I like the "Improved deployment for parties of assassins" component in Stratagems but for a no-reload attempt that's probably not a good idea. It transfers two groups (amazons in the valley of the tombs and another group usually found in Gullykin) from their static area to the travel areas where you are attacked by random encounters. Sidonie and Imoen survived but I cannot say this was under full control.
In both cases They wanted to disable the spellcasters first. With the amazons this worked well (two frost attacks and one lightning attack + the occasional MM from the wands) but Sidonie could not avoid a dangerous attack from an invisible amazon. In the second case, Sidonie relied on the wands (including Aganazar) and her own magic but the guys were harder to kill.
First the young adventurers met Lamalha, Maneira, Telka and Zeela.
And then Molkar, Morvin, Drakar and Halacan This time Sidonie had no armour and she was able to cast spells.
I was just wondering, if I started a new Phase Spider run, if I'd ever be able to find a portrait of a spider that would be as good as Blueberry's or Viora's.
The adventurers explored the ulcaster school just to steal a wand of fire in the dungeon. They did not confront the master of the place, they also avoided the strange skeleton on the surface. After that, it was time to visit the firewine bridge and find a way through the dungeon full of traps and kobolds, here again they did not fully explore the area. During those travels (coming from Ulcaster and later going to Firewine) they had to fight two groups of mercenaries, specifically described in the previous post. Imoen confessed her eagerness to become a mage. The next location was the right place to start this transformation. Durlag's tower is surprisingly well defended by a couple of battle horrors eliminated by Sidonie. Imoen's thieving skills were more than welcome to explore the upper levels but it was the time to introduce Imoen to the power of arcane magic.
Note 1: The timing was suboptimal as I wanted to cover the upper levels (interior only), doing so increased Imoen's XP up to 46K XP, thus wasting 6K. Poorly managed...
Note 2: At this point in time something became obvious: I really forgot several features/characteristics of top level foes. From then on I became more interested in rediscovering some elements while playing (as opposed to scrutinize the game scripts) and I lost a bit of the initial interest in the no reload aspect that would strongly encourage me to avoid every optional difficulty. Therefore I decided to go and fight those foes rather than flee.
It did not take long before Sidonie faced the fatidical moment. I basically remember how to handle Kirinhale (should you really want to fight her), really a matter of reducing the number of potential targets and making sure you have low saving throws to avoid or limit the effect of her drain. This went fine. I also remembered that the ghost mage on the level below is a very high level mage (relatively to BG1) and in my duo configuration (with a beginning mage btw) it was illusory to attempt a disruption strategy. Hence my love for the wand of summoning used to lead such mages to waste their spells on summons. Unfortunately my timing in those corridors and small rooms was too "drowsy". I did not expect the ghost to emerge so quickly and his cloudkill proved to be fatal. THE END
I replayed that encounter 7 times more. 6 successful. 1 failure because the summoned gnolls love their mommy so much that they prevented her from doing the right move at the right moment. (You control the blue creatures but the yellow ones come back to you if they are not involved in a fight). Not under full control but this encounter is optional (at best) in a no reload and you can manage it differently. Now the raging part, oh yes rage! Reason being that I continued the game and the girls covered absolutely everything south of the CandleKeep / FAI line except the lower levels of the tower. And they did not fail, not once. The only moment worth a few lines was the very optional fight with Kahrk. A fighter mage with a very good AI in Stratagems and unlike the Ulcaster bosses he does not cheat (except with "haste" perhaps). No way to disrupt, no way to dispel, no way to engage a direct fight. Patience and good timing required. I was not happy with the outcome because I was confident in the victory and decided to use Imoen to test Kahrk resilience to paralyse (wand) while Sidonie was taking him down. And at the first try the ogre mage failed his saving throw... I replayed it half a dozen times (without paralyse, no lvl 4 spells and in a fair fight, sometimes out of sight but never for long) and failed once - Imoen died. Not 100% secure yet but it is satisfactory.
I buffed up the whole party with Death Ward and went to the Docks. I want to turn Arkanis Gath onto Mook and the other Shadow Thieves.
Unfortunately, Arkanis Gath kept making his saves vs. wand against Charm, even when I softened him up with Doom and Greater Malison. Since Ara Minerva can't use Charm more than once per four rounds, it gives Arkanis Gath a lot of time to whittle away at our Stoneskins. Plus, it's boring to wait around for Minerva to recover her Charm ability.
So, on reviewing Minerva's secondary abilities--Confusion, Feeblemind, and Sleep, all of which are single-target, only last two rounds each, and offer save bonuses--I realize that Arkanis Gath should be perfectly vulnerable to Feeblemind. After all, I've Feebleminded Irenicus in Spellhold, and Irenicus there has the same MINHP1 item that Arkanis Gath does. I double-check the file, and sure enough, the immunity to feeblemind is not there.
I rest and return to the Docks. Once Arkanis Gath is in our sight, we prep the area with Teleport Field and apply GM and Doom for safety's sake. Finally, our Archer/Mages activate Called Shot and turn their Minute Meteors on Arkanis Gath.
I count out the hits to make sure his save vs. spell is high enough, then have Eliza cast Feeblemind. When the magic clears, I see Arkanis Gath staring blankly into space.
So stat drain isn't the only way to deal with Arkanis Gath. You can just nail him with Feeblemind.
We face his other, weaker form on the south end of the map. He has no special abilities here.
I think I'll tweak the Bog Witch's Minor Spell Deflection so it doesn't create that wiffle ball effect.
After completing the first two of Bodhi's tasks (I choose the unseemly task and let Vulova go, to get the Shadow Thief Dagger, a little-mentioned speed weapon), we move on to the Unseeing Eye quest. We get surprised by the Ooze Mephit and Eliza fails a save. Shortly after, she runs out of Stoneskins.
It's times like these where no-reload runs are a lot more exciting than the normal game. Left alone, Eliza could die very quickly, with nothing to protect herself besides HP. We cast Teleport Field to disperse the critters, Hold Monster on the Shadows that might kill Eliza with stat drain, and also cast Invisibility on Eliza, just for good measure.
It's fun to fix things when stuff goes wrong. Unfortunately, that situation is also when no-reload runs tend to end, so it's still a good idea to minimize all chance of bad stuff happening.
The Beholder spawns in the hive are very unimpressive this time around. My install doesn't increase the difficulty of level-based encounters, and apparently that means an important cluster of three Beholders and two Gauths is now just... one Gauth, alone. This makes it possible to clear out the Beholders without using summons or clones.
We do, however, get ambushed by a Beholder when we attack the Blind Priests, right after casting Greater Malison and Emotion on the latter. We drew our Archer/Mages back and slew the Beholder while Bloody Howard kept the clerics busy.
Notice the Ghoul Touch hand--that's the stolen shadow weapon in the hands of a Blind Priest's shadow. His spells aren't much help, unfortunately. Bloody Howard can walk all over a powerful spellcaster if luck is on his side, but put him in a group of enemies, and his Steal Shadow ability only goes so far.
The Unseeing Eye is disappointingly quick. We hit him with the Rift Device (we're not high enough level to kill him with STR drain), he attacks our Mummy summons, and then we finish him off with ranged attacks.
I've gotten so used to killing him with stat drain. But it doesn't matter. Our only loss with this method is that we can't use the Rift Device on the Shade Lich.
On the way out, we tackle Draug Fea and the Sewer Dwellers. We get lucky with Shadow Steal, taking over Gaius' shadow on the first round. As usual, I focus on removing the clerics. Minute Meteors, thankfully, bypasses Physical Mirror.
We also successfully Charm Rengaard, who unfortunately is unconscious and unable to help us. But with Gaius' shadow on our side, we've got an extra debuffer on our hands.
Mages are great against mages. I should probably tweak Shadow Steal so it robs the shadows of some of their higher-level spells... I can decrease their levels, but it doesn't seem to get rid of memorized spells.
Anyway, with Gaius quickly debuffed, his shadow can take him down with ease.
The fight by now is won.
Bog Witches gain access to Warding Whip very, very quickly... it makes them better debuffers than mages, at least early on. I could increase the casting speed to balance it, but I might end up just accepting that as a kit feature. Moving it to level 7 would make the Bog Witch a vastly inferior debuffer, while changing it to Pierce Magic or another magic attack would seem boring... Warding Whip doesn't see enough use, really.
The entrance to Mekrath's lair reminds us of the still-open Planar Prison quest. I decide I want another pair of Boots of Speed. To my surprise, we don't find a Coiled Cabal in Mekrath's lair... it's just a group of Umber Hulks.
In the Planar Prison, I get too reckless with Ara Minerva, who I wanted to backstab one of the Thralls. But she was wide open to an Umber Hulk's stare (Umber Hulks once again replaced the Yuan-ti I normally see here), and she wandered into view of the Master of Thralls, who quickly closed in on her despite the Teleport Field on the map.
But the rest of the party was not so vulnerable. Bloody Howard and Eliza, our two frontmost characters, are both immune to the Umber Hulk's confusion and the Master of Thralls' paralyzing Death Gaze by virtue of the Shield of Harmony and Chaotic Commands, respectfully. While the Bog Witches debuff and take down the enemy mage, our front line cuts down the Master of Thralls, who has no spell defenses to speak of.
Next up, the Warden. He didn't play out quite like I thought he would.
For some reason, we see yet more Umber Hulks instead of Yuan-ti around the Warden. I'm not sure why the snake people I've gotten so accustomed to have been replaced with gorilla bugs. But the Umber Hulks are the least of my worries.
Turns out the Warden has some HLAs in my current install. I had forgotten that all enemy spellcasters with 9th-level spells in my install were supposed to have HLAs. This includes the Warden.
Now we have vorpal strikes to worry about. I successfully lure the Planetar away from the party with Bloody Howard as a decoy, but he fails to steal the Planetar's shadow, and barely escapes with his life when the Planetar and some of the Umber Hulks mob him. Worse yet, the Warden messes up our spellcasting when we're trying to debuff him.
He follows up with a nasty Spell Trigger, rendering our already-injured Bog Witches defenseless. But I notice something very special in the dialog box.
Ara Minerva successfully cast Charm... and there is no mention of a save vs. wand. We charmed the Warden! Now we just need to wait another two rounds for Charm to take effect.
The Planetar starts to ignore Blood Howard, and approaches the party. Eliza doesn't have PFMW--she's only got IH and Spell Deflection. Our Charname is therefore perfectly vulnerable to a vorpal strike. We have to shift gears to deal with the Planetar... Bloody Howard, getting swarmed by gorilla bugs to the west, is no longer on the Planetar's agenda.
We Breach the Planetar, removing the Globe of Blades, and activate a Teleport Field to frustrate its melee attacks. It's a good thing Planetars don't use ranged weapons.
Meanwhile, our previous Warding Whip fully debuffs the Warden, and Minerva finally takes control of the now-weakened head of the Planar Prison. We check out his spellbook.
Look at all those offensive spells. Unfortunately for us, none of them are much good against a Planetar. The only one that will bypass the Planetar's MR is Dragon's Breath, and Dragon's Breath will deal no damage to it. We try a safe option, Mordenkainen's Sword, but the Warden refuses to cast it, despite being under our power. Meanwhile, we suffer our first casualty.
Gloom never had time to renew her Ironskins, unlike Poppy. But anyone in the party could end up like that, depending on where Teleport Field places the Planetar.
The only member of our group with PFMW is Snowy Tae. We've managed to interrupt the Planetar's spellcasting using the Crimson Dart, but we have no check on its melee attacks beyond a single Teleport Field, and Snowy Tae doesn't have enough time to cast another.
I equip Snowy Tae with +3 arrows to help Eliza deal with the Fallen Planetar--only +3 weapons will harm it--but when I click on Planetar, I find that Eliza has already made great progress over the past few rounds. The Planetar has been taking lots of damage, and the hits have been so frequent that it hasn't been able to heal itself.
With Snowy Tae helping out, the Planetar won't last long.
Dragon's Breath also removes the Umber Hulks, leaving the Warden alone and under our power. We move to more open ground and start emptying out the Warden's spellbook.
Ara Minerva re-casts Charm to keep the Warden under our control, but the Warden breaks free at some point despite not having made a save vs. wand.
For some reason, he doesn't attack us. It's just as well--Charm was many rounds away from wearing off, even if he hadn't failed a save against a re-cast Charm a few seconds previously, so he shouldn't be attacking us anyway. Notice Bloody Howard trying to steal his shadow in the brief period during which the Warden is vulnerable to it (Steal Shadow doesn't work on friendly creatures).
The Warden goes green once more, and we keep emptying out his spellbook. We go on for a long time, since our own buffs are running out in the process. Finally, the Warden is left with almost nothing.
He proved unable to cast PW: Kill while charmed, hence why it's still there. We betray his trust once his spellbook is empty.
We're almost done with Chapter 2. The Planar Prison closes, and the Planar Sphere opens.
I always liked one of the lines with the Solamnic Knights.
It makes no sense. I just love it.
Ara Minerva makes another botched backstab run, being uncovered by True Seeing before she can take a swing at Mogadish. The rest of the party rushes in to help.
Poppy casts Wail of the Banshee, a newly-acquired level 7 Bog Witch spell, but it doesn't contribute much. Gloom, still at level 13, actually does more that round with a debuffer.
Wail of the Banshee has always been rather unreliable. In IWD2, it was absolutely game-breaking, but here, it's just another save or else spell.
Gloom hits level 14 and gains access to the level 7 Bog Witch spells. After taking down Necre and Taibela with debuffers and Horrid Wilting, we move on to Lavok.
Ara Minerva enters the room hasted and invisible. With the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, her THAC0 is quite low when hidden. I try out the Staff of Striking for the first time. It does not disappoint.
But Lavok is still very much alive. I pull Minerva back, send our summoned Mummy to the front, and draw Gloom out of the doorway, into the main chamber.
Lavok casts Improved Alacrity and quickly toasts the Mummy with Dragon's Breath and then Comet. He also drinks a potion immediately after, which normally isn't possible, even with Improved Alacrity... potions can only be drunk 6 seconds after the last spell or item use.
But it doesn't matter. Gloom's Horrid Wilting spell takes effect, and the necromancer goes down.
I think I am going to remove the Bog Witch's casting level bonuses. I added them in to make their spells harder to dispel, but with Spell Immunity available, that's not really an issue. And having a druid cast a 20d8 Horrid Wilting spell at 1.5 million XP just doesn't seem right. I'll need to rebalance the kit. It can be stronger than a druid, since druids already have so little to begin with, but it shouldn't come quite that close to a mage's damage power, I don't think.
We slay a Tanar'ri with ranged weapons and move on to Tolgerias. Ara Minerva tries another Staff of Striking backstab, but she doesn't flee quickly enough, and gets hit by Tolgerias' Chain Contingency.
But Tolgerias fails to heal himself. Horrid Wilting does him in.
A Staff of Striking followed by Horrid Wilting is an excellent combination. With a mage and a thief, rather than a Bog Witch and a thief, you might replicate it with Sunfire or Cone of Cold in place of Horrid Wilting. But high-level mages with pre-buffs in SCS2 are very likely to have immunity to any or all of those damage types, so it's not a perfect solution.
After re-activating the power core, we get surprised by a gang of golems in a tight space. It doesn't look good, as they catch us without Stoneskins, and Eliza is their closest target.
They don't follow us when we head back to the other area, however. But just in case, we make sure that we're well protected if they should surprise us again.
When I see they're still stuck in that little hallway, I decide that we can take them, as the Iron Golem is stuck behind the door. We can take down the Clay Golem with Minute Meteors, the Stone Golem with our normal weapons, and then attack the Iron Golem with the Crimson Dart, using a poison-immune Bog Witch to absorb the Iron Golem's toxic cloud attack.
Turns out the Iron Golem isn't actually stuck in that doorway.
