Correct. Under SR, regular Haste is 1 target only, +1 APR and fatigue for a bit after; Improved Haste is whole party, +1 APR and no fatigue. Much more reasonable.
Unmodded Improved Haste is one of the best spells there is, if not THE best. Things like Archers with near-constant 10 APR absolutely slaughter pretty much everything, trivializing a good portion of even LoB+SCS.
I mean, is using an Archer with improved haste really a bad thing? There are many ways to conquer LoB but there are nowhere near as many ways to conquer LoB as there is to conquer core rules. That's the point. And I'm a huge fan of 3-4 caster parties with 2-3 mages and a cleric or druid or both but that simply doesn't work in LoB. You also have to challenge yourself on how you plan to deal with specific scenarios and there is a huge portion of pre-planning and thought that should go into your run.
I wanted an evil run which meant I couldn't take Kheldorn so my tank became a fighter/mage, but I needed a way to bring a dual class on-line so I needed Korgan as a tank/kiter prior to that point but some things like golems couldn't be tanked by Korgan so I also brought Jaheira and her ungodly ironbark along.
I had to decide how to deal with with level drain as well so I made the dual class a berserker kit and brought Dorn so I then had 3 people who could tank undead (not that dorn excels at it).
My good play through will be interesting because if my tank is a dual fighter/mage, I need to figure out how and when and with what spells I can use Kheldorn's dispel. If he dispels at the wrong time and removes stoneskin or mantle, I'm screwed. I know he definitely can remove stoneskin but I don't know about spells like mantle. I might instead have to opt for a dwarven defender with flail GM as my tank.
Going back to undead, TU doesn't work, but azure edge does, just not as often. So bringing along a good person, like a Cavalier or undead hunter with points in axe might work out well.
Anyhow yes, LoB does get repetitive but that's the nature of hard core game difficulties. They substantially lower the scope of viable strategies. You also have to remember you must physically obtain the items you plan to use and if you can't then that run through dies where it started.
I dunno, I love LoB because it forces me to think deeper about the game and I made the mistake of playing it with 90% random item mod on so I couldn't just decided to go to area X for this OP item and it felt like the items weren't entirely random, instead locking powerful items behind powerful bosses or areas. I definitely couldn't immediately obtain Daystar for example.
I mean, is using an Archer with improved haste really a bad thing?
There is no good or bad. It's all about personal preference, that's WHY we mod things. I like things to be challenging, and mowing down scores of enemies with an IH Archer doesn't exactly make things challenging. But that's just me - other people may find that's exactly what they want to do in their game, and that's perfectly alright. Play the way YOU want, first and foremost, but I do always suggest being open to new things and challenging yourself. It can be fun to stray off the beaten bath, and make things just that little bit harder for yourself.
Anybody still playing lob? I just started that difficulty for first time. I was familar with iwd2 hof mode but didnt know how similar it would be. Playing a F/M multi with swords and korgan, anomen, nalia, jaheira in group.
So far Ive enjoyed the fights.
Magic is still very strong but more in terms of crowd control and summoning armies and debuffs.
I lke that you are a lot more fragile compared to regular insane difficulty.
And I wanne see just how strong a fully equipped higher level F/M fares vs these hard hitting and tanky enemies in lob.
Up until now all battles were managable and not so hard. Summons are great.
Summons make LOB bit too easy for some as they scale too. For this reasons some people don't use them.
In 2.5 there also seems to be a bug which adds -12 AC bonus versus previous 0 (2.3) versus intended -5 to enemies making LOB even harder. I personally enjoy this bug
Has this been addressed by Beamdog? Are we sure it's a bug? Could someone point me to where they said it was supposed to be -5 AC for enemies? Did they change anything else in LOB mode? They have had over a year to consider any balancing changes they might want to add. I'm just curious what is going on or if they plan to fix this anytime soon if it actually is a bug. Do they have an official list of what LOB mode actually does to the game beyond the generic descriptions in game? Something that clarifies what the intended changes for LOB mode actually are?
My party has made it to level 2 but I have to say it feels wrong. I've got my familiar distracting enemies and my main tank gulping potions and fruitlessly swinging over and over while my whole party empties over 100 arrows a piece hitting nothing but air. Pretty dumb. I also noticed that Thunder hammer in Bergost is selling +2 arrows at the same price as +1 arrows which makes no sense.
I sincerely hope we don't have to wait 6 months to a year to get the game working again. That would bum me out pretty bad.
