How soon is it viable to go for Imoen, and what should I bring?
Kneller
Member Posts: 438
I remember very little about this point forward, so please try to keep the spoilers to a minimum.
Right now, my party is in the 9-10 level range. I know I'll probably pick up a level or two by the time I get to her if I head for spellhold now, but I'd rather get her sooner rather than later. So:
1) What's an earlish level to leave Athkatla to go for her and not find the mobs I face to be too overwhelming?
2) Is there any gear in particular that I can buy/loot prior that will be extremely helpful along the way?
Thanks.
Right now, my party is in the 9-10 level range. I know I'll probably pick up a level or two by the time I get to her if I head for spellhold now, but I'd rather get her sooner rather than later. So:
1) What's an earlish level to leave Athkatla to go for her and not find the mobs I face to be too overwhelming?
2) Is there any gear in particular that I can buy/loot prior that will be extremely helpful along the way?
Thanks.
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Comments
One weapon I could recommend is
As before, "more = easier" applies here as well. But who knows, maybe you like a challenge! Certainly helps in learning to deal with tough situations.
2.) There are several good pieces of gear that you can get before leaving, Deidre and Ribald sell some awesome items in the Adventurers Mart (Waukeen) and Joluv sell a few nice items in the Cooper Coronet (Slums).
It's also a good idea to complete one of the following : De'arnise, Planar Sphere, Astral Prison, Trademeet, Umar Hills or Windspear Hills. These locations give a lot of good magical items, the easiest are De'arnise, Trademeet and Umar hills. Be careful when you do the Astral Prison (Haer'Dalis quest), you won't be able to return before you've completed it, and the fights there can be quite difficult if you're new to the game.
3.) Imoen have very few dialogues in SoA, so you're not missing much if you wait with getting her and complete as many quests as you can in Act 2-3. I tell people not to rush in SoA to get Imoen.
Of the quests you've mentioned, I've done De'Arnise Keep, the Astral Prison, and I'm in the Umar Hills now. I'm probably going to do Windspear next, just so I can drop those acorns I got in the dungeon. However, I know I'm going to get roped into some stuff there, and being a Paladin (Cav), I know it's going to get a little drawn out. After that, I'd like to just head there, though.
I've heard that Shield of Balduran in particular is something that makes the later parts easier, so I do have that. I got the Robe of Vecna for Aerie (which will eventually go to Imoen). I'd like to ditch Aerie, but the only other cleric choice with a good party is Anomen, and he's just annoying. I'd rather play with Viconia, but I don't think I'll be able to keep her around once my rep gets high enough (and I don't want to tank it just for her). Furthermore, charname is a female so I can't even romance her to change her alignment.
1.) You'll be a criminal if you return to Amn after visiting Windspear, if you did not complete the main quest there. The guards will attack you, and you'll have problems. So if you end up going to Windspear for the Acorn quest, you have to complete the main quest there as well.
2.) Your stronghold start after you complete it.
3.) If you kill Firkraag when you meet him the first time, you won't be able to complete the paladin stronghold.
So if you end up going there, you'll want to complete the quest, but not kill Firkraag yet.
For items, you might want to pick up the following from the shops.
Bracers of AC 3 (Ribald)
Rod of Ressurection (Ribald)
Plate of Balduran (Deidre)
Girdle of Hill Giant Strength (Ribald)
The Bodhi Quests and the Underdark have oodles of XP, so your team will level up quickly upon arrival.
For the major quests, I've done Umar Hills, De'Arnisse Keep, and the Astral Prison. I've done a handful of more minor quests that have come up along the way. I'm planning to hit the sewers under the CC, but just to get Lilarcor for Minsc. I could do the slaver's quest while I'm there, but I don't recall there being too much loot for it.
I'm also thinking I could do the Windspear Hills. This will allow me to also get Red Dragon Scale, which is handy for a Cav (fireball anyone?), but I'll need another 5k to make it. I've never taken on the red dragon before, but it's a dragon so I figure there will be plenty of loot there.
Or, I can just buy the girdle, take a pass on the flail, and head straight off. 31k is a lot of ask for that weapon....
Any thoughts? Thanks.
I would buy the girdle and go get Imoen, worry about the other stuff when you get back.
For a player who has never before tackled the red dragon, I recommend not doing it until Chapter 6. Yes, of course it can be completed successfully in Chapter 2, if you know exactly what you're doing or are very lucky ... but with a low-level party and no prior experience, you'd probably just die. It's a non-trivial battle even with a higher-level party in Chapter 6.
For me, it was relatively simple - although that being said I did it right before going to Spellhold.
