My F/T is already dreaming from 6 APR Bow Shooting! Oh, 6 APR dual-wielding with Drizzt´s Scimitars also looks pretty good. But to be honest: Even with LoB+SCS BG1 is "more or less a cake walk" - even for pure Warriors. Unless you play with heavy restrictions. In BG2 it might close the gap to Mages until GWW jumps in. However: Tweak´s Anthology +1,5 APR for GM is also not a bad idea imo.
Throgrim reached level 6/6 after clearing the Basiliks on Durlags Tower with PfP. Too bad a Dwarven level 5 Fighter needs around 80 arrows from Composite Longbow to take one beast down as his hit chance was only 55%. Maybe he should have hunted Meilum first. Anyway: Reputation run started even though time is lacking. Therefore Thorgrim has to take some sleep until tomorrow. Hopefully!
P.S. Sandthief Ring wont be needed thanks to stealth. And: With already 6 Invisbility Potions on board nothing can go wrong - no?
@histamiini: I'm shocked. I never would have expected a -10 save penalty from the succubi; that's absurd. The only other -10 save penalty I've even heard of is on a few spells from Tactics Bodhi! I thought you were a shoe-in for the no-reload, but I'm not sure anyone would have known about that save penalty; anyone could have died. My Archer/Mage was coded as female, so I might well have suffered the same fate if I had gone with another character. I'm amazed you've taken it so well; I would have been devastated.
I encourage you to try the fight again and take down Melissan. It might not be a no-reload, but it would still be a major victory for the solo LoB+SCS challenge.
I'm guessing the only way to hit an undispellable -9 save vs. spell is to use the Tear of Bhaal trick to boost saving throws, but other than that, you'd probably need innate charm immunity or an item with charm immunity like the Shield of Harmony. I assume the charm strikes as a level 0 spell and bypasses magic resistance?
@semiticgod Yeah I was thinking why you didn't mention it, but then I remembered you had a female character too. It's Spell Level 1, so MR stops it too. Well I might still do it just to practice the end battle, but probably tomorrow. I think this makes the Tear of Bhaal trick perfectly acceptable, for a male character, because -10 is kind of cheese against you, as you said it's absurd.
I wouldn't say it's absurd - it's just something you need to be aware of and counter. There are lots of things that can kill you if you're not prepared for them and defending against that charm is actually relatively easy once you know about the danger. It's far less cheesy to my mind than something like a no save vorpal for instance.
@Grond0 Yeah there's Charm gear that can protect you like Shield of Harmony and Helmet of Charm Protection. Other than that I think the only things that can protect you in the end being a male is undispellable -9 save vs. spell which I don't think can be achieved with many classes, maybe with only Dwarven Defender, undispellable 100 MR which isn't achievable with anything else than Thiefs, Wizard Slayers and being immune to Charm like Cavalier. Why I think it's cheese though, is because it's so far out there, closest I can think is like half of that -10.
@histamiini anyone with a maximum shorty bonus will be able to get to -9 without too much problem. Classes with arcane ability can also lock in spells to do that for a limited period. There are a number of other classes that can get MR to 100, i.e. wizard slayer, monk (though they get charm immunity anyway), bard.
Even without those benefits I think it may well be possible to get saving throws that low (certainly is with UAI), though I can't remember all the permutations of armor, shields etc to help with that for specific classes. However, if you're equipping things specifically to boost your spell save, which are sub-optimal for other purposes, you might as well just aim for item-based immunity. That's after all what you would do if faced with being targeted with a no-save ability, so you could just think of it like that (at least now you know how all those dragons felt you've been targeting with the wand of wonder ).
@Grond0 How, example my DD gets -8 without Defensive Stance and with max gear I think? I still think it's unbalanced, because the end battle gives you immunity against Imprisonment, Maze, Death and Disintegrate, so why is it introducing same time unsave like Charm spell? Seems inconsistent to me.
@semiticgod They've Soul Reaver of their own (which makes no sense), so basically cumulative -2 penalty to Thac0 for 2 turns with every hit. I think there's nothing against it.
@histamiini: That's horrible. How would anyone without PFMW or SCS' Improved Mantle deal with that? Multiple cambions could cripple your THAC0 all but indefinitely, because the only way to take them down as a warrior is to make attack rolls against them, and relying on critical hits will absolutely not be sufficient to bring them down before Melissan summons more.
Do you have the Scorcher Ammunition on hand? You might be able to stun-lock a group of them with Power Attack. With specialization in crossbows, the Firetooth +5 crossbow, and gauntlets, you should deal 10 missile damage per hit, twice due to the scorcher projectile, at 5 base APR, and stun-locking could hold them down for up to 6 rounds for a total of 600 damage with one Power Attack, spread out over 6 rounds. They'd have to make 10 different saves vs. death at -4 every single round to avoid being stunned, so unless they're totally immune, you'd at least be able to take out a few and maybe avoid getting THAC0-locked.
