You guys are really sweet. I appreciate your comments.
I will indeed take this to TOB. But since I am relatively unfamiliar with TOB content and challenges, I might loosen up on the rules. So far, I've prevented myself from using exploits other than Blur stacking, but I am very fond of the WoL trick and I would really like to see Sil use it with Boon of Lathander and Armor of Faith, just because I've been holding back for so long. I don't think I'll rely on it that much, since Sil would have 10 APR at 0 THAC0 for 600 damage per round, for just under 20 rounds, if she had the right buffs in place, and she would be virtually unkillable due to immunity to magic, plus immunity to elemental and physical damage. No challenge there, but it would certainly be fun to try.
I am looking forward to Haer'dalis hitting epic levels. I might not create a whole army of Mislead spells to stack the Improved Bard Song, but I will probably have one or two songs active. And I'm also looking forward to finally getting a Spell Trigger, which will let Sil cast Improved Haste and Righteous Magic while in Iron Golem form.
You know, lately I've been relying very heavily on spellpower, much more so than in the early game. Mostly it's just been Sil doing the melee work, in Iron Golem form, and the others have stayed in natural form to cast spells. Maybe, once Haer'dalis gets the Improved Bard Song, I can get the party back to using spider form, and we can better continue the original project, to play a group of spellcasters as fighters.
I just started installing Ascension, and on returning to SCS2's setup, I have found that I was not actually facing the "toned-down" version of Bodhi, nor the SCS2-Tactics hybrid battle with Irenicus in Hell. Turns out I was dealing with the original Tactics versions, with SCS2's improved scripting.
Some difficulty mods seem a bit hamfisted to me, but if you are running a really caster heavy party, as those mods usually require, sounds like they become more enjoyable. Meleeing through Firegiants that drop Meteor Swarms after lowering fire resistance just is not my cup of tea!
Probably, IE not possible for melee grunts! This is probably because most high difficulty mods are designed around making arcane casters more of a challenge to play, since a good player with a sorcerer can walk all over everything in the game.
Edit: just to clarify, I mean that option is not available to a grunt party... so they can get pwnt pretty fast by a large group of those buggers.
Let's not underestimate fighters. A good player with a single-classed Kensai can do much the same thing. And Stworca's highly successful run of the Improved Irenicus battle, on Insane mode no less, was based on a very melee-heavy party (although the party's make up was non-vanilla, featuring an Archer/Druid and I think either a Blackguard or some unique weapon or class that allowed Dispel Magic on hit with an unenchanted weapon).
Fighter types might not have many tools at their disposal, or ways of fixing bad situations, but their raw power tends to keep battles very short, and therefore minimize risk.
...How does a fighter shorten a battle when the enemy has 10 stoneskins AND access to Weapon Immunity spells I wonder, Paladin I agree has a good shot (adding a dispel on hit non-enchanted weapon is a hhhhuuuggggeee buff imho, to the point you are very much adding new tricks, especially if it is not paladin exclusive!), and you might actually BENEFIT from a ranged Wizard Slayer with those mods, but still it would be a slog.
Actually, WS has no effect on scripted casting, right? you might not benefit much then. Really, I suppose if you made that ToB mage killer wand available in SoA, or ideally 2 or 3 purchaseable ones, it might change things a bit. As it is, buffed enemies mean lots of standing around for non-caster parties.
@DreadKhan: It's not a solo fighter necessarily. Now, in vanilla BG2, a Kensai can break through basically any defense, since Improved Mantle only covers up to +3 weapons, and both the Flame Tongue from the Druid Grove and the War Hammer +1, +4 vs. Giantkin strike as +4 weapons. With an Oil of Speed and Belm, a 13th-level Kensai takes down 5 Stoneskins per round, 4 of which bypass Improved Mantle. Vanilla mages aren't very aggressive spellcasters, so the Kensai can likely survive a bit longer, and at some point the mage is going to run out of weapon immunities and Flail of Ages can disrupt every spell, despite Stoneskin.
As for SCS2, a party of fighters is still viable, though it's not well-equipped to deal with mages. Admittedly, a party of fighters in Chapter 2 is not going to break through SCS2 Improved Mantle unless they get Carsomyr or the Sling of Everard. But Improved Mantle isn't a complete trump card, and once it goes down (and not all SCS2 mages use it; some use Mantle or PFMW), then a party of fighters is basically guaranteed to take the mage down. That's 18 APR unbuffed, without dual-wielding or speed weapons. The mage might have weapon immunities, but Stoneskin and all their other magic won't be sufficient.
And if five members of the party can't hit the mage, they fight its summons or allies, or just spread out to make sure they don't get hit by area effect damage. Breach is not the only way to get through weapon immunities, and mages only memorize so many of them.
To answer your question, an all-fighter party is not going to be able to take down a mage faster than a more balanced party could. Not if weapon immunities are part of the equation. But the fighter party will be able to break through Stoneskin and Mirror Image a lot faster, and most enemies, thankfully, do not use Improved Mantle in SCS2.
I once made it on no-reload to the Improved Irenicus in Hell battle with a melee-heavy party (although charname was a shadowkeepered Swashbuckler/Mage multi, and Imoen a Bard), but they got shredded. In their defense I must say that I also had aTweaks' improved fiends with fiendish gating installed, so demons kept popping up. The problem with the Improved Irenicus in Hell battle is that the party doesn't fight a single Mage as in your examples @semiticgod, but a bunch of heavily buffed, hard-hitting foes with all kinds of nasty disabling abilities that casters can simply protect themselves much better against. What is more, an arcane party is better capable of stalling and distracting the enemy with summons, and of stripping enemy protections.
Edit: I still think you did an outstanding job, don't get me wrong.
