After reviving myself with some breakfast it was time to push on through the Cloakwood. For kicks I did all the main combats there. Centeol's wand of frost was avoided by ducking in and out of the nest, but surprisingly none of the phase spiders made an appearance while doing that.
The monks of course went looking for trouble and found it when 5 phase spiders teleported in when they attacked 2 giant spiders. Fortunately Spectre saved against a web tangle in a potentially dangerous situation and things looked like they should be fine as everyone ran back. However, a couple of phase spiders teleported in Phantom's way and with so much else happening I just ordered him to move away from them without checking he actually did so. One of the problems with the EE is that the pathfinding round obstacles is much worse than the original game and Phantom got hung up on one of the spiders - which I only noticed after he had taken a couple of ticks of poison damage. Chimera ran to the rescue in the nick of time - or alternatively just not in the nick of time .
The others killed the giant spiders, but then just ran away to avoid picking up too much extra XP from the phase spiders (as I don't allow any characters to level up until they all can).
The external druids were all stunned, while the Archmage was taken to injured by stealth shots and didn't manage to complete a spell when he did eventually follow downstairs.
In the next area the wyverns were dragged out of their cavem to provide plenty of space to shoot them down. Outside the mine Drasus' companions were charmed and drawn away one at a time, before the main man felt the power of the fist. He actually put up a spirited resistance, saving against initial stuns and managing to rage before landing several blows of his own, but he was always on a loser. Inside the mine progress was rather slow. I wanted to have a line of retreat, but clearing the initial guards was fiddly if trying to avoid damage and the monks really had to leave the mine in order to cure their wounds through rest (on average they were taking marginally more damage from ambushes when trying to rest than they healed). Eventually though Chimera charmed Hareishan and she was not much longer for the world, but left behind a legacy of confused guards. What was left was finished off fairly quickly, though Phantom nearly died again when a critical took him down to 2 HPs.
After clearing the guards at the entrance to the next level the monks rested outside again. At this point area transitions while trying to rest had produced 12 wyvern heads and quite a few spiders - leaving them close to their next level. Proceeding down to find Davaeorn, Chimera charmed the guard and used it to pull a battle horror back. A couple of wand charges helped dispatch it and push everyone up to level 7.
The guard then pulled the other battle horror back for an even quicker disposal using just one charge. Spectre then successfully sighted Davaeorn without alerting him - allowing the guard to go and kill him without any reinforcements being called.
The guard performed a final service by occupying the mustard jelly's attention before being warmly thanked and sent on his way (only kidding - he was slaughtered as usual ).
The mine was flooded, but the monks dodged the guard outside as Chimera wanted to pick up horror as a Bhaal power. That was done by killing a peasant in Beregost and then being caught stealing. As soon as horror was in the bag though the monks made some donations at the temple (annoyingly finding in the process that Kelddath Ormlyr took a stack of 6 wyvern heads instead of just one). Going back to the mine and finishing off a few other outstanding quests pushed reputation back up to 20.
Before heading to the City the monks had one final area to visit to find the Red Wizards and gain another source of magic damage. Denak proved troublesome there when he was able to activate a minor sequencer before being stealth attacked. That allowed him to cast a chaos, but he was too far away from the party when he did so and the monks' quick movement provided plenty of time to ensure only one person would be affected.
The Monty Python crew, aka this forum's MP team, has just finally beaten BG1, no reload. It was our 3rd attempt, and the whole journey took approx 2 real years. Hard to find time so that everyone could play, with RL work, studies, activities etc.
But we have finally done that and joined the teams from the old Bioware boards (which still continue their adventures as the last pages here show) who could finish BG1 in a no-reload MP run. We have had a nearly complete SCS setup.
On our first 2 occations, we failed - in the Durlag's Tower (the Chess fight) and in the BG city (Sunin).
Then @Tresset became a host and we continued with an Inquisitor charname (Shari) , accompanied by Meshanis ( @Gotural) the wild mage, Uzume (me) the barbarian and dat boi ( @CrevsDaak) the priest of tyr. And don't forget Son of L&T: Old Captain Traps - an heir to L&T, our thief.
Last time in December 2016 we finished the TotSC content, and the only things that were left in BG1 were the Undercellar and the final fight.
So, here goes. @Adul joined us for the final push, controlling the priest of tyr.
We've find our way through the labyrinth.
Tresset: I think it's funny how there are splotches on the walls wherever traps are Adul: yeah, it took me a while to notice those ... Tresset: Stalkers, I'm sure me: None Tresset: really? Adul: never where you expect them
Now, the Undersellar party. Haven't played together for 9 months, we have been quite careless at the start of the fight. Soon enough, our wild mage found himself in a dangerous situation, while the rest of the party saw 2 arial servants appear.
Slowly, we took them down one by one.
One moment, Adul survived when his character had only 1hp left.
The battle was won.
The intent was to fight the final fight correctly, without fighting all the acolytes at once. Of course! And it went just the opposite of that - MP prevented pausing when Sarevok noticed the wild mage under my command and I didn't have to retreat unseen...
Soon others appeared.
We didn't panic, though. Basically, our Inquisitor was busy dispelling Semaj's, Diarmid's and Angelo's buffs, while our wild mage kept summoning monsters to distract Sarevok and Tazok, with my barbarian later kiting Sarevok a bit.
Semaj (thanks to our Inquisitor and poison arrows he didn't even cast anything nasty) and Tazok went down almost immediately.
After that, a skeleton archer poisoned our wild mage, I wanted to pass a potion to him from my barbarian but a moment later I crashed.
And here is why I like MP. Although I crashed and thus couldn't continue (and thus help in) the most important fight in the game, I really felt for @Tresset and @Adul, I really couldn't find myself a place.
Adul had said he hadn't tried the SCS Sarevok, Tresset also didn't have any experience with it. I could just sit in front of my monitor and wait. But in my heart, I was backing them as much as I could. This link between a player and characters in the party, considering we used a no-reload and no-resurrection rule for Uzume and Meshanis, is something MP is strong at.
The weight of 24 months, 2 dead charnames, lots and lots of efforts of 11 people, was put into balance during the final fight I coudn't influence anymore.
I had only a Hangouts chat to inform me.
Tresset: Angelo is down and we are still fine so far ... Tresset: Meshanis is 13hp ... Tresset: Diarmid is down ... ... ... Tresset: Sarevok down!!!!!!!!!!!! We all survived too.
I'm sure Tresset and Adul will have something to share about the final battle. Adul only joined us for one final session, but his PoT was definitely superb in supporting and helping our Inquisitor and barbarian to survive.
For final words, I'd say that everyone who like playing BG should try MP with their friends one day. It'll stay forever as the best experience of playing BG. At least, it will for me.
I was given control of all but the Priest of Tyr and the game would not allow me to reassign control so I had to manage all 4 of them while Adul handled the priest.
Diarmiod was shooting arrows at our wild mage so I first moved him out of range. By the time his aura replenished enough so that he could almost heal we had run dangerously low on summons so I decided to use the wand to get more meat shields around the sarevok and his 2 remaining henchmen. Next the skeleton warriors were picking on Son of L&T so I moved him out of the way. Shari was mostly left alone, so she spent most of her time chipping away at Angelo with Bolts of Biting. I had our barbarian activate rage and move in to try to distract Diarmiod with melee. During this time Adul was cleverly kiting skeletons and sometimes Sarevok while pausing only to fire the Wand of Heavens, which proved very effective.
