I started a new Fighter/Druid and - holy cow - the game really strikes back at the moment. In Mutamins Garden Eklun charmed a Lesser Basilisk to initiate the XP Loop but then something really weird happened. The charmed Basilisk - standig next to Eklun - suddenly turned hostile without being attack in any form and petrified his master. What? There was no enemy around - only these two. No active spells or buffs. Damn it!
After this it looks that i should abandon Druids for some time - i have no luck with them. Therefore i have restarted with another old love of mine: The Cleric/Thief. No Gnome this time - i prefer brute Force. Say hello to Sa´rokk, the Half-Orc (and brother of Su´kka):
He has already managed to finish the Basilisk XP Loop reaching level 7/8. Now its time to get decent Equipment, push reputation and start the main quest line afterwards. Stealth will rule them all. And the Skeleton Warriors. Hopefully!
Sorry to hear Eklun's fate Harpagornis. Tard the totemic druid has also reached his maximum level (though a bit slower than Sa'rokk I imagine) and will be looking to make some progress with the main quest next.
Holy Cow! I have forgotten how powerful the Cleric/Thief can be - especially thanks to the early XP loop. With backstabbing and his three Skeletons Sa´rokk is bringing silence wherever he walks:
Meilum: Paralyzed on third cast and hacked to pieces Greywolf: Paralyzed on second cast and hacked to pieces Neira: Resisted all Hold Person but had no chance vs Skeletons Dushai: Charmed on 11th try and buried outside the village Krumm and Caldo: Paralyzed on first cast and put to silence Thievish Ogre: Hacked to pieces from the Skeletons
Sa´rokk also had two lucky escapes when an Ogre Mage and shortly after a Basilisk ambushed him during travel. The Ogre casted Magic Missiles (no Shield Amulet at this point) but a Healing Potion and a fast retreat made sure the Mage could not harm him again. Against the Basilsik he quickly paused and moved out of vision before the beast could use his petrifying gaze.
With the usual reputation quests solved he is now sitting at 20 - ready to get price adjustments on his upcoming trades: Greenstone Amulet, Sandthief Ring, Displacer Cloak, Quarterstaff +3, Shadow Armor, Neckalce of Missiles. And some more!
Tard the totemic druid paid for doing 'just one more' encounter. He was probably already approaching the SoD XP cap, never mind the TotSC one, but wanted to clear the Iron Throne anyway. That seemed to have gone smoothly with several rounds having passed since the last of the enemies died and Tard ventured out from the back room to check the bodies - and Alai appeared from invisibility with an instant lightning bolt that gave Tard no time to react ...
That reminds me on the Erinyes out of invisibility charm @Grond0 - damn it!
BtW: Eklun did not get any bonus XP when starting SoD - he just had 161k XP!
Sa´rokk moved on with the main quests a bit:
Mulahey: Charmed on third try and ripped apart from his own Kobolds Tranzig: Beaten down by four Skeletons (thanks to Mulaheys Ring one more now!) Bandit Camp: Used stealth and inivisibility to get in and out of tent. Sacrificed Taurgosz. Drasus: This one was a pain as Sa´rokk needed eight tries before charm worked. In between the talking had triggered so everyone was hostile. With resting in the northern part of the map (which seems to be quite safe) he stealthed back and forth until the charm landed. Drasus went hostile in the middle of the fight but his former party still continued the beating so he got obliterated shortly after. Grabbed Boots of Speed and moved into the Mines.
Davaeorn will be next!
EDIT: Davaeorn is dead. With Potion of Magic Blocking Sar´okk triggered the traps, lured the Battle Horrors away and waited until the CC expired and all guards had streamed in. With Necklace of Missiles they got burned into the ground with only Davaeorn left. Quite funny how easy the Skeleton Warriors teared him apart so he could grab his loot and clear some chests. Out of the mines again he tried to charm Genthore - and it worked! But like Drasus he went hostile in the middle of the heat and this time the enemies did not continue the beating. With the Mages and Guards still around Sa´rokk left them behind heading towards Baldurs Gate!
Sa´rokk rushed through BG getting Baldurans Helm and Cloak while resupplying before heading back to Candlekeep. The Dopplegangers and Ogre Mage went down pretty quickly thanks to backstabbing and Skeleton Warriors. He sneaked through the Iron Throne got the documents and was sent back to his old home from Duke Eltan.
