I did some quick testing with various threshold values, and it appears you are in fact correct. Using EEKeeper to fine-tune resistances, it seemed pretty conclusive that the cutoff point is 75% damage resistance. 74% showed no break-away, but the second it got higher (equipping the 3% resistance helmet from SoD) enemies started running away.
However, even at 74% damage resistance the incoming damage did not look all that sustainable to me. The pack of trolls I tested on could kill the tank in about 40 seconds with no healing (sample size 5 attempts, physical damage only), and a little more with The Vampire's Revenge healing (though this was fairly early in the game so THAC0 wasn't amazing, and no GWW). That's with party damage taking some of them out in the meantime, of course.
And that is if you can even GET to that resistance value, which you can't because you can't scale resistance arbitrarily like I did for testing. Here's some values that CAN be reached:
73% - lvl 20+ using NO armor with damage reduction, using the SoD Helm and with Defensive Stance
53% - lvl 20+ using 20% armor, Fortress Shield, and SoD Helm with NO Defensive Stance
20% from innate resistance is, of course, not un-equippable. Which means you have 54% to fill, out of which Defensive Stance already takes 50% meaning it can never be used with any sort of damage reduction armor (outside of fully blocked choke points, of course) since the lowest of those is already 5%. While you could reach 73% fairly easily, keep in mind that this requires you to not use any armor with damage reduction - meaning you would substantially lower your AC in the process, and thus increase incoming damage; possibly by more than you prevent through extra resistance (depending, of course, on who you're fighting). The best Bracers of Defense are AC3, though, so you lose only 4 AC for most of the game (most armors you wear will probably be -1) with a little more later on (up to 7 for the -4 on the Blue Dragonplate Armor). It's hard to figure out if 4-7 AC translate into 20% damage reduction on average, though, because it depends on enemy THAC0s. Assuming you can reach -20 (sounds realistic), that means you have -30 AC bonuses (base AC is 10). Losing 7 out of those would be 23%, which looks fairly close to what you make up for. AC isn't strictly linear, though. Since we're discussing values at the high end of the curve and they all fall within the enemy miss range, you're losing a lot more effectively. Assuming enemy THAC0 is 0, you basically only count negative values; and 7 out of 20 is already 35%. Many ToB bosses have negative THAC0s, too. However, that in turn also increases the value of damage resistance, since you tend to dodge less. Tough.
During early game, you can of course afford to wear armor since your innate bonus is lower (DS remains possible). And if you can choke things, you can use armor + DS to become immune or near enough, greatly increasing your survival (any door will usually do).
Now the question remains, is all that hassle worth it?
@Lord_Tansheron: It might not be as doable in Item Revisions, but in vanilla, item swapping could have a major impact. A level 20 Dwarven Defender with Defensive Stance and the SoD could maintain 70% resistance, then, once it grew weak, it could equip the Defender of Easthaven to hit 90% resistance and get the enemies to leave it alone, since it passed the 75% threshold. Once the dwarf was healed up and in good condition, he or she could switch weapons and draw the enemy's attention again. Item swapping would let you control enemy targeting.
In Item Revisions, you could still do this, though the Dwarven Defender would be less flexible due to the armor problem. A Fighter/Cleric could combine Armor of Faith and Hardiness with full plate mail for 70% resistance, then equip the Fortress Shield to hit 80% and get the enemy to ignore it. If this 75% cutoff is reliable, you could actually abuse the Fortress Shield to get a guaranteed Heal spell: normally Heal is easy to disrupt due to its large casting time, but if the Fortress Shield and 80% resistance really do shut down enemy aggro, it would amount to invisibility as long as other party members remained alive. Just equip the Fortress Shield whenever you need to cast Heal.
Armor of Faith could be dispelled, but I do believe ToB has an IR amulet that also grants 10% damage resistance, making that strategy undispellable.
And, of course, an Earth Elemental Token from SCS gives 50% resistance and could serve a similar purpose as the Fortress Shield.
The aggro reset is not 100% reliable, and not 100% consistent for all enemies. I can't determine the logic behind it, but it's usually not ALL enemies that leave you alone, just most of them. For example, in the pack I tested on, there were 8 enemies, and going to 75% usually made 6-7 of them run away, but never all. However, fighting single enemies I have had it happen on occasion that an enemy I'd been engaging for a while will suddenly run off when resistance is too high. Other times, they do not do it despite high resistance, but will, for example, turn and melee anyone who enters their range. That is making me think there are several scripts interfering with each other, possibly depending on enemy type (the latter I mentioned seems particular to golems).
Still, even with a chance it does offer SOME degree of control over what enemies are doing.
I don't know that 10% resistance amulet, and I can't find it in my game files. Either I'm overlooking it, or it's from somewhere else (or my IR version is off again).
