Tested the Wish resting function from clones, and it's guaranteed, I mean really guaranteed.
Single PI can link up seven Simulacrum chain, who can cast 48 Wish spells collectively. I've nine PI's.
Single Simulacrum can link up six Simulacrum chain, who can cast 40 Wish spells collectively. I've eight Simulacrums.
That makes 758 Wish spells on a single rest.
@histamiini: That's very surprising. I thought each clone was a little weaker than the one before it, and that they would therefore have no level 9 spells. I've seen clones with single-digit HP.
Tested the Wish resting function from clones, and it's guaranteed, I mean really guaranteed.
Single PI can link up seven Simulacrum chain, who can cast 48 Wish spells collectively. I've nine PI's.
Single Simulacrum can link up six Simulacrum chain, who can cast 40 Wish spells collectively. I've eight Simulacrums.
That makes 758 Wish spells on a single rest.
Now THAT’S how a good Mirror Image should look like !
I’m not sure I quite understand how you did this, as I understood that the multiple simulacrums from project images trick was removed in EE. Did not really test it though
Did a few testing. Seems like a Project Image can still start a chain of Simulacrums. 1st Simulacrum will have 80% of caster’s level, but all simulacrums after that will still have the same level (and hence spells). I thought (maybe wrongly) that subsequent simulacrums would be more and more squishy.
That does open a lot of fun ideas for my FMC too (although it’ll take years to get him there sadly).
Speaking about my FMC, started SoD in LoB. It’s taking ages with increased size of mobs from insane + their awful HP pool and stats from LoB.
Good news is, Wand of Monster Summoning cheese abuse is not really effective anymore, so I won’t be too tempted by that. Had to rely on my special extra cheese (Wand of Polymorphing and Scroll of Protection from Undead) to pass Korlazs Tomb and the Repository of Undeath).
I did solo Coldhearth without the help of this cheese (we could argue that Deepvein’s gemstone is an even higher level of cheese though ^^), used lots of potions and a scroll of Champion’s strength and every other buff available, got me to -8 thac0, which was just enough to hit him regularly (still needed a roll of about 8 I think), but between my 3 APRs (hasted) with regular hits, and Deepvein’s gemstone debuff, he could not cast much spells and fell quite easily actually. The real threat was getting fast enough to the fire room to destroy his philactery before he reappeared. Did just that and even soloed the 2 fire salamanders with most of my buffs still up.
SoD solo in LoB is really tedious with all this extra monsters, borderline ridiculous to meet 15-20 critters at every corner. I guess invisibility spell will once again become my way of going through the campagn (hit max lvl after the fight with Coldhearth anyway)
SoD, even more so than BG1, is almost not worth playing in LoB mode. It's better to just skip as much as possible. The mods take forever to kill and there is virtually no benefit to the vast majority of them.
@histamiini or @monico, could you test to see if the nth-generation clones have less and less HP? I actually confirmed that in my tests a while ago; I used CTRL-M and found that their HP dropped.
@monico Skipping most of SoD in LoB is advisable, especially since you hit level cap, there's no point of fighting really. Good part of SoD is that you don't have to fight much if you don't want to. I think only Ziatar, Akanna, Bridge Mage, Crusader Attacks, Ashatiel, Lift Enemies, Belhifet and Hephernaan are necessary to kill, and the bottlenecks are Crusader Attacks and Bel.
@semiticgod They do drop, but they start awfully high at least for my character.
None of the secondary clones have any gear, and there are some differences starting the chain from Sim or PI. Starting from Sim secondary clones can cast four 9th level spells, and attack with both BBoD and Energy Blades. Starting from PI secondary clones can cast six 9th level spells, link up one more Sim, attack with Energy Blades, but can't attack melee or with BBoD.
Draconis, Farsight and clone hacked him to transformation during Time Stops. Then PfMW, Time Stop, Alacrity, 2x Pierce Shield, Greater Malison and 6 Feebleminds. But the hit order was wrong and he evaded it. Lasty he cast Planetar who attacked Draconis. Another clone to cast 6 Feebleminds, no dice again. Then he Wish rested my spells back. Another clone Planetar got Draconis to near death, I then unloaded all magic spells through Alacrity and he used his Heal card. Another clone Planetar, and the clone again Wished my spells back. Continued casting Sim Planetars, Energy Blades through Time Stops. At one point I accidentally wished Draconis back to full health. But never ending stream of Sim Planetars eventually killed him.
Ate the main area including Greater Werewyvern. Farsight on Anadramatis and clone Planetar casually hacked him to dialogue, then to surrender and lastly to death. Kuo-Toa area passed with Time Stop. Quadruble Dragon ambush was wrist wrenching 45 WoW hits long kiting. Picked up Bronze pants from Eyeball area without fighting anybody, and built the BMU. FII'Yissetat kite was 19 WoW hits long, really not having luck with Dragon stoning in this run.
