Ruva sets a trap, having been blinded shortly before by Azelos.
Azelos casts Wish. Then I see Yaga-Shura has escaped Ruva's Maze.
Yorun Zovai disables him.
We get a good option from Wish.
The timing is excellent. The Planetar reappears, and we need to get rid of it. Half our party is missing Death Ward, and a vorpal strike could be devastating.
Ruva and Laosha draw the flame over the Planetar, at the cost of Balthazar's safety.
We fail to stop the Planetar from casting Insect Plague. To get rid of the Planetar, Ruva sets another snare. Yaga-Shura vanishes--I see no trace of the Planetar.
Ruva fails a save against Insect Plague. She panicks; Illasera removed her immunity to fear long beforehand.
Ruva's wandering draws the stream of fire over Yorun Zovai, canceling her Project Image spell.
Azelos ends up with a list of bad Wish options. Luckily, one of them poses no threat to us at all at this point.
Despite the Insect Plague, Yorun Zovai manages to summon a Planetar, which then restores Ruva's immunity to fear.
It worked out, but it was a reckless decision; I had no reason to believe Yorun Zovai could get the spell off the ground.
The Fallen Planetar reappears, this time at full health.
It strikes once. Then we bring it down together, with Laosha using Firetooth's base ammunition to break through the Planetar's immune to +2 weapons and below.
Melissan finally wakes up and teleports to her normal position in the middle of the map.
Laosha switches back to the Scorcher Ammunition. I want to get rid of Yaga-Shura before he can hurt us; he's not blind anymore.
I have our new Planetar hit Yaga-Shura with Insect Plague. Mostly for lack of anything better to do.
I move Laosha around to hit Melissan with the scorcher projectile. Our Planetar gets hit badly, but heals itself right afterward.
Unfortunately, it doesn't take the hit very well. It goes hostile and attacks Laosha.
Laosha removes it by pulling the flame back over it.
We overpower Yaga-Shura. Laosha does most of the work.
Yorun Zovai casts Wish. The whole party is back up to speed.
Melissan restores herself as well. All the damage we did is undone.
Zulfer attacks with the Answerer, hoping to bring Melissan's MR back down.
Azelos joins the fight. Yorun Zovai buffs the party.
Laosha's stream of fire is terribly strong, but Melissan teleports right out of it, while Balthazar walks right into it.
But with Boots of Speed and Improved Haste on both Ruva and Laosha, they can quickly bring the flame over to Melissan and disrupt a Time Stop spell.
Our mages keep casting Wish. The next one just refreshes our existing haste buffs.
Melissan has escaped the flame once more, and brings a Marilith onto the field. Ruva and Laosha bring over the flame once more.
We remove the Marilith's PFMW spell with the Wand of Spell Striking. Meanwhile, Laosha and Ruva stay focused on Melissan.
The damage builds up. Melissan can't block it. Soon, the fight is over.
I didn't expect it to go this way. At the beginning, I thought we were likely to fail. But Laosha absolutely destroyed the enemy. He almost single-handedly killed Gromnir, Sendai, Yaga-Shura, Illasera, and Melissan herself. The only major enemy in this battle he did not enjoy primary responsibility for killing was Abazigal, and the only reason he did not was because he was busy at the time.
This was strictly due to the combination of the Scorcher Ammunition with Firetooth (to add missile damage) and stacking missile damage resistance using the Earth Elemental Token, Yellow Dragon Scale, and Defender of Easthaven. Even without all of those, it should be possible to achieve immunity missile damage using the Armor of Faith, the Belt of Inertial Barrier, and/or the 25% physical damage resistance boost from the Ravager trial in the Pocket Plane. By attacking a character who is immune to missile and fire damage with the Scorcher Ammunition and Firetooth, or any crossbow with a bonus to damage, it should be possible to destroy nearly any creature in the game, irrespective of their defenses.
Viora has become Chaotic Evil and professed a lot of evil-sounding views with the Solar and just killed Imoen, but that was just for the sake of powergaming. She and Balthazar decide to seal away the essence of Bhaal.
Let me congratulate you, @semiticgod ! I admire you! I simply love you!
I read every word in your reports and I think I could feel if I've been there with you, on the battlefield against the Five and Melissan.
Yes, I understand that probably you used the very effective tactics of the Earth Elemental Token without a druid in the party (the Earth Elemental form is OP), combining it with the Scorcher Ammunition (that is not available at all if you don't carry a certain item from BG1 and don't complete a certain quest in SoA with a certain result), but still I admire your achievement!
Even more than the result, I like your reports. They are so, so useful. Congratulations, and thank you!
Back to business. Not a Melissan level, but still. I would like to share Hades's battles against Prat and his group, and against Slythe and Krystin.
We enter the Prat's fight pre-buffed exactly as we did against the Iron Throne group.
After Prat finished his talk with Viconia, Hades and Safana backstab an enemy mage, Sakul. He's no longer on the battlefield.
Prat goes invisible as a part of his pre-buffs, so Baeloth casts Detect Invisibility. Edwin already finished casting Greater Malison. Hades and Dorn attack the critter, Tam, while Viconia, 2 skeletons and Safana (who gulped an Invis potion for another backstab) attack Bor, preventing his use of darts of stunning. Edwin will soon start casting Teleport Field.
Baeloth detects Prat, Safana manages a successful backstab on Bor, Viconia finishes him (both our girls have high STR thanks to different strength-enhancing spells). Viconia's magic resistance blocks Prat's Melf's Acid Arrow on her.
Hades and Dorn kill Tam, even before Edwin finishes his Teleport Field casting.
Prat is helpless, he's stunned by the Stupifier, horrored by Spook and poisoned by Dorn.
Baeloth reaches the 4th spell level. I didn't take Stoneskin, or Emotion. I took Improved Invisibility for him, even when I had previously chosen Invisibility and Invisibility, Radius, for him before. This spell, Improved Invisibility, of which he has 4 casts, can buff four party members, lowering their AC and saving throws, making them impossible to target with spells.
With all the prebuffs (Improved Invisibility is on Hades, Viconia, Dorn and Safana), we enter the Slythe and Krystin fight.
At the start of the fight, Krystin is invisible, so our attacks are on Slythe. Edwin casts Greater Malison, Baeloth casts Detect Invisibility. The same route, but a very effective route against SCS in BG1.
Krystin is seen now, and she continues her buffs, this time PfMW - (in BG1 !) - and I remember @Blackraven reported she has some kind of Improved Alacrity, she can cast spells very quickly.
So we need to increase the speed of killing Slythe. Viconia uses her wand of heavens, while Edwin finally finished casting Greater Malison. We need his Spell Thrust on Krystin, and we need it quickly.
Only Skeleton Warriors can attack Krystin because of her Fireshield, but she uses the Blue version, and our undead are immune to damage. But their attacks are useless as well, as they count as magic weapons.
Edwin throws Spell Thrust, everyone else attack from a distance with normal missiles.
Dorn uses his Aura of Despair, while Edwin is casting Confusion. Our missile weapons hit Krystin, although she's still Mirror-Imaged and Stoneskinned.
Krystin dispels effects on half of our party.
So we need to repeat some buffs: Mirror Image on Hades, a potion of speed for Dorn and Armour of Faith on Viconia.
Baeloth tries the wand of paralys on Krystin. She saves against Confusion (and Edwins switches to casting Slow, only to see her save against it as well), but not against the wand.
The battle is won.
Nobody was even hurt even once during both fights. The combination of buffs our party uses seem to be very effective.
Back to business. Not a Melissan level, but still. I would like to share Hades's battles against Prat and his group, and against Slythe and Krystin. ... Krystin is seen now, and she continues her buffs, this time PfMW - (in BG1 !) - and I remember @Blackraven reported she has some kind of Improved Alacrity, she can cast spells very quickly.
Excellent battle! I don't think Krystin is under any form of alacrity. I will check that soon with Imoen and Jurs!
The beautiful part of Maze traps is not simply that they send enemies away. It is that the enemies come back at different times, allowing you to concentrate your pressure on a single enemy and bring it down by the time the others arrive. But it's random and unpredictable. You don't know when exactly that next enemy is going to arrive.
Actually, it's neither random nor unpredictable. Just like Wizard's Maze spell it depends on Intelligence of the creature to be Mazed:
Intelligence of Target -- Time trapped in maze under 3 -- 2d4 turns 3 to 5 -- 1d4 turns 6 to 8 -- 5d4 rounds 9 to 11 -- 4d4 rounds 12 to 14 -- 3d4 rounds 15 to 17 -- 2d4 rounds 18 and up -- 1d4 rounds
The only difference is that Maze trap is ranged and AoE whilst Maze spell is single target and touch range.
The Five have following Int: Abazigal (19), Sendai (18), Sarevok (17), Illasera (14), Gromnir (9), Yaga-Shura (11). And they returned in exactly that order in your case (Gromnir and Yaga-Shura are in the same league of 4d4 rounds thus slightly different/lucky).
Anyway, I join @bengoshi in congratulations for you! Fantastic run and lovely insightful reports!
Had I not used the Scorcher Ammunition or Frag Grenades, and kept Laosha as a druid, the fight with Melissan likely would have played out much differently. It would have taken much longer, and we would have used a lot more resources than we did.
That said, in retrospect, those tactics were probably not necessary. By the end, we had barely spent any of our resources. Our spellcasters cast only a fraction of their spells. Besides her HLAs, Viora cast zero. Among the resources we could have used had we refrained from using those items, and therefore kept Laosha as a druid:
Innate spells: 2 Elemental Summoning 1 Greater Elemental Summoning 2 Hardiness 3 Poison Weapon 1 Power Attack 1 Smite 2 Greater Whirlwind Attack 1 Energy Blades 1 Mass Raise Dead 1 Implosion 2 Summon Deva 1 Summon Planetar 2 Comet 2 Dragon's Breath 2 Improved Alacrity 4 Special Snare 4 Spike Trap 1 Time Trap 5 Summon Spirit Animal 1 Slayer Change (Ravager form)
Laosha's spells: Basically 6 per spell level; the Archer version of Laosha used none.
Viora's spells: Level 1: 12 Level 2: 12 Level 3: 10 Level 4: 12 Level 5: 9 Level 6: 9 Level 7: 6 (She also didn't cast a single spell besides her HLAs)
Items: 2 Spellstrike 2 PFMW 1 Time Stop 17 Rod of Resurrection 4 Wand of Spell Striking (20 Breach, 24 Pierce Magic) 1 Imprisonment ~16 Fire Seeds 1 Bracers of Blinding Strike 1 Amulet of Cheetah Speed 1 Vhailor's Helm 40+ Potion of Superior Healing 20+ Potion of Invulnerability ~10 Potions of Magic Shielding ~10 Potions of Magic Protection
And whatever else we had in our containers.
Without the Scorcher Ammunition, we would have been attacking at about 60% damage output, or about 40-50% due to weaker THAC0, at roughly 65-75% of our normal APR (only counting the characters with the THAC0 to hit reliably). However, over the course of the fight we did experience, we only used 7% of our spells total; maybe 15% of our high-level spells; 15% of our HLAs; Azelos and Yorun Zovai only used half their Project Image spells; Ruva used only a third of her Maze traps; and considering how infrequently we clouded our auras, our spell/scroll/potion/HLA/wand usage was maybe 15-20%. Not counting the 30-36 Wish spells we could have cast, which would amount to 5 or 6 rests on average. Melissan would have complicated the situation, naturally.
The fight would have been twice as hard, but we were operating at less than half capacity. I could try the fight again to test it out, but there's not much point. I don't play no-reload runs to test myself; I do it to stress-test strategies.
Mostly I just wanted to see just how powerful the Scorcher Ammunition was. Almost everything I do in BG2 is an experiment of some sort. Turns out the Scorcher Ammunition isn't just powerful--it's very reductive. It obviates the need for any other strategies. I probably won't use it again anytime soon. I saw what I came to see.
I will post a retrospective explaining my findings for every stage of the run as well as the performance of our characters over the course of the game.
@semiticgod, let me add to the well-deserved praise you've received. Once more you've shown both inventiveness (e.g. blinding Ruva in order to have her freely set snares in battle, optimizing Laosha's archery skills) and focus (that final battle!).
and I remember @Blackraven reported she has some kind of Improved Alacrity, she can cast spells very quickly.
I vaguely remember me mentioning this. However, what may have happened is Krystin finishing one spell (conceivably one with a longer casting time) near the end of one round, and following up with a spell with a short casting time the next round. That may cause the impression of an alacrity-like ability. My current Cleric/Thief has this when casting e.g. Righteous Magic followed by DUHM. Righteous Magic has a casting time of 9, so takes almost a complete round to cast. This means that at most one tick later, Bardin can already cast DUHM.
Congrats on defeating Slythe and Krystin btw They're dangerous...
I'll reflect on our MP session tomorrow, but I can't hide my emotion right now. It's really surprising how much a game that has been played through many times, can give, when the characters in your party are actual people and you know that their characters can die for good, even not mentioning the consequences of the Bhaalspawn's demise because so much effort was put into the game.
It's funny that I played exactly this fight only days ago in a single-player no-reload, and with full prebuffs from enemies, and with Insane damage. But it wasn't even 1 percent the same as in the MP.
Because of different reasons, in the MP run it's hard to detect when your Magic Blocking wears off. It's hard to pause timely when you see Chaos flying in your direction.
Everything goes smoothly but then in a blink of an eye it changes. The Gotural's dwarven defender was in the middle of 4 enemies, trying to get their spells casted while he was protected. Tresset had to throw fireballs with the wand, while my dwarven cleric had to cover him if one of the fighters decided to attack Tresset instead of Gotural.
But even with the Core difficulty and even with the Defensive stance it quickly became apparent that the Gotural's character wouldn't survive Drasus's heavy attacks. I tried to get the attention of Genthore, but instead Chaos came in my direction. And even with dwarven clerical saves and potion of invulnerability gulped Lucius still failed his saving throw.
And this was when Gotural decided he would try to move away Drasus from us, to the bridge (NE). Slowly, under constant attacks from the berserker.
The worst nightmare? Mages summoned ghouls who followed Drasus. And when it looked like the Gotural's character had only several seconds to live, these ghouls blocked the way for Drasusl
Not long after it the chaos wore off, and Tresset managed to paralyse one mage.
When I realised Hadhod would live I was the happiest man on the Earth. It felt... massively important. And I was so, so glad.
This is why I'm enjoying the MP run with you, guys!
Congratulations @semiticgod ! I knew you would do it despite all these chunkings, you had a really great party and excellent strategies.
I experimented, tinkered and tested a lot of stuff with my install for the last two weeks and finally I decided against playing my solo Sorcerer in BG2 because, even if it won't be the hardest solo, it will be a very tedious one with lots of resting, uninteresting fights (although the boss fights would be extremely interesting, because it will be a pure magical chess game) and so forth.
So instead, after training myself a bit with Improved Ilyich, I chose to continue Yami, my Drow Berserker/Wild Mage/Shadowdancer with a new setup which I hope won't be too buggy (I had a fair amount amount of bugs and crashs in ToB with my Blackguard).
