I need escape options in case Poppy gets targeted by an instant kill spell, so we go down to the Temple District sewers to buy some potions from Roger: two Potions of Magic Shielding and two Potions of Invulnerability. I also bomb some Beholders that appear in the southwest, and mob a Rakshasa to get the Cloak of the Sewers.
The Cloak of the Sewers is known for its rat shapeshift, which gets 90% resistance to physical damage, or 110% if you equip the Defender of Easthaven in the off hand. That form lasts 20 rounds and is enough to deal with almost any melee-based enemy. But I recently discovered another important benefit of the Cloak of the Sewers.
The Troll shapeshift gives you the same magical weapon as the Troll form from the Shapechange spell. And that magical weapon makes you immune to unconsciousness.
This is the only way a non-casting class can get immunity to Emotion and Stinking Cloud without relying on saving throws or MR, and as a human fighter, Poppy's saves aren't going to be reliable until much later in the game. We have a check against unconsciousness! This could prove very useful against Kangaxx, though Kangaxx can still dispel the Troll form's weapon with Remove Magic.
Right now, though, we have other problems. I want to take on Draug Fea and his fellow thugs. And I have just the means of doing it.
I conjure a simulacrum via Vhailor's Helm, hide in shadows, and approach the enemy while hidden. I send the simulacrum forth and charm Tarnor the Hatchetman.
He's not going to help me win the fight against the rest of the group, but that's not what I need him for. Right now, I just want to take him on a stroll.
Can you see where this is going?
I also charm Zorl and send him to the southeast corner of the map, then march Rengaard over to the Rakshasa's former hideout. This leaves Draug Fea, Gallchobhair, and Gaius together at the north end of the sewers.
Gaius is a problem. He has been and probably always will be the most dangerous member of the group, and he's the first one I want out of the battle. But he has a save vs. spell of 1, meaning the Ring of Human Influence cannot affect him.
But the Nymph Cloak doesn't use a save vs. spell. It uses a save vs. breath.
And it lasts 60 turns.
Gaius fails his save and promptly begins to prepare to take down his former pals.
As a high-level mage, his Animate Dead spell summons two Skeleton Warriors, along with the lesser Skeletons on the side. This isn't vanilla content--I never bothered to uninstall the removal of the summoning cap, or the altered versions of Animate Dead--but it doesn't make much difference. Gaius can get the job done with raw damage alone.
Unfortunately, Horrid Wilting gives us no XP. So, we can't let Gaius deal the killing blow anymore, or we'll miss out on half the reward. Gaius hits Draug Fea with a Flame Arrow and lets the summons and Poppy's clone do the rest.
From there, we head south, to meet Rengaard, who, to our delight, fails a save against the Ring of Human Influence. And Rengaard has lots of summoning spells.
The Ring of Human Influence's charm effect lasts 100 seconds, not 42 like in the Charm Person spell (though both offer a +3 bonus to the target's save), so Rengaard and Gaius spend many rounds wasting their best spells. Gaius has a lot of potential game over spells, and we don't want him to have any of them when we finally turn on him. For some of the buffing spells, I have Rengaard and Gaius start casting them and then order them to take a few steps to the side right afterward, allowing me to expend their spells without letting them gain any benefit from them.
Eventually, Rengaard is no longer useful to us. We swarm him.
Next up is Zorl, the other enemy cleric. Poppy can't try to charm him without turning visible (the last use of the Ring of Human Influence came from Poppy's clone), so we just attack him.
Two people left. Gaius spends some of his last spells on taking down Tarnor the Hatchetman, who demands that we hand over our gold once Poppy breaks her invisibility by throwing her darts. We say no.
We let him live just long enough to break through Gaius' Stoneskins, and bring Gaius to Near Death.
We go over the area to make sure we've gotten everybody. Finally, we confirm it.
Gaius is the only one left.
We have him empty his spellbook in front of us, and just for the hell of it, we use his last spell to silence him.
Completely unnecessary. But very satisfying.
We gather up all the loot and sell it to Roger, for over 15,000 gold.
Draug Fea just paid for our trip to Spellhold. But we've still got a lot more to do.
The stuff I left there before is gone, pilfered by Rovala's own employees. Blackraven, apparently the de'Arnise Hold isn't a safe place for Rovala's things, at least with my install. She also involuntarily got the ranger stronghold, which might interfere with it somehow, but otherwise I'm not sure what went wrong.
When you get the Keep as a stronghold, it switches the area (for one that's basically the same except for the graphics), and you must have left your stuff in the other area (it was either turned back or you haven't completed the quest).
@semiticgod , how can Poppy use Valygar's armour without UAI? I always wanted to don it on somebody else than its original owner but it seems to need both stat match and UAI to work...
@Tidus: It might not apply for BG2:EE, but Valygar's armor is flagged to be unusable only by dwarves, elves, half-elves, gnomes, and halflings, as well as bards, clerics, mages, mage/thieves, thieves, druids, paladins, and kensais. It is usable by all other classes and all other races (humans and half-orcs).
It also requires 18 DEX and 11 WIS, ruling out Minsc, Anomen, and Sarevok. The Gauntlets of Dexterity allow Anomen to wear it, and you can get in on Sarevok or Minsc by having them drink a Potion of Insight as well. Sarevok can also wear it if you use the Machine of Lum the Mad to boost his DEX and WIS by one point.
@semiticgod , thanks! I indeed play EE... the armour is flagged 'usable by: VALYGAR' and requires 6 STR, 18 DEX + 11 WIS. which means only Jan or Hexxat might be able to get it with proper setup...
@Reticent: I was wondering about that. I might just go get that illithium. I might not need it against the vampires, since I can use Protection from Undead scrolls, but it'll be a big help against the many other level-draining enemies of the game.
After cleaning up the sewers, I continued on to the Unseeing Eye quest. Mostly, I just let Poppy's clone and the two copies of the Efreeti and Kitty do the work, while Poppy guided them from the shadows, and if our summons ever failed, Poppy fled the area, rested, and tried again. There were still a couple of sticky points, in the form of a Prismatic Spray trap and a petrification trap.
For the first, I had no choice but to down a couple Potions of Invulnerability, worth over 2000 gold put together, just to get past it.
Notice the unusual amount of damage: 23. Normally Prismatic Spray does round numbers, but since Poppy is wearing Valygar's armor, she resists magic, acid, and fire damage, and according to the spell file, most damage from Prismatic Spray is magic damage, but the d100 rolls that do magic damage do not cause the Feeblemind, petrification, or Disintegrate effects that would end Poppy's run. So Poppy didn't really need those potions. But it's impossible for us to know that in advance.
I actually forgot about the second trap. I don't have the Necklace of Form Stability, so I can't expect to make the save without one or more expensive potions. But you can actually just edge around it.
I considered this a test, hence the quick save. It's a pity we still needed potions to ensure Poppy's safety against the first trap.
I then paid a visit to Mekrath's lair, anticipating some easy XP. It did not turn out quite how I expected.
Mekrath himself has never been a real worry for me. Nor was I worried by the Mephits, none of which have disablers. The critical issue are the two Yuan-ti Mages I can expect to find in the easternmost room, which nearly knocked out Rovala once with their Stinking Cloud spells. I can become immune to unconsciousness and therefore Stinking Cloud by switching to Troll form, but that's not the only thing the Yuan-ti Mages have at their disposal. Earlier, on the way to the Diseased Ones at the temple of Amaunator beneath the sewers, I saw one of them cast Finger of Death on Kitty.
My only defense against that is the Ring of Air Control. But Yuan-ti Mages also have True Seeing. So this could get complicated.
I enter the area while hidden and hide behind a bookcase to spawn in my clone and conjure my summons, who clear the central room of the Mephits. I rest and approach the Coiled Cabal while hidden. Poppy's clone uses the Nymph Cloak on the strongest visible enemy.
I now have a high-powered ally for the next 60 turns. Poppy retreats, letting the Greater Yuan-ti and our other allies deal with the enemy. I figure the Greater Yuan-ti should be able to turn the tide of battle in our favor.
Unfortunately, our friends are not strong enough to win the battle, and the enemy slithers out of the eastern rooms. Thanks to SCS2 AI, they can follow after me even when I'm invisible, but the only True Seeing spell active does not reach me, as the mage who cast it is in the other room.
I wait, hoping to run out the duration on their buffs, though I honestly don't have a clue what I would do after that, since I have precious little hope of evading or preventing a Finger of Death spell.
The others enter the central room, somehow aware that my simulacrum, which they saw at the beginning of battle (without True Seeing active) was not the true source of the summons. I decide to back away to avoid being exposed by True Seeing. This was a profoundly bad move on my part.
SCS2 enemies are very good at boxing people in, and this is a constant danger for solo characters. The strange thing is, they can box you in even without knowing where you are.
With all my summons dead and the Greater Yuan-ti also gone, Poppy is, amazingly enough, managing to hide in plain sight, literally inches away from the Yuan-ti Mages who knew enough to box her in, but never considered attacking, or even feeling around, the tiny space where they know Poppy is hiding. It's a peculiar quirk due to the limitations of the Infinity Engine, and SCS2's AI. SCS2 AI is actually uniformly spectacular; this is a rare oddity.
After bumping around the Yuan-ti and the Mephits (from the southwestern corridor I failed to clear out), I find that Poppy is completely trapped. And the way will not be clear I either chop through some enemies or get them to move.
In that matter, we are in luck.* Poppy has a few copies of Ras hidden in the Bag of Holding I finally decided to allow myself to use, and hopefully they will help us finagle a way out of this pickle.
*Anybody notice this is a quote from Ulbrec Dinnsmore of IWD2?
Poppy drinks a potion, only to find this causes her to leave the shadows. She activates the Ring of Air Control to preserve her safety, then begins summoning Ras.
The first copy of Ras we conjure fails to get the enemies out of the way. It does get some of them moving, but doesn't budge any of the ones actually touching Poppy. The second one does not appear--I later realized it spawned just behind a bookcase, which is why I couldn't see it and nobody seems to have attacked it. But the third one draws the attention of the right Yuan-ti, and I lead them out into the central room, freeing Poppy.
Now we can leave the area, rest, and return with our resources recharged. But the Yuan-ti have not given up chasing us.
What's interesting is that they spawned in front of Poppy, instead of behind her. The Yuan-ti form a wall around the exit, so I go back up the stairs to try to rest. There's still a single Yuan-ti in the central room of Mekrath's lair, however, so I have to continue up the otherwise-useless stairs leading to a balcony in the Bridge District. That balcony leads nowhere, but it does give me a place to rest before taking on the Yuan-ti.
The one last Yuan-ti in Mekrath's lair goes down easily. But we still have a wall of Yuan-ti downstairs. Poppy goes down the stairs while hidden, activates the Ring of Air Control, and adds a Potion of Invisibility to her first quick slot.
Poppy spawns a clone, who immediately downs the Potion of Invisibility so she can summon Ras without attracting the enemy's attention.
The gambit fails. The Yuan-ti Mages respond immediately to the clone's presence. But their spell choice couldn't be better.
We're free! There are two Teleport Fields active, so I get phased right back to where I started, but all I have to do escape again is wait a few seconds until the Teleport Field takes me west of the wall.
I still need to take down those mages, though. I leave the area, rest, bring out my summons, and send everybody after the mages.
Without direction, however, my summons are no more effective out here than they were in Mekrath's lair. I need to reconfigure my strategy. Poppy can certainly escape the Yuan-ti, but she can't actually win the fight using the same tools.
I decide to make use of Poppy's stack of Darts of Wounding. Poppy tweaks her quick slots: one Potion of Magic Shielding, one Oil of Speed, and the spider figurine. The clone should have fairly respectable APR when hasted, and the poison effect should doom any mage who should fail a save against it. I lead Poppy and her summons over to the west.
The Yuan-ti Mages' invisibility and True Seeing spells make things complicated. To avoid being targeted by a Finger of Death spell, Poppy needs to stay hidden, but True Seeing reveals her. Poppy could linger out of the enemy's range of vision, but then she wouldn't be able to direct her clone, who won't attack anything without an order.
We get a sudden scare when one of the mages appears right next to Poppy, and activates all of its buffs when it does so. If it activated its buffs any earlier, then we could have seen it coming.
But Poppy is hidden and her clone is not, so we don't get targeted by anything. Poppy flees while her clone starts flinging darts, but the Yuan-ti Mage has PFMW, starting a four-round stalemate in which neither the mage nor the clone can harm each other, since the clone makes all of its saves automatically.
And when the mage finally loses its Stoneskin spells, it stubbornly resists our clone's poison.
And eventually, the clone runs out of darts entirely. Poppy hurries forward until she can see the mage so she can order her clone to switch to Belm and continue attacking the mage. I can have the clone switch weapons from offscreen, but I can't make it keep fighting unless I can click on the mage.
I repeat the process with the other mages, but this time, I send out some summons first, causing the mages to waste their PFMW spells early and letting the clone attack only when they ran out. We also add an extra Potion of Magic Shielding to Poppy's inventory, allowing her clone to restore her buffs even after being hit by Remove Magic.
A Yuan-ti Mage's Stinking Cloud spell discourages Poppy from directing her clone's actions, but with the Troll form, she can enter the cloud without risk.
This time, the mage fails its save vs. death. It is doomed.
We're still not done yet. We already killed two Yuan-ti Mages, which is all I saw the first time I checked inside their room, but that wasn't all of them. The next mage tries to defend itself with Stinking Cloud and Teleport Field, but it's no use. The Efreeti and Kitty aren't the real threat. They're only there to drain the mages of their PFMW spells.
Another failed save! But since the clone vanishes before the mage dies, we don't get the XP.
Only one left to go. We repeat our strategy. This time, the Yuan-ti Mage drinks a Potion of Extra Healing to stave off death. But by spending its round drinking a potion, it can't cast a spell for another 6 seconds, letting Poppy break her invisibility and attack without risk.
Much progress has been made since the last post, but due to some boneheaded decisions on my part, several times Poppy survived largely thanks to tactics even I would consider pretty unfair. If I had just made two slight modifications to my plan, then I would have succeed in a fair fight.
I don't remember everything that's happened since the debacle with the Coiled Cabal, but I will try to recount where I've been. Much less will be posted here as far as screenshots go, except for a handful of major fights. Bear in mind Poppy has probably been gathering many more sources of XP than I will describe here, since my only record of this run is in the form of screenshots and my own memory, and neither of them is complete.
