In vanilla, both EE and not EE, the projectile hits, the invisibility don't save him. I never tested it with ScS, and I did use the mod only with the original game, quite some time ago, but I suppose it is the same.
The fights on Baldrin's ship were rough. I would have Imoen go stealth and up one floor where she could launch a fire ball from a necklace. This would draw the enemies to her on one side of the ship. I would then bring the rest of my team up and have her gulp a potion of invisibility. This would give me the space I need to cast web and get some summons out so that I could slowly beat them down. The scorcher effect on the wands of fire do well against the vampiric wolfs.
The fight on the first floor was a knock down drag out fight. I felt overwhelmed at first but I slowly beat them back.
The final battle with the chieftain in Ugalath's Beard was a tough fight but manageable. I thought it was a very well balanced and rewarding fight.
I don’t know how people managed to pull off the boss battles like Davaeorn and Ulcaster wolf, these bosses summon reinforcements like CRAZY, my party would soon be overwhelmed by sheer number of enemies if confronted straight ahead. So I eventually came up with this (rather cheesy) strategy: equip Boots of Speed on my k/m/t, cast invisibility on rest of party members, hide them somewhere boss can’t see them, move to another place if necessary. k/m/t staff summon, run, hide, summons will be killed, but they do manage to gather most enemies in one place, staff fireball, combined with run-backstab-run method to finish scattered enemies, repeat. It will take time, but you do get opptunities to save your game, and it’s safe, if you don’t accidently get blocked & surrounded by enemies that is…
@the_sextein Your experience gives me the courage to challenge the greater werewolf, but right now my whole party only have ONE proficiency point on bastard sword, and it’s on Coran, oh, good Kondar, Sword of Balduran…
On the wolf of Ulcaster you need to kill the wolf as fast as possible to keep enemies from endlessly spawning in. What I did was give my three best melee fighters a potion of clarity and then haste them. The potion of clarity will protect you from charm, confusion and a host of other nasty effects. This allows you to have three sped up fighters beating down the wolf constantly. It helps if one of your melee fighters has mage abilities because they can cast mirror image and blur to help keep the damage down.
You could also try casting two web spells from off screen and then rushing in with the same tactics as above but use a potion of freedom on your three fighters as well. The webs will help keep the wolf from attacking and will keep some of the enemy spawns from reaching your characters.
My other three characters waited until the enemies spawned and then I had them rush to a little area that is just to the right of the wolf and I had them use a wand of monster summoning to keep the enemies at bay while casting slow, blind, doom ect.
For the Daveorn battle I detrapped the hallway and used the boots of speed to run back to the start when the web and gas spell went off. I then snuck down the hall way invisable with a thief until only one doom guard could see me and then I lured him up front and took the two doom guards out one at a time. If you don't do it fast enough or if you attack daveorn then reinforcements will start to come in. After I kill the doom guards I usually rush to the back of the area near the lift exit and then cast web and poison gas so that Daveorn and all reinforcements will get cought. If you kill Daveorn then all of his reinforcements will run away. Use the scorcher option on your wands of fire and use a wand of frost on him over and over. I think magical arrows help with him as well. Have your mage hit him with spell thrust to bring down his defense.
Other advice: Do Durlog's tower before the werewolf isle. I used the burning earth flame tongue sword. It is a long sword that does 1D8 +1 damage +2 fire damage against regenerating creatures like werewolf's. Kalied has 3 pips in longsword so that worked well for me. Imoen had 1 pip in daggers so I gave her the werewolf dagger. I gave Minsc the golden bastard sword of Balduran. Minsc doesn't have any Pips in bastard sword but I equipped him with the necklace of the wolf that gives a +2 thaco bonus against werewolves so he had no penalty. I then equipped my FMT with the Kondar bastard sword which he has no pips in and probably didn't land a whole lot of hits but every bit counts. Wands of paralayzation work on werewolf's, especially if you use greater malison.
This post is getting long so I will stop but I don't mind giving some pointers on the final battle in Ugalath's Beard if you get stuck when you get there just let me know if you need any ideas.
Sure will try utilizing Web & other aoe spells more, always fun to try different play styles (though already sold most potions for money :-)
Yes! My kensai has long sword points. Does The Burning Earth inflict full damage against the greater werewolf or just its fire damage?
I really learned a lot in this community, maybe you can post a new LOBSCS thread on BGII board, sharing your tips of your BGII run there, but be sure to look back at this thread from time to time where I’m VERY slowly catching up :-)
Well, I finally did it. I led Serevok's magic user toward the group with cloud kill. I then used arrows of dispelling combined with a hasted group of summoned monsters to lock him in place. I then had my team attack with long range magical arrows.
The other three stuck together at the throne. I cast greater malison and then I led a group of hasted summons up to them. The rest of the fight was just constantly casting monster summons and hitting them with magic arrows and poison arrows. I cast a few spells on Tazok but things were so chaotic I didn't even bother to see if they worked or not. After slowly killing all of Serevok's guys and the skeleton's that come with each death, I focused on Serevok with a combination of items.
