Looking good, does the Helm trigger Cowled Wizards in Vanilla? For a prepared party, they are easy XP and loot, but for a solo without casting powers, they are a very big pain in the butt I think.
Well, technically, you COULD buy a license if you want, right? 5k I think? Kinda absurd I would say, a non-caster buying that, and you will never really NEED to use arcane magic in Athkatla out of doors, and indoors they don't show up I think. Or shouldn't anyways. Is the Sphere harder than the Prison? I always found the Prison was harder, but ymmv. SCS seems to buff the enemies in the sphere pretty hard, but the Warden is a bit of a beast iirc.
I don't know if I EVER have bothered casting Sphere of Chaos... I always found HEAPS of scrolls, while I could think of some uses, it never seemed worth the hassle, like Prismatic Spray.
SCS2 mages use Sphere of Chaos because the other offensive 7th-level spells aren't much use against the player, either because the player is bound to have a good counter (Mordenkainen's Sword) or because the situation isn't suited for it (Project Image). It's a party-friendly area-effect spell that's difficult to defend yourself against, since the effects are so numerous:
10% chance: Polymorph into squirrel for 9 seconds 10% chance: Confusion for 9 seconds 10% chance: 3d6+6 fire damage (bypasses MR) 10% chance: Hold for 9 seconds 10% chance: Disintegrate (bypasses MR) 10% chance: Heal 20 HP (bypasses MR) 20% chance: Unconsciousness for 8 seconds 10% chance: Teleport Field effect 10% chance: Haste for 9 seconds
It's actually not that bad of a spell. It just seems weak because you can't rely on it to have a given effect.
I just made three important discoveries that will make the earlier parts of the game much, much easier.
First, the lesser one. After having failed to kill the riddle statue in the Temple Ruins with STR drain (with 18 STR, it really should have died), I headed over to Watcher's Keep. On a whim, I did some tests with the Cloak of the Stars and found out how to make the +5 darts it creates last forever.
Normally, the darts vanish after 24 hours, whether they're on the ground or in your inventory. But if you sell them to a merchant and buy them back, they stay permanently. Better still, if you add darts to that stack, the whole stack will also stay forever.
So, I sell 6 darts and buy one back. I rest once, create some stars, and put them in the same stack, for 7 permanent stars. I can then add to the stack indefinitely. It's an infinite supply of +5 darts.
I enter Watcher's Keep and clear out the Vampiric Wraiths that gave me trouble earlier. I still need to down an Oil of Speed to escape their level drain attacks, but they go down quicker than before. I make sure to disarm the traps in the eastern rooms this time, and gather up all the loot I can get in my limited inventory space. A notable find is the Ammo Belt. Finally I'll be able to carry a few more types of missiles in my inventory--most importantly, flashers.
On going over Garlena's inventory again, I notice she sells scrolls of Restoration. Then I remember a trick I haven't used in ages.
Casting Restoration on a Simulacrum brings it up to the caster's normal level, at the cost of a fatigue penalty equal to -1 luck. This means Rovala's simulacrum can reach 4.5 APR as soon as Rovala recovers her Archer levels. Normally, that's not possible until level 24. Now, we can do it at level 14.
Also, I realized I could safely store my items by handing them off to Jan. This frees up a lot of room in my inventory.
Anyway, I decided I could take on the first batch of Statues without much risk. This group contains two fighters with HLAs and two clerics. The Statues all have huge resistances to missile, slashing, and piercing damage, so basically all of our damage sources are severely weakened. Our traps do missile damage, Kitty does piercing, and we don't actually have any blunt weapons, so we're going to have trouble with this one. As if that wasn't enough, the traps actually fail to hit the clerics at all, since the traps go off before the clerics lose their pre-battle invulnerability.
Otherwise, it starts out well. Rovala and her clone disrupt the clerics' initial spells, but then their Physical Mirrors pop up, and we can't risk resorting to melee without getting in the way of their Globes of Blade. Instead, Rovala runs away from one of the fighters while her clone and Kitty work on the fighters. Fortunately for us, the second fighter eventually decides to leave Rovala alone, and attacks Kitty instead.
Kitty isn't sturdy enough to weather Whirlwind Attacks, however, and she dies with the two fighters, leaving Rovala and her twin to deal with the clerics alone. The clerics start throwing out Flame Strike spells, and though we make our saves--Rovala's save vs. spell is quite low, and her clone's is zero after drinking a Potion of Stone Form--Rovala has to turn invisible and drink some potions, while her clone gets overwhelmed, caught in a cluster of animals summons and brought down out of Rovala's sight.
Rovala flees to the south and locks the door behind her, giving her enough time to set some traps. Here, the enemy's improved AI works to their disadvantage: they follow after Rovala despite her invisibility, but this just makes it easier for Rovala to lure them into her traps.
I have made a habit of ensuring that I rest after setting all 7 traps for major encounters. This allows me to run away and set up some more in case things go wrong.
The remaining cleric chases me around a little while, but with the movement boost from an Oil of Speed (I picked up lots of potions in Mae'var's guild hall) and Hide in Shadows, I can evade the single-target spells. I cannot, however, stop the cleric from summoning monsters, which are very good at boxing me in. Sometimes I have to break invisibility to chop my way out. Other times the critters don't fully box me in, and I can just away.
The cleric appears to have no True Seeing spell, which allows me to run up and backstab him. I finish him off with darts.
I kill his summons and store the quest items in a chest by the fire. Getting to the next level of Watcher's Keep would grant a lot of XP and give me a Wand of Spell Striking, but neither is worth the risk.
I have made a habit of ensuring that I rest after setting all 7 traps for major encounters. This allows me to run away and set up some more in case things go wrong.
If you do that the you might as well make a habit of summoning the Vhailor-simmy to place more traps before resting (provided the daily ability hasn't been used yet).
@Blackraven: Thank you! I've always wanted the Cloak of Stars to be more useful.
Rovala's clone has actually already been used for trap laying--not to exceed the 7-trap limit, but to help Rovala get a death zone ready when she doesn't have enough time to do it herself. I did it with the Vampiric Wraiths on the same level, pulling back both Rovala and her clone to lay some traps while Kitty was keeping the wraiths busy.
Since the initial fight is very cramped, I decided to enter the prison while hidden. I talk-blocked Aawill, ran up north, summoned Kitty, hid again and ran back down to backstab Aawill.
I backstabbed him again and Kitty managed to web him, preventing him from talking to us and keeping some of the other enemies non-hostile. We were able to take the fight much slower than is normally possible.
We have another Coiled Cabal to the east, with more of the well-buffed Yuan-ti Mages I never liked. I bait two of them into wasting an Oracle spell.
But they also have True Seeing, so I decide to just hang back and let Kitty deal with them. A Stinking Cloud spell also discouraged me from entering the fray.
Then I realized my save vs. spell was 2, which meant it was safe to enter the cloud. Of course, Stinking Cloud doesn't force a save vs. spell; it forces a save vs. death. I made the save anyway, but it was a bad choice. I couldn't have guaranteed consciousness without a Potion of Stone form or the Spear of the Unicorn, which I still did not bring (there's barely any room in my inventory as it is).
The Yuan-ti Mages' defenses start to wear off, and I engage them with Firetooth. Rovala's clone sticks with Arbane's Sword and the Shield of Harmony to be on the safe side. But I had to pay very close attention to the mages. If I got hit by a spell while using Firetooth, I'd be caught without my immunities. I wasn't too interested in walking up and hitting them with Arbane's Sword, either, for fear they'd cast Maze on me (which they don't actually have) or Finger of Death (which they do). Here is Rovala switching to Arbane's Sword and the Shield of Harmony while her bolt from Firetooth is still flying through the air.
She interrupted the mage's spell, whatever it was, and switched back to Firetooth to keep burning through its Stoneskins.
We had another close call, or so I thought, with the next fight. An elven mage activated a Minor Sequencer that seems designed to end solo runs.
I couldn't have failed the saving throw given the save bonus of 3, but I switched to the Shield of Harmony anyway.
The Master of Thralls and his Air Elemental friends went down with traps and a little melee poking. The Warden himself got webbed by Kitty, but I had plans to activate Called Shot and stunlock him with Darts of Stunning. Since he appears to have no weapon immunity spells, our chances of killing him would be roughly 100%. His AC is terrible and his save vs. spell, while at a remarkable value of 1, would be at 10 in a single round, and the next round, he'd have to make 10 saves with a 50% chance of failing each. He'd have roughly a 99.9% chance of getting stunned by the second round. Not counting the chance of him getting webbed. Firetooth would also help a lot to interrupt any spells he might have used.
I gave some of my equipment to Jan, then made the mistake of teleporting outside with CLUAConsole to sell some things Rovala couldn't carry on her own. Jan's personal quest triggered, and I had no interest in dealing with that.
So I reloaded, only to find that my last save was before the Planar Prison. I cheated my way through the prison this time, summoning clones and then using CTRL-R on them to make them permanent. After constructing a full party of clones, I mobbed everybody.
I had no patience for repeating the quest. Not so soon after I had completed it.
I also fought Mencar Pebblecrusher. I really wanted that Cloak of Non-Detection. It was a pretty simple fight. Amon was backstabbed, Pooky was webbed, Smelly Porkslicer took a lot of traps I meant for a fleeing Brennan Risling, and then others went down with Improved Haste and melee attacks, with a clone using Firetooth and ready to block the exit if Brennan should make a break for it.
Level up! Rovala has now hit level 24, the great milestone that should completely ruin the game balance.
I decided to test out her new powers on the Unseeing Eye.
Rovala chooses UAI as her first HLA. She takes Jan's armor, trades Belm for the Scarlet Ninja-to, and I give her a supply of flashers so Jan doesn't have to go to the trouble of making them for her.
With the Light Crossbow of Speed and Jan's flashers, Rovala can drain Strength from any hostile critter in the game. She can drain 7-9 STR on her own, and maybe another 1 or 2 with Improved Haste from the Ring of Gaxx, which doubles if we're working with the clone. It's a very narrow interval, but it's virtually a guaranteed kill.
Beholders have about 10 STR according to DLTCEP, which might be an SCS2 change, since I vaguely recall seeing values of 20 in the past. Either way, we should be able to kill them with STR drain.
I bring Rovala and her clone out to the cluster of eyeballs in the southwest hall of the Beholder hive. Kitty doesn't last long as a decoy.
To make sure Sil doesn't face the same fate, her clone, who has already drunk a Potion of Magic Shielding, activates Called Shot and attacks first, making the Beholders target her instead of Rovala. We deal a lot of damage very fast.
I was fairly certain that we killed them with STR drain, but on repeating some calculations, the Beholders could have easily died of raw damage before Called Shot dropped their STR to zero.
I get ready for the Unseeing Eye. I set up a line of traps leading from the Unseeing Eye's spawn point up to the resting place of the second half of the Rift Device, same as usual, then get Kitty and the clone in the right order.
Here's the thing about the SCS2 version of the Unseeing Eye.
It's designed to be nearly impossible to kill without the Rift Device. The Unseeing Eye boasts 95% resistance to physical damage, immunity to all spell levels (except 5, but it's immune to level 5 spells besides Breach), and immunity to +3 weapons and below. In terms of defense, it's basically a demi-lich that takes half as much damage and has more than three times as much health. The Rift Device removes the item that grants these defenses, in addition to dispelling all magic and bringing the target down to about 40 HP.
I'm not going to use the Rift Device on this guy. I'm going to kill him with STR drain, even though I won't get any XP, just because I can do it.
The setup is quite simple. Kitty will be at the front to distract the Unseeing Eye, and Rovala's clone, with her Potion of Magic Shielding to keep her safe, will cover Rovala. Both Rovala and her clone will be using +5 darts in lieu of Firetooth, as it allows Rovala to maintain some of her immunities by wearing the Shield of Harmony, just in case the Unseeing Eye decides to target her. I send Kitty down south, pick up the second half of the Rift Device, and have both Rovala and her clone activate Improved Haste via the Ring of Gaxx. They now have 10 seconds of double attacks, and 6 seconds before they can activate Called Shot.
I wait a few seconds, then send them both down the hall to greet the Unseeing Eye. They activate Called Shot as soon as possible and attack the Unseeing Eye with their darts.
We get an auto-pause when Rovala's round ends, which lets us know when we can activate a second Called Shot. We renew our STR drain and continue the attack.
Makes me smile.
I assumed that the Unseeing Eye's Chain Contingency with Summon Death Tyrants would only activate when it was at low health, but apparently it will activate upon its death as well, even though we barely did any damage to it. We now have another two enemies to deal with.
But Rovala is a monster.
She slays them with a hail of flashers and gains a level. She chooses Time Trap as her second HLA.
We can't bring the Rift Device back to the temple of Amaunator until it's expended, so we need to decide who to hit with it. I have the perfect target.
Very nice.
Finally, we have to fight Gaal. I sneak in, talk-block him, set a Time Trap, hide again, and backstab him. Once Gaal turns hostile, he triggers the Time Trap, giving Rovala 10 seconds of free hits. Rather than mauling him with a melee weapon, Rovala activates Called Shot and fires off a bunch of flashers. They all hit instantly, which means there's no time delay problem with STR drain. Not that the STR drain is really necessary.
Gaal survived the blast by running away, but all we had to do was retarget him and he was gone within a round.
