Like I am grossly wrong on this but... I thought that EE included the Fixpack?
It includes the Core fixes, not the Optional But Cool components.
(In the original adventure, Free Action, in all its forms, protected against stun. The consistency led to a belief that this was by intent. Perhaps it was, at the time. Nonetheless, years after the game's release (around 2006, I think) some members of the G3 community began to question the logic. Stun is a mental effect, not a movement restriction: Why should Free Action have any effect at all? Eventually, the G3 team asked David Gaider, and Gaider said that Free Action should not protect against stun. G3 developed and implemented a patch, in response. This made some people happy, others not so much, since it left players with too few options for defending against stun. In a conversation with Camdog on the old-old Bioware forums, I suggested that the G3 team should create a Free Action Protects Against Stun component for players who might find stun overpowered post fix. Eventually that happened. I'm not sure whether my conversation with Camdog had anything to do with that)
My current install (EE/Steam/Mac) has only SCS as a mod. Shall I then assume that, e.g., the Free Action Ring does not protect against stun?
Free Action should not protect against stun in your install. If you'd like Free Action to protect against stun, grab the Fixpack, start the installer, request display of the Optional But Cool Components, and then select Free Action Protects Against Stun.
Best,
A.
Thanks a lot for the detailed reply.
If I may follow up: how do IR or SR change this balance (stun etc.) with new spells/items? For the better or for the worse?
On Mulahey and Greywolf I have never fought them in scs. Anything I need to be concerned with or should watch out for?
On Greywolf. If you have potions for NPCs installed, Greywolf may quaff an Oil of Speed. That can make him dangerous if you aren't hasted or in a position to counter with a haste effect. I always arrive at the Greywolf encounter with an Oil of Speed, a Potion of Invisibility and plenty of healing potions. I've never been forced to use the Potion of Invisibility and it has been a long time since I've used the Oil of Speed. I prefer to have them on hand as a pre-caution, nonetheless.
Unlike Grond0, I find Blindness to be an excellent choice against Greywolf, with or without SCS. He'll run around in SCS, true, but it's easier to keep your distance from an enemy that's running around randomly, than one who is pursuing actively. Additionally, once Greywolf has been blinded, melee becomes an option, due to the -10 THAC0 penalty. I find that Blindness speeds things up, although he can be killed without it. In the end it's a matter of style, preference. Both ways work.
Darts of Stunning are also an option. I tend to use those if Blindness isn't available. On a few occasions, I've blinded him, and then stunned him.
On Mulahey. My formula for Mulahey is as follows: 1) Equip the Girdle of Bluntness; 2) if you're a thief, set your traps in the minion spawn area; if you're a warrior with sub-optimal strength, quaff a strength potion (I usually go with a Potion of Hill Giant Strength purchased at Durlag's); if you're a cleric or mage, take your combat buffs; 3) Activate the Shield Amulet; 4) Activate the Greenstone Amulet; 5) Engage, preferably from map south; 6) open with a Necklace of Missiles blast on the minions (if you've engaged from map south and you're really, really good at ranging, you can try to catch Mulahey in the blast radius, too); 7) kill Mulahey with the method best suited to your class (absent the minions, and with protection from disablers, he isn't very threatening)
I agree with Wise that the kobold captain and shaman can be dangerous. I usually stealth by them. If I don't stealth my them, I use a Greenstone Amulet charge. The Wand of Sleep will work on all the other kobolds (ie- not the shaman and captain)
After having checked with NI to make sure I don't say stupid things, Free Action is much more powerful under an IR/SR setup. Not only Free Action, granted either from items or spells, protects against Stun, but it also doesn't stop Haste. Less item gives that protection though. For instance, Spider's Bane now gives immunity to Poison and Web, instead of Free Action outright (which is thematically much better in my opinion).
After having checked with NI to make sure I don't say stupid things, Free Action is much more powerful under an IR/SR setup. Not only Free Action, granted either from items or spells, protects against Stun, but it also doesn't stop Haste. Less item gives that protection though. For instance, Spider's Bane now gives immunity to Poison and Web, instead of Free Action outright (which is thematically much better in my opinion).
The Spider Bane change is interesting: it makes the item powerful where obtained (Cloakwood) but not make it the obvious no-brainer choice. (My Cavalier is still using it way into SoD by now, despite better weapons available.)
(Meanwhile, keeping things PG13, despite acknowledging entendres.)
I have only just realised a double entendre that I inadvertently used. "To the pure all things are pure!" At least one like that wouldn't corrupt anyone. If somebody spotted it, they are already corrupt.
Journal of Aglazuth
After fighting a few ankheg, I realised that I am ideally suited to fighting them and as a result I cleared the farm that they had infested completely and in the process went up two levels. This made them even more susceptible to my attacks. I did not succumb to the temptation to farm them however.
Now that Bassilus was down, we went Basilisk hunting. Not much to say : Korax paralyzed Mutamin and the Basilisks were taken out with potion of Mirrored Eyes. I didn't fought Kirian group, for whatever reason.
It was time to tackle the Bandit Camp. I don't really know why, but sometimes when I take screenshots, I only get blackscreens with no image. I think that's a Mac thing : on a Mac, you gotta press 3 buttons at the same time to take a screenshot. If you muff the order, you don't get what you want. Well, that's my guess anyway. That's what happened to the pictures I took of the Bandit Camp fight. So, instead of making a Kasimir Malevich impersonation by presenting you black screenshot on a black background, I will merely tell what happened. And it was the usual strat. My bard casted Web, Xan casted a few Grease and Obscuring Mists (a SR specific AoE spell, which replace the OP Blind spell and gives penalty to thac0 of ranged attackers within its AoE) while we were throwing potions of Explosion and Fireballs in the lot with wands (I managed to found two) at our enemies. That went smoothly. Since Mirror Image doesn't protect against AoE spells in SR (is it still the case in the regular game?), even Venkt went down fast.
