Hello everyone, I saw this thread and I found it quite interesting; I had not tried SCS nor LoB, so why not try both at the same time?
I noticed (from the list on the first page) that nobody had done a solo LoB/SCS run with the mage/thief (my favourite class!) and I wanted to.. well, show that it can be done! I honestly don't know if someone has done this before since there's just so much content in this thread.
This playthrough made me realize how insanely powerful two items are: algernon's cloak + nymph cloak. They are so strong I can probably solo the game with a level 1 character just using these two items together with potions to tank trap damage. Algernon's Cloak can be obtained for free (but you'll have to get Algernon killed / pickpocket him) and the Nymph Cloak was dirt cheap to recharge. You can charm almost any non-undead creature (and they bypassed spell defences) and you could do so repeatedly until success, because they did not aggro. characters on a failed attempt. Once they were charmed, you could move them from place to place by making them attack you before you transit. As long as the movement wasn't scripted (e.g. Shandalar's teleportation) and didn't require access to the world map, the NPC will follow you.
This meant that I could move NPCs around for big battles or for cheese/convenience. This allowed me to accelerate the pickpocket / selling process, rest in places where I'm not supposed to rest and basically do all sorts of tactics that I had to resort to because the NPCs were so strong. This also added gave the sewers in Baldur's Gate renewed purpose: I could use it to transport units.
If a charmed creature died by the hands of a hostile enemy, you don't get a reputation loss. I exploited this pretty often to kill people for their loot. On the other hand, you (usually) get XP for anything your charmed creatures kill.
My favourite moment so far with these items was that I killed Aec'Letec using a Chromatic Orb cast by a charmed mage (in LoB, these things are akin to a Finger of Death). If that didn't work, I also had another charmed mage who had Greater Malison and Flesh to Stone.
I'm planning to kill Sarevok using a greater basilisk (the one from the warehouse), but I'm not sure if he's got immunity to petrify. We'll see.
As a change of pace from my normal no-reload solo runs on unmodded core difficulty, I thought I'd give Mendel the monk another run in this challenge. After leaving Candlekeep he spent a while running round shooting at Shoal, but the 19 required to hit her was too daunting and he retreated to Beregost to slaughter Algernon and get his cloak. Using that he charmed a wolf back at the coast and attacked Shoal using that - with the bonus for attacking someone not using a melee weapon that didn't take long to get Mendel to level 3. Giving Mad Arcand his ring back pushed him on to level 4.
Going down to Nashkel allowed him to learn LMD before he went back to the Beregost Temple and starting charming sirines. Those were worn down against enemies before being finished off. Unfortunately 2 of them died to enemies fractionally before my attacks arrived, but the other 2 (along with a few odds and sods around Beregost) were enough for level 5.
At the Lake area, Mendel activated a single gnoll to attack Drizzt. I wanted the XP for him, so was prepared to retreat and reset the combat if the gnoll did not break his weapon after 20 minutes or so. I did that just the once before a break occurred and Mendel just needed to wait then until Drizzt was unconscious and finish him off for a sweet 12k. That took him close to level 6 and charming & killing the belt ogre, having charmed gate guards kill Tarnesh and returning Landrin's things did the job.
Further north Tenya got her bowl back before Mendel went on to Ulgoth's Beard and attacked Dushai - killing her with run and hit tactics was not too hard thanks to her lack of a melee weapon.
With reputation down to 3, Mendel went to the coast to get a boost from Ardrouine. Escorting Brage back to Nashkel then meant the soldiers there wouldn't attack him. Oublek provided another point before he donated at the temple to get several more. After adding another couple from Mr Colquetle and Firebead, I decided to pick up the potion case at High Hedge as well to get a complete collection of containers - and while there Mendel spent quite a while stealth attacking the golems to pick up their XP.
Much quicker and easier XP was on offer at the basilisk area. It's quite possible there to follow Korax round without ever sighting any of the basilisks (until they are paralyzed). However, stealth made that easier, while dual-wielding helped finish basilisks off reasonably quickly. I added a potion of stone giant strength as well, to try and speed that up further, but still didn't manage to quite finish off the greater and lesser basilisks near Mutamin before Korax turned hostile. The lesser basilisk was then charmed, but immediately petrified by the greater one. Around a dozen attempts later Mendel successfully charmed the greater one and killing that after Korax kindly paralyzed it took him to level 7. A similar fate befell Baerin, but Lindin's XP was lost when gibberlings spawned on a nearby encounter spot and joined the attack with Korax - making it much harder to judge when to attack to get the killing blow. There was no problem with Peter and Kirian herself though and I took the time to finish Korax off as well by kiting as Mendel only needed a 12 to hit him.
Charming a couple of half-ogres was enough to get a good word from Bjornin to maximise reputation and trigger some shopping. The Wand of Heavens allowed quick progress against a couple of battle horrors at Durlag's Tower, though it was then an expensive business to recharge it. The doppleganger on the wall could be slowly kicked from out of its weapon range - though the skeletons had to be fireballed first as they have longer weapons. There was then a nervous business on the roof of attacking basilisks using a PfP scroll. To make the process as quick as possible Mendel used a strength potion and was attacking in melee, but that's potentially dangerous when a critical taken could hurt so badly from a basilisk switching to melee. However, in the event Mendel didn't take too much damage. The greenstone amulet let him get the tome and freeing Kirinhale was enough to get him to level 8 (the BG1 cap).
Charming Bassilus provided enough cash to buy the Claw of Kazgaroth - wearing that Mendel has a standard, unbuffed, AC vs missiles of -17 giving him a much better chance of survival against ranged enemies. He'll crack on with the main quest next.
In the Nashkel Mine the kobold shaman didn't attempt to detect Mendel, so he was able to sneak down to Mulahey without trouble. The cleric was charmed at the first attempt and died of a wand blast after being worn down by the kobolds. Back in Nashkel, Nimbul was eventually charmed (at the 8th attempt) and worn down by Minsc.
In Beregost, Tranzig killed Marl and Durkin, but used nearly all his spells to do it and Mendel then beat him up in melee. On the way to Peldvale Mendel just ran away from the ambushing Amazons. He got a lift to the Bandit Camp from Raiken and persuaded Tazok to allow him the run of the camp. He used that to charm Taurgosz and get his equipment before going into the tent and charming Raemon. With him dead the tent could be looted, though the only other one I bothered charming was Hakt (to sell his bow).
