Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey @semiticgod! I've only just caught up. Congratulations my friend!! Far out! Not only did you beat BG2 SoA and ToB on SCS/Ascension no-reload, but you did so using an unconventional party-setup (arcane warriors) and you made some interesting discoveries in the process (especially the Flasher stuns). The Sendai fight and the final battle were particularly enjoyable for me to read. To stay in control of such complex situations, where you were managing multiple characters that are up against multiple powerful foes, is superhard for me. Very impressive, so hats off to you!
You wondered why Balthasar didn't join the final battle. The reason is your CHA. Charname needs an unmodified CHA-score of 16 or higher (in addition to meeting alignment, reputation, and dialogue path requirements) for Balthasar to decide to fight alongside the party.
As to the exploits and the question of the EEs vs the original game, I'm with you on this. First of all many exploits are a grey area (why would UAI not allow the use of NPCs' personal items? unlike @wowo, I don't see this as an 'exploit' the EEs had to fix). Secondly the EEs make some things harder (fixing some 'exploits'), and others easier (new weapons and items, powerful NPCs for example), so I wouldn't say that the EEs make the game harder, just (slightly) different. You should just keep on doing whatever you like: do a Trilogy run, with BG1 included, start another unconventional type of playthrough, make your next challenge slightly harder (e.g. play on core rules, allow no testing since you've just beat the game, limit the number of traps or clones you can use), take a break, anything. Thanks at any rate for sharing this well-documented run!
After reading over this thread and thinking about how this run progressed, I think a retrospective post is in order, to reflect on what I've learned. Aside from what I've learned about the basic mechanics of the game, there are some more abstract lessons I've drawn as well.
On Buffs and Durations:
Magic, especially arcane magic, is known to be terribly powerful in BG2. Wizards can negate many forms of attack, and their defenses are difficult to breach. However, their defenses are dependent on a limited number of spells. A mage is harder to kill than a fighter, but only for so long. If a battle drags on, the mage's advantage dries up. You can therefore gain an advantage on an enemy mage by waiting our their defenses, purposefully dragging on the battle until it turns in your favor.
Likewise, your own mages get steadily weaker and more vulnerable as time goes on. If you have trouble taking down an enemy, your buffs will start to wear off, and the enemy will gain the advantage. Enemies with high HP, low AC, high MR, and/or regeneration (basically, ToB enemies and modded critters) will tax the party's buffs. Long battles are the bane of spellcasters. Throne of Bhaal enemies are among the hardest to kill in the game, and required the most preparation, as our party had to find new ways of defeating the enemy in short periods of time. If we did not, the party would become more and more vulnerable and weaker and weaker, until we no longer had enough buffs to keep us alive, or enough power to bring down the enemy.
On "Pressure" and Defenses:
SCS2 enemies, especially mages, are very attentive to their own defenses. They know their vulnerabilities and will dedicate time and energy to maintaining them. This means that debuffing and attack pressure both take time away from casters. If your mage gets hit by Breach, he or she is going to get targeted, and your spellcasting is put into jeopardy. This forces you to spend a round renewing your defenses, instead of fighting the enemy.
The situation is the same on the other side. If you maintain "pressure" on an enemy, you can effectively disable them. Break down a mage's spell protections, and they will take time to bring them back up. Wear down a mage's Stoneskins, and that too will force them to dedicate their limited time to protecting themselves. This, however, requires sustained attention--you need multiple attacks and multiple debuffers to keep an enemy on the defensive, and off your back. By exerting pressure, you dedicate your time to shutting down the enemy. Put enough pressure on the right enemy, and you can neutralize the greatest threat. With a party full of mages, you can debuff an enemy very quickly, since you can use multiple debuffers in one round.
But sometimes you just can't break through an enemy's defenses, either because your debuffers are too few or they're too low-level. Two Spellstrikes are not going to fully debuff a Lich before its Time Stop begins. Fifty Secret Words will do nothing against Globe of Invulnerability.
On Disablers and Immunities:
In a no-reload run, disablers are stronger for the enemy, and weaker for you. The random nature of disablers means that bad luck affects you far more than it does the enemy. Your party will fail saving throws sooner or later, unless your saves are below zero, which isn't easy to get. And the enemy will make their saves sooner or later. This doesn't follow for other spells. A saving throw can influence the power of a Fireball. A saving throw can negate the power of Chaos. And luck is always against you in no-reload runs, because bad luck on only one occasion can end an entire run.
There are two implications for this, in no-reload runs. First, you need to either get immunities to the relevant disablers, or you need a reliable means of removing them. Spell Revisions lets you remove any disabler with Break Enchantment, but in vanilla BG2, your options are limited. Dispel Magic can remove all disablers, but it'll also remove your buffs, and not just for the disabled characters. Only Greater Restoration removes confusion and charm, and you'll be charmed and confused long before you get Greater Restoration. There is no cure at all for unconsciousness.
So, you need guaranteed saving throws, guaranteed MR (very hard to get), or outright immunity to BG2's many disablers and instant death effects. Chaotic Commands, Remove Fear, and Death Ward cover all the bases. With multiple divine spellcasters, our party was able to maintain universal immunity to disablers for most of the game, rendering our saving throws a non-issue. The few times where we were disabled nearly resulted in our deaths.
Second, your disablers need to be correspondingly reliable. Save penalties on your disablers are not enough, unless you've got an Archer stacking Called Shot penalties to lower the enemy's save vs. spell. Why is this? Well, you can guarantee successful saving throws for your party in many ways, but there is no way to guarantee that an important enemy will fail its save against one of your disablers unless you've got an Archer. The highest save penalty you can inflict without an Archer is -12, and it only applies to Spook.
Forcing multiple saves, however, is much more reliable. An example: Hold Monster is unreliable, because it requires one save against one giant effect, paralysis for many rounds. With bad luck, you get nothing. Web, however, is more reliable, as it forces many saves against many small effects, paralysis for one round. With bad luck, you still get something. We were able to disable enemies in this no-reload run not because we used Greater Malison and Doom, but because we used many disablers, which minimized the chance that the enemy would make all of their saves. Jan's flashers allowed us to force many saves, almost guaranteeing some degree of success. Same goes with Feeblemind against the dragons: we had over a 90% chance of disabling each dragon, because we forced many saves.
On AC:
In no-reload runs, AC has the same problem as saving throws: bad luck is a greater threat than good luck is a boon. Overall, luck is against you. This means you can't rely on good AC alone to protect you, or good THAC0 to hit the enemy. The enemy will roll critical hits. You will roll critical misses.
This problem is very different depending on the content of your party. Your fighters won't need to worry about THAC0--luck will not much impact your hit chance. But fighters will need to worry about AC, because it's their main means of avoiding damage. Your mages won't need to worry about AC, because Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Teleport Field, and PFMW will negate the effect of bad luck. But your mages will need to worry about THAC0, because they need good luck to hit anything. How do you confront these problems?
