@monico None of the Big 6 are immune to Time Stop in Throne of Bhaal, should be pretty straightforward to Feeblemind them hiding in closed pools. I think only Abazigal dragon form, Ravager, Demogorgon and Melissan are immune to Time Stop, and Balthazar through Lunar Stance.
@monico: I would encourage you to go back to your previous SoD save and finish off Belhifet, though it might take some extra work to land those critical hits with the Martyr's Morningstar. If you use the bugfix or just cast Enchanted Weapon from your spellbook instead of via sequencer, it shouldn't take too many tries to get a few criticals on Belhifet even if you don't have enough Potions of Heroism to survive for 50 rounds or whatever. That way, you can call the run truly complete!
@histamiini: I could have sworn Abazigal was immune to Time Stop, but you were right--at least in the latest version of Ascension, only his dragon form has the right opcode. His human form for the Throne of Bhaal fight just has the same immunities as the other members of the Five.
Well, thing is, I have been having a (psionic) blast roaming through BG2 with the FMC.
SoS was all little strategy / lots of cheese. Not really interesting.
On the contrary (maybe because I know the game better), I enjoy BG2 where you face not many opponents at one time, but they are tough, diverse and require different strategies (although skellies are always a good idea, whatever the threat).
Although I have to admit, I still resort to mild (in my opinion) cheese in BG2.
Mainly :
- use of the Imp to scout ahead allows for summons to target a still blue foe, who sometimes stay neutral while being pounded because his script did not trigger yet. Doesn't work that much, some enemies can't react or turn hostile until they see you (Lhavok for example), some will start reacting after a hit or two... Which is sometimes too late for them. Sometimes it even helps having them turn hostile without the script activating, so you face them alone (first demon outside planar Sphere for example invokes minions only after seeing you)
- I used the Lesser Wish -> Shapechange -> permanent Mindflayer transformation trick. Again, the Imp helped, had him transform into Jelly and slow my FMC, so I could time the transformation better.
Worked as a charm, used this form and the badass psionic blast to devour any brains thus far, although the bad thac0 is still a real issue. Which is actually a good thing, at least it forces me to change tactics depending on the foes or their saving throws.
Contrary to SoD where I used very few spells (invisibility and animate dead mainly), and relied more on wands, which I hate, I find myself in BG2 emptying my whole spell book in a dungeon, very rarely having to return to an inn (I don't sleep in dungeons, only safe places), which is a gameplay I really enjoy.
I still have that save in SoD all buffed up before the big fight, and come back and try it again later, but I won't enjoy it, which always is the main requirement for my runs, whatever challenges I put myself in.
Anyway, I'm rambling, back to my run :
- as stated above, after a few quests in Athkathla, I bought a Limited Wish scroll to obtain the Mindflayer form
- also bought the Simulacrum helmet, for double fun at eating brains and/or debuffing while the image goes for the feast, and Robe of Vecna
- went to the planar Sphere (ate valygar's brain, I just needed the rest of his body to open the Sphere), cleared the main floor, cheesed Lhavok, psionic-blasted a demon, ate Tolgerias and his apprentice's brains, fought my way through the ice room with the help of summons, sneaked in the fire room to loot it and reactivate the Sphere.
I liked how the FMC has so many tools at his disposal to resolve almost any problem arising. It is also the first time I have used my Familiar that much and well into BG2. He does spend a lot of time in my bag when I rush through an hostile area while invisible, but when I actually want to clear a zone, he is always there, either scouting or helping out with his Polymorph forms, often the jelly form to absorb enemy spells and also attack from range instead of melee
- Trained a few apprentices only to have most of them explode in a flashy fireball while creating a nice ring for me
- rescued a tiefling bard from a wizard (who's now missing a brain), freed him a second time from his Cambion jailor, and found some nice Air Jordan running shoes (on a dead corpse)
- Bought the Shield of Balduran and resolved the Unseeing Eye quest, grabbing some old bones on the way
- went to Windspear hills, ate a rakshasa's brain (he got a nice ring. I like shiny rings. Gollum), sneaked my way to Tazok, summoned a few skellies to help me get rid of him once and for all, freed Garden's child, let Firkraag off the hook for now (or maybe it is the other way around ?)
- used Tazok's key to loot a mindflayer's base, passing myself as one of their own (well, actually just used invisibility, but that would have been funny if it was possible)
Next challenges will be :
- Firkraag (LoB dragons are scaaary. But I have the Wand of wonders if all else fails)
- Kangaxx (I need a weapon that can hit him first though)
Maybe I'll wait after Spellhold for these though, I'm already behind schedule (almost a month has already passed in game, with the apprentice's lethal traineeship, and I tend to not allow myself to prolong chapters 2/3 beyond necessary). But the 3 items I bought from the bonus merchant (helm, robes, shield) left me almost pennyless, and I'm still short a few thousand gold to pay Valen's mistress (I don't think I ever joined with Bodhi since EE came out, I always found myself joining the shadow thieves for some reason).
- gathered the needed gold for Bodhi by doing the Shadow Thieves quest (ironically).
- joined Bodhi, looted the Mass of Disruption, upgraded it (with remainder from Shadow Thieves gold, now I’m broke again. Being evil is expensive)
- killed Kangaxx easily with IMoD & PfU
- completed bodhi’s quests, was a bit stuck in the fight against Aran Linvail : I tend to refrain from resting too much, so I completed all three quests from Bodhi in a single night, using mainly summons and psionic blasts. Managed to clear the thieves maze with 5 buffed up skellies and my FMC alternating between Psionic Blasts and minor buffs, wanted to keep most of them for the big fight. But then I forgot to buff up before facing Aran Linvail, failed a save when a mage cast Power Word : Fear which got me running around for a while (luckily, my skellies blocked the entrance to Aran’s room so my FMC fled the other way). But my skellies were not enough to face Aran’s party (lost 1 to absorb a death spell, the rest started to die when a mage gated a demon).
Luckily, my scared FMC did not wander inside the room, and after I gained control zgain of my character, he was alone, while the gated Demon wreaked some havock in the room. By the time the demon died, I had to face Aran, his fellow mage, and a summoned Invisible Stalker.
By making use of opening/closing the door to the room before the enemy could react, I spent some time laucnhing debuffs in the room until Aran finally failed a save against a Psionic Blast. Buffed myself up (Improved Haste, Chaotic Commands and PfMW mainly), transformed in Mindflayer and ran directly to Aran, ate his brain, looted his corpse, and got the hell out of the room without fighting the other mage and his summon.
- Reported back to Bodhi, hit 3 million XP and lvl12 warrior, at last ! Here comes my second pip in 2 weapon fighting, and first HLA (went for the Critical Strike line, my FMC in normal or mindflayer form misses way too much in melee).
Now is time to go to Spellhold (well, first now is the time to spend the evening with the waifu, before she throws away my iPad).
By the way, I can’t remember where to find a scroll of Tenser’s Transformation in chapter 2/3, is there one before the Underdark ? Wouldn’t be gamechanging anyway, and probably won’t use it before getting lvl8 spells (spell trigger with Tenser, Champion’s Strength and Improved Haste while in Mindflayer form will be a nice boost though).
@StummvonBordwehr oh yeah right. I actually passed beside that cache while sneaking my way to the temple, thinking "boah, nothing useful there, let’s continue" ?
I’ll go grab it then and test if I can find a way to make it useful already.
Notable mods: XP Cap Remover, un-nerfed mage spell progression, HLAs in BG1 (upon reaching 3000000 XP as usual), Spell Revisions, OlvynSpells (a mod I just released which adds a lot of new spells to the game), and of course Sword Coast Stratagems.
Rules:
* Suja starts the game knowing every alteration spell in the game, but she cannot learn any non-alteration spells. She can learn univeral/generalist spells (like Spell Revisions contingencies and sequencers), but she doesn't start knowing them; she must get them from scrolls.
* LoB bonus experience enabled, insane double experience enabled.
* I changed the Dimension Jump spell from Spell Revisions to be an alteration spell and gave it to Suja. I'm used to Dimension Door being an alteration spell and because I'm going to use it in some interesting ways. I also gave it a casting time of 0 to make it more useful.
* I restored Haste and Improved Haste to their original versions. In a playthrough with just a single-classed mage, getting double attacks per round won't be overpowered.
* I made it so Flesh to Stone actually petrifies the target rather than applying a permanent opcode 185 hold effect. This is because I want to use Flesh to Stone to kill enemies; simply paralyzing them permanently forces me to spend another few minutes whacking them until they die.
I'm doing this with reloads. I actually haven't played Sword Coast Stratagems much, and I've never done a full playthrough of BG1 with it. I have no idea what kinds of spells enemy spellcasters are going to cast. I've also never played Ascension. And because Suja lacks of ways of blocking most status effects, she's going to get charmed, paralyzed, petrified, mazed, and instantly killed a lot.
So to start off, Suja reached level 3 by killing the cows in Candlekeep (even with SCS they don't fight back apparently). Once she reached level 3, she could cast Strength, which made this a bit quicker.
She then went all over the map, to Beregost, Nashkel, the ankheg farm, and Ulgoth's Beard, slaying all the scenery animals for 2004 experience each. In Ulgoth's Beard she bought Aule's Staff which sped up the animal-whacking further. Eventually she reached level 7, getting her first useful offensive spell: Polymorph Other! Now she actually stands a chance against some real enemies!
The nice thing about Polymorph Other is that it doesn't turn the target hostile if they make the save (at least with Spell Revisions; I don't know if it's like this in vanilla).
Polymorph Self is also quite nice.
("Looks like we've switched places, Oopah!")
But although Suja was effective at killing powerful enemies, she wasn't that great yet at killing groups of weaker enemies. That meant the Nashkel Mines would be extremely tedious. She would get her first useful AoE offensive spell once she hit level 12 and got 6th-level spells. But she was nowhere near there. She had 150000 experience, one fifth the amount necessary to reach level 12. So I had her do the basilisk XP loop.
First, she had to obtain Algernon's Cloak. She turned into a sword spider and attacked Algernon, poisoning him multiple times. When he was near death, I saved the game and reloaded. Since effects lose their source when the game is reloaded, the remaining poison damage on Algernon was no longer linked to Suja, so his death did not cause reputation loss.
("I swear I didn't do it; I'm an innocent bystander!")
After buying 48 Stone to Flesh scrolls, Suja went to the basilisk area, charmed a Lesser Basilisk with Algernon's Cloak, use the Protection from Petrification scroll on it, went invisible with an Invisibility scroll, and watched as her basilisk petrified the other basilisks. While the Greater Basilisk was petrified, Suja turned it into a squirrel before unpetrifying it. This was nice because this prevented the Greater Basilisk from using its gaze on Suja, who wasn't protected from petrification.
Suja used 32 Stone to Flesh scrolls, gaining a total of 960000 experience, putting her at level 13. I didn't have her use all of them, because in the coming levels she'll start to become really, really powerful and I think it would be better for her to get that power a bit more gradually.
So this is where it ends for tonight. Suja can now cast 6th-level spells, and she has gained the power of the basilisk for herself!
Reloads so far: 4 (1 from killing Algernon without reputation loss, 3 from screwing up the basilisk XP loop)
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).
@monico have you tried using your cleric spell first to take his MR right down?