The change to AC is -11, not -12. That's supposed to reflect the original Heart of Fury mode in IWD. See this thread for example. I agree it seems odd game design to prioritize defense so much over attack (and it wouldn't surprise me if that was actually a mistake originally), but Beamdog's rationale is just to replicate that original decision.
So I take it none of the other difficulty settings are broken then? Just LOB mode? I seriously doubt this was intentional, sure it can be played and beaten at this level but it pretty much makes the entire game 4th wall breaking stupidity because most combat situations boil down to everyone in your party standing around shooting arrows for 10 minutes and only landing a few criticals.
Six guys in a pub shoot arrows at a single assassin who has been blinded, doomed and exhausted of all spells for 30 minutes while all of the paying customers just get board of running around in terror and decide to stand there as well. I don't buy that. HOF mode was meant to be played on a second playthrough with high level characters. Lowering all enemy armor to -11 against a level one party doesn't make sense. Maybe Beamdog thought they could push a little more challenge into the game by lowering it a little but -11 seems a bit much even for the LOB mode.
Maybe Diagle did it as a going away present. Ha ha. Beat that BG community! Anyway, I guess I will take a break from this game for a while and come back to see where things are after I have finished some of my other games I'm playing.
So I take it none of the other difficulty settings are broken then? Just LOB mode? I seriously doubt this was intentional, sure it can be played and beaten at this level but it pretty much makes the entire game 4th wall breaking stupidity because most combat situations boil down to everyone in your party standing around shooting arrows for 10 minutes and only landing a few criticals.
Well it depends. This might be true for BGEE but for SOD and BG2EE I just go in melee so I don't see much difference other than fights being much longer than usual. If you utilize mage tanks then once you get ghost armor/mirrors/blur and then skins you just can tank for very long periods of time just fine.
While it isn't fun for many people I just metagame beginning but it's mostly because I don't like very first levels so I go for shoal, drizzt, sirens, basillisks, ankhegs etc.
Six guys in a pub shoot arrows at a single assassin who has been blinded, doomed and exhausted of all spells for 30 minutes while all of the paying customers just get board of running around in terror and decide to stand there as well. I don't buy that. HOF mode was meant to be played on a second playthrough with high level characters. Lowering all enemy armor to -11 against a level one party doesn't make sense. Maybe Beamdog thought they could push a little more challenge into the game by lowering it a little but -11 seems a bit much even for the LOB mode.
Not sure where did you get the idea that HOF was supposed to be played on second playthrough or high level characters. Beamdog team never said that.
In my opinion HOF/LOB is just for those veterans who played this game through and through so many times the game became just plain easy. I always start LOB with level 1 characters so I never imported anything otherwise LOB would be too easy. So then what would be the point in playing it.
Thing I can agree is that -11AC is a bit pushing it for bgee. In bg2ee it's challening but alright.
One thing that I dislike is that people often discuss LOB like they are forced to play it. If you don't enjoy it just play on insane and install some mods to tweak the difficulty. In the end just play the game you enjoy.
I know I don't have to play it but I like to play it. I already play with SCS and Ascension. I have beaten LOB mode 3 times and enjoy it. HOF mode wasn't made by Beamdog. It was made by Black Isle and Interplay for the purpose of replaying Icewind dale to give it some more play value and because it didn't have a continuous sequel that would allow your characters to progress up to level 30+ like the BG series. It was originally meant to be played on a second run of the game.
Beamdog lowered the armor class penalty as a way of balancing it for Baldur's Gate EE because you were meant to start with a level 1 character in LOB mode. I'm not surprised that you are not finding it problematic in BG2 because your THAC0 is high enough for it to not matter. Some of us want to actually enjoy the first game as well. If you can only hit enemies with a lucky 20 then it's broken and needs to be fixed. Relying on natural 20's to hit your enemies will make each fight 4th wall breaking. A Situation where a guy stumbles around for 30 minutes while 6 guys shoot bows at him is just plain silly and you can tell nobody bothered to play test this before it was released.
i am really not in the mood to play LoB, as @Lord_Tansheron told "it's all about personal preference" and my tastes are different. but probably i will try it in the future coupled with tactics mod, i think that the final battle of soa would be really glorious! at least if i ever manage to survive the first soa dungeon, tactics mod's chateau irenicus is hard enough on insane, as you lack levels, you lack special equipment and you also lack arrows and bullets so a kite and destroy with ranged is not viable.
