solo BG2 LoB mode

caes

Created kensai/mage/thief. After few failed attempts I decided to evade as much fights as possible. First objective: to gather all the needed equipment and gain levels via scrolls scribing.
Irenicus dungeon. Only three goblins and mephit portals were killed, I even managed to complete the genie lamp and dryads acorns quests (by stealing). After that went to get FoA – only one man had to die. After that went to Trademeet, killed one rakshasa (that was difficult) and bought the belt and acid club. After that freed Hendak (only 5 guards to kill, got the key by stealing). Bought Azuredge and DoE. Got Daystar, paid the money and got ring+2 and AoP from Aaron. Liches were killed by throwing axe at them, demilich was slain with Daystar and scroll of protection from undead. After learning all of the gathered and stolen/bought scrolls and doing some easy quests I was at lvls 13/13/15 (I think, don’t remember). Put on Jan’s armor, helm of Balduran, ring of Gaax… Also had Robe of Vecna and all of the other useful stuff. Went to get BoS in planar prison. No problems! Started to clear the areas and complete various quests. Chapter 3 done, I have three strongholds, lvls are 14/14/17. None of the spell protections last long against tougher enemies, that's why I almost always wear Jan's armor and DoE. Right now I’m so bored, that I think of going down into the WK. So far the game is not as challenging as I thought it would be, although I still leave some dense monster packs for later. I didn’t use any tricks other than sell-steal-resell to get rich, mass scroll scribing and one use of protection from undead scroll. So, what do you guys think? Would it be possible to complete BG2 and ToB LoB mode solo?

Forgot to mention! Only used summons three or four times!

sarevok57

with ToB, I say good luck, some enemies are going to have close to 1000 HP and the ravager is going to have even more, way more, so have fun with that, I've beaten bg2 on LoB mode and hated every step of the way, I even used an imported premade team from SoD so they would start with a little more XP, and I just found LoB to be boring and dumb, but granted when you play an entire party, you don't want to skip out on anything, because you want to gather as much XP and items as possible, by the sounds of it, it almost feels harder to play the game of LoB with a party than with just one guy

gorgonzola

@sarevok57
A KMT solo will have a lot of protection from magic weapons, IH, and GWW and can cast simulacrum or use the helm.
The ravager can have a lot of Hp, but using their end game potential the KMT and his clone helper will have something like 12 rounds (without using all the slots of the level) to attack him while fully protected, and at least 7 APR each, more since the clone can use all his Kai and GWW and also Charname can if needed.
7 * 2 * 12 = 168 attacks and still some unused slots with PFMW, IH and the chance to cast a second simmy if the first expires.
Ravager, even with his huge HP, imo has no chance, or better is not a challenge at all, other bosses can be a challenge, but I guess that a well played KMT can easily find his way to defeat them.

Note: as I am using a not EE game I have no experience plying with LoB so I can be completely wrong.

gorgonzola

caes said:

Created kensai/mage/thief. After few failed attempts I decided to evade as much fights as possible.

As I told before I have no experience plying with LoB, but I know that my FMTs can beat quite easily Tactics Mod Irenicus prison on insane while soloing, mainly dividing the enemies and using multiple backstabs, without using cheap tactics like bombing the enemies that are in the fog of war (thing that imho is not even cheesy as a FMT has ways to spot them undetected so uses one of the strength of the build instead of metagame knowledge to do it).

If you choose to avoid most of the battles for RP reasons is fine, but if you choose to do it because you can't beat them I think that you are using your toon at a fraction of his true potential.
Don't think ant FMT as someone who is sometimes a mage, sometimes a fighter and sometimes a thief, in the FMT the power of the 3 classes is not summed, is multiplied
Once you will get accustomed to the build you will discover its immense strength, levels and equipment help a lot, but the strength is inherent to the build. As you know for a FMT in Irenicus Dungeon there is no uber equipment and he as not even stoneskin, since at the creation he has not the level to learn it and there are no scrolls to do it later inside the dungeon. How can he beat a cleric with HLA, a berseker DW +3 and +2 weapons and all the rest of the crazy enemies of that mod? He can, with few or no reloads, once you have discovered his inherent strength.

Kurona

@gorgonzola It's a bit unfair to compare Tactics with LoB. Tactics has hard battles but outside of specific encounters it's vanilla BG2. LoB changes everything. With it even a squirrel will have close to 100 HP, insane Thac0 and saving throws as well as multiple APR. Enemy level is also increased by a dozen or so, which means Remove/Dispel Magic will almost never work.

