TOB : how to be overpowered abusing a spell
Masterteo
Member Posts: 111
As the title say, i have made some experiments with chain contingency and...the result is cheese. So much cheese that it killed Gromnir and his two mages in a hit.
So much cheese that i would not use this anymore.
What did i do?
Chain contingency : if my mage get hit --> 3 x Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting against the enemy who hit my mage.
How to use it : simply run near a mob, then let you be hit and unleash armageddon on your foes.
BONUS : after this, my mage can cast the 3 Abi-Dazim that i locked in the chain contingency. Meaning that in a fight i can use 6 Abi-Dazim...just think about it.
First 3 Abi-Dazim in the Chain Contingency, then time stop --> cast 2 x Abi-Dazim + 1 Abi-Dazim after time stop ends.
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Also, i add that i rest after i memorize the spells of the chain contingency : this way, after the contingency is used, i have still the 3 x Abi-Dazim ready to be used.
...yes, as i said it's not even funny. Never use this again... but i wonder : why did the programmers allowed us to do something like this?
So much cheese that i would not use this anymore.
What did i do?
Chain contingency : if my mage get hit --> 3 x Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting against the enemy who hit my mage.
How to use it : simply run near a mob, then let you be hit and unleash armageddon on your foes.
BONUS : after this, my mage can cast the 3 Abi-Dazim that i locked in the chain contingency. Meaning that in a fight i can use 6 Abi-Dazim...just think about it.
First 3 Abi-Dazim in the Chain Contingency, then time stop --> cast 2 x Abi-Dazim + 1 Abi-Dazim after time stop ends.
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Also, i add that i rest after i memorize the spells of the chain contingency : this way, after the contingency is used, i have still the 3 x Abi-Dazim ready to be used.
...yes, as i said it's not even funny. Never use this again... but i wonder : why did the programmers allowed us to do something like this?
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Comments
Yes, programmers can't predict all the ways to break the game. But allowing Abi-Dazim to be a possible spell casted in a Chain Contingency...it's almost asking for it.
But i'm not criticizing the programmers. As you said : some players may like doing things like this.
In my opinion this is breaking the game. And to tell the truth, i almost consider "cheating" using Abi-Dazim spell. This spell is too powerful.
Finger of Death is my favourite spell. Deals damage and instant kills but only if you work hard before, lowering enough the magic resistance of the enemy (and maybe using greater malison).
So yes, Abi-Dazim for me is cheating. Or at least, it would be nice if you are allowed to cast only 1 Abi-Dazim per battle.
It can be even more powerful. Take a sorcerer. He has precasted chain contingency:3x abi dalzim nearest enemy when enemy sighted. Has 6 horrid wiltings memorised after rest. Battle starts. 3 abi dalzims go. Immediately cast the chain contşngency again, it is broken and can be cast instantly. Load up 3x wiltings again. It will trigger again in the same or next round. You have 3 more wiltings (started with 6, used up 3 in second contingency)load up them again in a comtingency. Result is you do 9x20d8=180d8 damage to every enemy in the area. That's 180-1440, average of 810 damage to every one in approximately one round or two. Hey, they can still save vs spell for half damage. :-)
On a side note, i created this contingency thinking about the Kamikaze Kobolds of Firkraag Lair. As those little kobolds, Nalia run to the enemy in search of a hug.
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On another side note, yes the game mechanic is a bit broken here. I mean, you can create a chain contingency in the middle of a combat !
I know that this is a game and what i'm going to say is almost pointless, but... we are talking about casting a 9th level spell (Chain contingency) that has to be tied with 3 level 8th spells (Abi-Dazim). This Should be complex enough to be something impossible to do in the middle of a battle. It should require to much time and concentration.
Instead of spelltrap i prefer restore my spells with Aerie. Being the mage with the most winsdom in my party, she usually summon a genie with wish or limited wish.
And because i like to mess around, sometimes i call the genie even if i don't need it. Afterall, it's good summoning the mighty army of rabbits against Yaga-Sura giants
Even in ToB for instance, Draconis, Abazigal's brown dragon son, is immune to acid and ADHW is acid-dmg as are all cloud spells. The vast numbers of magic immune enemies make it less OP, atleast you need to remove the resistances 1st, which takes a number of rounds. And elemental resistances are unremovable by any spells.
And Abazigal lair is still the hardest place of TOB in my opinion.
And Draconis is absolutely the hardest dragon in all BG2 and TOB.
But i have nothing to fear in this gameplay, my monk should have a good THACO. And i have 3 clerics with 7 heal spells and such.
My party is made for long, tiring battle.