Feel free to test the behavior logic more thoroughly, I don't have the time to determine the intricacies. There's likely tons of details I've missed.
From my experience, enemies chasing weak party members will eventually give up if you constantly block their way with other party members, or summon. The easiest way to do it is to have the weak member running circles around you tank who keeps attacking the enemy
That's essentially what kiting is, discussed one page ago :P It's definitely viable in many scenarios, but may not necessarily be the most efficient.
SCS scripting is still a bit of a mystery to me, as it's really hard to tell sometimes what exactly makes enemies do what they do. For better or worse.
@Lord_Tansheron Well the whole idea of enemies identifying weakest party members, immunities, then chase after them, use spells on those who are vulnerable aren't very appealing to me, it's like battling a AI who knows your status inside out, at least not all enemies should have that level of intelligence/power to see you through that quickly, might randomize their targeting, adding varieties.
Archer seems a nice addition to a WS so far, enemy mages when disabled from spell casting like to run around like headless chickens making it for melee difficult to be hit.
I tested archer so far in early BG2 and he performs far better than value I've got out of DD, especially since I occasionally use summons anyway. In narrow corridors like the fight with beast master in copper coronet being able to put archer with WS (using sligns as my +3 got transfered over) on the beast master himself made him go down very fast with little to no effort. Thac0 reduction is amazing and it will be further boosted by strength reduction upon reaching level 10.
Speaking on side, I've always wondered how stat drain works on enemies, for instance draining strength to nearly 0 doesn't really make enemies stop moving from too much weight of equipment, it doesn't either make their weapons unusable but I assume it still lowers their +damage +thac0 bonuses.. at least I hope.
Archer should perform excellent end game with firetooth +5 and GWW with bolts of lightning. Although I'm still wondering if I shoulnd't go for Erinne Sling +5 with +3 bullets because archer who has skald on the party can boost nearly around 35 damage per shot which is amazing. But this rounds it around the values of firetooth with bolts so not so amazing anymore ;(
I'm starting to wonder if I'm not overthinking this, at some point a sorcerer with chain contigency triple ADHW does thousands of damage in round in aoe situation at this point damage of other party members becomes less important.
Well... maybe not really I meant FMT with assassionation pulls around 1000 DPR on non resistant enemy with angurvadal and this new monk head for righteous magic. Doesn't work on every enemy but it's nice to see chunks fly.
I was also thinking of finishing my current run with DD but I've checked that AoE actually grants -4 save versus one-hit-ko which brings his value down significantly. If I were to decide go for DD for two handers I would simply be better of grabbing inquisitor instead.
Speaking on side, I've always wondered how stat drain works on enemies, for instance draining strength to nearly 0 doesn't really make enemies stop moving from too much weight of equipment, it doesn't either make their weapons unusable but I assume it still lowers their +damage +thac0 bonuses.. at least I hope.
Enemies can't be encumbered, unfortunately. I tested this on Taurgosz "Tenhammer" who's decked out in full plate and he could still move when he failed a save vs. Ray of Enfeeblement. So I added him to the party by ctrl+q and, sure enough, his STR was only 5 and he couldn't move while under my control.
Speaking on side, I've always wondered how stat drain works on enemies, for instance draining strength to nearly 0 doesn't really make enemies stop moving from too much weight of equipment, it doesn't either make their weapons unusable but I assume it still lowers their +damage +thac0 bonuses.. at least I hope.
Enemies can't be encumbered, unfortunately. I tested this on Taurgosz "Tenhammer" who's decked out in full plate and he could still move when he failed a save vs. Ray of Enfeeblement. So I added him to the party by ctrl+q and, sure enough, his STR was only 5 and he couldn't move while under my control.
This is as I thought so I assume STR reduction does in fact reduce damage of opponents by significant amount since it goes up to +14 damage bonuses (double on non-core games).
I'm also growing into idea of using FMT as two hander specialized character. The amount of enemies that are almost helpless against unholy reaver or carsomyr is just insane. FMT as per any UAI thief can wield both with no restrictions. If I were to main FMT as protagonist I can easily reach near 25 STR so a decent thac0 as well for GWW. I originally planned for carsomyr swap for mage battles but looking at the amount of enemies that drink potions and prebuff in SCS it might be worth using at all times.
Maybe I should just get inquisitor instead? I’m not sure how a character with no skins/immunities/spells will look in SCS/LOB in the past I had to kite with it a lot since most enemies liked to switch to him because of no protections and relatively lower AC. I remember some fight were simply super hard on him like torgal etc. I assume with IR would be easier as those provide some nice physical resistance items.
I’ve also just got my WS->Druid to reach level 7 spells… and must say nature’s beauty is one hell of a strong spell permanent blindness with no save.. I mean dat thing is strong! It can also be cast while invisible so it’s kinda cheesy if you choose it use it like that, but it’s not really required.