After that, I went on a shopping spree in Ulgoth's Beard. Alora stole the ring of Free Action out of Dushai's pocket and also took a few good scrolls out of Shandalar's one. In the inn, I tried to steal Hurgan Stoneblade's warhammer, but Alora muffed her steal attempt. Everyone in the inn went aggro. I already told what happened in the "Did you know" thread, but I'll say it again for those of you who didn't catch it. I thought I had to forgo that inn and the beautiful stuff sold here, but decided to try something. Xan memorized a bunch of Charm spell and went back in the inn. We then charmed Hurgan, (so he didn't attack my team) and the bartender right after. Well, it calmed the bartender down, because he agreed to sell me his stuff as usual. Charm person can offset an aggressive npc like nothing happened. Pretty cool to know for thieves. I even managed to steal the warhammer out of Hurgan's pocket while he was charmed. So, nothing's lost here !
After that, we went through the Cloakwood Forest. I tackled the Jaheira's quest from Unfinished Business, but it was not that satisfying, because it was totally bugged. I had to resolve the whole thing through the console, by setting strings and spawning creatures. The fights were hard, but kinda messed up by the subsequent console action. Well, we went through it anyway, only losing Branwen against a bunch of druids.
Against Drasus party, things again went real smooth. I buffed up, casted Strength on Alora and had her backstab Kysus. He was taken out in one shot. Good job Alora ! Xan then charmed Genthore, so they were down to two.
After that, Miluiel casted Spell Thrust at Rezdan to take off his MGoI. He was still under the protection of Prot. from normal Missile and Improved Invisibility, so he was kinda hard to hit. I simply drank a Potion of Sight (a potion that replace the wonderful Potion of Inravision and which can dispel invisibility), then took him down with spell damage. All the other goons died soon after.
During that fight, Xan got to level 7. Which means level 4 spells. Which bypass MGoI. And he had Confusion learned. Nathasha was never this easy before...
Next time, I'll tell about Davaeorn's fight, a fight so grueling that that we almost lost our run here... Nah, I'm just kidding.
After having checked with NI to make sure I don't say stupid things, Free Action is much more powerful under an IR/SR setup. Not only Free Action, granted either from items or spells, protects against Stun, but it also doesn't stop Haste. Less item gives that protection though. For instance, Spider's Bane now gives immunity to Poison and Web, instead of Free Action outright (which is thematically much better in my opinion).
True. And in addition to Spider's Bane another great and popular weapon (Flail of Ages +5) also doesn't have Free Action anymore. It's still quite interesting though:
STATISTICS:
Combat Abilities (20% chance each): Cold Head: 1D5 additional cold damage, slow target for 3 rounds Fire Head: 1D5 additional fire damage, -2 penalty to THAC0 for 3 rounds Acid Head: 1D5 additional acid damage, -2 penalty to AC for 3 rounds Poison Head: 1D5 additional poison damage, further 1hp/sec for 2 rounds Electric Head: 1D5 additional electrical damage, stuns for 1 round
Note: targets can save vs. spell at a -4 penalty to avoid the secondary effects but will still suffer elemental damage.
What, in your personal opinion, is the state of the Item Revisions+Spell Revisions+SCS[modified for SR] together?
I know there are recent beta releases for IR and SR but my game time is so little as is that I don't wanna risk wasting a run if they are not judged to be stable and balanced AND successfully incorporated to SCS yet.
As I've already mentioned they are all quite stable and balanced (to a certain extent) though not everyone is happy with ALL their changes. That's one of the reasons they are in *work-in-progress* state for so long. My runs are also usually take VERY long time (months and even years - I am an inveterate completionist...) but I don't think it's a waste to use those mods in their current state.
As I've already mentioned they are all quite stable and balanced (to a certain extent) though not everyone is happy with ALL their changes. That's one of the reasons they are in *work-in-progress* state for so long. My runs are also usually take VERY long time (months and even years - I am an inveterate completionist...) but I don't think it's a waste to use those mods in their current state.
Oooh, I like the changes to FoA.
I am increasingly inclined to switch to IR and SR based on what I hear. Thanks for the comments.
Am I right in assuming that in an IR+SR+SCS install Stun protection is achieved by casting Free Action most likely? (Other than blanket protection to everything with rare potions.)
My cavalier, wielding Spider's Bane, almost lost a game to bunch of Bombardier Bettles near Boraeskyr Crusader camp. (This, after slaying a dragon and a.... Nether Thingy as well as an Illithid and HalfDragon of all things!).
The Beetles stunned him and brought him to ~30 HP (down from ~90). But Dynaheir chucked a Cloud Kill at him --which he, of course, is immune to but kills Beetles in one round.
I shall treat stun threats more seriously.
--
Side Note: Cavalier is AWESOME!
He tanked the poison damage from a Green Dragon and a .... Nether Thingy (which is an awesome Lovecraftian Nightmare!) while Minsc was chugging potions to stay alive.
Side Note 2: I barely noticed I slew the dragon. (Playing at Insane without damage bonus.) I just wanted to get rid of the Greater Wyverns flocking my Cavalier so he can have a shot at the Dragon. So, my retreating party (poison breath! Agh!) in panic carpet bombed the area (potions, wands, spells when possible) as my Cavalier chugged a fire resistance potion (now upto 90% resist). By the time, I cleared the Wyverns I noticed that the Dragon was 'Near Death'. All it took then was the poke with Spider's Bane from my Cavalier. (Honestly, I was expecting the Dragon resistance to be absolute instead of... spotty.)
So far carpet bombing my fire resistant (and poison immune as well as Free Actioned) Cavalier is proving a reliable strategy against the mobs of SoD at Insane.
Am I right in assuming that in an IR+SR+SCS install Stun protection is achieved by casting Free Action most likely? (Other than blanket protection to everything with rare potions.)
Free Action Spell could be dispelled unless protected via Dispelling Screen. There are no Spell Immunity:X in SR anymore and Dispelling Screen is what we have instead SI - an AoE party-wide protection from single cast of Dispel Magic or Breach. Potion of Freedom on the other side lasts 5 turns and is undispellable in the current version (like other potions) though this behaviour is questionable - at least @Aasim is inclined to make potions buffs dispellable again.
Shamanic hordes {6} - LoB party (1st and final update) Previous run Starting again it looked like I was going to collect all the intended XP from the Beregost area - only for the final sirine to go down to a 26 HP critical from a bear. Shrugging that setback off though, the party once more got up to level 2 by talking to Tenya and to level 3 in the basilisk area.