Meeting with Abazigal, ate his Drakes and Salamanders with four Time Stops. Planetar tried tackling Tamah, and got her to half health, but looking it up she still had 1500 hp. So I cast two Pierce Shields, Greater Malison and unloaded Feebleminds, which worked. Rested in Pocket Plane. Coming back Tamah was healed too, and it took quite a while to hack her 2600 hp. Abazigal was transormed by Planetar, and after Planetar died, I hit him with 3x Pierce Magic trigger, Greater Malison, Alacrity and machine gunned 6 Feebleminds, which he couldn't evade. Still it took very long to hack his 1500 hp, 50 DR, critical hit protection, and Time Stop didn't provide hits because he was immune for it. Had to clone Wish rest, to get Skelis back. It took four hours to hack him to 1 hp. Then I dispelled him with Staff of Magi and he gave his death dialogue.
Even evil can convince Balty to join the fight with 2-2-3-2-1-1-1-3-3-1-1-2-1-1 dialogue options. Ate the Slayer in the third Pocket Plane challenge, and the Favorite of Cyric in the fourth. Got Dark Taint and Hand of Murder.
Next one the dreaded Ravager, and it really is immune to everything that could end the fight quickly, except Harm, but Sorcerer can't access it. And Sorcerer can't access Reflection Shield either so the fight isn't casual, nor is the win guaranteed because there's limited amount of +4 Bullets, and Sorcerer has awful Thac0. I've planned this fight some time. There's no way I could approach with melee, as Ravager will Dispel and Sleep -10 vs Breath with every attack. His ranged weapon has -19 Thac0, Stun -2 vs Spell and 30% chance for some cold damage. He's -23 AC, 1682hp, 75 DR, although he doesn't have helmet. I've 670 +4 Bullets, if I don't start to farm them from Erinne Sling, but it should be enough with this loadout:
AC
-10 BMU
-12 Ring of Gaxx
-14 Ring +2
-20 Dexterity
-23 modifier BMU
-26 modifier Belt
-30 modifier Cloak
-35 modifier Boots
-39 Improved Invisibility (12h from Spectre Ring)
Ravager will only hit 20's with my -39 AC vs missiles. With -9 Thac0 I'll hit 14 and above, and with Archer's Eyes I'll crit with 19. Tenser's Transformation scrolls are pretty useless, as they're cast level 10, they provide only -3 Thac0 boost and last only 10 rounds. I calculated that this fight would last on average 4,5 hours and I've plenty of resources for it.
The fight with the Ravager went almost as planned. Used summon door trick and lured the Bone Blades to another room. But when I was buffing up one Blade actually found me, so I charmed Cespenar with the Control Circlet, and as he's immune to damage, that got the Blades out of the way. Buffed as planned, also 2x PfC, and started slinging the Ravager. But somehow he was hitting with 16 and above, and that was unbearable. I concluded that he somehow used some illusion dispel to dispel my Improved Invisibility. Remembered the two other missile protections, Shield Amulet (-2 1h) and Cloak of the Shield (-5 1t) and with those I hit missile modifier cap, and overall AC of -40 against missiles. This gave 19 and below protection, I just needed to keep them up. Also kept drinking Oil of Speed, and Power Potions, and casting the Emotion's Hope and Courage. And pretty much on the clock, Ravager was dead on about 4,5 hours in. Got 25 DR, although it still isn't working on the latest Ascension, so I need to EEkeeper it in.
The level of planning ahead and patience you have is godly. You deserve to embrace your destiny.
How did you manage to have enough potions & scrolls to last 4,5 hours ? (btw, do you mean ingame hours or real life hours ?)
I thought the ravager kept summoning bone blades, is there a limit to the blades he summons ? you did not seem to be bothered by them after the one diverted by Cespenar, or did you have to micro-manage Cespenar to come and aggro the bone blades every time they spawned ?
On my part, I listened to you and @semiticgod and skipped all fights after Depository of Death, most gear I wanted was lying around anyway (just killed the vampire and wolves in the cabin basement to get Sundermaul).
Easily killed the mage trying to subdue water elementals by casting Silence 5’, waited 1 turn for his Vocalize spell to expire, recast silence and hack him to death before his elementals even managed to join. That Ioun Stone will come really handy in final battle.
Kanaglym was a bit difficult, had to reload once or twice because I did not manage to hit the wizard fast enough to break the jar and have the dragon on my side. Once I suceeded doing that, the dragon ghost and my own skellies + debuffs made short work of remaining mages.
I cleared them for the sole purpose of not being disturbed when killing the Lich from the Vision quest : buffed my FMC and cast Prot. from Undead, my remaining skellies aggroed him away from spawning points from undead and blocked him from moving, and helped me getting rid of the lich to get his awesome robes (yay, free Spell Sequencer).
