Wow, you’re really unlucky, @Enuhal. Losing those PfM scrolls is another big blow. Still, this run is nothing short of awesome. You can be proud of yourself !!
Abazigal's Lair awaits. We enter and fight our way to the yellow dragon, which is killed without significant trouble. A planetar and Ayla make their way through the kuo-toas and water elementals, and we're forced to return to Amkethran to get a bit of rope (this is... not the greatest plot point in the world). On our way back, we encounter the dreaded quadruple dragon ambush. Our fighters focus the dragon on the right, while Edwin casts his timestop. We are lucky to have hardiness activated to somewhat reduce the incoming damage, and everyone has to drink tons of potions because of breath weapon hits. We also use a bunch of RoR charges for healing. Edwin's Timestop+IA does some significant damage, but not enough for a kill thanks to all the SCS extra dragon hp:
However, with our foes weakened and without protections, we take the first two down:
The next dragon is already spawning, but luckily, my fighters are immune to its poison breath weapon thanks to Vongoethe's Ring and the Ring of Gaxx - we take it down within a few rounds:
Finally, Carnifex, the red dragon, turns up. Nabatil is immune to fire, so I feel relatively safe. His physical damage is high, though, and I have to retreat with both of my fighters at one point, healing them up with the RoR. As soon as Ayla is full up again, she turns around and gets in the final hit:
While that did cost me about 20 potions and 5 RoR charges, we achieved victory and can move on. The improved seekers are super annoying, but a planetar does great against them (though due to summoning duration, Ayla and Sarevok have to help out). The tyrant golem + death tyrant combo is tricky. I decide to send in a deva and Ayla by herself - everytime the anti magic ray duration ends on Ayla, she chucks another invulnerability potions to keep her saves in a secure range. Meanwhile, she takes out her foes with GWWs:
So, now we finally get to see which version of Abazigal I'm getting - and we do have Tamah and the three wyrmlings and all that. So... is this just Ascension, or SCS+Ascension? Still not sure, but it's certainly difficult. Luckily, thanks to the ever helpful Dorn quest (seriously, considering how easy to complete that one was, it's really, really worth it), we have our second Planetar of Justice on our side:
We had prepared with protection from electriticty buffs and lots of item based resistance plus magical and potion-based buffs of all kinds. Edwin starts a timestop while the fighters try to take down the minor dragons first. During the timestop, we use a LR trigger, spellstrike and breach on Tamah, dealing some decent damage. The fighters are successful in taking down some salamanders and two of the young dragons when Tamah, getting low now, runs away to the northern part of the map. We go after her, though our fallen planetar and the planetar of justice stay back, keeping Abazigal himself busy - and this is where he transforms:
I heal up Sarevok via RoR, and we take down Tamah and the final young dragon. Now, we're after Abazigal, and while he is able to cast imprisonment on our brave planetar of justice (who, unlike the fallen planetar, didn't get destroyed by the transformation), he has no combat protections up:
Everyone is still immune to his breath weapon, and his spells aren't effective enough to deal significant damage, so this is just a matter of time:
We make our way to Amkethran, cast invisibility 10' radius and talk to Saemon. Edwin's 3*ADHW chain contingency provides us with direct access to Balthazar:
Nabatil drinks a wisdom potion (we have tons of these in case we want Edwin to cast wish, and they didn't get lost with Haer'Dalis' potion bag because I kept them with Edwin directly) and talks Balthazar into joining him. Time to face the Ravager (we also did the Chosen of Cyric thing right after Abazigal, but nothing important happened there). Our main plan is to rely on Edwin's magical damage, and he starts off strong with a LR trigger and his chain contingency:
However, a bone blade interrupts his attempt at casting IA. And now, it's time for another really stupid mistake: I forgot that the Ravager is immune to timestop, so Edwin casts that spell, and while Edwin is able to cast some more ADHWs, our foe simply uses this time to kill Sarevok, who has no way to defend himself:
However, by now we only have to deal a little bit of damage to win this battle, and Ayla manages to get the job done:
So... we did make it to the throne. I'm surprised and happy that I've made it this far, but now I don't really see a good way ahead. The SCS/Ascension final battle is far more difficult than anything I've ever done in a no-reload context (only Legacy of Bhaal Belhifet in SoD comes somehwat close, but I did test runs for that one, and I don't have a save with another party at the throne in this installation to do testruns with. I also really don't want to create a new party just to do testruns, as I'd have to get them all the way to the throne first). Without testruns, I think the best I can do is to make it to the final part of this series of battles, facing the five again, and getting killed there. With the PfM scrolls, I'd give myself a 20% chance to make it, but without them, my chances are propably less than 5%.
I won't play the throne battle today, so my hope is that someone here will post a literally foolproof secret ascension strategy that doesn't involve PfM scrolls over night
- SCS (full prebuffs, full tactical challenges) - Item Revisions - Spell Revisions - Rogue Rebalancing - Deities of Faerun (no sphere system, only kits) - Tweak Anthology - Item Randomizer - plenty of kit mods - plenty of npc mods
BG1 first post
Like a fly against a window glass, I'm back again ! I've been off for a little while, because I was moving, but now we're done, so here I am, ready to get my ass kicked by this game again !
Say hello to Cabotin, a chaotic evil gnomish Jester.
As usual, i didn't redistribute stats at creation, because I find that it makes the character somewhat more fun to play with. Considering this, it's not a bad roll at all.
I rarely play evil so I decided to do something different. Also, my best run so far was with a plain bard, so, to seek some sort of success, I decided to go that road again. Since I'll play a chaotic evil bastard, I will do some mean stuff to a bunch of people, but slowly ans systematically. Chaotic evil, but not stupid evil. Well, kinda. We're also gonna use a lot of cheap tactics (traps, kiting, etc.), but they're thematically justified, because chaotic evil gnomish jesters are not known to play fair.
So, after a bit of power leveling (small Beregost quests, Shoal, Basilisks east of Beregost, ... you know the drill), Cabotin got to level 5, which is when he decided to gather a few crazy teammates. Xzar and Montaron joined first, but they were followed by Viconia, Edwin and Verr'Sza - the last one being a chaotic evil rakshasa Ranger with a few special abilities (he can cast minor Larloch Drain, Blindness and Mirror Image, but doesn't have access to druid spells). He also can set traps, but he can't rest-abuse them, because as soon as a single trap as been set in the area, he can't set more until it triggered. Good for balance. He is good, but not op. It's a well designed npc, seriously.
After gathering these guys, I saw that Verr'Sza is specializing in Scimitar. You know where I'm going with that... I decided to slay another ranger, a drow named Drizzt. Since we're kinda low level for him, I took the long, boring road to kill him : he followed around Verr'Sza while we were slinging arrows, bullets and daggers at him. After a loooong time (and a few traps to soften him up), he finally fell by the hand of a fellow drow, Viconia. Dark justice was served...
Verr'Sza then donned Drizzt armor and Scimitars, which pretty much transformed him into a stout beast. Let say that we were more than strong enough for Mulahey, who was promptly killed once we arrived deep into the Nashkel mines. We had no problem getting there, but a death from Xzar forced us to go back to the surface once. Necromancers are hard to keep alive at lower levels : no Illusion magic really hurt in BG1.
When we got back to Nashkell, I casted Invisibility on Cabotin and approached Nimbul with the rest of the cast. You know, a backstab just happen so fast... Better be safe than sorry. Nimbul found a way to deal some damage to us, but fell under our pressure.
After some exploration, we found the remote village of Ulgoth's Beard. There, a damsel named Dushai was sitting with a pretty ring at her finger. And, in a totally unrelated note, while Verr'Sza can't rest abuse traps, Montaron can. So, a tragic accident happened to Dushai, after she triggered some unexpected traps laid around her. What a tragedy.
Now wearing a Free Action ring, Cabotin had to give quite a bit of money to keep his reputation not too low (at least 6, to be left alone in the cities by the Fist soldiers).
To test our might, I decided to try my hand at the Wolf of Ulcaster. A few traps and a strength potion given to Verr'Sza were simply too much for him.
The Wolf did annoyingly managed to call forth a few ghouls, but they didn't prove to be threat at all in the end.
Our band of misfits then tried to convince a bunch of thugs to let them join them. I don't know why, but they accepted us as such. So, we found ourselves in the Bandit Camp, where we entered the Tazok tent. An initial blast of three fireballs and an Unholy Blight (which hits any enemy in SR) dispatched the lot in the tent. However, a quick volley of arrows killed Xzar before we could do anything. Urgh.
Venkt barely survived this inital onslaught, but was quickly disposed of after that. Instead of fighting, we decided to simply flee the place as soon as we got out of the tent.
So, the party is sitting pretty in Beregost, proud of the (rather small, at least for now) mayhem they caused.
I won't play the throne battle today, so my hope is that someone here will post a literally foolproof secret ascension strategy that doesn't involve PfM scrolls over night
You might look here for how I've done Acsension fight. I don't think I've ever used PfM scrolls in my runs on myself (as I always play some kind of Mage type) nor on enemies to shut them down (this is just plain dirty...). In that run I had two rogue types - meself Blade and Alesia as Mage/Thief - with tons of Time Traps. Those traps are a great boon there as they allow you to soften the Five to the "near death" state but not killing anyone for not to bring Mel into the fray. You have an Improved Bard Song as well - a super great boon - and able to have two Celestials on the field simultaneously (which I had not). All in all this fight is not 'that' scary in the end. And as you've already get to the Throne with nearly blind run I'm pretty sure you'll be fine. I'll be rooting for you!
edit: Also look this for some more strategy tips from @the_sextein
@Enuhal: First, look up the dialog in Near Infinity or online, because there's a chance that Sarevok will turn against you in the final fight. I'm not familiar with the specifics, but you may need to pick certain dialog options to make sure he stays with you (it might also depend on your reputation and Charisma and so forth; Near Infinity will show those triggers).
Second, bring in a sixth party member. Even if they die early on, they earn the rest of the team a little safety, and there's no disadvantage to having them around. Imoen is a bad choice; she'll turn into a hostile Slayer in the first phase (and won't come back into the party unless you avoid killing her for many rounds). I'd recommend Nalia. As a mage, she'll have access to PFMW, which will buy her the safety to use Rod of Resurrection charges on other characters. Characters without PFMW or HLAs just won't survive long enough to make much of an impact, even if Minsc or Jaheira does have better damage output than Nalia. A mage can also help you break down Sendai and Abazigal's defenses a round early, as well as use Teleport Field to mess with enemy fighters.
Also, bear in mind that activating the three pools gives you a full party rest each, so you might time them to make the most of each one. I like to save two of them for the final phase of the fight so I can cast all my buffs and still have completely full spells when the Five show up. It's a good opportunity to spam Wish spells via Project Image.
When you first arrive, of course, you're only dealing with Irenicus and Bodhi. I don't remember if Protection from Undead works on Bodhi.
After that, you have groups of demons at each pool. You should be well-equipped to handle each one.
The real challenge is the Five. I believe Abazigal will usually cast Time Stop early, and he can and will destroy anyone without high resistance to slashing damage or PFMW active during Time Stop. Abazigal deals 1d10+27 base damage per hit with some light electrical or magic damage on top, so he's entirely capable of dealing several hundred damage during Time Stop. Hardiness and Defender of Easthaven might be your only option. Were you rude to the Solar before the Ravager challenge? If so, you should have +25% base physical damage resistance. If not, you won't be able to get any higher than 60% resistance. Be generous with Rod of Resurrection charges and other healing options, and use Focus either at the beginning of combat or right before it to gain temporary immunity to Time Stop.
Remember that Focus can make or break a no-reload Ascension fight. If you're not already aware, you learn Focus from one of the energy pools before the final phase of combat. Focus grants immunity to Time Stop for 30 seconds but can only be used every 60 seconds, so you'll want to make sure you have it on hand when Melissan enters the fight. Focus has a short but not instantaneous casting time, so when Melissan appears, you need to be very attentive to her and keep your aura clear to make sure that you cast Focus before she casts Time Stop. Melissan casts Time Stop with a casting time of 3, so you can't afford to wait. She will target your Bhaalspawn directly and use Teleport Without Error and Greater Whirlwind Attack to deal 1d8+13 slashing damage and 1d10 cold damage per hit, or about 230 damage per GWW. She has 4 APR normally, so she can deal up to 400 damage in a single Time Stop, or 175 if you have Hardiness and the Defender of Easthaven and Boots of the North equipped (125 if you have immunity to cold). If you also have the base 25% physical damage resistance from the Ravager challenge, you can survive without Focus or even full HP (but for safety reasons, don't count on it).
Keep other characters safe during Time Stop, too. I don't know if Melissan will ignore a vulnerable Edwin if your main character is too strong to die during Time Stop.
Melissan only appears when one of the Five dies. This means that it's a good idea to wound several of the Five before killing any of them. That way, you can kill them in quick succession, as Melissan gets stunned every time one of the Five dies after the first one. She also takes 100 damage and loses an item that grants certain bonuses corresponding to each of the Five.
Killing Sendai, for instance, will remove a +4 bonus to Melissan's save vs. spell and a +25% bonus to MR. Killing Abazigal removes her immunity to +4 weapons (she's still immune to +3 weapons after he's dead). Killing Yaga-Shura removes a +2 bonus to her save vs. death (important if you're trying to land Power Attack). Killing Balthazar removes a +15% resistance to physical damage (very important for your party). Killing Illasera just removes a +45% resistance to magic damage, and killing Gromnir removes nothing but HP.
Melissan is very sturdy but has no immunity to stun effects. She has good saves, but Smite will stun her automatically, and if you keep up the pressure on her, a single Smite can keep her locked down for nearly 4 rounds (Smite applies to your hits for 2 rounds, and the stun itself lasts 2 rounds). If Yaga-Shura is dead, her save vs. death will be 2, so each hit from Power Attack, with its -4 save penalty, should have a 25% chance of working. If you land 5 attacks per round (I'm assuming you don't have GM in anything and aren't dual-wielding), you have a 76% chance of stunning her each round, for two rounds. It's a decent shot at stun-locking her, but Smite is more reliable.
It's also possible to nail her with a Wand of Paralyzation (I killed her this way in my first no-reload run), but that requires lowering her MR. If you can get her MR down to zero, the wand has a 25% chance of working per charge, or 45% with Greater Malison active. Since it lasts 10 rounds, that's pretty much death for Melissan, but Melissan can cast Divine Restoration to get her MR and saving throws back to their normal values, so you'd need to be able to cast Lower Resistance/Pierce Shield and Greater Malison and use the wand in as few rounds as possible, lest she bump up her MR and saves.