There is just so many super strong combinations in this game it’s so hard to choose from. Right now I’m boggled with things like FMC for priest buffs and symbol of helm (+1 str for FMT), archer for called shots and good DPR with high sustain, another FM into two handers, etc. Many many choices, this game has just too much replayability.
There is just so many super strong combinations in this game
I can only repeat my recommendation to try IR+SR :P
As for Carsomyr, yes, it's obviously completely bonkers - doubly so in vanilla, where the dispel effect doesn't even allow a save. I like to play 2h as sort of a ranged character, using positioning to strike from behind the front line so enemies are actually hitting the more tanky characters. The reach on 2h weapons is in fact considerable, even though the AI sometimes makes the character get much closer than they have to.
Did some more thinking and searching (and a very quick test) regarding the Dwarven Defender.
As it turns out, there ARE two items in IR that give physical resistance that I have missed before: Roranach's Horn (helm, +10%) and Bands of Focus (bracers, +10%). That means you can now reach passive 70% damage resistance WITH an armor on:
Defensive Stance in safe situations (single mob who won't break off or full choke point) will, as always, result in total immunity.
Granted, 20% of those are ToB only (one very late, the bracers drop of Draconis I think, at least the original ones do can't remember if IR changed the location I totally ignored them my last time in ToB). Before ToB, there are still various options:
Over 50% resistance with high AC *might* be good enough. 73% with maximum AC in ToB certainly sounds like it. And the on-demand immunity in certain situations would be very handy to have, for sure. Using a healing weapon (The Vampire's Revenge, Foebane, Axe of the Unyielding) it's possible that you might just last long enough.
I've also done some VERY quick testing with powerful enemies, and it seems that there are at least some of them that will not drop aggro no matter what the resistance. Firkraag and the Adamantite Golem in his lair both kept on trucking against a 100% resistance tank, and never broke off. They did, however, occasionally turn to melee other characters IF they got close enough. Staying at range meant they would never switch their attacks to them. They would still use special ranged attacks at other targets, such as Gas Cloud, or the dragon breath weapon, but switch back to the initial tank immediately. I can only explain this with enemy-type specific scripting, meaning certain kinds of enemies will override whatever it is that makes them run off at 75+% resistance as run-off-the-mill trash mobs do.
Most interestingly, this fact could allow you to potentially defeat Firkraag VERY early in the game, as you're already at 90% potential resistance by lvl 10 (93% with the SoD helm). Chug a Potion of Absorption (+10%), get fire resistance on everyone (scroll, potion, gear) and Firkraag should keel over to yield a ridiculously early Carsomyr. Well, unless your Defensive Stances run out before you get through his HP, of course He has a mere 1736 HP on my setup, with a casual -12 THAC0 and AC and 30% resistance to physical damage. Easy!
I'm thinking that a DD tank like that would probably work better with a more robust party, rather than the somewhat glass-cannon setup of full ranged. Something like this, perhaps?
DD Inquisitor F/M/C Skald Archer (???)
Open slot being a 2nd Archer or a F/M, potentially even a F/M/T. Damage dealers would be melee if possible, with options to go ranged on demand when things get tough. I really wish there was a second Quiver of Plenty in the game, I hate managing ammo. And the crossbow APR lock really just disqualifies them for me...
So SR balanced some spells while IR makes items stronger?
It's not that simple. Both mods make HUGE amounts of changes, adjusting the power level of existing spells and items in various ways; some go up, some go down. In general, I'd say it's more towards making things weaker and more difficult. IR in particular tones down the overall powerlevel quite a bit. But that doesn't mean there aren't very powerful things to be found still, of course.
Wouldn't barbarian damage reduction with said gear not be enough already plus give the ability to rage for a short amount of time?
Barbarians cannot wear plate or full plate, though. Also, they do not have Defensive Stance, and that is probably quite relevant against big bosses like dragons. Think Firkraag: at 4 APR and -12 THAC0, he is going to SMASH even a heavily armored tank.
But you can postpone until he has the hardiness hla... Unless hardiness is not a physical resistance effect anymore or you do not use the bonus XP thing I guess.
But you can postpone until he has the hardiness hla... Unless hardiness is not a physical resistance effect anymore or you do not use the bonus XP thing I guess.
That's an option, but what does that really give you? I'm not sure I would trade full plate for Barbarian Rage. It's not THAT amazing. And waiting until HLAs for pre-Underdark available content is so... idk...
You can just visit post underdark. And the rage gives immunity to nasty effects that could render your tank useless. Otherwise I am not sure why you would be so sure on the dd if you could just go fm and protect with spells.
I was wondering about usefulness of FOA, besides its amazing damage of course.
