Well done @curi. I agree that Karoug and Mendas are not too hard, but you found Kaishas easier than I expected. You mentioned that you were able to leave the island initially without fighting her - how did you manage that without the map?
I chose the friendliest dialog options and then, when it looked like bloodshed anyway, two townsfolk from sidequests stood up for me and Kaishas gave me the maps and left. I just checked and apparently this is an SCS option, not part of the base game. Quote from SCS info: "In addition, it is now possible to talk your way past Kaishas and on to the boat. Your protagonist needs either Intelligence 14+, or Wisdom 14+ and good alignment, and you need to have saved Maralee's baby and befriended Durlayle or Delainy." I happened to meet the requirements.
Kaishas was basically the same fight as Karoug for me because I wasn't kiting at all (I didn't think that would work well vs. regeneration), most of my damage was from melee, and summons held off the extra enemies long enough.
On another note: I'm enjoying SCS but was disappointed with one part of the AI. I was hoping it'd make basilisks smart enough to use their melee attack, but I've just been killing them at range with protection up. They did try chasing me a bit in some cases (i remember that happened on top of durlag's tower), but I found if I let my familiar out and put it in front of me standing still, then i'd quickly get a situation where they'd just shoot the familiar forever while i stood still and shot them to death. Also I think it'd be smarter for some of these mages to cast stuff into my minor spell deflection, and use it up, instead of waiting it out (or casting spells at summons) while i attack them.
BTW, @Grond0 , I read about some of your many no reload sorcerer runs in bg1. Man you've got a lot of patience. Arcane casters are my favorite in general and I'm curious what your spell list was. I'm finding it helpful to switch my spells before each notable fight and I'm wondering which spells i'm using that you managed to get away with not having.
On another note: I'm enjoying SCS but was disappointed with one part of the AI. I was hoping it'd make basilisks smart enough to use their melee attack, but I've just been killing them at range with protection up. They did try chasing me a bit in some cases (i remember that happened on top of durlag's tower), but I found if I let my familiar out and put it in front of me standing still, then i'd quickly get a situation where they'd just shoot the familiar forever while i stood still and shot them to death. Also I think it'd be smarter for some of these mages to cast stuff into my minor spell deflection, and use it up, instead of waiting it out (or casting spells at summons) while i attack them.
BTW, @Grond0 , I read about some of your many no reload sorcerer runs in bg1. Man you've got a lot of patience. Arcane casters are my favorite in general and I'm curious what your spell list was. I'm finding it helpful to switch my spells before each notable fight and I'm wondering which spells i'm using that you managed to get away with not having.
Thanks for the info about Werewolf Island. I rarely do that and probably wouldn't meet the requirements to avoid a fight when I do ...
SCS has upgraded the basilisk AI so that they now detect anyone using the mage PfP spell - and will immediately switch to melee against them. However, they are still not able to detect other forms of protection, e.g. familiar immunity, green scroll, Korax. They still have the original chance of randomly switching to melee against those, but it's generally not difficult to use those forms of immunity to kill them.
The spells I take change around a bit over time, but here's a list from a LoB run I did some time ago. In the early stages blindness rules and it doesn't take long then to get invisibility. That opens up opportunities for invisible blocking and then web can be combined with blindness against the vast majority of BG1 enemies - even those with distance attacks. Skull trap and MM are mainly convenience options to finish things off quicker, though you can use skull trap stacks for some special encounters. Most of my experience with LoB sorcerers is at lower levels, so I wouldn't pay too much attention to my choices after level 4 spells. L1 - blindness, magic missile, identify, LMD, friends L2 - invisibility, web, knock, mirror image, blur L3 - skull trap, minor spell deflection, haste L4 - stoneskin, improved invisibility L5 - animate dead, spell immunity L6 - protection from magic weapons,
oh huh, you have one spell there i never use (even on past characters with access to necromancy spells). what is the purpose of larloch's minor drain? if it's in order to disrupt spellcasting on mages with Shield up, i've been using some chromatic orbs instead, i guess it doesn't make much difference. other than that i prefer magic missile. EDIT: oh maybe it's because you don't use healing potions, so if you take minor damage while kiting then it can heal you up to make things safer.
some missing spells i use sometimes: grease, shield, protection from evil, spook, charm person, remove fear, acid arrow, minute meteors, slow, malison, minor globe, minor sequencer, spellthrust, detect invisibility, detect illusion. your picks make sense though. can't have everything. i also discovered last night that a lot of enemies can't hit you through Wraithform, heh.
one thing i notice is some redundancy: improved invis prevents being targeted, so is minor spell deflection necessary?
i haven't done much invisible blocking. i did try it with the battle horrors or whatever they're called outside durlags tower. there is a little bridge there i put an invisible familiar on. but then they were immune to arrows so i just left and came back later with a monster summoning wand. do you invis multiple summons to surround things to cheese them, or just do it at chokepoints like doors? i should really do that more, at least when the terrain is helpful.
oh huh, you have one spell there i never use (even on past characters with access to necromancy spells). what is the purpose of larloch's minor drain? if it's in order to disrupt spellcasting on mages with Shield up, i've been using some chromatic orbs instead, i guess it doesn't make much difference. other than that i prefer magic missile. EDIT: oh maybe it's because you don't use healing potions, so if you take minor damage while kiting then it can heal you up to make things safer.
