After consulting with Felicity, he declared that Wisdom was the stat he'd be sacrificing.
Assuming min-maxing, this is probably the best choice for all non-divine casters...
The choices are Con, Int, Dex, or Wis.
Dex is obviously terrible for pretty much everyone, as you outlined. Maybe a shapeshift-focused druid, who replaces that stat when they're in combat anyway.
Non-warriors are frequently in a position to drop Con safely; if they started with 16, they're at 17 now and can give up a point without losing any HP. If a shorty non-warrior started at 18, they're at 19 and can give up a point without losing HP or saves.
Wis is obviously bad for divine casters (losing spell slots), and pretty harmless for most others ... unless you plan on using wishes. A mage (not triple-class) aiming for Wish needs 18 Wis for best results, and you probably planned your initial stat allocation around that.
And finally, Int. Since everything you need Int for can be covered by potions of genius/mind focusing, which are plentiful in BG2, basically everybody can afford to give up a point here. Including arcane casters. As long as you don't drop below 9 (scroll and wand use), you're fine.
So ... yeah, there are options. My current Dragon Disciple will have Con and Int as painless choices, but definitely not Wis.
Non-warriors are frequently in a position to drop Con safely; if they started with 16, they're at 17 now and can give up a point without losing any HP. If a shorty non-warrior started at 18, they're at 19 and can give up a point without losing HP or saves.
Non-warriors can still benefit from the modest regeneration provided by excess Constitution.
And finally, Int. Since everything you need Int for can be covered by potions of genius/mind focusing, which are plentiful in BG2, basically everybody can afford to give up a point here. Including arcane casters. As long as you don't drop below 9 (scroll and wand use), you're fine.
Luckily, there are not many mindflayer encounters in the game, even fewer that are compulsory. But if you're going to use potions of genius or mind focusing to tackle them, the more the merrier!
Executive Summary: Invisibility, Wraithform and Animate Dead tackle the Asylum's third floor nicely.
Angelo arrived on the third floor quietly burning with anger. For all of his misgivings, he had placed his trust in Bodhi... and she had betrayed him. It was time for her to suffer the consequences of that mistake.
Bodhi Gives Angelo the Horn
After casting Invisibility, Angelo crept downwards, ignoring the two secret doors he detected along the way. The minotaurs surrounding the small menhir were oblivious to his presence, so he moved east and shut the door behind him to block their view. From the pool, he retrieved a minotaur's horn, along with 2 mithral tokens and a mindflayer portrait (the paint must be water resistant!). Recasting Invisibility, Angelo sneaked back past the minotaurs and onwards down the passage.
His efforts were stymied by a pair of trolls - he could squeeze past the first to open the door, but he couldn't fit through as the second blocked it. Determined to see how far he could get without hostilities, Angelo retreated and summoned an efreeti. This dispelled his own invisibility while calling forth a being that could renew it. Having vanished, Angelo let the efreeti draw the trolls back to the minotaur room, raiding the nearby vase for 2 mithral tokens and a Sunfire scroll before having the efreeti make him disappear and leaving via the freshly unblocked corridor.
Passing through a globe-filled room, Angelo came upon a minotaur statue with two missing horns. He was wondering where he could find the second horn when Bodhi and two minions appeared. Somehow, she sensed his approach and initiated dialogue, but couldn't find his invisible body to attack it. Angelo thought about leaving them, but was overcome by a new sensation. Had this creature of the night not tricked him, he would still have his soul! Now he was but a shell of his former self, a worn out husk that she'd deigned to play with before discarding.
Angelo wouldn't let that happen without a fight.
Bodhi recoiled when she saw the slayer fly at her, an incarnation of murderous rage. She slashed at it with her claws and teeth, but her level draining bite had no effect on this primal beast. Startled, she recalled her brethren and beat a hasty retreat, vowing to warn Irenicus of this latest development. Unable to find a target for his aggression, it was now Angelo who stood helpless until his bloodlust subsided.
As he came to, Angelo counted his blessings that Bodhi had left so prematurely. She'd been too shocked by his transformation to notice that although her attacks didn't remove their usual 5 levels, her Constitution sapping blood drain still worked fine and her blows were painful even without any on-hit effects. On the other hand, he hadn't meant to lose control and break his Invisibility by attacking, but he had felt compelled by an inner fury. Perhaps Irenicus hadn't managed to extract all his Bhaalspawn power after all...
Said Bhaalspawl power resurfaced when he rested, making him grateful that Imoen wasn't around to get torn apart. Once he'd recovered, Felicity reassured him that this wouldn't happen again - he could sneak into the bottom minotaur room, loot the vase and vanish without risk of randomly transforming. Apart from the other minotaur horn, this yielded 2 more mithral tokens and a Limited Wish scroll. Replacing the horns on the statue gave 29,500 XP and opened the door to the next floor.
The King of Mithral Hall Tokens [optional]
Although Angelo could have left there and then, there was still some treasure to be had on this floor. First, he went through the opposite door and took the 4 mithral tokens (and Chain Lightning scroll) from the sink. A swift Invisibility shook off an adjacent minotaur and allowed Angelo to slink away. The cave that followed had a gauth and three more minotaurs, but no treasure, so they were abandoned for now.
Sneaking his way back to the earlier pool, Angelo investigated the statues surround it. Starting at the 9 o'clock position and working clockwise, a Disintegrate spell guarded a troll painting; an umber hulk portrait was protected by Incendiary Cloud; and a djinni painting had an accompanying Fireball. None of these were detectable or disarmable, but Angelo used Spell Immunity: Alteration to prevent the Disintegrate and tanked the fire damage for long enough to escape (acquiring the paintings did not dispel Invisibility).
Heading to the twin secret doors, Angelo picked the lock on one and twisted the interior horseshoe to open the other. Inside, a trio of trolls was unable to find their invisible guest. Angelo briefly popped into view when he took 2 mithral tokens from the vase, alerting a formerly hidden spirit troll to his presence, but the usual disappear-and-dump strategy stopped them from following.
The upper room contained 5 yuan-ti, 1 yuan-ti mage and 4 painted wall murals, each design corresponding to a portrait in Angelo's backpack. Each painting acted as a key, so when Angelo matched the umber hulk painting to the umber hulk mural, the wall swung back to reveal... an umber hulk! Since Angelo was still invisible, it was as helpless to stop him as the yuan-ti. The stone golem in the anteroom was similarly ineffective - by the time it reacted, Angelo had looted the 2 mithral tokens and the Maze scroll from the vase, the 3 mithral tokens from the table and disappeared from sight.
The final room required a different approach. Angelo found 4 mithral tokens, a star sapphire and the bowstring of Gesen after unlocking the central chest, but removing the first two items didn't activate the clay golem trio lining the chamber. Taking the bowstring, he surmised, would awaken the golems, but since they required magical blunt weapons to hit, combat was not an option. So when Felicity told him that upon taking the bowstring, the door would clank shut and not even Knock would reopen it before the golems were dead, the course of action was clear.
Beyond the anteroom lay a contraption that processed mithral tokens and spat out items. Boots of the north cost 5 tokens, boots of grounding cost 10, boots of speed cost 15 and Jester's chain +4 cost 20, and Angelo knew that there were 21 tokens available.
2 in pool with first minotaur horn
2 in room with minotaurs next to pool with first minotaur horn
2 in vase with second minotaur horn
4 in pool with minotaurs and gauth
2 in vase with trolls and spirit troll
4 in chest with bow of Gesen
5 (2 + 3) in vases with stone golem
Having gathered all the tokens, there were 3 options - boots of speed and boots of the north; boots of grounding and boots of the north; or Jester's chain - of which the first was optimal. Throwing away the remaining token, Angelo sneaked back to the globe-filled room and summoned something to stand on the central mosaic. Moving clockwise from the western orb, the globes would slow, heal, hasten and shoot lightning at the body on the central mosaic. It was the third globe that interested Angelo, as this would function as a Haste spell cast on the summon... and so while Angelo had to stand outside the mosaic to activate the globe, he would be just within the spell's area of effect.
This shows how to obtain the Haste effect without requiring the protagonist to cast the spell or drink an oil of speed, which may be useful in more restrictive playthroughs.
Thus accelerated, Angelo cast Invisibility and dashed back to the clay golems. Stuffing the bowstring into his backpack, Angelo sprinted for the door, aiming to lock the golems inside. One acceleration effect (e.g. boots of speed) wouldn't be enough, but with two, Angelo could make it out just as the door slammed shut behind him.
Bullrushing the Minotaurs [optional]
"We could go to the next floor now without missing much," Angelo remarked to Felicity as he returned to the contraption room, "but let's take the low hanging fruit." And with that, the imp hopped out his backpack and cast Polymorph Self while Angelo made her invisible. Angelo then went back, shut the door to the stone golem room and returned to the contraption, with Felicity polymorphing into a mustard jelly and blocking the entrance once Angelo passed her. The golem mindlessly tried to reach Angelo while he peppered it with Tansheron's bow, his ring of free action preventing its slow effect.
Next, he summoned and hasted his skeletons before attracting the umber hulk's attention. Its confusion attack was blocked by the shield of harmony stowed from Athkatla and it charged into Angelo's army waiting in the anteroom. The umber hulk did crushing damage, so the skeletons wouldn't last that long, but they still held it up long enough for a successful Blind, after which it became 10,000 XP target practice.
Although the yuan-ti party would waste his summons, Angelo noticed that they all used normal weapons. Better yet, although the mage would normally cast Remove Magic to rid him of any buffs, Wraithform on its own didn't seem to register as worth dispelling... so if Angelo avoided any Oracle spells it cast and attacked otherwise unbuffed, he could slaughter them without retaliatory blows. That's exactly what he did, keeping his shield of harmony up to prevent the mage's numerous charms from taking effect. He also tried to fight in the corridor to minimise interim attacks between Wraithforms.
Heading back through the entrance chamber, Angelo realised that the assorted trolls from the secret room had heard the commotion, but couldn't open the door to reach the action. Again, his hasted army of skeletons and spiders did the brunt of the 12,000 XP work, with Angelo turning invisible whenever he heard the spirit troll cast Flame Strike (Unholy Blight didn't work because of Angelo's evil alignment).
Since minotaurs used normal weapons, Wraithform was a good way of disabling their ability to hit him. Trolls apparently had enough hit dice that their attacks were classed as magical, so Wraithform was no good at disabling them, but a new batch of summons was hardy enough to take down the remainder sandwiched between the minotaurs. And the gauth was splatted exclusively by Animate Dead's skeletons, which remained immune to many of the mini-beholder's deadliest eye beams.
Some Lifelike Paintings [optional]
Finally, after examining the murals, Angelo didn't need Felicity this time to inform him of an imminent mindflayer encounter. He prepared as before: setting as many traps, summoning as many troops and applying as many buffs as possible. If anything, this specimen - an ulitharid - was even worse since it could heal itself, which it wouldn't hesitate to do while invisible if it got injured. The trick was to burst it down while summons were still healthy - a manageable task since there was only one ulitharid - and Angelo kept out of its sight to prevent targeting by psionics. Again, it teleported away before Angelo could retrieve the 11,000 XP from killing it, but it left behind the Flame of the North +2 nevertheless.
Angelo guessed that a noble djinn was behind the djinni painting since his UI had informed him that it cast Stinking Cloud when he entered the floor. As well as Magic Missiles, it could also fire some Lightning Bolts which could prove deadly in a confined space, so Angelo protected himself with Minor Globe of Invulnerability. This and Wraithform were enough to render it harmless... the djinn couldn't have been that noble since it didn't even use a magical weapon! Its Shadow Door and gaseous form powers prolonged the fight, but the writing was on the wall (alongside the painting). Its death provided 10,000 XP, but no real treasure.
The troll painting housed a spirit troll which were incredibly annoying. Their permanent improved invisibility made them untargetable by spells, their 50% physical resistance prevented them taking much damage and their regeneration healed what little had been done. It could also cast Flame Strike, Greater Command and Unholy Blight as scripts, so they were uninterruptible and unlimited... and they hurt! However, a full contingent of hasted spiders and skeletons was enough once it had been coaxed out of hiding (Detect Illusion would not work against such initially invisible opponents). Felling the flopped troll with a fire arrow salvaged from a kobold commando on the previous floor netted 8,000 XP and Malakar +2.
Though seeing the frightened look on Bodhi's face was undeniably satisfying, Angelo wanted more. He wanted to see Irenicus, the man who'd stalked him from the beginning of SoD, to quake in similar fear.
Executive Summary: Angelo shows off his sanity by outwitting first the Asylum's tests, then Irenicus.
"I grow tired of these games," Angelo snapped as he left the third floor. "For all the Wisdom I sacrificed to escape that Candlekeep dream sequence, my (Spell)hold on reality is clearly strong enough."
Taking the Test
At the top of the stairs, Angelo found a trio of kobold and goblin commandos, including a couple hidden on ledges inaccessible in melee. Figuring that every cavalier or kensai who'd gotten this far would have some form of returning throwing dagger or axe, Angelo proceeded to cast Wraithform and attacked. Angelo was confident that he could have taken them down without Wraithform - he was over 5 dozen instalments into his adventure, after all - but it never hurt to be cautious. It didn't stop the kobolds' fire arrows (which were +2), but it blocked everything else.
The death of the commandos signalled the appearance of Apparition, an arbiter who couldn't decide whether to use a definite or indefinite article. When Angelo mentioned this apparent disparity, Apparition told him that he was to be subjected to several tests (apart from the grammar one, which he'd already passed). Angelo shrugged and Apparition disappeared, dumping him in a room with a myconoid colony. As his Wraithform still hadn't worn off, Angelo was unable to manually cast Invisibility and had to let his ring do it. Sneaking around the back of the turnip-shaped rock, Angelo began summoning skeletons from a distance, knowing that they would be immune to whatever spores the myconoids would effuse. The attacks of the myconoids that answered their colony's calling did crushing damage, so Angelo was sure to Haste his troops and focus on the colony itself, since when it dropped, the test would be over.
"Chopping up the mushroom men is a decent test of sanity," Apparition said unironically as he teleported in uninvited. "At least you're not a vegetable like them."
"Actually, mushrooms are fungi," Angelo replied, "and I happen to think I am a fun guy."
Apparition scoffed as he asked a riddle, and Angelo answer of 'splinter' catapulted him into the third test, a dining room surrounded by more noble apparitions. Swiping the cloak of reflection from the main table, Angelo proceeded to get quizzed by the nobles about all manner of inanities. "What is the gerund of the verb 'to noth'?" one asked him.
"Nothing?" Angelo guessed. He wanted to point out that he had already passed his grammar test and there was no such verb, but he stayed his tongue. This was a madhouse... normal rules obviously didn't apply. The nobleman nodded and asked several more lexical conundrums. Angelo answered 'a river' and 'fear' correctly, but simply could not recall the answer to the final puzzle. The nobleman informed him that the answer, ironically, was 'memory' as Angelo's vision faded to black.
He reappeared in a room with a machine that Apparition refused to explain. Rather than solve the logic puzzle in Lium's Journal of Malevolent Magicks, Angelo asked Felicity to tell him the answer. She gave him the correct Mithral-Ruby-Emerald-Sandalwood-Jade-Onyx and told him to make sure there was a spare slot in his inventory. Entering this combination into the machine gave 10,000 XP and deposited bracers of defence AC 5 into his inventory. It was lucky that Felicity had warned him to make space, as Apparition immediately teleported him out of the chamber once the levers had been pulled, giving him no option to return to pick up any items displaced by the bracers' forceful insertion.
"As for the final judgement," Apparition pondered as they both appeared on the rooftop. "You accepted the trials willingly after defeating the commandos, so whatever. You're free to go!" And with that, he vanished, doling out 51,250 XP as he did so.
No matter what you do, you can only experience half the tests. The route above is probably optimal, with the least fighting and the most rewards. The alternative is to have previously answered 'memory', in which case you'll not encounter the machine and miss out on the bracers and free XP. Instead, you'll fight some trolls and obtain the bone club +2/+3 and the EE-exclusive Heart of the Mountain amulet. This is only recommendable if you're a beastmaster or a shaman... in which case, you're probably not interested in optimisation!
Farsight Foresight
Angelo was not best pleased to see Saemon Havarian, but he did hear out his plan to release the inmates. Still, Angelo had another plan for Irenicus, one which involved the bare minimum liasing with a multitude of certified crazies. The problem was, Felicity elaborated, that Irenicus would instantly cast a Wish spell as soon as he saw Angelo, regardless of whether Angelo was invisible or not and regardless of whether Angelo was in the room or if Irenicus had moved from his original position. However, this behaviour was only triggered by Angelo himself, so any summons could attack freely... Irenicus would defend himself as any high level invoker would, but he would not use his special Wish attack. Unfortunately, Irenicus started off neutral, so any summons would not automatically attack and Angelo would need to have Irenicus enter his line of sight to order his summons to attack, at which point the game would be up.
What was required was some way of remotely viewing Irenicus to begin hostilities, after which the AI would do the job. And although perhaps lower on the scale than pre-emptive Web or Feeblemind, it is difficult to think of another use for Farsight than to facilitate this sort of abuse... unlike Mislead, for example, whose possibilities are legion even if you discard its backstab-looping capabilities.
Angelo led with his spiders and berserker warrior, because they were incapable of doing any serious damage anyway and lasted for a relatively short duration. He was glad that Irenicus moved off his pedestal and into the region normally viewable from the door (which he was careful to keep shut whenever possible), else he would have had to have ordered his summons around blind until their AI stumbled across Irenicus and auto-attacked. Next, he ordered his golem, efreeti and Kitthix into battle before retreating behind the corner. These were meatier troops that would soften Irenicus up a little, as well as waste the majority of his (Death) spells. The golem is particularly handy, with its 100% MR and immunity to normal weapons.
