It's a while since I tried out Shagrat the shaman, so decided to give him a run using the Adventurer rules. Level ups gained so far as follows: - level 2 from giving Tenya her bowl - level 3 from returning Joia's ring - level 4 from leading Shoal a merry dance - level 5 from watching Korax kill Mutamin and some basilisks - level 6 from plenty of hard work setting up sirines for dancing - level 7 took advantage of the greatly improved summons to sort out golems and battle horrors - level 8 finished off all the ghasts at Durlags Tower along with some more in the Valley of the Tombs. The Revenant also died there without fuss, but the Doomsayer was putting up more of a struggle and Shagrat left him for a bit while progressing through the Cloud Peaks picking up various lower XP targets.
Level 8 means nymphs are now available. Use of dancing summons is possible against most opponents even before that, but it's not easy setting things up so that the spirit summons are attacked and not the shaman. With something else to lead opponents onto the spirits things should become far easier now, though lack of invisibility is still a major concern.
Nice to see someone is giving the Shaman some love @Grond0. I tested this class only a little bit but could not get in touch with the summon mechanic. For now i will stay with the Totemic Druid and another poverty run while being happy to have something prepared for the big fights. If everything works as intended and i dont get tired in between at least SoA should be reachable. We will see!
By the way: I figured out how to deal with Davaeorn using the charmed guard without suffering the problems I had encountered earlier (note that I've had no access to Farsight).
1. Charm the guard with Algernon's Cloak. If unsuccessful, leave the area, rest, and try again. 2. Send the charmed guard south towards Davaeorn and lure the Battle Horrors north to take them down individually. Davaeorn should not go hostile as long as you don't enter his field of vision. 3. Send the guard south to Davaeorn and just barely enter his field of vision. Flee immediately. Davaeorn should trigger his dialogue and go hostile, but fail to teleport or activate his Minor Sequencer. 4. After waiting out Davaeorn's defenses (may or may not be necessary), send in the guard while keeping Charname very far away. The guard will see Davaeorn's red circle and attack. 5. Davaeorn will not respond. Wait for the guard to kill him.
Basically, my problem was that I assumed that Davaeorn going hostile meant that he'd start teleporting around and activate his Minor Sequencer and the guards would spawn in. However, you could avoid all of that if you only dip into Davaeorn's field of vision for a fraction of a second.
I've also found that using Algernon's Cloak from behind invisibility will let you safely charm all sorts of critters. If the charm attempt fails, few enemies are able to react before you run away. I managed to take down Drasus and company entirely by hiding behind invisibility and using Algernon's Cloak before running away. Rezdan was an exception: as the last enemy standing, he was already hostile when I tried to charm him (only enter Drasus' field of vision will turn the group hostile), and he cast Dimension Door on me when the charm attempt failed. But Drasus' boots let me keep running until I had enough time to re-cast Invisibility and try again.
Also, at least in my install, Mulahey has Animate Dead memorized and does not turn hostile no matter how many times you try to charm him, or if you rest. This means you can kill him at zero risk:
1. Charm Mulahey and have him cast Animate Dead. He'll create the level 15 version of the Skeleton Warriors, which is immune to normal weapons. 2. Have Mulahey waste all of his spells on you and/or on thin air (cancel the spell while he's casting it if you don't want it to affect you). 3. Order Mulahey to attack the nearby kobolds with his bare hands. The kobolds will get +4 to hit and damage against him due to him having no melee weapon equipped, and he will go down very fast. 4. Have the Skeleton Warrior fight the kobolds. Its immunity to normal weapons will make it impossible for the kobolds to kill it, but you don't have to stick around to finish them off.
So invisibility and Algernon's Cloak can get you through both the Nashkel Mines and all of the Cloakwood with almost no risk, including the Drasus fight. The only critters you'll ever have to fight are the Battle Horrors.
@Harpagornis: Testing found that it was not in fact safe to approach the basilisks with Algernon's Cloak unless you're already invisible or immune to petrification: the basilisk used its gaze attack shortly before Algernon's Cloak triggered. This means potions are necessary to begin the basilisk XP loop for anyone who does not have thief levels, 1 cleric level, 9 druid levels, or 3 mage levels. My Archer needed to approach with Potions of Mirrored Eyes in order to avoid getting petrified while charming the basilisk. The chance of a successful charm in LoB mode is about 30%, so having three Potions of Mirrored Eyes makes it fairly safe.
Also, Silke appears to drop a Potion of Invisibility in my install. This means we can get a spare potion by charming her and sending her to die against the spiders (you lose XP from Garrick and a Potion of Defense in the process) while relying on Tiax's ghast to bring down the spiders.
Also, the Ogre Magi at Candlekeep appear to be optional. With the Boots of Speed, you can escape the area before a Charm Person even hits, then sneak past them using invisibility and talk to the door guard to get inside Candlekeep without a fight. Note that you'll need to sneak past them twice if you do so; you should have an invisibility spell or potion on hand when you go past Diarmid.
So, I count only 5 occasions when you actually need to fight somebody with something beyond Algernon's Cloak:
1. Battle Horrors in the Cloakwood Mines 2. Doppelgangers at the Seven Suns 3. Slythe and Kristin 4. Doppelgangers at the Ducal Palace 5. Sarevok
Also: once you have 10,000 XP, you can get Baeloth from the Larswood tower, send him to wait for you at the Friendly Arm Inn (this might depend on your install), and then kill him for his Robe of the Evil Archmagi, which is a fenced item but nets 10,000 gold if sold at the Thieves' Guild in Baldur's Gate.
You dont need potion of invisibility or mirroring to set the basilisk xp loop in motion @semiticgod.