For fighters, you need to either get terribly low AC, or very high resistances, regeneration, and/or HP. AC's impact on your survival hinges on luck. Resistances decrease damage by the same amount regardless of your luck. Same goes for regeneration and your HP pool. Also, careful positioning can keep your more vulnerable fighters away from the enemy, rendering enemy attack rolls irrelevant for them.
For mages, you need to disable the enemy, guaranteeing successful hits for your party, or you need to boost your APR, to serve as a buffer against bad luck. Make one big attack, and bad luck could turn it to nothing. Make 100 small attacks, and bad luck will simply decrease it. Spiders have very high APR, which mitigates bad luck. Disablers render THAC0 irrelevant. A good example is the Ravager: we forced many saving throws to ensure a failed save, at which point our poor THAC0 was a non-issue.
On Flexibility:
I've mentioned before that this party is rather weak, but highly flexible. They have a fix for most every problem, and have multiple escape options and emergency measures--again, to minimize the luck factor. Their spells are also often redundant: multiple characters had Teleport Field, even though we'd likely only use one for a single battle. This is because having multiple characters with Teleport Field allows us to cast it at any time without much cost. Sometimes one character is out of commission for a round--they need to re-cast Stoneskin or drink a potion, or else they'll die. During that round, however, another character can pick up the slack. Having redundant spells means that even if one of your party members dies or is disabled, you don't lose that person's functions and abilities.
A notable exception is Detect Illusions, which only Jan could do. On many occasions, I found that the party was limited by this: I would want Jan to do one thing, but couldn't allow him to do so, because Detect Illusions was more important. Having two thieves with 100 in Detect Illusions would have been much safer.
Strong characters can falter in a no-reload run if something bad happens. Flexible characters can adapt. A strong but inflexible party will absolutely wreck most enemies, but could easily die against a tough encounter. A weak but flexible party will struggle against all enemies, even the weak ones, but it won't easily fall if things go badly. They bend but don't break.
On Setups:
Some strategies require very precise setups in order to function. These setups weaken the party's flexibility and render it more vulnerable to chance. I described this problem in my planning posts for the fight with Melissan: in order to stun Melissan, we had to lower her MR, hit her with Greater Malison, keep a target summons (in our case, the Skeleton Warrior) close by her, and keep one character, in this case Haer'dalis, shapeshifted and busy attacking our target summons with flashers. If any of those things failed, then the whole effort could fall apart. Without lowering her MR, Greater Malison would be resisted. Without Greater Malison, Melissan would have guaranteed saves. If the target summons dies or isn't close enough, the flashers won't hit Melissan in the first place. And if Haer'dalis was hurt, he'd have to run away to drink potions, and our flashers would be out of commission. And if our plan faltered, Melissan could restore both her MR and her saves, forcing us to repeat the process, and dragging out the battle and our buffs.
But these high-maintenance strategies are sometimes necessary. Melissan would have been extremely difficult if we didn't stun her. So we have to cover all of our bases, or else our entire plan could fall apart. This means we must anticipate the potential dangers and account for them. To ensure successful casting of Pierce Magic, we'd have to keep PFMW on hand. To keep Sil from being surprised by Time Stop, we had to keep her aura clear in case she had to use Focus. To ensure Haer'dalis was safe despite his inability to cast PFMW, we had to keep Teleport Field on hand to ward off Abazigal (who likely would have survived had things proceeded normally) and his powerful melee attacks. Redundancy can also mitigate these dangers: because we had multiple characters with Teleport Field, the Wand of Spell Striking, Greater Malison, and Pierce Shield, we would be able to create our setup even if things got messy.
On the Run Itself (this is an extremely long section):
The Party of Spiders had some really drastic changes of strategy over the course of the game. Operating as a melee-focused party required much management. Many battles required tactics that would have failed miserably in others. We re-organized our spellbooks very often--we would surely have fallen if we had not.
In Chateau Irenicus, we relied heavily on summons, as we had few other options. Skeletons could survive the Duergar's bolts and axes, keeping Sil and Imoen safe.
In the early game, Jan carried the party. His Invisibility 10' Radius spell got us out of bad situations, and his flashers disabled large chunks of enemy groups.
In the Druid Grove, area-effect damage spells allowed us to overcome the Trolls' regeneration. Our THAC0 was too poor, and Jan's flashers could not stun anything, so spellpower was our only realistic option.
When Cernd joined the party, he took position as our primary tank. With his high MR, elemental resistances, low AC, and later on his regeneration, he became very difficult to harm, and absorbed much of the enemy attacks that otherwise could have ruined us. He also added to our divine spellpower, allowing us to grant Chaotic Commands to more characters.
Eventually, Sil dual-classed and recovered her cleric levels, boosting our damage output, and bringing Sil closer to the front line.
As the party gained levels, we gained access to stronger debuffers, and began to take on enemy mages. This allowed us to overwhelm the biggest dangers of the game even if Jan's flashers failed to stun.
Without our normal items in Spellhold, we had to resort to Shapechange via Limited Wish and various debuffers in order to prevail against Irenicus. Bolts of Biting, which we would normally save, proved instrumental in disabling Irenicus' spellcasting.
When Cernd died, we had to focus more on our defenses. Haer'dalis was a pitiful replacement that we had to drag along to gain access to his HLAs as quickly as possible. Without Cernd as a buffer, the whole party had to worry constantly about its safety.
In the maze of Watcher's Keep, where the enemies were too sturdy to take down in spider form, we had to resort to Horrid Wilting to pave the way. When we had to face demons with high MR, Sil took on Mind Flayer form to stun them through their resistances, and Iron Golem form to deal the damage that our caster-heavy party could not do on its own. The Mind Flayer form returned when we fought actual Mind Flayers deeper in the dungeon--Mind Flayers are not immune to Psionic Blast.
Against the Watcher's Keep demi-lich, we had to improvise. The party distracted the demi-lich with clones and tanked out its spells until its defenses were down.
When the Final Seal put us up against a monstrously powerful enemy party, Jan had to use his Time Traps for automatic backstabs, picking off some of the enemies early on and taking much of the pressure off of our own party.
Against the Rakshasas of Suldanessellar, we had to resort to damage spells once more, using Horrid Wilting where our weapons would have failed against the Rakshasas' PFMW. Alternatively, we could have waited out their buffs, but I found it more convenient to simply use Horrid Wilting.
At the Tree of Life, facing an enemy shrouded in defensive magicks (alternative spelling of magics, by the way), we switched over to our mage HLAs, disabling Irenicus long enough for us to break through his defenses.
In Hell, with all of our buffs dispelled on the first round and some of the toughest enemies in BG2 directly on top of us, we had to hold off the enemy long enough to call in some clones and wear down the Orb of Fear. When our clones vanished--a result of our multiple Time Stop spells that wore out the duration of Project Image--Sil had to jump in with Shapechange to take down the Dragon of Pride, and then the Orb of Fear, during our limited Time Stops to ensure hits against AC far below our THAC0. Irenicus the Slayer, too, warranted a Time Stop. A Protection from Magic scroll shut down the spellcasting of the final form of Irenicus, opening up ToB.