After clearing the remainder of the basilisk area I decided this time not to go hunting battle horrors. While in theory they're perfectly manageable at that level the length of time required to kill them creates its own problems, so instead I tried my luck at the lighthouse area. That proved troublesome from the start though: - lots of groups of hobgoblin archers took effort to deal with. - one shaman stayed in sight of a sirine for a moment too long and, instead of just getting it to follow him, he was shot and poisoned. A first healing spell got to him while on 2 HPs and further heals managed to keep him going until the poison wore off. - there were a number of lightning blasts during some of the above action as well to keep everyone living on their nerves.
However, the first group of sirines were eventually killed and everyone got to level 4. They celebrated by charming one of Sil's companions and dragging it away to find something to attack it. Dire wolves provided the necessary assistance and with those dead the shamans shot the nearly dead sirine. Regrettably though they did that too near Arkushule and the mage went hostile - instantly sleeping one of the shamans so they couldn't run away without taking a casualty. Arkushule ignored the spirit summons attacking her (not using spells on them and keeping constantly on the move so they couldn't attack her), but for a surprisingly long time no-one died (another shaman was slept and 2 of them resisted the instant death effect of chromatic orbs). Among the other spells used was a glitterdust that had affected Lorbag and when I absent-mindedly told him to attack he moved towards the mage - just in time to meet a first magic missile coming the other way.
Not much of an update for me. I don't have much time to play during the week. I did goof around in Beregost last night. We went through houses and stole what we could for a decent chunk of change, slayed the ogrillons in the south for that quest, killed the half ogres and then got Purdue his sword. It was a lazy day all in all.
I forgot to take pictures of my deeds but really there wasn't much to report anyways.
I beat Caldo and Krumm with little difficulty, then killed Hairtooth and his friend, but Hilgaar and his party proved to be too much. I killed the thief who injured me badly and caused the mage to flee, but that still left Hilgaar who because of the potion he had taken was just a little too powerful. He was on the point of death, but unfortunately didn't die. I did. I was level 5 at the time having killed a couple of winter wolves on the way.
It's great to see so much activity in this thread. Good luck to all the new and returning no-reloaders, and well done to all the people answering and discussing all the questions!
Arbogast's party and the Legacy of Bhaal, Part XVIII - I was wrong. Powerful enemies will destroy you as well.
Legacy of Bhaal does interesting things to hostile thieves - namely, all of them (at least in SoD) have their maximum backstab modifier, thanks to all the extra levels. One hit is most likely to result in a dead character - and the Temple of Bhaal is full of thieves, as it has been invaded by followers of Cyric.
The good news: The "regular" non-named thieves in this place all carry normal weapons and have only one invisibility potion on them. They also seem to be unkitted or assassins, so there were no shadowstep surprises. So once they had used their invisibility potion (and backstabbed a summon, as my party was kept out of sight), we could enter the battle and shoot them down:
This ended up working for all the non-named cultist groups, including the one with the mage - melf's acid arrows and chromatic orbs aren't enough to kill our fire elementals, and confusion effects don't last forever:
Our first bossfight was against Ziatar, and she was assisted by two mages. I didn't know Ziatar had access to a breath weapon, or I would have radically altered the positioning of my party. I was lucky she failed to kill anyone:
The good thing is that Ziatar wields only a +1 weapon. For the rest of the battle, she was busy trying to kill a fire elemental, and even with several breath attacks and spells, she failed to do so. Meanwhile, I had to reinforce my summons. Early on in the fight, a teleport field prevented the spirit animals from doing any significant damage, but later, they brought down most of the protections of the first mage, and second one quickly followed:
I resorted to calling a forest being after one of my spirit bears was defeated, and, to my great surprise, it managed to hold Ziatar with "Hold Monster":
So all I had to do was rush in and take down this foe. After this battle, Nahema used invisibility 10' radius and we rested.
Next up: The Neothelid. I was afraid of this encounter, but it turned out to be the easiest bossfight in the temple. I opened up with skeletons rushing into its room, and as predicted, it tried and failed to dominate one of them. After that, the Neothelid refused to show and summoned a magical sword instead. It used its psionic abilites to stun Voghiln but failed to do the same to Nahema (her save is currently at 0). Finally, we got an opportunity to attack, and it went down much more quickly than I imagined:
Arbogast started casting insect plague at the first possible opportunity, but at this point, it was almost dead anyway. Voghiln was still stunned, so I had Nahema cast invisibility, though there was still danger with the poison on the ground:
Luckily, the stun effect ended right after this screenshot, so our skald was still alive.
The next bossfight: Akanna. She spawned in two aerial servants - which I distracted with skeletons - and she regularily turned invisible, trying to backstab with her magical club. I had Sybia detect illusions to reveal her as soon as possible, and my focus always switched to her once she appeared again, so after three short periods of being unseen, she was eventually killed:
Her aerial servants quickly followed. They really do quite a lot of damage, but only got to attack my summons.
Now, our next opponent was by far the hardest I have faced in this playthrough, no doubt. I didn't expect him to be so incredibly deadly and was caught totally off guard - the reason is simple: He has quite a different approach on Insane/LoB compared to core, and his LoB incarnation is so deadly and cheesy... I'm talking about the shadow aspect in the secret room, guarding the fractal blade. What he does - well, he abuses the well-known mislead + backstab cheese, and his mislead clone is not only well hidden and very tanky, but also protected by a darkness spell that causes blindness to anyone who fails a save. Oh, and he has infinite misleads available - if the timer runs out, the spell will automatically trigger again. Now, his backstab modifier is x5, obviously, and with the LoB extra damage, that means he will often deal more than 100 damage per hit - also, keep in mind that he has multiple attacks per round. Another fun fact: He has the innate ability to see through invisibility.