Skipped all other fights, dropped the Bwoosh!, poisoned the supplies, looted Hephernaan’s room and fled while gulping Potions of Invisibility between True Sights from the enemies.
Also skipped Dragonspear crusader camp and Dead Man’s Pass entirely, and came back directly to the coalition camp to repell the assaults from the Crusaders.
Trolls and ogres fell rapidly against my web sequencers, summoned spiders (+ Imp in spider form), and kiting from the archers with fire arrows.
But now I’m stuck against the mages. They save against my debuffs even after malison and doom, have large array of spells, and the Wizard Slayers from the Camp don’t seem to do much damage.
Which group of helpers do you recommend for this fight ? My skellies are almost immune to ennemies spells, but still fall after a while when they simply hack them with their staves, and I can’t manage to debuff them alone since they have enough mages to constantly dispel my debuffs and cast their own debuffs on me and the Wizard Slayers.
Really tough battle, and I can’t even begin to imagine what the assault on Dragonsepar Castle will look like...
EDIT : asked the battle mages to help instead of the wizard slayers, it did the trick. Our debuffs outgunned theirs, while my five buffed skellies hacked them to pieces.
Asked the dwarves to help against the 3rd wave, we won. Problem is now to fzce the rest of the army, they outnumber us too much
Ahem, I’m a bit ashamed, couldn’t get past the last attack in Allied camp because I could not repell all those invaders... Took me a while to remember that the waves are endless unless you kill the named ennemies ???.
Well, now it’s done. I’ll need to regroup and carefully pick my spell book, then off to Dragonspear ! Let the siege begin.
@monico 4,5 in game hours, in real time that would be pretty rough. That's only like 5 Oil of Speeds, Emotion scrolls, Shield Amulet charges and 6 Power potions. Cloak of the Shield has the most uses, but it's still only half of the capacity. Bone Blades don't respawn if they're not killed, Cespenar doesn't have weapon so he won't harm them.
Illusion dispel is good against the mages and in the last wave, other than spells there's also amulet for it. In crusader attacks summons are valuable, there're 5 Myconids, 3 Stone Allies, 10 Ankhegs, Mephit ring and some Water Elementals that FMC should be able to access in item form. Did you get those?
I kinda rushed it after Repository of Death (i actually quite hate SoD ^^).
Which now makes me realize that.... I forgot to deplet Waizab and Nazramu’s stores !!! ?♂️?♂️?♂️
so no boots to avoid webs (will need then free action), which means only 2 APR against Big B if relying on webs-a-gogo.
I did get some of the stuff you mentioned, but not all. But summons in not really a problem. I did pass the crusaders attack and the siege on Dragonspear Castle. Now all his left is Avernus, the freaking bridge and Big Bad Bald B.
@monico You shouldn't need Web against Bel, the 3 apr Martyr's with Enchanted Weapon will murder him in 20 rounds average. Also Web shouldn't really work against Bel as he should've -4 save vs. spell on top of 100 MR, but there's bug in 2.5 LoB that prevents the -5 bonus saves for enemies, without the mod that fixes it. It's also unnecessary hassle, go for the head on smack!
@monico note also that you can still get extra attacks from haste even with free action. If you're using the ring then just remove it before you apply haste, e.g. by using an oil of speed. When you put the ring back on you will lose your extra movement speed - but not the additional attacks.
@monico note also that you can still get extra attacks from haste even with free action. If you're using the ring then just remove it before you apply haste, e.g. by using an oil of speed. When you put the ring back on you will lose your extra movement speed - but not the additional attacks.
Oh yeah true, I actually re-noticed that during BG1, yet re-forgot it already ?
@histamiini alright, I'll try the straightforward approach with uberloading potions and Champion's strength
Is the elevator a hassle in LoB or is it relatively doable with just my buffed FMC and a few skellies ?
I wasn't feeling these marathon battles before the end, so I decided to do the Neera guestline as a diversion. In the ambush Neera got killed in couple seconds, and the Thayan's got gassed in couple turns with Wand of Cloudkill. The same for the Arena fight. @semiticgod I did test it and once you agree with Szass, buy everything inretesting from the market, you can attack Szass and he will teleport you back when at 1 hp so you can skip rest of the guest.
He should still not be taken lightly, he's probably the spell caster of the game. He cast 3 Time Stops, then Wished his spells back and did it again, among many, many other things. I used all my Spell Immunities. He has homing beacon so I kited him like an hour and half in the market. Then I attacked with Time Stops and he was done. So in the end it's pretty easy to get the Cloak of the Lich, in the ambush none see through invisibility, nor does the Yuan-ti at arena fight. Only real challenge is Szass Tam really, and he's immune to everything. But depleting tactic works, if you keep your saves up.