The route all my fighters walked: Charm Thalantyr -> Rest to recharge Algernons Cloak -> Let Thalantyr cast Invisibility on you -> Travel to Mutamins Garden with Invisibility still active -> Safe charming without using any potions!
Charming the guard and let him kill Davaeorn still does not work for me...
Whats working is charming Davaeorn so the Battle Horrors take him out...
1. Battle Horrors in the Cloakwood Mines 2. Doppelgangers at the Seven Suns 3. Slythe and Kristin 4. Doppelgangers at the Ducal Palace 5. Sarevok
The Seven Suns is an optional quest, so that would make 4. And if you want to be picky about it you can charm Slythe from stealth / invisibility to avoid a fight there. Using invisibility you can also draw the battle horrors away from Davaeorn without the need to fight them - so not too much left .
Also I'm pretty sure I did a run years ago where the only item used in the run was Algernon's Cloak, so even the palace fight and Sarevok were possible like that (though that would have been in an unmodded game).
Oh, and you can charm Ramazith before talking to him so you can waste his spells and then make him fight his own level 15 Skeleton Warrior.
Also, siding with the Coldhearth lich gets you much better allies during the Coalition Camp invasion. They have better stats than the dwarves and have 50% resistance to slashing and piercing damage, which makes them very sturdy against the trolls (having 90% resistance to missile damage also synergizes well with Arrows of Detonation). All you need to do is charm the dwarves with Algernon's Cloak and send them off to die against the local undead so you can collect their amulets (make sure they don't die to level drain because their amulets are erroneously not coded as quest items and will vanish if the dwarves get chunked by level drain), and use a Protection from Undead scroll to right straight to the Coldhearth lich, who will speak to you despite the Protection from Undead scroll. If you can't kill the Bronze Sentry without summons (or at least, summons who won't get noticed by the local undead), then you'll need Teleport Field in order to escape the area when all the enemies follow the Bronze Sentry when it starts chasing you (it sees through both invisibility and Protection from Undead).
Algernon's Cloak also lets you quickly kill off well-equipped NPCs like Minsc in SoD (free Greenstone Amulet!), though elves like Viconia and Baeloth will be effectively immune.
There's a Maze trap on the chest in SoD that contains the Spell Immunity scroll. Minor Spell Deflection and Minor Spell Turning won't block it; only 100% MR or rage will block it. You can get to it without fighting anybody just by using a Potion of Invisibility.
You can charm Crusaders in the Bridgefort and send them out to die against the nearby crowd of goblins to thin the herd before you fight them. Charming Keherrem and/or Kharm and getting them killed will start the fight early, but I don't know if the same applies to the Barghest and the like.
Does anyone remember who posted that Bridgefort skip about using a familiar to clip through the door and then the barrels, and where that post was?
A slight lack of concentration ended Shagrat's run in the Nashkel Mine. After working down to the kobold shaman I was pulling that back to the area exit. A nymph and spirit summons tried a blocking move and that seemed to be successful when the nymph died in the process of keeping the archers back out of sight of Shagrat, allowing the spirits to establish themselves. I didn't expect the shaman to cast horror on the spirits (they're immune), but he did and Shagrat was caught in the fringes of the spell ...
Tried out Sarevok with a level 5 mage. It seems that the fight requires over 30 fireballs from Wands of Fire or the Necklace of Missiles even with 2 castings of Greater Malison (without GM, it might take more than 40), plus 25 charges from the Wand of Monster Summoning. This is for a fight that went very well; bad luck and missteps could require many more resources than this.
The Undead allies are not really better than the Dwarves @semiticgod as they take double damage from crushing attacks which nearly nullifies their DR. I tested both without help of the MC and they died around 30 seconds against the Trolls/Ogres. But the reason why i would prefer the undead is that the dwarven cleric uses Holy Smite which blinds the enemies so they start running to the barrel triggering the next waves.
You can easily trick the Bronze Sentry by parking him in the big room nearby. Just exit the map (and close the door) shortly to break his follow-you-script. Worked fine in the past for me.
You dont need to charm Minsc or other to kill them for loot - just attack them. Thats what i have done with them in the city and even in the camp.
Charming the Crusader around Bridgefort is funny but not needed as you can skip the whole siege fight by surrendering. The effects are negligible.
The bridgefort skip is borderline cheating in my eyes - unless you plan speed running. Shame on you @semiticgod!
Bad luck @Grond0 - hope you will give your shaman a second chance!
There's a Maze trap on the chest in SoD that contains the Spell Immunity scroll. Minor Spell Deflection and Minor Spell Turning won't block it; only 100% MR or rage will block it. You can get to it without fighting anybody just by using a Potion of Invisibility.
I remember that Spell Immunity was in the other chest, so that you could use SI:Conjuration to open the Maze chest?
EDIT: Checked with NearInfinity
Energy Drain Chest (left) Spell Immunity Lower Resistance Spell Shield
Maze Chest (right) Crown of Lies Robe of Netheril
You can also learn the spell, and open the Maze chest before going to Hell, so that nobody's bothering you.
Firkraag's dungeon. Six used Sanctuary, 2x3xCloudkill trigger'd the first Orc Party, 5 Hasted Skelis then cleared the rest of the area.
2nd Level. 5 hasted Skelis was enough to kill everybody to the point of picking the King Stromm gear, I only helped by Turning the Undead a little, also known as FMC tickling (lv19). Samia's mob, 5 hasted Skelis, Sanctuary, 3xCloudkill trigger, done. Cloudkill trigger is absolutely devastating, distrupting casting and not injuring the Skelis so they can continue their work.
Conster. Sanctuary, 3xCloudkill trigger, wait his PfMW end, 5 Skelis, 3xCloudkill trigger, wait his Improved Mantle to end, melee him down. Be careful to not hit Garren with your Cloudkills.