Backstab in LoB is worthless. Even if you hit for 100+ you still have 200 more HP to deplete on everything stronger than a gibberling. Your buffs never last long enough to tank and you'll run out of spell slots quickly. You'll have to resort to kiting everything.

Your FMT would need at least 2 backstabs (if you're lucky, most likely it will be 3) to kill one goblin in Irenicus' dungeon. ONE goblin.

LoB mode is extremely boring.

caes

Thanks for responses.
@gorgonzola I'm not new to this game, and FMT is my favorite character, even in big parties. Done successful solo with KMT of both Tactics (I remember that feeling when I managed to defeat Impr. Ilyich and his buddies))) and SCS (only SoA part), exterminating everything in my path. So I'm very familiar with this class strength and weaknesses (are there any?). The trouble with LoB mode is that enemies have so much more hit points, that even a lone bandit requires three or four hits (after backstab) with FoA+3 to slay. Now imagine fighting a pack of them, monsters having an additional attacks and better Thac0, each attack doing more damage than on Insane level. Stoneskin and Mirror Image get down very fast, AC doesn’t stop anything, and the only thing to rely on is damage reduction. Backstabbing is nerfed in EE: now a full round has to pass before you can reactivate stealth. So, actually, the packs of low and mid-end monsters are the biggest threat in LoB mode so far, that’s why I’m evading them for now. Lone spellcasters and bosses that I met were defeated with the usual tactics of FMT, requiring only more resources such as additional spells memorized and more potions used. So… @sarevok57 HP pools are exactly what I’m worried about soloing LoB mode. Right now I just don’t know if my KMT will be able to dish out enough damage to slay bosses, and enough hit points to withstand them hitting me even once)
I imagine, that Haer Dalis barbarian/mage/thief solo (dmg. reduction @ lvl19 with equipment – 80, with Hardiness – 120 + all of his resistances and 87 character points) can be better than KMT, but I don’t want to give up kensai’s bonuses to damage. Anyway, I will play further and see how it goes.

@Kurona yeap to everything you said, except that LoB is boring)

gorgonzola

@Kurona @caes as I told I have no experience in LoB so I trust what you say.
But backstab is worthless also in Tactics Irenicus Prison, only 3x multiplyer for a FMT so he can not kill improved Ilich even with a crit when on insane he destroys you in 2 or 3 blows. I was talking of multiple backstabbing, give to a FMT a staff, let him find a couple of corners with low light and he can easily back stab many times without taking a single damage.. A staff because it has a longer reach so there is enough space between you and him to avoid his blow and run past the corner to hide. The fact that a full round has to pass before you can reactivate stealth is not a problem using correct timing, as long as you have the tactical control of the battle.
About dispel magic the FMT has anyway a low level to use it, but has other means against mages, hide, walk until you see them, unhide, wait until their casting animation begin and you are a step and hide away from having them waste the spell. Take care of the helpers if needed, they will try to follow you so you can lure them away and destroy them with multiple backstabs, and repeat until all the mage slots are empty.
Not all enemies are backstabbable, not all battlefields are good for FMT tactics and some enemies see trough invisibility but I guess that even with the boost you told a FMT can still win quite easily a lot of battles (and as I don't play EE and had to stay away from the boards in the last few months I did know about Hp but underestimate the total boost they get).

Kurona

Oh I'm pretty sure a FMT can solo LoB. My point is that it takes forever to kill things, even trivial enemies. That's why it's pretty understandable to avoid pointless fights since you don't need the XP as a solo. In a party though you'll need to kill a lot more stuff and this becomes a huge slog.

gorgonzola

@Kurona I agree with you on this, there is no need to transform the game in a carnage and charname into a butcher in a solo run unless you play a CE sadistic FMT

sarevok57

yeah, another reason why I say, an enemy like the ravager would be difficult as well is because it also has 75% damage resistance and regenerates, coupled in with outrageously insane ( and I truly mean outrageously) amount of HP on LoB and he is going to be quite the annoyance on LoB, I have beat SoA on LoB mode, which in my opinion, I can see it being doable with a solo dude, but ToB on the other hand, could be a bit trickier, might opinion would be, maybe you should memorize some insta kill spells like finger of death, or wail of the banshee, because on LoB its not about optimizing your physical damage output, its about killing baddies as quickly as possible, although some people find the one hit kill spells "cheap" I think they are perfectly legitimate, they were a life saver during SoA, especially the mace of disruption, oh god is that weapon your best friend on LoB mode

if you want some insight on how tough the baddies are on LoB mode he is what they get I believe:

double damage, +6 to hit, +6 to all saves, +1 APR, x3+80 HP ( to put that into some perspective: dragons will have over 500 HP, will always pass their saving throws, cant miss for 5 or 6 APR and deal 60-80 damage a hit, granted you have spell protections but how long are they going to last against a creature that doesn't take full damage and whose remove magic works without fail?)