I wasn't aware of any of this when I opened the door to the secret room, so you can imagine that things didn't exactly go well. Basically, I just wanted to disarm the trap near the entrance of the room (yes, there's also a trap there), but he spotted Sybia and followed her - mind you, Sybia was invisible. Still, I noticed him once trying to hit her (she has -10 ac, so it's not an auto hit, even for him), and as he went invisible right after that once again, I imagined he had invisibility powers at will that didn't require use of the aura (I didn't notice the line of text that said "Misled" in my combat log) - so I retreated, while Nahema prepared haste to get our party out of there and come back with better buffs - but he easily caught up to us and one hit was enough to kill a full-plate wearing half orc right away - and killing wasn't enough, he chunked her. Yup, another one bites the dust. We are losing party members left and right. That's 116 damage right here:
Nahema's haste spell arrived and I managed to save Sybias equipment. I managed to flee the temple and return to camp. There, I recruited Safana (having no cleric sucks, but I need a thief, because I have no idea what the effects of the SoD traps actually are, so I can't just protect myself against them). Safana only has 51 hp... she propably won't last long. When I entered the temple again, I noticed the "Misled" line in the combat log. So, that's how we're playing things, I thought. My plan was to send a hasted party with 5 druidic summons right in there and kill the mislead clone asap, trying to keep everyone moving and having the shadow aspect attack either the summons or someone protected with stoneskins. However, this failed as well - with most people blinded by the darkness spell, we didn't deal nearly enough damage to the mislead, and the guy even created a second mislead clone at some point. Meanwhile, it only took him seconds to kill all the summons. When Nahema's stoneskins went down, I tried to renew them right away, but with his apr, he managed to hit her before she could finish the cast. Luckily, she was "only" dead, not chunked:
Brave Voghiln, assisted by some distracting fire elementals, bravely managed to take her equipment, and we went back to camp once again to resurrect her.
At this point, I realized the only way to defeat this guy might be with the big guns: True sight (a thief's detect illusions might work as well, but Safana doesn't have it very high yet, and she is so squishy). Of course, only Arbogast has true sight, and bringing my main character close to the shadow aspect felt terrible after what it did even to Nahema, the tankiest member of our party. For this attempt, I also used potion buffs - getting armor classes low with invulnerability potions (also good for saving against blindness, and he uses some other spells like ray of enfeeblement). True sight did everything the spell promised - when we entered with our summons in front (you can see he killed one fire elemental right away, before the true sight trigger went off), his mislead disappeared and the shadow aspect himself was exposed. Once he was fully visible, we managed to do a good amount of damage:
And here we are, with the damn thing dead:
Wow. Just wow. Sybia's loss is a big deal - she can't easily be replaced - why, you might ask? Isn't Glint in SoD? Yes, and I love Glint. But he's dead in this playthrough. Why? Because, as you might remember, when clearing the Troll Claw Woods, I pulled enemy groups back to camp to get the flaming fist soldiers to help me. Sometimes, a joinable NPC would join in - like Baeloth, for example. Well, Glint did so as well at one point, and he sadly paid with his life for his bravery. I never mentioned this as it seemed irrelevant for this run, but now it's suddenly really, really bad for us.
To get back to the temple of Bhaal, there still was the actual final battle to wage. With my potion buffs still going, I just charged the final room, summons in front, ranged weapons ready. My spirit wolves stunned one of the umber hulks right away, while our party targeted the mind flayer. Luckily, he never managed to do anything dangerous with his psionics - at this point, I'm not sure he even has access to them:
I had to use three wand of monster summoning charges to make sure nobody would come close to my party, but all in all, this battle was actually quite easy. Though at this point, it gets harder and harder to get our save-or-else spells to stick, even with greater malison. At least we now have Archer's Eyes for Corwin, which will make her even more deadly.
Next time, we will try to make our way to Bridgefort and deal with the situation there.
We arrived to the Korlasz's Tomb. Before starting out, we exported Meshanis the Wild Mage and Dat Boi the Priest of Tyr so that @Gotural and @CrevsDaak could always return to them if (when) they wish. Grimbutdapper the Sorcerer ( @Adul ) and Hamlet the Cleric/Illusionist (under my command) became new party members. Greet new faces!
The very first time we attempted to sleep right at the start of the dungeon, we were ambushed by the undead. After that, it happened often, though, - I think we had about 20 ambushes in the Korlasz's Tomb during our rests. Everything went fine, though, as the Flaming Fist soldiers helped greatly against them.
For living opponents (Korlasz's troops) we used Horror, Emotion: Hopelessness and Fireballs from our wands.
The undead groups were usually weaken when they approached us in melee - 1 or 2 fireballs usually did the trick.
Once, Uzume the barbarian was level-drained, but AI scripts of the Flaming Fist soldiers made them quickly restore levels of the barb.
The encounter with Korlasz took one round. She surrendered after Shari dispelled her protections and one fireball injured her (which happened almost immediately).
@Enuhal: I believe Darskhelin the mind flayer does in fact use Psionic Blast, though my memory may fail me.
All thieves in LoB mode have the maximum 5x backstab multiplier, because LoB mode adds 12 levels to every enemy, bringing level 1 thieves up to level 13, the exact level when thieves hit 5x. The only thieves who wouldn't deal five times as much damage on a backstab are Shadowdancers (capped at 4x) and Assassins (6x and 7x at levels 17 and 21).
Have you considered using a workaround to get back chunked characters? Since disabling permanent deaths is supposed to be possible using an SCS component (though it doesn't always work properly), and should also be possible by disabling "Gore" in the game options menu (though I've heard that can fail as well, even when combined with the SCS component), I usually either re-fight a battle to avoid a chunking or else switch the save folder to the multiplayer save folder so I can re-create the character manually. I only allow petrification to chunk characters in my games.
In both the original game and in SCS, damage-related chunking is supposed to be optional. That's why both of them introduced means (albeit buggy/unreliable ones) of disabling chunking.
@semiticgod So far, I've always considered chunking to be an essential part of Baldur's Gate gameplay, but this run is making me question the wisdom of that decision (I've had lots of chunkings in runs before, but for LoB, an optimized party seems important). I didn't actually know that disabling gore would stop chunkings, I thought that it was purely a visual thing.
As I don't like changing the game settings in the middle of a run, I won't turn off gore now, but I'm considering doing so for future runs.
I once had a run where at least 1/2 the NPCs you can get in BG 2 were all chunked. My party was severely underleveled by the time we faced Melissan, and didn't have enough HLAs to prevail (failed run). Was exciting run.
Since I don't play SCS, I play with chunkings possible, as that can force me to adapt and give me a challenge, especially if I get multiple a run. Can't tell you how many times poor Aerie as been chunked in my parties...