After slaying Mekrath, I took on the de'Arnise Keep. Darts of Stunning on Glaicas, +5 darts on the golems, Flail of Ages and Belm on the Clay Golem, and Efreeti Fireballs and +5 darts for basically everything else.
From there, I took on Rayic Gethras. I kited him all the way outside of his home, draining his spells with summons and hit-and-fade ranged attacks. When his defenses were down, I switched to Firetooth and Bolts of Lightning. In the end, he was slain by a Magic Missile from an Efreeti. With Ray-Ray dead, I could finish the rest of the Mae'var questline.
Once that was done, I could side with Bodhi without losing out on a major source of gold and XP. This meant I could get the Mace of Disruption, upgrade it, and get immunity to level drain, which I wanted before I fought the Vampiric Wraiths in Watcher's Keep, which I have to fight to get the Ammo Belt.
After siding with Bodhi, I decided to clear out the first level of the Shadow Thief hideout early. I've seen the mages there cast Sphere of Chaos before, so this is a risky encounter. I entered the area while hidden and had a simulacrum trigger the enemy's buffs, which I could wait out elsewhere while my simulacrum picked off the non-casting enemies. When a mage cornered me, I switched to Darts of Stunning and activated Called Shot, which brought down the mage very easily, as she had already wasted her PFMW protecting herself from my simulacrum. Afterward, I dealt with Mook and completed Bodhi's first quest, but did not report back to her, since Bodhi always warns you that taking too long to complete the second quest may cause you to fail.
I then went to Watcher's Keep and took down the Vampiric Wraiths while dual-wielding Belm and the Mace of Disruption--for once, with Belm in the main hand, since I had no pips in maces. In the process of looting the first area, I walked around a petrification trap and made a lucky save against what appeared to be a Finger of Death trap. I took down all hostile enemies in the area, plus the Guardian Golems, but did not begin the ritual so I wouldn't have to fight the statues.
I then returned to the Unseeing Eye quest, where I hoped to duplicate the Shield of Balduran. SCS2 Beholders will try to steal the SOB from you after a few rounds, and since the shield appears on the body of whichever Beholder stole it from you, I assumed it would take the shield from Poppy's simulacrum, creating a duplicate copy on the Beholder's body.
This did not pan out. The Beholders refused to steal the clone's shield. Instead, they just floated over and started biting her when they realized their rays were useless. So, I just had the clone whomp on the Beholders until they died. Poppy hid in the corner to direct her clone.
For the Blind Priests, I had the clone drink a Potion of Magic Shielding to block the clerics' disablers, and disrupt their spells with Belm and the Flail of Ages. Again, Poppy herself hid. She was eventually exposed, and hit with Blindness, but she hasted herself with Arbane's Sword and fled the area to avoid getting hit by a Greater Command spell.
I intended to have Poppy's clone also deal with the Unseeing Eye single-handedly, but for some reason, the clone could not attack it after using the Rift Device on it. I'd just get an auto-pause saying the target vanished, even though the Unseeing Eye was perfectly visible. So, I had to take Poppy out of hiding to slay the beholder with darts. Then, to avoid the Death Tyrants, Poppy drank a Potion of Invisibility, ran off, rested, and returned to hit the Death Tyrants with the Rift Device, fired from her clone, and finish them off with darts. The same tactic worked against Gaal.
From there, I went to the Windspear Hills. The Ruhk Transmuter failed a save against his own Web spell (for some reason, I keep seeing Rakshasas get hurt by their own spells), allowing me to get in some free hits, but I had to resort to Arbane's Sword, since I might get disabled by the Web if I used darts. The Stinking Cloud wasn't an issue, however, as Poppy had guaranteed saves against it, thanks to the Cloak of Displacement.
I originally intended to take down the vampires in Firkraag's lair with the simulacrum, who would attack with the Mace of Disruption while under the effects of a scroll of Protection from Undead, while Poppy would stay hidden nearby, as she did with the Beholders. The clone made short work of several of the vampires, but vanished before all of them died. Since I've had bad experiences with vampire survivors ambushing me days after I thought the whole group was dead, I decided to finish off the rest of the vampires. To save the scroll of Protection from Undead, Poppy just equipped the Mace of Disruption with the Shield of Harmony to block both level drain and domination.
But apparently, the Shield of Harmony doesn't fully protect you from a vampire's Domination spell.
At first, I was going to grant myself a reload, on the grounds that Poppy couldn't possibly have gotten charmed, but then I noticed the game wasn't over, despite the fact that I couldn't select Poppy and she had the little rising green magic animation indicating a failed save vs. a charm spell. Somehow, she had been rendered unselectable but not charmed, confused, held, or knocked unconscious. She just stood there while the vampires struggled to hit her.
When she recovered, I had her use up her scroll of Protection from Undead and spend some time stomping on the Giant Rats that the vampires had summoned while she was disabled, since the rats were dealing a fair amount of disease damage. From there, she attacked the vampires, and when the vampires turned invisible, she lured them out of hiding with a summons.
I decided not to take on Samia, as I wasn't sure I would be able to. Rovala took down the whole group with traps, but Poppy has no traps and never will.
Since Poppy is rapidly approaching 3 million XP, I sent her back to Bodhi to profit from the main quest's substantial quest XP bonuses. There are two choices for Bodhi's second quest: rescuing somebody from the Shadow Thieves, or killing a nobleman. Normally I prefer the "sickly hero's task," but that entails fighter more Shadow Thief mages, and I believe all of them may cast Sphere of Chaos.
To avoid dealing with any more Sphere of Chaos spells, I chose the "unseemly task," but I ended up sparing the guy's life because I was afraid of becoming a Fallen Ranger. I don't really know the parameters for becoming a Fallen Ranger or Paladin, other than low reputation or picking the "evil" options in Hell. Bodhi took the news well, however.
I then invaded Aran Linvail's lair, and went just far enough to reach level 18. I picked Whirlwind Attack as my first HLA. I have some very big plans for that HLA, but first, I need Cernd to give me some Fire Seeds.
Cernd was still at level 10, so I had to bring him into the party and fight some of the critters I left alone when I last visited the grove. Kyland Lind and company fell to Efreeti Fireballs and Kitty's Web Tangle spells. Once I slew the trolls just northeast of the Troll Mound, Cernd hit level 11. Once I confirmed I could make his Fire Seeds permanent by putting them in the Ammo Belt, I removed him from the party. I will now cheat in Fire Seeds to mimic the effects of borrowing Cernd whenever I need more.
Fire Seeds will allow me to drain STR through PFMW and Absolute Immunity. Poppy's clone is at level 12 now, and therefore her Called Shot will do STR drain even without a Restoration scroll to bring her up to Poppy's level. The clone will also have Whirlwind Attack for 6 seconds of 10 APR, and since Called Shot lasts 12 seconds, and we can have at most 10 Fire Seeds in one stack, Poppy and her clone together can drain 20 STR in one round, provided they have one extra round to prepare. And since our Efreeti summons has 20 STR, we will have a viable target for our Fire Seeds.
Now that we have Whirlwind Attack and Fire Seeds, we are ready to face Kangaxx.
First, we must deal with the Shade and Elemental Liches. We go to the Shade Lich's room beneath the Temple Sewers, summon an Efreeti, place it next to the Lich's spawning point, activate Called Shot, wait a couple seconds, and open the sarcophagus.
The Shade Lich appears. To ensure we have enough time, we talk-block him before activating Whirlwind Attack. We attack the Efreeti, draining the Shade Lich's STR through splash damage.
Next up is the Elemental Lich. Apparently the petrification trap uses a save vs. spell, not a save vs. petrification.
Another trap where we got lucky. I had a couple extra scrolls of Protection from Petrification, so this could have been made safer.
I repeat the same tactic on the Elemental Lich, but the Efreeti moves too far out of the way as it turns hostile, allowing the Elemental Lich to live.
Fortunately, our clone absorbs most of the Lich's spells, and Poppy's clone came pre-buffed with a Potion of Magic Shielding. But the Lich is not done. It re-casts Time Stop and summons a Planetar.
The Planetar soon kills Poppy's clone. I flee the area and don't come back until the Planetar is gone.
I don't like waiting out the enemy's spells, but there wasn't really a better way of dealing with the situation after the Planetar was out. Poppy could make her saves against the Planetar's vorpal strikes, but she wouldn't be able to take the damage, particularly since she'd also have to deal with the Lich.
I returned and drained some more of the Lich's spells with my remaining summons. Once I confirmed the Elemental Lich had cast all three of its PFMW spells, I activated Called Shot and attacked with +5 darts. Once I had made my first four attacks, I activated Called Shot again, allowing Poppy to drain 2 STR per hit for the next 6 seconds.
Kangaxx has 10 STR, and luckily his lich form also carries the Ring of Gaxx, which means that if we kill him using STR drain early on, we'll still get the ring.
The reason we couldn't kill the Elemental Lich with STR was because our summons, the Efreeti, moved too far away from the Lich during the first round. But I have just the tool to prevent that from happening.
Earlier, I purchased the Short Sword of Mask from Garlena, knowing that it would allow me to immobilize enemies who were immune to hold and web. The Short Sword of Mask has a 15% chance per hit of entangling the target for 24 seconds. This does not bypass MR, but it offers no save.
This means I can fix our target summons in place by giving them a whack with the Short Sword of Mask. The summons will stay in place even if it tries to attack us. This solves our problem of rebellious summons.
Unfortunately, I make a fatal mistake in setting up our target.
I used Kitty instead of the Efreeti. Kitty, who has no immunity to fire and will therefore take 2d8 damage per hit, with a save for half. To slay Kangaxx, we need 10 hits, which means Kitty has to survive 9d8 to 18d8 damage.
She doesn't. She only has 44 HP.
I try to reconfigure the situation, but it's hopeless. Kangaxx already has PFMW up, and it takes two or three seconds to bring out the Efreeti. Our Whirlwind Attack quickly runs out. What's more, our clone only has 4 Fire Seeds left. We will simply not be able to kill Kangaxx with STR through PFMW.
Kangaxx starts casting a Transmutation spell. Poppy runs away to make sure Kangaxx focuses on her clone.
Poppy's clone does not survive the hail of Energy Blades and spells, despite her Potion of Magic Shielding. Kangaxx summons a Planetar, so Poppy runs out the door and waits until the Planetar is gone.
We return to Kangaxx and distract him with Ras until he spends his third and final PFMW spell. Poppy switches to Firetooth and Bolts of Lightning. Kangaxx's spellcasting is over.
Soon, he changes to Demi-Lich form. But Poppy is prepared for this.
Poppy has the Corthala Family Armor and the Belt of Inertial Barrier already equipped, giving her 75% resistance to magic damage. Kangaxx's favorite offensive spell in Demi-Lich form is Horrid Wilting, which Poppy can resist quite readily. And since SCS2 prevents enemy spellcasters from using Imprisonment on the main character, we don't need to worry about Trap the Soul, either. Finally, we need no defense against Kangaxx's Demilich Howl, either, as Poppy has a guaranteed save thanks to the Helm of Balduran, the Ring of Earth Control, the Cloak of Displacement, and her low base save vs. death thanks to her high fighter levels.
Kangaxx wastes his first Time Stop and his first PFMW spell (he has three castings of PFMW for each form) on Ras, which is immune to Imprisonment. But Ras doesn't last long, and soon Kangaxx starts targeting Poppy.
I know this fight, and there are three things that could spell my doom: Remove Magic, Emotion, and Horrid Wilting. Remove Magic will dispel the Troll form's weapon, exposing me to Emotion, and it will also dispel my potions, which will expose me to both Emotion and Horrid Wilting, as my save vs. spell is an unreliable 5 or so. I counter Greater Malison with a Potion of Invulnerability, but otherwise do not act.
I can only survive so many castings of Horrid Wilting, so I will need to heal myself eventually. But every time I heal myself, I will be unable to act for 6 seconds, which means that if Kangaxx uses Emotion, I might not be able to drink a Potion of Magic Shielding quickly enough to keep myself protected. So I must be very careful about when I heal myself.
Thankfully, Poppy is quite resistance to Horrid Wilting, giving us an important barrier.
Once Kangaxx is out of Remove Magic spells, we will be safe. Until then, I have nothing to do but break through Kangaxx's Stoneskins, and Poppy excels at that.
Kangaxx gets lazy in renewing his defenses, sparing us some extra damage. Poppy has a 95% hit chance and 4.5 APR, so it's very easy for her to take advantage of a moment of vulnerability.
When he runs out of Horrid Wilting, Kangaxx switches to Flame Arrow, which Poppy is much less resistant to. Potions aren't enough here, so we use the Rod of Resurrection.
We now have to wait 6 seconds before we can take action again. Kangaxx makes the perfect move: Emotion. But Poppy drinks a Potion of Magic Shielding right before the spell hits.
If she was standing a single circle closer, she wouldn't have drunk the potion in time, and could have failed her save. But now Kangaxx is out of options. We have resisted his Horrid Wilting spells, resisted his Flame Arrows, and resisted Emotion. All he has left are Cloudkill spells, which we can easily avoid. Poppy finally breaks him down.
We have lost one Potion of Magic Shielding, one Potion of Invulnerability, four Potions of Extra Healing, and one charge from the Rod of Resurrection, but now, we have the Ring of Gaxx, which can get our save vs. spell all the way down to 1, rendering us immune to many dangerous spells.
Sparing the guy's life in Bodhi's second task allows you to keep the Shadow Thief Dagger, which sets your APR to 2, despite not being a throwing dagger. This extra attack is added to your main hand even if the dagger is wielded in the off hand, just like any other speed weapon. This means Kundane, Belm, and the Scarlet Ninja-to are not the only speed weapons in vanilla BG2! The dagger unfortunately does not get a STR bonus and is a nonmagical weapon. This means it's normally not stronger than Belm/Kundane/Scarlet Ninja-to, but is a little more effective when dealing with PFMW. The fact that it SETS base APR to 2 instead of adding 1 also means that it allows projected images to attack (it also overrides the effect of the Boots of Lightning Speed, which unfortunately do not show up in BG2). Also, a projected image using the Shadow Thief Dagger, whether dual-wielding or not, gets 1 better APR than a projected image using Belm/Kundane/Scarlet Ninja-to.
So we have a nonmagical speed weapon with poor damage that gives projected images the same APR as the original caster.