Using free action Mendel ignored the Cloakwood traps on the way to find the mine. The only fight on the way was with a cave bear, where he charmed Eldoth (to take advantage of the unkillability of SCS NPCs by damage before they've chosen their class, combined with the fact cave bears never switch targets unless they lose sight of the original one). Molkar's gang ambushed him on the way to the mine - he attempted to charm Drakar without success and then ran for it.
At the mine Genthore was charmed and lured away for disposal. When I successfully charmed both mages at once I couldn't resist getting them to produce summons and attacking Drasus. Both threw off their charms pretty quickly, but the summons did quite a bit of damage before Drasus was pulled away to chase Mendel. He failed to get any hits over a long period while gradually being worn down by magic missiles from wands and sling shots. Meanwhile a summoned fire elemental had lasted long enough to kill the mages.
After sneaking downstairs Mendel tried to sight Davaeorn without activating him, but failed. Once all the guards had appeared he blasted the 2 battle horrors with his wand before trying and failing to charm Davaeorn. After resting upstairs he came back down to try again - but lots of the guards had congregated around the entrance again and he hadn't gone into stealth. I thought he would still be able to quickly run round the corner, but he was shot down before getting there (checking the autosave he didn't have most of his missile protection items active so was much more vulnerable than usual).
Dude, the level of awesomeness of your run is out of this world !
I loved the way you used the charm cheese from the cloaks in BG1, and your preparations for the Belhifet fight was eye opening ! I'm genuinely amazed ?
After sneaking downstairs Mendel tried to sight Davaeorn without activating him, but failed. Once all the guards had appeared he blasted the 2 battle horrors with his wand before trying and failing to charm Davaeorn. After resting upstairs he came back down to try again - but lots of the guards had congregated around the entrance again and he hadn't gone into stealth. I thought he would still be able to quickly run round the corner, but he was shot down before getting there (checking the autosave he didn't have most of his missile protection items active so was much more vulnerable than usual).
Tips / Thoughts:
Using missile protection items is a pretty neat idea. Davaeorn cannot be sighted; he will trigger his script if he sees you even if you're invisible. The script then triggers his horde of enemies. Battle horrors don't see through invisibility which is a plus, so they could be ignored if necessary. Might want to use wand of fear (high hedge) or wand of monster summoning (labyrinth floor 1 of durlag's tower) to help out
Dude, the level of awesomeness of your run is out of this world !
I loved the way you used the charm cheese from the cloaks in BG1, and your preparations for the Belhifet fight was eye opening ! I'm genuinely amazed ?
Thank you for your kind words!
I have just finished SoD. Wand of Polymorph is ridiculously useful in SoD; it works against all the important enemies, including liches.
As for Belhifet I killed Bel with Lower Resistance + Greater Malison + Wand of Polymorph, Detect Illusion (thieving ability) and enchanted weapon + arrows of detonation.
In version 2.5.17.0 I reached the conclusion that the ST +5 bonus to die rolls is cancelled by the ST +5 penalty to the base ST of all monsters. Thus, Bel fails wand saves 15% of the time without GM and 35% with GM applied.
Bel starts with 100% MR, so if you use 2 LR, Spell Sequence 3 GM, cast GM until it sticks then spam WoP until the two LR expires, refresh the LRs with your remaining 2 LRs and then continue spamming WoP, the probability that you will land a WoP after this whole sequence is ~95%. Once WoP is applied Bel is as good as dead; he can be slain with 2 arrows of detonation.
If the ST bug is fixed this can only work ~55% of the time.
Detect Illusion is best used by activating it only when Bel is invisible, staying stationary as much as possible when it is in use and staying as close to Bel.
Bel also has a casting time of 1, so in theory it could be possible to interrupt his attack with enchanted weapon + arrow of detonation. I'm not sure if it can work since I didn't manage to get it to work.
P.S: I have a very bad tendency to keep editing my messages. Sorry mods
@lightningrodbombom your report made me want to try again the solo LoB challenge.
My latest run was a solo no-reload LoB poverty (only items I allowed my PC to use were the Tomes) run with a gnomish cleric/thief. Cleared BG1, skipped SoD, and got bored in BG2.
I'll first try with a berserker (7) / druid.
Using cheese, though, especially to get the XP needed to reach the BG1 cap.
Relying on wand of polymorphing (usable by druids apparently), nymph/Algernon's cloaks, and druid summons should take care of BG1 (in fact, the easiest LoB solo run I did in BG1 was with a totemic druid, its special summons are really really powerful in BG1, and keep their utility far into BG2).
Not sure how SoD will turn out, but I'll try and take on Big B with a combination of Magic Resistance spell + Harm.
I'm also tempted to try some kind of Mage (lvl3 or 7) dialed to thief, used as a thief who can use wands & scrolls, plus a few low leveled spells. Not really powerful, but I've tried the thief/Mage multi or thief->Mage dual a few times already and want something different.
@monico I've not tried berserker / druid so I can't really offer much advice on that .
I've tried playing BG1 LoB/SCS with a level 1 only character using algernon's cloak and it was kind of manageable (only problem was the random encounters), so If you don't mind cheesing with the charm cloaks BG1 really should be a cakewalk for any character. With the wands it's going to be easy game.
For SoD your berserker (7) / druid (12) should have an easy time with insect plague... or in general really because he looks pretty good on paper. I don't know if it works on Belhifet but if it does you can probably just throw it out before he can get any improved invisibility / gate thing going on. MR + Harm is going to be pretty sick if you can touch Bel in the first place: his AC without Imp. Inv. is -12 + -11 = -23 AC. I'd recommend keeping the violet potion from the nashkel carnival so that you can pump your STR to 25 for that encounter and buff yourself plenty, but even then I'm not sure if the blow will connect haha
A mage -> thief dual is definitely exotic. The one thing that makes M/T good is the synergy the build has in SoA & ToB, but when you do a mage -> thief I feel that's different story altogether. I'm trying to think of what kind of advantage this dual could have over bards or bard kits in general; after all, if you just want a thief who can use wands / scrolls a bard would fit the bill nicely. There are also a lot of decent BG1 & SoD bard items to give it an advantage.
Advantages of M -> T
1. You could mod the game s.t. you can dual class into a thief class kit and that would be pretty fabulous.
2. You get full access to thieving abilities (lockpick, find traps, hide in shadows, detect illusion, set traps) and you get more points to allocate to them. The only useful abilities is HIS and Detect Illusion though, set traps isn't very useful until your level is much higher
3. You can turn invisible almost whenever you want with stealth
4. You can backstab.
I'm not really sure how well this would turn out.