Finally, his skeletons went in for the kill. Well, the next best thing - Irenicus' minimum health at this stage was 1 HP - after which Angelo left him. Descending to the lower floor, he found Lonk the Sane waiting for him, but the dwarf was easily persuaded into releasing the inmates' key (this could not be stolen using Pick Pockets). Angelo could have paid a 2,000 GP bribe, but his Wisdom of 9 and Charisma of 15 was enough to convince Lonk that he only followed Irenicus out of fear. Having assembled his crack team... and Tiax... Angelo let them loose on their master.
Of course, what with Irenicus having been beaten up beforehand, he started on minimal HP, and it took barely a Magic Missile from inmate Wanev for the invoker to collapse. Bleating excuses, Irenicus fled, leaving 68,500 XP and some murders in tow. Since Angelo was still invisible (Lonk sees through Invisibility, but neither his dialogue nor the inmates' dispels it), said cuthroats began targeting the remaining skeletons, allowing Angelo to scrounge the potions dropped by Dradeel et al and lock the distracted murderers in the laboratory.
All that remained was for Angelo to descend the stairs, being sure to loot the ammunition (including 5 juicy arrows of dispelling) in the nearby room and alcove before doing so.
Hoovering Havarian Up
Never one to take a hint, Saemon Havarian was waiting by the cells to give Angelo an offer he could very well refuse. Still, Angelo provisionally agreed to the proffered plan, which Saemon took as permission to teleport them both outside. As already mentioned, Spellhold's nocturnal exterior played host to mists that could sense Invisibility, but the dumping ground had no monsters nearby, so Angelo rested until morning. The mists had been replaced by an angry air elemental guarding the entrance (now open), but Angelo could lead it back to a narrow opening on the stairs through which it could not venture. A Blind or two later and it was an open 7,000 XP buffet for Tansheron's bow.
Nipping back into the Asylum, Angelo noticed Irenicus' bedroom was freshly available - it had been previously inaccessible from the cells and had he arrived via Perth's wardstone, the co-ordinator would have whisked him away upon entering. Luring the stone golem out and dumping it using Invisibility, Angelo raided the rogue stone, staff of thunder and lightning and horn of silence from the containers therein. He considered taking Jon's key, which unlocked the upstairs door to the portal Saemon had mentioned, but decided against it. The petrification wards on the bridge to Spellhold were now non-functional, so Angelo sneaked past the assembled lizardmen and crossed safely back to Brynnlaw.
Saemon's offer came with the attached string of securing a horn from Caiya's home during the night. Despite the nasty Disintegrate trap on the shelves, they housed nothing of interest, so Angelo took the rogue stone and horn from the table, vanishing afterwards to evade the pirate trio answering their mistress' call. And after selling his excess wares at Brynnlaw's store, Angelo found Saemon the the bottom of the docks, looking eager to set sail.
"This is your last chance to turn back," Felicity informed him. "You could Pick Pocket the silver blade from Saemon, take Jon's key from his bedroom and go through the portal now. This would earn you 20,000 XP and you could start Chapter 5 immediately."
"Ah, but this is a completionist playthrough," Angelo countered, "and the rewards are high. Come, let us set sail again!"
Executive Summary: Wraithform, Invisibility and summons enable Angelo's descent through the City of Caverns.
A city of thieves seemed more like home than one where arcane magic was outlawed, but Angelo knew he must leave. Irenicus and Bodhi had flown the coup, taking his soul with them, and Angelo would follow them to the end of the earth to get it back.
Duping Desharik
The first port of call was to call in at the port, where captain Saemon Havarian had procured a ship. Yet as they were casting off, pirate king Desharik arrived, angry at having been deceived and angrier at mistress Cayia for eloping. After cutting the 'ravening ditch pig' down, Desharik ordered his lackeys to attack, but as they used normal weapons, Wraithform allowed Angelo to slice and dice at his leisure. Had Desharik participated himself, his scimitars +1 would have gotten through, but he was content watching from afar.
Even the fishermen have a go!
Once Dunbar and his 3 pirates had been slain, Saemon insisted on giving away a silver blade as payment, seemingly unaware that Angelo had already swiped it. Then, the ship set sail on what Angelo hoped would be an uneventful voyage.
Streams of Silver
Hope was not the same as expectation, however, and Angelo was not surprised when a githyanki war party boarded their vessel. Their silver swords were enshrined in AD&D lore and Saemon had been overeager to part with the blade.
Although nominally a True Neutral F/M, Saemon did nothing to stop his crew being torn apart. Angelo guessed that Saemon would point the finger at him when the githyanki came for the blade and activated his ring of invisibility as soon as hostilities commenced. Although his Wraithform, still active, would protect him from the githyanki blows, it also prevented him from manually casting Invisibility, so he needed the ring's assistance. He also readied his shield of harmony, as the githyanki were fond of casting Chaos, whose confusion could affect him even when invisible.
Heading to the ship's stern - he was of evil alignment and had no compunction letting others get slaughtered on his behalf - Angelo sat tight. Perhaps the githyanki would get bored and leave. Maybe they'd take Saemon instead. Maybe...
Suddenly, the ship's underbelly was razed, routing the githyanki and hurling Angelo overboard. A cutscene explained that Saemon escaped 'through magical means', but since Dimension Door had not been available to players since vanilla BG, Angelo was carried beneath the waves into an aquatic city of caverns.
Sahuagin Setup
Coming to, Angelo found himself surrounded by fish-folk with long names and longer dialogue strings fighting about his destiny. Fighting his corner was Royal High Priestess Senityili, who claimed he was the chosen one she had dreamed about; on the opposite side, Baron Thelokassyil and High Priestess Tlyysixxous insisted that he should be eaten straightaway. Their leader, King Ixilthetocal, was sympathetic - all this chatter veered close to information overload - but demanded that Angelo prove his credentials by killing an ettin in gladiatorial combat.
Though he hadn't been sent by shark god Sekolah, Angelo dispatched the ettin with ease. Ettins only used normal weapons, so Wraithform protected Angelo long enough to cut it down. Seeing this, King Ixilthetocal ordered the death of High Priestess Tlyysixxous for her oracular misfire and enlisted Angelo's services to kill rebel Prince Villynaty. However, Royal High Priestess Senityili warned him not to be too hasty and gave him Rebel's Orb to peaceably gain access to the prince's stronghold. Having just passed the Asylum's grammar test, Angelo wanted to find Rebel to return her orb, but he sensed this was a lost cause.
Taking the scroll of Spell Deflection from High Priestess Tlyysixxous' body, secretly glad there was one less long name to remember, Angelo returned to King Ixilthetocal. The monarch didn't notice Angelo picking the sahuagin treasure key from his pocket, which assisted the removal of the rod of lordly might (a misnomer if ever he'd seen one!) and Protection from the Elements scroll from the nearby cabinet. Further Pick Pockets attempts yielded scrolls of Chain Lightning and Death Fog, a potion of invulnerability and seemingly unending supplies of magical rope.
Sekolah's Tooth
Before Angelo could enter Prince Villynaty's stronghold to use his Rebel's Orb, he would have to open the front door. Casting Invisibility, Angelo moved towards the bottom left of the map, but the southwestern passage was surprisingly heavily trapped. Angelo disarmed an acid-hold trap at the start before some spiders and ettercaps and around the corner beyond a bone golem was a Chain Lightning trap. This was a warmup, however, for an imps' competition taking items from various Faerun celebrities and dropping them into other heroes' boxes... the only complication being that the intervening region was a minefield!
Of these traps, the ones around the circle’s edge were the deadliest: the trap between Elminster and Khelben (8 o'clock) was Disintegrate; the trap next to Drizzt (4 o'clock) cast Flesh to Stone; Piergeiron (1 o'clock) resided over a Maze trap; and Alustriel (11 o'clock) stood by a Melf's Acid Arrow trap. The other two were CC disablers: the central trap cast Power Word: Silence whereas the northern, circular trap cast Slow. To make matters worse, all these traps were repeating and Angelo wasted no time in disarming the lot.
Once the traps had been removed, the imps' game was fairly straightforward:
Elminster gives the scimitar for Drizzt and requires the pipe from Alustriel
Khelben gives the pendant for Alustriel and requires the quarterstaff from Piergeiron
Alustriel gives the pipe for Elminster and requires the pendant from Khelben
Piergeiron gives the quarterstaff for Khelben and requires the helmet from Drizzt
Drizzt gives the helmet for Piergeiron and requires the scimitar from Elminster
Upon depositing the final item in the relevant box, the imps allowed Angelo to loot the remaining chest without a spectre seeking retaliation. This haul contained boots of etherealness and a cloak of protection +2, and Angelo gained 6,000 XP for winning the game.
Beyond the impish riddle, a weary beholder named Spectator claimed to have been summoned to guard a chest, but Angelo had drunk a potion of insight, so his Wisdom was above 13... and, hence, wise enough to notice that such a stipulation need not necessarily apply to the contents of the chest. Removing Sekolah's tooth brought Spectator to its senses: deciding that watching an empty box was pointless, it drifted away happily, earning Angelo 15,000 XP.
"Now I have the magical rope and can access Prince Villynaty's base," Angelo asked Felicity, "is there anything stopping me from just leaving?"
The imp shook her head. "But it's advantageous to help one side or the other. The details are quite complicated, so it might be easier to explain later."
"Thanks," Angelo sighed, "you've been no help at all."
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...
On the way to the prince's stronghold, however, passing through a shark's skeletal maw caused several sahuagin to appear in ambush. Being invisible, Angelo remained undetected, but this triggered the priestess' auto-summoned Aerial Servant (the monster also began invisible, but the creature flashed up on Angelo's UI). Having no desire for its heavy crushing damage to smash his skeletons to bits, Angelo retired and let a couple of in-game hours pass until the conjuration expired.
Having waited out the priestess' summons, Angelo responded with some of his own. Unfortunately, although the golem was immune to the sahuagin bolts' poison and stun, sahuagin had enough hit dice for their strikes to count as magical, making it vulnerable to their blows. Similarly, although most sahuagin took double damage from fire, the priestess' aura made her immune to the efreeti's individually targeted flame spells. Still, the combination of these troops with Animate Dead's minions (also immune to the bolts’ effects) was strong enough to take out the priestess on their own. Her (illegal) pre-cast Stoneskin and Divine Protection protected her for a time, but Angelo watched his army invisibly and made sure they did not break rank unnecessarily.
After the priestess' 8,000 XP death, Angelo snatched the cloak of reflection from her corpse (she started hostile, so it could not have been stolen) using the usual right-click trick, then left the scene. Resting, rinsing and repeating could have brought down the remaining rebels, but it was more elegant to leave them be now that he'd acquired the cloak.
The royal guards will not assist you against the priestess, despite there being several bands of rebels and sahuagin fighting around the throne room. Although speaking to the prince disperses these bands, the ambush remains in place even after the main quest has been resolved.
Killing Villainous Villynaty
Heading down the north-eastern stairs led Angelo into the rebel stronghold. Sekolah's tooth unlocked the door beyond and although Angelo sneaked in hidden, the sahuagin chieftain invited him for an audience with Prince Villynaty nevertheless. Accepting, Angelo heard the prince's plan to give him a fake heart and decided this sounded like a welcome subterfuge. However, the prince's brash refusal to offer a reward antagonised our protagonist - while he hadn't made up his mind when he'd entered the prince's quarters, he had now.
Still, accepting the prince's plan had several consequences. Angelo's UI informed him that Royal High Priestess Senityili and her Captain Feerlattiys had been condemned to death off-screen. More relevantly, the guards evacuated the chamber, leaving only the prince, Senior Priestess Sallinithyl and the sahuagin chieftain as neutrals. Angelo's light fingers pre-emptively removed the Wave blade, a potion of magic blocking and a sphene gem from Prince Villynaty, as well as a potion of frost giant strength, a spear, 3 paralytic bolts, 20 normal bolts and 10 bolts of biting from the sahuagin chieftain. They would be his sooner or later anyway... he was merely ensuring it was sooner, rather than later.
The prince's suspicions were aroused when Angelo summoned a skeletal contingent, but they were confirmed when the conjured efreeti's Flame Strike bathed him in conflagration. The sahuagin heir glanced around for the traitorous perpetrator, but Angelo had disappeared, the efreeti having cast Invisibility before initiating the blaze. The prince would have asked Senior Priestess Sallinithyl to dispel the illusion had she not fled as soon as combat began. As it stood, Prince Villynaty put up a brave fight, but eventually succumbed to his 2,000 XP death.
In fact, Senior Priestess Sallinithyl has no spells memorised, but compensates by having 24,380 HP in LoB mode... presumably to ensure that she will survive to deliver a later dialogue.
From his vantage point, Angelo noted that the sahuagin chieftain not only seemed to reacquire his stolen bolts, but was a hardier fighter than his 420 XP indicated. Both facts pointed towards flight, so Angelo looted Prince Villynaty's corpse (for a Mislead scroll and the real heart) before speeding back to King Ixilthetoca, the intervening rebel and sahuagin bands now having dispersed. Before talking to the king, Angelo also tried his Pick Pockets luck, successfully extracting Implaer +3 which had not been previously available.
If you look up Impaler +3 in online walkthroughs, they will claim it's found either on King Ixilthetocal or Prince Villynaty. In fact, the spear appears on whichever of them you do NOT side with when you enter the stronghold. Since Angelo had claimed that he would help the prince, the king received the spear, even although Angelo ended up killing the prince. This also explains why Angelo could not extract it earlier... it was not in the king's inventory to extract since Angelo had not yet made 'the choice'!
Despite possessing the fake heart, the real heart took precedence and the king accompanied Angelo to the stronghold to award 58,500 XP and 2,000 GP, along with some gauntlets of crushing, a rod of lordly might and a magic rope. Once the king had left, Senior Priestess Sallinithyl berated Angelo for his foolishness, but he dismissed her and used the magical rope to clamber down the hole, earning a further 20,000 XP.
The magic rope and rod of lordly might are awarded even if you have already pilfered them. The king's disappearance means that if you're intent on murdering all of the sahuagin, you should work with Prince Villynaty, since he sticks around after his quest is concluded.
Incidentally, the most elegant way to tackle this quest is to side with the prince, then turn invisible once you've returned to the king. They have no way to detect you and the prince's forces will end up killing everything for you without retaliation, after which you can Pick Pocket him for the Wave blade. However, although this route gives you 60,500 XP for completing the quest (i.e. 2,000 XP more than siding with the king), it doesn't give you the gauntlets of crushing or a second rod of lordly might.
Felicity shook her head in disgust as they shimmied down the rope. "I hope that's the last we'll see of that duplicitous Saemon Havarian."
Now it was Angelo's turn to shake his head, "I doubt that!"
Executive Summary: Manipulating the elements and the conjurer studying them, Angelo rinses the Underdark with aplomb.
As they descended the rope, Felicity asked if Angelo's attitude to charms had changed since BG. "I only wanted to avoid rampant Algernon's Cloak abuse," Angelo explained. "I have nothing against charms - I've used them several times already in BG2 - I just didn't want to milk one overpowered item ad nauseum."
"So if an opportunity for flagrant charm exploitation arose, you'd have no qualms in abusing it?" Felicity asked. Angelo shook his head and the imp smiled, "Thanks for clearing that up."
Saving the Svirfneblin Son
While invisibly roaming the map, Angelo encountered a central drow party with dispelling capabilities. The surrounding fungus indicated that myconids also inhabited the area and Angelo guessed he couldn't dash past them and the drow before their divinations fired without two acceleration effects (e.g. boots/oil of speed, Haste). Instead, he retreated southwards to the crossroads to be out of range when the spell finished. Knowing they wouldn't be able to cast those spells in consecutive rounds and used the window to explore a nearby panelled crystal prison. Pressing the fifth one from the left released a child named Bedlen Dagenfold, who could be spoken to beyond the drow's sight.
Bedlen said to find his father for a reward, after which Angelo renewed his Invisibility to head north. Odendal Breachgnome saw through his illusion, but Angelo swore no harm and was directed to the svirfneblin town. There, in an inn, he found Therndle Dagenfold and explaining his son's rescue earned 10,000 XP and bracers of defence AC 4. Angelo had already pilfered his 10 darts of stunning, but the bracers were unstealable.
While there, Angelo opportunistically stole a book of rituals and a long sword from the innkeeper, as well as 10 darts of stunning and the light gem from Goldander Blackenrock. This gem would allow Angelo to meet Adalon, but this would prematurely destroy the village, so Angelo didn't enter the dark cave yet... there were other avenues to explore first.
Running Out of Air (and Earth)
Finding an earth elemental around a nearby portal, Angelo lured it towards the drow. The priestesses cast Greater Command upon sight, so Angelo conjured a summon to draw the elemental's ire, then sent it into the fog of war while vanishing himself. The elemental attacked the drow after the summon died, but since it wasn't Angelo's ally (its circle was still red), the drow didn't register the elemental as an enemy and left its assault unchecked. The myconids beyond them were equally dumb and were identically dispatched.
Similarly attracting the fire elemental by the next portal onto a summon, Angelo sent it down the southeastern passage where Felicity swore she'd seen something fishy beyond his line of sight. Figuring such creatures would be vulnerable to fire, like the sahuagin, Angelo had deliberately chosen the fire elemental for this... and his UI showed he was right! There were two kuo-toa parties (the first comprised a leader, a wizard, a monitor and a warrior; the second, across the bridge, had 3 monitors, a wizard, a priest, a warrior and a whip), and only the whip, whose constant stealthing confused the elemental's targeting, survived. What one elemental couldn't handle, however, multiple hasted skeletons and spiders could.