Back to Bodhi's quest. Aran Linvail is webbed by Kitty and slain with darts; we use Whirlwind Attack with nonmagical darts to bring down his mage friend. The mage manages to summon a Cornugon late in the battle, and though we slay the Cornugon before its fear aura comes out, it's a reminder that we still have no immunity to fear. We need Dragonslayer for that, and now that we have Fire Seeds, we can take on Samia and go get the sword.
But first, I decide to go get the Cloak of Non-Detection from Brennan Risling, as the cloak will allow Poppy to remain hidden in shadows despite divination magic (though magical invisibility can still be dispelled). We have a new summons in the form of the Ring of Djinni Summoning, and the Djinni from the ring has some awesome spells at its disposal: Magic Missile, Stinking Cloud, Lightning Bolt, PFMW, and Globe of Invulnerability. According to DLTCEP, the Djinni also has the MONHP1 ring, which will prevent it from dropping below 1 HP.
I bring all of our summons save Ras into play with Mencar Pebblecrusher and the gang. Poppy casts Protection from Fire, and the Djinn cast GOI, to get immunity to our Efreet's Fireball spells. Poppy is already immune to Stinking Cloud by virtue of her low save vs. death, so Poppy can stay hidden and direct her summons without worrying about getting disabled.
Pooky and Amon die to the Fireballs. Brennan falls unconscious and is quickly torn apart. Mencar and Smelly survive just long enough to somehow slay one of the Djinn. A helpful message reminds us of how awful that is.
This was the first time we ever used the Ring of Djinni Summoning in combat. Now it is gone forever, wasted on Mencar Pebblecrusher and his pals, who at this stage in the game were no threat whatsoever.
I was really looking forward to those Lightning Bolt and Stinking Cloud spells. But we can get by without them. I still don't understand how the Djinni died when it had the MONHP1 item. There were no instant death effects that could have bypassed it, or level drain or stat drain. It just died from pure damage.
Anyway, we return to Firkraag's lair to murdalize Samia. We originally plan on slaying the enemy party with STR drain, activating Called Shot and then Whirlwind Attack, but we botch the timing and end up killing them with fire damage instead, which actually wins us more XP. Only Kaol survives, and even though he's got his defenses up, we can still interrupt his spells by flinging Fire Seeds at Kitty.
After going through the Mask of King Strohm mini-quest, Poppy gains a new level, and chooses Power Attack instead of Hardiness as her next HLA. Power Attack, normally just taken as a prerequisite for Critical Strike, is a marvelous addition to Poppy's options. She can now disable the enemy with ANY weapon, not just Darts of Stunning, though Darts of Stunning will still force extra saving throws. Power Attack lasts 12 seconds, as does the stun effect itself, which bypasses MR, cannot be dispelled, and offers a save vs. death at a -4 penalty, meaning it can disable most anything that's not immune to opcode 45.
The rest of the dungeon is fairly easy. The only remaining problem is Conster, but Poppy's clone manages to stun him with Power Attack using nonmagical darts to break through his PFMW spell.
We leave Firkraag alone and mash Valygar's body into the keyhole to the Planar Sphere. There aren't any important items in the Planar Sphere, but there's a lot of XP, and we have options for dealing with each of the major challenges.
First, we have the Sahuagin, whose Paralytic Bolts I can block with Arbane's Sword. If Arbane's Sword didn't have that effect, I'd have to drink a valuable potion before facing them, or not bother with them at all. Paralytic Bolts use the stun effect, bypass MR, and require a save vs. spell, and Poppy's save vs. spell is terrible.
Togan and the other psychic interplanar hobbits are another story. They have lots of high-level spells and defenses, including invisibility, which is a major problem for Poppy, who has no means of dispelling illusions. But we can work our way around this.
I have Poppy equip the Light Crossbow of Speed, the Tuigan Bow, and a stack of +5 darts. In her quiver are nonmagical bolts, Bolts of Biting, and Arrows of Dispelling. This is an excellent combination for enemy spellcasters, as it gives us a check against any defense besides invisibility or Physical Mirror (which Mogadish uses, but I can disrupt his spells with Fire Seeds from the original Poppy). If the enemy mage has Improved Mantle, we can break through it with +5 darts, and try to stun it with Power Attack. If the enemy mage has PFMW, we use the Light Crossbow of Speed with nonmagical bolts, and again, Power Attack can break through Stoneskin. If the enemy has neither, we can hit him or her with an Arrow of Dispelling to remove all of their other defenses, rendering them vulnerable to our most damage options, which is the Light Crossbow of Speed with Bolts of Biting.
With Whirlwind Attack, Greater Whirlwind Attack, and Power Attack, we are able to breach the enemy's defenses and cut through their Stoneskins. Fire Seeds also allow us to clear up the groups of low-level Animate Dead summons that SCS2 mages appear fond of summoning (at least with the summoning cap removed). Poppy's clone vanishes before we can kill Kayardi, so we run back to the Knights of Solamnia, rest, and return to finish her off with Whirlwind Attacks and darts.
There is also a Finger of Death trap on the first level of the Planar Sphere, which Poppy can neither avoid nor disarm. And since Finger of Death uses a save vs. spell instead of a save vs. death (at least one mod changes that, but I don't have it installed), and since that save comes at a -2 penalty, Poppy cannot rely on her saves to keep her alive.
Well, she did make her save in a test run. But that was a test to see what kind of trap it was. When I reloaded to play the trap for real, I had to prepare a defense.
There were two options for protecting Poppy from this trap: Potions of Magic Shielding and Potions of Magic Protection. I had 8 Potions of Magic Protection and only 3 Potions of Magic Shielding (the hobbits dropped several of those potions), and only Potions of Magic Shielding can be used as a last-second defense against Finger of Death and the like (they guarantee a save, while Potions of Magic Protection merely give an extra 50% to MR, which can be bypassed), so the Potions of Magic Shielding were the more valuable of the two. I decided to drink two Potions of Magic Protection, viewing it as the less costly option, and ran over the Finger of Death trap.
Success! And now I get to face Lavok with 100% magic resistance! Still, he can dispel that with a single Remove Magic spell, so I'll want to attack him only using Poppy's clone.
The clone uses the same setup she did with the hobbits, including drinking a Potion of Magic Shielding to keep her safe from Lavok's magic, but since Lavok is immune to poison by virtue of the IMOENHP1 item, she uses Bolts of Lightning instead of Bolts of Biting.
She attacks before Lavok turns hostile. Due to a bug, Lavok stays hostile even after he collapses and takes on his second form, which means I can't talk to him. Theoretically, I might have been able to talk to him by charming him, but I didn't consider this, and had to reload to avoid the bug.
This time, I let Lavok see Poppy at the start of the fight. I still have her clone attack Lavok while Poppy runs and hides, but the clone can only get in one Bolt of Lightning before Lavok casts Improved Mantle via Chain Contingency, meaning the clone can only hit him with +5 darts. And since Lavok is immune to stun by virtue of the MINHP1 and/or IMOENHP1 items, Power Attack won't help us. This means that even with Whirlwind Attack, Poppy's clone cannot disrupt Lavok's spells.
Lavok doesn't do much with the extra time, however. Not that he could: his spells are basically all worthless against Poppy's clone unless he casts Remove Magic, and Poppy's clone still has two Potions of Magic Shielding left, so her immunity to his spells isn't actually dispellable, so long as she remembers to renew it.
By the time the Time Stop ends, Lavok is out of Stoneskins and his Improved Mantle is worn off. He re-casts Improved Mantle, as I recall, but our darts go right through it.
This time, Lavok is non-hostile when he changes form. We can continue the quest as normal.
The Tanar'ri is tough. It can't paralyze us with Death Gaze so long as we're using the Shield of Harmony, but its Silence 15' Radius spell apparently prevents us from using Whirlwind Attack. Still, Poppy and her clone manage to bring down the demon with +5 darts before it can even take a swing at us.
It seems like the demon animation (the animation used for vanilla Nabassus and the Underdark Balor and Lesser Demon Lord) has unusually long damage animations, which means getting hit slows it down more than most critters. Between Poppy and her clone, we had 9 APR, and that was enough to slow its movement down to a crawl.
Our final challenge in the Planar Sphere was Tolgerias and his study buddy. To shake things up, I decide to sneak over to the north wall and attack Tolgerias from there, instead of attacking from the entrance like I normally do. Poppy's clone activated Whirlwind Attack and fired Bolts of Biting at Tolgerias, dealing substantial damage and rendering him nearly incapable of casting spells for 20 seconds, or just over three rounds. He still managed to cast Absolute Immunity, which we had to wait out, and in the meantime, we stunned his friend with Power Attack using nonmagical darts. By the time the mage was dead, Tolgerias' Absolute Immunity had run out, and he was again vulnerable.
Poppy gained a level and chose Critical Strike as her next HLA--not because we need critical hits, but because it's a prerequisite for Smite. Smite, like Power Attack, has an on-hit stun effect for 12 seconds, and the stun itself also lasts for 12 seconds. But unlike Power Attack, the stun effect of Smite offers no saving throw.
Internet unavailable in my laptop, so using iPhone instead. No screenshots available, but i haven't been taking many anyway.
To get the Boots of Speed, we went to the Planar Sphere. Talk block Aawill, then attack while hidden using simulacrum. Cloak of Non-Detection kept me hidden; Smite and Power Attack kept the enemy disabled, and Arrows of Dispelling took down enemy Stoneskins. Even the Warden could be stun locked thanks to Smite.
Brynnlaw! Perth the Adept falls to Smite.
Spellhold! Smite on Mind Flayer, attack with clone while hidden to slay Beholder and Kobolds. Lich stunned with Smite; Whirlwind took down its Stoneskins.
Traded mithril tokens for Boots of Grounding and the North. With all save-boosting items, we can resist the disintegrate trap.
Irenicus! Ran off to the west to leave Jonny to the inmates, then slew clone with Belm. Used Vhailor's Helm, hid, and had our clone take down Jonny's Stoneskins with Arrows of Dispelling. Then GWW for damage.
Sahuagin! With the Ring of Free Action, we are immune to stun, and so the area is a cakewalk.
Underdark! I accidentally enter the Mind Flayer lair, decide to forget the mistake and go to the Beholder hive, then change my mind. I tweak my install to let Poppy rest in the illithid city, then enter it again.
Somehow, drinking a Potion of Magic Shielding failed to protect me from a Mind Flayer Maze, which offers a saving throw. I decide to screw everything and do the Beholder hive instead. Call it a low-reload run if you like.
Attacked the Beholders while hidden. SCS Beholders don't steal your clone's Shield of Balduran, so the clone is nearly invincible. Got the Amulet of Spell Warding. With the right items, we can get our save vs. spell down to -2, just shy of undispellable immunity to psionic Maze. So Mind Flayers are a no go.
Just finished the Underdark. Left the illithid city well alone. Potions of Magic Shielding are worth more than Control Circlets.
Greater Deathblow on the illithid fight to rescue Imrae. Decided to test the Ust Natha quest and found that retreating into the treasury chamber doesn't keep the Egg Guards from turning the city hostile.
Greater Deathblow, however, does. This let me finish the quest safely.
Greater Deathblow took down the Beholders and Kuo-toa on the way out. Fire Seeds powered by Smite immobilized the drow party guarding the exit, and Greater Deathblow finished many of them off.
Along the way, we've collected many potions of magic protection, magic shielding, invulnerability, Kuo-toa bolts and other ammunition, and basically every item I can imagine a use for. Poppy is at level 30 with 6.6 million XP. Two Power Attacks, four (Greater) Whirlwind Attacks, Smite, Critical Strike, two (Greater) Deathblows, and three castings of Hardiness. Only 4 HLAs left.
Talk-blocked vampire ambush on entering the Graveyard, but in retrospect not necessary. Planned on using Pro-Undead scroll for top floor, but was able to hide and let the simulacrum do the work. GWW with Mace of Disruption on the vampires, darts on the rats and wolves, and Power Attack to stun Tanova. Paladins cast Fireball on themselves and blamed it on me.
Hareishan hid the whole time. To track her down, I ran around and tried hiding in shadows. When I failed, I knew she was nearby, so I could use the Book of Infinite spells for True Sight.
I forgot to mention: I used the simulacrum trick to duplicate the Book of Infinite Spells to avoid getting stuck with Burning Hands. So far I've only seen a use for True Seeing, though.
Pro-Undead scroll for Bodhi. Grimwarders see through it, but Bodhi does not. Elven Holy Water in the pools slowed Bodhi, and Drizzt dealt lots of damage very quickly. Sunray cleared most of the vampires and prompted Bodhi's Heal spell. When Drizzt got her back to Near Death, Poppy and her clone used GWW to get in the last shot.
I noticed Bodhi used no special powers and her two Mage friends were absent. Either the mages are only in Tactics or the closer SCS adaptation, and Bodhi had no time to use her big spells, or maybe those things didn't appear because the difficulty was low. I set it to Easy for scroll scribing in Sil's run, and forgot to turn it back to Core.
My original plan was not necessary. I had 9 extra Potions of Invulnerability from Ribald, plus 4 others, which would guarantee saving throws. I had enough of them to survive multiple Remove Magic spells, which I could have baited with the clone to save on potions. If I ran out of Pro-Undead scrolls, then Hardiness, the Shield of Harmony, the Mace of Disruption, and Dragonslayer could have blocked everything the enemy had.
Suldanessellar! Smite on Raamilaat, but he survived and cast Absolute Immunity, so I had the clone focus on the Nabassu instead. Raamilaat kept Poppy at bay with Sphere of Chaos and forced her clone to use Hardiness to survive his Minute Meteors and Mordenkainen's Swords. I summoned Efreet to use Magic Missile on the swords. When Raamilaat came close enough for me to see, we stunned him with Power Attack and cut through his Stoneskins with Whirlwind Attacks, a stellar combination for enemy mages.
It worked well on the Rakshasas, too, though I had to wait out their PFMW spells. The best they could do in the meantime was cast Stinking Cloud and Web (Poppy resists with saves and Ting of Free Action) and attack with their swords (Poppy resists with Hardiness).
Poppy is now at level 33. Her last 3 HLAs were GWW and two castings of Hardiness. She can achieve near or total immunity to physical damage for 30 rounds, without the Cloak of the Sewers. She also had 8 castings of Called Shot. And with the Bracers of Blinding Strike for Improved Haste, and two castings of Called Shot, Poppy can drain 24 STR without her clone. But usually Smite and Power Attack are sufficient, and require less hassle. Smite is especially nice thanks to the lack of a saving throw, which means a single Fire Seed is sufficient to disable enemy group for 2 rounds, or up to 4 if we keep hitting with it (the ability lasts 2 rounds, and so does the stun effect).