Angelo never seemed to shoot his exploding arrows for some reason... he actually didn't seem to do a whole lot at all other than try to protect himself. Once the squishies were no longer in harm's way I had Shari move in and Melee Angelo for a while when Adul took him out with the wand. I tried to get a screenshot of this but it doesn't seem to have worked.
Next I had Shari, L&T, Merhanis (with his MMM), and the barbarian focus on Diarmiod. Under such concentrated fire he did not last too much longer.
Now the last target was Sarevok... I had all my characters attack Sarevok. Our barbarian stepped back to throw her axe so that she would be safe while Shari held him off in melee. Sarevok knocked Shari down to 34 HP at one point but a few steps back and a drink from Durlag's Goblet fixed that problem. With all fire concentrated on Sarevok he, too, was unable to last very long before the script kicked in and finished him off. Unfortunately my screenshooting abilities failed here too for some reason.
So Shari has finally beaten Sarevok. I had an amazing time with this adventure and would like to thank everyone involved. I honestly can't say if we will continue further... I sure hope so, though.
On the road to Nashkel, ogrillons were kited and killed, a spirit snake helped to tank against the hobgoblin group guarding the family amulet and I made my way to obtain the boots of stealth. Here, I got a quick reminder that even with the levels gained from our basilisk hunt, any monster can randomly oneshot a party member if I'm not careful:
In Nashkel, I resurrected Sybia and fought Neira, who failed to save against blindness and just stood around helplessly:
Now then - as the level 3 version of the spirit lion has an immunity to charm (see here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/31754/totemic-druid-summon-stats ), I thought I could kill the sirens for some more good experience early on. However, the sirens were guarded by a group of hobgoblin elites, which are absolutely deadly in LoB. I was fleeing back to the point I originally came from, but as it turned out, while my party was gone, random monster groups had started spawning all over the place! I was quickly caught between hobgoblin elites on the left, more hobgoblins to the north and wolves to the south-east!
At this point, I was pretty sure I was gonna lose at least one party member. Indeed, a wolf caught up to Sybia and killed her:
To make things worse, the wolves were still in front of me, and while I tried to make my way to the edge of the map, Firun got caught in a dead end - he had to sacrifice himself so the others could successfully flee:
So it seems like I won't be killing the sirens for now. The bigger random monster spawns are just a bit too tough to deal with. Instead, I've decided to seek out worthwile single enemies for my experience and item needs - and I'm skipping documentation of some minor stuff like picking up items and doing fetchquests along the way, buying scrolls etc. First on my list was Greywolf - though I had to deal with the Dorn encounter first, which is easy, as Dorn is immortal during it:
Greywolf resisted quite a few attempts to control him, but eventually, a blindness spell took hold:
Another enemy I noticed earlier on was a vampire wolf north of Nashkel. I bought some magical arrows and bullets in Beregost and used a sprit bear as tank. This was also where I discovered that some information about the spirit animals in the previous link is not accurate: Their attacks don't seem to count as magical weapons at this level in the current EE version.
Bassilus suffered a similiar fate:
I even managed to rescue Melicamp:
Meilum was another potential target, and a tightly packed group of kobolds provided an opportunity for Sybia to test hold person:
Meilum himself was blinded and killed:
Aikar also used a protection from undead scroll to clear the three tombs near the Nashkel mine exit:
And finally, we have a spirit bear and some ranged weapon action taking down both the ogre mage and Lendam in the firewine ruins - a close call, as I had to flee from some ogrillons right after the wizards was dead:
This brought Arbogast to level 5, and level 5 means more powerful spirit animals. With the improved spirit lion now available, next time we will try to tackle the siren problem once again.
It was an honor to be able to participate in such an epic moment of this fated playthrough. Though, to be completely honest, until I've just read Julius's summation of it, I had no idea it was a no reload run. It's probably a good thing too, otherwise my nervousness may have doomed us all.
There were more than a couple of close calls, for sure. I'm glad that Julius and Tresset did such a great job of documenting what happened, because all that registered for me was me constantly running away from whatever was chasing my character at the time.
Though I do have a favorite moment I recall fondly: Semaj was down to his last bit of health. The poisoned arrows depleted most of his HP and had prevented him from doing his usual spiel. However, the poison had just worn off. He begin casting invisibility, and a second later, he disappeared. Little did he know, I had my Wand of Heavens aimed right at his back. A moment later: BLAM! A pillar of flame came down, and a smoldering corpse tumbled right out of invisibility.
Wands. They are the best.
Thanks for letting me take part in this, fellas! It was great fun.
We had finished our Chapter 5 quests/tasks and were ready to deal with the hostile party on the 5th floor of the HQ of the Iron Throne. We had our berserker, Draman, use a protection from magic scroll and a few potions - he easily defeated the entire enemy party all by himself this way.
We went through Candlekeep Crypts without much of significance happening. We had Cierra use a protection from magic scroll to take out Prat's gang by herself (well and a few skeleton helpers too).
Slythe of course didn't do much being dispelled by a dispelling arrow. We left Krystin alone. As for Duchal Palace we did max buffs and used our best ammo and this did in fact carry the day.
We used a play from Grond0/Gate70, where they try to pull just Sarevok. We got Semaj too, but he didn't last long after his buffs got dispelled by a dispelling arrow.
Sarevok himself didn't last much longer himself and we were victorious.
This is my 1st venture into Dragonspear ever, so we gave it a go. There are SO MANY enemies here, it definitely seems to be intended for a full party. But we do have lots of necklace of missiles handy, and have used them a lot to whittle down enemies. The battle below was looking dangerous, but CorEE II used his Priest of Lathander abiilty hold undead to great effect to turn the battle.
We will very carefully make our way deeper into this expansion - hope we survive. I intend to finish it, even if I die - it just won't be no-reload if I do. This is my "scouting" run. This way I can have a chance of no-loading this expansion by future parties I might make.
Congratulations to the multiplayer party for completing BG1, and nice to see you in SoD @Corey_Russell - the starting dungeon is quite difficult, but on the plus side, in my opinion it's one of the hardest parts of the entire expansion, so if you can beat it, you might very well be able to no-reload the entire thing
As throwing fireballs at things isn't exactly a viable tactic in LoB (especially against the smart SoD scripts), I'm quite curious as to what I'm going to do down there if Arbogast makes it through BG1 - though the amount of deaths in my party isn't a great cause for optimism.
Is it the Dwarf or the Half-orc that you like? The dwarf didn't last long so I put up two portraits up in quick succession. Both were portraits from the web put on a backgound using my own photo. Jungle in Nepal and Fountains Abbey.
I got the name Oswic from a King of Hwicce, one of those illegal immigrants in 577AD who were far worse than any of the illegal immigrants of today, rape and pillage being the norm. I have been reading a number of novels set in that period and was pleasantly surprised at how accurate they were.
Journal of Osric
In Candlekeep I was able to kill all three of the Improved Assassins by judicious use of 'Command'. Before taking on Mendas who is now quite dangerous, Canderous blessed me and protected me from evil. Deder's oil of speed gave me an additional advantage, however, once again 'command' was of vital importance.
