mention their time stops and other arcane nasties. Even without the mages, there was no way I could take on the rest of the statues at once, especially the big-ass golem which could easily decimate Keldorn, my main front liner, with one elbow drop.
In the end, I resorted to the less-than-honorable strategy of trap setting and divide and conquer. I had Yoshimo place his two alchemic snares next to the mages, hoping that the resulting poison would keep their spellcasting at bay. My Blade and Keldorn would then pull the lower batch of warriors and the golem down to the library in the western wing, go invisible using potions and trap the (literally) dumb-as-bricks creatures behind two sets of doors. Meanwhile, Cernd would cast insect plague on the mages while Aerie would do her best to land an enchantment or two on the remaining fighters. It took me a few tries, but after I finally got the mages, the rest of the statues went down rather easily, especially after Aerie landed a slow spell on one of the toughest fighters. As for the golem, the dumb bastard got stuck in one of the doorways, allowing Keldorn to pelt him with infinite bolts +1. Cheesy, but oh so satisfying. The statues left behind some good gear, including the Purifier+3 and Usuno's Blade+4, my first weapons with higher than +2 enhancements. The experience yield I received for completing the ritual was also a welcome blessing, and everyone except Keldorn had gained a level or, in Aerie's case, two.
THE ELEMENTAL LEVEL
***
In comparison to its predecessor, the Elemental level turned out to be an easy one, almost like a freebie in terms of loot and experience. I managed to complete it with a fatigued, spell-depleted party without any rests and too many reloads.
After making the pact with the Chromatic Demon, I headed for the fire library to speak with the imp. I was surprised to find it empty of critters; however, when I came back a little while later, two Fire Giants had popped out of the nowhere to greet me! Ouch. After a little empirical research, I discovered that the libraries only have monsters if you take time entering them - it is as if the spawn needs a heads-up to pull up its pants or something. I used this to my advantage: by giving Yoshimo the Boots of Speed, I managed to loot the air and slime libraries without fighting a single creature. I then had Aerie cast sanctuary on herself and lure the air elementals from the fan room simply by getting them into her line of sight, then walking back to the air library. As soon as the sanctuary expired, the elementals came floating out, one by one, with convenient six-second intervals. I suppose it is part of the improved AI that SCS comes with, but all it did was make my day easier since I did not have to figure out how to deal with the two fire giants along the way. After obtaining the Air Scepter and turning up the fan, I had the gas blow out of the slime laboratory into the library below, conveniently dispatching a belated spawn of mutated spiders on the side. The creatures in the slime lab were nothing to write home about, though I did lose Rasaad due to careless positioning. Thankfully, all it took was one charge from Mekrath's rod of resurrection to bring him back up again.
The rest of the labs were not that hard either, though the critters in the ice room seemed to require weapons of +3 or greater to hit. Luckily I had a found a stack of +3 bolts on the previous floor. I had Keldorn equip his crossbow, positioned him in one of the doorways and then just sniped the ice golem and his fellow mists to death. They never seemed to come too far out of the room either; using hit and run tactics, Keldorn could easily dispatch them all without seriously risking his hide. The same strategy worked for the fire room; after luring the fire elementals from the ice room, the fire giant soon fell to Keldorn and his bolts.
I was initially a little worried about the Chromatic Demon, but he did not turn out to be fairly easy in the end. I waited him to shapeshift into his ice form before inserting the scepter keys, then promptly hurled every fiery spell or projectile I had at him. I had my Blade, stoneskinned and mirror imaged, tank him while having Rasaad pummel him with his flaming fists, Yoshimo shoot fire arrows and Aerie and Cernd chain-discharge their Wands of Heavens. Whenever he shapechanged into one of his other forms (the air one was particularly nasty), I would pull back, wait it out, then rinse and repeat. He was dead in no time.
After the battle, I decided to rest up but was rudely awakened by two devil shades, which I was both unwilling and ill-equipped to fight. Luckily I managed to flee through the portal before they could do too much damage.
(To be continued...)