I kept the monster summons going to keep him busy and then I would hit him with two wands of frost, a wand of the heavens, and the magic ring that casts agonizer's scorcher each round while Imoen fired off various magical arrows. After a long time I finally drained him of all HP.
The transition to SOD went smoothly.
So I managed to explore everything and beat everything in BG and TOSC as well as the EE content on LOBSCS. It was the hardest challenge I have faced in a game. Sometimes it felt kind of tedious. I could only play for so long each night because of the difficult nature of it but overall I think it was really fun and added a new way of playing the game. I would say I got my money's worth out of the EE version of the game based on the this experience alone.
If I were to do updates for SOD I would do it in the SOD forum so no worries. I probably won't do one for SOD because SCS doesn't have any special content for SOD. It's advanced AI will continue to work but SOD has it's own version of advanced AI so I doubt SCS makes the game much more difficult than it already is.
From what I hear BG2EE isn't nearly as hard as BGEE because the high level summons are powerful enough to balance out the boosted enemies. So as long as you have a summon heavy play style I figure you will be all right if you know how to beat it on insane previously. I won't know till I am there but I would do any BG2EE discussion in the challenges forum or the BG2EE forum so I am probably done with this thread unless people ask for advice that I might be able to help with.
Just managed BLOCK the 3 great doppelgangers in Durlag's Tower by using an Almighty-Invisible-“Wall” :-D, which is invisible 3 party members lined in the corridor, doppelgangers’ fate is miserable, rained by arrows, and spells, I’ll think of other “interesting” methods of eliminating for the next “Wall” victim :-), at least the invisible party members have some uses yes?
I still have no idea how cluaconsole works as it funcions differently from v2.0, but I do find a workaround using EEkeeper, under Global Variables tag, click Add, put DMWWFissionBurn into Name, change 0 in Value to 1, OK, Save, fight the slime, burn it to death, TELEPORTED.
Sorry I missed your question earlier. About the the clua console. I will paste the information from another thread that I read and got me through this section. That way if you need to use the console in the future you will know how.
With the latest version of BGEE, you need to open Baldur.lua, not baldur.ini and add this line: SetPrivateProfileString('Program Options','Debug Mode','1') instead of adding to the Option table.
Then, instead of typing CLUAConsole:SetGlobal( ... in the console, type C:SetGlobal( ...
So for the durlog chess board problem you would type.
C:SetGlobal("DMWWFissionBurn","GLOBAL",1)
After you have enabled the console through the .lua file as mentioned above in this post.
Here are a few more tips I thought about since I last posted here.
-Using Greater Malison and then chromatic orb will obliterate some pretty tough foes.
-It's not a bad idea to keep a few protection from undead scrolls in your inventory before importing your characters to SOD.
I stayed with clubs and slings for Jaheira. ( you can get a magical sling in Bergost and a magical club early on. I found a +2 club on the SCS druid in cloakwood.)
I used Composite long bow and mace for Minsc ( You can get a magical composite long bow at fieldpost's in Bergost. You can find the stupifier mace in the upper floor of the red shief inn at bergost.)
Long Bow and long sword for Kalied. ( There is some good +2 long bows in Baldur's gate. Varscona is a great long sword found in the nashkal mines area on a bounty hunter.)
Short Bow and Dagger for Imoen ( magical short bow can be found in bergost and a +2 can be found in Baldur's gate. I use the dagger of venom for Imoens backstabs.)
Staff and sling for Dynaheir. ( magical slings can be found throughout the game. The Halfling village near firewine has one. I settled for a staff that I found in durlog's tower.
Scimitar and crossbow for charname.
I use full plate armor and shield for jaheira, minsc, kalied, and charname. I eventually ditch armor on my main character when dynaheir can cast spirit armor on him. Since all of my characters are using one handed melee weapons, they can all benefit from extra armor class provided by shields. A cursed belt in the EE version also allows you to grant a character 18 strength. Just make sure that person doesn't need intelligence for anything. I gave the belt to Kalied and then moved the hands of takkok to Jahiera. This gave me 4 melee fighters with full plate and 18 strength with high dex scores all around. I used the gauntlets that grant 18 dex on misnc.
I had Kalied focus 3 pips in long sword and 2 pips in long bow. In SOD I gave him another pip in long bow.
My main character is now duel wielding scimitar and katana in SOD.
I am at the underground caverns in SOD at the moment. The game is very hard but thief's are better balanced. They are not hasted and they don't use an endless stream of invisibility potions. They actually try to leave the line of site from the party and hide in shadows.
I see. The reason I ask is because I'm taking a slightly different approach than you did for this difficulty. I'm still RPing it with my head canon, but I'm getting Abdel (a Fighter/Mage) to Level 5 in Fighter before recruiting anyone; that way, everyone automatically gets to Level 6 when recruited. So I only had plans for Abdel thus far.