My problem is that I can't go back. I tried playing insane with SCS and it's just too easy now that I have been playing LOB mode for a while. I'm used to the battles lasting longer and requiring smart tactics to drain enemies of their spells rather than killing them before they use them. Kite tactics really aren't mandatory in LOB mode despite what many say. At least they weren't before this last patch.
Chateau Irenicus is pretty challenging on LOB mode but if you use summons it makes it pretty manageable. I found the elven city at the end of SOA to be very challenging but the final battle with Irenicus was actually pretty easy. Killed him with a timestop + backstabs in a single round. The black dragon with 2,200 HP was brutal and the boss battle at the town hall was extreme. Some of the resistances of the golems were really harsh too. It took everything I had to beat it and felt really fun and challenging. Easily 2x has hard as insane mode.
Now, with this latest patch it's no longer a matter of using your smarts to choose what battles you can handle based on your own skills. It's just luck weather you hit the enemy or not. Which is disappointing for me. Hopefully it was just a mistake and they intend to fix it. Otherwise I'm SOL. Relying on luck to beat the game does require some skill and certainly some patience but that is not how I want to play the game. If I get lucky then great but if I can't win a fight without luck then I wouldn't fight at all if it were me. Seems stupid to do otherwise and that makes the entire game feel stupid to me.
My last run of the game on LOB with SCS and Ascension was probably the best run of the game I ever played. It was really enjoyable and used every ounce of skill and knowledge I had to beat it. This latest patch puts me in a tough place because I'm not satisfied with any of the game modes anymore.
Chateau Irenicus is pretty challenging on LOB mode but if you use summons it makes it pretty manageable.
do you mean vanilla chateau irenicus or the tactics mod one? i fail to see how some summons can help against the tactics ilich party. with the lev 19 cleric that summons a fallen deva and the rest. i had won it many times on insane, solo or with party, but i can not see how i can beat it with the enemies with those bonuses to ac and saving throws, if it would be only a matter of more hp maybe i could try it, but considering how we lack of equipment and levels at the beginning of soa i suppose that is borderline to impossible.
Oh sorry, I meant the improved Chateau Irenicus option in SCS with LOB. I overlooked that you were talking about tactics. Didn't think anybody still played it anymore. All anyone talks about is SCS and spell revisions it seems. Based on my experiences, I would say tactics with LOB would probably not be a good idea lol. A couple fallen solars can give a full party at the 8 million XP cap a good fight with SCS and LOB combined. Mainly because they have 7X their normal HP and they can heal to full health repeatedly while throwing every nasty spell they have at you. Insect plaque being a major annoyance and they have massive thaco and APR that will allow them to chop right through anyone who isn't magically protected. Even then, they can rip your protections down with no problem at that point in the game especially with the boosted levels they have. You can't just bang on them really fast and hard to overwhelm them. They will heal themselves to full health after you bash their 7X HP down multiple times and unload everything they have at you in the meantime. Summons will be inta gibbed, nothing to hold them back.
Facing one of them in the starting dungeon would probably waste you unless you are cheesing hard. I never really got the appeal of it to be honest. It's like putting Demogorgon in the Candle Keep Inn. Kinda blows it's load with no build up and it makes no sense for a low level party to be facing them at that point anyway. If you don't die then something is wrong heh. Sure it's hard but pretty silly in my opinion. That's probably why most people(myself included), stick with SCS. It still preserves the original pace while making it smarter and beefing up pre existing enemies. Of course it's not as hard but LOB on top gives it the raw force you are probably looking for without sending end game enemies at you at the start. I consider it a great combination that pushes the player to the absolute limit, especially with Ascension added on top.
But that's me, my skill level may not be as high as some of the die hards around here. I'm a traditional party gamer. If this last patch was intentional then I may have to look into old mods like that again. The added difficulty from LOB has ruined the original game for me and I'm not going to rely on lucky 20's to win a battle against a goblin.
i am still playing tactics mod but i agree that is so old school and probably played only by a bunch of players. i have a not EE game just to play it in full glory as i like his old school approach, absurdly strong, and sometimes cheating, enemies fought using every possible resource the party has and (but is not mandatory) using every possible cheese. some of the enemies are not cheating, as it is a collage of pre existent mods and parts written by w weimer, the author, are only scripted in a really good way, like the random parties you meet at night in the town, 6 enemies of about your same level that are scripted to fight in a smarter way then how the average player does.
the new school is to reduce the power creep nerfing items and spells instead of overpowering the enemies while the enemies have better scripts, is a good approach, but i prefer the old one, personal taste.
lob puts a new variable in the equation, that is quite old school as approach, but if with the new patch the outcome is to have enemies that you can hit only with crits is really not my thing, i prefer to have an irenicus that splits himself into 5 powerful enemies, with helpers, some of them spawning over and over, but without ac and st so buffed, then to have to hit 20 times to land a hit to a humber hulk.