You've got it .
some missing spells i use sometimes: grease, shield, protection from evil, spook, charm person, remove fear, acid arrow, minute meteors, slow, malison, minor globe, minor sequencer, spellthrust, detect invisibility, detect illusion. your picks make sense though. can't have everything. i also discovered last night that a lot of enemies can't hit you through Wraithform, heh.
I pretty much never use spellthrust myself - just waiting out buffs in a situation where that might be handy. I rarely use detect spells for similar reasons (normally safer to go invisible yourself than risk being targeted while trying to detect). All the others I've used fairly regularly. The 1st level picks I've got above to reduce expenditure (identify and friends) are pretty cosmetic really - I just have a philosophical objection to paying extra even when funds are plentiful. In other runs I might take any of the ones you mention.
one thing i notice is some redundancy: improved invis prevents being targeted, so is minor spell deflection necessary?
Two advantages. First it comes rather earlier and opens up the possibility to do encounters that are otherwise dangerous - like the sirines for instance (wand of monster summoning is an obvious alternative there, but I normally try to complete as many encounters as possible without using any equipment). Second it lasts far longer, so you're less likely to get caught out when the spell ends (I don't use buffs much and am not systematic about timing them when I do, so getting caught out is definitely a danger for me ...).
i haven't done much invisible blocking. i did try it with the battle horrors or whatever they're called outside durlags tower. there is a little bridge there i put an invisible familiar on. but then they were immune to arrows so i just left and came back later with a monster summoning wand. do you invis multiple summons to surround things to cheese them, or just do it at chokepoints like doors? i should really do that more, at least when the terrain is helpful.
In most cases invisible summons won't just stand still, so a familiar is the obvious option for an arcane user. Most enemies, like battle horrors, only have a reach of 1 - so you can safely hit them with a staff over the top of your familiar. Of course that can take a while - if you try and kill a LoB battle horror with a non-proficient mundane staff then be prepared to drink a few cups of tea while you're waiting . For enemies that do have a longer reach you could use blindness to be able to attack them from out of sight range, but with SCS installed some enemies will react to being blinded by running round so that's not always a good solution (if they don't run the AC penalty from being blinded can be helpful though). Another option that I use with high HP enemies is to damage them with all available spells and then rest in the area. In LoB enemies get 100 HPs back in that situation, though if you are able to attack quickly enough after the rest has finished you may be able to interrupt the mechanic that adds those HPs back. Even if they do get the 100 HPs back though a decent level sorcerer will be doing significantly more than that with a full day's worth of spells.
Frey, elven sorcerer Favored of Bhaal, allowing wand use
Seeing the above posts about LoB sorcerers, I thought I should have another go with Frey. So far today he's made good progress - main encounters are as shown below: - Shoal (familiar attacks) - level 3 - High Hedge golems (+1 bullets) - level 4 - basilisks (familiar attacks) - level 5 - Mutamin + Kirian & co (Korax + blind) - level 6 - Karlat (invisible blocker + web) - Belt ogre (webs + spell damage) - Tarnesh (webbed blindness) - ankheg nest (webbed blindness) - Durlag's battle horrors (invisible blocker + staff) - level 7 - Durlag's ghasts (invisible blocker + sling for safety) - Durlag's basilisks (familiar attacks) - level 8 - Riggilo (invisible blocker + stoneskin to make him show himself) - successfully revived Melicamp - Silke (monster summoning) - Lighthouse sirines (monster summoning) - Lighthouse golems (invisible blocking + sling/staff) - Bjornin's half-ogres (blind + monsters) - Charleston Nib and the Doomsayer (invisible blocking) - level 9
Frey has just arrived in Nashkel for the first time - Brage maximising his reputation in the process. As he's now at the level cap and has minimal equipment needs (there's not even been any wand use thus far in the run), Frey should push on with the main quest quite quickly now.
Sorcerer L9, 69 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 79 kills
A fairly typical end for Frey resulted from a slight lack of concentration. He'd made his way safely enough down to find Davaeorn in the Cloakwood Mine and then spent a while skull trapping guards while Davaeorn was trapped in place. With the last few guards Davaeorn started running round while Frey tried to pick off the guards prior to using summons to finish off the mage. He got into trouble though when running upstairs and found himself trapped and unable to move when he came back down. That meant his familiar had to show itself to get the guards to move, giving Davaeorn an opportunity to cast at him. I realized too late that Frey might be caught in the spell aimed at the familiar and his 69 HPs were not quite enough to fend off a 70 HP cone of cold ...