Once those other golems are dead or have moved, the Iron Golem will join in. We retreat to the southern room, which fortunately does have a doorway the Iron Golem can't pass. The Golem Slow from the Stone Golems, and the Golem Haste from the Clay Golem, is enough to bring Bloody Howard to the brink of death, even with the Girdle of Bluntness equipped. We suffer a lot of damage before the golems go down.
We bring Lavok to the surface, give the Ring of Acuity to Eliza, and proceed through the mage stronghold quests, choosing the safest assignments for the apprentices. I just can't bear to have sweet little Nara die, even for a shot at getting a Ring of Wizardry.
@Ygramul In fact the ghost/daitel/daital on the third floor killed Sidonie. Kirinhale was already eliminated.
For Sidonie, I wanted a 90 point character but the real rule was to keep at least 10 points in each ability and I didn't really require a HP boost (CON). I rolled 90+ only once.
Let me introduce Bandael, an elven fighter thief, Imoen's friend. A duo, once more. Here I wasn't able to get more than 87. It doesn't really matter: Max physical stats and at least 10 in other stats.
All available skill points in set traps. I add a bias to the character: no ranged weapon proficiency. Long swords and Daggers.
weidu.log
// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods // The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod // ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version] ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #0 // Ice Island Level Two Restoration: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #1 // The Mysterious Vial: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #4 // Finishable Kagain Caravan Quest: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #5 // Coran and the Wyverns: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #6 // Kivan and Tazok: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #7 // Branwen and Tranzig: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #10 // Place Entar Silvershield in His Home: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #11 // Scar and the Sashenstar's Daughter: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #12 // Quoningar, the Cleric: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #13 // Shilo Chen and the Ogre-Magi: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #14 // Edie, the Merchant League Applicant: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #16 // Creature Corrections: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #17 // Creature Restorations: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #18 // Creature Name Restorations: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #19 // Minor Dialogue Restorations: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #21 // Store, Tavern and Inn Fixes and Restorations: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #22 // Item Corrections and Restorations: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #28 // Prism and the Emeralds Tweak: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #29 // Duke Eltan in the Harbor Master's Building: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #30 // Nim Furlwing Encounter: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #32 // Svlast, the Fallen Paladin Encounter: v14.0_beta_150720 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1036 // Make Cloakwood Areas Available Before Completing the Bandit Camp -> All of Cloakwood Except the Mines: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1080 // Add Bags of Holding: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2170 // Cast Spells from Scrolls (and Other Items) at Character Level: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2339 // Remove Summoning Cap for Regular Summons: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3000 // Higher HP on Level Up -> Maximum: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3060 // Remove "You Must Gather Your Party..." Sound (Weimer): v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4020 // ToB-Style NPCs: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4050 // Change Jaheira to Neutral Good: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4080 // Make Khalid a Fighter-Mage (Domi): v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4090 // Make Montaron an Assassin (Andyr): v16 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Initialise mod (all other components require this): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1910 // Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2020 // Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2030 // Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2110 // Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at 1.5 x their level (not twice their level): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2120 // Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3030 // Re-introduce potions of extra-healing: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3041 // Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores -> Stores sell a maximum of 5 Arrows of Dispelling: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4010 // Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5020 // Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5050 // Stackable ankheg shells, winterwolf pelts and wyvern heads: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6031 // Smarter Mages -> Mages only cast short-duration spells instantly at start of combat if they are created in sight of the PC: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6041 // Smarter Priests -> Priests only cast short-duration spells instantly at start of combat if they are created in sight of the PC: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly harder carrion crawlers: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7020 // Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7030 // Dark Side-based kobold upgrade: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7040 // Relocated bounty hunters: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity party: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: v30
I will report the progress in this thread and I will also create a separate thread with more details in French.
I checked the file and realized that the Bog Witch Horrid Wilting spell is set to do only 16d8 damage regardless of level. So they're not doing 20d8 damage per spell. But I removed the caster level bonuses anyway, since SI: Abjuration makes the bonuses redundant.
Also, Spell Duration Modification does not triple spell duration. It lowers it, actually. I'll have to figure out what's wrong, but I've been going without it for quite some time.
With Arkanis Gath out of the way, we can take on the Shadow Thieves with much less trouble. The Shadow Thief Mages very unwisely protect themselves with Minor Spell Turning, which only blocks spells up to level 4. Breach, opened up by True Seeing, easily renders them vulnerable.
Wail of the Banshee proves disappointing once again.
They're not even tough enemies, but a level 9 spell can't bring them down reliably.
Ara Minerva tries her hand at a backstab again, and fails miserably.
She also fails to charm the Mage, and is left paused for 6 seconds after casting Charm. Luckily, the enemy thieves are having a bad day as well.
We bring in the rest of the party, and though Minerva is backstabbed to death, we do steal the Mage's shadow, and have some fun with its necromancy spells.
It vanishes before long, but it was nice while it lasted.
Haz also chooses to protect himself with Minor Spell Turning, and is therefore equally easily debuffed.
But Aran Linvail isn't so reckless. He comes very well-prepared, and so I turn our front line against the Priest of Mask instead.
Horrid Wilting and Sunfire bypass Aran Linvail's defenses, but aren't quite enough.
Another True Seeing, followed by Breach, brings down Aran Linvail mage friend.
By then, Aran Linvail's weapon immunities have worn off naturally, and only his Stoneskins remain. We break them down.
The Guarded Compound has given me trouble before. The enemy has many options, lots of stuff is happening very quickly, and there are four enemies that can screw up our functioning: Ketta, who can kill any party member without Stoneskin in one or two backstabs; Stalman, who may disable large sections of the party with Greater Command; Koshi, who can stun-lock anyone in the party without subzero saves, PFMW, or Chaotic Commands; and Sion, a mage with 9th-level spells.
We prepare new contingencies: Teleport Field on enemy sighted for Snowy Tae, and Teleport Field on helpless for Eliza. This will hold off Koshi early on, without risking two Teleport Fields that activate at the same time, and are therefore redundant (unless Teleport Field doesn't activate exactly every 6 seconds). We also make sure Ara Minerva is invisible when she enters, so she can disable the two first traps and cast Charm before Ketta backstabs her to death.
On the very first round, I see something worrying.
Sion has Spell Trap. Very few SCS2 mages use that spell, and it means we can't debuff him with Warding Whip. Warding Whip only breaks down 8th-level protections and below. Only RRoR, Pierce Shield, and Spellstrike can take down Spell Trap.
Sion is beyond our reach for the time being. But Minerva gets Charm off the ground, and I see no save vs. wand from Koshi. We charmed Koshi! Another two rounds, and he's ours. We therefore turn our attention to Stalman. Meanwhile, our Bog Witches are casting Horrid Wilting and True Seeing.
A couple seconds later, and Minerva is in jeopardy. I'm not surprised.
Notice Koshi on the right side of the screen. Teleport Field is really bad for Kensais like Koshi. What good is +5 to hit and damage if you're not in range of the enemy?
We make rapid progress on Stalman. Without mage buffs, a cleric like Stalman is very easy to disrupt. Minerva is still paused by Charm, which means she can't take action, but enemies don't get automatic hits on her. She's still where she was before: just above the upper left wiffle ball globe which is Eliza.
The pause effect lasts 6 seconds, which prevents Minerva from drinking a potion, either to heal herself or escape. The only reason Ketta doesn't finish her off is because of Teleport Field.
Stalman falls. But Sion has been perfectly safe, and has successfully debuffed the few defenses Bloody Howard and Minerva had. On top of that, he slows two of our group.
We keep waiting for Koshi to turn green, but it's just not happening. I was sure we charmed him--there was no save to suggest otherwise, and I know the spell got off the ground because Minerva was invisible during the casting, and could not have been interrupted.
We still hold out, hoping that Koshi will turn, and focus on Ketta instead. With Gloom's True Seeing active, Ketta can't escape.
Minerva still can't drink a potion. Slow must have robbed her of another round. And Koshi still isn't green, despite it being well past the two-round delay before Charm takes effect. We finally attack Koshi. For all his murderous stun effects and crazy damage bonuses, there's nothing a Kensai can do in a Teleport Field with Minute Meteors flying around. He escapes the Teleport Field, and is about to slay Minerva, but for our Archers, the distance means very little. Koshi can't escape.
Our only remaining high-priority target is Sion. We have no means of taking down that Spell Trap. But we might just be able to burn through it. We throw out Pierce Magic, Warding Whip, and even Secret Word. To my surprise, Spell Trap doesn't absorb them.
This is a very big find. Spell Trap won't go down with Warding Whip, but it also won't stop Warding Whip from removing other defenses, like Globe of Invulnerability. We'll still never be able to hit him with single-target spells, since Spell Trap will remain intact, but all of his other buffs can be removed, therefore opening up some limited offensive options.
We hear the telltale sound indicating a simulacrum has appeared. We check on Sion.
Sion failed his save against Steal Shadow!
But we have a problem. Sion has begun casting an alteration spell--I thought at the time it must have been Time Stop, but in retrospect, it was almost assuredly Improved Alacrity. I hurry over to disrupt it.
Poppy casts Water Jet, a Mephit spell you might recognize as the Cone of Cold-like attack from the Air Elemental Plane at Chateau Irenicus. It disrupts his spell!
But Water Jet only does 1d3 damage. The dialog box says Sion took 6 damage. That damage is from Poppy's previous Cloudkill spell, though I didn't see that at the time.
I have Sion's shadow begin casting Absolute Immunity, as a buffer for future spells. Then Water Jet finally hits.
We don't have much time, as Water Jet only stuns for a single round. But that's enough to target him with some important spells. To our great fortune, Sion fails another save.
Sion is truly doomed. He's got 10 rounds of paralysis ahead of him. Now we can act at our leisure.
Just for fun, I have Sion's shadow throw out some gratuitous spellpower.
I almost Imprison Olaf, before realizing I don't have Freedom to bring back his loot.
Finally, we turn our attention to Sion, still paralyzed from before. The battle is won.
Here we see the failure of both the Shadow Stealer and Seducer kits. When Charm failed to work on Koshi, Ara Minerva was left helpless for the full duration of the battle. At no point was she able to contribute meaningfully to the fight, aside from soaking up a backstab that might have hurt Bloody Howard instead. She spent all of her time trying to escape from the fight and stay alive. A single unsuccessful Charm attempt meant that our Seducer did nothing to help us against the enemy.
Bloody Howard had the same problem. Despite multiple attempts to steal the enemy's shadow, he only succeeded very late in the fight, and by the time we got a hold of Sion's shadow, Sion was stunned and on his way to getting paralyzed. His Shadow Stealer kit abilities did nothing to help the party, simply because the enemy's saving throw rolls did not go our way.
The Bog Witches played a much larger role. They were able to neutralize Sion outright, albeit only after a lot of time had passed. But the Archer/Mages were the only reason the witches stayed alive in the first place: without Teleport Field and lots of Minute Meteors and darts, the enemy fighters would have overwhelmed the party.
We're about to leave for Spellhold, and our party is at level 14, including our Archer/Mages. Unfortunately, our THAC0 isn't good enough to take down any dragons with Called Shot and STR drain, but it does mean we've reached a major milestone.
Bloody Howard is actually a dwarf, but I tweaked his animation to match his portrait. He can dual-wield well and has Kundane and the Shadow Thief Dagger, so he can reach 5 APR with magical and normal weapons, but he normally wears the Shield of Harmony--not just for the immunities, but for the AC. Shadow Stealers are very squishy, and need extra defense to stay intact. Hence the Helm of the Rock, a valuable find for Bloody Howard.
Eliza, our Bhaalspawn
Eliza's setup is mostly defensive. The Robe of Vecna is there to give her instant castings of emergency spells, not for quick-acting damage spells. Note the Crimson Dart. Eliza has 40% of enemy kills thanks to that little dart, while Snowy Tae has about 24%, even though Snowy Tae has the same APR, and slightly better range, with the Tuigan Bow. Darts are just fantastic. I haven't even been using +5 darts, either.
Snowy Tae, our other Archer/Mage
Although I prefer using darts, there aren't many options for dart throwers, as only the Crimson Dart and Darts +5 (a very limited resource without using exploits) can hurt stuff like Planetars and Iron Golems. Also, we really do need somebody who can use Acid Arrows, Arrows of Dispelling, and Firetooth, to interrupt spells and debuff mages. Hence Snowy Tae's specialization in shortbows and crossbows.
Ara Minerva, our Seducer
Minerva usually sticks to throwing darts and using her psionic abilities. Her Charm spell makes her very vulnerable, and since it's so incredibly important, she spends very little time backstabbing--she doesn't do hit-and-fade stuff, partly because she doesn't have the skill points for it (remember that a Seducer's skills are all cut in half), but mostly because her other abilities are more important.
Gloom, our primary Bog Witch
Though I wanted Gloom to dual-wield Belm to suit her Marilith animation (not visible on the inventory screen), we left Belm and lots of other goodies at the druid grove, where it was stolen by the local treehuggers. This means Gloom just uses a spear and dagger, to suit her portrait (she actually holds a scythe).
Poppy, our secondary Bog Witch
Poppy is our secondary witch because she doesn't have any BG1 WIS tome bonuses, and so has fewer slots than Gloom. Like Gloom, she stays out of the fray, and uses the items that the other characters don't need or don't want.
As I had suspected, the Bog Witches' power level has begun to balance out relative to the other party members, as they are now stuck at the level 14-15 XP gap, while the others continue to progress. I might need to nerf the Bog Witch kit at levels 8-12 or so, but I think the Seducer and Shadow Stealer are both fairly balanced, at least for a no-reload run. The Seducer and Shadow Stealer can have a huge impact on the outcome of a battle, but ultimately their powers rely on the enemy failing a saving throw.
We finally leave for Spellhold. Perth the Adept goes down with a Power Word spell.
It's a convenient way to deal with a potentially dangerous encounter.
Since I don't want to end up with Burning Hands in the Book of Daily Spell, I use the simulacrum trick to duplicate the book. You set the book to the turn page function, summon a clone via Vhailor's Helm or the spell, have the clone turn the page, kill the clone, and loot a duplicate book from its body. I use it to get the three spells I like the best: Farsight, True Seeing, and Spell Turning. I never come across Burning Hands, though I turn the page many times.
Then we help out the prostitute lady whose name I forget. We use Power Word: Stun on Chremy as well, just for fun.
It's important not to confuse Chremy with Calaghan. We grab an amulet from Calaghan's body.
In my opinion, this is the single ugliest item in Baldur's Gate 2, by far. Note the oddly phallic shape in the sketch next to the item description.
Despite already having taken Prebek's pet rock, we convince Desharik we're lunatics for a little extra XP.
I wonder what that dialog option does. I've never chosen it before, but I like it because it's so silly given the context.
To hurry up Irenicus' arrival in Spellhold, we attack Long the Sane all the way to Imoen's cell.
He goes hostile just as Irenicus teleports in. Turns out Lonk the Sane is pretty tough.
Hopefully he won't be hostile later on. That would kinda suck.
Mercifully, we don't encounter a Lich in Spellhold. We do have trouble with the Greater Mummy, however, as it's immune to most everything we've got. But our own mummies, with their +3 base attack, can harm it easily.
For other enemies, we just blast them away.
Fortunately, Lonk is not hostile when we next see him, though he refuses our offer until our Seducer speaks on our behalf. Eliza's CHA is too low to convince Lonk to open the cells.
In my install, Bodhi takes away your items in Spellhold, which means you must fight all of the enemies with only the items you find in the maze itself, plus some nonmagical equipment (which basically just means plate mail for Bloody Howard) in the Bag of Holding. We will therefore be fighting Irenicus at far below our normal strength.
On top of that, I have decided not to remove any items from my characters to keep our clones from using them. When our clones arrive, they will have Darts of Wounding, Bolts of Biting, Acid Arrows, and Arrows of Dispelling on hand, as well as some other items, just like us.