Oil of speed has been greatly nerfed by a mod. I think that it is 'Items Revisions'. It ran out before the battle was over! The only equipment that was carried by the assassins that I could use was a flail+1. (There was also improved leather armour, but it isn't as effective as splint mail.)
Including emergency considerations such as Greater Malison, Doom, Basilisk bonuses (-4?), specialist mages etc., what are the ABSOLUTE SAFE saving throw minimums for a character to need?
(Surely, somewhat below a 0/0/0/0/0. But by how much?)
Can an item combination ever reach it? Or is it potions all the way to ToB? (Naturally shorties and paladins have a bit of a headstart there.)
Congratulations to the multiplayer party for completing BG1, and nice to see you in SoD @Corey_Russell - the starting dungeon is quite difficult, but on the plus side, in my opinion it's one of the hardest parts of the entire expansion, so if you can beat it, you might very well be able to no-reload the entire thing
As throwing fireballs at things isn't exactly a viable tactic in LoB (especially against the smart SoD scripts), I'm quite curious as to what I'm going to do down there if Arbogast makes it through BG1 - though the amount of deaths in my party isn't a great cause for optimism.
Thanks @Enuhal ! As to your statement that fireballs won't work for you, how about chaos? Not very many creatures have immunity to confusion.
Including emergency considerations such as Greater Malison, Doom, Basilisk bonuses (-4?), specialist mages etc., what are the ABSOLUTE SAFE saving throw minimums for a character to need?
(Surely, somewhat below a 0/0/0/0/0. But by how much?)
Can an item combination ever reach it? Or is it potions all the way to ToB? (Naturally shorties and paladins have a bit of a headstart there.)
I'm hardly an expert, but I can relate what I know plus combine some things Alesia_BH has said. The worst spells that I am aware of have a -4 penalty, which means if you have -3 for spells that's an automatic save. I think Basilisk gaze is save vs. death, so that's a different save. But you can use potions/scrolls/spells to defend against the basilisk gaze.
What I notice that Alesia_BH does is when she ever gets hit with malison or doom, she will counter with potion of stone form to negate it. She can also compensate for the DEX penalty by then using a potion of genius.
Don't forget magic resistance can sub in for saving throws (if you can get to 100%), though you always have to be careful if the enemy has lower magic resist in their script (though even then, you can compensate for that with a potion of magic protection)
EDIT: There are a few things that bypass magic resistance, so you always need to be wary if an opponent is using such a spell.
Just found that Osric's innate spells aren't working. Tried using Shadowkeeper but that doesn'r work. I may give my Berserker another whirl if I can't sort it out.
Just found that Osric's innate spells aren't working. Tried using Shadowkeeper but that doesn'r work. I may give my Berserker another whirl if I can't sort it out.
isn't he a fighter/cleric? are you talking about bhaul powers... and its the orc I like best but the dwarf is good as well mate
What are the ABSOLUTE SAFE saving throw minimums for a character to need?
-∞
Recall that there are abilities that impose save penalties on hit, like Called Shot and, in Ascension, Mel's spear. Your saves can, in theory, become arbitrarily high.
Note also that even if you had infinitely low saves, you'd still have to worry about abilities that do not offer a save.
You always have to do the math, you always have to think.
You should strive to always know the save penalties associated with every spell and ability on the field. You should also know your current saves, and your avenues for reduction at any given time. Beyond that, you should know about any threats that don't offer a save and know the relevant counters from the immunity item list. All of this can and should become intuitive.
You should also keep track of the amount of time it will take you and or your enemies to adjust your saves to a given point. During combat, I continuously monitor a quantity that I call the "Magic Number." It's the number of uncountered spell equivalent actions required for an enemy to put my character in mortal danger. I can talk more about the "Magic Number" concept at a later date if there's interest
Can an item combination ever reach it? Or is it potions all the way to ToB?
You'll need both all the way through. Reducing saves via worn items effects the frequency of potion use, and the frequency of required calculations. It can also raise you Magic Number by requiring enemies to apply more save modifiers. It never eliminates the need form potions, however, at least not in my install.
The lowest mission critical saves that you'll encounter routinely, as in kind-a-sorta every day, are, as Corey mentioned, -4s in the form of Chaos and the Symbols. Unmodified, you'd need a -3 to be save. Then, factor in the possible specialist penalty, plus Malison, plus Doom, and you can find yourself needing to go down to -11, just for a garden variety, everyday spell.
Some special abilities have penalties down to -10 (Ex- Nix's Plant Growth). Recall, too, that the specialist penalty may apply to special abilities.
What I notice that Alesia_BH does is when she ever gets hit with malison or doom, she will counter with potion of stone form to negate it.
Yuppers. On a warrior, my counters for Malison and Doom include RoAC II (-4), Potion of Invulnerability (-5), Potion of Stone Form (-3) and Potions of Magic Shielding (-20)
Naturally, in any given encounter, I try to go with the cheapest possible option. Also, I try to use my immunity items first before resorting to modifying saves via consumables. Some of the more common -4s that you'll encounter are confusion, via Chaos, stun, via Symbol: Stun and fear, via Dragon Fear. (Pop quiz: As a Cavalier, what are your immunity option for each?)
Don't forget magic resistance can sub in for saving throws (if you can get to 100%), though you always have to be careful if the enemy has lower magic resist in their script (though even then, you can compensate for that with a potion of magic protection)
EDIT: There are a few things that bypass magic resistance, so you always need to be wary if an opponent is using such a spell.
Yuppers. Even with 100% magic resistance the dance goes on.
In the City the monks immediately splashed out on a Wand of the Heavens each for those emergency situations. Then they went in search of the tomes. On the way up to get the intelligence one they had their first emergency.
There were no real problems though with further explorations as they worked through the Baldur's Gate encounters. The Gauntlets of Ogre Power were used to access places requiring exceptional strength. At the Iron Throne they used massed fireballs for the first time - that killed both of the invisible backstabbers and a couple of the casters as well. I decided the monks shouldn't use any more resources after that and they managed to stick to that, though Zhalimar hit them hard with bow and halberd.
Moving on to Candlekeep, I took a slight risk by not giving the monks any protections. However, they scattered to mitigate area effects and they all managed to survive.
Inside the library the Iron Throne leaders managed to stun Wraith with a dart. That complicated movement and Wands of Heavens were again put to use to finish off the opposition quickly.
In the catacombs the monks rested between smashing their way through various traps to loot the tombs. After shooting down some dopplegangers they sneaked past Prat and let fly with some fireballs from the rear. Chimera then used his free action to spring the web traps while stealthed before killing the spiders. A potion of mirrored eyes then gave plenty of time for Phantom to kick both basilisks to death.
I gave Spook the strength tome to congratulate him for being the one with the most HPs to date before looking around for things to do. Money wasn't really needed, but it would seem fitting to get up to level 8 before facing Sarevok, so the monks went in search of a bit more XP. First, Cythandria was burnt down
and her golems shot with magic ammunition, then Duke Eltan was rescued from his scheming subordinates.
On to the main business and no chances were taken with Slythe's deadly backstabs - wand blasts killing him while neutral.
The monks then lurked by the exit until Krystin showed herself and departed. A bit of waiting and stealthing later and Krystin's face also lit up at the sight of them.