Here's me never having finished SoD, yet, so i started up an old save, just to get reacquainted with SoD. I play for five minutes and found a pretty useless bug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDpiK9Otzn4
Depending on how early this was possible it might be slightly less useless. Say it wasn't triggered by Nazramu, but by putting unided items into the bag of holding, you can go from 0 gold after buying the bag to what ever you want. It's still pretty useless, since you'll get plenty of gold in SoD anyway.
Anyone tried our challenge with Patch 2.5? Is it real that all enemies get huge AC bonus as @Grond0 stated in another post? If so then i might give BG another try as PoE 2 still needs some time before it is playable...
EDIT: As i see its now -11 AC. Well. That sounds like some fun. Or pain.
At some point I'll probably have another go at this challenge with a shaman - the AC reduction should make not too much difference to them (apart from making combats much longer of course ).
I'm playing the original version of our challenge with unlimited reloads and items atm. (Also only playing BG2 since I really wanted to try a sorc and he has 0 chance vs Big I did not know AC was buffed but I had massive trouble killing Golems and Rakshasas early game, now I know why haha. Atm I'm about to leave the Underdark and ever since I got higher level spells the game is easy enough. Apparently Time Stop lets you autohit I abused this at least twice with the Adept on Brynnlaw who imprisoned my planetar (I never was able to resummon it till I left the island oO) and with the Elder beholders in Beholder Lair. (Time Stop Mind Flayer form shapechange, boom)
(Also only playing BG2 since I really wanted to try a sorc and he has 0 chance vs Big
I've never got a character far enough to try it in LoB, but I suspect that any class can win against Belhifet just by buffing Caelar (there are lots of greater restoration scrolls available).
Started a Dwarven Defender in BG1. I will play no reload challenge but I will not limit the amount/type of items I can use. I will not use the basilisk loop.
So far I did a minimal risk approach, picking up Ring of Wizardry, Algernon's, Ankheg plate, Fire res ring and Belt of Blunting. I'm almost certain Drizzt isn't bugged anymore in 2.5, since the Warden in Planar Prison is fixed, so I didn't visit his map yet, I do plan on defeating him tho once I have all necessary items and max xp. XP wise I did Marl,Brage, Rufie, Krumm, Drienne, Samuel, not too much yet since I have to stop playing for now.
Big B should still be easy going with Enchanted Weapon + Martyrs Morningstar. For classes without this option things might get "a little bit tougher". Well - Druids still have Harm!
P.S. I wont rely too heavily on Caelar. Once more demons get around she dies "nearly instantly". As controlling her is strictly spoken not allowed she will most likely not attack Big B at all (once he goes invisble).
Big B should still be easy going with Enchanted Weapon + Martyrs Morningstar. For classes without this option things might get "a little bit tougher". Well - Druids still have Harm!
P.S. I wont rely too heavily on Caelar. Once more demons get around she dies "nearly instantly". As controlling her is strictly spoken not allowed she will most likely not attack Big B at all (once he goes invisble).
I just had the weirdest Dorn encounter ever, granted it is my first game after 2.5, this might be standard now: On top of Senjak, Dorothea and 2 ranged Bandits the map was filled with ranged Hobgoblins. The worst part tho, instead of being immortal Dorn instantly died, so I had to flee. Other than that I killed the belt ogre and Friendly Arm Guy, not too much progress, but due to the new and improved LOB AC even Friendly Arm guy could only be hit by crits and took forever to kill even tho 2 guards helped. (my DD is level 3 atm)
edit: I can now confirm Drizzt is fixed on LoB and will attack normally.
Selling Greenstone to a merchant and buying it back is a lot more expensive now, base price seems to be around 15k. My DD is level 5 now, killed 4 of the siryns on lighthouse map (then my greenstone was down to 1 charge), got Con tome while there. Did Melicamp with reaction +5 mostly from CH I think (18 with Algernon's), also have maxed Int (but dumped Wis). Also did Tenya, Zombies (took easily over an hour probably more due to the new AC, but since I had autopause on low hp and target destroyed I was able to do other stuff afk) Firendly Arm Goblin for Joias ring, and Mirianne.
I've tried about half a dozen times with a shaman as Chosen One in v2.5. I think everything up to Sarevok should be doable, though the palace would need luck. However, I've failed to get very far - it's just so easy to die ...
I'll try that again no doubt, but for a change I've rolled up a berserker that could dual to mage after getting the intelligence tome. He's just in Candlekeep killing rats at the moment - they've been changed in v2.5 to not physically attack so can be killed much more quickly and easily now. Cherub is not quite as angelic as he appears and specializes in scimitars.
Now if only I knew someone with a decent one of those ...