Mods :
// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods // The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod // ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version] ~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #0 // Big Picture, core component (required for most subcomponents): v181-b4611 ~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Ascension for BP: v181-b4611 ~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2100 // Improved Abazigal: v181-b4611 ~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2200 // Improved Demogorgon: v181-b4611 ~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2300 // Improved Gromnir: v181-b4611 ~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2400 // Improved Illasera: v181-b4611 ~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Improved Sendai: v181-b4611 ~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2600 // Improved Yaga-Shura: v181-b4611 ~SETUP-BGEEAR.TP2~ #0 #0 // TeamBG's Armors for BG:EE, BGT and TuTu Version 1.05 ~SETUP-BGEEW.TP2~ #0 #0 // TeamBG's Weapons Pack for BG:EE, BGT and TuTu Version 1.04 ~SARADAS_MAGIC/SARADAS_MAGIC.TP2~ #0 #0 // saradas_magic ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #60 // Weapon Animation Tweaks: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #110 // Icon Improvements: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #120 // Change Avatar When Wearing Robes or Armor (Galactygon): v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #130 // Force All Dialogue to Pause Game: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1020 // Alter HP Triggers for NPC Wounded Dialogues: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1030 // Reveal Wilderness Areas Before Chapter Six: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1040 // Improved Athkatlan City Guard: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1080 // Add Bags of Holding: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1101 // Do Not Reveal City Maps When Entering Area: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1120 // Stores Sell Higher Stacks of Items: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1161 // Multiple Strongholds (Baldurdash) -> Keep Class Restrictions: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1170 // Bonus Merchants (Baldurdash): v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1220 // Allow Cromwell to Upgrade Watcher's Keep Items: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1230 // Allow Cespenar to Use Cromwell Recipes: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2060 // Weapon Styles for All: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2090 // Change Experience Point Cap -> Remove Experience Cap: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2100 // Allow Thieving and Stealth in Heavy Armor: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2120 // Allow Arcane Spellcasting in Heavy Armor: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Expanded Dual-Class Options: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2151 // Wear Multiple Protection Items -> No Restrictions: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2170 // Cast Spells from Scrolls (and Other Items) at Character Level: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2200 // Multi-Class Grandmastery (Weimer): v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2210 // True Grandmastery (Baldurdash): v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2220 // Change Magically Created Weapons to Zero Weight: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2240 // Un-Nerfed THAC0 Table: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2250 // Un-Nerfed Sorcerer Spell Progression Table: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2261 // Alter Mage Spell Progression Table -> PnP Table: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2281 // Alter Cleric Spell Progression Table -> PnP Table: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2291 // Alter Druid Spell and Level Progression Tables -> No Level Progression Changes, PnP Druid/Cleric Spell Table Only: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2300 // Triple-Class HLA Tables: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2330 // Remove Delay for Magical Traps (Ardanis/GeN1e): v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2352 // Alter Multiclass Restrictions -> Install both of the above options: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2360 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Single Classes: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2371 // Alter Dual-class Restrictions -> Allow non-humans to dual-class: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2380 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Kits: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3000 // Higher HP on Level Up -> Maximum: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3010 // Maximum HP for NPCs (the bigg) -> For All Creatures in Game: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3030 // Easy Spell Learning -> 100% Learn Spells: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3050 // Remove fatigue from restoration spells: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3070 // Change Effect of Reputation on Store Prices -> Low Reputation Store Discount (Sabre): v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Unlimited Ammo Stacking: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3090 // Unlimited Gem and Jewelry Stacking: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Unlimited Potion Stacking: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Unlimited Scroll Stacking: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3121 // Happy Patch (Party NPCs do not complain about reputation) -> NPCs Can Be Angry About Reputation but Never Leave (Salk): v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3160 // Keep Drizzt's Loot, Disable Malchor Harpell: v16 ~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3200 // Sellable Items (Icelus): v16 ~IWDIFICATION/SETUP-IWDIFICATION.TP2~ #0 #30 // IWD Arcane Spell Pack: Beta 2 ~IWDIFICATION/SETUP-IWDIFICATION.TP2~ #0 #40 // IWD Divine Spell Pack: Beta 2 ~IWDIFICATION/SETUP-IWDIFICATION.TP2~ #0 #50 // IWD Bard Song: Beta 2 ~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #0 // Proper dual-wielding implementation for Thieves and Bards: v4.90b1 ~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #1 // Thief kit revisions: v4.90b1 ~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #2 // Thief High Level Ability revisions: v4.90b1 ~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #3 // Proper racial adjustments for thieving skills: v4.90b1 ~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #4 // Bard kit revisions: v4.90b1 ~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #5 // Bard High Level Ability revisions: v4.90b1 ~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #6 // Proper spell progression for Bards: v4.90b1 ~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #7 // Additional equipment for Thieves and Bards: v4.90b1 ~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #8 // Upgradeable Equipment: v4.90b1 ~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #9 // Revised Thievery -> Use PnP thievery potions and prevent their effects from stacking: v4.90b1 ~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #11 // Chosen of Cyric encounter: v4.90b1 ~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #12 // Shadow Thief Improvements: v4.90b1 ~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #999 // BG2-style icons for RR content: v4.90b1 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Initialise mod (all other components require this): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1910 // Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Allow Spellstrike to take down a Protection from Magic scroll: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2020 // Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2050 // Allow individual versions of Spell Immunity to be placed into Contingencies and Spell Triggers: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2070 // Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades only affect hostile creatures: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2080 // Cap damage done by Skull Trap at 12d6: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2090 // Make Power-Word: Blind single-target: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2120 // Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Slightly increase the power of Mantle, Improved Mantle, and Absolute Immunity: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2160 // Add an extra copy of some hard-to-find spell scrolls: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2170 // True Sight/True Seeing spells protect from magical blindness: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2180 // Prevent Simulacra and Projected Images from using magical items: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Make the healing and resurrection powers of the Rod of Resurrection into separate abilities: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4010 // Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4180 // Make Freedom scrolls available earlier: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4240 // Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5000 // Ease-of-use party AI: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6024 // Add high-level abilities (HLAs) to spellcasters -> All eligible spellcasters in Throne of Bhaal and Shadows of Amn get HLAs (very challenging and not really recommended!): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages -> Mages cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests -> Priests cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs -> All of the potions dropped by slain enemies are recoverable: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6500 // Improved golems: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6520 // Smarter genies -> Genies have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6530 // Smarter celestials -> Celestials have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6540 // Smarter dragons -> Dragons have a substantial hit point increase: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6551 // Smarter beholders -> Don't give beholder rays any chance of burning through spell protections; beholder antimagic blocks all spells, including harmful ones, for a round (simulates D&D rules): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6563 // Smarter mind flayers -> Illithids have enhanced damage resistance; Illithids cannot see invisible enemies: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6570 // Smarter githyanki: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6580 // Improved Vampires: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6590 // Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6800 // Smarter Illasera: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6810 // Smarter Gromnir: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6820 // Smarter Yaga-Shura: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6830 // Smarter Abazigal: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6840 // Give Ascension versions of Irenicus and Sendai SCS scripts and abilities: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6850 // Give Ascension demons SCS scripts and abilities: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8000 // Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8010 // Improved Shade Lord: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8020 // Spellcasting Demiliches: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8030 // More resilient trolls: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8043 // Increase difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings -> Maximum difficulty: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8050 // Improved Random Encounters: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8060 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix") -> Spirit trolls have the same powers as in the original game: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8070 // Improved Unseeing Eye: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8081 // Improved Bodhi (Tactics Remix) -> Original Tactics Improved Bodhi with SCSII scripting: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8100 // Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8110 // Improved Sahuagin: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8120 // Improved Beholder hive (adapted from Quest Pack): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8130 // Prevent resting in the Illithid city: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8140 // Slightly Improved Drow -> Upgrade Ust Natha's defences: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8150 // Slightly Improved Watcher's Keep: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8160 // Improved Fire Giant temple: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8170 // Enhanced Sendai's Enclave: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8180 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8190 // Improved Minor Encounters: v30 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #100 // Restore innate infravision to Half-Orc characters: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #101 // Prevent skeletal and incorporeal undead from being affected by Illithids' Devour Brain attack: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #102 // Change Spiritual Hammer into a ranged force weapon: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #104 // PnP Color Spray: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #105 // PnP Dimension Door: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #110 // Magical arrows and bolts deal bonus damage equal to their enchantment level: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #117 // Allow Mages to scribe memorized spells onto scrolls -> Scrolls can only be scribed at inns and strongholds: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #120 // Restore innate disease immunity to Paladins: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #125 // Rangers' Animal Empathy improves with experience: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #130 // Additional racial traits for Dwarves: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #140 // Additional racial traits for Gnomes: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #152 // PnP Fiends -> Mod-added fiends are also affected: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #155 // Further Revised Fiend Summoning: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #156 // Fiendish gating: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #160 // PnP Undead: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #180 // PnP Mephits: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #185 // PnP Fey creatures: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #186 // Revised Call Woodland Beings spell: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #190 // PnP Elementals: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #191 // Increase the Hit Dice of Elemental Princes: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #200 // Allow Breach to take down Stoneskin effects applied by items: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #201 // Instant casting for warrior innates: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #202 // Revised Bhaalpowers -> Enhance the Bhaalpowers and standardize their casting time: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #218 // Regain Bhaalpowers in ToB: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #203 // Make druidic shapeshifting uninterruptable: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #211 // Make Death Ward protect against Vorpal Hits: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #210 // Restore the Dispel Magic vulnerability to Nishruu and Hakeashars: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #212 // Make alignment detection spells more accurate: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #213 // Expanded saving throw bonus tables for Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #270 // Unbiased quest rewards: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #300 // Use Icewind Dale's Dimension Door animation -> Fast animation speed (matches IWD): v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #302 // Change the appearance of the Robe of Vecna: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #310 // Distinctive creature coloring: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #315 // Distinctive creature soundsets: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #500 // Slightly expanded storage capacity for containers -> Use the recommended storage capacity value (999): v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #510 // Expanded temple services: v4.42 ~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #999 // BG2-style icons for aTweaks content: v4.42 ~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #10 // Improved Ilyich (requires ToB): v0.61 alpha 2016011401 ~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #11 // The Ritual (requires ToB): v0.61 alpha 2016011401 ~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #12 // Improved TorGal and De'Arnisse Keep: v0.61 alpha 2016011401 ~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #16 // Improved Guarded Compound in the Temple District: v0.61 alpha 2016011401 ~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #17 // Improved Twisted Rune: v0.61 alpha 2016011401 ~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #18 // "Kuroisan", the Acid Kensai: v0.61 alpha 2016011401 ~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #19 // "Red Badge" Poison-Based Encounter: v0.61 alpha 2016011401 ~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #21 // Gebhard Blucher's Lich in the Docks: v0.61 alpha 2016011401 ~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #24 // Kensai Ryu's Gnome Fighter/Illusionist in the Docks: v0.61 alpha 2016011401 ~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #47 // Anti-Paladin Kit: v0.61 alpha 2016011401
-Ascension -BG2 Tweaks with maxed HP for everyone, 100% spell learning, PnP spell progressions. -IWDification -Rogue Rebalancing -SCS with full prebuffing + every casters get HLAs + every improved encounters -ATweaks -Tactics EE
Rules :
-Solo -Insane -No-Reload -No prebuffs except spells with a duration of at least one hour -Nightmare Mode -Ctrl-Y the Mephits in the starting dungeon. -Limited use of summons (except Clone spells)
Right after the intro, I free Jaheira and Minsc, who both have more than 280 HP to give you an idea of Nightmare Mode, for the xp and remove everyone from the party.
I don't even try to fight the PnP Mephits from ATweaks, these critters are so strong (they can blind/stun you to death at will, even one of them is absolutely lethal to any solo character, so a few of them, each able to gate other ones, in nightmare mode ...) that I prefer to Ctrl-Y them, I sneak past the Ogre-Mage and immediately activate the Golem.
I follow him, still invisible and fight the Greater Otyugh from Tactics. Hide in Plain Sight allows me to backstab it endlessly without moving or taking any risks, after a total of 397 damage it finally falls to the ground, releasing an Insect Plague spell at the same time.
Then I proceed to clear everything I can before the major battle, I loot the quatterstaff+1, the Dagger +2 (replacing the Sword of Chaos +2 from the genie) killing the dryads in the process and I killed every enemies I could in the area, including all Duergars and the Ogre Mage.
I start to attack Zhivago from the Improved Ilyich encounter to begin to do some damage but my priority is the Glabrezu as it is the only one here who can innately see through Invisibility.
I lure it a bit further in the tunnels and take it out without any problems with an AC of -14 (Spirit Armor + 21 Dex + Blur + Shadow Door + Prot from Evil + Helm of Balduran), he managed to destroy my Mirror Image but not my Stoneskin, perfect.
Then I start to deal with the rest of the party, it's incredibly long because they are constantly moving which makes it hard to backstab them, they all have more than 300 HP and Ilyich frequently uses a fatigue spell which reduces my damage rolls to the minimum amount, soon enough I can't hit Zhavigo except on a critical hit and my backstabs only deal 29 damage to the others (and Ilyich isn't even possible to backstab because he is a Barbarian).
But after a long battle I killed them all except Zhivago then I rest to get rid of the fatigue effect and I can finish the Priest of Talos.
At this point I'm really happy of the outcome, Hide in Plain Sight rules supreme.
I skip most of the second level, lurking in the shadows but I still open chests and look what I found so early in the game.
A Simulacrum Scroll in the starting dungeon, I didn't even know it was possible but I like it!
Finally I exit the complex, I'm already at Day 2 Hour 7 with only one rest. I literally fought Improved Ilyich for more than a day in the game; the whole dungeon took me more than 3-4 hours of real time, but it was really satisfying.
Right now I feel a bit lost, everything seems so dangerous ...
Hey @Gotural, a very interesting setup you have there.
First of all congrats on surviving Improved Ilych! I've never tried that component (I understood it was very buggy in combination with other mods I used to play with), but am curious to try out with EETactics. It looks very tough... but so does your character, approaching the SoA level cap in Irenicus' Dungeon.
I'm looking forward to reading more. Since you're already close to 3 million XP and thus to HLAs I have a word of warning for you. I see you're playing with Triple Class HLAs and with the SCS component that treats caster HLAs as innate abilities. As I said in one of my last posts, Bardin's divine Quest Spells did not show up behind the innate abilities button (only his Thief HLAs did). I opened EEKeeper to manually add the spell I wanted, but found that in EEKeeper, the spell did register as an innate ability. This means the issue was with the special abilities bar in-game. I ended up uninstalling the relevant SCS component, so now caster HLAs for both Charname and enemies are level 7 spells (for priests) or level 9 spells (for wizards), as per vanilla. My advice: make a test-save, add a couple million XP to your character with EEKeeper (enough to cast level 9 spells), level up, pick some wizard HLAs, and check whether they actually appear behind your innate abilities button.
I also have a question for you. I see you've installed p&p spell progression tables, which I know means more spells Can you confirm whether this table applies to enemy casters as well? For example, by checking a few ToB wizards in EEKeeper to see if they have the extra spell slots and if they're actually filled with spells? I'd be very grateful for that.
The inspiration for this run came from the realization that Fire Seeds could apply on-hit effects to groups of enemies, the realization that Wizard Slayers dealt 25% spell failure per hit rather than 10%, and the realization that level 10 Spirit Animals struck with +6 weapons, and could therefore strike through Improved Mantle. I had taken an interest in how to disrupt enemy mages without having to break through their many defenses, as I play with pre-buffs and SCS enemies use a lot.
Therefore, the basis of this run was our three anti-mage characters: Zulfer, the Assassin dualed to fighter at level 9; Ruva, the Wizard Slayer dualed to thief at level 7; and Laosha, the Totemic Druid. These three would allow me to bypass nearly all defenses. Zulfer and Ruva could apply poison and arcane spell failure via Fire Seeds conjured by Laosha, whose Spirit Animals could poison or deal cold damage and paralyze enemies through Improved Mantle if not PFMW.
This left me with three vacancies. I felt I had not used Called Shot to its full effectiveness in previous runs--I knew Called Shot could guarantee failed saves against disablers, which are normally too unreliable for no-reload runs. So I created Azelos, our Archer, with the intention of using her to disable specific enemies or kill them with STR drain. Arcane power was missing from these four characters, so I added a sorcerer, Yorun Zovai.
Finally, I chose a Shadowdancer to be our Charname, so that Charname would always have a reliable escape option. But because we already had a thief and we were short of divine spellpower, I decided to make it a Shadowdancer/Cleric, which would give us much better durability against disablers, and compensate for the fact that our saves were so poor, as none of our characters was a dwarf, halfling, or gnome. Hence, Viora the Shadowdancer, dualed to cleric at level 9. Three dual-classes in a single party would cause some problems early on, but I figured Laosha and Azelos would be able to help us along. As these were low-level dual-classes, the downtime wouldn't be too severe.
I was going to post a short summary of each battle, but the resulting summary is over 12 pages in Microsoft Word and isn't that interesting. So I'll skip to the analysis. Which is only 4 pages.
Our Characters Over the Course of the Game:
In the early game, Laosha was our most valuable character, as his Spirit Animals were much more resilient than our own party members. They were immune to normal weapons and essentially all disablers. While Zulfer was recovering his Assassin levels, Ruva dealt with many early-game mages.
As we tackled stronger enemies in larger areas, we relied more heavily on the PWWP strategy (Provoke, Weaken, Withdraw, Pounce), in which we attacked the enemy with weak summons to draw out their strongest buffs and attack spells, ran or hid to escape, and then attacked again when the enemy was weakened.
Zulfer recovered his Assassin levels, and he began to take on a larger and larger role in the party. He was able to take down most enemies, especially mages, without party assistance because he dealt 12 extra poison damage per hit when he used Poison Weapon, even on a successful save. After we got Sanchuudoku by debuffing Cookies with an Arrow of Dispelling from a Vhailor's Helm simulacrum and then stunning him with the Wand of Paralyzation, Zulfer was able to roll over most encounters, even without Poison Weapon. For encounters he couldn't handle, we fell back on the PWWP strategy.
I started to rely more and more on Fire Seeds, as they proved able to inflict poison damage and spell failure despite weapon immunities. This culminated in our early assault on the Shade Lich and Elemental Lich, in which Ruva took them down almost single-handedly by throwing Fire Seeds at our Flesh Golem, which we made sure to keep very close to our real target, alongside her clone. This was more than sufficient to wait out both their PFMW pre-buff and contingency. The liches were helpless.
Underscoring just how big a difference that made, when I failed to use the same trick on Tolgerias, and instead opted for a low-pressure, PWWP-style approach, he crushed us, and Ruva got chunked. With Fire Seeds, we could take on the strongest mages in the game and win easily. Without them, we were hopelessly outmatched.
Ruva's importance grew as time went on. Her traps dealt massive physical damage in some important fights; her spell failure destroyed mages. Other places, Zulfer took down enemies with raw damage and poison.
Then we fought Firkraag, and I noticed something important. I had planned on using Azelos to kill Firkraag with Called Shot. But in the end, Zulfer killed Firkraag simply by virtue of Poison Weapon. When I looked back on things, Azelos had never played a star role. She was even less impactful than Yorun Zovai, who had lost tons of XP due to being chunked and whose greatest contribution to fights tended to be haste spells. Viora barely ever took action, preferring to hide in safety, but Viora's buffs kept the party safe. Azelos was our least valuable character.
We grew increasingly reliant on Zulfer. When we fought the Twisted Rune and a single mistake--getting the timing wrong for Repulse Undead--Yoren Zovai chunked again and everyone but Viora killed, Zulfer was the first person we raised, and he killed every last enemy in the area, by himself. He continued to dominate gameplay with a few rare exceptions, like Viora turning the vampires in Bodhi's lair, or Ruva halting Kangaxx's spellcasting. He also did most of the work in the fight against Irenicus in Hell, though not by as much as usual.
Azelos, fittingly, got chunked in the final battle. I had long noticed that Yorun Zovai was not cutting it, and her lack of versatility was causing problems. So I got rid of Azelos the Archer entirely, and replaced her with Azelos the Conjurer. I also re-created Yorun Zovai to get a stronger sorcerer; her two chunking incidents left her with less XP than a ToB-generated character.
Ruva destroyed Illasera with traps; our mages tore through Saradush with Horrid Wilting and triple Sunfire Spell Triggers. Zulfer was no longer our star character, though he remained our primary tank.
He played his best hand in ToB against the Fire Giants, who killed him the first time around. Only with Roranach's Horn could he survive. And once we had slain a few giants, Laosha suddenly catapulted to level 23, gaining access to Earth Elemental form and becoming, instantly, the far superior tank to Zulfer.
Right after we reached this milestone, Ruva got chunked by a Prismatic Spray trap. This was a hideous blow, particularly because, as an early dual-class build, she could not be replaced by re-creating her in ToB. We therefore took her in an entirely different direction and made her into a Bounty Hunter.
It was a good decision in retrospect; we arguably gained even more than we lost. Throughout the third level of Watcher's Keep, Ruva completely broke every major encounter save Aesgareth, simply because, if Azelos merely blinded her with PW: Blind, she could send an entire room of enemies away for several rounds, with no save, bypassing magic resistance and even spell protections. The enemies came back in a slow trickle, allowing us to take them down one or two at a time. She made a huge difference in each fight, crippling the enemy's ability to fight by reducing their damage pressure to a fraction of what it normally was, and she never even used all her traps.
Zulfer saw his role magnify later on, as we fought large groups of melee-oriented enemies, but he was never the deciding factor. It was Ruva who was throwing the Maze traps that kept deadly enemies from attacking us.
Then Yorun Zovai started casting Wish via Project Image. It was ridiculous. I had regarded Wish as too unreliable a spell, but even when we didn't get to Wish-rest, the benefits were significant, and with Project Image, we had so many castings that the chance of a rest was very high indeed. And then I realized that although mages had the advantage in SoA, when versatility is so useful, sorcerers had the advantage in ToB, when the spells to use in any given battle so often boil down to PFMW, SI, Time Stop, Wish, and a damage spell and a debuffer. Level 9 spell slots made Yorun Zovai far more useful than Azelos.
When we got to Draconis, Zulfer's relevance shrank even further. It was not raw damage that let us win out over Draconis and his various goons; it was Maze traps and Wish-resting to restore our high-intensity HLAs.
Then we got the Scorcher Ammunition, and Zulfer almost ceased to matter at all. We should have gotten rid of him, but instead I re-created Laosha, making him into an Archer in the mistake belief that I'd be using Called Shot all the time now that the Scorcher Ammunition with Improved Haste would effectively give us 20 attacks per round because of its double strike. Laosha was now our best damage dealer by far, and Ruva, with the Yellow Dragon Scale, the Defender of Easthaven, and Laosha's old Earth Elemental Token, was our primary tank by far. Laosha could hit Ruva with the Scorcher Ammunition and everything in between them would suffer 310 damage per round.
Laosha crushed everything in Abazigal's Lair, including Abazigal and Tamah.
Laosha crushed everything in Sendai's Enclave, including Sendai and all of her clones.
Laosha crushed the Ravager in the Pocket Plane.
And when we finally reached the Throne of Bhaal, despite all the complexity of the fight and all of the optimizations, Laosha crushed Irenicus and a Fallen Solar. He would have crushed Bodhi, too, if Balthazar hadn't gotten her during Time Stop, and he would have gotten the other Fallen Planetar if they were just a little closer together. And he crushed the demons in the second phase.
He nearly killed Abazigal, until Ruva had to Maze him to save our Planetar. He killed Sendai, almost instantly. He damage-locked Melissan, blocking her spells. He would have killed Abazigal if it did not require him to let go of Melissan. He killed Sarevok. He did most of the damage against Illasera. He did most of the damage against Gromnir. He killed the Fallen Planetar. He killed Yaga-Shura. And he killed Melissan.
