This is actually an exploit. The Gatekeeper demon is meant to be killed by using the opposing elementals to HIS elemental. When he is in its fire elemental form, use cone of cold, when he is ice form, use flaming arrow, etc. ... really, it's not that hard when you think about it. I really wonder why so many people fail to figure this out - especially when he is located in an area where the play of elements is a core part of the design. Oo
Haha...in the regular games, I would beat him up physically and didnt bother with any other strategies. In this low level challenge where my party is average lv 8, I'll take any executions (exploits or not) to beat the game.
Finish a bunch of sidequests and met all the npcs. Defeat Bodhi in Ch3. Still need to do Planear Sphere and Windspear Hills before heading toward Spellhold. Havent gone down to level 3 of Watcher's Keep yet. Here is the picture where I killed the shadow dragon:
Who says a average lv 8 party cant kill kangaxx the demi-lich? (kill by Edwin again)
I ended the Blood War! (The 3rd level is the most difficult level of Watcher's Keep. I had a few reloads to finally execute strategy correctly against the demon parties. Also, I avoided a few battles, namely the room with the demon wraith because my wand of summoning almost ran out of charges - must get the white dragon scale later...)
How to fight demi-lich? Korgan - beserk, Edwin - spell immunity and 2 ring of the ram
How to kill dragons? Lower magic resistance X6 (19% for edwin and nalia), spam magic missiles and holysmite. PC dances around the dragon.
My party's backpack are full of loots and it's getting annoying for carrying stuffs without the bag of holding. I cleared out the 5th level of Watcher's Keep except the 3 guardians battle guarding the seal to the demogorgon. I have trouble fighting them because my party needs a few more +4 or better weapons. I am considering going to Spellhold first then return to Watcher's Keep.
Current status of my PC after Machine of the Lum. I gave the +1 wisdom to viconia for 1 additional lv1 and lv4 cleric spells.
Hmm, sounds fun, might take one of my custom groups through this way....
Glad you have fun. Hmm...a custom group at low level challenge is interesting and challenging...My barbarian starts at lvl 7 and I imagine all other classes are between 6-8. This may be difficult as mages dont have access to lv 5 spells (so no lower magic resistance, which is the main strategy in my low level challenge for fighting dragons). Also, some npcs are niche characters in this game. Edwin becomes very handy as he offers 3 extra spells per spell level, jan comes with all the thief enhancing equipments and vicky has a solid innate 65% magic resistance. The list can go on for other characters.
Personally, I am bias toward spellcasting. I hate it when my melee fighters miss round after round soaking in damage, while my spellcasters deliver guarantee hit safely in distance.
when you finally get your slayer form, its going to be quite the powerful ability for a level 7 character
In regular games, the only time I go into slayer form is to maintain less than 18 reputation. What are the benefits in the slayer form (hit, damage, immunity, side effect)?
I got Imoen back and the game leveled her up (from lv 8 to lv 11)! NO! O well, she couldnt cast lvl 6 spells anyway. Unfortunately, I wasnt able to dump Nalia from my party because after doing all the quests with Nalia, she would only stay in place if kick out of the party (she wouldnt go back to copper cornet). So little sis Imoen had to escape by herself.
I cleared the fish city and the 3 maps where I got the prince blood/eyeball. They were pretty easy with a few exploits (that door trick against the illithids.) It turns out it is possible to get the mindflayer to open the doors without using a single control circlet...hehehe. My tank puts on the ring of free action (immune to psionic stun), the shield of harmony (no charm/domination) and boot of speed. My tank then single handedly lured a mindflayer to the door. Bam, it opens!
Image where I mopped up the mindflayers:
I plan to backstab the silver dragon for its blood. But in my past experience, I think it tries to run away when it's dying. Not sure how to make this work. I cant use finger of death (I have the scroll) cuz it uses death ward and I dont think I can dispel her defense given the level parity.
@Xanthul wow, that is nutty, so if i have a wand with one charge in it, sell it, then rebuy it right away, it will have 50 charges? does this work with bg1 as well?
Yes, Dragons are Immune to Backstab, though I suspect you meant betray or turn on the dragon instead. Could try and cheese it using Rod of Paralyze just keep going till it works *shrugs*
Yes, Dragons are Immune to Backstab, though I suspect you meant betray or turn on the dragon instead. Could try and cheese it using Rod of Paralyze just keep going till it works *shrugs*
Yes. I meant betray...my english is not that good...
haha...rod of paralyze may work. I remember lower resistance and great malision the green dragon and it got entangled by its own spell. Hilarious.
O boy, the drow parties are tough. Warriors with drow full plate (-4 AC and most likely 4 bonus AC from 18 dex) has AC of -8. My tank has thaco of 5 and my other characters have worse thaco (except mazzy with 3 thaco with the bow) means most of the time I dont hit them. Sonic bloom is a blessing.