Melissan has 500 HP and 75% resistance to physical damage (90% if Balthazar is alive, so definitely get rid of him before you try making progress on her). That amounts to 2,000 HP, and she can cast Heal every once in a while. You're not going to disrupt her spells, so stun-locking her is a good idea if you have the Smite spells to make it happen. She also can cast Divine Mantle for total immunity to weapons, so Spellstrike and Breach may be necessary if you don't want to wait for it to wear off.
Isolating Melissan quickly is probably the safest option. On her own, she can only deal so much damage and can't kill you as long as you're prepared for her Time Stops. The Five aren't going to suffer from long-lasting disablers, so you're just going to have to maintain your defenses in the early rounds and make progress on Gromnir, Illasera, and Balthazar while Abazigal and Sendai's weapon immunities wear off (or you dispel them).
I'm not familiar with the process myself (@Alesia_BH designed it), but it's simple in principle if not in execution. Since Sendai can heal the others, she's your first target once her defenses are down; not Abazigal. Disrupt her spells and weaken her defenses. Then you can focus on getting Abazigal to Badly Injured or Near Death.
This can give the enemy a LOT of time to damage your party. Teleport Field spells, which can be cast before the battle, can screw with Yaga-Shura, Gromnir, and Abazigal, but Illasera will not care, as she uses missile weapons. Edwin will need PFMW to avoid getting killed by her dispelling arrows of spell failure, and the Shield of Reflection can keep one party member at a time safe from her (if you're willing to micromanage, you could even switch the shield between characters whenever she changes targets).
This is probably the critical point for the fight. Dealing with each one of the Five at the same time is very dangerous, and you want to stay on top. You can afford to burn precious resources during this phase; the rest of the fight will be easier if you succeed in this phase. Honestly, I think using Smite in this phase is a good idea: Smite is really good against Melissan, but the Five are a bigger threat if you intend to weaken them before spawning in Melissan.
If you have Soul Reaver, use it on everyone you can in this phase, as early as you can. The THAC0 penalties stack, they last for 20 rounds, and a few hits can completely neutralize the enemy fighters as an offensive threat.
Then, when everyone else is wounded and with the spellcasters low on defenses, kill Yaga-Shura with concentrated fire--but only if you have Focus ready to cast. Melissan will spawn in, and then you can stun-lock her by quickly killing the rest of the Five. Take out Abazigal and Sendai first if you can (if they still have good buffs active when Melissan arrives, I'd wait before targeting them), followed by the non-spellcasters. I think Illasera, Balthazar, and Gromnir is a good order, but it really depends on how badly each one is injured. Note that you can always check enemy HP using CTRL-M. If Melissan starts casting an alteration spell (the incantation is "praeses"), use Focus or Hardiness as needed.
Once Melissan is alone, you should be in the clear. Just keep up your defenses and HP and apply pressure; she'll eventually croak under pressure from multiple party members.
Long story short:
1. Make sure your party can survive Time Stop from Abazigal and Sendai. 2. Keep your defenses strong even if it involves burning precious spell slots or using limited Rod of Resurrection charges or potions. 3. Get the Five to Badly Injured or Near Death before you kill any one of them so you can delay Melissan's arrival and then kill the Five quickly to stun-lock her. 4. Make sure you have all the details in your head so you don't forget anything useful in the chaos of combat.
My Party of Spiders thread has more of my thoughts on the final fight, starting here. Not everything in that run will apply to your situation for various reasons (the spider gnome trick, the lack of EE stuff, different party makeup, etc.), but it goes into a fair amount of detail about the mechanics of the fight. The fight itself is posted on the following page.
I went back to the temple after dynhaeir to heal ourselves.
Then I went into the tavern to sleep to refresh the spells. I hoped to find new content inside a house but I was said by the owner to get out
Met Vitiate (thief extraordinaire) and made him pay. Tried to save a witch but the wrong choices of words made her die
I then went to the carnival looking to add Branwen to my party but first I tried to steal the scroll from the guy (I lost 6 reputation while doing so). So I just bought a scroll from the temple and freed branwen.
By the way, is there a spoiler button so I don't have to write [spoiler] [spoiler] each time ? I would love to just highlight the words, click spoiler, and then the two [spoiler] tags get added automatically.
By the way, is there a spoiler button so I don't have to write [spoiler] [spoiler] each time ? I would love to just highlight the words, click spoiler, and then the two [spoiler] tags get added automatically.
The spoiler button is a dropdown within the format icon (button at the top of your post that looks like a reversed musical note).
First, I'd like to thank @Serg_BlackStrider and @semiticgod for their extremely valuable input regarding the ascension battle. This is one of the reasons I love this thread and the no-reload community in general: You can always get well thought-out and varied strategic advice for almost any situation.
Now, is this advice and me reading through some other threads in other forums enough to grant me victory after all the chunkings, lost equipment and Ayla losing her class features? Read on to find out.
Nabatil's SCS Adventures, Update 20 - FINAL UPDATE
After reading up on the final battle for around an hour, I went on a small shopping spree to buy some scrolls, potions and even a wand of paralyzation (I was able to find one which I seem to have sold at the north forest at some point in early ToB). Sadly, in terms of HLA choices and the equipment that I've kept, my chances to implement some of @semiticgod 's ideas regarding stun effects would be very low, but I did have the one wand. I was always going to add a sixth party members. @semiticgod suggested Nalia, but after thinking about it, I decided to go with Korgan instead. Why? Well, the main reason came down to equipment. I had almost nothing useful for Nalia at the ready, while I had end-game ready equipment for Korgan in my bags of holding. He would be an additional body with high hitpoints and his rage ability, maybe able to distract one of the five for a time - that was the idea. Nalia might have been more powerful, but I'm not that good at using arcane spellcasters compared to most people in this thread, and I had enough wands (the ones with breach/pierce magic and the ones with ruby ray) and another UAI character in Valeria to take down protections. I fully admit that my choice could've been entirely wrong, since @semiticgod is way more experienced with this battle than I am, but in the end, I just didn't feel comfortable with the idea of adding Nalia. For extra preparation in addition to full buffs (since I get the rest effect from the pools and have multiple wishes available (Edwin's bonus spells are great for that), I saw no reason to hold back), I added strength potions, invulnerability, heroism, mind focusing and speed. Entering the throne, Edwin's CC did some damage to the Imoen slayer, and I decided to focus my attention on two things: A) getting Valeria into position to try and affect Jon with a holy word and taking Bodhi down before she uses one of her more dangerous abilities. Korgan had the job of distracting the fallen solar on the right side, while Nabatil, who always has super strong defenses, was tanking the second one. Bodhi went down very quickly:
Bodhi did manage to use her insect plague before dying, but it only hit Balthazar (who was actually affected by the fear effect as well). While the party attacked the first fallen solar, Korgan was near death, but able to run away and save himself.
During a very clutch round, Valeria managed to heal up the party with mass raise dead, the first fallen solar died to Sarevok's vorpal hit and I was able to evade and eventually counter the solar's creeping doom (it was going after Nabatil and Edwin, the two guys who actually had the ability to raise the needed spell protections):
So, what was Irenicus doing during all this? Well, basically nothing. Why? Well, I guess my holy words really did their job (though I don't think the second one did a lot, the first one definitely hit)! Awesome! Second fallen solar down:
No, I just had to hunt and breach the various versions of Jon running around:
At this point, I encountered a supremely annoying bug: I couldn't move to the next part of the battle. Balthazar wouldn't talk to me, no matter what I did. All the enemies were gone, I stood around for a while, trying different things, but I was stuck, forced to reload and do this all over again (I also encountered this bug during my previous ascension run). Things went very much the same way, so I'll spare you the details. Luckily, this time Balthazar did his thing and I was able to activate the pools. The various demon battles were actually quite easy, as they're not very different from some WK3 encounters, and this time, I could start combat with 7 spike traps at the ready the first 2 times and 5 normal traps + 2 explosion traps for the third time (I didn't want to use the rest options between the pools). All I had to do was keep up bard's song + death ward at all times to negate basically anything meaningful these foes could throw at me. I did have to use some previously bought restoration scrolls to remove level drain effects, but the pool-resting also gets rid of fatigue.
Now, for the main part of this post, the actual battle against The Five + Mel. Sarevok was turned to chaotic good early on in ToB, so he was not going to betray me (though that also meant that he wouldn't be able to use Soul Reaver +4 here). As recommended by @Serg_BlackStrider , I started off with a bunch of time traps:
Nabatil ran around and hit every foe once, as I wanted to trigger all kinds of contingencies right away. This worked out very well: I went to Abazigal first, and by the time all the time traps were done, his PFMW was already gone again. Nabatil wasn't able to do a whole lot else during his traps, but Valeria did the same thing that already helped so much when dealing with Jon: Holy word, two times - once for the group on the right, once for the group on the left. Between spells, she was throwing energy blades at multiple members of the five (mostly Sendai). After the time traps were done with, I sent Korgan to the right, mainly to distract Ilasera. Nabatil and Edwin applied their PFMWs, the others started dealing some damage, quickly bringing Sendai to near death. Ilasera was able to hit Korgan, and he countered with rage and The Reflex - from now on, Ilasera kept hitting herself instead. While I had to heal Korgan with RoR charges two times because he was also tanking Gromnir, I was able to affect Abazigal with Ayla's Staff of the Ram +6, taking him out of the fight for a while, and he returned on the left side, so Korgan was fine for now. Gromnir was brought low, and the group started to focus on Yaga Shuras as Edwin was casting his timestop:
He got rid of Abazigal's buffs yet again (Abazigal was certainly affected by holy word, because the only spells he cast during the entire fight were cast via triggers) and used one of his wish spells, renewed some buffs and did some damage to Yaga-Shura:
I wished for hardiness. I noticed that Sendai had healed herself again, so my party returned their attention to the drow. As she was getting low, Ilasera finally killed herself by hitting Korgan's shield - one down, four to go:
Amelyssan made her entrance, but Sendai died right after that and before she was able to do anything but raise her defenses:
For some reason, the hardiness I wished for didn't show up. Meanwhile, Balthazar, who was near death, managed to heal to full hp, and my party killed Yaga Shura:
Everything was going according to plan. I breached Abazigal's renewed stoneskin to speed up the killing, taking him down, and then, as my party was making their way to kill the also near death Gromnir... the freaking game crashed. At first, I couldn't believe it, I even thought my framrate was just going down or something, I waited for a while while the screen didn't move and the mouse courser changed... But even after five minutes, nothing happened, and I had no choice but to close the game. I was furious. I basically had her by the throat - Gromnir could do nothing to prevent his death, so I would have my whole party, buffs still going except for Korgan, who doesn't matter all that much anyway, all relevant spells at the ready, with the plan of spellstrike, 3*lower resistance spell trigger, greater malison (I even had a simulcrum to speed up that process) and wand of paralyzation with multiple users ready to go. Nabatil still had 3 PFMWs and his focus, as Abazigal didn't cast anything thanks to holy word. I was sure that I could've finished her, but now I had no choice but to try again.
So, here's the second round. I was already super nervous during the first one, something I had countered by setting up all possible auto-pauses in order to slow down combat as much as possible and force myself to think things through. Now, I was both nervous and mad - not the best combination. On the plus side, I had a little bit more experience with the battle. Things obviously started off in much the same way, with me using time traps to trigger defenses and deal some minor damage, but most importantly have Valeria use her two holy word spells - which worked once again. No new screenshots for that part (basically identical anyway). I changed things up by having Edwin go for timestop right away this time:
My party is in this awkward position because this time, most of them got hit by Yaga-Shura's firebomb. The last time, that one only affected Nabatil and the fallen planetar. This time, the fallen planetar was fine, so he had to tank Yaga-Shura for now. Edwin used IA and removed Abazigal's protections, summoned a simulcarum, cast wish (for hardiness, and this time it worked) and did some energy blade damage. Gromnir was soon near death, Korgan was once again distracting him and Ilasera, Ayla managed to kick the defenseless Abazigal all the way to the northern part of the map (Staff of the Ram; he was also heavily wounded), so I switched targets. Sendai healed herself, Valeria started casting implosion on her:
So far, things were going well. I switched targets from Yaga-Shura to Sendai, but then I suddently noticed that Gromnir had died:
This was super unfortunate. As you can see, he simply died, without anyone doing damage to him. That leads me to the only possible conclusion: His rage must've ended, which resulted in him going below zero. That's so unlucky... the remaining five weren't all near death, but they were without protections, and I had my GWWs ready. Sendai actually died before Melissan managed to appear, so I'm not even sure Melissan got affected by Sendai's death at all. Now, I was watching the combat log like a hawk to track Melissan's actions, keeping up Nabatil's PFMW. Yaga Shura was killed next, with Melissan only casting true sight so far:
I started taking on Abazigal, while Ilasera went invisible, disappearing from the map for now. Edwin got the rest option with his wish spell - not super important, but decent, especially in terms of damage: More GWWs and new energy blades:
Nabatil used a wand to breach Abazigal, and Sarevok got a crucial deathbringer assault, almost killing him right away. Valeria had to heal up Sarevok, who was getting focused by Abazigal. Melissan still hadn't done anything too dangerous, mostly melee damage:
While I killed Abazigal and tried to reveal Ilasera, she apparently wasn't affected by true sight. Instead, she revealed herself, and I realized too late that Edwin didn't have his PFMW up. He got hit and lost his buffs + got spell failure. Now I swarmed the archer, trying to take her down as fast as possible. She was able to affect Korgan and Ayla as well - I had The Reflex on Valeria and wasn't able to predict her targets quickly enough. We still had the Edwin simmy, Nabatil and UAI-Valeria for spellcasting, though, and spell failure wouldn't stop wands. Ilasera went down:
Time to focus on the big boss. A ruby ray wand was used, lower resistance followed (spell trigger + the edwin simmy). The simmy was able to apply greater malison right away:
Amelyssan summoned her demons, and I realized that due to the wish-rest earlier, Valeria had gotten back her implosion - and with Melissan having no spell protections, this meant that I had a guaranteed, though very short stun affect available:
Balthazar (who tried to apply stunning fist), Ayla and Korgan tried went after Mel, Sarevok after the demons (with 1 vorpal strike and 1 deathbringer assault allowing him to get all except one of them during a single GWW). The stunned Mel took a ton of damage:
The simmy applied another greater malison while Edwin tried to use the paralyzation wand. Valeria added damage with energy blades, Melissan, having lost her demons within two rounds, used her next action to activate her own GWW. I was obviously very happy with that. She went after Sarevok, but I had the RoR charges to counter her damage. My final foe was getting low on hitpoints:
And now, with Melissan near death, Edwin managed to apply the stun effect, just as @semiticgod drew it up:
Though at this point, it propably wasn't needed. The implosion stun already gave me the time to do so much damage with GWWs, energy blades etc. thanks to all the buffs and great weapons my fighters had... this battle was actually very short in terms of rounds. And we get to see the victory dialogue!