Some of the notable merchandise:
10 arrows of Detonation, Dispel
3x all Priest Scrolls
Kazrah's Shield +5 AC, 50% ER, Chain Lightning
Golden Girdle
Cloak of the Lich - Immunity Death effects, 50% CR/ER
Wand of Polymorph
Wand of Wonder
Rod of Resurrection (kill the priest)
2x Potion of Magic Blocking
One of all 9th level scrolls
@monico With Martyr's and Twinkle you should be able to plough your way through the lift without summons. Given that you did take *** in Two-Weapon style?
@histamiini I can't use twinkle as a FMC. Didn't take 2 weapon fighting yet (2* hammers, 2* flail, 2* slings), planned to do it in BG2... Forgot how long it'll take to get to lvl12 fighter as a FMC.....
@monico My bad I was thinking another playthrough. I did use Martyr's and Blazing Glory +3 in the lift, that was enough for FMC I think, but I did have *** in Two-Weapon style. You could use the Champion's Strenghts in the lift if it's too hard without summons, and then switch only Martyr's with Single-Weapon style vs Bel and just wait the crits.
.... Belhifet won't go down.
First I thought I'd keep Caelar alive by aggroing a maximum of demons/going in circles around the map/gulping potions, while my FMC (-25thac0 and 3 APR) soloed Belhifet.
But I can't seem to aggro Belhifet who keeps going after Caelar,and running after him is not a good strategy.
In the other hand, if I let Caelar die in battle, it becomes a battle of attrition I did not plan ahead (only got like -15 AC) and not sure Durlags Goblet's 20 charges are enough to last me the whole battle (can't even bother using Stoneskin scrolls, they fall almost as fast than I can re-cast them).
And since I crit only on a natural 20 (no pip in 1 weapon fighting), it seems unlikely that I'll manage to beat Big B without a lot of luck...
@monico: Are you stacking Potions of Heroism to get your HP around the 300-400 mark? Potions of Heroism grant +10% HP and the effects stack indefinitely. Durlag's Goblet and Greater Restoration scrolls will last longer the more potions you might have to burn during the elevator ride. Critical hits with the Martyr's Morningstar, with Enchanted Weapon active, could also help get Belhifet down a little faster.
If you park your FMC in a corner and your fire resistance is 100% or higher, you can get Belhifet to melee you indefinitely while blocking off other demons, limiting the number of demons that can make attack rolls on you.
@semiticgod clearly, I did not plan SoD ahead enough, only had 10 or so potions of heroism (barely passed the 200 HP mark).
I tried to get in a corner a few times, but the other demons got in the way of me hitting Belhifet, while he could attack me with his longer range.
To be honest, SoD has just be a constant pain, cheesing or sneaking my way through most of the time. I guess I will admit that my FMC and myself are not patient/smart/powerful enough to kill Belhifet, and I'll just continue in BG2.
RP style : Ogden, the evil FMC, who just played along the Dukes war because of Caelar's threat on his life, ended the crusade, saw Caelar and the remnant of her followers disappear through a portal to the Demon plane, and with the help of all clerics in the coalition called on the power of their respective gods to seal the portal, letting Caelar and Belhifet resolve their dispute far from the Sword Coast, never to return (since killing Big B is not a death sentence anyway but just a banishment).
Odgen then tried to profit from the confusion of the armies disbanding to flee away from the Dukes and their machinations, only to be captured by We-Know-Who.
As I said, I really hate SoD (no selfish evil bastard in their right mind would ever follow BG's army on their war against the crusade)
Edit : and yes, I was using the Martyr's Morningstar with enchanted weapon.
I even wanted to have the spell in the Spell Sequencer provided by the lich's robes to make sure I have a second cast in store, but the spell is bugged : when you use a sequencer, it suggests the old version of the spell and lets you choose a +3 standard weapon of your choice
If I’m not too disgusted by SoD tomorrow, I might try loading an older save, get the needed gear/potions from the merchants, and try a different approach :
- loads of web spells (in Spell Sequencer and minor one), I have about a dozen scrolls in my bag (maybe the only scrolls I actually stocked on since BG1)
- 3 x lower resistance on Belhifet (2 from spell slots, 1 from remaining scroll)
- Malison & Doom him until it bypasses his remaining Magic Resistance (still about 40% remaining)
- Wand of Polymorph (100 charges if necessary) while runing around the webs (boots of web immunity + haste potions & wizzard’s hat from Nazdramu if it stacks should buy me some time)
- once he fails his save and it bypasses his MR, go for the kill.
Btw, do his minions spawn indefinitely ? Is there a limit to how much can be on the map at the same time ? Cause I could also cheese the minions by Polymorphing most of them without actually killing them, they wouldn’t bu such a threat anymore. But if there are 50 of them, it wouldn’t be aviable solution.