Ok, it turns out the wands of paralyze, sleep and spell striking doesnt work on the silver dragon.
The silver dragon is pretty intelligent and it has many defenses (cure medium wound, stone skin, death ward, minor spell turning, ice storm) and devastating attacks (silver breath paralyzation, cone of cold, wing buffet and 25 str @ 3 physical attacks per round). It has 254 hp (second to demogorgon? firkragg only has 184 and abazigal has 200 hp). I got frustrated after a few reloads and had to resort to the "door" exploit (the dragon couldnt pass through the arch leading to its lair.) If my tank kited too much around the dragon, it would get confuse and target my spellcasters. One cone of cold attack means edwin/nalia/vicky become permanent ice cream.
In hindsight, if I had planned enough prior going to spellhold, the door trick is unnecessary. I just need to stock up 7 scrolls/potions of cold resistance and vicky had to memorize 3 free action spells.
Twisted Rune battle: Super Easy. Couldve EASILY defeated the group in Ch2. Divide and conquer.
I still have 4 mindflayer control circlets...who should I use them on?
@bbear Wish Twisted Rune was easy in my runs, but I use the Improved version, so I usually get hit with a Contingency of 3 Horrid Wilting right from the start, and giving how Magic Resistance (Damage Resistance version, not spell resistance) doesn't seem to work, I usually get fried or melted as case may be...
Imagine the Dragons will be rough to so looking forward to those, pity I don't think I'll be able to do a Tactics run with a low lvl group ... some battles are hard enough at or above level..let alone below :P...
@bbear Wish Twisted Rune was easy in my runs, but I use the Improved version, so I usually get hit with a Contingency of 3 Horrid Wilting right from the start, and giving how Magic Resistance (Damage Resistance version, not spell resistance) doesn't seem to work, I usually get fried or melted as case may be...
Imagine the Dragons will be rough to so looking forward to those, pity I don't think I'll be able to do a Tactics run with a low lvl group ... some battles are hard enough at or above level..let alone below :P...
I played the tactics mod before. Isnt the entrance to the center room has like 20ish skull traps? Why dont you use the 2 scrolls that neutralize magic on fighters and the protection against magical energy on your mages (help vicky get 100% magic resistance - human flesh armor (20%), the amulet from underdark merchant (10%) and the shield (umar hill) ).
What I would do is have someone trigger the lich talk and have a mage in the middle of casting a time stop. Once the battle begins then you have preemptive strike.
Edit: Even better, a thief sets 7 time trap in the entrance room.
@bbear Yea, my problem I I always go in to soon, need to be much higher level for that fight on Tactics....probably need to get better with my Potion/Scroll use too, I'm to much of a hoarder for those
Also group that will be going through BG 2 next will be interesting, got a Bard as my only Arcane Caster, very melee heavy group, got druid (Shapeshifter) who basically almost never leaves wolf form (Base 3 strength/con) a fighter (Kit), barbarian, priest (kit), rogue (kit) ranged and the bard (kit) which is ranged.
Kits used are all TDD save for the shifter...some BG 2 fights are going to be very rough...
Fight 1: Wraith with demon priests The priests are pushover. The wraith is slightly harder because its physical attack has knockback effect and it has unlimited amount of cone of cold and prismatic ray. Had to use 2 of my 3 available true sight scroll (shouldve brought keldorn) on it.
Fight 2: Lich with 3 flaming skulls Easy. Lure each skull one at a time. Since I had Vicky at 100% magic resistance, all its attacks are ineffective. Just need to watch out of its explosion at the end. This lich likes to cast maze and imprisonment (it follows the target), so I just have 1 kite character and mazzy shoots arrows from the gesen shortbow+4.
Fight 3: Final Guardians (succubus, fighter, drow priest, hive mother, huntress archer, y'tossi demon) VERY VERY Tough. First, I have Edwin project image and spawn 6 parties of summons from the wand. But they were annihilated in about 4 rounds. I put on the balduran shield and the hive mother died from the reflected death ray.
I dont have any strategies for beating the rest. So I "cheated" by having my fighter fake drink a potion and use my scrolls of time stop. In 3 timestops, I managed to kill only 2 bosses (fighter and drow priest, omg fighter had so much hp). After, I managed to lose the y'tossi demon from the succubus and the huntress party and kill them. At the end, the y'tossi was fallen by lower magic resisance and magic missiles just like my strategy w/ dragons.
I tried using those mindflayer control circlets...but they failed...
Wow, this game had came a long way. At the start of this thread, I declared a challenge: to play the game of BG2 with all party members (pc and npcs) must be at its starting level. Some players had expressed that it's not feasible to do so. After all, a low level party has lower hp, fighters have a poor chance to hit some of the difficult opponents and spellcasters have less number and no access to higher level of spells. In this challenge, I had proven otherwise. With novel tactics and some notable exploits of the game system, my low level party was able to overcome all the difficult obstacles. Battles and ambushes of undead, mindflayers, liches, demons and dragons all ended victoriously in my party's favor.