Speaking of which, I don't know if Crossbows eventually turn out to be more powerful than Composite Bows, but, I find the latter to be extremely important for when Abdel's still on his own. Ankhegs, Basilisks, and Mutamin are all fought before that crucial point, so I end up cheesing them all with Blind + Glitter Dust + Long Range weaponry. This, of course, can take a while, so I think the Composite Bow is crucial for the early game.
Would you say that's correct? Or is there, perhaps, a better approach to this?
The composite has a better chance to hit but the crossbow of speed has more attacks per round so I wouldn't say one is better than the other. Both bows and crossbows have unique ammunition that can come in handy. Since my main character had no long range proficiency it felt like a good idea to give him the highest APR with the gauntlets that give +2 THAC0. My other companions already came equipped with pips in longbows so I figured someone on my team might as well use the crossbow of speed.
If you are going to put pips into a long range weapon I would go with the crossbow of speed because it has higher APR and ammunition that bows don't have. (Like electrical bolts and poison bolts) Minsc and Kalied will already have pips in longbows and will be able to take advantage of both normal and composite long bows to the fullest. This is just from my experience though. Maybe someone else has some advice I haven't thought of before. If your main character has a high strength the throwing daggers can be very damaging while having a decent APR. It's worth considering. In the long run if you plan to use long range weapons in TOB, crossbows will be the better choice because the fire tooth crossbow is a +5 weapon and the highest enchantment you will get with a long bow is +3 other than with some very limited arrows you can find.
My reasons for not using pips in long range is so I can specialize in scimitar, katana, war hammers and max out my dual wield fighting style by the time I reach TOB. My ultimate goal with this character is to dual wield the Ninja-to "scarlet" in my off hand with the war hammer Crom Feyor in the main hand. This will allow 10APR with 25 strength damage and THAC0 bonus while having instant destruction of all golems and poison damage as well as elemental damage boosts that go through stoneskin. This way I don't need to use the HLA whirlwind or greater whirlwind because I will already have max APR. This will allow more HLA points to be used for timestop traps and other valuable HLA abilities. Katana is great to have in SOD and for most of SOA because it can be dual wielded and has two handed sword 1D10 damage. It helps that the red dawn in SOD is great and the Katana's in SOA are some of the best weapons in the game. Especially when combined with an off hand speed weapon.
The most difficult thing for me in LOB mode is the insane enemy hitpoints, so doing the maximum amount of damage per round is going to be king in this mode. Especially when I reach ascension. Being a FM or FMT is also important in this mode because magical protection is more important than ever when enemies hit so often and do double damage.
If you are going to put pips into a long range weapon I would go with the crossbow of speed because it has higher APR and ammunition that bows don't have. (Like electrical bolts and poison bolts) Minsc and Kalied will already have pips in longbows and will be able to take advantage of both normal and composite long bows to the fullest. This is just from my experience though. Maybe someone else has some advice I haven't thought of before. If your main character has a high strength the throwing daggers can be very damaging while having a decent APR. It's worth considering. In the long run if you plan to use long range weapons in TOB, crossbows will be the better choice because the fire tooth crossbow is a +5 weapon and the highest enchantment you will get with a long bow is +3 other than with some very limited arrows you can find.
Crossbows have a lower basic APR than bows, so the crossbow of speed only gets up to the same APR as a standard bow. I agree that crossbows are a reasonable pick in a party though to make use of the different ammunition available.
There are a couple of longbows of +4 (one upgradeable to +5) in BG2, but unlike the Gesen shortbow they require ammunition. However, there are not that many enemies that require more than +2 to hit, so it's not a huge constraint for a party - you can anyway swap for other weapons such as Gesen, both Firetooths, Crimson Dart etc when needed.
True, I guess I was paying attention to the arrows. The firetooth bolts count as +5 where the long bows don't have +5 ammo, I believe +3 is the best they can do. I didn't realize the crossbow of speed was the same APR as a long bow. I should have checked. Still, the electrical bolts do great damage and are worth having a crossbow around for. I think crossbow bolts are 1D8 and arrows are 1D6 but I could be wrong and I am too lazy at the moment to check. Electrical bolts do an additonal 1d8 electrical damage on top of the bolt damage at the same APR.
A cannon party will already have two bow users. You could push minsc toward crossbows and have your main character use composite bows if you prefer but it will waste the single pip that minsc already has in long bow and it will take him longer in the game to reach specialization. You could use 3 longbow users but that is not really optimal and you would be wasting the crossbow of speed.
I am looking at it from an optimization standpoint though. The harder the game is, the more optimization helps but the game was designed to be played and beaten in any way you like so I would go with whatever you find the most interesting or cool for your character. I have beaten the game with what I think is the coolest many times. For this run being on LOB mode for the first time I have chosen to work with optimization.