We get off to a mixed start. We disable most of the clones with Greater Malison and Emotion, but Irenicus makes his saves against both Steal Shadow and Charm.
Irenicus begins with full elemental and weapon immunities, plus GOI and Spell Turning. We can't yet hit him with our darts or Horrid Wilting, but we can tear down both of his spell protections with Warding Whip. We can hit him with Breach after another round passes, but I know from experience that Jon-bon will recast his buffs in this fight.
Notice the clone of Irenicus: Jon-bon failed his second save against Steal Shadow.
Now we have a powerful new ally, who quickly shields itself with Absolute Immunity. But since I've decided that shadows shouldn't have access to high-level spells, I don't let Irenicus' shadow use any more spells above level 6. Jon-bon turns invisible, so we turn our attention to the Eliza clone.
Irenicus runs away, and then I hear two alteration spells being cast. One of them I know is the shadow's Slow spell. The other must be Improved Alacrity, from the real Irenicus.
Unlike most players, SCS2 Irenicus uses Improved Alacrity defensively as well as offensively. Most mage combine it with Time Stop, but the spells are redundant: the great benefit of Time Stop is that it lets you move around freely, attack automatically, and completely avoid any chance of spell disruption.
But if you're running both Improved Alacrity and Time Stop at the same time... well, you're not going to be moving around freely during Time Stop, or attacking, because that cuts into your casting time. Plus, Improved Alacrity already lets you avoid disruption, as you can begin re-casting a spell the moment you lose one. Using them together is usually a waste of Time Stop, and therefore a valuable level 9 spell slot. It's more practical to use them separately, and this is what Irenicus does.
This means his spells will be impossible to disrupt for two rounds. We could Breach him, but he'd just restore his defenses. We have to stop this spell however we can.
But he's immune to our weapons, and our Bog Witches are too far to hit him with Poison Arrow. Snowy Tae tries Magic Missile instead, now that Irenicus' spell protections are gone, only to remember that his specific protections remain.
Notice the demon summoning circle? That's Dradeel's Nabassu. That Nabassu hits us with Silence 15' Radius just as Irenicus finishes casting his spell.
Irenicus now has free spellcasting for two rounds, and half of our spellcasters can't use any spells. Nor can we even attack the Nabassu, as our only means of hitting it are Minute Meteors, and since Snowy Tae can't recast Melf's Minute Meteors, we don't have enough to kill it.
A lot of stuff happens very quickly. Irenicus' shadow nails him with Flame Arrow, Poppy finishes casting Poison Arrow, Jon-bon's PFMW contingency fires, and one of the inmates Breaches Irenicus.
The Breach hits, removing Jon's PFMW spell. But Jon replaces it with Absolute Immunity. That's why he uses it outside of Time Stop. Cast Time Stop and IA together, and you have three rounds of free casting. Cast them separately, and you have five rounds of free casting.
The Flame Arrow lands, but our weapons bounce off.
This is Jon-bon's weakness for the time being: we can hit him with spells, but not our weapons. Problem is... we didn't memorize many damage spells, and half our spellcasters couldn't use them anyway. Poppy has one Poison Arrow left, and with her defenses broken down, she would be easy to disrupt. Plus, hitting Irenicus now wouldn't stop his spellcasting.
We finish off the Nabassu, but a Glabrezu, also summoned by Dradeel, takes its place.
Worse yet, that Planetar requires +3 weapons to hit. Our only +3 weapons are the Cleric's Staff (one pip on Elia) and a Spear +3 (one pip on Gloom). No Crimson Dart means the Planetar lives.
But Irenicus still has no spell protections. His clone tacks on another Flame Arrow spell.
It costs Irenicus an invisibility spell. More importantly, Ara Minerva is finally able to cast Charm again--the four-round cooldown is over. I notice Irenicus makes no save vs. wand.
See that shadowy figure in the middle of the screen? That's Gloom. See the other shadowy figure next to her? That's her clone.
Notice that the clone is green. One of the inmates charmed her. This means we have a second Bog Witch on our hands. A Bog Witch with Horrid Wilting.
Irenicus is almost dead! The battle is nearly over.
Just then, Charm kicks in. Irenicus, weakened by rage and combat, is pliable to our will.
His first spell is Energy Blades, but I find that his THAC0 is too poor to harm the Planetar. Meanwhile, our spells bounce off of the Planetar's magic resistance. Only Chaos, from Eliza, has any effect. And the Planetar makes every save against Steal Shadow and Charm.
The inmates suddenly die, indicating the end of the battle.
But Irenicus' dialog doesn't come up, likely because Irenicus is still charmed. Either way, his Planetar is still kicking around, and we need Irenicus' help if we're going to take it down. Eliza has no more PFMW spells left; the Planetar may still be able to land a vorpal strike.
Irenicus stops time. Now we have automatic hits against the Planetar, and 17 Energy Blades to throw.
A spare Comet throw into the mix takes down the last of the clones (misnamed Eliza in the dialog box; all clones receive that name). But to my dismay, the Planetar just barely survives... and we have no means of finishing it off. Irenicus is out of Energy Blades. The Planetar begins to cast Heal.
All of our work so far will be wasted if the Planetar succeeds. With no other options, Irenicus casts Wish. We get an excellent option.
But there is no Improved Alacrity effect--Irenicus can still only cast one spell per round. And the Fallen Planetar resists every Power Word: Stun and Power Word: Kill spell that Irenicus casts.
Then the tide of battle turns against us, and I realize we've made a mistake.
Ara Minerva shouldn't have been trying to charm the Planetar. She should have been trying to re-charm Irenicus.
As powerful as a Seducer's Charm is, it only lasts 10 rounds.
The Fallen Planetar casts Heal, despite our efforts to stop it. But Irenicus is still vulnerable, and it turns out Irenicus' Stoneskin--which, at least in SCS2, stops poison--is no longer there to help him.
That doesn't solve our problems, however. Irenicus still isn't quite dead enough to trigger his dialog, and the Planetar remains at full health.
Realizing it can't hit us while the Teleport Field is in the way, the Planetar decides to resort to spellpower. It works much better. Half our party is vulnerable to fire.
We barely have any potions to heal ourselves, nor do we have any means of defending ourselves against Fire Storm. The party must flee, but our characters are slow, and it takes time to reach the door leading outside.
But that's not all.
Irenicus is at full power once again. And the Planetar isn't done with us just yet.
We try to Charm the Planetar and steal its shadow, but the Planetar makes its saves, yet again. We struggle to reach the exit, but we don't make it in time.
Irenicus uses his last HLA. Dragon's Breath.
Poppy is dead, and Minerva has been chunked, despite "Gore" being turned off. I understand that the SCS2 component that prevents chunking only works if Gore is on, and actually enables chunking if Gore is off. Ara Minerva should be dead, but not chunked.
We try to escape, but Bloody Howard and Snowy Tae don't make it. We leave the Planetar alone in the chamber, barely scratched by our efforts.
The Planetar finally vanishes. In the chaos during our escape, I didn't see where Irenicus went. We hole up in a corner and fortify our position, while Irenicus casts area-effect spells at the air around him, hoping to catch the invisible enemies he can no longer reveal.
We eventually find Irenicus has made his way to the hall just north of us. We send in an Otyugh to deal with him.
The first Otyugh falls, and Irenicus finds us hiding behind the other. We attack him with Darts of Wounding... but his Stoneskin blocks them all. He casts Symbol: Fear.
We cast Resist Fear before the fight began. But it seems that in the few rounds between Dragon's Breath and Summon Otyugh, that buff only just ran out.
Both of our characters are now disabled, and will be so for many rounds. But our Otyugh remains. And Stoneskin doesn't block disease.
An Otyugh's attack inflicts disease without a saving throw, and part of the disease is a slow effect. Irenicus loses multiple spells, but eventually slays the Otyugh, and begins to search for us.
Gloom stumbles into Irenicus' sight. She's a perfect target, and he has the nastiest Spell Trigger in store for her.
But Minor Spell Deflection blocks the entire trigger. Gloom escapes with her life.
Irenicus keeps searching, and finds Eliza back in the chamber. Eliza fails another save.
Irenicus hits her with Flame Arrow. Things are looking bad.
Even when the fear effect wears off, Eliza will be under Irenicus' control, and if Gloom should die, the game is over. Sure enough, Gloom wanders into the room, and Irenicus starts beating her to death. He even re-casts Spook to make sure Gloom doesn't recover from the fear effects.
Then, Charm Person and Symbol: Fear both wear off. Gloom is still panicking, but Eliza is in control. She nails Irenicus with a Dart of Wounding. And Irenicus has no more Stoneskins to protect him.
But he won't give his final dialog. Gloom recovers from Spook and joins in, throwing more Darts of Wounding at Irenicus, but Jon-bon just won't go away. In an attempt to trigger the dialog, we blind him and let the poison wear off before attacking him with normal darts, in the hopes that the poison was responsible for the dialog not triggering.
But Irenicus still won't talk to us. I heal him with CTRL-R to remove the blindness, then hit him with CTRL-Y to try and trigger the dialog. Nothing works.
Finally, I decide to bring the fight to an end. We poison him once again to disable his spellcasting, and Eliza activates Called Shot. She throws a few darts, activates Called Shot once again, and keeps throwing darts until Called Shot is over. It amounts to a STR penalty of -8 or -9, and a save vs. spell penalty of -10 to -12, or up to -15 if her Haste spell was still in effect. Irenicus' chances of failing a save vs. spell are 80% at best, and 100% at worst.
Eliza activates her Minor Sequencer, and Irenicus gets hit by two Rays of Enfeeblement at once.
I don't see any ending cutscenes, unfortunately, which means the game is apparently going to continue, despite already taking over Jon-bon's mind and then killing them two or three times over despite his plot armor.
I move the save file back into the "mpsave" folder so I can create Ara Minerva anew. She is 1 CHA point less cute than her predecessor. How sad.
I save and move the save file back over to the "save" folder. This allows me to play a multiplayer game with multiplayer's irritating pause delays.
Anyway, I tell Saemon to buzz off, since I want to get to our gear as soon as possible, and I'm not ready to teleport back to Spellhold. Unfortunately, Saemon apparently doesn't offer you the option of reconsidering your decision.
He just leaves you there. Even though he knows for a fact that Irenicus is trying to become a god, and even though Saemon doesn't want that, he still ditches us after a single "no."
Unfortunately for us, we can't leave. Ever. Because the Bag of Holding, which is where we put Jon's Key, has suddenly gone empty. At some point, it just ate our items. Every single one we put in there.
We reload a previous save to correct the bug--the game would be broken otherwise--and cheat in BAG31 instead of BAG04, just in case the BAG04 Bag of Holding decides to eat our stuff again. Without Saemon to take us to the City of Caverns, we're forced to head to the Underdark early. No Cloak of Mirroring or Cloak of Protection +2 for us.
I'd forgotten how powerful Celestial Fury is. With Sion et al massively empowered by SCS2, I've stopped building characters around katanas. Bloody Howard's poor defenses don't matter if he stun-locks the enemy.
The funny thing about stun is that it completely stops enemy animations. All the flowing wisps of this elemental go stiff, as if the stun affected every gaseous particle in the creature.
Steal Shadow proves quite devastating against the drow party. For some reasons, one of the drow clerics has Holy Word, and because I forgot my rule about shadows casting high-level spells, the whole enemy party gets slowed and/or deafened.
We clean up with Fire Storm, which bypasses drow MR.
Finally, we head to the imprisonment sphere. And because I don't know any better, I choose to mess with Alchra Diagott.
Alchra Diagott proved to be the single most destructive encounter I've ever faced. I've never lost so much in a no-reload run, especially not in a single fight. But at the time, I thought he'd just be another high-level mage.
The beautiful thing about Seducers is that their power is not dependent on their level. This means the chunking of Ara Minerva is not such a big loss. We lost 2 million XP in the process, but the new Minerva isn't actually that much weaker, as the Seducer's power is situation-dependent.
The tragic thing about Seducers is that, irrespective of their level, their abilities are unreliable.
One successful save, and Minerva is useless for another four rounds. What happens during those rounds?
Well, my party gets stuck in a level 20 Horrid Wilting spell, which is part of Alchra Diagott's opening Chain Contingency. Everyone in the party has to drink a potion, lest we be finished off by an HLA. We run away to find safety, but Alchra's reach is long.
Alchra choose the Breach option, which removes our specific protections. Spell Shield, Spell Immunity, Minor Spell Deflection, and Stoneskin, curiously, remain intact.
We keep fleeing. Liches have awful movement speeds, and I want to make the most of our advantage. To do so, I use a Protection from Undead scroll on Bloody Howard and send him to to hassle Alchra.
He just gets in Alchra's way--that's all I need him to do. The lich is already slow, but with Bloody Howard getting in the way every two steps, Alky can barely move. This gives Bloody Howard enough time to steal Alky's shadow, which unfortunately doesn't have much to use against its owner. We try burning through Alchra's Spell Turning with Breach.
Snowy Tae got targeted because I wasn't paying attention to the party's position. I moved them further away after that.
Alky starts to get around Bloody Howard, and the lich gets closer to the party, while its shadow gets left behind. Bloody Howard summons an Efreeti to distract the lich, and the shadow uses Chain Lightning to add on some damage, but otherwise there's not much we can do.
Eventually I bring out the party to attack the lich, as he must be running low on PFMW spells. But despite having already burned through his Spell Turning, I can't hit him with Breach. Our attacks are useless.
I thought at the time this was a bug, but actually it's because Alky's SI: Abjuration spell is still intact. This means he's immune to Breach. The Breach spells I tried earlier with Alky's stolen shadow had no effect: the only reason Chain Lightning worked is because Spell Turning won't block it, as it's an area-effect spell.
It doesn't help that he's already got Improved Alacrity active. He even dispels the party, and the only reason Eliza doesn't lose her Stoneskin is because she was just barely out of range.
There's one important thing in that screenshot. One very important thing. See Gloom, the dense black shadow in the middle-left portion of the screen? Just above her is a purple swirl. What is that swirl?
I've dealt with Fallen Planetars before with this party. Eliza single-handedly trashed the Warden's Fallen Planetar. And we did a fantastic job of evading the Fallen Planetar in Spellhold. So why would this one be any tougher than the others?
Because there are no Teleport Field spells active on the map. The Planetar runs right up to Bloody Howard and takes one swing.
Just one.
Bloody Howard is gone. The same day we lose Ara Minerva, we also lose Bloody Howard. Luckily for us, Shadow Stealers, like Seducers, aren't very dependent on levels. But that vorpal strike costs us 2 million XP, and Shadow Stealers benefit a lot more from HLAs than Seducers, since Seducers gain neither Use Any Item nor any trap HLAs.
A Planetar only has a 25% chance of scoring a vorpal strike, which in SCS2 offers a save vs. death at -2. Bloody Howard's save vs. death was 2. The odds of that happening are only 5%. The Planetar got that in one strike.
Do you know what happens when you don't cast Teleport Field when a Planetar is attacking you? It hurts... It hurts and then you die.
Now Poppy is dead. We have just lost two characters with 4 million XP between them, in the space of half a round. Poppy had no chance; Bog Witches are horribly slow. And our other Bog Witch, Gloom, is just a few steps away.
We try to hurt the Planetar, but it's not enough to deal damage. Damage will disrupt spells, but it won't stop attacks. Ara Minerva starts running.
The Planetar doesn't even need to give chase. Its range alone, and lightning quick speed factor, is sufficient.
This makes little difference in the long run, as the new Minerva only gathered a few thousand XP, but she could have changed the tide of this battle had she lived a bit longer.
By now I've tossed a pair of Boots of Speed to Gloom (who somehow can wear them, despite having no feet) and had her drink an Oil of Speed, to boot (pun!). This will give her the movement rate she needs to outrun the Planetar. But that might not be enough. Twice in a row, the Planetar landed a vorpal strike with only one hit, despite the normal 25% vorpal strike chance, and twice in a row, we failed a save vs. death. This is especially egregious considering our saves vs. death are spectacular: Bloody Howard was a high-level dwarven fighter, and his kit only imposes a -2 save penalty. Poppy was a high-level druid, and her kit gave her a +2 bonus to her save vs. death. The odds of this happening are less than 1%.