@monico: There is no apparent limit to the summons, based on his script. Unless the game engine has some undocumented exception based on map size, the game would spawn them until it was forced to spawn demons on top of each other, or crash the game. That could take a long time, though.
PfMW Contingency to stop Solar Dispel arrows. Improved Haste, 2x Magical Sword Chain Contingency and started the fight. Made Balty cast Lunar Stance (3h immunity to Time Stop) immediatelly, then tried to cast Time Stop scroll, but Jon beat me to it. No worry, Balty almost destroyed Bodhi during the Time Stop. Then I got the Time Stop scrolls rolling, BBoD and with Balty we eventually destroyed all in 8 Time Stops. Well that was easy now that Balty actually acts brilliantly.
The pools were incredibly easy, as with Balty we killed most of the enemies during 5 Time Stops. Left one Wish to be cast from neverending clones, and rest afterwards. In the last pool I had slight problem as Baltys Lunar Stance doesn't seem to refresh from Wish rest, and it had ended. No worries, I took Balor and Marilith out during 5 Time Stops, then 8 apr Planetar and Balty cleared the field.
After Wish resting Prada is ready for the Big 6, although I still don't know which route to take...
Can't believe you have more chances to hit the Big 6 with debilitating save-or-die than I have to do the same against Belhifet ?
Are they immune to Time Stop ? 'cause your strategy actually seem quite easy once you get your simulacrums and images to debuff everyone at the same time. Can't wait to read your report !
I did a bit of testing on my part for my FMC against Belhifet. I can't reliably debuff him with Lower Resistance. I can only cast 2 of them before he goes invisible, and afterwards, dispelling invisibility and casting a third LR takes too long.
So I tried with only 2 casts of LR, launched my sequencers filled with Web, cast Greater Malison, and all minions regularly failed saves so no threat from them for a while.
Problem is, Belhifet still has more than 60% MR, my lower resistance spells have only 18 rounds duration, which is not enough to ensure Greater Malison (got 10 scrolls + 3 spell slots) can bypass his MR, while also hoping for my debilitating spells to bypass both his MR and high saves (no way to land a Doom spell on him too).
Basically, it was even more of a hassle than straightforward hack&slash.
So I decided to skip the fight and go for BG2. Which is a lot better, now my FMC can actually be of use instead of just summons & cheese.
Already in chapter 2, cleared Waukeen's Promenades circus, the group in the 1st floor of the Inn and the slavers.
Next stop (after a few quests in Athkathla), planar Sphere.
Comments
Single PI can link up seven Simulacrum chain, who can cast 48 Wish spells collectively. I've nine PI's.
Single Simulacrum can link up six Simulacrum chain, who can cast 40 Wish spells collectively. I've eight Simulacrums.
That makes 758 Wish spells on a single rest.
Now THAT’S how a good Mirror Image should look like !
I’m not sure I quite understand how you did this, as I understood that the multiple simulacrums from project images trick was removed in EE. Did not really test it though
That does open a lot of fun ideas for my FMC too (although it’ll take years to get him there sadly).
Speaking about my FMC, started SoD in LoB. It’s taking ages with increased size of mobs from insane + their awful HP pool and stats from LoB.
Good news is, Wand of Monster Summoning cheese abuse is not really effective anymore, so I won’t be too tempted by that. Had to rely on my special extra cheese (Wand of Polymorphing and Scroll of Protection from Undead) to pass Korlazs Tomb and the Repository of Undeath).
I did solo Coldhearth without the help of this cheese (we could argue that Deepvein’s gemstone is an even higher level of cheese though ^^), used lots of potions and a scroll of Champion’s strength and every other buff available, got me to -8 thac0, which was just enough to hit him regularly (still needed a roll of about 8 I think), but between my 3 APRs (hasted) with regular hits, and Deepvein’s gemstone debuff, he could not cast much spells and fell quite easily actually. The real threat was getting fast enough to the fire room to destroy his philactery before he reappeared. Did just that and even soloed the 2 fire salamanders with most of my buffs still up.
SoD solo in LoB is really tedious with all this extra monsters, borderline ridiculous to meet 15-20 critters at every corner. I guess invisibility spell will once again become my way of going through the campagn (hit max lvl after the fight with Coldhearth anyway)
@histamiini or @monico, could you test to see if the nth-generation clones have less and less HP? I actually confirmed that in my tests a while ago; I used CTRL-M and found that their HP dropped.
@semiticgod They do drop, but they start awfully high at least for my character.