And here doom nearly crushed Sa´rokk as the game canceled his pause right before the Ogre Mages appeared. Hek used the Sandthief Ring after pausing again (should have used Potion of Invisibility!) and the small delay was enough for the Mages to sent in two Magic Missiles and two Horrors. The damage took Sa´rokk down to 16 HP while also failing his saving throw so he ran around in panic. Now one Ogre Mage started casting dispel invisiblity...
Thanks to the good gods he had switched to Whispers of Silence before porting to Candlekeep so Sa´rokk remained invisible. After the Horror expired he sneaked to the Gate Keeper and got access. *phew*
The rest was easy: Once in the underground he protected from the traps (Fire, Lightning, Magic Missiles) to avoid deadly damage from unwanted missteps. Disarming most traps and unlocking the chests he grabbed the Strenght and Wisdom Tome before heading straight towards the exit without further complications.
Before facing the final confrontations Sa´rokk will grab the remaining Tomes and maybe visit Durlags Tower in between. Durlags Goblet is too good to miss!
After grieving about Droolit I decided to reload her final BG1 save (importing somehow loses all containers and contents) and start her in SoD anew. I wasn't that far into the game so getting back to the point where I was shouldn't be too hard.
Btw guys still trying to think about strategies that work on no reload runs against Big B what do you guys think of the following setup: Cleric/Mage(Illusionist) wearing the Chant Ring for -1 saves on enemies, casting Doom and Malison, then Magic Resistance (if Big B goes invis counter with any anti Invis spell) then Wand of Paralyzation (his saves vs Wands is 4 in vanilla so it should be -1 in Lob) he should save at 10 so that's already a pretty bad save but wand has pretty much infinite charges as you can get more than one and recharge at shops. Now here idk if you can get enchanted weapon in SOD because if you do you could just Marty'r Morningstar him to death, otherwise I guess you transform into spider use any touch spell and pelt him to death with your highest dps weapon. If you can't kill him in 1 minute you just need to count the rounds (pause on round end helps) and before he becomes unparalyzed repeat paralyzation. (also keep in mind doom only lasts 1 turn, but you have almost infinite casts for that )
Oh and you can ofc also cast a spell per round while he is paralyzed, chromatic orb is probably best, doing acid damage against which Big B doesn't have immunity and also having a small chance to instakill (with all debuffs his save vs spell +6 is at 1)
You will need so much time getting in the full combo Doom-Malison-Magic-Resistance that he will not only go invisible again and again (he can use it at will whenever he pleases!) but the demons will eat you alive. Summons will survive one or two rounds before they are gone - Caelar normally goes down in one round. I never really tested it as i dont play Mages but for my Cleric/Thief i will definetly drop back to the Martyr´s Morningstar - with one handed spec critting on 19 and 20 should be good enough for the ususal hide & hit. Anyway: Test it and tell us if its working in practice or better: In a no-reload-setting!
As i said: Test it out as i dont play Mages! Cleric/Thief has no need for enchanted weapon! Just the ususal Invisibility + Martyr Morningstar crits should do the job!
But the Morningstar is only +2, how are you gonna hit Big B with it? Thought only enchanted weapon accomplishes that.
Droolit defeated Korlasz again, using Lions for the first time ever and they are a lot weaker since they don't hit thru Stoneskin, but still got the job done ez pz.
Btw, the Robe of Arcane Aptitude gives you spell sequencer once per Day, meaning you can cast Doom and Malison at once without affecting your Aura, meaning in a single round you can cast Doom, Malison and Magic resistance.
edit: I guess Magic resistance takes 9 seconds so technically you need 2 rounds, but should still be doable with Stoneskin + Caelar?
Nymphs > Korlasz as they will always paralyze her. Combined with Lions thats "nearly" instant GG!
The special effect of Martyr´s Morningstar still triggers doing 170 damage to Big B on every crit!
Too bad that Malison and MR will not last forever. I would wonder if you can take down Big B with just one combo! And never forget: The other Demons will still hunt you until the end!
I'm creating a test Mage/Illusionist as we speak, because I remembered another cheese which should prove most deadly. As far as I can remember spell sequencers are stored infinetely so the robe should allow us to store 3 spells, rest and repeat, making it possible to store unlimited combos of Stoneskin, Mirror Image and Improved Invis as long as you don't mind restspamming.