Poppy isn't quite so strong as Rovala, but it's fairly close. Poppy has 95% hit chance with her normal weapons, while Rovala sometimes struggles.
@Blackraven: Thank you. Good luck on your next run!
Continuing at Suldanessellar.
Nizidramanii'yt was underwhelming. I had protection from acid scrolls, but the dragon never even used its acid breath. I just buffed with Hardiness and killed it with darts.
For the fight with Suneer, I kept both Poppy and clone buffed with Hardiness to keep off the Iron Golem, Glabrezu, and Suneer's Energy Blades. He summoned a Fallen Planetar, but with GWW and FoA, we can quickly cut down the Planetar while preventing it from healing itself. Under certain install options, though, celestials in SCS2 cast spells instantly. When Suneer's Absolute Immunity wore off, we got him with Smite.
I forgot to equip the Tuigan Bow and Light Crossbow of Speed before spawning a clone for Irenicus. Only had +5 darts, Belm, and FoA. He turned invisible, and my pre-cast True Seeing from the Book of Infinite Spells was dispelled, so I had to flee when he began casting Time Stop. But after TS ended, he had no Absolute Immunity left, so we could hit him with Smite and then GWW. Jon falls.
I do my normal trick for manipulating the Hell rewards, but alter the balance: only 20 MR, but -6 to saves.
Poppy lost one DEX and Valygar's armor became unusable, but it did not get unequipped.
I prepped for the final battle with 3 Armor of Faith spells, an Oil of Speed, two Potions of Magic Protection, and I think one Potion of Absorption. Note that I uninstalled the Tactics remix final battle, as I deemed it unwinnable for Poppy, at least with the tactics I knew.
This means I fight Balors, Glabrezus, and Jon himself in Slayer form. The Balors have lots of Stoneskins, and the Glabrezus lots of Mirror Images. Not too easy to kill.
I summoned the clone early. It was consumed by the demons, whom I could not kill without using limited resources (GWW and IH from items). Irenicus attacked me during Time Stop, but his Remove Magic didn't dispel AoF until after TS was over. Poppy survived the attack. She has over 200 max HP, and can weather 3 rounds of instant hits since she had 75% damage resistance at the time.
Eventually Poppy got hit by a Telekinesis spell and was boxed in at the door at the north end of the area. A Balor was right in front of her; Irenicus and the other demons were stuck behind. They attacked with Unholy Blight, but Poppy made all her saves and was unaffected.
I deemed my current plan impossible and decided to let myself use the potion swap glitch to cast Simulacrum via a scroll. I collected many such items for just this sort of occasion, though I'd hoped I wouldn't need them. The clone killed a Balor, and we also took down a Fallen Planetar, but then the clone died and I saw I was running out of Hardiness spells, and my Potions of Absorption (all critters in this fight use blunt weapons, and damage-specific AC modifiers bypass the -24 AC cap) had already been drunk and dispelled.
I chose the nuclear option, my last resort.
I cast Improved Haste via the Bracers of Blinding Strike, equipping the DoE to stave off death.
I use the potion swap glitch to cast Limited Wish. I activate Called Shot while waiting to speak to the djinni. I pick the one-time wish to stop time.
Time Stops begins. Poppy attacks the Slayer with +5 darts, re-casting Called Shot to stack the effects.
Time Stop ends. All the darts hit Irenicus at once. He dies instantly.
Success! But I wasn't satisfied using the potion swap glitch, so I replayed the fight, using a new strategy.
The second time around, I ran away from the demons all over the map until Irenicus used up all 3 PFMW spells. He also wasted two Time Stop spells, during which he neglected to attack me, probably because it would have been an instant death given my lack of resistances. SCS2 AI is smart, but it's not sadistic.
I also got hit by Telekinesis again and was trapped in the exact same spot. I cast Hardiness twice (I have 5 total) and equipped DoE. I kill a Fallen Planetar with GWW using the FoA, like before, then equip the Boots of the North and finally spawn a clone via Vhailor's Helm.
Why the Boots of the North?
Irenicus is not stuck behind the demons this time. He's right next to us. This means we're vulnerable to Irenicus' cold damage, which we reduce from 2 to 1 with the Boots of the North. Every little bit helps.
I put both Poppy and her clone under three Hardiness spells for immunity to physical damage. Our excellent saves (this time, all the Hell rewards were save bonuses, for -10 total) mean all the enemy's spells are also useless. We now have a few rounds of free time.
I wait several seconds to make Poppy and her clone act simultaneously. We activate Improved Haste from the Bracers of Blinding Strike, then activate Called Shot. We attack Irenicus with +5 darts, at point-blank range, but we have the THAC0 to overcome the to-hit penalties.
I count five attacks, then activate Called Shot again, for 2 STR drained per hit. We continue attacking Irenicus.
Irenicus dies of STR drain. Success! And this time, without any glitches.
Took Poppy into TOB. Illasera had no defense against the Shield of Reflection, while the rest of the enemy fighters were blocked with AoF and Hardiness.
The first Pocket Plane trial killed Poppy. Irenicus dispelled Poppy's AoF, and a recover Hardiness was disrupted. She died under pressure from Sarevok, Bodhi, a couple Sahuagin, a Gnoll, and a bunch of undead summons from Irenicus.
No matter. I restarted, beat Illasera with ease, then began the trial again. This time I prebuffed with Hardiness, which can't be dispelled by Remove Magic (Breach can dispel it, though). For the rest of the battle, I just kept up my resistances and let the Cloak of Mirroring and my saves block Irenicus' spells. When Sarevok and Bodhi both fell, I hit Irenicus with Smite.
The vampires in Saradush could be tanked with the Mace of Disruption and AoF. The Shield of Harmony is finally obsolete thanks to Poppy's saves, so we equip the Sentinel instead.
Poppy failed to take down Gromnir. She entered while hidden and tried relying on her clone, but her clone couldn't survive long even with the DoE and a Hardiness spell at the start of combat, as her second Hardiness was interrupted or Breached. I fled to regroup, and when I returned, I let Poppy leave invisibility to interrupt a Conjuration spell from Halbazzer Drin.
The enemy mages cast Time Stop offscreen. After using a whole bunch of rather unimpressive spells, Karun the Black cast Maze on Poppy.
Poppy only has 20 MR. She got hit.
I suppose I'd have to keep Poppy out of sight and have her clone run around until she could get to 100 damage resistance, and then have the clone start taking down individual enemies, but I don't know if Poppy can stay hidden. She has no place to hide, and other forms of invisibility can be dispelled.
I don't think I know enough about SCS2 TOB to do a no-reload run here. SoA is one thing, but I've only beaten vanilla TOB maybe ten times, Ascension I think once, and maybe one other time with SCS2. There were other runs, but few progressed beyond Yaga-Shura or Draconis. And the only time I've ever beaten TOB solo was an insane solo poverty run with a Wild Mage abusing the hell out of the Nahal's Reckless Dweomer hotkey trick. And that was in vanilla TOB.
I think I should play through TOB in a separate run before restarting Poppy's run, or continuing Sil's. Poppy is bound to fail again, and Sil's chances of success are imperfect.
Finally caught up. Unless I've missed something you've no-reloaded all the way through SoA. That's a great feat, congratulations!
I have the same issue with ToB, lack of knowledge of the game. Maybe you could use Rovala as your test character for Poppy and Sil? I intend to do the same with Norgath (whose save I've kept).
I also notice you treat BG1, SoA and ToB as separate games (which they technically they are of course), and you allow yourself reloads of your saves made at the beginning of each part of the trilogy. Would you consider trying your hand at a no-reload trilogy run?
@Blackraven: I have considered a trilogy run, but I know even less about BG1 than I do about TOB. I've beaten SCS Tutu a grand total of one times. It would take special investment to make that happen.
I actually already started a new SoA run, a solo with SCS. But it's not no-reload, since I'm using a new class, for which I will post a new thread, once my computer can connect to the Internet and I can stop using my phone.
It's a Cleric/Illusionist/Thief. I always to try such a character, and I finally found a way to implement it. It's pretty close to a proper triple class, though there are inaccuracies.
So far, it has gone hilariously wrong on three separate occasions. In the process, I've found potential workarounds for people who do something completely game-breaking in a no-reload run. I think you'll like hearing it.
Rovala is long dead, but my affection for Archers continues, and so does this thread, for better or worse. This is a minor update.
I have been playing a party composed entirely of Archers for a while now. Currently they are in the Underdark and have collected two reloads so far, due to some risky decision-making on my part. Usually, they are completely broken and SCS2 enemies have difficulty surviving long. All of them are named after recurring characters in my IE game runs, since I've gotten attached to certain personalities and soundsets.
First, we have Bloody Howard, our dour frontliner, derived from a cleric I used in IWD2.
He specializes in slings, but usually just runs out with the Defender of Easthaven to soak up damage. Unfortunately, his Armor of Faith spells appear to be cast at a lower level than I expected. Even at level 14, he only get 10% resistance per casting.
Second, we have Snowy Tae, our motherly gnomish Archer. Like Bloody Howard, she has an illegally low Wisdom score, since she began as the Generic Archer fighter kit, which had no Wisdom requirement. I originally made them fighters instead of rangers in the erroneous belief that they could wear metal armor, which would match their portraits.
She specializes in darts, and like everyone in the party, she carries a huge stack of +5 darts created from the Cloak of Stars (or, more accurately, CLUAConsole). She enjoys the distinct advantage of being the only gnome in the group, and therefore has illegally low saving throws. It hasn't mattered much, though.
Third, we have Fobie, a goofy human Archer derived from a halfling thief I used in IWD, way back when.
The portrait is something I drew in Paint when I was feeling cheerful. He uses the Light Crossbow of Speed, but has also served an important supporting role by tanking with Lilarcor, keeping disablers away from the rest of the party.
Fourth, we have Saen, a serious human Archer named after a MadDragon in a DWM game many years ago.
She uses Firetooth, and has helped disrupt mage spells early on with its fire damage. For some reason, she also has a pip in maces, I guess because the good weapons were already taken.
Fifth, we have Rovala, a clone of the original Archer/Thief, but without the misspelled name or the thief levels.
She uses Heartseeker, since I forgot to buy Strongarm.
Finally, we have Poppy, easily the most common name in my IE characters. I just can't resist her smile.
She started out with the Tuigan Bow, but later switched to using darts.
A lot has happened, little of which I remember and even less that I've recorded. A few highlights from their run:
Bloody Howard exploding a statue as a rat
I heavily abused the door in this fight, since I had little faith in my group's ability to survive the two mage statues with their Time Stops and HLAs. I nearly exhausted a Rod of Resurrection bringing back dead party members, including Bloody Howard, who tanked out the last remaining statues in rat form. The statues all have 70% missile and piercing damage resistance, and Archers are not much good against them.
I tackled this encounter at level 11. Why? Because I wanted to get to level 12 before siding with Bodhi, and the statues gave just enough XP to allow every party member to deal STR drain. This is especially important, because I wanted to nab the Boots of Speed from Renal Bloodscalp, and the only way to get rid of the super-powered version of Arkanis Gath that spawns in is to kill him with stat drain.
It took 9 seconds to deal enough STR damage to bring him down. This was enough for him to make 3 attacks, which means half my party died, no saving throw.
But usually, STR drain was irrelevant.
The thing about a party composed entirely of Archers is that they have sky-high APR right out of Chateau Irenicus. Aside from the raw damage they can deal, they're also quite excellent at tearing down Stoneskins and disrupting spells. They can can break through two 20th-level Stoneskin spells in a single round.
Normally, SCS2 mages can block such nonsense with weapon immunities. But since I'm using +5 darts, and also have access to plenty of nonmagical ammunition, my Archers can break through any weapon immunity spell short of Absolute Immunity, which in SCS2 blocks all weapons. And most SCS2 mages use Improved Mantle, or occasionally PFMW, to defend themselves. Only liches and the absolute highest-level mages can survive more than two rounds. With +5 darts, this party doesn't even need Breach. Irenicus in Spellhold was helpless.
Had I played fair, however, things might have gone differently. I unequipped my missile weapons before the clones spawned, preventing my clones from attacking me with their best equipment. We likely could have survived the clones if they were properly equipped, but it would distract us from Irenicus and greatly prolong the battle, not to mention cost us a whole bunch of potions and charges from the Rod of Resurrection.
The problem with this party is that, if it DOESN'T kill a mage in the second round of combat, they're really not equipped to handle mage spells. I lost multiple charges from the Rod of Resurrection trying to survive the fight with the Githyanki on Desharik's ship.
And the two times this party died and had to reload were both the result of enemy spellcasters.
First, we died against Glaicas and company in the sewers, a group we tackled relatively early. I knew it wasn't a great idea, but I was having enough success that I thought I could scrape by.
Long story short, we spent many seconds trying to break down Glaicas' Stoneskins. And while we were busy with Glaicas, Zorl and Rengaard--both protected by Physical Mirror, and therefore immune to all of our ranged attacks--had lots of time to cast Greater Command. Poppy made her save, and drank a Potion of Invisibility to retreat and resurrect the other party members, but she got caught by a second Greater Command spell shortly thereafter.
Another time, I let an invisible Kuo-Toa mage survive too long out of our sight. Poppy failed her save against Chaos and got teleported via Teleport Field into a room full of hostile Kuo-Toa, who blocked the entrance, preventing the other Archers from rushing in to rescue her. Snowy Tae healed Poppy three times with the Rod of Resurrection, while the other party members cast Dispel Magic, all at once, in an attempt to dispel the Chaos spell, and later the stun effect from the Kuo-Toa Bolts that they were using against Poppy.
All the Dispel Magic spells failed. Then Snowy Tae, the only person with a Rod of Resurrection, and the only person in a position to use it on Poppy, got stunned by a Kuo-Toa Bolt. We managed to cast one more Dispel Magic, which also failed, before Poppy was slain.
This means that a party of Archers, armed with +5 darts, can take down almost anything in SCS2, even the game-ending Arkanis Gath. But if the enemy has Physical Mirror, or Absolute Immunity, or PFMW combined with an innate immunity to nonmagical weapons, then the Archers are essentially helpless, as they have no reliable means of removing weapon immunities, nor do they have the saves or the spell protections or the immunities they need to stand up to enemy magic.