Firkraag. Resist Fear, 3xLower Resistance trigger, leave, Greater Malison + Doom sequencer, leave, make 3xFeeblemind trigger and use it, done (with 83% probability).
@histamiini I think when you load the same spells into a sequencer that the target only has to save once against them - so you'd do better to try alternatives rather than using all feeblemind to finish off Firkraag.
It only applies to the initial save - so for a spell like web they would only save once when it first hits, but then need to save separately each round. That means a multiple web sequencer still gives pretty good value.
The bridgefort skip is borderline cheating in my eyes - unless you plan speed running. Shame on you @semiticgod!
I know you're just teasing, but if surrendering the fort has negligible effects and can be done safely, the skip isn't very different from normal gameplay--it doesn't decrease the difficulty of the challenge.
I just think it's cool, because it's very unlike any of the other tactics we've been discussing. It's more interesting than using Algernon's Cloak to slay the key enemies of the Bridgefort fight (the Barghest and the mages), and feels better than the surrender.
Again the sewer Mind Flayer base was pure hurt. The first human mob was done with Cloudkill triggers and Skelis. Chaotic Commands, Full Plate, Stonekins, pumped Int to 25 and with 5 Skelis I was able to melee the first patch of annoying teleporting Flayers, with jumping between the levels and using Gww. Barely survived as all the Skelis were detonated quickly. As for the final mob, couldn't beat it, sent in hasted Skelis and Deva, put they were detonated as more teleporting Flayers started hunting me down, I quickly grabbed the Hammer, Wand, and ran like hell out of there. I couldn't finish it with my Cavalier even reloading, and even less now with no-reload. How in earth do you beat that place?
I've been testing the Wand of Wonder out a little, it's pretty good against Firkraag and other non hostile enemies, as it only agroes on Lightning Bolt, so basically you've 50/50 chance of Pertificating your opponent before agroing it.
All effects have 1/7 chance, no save and MR negates, 50 charges
Stoneskin Haste Lightning Bolt (agro) Flesh to Stone (agro if turned to flesh) Web Stinking Cloud Target gets a Strength bonus
Six needs money for the trip so I decided to clear the 1st level of Watchers Keep. Hasted Skelis and Deva cleared pretty much the level, except the Statues.
Met first Cloudkill resistant enemies, as the Cleric among the first patch of Statues used twice Zone of Sweet Air, but not thrice so I still got through. Hasted Skelis and Deva then mobbed them up.
Now the 8 Statues. First hit the ground where mage statues were with 10 Cloudkills, then activated the ritual, hit the ground with 3xCloudkill trigger, another one, mixed Cloudkill Death Fog trigger and lastly 3xDeath Fog trigger. Yet none of them got killed. Hasted Skelis and Deva were able to kill one of the injured Statues. Started feeding more Cloudkills from the Wand, and when they started following I made Hasted 4 Skelis and Efreeti. These summons actually wasted 5 of them, and helped me little when I Gww'd the last two including the Skeli resistant Golem. After getting frustrated that none got killed by the massive death fog, that went fairly pain free.
Now Six finally has 60k to take a trip to the Asulym.
@Harpagornis: I actually planned on doing the Temple of Bhaal anyway, just so I could get the void arrows. No Darskhelin, though; it would do nothing but drain resources.
Again the sewer Mind Flayer base was pure hurt... How in earth do you beat that place?
The Flail of Ages would help a great deal against mind flayers, since the slow effect offers no save and bypasses magic resistance. Otherwise, each mind flayer will always have 5 chances to land a critical hit per round.
Remember that Potions of Genius can be stacked infinitely. Your effective INT will only show 25 at most on the Record screen, but if you drink another 5 Potions of Genius after hitting 24, your INT will be considered as 45 and you'll therefore take 9 hits from the mind flayers before dying. Auto-pause can let you know when a mind flayer hits you, at which point you can drink another Potion of Genius. The INT drain only lasts 5 rounds while Potions of Genius last for 400 rounds, so you can always just run around until the latest INT drain wears off.
Plus, if my memory is correct, you can always flee the area after killing one or two mind flayers and come back to finish the rest. If you want to rest before returning to the fight, you might consider buffing with Potions of Mind Focusing instead of Potions of Genius, because the former lasts 12 hours, enough to last for two resting periods (but bear in mind that taking 8 hours of that means the potions only last 400 rounds, or 200 for each fight).
As for the Alhoon, you can charm him with a Control Circlet, at which point you can turn him on his buddies and then waste all of his spells. Ideally, you should get the Alhoon killed by INT drain, because it's better to leave two or three mind flayers alive than the Alhoon, since the Alhoon has extremely strong THAC0 and will most definitely NOT need critical hits to kill you (unless you use the Soul Reaver on him, but your Cavalier can't equip that wepaon).
@semiticgod That Potion stacking could do the trick, but I wonder how many Potions of Genius, Mind Focus potions there's in the game, as you need to clear 4 Mind Flayer bases, sewers for Crom Faeyr component and Wand of Wonder, Underdark for Staff of Command and Control Circlets, the base before Sendai and Watchers Keep if you decide to do it?
The ever teleporting Mind Flayers are pain in the ass, they are not interested in summons and can quickly surround you so you can't move and start eating you. I think there's six of them in both patches, so you can get trouble if they devour six brains in one round, nothing will then save you. They can also follow you to the sewers, in my Cavalier playthrough I eventually met couple of them in the Radiant Hart house.