The same way you could just store infinite chromatic Orbs and just spam that after Big B is hit with the combo.
Incidentally, I noticed during my last run that none of the level 7 spirit summons could hit flesh golems - I think they're supposed to be able to, so I imagine that's a bug.
I had the same problem @Grond0 and in BG2 the summons hit up to +5 (tested on buffed up Warden) so I assume the file for the summons weapons might be bugged in BG1 I will try and check with Near Infinity later.
The claws are +6 and even the infamous checkbox for magical weapon is checked. Flesh Golems only wear Imunne1 Ring so all they are immune to is normal weapons.
The Robe cheese does not work: "You cannot cast multiple instances of the same spell on yourself."
The above mentioned combo should still work, tho as long as 2 rounds are sufficient to hit it. Especially if Martyr's Morningstar doesn't need enchanted weapon to apply it's effect. I'm curious tho, can you crit a paralyzed enemy, since it isn't possible to miss them?
It is now confirmed that saving a game is bugged in SoD...
To test Robe cheese I created a M/C as already stated above. At one point I overwrote the SoD starting save of said M/C but took special care that the name on the right was the name of the M/C.
Now Droolit's save is gone, once again, Autosaves always get overwritten anyway... I have a quicksave from Droolit but that was before even entering the 2nd level of Korlasz tomb, so I guess I will do it all over again and in the future not overwrite saves but create separate saves...
Restspamming Triggers would have been too easy - no?
Sa´rokk went on with the final battles!
Slythe: Five Guards and five Skeletons made short work of Slythe who was pulled alone this time. This wasnt even a fight!
Cythandria: Sa´rokk first took down the backstabbers using five Skeletons - rested again - and went for the Mage. After luring the two Golems downstair he summoned five Skeletons who proved to be too much for the girl.
Palace Ambush: Charmed Guards in and outside, the Nobles and summoned five Skeleton Warriors. The Mage was parked in the next room (with one rest in between!). Buffed up he started the talking and immediately retreated unseen afterwards to avoid the Assassins backstabs. The Skeletons soaked a lot of attention while Sa´rokk shooted his Sling and fired one Wand of Heaven after another. With the allies all around both Dukes survived even though they took some damage (Belt: Injured, Liia: Badly Wounded). After some waiting the Mage transformed. As the Skeletons were still around hegot surrounded quickly while Sa´rokk again combined Sling + Wand of Heaven. Too bad that the Fireballs took down Liia while Belt was still only injured before the Mage got obliterated. The Skeletons than took care of Sarevok before he ported away.
1. Magic Resistance has a casting time of 9, but that means it takes 6 seconds to cast, not 9. Doom and Chant have the same casting time in EE (Doom used to be casting time 1).
2. It's not possible to put Magic Resistance in a Spell Sequencer; you'd need a Spell Trigger for that. Also, bear in mind that Chant is on-self only, while Doom and Malison can be cast on any target. This means you can't put Chant in the same sequencer as Doom and have both of them work: if you target Belhifet with the sequencer, Chant will fail. Chant can still be combined with Malison in the same sequencer, but you need to use the sequencer on yourself.
3. There's no critical failure for saving throws, so there is no chance whatsoever of killing Belhifet with Chromatic Orb for normal classes. With a base save vs. spell of 5, his LoB save is 0, which means his save vs. Chromatic Orb is -6. Malison, Doom, and Chant only bring it up to 1, which is enough to guarantee a successful saving throw (the threshold is 1, not 0). Only a level 10 Invoker could make it work (as specialists get an additional -2 save penalty to saves vs. spells of their school), but that's only possible with Doom and Chant on top, and the XP cap in SoD prevents you from dual-classing an Invoker at level 10 and still hitting leveling 11 as a cleric (you'd need 225,000 more XP than the XP cap allows). You'd need to use a mod that allows you to add a kit to a multi-class cleric/mage and play as a multi-class cleric/invoker.
4. If you did play a cleric/invoker, you should be able to get 10 or 12 castings of Chromatic Orb with the Ring of Wizardry, and if you kept Belhifet's MR at 0 and kept Chant, Doom, and Greater Malison active at the right times, you'd have a chance of instantly killing Belhifet with Chromatic Orb. But 10 castings would still give you a 35% chance of failure (with all penalties, Belhifet's save is 3, or a 90% chance of survival, so the chance of an instant kill is 0.9^10=0.35), while 12 castings would still give you a 28% chance of failure. It's an option, but it's not reliable for no-reload. An Archer/Mage using Called Shot would also have a decent but unreliable chance of killing Belhifet with Chromatic Orb.