Balty died pretty fast, but that's okay. Sendai is the only semi resistant to Feeblemind, through 24 hour Mind Blank, so I hit her with PfM after her Mind Blank triggered, to dispel all of her buffs. First to Feebleminded was Yaga-Shura as he doesn't have MR. Tactic for the others was PI, Farsight, Time Stop, Pierce Shield and Greater Malison. Greater Malison is slower projectile so the Pierce Shields hit conveniently first after Time Stop ended. Then Alacrity, and machinegunned Feebleminds. Next in line was Illasera which eliminated Dispel arrows. Was having some trouble Feebleminding Abazigal and bunch of my clones were dispelled by True Sight, so I clone Wished my spells back.
Abazigals brain was next to fail though, Sarevok then. Sendai's PfM had ended, and her brain failed soon after. Lastly Gromnir lost his mind, after which I clone Wished my spells back again. This took about 30 Wishes, and after using those, Abazigal and Sendai somehow had recovered from Feeblemind? That's strange. No worries, casually Feebleminded them again through clones. No all were out of their mind.
It took just two PI clone chains to cast 100 Delayed Blast Fireballs for Melissan. Then started hurting the Big 6. First hit them with Frag Granaders hitting Sendai, healing her once with RoR. Stopped after Abazigal was almost dead, he's the most susceptible to Frag Granades. Then hit them all near death with Scorcher Ammunation, Yaga needed +4 Bullets. Lastly I tuned their hp with Pulse Ammunation close to break point of 19 hp, when they die.
Time to end this. Buffed up, Focus, Time Stop and six shotted the Big Six. After Time Stop ended Melissan spawned, waited her Heal, and then hit her with the Rift Device, which took 60% of her hp away. Then she came after me, hit me triggering the 3x Pierce Shield Chain Contingency and PfMW Contingency. I used Time Stop scroll, teleported onto the traps luring Melissan after me. And with a glorius bang, Melissan was no more.
That was probably the most casual fight I've had in Throne of Bhaal. Once Sorcerer passed Bel with 1 hp trick, it became an absolute monster in SoA and ToB. Only few hack jobs were time consuming, the Ravager was probably the most troublesome enemy. I would say Sorcerer is the most powerful class, but I've been saying that from every class I've got through, so who knows, in current format at least Sorcerer has all the easy tools. However getting Sorcerer through Bel without the 1hp trick could be impossible, with Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Fireshield Blue, Power Potion combo could work, but that probably requires a lot of luck, or at least tries to get the tactic working.
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).
@monico have you tried using your cleric spell first to take his MR right down?
Sadly, I don’t have lvl5 cleric spells as a FMC (no xp-cap remover)
@histamiini congrats on your Sorcerer run ! reading it has given me many insights in synergy between spells I did not know, tactics and cheese I had not thought of, and a degree of patience and preparation that blew my mind ! I, for one, would never be able to have such foresight and spend so long on one fight.
@OlvynChuru : good luck on your run ! The spell restriction is interesting (especially as you chose my fav school), although I would not have dared use it on a LoB run.
Do you have a link to your mod ? I am curious as to what spells are added / revised. I’m not too familiar with sR, used it back in the day but not since EE came out : are there many ... alterations... to alteration spells ?
I don’t know if your modded BG has the same issue as I had, but casting Strength (or any enhance on your stats) before shapechanging got overrided by the new form’s strength (I had to constantly unequip-reequip my strength belts in BG2, and rely mostly on potions or DuHM innate ability in BG1).
Given your really high level and spell pick, you could always put Strength in a minor spell sequencer anyway, I guess.
On my part, my FMC has smoothly gotten in and out of Spellhold (well, losing most of his soul in the way, but who needs that anyway), alternating between raw might (with skellies summons doing most of the damage and aggroing the baddies), strategic brain eating, and stealthy running through the maze invisible.
Underdark did not take long either :
- killed the Balor who failed his save against Psionic Blast (in fact, I actually reloaded the fight because I over-buffed myself, had skellies, Simulacrum and contingencies, he fell too easily : I tried with no prebuff, just my FMC in Mindflayer form, he still failed twice in a row his save against my Psionic Blast. Just hacked him to death afterwards in normal form to get the XP).
- Killed the Kuo Toan king with help from Skellies, Psionic Blasts, and eating brains (tasted like fish, hated it).
- Grabbed the strength belt from the Demon Knights. Now this one was tough, skellies fall in seconds against those hard hitting baddies. Managed to kill 2 of them with my remaining summons and debuffs, but had to solo the rest of them (did not want to flee and rest). First one, I meleed in Mindflayer form, used Critical Strike to eat his brain. No problem thus far (only had 1 cast of CS at the time though, and my Simulacrum had long expired). The second one, I spent an hour luring him away, trying to Doom him (no Lower Resistance nor Pierce Magic left, but my 3rd cast of Doom bypassed his MR), transforming in Mindflayer form and casting Psionic Blast over 50 times before one actually managed to stun him. The last one... well, the last one is still in that room, wondering where his brothers have gone.
- Sneaked my way to Adalon, then into Ust Natha, freed Phaere (I actually psionic-blasted those mindflayers and ate their brains, now that was fun !), avoided the rest of the fights, replaced the eggs, let the Demon kill the Matron and the daughter, happily jogged out of Ust Natha, gave Adalon her eggs back, sneaked my way to the surface.
Afterwards, cleared a few remaining stuff in Amn :
- Directly went to Umar’s hill (recruited Drizzt by mistake for the fight against Bodhi on the way), found clues regarding an ancient temple of Amaunator, Simulacrum cast PfU, FMC took out his sturdy IMoD, stormed my way through the temple, used the Wand of Wonders on the Dragon (10 times, kept de-petrifying him for XP), cleared the evil stain on the Alter.
- Forged the Crom Faeyr
- One shot every troll in Nalia’s castle, forged the Flail of Ages
- Hit level 14 as mage and cleric, I now have Project Image (yay, moar spelz) and Spell Sequencer (3 times skellies, because badass) and took Fallen Planetar as my lvl7 cleric spell. Never had the chance to use it yet though.
- Cleared Bodhi’s lair while protected from undead.
Now is time to go to Suldanessalar and bring the fight to Irenicus !
I can’t wait to get level 8 spells, Project Image for debuffing while my Simulacrum casts Psionic Blasts and eats brains will be a deadly combo (I don’t know the exact description of Psionic Blast, but ennemies regularly fail their saves against that really awesome ability).
Also, Spell Trigger —> Champion’s Strength + Tenser Transformation + Improved Haste would be a huge boost to my combat abilities in Mindflayer form (on top of the other buffs I can cast pre-shapechange).
I haven’t yet done Watcher’s Keep at all, will probably go there after Saradush (if I go there at all : the run would not feel complete without it, but I often skip it, as I don’t really like this kind of dungeons)
Spell Revisions benefits transmuters overall. They lose some spells, but they also gain some nice spells (Lower Resistance, Prismatic Spray). Flesh to Stone and Prismatic Spray get a -4 penalty to the save, which is nice as those are some of my character's only offensive spells. Spell Revisions also adds the 8th-level spell Ghostform, which grants immunity to normal weapons, +50% physical damage resistance, base AC 0, +4 THAC0 with melee attacks, and a few other bonuses.
My own mod adds a lot of cool alteration spells, which let transmuters do things like fly, move through walls, and reverse gravity. At high levels there are also some really powerful alteration spells like Mass Cast (which causes the next spell the character casts to affect all creatures within 15 feet) and Enoll Eva's Duplication (which causes each spell the character casts in the next five rounds to be cast twice). These spells would be ridiculously overpowered for most normal mage characters, but for this particular character they're reasonable.
@monico At least with SCS Mind Flayer Psionic Blast lasts 60s, passes magic resistance and has save vs. spell. Ulitharid version lasts 120s and has -4 bonus to save vs. spell. There's also a version that does crushing damage on top of stun, but seems that nobody uses it in the latest SCS, it has been a thing in the past. The five Demon Knights are tough, I usually just concentrate on the top right one, if I need the Crom Fayer, and escape immediatelly after he's dead.
I've started another Cavalier run, as now is the time to beat Melissan in nR I think, and I'm at the Palace Ambush currently. Used autoroller 20 minutes to get the perfect roll:
BG1 WeiDu.log
// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1510 // Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3551 // Increase the power of Cure Wounds and Cause Wounds spells to the level found in 3rd Edition D&D -> Spells heal or inflict the maximum amount of damage in this range: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // Faster Bears: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4020 // More realistic wolves and wild dogs: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4115 // Thieves assign skill points in multiples of five: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7020 // Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7030 // Improved kobolds: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7040 // Relocated bounty hunters: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity assassins: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: v32.4
~LOB_SAVE_FIX/LOB_SAVE_FIX.TP2~ #0 #0 // improve saving throws of all non-joinable creatures
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited Ammo Stacking: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited Potion Stacking: v9
~EEUITWEAKS/EEUITWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1070 // Faydark's Abilities Auto-Roller/GrimLefourbe's BG2 UI: 3.0
~LEUI/LEUI.TP2~ #0 #0 // lefreut's Enhanced UI - Core component: 3.9
~LEUI/LEUI.TP2~ #0 #6 // lefreut's Enhanced UI - Show Sidebar toggle button: 3.9
~LEUI/LEUI.TP2~ #0 #7 // lefreut's Enhanced UI - Show Quicksave button: 3.9
~LEUI/LEUI.TP2~ #0 #8 // lefreut's Enhanced UI - Show Highlight button: 3.9
~LEUI/LEUI.TP2~ #0 #9 // lefreut's Enhanced UI - Small right sidebar buttons: 3.9
~LEUI/LEUI.TP2~ #0 #10 // lefreut's Enhanced UI - Quests in journal collapsed by default: 3.9
Killed Imoen, Xzar, Montaron, Neera and Algernon. Listened Drizzt getting killed before picking up the two Invisibility potions from the manors. Tanya's Bowl level up. Bought Greenstone and Shield amulets and said hello to Tarnesh. He still got me with Melf's Acid Arrow and I had to use 5 Healing potions to survive, guards then hacked him. Hentold Dagger another level up and Invisibility potion. Charmed Jaheira got herself killed against Hobgoblins, and I got fourth Invisibility potion. Reached Mulahey with one Invisibility, Shield Amulet and two Healing potions. He was charmed casually with fourth rest, and Kobbos killed him. Passing Carnival picked up another Invisibility potion from the chest.
Charmed Minsc smacked Nimbul, charmed Marl Tranzig. Bought rep to 11 before killing Dushai, lured him away from others with Wand of Missiles. Raiken escorted me to Bandit camp where I looted outside, and charmed Taurgosz and he got killed in the woods by a Wild Dog. With two Invisibility potions, and Absorption picked up the papers. Then rested for Horror. Bought rep to 14 and did rep run. Also picked up Cha tome buying Hairtooth and co. off. Level 4. After 20/20 economy bought Sandthief ring with 12k.
Passed Spider area with one Sandthief charge right click looting the swords. Got free Charm chance against Lamalha but it didn't work. Rather than taking 1/4 charm chance against Drasus, I plan to get Boots of Speed from Lothander. Used two charges to reach Davaeorn's Guard who was charmed first hit. Lured Battle Horrors away, another Sandthief charge and guard hacked Davaeorn. Looted the place and used second last charge to escape the place. Level 5. 23k gold after selling my loot, and spent 13k to recharge the ring.
Abela the Nymph ko'd Ragefast, I then used the Nymph Cloak to charm Ramazith who spent his spells, and then summoned some minions to kill himself. Did Marek and Lothander guest, before giving the scroll to Lothander I charmed him and he killed himself in the sewers.