The new approach is great when it comes to the original pacing of enemies and keeping the intent of the game similar to it's roots. It has never been good at pushing raw difficulty through the roof though. LOB added a giant dose of difficulty right where it needed it. I wouldn't recommend it in it's current state either but I'm surprised you didn't bother to play it when it worked for the last few years. Pretty much as good as it gets when it comes to challenge and balance when combined with full SCS. Either way I hope Beamdog mentions either on their livestream or on this board what is going on. If they intended it then that is fine but I want to know either way if I should wait for a fix or move on to something else. The patch notes mention an intentional change in enemy AC for LOB mode but as usual they don't actually state what the intended value was to be set at and now we are left guessing if it's supposed to be this way or not.
i have a 2 years old version of the game backup on my computer so i still can play scs and lob without the latest changes. the truth is that i am in one of the periods when i seldom play bg and i am playing vanilla EE in a very relaxed mode now. i still have to experiment with tactics, as i like to play the same battle many times with every party to try all the possible strategies the party composition allows, my goal is not to win the battle but to win it in every possible mode. so when i want some challenge i play tactics mod as i still have to test some party compositions. probably i will focus on SCS and LoB when you all will have shifted to some other mod, it seems that i am like 5-10 years behind the other players
@the_sextein and @gorgonzola We hear you! We have an internal feature request (no promises) to make LoB bonuses customizable by modders. If we manage to softcode it, here's hoping someone will make an intelligent LoB mod.
For me, the most preferred would be to increase level cap. I can play with all the stuff regarding bonuses with level in the config files, but when there is the upper level limit (50 IIRC)…for example Anomen as cleric could level just fine just about forever. If each 5 levels he could still get some bonuses to throws, AC or so, that could help as some enemies with LoB are just close to indestructable and his saving throws are pretty insanely high being lvl 50 (or currently having XP for like level 55).
Anybody has beaten that demon party with the last orb in the Watchers keep labyrinth? I've tried almost everything for hours and hours and failed miserably each time. It is so very tough when all the previous areas are dead magic so nothing magical you cast, drink or otherwise use has any effect at all. Running to heal was also not an option since the demons there RESPAWN during each visit so even though it somethimes looked like I may be finally getting it, I always had to retreat and it was crowded next time.
@Behemot: I think it might depend on your party. One possibility to circumvent the enemy's high HP would be to use INT drain.
If you have a mage with level 9 spells, you could prepare a Chain Contingency with PFMW, Enchanted Weapon, and Improved Haste, then pre-cast Shapechange (dead magic won't remove the special abilities from your character since they're not dispellable, but you still won't be able to cast the Shapechange spell inside a dead magic area; you'll have to cast it before you enter) and enter the demon's area. Send out your other party members to draw fire, pull your mage to a corner, and cast Time Stop. Then switch to mind flayer and kill the top targets, whichever are visible (another party member might need True Seeing or a thief's Detect Illusions to reveal them while the mage is still casting Time Stop). With Enchanted Weapon active, your mind flayer attack should strike as +3, allowing you to drain 40 INT per round while Time Stop is still active and you're still in mind flayer form (you might need careful timing if you're going to chain-cast Time Stop).
Your mage will need to make saving throws against fear effects (I think even while Time Stop is active, at least in SCS), so a Resist Fear contingency might be necessary if your mage has no fighter or thief levels to let him or her equip Peridan.
Failing that, you might still be able to manage the fight if you use certain options that will bypass the dead magic restrictions. All contingencies and spell triggers ignore dead magic (unless an EE update changed that), and while potions will be dispelled when you enter a dead magic area, you can drink them if you're already inside the dead magic area and they will persist (unless an EE update changed Watcher's Keep dead magic zones to be like the SoD dead magic area, in which case the area will re-apply Dispel Magic effects constantly).
I suppose it may also be possible to concentrate fire on a single enemy, kill it, and then hurry through the portal so you can rest up and return, gradually picking off the enemies one by one.