5. The Chant ring only gives you the benefits of Chant. It does not affect enemies at all.
6. Belhifet is totally immune to the Wand of Paralyzation, as it uses the stun opcode. Like all demons with the RINGDEMN.itm ring, he is immune to stun.
7. A Cleric/Thief does in fact need to use a scroll of Enchanted Weapon to hit Belhifet with the Martyr's Morningstar, as the morningstar is only +2. Certain mods allow non-mages to use scrolls, but otherwise a cleric/thief will not be able to use Enchanted Weapon.
I also regret to state that imps are not mephits, despite using the same animation. Belhifet is coded as an imp, but the anti-mephit scimitar, which instantly kills mephits on a critical hit, will not work on Belhifet.
Well, everything was going smoothly, until I got to the Durlag's Tower. I managed to kill Avarice and Fear without too much trouble (Avarice's backstab are a lot easier to tackle with Defensive Stance). I was kiting Pride also without too much problem on the first basement floor when two traps decided to trigger : a stinking cloud (nothing to worry about) and a Confusion trap, even though I was roaming the room for more than an hour in game. Why they both decided to trigger at a two seconds interval when I had Pride at Near Death ? Only the gods know why... Obviously, the Confusion sticked : Pride and a ghoul that followed us upstairs sliced me up in three hits. And I just managed to kill Davaeorn before that.
So, that's that for Arvar. A stupid death, because everything else was going smoothly. From what I can gather, I'm pretty sure Dwarven Defender is the best fighter kit to manage this challenge. Not only do you get a truckload of hitpoints, but you get a skill that reduce incoming damage. Meleeing with a DD wasn't much of a problem in LoB.
So, I will take a little break from the challenge, because I feel kinda exhausted from it. I have an Icewind Dale no-reload game that is waiting for me from before I jumped in with Caligula. I'm still gonna tag along to read your progress and comment when relevant. Maybe I'll be back with more Caligula, maybe something else. We'll see.
Some very interesting info @semiticgod . I did not want to put Magic res or Chant into a spell trigger only doom and Malison and whatever 3rd spell seems decent. That's too bad about the ring not working on enemies. And even worse with stun not working. I guess you could still abuse B's bad saves somehow, but if you can't stun him many methods ar slow and clumsy compared to the damage you would take in return. I guess if there was a way to separate Big B from most of his demons (I read it's possible with a party, maybe it works with summons, too?) You could try for several casts of Polymorph Other on him, but only a sorc can get that reliably before BG2 right? (and he has no doom )
Interesting info about the invoker, tho shame a human m/c doesn't automatically become invoker, while the gnome automatically becomes illusionist.
@Arctodus that's sad to hear. I'm super cheesy these days at Durlags, lure them into Avarices cloud, drink potion of invis and cast fireballs from out of sight, even a DD can do that with Necklace. I think a berserker would be pretty good at this challenge, too having massive Thac0 and all. (-2 without potions and 19 st with ideal SoD equip and -4 with Enrage)
Yeah, as i stated earlier: Martyr´s Morningstar 15% HP drain will still proc on crit. Why is no one reading my posts? :P
Too bad reading about Arvar @Arctodus but - as ridiculous as it is - Sa´rokk died against the Wardens too. LOL! But for him it was Avarice who instakilled him with a sneaky backstab. After luring away Pride and Fear Sa´rokk took a look at Avarices cloud - which was far away from Love - and thought he would be safe. But that wasnt the case. When he started attacking Love with his Skeletons Avarice sneaked up to him and hit for 96 damage - Game Over!
I agree that the challenge - especially with the no-reloading - is getting exhausting. But i wont give up - not now. Big question is:
1. Roll another Druid 2. Start with a new Class 3. Play on with Korgath
I would love to get a Druid through to SoA but the last fails put me down a bit. What are your thoughts?
And no: I will not play a Mage!
P.S. Dont forget about the +4 Save from Improved Invisibility @Victor_Creed_SFV!!