7
Comments
***
My voyage had been surprisingly smooth so far, but I knew that this was bound to change. The maze level has the dubious reputation of being the most frustrating part of Watcher's Keep - the small, open spaces leave little room for tactical maneuvers and the wild/dead magic rooms often make prebuffing challenging or flat-out impossible. On top of all that, I knew that SCS had made demons stronger and bulkier and randomized the portals so that I could no longer resort to any FAQs or my memory in navigating the maze. I would have to learn it all from scratch - through trial and error.
I was also aware that in order to make it to the level below, I would have to fight at least one batch of demons - either Tahazzar the Tana'ari or Ka'ashur the Baatezu - for the Scepter Gems. This had me a little worried - so far, only my Blade and Keldorn had weapons strong enough (Usuno's and Foebane) to hit these creatures; the rest of my party was stuck with +1 gear - Rasaad's still had his cruddy +1 fists and Cernd's wolfwere paws were no stronger.
After talking to Yakman and resting up in his room (which, to my knowledge, is the only safe place to rest on the level) I rolled the dice and took the North portal... and found myself in the Demon Wraith's chamber. Talk about baptism by fire. I had no intention of joining the level-drained chunks of flesh on the floor so after making a quick swoop for the White Dragon Scales, I promptly escaped through the portal from which I had just emerged.
Rather than taking me back, the portal led me to one of the red wild magic rooms with an ensemble of Tieflings. I decided to take on them, though it is not like they gave me much choice in the matter. This fight turned out A LOT more difficult than I had remembered. The wild surges made casting spells a gamble and even when I did get something in, the fighters and their stupid pet dog would usually rip my puny characters apart with their below-zero THAC0 and godly fighter HLA's. On top of that, their rogue was keen on obliterating anyone with less-than-perfect health with his septuple backstabs. I eventually won by distracting the fighters with some item-induced summons (flesh golem and air elemental), then successfully confusing them and the party mage with the Harp from Mekrath's lair. After this, it boiled down to a lot of hacking, slashing, wand-using and potion-quaffing. Not the most presentable victory perhaps, but a victory nonetheless.
After saving, I took the East portal. This took me straight to the room with Ka'ashur (sp?) and his Baatezu cronies. I had hoped to make a pact with whichever group of demons I would encounter first, then proceed to pickpocket the main guy for the first Scepter gem. However, I had overlooked the fact that only evil and neutral characters can choose this option. Rather than accepting my neutral good charname as his business partner, the fiend decided to put me on his lunch menu instead. As expected, it did not take them long to turn my characters' portraits to gray.
It then occurred to me that I might be able to bypass the alignment check by putting Yoshimo, a true-neutral character, to the lead and changing the party formation so that he is first in line. This way, the demon would talk to Yoshimo instead of my charname and hopefully agree to the deal. Sure enough, it worked exactly as planned. Rubbing my hands together in gleeful delight, I had Yoshimo, augmented by potions of Master Thievery and Perception, relieve the rhyming pit fiend of his Scepter gem. One down, two to go.
Finding the Tana'ari took some more work. In fact, I actually managed to get to Aesgareth first. I had no intention of fighting the polite (not to mention ridiculously powerful) cambion, so I had Cernd gamble some of his vitality for both the scroll of Wish and the Spectral Brand. I came out ahead on both draws, though my victory was somewhat soured upon discovering that the Deck of Many Things is no longer pickpocketable. (I actually ended up removing the no-steal flag with NearInfinity, but that is another story.) Anyway, I lost the third draw (I think this always happens), but Aesgareth let me have the gem nonetheless. What a nice demon.
I eventually came upon Tahazzar and his fellow Tana'ari in a room north of the "original" wild magic room with the quasits and imps. This was somewhat relieving, since in the vanilla layout their lair is preceded by one of the dead magic rooms, making prebuffing impossible. My hopefulness was short lived, however, since even with buffs and potions the fight proved flat out impossible for my low level party. With SCS, his group consists of three Greater Glabrezu and a number of lesser, though no less perilous fiends and succubbi. Tahazzar himself has a permanent fire shield and is able to cast stoneskin, fire storm, implosion and numerous symbols at will. After a dozen or so tries, I decided that the fight was not going anywhere. Only two of my party members had any means of damaging Tahazzar, and even they would soon succumb to the confusion or stun effects and get decimated by the Glabrezu. On one particularly lucky try, I managed to get Tahazzar down to Badly Injured; usually the fight would be over even before I could make a single dent. I had hit a brick wall, or so it seemed.