Then it was time for the palace. Both the doppleganger mage and cleric were charmed there before the monks rested. Coming back, the Flaming Fist guards were charmed before the monks showed themselves. The assassin got a backstab on Chimera, forcing him to run away a bit before releasing a Bhaal horror for the first time. The assassin died an instant later and the others soon followed. I turned autopause: enemy in sight on and waited for something to happen. When the mage appeared he immediately put mirrors up and they protected him from a first round of wand blasts - but not a second. Unsurprisingly, the cleric failed to survive the first round.
Sarevok hacked Liia down, but Belt was safe in a side room and sent the monks into the maze.
Clearing the maze was enough to get everyone their final BG1 level
and while levelling up (another almost perfect set of rolls there with 2 10s and 4 9s) I realised that I hadn't gone to get some rather desirable scimitars. With +3 weapons at something of a premium for monks in SoD the opportunity to get 2 more of those was too tempting and the monks reversed course. There was nothing fancy done with Drizzt - just save vs charm, avoid entangle and then run him in circles until the sling criticals took their toll.
After finally passing through the maze the Undercity party was initially bypassed, but attacked from the rear using horror to split them up. That seemed to be working nicely when I forgot about an encounter I don't tend to bother with in solo runs
- a quick barrage of wand blasts avoided any complications there. After the remainder of that party were finished off the nearby skeleton warriors were also harvested before there was a final trip back through the maze to empty inventories prior to SoD.
The first part of this run was pretty quick, but there's bit quite a lot of fidding around more recently. However, finally Sarevok was ready for the chop and he was immediately parked in the corner using invisibility along with Semaj, Diarmid and Tazok. Angelo was tempted out of invisibility by Wraith, but she promptly hid and a massed array of wands did their work.
To avoid taking any damage the skeleton warrior was shot before the monks waited for Diarmid's scroll protection to run out and then set up a rain of fireballs on Sarevok's location. I'm used to doing that in LoB, so it was a bit of a surprise how quickly things died. After the skeleton warriors came out to play it was Sarevok's turn. He's quite fast, so it was necessary to be careful to maintain the correct distance from Wraith (wearing boots of speed) as she ran him round - but this time there were no mistakes.
I've still not completed SoD in single player, but I think the monks should have some sort of chance at that. At least those charm and maze traps won't be instantly lethal like for solo runs ...
Best of luck Grond0! I can tell you my dwarven party's saves came in real handy in the dungeon. Despite trap detecting, we still set off lots of traps accidentally, but my sturdy dwarves always saved. In one battle, the entire party was sitting in 2x stinking cloud, but the party just laughed at that and took out that pesky skeleton mage. Kivan of course succumbed, but we didn't need his help that fight.
You should also keep track of the amount of time it will take you and or your enemies to adjust your saves to a given point. During combat, I continuously monitor a quantity that I call the "Magic Number." It's the number of uncountered spell equivalent actions required for an enemy to put my character in mortal danger. I can talk more about the "Magic Number" concept at a later date if there's interest
Thanks a lot, again!
Now, this here is an interesting concept and would love to hear more about it.
I imagine you take a divide-and-conquer approach to multi-mage encounters to not let dangers compound otherwise?
Bonus question: how do you deal with no-save issues like Imprisonment? Supposedly, any SoA mage later could in principle toss one up! (... and a Cavalier cannot Berserk normally.)
Bonus question: how do you deal with no-save issues like Imprisonment?
1) The spell, Imprisonment, is a L9. It's an Abjuration spell with a casting time of 9. It's range is touch. It offers no save. It ignores magic resistance.
SCS will, in theory, avoid targeting the protagonist with Maze or Imprisonment. There can be exceptions, though.
If you've followed my runs, you'll note that my characters typically fight mages -especially high level mages- at range, rather than in melee. This serves two purposes: 1) it widens the counter window; 2) it thwarts targeting of touch spells, such as Imprisonment.
If somehow, someway I found myself in proximity to a high level mage with a non-arcane character, saw him initiate a touch spell, and heard an Abjuration incarnation associated with a spell with a long casting time, when I knew he was casting from the top of his book and spell protection removers were not a possibility, I'd do the following: 1) if the mage could not detect the invisible via script, I'd quaff a Potion of Invisibility; 2) If the mage could detect the invisible via script, I'd apply a Protection from Magic scroll (In every run I keep these in reserve for this purpose; I've never had to use it for Imprisonment; I did once save a character from Maze this way; Imprisonment is easier to counter in this fashion, since it's a 9 rather than a 3; Note that you need to apply your scroll before the swirly ball projectile hits you: It's too late when the cage animation closes in).
2) SCS Kangaxx's Imprisonment, Trap Soul, offers a save.
3) Tactics for vanilla Kangaxx are well known
4) Vanilla Elder Orb Imprisonment is ranged and casts quick, but vanilla beholders will not steal the Shield of Balduran.
It depends on the class. Due to her shortly bonuses and items, Aestica will be able to make her saves against them. Their damage rays apply electricity and magic damage. BoIB + Boot of Grounding + Dragon Shield + Dragon Helm will be her SoA approach, for example.
Greater Deathblow fixes them quick. You can drop a whole crew in a round with GDB->GWW
(IIRC, even mages are unsafe because even SI:A and Spell Shield melt away correctly. It has been ages since I attempted that...)
The classic Spell Shield will intercept Anti-Magic Ray, and remain in place; the modified SCS Spell Shield will intercept Anti-Magic Ray, but will collapse, leaving you vulnerable to a second Anti-Magic Ray.
SI:A never blocked Anti-Magic Ray.
In my arcane party insane SCS-Ascension play through, my four characters, April, Adara, Aerie, and Imoen, all approached full buffed, running Spell Shield. If they lost their Spell Shield, they'd reapply it with a trigger. If they lost their second Spell Shield, they'd vanish with a Minor Sequencer, recast Spell Shield from their book, and then rejoin the fray. We never took damage from beholders.
Best,
A.
Btw, The new Spell Shield solved some problems (like "stickiness," particularly when used by hostile NPCs) but created new ones (like "stickiness" when used in conjunction with spell protections, whether cast by hostile NPCs or the player). It also isn't properly patched to work with some spells, like Wish and Mordenkainen's Disjunction. It created almost as many problems as it solved, although it is better suited for use in enemy scripts, since it doesn't, at least, introduce game breaking asymmetries, like the old one could.
As for the change of behavior in relation to Anti-Magic Ray, I'm not entirely convinced that this was a fix rather than a tweak, and in any case, I feel it has a detrimental effect on balancing. I don't regard the new behavior as "working properly," necessarily. It can, at least, be worked with, though
Btw, The new Spell Shield solved some problems (like "stickiness," particularly when used by hostile NPCs) but created new ones (like "stickiness" when used in conjunction with spell protections, whether cast by hostile NPCs or the player). It also isn't properly patched to work with some spells, like Wish and Mordenkainen's Disjunction. It created almost as many problems as it solved, although it is better suited for use in enemy scripts, since it doesn't, at least, introduce game breaking asymmetries, like the old one could.
As for the change of behavior in relation to Anti-Magic Ray, I'm not entirely convinced that this was a fix rather than a tweak, and in any case, I feel it has a detrimental effect on balancing. I don't regard the new behavior as "working properly," necessarily. It can, at least, be worked with, though
Ah, I know of this dilemma.
Curious what your tweaks setup is on this matter: do you keep Spell Shield vanilla or go with SCS 30 default.