@semiticgod That Potion stacking could do the trick, but I wonder how many Potions of Genius, Mind Focus potions there's in the game, as you need to clear 4 Mind Flayer bases, sewers for Crom Faeyr component and Wand of Wonder, Underdark for Staff of Command and Control Circlets, the base before Sendai and Watchers Keep if you decide to do it
@histamiini Great stuff going on in this thread - please keep up all of you
In the unmodded game each temple has 13 potion of mind focus and 13 potions og genius. Its standard temple service.
There are guite a few temples besides the 3 in the temple district (Oghma at the docks, helm at the bridge and Ilmater in the slums and the promenade - and even Waukeen in Trademeet).
As I recall Adratha and Mrs Cragmoon (and perhaps even Roger) has some. But if your looking for an int. boost in a jiffy - visit a temple
@Harpagornis: I'm concerned about the Belhifet fight for an Archer(8)->Mage. Looking at Belhifet's script, it seems he casts Gate every three rounds, not four, at the hardest difficulty level. He casts one of two Gate spells: the first summons a single Cornugon at 320 HP and -5 AC, while the second summons two critters, an Erinyes, Hamatula, and/or an Abishai, which have 224 HP, 248 HP, and 206 HP, respectively.
This means Belhifet summons 273 HP of critters on average every 3 rounds, or 91 HP per round. My Archer/Mage can deal 76.5 damage per round with Acid Arrows per round against a Cornugon, or 96.14 against a Hamatula, Erinyes, or Abishai.
So, every round on average, Belhifet summons 91 HP of critters, while my Archer deals 86.32. This doesn't include damage from the Wand of Frost, but it also doesn't factor in the time lost to kiting, which should be even greater. I therefore have negative net damage output against the enemy as a whole. I will lose any war of attrition.
Wands of Monster Summoning cannot hit Cornugons and will die very quickly against the enemy. Water Elementals die even faster and also fail their saves against fear almost instantly.
Without the ability to specialize in melee weapons due to the Archer kit (and with dual-wielding penalties reducing off-hand THAC0 by enough to force a 5% hit rate), my melee APR is 2 at best (due to an ancient bug, haste only bumps APR from 1.5 to 2, instead of 1.5 to 2.5). I could deal 3.225 damage per round in melee or 8.25 damage at range, not counting Belhifet's regeneration. To kill Belhifet, I'd need to spend 142 rounds attacking him at range and 363 rounds fighting him in melee, assuming I never lose a single attack per round to kiting. By the time that happened, the whole map would be nothing but demons.
I can use Called Shot to get an 85% chance of landing Hold Monster, but that will only let me deal a little over 300 damage to Belhifet (leaving another 100 rounds to finally kill him). It could also give me a 75% chance of landing Deafness, but Belhifet's script to cast Gate says ForceSpellRES and I assume that ignores the 50% spell failure from deafness (which otherwise could solve my problem). A Protection from Magic scroll could also hit Belhifet in my install, but again, I assume ForceSpellRES ignores spell failure.
Teleport Field scrolls could partially solve the problem by making kiting easier. However, there is no Teleport Field scroll in either BG1 or SoD in my install. I heard there was supposed to be one for sale at Sorcerous Sundries and I thought I remembered getting one from Belegarm, but a Near Infinity search of my install confirms that the only stores that sell Teleport Field scrolls are in BG2. Does anyone know where a Teleport Field is normally supposed to be available?
This leaves me with exactly one solution: Arrows of Detonation.
An Arrow of Detonation in the hands of a level 8 Archer will deal 14.5 damage to every enemy but Belhifet, who will suffer only 7.25 (for a single-classed Archer at level 10 with GM in longbows, the numbers are 17.5 and 8.75). This means 23 Arrows of Detonation on average will be enough to kill a Cornugon along with all other gated demons (plus dealing 167 damage to Belhifet). Basically, we'd kite Belhifet for a few turns, then wipe out all of his summons with Arrows of Detonation, then return to kiting until it was time to clear the map again. This would require about 84 Arrows of Detonation.
I have already bought all of the Arrows of Detonation I could find in Sorcerous Sundries, both in BG1 and the first chapter of SoD, and currently have 87. But I want at least 16 more arrows for the Coalition Camp invasion and as many as possible for Dragonspear Castle. Ideally, I'd have 150 total.
Krell the Half-Elf Totemic Druid started his poverty challenge with confidence after gaining a lot of knowledge thanks to the last runs. So far everything went pretty smoothly and only time in Durlags Tower he had to save against the gaze of a lesser basilisk before his summons took control.
Level 3 Shoal taken down by spirit lion Level 6 killing all basiliks in Mutamins Garden with Korax and two spirit wolves. Mutamin did not last long this time while Krell was waiting out of vision. Level 7 doing usual stuff in Beregost: Peacing Marl, killing spiders and Silke with Ghast and two spirit wolves as well as hunting down Firebead who ran like a chicken but got finally caught by the ghast. Level 8 after helping Tenya, hunting Ankhegs for Brun and cleaning some zombie infestation Level 9 thanks to clearing Battle Horrors and Basilisks on Durlags Tower. With two spirit summons and three Nymphs everyone got paralyzed or burned into the ground with Call Lightning
With level 9 reached Pixie Dust is finally available so Krell might now safely start his journey to Mulahey. All Sirenes along the coast are still left for another XP push so level 10 should be in reach soon.
Does your Archer get racial enemy @semiticgod? Would help a lot!
With Caelar + Myconids you can distract demons long enough to shoot many Void Arrows - the bonus magic damage is very handy.
But why Arrows of Detonation? Without Enchanted Weapon they cannot hurt Big B and as everyone is immune to fire they seem rather pointless - no!? However: You can get 25 from Halbazzer in SoD and 5 from Coalition Camp black market. Sometimes the petrified people at Costway Crossing drop one.