They say the best ideas come out of desperation. After trying out every available combination or potions, items and spells, I discovered that haste now stacks with the Boots of Speeds, allowing my character to reach faster-than-light walking speeds. Since Yoshimo was still under the influence of master thievery, I realized I could simply have him dart across the rooms, pickpocket Tahazzar before he turns hostile and still have enough time to escape through the portal with my life.
And that is exactly what I did. Tahazzar, consider yourself victimized by Yoshimo, pickpocket extraordinaire!
With the Scepter of Radiance complete, I could proceed to the next level. Someday maybe I will come back to clear out the rest of the level, but right now I am getting sick of demons and writing this overly-long forum post. Until next time, Ballad out.
Incidentally, your familiar gets a duplicate of the reward. Pickpocket from it and you can obtain an extra copy of Wish and Spectral Brand. This is an exploit though.
After my initial run-through of the Teleport Maze, I decided to replay the level with some changes in strategy. First off, I decided to ally with the Tana'ari instead of the Baatezu. I felt rather lousy for having finished the level without a proper showdown, and I figured that Ka'rashur might be an easier nut to crack than his Balor nemesis. Secondly, I had simply had it with Cernd in my party and decided to re-replace him with Jaheira. I was aware that this would break my vow not leave the keep, but I just could not help it anymore. Oh Cernd, although Shapeshifter rebalancing has elevated you from utter gimpdom into the category of capable and useful party members, it has sadly done nothing to redeem your lack of personality. So, after your unfortunate fall in the battle with Ka'rashur, I had Aerie determine you were beyond the power of resurrection and booted your cold body from the ranks of my party. I am sure you understand and harbor no ill-will, much like your wife did when you bailed on her when she was pregnant with your child, you long-haired hippie bastard.
Speaking of the battle, I was correct in assuming that Ka'rashur was the easier choice. Apart from spamming invisibility, teleporting and casting fear, he did not have all that many tricks up his sleeve. No combat or spell protections, even! His Cornugon allies were also fairly benign compared to Tahazzar's Greater Glabrezu pals. With SCS, they have the ability to chuck Lightning Bolts, but this I could easily counter with Protection from Lighting/Potions of Grounding. They were also suprisingly susceptible to Holy Smite, which Aerie took full advantage of. It took me a couple of tries to get the technicals down, but after I did, it was fairly routine.
My experiences with the rest of the level did not significantly differ from the first run, though I did get lucky with the Tieflings. The mage cast Time Stop with a wild surge of Targer:Everyone (or something to that effect.) Basically, everyone in my party was given 3 rounds to beat the crap out of their frozen opposition.
***
I have always had mixed feelings about this level. While I love the design and the variety of creatures to fight, it has a dull, Icewind Dale-esque quality to it that I cannot quite put my finger on. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that underneath all the pretense, it is very straightforward - you pretty much have to fight everyone you come across (except Saladrex.) I mean, wouldn't it be cool if you could ally with either the Githyanki or the Illithids, or even better yet, play the two sides against one another? Overall, it is still a decent dungeon crawling experience, but compared to the other levels of the Keep, it leaves something to be desired.
Anyway, I chose to deal with the Githyanki first. SCS had given them Illithid-like psionic powers - namely the capacity to maze and stun - but their combat abilities seemed unchanged. That is to say, they still sucked the big one. The whole ordeal of cleaning their camp would have been very routine had it not been for two factors, both due to SCS. 1. Their numbers appear to have doubled and they are much harder to break apart. 2. Their Captain now summons a Planetar to aid him in combat. Nothing insurmountable, but nothing to rush into without careful consideration either.