Findings:
A Shadowdancer protagonist that could cast cleric buffs on herself meant that our Charname was practically impossible to kill. Her buffs became nearly impossible to remove due to her high cleric levels, granting her and the party comprehensive and nearly-undispellable immunities. Weapons were a non-issue. She could run away from melee weapons and bounce missiles with the Shield of Reflection. Not that she often needed to; she could just vanish whenever she wanted. The only time she came close to death was when she encountered area-effect spell damage. Once she got a hold of the Cloak of Mirroring, there was practically nothing that could kill her.
Fire Seeds are terribly effective means of dealing poison and spell failure. A Wizard Slayer or an Assassin or Blackguard can break many encounters with just four Fire Seeds from a single casting. Their ability to bypass defenses makes them fantastic anti-mage tools.
Even without Fire Seeds, Poison Weapon and Wizard Slayer spell failure have a major impact on gameplay. They both bypass Stoneskin, and both are crippling to mages.
Spirit Animals are also excellent anti-mage tools, as they can disrupt and disable through Improved Mantle and will resist enemy disablers. On top of that, they're immune to normal weapons, which makes them more or less invincible against many early game encounters. Also, you can summon more than one per round.
Sorcerers suffer from a lack of flexibility in SoA, where there are all kinds of valuable spells to use at every spell level. There's much diversity in SoA, both in terms of spell picks and in encounters. But in ToB, when the biggest spells are the best spells, being able to chain-cast Wish and Time Stop and the like is usually the best option regardless of the circumstances.
The Earth Elemental Token in ToB is incredibly strong, even if you reduce the resistances from 100% to 50%. That sort of survivability is very useful in the melee-heavy environments that you often see in ToB. What especially makes it poweful is that it's perfectly compatible with all of the other resistance-boosting items and spells available, including the Yellow Dragon Scale and 25% physical damage resistance boost that Ascension introduces.
If you do have a character with immunity to missile and fire damage, the Scorcher Ammunition is by far the most powerful item around, so long as you don't roast your own party with it. It can rapidly destroy the toughest enemies in the game, despite all weapon immunities. And like Fire Seeds, it can apply on-hit effects to groups of enemies. Poison Weapon will tack on 240 poison damage per round. A Wizard Slayer will apply 500% spell failure per round. Power Attack will force 20 saves vs. death at -4 per round, a virtual guarantee of a failed save. Called Shot will drain 20 STR and apply a -20 penalty to saves vs. spell per round. Any creature with 33 STR or less will die on the second round. Almost nothing matters with the Scorcher Ammunition in hand.
Blind Bounty Hunters at level 21 or higher can bail you out of nearly any situation. Almost nothing is immune to Maze, and Maze traps let you fight huge battles as a series of small skirmishes, vastly reducing the amount of pressure on your party. They also wear out enemy buffs like PFMW.
This party turned out a lot stronger than I thought, especially considering we had characters get chunked on five separate occasions. It's been a wild run, and a lot of weird stuff has happened. This has been a success.
and I remember @Blackraven reported she has some kind of Improved Alacrity, she can cast spells very quickly.
I vaguely remember me mentioning this. However, what may have happened is Krystin finishing one spell (conceivably one with a longer casting time) near the end of one round, and following up with a spell with a short casting time the next round. That may cause the impression of an alacrity-like ability. My current Cleric/Thief has this when casting e.g. Righteous Magic followed by DUHM. Righteous Magic has a casting time of 9, so takes almost a complete round to cast. This means that at most one tick later, Bardin can already cast DUHM.
I'm sorry to be a bit (or maybe too much...) edifying (aunty Jaheira influence without doubt) but seems you are in the clutches of some delusions, @Blackraven. One round in BG is 6 seconds, not 10. So if the spell has casting time 9 it's 1.5 rounds total.
One round in BG is 6 seconds, not 10. So if the spell has casting time 9 it's 1.5 rounds total.
I see your edifying and I raise you pedantic nitpicking.
Spell casting time is quoted as a number from 1 to 10, where 10 is the length of a round. Yes a round lasts 6 seconds, so a casting time of 3 should take 6 * (3/10) = 1.8 seconds.
One round in BG is 6 seconds, not 10. So if the spell has casting time 9 it's 1.5 rounds total.
I see your edifying and I raise you pedantic nitpicking.
Spell casting time is quoted as a number from 1 to 10, where 10 is the length of a round. Yes a round lasts 6 seconds, so a casting time of 3 should take 6 * (3/10) = 1.8 seconds.
Well, seems I'm the one on delusion all this time. Thanks for clarifying!
@Blackraven Thank you for your interest and your kind words.
Concerning Improved Ilyich, I trained myself with 3 differents characters, including a copy of Anselm my Blackguard. I think it is very difficult because you don't have a lot of equipment and in my opinion it prevents a lot of character builds from doing it. It is also during these training that I learned to hate the PnP Mephits , everytime I would playtest Improved Ilyich I was more concerned about these little abominations and I would told myself that I should simply uninstall the component.
They have this ability for example
"Sooty Ball
A Smoke Mephit's breath weapon consists of a sooty hall usable every other melee round, an unlimited number of times per day. This sooty hall automatically strikes one creature of the mephit's choice within 20 feet dealing 1d4 points of poison damage and blinding the target for 1 round (no save)."
Or this one
"Water Jet
Steam mephits can breathe a scalding jet of water every other round. The jet automatically hits one target within 20 feet and deals 1d3 points of fire damage. There is also a 50% chance that the target will be stunned for 1 round (no save)."
They all have spells to stun or blind you with a save, which at this point of the game is suicide, but some of them don't even offer a save like the two mentionned above.
But I figured that there are probably a few Mephits later in the game and that it could be interesting to fight them later on with better stuff and more options, so I kept the component and decided to allow myself to Ctrl-Y them in the starting dungeon.
You are right about my character, very strong with a lot of experience from BG:EE thanks to mod added encounters like Dark Horizons. At first I thought that my character was too strong for the run to be interesting but then I remembered about the Nightmare Mode and I thought that 2,100,000 XP at the start of BG2:EE was pretty much the XP I could have get if I played Nightmare Mode in BG:EE so it was a good match.
Concerning HLAs, it is normal that they don't appear in the special abilities bar in-game, they should still appear in the casting menu. The component mainly prevent them from being picked more than once, give you one casting per day freely and most importantly prevent Simulacrums / Project Images to use them.
Here is a screenshot of Yami edited with 9,000,000 XP.
The HLAs are next to my Shadow Door and Summon Air Elemental spells.
Finally about the PnP spell progressions, I always thought that enemies could use them because SCS is installed after BG2Tweaks but your question was very interesting so I looked in EE:Keeper as you asked me.
I chose a Demilich, which is a level 35 Mage with SCS.
According to the PnP table it should have 8/8/8/8/8/8/8/7/7 spells per day, in EE:Keeper it has 9/9/9/9/9/10/10/9/8 instead which is normal because:
-SCS give kits to a lot of Mages, thus +1 spell per day / levels -The Demilich has the HLAs +1 spell per day at level 6,7 and 8
So the mod is working perfectly fine for enemies I'm kind of relieved because I would have feel a bit guilty if it didn't.
One round in BG is 6 seconds, not 10. So if the spell has casting time 9 it's 1.5 rounds total.
I see your edifying and I raise you pedantic nitpicking.
Spell casting time is quoted as a number from 1 to 10, where 10 is the length of a round. Yes a round lasts 6 seconds, so a casting time of 3 should take 6 * (3/10) = 1.8 seconds.
The explanation is correct but, in fact, the spellcasting time goes from 0 (pseudo-instant) to 9, idem with the weapon speed. Obviously not a fundamental remark but this is what we see in the item/spell descriptions (and these are the numbers found in the code objects too). That does not mean you can cast several spells within a one tick timewindow but this clock tick is shorter than a 0.6 second segment.
So if you cast a slow spell first, you can have the illusion of being under Improved Alacrity while you are not.
This aura management is very important because it can affect your character performance significantly.
Let's imagine that instead of waiting, @Blackraven 's character will now attack. If he casts DUHM followed by Righteous Magic the damage output will be inferior and his buffs will be desynchronised.
DUHM followed by Righteous Magic, attacking between spells over 2 rounds:
In both situations, the character casts the same spells and attacks as many times, but in the second example his attacks benefit a lot more from his buffs.
This is why in yesterday's MP session with @bengoshi , @Tresset and @CrevsDaak I equipped the Boots of Speed against the Ogre-Mage in Cloakwood Mines, waited for it to waste his aura with a Chromatic Orb (casting time 1) against the Skeleton Warrior summoned by Lucius then I rushed him, attacked him once and retreated immediately out of sight, waiting for it to waste his aura once again against the skelly before attacking again, and so forth.
This is also the perfect moment to explain why I think the Robe of Vecna is better used by a Fighter/Mage (or F/M/T, F/M/C, whatever) than by a single class spellcaster.
Because you aura is consumed at the start of your casting, equipping Edwin for example with the Robe of Vecna won't actually make him better with his spellcasting because sure, he will finish to cast his spells earlier in the round, but he will have to wait more afterward between two spells.
While a Fighter/Mage, by decreasing the amount of time needed to cast a spell, will be able to attack a lot more which translates into a huge APR gain equals to more than two speed weapons in the best case.
If a Fighter/Mage wants to cast Simulacrum (casting time 9) and attack in the same round, he will only have 0.6 seconds to do so (the last fraction of the round) while if he has the Robe equipped, his casting time will decrease to 5 and he will have 3 seconds instead to attack (+400%, better than Belm and Kundane together)
Of course the situation is totally different if your spellcaster is under the effect of Improved Alacrity.
And finally, this is the reason I dislike speed weapons and think they are overrated, especially for hybrids characters like F/M and so forth, because I use my aura to cast a spell every rounds and there is a lot of movement involved in this game so I don't have the time to benefit from the increased APR, I think 8 APR is plenty enough.
I hope I managed to be clear in spite of my poor english and that I didn't forget anything!
I just tested what you said @Musigny and you are right, casting time 9 equals an entire round. I was confused because some spells have a casting time of 1 round displayed in their descriptions so I always assumed that 9 was slightly faster than 1 round.
You guys discussing the epic stuff, when we hardly survived the 5-6th levels' fight
The Monty Python's adventures!
The moment of danger (not only the Lucius's status, but also Hadhod's HPs):
The moment of joy:
Genthore continued to attack Drassisseilla, who was Mirror Imaged and kited as much as it was possible. Then he managed a critical hit that went through Mirror Images - "you can't rely on Mirror Images in a no-reload run".
Crev's and GemHound's characters were not used in the fight - so their deaths didn't mean anything.
All this time Hadhog was healing himself with potions (even elixirs of health were used) inside the building, Drasus waited for him outside. Lucius took a necklace of fireballs and avenged Drassisseilla.
Dwarven brothers decided to try their chances against Drasus and Rezdan.
It went well. The potion of fire breath inflicted 40 damage on Drasus, while the potion of magic blocking protected Lucius till he stunned Rezdan. Stunned him 4 times in a row.
Then we took on Kysus, sharing damage of his spells between two dwarfs.
In that battle, we used everything we had. 3 potions of magic blocking. The necklace of fireballs. Wands of Fire and paralysis.
We belived till the end, even when the situation became critical.
Now, if we could take down Davaeorn, we would get access to even more potions and wands. We were joined by CrevsDaak, so our FMT could finally help.
We had lengthly talks about who would deal with Davaeorn one on one, and it was decided that charname should do it. In my opinion, tanking Davaeorn under the Protection from Magic is the easiest part of this fight. Just run, don't let yourself be hit by Battle Horrors.
As for the "entrance group", their task is harder, they should constantly fight arriving guards. I thought Hadhod who had better THAC0 and damage, higher APR than Lucius, would be better suited for that task. Tresset and Crevs had to support Gotural with spells and wands.
My main aim for the Davaeorn was not to let him attack the main group who protected the entrance. I just blocked the mage's way every time he wanted to go that way. Battle Horrors at first tried to go after me, but in the end they attacked the main group. And this main group, they were cool. Of course, I was concentrating on Davaeorn but I still saw that they were fine.
One moment, the game just freezed for several seconds, and when it resumed, one Battle Horror was dead.
When all the guards were defeated, only Davaeorn was left, but it was only a question of time. The funniest part was when I couldn't see Dave, but others attacked him and killed. My game just didn't show Davaeorn. And then we couldn't find his corpse. Apparently, he was so afraid of us that disappeared in the wall. We cluaconsoled him to finish the quest.
This time, we didn't lose anyone, and felt much more sure about the outcome than with the first Monty Python group. We used our resourses well and it paid off.
I just tested what you said @Musigny and you are right, casting time 9 equals an entire round. I was confused because some spells have a casting time of 1 round displayed in their descriptions so I always assumed that 9 was slightly faster than 1 round.
This is not exactly what I meant As you said you can't cast another spell during the same round unless you are under improved alacrity. Anyway, the engine does not allow you to cast several spells within a single tick of its internal tick clock (15 subdivisions of a second IIRC but I never tried to verify - or is it 15 segments of a wait() unit time). You can easily see it when casting under improved alacrity (if not under time stop), you'll see the graphical evolution of your projectiles, spell after spell, even if your casting time is 0 (short casting time + vecna).
Btw, I concur with your rationale about the vecna allocation to a party member. This works well until one of your mage/sorcerer can cast improved alacrity. After this transition, I am not that sure that the F/M/* is the best choice for vecna if (s)he is in competition with another caster. As tactical players, we may also notice that under the vecna effect we have less chance to be interrupted as we reduce the casting time. Probably a minor use case but not entirely neglectable, perhaps more obvious with a C/M of some sort when (s)he is casting cleric spells with a long casting time.
@Gotural Many thanks for your attempt to use eetactics. This is much appreciated. I would like to add a few comments to improve the situation. In the tactics readme I tried to indicate some (possible) conflicts with SCS. Let me describe it a little bit more.
Improved Ilyich conflicts with SCS Make the starting dungeon slightly harder. Honestly I do not know what would result from combining the two. For sure you fail to install the party/proletariat groups on the second map but I am also sure that the Ilyich group itself works ok. I do not know whether the SCS feature preventing from resting more than once is active. If so, that's probably a nightmare for most players. I think it is fair to kill the atweaks mephits with a ctrl-y. I will revert the atweaks modifications for this first dungeon in a default installation but this is not coded yet. Btw for other readers, I recommend using option 1 at install time as I will temporarily remove most install options prior to creating an external reference file where players can set their SCS compatibility preferences.
Improved Guarded Compound and Improved Twisted Rune conflict with SCS improved minor encounters. However in that case I expect Tactics to "override" SCS. If something goes wrong, just tell me I'll indicate which scripts to remove. I think you will get some unexpected and unused potions from SCS.
Kuroisan, redbadge, lich in the dock, gnome. No pb expected. I did not want to edit the general baldur / baldur25 scripts and I preferred to restrict Kuroisan appearance to certain areas = outdoors area in Athkatla. Easy to modify if you think he should also be seen elsewhere. You may also try to use Kensai Ryu's guardians in the room above Kangaxx's room without modifying SCS Kangaxx (see options at install time, install KR guardians, do not install WWeimer Kangaxx). They are not prefect but they are much better than their original flavor.
Improved Torgal conflicts with SCS Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix"). Here I have no clue about the resulting mix. Let's be cautious and I regret to invite you to remove that eetactics component from your install. This is sad because I think this is a really good component with non stupid trolls, unmodified Yuanti mage (meaning they automatically inherit SCS mages features if this is installed) and Torgal itself has a different flavor.
The Ritual, no conflict but I just want to let you know that Ender was not fully "fixed". This just means that he may still hide (about 8 attempts to go invisible) without attacking. Therefore preventing the nearby skull from being killed. If you cannot break his invisibility do not hesitate to cheat him (he is not immune to area spells etc...). Apparently I unintentionally roled back a modification.
I would be glad to see someone using G. Blucher's improved Mae'Var, you can deploy him on top of SCS.
@Blackraven Crash conditions were removed in several components, including Ilyich, Torgal/DeArnise, Lich in the dock, KR Kangaxx guardians and components linked to WK.
Interesting discussion on spell-casting and aura management.
@Gotural, thanks for checking verifying the implementation of p&p tables in enemy casters. Really good to know that it's actually working. My future installs will include these p&p tables. More spells = more epicness... Also, I'm a bit jealous that in your install the Caster HLAs as Innates component does seem to be working EDIT: oops, *tries Minsc voice* I understand now! I had to look under the cast spell button. Hmm I might reinstall the mod then... As to aTweaks' p&p mephits, I concur. They're lightning fast when they want to, making retreating and hiding virtually impossible, and they have very dangerous abilities. Im no longer playing with that component.
@semiticgod, re: our previous discussion of ways to counter Emotion: Hopelessness (or other Sleep effects), unlike the vanilla spell description, the updated EE spell description of Chaotic Commands explicitly states that it protects against Sleep effects. Something to keep in mind maybe
I have an update on Bardin. It doesn't cover as many quests as my last update, but it's a bit long anyway, due to the fact that it includes the Planar Sphere, which I consider one of the more challenging stronghold quests.
Bardin, LN Cleric/Thief, in SoA (Part 4)
Watcher's Keep (first level)
Bardin left the sewers, considering himself or rather his summons not ready to descend into a Beholder lair. While rummaging through his Wolfskin bag (an Unfinished Business addition), he found a cask of ale that he'd bought in Trademeet for Mironda, a Dwarven Wild Mage at the Hidden Refuge. He had al but forgotten about this errand. He trekked to the camp, handed the Dwarf the cask, got a magical healing tankard with his name on it as a reward and, being in the vicinity, traveled to Watcher's Keep. Inside the Keep, two Vampiric Wraiths taught Bardin that he needed to properly buff if he was to defeat them,
so he retreated and indeed returned fully buffed (hasted even with an oil of speed) to deal with the creatures.
He proceeded to vanquish several Trolls (melee), and found himself rewarded with his first HLA. He picked UAI, and traveled to Athkatla for shopping. He made two purchases: the Robe of Vecna for its increased casting speed, and the Scarlet Ninja-To as his go-to off-hand weapon. Upon his return to Watcher's Keep, five weird, poisonous creatures waylaid him. Luckily for Bardin, they were so noble as to only warn him of a future battle; they didn't attack, yet.
Back inside the Keep, Bardin slew about seven or eight Mustard Jellies (Fire Storm) as well as Shadow Fiend summoning Devil Shades. The Shadow Fiends Bardin simply exploded with his Turn Undead ability,
while the Devil Shades fell in melee combat (at the expense of another oil of speed). Finally the Gnome dispatched a number of Golems, including two Guardian Golems in the room of an undead priest, with the help of Kitty and an Aerial Servant.
Bardin reached his next level-up, as a Cleric, and picked Summon Deva as his first Quest Spell. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned before in this thread, SCS Caster HLAs as Innates didn't appear behind Bardin's special abilities button, so I uninstalled that component, and Bardin picked Assassination as his second HLA instead of Summon Deva. The reason for this different pick was that he only had one level 7 spell slot in his spellbook so far. The Gnome understood he'd better wait with Cleric HLAs until he had more level 7 spell slots. My single class rogues have never got great mileage out of Assassination, but for a Cleric/Thief this should be an interesting HLA when properly used: Chant/Bless/Holy Power/DUHM to improve Thac0 and damage, Righteous Magic for maximum damage each hit, Improved Haste from an item such as the Improved Cloak of Protection +2 or Bracers of Blinding Strike, followed by Assassination. When dual-wielding with a speed weapon (Belm or Kundane) in the off-hand, Bardin would land six maximum damage x5 backstabs - seven with the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization - in a single round provided there are no (critical) misses. (Another option would be to use the Short Sword of Backstabbing for a x6 basckstab modifier.) Setting up such an attack may not always be easy, though I could see it work in combination with time traps. It's one of several possible Cleric/Thief synergies that I'm eager to ascertain in this run. The Cleric/Thief is occasionally maligned for lacking synergies or at least seen as inferior to the Fighter/Thief and Mage/Thief. In this run I intend to find out ways to make the most of a Cleric/Thief, especially at higher levels.