So. Rovala is now an Archer(13)/Thief(25). Her clone can cast Improved Haste on itself via a scroll, giving the two of them 15 APR. Anything that manages to survive the sheer damage of our flashers will not survive the STR drain, especially if we use a scroll of Improved Haste on Rovala herself as well. And that won't be necessary once we get the Bracers of Blinding Strike, which give a 20-second Improved Haste that can remain for the duration of Called Shot. And if we use Time Traps, we don't even need that. Lots of things are immune to all forms of damage, whether from weapons or spells or traps, but no enemy in this game is immune to STR drain.
And if we're not opposed to using a glitch, we can use the Wand of Lightning trick with Called Shot, and drain 6 STR per shot instead of 1, rendering all question of APR completely moot. But she does not even need this.
This is Rovala the Archer/Thief.
She is the single deadliest critter ever to exist in BG2.
Brilliant stuff! Rovala can beat anyone now... I liked how you handled the Planar Prison, with the webs and stun-locks. And beating the Unseeing Eye without the rift device is a very pretty feat as well.
I enter the Shadow Thieves' hideout while hidden and discover to my dismay that the Scarlet Ninja-to has a fatal flaw.
I'm not sure if it's actually any better than Belm, if the wielder is a thief. The Shadow Thieves aren't too difficult, though. Just for kicks, I use the Wand of Lightning trick with Called Shot to slay Booter. I notice that it does an extra 2 damage several times over, and then I realize that Called Shot is being cast at the maximum level, 16, which tacks on another 2 damage to every hit. I forgot that class-based innates are cast at the higher class' level for dual-classed kitted characters.
This means I could have gotten late-game STR drain even if I dual-classed Rovala at level 7. But that doesn't give us as high APR, which means more Called Shot castings to successfully kill enemies with STR drain.
I try out combining Time Trap with Called Shot. It's quite nice.
We get a new level and pick Spike Trap, for variety's sake.
The rest of the area is uninteresting. Soon, all that's left is to take down Aran Linvail. Rovala and her clone both lay Time Traps. I open the door, pause, and then panic.
The clone's Time Trap triggered first. And the clone can't attack anything because Aran's room is still lost in the fog of war. But the fog clears a moment later.
Our APR is terrible with Arbane's Sword (only one pip, and since it's a clone we can't add the Scarlet Ninja-to to the off hand), but we still manage to sneak in a couple attacks, with Assassination to help out.
Rovala herself uses flashers during her Time Trap. Aran is helpless and nearly dead.
Once his invisibility is dispelled, he's done for. Rovala's clone slays the cleric of Mask, while Rovala interrupts the remaining mage's spells with Firetooth and normal bolts, breaking through PFMW. But we do end up dealing with an especially difficult summons after the fight is over.
We have to fight a Cornugon, which sports an aura of fear and casts Lightning Bolt at will. Since we need the Dragonslayer longsword to avoid the fear effect, we only have 2 APR with poor THAC0, and Assassination doesn't help much. Kitty gets spooked and runs away, but when she comes back around, she takes hold of the situation. Rovala steps back, hoping to get out of range of the Cornugon's fear aura, and switches to +5 darts.
Rovala took a lot of Lightning Bolts in that fight, and even with over 150 HP, those add up over time.
With Aran Linvail gone, all I had left to do was decide on which items I would take to Spellhold. It was an extremely agonizing process, as I needed exactly one free inventory slot to pick up the Book of Infinite Spells. I ended up leaving a bunch of scrolls with Jan and dropping one Scroll Case, and the key to Watcher's Keep, to make sure I had all the defenses I would need through the Underdark.
I only had one last thing to do. At some point I noticed that the Firecam Full Plate's upgrade granted a lot of immunities I needed, so I checked the readme to see what ingredients I would need.
Turns out I can't get it before the Underdark, but then I noticed an upgrade for Mazzy's Sword of Arvoreen. Since Arbane's Sword isn't good enough for backstabbing and trading in the Scarlet Ninja-to for Belm would cost me my only +3 melee weapon, I decided that I would need either the Staff of Striking or the upgraded Sword of Arvoreen. I decided on the latter because of its various Free Action-type immunities (except no immunity to stun, which Arbane's Sword and the original Sword of Arvoreen both grant) and its nonmagical, 45-second slow effect. It wouldn't do as much damage when backstabbing as the Staff of Striking would, but the slow effect and the immunities would make it more useful overall.
Unfortunately, I needed 20 Reputation to get it forged, and I had 18. I had to go through the illithium quest and Tiris quest in Trademeet to get to 20.
Finally, I bought a scroll of Improved Haste for the simulacrum and set sail for Spellhold.
I notice that it does an extra 2 damage several times over, and then I realize that Called Shot is being cast at the maximum level, 16, which tacks on another 2 damage to every hit. I forgot that class-based innates are cast at the higher class' level for dual-classed kitted characters.
Wow, didn't know that. Interesting to know for duals from Thief into other classes (traps, Assassin poison).
I decided that I would need either the Staff of Striking or the upgraded Sword of Arvoreen. I decided on the latter because of its various Free Action-type immunities (except no immunity to stun, which Arbane's Sword and the original Sword of Arvoreen both grant) and its nonmagical, 45-second slow effect. It wouldn't do as much damage when backstabbing as the Staff of Striking would, but the slow effect and the immunities would make it more useful overall.
You're good if you have the BG2fixpack component that makes Free Action include stun protection. If not, then I would advise against upgrading Mazzy's sword, as Stun is more common at this stage then Hold.
Your character doesn't rely as much on backstabs as my Bounty Hunter, so I won't say anything about how great the Staff of Striking is.
I had been wondering if I should start over the run and begin a true no-reload run, using the formula, but eventually I decided to keep going.
That was a good idea. Because Spellhold is brutal.
I didn't know it at first, though. Perth the Adept went surprisingly well. I was anticipating something much more difficult. But I was able to talk-block him and lay some traps. Without Stoneskin, he was quite vulnerable to Assassination.
SCS2's version of Spellhold takes away your items, but does not remove non-vanilla items, which included both the Sword of Arvoreen and the Improved Spider Figurine. This was a major boon. Although getting the Ring of Free Action made the Sword of Arvoreen's newfound immunities obsolete.
The one thing I was worried about in Spellhold was the Lich. It's a guaranteed spawn in my install, and its faster-moving undead buddies would soak up any traps I set in the hallway. But I came up with an alternative.
I would lay seven Time Traps and let the Lich's friend trigger them. With a 70-second combined duration, that would be more than enough time for me to wait out the Lich's PFMW, take down its Stoneskins, and backstab it into oblivion.
The Mummies triggered the Time Traps, as I expected. After waiting for the first Time Trap to expire, I started test jabs at the Lich to see if he was vulnerable to magical weapons yet.
Once I stopped getting weapon ineffective messages, I removed the Lich's Stoneskins. When I heard the sound of a buff being removed, I knew it was out of Stoneskins, and activated Assassination.
The Lich falls. I have Rovala flee the area and close the door behind her, so we can rest before dealing with the other undead. But not all is well.
Lots of demons can teleport, including through doors. I lay some traps just in case.
A Spike Trap and a Time Trap spelled its doom. Now all I have to do is fight the Kobolds.
I underestimated them.
I have no escape options for this. I can only take down these guys safely by relying on Kitty, or an extremely cautious strategy of trapping and retreating that SCS2 enemies tend not to fall for. I failed the save despite the odds and had to face the Lich again.
Turns out my strategy against the Lich was not as solid as I expected.
I mishandled the situation--after the Mummies triggered some of the Time Traps, I led them away, preventing the Time Traps from triggering one after another--and had to flee. But that was not the end of it.
The Lich might not be able to break down the door, but it knows its demons can.
Unbuffed and blocked in, Rovala is doomed. So, we can't expect to take down this Lich by running away.
Since I needed to make sure the Mummies kept triggering the Time Traps, I decided to use Kitty to lure them along, while Rovala would remain hidden. Once time was stopped, she ran over to the other side of the room, ensuring that the Mummies would not change targets in between the Time Traps. While time was stopped, she attacked the Lich with Bolts +1 to test its immunities without losing valuable Bolts +2 or getting hit by Fire Shield. But it seems the Lich knows exactly how to handle this situation.
I haven't even hit the Lich, but he still managed to get a Contingency to activate. There's no condition in Contingency that triggers the spell when the caster's weapon immunities run out, so I'm not sure this Contingency is legal. Either way, he's got another 24 seconds of total immunity to weapons. I must wait.
I select Kitty, who is offscreen, by clicking the "=" button and deselecting Rovala. I send Kitty up the hall, thinking there might be some Time Traps still untriggered, but no such luck. Our Time Traps are all triggered, and the Lich has free reign. I wait out the duration of PFMW in the corner, but the Lich is ready for this, too.
So I wait longer, and lay a couple Time Traps and a Spike Trap. I venture out to attack.
That Lich will just not let its defenses down. I wait it out again. Meanwhile, Kitty dies off screen.
Very irritating. I lure the Skeleton Warrior archer over to the Time Trap, which does very little. Finally, the Lich runs out of PFMW spells, and I am able to hit it. But with only 3.5 APR, I'd need three rounds to take down its Stoneskins. I have to deal damage through Stoneskin if I'm going to survive under the Lich's spellpower, so I switch to Bolts of Lightning and activate Called Shot, hoping that the extra missile damage will break through Stoneskin. It seems that it does not. And the Lich is immune to electricity. But I manage to get a shot in.
It seems awfully soon to get through its Stoneskin. It might be that the extra missile damage of Called Shot takes down an extra Stoneskin, but I don't really know. Either way, I've got the Lich locked.
I'm almost positive the Lich died of STR drain. I activated Called Shot twice, which should have drained roughly 14 STR after 10-12 seconds.
I lure the Skeleton Warrior into the Spike Trap and finish it off with the Sword of Arvoreen. I've still got two Greater Mummies left, but with my superior movement rate, I can use hit-and-fade tactics to bring them down without letting them make a single attack roll.
On to the kobolds. This time I let Kitty do the work, and keep Rovala hidden in an alcove I've never been to before.
Kitty is immune to their charm spells. She wins the battle easily.
Dace is another problem. As a vampire, he should have charm spells as well as level drain, the latter of which I have no means of recovering from. He can also summon rats, which will absorb trap damage. But even if he summons his rats the first round, we can still use Time Traps to our advantage. I only lay two, though I could lay more by resting, and open the door.
Dace turns into a rat, negating most of the damage from my backstabs. But he reverts to normal form during Time Stop, losing his physical damage resistances in the process.
Another Coiled Cabal stands watch over the way to the next level. I try to lure them out into some traps, but the mages aren't falling for it. I approach closer and closer, making sure to duck out before they can cast a spell on me. But one of them manages to get a Stinking Cloud spell off the ground. I use Hide in Shadows before the mage can reach me, but he follows me into the cloud.
Against all odds, I fail the save against the Stinking Cloud.
Twice. The mage kills me with Sunfire spells. Pitiful.
Next time around, I just hide, trick one of them into wasting an Oracle spell, hide again when out of range, and walk right past them.
If only Liches couldn't see through invisibility.
Well, Spellhold is a nightmare. Rovala has excellent traps, but the circumstances just don't line up correctly. SCS2 enemies are hard to bait, and the one critical enemy, the Lich, has lots of friends who will invariably run up and hit the traps first, soaking up any trap damage. And if I try to slay the other undead first, the Lich can send demons after me. And it's too far a trip to leave the area to escape the demons, unless I pick Scribe Scrolls or Alchemy as an HLA and use an Oil of Speed or scroll of Haste.
I don't know if I have a solid formula against the Lich. My best bet might be to pick Alchemy, a rather lousy HLA, and use Oils of Speed to outrun the Lich and its demons. I could wait out the demons' duration as well as PFMW. But if the Lich tries a charm spell, I have absolutely no way to defend myself, aside from interrupting the spell. Maybe I could wait out the duration of Protection from Electricity, if the Lich actually gets its immunity to electrical damage from there, and then just throw out a bunch of Bolts of Lightning. The Lich can't really escape the damage without using PFMW, and if he casts PFMW, I can easily run away and outlast the duration before he gets to cast another spell. And by the time I get back, his aura may be fresh, but I should have about 95% hit chance and automatic lightning damage through Stoneskin.
I'll have to do some tests to see if a level 16 Called Shot helps break through Stoneskin.
Kudos for playing with the equipment removal component. I never installed it because it strongly favors the spell casting classes, and I prefer difficulty increasing mods to be less discrminatory. I see that you're confronted with a huge challenge here. I checked the Lich creature files in NI, and was surprised to see they aren't immune to electricity. This means that your plan of waiting out the Lich's electricty immunity (which must be temporary) could work.
I just tested Called Shot and the bonus damage neither bypasses Stoneskin nor breaks it down. So Called Shot is not going to help us deal with Stoneskin at all. Though the other effects of Called Shot still bypass Stoneskin perfectly fine.
@Blackraven: I normally pick the middle difficulty options in SCS2, and considering there's a "Hardcore Mode" for the itemless Spellhold component, which is "not recommended," I picked the other version instead. I assume the harder version removes the (rather crummy) items Bodhi leaves for you in the Bag of Holding, leaving you with only Spellhold's normal loot, if that. Speaking of which... I forgot to get the Bag of Holding. Thank you for reminding me. I might have gotten all the way out of the maze before realizing it was gone.