gorgonzola

sarevok57 said:

if you want some insight on how tough the baddies are on LoB mode he is what they get I believe:

double damage, +6 to hit, +6 to all saves, +1 APR, x3+80 HP ( to put that into some perspective: dragons will have over 500 HP, will always pass their saving throws, cant miss for 5 or 6 APR and deal 60-80 damage a hit, granted you have spell protections but how long are they going to last against a creature that doesn't take full damage and whose remove magic works without fail?)

At this point I am very interested and curious about the thing, so I have some questions that I will put under a spoiler because are referred to you told under spoiler

1- SI Abiuration protects against his remove magic?
2- Will FoA slow him slowing also his regeneration rate bringing it to about 0 after many hits with the weapon?
3- if the answer to 1 and 2 is yes even with 75% damage resistance and tons of HP has he a chance to survive against the 14-20 APR that a K/M/T and his simulacrum will pull off, being protected by PFMW, for 16-20 rounds?

Also I think that the one hit kill spells are perfectly legitimate but
4- with his naturally good saving throws boosted by LoB there is any chance that he will fail the saving throw other than trusting in the power of reload ?

I am really interested in your opinion as in this moment I am using a very old notebook as gaming device and I doubt that EE can run on it and the other PC is used by all my family to surf the net, listen music, watch movies from DVDs and so on as we have not a television and the HiFi is connected to it, so it would be very annoying for them to have me monopolizing it for my gaming.

sarevok57

#1 I do believe SI will make you immune to remove magic, although I haven't tried myself, that would seem to make sense
#2 if you are actually playing vanilla bg2 ( which if is the scenario how are you going to do LoB mode since the original game does not have it) then yes, the flail of the ages will slow him down, I recall a run that someone did where he never leveled up his dudes and was using FoA and the wand of cursing to blind him as well
#3 lets see, im going to assume that you will deal around maybe 10 damage a hit ( my guys usually deal about 7 damage on normal hits) so with 16 attacks per round ( IH, DW your guy+ simulacrum doing the same thing) if you hit, each time you will deal 160 damage a round, based on that he will go down in

12

rounds or so, give or take, so if you can survive that long then I suppose you could be in good shape, you will need at least 4 protection from magical weapons, so that their durations can last during the fight, and always have a stoneskin up so when PfMW wears off, you have a stoneskin to protect you from getting hit, also, don't forget about contingency, you can have it set to "enemy sited" and have stoneskin set to it (although unless you are using a level cap remover then you could set it to PfMW, but with the level cap your mage level will only hit level 16)

plus make sure to have some scrolls of restoration in your quick item slot, because when you use simulacrum its actually a level drained version of yourself, so if you have your simulacrum use a scroll of restoration, your simulacrum will be the exact same level as you, pretty solid

Tenrecc

sarevok57 said:

#3 lets see, im going to assume that you will deal around maybe 10 damage a hit ( my guys usually deal about 7 damage on normal hits) so with 16 attacks per round ( IH, DW your guy+ simulacrum doing the same thing) if you hit, each time you will deal 160 damage a round, based on that he will go down in

12

rounds or so

That's assuming that you have a consistent THAC0 of -26 or better since Ravager has -6 AC. Max level FTM will have 3 THAC0 base. Assuming CF offhand for 25 STR gives -7 (-4), +5 weapons -5 (-9), weapon proffs -2 (-11), Kensai bonuses -6 (-17), Extraordinary specialization -1 (-18), Balduran's Helm -1 (-19), Montolio to balance out the offhand, (-19 to both).

So, what spells gives reliable and sustainable THAC0? Tenser is only -1 and prevents spellcasting. Does the invis bonus work against enemies that sees through invis? Glitterdust isn't reliable, neither is any blind effect, and he's immune to time stop. BBoD maybe? Would give grandmastery for +1 APR and, what is it now, -4? -5? to THAC0? It lasts 18 rounds so just 1 scroll should be enough.