I reloaded the battle and this time made sure Bloody Howard, who has the Ring of Free Action and Shield of Harmony and therefore cannot be stunned or confused or charmed, was the only one the Kuo-toa targeted. I sent him in alone, but he got enfeebled, so I had to switch him to rat form to bring his Strength back up. The Kuo-Toa still had a plan, however.
Bloody Howard doesn't have the saves to survive an instant death effect, so he spent the next few rounds running around in circles, trying to wait out the Slay Living spell. But it was hopeless.
I had neglected to unequip the Sling of Everard and Defender of Easthaven before switching to rat form. This meant Bloody Howard could not equip the Defender of Easthaven in his off hand, and therefore was stuck at the rat's innate 90% physical damage resistance... which is not quite sufficient to keep a character alive under constant pressure from Kuo-Toa Bolts, even with lots of potions on hand.
I then softened up the enemy with an Efreeti and its Fireball spells before sending in Snowy Tae and her clone, lingering at the doorway to form a choke point. Snowy Tae got surprised by the Kuo-Toa Prince, who snuck through while invisible and backstabbed her half to death. The whole party activated Called Shot and switched to darts, and the prince fell to STR drain.
We still had no Ring of Free Action, as it was still on Bloody Howard's body, but Snowy Tae and her clone were able to make their saves against the Kuo-Toa bolts simply by drinking a Potion of Stone Form.
So. Archers are really excellent at slaying mages, and if they use STR drain, they can also bring down enemies with stupendous HP, regeneration, or resistances much earlier than would otherwise be possible. Their damage doesn't compare with that of a Kensai, but they do have better range and therefore are better at chasing down SCS2 enemies, who run around and use Teleport Field a lot more than vanilla critters.
But, without a mage for debuffing, a party of Archers in SCS2 cannot safely handle enemy mages unless it targets them immediately. And it has very few options indeed against enemy clerics.
Comments
The Cloak of the Sewers is known for its rat shapeshift, which gets 90% resistance to physical damage, or 110% if you equip the Defender of Easthaven in the off hand. That form lasts 20 rounds and is enough to deal with almost any melee-based enemy. But I recently discovered another important benefit of the Cloak of the Sewers.
The Troll shapeshift gives you the same magical weapon as the Troll form from the Shapechange spell. And that magical weapon makes you immune to unconsciousness.
This is the only way a non-casting class can get immunity to Emotion and Stinking Cloud without relying on saving throws or MR, and as a human fighter, Poppy's saves aren't going to be reliable until much later in the game. We have a check against unconsciousness! This could prove very useful against Kangaxx, though Kangaxx can still dispel the Troll form's weapon with Remove Magic.
Right now, though, we have other problems. I want to take on Draug Fea and his fellow thugs. And I have just the means of doing it.
I conjure a simulacrum via Vhailor's Helm, hide in shadows, and approach the enemy while hidden. I send the simulacrum forth and charm Tarnor the Hatchetman.
He's not going to help me win the fight against the rest of the group, but that's not what I need him for. Right now, I just want to take him on a stroll.
Can you see where this is going?
I also charm Zorl and send him to the southeast corner of the map, then march Rengaard over to the Rakshasa's former hideout. This leaves Draug Fea, Gallchobhair, and Gaius together at the north end of the sewers.
Gaius is a problem. He has been and probably always will be the most dangerous member of the group, and he's the first one I want out of the battle. But he has a save vs. spell of 1, meaning the Ring of Human Influence cannot affect him.
But the Nymph Cloak doesn't use a save vs. spell. It uses a save vs. breath.
And it lasts 60 turns.
Gaius fails his save and promptly begins to prepare to take down his former pals.
As a high-level mage, his Animate Dead spell summons two Skeleton Warriors, along with the lesser Skeletons on the side. This isn't vanilla content--I never bothered to uninstall the removal of the summoning cap, or the altered versions of Animate Dead--but it doesn't make much difference. Gaius can get the job done with raw damage alone.
Unfortunately, Horrid Wilting gives us no XP. So, we can't let Gaius deal the killing blow anymore, or we'll miss out on half the reward. Gaius hits Draug Fea with a Flame Arrow and lets the summons and Poppy's clone do the rest.
From there, we head south, to meet Rengaard, who, to our delight, fails a save against the Ring of Human Influence. And Rengaard has lots of summoning spells.
The Ring of Human Influence's charm effect lasts 100 seconds, not 42 like in the Charm Person spell (though both offer a +3 bonus to the target's save), so Rengaard and Gaius spend many rounds wasting their best spells. Gaius has a lot of potential game over spells, and we don't want him to have any of them when we finally turn on him. For some of the buffing spells, I have Rengaard and Gaius start casting them and then order them to take a few steps to the side right afterward, allowing me to expend their spells without letting them gain any benefit from them.
Eventually, Rengaard is no longer useful to us. We swarm him.
Next up is Zorl, the other enemy cleric. Poppy can't try to charm him without turning visible (the last use of the Ring of Human Influence came from Poppy's clone), so we just attack him.
Two people left. Gaius spends some of his last spells on taking down Tarnor the Hatchetman, who demands that we hand over our gold once Poppy breaks her invisibility by throwing her darts. We say no.
We let him live just long enough to break through Gaius' Stoneskins, and bring Gaius to Near Death.
We go over the area to make sure we've gotten everybody. Finally, we confirm it.
Gaius is the only one left.
We have him empty his spellbook in front of us, and just for the hell of it, we use his last spell to silence him.
Completely unnecessary. But very satisfying.
We gather up all the loot and sell it to Roger, for over 15,000 gold.
Draug Fea just paid for our trip to Spellhold. But we've still got a lot more to do.
how can Poppy use Valygar's armour without UAI? I always wanted to don it on somebody else than its original owner but it seems to need both stat match and UAI to work...
It also requires 18 DEX and 11 WIS, ruling out Minsc, Anomen, and Sarevok. The Gauntlets of Dexterity allow Anomen to wear it, and you can get in on Sarevok or Minsc by having them drink a Potion of Insight as well. Sarevok can also wear it if you use the Machine of Lum the Mad to boost his DEX and WIS by one point.
thanks! I indeed play EE... the armour is flagged 'usable by: VALYGAR' and requires 6 STR, 18 DEX + 11 WIS.
which means only Jan or Hexxat might be able to get it with proper setup...
You only have to accept, not complete, the Unseeing Eye quest to be offered the Sir Sarles quest.
For the first, I had no choice but to down a couple Potions of Invulnerability, worth over 2000 gold put together, just to get past it.
Notice the unusual amount of damage: 23. Normally Prismatic Spray does round numbers, but since Poppy is wearing Valygar's armor, she resists magic, acid, and fire damage, and according to the spell file, most damage from Prismatic Spray is magic damage, but the d100 rolls that do magic damage do not cause the Feeblemind, petrification, or Disintegrate effects that would end Poppy's run. So Poppy didn't really need those potions. But it's impossible for us to know that in advance.
I actually forgot about the second trap. I don't have the Necklace of Form Stability, so I can't expect to make the save without one or more expensive potions. But you can actually just edge around it.
I considered this a test, hence the quick save. It's a pity we still needed potions to ensure Poppy's safety against the first trap.
I then paid a visit to Mekrath's lair, anticipating some easy XP. It did not turn out quite how I expected.
My only defense against that is the Ring of Air Control. But Yuan-ti Mages also have True Seeing. So this could get complicated.
I enter the area while hidden and hide behind a bookcase to spawn in my clone and conjure my summons, who clear the central room of the Mephits. I rest and approach the Coiled Cabal while hidden. Poppy's clone uses the Nymph Cloak on the strongest visible enemy.
I now have a high-powered ally for the next 60 turns. Poppy retreats, letting the Greater Yuan-ti and our other allies deal with the enemy. I figure the Greater Yuan-ti should be able to turn the tide of battle in our favor.
Unfortunately, our friends are not strong enough to win the battle, and the enemy slithers out of the eastern rooms. Thanks to SCS2 AI, they can follow after me even when I'm invisible, but the only True Seeing spell active does not reach me, as the mage who cast it is in the other room.
I wait, hoping to run out the duration on their buffs, though I honestly don't have a clue what I would do after that, since I have precious little hope of evading or preventing a Finger of Death spell.
The others enter the central room, somehow aware that my simulacrum, which they saw at the beginning of battle (without True Seeing active) was not the true source of the summons. I decide to back away to avoid being exposed by True Seeing. This was a profoundly bad move on my part.
SCS2 enemies are very good at boxing people in, and this is a constant danger for solo characters. The strange thing is, they can box you in even without knowing where you are.
With all my summons dead and the Greater Yuan-ti also gone, Poppy is, amazingly enough, managing to hide in plain sight, literally inches away from the Yuan-ti Mages who knew enough to box her in, but never considered attacking, or even feeling around, the tiny space where they know Poppy is hiding. It's a peculiar quirk due to the limitations of the Infinity Engine, and SCS2's AI. SCS2 AI is actually uniformly spectacular; this is a rare oddity.
After bumping around the Yuan-ti and the Mephits (from the southwestern corridor I failed to clear out), I find that Poppy is completely trapped. And the way will not be clear I either chop through some enemies or get them to move.
In that matter, we are in luck.* Poppy has a few copies of Ras hidden in the Bag of Holding I finally decided to allow myself to use, and hopefully they will help us finagle a way out of this pickle.
*Anybody notice this is a quote from Ulbrec Dinnsmore of IWD2?
Poppy drinks a potion, only to find this causes her to leave the shadows. She activates the Ring of Air Control to preserve her safety, then begins summoning Ras.
The first copy of Ras we conjure fails to get the enemies out of the way. It does get some of them moving, but doesn't budge any of the ones actually touching Poppy. The second one does not appear--I later realized it spawned just behind a bookcase, which is why I couldn't see it and nobody seems to have attacked it. But the third one draws the attention of the right Yuan-ti, and I lead them out into the central room, freeing Poppy.
Now we can leave the area, rest, and return with our resources recharged. But the Yuan-ti have not given up chasing us.
What's interesting is that they spawned in front of Poppy, instead of behind her. The Yuan-ti form a wall around the exit, so I go back up the stairs to try to rest. There's still a single Yuan-ti in the central room of Mekrath's lair, however, so I have to continue up the otherwise-useless stairs leading to a balcony in the Bridge District. That balcony leads nowhere, but it does give me a place to rest before taking on the Yuan-ti.
The one last Yuan-ti in Mekrath's lair goes down easily. But we still have a wall of Yuan-ti downstairs. Poppy goes down the stairs while hidden, activates the Ring of Air Control, and adds a Potion of Invisibility to her first quick slot.
Poppy spawns a clone, who immediately downs the Potion of Invisibility so she can summon Ras without attracting the enemy's attention.
The gambit fails. The Yuan-ti Mages respond immediately to the clone's presence. But their spell choice couldn't be better.
We're free! There are two Teleport Fields active, so I get phased right back to where I started, but all I have to do escape again is wait a few seconds until the Teleport Field takes me west of the wall.
I still need to take down those mages, though. I leave the area, rest, bring out my summons, and send everybody after the mages.
Without direction, however, my summons are no more effective out here than they were in Mekrath's lair. I need to reconfigure my strategy. Poppy can certainly escape the Yuan-ti, but she can't actually win the fight using the same tools.
I decide to make use of Poppy's stack of Darts of Wounding. Poppy tweaks her quick slots: one Potion of Magic Shielding, one Oil of Speed, and the spider figurine. The clone should have fairly respectable APR when hasted, and the poison effect should doom any mage who should fail a save against it. I lead Poppy and her summons over to the west.
The Yuan-ti Mages' invisibility and True Seeing spells make things complicated. To avoid being targeted by a Finger of Death spell, Poppy needs to stay hidden, but True Seeing reveals her. Poppy could linger out of the enemy's range of vision, but then she wouldn't be able to direct her clone, who won't attack anything without an order.
We get a sudden scare when one of the mages appears right next to Poppy, and activates all of its buffs when it does so. If it activated its buffs any earlier, then we could have seen it coming.
But Poppy is hidden and her clone is not, so we don't get targeted by anything. Poppy flees while her clone starts flinging darts, but the Yuan-ti Mage has PFMW, starting a four-round stalemate in which neither the mage nor the clone can harm each other, since the clone makes all of its saves automatically.
And when the mage finally loses its Stoneskin spells, it stubbornly resists our clone's poison.
And eventually, the clone runs out of darts entirely. Poppy hurries forward until she can see the mage so she can order her clone to switch to Belm and continue attacking the mage. I can have the clone switch weapons from offscreen, but I can't make it keep fighting unless I can click on the mage.
I repeat the process with the other mages, but this time, I send out some summons first, causing the mages to waste their PFMW spells early and letting the clone attack only when they ran out. We also add an extra Potion of Magic Shielding to Poppy's inventory, allowing her clone to restore her buffs even after being hit by Remove Magic.
A Yuan-ti Mage's Stinking Cloud spell discourages Poppy from directing her clone's actions, but with the Troll form, she can enter the cloud without risk.
This time, the mage fails its save vs. death. It is doomed.
We're still not done yet. We already killed two Yuan-ti Mages, which is all I saw the first time I checked inside their room, but that wasn't all of them. The next mage tries to defend itself with Stinking Cloud and Teleport Field, but it's no use. The Efreeti and Kitty aren't the real threat. They're only there to drain the mages of their PFMW spells.
Another failed save! But since the clone vanishes before the mage dies, we don't get the XP.
Only one left to go. We repeat our strategy. This time, the Yuan-ti Mage drinks a Potion of Extra Healing to stave off death. But by spending its round drinking a potion, it can't cast a spell for another 6 seconds, letting Poppy break her invisibility and attack without risk.
The last Yuan-ti falls.
Much progress has been made since the last post, but due to some boneheaded decisions on my part, several times Poppy survived largely thanks to tactics even I would consider pretty unfair. If I had just made two slight modifications to my plan, then I would have succeed in a fair fight.
I don't remember everything that's happened since the debacle with the Coiled Cabal, but I will try to recount where I've been. Much less will be posted here as far as screenshots go, except for a handful of major fights. Bear in mind Poppy has probably been gathering many more sources of XP than I will describe here, since my only record of this run is in the form of screenshots and my own memory, and neither of them is complete.