I actually thought most people playing SCS2 would have it installed, and thought Norgath would be wrecking that Lich with Maze traps (which I really need to try sometime). But in retrospect, the itemless Spellhold thingy is a terrible idea for a no-reload run. I'm not sure I'll keep it installed when I begin the real run.
As @Blackraven noted, the no items thing really penalizes some classes brutally, while leaving a Sorcerer almost completely in tact. Imagine if you were a solo pure warrior... or don't, its too awful.
Next level of Spellhold. Still don't have my awesome pre-Brynnlaw items. Still have to face Irenicus anyway.
Without Firetooth, I can't deal fire damage to Trolls, and there's a group of them in the next level. But as I suspected, Kitty was able to finish them off, as long as she attacked them after they fell down.
Poison damage for some reason is able to kill Trolls. Valygar has done this many times for me, and now Kitty can do it as well. Normally, though, she'll attack the same enemy incessantly, and Trolls will get stuck in webs forever and be unable to fall down and become killable. Only by leaving the Trolls alone can she finish them off.
There is another battle here with some Yuan-ti, but only one mage. This much is manageable. On reviewing my equipment, I realize I have an excellent means of dealing with Yuan-ti Mages: I just activate Called Shot and pummel them with Darts of Stunning, weakening their saves and forcing them to make multiple saving throws to avoid getting paralyzed. Ideally, this would be done when time is stopped.
With the mage out of commission, all I have to do is pelt it with Darts of Wounding until it dies. The big chunk of damage in the dialog box is from a Spike Trap.
I'm rather concerned about the Ulitharid behind the door, but I have a way of dealing with him.
Assassination combines marvelously with Time Trap. It doesn't work so well against an opponent with Stoneskin, however.
Time Traps also worked well against the Clay Golems, though I need many of them to make sure I could hit them with the Cleric's Staff +3.
There are some undisarmable traps in one of the rooms here, but I don't remember which one casts Disintegrate.
It was that one.
Luckily for me, I reached the next level around this area, and was able to pick just the HLA for the job.
This will also obviate the need for potions if I should get targeted with Finger of Death and whatnot later on. Avoid Death blocks instant death effects, disintegrate, petrification, vorpal strikes, level drain, and imprisonment. Once I get the rest of my equipment back, the only disablers that can kill me without potions to buff my saves are unconsiousness and Maze.
I try it out on the Disintegrate trap.
I also use it before facing the vampires, since I have no defense against level drain otherwise. Fortunately, they didn't try to charm me before I turned into the Slayer, which also could have meant my death. Despite the inherent savagery of the Slayer form, Rovala could not bring herself to attack a nearby Troll who was busy clawing at her back.
We also find a rather nice scroll we can use against Irenicus.
Time Stop and Shapechange would be marvelous checks on Irenicus' ridiculous spellpower. Limited Wish's normal uses might be a bit narrow, but these one-time choices are really quite excellent.
Or at least, they would be, if Rovala's Wisdom wasn't at 2. She can't select any of the one-time wishes without at least 3 Wisdom.
There's also a Gauth around here, and since Rovala is a tad paranoid, she hides before the opening the door to the area.
Turns out that was a good choice. I've never seen the Gauth waiting that close to the door before.
Rovala answers all of the riddles accurately to make sure we get a hold of the Cloak of Reflection, one of my favorite items. On the way to Irenicus, we also find 5 Arrows of Dispelling.
Inspired by @Blackraven's example, I'm going to send Rovala off to a corner to avoid drawing Irenicus' attention. To make sure this works, after going to see Lonk, I use Hide in Shadows every time I possibly can, including between dialogues. Each dialogue takes Rovala out of hiding, though.
Still, she's able to sneak away to the left at the beginning of the battle. And because she unequipped her weapons before her clone spawned in, we only had to deal with an unarmed copy of Rovala.
She has no missile weapons, but still activates Called Shot out of pure desperation.
I wait in my corner, spending my time laying Time Traps, while the mages fight it out. Wanev does something truly surprising.
I thought Irenicus was immune to all disablers. But I checked his files and he has none.
But SCS2's scripts apparently don't stop confused mages from casting spells. Irenicus throws out Dragon's Breath and Comet, one after another.
Nobody in the group could have survived this, really. Their HP just isn't high enough to withstand this sort of spellpower.
Neither Irenicus nor the lone Glabrezu notice my presence, so I keep waiting for Irenicus' buffs to dry up. While I'm watching him from afar (one section of the room is always free of the fog of war), I notice that Wanev's Chaos spell actually seems to be doing something.
Very curious. But he doesn't stop there.
Notice the Glabrezu is gone. Eventually the duration ran out. In vanilla BG2, confusion stops mages from casting spells. In SCS2, though, the spellcasting goes on, but the AI doesn't operate like it normally does. A very realistic rendering of confusion in action, assuming Wanev's spell is the reason for Jonny's peculiar behavior.
I believe that is the reason, because the moment I hear the sound of a spell running out--like the Chaos spell wearing off--he stops casting spells. Now nothing is left. I equip a shortbow and fire a single Arrow of Dispelling at him. I forget which spell he cast in response, but it wasn't Stoneskin. Whatever it was, I led him into a Time Trap and activated Assassination.
Down to Near Death. That was a critical hit, but even if I had missed, I still dealt another 100 damage or so from the next two strikes. Irenicus flees the area and sends his Murderers after me, but I have no intention of fighting through a minor legion of backstabbers. I equip a Large Shield to help keep off the Murderer's blades, then run out of the room before I can get cornered. I don't bother picking up the potions Wanev and the other crazies left behind; I don't need them.
Spellhold is over! We have our items! Now to kill some sharkpeople.
When Desharik attacks us after we steal his boat, I decide to break from my normal behavior and attack him instead of just his lackeys. Rovala chunks him with Assassination and finds a Potion of Magic Protection on his body. Nice.
The Githyanki hijack our ship just one scene transition later. Saemon fails to defend himself and gets slaughtered by the Githyanki. Eventually all the pirates are dead. Since the next cutscene begins with one of the sailors saying a line, I decide the Githyanki broke the game and reload.
It turns out the Githyanki weren't responsible. This time, I don't hide before the battle, and instead just wait it out. I do get hit with a couple of Mind Blast spells, but manage to make the save. The first time it happened, I got lucky. I tried using a Protection from Evil scroll to boost my saves, but it had no effect. And when I drank a Potion of Stone Form instead, it got dispelled, and I just got hit with another Mind Blast later. So I don't have a reliable means of avoiding Mind Blast.
Fortunately, the fight doesn't last long before the next cutscene, sparing me the risk of being chopped up by those ridiculously large Githyanki swords while I'm unconscious. In the future, I might drink a Potion of Stone Form at the start of battle, and then use a Monster Summoning I spell in the corner to hold off the Githyanki for a round of two, in case I get hit with Remove Magic and then fail the next save.
Finally, in the City of Caverns, I have access to a merchant, in the form of the Temple of Sekolah just northeast of Ixilthetocal. I always knew this merchant had excellent prices, but I never noticed just how good they were until now.
That Garnet Gem is selling for almost triple its normal value. I decide to sell off a bunch of stuff here to take advantage of discount, and then realize this merchant is even more valuable than I thought.
The Garnet Gem I just sold for 140 gold is now priced at just UNDER 140 gold. The merchant is selling stuff cheaper than it's buying stuff. I can make money just by buying back the things I sell.
The most expensive thing I have is Vhailor's Helm, at 16,800 gold. I sell it and buy it back for several hundred gold as a profit. Then I realize I don't have the Ring of Human Influence equipped. I equip it and the price of buying back Vhailor's Helm drops dramatically, while I sell it for the same amount. I make over 4,000 gold just by selling it and buying it back.
I never this exploit existed. Feeling quite pleased with myself, I decide to take advantage of it. By the time I leave the City of Caverns, with a bunch of Paralytic Bolts and Kuo-toa (for some reason) Bolts and the Cloak of Mirroring as well, I have over 150,000, where I came in with roughly 60,000-80,000.
We enter the Underdark. There are a whole bunch of high-XP elementals to fight, so we summon Kitty, a clone, and have the clone cast Improved Haste and Mislead via scrolls so she can backstab with the Sword of Arvoreen, doing dozens of damage per hit. The elementals go down fast.
I never liked the Paralytic Bolts you get from the Sahuagin, since they weigh a pound each and their maximum stack is 10, so I waste them on some Kuo-toa.
I haven't done a lot of disabling in this run, considering how many flashers and Darts of Stunning I have. I decide to keep the flashers in mind. It was a good choice against the drow war party near the imprisonment capsule.
The drow's MR can block the stun effect from flashers, but they can't block Called Shot and the save penalties that make flashers even more effective. Nor can they rely on their AC, as I attacked them when time was stopped. And even after that, the drow didn't have many tools at their disposal, as I could block all of their enchantment spells by equipping the right items.
Midway through the battle, I notice Rovala cannot move. I check the Character Record screen and find the cause.
This I find confusing. I did use Called Shot on the drow mages, and their spell protections reflected the fire damage of Firetooth, and it's possible that the effects of Called Shot also rebounded (I didn't check Rovala's saves or THAC0 to make sure). But her STR should have started increasing gradually not longer thereafter, and it did not. Only after the battle ended could Rovala move, and got back her STR all at once.
It could have been Ray of Enfeeblement, but that sets your STR to 5, not 3. So I'm not sure what happened.
Anyway, we have some souls to set free. Alchra Diagott is the first hostile one. Luckily for me, Alchra appears to arrive without Stoneskin active.
The other hostile imprisoned people also fell to Time Traps and backstabs.
After clearing out some Myconids nearby, I took a few steps south to draw in some Mind Flayers I remembered to be nearby. With the Ring of Free Action, I knew I was immune to stun and therefore Psionic Blast, so I assumed I could take them on. Turns out they had another trick up their sleeve.
You can save against this, but only at -4. It also bypasses MR, though we only have 15. A Potion of Stone Form is not enough to protect me from this. I have to drink a Potion of Magic Shielding instead, and I only have two of those in my possession. Now I'm down to one. But it was quite necessary.
Sometimes you will roll critical misses. It might not be likely, but it will happen sooner or later over the course of the game.
I retreat to lay a Time Trap, expecting the Mind Flayer to teleport over, but fail because an enemy is still within sight. The Mind Flayer vanishes, however, and it no longer matters.
Since I don't want to waste an excellent potion like this, I decide to take on the Balor for the Svirfneblin before the potion duration runs out. I set several Time Traps, but not all 7 that are possible, since I have laid too many in the past and have been forced to get new enemies to trigger them if I want to lay the full 7 traps elsewhere on the map. So I only use three of four.
While time is stopped, I attack the Balor, only to find that all of my weapons--including the Sword of Arvoreen +5--are ineffective. It seems the Balor had PFMW active, which meant much of the time I spent attacking it was wasted. Finally, I get to hit it, but it appears to have Stoneskin, and as I break through the Stoneskin, I lose a lot of health. That Aura of Flaming Death is nothing to sneeze at.
I don't think I can take on a Balor in a fair fight, so I retreat, heal myself with the Rod of Resurrection, and switch out the Ring of Free Action for the Ring of Fire Resistance. I try to lay a Time Trap just outside the chamber, but I fail; the Balor is still within sight. I keep fleeing south, and eventually summon Ras to distract the Balor for a few rounds. The Balor uses some disabling spells on me, but my saving throws block everything.
I try using a Paralytic Bolt on the Balor, but it's too weak an enchantment. Instead, I target Ras with some flashers, and manage to stun the Balor indirectly.
Considering Ras has -20 AC and the Balor has 90 MR and a save vs. spell of 8, the odds of that working aren't too high. Considering Rovala's THAC0 and APR, the chances of stunning the Balor before Ras vanishes should be less than 30%. Kitty would have been a better choice for this purpose.
I know the stun effect of Jan's flashers lasts for 12 seconds, which gives me enough time to lay a Spike Trap to the west. I summon Kitty when Ras vanishes, and target her with the flashers. We stun the Balor again, which is also quite lucky. I can't tell exactly what Kitty's AC is in DLTCEP, since there's a -4 to AC that I'm not sure is a bonus or penalty, but at worst our odds of stunning the Balor are 13% per round, not counting the influence of Called Shot on the demon's saving throws. While the Balor is stunned, I lay another Spike Trap, Kitty nips at the demon's ankles, and I put a few bolts in the Balor's hide. When the Balor recovers from its stupor, I flee to the west, the Balor teleports over, and I lure it a little bit back, triggering the Spike Traps.
Next time, I'll probably lay the full 7 Time Traps before summoning the Balor. But at this point, I'm actually having doubts whether I'll restart this game to make it a real no-reload run. All this research is fun, but I'm not sure I want to repeat the steps, just for the sake of saying that a solo no-reload SCS2 run has been done.
I also find a nice ring in a nearby chest. I nick it on a whim and have one of the deep gnomes identify it.
Great! Now we have another way of improving Rovala's Wisdom.
@Wowo: No. Using flashers with UAI is apparently not possible in BG2:EE, anyway, which I find both unfortunate and strange. They turned Use Any Item into Use Many Items, and that just doesn't sound as cool.