Slow is very powerful effect to have on the enemy, reduced AC and Thac0 by 4 as well as half of APR seems crazy good for enemies like mentioned firkragg with 4 APR. So a single spell is in fact increasing party chance to hit by 20% and reducing enemy chance to hit by 20% and his APR by half in which case it's less than half of his regular damage output.
But on LOB it's hard to judge as enemies have such high APR that it's barely noticeable in terms of visual aspect. Do we know if key enemies are immune to slow? FOA in BG2EE does not grant save making it very strong as it's very hard to land regular slow on bosses.
You can just visit post underdark. And the rage gives immunity to nasty effects that could render your tank useless.
There are almost no effects that you can't immune by having the right equipment. Also being a dwarf means your saves are already very low to begin with. Imprisonment is the only thing I can think of that you can't reliably immune with a DD, and that's ridiculously rare - and on mobs that don't need tanking anyway.
Otherwise I am not sure why you would be so sure on the dd if you could just go fm and protect with spells.
The whole problem is the rampant dispel spam from enemies, especially in ToB. Watch the video posted two, three pages ago: it has at least 6 dispels (likely more, it's hard to see exactly) fired at you in a single fight, all of which will likely hit due to the LoB level boost. If FM was reliably protected, it would obviously be the best choice. Unfortunately it's not.
I was wondering about usefulness of FOA, besides its amazing damage of course.
FoA is great in vanilla, but IR drastically curbs its power level. Even the top5 is not particularly amazing, though it does, of course, still remain a very good weapon. The slow is great, but only a 20% chance under IR.
FoA is great in vanilla, but IR drastically curbs its power level. Even the top5 is not particularly amazing, though it does, of course, still remain a very good weapon. The slow is great, but only a 20% chance under IR.
I was wondering about usefulness of FOA, besides its amazing damage of course.
Slow is very powerful effect to have on the enemy, reduced AC and Thac0 by 4 as well as half of APR seems crazy good for enemies like mentioned firkragg with 4 APR. So a single spell is in fact increasing party chance to hit by 20% and reducing enemy chance to hit by 20% and his APR by half in which case it's less than half of his regular damage output.
But on LOB it's hard to judge as enemies have such high APR that it's barely noticeable in terms of visual aspect. Do we know if key enemies are immune to slow? FOA in BG2EE does not grant save making it very strong as it's very hard to land regular slow on bosses.
FoA doesn't apply any AC/THAC0 penalties (I assume you're talking non-Item Rev FoA). It slows only, but that's a very good effect anyway. Enemies, LoB or not, and your PCs as well, have a hardcoded cap on number of attacks per round (5 max). With Haste (non-SR version) it can be 6. With Imp.Haste/WW, it can go to 10.
Truthfully, 6 dispels in one fight is not so bad... I am used to improved anvil which has many more, including certain auto dispel and on-hit dispel effects from creatures and still fm is largely the way to go there.
Good point about the saves though, I forgot about that.
Slow is very good, but how many creatures are susceptible to it? You can save quite well to it (unless ir makes it unsaveable)
FoA doesn't apply any AC/THAC0 penalties (I assume you're talking non-Item Rev FoA). It slows only, but that's a very good effect anyway.
Wow I never actually bothered enough to check this but you are right, I've looked at slow icon so I assumed it works like LMD on foebane just for Slow spell. Sad face, this completly drops it in ranking for me. I now rather use Answerer to get enemy to -128mr/20ac instead. Yes I know it's late just saying it's far better effect on the weapon.
How do you guys handle enemies that use Mislead/II with Spell Protection Divination? Even though Inqusitor's true seeing is considered level 0 I assume it's still divination spell. Because of lob remove magic is useless for most of the game.
Also, are enemies levels capped the same way players are or lob+12 can make some enemies virtually immune to remove magic?
Belholders in SCS as are stupidly strong. Happily, my party DPR output is so high even the big guys go down in a round or two. Still couple of reloads on two big packs as random failed save and your protagonist is dead which isn't hard when they spam like 30+ spells on you in the round and that burning through spell protection hurts!
Nonetheless the unseeing eye was decently easy even the two adds he summons (this was new to me but I assume it's just SCS). 3 belholders at once isn't bad, 6+ is an issue.
DD was nice here as he just packs in decent damage while not reliant on any spells. I usually sent him in first so he soaks massive rain of spells. I did use improved invisibility on entire party here to get some additional defenses. I think it's one of better spells for this.
Summons are almost useless here although still nice to soak few spells here and there but beholders like to throw them out of map in seconds.
Still overall, I would rate this quest as easier than I've expected. Shade lich was also decently easy, he only had spell deflection and few protections so entire party casted breach on him simultaneously to burn through spell deflection and get one in. One thing I was surprised was that breach didn't remove his fire shields most of the time.