I can't believe I actually made it. What a finale - having to do both of the major battles two times, the first one thanks to a bug, the second one thanks to a crash. My nerves are still anything but calm. This took me around 3 hours to play, and I was very scared of encountering another crash - but now it's done. Nabatil, with only two of his original companions left by his side (and one now being a fallen inquisitor), has ascended. It is kind of weird. The last time I did this battle, it felt almost impossible, and it took me several tries to succeed, with an arguably more powerful party. It seem like having the right mindset and strategy makes a huge, huge difference. This time, while it still felt super hard, I never actually lost control of the battlefield, never felt overwhelmed.
A lot of this has to come down to the fact that Valeria's holy words affected the key spellcasters in both major battles. I wasn't expecting her to do too much in terms of combat in the very late game (buffs and summons, yes, but actual battles? not so much), but she delivered - her implosions were crucial, her holy words were crucial, her energy blades were valuable, her time traps amazing... just such a versatile character. Edwin was, of course, powerful as always. The two extra spellslots per level really were great, especially for level 4, 5 and 9, the ones I really needed a lot of for this one. As for Sarevok: Vorpal hits and deathbringer assault can turn any fight around with a little bit of luck. I'm very happy I chose him for my party. Ayla, with her great equipment, despite being fallen, was still an amazing fighter, and the staff of the ram overperformed. Nabatil, ever vigilant, not just a buffbot, but thanks to the Bard Hat added by SoD, able to use some crucial wands, buffs or other activated items while singing. Korgan, my last minute addition, did his job very well: Every time he was able to hold the right side of the battlefield for my party, though it did take some RoR healing.
I'm going to give you some final stats. Because of all the permanent deaths in the party, these are very, very unbalanced (mostly in favor of Ayla): Nabatil, level 39 skald, 86 enemies killed, Saladrex being the top one (most of these are trap kills) Ayla, level 34 fallen inquisitor, 1070 enemies killed, Firkraag still was the most powerful Valeria, level 25/27 cleric/thief, 392 enemies killed, Chromatic Demon was Nr. 1 Sarevok, level 32 fighter, 350 kills including Draconis Edwin, level 25 conjurer, only 86 kills, including Zirimanat'ryl (one of the four dragons during the quadruple dragon ambush I believe) Korgan, level 18 Berserker, 4 kills including a balor
Once again, a huge thank you to @Serg_BlackStrider and @semiticgod ! It seems very unlikely that I would've been able to do this without your input: Both the starting approach via time traps (giving Valeria the opportunity to use her holy words and letting some of Abazigal's buffs fizzle) and the finisher via stun effects turned out to be the keys to victory. For now, I'm going to take a little bit of a break from playing Baldur's Gate (some RL stuff is coming up), but I'll keep reading and I'll be back playing propably in a couple of weeks!
Hey @Enuhal, I was honestly afraid you wouldn't make it with all the setbacks and your limited experience with SCS Ascension. Congratulations, you're one of the no-reload greats!
1) Where did you read the stuff about the end-game battle? Can you post some links? I am curious. 2) Are you supposed to kill Imoen? I never understood in Ascension if Imoen is supposed to turn into the slayer and then join you once again in the battle 3) Can bodhi be turned by a good\evil cleric in Ascension? What about BG2 SOA, can you turn her? 4) Why do you say Gromnir's death was unfortunate? 5) Does anyone know which mod unlocks the new ending for Sarevok? (he joins you if you are evil and becomes your chosen one in addition of being a clergyman of your church) 6) does anyone know of any mod that actually adds the cloak of balduran back into BG2?
@Arthas 1) The most helpful things I've read are the posts by @semiticgod and @Serg_BlackStrider in this thread (on this page) right here and the posts they've linked to. There are also some older threads here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/41782/bg2-ascension-final-battle-scs-insanity-whos-actually-done-it https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/66738/how-do-you-beat-the-final-battle-with-ascension-installed/p1 I've also watched a couple of youtube videos to get a feel for the battle (though these weren't very helpful, as most of them involve some extreme cheese) and read some other random posts in other forums found by googling random combinations of keywords, though most of these were only of minor importance. It might also be very helpful to look through the hall of heroes in the original post of this thread (especially the old hall, with links to the old bioware forum), note which entries have SCS and Ascension listed under "notable mods" and check the last posts out if possible. 2) AFAIK Imoen can either be killed or she can turn back to her regular form, in which case she either teleports away to Candlekeep or maybe rejoins your party if you had her with you in the first place, I think? In my case, I wasn't really able to kill her in her slayer form (she would stay at near death), but I also didn't really try or need to, as she doesn't do a lot of damage. However, Balthazar ended up taking her down. The second time I did this battle, as I had to redo it because of a bug that didn't let me progress any further, I killed Jon/Bodhi/The Fallen Solars first, and after a while, Imoen returned to her normal form and decided to teleport away. 3) I don't think clerics can get high enough level to turn Bodhi, but I might be wrong 4) The ideal scenario during the ascension battle is to get every member of the five to near death and then kill them in quick succession. Why? Well, the reason is that after the first one of them dies, Melissan joins the battle herself, and you want to limit the time in which you have to fight both Melissan and multiple members of the five at the same time, so its best to quickly kill them one by one as soon as Melissan shows up. In addition to that, Melissan gets weakened and disabled every time you kill one of the five while she is around, so if you have them all at near death and kill them in quick succession, you can keep her disabled for a longer period of time, so you ideally never actually have to deal with her until she's isolated. In my case with Gromnir, some of the five were still quite healthy when he died, so this was far from ideal. Luckily, their protections were gone as well, so I could compensate with some more GWWs and a lucky deathbringer assault by Sarevok, thus Melissan still didn't get a lot of time to actually do anything while the others were still around. 5) I've read somwhere that Sarevok can join you even if he's evil if you turn into the Ravager at the end of the run, but I have no idea how that actually works and if its part of the original ascension or the result of a mod, so I don't really now, sorry. 6) Well, yes, kind of. With Enhanced Edition Trilogy (EET), you can revisit old BG1 areas even while playing SoA, so you could stash the cloak of balduran in a BG1 area before moving on to SoD or something and get it back during SoA. @semiticgod runs with EET quite a lot, so he should be able to tell you how this works.
@Arthas: In BWS, there's a mod somewhere in the mix (I don't know where) that lets you bring certain items from BG1 into Chateau Irenicus, but I'm not sure if the Cloak of Balduran is one of those items. I heard that the cloak is supposed to transfer in certain versions of the game (maybe pre-EE?), but I don't really know if that's true.
As for EET, it's very easy to bring the cloak into SoA. After the final fight in SoD
with Belhifet in Avernus,
when you get back to the castle basement, you can place all of your gear in one of the chests in the eastern room before going up the stairs. Then, after you escape Chateau Irenicus in SoA, you can travel all the way back north to Dragonspear Castle, enter the basement from atop the castle, and grab all of your gear from the same chest. EET is all included in the same game and you can access both BG1 and SoD areas while still playing SoA, so all of your stuff should still be there. This can severely affect the difficulty, though, if you bring lots of valuable gear into BG2, which you might not want. Arrows of Detonation, the Martyr's Morningstar, Durlag's Goblet, and various other items can do stuff that most BG2 items can't.
I think you might be able to do the same thing with BGT if you're not playing the EE games, but I don't know if that's true (and if you're not playing EE, do so; it reduces all loading times to basically zero).
And so, after having an almost full party, I told myself, why not try something more difficult?
Prism, here we come! So Greywolf seems to be bugged and doesn't attack on his own, but who cares, I won't cheese him and I don't need to cheese him.
All is going good, or at least so it seems... until he does two critical hits in a row on minsc.
That makes me scared and I move Dario away from the danger. It was an extremely bad idea. As soon as Dario went away, Greywolf target Dynhaeir and killed her in one hit.
Who cares... I just drink a few potions and kill this famous headhunter.
Notice the "near death" status Guess what happens? Take a look at my hp! :P
Waaa I'm scaredddddddddd
Greywolf goes hunting for Imoen while dario drinks some potions
Here we go again! But this time it was for good.
So, after resting we go exploring again! I sold the two emerald to resurrect my party. Then I went to another place to get my boots.
Guess who we met right after entering the new area?
While all of this happened Boo started fornicating with another hamster and we had a family of hamsters to be protected
The run felt pretty lucky to this moment, then I realized where we truly were. You know where? What if I told you there is a bridge? Can you realize which one is the next creature we're going to met? I guess you can. You have to kill that creatures to gain shiny white boots if you have enough charisma.
But not all bad comes to harm you... after all I'm a ranger
Forgot to make a stamp of the dead ogre, sorry. But the bear gained enough respect to get healed, only to try to turn on us while we were assaulted by gibberlings.
I also killed a ogre near a firecamp. I still have to get my shiny boots (every step I take I get assaulted by many gibberlings that were hiding in the fog) and there should be a group on the right part of the screen.
Issue is I'm a little scared of going through the bridge because it is full of mad ogre bersekers. Add on top of that Minsc is fatigued. And I have no spells left anymore.
Hubblepot Gogglebur, Gnome Cleric/Illusionist, SoD Update 3 Last BG1EE update found here SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Picking up where it left off, the party proceeds to clear the minor quests in chapter 8. We run into another group of perfidious Spiders, but approach under Invisibility and more or less instantly kill one of the Gargantuans. The other one has time for a single Web Tangle, which Corwin saves against (we had Free Action available had she failed).
We then move against Teleria and her Lesser Stone Golem. In my infinite wisdom, I opt to fight almost buff-less. With predictable results.
Teleria buffs with Stoneskin and Improved Invisibility, and with only two Fighter-types, we can't cut through that easily (we weren't prepared for a Mage fight, so no Detect Invisibility/Spell Thrust/Breach). So, Glint and Corwin end up Petrified before we can take the Mage down. Thankfully, Dynaheir didn't attack one of them while under Confusion, so we can restore them both.
We head to the smaller area to the west, and treat the local Orc Raiders to a Cloudkill, much to their dismay.
I opt to help the hunters instead of the Vampire, and so we must wait until dusk for the dread Undead to show itself. We'll just hop back and forth between areas to pass the time, and in so doing, we get the Orcs vs Trolls ambush. We easily clear the enemies outside the cave, while the ones inside prove more of a hassle.
The first Troll group is treated to a Fireball, but this only knocks out the Small Trolls. Of the remainder, two Trolls go after Glint with a vengeance. It's rather silly really, they just refuse to stop following him around, letting us pelt them to death without issue. Also pictured: Minsc making good use of the Sword of Troll Decapitation (props for The Gamers reference, which I can only assume was intentional).
Descending to the second level, careful targetting ensures the two Mutated Crawlers are swiftly dispatched. The Trolls just deal damage, and while annoying, damage is easily remedied. The Neo-Otyugh takes a while to bring down, being immune to missile damage, but down it eventually goes. Hubblepot pitches in with the tanking. We grab the gems and Firefly +2 (the latter going to Glint), and head back out.
We swiftly finish up what's left: Tsolak is destroyed rather easily. He got a single Domination off, but targetted what's-her-face, the overly aggressive hunter, to no avail. A bunch of Skeleton Warriors helped keep the more vulnerable party members safe from the large pack of Dire Wolves spawned in.
Vampire dealt with, we return to Takos and get not only The Biter +2, but the very nice Small Shield +2 as well. That'll go to Minsc for when he finds a magical Mace, freeing up the Shield of Egons +2 for one of our Clerics. We also finished the Menhir quest, which unfortunately bugged out severely and had to be fixed via console. Still, fixed it we did, and loot Crommus' remains we similarly did.
With everything taken care of, it's time to progress the plot. We apply buffs, and move towards the bridge. The bridge explodes, and we go after the Crusaders stuck with us. They don't really put up much of a fight, and all but Elwood Dowser and Barachus drop before Caelar interrupts us. We have our little exchange. Afterwards, a Silence 15' that Glint got off during the fight apparently wears off from the surviving Crusaders, turning them hostile. I was going to let the poor bastards live, but now there's really not much choice.. sorry, Crusaders.
All tasks completed, we talk to Bence Duncan and move on to Chapter 9.
Alright, new lands to pillage and plunder free from the yoke of the Crusade, new enemies to fight! We do a wide sweep of the entire area: Pure melee critters are mostly handled via M'Khiin dancing fodder into existence, while nastier groups, such as the Ogres that sport a few casters, merit more active spell use on our part (Web, Fireball, Cloudkill mostly). In the process, we grab the Glimmer of Hope +2, which goes to Minsc. Later on, once Hubblepot gets L5 Cleric spells, he'll wield the Glimmer of Hope before resting, since the Wisdom boost will give him an extra L5 slot, but for now, Minsc needs it. In combination with the Small Shield +2 from earlier, this makes Minsc much tankier, and it barely affects his damage output (in fact it might even increase it, since almost nothing has resistance to Blunt damage, or good AC against it).
In other news, I'm really appreciating M'Khiin... her Major Animal Spirits are just terrific for cutting down on resource expenditure when dealing with chaff enemies. Still, chaff enemies aren't a major concern in the end, so she'll get the boot once Khalid makes it onto the scene.
We clear the entire area without much incident, then head into the Troll Cave, buffs up. Minsc leads the charge, and once every single Troll homes in on him, he pops the Sunfire daily from the Shield. Very nice.
Thus weakened, the Trolls are easily mopped up. We also seek out the Caster Level +1 Amulet in here, which goes to Glint (it won't really make much difference for anyone but a pure Cleric, since going from caster level 10 to 11 unlocks 7 HD Skeleton Warriors). We move out towards Boareskyr Bridge, but get the Goblin/Myconid ambush. Fine by me. We use a Fireball to clear 90% of the Goblins out, then pick off the stragglers, loot and move into the Myconid cavern, Hubblepot casting Invisibility 10' Radius first.
I found out something I didn't know here: The Myconids (at least the Red Ones and the Shriekers) are actually immune to Cloudkill. They also home in on invisible characters, even though they cannot truly see them... so invisible Glint got immobilized by five Red Myconids, and then had a Cloudkill dropped on him by Dynaheir. Meaning we had to charge in to his rescue. Corwin popped a Greenstone Amulet charge and laid down some hurt initially, so we got by with only M'Khiin getting confused. Facing the second spawn, I really didn't feel like gambling on half the party getting Confused, so I went full tilt: Five Skeleton Warriors and a Web ensured we were never in any danger.
All the lovely loot snagged, we recommence our journey to the Bridge. We arrive uneventfully this time, and agree to seek out what's-his-face... the Halfling, Dwarf, Gnome or whatever nephew that went to the old Temple of Bhaal. We also take the time to clear out the map of miscreants, and of course dip into the Goblin Cave to the north. I actually saved a round of buffs for this, but I needn't have bothered.. they're goblins. ANY spell is literally lethal to them.