My party was me a fighter, using the dragonslayer sword and flame tongue, Keldorn with CF, Jaheria with belm and a +2 scim, Minsc with heartseeker and arrows of piercing, Yoshimo with the infinite ammo bow from trademeet also using piercing arrows, and Aerie.
That being said and done, I spent a fair bit of gold, because I basically bought a bunch of buffing potions, buffed all my party up, put my melee on 3 different sides of the dragon, and went ham. Cast breach off the bat, then all I had to do was wait.
It took a few tries, perhaps 8 or so, but very short attempts. On the killing attempt, he died in around 10 seconds. Now since you're rushing to Spellhold, you will have a more difficult time since you won't have the same gear, and you'll be lower level. I think it'd be doable, if you wanted to spend the gold on the potions, but since you're pretty tight on gold, it might be better not to.
Feeblemind can be bought from Galoomp the Bookeeper in Waukeen's Promenade, and is a very effective paralyzer for strong enemies.
Dragons have high MR AND great saves, so relying on spells is a hit or miss proposition (which again, probably doesn't really matter if you're reloading 8 times until victory is achieved) UNLESS you hit it with stuff to lower it's resistance along with the save lowering stuff like malison/doom (or use spells that ignore saves, have huge penalties to saves, etc).
Relying mostly on melee/physical attacks vs dragons at earlier stages of the game even with grandmastery and thac0 items/buffs is hit or miss as well, and probably will require multiple reloads (unless vanilla dragon ai is truly stupid). Best bet is to combo with one or two melees/summons (Breach will obviously be required) occupying it's attention, while someone lowers it's resistance and saves, and once that's done pelt it with spells which will not require extremely lucky rolls to tag a dragon like physical attacks will.
I haven't played with vanilla/non-SCS dragons in over 15 years, but I'd imagine even in vanilla Fiirkragg dispels/lowers fire resistance before using his breath attack? If so that's something else to keep in mind; eventually his breath attacks will start to chunk party members (unrezzable death) if you don't find more reliable ways to disable him besides relying on lucky rolls/multiple reloads. If you tag a foe like dragons with a status effect that disables their standard scripts, it makes the fight MUCH, much easier (a certain lvl 1 spell comes to mind, as well as a lvl 4 and a lvl 5; the lvl 1 and the lvl 5 both have pretty steep penalties to saves which combined with doom/malison means about -12 penalty to it's saves, which will fairly reliably disrupt the dragon's normal behavior/script... after it's MR is lowered of course.) No better feeling than making a mighty trash talking arrogant dragon piss in his britches or become confused, especially if it's with a lvl 1 spell from fragile Aerie or someone like that.
A question I would ask experienced SCS players is, how early have you dared to go to Spellhold with SCS ai, the 'Items get taken from you in Spellhold' component, along with Unfinished Business 'Bohdi plays cat and mouse with you in Spellhold' component (it basically makes it lethal risky to try and rest in the Spellhold Maze until the slayer change) installed? I've found the above combo to be a very reliable way to end no reload runs so far, but RP wise it makes the most sense so I keep hoping to navigate it without a reload someday (I vaguely remember succeeding MAYBE once).
@ithildurnew i always play with SCS, and i delay getting Imoen as much as possible. I even do Twisted Rune in Chapter 2. Make sure you load up on a ton of Enchanted Weapon and summons while naked in Spellhold, also a good idea to scout up ahead with a wizard eye or something, those groups of yuan-ti mages are quite difficult to handle without gear. High level skeletons, aerial servants and mordenkainen swords helped me clear Spellhold without much issue though, you can use the skeletons to fight the lich until it depletes most of it's spells, and as for the Irenicus battle itself, having no gear can be a good thing as well i reckon, seeing as he summons duplicates of your party and they will be weaker. I had no issue with that fight, just make sure to cast protect from magical energy on most of your toons.
It makes sense RP-wise, but I don't find it fun. It sort of feels like cheating when you have the casters, because it hardly does anything. And without the casters, you feel cheesed by the game.
Just my opinion, of course.
Imoen will rejoin you at either level 11 (400k xp) or 13 (1.2m). The ideal approach, in my opinion, is to go to Spellhold whenever your character reaches (or is near) level 13. Exactly when that happens will vary wildly depending on your class.
I do think, though, that rushing to rescue her is not ideal for a completionist run. Starting Chapter 5 too early will make you too underpowered for certain sidequests.