So I have Gloom run to the west... a dead end, but any other direction would lead her within range of that sword. Mercifully, the Planetar tries casting a spell, allowing Gloom to slither past the Planetar before she gets cornered.
Meanwhile, Alchra Diagott continues his work.
Only Eliza and Gloom remain. Our buffs are gone. But Alchra Diagott still has most of his spells, and the Planetar is at full health.
But the spells Alchra Diagott has lost are important ones: Protection from Magical Weapons, a precious resource for a lich. Bloody Howard drained three of them just by getting in Alchra's way. Our Shadow Stealer actually softened up the enemy just by walking around.
We try Breach again, and it fails once more. Finally I think to use the Wand of Spell Striking. It works.
Notice the Shield icon on Gloom. I had her drink a Potion of Magic Shielding, just in case she got attacked again. That potion would give her automatic saves vs. death, but even then, I'm not sure it would block a vorpal strike, because a Planetar's sword dispels magic on the same 25% chance roll as its vorpal strike... and in Near Infinity, the dispel opcode (58) comes before the vorpal strike opcode (13), which means the Planetar might dispel the Potion of Magic Shielding and land a vorpal strike in the same hit.
Alchra Diagott restores his PFMW once more, but the Wand of Spell Striking takes it down. Eliza finishes him off with a rock to the skull.
The Planetar is still on the map somewhere, and could still kill us if it finds us. I set up a defensive perimeter with the few spells I have left.
Finally, we see the coast is clear. The fight is finally over.
But half our party has just been permanently lost. We're 6 million XP weaker than we were before Irenicus--it's the equivalent of losing two epic-level characters.
Dramatic restructuring is called for. Re-creating our old characters and starting anew is not realistic at this point in the game. With all of the Chapter 2 side quests already completed, besides the Twisted Rune, dragons, and Kangaxx, we can't get back the XP that was lost. We need to do something else.
We must do this by removing one Archer/Mage and one Bog Witch from the party. Why is this? This is because a single Archer/Mage is sufficient to force a failed save on a given enemy. Snowy Tae is not needed for that function. I raise her, export her character file, and send her away. We can bring her back later, if necessary.
As for Poppy... we're not bringing her back. Another 900,000 XP, and Gloom hits level 15, with 7 spell slots per level. Gloom can satisfy all of our arcane casting needs just as soon as she hits that point. She therefore benefits more from XP than a re-created Poppy would.
But nothing can replace a Seducer or Shadow Stealer. We need those two back. But since I already re-created Minerva once, I decide to change names and portraits, even if the stats are basically the same. Our new Seducer and Shadow Stealer are Margot and Lithos.
Now, we need to kill a Balor with a level 12 party. The alternative is killing Svirfneblin for the Sun Gem. I have two ways of doing this: Ray of Enfeeblement, and Imprisonment. The Bog Witch version of Imprisonment offers no saving throw, like the mage version, but unlike the mage version, it won't bypass magic resistance.
We also need to avoid the Balor's attack, which also has an instant death on hit effect. But this is opcode 55, not 13, so Death Ward can block it. Lithos, our new Shadow Stealer, can achieve immunity with a Potion of Invulnerability, as it puts her save vs. death to -4 (the Balor's instant death effect offers a save at -4, unlike the Planetar's -2). Since I accidentally mishandled our buffs several times beforehand, we had to rest after drinking a Potion of Invulnerability, so we actually lost two potions instead of one. Due to lack of spell slots, we put Death Ward only on Eliza, but with a pre-cast Teleport Field and a Teleport Field contingency, the Balor shouldn't be able to hit us in the first place.
We summon a simulacrum via Vhailor's Helm and start softening up the Balor. It has 90% magic resistance, so we've got a ways to go.
Then Margot decides to show us up, charming the Balor and knocking it unconscious in the same round.
I wanted to lower its MR first, but the Balor has very low AC, and the sleep effect will give us automatic hits. Eliza and her clone activate Called Shot and attack the Balor with the Crimson Dart. Lithos, our new Shadow Stealer, jumps in to use Celestial Fury, hoping to take advantage of the automatic hits and use the Balor's increased save vs. spell to prolong its disablement. Offscreen, Gloom casts SI: Evocation to avoid disruption due to the Fire Storm, and slowly slithers over to try and Imprison the Balor, in case Ray of Enfeeblement doesn't work.
But it doesn't matter. Margot already won the battle. The Balor is in pieces, and still too friendly to attack us.
The battle is over before Gloom can even reach the Balor. We seal the demon back beneath the earth. Its shadow, divorced from its body, gives us a disapproving look.
We hit it with CTRL-Y and get the Sun Gem from the svirfneblin. Gloom is at 2.1 million XP. She's on her way to epic levels, and Bog Witches have some pretty crazy HLAs.
Total reloads: 0
Findings: The Seducer and Shadow Stealer kits are a bit like using Feeblemind on dragons. If you reload until the enemy fails its save, the spells complete break the difficulty--few enemies can survive being charmed or having their shadows turned against them, and no dragon can survive being Feebleminded.
I think I need to tweak the spells a little, to make the kits' efficacy slightly less dependent on luck. Shadow Steal will probably be balanced if I just rig it to rob the clone of higher-level spells (lose 1d4+1 spells of each level, maybe), but Charm needs to have its duration tweaked. Maybe Charm would last five rounds instead of ten, the pause effect would last three seconds instead of six, and the cooldown for Charm would be three rounds instead of four. This would make the benefits of Charm a bit less unpredictable.
To Ust Natha. We get into a lot of trouble with the drow ambush, since our Earthquake disables no one, our Fire Storm fails to kill anything, and the drow's AC is too good for even Eliza to land hits reliably. We end up winning the battle through disablers, despite the drow's MR: two Hold Monster spells from Gloom, three Hold Person spells from a charmed Drow Priest, and two Emotion spells from Eliza and her clone, plus some occasional stunning blows from Lithos using Celestial Fury.
Before fighting the Mind Flayers to save Phaere, we put the Ring of Free Action on Eliza for the stun immunity, Arbane's Sword on Margot for stun immunity as well (in my install, both protect against stun), and use Chaotic Commands on Lithos and Gloom. The Mind Flayers fall to brute force.
Eliza also fights the Umber Hulk, Nabassu, and Sahuagin Prince in the tavern, but not the Beholder, and we argue our way out of the Aboleth's threat. For the Spelljammer Beholder thingy, we put Protection from Petrification, Spell Shield, Death Ward, Chaotic Commands, Resist Fear, and Minor Spell Deflection on Eliza.
I forgot that Death Ray uses the vorpal strike opcode, which Death Ward does not block. The Beholder must have broken down MSD and then immediately followed up with Death Ray.
Fortunately, this is a minimal-reload run, rather than a no-reload run, so the run isn't quite over. But I'm still upset that a fully buffed mage can be killed in a single round by a dead Beholder.
I try again with the exact same tactics and absolutely destroy it. We let Solaufein live and Matron Mother Ardulace sends us out to fetch some Sahuagin Prince blood. Now we can act without time constraints.
It's rather frustrating that after all that time--with a long, drawn-out and highly complex battle with Irenicus, and a miserable fight with Alchra Diagott that chunked half the party--we die in a single round, to a dead Beholder, who only used two rays to do it. It's bad enough we lost our no-reload streak, but it just feels lame that it happened in such a simplistic, boring fashion.
Well, what's done is done. Time to continue with the adventure. I'll be much happier if I just forget about this and move on. @Alesia_BH has stressed that an important part of no-reload runs is a sense of humility, and I should accept what has happened.
On second thought, math that. Those Beholders aren't gonna get away with this.
First, I have to figure out how I'm going to survive against a group of Beholders with eye lasers all over the place. I work on various setups, resting whenever I think of something better. Eventually, I discover that the clock is still running on the drow quest.
Meh. It's worth it. I mean, it's not like our party is short on XP and could benefit immensely from being able to finish the Ust Natha questline. No, it's much more important to kill Beholders. After murdalizing Phaere, we enter the Beholder Hive, with party-wide invisibility.
I thought I had a perfect solution to this problem. But apparently Wail of the Banshee breaks invisibility. And Beholders can keep targeting a character even after they drink a Potion of Invisibility, which means that Gloom had no escape option after losing her invisibility. First idea doesn't work.
If Gloom shatters, we're pretty much screwed. All we'd have left are a couple of Archer/Mages at level 14 and 15, and any other party members would be level 7. We need to turn her back and bring her back into the party, and escape the area before they petrify anybody else.
I have Eliza cast all of the buffs she has, including a Mislead spell with the clone out of sight, then use a Stone to Flesh scroll on Gloom, who rejoins the party at 1 HP. Even after drinking another Potion of Invisibility, the Beholders keep harassing Gloom.
But Gloom makes her saves (Bog Witches have excellent saves, and Gloom is completely immune to Death Ray unbuffed) and we escape the area. The Beholders busy themselves with the Mislead clone, who is still in the hive.
I rest and try again, entering with the whole party invisible. I try spell damage this time--not normally my preference, but I can't think of a better way to kill Beholders quickly than a triple Skull Trap Spell Sequencer.
Problem is, if the Beholders makes all of its saves, it survives, and then I've got Beholder rays on me, once again. Hence the Contingency that turns Eliza invisible just as the Skull Traps hit her.
But once again, invisibility fails to deter the Beholders, even though it would have triggered after her previous invisibility was broken. And SI: Abjuration fails to block Anti-Magic Ray, even though its an Abjuration spell. There's so much about the spell system I still don't understand.
There goes my Spell Shield. But maybe it's because Spell Shield takes precedence over SI, and now that it's gone, SI: Abjuration will block Anti-Magic Ray.
Okay, time to leave. We hurry out and Eliza vanishes once more. Second idea doesn't work.
We blast the Beholder with Horrid Wilting and fling summons at it until it dies. Two Beholders are down, but the way we did it was much too risky. I'll have to try something else for the other Beholders.
I decide to try out the Flesh Golem. Eliza sneaks out while invisible and summons the golem. But she stumbles onto a Hive Mother, who removes the golem with Death Spell and gives chase to Eliza, who no longer has her invisibility. Third idea doesn't work. The drow notice Eliza and follow her outside.
This is a problem. We're not very good with drow. Their AC is too low for even Eliza to hit reliably, and their MR blocks our spells. But we're in luck: the Hive Mother follows us outside, too, and the drow decide the Hive Mother is a higher priority than us. They turn around to face the greater foe.
Horrid Wilting doesn't help much. Hive Mothers are sturdy critters.
But with a drow's shadow and a couple summons to help, we bring it down. We even get the final blow, taking the XP from the drow.
But the drow turn on us the moment the Hive Mother is down, and we don't have many options against them. Lithos and Margot play a major role, reducing the melee pressure on us and giving us a little extra damage output against the drow.
Seducers and Shadow Stealers are major equalizers. But some enemies, like Beholders, depend on scripts for their strength. If we could turn Beholders against each other, the hive would practically be a non-issue. But Beholders use their rays via script, so Steal Shadow and Charm would do almost nothing for us. Fourth idea won't work.
I'm not fond of Project Image, but I have a use for it here. I have Eliza summon a clone, the clone summons a Wizard Eye, the clone the turns invisible, and the clone and Wizard Eye wander through the hive. So what can a clone do to bring down the Beholders where Eliza herself couldn't do it without help?
Well, a clone can risk a failed save. All it needs is one moment to deal a fatal blow to a Beholder. After that, it doesn't matter if the clone dies.
But the clone doesn't die... Beholders in SCS2 don't seem to use their rays on clones. This means the clone doesn't need to rely on Feeblemind to deal with the Beholders. It can just kill them with darts.
Project Image clones aren't supposed to be able to attack, but any item or spell that sets attacks per round to a certain value allows the clones to attack. So Project Image clones can attack while shapeshifted or using certain weapons, like darts.
Simulacrum also works just fine. I send one in when the Project Image clone vanishes. Margot casts Farsight via the Book of Daily Spell to replace the Wizard Eye.
This is disappointing. Feeblemind via Project Image would have allowed me to slowly but inevitably destroy the entire hive. But since Beholders won't use their rays on clones, Feeblemind isn't necessary... I can just attack them.
I was proud of that plan. I thought it was clever. But it works just as well to smack them in the face.
Partly to speed things up, but mostly out of sheer contempt for the Beholders I'm fighting, I use the Wand of Lightning trick to duplicate the clones.
I nearly kill an Elder Orb by accident. I stop short of finishing him off.
I don't want to kill the boss with a glitch. The extra clones are just there to reduce the amount of times I have to rest. I send the clones away, though the Elder Orb is understandably upset, and doesn't let us alone.
We summon three other Wizard Eyes to maintain our visibility, and continue on to the chamber where the Mind Flayers and Beholders are fighting. We tear apart everyone in sight, only to have one of the Mind Flayers figure out where the party is hiding.
Now we have a Mind Flayer in our midst, and our party has no buffs active; not even Stoneskin. Worse, Eliza herself is helpless due to Project Image.
Gloom activates the Horn of Blasting, dealing a bit of damage to everyone present with no saving throw and bringing an end to Project Image. Eliza recovers her senses, and with the Ring of Free Action, she need not worry about Psionic Blast. She tears apart the poor illithid within the round.
We rest and return with a new clone, scouring the area to make sure it's clear. Finally we head to the last chamber, where the Elder Orb and two of its cronies lie in wait.
We begin with a simple Feeblemind on one of the normal Beholders. I don't bother trying to Feeblemind the Elder Orb because it has magic resistance and activates Spell Trap pretty quick.
The Elder Orb came prepared for a clone rush, however. It destroys both the clone and the Wizard Eye guiding it.
We try again, and this time we buff the clone with both SI: Divination and SI: Abjuration. It survives!
The Wizard Eye is easily replaced by Farsight. Gloom has a copy in her spellbook, and Margot has it in the Book of Daily Spell, so we have all the divination magic we need.
Elder Orbs, like most Beholders, don't have many defenses. Blobby critters like Beholders aren't very hard to damage. The clone slays the Elder Orb single-handedly.
The Elder Orb is dead! Now we just need to loot the place. We turn our new Shadow Stealer, Lithos, invisible before sending her out scouting. She turns visible along the way, so she has to summon the Efreeti to regain her invisibility.
I'm not taking any chances. My characters are not going to be visible where a Beholder might catch them.
We do get caught off-guard, however. A Potion of Invisibility keeps Lithos safe.
Those potions aren't just for backstabbing.
To take care of the surviving Beholder, we conjure another clone. Since clones don't have their own field of vision, like party members, familiars, and Wizard Eyes do, Lithos helps guide the clone along the way.
Finally, we discover one last Beholder wandering the tunnels. This is the real Elder Orb, the one with the eye that Matron Mother Ardulace would have accepted had she been a little more patient. Our clone takes it on.
All a Beholder's strength comes from its rays. And Beholders don't use their rays on clones. Clones are a perfect trump card against SCS2 Beholders, even as the Shield of Balduran is nerfed. The Elder Orb doesn't stand a chance.
It would have been a little cooler had the Beholders actually fought back, and forced us to rely on Feeblemind. It would have been pretty special to walk into a hive full of Feebleminded Beholders, and pick them off one by one at our leisure.
Either way, the Beholder Hive is clear. I feel better about our reload count now.
Okay. Things just got really weird. But first, the normal stuff.
We fought the Kuo-toa Prince, finally. His shadow did much of the work.
Our Shadow Stealer is Chaotic Neutral, which means we can use the Soul Reaver, at least once she's higher level and has some proficiencies in two-handed swords. This means we have to kill the Demon Knights, who use Power Word and Symbol spells, plus lots of Remove Magic spells and Fireballs, on top of their excellent melee powers and level drain on hit.