@semiticgod Well I didn't even know you could fire those with a crossbow, that's something to try I guess, also forgot that PfMW will stop it too. But yeah, melee against them is pretty bad idea, even individually, because they've 680 hp, 5 apr, -14 Thac0 and 40 DR from Hardiness and Enrage (which probably negates Stun). Now imagine 5 of them like Melissan spawned for my DD in a single go. Again Ravager +6 is the best melee option against them, because on average it should kill one with a single Gww, my Cavalier dealt them like that, given that Melissan only spawned couple in the whole fight, so again it depends on the luck how many you get.
@histamiini: That looks pretty ugly. The Ravager would be better; Enrage would give them 10 rounds of immunity to stun. Assuming they don't cheat and it works the same as a normal Berserker's, they would only have a 5-round window of vulnerability to stun, and only after you evaded them for 10 rounds.
If Ascension Melissan's base save vs. death is 4 and her LoB save is -1, Power Attack should reliably stun-lock Melissan provided you have Improved Haste active (57% chance of stunning every round with 8 APR from a +4 or +5 weapon, or over 90% over the course of Power Attack's 4-round duration), and Smite gives you a guaranteed critical hit on Melissan followed by 2 rounds of stun without a save, so as long as she doesn't have Absolute Immunity active, you should be able to pin her down with Smite followed by a string of Power Attack spells. This would render THAC0 penalties irrelevant; you don't need to make attack rolls on a stunned Melissan.
But with Melissan's base 1580 HP and 3160 effective HP from 50% damage resistance, you would need 3 uses of Power Attack after Smite in order to hold her down (assuming dual-wielding Crom Faeyr with Belm), and you'd have to time each one shortly after the previous one expired. Without 3 Power Attack spells, the Dwarven Defender would only be able to bring Melissan to Badly Injured or Near Death, at which point she could heal herself.
Those Cambions definitely complicate things. I had thought that the Dwarven Defender would be ideal for this fight due to those ridiculous resistances, but without PFMW, bad luck could doom the Dwarven Defender to a slow death simply by stacking THAC0 penalties until the Dwarven Defender can't function.
@semiticgod That's also something to try, I've one Power Attack and Smite. But she also Dispels constantly, so Improved Haste might get quickly squashed, there's only two long time Improved Haste's for Fighters. One good thing is that I don't think she heals at all after Big Five are dead, and doesn't have regen I don't think.
Six, among other things, at least will have something for the Cambions, they don't see through invisibility, so you can abuse the Staff of Magi, but what purpose that'll have when the field is pretty quickly overrun by enemy remains to be seen.
@Grond0 How, example my DD gets -8 without Defensive Stance and with max gear I think?
Off the top of my head you could use the following for a DD: Gaxx (+2), RoP (+3), amulet of spell warding (+2), shield (+1), sword (+2). That would get you to -9 even without the Hell Trials bonus and there are probably better combinations available.
I still think it's unbalanced, because the end battle gives you immunity against Imprisonment, Maze, Death and Disintegrate, so why is it introducing same time unsave like Charm spell? Seems inconsistent to me.
The succubus is from the vanilla game, so is not being introduced by the mod. Ascension is beefing up your enemies, but also giving you some major compensatory advantages to help deal with them. I presume they felt it wasn't necessary to do that in the case of the succubus - and I agree with that. Now you know about the succubus that's not a problem to manage - it sounds to me like your cambion issue still needs a bit of further thought though .
With all the Cambion & Succubus talking around i wanna remind to one of the sneakiest demons around: The weapon stealing Babau. Imagine they could grab the actual equipped weapon and not only drop it to the ground. Would be another Warrior nightmare - no?
@Grond0 There's only small chance to get Ring of Protection +3, and Spell Breaker +2 isn't available in BG2. But you're right that with Helmet of Balduran +1, Ring of Protection +2, Ring of Gaxx +2, Amulet of Spell Warding +2, Hell Trials +2, and using either Foebane +1 or Shield of the Order +1 would get me to -9, even shorty Clerics if they used Armor of Faith. But I still don't think it's balanced, in the spirit of the final fight when cheap tricks are mostly taken away.
@Harpagornis Well that would make a lot more sense than every Cambion wielding the Soul Reaver, I mean who copied them, did they use the Bag of Holding trick? Luckily Babaus just drop them on the ground, might take a while to notice it though.
If Ascension Melissan's base save vs. death is 4 and her LoB save is -1, Power Attack should reliably stun-lock Melissan provided you have Improved Haste active (57% chance of stunning every round with 8 APR from a +4 or +5 weapon, or over 90% over the course of Power Attack's 4-round duration), and Smite gives you a guaranteed critical hit on Melissan followed by 2 rounds of stun without a save, so as long as she doesn't have Absolute Immunity active, you should be able to pin her down with Smite followed by a string of Power Attack spells. This would render THAC0 penalties irrelevant; you don't need to make attack rolls on a stunned Melissan.