@Wowo: No. Using flashers with UAI is apparently not possible in BG2:EE, anyway, which I find both unfortunate and strange. They turned Use Any Item into Use Many Items, and that just doesn't sound as cool.
I guess it shouldn't be the only reason, semiticgod.
@bengoshi: Great! Does Near Infinity work with BG2:EE?
Yes it does (at least the latest version). Actually more and more works with EE, though there are also a number of mods that don't though, or at least not yet, Ascension being one of them. Not sure how important that is to you.
As for the Ascension mod, it's çompatible with BG2EE if you install it from the Big Picture megapack. The so called "BP-Ascension" is essentially the Ascention.
I just realized that the custom Archer fighter kit is not necessary for area-effect STR drain, although it's certainly the most effective means short of another mod.
Fire Seeds also have a small area of effect, just like flashers, and also apply the effects of Called Shot, but they are not party friendly. Normally, the things only last 3 turns, but you can make them permanent by storing them in an Ammo Belt, or perhaps also the Bag of Holding. So even in the vanilla game, you can get STR drain that bypasses weapon immunities.
Fire Seeds are +6 weapons with a +5 bonus to THAC0, but since they have no proficiency, the Archer will have worse APR. And since the weapons only do fire damage, the Archer's bonuses to damage will not improve them. Plus, the fire damage can be resisted by MR as well as fire resistance, and they only come in stacks of 10, making them less convenient than other missile weapons. Finally, the fire damage has a spell level of 6, which means it won't bypass demi-lich or Rakshasa spell level immunities, and Spell Turning/Deflection/Trap might block it.
EDIT: Greater Whirlwind Attack would compensate for the low APR of Fire Seeds. A single-classed vanilla Archer with Fire Seeds might actually be the better choice compared to a dual-classed non-vanilla Archer/Thief with Jan's flashers, considering the drawbacks dual-classing. Fire Seeds are also perfectly usable by Archer/Thieves, but the Archer can get 10 APR with those things, more than 1 million XP before the Archer/Thief gets UAI.
I have decided to try out a new Archer type, the vanilla Archer, in light of the fact that it can deal area effect STR drain with Fire Seeds. Rovala has reached the point of perfection, really, and though I might return to her run, I want a real no-reload run, and I want to see if an Archer can do a no-reload SCS2 run without using mod-introduced kits or items etc.
The vanilla Archer will have an easier early game, but will be much more limited in the late game. It can use stealth right at the beginning of the game, notably, and has no dual-classing period, but it will never get UAI or traps, which sets a certain cap for STR drain. With GWW and a simulacrum from Vhailor's Helm, the vanilla Archer can drain 24 STR using FIre Seeds, or well over 25 using darts or the Tuigan Bow. Contrast that with the Archer/Thief, who can drain 30 STR without a simulacrum or Improved Haste/GWW just by using the Wand of Lightning. So the vanilla Archer won't stop being interesting the moment it gets UAI.
Our new Archer is Poppy!
Isn't she cute? The portrait is from Linda Bergkvist on deviantart.com, "Glimpse of Summer." Poppy has appeared in many of my playthroughs in BG2, IWD, and IWD2, though she's normally a half-elf, elf, gnome, and maybe sometimes a halfling, and she's almost always a spellcaster (sorceror, druid, or cleric/mage, mostly).
Her WIS is at 18 because I thought that would give her extra spell slots, but that apparently is not the case. As an Archer, she only gets one pip in melee weapons (and only 2 in darts, oddly enough), so she puts one in Katana to help her through the starting dungeon. She won't be using two-handed swords, since Lilarcor will be unnecessary: as a human ranger, she can wear Valygar's armor, which apparently is not restricted to Stalkers of Valygar's alignment.
Her ability to hide makes the starting dungeon much easier, allowing her to avoid minor fights as well as using ranged hit and fade tactics on that murderous Duergar Mage.
Otherwise, the whole affair was conducted much the same way as Rovala's run through Chateau Irenicus.
My plan to deal with the Radiant Mephits failed, however. I had planned to kite the Radiant Mephits while taking down their portals with darts, but I mistook one of the Radiant Mephits for a less dangerous mephit.
She failed two saves, forcing me to start over. This time, I paid closer attention to which mephits were Radiant Mephits and which were not. But in trying to run away from their Color Spray spells, I got boxed in and had to flee back to the portal room, where I hid and then ran past them, shutting the door behind me.
I decided not to bother fighting Ilyich for safety's sake, but without the Mail of the Dead, which sells for 1500 gold, I had to sell all of my healing potions to Mira and Ribald in order to afford the Ring of Air Control.
I also needed to grab a single scroll of Protection from Undead, for the Shade Lord quest. Otherwise, Poppy leaves the Promenade mostly unequipped.
Bregg and Cohrvale are normally pretty easy pickings in the early game, but I'm not confident Poppy can deal with them, not when she only has 1.5 APR in melee. I decide to use the Ring of Human Influence, but not for its normal purpose.
I've seen Saros Shadowfollower use charm effects in his no-reload run of Improved Anvil, which inspired me to recruit some of the locals to deal with Bregg and Cohrvale. The duo killed an Amnish Soldier in one round without even getting hit, but a local slaver at least managed to force Cohrvale to down a potion.
I scour the map for other recruits, and find a swindler by the Planar Sphere, who looks like an excellent candidate, as he has a weapon and armor already equipped.
I'm starting to run out of bodies. Bregg and Cohrvale are monsters. Making the most of the situation, I recruit the richest-looking guy in the area, in the hopes of filching some gold from his bloated corpse.
"Hack and slash your way to fortune! Woo hoo!"
While resting and recharging the Ring of Human Influence, I trigger all of the pre-Spellhold dream sequences, and also spawn in some of the guild war encounters, which I sneak away from. More importantly, I come across Habib Khalid Achmed Allafif, who gladly flings his mighty scimitar at Cohrvale's ugly mug, giving Cohrvale a new weapon. Habib spends the rest of the fight bare-knuckle boxing.
Bregg and Cohrvale finally fall. Habib turns on me, only to realize he no longer has his mighty scimitar.
After grabbing Lilarcor, which, despite not fitting Poppy's proficiencies, is still the best magic weapon we can find at this point in the game. I continue on the Promenade->Slums->Government District->City Gates->Umar Hills path that prevents random encounters like Suna Seni from popping up.
You know those three soldiers who appear in the Government District at night to ask if you're up to no good? Well, over the course of two rest periods, those guys prove very helpful in taking down the Beshaban Fanatics trying to burn Viconia to death.
This one actually panicked midway through the fight, but came back even after the charm effect wore off to help finish off the second Fanatic.
After speaking to Delon and Flydian, I travel to the Umar Hills to grab Ilbratha and some Bolts of Lightning from Merella's Cabin.
I don't know exactly how long it takes for that golem to kill Jermien (I've never seen Jermsy die), but I used up some magical darts instead of Lilarcor to ensure he survived.
I also snuck past Valygar's friends to slay the Stalker himself. I don't like fighting a good character like Valygar, especially an atheist with no god to take him in (thankfully, Kelemvor is not the awful sadist his predecessor was), but this is a solo no-reload run and I really do need his armor. Ilbratha does a lot to keep Poppy safe. Valygar is very dangerous at this stage of the game.
Once he's almost dead, I switch to nonmagical darts, which are the better offensive choice even in close quarters. The results are impressive.
Nonmagical darts benefit from STR bonuses, hence the crazy damage. Unfortunately, magical darts don't get STR bonuses.
Now Poppy is immune to charm, and she will be much more resistant to Horrid Wilting spells in the future. This is especially important, because I plan on taking on Kangaxx, if I can figure out some way to take down his Lich form without traps.
I've mentioned before that you can make the darts from the Cloak of Stars permanent, and therefore gain an endless supply of +5 darts. Well, I need those darts for Poppy. Since I'm limiting Poppy to vanilla items and such, I can't benefit from the extra 1 APR from Grandmastery that Rovala used with Firetooth, so I'll need to use darts for STR drain. An extra benefit of the Cloak of Stars in that the darts can break through SCS2's Improved Mantle, while Firetooth cannot.
But the Cloak of Stars belongs to Merella, now possessed by the Shade Lord, who drains levels every round. And Poppy is completely incapable of getting Negative Plane Protection until she gets the Improved Mace of Disruption, which we can only get after the Unseeing Eye quest, as I recall. We've brought precisely one scroll of Protection from Undead for this purpose, as we could afford no more while we were at the Promenade (and going back to the Promenade would risk triggering the Suna Seni ambush). This means we have 10 minutes of invisibility to undead, but many of those minutes would be spent going through the dungeon before the Shade Lord. Instead, I have Poppy sneak around the place to avoid all fights, except for the lone shadow in a tiny closet to the northeast. Due to SCS2's upgraded AI, however, the monsters like to chase after Poppy even after she hides. I lead them outside and let the magic crystal thingy deal with the Shadows and Shade Wolves.
I still have to fight the Skeleton Warriors, who are not affected by the crystal, but because of their excellent resistances and strong melee abilities, I have to turn invisible after slaying the first, and rest before finishing off the second.
I do all the necessary puzzles to get through the dungeon, use the Protection from Undead scroll right before Thaxll'ssillyia, and run past the dragon to fight the Shade Lord, who is blissfully unaware of my presence.
The Shade Lord has tons of HP and excellent resistances. I did the math and found that I could take her down before the scroll's effects wore off, even if I used no buffs, but since the Shadow Altar also needs to be defeated, I drank an Oil of Speed, my only one, just in case. Because if my invisibility to undead ever ran out, I'd be doomed. Look at all the Shadows the altar was summoning.
There's no way Poppy could survive that.
Eventually, Poppy finishes off the Shade Lord and Shadow Altar both, and takes the Cloak of Stars from Merella's body. We report our success to the mayor and sell off the armor he gives us, since Valygar's armor is more useful.
Next, we have to deal with the Trademeet quests. I really want to get a hold of Ras and the Shield of Harmony. Problem is, I have no access to fire damage, and therefore no ability to kill the trolls of the Druid Grove.
Instead, I sneak past everything. The only guys I can't sneak past are the Shambling Mounds.
They're blocking the way. I hit one of them in the face with a dart and run away, drawing the shamblers out of the way. I then turn invisible via the Ring of Air Control and scurry past to talk to Cernd, who completes the quest for me.
Now all that's left to do is deal with the djinn. Normally I prefer to slay Ihtafeer, but I'm not sure I can deal with her, considering her fantastic AC and multiple castings of Stoneskin. Instead, I will fight the djinn, who all can cast the rather nasty spells Flesh to Stone. On top of that, they have rather excellent combat stats compared to Poppy and can cast Improved Haste as well.
Fortunately, they can't target Poppy while she's invisible, and have no means of dispelling the effects of the Ring of Air Control.
They're still quite tough, however, so once Khan Zahraa is down, Poppy has to run outside, hide, rest, and turn invisible once again before confronting the final djinni. One of the locals gets caught up in the crossfire, but Poppy manages to save him.
Unfortunately, due to some bug, the merchants of Trademeet still won't sell Poppy anything, even after the djinn are dead and both Guildmistress Busya and Lord Logan Coprith acknowledged Poppy solved the problem. I reload, use CLUAConsole to add in Ihtafeer's head, use CTRL-Y on Taquee, and give the Rakshasa's head to the other djinn. This only cost Poppy about 5000 XP, and allowed her to do business with the merchants of Trademeet.
Poppy receives the Shield of Harmony and buys Ras. With all of the equipment we've gathered so far, she can now return to the Adventurer's Mart and pick up Vhailor's Helm.
There's a cute little trick you can use with Vhailor's Helm and Ras. It also works with the Book of Daily Spell. It allows us to get a duplicate of either item.
First, I have to go to the sewers beneath the Copper Coronet, since the Cowled Wizards in SCS2 will detect the magic if I use Vhailor's Helm most anywhere else. I equip both Ras and Vhailor's Helm, spawn a clone, and then have the clone summon Ras.
Four rounds later, the Ras sword vanishes, and the clone receives a new copy of the sword in its inventory. I kill the clone and loot a duplicate of Ras from its body.
Ras is an extremely overpowered summons with a tragically short duration. The sword only lasts for 4 rounds, and only has 1 APR at 10 THAC0 for 1d8+2 damage, but it is immune to all damage, all magic, and has the MINHP1 item that grants it various immunities. The only thing that can kill it is stat drain. But since the sword only lasts 4 rounds, it won't have much impact in larger battles. We can circumvent that low duration by using a duplicate of the sword. This is also a potential infinite gold trick, though the potion swap glitch to duplicate gems is still the more efficient method.
Even one copy of Ras, however, is enough for the time being. Our next target is the Suna Seni ambush, which we trigger by traveling through Athkatla until we get waylaid. Poppy turns invisible and flees to the northeast, where she spawns in a clone. Poppy and her clone then summon Ras and two Efreet, who hurl Fireballs at the enemy party.
The rest of the encounter is fairly simple. There was just too much spell damage being thrown around for the enemy to survive long.
Each Efreeti has three castings of Magic Missile and Invisibility, two castings of Fireball and Flame Arrow, and one casting of Flame Strike. Their spells are easy to interrupt, however, as they have neither Mirror Image nor Stoneskin, so they require some careful management to make sure their spells make contact.