I've tried about half a dozen times with a shaman as Chosen One in v2.5. I think everything up to Sarevok should be doable, though the palace would need luck. However, I've failed to get very far - it's just so easy to die ...
I'll try that again no doubt, but for a change I've rolled up a berserker that could dual to mage after getting the intelligence tome. He's just in Candlekeep killing rats at the moment - they've been changed in v2.5 to not physically attack so can be killed much more quickly and easily now. Cherub is not quite as angelic as he appears and specializes in scimitars.
Now if only I knew someone with a decent one of those ...
The scimitar on Durlag's roof is relatively easy to get and +2. There's another good one in the Dorn ambush, but unless my game was bugged the ambush is very hard now at least at lower levels.
Picking up items with area loot while invis/stealthed breaks invis now.
Killed a couple of basilisks till level 6 and then stealthed thru the mines till Mulahey, charmed first try and fed to the kobolds. Then did the Revenant's dagger, but I need to sleep now
Picking up items with area loot while invis/stealthed breaks invis now.
Killed a couple of basilisks till level 6 and then stealthed thru the mines till Mulahey, charmed first try and fed to the kobolds. Then did the Revenant's dagger, but I need to sleep now
Indeed. After so long where that didn't count as an action it's a bit hard to get used to . Two of my shaman deaths were where I forgot and spirits unsummoned in dangerous situations ...
Cherub's now had a couple of attempts as well without much success. Let's see how charming the third is ...
Kiting Shoal while waiting for loads of criticals is a pain, so Cherub went straight to Beregost and killed Algernon for his cloak. He then looked for a weapon upgrade by going to find Drizzt. In the previous version I would have killed him pretty easily. I think that's still possible in v2.5: - carefully move up to activate gnolls without getting into Drizzt's sight - kill the odd gnoll while waiting for them to break weapons and leaving the area to reset Drizzt's HPs However, that would be time-consuming and easy to make a mistake. As in this run I'm more interested in his weapons than his XP, I just let the gnolls kill him.
After picking up the ankheg armor, Cherub went north (gaining 2 levels by returning Tenya's bowl) to kill Dushai for her ring. She was charmed at the first attempt - must be a good omen.
Cherub got his 4th level from charming and successfully killing all the sirines in Beregost temple. His next objective will be some basilisks.
As in this run I'm more interested in his weapons than his XP, I just let the gnolls kill him.
You were lucky (or I was unlucky). In a very fresh LoB party run, I activated the gnolls while remaining out of Drizzt's sight. He would alternate between fighting the gnolls and standing still doing nothing, but it was still enough for him to prevail.
As in this run I'm more interested in his weapons than his XP, I just let the gnolls kill him.
You were lucky (or I was unlucky). In a very fresh LoB party run, I activated the gnolls while remaining out of Drizzt's sight. He would alternate between fighting the gnolls and standing still doing nothing, but it was still enough for him to prevail.
- kill the odd gnoll while waiting for them to break weapons and leaving the area to reset Drizzt's HPs
I didn't get this, why would you want to leave the area and reset his HPs if you want to kill him?
Good luck with your run.
Seems like a clever way to get the xp guaranteed, if all of them eventually break their weapons they can't kill him, but that won't happen unless his hp reset.
This is not strictly part of the challenge (no SCS) but I figured this would be the best place to ask. I'm stuck in SoD in the fight with the B with my Blade. With my THAC0 of -1 I only hit him on a roll of 20. I have AC vs Slashing of -12 (-22 with defensive spin) and 358 hp. I start the fight with Stoneskin, Mirror Image and Haste (+all the resistances needed). By the time I'm through with my spins and sips from Durlag's Goblet I have hit the B only couple of times and it has become painfully obvious I cannot beat him without some cheese. So, the question is, is the B immune to Polymorph Other spell (if not, it should only take about 100 tries to force it through)? Any help or ideas would be appreciated.
This is not strictly part of the challenge (no SCS) but I figured this would be the best place to ask. I'm stuck in SoD in the fight with the B with my Blade. With my THAC0 of -1 I only hit him on a roll of 20. I have AC vs Slashing of -12 (-22 with defensive spin) and 358 hp. I start the fight with Stoneskin, Mirror Image and Haste (+all the resistances needed). By the time I'm through with my spins and sips from Durlag's Goblet I have hit the B only couple of times and it has become painfully obvious I cannot beat him without some cheese. So, the question is, is the B immune to Polymorph Other spell (if not, it should only take about 100 tries to force it through)? Any help or ideas would be appreciated.
Using the wand of polymorph was my plan if I ever play with a cleric/mage. Using the friendly Magic resistance cleric spell to lower/set his MR to about 20 (I think he has like 80%), then Malison + chant + doom for +7 on his saving throw, true seeing for his improved invis. Big Bs save vs wand is 4 LoB adds -5, Improved Invis another -4, he only needs a 1 to always save and even with all the mentioned debuffs his save would be at 6 and he'd be able to magic resist 20% of the time.
