Legacy of Bhaal Difficulty
erronius
Member Posts: 28
First time player of EE, longtime player of all the IE games. I design my parties very carefully with all good stats (I know not everyone chooses that route which is fine, just trying to give the background). I also have tweaks/mods installed that allow me to run with for example Half-Orc paladins (which is a big advantage). So I figured, I am pretty good at these games, and I have a strong party (for reference, Dragon Disciple, Inquisitor, Cavalier, Berserker, Ranger/Cleric, Swashbuckler including 3 Half-Orcs - LOTS of early melee power). Why not try Legacy of Bhaal?
Even with a full party of six, I almost lost someone in the first fight with Shank, one of the two guys who attacks you in Candlekeep. I figured, OK, this mode will keep me on my toes. At this point my party has almost no armor, little in the way of preferred weapons. I healed up and went to do the "killing rats" quest. Well, it didn't work out that way. Those rats handed me my ass. It wasn't even close. I managed to kill one of them before my entire party was unconscious from the non-lethal damage.
So... is the whole game tuned this ridiculously? Is LOB meant to be like IWD2's Heart of Fury, where you are meant to be higher than level one? Or did they custom tune the rat encounter as a joke because it's non-lethal damage anyway.
I don't want to invest time into this difficulty if I'll be finding more fights like that. Any advice?
Thanks!
-Erronius
Even with a full party of six, I almost lost someone in the first fight with Shank, one of the two guys who attacks you in Candlekeep. I figured, OK, this mode will keep me on my toes. At this point my party has almost no armor, little in the way of preferred weapons. I healed up and went to do the "killing rats" quest. Well, it didn't work out that way. Those rats handed me my ass. It wasn't even close. I managed to kill one of them before my entire party was unconscious from the non-lethal damage.
So... is the whole game tuned this ridiculously? Is LOB meant to be like IWD2's Heart of Fury, where you are meant to be higher than level one? Or did they custom tune the rat encounter as a joke because it's non-lethal damage anyway.
I don't want to invest time into this difficulty if I'll be finding more fights like that. Any advice?
Thanks!
-Erronius
6
Comments
Try running Legacy again after you beat the game (and Siege), and I'm sure you'll enjoy it a whole lot more.
1. Ranged weapons for everybody.
2. Kite enemies around in circles while the rest of the party pew pews.
3. Focus on getting one characters AC as low as it can go (including a Skald can help a lot with this).
Is the xp cap still the same in a lob game?
A fighter/Mage with buffs (mirror image, blur etc) and full plate might be a good option too as a tank (until you can cast spirit armour and stone skin).
Might also be worth including a dual class or two.
I've really got to go and download BH1 and SoD soon ... Stupid mobile data limits.
(Still grumbling about why they can't provide an accurate description of the LOB mode)
The extra hp the enemies have has a static 80 added in, which makes swarms of weak enemies extremely powerful in HoF/LoB. Gigantic swarms of weak enemies make up about 99% of IWD, and are virtually non-existent in BG. Where large swarms do exist in BG, they can be easily split, unlike IWD where they're scripted to attack together.
BG also allows you to roam freely, and thus take advantage of things like the basilisk garden, ankheg plate, etc. early in the game.
Baldur's gate isn't favorable to newgame+ because of the tomes, and I'm pretty sure the design intent was for it to be run at level 1, but only by people who want an extreme challenge. The difficulty setting clearly states what stats are impacted in the description with the exception of level, which only impacts spell damage and things like turn undead. It should definitely still be in the description, though.
The candlekeep rats are broken and completely unrepresentative of the difficulty setting. It is not (directly) an issue with LoB. The issue is that they were given 90% damage resistance by the original devs to prevent them from being chunked, and beamdog didn't remove it. There is no other fight in the game with as much effective hp to whittle through, including the final boss fight.
Edit: Paragraph order
do a Black Pits Party and import those Guys and you have way more fun and a reasonable challenge who is not infuriating.
On a regular run as a dragon disciple, I skipped most of the candlekeep quests, avoided imoen. I picked up a +1 sling in beregost and went straight to Korax the Ghoul, killed some basilisks and hit level 5, before I recruited any npcs. I used EE keeper to give Kivan the archer kit and grabbed Minsc and Branawen(animate dead is invaluable for triggering traps and putting out more damage or taking more damage, depending on the situation.)
Imo LoB takes a bit more knowledge and skipping stuff but I think it's pretty fun so far. Additional observations, the Hit Die for enemies is increased, so sleep, color spray, command, and turn undead are entirely useless.
As for party composition suggestions, get one party member which you stack AC to the teeth on. For the rest, just assume almost everything is gonna hit them. Everyone else should be at least proficient with a ranged weapon, if not specialized or higher. Archer is an op kit in BG1, at level 5 Kivan has 6 Thaco for me and that's with 17 dex(A player created character would have 19 for -2 more thaco), 7-12 damage with a mundane comp bow and arrows with 2 shots per round. He's more than cleaning up fights while my dragon disciple and cleric disable enemies with grease, web, silence, and hold person.
Really not worth it unless you're that bored.
What to expect if starting with high-level heroes? Will they be facing hordes of enemies due to scaling of enemies?
http://redmine.beamdog.com/issues/21640
What a pity!
LoB makes the Sword Coast terrifying again. When I left Candlekeep, I felt completely out of my element in a way I haven't felt since the first time I played this game. I was a commoner in a world of monsters. I clung to the road and ran from combat, and every victory has been earned, not by my overpowered character, but by me, the player, through strategy and grit. Even with a min-maxed character, knowledge of the best equipment locations, and a party of 6, I am still probably going to die most of my battles. A deep understanding of the mechanics doesn't allow you to breeze through - it's an entry requirement. Instead of lobbing fireballs and magic missiles galore, and watching enemies melt, they take the hit and keep coming. Spells I would never prepare are now my defaults. I play my mages as "god wizards," altering the landscape enough to delay and weaken enemies in hopes of helping my fighters take out our foes one at a time. It's not that the game encourages cheese now - it's that cheese is a minimum requirement, and you have to come up with strategies in addition to the cheese. It's exactly what I'd want "impossible mode" in Baldur's Gate to be.
Though I agree the HP formula is pretty stupid. It basically means that the game gets easier the further you play. I'm currently playing BG2 LoB now, and it's in no way close to as difficult as early BG1. It's actually not difficult at all once you realize how strong summons are.
That's what I've been figuring out, the game does get easier as you go on. I picked up NPCs as they are a must when starting fresh. Mulahey and his minions are crazy at the start. His minions were the worst part, each of them (what like 14?) having ~110+ HP. That adds up to almost 2000HP of bad guys in one room. Not an easy thing for a low level party with few special items.
Question, do your summons get that outrageous HP added?