A few thoughts about that. I tested that strat a good while ago with my kitless fighter against FINMEL01.CRE. In my game, her base save vs death is 2, so -3 in LoB. That makes that strat less than reliable. However, after having checked, she seems to have a ring named FINYAGA.ITM that removes a +2 bonus to save vs death when Yaga Shura dies. Shit, I was wrong : my initial strat was working !! Thanks, @semiticgod to make me double check my stuff !! Stun-locking IS the way to go for a fighter class !
Also, don't forget your Simulacrum : it will double the odds of that strat working, aka you'll have well over 90% chance of stunning Mel every two rounds with two fighters wailing on her. And you have a backup Smite in the improbable but nonetheless real chance of her making all her saving throws. You can also get up to 9 APR with Improved Haste and the Gauntlet of Extraordinary Specialization, which I think you have. Every percent counts !!
I know you use your Simmy to tag Abazigal and Sendai, but, since it's the last fight, maybe you can use your two Scrolls of Magic Protection for real, not through your Simmy. I would free your Simmy for the stun-locking. Something to think about.
Also, since 2.5 in on the way, there's no point in delving too much on the saving throw bonus to unschooled effect (like Power Attack) which kitted fighters enjoys. It however can help you it this case, but I'm not sure, because Mel is kitted into a generalist mage, she's not schoolless.
Stunlocking Mel with Fighters was always THE option @Arctodus. I thought that i wrote a long time ago that Power Attack works even though its not perfectly reliable. In my tests Mel sometimes dropped out and immediately summoned a whole bunch of demons (Cambions and friends) so without reloads it might get a bit tricky in the long run even though Smite will save you at least once. In my installation Simulacrum was/is never reliable as it sometimes just disappears for no reason after a short time. I hate that. However: Without stuns Melissan can cause neverending trouble like @histamiini has shown in a painful way.
Seven reloaded, another try at Melissan. The same procedure, PfM Abazigal and Sendai, Charm Sarevok and keep him alive with RoR, get everybody on their last legs, waste Sendai and then others in quick succession keeping Melissan stun locked. Leave Sarevok on the middle and escape to the corner invisible. Wait Sarevok to die,
and when Melissan is still stunned, jump to Pocket Plane. Now you can rest to get your abilities back. Buff up, Hardiness, Invisibility and get back. Now Melissan teleports onto you, but because the original summon mob is in the middle, they wont bother you. And then just smack her away with +6 weapon when she has Absolute Immunity on, and +4 weapon when she doesn't. When there's no Cambions around, there's nothing she can do really. This time she didn't even dispel me.
Only difference here to my original no-reload was the one hit, that Melissan got through before my RoR saved Sarevok. So I think this method has pretty good odds, even in no-reload.
Added Seven to the Hall of Fame @histamiini - well deserved. The DD made the game looking like a walk in the park - no?
Amazing how many Warriors are in the Hall of Fame: 3/5. Maybe i was always wrong and not Mages are OP but Warriors.
Thorgrim in the meanwhile has pushed reputation to 20 (prices are still high) and was nearly killed by the Wolf guarding Melicamp as i was running the game only en passant. After looking at the monitor again he was already down to 8 HP. Damn, this Wolf really got one lucky roll after another. Could have been another death sponsored by @Grond0.
Leaving Shadows too soon nearly forced one Invisibiliy Potion before barely reaching the exit - half a scond later and the kobolds would have gone for the hunt. Mulahey however was easy charming and feeding. Lets hope i wont eat another Chromatic Orb from Tranzig. I am really good at this. Nearly as good as @Grond0!
@Harpagornis Dwarven Defender was pretty easy, and it's made for the end fight too if you can avoid the Cambions like so. When you get 1on1 with Melissan, the tables are turned, what's she gonna do when you have 17 turns of 100 DR?
@Harpagornis: The reason Simulacrum clones vanish is because they erroneously despawn when the caster takes damage. That's supposed to only happen to Project Image clones, but for some reason the same thing happens for Simulacrum. It's a bug.
I thought the key to tackling ToB in this challenge was to achieve undispellable near-immunity to damage due to the short duration of PFMW, but those Cambions suggest that the ideal character would include mage levels or at least have Use Any Item.
A fighter/mage or fighter/mage/thief could work, but its maximum damage resistance with Hardiness, the Defender of Easthaven, and the Ascension bonus from the Ravager fight would be 85%--which would be great in a normal run, but probably insufficient in LoB mode. A fighter/mage/cleric could hit 100%, but would be unable to use the Ravager halberd, so no vorpal strikes to take down the Cambions early. The v2.5 update prevents Wish Hardiness from stacking, so Wish can't get you to 100% damage resistance.
The Guardian Devil from SoD could get you to 100%, since it grants +15% damage resistance, but it's not usable by good-aligned characters and I don't think it transfers to BG2 unless you're smuggling it via EET.
