Since you guys are playing solo and you are probably deep into SoA already,could you please check out something for me? The thing is that in BGEET you can backtrack to BGEE areas from BGEE2. So is it possible to recruit npc's like Kagain and Baeloth?
I've tested this in my EET install. Went with a character from SoD to Beregost to visit Kagain. He was there in his shop for a split second but then he disappeared.
Maybe you will have more luck with Baeloth? A sorcerer in bg2 would be just crazy!
Su´kka is having some evil fun in BG. Attacking drunken sailors while no one cares to boost xp up to level 9. And killing Minsc & Dynaheir to get even more gold so she can buy anything she wants. Sometimes its good to be evil...
Btw: 25k gold with many quests still open. Minsc was wearing Kiels Helmet too - thought there was only one. One has to be fake!!
@Harpagornis, I'm afraid Kaerl won't reach SoD before the Friday due to RL commitments. He's currently collecting valuable items in Baldur's Gate, so there's still a number of difficult battles ahead (Iron Throne, Slythe & Krystin, coronation, final battle) and then some TotSC content (Ice Island, some Durlag's Tower although I dread the traps, probably won't go to the Isle of Balduran). It would be great if we all had a character ready for SoD in a few days, and share our experiences of this hard part of the saga, but I'm aware this may not be feasible.
@Hubal, I can't check Baeloth because I don't have a BG2EET save right now, and in SoD he's a joinable NPC anyway. I did try with Tiax, but like Kagain he just vanished, so I expect that EET doesn't allow BG1 NPCs to join in SoD or SoA if they're not joinable in the vanilla versions of those parts of the saga.
Cleared out the Ankheg map but didn't get a random wraithform drop. I'm at level 4/4/5 now (thief being 5) and I really appreciate my imp coupled with blind. Imp can tank most foes long enough for me to get a successful blind off, even if the foe saves a couple of times. Imp being able to morph into whatever is the best tank against a specific attack is super helpful. Once I get my HiS up this will obviously be less important. I can only imagine how good cleric/priest is doom + blnd, but then again I really like my fighter offensive coupled with thief cheese.
I didn't have much time to play today, but did manage to get up to level 9. However, trying to sneak in a fight at the Bandit Camp before tea-time proved costly. I wasn't monitoring the action closely enough and, although Frey was in no direct danger, one of the hobgoblin elites on the other side of the tent decided to target the familiar. By the time I noticed that it was too late to intervene and the loss of HPs associated with a familiar death in LoB is almost bound to kill the mage as well.
Su´kka is ready for the March to Dragonspear! With over 30k gold she was able to buy everything she needed - arrows, potions, scrolls. With Level 9 also in the pocket she moved on to Coastway Crossing where she solved the first quests and got a fine Biter +2 Throwing Dart and the Identify-Mirror which will save a lot of gold in the future. The Dwarfen Mines and Coldhearth Lich are next!
Fun fact: Even though Su´kka killed Minsc and Dynaheir they reappeared when marching out of BG and are now waiting in the camp...
I just realized the Imp is 100% resistant to fire, cold and electrizity in it's untransformed natural state. Went to Durlags tower, made it invisible, blocked the bridge with it and spammed my wand of fire on the battle horrors. Easiest 8k xp I ever made and could have done it much earlier.
I just realized the Imp is 100% resistant to fire, cold and electrizity in it's untransformed natural state. Went to Durlags tower, made it invisible, blocked the bridge with it and spammed my wand of fire on the battle horrors. Easiest 8k xp I ever made and could have done it much earlier.
Cheater!
These Battle Horrors were such a pain for Su´kka but - on the other hand - perfect training for hit & run!
The Undead in the Dwarfen Mine will have to wait. And - yes - Su´kka can also cheat: 3x PfUndead-Scrolls are still waiting in her pocket. Easiest 180xp (till lvl 10) she will ever make...
After getting close to max xp by doing basilisk map + basilisks on Durlags I decided to go into Nashkel mines. I first tried Darts of Stunning to prevent Mulahey from calling his kobolds and undead but my Thaco was not high enough to get a guaranteed stun before he called them, so I just used a charge of my wand of paralyzation and killed him for free. For Nimbul Blind was enough but his running around was super annoying since he was hasted, the next time I need to use some kind of hold spell to prevent that. Tranzig is next and after that I need to think about a band(it) camp strategy.