As a blade you only have malison and lower resistance, not quite sure if you have something similar to true seeing (detect invis or oracle isn't guaranteed to keep him from going invis again) but even if you can deal with the improved invis that leaves his save at 3 meaning only a 15% chance but on top of that whatever magic resistance he has left will lower your chance further. Also unless your casting from scrolls/wands you can be interrupted out of spell casts. Ofc if you play with unlimited reloads all of this doesn't matter as much, you can just reload until he turns into a squirrel. You still will need Malison and lower resistance as long as his save is lower than 2 there is no chance for him to fail the save.
Using the wand of polymorph was my plan if I ever play with a cleric/mage. Using the friendly Magic resistance cleric spell to lower/set his MR to about 20 (I think he has like 80%), then Malison + chant + doom for +7 on his saving throw, true seeing for his improved invis. Big Bs save vs wand is 4 LoB adds -5, Improved Invis another -4, he only needs a 1 to always save and even with all the mentioned debuffs his save would be at 6 and he'd be able to magic resist 20% of the time.
As a blade you only have malison and lower resistance, not quite sure if you have something similar to true seeing (detect invis or oracle isn't guaranteed to keep him from going invis again) but even if you can deal with the improved invis that leaves his save at 3 meaning only a 15% chance but on top of that whatever magic resistance he has left will lower your chance further. Also unless your casting from scrolls/wands you can be interrupted out of spell casts. Ofc if you play with unlimited reloads all of this doesn't matter as much, you can just reload until he turns into a squirrel. You still will need Malison and lower resistance as long as his save is lower than 2 there is no chance for him to fail the save.
Thanks for the quick reply.
I mistakenly thought about the rule of always missing on a roll of 1 and thought that B would always fail a save on a roll of 1 too. Thanks for correcting me and saving me from wasting anymore time spamming wand of polymorph without first casting malison and dispelling his invisibility
P.S. Don't like the AC buff as meleeing was hard enough as it was in LoB.
Using the wand of polymorph was my plan if I ever play with a cleric/mage. Using the friendly Magic resistance cleric spell to lower/set his MR to about 20 (I think he has like 80%), then Malison + chant + doom for +7 on his saving throw, true seeing for his improved invis. Big Bs save vs wand is 4 LoB adds -5, Improved Invis another -4, he only needs a 1 to always save and even with all the mentioned debuffs his save would be at 6 and he'd be able to magic resist 20% of the time.
As a blade you only have malison and lower resistance, not quite sure if you have something similar to true seeing (detect invis or oracle isn't guaranteed to keep him from going invis again) but even if you can deal with the improved invis that leaves his save at 3 meaning only a 15% chance but on top of that whatever magic resistance he has left will lower your chance further. Also unless your casting from scrolls/wands you can be interrupted out of spell casts. Ofc if you play with unlimited reloads all of this doesn't matter as much, you can just reload until he turns into a squirrel. You still will need Malison and lower resistance as long as his save is lower than 2 there is no chance for him to fail the save.
Thanks for the quick reply.
I mistakenly thought about the rule of always missing on a roll of 1 and thought that B would always fail a save on a roll of 1 too. Thanks for correcting me and saving me from wasting anymore time spamming wand of polymorph without first casting malison and dispelling his invisibility
P.S. Don't like the AC buff as meleeing was hard enough as it was in LoB.
Don't forget that Magic Resistance works against malison, so if you don't have a way of lowering his Magic Resist you might never hit the malison.
My dwarven defender just died the most unfortunate death ever. I was collecting Gold for the ring of invisibility, so I could go to Davaeorns mines, when I got the idea to go back for the remaining sirens and Flesh Golems. There was only 2 sirens left since I already killed 4, so it looked like easy xp and ofc a little bit of money for their pearls. With belt of crushing they could only hit on crit and were rolling negative numbers, with my super expensive (ended up paying 12.6k with better reputation) fully charged greenstone amulet I seemed fine for taking them on. When one of the sirens was near death something with super low odds actually happened, my greenstone just made the sound of wearing off, I had a perfectly timed reaction to the sound, pausing and reusing greenstone. Just as it always takes a second for greenstone to reapply one of the sirens not only crit me, but I also failed to save vs death (being a shorty fighter I had a save of 3!) and I got stunned.
I was so shocked that I watched my char going from around 90ish hp all the way to zero always hoping the stun would maybe wear off, since I kept saving against death and they still only hit me on crit since the siren stun seems to work differently than other stuns/paralyze and still allowed me to apply my AC vs their Thac0. But at the end of the day it wasn't enough, stun never wore off.