Charmed Gamesmen ko'd Marek. Level 6, and after doing Basilisk xp-loop with two green scrolls of Protection from Petrification and 15 Stone to Flesh, max level 8. Petrified Kirians party too. Picked Con tome with single Sandthief charge, 125 hp. Doppelgangers were easy peasy at this point. In Iron Throne used two charges and only charmed Naaman for the PfU scroll and two Invisibility potions.
Ogre Mage waylay passed with Invisibility potion. Looted Candlekeep and charm killed the Iron Throne leaders. Got three Invisibility potions. Looted the Catacombs with single Sandthief charge and Absorption. Second 13k for Sandthief recharge. Durlag's Tower, looted upstairs, charmed Riggolo hacked Ghost before Ghasts killed him. Basement Ghast kited with OGL. Warder level looted with PfF, Absorption and Greenstone amulet, and three Sandthief charges. But before tackling Love, I went and picked up Ring of Energy, by charming Denak. He got killed by his own gang. Recharged both Ring of Energy and Greenstone Amulet.
Activated Love, and managed to lure Avarice to the basement and Fear to main level out from protecting Love. Then it was pretty basic kiting job around the table, and 38 hits from Ring of Energy killed Love. Picked up Champions Strength scroll and Durlag's Goblet from the next level before escaping the tower for good. Damn it's nice to spam the goblet with innate Fear immunity. Third Sandthief recharge. Slythe was a handful, he managed to kill charmed Larze and I had to kite him with Ring of Energy which agroed half of the bar. But eventually he fell.
Well done, @histamiini! Clever work on leading Melissan into pre-set Delayed Blast Fireball spells. Post the text for your run and I'll add it to the Hall of Heroes in the no-reload thread.
I think the reason why the Five recovered from Feeblemind was because one of your Wish choices was a map-wide Heal or Greater Restoration spell, which cures Feeblemind.
Palace Ambush, Lord Vanderley first charmed the assassin, mage and shaman. Buffed up a little and activated the ambush. The three Greater Dobbelgangers were quickly sliced, nobody really got even hurt. Assassin was killed easily just by Liaa, Belt and myself. Shaman was killed just by Belt and I. Mage was dispatched quickly too after Liaa dispelled it. Sarevok injured slightly Belt before escaping. Picked up the last OGL's, three mages were separated, level skipped and hacked.
Sarevok's mob were burned with OGL, after which I hit Sarevok 40 times, and with 7 Potion of Explosions and 5 Oil of Fiery Burnings. At this point Sarevok had 526 hp left. Drank Oil of Speed and started kiting with Ring of Energy, and after 37 hits Sarevok was dead too. Used one PfU.
Invisibility to reach Porios, Invisibility and PfU to Korlasz. Waited her 4 hour PfF out, then used OGL Invisibility combo five times, Korlasz actually found me before last Invisibility potion hit, and surrendered right herself, that's commendable behavior. 60k selling my loot, and spent 20k in SS. From Prologue picked up the Glasses, Bless amulet and Battle Tankard.
Chapter 8. Teleria and Golem hacked for the Stone Ally without retaliation. Did the Menhir guest. After testing I can confirm @semiticgod finding that Wight can destroy the Dwarven Amulets through level drain. So I used one Stone Golem to kill the Wight, and tried listening Dwarves getting killed, but with my surprise they pwned the Undead. No worries, I charmed the Dwarves and fed them to some Carrion Crawlers, and bargained the help of the Undead. Hid behind the tent for the parlay.
Picked up the Paladin amulet from Troll cave with couple Invisibility potions. Morentherene daggered, Ziatar burned out of sight and Akanna charmed, which took 6 Charm tries. Also got to level 9. Surrendered the Fort and after Interrupting the Bridge Mage with Ring of Energy I hacked all out.
Did some mundane guests and things in Chapter 10, and Cavalier is currently waiting Crusaders to attack.
Previously Suja had no good way of fighting lots of weak enemies, so the Nashkel Mines would've been very tedious. But once she hit level 12, she got 6th-level spells and obtained a spell perfect for the task.
(Technically Suja shouldn't be able to cast this since she can't cast evocation spells by the rules, but I thought a weird spell like this might be interesting.)
Suja incinerated the kobolds of the Nashkel Mines by using Spellshaping: Fireball to turn her Chromatic Orbs into Fireballs.
(The Mulahey fight was easy because his minions just clump up around him rather than pursuing party members.)
When fighting spellcasters, Suja usually first cast Polymorph Other on them (which disabled their spellcasting) and then polymorphed herself into an ogre and beat them up.
After squirrelizing Nimbul and beating him to death, Suja obtained a scroll of Find Familiar. Since Spell Revisions makes Find Familiar a universal spell, Suja can learn it. Not only did casting Find Familiar give Suja an extra 34 hit points, the Faerie Dragon has some useful spells, like Invisibility Sphere (Suja doesn't have any other reusable way of becoming invisible). But the micromanagement of taking out the familiar just to become invisible was too annoying (and not effective in combat), so I never ended up using the familiar's invisibility ability.
By the way, the Faerie Dragon had a very... strange name in the inventory:
On to the Bandit Camp! Suja flew all over the area, pelting bandits with fireballs via Spellshaping: Fireball.
This took a while, and Suja sometimes had to flee to a different area to rest. On the way, she encountered some of the assassins that appear in random encounters due to SCS. Since she was not in the condition to defeat them, she just ran away, and she never saw them again.
In the middle of the bandit camp, Suja leveled up to level 14, gaining access to three spells: Mass Cast (which lets her cast her next spell as an area of effect), Prismatic Spray, and Ruby Ray of Reversal. Mass Cast can potentially be super powerful, and Suja's main use for it was to cast Polymorph Other and Flesh to Stone as areas of effect. The problem was, the Mass Cast AoE is not party-friendly, so using Mass Cast with Polymorph Other or Flesh to Stone could end up turning Suja into a squirrel or a statue. So, she mainly used Prismatic Spray for a while.
Prismatic Spray is actually quite good.
However, it's also unreliable.
In the spider area, Suja died for the first time after getting webbed at long range by a Giant Spider. Since she had no good long-term way of getting Free Action, she skipped the spider area by flying over it.
In the Cloakwood Mines, Suja's main means of offense was still to cast Spellshaping: Fireball and shoot fireballs at enemies using her 1st-level spells. She deliberately aggroed as many enemies as possible so that they'd bunch up and she could get the most out of her fireballs. Using the 5th-level spell Ethereal Jaunt (another one of my new spells), she could move through walls and avoid being surrounded.
Once in Davaeorn's lair, she ghostwalked through some more walls to avoid the traps and confront Davaeorn from behind.
Davaeorn, not expecting to get attacked from behind, used his Web+Stinking Cloud sequencer on the trapped hallway rather than on Suja. She then destroyed one of the Battle Horrors with Prismatic Spray.
It was a close fight, but Suja just managed to win by hitting Davaeorn with Flesh to Stone.
One useful thing I've learned is that casting Polymorph Other on a petrified humanoid (with a PC animation) will kill them and cause them to drop their equipment. Suja did this to get Davaeorn's valuable stuff.
Now it's time to go to Baldur's Gate! I decided to perform a lesser version of the basilisk XP loop. Suja bought an extra 37 Stone to Flesh scrolls from temples in Baldur's Gate and repeatedly petrified Larze with Flesh to Stone before unpetrifying him with a scroll. Whenever she was out of Flesh to Stone spells, she just ran over to Bork and rested. For some reason, Larze just stood there after he was unpetrified.
(It also would've been possible to do the XP loop indefinitely by using Flesh to Stone along with the Stone to Flesh spell, but that would've been much slower and more boring.)
Eventually, Suja reached level 16, which granted her several useful spells. One was Enhance Attribute, which let her set one of her six stats to 24 for 4 hours. She could set her Strength to 24, polymorph with Polymorph Self, and keep the 24 Strength.
Another spell was Ghostform from Spell Revisions. This spell grants her immunity to normal weapons, +50% physical damage resistance, base AC 0, and +4 THAC0 with melee attacks. But it also grants some other immunities that are normally pointless but are very relevant for this particular playthrough. While in Ghostform, Suja is immune to petrification and Polymorph Self, so she can Mass Cast Polymorph Self and Flesh to Stone without causing any danger to herself.
In the fight with Sarevok's acolytes, Suja first killed Alai with a Prismatic Spray, then petrified multiple acolytes with an AoE Flesh to Stone. Zhalimar Cloudwulfe learned the hard way what happens if you're petrified when your berserker rage ends:
Before starting Chapter 6, Suja headed for Durlag's Tower to get some more experience. She didn't go through the whole tower; just the outside and the upper levels.
(Now that Suja can get 24 Strength, the ogre form isn't the most useful form anymore.)
At the top of the tower, Suja used Mass Cast+Flesh to Stone to petrify all three Greater Basilisks at once. She then used Mass Cast+Stone to Flesh to unpetrify them. Finally, she killed the basilisks again with Prismatic Spray. I preferred to kill enemies no more than twice - otherwise Suja would get absolutely ridiculous amounts of experience and become even more overleveled. As it is, she's going to level up a lot in Siege of Dragonspear; she doesn't need more experience.
In any case, it wasn't long after this that Suja reached level 18, and got not only her first 9th-level spells but also her first HLAs. In Spell Revisions, the HLA spells are not universal spells, and only Improved Alacrity is an alteration spell. So, Suja could only get Improved Alacrity and the extra spell slots. However, I've also made it so the extra spell slot HLAs can be taken more than once. For her first HLA, Suja took Improved Alacrity.
Suja had 4 9th-level spells: Attain Perfection (which sets all her stats to 25 for 1 turn), Enoll Eva's Duplication (which lets her cast her spells twice for 5 rounds), Shapechange, and Time Stop. I've added another rule: Suja cannot use the Iron Golem form of Shapechange because that form is essentially invincible in BG1 (immune to +2 weapons and below, 100% Magic Resistance, and immune to fire, cold, electricity, and acid).
Now that I understood I could use Mass Cast+Flesh to Stone and Mass Cast+Polymorph Other safely, there started being a lot more statues and squirrels on the Sword Coast.
In Chapter 7, Suja had some trouble with Cythandria's golems, which were the first enemies she needed Lower Resistance for. She used Time Stop followed by Enoll Eva's Duplication and then double-casted Lower Resistance on each golem. She was then able to destroy one golem with Prismatic Spray, which also paralyzed the other golem, allowing her to beat it up.
I was expecting to have a hard time with the Ducal Palace fight, but Suja was able to beat it on the first try. Before the fight, Suja put on Shapechange, Improved Haste, and Tenser's Transformation (which doesn't disable spellcasting in Spell Revisions). She started off by casting an AoE Stoneskin on the Grand Dukes.
(You're welcome, Sarevok!)
Once the fight started, Suja cast Time Stop and then assumed mind flayer form via Shapechange. The mind flayer form is less powerful in Spell Revisions (it only has one attack per round normally), but with Improved Haste and Tenser's Transformation she could attack four times per round. She managed to make several doppelgangers "brain-dead" in the next few rounds.
Suja then proceeded to march through the maze, sometimes going through walls to skip annoying sections. By this point, when fully buffed Suja can defeat powerful enemies in melee combat without using Shapechange.
Time for the final boss!
I got really lucky in this fight, winning on the first try. Semaj and Angelo both cast Dispel Magic on Suja and both of them failed to dispel her buffs.