I do some other chores to gather XP. Since Poppy won't be dual-classing, I don't have to worry about quest order, which is quite important, as we don't have the improved version of Kitthix that made some of Rovala's quests so easy.
The Harper Hold quest is so silly and overcomplicated.
Why don't they just ask me to kill Prebek AND Xzar? Their whole plan already rests on the assumption I'm willing to fight a mage for them.
Silly or not, those are the requirements. I give Prebek and Sanasha a visit.
Fireball is such a great spell. The funny thing about SCS2 enemies is that even with pre-buffing installed, the buffs don't activate until the casters turn hostile, and if I enter the area invisible, I can conjure a simulacrum without turning anybody hostile, and therefore bring out an Efreeti and cast Fireball before the mages' buffs activate.
We get ambushed again later on, and though our summons can still deal with the enemy quite nicely, I see something rather spooky.
If an enemy mage can kill Poppy's clone, they can kill Poppy, too. I decide not to finish this fight, since Poppy's invisibility, and therefore her immunity to single-target spells, won't last forever. Poppy flees the area once she grabs the loot from the fallen enemies.
Finally, we buy a scroll of Protection from Undead (in case I get surprised by vampires), Restoration (so my clone can drain STR), and Protection from Poison, for Pai'Na and her spiders. The Efreet take down most of the spiders in the crypts, as well as the spiders in Pai'Na's lair itself. I end up not using the Potion of Explosions in this fight, as the Efreet finish off most all of the spiders with one or two castings of Fireball.
Pai'Na isn't much trouble without her spiders, who have extremely dangerous poison on hit effects, despite their 1 APR and bad THAC0.
Notice the abnormally large stack of darts Poppy is using. I have given up using the Cloak of Stars to generate darts, and instead have decided to use CLUAConsole to create them instead, using a duplicate of the STARDART.itm file to prevent them from vanishing.
What is Poppy wearing instead of the Cloak of Stars?
The Nymph Cloak, actually. Why is this important?
Well, it turns out the Nymph Cloak is pretty darn useful.
Comments
Well, technically, you COULD buy a license if you want, right? 5k I think? Kinda absurd I would say, a non-caster buying that, and you will never really NEED to use arcane magic in Athkatla out of doors, and indoors they don't show up I think. Or shouldn't anyways. Is the Sphere harder than the Prison? I always found the Prison was harder, but ymmv. SCS seems to buff the enemies in the sphere pretty hard, but the Warden is a bit of a beast iirc.
I don't know if I EVER have bothered casting Sphere of Chaos... I always found HEAPS of scrolls, while I could think of some uses, it never seemed worth the hassle, like Prismatic Spray.
10% chance: Polymorph into squirrel for 9 seconds
10% chance: Confusion for 9 seconds
10% chance: 3d6+6 fire damage (bypasses MR)
10% chance: Hold for 9 seconds
10% chance: Disintegrate (bypasses MR)
10% chance: Heal 20 HP (bypasses MR)
20% chance: Unconsciousness for 8 seconds
10% chance: Teleport Field effect
10% chance: Haste for 9 seconds
It's actually not that bad of a spell. It just seems weak because you can't rely on it to have a given effect.
First, the lesser one. After having failed to kill the riddle statue in the Temple Ruins with STR drain (with 18 STR, it really should have died), I headed over to Watcher's Keep. On a whim, I did some tests with the Cloak of the Stars and found out how to make the +5 darts it creates last forever.
Normally, the darts vanish after 24 hours, whether they're on the ground or in your inventory. But if you sell them to a merchant and buy them back, they stay permanently. Better still, if you add darts to that stack, the whole stack will also stay forever.
So, I sell 6 darts and buy one back. I rest once, create some stars, and put them in the same stack, for 7 permanent stars. I can then add to the stack indefinitely. It's an infinite supply of +5 darts.
I enter Watcher's Keep and clear out the Vampiric Wraiths that gave me trouble earlier. I still need to down an Oil of Speed to escape their level drain attacks, but they go down quicker than before. I make sure to disarm the traps in the eastern rooms this time, and gather up all the loot I can get in my limited inventory space. A notable find is the Ammo Belt. Finally I'll be able to carry a few more types of missiles in my inventory--most importantly, flashers.
On going over Garlena's inventory again, I notice she sells scrolls of Restoration. Then I remember a trick I haven't used in ages.
Casting Restoration on a Simulacrum brings it up to the caster's normal level, at the cost of a fatigue penalty equal to -1 luck. This means Rovala's simulacrum can reach 4.5 APR as soon as Rovala recovers her Archer levels. Normally, that's not possible until level 24. Now, we can do it at level 14.
Also, I realized I could safely store my items by handing them off to Jan. This frees up a lot of room in my inventory.
Anyway, I decided I could take on the first batch of Statues without much risk. This group contains two fighters with HLAs and two clerics. The Statues all have huge resistances to missile, slashing, and piercing damage, so basically all of our damage sources are severely weakened. Our traps do missile damage, Kitty does piercing, and we don't actually have any blunt weapons, so we're going to have trouble with this one. As if that wasn't enough, the traps actually fail to hit the clerics at all, since the traps go off before the clerics lose their pre-battle invulnerability.
Otherwise, it starts out well. Rovala and her clone disrupt the clerics' initial spells, but then their Physical Mirrors pop up, and we can't risk resorting to melee without getting in the way of their Globes of Blade. Instead, Rovala runs away from one of the fighters while her clone and Kitty work on the fighters. Fortunately for us, the second fighter eventually decides to leave Rovala alone, and attacks Kitty instead.
Kitty isn't sturdy enough to weather Whirlwind Attacks, however, and she dies with the two fighters, leaving Rovala and her twin to deal with the clerics alone. The clerics start throwing out Flame Strike spells, and though we make our saves--Rovala's save vs. spell is quite low, and her clone's is zero after drinking a Potion of Stone Form--Rovala has to turn invisible and drink some potions, while her clone gets overwhelmed, caught in a cluster of animals summons and brought down out of Rovala's sight.
Rovala flees to the south and locks the door behind her, giving her enough time to set some traps. Here, the enemy's improved AI works to their disadvantage: they follow after Rovala despite her invisibility, but this just makes it easier for Rovala to lure them into her traps.
I have made a habit of ensuring that I rest after setting all 7 traps for major encounters. This allows me to run away and set up some more in case things go wrong.
The remaining cleric chases me around a little while, but with the movement boost from an Oil of Speed (I picked up lots of potions in Mae'var's guild hall) and Hide in Shadows, I can evade the single-target spells. I cannot, however, stop the cleric from summoning monsters, which are very good at boxing me in. Sometimes I have to break invisibility to chop my way out. Other times the critters don't fully box me in, and I can just away.
The cleric appears to have no True Seeing spell, which allows me to run up and backstab him. I finish him off with darts.
I kill his summons and store the quest items in a chest by the fire. Getting to the next level of Watcher's Keep would grant a lot of XP and give me a Wand of Spell Striking, but neither is worth the risk.
Rovala's clone has actually already been used for trap laying--not to exceed the 7-trap limit, but to help Rovala get a death zone ready when she doesn't have enough time to do it herself. I did it with the Vampiric Wraiths on the same level, pulling back both Rovala and her clone to lay some traps while Kitty was keeping the wraiths busy.
Since the initial fight is very cramped, I decided to enter the prison while hidden. I talk-blocked Aawill, ran up north, summoned Kitty, hid again and ran back down to backstab Aawill.
I backstabbed him again and Kitty managed to web him, preventing him from talking to us and keeping some of the other enemies non-hostile. We were able to take the fight much slower than is normally possible.
We have another Coiled Cabal to the east, with more of the well-buffed Yuan-ti Mages I never liked. I bait two of them into wasting an Oracle spell.
But they also have True Seeing, so I decide to just hang back and let Kitty deal with them. A Stinking Cloud spell also discouraged me from entering the fray.
Then I realized my save vs. spell was 2, which meant it was safe to enter the cloud. Of course, Stinking Cloud doesn't force a save vs. spell; it forces a save vs. death. I made the save anyway, but it was a bad choice. I couldn't have guaranteed consciousness without a Potion of Stone form or the Spear of the Unicorn, which I still did not bring (there's barely any room in my inventory as it is).
The Yuan-ti Mages' defenses start to wear off, and I engage them with Firetooth. Rovala's clone sticks with Arbane's Sword and the Shield of Harmony to be on the safe side. But I had to pay very close attention to the mages. If I got hit by a spell while using Firetooth, I'd be caught without my immunities. I wasn't too interested in walking up and hitting them with Arbane's Sword, either, for fear they'd cast Maze on me (which they don't actually have) or Finger of Death (which they do). Here is Rovala switching to Arbane's Sword and the Shield of Harmony while her bolt from Firetooth is still flying through the air.
She interrupted the mage's spell, whatever it was, and switched back to Firetooth to keep burning through its Stoneskins.
We had another close call, or so I thought, with the next fight. An elven mage activated a Minor Sequencer that seems designed to end solo runs.
I couldn't have failed the saving throw given the save bonus of 3, but I switched to the Shield of Harmony anyway.
The Master of Thralls and his Air Elemental friends went down with traps and a little melee poking. The Warden himself got webbed by Kitty, but I had plans to activate Called Shot and stunlock him with Darts of Stunning. Since he appears to have no weapon immunity spells, our chances of killing him would be roughly 100%. His AC is terrible and his save vs. spell, while at a remarkable value of 1, would be at 10 in a single round, and the next round, he'd have to make 10 saves with a 50% chance of failing each. He'd have roughly a 99.9% chance of getting stunned by the second round. Not counting the chance of him getting webbed. Firetooth would also help a lot to interrupt any spells he might have used.
I gave some of my equipment to Jan, then made the mistake of teleporting outside with CLUAConsole to sell some things Rovala couldn't carry on her own. Jan's personal quest triggered, and I had no interest in dealing with that.
So I reloaded, only to find that my last save was before the Planar Prison. I cheated my way through the prison this time, summoning clones and then using CTRL-R on them to make them permanent. After constructing a full party of clones, I mobbed everybody.
I had no patience for repeating the quest. Not so soon after I had completed it.
I also fought Mencar Pebblecrusher. I really wanted that Cloak of Non-Detection. It was a pretty simple fight. Amon was backstabbed, Pooky was webbed, Smelly Porkslicer took a lot of traps I meant for a fleeing Brennan Risling, and then others went down with Improved Haste and melee attacks, with a clone using Firetooth and ready to block the exit if Brennan should make a break for it.
Level up! Rovala has now hit level 24, the great milestone that should completely ruin the game balance.
I decided to test out her new powers on the Unseeing Eye.
Rovala chooses UAI as her first HLA. She takes Jan's armor, trades Belm for the Scarlet Ninja-to, and I give her a supply of flashers so Jan doesn't have to go to the trouble of making them for her.
With the Light Crossbow of Speed and Jan's flashers, Rovala can drain Strength from any hostile critter in the game. She can drain 7-9 STR on her own, and maybe another 1 or 2 with Improved Haste from the Ring of Gaxx, which doubles if we're working with the clone. It's a very narrow interval, but it's virtually a guaranteed kill.
Beholders have about 10 STR according to DLTCEP, which might be an SCS2 change, since I vaguely recall seeing values of 20 in the past. Either way, we should be able to kill them with STR drain.
I bring Rovala and her clone out to the cluster of eyeballs in the southwest hall of the Beholder hive. Kitty doesn't last long as a decoy.
To make sure Sil doesn't face the same fate, her clone, who has already drunk a Potion of Magic Shielding, activates Called Shot and attacks first, making the Beholders target her instead of Rovala. We deal a lot of damage very fast.
I was fairly certain that we killed them with STR drain, but on repeating some calculations, the Beholders could have easily died of raw damage before Called Shot dropped their STR to zero.
I get ready for the Unseeing Eye. I set up a line of traps leading from the Unseeing Eye's spawn point up to the resting place of the second half of the Rift Device, same as usual, then get Kitty and the clone in the right order.
Here's the thing about the SCS2 version of the Unseeing Eye.
It's designed to be nearly impossible to kill without the Rift Device. The Unseeing Eye boasts 95% resistance to physical damage, immunity to all spell levels (except 5, but it's immune to level 5 spells besides Breach), and immunity to +3 weapons and below. In terms of defense, it's basically a demi-lich that takes half as much damage and has more than three times as much health. The Rift Device removes the item that grants these defenses, in addition to dispelling all magic and bringing the target down to about 40 HP.
I'm not going to use the Rift Device on this guy. I'm going to kill him with STR drain, even though I won't get any XP, just because I can do it.
The setup is quite simple. Kitty will be at the front to distract the Unseeing Eye, and Rovala's clone, with her Potion of Magic Shielding to keep her safe, will cover Rovala. Both Rovala and her clone will be using +5 darts in lieu of Firetooth, as it allows Rovala to maintain some of her immunities by wearing the Shield of Harmony, just in case the Unseeing Eye decides to target her. I send Kitty down south, pick up the second half of the Rift Device, and have both Rovala and her clone activate Improved Haste via the Ring of Gaxx. They now have 10 seconds of double attacks, and 6 seconds before they can activate Called Shot.