With a little cheese Tranzig was a lot easier than his predecessors. Our invisible Imp blocked the door so he had to stay in the room and couldn't run arund. He always saves against blind, but his save against the poison of cheese dagger is low, so just backstab to start and then plain melee him worked wonders. After killing the Sirines and Flesh Golems Raven our F/M/T is now max level 6/6/7
Su´kka is getting really lazy so she cleared only parts of the Dwarven Mine - still 100k xp left to level 10. Anyway: The main goal was to get help from the Dwarves when fighting the Crusade later on. In the meanwhile Su´kka destroyed the Named Crusader Party at the Coastway bridge with some heavy kiting and raging the casters down in close combat. Moving on to the next areas where some really cool fights are waiting!
Also worth to rememberr: It seems that some SCS AI-Scripts are also working in SoD. Mages seem to be a bit smarter (maybe random effect / but no prebuffing), the Carrion Crawlers were constantly swapping targets to stun everything & the bears are on dope running nearly as fast as Su´kka using Speed Boots. That wasnt the case before. Will have to take a closer look at this phenomenon in the upcoming fights if there are more differences.
Not to forget: Phase Spider as well as the improved Astral Phase Spider seem to have forgotten that they can teleport!
Okay -another observation in the Spider Cave: Improved call for help is also working! On my last runs without SCS i was able to fight one spiders room after another. Now chances are very high that you will pull two rooms full of spiders at the same time!! I even tried to sneak in invisible to get as far away from the next room as possible - they still called for help and Su´kka got swarmed by spiders. Ghost Spiders, Astral Phase Spiders, Seven Legged Spiders all of them are deadly. Full buffs were needed here to tank these beasts: Potion of Strength, Oil of Speed, Potion of Invulnerabilty, Potion of Heroism & PfPoison-Scroll. Even then it took nearly two hours to beat them down. Two rooms are still left. If the Rhino Beetle is not triggering after this suffering i will CRY!!!
EDIT: After clearing the first two rooms in one go cause of improved help the same happened on the next try. Room three (the northern one) will call help from the fourth (south-west) so another buff & tank game starts. I tried to trigger the Rhino Beetle before this fight but nothing happens. Will have to refill Durlags Goblet first before fighting these damn spider swarms...
EDIT 2: The Rhino Beetle triggered AFTER looting the Spider Leg from the second double-wave. Su´kka shooted him down with ease as his smaller bug friends stayed neutral and blocked his path. The Rhino Beetle Shield will be a nice addition in the upcoming fights (once we get to Jegg).
EDIT 3: Splitpulling the Bugbears in front of the Dragon Cave did not work anymore. It seems the improved call for help are binding them together so Su´kka is now kiting all of them. The Shaman in my last runs ALWAYS stayed at his place - now he hunts Su´kka casting one CC after another. IF the improved call for help will also work in the final fight vs the Crusader Camp we should prepare for some HEAVY suffering!
I am quite frustrated with LoB and must repeat what I said before, it feels unnatural and cheesy. I managed to do the bandit camp but only with massive amounts of cheese. My usual method to deal with ScS Insane here was to use Sleep to get rid of the normal bandits, fear for the hobgoblins and the belt of Antipode to not care too much for the blacktalons. Then I would deal with the mage with dagger of venom and the full plate guy with charm.
Because of LoB Sleep has become completely useless, I don't think there is a single enemy in the game that has under 4 HD (maybe gibberlings?). Fear even coupled with malison (I used the scroll from ulgoths since memorizing wouldn't help my F/M/T since she doesn't get level 4 spells in the xp cap.) doesn't reliably affect enough enemies
So I ended up going into the tent stealthed backstabbing Venkt the mage, gobble potion of invis rinse and repeat until he is dead (3 potions of invis). Interestingly enough in the tent you don't have to fight the bandits from outside, while the other way around the guys from the tent join the fight outside.
Now while invis buff up, Spirit Armor fire res potion and scroll, cold resistance potion + scroll, Poison resistance scroll, Mirror image. Initially cast fear, then glitterdust, then malison, fear again, go to town with fire wand and when hurt invis again and heal.