So here's how I did it. First, I had Yoshimo sneak behind their ranks and obliterate the Captain with a couple of well-placed backstabs. Bam, no Planetar. This also helped to break up the camp in two manageable parts as the gith in the NW room, alerted by the crying of their dying captain, were drawn down to the ship room, leaving the entrance lightly defended and thus easy to breach. Second, I had my Blade and Aerie (protected with Chaotic Commands, Free Action, Improved Invisibility, Immunity:Abujuration and Stoneskin) herd the first group together, then pump the room full of AoE CC spells such as Stinking Cloud/Web/Emotion:Hopelessness. Keldorn and Yoshimo would then proceed to pelt the knocked-out gith with missiles, aided by the occasional fireball/cloudkill. Rinse and repeat, and the whole encampment was clear in no time.
Having dealt with the Gith, I was now looking at the possibility of testing my mettle with the Demi-lich and/or Saladrex the Red Dragon. The Demi-lich was a no-brainer; One scroll of Protection from Undead and there was not much he could do except take my blows and die. Cheesy, yes, but then again is there a non-cheesy to way to deal with these guys? Either you make yourself invulnerable with PfMagic/PfUndead/Berserker Rage/Immunity:Abjuration and be guaranteed a win or go in unprotected and die in a matter of seconds.
Anyway, onto the next part. After giving it some thought, I decided against fighting Saladrex.
[RP-justification] After talking to Saladrex, there was absolutely no way my Neutral Good Charname could have even considered raising a sword against such a polite, helpful and docile creature. He even took the time to answer my questions to the best of his knowledge! And, yes, while he might be a red dragon of evil alignment, all he does is sit in his lair all day - a lair which is in a supermax prison anyway. If there ever was a need for justice, it has already been served. [/RP-justification]
[Actual reason] After a couple of half-assed, pathetically unsuccessful attempts at felling the 700-something-HP creature, I decided that he was too much trouble for the 64k xp and a quarterstaff I did not need anyway.
The Illithid encampment is when things got interesting. For two seconds, that is. After that, it was an hour of scream-at-the-screen-kind of frustration. Mind flayers have never been too fun to fight. No matter how well-protected you are, they always seem to get in the few hits they need to kill you. I know Protection from Magical Weapons is the way to go, but neither my Blade or Aerie had access to level 6 spells yet. Anyway, the Illithids themselves were not the problem - their numbers were. The programmers of SCS really got carried away with the the multiplication game here. The lower room alone (which has the Ulitharid you need to kill for the second part of the Illithid rod) had 9 of them, 4 Ulitharids, 5 Mind Flayers. AND 4 Umber hulks. Some of the Mind Flayers would also teleport in from the upper rooms, so it was not uncommon to find myself swarmed by 12 or more of them. Needless to say, these instances ended very, very quickly. On top of all that, they all had an innate ability to turn improved invisible at will, an effect which neither Yoshimo's Detect Illusions or Keldorn's True Sight could effectively dispel.
It did not take me long to realize that clearing out the whole encampment was out of the question. I was simply outnumbered and overpowered, and no matter of tactical tinkering would get me around that fact. Eventually, I resorted to a desperate hit-and-run strategy. I would send an invisible strike-team, consisting of my Charname, Rasaad, Keldorn and Yoshimo, down to the lower room and simply jump the Ulitharid holding the rod, praying that I could dispatch him/her/it before getting my brain sucked out. However, before I could do that, I would need to take care of the Umber Hulks, which were equally ubiquitous. If I didn't take care of these creatures, they would simply block the hallways with their numbers and prevent me from escaping. So what I did was send a Sanctuarized Aerie down to the prison room, talk to the Apprentice, duck and quaff a potion of invisibility. Within second, all the Umber Hulks in the dungeon would come rushing to the spot, congregating like bees around their queen. After that, all it took was one cloudkill to kill them.
It took me three attempts to successfully pull off the hit and run strategy described above. I am normally against tactics involving too much luck and metagame knowledge (in reality, there is no way my characters should have known which Illithid to kill) but truth be told, I was getting really frustrated and felt like the difficulty of the encounter was based too much on the raw power of numbers instead of smart AI usage. Anyway, if someone ever tries to clear out the SCS-enhanced Illithid encampment with a party of level ~12 characters, let me know how it went.