I was thinking more along the lines of the vanilla game. But I would refer to Stworca's run as an example of a melee-heavy party taking on Improved Irenicus.
@Blackraven: I'm not offended. As far as those "nasty disabling abilities" go... well... I didn't actually have the buffs necessary to protect myself from those things in the first place, so I don't consider the great power of buffs to be a discredit to my run. Nor did I do much in the way of "stripping enemy protections" (but I would have had to, if the Protection from Magic scrolls had both failed). "Distracting the enemy with summons" was a big help, admittedly, but even if I didn't remove the summoning cap (which I find a bit arbitrary, five summons for six characters), I could circumvent it with Project Image. Otherwise... I would have needed Teleport Field for the Wraith of Wrath, Potions of Magic Protection/Shielding for the Orb of Fear, and an earlier attempt at brain eating for the dragon.
Mages do have a lot of defensive and debuffing abilities, but mostly I fought through Improved Irenicus without either. It speaks to the power of Time Stop and Shapechange that it was possible to take them down without pre-battle buffs. In fact, I think the only buffs I used in that battle were Stoneskin and PFMW.
I guess the run did demonstrate what I set out to investigate. At low levels, we can melee as spiders if we disable the enemy first. And at high levels, we can take down magic-immune enemies by attacking during Time Stop.
Mages can melee. It just takes a lot of extra attention to get them to work.
I just played a little bit of TOB, but I will postpone posting on the party's progress. These posts normally take like an hour each, and it's getting late.
By 10 stone skins I meant castings, not just skins. Vanilla yeah, you can solo with a melee without too horrible of a time, but I meant with the enhanced difficulty mods, mainly uncounterable defenses that start to become standard for enemy casters. There would definitely be a great deal of running and hiding during big battles to outlast defenses with shorter duration.
PFMW on an enemy immune to normal weapons by default is another hard to counter defense. The duration is very short, but still! Liches used to drive me up the wall back before I bothered to memorize Breach! My part would be in no real danger, yet be forced to do little but wait.
Heck, what about invisible casters? They can be a pain in the butt too, and other than an Inquisitor, can be hard to counter without a dedicated caster.
To be clear, I am not trying to be insulting of your accomplishment, I have never been THAT good at running Mages. Just dragging the thread off topic with my pointless complaints there are not enough mods that enhance difficulty for Fighter types without throwing them into situations that they can really not do much about. There is that HoF thing for BG, maybe I will give that a shot some time!
@DreadKhan: Don't worry; I don't think anybody is trying to be insulting of my grand and stupendous accomplishment. They would embarrass themselves by the sheer lunacy of their claims. Mockery and shame would follow them to their graves!
Seriously, though, it is unfortunate that difficulty mods assume the player is using arcane magic. I've never really noticed it, since I've basically always used arcane-heavy parties (I love Teleport Field so much), but difficulty mods, in retrospect, do focus a lot on empowering enemy arcane casters, and mages are by and large the only people who can take down weapon immunities. But if we tweaked the Wand of Spell Striking to be usable by fighters, then the problem might be largely solved.
What is that HoF thing for BG? Is there a HoF thing for BG2? Because I have long been wanting to play BG2 with a Heart of Fury mode.
@semiticgod "nightmare mode" is in the .ini file for bg2 1.3 but isn't working properly yet (I think one of the biggest issues is that recruitable NPCs get the buffs too).
@Blackraven: I'm not offended. As far as those "nasty disabling abilities" go... well... I didn't actually have the buffs necessary to protect myself from those things in the first place, so I don't consider the great power of buffs to be a discredit to my run.
It's the part I underlined that made me decide to reply to your post. Let me repeat that you did a fantastic job in an extremely difficult battle! So there's absolutely nothing imo to "discredit" your run. Please note that I wasn't referring specifically to your playthrough, but rather to your examples in your previous post. In your specific case I think you had some but not all of the desired buffs at your disposal. For example, you coped well with those level drains, for which you were indeed ill-prepared.
Mages do have a lot of defensive and debuffing abilities, but mostly I fought through Improved Irenicus without either. It speaks to the power of Time Stop and Shapechange that it was possible to take them down without pre-battle buffs. In fact, I think the only buffs I used in that battle were Stoneskin and PFMW.
Perhaps I should have used the word 'debilitate' rather than 'debuff'. Warriors can't render a battlefield full of enemies helpless by freezing them in time with a Time Stop and take them on one by one, or use Shapechange to deal with an otherwise almost untouchable creature in a few rounds.
In general terms, that's what I was referring to. It's very easy for a warrior-heavy party as opposed to an arcane-heavy party to be insufficiently quick in dealing with the various foes and to get overwhelmed by the enemy.
Anyway, keep it up in ToB man. Your journal contains a wealth of useful information for the forum community and surely for lurkers as well As I've told you before, you're a highly intelligent player, you can make it all the way. If you're unfamiliar with ToB, and if you can be bothered, you might consider doing a test run first with another party, so as not to see your no-reload run end due to something silly you could easily prevent.
Re: your question on the HoF mode, @Wowo is right, but the information he gave only applies to the EE-edition (which you aren't playing atm).
You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. After many years I've recently re-played BG1 on my Android phone and of course ported the character (Ye' Ole' Dirty Bastard) into BG2 and found your thread while searching for a fix for some bug I ran into. Needless to say I was hooked on your narrative and it was quite the nail biter.
My only question is why didn't you just bring a 6 pack of invisibility potions when you went to do the old switcheroo with the dragon eggs? I simply hasted up Imoen threw improved invisibility on her then went to the treasury. Opened the door *gulp*, picked the lock *gulp*, switched the eggs *gulp*, and left a bunch of red circles up in the treasury scratching their heads wondering if they really just saw something.