After that, Diarmid and Semaj were left. For Diarmid, Suja put on Improved Haste and Tenser's Transformation and beat him up in Greater Wolfwere form. She then turned to Mind Flayer form and killed Semaj through his Mirror Images. Now Sarevok was left, along with multiple Skeleton Warriors and a bunch of creatures summoned by Semaj. The good news is, apparently Sarevok had gotten paralyzed by one of the Prismatic Sprays Suja had been throwing around earlier, so Suja was able to simply beat him to death as a Greater Wolfwere.
I beat the game! Next up is Siege of Dragonspear.
I lost count of the number of reloads I needed in BG1, but I think it was somewhere between 15 and 20.
Troll Wave took exactly one hour and Lord used four Goblets to hack all with the help of Undead. Refreshed one hour buffs, and attacked the mage wave. I mistakinly took the rogues, who got confused almost immediatelly. Had to spend all the Myconids and one Stone Ally to beat the wave, although had to only use the Goblet once.
My Heroism potions started to fade so I had to rebuff for the Paladin wave. I tanked where as Ankhegs and Archers formed a killing squad. Rhayla was interrupted from Dispelling with Ring of Energy. Took two Goblets and four Ankhegs to level the wave. For the final wave used Power potions to buff up to 400 hp. And as Keggleg fell as the last named enemy the Crusaders were repelled. Cavalier sliced the Crusaders pretty efficiently, and only needed seven refreshes overall from the Goblet.
Hid one hour in the Dragonspear attack before confronting Ashatiel. She was easily beaten with melee and Ring of Energy. I now had 50 Heroism and 20 Power potions which is plenty. Trix was tricked without fighting anybody.
Then powered with Power potions the lift. It went too quickly and I had to wait many rounds to debuff so I wouldn't get the Power potion bug. After Power was out, started chucking Heroism potions. Downed 30 potions for 540 hp. Then Defense, Speed, Invul, 2x Champion's Strength, killed the last Abishai, 4x CS and Storm. Escaped the Dispel and started hacking.
Before Caelar was dead, Bel was already at injured state, and died before any Champion's Strengths failed. So the fight took less than 20 rounds. That was fast, Cavalier remains one of the Bel beaters.
@semiticgod Well that's were I'm good at I think, repeating the same tactic over and over again. Once I deviate from that, trouble soon follows. Currently there's good formula to beat the challenge for most classes, if you use every method available, and take the least amount of risk. It may seem boring to repeat same thing, it's not for me because I think I'm quite OCD, but that's the way to do it.
I've recorded some end battles, but for the whole run, I don't know how much it would interest people without narration. Although video is better if you want to see how something is really done, as words can describe so much, so in key scenes definitely better. So it's probably a question of taking the trouble to do it. Didn't you do some recording? Do you think it's worth the hassle, and is it more or less work doing that way?
@histamiini: I recorded my Archer run using Streamlabs OBS, though I've heard OBS itself is easier. It didn't cause any problems and the only thing I had to change was waiting a few seconds before starting to play, since the video was black for a few seconds at the start of each recording. I haven't posted anything but the last fight with Melissan since it was so long and I wanted to edit and trim it and add commentary, which I haven't done yet.
A reminder of my rules: Suja starts the game knowing every alteration spell in the game, but she cannot learn any non-alteration spells.
Suja was level 20 at the beginning of SoD, and she was starting to become really powerful. Her most common way of winning encounters in SoD was to use Mass Cast+Flesh to Stone to turn all the enemies to stone.
After petrifying Korlasz, Suja then cast Mass Cast+Stone to Flesh to unpetrify Korlasz and her minions. Since that left Korlasz at 1 HP, she promptly surrendered and Suja got experience for all of them again.
Then when Korlasz escaped from prison, Suja turned her to stone again.
When Suja fought undead creatures, she couldn't use Flesh to Stone, so instead she used Disintegrate. Spell Revisions makes it so Disintegrate deals damage rather than instantly killing the target. It deals 2d6 damage per level (max 40d6), but only 5d6 on a successful save. It also doesn't destroy enemy equipment.
After beating Coldhearth, it was back to Flesh to Stone.
When fighting Morenthrene, the dragon got stuck behind statues of Greater Wyverns and couldn't reach Suja.
Suja didn't go any further into those caves. Back to the bridge. At the crusader camp, she teleported past the guards at the front and released some more Mass Cast+Flesh to Stone spells on the crusaders.
When the Flaming Fist arrived, Suja buffed them using Mass Cast+Improved Haste and Mass Cast+Tenser's Transformation.
The portal mage was turned to stone before she could do terrible things.
Suja left a trail of statues on her way to the underground passage to Dragonspear Castle. Once there, she had to memorize some Disintegrate spells again because myconids and shambling mounds couldn't be turned to stone.
One of Suja's other main tactics was to cast Improved Haste and Tenser's Transformation and then use Shapechange to turn into a greater wolfwere. She usually did this when she faced a smaller number of more powerful enemies, though such fights are rare in SoD, where almost every battle is against a large group of enemies.
I stuck with Disintegrate for a while longer.
In the first Coalition Camp battle, Suja used her third main tactic, which was to cast Improved Alacrity followed by Spellshaping: Fireball (which turns all spells she casts in the next turn into Fireball spells) and then release a barrage of fireballs by repeatedly casting Dimension Jump.
In the big battle at Dragonspear Castle, Suja rushed to Ashatiel in order to begin the duel early. At the start of the duel, Suja began casting Time Stop, but then Ashatiel immediately accused her of cheating and called off the duel.
This meant Suja had to do a lot more fighting. Rather than doing the usual mass petrification on all the enemies (since the allies could also get petrified), she cast Slow and repeatedly used her wand of fear to weaken enemies so her allies (which she had buffed with Mass Cast+Improved Haste and other spells) could take them out.
Suja had only used one of Dosia's rest uses in the Coalition Camp battles, so she was able to rest again in this battle.
To take out Ashatiel, Suja buffed up with Improved Haste and Tenser's Transformation, turned into a greater wolfwere, drank a Potion of Magic Shielding, and went in for the kill.
Next up was Avernus. Mass petrification worked against devils as well, but many of them have Magic Resistance so Suja also had to do Mass Cast+Lower Resistance sometimes.
It's time for the final battle against Belhifet! Here is Suja right before the final battle:
Suja started off by casting Time Stop, which she got off before Belhifet could put on Improved Invisibility. She then cast Enoll Eva's Duplication followed by a double Lower Resistance to lower Belhifet's Magic Resistance down to 20%. Now all she needed to do was to get lucky with Flesh to Stone and Belhifet would be a goner (he's not immune to petrification). Suja cast Time Stop a few more times, during which she made some attempts to petrify him (no success). Once the last Time Stop had ended, Belhifet put on his Improved Invisibility, and Suja could only get him with Flesh to Stone by using Mass Cast and casting Flesh to Stone on someone adjacent to Belhifet who wasn't invisible.
At last, Belhifet met his end!
Next up is Baldur's Gate 2!
Reloads in Siege of Dragonspear: 5 (2 from me giving up after Suja got level drained by wraiths, 1 after she somehow got put to sleep by a Gargantuan Spider and died, 1 when I screwed up one of the Coalition Camp battles, and 1 unsuccessful attempt at the Belhifet battle).
@OlvynChuru really interesting run ! Those new spells seem real fun !
Weren’t you a bit overpowered though, especially with the bonus XP and no cap ?
My FMC finished BG2 !
Suldanessalar was pretty straightforward :
- skellies to aggro and plain damage
- Crom Faeyr for trolls & normal golems
- Adamantite golems took ages though
- whatever resisted Crom Faeyr and was not immune to +3 weapons or more fell to Mindflayer form and Psionic Blasts
- cheesed the dragon by force-speaking to it and using Wand of Wonder until it bypassed his MR
- ate elementals brains inside the Tree of Life (was not aware that elementals had brains, I imagined them more as constructs with no organs)
- summoned 4 skellies and a Deva against Itenicus, a Simulacrum to eat his brain while my main debuffed him. He actually fell easily, to be honest. I was disappointed.
Hell was also quickly done, chose good path for every trial (better rewards, no unnecessary fight), ate Sarevok’s brain.
Last fight full buffs, skellies, deva, Simulacrum and my main in Mindflayer form.
Demons failed their saves against my psionic blasts, I ate their brains while the summons diverted Irenicus’ attention.
Afterwards, ate Irenicus’ brain, a few hits were enough to trigger his end dialogue. And thus ended BG2.
[It took me a while to finish BG2, since my vacations ended. I’m not sure I’ll have time to finish ToB, now. It was an interesting run though, FMC is quite powerful indeed !!]
@OlvynChuru really interesting run ! Those new spells seem real fun !
Weren’t you a bit overpowered though, especially with the bonus XP and no cap ?
Enabling bonus experience and disabling the XP cap did make my character more powerful, but it also meant I didn't have to use all those crazy abuses that would otherwise be necessary to get through BG1 and SoD (e.g. drinking Durlag's Goblet 50 times in a single fight, using wands far more than my character's abilities, summoning creatures that are empowered by LoB mode and sitting back as they win fights on their own). That doesn't mean my run was more impressive or less cheesy than runs that used those tactics (it still used some abuses like the basilisk XP loop), but if I were to pick cheese to use in my run, I'd pick leveling up faster and reaching higher levels over spamming overpowered items, since the former is way more fun.
Bonus XP and no cap make LoB Mode much, MUCH more enjoyable. Spending several minutes just trying to kill a single kobold with 88 HP only to get 7 experience for it is not fun. Reaching the experience cap and then not advancing any more for the rest of the game is not fun. But when killing the empowered enemies actually gives a suitable amount of experience, and my character can keep leveling up, I actually enjoy going around the map slaying monsters and doing quests, as if it were a normal playthrough.
I have to admit that while I've been following our traditional playbook and not enabling bonus XP or disabling the XP cap, I think that's actually less fun and less interesting overall, now that we've already developed tactics that break BG1 and SoD through items alone regardless of class. The tactics for each run are more or less the same now, simply because BG1 items are genuinely broken and so much more impactful than class abilities. It means we're learning less now, because we're just practicing a narrow set of strategies rather than developing new ones.
I think we should disable the XP cap going forward. Playing with bonus XP as well would be game breaking for critters that aren't underpowered characters like Transmuters, but disabling the cap and disabling bonus XP would offer us some wiggle room and make it easier to avoid relying on the standard options, like wands and Durlag's Goblet.
Unless you really heavily abused the basilisk XP loop, it wouldn't actually be game breaking, since BG1 and SoD XP couldn't actually get you much further beyond the vanilla cap. You wouldn't end up with a full set of HLAs in BG1 without bonus XP or infinite XP.
I think it would be doable with a Fighter/Mage/Cleric. The Martyr's Morningstar could take down Belhifet before Mirror Images and Stoneskin wore out, and the FMC in general is a tough cookie, with wands for BG1 and PFMW and Hardiness for BG2. You'd still be relying on some conventionally strong options like Durlag's Goblet and so forth, but I don't think you'd need to use any tactics or glitches which were significantly different from developer intent, like the WoL trick.
I have been playing less hours this last months but I'm still in the Challenge.
My generalist mage has cleaned all the missions available during chapter 2 (BG2). With one exception: the one relative to the druid's trial. I can't join Cernd to my group and he always fails miserably in the fight vs Faldorn. I have tried to make him better with some spells, but the result is always the same. Any hint with this?
Now I'm going to pay to the thieves so they could help me find Imoen.