Sorcerer lv31 129hp 6 spells
Sim lv19 117hp 4 spells
sSim1 lv36 257hp
sSim2 lv29 243hp
sSim3 lv32 232hp
sSim4 lv31 220hp
sSim5 lv31 208hp
sSim6 lv31 196hp
Sorcerer lv31 129hp 6 spells
PI lv31 129hp 6 spells
sSim1 lv31 256hp
sSim2 lv31 244hp
sSim3 lv31 232hp
sSim4 lv31 220hp
sSim5 lv31 208hp
sSim6 lv31 196hp
sSim7 lv31 184hp
None of the secondary clones have any gear, and there are some differences starting the chain from Sim or PI. Starting from Sim secondary clones can cast four 9th level spells, and attack with both BBoD and Energy Blades. Starting from PI secondary clones can cast six 9th level spells, link up one more Sim, attack with Energy Blades, but can't attack melee or with BBoD.
Ate the main area including Greater Werewyvern. Farsight on Anadramatis and clone Planetar casually hacked him to dialogue, then to surrender and lastly to death. Kuo-Toa area passed with Time Stop. Quadruble Dragon ambush was wrist wrenching 45 WoW hits long kiting. Picked up Bronze pants from Eyeball area without fighting anybody, and built the BMU. FII'Yissetat kite was 19 WoW hits long, really not having luck with Dragon stoning in this run.
Meeting with Abazigal, ate his Drakes and Salamanders with four Time Stops. Planetar tried tackling Tamah, and got her to half health, but looking it up she still had 1500 hp. So I cast two Pierce Shields, Greater Malison and unloaded Feebleminds, which worked. Rested in Pocket Plane. Coming back Tamah was healed too, and it took quite a while to hack her 2600 hp. Abazigal was transormed by Planetar, and after Planetar died, I hit him with 3x Pierce Magic trigger, Greater Malison, Alacrity and machine gunned 6 Feebleminds, which he couldn't evade. Still it took very long to hack his 1500 hp, 50 DR, critical hit protection, and Time Stop didn't provide hits because he was immune for it. Had to clone Wish rest, to get Skelis back. It took four hours to hack him to 1 hp. Then I dispelled him with Staff of Magi and he gave his death dialogue.
Even evil can convince Balty to join the fight with 2-2-3-2-1-1-1-3-3-1-1-2-1-1 dialogue options. Ate the Slayer in the third Pocket Plane challenge, and the Favorite of Cyric in the fourth. Got Dark Taint and Hand of Murder.
Next one the dreaded Ravager, and it really is immune to everything that could end the fight quickly, except Harm, but Sorcerer can't access it. And Sorcerer can't access Reflection Shield either so the fight isn't casual, nor is the win guaranteed because there's limited amount of +4 Bullets, and Sorcerer has awful Thac0. I've planned this fight some time. There's no way I could approach with melee, as Ravager will Dispel and Sleep -10 vs Breath with every attack. His ranged weapon has -19 Thac0, Stun -2 vs Spell and 30% chance for some cold damage. He's -23 AC, 1682hp, 75 DR, although he doesn't have helmet. I've 670 +4 Bullets, if I don't start to farm them from Erinne Sling, but it should be enough with this loadout:
-10 BMU
-12 Ring of Gaxx
-14 Ring +2
-20 Dexterity
-23 modifier BMU
-26 modifier Belt
-30 modifier Cloak
-35 modifier Boots
-39 Improved Invisibility (12h from Spectre Ring)
Thac0
13 Sorcerer lv31
10 Power (4t)
9 Gauntlets
8 Ioun Stone
4 Bullet +4
-1 Erinne Sling +5
-6 Dexterity
-8 Emotion Hope scroll (1h)
-9 Emotion Courage scroll (1h)
Damage
32-35
Ravager will only hit 20's with my -39 AC vs missiles. With -9 Thac0 I'll hit 14 and above, and with Archer's Eyes I'll crit with 19. Tenser's Transformation scrolls are pretty useless, as they're cast level 10, they provide only -3 Thac0 boost and last only 10 rounds. I calculated that this fight would last on average 4,5 hours and I've plenty of resources for it.
How did you manage to have enough potions & scrolls to last 4,5 hours ? (btw, do you mean ingame hours or real life hours ?)
I thought the ravager kept summoning bone blades, is there a limit to the blades he summons ? you did not seem to be bothered by them after the one diverted by Cespenar, or did you have to micro-manage Cespenar to come and aggro the bone blades every time they spawned ?
On my part, I listened to you and @semiticgod and skipped all fights after Depository of Death, most gear I wanted was lying around anyway (just killed the vampire and wolves in the cabin basement to get Sundermaul).
Easily killed the mage trying to subdue water elementals by casting Silence 5’, waited 1 turn for his Vocalize spell to expire, recast silence and hack him to death before his elementals even managed to join. That Ioun Stone will come really handy in final battle.
