Tactics 101 (not supposed to but probably will contain spoilers)
Lemernis
Member, Moderator Posts: 4,318
Here are some basic tactical suggestions for BG1:
Since we're talking about BG:EE the focus above is on lower level play. However, the higher the level of play, the greater your command of spellcasting should be. And to really excel in combat in BG2, although you will still use much of the above, it requires much more spell knowledge.
Anyway, finally, here are some basic tactical formations:
- Place at least two solid 'tanks' on the front line. Three is better.
- For the toughest battles use buffing potions and spells. Haste, once you have that spell.
- Ranged weapons are king in BG1. Use ranged weapons to disrupt enemy spellcasters (Kivan and Coran shine here). A wand of Magic Missiles can also be used very effectively to do this.
- Have mages cast spells that disable opponents. Disabling Area-of-Effect spells are especially effective against mobs, eg, Sleep, Glitterdust, Horror, Emotion: Hopelessness, Chaos. Spells that do nothing but dispense damage are great. But when enemies are hampered or entirely stopped from attacking you they're easy pickins'. Disable first, then dole damage.
- Have mages target the most powerful enemies (their spellcasters and tanks) with disabling spells such as Spook, Chromatic Orb, Blind, Hold (clerics can cast this too), Slow, Confusion, Feeblemind. Priests can use Doom, Summon Insects, Rigid Thinking, Insect Plague. In other words, shut down the opponents' magical attacks.
- Have mages take control of enemies and make them attack their own comrades via Charm, Dire Charm, Domination. Once enemies are charmed, take control of them and make them drop all their gear. When the charmed enemy is a spellcaster, use up his or her most powerful spells--against his/her own comrades, naturally.
- For a ranged approach (i.e., attacking from a distance) mages and clerics can initiate the battle by casting Grease, Entangle, or Web. Then use Stinking Cloud, Cloudkill, or Ice Storm. All the while pelt the enemy with arrows, fireballs, incendiary potions, and arrows of detonation.
Since we're talking about BG:EE the focus above is on lower level play. However, the higher the level of play, the greater your command of spellcasting should be. And to really excel in combat in BG2, although you will still use much of the above, it requires much more spell knowledge.
Anyway, finally, here are some basic tactical formations:
Post edited by Lemernis on
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Have everyone equip range weapons and spread out a bit. Everyone shoots the target. Whomever he targets becomes the bait and leads him around in range of the others. When the target switches targets, pause and the new chew toy becomes bait and the former bait starts shooting. This does require at least two characters to work though.
Another popular tactic... though some consider it "cheap"... is to have a thief or ranger who is highly proficient with the bow (eg, Kivan and/or Coran--they make a great team doing this) stealth and reveal just one member of the enemy's party. Fire away.
A powerful archer will often kill with one shot, especially if using a powerful bow and arrows. Remember, reveal only one enemy into view--that is key.
This is a one-at-a-time strategy that takes patience. But it is oddly satisfying. You're using sniper tactics, basically.
You can do this in broad daylight using the shadows of trees. It's a bit tricky to pull off until your stealth is high enough, though.
You can also fire (causing the character to leave stealth mode) and quickly retreat, which will draw the enemy to you. If you have a thief waiting in stealth mode to backstab an enemy that gives chase to your archer so much the better.
Magic missile is really good at getting rid of mirror images, once you can produce enough missiles.
A tactic I favored in Icewind Dale while doing a solo-run with my elven Fighter/Magic-User/Thief was to... Mirror Image, Stoneskin, drink as many combat potions as possible -- and then stealth up to an enemy, backstab it with what you've specialized in, and immediately drop an area spell. While your enemy is trying to hit the eight people it sees, you're blowing through its health with ice storms or fireballs.
Include a sniper if you have one:
This can be done with one thief as well, but it's cool when you have two and they work in tandem.
Not much to this, really. Have the other party members prepared to rumble just outside of the enemy's sight. Then have two thieves approach in stealth and launch the party's attack with a simultaneous double backstab.
The target? An enemy mage. If you also have a stealthed ranger with an arrow trained on the target that likely means a sure kill.
If you want protect your thieves from the enemy party's swift retaliation, it's always good if they have potions of invisibility handy to gulp down.