Disadvantages of M -> T
1. Very poor spell progression (haha obviously!)
2. Thieves scale very poorly in THAC0 and that's pretty ugh in LoB.
3. Thieving skills ultimately don't offer that much
I think such a character will have to focus alot on item usage and it's going to be a tough run in general; even after they reach SoA I feel there's not that much to look forward to either in such a build. A M/T would be able to exploit stuff like Mislead, PI and Simulacrum as and when they wish. A M -> T can only do so if and when he has the scrolls to do so, since Vhailor's Helm is shifted to ToB in SCS. Certainly such a build is feasible and definitely doable, but I think such a run would feel like you're playing with a handicap.
Personally I'm biased towards the C/M for wand/item-based LoB/SCS playthroughs, if only because they can carry so many debuff spells that make already-powerful items even more powerful, and have so many complementary abilities to make cheese even cheesier. But that's my opinion lol I am quite biased towards spellcasting in Baldur's Gate
MR + Harm is going to be pretty sick if you can touch Bel in the first place: his AC without Imp. Inv. is -12 + -11 = -23 AC. I'd recommend keeping the violet potion from the nashkel carnival so that you can pump your STR to 25 for that encounter and buff yourself plenty, but even then I'm not sure if the blow will connect haha
Hitting him is not actually the difficult bit - druids can make use of champions strength scrolls (which stack ...).
Oh I didn't know that! Whoa... Damn. MR by a level 12 Druid will put Bel's MR at 24%, so 2 attempts of Harm (factoring critical misses) = 1 - (0.24+0.76*0.05)^2 = 0.9227 ~= 92.27% chance of killing Bel within the first 4 rounds lmao
Davaeorn cannot be sighted; he will trigger his script if he sees you even if you're invisible.
He can be sighted pretty reliably if you're careful. You need to only be in sight range of him for a fraction of a second though (in my run I just got careless at that point and moved too far). An easy way to kill him in this challenge is to charm the guard, pull back the battle horrors and kill them (or strand them out of sight using invisibility), then sight Davaeorn and send the guard to attack him - as long as the PC doesn't activate him, Davaeorn won't react while the guard beats him up.
MR + Harm is going to be pretty sick if you can touch Bel in the first place: his AC without Imp. Inv. is -12 + -11 = -23 AC. I'd recommend keeping the violet potion from the nashkel carnival so that you can pump your STR to 25 for that encounter and buff yourself plenty, but even then I'm not sure if the blow will connect haha
Hitting him is not actually the difficult bit - druids can make use of champions strength scrolls (which stack ...).
A mage -> thief dual is definitely exotic. The one thing that makes M/T good is the synergy the build has in SoA & ToB, but when you do a mage -> thief I feel that's different story altogether.
[...]
A M/T would be able to exploit stuff like Mislead, PI and Simulacrum as and when they wish. A M -> T can only do so if and when he has the scrolls to do so, since Vhailor's Helm is shifted to ToB in SCS.
[...]
Personally I'm biased towards the C/M for wand/item-based LoB/SCS playthroughs, [...]
Well, thing is, I've played M/T or T->M a lot, enjoyed it much but want to try something new. At first I wanted to go plain thief, and thought "why not add wands?", hence the M->T.
Not sure i'll ever pull it off though, it's probably gonna stay one of those planned character that I never get past Candlekeep (I actually already rolled one, a human Conjurer to be dualed at lvl 7).
Same goes for C/M. I love the class (especially gnome C/I), played a casual one (with NPC's and no LoB) a few months back, and had also a wonderful experience at my first attempt at this challenge (no SCS though) with a FMC, somewhat similar gameplay.
So, I want something new, and it's been a long time since my last druid run, hence the F->D (hesitated with my all-time-favourite solo Totemic Druid who really kicks a$$ in BG1)
@lightningrodbombom
Very fun read so far.
I'm at the part nwith Djarmid being unkillable, as far as I remember with tons of cheese I once managed to kill him, I don't remember what exactly I did, I might have posted it here but the thread has become quite large, so who knows.
(Pretty certain it involved charming him with cloak and removing him to the outside area of Candlekeep)
Either way he did not stay dead and showed upa t the final fight with Sarevok.
I'm looking at Belhifet's script and I think I know why the infinite devil summoning scenario I kept worrying about never showed up for other folks despite Belhifet fights lasting dozens of rounds: there's a line that prevents Belhifet from casting Gate if there are more than 10 devils on the map.
Some devils are distinctly weaker than others, so in theory, you could better survive a long war of attrition by killing the stronger demons and letting Belhifet replace them with weaker ones. Notably, Erinyes only have a THAC0 of 4 when they're out of arrows, and that's very easy to resist, especially because they only have one attack per round.
I also notice that demons don't teleport to you unless the distance between you is 6 or more. How far exactly is a range of 6? Because if you did NOT have haste active and therefore had a movement speed equal to the devils', you could walk away from them continuously without worrying about overshooting that range and having a bunch of demons teleport on top of you and box you in.
That would allow you to kite the devils and survive for fairly long periods of time just by relying on regular potions and +2 ammunition. Since Potions of (Extra) Healing and +2 bullets and arrows are very easy to accumulate, a character that would otherwise struggle to fight Belhifet and a host of devils could get around it by spending many rounds slowly walking away from the devils and gradually picking away at the stronger ones while using cheap potions to stay safe. Whittle down Belhifet's allies to erinyes and the non-red abishais, and you wouldn't have to put up with nearly as much melee pressure when tanking.
The War Hulk is still hard to gauge. Dual-classed to cleric, it would be immune to the disabling effects of rage spirals when using SCS v32's new IWD spells to gain immunity to berserk effects, and whenever it was in trouble, it could always bail out with Divine Protection and/or the Rod of Resurrection. The single-classed version has much more solid damage output with the Impaler, though.
A Seducer would still struggle to take down Belhifet, but Domination has a decent chance of charming the other devils, so you could clear the field of the nastier demons and be better positioned for a war of attrition. The Seducer would have trouble later in the game without resorting to level drain shenanigans with Recruit Follower, though. You'd have a roughly one-third chance of charming a Fallen Solar at the Throne every round, but you'd be extremely vulnerable unless you burned precious HLAs or relied on Shield Amulet stacking and prayed that the Fallen Solars didn't land any critical hits.