I feel like we need an updated SCS 31 by now AND perhaps one that incorporates the Spell Revisions mod up to date. It seems DavidW is away though...
I'd love to see it patched to deal with Wish and Mordy D. I'd also love to see it sit a top spell protections, like the old one, rather than resting below them in the interaction hierarchy. If the latter isn't achievable, I'd at least like to see David's scripts take account of the new behavior, rather than assuming they can still clip a Spell Shield run in conjunction with a spell protection using, say, Spell Thrust.
As for the Anti-Magic Ray behavior, I feel that should be left up to the player at install: 1. Spell Shield will intercept one Anti-Magic Ray and collapse; 2. Spell Shield will intercept Anti-Magic Ray and remain in place (original game behavior)
mix it up with some traps and a slim or two? why does every mod want to muck about with spell results... its so rock, paper, scissors
I have heard of successful Slime use from people, but for some reason haven't tried much myself. (Do I think it cheesy?) Perhaps, it is fair game for Beholders...
I had lost track of Blaggerd, and a review of my posting history was required to find his last update on July 22nd. He's been out once or twice since on unrecorded activity and I have the grand total of one screenshot, a few named saves and memory (oh dear) to go on. I can recall Safana dying a lot.
Last write-up he'd just dealt with a shadowy figure in Siege of Dragonspear. Forensic evidence (inspection of saves) indicates the party next travelled to Bloodbark grove without entering Dead Man's Pass where Safana died twice and M'Khiin once. That was enough to stop one session before anything happened to Blaggerd.
The next time he ventured out was to Dead Man's Pass. The area has barely been explored but the save name is cryptically entitled "Safana dead" so the party would be on their way back to camp. A subsequent save has the western side of Dead Mans Pass opened up and is called "Safana dead again".
Next, "After Castle start". Nobody is dead and the journal indicates we've fixed a trial (dead ranger), come to understand the Crusade, dealt with a troll breakout, restored the icon of Tempus (the hard way, below), completed the morning report and fenced various items.
The save after that shows Edwin has been usurped by Neera. The reason for this is due to charisma reaching 19 and Edwin having walked out twice. He can be recalled each time but returning to camp for Safana is tiresome enough without doing so for Edwin too. He's stripped of his gear and left mumbling (no more tedious monkey work). Neera helps herself to various spells at Belegarm's supply store and is ready to go.
The final two named saves are "Safana 3" and "Safana 4" so she'll have died twice more. Our journal indicates both times would have been while searching for a bear - perhaps lucky for Helvdar, not so for our thief. Blaggerd isn't sure why everything seems to hone in on Safana but it's a good survival trait so far as he's concerned and is making his bard bait (Voghiln singing with shield and fractal blade chance of mirror image on hit) quite redundant.
Btw, The new Spell Shield solved some problems (like "stickiness," particularly when used by hostile NPCs) but created new ones (like "stickiness" when used in conjunction with spell protections, whether cast by hostile NPCs or the player). It also isn't properly patched to work with some spells, like Wish and Mordenkainen's Disjunction. It created almost as many problems as it solved, although it is better suited for use in enemy scripts, since it doesn't, at least, introduce game breaking asymmetries, like the old one could.
As for the change of behavior in relation to Anti-Magic Ray, I'm not entirely convinced that this was a fix rather than a tweak, and in any case, I feel it has a detrimental effect on balancing. I don't regard the new behavior as "working properly," necessarily. It can, at least, be worked with, though
Ah, I know of this dilemma.
Curious what your tweaks setup is on this matter: do you keep Spell Shield vanilla or go with SCS 30 default.
I feel like we need an updated SCS 31 by now AND perhaps one that incorporates the Spell Revisions mod up to date. It seems DavidW is away though...
Isn't there a version of SCS modified by Kreso- Aasim available which takes account of Spell Revisions? Or is it not quite up to date?
Comments
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903092/#Comment_903092
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903108/#Comment_903108
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903136/#Comment_903136
After reviving myself with some breakfast it was time to push on through the Cloakwood. For kicks I did all the main combats there. Centeol's wand of frost was avoided by ducking in and out of the nest, but surprisingly none of the phase spiders made an appearance while doing that.
The external druids were all stunned, while the Archmage was taken to injured by stealth shots and didn't manage to complete a spell when he did eventually follow downstairs.
Inside the mine progress was rather slow. I wanted to have a line of retreat, but clearing the initial guards was fiddly if trying to avoid damage and the monks really had to leave the mine in order to cure their wounds through rest (on average they were taking marginally more damage from ambushes when trying to rest than they healed). Eventually though Chimera charmed Hareishan and she was not much longer for the world, but left behind a legacy of confused guards. What was left was finished off fairly quickly, though Phantom nearly died again when a critical took him down to 2 HPs.
After clearing the guards at the entrance to the next level the monks rested outside again. At this point area transitions while trying to rest had produced 12 wyvern heads and quite a few spiders - leaving them close to their next level. Proceeding down to find Davaeorn, Chimera charmed the guard and used it to pull a battle horror back. A couple of wand charges helped dispatch it and push everyone up to level 7.
The mine was flooded, but the monks dodged the guard outside as Chimera wanted to pick up horror as a Bhaal power. That was done by killing a peasant in Beregost and then being caught stealing. As soon as horror was in the bag though the monks made some donations at the temple (annoyingly finding in the process that Kelddath Ormlyr took a stack of 6 wyvern heads instead of just one). Going back to the mine and finishing off a few other outstanding quests pushed reputation back up to 20.
Before heading to the City the monks had one final area to visit to find the Red Wizards and gain another source of magic damage. Denak proved troublesome there when he was able to activate a minor sequencer before being stealth attacked. That allowed him to cast a chaos, but he was too far away from the party when he did so and the monks' quick movement provided plenty of time to ensure only one person would be affected.
Chimera - L7, 53 HPs, 125 kills
Phantom - L7, 48 HPs, 191 kills, 3 deaths
Spectre - L7, 60 HPs, 103 kills, 1 death
Wraith - L7, 62 HPs, 148 kills, 0 deaths
Spook - L7, 65 HPs, 147 kills, 0 deaths
Spirit - L7, 59 HPs, 130 kills, 0 deaths
But we have finally done that and joined the teams from the old Bioware boards (which still continue their adventures as the last pages here show) who could finish BG1 in a no-reload MP run. We have had a nearly complete SCS setup.
Let me remind a bit. In october, 2015, a group of forum members, fellow followers of no-reload runs and just BG enthusiasts, me, @GemHound, @Blackraven, @Meyahi, @Tresset, @Gotural, @CrevsDaak, @Neverused, @semiticgod and @Mirage decided to try a MP run.
On our first 2 occations, we failed - in the Durlag's Tower (the Chess fight) and in the BG city (Sunin).
Then @Tresset became a host and we continued with an Inquisitor charname (Shari) , accompanied by Meshanis ( @Gotural) the wild mage, Uzume (me) the barbarian and dat boi ( @CrevsDaak) the priest of tyr. And don't forget Son of L&T: Old Captain Traps - an heir to L&T, our thief.
Last time in December 2016 we finished the TotSC content, and the only things that were left in BG1 were the Undercellar and the final fight.
So, here goes. @Adul joined us for the final push, controlling the priest of tyr.
We've find our way through the labyrinth.
Tresset: I think it's funny how there are splotches on the walls wherever traps are
Adul: yeah, it took me a while to notice those
...