Hmm, I guess it's actually possible, that -6 kensai THAC0 bonus is pretty insane.

gorgonzola

Stoneskin, at least in the modded not EE that I am running, don't protect you completely from the damage his sword helpers deal. And if you focus only on the big guy after some rounds there will be a lot of them hitting you after some rounds.
PFMW afaik is the only way to avoid damage in that fight. It lasts for 4 rounds, the KMT at that level can cast 3 of them, the simmy 2, and some time is lost using the restoration scroll. So not enough.
But a wise KMT soloer imo should have at this point 2 or 3 bags full of useful scrolls and even casted from the quick slot he need only 1/6 of round, so 1/24 of the time it will last, to cast it again.
So both the toon and the simmy should not have problem to survive for 20 rounds or more, if needed, wasting just 1 or 2 scrolls (he needs them also in the next battle).

So a solo KMT should destroy the ravager without taking himself a single damage even playing LoB.
@caes will tell us if is true when he'll get there.

FinneousPJ

Tenrecc said:

sarevok57 said:

#3 lets see, im going to assume that you will deal around maybe 10 damage a hit ( my guys usually deal about 7 damage on normal hits) so with 16 attacks per round ( IH, DW your guy+ simulacrum doing the same thing) if you hit, each time you will deal 160 damage a round, based on that he will go down in

12

rounds or so

That's assuming that you have a consistent THAC0 of -26 or better since Ravager has -6 AC. Max level FTM will have 3 THAC0 base. Assuming CF offhand for 25 STR gives -7 (-4), +5 weapons -5 (-9), weapon proffs -2 (-11), Kensai bonuses -6 (-17), Extraordinary specialization -1 (-18), Balduran's Helm -1 (-19), Montolio to balance out the offhand, (-19 to both).

So, what spells gives reliable and sustainable THAC0? Tenser is only -1 and prevents spellcasting. Does the invis bonus work against enemies that sees through invis? Glitterdust isn't reliable, neither is any blind effect, and he's immune to time stop. BBoD maybe? Would give grandmastery for +1 APR and, what is it now, -4? -5? to THAC0? It lasts 18 rounds so just 1 scroll should be enough.

Hmm, I guess it's actually possible, that -6 kensai THAC0 bonus is pretty insane.

@Tenrecc -26 THAC0? You need -5 THAC0 to hit -6 AC every time.

Tenrecc

FinneousPJ said:

@Tenrecc -26 THAC0? You need -5 THAC0 to hit -6 AC every time.

... goddamnit.

Seems my mind is still stuck in those lengthy AC Ravager debates on how you can make the Ravager only hit you with a natural hit by stacking AC to -32. Forgot it didn't quite work like that the other way around. xD

caes

here's our friend

gorgonzola

And you don't even need to hit every time as you have means to fully protect yourself for the double of the rounds estimated by @sarevok57 and both Charname and Simmy have GWWs to boost further their APR.
You should win even if you miss 50% of the times, and you will miss a lot less, like the 5% crits that you will have on average.
Ravager scream, scream for mercy......

I told you, FMT is a beast of destruction, both in early SoA, using mainly rogue tactics, and end game.

About Tenser in this battle is a suicidal move, unless you have at least 5 or 6 PfMW scrolls to waste. But Tenser is not needed at all.

Tenrecc

gorgonzola said:

About Tenser in this battle is a suicidal move, unless you have at least 5 or 6 PfMW scrolls to waste. But Tenser is not needed at all.

I tried to use it on my test FTM to see how good it would be... turned out it only decreased my THAC0 by 1. yes, 1. Not sure about the exact workings behind it, but I think it's fair to say it's pretty useless in this situation.

Kurona

Tenser gives you Fighter Thac0 so if you're part Fighter it's useless. For a solo Thief, Bard of M/T it's useful though, especially against SCS dragons, the bastards love to insta-heal their 900 HP so you need to kill them FAST.

gorgonzola

The FMT has a natural good thaco and about the same level as mage and thief. Since with it all attacks are as a fighter of the same level as the wizard there is few that it can do to the thaco of a FM. But thaco is not a problem.
The other benefits are doubling the HP and some AC improvement, things don't needed in this particular case, and in 99% of the cases with a FM. And +2 dmg that can be interesting, something like 200 more dmg in the fight if both the toon and the simmy have it active, so 50 more dmg after the 75% resistance, at the cost of casting all your buffs with scrolls. Thing that cost 1/6 of round so you loose 1 or 2 attacks every 4 rounds.

I never use Tenser with a FM or FMsomething, unless I need to really boost his HP for some reason.

sarevok57

caes said:

here's our friend

interesting class and race eh?

gorgonzola

Very interesting. I like the -7 AC against slashing and no modifier against crushing.....

Bubbles

Still 75% resistance to all forms of physical attacks .... it is gonna be a long, drawn showdown ...