That last hint does not work, as I stated, two or three more constantly spawn each time you enter. Though I guess that may go away after killing the demon lord. Good hint with the mind flayer and stuff, gonna try…somewhen
In the Vanilla game, you can convince the demon lord that you will kill his rival and return with his heart. If you do this then he will give you what you need. With the maze randomizer option in SCS enabled, the game will bug out and after you make a deal with the demon lord he will tell you that you are a traitor and he can smell it or something along those lines. After that he attacks. The only way to get what you need is to kill the demon lord.
One thing that is important to note is that the fight will reset everytime you enter the area. So, if you kill a demon and then run away, the demon lord will tell you that you are a traitor once again and the fight will start again. Any demons you killed will be back. However, if you kill the demon lord and then run for the portal, the quest is considered completed. After that, you can come back to the area and it will be clear of all demons as if they disbanded after you killed their leader.
So you should focus all power on the demon lord, when he falls grab the stone you need to leave the level and grab his heart. As soon as the demon lord falls, the portal behind him will open allowing for a quick escape.
Another tip that is kind of cheesy but will work if you are in a pinch. When you first enter the area each time the fight starts over so the demon lord will try to initiate conversation to tell you that you are a traitor. If you immediately use the pocket plane ability as soon as you enter the area, you should be able to sleep and pre buff for the apocalypse. Then just use the "return me from where I was last option" and you will be all buffed up and ready to go. If you don't do it immediately they will turn red and your pocket plane ability won't work so you have to use it before his dialogue pops.
If you make your melee characters immune to fire that will help because the demon lord has a fire shield and you are pressed for time so getting in a mage battle is out of the question. I had my mages run along the wall clockwise around the room and my melee bashers trash the demon lord. They were being healed by his fire shield so it kept my characters alive long enough to kill him. When he fell, my mages were right next to the portal and so I grabbed the heart and the gem and ran through the portal.
This fight is beatable on LOB with SCS if you use the pocket plane trick. Otherwise, I think you should stick to the demon lord and then running away. It's tough no matter how you approach it and I wouldn't feel bad about using the pocket plane given that this is a bug anyway and you really would use your pocket plane to your advantage any chance that you could. So it makes sense from a role playing perspective as well. If this fight were any harder, I don't think it would actually be possible without party member fatalities.
One thing I found out which helped a little bit was casting couple Mordenkainen's Swords. They drew attention of couple of the demons plus they made some nice damage to them. So I will try. If it does not go than I'll just have to go to get the final parts of the battle unit and put that on Anomen, making a proper tank out of him
Good point. Good-aligned protagonists unfortunately don't get the option, but neutral- and evil-aligned characters (and the lawful/chaotic axis might also be relevant) can side with whichever demon they encounter first. Since only the first demon you visit will give you this option, it's best to side with the demon that comes in the dead magic area, which I think is Ka'rashur.
Good point. Good-aligned protagonists unfortunately don't get the option, but neutral- and evil-aligned characters (and the lawful/chaotic axis might also be relevant) can side with whichever demon they encounter first. Since only the first demon you visit will give you this option, it's best to side with the demon that comes in the dead magic area, which I think is Ka'rashur.
This is true but keep in mind if you are using the maze randomizer component of SCS it will bug out and you will be forced to fight him. In my opinion, using the pocket plane is the easiest way to beat this battle. I don't think the ring of duplication with the boots of gargoil and the big metal unit will do much for a character in this situation. They will eat a whole maxed out party alive in a matter of seconds if you don't pre-buff in the pocket plane. SCS will hit you with a high level dispel right out of the gate so you will need complex magic protection and even then, your fighters will be sitting ducks and without them you won't be able to kill the demon lord fast enough. You really need to pre buff and go for the demon lord at insane levels of speed if you want any chance for survival. That's how it felt when I played it a month ago.
If you have access to the Big Metal Unit, the Scorcher Ammunition is great for dealing mass damage, and can be highly effective even in LoB mode. The Scorcher Ammunition's fire damage should be useless against the enemy demons, but it will still deal missile damage as long as you're using a crossbow that has damage bonuses, and other damage bonuses stack with it, like Aid and the Enhanced Bard Song and proficiency bonuses. The Scorcher Ammunition strikes twice, and since it has 5 base APR, you can effectively strike 20 times per round to everyone in the area of effect with Improved Haste. Thus, the Firetooth +4 can deal several hundreds of damage per round, though you may need Enchanted Weapon if you're firing it directly at a demon that can only be hit by +3 or +2 weapons.