One last thing, If your fighter mage is a pure elf then he gets a +1 bonus to THAC0 for long bows so that may be another reason to go with long bows over crossbows. If you were not using a cannon party I might recommend a long bow anyway.
If you are using a non elf character with the cannon party I would and did go with the crossbow of speed.
I just checked the game now that I am home and an electric bolt does 1D8 +4D4 electrical damage.
An arrow of acid does 1D6+ 1 + 1D3 acid damage.
Bolt maximum damage is 24 Arrow max damage is 10
Even if the enemy saves vs breath the electric bolt is still capable of 16 damage. Being able to fire these at the same APR as a bow is impressive. They are more damaging than I thought they were.
You can get bows that have a +2 to hit over the crossbow of speed so I would think that would help the bow keep up. A warrior would probably do better with a cross bow due to his high thaco in the end but at the start and solo, especially with low money, the bow would probably do better.
I know a short bow in SOA has 3 APR and I think someone calculated it up as the most damaging long range weapon but don't quote me on that.
I just checked the game now that I am home and an electric bolt does 1D8 +4D4 electrical damage.
An arrow of acid does 1D6+ 1 + 1D3 acid damage.
Bolt maximum damage is 24 Arrow max damage is 10
Even if the enemy saves vs breath the electric bolt is still capable of 16 damage. Being able to fire these at the same APR as a bow is impressive. They are more damaging than I thought they were.
You can get bows that have a +2 to hit over the crossbow of speed so I would think that would help the bow keep up. A warrior would probably do better with a cross bow due to his high thaco in the end but at the start and solo, especially with low money, the bow would probably do better.
I know a short bow in SOA has 3 APR and I think someone calculated it up as the most damaging long range weapon but don't quote me on that.
Sounds like you're looking at BG2. In BG1 acid arrows do 1D6+1 +2D6 acid damage, so is much more competitive with Bolts of Lightning.
Which missile weapon does most damage depends on a host of factors, e.g. strength, APR bonuses, THAC0 and AC of enemies. I agree that the Tuigan Bow's bonus APR makes it a good choice for many characters, but if you're struggling to hit enemies then there are better options.
Yeah, I am using the SCS option that makes BG1 consistent with BG2 by lowering the effectiveness of arrows in BG1 due to them being A bit OP in the original design. All of the games are now played in the SOA engine with the SOA rules for the most part. I know thief XP has been adjusted for trap removal between the two games for balance reasons but for the most part everything is consistent visually and in terms of gameplay. I know not everyone is going to have the game set up the same way but I did state in my first post in this thread that I am using all of the hardest SCS options so anyone asking me for advice should take note of my setup.
Being able to hit is more important than raw damage I agree.
Most warrior classes should have no problems hitting with the most damaging equipment though. Even my FMT has done well with crossbow of speed with no pips at all. In SOD my FMT is hitting constantly. I can hear and see the electrical damage on nearly every attack. Most tough enemies I would probaby struggle to hit with a crossbow but being a warrior with magical protections you will be up front swinging a sword on most tough fights anyway so you won't notice. That's the experience I have had. I don't solo the game though so maybe my experiences are not in line with the type of game experience we are talking about here.
How about you? Do you normally solo the game and find bows more useful? Do you think he should go with a bow over the crossbow? Playing LOB solo sounds like it would be very time consuming and require a lot of kite tactics. Not really my bag to be honest. Playing solo isn't really for me. I did it once just to try it back in the day. I like the variety of play options and character abilities that come from a full party. Even though I have experienced the story many times, the game just feels like a better experience with all of the detail that gets filled in with party interactions. Especially in SOD as it feels more fresh being the new kid on the block and all.
When it comes down to it, I guess the priority should be what you want right now vs later on or even endgame. At the start of BG1 Fionordequester is playing solo so the higher THAC0 at low levels and low money would make the long bow more comfortable. That I can understand but, with the intention of using a cannon party I don't think the long bow is optimal having played a cannon party from start to finish. In the long run, I see the crossbow being more damaging and more capable of hitting the enemy at the endgame as well as being more optimal within the cannon party. If it were me, I would use crossbow and just stick it out until you get the cannon party together.
I do play more often solo than with a party, yes. I also always play no-reload, which affects gameplay considerably. For a solo, choice of missile weapons isn't that important as you'll normally need to be moving around a lot anyway - in Enhanced Edition slings are probably best due to the bonus strength damage. In a party I would tend to favour a bow, but if you have several characters using missile weapons then a crossbow is a good choice.
I have tried LoB a reasonable amount in BG1. While it certainly takes a fair bit longer there's still quite a range of strategies that can be used, e.g. I've used a berserker to beat his way through, a sorcerer to blind and web opponents and a swashbuckler to trap them.