Tresset: Stalkers, I'm sure
me: None
Tresset: really?
Adul: never where you expect them
Now, the Undersellar party. Haven't played together for 9 months, we have been quite careless at the start of the fight. Soon enough, our wild mage found himself in a dangerous situation, while the rest of the party saw 2 arial servants appear.
Slowly, we took them down one by one.
One moment, Adul survived when his character had only 1hp left.
The battle was won.
The intent was to fight the final fight correctly, without fighting all the acolytes at once. Of course! And it went just the opposite of that - MP prevented pausing when Sarevok noticed the wild mage under my command and I didn't have to retreat unseen...
Soon others appeared.
We didn't panic, though. Basically, our Inquisitor was busy dispelling Semaj's, Diarmid's and Angelo's buffs, while our wild mage kept summoning monsters to distract Sarevok and Tazok, with my barbarian later kiting Sarevok a bit.
Semaj (thanks to our Inquisitor and poison arrows he didn't even cast anything nasty) and Tazok went down almost immediately.
After that, a skeleton archer poisoned our wild mage, I wanted to pass a potion to him from my barbarian but a moment later I crashed.
And here is why I like MP. Although I crashed and thus couldn't continue (and thus help in) the most important fight in the game, I really felt for @Tresset and @Adul, I really couldn't find myself a place.
Adul had said he hadn't tried the SCS Sarevok, Tresset also didn't have any experience with it. I could just sit in front of my monitor and wait. But in my heart, I was backing them as much as I could. This link between a player and characters in the party, considering we used a no-reload and no-resurrection rule for Uzume and Meshanis, is something MP is strong at.
The weight of 24 months, 2 dead charnames, lots and lots of efforts of 11 people, was put into balance during the final fight I coudn't influence anymore.
I had only a Hangouts chat to inform me.
Tresset: Angelo is down and we are still fine so far
...
Tresset: Meshanis is 13hp
...
Tresset: Diarmid is down
...
...
...
Tresset: Sarevok down!!!!!!!!!!!!
We all survived too.
Oh man. That feeling.
I congratulate the whole team of @GemHound, @Blackraven, @Meyahi, @Tresset, @Gotural, @CrevsDaak, @Neverused, @semiticgod, @Mirage and @Adul for finally doing it!
I'm sure Tresset and Adul will have something to share about the final battle. Adul only joined us for one final session, but his PoT was definitely superb in supporting and helping our Inquisitor and barbarian to survive.
For final words, I'd say that everyone who like playing BG should try MP with their friends one day. It'll stay forever as the best experience of playing BG. At least, it will for me.
I was given control of all but the Priest of Tyr and the game would not allow me to reassign control so I had to manage all 4 of them while Adul handled the priest.
Diarmiod was shooting arrows at our wild mage so I first moved him out of range. By the time his aura replenished enough so that he could almost heal we had run dangerously low on summons so I decided to use the wand to get more meat shields around the sarevok and his 2 remaining henchmen. Next the skeleton warriors were picking on Son of L&T so I moved him out of the way. Shari was mostly left alone, so she spent most of her time chipping away at Angelo with Bolts of Biting. I had our barbarian activate rage and move in to try to distract Diarmiod with melee. During this time Adul was cleverly kiting skeletons and sometimes Sarevok while pausing only to fire the Wand of Heavens, which proved very effective.
Angelo never seemed to shoot his exploding arrows for some reason... he actually didn't seem to do a whole lot at all other than try to protect himself. Once the squishies were no longer in harm's way I had Shari move in and Melee Angelo for a while when Adul took him out with the wand. I tried to get a screenshot of this but it doesn't seem to have worked.
Next I had Shari, L&T, Merhanis (with his MMM), and the barbarian focus on Diarmiod. Under such concentrated fire he did not last too much longer.
Now the last target was Sarevok... I had all my characters attack Sarevok. Our barbarian stepped back to throw her axe so that she would be safe while Shari held him off in melee. Sarevok knocked Shari down to 34 HP at one point but a few steps back and a drink from Durlag's Goblet fixed that problem. With all fire concentrated on Sarevok he, too, was unable to last very long before the script kicked in and finished him off. Unfortunately my screenshooting abilities failed here too for some reason.
So Shari has finally beaten Sarevok. I had an amazing time with this adventure and would like to thank everyone involved. I honestly can't say if we will continue further... I sure hope so, though.
Previous posts:
Part II: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903150/#Comment_903150
On the road to Nashkel, ogrillons were kited and killed, a spirit snake helped to tank against the hobgoblin group guarding the family amulet and I made my way to obtain the boots of stealth. Here, I got a quick reminder that even with the levels gained from our basilisk hunt, any monster can randomly oneshot a party member if I'm not careful:
In Nashkel, I resurrected Sybia and fought Neira, who failed to save against blindness and just stood around helplessly:
Now then - as the level 3 version of the spirit lion has an immunity to charm (see here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/31754/totemic-druid-summon-stats ), I thought I could kill the sirens for some more good experience early on. However, the sirens were guarded by a group of hobgoblin elites, which are absolutely deadly in LoB. I was fleeing back to the point I originally came from, but as it turned out, while my party was gone, random monster groups had started spawning all over the place! I was quickly caught between hobgoblin elites on the left, more hobgoblins to the north and wolves to the south-east!
At this point, I was pretty sure I was gonna lose at least one party member. Indeed, a wolf caught up to Sybia and killed her:
To make things worse, the wolves were still in front of me, and while I tried to make my way to the edge of the map, Firun got caught in a dead end - he had to sacrifice himself so the others could successfully flee:
So it seems like I won't be killing the sirens for now. The bigger random monster spawns are just a bit too tough to deal with. Instead, I've decided to seek out worthwile single enemies for my experience and item needs - and I'm skipping documentation of some minor stuff like picking up items and doing fetchquests along the way, buying scrolls etc. First on my list was Greywolf - though I had to deal with the Dorn encounter first, which is easy, as Dorn is immortal during it:
Greywolf resisted quite a few attempts to control him, but eventually, a blindness spell took hold:
Another enemy I noticed earlier on was a vampire wolf north of Nashkel. I bought some magical arrows and bullets in Beregost and used a sprit bear as tank. This was also where I discovered that some information about the spirit animals in the previous link is not accurate: Their attacks don't seem to count as magical weapons at this level in the current EE version.
Bassilus suffered a similiar fate:
I even managed to rescue Melicamp:
Meilum was another potential target, and a tightly packed group of kobolds provided an opportunity for Sybia to test hold person:
Meilum himself was blinded and killed:
Aikar also used a protection from undead scroll to clear the three tombs near the Nashkel mine exit:
And finally, we have a spirit bear and some ranged weapon action taking down both the ogre mage and Lendam in the firewine ruins - a close call, as I had to flee from some ogrillons right after the wizards was dead:
This brought Arbogast to level 5, and level 5 means more powerful spirit animals. With the improved spirit lion now available, next time we will try to tackle the siren problem once again.
Enuhal
There were more than a couple of close calls, for sure. I'm glad that Julius and Tresset did such a great job of documenting what happened, because all that registered for me was me constantly running away from whatever was chasing my character at the time.