Use the potions that you get as loot liberally. Heck, spend gold on potions, and use them. You'll have more gold than you can possibly spend by the end of the game.
Obviously key gear is going to come first: various weapons and armor. But before you know it you'll be swimming in cash. Spend it.
If in tight spaces, even smaller amounts of summoned creatures can do the same. Obstruct the enemy with summons and he will concentrate on them, while your ranged fighters and magic users can attack without getting targeted. This will even force mages to target the summons, while getting damaged by characters farther away. They are that stupid.
A huge problem in BG1 were the tight dungeons, where two characters could barely fit into the corridor. To make them easier, give all the protective gear and lots of potions to your best tank, let him empty his inventory and solo the dungeon. Especially refreshing once you got the boots of haste, but watch out for traps. Quicksaving is your friend
Oh, and Algernons cloak. Unlimited charm = win. Nothing better than coming up against an enemy party and charming them to fight against each other whilst you snipe from far away.
There's a mod at Sorcerers Place called "Ease-of-use Pack" by Tioma that has a bag of holding.
Put a number limit on Bag of Holding (or reduce it if already has a number limit) or make a weight limit on it (something like 500 - 800 pounds), i truly prefer a weight limit but i just hope that someone do what is best.
Never forget that for enemies with very powerful special attacks there is usually a way to nullify them completely. Vampire? Negative Plane Protection. Mind Flayer? Chaotic Commands. (warning, they will still INT drain you on a hit) Demi-lich? The scroll of magic protection is your friend!
Oh, and my personal favorite cheesy tactic (for BG2):
1) char opens door
2) 2-3 other char use wand of cloudkill in area beyond door (need to use a wand to avoid casting time, plus for some reason wands do not allow for spell resistance even though they probably should)
4) 1st char closes door
5) Watch the damage pile up in the text window
6) ???
7) Profit!
Doom lvl 1 magic is very useful (both clerics/rangers/druids have it), followed by a charm person level 2 druid or hold person, it can serious turn the tide in the early game.
If you face a magic caster, summon something first. The game lacks the inteligence to preserve spells, so the mage probally will waste his better spells on the summon, in BG II the engine made the mages avoid spell use on summons, but then they just don't use spells and only attack, what mean easy kill of that mage provided you or the party NPCs don't appear on the enemy sight (easy beholder kills this way).
If a fighter has a too low Thac0, and hit you too hard, take a mage with stoneskin (+protection from magical/normal weapons) and tank that fighter with this mage, use long range melle weapons to attack the character (BG II engine apparently only change target to the nearest person attacking).
Against dragons (for the future this one) use the same tactic as above but in those fights that potions that you save are going to be used, drink the protection from X potions related to the dragon element (i find this tactic boring agains dragons, lost a bit the glamour of the fight, but if the fight get's too hard it's a way to win). Spread your characters around the dragon so if he breath it will hit probally less persons(most of the dragons have a banter and only attack you in after certain answers in those banters). Dragons in BG II tend to breath in the most distant characters (normally your mages or one of the fighters just after he use a wing buff).
Spells agains dragon: I recomend 2 lower resistance if you have 2 mages, but one already helps a lot. If you have many low arcane casters, trow one doom on the dragon and spam him with chromatic orb to an easy kill, otherwise use lighting bolts, holy smites, magic missiles, flame arrows (not in red dragons) or any damage spell that cast fast, so no horrible thing unless you used at least 2 lower resistance, too long cast time to hit a magic resistance.
Obs agains dragons: Some of the dragons in BG II (not all) always cast death spell against summons, so if you have a dualed character under lvl 8, i suggest before the fight summon some shit and send it near the non-hostile dragon, also if you're going to use summons on this fight, send some weak summons alone to waste the dragon's death spells.
Lichs - My advice for early levels? Cheat. Kill them before they can talk with you (either hit them while they arrise from the ground or enter their place invisible, backstab and invisible and go on, with a non-detection cloack he will cast true sight to no avail.
Demi-lich - Enrage, berserk (minsc) or prtection from magic, besides that, i know no other way to deal with them.