#1 Skald using MMM with bard had is really good, he gets his own song and has two rounds (10 MMM) to cast free, without losing song buff that's a lot of damage!
#2 Generally surprised by MMM, so in future I won't pick remove magic at all in LOB (or not unti very late game) and pick MMM on skald and sorcerer
Overall I still think DPR is way to go even in LOB, some fights are just very easy when not extended
Sorcerer soon will level up allowing him to choose second level 7 spell. A hard choice between ruby ray and project image as both are amazing in SCS, might choose ray for mage chess which gets harder and harder but project image would allow me to improve haste everyone without losing precious level 6 spell slots
How do you guys handle enemies that use Mislead/II with Spell Protection Divination?
No more SI in my setup thanks to IR, but when it was still a thing I did use Thieves a lot of the time for Detect Illusion. Or just Inquisitor Dispel, who doesn't give two hoots about SI: Divination
Because of lob remove magic is useless for most of the game.
Also, are enemies levels capped the same way players are or lob+12 can make some enemies virtually immune to remove magic?
It is indeed very hard to land dispels in LoB that are not from an Inquisitor. I haven't bother to check enemy levels all throughout LoB, but I see no reason to assume they're subject to XP caps since they don't usually have any XP anyway, just levels - and it's XP that is capped, not levels.
How do you guys handle enemies that use Mislead/II with Spell Protection Divination?
No more SI in my setup thanks to IR, but when it was still a thing I did use Thieves a lot of the time for Detect Illusion. Or just Inquisitor Dispel, who doesn't give two hoots about SI: Divination
Because of lob remove magic is useless for most of the game.
Also, are enemies levels capped the same way players are or lob+12 can make some enemies virtually immune to remove magic?
It is indeed very hard to land dispels in LoB that are not from an Inquisitor. I haven't bother to check enemy levels all throughout LoB, but I see no reason to assume they're subject to XP caps since they don't usually have any XP anyway, just levels - and it's XP that is capped, not levels.
I did test detect illusion against enemies in WK1 (statues) and it didn't work, they didn't even lose their mirror images. I have 100 points in it and still didn't work. Not sure if it's because of SI or maybe non detection or something.
Inqusitor dispel works just like other dispels which in SCS can target invisible creates. I guess only thing that goes for it is fact of double or 1.5 levels which still in ch2 can be too low to get successful dispels sometimes.
Yes, Inquisitor Dispel fails at early levels quite regularly, even at x2.0. It really only starts to work reliably at something like lvl 15+, after which its scaling on x2.0 matches fairly well with the LoB level curve on enemies.
I have an inherent dislike for things based entirely on random rolls (great game I picked there, huh) so I keep Inquisitor at x2.0 rather than nerf it via SCS. Having a fight hinge on a binary 50/50 roll (or worse) is not fun gameplay to me.
Yes, Inquisitor Dispel fails at early levels quite regularly, even at x2.0. It really only starts to work reliably at something like lvl 15+, after which its scaling on x2.0 matches fairly well with the LoB level curve on enemies.
I have an inherent dislike for things based entirely on random rolls (great game I picked there, huh) so I keep Inquisitor at x2.0 rather than nerf it via SCS. Having a fight hinge on a binary 50/50 roll (or worse) is not fun gameplay to me.
Yeh I feel the same.
Inquisitors dispel is probably also super strong combo for parties with druid. Cast dispel into insect swarm can most likely end 90% of mage fights in BG. Add WS->Druid spell casting failure on top of that and you storm even through SCS; if you aren't yet.
Personally when I look at my playthroughs until I started playing LOB my setups looked just like yours but on LOB I just feel micromanaging inquisitor is bit of a drag. Enemies will often pick him as main target due to low AC and no magic protections compared to Mage multis. I know you can offset this but question is if you really want to considering you can just get FMT and have both and cool combos, for instance time stop trap into GWW carsomyr is definately a sight to see. In the end it's a tradeoff between dispel magic and everything that FMT provides. Question is if 100% dispel is so gamebreaking that FMT can't compete even with such tools.
But isn't his powerful dispel magic still blocked by SI:Abjuration? If so it's still not a win mage button.
Comments
I did some quick testing with various threshold values, and it appears you are in fact correct. Using EEKeeper to fine-tune resistances, it seemed pretty conclusive that the cutoff point is 75% damage resistance. 74% showed no break-away, but the second it got higher (equipping the 3% resistance helmet from SoD) enemies started running away.
However, even at 74% damage resistance the incoming damage did not look all that sustainable to me. The pack of trolls I tested on could kill the tank in about 40 seconds with no healing (sample size 5 attempts, physical damage only), and a little more with The Vampire's Revenge healing (though this was fairly early in the game so THAC0 wasn't amazing, and no GWW). That's with party damage taking some of them out in the meantime, of course.