After obtaining the Illithid rod and fighting the two Vampiric Illithids in the Western crypt - compared to the headache the rest of the encampment had given me, fighting these guys felt like wading through a bunch of gibberlings - I had all the items I needed to solve the oil puzzle and recover the Crystal Mallet. Naturally, there was still the matter of fighting Rock and Garock, the two minotaur brothers guarding the treasure room. I expected them to be tough and was not disappointed - though Garock seemed to get stuck in an odd pattern of teleporting to-and-fro, effectively CC'ing himself so I could concentrate my firepower on his brother. All my fighters seemed to fall really fast to his axe so I took the strategy of lowering his resistance from behind a shield of summoned creatures, then hitting him with every enhancement I had. Ironically, the spell that finally got the fearsome minotaur was the level 2 'Horror' cast by my Blade. Overall, I would take Minotaurs over Illithids any day.
The Mallet now in my possession, all I had left to do was free Carston from the Machine. Being the good person that I am, I let the sniveling little mageling leave with his life - and in all fairness, how would YOU have entertained yourself if you had an eternity to spend in a glass bubble? After playing some with the machine (I actually let most of my party member have the status raising effects) I activated the portal and ventured through to the next level.
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"Smarter mind flayers (BG2, BG2EE, BGT)
This component improves the intelligence of the mind-flayers and their kin (specifically, it upgrades flayers, ulitharids, vampiric illithids, and the Master Brain). It allows the illithids to use a somewhat wider range of abilities than before (notably, they have access to a few physical psionic attacks, like Ballistic Attack, and they can astrally travel to more convenient bits of the battlefield); it significantly improves their targetting; it allows them to use each power every 2-4 rounds and choose the most appropriate available power; it lets them avoid attacking targets who are immune to their abilities or to their physical attacks.
There are a variety of options in this component. You can choose whether to let mind flayers see invisible opponents (I'm inclined to think that their great intelligence and wide range of psionic powers means that invisibility is no barrier to them; not everyone agrees, though). You can also choose to give mind flayers 50% resistance to melee and missile damage. (The Tactics version of smarter mind flayers grants both these powers; both are optional in SCS.)
The component also makes a few changes in how psionic powers work. It mildly increases the damage done by physical psionic attacks (though not to anything like the extent that Tactics does) and it changes "anti-psionic" items so that they do not protect from physical psionic attacks. (On my interpretation, "Ballistic attack" involves using psionics on a rock, not on a PC). This gives illithids a few more options when facing enemies who are shielded from mental attack. The component also systematises illithid magic resistance and level, so that all of them are 90% magic resistant (previously there were a few exceptions) and the same level. As of version 16, it allows illithids' detonation power to destroy skeletons automatically (in accordance with the 2nd edition rules, as it happens). (This can be disabled at the console.)
If the "Smarter Mages" component and this one are both installed, the Alhoon is also upgraded. I interpret him as a L18 mage with the psionic powers of an ulitharid, I also give him the "split mind" psionic power, which allows him to cast a spell and use a psionic power in the same round. (Yes, purists, this is a valid 2nd edition psionic power!) This guy is now fairly dangerous."
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Link to SCS readme - http://www.gibberlings3.net/readmes/readme-scs.html#tacticalbg2
***
Out of all the levels of Watcher's Keep, The Final Seal is probably my favorite. It has a genuinely eerie atmosphere and a series of individuated mini-quests, including the delightful one in which you control the Spirit Warrior. It is also refreshingly low on annoying filler encounters (though I did have a funny encounter with a spawn of Devil shades)
Like all of you no doubt know, you have to find three keys to unlock the seal. After using each key, a host of guardians will spawn for you to fight. The guardians that appear after using the heart key are the toughest bunch, consisting of a Marilith, a Hive Mother beholder, a demonic Archer and others. Colloquially known as the Final Guardians, they are considered one of the toughest fights in the entire trilogy.