Yepppp. Speaking of chunking, I've lost one of my two archers to a mage fight in Baldur's Gate that ended in flames and a Sunfire. After a bit of a debate, I'll continue without reviving him, and possibly recruit some NPCs to finish off a couple difficult fights.
The last run I made into BG2, I think I had a sizable perma-dead list: Minsc, Neera, Rasaad, Cernd (?), Korgan... everyone kept dying that run.
I've had quite a bit less chunkings in the last couple of years, mostly I think because now anytime I face a mage, I put protection from fire on my low HP characters (such as Aerie). After I had started doing this, Aerie finally survived to ToB and were able to make our baby. Before I was doing this, she pretty much never survived to ToB.
In both the original game and in SCS, damage-related chunking is supposed to be optional. That's why both of them introduced means (albeit buggy/unreliable ones) of disabling chunking.
With the SCS Make Party Members Less Likely to Die Irreversibly Component installed, then, surprisingly, disabling gore makes permanent deaths more likely.
From a recent test. In both cases, Edwin was at 4HP when Aestica attacked, and then took exactly 28HP of damage. This is with the SCS Make Party Members Less Likely to Die Irreversibly Component installed.
With gore disabled. Edwin dies permanently, though without a chunky death animation.
With gore active. Edwin does not die permanently
Setting the difficulty slider to Normal or below should reliably prevent permanent deaths in vanilla or in SCS, although it will also effect other aspects of the game, such as damage. Since EE has decoupled damage from the difficulty setting, it's presumably possible to play with Normal rules absent damage nerfing. Perhaps the engine gives you an option to do so (I'm still on 1.3 so I can't test)? If not, a tweak seems possible.
I didn't actually know that disabling gore would stop chunkings, I thought that it was purely a visual thing.
I believe you're correct, Enuhal. Absent the SCS component, I don't believe the gore setting has any effect on whether permanent death happens or not. It just changes the animation that appears when permanent deaths do occur. Others should feel free to test this in their vanilla installs
Sans SCS, with gore active. Edwin dies permanently and explodes
Sans SCS, with gore inactive. Edwin dies permanently, though without a chunk animation
I normally play on Core, or Insane with the bonus damage disabled, and only scribe spells when my INT is at least 24 (which guarantees a successful scribing despite all penalties). Maybe I'll try Normal mode next time to circumvent the chunking issue. With the right settings, it'll be the same as my normal setups, except without chunking.
But since higher difficulties add some extra enemies and give them some extra powers in Siege of Dragonspear, I might still play Core or Insane in SoD, and use a workaround in the event of chunking.
I normally play on Core, or Insane with the bonus damage disabled, and only scribe spells when my INT is at least 24 (which guarantees a successful scribing despite all penalties). Maybe I'll try Normal mode next time to circumvent the chunking issue. With the right settings, it'll be the same as my normal setups, except without chunking.
But since higher difficulties add some extra enemies and give them some extra powers in Siege of Dragonspear, I might still play Core or Insane in SoD, and use a workaround in the event of chunking.
If the engine lets you play on Normal without the damage nerf, and you raise the slider to Core for spell scribing and HP rolls, then you should be able to get a Core without chunking experience, for the most part.
The exceptions that I know of would be SoD (apparently), the Ascension battles at the Throne, and Oversight Sendai. There, the slider can effect enemy number and or type, in addition to damage
Comments
If I may follow up:
how do IR or SR change this balance (stun etc.) with new spells/items? For the better or for the worse?
Unlike Grond0, I find Blindness to be an excellent choice against Greywolf, with or without SCS. He'll run around in SCS, true, but it's easier to keep your distance from an enemy that's running around randomly, than one who is pursuing actively. Additionally, once Greywolf has been blinded, melee becomes an option, due to the -10 THAC0 penalty. I find that Blindness speeds things up, although he can be killed without it. In the end it's a matter of style, preference. Both ways work.
Darts of Stunning are also an option. I tend to use those if Blindness isn't available. On a few occasions, I've blinded him, and then stunned him.
On Mulahey. My formula for Mulahey is as follows: 1) Equip the Girdle of Bluntness; 2) if you're a thief, set your traps in the minion spawn area; if you're a warrior with sub-optimal strength, quaff a strength potion (I usually go with a Potion of Hill Giant Strength purchased at Durlag's); if you're a cleric or mage, take your combat buffs; 3) Activate the Shield Amulet; 4) Activate the Greenstone Amulet; 5) Engage, preferably from map south; 6) open with a Necklace of Missiles blast on the minions (if you've engaged from map south and you're really, really good at ranging, you can try to catch Mulahey in the blast radius, too); 7) kill Mulahey with the method best suited to your class (absent the minions, and with protection from disablers, he isn't very threatening)
I agree with Wise that the kobold captain and shaman can be dangerous. I usually stealth by them. If I don't stealth my them, I use a Greenstone Amulet charge. The Wand of Sleep will work on all the other kobolds (ie- not the shaman and captain)
Anyhoo, best of luck!
A.
(One of our SR/IR players may have some insight)
Best,
A.
The Spider Bane change is interesting: it makes the item powerful where obtained (Cloakwood) but not make it the obvious no-brainer choice. (My Cavalier is still using it way into SoD by now, despite better weapons available.)
At least one like that wouldn't corrupt anyone. If somebody spotted it, they are already corrupt.
Journal of Aglazuth
After fighting a few ankheg, I realised that I am ideally suited to fighting them and as a result I cleared the farm that they had infested completely and in the process went up two levels. This made them even more susceptible to my attacks. I did not succumb to the temptation to farm them however.Miluiel, the elven bard
BG1 posts : 1, 2Notable mods
- SCS
- IR/SR
- Rogue Rebalance
- plenty of NPC mods
- Tweak Anthology
- Item Randomizer
Now that Bassilus was down, we went Basilisk hunting. Not much to say : Korax paralyzed Mutamin and the Basilisks were taken out with potion of Mirrored Eyes. I didn't fought Kirian group, for whatever reason.