After slaying Mekrath, I took on the de'Arnise Keep. Darts of Stunning on Glaicas, +5 darts on the golems, Flail of Ages and Belm on the Clay Golem, and Efreeti Fireballs and +5 darts for basically everything else.
From there, I took on Rayic Gethras. I kited him all the way outside of his home, draining his spells with summons and hit-and-fade ranged attacks. When his defenses were down, I switched to Firetooth and Bolts of Lightning. In the end, he was slain by a Magic Missile from an Efreeti. With Ray-Ray dead, I could finish the rest of the Mae'var questline.
Once that was done, I could side with Bodhi without losing out on a major source of gold and XP. This meant I could get the Mace of Disruption, upgrade it, and get immunity to level drain, which I wanted before I fought the Vampiric Wraiths in Watcher's Keep, which I have to fight to get the Ammo Belt.
After siding with Bodhi, I decided to clear out the first level of the Shadow Thief hideout early. I've seen the mages there cast Sphere of Chaos before, so this is a risky encounter. I entered the area while hidden and had a simulacrum trigger the enemy's buffs, which I could wait out elsewhere while my simulacrum picked off the non-casting enemies. When a mage cornered me, I switched to Darts of Stunning and activated Called Shot, which brought down the mage very easily, as she had already wasted her PFMW protecting herself from my simulacrum. Afterward, I dealt with Mook and completed Bodhi's first quest, but did not report back to her, since Bodhi always warns you that taking too long to complete the second quest may cause you to fail.
I then went to Watcher's Keep and took down the Vampiric Wraiths while dual-wielding Belm and the Mace of Disruption--for once, with Belm in the main hand, since I had no pips in maces. In the process of looting the first area, I walked around a petrification trap and made a lucky save against what appeared to be a Finger of Death trap. I took down all hostile enemies in the area, plus the Guardian Golems, but did not begin the ritual so I wouldn't have to fight the statues.
I then returned to the Unseeing Eye quest, where I hoped to duplicate the Shield of Balduran. SCS2 Beholders will try to steal the SOB from you after a few rounds, and since the shield appears on the body of whichever Beholder stole it from you, I assumed it would take the shield from Poppy's simulacrum, creating a duplicate copy on the Beholder's body.
This did not pan out. The Beholders refused to steal the clone's shield. Instead, they just floated over and started biting her when they realized their rays were useless. So, I just had the clone whomp on the Beholders until they died. Poppy hid in the corner to direct her clone.
For the Blind Priests, I had the clone drink a Potion of Magic Shielding to block the clerics' disablers, and disrupt their spells with Belm and the Flail of Ages. Again, Poppy herself hid. She was eventually exposed, and hit with Blindness, but she hasted herself with Arbane's Sword and fled the area to avoid getting hit by a Greater Command spell.
I intended to have Poppy's clone also deal with the Unseeing Eye single-handedly, but for some reason, the clone could not attack it after using the Rift Device on it. I'd just get an auto-pause saying the target vanished, even though the Unseeing Eye was perfectly visible. So, I had to take Poppy out of hiding to slay the beholder with darts. Then, to avoid the Death Tyrants, Poppy drank a Potion of Invisibility, ran off, rested, and returned to hit the Death Tyrants with the Rift Device, fired from her clone, and finish them off with darts. The same tactic worked against Gaal.
From there, I went to the Windspear Hills. The Ruhk Transmuter failed a save against his own Web spell (for some reason, I keep seeing Rakshasas get hurt by their own spells), allowing me to get in some free hits, but I had to resort to Arbane's Sword, since I might get disabled by the Web if I used darts. The Stinking Cloud wasn't an issue, however, as Poppy had guaranteed saves against it, thanks to the Cloak of Displacement.
I originally intended to take down the vampires in Firkraag's lair with the simulacrum, who would attack with the Mace of Disruption while under the effects of a scroll of Protection from Undead, while Poppy would stay hidden nearby, as she did with the Beholders. The clone made short work of several of the vampires, but vanished before all of them died. Since I've had bad experiences with vampire survivors ambushing me days after I thought the whole group was dead, I decided to finish off the rest of the vampires. To save the scroll of Protection from Undead, Poppy just equipped the Mace of Disruption with the Shield of Harmony to block both level drain and domination.
But apparently, the Shield of Harmony doesn't fully protect you from a vampire's Domination spell.
At first, I was going to grant myself a reload, on the grounds that Poppy couldn't possibly have gotten charmed, but then I noticed the game wasn't over, despite the fact that I couldn't select Poppy and she had the little rising green magic animation indicating a failed save vs. a charm spell. Somehow, she had been rendered unselectable but not charmed, confused, held, or knocked unconscious. She just stood there while the vampires struggled to hit her.
When she recovered, I had her use up her scroll of Protection from Undead and spend some time stomping on the Giant Rats that the vampires had summoned while she was disabled, since the rats were dealing a fair amount of disease damage. From there, she attacked the vampires, and when the vampires turned invisible, she lured them out of hiding with a summons.
I decided not to take on Samia, as I wasn't sure I would be able to. Rovala took down the whole group with traps, but Poppy has no traps and never will.
Since Poppy is rapidly approaching 3 million XP, I sent her back to Bodhi to profit from the main quest's substantial quest XP bonuses. There are two choices for Bodhi's second quest: rescuing somebody from the Shadow Thieves, or killing a nobleman. Normally I prefer the "sickly hero's task," but that entails fighter more Shadow Thief mages, and I believe all of them may cast Sphere of Chaos.
To avoid dealing with any more Sphere of Chaos spells, I chose the "unseemly task," but I ended up sparing the guy's life because I was afraid of becoming a Fallen Ranger. I don't really know the parameters for becoming a Fallen Ranger or Paladin, other than low reputation or picking the "evil" options in Hell. Bodhi took the news well, however.
I then invaded Aran Linvail's lair, and went just far enough to reach level 18. I picked Whirlwind Attack as my first HLA. I have some very big plans for that HLA, but first, I need Cernd to give me some Fire Seeds.
Cernd was still at level 10, so I had to bring him into the party and fight some of the critters I left alone when I last visited the grove. Kyland Lind and company fell to Efreeti Fireballs and Kitty's Web Tangle spells. Once I slew the trolls just northeast of the Troll Mound, Cernd hit level 11. Once I confirmed I could make his Fire Seeds permanent by putting them in the Ammo Belt, I removed him from the party. I will now cheat in Fire Seeds to mimic the effects of borrowing Cernd whenever I need more.
Fire Seeds will allow me to drain STR through PFMW and Absolute Immunity. Poppy's clone is at level 12 now, and therefore her Called Shot will do STR drain even without a Restoration scroll to bring her up to Poppy's level. The clone will also have Whirlwind Attack for 6 seconds of 10 APR, and since Called Shot lasts 12 seconds, and we can have at most 10 Fire Seeds in one stack, Poppy and her clone together can drain 20 STR in one round, provided they have one extra round to prepare. And since our Efreeti summons has 20 STR, we will have a viable target for our Fire Seeds.
Now that we have Whirlwind Attack and Fire Seeds, we are ready to face Kangaxx.
The Shade Lich appears. To ensure we have enough time, we talk-block him before activating Whirlwind Attack. We attack the Efreeti, draining the Shade Lich's STR through splash damage.
Next up is the Elemental Lich. Apparently the petrification trap uses a save vs. spell, not a save vs. petrification.
Another trap where we got lucky. I had a couple extra scrolls of Protection from Petrification, so this could have been made safer.
I repeat the same tactic on the Elemental Lich, but the Efreeti moves too far out of the way as it turns hostile, allowing the Elemental Lich to live.
Fortunately, our clone absorbs most of the Lich's spells, and Poppy's clone came pre-buffed with a Potion of Magic Shielding. But the Lich is not done. It re-casts Time Stop and summons a Planetar.
The Planetar soon kills Poppy's clone. I flee the area and don't come back until the Planetar is gone.
I don't like waiting out the enemy's spells, but there wasn't really a better way of dealing with the situation after the Planetar was out. Poppy could make her saves against the Planetar's vorpal strikes, but she wouldn't be able to take the damage, particularly since she'd also have to deal with the Lich.
I returned and drained some more of the Lich's spells with my remaining summons. Once I confirmed the Elemental Lich had cast all three of its PFMW spells, I activated Called Shot and attacked with +5 darts. Once I had made my first four attacks, I activated Called Shot again, allowing Poppy to drain 2 STR per hit for the next 6 seconds.
Now all that's left is Kangaxx.
The reason we couldn't kill the Elemental Lich with STR was because our summons, the Efreeti, moved too far away from the Lich during the first round. But I have just the tool to prevent that from happening.
Earlier, I purchased the Short Sword of Mask from Garlena, knowing that it would allow me to immobilize enemies who were immune to hold and web. The Short Sword of Mask has a 15% chance per hit of entangling the target for 24 seconds. This does not bypass MR, but it offers no save.
This means I can fix our target summons in place by giving them a whack with the Short Sword of Mask. The summons will stay in place even if it tries to attack us. This solves our problem of rebellious summons.
Unfortunately, I make a fatal mistake in setting up our target.
I used Kitty instead of the Efreeti. Kitty, who has no immunity to fire and will therefore take 2d8 damage per hit, with a save for half. To slay Kangaxx, we need 10 hits, which means Kitty has to survive 9d8 to 18d8 damage.
She doesn't. She only has 44 HP.
I try to reconfigure the situation, but it's hopeless. Kangaxx already has PFMW up, and it takes two or three seconds to bring out the Efreeti. Our Whirlwind Attack quickly runs out. What's more, our clone only has 4 Fire Seeds left. We will simply not be able to kill Kangaxx with STR through PFMW.
Kangaxx starts casting a Transmutation spell. Poppy runs away to make sure Kangaxx focuses on her clone.
Poppy's clone does not survive the hail of Energy Blades and spells, despite her Potion of Magic Shielding. Kangaxx summons a Planetar, so Poppy runs out the door and waits until the Planetar is gone.
We return to Kangaxx and distract him with Ras until he spends his third and final PFMW spell. Poppy switches to Firetooth and Bolts of Lightning. Kangaxx's spellcasting is over.
Soon, he changes to Demi-Lich form. But Poppy is prepared for this.
Poppy has the Corthala Family Armor and the Belt of Inertial Barrier already equipped, giving her 75% resistance to magic damage. Kangaxx's favorite offensive spell in Demi-Lich form is Horrid Wilting, which Poppy can resist quite readily. And since SCS2 prevents enemy spellcasters from using Imprisonment on the main character, we don't need to worry about Trap the Soul, either. Finally, we need no defense against Kangaxx's Demilich Howl, either, as Poppy has a guaranteed save thanks to the Helm of Balduran, the Ring of Earth Control, the Cloak of Displacement, and her low base save vs. death thanks to her high fighter levels.
Kangaxx wastes his first Time Stop and his first PFMW spell (he has three castings of PFMW for each form) on Ras, which is immune to Imprisonment. But Ras doesn't last long, and soon Kangaxx starts targeting Poppy.
I know this fight, and there are three things that could spell my doom: Remove Magic, Emotion, and Horrid Wilting. Remove Magic will dispel the Troll form's weapon, exposing me to Emotion, and it will also dispel my potions, which will expose me to both Emotion and Horrid Wilting, as my save vs. spell is an unreliable 5 or so. I counter Greater Malison with a Potion of Invulnerability, but otherwise do not act.
I can only survive so many castings of Horrid Wilting, so I will need to heal myself eventually. But every time I heal myself, I will be unable to act for 6 seconds, which means that if Kangaxx uses Emotion, I might not be able to drink a Potion of Magic Shielding quickly enough to keep myself protected. So I must be very careful about when I heal myself.
Thankfully, Poppy is quite resistance to Horrid Wilting, giving us an important barrier.
Once Kangaxx is out of Remove Magic spells, we will be safe. Until then, I have nothing to do but break through Kangaxx's Stoneskins, and Poppy excels at that.
Kangaxx gets lazy in renewing his defenses, sparing us some extra damage. Poppy has a 95% hit chance and 4.5 APR, so it's very easy for her to take advantage of a moment of vulnerability.
When he runs out of Horrid Wilting, Kangaxx switches to Flame Arrow, which Poppy is much less resistant to. Potions aren't enough here, so we use the Rod of Resurrection.
We now have to wait 6 seconds before we can take action again. Kangaxx makes the perfect move: Emotion. But Poppy drinks a Potion of Magic Shielding right before the spell hits.
If she was standing a single circle closer, she wouldn't have drunk the potion in time, and could have failed her save. But now Kangaxx is out of options. We have resisted his Horrid Wilting spells, resisted his Flame Arrows, and resisted Emotion. All he has left are Cloudkill spells, which we can easily avoid. Poppy finally breaks him down.
We have lost one Potion of Magic Shielding, one Potion of Invulnerability, four Potions of Extra Healing, and one charge from the Rod of Resurrection, but now, we have the Ring of Gaxx, which can get our save vs. spell all the way down to 1, rendering us immune to many dangerous spells.
Sparing the guy's life in Bodhi's second task allows you to keep the Shadow Thief Dagger, which sets your APR to 2, despite not being a throwing dagger. This extra attack is added to your main hand even if the dagger is wielded in the off hand, just like any other speed weapon. This means Kundane, Belm, and the Scarlet Ninja-to are not the only speed weapons in vanilla BG2! The dagger unfortunately does not get a STR bonus and is a nonmagical weapon. This means it's normally not stronger than Belm/Kundane/Scarlet Ninja-to, but is a little more effective when dealing with PFMW. The fact that it SETS base APR to 2 instead of adding 1 also means that it allows projected images to attack (it also overrides the effect of the Boots of Lightning Speed, which unfortunately do not show up in BG2). Also, a projected image using the Shadow Thief Dagger, whether dual-wielding or not, gets 1 better APR than a projected image using Belm/Kundane/Scarlet Ninja-to.
So we have a nonmagical speed weapon with poor damage that gives projected images the same APR as the original caster.
But first, I decide to go get the Cloak of Non-Detection from Brennan Risling, as the cloak will allow Poppy to remain hidden in shadows despite divination magic (though magical invisibility can still be dispelled). We have a new summons in the form of the Ring of Djinni Summoning, and the Djinni from the ring has some awesome spells at its disposal: Magic Missile, Stinking Cloud, Lightning Bolt, PFMW, and Globe of Invulnerability. According to DLTCEP, the Djinni also has the MONHP1 ring, which will prevent it from dropping below 1 HP.