Planar Sphere
Bardin revisited Valygar's cabin, and was glad to find his quarry there this time. When Valygar told Bardin his side of the story, the two traveled to Athkatla, not to turn the Stalker in with the Cowled Wizards, but to enter the Planar Sphere. Valygar's presence opened the Sphere and Bardin told his companion to wait at the entrance. The Gnome killed a Golem and found a key which caused the Sphere to initiate planar travel as soon as he used it to open a door. Bardin slew several Sahuagin with a Fire Storm and then rested.
Wild Halflings He battled his way past a couple of Wild Halfling warriors, but halted while under the cover of stealth before two casters of their kin. The Gnome retreated and sent an Aerial Servant to clean them up, but the wizard Kayardi Dimension Doored right to Bardin. Protected by Spell Deflection, PfMW and Spell Shield, Kayardi was nigh invulnerable for a few rounds at least. While the Aerial Servant occupied itself with Kayardi's companions, Bardin retreated further. He was too slow though to prevent his opponent from casting an ADHW at him. Fortunately the Belt of the Inertial Barrier and stellar Gnomish saves prevented the spell from doing much harm.
The rogue priest then summoned three Skeleton Warriors, and sent them to deal with Kayardi one after the other so that a Death Spell wouldn't remove them all at once. Kayardi wasted several potentially lethal spells (think Finger of Death, though Bardin could of course always rely on Death Ward) on the Skeletons but failed to cast Death Spell or, less probable, Death Fog. The Halfling's (unenchanted) weapon was ineffective, so it was only a matter of time before Bardin's Skeletons finished him. Kayardi's own Skeleton Warriors couldn't prevent that.
Bardin instructed his Skeleton Warriors to occupy themselves with Kayardi's summons, and then moved on to face the other Halflings. The Aerial Servant had slain two more warriors, but Entu and Mogadish made short work of Bardin's injured Skeleton Warriors. Bardin Holy Smote the two twice, and retreated when they came after him. He finished Entu with a backstab, and Mogadish with a Flamestrike after the Gnome's backstab dealt insufficient damage.
(Generally Bardin's regular, unbuffed backstabs have been a bit underwhelming, but I expected that when I decided I'd have him wield clubs and shields.) Finally Togan fell to a backstab from Bardin and a damaging attack from the Gnome's trusty Aerial Servant. Necre was unlike Kayardi in that he Death Spelled Bardin's Aerial Servant, before he Dimension Doored to Bardin. The Gnome was hidden in shadows, so there was little Necre could do other than trying to detect Bardin's exact whereabouts. The Gnome retreated and had his Efreeti burn Necre to death.
Kitty, rendered Improved Invisible by Bardin's Air Elemental Ring, then killed Taibela with poison, and helped dispatching two more warriors and three Fire Elementals.
Lavok Three hostile Golems (2x Stone, 1x Juggernaut) were too much for Kitty, but not for buffed up Bardin.
A non-hostile Guardian Golem slew an Elder Orb, paving the way for Bardin to Lavok. Hidden in shadows Bardin approached the Necromancer, observed him and thought the wizard looked almost like a Lich, not like a very nice person. The Gnome buffed himself extensively, including protections against fire (should a Comet or Dragon's Breath come his way) and electricity. Lavok proved an unfriendly type indeed, greeting Bardin with an ADHW as soon as the Gnome had made himself seen.
For some reason Lavok was Protected from Cold (cast previously) but not from Fire, ideal for a Fire Storm, thought Bardin. The Gnome was not mistaken:
However, Lavok managed to get away from the Fire Storm's AoE (and from Bardin), and cast another ADHW, on himself. With several protections activated (Improved Mantle, Absolute Immunity, Globe of Invulnerability, Spell Shield) Lavok left Bardin little chance of getting a quick kill. The Gnome retreated into the corridor and managed to summon a Skeleton Warrior. Lavok removed it with a Death Spell. When Lavok failed to rid Bardin of his buffs with a Remove Magic, the Gnome, confident that Death Ward, Chaotic Commands, and Remove Fear would keep him safe from immediate life-enders, applied an oil of speed and engaged the wizard in melee. With his club Blackblood Bardin struck several acidic blows through his opponent's Stoneskins before an Improved Mantle prompted the Gnome to retreat again.
A second round of brawling saw Lavok yield.
Tolgerias Bardin rested and saw himself facing another wizard, shortly after he got up: his original employer Tolgerias. Tolgerias was not at all pleased with Bardin's decision to enter the Sphere with Valygar. The mage was protected by SI: Abjuration and had a Chain Contigency with a Simulacrum and a Mordy's Sword, and a Contigency with PfMW trigger when he laid eyes on Bardin. What Tolgerias didn't know was that Bardin had a clone of himself as well (Vhailor's Helm).
It treated the enemy to two Divine Wraths,
and soaked up a couple of spells from Tolgerias and a second mage.
Tolgerias and his simmy then proceeded to gate in no less than three fiends (Cornugons and Bone Fiends), and one of them summoned an Efreeti as well. Thus the area became a bit too crowded for Bardin's taste. Tolgerias thought Bardin was still around but undetectable; the wizard and his assistant cast several AoE Enchantment spells (Emotion, Chaos), but Bardin was in the corridor waiting for at least some of the summons and for faux Tolgerias to disappear.
The Gnome reappeared, hidden in shadows, only to retreat once more when a Bone Fiend struck him with lightning that killed Tolgerias' assistant.
In the corridor the Gnome activated several defensive buffs (Death Ward, Chaotic Commands, PfE, Remove Fear, PfFire, PfLightning) and returned to submit Tolgerias to a Fire Storm.
It injured the wizard, but the area was too spacious for Tolgerias to be forced to stay in the spell's AoE and suffer repeated damage. Either way, the storm gave Bardin the time to quaff an oil of speed, to cast Holy Power, Righteous Magic, DUHM, and Harm (in that order). He hid in shadows, rushed to Tolgerias, and 'backslapped' the wizard to see the latter's HPs reduced to one.
His next attack, off-hand with Scarlet Ninja-To, failed to pierce the wizard's Stoneskins and the subsequent main-hand attack with Blackblood was a critical miss. It allowed Tolgerias to cast Invisibility on himself. Bardin's response was to drop a Fireball on himself from his Necklace of Missiles (didn't hurt as he was fully protected from fire). Tolgerias found himself in the Fireball's AoE and did not survive its impact.
Demons Bardin, still buffed and hyped up from his triumph over this powerful foe, headed straight for the exit of the Sphere. As he got out of the Sphere he found himself in what looked to be a layer of the Abyss. The Gnome clubbed down Imps, Quasits, Fire Salamanders and, with some difficulty, a number of Maurehzis.
Injured, he took some time to heal himself, summon Kitty and an Aerial Servant to his side, and re-buff. The trio defeated a Lea'liyl and two Maurehzis in melee,
and two Tanar'ri, with the Aerial Servant finishing the second Tanar'ri with a fine critical.
Bardin re-entered the Sphere with three demon hearts, snuck through a frosty room and reached the power core. He slew a Clay Golem and disarmed a trap on a treasure stash to reach another level (Thief 18), earning a Time Trap as a new HLA. The Gnome then threw one of the demon hearts into the Sphere's power core to get it moving again, and he trapped his way past two more Golems.
A third Golem was softened up with a Time Trap and finished off with Bardin's first hit after time had continued. Bardin leveled up once more (Cleric 16), and added a Spike Trap to his arsenal of snares, as he had still no more than one level 7 spell. He also got to pick a new weapon proficiency. I hesitated for some time between picking Flails (for FoA) or Quarterstaves as his next proficiency. Roleplaying made me go with Staves because Bardin owned three nice Staves of Power already.)
Ice and Fire Rooms Buffed up Bardin had little difficulty with the creatures in the ice room. He might have done well enough even without buffing. The fire room was more dangerous, with Hell Hounds that Bardin had had bad experiences with, a Fire Elemental summoning Salamander Noble, and a Noble Efreeti as the main threats. Bardin made sure he was well-buffed again, especially against fire, and went straight for the Noble Efreeti with a Harm. The attack connected, but his target was so fast in transforming into a cloud of gas that the Gnome could not kill his foe in time.
Bardin switched his focus to the Salamander Noble, two Fire Elementals (including a Greater variant), and the Hell Hounds. Hasted, protected from fire, and empowered by his deity, Bardin was simply too much for these creatures to handle.
Hidden in shadows, the Gnome sought out the Noble Efreeti again, but he made sure to place a number of traps about the room before he attacked. However, a decent backstab made those preventive measures unnecessary.
Bardin took Lavok outside to die under the sky of Athkatla, had Cromwell combine Gloves of Pick Pocketing, Bracers of Defense AC 4, a Ring of Danger Sense, a Ring of Lock Picks and two Rings of Protection +1 into the Gloves of the Master Thief,
and finally got rid of the stalking Rune Assassins in the Bridge District, using his traps.
and he paid Ribald Barterman 9k GP to send three Solamnic Knights he had met in the Sphere back to their home plane.
Concerning Improved Ilyich, I trained myself with 3 differents characters, including a copy of Anselm my Blackguard. I think it is very difficult because you don't have a lot of equipment and in my opinion it prevents a lot of character builds from doing it. It is also during these training that I learned to hate the PnP Mephits , everytime I would playtest Improved Ilyich I was more concerned about these little abominations and I would told myself that I should simply uninstall the component.
I used to test the mod component with an elf F/T or a sorceress with 161K XP. In the case of the F/T this is not really difficult but there might be repetitve sequences of move/hide/backstab. With the sorceress it takes a little longer as she has not enough spells and she needs to rest often to cover everything. Both can do it in solo mode but let's not forget that most players will use Imoen/Minsc/Jaheira/Yoshimo. W.Weimer took advantage of some items/spells made available while progressing through the dungeon, that's really interesting even if this is not a mod component for roleplaying purists. The mod offers a kind of self regulating difficulty over a wide range: In fact you set the difficulty yourself depending on the number of Ilyich team members you decide to fight: from one by one to all (six) of them at once.
@Blackraven Huge update! I really like how you disposed of Tolgerias with Harm + a Fireball centered on yourself, it always feels satisfying to use an AoE on yourself to damage someone while being immune to your own damage.
From what mod do the Gloves of the Master Thief come from? They look interesting and I like additional item choices.
Also, you said that "Unfortunately, as I've mentioned before in this thread, SCS Caster HLAs as Innates didn't appear behind Bardin's special abilities button, so I uninstalled that component", but like I explained in my previous post, mine don't appear neither in the special abilities action bar, they are shown in the regular casting menu, I attached a screenshot above. Just to be sure I'm not mistaken
@Musigny It is I who thank you for your hard work to make this mod EE compatible!
So far, Improved Ilyich I think I didn't encounter any bugs but I'm not sure about a few things.
-I got hit once by Karamazov's ranged attacks, as a Wizard Slayer she should have inflicted Spell Failure on my character but no icon appeared on my charcter's portrait and I managed to cast Stoneskin soon after. Is the lack of icon intended? Or is Karamazov lacking her Wizard Slayer Miscast Magic ability on hit?
I just tried to create a Wizard Slayer in BG1, I Ctrl-Q Firebead and hit him with an arrow and the Miscast Magic is displayed on his portrait
-The Neophyte Glabrezu stopped attacking me at some point, as you can see in my screenshots I lured it alone then I took it down. At first he retaliated and destroyed my Mirror Images but after that he did nothing, maybe it has something to do with Hide in Plain Sight.
-Zhivago never tried to summon his Fallen Deva, again the source of the problem could be HiPS but I thought that summoning should be very high in his priority list. He casted a lot of True Sight, Heal, Storm Shield, Lightning Bolt (on himself as Storm Shield makes him immune to Electricity).
-There were groups of Proletariat Duergars / Duergar Party Members alongisde SCS usual Duergars.
-SCS component that prevents resting more than once applied.
@Musigny, does EETactics' Improved Ilych override the SCS restriction on resting in Irenicus' dungeon? If not, would you advise against installing the resting restriction? I'm used to playing with that restriction, which by the way doesn't apply to solo characters, only to parties, but for Improved Ilych I might uninstall it.
@Gotural, thanks! I was also very pleased with the Tolgerias battle and especially the way Bardin finished him off I'm really enjoying both the character and the Cleric/Thief multiclass. The Gloves of the Master Thief are from Weimer's Item Upgrades mod, which seems to be fully compatible with BG2EE. You can find it here: http://www.weidu.org/item.html. Bardin doesn't really need the gloves, but the combination of the thieving bonuses in one item is very convenient, and the +1 saves are a nice perk. As to the HLAs, I actually edited my last post when I understood how and where to find the innate caster HLAs... I need to decide now whether or not to reinstall the mod component. Either way thanks for clearing this up for me.
@Blackraven No, it does not override that restriction but that does not matter much because Improved Ilyich and SCS "Make the starting dungeon slightly harder" are not meant to coexist. That does not mean SCS is absent from the dungeon. In fact when you install SCS (and aTweaks) all the creatures corresponding to your installation choices (noticeably generic AI, smarter mages, fiends, mephits, vampire, golem) get the SCS/aTweaks AI and features. Placing Ilyich on top of it, modifies some area parameters, overrides the Iliych's team members and makes them patrol the area, replaces the spawned creatures (five gobelin groups in the first area, two in the second area) by generic duergars with the old tactics AI, add mephits without modifying their scripting, modifies Ulvaryl who will no longer transform and flee after the dialog, and generate a couple of generic duergars from time to time. You have to select option 1 at install time. Option 2 is removed from my current package (not published yet). This is misleading and it will be replaced by a system also granting SCS scripts to the generic duergars + other features.
Thank you @Musigny. I'm looking forward to trying EETactics! It's gonna be hrad though... Btw how is your run going?
Bardin, LN Cleric/Thief, in SoA (Part 5)
I reinstalled the SCS component that turns caster HLAs into innate abilities. It works fine after all, with the quest spells appearing behind the cast spell button rather than the innate ability button. Since then, Bardin has made some more progress in his crusade against sin and corruption in Amn. His first undertaking was to confront the Cult of the Unseeing Eye, a task for the Temple of Helm that he took very seriously.
Unseeing Eye
He had already prcured one part of a rod that he would need to defeat the Unseeing Eye. For the second part he had to descend into a pit that led via a Ghoul Town to the Beholder's lair. In the undead village, the Gnome blew up several Ghasts, Ghoul Lords, and Mummies with his Turn Undead ability.
and he looted their den under Sanctuary, before the local Lich could attack him (or summons allies to attack him). In the lair of the Unseeing Eye, Bardin summoned five Skeleton Warriors to get rid of the Gauths and Beholders that inhabited it. The Gnome had three more Animate Dead spells memorized, but the five summons were enough to clear the place and get another Thief level. He picked his first clerical HLA, Energy Blades, which he intended to use against the Unseeing Eye. When he found the second half of the rift device, both parts merged into one, and the Unseeing Eye appeared in a corridor near the exit, an area containing a number of snares from Bardin: 1x time, 1x spike, 4x normal. The Unseeing Eye triggered Bardin's time trap, allowing the Gnome to use the rift device against the Beholder.
His plan was then to get away from the Unseeing Eye, leaving the killing blow to one of his summons (Skeleton Warriors, Aerial Servant). However, the Gnome found himself stuck between the Unseeing Eye and two Death Tyrants. Fortunately, the continuation of time saw a number of Bardin's regular snares kill the Unseeing Eye and injure at least one Death Tyrant.
One of the Death Tyrants then removed all of Bardin's protections with an anti-magic ray, but the Gnome went invisibility potion and managed to get away from his two enemies. Bardin's summons took care of the two remaining Eye Tyrants.
In the center of the area, a number of blind priests, servants of the Unseeing Eye were gathered. Bardin showed them no mercy. He cast a Fire Storm on them, and backstabbed or ensnared the survivors.
Another level-up allowed Bardin to pick a second priestly HLA, the ability to Summon a Deva. Bardin returned the rift device to the avatar of Amaunator, and then visited the cult's quarters once more, where he gated in an Ultroloth. My (altered) setup contains SCS Improved Demons with aTweaks' Fiends scripts as well as aTweaks' Further Revised Fiend Summoning, which allows a lawful character, like Bardin, who casts Gate to choose between a lawful evil Baatezu and a neutral evil Yugoloth. Bardin opted for the help of a Yugoloth, an Ultroloth to be precise. We can see the very humanoid-looking fiend attack an Elite Guard here:
It cast a Meteor Swarm on the guards and was perfectly fine with joining a Movanic Deva (conform the P&P Celestials mod) in battle against Gaal & Co.
Bardin and his summons dispatched the enemy without difficulty, and the Gnome was granted quarters and a position in the Temple, quite an honor for a Gnome even if the Helmite doctrine closely resembles the tenets of his own faith in Gaerdal Ironhand.
Liches
While Bardin was done with the Unseeing Eye, he wasn't done with the sewers yet. A former follower of the Unseeing Eye who had helped him assemble the rift device, had warned the Gnome of a powerful evil presence in a sarcophagus in a chamber near the entrance to the Old Tunnels. It was Bardin's intention to purge that evil. Aware of probable danger, the Gnome buffed himself (Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, Remove Fear, Haste, Free Action, protections from fire and lightning), and placed a couple of (regular) snares near the sarcophagus. When the evil turned out to be a Lich, Bardin cast False Dawn. It seemed the Gnome was too far removed from the undead creature for the spell to be effective, but the traps did their job well enough.
Bardin picked up golden arms and legs from the sarcophagus, and received instruction from his Lord Gaerdal Ironhand to enter a derelict home in the Bridge District. The priest still had two snares: a time trap and a spike trap. He set both. Again a Lich appeared from the sarcophagus. Hasted and buffed with the holy triumvirate, Bardin slew the Lich during the time stop his time trap brought about.
Using snares to deal with both Liches felt a bit cheap, but then, Bardin is no fool. He knew that grave danger awaited him. Either way, an etertaining battle with Kangaxx the Demi-Lich will form a nice contrast to Bardin's clinical way of dealing with Shade Lich and the Elemental Lich.
The Gnome retrieved a golden torso from the sarcophagus, left the building and rested. He then went to the Docks District, where Kangaxx eagerly awaited the reception of his body parts. Bardin was as buffed as he could be, including even things like Barkskin and Chant for the saves bonuses. A spike trap and two regular snares quickly destroyed Kangaxx' Lich form.
Kangaxx the Demi-Lich cast Energy Blades, and so did Bardin as he had no +4 (or better) weapon to hurt his foe with except for his sling of Everard, which would be too slow a weapon to attack with given the Gnome's lack of APR and Kangaxx' regeneration thanks to its ring. The Gnome wouldn't have much use for his discs. First of all, and not surprisingly, the Demi-Lich was PfMW and secondly when Bardin left the chamber, Kangaxx followed Bardin and promptly Removed the Gnome's protections before the latter could dodge the spell with an area transition. (Area transitions can be considered a bit lame, but on the other hand Remove Magics from high level casters are superdifficult to counter with for a solo Cleric/Thief. Bardin did own a few Spell Immunity scrolls, but he was reluctant to use them.) Fortunately Bardin could retreat into Kangaxx' chamber again, and rebuff without the Demi-Lich, or a Glabrezu apparently summoned by it, following him.