@Arno: The latest version of SCS, v32, should make Cernd immortal during the fight, as he was in vanilla. If he fails, that's a bug. I usually use CTRL-Y when I get that bug.
I have to admit that while I've been following our traditional playbook and not enabling bonus XP or disabling the XP cap, I think that's actually less fun and less interesting overall, now that we've already developed tactics that break BG1 and SoD through items alone regardless of class. The tactics for each run are more or less the same now, simply because BG1 items are genuinely broken and so much more impactful than class abilities. It means we're learning less now, because we're just practicing a narrow set of strategies rather than developing new ones.
I think we should disable the XP cap going forward. Playing with bonus XP as well would be game breaking for critters that aren't underpowered characters like Transmuters, but disabling the cap and disabling bonus XP would offer us some wiggle room and make it easier to avoid relying on the standard options, like wands and Durlag's Goblet.
Unless you really heavily abused the basilisk XP loop, it wouldn't actually be game breaking, since BG1 and SoD XP couldn't actually get you much further beyond the vanilla cap. You wouldn't end up with a full set of HLAs in BG1 without bonus XP or infinite XP.
Even with Insane and LoB bonus XP turned on, the experience in Baldur's Gate 1 isn't that ridiculous. Without using any XP loops, a character who goes through BG1 on LoB with bonus XP will likely get somewhere between 2,500,000 XP (if you don't clear out too many wilderness areas) and 4,000,000 XP (if you kill all the enemies in Durlag's Tower and clear out most wilderness areas).
It's only in Siege of Dragonspear that the experience starts flowing super-fast. In my transmuter playthrough she started SoD with about 4,000,000 XP (largely from re-petrifying enemies) and ended SoD with 11,600,000 XP. She got 1,500,000 XP just from Avernus alone (where a red abishai gives 38,000 XP).
So if you want to limit the experience you get, my suggestion would be to either enable both Insane and LoB bonus XP in BG1 then disable one or both in SoD, or go through BG1 and SoD with just one source of bonus XP enabled.
The experience one gets matters less than how willing one is to use the most powerful strategies (e.g. summoning overpowered creatures like skeleton warriors, fire elementals or planetars and sitting back as they win the fight on their own).
Comments
@histamiini: I could have sworn Abazigal was immune to Time Stop, but you were right--at least in the latest version of Ascension, only his dragon form has the right opcode. His human form for the Throne of Bhaal fight just has the same immunities as the other members of the Five.
SoS was all little strategy / lots of cheese. Not really interesting.
On the contrary (maybe because I know the game better), I enjoy BG2 where you face not many opponents at one time, but they are tough, diverse and require different strategies (although skellies are always a good idea, whatever the threat).
Although I have to admit, I still resort to mild (in my opinion) cheese in BG2.
Mainly :
- use of the Imp to scout ahead allows for summons to target a still blue foe, who sometimes stay neutral while being pounded because his script did not trigger yet. Doesn't work that much, some enemies can't react or turn hostile until they see you (Lhavok for example), some will start reacting after a hit or two... Which is sometimes too late for them. Sometimes it even helps having them turn hostile without the script activating, so you face them alone (first demon outside planar Sphere for example invokes minions only after seeing you)
- I used the Lesser Wish -> Shapechange -> permanent Mindflayer transformation trick. Again, the Imp helped, had him transform into Jelly and slow my FMC, so I could time the transformation better.
Worked as a charm, used this form and the badass psionic blast to devour any brains thus far, although the bad thac0 is still a real issue. Which is actually a good thing, at least it forces me to change tactics depending on the foes or their saving throws.
Contrary to SoD where I used very few spells (invisibility and animate dead mainly), and relied more on wands, which I hate, I find myself in BG2 emptying my whole spell book in a dungeon, very rarely having to return to an inn (I don't sleep in dungeons, only safe places), which is a gameplay I really enjoy.
I still have that save in SoD all buffed up before the big fight, and come back and try it again later, but I won't enjoy it, which always is the main requirement for my runs, whatever challenges I put myself in.
Anyway, I'm rambling, back to my run :
- as stated above, after a few quests in Athkathla, I bought a Limited Wish scroll to obtain the Mindflayer form
- also bought the Simulacrum helmet, for double fun at eating brains and/or debuffing while the image goes for the feast, and Robe of Vecna
- went to the planar Sphere (ate valygar's brain, I just needed the rest of his body to open the Sphere), cleared the main floor, cheesed Lhavok, psionic-blasted a demon, ate Tolgerias and his apprentice's brains, fought my way through the ice room with the help of summons, sneaked in the fire room to loot it and reactivate the Sphere.
I liked how the FMC has so many tools at his disposal to resolve almost any problem arising. It is also the first time I have used my Familiar that much and well into BG2. He does spend a lot of time in my bag when I rush through an hostile area while invisible, but when I actually want to clear a zone, he is always there, either scouting or helping out with his Polymorph forms, often the jelly form to absorb enemy spells and also attack from range instead of melee
- Trained a few apprentices only to have most of them explode in a flashy fireball while creating a nice ring for me
- rescued a tiefling bard from a wizard (who's now missing a brain), freed him a second time from his Cambion jailor, and found some nice Air Jordan running shoes (on a dead corpse)
- Bought the Shield of Balduran and resolved the Unseeing Eye quest, grabbing some old bones on the way
- went to Windspear hills, ate a rakshasa's brain (he got a nice ring. I like shiny rings. Gollum), sneaked my way to Tazok, summoned a few skellies to help me get rid of him once and for all, freed Garden's child, let Firkraag off the hook for now (or maybe it is the other way around ?)
- used Tazok's key to loot a mindflayer's base, passing myself as one of their own (well, actually just used invisibility, but that would have been funny if it was possible)
Next challenges will be :
- Firkraag (LoB dragons are scaaary. But I have the Wand of wonders if all else fails)
- Kangaxx (I need a weapon that can hit him first though)
Maybe I'll wait after Spellhold for these though, I'm already behind schedule (almost a month has already passed in game, with the apprentice's lethal traineeship, and I tend to not allow myself to prolong chapters 2/3 beyond necessary). But the 3 items I bought from the bonus merchant (helm, robes, shield) left me almost pennyless, and I'm still short a few thousand gold to pay Valen's mistress (I don't think I ever joined with Bodhi since EE came out, I always found myself joining the shadow thieves for some reason).
- gathered the needed gold for Bodhi by doing the Shadow Thieves quest (ironically).
- joined Bodhi, looted the Mass of Disruption, upgraded it (with remainder from Shadow Thieves gold, now I’m broke again. Being evil is expensive)
- killed Kangaxx easily with IMoD & PfU
- completed bodhi’s quests, was a bit stuck in the fight against Aran Linvail : I tend to refrain from resting too much, so I completed all three quests from Bodhi in a single night, using mainly summons and psionic blasts. Managed to clear the thieves maze with 5 buffed up skellies and my FMC alternating between Psionic Blasts and minor buffs, wanted to keep most of them for the big fight. But then I forgot to buff up before facing Aran Linvail, failed a save when a mage cast Power Word : Fear which got me running around for a while (luckily, my skellies blocked the entrance to Aran’s room so my FMC fled the other way). But my skellies were not enough to face Aran’s party (lost 1 to absorb a death spell, the rest started to die when a mage gated a demon).
Luckily, my scared FMC did not wander inside the room, and after I gained control zgain of my character, he was alone, while the gated Demon wreaked some havock in the room. By the time the demon died, I had to face Aran, his fellow mage, and a summoned Invisible Stalker.
By making use of opening/closing the door to the room before the enemy could react, I spent some time laucnhing debuffs in the room until Aran finally failed a save against a Psionic Blast. Buffed myself up (Improved Haste, Chaotic Commands and PfMW mainly), transformed in Mindflayer and ran directly to Aran, ate his brain, looted his corpse, and got the hell out of the room without fighting the other mage and his summon.
- Reported back to Bodhi, hit 3 million XP and lvl12 warrior, at last ! Here comes my second pip in 2 weapon fighting, and first HLA (went for the Critical Strike line, my FMC in normal or mindflayer form misses way too much in melee).
Now is time to go to Spellhold (well, first now is the time to spend the evening with the waifu, before she throws away my iPad).
By the way, I can’t remember where to find a scroll of Tenser’s Transformation in chapter 2/3, is there one before the Underdark ? Wouldn’t be gamechanging anyway, and probably won’t use it before getting lvl8 spells (spell trigger with Tenser, Champion’s Strength and Improved Haste while in Mindflayer form will be a nice boost though).
You can find a scroll of TT in the undercity with the forgotten temple - in the unseeing eye quest line.
The scroll is in a trapped cache north of the spider ambush when you just come down from the stairs looking for the rod below.
I’ll go grab it then and test if I can find a way to make it useful already.
I'm playing as Suja the Transmuter.
Notable mods: XP Cap Remover, un-nerfed mage spell progression, HLAs in BG1 (upon reaching 3000000 XP as usual), Spell Revisions, OlvynSpells (a mod I just released which adds a lot of new spells to the game), and of course Sword Coast Stratagems.
Rules:
* Suja starts the game knowing every alteration spell in the game, but she cannot learn any non-alteration spells. She can learn univeral/generalist spells (like Spell Revisions contingencies and sequencers), but she doesn't start knowing them; she must get them from scrolls.
* LoB bonus experience enabled, insane double experience enabled.
* I changed the Dimension Jump spell from Spell Revisions to be an alteration spell and gave it to Suja. I'm used to Dimension Door being an alteration spell and because I'm going to use it in some interesting ways. I also gave it a casting time of 0 to make it more useful.
* I restored Haste and Improved Haste to their original versions. In a playthrough with just a single-classed mage, getting double attacks per round won't be overpowered.
* I made it so Flesh to Stone actually petrifies the target rather than applying a permanent opcode 185 hold effect. This is because I want to use Flesh to Stone to kill enemies; simply paralyzing them permanently forces me to spend another few minutes whacking them until they die.
I'm doing this with reloads. I actually haven't played Sword Coast Stratagems much, and I've never done a full playthrough of BG1 with it. I have no idea what kinds of spells enemy spellcasters are going to cast. I've also never played Ascension. And because Suja lacks of ways of blocking most status effects, she's going to get charmed, paralyzed, petrified, mazed, and instantly killed a lot.
So to start off, Suja reached level 3 by killing the cows in Candlekeep (even with SCS they don't fight back apparently). Once she reached level 3, she could cast Strength, which made this a bit quicker.
She then went all over the map, to Beregost, Nashkel, the ankheg farm, and Ulgoth's Beard, slaying all the scenery animals for 2004 experience each. In Ulgoth's Beard she bought Aule's Staff which sped up the animal-whacking further. Eventually she reached level 7, getting her first useful offensive spell: Polymorph Other! Now she actually stands a chance against some real enemies!
The nice thing about Polymorph Other is that it doesn't turn the target hostile if they make the save (at least with Spell Revisions; I don't know if it's like this in vanilla).
Polymorph Self is also quite nice.
("Looks like we've switched places, Oopah!")
But although Suja was effective at killing powerful enemies, she wasn't that great yet at killing groups of weaker enemies. That meant the Nashkel Mines would be extremely tedious. She would get her first useful AoE offensive spell once she hit level 12 and got 6th-level spells. But she was nowhere near there. She had 150000 experience, one fifth the amount necessary to reach level 12. So I had her do the basilisk XP loop.
