Black Pits II revisited
magisensei
Member Posts: 316
Hello, fellow sell-swords or should it be fellow inmates as we are all stuck in the Black Pits version II about to battle for our lives for the amusement of others once again.
Now I was skeptical about the Black Pits once I bought BGEE as I never really liked gladiator fights but nevertheless gave it a try and Black Pits I with Baeloth was rather disappointing although Baeloth was amusing and so with Black Pits 2, I wasn't even going to attempt it but I was rather bored so I decided to give it a try as in the main game I reached the point where we had to battle Bodhi with allies and so basically almost the end of the game. So here we were at the screen to the black pits version 2 and because I was playing an older version the first thing I noticed was I had no shaman class as I wanted to see how a higher level (meaning level 8+) shaman would play. To make a long story short I played the Black Pits II for a tier or two which was rather entertaining much better implemented than the first version, when I decided to just bite the bullet and patch my game in order to get the shaman class.
And so I applied the newest patch to my game (which means I downloaded the game again with the latest patches already installed from gog) and some interesting things were changed in the Black Pits II.
In the earlier version when in the tavern during the ambush you were naked - no equipment and no spells, so when you were ambushed it basically was a futile one sided fight. With the latest patch not only do you have spells memorized but you are armed and equipped. And I am not talking regular equipment or cheap +1 stuff but powerful equipment that any level 10 party (actually any party at any level except those in ToB and maybe even them if they were equipped with lesser gear at the start of ToB) would envy in the main game.
Here is just some of the gear that my party had before the ambush:
Staff of Rynn+4
Bracers of blinding strike
Bracers of extraordinary specialization
potions of giant strength and healing
boots of speed and some other magical boots
2 martial staffs +3
firetooth dagger +3
bone dagger +4
Helm of Balduran
2 belts of giant strength
And the greatest thing of all - count it - one, two, three... three Hammer of Thunderbolts +3 -- I thought that the hammer was supposed to be a unique item but I got three of them. Maybe an error on the part of the developers who tossed us some gear.
And our armor was all +4 (and not generic +4 armor but things like the viper +4 among other armor)
With all this gear you'd imagine it would give us a fighting chance when we were ambushed - sadly it doesn't - I think the developers were giving us some hope to only cruelly dash it all away on the unfeeling rocks below - "here is some amazing gear, now go and save yourself" but sadly you are facing enemies that must be at least 12 levels higher than yourself so its not even a fight even with all this amazing gear and your spells.
I'm actually jealous as this party in the Black Pits II is initially better equipped than my team in the main game (at the same level actually for a good portion of chapter 2 my party is not even as well equipped as this party here).
And so as we are once again shanghaied and sold into slavery - we actually get to buy back some of our gear during the game. Imagine the nerve of them to sell us our own gear back to us.
Now I was skeptical about the Black Pits once I bought BGEE as I never really liked gladiator fights but nevertheless gave it a try and Black Pits I with Baeloth was rather disappointing although Baeloth was amusing and so with Black Pits 2, I wasn't even going to attempt it but I was rather bored so I decided to give it a try as in the main game I reached the point where we had to battle Bodhi with allies and so basically almost the end of the game. So here we were at the screen to the black pits version 2 and because I was playing an older version the first thing I noticed was I had no shaman class as I wanted to see how a higher level (meaning level 8+) shaman would play. To make a long story short I played the Black Pits II for a tier or two which was rather entertaining much better implemented than the first version, when I decided to just bite the bullet and patch my game in order to get the shaman class.
And so I applied the newest patch to my game (which means I downloaded the game again with the latest patches already installed from gog) and some interesting things were changed in the Black Pits II.
In the earlier version when in the tavern during the ambush you were naked - no equipment and no spells, so when you were ambushed it basically was a futile one sided fight. With the latest patch not only do you have spells memorized but you are armed and equipped. And I am not talking regular equipment or cheap +1 stuff but powerful equipment that any level 10 party (actually any party at any level except those in ToB and maybe even them if they were equipped with lesser gear at the start of ToB) would envy in the main game.
Here is just some of the gear that my party had before the ambush:
Staff of Rynn+4
Bracers of blinding strike
Bracers of extraordinary specialization
potions of giant strength and healing
boots of speed and some other magical boots
2 martial staffs +3
firetooth dagger +3
bone dagger +4
Helm of Balduran
2 belts of giant strength
And the greatest thing of all - count it - one, two, three... three Hammer of Thunderbolts +3 -- I thought that the hammer was supposed to be a unique item but I got three of them. Maybe an error on the part of the developers who tossed us some gear.
And our armor was all +4 (and not generic +4 armor but things like the viper +4 among other armor)
With all this gear you'd imagine it would give us a fighting chance when we were ambushed - sadly it doesn't - I think the developers were giving us some hope to only cruelly dash it all away on the unfeeling rocks below - "here is some amazing gear, now go and save yourself" but sadly you are facing enemies that must be at least 12 levels higher than yourself so its not even a fight even with all this amazing gear and your spells.
I'm actually jealous as this party in the Black Pits II is initially better equipped than my team in the main game (at the same level actually for a good portion of chapter 2 my party is not even as well equipped as this party here).
And so as we are once again shanghaied and sold into slavery - we actually get to buy back some of our gear during the game. Imagine the nerve of them to sell us our own gear back to us.
Post edited by magisensei on
2
Comments
I figure the itemless instance was infact not intended?
I think the Winged bugger has some cheat spells - as I don't recognize the spell it uses to subdue people when you are in the Black Pits (some strange column of light hits you and you are unconscious) or that one time she/he/it used a single meteor and took out some of the gladiators - is there even a single meteor spell in the game?
I think the trick is to kill the winged first and under time stop so he does not cast one of those "you lose" spells
cute tactics but too cheesy for me...
"Nah, lets get out before the owner finds out I killed all his patrons" :-D
Isn't this fight just the same as BP2 final fight, even harder? (because Winged's infinite 'you lose' spell in the pub) (and in the proper final battle you can poison Joker, switch the efreeti with our friendly djinni, or take control of Brannor's adamantine body=these all make them weaker in the real final fight, I suspect.)
We just received the most amazing gift after one of our fights.
The hint: its the best long sword in the game. Take a guess you know what it is.
So for those of you that wanted blackrazor but were a good aligned PC now you can get one without trying to cheat the game by pick pocketing or killing the genie after you give him want he wants. So how amazing is that, beamdog gave us a rather legal way to get blackrazor and we didn't even have to do the trials to get it. Of course there is no guarantee that you will be gifted by an audience member with this sword but its a way to get it. So when you get it export it your PC and play ToB without worrying about not getting it thats if you really wanted to use it.
On an interesting side note we also got the Flail of Ages +4 - yes the +4 version which is crazy - we were sure we left the flail with Nalia at the Keep.
Not only that but the merchants have all of my Sword Saints named swords from BG2 in his stock either they all all forgeries or there is going to be one pissed off Sword Saint looking for her swords. Not something that anyone wants to face.
I wonder if the game will give us Crom Frayr as they did steal our Hammer of Thunderbolts.
I think one of the most amazing things you can buy has to be the Staff of Power - yes the merchants are actually selling the bloody staff that killed off your apprentices if you had them make it and the crazy thing is that its only 3000gp, yes only 3000 gold pieces for the second most powerful mage staff in the game.