Wow, no reload in LOB mode. That sounds crazy hard. I have respect for anyone who plays no reload and wins the game in the end. Myself I have never attempted a no reload challenge. I don't think I would ever win for one but on the other hand I really enjoy reloading fights and trying different strategies. Even with a full party the bandit camp took me hours of reloads to win. I just don't think I have what it takes to do it to be honest nor would I enjoy it. Different strokes...
I do have this rule that I try to play by. I require that all six characters in my party live in each fight. If I lose one character during the battle I will usually reload the fight and try to alter my strategy until the fight ends with all of my team members alive. Having to worry about all six characters is it's own unique challenge.
In my cannon party I had Jahiera and Dynaheir using the two best slings in the game and Misnc and Kalied using the best bow and composite bow. Imoen using the best short bow, so it just felt correct for my character to use the best crossbow I guess.
I do have this rule that I try to play by. I require that all six characters in my party live in each fight. If I lose one character during the battle I will usually reload the fight and try to alter my strategy until the fight ends with all of my team members alive. Having to worry about all six characters is it's own unique challenge.
Sounds like a good rule. One of the challenges I've been trying for quite a while now is to get a party of 6 monks to complete all encounters in BG1. One of the restrictions they operate under is that none of them are ever allowed to die, which isn't easy given the vulnerability of monks at low level. They've had a few fun fights learning how to handle the hordes of SCS opponents at the Bandit Camp, though I think I've just about mastered that now . That challenge is just under core rules though - LoB would be near impossible for them ...
That sounds interesting. I would like to try something similar with a fighter party. I was going to make a team of 6 warriors that includes all of the fighter kits including barbarian . I think it would be fun.
My problem is actually the opposite of what I normally read about around here. I don't have a problem with restarting. Over a decade of playing this game I have played from BG1 to the end of TOB every time. Sometimes with the same character I beat it with the time before. I don't know why, I think I just get curious about squeezing every last bit of optimization out of a certain character type.
Since the game is so long, especially with me restarting every time someone dies. It takes me a long time to move on to other character types. I still have a list of character kits I have never used in the game even after all of these years. Which is a good thing for me as I never get tired of this game.
My biggest problem is I have been using OP character types at the highest difficulty settings for a while now. If I were to try some of the weaker character classes I would probably need to lower the difficulty and I have a hard time doing that for some reason.
Actually, I've found a comfortable way of getting what I want without as much fighting as I thought I would need. The Basilisks already do most of the legwork in terms of EXP needed; the rest of the EXP can be acquired from the Fisherman's Village quests if I'm aiming for Abdel to get 32,000 EXP by the time I recruit anyone. So, I'm thinking you might just be right after all.
That sounds interesting. I would like to try something similar with a fighter party. I was going to make a team of 6 warriors that includes all of the fighter kits including barbarian . I think it would be fun.
I've played with a number of custom parties of all the same character type. The first of those were all dwarven fighters and they proved pretty effective in BG1. The greater number of encounters against enemies with special abilities / magic in BG2 means more care is needed there and I've never got too far in BG2 no-reload.
My biggest problem is I have been using OP character types at the highest difficulty settings for a while now. If I were to try some of the weaker character classes I would probably need to lower the difficulty and I have a hard time doing that for some reason.
I've played every possible character (without using mods/cheats) to at least some extent and my feeling is that the game (at least on Core) is actually far better balanced than most people say. As I play no-reload and normally solo my experience is obviously not typical, but there are ways to make good progress with any class (and some classes regarded as traditionally weak, such as the wizardslayer, are actually relatively easy to no-reload).
I can't argue with you there. I have not played all of the classes but the ones I have played have all been fun and challenging. I have only played solo once but in a party I have had no problems beating the game on insane difficulty using some of the weaker characters. I think the difficulty mods are where the unbalanced game play comes from but that is fine in my opinion because they are meant to make the game really hard and sometimes you won't get perfect balance when pushing a difficulty that is meant to challenge people who have been playing a game for more than a decade. I think LOB mode is imbalanced and I don't know how well I would do with some of the characters but usually, you can make up for your main character's faults by surrounding yourself with the most optimal party members that fill in the holes so to speak.
I doubt that I could just pick up a character I have never played before and beat the game on LOB mode but you never know. I get lots of experience with a variety of classes each time I play. The kits are where I would run into problems I think. I have no experience with the beast master and I have heard it is a weak character. I have used druids and rangers but it's not the same thing. I would probably have a hard time on LOB mode with one.
For me, the question is if I want to give up some of the tactical battles and boosted hoards of enemies to play a character who is weaker than the last one I played. I think eventually I will get board enough to go there but for now I still have fun power gaming.
Comments
The fight on the first floor was a knock down drag out fight. I felt overwhelmed at first but I slowly beat them back.
The final battle with the chieftain in Ugalath's Beard was a tough fight but manageable. I thought it was a very well balanced and rewarding fight.
TOSC is finished, Time to wrap this game up.