With Enchanted Weapon Matyrs Morningstar (plus one-handed-spec) should be your best choice. Just make sure to get enough invisibility potions.
Big B´s gating seems rather random as its not always three rounds. Sometimes he seems to wait much longer even though the room will still get crowded a bit. But remember: Even with my Bounty Hunter and Totemic Druid i never ran into problems of not having enough room for maneuvering - and both needed 100+ rounds. In nearly all runs i completly ignored all demons to focus down Big B.
Yeah I think hit'n'run with invisibility potions is the only way to Archer->Mage to kill Bel. Violet Potion, Power Potions, Enchanted Weapons, Martyr's Morningstar and invisibility potions should be able to do it.
@Harpagornis I barely tanked Mel with F/M/C, anything below is lunacy I think.
EDIT: hmm now that I look at it, Archer8->Mage isn't that far off from F/M/C, so tanking could be done I think.
@Harpagornis: Archer fighters don't get racial enemies. I guess you could use a workaround to give the character the right bonuses, but racial enemies are exclusive to rangers. Now that you mention it, I think an Archer ranger would be perfectly capable of handling Belhifet with Demon as their racial enemy.
I'm saving the Void Arrows for BG2 so I can combine them with Called Shot for STR drain kills. Besides, they're listed as dealing 0d0 missile damage in my install, which means they should get any damage bonuses regardless. Even if they did, they'd only deal 3.25 more points of damage than Arrows of Fire +2, which amounts to 65 extra damage over the course of the fight.
Arrows of Detonation deal 1d6 base missile damage and therefore get all the same bonuses as any other arrow. My Archer/Mage has access to Enchanted Weapon, so its +0 enchantment is irrelevant. Also, Arrows of Detonation hit automatically, requiring no attack roll (and therefore strike 4 times as often as a +2 arrow). The fire damage won't hurt anyone in that fight, but the missile damage will do terrible things to the enemy.
I want to do a no-reload run, which means the Martyr's Morningstar will be extremely unreliable (I don't have any points in Single Weapon Style because it has no purpose outside that one fight). It would take 70 or 140 attack rolls to kill Belhifet, but since the chance of a critical hit is so low, it's very easy for the process to take many, many more than that.
I tried fighting Belhifet with an Archer/Mage and he cast Gate every few rounds without fail. After about 50+ rounds, it was no longer possible to go anywhere without a bunch of demons teleporting on top of me and boxing me in. There were maybe 30-50 enemies on the map in total. The gating is indeed infinite in my install.
I actually had the same problem with my Fighter/Mage/Thief. She was overwhelmed by enemies due to Belhifet's incessant summoning, and the pressure was so intense that she was unable to make attack rolls on Belhifet every round, lest he smash her to bits. She had to keep running away to buy time. Of the attacks she did make, she never once landed a critical hit.
I actually tried using Arrows of Detonation in that run, but it coincided with the very moment that her HP started dropping due to the Potion of Power bug, in which her current HP was constantly set to about 140 (her normal maximum) every single round as the Potions of Power ran out. If it weren't for that bug, she could have easily cleared the field with the 113 Arrows of Detonation she never got to use.
@semiticgod The enemies stop teleporting once you're invisible, and just follow you as a big mass, so you can circle the area. Only thing hitting you invisible are the Archers, but they can get boxed in too when the mass grows big enough. I had probably 30 demons following, when I first (and last ) time used hit'n'run succesfully.
One method would be tanking as long as your buffs hold, and then move to hit'n'run.
Comments
- level 2 from giving Tenya her bowl
- level 3 from returning Joia's ring
- level 4 from leading Shoal a merry dance
- level 5 from watching Korax kill Mutamin and some basilisks
- level 6 from plenty of hard work setting up sirines for dancing
- level 7 took advantage of the greatly improved summons to sort out golems and battle horrors
- level 8 finished off all the ghasts at Durlags Tower along with some more in the Valley of the Tombs. The Revenant also died there without fuss, but the Doomsayer was putting up more of a struggle and Shagrat left him for a bit while progressing through the Cloud Peaks picking up various lower XP targets.
Level 8 means nymphs are now available. Use of dancing summons is possible against most opponents even before that, but it's not easy setting things up so that the spirit summons are attacked and not the shaman. With something else to lead opponents onto the spirits things should become far easier now, though lack of invisibility is still a major concern.
1. Charm the guard with Algernon's Cloak. If unsuccessful, leave the area, rest, and try again.
2. Send the charmed guard south towards Davaeorn and lure the Battle Horrors north to take them down individually. Davaeorn should not go hostile as long as you don't enter his field of vision.
3. Send the guard south to Davaeorn and just barely enter his field of vision. Flee immediately. Davaeorn should trigger his dialogue and go hostile, but fail to teleport or activate his Minor Sequencer.
4. After waiting out Davaeorn's defenses (may or may not be necessary), send in the guard while keeping Charname very far away. The guard will see Davaeorn's red circle and attack.
5. Davaeorn will not respond. Wait for the guard to kill him.
Basically, my problem was that I assumed that Davaeorn going hostile meant that he'd start teleporting around and activate his Minor Sequencer and the guards would spawn in. However, you could avoid all of that if you only dip into Davaeorn's field of vision for a fraction of a second.
I've also found that using Algernon's Cloak from behind invisibility will let you safely charm all sorts of critters. If the charm attempt fails, few enemies are able to react before you run away. I managed to take down Drasus and company entirely by hiding behind invisibility and using Algernon's Cloak before running away. Rezdan was an exception: as the last enemy standing, he was already hostile when I tried to charm him (only enter Drasus' field of vision will turn the group hostile), and he cast Dimension Door on me when the charm attempt failed. But Drasus' boots let me keep running until I had enough time to re-cast Invisibility and try again.