At the time of writing this, my party is in its lower teens: my Blade Charname and Yoshimo are level 14, Rasaad is 12, Keldorn 11, Jaheira 12/9 and Aerie 11/10. So far, they've proven surprisingly capable at tackling the challenges of SCS-enhanced Watcher's Keep. Will they, however, be a match for the Final Guardians, or perhaps Demogorgon later on? That remains to be seen. Anyway, I decided to not trouble myself too much with what lies ahead. Even before I could try my luck against the guardians, I would have to fight a bunch of monsters, including a green dragon, as part of the Helmite trials.
I decided to ignore the token-machine to the west for now and start with the three Helmite challenges to the south. After beating the Imp at a game of coins, I took a deep breath and braved myself through the middle door into the dragon's lair.
Dragonslaying
The battle with the green dragon was hands down the greatest fun I've had in this game in a long, long time. In its difficulty and frustration, it brought back memories of facing Firkraag for the first time. SCS gives Dragons double hitpoints and a smarter AI, both of which at the time of installing the mod I considered fair improvements - dragons are towering mounds of flesh imbued with the most ancient of magicks, after all. I was not, however, prepared for the reality of this update. According to NearInfinity, the green Dragon now has 702 hitpoints and an AC of -10. And if that was not enough, SCS has given it the capacity to instantly bring itself back to full health using Contingency: Heal. I soon figured that in order to fell the beast, I would have to get past two bottlenecks.
1. Find a way to inflict enough damage to surmount its godlike hp. In practice this meant circumventing its 55% magic resistance so that I can hit it with spells
2. Find a way to incapacitate it on low health so that it does not heal itself, bringing all my efforts to naught
It took a lot of trial and error, but I finally came up with an effective strategy. To make sure I won legitimately and not by mere chance, I repeated the battle three times. Here's how it went more or less every time, step-by-step:
1. Summon monsters to act as an initial meat shield/distraction while my casters get their spells in. I conjured up an Efreeti, a Fire Elemental and three Skeleton Warriors. In the end, the skeletons worked the best due to their magic resistance.
2. Buff up as usual. Resist Fear, Protection from Evil 15' radius, Defensive Harmony. Oil of speed on everyone, potions of frost giant strength, invulnerability and heroism on my fighters. Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Improved Invisibility and Immunity: Abjuration on my Blade. Finally cast haste on my summons.
3. Charge the dragon with a vanguard consisting of Rasaad (immune to its poison breath) and the five summons. Position my other characters so that they spaced well apart - Rasaad and summons swinging away at 12 o'clock Keldorn and Yoshimo shooting missiles at 3 and 5 o'clock, Aerie and Jaheira casting spells at 8 o'clock.
4. Dragon uses its poison-based breath attack on Rasaad and summons, killing the Efreeti. Proceeds with Wing Buffet and Stoneskin. Meanwhile, Aerie casts lower resistance, lowering the Dragon's MR by 21%.
5. Dragon goes melee, attacks Skeleton warriors. They start dying really fast, but holding up just long enough for Aerie to land another lower resistance, taking the Dragon's MR down by another 21%. Jaheira starts casting doom, my Blade greater malison.
6. Dragon, having figured Rasaad and skeletons are immune, takes a breath on Yoshimo instead, unfortunately killing him.
7. Aerie casts lower resistance the third time, completely voiding the Dragon's magic resistance. Jaheira starts casting Rigid thinking, my Blade and Rasaad use Wands of Cursing.
8. Dragon is now blind, deaf and rigid thinking.
9. Party starts using everything fire-based at their disposal. Aerie cast Flame Strike, my Blade Flame Arrow Jaheira uses Wand of Heavens, Potion of Firebreath, Rasaad Flaming Firsts, Keldorn the fire missiles on his crossbow.
10. Dragon brought down to 'Badly Injured', seems incapable of using breath attack due to Rigid Thinking. My Blade charges with offensive spin, Aerie and Jaheira keep inflicting fire damage with spells and items.