You know, that actually sounds stupidly overpowered when I phrase it like that. Anyhoo, we prepared with a couple of Teleport Field spells and a Limited Wish bunny horde.
To my dismay, the Demon Knights had no interest in dealing with the bunnies. I forgot they had Fireball spells.
Those poor little bunny rabbits.
We start exchanging blows with the Demon Knights, and start to wear them down. There's a long way to go, and unfortunately, the Demon Knights are making their saves against Steal Shadow.
Then we lose our Seducer. I didn't expect her to get to use Charm more than once, anyway.
I find that Margot successfully charmed one of the Demon Knights. Too bad its spells are mostly useless its magic-resistant buddies.
The Demon Knights dwindle in number. We turn the last of them against each other.
It's a cruel scene. But the important thing is we got our loot.
With the Demon Knights and Kuo-toa gone, only the drow guards at the Underdark exit remain. We haven't dealt with Adalon yet, but killing these guards is a prerequisite for escaping the Underdark.
Or maybe we could get past them some other way. But talking to them would negate our element of surprise. So we do an ambush instead.
Our plan is simple: Margot, hiding in the shadows, will guide a simulacrum over to the enemy and conjure some Minute Meteors. Behind them, Gloom, out of the drow's field of vision, will begin casting Fire Storm, which will deal lots of fire damage through the drow's magic resistance. She has two castings, so we just need to hold off the drow for one round.
We set up the attack plan and turn the enemy hostile.
Right about now, I realized something was wrong.
You don't often see an SCS2 mage pre-casting Energy Blades. It's even less common to see them summon clones. This indicates that the mage we're tangling with this time... is a bit different from the mages we're used to.
But since the last two mages wrecked our party, I guess this mage could only be easier. Right?
Well, the simulacrum didn't last as long as we needed it, so Lithos, our level 9 Shadow Stealer, has to hold off an epic-level mage and two Glabrezus. It's only for one round. How hard could it be?
Apparently, this is a very offensive-minded mage. Lithos escapes with 10 HP, and we are forced to retreat. Eliza activates a triple Teleport Field Spell Sequencer she was saving for the Mind Flayers to give us a little time. Lithos brings herself back to full health with the Rod of Resurrection, though I've wanted to use the rod only for resurrection, not for healing. The Fallen Planetar--did I mention that drow summoned a Fallen Planetar?--is busy making itself impossible to target, as if we had any spells capable of harming it reliably.
Oh, and did I mention that this is a very offensive-minded mage? Because he is.
Look at the damage he has wrought. Look.
Most of our party is at Near Death, but that wasn't enough. He had to take down Eliza's Spell Shield, too.
Our first three party members all have clear auras, which means they can all drink potions right away. Margot, however, had to drink a potion fairly recently, and was unable to heal herself. The Glabrezus take full advantage of the situation.
We keep running--there's no way we could save Margot. The Glabrezus would see through invisibility, and even if we healed her with the Rod of Resurrection, she'd still be stunned long enough for the enemy to kill her.
But the Glabrezus don't stop there. They teleport after us. We can only outrun the enemy mage.
Lithos, too, is doomed. I try to salvage Gloom, who is barely hanging on to life, by casting a couple of Teleport Field spells and trying to kill the Glabrezus. But their Mirror Image spells negate too many of Eliza's attacks, and their AC is low enough that Eliza can only land a hit on a 12 or higher. Eliza's efforts are for naught.
Eliza is alone. Her buffs are running low, she's exhausted many of her spells, and the enemy is unbuffed and in good health.
Comments
Sidonie and Imoen survived but I cannot say this was under full control.
In both cases They wanted to disable the spellcasters first.
With the amazons this worked well (two frost attacks and one lightning attack + the occasional MM from the wands) but Sidonie could not avoid a dangerous attack from an invisible amazon.
In the second case, Sidonie relied on the wands (including Aganazar) and her own magic but the guys were harder to kill.
First the young adventurers met Lamalha, Maneira, Telka and Zeela.
And then Molkar, Morvin, Drakar and Halacan
This time Sidonie had no armour and she was able to cast spells.
I just found it, and a nice video to boot:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/fionarutherford/this-spiders-mating-dance-is-sexy-as-hell#.iuywP7pGjr
The adventurers explored the ulcaster school just to steal a wand of fire in the dungeon. They did not confront the master of the place, they also avoided the strange skeleton on the surface.
After that, it was time to visit the firewine bridge and find a way through the dungeon full of traps and kobolds, here again they did not fully explore the area. During those travels (coming from Ulcaster and later going to Firewine) they had to fight two groups of mercenaries, specifically described in the previous post.
Imoen confessed her eagerness to become a mage. The next location was the right place to start this transformation. Durlag's tower is surprisingly well defended by a couple of battle horrors eliminated by Sidonie. Imoen's thieving skills were more than welcome to explore the upper levels but it was the time to introduce Imoen to the power of arcane magic.
Note 1: The timing was suboptimal as I wanted to cover the upper levels (interior only), doing so increased Imoen's XP up to 46K XP, thus wasting 6K. Poorly managed...
Note 2: At this point in time something became obvious: I really forgot several features/characteristics of top level foes. From then on I became more interested in rediscovering some elements while playing (as opposed to scrutinize the game scripts) and I lost a bit of the initial interest in the no reload aspect that would strongly encourage me to avoid every optional difficulty.
Therefore I decided to go and fight those foes rather than flee.
It did not take long before Sidonie faced the fatidical moment.
I basically remember how to handle Kirinhale (should you really want to fight her), really a matter of reducing the number of potential targets and making sure you have low saving throws to avoid or limit the effect of her drain. This went fine.
I also remembered that the ghost mage on the level below is a very high level mage (relatively to BG1) and in my duo configuration (with a beginning mage btw) it was illusory to attempt a disruption strategy. Hence my love for the wand of summoning used to lead such mages to waste their spells on summons. Unfortunately my timing in those corridors and small rooms was too "drowsy". I did not expect the ghost to emerge so quickly and his cloudkill proved to be fatal.
THE END
I replayed that encounter 7 times more. 6 successful. 1 failure because the summoned gnolls love their mommy so much that they prevented her from doing the right move at the right moment. (You control the blue creatures but the yellow ones come back to you if they are not involved in a fight).
Not under full control but this encounter is optional (at best) in a no reload and you can manage it differently.
Now the raging part, oh yes rage! Reason being that I continued the game and the girls covered absolutely everything south of the CandleKeep / FAI line except the lower levels of the tower. And they did not fail, not once.
The only moment worth a few lines was the very optional fight with Kahrk. A fighter mage with a very good AI in Stratagems and unlike the Ulcaster bosses he does not cheat (except with "haste" perhaps). No way to disrupt, no way to dispel, no way to engage a direct fight. Patience and good timing required.
I was not happy with the outcome because I was confident in the victory and decided to use Imoen to test Kahrk resilience to paralyse (wand) while Sidonie was taking him down. And at the first try the ogre mage failed his saving throw... I replayed it half a dozen times (without paralyse, no lvl 4 spells and in a fair fight, sometimes out of sight but never for long) and failed once - Imoen died.
Not 100% secure yet but it is satisfactory.
Edit: of course I will continue the game.
Unfortunately, Arkanis Gath kept making his saves vs. wand against Charm, even when I softened him up with Doom and Greater Malison. Since Ara Minerva can't use Charm more than once per four rounds, it gives Arkanis Gath a lot of time to whittle away at our Stoneskins. Plus, it's boring to wait around for Minerva to recover her Charm ability.
So, on reviewing Minerva's secondary abilities--Confusion, Feeblemind, and Sleep, all of which are single-target, only last two rounds each, and offer save bonuses--I realize that Arkanis Gath should be perfectly vulnerable to Feeblemind. After all, I've Feebleminded Irenicus in Spellhold, and Irenicus there has the same MINHP1 item that Arkanis Gath does. I double-check the file, and sure enough, the immunity to feeblemind is not there.
I rest and return to the Docks. Once Arkanis Gath is in our sight, we prep the area with Teleport Field and apply GM and Doom for safety's sake. Finally, our Archer/Mages activate Called Shot and turn their Minute Meteors on Arkanis Gath.
I count out the hits to make sure his save vs. spell is high enough, then have Eliza cast Feeblemind. When the magic clears, I see Arkanis Gath staring blankly into space.
So stat drain isn't the only way to deal with Arkanis Gath. You can just nail him with Feeblemind.
We face his other, weaker form on the south end of the map. He has no special abilities here.
I think I'll tweak the Bog Witch's Minor Spell Deflection so it doesn't create that wiffle ball effect.
After completing the first two of Bodhi's tasks (I choose the unseemly task and let Vulova go, to get the Shadow Thief Dagger, a little-mentioned speed weapon), we move on to the Unseeing Eye quest. We get surprised by the Ooze Mephit and Eliza fails a save. Shortly after, she runs out of Stoneskins.
It's times like these where no-reload runs are a lot more exciting than the normal game. Left alone, Eliza could die very quickly, with nothing to protect herself besides HP. We cast Teleport Field to disperse the critters, Hold Monster on the Shadows that might kill Eliza with stat drain, and also cast Invisibility on Eliza, just for good measure.
It's fun to fix things when stuff goes wrong. Unfortunately, that situation is also when no-reload runs tend to end, so it's still a good idea to minimize all chance of bad stuff happening.
The Beholder spawns in the hive are very unimpressive this time around. My install doesn't increase the difficulty of level-based encounters, and apparently that means an important cluster of three Beholders and two Gauths is now just... one Gauth, alone. This makes it possible to clear out the Beholders without using summons or clones.
We do, however, get ambushed by a Beholder when we attack the Blind Priests, right after casting Greater Malison and Emotion on the latter. We drew our Archer/Mages back and slew the Beholder while Bloody Howard kept the clerics busy.
Notice the Ghoul Touch hand--that's the stolen shadow weapon in the hands of a Blind Priest's shadow. His spells aren't much help, unfortunately. Bloody Howard can walk all over a powerful spellcaster if luck is on his side, but put him in a group of enemies, and his Steal Shadow ability only goes so far.
The Unseeing Eye is disappointingly quick. We hit him with the Rift Device (we're not high enough level to kill him with STR drain), he attacks our Mummy summons, and then we finish him off with ranged attacks.
I've gotten so used to killing him with stat drain. But it doesn't matter. Our only loss with this method is that we can't use the Rift Device on the Shade Lich.
We also successfully Charm Rengaard, who unfortunately is unconscious and unable to help us. But with Gaius' shadow on our side, we've got an extra debuffer on our hands.
Mages are great against mages. I should probably tweak Shadow Steal so it robs the shadows of some of their higher-level spells... I can decrease their levels, but it doesn't seem to get rid of memorized spells.
Anyway, with Gaius quickly debuffed, his shadow can take him down with ease.
The fight by now is won.
Bog Witches gain access to Warding Whip very, very quickly... it makes them better debuffers than mages, at least early on. I could increase the casting speed to balance it, but I might end up just accepting that as a kit feature. Moving it to level 7 would make the Bog Witch a vastly inferior debuffer, while changing it to Pierce Magic or another magic attack would seem boring... Warding Whip doesn't see enough use, really.
The entrance to Mekrath's lair reminds us of the still-open Planar Prison quest. I decide I want another pair of Boots of Speed. To my surprise, we don't find a Coiled Cabal in Mekrath's lair... it's just a group of Umber Hulks.
In the Planar Prison, I get too reckless with Ara Minerva, who I wanted to backstab one of the Thralls. But she was wide open to an Umber Hulk's stare (Umber Hulks once again replaced the Yuan-ti I normally see here), and she wandered into view of the Master of Thralls, who quickly closed in on her despite the Teleport Field on the map.
But the rest of the party was not so vulnerable. Bloody Howard and Eliza, our two frontmost characters, are both immune to the Umber Hulk's confusion and the Master of Thralls' paralyzing Death Gaze by virtue of the Shield of Harmony and Chaotic Commands, respectfully. While the Bog Witches debuff and take down the enemy mage, our front line cuts down the Master of Thralls, who has no spell defenses to speak of.
Next up, the Warden. He didn't play out quite like I thought he would.
Turns out the Warden has some HLAs in my current install. I had forgotten that all enemy spellcasters with 9th-level spells in my install were supposed to have HLAs. This includes the Warden.
Now we have vorpal strikes to worry about. I successfully lure the Planetar away from the party with Bloody Howard as a decoy, but he fails to steal the Planetar's shadow, and barely escapes with his life when the Planetar and some of the Umber Hulks mob him. Worse yet, the Warden messes up our spellcasting when we're trying to debuff him.
He follows up with a nasty Spell Trigger, rendering our already-injured Bog Witches defenseless. But I notice something very special in the dialog box.
Ara Minerva successfully cast Charm... and there is no mention of a save vs. wand. We charmed the Warden! Now we just need to wait another two rounds for Charm to take effect.
The Planetar starts to ignore Blood Howard, and approaches the party. Eliza doesn't have PFMW--she's only got IH and Spell Deflection. Our Charname is therefore perfectly vulnerable to a vorpal strike. We have to shift gears to deal with the Planetar... Bloody Howard, getting swarmed by gorilla bugs to the west, is no longer on the Planetar's agenda.
We Breach the Planetar, removing the Globe of Blades, and activate a Teleport Field to frustrate its melee attacks. It's a good thing Planetars don't use ranged weapons.
Meanwhile, our previous Warding Whip fully debuffs the Warden, and Minerva finally takes control of the now-weakened head of the Planar Prison. We check out his spellbook.
Look at all those offensive spells. Unfortunately for us, none of them are much good against a Planetar. The only one that will bypass the Planetar's MR is Dragon's Breath, and Dragon's Breath will deal no damage to it. We try a safe option, Mordenkainen's Sword, but the Warden refuses to cast it, despite being under our power. Meanwhile, we suffer our first casualty.
Gloom never had time to renew her Ironskins, unlike Poppy. But anyone in the party could end up like that, depending on where Teleport Field places the Planetar.
The only member of our group with PFMW is Snowy Tae. We've managed to interrupt the Planetar's spellcasting using the Crimson Dart, but we have no check on its melee attacks beyond a single Teleport Field, and Snowy Tae doesn't have enough time to cast another.
With Snowy Tae helping out, the Planetar won't last long.
Dragon's Breath also removes the Umber Hulks, leaving the Warden alone and under our power. We move to more open ground and start emptying out the Warden's spellbook.
Ara Minerva re-casts Charm to keep the Warden under our control, but the Warden breaks free at some point despite not having made a save vs. wand.
For some reason, he doesn't attack us. It's just as well--Charm was many rounds away from wearing off, even if he hadn't failed a save against a re-cast Charm a few seconds previously, so he shouldn't be attacking us anyway. Notice Bloody Howard trying to steal his shadow in the brief period during which the Warden is vulnerable to it (Steal Shadow doesn't work on friendly creatures).
The Warden goes green once more, and we keep emptying out his spellbook. We go on for a long time, since our own buffs are running out in the process. Finally, the Warden is left with almost nothing.
He proved unable to cast PW: Kill while charmed, hence why it's still there. We betray his trust once his spellbook is empty.
The Warden is dead, and we are free.
I always liked one of the lines with the Solamnic Knights.
It makes no sense. I just love it.
Ara Minerva makes another botched backstab run, being uncovered by True Seeing before she can take a swing at Mogadish. The rest of the party rushes in to help.
Poppy casts Wail of the Banshee, a newly-acquired level 7 Bog Witch spell, but it doesn't contribute much. Gloom, still at level 13, actually does more that round with a debuffer.
Wail of the Banshee has always been rather unreliable. In IWD2, it was absolutely game-breaking, but here, it's just another save or else spell.