And that is if you can even GET to that resistance value, which you can't because you can't scale resistance arbitrarily like I did for testing. Here's some values that CAN be reached:
73% - lvl 20+ using NO armor with damage reduction, using the SoD Helm and with Defensive Stance
53% - lvl 20+ using 20% armor, Fortress Shield, and SoD Helm with NO Defensive Stance
20% from innate resistance is, of course, not un-equippable. Which means you have 54% to fill, out of which Defensive Stance already takes 50% meaning it can never be used with any sort of damage reduction armor (outside of fully blocked choke points, of course) since the lowest of those is already 5%.
While you could reach 73% fairly easily, keep in mind that this requires you to not use any armor with damage reduction - meaning you would substantially lower your AC in the process, and thus increase incoming damage; possibly by more than you prevent through extra resistance (depending, of course, on who you're fighting). The best Bracers of Defense are AC3, though, so you lose only 4 AC for most of the game (most armors you wear will probably be -1) with a little more later on (up to 7 for the -4 on the Blue Dragonplate Armor). It's hard to figure out if 4-7 AC translate into 20% damage reduction on average, though, because it depends on enemy THAC0s. Assuming you can reach -20 (sounds realistic), that means you have -30 AC bonuses (base AC is 10). Losing 7 out of those would be 23%, which looks fairly close to what you make up for. AC isn't strictly linear, though. Since we're discussing values at the high end of the curve and they all fall within the enemy miss range, you're losing a lot more effectively. Assuming enemy THAC0 is 0, you basically only count negative values; and 7 out of 20 is already 35%. Many ToB bosses have negative THAC0s, too. However, that in turn also increases the value of damage resistance, since you tend to dodge less. Tough.
During early game, you can of course afford to wear armor since your innate bonus is lower (DS remains possible). And if you can choke things, you can use armor + DS to become immune or near enough, greatly increasing your survival (any door will usually do).
Now the question remains, is all that hassle worth it?
In Item Revisions, you could still do this, though the Dwarven Defender would be less flexible due to the armor problem. A Fighter/Cleric could combine Armor of Faith and Hardiness with full plate mail for 70% resistance, then equip the Fortress Shield to hit 80% and get the enemy to ignore it. If this 75% cutoff is reliable, you could actually abuse the Fortress Shield to get a guaranteed Heal spell: normally Heal is easy to disrupt due to its large casting time, but if the Fortress Shield and 80% resistance really do shut down enemy aggro, it would amount to invisibility as long as other party members remained alive. Just equip the Fortress Shield whenever you need to cast Heal.
Armor of Faith could be dispelled, but I do believe ToB has an IR amulet that also grants 10% damage resistance, making that strategy undispellable.
And, of course, an Earth Elemental Token from SCS gives 50% resistance and could serve a similar purpose as the Fortress Shield.
Still, even with a chance it does offer SOME degree of control over what enemies are doing.
I don't know that 10% resistance amulet, and I can't find it in my game files. Either I'm overlooking it, or it's from somewhere else (or my IR version is off again).
Feel free to test the behavior logic more thoroughly, I don't have the time to determine the intricacies. There's likely tons of details I've missed.
The easiest way to do it is to have the weak member running circles around you tank who keeps attacking the enemy
SCS scripting is still a bit of a mystery to me, as it's really hard to tell sometimes what exactly makes enemies do what they do. For better or worse.
Well the whole idea of enemies identifying weakest party members, immunities, then chase after them, use spells on those who are vulnerable aren't very appealing to me, it's like battling a AI who knows your status inside out, at least not all enemies should have that level of intelligence/power to see you through that quickly, might randomize their targeting, adding varieties.
I tested archer so far in early BG2 and he performs far better than value I've got out of DD, especially since I occasionally use summons anyway. In narrow corridors like the fight with beast master in copper coronet being able to put archer with WS (using sligns as my +3 got transfered over) on the beast master himself made him go down very fast with little to no effort. Thac0 reduction is amazing and it will be further boosted by strength reduction upon reaching level 10.
Speaking on side, I've always wondered how stat drain works on enemies, for instance draining strength to nearly 0 doesn't really make enemies stop moving from too much weight of equipment, it doesn't either make their weapons unusable but I assume it still lowers their +damage +thac0 bonuses.. at least I hope.
Archer should perform excellent end game with firetooth +5 and GWW with bolts of lightning. Although I'm still wondering if I shoulnd't go for Erinne Sling +5 with +3 bullets because archer who has skald on the party can boost nearly around 35 damage per shot which is amazing. But this rounds it around the values of firetooth with bolts so not so amazing anymore ;(
I'm starting to wonder if I'm not overthinking this, at some point a sorcerer with chain contigency triple ADHW does thousands of damage in round in aoe situation at this point damage of other party members becomes less important.