Though I do have a favorite moment I recall fondly: Semaj was down to his last bit of health. The poisoned arrows depleted most of his HP and had prevented him from doing his usual spiel. However, the poison had just worn off. He begin casting invisibility, and a second later, he disappeared. Little did he know, I had my Wand of Heavens aimed right at his back. A moment later: BLAM! A pillar of flame came down, and a smoldering corpse tumbled right out of invisibility.
Wands. They are the best.
Thanks for letting me take part in this, fellas! It was great fun.
We had finished our Chapter 5 quests/tasks and were ready to deal with the hostile party on the 5th floor of the HQ of the Iron Throne. We had our berserker, Draman, use a protection from magic scroll and a few potions - he easily defeated the entire enemy party all by himself this way.
We went through Candlekeep Crypts without much of significance happening. We had Cierra use a protection from magic scroll to take out Prat's gang by herself (well and a few skeleton helpers too).
Slythe of course didn't do much being dispelled by a dispelling arrow. We left Krystin alone. As for Duchal Palace we did max buffs and used our best ammo and this did in fact carry the day.
We used a play from Grond0/Gate70, where they try to pull just Sarevok. We got Semaj too, but he didn't last long after his buffs got dispelled by a dispelling arrow.
Sarevok himself didn't last much longer himself and we were victorious.
This is my 1st venture into Dragonspear ever, so we gave it a go. There are SO MANY enemies here, it definitely seems to be intended for a full party. But we do have lots of necklace of missiles handy, and have used them a lot to whittle down enemies. The battle below was looking dangerous, but CorEE II used his Priest of Lathander abiilty hold undead to great effect to turn the battle.
We will very carefully make our way deeper into this expansion - hope we survive. I intend to finish it, even if I die - it just won't be no-reload if I do. This is my "scouting" run. This way I can have a chance of no-loading this expansion by future parties I might make.
As throwing fireballs at things isn't exactly a viable tactic in LoB (especially against the smart SoD scripts), I'm quite curious as to what I'm going to do down there if Arbogast makes it through BG1 - though the amount of deaths in my party isn't a great cause for optimism.
I got the name Oswic from a King of Hwicce, one of those illegal immigrants in 577AD who were far worse than any of the illegal immigrants of today, rape and pillage being the norm. I have been reading a number of novels set in that period and was pleasantly surprised at how accurate they were.
Journal of Osric
In Candlekeep I was able to kill all three of the Improved Assassins by judicious use of 'Command'. Before taking on Mendas who is now quite dangerous, Canderous blessed me and protected me from evil. Deder's oil of speed gave me an additional advantage, however, once again 'command' was of vital importance.Oil of speed has been greatly nerfed by a mod. I think that it is 'Items Revisions'. It ran out before the battle was over!
Including emergency considerations such as Greater Malison, Doom, Basilisk bonuses (-4?), specialist mages etc., what are the ABSOLUTE SAFE saving throw minimums for a character to need?
(Surely, somewhat below a 0/0/0/0/0. But by how much?)
Can an item combination ever reach it? Or is it potions all the way to ToB?
(Naturally shorties and paladins have a bit of a headstart there.)
I'm hardly an expert, but I can relate what I know plus combine some things Alesia_BH has said. The worst spells that I am aware of have a -4 penalty, which means if you have -3 for spells that's an automatic save. I think Basilisk gaze is save vs. death, so that's a different save. But you can use potions/scrolls/spells to defend against the basilisk gaze.
What I notice that Alesia_BH does is when she ever gets hit with malison or doom, she will counter with potion of stone form to negate it. She can also compensate for the DEX penalty by then using a potion of genius.
Don't forget magic resistance can sub in for saving throws (if you can get to 100%), though you always have to be careful if the enemy has lower magic resist in their script (though even then, you can compensate for that with a potion of magic protection)
EDIT: There are a few things that bypass magic resistance, so you always need to be wary if an opponent is using such a spell.
Tried using Shadowkeeper but that doesn'r work.
I may give my Berserker another whirl if I can't sort it out.
Recall that there are abilities that impose save penalties on hit, like Called Shot and, in Ascension, Mel's spear. Your saves can, in theory, become arbitrarily high.
Note also that even if you had infinitely low saves, you'd still have to worry about abilities that do not offer a save.
You always have to do the math, you always have to think.
You should strive to always know the save penalties associated with every spell and ability on the field. You should also know your current saves, and your avenues for reduction at any given time. Beyond that, you should know about any threats that don't offer a save and know the relevant counters from the immunity item list. All of this can and should become intuitive.
You should also keep track of the amount of time it will take you and or your enemies to adjust your saves to a given point. During combat, I continuously monitor a quantity that I call the "Magic Number." It's the number of uncountered spell equivalent actions required for an enemy to put my character in mortal danger. I can talk more about the "Magic Number" concept at a later date if there's interest You'll need both all the way through. Reducing saves via worn items effects the frequency of potion use, and the frequency of required calculations. It can also raise you Magic Number by requiring enemies to apply more save modifiers. It never eliminates the need form potions, however, at least not in my install.
The lowest mission critical saves that you'll encounter routinely, as in kind-a-sorta every day, are, as Corey mentioned, -4s in the form of Chaos and the Symbols. Unmodified, you'd need a -3 to be save. Then, factor in the possible specialist penalty, plus Malison, plus Doom, and you can find yourself needing to go down to -11, just for a garden variety, everyday spell.
Some special abilities have penalties down to -10 (Ex- Nix's Plant Growth). Recall, too, that the specialist penalty may apply to special abilities. Yuppers. On a warrior, my counters for Malison and Doom include RoAC II (-4), Potion of Invulnerability (-5), Potion of Stone Form (-3) and Potions of Magic Shielding (-20)
Naturally, in any given encounter, I try to go with the cheapest possible option. Also, I try to use my immunity items first before resorting to modifying saves via consumables. Some of the more common -4s that you'll encounter are confusion, via Chaos, stun, via Symbol: Stun and fear, via Dragon Fear. (Pop quiz: As a Cavalier, what are your immunity option for each?) Psst! Potion of Mind Focusing- Potion of Mind Focusing
Best,
A.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903092/#Comment_903092
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903108/#Comment_903108
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903136/#Comment_903136
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903185/#Comment_903185
In the City the monks immediately splashed out on a Wand of the Heavens each for those emergency situations. Then they went in search of the tomes. On the way up to get the intelligence one they had their first emergency.
Moving on to Candlekeep, I took a slight risk by not giving the monks any protections. However, they scattered to mitigate area effects and they all managed to survive.
In the catacombs the monks rested between smashing their way through various traps to loot the tombs. After shooting down some dopplegangers they sneaked past Prat and let fly with some fireballs from the rear. Chimera then used his free action to spring the web traps while stealthed before killing the spiders. A potion of mirrored eyes then gave plenty of time for Phantom to kick both basilisks to death.
I gave Spook the strength tome to congratulate him for being the one with the most HPs to date before looking around for things to do. Money wasn't really needed, but it would seem fitting to get up to level 8 before facing Sarevok, so the monks went in search of a bit more XP. First, Cythandria was burnt down
On to the main business and no chances were taken with Slythe's deadly backstabs - wand blasts killing him while neutral.