Gloom hits level 14 and gains access to the level 7 Bog Witch spells. After taking down Necre and Taibela with debuffers and Horrid Wilting, we move on to Lavok.
Ara Minerva enters the room hasted and invisible. With the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, her THAC0 is quite low when hidden. I try out the Staff of Striking for the first time. It does not disappoint.
But Lavok is still very much alive. I pull Minerva back, send our summoned Mummy to the front, and draw Gloom out of the doorway, into the main chamber.
Lavok casts Improved Alacrity and quickly toasts the Mummy with Dragon's Breath and then Comet. He also drinks a potion immediately after, which normally isn't possible, even with Improved Alacrity... potions can only be drunk 6 seconds after the last spell or item use.
But it doesn't matter. Gloom's Horrid Wilting spell takes effect, and the necromancer goes down.
I think I am going to remove the Bog Witch's casting level bonuses. I added them in to make their spells harder to dispel, but with Spell Immunity available, that's not really an issue. And having a druid cast a 20d8 Horrid Wilting spell at 1.5 million XP just doesn't seem right. I'll need to rebalance the kit. It can be stronger than a druid, since druids already have so little to begin with, but it shouldn't come quite that close to a mage's damage power, I don't think.
But Tolgerias fails to heal himself. Horrid Wilting does him in.
A Staff of Striking followed by Horrid Wilting is an excellent combination. With a mage and a thief, rather than a Bog Witch and a thief, you might replicate it with Sunfire or Cone of Cold in place of Horrid Wilting. But high-level mages with pre-buffs in SCS2 are very likely to have immunity to any or all of those damage types, so it's not a perfect solution.
After re-activating the power core, we get surprised by a gang of golems in a tight space. It doesn't look good, as they catch us without Stoneskins, and Eliza is their closest target.
They don't follow us when we head back to the other area, however. But just in case, we make sure that we're well protected if they should surprise us again.
When I see they're still stuck in that little hallway, I decide that we can take them, as the Iron Golem is stuck behind the door. We can take down the Clay Golem with Minute Meteors, the Stone Golem with our normal weapons, and then attack the Iron Golem with the Crimson Dart, using a poison-immune Bog Witch to absorb the Iron Golem's toxic cloud attack.
Turns out the Iron Golem isn't actually stuck in that doorway.
Once those other golems are dead or have moved, the Iron Golem will join in. We retreat to the southern room, which fortunately does have a doorway the Iron Golem can't pass. The Golem Slow from the Stone Golems, and the Golem Haste from the Clay Golem, is enough to bring Bloody Howard to the brink of death, even with the Girdle of Bluntness equipped. We suffer a lot of damage before the golems go down.
We bring Lavok to the surface, give the Ring of Acuity to Eliza, and proceed through the mage stronghold quests, choosing the safest assignments for the apprentices. I just can't bear to have sweet little Nara die, even for a shot at getting a Ring of Wizardry.
Total reloads: 0
In fact the ghost/daitel/daital on the third floor killed Sidonie. Kirinhale was already eliminated.
For Sidonie, I wanted a 90 point character but the real rule was to keep at least 10 points in each ability and I didn't really require a HP boost (CON). I rolled 90+ only once.
Let me introduce Bandael, an elven fighter thief, Imoen's friend. A duo, once more.
Here I wasn't able to get more than 87. It doesn't really matter: Max physical stats and at least 10 in other stats.
All available skill points in set traps.
I add a bias to the character: no ranged weapon proficiency. Long swords and Daggers.
weidu.log
I will report the progress in this thread and I will also create a separate thread with more details in French.
Also, Spell Duration Modification does not triple spell duration. It lowers it, actually. I'll have to figure out what's wrong, but I've been going without it for quite some time.
With Arkanis Gath out of the way, we can take on the Shadow Thieves with much less trouble. The Shadow Thief Mages very unwisely protect themselves with Minor Spell Turning, which only blocks spells up to level 4. Breach, opened up by True Seeing, easily renders them vulnerable.
Wail of the Banshee proves disappointing once again.
They're not even tough enemies, but a level 9 spell can't bring them down reliably.
Ara Minerva tries her hand at a backstab again, and fails miserably.
She also fails to charm the Mage, and is left paused for 6 seconds after casting Charm. Luckily, the enemy thieves are having a bad day as well.
We bring in the rest of the party, and though Minerva is backstabbed to death, we do steal the Mage's shadow, and have some fun with its necromancy spells.
It vanishes before long, but it was nice while it lasted.
Haz also chooses to protect himself with Minor Spell Turning, and is therefore equally easily debuffed.
But Aran Linvail isn't so reckless. He comes very well-prepared, and so I turn our front line against the Priest of Mask instead.
Horrid Wilting and Sunfire bypass Aran Linvail's defenses, but aren't quite enough.
Another True Seeing, followed by Breach, brings down Aran Linvail mage friend.
By then, Aran Linvail's weapon immunities have worn off naturally, and only his Stoneskins remain. We break them down.
There's only one fight left before Spellhold.
Celestial Fury awaits.
We prepare new contingencies: Teleport Field on enemy sighted for Snowy Tae, and Teleport Field on helpless for Eliza. This will hold off Koshi early on, without risking two Teleport Fields that activate at the same time, and are therefore redundant (unless Teleport Field doesn't activate exactly every 6 seconds). We also make sure Ara Minerva is invisible when she enters, so she can disable the two first traps and cast Charm before Ketta backstabs her to death.
On the very first round, I see something worrying.
Sion has Spell Trap. Very few SCS2 mages use that spell, and it means we can't debuff him with Warding Whip. Warding Whip only breaks down 8th-level protections and below. Only RRoR, Pierce Shield, and Spellstrike can take down Spell Trap.
Sion is beyond our reach for the time being. But Minerva gets Charm off the ground, and I see no save vs. wand from Koshi. We charmed Koshi! Another two rounds, and he's ours. We therefore turn our attention to Stalman. Meanwhile, our Bog Witches are casting Horrid Wilting and True Seeing.
A couple seconds later, and Minerva is in jeopardy. I'm not surprised.
Notice Koshi on the right side of the screen. Teleport Field is really bad for Kensais like Koshi. What good is +5 to hit and damage if you're not in range of the enemy?
We make rapid progress on Stalman. Without mage buffs, a cleric like Stalman is very easy to disrupt. Minerva is still paused by Charm, which means she can't take action, but enemies don't get automatic hits on her. She's still where she was before: just above the upper left wiffle ball globe which is Eliza.
The pause effect lasts 6 seconds, which prevents Minerva from drinking a potion, either to heal herself or escape. The only reason Ketta doesn't finish her off is because of Teleport Field.
Stalman falls. But Sion has been perfectly safe, and has successfully debuffed the few defenses Bloody Howard and Minerva had. On top of that, he slows two of our group.
We keep waiting for Koshi to turn green, but it's just not happening. I was sure we charmed him--there was no save to suggest otherwise, and I know the spell got off the ground because Minerva was invisible during the casting, and could not have been interrupted.
We still hold out, hoping that Koshi will turn, and focus on Ketta instead. With Gloom's True Seeing active, Ketta can't escape.
Minerva still can't drink a potion. Slow must have robbed her of another round. And Koshi still isn't green, despite it being well past the two-round delay before Charm takes effect. We finally attack Koshi. For all his murderous stun effects and crazy damage bonuses, there's nothing a Kensai can do in a Teleport Field with Minute Meteors flying around. He escapes the Teleport Field, and is about to slay Minerva, but for our Archers, the distance means very little. Koshi can't escape.
Our only remaining high-priority target is Sion. We have no means of taking down that Spell Trap. But we might just be able to burn through it. We throw out Pierce Magic, Warding Whip, and even Secret Word. To my surprise, Spell Trap doesn't absorb them.
This is a very big find. Spell Trap won't go down with Warding Whip, but it also won't stop Warding Whip from removing other defenses, like Globe of Invulnerability. We'll still never be able to hit him with single-target spells, since Spell Trap will remain intact, but all of his other buffs can be removed, therefore opening up some limited offensive options.
We hear the telltale sound indicating a simulacrum has appeared. We check on Sion.
Sion failed his save against Steal Shadow!
But we have a problem. Sion has begun casting an alteration spell--I thought at the time it must have been Time Stop, but in retrospect, it was almost assuredly Improved Alacrity. I hurry over to disrupt it.
Poppy casts Water Jet, a Mephit spell you might recognize as the Cone of Cold-like attack from the Air Elemental Plane at Chateau Irenicus. It disrupts his spell!
But Water Jet only does 1d3 damage. The dialog box says Sion took 6 damage. That damage is from Poppy's previous Cloudkill spell, though I didn't see that at the time.
I have Sion's shadow begin casting Absolute Immunity, as a buffer for future spells. Then Water Jet finally hits.
We don't have much time, as Water Jet only stuns for a single round. But that's enough to target him with some important spells. To our great fortune, Sion fails another save.
Sion is truly doomed. He's got 10 rounds of paralysis ahead of him. Now we can act at our leisure.
Just for fun, I have Sion's shadow throw out some gratuitous spellpower.
I almost Imprison Olaf, before realizing I don't have Freedom to bring back his loot.
Finally, we turn our attention to Sion, still paralyzed from before. The battle is won.
Here we see the failure of both the Shadow Stealer and Seducer kits. When Charm failed to work on Koshi, Ara Minerva was left helpless for the full duration of the battle. At no point was she able to contribute meaningfully to the fight, aside from soaking up a backstab that might have hurt Bloody Howard instead. She spent all of her time trying to escape from the fight and stay alive. A single unsuccessful Charm attempt meant that our Seducer did nothing to help us against the enemy.
Bloody Howard had the same problem. Despite multiple attempts to steal the enemy's shadow, he only succeeded very late in the fight, and by the time we got a hold of Sion's shadow, Sion was stunned and on his way to getting paralyzed. His Shadow Stealer kit abilities did nothing to help the party, simply because the enemy's saving throw rolls did not go our way.
The Bog Witches played a much larger role. They were able to neutralize Sion outright, albeit only after a lot of time had passed. But the Archer/Mages were the only reason the witches stayed alive in the first place: without Teleport Field and lots of Minute Meteors and darts, the enemy fighters would have overwhelmed the party.
Our inventory screens:
Bloody Howard, our Shadow Stealer
Bloody Howard is actually a dwarf, but I tweaked his animation to match his portrait. He can dual-wield well and has Kundane and the Shadow Thief Dagger, so he can reach 5 APR with magical and normal weapons, but he normally wears the Shield of Harmony--not just for the immunities, but for the AC. Shadow Stealers are very squishy, and need extra defense to stay intact. Hence the Helm of the Rock, a valuable find for Bloody Howard.
Eliza, our Bhaalspawn
Eliza's setup is mostly defensive. The Robe of Vecna is there to give her instant castings of emergency spells, not for quick-acting damage spells. Note the Crimson Dart. Eliza has 40% of enemy kills thanks to that little dart, while Snowy Tae has about 24%, even though Snowy Tae has the same APR, and slightly better range, with the Tuigan Bow. Darts are just fantastic. I haven't even been using +5 darts, either.
Snowy Tae, our other Archer/Mage
Although I prefer using darts, there aren't many options for dart throwers, as only the Crimson Dart and Darts +5 (a very limited resource without using exploits) can hurt stuff like Planetars and Iron Golems. Also, we really do need somebody who can use Acid Arrows, Arrows of Dispelling, and Firetooth, to interrupt spells and debuff mages. Hence Snowy Tae's specialization in shortbows and crossbows.
Ara Minerva, our Seducer
Minerva usually sticks to throwing darts and using her psionic abilities. Her Charm spell makes her very vulnerable, and since it's so incredibly important, she spends very little time backstabbing--she doesn't do hit-and-fade stuff, partly because she doesn't have the skill points for it (remember that a Seducer's skills are all cut in half), but mostly because her other abilities are more important.
Gloom, our primary Bog Witch
Though I wanted Gloom to dual-wield Belm to suit her Marilith animation (not visible on the inventory screen), we left Belm and lots of other goodies at the druid grove, where it was stolen by the local treehuggers. This means Gloom just uses a spear and dagger, to suit her portrait (she actually holds a scythe).
Poppy, our secondary Bog Witch
Poppy is our secondary witch because she doesn't have any BG1 WIS tome bonuses, and so has fewer slots than Gloom. Like Gloom, she stays out of the fray, and uses the items that the other characters don't need or don't want.
As I had suspected, the Bog Witches' power level has begun to balance out relative to the other party members, as they are now stuck at the level 14-15 XP gap, while the others continue to progress. I might need to nerf the Bog Witch kit at levels 8-12 or so, but I think the Seducer and Shadow Stealer are both fairly balanced, at least for a no-reload run. The Seducer and Shadow Stealer can have a huge impact on the outcome of a battle, but ultimately their powers rely on the enemy failing a saving throw.
It's a convenient way to deal with a potentially dangerous encounter.
Since I don't want to end up with Burning Hands in the Book of Daily Spell, I use the simulacrum trick to duplicate the book. You set the book to the turn page function, summon a clone via Vhailor's Helm or the spell, have the clone turn the page, kill the clone, and loot a duplicate book from its body. I use it to get the three spells I like the best: Farsight, True Seeing, and Spell Turning. I never come across Burning Hands, though I turn the page many times.
Then we help out the prostitute lady whose name I forget. We use Power Word: Stun on Chremy as well, just for fun.
It's important not to confuse Chremy with Calaghan. We grab an amulet from Calaghan's body.
In my opinion, this is the single ugliest item in Baldur's Gate 2, by far. Note the oddly phallic shape in the sketch next to the item description.
Despite already having taken Prebek's pet rock, we convince Desharik we're lunatics for a little extra XP.
I wonder what that dialog option does. I've never chosen it before, but I like it because it's so silly given the context.
To hurry up Irenicus' arrival in Spellhold, we attack Long the Sane all the way to Imoen's cell.
He goes hostile just as Irenicus teleports in. Turns out Lonk the Sane is pretty tough.
Hopefully he won't be hostile later on. That would kinda suck.
Mercifully, we don't encounter a Lich in Spellhold. We do have trouble with the Greater Mummy, however, as it's immune to most everything we've got. But our own mummies, with their +3 base attack, can harm it easily.
For other enemies, we just blast them away.
Fortunately, Lonk is not hostile when we next see him, though he refuses our offer until our Seducer speaks on our behalf. Eliza's CHA is too low to convince Lonk to open the cells.
Now we must face Irenicus.
On top of that, I have decided not to remove any items from my characters to keep our clones from using them. When our clones arrive, they will have Darts of Wounding, Bolts of Biting, Acid Arrows, and Arrows of Dispelling on hand, as well as some other items, just like us.
We get off to a mixed start. We disable most of the clones with Greater Malison and Emotion, but Irenicus makes his saves against both Steal Shadow and Charm.
Irenicus begins with full elemental and weapon immunities, plus GOI and Spell Turning. We can't yet hit him with our darts or Horrid Wilting, but we can tear down both of his spell protections with Warding Whip. We can hit him with Breach after another round passes, but I know from experience that Jon-bon will recast his buffs in this fight.
Notice the clone of Irenicus: Jon-bon failed his second save against Steal Shadow.
Now we have a powerful new ally, who quickly shields itself with Absolute Immunity. But since I've decided that shadows shouldn't have access to high-level spells, I don't let Irenicus' shadow use any more spells above level 6. Jon-bon turns invisible, so we turn our attention to the Eliza clone.
Irenicus runs away, and then I hear two alteration spells being cast. One of them I know is the shadow's Slow spell. The other must be Improved Alacrity, from the real Irenicus.
Unlike most players, SCS2 Irenicus uses Improved Alacrity defensively as well as offensively. Most mage combine it with Time Stop, but the spells are redundant: the great benefit of Time Stop is that it lets you move around freely, attack automatically, and completely avoid any chance of spell disruption.
