Yeah. Usually I mod all the NPCs. Khalid's use of Bow was a major part of his appeal. In BG1, every character really should have had a proficiency in some missile weapon. The low HPs of your characters and high damage of monsters made outright tanking less favourable. Plus, missile fire is perfect for interrupting casters.
I always had an issue with druids myself in BG2 only because they don't have access to Minor Restoration, making all that level draining you encounter extra annoying to deal with if you choose to have no access to Clerical spells.
@Dawglicious I don't suppose using shapeshifting stops that. I really have no idea other than to use charm person, when possible, to charm as many people in the immediate area prior to a known attack (especially in the docks and bridge districts of Athkatla) in order to use them as temporary human meat shields. Its not ideal, but better them than me.
Using innocent humanoids as pawns in order to kill Vampires. It may be a tad chaotic neutral but I'm ok with it.
Negative Plane Protection is your friend. Druids still get that.
Vampires are the easiest "difficult" enemy in the game. A single spell makes their most dangerous facet totally negligible. Alternatively you can use a scroll of protection from undead on a warrior type guy and just rampage MY LOVE FOR YOU IS LIKE A TRUCK BERZERKER mode all over them as they sit still til dead.
I'd say next easiest is Beholders. Shield of Balduran = dead beholders.
Other than the dragon outside of Azagal's place (I forget his name), most dragons aren't too bad. Toss a couple lower magic resists on them and they drop easy-peasy from high damage spells.
Illithids probably give me the most trouble simply because they are difficult to kite because of those narrow corridors and you can't melee them without putting your dude at risk.
Seriously though I am shocked how many people struggle against Vampires. Baldur's Gate couldn't hand you more ways to deal with lesser undead if they tried. Outside of liches and demi-liches, you can obliterate every type of undead with minimal effort.
@sandmanCCL Pretty much agree with ya there. Btw, plural is *illithid still not *illithids. Sorry, kind of grammar nazi-ish, not a huge deal just pointing it out.
Illithid are definitely difficult ... and I don't like ranged attacks much in BG2, they are weak and kinda suck. As opposed to BG1 ... >_>
Liches and demi-liches especially are srsly effin' annoying. Best thing to do there is make lots of summons to waste his spells, and wait around for shit to wear off from my experience. I throw a lot of Breaches and such and they don't seem to always matter all that much. And Demi-Liches, have any characters with badass +5 weapons wail on its junk while it imprisons all your summons.
Also, really interesting that you too had trouble with *that* dragon in particular.
Every time I've ever fought it, he's bugged out and spammed Wing Buffet like you can't believe. It's stupid. Plus he uses magic and is therefore automatically harder than any other dragon. Remove Fear + a couple protection from fire spells is generally enough to keep all the other dragons from ruining your day, but that guy tosses pretty powerful spells around and you can't ever get in close because WING BUFFET.
Liches aren't TOO bad simply because protection from undead is the most OP scroll in the game. 5 free rounds where he/she/it ignores you? Sign me up. Time to get to work with the dakka dakka and the choppa choppa. Lots of Breach, lots of lower resist, lots of dispel. Typical high level caster nonsense but with tons of HP and way too many layers of stoneskin.
Illithids have a simple rule to follow : Clerics - Summon Skeletal Warriors (if level 15 of course), haste them if possible and let them do the dirty job for ya. Druids - Conjure animals - slightly less powerful than skeletal warriors, they can still kick some butt. Elemental conjuring is also a good call. But you gotta fight with them - Iron Skins, chaotic commands and you're good to go. Mages - Mordenkeinen swords... those things are immune to anything mind flayers do. One can obliterate an infinite number of mind flayers.
Well, with the exception if you rush the game, by the time you reach the underdark, you SHOULD have these three spells available.
Also, I love druids. Especially with their HLAs :P
Yeah, their HLA are probably second best in the game. It's hard to argue with bard/thief HLAs because Spike Trap is absurd.
You know what's fun to do is drop Time Stop Trap with a blade, drop into offensive spin after hopefully roiding yourself up before the trap is triggered, and going to town on a captive audience. Pretty sure Haer'Dalis single handedly won me the final encounter in ToB my first playthrough.
