SCS that big "What the ...." moment. (spoilers)
SionIV
Member Posts: 2,689
This thread was made for those SCS moments that were so far away from the original game that it's like a completely different fight. This doesn't mean that it's a bad thing, but sometimes it can be.
What fights in SCS did shock, surprise or just maul CHARNAME and your party? Fights that might be simple in the normal game but taken over the top by SCS.
I'll start out with three fights.
1.) Silke in Beregost.
Damn you'll notice very quickly that this lady is a high level bard. She was pretty simple in the original game if you interrupted her lightning bolts, this isn't happening in SCS. She gets Ironskin (x2), Mirror image (x2) invisibility, haste, armor and the dreaded Chromatic orb. Normally Chromatic orb isn't a big problem, but she's high enough level that it has a chance to petrify you.
Have lost several no-reload games to her because of those chromatic orbs, one instant cast spell and it's game over unless she targets an NPC.
2.) The thugs that can ambush you in BG2.
I never travel during night time anymore. Those guys have 3-4 potions of invisibility EACH and they can deal anything from 20 to 50 (?) in a backstab. First time i got ambushed they chunked Viconia and Nalia. I started to fear them on lower levels, but even on higher levels they are annoying. The worst part is they have quite a bit of health and you only get 200 experience for the normal thugs. I'll take an umberhulk any day over one of those back stabbing sons of a bitc.... I would like an option to remove these guys from the game, just isn't worth it.
How come the shadow thieves are so bad compared to these guys? Three shadow thieves die to one vampire, three ordinary cooper coronet roof thugs would mangle that vampire lady.
3.) Shade lord.
This guy was too easy in the original game, i'll admit that. But i just wasn't prepared for how powerful he got in SCS the first few times i fought him. This guy goes from a 2/10 to a 8/10 easily.
So what about you? Any fight you dread in SCS that is pretty simple and forward in the original game?
What fights in SCS did shock, surprise or just maul CHARNAME and your party? Fights that might be simple in the normal game but taken over the top by SCS.
I'll start out with three fights.
1.) Silke in Beregost.
Damn you'll notice very quickly that this lady is a high level bard. She was pretty simple in the original game if you interrupted her lightning bolts, this isn't happening in SCS. She gets Ironskin (x2), Mirror image (x2) invisibility, haste, armor and the dreaded Chromatic orb. Normally Chromatic orb isn't a big problem, but she's high enough level that it has a chance to petrify you.
Have lost several no-reload games to her because of those chromatic orbs, one instant cast spell and it's game over unless she targets an NPC.
2.) The thugs that can ambush you in BG2.
I never travel during night time anymore. Those guys have 3-4 potions of invisibility EACH and they can deal anything from 20 to 50 (?) in a backstab. First time i got ambushed they chunked Viconia and Nalia. I started to fear them on lower levels, but even on higher levels they are annoying. The worst part is they have quite a bit of health and you only get 200 experience for the normal thugs. I'll take an umberhulk any day over one of those back stabbing sons of a bitc.... I would like an option to remove these guys from the game, just isn't worth it.
How come the shadow thieves are so bad compared to these guys? Three shadow thieves die to one vampire, three ordinary cooper coronet roof thugs would mangle that vampire lady.
3.) Shade lord.
This guy was too easy in the original game, i'll admit that. But i just wasn't prepared for how powerful he got in SCS the first few times i fought him. This guy goes from a 2/10 to a 8/10 easily.
So what about you? Any fight you dread in SCS that is pretty simple and forward in the original game?
Post edited by Lemernis on
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Comments
I wonder whether I'd be able to beat him without Insect Plague to interrupt and panick him. The level drains are terrible.
I've had great difficulty with Krystin in the Undercellars on various occasions. In a few encounters she gated in a Glabrezu, whose Stuns usually ended my No-Reload runs. The last time I had to deal with her she cast Incendiary Cloud, killing many nobles and courtesans, but not Charname who was at a safe distance.