I wait a few seconds, then send them both down the hall to greet the Unseeing Eye. They activate Called Shot as soon as possible and attack the Unseeing Eye with their darts.
We get an auto-pause when Rovala's round ends, which lets us know when we can activate a second Called Shot. We renew our STR drain and continue the attack.
Makes me smile.
I assumed that the Unseeing Eye's Chain Contingency with Summon Death Tyrants would only activate when it was at low health, but apparently it will activate upon its death as well, even though we barely did any damage to it. We now have another two enemies to deal with.
But Rovala is a monster.
She slays them with a hail of flashers and gains a level. She chooses Time Trap as her second HLA.
We can't bring the Rift Device back to the temple of Amaunator until it's expended, so we need to decide who to hit with it. I have the perfect target.
Very nice.
Finally, we have to fight Gaal. I sneak in, talk-block him, set a Time Trap, hide again, and backstab him. Once Gaal turns hostile, he triggers the Time Trap, giving Rovala 10 seconds of free hits. Rather than mauling him with a melee weapon, Rovala activates Called Shot and fires off a bunch of flashers. They all hit instantly, which means there's no time delay problem with STR drain. Not that the STR drain is really necessary.
Gaal survived the blast by running away, but all we had to do was retarget him and he was gone within a round.
So. Rovala is now an Archer(13)/Thief(25). Her clone can cast Improved Haste on itself via a scroll, giving the two of them 15 APR. Anything that manages to survive the sheer damage of our flashers will not survive the STR drain, especially if we use a scroll of Improved Haste on Rovala herself as well. And that won't be necessary once we get the Bracers of Blinding Strike, which give a 20-second Improved Haste that can remain for the duration of Called Shot. And if we use Time Traps, we don't even need that. Lots of things are immune to all forms of damage, whether from weapons or spells or traps, but no enemy in this game is immune to STR drain.
And if we're not opposed to using a glitch, we can use the Wand of Lightning trick with Called Shot, and drain 6 STR per shot instead of 1, rendering all question of APR completely moot. But she does not even need this.
This is Rovala the Archer/Thief.
She is the single deadliest critter ever to exist in BG2.
I liked how you handled the Planar Prison, with the webs and stun-locks. And beating the Unseeing Eye without the rift device is a very pretty feat as well.
This: I found cute.
Good to see she still has a place in your heart
I enter the Shadow Thieves' hideout while hidden and discover to my dismay that the Scarlet Ninja-to has a fatal flaw.
I'm not sure if it's actually any better than Belm, if the wielder is a thief. The Shadow Thieves aren't too difficult, though. Just for kicks, I use the Wand of Lightning trick with Called Shot to slay Booter. I notice that it does an extra 2 damage several times over, and then I realize that Called Shot is being cast at the maximum level, 16, which tacks on another 2 damage to every hit. I forgot that class-based innates are cast at the higher class' level for dual-classed kitted characters.
This means I could have gotten late-game STR drain even if I dual-classed Rovala at level 7. But that doesn't give us as high APR, which means more Called Shot castings to successfully kill enemies with STR drain.
I try out combining Time Trap with Called Shot. It's quite nice.
We get a new level and pick Spike Trap, for variety's sake.
The rest of the area is uninteresting. Soon, all that's left is to take down Aran Linvail. Rovala and her clone both lay Time Traps. I open the door, pause, and then panic.
The clone's Time Trap triggered first. And the clone can't attack anything because Aran's room is still lost in the fog of war. But the fog clears a moment later.
Our APR is terrible with Arbane's Sword (only one pip, and since it's a clone we can't add the Scarlet Ninja-to to the off hand), but we still manage to sneak in a couple attacks, with Assassination to help out.
Rovala herself uses flashers during her Time Trap. Aran is helpless and nearly dead.
Once his invisibility is dispelled, he's done for. Rovala's clone slays the cleric of Mask, while Rovala interrupts the remaining mage's spells with Firetooth and normal bolts, breaking through PFMW. But we do end up dealing with an especially difficult summons after the fight is over.
We have to fight a Cornugon, which sports an aura of fear and casts Lightning Bolt at will. Since we need the Dragonslayer longsword to avoid the fear effect, we only have 2 APR with poor THAC0, and Assassination doesn't help much. Kitty gets spooked and runs away, but when she comes back around, she takes hold of the situation. Rovala steps back, hoping to get out of range of the Cornugon's fear aura, and switches to +5 darts.
Rovala took a lot of Lightning Bolts in that fight, and even with over 150 HP, those add up over time.
With Aran Linvail gone, all I had left to do was decide on which items I would take to Spellhold. It was an extremely agonizing process, as I needed exactly one free inventory slot to pick up the Book of Infinite Spells. I ended up leaving a bunch of scrolls with Jan and dropping one Scroll Case, and the key to Watcher's Keep, to make sure I had all the defenses I would need through the Underdark.
I only had one last thing to do. At some point I noticed that the Firecam Full Plate's upgrade granted a lot of immunities I needed, so I checked the readme to see what ingredients I would need.
Turns out I can't get it before the Underdark, but then I noticed an upgrade for Mazzy's Sword of Arvoreen. Since Arbane's Sword isn't good enough for backstabbing and trading in the Scarlet Ninja-to for Belm would cost me my only +3 melee weapon, I decided that I would need either the Staff of Striking or the upgraded Sword of Arvoreen. I decided on the latter because of its various Free Action-type immunities (except no immunity to stun, which Arbane's Sword and the original Sword of Arvoreen both grant) and its nonmagical, 45-second slow effect. It wouldn't do as much damage when backstabbing as the Staff of Striking would, but the slow effect and the immunities would make it more useful overall.
Unfortunately, I needed 20 Reputation to get it forged, and I had 18. I had to go through the illithium quest and Tiris quest in Trademeet to get to 20.
Finally, I bought a scroll of Improved Haste for the simulacrum and set sail for Spellhold.
Your character doesn't rely as much on backstabs as my Bounty Hunter, so I won't say anything about how great the Staff of Striking is.
I had been wondering if I should start over the run and begin a true no-reload run, using the formula, but eventually I decided to keep going.
That was a good idea. Because Spellhold is brutal.
I didn't know it at first, though. Perth the Adept went surprisingly well. I was anticipating something much more difficult. But I was able to talk-block him and lay some traps. Without Stoneskin, he was quite vulnerable to Assassination.
SCS2's version of Spellhold takes away your items, but does not remove non-vanilla items, which included both the Sword of Arvoreen and the Improved Spider Figurine. This was a major boon. Although getting the Ring of Free Action made the Sword of Arvoreen's newfound immunities obsolete.
The one thing I was worried about in Spellhold was the Lich. It's a guaranteed spawn in my install, and its faster-moving undead buddies would soak up any traps I set in the hallway. But I came up with an alternative.
I would lay seven Time Traps and let the Lich's friend trigger them. With a 70-second combined duration, that would be more than enough time for me to wait out the Lich's PFMW, take down its Stoneskins, and backstab it into oblivion.
The Mummies triggered the Time Traps, as I expected. After waiting for the first Time Trap to expire, I started test jabs at the Lich to see if he was vulnerable to magical weapons yet.
Once I stopped getting weapon ineffective messages, I removed the Lich's Stoneskins. When I heard the sound of a buff being removed, I knew it was out of Stoneskins, and activated Assassination.
The Lich falls. I have Rovala flee the area and close the door behind her, so we can rest before dealing with the other undead. But not all is well.
Lots of demons can teleport, including through doors. I lay some traps just in case.
A Spike Trap and a Time Trap spelled its doom. Now all I have to do is fight the Kobolds.
I underestimated them.
I have no escape options for this. I can only take down these guys safely by relying on Kitty, or an extremely cautious strategy of trapping and retreating that SCS2 enemies tend not to fall for. I failed the save despite the odds and had to face the Lich again.
Turns out my strategy against the Lich was not as solid as I expected.
I mishandled the situation--after the Mummies triggered some of the Time Traps, I led them away, preventing the Time Traps from triggering one after another--and had to flee. But that was not the end of it.
The Lich might not be able to break down the door, but it knows its demons can.
Unbuffed and blocked in, Rovala is doomed. So, we can't expect to take down this Lich by running away.
Since I needed to make sure the Mummies kept triggering the Time Traps, I decided to use Kitty to lure them along, while Rovala would remain hidden. Once time was stopped, she ran over to the other side of the room, ensuring that the Mummies would not change targets in between the Time Traps. While time was stopped, she attacked the Lich with Bolts +1 to test its immunities without losing valuable Bolts +2 or getting hit by Fire Shield. But it seems the Lich knows exactly how to handle this situation.
I haven't even hit the Lich, but he still managed to get a Contingency to activate. There's no condition in Contingency that triggers the spell when the caster's weapon immunities run out, so I'm not sure this Contingency is legal. Either way, he's got another 24 seconds of total immunity to weapons. I must wait.
I select Kitty, who is offscreen, by clicking the "=" button and deselecting Rovala. I send Kitty up the hall, thinking there might be some Time Traps still untriggered, but no such luck. Our Time Traps are all triggered, and the Lich has free reign. I wait out the duration of PFMW in the corner, but the Lich is ready for this, too.
So I wait longer, and lay a couple Time Traps and a Spike Trap. I venture out to attack.
That Lich will just not let its defenses down. I wait it out again. Meanwhile, Kitty dies off screen.
Very irritating. I lure the Skeleton Warrior archer over to the Time Trap, which does very little. Finally, the Lich runs out of PFMW spells, and I am able to hit it. But with only 3.5 APR, I'd need three rounds to take down its Stoneskins. I have to deal damage through Stoneskin if I'm going to survive under the Lich's spellpower, so I switch to Bolts of Lightning and activate Called Shot, hoping that the extra missile damage will break through Stoneskin. It seems that it does not. And the Lich is immune to electricity. But I manage to get a shot in.
It seems awfully soon to get through its Stoneskin. It might be that the extra missile damage of Called Shot takes down an extra Stoneskin, but I don't really know. Either way, I've got the Lich locked.
I'm almost positive the Lich died of STR drain. I activated Called Shot twice, which should have drained roughly 14 STR after 10-12 seconds.
I lure the Skeleton Warrior into the Spike Trap and finish it off with the Sword of Arvoreen. I've still got two Greater Mummies left, but with my superior movement rate, I can use hit-and-fade tactics to bring them down without letting them make a single attack roll.
On to the kobolds. This time I let Kitty do the work, and keep Rovala hidden in an alcove I've never been to before.
Kitty is immune to their charm spells. She wins the battle easily.
Dace is another problem. As a vampire, he should have charm spells as well as level drain, the latter of which I have no means of recovering from. He can also summon rats, which will absorb trap damage. But even if he summons his rats the first round, we can still use Time Traps to our advantage. I only lay two, though I could lay more by resting, and open the door.
Dace turns into a rat, negating most of the damage from my backstabs. But he reverts to normal form during Time Stop, losing his physical damage resistances in the process.
Another Coiled Cabal stands watch over the way to the next level. I try to lure them out into some traps, but the mages aren't falling for it. I approach closer and closer, making sure to duck out before they can cast a spell on me. But one of them manages to get a Stinking Cloud spell off the ground. I use Hide in Shadows before the mage can reach me, but he follows me into the cloud.
Against all odds, I fail the save against the Stinking Cloud.
Twice. The mage kills me with Sunfire spells. Pitiful.
Next time around, I just hide, trick one of them into wasting an Oracle spell, hide again when out of range, and walk right past them.
If only Liches couldn't see through invisibility.
Well, Spellhold is a nightmare. Rovala has excellent traps, but the circumstances just don't line up correctly. SCS2 enemies are hard to bait, and the one critical enemy, the Lich, has lots of friends who will invariably run up and hit the traps first, soaking up any trap damage. And if I try to slay the other undead first, the Lich can send demons after me. And it's too far a trip to leave the area to escape the demons, unless I pick Scribe Scrolls or Alchemy as an HLA and use an Oil of Speed or scroll of Haste.
I don't know if I have a solid formula against the Lich. My best bet might be to pick Alchemy, a rather lousy HLA, and use Oils of Speed to outrun the Lich and its demons. I could wait out the demons' duration as well as PFMW. But if the Lich tries a charm spell, I have absolutely no way to defend myself, aside from interrupting the spell. Maybe I could wait out the duration of Protection from Electricity, if the Lich actually gets its immunity to electrical damage from there, and then just throw out a bunch of Bolts of Lightning. The Lich can't really escape the damage without using PFMW, and if he casts PFMW, I can easily run away and outlast the duration before he gets to cast another spell. And by the time I get back, his aura may be fresh, but I should have about 95% hit chance and automatic lightning damage through Stoneskin.
I'll have to do some tests to see if a level 16 Called Shot helps break through Stoneskin.
I see that you're confronted with a huge challenge here. I checked the Lich creature files in NI, and was surprised to see they aren't immune to electricity. This means that your plan of waiting out the Lich's electricty immunity (which must be temporary) could work.
@Blackraven: I normally pick the middle difficulty options in SCS2, and considering there's a "Hardcore Mode" for the itemless Spellhold component, which is "not recommended," I picked the other version instead. I assume the harder version removes the (rather crummy) items Bodhi leaves for you in the Bag of Holding, leaving you with only Spellhold's normal loot, if that. Speaking of which... I forgot to get the Bag of Holding. Thank you for reminding me. I might have gotten all the way out of the maze before realizing it was gone.