It was time to tackle the Bandit Camp. I don't really know why, but sometimes when I take screenshots, I only get blackscreens with no image. I think that's a Mac thing : on a Mac, you gotta press 3 buttons at the same time to take a screenshot. If you muff the order, you don't get what you want. Well, that's my guess anyway. That's what happened to the pictures I took of the Bandit Camp fight. So, instead of making a Kasimir Malevich impersonation by presenting you black screenshot on a black background, I will merely tell what happened. And it was the usual strat. My bard casted Web, Xan casted a few Grease and Obscuring Mists (a SR specific AoE spell, which replace the OP Blind spell and gives penalty to thac0 of ranged attackers within its AoE) while we were throwing potions of Explosion and Fireballs in the lot with wands (I managed to found two) at our enemies. That went smoothly. Since Mirror Image doesn't protect against AoE spells in SR (is it still the case in the regular game?), even Venkt went down fast.
After that, I went on a shopping spree in Ulgoth's Beard. Alora stole the ring of Free Action out of Dushai's pocket and also took a few good scrolls out of Shandalar's one. In the inn, I tried to steal Hurgan Stoneblade's warhammer, but Alora muffed her steal attempt. Everyone in the inn went aggro. I already told what happened in the "Did you know" thread, but I'll say it again for those of you who didn't catch it. I thought I had to forgo that inn and the beautiful stuff sold here, but decided to try something. Xan memorized a bunch of Charm spell and went back in the inn. We then charmed Hurgan, (so he didn't attack my team) and the bartender right after. Well, it calmed the bartender down, because he agreed to sell me his stuff as usual. Charm person can offset an aggressive npc like nothing happened. Pretty cool to know for thieves. I even managed to steal the warhammer out of Hurgan's pocket while he was charmed. So, nothing's lost here !
After that, we went through the Cloakwood Forest. I tackled the Jaheira's quest from Unfinished Business, but it was not that satisfying, because it was totally bugged. I had to resolve the whole thing through the console, by setting strings and spawning creatures. The fights were hard, but kinda messed up by the subsequent console action. Well, we went through it anyway, only losing Branwen against a bunch of druids.
Against Drasus party, things again went real smooth. I buffed up, casted Strength on Alora and had her backstab Kysus. He was taken out in one shot. Good job Alora ! Xan then charmed Genthore, so they were down to two.
After that, Miluiel casted Spell Thrust at Rezdan to take off his MGoI. He was still under the protection of Prot. from normal Missile and Improved Invisibility, so he was kinda hard to hit. I simply drank a Potion of Sight (a potion that replace the wonderful Potion of Inravision and which can dispel invisibility), then took him down with spell damage. All the other goons died soon after.
During that fight, Xan got to level 7. Which means level 4 spells. Which bypass MGoI. And he had Confusion learned. Nathasha was never this easy before...
Next time, I'll tell about Davaeorn's fight, a fight so grueling that that we almost lost our run here... Nah, I'm just kidding.
STATISTICS:
Combat Abilities (20% chance each):
Cold Head: 1D5 additional cold damage, slow target for 3 rounds
Fire Head: 1D5 additional fire damage, -2 penalty to THAC0 for 3 rounds
Acid Head: 1D5 additional acid damage, -2 penalty to AC for 3 rounds
Poison Head: 1D5 additional poison damage, further 1hp/sec for 2 rounds
Electric Head: 1D5 additional electrical damage, stuns for 1 round
Note: targets can save vs. spell at a -4 penalty to avoid the secondary effects but will still suffer elemental damage.
THAC0: +5 bonus
Damage: 2D4 + 5
Damage type: crushing and piercing
Weight: 10
Speed Factor: 8
Proficiency Type: Flail
Type: 1-handed
Requires: 13 Strength
Not Usable By:
Druid
Mage
Monk
Thief
Beast Master
I am increasingly inclined to switch to IR and SR based on what I hear. Thanks for the comments.
Am I right in assuming that in an IR+SR+SCS install Stun protection is achieved by casting Free Action most likely? (Other than blanket protection to everything with rare potions.)
My cavalier, wielding Spider's Bane, almost lost a game to bunch of Bombardier Bettles near Boraeskyr Crusader camp. (This, after slaying a dragon and a.... Nether Thingy as well as an Illithid and HalfDragon of all things!).
The Beetles stunned him and brought him to ~30 HP (down from ~90). But Dynaheir chucked a Cloud Kill at him --which he, of course, is immune to but kills Beetles in one round.
I shall treat stun threats more seriously.
--
Side Note: Cavalier is AWESOME!
He tanked the poison damage from a Green Dragon and a .... Nether Thingy (which is an awesome Lovecraftian Nightmare!) while Minsc was chugging potions to stay alive.
Side Note 2: I barely noticed I slew the dragon. (Playing at Insane without damage bonus.) I just wanted to get rid of the Greater Wyverns flocking my Cavalier so he can have a shot at the Dragon. So, my retreating party (poison breath! Agh!) in panic carpet bombed the area (potions, wands, spells when possible) as my Cavalier chugged a fire resistance potion (now upto 90% resist). By the time, I cleared the Wyverns I noticed that the Dragon was 'Near Death'. All it took then was the poke with Spider's Bane from my Cavalier. (Honestly, I was expecting the Dragon resistance to be absolute instead of... spotty.)
So far carpet bombing my fire resistant (and poison immune as well as Free Actioned) Cavalier is proving a reliable strategy against the mobs of SoD at Insane.
Previous run
Starting again it looked like I was going to collect all the intended XP from the Beregost area - only for the final sirine to go down to a 26 HP critical from a bear. Shrugging that setback off though, the party once more got up to level 2 by talking to Tenya and to level 3 in the basilisk area.
After clearing the remainder of the basilisk area I decided this time not to go hunting battle horrors. While in theory they're perfectly manageable at that level the length of time required to kill them creates its own problems, so instead I tried my luck at the lighthouse area. That proved troublesome from the start though:
- lots of groups of hobgoblin archers took effort to deal with.
- one shaman stayed in sight of a sirine for a moment too long and, instead of just getting it to follow him, he was shot and poisoned. A first healing spell got to him while on 2 HPs and further heals managed to keep him going until the poison wore off.
- there were a number of lightning blasts during some of the above action as well to keep everyone living on their nerves.