Temple fights (the sewer fight and the compound fight) - 2 hard fighters cos probally those places gonna be the first point in the game where you start to get the good equipment, buff A LOT before the fights and rely in the area effect spells, a good domination spell placed in those fights can help a lot also, besides that never underestimate the potent combo of stinking cloud + web. Holy smite works wonders in those fights as the old game devs tended to make most of the main chars enemies evil.
Ps: in the sewer fight you can send someone to backstab gaius before the fight, as that guy is extremly anoying (with desintegrate, simbol of fear, flesh to stone and other spells). If you backstab and kill him (otherwise reload) everyone of his group will turn hostile but the banters will still take place in the moment a visible character from the party enter the group leader sight reach.
Beholders - Buy the shield of balduran and hack n' slash, nothing more to say.
Ps: for Elder orbs, beware the imprisonment spell, always carry a inv potion with the warrior that carry the shield, if the elder orb start to summon a green skined spell (the only spell that isn't instant cast for beholders is imprisonment), drink the potion to make it lost the target then start attack again, the elder orbs in BG have only 1 imprisonment spell in their pool, so after waste that it's a free kill.
For bg2, use lv 6 misled and hide your image far (60 ft away) from enemies. Even when enemies cast true sight, the image cannot be dispel. This tactics works great in big maps. This tactic works great on almost anything even difficult monsters like mind flayers, liches and undeads.
Lv 7 project image allows you summon a copy of yourself to cast magic. Doesn't use up any spell slot or the quick item carried on the real character. Also, you can exceed the 5 summon restriction. Summon a dozen planetar is kind of unfair for demogorgon.
Everyone can cast magic (bug). Drink a potion in your inventory, then swap that potion away and move a spell scroll to that slot and you can cast the scroll. This means that your non spellcasters can cast spells like familiar (pc only), stoneskin, improved haste, mirror image.
Spells cast from scroll cannot be disrupted. This works great for the two tactics above.
Set traps around dragons, or any creatures that wont go hostile until something is triggered. Yoshimo and Jan are my favorite dragonslayers in bg2.
This tactic is most effective with a relatively mage-heavy party:
Use various enchanted items and spells to give a tank (or tanks) 100% fire resistance (or nearly so). Send said tank(s) into the breach and then blast away with Fireballs via Wands of Fire. (No need to use the spell or potions/oils of explosion, but you could do that too.)
A Berserker or Barbarian using berserker rage will probably be safest to use, as he or she will be immune to mind altering spells such as Hold, Horror, etc. In BG1 any items that confer magic resistance will help, especially that grant Free Action. Free Action (level 4 spell) can also be cast on the character before the battle by a cleric. In BG2 a Monk or Wizard Slayer will have accrued enough innate MR to make a difference, but not so much for a good portion of BG1.
You could also use a priest with 100% (or very high) fire resistance who is Sanctuaried. Minor Globe of Invulnerability could be cast on the priest before Sanctuary as well. (If you're playing with SCS installed, enemy mages will probably use Dispel Magic or Remove Magic to undo your MGoI, but vanilla mages likely won't.) Sanctuary lasts one minute of real time, but you can fire a helluva lot of fireballs in that time. The priest leaves Sanctuary if (s)he casts offensively, but can heal his or herself within the spell.
And if you have a Bard use Bard Song. Also, have mages cast spells such as Horror, Emotion: Hopelessness, and Chaos. When using a Sanctuaried priest, Web isn't a bad idea either (especially if a tank has Free Action). I.e., have one mage cast those spells first before fireballing away.
Your priest should be able to cast protection from fire (3rd level spell) on your tank type character.
In reality though if you scout ahead with your thief (or someone who is under the effect of invisibility) you can cast Web on an area and then start stacking your other AOEs that you'd like to use (Stinking Cloud is good but doesn't affect Undead), Fireball, Cloudkill eventually. While you may not kill everyone with this strategy (and you'll likely use up a significant portion of your spells), this is a viable strategy for greatly reducing the numbers you have to fight. If you can get free action (4th level cleric spell or via items) and as he said cast protection from fire on your tank, you can still fight inside the Web yourself. I would advise against stinking cloud using this method however unless you're a dwarf.