But can an average level 8 party with its measly muscle and magic defeat the Prince of Demon, the TOUGHEST Boss in the game? That seems absurd. I remember the first game I fought Demogorgon, my level 20 party were literally shed into pieces and obliterated in a matter of seconds. It is just that powerful and it has earned my respect. Now I shall show it proper respect by defeating it with my stipulated rules. This is the ultimate battle of the game! MUSIC.
Demogorgon: HP 290, Base AC -12, THACO -8, Att 5, Lvl 25 Str: 25 Dex: 20 Con: 22 Int: 22 Wis: 22 Cha: 18
The Prince of demon has 10% physical resistance, 90% magical resistance, 100% in fire and electric, 50% cold, 0% acid elemental resistance
And the Prince of Demon is sent back to the abyss...perhaps one day it will return.
@Amardarial Actually, Demogorgon is immune to the spell lower magic resistance... I use the pierce magic from the 3 wands of spell striking to lower it to 0%.
@Moomintroll You probably referred to the priest spell glyph of warding.
real difficulty setting pls,i do not want to restrict myself to nonsense such as soloing or playing at x level even if i have twice the xp required to level-up.
give us an epic challenge worthy of an epic party!
Comments
Edwin the Dragonslayer (again):
Who says a average lv 8 party cant kill kangaxx the demi-lich? (kill by Edwin again)
I ended the Blood War! (The 3rd level is the most difficult level of Watcher's Keep. I had a few reloads to finally execute strategy correctly against the demon parties. Also, I avoided a few battles, namely the room with the demon wraith because my wand of summoning almost ran out of charges - must get the white dragon scale later...)
Current Status and Inventory:
Onward soldiers! To Level 4 of Watcher's Keep!
One dead demi-lich and 2 more dead dragons:
How to fight demi-lich? Korgan - beserk, Edwin - spell immunity and 2 ring of the ram
How to kill dragons? Lower magic resistance X6 (19% for edwin and nalia), spam magic missiles and holysmite. PC dances around the dragon.
My party's backpack are full of loots and it's getting annoying for carrying stuffs without the bag of holding. I cleared out the 5th level of Watcher's Keep except the 3 guardians battle guarding the seal to the demogorgon. I have trouble fighting them because my party needs a few more +4 or better weapons. I am considering going to Spellhold first then return to Watcher's Keep.
Current status of my PC after Machine of the Lum. I gave the +1 wisdom to viconia for 1 additional lv1 and lv4 cleric spells.
Spellhold next!
Personally, I am bias toward spellcasting. I hate it when my melee fighters miss round after round soaking in damage, while my spellcasters deliver guarantee hit safely in distance.
I got Imoen back and the game leveled her up (from lv 8 to lv 11)! NO! O well, she couldnt cast lvl 6 spells anyway. Unfortunately, I wasnt able to dump Nalia from my party because after doing all the quests with Nalia, she would only stay in place if kick out of the party (she wouldnt go back to copper cornet). So little sis Imoen had to escape by herself.
I cleared the fish city and the 3 maps where I got the prince blood/eyeball. They were pretty easy with a few exploits (that door trick against the illithids.) It turns out it is possible to get the mindflayer to open the doors without using a single control circlet...hehehe. My tank puts on the ring of free action (immune to psionic stun), the shield of harmony (no charm/domination) and boot of speed. My tank then single handedly lured a mindflayer to the door. Bam, it opens!
Image where I mopped up the mindflayers:
I plan to backstab the silver dragon for its blood. But in my past experience, I think it tries to run away when it's dying. Not sure how to make this work. I cant use finger of death (I have the scroll) cuz it uses death ward and I dont think I can dispel her defense given the level parity.
Re: Wands
In the SoA/ToB Engine that is indeed the case. It would be true in BG1 if you played using Tutu, Trilogy or the Enhanced Edition.
@bbear
I seem to remember dragons are immune to backstab.
Yes, Dragons are Immune to Backstab, though I suspect you meant betray or turn on the dragon instead. Could try and cheese it using Rod of Paralyze just keep going till it works *shrugs*
haha...rod of paralyze may work. I remember lower resistance and great malision the green dragon and it got entangled by its own spell. Hilarious.
O boy, the drow parties are tough. Warriors with drow full plate (-4 AC and most likely 4 bonus AC from 18 dex) has AC of -8. My tank has thaco of 5 and my other characters have worse thaco (except mazzy with 3 thaco with the bow) means most of the time I dont hit them. Sonic bloom is a blessing.
Ok, it turns out the wands of paralyze, sleep and spell striking doesnt work on the silver dragon.