11. Dragon down to 'Near Death', my Blade casts Horror, spell sticks, Dragon starts running in fear.
12. Full assault, Aerie uses magic missile, minute meteors, Blade, Jaheira, Rasaad and Keldorn charge.
13. Dragon - death.
Anyway, that's all for now. Next up, my account of the battle with the Final Guardians. Thank you for reading, stay tuned.
***
I will not bother talking about the rest of the challenges on the level as none of them were significantly affected by SCS or the level of my party. Besides, you all know about the Horde Challenge, the Spirit Warrior miniquest and the Token Machine. So, let us cut to the chase and talk about the interesting stuff - the Guardians of the Seal and Demogorgon himself.
When preparing for the battle, my main conundrum was a moral one. Should I or should I not make use of Yoshimo's set traps ability? Unlike many people, I have never considered traps 'cheesy' - as long as you don't rest and stack them ad nauseum, it is a perfectly logical and strategically sound way to deal with some encounters. In the case of the Final Guardians, it even makes roleplaying sense. My charname had all the reasons in the world to expect something nasty and powerful to show up upon turning those keys, and since he had a Bounty Hunter in his party with a Set Traps skill of 115, he would have had to be absolutely mad not to seize the opportunity. I mean, when in real life would a commander tell his explosives specialist to "go easy on the mines" upon hearing that a convoy of enemy tanks was headed their way?
Yet the fact remains that traps are ridiculously overpowered and take a lot of challenge out of the battles in which they're used.
In the end, I decided to use them, albeit with some self-restraint. I would only set the amount Yoshimo had at the ready and would not rest/reload upon failing to set them successfully. I also feigned "RP-ignorance" while positioning, setting them in a straight vertical line instead of stacking them all in one spot.
As for the rest of the preparations, I pretty much followed the same steps I used with the dragon above. Summons, potions, combat protections, improved invisibility, immunity:abjuration and so on.
Now, my initial idea was to employ a lot of enchantments and spells, a path which quickly proved a cul-de-sac. All the monsters save the Kensai had magic resistance in the 75-90 range, and I had neither the spell slots nor the time to individually lower their resistances and saves like I had done with the dragon. After some experimentation, I realized I was severely outgunned on the DPS front and any stalling would only play into the hands of the enemy. I would have to go all-in right off the bat, hit hard and fast, focusing on one guy at a time. The best way to go about this, I figured, would be to go counterclockwise around the seal, starting with the monsters on the left while letting my summons distract those on the right.
So here's how I did it:
1. Send summons (fire elementals and skeleton warriors) to the right-hands-side of the seal; position my party members between the seal edge and the NW doorway; have Keldorn and Yoshimo equip their bows, Rasaad and my Blade get combat ready with Flaming Fists and Offensive Spin, respectively. Have Jaheira turn the key.
2. Guardians appear; traps go off. Y'Tossi (Marilith) and Nalmissra (Succubbus) slain outright; Xei Win Toh (Kensai) entangled.
3. Aerie discharges Wand of Spell Striking on Hive Mother (Beholder), bringing down its PfMW and Stoneskin; Blade, Rasaad and Jaheira charge, Keldorn and Yoshimo fire missiles. Beholder dies in a matter of seconds, still gets in a couple of anti-magic rays that strip Rasaad, Jaheira, Yoshimo and Aerie of their protections.
4. Meanwhile on the Eastern front, the Huntress (Level 25 demon Archer chick) is obliterating my summons with her two-handed sword, Drow cleric casts Finger of Death on Jaheira, killing her.
5. Party engages Kensai, Blade tanks, loses his stoneskin, starts losing HP fast. Aerie saves the day by landing a Greater Command on the bastard. Keldorn finishes him off with a well-aimed bolt while the rest move on to the Drow Cleric.
6. Cleric proves resilient, though not a real danger. Casts Sanctuary on low HP, then heal. I try to speed up his fall by having Yoshimo repeatedly backstab him. Meanwhile the Huntress has finished killing my summons and is firing arrows at me. They HURT.
7. Rasaad engages Huntress, while the rest of my party finish off cleric. None of my fighters seem capable of tanking the Huntress for long - even in melee, her DPS is just too damn high. After a drawn-out game of hit-run-and-drink-healing-potion, I finally manage to bring her down.