First, she had to obtain Algernon's Cloak. She turned into a sword spider and attacked Algernon, poisoning him multiple times. When he was near death, I saved the game and reloaded. Since effects lose their source when the game is reloaded, the remaining poison damage on Algernon was no longer linked to Suja, so his death did not cause reputation loss.
("I swear I didn't do it; I'm an innocent bystander!")
After buying 48 Stone to Flesh scrolls, Suja went to the basilisk area, charmed a Lesser Basilisk with Algernon's Cloak, use the Protection from Petrification scroll on it, went invisible with an Invisibility scroll, and watched as her basilisk petrified the other basilisks. While the Greater Basilisk was petrified, Suja turned it into a squirrel before unpetrifying it. This was nice because this prevented the Greater Basilisk from using its gaze on Suja, who wasn't protected from petrification.
Suja used 32 Stone to Flesh scrolls, gaining a total of 960000 experience, putting her at level 13. I didn't have her use all of them, because in the coming levels she'll start to become really, really powerful and I think it would be better for her to get that power a bit more gradually.
So this is where it ends for tonight. Suja can now cast 6th-level spells, and she has gained the power of the basilisk for herself!
Reloads so far: 4 (1 from killing Algernon without reputation loss, 3 from screwing up the basilisk XP loop)
@monico have you tried using your cleric spell first to take his MR right down?
Balty died pretty fast, but that's okay. Sendai is the only semi resistant to Feeblemind, through 24 hour Mind Blank, so I hit her with PfM after her Mind Blank triggered, to dispel all of her buffs. First to Feebleminded was Yaga-Shura as he doesn't have MR. Tactic for the others was PI, Farsight, Time Stop, Pierce Shield and Greater Malison. Greater Malison is slower projectile so the Pierce Shields hit conveniently first after Time Stop ended. Then Alacrity, and machinegunned Feebleminds. Next in line was Illasera which eliminated Dispel arrows. Was having some trouble Feebleminding Abazigal and bunch of my clones were dispelled by True Sight, so I clone Wished my spells back.
Abazigals brain was next to fail though, Sarevok then. Sendai's PfM had ended, and her brain failed soon after. Lastly Gromnir lost his mind, after which I clone Wished my spells back again. This took about 30 Wishes, and after using those, Abazigal and Sendai somehow had recovered from Feeblemind? That's strange. No worries, casually Feebleminded them again through clones. No all were out of their mind.
It took just two PI clone chains to cast 100 Delayed Blast Fireballs for Melissan. Then started hurting the Big 6. First hit them with Frag Granaders hitting Sendai, healing her once with RoR. Stopped after Abazigal was almost dead, he's the most susceptible to Frag Granades. Then hit them all near death with Scorcher Ammunation, Yaga needed +4 Bullets. Lastly I tuned their hp with Pulse Ammunation close to break point of 19 hp, when they die.
Time to end this. Buffed up, Focus, Time Stop and six shotted the Big Six. After Time Stop ended Melissan spawned, waited her Heal, and then hit her with the Rift Device, which took 60% of her hp away. Then she came after me, hit me triggering the 3x Pierce Shield Chain Contingency and PfMW Contingency. I used Time Stop scroll, teleported onto the traps luring Melissan after me. And with a glorius bang, Melissan was no more.
That was probably the most casual fight I've had in Throne of Bhaal. Once Sorcerer passed Bel with 1 hp trick, it became an absolute monster in SoA and ToB. Only few hack jobs were time consuming, the Ravager was probably the most troublesome enemy. I would say Sorcerer is the most powerful class, but I've been saying that from every class I've got through, so who knows, in current format at least Sorcerer has all the easy tools. However getting Sorcerer through Bel without the 1hp trick could be impossible, with Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Fireshield Blue, Power Potion combo could work, but that probably requires a lot of luck, or at least tries to get the tactic working.
Sadly, I don’t have lvl5 cleric spells as a FMC (no xp-cap remover)
@histamiini congrats on your Sorcerer run ! reading it has given me many insights in synergy between spells I did not know, tactics and cheese I had not thought of, and a degree of patience and preparation that blew my mind ! I, for one, would never be able to have such foresight and spend so long on one fight.
@OlvynChuru : good luck on your run ! The spell restriction is interesting (especially as you chose my fav school), although I would not have dared use it on a LoB run.
Do you have a link to your mod ? I am curious as to what spells are added / revised. I’m not too familiar with sR, used it back in the day but not since EE came out : are there many ... alterations... to alteration spells ?
I don’t know if your modded BG has the same issue as I had, but casting Strength (or any enhance on your stats) before shapechanging got overrided by the new form’s strength (I had to constantly unequip-reequip my strength belts in BG2, and rely mostly on potions or DuHM innate ability in BG1).
Given your really high level and spell pick, you could always put Strength in a minor spell sequencer anyway, I guess.
On my part, my FMC has smoothly gotten in and out of Spellhold (well, losing most of his soul in the way, but who needs that anyway), alternating between raw might (with skellies summons doing most of the damage and aggroing the baddies), strategic brain eating, and stealthy running through the maze invisible.
Underdark did not take long either :
- killed the Balor who failed his save against Psionic Blast (in fact, I actually reloaded the fight because I over-buffed myself, had skellies, Simulacrum and contingencies, he fell too easily : I tried with no prebuff, just my FMC in Mindflayer form, he still failed twice in a row his save against my Psionic Blast. Just hacked him to death afterwards in normal form to get the XP).
- Killed the Kuo Toan king with help from Skellies, Psionic Blasts, and eating brains (tasted like fish, hated it).
- Grabbed the strength belt from the Demon Knights. Now this one was tough, skellies fall in seconds against those hard hitting baddies. Managed to kill 2 of them with my remaining summons and debuffs, but had to solo the rest of them (did not want to flee and rest). First one, I meleed in Mindflayer form, used Critical Strike to eat his brain. No problem thus far (only had 1 cast of CS at the time though, and my Simulacrum had long expired). The second one, I spent an hour luring him away, trying to Doom him (no Lower Resistance nor Pierce Magic left, but my 3rd cast of Doom bypassed his MR), transforming in Mindflayer form and casting Psionic Blast over 50 times before one actually managed to stun him. The last one... well, the last one is still in that room, wondering where his brothers have gone.
- Sneaked my way to Adalon, then into Ust Natha, freed Phaere (I actually psionic-blasted those mindflayers and ate their brains, now that was fun !), avoided the rest of the fights, replaced the eggs, let the Demon kill the Matron and the daughter, happily jogged out of Ust Natha, gave Adalon her eggs back, sneaked my way to the surface.
Afterwards, cleared a few remaining stuff in Amn :
- Directly went to Umar’s hill (recruited Drizzt by mistake for the fight against Bodhi on the way), found clues regarding an ancient temple of Amaunator, Simulacrum cast PfU, FMC took out his sturdy IMoD, stormed my way through the temple, used the Wand of Wonders on the Dragon (10 times, kept de-petrifying him for XP), cleared the evil stain on the Alter.
- Forged the Crom Faeyr
- One shot every troll in Nalia’s castle, forged the Flail of Ages
- Hit level 14 as mage and cleric, I now have Project Image (yay, moar spelz) and Spell Sequencer (3 times skellies, because badass) and took Fallen Planetar as my lvl7 cleric spell. Never had the chance to use it yet though.
- Cleared Bodhi’s lair while protected from undead.
Now is time to go to Suldanessalar and bring the fight to Irenicus !
I can’t wait to get level 8 spells, Project Image for debuffing while my Simulacrum casts Psionic Blasts and eats brains will be a deadly combo (I don’t know the exact description of Psionic Blast, but ennemies regularly fail their saves against that really awesome ability).
Also, Spell Trigger —> Champion’s Strength + Tenser Transformation + Improved Haste would be a huge boost to my combat abilities in Mindflayer form (on top of the other buffs I can cast pre-shapechange).
I haven’t yet done Watcher’s Keep at all, will probably go there after Saradush (if I go there at all : the run would not feel complete without it, but I often skip it, as I don’t really like this kind of dungeons)
My mod that adds new spells to the game is here.
Spell Revisions benefits transmuters overall. They lose some spells, but they also gain some nice spells (Lower Resistance, Prismatic Spray). Flesh to Stone and Prismatic Spray get a -4 penalty to the save, which is nice as those are some of my character's only offensive spells. Spell Revisions also adds the 8th-level spell Ghostform, which grants immunity to normal weapons, +50% physical damage resistance, base AC 0, +4 THAC0 with melee attacks, and a few other bonuses.
My own mod adds a lot of cool alteration spells, which let transmuters do things like fly, move through walls, and reverse gravity. At high levels there are also some really powerful alteration spells like Mass Cast (which causes the next spell the character casts to affect all creatures within 15 feet) and Enoll Eva's Duplication (which causes each spell the character casts in the next five rounds to be cast twice). These spells would be ridiculously overpowered for most normal mage characters, but for this particular character they're reasonable.
I've started another Cavalier run, as now is the time to beat Melissan in nR I think, and I'm at the Palace Ambush currently. Used autoroller 20 minutes to get the perfect roll:
BG1 WeiDu.log
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1510 // Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3551 // Increase the power of Cure Wounds and Cause Wounds spells to the level found in 3rd Edition D&D -> Spells heal or inflict the maximum amount of damage in this range: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // Faster Bears: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4020 // More realistic wolves and wild dogs: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4115 // Thieves assign skill points in multiples of five: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7020 // Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7030 // Improved kobolds: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7040 // Relocated bounty hunters: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity assassins: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: v32.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: v32.4
~LOB_SAVE_FIX/LOB_SAVE_FIX.TP2~ #0 #0 // improve saving throws of all non-joinable creatures
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited Ammo Stacking: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited Potion Stacking: v9
~EEUITWEAKS/EEUITWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1070 // Faydark's Abilities Auto-Roller/GrimLefourbe's BG2 UI: 3.0
~LEUI/LEUI.TP2~ #0 #0 // lefreut's Enhanced UI - Core component: 3.9
~LEUI/LEUI.TP2~ #0 #6 // lefreut's Enhanced UI - Show Sidebar toggle button: 3.9
~LEUI/LEUI.TP2~ #0 #7 // lefreut's Enhanced UI - Show Quicksave button: 3.9
~LEUI/LEUI.TP2~ #0 #8 // lefreut's Enhanced UI - Show Highlight button: 3.9
~LEUI/LEUI.TP2~ #0 #9 // lefreut's Enhanced UI - Small right sidebar buttons: 3.9
~LEUI/LEUI.TP2~ #0 #10 // lefreut's Enhanced UI - Quests in journal collapsed by default: 3.9
Killed Imoen, Xzar, Montaron, Neera and Algernon. Listened Drizzt getting killed before picking up the two Invisibility potions from the manors. Tanya's Bowl level up. Bought Greenstone and Shield amulets and said hello to Tarnesh. He still got me with Melf's Acid Arrow and I had to use 5 Healing potions to survive, guards then hacked him. Hentold Dagger another level up and Invisibility potion. Charmed Jaheira got herself killed against Hobgoblins, and I got fourth Invisibility potion. Reached Mulahey with one Invisibility, Shield Amulet and two Healing potions. He was charmed casually with fourth rest, and Kobbos killed him. Passing Carnival picked up another Invisibility potion from the chest.
Charmed Minsc smacked Nimbul, charmed Marl Tranzig. Bought rep to 11 before killing Dushai, lured him away from others with Wand of Missiles. Raiken escorted me to Bandit camp where I looted outside, and charmed Taurgosz and he got killed in the woods by a Wild Dog. With two Invisibility potions, and Absorption picked up the papers. Then rested for Horror. Bought rep to 14 and did rep run. Also picked up Cha tome buying Hairtooth and co. off. Level 4. After 20/20 economy bought Sandthief ring with 12k.