There was no freaking way I was leaving Phaere without getting here comeuppance.
Congrats on surviving this iron-man playthrough though. You have inspired me to join this forum just to thank you for the entertainment.... I wish you had taken Viconia though, she's always been one of my MVPs in BG1 and 2 even if a little short on witty banter.
@hispls: I don't know the exact mechanics, but I was fairly certain you have to kill the Egg Guards to escape safely. That was the implication of the guide I read. Perhaps a completely stealth-based approach, with no attempt at fighting, would have worked. But the moment I opened the door, when the party was entirely invisible, the Egg Guards turned hostile, and it wouldn't surprise me if they alerted the other drow shortly after. You're guarding the treasury and the door opens by itself, in a world where invisibility is a known (and low-level) ability? That's a major red flag. An intelligent guard would immediately shout out, and it wouldn't surprise me if SCS2 made exactly that kind of change to the Egg Guards' behavior.
Viconia's abilities wouldn't have added as much to the party. The greatest strength of clerics is their large number of long-duration buffs, and we already had two divine casters in the party, even without Cernd. She could tank okay if she stacked Armor of Faith spells and used the Girdle of Fortitude, but she wouldn't bring much to the table in terms of new spells or physical power. Haer'dalis, at least, would bring the Improved Bard Song in ToB, even if he was mostly dead weight up until then.
Anyway, before I post on the party's first foray into TOB, I'd like to announce that I've finally found a way to shorten my party's ridiculous buffing time, which is gratingly tedious even with the Improved Alacrity bracers I've got for every party member.
Basically, I created three custom spells, which together will eliminate the need for manual buffing as well as resting. The first spell simply casts Protection from Evil 10' Radius and Remove Fear, one after the other, on self, at level 20. The second is caster only, and automatically casts Shield, Protection from Petrification, four copies of the Blur spell, Protection from Fire (mage spell), Protection from Electricity (cleric spell), Stoneskin, Death Ward, Chaotic Commands, Spell Shield, and Protection from Magical Energy, also at 20th level, and also one after the other. And the third spell is an altered version of the Mass Cure spell, except it heals all targets 100%, resurrects them as per the Mass Raise Dead spell, and also sets fatigue to 0.
I then copied the spell files and renamed them as SPPR104, SPWI111, and SPPR209. This means I replaced the spells Detect Evil, Infravision, and Know Alignment with automatic buffing spells that I can activate via the hotkeys V, B, and N. The casting time isn't instant, and isn't lowered by the Amulet of Power or Robe of Vecna or anything, but it lets me fix up everybody's spells within 30 seconds, with no searching through anybody's spellbooks. It's much faster than it used to be, and also much, much, much easier to do.
It does mean our cleric buffs and Imoen's mage buffs will be cast at a higher level than they should be at the moment, and all other buffs will be cast at a lower level than they should be, but that shouldn't matter too much, since we should have SI: Abjuration active anyway, and the spells' durations cap at level 20.
Plus, all of the spells can be cast an infinite number of times, removing the need to rest: the Detect Evil replacement restores a level 1 cleric spell as soon as it is cast, restoring itself, the Infravision spell restores a level 1 wizard spell, and the Know Alignment restores a level 2 cleric spell. I'll still have to rest to restore castings of Sil's Boon of Lathander spells, and some item charges, but otherwise I will never have to rest again! That means no incessant retreats to the Pocket Plane to avoid nighttime ambushes.
By the way: on looking at the Mass Raise Dead spell, I noticed that it removes the Shapechange abilities as part of its list of effects. Raise Dead, Harper's Call, and Resurrection all have the same effect. This is why I wasn't able to make Shapechange permanent in the past after installing TOB. I thought it was a TOB fix to the spell, but the Shapechange spell itself is unchanged; only the resurrection spells are different.
Except, the Rod of Resurrection has no such fix. I can therefore give constant effect Shapechange options to anyone besides Sil by having them cast the spell (if necessary, via a scroll), killing them, resting, and bringing them back with the Rod of Resurrection. I tested it and found that Haer'dalis retained his Shapechange abilities as predicted.
I don't know if I'll ever give anyone the ability--I don't like that Haer'dalis is almost as tough as Sil is in Iron Golem form--but if I ever decide to make use of the trick, I can give permanent Shapechange abilities to two characters, since Lazarus Librarus I believe sells two copies of every scroll.
I playtested a character with permanent Shapechange abilities and found it ridiculously overpowered. It was a Fighter/Mage/Cleric who could achieve 2 base APR in Iron Golem form (fighter levels add 1/2, the Boots of Speed fill in the other half) and cast Improved Haste and Righteous Magic via a Spell Trigger. And once she got to epic levels, she could also use Greater Whirlwind Attack, giving her over 500 damage per round.
I have installed Ascension and then reinstalled SCS2 on top of it, which I understand combines the components of both. Or at least, that's what it does for the Fire Giants.
After loading up our post-SoA save, I spent an inordinate amount of time rearranging my inventory, since I no longer needed all the various objects I had distributed amongst my party. Eventually, I got everyone fixed up with the right gear and crammed all our excess items into various containers, which meant it was time to prepare for the Improved Illasera fight.
Ascension Illasera is notable for firing off extra-powerful Arrows of Dispelling, and if my memory is correct, they break through PFMW, which my own Arrows of Dispelling failed to do when I was testing things before the Improved Irenicus battle. I don't have Protection from Normal Missiles, so I can't make anyone immune to nonmagical and magical missile weapons, but Aerie and Sil do have Physical Mirror, which reflects missile weapons for 7 rounds. The rest of the party is still vulnerable, however.
Illasera also comes with some relatively uninteresting allies (this component isn't meant to be incredibly difficult, unlike a lot of Tactics content), including a high-level mage and some high-end grunts. I decide to make use of Jan's fantabulous traps.