Unlike fire and earth elementals, who wandered around, air elementals stood still when blinded, making them target practice for Tansheron's bow. Better, if he exhausted his Blinds, Angelo could cast Invisibility, rest and the earth and fire elementals would resume their bombardments upon his awakening. The fact that air elementals were 7,000 XP while the others were both worth 6,000 XP was the icing on the cake. Each portal would replenish its respective elemental upon their deaths 10 times, so 77,000 XP was up for grabs.
By the time Angelo had killed all 11 air elementals, the earth elementals had done their job... and now he could cast Invisibility on Felicity so that she blocked the rope bridge previously guarded by kuo-toa. Unable to cross, but also unable to abandon an opponent in their sight, the remaining earth elementals acted as mountainous bullseyes, earning 66,000 XP.
Veterans might wonder why Angelo didn't buy the staff of earth from Ust Natha bazaar to kill the earth elementals with one blow. However, visiting Ust Natha starts Solaufein's quest timer, which is undesirable. The staffs of air and fire (in the planar prison and sphere respectively) are difficult to obtain early in LoB, else they would have been used.
Putting Out the Fire
Fire elementals were too skinny for this method, even if the imp polymorphed into a mustard jelly, so Angelo put them to other uses. First up was emptying the crystal prison of inmates Riti and Alchra Diggott, released using the middle two panels. Unlike its fellow liches, Diggott seemed unable to detect invisibility... and without seeing an opponent, its defences didn't spring up, so Angelo watched invisbly by while the fire elemental burned its body (but not its scrolls) to ashes. Githyanki Riti was likewise incinerated, yielding Backbiter +3 and an Improved Haste scroll. Unfortunately, Madman Aganalo fought back (not so mad after all!) and it was more profitable to delay tackling Raevilin Strathi, although Gont of Ritavin provided information on the kuo-toa and a northern drow ambush. Had Angelo fancied violence, Gont's normal weapon would have found Wraithform impenetrable, but Angelo decided to let this one go.
Instead, Angelo completed a more subtle task. Temporarily jettisoning the elemental, he cast Invisibility 10' Radius by Odendal Breachgnome, hiding the gnome and the two soldiers, and promised Goldander Blackenrock that he'd remove the town's underground monstrosity. Rejoining the elemental, he lured it past the invisible gnomes and into the now-unlocked pit chamber before vanishing and blocking the door until it wandered inside. Then, he investigated the pit and, just as the demon arrived, shut the door, entombing it with the elemental.
After at least an hour's real-time smacking (during which our protagonist invisibly assassinated Madman Anagalo with some hasted skeletons), the balor lay dead and Angelo's Invisibility kept him out of sight as he read Goldander's Stone Shape scroll. Upon Angelo's return, Goldander handed out 25,000 XP and Skullcrusher +3 (which couldn't have been stolen earlier). "This would have been handy to hit the demon with," Angelo murmured, but Goldander cut him off saying that he'd stolen the light gem. Angelo clutched his pearls - how dare this gnome truthfully accuse him? - but left the dormitory nevertheless.
Finally, while invisibly scouting above the kuo-toa, Angelo was 'ambushed' by a drow contingent who couldn't see him. Drawing the fire elemental to their location before vanishing, Angelo watched them refuse to stop themselves burning alive. One cast Invisibility Purge, but Angelo renewed his illusion as soon as he appeared. This party seemed less divination-happy than others, so despite being trapped on the bridge, he wasn't in great danger. The bridge's narrowness allowed an unpolymorphed Felicity served as an invisible blockade and Angelo racked up another 66,000 XP whittling away fire elementals.
Had he been alert, he would have used it on the other elementals - they were too big to cross even without a familiar barricade!
Is It a Bird, Is It a Planetar?
Uder Mordin, a southern duergar merchant, mentioned a nearby imprisoned wizard, leading Angelo to buy a Freedom scroll from Carlig. Casting it released Vithal, an act worth 10,000 XP by itself, and more was offered if Angelo brought the book of rituals from the svirfneblin village. The innkeeper would have sold it for 300 GP, but as Angelo had already stolen it, he gave it to Vithal, who'd retired to the earth portal.
Upon Vithal's release, the portals cease their usual summoning activities... so it's essential to extract all utility from them before casting Freedom.
Though picking his pockets yielded only lint, Vithal didn't turn hostile upon resisting a Nymph Cloak attempt, so Angelo could try as often as necessary for a successful charm.
Vithal's memorised spells varied by playthrough, but Summon Dark Planetar was a safe bet for an evil conjurer. Accompanying the planetar to the crystal prison, Angelo released Raevilin Strathi using the second panel from the left. The mage spoke nonsensically, but recovered his senses once the planetar had cast Heal on him, giving Angelo 15,000 XP and Albruin +1.
Aware he was on the clock - once Vithal's spells expired, resting would not rememorise them - Angelo and the planetar dashed back to Vithal. Despite being charmed, Vithal's dialogue initiated normally and Angelo could force-talk him into entering the portal. When he returned, he was still under Angelo's control, but he brought a greater earth elemental too. Unfortunately, leading it to the narrow bridge would result in stalemate between Angelo's unlimited arrows and its bottomless Stoneskins. Instead, making both himself and Vithal cast Invisibility to avoid Earthquakes, Angelo waited for the planetar to score a vorpal hit, which would cut its head clean off for 10,000 XP.
For extra credit, the planetar killed the conjured earth elemental trio before expiring.
Vithal Vital Statistics
Vithal delved into the earth portal and bid Angelo follow to the fire portal upon his return. Angelo did so after stealing Vithal's new scrolls of Time Stop, Simulacrum, Abi-Dalzim's Horrible Wilting, Wail of the Banshee and Incindiary Cloud. There, Angelo ordered Vithal to cast his remaining summons, calling in a massive army (charmed enemies do not obey the summon cap). These reinforcements were handy fodder when a greater fire elemental clambered through the portal and conjured 3 fire elementals. As before, Angelo escaped via Invisibility (making him impossible to target with Flame Strike or Fireball), but this time Vithal cast Death Spell to remove enemy summons and fired offensive magic while the greater fire elemental concentrated on peripheral troops. This shortened the combat and also depleted Vithal's supplies... a fact Angelo planned to utilise later.
After the greater fire elemental kicked the 10,000 XP bucket, Vithal entered the fire portal and returned a rod of absorption which entered Angelo's inventory via Pick Pocket. A similar showdown commenced by the air portal, but Death Spell didn't kill the extra air elemental trio this time (Angelo gained 7,000 XP each for their deaths, further indicating they weren't summoned as killing summons never provides experience). Since the greater variant eviscerated Vithal's remaining forces, Angelo withdrew, taking Vithal and his opponents to the narrow bridge. Since his cloak of reflection stopped Chain Lightning and Stoneskin prevented Windstorm's crushing damage, Angelo blinded and killed the greater air elemental from afar for 11,000 XP.
After ensuring that Vithal's magic had been stripped bare, Angelo rested and set 7 traps around the conjurer before conversing. Vithal would teleport to and from where dialogue commenced, regardless of whether this was in sight of the portal, and Angelo swiped the Skull of Death from his pockets upon his return before he initiated his final speech for 20,000 XP. However, although his demise would yield no further treasure, it would yield 20,000 XP more, so Angelo goaded him into aggression
Despite being drained of spells and sequencers, Vithal had some magic scripted, including a Disintegrate-True Sight-Remove Magic trigger and endless Monster Summoning III. Retreating, Angelo let his traps' poison kick in before conjuring fodder to absorb excess arcana. When he was sure that no surprises remained, the spiders and skeletons were summoned, hasted and deployed - Vithal was already Badly Injured and didn't require much finishing off.
You shouldn't order charmed Vithal around during a transition or as a greater elemental appears, else the scripts won't activate properly. Also, if you summon a hakaeshar or ogre mage, have them harmlessly fire their Lightning Bolts before combat begins, else you catch Vithal and turn him hostile.
"So far, you've gained a time-consuming, but fairly safe 359,000 XP in the Underdark," Felicity remarked. "Still, you could have gotten more had you not let the elementals kills everything for you. Perhaps next time, you might get your hands dirty and reap the rewards."
Nice to see that this challenge is still alive! : o)
I have played BG from time to time mostly toying around with the Bane of the Wizard Slayer challenge where we are still trying to get past Big B with our Shadow Dancer/Fighter. Another idea was to create some kiind of corona related challenge so if you have ideas feel free to post them!
So far we formulated the following rules:
The Covid Trials
- You have to keep distance from all party npc´s and play as a solo adventurerer.
- All shops and inns are closed. Temples are still open but you cannot buy any items.
- If you try to control more than one summon spell everyone will be infected and die.
- All creatures have turned into coronovirus deniers and cannot be charmed or dominated.
A Happy New Year and good luck to anyone! Keep on rolling @AvidGamerFan! ;o)
Executive Summary: Angelo finds the Western Tunnels surprisingly difficult... until he unleashes some new tricks!
"You've had over 3,000,000 XP for a while," Felicity remarked as they walked, "why haven't you used High Level Abilities?"
"I'm trying to map how any class could tackle this challenge," Angelo explained. "Obviously, some can't Pick Pockets and others can't summon or disappear, but the template is hopefully solid if you ring the changes. To allow for the fact that I've had opportunities unavailable to other classes (e.g. thievery XP), I've left a buffer so that anyone will be roughly HLA-capable when I start using them."
Getting a Tad Sneaky
It was high time to investigate the dark cave. The silver dragon Adalon seemed not to mind that Angelo had been caught stealing the light gem and cast a disguise spell to make him resemble drow (character doll an' all!). Heading to the Western Tunnels, Angelo turned right, allowing the unavoidable (and undetectable) Flame Strike smack a summon instead of him.
After going back and letting his charred undead slaughter the beholder and two gauths in the left chamber, Angelo want straight forward and heard a skeleton clambering out the ground - something in that chamber had cast Animate Dead! Refusing to put up with this, Angelo moved back, rested and approached again, vowing to try again until he didn't hear any pre-emptive summons. The lack of this sound meant that the chamber would be empty, Felicity told him, allowing Angelo to loot the corrupted tadpoles from the pools unmolested.
Carlig's wares change after you see Adalon, as he takes you for drow, so make sure you've bought all that you want before switching.
Whipping the Monitor...
Unfortunately, the kuo-toa on the central path upwards couldn't be reliably dispersed this way. From what Felicity told him of these scaly beasts, Angelo was surprised they hadn't attracted more attention from LoB players... their innate True Sight rendered stealth risky at beast and either the wizards' CC spells or the whips' stunning bolts (and painful backstabs) would disable most summons the monitors' ridiculous speed (6 ApR!) hadn't obliterated. Even turtling up was dicey since their weaponry was an awkward mix:
Monitors struck as normal melee weapons
Warriors struck as +1 melee weapons
Whips struck as +1 melee and missile weapons
Priests struck as >+2 melee weapons (c.f. Spiritual Hammer)
Wizards used Melf's Minute Meteors
The interesting fact was the top one and Angelo wondered how he could exploit it.
In the meantime, he cast Invisibility and Spell Immunity: Divination and tried to pass this kuo-toa band (of 3 monitors, a wizard, a priest, a warrior and a whip). Even though their True Sights failed, the monitors still clung to him staunchly and this gave Angelo an idea. Pulling back, the monitors dashed after him until their next True Sight tick... and given their exceptional speed, they were now quite far away from the pack. Casting Protection from Normal Weapons (Wraithform disabled other spellcasting, and this might be bad news if other kuo-toa had been alerted), Angelo shot at them once and ran away down the demon knights' corridor, drawing them yet further from their colleagues.
Having cornered their prey, the kuo-toa were amazed that Angelo wasn't putting up much of a fight, but kept whacking away with their 6 ApR. Never once did they stop to wonder whether their blows were having any effect... or what that smell of burning flesh was. Ironic, really, that despite their constant True Sight, not one of them noticed that along with Protection from Normal Weapons, Angelo had cast Fireshield: Red... and every single one of their 6 ApR burned away a little bit of their health. While most SCS creatures are relatively intelligent and stop attacking if they can't damage anything, kuo-toa did not get that memo. It only took a few rounds before all of the monitors lay crisped on the floor.
...and Monitoring the Whip!
Casting Conjure Air Elemental until he obtained at least one of the greater varieties, Angelo ordered them to block off the narrow right passage (Conjure Fire Elemental may do slightly more damage, but it is not a big enough barricade). With the kuo-toa's True Sight capabilities, using Felicity would have been foolhardy... but elementals, being immune to <+1 weapons, would do the trick nicely!
Felicity had warned Angelo about the wizards' double Horror sequencer, and Resist Fear stopped his elementals from routing prematurely. With his cloak of mirroring, Angelo was unable to be targeted by individual spells... which constituted the majority of the kuo-toa's spells! Interestingly, this protection did not extend to Blind, but in another irony, the kuo-toa's own True Sight dispelled their illusion!
Similarly, the reflection shield stopped the kuo-toa's bolts, although the wizard had no problems chucking Melf's Minute Meteors at him. The priest even fired a Hold Person at Angelo and the wizard conjured a nasty looking skeleton beyond the elemental, but the ring of free action and his new skull of death took care of them. But these were only minor complications... since Angelo's opponents couldn't reach him or harm his summons, there was only going to be one winner.
After the battle, Angelo went west, encountering a selection of drow and demonic guards guarding an entrance. Felicity said that Adalon's magic also afforded understanding of the drow tongue, so (unlike if he had tried earlier) he could converse with the guards. Angelo initially tried a bribe, claiming that it was a donation to the drow's house, before vowing to turn the traitor in once he'd foolishly engaged. Hoisted by his own petard, the guard spat vituperations, but opened the door nevertheless. Angelo did not go through, but stole his Archer's Eyes amulet (imported from SoD) and some miscellanea before leaving the way he came.
The dialogue option for turning thte traitor in only appears if your Intelligence is >17. Otherwise, you'll need a Charisma of > 17 for the 1,000 GP bribe to be accepted, else only a 5,000 GP bribe will suffice.[/i]
Towing the Kuo-Toa Away
By resting until he didn't hear any pre-emptive Animate Dead casting, Angelo found the chamber beyond free of kuo-toa. With his Invisibility and Spell Immunity: Divination still active, Angelo turned right into the throne room, where two monitors sensed his presence and swarmed him. Tipping the tadpoles into the perimeter pools didn't break his Invisibility, allowing Angelo to pull the monitors from their master, erect his Protection from Normal Weapons and let them commit suicide on his Fireshield: Red.
Although Angelo conjured his pair of elementals as before, he did not bother with the bridge this time. Despite his title, the kuo-toa prince was no better at damaging the elementals than his subjects and so, with the tadpoles destroying his regeneration and 90% MR, the fight was over in all but name.
While he would normally leave the spare parts alone, the kuo-toa had annoyed him sufficiently that Angelo made a point of letting his elementals kill the remaining warriors and whip in the room opposite. They offered pitiful XP, but Angelo hoped he'd given them as much of a headache as they'd given him!
Reaping the Reaver's Reward
Finally, Angelo entered the chamber at the end of the narrow right passage. The resulting room was covered in grotesque statues, the main one bearing an inscription talking of animal sacrifice and the demogorgon's children. "What does it mean, Felicity?" Angelo asked.
"Remember the demon knight from Durlag's Tower?" the imp replied. "Placing a summon in front of the statue conjures a quintet of those demons while sacrificing the summon." Angelo's face curdled - he had barely survived his encounter in Durlag's Tower... and now he had to kill 5 of them without the help of a mirror?! "Before you refuse," Felicity added, eyeing his reluctance, "the north-eastern one holds not only the girdle of frost giant strength, part of the mighty Crom Faeyr, but also Soul Reaver +4... a weapon you can't afford to miss, I assure you... oh, and some Full Plate +3."
Angelo stroked his chin. He remembered that demon knights could see through Invisibility, so it would be impossible to assassinate the priority target with Mislead... or would it...?
"The time has come, Felicity," he said, his voice full of portent. He had held off using his HLAs, but he could delay no longer. As a F/M/T, there was an abundance of riches to choose from, but it was Set Time Traps that Angelo selected this time. Setting up several around the room, Angelo upgraded his usual preparations, casting Haste and Improved Haste (along with Spell Immunity: Abjuration, to prevent his buffs being wiped with a wayward Remove Magic) and placed a backstab-capable weapon in his off-hand... a snaffled drow longsword +3 seemed ideal. Then he summoned two skeleton warriors - one to be sacrificed and one as a distraction - and positioned himself at the 10 o'clock position of the northeastern cauldron.
The sacrifice can be any summon... even, fortunately for wizard slayers, Ras the Dancing Sword!
The demon knights' appearance triggered one of the time traps, and Angelo's presence by the cauldron forced the priority demon off-centre. Had it teleported properly, its back would have been inaccessible, but this manoeuvre exposed its vulnerable behind, which Angelo wasted no time in exposing further. Although creatures capable of seeing through illusions position themselves to prevent backstabs from occurring, this does not grant them immunity... it simply means that Angelo had to be more creative in enforcing them.