What I also noticed LoB seems to have been poorely integrated, for example Ike in Durlag's doesn't die to the demon even tho that s scripted and you can't talk to him after the demon attack.
Not really quite sure if I want to continue the run if I HAVE TO cheese to win, whenever I cheesed before I did it to save time and trouble, but this time all it did was prevent the mage from removing my magic, after that the fight was still insanely Hard.
Hhhhmmmm... i am having big fun atm especially with all the modified - mostly improved - fights in SoD.
I cant imagine to play the game without LoB + SCS atm - but maybe i just like to suffer (and cheese)...
The Green Dragon Morentherene on the other hand was business as usual. Kiting her to death till the end and reaching level 10. PfPoison is still not working as intended (only protects from getting poisoned) so using Durlags Goblet was essential. After picking the Dragon Scales Su´kka went out again. The Temple of Bhaal is waiting...
Hhhhmmmm... i am having big fun atm especially with all the modified - mostly improved - fights in SoD.
I cant imagine to play the game without LoB + SCS atm - but maybe i just like to suffer (and cheese)...
The Green Dragon Morentherene on the other hand was business as usual. Kiting her to death till the end and reaching level 10. PfPoison is still not working as intended (only protects from getting poisoned) so using Durlags Goblet was essential. After picking the Dragon Scales Su´kka went out again. The Temple of Bhaal is waiting...
Whenever I go against tough single opponents I have fun, too. I just can't stomach the fact that random weakling enemies hit through almost any AC and have massive hp. Whenever there is a mob fight and boy bandit camp is the worst, I just feel that they went to far with hp and thac0 increase. Increased hp are totally fine for named enemies but AC being totally useless no matter what I fight really bothers me.
Hhhmm... i can understand you @Victor_Creed_SFV & @chimaera. I still have fun kiting things to death even if it last "forever" or using different kinds of cheese to outsmart the AI. Tougher and smarter enemies - can you dream of more? I am sorry if it might feel more like a neverending nightmare...
SoD - to get concrete - would bore me to death without LoB. With some SCS scripts it gets even better. The upgraded fights in the temple of Bhaal alone are worth all suffering - at least for me. May patience be with you!
Su´kka met Jegg and has now the Dragon Shield & the Rhino Beetle Shield. The last one works great as a anti-archer protection and helped clearing out the goblin infested area around the Crusader Camp. Another epic battle is near and we will see if the improved call script will trigger here. If it works this fight might be impossible for any Warrior Class. We will see!
@chimaera that 2nd lvl Darkness spell with no save AoE blindness doesn't belong to SR. It is indeed ridiculously OP.
Why do you think Clairvoyance backstab immunity is so OP? It lasts only 2 turns, and either Stoneskin or MI to a lesser extent would pretty much offer the same protection if not more.
What does it make Summon Shadows so "cheesy"? Is it the higher lvl summon variant with lvl drain? The wraith has a mere thac0 12, drains only 1 level and allow a save with no penalty.
Hhhmm... i can understand you @Victor_Creed_SFV & @chimaera. I still have fun kiting things to death even if it last "forever" or using different kinds of cheese to outsmart the AI. Tougher and smarter enemies - can you dream of more? I am sorry if it might feel more like a neverending nightmare...
SoD - to get concrete - would bore me to death without LoB. With some SCS scripts it gets even better. The upgraded fights in the temple of Bhaal alone are worth all suffering - at least for me. May patience be with you!
Su´kka met Jegg and has now the Dragon Shield & the Rhino Beetle Shield. The last one works great as a anti-archer protection and helped clearing out the goblin infested area around the Crusader Camp. Another epic battle is near and we will see if the improved call script will trigger here. If it works this fight might be impossible for any Warrior Class. We will see!
Smarter aka SCS I don't mind at all, wish other games had it. And as said before I wouldn't mind the LoB hp, saves and Thac0 on enemies that are supposed to be tough, but I abhor them on enemies like Hobgoblins and regular bandits. Sure this goes away in SoD and BG2 since I can level again and I am not afraid at all that I can't finish BG1, but it is such a pain for me regular enemies can not be stopped by AC. That feature is totally dead in BG1 and it used to be a big part of Baldur's Gate even in SoA.