Well... maybe not really I meant FMT with assassionation pulls around 1000 DPR on non resistant enemy with angurvadal and this new monk head for righteous magic. Doesn't work on every enemy but it's nice to see chunks fly.
I was also thinking of finishing my current run with DD but I've checked that AoE actually grants -4 save versus one-hit-ko which brings his value down significantly. If I were to decide go for DD for two handers I would simply be better of grabbing inquisitor instead.
I'm also growing into idea of using FMT as two hander specialized character. The amount of enemies that are almost helpless against unholy reaver or carsomyr is just insane. FMT as per any UAI thief can wield both with no restrictions. If I were to main FMT as protagonist I can easily reach near 25 STR so a decent thac0 as well for GWW. I originally planned for carsomyr swap for mage battles but looking at the amount of enemies that drink potions and prebuff in SCS it might be worth using at all times.
Maybe I should just get inquisitor instead? I’m not sure how a character with no skins/immunities/spells will look in SCS/LOB in the past I had to kite with it a lot since most enemies liked to switch to him because of no protections and relatively lower AC. I remember some fight were simply super hard on him like torgal etc. I assume with IR would be easier as those provide some nice physical resistance items.
I’ve also just got my WS->Druid to reach level 7 spells… and must say nature’s beauty is one hell of a strong spell permanent blindness with no save.. I mean dat thing is strong! It can also be cast while invisible so it’s kinda cheesy if you choose it use it like that, but it’s not really required.
There is just so many super strong combinations in this game it’s so hard to choose from. Right now I’m boggled with things like FMC for priest buffs and symbol of helm (+1 str for FMT), archer for called shots and good DPR with high sustain, another FM into two handers, etc. Many many choices, this game has just too much replayability.
As for Carsomyr, yes, it's obviously completely bonkers - doubly so in vanilla, where the dispel effect doesn't even allow a save. I like to play 2h as sort of a ranged character, using positioning to strike from behind the front line so enemies are actually hitting the more tanky characters. The reach on 2h weapons is in fact considerable, even though the AI sometimes makes the character get much closer than they have to.
As it turns out, there ARE two items in IR that give physical resistance that I have missed before: Roranach's Horn (helm, +10%) and Bands of Focus (bracers, +10%). That means you can now reach passive 70% damage resistance WITH an armor on:
20% (lvl 20+) + 20% (full plate armor) + 10% (Fortress Shield) + 10% (Roranach's Horn) + 10% (Bands of Focus).
Defensive Stance in safe situations (single mob who won't break off or full choke point) will, as always, result in total immunity.
Granted, 20% of those are ToB only (one very late, the bracers drop of Draconis I think, at least the original ones do can't remember if IR changed the location I totally ignored them my last time in ToB). Before ToB, there are still various options:
passive 43%-53%: 10%-20% (level) + 20% (full plate) + 10% (Fortress Shield) +3% (Helmet of Dumathoin, SoD)
DS 73%: 10%-20% (lvl) + 0-10% (armor) +3% (Dumathoin) + 50% (Defensive Stance)
Over 50% resistance with high AC *might* be good enough. 73% with maximum AC in ToB certainly sounds like it. And the on-demand immunity in certain situations would be very handy to have, for sure. Using a healing weapon (The Vampire's Revenge, Foebane, Axe of the Unyielding) it's possible that you might just last long enough.
I've also done some VERY quick testing with powerful enemies, and it seems that there are at least some of them that will not drop aggro no matter what the resistance. Firkraag and the Adamantite Golem in his lair both kept on trucking against a 100% resistance tank, and never broke off. They did, however, occasionally turn to melee other characters IF they got close enough. Staying at range meant they would never switch their attacks to them. They would still use special ranged attacks at other targets, such as Gas Cloud, or the dragon breath weapon, but switch back to the initial tank immediately.
I can only explain this with enemy-type specific scripting, meaning certain kinds of enemies will override whatever it is that makes them run off at 75+% resistance as run-off-the-mill trash mobs do.
Most interestingly, this fact could allow you to potentially defeat Firkraag VERY early in the game, as you're already at 90% potential resistance by lvl 10 (93% with the SoD helm). Chug a Potion of Absorption (+10%), get fire resistance on everyone (scroll, potion, gear) and Firkraag should keel over to yield a ridiculously early Carsomyr. Well, unless your Defensive Stances run out before you get through his HP, of course
I'm thinking that a DD tank like that would probably work better with a more robust party, rather than the somewhat glass-cannon setup of full ranged. Something like this, perhaps?
DD
Inquisitor
F/M/C
Skald
Archer
(???)