I bring all of our summons save Ras into play with Mencar Pebblecrusher and the gang. Poppy casts Protection from Fire, and the Djinn cast GOI, to get immunity to our Efreet's Fireball spells. Poppy is already immune to Stinking Cloud by virtue of her low save vs. death, so Poppy can stay hidden and direct her summons without worrying about getting disabled.
Pooky and Amon die to the Fireballs. Brennan falls unconscious and is quickly torn apart. Mencar and Smelly survive just long enough to somehow slay one of the Djinn. A helpful message reminds us of how awful that is.
This was the first time we ever used the Ring of Djinni Summoning in combat. Now it is gone forever, wasted on Mencar Pebblecrusher and his pals, who at this stage in the game were no threat whatsoever.
I was really looking forward to those Lightning Bolt and Stinking Cloud spells. But we can get by without them. I still don't understand how the Djinni died when it had the MONHP1 item. There were no instant death effects that could have bypassed it, or level drain or stat drain. It just died from pure damage.
Anyway, we return to Firkraag's lair to murdalize Samia. We originally plan on slaying the enemy party with STR drain, activating Called Shot and then Whirlwind Attack, but we botch the timing and end up killing them with fire damage instead, which actually wins us more XP. Only Kaol survives, and even though he's got his defenses up, we can still interrupt his spells by flinging Fire Seeds at Kitty.
After going through the Mask of King Strohm mini-quest, Poppy gains a new level, and chooses Power Attack instead of Hardiness as her next HLA. Power Attack, normally just taken as a prerequisite for Critical Strike, is a marvelous addition to Poppy's options. She can now disable the enemy with ANY weapon, not just Darts of Stunning, though Darts of Stunning will still force extra saving throws. Power Attack lasts 12 seconds, as does the stun effect itself, which bypasses MR, cannot be dispelled, and offers a save vs. death at a -4 penalty, meaning it can disable most anything that's not immune to opcode 45.
The rest of the dungeon is fairly easy. The only remaining problem is Conster, but Poppy's clone manages to stun him with Power Attack using nonmagical darts to break through his PFMW spell.
We leave Firkraag alone and mash Valygar's body into the keyhole to the Planar Sphere. There aren't any important items in the Planar Sphere, but there's a lot of XP, and we have options for dealing with each of the major challenges.
First, we have the Sahuagin, whose Paralytic Bolts I can block with Arbane's Sword. If Arbane's Sword didn't have that effect, I'd have to drink a valuable potion before facing them, or not bother with them at all. Paralytic Bolts use the stun effect, bypass MR, and require a save vs. spell, and Poppy's save vs. spell is terrible.
Togan and the other psychic interplanar hobbits are another story. They have lots of high-level spells and defenses, including invisibility, which is a major problem for Poppy, who has no means of dispelling illusions. But we can work our way around this.
I have Poppy equip the Light Crossbow of Speed, the Tuigan Bow, and a stack of +5 darts. In her quiver are nonmagical bolts, Bolts of Biting, and Arrows of Dispelling. This is an excellent combination for enemy spellcasters, as it gives us a check against any defense besides invisibility or Physical Mirror (which Mogadish uses, but I can disrupt his spells with Fire Seeds from the original Poppy). If the enemy mage has Improved Mantle, we can break through it with +5 darts, and try to stun it with Power Attack. If the enemy mage has PFMW, we use the Light Crossbow of Speed with nonmagical bolts, and again, Power Attack can break through Stoneskin. If the enemy has neither, we can hit him or her with an Arrow of Dispelling to remove all of their other defenses, rendering them vulnerable to our most damage options, which is the Light Crossbow of Speed with Bolts of Biting.
With Whirlwind Attack, Greater Whirlwind Attack, and Power Attack, we are able to breach the enemy's defenses and cut through their Stoneskins. Fire Seeds also allow us to clear up the groups of low-level Animate Dead summons that SCS2 mages appear fond of summoning (at least with the summoning cap removed). Poppy's clone vanishes before we can kill Kayardi, so we run back to the Knights of Solamnia, rest, and return to finish her off with Whirlwind Attacks and darts.
There is also a Finger of Death trap on the first level of the Planar Sphere, which Poppy can neither avoid nor disarm. And since Finger of Death uses a save vs. spell instead of a save vs. death (at least one mod changes that, but I don't have it installed), and since that save comes at a -2 penalty, Poppy cannot rely on her saves to keep her alive.
Well, she did make her save in a test run. But that was a test to see what kind of trap it was. When I reloaded to play the trap for real, I had to prepare a defense.
There were two options for protecting Poppy from this trap: Potions of Magic Shielding and Potions of Magic Protection. I had 8 Potions of Magic Protection and only 3 Potions of Magic Shielding (the hobbits dropped several of those potions), and only Potions of Magic Shielding can be used as a last-second defense against Finger of Death and the like (they guarantee a save, while Potions of Magic Protection merely give an extra 50% to MR, which can be bypassed), so the Potions of Magic Shielding were the more valuable of the two. I decided to drink two Potions of Magic Protection, viewing it as the less costly option, and ran over the Finger of Death trap.
Success! And now I get to face Lavok with 100% magic resistance! Still, he can dispel that with a single Remove Magic spell, so I'll want to attack him only using Poppy's clone.
The clone uses the same setup she did with the hobbits, including drinking a Potion of Magic Shielding to keep her safe from Lavok's magic, but since Lavok is immune to poison by virtue of the IMOENHP1 item, she uses Bolts of Lightning instead of Bolts of Biting.
She attacks before Lavok turns hostile. Due to a bug, Lavok stays hostile even after he collapses and takes on his second form, which means I can't talk to him. Theoretically, I might have been able to talk to him by charming him, but I didn't consider this, and had to reload to avoid the bug.
This time, I let Lavok see Poppy at the start of the fight. I still have her clone attack Lavok while Poppy runs and hides, but the clone can only get in one Bolt of Lightning before Lavok casts Improved Mantle via Chain Contingency, meaning the clone can only hit him with +5 darts. And since Lavok is immune to stun by virtue of the MINHP1 and/or IMOENHP1 items, Power Attack won't help us. This means that even with Whirlwind Attack, Poppy's clone cannot disrupt Lavok's spells.
Lavok doesn't do much with the extra time, however. Not that he could: his spells are basically all worthless against Poppy's clone unless he casts Remove Magic, and Poppy's clone still has two Potions of Magic Shielding left, so her immunity to his spells isn't actually dispellable, so long as she remembers to renew it.
By the time the Time Stop ends, Lavok is out of Stoneskins and his Improved Mantle is worn off. He re-casts Improved Mantle, as I recall, but our darts go right through it.
This time, Lavok is non-hostile when he changes form. We can continue the quest as normal.
The Tanar'ri is tough. It can't paralyze us with Death Gaze so long as we're using the Shield of Harmony, but its Silence 15' Radius spell apparently prevents us from using Whirlwind Attack. Still, Poppy and her clone manage to bring down the demon with +5 darts before it can even take a swing at us.
It seems like the demon animation (the animation used for vanilla Nabassus and the Underdark Balor and Lesser Demon Lord) has unusually long damage animations, which means getting hit slows it down more than most critters. Between Poppy and her clone, we had 9 APR, and that was enough to slow its movement down to a crawl.
Our final challenge in the Planar Sphere was Tolgerias and his study buddy. To shake things up, I decide to sneak over to the north wall and attack Tolgerias from there, instead of attacking from the entrance like I normally do. Poppy's clone activated Whirlwind Attack and fired Bolts of Biting at Tolgerias, dealing substantial damage and rendering him nearly incapable of casting spells for 20 seconds, or just over three rounds. He still managed to cast Absolute Immunity, which we had to wait out, and in the meantime, we stunned his friend with Power Attack using nonmagical darts. By the time the mage was dead, Tolgerias' Absolute Immunity had run out, and he was again vulnerable.
Poppy gained a level and chose Critical Strike as her next HLA--not because we need critical hits, but because it's a prerequisite for Smite. Smite, like Power Attack, has an on-hit stun effect for 12 seconds, and the stun itself also lasts for 12 seconds. But unlike Power Attack, the stun effect of Smite offers no saving throw.
To get the Boots of Speed, we went to the Planar Sphere. Talk block Aawill, then attack while hidden using simulacrum. Cloak of Non-Detection kept me hidden; Smite and Power Attack kept the enemy disabled, and Arrows of Dispelling took down enemy Stoneskins. Even the Warden could be stun locked thanks to Smite.
Brynnlaw! Perth the Adept falls to Smite.
Spellhold! Smite on Mind Flayer, attack with clone while hidden to slay Beholder and Kobolds. Lich stunned with Smite; Whirlwind took down its Stoneskins.
Traded mithril tokens for Boots of Grounding and the North. With all save-boosting items, we can resist the disintegrate trap.
Irenicus! Ran off to the west to leave Jonny to the inmates, then slew clone with Belm. Used Vhailor's Helm, hid, and had our clone take down Jonny's Stoneskins with Arrows of Dispelling. Then GWW for damage.
Sahuagin! With the Ring of Free Action, we are immune to stun, and so the area is a cakewalk.
Underdark! I accidentally enter the Mind Flayer lair, decide to forget the mistake and go to the Beholder hive, then change my mind. I tweak my install to let Poppy rest in the illithid city, then enter it again.
Somehow, drinking a Potion of Magic Shielding failed to protect me from a Mind Flayer Maze, which offers a saving throw. I decide to screw everything and do the Beholder hive instead. Call it a low-reload run if you like.
Attacked the Beholders while hidden. SCS Beholders don't steal your clone's Shield of Balduran, so the clone is nearly invincible. Got the Amulet of Spell Warding. With the right items, we can get our save vs. spell down to -2, just shy of undispellable immunity to psionic Maze. So Mind Flayers are a no go.
Greater Deathblow on the illithid fight to rescue Imrae. Decided to test the Ust Natha quest and found that retreating into the treasury chamber doesn't keep the Egg Guards from turning the city hostile.
Greater Deathblow, however, does. This let me finish the quest safely.
Greater Deathblow took down the Beholders and Kuo-toa on the way out. Fire Seeds powered by Smite immobilized the drow party guarding the exit, and Greater Deathblow finished many of them off.
Along the way, we've collected many potions of magic protection, magic shielding, invulnerability, Kuo-toa bolts and other ammunition, and basically every item I can imagine a use for. Poppy is at level 30 with 6.6 million XP. Two Power Attacks, four (Greater) Whirlwind Attacks, Smite, Critical Strike, two (Greater) Deathblows, and three castings of Hardiness. Only 4 HLAs left.
Talk-blocked vampire ambush on entering the Graveyard, but in retrospect not necessary. Planned on using Pro-Undead scroll for top floor, but was able to hide and let the simulacrum do the work. GWW with Mace of Disruption on the vampires, darts on the rats and wolves, and Power Attack to stun Tanova. Paladins cast Fireball on themselves and blamed it on me.
Hareishan hid the whole time. To track her down, I ran around and tried hiding in shadows. When I failed, I knew she was nearby, so I could use the Book of Infinite spells for True Sight.
I forgot to mention: I used the simulacrum trick to duplicate the Book of Infinite Spells to avoid getting stuck with Burning Hands. So far I've only seen a use for True Seeing, though.
Pro-Undead scroll for Bodhi. Grimwarders see through it, but Bodhi does not. Elven Holy Water in the pools slowed Bodhi, and Drizzt dealt lots of damage very quickly. Sunray cleared most of the vampires and prompted Bodhi's Heal spell. When Drizzt got her back to Near Death, Poppy and her clone used GWW to get in the last shot.
I noticed Bodhi used no special powers and her two Mage friends were absent. Either the mages are only in Tactics or the closer SCS adaptation, and Bodhi had no time to use her big spells, or maybe those things didn't appear because the difficulty was low. I set it to Easy for scroll scribing in Sil's run, and forgot to turn it back to Core.
My original plan was not necessary. I had 9 extra Potions of Invulnerability from Ribald, plus 4 others, which would guarantee saving throws. I had enough of them to survive multiple Remove Magic spells, which I could have baited with the clone to save on potions. If I ran out of Pro-Undead scrolls, then Hardiness, the Shield of Harmony, the Mace of Disruption, and Dragonslayer could have blocked everything the enemy had.
Suldanessellar! Smite on Raamilaat, but he survived and cast Absolute Immunity, so I had the clone focus on the Nabassu instead. Raamilaat kept Poppy at bay with Sphere of Chaos and forced her clone to use Hardiness to survive his Minute Meteors and Mordenkainen's Swords. I summoned Efreet to use Magic Missile on the swords. When Raamilaat came close enough for me to see, we stunned him with Power Attack and cut through his Stoneskins with Whirlwind Attacks, a stellar combination for enemy mages.
It worked well on the Rakshasas, too, though I had to wait out their PFMW spells. The best they could do in the meantime was cast Stinking Cloud and Web (Poppy resists with saves and Ting of Free Action) and attack with their swords (Poppy resists with Hardiness).
Poppy is now at level 33. Her last 3 HLAs were GWW and two castings of Hardiness. She can achieve near or total immunity to physical damage for 30 rounds, without the Cloak of the Sewers. She also had 8 castings of Called Shot. And with the Bracers of Blinding Strike for Improved Haste, and two castings of Called Shot, Poppy can drain 24 STR without her clone. But usually Smite and Power Attack are sufficient, and require less hassle. Smite is especially nice thanks to the lack of a saving throw, which means a single Fire Seed is sufficient to disable enemy group for 2 rounds, or up to 4 if we keep hitting with it (the ability lasts 2 rounds, and so does the stun effect).
Poppy isn't quite so strong as Rovala, but it's fairly close. Poppy has 95% hit chance with her normal weapons, while Rovala sometimes struggles.
Continuing at Suldanessellar.
Nizidramanii'yt was underwhelming. I had protection from acid scrolls, but the dragon never even used its acid breath. I just buffed with Hardiness and killed it with darts.
For the fight with Suneer, I kept both Poppy and clone buffed with Hardiness to keep off the Iron Golem, Glabrezu, and Suneer's Energy Blades. He summoned a Fallen Planetar, but with GWW and FoA, we can quickly cut down the Planetar while preventing it from healing itself. Under certain install options, though, celestials in SCS2 cast spells instantly. When Suneer's Absolute Immunity wore off, we got him with Smite.