When Bardin returned, he gated in a Baatezu for Kangaxx to play with, and while Kangaxx was refreshing his PfMW, a Movanic Deva as well. For some reason Kangaxx didn't summon a Fallen Planetar or cast something like Dragon's Breath or Comet, all spells that he does have (as innates, I checked this afterwards in EEKeeper). Instead, it went wth a Demi-Lich Howl, and it tried in vain to Trap the Soul of Bardin's Deva, while the Deva tried to Dispel Kangaxx' protections. Kangaxx then cast Greater Malison on the Gnome, an effect that Bardin countered by quaffing a potion of invulnerability, and ADHW on the Deva.
Bardin, unsure as to what protections Kangaxx had after the Deva's Dispel Magic discovered that his Wand of Fire did nothing to hurt the Demi-Lich. (I tried this because one of my characters once killed Kangaxx with the wand, and besides, Bardin had no +5 weapon to hurt Kangaxx with.) Around this time a weird glitch occurred. Bardin got to cast Gate a second time, or to be more precisely in the action bar, the icons to select Baatezu or Yugoloth reappeared. Bardin made the mistake of picking the Yugoloth, which resulted in in-fighting between the already Pit Fiend and the Ultroloth. With the Movanic Deva close to being unsummoned and the fiends quarreling between themselves, Bardin decided to leave the premises. But Kangaxx was eager to follow the Gnome outside. It gated in no less than three Glabrezus in rapid succession. Bardin hoped to find refuge at Cromwell's, but the Glabrezus teleported to Bardin and surrounded the Gnome on the narrow stairs that led to Cromwell's smithy. Bardin had nowhere to go. Kangaxx arrived not much later and cast a Dargon's Breath on the Gnome. The Helmet of Defense and a potion of fire resistance did much to reduce the impact of that spell, but the Gnome's measures didn't prevent his HPs from going below 90.
With his HPs thus reduced, he became vulnerable to the Glabrezus PW:Stuns. Bardin was no longer protected by Free Action. (He had twice cast the spell on himself, but they were removed and expired respectively.) And his aura was turpid. Bardin had a Contingency (from scroll) that would see Free Action cast on self when helpless. (This is actually a bit of a gamble, but according to this reference that I've used a lot, Free action "[u]nlike Remove Paralysis, [...] also has preventative use." In my install Free Action also works against stun. Maybe I should just test whether this works as I'm hoping it does.) Either way the Contingency never triggered, for a first PW:Stun was blocked by Bardin's Magic Resistance, and a Potion of Freedom kept the Gnome safe from subsequent stun attempts.
The immediate risk of a premature ending to Bardin's journey was averted, but there was still the issue of two hard-hitting Glabrezus surrounding Bardin, and nearby Kangaxx wanting the Gnome's hide. Bardin escaped with a Teleport Field cast from scroll.
He ran off, back to Kangaxx' chamber, where he waited for the Glabrezus to return to their abyssal plane. When he wanted to leave the building, the Pit Fiend was still there, together with Kangaxx, and it was no longer on Bardin's side.
Bardin ran outside, but the Pit Fiend kept teleporting without error toward Bardin. The Gnome, running around hasted, managed to buff with HP and RM, and decided to take on the Pit Fiend. In front of the Shadow Thief HQ the priest and the demon battled until the former banished the latter with a number of devastating blows at the break of dawn.
Closer to the docks Kangaxx was happily engaged in the Trapping of innocent Souls, and in wasting his spells on them, when Bardin discovered that his Wand of Fire wasn't any good against the Demi-Lich.
The priest used his Wand of Monster Summoning to further deplete the Demi-Lich of its spells,
and then decided it was time for Cromwell to merge his clubs Blackblood and Gnasher into the Pitchwife +5.
Kangaxx didn't appreciate the Dwarf helping Bardin, and tried to Trap the smith's Soul.
Fortunately the hardy Dwarf saved vs death, but Bardin took this as a sign to leave Cromwell to his work. The Gnome and his undead foe continued their battle outside. Bardin buffed with the holy triumvirate and kept beating the Demi-Lich with his new club.
Kangaxx responded with a Comet, but Bardin managed to limit that spell's impact with a potion of fire resistance (in addition to his Helmet of Defense protection).
It would be the Demi-Lich's last feat.
This was quite an exciting battle. Things looked to be going south a couple of times for Bardin. I'm very glad he pulled through. Curiously Kangaxx never summoned his Dark Planetar.
Bardin was disgusted with the number of corpses littered about the Docks District. It made the taste of victory a bittersweet one for the Gnome. Finding a powerful ring next to the fallen Demi-Lich's remains didn't change that.
One of a solo Cleric/Thief's weaker points is their lack of a reliable way to dispel enemies' buffs. Their only debuff spell is Dispel Magic, and for a multiclass Cleric that spell doesn't really cut it against the most powerful opponents in SoA, and a fortiori, in ToB. Just like any character who isn't a burglar, Bardin had little cause to discover the Twisted Rune from an RP perspective, but the Staff of the Magi is just too good to pass up. Most players seem to love it or hate it for its invisibility, but I'm almost indifferent about that aspect; I care much more for its dispel on hit ability that offers no save. But that might have a lot to do with my love for Thieves. Long story short: it was time to metagame.
Bardin first cast Farsight, so as to see the entire room. He then summoned a Vhailor simmy, and had it place a spike trap and two regular traps at the far end of the large room. Those traps were meant for Layene.
The Gnome placed a spike trap of his own and four regular traps in the entrance room, for Shangalar. He then buffed (his usual buffs, if someone's interested I could list Bardin's buffs for important battles), and summoned two Skeleton Warriors as well an Ultroloth. After his bad experience with the lawful evil yet unruly Pit Fiend at Kangaxx' place, Bardin had developed a preference for the neutral evil Ultroloth. Shangalar was provoked and teleported right into Bardin's deadly traps.
Layene on the other hand only suffered slight injuries from the simmy's snares.
The Ultraloth cast a Meteor Swarm around Vaxall the Beholder, a move that Bardin mimicked with a Fire Storm. Vaxall didn't survive the onslaught.
The swarm and the storm also killed a Layene clone, and wounded Revanek. Bardin called an Aerial Servant and an Astral Deva to his side, while Layene gated several fiends (three Gelugons and a Cornugon) that, together with a Mordy Sword, moved to the entrance room. The Gnome, unfond of crowds, quaffed a potion of invisibility and left for the main room. Unfortunately, Layene's fiends and Mordy Sword were too much for the Astral Deva to handle.
Unlike the other enemies in the main room, Layene's demons wouldn't be fooled by Bardin's invisibility potion. They teleported starihht after him. Layene cast a Time Stop, but failed to find Bardin. The Time Stop passed with Layene walking around, and casting an Emotion on herself, hoping it would hit Bardin.
When time continued, Bardin limited himself to running around, avoiding the attacking fiends. His Aerial Servant functioned as bait for Layene's Energy Blades. But the Gnome himself refused to attack or cast spells as that would make him visible to Layene and Sharyssa. One after the other the fiends disappeared.
When only Shyressa the Vampire, Layene, a hostile Skeleton Warrior (and in the entrance room, Revanek) remained, Bardin buffed with the holy triumvirate, followed by a Gaxx (Improved) Haste and then Assassination. The Gnome was doing well against Stoneskinned Layene, and would have finished her, if it weren't for Shyressa who landed a vicious backstab.
The Skeleton Warrior also hit him, and Layene dispelled the Gnome's buffs with a critical hit with the coveted Staff of the Magi.
Bardin saw himself forced to retreat, which he managed without suffering any further blows. He drank an invisibility potion as soon as he could, and healed himself. He then rebuffed with Chaotic Commands and the holy triumvirate, and (out of Layene's sight) destroyed Shyressa in straight combat.
The Gnome's buffs lasted long enough for him to also take care of the Skeleton Warrior and of Revanek. The latter panicked after he got hit, and ran toward Layene, but Bardin finished him with his Sling of Everard before Layene could take notice.
Bardin leveled up again as a Thief (20), but he received another divine quest spell: Storm of Vengeance. That spell proved a welcome addition to his spell repertoire. He used it against Layene, and saw her save vs spell for reduced damage but fail her save vs poison. The wizardess succumbed to the effects of the storm.
Bardin looted his fallen foes' corpses and took the Staff of the Magi as his standard weapon.
Comments
Azelos casts Wish. Then I see Yaga-Shura has escaped Ruva's Maze.
Yorun Zovai disables him.
We get a good option from Wish.
The timing is excellent. The Planetar reappears, and we need to get rid of it. Half our party is missing Death Ward, and a vorpal strike could be devastating.
Ruva and Laosha draw the flame over the Planetar, at the cost of Balthazar's safety.
We fail to stop the Planetar from casting Insect Plague. To get rid of the Planetar, Ruva sets another snare. Yaga-Shura vanishes--I see no trace of the Planetar.
Ruva fails a save against Insect Plague. She panicks; Illasera removed her immunity to fear long beforehand.
Ruva's wandering draws the stream of fire over Yorun Zovai, canceling her Project Image spell.
Azelos ends up with a list of bad Wish options. Luckily, one of them poses no threat to us at all at this point.
Despite the Insect Plague, Yorun Zovai manages to summon a Planetar, which then restores Ruva's immunity to fear.
It worked out, but it was a reckless decision; I had no reason to believe Yorun Zovai could get the spell off the ground.
The Fallen Planetar reappears, this time at full health.
It strikes once. Then we bring it down together, with Laosha using Firetooth's base ammunition to break through the Planetar's immune to +2 weapons and below.
Melissan finally wakes up and teleports to her normal position in the middle of the map.
Laosha switches back to the Scorcher Ammunition. I want to get rid of Yaga-Shura before he can hurt us; he's not blind anymore.
I have our new Planetar hit Yaga-Shura with Insect Plague. Mostly for lack of anything better to do.
I move Laosha around to hit Melissan with the scorcher projectile. Our Planetar gets hit badly, but heals itself right afterward.
Unfortunately, it doesn't take the hit very well. It goes hostile and attacks Laosha.
Laosha removes it by pulling the flame back over it.
We overpower Yaga-Shura. Laosha does most of the work.
Yorun Zovai casts Wish. The whole party is back up to speed.
Melissan restores herself as well. All the damage we did is undone.
Zulfer attacks with the Answerer, hoping to bring Melissan's MR back down.
Azelos joins the fight. Yorun Zovai buffs the party.
Laosha's stream of fire is terribly strong, but Melissan teleports right out of it, while Balthazar walks right into it.
But with Boots of Speed and Improved Haste on both Ruva and Laosha, they can quickly bring the flame over to Melissan and disrupt a Time Stop spell.
Our mages keep casting Wish. The next one just refreshes our existing haste buffs.
Melissan has escaped the flame once more, and brings a Marilith onto the field. Ruva and Laosha bring over the flame once more.
We remove the Marilith's PFMW spell with the Wand of Spell Striking. Meanwhile, Laosha and Ruva stay focused on Melissan.
The damage builds up. Melissan can't block it. Soon, the fight is over.
I didn't expect it to go this way. At the beginning, I thought we were likely to fail. But Laosha absolutely destroyed the enemy. He almost single-handedly killed Gromnir, Sendai, Yaga-Shura, Illasera, and Melissan herself. The only major enemy in this battle he did not enjoy primary responsibility for killing was Abazigal, and the only reason he did not was because he was busy at the time.
This was strictly due to the combination of the Scorcher Ammunition with Firetooth (to add missile damage) and stacking missile damage resistance using the Earth Elemental Token, Yellow Dragon Scale, and Defender of Easthaven. Even without all of those, it should be possible to achieve immunity missile damage using the Armor of Faith, the Belt of Inertial Barrier, and/or the 25% physical damage resistance boost from the Ravager trial in the Pocket Plane. By attacking a character who is immune to missile and fire damage with the Scorcher Ammunition and Firetooth, or any crossbow with a bonus to damage, it should be possible to destroy nearly any creature in the game, irrespective of their defenses.
Viora has become Chaotic Evil and professed a lot of evil-sounding views with the Solar and just killed Imoen, but that was just for the sake of powergaming. She and Balthazar decide to seal away the essence of Bhaal.
Yay! Happy ending! Woo!
I read every word in your reports and I think I could feel if I've been there with you, on the battlefield against the Five and Melissan.
Yes, I understand that probably you used the very effective tactics of the Earth Elemental Token without a druid in the party (the Earth Elemental form is OP), combining it with the Scorcher Ammunition (that is not available at all if you don't carry a certain item from BG1 and don't complete a certain quest in SoA with a certain result), but still I admire your achievement!
Even more than the result, I like your reports. They are so, so useful. Congratulations, and thank you!
We enter the Prat's fight pre-buffed exactly as we did against the Iron Throne group.
After Prat finished his talk with Viconia, Hades and Safana backstab an enemy mage, Sakul. He's no longer on the battlefield.
Prat goes invisible as a part of his pre-buffs, so Baeloth casts Detect Invisibility. Edwin already finished casting Greater Malison. Hades and Dorn attack the critter, Tam, while Viconia, 2 skeletons and Safana (who gulped an Invis potion for another backstab) attack Bor, preventing his use of darts of stunning. Edwin will soon start casting Teleport Field.
Baeloth detects Prat, Safana manages a successful backstab on Bor, Viconia finishes him (both our girls have high STR thanks to different strength-enhancing spells). Viconia's magic resistance blocks Prat's Melf's Acid Arrow on her.
Hades and Dorn kill Tam, even before Edwin finishes his Teleport Field casting.
Prat is helpless, he's stunned by the Stupifier, horrored by Spook and poisoned by Dorn.
Baeloth reaches the 4th spell level. I didn't take Stoneskin, or Emotion. I took Improved Invisibility for him, even when I had previously chosen Invisibility and Invisibility, Radius, for him before. This spell, Improved Invisibility, of which he has 4 casts, can buff four party members, lowering their AC and saving throws, making them impossible to target with spells.
With all the prebuffs (Improved Invisibility is on Hades, Viconia, Dorn and Safana), we enter the Slythe and Krystin fight.
At the start of the fight, Krystin is invisible, so our attacks are on Slythe. Edwin casts Greater Malison, Baeloth casts Detect Invisibility. The same route, but a very effective route against SCS in BG1.
Krystin is seen now, and she continues her buffs, this time PfMW - (in BG1 !) - and I remember @Blackraven reported she has some kind of Improved Alacrity, she can cast spells very quickly.
So we need to increase the speed of killing Slythe. Viconia uses her wand of heavens, while Edwin finally finished casting Greater Malison. We need his Spell Thrust on Krystin, and we need it quickly.
Only Skeleton Warriors can attack Krystin because of her Fireshield, but she uses the Blue version, and our undead are immune to damage. But their attacks are useless as well, as they count as magic weapons.
Edwin throws Spell Thrust, everyone else attack from a distance with normal missiles.
Dorn uses his Aura of Despair, while Edwin is casting Confusion. Our missile weapons hit Krystin, although she's still Mirror-Imaged and Stoneskinned.
Krystin dispels effects on half of our party.
So we need to repeat some buffs: Mirror Image on Hades, a potion of speed for Dorn and Armour of Faith on Viconia.
Baeloth tries the wand of paralys on Krystin. She saves against Confusion (and Edwins switches to casting Slow, only to see her save against it as well), but not against the wand.
The battle is won.
Nobody was even hurt even once during both fights. The combination of buffs our party uses seem to be very effective.
I don't think Krystin is under any form of alacrity. I will check that soon with Imoen and Jurs!
Intelligence of Target -- Time trapped in maze
under 3 -- 2d4 turns
3 to 5 -- 1d4 turns
6 to 8 -- 5d4 rounds
9 to 11 -- 4d4 rounds
12 to 14 -- 3d4 rounds
15 to 17 -- 2d4 rounds
18 and up -- 1d4 rounds
The only difference is that Maze trap is ranged and AoE whilst Maze spell is single target and touch range.
The Five have following Int: Abazigal (19), Sendai (18), Sarevok (17), Illasera (14), Gromnir (9), Yaga-Shura (11). And they returned in exactly that order in your case (Gromnir and Yaga-Shura are in the same league of 4d4 rounds thus slightly different/lucky).
Anyway, I join @bengoshi in congratulations for you! Fantastic run and lovely insightful reports!
That said, in retrospect, those tactics were probably not necessary. By the end, we had barely spent any of our resources. Our spellcasters cast only a fraction of their spells. Besides her HLAs, Viora cast zero. Among the resources we could have used had we refrained from using those items, and therefore kept Laosha as a druid:
Innate spells:
2 Elemental Summoning
1 Greater Elemental Summoning
2 Hardiness
3 Poison Weapon
1 Power Attack
1 Smite
2 Greater Whirlwind Attack
1 Energy Blades
1 Mass Raise Dead
1 Implosion
2 Summon Deva
1 Summon Planetar
2 Comet
2 Dragon's Breath
2 Improved Alacrity
4 Special Snare
4 Spike Trap
1 Time Trap
5 Summon Spirit Animal
1 Slayer Change (Ravager form)
Azelos's spells:
3 Wish
2 Power Word: Blind
4 Spell Immunity
2-3 Improved Haste
2-3 Project Image
3 PFMW
Yorun Zovai's spells:
Level 1: 6
Level 2: 6
Level 3: 6
Level 4: 5
Level 5: 4-5
Level 6: 5-6
Level 7: 4
Level 8: 5-6
Level 9: 6
Laosha's spells:
Basically 6 per spell level; the Archer version of Laosha used none.
Viora's spells:
Level 1: 12
Level 2: 12
Level 3: 10
Level 4: 12
Level 5: 9
Level 6: 9
Level 7: 6
(She also didn't cast a single spell besides her HLAs)
Items:
2 Spellstrike
2 PFMW
1 Time Stop
17 Rod of Resurrection
4 Wand of Spell Striking (20 Breach, 24 Pierce Magic)
1 Imprisonment
~16 Fire Seeds
1 Bracers of Blinding Strike
1 Amulet of Cheetah Speed
1 Vhailor's Helm
40+ Potion of Superior Healing
20+ Potion of Invulnerability
~10 Potions of Magic Shielding
~10 Potions of Magic Protection
And whatever else we had in our containers.
Without the Scorcher Ammunition, we would have been attacking at about 60% damage output, or about 40-50% due to weaker THAC0, at roughly 65-75% of our normal APR (only counting the characters with the THAC0 to hit reliably). However, over the course of the fight we did experience, we only used 7% of our spells total; maybe 15% of our high-level spells; 15% of our HLAs; Azelos and Yorun Zovai only used half their Project Image spells; Ruva used only a third of her Maze traps; and considering how infrequently we clouded our auras, our spell/scroll/potion/HLA/wand usage was maybe 15-20%. Not counting the 30-36 Wish spells we could have cast, which would amount to 5 or 6 rests on average. Melissan would have complicated the situation, naturally.
The fight would have been twice as hard, but we were operating at less than half capacity. I could try the fight again to test it out, but there's not much point. I don't play no-reload runs to test myself; I do it to stress-test strategies.
Mostly I just wanted to see just how powerful the Scorcher Ammunition was. Almost everything I do in BG2 is an experiment of some sort. Turns out the Scorcher Ammunition isn't just powerful--it's very reductive. It obviates the need for any other strategies. I probably won't use it again anytime soon. I saw what I came to see.
I will post a retrospective explaining my findings for every stage of the run as well as the performance of our characters over the course of the game.
Well done maestro!
My current Cleric/Thief has this when casting e.g. Righteous Magic followed by DUHM. Righteous Magic has a casting time of 9, so takes almost a complete round to cast. This means that at most one tick later, Bardin can already cast DUHM.