Still, PFMW should be able to keep a Simulacrum clone alive even in spite of the Simulacrum bug, and mage levels will also give you multiple castings of Simulacrum, even though you can only re-cast it when the previous duration has run out. A triple-class should be stuck at mage level 17, which means you can re-cast it 3 rounds earlier than a class with 20+ mage levels. Two characters with Improved Haste and Smite/Power Attack should definitely be able to stun-lock Melissan.
But you still need to take down those Fallen Solars fast. In my install, their Mordenkainen's Disjunction spells bypassed all defenses, including both Spell Shield and SI: Abjuration as well as Spell Turning, and removed all dispellable buffs with no chance of resisting the effects.
Smite might not be able to stun-lock the Cambions, but it should knock them back; I think only Melissan and maybe the Fallen Solars are immune to the knockback effect. That would give even characters without PFMW at least a couple rounds in which to attempt a stun-lock on Melissan. The Scorcher Ammunition and Frag Grenades should knock back everyone at once (though a fighter/mage/cleric would have to use the Big Metal Rod to fire them due to not being able to use normal crossbows).
A single-classed Archer should be able to kill Melissan very quickly with STR using the Scorcher Ammunition even without Improved Haste, but it would require choosing a target that was vulnerable to +1 weapons.
Oh, i know about that bug @semiticgod but sometimes it disappears in my installation even without taking any damage...
100% DR isnt needed vs Mel as Korgath my Bounty Hunter has shown. His strat still leaves open a small time window where she could call in summons but with some well placed Time Traps around the map and Chaos Blade the demons should go down pretty fast - especially if GWW is available. If i remember correctly Mel for some reason was nearly always "forgetting" to call in summons as long as the Skeleton Warriors were keeping her busy. Will have to test this in detail IF my F/T will get into ToB.
However: Thorgrim charmed Marl and let him attack Tranzig who got smacked down without problems. In the Bandit Camp he buffed up and sneaked into the tent leaving shadows before opening the chest so he could restealth right after grabbing the documents. No Invisibility Potion needed this time - good.
Too bad charming and feeing Taurgosz did not work well and the evil fighter turned hostile and hunted Thorgrim who failed his stealth check before. A quick Invisibility Potion safed him before the Elite Archers (who continued shooting) killed Taurgosz.
With Full Plate on board its time for some shopping before going to the Cloakwood Mines. Too bad time is still lacking...
EDIT: Drasus went completly mad...
I tried to charm him like usual out-of-stealth but: Nope!
Even worse he managed to trigger the talking after fail number 10 and immediately started hunting Thorgrim. A quick Oil of Speed and area leaving safed him from troubles. After returning Drasus was still waiting at the map border. Hah, this will get easy now. But Nope!
He resisted another 10 and Thorgrim had to backup & restealth quickly as Drasus was reacting fast as lightning. On try number 29 finally the charm worked and Drasus was feeded to the Guards. So far the highest number for him even though still no match for Dushai.
EDIT2: Something is wrong with Algernons Cloak... 29 tries for Drasus... 13 for the Davaeorns Guard... holy cow!
At least the rest worked fine: Stealth through with Boots of Speed, lure the Battle Horrors away so the Guard gets free passage and soak up trap damage with Potion of Magic Blocking while only getting a quick snapshot on Davaeorn to make the Guard attacking him, wait. Job done! Thorgrim then used the Guard to decoy the slime quickly grabbing some loot (PfU scroll) before getting out again.
The city of Baldurs Gate is waiting once more - hopefully tomorrow!
Well, I couldn't resist the lure of BG for too long and restarted Frere the Wizard Slayer. He had a generally untroubled run up to getting to the XP cap before moving on to the lights of the Big City. There was a moment of concern there when I misjudged how long Marek was going to be confused for and he targeted Frere with a minor sequencer - but it was only loaded with enfeeblement and Frere saved anyway.
Up to leaving the City it's perfectly possible to do a totally risk-free run, but the return to Candlekeep can't be done that way for a WS. It's possible to use potions before the ogre magi cast any spells, but not green scrolls - the casting delay there means death from a chromatic orb or charm will take effect before PfM activates. That probably means you have only about a 50% chance of survival and that unfortunately wasn't good enough for Frere.
Still, in getting that far I think I've given him a fair crack of the whip. Next up I think I'll try another run with Vent - a berserker aiming to dual to mage. That should of course be a pretty easy option, though to misquote Clausewitz "Everything in no-reload is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult." I can't make up my mind when to dual though - at the moment I'm probably leaning to waiting until level 9, which would mean only getting fighting abilities back at the SoD level cap.
Thinking starting normal no-reload C/M with extra ability to summon one Deva and Planetar at the same time. Interestingly C/M can have the exact same hit probability vs Bel than F/M because True Seeing takes away Bel's Improved Invisibility. C/M should be able to tank Bel below 20 rounds on average, even with 2 apr.
What mod were you using @semiticgod that allowed you to summon more than one Celestial at the same time?
