@semiticgod - Arkanis Gath is intended as a deliberate game-stopper to prevent you from breaking the plot; that's why his script is called "KILLPC". The intention of the "Belt of MinHP1" is to make him unkillable (to make sure that he does indeed succeed in forcibly stopping your game), but the original devs overlooked the fact that you can kill him by stat drain. However, if this version of Arkanis Gath appears at all, then that usually means that you've broken the plot, i.e. that your game cannot now be completed.
(There's a different version of Arkanis Gath, without the Belt of MinHP1 and the instant-death sword, who can appear as an ally in Chapter 6.)
If you're still in Chapter 2 and have still left open the option to side with the "other guild", then ... er ... maybe it'll still be possible to complete the game, although that probably depends upon the exact circumstances. If siding with the "other guild" is no longer available to you, then you're shafted and will need to re-load to an earlier time (before attacking Renal Bloodscalp).
You can probably salvage the save if you know what variables were changed. Probably something for Renal being attacked/killed. Might be beyond mere Keeper, but I've played around to fix flubbed quests before.
@Gallowglass@DreadKhan: I realized Arkanis Gath is there to prevent a plot rupture. But I was fairly sure that the plot was salvageable without Shadowkeeper or CLUAConsole, and recent progress in my game suggests it is.
I almost never side with the Shadow Thieves, since it requires facing lots of vampires, so I had not paid Gaelan Bayle yet. Now, there is a long-running problem with my game in which Valen fails to spawn, which might have some impact here, but I used CLUAConsole to bring her in right before I attacked Renal Bloodscalp, to make sure that Bodhi would be available right after the Shadow Thieves turned hostile.
I have since completed Bodhi's tasks and she registers them as completed, though I have not set sail for Brynnlaw, so I'm pretty sure the game is not broken. I'll mention this in my thread to make sure nobody attacks Renal Bloodscalp without considering the potential damages.
There's definitely several ways to spawn Uber Arkanis and NOT break the plot, even if you've sided with the Thieves. I haven't tried all combinations, but iirc you can go and kill Renal if you've already talked to Aran Linvail. The upper floors of the Thieves Guild will be hostile, but the basement won't be. At least that's how it used to be.
Arkanis as a safeguard makes sense, but it appears that it doesn't actually check where you are in the story (aside from whether you've sided with Bodhi). So, he'll spawn even if you go and wreak havoc towards, say, the end of the game, where the Shadow Thieves really have no more role to play.
@Lord_Tansheron - no, super-Arkanis won't spawn near to the end of the game, at least not in the EE (and IIRC, not in the original game either, although I'm not sure about that). If you've already finished the Chapter 6 plot, you can then assault the Shadow Thief guildhall (even if you had previously sided with them) before leaving Athkatla for your showdown with Irenicus, including fighting Aran and Renal and so on, and there'll be no special consequences.
Some of the militantly-Good guys (e.g. Keldorn and Anomen) specifically tell you in dialogue that they'd like to come back and confront the Shadow Thieves once your party no longer needs to bargain with the Thieves for help in finding Imoen, so sometimes I do what they want and fight the Thieves.
However, at least in EE, as soon as you attack anyone in the guildhall, everyone (all floors) immediately turns hostile.
@semiticgod - ah, okay, you fought the Thieves while the option to side with the "other guild" was still available, so it sounds as if you can still complete your game.
@Gallowglass Fair enough, it has been literal years since I've last done it. I only remember that I've killed Renal for his boots on numerous occasions and at various points in the game, and never got stuck with the plot. Probably not in the EE though, granted; this may have been fixed.
It's a bit sad there is no truly "epic" beholder in BG2. Well I guess the Unseeing Eye, but that of course is intended to be cheesed by design. Even the scary scary Elder Orbs or the named beholder in WK are really not all that more difficult compared to regular beholders - which can be quite a thing for unwary players to be sure.
My personal favorite strategy against them is to bait their attacks with meat shields and send in a high APR ranged damage dealer - an Improved Hasted Archer, for example, especially if she's got the Critical Strike HLA. Cleans out a beholder hive like you wouldn't believe! No Shield of Cheese involved, of course.
Every beholder is a huge PITA, casting those rays and even mage spells in between rounds. I hate dispel ray lol. Even worse are the fights with combined enemies including beholders, because beholders require sneaking up to and smacking ultra fast or sending a meatshield while casting the save or dies like hold monster, feeblemind, finger etc. And then, elder orbs cant be killed fast and cant be save or die'd easily because they happen to be powerful mages.
You can only feel kinda safe against the beholder or an elder orb if you are a tob level raged barbarian/berserker with the death immunity katana. Then, remind me please do the beholders have disintegrate ray and does this katana help vs this?
Ofc you could be a walking trainwreck timestop sorcerer otherwise and laff at beholders. or anything
Btw prismatic spray can feeblemind liches because its level 7 spell so it is in fact a very random save or die vs liches.