Passed Spider area with one Sandthief charge right click looting the swords. Got free Charm chance against Lamalha but it didn't work. Rather than taking 1/4 charm chance against Drasus, I plan to get Boots of Speed from Lothander. Used two charges to reach Davaeorn's Guard who was charmed first hit. Lured Battle Horrors away, another Sandthief charge and guard hacked Davaeorn. Looted the place and used second last charge to escape the place. Level 5. 23k gold after selling my loot, and spent 13k to recharge the ring.
Abela the Nymph ko'd Ragefast, I then used the Nymph Cloak to charm Ramazith who spent his spells, and then summoned some minions to kill himself. Did Marek and Lothander guest, before giving the scroll to Lothander I charmed him and he killed himself in the sewers.
Charmed Gamesmen ko'd Marek. Level 6, and after doing Basilisk xp-loop with two green scrolls of Protection from Petrification and 15 Stone to Flesh, max level 8. Petrified Kirians party too. Picked Con tome with single Sandthief charge, 125 hp. Doppelgangers were easy peasy at this point. In Iron Throne used two charges and only charmed Naaman for the PfU scroll and two Invisibility potions.
Ogre Mage waylay passed with Invisibility potion. Looted Candlekeep and charm killed the Iron Throne leaders. Got three Invisibility potions. Looted the Catacombs with single Sandthief charge and Absorption. Second 13k for Sandthief recharge. Durlag's Tower, looted upstairs, charmed Riggolo hacked Ghost before Ghasts killed him. Basement Ghast kited with OGL. Warder level looted with PfF, Absorption and Greenstone amulet, and three Sandthief charges. But before tackling Love, I went and picked up Ring of Energy, by charming Denak. He got killed by his own gang. Recharged both Ring of Energy and Greenstone Amulet.
Activated Love, and managed to lure Avarice to the basement and Fear to main level out from protecting Love. Then it was pretty basic kiting job around the table, and 38 hits from Ring of Energy killed Love. Picked up Champions Strength scroll and Durlag's Goblet from the next level before escaping the tower for good. Damn it's nice to spam the goblet with innate Fear immunity. Third Sandthief recharge. Slythe was a handful, he managed to kill charmed Larze and I had to kite him with Ring of Energy which agroed half of the bar. But eventually he fell.
I think the reason why the Five recovered from Feeblemind was because one of your Wish choices was a map-wide Heal or Greater Restoration spell, which cures Feeblemind.
Notable mods: SCS v32.4, Ascension v2.0.8, LoB Saving Throw Fix
Difficulty: Legacy of Bhaal
Special: Solo Run, v2.5 update (includes -11 AC in LoB mode)
BG1 12
SoD 1
SoA 12345
ToB 1234567
Sarevok's mob were burned with OGL, after which I hit Sarevok 40 times, and with 7 Potion of Explosions and 5 Oil of Fiery Burnings. At this point Sarevok had 526 hp left. Drank Oil of Speed and started kiting with Ring of Energy, and after 37 hits Sarevok was dead too. Used one PfU.
Invisibility to reach Porios, Invisibility and PfU to Korlasz. Waited her 4 hour PfF out, then used OGL Invisibility combo five times, Korlasz actually found me before last Invisibility potion hit, and surrendered right herself, that's commendable behavior. 60k selling my loot, and spent 20k in SS. From Prologue picked up the Glasses, Bless amulet and Battle Tankard.
Chapter 8. Teleria and Golem hacked for the Stone Ally without retaliation. Did the Menhir guest. After testing I can confirm @semiticgod finding that Wight can destroy the Dwarven Amulets through level drain. So I used one Stone Golem to kill the Wight, and tried listening Dwarves getting killed, but with my surprise they pwned the Undead. No worries, I charmed the Dwarves and fed them to some Carrion Crawlers, and bargained the help of the Undead. Hid behind the tent for the parlay.
Picked up the Paladin amulet from Troll cave with couple Invisibility potions. Morentherene daggered, Ziatar burned out of sight and Akanna charmed, which took 6 Charm tries. Also got to level 9. Surrendered the Fort and after Interrupting the Bridge Mage with Ring of Energy I hacked all out.
Did some mundane guests and things in Chapter 10, and Cavalier is currently waiting Crusaders to attack.
Previously Suja had no good way of fighting lots of weak enemies, so the Nashkel Mines would've been very tedious. But once she hit level 12, she got 6th-level spells and obtained a spell perfect for the task.
(Technically Suja shouldn't be able to cast this since she can't cast evocation spells by the rules, but I thought a weird spell like this might be interesting.)
Suja incinerated the kobolds of the Nashkel Mines by using Spellshaping: Fireball to turn her Chromatic Orbs into Fireballs.
(The Mulahey fight was easy because his minions just clump up around him rather than pursuing party members.)
When fighting spellcasters, Suja usually first cast Polymorph Other on them (which disabled their spellcasting) and then polymorphed herself into an ogre and beat them up.
After squirrelizing Nimbul and beating him to death, Suja obtained a scroll of Find Familiar. Since Spell Revisions makes Find Familiar a universal spell, Suja can learn it. Not only did casting Find Familiar give Suja an extra 34 hit points, the Faerie Dragon has some useful spells, like Invisibility Sphere (Suja doesn't have any other reusable way of becoming invisible). But the micromanagement of taking out the familiar just to become invisible was too annoying (and not effective in combat), so I never ended up using the familiar's invisibility ability.
By the way, the Faerie Dragon had a very... strange name in the inventory:
On to the Bandit Camp! Suja flew all over the area, pelting bandits with fireballs via Spellshaping: Fireball.
This took a while, and Suja sometimes had to flee to a different area to rest. On the way, she encountered some of the assassins that appear in random encounters due to SCS. Since she was not in the condition to defeat them, she just ran away, and she never saw them again.
In the middle of the bandit camp, Suja leveled up to level 14, gaining access to three spells: Mass Cast (which lets her cast her next spell as an area of effect), Prismatic Spray, and Ruby Ray of Reversal. Mass Cast can potentially be super powerful, and Suja's main use for it was to cast Polymorph Other and Flesh to Stone as areas of effect. The problem was, the Mass Cast AoE is not party-friendly, so using Mass Cast with Polymorph Other or Flesh to Stone could end up turning Suja into a squirrel or a statue. So, she mainly used Prismatic Spray for a while.
Prismatic Spray is actually quite good.
However, it's also unreliable.
In the spider area, Suja died for the first time after getting webbed at long range by a Giant Spider. Since she had no good long-term way of getting Free Action, she skipped the spider area by flying over it.
In the Cloakwood Mines, Suja's main means of offense was still to cast Spellshaping: Fireball and shoot fireballs at enemies using her 1st-level spells. She deliberately aggroed as many enemies as possible so that they'd bunch up and she could get the most out of her fireballs. Using the 5th-level spell Ethereal Jaunt (another one of my new spells), she could move through walls and avoid being surrounded.
Once in Davaeorn's lair, she ghostwalked through some more walls to avoid the traps and confront Davaeorn from behind.
Davaeorn, not expecting to get attacked from behind, used his Web+Stinking Cloud sequencer on the trapped hallway rather than on Suja. She then destroyed one of the Battle Horrors with Prismatic Spray.
It was a close fight, but Suja just managed to win by hitting Davaeorn with Flesh to Stone.
One useful thing I've learned is that casting Polymorph Other on a petrified humanoid (with a PC animation) will kill them and cause them to drop their equipment. Suja did this to get Davaeorn's valuable stuff.
Now it's time to go to Baldur's Gate! I decided to perform a lesser version of the basilisk XP loop. Suja bought an extra 37 Stone to Flesh scrolls from temples in Baldur's Gate and repeatedly petrified Larze with Flesh to Stone before unpetrifying him with a scroll. Whenever she was out of Flesh to Stone spells, she just ran over to Bork and rested. For some reason, Larze just stood there after he was unpetrified.
(It also would've been possible to do the XP loop indefinitely by using Flesh to Stone along with the Stone to Flesh spell, but that would've been much slower and more boring.)
Eventually, Suja reached level 16, which granted her several useful spells. One was Enhance Attribute, which let her set one of her six stats to 24 for 4 hours. She could set her Strength to 24, polymorph with Polymorph Self, and keep the 24 Strength.
Another spell was Ghostform from Spell Revisions. This spell grants her immunity to normal weapons, +50% physical damage resistance, base AC 0, and +4 THAC0 with melee attacks. But it also grants some other immunities that are normally pointless but are very relevant for this particular playthrough. While in Ghostform, Suja is immune to petrification and Polymorph Self, so she can Mass Cast Polymorph Self and Flesh to Stone without causing any danger to herself.
In the fight with Sarevok's acolytes, Suja first killed Alai with a Prismatic Spray, then petrified multiple acolytes with an AoE Flesh to Stone. Zhalimar Cloudwulfe learned the hard way what happens if you're petrified when your berserker rage ends:
Before starting Chapter 6, Suja headed for Durlag's Tower to get some more experience. She didn't go through the whole tower; just the outside and the upper levels.
(Now that Suja can get 24 Strength, the ogre form isn't the most useful form anymore.)
At the top of the tower, Suja used Mass Cast+Flesh to Stone to petrify all three Greater Basilisks at once. She then used Mass Cast+Stone to Flesh to unpetrify them. Finally, she killed the basilisks again with Prismatic Spray. I preferred to kill enemies no more than twice - otherwise Suja would get absolutely ridiculous amounts of experience and become even more overleveled. As it is, she's going to level up a lot in Siege of Dragonspear; she doesn't need more experience.
In any case, it wasn't long after this that Suja reached level 18, and got not only her first 9th-level spells but also her first HLAs. In Spell Revisions, the HLA spells are not universal spells, and only Improved Alacrity is an alteration spell. So, Suja could only get Improved Alacrity and the extra spell slots. However, I've also made it so the extra spell slot HLAs can be taken more than once. For her first HLA, Suja took Improved Alacrity.
Suja had 4 9th-level spells: Attain Perfection (which sets all her stats to 25 for 1 turn), Enoll Eva's Duplication (which lets her cast her spells twice for 5 rounds), Shapechange, and Time Stop. I've added another rule: Suja cannot use the Iron Golem form of Shapechange because that form is essentially invincible in BG1 (immune to +2 weapons and below, 100% Magic Resistance, and immune to fire, cold, electricity, and acid).
Now that I understood I could use Mass Cast+Flesh to Stone and Mass Cast+Polymorph Other safely, there started being a lot more statues and squirrels on the Sword Coast.
In Chapter 7, Suja had some trouble with Cythandria's golems, which were the first enemies she needed Lower Resistance for. She used Time Stop followed by Enoll Eva's Duplication and then double-casted Lower Resistance on each golem. She was then able to destroy one golem with Prismatic Spray, which also paralyzed the other golem, allowing her to beat it up.
I was expecting to have a hard time with the Ducal Palace fight, but Suja was able to beat it on the first try. Before the fight, Suja put on Shapechange, Improved Haste, and Tenser's Transformation (which doesn't disable spellcasting in Spell Revisions). She started off by casting an AoE Stoneskin on the Grand Dukes.
(You're welcome, Sarevok!)
