@Victor_Creed_SFV I though about it but sadly i'm an illusionnist but Delayed Blast Fireball did the trick! (isn't he immune to spell lower than 5 however? GM and lower resistance doesn't seem to affect him at all but Breach does however) Tested it a few time and 125 seems to leave it very close to death if not killing it, so stacked with incendiary cloud or a couple of FoA hits and he's done.
Edit: Oh and i'm a multi-class and tried to avoid using sim quickslots so sadly a level 20 illusionnist mage cannot get a BBoD simulacrum. Still an awesome tip for pure mages however!
You can get a higher level Sim if your PI casts one, but no idea how practical spell restoration via spell trap with pi is.
You could dispel your PI with dispel tho.
Demogorgon's immunities (with SCS): Electricity, stun, sleep, instant death, petrification, polymorph, poison, disease, charm, fear, hold, level drain, confusion, time stop, feeblemind, imprisonment, maze, teleport field, wing buffet, death from HP loss, death from zero stats, silence, berserk, Deathbringer Assault. Also level 1 and 2 spells and a few specific spells: Polymorph Other, Sphere of Chaos, Lower Resistance. Other resistance-lowering spells are still good, as is Greater Malison if you can get through the magic resistance.
He does put up a Spell Turning in his initial buffs, but that's the only additional spell defense. No globe of invulnerability, so no reason for level 3-4 spells to fail except MR.
Oddly enough, the wand of polymorphing should still do him in. It's not on the specific immunity list, and the effect that sets maximum HP isn't tied to the polymorph effect. That gets his HP low enough for his scripted death to kick in.
Does a PfM scroll protect you against dispel and remove magic?
No. In the standard spell system, PfM blocks spells of levels 1-9. Dispel Magic and Remove Magic act as level 0 effects, and go right through that. They won't dispel the PfM, but they will take out any dispellable buffs under it.
To protect against dispels, Spell Immunity: Abjuration is the only option. And that can be taken down by everything from Spell Thrust to Spellstrike. Those spell-breaking effects all work through PfM, too. Then SCS allows Spellstrike to take down PfM ... which is something Demogorgon can do.
Hm, interesting find about the poly wand, I'm almost certain I tried it on my Sorc run, but it's been a while so I might get it mixed up.
Skull traps def work, he just reduces their damage by a lot and putting debuffs on him is so annoying because he will instantly start spamming his timestops.
Executive Summary: Both the Slave Lords and the Twisted Rune fall to the power of time traps and Mislead.
Having dispatched Kangaxx, Angelo's confidence was high. It was time to rid the game world of two of its other greatest threats.
Things Can Only Get Ketta
Despite its grandiose name, the entrance to the Guarded Compound was unlocked, allowing Angelo to slip inside without any trouble. Sion and Ketta seemed just as surprised at his ease of access, with Sion questioning the efficacy of the wards supposedly protecting the venue. Despite Angelo's invisibility, the pair stated that he was trespassing on private property before teleporting away upstairs, leaving him to explore the floor unhindered.
Unhindered, that was, apart from a stray nishruu and an efreeti that appeared just beyond the central piano. The efreeti was unable to see through Angelo's stealth, but the nishruu approached with unwarranted glee. Angelo ducked into a side chamber before demonstrating that its enthusiasm was misplaced - its attacks were harmless apart from draining arcane spells whereas Angelo's scimitars easily assailed its body, even while dual-wielding with no proficiency. Recasting Invisibility (this building seemed off-limits for the Cowled Wizards), Angelo proved that, despite being a halberd, Wave wasn't such a bad backstabbing weapon after all.
For all of this, however, there was precious little treasure to be gathered on the ground floor. Beyond a morningstar +2 (guarded by a disporportionately dangerous Disintegrate trap) in the central right chest of the left bedroom, Angelo found nothing to get excited about. Heading back to the tavern to memorise the spells lost to the nishruu, Angelo returned, cast Invisibility and nipped up to the second floor via the left staircase.
"You're Having Olaf!"
Angelo saw Ketta for the briefest of instants before vanishing when Angelo arrived, a disappearance to ensure that she would start combat invisible and hence could not be undone by his Detect Illusion skill. Angelo was about to stride forward when he found a Breach trap (in the 3 o'clock position) and an acid-hold trap (in the 5 o'clock position) ahead of him and the exit behind mysteriously blocked by a wall of force. Since it had been Ketta and Sion who'd greeted him, Angelo correctly surmised that both would have to die before he would be allowed to leave.