But if you're running both Improved Alacrity and Time Stop at the same time... well, you're not going to be moving around freely during Time Stop, or attacking, because that cuts into your casting time. Plus, Improved Alacrity already lets you avoid disruption, as you can begin re-casting a spell the moment you lose one. Using them together is usually a waste of Time Stop, and therefore a valuable level 9 spell slot. It's more practical to use them separately, and this is what Irenicus does.
This means his spells will be impossible to disrupt for two rounds. We could Breach him, but he'd just restore his defenses. We have to stop this spell however we can.
But he's immune to our weapons, and our Bog Witches are too far to hit him with Poison Arrow. Snowy Tae tries Magic Missile instead, now that Irenicus' spell protections are gone, only to remember that his specific protections remain.
Notice the demon summoning circle? That's Dradeel's Nabassu. That Nabassu hits us with Silence 15' Radius just as Irenicus finishes casting his spell.
Irenicus now has free spellcasting for two rounds, and half of our spellcasters can't use any spells. Nor can we even attack the Nabassu, as our only means of hitting it are Minute Meteors, and since Snowy Tae can't recast Melf's Minute Meteors, we don't have enough to kill it.
A lot of stuff happens very quickly. Irenicus' shadow nails him with Flame Arrow, Poppy finishes casting Poison Arrow, Jon-bon's PFMW contingency fires, and one of the inmates Breaches Irenicus.
The Breach hits, removing Jon's PFMW spell. But Jon replaces it with Absolute Immunity. That's why he uses it outside of Time Stop. Cast Time Stop and IA together, and you have three rounds of free casting. Cast them separately, and you have five rounds of free casting.
The Flame Arrow lands, but our weapons bounce off.
This is Jon-bon's weakness for the time being: we can hit him with spells, but not our weapons. Problem is... we didn't memorize many damage spells, and half our spellcasters couldn't use them anyway. Poppy has one Poison Arrow left, and with her defenses broken down, she would be easy to disrupt. Plus, hitting Irenicus now wouldn't stop his spellcasting.
Irenicus secures the advantage with another HLA.
Things are getting serious.
Worse yet, that Planetar requires +3 weapons to hit. Our only +3 weapons are the Cleric's Staff (one pip on Elia) and a Spear +3 (one pip on Gloom). No Crimson Dart means the Planetar lives.
But Irenicus still has no spell protections. His clone tacks on another Flame Arrow spell.
It costs Irenicus an invisibility spell. More importantly, Ara Minerva is finally able to cast Charm again--the four-round cooldown is over. I notice Irenicus makes no save vs. wand.
See that shadowy figure in the middle of the screen? That's Gloom. See the other shadowy figure next to her? That's her clone.
Notice that the clone is green. One of the inmates charmed her. This means we have a second Bog Witch on our hands. A Bog Witch with Horrid Wilting.
Irenicus is almost dead! The battle is nearly over.
Just then, Charm kicks in. Irenicus, weakened by rage and combat, is pliable to our will.
His first spell is Energy Blades, but I find that his THAC0 is too poor to harm the Planetar. Meanwhile, our spells bounce off of the Planetar's magic resistance. Only Chaos, from Eliza, has any effect. And the Planetar makes every save against Steal Shadow and Charm.
The inmates suddenly die, indicating the end of the battle.
But Irenicus' dialog doesn't come up, likely because Irenicus is still charmed. Either way, his Planetar is still kicking around, and we need Irenicus' help if we're going to take it down. Eliza has no more PFMW spells left; the Planetar may still be able to land a vorpal strike.
Irenicus stops time. Now we have automatic hits against the Planetar, and 17 Energy Blades to throw.
A spare Comet throw into the mix takes down the last of the clones (misnamed Eliza in the dialog box; all clones receive that name). But to my dismay, the Planetar just barely survives... and we have no means of finishing it off. Irenicus is out of Energy Blades. The Planetar begins to cast Heal.
All of our work so far will be wasted if the Planetar succeeds. With no other options, Irenicus casts Wish. We get an excellent option.
But there is no Improved Alacrity effect--Irenicus can still only cast one spell per round. And the Fallen Planetar resists every Power Word: Stun and Power Word: Kill spell that Irenicus casts.
Then the tide of battle turns against us, and I realize we've made a mistake.
Ara Minerva shouldn't have been trying to charm the Planetar. She should have been trying to re-charm Irenicus.
As powerful as a Seducer's Charm is, it only lasts 10 rounds.
That doesn't solve our problems, however. Irenicus still isn't quite dead enough to trigger his dialog, and the Planetar remains at full health.
Realizing it can't hit us while the Teleport Field is in the way, the Planetar decides to resort to spellpower. It works much better. Half our party is vulnerable to fire.
We barely have any potions to heal ourselves, nor do we have any means of defending ourselves against Fire Storm. The party must flee, but our characters are slow, and it takes time to reach the door leading outside.
But that's not all.
Irenicus is at full power once again. And the Planetar isn't done with us just yet.
We try to Charm the Planetar and steal its shadow, but the Planetar makes its saves, yet again. We struggle to reach the exit, but we don't make it in time.
Irenicus uses his last HLA. Dragon's Breath.
Poppy is dead, and Minerva has been chunked, despite "Gore" being turned off. I understand that the SCS2 component that prevents chunking only works if Gore is on, and actually enables chunking if Gore is off. Ara Minerva should be dead, but not chunked.
We try to escape, but Bloody Howard and Snowy Tae don't make it. We leave the Planetar alone in the chamber, barely scratched by our efforts.
Only two characters remain.
We eventually find Irenicus has made his way to the hall just north of us. We send in an Otyugh to deal with him.
The first Otyugh falls, and Irenicus finds us hiding behind the other. We attack him with Darts of Wounding... but his Stoneskin blocks them all. He casts Symbol: Fear.
We cast Resist Fear before the fight began. But it seems that in the few rounds between Dragon's Breath and Summon Otyugh, that buff only just ran out.
Both of our characters are now disabled, and will be so for many rounds. But our Otyugh remains. And Stoneskin doesn't block disease.
An Otyugh's attack inflicts disease without a saving throw, and part of the disease is a slow effect. Irenicus loses multiple spells, but eventually slays the Otyugh, and begins to search for us.
Gloom stumbles into Irenicus' sight. She's a perfect target, and he has the nastiest Spell Trigger in store for her.
But Minor Spell Deflection blocks the entire trigger. Gloom escapes with her life.
Irenicus keeps searching, and finds Eliza back in the chamber. Eliza fails another save.
Irenicus hits her with Flame Arrow. Things are looking bad.
Even when the fear effect wears off, Eliza will be under Irenicus' control, and if Gloom should die, the game is over. Sure enough, Gloom wanders into the room, and Irenicus starts beating her to death. He even re-casts Spook to make sure Gloom doesn't recover from the fear effects.
Then, Charm Person and Symbol: Fear both wear off. Gloom is still panicking, but Eliza is in control. She nails Irenicus with a Dart of Wounding. And Irenicus has no more Stoneskins to protect him.
But he won't give his final dialog. Gloom recovers from Spook and joins in, throwing more Darts of Wounding at Irenicus, but Jon-bon just won't go away. In an attempt to trigger the dialog, we blind him and let the poison wear off before attacking him with normal darts, in the hopes that the poison was responsible for the dialog not triggering.
But Irenicus still won't talk to us. I heal him with CTRL-R to remove the blindness, then hit him with CTRL-Y to try and trigger the dialog. Nothing works.
Finally, I decide to bring the fight to an end. We poison him once again to disable his spellcasting, and Eliza activates Called Shot. She throws a few darts, activates Called Shot once again, and keeps throwing darts until Called Shot is over. It amounts to a STR penalty of -8 or -9, and a save vs. spell penalty of -10 to -12, or up to -15 if her Haste spell was still in effect. Irenicus' chances of failing a save vs. spell are 80% at best, and 100% at worst.
Eliza activates her Minor Sequencer, and Irenicus gets hit by two Rays of Enfeeblement at once.
There. I beat Shadows of Amn.
Total reloads: 0
I move the save file back into the "mpsave" folder so I can create Ara Minerva anew. She is 1 CHA point less cute than her predecessor. How sad.
I save and move the save file back over to the "save" folder. This allows me to play a multiplayer game with multiplayer's irritating pause delays.
Anyway, I tell Saemon to buzz off, since I want to get to our gear as soon as possible, and I'm not ready to teleport back to Spellhold. Unfortunately, Saemon apparently doesn't offer you the option of reconsidering your decision.
He just leaves you there. Even though he knows for a fact that Irenicus is trying to become a god, and even though Saemon doesn't want that, he still ditches us after a single "no."
Unfortunately for us, we can't leave. Ever. Because the Bag of Holding, which is where we put Jon's Key, has suddenly gone empty. At some point, it just ate our items. Every single one we put in there.
We reload a previous save to correct the bug--the game would be broken otherwise--and cheat in BAG31 instead of BAG04, just in case the BAG04 Bag of Holding decides to eat our stuff again. Without Saemon to take us to the City of Caverns, we're forced to head to the Underdark early. No Cloak of Mirroring or Cloak of Protection +2 for us.
I'd forgotten how powerful Celestial Fury is. With Sion et al massively empowered by SCS2, I've stopped building characters around katanas. Bloody Howard's poor defenses don't matter if he stun-locks the enemy.
The funny thing about stun is that it completely stops enemy animations. All the flowing wisps of this elemental go stiff, as if the stun affected every gaseous particle in the creature.
Steal Shadow proves quite devastating against the drow party. For some reasons, one of the drow clerics has Holy Word, and because I forgot my rule about shadows casting high-level spells, the whole enemy party gets slowed and/or deafened.
We clean up with Fire Storm, which bypasses drow MR.
Finally, we head to the imprisonment sphere. And because I don't know any better, I choose to mess with Alchra Diagott.
The beautiful thing about Seducers is that their power is not dependent on their level. This means the chunking of Ara Minerva is not such a big loss. We lost 2 million XP in the process, but the new Minerva isn't actually that much weaker, as the Seducer's power is situation-dependent.
The tragic thing about Seducers is that, irrespective of their level, their abilities are unreliable.
One successful save, and Minerva is useless for another four rounds. What happens during those rounds?
Well, my party gets stuck in a level 20 Horrid Wilting spell, which is part of Alchra Diagott's opening Chain Contingency. Everyone in the party has to drink a potion, lest we be finished off by an HLA. We run away to find safety, but Alchra's reach is long.
Alchra choose the Breach option, which removes our specific protections. Spell Shield, Spell Immunity, Minor Spell Deflection, and Stoneskin, curiously, remain intact.
We keep fleeing. Liches have awful movement speeds, and I want to make the most of our advantage. To do so, I use a Protection from Undead scroll on Bloody Howard and send him to to hassle Alchra.
He just gets in Alchra's way--that's all I need him to do. The lich is already slow, but with Bloody Howard getting in the way every two steps, Alky can barely move. This gives Bloody Howard enough time to steal Alky's shadow, which unfortunately doesn't have much to use against its owner. We try burning through Alchra's Spell Turning with Breach.
Snowy Tae got targeted because I wasn't paying attention to the party's position. I moved them further away after that.
Alky starts to get around Bloody Howard, and the lich gets closer to the party, while its shadow gets left behind. Bloody Howard summons an Efreeti to distract the lich, and the shadow uses Chain Lightning to add on some damage, but otherwise there's not much we can do.
Eventually I bring out the party to attack the lich, as he must be running low on PFMW spells. But despite having already burned through his Spell Turning, I can't hit him with Breach. Our attacks are useless.
I thought at the time this was a bug, but actually it's because Alky's SI: Abjuration spell is still intact. This means he's immune to Breach. The Breach spells I tried earlier with Alky's stolen shadow had no effect: the only reason Chain Lightning worked is because Spell Turning won't block it, as it's an area-effect spell.
It doesn't help that he's already got Improved Alacrity active. He even dispels the party, and the only reason Eliza doesn't lose her Stoneskin is because she was just barely out of range.
There's one important thing in that screenshot. One very important thing. See Gloom, the dense black shadow in the middle-left portion of the screen? Just above her is a purple swirl. What is that swirl?
That swirl is a Fallen Planetar going invisible.
Because there are no Teleport Field spells active on the map. The Planetar runs right up to Bloody Howard and takes one swing.
Just one.
Bloody Howard is gone. The same day we lose Ara Minerva, we also lose Bloody Howard. Luckily for us, Shadow Stealers, like Seducers, aren't very dependent on levels. But that vorpal strike costs us 2 million XP, and Shadow Stealers benefit a lot more from HLAs than Seducers, since Seducers gain neither Use Any Item nor any trap HLAs.
A Planetar only has a 25% chance of scoring a vorpal strike, which in SCS2 offers a save vs. death at -2. Bloody Howard's save vs. death was 2. The odds of that happening are only 5%. The Planetar got that in one strike.
Do you know what happens when you don't cast Teleport Field when a Planetar is attacking you? It hurts... It hurts and then you die.
Now Poppy is dead. We have just lost two characters with 4 million XP between them, in the space of half a round. Poppy had no chance; Bog Witches are horribly slow. And our other Bog Witch, Gloom, is just a few steps away.
We try to hurt the Planetar, but it's not enough to deal damage. Damage will disrupt spells, but it won't stop attacks. Ara Minerva starts running.
The Planetar doesn't even need to give chase. Its range alone, and lightning quick speed factor, is sufficient.
This makes little difference in the long run, as the new Minerva only gathered a few thousand XP, but she could have changed the tide of this battle had she lived a bit longer.
By now I've tossed a pair of Boots of Speed to Gloom (who somehow can wear them, despite having no feet) and had her drink an Oil of Speed, to boot (pun!). This will give her the movement rate she needs to outrun the Planetar. But that might not be enough. Twice in a row, the Planetar landed a vorpal strike with only one hit, despite the normal 25% vorpal strike chance, and twice in a row, we failed a save vs. death. This is especially egregious considering our saves vs. death are spectacular: Bloody Howard was a high-level dwarven fighter, and his kit only imposes a -2 save penalty. Poppy was a high-level druid, and her kit gave her a +2 bonus to her save vs. death. The odds of this happening are less than 1%.
So I have Gloom run to the west... a dead end, but any other direction would lead her within range of that sword. Mercifully, the Planetar tries casting a spell, allowing Gloom to slither past the Planetar before she gets cornered.
Meanwhile, Alchra Diagott continues his work.
Only Eliza and Gloom remain. Our buffs are gone. But Alchra Diagott still has most of his spells, and the Planetar is at full health.
We try Breach again, and it fails once more. Finally I think to use the Wand of Spell Striking. It works.
Notice the Shield icon on Gloom. I had her drink a Potion of Magic Shielding, just in case she got attacked again. That potion would give her automatic saves vs. death, but even then, I'm not sure it would block a vorpal strike, because a Planetar's sword dispels magic on the same 25% chance roll as its vorpal strike... and in Near Infinity, the dispel opcode (58) comes before the vorpal strike opcode (13), which means the Planetar might dispel the Potion of Magic Shielding and land a vorpal strike in the same hit.
Alchra Diagott restores his PFMW once more, but the Wand of Spell Striking takes it down. Eliza finishes him off with a rock to the skull.
The Planetar is still on the map somewhere, and could still kill us if it finds us. I set up a defensive perimeter with the few spells I have left.
Finally, we see the coast is clear. The fight is finally over.
But half our party has just been permanently lost. We're 6 million XP weaker than we were before Irenicus--it's the equivalent of losing two epic-level characters.
Now we must rebuild.
We must do this by removing one Archer/Mage and one Bog Witch from the party. Why is this? This is because a single Archer/Mage is sufficient to force a failed save on a given enemy. Snowy Tae is not needed for that function. I raise her, export her character file, and send her away. We can bring her back later, if necessary.