My dwarven defender just died the most unfortunate death ever. I was collecting Gold for the ring of invisibility, so I could go to Davaeorns mines, when I got the idea to go back for the remaining sirens and Flesh Golems. There was only 2 sirens left since I already killed 4, so it looked like easy xp and ofc a little bit of money for their pearls. With belt of crushing they could only hit on crit and were rolling negative numbers, with my super expensive (ended up paying 12.6k with better reputation) fully charged greenstone amulet I seemed fine for taking them on. When one of the sirens was near death something with super low odds actually happened, my greenstone just made the sound of wearing off, I had a perfectly timed reaction to the sound, pausing and reusing greenstone. Just as it always takes a second for greenstone to reapply one of the sirens not only crit me, but I also failed to save vs death (being a shorty fighter I had a save of 3!) and I got stunned.
I was so shocked that I watched my char going from around 90ish hp all the way to zero always hoping the stun would maybe wear off, since I kept saving against death and they still only hit me on crit since the siren stun seems to work differently than other stuns/paralyze and still allowed me to apply my AC vs their Thac0. But at the end of the day it wasn't enough, stun never wore off.
I sure hope you are not playing hardcore.
On the lighter note, I do hope that big B will tell a similar story in hell very soon: "When that cursed blade was near death something with super low odds actually happened, my improved invisibility just made the sound of wearing off, I had a perfectly timed reaction to the sound and recasting it. Just as it always takes a second for spell to reapply that blade not only crit me, but I also failed to save vs wands (being a lob end boss I had a save of 3!) and I got polymorphed and killed."
Comments
Kaishas was basically the same fight as Karoug for me because I wasn't kiting at all (I didn't think that would work well vs. regeneration), most of my damage was from melee, and summons held off the extra enemies long enough.
On another note: I'm enjoying SCS but was disappointed with one part of the AI. I was hoping it'd make basilisks smart enough to use their melee attack, but I've just been killing them at range with protection up. They did try chasing me a bit in some cases (i remember that happened on top of durlag's tower), but I found if I let my familiar out and put it in front of me standing still, then i'd quickly get a situation where they'd just shoot the familiar forever while i stood still and shot them to death. Also I think it'd be smarter for some of these mages to cast stuff into my minor spell deflection, and use it up, instead of waiting it out (or casting spells at summons) while i attack them.
BTW, @Grond0 , I read about some of your many no reload sorcerer runs in bg1. Man you've got a lot of patience. Arcane casters are my favorite in general and I'm curious what your spell list was. I'm finding it helpful to switch my spells before each notable fight and I'm wondering which spells i'm using that you managed to get away with not having.
SCS has upgraded the basilisk AI so that they now detect anyone using the mage PfP spell - and will immediately switch to melee against them. However, they are still not able to detect other forms of protection, e.g. familiar immunity, green scroll, Korax. They still have the original chance of randomly switching to melee against those, but it's generally not difficult to use those forms of immunity to kill them.
The spells I take change around a bit over time, but here's a list from a LoB run I did some time ago. In the early stages blindness rules and it doesn't take long then to get invisibility. That opens up opportunities for invisible blocking and then web can be combined with blindness against the vast majority of BG1 enemies - even those with distance attacks. Skull trap and MM are mainly convenience options to finish things off quicker, though you can use skull trap stacks for some special encounters. Most of my experience with LoB sorcerers is at lower levels, so I wouldn't pay too much attention to my choices after level 4 spells.
L1 - blindness, magic missile, identify, LMD, friends
L2 - invisibility, web, knock, mirror image, blur
L3 - skull trap, minor spell deflection, haste
L4 - stoneskin, improved invisibility
L5 - animate dead, spell immunity
L6 - protection from magic weapons,
oh huh, you have one spell there i never use (even on past characters with access to necromancy spells). what is the purpose of larloch's minor drain? if it's in order to disrupt spellcasting on mages with Shield up, i've been using some chromatic orbs instead, i guess it doesn't make much difference. other than that i prefer magic missile. EDIT: oh maybe it's because you don't use healing potions, so if you take minor damage while kiting then it can heal you up to make things safer.
some missing spells i use sometimes: grease, shield, protection from evil, spook, charm person, remove fear, acid arrow, minute meteors, slow, malison, minor globe, minor sequencer, spellthrust, detect invisibility, detect illusion. your picks make sense though. can't have everything. i also discovered last night that a lot of enemies can't hit you through Wraithform, heh.
one thing i notice is some redundancy: improved invis prevents being targeted, so is minor spell deflection necessary?
i haven't done much invisible blocking. i did try it with the battle horrors or whatever they're called outside durlags tower. there is a little bridge there i put an invisible familiar on. but then they were immune to arrows so i just left and came back later with a monster summoning wand. do you invis multiple summons to surround things to cheese them, or just do it at chokepoints like doors? i should really do that more, at least when the terrain is helpful.