The silver dragon is pretty intelligent and it has many defenses (cure medium wound, stone skin, death ward, minor spell turning, ice storm) and devastating attacks (silver breath paralyzation, cone of cold, wing buffet and 25 str @ 3 physical attacks per round). It has 254 hp (second to demogorgon? firkragg only has 184 and abazigal has 200 hp). I got frustrated after a few reloads and had to resort to the "door" exploit (the dragon couldnt pass through the arch leading to its lair.) If my tank kited too much around the dragon, it would get confuse and target my spellcasters. One cone of cold attack means edwin/nalia/vicky become permanent ice cream.
In hindsight, if I had planned enough prior going to spellhold, the door trick is unnecessary. I just need to stock up 7 scrolls/potions of cold resistance and vicky had to memorize 3 free action spells.
Twisted Rune battle: Super Easy. Couldve EASILY defeated the group in Ch2. Divide and conquer.
I still have 4 mindflayer control circlets...who should I use them on?
Imagine the Dragons will be rough to so looking forward to those, pity I don't think I'll be able to do a Tactics run with a low lvl group ... some battles are hard enough at or above level..let alone below :P...
What I would do is have someone trigger the lich talk and have a mage in the middle of casting a time stop. Once the battle begins then you have preemptive strike.
Edit: Even better, a thief sets 7 time trap in the entrance room.
Also group that will be going through BG 2 next will be interesting, got a Bard as my only Arcane Caster, very melee heavy group, got druid (Shapeshifter) who basically almost never leaves wolf form (Base 3 strength/con) a fighter (Kit), barbarian, priest (kit), rogue (kit) ranged and the bard (kit) which is ranged.
Kits used are all TDD save for the shifter...some BG 2 fights are going to be very rough...
Fight 1: Wraith with demon priests
The priests are pushover. The wraith is slightly harder because its physical attack has knockback effect and it has unlimited amount of cone of cold and prismatic ray. Had to use 2 of my 3 available true sight scroll (shouldve brought keldorn) on it.
Fight 2: Lich with 3 flaming skulls
Easy. Lure each skull one at a time. Since I had Vicky at 100% magic resistance, all its attacks are ineffective. Just need to watch out of its explosion at the end. This lich likes to cast maze and imprisonment (it follows the target), so I just have 1 kite character and mazzy shoots arrows from the gesen shortbow+4.
Fight 3: Final Guardians (succubus, fighter, drow priest, hive mother, huntress archer, y'tossi demon)
VERY VERY Tough. First, I have Edwin project image and spawn 6 parties of summons from the wand. But they were annihilated in about 4 rounds. I put on the balduran shield and the hive mother died from the reflected death ray.
I dont have any strategies for beating the rest. So I "cheated" by having my fighter fake drink a potion and use my scrolls of time stop. In 3 timestops, I managed to kill only 2 bosses (fighter and drow priest, omg fighter had so much hp). After, I managed to lose the y'tossi demon from the succubus and the huntress party and kill them. At the end, the y'tossi was fallen by lower magic resisance and magic missiles just like my strategy w/ dragons.
I tried using those mindflayer control circlets...but they failed...
Here is the result of the epic battle:
Wow, this game had came a long way. At the start of this thread, I declared a challenge: to play the game of BG2 with all party members (pc and npcs) must be at its starting level. Some players had expressed that it's not feasible to do so. After all, a low level party has lower hp, fighters have a poor chance to hit some of the difficult opponents and spellcasters have less number and no access to higher level of spells. In this challenge, I had proven otherwise. With novel tactics and some notable exploits of the game system, my low level party was able to overcome all the difficult obstacles. Battles and ambushes of undead, mindflayers, liches, demons and dragons all ended victoriously in my party's favor.
But can an average level 8 party with its measly muscle and magic defeat the Prince of Demon, the TOUGHEST Boss in the game? That seems absurd. I remember the first game I fought Demogorgon, my level 20 party were literally shed into pieces and obliterated in a matter of seconds. It is just that powerful and it has earned my respect. Now I shall show it proper respect by defeating it with my stipulated rules. This is the ultimate battle of the game! MUSIC.
Demogorgon: HP 290, Base AC -12, THACO -8, Att 5, Lvl 25
Str: 25
Dex: 20
Con: 22
Int: 22
Wis: 22
Cha: 18
The Prince of demon has 10% physical resistance, 90% magical resistance, 100% in fire and electric, 50% cold, 0% acid elemental resistance
And the Prince of Demon is sent back to the abyss...perhaps one day it will return.
Actually, Demogorgon is immune to the spell lower magic resistance... I use the pierce magic from the 3 wands of spell striking to lower it to 0%.
@Moomintroll
You probably referred to the priest spell glyph of warding.
give us an epic challenge worthy of an epic party!