Alright! We're low on spells and healing now, so opt to head back to the camp for a bit of rest before proceeding. On the way back, we get yet another ambush, and opt to help a Green Wyrmling out. Very nice.
Following this, we arrive back at the camp without incident. This seems a good time for some careful preparations. The Temple of Bhaal has a few nasty enemies, and we most certainly will not allow them to get the better of us.
We'll re-cast our Minor Sequencers, heal up, then memorize the most optimal of spell setups. Truly, that Temple won't know what hit it. But that is for next time. For now, the party can be found resting around the campfire. Hubblepot tried to teach M'Khiin his famous bugg-jigg-waltz, to which she responded by threatening gruesome bodily harm. As any sane person would.
Hubblepot is now a L8/L9 Gnome Cleric/Illusionist.
Shifty meanwhile entered the bandit camp. Tazok tested our mettle, but after we hurt him, he decided that we could join his group.
Once we had picked up various bits and pieces of value Tenya laid several Glyphs of Warding, and after sleeping Indira cast web. We then attacked and the bandits converged on us, getting webbed as they did so.
Tenya used holy smite and Indira fireballs whilst I and Thorin mainly used our bows and axes. When Taugoz arrived on the scene Tenya called lightning and together our combined attack nullified his good armour.
Thus we cleared the camp of bandits with minimal harm to ourselves. Tenya had said that it should be easy beforehand. Easy wasn't the word that I would have used, but we were successful.
We then headed south, killed the caravan bandits and those led by Deke, then in Beregost we killed Tranzig.
We then searched Tazok's documents to see where we should go next. Which apparently is Cloakwood. However we first went to larswood and then onwards to a spider infested area where we fought the wizards of Thay.
Tenya cast holy smite as a way of determining their character. Their leader turned hostile and cast confusion. Meanwhile I ndira cast web and Tenya called lightning. Their leader was quickly killed and cast no more spells. Fortunately Indira was not affected by confusion so she cast web on us to prevent us hurting each other. We moved away and rested before returning.
Our initial assault was quite effective but one of them became invisible. Tenya therefore cast "Invisibility Purge". Upon doing so we immediately discovered that the last of the wizards was webbed. He was finished off with arrows and so we proceeded.
We were confronted in transit by a lesser basilisk. I took a potion whilst the others fled. Because of the potion I had no qualms about meeting it. Sure enough it quickly died and we proceded onwards to the Firewine Ruins where we killed Meilum. The battle against Khaark however was another story. I thought that we were not going to survive. Both Indira and Tenya were killed, but somehow by using many many potions we finally were able to defeat him.
We helped the girl in the house near the friendly arm inn. This screen is just to show you that even when tempted to lockpick stuff inside houses, I do not do that given that I'm actually acting decent in-game. So no thieving inside private property and stuff of this sort.
We confronted Silke. It was pretty easy.
We solved two quests in a row:
We met Vax and Zil but they were pretty unlucky. While fighting them we were attacked by two winter wolves that we charmed.
We met the lowly gnoll that actually challenges you. I fear like something bugged, because after a little bit he turned red instead of staying with the blue circle like he's supposed to.So we only got 65 xp.
I also beat Sendai.
Now the bad part.. We had to find Aaron for Ascalon questpack and he was inside the gnoll fortress so we went there again and cleansed it from the gnoll presence. When you find Aaron inside the pits, he asks you to get the ring he was stolen by the gnoll chieftain. So I actually explored all the gnoll fortress and killed everything that was supposed to be killed and left just one area (that I discovered later) unexplored. So I went there with Dario (Bhaalspawn) and Minsc. We used the ladder as a bottleneck, given that these gnolls are stronger than the others you find, actually drink the oil of speed and hit like a mini-truck.
Fact is that these gnolls do not stay still, I mean, I noticed (could it be SCS?) that npcs actually target the other party members, especially the weak ones. So I thought... let them flee. I moved them to another part of the map. You may wonder my surprise when I saw that new gnolls spawned in the fog of war and actually attacked my clerics, mage and thief... and the atrocious pathfinding made imoen get surrounded.
I've been rollin across the Sword Coast with my bard lately and the time may just be ripe to officially sign him up for the challenge. Therefore, I'm pleased to introduce you to Gisli, thespian extraordinaire (and an unkitted human bard).
Mods: SCS, JimFix Version: 2.5.17
My intention is to proceed to Amn as soon as possible and I apologize for eventual brevity in covering the events leading to the final battle with Sarevok. I'll also be skipping SoD since I still haven't come to fully appreciate the game in its own right.
Gilsi prefers to play the lone wolf, although he will be joining forces with other companions from time to time.
Prelude:
Starting from Candlekeep, we take the conventional approach by collecting the Ring of Wizardry and exchanging it with Thalantyr for Wand of Sleep, Potion Case and essential sets of scrolls (not scribed yet) and potions (Freedom, Mirrored Eyes, Magic Blocking). Gisli then collects some easy XP from Shoal and via various chores around Beregost, relying heavily on Wand of Sleep charges in the process.
We're rewarded for this initial effort by being able to purchase a Potion of Genius at FAI temple and scribe all the relevant spells available at High Hedge (Glitterdust from Beregost is obsolete for our purposes). Invisible, Gisli sneaks inside FAI to deliver the spider cargo, trigger Dorn's encounter and collect the invisibility potion from Jaheira.
Emboldened, Gisli proceeds south to intercept the court martial with Viccy...
...whereas she returns the favor by assisting us against Karlat and the Thayan party back in Beregost.
I wanted to make this post a bit longer but I gotta fly for now. See ya soon!
Oh, I'm unsure as to whether the current consensus is that the screenshots ought to be put into spoiler tags. It is not my preference but I'll respect the market standard .
@Borco I don't think it's necessary to put screenshots into spoilers, although if you are intending to do longer posts they may then take up a lot of space. If you're not using spoilers though I would suggest posting screenshots as jpg rather than png format - that makes a considerable difference to the file size and will help avoid the long page loading times you can get if you don't have the best internet connection.
Hubblepot Gogglebur, Gnome Cleric/Illusionist, SoD Update 4 Last BG1EE update found here SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
As alluded to previously, the party presses on towards the derelict Temple of Bhaal. There are surprisingly tough trash mobs throughout the area when playing on Insane: Several spawns of 2x Greater Wyverns with more Wyverns and Baby Wyverns in tow. We mostly handle them by dancing some Major Animal Spirits into existence. Onward to the Spider Lair!
I turn everyone invisible after putting Free Action on Minsc and Corwin, and charge inside. Of course, there are no spiders at the entrance.. so we stumble around a bit, but finally find something to fight. And grossly underestimate the nuisance that an Astral Phase Spider can present when you only have two party members fighting (the vermin is permanently Hasted and consistently teleports after Corwin). I end up having to involve the entire party in the fight, and even then, it's surprisingly difficult, since another group of Spiders join the fray.
We expend a good deal of our healing spells, as well as both Sequencers of 2x Magic Missiles, but of course, the outcome was never in doubt (though M'Khiin, as you can see, came perilously close to dying... I tried to have her summon her Goblins, but a Phase Spider immediately teleported to her and poisoned her). Clearing the rest of the Spider Lair goes better, mainly as we burn a Fireball and Cloudkill to expedite matters.
By comparison, the Beetles that invade the lair once the last Spider falls are completely harmless (mostly since they do not all turn hostile together, and so can be picked off one by one). We grab the Rhino Beetle Shell, along with the odds and ends throughout the containers, and head back out. Another Fireball is expended to clear half a dozen Phase Spiders blocking our path, and then some Major Animal Spirits do a fine job holding off the Bugbear group at the top of the mountain. The path lies open to Morentherene...
I could fight the Green Dragon fairly. She's not all that dangerous: In fact, the Greater Wyverns she calls in as backup are usually more of a concern. However, why fight when you need not? The party brought some 40 Throwing Daggers for this very reason, and even though it takes a little while, Corwin eventually finds her mark, and the dread Dragon falls. We venture deeper into the depths.
This level has nothing but Bugbears, and though they are fairly competent melee bruisers, that's all they are... melee bruisers (yes, they do have a few Shaman, but we just focus them down first). A combination of Major Animal Spirits, Ghostly Fog and a Cloudkill against the largest group sees us through with very little damage taken. The Temple awaits.
Not being heartless bastards, we'll free Keherrem and his friends rather than kill him. We proceed down the south-western corridor, it being the only path we can take at the moment, clearing the Cultists as we go (as well as the three Invisible Stalkers). All goes well, until we hit the final group of Cultists. I decided to be cheap, and so try to get away with just using Major Animal Spirits with Corwin providing ranged support. However, this particular group has two very nasty members: Both of them seem to be dual-classed Fighter/Mages with specialization in Crossbows, and the will to use it. This was the end result a few rounds in:
It's not quite as horrible as it looks, but it's certainly not good: Two Cultists are still alive, the more powerful Fighter/Mage is most decidedly not panicking (and thus keeps shooting us), but Minsc/M'Khiin/Hubblepot/Glint are all invisible. I contemplated turning Corwin and Dynaheir invisible as well to wait out the myriad buffs protecting that darn Crossbow-wielder, but.. the game crashed about two seconds after this screenshot.
I guess Tymora was with us this time (eh, I exaggerate: We were fine, but would've had to return to camp to rest and heal up, or burn a LOT of potions). Given a do-over, the party falls back to that ever successful tactic: Animate Dead. Five Skeleton Warriors to lead the charge, along with an early Insect Plague, leads to a much better result (zero damage to us, and we still have all five Skeleton Warriors standing, although three are badly hurt).
Alright... Ziatar. Damn her breath, but we must attack! Send in the cannon fodder, though I doubt they'll last long: Ziatar is pretty strong in melee and apparently gets two Mage goons on Insane, so we'll probably have to move to assist-
Or not. Heh. Apparently five 5HD Skeleton Warriors, three of whom (ironically) were quite a bit closer to dead than you'd like, are more than sufficient to take down a Half-Dragon Priestess and her two Mage lackeys, without a single casualty. Oh Skeleton Warriors, is there any situation you can't solve? Yes. Yes, there is, but not today! Huzzah for Chocolate Skeleton Balls.. no wait, that's some other poem.
With Ziatar dead, we release the hapless Crusaders, as well as Madele (the latter being instructed in no uncertain terms to make amends). Slightly concerned about the Neothelid, we apply basic Cleric buffs, and Minsc/Corwin get Chaotic Commands from a few scrolls we purchased earlier. Charge!
Thankfully, the Neothelid is still a pushover, even on Insane. It does seem to use its powers much more though; certainly there are more Magical Swords floating around, to the detriment of our Skeleton Warriors. The main problem is that it spends many rounds underground before finally surfacing. But when it does surface, we end it quickly: Even the Poison Nova wasn't that bad (20-30 damage for everyone caught in it).
Next up, Akanna. She leads by quaffing a Potion of Invisibility.. which we were prepared for, and promptly counter with Detect Invisibility. Akanna never gets to perform a second action.
So... I should've probably stopped playing around here (it was late), but kept going since I wanted to finish the Temple. I got impatient and didn't give Glint enough time to search for traps on Akanna's chest. Which was of course trapped with Lightning Bolt. Hubblepot DID get hit several times, but as soon as I heard that Lightning Bolt launch, I managed to pause and have the stalwarth Gnome quaff a Potion of Absorption. Unfortunately, there were not enough such potions for the entire party, so a few members got a bit zinged.
That's a lot of damage to heal up. Several scrolls of Cure Serious Wounds and a Potion of Regeneration later, we limp along the southern passage. The Mind Flayer must die. We've saved a full barrage of summons and buffs for this. Minsc and Corwin again get Chaotic Commands from scrolls, and our Skeleton Warriors lead the way. Mercifully, Darskhelin falls in short order. His cohorts hold out for a few rounds, but we eventually cut them down with minimal damage sustained. The poor Skeleton Warriors fell to a man skeleton (largely due to the Umberhulks dealing massive damage), but they held the line long enough. Skeleton Warriors, we salute you.
Again.. really, really should've stopped playing now! The entire party is fatigued, we've got no summons, no buffs, no heals. What we do have is Shield/Mirror Image on Dynaheir, more than a dozen Potions of Invisibility, and far too little common sense. We're going after the Shadow Aspect!
So, the Shadow Aspect. It has the following powers: Horror, Larloch's Minor Drain, Blindness 15' Radius (the latter offers no save, you're automatically blinded as long as you remain in the area of effect), Mislead, permanent Haste/Blur, and drains Strength on hit (not sure how long it lasts, but over 8 hours). Not so bad, you say? Well, the damn thing continuously reapplies Mislead for as long as you fight it. Add to this that it has quadruple backstab modifier, and you see how this can turn ugly.
Anyway, we do OK at first. Dynaheir casts Shield/Mirror Image and still has Stoneskin active, so she heads up front to tank. Corwin has sneaked into the room and, once Dynaheir has the attention of the Shadow Aspect, lets loose with Arrows of Piercing. We deal some good damage, but then the Mislead spam starts. We kill the Mislead clone. Mislead again, again we kill the clone. Around here, Dynaheir's Stoneskin gives out. She has to quaff an Invisibility Potion to stay alive (yes, thankfully, the Shadow Aspect cannot see through Invisibility). But this leaves Corwin in the room with the Shadow Aspect, so she too has to go invisible or get chunked by endless backstabs.
Somehow, I finagle Hubblepot, Glint and M'Khiin into position to provide ranged support. And am then treated to another power the Shadow Aspect apparently gets on Insane: It promptly summons 2x Shadows and 2x Shadowed Souls. Sigh. The Shadowed Souls of course heal up the Shadow Aspect whenever we start to make headway. So we target the Shadowed Souls instead, but they just keep draining us. Corwin can't join in: She's still trapped in the room with the Shadow Aspect. Dynaheir has been drained to 1 Strength and is invisibly blocking the door to the room. Eventually, M'Khiin gets Life Drained once too many, and drops. Before that, I'd tried pretty much anything I could think of to win, including wands, potions and scrolls, but to no avail. We can't kill the Shadow Aspect in the few seconds we have before it reapplies Mislead, and even when we eventually manage to kill off its summons.. it just summons new ones instantly! Gosh darnit! A suitably despondent screenshot:
Once M'Khiin dropped, I figured enough was enough. We gathered up the Goblin's gear, everyone quaffed an Invisibility Potion (Dynaheir had to pop a Potion of Strength as well to be able to move), and we did what we should've done from the start: Retreated to rest and regroup. After a night's rest, healing and another scroll of Raise Dead for the poor Goblin, we returned, buffed to high heaven (Haste was key, along with Skeleton Warriors to soak up the inevitable backstabs), and beat the un-living tar out of the Shadow Aspect. All this for a Shortsword +3 we won't even use. Regardless: The Temple is cleansed! Hooray!