As for summons... i do not use Animate Dead or Gate in demons with a good aligned party for RP reasons (casting such spell is an evil act in pnp); aTweaks pit fiends/balors will make mincemeat out of most non planetar level summons (pit fiends/balors require +3 weapons to hit) anyway without breaking a sweat.
To clarify, I run aTweaks as well as the scs and UB components, which means dealing with at least one pit fiend and possibly a balor early on in the maze each with a fun deadly array of non vanilla/nasty pnp based powers.. which means among other things, they gate in friends which often turns out to be a second pit fiend or balor. The problem is a lot of spells, etc are consumed for these battles (which become much tougher than vanilla or even scs sans atweaks), and then you really cant afford to risk resting more than maybe once with the UB cat and mouse component... and if you're high enough lvl/delayed getting to spellhold sufficiently enough... you still have to deal with the lich, who probably will gate in more fiends.
It's a very, very tough combo, UB cat n mouse/risky rest + SCS naked + aTweaks + scs ai and I'm wondering how many folks have much experience with such a setup for Spellhold; the advise I'm seeing leads me to believe most people don't do this (trust me, atweaks fiends with SCS ai is a different ballgame. Even atweaks mephits can end no reload runs in chateau irenicus for the unprepared.
There's additional trouble with delaying to get Imoen, as I like to run protagonists that are multiclassed: it usually means the game (at least vanilla BG2 did this) will look at only your multiclass' first class and give you the 400k Imoen when you (and the rest of the party) are at or beyond 1,200,000, leaving Imoen far, far behind everyone else. This and sensible RP motivation (for a good aligned protagonist) are the reasons why I'd like to try and get her earlier, but I think the above mod combo makes it nearly impossible to pull off without reloading.
As for why don't I uninstall one of the mods, that sort of 'solution ' can certainly be an option if I wanted to (headache of uninstalling on a large setup notwithstanding) , but I really like intelligent, deadly foes behaving like intelligent deadly foes, I like the RP elements of being tossed in Spellhold naked and having bhodi chase you as she promised. And I do like the challenge (vanilla Spellhold becomes a cakewalk after a while) but I don't add mods (like Tactics or Improved Anvil) whose sheer point is to cheese ramp the difficulty, just stuff that makes sense and/or is based on rulesets that add pnp inspired elements. My question wasn't 'Halp, I'm totally helpless and don't know what to do' but rather asking for insight, feedback on how people handle this particular mix of mods earlier on in their level progression if they've tried it AND chosen to dare heading to Spellhold early.
I also forgot that I use Item Randomizer, which means you have a decent chance of not getting gear that you'd count on getting inside Spellhold, though sometimes you might luck out and get something nicer than expected. I'd venture a guess that these mod components combined can actually make Spellhold one of the most challenging dungeons in the entire game both for casters (who are hurt by the greater danger of resting) and non casters (missing equipment).
I suppose since the place is more deadly with such a setup, Bhodi might reasonably allow you to keep at least some of your gear! ... 'these poor bastards don't stand a chance, not as fun' but it just seems rather cliche 'bad guy captures you and in comical arrogance gives you good chance to escape and kill them later'; it somewhat makes sense with bhodi (she is much more feral, chaotic, impulsive while just as arrogant as her more calculating brother) in the early meetings, but not so much the latter encounters.
On the other hand, it might be interesting to have a mod where Bodhi stole some of your BEST stuff and you can't get it back until after you finally finish her off back in Athkatla. Just because she wants you to have some gear doesn't mean it really makes sense for her to let you hold on to IMoD for example.
My understanding is her level is picked based on average party level, rather than xp-level of the party, so if you are playing a lot of slow-leveling characters (I think I was a fighter/mage/cleric (slowest leveling multi!), had a party full of multis, and Keldorn along for the ride - so our average level was fairly low for our xp total.
Since then, I have learned to not sweat too much about rushing Imoen, it is generally pot luck whether her xp matches my party, unless I do EVERYTHING before leaving on the rescue mission, in which case the party of 6 will be close to 3Mxp each.
Generally, I try to do all the NPC quests before setting out, as they tend to have timers associated with them that will be time out once you head off on the rescue mission. That should easily be enough for a 1.2Mxp Imoen, hopefully without leveling out of sight. You can then hit the thematic missions on your return, while gathering allies for an assault on the end of the game...
(RPwise, it is very hard to justify doing anything but rush as fast as possible doing the minimum extra content; in practice, I am a completionist who seeks ever more bizarre reasons to procrastinate the main plot line!)
The only quests I've done are pretty much the ones that get thrust in your lap at the beginning of the game and felt "imperative" to my paladin charname. Otherwise, I think I would have even gone a little sooner.