Belhifet
1130 hp 2 hppr -16 AC with Improved Invisibility -12 Thac0 (-9 with Strength, 10 Turns) 25 DR 4 apr
Fighter/Mage 9/10
Thac0
12 Base 9 Potion of Power (40 rounds) 2 Violet Potion (24 hours) 0 Martyr's Morningstar +2 (Enchanted Weapon) -1 Specialized -2 Legacy of the Masters -3 Helmet of Balduran -5 Medal of Valor -6 Ring of Purity (Chant) -7 Cloverleaf (Luck)
Apr
1 Base 1.5 Fighter 9 2.0 Specialized 3.0 Oil of Speed (50 rounds)
Damage
4-10 Martyr's Morningstar +2 6-12 Specialized 8-14 Legacy of the Masters 22-28 Violet Potion (24 hours) 23-28 Ring of Purity (Chant) 24-28 Cloverleaf (Luck) 26 Average + 15% max hp with 19 and 20 (Single Weapon Style)
Average damage per 20 attacks (26+26+26+26+26+26+26+26+26+26+52+52)*0.75 + 2*169.5 = 612 dmg Average time to kill Belhifet 20*1130hp / (612dmg*3apr - 20*2hppr) = 12.6 rounds
Cleric/Mage 9/10
Thac0
16 Base 12 Potion of Power (40 rounds) 5 Violet Potion (24 hours) 3 Martyr's Morningstar +2 (Enchanted Weapon) 2 Legacy of the Masters 1 Helmet of Balduran -1 Medal of Valor -2 Ring of Purity (Chant) -3 Cloverleaf (Luck)
Apr
1 Base 2 Oil of Speed (50 rounds)
Damage
4-10 Martyr's Morningstar +2 6-12 Legacy of the Masters 20-26 Violet Potion (24 hours) 21-26 Ring of Purity (Chant) 22-26 Cloverleaf (Luck) 24 Average + 15% max hp with 19 and 20 (Single Weapon Style)
Belhifet AC -16 with Improved Invisibility, -12 with True Seeing (1 Turn)
Average damage per 20 attacks (24+24+24+24+24+24+24+24+24+24+48+48)*0.75 + 2*169.5 = 591 dmg Average time to kill Belhifet 20*1130hp / (591dmg*2apr - 20*2hppr) = 19.8 rounds
Remove Summoning Cap for Celestials (Ardanis/GeN1e) BG2EE, EET, BG2 (requires ToB), BGT This component will allow you to bypass the hardcoded limit of one active celestial (planetar or deva).
An initial attempt with Vent didn't last long - I was slow to react to a failed movement click and the belt ogre contemptuously one-shotted Vent's 37 HPs. Starting again ...
Vent is using the code of the Noble Adventurer and the restriction to 10 magical items was soon biting as a result of looting the bodies of Imoen, Xzar and Montaron. He went straight to Shoal anyway though and got a very nice 27 HPs for shooting her down. Then it was on to Beregost to sell stuff and pick up Algernon's Cloak. He didn't bother with any of the item bags available as the cost to his item restriction would outweigh the small saving in inventory space they might offer (with the restriction on magical items he will rarely have inventory issues anyway).
He picked up another level by charming a sirine in the Beregost Temple (14 more juicy HPs). The remaining sirines were all successfully finished off as well. That meant he wasn't far off another level and a revenge shooting of the belt ogre, then charming the FAI gate guards to kill Tarnesh put him even closer. As full plate is pretty effective against piercing attacks anyway I decided to give the belt of piercing back to Unshey - but found he didn't want to deal with a disreputable character . Killing some fishermen netted him a +1 flail (which is his main proficiency) as well as the final few XP needed for another level and 12 more HPs. Tenya then got her bowl back on the way to Ulgoth's Beard, where it took only 3 attempts to charm Dushai and inherit her ring.
Vent was quite prepared to take a further reputation penalty for finishing off an unconscious Drizzt, but he was killed by natural lightning before Vent got the chance for his XP. He could have used Twinkle, but chose to sell that. For the time being though he held on to Icingdeath for the fire resistance.
Some temple donations ensured Vent picked up CLW as an initial Bhaal power before he did some travelling round concentrating on reputation quests. A mis-click meant he had to watch as Greywolf killed Prism, but he was successful elsewhere - including reviving Melicamp after shooting down a pair of golems at High Hedge. He got to level 6 (and kept his exceptional record going with 13 more HPs) just before reputation hit 20. That meant purchasing some full plate to replace the ankheg armor. Vent also acquired a +1 composite bow and decided to get rid of the ring of free action in order to limit his stock of magic items to 8 (leaving space for 2 more as loot to sell).
Comments
Throgrim reached level 6/6 after clearing the Basiliks on Durlags Tower with PfP. Too bad a Dwarven level 5 Fighter needs around 80 arrows from Composite Longbow to take one beast down as his hit chance was only 55%. Maybe he should have hunted Meilum first. Anyway: Reputation run started even though time is lacking. Therefore Thorgrim has to take some sleep until tomorrow. Hopefully!