I couldn't really decide which traps were better, so I included a mix of both Time and Spike Traps. The Spike Traps are arranged to hit Illasera's buddies when they arrive.
In the buildup to the first fight of ToB, Aerie notices Jan is limping. Being a kind soul, she asks Jan if he's okay. Jan explains his malady:
Unfortunately, Aerie isn't as charmed by Jan's stories as she is by Haer'dalis' flamboyance. What do the big people have against gnomes, anyway?
This is what we looked like after all our buffs were cast. This was before I created the auto-buff spells, however, not that they're much different.
That Fire Elemental at the bottom is actually Zaaman Rul. Not that it made any difference whatsoever in this battle.
Illasera triggered Jan's Time Traps, allowing Jan to run up and start chopping her up.
It looks like the Scarlet Ninja-to, which Jan was using for the APR boost, cannot be used to backstab. Celestial Fury, as I know from experience, can be.
Jan finished off Illasera and got a few hits in on her mage friend before the Time Traps ran out. Her allies decided to flee, but we managed to kill the mage and one of the grunts before we got warped to the Pocket Plane, which got us a teensy bit of extra loot and XP out of the encounter.
We meet Cespenar! And also a Solar, who told us about destiny or something. But Cespenar! I love this guy's voice. We have a lot of components for his items, and my two favorite Cespenar lines come up as he's digging through our stuff.
We only have enough gold for one upgrade, though. I've heard good things about the Clay Golem from the Golem Manual, so we spend 5,000 of our 8,000 remaining gold to get it.
Also, Sarevok told us about a trial to the left. We have to kill some evil critters before we can leave the place.
In Ascension, the critters are mostly the same as normal, but the last enemies are Sarevok (not the same Sarevok we met before; it's a duplicate), Irenicus, and Bodhi, who all attack together. They're not quite as nasty as they were in their original forms, but they're still pretty bad. I decide to use the Wand of Lightning trick on Sil, just to see how she fared. Check out her resistances after one casting of Armor of Faith:
The fire resistance is from Protection from Fire, though, and the MR is innate.
Since I don't want to lose any Stoneskins or spells to the enemies before the big three, Jonny, Bonny, and Sherry, I just use the Wand of Cloudkill.
The kobolds died immediately, as did the Gnolls and whatever came with the Gnolls, but the Ogre Magi and Sahuagin managed to survive a bit longer, requiring a moderate amount of attention. As for the drow, they mostly went down with Dragon's Breath or maybe Comet.
The big three were more trouble. We still only have one item with Negative Plane Protection, and Bodhi is as nasty as ever. Sarevok wastes his time attacking our summons, just like in BG2. Sil gets her buffs dispelled and Haer'dalis gets level drained, but we have some tricks up our sleeve.
Dragon's Breath goes right through Bodhi's MR (I'm not even paying attention to Sarevok), and Energy Blades will break through Irenicus' Improved Mantle. Sil is not casting a summong spell, despite the graphics in front of her. She's actually using the WoL trick with Boon of Lathander, and Imoen I believe is casting Improved Haste on Sil, so Sil can hasten Bodhi's fall.
Irenicus is still a problem. Jan has managed to keep him exposed with Detect Illusions, but now Irenicus has Absolute Immunity, which in SCS2 grants immunity to all weapons, regardless of enchantment or the lack thereof. But look!
Irenicus' PFMW spell still hasn't run out! Absolute Immunity cannot affect him. Jan switches to normal bolts, Imoen switches to normal arrows, and Sil switches to normal bullets.
We struggle greatly to take down Irenicus' Stoneskin spells. Sarevok is also quite durable.
But a few seconds later, Irenicus is out of Stoneskins, and between Sil, Jan, and Imoen, we've got 15 APR against this guy.
Sil doesn't do quite as much damage as I expected.
This is because Jan is still wearing the Girdle of Frost Giant Strength, which Sil lent to him during the battle in Hell. I forget why. Once Sil gets it back, though, and casts Righteous Magic for a damage boost, she helps the party quickly take down Sarevok.
Right now, we have Saradush in front of us. Aside from a tough fight with Gromnir and his goons, I need to squeeze as much coin and XP out of this place as I can. Haer'dalis is a long way from epic levels, and we'll likely need them for Yaga-shura. Plus, Saradush and a merchant on the way out of Saradush have some important but expensive items, and we'll only get one chance to buy them.
Lazarus Librarus, however, reappears in Amkethran later in the game, so we can postpone getting some of his spells. But we might need his scrolls to deal with Yaga-shura, which could limit our other purchasing options.
@hispls: I don't know the exact mechanics, but I was fairly certain you have to kill the Egg Guards to escape safely. That was the implication of the guide I read. Perhaps a completely stealth-based approach, with no attempt at fighting, would have worked. But the moment I opened the door, when the party was entirely invisible, the Egg Guards turned hostile, and it wouldn't surprise me if they alerted the other drow shortly after. You're guarding the treasury and the door opens by itself, in a world where invisibility is a known (and low-level) ability? That's a major red flag. An intelligent guard would immediately shout out, and it wouldn't surprise me if SCS2 made exactly that kind of change to the Egg Guards' behavior.
Viconia's abilities wouldn't have added as much to the party. The greatest strength of clerics is their large number of long-duration buffs, and we already had two divine casters in the party, even without Cernd. She could tank okay if she stacked Armor of Faith spells and used the Girdle of Fortitude, but she wouldn't bring much to the table in terms of new spells or physical power. Haer'dalis, at least, would bring the Improved Bard Song in ToB, even if he was mostly dead weight up until then.