Tanking is harder - thats for sure. But not impossible. At least with some OP items like Durlags Goblet - which i will miss like hell in BG2. Or is there something similar? Anyway: Su´kka started the attack on the Crusader Camp. My conclusion so far: Not really different from my last attempts. No improved call for help and also the Mages are casting the same stuff as last time. Its really weird. Sometimes bears are running slow like there is no SCS, sometimes they are on dope. Sometimes Phase Spiders lack any teleport, sometimes they act like intended. Sometimes Mages react to players protections, sometimes not. Sometimes enemies call for help from far away, sometimes not. Anyway: There are differences since SCS installation but they do not seem to work all the time in SoD. Weird.
And as said before I wouldn't mind the LoB hp, saves and Thac0 on enemies that are supposed to be tough, but I abhor them on enemies like Hobgoblins and regular bandits. Sure this goes away in SoD and BG2 since I can level again and I am not afraid at all that I can't finish BG1, but it is such a pain for me regular enemies can not be stopped by AC. That feature is totally dead in BG1 and it used to be a big part of Baldur's Gate even in SoA.
AC is pretty useful even in ToB. My last character to complete the game was a monk and that was only possible because he was able to require most of the enemies at the Throne to roll a critical to hit.
I briefly toyed with a shaman and then a totemic druid today, but concluded that both would require more effort than a sorcerer to progress. Thus I've given Frey another chance, but re-rolled him so that his familiar is a cat rather than a quasit. The cat is far worse in melee combat, but I was hoping to be able to use it as a bag of holding to take more equipment into SoD. Unfortunately, having tested that, it appears that the cat is only able to pickpocket things once. That's OK for taking things like spare wands, but not much use for defensive equipment that might need using several times. The other advantage of the cat is that it can use stealth and even backstab. The extra levels it has means quintuple damage, which adds up if opponents don't equip a melee weapon - take a look at this backstab doing 70 damage (not bad considering the cat's maximum base damage is 3 ).
And as said before I wouldn't mind the LoB hp, saves and Thac0 on enemies that are supposed to be tough, but I abhor them on enemies like Hobgoblins and regular bandits. Sure this goes away in SoD and BG2 since I can level again and I am not afraid at all that I can't finish BG1, but it is such a pain for me regular enemies can not be stopped by AC. That feature is totally dead in BG1 and it used to be a big part of Baldur's Gate even in SoA.
AC is pretty useful even in ToB. My last character to complete the game was a monk and that was only possible because he was able to require most of the enemies at the Throne to roll a critical to hit.
I briefly toyed with a shaman and then a totemic druid today, but concluded that both would require more effort than a sorcerer to progress. Thus I've given Frey another chance, but re-rolled him so that his familiar is a cat rather than a quasit. The cat is far worse in melee combat, but I was hoping to be able to use it as a bag of holding to take more equipment into SoD. Unfortunately, having tested that, it appears that the cat is only able to pickpocket things once. That's OK for taking things like spare wands, but not much use for defensive equipment that might need using several times. The other advantage of the cat is that it can use stealth and even backstab. The extra levels it has means quintuple damage, which adds up if opponents don't equip a melee weapon - take a look at this backstab doing 70 damage (not bad considering the cat's maximum base damage is 3 ).
I never said AC was bad in Insane I said I abhor how it is dead in LoB. Fun fact my first SoD char was my imported blade which was my last SCS playthrough years ago.
I was shocked that with max AC of 27 some random unnamed enemy in Baldur's Gate city still hit me hard, I facetanked Sarevok with this char after all and there were many enemies in ToB I could tank with it. I also had a monk and that class is dead now because of LoB.
Comments
Btw: 25k gold with many quests still open. Minsc was wearing Kiels Helmet too - thought there was only one. One has to be fake!!
Have you already started SoD @Blackraven?
It would be great if we all had a character ready for SoD in a few days, and share our experiences of this hard part of the saga, but I'm aware this may not be feasible.
@Hubal, I can't check Baeloth because I don't have a BG2EET save right now, and in SoD he's a joinable NPC anyway. I did try with Tiax, but like Kagain he just vanished, so I expect that EET doesn't allow BG1 NPCs to join in SoD or SoA if they're not joinable in the vanilla versions of those parts of the saga.