Also, at least in my install, Mulahey has Animate Dead memorized and does not turn hostile no matter how many times you try to charm him, or if you rest. This means you can kill him at zero risk:
1. Charm Mulahey and have him cast Animate Dead. He'll create the level 15 version of the Skeleton Warriors, which is immune to normal weapons.
2. Have Mulahey waste all of his spells on you and/or on thin air (cancel the spell while he's casting it if you don't want it to affect you).
3. Order Mulahey to attack the nearby kobolds with his bare hands. The kobolds will get +4 to hit and damage against him due to him having no melee weapon equipped, and he will go down very fast.
4. Have the Skeleton Warrior fight the kobolds. Its immunity to normal weapons will make it impossible for the kobolds to kill it, but you don't have to stick around to finish them off.
So invisibility and Algernon's Cloak can get you through both the Nashkel Mines and all of the Cloakwood with almost no risk, including the Drasus fight. The only critters you'll ever have to fight are the Battle Horrors.
@Harpagornis: Testing found that it was not in fact safe to approach the basilisks with Algernon's Cloak unless you're already invisible or immune to petrification: the basilisk used its gaze attack shortly before Algernon's Cloak triggered. This means potions are necessary to begin the basilisk XP loop for anyone who does not have thief levels, 1 cleric level, 9 druid levels, or 3 mage levels. My Archer needed to approach with Potions of Mirrored Eyes in order to avoid getting petrified while charming the basilisk. The chance of a successful charm in LoB mode is about 30%, so having three Potions of Mirrored Eyes makes it fairly safe.
Also, Silke appears to drop a Potion of Invisibility in my install. This means we can get a spare potion by charming her and sending her to die against the spiders (you lose XP from Garrick and a Potion of Defense in the process) while relying on Tiax's ghast to bring down the spiders.
Also, the Ogre Magi at Candlekeep appear to be optional. With the Boots of Speed, you can escape the area before a Charm Person even hits, then sneak past them using invisibility and talk to the door guard to get inside Candlekeep without a fight. Note that you'll need to sneak past them twice if you do so; you should have an invisibility spell or potion on hand when you go past Diarmid.
So, I count only 5 occasions when you actually need to fight somebody with something beyond Algernon's Cloak:
1. Battle Horrors in the Cloakwood Mines
2. Doppelgangers at the Seven Suns
3. Slythe and Kristin
4. Doppelgangers at the Ducal Palace
5. Sarevok
Also: once you have 10,000 XP, you can get Baeloth from the Larswood tower, send him to wait for you at the Friendly Arm Inn (this might depend on your install), and then kill him for his Robe of the Evil Archmagi, which is a fenced item but nets 10,000 gold if sold at the Thieves' Guild in Baldur's Gate.
The route all my fighters walked: Charm Thalantyr -> Rest to recharge Algernons Cloak -> Let Thalantyr cast Invisibility on you -> Travel to Mutamins Garden with Invisibility still active -> Safe charming without using any potions!
Charming the guard and let him kill Davaeorn still does not work for me...
Whats working is charming Davaeorn so the Battle Horrors take him out...
Also I'm pretty sure I did a run years ago where the only item used in the run was Algernon's Cloak, so even the palace fight and Sarevok were possible like that (though that would have been in an unmodded game).
Also, siding with the Coldhearth lich gets you much better allies during the Coalition Camp invasion. They have better stats than the dwarves and have 50% resistance to slashing and piercing damage, which makes them very sturdy against the trolls (having 90% resistance to missile damage also synergizes well with Arrows of Detonation). All you need to do is charm the dwarves with Algernon's Cloak and send them off to die against the local undead so you can collect their amulets (make sure they don't die to level drain because their amulets are erroneously not coded as quest items and will vanish if the dwarves get chunked by level drain), and use a Protection from Undead scroll to right straight to the Coldhearth lich, who will speak to you despite the Protection from Undead scroll. If you can't kill the Bronze Sentry without summons (or at least, summons who won't get noticed by the local undead), then you'll need Teleport Field in order to escape the area when all the enemies follow the Bronze Sentry when it starts chasing you (it sees through both invisibility and Protection from Undead).
Algernon's Cloak also lets you quickly kill off well-equipped NPCs like Minsc in SoD (free Greenstone Amulet!), though elves like Viconia and Baeloth will be effectively immune.
There's a Maze trap on the chest in SoD that contains the Spell Immunity scroll. Minor Spell Deflection and Minor Spell Turning won't block it; only 100% MR or rage will block it. You can get to it without fighting anybody just by using a Potion of Invisibility.
You can charm Crusaders in the Bridgefort and send them out to die against the nearby crowd of goblins to thin the herd before you fight them. Charming Keherrem and/or Kharm and getting them killed will start the fight early, but I don't know if the same applies to the Barghest and the like.
Does anyone remember who posted that Bridgefort skip about using a familiar to clip through the door and then the barrels, and where that post was?
You can easily trick the Bronze Sentry by parking him in the big room nearby. Just exit the map (and close the door) shortly to break his follow-you-script. Worked fine in the past for me.
You dont need to charm Minsc or other to kill them for loot - just attack them. Thats what i have done with them in the city and even in the camp.
Charming the Crusader around Bridgefort is funny but not needed as you can skip the whole siege fight by surrendering. The effects are negligible.
The bridgefort skip is borderline cheating in my eyes - unless you plan speed running. Shame on you @semiticgod!
Bad luck @Grond0 - hope you will give your shaman a second chance!