Although I don't much like slings, a single- or dual-classed Archer thief should be able to deal with Belhifet using Bullets of Darkness despite its otherwise poor APR (with careful micromanagement, it might be possible to combine Lower Resistance, Greater Malison, Web, Called Shot, Melf's Minute Meteors, and Hold Monster to paralyze Belhifet for many rounds on end). Once you reached BG2, the Wand of Lightning trick would work great with Called Shot, though you'd have trouble landing hits at times and the single-classed Archer thief would need Use Any Item to use a Wand of Lightning.
An Alchemist, as always, could spam Grenades +3 more or less infinitely. It would stay strong into ToB, too, since it could combine Use Any Item with Plasma and deal grotesque damage with dual-wielded speed items.
A Kensai Monk would be very well-suited to dealing with Belhifet, since it can reach Grandmastery in melee weapons where other monks would be stuck at proficiency (though you couldn't break GM until level 12, just beyond the SoD XP cap). A Kensai Thief could do much the same, though it would never be able to compete in ToB due to the lack of Use Any Item or Hardiness.
A Seer Cleric would have the same trouble against Belhifet as any cleric, but its critical hit bonuses would allow it to dispatch the other devils with the Martyr's Morningstar with very little trouble, allowing it to clear the field of the nastier devils. A Seer Druid would be able to tank very effectively, since it would get a -6 bonus to AC by level 11 (the cleric kit would get -5 due to being stuck at level 10), and its inability to use armor wouldn't be as relevant when Potions of Defense are on hand. The Seer kits are immune to invisibility, though, which really screws with standard BG1 gameplay in this challenge.
The Sword Dancer kits are a bit odd. They get triple APR, but an 80% penalty to physical damage, making them lousy at dealing damage in most cases but excellent at applying on-hit effects (the Answerer at triple efficacy would make Critical Strike obsolete due to enemy AC no longer mattering in LoB mode!). A Sword Dancer fighter, single- or dual-classed to mage, would be able to do standard tanking using either Drizzt's scimitars or the Tongue of Acid +3. If it were dual-classed to druid, Belhifet would be much easier due to Champion's Strength scrolls, but you'd fall off terribly in BG2 and ToB due to the item restrictions. The Dancer kits for monks would easily be able to handle Belhifet with Champion's Strength and the Voidsword, but only the fighter kit would be able to use stuff like the Flail of Ages, Soul Reaver, Silver Sword, and the Ravager, all of which would be incredibly important for BG2. The Scorcher Ammunition would obliterate anything not immune to fire, since you'd be dealing 30d12 nonmagical area-effect fire damage every round even without GWW. The Efreeti Bottle and Ras would both give you valid targets to roast the Fallen Solars at the Throne.
The Green Soul kit might be able to handle Belhifet. Fire Shield Blue would only be able to deal half damage, but the +50% bonus to spell duration would make it much easier to snare Belhifet, since it would extend Lower Resistance, Greater Malison, Web, and Hold Monster. Once you got into BG2, you'd be golden, with longer-lasting PFMW spells, summons, and very lengthy Time Stop and Improved Alacrity spells.
The Psionicist fighter and monk kits and the druid multiclasses would be about the same as vanilla classes in terms of how they could handle Belhifet and other challenges.
@semiticgod That is quite insightful. However, wouldn't you need to have minimum +3 ammunition / melee weapons to hit Belhifet? I think the limited amounts of +3 ammo may be the constraint in a battle of attrition for ranged based combatants (unless u were referring to using the +2 ammo on the demons).
As for the range, the first thing that came to mind was that the number was in feet (I'm not certain as I've never touched the code before). If we estimate that the range of vision is ~26ft (from https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Silence,_15'_Radius#cite_note-0) then we can estimate that 6ft is around a quarter of the character's range of vision. That wouldn't be a lot of space to work with, especially if there are 10 demons + Belhifet.
The 6 foot range is definitely very limited. You'd still have some demons periodically teleporting.
The +3 ammunition does run out. None of the classes that I mentioned would be able to kill Belhifet using voidstone ammunition alone before needing to resort to other weapons unless you.got very lucky with the dice rolls.
My Berserker (7) -> Druid (almost finished BG1) left me a bit unconvinced, I missed the gameplay of my favourite druid kit (Totemic Druid) or the versality of the Avenger kit.
I have already tried solo-LoB Totemic druid a few times, so I wanted to try the Avenger kit. Since I haven't prior experience with this kit, I thought I would first try a standart non-LoB run.
The Avenger is a beast in BG1. I rapidly hit lvl cap (ab)using the basilisks (in retrospect, it was overkill in normal mode). I owned Drizzt without a sweat (first cast Magic Resistance on him, then doom, had summons around him to aggro his attention while I launched several webs around him, he regularly failed his save and 2 Call Lightning finished him before I even had the chance to join the fun in spider form and its 5 APR).
The thing is, I am now so used to playing LoB with the enemie's large HP that regular critters feel underwhelming. They fall too fast now.
So I was wondering : how does the Avenger in LoB (without SCS so no IWD druid spells) fare later in the game, especially against Big B and in late-BG2/ToB ?
I know @Harpagornis did a poverty run with an Avenger in this thread, so any advice would be very welcome.
From what I read, the lack of some summoning spells from the IWD spellbook (the Beetles most notably) will probably make my progress much harder.
But I must say, I really loved the Avenger kit (much more than the Berserker->Druid, powerful but not so fun to me), and I want to try one on LoB. I just want to be sure that I plan it correctly, especially for Big B's fight.
The most obvious solution would probably be the same as any other druid (lots of Champion's Strength scrolls, Magic Resistance to lower Big B's MR, and hope to land a Harm spell). Since I will use gear, the use of Webs + RoFA can make this even easier I guess.
EDIT : also, general question, is it possible in any way to have your summons from the elevator follow you against Belhifet ? 'cause I'm already having a headache figuring how to evade the Dispel Magic at the beginning of the fight if I turn down Caelar
My Berserker (7) -> Druid (almost finished BG1) left me a bit unconvinced, I missed the gameplay of my favourite druid kit (Totemic Druid) or the versality of the Avenger kit.
I have already tried solo-LoB Totemic druid a few times, so I wanted to try the Avenger kit. Since I haven't prior experience with this kit, I thought I would first try a standart non-LoB run.
The Avenger is a beast in BG1. I rapidly hit lvl cap (ab)using the basilisks (in retrospect, it was overkill in normal mode). I owned Drizzt without a sweat (first cast Magic Resistance on him, then doom, had summons around him to aggro his attention while I launched several webs around him, he regularly failed his save and 2 Call Lightning finished him before I even had the chance to join the fun in spider form and its 5 APR).
The thing is, I am now so used to playing LoB with the enemie's large HP that regular critters feel underwhelming. They fall too fast now.