I always thought the hardest fights were against high-numbered, organised enemies rather than against a powerful solo... especially when your party reaches level 13. for example, Neera's quest Red Wizard's hideouts (both SoA and ToB) often give me trouble if I don't cheese through them...
Double silver drake in ToB Dorn quest may prove to be quite tough unless you cheese them (which is "taking a bow and hitting them from out of their "box" as they are stuck in it")
As everyone else has said, beholders are by far the worst creature to fight in the entire game. It's not because their eye rays are necessarily powerful, but rather, they repeatedly shoot like 8 eye rays in a row per round. It's silly. The eye rays cannot miss, and the beholder keeps shooting them rapidly. It doesn't feel like there's an attack round for their rays. It's just a steady stream. Secondly, you can't distract a beholder with another character or summon long enough to double team a beholder. As soon as your second character gets within a beholder's range of site, it immediately turns and shoots 8 rays at the character within a second and a half. The rays will follow the character even if he runs out of sight range. The beholder seems to lock on to the character at that point and the eye rays are like heat seeking missiles that will nail your character no matter how far you move away from the beholder. It's one thing for a creature to throw a spell at you which you have to make a save or instantly die. It's another thing if the creature shoots 8 of those spells in a row, every second. They will always win the dice game due to the sheer volume of their attacks.
Mind Flayers, Liches, and every other creature in the game is within reason. Beholders are not. With all that said, I still refuse to use the shield against them. I prefer the most legit ways to kill them: (1) sneaking up on them while invisible to quickly kill them or (2) summon skeleton warriors to march toward them off screen to hack them apart.
I don't know of any other way to combat them.
As for the hardest legit enemies in Baldur's Gate, it would have to be dragons. Dragons are well-rounded tough creatures that hit hard, have good protections, and require some tactics on the part of the player in order to defeat them. Granted, there are cheap ways to defeat them like traps or instakill spell spam, but everyone knows that the game probably wasn't meant to be played like in that manner.
Liches are easy to beat if you know their formula. I beat Kangaxx with Korgan while he was berserk. Imprisonment wouldn't work. He fell easy without any reloads.
Mind Flayers are tricky. I usually summon lots of fodder to distract the brain extracting bastards while I hit them with spells or ranged weapons. However, they're doable.
Umberhulks are annoying. Their confusion is an obstacle, and they always seem to hit and hit hard.
Random parties of adventurers can be tough but fun fights.
Vampires are nothing once you cast negative energy protection (scary without it though). They are a one trick pony.
Golems can be challenging. Especially if there are several of them since they are fast, hit hard, and are immune to magic.
Minotaurs are oddly enough enough difficult in great numbers if you don't have an instant death spell for them. Hobgoblin Elites with poison can wreck low level parties.
Basilisks are annoying without protection from petrification. Dao are bad for the same reason, but they are probably worse since they have flame shields up.
Mummies can hit hard and getting infected by their disease is not fun.
Rogues that repeatedly drink potions of invisibility when you're out of true seeing spells can be difficult since they backstab you repeatedly without shame.
If you have a magic-heavy party, Beholders can be slain fairly quickly with Fireballs. A 10d6 damage Fireball will deal on average 20 damage to a Beholder, considering their saves, and so you can expect to take down a Beholder with about five Fireballs, or fewer if you get lucky. You can do this in two rounds if you have three mages in your party, or if you have two mages and summon an Efreeti beforehand. You just need your front line to survive that long. A couple of midlevel fighters and some high-HP summons should suffice.
Failing that, if you have an 11th-level cleric or higher, you can cast Blade Barrier and Sanctuary and hit the Beholders undetected.
Can't wait to try me some Nightmare Mode beholders. 10x the HP? That is going to be FUN! And actually require tactics other than "pew pew pew until dead".
the final seal in watchers keep was the best fight in the game. it was the only fight in the game that you really had to adapt to. almost every enemy in the game had some pretty sure fire way of being beaten vampires just protect from level drain. mind flayers just protection from holding. even demogoron was easy due to HLA's. but this final seal fight was one of the few where i was fully reading the battle log to see what was happening and deal with it. preparing for the fight was pretty redundant as the battle played out differently every time. i assume twisted rune is just as hard ( walked in on twisted rune trying to hunt the elemental litch ) but i had HLA's when i fought them.
Twisted Rune is quite hard if you go ham on them ( walk in the room rather than facing them one by one), but if you use the cheesy method it is easy. Even more if you use the Shield of Cheese. Please note the ongoing food metaphora
The hardest fight certainly is the one with Planar hunters at the end of BP2, if you fight them at full strength (No incapacitation such as taking The Winged's gloves, poisoning joker, swapping mind with Bannor and swapping Najim and Dormamus) It is a fight I had to try quite a few times even in core difficulties, not to mention insane.
The Final Seal in Watcher's Keep. To this day, I still haven't defeated them. Instead I just scramble for the portal hoping that no one dies afterwards.