I took on watchers keep after I took out Gromner in Saradush so I hadn't been to Amkethran to assemble the big metal unit. So I can't really comment on how effective the unit's ammo would be using the firetooth crossbow but I do know that SCS boosts the demons abilities and HP and then LOB boosts their HP again and ups their levels a bit. They are very hard to take on all at the same time. If you take them on at the end of the game it may be easier to handle. All I know is the maze level had some very hard fights and I killed everything in watchers keep other than this fight. I took out the demon lord and ran and that made all of the other demons disappear when I went back to the area to clean house. I think this was the hardest fight in watchers keep. The final seal was rough and some of the magic orb battles were challenging. Demogorgon was easy as pie in comparison.
I have BWS on my machine but I am not really seeing any mods that could replace LOB mode. Does anyone have any suggestions? SCS and spell revisions sounds great but is there another mod that might give HP and levels to enemies without changing the core of the game or ruin the intended pace of enemy progression?
Comments
Unmodded Improved Haste is one of the best spells there is, if not THE best. Things like Archers with near-constant 10 APR absolutely slaughter pretty much everything, trivializing a good portion of even LoB+SCS.
I wanted an evil run which meant I couldn't take Kheldorn so my tank became a fighter/mage, but I needed a way to bring a dual class on-line so I needed Korgan as a tank/kiter prior to that point but some things like golems couldn't be tanked by Korgan so I also brought Jaheira and her ungodly ironbark along.
I had to decide how to deal with with level drain as well so I made the dual class a berserker kit and brought Dorn so I then had 3 people who could tank undead (not that dorn excels at it).
My good play through will be interesting because if my tank is a dual fighter/mage, I need to figure out how and when and with what spells I can use Kheldorn's dispel. If he dispels at the wrong time and removes stoneskin or mantle, I'm screwed. I know he definitely can remove stoneskin but I don't know about spells like mantle. I might instead have to opt for a dwarven defender with flail GM as my tank.
Going back to undead, TU doesn't work, but azure edge does, just not as often. So bringing along a good person, like a Cavalier or undead hunter with points in axe might work out well.
Anyhow yes, LoB does get repetitive but that's the nature of hard core game difficulties. They substantially lower the scope of viable strategies. You also have to remember you must physically obtain the items you plan to use and if you can't then that run through dies where it started.
I dunno, I love LoB because it forces me to think deeper about the game and I made the mistake of playing it with 90% random item mod on so I couldn't just decided to go to area X for this OP item and it felt like the items weren't entirely random, instead locking powerful items behind powerful bosses or areas. I definitely couldn't immediately obtain Daystar for example.
I just started that difficulty for first time. I was familar with iwd2 hof mode but didnt know how similar it would be.
Playing a F/M multi with swords and korgan, anomen, nalia, jaheira in group.
So far Ive enjoyed the fights.
Magic is still very strong but more in terms of crowd control and summoning armies and debuffs.
I lke that you are a lot more fragile compared to regular insane difficulty.
And I wanne see just how strong a fully equipped higher level F/M fares vs these hard hitting and tanky enemies in lob.
Up until now all battles were managable and not so hard. Summons are great.
In 2.5 there also seems to be a bug which adds -12 AC bonus versus previous 0 (2.3) versus intended -5 to enemies making LOB even harder. I personally enjoy this bug
My party has made it to level 2 but I have to say it feels wrong. I've got my familiar distracting enemies and my main tank gulping potions and fruitlessly swinging over and over while my whole party empties over 100 arrows a piece hitting nothing but air. Pretty dumb. I also noticed that Thunder hammer in Bergost is selling +2 arrows at the same price as +1 arrows which makes no sense.
I sincerely hope we don't have to wait 6 months to a year to get the game working again. That would bum me out pretty bad.
Six guys in a pub shoot arrows at a single assassin who has been blinded, doomed and exhausted of all spells for 30 minutes while all of the paying customers just get board of running around in terror and decide to stand there as well. I don't buy that. HOF mode was meant to be played on a second playthrough with high level characters. Lowering all enemy armor to -11 against a level one party doesn't make sense. Maybe Beamdog thought they could push a little more challenge into the game by lowering it a little but -11 seems a bit much even for the LOB mode.
Maybe Diagle did it as a going away present. Ha ha. Beat that BG community! Anyway, I guess I will take a break from this game for a while and come back to see where things are after I have finished some of my other games I'm playing.
While it isn't fun for many people I just metagame beginning but it's mostly because I don't like very first levels so I go for shoal, drizzt, sirens, basillisks, ankhegs etc. Not sure where did you get the idea that HOF was supposed to be played on second playthrough or high level characters. Beamdog team never said that.