So I was wondering : how does the Avenger in LoB (without SCS so no IWD druid spells) fare later in the game, especially against Big B and in late-BG2/ToB ?
I know @Harpagornis did a poverty run with an Avenger in this thread, so any advice would be very welcome.
From what I read, the lack of some summoning spells from the IWD spellbook (the Beetles most notably) will probably make my progress much harder.
But I must say, I really loved the Avenger kit (much more than the Berserker->Druid, powerful but not so fun to me), and I want to try one on LoB. I just want to be sure that I plan it correctly, especially for Big B's fight.
The most obvious solution would probably be the same as any other druid (lots of Champion's Strength scrolls, Magic Resistance to lower Big B's MR, and hope to land a Harm spell). Since I will use gear, the use of Webs + RoFA can make this even easier I guess.
EDIT : also, general question, is it possible in any way to have your summons from the elevator follow you against Belhifet ? 'cause I'm already having a headache figuring how to evade the Dispel Magic at the beginning of the fight if I turn down Caelar
I actually started an Avenger very recently and in my opinion the beetles are a very small deal overall. (tho they are really nice ofc)
Web is just very cheesy and beetles get stuck in it, so all they serve for is distraction, but then we might as well use other summons, especially vs Big b there is plenty of conusmable summons available.
For Harpas poverty run that was different, cuz .... poverty, but for a normal run beetles are non essential.
@Victor_Creed_SFV thx for the input, i wasn't sure if Beetles were immune to webs or something. Since they aren't, they don't seem to be such a big deal indeed.
It's actually sad that Avengers don't get summons that are immune to webs (spiders or wyverns for example), that would have been cool (well, there's kitthix in BG2).
In SoD, I think the Mephits from the Ring of tiny friends, being winged creatures, should be immune to web and could synergize well with webs.
@Victor_Creed_SFV thx for the input, i wasn't sure if Beetles were immune to webs or something. Since they aren't, they don't seem to be such a big deal indeed.
The big advantage of the beetles is their ability to stun opponents without offering a save. That gives you the chance to do major damage quickly to some of the toughest enemies.
Do you guys play with the "Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold" SCS component?
Seems nearly impossible to me for certain classes like pure fighters. You need a magical quarterstaff to hit the Clay Golem, and the only one available is in a container next to a Lich
I don't play SCS, but that seems a bit weird, overly difficult, and not very logical from a RP standpoint. You haven't spent much time in spellhold, I don't see Irenicus taking the extra time to sell your personal items away.
Or do you get your equipment back when you escape the maze ? That would, in fact, be the most logical behaviour RP-wise.
For the purposes of solo+LoB, that component would probably be too much though, I'd suggest you either forgo this component, or just tweak it by placing some "normal" enchanted weapons in a easy-to-access container.
Personally, I tend to use all the SCS components that make enemies more challenging - but not those difficulty components that are RP based (such as this one, replacing magic weapons with fine ones and removing unrealistically helpful items from particular locations). That probably reflects that I'm not really interested in the RP aspects of the game ...
Just a short hello! Yeah, i am still alive even though BG isnt on my list - RL is eating too much time. Maybe once i will return - especially as the poverty Avenger is still waiting around Draconis. Hope all of you are fine.
Looks like @Grond0 is still dying in fashion - keep going!
since when can u not kill montaron anymore after u get imoen anyone know ?? i even tried to use console and they wont die at all... i restarted doing this lob scs challenge again and i realy would like to kill these buggers so i can continue lol
I kill him in all my games. It may be you're seeing the result of the level 0 component of SCS that allows you to level NPCs up and choose their skills when you first recruit them. One result of that is that it normally takes at least one attack to turn the NPCs hostile (that one won't hurt them). Shortly after that though you should be able to attack, damage and kill them.
Comments
I noticed (from the list on the first page) that nobody had done a solo LoB/SCS run with the mage/thief (my favourite class!) and I wanted to.. well, show that it can be done! I honestly don't know if someone has done this before since there's just so much content in this thread.
I'm almost done with BG1. There's a lot to detail, so I put everything into a Google Doc which you can access here.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FO5lgQdzW53oJ_Jq8-gcJ8wCHeXre8C_-xP7PtjYyC8/edit?usp=sharing
BG1 tl;dr: find familiar for early-game, stinking cloud & traps & algernon's cloak mid-game, nymph cloak & backstabbing late-game.
This playthrough made me realize how insanely powerful two items are: algernon's cloak + nymph cloak. They are so strong I can probably solo the game with a level 1 character just using these two items together with potions to tank trap damage. Algernon's Cloak can be obtained for free (but you'll have to get Algernon killed / pickpocket him) and the Nymph Cloak was dirt cheap to recharge. You can charm almost any non-undead creature (and they bypassed spell defences) and you could do so repeatedly until success, because they did not aggro. characters on a failed attempt. Once they were charmed, you could move them from place to place by making them attack you before you transit. As long as the movement wasn't scripted (e.g. Shandalar's teleportation) and didn't require access to the world map, the NPC will follow you.
This meant that I could move NPCs around for big battles or for cheese/convenience. This allowed me to accelerate the pickpocket / selling process, rest in places where I'm not supposed to rest and basically do all sorts of tactics that I had to resort to because the NPCs were so strong. This also added gave the sewers in Baldur's Gate renewed purpose: I could use it to transport units.
If a charmed creature died by the hands of a hostile enemy, you don't get a reputation loss. I exploited this pretty often to kill people for their loot. On the other hand, you (usually) get XP for anything your charmed creatures kill.
My favourite moment so far with these items was that I killed Aec'Letec using a Chromatic Orb cast by a charmed mage (in LoB, these things are akin to a Finger of Death). If that didn't work, I also had another charmed mage who had Greater Malison and Flesh to Stone.
I'm planning to kill Sarevok using a greater basilisk (the one from the warehouse), but I'm not sure if he's got immunity to petrify. We'll see.
Merry Christmas everyone
Going down to Nashkel allowed him to learn LMD before he went back to the Beregost Temple and starting charming sirines. Those were worn down against enemies before being finished off. Unfortunately 2 of them died to enemies fractionally before my attacks arrived, but the other 2 (along with a few odds and sods around Beregost) were enough for level 5.
At the Lake area, Mendel activated a single gnoll to attack Drizzt. I wanted the XP for him, so was prepared to retreat and reset the combat if the gnoll did not break his weapon after 20 minutes or so. I did that just the once before a break occurred and Mendel just needed to wait then until Drizzt was unconscious and finish him off for a sweet 12k. That took him close to level 6 and charming & killing the belt ogre, having charmed gate guards kill Tarnesh and returning Landrin's things did the job.