In Saradush, HLAs and the Iron Golem form filled in the void left by our rapidly decreasing damage power. Without the Improved Bard Song, we could not keep pace with ToB enemies' high HP and subzero AC. We struggled against the Fire Giants, whose regeneration rendered them nearly unkillable, and had to tank their many powerful attacks while we slowly wore them down.
Against Yaga-Shura, we again had to weather the concentrated attacks of many Fire Giants. With our melee abilities utterly outclassed by the enemy, and with Yaga-Shura's ludicrous resistances, we had to resort to DEX drain, with poor THAC0, where relying on damage would have dragged out the battle long enough to cost us our buffs.
Faced with the quadruple dragon ambush at Abazigal's lair, and without any buffs whatsoever, we had to cope with over 8 character deaths, raising the dead with the Rod of Resurrection with the little time we had to act, and marshalling all the offensive power we could muster to bring down the dragons who could kill any of us with a single breath weapon, finally resorting to song stacking when the second of the four dragons proved too resistant to kill without fleeing the area... only to find that another two dragons were on the way. Alternatively, we could have gathered our equipment and fled the area, returning with our spells restored, but I didn't want to do this.
Against the many drow of Sendai's lair and their high MR across the board, we plowed through the area with brute force, with Jan disrupting enemy magic with the Scorcher Ammunition and Frag Grenades. I've mentioned earlier that flashers don't bypass MR--this is not true. MR does not stop flashers' stun effect.
Back at Abazigal's lair, when we were facing another double dragon battle, with a crowd of drakes with their own breath spells forcing us into a corner at the start of the fight, we had to keep off the pressure by lowering Tamah's MR and Mazing her, then Feebleminding her when the drakes were gone and Tamah was back. And when Abazigal finally switched to his dragon form, and our Feeblemind spells failed, we had to Maze him as well to buy ourselves enough time to lay Time Traps and soften him up with the Answerer, only to have him Feebleminded right before we killed him with our standard attacks.
Returning to Sendai's lair and confronting Sendai herself, we had to deal with multiple high-level enemies all at once, while parties of drow everywhere swarmed us. Teleport Field kept the drow at bay, giving us just enough space to target each Sendai clone individually, debuffing and breaking down the defenses of the many casters swarming the area.
The Ravager, notorious for its regeneration, its immunities, including immunity to Time Stop, and its raw melee power, was addressed with a simple Enchantment spell. Hold Monster won the battle single-handedly, neutralizing the Ravager and granting us automatic hits.
Against Irenicus, Bodhi, and the Fallen Solar of the final battle, we brought out our remaining Protection from Undead scrolls to keep Bodhi at bay, trying to split our time between debuffing Irenicus and bringing down the Fallen Solar who could turn invisible and heal itself without our interference.
When the Five finally appeared at the Throne of Bhaal, Jan broke the encounter with a pre-set Time Trap, allowing him two Time Stop spells, Mislead backstabs against Balthazar, a Protection from Magic scroll on Sendai, and a DEX drain kill on Yaga-Shura. From there, Jan's other traps and our mage HLAs brought down Illasera, while Abazigal was softened up once again with the Answerer during Haer'dalis' Time Trap, which was triggered by Sendai while she was fleeing to the north. With Abazigal debuffed and his AC buffer destroyed, and with Sendai helpless to fight back, we brought down the last of the Five with a swarm of clones.
Melissan herself arrived onstage, buffed with Spell Trap and Absolute Immunity, only to be debuffed in one round, having her MR lowered and her saves risen by 4 within the round, and stunned as soon as Haer'dalis could fire some flashers at the Skeleton Warrior next to her. With automatic hits against Melissan, the party tore her apart, nearly stun-locking her the entire battle, until she recovered her senses and the Solar brought the battle to a close.
On the Party of Spiders:
More than anything else, this run was inspired by Jan's flashers. Jan carried the group for all of the early game, and broke the difficulty for many dangerous encounters through both SoA and ToB. His performance in the final battle is the perfect demonstration of his power: he can single-handedly take down two of the Five, disable a third, and bring a fourth down to Injured. And even when the Five are gone, his flashers disable Melissan, the most powerful creature in the entire trilogy, within two rounds. If he's managed intelligently, no other NPC has such strong disabling power or so much versatility, and few can match his damage output or his durability. From start to finish, he was our most valuable asset, particularly in the early game and against the toughest monsters of ToB.
Cernd saw little opportunity to show his worth, as we lost him shortly before he hit epic levels, a leap that's particularly dramatic for druids. In the time that we had him, though, he was a spectacular defensive asset, keeping the group safe from enemy spells with his extra castings of Chaotic Commands and Death Ward, and tanking every enemy group in every battle, protecting the party from harm. He was nearly invincible, and even served as our target for our Vampiric Touch spells, granting more HP to the party than he even had himself. The party was far more vulnerable after we lost him.
Aerie gave us most of our Chaotic Commands and Death Ward spells, also keeping us safe in the early game. She was our greatest source of buffs and our best summoner until ToB. Her role was not so dramatic or as flashy as the other characters', but she added to every battle. As a Cleric/Mage, she never ran out of spells, and always had something to contribute. She was a solid asset at every stage, supporting the party and keeping it safe and healthy behind the scenes.
Haer'dalis entered as the weakest character, and for a while he struggled to keep up, as he had joined up very late in the game, shortly before the other characters were gaining HLAs. But when he finally reached epic levels alongside the other party members, the entire game balance shifted in our favor. His Improved Bard Song gave us a chance against ToB enemies in melee, and made it possible to keep up with the enemy's rapidly improving AC. He excellent THAC0 itself, thanks to his skill in dual-wielding and in short swords, made it possible to bring down Yaga-Shura with DEX drain without relying on a Time Trap we had no reliable strategy for triggering. And though Abazigal was successfully Feebleminded, Haer'dalis was able to soften up Abazigal with the Answerer, making it possible for us to win the battle even without Feeblemind, a success he re-created in the final battle. Everywhere else, his song gave the bonuses that the Party of Spiders needed to act as the fighters they were designed to be.
Imoen also entered late, and suffered relative to Nalia thanks to her lack of XP and more limited mage spells. Nevertheless, her arcane power gave us monstrous boosts whenever we needed it, quickening tough battles with Horrid Wilting and HLAs. Her clones, too, gave us the advantage that ensured our success.
Nalia, our earliest mage outside of Chateau Irenicus, was our primary spellcaster for the duration of the run, the wearer of the Robe of Vecna and the first of our group to get Time Stop. Her debuffers broke down the tough enemy mages of the early game, and her HLAs and clones simplified much of the late game.
Sil provided us with the cleric buffs we need in the early game, when Aerie was still at a low level and couldn't cover everybody with Chaotic Commands. She lagged behind the rest of the party when dual-classing, and was a step behind Nalia for most of the game, but with Boon of Lathander and her cleric buffs, she had tremendous damage output. When she gained access to Iron Golem form, that power only increased. Throughout the run, she had the highest damage potential, and the most kills, even more so than Jan.