Although the remainder of the demon knights stood helpless, they only had two-handed swords +1 and Angelo did not wish to press his luck. Felicity had warned him that no matter how many traps time traps he set in the room, only 3 seemed to reliably go off... giving him just enough time to kill the priority demon knight if he hadn't have positioned himself correctly. In any case, scooting out, he shut the door behind him and dashed away while the remaining demon knights wailed on the skeleton. Amazingly, one of the demon knights managed to lock on and teleport to him, even once he'd shut the door...and ran straight into another time trap that Angelo had set at the crossroads just in case of such an eventuality. Since Mislead was still active and he now possessed belt-enhanced Strength, this was a good chance to prove that the first time was no fluke.
They tend to teleport right after you click 'Save'... so leave a short delay when you do!
The other demon knights didn't pursue, settling for the consolation prize of beating up a disposable summon. Angelo wiped his brow - he hadn't fancied facing any more of them, even with his newly acquired weapons on hand.
Appendum: Some Backstage Gossip!
In an early draft of this post, I planned to also take out the prince by time trap assassination. This method has been superseded, but one detail might prove useful. If you pass through the throne room's preceding chamber during a time trap, there is a hiding place in the intervening corridor where you can set another time trap on your way to depositing the tadpoles without being spotted.
If you have already cast True Sight, it will fire during the current time trap, revealing the now-weakened prince (Detect Illusion won't work, as the target's script requires 'activation' before they become detectable)... and when this time trap ends, the troops following from the previous chamber will activate the new time trap, giving you free rein to cast Harm, Mislead-backstab or whatever.
Incidentally, as far as I could tell, all kuo-toa seem unaffected to Web. However, their saves are not great and other CC disablers (e.g. Horror) work very well. If you're playing a divine caster, protect your elemental with Chaotic Commands (as well as Remove Fear, which prevents as well as cures panic): kuo-toa have been known to cast Confusion and Chaos, and the last thing you want is your elemental going missing in action!
"What a horrible area," Angelo spat in disgust as he left the Western Tunnels. "It'd better be plain sailing from here!"
Felicity Foresight allowed herself a little giggle. "That isn't even the hardest part of the Underdark," she tittered, "not even close!"
While most SCS creatures are relatively intelligent and stop attacking if they can't damage anything, kuo-toa did not get that memo.
This is a mirage; kuo-toa use generic melee/ranged AI. While the SCS combat AI has blocks that react to defenses, enemies will attack whatever they can find if they can't see a vulnerable target.
Well, that was annoying. I thought I would see how far I could get following @Harpagornis using a shadow dancer dualled to fighter.
Belhifet doesn't seem realistic (at least for me - using no-reload and not allowing healing), but up to that might be possible given enough luck at the Palace.
I made a good start, picking up XP as a shadow dancer without doing any meaningful fighting:
Candlekeep - 315
Marl - 900
Firebead - 300
Beregost locks - 250
Drizzt - 12,000
Mr Colquetle - 250
Brage - 1,000
Noober - 400
Revenant - 900
Vitiare - 125
16440
Farmer Brun - 1,500
Samuel - 500
Tamah - 300
Landrin boots - 300
More locks - 960
Dualled after getting the required 20,000 XP.
Life as a fighter proved easier than expected when I successfully killed all the basilisks and Mutamin by following Korax round (in LoB his charm tends to run out before that's complete if the odd basilisk causes trouble). Most of the remaining XP then came from Durlag's Tower:
Basilisks, Mutamin and a tasloi - 26,435
Korax (shooting) - 175
High Hedge gnolls (weapon speed) - 260
High Hedge golems (shooting) - 4,000
Tenya and fishermen - 2,577
Karlat / Perdue - 770
(mainly weapon speed, but finished off with sling after Will got hit)
Durlag's basilisks (green scroll) - 22,400
Kirinhale/Riggilo - 4,000
Ghost and tome (green scroll) - 3,750
After recovering abilities I went in search of some stealthy boots, but thought I would stop off to recover Mirianne's letter on the way. That should have been simple, but I managed to get trapped by the ogrillons when movement next to a tree proved impossible. I killed one of them with stealth attacks and took the other to badly wounded, but that wasn't quite enough ...
I have played BG from time to time mostly toying around with the Bane of the Wizard Slayer challenge where we are still trying to get past Big B with our Shadow Dancer/Fighter.
Funnily enough, I recently thought that this is the only semi-realistic option for a non-caster to complete the Wizard Slayer challenge. I'm testing a few ideas for a ranger at the moment, but even they would be capable of some low level druid spells. What level were you thinking of dualling your Shadowdancer? Accessing Use Any Item would seem the only way to get past some late game challenges, but you'd be stuck with icky ThAC0 and HP, plus most of the shadowdancer's HLA are rubbish.
Belhifet doesn't seem realistic (at least for me - using no-reload and not allowing healing), but up to that might be possible given enough luck at the Palace.
I suppose your install is not like mine, in that Belhifet starts wailing on an indestructible Caelar ad infinitum after a while. It's not a dodge I'm particularly happy exploiting, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do...
This is a mirage; kuo-toa use generic melee/ranged AI. While the SCS combat AI has blocks that react to defenses, enemies will attack whatever they can find if they can't see a vulnerable target.
Hmm... do the summoned kobolds and skeletons in the Nashkel Mines use this behaviour? There, I exploited the fact that they didn't move to attack a polymorphed mustard jelly while it killed Mulahey for me. I repeated it several times and it seemed to work each time, but they might be a special case.
Mulahey's summons have a special override AI: move to Mulahey if they can't find the PC. If they're constantly trying to do this (because the PC is invisible), maybe that means they never do anything else?
@AvidGamerFan: We did some tests on the Shadowdancer/Fighter using the Kneecapper Hammer and killing all demons while also using CTRL+Q on Big B. The result was hilarious as the damage was too low to beat his regeneration. With all demons constantly hunting us this is a nightmare. Oh, Caelar is of no use in our installation and goes down in no time...
We also tested the Ranger in a 1vs1 with Big B being active but once Durlags Goblet runs out of charges its game over even though we could take him down at least to half health. With all demons around this is again another story...
We also played a Wizard Slayer/Druid but failed to land Harm and never tried it again...
Shouldnt Protection from Magic block the fear effect from demons like Big B? In our SCS v33 installation its not working... any ideas on this one?
PfM protects against, erm, magic. Unfortunately the fear effect from demons (and other creatures) is coded as natural and not magical - there are plenty of other similar examples of natural threats, like basilisk gaze. You thus need either extremely good saving throws (difficult to get against Belhifet without the use of potions), or a source of immunity. If you're making use of Durlag's Goblet then you might well be wearing Kiel's Helm as well, which would solve the problem. The Commander's Chain Mail would be another option, but makes you even more vulnerable to being hit.
Caelar would be a good option in this fight if she fought against Belhifet as a neutral (as I think she really should do) and thus benefited from LoB bonuses. That would make her hard to hit and give a big HP cushion to allow her to be healed as necessary. Unfortunately though, she acts as a joinable NPC (in my installation anyway) and thus has no chance against the LoB-enhanced demons.
@Grond0: In the Readme of SCS v33 (March 2020) there is the following quote: "The fear auras of demons, dragons and liches no longer penetrate an antimagic field or the protection from a Scroll of Protection from Magic"
So in theory PfM should block the fear... but it is not... what i am missing? ^^
@Grond0: In the Readme of SCS v33 (March 2020) there is the following quote: "The fear auras of demons, dragons and liches no longer penetrate an antimagic field or the protection from a Scroll of Protection from Magic"
So in theory PfM should block the fear... but it is not... what i am missing? ^^
We also tested the Ranger in a 1vs1 with Big B being active but once Durlags Goblet runs out of charges its game over even though we could take him down at least to half health. With all demons around this is again another story...
My hope was to utilise the level 1 trick by dual-wielding Kneecapper in main-hand and Martyr's in off-hand. Previous tests by @histamiini showed this is not reasonable for a normal cleric, despite Champion's Strength scroll stacking, but I hoped maybe the extra ApR of warriors and specialisation, plus the +4 hit/damage racial enemy bonus might swing it. It was a slim hope, admittedly...
Nah... the level 1 immortal glitch we will never use... but there is no need for it. We found a way for Clerics (and Druids) that works even for single class characters. The tactic is simple in theory and we have killed Big B several times now even though luck for sure is a factor.
The way to victory is:
1. Precast True Seeing or True Sight right before reaching Big B
2a. Summon one wave of Myconids to help Caelar
2b. Directly Rush to Big B after his Dispel went out
3. Cast Magic Resistance + Doom (+ Recitation)
4. Use a Scroll of Ailment (-2 penalty on save) on Big B
5. Pray and watch him dying after some seconds
True Sight/ True Seeing will prevent him from using Improved Invisbility early on so with Doom and Recitation his Save vs Death is 2+2+2+2=8. Getting out Recitation might get tricky as Caelar and summons go down pretty quickly but even then his Save vs Death is at least 2+2+2=6. There are 3 scrolls available at Lucky Aello's Discount Store inn East BG... or are there more? Protection from Poison will block its damage! This worked three times in a row now but maybe we got really lucky... more tests are needed!
Interesting stuff Harpagornis, what scroll of ailment do you mean? Is that one of Lucky Aello's cursed scrolls? Don't they require mods in order to use those scrolls against enemies?
Also, for what it's worth, SCS v33 adds more options for Clerics to lower enemy saving throws: Curse (+1), Prayer (+1) and Recitation (+2). Prayer and Recitation have to be cast within a 30 ft radius from Belhifet and they have casting times of 6 and 7 respectively, so I'm not sure if spending three rounds casting spells with somewhat long casting times is worth it, although you could spend a level 5 spell slot on Divine Protection. If you cast that first, you can prevent yourself from taking any damage for three rounds and cast CUrse, Prayer, and Recitation relatively safely. Probably only worth it if you can keep Belhifet and minions distracted long enough?
Interesting stuff Harpagornis, what scroll of ailment do you mean? Is that one of Lucky Aello's cursed scrolls? Don't they require mods in order to use those scrolls against enemies?
Lucky Aello does have 3 of them. None of his other cursed scrolls will affect other targets, but the scroll of Ailment is save or die on the target. It also poisons the user, but that's not a problem if you're expecting it. That does look like @Harpagornis has done it again and found a tactic with a realistic chance of success on Belhifet. I remember thinking many years ago that cursed scrolls should be able to be used like that, but could never make it work. It's possible the EE has changed the behavior slightly, but I suspect I just missed that one when trying them out .
@Harpagornis That's brilliant! Angelo found Belhifet was 100% immune to poision (hence, no arrows of biting with Enchanted Weapon active), but if the cursed scroll of ailment still works, that's another way for Arcand (my C/M currently running the WS challenge) for beating Bel up. He's actually already done it using the level 1 Martyr's glitch, but this method sounds slightly less... cheap...
There is yet another method of killing Bel on the market (which I learned from @lightningrodbombom's sadly stalled run). He only has 10 Dexterity, so 5 successful Contagions can take him out. This is not quite as impossible as it sounds since Contagion bypasses MR. In LoB mode, a successful Greater Malison will be required for a non-necromancer and that does need his MR lowered. You'd also need to be able to target Bel in the first place, which will require some way of coping with Invisibility. But IF you can do all that...
Proof of concept
You may be able to free up some level 4 slots by using a successful Ray of Enfeeblement first (which doesn't bypass MR), but you'd have to land your 3 successful Contagions during that spell's duration. This would be much more viable if you triple-load your Contagion into the Sequencer from the robe of arcane aptitude (sadly unobtainable for a WS run, else Arcand would use it). Nevertheless, this gives the faintest glimmer of hope for a poverty sorcerer (ha!)... which I'm sure is joyous news for everyone!
Incidentally, the save against the scroll of Ailment is against death with a -2 penalty, so the chances of success with that are slightly better than they may seem at first.
Hats off to you @Harpagornis, amazing find!! And thanks @Grond0 for the clarification. @AvidGamerFan, it's good to know about Contagion too.
Fascinating that there seem to be ways even in the harshest of conditions.
Maybe I should give this challenge another try. I've played a fair bit of SCS/LoB BG1 lately, but with full parties, so this would be a different ball game again...
Part 67: Angelo Stalks His Prey {Edited for Accuracy}
Executive Summary: Using Mislead and Set Time Trap, Angelo takes out the elder orb and begins the Ust Natha cornucopia.
"Many things make the Duchal Palace encounter difficult," Felicity reminisced, "but two stand out. You weren't able to prepare the area to fight on your terms and you had to defend neutral characters that you couldn't control. I wonder how important the first is in comparison to the second."
"I have the sneaking feeling we'll soon be finding out," Angelo added grimly.
No Respect For His Elders
It was lucky that Angelo entered the Southern Tunnels invisible, else the beholder pair in the entrance chamber would have smothered him in beams upon arrival. His illusion allowed him to sneak past them into a curving corridor where he could summon his skeletons. Immune to the beholders' deadliest attacks, Angelo happily let them kill the floating eyes for him. "Looks like these caverns will be straightforward," he murmured to his familiar.
"Not so fast," Felicity warned. "Beyond is a central chamber with, amongst other things, a hive mother. Not only can she see through Invisibility, but she also has a script that casts Stoneskin (with 10 skins) and Cure Critical Wounds every 5 rounds."
That got Angelo's attention. The main methods of tackling beholders available to him at this point were shield of Balduran, Animate Dead and Mislead... and the Hive Mother was effectively immune to them! SCS telekinetically swiped the shield (unless, apparently, you kept dropping it inbetween uses, a ploy Angelo had never gotten to work), the perpetually renewed defences would halt the skellies and she'd ignore Mislead's illusion altogether. What a disaster!
However, Felicity also informed him that his main target was elsewhere. Sneaking southwards past drow attacking a beholder and then eastwards where mindflayers were waging war on gauths, Angelo found an elder orb. Despite his stealth, its defences automatically fired, summoning a djinni duo who saw through Invisibility, prompting Angelo to retreat and wait out until the pair (and their Stinking Cloud farts!) expired. Then, using his Haste-Spell Immunity: Divination-Mislead combo, Angelo cast Invisibility on his clone and entered the fray.
While the mindflayers only ever cast stuns and charms at the gauths, so their battle is perpetual, the stun has a small AoE and if you get trapped, it's a statistical imporbability that you'll get back out.
Don't let this happen to you!
Unlike normal beholders, elder orbs were capable of casting spells (including Imprisonment!) and it tried to dispel the illusion, but Angelo's buffs stopped that and he kept hacking. It then turned invisible itself using Shadow Door, but Angelo lured it out with a summon followed by Detect Illusion. Once it reached Badly Injured, it threw up a (supposedly precast) Stoneskin, which Angelo took down using two Breach spells (its precast defences included Spell Shield, which absorbed one of them). He had to retreat to recast Mislead, but not even beholders' backstab immunity prevented the elder orb from crash landing.
Angelo invisibly looted the corpse for the blade of the Equaliser, amulet of spell warding and the eyestalk of an elder orb. Waiting out of sight for Mislead to safely expire, Angelo stealthily ransacked the tunnels' other treasures, including the greenstone amulet, sling of Arvoreen +4 and lots of gold, renewing his Invisibility any time he looted before the surrounding monsters could react. Avoiding the hive mother on the way out, Angelo left the Southern Tunnels and onto pastures new.
All's Phaere in Love and War
Having already disguised himself, Angelo approached Ust Natha to be greeted by a teleporting drow. "I am Ang... anxious to get inside," Angelo said, choosing the last dialogue option. This satisfied the guard, who sent him to Solaufein by the Male Fighters' Society.
In my opinion, this sequence is bad design. Gamers unfamiliar with D&D won't know how to act like drow, having unable to converse with any before entering the city, while those who do are punished for taking the in-character option.
After finding Solaufein, Angelo trotted back to the bazaar, where priestess Imrae admonished him for daring to be male. Biting his tongue, Angelo agreed to meet Solaufein at the Eastern Tunnels entrance. Casting Invisibility, he re-entered the Underdark... and ran into new party of Boz the ogre beserker, N'ashtar the necromancer, Chandrilla the cleric, Simbja the goblin and Pitch the imp. Grateful for his illusion, Angelo saw that they were already hostile (and, hence, illegitimate Pick Pockets targets) and slunk away without incident.
Recalling the mission was to rescue Phaere from mindflayers, Angelo was about to establish an ambush, but Felicity stopped him. "Don't set time traps in sight of Solaufein," she warned, "as monsters will trigger them during an arrival cutscene... and although damaging traps would hurt them, the time trap's effect would harmlessly play out during the cutscene's duration."
Solaufein claims that if you don't meet him in 12 hours, but no consequence seems to come from failing this.
Heeding her advice, Angelo set a time trap outside the Eastern Tunnels away from Solaufein. Moving away to invisibly rest (so any interrupting monster wouldn't trigger the fresh trap), he set another time trap and conjured as many skeletons as possible to protect Solaufein and Phaere as if either fell, his mission would fail. Buffing the skeletons with Haste and buffing himself with Improved Haste, Angelo persuaded Solaufein to throw dust in the air. On the first throw, Angelo cast Mislead and sent his clone away to Carlig; on the third, he rubbed his greenstone amulet and awaited the illithids' arrival.
Engaging the respective trios of mindflayers and umber hulks fairly would be a tricky balancing act. While Solaufein and Phaere each seemed immune to stun and charm, and the umber hulks didn't spray confusion spores, Detonate would harm them both (although mindflayers appeared reluctant to target them personally, it had a small AoE that could catch them if it targeted Angelo). Worse, both had 14 Intelligence and so successive mindflayer hits would kill them and Angelo would have to prevent the illithids from targeting them. But if he focused too much on this, the umber hulks would kill one of them anyway. Ideally, the mindflayers would Maze the pair, since either (or both) could return without having their subsequent actions affected, but this was a long shot and would leave Angelo to deal with the monsters on his own.