EDIT: Checked with NearInfinity
Energy Drain Chest (left)
Spell Immunity
Lower Resistance
Spell Shield
Maze Chest (right)
Crown of Lies
Robe of Netheril
You can also learn the spell, and open the Maze chest before going to Hell, so that nobody's bothering you.
2nd Level. 5 hasted Skelis was enough to kill everybody to the point of picking the King Stromm gear, I only helped by Turning the Undead a little, also known as FMC tickling (lv19). Samia's mob, 5 hasted Skelis, Sanctuary, 3xCloudkill trigger, done. Cloudkill trigger is absolutely devastating, distrupting casting and not injuring the Skelis so they can continue their work.
Conster. Sanctuary, 3xCloudkill trigger, wait his PfMW end, 5 Skelis, 3xCloudkill trigger, wait his Improved Mantle to end, melee him down. Be careful to not hit Garren with your Cloudkills.
Firkraag. Resist Fear, 3xLower Resistance trigger, leave, Greater Malison + Doom sequencer, leave, make 3xFeeblemind trigger and use it, done (with 83% probability).
I just think it's cool, because it's very unlike any of the other tactics we've been discussing. It's more interesting than using Algernon's Cloak to slay the key enemies of the Bridgefort fight (the Barghest and the mages), and feels better than the surrender.
What exactly are the effects of the surrender?
All effects have 1/7 chance, no save and MR negates, 50 charges
Stoneskin
Haste
Lightning Bolt (agro)
Flesh to Stone (agro if turned to flesh)
Web
Stinking Cloud
Target gets a Strength bonus
If you surrender Jegg Hillcarver the trader doesnt appear in Coalition Camp - not really important. No rep loss!
Looks like @histamiini is still having fun deconstructing the whole challenge one by one!
Krell my Half-Elf Totemic Druid is ready to start his poverty challenge soon - this should get funny too!
Met first Cloudkill resistant enemies, as the Cleric among the first patch of Statues used twice Zone of Sweet Air, but not thrice so I still got through. Hasted Skelis and Deva then mobbed them up.
Now the 8 Statues. First hit the ground where mage statues were with 10 Cloudkills, then activated the ritual, hit the ground with 3xCloudkill trigger, another one, mixed Cloudkill Death Fog trigger and lastly 3xDeath Fog trigger. Yet none of them got killed.
Now Six finally has 60k to take a trip to the Asulym.
Remember that Potions of Genius can be stacked infinitely. Your effective INT will only show 25 at most on the Record screen, but if you drink another 5 Potions of Genius after hitting 24, your INT will be considered as 45 and you'll therefore take 9 hits from the mind flayers before dying. Auto-pause can let you know when a mind flayer hits you, at which point you can drink another Potion of Genius. The INT drain only lasts 5 rounds while Potions of Genius last for 400 rounds, so you can always just run around until the latest INT drain wears off.
Plus, if my memory is correct, you can always flee the area after killing one or two mind flayers and come back to finish the rest. If you want to rest before returning to the fight, you might consider buffing with Potions of Mind Focusing instead of Potions of Genius, because the former lasts 12 hours, enough to last for two resting periods (but bear in mind that taking 8 hours of that means the potions only last 400 rounds, or 200 for each fight).
As for the Alhoon, you can charm him with a Control Circlet, at which point you can turn him on his buddies and then waste all of his spells. Ideally, you should get the Alhoon killed by INT drain, because it's better to leave two or three mind flayers alive than the Alhoon, since the Alhoon has extremely strong THAC0 and will most definitely NOT need critical hits to kill you (unless you use the Soul Reaver on him, but your Cavalier can't equip that wepaon).
The ever teleporting Mind Flayers are pain in the ass, they are not interested in summons and can quickly surround you so you can't move and start eating you. I think there's six of them in both patches, so you can get trouble if they devour six brains in one round, nothing will then save you. They can also follow you to the sewers, in my Cavalier playthrough I eventually met couple of them in the Radiant Hart house.
Great stuff going on in this thread - please keep up all of you
In the unmodded game each temple has 13 potion of mind focus and 13 potions og genius. Its standard temple service.
There are guite a few temples besides the 3 in the temple district (Oghma at the docks, helm at the bridge and Ilmater in the slums and the promenade - and even Waukeen in Trademeet).
As I recall Adratha and Mrs Cragmoon (and perhaps even Roger) has some. But if your looking for an int. boost in a jiffy - visit a temple
This means Belhifet summons 273 HP of critters on average every 3 rounds, or 91 HP per round. My Archer/Mage can deal 76.5 damage per round with Acid Arrows per round against a Cornugon, or 96.14 against a Hamatula, Erinyes, or Abishai.
So, every round on average, Belhifet summons 91 HP of critters, while my Archer deals 86.32. This doesn't include damage from the Wand of Frost, but it also doesn't factor in the time lost to kiting, which should be even greater. I therefore have negative net damage output against the enemy as a whole. I will lose any war of attrition.
Wands of Monster Summoning cannot hit Cornugons and will die very quickly against the enemy. Water Elementals die even faster and also fail their saves against fear almost instantly.
Without the ability to specialize in melee weapons due to the Archer kit (and with dual-wielding penalties reducing off-hand THAC0 by enough to force a 5% hit rate), my melee APR is 2 at best (due to an ancient bug, haste only bumps APR from 1.5 to 2, instead of 1.5 to 2.5). I could deal 3.225 damage per round in melee or 8.25 damage at range, not counting Belhifet's regeneration. To kill Belhifet, I'd need to spend 142 rounds attacking him at range and 363 rounds fighting him in melee, assuming I never lose a single attack per round to kiting. By the time that happened, the whole map would be nothing but demons.