Kanaglym was a bit difficult, had to reload once or twice because I did not manage to hit the wizard fast enough to break the jar and have the dragon on my side. Once I suceeded doing that, the dragon ghost and my own skellies + debuffs made short work of remaining mages.
I cleared them for the sole purpose of not being disturbed when killing the Lich from the Vision quest : buffed my FMC and cast Prot. from Undead, my remaining skellies aggroed him away from spawning points from undead and blocked him from moving, and helped me getting rid of the lich to get his awesome robes (yay, free Spell Sequencer).
Skipped all other fights, dropped the Bwoosh!, poisoned the supplies, looted Hephernaan’s room and fled while gulping Potions of Invisibility between True Sights from the enemies.
Also skipped Dragonspear crusader camp and Dead Man’s Pass entirely, and came back directly to the coalition camp to repell the assaults from the Crusaders.
Trolls and ogres fell rapidly against my web sequencers, summoned spiders (+ Imp in spider form), and kiting from the archers with fire arrows.
But now I’m stuck against the mages. They save against my debuffs even after malison and doom, have large array of spells, and the Wizard Slayers from the Camp don’t seem to do much damage.
Which group of helpers do you recommend for this fight ? My skellies are almost immune to ennemies spells, but still fall after a while when they simply hack them with their staves, and I can’t manage to debuff them alone since they have enough mages to constantly dispel my debuffs and cast their own debuffs on me and the Wizard Slayers.
Really tough battle, and I can’t even begin to imagine what the assault on Dragonsepar Castle will look like...
EDIT : asked the battle mages to help instead of the wizard slayers, it did the trick. Our debuffs outgunned theirs, while my five buffed skellies hacked them to pieces.
Asked the dwarves to help against the 3rd wave, we won. Problem is now to fzce the rest of the army, they outnumber us too much
Well, now it’s done. I’ll need to regroup and carefully pick my spell book, then off to Dragonspear ! Let the siege begin.
Illusion dispel is good against the mages and in the last wave, other than spells there's also amulet for it. In crusader attacks summons are valuable, there're 5 Myconids, 3 Stone Allies, 10 Ankhegs, Mephit ring and some Water Elementals that FMC should be able to access in item form. Did you get those?
Which now makes me realize that.... I forgot to deplet Waizab and Nazramu’s stores !!! ?♂️?♂️?♂️
so no boots to avoid webs (will need then free action), which means only 2 APR against Big B if relying on webs-a-gogo.
I did get some of the stuff you mentioned, but not all. But summons in not really a problem. I did pass the crusaders attack and the siege on Dragonspear Castle. Now all his left is Avernus, the freaking bridge and Big Bad Bald B.
Oh yeah true, I actually re-noticed that during BG1, yet re-forgot it already ?
@histamiini alright, I'll try the straightforward approach with uberloading potions and Champion's strength
Is the elevator a hassle in LoB or is it relatively doable with just my buffed FMC and a few skellies ?
He should still not be taken lightly, he's probably the spell caster of the game. He cast 3 Time Stops, then Wished his spells back and did it again, among many, many other things. I used all my Spell Immunities. He has homing beacon so I kited him like an hour and half in the market. Then I attacked with Time Stops and he was done. So in the end it's pretty easy to get the Cloak of the Lich, in the ambush none see through invisibility, nor does the Yuan-ti at arena fight. Only real challenge is Szass Tam really, and he's immune to everything. But depleting tactic works, if you keep your saves up.
Some of the notable merchandise:
3x all Priest Scrolls
Kazrah's Shield +5 AC, 50% ER, Chain Lightning
Golden Girdle
Cloak of the Lich - Immunity Death effects, 50% CR/ER
Wand of Polymorph
Wand of Wonder
Rod of Resurrection (kill the priest)
2x Potion of Magic Blocking
One of all 9th level scrolls
First I thought I'd keep Caelar alive by aggroing a maximum of demons/going in circles around the map/gulping potions, while my FMC (-25thac0 and 3 APR) soloed Belhifet.
But I can't seem to aggro Belhifet who keeps going after Caelar,and running after him is not a good strategy.
In the other hand, if I let Caelar die in battle, it becomes a battle of attrition I did not plan ahead (only got like -15 AC) and not sure Durlags Goblet's 20 charges are enough to last me the whole battle (can't even bother using Stoneskin scrolls, they fall almost as fast than I can re-cast them).
And since I crit only on a natural 20 (no pip in 1 weapon fighting), it seems unlikely that I'll manage to beat Big B without a lot of luck...
If you park your FMC in a corner and your fire resistance is 100% or higher, you can get Belhifet to melee you indefinitely while blocking off other demons, limiting the number of demons that can make attack rolls on you.
I tried to get in a corner a few times, but the other demons got in the way of me hitting Belhifet, while he could attack me with his longer range.