Well you have used many "exploits" that deviate from true role playing. I can't honestly remember how I did that part years ago but I got the idea of just slugging down potions from you using invisibility to "escape" from combat.
Assuming hostile creatures just stand there at other points of the game when you suddenly vanish I'd have no reason to believe that they wouldn't react the same way in the treasury.
Of course from a pure role playing POV, it may go down like this:
The guards have their backs to the door. They likely have been standing there for years with absolutely NOTHING happening. They know that nobody in the underdark would have the stones to even think about messing with the treasury. Now enter your thief who is invisible AND has excellent move silently. Cracks the door open (really shouldn't even blow his invisibility since everyone is looking the other way). Now enter the room. Golems are dumb robots. Once you disappear they don't know what happened and aren't thinking about invisibility.... they're not thinking period. So then the guards come in to see why the golems are moving around but by that time the switch is made, you're invisible, and already running out the door. The guards check the treasure, notice that everything is in it's place and think what they may, but you're long gone by then. Really if you're a good thief, you can grab an item, swig a potion and be 20 yards off by the time they could react and get off a true seeing spell... assuming door guards even had that level spells.
Certainly in my game ONLY the door guards turned hostile and they all remained in the treasury with the golems after I disappeared and slipped back out the door.
I totally understand that you don't NEED Viconia, really the only thing she would have brought to the table for you is faster access to HLAs and a thicker priest spellbook. I just like her and find it difficult to not bring her along after how helpful she was in BG1, and I was sort of hoping you'd pick her up after Cernd was lost just to see another character I like in the narrative.
I write fiction, so there's not so much need for roleplaying in games, exactly. As for exploits, mostly I was thinking of refraining from clones using quick items and some other things I don't remember. I've been gradually moving away from them lately, but I don't really have anything against them. After having seen almost everything there is in BG2, the stuff left to discover is mostly oriented around fighting rather than roleplaying.
A lot of the time, what I do in BG2 is try to find out the limits of a particular exploit. So, for an insane solo poverty run of TOB (and an aborted one of SOA), I wanted to find out the limits of Nahal's Reckless Dweomer hotkey trick. For a Tactics run, I wanted to find out the limits of Greater Werewolf Tokens. For another Tactics run, I wanted to find out the limits of song stacking. For a restless run, I wanted to find out the limits of the Wand of Lightning trick (though that got excessive really quick). For a Fighter/Mage/Cleric run, I wanted to find out the limits of the Shapechange trick. And for this run, I wanted to find out the limits of Jan's flashers, spider form, and a Cleric of Lathander in Iron Golem form.
NRD trick: more or less invincible GWW Tokens: more or less invincible, if you do hit-and-run techniques to deal with especially tough critters Song stacking: all enemies can be killed in one round WoL trick: ridiculously overpowered Shapechange trick: not quite invincible, but capable of soloing the game with just about any character Flashers: not always effective, but quite vicious when the enemy is not immune Spider form: very powerful, but inflexible Cleric of Lathander in Iron Golem form: extremely tough, but not invincible
In Ascension, the critters are mostly the same as normal, but the last enemies are Sarevok (not the same Sarevok we met before; it's a duplicate), Irenicus, and Bodhi, who all attack together. They're not quite as nasty as they were in their original forms, but they're still pretty bad. I decide to use the Wand of Lightning trick on Sil, just to see how she fared. Check out her resistances after one casting of Armor of Faith:
The fire resistance is from Protection from Fire, though, and the MR is innate.
Those stats are amazing. Two questions. One: did you do anything to increase Sil's hitpoints? Items? A new familiar in ToB? 169 HP is huge. Two: How did Sil get 50% innate MR?
Comments
I will indeed take this to TOB. But since I am relatively unfamiliar with TOB content and challenges, I might loosen up on the rules. So far, I've prevented myself from using exploits other than Blur stacking, but I am very fond of the WoL trick and I would really like to see Sil use it with Boon of Lathander and Armor of Faith, just because I've been holding back for so long. I don't think I'll rely on it that much, since Sil would have 10 APR at 0 THAC0 for 600 damage per round, for just under 20 rounds, if she had the right buffs in place, and she would be virtually unkillable due to immunity to magic, plus immunity to elemental and physical damage. No challenge there, but it would certainly be fun to try.
I am looking forward to Haer'dalis hitting epic levels. I might not create a whole army of Mislead spells to stack the Improved Bard Song, but I will probably have one or two songs active. And I'm also looking forward to finally getting a Spell Trigger, which will let Sil cast Improved Haste and Righteous Magic while in Iron Golem form.
You know, lately I've been relying very heavily on spellpower, much more so than in the early game. Mostly it's just been Sil doing the melee work, in Iron Golem form, and the others have stayed in natural form to cast spells. Maybe, once Haer'dalis gets the Improved Bard Song, I can get the party back to using spider form, and we can better continue the original project, to play a group of spellcasters as fighters.
Yikes.
Good work though, looking forward to ToB!
Edit: just to clarify, I mean that option is not available to a grunt party... so they can get pwnt pretty fast by a large group of those buggers.
Fighter types might not have many tools at their disposal, or ways of fixing bad situations, but their raw power tends to keep battles very short, and therefore minimize risk.
Actually, WS has no effect on scripted casting, right? you might not benefit much then. Really, I suppose if you made that ToB mage killer wand available in SoA, or ideally 2 or 3 purchaseable ones, it might change things a bit. As it is, buffed enemies mean lots of standing around for non-caster parties.