The Party of Spiders has been a success. Not simply because they completed the game, but because they managed to do so while adhering to the basic concept behind the party: a group of spellcasters, winning their battles with weapons rather than just spellpower. The spider form itself saw little attention late in the game, however, as it became obsolete. Jan's base APR hit 2 once we got to the bottom of Watcher's Keep, thanks to the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization, and the spider's 4 base APR was no longer as dramatic an improvement as it once was. Nalia and Imoen, whose best weapons were darts and shortbows, did not benefit much from the spider form either, as they already had 3 base APR normally. Sil no longer needed the spider form when she gained access to the Iron Golem form. Haer'dalis already used speed weapons with great proficiency, so the APR boost for him as well would be fairly minor. Aerie would have benefited greatly as well, but late in the game, the party functioned quite well with their normal weapons and the Iron Golem form, rendering the spider form an unnecessary hassle. Still, it was absolutely critical for most of SoA.
Six months ago, Sil awoke in Chateau Irenicus as a low-level Cleric of Lathander, alone and trapped beneath the earth. Now she walks the planes freed from her heritage, with time and space bending at her fingertips. The party has since disbanded but each member has gone on to find success. Nalia has taken back her land and earned a place on the Council of Six. Imoen made close friends with Elminster and Khelben Blackstaff, even founding her own thieves' guild on a whim. Aerie broke down the Athkatlan slave trade and found a new place amongst the gnomes, finally letting go of her fallen wings. Haer'dalis continued walking the planes, randomly striking up controversy wherever he treads, as always, and spread his tale far and wide. Cernd remains gone but his child is safe and well at the grove, developing into a conscientious druid under the tutelage of his father's friends, maintaining the balance and upholding the peace between nature and civilization.
And Jan? Finally reunited with his love, under the circumstances most fitting for the shapeshifting, storytelling, and forever chatty spider gnome who took down a demi-god with a pinch of flash powder in the hands of a half-demon illithid bard.
BTW, I have noticed that you've mentioned several times in this and others of your runs about the Ring's of Earth Control undocumented +1 bonus to all saving throws. I checked it it NearInfinity and indeed it has those bonuses in global effects section but if you go further and check every of those effects you'll notice that they have a Probability of 0 (zero) while, for example, those of Ring of Protection +2 (top right part of the picture below) have 100% probability. So I'm no sure that those saving throw bonuses actually work:
@Serg_BlackStrider: I've checked the files in DLTCEP and all of the save bonus effects for the Ring of Earth Control have 100% probability, not 0%. It must be a version difference.
@Serg_BlackStrider: I've checked the files in DLTCEP and all of the save bonus effects for the Ring of Earth Control have 100% probability, not 0%. It must be a version difference.
I've made some more investigation and found this:
If you don't have the Baldurdash Fixpack installed, the Ring of Earth Control grants an (undocumented and unintentional) bonus to saving throws, and can be used together with magical armour.
From baldurdash.org:
Item definition. Confirmed by David Gaider on the Interplay WebBoard as not being supposed to have the Saving Throw bonus.
And from G3 BG2 Fixpack Documentation (core fixes):
Rings of Air/Earth/Fire Control Charming Everyone, Other Errors
The three rings of elemental control were able to charm any creature, not just their corresponding elementals. The spells cast by these rings also had the same errors as their underlying spells. These are fixed, along with two other minor issues: some of the rings were not recharging after rest, and the range was set incorrectly. The Ring of Air Control had an additional error in that the save bonus that comes with improved invisibility was not being applied. The Ring of Earth Control was also granting an erroneous +1 save bonus which is removed.
I do have BG2 Fixpack core fixes installed (as this is very strongly recommended by DavidW, SCS author) so that explains everything.
Sorry, about the semi-necro, but I was just curious about the CC:On Hit trick...
I've seen Saros mention using LMD-on-self to trigger it. Is that what you used as well, or did you use something else, e.g. just maneuvering cleverly to get "hit" (for no damage, presumably)? I've tried searching a bit in the thread, but couldn't find any mention of what you used.
(The reason I ask is that I've tried this in my own setup with SCS, but it doesn't seem to work if you have full resistance to magic damage. I think it's probably related to the "don't interrupt casting when all damage resisted" tweak that TobEx has, but I'm not sure.)
@AnonymousHero: I used Project Image to trigger the Chain Contingency. The condition for my CC was on "Helpless," not on "Hit," so it would trigger whenever I got disabled. Project Image counts as disabling the caster, and therefore will trigger an On Helpless Chain Contingency.
Quick Note: If you'd like to scout for ways to set off your Hit Contingencies in combat, activate Autopause: Hit in you game menu options then take note of all the things that the engine considers hits. That may give you some ideas.
I set up all of our Contingencies, and Sil's Chain Contingency, to trigger on hit, which I didn't even realize was an option for a contingency condition (you have to scroll up to see it, on the contingency screen). I thought it would trigger when the caster was hit by a weapon, indicating their Stoneskins and PFMW spells weren't keeping them safe. But apparently any hostile act that makes contact can trigger such a contingency.
which you wrote on page 8. It seems to imply that you were using an on-hit trigger (at least for this encounter!).
It's a great trick to use offensive CC's in a much more controlled manner, so I was curious if there are ways of triggering it that I just haven't throught of...
EDIT: Great run, btw, though I must confess I haven't read all 8 pages of it .
@AnonymousHero: I understand now. I was thinking of the Feeblemind contingencies I was using for Abazigal. The On Hit contingencies in the fight with Melissan were for defensive reasons, to activate our buffs in case we got caught off guard. So the triggering of those contingencies was accidental, not tactical. I assumed you were talking about the Abazigal contingencies because you were talking about intentionally triggering them.
Larloch's Minor Drain would indeed trigger an on-hit contingency. It should do so even with immunity to magic damage, as other on-hit contingency types (like in Fire Shields or Sanchuudoku) respond even when no damage is done. In fact, I've even seen a Grease spell trigger Sanchuudoku, which suggests to me that any spell tagged as "hostile" also counts as a hit.
Larloch's Minor Drain would indeed trigger an on-hit contingency. It should do so even with immunity to magic damage, as other on-hit contingency types (like in Fire Shields or Sanchuudoku) respond even when no damage is done. In fact, I've even seen a Grease spell trigger Sanchuudoku, which suggests to me that any spell tagged as "hostile" also counts as a hit.
It doesn't seem to in my (lightly modded, TobEx), unfortunately. I think this is because of the "no damage => no spell interruption" thing.
@Alesia_BH: Thanks, that's a good idea, though I wonder if it's actually coded in the same place in the engine. I guess I'll have to try experimenting a bit.
@Alesia_BH: Thanks, that's a good idea, though I wonder if it's actually coded in the same place in the engine.
Use the auto pause data as a source of hypotheses, not a test in and of itself. Once you've discovered an interesting candidate trigger, do a proper experiment to confirm that it will work as intended in combat.
I've discovered a number of Hit triggers that way, including one of my favorites, Sunfire.