I'm at level 4/4/5 now (thief being 5) and I really appreciate my imp coupled with blind.
Imp can tank most foes long enough for me to get a successful blind off, even if the foe saves a couple of times.
Imp being able to morph into whatever is the best tank against a specific attack is super helpful.
Once I get my HiS up this will obviously be less important.
I can only imagine how good cleric/priest is doom + blnd, but then again I really like my fighter offensive coupled with thief cheese.
Fun fact: Even though Su´kka killed Minsc and Dynaheir they reappeared when marching out of BG and are now waiting in the camp...
Went to Durlags tower, made it invisible, blocked the bridge with it and spammed my wand of fire on the battle horrors.
Easiest 8k xp I ever made and could have done it much earlier.
These Battle Horrors were such a pain for Su´kka but - on the other hand - perfect training for hit & run!
The Undead in the Dwarfen Mine will have to wait. And - yes - Su´kka can also cheat: 3x PfUndead-Scrolls are still waiting in her pocket. Easiest 180xp (till lvl 10) she will ever make...
The times before LoB when my blade just meleed those horrors.
I first tried Darts of Stunning to prevent Mulahey from calling his kobolds and undead but my Thaco was not high enough to get a guaranteed stun before he called them, so I just used a charge of my wand of paralyzation and killed him for free.
For Nimbul Blind was enough but his running around was super annoying since he was hasted, the next time I need to use some kind of hold spell to prevent that.
Tranzig is next and after that I need to think about a band(it) camp strategy.
Our invisible Imp blocked the door so he had to stay in the room and couldn't run arund.
He always saves against blind, but his save against the poison of cheese dagger is low, so just backstab to start and then plain melee him worked wonders.
After killing the Sirines and Flesh Golems Raven our F/M/T is now max level 6/6/7
Also worth to rememberr: It seems that some SCS AI-Scripts are also working in SoD. Mages seem to be a bit smarter (maybe random effect / but no prebuffing), the Carrion Crawlers were constantly swapping targets to stun everything & the bears are on dope running nearly as fast as Su´kka using Speed Boots. That wasnt the case before. Will have to take a closer look at this phenomenon in the upcoming fights if there are more differences.
Not to forget: Phase Spider as well as the improved Astral Phase Spider seem to have forgotten that they can teleport!
EDIT: After clearing the first two rooms in one go cause of improved help the same happened on the next try. Room three (the northern one) will call help from the fourth (south-west) so another buff & tank game starts. I tried to trigger the Rhino Beetle before this fight but nothing happens. Will have to refill Durlags Goblet first before fighting these damn spider swarms...
EDIT 2: The Rhino Beetle triggered AFTER looting the Spider Leg from the second double-wave. Su´kka shooted him down with ease as his smaller bug friends stayed neutral and blocked his path. The Rhino Beetle Shield will be a nice addition in the upcoming fights (once we get to Jegg).
EDIT 3: Splitpulling the Bugbears in front of the Dragon Cave did not work anymore. It seems the improved call for help are binding them together so Su´kka is now kiting all of them. The Shaman in my last runs ALWAYS stayed at his place - now he hunts Su´kka casting one CC after another. IF the improved call for help will also work in the final fight vs the Crusader Camp we should prepare for some HEAVY suffering!
I am quite frustrated with LoB and must repeat what I said before, it feels unnatural and cheesy.
I managed to do the bandit camp but only with massive amounts of cheese.
My usual method to deal with ScS Insane here was to use Sleep to get rid of the normal bandits, fear for the hobgoblins and the belt of Antipode to not care too much for the blacktalons.
Then I would deal with the mage with dagger of venom and the full plate guy with charm.
Because of LoB Sleep has become completely useless, I don't think there is a single enemy in the game that has under 4 HD (maybe gibberlings?). Fear even coupled with malison (I used the scroll from ulgoths since memorizing wouldn't help my F/M/T since she doesn't get level 4 spells in the xp cap.) doesn't reliably affect enough enemies
So I ended up going into the tent stealthed backstabbing Venkt the mage, gobble potion of invis rinse and repeat until he is dead (3 potions of invis).
Interestingly enough in the tent you don't have to fight the bandits from outside, while the other way around the guys from the tent join the fight outside.