If engaging the trios fairly was out, the answer would be to engage them unfairly. Aside from offering momentary distraction before being detonated, the other reason for the skeletons was to grab an umber hulk's attention. Although Solaufein and Phaere were the monster's usual targets and Angelo couldn't bank on a mindflayer teleporting to him, he was sure an umber hulk would follow a skeleton to activate the time trap.
As the temporal flux distorted around him, Angelo nipped behind the nearest mindflayer and slashed with Belm and a drow longsword. Like demon knights, illithids' ability to see Invisibility usually nixed backstab attempts, but they were vulnerable when rendered helpless and Angelo's lack of proficiency didn't matter in a time trap. Two of the mindflayers had turned invisible themselves before time trap started, thinking themselves safe from Angelo's Detect Illusion until the round's end (when the skill would 'tick' again) when the stasis would have subsided... but they hadn't reckoned on Angelo using Albruin's Detect Invisibility to reveal them. One time trap wouldn't have been enough, but two gave some breathing space to finish the mindflayers off and the umber hulks were unable to stop themselves being first misled, then dead.
Despite awarding 20,000 XP, Phaere wasn't impressed by her rescue and Solaufein accompanied her back to Ust Natha. Angelo followed them, invisibly passing Boz et al on the way.
'Maybe I'll Qilue Instead'
From the front platform, Solaufein commanded Angelo to meet him and Phaere in the tavern. On his way, Angelo was called by a duergar, saying an aboleth would raise an alarm should he refuse. Angelo moved close to the tank and he heard a warbling voice invade his mind. "You will infiltrate Qilue's house, retrieve her brain and bring it to me."
"Felicity tells me that her brain can be stolen," Angelo mentally retorted, "would that be enough?"
"No," the aboleth snapped. "I need her dead! And if you accept his quest, I'll hold you to it with no option of backtracking."
"Felicity also tells me that completing this quest gives me 10,000 XP and a dagger +4 (which can also be pickpocketed from Qilue). But I have no need of the dagger and insulting you will gain me 12,000 XP without killing anything... so that's what I'll do." The aboleth scrambled to compose a response, but Angelo cut it off, "Shut it, you fish-faced freak!"
Since he hadn't accepted the quest, Qilue's home remained closed off by a drow guard, but Angelo was unconcerned. The dagger wasn't worth the hassle and it was more elegant to pass it up.
An Adamant Adamantite Smuggler
Inside the tavern, Phaere gave Angelo a day's grace before the next task, but Angelo didn't go anywhere other than locating the drow bartender at the back. The easiest way of sticking to annoying deadlines was to focus on them completely, so he rested before returning to the main bazaar. Mentioning a beholder was smuggling adamantite, Phaere and Solaufein teleported to a south-eastern platform, forcing Angelo to chase them around. A drow leader asked where an escaped slave had gone, but this sounded like cut content, so Angelo lie, saying that the slave hadn't passed by seconds earlier.
Before engaging, Angelo cast Protection from Petrification on Phaere and Solaufein and Invisibility on Solaufein. These weren't offensive spells, so the recipients turn hostile (unlike Otiluke's Resilient Sphere), not did drow MR block them (unlike Maze, although the dialogue wouldn't complete if either was mazed). Despite being a fighter/cleric knowing she was about to fight a beholder - a monster she would surely have experienced or heard about - Phaere didn't precast Death Ward (she didn't even have it memorised!), and this was the most Angelo could do to protect them against the beholder's rays. Setting a time trap and 4 snares by the stairs, Angelo summoned and buffed some skeletons before talking to Phaere.
There was just enough time before the beholder appeared for Angelo to cast Invisibility on Phaere (she needed to be visible to talk to, but Solaufein could continue the conversation while invisible). As the time trap triggered, Angelo leapt in wielding Jhor the Bleeder in his main hand and Belm in his off-hand: since beholders couldn't be backstabbed, Jhor's poison stacks would be most economical, especially with Improved Haste active (and Belm's extra attack curiously affecting the main weapon if wielded in the off-hand). Angelo vanished as the stasis wore off while his snares added further poison stacks, forcing the beholder to target his summons. These also provided a wall to delay Phaere or Solaufein idiotically attacking and revealing themselves... luckily, between this and the time required to walk to the beholder, they only needed to avoid getting hit by a death ray for a few seconds before the venom did its job.
Doling out 20,000 XP, Phaere gave Angelo 3 days' leave while she reported to Matron Mother Ardulace, of House Despana. Solaufein questioned Phaere's clearing of the beholder corpse, but she dismissed him and took her leave. Solaufein departed soon after, leaving Angelo to ruminate the day's events.
Phaere's parting words had aroused Angelo curiousity. All was not what it seemed here. He had expected a drow city to be ripe with intrigue... and it certainly wasn't disappointing!
Maybe I should give this challenge another try. I've played a fair bit of SCS/LoB BG1 lately, but with full parties, so this would be a different ball game again...
Please do! Angelo sometimes gets a bit lonely on his travels around the Sword Coast (don't tell Felicity!) and would love some company.
(Listed for Icewind Dale, but I assume it applies to Baldur's Gate as well.)
Enjoy it while it lasts ...
I've thought for a while that the Hall of Fame should be updated to include the game patch and version of SCS/Ascension that the run was completed on. For instance, I believe that monster AC on LoB mode has improved considerably since the patch in which @Harpagornis completed their first run... without meaning to take anything away from that run, I'd be surprised if another bounty hunter could complete a playthrough in the same way using those tactics. This is not to say the game always gets harder: if I'm not mistaken, fallen solars had infinite, uninterruptible Heals in earlier versions of SCS/Ascension (thank goodness that's gone!), so noting these details might also be relevant.
For what it's worth, my poverty sorcerer 'idea' (if it merited such a description) relied on Conjure Lesser Air/Earth/Fire Elemental's summons being immune to the demons' attacks and clearing the lift... but they're not... so that's that...
"Not so fast," Felicity warned. "Beyond is a central chamber with, amongst other things, a hive mother. Not only can she see through Invisibility, but she also has unlimited Stoneskins."
She also gets unlimited self-heals. Ten skins and a Cure Critical every five rounds. A drawn-out battle of attrition just won't work.
That got Angelo's attention. The main methods of tackling beholders available to him at this point were shield of Balduran, Animate Dead and Mislead... and the Hive Mother was effectively immune to them! SCS telekinetically swiped the shield (unless, apparently, you kept dropping it inbetween uses, a ploy Angelo had never gotten to work), the perpetually renewed Stoneskin would halt the skellies and she'd ignore Mislead's illusion altogether. What a disaster!
A higher-level clone (Project Image or Simulacrum) would work, though. She won't ever try to remove the shield from a clone, only a player. You still have to worry about how to deal damage fast enough, but at least a clone with a cloned Shield of Balduran is safe from eye rays.
But if you're not using clones like that, the Shield of Balduran just isn't something you can rely on with SCS. I didn't even bother buying it for my recent no-spellcasting party. They used potions of magic protection instead to completely humiliate the hive (Not an option for a multiclass mage; it's an AI trick based on how the beholders use their antimagic rays).
Are you sure this is still a thing, three major SCS versions later? Or that this was ever a thing in the EE? The only real change to Breach itself is that now various spell defenses block it. You need to take those down, either with dedicated spells like Secret Word or by burning through them. And elder orbs will definitely put up spell defenses.
Are you sure this is still a thing, three major SCS versions later? Or that this was ever a thing in the EE? The only real change to Breach itself is that now various spell defenses block it. You need to take those down, either with dedicated spells like Secret Word or by burning through them. And elder orbs will definitely put up spell defenses.
Embarrassing that I didn't notice Spell Shield was included among the elder orb's precast defences. This is certainly not the only time that Breach has failed to bring down magical defences (I usually try out several strategies and choose which one to write up, so just because I haven't mentioned Breach much before doesn't mean it never happened), so I may have read about the bug in the given link and jumped to conclusions. I couldn't say whether each of these was due to Spell Shield, but I have just tested it with Kalah, who definitely does not have Spell Shield, and Breach worked without a hitch. Post will be updated... glad to see someone's keeping me honest. How ironic that this comes just after me highlighting the importance of what version of SCS/Ascension a playthrough is using!
Are you sure it really wasn't working (as opposed to the higher levels in LoB just meaning that it was no longer useful against some enemies)? Your link didn't work for me by the way.
According to the knowledgeable poster @kjeron, unmodded Carsomyr dispels at level 30 on hit. This goes for the +5 and the +6 version. So @Grond0 is right to point out LoB's higher enemy levels as a possible obstacle to an effective use of Carsomyr.
What is more, SCS v33 has a component which grants enemies a saving throw against the dispel. See here. Did you install this? If so, then the farther you get in the game, the more you're going to fail at dispelling foes, especially if you're playing with the saving throws fix.
The Item Upgrades (IU) readme however states that the mod fixes Carsomyr +5 and Carsomyr +6 so that they use the same "dispel magic" opcode as the Staff of the Magi. That is, they will actually dispel things. They also increase MR by 50% rather than setting it to 50%.
The part about the dispel ability probably refers to older vanilla versions of Carsomyr that had it dispel at a lower level than the Staff of the Magi. Pre-EE this was addressed by the Fixpack but EE seems to have fixed this as kjeron indicated. In any case when I look at my current BG2 install, which includes IU, with NearInfinity I can find no IU version of Carsomyr, so only the vanilla items (modified or not by IU) SW2H10.ITM - Carsomyr +5 and SW2H19.ITM - Carsomyr +6, both of which dispel on hit at level 30.
There is another Carsomyr +5 in my game files: CARSOMYR.ITM - Carsomyr +5. This one weirdly has the description of Spiders' Bane but the MR and the dispel on hit of Carsomyr, This one dispels at level 0, so basically every time you hit a character that isn't protected by PfMW or Improved Mantle. I don't think you can get this in the game though. Maybe it's an undroppable item wielded by an enemy. If you want to dispel at level 0 you can upgrade Keldorn's Hallowed Redeemer or forge Carsomyr and the Unholy Reaver into the Unholy Avenger, both with the IU mod.
Comments
The choices are Con, Int, Dex, or Wis.
Dex is obviously terrible for pretty much everyone, as you outlined. Maybe a shapeshift-focused druid, who replaces that stat when they're in combat anyway.
Non-warriors are frequently in a position to drop Con safely; if they started with 16, they're at 17 now and can give up a point without losing any HP. If a shorty non-warrior started at 18, they're at 19 and can give up a point without losing HP or saves.
Wis is obviously bad for divine casters (losing spell slots), and pretty harmless for most others ... unless you plan on using wishes. A mage (not triple-class) aiming for Wish needs 18 Wis for best results, and you probably planned your initial stat allocation around that.
And finally, Int. Since everything you need Int for can be covered by potions of genius/mind focusing, which are plentiful in BG2, basically everybody can afford to give up a point here. Including arcane casters. As long as you don't drop below 9 (scroll and wand use), you're fine.
So ... yeah, there are options. My current Dragon Disciple will have Con and Int as painless choices, but definitely not Wis.
Death Spell. Pretty harmless, unless you brought summons with you.
Non-warriors can still benefit from the modest regeneration provided by excess Constitution.
Luckily, there are not many mindflayer encounters in the game, even fewer that are compulsory. But if you're going to use potions of genius or mind focusing to tackle them, the more the merrier!
Executive Summary: Invisibility, Wraithform and Animate Dead tackle the Asylum's third floor nicely.
Angelo arrived on the third floor quietly burning with anger. For all of his misgivings, he had placed his trust in Bodhi... and she had betrayed him. It was time for her to suffer the consequences of that mistake.
His efforts were stymied by a pair of trolls - he could squeeze past the first to open the door, but he couldn't fit through as the second blocked it. Determined to see how far he could get without hostilities, Angelo retreated and summoned an efreeti. This dispelled his own invisibility while calling forth a being that could renew it. Having vanished, Angelo let the efreeti draw the trolls back to the minotaur room, raiding the nearby vase for 2 mithral tokens and a Sunfire scroll before having the efreeti make him disappear and leaving via the freshly unblocked corridor.
Passing through a globe-filled room, Angelo came upon a minotaur statue with two missing horns. He was wondering where he could find the second horn when Bodhi and two minions appeared. Somehow, she sensed his approach and initiated dialogue, but couldn't find his invisible body to attack it. Angelo thought about leaving them, but was overcome by a new sensation. Had this creature of the night not tricked him, he would still have his soul! Now he was but a shell of his former self, a worn out husk that she'd deigned to play with before discarding.
Angelo wouldn't let that happen without a fight.
Bodhi recoiled when she saw the slayer fly at her, an incarnation of murderous rage. She slashed at it with her claws and teeth, but her level draining bite had no effect on this primal beast. Startled, she recalled her brethren and beat a hasty retreat, vowing to warn Irenicus of this latest development. Unable to find a target for his aggression, it was now Angelo who stood helpless until his bloodlust subsided.
As he came to, Angelo counted his blessings that Bodhi had left so prematurely. She'd been too shocked by his transformation to notice that although her attacks didn't remove their usual 5 levels, her Constitution sapping blood drain still worked fine and her blows were painful even without any on-hit effects. On the other hand, he hadn't meant to lose control and break his Invisibility by attacking, but he had felt compelled by an inner fury. Perhaps Irenicus hadn't managed to extract all his Bhaalspawn power after all...
Said Bhaalspawl power resurfaced when he rested, making him grateful that Imoen wasn't around to get torn apart. Once he'd recovered, Felicity reassured him that this wouldn't happen again - he could sneak into the bottom minotaur room, loot the vase and vanish without risk of randomly transforming. Apart from the other minotaur horn, this yielded 2 more mithral tokens and a Limited Wish scroll. Replacing the horns on the statue gave 29,500 XP and opened the door to the next floor.
Sneaking his way back to the earlier pool, Angelo investigated the statues surround it. Starting at the 9 o'clock position and working clockwise, a Disintegrate spell guarded a troll painting; an umber hulk portrait was protected by Incendiary Cloud; and a djinni painting had an accompanying Fireball. None of these were detectable or disarmable, but Angelo used Spell Immunity: Alteration to prevent the Disintegrate and tanked the fire damage for long enough to escape (acquiring the paintings did not dispel Invisibility).
Heading to the twin secret doors, Angelo picked the lock on one and twisted the interior horseshoe to open the other. Inside, a trio of trolls was unable to find their invisible guest. Angelo briefly popped into view when he took 2 mithral tokens from the vase, alerting a formerly hidden spirit troll to his presence, but the usual disappear-and-dump strategy stopped them from following.
The upper room contained 5 yuan-ti, 1 yuan-ti mage and 4 painted wall murals, each design corresponding to a portrait in Angelo's backpack. Each painting acted as a key, so when Angelo matched the umber hulk painting to the umber hulk mural, the wall swung back to reveal... an umber hulk! Since Angelo was still invisible, it was as helpless to stop him as the yuan-ti. The stone golem in the anteroom was similarly ineffective - by the time it reacted, Angelo had looted the 2 mithral tokens and the Maze scroll from the vase, the 3 mithral tokens from the table and disappeared from sight.
The final room required a different approach. Angelo found 4 mithral tokens, a star sapphire and the bowstring of Gesen after unlocking the central chest, but removing the first two items didn't activate the clay golem trio lining the chamber. Taking the bowstring, he surmised, would awaken the golems, but since they required magical blunt weapons to hit, combat was not an option. So when Felicity told him that upon taking the bowstring, the door would clank shut and not even Knock would reopen it before the golems were dead, the course of action was clear.
Beyond the anteroom lay a contraption that processed mithral tokens and spat out items. Boots of the north cost 5 tokens, boots of grounding cost 10, boots of speed cost 15 and Jester's chain +4 cost 20, and Angelo knew that there were 21 tokens available.
This shows how to obtain the Haste effect without requiring the protagonist to cast the spell or drink an oil of speed, which may be useful in more restrictive playthroughs.
Thus accelerated, Angelo cast Invisibility and dashed back to the clay golems. Stuffing the bowstring into his backpack, Angelo sprinted for the door, aiming to lock the golems inside. One acceleration effect (e.g. boots of speed) wouldn't be enough, but with two, Angelo could make it out just as the door slammed shut behind him.
Next, he summoned and hasted his skeletons before attracting the umber hulk's attention. Its confusion attack was blocked by the shield of harmony stowed from Athkatla and it charged into Angelo's army waiting in the anteroom. The umber hulk did crushing damage, so the skeletons wouldn't last that long, but they still held it up long enough for a successful Blind, after which it became 10,000 XP target practice.
Although the yuan-ti party would waste his summons, Angelo noticed that they all used normal weapons. Better yet, although the mage would normally cast Remove Magic to rid him of any buffs, Wraithform on its own didn't seem to register as worth dispelling... so if Angelo avoided any Oracle spells it cast and attacked otherwise unbuffed, he could slaughter them without retaliatory blows. That's exactly what he did, keeping his shield of harmony up to prevent the mage's numerous charms from taking effect. He also tried to fight in the corridor to minimise interim attacks between Wraithforms.
Heading back through the entrance chamber, Angelo realised that the assorted trolls from the secret room had heard the commotion, but couldn't open the door to reach the action. Again, his hasted army of skeletons and spiders did the brunt of the 12,000 XP work, with Angelo turning invisible whenever he heard the spirit troll cast Flame Strike (Unholy Blight didn't work because of Angelo's evil alignment).