So I eventually came up with this (rather cheesy) strategy: equip Boots of Speed on my k/m/t, cast invisibility on rest of party members, hide them somewhere boss can’t see them, move to another place if necessary. k/m/t staff summon, run, hide, summons will be killed, but they do manage to gather most enemies in one place, staff fireball, combined with run-backstab-run method to finish scattered enemies, repeat.
It will take time, but you do get opptunities to save your game, and it’s safe, if you don’t accidently get blocked & surrounded by enemies that is…
@the_sextein Your experience gives me the courage to challenge the greater werewolf, but right now my whole party only have ONE proficiency point on bastard sword, and it’s on Coran, oh, good Kondar, Sword of Balduran…
You could also try casting two web spells from off screen and then rushing in with the same tactics as above but use a potion of freedom on your three fighters as well. The webs will help keep the wolf from attacking and will keep some of the enemy spawns from reaching your characters.
My other three characters waited until the enemies spawned and then I had them rush to a little area that is just to the right of the wolf and I had them use a wand of monster summoning to keep the enemies at bay while casting slow, blind, doom ect.
For the Daveorn battle I detrapped the hallway and used the boots of speed to run back to the start when the web and gas spell went off. I then snuck down the hall way invisable with a thief until only one doom guard could see me and then I lured him up front and took the two doom guards out one at a time. If you don't do it fast enough or if you attack daveorn then reinforcements will start to come in. After I kill the doom guards I usually rush to the back of the area near the lift exit and then cast web and poison gas so that Daveorn and all reinforcements will get cought. If you kill Daveorn then all of his reinforcements will run away. Use the scorcher option on your wands of fire and use a wand of frost on him over and over. I think magical arrows help with him as well. Have your mage hit him with spell thrust to bring down his defense.
Other advice: Do Durlog's tower before the werewolf isle. I used the burning earth flame tongue sword. It is a long sword that does 1D8 +1 damage +2 fire damage against regenerating creatures like werewolf's. Kalied has 3 pips in longsword so that worked well for me. Imoen had 1 pip in daggers so I gave her the werewolf dagger. I gave Minsc the golden bastard sword of Balduran. Minsc doesn't have any Pips in bastard sword but I equipped him with the necklace of the wolf that gives a +2 thaco bonus against werewolves so he had no penalty. I then equipped my FMT with the Kondar bastard sword which he has no pips in and probably didn't land a whole lot of hits but every bit counts. Wands of paralayzation work on werewolf's, especially if you use greater malison.
This post is getting long so I will stop but I don't mind giving some pointers on the final battle in Ugalath's Beard if you get stuck when you get there just let me know if you need any ideas.
Yes! My kensai has long sword points. Does The Burning Earth inflict full damage against the greater werewolf or just its fire damage?
I really learned a lot in this community, maybe you can post a new LOBSCS thread on BGII board, sharing your tips of your BGII run there, but be sure to look back at this thread from time to time where I’m VERY slowly catching up :-)
The other three stuck together at the throne. I cast greater malison and then I led a group of hasted summons up to them. The rest of the fight was just constantly casting monster summons and hitting them with magic arrows and poison arrows. I cast a few spells on Tazok but things were so chaotic I didn't even bother to see if they worked or not. After slowly killing all of Serevok's guys and the skeleton's that come with each death, I focused on Serevok with a combination of items.
I kept the monster summons going to keep him busy and then I would hit him with two wands of frost, a wand of the heavens, and the magic ring that casts agonizer's scorcher each round while Imoen fired off various magical arrows. After a long time I finally drained him of all HP.
The transition to SOD went smoothly.
So I managed to explore everything and beat everything in BG and TOSC as well as the EE content on LOBSCS. It was the hardest challenge I have faced in a game. Sometimes it felt kind of tedious. I could only play for so long each night because of the difficult nature of it but overall I think it was really fun and added a new way of playing the game. I would say I got my money's worth out of the EE version of the game based on the this experience alone.
I'm SO gonna to ignore your future SOD progress update to avoid spoilers, good luck :-D
From what I hear BG2EE isn't nearly as hard as BGEE because the high level summons are powerful enough to balance out the boosted enemies. So as long as you have a summon heavy play style I figure you will be all right if you know how to beat it on insane previously. I won't know till I am there but I would do any BG2EE discussion in the challenges forum or the BG2EE forum so I am probably done with this thread unless people ask for advice that I might be able to help with.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/231/bugfix-durlags-tower-level-3-no-teleportation-to-chess-room
it seems to be a SCS bug which needs console to fix, but I don't know how to use cluaconsole, does anybody know someway around?
With the latest version of BGEE, you need to open Baldur.lua, not baldur.ini and add this line:
SetPrivateProfileString('Program Options','Debug Mode','1')
instead of adding to the Option table.
Then, instead of typing
CLUAConsole:SetGlobal( ...
in the console, type
C:SetGlobal( ...
So for the durlog chess board problem you would type.