Open slot being a 2nd Archer or a F/M, potentially even a F/M/T. Damage dealers would be melee if possible, with options to go ranged on demand when things get tough. I really wish there was a second Quiver of Plenty in the game, I hate managing ammo. And the crossbow APR lock really just disqualifies them for me...
Otherwise I am not sure why you would be so sure on the dd if you could just go fm and protect with spells.
Slow is very powerful effect to have on the enemy, reduced AC and Thac0 by 4 as well as half of APR seems crazy good for enemies like mentioned firkragg with 4 APR. So a single spell is in fact increasing party chance to hit by 20% and reducing enemy chance to hit by 20% and his APR by half in which case it's less than half of his regular damage output.
But on LOB it's hard to judge as enemies have such high APR that it's barely noticeable in terms of visual aspect. Do we know if key enemies are immune to slow? FOA in BG2EE does not grant save making it very strong as it's very hard to land regular slow on bosses.
Enemies, LoB or not, and your PCs as well, have a hardcoded cap on number of attacks per round (5 max). With Haste (non-SR version) it can be 6. With Imp.Haste/WW, it can go to 10.
Good point about the saves though, I forgot about that.
Slow is very good, but how many creatures are susceptible to it? You can save quite well to it (unless ir makes it unsaveable)
I now rather use Answerer to get enemy to -128mr/20ac instead. Yes I know it's late just saying it's far better effect on the weapon.
How do you guys handle enemies that use Mislead/II with Spell Protection Divination? Even though Inqusitor's true seeing is considered level 0 I assume it's still divination spell. Because of lob remove magic is useless for most of the game.
Also, are enemies levels capped the same way players are or lob+12 can make some enemies virtually immune to remove magic?
Belholders in SCS as are stupidly strong. Happily, my party DPR output is so high even the big guys go down in a round or two. Still couple of reloads on two big packs as random failed save and your protagonist is dead which isn't hard when they spam like 30+ spells on you in the round and that burning through spell protection hurts!
Nonetheless the unseeing eye was decently easy even the two adds he summons (this was new to me but I assume it's just SCS). 3 belholders at once isn't bad, 6+ is an issue.
DD was nice here as he just packs in decent damage while not reliant on any spells. I usually sent him in first so he soaks massive rain of spells. I did use improved invisibility on entire party here to get some additional defenses. I think it's one of better spells for this.
Summons are almost useless here although still nice to soak few spells here and there but beholders like to throw them out of map in seconds.
Still overall, I would rate this quest as easier than I've expected. Shade lich was also decently easy, he only had spell deflection and few protections so entire party casted breach on him simultaneously to burn through spell deflection and get one in. One thing I was surprised was that breach didn't remove his fire shields most of the time.
Mind flyer lair next? Side quests maybe?
Stats so far
DD 18% - 166 kills
FM 21% - 195 kills
FMT 32% - 294 kills
Skald 0% - 8 kills
WS->Druid 20% - 180 kills
Sorcerer 6% - 56 kills
Notes on MMM
#1 Skald using MMM with bard had is really good, he gets his own song and has two rounds (10 MMM) to cast free, without losing song buff that's a lot of damage!
#2 Generally surprised by MMM, so in future I won't pick remove magic at all in LOB (or not unti very late game) and pick MMM on skald and sorcerer
Overall I still think DPR is way to go even in LOB, some fights are just very easy when not extended
Sorcerer soon will level up allowing him to choose second level 7 spell. A hard choice between ruby ray and project image as both are amazing in SCS, might choose ray for mage chess which gets harder and harder but project image would allow me to improve haste everyone without losing precious level 6 spell slots
Inqusitor dispel works just like other dispels which in SCS can target invisible creates. I guess only thing that goes for it is fact of double or 1.5 levels which still in ch2 can be too low to get successful dispels sometimes.
I have an inherent dislike for things based entirely on random rolls (great game I picked there, huh) so I keep Inquisitor at x2.0 rather than nerf it via SCS. Having a fight hinge on a binary 50/50 roll (or worse) is not fun gameplay to me.
Inquisitors dispel is probably also super strong combo for parties with druid. Cast dispel into insect swarm can most likely end 90% of mage fights in BG. Add WS->Druid spell casting failure on top of that and you storm even through SCS; if you aren't yet.
Personally when I look at my playthroughs until I started playing LOB my setups looked just like yours but on LOB I just feel micromanaging inquisitor is bit of a drag. Enemies will often pick him as main target due to low AC and no magic protections compared to Mage multis. I know you can offset this but question is if you really want to considering you can just get FMT and have both and cool combos, for instance time stop trap into GWW carsomyr is definately a sight to see. In the end it's a tradeoff between dispel magic and everything that FMT provides. Question is if 100% dispel is so gamebreaking that FMT can't compete even with such tools.
But isn't his powerful dispel magic still blocked by SI:Abjuration? If so it's still not a win mage button.