Though there hasn't been a ton of progress so far, I think I'll end this post here. Some ups and downs, but we rolled with the punches and ultimately came out on top. Huzzah! Next time, we'll relieve the siege of Bridgefort, and pick up Khalid (replacing M'Khiin). Hopefully, we also prevent the Mage on the bridge from blowing up the barrels and ending the game for us...
Hubblepot remains a L8/L9 Gnome Cleric/Illusionist.
Comments
Well, getting so close to the end, I don't really want to stop playing, and tomorrow is a national holiday in Germany, so let's continue.
Nabatil's SCS Adventures, Update 19
Previous Updates:
Update 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1005776/#Comment_1005776
Update 3: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1005931/#Comment_1005931
Update 4: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1006256/#Comment_1006256
Update 5: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007209/#Comment_1007209
Update 6: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007536/#Comment_1007536
Update 7: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007802/#Comment_1007802
Update 8: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1009955/#Comment_1009955
Update 9: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1010800/#Comment_1010800
Update 10: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1011493/#Comment_1011493
Update 11: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1011845/#Comment_1011845
Update 12: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1012013/#Comment_1012013
Update 13: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1012543/#Comment_1012543
Update 14: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1012801/#Comment_1012801
Update 15: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1014585/#Comment_1014585
Update 16: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1014968/#Comment_1014968
Update 17: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1015310/#Comment_1015310
Update 18: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1016000/#Comment_1016000
Abazigal's Lair awaits. We enter and fight our way to the yellow dragon, which is killed without significant trouble. A planetar and Ayla make their way through the kuo-toas and water elementals, and we're forced to return to Amkethran to get a bit of rope (this is... not the greatest plot point in the world). On our way back, we encounter the dreaded quadruple dragon ambush. Our fighters focus the dragon on the right, while Edwin casts his timestop. We are lucky to have hardiness activated to somewhat reduce the incoming damage, and everyone has to drink tons of potions because of breath weapon hits. We also use a bunch of RoR charges for healing. Edwin's Timestop+IA does some significant damage, but not enough for a kill thanks to all the SCS extra dragon hp:
However, with our foes weakened and without protections, we take the first two down:
The next dragon is already spawning, but luckily, my fighters are immune to its poison breath weapon thanks to Vongoethe's Ring and the Ring of Gaxx - we take it down within a few rounds:
Finally, Carnifex, the red dragon, turns up. Nabatil is immune to fire, so I feel relatively safe. His physical damage is high, though, and I have to retreat with both of my fighters at one point, healing them up with the RoR. As soon as Ayla is full up again, she turns around and gets in the final hit:
While that did cost me about 20 potions and 5 RoR charges, we achieved victory and can move on. The improved seekers are super annoying, but a planetar does great against them (though due to summoning duration, Ayla and Sarevok have to help out). The tyrant golem + death tyrant combo is tricky. I decide to send in a deva and Ayla by herself - everytime the anti magic ray duration ends on Ayla, she chucks another invulnerability potions to keep her saves in a secure range. Meanwhile, she takes out her foes with GWWs:
So, now we finally get to see which version of Abazigal I'm getting - and we do have Tamah and the three wyrmlings and all that. So... is this just Ascension, or SCS+Ascension? Still not sure, but it's certainly difficult. Luckily, thanks to the ever helpful Dorn quest (seriously, considering how easy to complete that one was, it's really, really worth it), we have our second Planetar of Justice on our side:
We had prepared with protection from electriticty buffs and lots of item based resistance plus magical and potion-based buffs of all kinds. Edwin starts a timestop while the fighters try to take down the minor dragons first. During the timestop, we use a LR trigger, spellstrike and breach on Tamah, dealing some decent damage. The fighters are successful in taking down some salamanders and two of the young dragons when Tamah, getting low now, runs away to the northern part of the map. We go after her, though our fallen planetar and the planetar of justice stay back, keeping Abazigal himself busy - and this is where he transforms:
I heal up Sarevok via RoR, and we take down Tamah and the final young dragon. Now, we're after Abazigal, and while he is able to cast imprisonment on our brave planetar of justice (who, unlike the fallen planetar, didn't get destroyed by the transformation), he has no combat protections up:
Everyone is still immune to his breath weapon, and his spells aren't effective enough to deal significant damage, so this is just a matter of time:
We make our way to Amkethran, cast invisibility 10' radius and talk to Saemon. Edwin's 3*ADHW chain contingency provides us with direct access to Balthazar:
Nabatil drinks a wisdom potion (we have tons of these in case we want Edwin to cast wish, and they didn't get lost with Haer'Dalis' potion bag because I kept them with Edwin directly) and talks Balthazar into joining him. Time to face the Ravager (we also did the Chosen of Cyric thing right after Abazigal, but nothing important happened there). Our main plan is to rely on Edwin's magical damage, and he starts off strong with a LR trigger and his chain contingency:
However, a bone blade interrupts his attempt at casting IA. And now, it's time for another really stupid mistake: I forgot that the Ravager is immune to timestop, so Edwin casts that spell, and while Edwin is able to cast some more ADHWs, our foe simply uses this time to kill Sarevok, who has no way to defend himself:
However, by now we only have to deal a little bit of damage to win this battle, and Ayla manages to get the job done:
So... we did make it to the throne. I'm surprised and happy that I've made it this far, but now I don't really see a good way ahead. The SCS/Ascension final battle is far more difficult than anything I've ever done in a no-reload context (only Legacy of Bhaal Belhifet in SoD comes somehwat close, but I did test runs for that one, and I don't have a save with another party at the throne in this installation to do testruns with. I also really don't want to create a new party just to do testruns, as I'd have to get them all the way to the throne first). Without testruns, I think the best I can do is to make it to the final part of this series of battles, facing the five again, and getting killed there. With the PfM scrolls, I'd give myself a 20% chance to make it, but without them, my chances are propably less than 5%.
I won't play the throne battle today, so my hope is that someone here will post a literally foolproof secret ascension strategy that doesn't involve PfM scrolls over night
Cabotin, the gnomish Jester
Notable mods
- SCS (full prebuffs, full tactical challenges)
- Item Revisions
- Spell Revisions
- Rogue Rebalancing
- Deities of Faerun (no sphere system, only kits)
- Tweak Anthology
- Item Randomizer
- plenty of kit mods
- plenty of npc mods
BG1 first post
Like a fly against a window glass, I'm back again ! I've been off for a little while, because I was moving, but now we're done, so here I am, ready to get my ass kicked by this game again !Say hello to Cabotin, a chaotic evil gnomish Jester.
As usual, i didn't redistribute stats at creation, because I find that it makes the character somewhat more fun to play with. Considering this, it's not a bad roll at all.
I rarely play evil so I decided to do something different. Also, my best run so far was with a plain bard, so, to seek some sort of success, I decided to go that road again. Since I'll play a chaotic evil bastard, I will do some mean stuff to a bunch of people, but slowly ans systematically. Chaotic evil, but not stupid evil. Well, kinda. We're also gonna use a lot of cheap tactics (traps, kiting, etc.), but they're thematically justified, because chaotic evil gnomish jesters are not known to play fair.
So, after a bit of power leveling (small Beregost quests, Shoal, Basilisks east of Beregost, ... you know the drill), Cabotin got to level 5, which is when he decided to gather a few crazy teammates. Xzar and Montaron joined first, but they were followed by Viconia, Edwin and Verr'Sza - the last one being a chaotic evil rakshasa Ranger with a few special abilities (he can cast minor Larloch Drain, Blindness and Mirror Image, but doesn't have access to druid spells). He also can set traps, but he can't rest-abuse them, because as soon as a single trap as been set in the area, he can't set more until it triggered. Good for balance. He is good, but not op. It's a well designed npc, seriously.
After gathering these guys, I saw that Verr'Sza is specializing in Scimitar. You know where I'm going with that... I decided to slay another ranger, a drow named Drizzt. Since we're kinda low level for him, I took the long, boring road to kill him : he followed around Verr'Sza while we were slinging arrows, bullets and daggers at him. After a loooong time (and a few traps to soften him up), he finally fell by the hand of a fellow drow, Viconia. Dark justice was served...
Verr'Sza then donned Drizzt armor and Scimitars, which pretty much transformed him into a stout beast. Let say that we were more than strong enough for Mulahey, who was promptly killed once we arrived deep into the Nashkel mines. We had no problem getting there, but a death from Xzar forced us to go back to the surface once. Necromancers are hard to keep alive at lower levels : no Illusion magic really hurt in BG1.
When we got back to Nashkell, I casted Invisibility on Cabotin and approached Nimbul with the rest of the cast. You know, a backstab just happen so fast... Better be safe than sorry. Nimbul found a way to deal some damage to us, but fell under our pressure.
After some exploration, we found the remote village of Ulgoth's Beard. There, a damsel named Dushai was sitting with a pretty ring at her finger. And, in a totally unrelated note, while Verr'Sza can't rest abuse traps, Montaron can. So, a tragic accident happened to Dushai, after she triggered some unexpected traps laid around her. What a tragedy.
Now wearing a Free Action ring, Cabotin had to give quite a bit of money to keep his reputation not too low (at least 6, to be left alone in the cities by the Fist soldiers).
To test our might, I decided to try my hand at the Wolf of Ulcaster. A few traps and a strength potion given to Verr'Sza were simply too much for him.
The Wolf did annoyingly managed to call forth a few ghouls, but they didn't prove to be threat at all in the end.
Our band of misfits then tried to convince a bunch of thugs to let them join them. I don't know why, but they accepted us as such. So, we found ourselves in the Bandit Camp, where we entered the Tazok tent. An initial blast of three fireballs and an Unholy Blight (which hits any enemy in SR) dispatched the lot in the tent. However, a quick volley of arrows killed Xzar before we could do anything. Urgh.
Venkt barely survived this inital onslaught, but was quickly disposed of after that. Instead of fighting, we decided to simply flee the place as soon as we got out of the tent.
So, the party is sitting pretty in Beregost, proud of the (rather small, at least for now) mayhem they caused.
edit:
Also look this for some more strategy tips from @the_sextein
Second, bring in a sixth party member. Even if they die early on, they earn the rest of the team a little safety, and there's no disadvantage to having them around. Imoen is a bad choice; she'll turn into a hostile Slayer in the first phase (and won't come back into the party unless you avoid killing her for many rounds). I'd recommend Nalia. As a mage, she'll have access to PFMW, which will buy her the safety to use Rod of Resurrection charges on other characters. Characters without PFMW or HLAs just won't survive long enough to make much of an impact, even if Minsc or Jaheira does have better damage output than Nalia. A mage can also help you break down Sendai and Abazigal's defenses a round early, as well as use Teleport Field to mess with enemy fighters.
Also, bear in mind that activating the three pools gives you a full party rest each, so you might time them to make the most of each one. I like to save two of them for the final phase of the fight so I can cast all my buffs and still have completely full spells when the Five show up. It's a good opportunity to spam Wish spells via Project Image.
When you first arrive, of course, you're only dealing with Irenicus and Bodhi. I don't remember if Protection from Undead works on Bodhi.
After that, you have groups of demons at each pool. You should be well-equipped to handle each one.
The real challenge is the Five. I believe Abazigal will usually cast Time Stop early, and he can and will destroy anyone without high resistance to slashing damage or PFMW active during Time Stop. Abazigal deals 1d10+27 base damage per hit with some light electrical or magic damage on top, so he's entirely capable of dealing several hundred damage during Time Stop. Hardiness and Defender of Easthaven might be your only option. Were you rude to the Solar before the Ravager challenge? If so, you should have +25% base physical damage resistance. If not, you won't be able to get any higher than 60% resistance. Be generous with Rod of Resurrection charges and other healing options, and use Focus either at the beginning of combat or right before it to gain temporary immunity to Time Stop.
Remember that Focus can make or break a no-reload Ascension fight. If you're not already aware, you learn Focus from one of the energy pools before the final phase of combat. Focus grants immunity to Time Stop for 30 seconds but can only be used every 60 seconds, so you'll want to make sure you have it on hand when Melissan enters the fight. Focus has a short but not instantaneous casting time, so when Melissan appears, you need to be very attentive to her and keep your aura clear to make sure that you cast Focus before she casts Time Stop. Melissan casts Time Stop with a casting time of 3, so you can't afford to wait. She will target your Bhaalspawn directly and use Teleport Without Error and Greater Whirlwind Attack to deal 1d8+13 slashing damage and 1d10 cold damage per hit, or about 230 damage per GWW. She has 4 APR normally, so she can deal up to 400 damage in a single Time Stop, or 175 if you have Hardiness and the Defender of Easthaven and Boots of the North equipped (125 if you have immunity to cold). If you also have the base 25% physical damage resistance from the Ravager challenge, you can survive without Focus or even full HP (but for safety reasons, don't count on it).
Keep other characters safe during Time Stop, too. I don't know if Melissan will ignore a vulnerable Edwin if your main character is too strong to die during Time Stop.
Melissan only appears when one of the Five dies. This means that it's a good idea to wound several of the Five before killing any of them. That way, you can kill them in quick succession, as Melissan gets stunned every time one of the Five dies after the first one. She also takes 100 damage and loses an item that grants certain bonuses corresponding to each of the Five.
Killing Sendai, for instance, will remove a +4 bonus to Melissan's save vs. spell and a +25% bonus to MR. Killing Abazigal removes her immunity to +4 weapons (she's still immune to +3 weapons after he's dead). Killing Yaga-Shura removes a +2 bonus to her save vs. death (important if you're trying to land Power Attack). Killing Balthazar removes a +15% resistance to physical damage (very important for your party). Killing Illasera just removes a +45% resistance to magic damage, and killing Gromnir removes nothing but HP.
Melissan is very sturdy but has no immunity to stun effects. She has good saves, but Smite will stun her automatically, and if you keep up the pressure on her, a single Smite can keep her locked down for nearly 4 rounds (Smite applies to your hits for 2 rounds, and the stun itself lasts 2 rounds). If Yaga-Shura is dead, her save vs. death will be 2, so each hit from Power Attack, with its -4 save penalty, should have a 25% chance of working. If you land 5 attacks per round (I'm assuming you don't have GM in anything and aren't dual-wielding), you have a 76% chance of stunning her each round, for two rounds. It's a decent shot at stun-locking her, but Smite is more reliable.
It's also possible to nail her with a Wand of Paralyzation (I killed her this way in my first no-reload run), but that requires lowering her MR. If you can get her MR down to zero, the wand has a 25% chance of working per charge, or 45% with Greater Malison active. Since it lasts 10 rounds, that's pretty much death for Melissan, but Melissan can cast Divine Restoration to get her MR and saving throws back to their normal values, so you'd need to be able to cast Lower Resistance/Pierce Shield and Greater Malison and use the wand in as few rounds as possible, lest she bump up her MR and saves.