Comments
After this it looks that i should abandon Druids for some time - i have no luck with them. Therefore i have restarted with another old love of mine: The Cleric/Thief. No Gnome this time - i prefer brute Force. Say hello to Sa´rokk, the Half-Orc (and brother of Su´kka):
He has already managed to finish the Basilisk XP Loop reaching level 7/8. Now its time to get decent Equipment, push reputation and start the main quest line afterwards. Stealth will rule them all. And the Skeleton Warriors. Hopefully!
Meilum: Paralyzed on third cast and hacked to pieces
Greywolf: Paralyzed on second cast and hacked to pieces
Neira: Resisted all Hold Person but had no chance vs Skeletons
Dushai: Charmed on 11th try and buried outside the village
Krumm and Caldo: Paralyzed on first cast and put to silence
Thievish Ogre: Hacked to pieces from the Skeletons
Sa´rokk also had two lucky escapes when an Ogre Mage and shortly after a Basilisk ambushed him during travel. The Ogre casted Magic Missiles (no Shield Amulet at this point) but a Healing Potion and a fast retreat made sure the Mage could not harm him again. Against the Basilsik he quickly paused and moved out of vision before the beast could use his petrifying gaze.
With the usual reputation quests solved he is now sitting at 20 - ready to get price adjustments on his upcoming trades: Greenstone Amulet, Sandthief Ring, Displacer Cloak, Quarterstaff +3, Shadow Armor, Neckalce of Missiles. And some more!
The main quests will be next - poor Mulahey!
BtW: Eklun did not get any bonus XP when starting SoD - he just had 161k XP!
Sa´rokk moved on with the main quests a bit:
Mulahey: Charmed on third try and ripped apart from his own Kobolds
Tranzig: Beaten down by four Skeletons (thanks to Mulaheys Ring one more now!)
Bandit Camp: Used stealth and inivisibility to get in and out of tent. Sacrificed Taurgosz.
Drasus: This one was a pain as Sa´rokk needed eight tries before charm worked. In between the talking had triggered so everyone was hostile. With resting in the northern part of the map (which seems to be quite safe) he stealthed back and forth until the charm landed. Drasus went hostile in the middle of the fight but his former party still continued the beating so he got obliterated shortly after. Grabbed Boots of Speed and moved into the Mines.
Davaeorn will be next!
EDIT: Davaeorn is dead. With Potion of Magic Blocking Sar´okk triggered the traps, lured the Battle Horrors away and waited until the CC expired and all guards had streamed in. With Necklace of Missiles they got burned into the ground with only Davaeorn left. Quite funny how easy the Skeleton Warriors teared him apart so he could grab his loot and clear some chests. Out of the mines again he tried to charm Genthore - and it worked! But like Drasus he went hostile in the middle of the heat and this time the enemies did not continue the beating. With the Mages and Guards still around Sa´rokk left them behind heading towards Baldurs Gate!
Sa´rokk rushed through BG getting Baldurans Helm and Cloak while resupplying before heading back to Candlekeep. The Dopplegangers and Ogre Mage went down pretty quickly thanks to backstabbing and Skeleton Warriors. He sneaked through the Iron Throne got the documents and was sent back to his old home from Duke Eltan.
And here doom nearly crushed Sa´rokk as the game canceled his pause right before the Ogre Mages appeared. Hek used the Sandthief Ring after pausing again (should have used Potion of Invisibility!) and the small delay was enough for the Mages to sent in two Magic Missiles and two Horrors. The damage took Sa´rokk down to 16 HP while also failing his saving throw so he ran around in panic. Now one Ogre Mage started casting dispel invisiblity...
Thanks to the good gods he had switched to Whispers of Silence before porting to Candlekeep so Sa´rokk remained invisible. After the Horror expired he sneaked to the Gate Keeper and got access. *phew*
The rest was easy: Once in the underground he protected from the traps (Fire, Lightning, Magic Missiles) to avoid deadly damage from unwanted missteps. Disarming most traps and unlocking the chests he grabbed the Strenght and Wisdom Tome before heading straight towards the exit without further complications.
Before facing the final confrontations Sa´rokk will grab the remaining Tomes and maybe visit Durlags Tower in between. Durlags Goblet is too good to miss!
I wasn't that far into the game so getting back to the point where I was shouldn't be too hard.