Not the most glorious of victories, perhaps, but an acceptable one. Maybe one day I will try the battle again without setting traps first. To tell you the truth, I was getting fairly sick of Watcher's Keep at this point and did not want to spend any more time replaying a battle I have never been too fond of, anyway.
The rest of the guardians were more annoying than difficult, though I did have some trouble with the Elemental Lich and his Flaming Skulls. This was mostly due to the fact that the skulls spammed Incendiary Cloud, which, in combination with the spellcasting of the Lich, made it really difficult for me to see what was going on. Not to mention the lag it caused. I eventually won by having my Blade polymorph into a Mustard Jelly (100% MR) and tank the lich while chasing the skulls down with Keldorn and Rasaad (both drunk on Fire Res. Potions.)
After all the guardians were dead and gone, I turned the wheel, opening the portal to the final level. I had already made up my mind to fight Demogorgon - after all, simply sealing him in after all this trouble would have been way too anticlimactic. I did not attack him outright, but rather took the longer path of first sealing myself in with the scroll and talking to Odren.
Anyway, let's talk about Demogorgon. Taking on this guy was funny - in the are you f*cking kidding me kind of way. I've only battled him with the Ascension mod once and that was a long time ago so I cannot quite say whether he was more powerful then, but I did have the feeling that his SCS version was at least on par. According to the SCS readme... And he still has his usual crazy regeneration rate, -12 AC -8 THAC0, 5 Attacks and 90% Magic Resistance.
Now, it was obvious from the start that this was a fight I would not be able to win the conventional way. In order to even have the faintest hope of touching him with spells, I would have to first strip him of his spell protections, then cast lower resistance at least four times. All this would, however, take way too much time. To put things into perspective, I would usually be dead even before I could get in my first spell. And if my tanks could somehow survive the relentless onslaught of his disease-inducing tentacles, he would soon conjure up four Greater Glabrezu stomp the crap out of me. Yes, it was very obvious that I would have to think outside the box in order to turn the tide on this one.
It eventually boiled down to one of two tactics, a very cheesy one and a moderately cheesy one.
Very cheesy way:
Have Yoshimo set a full load of traps under him, killing him outright
Moderately cheesy way:
Use Scroll of Protection from Magic on Keldorn, give him boots of speed, drink HP-fortifying, AC-lowering potions. Have him equip his starting sword, the Hallowed Redeemer. This weapon deals 5 points of nonresistable damage to his attacker on every hit. Demogorgon, with his fireshield on, will get constantly struck by the riposte damage, eventually killing himself.
The trick here is to keep Keldorn alive long enough for the Demogorgon to die. This is much tougher than it sounds, since even with all the AC and HP boosts out there, Keldorn will lose HP faster than he can drink potions of superior healing. Not to mention the disease effect, which stacks, eventually inflicting over 20 damage a tick.
So ends my low-level playthrough of SCS-enhanced Watcher's Keep. I do not claim to be a cream-of-the-crop strategist, and I am quite sure there is someone out there who could do what I did ten times better and with even bigger a handicap (such as not pressing the level up button.) However, that was neither the point nor the goal here. The point was to commemorate my first ever playthrough of BG2:EE by challenging myself with one of the best dungeon crawling experience in the Infinity Engine games while trying out one of the best strategy mods out there, and my goal was to do it well enough to have something to journal about on these fantastic forums.
Finally, I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to read my accounts. It's been a fun trip.
Protagonist: Ballad the Blade
Started at 200,000exp (Level 10)
Finished at 1 500,000exp (Level 16)
Time spent: 37 days, 21 hours, out of which 26 days 8 hours in the keep
Gained over 100 000 gold in loot and treasures.
Found numerous useful magical items, including 6 Wands of Spell Striking and 3 Scrolls of 'Wish'
Started with weapons of no or +1 enchantment, finished having +4/+3 weapons on everyone
Still have not entered Graveyard District, the Docks, City Gates or the Copper Coronet.