Melissan has 500 HP and 75% resistance to physical damage (90% if Balthazar is alive, so definitely get rid of him before you try making progress on her). That amounts to 2,000 HP, and she can cast Heal every once in a while. You're not going to disrupt her spells, so stun-locking her is a good idea if you have the Smite spells to make it happen. She also can cast Divine Mantle for total immunity to weapons, so Spellstrike and Breach may be necessary if you don't want to wait for it to wear off.
Isolating Melissan quickly is probably the safest option. On her own, she can only deal so much damage and can't kill you as long as you're prepared for her Time Stops. The Five aren't going to suffer from long-lasting disablers, so you're just going to have to maintain your defenses in the early rounds and make progress on Gromnir, Illasera, and Balthazar while Abazigal and Sendai's weapon immunities wear off (or you dispel them).
I'm not familiar with the process myself (@Alesia_BH designed it), but it's simple in principle if not in execution. Since Sendai can heal the others, she's your first target once her defenses are down; not Abazigal. Disrupt her spells and weaken her defenses. Then you can focus on getting Abazigal to Badly Injured or Near Death.
This can give the enemy a LOT of time to damage your party. Teleport Field spells, which can be cast before the battle, can screw with Yaga-Shura, Gromnir, and Abazigal, but Illasera will not care, as she uses missile weapons. Edwin will need PFMW to avoid getting killed by her dispelling arrows of spell failure, and the Shield of Reflection can keep one party member at a time safe from her (if you're willing to micromanage, you could even switch the shield between characters whenever she changes targets).
This is probably the critical point for the fight. Dealing with each one of the Five at the same time is very dangerous, and you want to stay on top. You can afford to burn precious resources during this phase; the rest of the fight will be easier if you succeed in this phase. Honestly, I think using Smite in this phase is a good idea: Smite is really good against Melissan, but the Five are a bigger threat if you intend to weaken them before spawning in Melissan.
If you have Soul Reaver, use it on everyone you can in this phase, as early as you can. The THAC0 penalties stack, they last for 20 rounds, and a few hits can completely neutralize the enemy fighters as an offensive threat.
Then, when everyone else is wounded and with the spellcasters low on defenses, kill Yaga-Shura with concentrated fire--but only if you have Focus ready to cast. Melissan will spawn in, and then you can stun-lock her by quickly killing the rest of the Five. Take out Abazigal and Sendai first if you can (if they still have good buffs active when Melissan arrives, I'd wait before targeting them), followed by the non-spellcasters. I think Illasera, Balthazar, and Gromnir is a good order, but it really depends on how badly each one is injured. Note that you can always check enemy HP using CTRL-M. If Melissan starts casting an alteration spell (the incantation is "praeses"), use Focus or Hardiness as needed.
Once Melissan is alone, you should be in the clear. Just keep up your defenses and HP and apply pressure; she'll eventually croak under pressure from multiple party members.
Long story short:
1. Make sure your party can survive Time Stop from Abazigal and Sendai.
2. Keep your defenses strong even if it involves burning precious spell slots or using limited Rod of Resurrection charges or potions.
3. Get the Five to Badly Injured or Near Death before you kill any one of them so you can delay Melissan's arrival and then kill the Five quickly to stun-lock her.
4. Make sure you have all the details in your head so you don't forget anything useful in the chaos of combat.
I went back to the temple after dynhaeir to heal ourselves.
Then I went into the tavern to sleep to refresh the spells.
I hoped to find new content inside a house but I was said by the owner to get out
Met Vitiate (thief extraordinaire) and made him pay. Tried to save a witch but the wrong choices of words made her die
I then went to the carnival looking to add Branwen to my party but first I tried to steal the scroll from the guy (I lost 6 reputation while doing so). So I just bought a scroll from the temple and freed branwen.
By the way, is there a spoiler button so I don't have to write [spoiler] [spoiler] each time ? I would love to just highlight the words, click spoiler, and then the two [spoiler] tags get added automatically.
[ spoiler ] [ / spoiler ]
without the spaces and then drag and drop image files into the middle.
Now, is this advice and me reading through some other threads in other forums enough to grant me victory after all the chunkings, lost equipment and Ayla losing her class features? Read on to find out.
Nabatil's SCS Adventures, Update 20 - FINAL UPDATE
Previous updates:
Update 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1005776/#Comment_1005776
Update 3: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1005931/#Comment_1005931
Update 4: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1006256/#Comment_1006256
Update 5: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007209/#Comment_1007209
Update 6: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007536/#Comment_1007536
Update 7: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007802/#Comment_1007802
Update 8: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1009955/#Comment_1009955
Update 9: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1010800/#Comment_1010800
Update 10: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1011493/#Comment_1011493
Update 11: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1011845/#Comment_1011845
Update 12: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1012013/#Comment_1012013
Update 13: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1012543/#Comment_1012543
Update 14: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1012801/#Comment_1012801
Update 15: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1014585/#Comment_1014585
Update 16: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1014968/#Comment_1014968
Update 17: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1015310/#Comment_1015310
Update 18: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1016000/#Comment_1016000
Update 19: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1016037/#Comment_1016037
After reading up on the final battle for around an hour, I went on a small shopping spree to buy some scrolls, potions and even a wand of paralyzation (I was able to find one which I seem to have sold at the north forest at some point in early ToB). Sadly, in terms of HLA choices and the equipment that I've kept, my chances to implement some of @semiticgod 's ideas regarding stun effects would be very low, but I did have the one wand.
I was always going to add a sixth party members. @semiticgod suggested Nalia, but after thinking about it, I decided to go with Korgan instead. Why? Well, the main reason came down to equipment. I had almost nothing useful for Nalia at the ready, while I had end-game ready equipment for Korgan in my bags of holding. He would be an additional body with high hitpoints and his rage ability, maybe able to distract one of the five for a time - that was the idea. Nalia might have been more powerful, but I'm not that good at using arcane spellcasters compared to most people in this thread, and I had enough wands (the ones with breach/pierce magic and the ones with ruby ray) and another UAI character in Valeria to take down protections. I fully admit that my choice could've been entirely wrong, since @semiticgod is way more experienced with this battle than I am, but in the end, I just didn't feel comfortable with the idea of adding Nalia.
For extra preparation in addition to full buffs (since I get the rest effect from the pools and have multiple wishes available (Edwin's bonus spells are great for that), I saw no reason to hold back), I added strength potions, invulnerability, heroism, mind focusing and speed. Entering the throne, Edwin's CC did some damage to the Imoen slayer, and I decided to focus my attention on two things: A) getting Valeria into position to try and affect Jon with a holy word and taking Bodhi down before she uses one of her more dangerous abilities. Korgan had the job of distracting the fallen solar on the right side, while Nabatil, who always has super strong defenses, was tanking the second one. Bodhi went down very quickly:
Bodhi did manage to use her insect plague before dying, but it only hit Balthazar (who was actually affected by the fear effect as well). While the party attacked the first fallen solar, Korgan was near death, but able to run away and save himself.
During a very clutch round, Valeria managed to heal up the party with mass raise dead, the first fallen solar died to Sarevok's vorpal hit and I was able to evade and eventually counter the solar's creeping doom (it was going after Nabatil and Edwin, the two guys who actually had the ability to raise the needed spell protections):
So, what was Irenicus doing during all this? Well, basically nothing. Why? Well, I guess my holy words really did their job (though I don't think the second one did a lot, the first one definitely hit)! Awesome! Second fallen solar down:
No, I just had to hunt and breach the various versions of Jon running around:
At this point, I encountered a supremely annoying bug: I couldn't move to the next part of the battle. Balthazar wouldn't talk to me, no matter what I did. All the enemies were gone, I stood around for a while, trying different things, but I was stuck, forced to reload and do this all over again (I also encountered this bug during my previous ascension run). Things went very much the same way, so I'll spare you the details. Luckily, this time Balthazar did his thing and I was able to activate the pools.
The various demon battles were actually quite easy, as they're not very different from some WK3 encounters, and this time, I could start combat with 7 spike traps at the ready the first 2 times and 5 normal traps + 2 explosion traps for the third time (I didn't want to use the rest options between the pools). All I had to do was keep up bard's song + death ward at all times to negate basically anything meaningful these foes could throw at me. I did have to use some previously bought restoration scrolls to remove level drain effects, but the pool-resting also gets rid of fatigue.
Now, for the main part of this post, the actual battle against The Five + Mel. Sarevok was turned to chaotic good early on in ToB, so he was not going to betray me (though that also meant that he wouldn't be able to use Soul Reaver +4 here). As recommended by @Serg_BlackStrider , I started off with a bunch of time traps:
Nabatil ran around and hit every foe once, as I wanted to trigger all kinds of contingencies right away. This worked out very well: I went to Abazigal first, and by the time all the time traps were done, his PFMW was already gone again. Nabatil wasn't able to do a whole lot else during his traps, but Valeria did the same thing that already helped so much when dealing with Jon: Holy word, two times - once for the group on the right, once for the group on the left. Between spells, she was throwing energy blades at multiple members of the five (mostly Sendai).
After the time traps were done with, I sent Korgan to the right, mainly to distract Ilasera. Nabatil and Edwin applied their PFMWs, the others started dealing some damage, quickly bringing Sendai to near death. Ilasera was able to hit Korgan, and he countered with rage and The Reflex - from now on, Ilasera kept hitting herself instead. While I had to heal Korgan with RoR charges two times because he was also tanking Gromnir, I was able to affect Abazigal with Ayla's Staff of the Ram +6, taking him out of the fight for a while, and he returned on the left side, so Korgan was fine for now. Gromnir was brought low, and the group started to focus on Yaga Shuras as Edwin was casting his timestop:
He got rid of Abazigal's buffs yet again (Abazigal was certainly affected by holy word, because the only spells he cast during the entire fight were cast via triggers) and used one of his wish spells, renewed some buffs and did some damage to Yaga-Shura:
I wished for hardiness. I noticed that Sendai had healed herself again, so my party returned their attention to the drow. As she was getting low, Ilasera finally killed herself by hitting Korgan's shield - one down, four to go:
Amelyssan made her entrance, but Sendai died right after that and before she was able to do anything but raise her defenses:
For some reason, the hardiness I wished for didn't show up. Meanwhile, Balthazar, who was near death, managed to heal to full hp, and my party killed Yaga Shura:
Everything was going according to plan. I breached Abazigal's renewed stoneskin to speed up the killing, taking him down, and then, as my party was making their way to kill the also near death Gromnir... the freaking game crashed. At first, I couldn't believe it, I even thought my framrate was just going down or something, I waited for a while while the screen didn't move and the mouse courser changed... But even after five minutes, nothing happened, and I had no choice but to close the game. I was furious. I basically had her by the throat - Gromnir could do nothing to prevent his death, so I would have my whole party, buffs still going except for Korgan, who doesn't matter all that much anyway, all relevant spells at the ready, with the plan of spellstrike, 3*lower resistance spell trigger, greater malison (I even had a simulcrum to speed up that process) and wand of paralyzation with multiple users ready to go. Nabatil still had 3 PFMWs and his focus, as Abazigal didn't cast anything thanks to holy word. I was sure that I could've finished her, but now I had no choice but to try again.
So, here's the second round. I was already super nervous during the first one, something I had countered by setting up all possible auto-pauses in order to slow down combat as much as possible and force myself to think things through. Now, I was both nervous and mad - not the best combination. On the plus side, I had a little bit more experience with the battle. Things obviously started off in much the same way, with me using time traps to trigger defenses and deal some minor damage, but most importantly have Valeria use her two holy word spells - which worked once again. No new screenshots for that part (basically identical anyway). I changed things up by having Edwin go for timestop right away this time:
My party is in this awkward position because this time, most of them got hit by Yaga-Shura's firebomb. The last time, that one only affected Nabatil and the fallen planetar. This time, the fallen planetar was fine, so he had to tank Yaga-Shura for now. Edwin used IA and removed Abazigal's protections, summoned a simulcarum, cast wish (for hardiness, and this time it worked) and did some energy blade damage. Gromnir was soon near death, Korgan was once again distracting him and Ilasera, Ayla managed to kick the defenseless Abazigal all the way to the northern part of the map (Staff of the Ram; he was also heavily wounded), so I switched targets. Sendai healed herself, Valeria started casting implosion on her:
So far, things were going well. I switched targets from Yaga-Shura to Sendai, but then I suddently noticed that Gromnir had died:
This was super unfortunate. As you can see, he simply died, without anyone doing damage to him. That leads me to the only possible conclusion: His rage must've ended, which resulted in him going below zero. That's so unlucky... the remaining five weren't all near death, but they were without protections, and I had my GWWs ready. Sendai actually died before Melissan managed to appear, so I'm not even sure Melissan got affected by Sendai's death at all. Now, I was watching the combat log like a hawk to track Melissan's actions, keeping up Nabatil's PFMW. Yaga Shura was killed next, with Melissan only casting true sight so far:
I started taking on Abazigal, while Ilasera went invisible, disappearing from the map for now. Edwin got the rest option with his wish spell - not super important, but decent, especially in terms of damage: More GWWs and new energy blades:
Nabatil used a wand to breach Abazigal, and Sarevok got a crucial deathbringer assault, almost killing him right away. Valeria had to heal up Sarevok, who was getting focused by Abazigal. Melissan still hadn't done anything too dangerous, mostly melee damage:
While I killed Abazigal and tried to reveal Ilasera, she apparently wasn't affected by true sight. Instead, she revealed herself, and I realized too late that Edwin didn't have his PFMW up. He got hit and lost his buffs + got spell failure. Now I swarmed the archer, trying to take her down as fast as possible. She was able to affect Korgan and Ayla as well - I had The Reflex on Valeria and wasn't able to predict her targets quickly enough. We still had the Edwin simmy, Nabatil and UAI-Valeria for spellcasting, though, and spell failure wouldn't stop wands. Ilasera went down:
Time to focus on the big boss. A ruby ray wand was used, lower resistance followed (spell trigger + the edwin simmy). The simmy was able to apply greater malison right away:
Amelyssan summoned her demons, and I realized that due to the wish-rest earlier, Valeria had gotten back her implosion - and with Melissan having no spell protections, this meant that I had a guaranteed, though very short stun affect available:
Balthazar (who tried to apply stunning fist), Ayla and Korgan tried went after Mel, Sarevok after the demons (with 1 vorpal strike and 1 deathbringer assault allowing him to get all except one of them during a single GWW). The stunned Mel took a ton of damage:
The simmy applied another greater malison while Edwin tried to use the paralyzation wand. Valeria added damage with energy blades, Melissan, having lost her demons within two rounds, used her next action to activate her own GWW. I was obviously very happy with that. She went after Sarevok, but I had the RoR charges to counter her damage. My final foe was getting low on hitpoints:
And now, with Melissan near death, Edwin managed to apply the stun effect, just as @semiticgod drew it up:
Though at this point, it propably wasn't needed. The implosion stun already gave me the time to do so much damage with GWWs, energy blades etc. thanks to all the buffs and great weapons my fighters had... this battle was actually very short in terms of rounds.