As for Poppy... we're not bringing her back. Another 900,000 XP, and Gloom hits level 15, with 7 spell slots per level. Gloom can satisfy all of our arcane casting needs just as soon as she hits that point. She therefore benefits more from XP than a re-created Poppy would.
But nothing can replace a Seducer or Shadow Stealer. We need those two back. But since I already re-created Minerva once, I decide to change names and portraits, even if the stats are basically the same. Our new Seducer and Shadow Stealer are Margot and Lithos.
Now, we need to kill a Balor with a level 12 party. The alternative is killing Svirfneblin for the Sun Gem. I have two ways of doing this: Ray of Enfeeblement, and Imprisonment. The Bog Witch version of Imprisonment offers no saving throw, like the mage version, but unlike the mage version, it won't bypass magic resistance.
We also need to avoid the Balor's attack, which also has an instant death on hit effect. But this is opcode 55, not 13, so Death Ward can block it. Lithos, our new Shadow Stealer, can achieve immunity with a Potion of Invulnerability, as it puts her save vs. death to -4 (the Balor's instant death effect offers a save at -4, unlike the Planetar's -2). Since I accidentally mishandled our buffs several times beforehand, we had to rest after drinking a Potion of Invulnerability, so we actually lost two potions instead of one. Due to lack of spell slots, we put Death Ward only on Eliza, but with a pre-cast Teleport Field and a Teleport Field contingency, the Balor shouldn't be able to hit us in the first place.
We summon a simulacrum via Vhailor's Helm and start softening up the Balor. It has 90% magic resistance, so we've got a ways to go.
Then Margot decides to show us up, charming the Balor and knocking it unconscious in the same round.
I wanted to lower its MR first, but the Balor has very low AC, and the sleep effect will give us automatic hits. Eliza and her clone activate Called Shot and attack the Balor with the Crimson Dart. Lithos, our new Shadow Stealer, jumps in to use Celestial Fury, hoping to take advantage of the automatic hits and use the Balor's increased save vs. spell to prolong its disablement. Offscreen, Gloom casts SI: Evocation to avoid disruption due to the Fire Storm, and slowly slithers over to try and Imprison the Balor, in case Ray of Enfeeblement doesn't work.
But it doesn't matter. Margot already won the battle. The Balor is in pieces, and still too friendly to attack us.
The battle is over before Gloom can even reach the Balor. We seal the demon back beneath the earth. Its shadow, divorced from its body, gives us a disapproving look.
We hit it with CTRL-Y and get the Sun Gem from the svirfneblin. Gloom is at 2.1 million XP. She's on her way to epic levels, and Bog Witches have some pretty crazy HLAs.
Total reloads: 0
Findings:
The Seducer and Shadow Stealer kits are a bit like using Feeblemind on dragons. If you reload until the enemy fails its save, the spells complete break the difficulty--few enemies can survive being charmed or having their shadows turned against them, and no dragon can survive being Feebleminded.
I think I need to tweak the spells a little, to make the kits' efficacy slightly less dependent on luck. Shadow Steal will probably be balanced if I just rig it to rob the clone of higher-level spells (lose 1d4+1 spells of each level, maybe), but Charm needs to have its duration tweaked. Maybe Charm would last five rounds instead of ten, the pause effect would last three seconds instead of six, and the cooldown for Charm would be three rounds instead of four. This would make the benefits of Charm a bit less unpredictable.
Also, Teleport Field is a very good spell.
EDIT sorry, when I posted this, your last post read the following: So, let me read the rest ...
Before fighting the Mind Flayers to save Phaere, we put the Ring of Free Action on Eliza for the stun immunity, Arbane's Sword on Margot for stun immunity as well (in my install, both protect against stun), and use Chaotic Commands on Lithos and Gloom. The Mind Flayers fall to brute force.
Eliza also fights the Umber Hulk, Nabassu, and Sahuagin Prince in the tavern, but not the Beholder, and we argue our way out of the Aboleth's threat. For the Spelljammer Beholder thingy, we put Protection from Petrification, Spell Shield, Death Ward, Chaotic Commands, Resist Fear, and Minor Spell Deflection on Eliza.
I forgot that Death Ray uses the vorpal strike opcode, which Death Ward does not block. The Beholder must have broken down MSD and then immediately followed up with Death Ray.
Fortunately, this is a minimal-reload run, rather than a no-reload run, so the run isn't quite over. But I'm still upset that a fully buffed mage can be killed in a single round by a dead Beholder.
I try again with the exact same tactics and absolutely destroy it. We let Solaufein live and Matron Mother Ardulace sends us out to fetch some Sahuagin Prince blood. Now we can act without time constraints.
It's rather frustrating that after all that time--with a long, drawn-out and highly complex battle with Irenicus, and a miserable fight with Alchra Diagott that chunked half the party--we die in a single round, to a dead Beholder, who only used two rays to do it. It's bad enough we lost our no-reload streak, but it just feels lame that it happened in such a simplistic, boring fashion.
Total reloads: 1
On second thought, math that. Those Beholders aren't gonna get away with this.
First, I have to figure out how I'm going to survive against a group of Beholders with eye lasers all over the place. I work on various setups, resting whenever I think of something better. Eventually, I discover that the clock is still running on the drow quest.
Meh. It's worth it. I mean, it's not like our party is short on XP and could benefit immensely from being able to finish the Ust Natha questline. No, it's much more important to kill Beholders. After murdalizing Phaere, we enter the Beholder Hive, with party-wide invisibility.
I thought I had a perfect solution to this problem. But apparently Wail of the Banshee breaks invisibility. And Beholders can keep targeting a character even after they drink a Potion of Invisibility, which means that Gloom had no escape option after losing her invisibility. First idea doesn't work.
If Gloom shatters, we're pretty much screwed. All we'd have left are a couple of Archer/Mages at level 14 and 15, and any other party members would be level 7. We need to turn her back and bring her back into the party, and escape the area before they petrify anybody else.
I have Eliza cast all of the buffs she has, including a Mislead spell with the clone out of sight, then use a Stone to Flesh scroll on Gloom, who rejoins the party at 1 HP. Even after drinking another Potion of Invisibility, the Beholders keep harassing Gloom.
But Gloom makes her saves (Bog Witches have excellent saves, and Gloom is completely immune to Death Ray unbuffed) and we escape the area. The Beholders busy themselves with the Mislead clone, who is still in the hive.
I rest and try again, entering with the whole party invisible. I try spell damage this time--not normally my preference, but I can't think of a better way to kill Beholders quickly than a triple Skull Trap Spell Sequencer.
Problem is, if the Beholders makes all of its saves, it survives, and then I've got Beholder rays on me, once again. Hence the Contingency that turns Eliza invisible just as the Skull Traps hit her.
But once again, invisibility fails to deter the Beholders, even though it would have triggered after her previous invisibility was broken. And SI: Abjuration fails to block Anti-Magic Ray, even though its an Abjuration spell. There's so much about the spell system I still don't understand.
There goes my Spell Shield. But maybe it's because Spell Shield takes precedence over SI, and now that it's gone, SI: Abjuration will block Anti-Magic Ray.
Okay, time to leave. We hurry out and Eliza vanishes once more. Second idea doesn't work.
We blast the Beholder with Horrid Wilting and fling summons at it until it dies. Two Beholders are down, but the way we did it was much too risky. I'll have to try something else for the other Beholders.
I decide to try out the Flesh Golem. Eliza sneaks out while invisible and summons the golem. But she stumbles onto a Hive Mother, who removes the golem with Death Spell and gives chase to Eliza, who no longer has her invisibility. Third idea doesn't work. The drow notice Eliza and follow her outside.
This is a problem. We're not very good with drow. Their AC is too low for even Eliza to hit reliably, and their MR blocks our spells. But we're in luck: the Hive Mother follows us outside, too, and the drow decide the Hive Mother is a higher priority than us. They turn around to face the greater foe.
Horrid Wilting doesn't help much. Hive Mothers are sturdy critters.
But with a drow's shadow and a couple summons to help, we bring it down. We even get the final blow, taking the XP from the drow.
But the drow turn on us the moment the Hive Mother is down, and we don't have many options against them. Lithos and Margot play a major role, reducing the melee pressure on us and giving us a little extra damage output against the drow.
Seducers and Shadow Stealers are major equalizers. But some enemies, like Beholders, depend on scripts for their strength. If we could turn Beholders against each other, the hive would practically be a non-issue. But Beholders use their rays via script, so Steal Shadow and Charm would do almost nothing for us. Fourth idea won't work.
But I have a fifth idea.
Well, a clone can risk a failed save. All it needs is one moment to deal a fatal blow to a Beholder. After that, it doesn't matter if the clone dies.
But the clone doesn't die... Beholders in SCS2 don't seem to use their rays on clones. This means the clone doesn't need to rely on Feeblemind to deal with the Beholders. It can just kill them with darts.
Project Image clones aren't supposed to be able to attack, but any item or spell that sets attacks per round to a certain value allows the clones to attack. So Project Image clones can attack while shapeshifted or using certain weapons, like darts.
Simulacrum also works just fine. I send one in when the Project Image clone vanishes. Margot casts Farsight via the Book of Daily Spell to replace the Wizard Eye.
This is disappointing. Feeblemind via Project Image would have allowed me to slowly but inevitably destroy the entire hive. But since Beholders won't use their rays on clones, Feeblemind isn't necessary... I can just attack them.
I was proud of that plan. I thought it was clever. But it works just as well to smack them in the face.
Partly to speed things up, but mostly out of sheer contempt for the Beholders I'm fighting, I use the Wand of Lightning trick to duplicate the clones.
I nearly kill an Elder Orb by accident. I stop short of finishing him off.
I don't want to kill the boss with a glitch. The extra clones are just there to reduce the amount of times I have to rest. I send the clones away, though the Elder Orb is understandably upset, and doesn't let us alone.
We summon three other Wizard Eyes to maintain our visibility, and continue on to the chamber where the Mind Flayers and Beholders are fighting. We tear apart everyone in sight, only to have one of the Mind Flayers figure out where the party is hiding.
Now we have a Mind Flayer in our midst, and our party has no buffs active; not even Stoneskin. Worse, Eliza herself is helpless due to Project Image.
Gloom activates the Horn of Blasting, dealing a bit of damage to everyone present with no saving throw and bringing an end to Project Image. Eliza recovers her senses, and with the Ring of Free Action, she need not worry about Psionic Blast. She tears apart the poor illithid within the round.
We rest and return with a new clone, scouring the area to make sure it's clear. Finally we head to the last chamber, where the Elder Orb and two of its cronies lie in wait.
The Elder Orb came prepared for a clone rush, however. It destroys both the clone and the Wizard Eye guiding it.
We try again, and this time we buff the clone with both SI: Divination and SI: Abjuration. It survives!
The Wizard Eye is easily replaced by Farsight. Gloom has a copy in her spellbook, and Margot has it in the Book of Daily Spell, so we have all the divination magic we need.
Elder Orbs, like most Beholders, don't have many defenses. Blobby critters like Beholders aren't very hard to damage. The clone slays the Elder Orb single-handedly.
The Elder Orb is dead! Now we just need to loot the place. We turn our new Shadow Stealer, Lithos, invisible before sending her out scouting. She turns visible along the way, so she has to summon the Efreeti to regain her invisibility.
I'm not taking any chances. My characters are not going to be visible where a Beholder might catch them.
We do get caught off-guard, however. A Potion of Invisibility keeps Lithos safe.
Those potions aren't just for backstabbing.
To take care of the surviving Beholder, we conjure another clone. Since clones don't have their own field of vision, like party members, familiars, and Wizard Eyes do, Lithos helps guide the clone along the way.
Finally, we discover one last Beholder wandering the tunnels. This is the real Elder Orb, the one with the eye that Matron Mother Ardulace would have accepted had she been a little more patient. Our clone takes it on.
All a Beholder's strength comes from its rays. And Beholders don't use their rays on clones. Clones are a perfect trump card against SCS2 Beholders, even as the Shield of Balduran is nerfed. The Elder Orb doesn't stand a chance.
It would have been a little cooler had the Beholders actually fought back, and forced us to rely on Feeblemind. It would have been pretty special to walk into a hive full of Feebleminded Beholders, and pick them off one by one at our leisure.
Either way, the Beholder Hive is clear. I feel better about our reload count now.
Total reloads: 1
We fought the Kuo-toa Prince, finally. His shadow did much of the work.
Our Shadow Stealer is Chaotic Neutral, which means we can use the Soul Reaver, at least once she's higher level and has some proficiencies in two-handed swords. This means we have to kill the Demon Knights, who use Power Word and Symbol spells, plus lots of Remove Magic spells and Fireballs, on top of their excellent melee powers and level drain on hit.
You know, that actually sounds stupidly overpowered when I phrase it like that. Anyhoo, we prepared with a couple of Teleport Field spells and a Limited Wish bunny horde.
To my dismay, the Demon Knights had no interest in dealing with the bunnies. I forgot they had Fireball spells.
Those poor little bunny rabbits.
We start exchanging blows with the Demon Knights, and start to wear them down. There's a long way to go, and unfortunately, the Demon Knights are making their saves against Steal Shadow.
Then we lose our Seducer. I didn't expect her to get to use Charm more than once, anyway.
I find that Margot successfully charmed one of the Demon Knights. Too bad its spells are mostly useless its magic-resistant buddies.
The Demon Knights dwindle in number. We turn the last of them against each other.
It's a cruel scene. But the important thing is we got our loot.
Or maybe we could get past them some other way. But talking to them would negate our element of surprise. So we do an ambush instead.
Our plan is simple: Margot, hiding in the shadows, will guide a simulacrum over to the enemy and conjure some Minute Meteors. Behind them, Gloom, out of the drow's field of vision, will begin casting Fire Storm, which will deal lots of fire damage through the drow's magic resistance. She has two castings, so we just need to hold off the drow for one round.
We set up the attack plan and turn the enemy hostile.
Right about now, I realized something was wrong.
You don't often see an SCS2 mage pre-casting Energy Blades. It's even less common to see them summon clones. This indicates that the mage we're tangling with this time... is a bit different from the mages we're used to.
But since the last two mages wrecked our party, I guess this mage could only be easier. Right?
Well, the simulacrum didn't last as long as we needed it, so Lithos, our level 9 Shadow Stealer, has to hold off an epic-level mage and two Glabrezus. It's only for one round. How hard could it be?
Apparently, this is a very offensive-minded mage. Lithos escapes with 10 HP, and we are forced to retreat. Eliza activates a triple Teleport Field Spell Sequencer she was saving for the Mind Flayers to give us a little time. Lithos brings herself back to full health with the Rod of Resurrection, though I've wanted to use the rod only for resurrection, not for healing. The Fallen Planetar--did I mention that drow summoned a Fallen Planetar?--is busy making itself impossible to target, as if we had any spells capable of harming it reliably.
Oh, and did I mention that this is a very offensive-minded mage? Because he is.
Look at the damage he has wrought. Look.
Most of our party is at Near Death, but that wasn't enough. He had to take down Eliza's Spell Shield, too.
Our first three party members all have clear auras, which means they can all drink potions right away. Margot, however, had to drink a potion fairly recently, and was unable to heal herself. The Glabrezus take full advantage of the situation.
We keep running--there's no way we could save Margot. The Glabrezus would see through invisibility, and even if we healed her with the Rod of Resurrection, she'd still be stunned long enough for the enemy to kill her.
But the Glabrezus don't stop there. They teleport after us. We can only outrun the enemy mage.
Lithos, too, is doomed. I try to salvage Gloom, who is barely hanging on to life, by casting a couple of Teleport Field spells and trying to kill the Glabrezus. But their Mirror Image spells negate too many of Eliza's attacks, and their AC is low enough that Eliza can only land a hit on a 12 or higher. Eliza's efforts are for naught.
Eliza is alone. Her buffs are running low, she's exhausted many of her spells, and the enemy is unbuffed and in good health.
So. Now what do we do?