Since minotaurs used normal weapons, Wraithform was a good way of disabling their ability to hit him. Trolls apparently had enough hit dice that their attacks were classed as magical, so Wraithform was no good at disabling them, but a new batch of summons was hardy enough to take down the remainder sandwiched between the minotaurs. And the gauth was splatted exclusively by Animate Dead's skeletons, which remained immune to many of the mini-beholder's deadliest eye beams.
Angelo guessed that a noble djinn was behind the djinni painting since his UI had informed him that it cast Stinking Cloud when he entered the floor. As well as Magic Missiles, it could also fire some Lightning Bolts which could prove deadly in a confined space, so Angelo protected himself with Minor Globe of Invulnerability. This and Wraithform were enough to render it harmless... the djinn couldn't have been that noble since it didn't even use a magical weapon! Its Shadow Door and gaseous form powers prolonged the fight, but the writing was on the wall (alongside the painting). Its death provided 10,000 XP, but no real treasure.
The troll painting housed a spirit troll which were incredibly annoying. Their permanent improved invisibility made them untargetable by spells, their 50% physical resistance prevented them taking much damage and their regeneration healed what little had been done. It could also cast Flame Strike, Greater Command and Unholy Blight as scripts, so they were uninterruptible and unlimited... and they hurt! However, a full contingent of hasted spiders and skeletons was enough once it had been coaxed out of hiding (Detect Illusion would not work against such initially invisible opponents). Felling the flopped troll with a fire arrow salvaged from a kobold commando on the previous floor netted 8,000 XP and Malakar +2.
Though seeing the frightened look on Bodhi's face was undeniably satisfying, Angelo wanted more. He wanted to see Irenicus, the man who'd stalked him from the beginning of SoD, to quake in similar fear.
Executive Summary: Angelo shows off his sanity by outwitting first the Asylum's tests, then Irenicus.
"I grow tired of these games," Angelo snapped as he left the third floor. "For all the Wisdom I sacrificed to escape that Candlekeep dream sequence, my (Spell)hold on reality is clearly strong enough."
The death of the commandos signalled the appearance of Apparition, an arbiter who couldn't decide whether to use a definite or indefinite article. When Angelo mentioned this apparent disparity, Apparition told him that he was to be subjected to several tests (apart from the grammar one, which he'd already passed). Angelo shrugged and Apparition disappeared, dumping him in a room with a myconoid colony. As his Wraithform still hadn't worn off, Angelo was unable to manually cast Invisibility and had to let his ring do it. Sneaking around the back of the turnip-shaped rock, Angelo began summoning skeletons from a distance, knowing that they would be immune to whatever spores the myconoids would effuse. The attacks of the myconoids that answered their colony's calling did crushing damage, so Angelo was sure to Haste his troops and focus on the colony itself, since when it dropped, the test would be over.
"Chopping up the mushroom men is a decent test of sanity," Apparition said unironically as he teleported in uninvited. "At least you're not a vegetable like them."
"Actually, mushrooms are fungi," Angelo replied, "and I happen to think I am a fun guy."
Apparition scoffed as he asked a riddle, and Angelo answer of 'splinter' catapulted him into the third test, a dining room surrounded by more noble apparitions. Swiping the cloak of reflection from the main table, Angelo proceeded to get quizzed by the nobles about all manner of inanities. "What is the gerund of the verb 'to noth'?" one asked him.
"Nothing?" Angelo guessed. He wanted to point out that he had already passed his grammar test and there was no such verb, but he stayed his tongue. This was a madhouse... normal rules obviously didn't apply. The nobleman nodded and asked several more lexical conundrums. Angelo answered 'a river' and 'fear' correctly, but simply could not recall the answer to the final puzzle. The nobleman informed him that the answer, ironically, was 'memory' as Angelo's vision faded to black.
He reappeared in a room with a machine that Apparition refused to explain. Rather than solve the logic puzzle in Lium's Journal of Malevolent Magicks, Angelo asked Felicity to tell him the answer. She gave him the correct Mithral-Ruby-Emerald-Sandalwood-Jade-Onyx and told him to make sure there was a spare slot in his inventory. Entering this combination into the machine gave 10,000 XP and deposited bracers of defence AC 5 into his inventory. It was lucky that Felicity had warned him to make space, as Apparition immediately teleported him out of the chamber once the levers had been pulled, giving him no option to return to pick up any items displaced by the bracers' forceful insertion.
"As for the final judgement," Apparition pondered as they both appeared on the rooftop. "You accepted the trials willingly after defeating the commandos, so whatever. You're free to go!" And with that, he vanished, doling out 51,250 XP as he did so.
No matter what you do, you can only experience half the tests. The route above is probably optimal, with the least fighting and the most rewards. The alternative is to have previously answered 'memory', in which case you'll not encounter the machine and miss out on the bracers and free XP. Instead, you'll fight some trolls and obtain the bone club +2/+3 and the EE-exclusive Heart of the Mountain amulet. This is only recommendable if you're a beastmaster or a shaman... in which case, you're probably not interested in optimisation!
What was required was some way of remotely viewing Irenicus to begin hostilities, after which the AI would do the job. And although perhaps lower on the scale than pre-emptive Web or Feeblemind, it is difficult to think of another use for Farsight than to facilitate this sort of abuse... unlike Mislead, for example, whose possibilities are legion even if you discard its backstab-looping capabilities.
Angelo led with his spiders and berserker warrior, because they were incapable of doing any serious damage anyway and lasted for a relatively short duration. He was glad that Irenicus moved off his pedestal and into the region normally viewable from the door (which he was careful to keep shut whenever possible), else he would have had to have ordered his summons around blind until their AI stumbled across Irenicus and auto-attacked. Next, he ordered his golem, efreeti and Kitthix into battle before retreating behind the corner. These were meatier troops that would soften Irenicus up a little, as well as waste the majority of his (Death) spells. The golem is particularly handy, with its 100% MR and immunity to normal weapons.
Finally, his skeletons went in for the kill. Well, the next best thing - Irenicus' minimum health at this stage was 1 HP - after which Angelo left him. Descending to the lower floor, he found Lonk the Sane waiting for him, but the dwarf was easily persuaded into releasing the inmates' key (this could not be stolen using Pick Pockets). Angelo could have paid a 2,000 GP bribe, but his Wisdom of 9 and Charisma of 15 was enough to convince Lonk that he only followed Irenicus out of fear. Having assembled his crack team... and Tiax... Angelo let them loose on their master.
Of course, what with Irenicus having been beaten up beforehand, he started on minimal HP, and it took barely a Magic Missile from inmate Wanev for the invoker to collapse. Bleating excuses, Irenicus fled, leaving 68,500 XP and some murders in tow. Since Angelo was still invisible (Lonk sees through Invisibility, but neither his dialogue nor the inmates' dispels it), said cuthroats began targeting the remaining skeletons, allowing Angelo to scrounge the potions dropped by Dradeel et al and lock the distracted murderers in the laboratory.
All that remained was for Angelo to descend the stairs, being sure to loot the ammunition (including 5 juicy arrows of dispelling) in the nearby room and alcove before doing so.
Nipping back into the Asylum, Angelo noticed Irenicus' bedroom was freshly available - it had been previously inaccessible from the cells and had he arrived via Perth's wardstone, the co-ordinator would have whisked him away upon entering. Luring the stone golem out and dumping it using Invisibility, Angelo raided the rogue stone, staff of thunder and lightning and horn of silence from the containers therein. He considered taking Jon's key, which unlocked the upstairs door to the portal Saemon had mentioned, but decided against it. The petrification wards on the bridge to Spellhold were now non-functional, so Angelo sneaked past the assembled lizardmen and crossed safely back to Brynnlaw.
Saemon's offer came with the attached string of securing a horn from Caiya's home during the night. Despite the nasty Disintegrate trap on the shelves, they housed nothing of interest, so Angelo took the rogue stone and horn from the table, vanishing afterwards to evade the pirate trio answering their mistress' call. And after selling his excess wares at Brynnlaw's store, Angelo found Saemon the the bottom of the docks, looking eager to set sail.
"This is your last chance to turn back," Felicity informed him. "You could Pick Pocket the silver blade from Saemon, take Jon's key from his bedroom and go through the portal now. This would earn you 20,000 XP and you could start Chapter 5 immediately."
"Ah, but this is a completionist playthrough," Angelo countered, "and the rewards are high. Come, let us set sail again!"
Executive Summary: Wraithform, Invisibility and summons enable Angelo's descent through the City of Caverns.
A city of thieves seemed more like home than one where arcane magic was outlawed, but Angelo knew he must leave. Irenicus and Bodhi had flown the coup, taking his soul with them, and Angelo would follow them to the end of the earth to get it back.
Even the fishermen have a go!
Once Dunbar and his 3 pirates had been slain, Saemon insisted on giving away a silver blade as payment, seemingly unaware that Angelo had already swiped it. Then, the ship set sail on what Angelo hoped would be an uneventful voyage.
Although nominally a True Neutral F/M, Saemon did nothing to stop his crew being torn apart. Angelo guessed that Saemon would point the finger at him when the githyanki came for the blade and activated his ring of invisibility as soon as hostilities commenced. Although his Wraithform, still active, would protect him from the githyanki blows, it also prevented him from manually casting Invisibility, so he needed the ring's assistance. He also readied his shield of harmony, as the githyanki were fond of casting Chaos, whose confusion could affect him even when invisible.
Heading to the ship's stern - he was of evil alignment and had no compunction letting others get slaughtered on his behalf - Angelo sat tight. Perhaps the githyanki would get bored and leave. Maybe they'd take Saemon instead. Maybe...
Suddenly, the ship's underbelly was razed, routing the githyanki and hurling Angelo overboard. A cutscene explained that Saemon escaped 'through magical means', but since Dimension Door had not been available to players since vanilla BG, Angelo was carried beneath the waves into an aquatic city of caverns.
Though he hadn't been sent by shark god Sekolah, Angelo dispatched the ettin with ease. Ettins only used normal weapons, so Wraithform protected Angelo long enough to cut it down. Seeing this, King Ixilthetocal ordered the death of High Priestess Tlyysixxous for her oracular misfire and enlisted Angelo's services to kill rebel Prince Villynaty. However, Royal High Priestess Senityili warned him not to be too hasty and gave him Rebel's Orb to peaceably gain access to the prince's stronghold. Having just passed the Asylum's grammar test, Angelo wanted to find Rebel to return her orb, but he sensed this was a lost cause.
Taking the scroll of Spell Deflection from High Priestess Tlyysixxous' body, secretly glad there was one less long name to remember, Angelo returned to King Ixilthetocal. The monarch didn't notice Angelo picking the sahuagin treasure key from his pocket, which assisted the removal of the rod of lordly might (a misnomer if ever he'd seen one!) and Protection from the Elements scroll from the nearby cabinet. Further Pick Pockets attempts yielded scrolls of Chain Lightning and Death Fog, a potion of invulnerability and seemingly unending supplies of magical rope.
Of these traps, the ones around the circle’s edge were the deadliest: the trap between Elminster and Khelben (8 o'clock) was Disintegrate; the trap next to Drizzt (4 o'clock) cast Flesh to Stone; Piergeiron (1 o'clock) resided over a Maze trap; and Alustriel (11 o'clock) stood by a Melf's Acid Arrow trap. The other two were CC disablers: the central trap cast Power Word: Silence whereas the northern, circular trap cast Slow. To make matters worse, all these traps were repeating and Angelo wasted no time in disarming the lot.
Once the traps had been removed, the imps' game was fairly straightforward:
Beyond the impish riddle, a weary beholder named Spectator claimed to have been summoned to guard a chest, but Angelo had drunk a potion of insight, so his Wisdom was above 13... and, hence, wise enough to notice that such a stipulation need not necessarily apply to the contents of the chest. Removing Sekolah's tooth brought Spectator to its senses: deciding that watching an empty box was pointless, it drifted away happily, earning Angelo 15,000 XP.
"Now I have the magical rope and can access Prince Villynaty's base," Angelo asked Felicity, "is there anything stopping me from just leaving?"
The imp shook her head. "But it's advantageous to help one side or the other. The details are quite complicated, so it might be easier to explain later."
"Thanks," Angelo sighed, "you've been no help at all."
Having waited out the priestess' summons, Angelo responded with some of his own. Unfortunately, although the golem was immune to the sahuagin bolts' poison and stun, sahuagin had enough hit dice for their strikes to count as magical, making it vulnerable to their blows. Similarly, although most sahuagin took double damage from fire, the priestess' aura made her immune to the efreeti's individually targeted flame spells. Still, the combination of these troops with Animate Dead's minions (also immune to the bolts’ effects) was strong enough to take out the priestess on their own. Her (illegal) pre-cast Stoneskin and Divine Protection protected her for a time, but Angelo watched his army invisibly and made sure they did not break rank unnecessarily.
After the priestess' 8,000 XP death, Angelo snatched the cloak of reflection from her corpse (she started hostile, so it could not have been stolen) using the usual right-click trick, then left the scene. Resting, rinsing and repeating could have brought down the remaining rebels, but it was more elegant to leave them be now that he'd acquired the cloak.
The royal guards will not assist you against the priestess, despite there being several bands of rebels and sahuagin fighting around the throne room. Although speaking to the prince disperses these bands, the ambush remains in place even after the main quest has been resolved.
Still, accepting the prince's plan had several consequences. Angelo's UI informed him that Royal High Priestess Senityili and her Captain Feerlattiys had been condemned to death off-screen. More relevantly, the guards evacuated the chamber, leaving only the prince, Senior Priestess Sallinithyl and the sahuagin chieftain as neutrals. Angelo's light fingers pre-emptively removed the Wave blade, a potion of magic blocking and a sphene gem from Prince Villynaty, as well as a potion of frost giant strength, a spear, 3 paralytic bolts, 20 normal bolts and 10 bolts of biting from the sahuagin chieftain. They would be his sooner or later anyway... he was merely ensuring it was sooner, rather than later.
The prince's suspicions were aroused when Angelo summoned a skeletal contingent, but they were confirmed when the conjured efreeti's Flame Strike bathed him in conflagration. The sahuagin heir glanced around for the traitorous perpetrator, but Angelo had disappeared, the efreeti having cast Invisibility before initiating the blaze. The prince would have asked Senior Priestess Sallinithyl to dispel the illusion had she not fled as soon as combat began. As it stood, Prince Villynaty put up a brave fight, but eventually succumbed to his 2,000 XP death.
In fact, Senior Priestess Sallinithyl has no spells memorised, but compensates by having 24,380 HP in LoB mode... presumably to ensure that she will survive to deliver a later dialogue.
From his vantage point, Angelo noted that the sahuagin chieftain not only seemed to reacquire his stolen bolts, but was a hardier fighter than his 420 XP indicated. Both facts pointed towards flight, so Angelo looted Prince Villynaty's corpse (for a Mislead scroll and the real heart) before speeding back to King Ixilthetoca, the intervening rebel and sahuagin bands now having dispersed. Before talking to the king, Angelo also tried his Pick Pockets luck, successfully extracting Implaer +3 which had not been previously available.
If you look up Impaler +3 in online walkthroughs, they will claim it's found either on King Ixilthetocal or Prince Villynaty. In fact, the spear appears on whichever of them you do NOT side with when you enter the stronghold. Since Angelo had claimed that he would help the prince, the king received the spear, even although Angelo ended up killing the prince. This also explains why Angelo could not extract it earlier... it was not in the king's inventory to extract since Angelo had not yet made 'the choice'!
Despite possessing the fake heart, the real heart took precedence and the king accompanied Angelo to the stronghold to award 58,500 XP and 2,000 GP, along with some gauntlets of crushing, a rod of lordly might and a magic rope. Once the king had left, Senior Priestess Sallinithyl berated Angelo for his foolishness, but he dismissed her and used the magical rope to clamber down the hole, earning a further 20,000 XP.
The magic rope and rod of lordly might are awarded even if you have already pilfered them. The king's disappearance means that if you're intent on murdering all of the sahuagin, you should work with Prince Villynaty, since he sticks around after his quest is concluded.
Incidentally, the most elegant way to tackle this quest is to side with the prince, then turn invisible once you've returned to the king. They have no way to detect you and the prince's forces will end up killing everything for you without retaliation, after which you can Pick Pocket him for the Wave blade. However, although this route gives you 60,500 XP for completing the quest (i.e. 2,000 XP more than siding with the king), it doesn't give you the gauntlets of crushing or a second rod of lordly might.
Felicity shook her head in disgust as they shimmied down the rope. "I hope that's the last we'll see of that duplicitous Saemon Havarian."
Now it was Angelo's turn to shake his head, "I doubt that!"
Executive Summary: Manipulating the elements and the conjurer studying them, Angelo rinses the Underdark with aplomb.
As they descended the rope, Felicity asked if Angelo's attitude to charms had changed since BG. "I only wanted to avoid rampant Algernon's Cloak abuse," Angelo explained. "I have nothing against charms - I've used them several times already in BG2 - I just didn't want to milk one overpowered item ad nauseum."
"So if an opportunity for flagrant charm exploitation arose, you'd have no qualms in abusing it?" Felicity asked. Angelo shook his head and the imp smiled, "Thanks for clearing that up."
Bedlen said to find his father for a reward, after which Angelo renewed his Invisibility to head north. Odendal Breachgnome saw through his illusion, but Angelo swore no harm and was directed to the svirfneblin town. There, in an inn, he found Therndle Dagenfold and explaining his son's rescue earned 10,000 XP and bracers of defence AC 4. Angelo had already pilfered his 10 darts of stunning, but the bracers were unstealable.