In my opinion HOF/LOB is just for those veterans who played this game through and through so many times the game became just plain easy. I always start LOB with level 1 characters so I never imported anything otherwise LOB would be too easy. So then what would be the point in playing it.
Thing I can agree is that -11AC is a bit pushing it for bgee. In bg2ee it's challening but alright.
One thing that I dislike is that people often discuss LOB like they are forced to play it. If you don't enjoy it just play on insane and install some mods to tweak the difficulty. In the end just play the game you enjoy.
Beamdog lowered the armor class penalty as a way of balancing it for Baldur's Gate EE because you were meant to start with a level 1 character in LOB mode. I'm not surprised that you are not finding it problematic in BG2 because your THAC0 is high enough for it to not matter. Some of us want to actually enjoy the first game as well. If you can only hit enemies with a lucky 20 then it's broken and needs to be fixed. Relying on natural 20's to hit your enemies will make each fight 4th wall breaking. A Situation where a guy stumbles around for 30 minutes while 6 guys shoot bows at him is just plain silly and you can tell nobody bothered to play test this before it was released.
but probably i will try it in the future coupled with tactics mod, i think that the final battle of soa would be really glorious! at least if i ever manage to survive the first soa dungeon, tactics mod's chateau irenicus is hard enough on insane, as you lack levels, you lack special equipment and you also lack arrows and bullets so a kite and destroy with ranged is not viable.
Chateau Irenicus is pretty challenging on LOB mode but if you use summons it makes it pretty manageable. I found the elven city at the end of SOA to be very challenging but the final battle with Irenicus was actually pretty easy. Killed him with a timestop + backstabs in a single round. The black dragon with 2,200 HP was brutal and the boss battle at the town hall was extreme. Some of the resistances of the golems were really harsh too. It took everything I had to beat it and felt really fun and challenging. Easily 2x has hard as insane mode.
Now, with this latest patch it's no longer a matter of using your smarts to choose what battles you can handle based on your own skills. It's just luck weather you hit the enemy or not. Which is disappointing for me. Hopefully it was just a mistake and they intend to fix it. Otherwise I'm SOL. Relying on luck to beat the game does require some skill and certainly some patience but that is not how I want to play the game. If I get lucky then great but if I can't win a fight without luck then I wouldn't fight at all if it were me. Seems stupid to do otherwise and that makes the entire game feel stupid to me.
My last run of the game on LOB with SCS and Ascension was probably the best run of the game I ever played. It was really enjoyable and used every ounce of skill and knowledge I had to beat it. This latest patch puts me in a tough place because I'm not satisfied with any of the game modes anymore.
i fail to see how some summons can help against the tactics ilich party. with the lev 19 cleric that summons a fallen deva and the rest.
i had won it many times on insane, solo or with party, but i can not see how i can beat it with the enemies with those bonuses to ac and saving throws, if it would be only a matter of more hp maybe i could try it, but considering how we lack of equipment and levels at the beginning of soa i suppose that is borderline to impossible.
Facing one of them in the starting dungeon would probably waste you unless you are cheesing hard. I never really got the appeal of it to be honest. It's like putting Demogorgon in the Candle Keep Inn. Kinda blows it's load with no build up and it makes no sense for a low level party to be facing them at that point anyway. If you don't die then something is wrong heh. Sure it's hard but pretty silly in my opinion. That's probably why most people(myself included), stick with SCS. It still preserves the original pace while making it smarter and beefing up pre existing enemies. Of course it's not as hard but LOB on top gives it the raw force you are probably looking for without sending end game enemies at you at the start. I consider it a great combination that pushes the player to the absolute limit, especially with Ascension added on top.
But that's me, my skill level may not be as high as some of the die hards around here. I'm a traditional party gamer. If this last patch was intentional then I may have to look into old mods like that again. The added difficulty from LOB has ruined the original game for me and I'm not going to rely on lucky 20's to win a battle against a goblin.
the new school is to reduce the power creep nerfing items and spells instead of overpowering the enemies while the enemies have better scripts, is a good approach, but i prefer the old one, personal taste.
lob puts a new variable in the equation, that is quite old school as approach, but if with the new patch the outcome is to have enemies that you can hit only with crits is really not my thing, i prefer to have an irenicus that splits himself into 5 powerful enemies, with helpers, some of them spawning over and over, but without ac and st so buffed, then to have to hit 20 times to land a hit to a humber hulk.
is a matter of personal taste...
the truth is that i am in one of the periods when i seldom play bg and i am playing vanilla EE in a very relaxed mode now. i still have to experiment with tactics, as i like to play the same battle many times with every party to try all the possible strategies the party composition allows, my goal is not to win the battle but to win it in every possible mode. so when i want some challenge i play tactics mod as i still have to test some party compositions.
probably i will focus on SCS and LoB when you all will have shifted to some other mod, it seems that i am like 5-10 years behind the other players
that is GREAT!