Btw guys still trying to think about strategies that work on no reload runs against Big B what do you guys think of the following setup:
Cleric/Mage(Illusionist) wearing the Chant Ring for -1 saves on enemies, casting Doom and Malison, then Magic Resistance (if Big B goes invis counter with any anti Invis spell) then Wand of Paralyzation (his saves vs Wands is 4 in vanilla so it should be -1 in Lob) he should save at 10 so that's already a pretty bad save but wand has pretty much infinite charges as you can get more than one and recharge at shops.
Now here idk if you can get enchanted weapon in SOD because if you do you could just Marty'r Morningstar him to death, otherwise I guess you transform into spider use any touch spell and pelt him to death with your highest dps weapon.
If you can't kill him in 1 minute you just need to count the rounds (pause on round end helps) and before he becomes unparalyzed repeat paralyzation.
(also keep in mind doom only lasts 1 turn, but you have almost infinite casts for that
Thought only enchanted weapon accomplishes that.
Droolit defeated Korlasz again, using Lions for the first time ever and they are a lot weaker since they don't hit thru Stoneskin, but still got the job done ez pz.
edit: I guess Magic resistance takes 9 seconds so technically you need 2 rounds, but should still be doable with Stoneskin + Caelar?
The special effect of Martyr´s Morningstar still triggers doing 170 damage to Big B on every crit!
Too bad that Malison and MR will not last forever. I would wonder if you can take down Big B with just one combo! And never forget: The other Demons will still hunt you until the end!
As far as I can remember spell sequencers are stored infinetely so the robe should allow us to store 3 spells, rest and repeat, making it possible to store unlimited combos of Stoneskin, Mirror Image and Improved Invis as long as you don't mind restspamming.
The same way you could just store infinite chromatic Orbs and just spam that after Big B is hit with the combo.
Is there anywhere Big B could be led to that other opponents won't wander into first? If so is there potential to stack up skull traps?
Flesh Golems only wear Imunne1 Ring so all they are immune to is normal weapons.
"You cannot cast multiple instances of the same spell on yourself."
The above mentioned combo should still work, tho as long as 2 rounds are sufficient to hit it.
Especially if Martyr's Morningstar doesn't need enchanted weapon to apply it's effect.
I'm curious tho, can you crit a paralyzed enemy, since it isn't possible to miss them?
To test Robe cheese I created a M/C as already stated above.
At one point I overwrote the SoD starting save of said M/C but took special care that the name on the right was the name of the M/C.
Now Droolit's save is gone, once again, Autosaves always get overwritten anyway...
I have a quicksave from Droolit but that was before even entering the 2nd level of Korlasz tomb, so I guess I will do it all over again and in the future not overwrite saves but create separate saves...
Sa´rokk went on with the final battles!
Slythe: Five Guards and five Skeletons made short work of Slythe who was pulled alone this time. This wasnt even a fight!
Cythandria: Sa´rokk first took down the backstabbers using five Skeletons - rested again - and went for the Mage. After luring the two Golems downstair he summoned five Skeletons who proved to be too much for the girl.
Palace Ambush: Charmed Guards in and outside, the Nobles and summoned five Skeleton Warriors. The Mage was parked in the next room (with one rest in between!). Buffed up he started the talking and immediately retreated unseen afterwards to avoid the Assassins backstabs. The Skeletons soaked a lot of attention while Sa´rokk shooted his Sling and fired one Wand of Heaven after another. With the allies all around both Dukes survived even though they took some damage (Belt: Injured, Liia: Badly Wounded). After some waiting the Mage transformed. As the Skeletons were still around hegot surrounded quickly while Sa´rokk again combined Sling + Wand of Heaven. Too bad that the Fireballs took down Liia while Belt was still only injured before the Mage got obliterated. The Skeletons than took care of Sarevok before he ported away.
Time to put an end to the evil brother soon!
1. Magic Resistance has a casting time of 9, but that means it takes 6 seconds to cast, not 9. Doom and Chant have the same casting time in EE (Doom used to be casting time 1).
2. It's not possible to put Magic Resistance in a Spell Sequencer; you'd need a Spell Trigger for that. Also, bear in mind that Chant is on-self only, while Doom and Malison can be cast on any target. This means you can't put Chant in the same sequencer as Doom and have both of them work: if you target Belhifet with the sequencer, Chant will fail. Chant can still be combined with Malison in the same sequencer, but you need to use the sequencer on yourself.