@Quartz regarding Demi-Liches - Spell Immunity(abjuration) is all you really need against them, have whichever NPC (or even your PC) can cast it at the front. Gaxx usually just powerblasts them with Imprisonment which will be completely negated by it. Korgan enraged works too. + Deathward for WK Demi-Lich.
That's what I've always done, using summons does actually sound more epic though.
@SandmanCCL: Illithids are easily dealt with if you cast Chaotic Commands (5th level cleric spell) on your characters. This grants immunity to the annoying powers of mind flayers. Clerics AND druids get it. With this, Mind Flayer Lair is a snap. I can't believe ppl don't use this spell more often!
Btw, Int drain can still kill you, so rotate your melee fighters.
I had forgotten that Druids get negative plane protection, so I was mostly just trying to craft a ridiculous strategy to defend yourself against them there . Illithids I find are actually fairly easy to beat, especially given that generally by the time you face them you will have lots of access to Chaotic Commands.
I guess I should say Mind Flayers aren't so bad. Ullitharids or whatever the super ones are card are still a pain in the butt though because they resist missile damage.
I don't think they are terribly hard, per se. Just really annoying to fight. My whole point with that post was that most "difficult" enemies have a work around which makes fighting them manageable.
Comments
Using innocent humanoids as pawns in order to kill Vampires. It may be a tad chaotic neutral but I'm ok with it.
Vampires are the easiest "difficult" enemy in the game. A single spell makes their most dangerous facet totally negligible. Alternatively you can use a scroll of protection from undead on a warrior type guy and just rampage MY LOVE FOR YOU IS LIKE A TRUCK BERZERKER mode all over them as they sit still til dead.
I'd say next easiest is Beholders. Shield of Balduran = dead beholders.
Other than the dragon outside of Azagal's place (I forget his name), most dragons aren't too bad. Toss a couple lower magic resists on them and they drop easy-peasy from high damage spells.
Illithids probably give me the most trouble simply because they are difficult to kite because of those narrow corridors and you can't melee them without putting your dude at risk.
Seriously though I am shocked how many people struggle against Vampires. Baldur's Gate couldn't hand you more ways to deal with lesser undead if they tried. Outside of liches and demi-liches, you can obliterate every type of undead with minimal effort.
Illithid are definitely difficult ... and I don't like ranged attacks much in BG2, they are weak and kinda suck. As opposed to BG1 ... >_>
Liches and demi-liches especially are srsly effin' annoying. Best thing to do there is make lots of summons to waste his spells, and wait around for shit to wear off from my experience. I throw a lot of Breaches and such and they don't seem to always matter all that much. And Demi-Liches, have any characters with badass +5 weapons wail on its junk while it imprisons all your summons.
Also, really interesting that you too had trouble with *that* dragon in particular.
Liches aren't TOO bad simply because protection from undead is the most OP scroll in the game. 5 free rounds where he/she/it ignores you? Sign me up. Time to get to work with the dakka dakka and the choppa choppa. Lots of Breach, lots of lower resist, lots of dispel. Typical high level caster nonsense but with tons of HP and way too many layers of stoneskin.
Clerics - Summon Skeletal Warriors (if level 15 of course), haste them if possible and let them do the dirty job for ya.
Druids - Conjure animals - slightly less powerful than skeletal warriors, they can still kick some butt. Elemental conjuring is also a good call. But you gotta fight with them - Iron Skins, chaotic commands and you're good to go.
Mages - Mordenkeinen swords... those things are immune to anything mind flayers do. One can obliterate an infinite number of mind flayers.
Well, with the exception if you rush the game, by the time you reach the underdark, you SHOULD have these three spells available.
Also, I love druids. Especially with their HLAs :P
You know what's fun to do is drop Time Stop Trap with a blade, drop into offensive spin after hopefully roiding yourself up before the trap is triggered, and going to town on a captive audience. Pretty sure Haer'Dalis single handedly won me the final encounter in ToB my first playthrough.
That's what I've always done, using summons does actually sound more epic though.
Btw, Int drain can still kill you, so rotate your melee fighters.
I don't think they are terribly hard, per se. Just really annoying to fight. My whole point with that post was that most "difficult" enemies have a work around which makes fighting them manageable.