How hard can that Final Seal fight be? I don't even remember it while I have killed Demogorgon. And I never skip a fight. Although I haven't done that fight since coming to the forums. Guess I need to grab myself by the collar and actually finish 1 of my playthroughs..
I'm not sure who the hardest single enemy to fight in vanilla is maybe Draconis, maybe Kangaxx, but the hardest battle overall for me would be the five all at once in the last part of the final TOB battle. Thats with ascension so I don't know if it counts. First time I did it I didn't want to kill Abazigal for fear of him turning into a dragon, so I left him for last and when I did kill him he didn't turn into a dragon and I felt like a moron.
Comments
I almost never side with the Shadow Thieves, since it requires facing lots of vampires, so I had not paid Gaelan Bayle yet. Now, there is a long-running problem with my game in which Valen fails to spawn, which might have some impact here, but I used CLUAConsole to bring her in right before I attacked Renal Bloodscalp, to make sure that Bodhi would be available right after the Shadow Thieves turned hostile.
I have since completed Bodhi's tasks and she registers them as completed, though I have not set sail for Brynnlaw, so I'm pretty sure the game is not broken. I'll mention this in my thread to make sure nobody attacks Renal Bloodscalp without considering the potential damages.
Arkanis as a safeguard makes sense, but it appears that it doesn't actually check where you are in the story (aside from whether you've sided with Bodhi). So, he'll spawn even if you go and wreak havoc towards, say, the end of the game, where the Shadow Thieves really have no more role to play.
Some of the militantly-Good guys (e.g. Keldorn and Anomen) specifically tell you in dialogue that they'd like to come back and confront the Shadow Thieves once your party no longer needs to bargain with the Thieves for help in finding Imoen, so sometimes I do what they want and fight the Thieves.
However, at least in EE, as soon as you attack anyone in the guildhall, everyone (all floors) immediately turns hostile.
@semiticgod - ah, okay, you fought the Thieves while the option to side with the "other guild" was still available, so it sounds as if you can still complete your game.
You can only feel kinda safe against the beholder or an elder orb if you are a tob level raged barbarian/berserker with the death immunity katana. Then, remind me please do the beholders have disintegrate ray and does this katana help vs this?
Ofc you could be a walking trainwreck timestop sorcerer otherwise and laff at beholders. or anything
Btw prismatic spray can feeblemind liches because its level 7 spell so it is in fact a very random save or die vs liches.
for example, Neera's quest Red Wizard's hideouts (both SoA and ToB) often give me trouble if I don't cheese through them...
Mind Flayers, Liches, and every other creature in the game is within reason. Beholders are not. With all that said, I still refuse to use the shield against them. I prefer the most legit ways to kill them: (1) sneaking up on them while invisible to quickly kill them or (2) summon skeleton warriors to march toward them off screen to hack them apart.
I don't know of any other way to combat them.
As for the hardest legit enemies in Baldur's Gate, it would have to be dragons. Dragons are well-rounded tough creatures that hit hard, have good protections, and require some tactics on the part of the player in order to defeat them. Granted, there are cheap ways to defeat them like traps or instakill spell spam, but everyone knows that the game probably wasn't meant to be played like in that manner.
Liches are easy to beat if you know their formula. I beat Kangaxx with Korgan while he was berserk. Imprisonment wouldn't work. He fell easy without any reloads.
Mind Flayers are tricky. I usually summon lots of fodder to distract the brain extracting bastards while I hit them with spells or ranged weapons. However, they're doable.
Umberhulks are annoying. Their confusion is an obstacle, and they always seem to hit and hit hard.
Random parties of adventurers can be tough but fun fights.
Vampires are nothing once you cast negative energy protection (scary without it though). They are a one trick pony.
Golems can be challenging. Especially if there are several of them since they are fast, hit hard, and are immune to magic.
Minotaurs are oddly enough enough difficult in great numbers if you don't have an instant death spell for them. Hobgoblin Elites with poison can wreck low level parties.
Basilisks are annoying without protection from petrification. Dao are bad for the same reason, but they are probably worse since they have flame shields up.
Mummies can hit hard and getting infected by their disease is not fun.
Rogues that repeatedly drink potions of invisibility when you're out of true seeing spells can be difficult since they backstab you repeatedly without shame.
Failing that, if you have an 11th-level cleric or higher, you can cast Blade Barrier and Sanctuary and hit the Beholders undetected.
The hardest fight certainly is the one with Planar hunters at the end of BP2, if you fight them at full strength (No incapacitation such as taking The Winged's gloves, poisoning joker, swapping mind with Bannor and swapping Najim and Dormamus)
It is a fight I had to try quite a few times even in core difficulties, not to mention insane.
Thats with ascension so I don't know if it counts.
First time I did it I didn't want to kill Abazigal for fear of him turning into a dragon, so I left him for last and when I did kill him he didn't turn into a dragon and I felt like a moron.