Further north Tenya got her bowl back before Mendel went on to Ulgoth's Beard and attacked Dushai - killing her with run and hit tactics was not too hard thanks to her lack of a melee weapon.
With reputation down to 3, Mendel went to the coast to get a boost from Ardrouine. Escorting Brage back to Nashkel then meant the soldiers there wouldn't attack him. Oublek provided another point before he donated at the temple to get several more. After adding another couple from Mr Colquetle and Firebead, I decided to pick up the potion case at High Hedge as well to get a complete collection of containers - and while there Mendel spent quite a while stealth attacking the golems to pick up their XP.
Much quicker and easier XP was on offer at the basilisk area. It's quite possible there to follow Korax round without ever sighting any of the basilisks (until they are paralyzed). However, stealth made that easier, while dual-wielding helped finish basilisks off reasonably quickly. I added a potion of stone giant strength as well, to try and speed that up further, but still didn't manage to quite finish off the greater and lesser basilisks near Mutamin before Korax turned hostile. The lesser basilisk was then charmed, but immediately petrified by the greater one. Around a dozen attempts later Mendel successfully charmed the greater one and killing that after Korax kindly paralyzed it took him to level 7. A similar fate befell Baerin, but Lindin's XP was lost when gibberlings spawned on a nearby encounter spot and joined the attack with Korax - making it much harder to judge when to attack to get the killing blow. There was no problem with Peter and Kirian herself though and I took the time to finish Korax off as well by kiting as Mendel only needed a 12 to hit him.
Charming a couple of half-ogres was enough to get a good word from Bjornin to maximise reputation and trigger some shopping. The Wand of Heavens allowed quick progress against a couple of battle horrors at Durlag's Tower, though it was then an expensive business to recharge it. The doppleganger on the wall could be slowly kicked from out of its weapon range - though the skeletons had to be fireballed first as they have longer weapons. There was then a nervous business on the roof of attacking basilisks using a PfP scroll. To make the process as quick as possible Mendel used a strength potion and was attacking in melee, but that's potentially dangerous when a critical taken could hurt so badly from a basilisk switching to melee. However, in the event Mendel didn't take too much damage. The greenstone amulet let him get the tome and freeing Kirinhale was enough to get him to level 8 (the BG1 cap).
Charming Bassilus provided enough cash to buy the Claw of Kazgaroth - wearing that Mendel has a standard, unbuffed, AC vs missiles of -17 giving him a much better chance of survival against ranged enemies. He'll crack on with the main quest next.
In Beregost, Tranzig killed Marl and Durkin, but used nearly all his spells to do it and Mendel then beat him up in melee. On the way to Peldvale Mendel just ran away from the ambushing Amazons. He got a lift to the Bandit Camp from Raiken and persuaded Tazok to allow him the run of the camp. He used that to charm Taurgosz and get his equipment before going into the tent and charming Raemon. With him dead the tent could be looted, though the only other one I bothered charming was Hakt (to sell his bow).
Using free action Mendel ignored the Cloakwood traps on the way to find the mine. The only fight on the way was with a cave bear, where he charmed Eldoth (to take advantage of the unkillability of SCS NPCs by damage before they've chosen their class, combined with the fact cave bears never switch targets unless they lose sight of the original one). Molkar's gang ambushed him on the way to the mine - he attempted to charm Drakar without success and then ran for it.
At the mine Genthore was charmed and lured away for disposal. When I successfully charmed both mages at once I couldn't resist getting them to produce summons and attacking Drasus. Both threw off their charms pretty quickly, but the summons did quite a bit of damage before Drasus was pulled away to chase Mendel. He failed to get any hits over a long period while gradually being worn down by magic missiles from wands and sling shots. Meanwhile a summoned fire elemental had lasted long enough to kill the mages.
After sneaking downstairs Mendel tried to sight Davaeorn without activating him, but failed. Once all the guards had appeared he blasted the 2 battle horrors with his wand before trying and failing to charm Davaeorn. After resting upstairs he came back down to try again - but lots of the guards had congregated around the entrance again and he hadn't gone into stealth. I thought he would still be able to quickly run round the corner, but he was shot down before getting there (checking the autosave he didn't have most of his missile protection items active so was much more vulnerable than usual).
Dude, the level of awesomeness of your run is out of this world !
I loved the way you used the charm cheese from the cloaks in BG1, and your preparations for the Belhifet fight was eye opening ! I'm genuinely amazed ?
I have just finished SoD. Wand of Polymorph is ridiculously useful in SoD; it works against all the important enemies, including liches.
As for Belhifet I killed Bel with Lower Resistance + Greater Malison + Wand of Polymorph, Detect Illusion (thieving ability) and enchanted weapon + arrows of detonation.
In version 2.5.17.0 I reached the conclusion that the ST +5 bonus to die rolls is cancelled by the ST +5 penalty to the base ST of all monsters. Thus, Bel fails wand saves 15% of the time without GM and 35% with GM applied.
Bel starts with 100% MR, so if you use 2 LR, Spell Sequence 3 GM, cast GM until it sticks then spam WoP until the two LR expires, refresh the LRs with your remaining 2 LRs and then continue spamming WoP, the probability that you will land a WoP after this whole sequence is ~95%. Once WoP is applied Bel is as good as dead; he can be slain with 2 arrows of detonation.
If the ST bug is fixed this can only work ~55% of the time.
Detect Illusion is best used by activating it only when Bel is invisible, staying stationary as much as possible when it is in use and staying as close to Bel.
Bel also has a casting time of 1, so in theory it could be possible to interrupt his attack with enchanted weapon + arrow of detonation. I'm not sure if it can work since I didn't manage to get it to work.
P.S: I have a very bad tendency to keep editing my messages. Sorry mods
Happy New Year everyone
My latest run was a solo no-reload LoB poverty (only items I allowed my PC to use were the Tomes) run with a gnomish cleric/thief. Cleared BG1, skipped SoD, and got bored in BG2.
I'll first try with a berserker (7) / druid.
Using cheese, though, especially to get the XP needed to reach the BG1 cap.
Relying on wand of polymorphing (usable by druids apparently), nymph/Algernon's cloaks, and druid summons should take care of BG1 (in fact, the easiest LoB solo run I did in BG1 was with a totemic druid, its special summons are really really powerful in BG1, and keep their utility far into BG2).