@Alesia_BH: A link to Bioware is very flattering. Thank you. I'm glad people have taken an interest in this run. I've had more fun, learned more stuff, and did crazier things in this run than I have in any other.
@dockaboomski: A butterfly run... I would probably need to have some visual thing to accompany it. I know there's a mod to add wearable wings to BG2, but the wings are feathery rather than butterfly-like and the mod sets my laptop on fire.
An old character of mine, Poppy, has butterfly wings in her portrait, and she's one of my favorites. I certainly could design a butterfly-themed kit, though otherwise I don't know how we'd make a butterfly run.
If there's a spell effect that looks especially like a butterfly, or some graphics mod that adds some butterfly-related animation or avatar or whatever, I'm sure a butterfly run would be lovely.
There are two implications for this, in no-reload runs. First, you need to either get immunities to the relevant disablers, or you need a reliable means of removing them. Spell Revisions lets you remove any disabler with Break Enchantment, but in vanilla BG2, your options are limited. Dispel Magic can remove all disablers, but it'll also remove your buffs, and not just for the disabled characters. Only Greater Restoration removes confusion and charm, and you'll be charmed and confused long before you get Greater Restoration. There is no cure at all for unconsciousness.
Basically, what you are meaning, is that Spell Revision actually helps no reload run? Because to be honest I'm not fond of it all, but reading what you're saying here scares me a bit.
@Arthas: I think Spell Revisions overall is actually slightly worse for no-reload runs for several reasons. First, saving throw penalties are much stronger in SR than in vanilla. Sphere of Chaos and Prismatic Spray are especially devastating. Second, the Dispelling Screen spell (replacing Spell Immunity: Abjuration) can be very dicey in some key instances: against demons who spam Remove Magic, even a mage can easily lose their buffs if they get caught (Dispelling Screen only blocks a single Remove Magic spell; the second one goes right through everything else). SCS mages who use triple Remove Magic Spell Sequencers can do the same thing.
Other parts of SR are more friendly to no-reload gameplay. Petrification and Imprisonment are no longer instant-death effects; they're permanent disablers that the right spell can fix (Charname can get hit by either and survive as long as there's a party member who can cure it). Break Enchantment does a lot to help clerics and mages bail out endangered party members, and even works against petrification. SR also adds a lot of low-level summoning spells, which are great for baiting out enemy spells and absorbing attacks.
I don't think the difference is particularly dramatic, though. These are tradeoffs; SR's impact on no-reload gameplay has both positive and negative effects, and it's not clear to me that either of them makes a truly decisive impact on the nature of the challenge.
Comments
The Sendai fight and the final battle were particularly enjoyable for me to read. To stay in control of such complex situations, where you were managing multiple characters that are up against multiple powerful foes, is superhard for me. Very impressive, so hats off to you!
You wondered why Balthasar didn't join the final battle. The reason is your CHA. Charname needs an unmodified CHA-score of 16 or higher (in addition to meeting alignment, reputation, and dialogue path requirements) for Balthasar to decide to fight alongside the party.
As to the exploits and the question of the EEs vs the original game, I'm with you on this. First of all many exploits are a grey area (why would UAI not allow the use of NPCs' personal items? unlike @wowo, I don't see this as an 'exploit' the EEs had to fix). Secondly the EEs make some things harder (fixing some 'exploits'), and others easier (new weapons and items, powerful NPCs for example), so I wouldn't say that the EEs make the game harder, just (slightly) different.
You should just keep on doing whatever you like: do a Trilogy run, with BG1 included, start another unconventional type of playthrough, make your next challenge slightly harder (e.g. play on core rules, allow no testing since you've just beat the game, limit the number of traps or clones you can use), take a break, anything. Thanks at any rate for sharing this well-documented run!
On Buffs and Durations:
Magic, especially arcane magic, is known to be terribly powerful in BG2. Wizards can negate many forms of attack, and their defenses are difficult to breach. However, their defenses are dependent on a limited number of spells. A mage is harder to kill than a fighter, but only for so long. If a battle drags on, the mage's advantage dries up. You can therefore gain an advantage on an enemy mage by waiting our their defenses, purposefully dragging on the battle until it turns in your favor.
Likewise, your own mages get steadily weaker and more vulnerable as time goes on. If you have trouble taking down an enemy, your buffs will start to wear off, and the enemy will gain the advantage. Enemies with high HP, low AC, high MR, and/or regeneration (basically, ToB enemies and modded critters) will tax the party's buffs. Long battles are the bane of spellcasters. Throne of Bhaal enemies are among the hardest to kill in the game, and required the most preparation, as our party had to find new ways of defeating the enemy in short periods of time. If we did not, the party would become more and more vulnerable and weaker and weaker, until we no longer had enough buffs to keep us alive, or enough power to bring down the enemy.
On "Pressure" and Defenses:
SCS2 enemies, especially mages, are very attentive to their own defenses. They know their vulnerabilities and will dedicate time and energy to maintaining them. This means that debuffing and attack pressure both take time away from casters. If your mage gets hit by Breach, he or she is going to get targeted, and your spellcasting is put into jeopardy. This forces you to spend a round renewing your defenses, instead of fighting the enemy.
The situation is the same on the other side. If you maintain "pressure" on an enemy, you can effectively disable them. Break down a mage's spell protections, and they will take time to bring them back up. Wear down a mage's Stoneskins, and that too will force them to dedicate their limited time to protecting themselves. This, however, requires sustained attention--you need multiple attacks and multiple debuffers to keep an enemy on the defensive, and off your back. By exerting pressure, you dedicate your time to shutting down the enemy. Put enough pressure on the right enemy, and you can neutralize the greatest threat. With a party full of mages, you can debuff an enemy very quickly, since you can use multiple debuffers in one round.
But sometimes you just can't break through an enemy's defenses, either because your debuffers are too few or they're too low-level. Two Spellstrikes are not going to fully debuff a Lich before its Time Stop begins. Fifty Secret Words will do nothing against Globe of Invulnerability.
On Disablers and Immunities:
In a no-reload run, disablers are stronger for the enemy, and weaker for you. The random nature of disablers means that bad luck affects you far more than it does the enemy. Your party will fail saving throws sooner or later, unless your saves are below zero, which isn't easy to get. And the enemy will make their saves sooner or later. This doesn't follow for other spells. A saving throw can influence the power of a Fireball. A saving throw can negate the power of Chaos. And luck is always against you in no-reload runs, because bad luck on only one occasion can end an entire run.
There are two implications for this, in no-reload runs. First, you need to either get immunities to the relevant disablers, or you need a reliable means of removing them. Spell Revisions lets you remove any disabler with Break Enchantment, but in vanilla BG2, your options are limited. Dispel Magic can remove all disablers, but it'll also remove your buffs, and not just for the disabled characters. Only Greater Restoration removes confusion and charm, and you'll be charmed and confused long before you get Greater Restoration. There is no cure at all for unconsciousness.