To be honest, SoD has just be a constant pain, cheesing or sneaking my way through most of the time. I guess I will admit that my FMC and myself are not patient/smart/powerful enough to kill Belhifet, and I'll just continue in BG2.
RP style : Ogden, the evil FMC, who just played along the Dukes war because of Caelar's threat on his life, ended the crusade, saw Caelar and the remnant of her followers disappear through a portal to the Demon plane, and with the help of all clerics in the coalition called on the power of their respective gods to seal the portal, letting Caelar and Belhifet resolve their dispute far from the Sword Coast, never to return (since killing Big B is not a death sentence anyway but just a banishment).
Odgen then tried to profit from the confusion of the armies disbanding to flee away from the Dukes and their machinations, only to be captured by We-Know-Who.
As I said, I really hate SoD (no selfish evil bastard in their right mind would ever follow BG's army on their war against the crusade)
Edit : and yes, I was using the Martyr's Morningstar with enchanted weapon.
I even wanted to have the spell in the Spell Sequencer provided by the lich's robes to make sure I have a second cast in store, but the spell is bugged : when you use a sequencer, it suggests the old version of the spell and lets you choose a +3 standard weapon of your choice
- loads of web spells (in Spell Sequencer and minor one), I have about a dozen scrolls in my bag (maybe the only scrolls I actually stocked on since BG1)
- 3 x lower resistance on Belhifet (2 from spell slots, 1 from remaining scroll)
- Malison & Doom him until it bypasses his remaining Magic Resistance (still about 40% remaining)
- Wand of Polymorph (100 charges if necessary) while runing around the webs (boots of web immunity + haste potions & wizzard’s hat from Nazdramu if it stacks should buy me some time)
- once he fails his save and it bypasses his MR, go for the kill.
Btw, do his minions spawn indefinitely ? Is there a limit to how much can be on the map at the same time ? Cause I could also cheese the minions by Polymorphing most of them without actually killing them, they wouldn’t bu such a threat anymore. But if there are 50 of them, it wouldn’t be aviable solution.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/74497/enchanted-weapon-weird-with-a-spell-sequencer
PfMW Contingency to stop Solar Dispel arrows. Improved Haste, 2x Magical Sword Chain Contingency and started the fight. Made Balty cast Lunar Stance (3h immunity to Time Stop) immediatelly, then tried to cast Time Stop scroll, but Jon beat me to it. No worry, Balty almost destroyed Bodhi during the Time Stop. Then I got the Time Stop scrolls rolling, BBoD and with Balty we eventually destroyed all in 8 Time Stops. Well that was easy now that Balty actually acts brilliantly.
The pools were incredibly easy, as with Balty we killed most of the enemies during 5 Time Stops. Left one Wish to be cast from neverending clones, and rest afterwards. In the last pool I had slight problem as Baltys Lunar Stance doesn't seem to refresh from Wish rest, and it had ended. No worries, I took Balor and Marilith out during 5 Time Stops, then 8 apr Planetar and Balty cleared the field.
After Wish resting Prada is ready for the Big 6, although I still don't know which route to take...
Gromnir 25 MR, -1 Spell
Illasera 50 MR, -1 Spell
Sarevok 50 MR, 0 Spell
Sendai 84 MR, -1 Spell
Yaga-Shura 0 MR, 1 Spell
Chances after Pierce Shields and Greater Malison
Abazigal 35%
Gromnir 25%
Illasera 25%
Sarevok 30%
Sendai 25%
Yaga-Shura 35%
Once mass Feeblemind, I can casually hack them to near death, lay some traps, have a bath, eat, rest, and then welcome Melissan to my domain.
Are they immune to Time Stop ? 'cause your strategy actually seem quite easy once you get your simulacrums and images to debuff everyone at the same time. Can't wait to read your report !
I did a bit of testing on my part for my FMC against Belhifet. I can't reliably debuff him with Lower Resistance. I can only cast 2 of them before he goes invisible, and afterwards, dispelling invisibility and casting a third LR takes too long.
So I tried with only 2 casts of LR, launched my sequencers filled with Web, cast Greater Malison, and all minions regularly failed saves so no threat from them for a while.
Problem is, Belhifet still has more than 60% MR, my lower resistance spells have only 18 rounds duration, which is not enough to ensure Greater Malison (got 10 scrolls + 3 spell slots) can bypass his MR, while also hoping for my debilitating spells to bypass both his MR and high saves (no way to land a Doom spell on him too).
Basically, it was even more of a hassle than straightforward hack&slash.
So I decided to skip the fight and go for BG2. Which is a lot better, now my FMC can actually be of use instead of just summons & cheese.
Already in chapter 2, cleared Waukeen's Promenades circus, the group in the 1st floor of the Inn and the slavers.
Next stop (after a few quests in Athkathla), planar Sphere.