While there, Angelo opportunistically stole a book of rituals and a long sword from the innkeeper, as well as 10 darts of stunning and the light gem from Goldander Blackenrock. This gem would allow Angelo to meet Adalon, but this would prematurely destroy the village, so Angelo didn't enter the dark cave yet... there were other avenues to explore first.
Similarly attracting the fire elemental by the next portal onto a summon, Angelo sent it down the southeastern passage where Felicity swore she'd seen something fishy beyond his line of sight. Figuring such creatures would be vulnerable to fire, like the sahuagin, Angelo had deliberately chosen the fire elemental for this... and his UI showed he was right! There were two kuo-toa parties (the first comprised a leader, a wizard, a monitor and a warrior; the second, across the bridge, had 3 monitors, a wizard, a priest, a warrior and a whip), and only the whip, whose constant stealthing confused the elemental's targeting, survived. What one elemental couldn't handle, however, multiple hasted skeletons and spiders could.
Unlike fire and earth elementals, who wandered around, air elementals stood still when blinded, making them target practice for Tansheron's bow. Better, if he exhausted his Blinds, Angelo could cast Invisibility, rest and the earth and fire elementals would resume their bombardments upon his awakening. The fact that air elementals were 7,000 XP while the others were both worth 6,000 XP was the icing on the cake. Each portal would replenish its respective elemental upon their deaths 10 times, so 77,000 XP was up for grabs.
By the time Angelo had killed all 11 air elementals, the earth elementals had done their job... and now he could cast Invisibility on Felicity so that she blocked the rope bridge previously guarded by kuo-toa. Unable to cross, but also unable to abandon an opponent in their sight, the remaining earth elementals acted as mountainous bullseyes, earning 66,000 XP.
Veterans might wonder why Angelo didn't buy the staff of earth from Ust Natha bazaar to kill the earth elementals with one blow. However, visiting Ust Natha starts Solaufein's quest timer, which is undesirable. The staffs of air and fire (in the planar prison and sphere respectively) are difficult to obtain early in LoB, else they would have been used.
Instead, Angelo completed a more subtle task. Temporarily jettisoning the elemental, he cast Invisibility 10' Radius by Odendal Breachgnome, hiding the gnome and the two soldiers, and promised Goldander Blackenrock that he'd remove the town's underground monstrosity. Rejoining the elemental, he lured it past the invisible gnomes and into the now-unlocked pit chamber before vanishing and blocking the door until it wandered inside. Then, he investigated the pit and, just as the demon arrived, shut the door, entombing it with the elemental.
After at least an hour's real-time smacking (during which our protagonist invisibly assassinated Madman Anagalo with some hasted skeletons), the balor lay dead and Angelo's Invisibility kept him out of sight as he read Goldander's Stone Shape scroll. Upon Angelo's return, Goldander handed out 25,000 XP and Skullcrusher +3 (which couldn't have been stolen earlier). "This would have been handy to hit the demon with," Angelo murmured, but Goldander cut him off saying that he'd stolen the light gem. Angelo clutched his pearls - how dare this gnome truthfully accuse him? - but left the dormitory nevertheless.
Finally, while invisibly scouting above the kuo-toa, Angelo was 'ambushed' by a drow contingent who couldn't see him. Drawing the fire elemental to their location before vanishing, Angelo watched them refuse to stop themselves burning alive. One cast Invisibility Purge, but Angelo renewed his illusion as soon as he appeared. This party seemed less divination-happy than others, so despite being trapped on the bridge, he wasn't in great danger. The bridge's narrowness allowed an unpolymorphed Felicity served as an invisible blockade and Angelo racked up another 66,000 XP whittling away fire elementals.
Had he been alert, he would have used it on the other elementals - they were too big to cross even without a familiar barricade!
Upon Vithal's release, the portals cease their usual summoning activities... so it's essential to extract all utility from them before casting Freedom.
Though picking his pockets yielded only lint, Vithal didn't turn hostile upon resisting a Nymph Cloak attempt, so Angelo could try as often as necessary for a successful charm.
Vithal's memorised spells varied by playthrough, but Summon Dark Planetar was a safe bet for an evil conjurer. Accompanying the planetar to the crystal prison, Angelo released Raevilin Strathi using the second panel from the left. The mage spoke nonsensically, but recovered his senses once the planetar had cast Heal on him, giving Angelo 15,000 XP and Albruin +1.
Aware he was on the clock - once Vithal's spells expired, resting would not rememorise them - Angelo and the planetar dashed back to Vithal. Despite being charmed, Vithal's dialogue initiated normally and Angelo could force-talk him into entering the portal. When he returned, he was still under Angelo's control, but he brought a greater earth elemental too. Unfortunately, leading it to the narrow bridge would result in stalemate between Angelo's unlimited arrows and its bottomless Stoneskins. Instead, making both himself and Vithal cast Invisibility to avoid Earthquakes, Angelo waited for the planetar to score a vorpal hit, which would cut its head clean off for 10,000 XP.
For extra credit, the planetar killed the conjured earth elemental trio before expiring.
After the greater fire elemental kicked the 10,000 XP bucket, Vithal entered the fire portal and returned a rod of absorption which entered Angelo's inventory via Pick Pocket. A similar showdown commenced by the air portal, but Death Spell didn't kill the extra air elemental trio this time (Angelo gained 7,000 XP each for their deaths, further indicating they weren't summoned as killing summons never provides experience). Since the greater variant eviscerated Vithal's remaining forces, Angelo withdrew, taking Vithal and his opponents to the narrow bridge. Since his cloak of reflection stopped Chain Lightning and Stoneskin prevented Windstorm's crushing damage, Angelo blinded and killed the greater air elemental from afar for 11,000 XP.
After ensuring that Vithal's magic had been stripped bare, Angelo rested and set 7 traps around the conjurer before conversing. Vithal would teleport to and from where dialogue commenced, regardless of whether this was in sight of the portal, and Angelo swiped the Skull of Death from his pockets upon his return before he initiated his final speech for 20,000 XP. However, although his demise would yield no further treasure, it would yield 20,000 XP more, so Angelo goaded him into aggression
Despite being drained of spells and sequencers, Vithal had some magic scripted, including a Disintegrate-True Sight-Remove Magic trigger and endless Monster Summoning III. Retreating, Angelo let his traps' poison kick in before conjuring fodder to absorb excess arcana. When he was sure that no surprises remained, the spiders and skeletons were summoned, hasted and deployed - Vithal was already Badly Injured and didn't require much finishing off.
You shouldn't order charmed Vithal around during a transition or as a greater elemental appears, else the scripts won't activate properly. Also, if you summon a hakaeshar or ogre mage, have them harmlessly fire their Lightning Bolts before combat begins, else you catch Vithal and turn him hostile.
"So far, you've gained a time-consuming, but fairly safe 359,000 XP in the Underdark," Felicity remarked. "Still, you could have gotten more had you not let the elementals kills everything for you. Perhaps next time, you might get your hands dirty and reap the rewards."
I have played BG from time to time mostly toying around with the Bane of the Wizard Slayer challenge where we are still trying to get past Big B with our Shadow Dancer/Fighter. Another idea was to create some kiind of corona related challenge so if you have ideas feel free to post them!
So far we formulated the following rules:
The Covid Trials
- You have to keep distance from all party npc´s and play as a solo adventurerer.
- All shops and inns are closed. Temples are still open but you cannot buy any items.
- If you try to control more than one summon spell everyone will be infected and die.
- All creatures have turned into coronovirus deniers and cannot be charmed or dominated.
A Happy New Year and good luck to anyone! Keep on rolling @AvidGamerFan! ;o)
Executive Summary: Angelo finds the Western Tunnels surprisingly difficult... until he unleashes some new tricks!
"You've had over 3,000,000 XP for a while," Felicity remarked as they walked, "why haven't you used High Level Abilities?"
"I'm trying to map how any class could tackle this challenge," Angelo explained. "Obviously, some can't Pick Pockets and others can't summon or disappear, but the template is hopefully solid if you ring the changes. To allow for the fact that I've had opportunities unavailable to other classes (e.g. thievery XP), I've left a buffer so that anyone will be roughly HLA-capable when I start using them."
After going back and letting his charred undead slaughter the beholder and two gauths in the left chamber, Angelo want straight forward and heard a skeleton clambering out the ground - something in that chamber had cast Animate Dead! Refusing to put up with this, Angelo moved back, rested and approached again, vowing to try again until he didn't hear any pre-emptive summons. The lack of this sound meant that the chamber would be empty, Felicity told him, allowing Angelo to loot the corrupted tadpoles from the pools unmolested.
Carlig's wares change after you see Adalon, as he takes you for drow, so make sure you've bought all that you want before switching.
- Monitors struck as normal melee weapons
- Warriors struck as +1 melee weapons
- Whips struck as +1 melee and missile weapons
- Priests struck as >+2 melee weapons (c.f. Spiritual Hammer)
- Wizards used Melf's Minute Meteors
The interesting fact was the top one and Angelo wondered how he could exploit it.In the meantime, he cast Invisibility and Spell Immunity: Divination and tried to pass this kuo-toa band (of 3 monitors, a wizard, a priest, a warrior and a whip). Even though their True Sights failed, the monitors still clung to him staunchly and this gave Angelo an idea. Pulling back, the monitors dashed after him until their next True Sight tick... and given their exceptional speed, they were now quite far away from the pack. Casting Protection from Normal Weapons (Wraithform disabled other spellcasting, and this might be bad news if other kuo-toa had been alerted), Angelo shot at them once and ran away down the demon knights' corridor, drawing them yet further from their colleagues.
Having cornered their prey, the kuo-toa were amazed that Angelo wasn't putting up much of a fight, but kept whacking away with their 6 ApR. Never once did they stop to wonder whether their blows were having any effect... or what that smell of burning flesh was. Ironic, really, that despite their constant True Sight, not one of them noticed that along with Protection from Normal Weapons, Angelo had cast Fireshield: Red... and every single one of their 6 ApR burned away a little bit of their health. While most SCS creatures are relatively intelligent and stop attacking if they can't damage anything, kuo-toa did not get that memo. It only took a few rounds before all of the monitors lay crisped on the floor.
Felicity had warned Angelo about the wizards' double Horror sequencer, and Resist Fear stopped his elementals from routing prematurely. With his cloak of mirroring, Angelo was unable to be targeted by individual spells... which constituted the majority of the kuo-toa's spells! Interestingly, this protection did not extend to Blind, but in another irony, the kuo-toa's own True Sight dispelled their illusion!
After the battle, Angelo went west, encountering a selection of drow and demonic guards guarding an entrance. Felicity said that Adalon's magic also afforded understanding of the drow tongue, so (unlike if he had tried earlier) he could converse with the guards. Angelo initially tried a bribe, claiming that it was a donation to the drow's house, before vowing to turn the traitor in once he'd foolishly engaged. Hoisted by his own petard, the guard spat vituperations, but opened the door nevertheless. Angelo did not go through, but stole his Archer's Eyes amulet (imported from SoD) and some miscellanea before leaving the way he came.
The dialogue option for turning thte traitor in only appears if your Intelligence is >17. Otherwise, you'll need a Charisma of > 17 for the 1,000 GP bribe to be accepted, else only a 5,000 GP bribe will suffice.[/i]
Although Angelo conjured his pair of elementals as before, he did not bother with the bridge this time. Despite his title, the kuo-toa prince was no better at damaging the elementals than his subjects and so, with the tadpoles destroying his regeneration and 90% MR, the fight was over in all but name.
"Remember the demon knight from Durlag's Tower?" the imp replied. "Placing a summon in front of the statue conjures a quintet of those demons while sacrificing the summon." Angelo's face curdled - he had barely survived his encounter in Durlag's Tower... and now he had to kill 5 of them without the help of a mirror?! "Before you refuse," Felicity added, eyeing his reluctance, "the north-eastern one holds not only the girdle of frost giant strength, part of the mighty Crom Faeyr, but also Soul Reaver +4... a weapon you can't afford to miss, I assure you... oh, and some Full Plate +3."
Angelo stroked his chin. He remembered that demon knights could see through Invisibility, so it would be impossible to assassinate the priority target with Mislead... or would it...?
"The time has come, Felicity," he said, his voice full of portent. He had held off using his HLAs, but he could delay no longer. As a F/M/T, there was an abundance of riches to choose from, but it was Set Time Traps that Angelo selected this time. Setting up several around the room, Angelo upgraded his usual preparations, casting Haste and Improved Haste (along with Spell Immunity: Abjuration, to prevent his buffs being wiped with a wayward Remove Magic) and placed a backstab-capable weapon in his off-hand... a snaffled drow longsword +3 seemed ideal. Then he summoned two skeleton warriors - one to be sacrificed and one as a distraction - and positioned himself at the 10 o'clock position of the northeastern cauldron.
The sacrifice can be any summon... even, fortunately for wizard slayers, Ras the Dancing Sword!
The demon knights' appearance triggered one of the time traps, and Angelo's presence by the cauldron forced the priority demon off-centre. Had it teleported properly, its back would have been inaccessible, but this manoeuvre exposed its vulnerable behind, which Angelo wasted no time in exposing further. Although creatures capable of seeing through illusions position themselves to prevent backstabs from occurring, this does not grant them immunity... it simply means that Angelo had to be more creative in enforcing them.
Although the remainder of the demon knights stood helpless, they only had two-handed swords +1 and Angelo did not wish to press his luck. Felicity had warned him that no matter how many traps time traps he set in the room, only 3 seemed to reliably go off... giving him just enough time to kill the priority demon knight if he hadn't have positioned himself correctly. In any case, scooting out, he shut the door behind him and dashed away while the remaining demon knights wailed on the skeleton. Amazingly, one of the demon knights managed to lock on and teleport to him, even once he'd shut the door...and ran straight into another time trap that Angelo had set at the crossroads just in case of such an eventuality. Since Mislead was still active and he now possessed belt-enhanced Strength, this was a good chance to prove that the first time was no fluke.
They tend to teleport right after you click 'Save'... so leave a short delay when you do!
The other demon knights didn't pursue, settling for the consolation prize of beating up a disposable summon. Angelo wiped his brow - he hadn't fancied facing any more of them, even with his newly acquired weapons on hand.
If you have already cast True Sight, it will fire during the current time trap, revealing the now-weakened prince (Detect Illusion won't work, as the target's script requires 'activation' before they become detectable)... and when this time trap ends, the troops following from the previous chamber will activate the new time trap, giving you free rein to cast Harm, Mislead-backstab or whatever.
Incidentally, as far as I could tell, all kuo-toa seem unaffected to Web. However, their saves are not great and other CC disablers (e.g. Horror) work very well. If you're playing a divine caster, protect your elemental with Chaotic Commands (as well as Remove Fear, which prevents as well as cures panic): kuo-toa have been known to cast Confusion and Chaos, and the last thing you want is your elemental going missing in action!
"What a horrible area," Angelo spat in disgust as he left the Western Tunnels. "It'd better be plain sailing from here!"
Felicity Foresight allowed herself a little giggle. "That isn't even the hardest part of the Underdark," she tittered, "not even close!"
This is a mirage; kuo-toa use generic melee/ranged AI. While the SCS combat AI has blocks that react to defenses, enemies will attack whatever they can find if they can't see a vulnerable target.
I made a good start, picking up XP as a shadow dancer without doing any meaningful fighting:
Candlekeep - 315
Marl - 900
Firebead - 300
Beregost locks - 250
Drizzt - 12,000
Mr Colquetle - 250
Brage - 1,000
Noober - 400
Revenant - 900
Vitiare - 125
16440
Farmer Brun - 1,500
Samuel - 500
Tamah - 300
Landrin boots - 300
More locks - 960
Dualled after getting the required 20,000 XP.
Life as a fighter proved easier than expected when I successfully killed all the basilisks and Mutamin by following Korax round (in LoB his charm tends to run out before that's complete if the odd basilisk causes trouble). Most of the remaining XP then came from Durlag's Tower:
Basilisks, Mutamin and a tasloi - 26,435
Korax (shooting) - 175
High Hedge gnolls (weapon speed) - 260
High Hedge golems (shooting) - 4,000
Tenya and fishermen - 2,577
Karlat / Perdue - 770
(mainly weapon speed, but finished off with sling after Will got hit)
Durlag's basilisks (green scroll) - 22,400
Kirinhale/Riggilo - 4,000
Ghost and tome (green scroll) - 3,750
After recovering abilities I went in search of some stealthy boots, but thought I would stop off to recover Mirianne's letter on the way. That should have been simple, but I managed to get trapped by the ogrillons when movement next to a tree proved impossible. I killed one of them with stealth attacks and took the other to badly wounded, but that wasn't quite enough ...
Funnily enough, I recently thought that this is the only semi-realistic option for a non-caster to complete the Wizard Slayer challenge. I'm testing a few ideas for a ranger at the moment, but even they would be capable of some low level druid spells. What level were you thinking of dualling your Shadowdancer? Accessing Use Any Item would seem the only way to get past some late game challenges, but you'd be stuck with icky ThAC0 and HP, plus most of the shadowdancer's HLA are rubbish.
I suppose your install is not like mine, in that Belhifet starts wailing on an indestructible Caelar ad infinitum after a while. It's not a dodge I'm particularly happy exploiting, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do...
Hmm... do the summoned kobolds and skeletons in the Nashkel Mines use this behaviour? There, I exploited the fact that they didn't move to attack a polymorphed mustard jelly while it killed Mulahey for me. I repeated it several times and it seemed to work each time, but they might be a special case.