As for SCS2, a party of fighters is still viable, though it's not well-equipped to deal with mages. Admittedly, a party of fighters in Chapter 2 is not going to break through SCS2 Improved Mantle unless they get Carsomyr or the Sling of Everard. But Improved Mantle isn't a complete trump card, and once it goes down (and not all SCS2 mages use it; some use Mantle or PFMW), then a party of fighters is basically guaranteed to take the mage down. That's 18 APR unbuffed, without dual-wielding or speed weapons. The mage might have weapon immunities, but Stoneskin and all their other magic won't be sufficient.
And if five members of the party can't hit the mage, they fight its summons or allies, or just spread out to make sure they don't get hit by area effect damage. Breach is not the only way to get through weapon immunities, and mages only memorize so many of them.
To answer your question, an all-fighter party is not going to be able to take down a mage faster than a more balanced party could. Not if weapon immunities are part of the equation. But the fighter party will be able to break through Stoneskin and Mirror Image a lot faster, and most enemies, thankfully, do not use Improved Mantle in SCS2.
The problem with the Improved Irenicus in Hell battle is that the party doesn't fight a single Mage as in your examples @semiticgod, but a bunch of heavily buffed, hard-hitting foes with all kinds of nasty disabling abilities that casters can simply protect themselves much better against. What is more, an arcane party is better capable of stalling and distracting the enemy with summons, and of stripping enemy protections.
Edit: I still think you did an outstanding job, don't get me wrong.
@Blackraven: I'm not offended. As far as those "nasty disabling abilities" go... well... I didn't actually have the buffs necessary to protect myself from those things in the first place, so I don't consider the great power of buffs to be a discredit to my run. Nor did I do much in the way of "stripping enemy protections" (but I would have had to, if the Protection from Magic scrolls had both failed). "Distracting the enemy with summons" was a big help, admittedly, but even if I didn't remove the summoning cap (which I find a bit arbitrary, five summons for six characters), I could circumvent it with Project Image. Otherwise... I would have needed Teleport Field for the Wraith of Wrath, Potions of Magic Protection/Shielding for the Orb of Fear, and an earlier attempt at brain eating for the dragon.
Mages do have a lot of defensive and debuffing abilities, but mostly I fought through Improved Irenicus without either. It speaks to the power of Time Stop and Shapechange that it was possible to take them down without pre-battle buffs. In fact, I think the only buffs I used in that battle were Stoneskin and PFMW.
I guess the run did demonstrate what I set out to investigate. At low levels, we can melee as spiders if we disable the enemy first. And at high levels, we can take down magic-immune enemies by attacking during Time Stop.
Mages can melee. It just takes a lot of extra attention to get them to work.
PFMW on an enemy immune to normal weapons by default is another hard to counter defense. The duration is very short, but still! Liches used to drive me up the wall back before I bothered to memorize Breach! My part would be in no real danger, yet be forced to do little but wait.
Heck, what about invisible casters? They can be a pain in the butt too, and other than an Inquisitor, can be hard to counter without a dedicated caster.
To be clear, I am not trying to be insulting of your accomplishment, I have never been THAT good at running Mages. Just dragging the thread off topic with my pointless complaints there are not enough mods that enhance difficulty for Fighter types without throwing them into situations that they can really not do much about. There is that HoF thing for BG, maybe I will give that a shot some time!
Seriously, though, it is unfortunate that difficulty mods assume the player is using arcane magic. I've never really noticed it, since I've basically always used arcane-heavy parties (I love Teleport Field so much), but difficulty mods, in retrospect, do focus a lot on empowering enemy arcane casters, and mages are by and large the only people who can take down weapon immunities. But if we tweaked the Wand of Spell Striking to be usable by fighters, then the problem might be largely solved.
What is that HoF thing for BG? Is there a HoF thing for BG2? Because I have long been wanting to play BG2 with a Heart of Fury mode.
Hopefully it'll be working soon?
Please note that I wasn't referring specifically to your playthrough, but rather to your examples in your previous post. In your specific case I think you had some but not all of the desired buffs at your disposal. For example, you coped well with those level drains, for which you were indeed ill-prepared. Perhaps I should have used the word 'debilitate' rather than 'debuff'. Warriors can't render a battlefield full of enemies helpless by freezing them in time with a Time Stop and take them on one by one, or use Shapechange to deal with an otherwise almost untouchable creature in a few rounds.
In general terms, that's what I was referring to. It's very easy for a warrior-heavy party as opposed to an arcane-heavy party to be insufficiently quick in dealing with the various foes and to get overwhelmed by the enemy.
Anyway, keep it up in ToB man. Your journal contains a wealth of useful information for the forum community and surely for lurkers as well
As I've told you before, you're a highly intelligent player, you can make it all the way. If you're unfamiliar with ToB, and if you can be bothered, you might consider doing a test run first with another party, so as not to see your no-reload run end due to something silly you could easily prevent.
Re: your question on the HoF mode, @Wowo is right, but the information he gave only applies to the EE-edition (which you aren't playing atm).
I appreciate your support.
My only question is why didn't you just bring a 6 pack of invisibility potions when you went to do the old switcheroo with the dragon eggs? I simply hasted up Imoen threw improved invisibility on her then went to the treasury. Opened the door *gulp*, picked the lock *gulp*, switched the eggs *gulp*, and left a bunch of red circles up in the treasury scratching their heads wondering if they really just saw something.
There was no freaking way I was leaving Phaere without getting here comeuppance.
Congrats on surviving this iron-man playthrough though. You have inspired me to join this forum just to thank you for the entertainment.... I wish you had taken Viconia though, she's always been one of my MVPs in BG1 and 2 even if a little short on witty banter.
Viconia's abilities wouldn't have added as much to the party. The greatest strength of clerics is their large number of long-duration buffs, and we already had two divine casters in the party, even without Cernd. She could tank okay if she stacked Armor of Faith spells and used the Girdle of Fortitude, but she wouldn't bring much to the table in terms of new spells or physical power. Haer'dalis, at least, would bring the Improved Bard Song in ToB, even if he was mostly dead weight up until then.