Anybody has beaten that demon party with the last orb in the Watchers keep labyrinth? I've tried almost everything for hours and hours and failed miserably each time. It is so very tough when all the previous areas are dead magic so nothing magical you cast, drink or otherwise use has any effect at all. Running to heal was also not an option since the demons there RESPAWN during each visit so even though it somethimes looked like I may be finally getting it, I always had to retreat and it was crowded next time.
If you have a mage with level 9 spells, you could prepare a Chain Contingency with PFMW, Enchanted Weapon, and Improved Haste, then pre-cast Shapechange (dead magic won't remove the special abilities from your character since they're not dispellable, but you still won't be able to cast the Shapechange spell inside a dead magic area; you'll have to cast it before you enter) and enter the demon's area. Send out your other party members to draw fire, pull your mage to a corner, and cast Time Stop. Then switch to mind flayer and kill the top targets, whichever are visible (another party member might need True Seeing or a thief's Detect Illusions to reveal them while the mage is still casting Time Stop). With Enchanted Weapon active, your mind flayer attack should strike as +3, allowing you to drain 40 INT per round while Time Stop is still active and you're still in mind flayer form (you might need careful timing if you're going to chain-cast Time Stop).
Your mage will need to make saving throws against fear effects (I think even while Time Stop is active, at least in SCS), so a Resist Fear contingency might be necessary if your mage has no fighter or thief levels to let him or her equip Peridan.
Failing that, you might still be able to manage the fight if you use certain options that will bypass the dead magic restrictions. All contingencies and spell triggers ignore dead magic (unless an EE update changed that), and while potions will be dispelled when you enter a dead magic area, you can drink them if you're already inside the dead magic area and they will persist (unless an EE update changed Watcher's Keep dead magic zones to be like the SoD dead magic area, in which case the area will re-apply Dispel Magic effects constantly).
I suppose it may also be possible to concentrate fire on a single enemy, kill it, and then hurry through the portal so you can rest up and return, gradually picking off the enemies one by one.
One thing that is important to note is that the fight will reset everytime you enter the area. So, if you kill a demon and then run away, the demon lord will tell you that you are a traitor once again and the fight will start again. Any demons you killed will be back. However, if you kill the demon lord and then run for the portal, the quest is considered completed. After that, you can come back to the area and it will be clear of all demons as if they disbanded after you killed their leader.
So you should focus all power on the demon lord, when he falls grab the stone you need to leave the level and grab his heart. As soon as the demon lord falls, the portal behind him will open allowing for a quick escape.
Another tip that is kind of cheesy but will work if you are in a pinch. When you first enter the area each time the fight starts over so the demon lord will try to initiate conversation to tell you that you are a traitor. If you immediately use the pocket plane ability as soon as you enter the area, you should be able to sleep and pre buff for the apocalypse. Then just use the "return me from where I was last option" and you will be all buffed up and ready to go. If you don't do it immediately they will turn red and your pocket plane ability won't work so you have to use it before his dialogue pops.
If you make your melee characters immune to fire that will help because the demon lord has a fire shield and you are pressed for time so getting in a mage battle is out of the question. I had my mages run along the wall clockwise around the room and my melee bashers trash the demon lord. They were being healed by his fire shield so it kept my characters alive long enough to kill him. When he fell, my mages were right next to the portal and so I grabbed the heart and the gem and ran through the portal.
This fight is beatable on LOB with SCS if you use the pocket plane trick. Otherwise, I think you should stick to the demon lord and then running away. It's tough no matter how you approach it and I wouldn't feel bad about using the pocket plane given that this is a bug anyway and you really would use your pocket plane to your advantage any chance that you could. So it makes sense from a role playing perspective as well. If this fight were any harder, I don't think it would actually be possible without party member fatalities.
I have BWS on my machine but I am not really seeing any mods that could replace LOB mode. Does anyone have any suggestions? SCS and spell revisions sounds great but is there another mod that might give HP and levels to enemies without changing the core of the game or ruin the intended pace of enemy progression?