For one, any dragon who has not had its resistance lowered could resist most or all of the damage.
Any enemy mage with spell turning might throw some or all of it back against you. There are some other mage spell defenses that can ruin your day if you are counting on horrid wilting, as well.
In SCS, many enemies will have spell immunity: necromancy cast to counter exactly this strategy.
Against Melissan, she can take all that damage, and quite possibly withstand it and kick your butt anyway, or if she doesn't, she'll just teleport herself to her next phase of the Throne. And more likely, you will have used up your trump card against all her elder orbs or other nasty summoned fodder. That girl is so powerful, she's even immune to time stop.
If you have a chain contingency and three 8th level spell slots to put into it, you are likely near the end of the game anyway, unless you are playing solo, which kind of breaks the game by definition, since it was created as a party game.
And no, i have only killed Gromnir so far. Simply Nalia is level 19 and i gave her the extra 8th slot in ability after level up.
SCS is something i have yet to try. Now as now, i am beating the game on core rules a few times.
If i will ever beat the game with the hardest difficulty i will try SCS. But not before that.
SCS is hard from what i've heard, and i need to improve a bit.
Spell turning is ineffective against horrid wilting. However, protection from magic energy (6th lvl spell) will make the target immune to magical damage, hence immune to wilting damage. Scs mages use it often so you will need to breach them. But to breach them you will need to strip their magical protections, spell deflection, turning, etc as in scs, breach is affected by them. It becomes a strategic battle of wits with enemy mages. I strongly recommend scs to any fan of the game, I can not play the game without it, once saw how smart enemies becomes almost as smart as an enemy human player, I can not come back to vanilla gameplay.
SCS sounds interesting , i have never used breach in the game : never needed this spell.
Of course other protection removal spells that aren't abjuration would work on you in this state, but the chances aren't high that they'll hit you with any of these outside of certain mobs and those under AI mods like SCS (I presume)
It took me 3-4 Abi-Dazim to understand that some demons simply laught in your face if you use that spell.
If you cast 3x lower resistance via trigger beforehand, they are toast.
There are many solutions for a high level arch-mage.
Even if sometimes it fires back. Like one time that i forgot that a mage had probably spell turning active.
Long story short, for a moment Nalia was running away, chased by her Finger of Death.
A few examples
With the robe of vecna skull trap is an instant cast. With improve alacrity and autopause when spell cast can unleash 6 of them instantly. This will kill anything in the game (cast 3 instant lower resist before if necessary)
Shapeshifting : mind flayer + timestop kills anything in 1 round
It is a really old trick, though.
It was a 35 minute fight and there were many times where absolutely NOTHING could be done to hurt this mage, sit back and enjoy the hurt.
The player was not a newbie by any stretch but you could feel the frustration as they cycled through spell breaker after breaker only to see the evil mages' spells renewed. In addition, The evil mage used spell strike about a dozen times on the group.
The area was CONSTANTLY, without letup, deluged by meteor storm and at one time I counted 7 Mord Magic Swords in play by enemy mage. 4 Dark Planetars in succession were called up, the evil Mage had a couple of protections that don't exist in normal game it seems but the unnerving fact was that even the conventional protections were renewed constantly, there was hardly ever an instant when a globe did not surround the evil mage.
It basically came down to "survive and wait him out". Even at this level, after 35 minutes you eventually run out of spells, then they beat him to death.
As it was, two level 17 dual classed pcs out of six got "chunked" as in, not able to be resurrected and two died that could be resurrected.
Just gives an indication of how far, too far imho, this game can be taken.
After ardous battles and ridiculous amount of xp and treasure you get to fight him, the battle is difficult. But he is nowhere as smart as a scs mage. He is just...strength and endless spells, not smart ai. A mage pc can survive easily with spell immunities turnings and potions of magic blocking/shielding to be immune to his spells. There are unique and overpowered spells in the mod too, destructive energy waves that disintegrate people or rains of pure magical energy that blasts the whole map. (Ofcourse they ignore magic resistance and offer no saving throw) My favourite was the spell that allowed yoı to shapechange into a red dragon, a fricking huge red dragon, you can't fit through most anywhere but you get all of the stats and breath weapon! You also get to fight and kill Vecna's avatar at some point and take his eye:you can use it to replace your own eye for some interesting and permanent stat changes.
When you beat him Lady of Pain herself (and Lord Ao also intervenes, IIRC) appears and thanks you and Elminster&friends get raised and all. Ridiculous mod, but fun to play once as a powergamers wet dream.
This is just borrowed from Neverwinter Nights where all mages CAN Shapechange into Red Dragons, and other fun forms. It's pretty fun btw.