Once the fight started, Suja cast Time Stop and then assumed mind flayer form via Shapechange. The mind flayer form is less powerful in Spell Revisions (it only has one attack per round normally), but with Improved Haste and Tenser's Transformation she could attack four times per round. She managed to make several doppelgangers "brain-dead" in the next few rounds.
Suja then proceeded to march through the maze, sometimes going through walls to skip annoying sections. By this point, when fully buffed Suja can defeat powerful enemies in melee combat without using Shapechange.
Time for the final boss!
I got really lucky in this fight, winning on the first try. Semaj and Angelo both cast Dispel Magic on Suja and both of them failed to dispel her buffs.
After that, Diarmid and Semaj were left. For Diarmid, Suja put on Improved Haste and Tenser's Transformation and beat him up in Greater Wolfwere form. She then turned to Mind Flayer form and killed Semaj through his Mirror Images. Now Sarevok was left, along with multiple Skeleton Warriors and a bunch of creatures summoned by Semaj. The good news is, apparently Sarevok had gotten paralyzed by one of the Prismatic Sprays Suja had been throwing around earlier, so Suja was able to simply beat him to death as a Greater Wolfwere.
I beat the game! Next up is Siege of Dragonspear.
I lost count of the number of reloads I needed in BG1, but I think it was somewhere between 15 and 20.
My Heroism potions started to fade so I had to rebuff for the Paladin wave. I tanked where as Ankhegs and Archers formed a killing squad. Rhayla was interrupted from Dispelling with Ring of Energy. Took two Goblets and four Ankhegs to level the wave. For the final wave used Power potions to buff up to 400 hp. And as Keggleg fell as the last named enemy the Crusaders were repelled. Cavalier sliced the Crusaders pretty efficiently, and only needed seven refreshes overall from the Goblet.
Hid one hour in the Dragonspear attack before confronting Ashatiel. She was easily beaten with melee and Ring of Energy. I now had 50 Heroism and 20 Power potions which is plenty. Trix was tricked without fighting anybody.
Lord Vanderley vs. Belhifet
3x PfF, PfC, PfE, PfA
8x Mind Focus
1x Defense, Storm, Speed, Invul
Then powered with Power potions the lift. It went too quickly and I had to wait many rounds to debuff so I wouldn't get the Power potion bug. After Power was out, started chucking Heroism potions. Downed 30 potions for 540 hp. Then Defense, Speed, Invul, 2x Champion's Strength, killed the last Abishai, 4x CS and Storm. Escaped the Dispel and started hacking.
Before Caelar was dead, Bel was already at injured state, and died before any Champion's Strengths failed. So the fight took less than 20 rounds. That was fast, Cavalier remains one of the Bel beaters.
Have you ever considered recording one of your runs? Your gameplay is very clean and efficient, and I thought it would be interesting to see.
I've recorded some end battles, but for the whole run, I don't know how much it would interest people without narration. Although video is better if you want to see how something is really done, as words can describe so much, so in key scenes definitely better. So it's probably a question of taking the trouble to do it. Didn't you do some recording? Do you think it's worth the hassle, and is it more or less work doing that way?
Siege of Dragonspear!
A reminder of my rules: Suja starts the game knowing every alteration spell in the game, but she cannot learn any non-alteration spells.
Suja was level 20 at the beginning of SoD, and she was starting to become really powerful. Her most common way of winning encounters in SoD was to use Mass Cast+Flesh to Stone to turn all the enemies to stone.
After petrifying Korlasz, Suja then cast Mass Cast+Stone to Flesh to unpetrify Korlasz and her minions. Since that left Korlasz at 1 HP, she promptly surrendered and Suja got experience for all of them again.
Then when Korlasz escaped from prison, Suja turned her to stone again.
When Suja fought undead creatures, she couldn't use Flesh to Stone, so instead she used Disintegrate. Spell Revisions makes it so Disintegrate deals damage rather than instantly killing the target. It deals 2d6 damage per level (max 40d6), but only 5d6 on a successful save. It also doesn't destroy enemy equipment.
After beating Coldhearth, it was back to Flesh to Stone.
When fighting Morenthrene, the dragon got stuck behind statues of Greater Wyverns and couldn't reach Suja.
Suja didn't go any further into those caves. Back to the bridge. At the crusader camp, she teleported past the guards at the front and released some more Mass Cast+Flesh to Stone spells on the crusaders.
When the Flaming Fist arrived, Suja buffed them using Mass Cast+Improved Haste and Mass Cast+Tenser's Transformation.
The portal mage was turned to stone before she could do terrible things.
Suja left a trail of statues on her way to the underground passage to Dragonspear Castle. Once there, she had to memorize some Disintegrate spells again because myconids and shambling mounds couldn't be turned to stone.
One of Suja's other main tactics was to cast Improved Haste and Tenser's Transformation and then use Shapechange to turn into a greater wolfwere. She usually did this when she faced a smaller number of more powerful enemies, though such fights are rare in SoD, where almost every battle is against a large group of enemies.
I stuck with Disintegrate for a while longer.
In the first Coalition Camp battle, Suja used her third main tactic, which was to cast Improved Alacrity followed by Spellshaping: Fireball (which turns all spells she casts in the next turn into Fireball spells) and then release a barrage of fireballs by repeatedly casting Dimension Jump.
In the big battle at Dragonspear Castle, Suja rushed to Ashatiel in order to begin the duel early. At the start of the duel, Suja began casting Time Stop, but then Ashatiel immediately accused her of cheating and called off the duel.
This meant Suja had to do a lot more fighting. Rather than doing the usual mass petrification on all the enemies (since the allies could also get petrified), she cast Slow and repeatedly used her wand of fear to weaken enemies so her allies (which she had buffed with Mass Cast+Improved Haste and other spells) could take them out.
Suja had only used one of Dosia's rest uses in the Coalition Camp battles, so she was able to rest again in this battle.
To take out Ashatiel, Suja buffed up with Improved Haste and Tenser's Transformation, turned into a greater wolfwere, drank a Potion of Magic Shielding, and went in for the kill.
Next up was Avernus. Mass petrification worked against devils as well, but many of them have Magic Resistance so Suja also had to do Mass Cast+Lower Resistance sometimes.
It's time for the final battle against Belhifet! Here is Suja right before the final battle:
Suja started off by casting Time Stop, which she got off before Belhifet could put on Improved Invisibility. She then cast Enoll Eva's Duplication followed by a double Lower Resistance to lower Belhifet's Magic Resistance down to 20%. Now all she needed to do was to get lucky with Flesh to Stone and Belhifet would be a goner (he's not immune to petrification). Suja cast Time Stop a few more times, during which she made some attempts to petrify him (no success). Once the last Time Stop had ended, Belhifet put on his Improved Invisibility, and Suja could only get him with Flesh to Stone by using Mass Cast and casting Flesh to Stone on someone adjacent to Belhifet who wasn't invisible.
At last, Belhifet met his end!
Next up is Baldur's Gate 2!
Reloads in Siege of Dragonspear: 5 (2 from me giving up after Suja got level drained by wraiths, 1 after she somehow got put to sleep by a Gargantuan Spider and died, 1 when I screwed up one of the Coalition Camp battles, and 1 unsuccessful attempt at the Belhifet battle).
Weren’t you a bit overpowered though, especially with the bonus XP and no cap ?
My FMC finished BG2 !
Suldanessalar was pretty straightforward :
- skellies to aggro and plain damage
- Crom Faeyr for trolls & normal golems
- Adamantite golems took ages though
- whatever resisted Crom Faeyr and was not immune to +3 weapons or more fell to Mindflayer form and Psionic Blasts
- cheesed the dragon by force-speaking to it and using Wand of Wonder until it bypassed his MR
- ate elementals brains inside the Tree of Life (was not aware that elementals had brains, I imagined them more as constructs with no organs)
- summoned 4 skellies and a Deva against Itenicus, a Simulacrum to eat his brain while my main debuffed him. He actually fell easily, to be honest. I was disappointed.
Hell was also quickly done, chose good path for every trial (better rewards, no unnecessary fight), ate Sarevok’s brain.
Last fight full buffs, skellies, deva, Simulacrum and my main in Mindflayer form.
Demons failed their saves against my psionic blasts, I ate their brains while the summons diverted Irenicus’ attention.
Afterwards, ate Irenicus’ brain, a few hits were enough to trigger his end dialogue. And thus ended BG2.
[It took me a while to finish BG2, since my vacations ended. I’m not sure I’ll have time to finish ToB, now. It was an interesting run though, FMC is quite powerful indeed !!]
Enabling bonus experience and disabling the XP cap did make my character more powerful, but it also meant I didn't have to use all those crazy abuses that would otherwise be necessary to get through BG1 and SoD (e.g. drinking Durlag's Goblet 50 times in a single fight, using wands far more than my character's abilities, summoning creatures that are empowered by LoB mode and sitting back as they win fights on their own). That doesn't mean my run was more impressive or less cheesy than runs that used those tactics (it still used some abuses like the basilisk XP loop), but if I were to pick cheese to use in my run, I'd pick leveling up faster and reaching higher levels over spamming overpowered items, since the former is way more fun.
Bonus XP and no cap make LoB Mode much, MUCH more enjoyable. Spending several minutes just trying to kill a single kobold with 88 HP only to get 7 experience for it is not fun. Reaching the experience cap and then not advancing any more for the rest of the game is not fun. But when killing the empowered enemies actually gives a suitable amount of experience, and my character can keep leveling up, I actually enjoy going around the map slaying monsters and doing quests, as if it were a normal playthrough.
I think we should disable the XP cap going forward. Playing with bonus XP as well would be game breaking for critters that aren't underpowered characters like Transmuters, but disabling the cap and disabling bonus XP would offer us some wiggle room and make it easier to avoid relying on the standard options, like wands and Durlag's Goblet.
Unless you really heavily abused the basilisk XP loop, it wouldn't actually be game breaking, since BG1 and SoD XP couldn't actually get you much further beyond the vanilla cap. You wouldn't end up with a full set of HLAs in BG1 without bonus XP or infinite XP.
I think it will look something like this:
I have been playing less hours this last months but I'm still in the Challenge.
My generalist mage has cleaned all the missions available during chapter 2 (BG2). With one exception: the one relative to the druid's trial. I can't join Cernd to my group and he always fails miserably in the fight vs Faldorn. I have tried to make him better with some spells, but the result is always the same. Any hint with this?
Now I'm going to pay to the thieves so they could help me find Imoen.
More notices another day!
Even with Insane and LoB bonus XP turned on, the experience in Baldur's Gate 1 isn't that ridiculous. Without using any XP loops, a character who goes through BG1 on LoB with bonus XP will likely get somewhere between 2,500,000 XP (if you don't clear out too many wilderness areas) and 4,000,000 XP (if you kill all the enemies in Durlag's Tower and clear out most wilderness areas).
It's only in Siege of Dragonspear that the experience starts flowing super-fast. In my transmuter playthrough she started SoD with about 4,000,000 XP (largely from re-petrifying enemies) and ended SoD with 11,600,000 XP. She got 1,500,000 XP just from Avernus alone (where a red abishai gives 38,000 XP).
So if you want to limit the experience you get, my suggestion would be to either enable both Insane and LoB bonus XP in BG1 then disable one or both in SoD, or go through BG1 and SoD with just one source of bonus XP enabled.
The experience one gets matters less than how willing one is to use the most powerful strategies (e.g. summoning overpowered creatures like skeleton warriors, fire elementals or planetars and sitting back as they win the fight on their own).