Black Pits 1 blind play through - a good rush! **Spoilers**
SirBaldur
Member Posts: 80
I recently discovered Black Pits and am having a blast. For some reason, i had a negative impression of it - maybe bec it strips out a lot of the charm of BG - so i never tried it before.
Anyway, i'm taking a party through totally blind. So far, I am through the first 2 battles of tier 3, and have lost no battles and had maybe 2 deaths (one of those bec my spirit bear wouldn't stop attacking my Confused party member, even though the battle was otherwise over).
Still, i wouldn't call it easy, and it definitely hasn't been boring. Not knowing what is in each battle means not being able to prepare properly!
When the latest battle started and the clay golems showed up, i thought i was a goner. I had a total of 2 useful weapons to share: my 2-handed barbarian had morningstars, specifically for battling golems or other non-slash enemies (jellies?). But everyone else had swords, and my 3 magic chars (sorc, thief/mage dual, druid) had normal quarterstaves - useless. (I intentionally haven't replayed any of the battles, to see how far i can get without that, so I have had to cut costs. Their magic quarterstaves were one of the corners cut.) Against 5 clay golems!
Well, i really thought it was hopeless, and already started mentally preparing how to go back to make money to buy more crushing magical weapons etc. But might as well give it a shot.
The sorcerer hastes everyone, but the beginning of the battle goes as expected, with everything ineffective: +2 swords, melf's acid arrows, poison darts, flame strike, etc. The berserker and paladin fare well against the Shambling Mound, and the barbarian will be able to kill one of the clay golems. But all 5 clay golems have surrounded her, and she is half dead already. Yup, going to be over soon.
The druid goes over to use her one and only healing spell on the barbarian (my wizards don't have any robes - more cost-cutting - so the druid has a lot of slots occupied with barkskin for buffing). Meanwhile, I am battling with my summoned nymph, trying to get her to cast mass cure; she keeps switching to another spell (even though I have char AI turned off). Nothing is going well. I decide to give the +1 morningstar to the berserker, and leave the two-handed barbarian with only a single +2 morningstar. The berserker has no pips in morningstar, but in case the barbarian dies, at least we'll still have one weapon.
Then everything changes. The sorcerer's glitterdust launches - and actually blinds 1 of the 4 uninjured clay golems! I had no idea that would work, she just didn't have anything else to do. She lines up another glitterdust, and finds success against another one. The 2 blind golems go wandering off.
That leaves it 2 warriors against 2 clay golems, and they are able to beat down one, and then the other. Mass Cure actually fires off as well, and the warriors are mostly healed. After that, it was pretty simple to pick off the remaining two blind golems one at a time.
In the end, once again no deaths and not even many wounds - but it wasn't easy and definitely not boring!
Now getting ready for the next one!
What I particularly like about Black Pits is that it's a great way to try all the classes and combos in a party. I'm trying blackguard, assassin/fighter dual, barbarian, even sorcerer for the first time. Next, i want to try an all bard party, as it is likely the only way i'll ever try a jester.
Anyway, i'm taking a party through totally blind. So far, I am through the first 2 battles of tier 3, and have lost no battles and had maybe 2 deaths (one of those bec my spirit bear wouldn't stop attacking my Confused party member, even though the battle was otherwise over).
Still, i wouldn't call it easy, and it definitely hasn't been boring. Not knowing what is in each battle means not being able to prepare properly!
When the latest battle started and the clay golems showed up, i thought i was a goner. I had a total of 2 useful weapons to share: my 2-handed barbarian had morningstars, specifically for battling golems or other non-slash enemies (jellies?). But everyone else had swords, and my 3 magic chars (sorc, thief/mage dual, druid) had normal quarterstaves - useless. (I intentionally haven't replayed any of the battles, to see how far i can get without that, so I have had to cut costs. Their magic quarterstaves were one of the corners cut.) Against 5 clay golems!
Well, i really thought it was hopeless, and already started mentally preparing how to go back to make money to buy more crushing magical weapons etc. But might as well give it a shot.
The sorcerer hastes everyone, but the beginning of the battle goes as expected, with everything ineffective: +2 swords, melf's acid arrows, poison darts, flame strike, etc. The berserker and paladin fare well against the Shambling Mound, and the barbarian will be able to kill one of the clay golems. But all 5 clay golems have surrounded her, and she is half dead already. Yup, going to be over soon.
The druid goes over to use her one and only healing spell on the barbarian (my wizards don't have any robes - more cost-cutting - so the druid has a lot of slots occupied with barkskin for buffing). Meanwhile, I am battling with my summoned nymph, trying to get her to cast mass cure; she keeps switching to another spell (even though I have char AI turned off). Nothing is going well. I decide to give the +1 morningstar to the berserker, and leave the two-handed barbarian with only a single +2 morningstar. The berserker has no pips in morningstar, but in case the barbarian dies, at least we'll still have one weapon.
Then everything changes. The sorcerer's glitterdust launches - and actually blinds 1 of the 4 uninjured clay golems! I had no idea that would work, she just didn't have anything else to do. She lines up another glitterdust, and finds success against another one. The 2 blind golems go wandering off.
That leaves it 2 warriors against 2 clay golems, and they are able to beat down one, and then the other. Mass Cure actually fires off as well, and the warriors are mostly healed. After that, it was pretty simple to pick off the remaining two blind golems one at a time.