Congrats on defeating Slythe and Krystin btw
Today me, @Gotural and @Tresset faced the Drasus's party.
It's funny that I played exactly this fight only days ago in a single-player no-reload, and with full prebuffs from enemies, and with Insane damage. But it wasn't even 1 percent the same as in the MP.
Because of different reasons, in the MP run it's hard to detect when your Magic Blocking wears off. It's hard to pause timely when you see Chaos flying in your direction.
Everything goes smoothly but then in a blink of an eye it changes. The Gotural's dwarven defender was in the middle of 4 enemies, trying to get their spells casted while he was protected. Tresset had to throw fireballs with the wand, while my dwarven cleric had to cover him if one of the fighters decided to attack Tresset instead of Gotural.
But even with the Core difficulty and even with the Defensive stance it quickly became apparent that the Gotural's character wouldn't survive Drasus's heavy attacks. I tried to get the attention of Genthore, but instead Chaos came in my direction. And even with dwarven clerical saves and potion of invulnerability gulped Lucius still failed his saving throw.
And this was when Gotural decided he would try to move away Drasus from us, to the bridge (NE). Slowly, under constant attacks from the berserker.
The worst nightmare? Mages summoned ghouls who followed Drasus. And when it looked like the Gotural's character had only several seconds to live, these ghouls blocked the way for Drasusl
Not long after it the chaos wore off, and Tresset managed to paralyse one mage.
When I realised Hadhod would live I was the happiest man on the Earth. It felt... massively important. And I was so, so glad.
This is why I'm enjoying the MP run with you, guys!
P.S. the details will come tomorrow, but we won:)
Edit: typos
I experimented, tinkered and tested a lot of stuff with my install for the last two weeks and finally I decided against playing my solo Sorcerer in BG2 because, even if it won't be the hardest solo, it will be a very tedious one with lots of resting, uninteresting fights (although the boss fights would be extremely interesting, because it will be a pure magical chess game) and so forth.
So instead, after training myself a bit with Improved Ilyich, I chose to continue Yami, my Drow Berserker/Wild Mage/Shadowdancer with a new setup which I hope won't be too buggy (I had a fair amount amount of bugs and crashs in ToB with my Blackguard).
Mods :
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #0 // Big Picture, core component (required for most subcomponents): v181-b4611
~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Ascension for BP: v181-b4611
~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2100 // Improved Abazigal: v181-b4611
~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2200 // Improved Demogorgon: v181-b4611
~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2300 // Improved Gromnir: v181-b4611
~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2400 // Improved Illasera: v181-b4611
~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Improved Sendai: v181-b4611
~BP/SETUP-BP.TP2~ #0 #2600 // Improved Yaga-Shura: v181-b4611
~SETUP-BGEEAR.TP2~ #0 #0 // TeamBG's Armors for BG:EE, BGT and TuTu Version 1.05
~SETUP-BGEEW.TP2~ #0 #0 // TeamBG's Weapons Pack for BG:EE, BGT and TuTu Version 1.04
~SARADAS_MAGIC/SARADAS_MAGIC.TP2~ #0 #0 // saradas_magic
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #60 // Weapon Animation Tweaks: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #110 // Icon Improvements: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #120 // Change Avatar When Wearing Robes or Armor (Galactygon): v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #130 // Force All Dialogue to Pause Game: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1020 // Alter HP Triggers for NPC Wounded Dialogues: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1030 // Reveal Wilderness Areas Before Chapter Six: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1040 // Improved Athkatlan City Guard: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1080 // Add Bags of Holding: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1101 // Do Not Reveal City Maps When Entering Area: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1120 // Stores Sell Higher Stacks of Items: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1161 // Multiple Strongholds (Baldurdash) -> Keep Class Restrictions: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1170 // Bonus Merchants (Baldurdash): v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1220 // Allow Cromwell to Upgrade Watcher's Keep Items: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1230 // Allow Cespenar to Use Cromwell Recipes: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2060 // Weapon Styles for All: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2090 // Change Experience Point Cap -> Remove Experience Cap: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2100 // Allow Thieving and Stealth in Heavy Armor: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2120 // Allow Arcane Spellcasting in Heavy Armor: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Expanded Dual-Class Options: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2151 // Wear Multiple Protection Items -> No Restrictions: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2170 // Cast Spells from Scrolls (and Other Items) at Character Level: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2200 // Multi-Class Grandmastery (Weimer): v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2210 // True Grandmastery (Baldurdash): v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2220 // Change Magically Created Weapons to Zero Weight: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2240 // Un-Nerfed THAC0 Table: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2250 // Un-Nerfed Sorcerer Spell Progression Table: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2261 // Alter Mage Spell Progression Table -> PnP Table: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2281 // Alter Cleric Spell Progression Table -> PnP Table: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2291 // Alter Druid Spell and Level Progression Tables -> No Level Progression Changes, PnP Druid/Cleric Spell Table Only: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2300 // Triple-Class HLA Tables: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2330 // Remove Delay for Magical Traps (Ardanis/GeN1e): v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2352 // Alter Multiclass Restrictions -> Install both of the above options: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2360 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Single Classes: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2371 // Alter Dual-class Restrictions -> Allow non-humans to dual-class: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2380 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Kits: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3000 // Higher HP on Level Up -> Maximum: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3010 // Maximum HP for NPCs (the bigg) -> For All Creatures in Game: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3030 // Easy Spell Learning -> 100% Learn Spells: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3050 // Remove fatigue from restoration spells: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3070 // Change Effect of Reputation on Store Prices -> Low Reputation Store Discount (Sabre): v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Unlimited Ammo Stacking: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3090 // Unlimited Gem and Jewelry Stacking: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Unlimited Potion Stacking: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Unlimited Scroll Stacking: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3121 // Happy Patch (Party NPCs do not complain about reputation) -> NPCs Can Be Angry About Reputation but Never Leave (Salk): v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3160 // Keep Drizzt's Loot, Disable Malchor Harpell: v16
~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3200 // Sellable Items (Icelus): v16
~IWDIFICATION/SETUP-IWDIFICATION.TP2~ #0 #30 // IWD Arcane Spell Pack: Beta 2
~IWDIFICATION/SETUP-IWDIFICATION.TP2~ #0 #40 // IWD Divine Spell Pack: Beta 2
~IWDIFICATION/SETUP-IWDIFICATION.TP2~ #0 #50 // IWD Bard Song: Beta 2
~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #0 // Proper dual-wielding implementation for Thieves and Bards: v4.90b1
~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #1 // Thief kit revisions: v4.90b1
~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #2 // Thief High Level Ability revisions: v4.90b1
~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #3 // Proper racial adjustments for thieving skills: v4.90b1
~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #4 // Bard kit revisions: v4.90b1
~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #5 // Bard High Level Ability revisions: v4.90b1
~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #6 // Proper spell progression for Bards: v4.90b1
~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #7 // Additional equipment for Thieves and Bards: v4.90b1
~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #8 // Upgradeable Equipment: v4.90b1
~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #9 // Revised Thievery -> Use PnP thievery potions and prevent their effects from stacking: v4.90b1
~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #11 // Chosen of Cyric encounter: v4.90b1
~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #12 // Shadow Thief Improvements: v4.90b1
~RR/SETUP-RR.TP2~ #0 #999 // BG2-style icons for RR content: v4.90b1
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Initialise mod (all other components require this): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1910 // Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Allow Spellstrike to take down a Protection from Magic scroll: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2020 // Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2050 // Allow individual versions of Spell Immunity to be placed into Contingencies and Spell Triggers: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2070 // Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades only affect hostile creatures: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2080 // Cap damage done by Skull Trap at 12d6: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2090 // Make Power-Word: Blind single-target: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2120 // Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Slightly increase the power of Mantle, Improved Mantle, and Absolute Immunity: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2160 // Add an extra copy of some hard-to-find spell scrolls: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2170 // True Sight/True Seeing spells protect from magical blindness: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2180 // Prevent Simulacra and Projected Images from using magical items: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Make the healing and resurrection powers of the Rod of Resurrection into separate abilities: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4010 // Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4180 // Make Freedom scrolls available earlier: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4240 // Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5000 // Ease-of-use party AI: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6024 // Add high-level abilities (HLAs) to spellcasters -> All eligible spellcasters in Throne of Bhaal and Shadows of Amn get HLAs (very challenging and not really recommended!): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages -> Mages cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests -> Priests cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs -> All of the potions dropped by slain enemies are recoverable: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6500 // Improved golems: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6520 // Smarter genies -> Genies have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6530 // Smarter celestials -> Celestials have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6540 // Smarter dragons -> Dragons have a substantial hit point increase: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6551 // Smarter beholders -> Don't give beholder rays any chance of burning through spell protections; beholder antimagic blocks all spells, including harmful ones, for a round (simulates D&D rules): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6563 // Smarter mind flayers -> Illithids have enhanced damage resistance; Illithids cannot see invisible enemies: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6570 // Smarter githyanki: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6580 // Improved Vampires: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6590 // Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6800 // Smarter Illasera: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6810 // Smarter Gromnir: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6820 // Smarter Yaga-Shura: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6830 // Smarter Abazigal: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6840 // Give Ascension versions of Irenicus and Sendai SCS scripts and abilities: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6850 // Give Ascension demons SCS scripts and abilities: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8000 // Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8010 // Improved Shade Lord: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8020 // Spellcasting Demiliches: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8030 // More resilient trolls: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8043 // Increase difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings -> Maximum difficulty: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8050 // Improved Random Encounters: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8060 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix") -> Spirit trolls have the same powers as in the original game: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8070 // Improved Unseeing Eye: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8081 // Improved Bodhi (Tactics Remix) -> Original Tactics Improved Bodhi with SCSII scripting: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8100 // Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8110 // Improved Sahuagin: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8120 // Improved Beholder hive (adapted from Quest Pack): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8130 // Prevent resting in the Illithid city: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8140 // Slightly Improved Drow -> Upgrade Ust Natha's defences: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8150 // Slightly Improved Watcher's Keep: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8160 // Improved Fire Giant temple: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8170 // Enhanced Sendai's Enclave: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8180 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8190 // Improved Minor Encounters: v30
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #100 // Restore innate infravision to Half-Orc characters: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #101 // Prevent skeletal and incorporeal undead from being affected by Illithids' Devour Brain attack: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #102 // Change Spiritual Hammer into a ranged force weapon: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #104 // PnP Color Spray: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #105 // PnP Dimension Door: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #110 // Magical arrows and bolts deal bonus damage equal to their enchantment level: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #117 // Allow Mages to scribe memorized spells onto scrolls -> Scrolls can only be scribed at inns and strongholds: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #120 // Restore innate disease immunity to Paladins: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #125 // Rangers' Animal Empathy improves with experience: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #130 // Additional racial traits for Dwarves: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #140 // Additional racial traits for Gnomes: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #152 // PnP Fiends -> Mod-added fiends are also affected: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #155 // Further Revised Fiend Summoning: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #156 // Fiendish gating: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #160 // PnP Undead: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #180 // PnP Mephits: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #185 // PnP Fey creatures: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #186 // Revised Call Woodland Beings spell: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #190 // PnP Elementals: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #191 // Increase the Hit Dice of Elemental Princes: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #200 // Allow Breach to take down Stoneskin effects applied by items: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #201 // Instant casting for warrior innates: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #202 // Revised Bhaalpowers -> Enhance the Bhaalpowers and standardize their casting time: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #218 // Regain Bhaalpowers in ToB: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #203 // Make druidic shapeshifting uninterruptable: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #211 // Make Death Ward protect against Vorpal Hits: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #210 // Restore the Dispel Magic vulnerability to Nishruu and Hakeashars: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #212 // Make alignment detection spells more accurate: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #213 // Expanded saving throw bonus tables for Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #270 // Unbiased quest rewards: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #300 // Use Icewind Dale's Dimension Door animation -> Fast animation speed (matches IWD): v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #302 // Change the appearance of the Robe of Vecna: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #310 // Distinctive creature coloring: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #315 // Distinctive creature soundsets: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #500 // Slightly expanded storage capacity for containers -> Use the recommended storage capacity value (999): v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #510 // Expanded temple services: v4.42
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #999 // BG2-style icons for aTweaks content: v4.42
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #10 // Improved Ilyich (requires ToB): v0.61 alpha 2016011401
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #11 // The Ritual (requires ToB): v0.61 alpha 2016011401
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #12 // Improved TorGal and De'Arnisse Keep: v0.61 alpha 2016011401
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #16 // Improved Guarded Compound in the Temple District: v0.61 alpha 2016011401
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #17 // Improved Twisted Rune: v0.61 alpha 2016011401
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #18 // "Kuroisan", the Acid Kensai: v0.61 alpha 2016011401
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #19 // "Red Badge" Poison-Based Encounter: v0.61 alpha 2016011401
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #21 // Gebhard Blucher's Lich in the Docks: v0.61 alpha 2016011401
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #24 // Kensai Ryu's Gnome Fighter/Illusionist in the Docks: v0.61 alpha 2016011401
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #47 // Anti-Paladin Kit: v0.61 alpha 2016011401
-Ascension
-BG2 Tweaks with maxed HP for everyone, 100% spell learning, PnP spell progressions.
-IWDification
-Rogue Rebalancing
-SCS with full prebuffing + every casters get HLAs + every improved encounters
-ATweaks
-Tactics EE
Rules :
-Solo
-Insane
-No-Reload
-No prebuffs except spells with a duration of at least one hour
-Nightmare Mode
-Ctrl-Y the Mephits in the starting dungeon.
-Limited use of summons (except Clone spells)
Right after the intro, I free Jaheira and Minsc, who both have more than 280 HP to give you an idea of Nightmare Mode, for the xp and remove everyone from the party.
I don't even try to fight the PnP Mephits from ATweaks, these critters are so strong (they can blind/stun you to death at will, even one of them is absolutely lethal to any solo character, so a few of them, each able to gate other ones, in nightmare mode ...) that I prefer to Ctrl-Y them, I sneak past the Ogre-Mage and immediately activate the Golem.
I follow him, still invisible and fight the Greater Otyugh from Tactics. Hide in Plain Sight allows me to backstab it endlessly without moving or taking any risks, after a total of 397 damage it finally falls to the ground, releasing an Insect Plague spell at the same time.
Then I proceed to clear everything I can before the major battle, I loot the quatterstaff+1, the Dagger +2 (replacing the Sword of Chaos +2 from the genie) killing the dryads in the process and I killed every enemies I could in the area, including all Duergars and the Ogre Mage.
I start to attack Zhivago from the Improved Ilyich encounter to begin to do some damage but my priority is the Glabrezu as it is the only one here who can innately see through Invisibility.
I lure it a bit further in the tunnels and take it out without any problems with an AC of -14 (Spirit Armor + 21 Dex + Blur + Shadow Door + Prot from Evil + Helm of Balduran), he managed to destroy my Mirror Image but not my Stoneskin, perfect.
Then I start to deal with the rest of the party, it's incredibly long because they are constantly moving which makes it hard to backstab them, they all have more than 300 HP and Ilyich frequently uses a fatigue spell which reduces my damage rolls to the minimum amount, soon enough I can't hit Zhavigo except on a critical hit and my backstabs only deal 29 damage to the others (and Ilyich isn't even possible to backstab because he is a Barbarian).
But after a long battle I killed them all except Zhivago then I rest to get rid of the fatigue effect and I can finish the Priest of Talos.
At this point I'm really happy of the outcome, Hide in Plain Sight rules supreme.
I skip most of the second level, lurking in the shadows but I still open chests and look what I found so early in the game.
A Simulacrum Scroll in the starting dungeon, I didn't even know it was possible but I like it!
Finally I exit the complex, I'm already at Day 2 Hour 7 with only one rest. I literally fought Improved Ilyich for more than a day in the game; the whole dungeon took me more than 3-4 hours of real time, but it was really satisfying.
Right now I feel a bit lost, everything seems so dangerous ...
First of all congrats on surviving Improved Ilych! I've never tried that component (I understood it was very buggy in combination with other mods I used to play with), but am curious to try out with EETactics. It looks very tough... but so does your character, approaching the SoA level cap in Irenicus' Dungeon.
I'm looking forward to reading more. Since you're already close to 3 million XP and thus to HLAs I have a word of warning for you. I see you're playing with Triple Class HLAs and with the SCS component that treats caster HLAs as innate abilities. As I said in one of my last posts, Bardin's divine Quest Spells did not show up behind the innate abilities button (only his Thief HLAs did). I opened EEKeeper to manually add the spell I wanted, but found that in EEKeeper, the spell did register as an innate ability. This means the issue was with the special abilities bar in-game. I ended up uninstalling the relevant SCS component, so now caster HLAs for both Charname and enemies are level 7 spells (for priests) or level 9 spells (for wizards), as per vanilla.
My advice: make a test-save, add a couple million XP to your character with EEKeeper (enough to cast level 9 spells), level up, pick some wizard HLAs, and check whether they actually appear behind your innate abilities button.
I also have a question for you. I see you've installed p&p spell progression tables, which I know means more spells
The inspiration for this run came from the realization that Fire Seeds could apply on-hit effects to groups of enemies, the realization that Wizard Slayers dealt 25% spell failure per hit rather than 10%, and the realization that level 10 Spirit Animals struck with +6 weapons, and could therefore strike through Improved Mantle. I had taken an interest in how to disrupt enemy mages without having to break through their many defenses, as I play with pre-buffs and SCS enemies use a lot.
Therefore, the basis of this run was our three anti-mage characters: Zulfer, the Assassin dualed to fighter at level 9; Ruva, the Wizard Slayer dualed to thief at level 7; and Laosha, the Totemic Druid. These three would allow me to bypass nearly all defenses. Zulfer and Ruva could apply poison and arcane spell failure via Fire Seeds conjured by Laosha, whose Spirit Animals could poison or deal cold damage and paralyze enemies through Improved Mantle if not PFMW.
This left me with three vacancies. I felt I had not used Called Shot to its full effectiveness in previous runs--I knew Called Shot could guarantee failed saves against disablers, which are normally too unreliable for no-reload runs. So I created Azelos, our Archer, with the intention of using her to disable specific enemies or kill them with STR drain. Arcane power was missing from these four characters, so I added a sorcerer, Yorun Zovai.
Finally, I chose a Shadowdancer to be our Charname, so that Charname would always have a reliable escape option. But because we already had a thief and we were short of divine spellpower, I decided to make it a Shadowdancer/Cleric, which would give us much better durability against disablers, and compensate for the fact that our saves were so poor, as none of our characters was a dwarf, halfling, or gnome. Hence, Viora the Shadowdancer, dualed to cleric at level 9. Three dual-classes in a single party would cause some problems early on, but I figured Laosha and Azelos would be able to help us along. As these were low-level dual-classes, the downtime wouldn't be too severe.
I was going to post a short summary of each battle, but the resulting summary is over 12 pages in Microsoft Word and isn't that interesting. So I'll skip to the analysis. Which is only 4 pages.
Our Characters Over the Course of the Game:
In the early game, Laosha was our most valuable character, as his Spirit Animals were much more resilient than our own party members. They were immune to normal weapons and essentially all disablers. While Zulfer was recovering his Assassin levels, Ruva dealt with many early-game mages.
As we tackled stronger enemies in larger areas, we relied more heavily on the PWWP strategy (Provoke, Weaken, Withdraw, Pounce), in which we attacked the enemy with weak summons to draw out their strongest buffs and attack spells, ran or hid to escape, and then attacked again when the enemy was weakened.