And we get to see the victory dialogue!
I can't believe I actually made it. What a finale - having to do both of the major battles two times, the first one thanks to a bug, the second one thanks to a crash. My nerves are still anything but calm. This took me around 3 hours to play, and I was very scared of encountering another crash - but now it's done. Nabatil, with only two of his original companions left by his side (and one now being a fallen inquisitor), has ascended. It is kind of weird. The last time I did this battle, it felt almost impossible, and it took me several tries to succeed, with an arguably more powerful party. It seem like having the right mindset and strategy makes a huge, huge difference. This time, while it still felt super hard, I never actually lost control of the battlefield, never felt overwhelmed.
A lot of this has to come down to the fact that Valeria's holy words affected the key spellcasters in both major battles. I wasn't expecting her to do too much in terms of combat in the very late game (buffs and summons, yes, but actual battles? not so much), but she delivered - her implosions were crucial, her holy words were crucial, her energy blades were valuable, her time traps amazing... just such a versatile character. Edwin was, of course, powerful as always. The two extra spellslots per level really were great, especially for level 4, 5 and 9, the ones I really needed a lot of for this one. As for Sarevok: Vorpal hits and deathbringer assault can turn any fight around with a little bit of luck. I'm very happy I chose him for my party. Ayla, with her great equipment, despite being fallen, was still an amazing fighter, and the staff of the ram overperformed. Nabatil, ever vigilant, not just a buffbot, but thanks to the Bard Hat added by SoD, able to use some crucial wands, buffs or other activated items while singing. Korgan, my last minute addition, did his job very well: Every time he was able to hold the right side of the battlefield for my party, though it did take some RoR healing.
I'm going to give you some final stats. Because of all the permanent deaths in the party, these are very, very unbalanced (mostly in favor of Ayla):
Nabatil, level 39 skald, 86 enemies killed, Saladrex being the top one (most of these are trap kills)
Ayla, level 34 fallen inquisitor, 1070 enemies killed, Firkraag still was the most powerful
Valeria, level 25/27 cleric/thief, 392 enemies killed, Chromatic Demon was Nr. 1
Sarevok, level 32 fighter, 350 kills including Draconis
Edwin, level 25 conjurer, only 86 kills, including Zirimanat'ryl (one of the four dragons during the quadruple dragon ambush I believe)
Korgan, level 18 Berserker, 4 kills including a balor
Once again, a huge thank you to @Serg_BlackStrider and @semiticgod ! It seems very unlikely that I would've been able to do this without your input: Both the starting approach via time traps (giving Valeria the opportunity to use her holy words and letting some of Abazigal's buffs fizzle) and the finisher via stun effects turned out to be the keys to victory. For now, I'm going to take a little bit of a break from playing Baldur's Gate (some RL stuff is coming up), but I'll keep reading and I'll be back playing propably in a couple of weeks!
Here's the summary for the Hall of Heroes:
Nabatil, the half-elven Skald: @Enuhal
Notable mods: SCS, Ascension, JimFix
Difficulty: Core rules
Start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1005442/#Comment_1005442 (August 2018)
Finish: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1016227/#Comment_1016227 (October 2018)
Congratulations!
1) Where did you read the stuff about the end-game battle? Can you post some links? I am curious.
2) Are you supposed to kill Imoen? I never understood in Ascension if Imoen is supposed to turn into the slayer and then join you once again in the battle
3) Can bodhi be turned by a good\evil cleric in Ascension? What about BG2 SOA, can you turn her?
4) Why do you say Gromnir's death was unfortunate?
5) Does anyone know which mod unlocks the new ending for Sarevok? (he joins you if you are evil and becomes your chosen one in addition of being a clergyman of your church)
6) does anyone know of any mod that actually adds the cloak of balduran back into BG2?
1) The most helpful things I've read are the posts by @semiticgod and @Serg_BlackStrider in this thread (on this page) right here and the posts they've linked to. There are also some older threads here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/41782/bg2-ascension-final-battle-scs-insanity-whos-actually-done-it
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/66738/how-do-you-beat-the-final-battle-with-ascension-installed/p1
I've also watched a couple of youtube videos to get a feel for the battle (though these weren't very helpful, as most of them involve some extreme cheese) and read some other random posts in other forums found by googling random combinations of keywords, though most of these were only of minor importance. It might also be very helpful to look through the hall of heroes in the original post of this thread (especially the old hall, with links to the old bioware forum), note which entries have SCS and Ascension listed under "notable mods" and check the last posts out if possible.
2) AFAIK Imoen can either be killed or she can turn back to her regular form, in which case she either teleports away to Candlekeep or maybe rejoins your party if you had her with you in the first place, I think? In my case, I wasn't really able to kill her in her slayer form (she would stay at near death), but I also didn't really try or need to, as she doesn't do a lot of damage. However, Balthazar ended up taking her down. The second time I did this battle, as I had to redo it because of a bug that didn't let me progress any further, I killed Jon/Bodhi/The Fallen Solars first, and after a while, Imoen returned to her normal form and decided to teleport away.
3) I don't think clerics can get high enough level to turn Bodhi, but I might be wrong
4) The ideal scenario during the ascension battle is to get every member of the five to near death and then kill them in quick succession. Why? Well, the reason is that after the first one of them dies, Melissan joins the battle herself, and you want to limit the time in which you have to fight both Melissan and multiple members of the five at the same time, so its best to quickly kill them one by one as soon as Melissan shows up. In addition to that, Melissan gets weakened and disabled every time you kill one of the five while she is around, so if you have them all at near death and kill them in quick succession, you can keep her disabled for a longer period of time, so you ideally never actually have to deal with her until she's isolated.
In my case with Gromnir, some of the five were still quite healthy when he died, so this was far from ideal. Luckily, their protections were gone as well, so I could compensate with some more GWWs and a lucky deathbringer assault by Sarevok, thus Melissan still didn't get a lot of time to actually do anything while the others were still around.
5) I've read somwhere that Sarevok can join you even if he's evil if you turn into the Ravager at the end of the run, but I have no idea how that actually works and if its part of the original ascension or the result of a mod, so I don't really now, sorry.
6) Well, yes, kind of. With Enhanced Edition Trilogy (EET), you can revisit old BG1 areas even while playing SoA, so you could stash the cloak of balduran in a BG1 area before moving on to SoD or something and get it back during SoA. @semiticgod runs with EET quite a lot, so he should be able to tell you how this works.
As for EET, it's very easy to bring the cloak into SoA. After the final fight in SoD
when you get back to the castle basement, you can place all of your gear in one of the chests in the eastern room before going up the stairs. Then, after you escape Chateau Irenicus in SoA, you can travel all the way back north to Dragonspear Castle, enter the basement from atop the castle, and grab all of your gear from the same chest. EET is all included in the same game and you can access both BG1 and SoD areas while still playing SoA, so all of your stuff should still be there. This can severely affect the difficulty, though, if you bring lots of valuable gear into BG2, which you might not want. Arrows of Detonation, the Martyr's Morningstar, Durlag's Goblet, and various other items can do stuff that most BG2 items can't.
I think you might be able to do the same thing with BGT if you're not playing the EE games, but I don't know if that's true (and if you're not playing EE, do so; it reduces all loading times to basically zero).
Prism, here we come! So Greywolf seems to be bugged and doesn't attack on his own, but who cares, I won't cheese him and I don't need to cheese him.
All is going good, or at least so it seems... until he does two critical hits in a row on minsc.
That makes me scared and I move Dario away from the danger. It was an extremely bad idea. As soon as Dario went away, Greywolf target Dynhaeir and killed her in one hit.
Who cares... I just drink a few potions and kill this famous headhunter.
Notice the "near death" status
Guess what happens? Take a look at my hp! :P
Waaa I'm scaredddddddddd
Greywolf goes hunting for Imoen while dario drinks some potions
Here we go again! But this time it was for good.
So, after resting we go exploring again! I sold the two emerald to resurrect my party. Then I went to another place to get my boots.
Guess who we met right after entering the new area?
While all of this happened Boo started fornicating with another hamster and we had a family of hamsters to be protected
The run felt pretty lucky to this moment, then I realized where we truly were. You know where? What if I told you there is a bridge? Can you realize which one is the next creature we're going to met? I guess you can. You have to kill that creatures to gain shiny white boots if you have enough charisma.
But not all bad comes to harm you... after all I'm a ranger
Forgot to make a stamp of the dead ogre, sorry. But the bear gained enough respect to get healed, only to try to turn on us while we were assaulted by gibberlings.
I also killed a ogre near a firecamp. I still have to get my shiny boots (every step I take I get assaulted by many gibberlings that were hiding in the fog) and there should be a group on the right part of the screen.
Issue is I'm a little scared of going through the bridge because it is full of mad ogre bersekers. Add on top of that Minsc is fatigued. And I have no spells left anymore.
See ya, hope you enjoyed this!
Last BG1EE update found here
SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Picking up where it left off, the party proceeds to clear the minor quests in chapter 8.
We run into another group of perfidious Spiders, but approach under Invisibility and more or less instantly kill one of the Gargantuans. The other one has time for a single Web Tangle, which Corwin saves against (we had Free Action available had she failed).
We then move against Teleria and her Lesser Stone Golem. In my infinite wisdom, I opt to fight almost buff-less. With predictable results.
Teleria buffs with Stoneskin and Improved Invisibility, and with only two Fighter-types, we can't cut through that easily (we weren't prepared for a Mage fight, so no Detect Invisibility/Spell Thrust/Breach). So, Glint and Corwin end up Petrified before we can take the Mage down. Thankfully, Dynaheir didn't attack one of them while under Confusion, so we can restore them both.
We head to the smaller area to the west, and treat the local Orc Raiders to a Cloudkill, much to their dismay.
I opt to help the hunters instead of the Vampire, and so we must wait until dusk for the dread Undead to show itself. We'll just hop back and forth between areas to pass the time, and in so doing, we get the Orcs vs Trolls ambush. We easily clear the enemies outside the cave, while the ones inside prove more of a hassle.
The first Troll group is treated to a Fireball, but this only knocks out the Small Trolls.
Of the remainder, two Trolls go after Glint with a vengeance. It's rather silly really, they just refuse to stop following him around, letting us pelt them to death without issue. Also pictured: Minsc making good use of the Sword of Troll Decapitation (props for The Gamers reference, which I can only assume was intentional).
Descending to the second level, careful targetting ensures the two Mutated Crawlers are swiftly dispatched. The Trolls just deal damage, and while annoying, damage is easily remedied. The Neo-Otyugh takes a while to bring down, being immune to missile damage, but down it eventually goes. Hubblepot pitches in with the tanking. We grab the gems and Firefly +2 (the latter going to Glint), and head back out.
We swiftly finish up what's left: Tsolak is destroyed rather easily. He got a single Domination off, but targetted what's-her-face, the overly aggressive hunter, to no avail. A bunch of Skeleton Warriors helped keep the more vulnerable party members safe from the large pack of Dire Wolves spawned in.
Vampire dealt with, we return to Takos and get not only The Biter +2, but the very nice Small Shield +2 as well. That'll go to Minsc for when he finds a magical Mace, freeing up the Shield of Egons +2 for one of our Clerics. We also finished the Menhir quest, which unfortunately bugged out severely and had to be fixed via console. Still, fixed it we did, and loot Crommus' remains we similarly did.
With everything taken care of, it's time to progress the plot. We apply buffs, and move towards the bridge.
The bridge explodes, and we go after the Crusaders stuck with us. They don't really put up much of a fight, and all but Elwood Dowser and Barachus drop before Caelar interrupts us.
We have our little exchange. Afterwards, a Silence 15' that Glint got off during the fight apparently wears off from the surviving Crusaders, turning them hostile. I was going to let the poor bastards live, but now there's really not much choice.. sorry, Crusaders.
All tasks completed, we talk to Bence Duncan and move on to Chapter 9.
Alright, new lands to
pillage and plunderfree from the yoke of the Crusade, new enemies to fight! We do a wide sweep of the entire area: Pure melee critters are mostly handled via M'Khiin dancing fodder into existence, while nastier groups, such as the Ogres that sport a few casters, merit more active spell use on our part (Web, Fireball, Cloudkill mostly). In the process, we grab the Glimmer of Hope +2, which goes to Minsc. Later on, once Hubblepot gets L5 Cleric spells, he'll wield the Glimmer of Hope before resting, since the Wisdom boost will give him an extra L5 slot, but for now, Minsc needs it. In combination with the Small Shield +2 from earlier, this makes Minsc much tankier, and it barely affects his damage output (in fact it might even increase it, since almost nothing has resistance to Blunt damage, or good AC against it).In other news, I'm really appreciating M'Khiin... her Major Animal Spirits are just terrific for cutting down on resource expenditure when dealing with chaff enemies. Still, chaff enemies aren't a major concern in the end, so she'll get the boot once Khalid makes it onto the scene.
We clear the entire area without much incident, then head into the Troll Cave, buffs up.
Minsc leads the charge, and once every single Troll homes in on him, he pops the Sunfire daily from the Shield. Very nice.
Thus weakened, the Trolls are easily mopped up. We also seek out the Caster Level +1 Amulet in here, which goes to Glint (it won't really make much difference for anyone but a pure Cleric, since going from caster level 10 to 11 unlocks 7 HD Skeleton Warriors).
We move out towards Boareskyr Bridge, but get the Goblin/Myconid ambush.
Fine by me. We use a Fireball to clear 90% of the Goblins out, then pick off the stragglers, loot and move into the Myconid cavern, Hubblepot casting Invisibility 10' Radius first.
I found out something I didn't know here: The Myconids (at least the Red Ones and the Shriekers) are actually immune to Cloudkill. They also home in on invisible characters, even though they cannot truly see them... so invisible Glint got immobilized by five Red Myconids, and then had a Cloudkill dropped on him by Dynaheir. Meaning we had to charge in to his rescue. Corwin popped a Greenstone Amulet charge and laid down some hurt initially, so we got by with only M'Khiin getting confused.
Facing the second spawn, I really didn't feel like gambling on half the party getting Confused, so I went full tilt: Five Skeleton Warriors and a Web ensured we were never in any danger.
All the lovely loot snagged, we recommence our journey to the Bridge. We arrive uneventfully this time, and agree to seek out what's-his-face... the Halfling, Dwarf, Gnome or whatever nephew that went to the old Temple of Bhaal. We also take the time to clear out the map of miscreants, and of course dip into the Goblin Cave to the north. I actually saved a round of buffs for this, but I needn't have bothered.. they're goblins. ANY spell is literally lethal to them.