So, you need guaranteed saving throws, guaranteed MR (very hard to get), or outright immunity to BG2's many disablers and instant death effects. Chaotic Commands, Remove Fear, and Death Ward cover all the bases. With multiple divine spellcasters, our party was able to maintain universal immunity to disablers for most of the game, rendering our saving throws a non-issue. The few times where we were disabled nearly resulted in our deaths.
Second, your disablers need to be correspondingly reliable. Save penalties on your disablers are not enough, unless you've got an Archer stacking Called Shot penalties to lower the enemy's save vs. spell. Why is this? Well, you can guarantee successful saving throws for your party in many ways, but there is no way to guarantee that an important enemy will fail its save against one of your disablers unless you've got an Archer. The highest save penalty you can inflict without an Archer is -12, and it only applies to Spook.
Forcing multiple saves, however, is much more reliable. An example: Hold Monster is unreliable, because it requires one save against one giant effect, paralysis for many rounds. With bad luck, you get nothing. Web, however, is more reliable, as it forces many saves against many small effects, paralysis for one round. With bad luck, you still get something. We were able to disable enemies in this no-reload run not because we used Greater Malison and Doom, but because we used many disablers, which minimized the chance that the enemy would make all of their saves. Jan's flashers allowed us to force many saves, almost guaranteeing some degree of success. Same goes with Feeblemind against the dragons: we had over a 90% chance of disabling each dragon, because we forced many saves.
On AC:
In no-reload runs, AC has the same problem as saving throws: bad luck is a greater threat than good luck is a boon. Overall, luck is against you. This means you can't rely on good AC alone to protect you, or good THAC0 to hit the enemy. The enemy will roll critical hits. You will roll critical misses.
This problem is very different depending on the content of your party. Your fighters won't need to worry about THAC0--luck will not much impact your hit chance. But fighters will need to worry about AC, because it's their main means of avoiding damage. Your mages won't need to worry about AC, because Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Teleport Field, and PFMW will negate the effect of bad luck. But your mages will need to worry about THAC0, because they need good luck to hit anything. How do you confront these problems?
For fighters, you need to either get terribly low AC, or very high resistances, regeneration, and/or HP. AC's impact on your survival hinges on luck. Resistances decrease damage by the same amount regardless of your luck. Same goes for regeneration and your HP pool. Also, careful positioning can keep your more vulnerable fighters away from the enemy, rendering enemy attack rolls irrelevant for them.
For mages, you need to disable the enemy, guaranteeing successful hits for your party, or you need to boost your APR, to serve as a buffer against bad luck. Make one big attack, and bad luck could turn it to nothing. Make 100 small attacks, and bad luck will simply decrease it. Spiders have very high APR, which mitigates bad luck. Disablers render THAC0 irrelevant. A good example is the Ravager: we forced many saving throws to ensure a failed save, at which point our poor THAC0 was a non-issue.
On Flexibility:
I've mentioned before that this party is rather weak, but highly flexible. They have a fix for most every problem, and have multiple escape options and emergency measures--again, to minimize the luck factor. Their spells are also often redundant: multiple characters had Teleport Field, even though we'd likely only use one for a single battle. This is because having multiple characters with Teleport Field allows us to cast it at any time without much cost. Sometimes one character is out of commission for a round--they need to re-cast Stoneskin or drink a potion, or else they'll die. During that round, however, another character can pick up the slack. Having redundant spells means that even if one of your party members dies or is disabled, you don't lose that person's functions and abilities.
A notable exception is Detect Illusions, which only Jan could do. On many occasions, I found that the party was limited by this: I would want Jan to do one thing, but couldn't allow him to do so, because Detect Illusions was more important. Having two thieves with 100 in Detect Illusions would have been much safer.
Strong characters can falter in a no-reload run if something bad happens. Flexible characters can adapt. A strong but inflexible party will absolutely wreck most enemies, but could easily die against a tough encounter. A weak but flexible party will struggle against all enemies, even the weak ones, but it won't easily fall if things go badly. They bend but don't break.
On Setups:
Some strategies require very precise setups in order to function. These setups weaken the party's flexibility and render it more vulnerable to chance. I described this problem in my planning posts for the fight with Melissan: in order to stun Melissan, we had to lower her MR, hit her with Greater Malison, keep a target summons (in our case, the Skeleton Warrior) close by her, and keep one character, in this case Haer'dalis, shapeshifted and busy attacking our target summons with flashers. If any of those things failed, then the whole effort could fall apart. Without lowering her MR, Greater Malison would be resisted. Without Greater Malison, Melissan would have guaranteed saves. If the target summons dies or isn't close enough, the flashers won't hit Melissan in the first place. And if Haer'dalis was hurt, he'd have to run away to drink potions, and our flashers would be out of commission. And if our plan faltered, Melissan could restore both her MR and her saves, forcing us to repeat the process, and dragging out the battle and our buffs.
But these high-maintenance strategies are sometimes necessary. Melissan would have been extremely difficult if we didn't stun her. So we have to cover all of our bases, or else our entire plan could fall apart. This means we must anticipate the potential dangers and account for them. To ensure successful casting of Pierce Magic, we'd have to keep PFMW on hand. To keep Sil from being surprised by Time Stop, we had to keep her aura clear in case she had to use Focus. To ensure Haer'dalis was safe despite his inability to cast PFMW, we had to keep Teleport Field on hand to ward off Abazigal (who likely would have survived had things proceeded normally) and his powerful melee attacks. Redundancy can also mitigate these dangers: because we had multiple characters with Teleport Field, the Wand of Spell Striking, Greater Malison, and Pierce Shield, we would be able to create our setup even if things got messy.
On the Run Itself (this is an extremely long section):
The Party of Spiders had some really drastic changes of strategy over the course of the game. Operating as a melee-focused party required much management. Many battles required tactics that would have failed miserably in others. We re-organized our spellbooks very often--we would surely have fallen if we had not.
In Chateau Irenicus, we relied heavily on summons, as we had few other options. Skeletons could survive the Duergar's bolts and axes, keeping Sil and Imoen safe.
In the early game, Jan carried the party. His Invisibility 10' Radius spell got us out of bad situations, and his flashers disabled large chunks of enemy groups.
In the Druid Grove, area-effect damage spells allowed us to overcome the Trolls' regeneration. Our THAC0 was too poor, and Jan's flashers could not stun anything, so spellpower was our only realistic option.
When Cernd joined the party, he took position as our primary tank. With his high MR, elemental resistances, low AC, and later on his regeneration, he became very difficult to harm, and absorbed much of the enemy attacks that otherwise could have ruined us. He also added to our divine spellpower, allowing us to grant Chaotic Commands to more characters.
Eventually, Sil dual-classed and recovered her cleric levels, boosting our damage output, and bringing Sil closer to the front line.
As the party gained levels, we gained access to stronger debuffers, and began to take on enemy mages. This allowed us to overwhelm the biggest dangers of the game even if Jan's flashers failed to stun.
Without our normal items in Spellhold, we had to resort to Shapechange via Limited Wish and various debuffers in order to prevail against Irenicus. Bolts of Biting, which we would normally save, proved instrumental in disabling Irenicus' spellcasting.