Not sure how SoD will turn out, but I'll try and take on Big B with a combination of Magic Resistance spell + Harm.
I'm also tempted to try some kind of Mage (lvl3 or 7) dialed to thief, used as a thief who can use wands & scrolls, plus a few low leveled spells. Not really powerful, but I've tried the thief/Mage multi or thief->Mage dual a few times already and want something different.
I've tried playing BG1 LoB/SCS with a level 1 only character using algernon's cloak and it was kind of manageable (only problem was the random encounters), so If you don't mind cheesing with the charm cloaks BG1 really should be a cakewalk for any character. With the wands it's going to be easy game.
For SoD your berserker (7) / druid (12) should have an easy time with insect plague... or in general really because he looks pretty good on paper. I don't know if it works on Belhifet but if it does you can probably just throw it out before he can get any improved invisibility / gate thing going on. MR + Harm is going to be pretty sick if you can touch Bel in the first place: his AC without Imp. Inv. is -12 + -11 = -23 AC. I'd recommend keeping the violet potion from the nashkel carnival so that you can pump your STR to 25 for that encounter and buff yourself plenty, but even then I'm not sure if the blow will connect haha
A mage -> thief dual is definitely exotic. The one thing that makes M/T good is the synergy the build has in SoA & ToB, but when you do a mage -> thief I feel that's different story altogether. I'm trying to think of what kind of advantage this dual could have over bards or bard kits in general; after all, if you just want a thief who can use wands / scrolls a bard would fit the bill nicely. There are also a lot of decent BG1 & SoD bard items to give it an advantage.
Advantages of M -> T
1. You could mod the game s.t. you can dual class into a thief class kit and that would be pretty fabulous.
2. You get full access to thieving abilities (lockpick, find traps, hide in shadows, detect illusion, set traps) and you get more points to allocate to them. The only useful abilities is HIS and Detect Illusion though, set traps isn't very useful until your level is much higher
3. You can turn invisible almost whenever you want with stealth
4. You can backstab.
I'm not really sure how well this would turn out.
Disadvantages of M -> T
1. Very poor spell progression (haha obviously!)
2. Thieves scale very poorly in THAC0 and that's pretty ugh in LoB.
3. Thieving skills ultimately don't offer that much
I think such a character will have to focus alot on item usage and it's going to be a tough run in general; even after they reach SoA I feel there's not that much to look forward to either in such a build. A M/T would be able to exploit stuff like Mislead, PI and Simulacrum as and when they wish. A M -> T can only do so if and when he has the scrolls to do so, since Vhailor's Helm is shifted to ToB in SCS. Certainly such a build is feasible and definitely doable, but I think such a run would feel like you're playing with a handicap.
Personally I'm biased towards the C/M for wand/item-based LoB/SCS playthroughs, if only because they can carry so many debuff spells that make already-powerful items even more powerful, and have so many complementary abilities to make cheese even cheesier. But that's my opinion lol I am quite biased towards spellcasting in Baldur's Gate
Hitting him is not actually the difficult bit - druids can make use of champions strength scrolls (which stack ...).
He can be sighted pretty reliably if you're careful. You need to only be in sight range of him for a fraction of a second though (in my run I just got careless at that point and moved too far). An easy way to kill him in this challenge is to charm the guard, pull back the battle horrors and kill them (or strand them out of sight using invisibility), then sight Davaeorn and send the guard to attack him - as long as the PC doesn't activate him, Davaeorn won't react while the guard beats him up.
Precisely my plan ?
Well, thing is, I've played M/T or T->M a lot, enjoyed it much but want to try something new. At first I wanted to go plain thief, and thought "why not add wands?", hence the M->T.
Not sure i'll ever pull it off though, it's probably gonna stay one of those planned character that I never get past Candlekeep (I actually already rolled one, a human Conjurer to be dualed at lvl 7).
Same goes for C/M. I love the class (especially gnome C/I), played a casual one (with NPC's and no LoB) a few months back, and had also a wonderful experience at my first attempt at this challenge (no SCS though) with a FMC, somewhat similar gameplay.
So, I want something new, and it's been a long time since my last druid run, hence the F->D (hesitated with my all-time-favourite solo Totemic Druid who really kicks a$$ in BG1)
Very fun read so far.
I'm at the part nwith Djarmid being unkillable, as far as I remember with tons of cheese I once managed to kill him, I don't remember what exactly I did, I might have posted it here but the thread has become quite large, so who knows.
(Pretty certain it involved charming him with cloak and removing him to the outside area of Candlekeep)
Either way he did not stay dead and showed upa t the final fight with Sarevok.
Some devils are distinctly weaker than others, so in theory, you could better survive a long war of attrition by killing the stronger demons and letting Belhifet replace them with weaker ones. Notably, Erinyes only have a THAC0 of 4 when they're out of arrows, and that's very easy to resist, especially because they only have one attack per round.
I also notice that demons don't teleport to you unless the distance between you is 6 or more. How far exactly is a range of 6? Because if you did NOT have haste active and therefore had a movement speed equal to the devils', you could walk away from them continuously without worrying about overshooting that range and having a bunch of demons teleport on top of you and box you in.
That would allow you to kite the devils and survive for fairly long periods of time just by relying on regular potions and +2 ammunition. Since Potions of (Extra) Healing and +2 bullets and arrows are very easy to accumulate, a character that would otherwise struggle to fight Belhifet and a host of devils could get around it by spending many rounds slowly walking away from the devils and gradually picking away at the stronger ones while using cheap potions to stay safe. Whittle down Belhifet's allies to erinyes and the non-red abishais, and you wouldn't have to put up with nearly as much melee pressure when tanking.
I'm thinking about how the classes from the Expanded Classes and Kits mod would be able to handle this challenge.
A Seducer would still struggle to take down Belhifet, but Domination has a decent chance of charming the other devils, so you could clear the field of the nastier demons and be better positioned for a war of attrition. The Seducer would have trouble later in the game without resorting to level drain shenanigans with Recruit Follower, though. You'd have a roughly one-third chance of charming a Fallen Solar at the Throne every round, but you'd be extremely vulnerable unless you burned precious HLAs or relied on Shield Amulet stacking and prayed that the Fallen Solars didn't land any critical hits.
Although I don't much like slings, a single- or dual-classed Archer thief should be able to deal with Belhifet using Bullets of Darkness despite its otherwise poor APR (with careful micromanagement, it might be possible to combine Lower Resistance, Greater Malison, Web, Called Shot, Melf's Minute Meteors, and Hold Monster to paralyze Belhifet for many rounds on end). Once you reached BG2, the Wand of Lightning trick would work great with Called Shot, though you'd have trouble landing hits at times and the single-classed Archer thief would need Use Any Item to use a Wand of Lightning.