C:SetGlobal("DMWWFissionBurn","GLOBAL",1)
After you have enabled the console through the .lua file as mentioned above in this post.
Here are a few more tips I thought about since I last posted here.
-Using Greater Malison and then chromatic orb will obliterate some pretty tough foes.
-It's not a bad idea to keep a few protection from undead scrolls in your inventory before importing your characters to SOD.
Lots of protection from undead saved ~smirk~
I used Composite long bow and mace for Minsc ( You can get a magical composite long bow at fieldpost's in Bergost. You can find the stupifier mace in the upper floor of the red shief inn at bergost.)
Long Bow and long sword for Kalied. ( There is some good +2 long bows in Baldur's gate. Varscona is a great long sword found in the nashkal mines area on a bounty hunter.)
Short Bow and Dagger for Imoen ( magical short bow can be found in bergost and a +2 can be found in Baldur's gate. I use the dagger of venom for Imoens backstabs.)
Staff and sling for Dynaheir. ( magical slings can be found throughout the game. The Halfling village near firewine has one. I settled for a staff that I found in durlog's tower.
Scimitar and crossbow for charname.
I use full plate armor and shield for jaheira, minsc, kalied, and charname. I eventually ditch armor on my main character when dynaheir can cast spirit armor on him. Since all of my characters are using one handed melee weapons, they can all benefit from extra armor class provided by shields. A cursed belt in the EE version also allows you to grant a character 18 strength. Just make sure that person doesn't need intelligence for anything. I gave the belt to Kalied and then moved the hands of takkok to Jahiera. This gave me 4 melee fighters with full plate and 18 strength with high dex scores all around. I used the gauntlets that grant 18 dex on misnc.
I had Kalied focus 3 pips in long sword and 2 pips in long bow. In SOD I gave him another pip in long bow.
My main character is now duel wielding scimitar and katana in SOD.
I am at the underground caverns in SOD at the moment. The game is very hard but thief's are better balanced. They are not hasted and they don't use an endless stream of invisibility potions. They actually try to leave the line of site from the party and hide in shadows.
Speaking of which, I don't know if Crossbows eventually turn out to be more powerful than Composite Bows, but, I find the latter to be extremely important for when Abdel's still on his own. Ankhegs, Basilisks, and Mutamin are all fought before that crucial point, so I end up cheesing them all with Blind + Glitter Dust + Long Range weaponry. This, of course, can take a while, so I think the Composite Bow is crucial for the early game.
Would you say that's correct? Or is there, perhaps, a better approach to this?
If you are going to put pips into a long range weapon I would go with the crossbow of speed because it has higher APR and ammunition that bows don't have. (Like electrical bolts and poison bolts) Minsc and Kalied will already have pips in longbows and will be able to take advantage of both normal and composite long bows to the fullest. This is just from my experience though. Maybe someone else has some advice I haven't thought of before. If your main character has a high strength the throwing daggers can be very damaging while having a decent APR. It's worth considering. In the long run if you plan to use long range weapons in TOB, crossbows will be the better choice because the fire tooth crossbow is a +5 weapon and the highest enchantment you will get with a long bow is +3 other than with some very limited arrows you can find.
My reasons for not using pips in long range is so I can specialize in scimitar, katana, war hammers and max out my dual wield fighting style by the time I reach TOB. My ultimate goal with this character is to dual wield the Ninja-to "scarlet" in my off hand with the war hammer Crom Feyor in the main hand. This will allow 10APR with 25 strength damage and THAC0 bonus while having instant destruction of all golems and poison damage as well as elemental damage boosts that go through stoneskin. This way I don't need to use the HLA whirlwind or greater whirlwind because I will already have max APR. This will allow more HLA points to be used for timestop traps and other valuable HLA abilities. Katana is great to have in SOD and for most of SOA because it can be dual wielded and has two handed sword 1D10 damage. It helps that the red dawn in SOD is great and the Katana's in SOA are some of the best weapons in the game. Especially when combined with an off hand speed weapon.
The most difficult thing for me in LOB mode is the insane enemy hitpoints, so doing the maximum amount of damage per round is going to be king in this mode. Especially when I reach ascension. Being a FM or FMT is also important in this mode because magical protection is more important than ever when enemies hit so often and do double damage.
There are a couple of longbows of +4 (one upgradeable to +5) in BG2, but unlike the Gesen shortbow they require ammunition. However, there are not that many enemies that require more than +2 to hit, so it's not a huge constraint for a party - you can anyway swap for other weapons such as Gesen, both Firetooths, Crimson Dart etc when needed.
A cannon party will already have two bow users. You could push minsc toward crossbows and have your main character use composite bows if you prefer but it will waste the single pip that minsc already has in long bow and it will take him longer in the game to reach specialization. You could use 3 longbow users but that is not really optimal and you would be wasting the crossbow of speed.