When Cernd died, we had to focus more on our defenses. Haer'dalis was a pitiful replacement that we had to drag along to gain access to his HLAs as quickly as possible. Without Cernd as a buffer, the whole party had to worry constantly about its safety.
In the maze of Watcher's Keep, where the enemies were too sturdy to take down in spider form, we had to resort to Horrid Wilting to pave the way. When we had to face demons with high MR, Sil took on Mind Flayer form to stun them through their resistances, and Iron Golem form to deal the damage that our caster-heavy party could not do on its own. The Mind Flayer form returned when we fought actual Mind Flayers deeper in the dungeon--Mind Flayers are not immune to Psionic Blast.
Against the Watcher's Keep demi-lich, we had to improvise. The party distracted the demi-lich with clones and tanked out its spells until its defenses were down.
When the Final Seal put us up against a monstrously powerful enemy party, Jan had to use his Time Traps for automatic backstabs, picking off some of the enemies early on and taking much of the pressure off of our own party.
Against the Rakshasas of Suldanessellar, we had to resort to damage spells once more, using Horrid Wilting where our weapons would have failed against the Rakshasas' PFMW. Alternatively, we could have waited out their buffs, but I found it more convenient to simply use Horrid Wilting.
At the Tree of Life, facing an enemy shrouded in defensive magicks (alternative spelling of magics, by the way), we switched over to our mage HLAs, disabling Irenicus long enough for us to break through his defenses.
In Hell, with all of our buffs dispelled on the first round and some of the toughest enemies in BG2 directly on top of us, we had to hold off the enemy long enough to call in some clones and wear down the Orb of Fear. When our clones vanished--a result of our multiple Time Stop spells that wore out the duration of Project Image--Sil had to jump in with Shapechange to take down the Dragon of Pride, and then the Orb of Fear, during our limited Time Stops to ensure hits against AC far below our THAC0. Irenicus the Slayer, too, warranted a Time Stop. A Protection from Magic scroll shut down the spellcasting of the final form of Irenicus, opening up ToB.
In Saradush, HLAs and the Iron Golem form filled in the void left by our rapidly decreasing damage power. Without the Improved Bard Song, we could not keep pace with ToB enemies' high HP and subzero AC. We struggled against the Fire Giants, whose regeneration rendered them nearly unkillable, and had to tank their many powerful attacks while we slowly wore them down.
Against Yaga-Shura, we again had to weather the concentrated attacks of many Fire Giants. With our melee abilities utterly outclassed by the enemy, and with Yaga-Shura's ludicrous resistances, we had to resort to DEX drain, with poor THAC0, where relying on damage would have dragged out the battle long enough to cost us our buffs.
Faced with the quadruple dragon ambush at Abazigal's lair, and without any buffs whatsoever, we had to cope with over 8 character deaths, raising the dead with the Rod of Resurrection with the little time we had to act, and marshalling all the offensive power we could muster to bring down the dragons who could kill any of us with a single breath weapon, finally resorting to song stacking when the second of the four dragons proved too resistant to kill without fleeing the area... only to find that another two dragons were on the way. Alternatively, we could have gathered our equipment and fled the area, returning with our spells restored, but I didn't want to do this.
Against the many drow of Sendai's lair and their high MR across the board, we plowed through the area with brute force, with Jan disrupting enemy magic with the Scorcher Ammunition and Frag Grenades. I've mentioned earlier that flashers don't bypass MR--this is not true. MR does not stop flashers' stun effect.
Back at Abazigal's lair, when we were facing another double dragon battle, with a crowd of drakes with their own breath spells forcing us into a corner at the start of the fight, we had to keep off the pressure by lowering Tamah's MR and Mazing her, then Feebleminding her when the drakes were gone and Tamah was back. And when Abazigal finally switched to his dragon form, and our Feeblemind spells failed, we had to Maze him as well to buy ourselves enough time to lay Time Traps and soften him up with the Answerer, only to have him Feebleminded right before we killed him with our standard attacks.
Returning to Sendai's lair and confronting Sendai herself, we had to deal with multiple high-level enemies all at once, while parties of drow everywhere swarmed us. Teleport Field kept the drow at bay, giving us just enough space to target each Sendai clone individually, debuffing and breaking down the defenses of the many casters swarming the area.
The Ravager, notorious for its regeneration, its immunities, including immunity to Time Stop, and its raw melee power, was addressed with a simple Enchantment spell. Hold Monster won the battle single-handedly, neutralizing the Ravager and granting us automatic hits.
Against Irenicus, Bodhi, and the Fallen Solar of the final battle, we brought out our remaining Protection from Undead scrolls to keep Bodhi at bay, trying to split our time between debuffing Irenicus and bringing down the Fallen Solar who could turn invisible and heal itself without our interference.
When the Five finally appeared at the Throne of Bhaal, Jan broke the encounter with a pre-set Time Trap, allowing him two Time Stop spells, Mislead backstabs against Balthazar, a Protection from Magic scroll on Sendai, and a DEX drain kill on Yaga-Shura. From there, Jan's other traps and our mage HLAs brought down Illasera, while Abazigal was softened up once again with the Answerer during Haer'dalis' Time Trap, which was triggered by Sendai while she was fleeing to the north. With Abazigal debuffed and his AC buffer destroyed, and with Sendai helpless to fight back, we brought down the last of the Five with a swarm of clones.
Melissan herself arrived onstage, buffed with Spell Trap and Absolute Immunity, only to be debuffed in one round, having her MR lowered and her saves risen by 4 within the round, and stunned as soon as Haer'dalis could fire some flashers at the Skeleton Warrior next to her. With automatic hits against Melissan, the party tore her apart, nearly stun-locking her the entire battle, until she recovered her senses and the Solar brought the battle to a close.
On the Party of Spiders:
More than anything else, this run was inspired by Jan's flashers. Jan carried the group for all of the early game, and broke the difficulty for many dangerous encounters through both SoA and ToB. His performance in the final battle is the perfect demonstration of his power: he can single-handedly take down two of the Five, disable a third, and bring a fourth down to Injured. And even when the Five are gone, his flashers disable Melissan, the most powerful creature in the entire trilogy, within two rounds. If he's managed intelligently, no other NPC has such strong disabling power or so much versatility, and few can match his damage output or his durability. From start to finish, he was our most valuable asset, particularly in the early game and against the toughest monsters of ToB.
Cernd saw little opportunity to show his worth, as we lost him shortly before he hit epic levels, a leap that's particularly dramatic for druids. In the time that we had him, though, he was a spectacular defensive asset, keeping the group safe from enemy spells with his extra castings of Chaotic Commands and Death Ward, and tanking every enemy group in every battle, protecting the party from harm. He was nearly invincible, and even served as our target for our Vampiric Touch spells, granting more HP to the party than he even had himself. The party was far more vulnerable after we lost him.
