No-reload Black pits challenge

The_Potty_1

This is a spin-off of the No-reload challenge. I suggest that we share our Black pits no-reload attempts in a common thread.

Similar rules apply:

1) Black pits 1 and / or Black pits 2.

2) No-reload. If your party dies, you're back to square one. Of course, if your computer crashes, you can reload your last save. Also, you can restart with a save from before the first fight of tier 1, if you want to skip the intro cutscenes.

3) Sword coast strategems recommended, particularly in BP1.

Thing is, Black pits 1 is super easy. I've taken a trio comprising barbarian, zerker, and d. defender through BP1, and really had no trouble at all. Hence, either use SCS, or take a duo / trio, or nerf your classes / stats. Roll your own challenge modifier.

Entries welcome!

Please specify BP1 or BP2, mods installed, your characters, stats, and classes.

I'm planning to take a full group through BP1, then either import them into BP2, or roll them up from scratch. I chose the relatively easier SCS spellcasting settings, namely Option 3: Mages never cast spells instantly. They're probably still pretty nasty.

FinneousPJ

SCS doesn't affect BP AFAIK.

The_Potty_1

Nooooooo!

Well it's installed, so I'll fire it up in a bit and test for sure.

The_Potty_1

Hard to say, so I'm installing SCS mage AI Option 1: Mages are always allowed to cast spells instantly at the start of combat. That should give a definitive answer.

However, I do have to say SCS BP seems a bit less stable than vanilla. I rolled a group comprising a barbarian, zerker, and dragon disciple, and twice the barbie spontaneously died from near full health, without any damage showing in the message window, and the body also disappeared so the other characters couldn't grab potions from it. After completing the fight, the barbie was raised again. Secondly, after completing the fight and returning to the merchant area from the arena, twice the game froze up and only responded to Alt-F4. I realize BP doesn't deserve much SCS love, but I'll at least try to establish if these are coming from SCS or are native to vanilla BP.

The_Potty_1

OK so I reloaded my group with the new SCS component, and headed into the next fight. A bunch of ogres, with one ogre mage. I didn't notice much from the mage, or the ogres, a pair of rages, a dragon breath, and a glitterdust was way more than they could handle. I also figured out the barbie death thing, this time when rage expired, her health dropped to 4/36. I'm pretty certain only zerkers should lose health at the end of a rage, not barbarians. It's doubly unfortunate, because the barbie had a series of poor HP rolls, so she only has 36HP, compared to the zerker's 60HP.

Anyway, the following fight proved definitively that SCS affects BP. Not because of the mage,who admittedly precast some stuff, but because one of the fighters passed a healing potion to the druid I was about to chunk. This fight went badly, and everyone died. Not, I hasten to add, because of a glitch, purely because we were overmatched. I suspect this was the final fight of tier 2, so we probably get access to +1 weapons (or possibly SCS fine ones) after this.

FinneousPJ

I don't know if it's changed, but it didn't used to affect BP(2).

http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/388522/#Comment_388522

BP(2) has custom AI scripts by Beamdog, however.

The_Potty_1

Ah right, cheers for that. Well I think I'll uninstall SCS entirely, start again, and see if I can spot any differences.