An Alchemist, as always, could spam Grenades +3 more or less infinitely. It would stay strong into ToB, too, since it could combine Use Any Item with Plasma and deal grotesque damage with dual-wielded speed items.
A Kensai Monk would be very well-suited to dealing with Belhifet, since it can reach Grandmastery in melee weapons where other monks would be stuck at proficiency (though you couldn't break GM until level 12, just beyond the SoD XP cap). A Kensai Thief could do much the same, though it would never be able to compete in ToB due to the lack of Use Any Item or Hardiness.
A Seer Cleric would have the same trouble against Belhifet as any cleric, but its critical hit bonuses would allow it to dispatch the other devils with the Martyr's Morningstar with very little trouble, allowing it to clear the field of the nastier devils. A Seer Druid would be able to tank very effectively, since it would get a -6 bonus to AC by level 11 (the cleric kit would get -5 due to being stuck at level 10), and its inability to use armor wouldn't be as relevant when Potions of Defense are on hand. The Seer kits are immune to invisibility, though, which really screws with standard BG1 gameplay in this challenge.
The Sword Dancer kits are a bit odd. They get triple APR, but an 80% penalty to physical damage, making them lousy at dealing damage in most cases but excellent at applying on-hit effects (the Answerer at triple efficacy would make Critical Strike obsolete due to enemy AC no longer mattering in LoB mode!). A Sword Dancer fighter, single- or dual-classed to mage, would be able to do standard tanking using either Drizzt's scimitars or the Tongue of Acid +3. If it were dual-classed to druid, Belhifet would be much easier due to Champion's Strength scrolls, but you'd fall off terribly in BG2 and ToB due to the item restrictions. The Dancer kits for monks would easily be able to handle Belhifet with Champion's Strength and the Voidsword, but only the fighter kit would be able to use stuff like the Flail of Ages, Soul Reaver, Silver Sword, and the Ravager, all of which would be incredibly important for BG2. The Scorcher Ammunition would obliterate anything not immune to fire, since you'd be dealing 30d12 nonmagical area-effect fire damage every round even without GWW. The Efreeti Bottle and Ras would both give you valid targets to roast the Fallen Solars at the Throne.
The Green Soul kit might be able to handle Belhifet. Fire Shield Blue would only be able to deal half damage, but the +50% bonus to spell duration would make it much easier to snare Belhifet, since it would extend Lower Resistance, Greater Malison, Web, and Hold Monster. Once you got into BG2, you'd be golden, with longer-lasting PFMW spells, summons, and very lengthy Time Stop and Improved Alacrity spells.
The Psionicist fighter and monk kits and the druid multiclasses would be about the same as vanilla classes in terms of how they could handle Belhifet and other challenges.
As for the range, the first thing that came to mind was that the number was in feet (I'm not certain as I've never touched the code before). If we estimate that the range of vision is ~26ft (from https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Silence,_15'_Radius#cite_note-0) then we can estimate that 6ft is around a quarter of the character's range of vision. That wouldn't be a lot of space to work with, especially if there are 10 demons + Belhifet.
The +3 ammunition does run out. None of the classes that I mentioned would be able to kill Belhifet using voidstone ammunition alone before needing to resort to other weapons unless you.got very lucky with the dice rolls.
My Berserker (7) -> Druid (almost finished BG1) left me a bit unconvinced, I missed the gameplay of my favourite druid kit (Totemic Druid) or the versality of the Avenger kit.
I have already tried solo-LoB Totemic druid a few times, so I wanted to try the Avenger kit. Since I haven't prior experience with this kit, I thought I would first try a standart non-LoB run.
The Avenger is a beast in BG1. I rapidly hit lvl cap (ab)using the basilisks (in retrospect, it was overkill in normal mode). I owned Drizzt without a sweat (first cast Magic Resistance on him, then doom, had summons around him to aggro his attention while I launched several webs around him, he regularly failed his save and 2 Call Lightning finished him before I even had the chance to join the fun in spider form and its 5 APR).
The thing is, I am now so used to playing LoB with the enemie's large HP that regular critters feel underwhelming. They fall too fast now.
So I was wondering : how does the Avenger in LoB (without SCS so no IWD druid spells) fare later in the game, especially against Big B and in late-BG2/ToB ?
I know @Harpagornis did a poverty run with an Avenger in this thread, so any advice would be very welcome.
From what I read, the lack of some summoning spells from the IWD spellbook (the Beetles most notably) will probably make my progress much harder.
But I must say, I really loved the Avenger kit (much more than the Berserker->Druid, powerful but not so fun to me), and I want to try one on LoB. I just want to be sure that I plan it correctly, especially for Big B's fight.
The most obvious solution would probably be the same as any other druid (lots of Champion's Strength scrolls, Magic Resistance to lower Big B's MR, and hope to land a Harm spell). Since I will use gear, the use of Webs + RoFA can make this even easier I guess.
EDIT : also, general question, is it possible in any way to have your summons from the elevator follow you against Belhifet ? 'cause I'm already having a headache figuring how to evade the Dispel Magic at the beginning of the fight if I turn down Caelar
I actually started an Avenger very recently and in my opinion the beetles are a very small deal overall. (tho they are really nice ofc)
Web is just very cheesy and beetles get stuck in it, so all they serve for is distraction, but then we might as well use other summons, especially vs Big b there is plenty of conusmable summons available.
For Harpas poverty run that was different, cuz .... poverty, but for a normal run beetles are non essential.
It's actually sad that Avengers don't get summons that are immune to webs (spiders or wyverns for example), that would have been cool (well, there's kitthix in BG2).
In SoD, I think the Mephits from the Ring of tiny friends, being winged creatures, should be immune to web and could synergize well with webs.
The big advantage of the beetles is their ability to stun opponents without offering a save. That gives you the chance to do major damage quickly to some of the toughest enemies.
Seems nearly impossible to me for certain classes like pure fighters. You need a magical quarterstaff to hit the Clay Golem, and the only one available is in a container next to a Lich
Or do you get your equipment back when you escape the maze ? That would, in fact, be the most logical behaviour RP-wise.
For the purposes of solo+LoB, that component would probably be too much though, I'd suggest you either forgo this component, or just tweak it by placing some "normal" enchanted weapons in a easy-to-access container.
Looks like @Grond0 is still dying in fashion - keep going!