He had such high AC and THAC0 it was next to unreal.
The first time I installed SCS I decided to keep the same quest order. Went to sewer and met Tarnor and his mage, Gaius. My first SCS mage. He triggered so many spell protections that I didn't even know what to do. When he gated in a fiend I thought "I'm just gonna run away and wait for the fiend to be unsummoned". Wrong. The fiend "teleported without error" by the side of my party. Several reloads after I realized my party wasn't high level enough to deal with them and I had to think of a new quest order. All in all, it felt like I was playing a new game, and that's what I like the best about SCS.
Melissan is easy on vanilla BG2, but with Ascension I still unable to eat The Five (I've beaten them once and died due a Potion of Heroism ending it's effects with my PC who had 2 HP and was being healed
You had a fighter/cleric/mage with a 70% melee script but then you have a whirlwind of spells, spears and damage. Not to mention the Five themselves, Illasera is just ultra-cheesy, Abazigal hits for lots of damage but he is probably the weakest member of the Five. Balthazar can be redeemed to become an ally, but he has lots of cheesy and OP Innate Abilities, Sendai has a dayum gud (*that* good) that uses Cleric+Mage spells (plus 81% MR), Yaga-Shura has 99% resistance to everything but normal and Magical Cold (can't recall his MR anyway, I think that it was 50%), and Sarevok (if you don't have him) is also an easy one, but he hits hard and he has 5% chance of inflicting +200 damage on hit. Imoen is very easy, she turns into the Slayer, with some upgraded things, but she is still easy to beat with 2 ADHW.
And I haven't mentioned Irenicus, Bodhi and the Dark Planetar, Bodhi hits for -5 Levels and 20-30 damage IIRC, Irenicus is Irenicus and gets an awesome script where HE, THE AI abuses of spells like me (a power gamer) does, really nasty, he uses around 3 Teleportation Fields so you can hit him with melee (or just have a bad time doing so), he uses Spell Immunities inside Contingencies and makes moves with Greater Malisson x2 + Dragon's Breath + ADHW + Time Stop + Improved Alacrity + 4-5 Skull Traps + a bunch of Sunfires + Cone of Cold + Fireshield Blue & Red + Stoneskin + PfMW + PfE + PftE + Spell Traps + sometimes a PW:K to your weakest party member.
After that I have nightmares of Irenicus killing me over and over, and losing the save files after killing him, he appearing again on the Final Stage of the battle against Melissan, etc (joking).
Kahrk the ogre magi in the Firewine area is a very scary and unnerving encounter as well. Downright unfair if you are underlevelled. Even at max lvls for bg1 that guy is tough.
1. Mencar Pebblecrusher & co. on the second floor of the Den of Seven Vales. This is usually one of the very first, if not the first fights I do right after Chateau Irenicus. Well, no longer. Both Mencar and his Barbarian buddy are now comparable to vanilla Firkraag in terms of THAC0 and APR and Brennan the Thief has finally learned how to backstab effectively. One time I even managed to successfully confuse the rest of the party but still fell to Mencar and his relentless hammer-swinging.
@Dexter, I actually found Tarnor's party easier to deal with. The fighters seemed very susceptible to standard CC strategies such as Malison+Emotion while the casters were easily eliminated with Silence 15-radius and Insect plague. Or maybe I just got lucky, who knows.
2. Yuan-Ti Mages. These guys were little more than an annoyance in vanilla; in SCS they are downright crazy. Their MR coupled with hard-to-crack spell protections such as Spell Deflection, Immunity: Divination and Improved Invisibility makes fighting them a real test of patience. What's more, they now appear to spawn in packs of 3 (along with some other Yuan-Ti) giving them the power to decimate any unprepared party. I first encountered them in Mekrath's quarters at level 9 - a real baptism by fire, I would say!