However, the first group of sirines were eventually killed and everyone got to level 4. They celebrated by charming one of Sil's companions and dragging it away to find something to attack it. Dire wolves provided the necessary assistance and with those dead the shamans shot the nearly dead sirine. Regrettably though they did that too near Arkushule and the mage went hostile - instantly sleeping one of the shamans so they couldn't run away without taking a casualty. Arkushule ignored the spirit summons attacking her (not using spells on them and keeping constantly on the move so they couldn't attack her), but for a surprisingly long time no-one died (another shaman was slept and 2 of them resisted the instant death effect of chromatic orbs). Among the other spells used was a glitterdust that had affected Lorbag and when I absent-mindedly told him to attack he moved towards the mage - just in time to meet a first magic missile coming the other way.
I forgot to take pictures of my deeds but really there wasn't much to report anyways.
Best of luck to everyone on their run today!
Journal of Aglazuth Final Entry
I beat Caldo and Krumm with little difficulty, then killed Hairtooth and his friend, but Hilgaar and his party proved to be too much.Arbogast's party and the Legacy of Bhaal, Part XVIII - I was wrong. Powerful enemies will destroy you as well.
Previous posts:
BG1 end: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/904835/#Comment_904835
SoD start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/904866/#Comment_904866
Part XIV: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/904934/#Comment_904934
Part XV: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/904982/#Comment_904982
Part XVI: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/905032/#Comment_905032
Part XVII: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/905184/#Comment_905184
Legacy of Bhaal does interesting things to hostile thieves - namely, all of them (at least in SoD) have their maximum backstab modifier, thanks to all the extra levels. One hit is most likely to result in a dead character - and the Temple of Bhaal is full of thieves, as it has been invaded by followers of Cyric.
The good news: The "regular" non-named thieves in this place all carry normal weapons and have only one invisibility potion on them. They also seem to be unkitted or assassins, so there were no shadowstep surprises. So once they had used their invisibility potion (and backstabbed a summon, as my party was kept out of sight), we could enter the battle and shoot them down:
This ended up working for all the non-named cultist groups, including the one with the mage - melf's acid arrows and chromatic orbs aren't enough to kill our fire elementals, and confusion effects don't last forever:
Our first bossfight was against Ziatar, and she was assisted by two mages. I didn't know Ziatar had access to a breath weapon, or I would have radically altered the positioning of my party. I was lucky she failed to kill anyone:
The good thing is that Ziatar wields only a +1 weapon. For the rest of the battle, she was busy trying to kill a fire elemental, and even with several breath attacks and spells, she failed to do so. Meanwhile, I had to reinforce my summons. Early on in the fight, a teleport field prevented the spirit animals from doing any significant damage, but later, they brought down most of the protections of the first mage, and second one quickly followed:
I resorted to calling a forest being after one of my spirit bears was defeated, and, to my great surprise, it managed to hold Ziatar with "Hold Monster":
So all I had to do was rush in and take down this foe. After this battle, Nahema used invisibility 10' radius and we rested.
Next up: The Neothelid. I was afraid of this encounter, but it turned out to be the easiest bossfight in the temple. I opened up with skeletons rushing into its room, and as predicted, it tried and failed to dominate one of them. After that, the Neothelid refused to show and summoned a magical sword instead. It used its psionic abilites to stun Voghiln but failed to do the same to Nahema (her save is currently at 0). Finally, we got an opportunity to attack, and it went down much more quickly than I imagined:
Arbogast started casting insect plague at the first possible opportunity, but at this point, it was almost dead anyway. Voghiln was still stunned, so I had Nahema cast invisibility, though there was still danger with the poison on the ground:
Luckily, the stun effect ended right after this screenshot, so our skald was still alive.
The next bossfight: Akanna. She spawned in two aerial servants - which I distracted with skeletons - and she regularily turned invisible, trying to backstab with her magical club. I had Sybia detect illusions to reveal her as soon as possible, and my focus always switched to her once she appeared again, so after three short periods of being unseen, she was eventually killed:
Her aerial servants quickly followed. They really do quite a lot of damage, but only got to attack my summons.
Now, our next opponent was by far the hardest I have faced in this playthrough, no doubt. I didn't expect him to be so incredibly deadly and was caught totally off guard - the reason is simple: He has quite a different approach on Insane/LoB compared to core, and his LoB incarnation is so deadly and cheesy...
I'm talking about the shadow aspect in the secret room, guarding the fractal blade. What he does - well, he abuses the well-known mislead + backstab cheese, and his mislead clone is not only well hidden and very tanky, but also protected by a darkness spell that causes blindness to anyone who fails a save. Oh, and he has infinite misleads available - if the timer runs out, the spell will automatically trigger again. Now, his backstab modifier is x5, obviously, and with the LoB extra damage, that means he will often deal more than 100 damage per hit - also, keep in mind that he has multiple attacks per round. Another fun fact: He has the innate ability to see through invisibility.
I wasn't aware of any of this when I opened the door to the secret room, so you can imagine that things didn't exactly go well. Basically, I just wanted to disarm the trap near the entrance of the room (yes, there's also a trap there), but he spotted Sybia and followed her - mind you, Sybia was invisible. Still, I noticed him once trying to hit her (she has -10 ac, so it's not an auto hit, even for him), and as he went invisible right after that once again, I imagined he had invisibility powers at will that didn't require use of the aura (I didn't notice the line of text that said "Misled" in my combat log) - so I retreated, while Nahema prepared haste to get our party out of there and come back with better buffs - but he easily caught up to us and one hit was enough to kill a full-plate wearing half orc right away - and killing wasn't enough, he chunked her. Yup, another one bites the dust. We are losing party members left and right. That's 116 damage right here:
Nahema's haste spell arrived and I managed to save Sybias equipment. I managed to flee the temple and return to camp. There, I recruited Safana (having no cleric sucks, but I need a thief, because I have no idea what the effects of the SoD traps actually are, so I can't just protect myself against them). Safana only has 51 hp... she propably won't last long.