Basically, I created three custom spells, which together will eliminate the need for manual buffing as well as resting. The first spell simply casts Protection from Evil 10' Radius and Remove Fear, one after the other, on self, at level 20.
The second is caster only, and automatically casts Shield, Protection from Petrification, four copies of the Blur spell, Protection from Fire (mage spell), Protection from Electricity (cleric spell), Stoneskin, Death Ward, Chaotic Commands, Spell Shield, and Protection from Magical Energy, also at 20th level, and also one after the other.
And the third spell is an altered version of the Mass Cure spell, except it heals all targets 100%, resurrects them as per the Mass Raise Dead spell, and also sets fatigue to 0.
I then copied the spell files and renamed them as SPPR104, SPWI111, and SPPR209. This means I replaced the spells Detect Evil, Infravision, and Know Alignment with automatic buffing spells that I can activate via the hotkeys V, B, and N. The casting time isn't instant, and isn't lowered by the Amulet of Power or Robe of Vecna or anything, but it lets me fix up everybody's spells within 30 seconds, with no searching through anybody's spellbooks. It's much faster than it used to be, and also much, much, much easier to do.
It does mean our cleric buffs and Imoen's mage buffs will be cast at a higher level than they should be at the moment, and all other buffs will be cast at a lower level than they should be, but that shouldn't matter too much, since we should have SI: Abjuration active anyway, and the spells' durations cap at level 20.
Plus, all of the spells can be cast an infinite number of times, removing the need to rest: the Detect Evil replacement restores a level 1 cleric spell as soon as it is cast, restoring itself, the Infravision spell restores a level 1 wizard spell, and the Know Alignment restores a level 2 cleric spell. I'll still have to rest to restore castings of Sil's Boon of Lathander spells, and some item charges, but otherwise I will never have to rest again! That means no incessant retreats to the Pocket Plane to avoid nighttime ambushes.
Except, the Rod of Resurrection has no such fix. I can therefore give constant effect Shapechange options to anyone besides Sil by having them cast the spell (if necessary, via a scroll), killing them, resting, and bringing them back with the Rod of Resurrection. I tested it and found that Haer'dalis retained his Shapechange abilities as predicted.
I don't know if I'll ever give anyone the ability--I don't like that Haer'dalis is almost as tough as Sil is in Iron Golem form--but if I ever decide to make use of the trick, I can give permanent Shapechange abilities to two characters, since Lazarus Librarus I believe sells two copies of every scroll.
I playtested a character with permanent Shapechange abilities and found it ridiculously overpowered. It was a Fighter/Mage/Cleric who could achieve 2 base APR in Iron Golem form (fighter levels add 1/2, the Boots of Speed fill in the other half) and cast Improved Haste and Righteous Magic via a Spell Trigger. And once she got to epic levels, she could also use Greater Whirlwind Attack, giving her over 500 damage per round.
I have installed Ascension and then reinstalled SCS2 on top of it, which I understand combines the components of both. Or at least, that's what it does for the Fire Giants.
After loading up our post-SoA save, I spent an inordinate amount of time rearranging my inventory, since I no longer needed all the various objects I had distributed amongst my party. Eventually, I got everyone fixed up with the right gear and crammed all our excess items into various containers, which meant it was time to prepare for the Improved Illasera fight.
Ascension Illasera is notable for firing off extra-powerful Arrows of Dispelling, and if my memory is correct, they break through PFMW, which my own Arrows of Dispelling failed to do when I was testing things before the Improved Irenicus battle. I don't have Protection from Normal Missiles, so I can't make anyone immune to nonmagical and magical missile weapons, but Aerie and Sil do have Physical Mirror, which reflects missile weapons for 7 rounds. The rest of the party is still vulnerable, however.
Illasera also comes with some relatively uninteresting allies (this component isn't meant to be incredibly difficult, unlike a lot of Tactics content), including a high-level mage and some high-end grunts. I decide to make use of Jan's fantabulous traps.
I couldn't really decide which traps were better, so I included a mix of both Time and Spike Traps. The Spike Traps are arranged to hit Illasera's buddies when they arrive.
In the buildup to the first fight of ToB, Aerie notices Jan is limping. Being a kind soul, she asks Jan if he's okay. Jan explains his malady:
Unfortunately, Aerie isn't as charmed by Jan's stories as she is by Haer'dalis' flamboyance. What do the big people have against gnomes, anyway?
This is what we looked like after all our buffs were cast. This was before I created the auto-buff spells, however, not that they're much different.
That Fire Elemental at the bottom is actually Zaaman Rul. Not that it made any difference whatsoever in this battle.
Illasera triggered Jan's Time Traps, allowing Jan to run up and start chopping her up.
It looks like the Scarlet Ninja-to, which Jan was using for the APR boost, cannot be used to backstab. Celestial Fury, as I know from experience, can be.
Jan finished off Illasera and got a few hits in on her mage friend before the Time Traps ran out. Her allies decided to flee, but we managed to kill the mage and one of the grunts before we got warped to the Pocket Plane, which got us a teensy bit of extra loot and XP out of the encounter.
We meet Cespenar! And also a Solar, who told us about destiny or something. But Cespenar! I love this guy's voice. We have a lot of components for his items, and my two favorite Cespenar lines come up as he's digging through our stuff.
We only have enough gold for one upgrade, though. I've heard good things about the Clay Golem from the Golem Manual, so we spend 5,000 of our 8,000 remaining gold to get it.
Also, Sarevok told us about a trial to the left. We have to kill some evil critters before we can leave the place.