Aerie gave us most of our Chaotic Commands and Death Ward spells, also keeping us safe in the early game. She was our greatest source of buffs and our best summoner until ToB. Her role was not so dramatic or as flashy as the other characters', but she added to every battle. As a Cleric/Mage, she never ran out of spells, and always had something to contribute. She was a solid asset at every stage, supporting the party and keeping it safe and healthy behind the scenes.
Haer'dalis entered as the weakest character, and for a while he struggled to keep up, as he had joined up very late in the game, shortly before the other characters were gaining HLAs. But when he finally reached epic levels alongside the other party members, the entire game balance shifted in our favor. His Improved Bard Song gave us a chance against ToB enemies in melee, and made it possible to keep up with the enemy's rapidly improving AC. He excellent THAC0 itself, thanks to his skill in dual-wielding and in short swords, made it possible to bring down Yaga-Shura with DEX drain without relying on a Time Trap we had no reliable strategy for triggering. And though Abazigal was successfully Feebleminded, Haer'dalis was able to soften up Abazigal with the Answerer, making it possible for us to win the battle even without Feeblemind, a success he re-created in the final battle. Everywhere else, his song gave the bonuses that the Party of Spiders needed to act as the fighters they were designed to be.
Imoen also entered late, and suffered relative to Nalia thanks to her lack of XP and more limited mage spells. Nevertheless, her arcane power gave us monstrous boosts whenever we needed it, quickening tough battles with Horrid Wilting and HLAs. Her clones, too, gave us the advantage that ensured our success.
Nalia, our earliest mage outside of Chateau Irenicus, was our primary spellcaster for the duration of the run, the wearer of the Robe of Vecna and the first of our group to get Time Stop. Her debuffers broke down the tough enemy mages of the early game, and her HLAs and clones simplified much of the late game.
Sil provided us with the cleric buffs we need in the early game, when Aerie was still at a low level and couldn't cover everybody with Chaotic Commands. She lagged behind the rest of the party when dual-classing, and was a step behind Nalia for most of the game, but with Boon of Lathander and her cleric buffs, she had tremendous damage output. When she gained access to Iron Golem form, that power only increased. Throughout the run, she had the highest damage potential, and the most kills, even more so than Jan.
The Party of Spiders has been a success. Not simply because they completed the game, but because they managed to do so while adhering to the basic concept behind the party: a group of spellcasters, winning their battles with weapons rather than just spellpower. The spider form itself saw little attention late in the game, however, as it became obsolete. Jan's base APR hit 2 once we got to the bottom of Watcher's Keep, thanks to the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization, and the spider's 4 base APR was no longer as dramatic an improvement as it once was. Nalia and Imoen, whose best weapons were darts and shortbows, did not benefit much from the spider form either, as they already had 3 base APR normally. Sil no longer needed the spider form when she gained access to the Iron Golem form. Haer'dalis already used speed weapons with great proficiency, so the APR boost for him as well would be fairly minor. Aerie would have benefited greatly as well, but late in the game, the party functioned quite well with their normal weapons and the Iron Golem form, rendering the spider form an unnecessary hassle. Still, it was absolutely critical for most of SoA.
Six months ago, Sil awoke in Chateau Irenicus as a low-level Cleric of Lathander, alone and trapped beneath the earth. Now she walks the planes freed from her heritage, with time and space bending at her fingertips. The party has since disbanded but each member has gone on to find success. Nalia has taken back her land and earned a place on the Council of Six. Imoen made close friends with Elminster and Khelben Blackstaff, even founding her own thieves' guild on a whim. Aerie broke down the Athkatlan slave trade and found a new place amongst the gnomes, finally letting go of her fallen wings. Haer'dalis continued walking the planes, randomly striking up controversy wherever he treads, as always, and spread his tale far and wide. Cernd remains gone but his child is safe and well at the grove, developing into a conscientious druid under the tutelage of his father's friends, maintaining the balance and upholding the peace between nature and civilization.
And Jan? Finally reunited with his love, under the circumstances most fitting for the shapeshifting, storytelling, and forever chatty spider gnome who took down a demi-god with a pinch of flash powder in the hands of a half-demon illithid bard.
BTW, I have noticed that you've mentioned several times in this and others of your runs about the Ring's of Earth Control undocumented +1 bonus to all saving throws. I checked it it NearInfinity and indeed it has those bonuses in global effects section but if you go further and check every of those effects you'll notice that they have a Probability of 0 (zero) while, for example, those of Ring of Protection +2 (top right part of the picture below) have 100% probability. So I'm no sure that those saving throw bonuses actually work:
I've seen Saros mention using LMD-on-self to trigger it. Is that what you used as well, or did you use something else, e.g. just maneuvering cleverly to get "hit" (for no damage, presumably)? I've tried searching a bit in the thread, but couldn't find any mention of what you used.
(The reason I ask is that I've tried this in my own setup with SCS, but it doesn't seem to work if you have full resistance to magic damage. I think it's probably related to the "don't interrupt casting when all damage resisted" tweak that TobEx has, but I'm not sure.)
Best,
A.
It's a great trick to use offensive CC's in a much more controlled manner, so I was curious if there are ways of triggering it that I just haven't throught of...
EDIT: Great run, btw, though I must confess I haven't read all 8 pages of it
Larloch's Minor Drain would indeed trigger an on-hit contingency. It should do so even with immunity to magic damage, as other on-hit contingency types (like in Fire Shields or Sanchuudoku) respond even when no damage is done. In fact, I've even seen a Grease spell trigger Sanchuudoku, which suggests to me that any spell tagged as "hostile" also counts as a hit.
@Alesia_BH: Thanks, that's a good idea, though I wonder if it's actually coded in the same place in the engine. I guess I'll have to try experimenting a bit.
I've discovered a number of Hit triggers that way, including one of my favorites, Sunfire.
Best,
A.
If you don't mind, I'd like to provide a link to it over at Bioware. I'd like players in our community to have it available for reference.
Once again, great work!
Best,
A.
An old character of mine, Poppy, has butterfly wings in her portrait, and she's one of my favorites. I certainly could design a butterfly-themed kit, though otherwise I don't know how we'd make a butterfly run.
If there's a spell effect that looks especially like a butterfly, or some graphics mod that adds some butterfly-related animation or avatar or whatever, I'm sure a butterfly run would be lovely.
Basically, what you are meaning, is that Spell Revision actually helps no reload run? Because to be honest I'm not fond of it all, but reading what you're saying here scares me a bit.
Other parts of SR are more friendly to no-reload gameplay. Petrification and Imprisonment are no longer instant-death effects; they're permanent disablers that the right spell can fix (Charname can get hit by either and survive as long as there's a party member who can cure it). Break Enchantment does a lot to help clerics and mages bail out endangered party members, and even works against petrification. SR also adds a lot of low-level summoning spells, which are great for baiting out enemy spells and absorbing attacks.
I don't think the difference is particularly dramatic, though. These are tradeoffs; SR's impact on no-reload gameplay has both positive and negative effects, and it's not clear to me that either of them makes a truly decisive impact on the nature of the challenge.