We also tested the Ranger in a 1vs1 with Big B being active but once Durlags Goblet runs out of charges its game over even though we could take him down at least to half health. With all demons around this is again another story...
We also played a Wizard Slayer/Druid but failed to land Harm and never tried it again...
Shouldnt Protection from Magic block the fear effect from demons like Big B? In our SCS v33 installation its not working... any ideas on this one?
Caelar would be a good option in this fight if she fought against Belhifet as a neutral (as I think she really should do) and thus benefited from LoB bonuses. That would make her hard to hit and give a big HP cushion to allow her to be healed as necessary. Unfortunately though, she acts as a joinable NPC (in my installation anyway) and thus has no chance against the LoB-enhanced demons.
So in theory PfM should block the fear... but it is not... what i am missing? ^^
Maybe @DavidW can help? ;o)
I see. I've never got around to updating from v32
My hope was to utilise the level 1 trick by dual-wielding Kneecapper in main-hand and Martyr's in off-hand. Previous tests by @histamiini showed this is not reasonable for a normal cleric, despite Champion's Strength scroll stacking, but I hoped maybe the extra ApR of warriors and specialisation, plus the +4 hit/damage racial enemy bonus might swing it. It was a slim hope, admittedly...
The way to victory is:
1. Precast True Seeing or True Sight right before reaching Big B
2a. Summon one wave of Myconids to help Caelar
2b. Directly Rush to Big B after his Dispel went out
3. Cast Magic Resistance + Doom (+ Recitation)
4. Use a Scroll of Ailment (-2 penalty on save) on Big B
5. Pray and watch him dying after some seconds
True Sight/ True Seeing will prevent him from using Improved Invisbility early on so with Doom and Recitation his Save vs Death is 2+2+2+2=8. Getting out Recitation might get tricky as Caelar and summons go down pretty quickly but even then his Save vs Death is at least 2+2+2=6. There are 3 scrolls available at Lucky Aello's Discount Store inn East BG... or are there more? Protection from Poison will block its damage! This worked three times in a row now but maybe we got really lucky... more tests are needed!
Happy hunting! ;o)
Also, for what it's worth, SCS v33 adds more options for Clerics to lower enemy saving throws: Curse (+1), Prayer (+1) and Recitation (+2). Prayer and Recitation have to be cast within a 30 ft radius from Belhifet and they have casting times of 6 and 7 respectively, so I'm not sure if spending three rounds casting spells with somewhat long casting times is worth it, although you could spend a level 5 spell slot on Divine Protection. If you cast that first, you can prevent yourself from taking any damage for three rounds and cast CUrse, Prayer, and Recitation relatively safely. Probably only worth it if you can keep Belhifet and minions distracted long enough?
Lucky Aello does have 3 of them. None of his other cursed scrolls will affect other targets, but the scroll of Ailment is save or die on the target. It also poisons the user, but that's not a problem if you're expecting it. That does look like @Harpagornis has done it again and found a tactic with a realistic chance of success on Belhifet. I remember thinking many years ago that cursed scrolls should be able to be used like that, but could never make it work. It's possible the EE has changed the behavior slightly, but I suspect I just missed that one when trying them out
There is yet another method of killing Bel on the market (which I learned from @lightningrodbombom's sadly stalled run). He only has 10 Dexterity, so 5 successful Contagions can take him out. This is not quite as impossible as it sounds since Contagion bypasses MR. In LoB mode, a successful Greater Malison will be required for a non-necromancer and that does need his MR lowered. You'd also need to be able to target Bel in the first place, which will require some way of coping with Invisibility. But IF you can do all that...
Proof of concept
You may be able to free up some level 4 slots by using a successful Ray of Enfeeblement first (which doesn't bypass MR), but you'd have to land your 3 successful Contagions during that spell's duration. This would be much more viable if you triple-load your Contagion into the Sequencer from the robe of arcane aptitude (sadly unobtainable for a WS run, else Arcand would use it). Nevertheless, this gives the faintest glimmer of hope for a poverty sorcerer (ha!)... which I'm sure is joyous news for everyone!
@AvidGamerFan, it's good to know about Contagion too.
Fascinating that there seem to be ways even in the harshest of conditions.
Maybe I should give this challenge another try. I've played a fair bit of SCS/LoB BG1 lately, but with full parties, so this would be a different ball game again...
Enjoy it while it lasts ...
Executive Summary: Using Mislead and Set Time Trap, Angelo takes out the elder orb and begins the Ust Natha cornucopia.
"Many things make the Duchal Palace encounter difficult," Felicity reminisced, "but two stand out. You weren't able to prepare the area to fight on your terms and you had to defend neutral characters that you couldn't control. I wonder how important the first is in comparison to the second."
"I have the sneaking feeling we'll soon be finding out," Angelo added grimly.
"Not so fast," Felicity warned. "Beyond is a central chamber with, amongst other things, a hive mother. Not only can she see through Invisibility, but she also has a script that casts Stoneskin (with 10 skins) and Cure Critical Wounds every 5 rounds."
That got Angelo's attention. The main methods of tackling beholders available to him at this point were shield of Balduran, Animate Dead and Mislead... and the Hive Mother was effectively immune to them! SCS telekinetically swiped the shield (unless, apparently, you kept dropping it inbetween uses, a ploy Angelo had never gotten to work), the perpetually renewed defences would halt the skellies and she'd ignore Mislead's illusion altogether. What a disaster!
However, Felicity also informed him that his main target was elsewhere. Sneaking southwards past drow attacking a beholder and then eastwards where mindflayers were waging war on gauths, Angelo found an elder orb. Despite his stealth, its defences automatically fired, summoning a djinni duo who saw through Invisibility, prompting Angelo to retreat and wait out until the pair (and their Stinking Cloud farts!) expired. Then, using his Haste-Spell Immunity: Divination-Mislead combo, Angelo cast Invisibility on his clone and entered the fray.
While the mindflayers only ever cast stuns and charms at the gauths, so their battle is perpetual, the stun has a small AoE and if you get trapped, it's a statistical imporbability that you'll get back out.
Don't let this happen to you!
Unlike normal beholders, elder orbs were capable of casting spells (including Imprisonment!) and it tried to dispel the illusion, but Angelo's buffs stopped that and he kept hacking. It then turned invisible itself using Shadow Door, but Angelo lured it out with a summon followed by Detect Illusion. Once it reached Badly Injured, it threw up a (supposedly precast) Stoneskin, which Angelo took down using two Breach spells (its precast defences included Spell Shield, which absorbed one of them). He had to retreat to recast Mislead, but not even beholders' backstab immunity prevented the elder orb from crash landing.
Angelo invisibly looted the corpse for the blade of the Equaliser, amulet of spell warding and the eyestalk of an elder orb. Waiting out of sight for Mislead to safely expire, Angelo stealthily ransacked the tunnels' other treasures, including the greenstone amulet, sling of Arvoreen +4 and lots of gold, renewing his Invisibility any time he looted before the surrounding monsters could react. Avoiding the hive mother on the way out, Angelo left the Southern Tunnels and onto pastures new.
In my opinion, this sequence is bad design. Gamers unfamiliar with D&D won't know how to act like drow, having unable to converse with any before entering the city, while those who do are punished for taking the in-character option.
After finding Solaufein, Angelo trotted back to the bazaar, where priestess Imrae admonished him for daring to be male. Biting his tongue, Angelo agreed to meet Solaufein at the Eastern Tunnels entrance. Casting Invisibility, he re-entered the Underdark... and ran into new party of Boz the ogre beserker, N'ashtar the necromancer, Chandrilla the cleric, Simbja the goblin and Pitch the imp. Grateful for his illusion, Angelo saw that they were already hostile (and, hence, illegitimate Pick Pockets targets) and slunk away without incident.
Recalling the mission was to rescue Phaere from mindflayers, Angelo was about to establish an ambush, but Felicity stopped him. "Don't set time traps in sight of Solaufein," she warned, "as monsters will trigger them during an arrival cutscene... and although damaging traps would hurt them, the time trap's effect would harmlessly play out during the cutscene's duration."
Solaufein claims that if you don't meet him in 12 hours, but no consequence seems to come from failing this.
Heeding her advice, Angelo set a time trap outside the Eastern Tunnels away from Solaufein. Moving away to invisibly rest (so any interrupting monster wouldn't trigger the fresh trap), he set another time trap and conjured as many skeletons as possible to protect Solaufein and Phaere as if either fell, his mission would fail. Buffing the skeletons with Haste and buffing himself with Improved Haste, Angelo persuaded Solaufein to throw dust in the air. On the first throw, Angelo cast Mislead and sent his clone away to Carlig; on the third, he rubbed his greenstone amulet and awaited the illithids' arrival.
Engaging the respective trios of mindflayers and umber hulks fairly would be a tricky balancing act. While Solaufein and Phaere each seemed immune to stun and charm, and the umber hulks didn't spray confusion spores, Detonate would harm them both (although mindflayers appeared reluctant to target them personally, it had a small AoE that could catch them if it targeted Angelo). Worse, both had 14 Intelligence and so successive mindflayer hits would kill them and Angelo would have to prevent the illithids from targeting them. But if he focused too much on this, the umber hulks would kill one of them anyway. Ideally, the mindflayers would Maze the pair, since either (or both) could return without having their subsequent actions affected, but this was a long shot and would leave Angelo to deal with the monsters on his own.
If engaging the trios fairly was out, the answer would be to engage them unfairly. Aside from offering momentary distraction before being detonated, the other reason for the skeletons was to grab an umber hulk's attention. Although Solaufein and Phaere were the monster's usual targets and Angelo couldn't bank on a mindflayer teleporting to him, he was sure an umber hulk would follow a skeleton to activate the time trap.
As the temporal flux distorted around him, Angelo nipped behind the nearest mindflayer and slashed with Belm and a drow longsword. Like demon knights, illithids' ability to see Invisibility usually nixed backstab attempts, but they were vulnerable when rendered helpless and Angelo's lack of proficiency didn't matter in a time trap. Two of the mindflayers had turned invisible themselves before time trap started, thinking themselves safe from Angelo's Detect Illusion until the round's end (when the skill would 'tick' again) when the stasis would have subsided... but they hadn't reckoned on Angelo using Albruin's Detect Invisibility to reveal them. One time trap wouldn't have been enough, but two gave some breathing space to finish the mindflayers off and the umber hulks were unable to stop themselves being first misled, then dead.
Despite awarding 20,000 XP, Phaere wasn't impressed by her rescue and Solaufein accompanied her back to Ust Natha. Angelo followed them, invisibly passing Boz et al on the way.
"Felicity tells me that her brain can be stolen," Angelo mentally retorted, "would that be enough?"
"No," the aboleth snapped. "I need her dead! And if you accept his quest, I'll hold you to it with no option of backtracking."
"Felicity also tells me that completing this quest gives me 10,000 XP and a dagger +4 (which can also be pickpocketed from Qilue). But I have no need of the dagger and insulting you will gain me 12,000 XP without killing anything... so that's what I'll do." The aboleth scrambled to compose a response, but Angelo cut it off, "Shut it, you fish-faced freak!"
Since he hadn't accepted the quest, Qilue's home remained closed off by a drow guard, but Angelo was unconcerned. The dagger wasn't worth the hassle and it was more elegant to pass it up.
Before engaging, Angelo cast Protection from Petrification on Phaere and Solaufein and Invisibility on Solaufein. These weren't offensive spells, so the recipients turn hostile (unlike Otiluke's Resilient Sphere), not did drow MR block them (unlike Maze, although the dialogue wouldn't complete if either was mazed). Despite being a fighter/cleric knowing she was about to fight a beholder - a monster she would surely have experienced or heard about - Phaere didn't precast Death Ward (she didn't even have it memorised!), and this was the most Angelo could do to protect them against the beholder's rays. Setting a time trap and 4 snares by the stairs, Angelo summoned and buffed some skeletons before talking to Phaere.
There was just enough time before the beholder appeared for Angelo to cast Invisibility on Phaere (she needed to be visible to talk to, but Solaufein could continue the conversation while invisible). As the time trap triggered, Angelo leapt in wielding Jhor the Bleeder in his main hand and Belm in his off-hand: since beholders couldn't be backstabbed, Jhor's poison stacks would be most economical, especially with Improved Haste active (and Belm's extra attack curiously affecting the main weapon if wielded in the off-hand). Angelo vanished as the stasis wore off while his snares added further poison stacks, forcing the beholder to target his summons. These also provided a wall to delay Phaere or Solaufein idiotically attacking and revealing themselves... luckily, between this and the time required to walk to the beholder, they only needed to avoid getting hit by a death ray for a few seconds before the venom did its job.
Doling out 20,000 XP, Phaere gave Angelo 3 days' leave while she reported to Matron Mother Ardulace, of House Despana. Solaufein questioned Phaere's clearing of the beholder corpse, but she dismissed him and took her leave. Solaufein departed soon after, leaving Angelo to ruminate the day's events.
Phaere's parting words had aroused Angelo curiousity. All was not what it seemed here. He had expected a drow city to be ripe with intrigue... and it certainly wasn't disappointing!
Please do! Angelo sometimes gets a bit lonely on his travels around the Sword Coast (don't tell Felicity!) and would love some company.
I've thought for a while that the Hall of Fame should be updated to include the game patch and version of SCS/Ascension that the run was completed on. For instance, I believe that monster AC on LoB mode has improved considerably since the patch in which @Harpagornis completed their first run... without meaning to take anything away from that run, I'd be surprised if another bounty hunter could complete a playthrough in the same way using those tactics. This is not to say the game always gets harder: if I'm not mistaken, fallen solars had infinite, uninterruptible Heals in earlier versions of SCS/Ascension (thank goodness that's gone!), so noting these details might also be relevant.
For what it's worth, my poverty sorcerer 'idea' (if it merited such a description) relied on Conjure Lesser Air/Earth/Fire Elemental's summons being immune to the demons' attacks and clearing the lift... but they're not... so that's that...
A higher-level clone (Project Image or Simulacrum) would work, though. She won't ever try to remove the shield from a clone, only a player. You still have to worry about how to deal damage fast enough, but at least a clone with a cloned Shield of Balduran is safe from eye rays.
But if you're not using clones like that, the Shield of Balduran just isn't something you can rely on with SCS. I didn't even bother buying it for my recent no-spellcasting party. They used potions of magic protection instead to completely humiliate the hive (Not an option for a multiclass mage; it's an AI trick based on how the beholders use their antimagic rays).
Are you sure this is still a thing, three major SCS versions later? Or that this was ever a thing in the EE? The only real change to Breach itself is that now various spell defenses block it. You need to take those down, either with dedicated spells like Secret Word or by burning through them. And elder orbs will definitely put up spell defenses.
Embarrassing that I didn't notice Spell Shield was included among the elder orb's precast defences. This is certainly not the only time that Breach has failed to bring down magical defences (I usually try out several strategies and choose which one to write up, so just because I haven't mentioned Breach much before doesn't mean it never happened), so I may have read about the bug in the given link and jumped to conclusions. I couldn't say whether each of these was due to Spell Shield, but I have just tested it with Kalah, who definitely does not have Spell Shield, and Breach worked without a hitch. Post will be updated... glad to see someone's keeping me honest. How ironic that this comes just after me highlighting the importance of what version of SCS/Ascension a playthrough is using!
What definitely did not work before I installed the Items Upgrade mod was Carsomyr's on-hit dispel, which apparently was also bugged (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Gibberlings3/Item_Upgrade/master/itemupgrade/readme-itemupgrades.txt). When the time comes that Angelo can use Carsomyr, I am undecided as to whether I'll keep Item Upgrades and not use any of its upgraded items or accept the lack of dispel.
Are you sure it really wasn't working (as opposed to the higher levels in LoB just meaning that it was no longer useful against some enemies)? Your link didn't work for me by the way.
According to the knowledgeable poster @kjeron, unmodded Carsomyr dispels at level 30 on hit. This goes for the +5 and the +6 version. So @Grond0 is right to point out LoB's higher enemy levels as a possible obstacle to an effective use of Carsomyr.
What is more, SCS v33 has a component which grants enemies a saving throw against the dispel. See here. Did you install this? If so, then the farther you get in the game, the more you're going to fail at dispelling foes, especially if you're playing with the saving throws fix.
The Item Upgrades (IU) readme however states that the mod fixes Carsomyr +5 and Carsomyr +6 so that they use the same "dispel magic" opcode as the Staff of the Magi. That is, they will actually dispel things. They also increase MR by 50% rather than setting it to 50%.
The part about the dispel ability probably refers to older vanilla versions of Carsomyr that had it dispel at a lower level than the Staff of the Magi. Pre-EE this was addressed by the Fixpack but EE seems to have fixed this as kjeron indicated. In any case when I look at my current BG2 install, which includes IU, with NearInfinity I can find no IU version of Carsomyr, so only the vanilla items (modified or not by IU) SW2H10.ITM - Carsomyr +5 and SW2H19.ITM - Carsomyr +6, both of which dispel on hit at level 30.
There is another Carsomyr +5 in my game files: CARSOMYR.ITM - Carsomyr +5. This one weirdly has the description of Spiders' Bane but the MR and the dispel on hit of Carsomyr, This one dispels at level 0, so basically every time you hit a character that isn't protected by PfMW or Improved Mantle. I don't think you can get this in the game though. Maybe it's an undroppable item wielded by an enemy. If you want to dispel at level 0 you can upgrade Keldorn's Hallowed Redeemer or forge Carsomyr and the Unholy Reaver into the Unholy Avenger, both with the IU mod.