I pretty much never use spellthrust myself - just waiting out buffs in a situation where that might be handy. I rarely use detect spells for similar reasons (normally safer to go invisible yourself than risk being targeted while trying to detect). All the others I've used fairly regularly. The 1st level picks I've got above to reduce expenditure (identify and friends) are pretty cosmetic really - I just have a philosophical objection to paying extra even when funds are plentiful. In other runs I might take any of the ones you mention.
Two advantages. First it comes rather earlier and opens up the possibility to do encounters that are otherwise dangerous - like the sirines for instance (wand of monster summoning is an obvious alternative there, but I normally try to complete as many encounters as possible without using any equipment). Second it lasts far longer, so you're less likely to get caught out when the spell ends (I don't use buffs much and am not systematic about timing them when I do, so getting caught out is definitely a danger for me ...).
In most cases invisible summons won't just stand still, so a familiar is the obvious option for an arcane user. Most enemies, like battle horrors, only have a reach of 1 - so you can safely hit them with a staff over the top of your familiar. Of course that can take a while - if you try and kill a LoB battle horror with a non-proficient mundane staff then be prepared to drink a few cups of tea while you're waiting
Favored of Bhaal, allowing wand use
Seeing the above posts about LoB sorcerers, I thought I should have another go with Frey. So far today he's made good progress - main encounters are as shown below:
- Shoal (familiar attacks) - level 3
- High Hedge golems (+1 bullets) - level 4
- basilisks (familiar attacks) - level 5
- Mutamin + Kirian & co (Korax + blind) - level 6
- Karlat (invisible blocker + web)
- Belt ogre (webs + spell damage)
- Tarnesh (webbed blindness)
- ankheg nest (webbed blindness)
- Durlag's battle horrors (invisible blocker + staff) - level 7
- Durlag's ghasts (invisible blocker + sling for safety)
- Durlag's basilisks (familiar attacks) - level 8
- Riggilo (invisible blocker + stoneskin to make him show himself)
- successfully revived Melicamp
- Silke (monster summoning)
- Lighthouse sirines (monster summoning)
- Lighthouse golems (invisible blocking + sling/staff)
- Bjornin's half-ogres (blind + monsters)
- Charleston Nib and the Doomsayer (invisible blocking) - level 9
Frey has just arrived in Nashkel for the first time - Brage maximising his reputation in the process. As he's now at the level cap and has minimal equipment needs (there's not even been any wand use thus far in the run), Frey should push on with the main quest quite quickly now.
Sorcerer L9, 69 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 79 kills
Spells taken
L1 - find familiar, blindness, magic missile, LMD, shield
L2 - invisibility, web, MAA, blur
L3 - skull trap, monster summoning I, MMM
L4 - stoneskin, monster summoning II
I play for five minutes and found a pretty useless bug:
Depending on how early this was possible it might be slightly less useless.
Say it wasn't triggered by Nazramu, but by putting unided items into the bag of holding, you can go from 0 gold after buying the bag to what ever you want.
It's still pretty useless, since you'll get plenty of gold in SoD anyway.
EDIT: As i see its now -11 AC. Well. That sounds like some fun. Or pain.
(Also only playing BG2 since I really wanted to try a sorc and he has 0 chance vs Big
I did not know AC was buffed but I had massive trouble killing Golems and Rakshasas early game, now I know why haha.
Atm I'm about to leave the Underdark and ever since I got higher level spells the game is easy enough.
Apparently Time Stop lets you autohit I abused this at least twice with the Adept on Brynnlaw who imprisoned my planetar (I never was able to resummon it till I left the island oO) and with the Elder beholders in Beholder Lair.
(Time Stop Mind Flayer form shapechange, boom)
I will play no reload challenge but I will not limit the amount/type of items I can use.
I will not use the basilisk loop.
So far I did a minimal risk approach, picking up Ring of Wizardry, Algernon's, Ankheg plate, Fire res ring and Belt of Blunting.
I'm almost certain Drizzt isn't bugged anymore in 2.5, since the Warden in Planar Prison is fixed, so I didn't visit his map yet, I do plan on defeating him tho once I have all necessary items and max xp.
XP wise I did Marl,Brage, Rufie, Krumm, Drienne, Samuel, not too much yet since I have to stop playing for now.
P.S. I wont rely too heavily on Caelar. Once more demons get around she dies "nearly instantly". As controlling her is strictly spoken not allowed she will most likely not attack Big B at all (once he goes invisble).
On top of Senjak, Dorothea and 2 ranged Bandits the map was filled with ranged Hobgoblins.
The worst part tho, instead of being immortal Dorn instantly died, so I had to flee.
Other than that I killed the belt ogre and Friendly Arm Guy, not too much progress, but due to the new and improved LOB AC even Friendly Arm guy could only be hit by crits and took forever to kill even tho 2 guards helped. (my DD is level 3 atm)
edit: I can now confirm Drizzt is fixed on LoB and will attack normally.