I can use Called Shot to get an 85% chance of landing Hold Monster, but that will only let me deal a little over 300 damage to Belhifet (leaving another 100 rounds to finally kill him). It could also give me a 75% chance of landing Deafness, but Belhifet's script to cast Gate says ForceSpellRES and I assume that ignores the 50% spell failure from deafness (which otherwise could solve my problem). A Protection from Magic scroll could also hit Belhifet in my install, but again, I assume ForceSpellRES ignores spell failure.
Teleport Field scrolls could partially solve the problem by making kiting easier. However, there is no Teleport Field scroll in either BG1 or SoD in my install. I heard there was supposed to be one for sale at Sorcerous Sundries and I thought I remembered getting one from Belegarm, but a Near Infinity search of my install confirms that the only stores that sell Teleport Field scrolls are in BG2. Does anyone know where a Teleport Field is normally supposed to be available?
This leaves me with exactly one solution: Arrows of Detonation.
An Arrow of Detonation in the hands of a level 8 Archer will deal 14.5 damage to every enemy but Belhifet, who will suffer only 7.25 (for a single-classed Archer at level 10 with GM in longbows, the numbers are 17.5 and 8.75). This means 23 Arrows of Detonation on average will be enough to kill a Cornugon along with all other gated demons (plus dealing 167 damage to Belhifet). Basically, we'd kite Belhifet for a few turns, then wipe out all of his summons with Arrows of Detonation, then return to kiting until it was time to clear the map again. This would require about 84 Arrows of Detonation.
I have already bought all of the Arrows of Detonation I could find in Sorcerous Sundries, both in BG1 and the first chapter of SoD, and currently have 87. But I want at least 16 more arrows for the Coalition Camp invasion and as many as possible for Dragonspear Castle. Ideally, I'd have 150 total.
Where else can I find Arrows of Detonation?
Level 3 Shoal taken down by spirit lion
Level 6 killing all basiliks in Mutamins Garden with Korax and two spirit wolves. Mutamin did not last long this time while Krell was waiting out of vision.
Level 7 doing usual stuff in Beregost: Peacing Marl, killing spiders and Silke with Ghast and two spirit wolves as well as hunting down Firebead who ran like a chicken but got finally caught by the ghast.
Level 8 after helping Tenya, hunting Ankhegs for Brun and cleaning some zombie infestation
Level 9 thanks to clearing Battle Horrors and Basilisks on Durlags Tower. With two spirit summons and three Nymphs everyone got paralyzed or burned into the ground with Call Lightning
With level 9 reached Pixie Dust is finally available so Krell might now safely start his journey to Mulahey. All Sirenes along the coast are still left for another XP push so level 10 should be in reach soon.
With Caelar + Myconids you can distract demons long enough to shoot many Void Arrows - the bonus magic damage is very handy.
But why Arrows of Detonation? Without Enchanted Weapon they cannot hurt Big B and as everyone is immune to fire they seem rather pointless - no!? However: You can get 25 from Halbazzer in SoD and 5 from Coalition Camp black market. Sometimes the petrified people at Costway Crossing drop one.
With Enchanted Weapon Matyrs Morningstar (plus one-handed-spec) should be your best choice. Just make sure to get enough invisibility potions.
Big B´s gating seems rather random as its not always three rounds. Sometimes he seems to wait much longer even though the room will still get crowded a bit. But remember: Even with my Bounty Hunter and Totemic Druid i never ran into problems of not having enough room for maneuvering - and both needed 100+ rounds. In nearly all runs i completly ignored all demons to focus down Big B.
If you wanna tank Big B ask @histamiini!
@Harpagornis I barely tanked Mel with F/M/C, anything below is lunacy I think.
EDIT: hmm now that I look at it, Archer8->Mage isn't that far off from F/M/C, so tanking could be done I think.
I'm saving the Void Arrows for BG2 so I can combine them with Called Shot for STR drain kills. Besides, they're listed as dealing 0d0 missile damage in my install, which means they should get any damage bonuses regardless. Even if they did, they'd only deal 3.25 more points of damage than Arrows of Fire +2, which amounts to 65 extra damage over the course of the fight.
Arrows of Detonation deal 1d6 base missile damage and therefore get all the same bonuses as any other arrow. My Archer/Mage has access to Enchanted Weapon, so its +0 enchantment is irrelevant. Also, Arrows of Detonation hit automatically, requiring no attack roll (and therefore strike 4 times as often as a +2 arrow). The fire damage won't hurt anyone in that fight, but the missile damage will do terrible things to the enemy.
I want to do a no-reload run, which means the Martyr's Morningstar will be extremely unreliable (I don't have any points in Single Weapon Style because it has no purpose outside that one fight). It would take 70 or 140 attack rolls to kill Belhifet, but since the chance of a critical hit is so low, it's very easy for the process to take many, many more than that.
I tried fighting Belhifet with an Archer/Mage and he cast Gate every few rounds without fail. After about 50+ rounds, it was no longer possible to go anywhere without a bunch of demons teleporting on top of me and boxing me in. There were maybe 30-50 enemies on the map in total. The gating is indeed infinite in my install.
I actually had the same problem with my Fighter/Mage/Thief. She was overwhelmed by enemies due to Belhifet's incessant summoning, and the pressure was so intense that she was unable to make attack rolls on Belhifet every round, lest he smash her to bits. She had to keep running away to buy time. Of the attacks she did make, she never once landed a critical hit.
I actually tried using Arrows of Detonation in that run, but it coincided with the very moment that her HP started dropping due to the Potion of Power bug, in which her current HP was constantly set to about 140 (her normal maximum) every single round as the Potions of Power ran out. If it weren't for that bug, she could have easily cleared the field with the 113 Arrows of Detonation she never got to use.
One method would be tanking as long as your buffs hold, and then move to hit'n'run.