I forgot to equip the Tuigan Bow and Light Crossbow of Speed before spawning a clone for Irenicus. Only had +5 darts, Belm, and FoA. He turned invisible, and my pre-cast True Seeing from the Book of Infinite Spells was dispelled, so I had to flee when he began casting Time Stop. But after TS ended, he had no Absolute Immunity left, so we could hit him with Smite and then GWW. Jon falls.
I do my normal trick for manipulating the Hell rewards, but alter the balance: only 20 MR, but -6 to saves.
Poppy lost one DEX and Valygar's armor became unusable, but it did not get unequipped.
I prepped for the final battle with 3 Armor of Faith spells, an Oil of Speed, two Potions of Magic Protection, and I think one Potion of Absorption. Note that I uninstalled the Tactics remix final battle, as I deemed it unwinnable for Poppy, at least with the tactics I knew.
This means I fight Balors, Glabrezus, and Jon himself in Slayer form. The Balors have lots of Stoneskins, and the Glabrezus lots of Mirror Images. Not too easy to kill.
I summoned the clone early. It was consumed by the demons, whom I could not kill without using limited resources (GWW and IH from items). Irenicus attacked me during Time Stop, but his Remove Magic didn't dispel AoF until after TS was over. Poppy survived the attack. She has over 200 max HP, and can weather 3 rounds of instant hits since she had 75% damage resistance at the time.
Eventually Poppy got hit by a Telekinesis spell and was boxed in at the door at the north end of the area. A Balor was right in front of her; Irenicus and the other demons were stuck behind. They attacked with Unholy Blight, but Poppy made all her saves and was unaffected.
I deemed my current plan impossible and decided to let myself use the potion swap glitch to cast Simulacrum via a scroll. I collected many such items for just this sort of occasion, though I'd hoped I wouldn't need them. The clone killed a Balor, and we also took down a Fallen Planetar, but then the clone died and I saw I was running out of Hardiness spells, and my Potions of Absorption (all critters in this fight use blunt weapons, and damage-specific AC modifiers bypass the -24 AC cap) had already been drunk and dispelled.
I chose the nuclear option, my last resort.
I cast Improved Haste via the Bracers of Blinding Strike, equipping the DoE to stave off death.
I use the potion swap glitch to cast Limited Wish. I activate Called Shot while waiting to speak to the djinni. I pick the one-time wish to stop time.
Time Stops begins. Poppy attacks the Slayer with +5 darts, re-casting Called Shot to stack the effects.
Time Stop ends. All the darts hit Irenicus at once. He dies instantly.
Success! But I wasn't satisfied using the potion swap glitch, so I replayed the fight, using a new strategy.
I also got hit by Telekinesis again and was trapped in the exact same spot. I cast Hardiness twice (I have 5 total) and equipped DoE. I kill a Fallen Planetar with GWW using the FoA, like before, then equip the Boots of the North and finally spawn a clone via Vhailor's Helm.
Why the Boots of the North?
Irenicus is not stuck behind the demons this time. He's right next to us. This means we're vulnerable to Irenicus' cold damage, which we reduce from 2 to 1 with the Boots of the North. Every little bit helps.
I put both Poppy and her clone under three Hardiness spells for immunity to physical damage. Our excellent saves (this time, all the Hell rewards were save bonuses, for -10 total) mean all the enemy's spells are also useless. We now have a few rounds of free time.
I wait several seconds to make Poppy and her clone act simultaneously. We activate Improved Haste from the Bracers of Blinding Strike, then activate Called Shot. We attack Irenicus with +5 darts, at point-blank range, but we have the THAC0 to overcome the to-hit penalties.
I count five attacks, then activate Called Shot again, for 2 STR drained per hit. We continue attacking Irenicus.
Irenicus dies of STR drain. Success! And this time, without any glitches.
Archers are wicked.
The first Pocket Plane trial killed Poppy. Irenicus dispelled Poppy's AoF, and a recover Hardiness was disrupted. She died under pressure from Sarevok, Bodhi, a couple Sahuagin, a Gnoll, and a bunch of undead summons from Irenicus.
No matter. I restarted, beat Illasera with ease, then began the trial again. This time I prebuffed with Hardiness, which can't be dispelled by Remove Magic (Breach can dispel it, though). For the rest of the battle, I just kept up my resistances and let the Cloak of Mirroring and my saves block Irenicus' spells. When Sarevok and Bodhi both fell, I hit Irenicus with Smite.
The vampires in Saradush could be tanked with the Mace of Disruption and AoF. The Shield of Harmony is finally obsolete thanks to Poppy's saves, so we equip the Sentinel instead.
Poppy failed to take down Gromnir. She entered while hidden and tried relying on her clone, but her clone couldn't survive long even with the DoE and a Hardiness spell at the start of combat, as her second Hardiness was interrupted or Breached. I fled to regroup, and when I returned, I let Poppy leave invisibility to interrupt a Conjuration spell from Halbazzer Drin.
The enemy mages cast Time Stop offscreen. After using a whole bunch of rather unimpressive spells, Karun the Black cast Maze on Poppy.
Poppy only has 20 MR. She got hit.
I suppose I'd have to keep Poppy out of sight and have her clone run around until she could get to 100 damage resistance, and then have the clone start taking down individual enemies, but I don't know if Poppy can stay hidden. She has no place to hide, and other forms of invisibility can be dispelled.
I don't think I know enough about SCS2 TOB to do a no-reload run here. SoA is one thing, but I've only beaten vanilla TOB maybe ten times, Ascension I think once, and maybe one other time with SCS2. There were other runs, but few progressed beyond Yaga-Shura or Draconis. And the only time I've ever beaten TOB solo was an insane solo poverty run with a Wild Mage abusing the hell out of the Nahal's Reckless Dweomer hotkey trick. And that was in vanilla TOB.
I think I should play through TOB in a separate run before restarting Poppy's run, or continuing Sil's. Poppy is bound to fail again, and Sil's chances of success are imperfect.
I have the same issue with ToB, lack of knowledge of the game. Maybe you could use Rovala as your test character for Poppy and Sil? I intend to do the same with Norgath (whose save I've kept).
I also notice you treat BG1, SoA and ToB as separate games (which they technically they are of course), and you allow yourself reloads of your saves made at the beginning of each part of the trilogy. Would you consider trying your hand at a no-reload trilogy run?
I actually already started a new SoA run, a solo with SCS. But it's not no-reload, since I'm using a new class, for which I will post a new thread, once my computer can connect to the Internet and I can stop using my phone.
It's a Cleric/Illusionist/Thief. I always to try such a character, and I finally found a way to implement it. It's pretty close to a proper triple class, though there are inaccuracies.
So far, it has gone hilariously wrong on three separate occasions. In the process, I've found potential workarounds for people who do something completely game-breaking in a no-reload run. I think you'll like hearing it.
I have been playing a party composed entirely of Archers for a while now. Currently they are in the Underdark and have collected two reloads so far, due to some risky decision-making on my part. Usually, they are completely broken and SCS2 enemies have difficulty surviving long. All of them are named after recurring characters in my IE game runs, since I've gotten attached to certain personalities and soundsets.
First, we have Bloody Howard, our dour frontliner, derived from a cleric I used in IWD2.
He specializes in slings, but usually just runs out with the Defender of Easthaven to soak up damage. Unfortunately, his Armor of Faith spells appear to be cast at a lower level than I expected. Even at level 14, he only get 10% resistance per casting.
Second, we have Snowy Tae, our motherly gnomish Archer. Like Bloody Howard, she has an illegally low Wisdom score, since she began as the Generic Archer fighter kit, which had no Wisdom requirement. I originally made them fighters instead of rangers in the erroneous belief that they could wear metal armor, which would match their portraits.
She specializes in darts, and like everyone in the party, she carries a huge stack of +5 darts created from the Cloak of Stars (or, more accurately, CLUAConsole). She enjoys the distinct advantage of being the only gnome in the group, and therefore has illegally low saving throws. It hasn't mattered much, though.
Third, we have Fobie, a goofy human Archer derived from a halfling thief I used in IWD, way back when.
The portrait is something I drew in Paint when I was feeling cheerful. He uses the Light Crossbow of Speed, but has also served an important supporting role by tanking with Lilarcor, keeping disablers away from the rest of the party.
Fourth, we have Saen, a serious human Archer named after a MadDragon in a DWM game many years ago.
She uses Firetooth, and has helped disrupt mage spells early on with its fire damage. For some reason, she also has a pip in maces, I guess because the good weapons were already taken.
Fifth, we have Rovala, a clone of the original Archer/Thief, but without the misspelled name or the thief levels.
She uses Heartseeker, since I forgot to buy Strongarm.
Finally, we have Poppy, easily the most common name in my IE characters. I just can't resist her smile.
She started out with the Tuigan Bow, but later switched to using darts.
A lot has happened, little of which I remember and even less that I've recorded. A few highlights from their run:
Bloody Howard exploding a statue as a rat
I heavily abused the door in this fight, since I had little faith in my group's ability to survive the two mage statues with their Time Stops and HLAs. I nearly exhausted a Rod of Resurrection bringing back dead party members, including Bloody Howard, who tanked out the last remaining statues in rat form. The statues all have 70% missile and piercing damage resistance, and Archers are not much good against them.
I tackled this encounter at level 11. Why? Because I wanted to get to level 12 before siding with Bodhi, and the statues gave just enough XP to allow every party member to deal STR drain. This is especially important, because I wanted to nab the Boots of Speed from Renal Bloodscalp, and the only way to get rid of the super-powered version of Arkanis Gath that spawns in is to kill him with stat drain.
It took 9 seconds to deal enough STR damage to bring him down. This was enough for him to make 3 attacks, which means half my party died, no saving throw.
But usually, STR drain was irrelevant.
The thing about a party composed entirely of Archers is that they have sky-high APR right out of Chateau Irenicus. Aside from the raw damage they can deal, they're also quite excellent at tearing down Stoneskins and disrupting spells. They can can break through two 20th-level Stoneskin spells in a single round.
Normally, SCS2 mages can block such nonsense with weapon immunities. But since I'm using +5 darts, and also have access to plenty of nonmagical ammunition, my Archers can break through any weapon immunity spell short of Absolute Immunity, which in SCS2 blocks all weapons. And most SCS2 mages use Improved Mantle, or occasionally PFMW, to defend themselves. Only liches and the absolute highest-level mages can survive more than two rounds. With +5 darts, this party doesn't even need Breach. Irenicus in Spellhold was helpless.
Had I played fair, however, things might have gone differently. I unequipped my missile weapons before the clones spawned, preventing my clones from attacking me with their best equipment. We likely could have survived the clones if they were properly equipped, but it would distract us from Irenicus and greatly prolong the battle, not to mention cost us a whole bunch of potions and charges from the Rod of Resurrection.
The problem with this party is that, if it DOESN'T kill a mage in the second round of combat, they're really not equipped to handle mage spells. I lost multiple charges from the Rod of Resurrection trying to survive the fight with the Githyanki on Desharik's ship.
And the two times this party died and had to reload were both the result of enemy spellcasters.
First, we died against Glaicas and company in the sewers, a group we tackled relatively early. I knew it wasn't a great idea, but I was having enough success that I thought I could scrape by.
Long story short, we spent many seconds trying to break down Glaicas' Stoneskins. And while we were busy with Glaicas, Zorl and Rengaard--both protected by Physical Mirror, and therefore immune to all of our ranged attacks--had lots of time to cast Greater Command. Poppy made her save, and drank a Potion of Invisibility to retreat and resurrect the other party members, but she got caught by a second Greater Command spell shortly thereafter.
Another time, I let an invisible Kuo-Toa mage survive too long out of our sight. Poppy failed her save against Chaos and got teleported via Teleport Field into a room full of hostile Kuo-Toa, who blocked the entrance, preventing the other Archers from rushing in to rescue her. Snowy Tae healed Poppy three times with the Rod of Resurrection, while the other party members cast Dispel Magic, all at once, in an attempt to dispel the Chaos spell, and later the stun effect from the Kuo-Toa Bolts that they were using against Poppy.
All the Dispel Magic spells failed. Then Snowy Tae, the only person with a Rod of Resurrection, and the only person in a position to use it on Poppy, got stunned by a Kuo-Toa Bolt. We managed to cast one more Dispel Magic, which also failed, before Poppy was slain.
This means that a party of Archers, armed with +5 darts, can take down almost anything in SCS2, even the game-ending Arkanis Gath. But if the enemy has Physical Mirror, or Absolute Immunity, or PFMW combined with an innate immunity to nonmagical weapons, then the Archers are essentially helpless, as they have no reliable means of removing weapon immunities, nor do they have the saves or the spell protections or the immunities they need to stand up to enemy magic.
I reloaded the battle and this time made sure Bloody Howard, who has the Ring of Free Action and Shield of Harmony and therefore cannot be stunned or confused or charmed, was the only one the Kuo-toa targeted. I sent him in alone, but he got enfeebled, so I had to switch him to rat form to bring his Strength back up. The Kuo-Toa still had a plan, however.
Bloody Howard doesn't have the saves to survive an instant death effect, so he spent the next few rounds running around in circles, trying to wait out the Slay Living spell. But it was hopeless.
I had neglected to unequip the Sling of Everard and Defender of Easthaven before switching to rat form. This meant Bloody Howard could not equip the Defender of Easthaven in his off hand, and therefore was stuck at the rat's innate 90% physical damage resistance... which is not quite sufficient to keep a character alive under constant pressure from Kuo-Toa Bolts, even with lots of potions on hand.
I then softened up the enemy with an Efreeti and its Fireball spells before sending in Snowy Tae and her clone, lingering at the doorway to form a choke point. Snowy Tae got surprised by the Kuo-Toa Prince, who snuck through while invisible and backstabbed her half to death. The whole party activated Called Shot and switched to darts, and the prince fell to STR drain.
We still had no Ring of Free Action, as it was still on Bloody Howard's body, but Snowy Tae and her clone were able to make their saves against the Kuo-Toa bolts simply by drinking a Potion of Stone Form.
So. Archers are really excellent at slaying mages, and if they use STR drain, they can also bring down enemies with stupendous HP, regeneration, or resistances much earlier than would otherwise be possible. Their damage doesn't compare with that of a Kensai, but they do have better range and therefore are better at chasing down SCS2 enemies, who run around and use Teleport Field a lot more than vanilla critters.
But, without a mage for debuffing, a party of Archers in SCS2 cannot safely handle enemy mages unless it targets them immediately. And it has very few options indeed against enemy clerics.