I am looking at it from an optimization standpoint though. The harder the game is, the more optimization helps but the game was designed to be played and beaten in any way you like so I would go with whatever you find the most interesting or cool for your character. I have beaten the game with what I think is the coolest many times. For this run being on LOB mode for the first time I have chosen to work with optimization.
If you are using a non elf character with the cannon party I would and did go with the crossbow of speed.
An arrow of acid does 1D6+ 1 + 1D3 acid damage.
Bolt maximum damage is 24
Arrow max damage is 10
Even if the enemy saves vs breath the electric bolt is still capable of 16 damage. Being able to fire these at the same APR as a bow is impressive. They are more damaging than I thought they were.
You can get bows that have a +2 to hit over the crossbow of speed so I would think that would help the bow keep up. A warrior would probably do better with a cross bow due to his high thaco in the end but at the start and solo, especially with low money, the bow would probably do better.
I know a short bow in SOA has 3 APR and I think someone calculated it up as the most damaging long range weapon but don't quote me on that.
Which missile weapon does most damage depends on a host of factors, e.g. strength, APR bonuses, THAC0 and AC of enemies. I agree that the Tuigan Bow's bonus APR makes it a good choice for many characters, but if you're struggling to hit enemies then there are better options.
Being able to hit is more important than raw damage I agree.
Most warrior classes should have no problems hitting with the most damaging equipment though. Even my FMT has done well with crossbow of speed with no pips at all. In SOD my FMT is hitting constantly. I can hear and see the electrical damage on nearly every attack. Most tough enemies I would probaby struggle to hit with a crossbow but being a warrior with magical protections you will be up front swinging a sword on most tough fights anyway so you won't notice. That's the experience I have had. I don't solo the game though so maybe my experiences are not in line with the type of game experience we are talking about here.
How about you? Do you normally solo the game and find bows more useful? Do you think he should go with a bow over the crossbow? Playing LOB solo sounds like it would be very time consuming and require a lot of kite tactics. Not really my bag to be honest. Playing solo isn't really for me. I did it once just to try it back in the day. I like the variety of play options and character abilities that come from a full party. Even though I have experienced the story many times, the game just feels like a better experience with all of the detail that gets filled in with party interactions. Especially in SOD as it feels more fresh being the new kid on the block and all.
When it comes down to it, I guess the priority should be what you want right now vs later on or even endgame. At the start of BG1 Fionordequester is playing solo so the higher THAC0 at low levels and low money would make the long bow more comfortable. That I can understand but, with the intention of using a cannon party I don't think the long bow is optimal having played a cannon party from start to finish. In the long run, I see the crossbow being more damaging and more capable of hitting the enemy at the endgame as well as being more optimal within the cannon party. If it were me, I would use crossbow and just stick it out until you get the cannon party together.
I have tried LoB a reasonable amount in BG1. While it certainly takes a fair bit longer there's still quite a range of strategies that can be used, e.g. I've used a berserker to beat his way through, a sorcerer to blind and web opponents and a swashbuckler to trap them.
I do have this rule that I try to play by. I require that all six characters in my party live in each fight. If I lose one character during the battle I will usually reload the fight and try to alter my strategy until the fight ends with all of my team members alive. Having to worry about all six characters is it's own unique challenge.
In my cannon party I had Jahiera and Dynaheir using the two best slings in the game and Misnc and Kalied using the best bow and composite bow. Imoen using the best short bow, so it just felt correct for my character to use the best crossbow I guess.
My problem is actually the opposite of what I normally read about around here. I don't have a problem with restarting. Over a decade of playing this game I have played from BG1 to the end of TOB every time. Sometimes with the same character I beat it with the time before. I don't know why, I think I just get curious about squeezing every last bit of optimization out of a certain character type.
Since the game is so long, especially with me restarting every time someone dies. It takes me a long time to move on to other character types. I still have a list of character kits I have never used in the game even after all of these years. Which is a good thing for me as I never get tired of this game.
My biggest problem is I have been using OP character types at the highest difficulty settings for a while now. If I were to try some of the weaker character classes I would probably need to lower the difficulty and I have a hard time doing that for some reason.
I've played every possible character (without using mods/cheats) to at least some extent and my feeling is that the game (at least on Core) is actually far better balanced than most people say. As I play no-reload and normally solo my experience is obviously not typical, but there are ways to make good progress with any class (and some classes regarded as traditionally weak, such as the wizardslayer, are actually relatively easy to no-reload).
I doubt that I could just pick up a character I have never played before and beat the game on LOB mode but you never know. I get lots of experience with a variety of classes each time I play. The kits are where I would run into problems I think. I have no experience with the beast master and I have heard it is a weak character. I have used druids and rangers but it's not the same thing. I would probably have a hard time on LOB mode with one.
For me, the question is if I want to give up some of the tactical battles and boosted hoards of enemies to play a character who is weaker than the last one I played. I think eventually I will get board enough to go there but for now I still have fun power gaming.