I actually thought most people playing SCS2 would have it installed, and thought Norgath would be wrecking that Lich with Maze traps (which I really need to try sometime). But in retrospect, the itemless Spellhold thingy is a terrible idea for a no-reload run. I'm not sure I'll keep it installed when I begin the real run.
Without Firetooth, I can't deal fire damage to Trolls, and there's a group of them in the next level. But as I suspected, Kitty was able to finish them off, as long as she attacked them after they fell down.
Poison damage for some reason is able to kill Trolls. Valygar has done this many times for me, and now Kitty can do it as well. Normally, though, she'll attack the same enemy incessantly, and Trolls will get stuck in webs forever and be unable to fall down and become killable. Only by leaving the Trolls alone can she finish them off.
There is another battle here with some Yuan-ti, but only one mage. This much is manageable. On reviewing my equipment, I realize I have an excellent means of dealing with Yuan-ti Mages: I just activate Called Shot and pummel them with Darts of Stunning, weakening their saves and forcing them to make multiple saving throws to avoid getting paralyzed. Ideally, this would be done when time is stopped.
With the mage out of commission, all I have to do is pelt it with Darts of Wounding until it dies. The big chunk of damage in the dialog box is from a Spike Trap.
I'm rather concerned about the Ulitharid behind the door, but I have a way of dealing with him.
Assassination combines marvelously with Time Trap. It doesn't work so well against an opponent with Stoneskin, however.
Time Traps also worked well against the Clay Golems, though I need many of them to make sure I could hit them with the Cleric's Staff +3.
There are some undisarmable traps in one of the rooms here, but I don't remember which one casts Disintegrate.
It was that one.
Luckily for me, I reached the next level around this area, and was able to pick just the HLA for the job.
This will also obviate the need for potions if I should get targeted with Finger of Death and whatnot later on. Avoid Death blocks instant death effects, disintegrate, petrification, vorpal strikes, level drain, and imprisonment. Once I get the rest of my equipment back, the only disablers that can kill me without potions to buff my saves are unconsiousness and Maze.
I try it out on the Disintegrate trap.
I also use it before facing the vampires, since I have no defense against level drain otherwise. Fortunately, they didn't try to charm me before I turned into the Slayer, which also could have meant my death. Despite the inherent savagery of the Slayer form, Rovala could not bring herself to attack a nearby Troll who was busy clawing at her back.
We also find a rather nice scroll we can use against Irenicus.
Time Stop and Shapechange would be marvelous checks on Irenicus' ridiculous spellpower. Limited Wish's normal uses might be a bit narrow, but these one-time choices are really quite excellent.
Or at least, they would be, if Rovala's Wisdom wasn't at 2. She can't select any of the one-time wishes without at least 3 Wisdom.
There's also a Gauth around here, and since Rovala is a tad paranoid, she hides before the opening the door to the area.
Turns out that was a good choice. I've never seen the Gauth waiting that close to the door before.
Rovala answers all of the riddles accurately to make sure we get a hold of the Cloak of Reflection, one of my favorite items. On the way to Irenicus, we also find 5 Arrows of Dispelling.
Maybe we're not doomed.
Still, she's able to sneak away to the left at the beginning of the battle. And because she unequipped her weapons before her clone spawned in, we only had to deal with an unarmed copy of Rovala.
She has no missile weapons, but still activates Called Shot out of pure desperation.
I wait in my corner, spending my time laying Time Traps, while the mages fight it out. Wanev does something truly surprising.
I thought Irenicus was immune to all disablers. But I checked his files and he has none.
But SCS2's scripts apparently don't stop confused mages from casting spells. Irenicus throws out Dragon's Breath and Comet, one after another.
Nobody in the group could have survived this, really. Their HP just isn't high enough to withstand this sort of spellpower.
Neither Irenicus nor the lone Glabrezu notice my presence, so I keep waiting for Irenicus' buffs to dry up. While I'm watching him from afar (one section of the room is always free of the fog of war), I notice that Wanev's Chaos spell actually seems to be doing something.
Very curious. But he doesn't stop there.
Notice the Glabrezu is gone. Eventually the duration ran out.
In vanilla BG2, confusion stops mages from casting spells. In SCS2, though, the spellcasting goes on, but the AI doesn't operate like it normally does. A very realistic rendering of confusion in action, assuming Wanev's spell is the reason for Jonny's peculiar behavior.
I believe that is the reason, because the moment I hear the sound of a spell running out--like the Chaos spell wearing off--he stops casting spells. Now nothing is left. I equip a shortbow and fire a single Arrow of Dispelling at him. I forget which spell he cast in response, but it wasn't Stoneskin. Whatever it was, I led him into a Time Trap and activated Assassination.
Down to Near Death. That was a critical hit, but even if I had missed, I still dealt another 100 damage or so from the next two strikes. Irenicus flees the area and sends his Murderers after me, but I have no intention of fighting through a minor legion of backstabbers. I equip a Large Shield to help keep off the Murderer's blades, then run out of the room before I can get cornered. I don't bother picking up the potions Wanev and the other crazies left behind; I don't need them.
Spellhold is over! We have our items! Now to kill some sharkpeople.
The Githyanki hijack our ship just one scene transition later. Saemon fails to defend himself and gets slaughtered by the Githyanki. Eventually all the pirates are dead. Since the next cutscene begins with one of the sailors saying a line, I decide the Githyanki broke the game and reload.
It turns out the Githyanki weren't responsible. This time, I don't hide before the battle, and instead just wait it out. I do get hit with a couple of Mind Blast spells, but manage to make the save. The first time it happened, I got lucky. I tried using a Protection from Evil scroll to boost my saves, but it had no effect. And when I drank a Potion of Stone Form instead, it got dispelled, and I just got hit with another Mind Blast later. So I don't have a reliable means of avoiding Mind Blast.
Fortunately, the fight doesn't last long before the next cutscene, sparing me the risk of being chopped up by those ridiculously large Githyanki swords while I'm unconscious. In the future, I might drink a Potion of Stone Form at the start of battle, and then use a Monster Summoning I spell in the corner to hold off the Githyanki for a round of two, in case I get hit with Remove Magic and then fail the next save.
Finally, in the City of Caverns, I have access to a merchant, in the form of the Temple of Sekolah just northeast of Ixilthetocal. I always knew this merchant had excellent prices, but I never noticed just how good they were until now.
That Garnet Gem is selling for almost triple its normal value. I decide to sell off a bunch of stuff here to take advantage of discount, and then realize this merchant is even more valuable than I thought.
The Garnet Gem I just sold for 140 gold is now priced at just UNDER 140 gold. The merchant is selling stuff cheaper than it's buying stuff. I can make money just by buying back the things I sell.
The most expensive thing I have is Vhailor's Helm, at 16,800 gold. I sell it and buy it back for several hundred gold as a profit. Then I realize I don't have the Ring of Human Influence equipped. I equip it and the price of buying back Vhailor's Helm drops dramatically, while I sell it for the same amount. I make over 4,000 gold just by selling it and buying it back.
I never this exploit existed. Feeling quite pleased with myself, I decide to take advantage of it. By the time I leave the City of Caverns, with a bunch of Paralytic Bolts and Kuo-toa (for some reason) Bolts and the Cloak of Mirroring as well, I have over 150,000, where I came in with roughly 60,000-80,000.
We enter the Underdark. There are a whole bunch of high-XP elementals to fight, so we summon Kitty, a clone, and have the clone cast Improved Haste and Mislead via scrolls so she can backstab with the Sword of Arvoreen, doing dozens of damage per hit. The elementals go down fast.
I never liked the Paralytic Bolts you get from the Sahuagin, since they weigh a pound each and their maximum stack is 10, so I waste them on some Kuo-toa.
I haven't done a lot of disabling in this run, considering how many flashers and Darts of Stunning I have. I decide to keep the flashers in mind. It was a good choice against the drow war party near the imprisonment capsule.
The drow's MR can block the stun effect from flashers, but they can't block Called Shot and the save penalties that make flashers even more effective. Nor can they rely on their AC, as I attacked them when time was stopped. And even after that, the drow didn't have many tools at their disposal, as I could block all of their enchantment spells by equipping the right items.
Midway through the battle, I notice Rovala cannot move. I check the Character Record screen and find the cause.
This I find confusing. I did use Called Shot on the drow mages, and their spell protections reflected the fire damage of Firetooth, and it's possible that the effects of Called Shot also rebounded (I didn't check Rovala's saves or THAC0 to make sure). But her STR should have started increasing gradually not longer thereafter, and it did not. Only after the battle ended could Rovala move, and got back her STR all at once.
It could have been Ray of Enfeeblement, but that sets your STR to 5, not 3. So I'm not sure what happened.
Anyway, we have some souls to set free. Alchra Diagott is the first hostile one. Luckily for me, Alchra appears to arrive without Stoneskin active.
The other hostile imprisoned people also fell to Time Traps and backstabs.
After clearing out some Myconids nearby, I took a few steps south to draw in some Mind Flayers I remembered to be nearby. With the Ring of Free Action, I knew I was immune to stun and therefore Psionic Blast, so I assumed I could take them on. Turns out they had another trick up their sleeve.
You can save against this, but only at -4. It also bypasses MR, though we only have 15. A Potion of Stone Form is not enough to protect me from this. I have to drink a Potion of Magic Shielding instead, and I only have two of those in my possession. Now I'm down to one. But it was quite necessary.
Sometimes you will roll critical misses. It might not be likely, but it will happen sooner or later over the course of the game.
I retreat to lay a Time Trap, expecting the Mind Flayer to teleport over, but fail because an enemy is still within sight. The Mind Flayer vanishes, however, and it no longer matters.
Since I don't want to waste an excellent potion like this, I decide to take on the Balor for the Svirfneblin before the potion duration runs out. I set several Time Traps, but not all 7 that are possible, since I have laid too many in the past and have been forced to get new enemies to trigger them if I want to lay the full 7 traps elsewhere on the map. So I only use three of four.
While time is stopped, I attack the Balor, only to find that all of my weapons--including the Sword of Arvoreen +5--are ineffective. It seems the Balor had PFMW active, which meant much of the time I spent attacking it was wasted. Finally, I get to hit it, but it appears to have Stoneskin, and as I break through the Stoneskin, I lose a lot of health. That Aura of Flaming Death is nothing to sneeze at.
I don't think I can take on a Balor in a fair fight, so I retreat, heal myself with the Rod of Resurrection, and switch out the Ring of Free Action for the Ring of Fire Resistance. I try to lay a Time Trap just outside the chamber, but I fail; the Balor is still within sight. I keep fleeing south, and eventually summon Ras to distract the Balor for a few rounds. The Balor uses some disabling spells on me, but my saving throws block everything.
I try using a Paralytic Bolt on the Balor, but it's too weak an enchantment. Instead, I target Ras with some flashers, and manage to stun the Balor indirectly.
Considering Ras has -20 AC and the Balor has 90 MR and a save vs. spell of 8, the odds of that working aren't too high. Considering Rovala's THAC0 and APR, the chances of stunning the Balor before Ras vanishes should be less than 30%. Kitty would have been a better choice for this purpose.
I know the stun effect of Jan's flashers lasts for 12 seconds, which gives me enough time to lay a Spike Trap to the west. I summon Kitty when Ras vanishes, and target her with the flashers. We stun the Balor again, which is also quite lucky. I can't tell exactly what Kitty's AC is in DLTCEP, since there's a -4 to AC that I'm not sure is a bonus or penalty, but at worst our odds of stunning the Balor are 13% per round, not counting the influence of Called Shot on the demon's saving throws. While the Balor is stunned, I lay another Spike Trap, Kitty nips at the demon's ankles, and I put a few bolts in the Balor's hide. When the Balor recovers from its stupor, I flee to the west, the Balor teleports over, and I lure it a little bit back, triggering the Spike Traps.
Next time, I'll probably lay the full 7 Time Traps before summoning the Balor. But at this point, I'm actually having doubts whether I'll restart this game to make it a real no-reload run. All this research is fun, but I'm not sure I want to repeat the steps, just for the sake of saying that a solo no-reload SCS2 run has been done.
I also find a nice ring in a nearby chest. I nick it on a whim and have one of the deep gnomes identify it.
Great! Now we have another way of improving Rovala's Wisdom.
If the UAI is the only thing that stops you, then you can use http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/26240/use-any-npc-item-add-on-for-use-any-item-hla/p1 freely and get the vanilla behavior even in BG2EE.
Actually more and more works with EE, though there are also a number of mods that don't though, or at least not yet, Ascension being one of them. Not sure how important that is to you.
As for the Ascension mod, it's çompatible with BG2EE if you install it from the Big Picture megapack. The so called "BP-Ascension" is essentially the Ascention.
You can download it from here: http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/546-the-big-picture-v181/
@Cuv is now currently working on a standalone Ascension mod that would be EE-compatible
Fire Seeds also have a small area of effect, just like flashers, and also apply the effects of Called Shot, but they are not party friendly. Normally, the things only last 3 turns, but you can make them permanent by storing them in an Ammo Belt, or perhaps also the Bag of Holding. So even in the vanilla game, you can get STR drain that bypasses weapon immunities.