Alright! We're low on spells and healing now, so opt to head back to the camp for a bit of rest before proceeding. On the way back, we get yet another ambush, and opt to help a Green Wyrmling out. Very nice.
Following this, we arrive back at the camp without incident.
This seems a good time for some careful preparations. The Temple of Bhaal has a few nasty enemies, and we most certainly will not allow them to get the better of us.
We'll re-cast our Minor Sequencers, heal up, then memorize the most optimal of spell setups. Truly, that Temple won't know what hit it. But that is for next time. For now, the party can be found resting around the campfire. Hubblepot tried to teach M'Khiin his famous bugg-jigg-waltz, to which she responded by threatening gruesome bodily harm. As any sane person would.
Hubblepot is now a L8/L9 Gnome Cleric/Illusionist.
Shifty meanwhile entered the bandit camp. Tazok tested our mettle, but after we hurt him, he decided that we could join his group.
Once we had picked up various bits and pieces of value Tenya laid several Glyphs of Warding, and after sleeping Indira cast web. We then attacked and the bandits converged on us, getting webbed as they did so.
Tenya used holy smite and Indira fireballs whilst I and Thorin mainly used our bows and axes. When Taugoz arrived on the scene Tenya called lightning and together our combined attack nullified his good armour.
Thus we cleared the camp of bandits with minimal harm to ourselves. Tenya had said that it should be easy beforehand. Easy wasn't the word that I would have used, but we were successful.
We then headed south, killed the caravan bandits and those led by Deke, then in Beregost we killed Tranzig.
We then searched Tazok's documents to see where we should go next. Which apparently is Cloakwood. However we first went to larswood and then onwards to a spider infested area where we fought the wizards of Thay.
Tenya cast holy smite as a way of determining their character. Their leader turned hostile and cast confusion. Meanwhile I ndira cast web and Tenya called lightning. Their leader was quickly killed and cast no more spells. Fortunately Indira was not affected by confusion so she cast web on us to prevent us hurting each other. We moved away and rested before returning.
Our initial assault was quite effective but one of them became invisible. Tenya therefore cast "Invisibility Purge".
Upon doing so we immediately discovered that the last of the wizards was webbed. He was finished off with arrows and so we proceeded.
We were confronted in transit by a lesser basilisk. I took a potion whilst the others fled. Because of the potion I had no qualms about meeting it. Sure enough it quickly died and we proceded onwards to the Firewine Ruins where we killed Meilum. The battle against Khaark however was another story. I thought that we were not going to survive. Both Indira and Tenya were killed, but somehow by using many many potions we finally were able to defeat him.
We helped the girl in the house near the friendly arm inn. This screen is just to show you that even when tempted to lockpick stuff inside houses, I do not do that given that I'm actually acting decent in-game. So no thieving inside private property and stuff of this sort.
We confronted Silke. It was pretty easy.
We solved two quests in a row:
We met Vax and Zil but they were pretty unlucky. While fighting them we were attacked by two winter wolves that we charmed.
We met the lowly gnoll that actually challenges you. I fear like something bugged, because after a little bit he turned red instead of staying with the blue circle like he's supposed to.So we only got 65 xp.
I also beat Sendai.
Now the bad part.. We had to find Aaron for Ascalon questpack and he was inside the gnoll fortress so we went there again and cleansed it from the gnoll presence. When you find Aaron inside the pits, he asks you to get the ring he was stolen by the gnoll chieftain.
So I actually explored all the gnoll fortress and killed everything that was supposed to be killed and left just one area (that I discovered later) unexplored.
So I went there with Dario (Bhaalspawn) and Minsc. We used the ladder as a bottleneck, given that these gnolls are stronger than the others you find, actually drink the oil of speed and hit like a mini-truck.
Fact is that these gnolls do not stay still, I mean, I noticed (could it be SCS?) that npcs actually target the other party members, especially the weak ones. So I thought... let them flee. I moved them to another part of the map. You may wonder my surprise when I saw that new gnolls spawned in the fog of war and actually attacked my clerics, mage and thief... and the atrocious pathfinding made imoen get surrounded.
In the end we prevailed, though
I've been rollin across the Sword Coast with my bard lately and the time may just be ripe to officially sign him up for the challenge. Therefore, I'm pleased to introduce you to Gisli, thespian extraordinaire (and an unkitted human bard).
Mods: SCS, JimFix
Version: 2.5.17
My intention is to proceed to Amn as soon as possible and I apologize for eventual brevity in covering the events leading to the final battle with Sarevok. I'll also be skipping SoD since I still haven't come to fully appreciate the game in its own right.
Gilsi prefers to play the lone wolf, although he will be joining forces with other companions from time to time.
Prelude:
Starting from Candlekeep, we take the conventional approach by collecting the Ring of Wizardry and exchanging it with Thalantyr for Wand of Sleep, Potion Case and essential sets of scrolls (not scribed yet) and potions (Freedom, Mirrored Eyes, Magic Blocking). Gisli then collects some easy XP from Shoal and via various chores around Beregost, relying heavily on Wand of Sleep charges in the process.
We're rewarded for this initial effort by being able to purchase a Potion of Genius at FAI temple and scribe all the relevant spells available at High Hedge (Glitterdust from Beregost is obsolete for our purposes). Invisible, Gisli sneaks inside FAI to deliver the spider cargo, trigger Dorn's encounter and collect the invisibility potion from Jaheira.
Emboldened, Gisli proceeds south to intercept the court martial with Viccy...
...whereas she returns the favor by assisting us against Karlat and the Thayan party back in Beregost.
I wanted to make this post a bit longer but I gotta fly for now. See ya soon!
Regards,
B.
Last BG1EE update found here
SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
As alluded to previously, the party presses on towards the derelict Temple of Bhaal.
There are surprisingly tough trash mobs throughout the area when playing on Insane: Several spawns of 2x Greater Wyverns with more Wyverns and Baby Wyverns in tow. We mostly handle them by dancing some Major Animal Spirits into existence. Onward to the Spider Lair!
I turn everyone invisible after putting Free Action on Minsc and Corwin, and charge inside. Of course, there are no spiders at the entrance.. so we stumble around a bit, but finally find something to fight. And grossly underestimate the nuisance that an Astral Phase Spider can present when you only have two party members fighting (the vermin is permanently Hasted and consistently teleports after Corwin). I end up having to involve the entire party in the fight, and even then, it's surprisingly difficult, since another group of Spiders join the fray.
We expend a good deal of our healing spells, as well as both Sequencers of 2x Magic Missiles, but of course, the outcome was never in doubt (though M'Khiin, as you can see, came perilously close to dying... I tried to have her summon her Goblins, but a Phase Spider immediately teleported to her and poisoned her). Clearing the rest of the Spider Lair goes better, mainly as we burn a Fireball and Cloudkill to expedite matters.
By comparison, the Beetles that invade the lair once the last Spider falls are completely harmless (mostly since they do not all turn hostile together, and so can be picked off one by one). We grab the Rhino Beetle Shell, along with the odds and ends throughout the containers, and head back out.
Another Fireball is expended to clear half a dozen Phase Spiders blocking our path, and then some Major Animal Spirits do a fine job holding off the Bugbear group at the top of the mountain. The path lies open to Morentherene...
I could fight the Green Dragon fairly. She's not all that dangerous: In fact, the Greater Wyverns she calls in as backup are usually more of a concern. However, why fight when you need not?
The party brought some 40 Throwing Daggers for this very reason, and even though it takes a little while, Corwin eventually finds her mark, and the dread Dragon falls. We venture deeper into the depths.
This level has nothing but Bugbears, and though they are fairly competent melee bruisers, that's all they are... melee bruisers (yes, they do have a few Shaman, but we just focus them down first).
A combination of Major Animal Spirits, Ghostly Fog and a Cloudkill against the largest group sees us through with very little damage taken. The Temple awaits.
Not being heartless bastards, we'll free Keherrem and his friends rather than kill him. We proceed down the south-western corridor, it being the only path we can take at the moment, clearing the Cultists as we go (as well as the three Invisible Stalkers). All goes well, until we hit the final group of Cultists.
I decided to be cheap, and so try to get away with just using Major Animal Spirits with Corwin providing ranged support. However, this particular group has two very nasty members: Both of them seem to be dual-classed Fighter/Mages with specialization in Crossbows, and the will to use it. This was the end result a few rounds in:
It's not quite as horrible as it looks, but it's certainly not good: Two Cultists are still alive, the more powerful Fighter/Mage is most decidedly not panicking (and thus keeps shooting us), but Minsc/M'Khiin/Hubblepot/Glint are all invisible. I contemplated turning Corwin and Dynaheir invisible as well to wait out the myriad buffs protecting that darn Crossbow-wielder, but.. the game crashed about two seconds after this screenshot.
I guess Tymora was with us this time (eh, I exaggerate: We were fine, but would've had to return to camp to rest and heal up, or burn a LOT of potions). Given a do-over, the party falls back to that ever successful tactic: Animate Dead. Five Skeleton Warriors to lead the charge, along with an early Insect Plague, leads to a much better result (zero damage to us, and we still have all five Skeleton Warriors standing, although three are badly hurt).
Alright... Ziatar. Damn her breath, but we must attack! Send in the cannon fodder, though I doubt they'll last long: Ziatar is pretty strong in melee and apparently gets two Mage goons on Insane, so we'll probably have to move to assist-
Or not. Heh. Apparently five 5HD Skeleton Warriors, three of whom (ironically) were quite a bit closer to dead than you'd like, are more than sufficient to take down a Half-Dragon Priestess and her two Mage lackeys, without a single casualty. Oh Skeleton Warriors, is there any situation you can't solve? Yes. Yes, there is, but not today! Huzzah for Chocolate Skeleton Balls.. no wait, that's some other poem.
With Ziatar dead, we release the hapless Crusaders, as well as Madele (the latter being instructed in no uncertain terms to make amends). Slightly concerned about the Neothelid, we apply basic Cleric buffs, and Minsc/Corwin get Chaotic Commands from a few scrolls we purchased earlier. Charge!
Thankfully, the Neothelid is still a pushover, even on Insane. It does seem to use its powers much more though; certainly there are more Magical Swords floating around, to the detriment of our Skeleton Warriors. The main problem is that it spends many rounds underground before finally surfacing. But when it does surface, we end it quickly: Even the Poison Nova wasn't that bad (20-30 damage for everyone caught in it).
Next up, Akanna. She leads by quaffing a Potion of Invisibility.. which we were prepared for, and promptly counter with Detect Invisibility. Akanna never gets to perform a second action.
So... I should've probably stopped playing around here (it was late), but kept going since I wanted to finish the Temple.
I got impatient and didn't give Glint enough time to search for traps on Akanna's chest. Which was of course trapped with Lightning Bolt. Hubblepot DID get hit several times, but as soon as I heard that Lightning Bolt launch, I managed to pause and have the stalwarth Gnome quaff a Potion of Absorption. Unfortunately, there were not enough such potions for the entire party, so a few members got a bit zinged.
That's a lot of damage to heal up. Several scrolls of Cure Serious Wounds and a Potion of Regeneration later, we limp along the southern passage. The Mind Flayer must die. We've saved a full barrage of summons and buffs for this. Minsc and Corwin again get Chaotic Commands from scrolls, and our Skeleton Warriors lead the way.
Mercifully, Darskhelin falls in short order. His cohorts hold out for a few rounds, but we eventually cut them down with minimal damage sustained. The poor Skeleton Warriors fell to a
manskeleton (largely due to the Umberhulks dealing massive damage), but they held the line long enough. Skeleton Warriors, we salute you.Again.. really, really should've stopped playing now! The entire party is fatigued, we've got no summons, no buffs, no heals. What we do have is Shield/Mirror Image on Dynaheir, more than a dozen Potions of Invisibility, and far too little common sense. We're going after the Shadow Aspect!
So, the Shadow Aspect.
It has the following powers: Horror, Larloch's Minor Drain, Blindness 15' Radius (the latter offers no save, you're automatically blinded as long as you remain in the area of effect), Mislead, permanent Haste/Blur, and drains Strength on hit (not sure how long it lasts, but over 8 hours).
Not so bad, you say? Well, the damn thing continuously reapplies Mislead for as long as you fight it. Add to this that it has quadruple backstab modifier, and you see how this can turn ugly.
Anyway, we do OK at first. Dynaheir casts Shield/Mirror Image and still has Stoneskin active, so she heads up front to tank. Corwin has sneaked into the room and, once Dynaheir has the attention of the Shadow Aspect, lets loose with Arrows of Piercing. We deal some good damage, but then the Mislead spam starts. We kill the Mislead clone. Mislead again, again we kill the clone. Around here, Dynaheir's Stoneskin gives out. She has to quaff an Invisibility Potion to stay alive (yes, thankfully, the Shadow Aspect cannot see through Invisibility). But this leaves Corwin in the room with the Shadow Aspect, so she too has to go invisible or get chunked by endless backstabs.
Somehow, I finagle Hubblepot, Glint and M'Khiin into position to provide ranged support.
And am then treated to another power the Shadow Aspect apparently gets on Insane: It promptly summons 2x Shadows and 2x Shadowed Souls. Sigh.
The Shadowed Souls of course heal up the Shadow Aspect whenever we start to make headway.
So we target the Shadowed Souls instead, but they just keep draining us. Corwin can't join in: She's still trapped in the room with the Shadow Aspect. Dynaheir has been drained to 1 Strength and is invisibly blocking the door to the room.
Eventually, M'Khiin gets Life Drained once too many, and drops. Before that, I'd tried pretty much anything I could think of to win, including wands, potions and scrolls, but to no avail. We can't kill the Shadow Aspect in the few seconds we have before it reapplies Mislead, and even when we eventually manage to kill off its summons.. it just summons new ones instantly! Gosh darnit! A suitably despondent screenshot:
Once M'Khiin dropped, I figured enough was enough. We gathered up the Goblin's gear, everyone quaffed an Invisibility Potion (Dynaheir had to pop a Potion of Strength as well to be able to move), and we did what we should've done from the start: Retreated to rest and regroup.
After a night's rest, healing and another scroll of Raise Dead for the poor Goblin, we returned, buffed to high heaven (Haste was key, along with Skeleton Warriors to soak up the inevitable backstabs), and beat the un-living tar out of the Shadow Aspect.
All this for a Shortsword +3 we won't even use.
Regardless: The Temple is cleansed! Hooray!
Though there hasn't been a ton of progress so far, I think I'll end this post here.
Some ups and downs, but we rolled with the punches and ultimately came out on top. Huzzah!
Next time, we'll relieve the siege of Bridgefort, and pick up Khalid (replacing M'Khiin). Hopefully, we also prevent the Mage on the bridge from blowing up the barrels and ending the game for us...
Hubblepot remains a L8/L9 Gnome Cleric/Illusionist.