P.S. Sandthief Ring wont be needed thanks to stealth. And: With already 6 Invisbility Potions on board nothing can go wrong - no?
I encourage you to try the fight again and take down Melissan. It might not be a no-reload, but it would still be a major victory for the solo LoB+SCS challenge.
I'm guessing the only way to hit an undispellable -9 save vs. spell is to use the Tear of Bhaal trick to boost saving throws, but other than that, you'd probably need innate charm immunity or an item with charm immunity like the Shield of Harmony. I assume the charm strikes as a level 0 spell and bypasses magic resistance?
Even without those benefits I think it may well be possible to get saving throws that low (certainly is with UAI), though I can't remember all the permutations of armor, shields etc to help with that for specific classes. However, if you're equipping things specifically to boost your spell save, which are sub-optimal for other purposes, you might as well just aim for item-based immunity. That's after all what you would do if faced with being targeted with a no-save ability, so you could just think of it like that (at least now you know how all those dragons felt you've been targeting with the wand of wonder
Do you have the Scorcher Ammunition on hand? You might be able to stun-lock a group of them with Power Attack. With specialization in crossbows, the Firetooth +5 crossbow, and gauntlets, you should deal 10 missile damage per hit, twice due to the scorcher projectile, at 5 base APR, and stun-locking could hold them down for up to 6 rounds for a total of 600 damage with one Power Attack, spread out over 6 rounds. They'd have to make 10 different saves vs. death at -4 every single round to avoid being stunned, so unless they're totally immune, you'd at least be able to take out a few and maybe avoid getting THAC0-locked.
If Ascension Melissan's base save vs. death is 4 and her LoB save is -1, Power Attack should reliably stun-lock Melissan provided you have Improved Haste active (57% chance of stunning every round with 8 APR from a +4 or +5 weapon, or over 90% over the course of Power Attack's 4-round duration), and Smite gives you a guaranteed critical hit on Melissan followed by 2 rounds of stun without a save, so as long as she doesn't have Absolute Immunity active, you should be able to pin her down with Smite followed by a string of Power Attack spells. This would render THAC0 penalties irrelevant; you don't need to make attack rolls on a stunned Melissan.
But with Melissan's base 1580 HP and 3160 effective HP from 50% damage resistance, you would need 3 uses of Power Attack after Smite in order to hold her down (assuming dual-wielding Crom Faeyr with Belm), and you'd have to time each one shortly after the previous one expired. Without 3 Power Attack spells, the Dwarven Defender would only be able to bring Melissan to Badly Injured or Near Death, at which point she could heal herself.
Those Cambions definitely complicate things. I had thought that the Dwarven Defender would be ideal for this fight due to those ridiculous resistances, but without PFMW, bad luck could doom the Dwarven Defender to a slow death simply by stacking THAC0 penalties until the Dwarven Defender can't function.
Six, among other things, at least will have something for the Cambions, they don't see through invisibility, so you can abuse the Staff of Magi, but what purpose that'll have when the field is pretty quickly overrun by enemy remains to be seen.
The succubus is from the vanilla game, so is not being introduced by the mod. Ascension is beefing up your enemies, but also giving you some major compensatory advantages to help deal with them. I presume they felt it wasn't necessary to do that in the case of the succubus - and I agree with that. Now you know about the succubus that's not a problem to manage - it sounds to me like your cambion issue still needs a bit of further thought though
My new pet...
Cambions are still an issue.
Also, don't forget your Simulacrum : it will double the odds of that strat working, aka you'll have well over 90% chance of stunning Mel every two rounds with two fighters wailing on her. And you have a backup Smite in the improbable but nonetheless real chance of her making all her saving throws. You can also get up to 9 APR with Improved Haste and the Gauntlet of Extraordinary Specialization, which I think you have. Every percent counts !!
I know you use your Simmy to tag Abazigal and Sendai, but, since it's the last fight, maybe you can use your two Scrolls of Magic Protection for real, not through your Simmy. I would free your Simmy for the stun-locking. Something to think about.
Also, since 2.5 in on the way, there's no point in delving too much on the saving throw bonus to unschooled effect (like Power Attack) which kitted fighters enjoys. It however can help you it this case, but I'm not sure, because Mel is kitted into a generalist mage, she's not schoolless.
and when Melissan is still stunned, jump to Pocket Plane. Now you can rest to get your abilities back. Buff up, Hardiness, Invisibility and get back. Now Melissan teleports onto you, but because the original summon mob is in the middle, they wont bother you. And then just smack her away with +6 weapon when she has Absolute Immunity on, and +4 weapon when she doesn't. When there's no Cambions around, there's nothing she can do really. This time she didn't even dispel me.
Only difference here to my original no-reload was the one hit, that Melissan got through before my RoR saved Sarevok.
Amazing how many Warriors are in the Hall of Fame: 3/5. Maybe i was always wrong and not Mages are OP but Warriors.