Fire Seeds are +6 weapons with a +5 bonus to THAC0, but since they have no proficiency, the Archer will have worse APR. And since the weapons only do fire damage, the Archer's bonuses to damage will not improve them. Plus, the fire damage can be resisted by MR as well as fire resistance, and they only come in stacks of 10, making them less convenient than other missile weapons. Finally, the fire damage has a spell level of 6, which means it won't bypass demi-lich or Rakshasa spell level immunities, and Spell Turning/Deflection/Trap might block it.
EDIT: Greater Whirlwind Attack would compensate for the low APR of Fire Seeds. A single-classed vanilla Archer with Fire Seeds might actually be the better choice compared to a dual-classed non-vanilla Archer/Thief with Jan's flashers, considering the drawbacks dual-classing. Fire Seeds are also perfectly usable by Archer/Thieves, but the Archer can get 10 APR with those things, more than 1 million XP before the Archer/Thief gets UAI.
The vanilla Archer will have an easier early game, but will be much more limited in the late game. It can use stealth right at the beginning of the game, notably, and has no dual-classing period, but it will never get UAI or traps, which sets a certain cap for STR drain. With GWW and a simulacrum from Vhailor's Helm, the vanilla Archer can drain 24 STR using FIre Seeds, or well over 25 using darts or the Tuigan Bow. Contrast that with the Archer/Thief, who can drain 30 STR without a simulacrum or Improved Haste/GWW just by using the Wand of Lightning. So the vanilla Archer won't stop being interesting the moment it gets UAI.
Our new Archer is Poppy!
Isn't she cute? The portrait is from Linda Bergkvist on deviantart.com, "Glimpse of Summer." Poppy has appeared in many of my playthroughs in BG2, IWD, and IWD2, though she's normally a half-elf, elf, gnome, and maybe sometimes a halfling, and she's almost always a spellcaster (sorceror, druid, or cleric/mage, mostly).
Her WIS is at 18 because I thought that would give her extra spell slots, but that apparently is not the case. As an Archer, she only gets one pip in melee weapons (and only 2 in darts, oddly enough), so she puts one in Katana to help her through the starting dungeon. She won't be using two-handed swords, since Lilarcor will be unnecessary: as a human ranger, she can wear Valygar's armor, which apparently is not restricted to Stalkers of Valygar's alignment.
Her ability to hide makes the starting dungeon much easier, allowing her to avoid minor fights as well as using ranged hit and fade tactics on that murderous Duergar Mage.
Otherwise, the whole affair was conducted much the same way as Rovala's run through Chateau Irenicus.
My plan to deal with the Radiant Mephits failed, however. I had planned to kite the Radiant Mephits while taking down their portals with darts, but I mistook one of the Radiant Mephits for a less dangerous mephit.
She failed two saves, forcing me to start over. This time, I paid closer attention to which mephits were Radiant Mephits and which were not. But in trying to run away from their Color Spray spells, I got boxed in and had to flee back to the portal room, where I hid and then ran past them, shutting the door behind me.
I decided not to bother fighting Ilyich for safety's sake, but without the Mail of the Dead, which sells for 1500 gold, I had to sell all of my healing potions to Mira and Ribald in order to afford the Ring of Air Control.
Bregg and Cohrvale are normally pretty easy pickings in the early game, but I'm not confident Poppy can deal with them, not when she only has 1.5 APR in melee. I decide to use the Ring of Human Influence, but not for its normal purpose.
I've seen Saros Shadowfollower use charm effects in his no-reload run of Improved Anvil, which inspired me to recruit some of the locals to deal with Bregg and Cohrvale. The duo killed an Amnish Soldier in one round without even getting hit, but a local slaver at least managed to force Cohrvale to down a potion.
I scour the map for other recruits, and find a swindler by the Planar Sphere, who looks like an excellent candidate, as he has a weapon and armor already equipped.
I'm starting to run out of bodies. Bregg and Cohrvale are monsters. Making the most of the situation, I recruit the richest-looking guy in the area, in the hopes of filching some gold from his bloated corpse.
"Hack and slash your way to fortune! Woo hoo!"
While resting and recharging the Ring of Human Influence, I trigger all of the pre-Spellhold dream sequences, and also spawn in some of the guild war encounters, which I sneak away from. More importantly, I come across Habib Khalid Achmed Allafif, who gladly flings his mighty scimitar at Cohrvale's ugly mug, giving Cohrvale a new weapon. Habib spends the rest of the fight bare-knuckle boxing.
Bregg and Cohrvale finally fall. Habib turns on me, only to realize he no longer has his mighty scimitar.
After grabbing Lilarcor, which, despite not fitting Poppy's proficiencies, is still the best magic weapon we can find at this point in the game. I continue on the Promenade->Slums->Government District->City Gates->Umar Hills path that prevents random encounters like Suna Seni from popping up.
You know those three soldiers who appear in the Government District at night to ask if you're up to no good? Well, over the course of two rest periods, those guys prove very helpful in taking down the Beshaban Fanatics trying to burn Viconia to death.
This one actually panicked midway through the fight, but came back even after the charm effect wore off to help finish off the second Fanatic.
After speaking to Delon and Flydian, I travel to the Umar Hills to grab Ilbratha and some Bolts of Lightning from Merella's Cabin.
I don't know exactly how long it takes for that golem to kill Jermien (I've never seen Jermsy die), but I used up some magical darts instead of Lilarcor to ensure he survived.
I also snuck past Valygar's friends to slay the Stalker himself. I don't like fighting a good character like Valygar, especially an atheist with no god to take him in (thankfully, Kelemvor is not the awful sadist his predecessor was), but this is a solo no-reload run and I really do need his armor. Ilbratha does a lot to keep Poppy safe. Valygar is very dangerous at this stage of the game.
Once he's almost dead, I switch to nonmagical darts, which are the better offensive choice even in close quarters. The results are impressive.
Nonmagical darts benefit from STR bonuses, hence the crazy damage. Unfortunately, magical darts don't get STR bonuses.
Now Poppy is immune to charm, and she will be much more resistant to Horrid Wilting spells in the future. This is especially important, because I plan on taking on Kangaxx, if I can figure out some way to take down his Lich form without traps.
But the Cloak of Stars belongs to Merella, now possessed by the Shade Lord, who drains levels every round. And Poppy is completely incapable of getting Negative Plane Protection until she gets the Improved Mace of Disruption, which we can only get after the Unseeing Eye quest, as I recall. We've brought precisely one scroll of Protection from Undead for this purpose, as we could afford no more while we were at the Promenade (and going back to the Promenade would risk triggering the Suna Seni ambush). This means we have 10 minutes of invisibility to undead, but many of those minutes would be spent going through the dungeon before the Shade Lord. Instead, I have Poppy sneak around the place to avoid all fights, except for the lone shadow in a tiny closet to the northeast. Due to SCS2's upgraded AI, however, the monsters like to chase after Poppy even after she hides. I lead them outside and let the magic crystal thingy deal with the Shadows and Shade Wolves.
I still have to fight the Skeleton Warriors, who are not affected by the crystal, but because of their excellent resistances and strong melee abilities, I have to turn invisible after slaying the first, and rest before finishing off the second.
I do all the necessary puzzles to get through the dungeon, use the Protection from Undead scroll right before Thaxll'ssillyia, and run past the dragon to fight the Shade Lord, who is blissfully unaware of my presence.
The Shade Lord has tons of HP and excellent resistances. I did the math and found that I could take her down before the scroll's effects wore off, even if I used no buffs, but since the Shadow Altar also needs to be defeated, I drank an Oil of Speed, my only one, just in case. Because if my invisibility to undead ever ran out, I'd be doomed. Look at all the Shadows the altar was summoning.
There's no way Poppy could survive that.
Eventually, Poppy finishes off the Shade Lord and Shadow Altar both, and takes the Cloak of Stars from Merella's body. We report our success to the mayor and sell off the armor he gives us, since Valygar's armor is more useful.
Next, we have to deal with the Trademeet quests. I really want to get a hold of Ras and the Shield of Harmony. Problem is, I have no access to fire damage, and therefore no ability to kill the trolls of the Druid Grove.
Instead, I sneak past everything. The only guys I can't sneak past are the Shambling Mounds.
They're blocking the way. I hit one of them in the face with a dart and run away, drawing the shamblers out of the way. I then turn invisible via the Ring of Air Control and scurry past to talk to Cernd, who completes the quest for me.
Now all that's left to do is deal with the djinn. Normally I prefer to slay Ihtafeer, but I'm not sure I can deal with her, considering her fantastic AC and multiple castings of Stoneskin. Instead, I will fight the djinn, who all can cast the rather nasty spells Flesh to Stone. On top of that, they have rather excellent combat stats compared to Poppy and can cast Improved Haste as well.
Fortunately, they can't target Poppy while she's invisible, and have no means of dispelling the effects of the Ring of Air Control.
They're still quite tough, however, so once Khan Zahraa is down, Poppy has to run outside, hide, rest, and turn invisible once again before confronting the final djinni. One of the locals gets caught up in the crossfire, but Poppy manages to save him.
Unfortunately, due to some bug, the merchants of Trademeet still won't sell Poppy anything, even after the djinn are dead and both Guildmistress Busya and Lord Logan Coprith acknowledged Poppy solved the problem. I reload, use CLUAConsole to add in Ihtafeer's head, use CTRL-Y on Taquee, and give the Rakshasa's head to the other djinn. This only cost Poppy about 5000 XP, and allowed her to do business with the merchants of Trademeet.
Poppy receives the Shield of Harmony and buys Ras. With all of the equipment we've gathered so far, she can now return to the Adventurer's Mart and pick up Vhailor's Helm.
First, I have to go to the sewers beneath the Copper Coronet, since the Cowled Wizards in SCS2 will detect the magic if I use Vhailor's Helm most anywhere else. I equip both Ras and Vhailor's Helm, spawn a clone, and then have the clone summon Ras.
Four rounds later, the Ras sword vanishes, and the clone receives a new copy of the sword in its inventory. I kill the clone and loot a duplicate of Ras from its body.
Ras is an extremely overpowered summons with a tragically short duration. The sword only lasts for 4 rounds, and only has 1 APR at 10 THAC0 for 1d8+2 damage, but it is immune to all damage, all magic, and has the MINHP1 item that grants it various immunities. The only thing that can kill it is stat drain. But since the sword only lasts 4 rounds, it won't have much impact in larger battles. We can circumvent that low duration by using a duplicate of the sword. This is also a potential infinite gold trick, though the potion swap glitch to duplicate gems is still the more efficient method.
Even one copy of Ras, however, is enough for the time being. Our next target is the Suna Seni ambush, which we trigger by traveling through Athkatla until we get waylaid. Poppy turns invisible and flees to the northeast, where she spawns in a clone. Poppy and her clone then summon Ras and two Efreet, who hurl Fireballs at the enemy party.
The rest of the encounter is fairly simple. There was just too much spell damage being thrown around for the enemy to survive long.
Each Efreeti has three castings of Magic Missile and Invisibility, two castings of Fireball and Flame Arrow, and one casting of Flame Strike. Their spells are easy to interrupt, however, as they have neither Mirror Image nor Stoneskin, so they require some careful management to make sure their spells make contact.
I do some other chores to gather XP. Since Poppy won't be dual-classing, I don't have to worry about quest order, which is quite important, as we don't have the improved version of Kitthix that made some of Rovala's quests so easy.
The Harper Hold quest is so silly and overcomplicated.
Why don't they just ask me to kill Prebek AND Xzar? Their whole plan already rests on the assumption I'm willing to fight a mage for them.
Silly or not, those are the requirements. I give Prebek and Sanasha a visit.
Fireball is such a great spell. The funny thing about SCS2 enemies is that even with pre-buffing installed, the buffs don't activate until the casters turn hostile, and if I enter the area invisible, I can conjure a simulacrum without turning anybody hostile, and therefore bring out an Efreeti and cast Fireball before the mages' buffs activate.
We get ambushed again later on, and though our summons can still deal with the enemy quite nicely, I see something rather spooky.
If an enemy mage can kill Poppy's clone, they can kill Poppy, too. I decide not to finish this fight, since Poppy's invisibility, and therefore her immunity to single-target spells, won't last forever. Poppy flees the area once she grabs the loot from the fallen enemies.
Finally, we buy a scroll of Protection from Undead (in case I get surprised by vampires), Restoration (so my clone can drain STR), and Protection from Poison, for Pai'Na and her spiders. The Efreet take down most of the spiders in the crypts, as well as the spiders in Pai'Na's lair itself. I end up not using the Potion of Explosions in this fight, as the Efreet finish off most all of the spiders with one or two castings of Fireball.
Pai'Na isn't much trouble without her spiders, who have extremely dangerous poison on hit effects, despite their 1 APR and bad THAC0.
Notice the abnormally large stack of darts Poppy is using. I have given up using the Cloak of Stars to generate darts, and instead have decided to use CLUAConsole to create them instead, using a duplicate of the STARDART.itm file to prevent them from vanishing.
What is Poppy wearing instead of the Cloak of Stars?
The Nymph Cloak, actually. Why is this important?
Well, it turns out the Nymph Cloak is pretty darn useful.