When I entered the temple again, I noticed the "Misled" line in the combat log. So, that's how we're playing things, I thought. My plan was to send a hasted party with 5 druidic summons right in there and kill the mislead clone asap, trying to keep everyone moving and having the shadow aspect attack either the summons or someone protected with stoneskins. However, this failed as well - with most people blinded by the darkness spell, we didn't deal nearly enough damage to the mislead, and the guy even created a second mislead clone at some point. Meanwhile, it only took him seconds to kill all the summons. When Nahema's stoneskins went down, I tried to renew them right away, but with his apr, he managed to hit her before she could finish the cast. Luckily, she was "only" dead, not chunked:
Brave Voghiln, assisted by some distracting fire elementals, bravely managed to take her equipment, and we went back to camp once again to resurrect her.
At this point, I realized the only way to defeat this guy might be with the big guns: True sight (a thief's detect illusions might work as well, but Safana doesn't have it very high yet, and she is so squishy). Of course, only Arbogast has true sight, and bringing my main character close to the shadow aspect felt terrible after what it did even to Nahema, the tankiest member of our party. For this attempt, I also used potion buffs - getting armor classes low with invulnerability potions (also good for saving against blindness, and he uses some other spells like ray of enfeeblement).
True sight did everything the spell promised - when we entered with our summons in front (you can see he killed one fire elemental right away, before the true sight trigger went off), his mislead disappeared and the shadow aspect himself was exposed. Once he was fully visible, we managed to do a good amount of damage:
And here we are, with the damn thing dead:
Wow. Just wow. Sybia's loss is a big deal - she can't easily be replaced - why, you might ask? Isn't Glint in SoD? Yes, and I love Glint. But he's dead in this playthrough. Why? Because, as you might remember, when clearing the Troll Claw Woods, I pulled enemy groups back to camp to get the flaming fist soldiers to help me. Sometimes, a joinable NPC would join in - like Baeloth, for example. Well, Glint did so as well at one point, and he sadly paid with his life for his bravery. I never mentioned this as it seemed irrelevant for this run, but now it's suddenly really, really bad for us.
To get back to the temple of Bhaal, there still was the actual final battle to wage. With my potion buffs still going, I just charged the final room, summons in front, ranged weapons ready. My spirit wolves stunned one of the umber hulks right away, while our party targeted the mind flayer. Luckily, he never managed to do anything dangerous with his psionics - at this point, I'm not sure he even has access to them:
I had to use three wand of monster summoning charges to make sure nobody would come close to my party, but all in all, this battle was actually quite easy. Though at this point, it gets harder and harder to get our save-or-else spells to stick, even with greater malison. At least we now have Archer's Eyes for Corwin, which will make her even more deadly.
Next time, we will try to make our way to Bridgefort and deal with the situation there.
Enuhal
Monty Python, vol. 3, SoD report 1, Insane, with no difficulty-based damage, SCS
Start of the run - Shari the Inquisitor ( @Tresset )
Finish of BG:EE
We arrived to the Korlasz's Tomb. Before starting out, we exported Meshanis the Wild Mage and Dat Boi the Priest of Tyr so that @Gotural and @CrevsDaak could always return to them if (when) they wish. Grimbutdapper the Sorcerer ( @Adul ) and Hamlet the Cleric/Illusionist (under my command) became new party members. Greet new faces!
The very first time we attempted to sleep right at the start of the dungeon, we were ambushed by the undead. After that, it happened often, though, - I think we had about 20 ambushes in the Korlasz's Tomb during our rests. Everything went fine, though, as the Flaming Fist soldiers helped greatly against them.
For living opponents (Korlasz's troops) we used Horror, Emotion: Hopelessness and Fireballs from our wands.
The undead groups were usually weaken when they approached us in melee - 1 or 2 fireballs usually did the trick.
Once, Uzume the barbarian was level-drained, but AI scripts of the Flaming Fist soldiers made them quickly restore levels of the barb.
The encounter with Korlasz took one round. She surrendered after Shari dispelled her protections and one fireball injured her (which happened almost immediately).
All thieves in LoB mode have the maximum 5x backstab multiplier, because LoB mode adds 12 levels to every enemy, bringing level 1 thieves up to level 13, the exact level when thieves hit 5x. The only thieves who wouldn't deal five times as much damage on a backstab are Shadowdancers (capped at 4x) and Assassins (6x and 7x at levels 17 and 21).
Have you considered using a workaround to get back chunked characters? Since disabling permanent deaths is supposed to be possible using an SCS component (though it doesn't always work properly), and should also be possible by disabling "Gore" in the game options menu (though I've heard that can fail as well, even when combined with the SCS component), I usually either re-fight a battle to avoid a chunking or else switch the save folder to the multiplayer save folder so I can re-create the character manually. I only allow petrification to chunk characters in my games.
In both the original game and in SCS, damage-related chunking is supposed to be optional. That's why both of them introduced means (albeit buggy/unreliable ones) of disabling chunking.
As I don't like changing the game settings in the middle of a run, I won't turn off gore now, but I'm considering doing so for future runs.
Since I don't play SCS, I play with chunkings possible, as that can force me to adapt and give me a challenge, especially if I get multiple a run. Can't tell you how many times poor Aerie as been chunked in my parties...
The last run I made into BG2, I think I had a sizable perma-dead list: Minsc, Neera, Rasaad, Cernd (?), Korgan... everyone kept dying that run.
From a recent test. In both cases, Edwin was at 4HP when Aestica attacked, and then took exactly 28HP of damage. This is with the SCS Make Party Members Less Likely to Die Irreversibly Component installed.
With gore disabled. Edwin dies permanently, though without a chunky death animation.
With gore active. Edwin does not die permanently
Setting the difficulty slider to Normal or below should reliably prevent permanent deaths in vanilla or in SCS, although it will also effect other aspects of the game, such as damage. Since EE has decoupled damage from the difficulty setting, it's presumably possible to play with Normal rules absent damage nerfing. Perhaps the engine gives you an option to do so (I'm still on 1.3 so I can't test)? If not, a tweak seems possible.
Best,
A.
Sans SCS, with gore active. Edwin dies permanently and explodes
Sans SCS, with gore inactive. Edwin dies permanently, though without a chunk animation
Best,
A.
Best,
A.
But since higher difficulties add some extra enemies and give them some extra powers in Siege of Dragonspear, I might still play Core or Insane in SoD, and use a workaround in the event of chunking.
The exceptions that I know of would be SoD (apparently), the Ascension battles at the Throne, and Oversight Sendai. There, the slider can effect enemy number and or type, in addition to damage
Best,
A.