Thorgrim in the meanwhile has pushed reputation to 20 (prices are still high) and was nearly killed by the Wolf guarding Melicamp as i was running the game only en passant. After looking at the monitor again he was already down to 8 HP. Damn, this Wolf really got one lucky roll after another. Could have been another death sponsored by @Grond0.
Leaving Shadows too soon nearly forced one Invisibiliy Potion before barely reaching the exit - half a scond later and the kobolds would have gone for the hunt. Mulahey however was easy charming and feeding. Lets hope i wont eat another Chromatic Orb from Tranzig. I am really good at this. Nearly as good as @Grond0!
I thought the key to tackling ToB in this challenge was to achieve undispellable near-immunity to damage due to the short duration of PFMW, but those Cambions suggest that the ideal character would include mage levels or at least have Use Any Item.
A fighter/mage or fighter/mage/thief could work, but its maximum damage resistance with Hardiness, the Defender of Easthaven, and the Ascension bonus from the Ravager fight would be 85%--which would be great in a normal run, but probably insufficient in LoB mode. A fighter/mage/cleric could hit 100%, but would be unable to use the Ravager halberd, so no vorpal strikes to take down the Cambions early. The v2.5 update prevents Wish Hardiness from stacking, so Wish can't get you to 100% damage resistance.
The Guardian Devil from SoD could get you to 100%, since it grants +15% damage resistance, but it's not usable by good-aligned characters and I don't think it transfers to BG2 unless you're smuggling it via EET.
Still, PFMW should be able to keep a Simulacrum clone alive even in spite of the Simulacrum bug, and mage levels will also give you multiple castings of Simulacrum, even though you can only re-cast it when the previous duration has run out. A triple-class should be stuck at mage level 17, which means you can re-cast it 3 rounds earlier than a class with 20+ mage levels. Two characters with Improved Haste and Smite/Power Attack should definitely be able to stun-lock Melissan.
But you still need to take down those Fallen Solars fast. In my install, their Mordenkainen's Disjunction spells bypassed all defenses, including both Spell Shield and SI: Abjuration as well as Spell Turning, and removed all dispellable buffs with no chance of resisting the effects.
Smite might not be able to stun-lock the Cambions, but it should knock them back; I think only Melissan and maybe the Fallen Solars are immune to the knockback effect. That would give even characters without PFMW at least a couple rounds in which to attempt a stun-lock on Melissan. The Scorcher Ammunition and Frag Grenades should knock back everyone at once (though a fighter/mage/cleric would have to use the Big Metal Rod to fire them due to not being able to use normal crossbows).
A single-classed Archer should be able to kill Melissan very quickly with STR using the Scorcher Ammunition even without Improved Haste, but it would require choosing a target that was vulnerable to +1 weapons.
100% DR isnt needed vs Mel as Korgath my Bounty Hunter has shown. His strat still leaves open a small time window where she could call in summons but with some well placed Time Traps around the map and Chaos Blade the demons should go down pretty fast - especially if GWW is available. If i remember correctly Mel for some reason was nearly always "forgetting" to call in summons as long as the Skeleton Warriors were keeping her busy. Will have to test this in detail IF my F/T will get into ToB.
However: Thorgrim charmed Marl and let him attack Tranzig who got smacked down without problems. In the Bandit Camp he buffed up and sneaked into the tent leaving shadows before opening the chest so he could restealth right after grabbing the documents. No Invisibility Potion needed this time - good.
Too bad charming and feeing Taurgosz did not work well and the evil fighter turned hostile and hunted Thorgrim who failed his stealth check before. A quick Invisibility Potion safed him before the Elite Archers (who continued shooting) killed Taurgosz.
With Full Plate on board its time for some shopping before going to the Cloakwood Mines. Too bad time is still lacking...
EDIT: Drasus went completly mad...
I tried to charm him like usual out-of-stealth but: Nope!
Even worse he managed to trigger the talking after fail number 10 and immediately started hunting Thorgrim. A quick Oil of Speed and area leaving safed him from troubles. After returning Drasus was still waiting at the map border. Hah, this will get easy now. But Nope!
He resisted another 10 and Thorgrim had to backup & restealth quickly as Drasus was reacting fast as lightning. On try number 29 finally the charm worked and Drasus was feeded to the Guards. So far the highest number for him even though still no match for Dushai.
EDIT2: Something is wrong with Algernons Cloak... 29 tries for Drasus... 13 for the Davaeorns Guard... holy cow!
At least the rest worked fine: Stealth through with Boots of Speed, lure the Battle Horrors away so the Guard gets free passage and soak up trap damage with Potion of Magic Blocking while only getting a quick snapshot on Davaeorn to make the Guard attacking him, wait. Job done! Thorgrim then used the Guard to decoy the slime quickly grabbing some loot (PfU scroll) before getting out again.
The city of Baldurs Gate is waiting once more - hopefully tomorrow!