In the end, once again no deaths and not even many wounds - but it wasn't easy and definitely not boring!
Now getting ready for the next one!
What I particularly like about Black Pits is that it's a great way to try all the classes and combos in a party. I'm trying blackguard, assassin/fighter dual, barbarian, even sorcerer for the first time. Next, i want to try an all bard party, as it is likely the only way i'll ever try a jester.
Post edited by SirBaldur on
2
Comments
I am glad you are enjoying Black Pits though. Black Pits 2:Gladiators of Thay is even better. Actually I think bp1 is good. Bp2 is fantastic.
I had loads of fun playing them and trying out new combinations and tactics.
The only criticism I have of them is that they're a seperate module, and one can't access them from the main campaign (except through some clua console teleporting), which made me a sad panda. I'd have loved if the pits were done in the vein of Watcher's Keep, ie., allowing you to enter them, fight through all the scenarios, and then leave with your phat loot and XP.
But apart from that tiny detail, I think the Pits were simply amazing.
I'd happily plunk down $10 for a DLC featuring Black Pits 3!
Oh, and MAKE BAELOTH A JOINABLE NPC IN BG2EE!!
However, we had quite a handful with the fire battle! We had the fire ring, for the flame strike, but thought we might be able to use it to take control of one of the fire elementals. Alas, the giant's "earthquakes" would knock half my team unconscious, and one of them came while in the middle of using that charge, so it got wasted. Then the fire giant kept using scorcher. He killed the thief/mage dual very early with a scorcher, then the exploding dead fire elementals killed the druid.
Finally, it looked like the berserker was going to go down as well - she was nearly dead (she had the full-blood portrait) and the giant put a scorcher on her. I wasn't sure if you can outrun a scorcher, so i had her go straight at the giant; she got a couple big hits (yay haste) and killed him. After that, it was a beat down of the couple remaining fire elementals. I was surprised to learn that fire elementals are susceptible to poison, so that really helped.
The final battle with Baeloth was totally uneventful.
Thardek charged my barbarian. He put a lot of hurt on her, but once the sorcerer's haste kicked in, she and the berserker cut him down. A couple potions propped her back up.
Baeloth had lots of shields. But he didn't have any protection from +2 arrows with poison! That really messed up his casting. Later the thief/mage Breached him, almost all his shields went away, and I could actually see him sweat
Garag was an odd case. The whole time, it seemed like he was trying to do something, but was unable to; i can't remember the exact message, but something about his spell not working. I'm not sure if it was the acid from Melf's and poison arrows, or a glitch. My sorcerer glitterdusted him and also flame arrowed him - but i saw no feedback in the console about whether he took damage, got blinded, had acid damage, or what. Since he wasn't attacking, eventually when Baeloth went down, i had overwhelming numbers. Once my fighters crowded him, he started swinging back; but despite his powerful hits, he couldn't survive long.
Then I got 34,000 gold and never had a chance to spend it. But I did successful complete the blind no-load no-repeat!
Alas, until BG2 comes to Android, the adventure stops here. (Is it even possible to continue the same party into black pits 2?)
Things that really helped:
* glitterdust - like blind+sleep that works against higher level enemies!
* poison - both the Blackguard and Assassin had poison weapon ability, which was very powerful. Having 2 chars with it was actually overkill, one would have been plenty. Some blinded enemies would wander off and die by themselves due to poison.
* spirit animals - they are a really pita to work in the UI (if the focus is not on the druid when it casts, you don't get the option to pick and lose the cast, which happened to me maybe 1 every 4 times), but they cast quickly and provided good distractions for the enemy fighters. I usually used bears simply for more hit points.
* boots of speed - i outfitted berserker, barbarian, and thief/mage with them. When you need a little extra punch on the other side of the battlefield, it's great to have your berserker race over - no waiting, no lost time, no party member getting pummeled in the meantime! I thought i might do more backstabbing, but only did it once, so it was probably wasted money on the thief.
* haste + boots of speed = everything above, but doubled, plus great offense, and easy to run away when dying (unless you get hit with the Fire Giant's scorcher, apparently).
* necklace that reduces caster time by one - most of my battles were over very quickly (lots of pausing though). Lots of bad things happen when they drag on a bit longer - more baddies coming out of portals, more jellies splitting into more jellies, etc. One lower casting time was a big deal.
Things that I saved money on:
* armor - all party members had regular armor and never got shields or magical armor. Mages had no robes, just their gowns; they got by on barkskins and then shield + blur + stone/iron skins. The barbarian did take a lot of hits in tier 3, but managed to squeeze by on the expensive potions of healing (27 hp); not sure if +1 splint would have helped, that was the only possible improvement.
* weapons - spellcasters basically had no weapons. The fighters got the best that was available (+2 of whatever). Seemed to work out fine. I wasted a chunk of money on asp darts - never even used those.
* potions of genius - not sure if this actually saved money, but it felt like it. I bought spells in packs - like 6 or 7 at a time - and then had mage drank 2 bottles of the genius potion, which guarantees a successful write. After failing to write 5 out of 8 spells at 18 int the first time, i went this route twice for the rest of the game. Maybe it didn't actually save money but it sure did result in less frustration.
* sorcerer - doesn't need scrolls, so that's a great savings. In the black pits, given the funding scarcity situation and no loose scrolls lying around, I think sorcerers are a better option than mages.