Then it was time for the palace. Both the doppleganger mage and cleric were charmed there before the monks rested. Coming back, the Flaming Fist guards were charmed before the monks showed themselves. The assassin got a backstab on Chimera, forcing him to run away a bit before releasing a Bhaal horror for the first time. The assassin died an instant later and the others soon followed. I turned autopause: enemy in sight on and waited for something to happen. When the mage appeared he immediately put mirrors up and they protected him from a first round of wand blasts - but not a second. Unsurprisingly, the cleric failed to survive the first round.
Clearing the maze was enough to get everyone their final BG1 level
After finally passing through the maze the Undercity party was initially bypassed, but attacked from the rear using horror to split them up. That seemed to be working nicely when I forgot about an encounter I don't tend to bother with in solo runs
The first part of this run was pretty quick, but there's bit quite a lot of fidding around more recently. However, finally Sarevok was ready for the chop and he was immediately parked in the corner using invisibility along with Semaj, Diarmid and Tazok. Angelo was tempted out of invisibility by Wraith, but she promptly hid and a massed array of wands did their work.
I've still not completed SoD in single player, but I think the monks should have some sort of chance at that. At least those charm and maze traps won't be instantly lethal like for solo runs ...
Chimera - L8, 62 HPs, 167 kills
Phantom - L8, 58 HPs, 254 kills, 3 deaths
Spectre - L8, 70 HPs, 139 kills, 1 death
Wraith - L8, 71 HPs, 190 kills, 0 deaths
Spook - L8, 74 HPs, 198 kills, 0 deaths
Spirit - L8, 68 HPs, 163 kills, 0 deaths
Now, this here is an interesting concept and would love to hear more about it.
I imagine you take a divide-and-conquer approach to multi-mage encounters to not let dangers compound otherwise?
Bonus question: how do you deal with no-save issues like Imprisonment? Supposedly, any SoA mage later could in principle toss one up! (... and a Cavalier cannot Berserk normally.)
1) The spell, Imprisonment, is a L9. It's an Abjuration spell with a casting time of 9. It's range is touch. It offers no save. It ignores magic resistance.
SCS will, in theory, avoid targeting the protagonist with Maze or Imprisonment. There can be exceptions, though.
If you've followed my runs, you'll note that my characters typically fight mages -especially high level mages- at range, rather than in melee. This serves two purposes: 1) it widens the counter window; 2) it thwarts targeting of touch spells, such as Imprisonment.
If somehow, someway I found myself in proximity to a high level mage with a non-arcane character, saw him initiate a touch spell, and heard an Abjuration incarnation associated with a spell with a long casting time, when I knew he was casting from the top of his book and spell protection removers were not a possibility, I'd do the following: 1) if the mage could not detect the invisible via script, I'd quaff a Potion of Invisibility; 2) If the mage could detect the invisible via script, I'd apply a Protection from Magic scroll (In every run I keep these in reserve for this purpose; I've never had to use it for Imprisonment; I did once save a character from Maze this way; Imprisonment is easier to counter in this fashion, since it's a 9 rather than a 3; Note that you need to apply your scroll before the swirly ball projectile hits you: It's too late when the cage animation closes in).
2) SCS Kangaxx's Imprisonment, Trap Soul, offers a save.
3) Tactics for vanilla Kangaxx are well known
4) Vanilla Elder Orb Imprisonment is ranged and casts quick, but vanilla beholders will not steal the Shield of Balduran.
Best,
A.
By the way, I always SCS the Shield of Balduran away from my game. (Beholders become trivial otherwise.)
How do you in general deal with Beholders?
(IIRC, even mages are unsafe because even SI:A and Spell Shield melt away correctly. It has been ages since I attempted that...)
Greater Deathblow fixes them quick. You can drop a whole crew in a round with GDB->GWW The classic Spell Shield will intercept Anti-Magic Ray, and remain in place; the modified SCS Spell Shield will intercept Anti-Magic Ray, but will collapse, leaving you vulnerable to a second Anti-Magic Ray.
SI:A never blocked Anti-Magic Ray.
In my arcane party insane SCS-Ascension play through, my four characters, April, Adara, Aerie, and Imoen, all approached full buffed, running Spell Shield. If they lost their Spell Shield, they'd reapply it with a trigger. If they lost their second Spell Shield, they'd vanish with a Minor Sequencer, recast Spell Shield from their book, and then rejoin the fray. We never took damage from beholders.
Best,
A.
Btw, The new Spell Shield solved some problems (like "stickiness," particularly when used by hostile NPCs) but created new ones (like "stickiness" when used in conjunction with spell protections, whether cast by hostile NPCs or the player). It also isn't properly patched to work with some spells, like Wish and Mordenkainen's Disjunction. It created almost as many problems as it solved, although it is better suited for use in enemy scripts, since it doesn't, at least, introduce game breaking asymmetries, like the old one could.
As for the change of behavior in relation to Anti-Magic Ray, I'm not entirely convinced that this was a fix rather than a tweak, and in any case, I feel it has a detrimental effect on balancing. I don't regard the new behavior as "working properly," necessarily. It can, at least, be worked with, though
Curious what your tweaks setup is on this matter: do you keep Spell Shield vanilla or go with SCS 30 default.
I feel like we need an updated SCS 31 by now AND perhaps one that incorporates the Spell Revisions mod up to date. It seems DavidW is away though...
I'd love to see it patched to deal with Wish and Mordy D. I'd also love to see it sit a top spell protections, like the old one, rather than resting below them in the interaction hierarchy. If the latter isn't achievable, I'd at least like to see David's scripts take account of the new behavior, rather than assuming they can still clip a Spell Shield run in conjunction with a spell protection using, say, Spell Thrust.
As for the Anti-Magic Ray behavior, I feel that should be left up to the player at install: 1. Spell Shield will intercept one Anti-Magic Ray and collapse; 2. Spell Shield will intercept Anti-Magic Ray and remain in place (original game behavior)
why does every mod want to muck about with spell results... its so rock, paper, scissors
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Blaggerd (Blackguard, 2 Handed Sword). Travelling with Voghiln (singing), Corwin (longbow), M'Khiin (spells), Safana (katana / bow) and Edwin -> Neera (spells).
I had lost track of Blaggerd, and a review of my posting history was required to find his last update on July 22nd. He's been out once or twice since on unrecorded activity and I have the grand total of one screenshot, a few named saves and memory (oh dear) to go on. I can recall Safana dying a lot.
Last write-up he'd just dealt with a shadowy figure in Siege of Dragonspear. Forensic evidence (inspection of saves) indicates the party next travelled to Bloodbark grove without entering Dead Man's Pass where Safana died twice and M'Khiin once. That was enough to stop one session before anything happened to Blaggerd.
The next time he ventured out was to Dead Man's Pass. The area has barely been explored but the save name is cryptically entitled "Safana dead" so the party would be on their way back to camp. A subsequent save has the western side of Dead Mans Pass opened up and is called "Safana dead again".
Next, "After Castle start". Nobody is dead and the journal indicates we've fixed a trial (dead ranger), come to understand the Crusade, dealt with a troll breakout, restored the icon of Tempus (the hard way, below), completed the morning report and fenced various items.
The final two named saves are "Safana 3" and "Safana 4" so she'll have died twice more. Our journal indicates both times would have been while searching for a bear - perhaps lucky for Helvdar, not so for our thief. Blaggerd isn't sure why everything seems to hone in on Safana but it's a good survival trait so far as he's concerned and is making his bard bait (Voghiln singing with shield and fractal blade chance of mirror image on hit) quite redundant.