In Ascension, the critters are mostly the same as normal, but the last enemies are Sarevok (not the same Sarevok we met before; it's a duplicate), Irenicus, and Bodhi, who all attack together. They're not quite as nasty as they were in their original forms, but they're still pretty bad. I decide to use the Wand of Lightning trick on Sil, just to see how she fared. Check out her resistances after one casting of Armor of Faith:
The fire resistance is from Protection from Fire, though, and the MR is innate.
Since I don't want to lose any Stoneskins or spells to the enemies before the big three, Jonny, Bonny, and Sherry, I just use the Wand of Cloudkill.
The kobolds died immediately, as did the Gnolls and whatever came with the Gnolls, but the Ogre Magi and Sahuagin managed to survive a bit longer, requiring a moderate amount of attention. As for the drow, they mostly went down with Dragon's Breath or maybe Comet.
The big three were more trouble. We still only have one item with Negative Plane Protection, and Bodhi is as nasty as ever. Sarevok wastes his time attacking our summons, just like in BG2. Sil gets her buffs dispelled and Haer'dalis gets level drained, but we have some tricks up our sleeve.
Dragon's Breath goes right through Bodhi's MR (I'm not even paying attention to Sarevok), and Energy Blades will break through Irenicus' Improved Mantle. Sil is not casting a summong spell, despite the graphics in front of her. She's actually using the WoL trick with Boon of Lathander, and Imoen I believe is casting Improved Haste on Sil, so Sil can hasten Bodhi's fall.
Irenicus is still a problem. Jan has managed to keep him exposed with Detect Illusions, but now Irenicus has Absolute Immunity, which in SCS2 grants immunity to all weapons, regardless of enchantment or the lack thereof. But look!
Irenicus' PFMW spell still hasn't run out! Absolute Immunity cannot affect him. Jan switches to normal bolts, Imoen switches to normal arrows, and Sil switches to normal bullets.
We struggle greatly to take down Irenicus' Stoneskin spells. Sarevok is also quite durable.
But a few seconds later, Irenicus is out of Stoneskins, and between Sil, Jan, and Imoen, we've got 15 APR against this guy.
Sil doesn't do quite as much damage as I expected.
This is because Jan is still wearing the Girdle of Frost Giant Strength, which Sil lent to him during the battle in Hell. I forget why. Once Sil gets it back, though, and casts Righteous Magic for a damage boost, she helps the party quickly take down Sarevok.
Right now, we have Saradush in front of us. Aside from a tough fight with Gromnir and his goons, I need to squeeze as much coin and XP out of this place as I can. Haer'dalis is a long way from epic levels, and we'll likely need them for Yaga-shura. Plus, Saradush and a merchant on the way out of Saradush have some important but expensive items, and we'll only get one chance to buy them.
Lazarus Librarus, however, reappears in Amkethran later in the game, so we can postpone getting some of his spells. But we might need his scrolls to deal with Yaga-shura, which could limit our other purchasing options.
Well you have used many "exploits" that deviate from true role playing. I can't honestly remember how I did that part years ago but I got the idea of just slugging down potions from you using invisibility to "escape" from combat.
Assuming hostile creatures just stand there at other points of the game when you suddenly vanish I'd have no reason to believe that they wouldn't react the same way in the treasury.
Of course from a pure role playing POV, it may go down like this:
The guards have their backs to the door. They likely have been standing there for years with absolutely NOTHING happening. They know that nobody in the underdark would have the stones to even think about messing with the treasury. Now enter your thief who is invisible AND has excellent move silently. Cracks the door open (really shouldn't even blow his invisibility since everyone is looking the other way). Now enter the room. Golems are dumb robots. Once you disappear they don't know what happened and aren't thinking about invisibility.... they're not thinking period. So then the guards come in to see why the golems are moving around but by that time the switch is made, you're invisible, and already running out the door. The guards check the treasure, notice that everything is in it's place and think what they may, but you're long gone by then. Really if you're a good thief, you can grab an item, swig a potion and be 20 yards off by the time they could react and get off a true seeing spell... assuming door guards even had that level spells.
Certainly in my game ONLY the door guards turned hostile and they all remained in the treasury with the golems after I disappeared and slipped back out the door.
I totally understand that you don't NEED Viconia, really the only thing she would have brought to the table for you is faster access to HLAs and a thicker priest spellbook. I just like her and find it difficult to not bring her along after how helpful she was in BG1, and I was sort of hoping you'd pick her up after Cernd was lost just to see another character I like in the narrative.
A lot of the time, what I do in BG2 is try to find out the limits of a particular exploit. So, for an insane solo poverty run of TOB (and an aborted one of SOA), I wanted to find out the limits of Nahal's Reckless Dweomer hotkey trick. For a Tactics run, I wanted to find out the limits of Greater Werewolf Tokens. For another Tactics run, I wanted to find out the limits of song stacking. For a restless run, I wanted to find out the limits of the Wand of Lightning trick (though that got excessive really quick). For a Fighter/Mage/Cleric run, I wanted to find out the limits of the Shapechange trick. And for this run, I wanted to find out the limits of Jan's flashers, spider form, and a Cleric of Lathander in Iron Golem form.
NRD trick: more or less invincible
GWW Tokens: more or less invincible, if you do hit-and-run techniques to deal with especially tough critters
Song stacking: all enemies can be killed in one round
WoL trick: ridiculously overpowered
Shapechange trick: not quite invincible, but capable of soloing the game with just about any character
Flashers: not always effective, but quite vicious when the enemy is not immune
Spider form: very powerful, but inflexible
Cleric of Lathander in Iron Golem form: extremely tough, but not invincible
One: did you do anything to increase Sil's hitpoints? Items? A new familiar in ToB? 169 HP is huge.
Two: How did Sil get 50% innate MR?