3. There's no critical failure for saving throws, so there is no chance whatsoever of killing Belhifet with Chromatic Orb for normal classes. With a base save vs. spell of 5, his LoB save is 0, which means his save vs. Chromatic Orb is -6. Malison, Doom, and Chant only bring it up to 1, which is enough to guarantee a successful saving throw (the threshold is 1, not 0). Only a level 10 Invoker could make it work (as specialists get an additional -2 save penalty to saves vs. spells of their school), but that's only possible with Doom and Chant on top, and the XP cap in SoD prevents you from dual-classing an Invoker at level 10 and still hitting leveling 11 as a cleric (you'd need 225,000 more XP than the XP cap allows). You'd need to use a mod that allows you to add a kit to a multi-class cleric/mage and play as a multi-class cleric/invoker.
4. If you did play a cleric/invoker, you should be able to get 10 or 12 castings of Chromatic Orb with the Ring of Wizardry, and if you kept Belhifet's MR at 0 and kept Chant, Doom, and Greater Malison active at the right times, you'd have a chance of instantly killing Belhifet with Chromatic Orb. But 10 castings would still give you a 35% chance of failure (with all penalties, Belhifet's save is 3, or a 90% chance of survival, so the chance of an instant kill is 0.9^10=0.35), while 12 castings would still give you a 28% chance of failure. It's an option, but it's not reliable for no-reload. An Archer/Mage using Called Shot would also have a decent but unreliable chance of killing Belhifet with Chromatic Orb.
5. The Chant ring only gives you the benefits of Chant. It does not affect enemies at all.
6. Belhifet is totally immune to the Wand of Paralyzation, as it uses the stun opcode. Like all demons with the RINGDEMN.itm ring, he is immune to stun.
7. A Cleric/Thief does in fact need to use a scroll of Enchanted Weapon to hit Belhifet with the Martyr's Morningstar, as the morningstar is only +2. Certain mods allow non-mages to use scrolls, but otherwise a cleric/thief will not be able to use Enchanted Weapon.
So, that's that for Arvar. A stupid death, because everything else was going smoothly. From what I can gather, I'm pretty sure Dwarven Defender is the best fighter kit to manage this challenge. Not only do you get a truckload of hitpoints, but you get a skill that reduce incoming damage. Meleeing with a DD wasn't much of a problem in LoB.
So, I will take a little break from the challenge, because I feel kinda exhausted from it. I have an Icewind Dale no-reload game that is waiting for me from before I jumped in with Caligula. I'm still gonna tag along to read your progress and comment when relevant. Maybe I'll be back with more Caligula, maybe something else. We'll see.
See ya !!
I did not want to put Magic res or Chant into a spell trigger only doom and Malison and whatever 3rd spell seems decent.
That's too bad about the ring not working on enemies.
And even worse with stun not working.
I guess you could still abuse B's bad saves somehow, but if you can't stun him many methods ar slow and clumsy compared to the damage you would take in return.
I guess if there was a way to separate Big B from most of his demons (I read it's possible with a party, maybe it works with summons, too?)
You could try for several casts of Polymorph Other on him, but only a sorc can get that reliably before BG2 right? (and he has no doom
Interesting info about the invoker, tho shame a human m/c doesn't automatically become invoker, while the gnome automatically becomes illusionist.
@Arctodus
that's sad to hear.
I'm super cheesy these days at Durlags, lure them into Avarices cloud, drink potion of invis and cast fireballs from out of sight, even a DD can do that with Necklace.
I think a berserker would be pretty good at this challenge, too having massive Thac0 and all. (-2 without potions and 19 st with ideal SoD equip and -4 with Enrage)
Too bad reading about Arvar @Arctodus but - as ridiculous as it is - Sa´rokk died against the Wardens too. LOL! But for him it was Avarice who instakilled him with a sneaky backstab. After luring away Pride and Fear Sa´rokk took a look at Avarices cloud - which was far away from Love - and thought he would be safe. But that wasnt the case. When he started attacking Love with his Skeletons Avarice sneaked up to him and hit for 96 damage - Game Over!
I agree that the challenge - especially with the no-reloading - is getting exhausting. But i wont give up - not now. Big question is:
1. Roll another Druid
2. Start with a new Class
3. Play on with Korgath
I would love to get a Druid through to SoA but the last fails put me down a bit. What are your thoughts?
And no: I will not play a Mage!
P.S. Dont forget about the +4 Save from Improved Invisibility @Victor_Creed_SFV!!