Zulfer recovered his Assassin levels, and he began to take on a larger and larger role in the party. He was able to take down most enemies, especially mages, without party assistance because he dealt 12 extra poison damage per hit when he used Poison Weapon, even on a successful save. After we got Sanchuudoku by debuffing Cookies with an Arrow of Dispelling from a Vhailor's Helm simulacrum and then stunning him with the Wand of Paralyzation, Zulfer was able to roll over most encounters, even without Poison Weapon. For encounters he couldn't handle, we fell back on the PWWP strategy.
I started to rely more and more on Fire Seeds, as they proved able to inflict poison damage and spell failure despite weapon immunities. This culminated in our early assault on the Shade Lich and Elemental Lich, in which Ruva took them down almost single-handedly by throwing Fire Seeds at our Flesh Golem, which we made sure to keep very close to our real target, alongside her clone. This was more than sufficient to wait out both their PFMW pre-buff and contingency. The liches were helpless.
Underscoring just how big a difference that made, when I failed to use the same trick on Tolgerias, and instead opted for a low-pressure, PWWP-style approach, he crushed us, and Ruva got chunked. With Fire Seeds, we could take on the strongest mages in the game and win easily. Without them, we were hopelessly outmatched.
Ruva's importance grew as time went on. Her traps dealt massive physical damage in some important fights; her spell failure destroyed mages. Other places, Zulfer took down enemies with raw damage and poison.
Then we fought Firkraag, and I noticed something important. I had planned on using Azelos to kill Firkraag with Called Shot. But in the end, Zulfer killed Firkraag simply by virtue of Poison Weapon. When I looked back on things, Azelos had never played a star role. She was even less impactful than Yorun Zovai, who had lost tons of XP due to being chunked and whose greatest contribution to fights tended to be haste spells. Viora barely ever took action, preferring to hide in safety, but Viora's buffs kept the party safe. Azelos was our least valuable character.
We grew increasingly reliant on Zulfer. When we fought the Twisted Rune and a single mistake--getting the timing wrong for Repulse Undead--Yoren Zovai chunked again and everyone but Viora killed, Zulfer was the first person we raised, and he killed every last enemy in the area, by himself. He continued to dominate gameplay with a few rare exceptions, like Viora turning the vampires in Bodhi's lair, or Ruva halting Kangaxx's spellcasting. He also did most of the work in the fight against Irenicus in Hell, though not by as much as usual.
Azelos, fittingly, got chunked in the final battle. I had long noticed that Yorun Zovai was not cutting it, and her lack of versatility was causing problems. So I got rid of Azelos the Archer entirely, and replaced her with Azelos the Conjurer. I also re-created Yorun Zovai to get a stronger sorcerer; her two chunking incidents left her with less XP than a ToB-generated character.
Ruva destroyed Illasera with traps; our mages tore through Saradush with Horrid Wilting and triple Sunfire Spell Triggers. Zulfer was no longer our star character, though he remained our primary tank.
He played his best hand in ToB against the Fire Giants, who killed him the first time around. Only with Roranach's Horn could he survive. And once we had slain a few giants, Laosha suddenly catapulted to level 23, gaining access to Earth Elemental form and becoming, instantly, the far superior tank to Zulfer.
Right after we reached this milestone, Ruva got chunked by a Prismatic Spray trap. This was a hideous blow, particularly because, as an early dual-class build, she could not be replaced by re-creating her in ToB. We therefore took her in an entirely different direction and made her into a Bounty Hunter.
It was a good decision in retrospect; we arguably gained even more than we lost. Throughout the third level of Watcher's Keep, Ruva completely broke every major encounter save Aesgareth, simply because, if Azelos merely blinded her with PW: Blind, she could send an entire room of enemies away for several rounds, with no save, bypassing magic resistance and even spell protections. The enemies came back in a slow trickle, allowing us to take them down one or two at a time. She made a huge difference in each fight, crippling the enemy's ability to fight by reducing their damage pressure to a fraction of what it normally was, and she never even used all her traps.
Zulfer saw his role magnify later on, as we fought large groups of melee-oriented enemies, but he was never the deciding factor. It was Ruva who was throwing the Maze traps that kept deadly enemies from attacking us.
Then Yorun Zovai started casting Wish via Project Image. It was ridiculous. I had regarded Wish as too unreliable a spell, but even when we didn't get to Wish-rest, the benefits were significant, and with Project Image, we had so many castings that the chance of a rest was very high indeed. And then I realized that although mages had the advantage in SoA, when versatility is so useful, sorcerers had the advantage in ToB, when the spells to use in any given battle so often boil down to PFMW, SI, Time Stop, Wish, and a damage spell and a debuffer. Level 9 spell slots made Yorun Zovai far more useful than Azelos.
When we got to Draconis, Zulfer's relevance shrank even further. It was not raw damage that let us win out over Draconis and his various goons; it was Maze traps and Wish-resting to restore our high-intensity HLAs.
Then we got the Scorcher Ammunition, and Zulfer almost ceased to matter at all. We should have gotten rid of him, but instead I re-created Laosha, making him into an Archer in the mistake belief that I'd be using Called Shot all the time now that the Scorcher Ammunition with Improved Haste would effectively give us 20 attacks per round because of its double strike. Laosha was now our best damage dealer by far, and Ruva, with the Yellow Dragon Scale, the Defender of Easthaven, and Laosha's old Earth Elemental Token, was our primary tank by far. Laosha could hit Ruva with the Scorcher Ammunition and everything in between them would suffer 310 damage per round.
Laosha crushed everything in Abazigal's Lair, including Abazigal and Tamah.
Laosha crushed everything in Sendai's Enclave, including Sendai and all of her clones.
Laosha crushed the Ravager in the Pocket Plane.
And when we finally reached the Throne of Bhaal, despite all the complexity of the fight and all of the optimizations, Laosha crushed Irenicus and a Fallen Solar. He would have crushed Bodhi, too, if Balthazar hadn't gotten her during Time Stop, and he would have gotten the other Fallen Planetar if they were just a little closer together. And he crushed the demons in the second phase.
He nearly killed Abazigal, until Ruva had to Maze him to save our Planetar. He killed Sendai, almost instantly. He damage-locked Melissan, blocking her spells. He would have killed Abazigal if it did not require him to let go of Melissan. He killed Sarevok. He did most of the damage against Illasera. He did most of the damage against Gromnir. He killed the Fallen Planetar. He killed Yaga-Shura. And he killed Melissan.
Findings:
A Shadowdancer protagonist that could cast cleric buffs on herself meant that our Charname was practically impossible to kill. Her buffs became nearly impossible to remove due to her high cleric levels, granting her and the party comprehensive and nearly-undispellable immunities. Weapons were a non-issue. She could run away from melee weapons and bounce missiles with the Shield of Reflection. Not that she often needed to; she could just vanish whenever she wanted. The only time she came close to death was when she encountered area-effect spell damage. Once she got a hold of the Cloak of Mirroring, there was practically nothing that could kill her.
Fire Seeds are terribly effective means of dealing poison and spell failure. A Wizard Slayer or an Assassin or Blackguard can break many encounters with just four Fire Seeds from a single casting. Their ability to bypass defenses makes them fantastic anti-mage tools.
Even without Fire Seeds, Poison Weapon and Wizard Slayer spell failure have a major impact on gameplay. They both bypass Stoneskin, and both are crippling to mages.
Spirit Animals are also excellent anti-mage tools, as they can disrupt and disable through Improved Mantle and will resist enemy disablers. On top of that, they're immune to normal weapons, which makes them more or less invincible against many early game encounters. Also, you can summon more than one per round.
Sorcerers suffer from a lack of flexibility in SoA, where there are all kinds of valuable spells to use at every spell level. There's much diversity in SoA, both in terms of spell picks and in encounters. But in ToB, when the biggest spells are the best spells, being able to chain-cast Wish and Time Stop and the like is usually the best option regardless of the circumstances.
The Earth Elemental Token in ToB is incredibly strong, even if you reduce the resistances from 100% to 50%. That sort of survivability is very useful in the melee-heavy environments that you often see in ToB. What especially makes it poweful is that it's perfectly compatible with all of the other resistance-boosting items and spells available, including the Yellow Dragon Scale and 25% physical damage resistance boost that Ascension introduces.
If you do have a character with immunity to missile and fire damage, the Scorcher Ammunition is by far the most powerful item around, so long as you don't roast your own party with it. It can rapidly destroy the toughest enemies in the game, despite all weapon immunities. And like Fire Seeds, it can apply on-hit effects to groups of enemies. Poison Weapon will tack on 240 poison damage per round. A Wizard Slayer will apply 500% spell failure per round. Power Attack will force 20 saves vs. death at -4 per round, a virtual guarantee of a failed save. Called Shot will drain 20 STR and apply a -20 penalty to saves vs. spell per round. Any creature with 33 STR or less will die on the second round. Almost nothing matters with the Scorcher Ammunition in hand.
Blind Bounty Hunters at level 21 or higher can bail you out of nearly any situation. Almost nothing is immune to Maze, and Maze traps let you fight huge battles as a series of small skirmishes, vastly reducing the amount of pressure on your party. They also wear out enemy buffs like PFMW.
This party turned out a lot stronger than I thought, especially considering we had characters get chunked on five separate occasions. It's been a wild run, and a lot of weird stuff has happened. This has been a success.
Spell casting time is quoted as a number from 1 to 10, where 10 is the length of a round. Yes a round lasts 6 seconds, so a casting time of 3 should take 6 * (3/10) = 1.8 seconds.
Concerning Improved Ilyich, I trained myself with 3 differents characters, including a copy of Anselm my Blackguard. I think it is very difficult because you don't have a lot of equipment and in my opinion it prevents a lot of character builds from doing it.
It is also during these training that I learned to hate the PnP Mephits
They have this ability for example
"Sooty Ball
A Smoke Mephit's breath weapon consists of a sooty hall usable every other melee round, an unlimited number of times per day. This sooty hall automatically strikes one creature of the mephit's choice within 20 feet dealing 1d4 points of poison damage and blinding the target for 1 round (no save)."
Or this one
"Water Jet
Steam mephits can breathe a scalding jet of water every other round. The jet automatically hits one target within 20 feet and deals 1d3 points of fire damage. There is also a 50% chance that the target will be stunned for 1 round (no save)."
They all have spells to stun or blind you with a save, which at this point of the game is suicide, but some of them don't even offer a save like the two mentionned above.
But I figured that there are probably a few Mephits later in the game and that it could be interesting to fight them later on with better stuff and more options, so I kept the component and decided to allow myself to Ctrl-Y them in the starting dungeon.
You are right about my character, very strong with a lot of experience from BG:EE thanks to mod added encounters like Dark Horizons. At first I thought that my character was too strong for the run to be interesting but then I remembered about the Nightmare Mode and I thought that 2,100,000 XP at the start of BG2:EE was pretty much the XP I could have get if I played Nightmare Mode in BG:EE so it was a good match.
Concerning HLAs, it is normal that they don't appear in the special abilities bar in-game, they should still appear in the casting menu.
The component mainly prevent them from being picked more than once, give you one casting per day freely and most importantly prevent Simulacrums / Project Images to use them.
Here is a screenshot of Yami edited with 9,000,000 XP.
The HLAs are next to my Shadow Door and Summon Air Elemental spells.
Finally about the PnP spell progressions, I always thought that enemies could use them because SCS is installed after BG2Tweaks but your question was very interesting so I looked in EE:Keeper as you asked me.
I chose a Demilich, which is a level 35 Mage with SCS.
According to the PnP table it should have 8/8/8/8/8/8/8/7/7 spells per day, in EE:Keeper it has 9/9/9/9/9/10/10/9/8 instead which is normal because:
-SCS give kits to a lot of Mages, thus +1 spell per day / levels
-The Demilich has the HLAs +1 spell per day at level 6,7 and 8
So the mod is working perfectly fine for enemies
You can only use an item or a spell once per round, consuming your 'aura' in the process at the beggining of the spellcasting.
The casting time represents the portion of the round used to cast your spell and this is a fraction of 10 as @The_Potty_1 mentionned above.
That's why you must wait a long time before two Magic Missiles spells (casting time 1), if we cut rounds in ten moments it goes like this:
1: Magic Missile (0.6 seconds)
2: Waiting (1.2 seconds)
3: Waiting (1.8 seconds)
4: Waiting (2.4 seconds)
5: Waiting (3 seconds)
6: Waiting (3.6 seconds)
7: Waiting (4.2 seconds)
8: Waiting (4.8 seconds)
9: Waiting (5.4 seconds)
10: Waiting (6 seconds)
11: (New round, aura clear) Magic Missile
12: Waiting (and so forth)
For Minor Globe of Invulnerability (casting time 4)
1: MGoI (0.6 seconds)
2: MGoI (1.2 seconds)
3: MGoI (1.8 seconds)
4: MGoI (2.4 seconds)
5: Waiting (3 seconds)
6: Waiting (3.6 seconds)
7: Waiting (4.2 seconds)
8: Waiting (4.8 seconds)
9: Waiting (5.4 seconds)
10: Waiting (6 seconds)
11: MGoI (new round, aura clear)
12: MGoI, and so forth
Which means that in @Blackraven 's case, Righteous Magic (casting time 9) followed by DUHM (casting time 2)
1: Righteous Magic (0.6 seconds)
2: Righteous Magic (1.2 seconds)
3: Righteous Magic (1.8 seconds)
4: Righteous Magic (2.4 seconds)
5: Righteous Magic (3 seconds)
6: Righteous Magic (3.6 seconds)
7: Righteous Magic (4.2 seconds)
8: Righteous Magic (4.8 seconds)
9: Righteous Magic (5.4 seconds)
10: Waiting (6 seconds)
11: New round, aura clear, DUHM (6.6 seconds)
12: DUHM (7.2 seconds)
13: Waiting (7.8 seconds) and so forth
So if you cast a slow spell first, you can have the illusion of being under Improved Alacrity while you are not.
This aura management is very important because it can affect your character performance significantly.
Let's imagine that instead of waiting, @Blackraven 's character will now attack. If he casts DUHM followed by Righteous Magic the damage output will be inferior and his buffs will be desynchronised.
DUHM followed by Righteous Magic, attacking between spells over 2 rounds:
1: DUHM (0.6 seconds)
2: DUHM (1.2 seconds)
3: Attacking (under DUHM; 1.8 seconds)
4: Attacking (under DUHM; 2.4 seconds)
5: Attacking (under DUHM; 3 seconds)
6: Attacking (under DUHM; 3.6 seconds)
7: Attacking (under DUHM; 4.2 seconds)
8: Attacking (under DUHM; 4.8 seconds)
9: Attacking (under DUHM; 5.4 seconds)
10: Attacking (under DUHM; 6 seconds)
11: Aura clear, new round. Righteous Magic (6.6 seconds)
12: Righteous Magic (7.2 seconds)
13: Righteous Magic (7.8 seconds)
14: Righteous Magic (8.4 seconds)
15: Righteous Magic (9 seconds)
16: Righteous Magic (9.6 seconds)
17: Righteous Magic (10.2 seconds)
18: Righteous Magic (10.8 seconds)
19: Righteous Magic (11.4 seconds)
20: Attacking (Under DUHM + Righteous Magic; 12 seconds)
Righteous Magic followed by DUHM, attacking between spells over 2 rounds:
1: Righteous Magic (0.6 seconds)
2: Righteous Magic (1.2 seconds)
3: Righteous Magic (1.8 seconds)
4: Righteous Magic (2.4 seconds)
5: Righteous Magic (3 seconds)
6: Righteous Magic (3.6 seconds)
7: Righteous Magic (4.2 seconds)
8: Righteous Magic (4.8 seconds)
9: Righteous Magic (5.4 seconds)
10: Attacking (Under Righteous Magic; 6 seconds)
11: New round, aura clear, DUHM (6.6 seconds)
12: DUHM (7.2 seconds)
13: Attacking (Under Righteous Magic + DUHM; 7.8 seconds)
14: Attacking (Under Righteous Magic + DUHM; 8.4 seconds)
15: Attacking (Under Righteous Magic + DUHM; 9 seconds)
16: Attacking (Under Righteous Magic + DUHM; 9.6 seconds)
17: Attacking (Under Righteous Magic + DUHM; 10.2 seconds)
18: Attacking (Under Righteous Magic + DUHM; 10.8 seconds)
19: Attacking (Under Righteous Magic + DUHM; 11.4 seconds)
20: Attacking (Under Righteous Magic + DUHM; 12 seconds)
In both situations, the character casts the same spells and attacks as many times, but in the second example his attacks benefit a lot more from his buffs.
This is why in yesterday's MP session with @bengoshi , @Tresset and @CrevsDaak I equipped the Boots of Speed against the Ogre-Mage in Cloakwood Mines, waited for it to waste his aura with a Chromatic Orb (casting time 1) against the Skeleton Warrior summoned by Lucius then I rushed him, attacked him once and retreated immediately out of sight, waiting for it to waste his aura once again against the skelly before attacking again, and so forth.
This is also the perfect moment to explain why I think the Robe of Vecna is better used by a Fighter/Mage (or F/M/T, F/M/C, whatever) than by a single class spellcaster.
Because you aura is consumed at the start of your casting, equipping Edwin for example with the Robe of Vecna won't actually make him better with his spellcasting because sure, he will finish to cast his spells earlier in the round, but he will have to wait more afterward between two spells.
While a Fighter/Mage, by decreasing the amount of time needed to cast a spell, will be able to attack a lot more which translates into a huge APR gain equals to more than two speed weapons in the best case.
If a Fighter/Mage wants to cast Simulacrum (casting time 9) and attack in the same round, he will only have 0.6 seconds to do so (the last fraction of the round) while if he has the Robe equipped, his casting time will decrease to 5 and he will have 3 seconds instead to attack (+400%, better than Belm and Kundane together)
Of course the situation is totally different if your spellcaster is under the effect of Improved Alacrity.
And finally, this is the reason I dislike speed weapons and think they are overrated, especially for hybrids characters like F/M and so forth, because I use my aura to cast a spell every rounds and there is a lot of movement involved in this game so I don't have the time to benefit from the increased APR, I think 8 APR is plenty enough.
I hope I managed to be clear in spite of my poor english and that I didn't forget anything!
I was confused because some spells have a casting time of 1 round displayed in their descriptions so I always assumed that 9 was slightly faster than 1 round.
The Monty Python's adventures!
The moment of danger (not only the Lucius's status, but also Hadhod's HPs):
The moment of joy:
Genthore continued to attack Drassisseilla, who was Mirror Imaged and kited as much as it was possible. Then he managed a critical hit that went through Mirror Images - "you can't rely on Mirror Images in a no-reload run".
Crev's and GemHound's characters were not used in the fight - so their deaths didn't mean anything.
All this time Hadhog was healing himself with potions (even elixirs of health were used) inside the building, Drasus waited for him outside. Lucius took a necklace of fireballs and avenged Drassisseilla.
Dwarven brothers decided to try their chances against Drasus and Rezdan.
It went well. The potion of fire breath inflicted 40 damage on Drasus, while the potion of magic blocking protected Lucius till he stunned Rezdan. Stunned him 4 times in a row.
Then we took on Kysus, sharing damage of his spells between two dwarfs.
In that battle, we used everything we had. 3 potions of magic blocking. The necklace of fireballs. Wands of Fire and paralysis.
We belived till the end, even when the situation became critical.
Now, if we could take down Davaeorn, we would get access to even more potions and wands. We were joined by CrevsDaak, so our FMT could finally help.
We had lengthly talks about who would deal with Davaeorn one on one, and it was decided that charname should do it. In my opinion, tanking Davaeorn under the Protection from Magic is the easiest part of this fight. Just run, don't let yourself be hit by Battle Horrors.