3. Tahazzar the Tana'ari in Watcher's Keep. Granted, when I decided to do Watcher's Keep as one of my first quests in Chapter 2, I wasn't expecting an easy ride. Nevertheless, this encounter took me by surprise. He now has a permanent fire-shield and is able to cast Symbol: Stun and Fire Storm at will. His three Greater Glabrezu companions cast haste, mirror-image and various other spell protections and dish out crazy damage real fast, and at least one of the lesser fiends in the room is able to level drain. If you are playing with the Randomized Maze component, there is a good chance that their room is preceded by one of the dead/wild magic rooms, making prebuffing impossible.
4. Waylaid by enemies. As @SionIV already pointed out, random thugs now pose a significant challenge to unwary travellers. The same applies to the random Waylays that happen when travelling between districts in Atkathla. Never did I expect to see the day when my party would fall to two measly slavers and a bunch of orogs in some dingy back alley while en route to the Government District.
In BG I hated Davaeorn, 5 bandits arrived every 2 minutes, if you are not fast enough you have to match 20 and more bandits with ice-arrows (i wanted to crash my computer).
In BG2 long travels are very hard if u meet bandits, it seems they say... welcome to SCS rookie!
1. Silke: Got petrified over and over by this lady. Eventually I left her for after the Bandit Camp.
2. Davaeorn: Not him, per se, but the new stinking/cloud + web combo that gets fired off. I am still not sure if this is a trap or a sequencer from him. Looked like a sequencer, as the text appeared above his head, though it may have been his defenses triggering. In any case, almost got wiped out the first time but managed to retreat in time. I still lost that battle, when a battle horror ignored every one of my party mates and went straight to me. There was so much magic flying through the air I didn't notice. In SCS, enemies don't always go for the nearest party member, which leads me to...
3. The Pirates in the Sea's Bounty: A definite 'What the...' moment, but not in the way you think. They aren't much stronger than their vanilla counterparts, but their absolute dedication to dagger throwing Aerie was both odd and strangely admirable. They couldn't even be distracted from throwing these daggers by my melee fighters, and even when Jaheira was stomping their heads into the ground so that their eyes burst out of their sockets and they foamed pink froth at the mouth, they used their dying breaths to throw yet another dagger at the poor wingless elf. Logic might dictate that one should defend one's self from a woman who is literally killing you to death, but these dedicated dagger throwers showed the kind of true commitment you just can't buy.
4. The Druid Grove: WOOOOOOWWWW... I was not prepared for this. SCS adds lots of enemies to the maps, something it didn't much do in BG1. I was unprepared for the spirit trolls to say the least. I was just out of Irenicus' dungeon and trying to put my all-caster party together (2 mages, 2 clerics, 2 druids), and Cernd was the final piece. I didn't even make it past the first group of trolls. Couldn't target them, couldn't hit them, nothing was effective against them. I eventually managed to stealth my way past them all the way to Adratha's cottage, where a Shambling Mound blocked the bridge. I figured I'd just get Itafeer's head while I was in the area. Yep... bad move. Once again, everything I had at my disposal was ineffective against Rakshasas. I was slaughtered. Definitely one part of BG2 which is not even at all like the vanilla version. This time I'm saving it for later.
5. Thugs and Muggers in Athkatla: I've not been killed by these people, but I've never seen them either. They start invisible. I figured I'd do the same. I went invisible too. But you know what? Fights where everyone is invisible are quite boring.... just a bunch of folk standing around. Kind of hilarious, actually, but I suppose you have to be there. Invisibility practically takes over the game in SCS. It's crazy important now, especially as there are certain things you can do without breaking the veil. This has caused a definite change in my play style.
After -once upon a time- I have seen what the SCS-override for the Wolf of Ulcaster did, I realized that no-reload + new SCS enemies are just ridiculous (unless you memorized somehow what you need to do).
Similarly, I don't let SCS casters to insta-buff. (And I don't let myself to prebuff, beyond what I learn by RP or scouting, legitimately.)
SCS is A++ for AI in a tactical game, but I downvote its rule changes to enemies.