Now while invis buff up, Spirit Armor fire res potion and scroll, cold resistance potion + scroll, Poison resistance scroll, Mirror image.
Initially cast fear, then glitterdust, then malison, fear again, go to town with fire wand and when hurt invis again and heal.
What I also noticed LoB seems to have been poorely integrated, for example Ike in Durlag's doesn't die to the demon even tho that s scripted and you can't talk to him after the demon attack.
Not really quite sure if I want to continue the run if I HAVE TO cheese to win, whenever I cheesed before I did it to save time and trouble, but this time all it did was prevent the mage from removing my magic, after that the fight was still insanely Hard.
I cant imagine to play the game without LoB + SCS atm - but maybe i just like to suffer (and cheese)...
The Green Dragon Morentherene on the other hand was business as usual. Kiting her to death till the end and reaching level 10. PfPoison is still not working as intended (only protects from getting poisoned) so using Durlags Goblet was essential. After picking the Dragon Scales Su´kka went out again. The Temple of Bhaal is waiting...
Lure Ziatar away from her Mage Guards and kite her down while spell protected.
Once the Neothelid was out of his summon & dominate spellcycle it was just hit & run.
Akanna was the easiest once you seperated her from the air elements using the doors.
I will skip the damn Shadow Aspect and maybe kill Darkhelin and his party later on.
Time for some rest before moving on to Bridgefort!
EDIT: Improved call for help did not work with Ziatar as the nearby cultists were still waiting in their rooms...
I just can't stomach the fact that random weakling enemies hit through almost any AC and have massive hp.
Whenever there is a mob fight and boy bandit camp is the worst, I just feel that they went to far with hp and thac0 increase.
Increased hp are totally fine for named enemies but AC being totally useless no matter what I fight really bothers me.
SoD - to get concrete - would bore me to death without LoB. With some SCS scripts it gets even better. The upgraded fights in the temple of Bhaal alone are worth all suffering - at least for me. May patience be with you!
Su´kka met Jegg and has now the Dragon Shield & the Rhino Beetle Shield. The last one works great as a anti-archer protection and helped clearing out the goblin infested area around the Crusader Camp. Another epic battle is near and we will see if the improved call script will trigger here. If it works this fight might be impossible for any Warrior Class. We will see!
Why do you think Clairvoyance backstab immunity is so OP? It lasts only 2 turns, and either Stoneskin or MI to a lesser extent would pretty much offer the same protection if not more.
What does it make Summon Shadows so "cheesy"? Is it the higher lvl summon variant with lvl drain? The wraith has a mere thac0 12, drains only 1 level and allow a save with no penalty.
SCS already took most of SR changes into account, but @Aasim provided us with a more refined version of such mod for SR-players. You can find it here: http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=28249
And as said before I wouldn't mind the LoB hp, saves and Thac0 on enemies that are supposed to be tough, but I abhor them on enemies like Hobgoblins and regular bandits.
Sure this goes away in SoD and BG2 since I can level again and I am not afraid at all that I can't finish BG1, but it is such a pain for me regular enemies can not be stopped by AC.
That feature is totally dead in BG1 and it used to be a big part of Baldur's Gate even in SoA.
I briefly toyed with a shaman and then a totemic druid today, but concluded that both would require more effort than a sorcerer to progress. Thus I've given Frey another chance, but re-rolled him so that his familiar is a cat rather than a quasit. The cat is far worse in melee combat, but I was hoping to be able to use it as a bag of holding to take more equipment into SoD. Unfortunately, having tested that, it appears that the cat is only able to pickpocket things once. That's OK for taking things like spare wands, but not much use for defensive equipment that might need using several times. The other advantage of the cat is that it can use stealth and even backstab. The extra levels it has means quintuple damage, which adds up if opponents don't equip a melee weapon - take a look at this backstab doing 70 damage (not bad considering the cat's maximum base damage is 3
Fun fact my first SoD char was my imported blade which was my last SCS playthrough years ago.
I was shocked that with max AC of 27 some random unnamed enemy in Baldur's Gate city still hit me hard, I facetanked Sarevok with this char after all and there were many enemies in ToB I could tank with it.
I also had a monk and that class is dead now because of LoB.