Up to leaving the City it's perfectly possible to do a totally risk-free run, but the return to Candlekeep can't be done that way for a WS. It's possible to use potions before the ogre magi cast any spells, but not green scrolls - the casting delay there means death from a chromatic orb or charm will take effect before PfM activates. That probably means you have only about a 50% chance of survival and that unfortunately wasn't good enough for Frere.
Still, in getting that far I think I've given him a fair crack of the whip. Next up I think I'll try another run with Vent - a berserker aiming to dual to mage. That should of course be a pretty easy option, though to misquote Clausewitz "Everything in no-reload is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult." I can't make up my mind when to dual though - at the moment I'm probably leaning to waiting until level 9, which would mean only getting fighting abilities back at the SoD level cap.
What mod were you using @semiticgod that allowed you to summon more than one Celestial at the same time?
1130 hp
2 hppr
-16 AC with Improved Invisibility
-12 Thac0 (-9 with Strength, 10 Turns)
25 DR
4 apr
Fighter/Mage 9/10
Thac0
12 Base
9 Potion of Power (40 rounds)
2 Violet Potion (24 hours)
0 Martyr's Morningstar +2 (Enchanted Weapon)
-1 Specialized
-2 Legacy of the Masters
-3 Helmet of Balduran
-5 Medal of Valor
-6 Ring of Purity (Chant)
-7 Cloverleaf (Luck)
Apr
1 Base
1.5 Fighter 9
2.0 Specialized
3.0 Oil of Speed (50 rounds)
Damage
4-10 Martyr's Morningstar +2
6-12 Specialized
8-14 Legacy of the Masters
22-28 Violet Potion (24 hours)
23-28 Ring of Purity (Chant)
24-28 Cloverleaf (Luck)
26 Average + 15% max hp with 19 and 20 (Single Weapon Style)
Average damage per 20 attacks (26+26+26+26+26+26+26+26+26+26+52+52)*0.75 + 2*169.5 = 612 dmg
Average time to kill Belhifet 20*1130hp / (612dmg*3apr - 20*2hppr) = 12.6 rounds
Cleric/Mage 9/10
Thac0
16 Base
12 Potion of Power (40 rounds)
5 Violet Potion (24 hours)
3 Martyr's Morningstar +2 (Enchanted Weapon)
2 Legacy of the Masters
1 Helmet of Balduran
-1 Medal of Valor
-2 Ring of Purity (Chant)
-3 Cloverleaf (Luck)
Apr
1 Base
2 Oil of Speed (50 rounds)
Damage
4-10 Martyr's Morningstar +2
6-12 Legacy of the Masters
20-26 Violet Potion (24 hours)
21-26 Ring of Purity (Chant)
22-26 Cloverleaf (Luck)
24 Average + 15% max hp with 19 and 20 (Single Weapon Style)
Belhifet AC -16 with Improved Invisibility, -12 with True Seeing (1 Turn)
Average damage per 20 attacks (24+24+24+24+24+24+24+24+24+24+48+48)*0.75 + 2*169.5 = 591 dmg
Average time to kill Belhifet 20*1130hp / (591dmg*2apr - 20*2hppr) = 19.8 rounds
Remove Summoning Cap for Celestials (Ardanis/GeN1e) BG2EE, EET, BG2 (requires ToB), BGT
This component will allow you to bypass the hardcoded limit of one active celestial (planetar or deva).
Vent is using the code of the Noble Adventurer and the restriction to 10 magical items was soon biting as a result of looting the bodies of Imoen, Xzar and Montaron. He went straight to Shoal anyway though and got a very nice 27 HPs for shooting her down. Then it was on to Beregost to sell stuff and pick up Algernon's Cloak. He didn't bother with any of the item bags available as the cost to his item restriction would outweigh the small saving in inventory space they might offer (with the restriction on magical items he will rarely have inventory issues anyway).
He picked up another level by charming a sirine in the Beregost Temple (14 more juicy HPs). The remaining sirines were all successfully finished off as well. That meant he wasn't far off another level and a revenge shooting of the belt ogre, then charming the FAI gate guards to kill Tarnesh put him even closer. As full plate is pretty effective against piercing attacks anyway I decided to give the belt of piercing back to Unshey - but found he didn't want to deal with a disreputable character
Vent was quite prepared to take a further reputation penalty for finishing off an unconscious Drizzt, but he was killed by natural lightning before Vent got the chance for his XP. He could have used Twinkle, but chose to sell that. For the time being though he held on to Icingdeath for the fire resistance.
Some temple donations ensured Vent picked up CLW as an initial Bhaal power before he did some travelling round concentrating on reputation quests. A mis-click meant he had to watch as Greywolf killed Prism, but he was successful elsewhere - including reviving Melicamp after shooting down a pair of golems at High Hedge. He got to level 6 (and kept his exceptional record going with 13 more HPs) just before reputation hit 20. That meant purchasing some full plate to replace the ankheg armor. Vent also acquired a +1 composite bow and decided to get rid of the ring of free action in order to limit his stock of magic items to 8 (leaving space for 2 more as loot to sell).