My DD is level 5 now, killed 4 of the siryns on lighthouse map (then my greenstone was down to 1 charge), got Con tome while there.
Did Melicamp with reaction +5 mostly from CH I think (18 with Algernon's), also have maxed Int (but dumped Wis).
Also did Tenya, Zombies (took easily over an hour probably more due to the new AC, but since I had autopause on low hp and target destroyed I was able to do other stuff afk) Firendly Arm Goblin for Joias ring, and Mirianne.
I'll try that again no doubt, but for a change I've rolled up a berserker that could dual to mage after getting the intelligence tome. He's just in Candlekeep killing rats at the moment - they've been changed in v2.5 to not physically attack so can be killed much more quickly and easily now. Cherub is not quite as angelic as he appears and specializes in scimitars.
There's another good one in the Dorn ambush, but unless my game was bugged the ambush is very hard now at least at lower levels.
Killed a couple of basilisks till level 6 and then stealthed thru the mines till Mulahey, charmed first try and fed to the kobolds.
Then did the Revenant's dagger, but I need to sleep now
Kiting Shoal while waiting for loads of criticals is a pain, so Cherub went straight to Beregost and killed Algernon for his cloak. He then looked for a weapon upgrade by going to find Drizzt. In the previous version I would have killed him pretty easily. I think that's still possible in v2.5:
- carefully move up to activate gnolls without getting into Drizzt's sight
- kill the odd gnoll while waiting for them to break weapons and leaving the area to reset Drizzt's HPs
However, that would be time-consuming and easy to make a mistake. As in this run I'm more interested in his weapons than his XP, I just let the gnolls kill him.
After picking up the ankheg armor, Cherub went north (gaining 2 levels by returning Tenya's bowl) to kill Dushai for her ring. She was charmed at the first attempt - must be a good omen.
Cherub got his 4th level from charming and successfully killing all the sirines in Beregost temple. His next objective will be some basilisks.
Good luck with your run.
How do I show stats with console again?
Killing Nimbul was quite easy, only had to outrun the sword spider summon till unsummoned, after that he was a pushover with the help of ogre belt.
Using the friendly Magic resistance cleric spell to lower/set his MR to about 20 (I think he has like 80%), then Malison + chant + doom for +7 on his saving throw, true seeing for his improved invis.
Big Bs save vs wand is 4 LoB adds -5, Improved Invis another -4, he only needs a 1 to always save and even with all the mentioned debuffs his save would be at 6 and he'd be able to magic resist 20% of the time.
As a blade you only have malison and lower resistance, not quite sure if you have something similar to true seeing (detect invis or oracle isn't guaranteed to keep him from going invis again) but even if you can deal with the improved invis that leaves his save at 3 meaning only a 15% chance but on top of that whatever magic resistance he has left will lower your chance further.
Also unless your casting from scrolls/wands you can be interrupted out of spell casts.
Ofc if you play with unlimited reloads all of this doesn't matter as much, you can just reload until he turns into a squirrel.
You still will need Malison and lower resistance as long as his save is lower than 2 there is no chance for him to fail the save.
I mistakenly thought about the rule of always missing on a roll of 1 and thought that B would always fail a save on a roll of 1 too. Thanks for correcting me and saving me from wasting anymore time spamming wand of polymorph without first casting malison and dispelling his invisibility
P.S. Don't like the AC buff as meleeing was hard enough as it was in LoB.
My dwarven defender just died the most unfortunate death ever.
I was collecting Gold for the ring of invisibility, so I could go to Davaeorns mines, when I got the idea to go back for the remaining sirens and Flesh Golems.
There was only 2 sirens left since I already killed 4, so it looked like easy xp and ofc a little bit of money for their pearls.
With belt of crushing they could only hit on crit and were rolling negative numbers, with my super expensive (ended up paying 12.6k with better reputation) fully charged greenstone amulet I seemed fine for taking them on.
When one of the sirens was near death something with super low odds actually happened, my greenstone just made the sound of wearing off, I had a perfectly timed reaction to the sound, pausing and reusing greenstone. Just as it always takes a second for greenstone to reapply one of the sirens not only crit me, but I also failed to save vs death (being a shorty fighter I had a save of 3!) and I got stunned.
I was so shocked that I watched my char going from around 90ish hp all the way to zero always hoping the stun would maybe wear off, since I kept saving against death and they still only hit me on crit since the siren stun seems to work differently than other stuns/paralyze and still allowed me to apply my AC vs their Thac0.
But at the end of the day it wasn't enough, stun never wore off.
On the lighter note, I do hope that big B will tell a similar story in hell very soon: "When that cursed blade was near death something with super low odds actually happened, my improved invisibility just made the sound of wearing off, I had a perfectly timed reaction to the sound and recasting it. Just as it always takes a second for spell to reapply that blade not only crit me, but I also failed to save vs wands (being a lob end boss I had a save of 3!) and I got polymorphed and killed."