As for the "entrance group", their task is harder, they should constantly fight arriving guards. I thought Hadhod who had better THAC0 and damage, higher APR than Lucius, would be better suited for that task. Tresset and Crevs had to support Gotural with spells and wands.
My main aim for the Davaeorn was not to let him attack the main group who protected the entrance. I just blocked the mage's way every time he wanted to go that way. Battle Horrors at first tried to go after me, but in the end they attacked the main group. And this main group, they were cool. Of course, I was concentrating on Davaeorn but I still saw that they were fine.
One moment, the game just freezed for several seconds, and when it resumed, one Battle Horror was dead.
When all the guards were defeated, only Davaeorn was left, but it was only a question of time. The funniest part was when I couldn't see Dave, but others attacked him and killed. My game just didn't show Davaeorn. And then we couldn't find his corpse. Apparently, he was so afraid of us that disappeared in the wall. We cluaconsoled him to finish the quest.
This time, we didn't lose anyone, and felt much more sure about the outcome than with the first Monty Python group. We used our resourses well and it paid off.
As you said you can't cast another spell during the same round unless you are under improved alacrity.
Anyway, the engine does not allow you to cast several spells within a single tick of its internal tick clock (15 subdivisions of a second IIRC but I never tried to verify - or is it 15 segments of a wait() unit time).
You can easily see it when casting under improved alacrity (if not under time stop), you'll see the graphical evolution of your projectiles, spell after spell, even if your casting time is 0 (short casting time + vecna).
Btw, I concur with your rationale about the vecna allocation to a party member. This works well until one of your mage/sorcerer can cast improved alacrity. After this transition, I am not that sure that the F/M/* is the best choice for vecna if (s)he is in competition with another caster.
As tactical players, we may also notice that under the vecna effect we have less chance to be interrupted as we reduce the casting time. Probably a minor use case but not entirely neglectable, perhaps more obvious with a C/M of some sort when (s)he is casting cleric spells with a long casting time.
Many thanks for your attempt to use eetactics. This is much appreciated.
I would like to add a few comments to improve the situation.
In the tactics readme I tried to indicate some (possible) conflicts with SCS.
Let me describe it a little bit more.
Improved Ilyich conflicts with SCS Make the starting dungeon slightly harder.
Honestly I do not know what would result from combining the two. For sure you fail to install the party/proletariat groups on the second map but I am also sure that the Ilyich group itself works ok.
I do not know whether the SCS feature preventing from resting more than once is active. If so, that's probably a nightmare for most players.
I think it is fair to kill the atweaks mephits with a ctrl-y. I will revert the atweaks modifications for this first dungeon in a default installation but this is not coded yet.
Btw for other readers, I recommend using option 1 at install time as I will temporarily remove most install options prior to creating an external reference file where players can set their SCS compatibility preferences.
Improved Guarded Compound and Improved Twisted Rune conflict with SCS improved minor encounters. However in that case I expect Tactics to "override" SCS. If something goes wrong, just tell me I'll indicate which scripts to remove. I think you will get some unexpected and unused potions from SCS.
Kuroisan, redbadge, lich in the dock, gnome. No pb expected.
I did not want to edit the general baldur / baldur25 scripts and I preferred to restrict Kuroisan appearance to certain areas = outdoors area in Athkatla. Easy to modify if you think he should also be seen elsewhere.
You may also try to use Kensai Ryu's guardians in the room above Kangaxx's room without modifying SCS Kangaxx (see options at install time, install KR guardians, do not install WWeimer Kangaxx). They are not prefect but they are much better than their original flavor.
Improved Torgal conflicts with SCS Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix"). Here I have no clue about the resulting mix. Let's be cautious and I regret to invite you to remove that eetactics component from your install. This is sad because I think this is a really good component with non stupid trolls, unmodified Yuanti mage (meaning they automatically inherit SCS mages features if this is installed) and Torgal itself has a different flavor.
The Ritual, no conflict but I just want to let you know that Ender was not fully "fixed". This just means that he may still hide (about 8 attempts to go invisible) without attacking. Therefore preventing the nearby skull from being killed. If you cannot break his invisibility do not hesitate to cheat him (he is not immune to area spells etc...). Apparently I unintentionally roled back a modification.
I would be glad to see someone using G. Blucher's improved Mae'Var, you can deploy him on top of SCS.
@Blackraven
Crash conditions were removed in several components, including Ilyich, Torgal/DeArnise, Lich in the dock, KR Kangaxx guardians and components linked to WK.
Interesting discussion on spell-casting and aura management.
@Gotural, thanks for checking verifying the implementation of p&p tables in enemy casters. Really good to know that it's actually working. My future installs will include these p&p tables. More spells = more epicness...
Also, I'm a bit jealous that in your install the Caster HLAs as Innates component does seem to be working
EDIT: oops, *tries Minsc voice* I understand now! I had to look under the cast spell button.
As to aTweaks' p&p mephits, I concur. They're lightning fast when they want to, making retreating and hiding virtually impossible, and they have very dangerous abilities. Im no longer playing with that component.
@bengoshi, @GemHound, and @Tresset congrats on your progress!
@semiticgod, re: our previous discussion of ways to counter Emotion: Hopelessness (or other Sleep effects), unlike the vanilla spell description, the updated EE spell description of Chaotic Commands explicitly states that it protects against Sleep effects. Something to keep in mind maybe
I have an update on Bardin. It doesn't cover as many quests as my last update, but it's a bit long anyway, due to the fact that it includes the Planar Sphere, which I consider one of the more challenging stronghold quests.
Bardin, LN Cleric/Thief, in SoA (Part 4)
Watcher's Keep (first level)
Bardin left the sewers, considering himself or rather his summons not ready to descend into a Beholder lair. While rummaging through his Wolfskin bag (an Unfinished Business addition), he found a cask of ale that he'd bought in Trademeet for Mironda, a Dwarven Wild Mage at the Hidden Refuge. He had al but forgotten about this errand. He trekked to the camp, handed the Dwarf the cask, got a magical healing tankard with his name on it as a reward and, being in the vicinity, traveled to Watcher's Keep.
Inside the Keep, two Vampiric Wraiths taught Bardin that he needed to properly buff if he was to defeat them,
Upon his return to Watcher's Keep, five weird, poisonous creatures waylaid him. Luckily for Bardin, they were so noble as to only warn him of a future battle; they didn't attack, yet.
My single class rogues have never got great mileage out of Assassination, but for a Cleric/Thief this should be an interesting HLA when properly used: Chant/Bless/Holy Power/DUHM to improve Thac0 and damage, Righteous Magic for maximum damage each hit, Improved Haste from an item such as the Improved Cloak of Protection +2 or Bracers of Blinding Strike, followed by Assassination. When dual-wielding with a speed weapon (Belm or Kundane) in the off-hand, Bardin would land six maximum damage x5 backstabs - seven with the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization - in a single round provided there are no (critical) misses. (Another option would be to use the Short Sword of Backstabbing for a x6 basckstab modifier.) Setting up such an attack may not always be easy, though I could see it work in combination with time traps. It's one of several possible Cleric/Thief synergies that I'm eager to ascertain in this run. The Cleric/Thief is occasionally maligned for lacking synergies or at least seen as inferior to the Fighter/Thief and Mage/Thief. In this run I intend to find out ways to make the most of a Cleric/Thief, especially at higher levels.
Planar Sphere
Bardin revisited Valygar's cabin, and was glad to find his quarry there this time. When Valygar told Bardin his side of the story, the two traveled to Athkatla, not to turn the Stalker in with the Cowled Wizards, but to enter the Planar Sphere. Valygar's presence opened the Sphere and Bardin told his companion to wait at the entrance. The Gnome killed a Golem and found a key which caused the Sphere to initiate planar travel as soon as he used it to open a door. Bardin slew several Sahuagin with a Fire Storm and then rested.
Wild Halflings
He battled his way past a couple of Wild Halfling warriors, but halted while under the cover of stealth before two casters of their kin. The Gnome retreated and sent an Aerial Servant to clean them up, but the wizard Kayardi Dimension Doored right to Bardin. Protected by Spell Deflection, PfMW and Spell Shield, Kayardi was nigh invulnerable for a few rounds at least. While the Aerial Servant occupied itself with Kayardi's companions, Bardin retreated further. He was too slow though to prevent his opponent from casting an ADHW at him. Fortunately the Belt of the Inertial Barrier and stellar Gnomish saves prevented the spell from doing much harm.
Necre was unlike Kayardi in that he Death Spelled Bardin's Aerial Servant, before he Dimension Doored to Bardin. The Gnome was hidden in shadows, so there was little Necre could do other than trying to detect Bardin's exact whereabouts. The Gnome retreated and had his Efreeti burn Necre to death.
Lavok
Three hostile Golems (2x Stone, 1x Juggernaut) were too much for Kitty, but not for buffed up Bardin.
Tolgerias
Bardin rested and saw himself facing another wizard, shortly after he got up: his original employer Tolgerias. Tolgerias was not at all pleased with Bardin's decision to enter the Sphere with Valygar. The mage was protected by SI: Abjuration and had a Chain Contigency with a Simulacrum and a Mordy's Sword, and a Contigency with PfMW trigger when he laid eyes on Bardin. What Tolgerias didn't know was that Bardin had a clone of himself as well (Vhailor's Helm).
Demons
Bardin, still buffed and hyped up from his triumph over this powerful foe, headed straight for the exit of the Sphere. As he got out of the Sphere he found himself in what looked to be a layer of the Abyss. The Gnome clubbed down Imps, Quasits, Fire Salamanders and, with some difficulty, a number of Maurehzis.
Ice and Fire Rooms
Buffed up Bardin had little difficulty with the creatures in the ice room. He might have done well enough even without buffing. The fire room was more dangerous, with Hell Hounds that Bardin had had bad experiences with, a Fire Elemental summoning Salamander Noble, and a Noble Efreeti as the main threats. Bardin made sure he was well-buffed again, especially against fire, and went straight for the Noble Efreeti with a Harm. The attack connected, but his target was so fast in transforming into a cloud of gas that the Gnome could not kill his foe in time.
Both can do it in solo mode but let's not forget that most players will use Imoen/Minsc/Jaheira/Yoshimo.
W.Weimer took advantage of some items/spells made available while progressing through the dungeon, that's really interesting even if this is not a mod component for roleplaying purists.
The mod offers a kind of self regulating difficulty over a wide range: In fact you set the difficulty yourself depending on the number of Ilyich team members you decide to fight: from one by one to all (six) of them at once.
From what mod do the Gloves of the Master Thief come from? They look interesting and I like additional item choices.
Also, you said that "Unfortunately, as I've mentioned before in this thread, SCS Caster HLAs as Innates didn't appear behind Bardin's special abilities button, so I uninstalled that component", but like I explained in my previous post, mine don't appear neither in the special abilities action bar, they are shown in the regular casting menu, I attached a screenshot above. Just to be sure I'm not mistaken
@Musigny It is I who thank you for your hard work to make this mod EE compatible!
So far, Improved Ilyich I think I didn't encounter any bugs but I'm not sure about a few things.
-I got hit once by Karamazov's ranged attacks, as a Wizard Slayer she should have inflicted Spell Failure on my character but no icon appeared on my charcter's portrait and I managed to cast Stoneskin soon after.
Is the lack of icon intended? Or is Karamazov lacking her Wizard Slayer Miscast Magic ability on hit?
I just tried to create a Wizard Slayer in BG1, I Ctrl-Q Firebead and hit him with an arrow and the Miscast Magic is displayed on his portrait
-The Neophyte Glabrezu stopped attacking me at some point, as you can see in my screenshots I lured it alone then I took it down. At first he retaliated and destroyed my Mirror Images but after that he did nothing, maybe it has something to do with Hide in Plain Sight.
-Zhivago never tried to summon his Fallen Deva, again the source of the problem could be HiPS but I thought that summoning should be very high in his priority list. He casted a lot of True Sight, Heal, Storm Shield, Lightning Bolt (on himself as Storm Shield makes him immune to Electricity).
-There were groups of Proletariat Duergars / Duergar Party Members alongisde SCS usual Duergars.
-SCS component that prevents resting more than once applied.
copying and answering your post on the eetactics thread https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/702370/#Comment_702370
@Gotural, thanks! I was also very pleased with the Tolgerias battle and especially the way Bardin finished him off
The Gloves of the Master Thief are from Weimer's Item Upgrades mod, which seems to be fully compatible with BG2EE. You can find it here: http://www.weidu.org/item.html. Bardin doesn't really need the gloves, but the combination of the thieving bonuses in one item is very convenient, and the +1 saves are a nice perk.
As to the HLAs, I actually edited my last post when I understood how and where to find the innate caster HLAs... I need to decide now whether or not to reinstall the mod component. Either way thanks for clearing this up for me.
No, it does not override that restriction but that does not matter much because Improved Ilyich and SCS "Make the starting dungeon slightly harder" are not meant to coexist.
That does not mean SCS is absent from the dungeon.
In fact when you install SCS (and aTweaks) all the creatures corresponding to your installation choices (noticeably generic AI, smarter mages, fiends, mephits, vampire, golem) get the SCS/aTweaks AI and features. Placing Ilyich on top of it, modifies some area parameters, overrides the Iliych's team members and makes them patrol the area, replaces the spawned creatures (five gobelin groups in the first area, two in the second area) by generic duergars with the old tactics AI, add mephits without modifying their scripting, modifies Ulvaryl who will no longer transform and flee after the dialog, and generate a couple of generic duergars from time to time.
You have to select option 1 at install time. Option 2 is removed from my current package (not published yet). This is misleading and it will be replaced by a system also granting SCS scripts to the generic duergars + other features.
Btw how is your run going?
Bardin, LN Cleric/Thief, in SoA (Part 5)
I reinstalled the SCS component that turns caster HLAs into innate abilities. It works fine after all, with the quest spells appearing behind the cast spell button rather than the innate ability button.
Since then, Bardin has made some more progress in his crusade against sin and corruption in Amn. His first undertaking was to confront the Cult of the Unseeing Eye, a task for the Temple of Helm that he took very seriously.
Unseeing Eye
He had already prcured one part of a rod that he would need to defeat the Unseeing Eye. For the second part he had to descend into a pit that led via a Ghoul Town to the Beholder's lair. In the undead village, the Gnome blew up several Ghasts, Ghoul Lords, and Mummies with his Turn Undead ability.
In the lair of the Unseeing Eye, Bardin summoned five Skeleton Warriors to get rid of the Gauths and Beholders that inhabited it. The Gnome had three more Animate Dead spells memorized, but the five summons were enough to clear the place and get another Thief level. He picked his first clerical HLA, Energy Blades, which he intended to use against the Unseeing Eye.
When he found the second half of the rift device, both parts merged into one, and the Unseeing Eye appeared in a corridor near the exit, an area containing a number of snares from Bardin: 1x time, 1x spike, 4x normal. The Unseeing Eye triggered Bardin's time trap, allowing the Gnome to use the rift device against the Beholder.
Bardin returned the rift device to the avatar of Amaunator, and then visited the cult's quarters once more, where he gated in an Ultroloth. My (altered) setup contains SCS Improved Demons with aTweaks' Fiends scripts as well as aTweaks' Further Revised Fiend Summoning, which allows a lawful character, like Bardin, who casts Gate to choose between a lawful evil Baatezu and a neutral evil Yugoloth. Bardin opted for the help of a Yugoloth, an Ultroloth to be precise. We can see the very humanoid-looking fiend attack an Elite Guard here:
Liches
While Bardin was done with the Unseeing Eye, he wasn't done with the sewers yet. A former follower of the Unseeing Eye who had helped him assemble the rift device, had warned the Gnome of a powerful evil presence in a sarcophagus in a chamber near the entrance to the Old Tunnels. It was Bardin's intention to purge that evil. Aware of probable danger, the Gnome buffed himself (Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, Remove Fear, Haste, Free Action, protections from fire and lightning), and placed a couple of (regular) snares near the sarcophagus. When the evil turned out to be a Lich, Bardin cast False Dawn. It seemed the Gnome was too far removed from the undead creature for the spell to be effective, but the traps did their job well enough.
The Gnome retrieved a golden torso from the sarcophagus, left the building and rested. He then went to the Docks District, where Kangaxx eagerly awaited the reception of his body parts. Bardin was as buffed as he could be, including even things like Barkskin and Chant for the saves bonuses. A spike trap and two regular snares quickly destroyed Kangaxx' Lich form.
Kangaxx the Demi-Lich cast Energy Blades, and so did Bardin as he had no +4 (or better) weapon to hurt his foe with except for his sling of Everard, which would be too slow a weapon to attack with given the Gnome's lack of APR and Kangaxx' regeneration thanks to its ring. The Gnome wouldn't have much use for his discs. First of all, and not surprisingly, the Demi-Lich was PfMW and secondly when Bardin left the chamber, Kangaxx followed Bardin and promptly Removed the Gnome's protections before the latter could dodge the spell with an area transition. (Area transitions can be considered a bit lame, but on the other hand Remove Magics from high level casters are superdifficult to counter with for a solo Cleric/Thief. Bardin did own a few Spell Immunity scrolls, but he was reluctant to use them.) Fortunately Bardin could retreat into Kangaxx' chamber again, and rebuff without the Demi-Lich, or a Glabrezu apparently summoned by it, following him.
Around this time a weird glitch occurred. Bardin got to cast Gate a second time, or to be more precisely in the action bar, the icons to select Baatezu or Yugoloth reappeared. Bardin made the mistake of picking the Yugoloth, which resulted in in-fighting between the already Pit Fiend and the Ultroloth. With the Movanic Deva close to being unsummoned and the fiends quarreling between themselves, Bardin decided to leave the premises. But Kangaxx was eager to follow the Gnome outside. It gated in no less than three Glabrezus in rapid succession. Bardin hoped to find refuge at Cromwell's, but the Glabrezus teleported to Bardin and surrounded the Gnome on the narrow stairs that led to Cromwell's smithy. Bardin had nowhere to go. Kangaxx arrived not much later and cast a Dargon's Breath on the Gnome. The Helmet of Defense and a potion of fire resistance did much to reduce the impact of that spell, but the Gnome's measures didn't prevent his HPs from going below 90.
Bardin was disgusted with the number of corpses littered about the Docks District. It made the taste of victory a bittersweet one for the Gnome. Finding a powerful ring next to the fallen Demi-Lich's remains didn't change that.
Twisted Rune
One of a solo Cleric/Thief's weaker points is their lack of a reliable way to dispel enemies' buffs. Their only debuff spell is Dispel Magic, and for a multiclass Cleric that spell doesn't really cut it against the most powerful opponents in SoA, and a fortiori, in ToB.
Just like any character who isn't a burglar, Bardin had little cause to discover the Twisted Rune from an RP perspective, but the Staff of the Magi is just too good to pass up. Most players seem to love it or hate it for its invisibility, but I'm almost indifferent about that aspect; I care much more for its dispel on hit ability that offers no save. But that might have a lot to do with my love for Thieves. Long story short: it was time to metagame.
Bardin first cast Farsight, so as to see the entire room. He then summoned a Vhailor simmy, and had it place a spike trap and two regular traps at the far end of the large room. Those traps were meant for Layene.
Shangalar was provoked and teleported right into Bardin's deadly traps.
Bardin called an Aerial Servant and an Astral Deva to his side, while Layene gated several fiends (three Gelugons and a Cornugon) that, together with a Mordy Sword, moved to the entrance room. The Gnome, unfond of crowds, quaffed a potion of invisibility and left for the main room. Unfortunately, Layene's fiends and Mordy Sword were too much for the Astral Deva to handle.