Incidentally, had Angelo entered via the left stairs, the trap arrangement would have likewise reversed, with the acid-hold occupying the 3 o'clock position while Breach took the 5 o'clock position.
The leftmost bedroom contained considerably deadlier traps this time around. In the top right chest, a Maze trap guarded a wand of paralysation, 9 arrows +1 and 8 arrows of piercing; in the bottom right chest, 20 bolts of lightning, 10 bolts +2 and 7 Asp's Nest +1 were protected by an Incindeary cloud trap; and in the bottom left, a trap requiring successful save vs death warded a wand of frost and 10 darts of wounding. In this case, Felicity informed him, a failed save vs death would actually mean death, so Angelo disarmed it to avoid taking any chances.
Further sneaking yielded some hidden passageways leading around the perimeter. In a secret central chamber on the right, Angelo found and disarmed a Finger of Death trap on a faraway table and looting it revealed a spear +3... an underwhelming haul since the previous table also housed an identical spear +3. The accompanying safe had a wand of fear and a cupboard in a room on the opposite wing contained a sling +2, which counted as slim pickings given the area's reputation.
It was equally disappointing that the 'slave lords', as they were apparrently called, had effectively no answer to Mislead. Stowing his invisible clone away in a bedroom, Angelo went to town on Stalman (8,000 XP cleric) and Sion (6,000 XP invoker) first using a summon luring Ketta (8,500 XP thief) and Stalman's summoned aerial servant out of hiding. Having dispensed of the tricky customers, Koshi (9,000 XP kensai, wearing an illegal helmet) and Olaf Rasmussen (6,000 XP orog berserker) were relatively straightforward to tackle... and although Maferan (6,000 XP minotaur barbarian) was immune to backstabs, it was not immune to the silver sword's vorpal capabilities.
The presence of empty potion bottles on the bodies of Maferan and Olaf Rasmussen that served no discernible purpose implied to Angelo that there had been grander plans for this area which were somehow lost in development. This hunch was further supported by the fact that several of the doors in the western wing were blocked and never went anywhere. Unfortunately, Felicity could give him few concrete details on this beyond speculative conspiracy theories... theories which conveniently led Angelo to his next destination.
A Bridge Too Far
Next to the lich's abode in the Bridge District lay another unmarked house guarded a trap dealing death to those who unwittingly set it off - a Disintegrate this time, for variety. Disarming it and picking the lock, Angelo peered into the swirling greyness behind... and was sucked into its churning depths. When the world stopped spinning around him, he emerged in a glowing chamber, evidently far away from the bustling city streets of Athkatla
"I have a bad feeling about this," Felicity mumured as Angelo set up a time trap and buffed up with Improved Haste. No sooner had she finished asking how they had activated the portal than the lich conjurer Shangalar teleported in to mention something about a rogue stone. Of course, Angelo had no idea of the effect that carrying this gem would have had... presumably, the requisite clues had also been lost in development somewhere.
In the meantime, Shanglar had gotten fed up with posturing and teleported forward to teach the duo a lesson. So consumed with hatred, Shangalar hadn't noticed Angelo's time trap and teleported right onto it, beginning the temporal stasis before its defences could erect. With Improved Haste and Belm in the off-hand, Angelo descended onto Shangalar wielding his mace of disruption and not even the mighty lich could survive the flurry of auto-hitting blows without collapsing for 50,000 XP.
Wth the trap's effects still active, Angelo looked around for another target... and Shyressa the 10,500 XP vampire was ideal.
Then, not wanting to press his luck, he retreated into the entrance chamber, opening the door and hiding behind it while time's normal ebb and flow returned.
Once the Twisted Rune's buffs had evaporated, Angelo enacted out his usual tactics. His preliminary scouting had thrown up Vaxall the elder orb beholder (14,000 XP) and Revanak the fighter (6,500 XP), neither of which were capable of seeing through illusions. Despite this, he cast Spell Immunity: Divination anyway before creating his Mislead clone and stowing it invisibly in the stairwell. Then he began his gleeful backstabbing spree, beginning with Revanak, although his Detect Illusion soon revealed hidden conjurer Layenne ( worth a relatively meagre 4,000 XP).
For what was supposedly one of the hardest battle in BG2, there was precious little else to report. Both Vaxall and Layenne cast True Sight in their attempts to root out their assailant (the latter illegally), but Angelo's Spell Immunity protected him while the Skull of Death killed Layenne's auto-summoned efreeti without a fuss. Once the dust had settled, Angelo snatched the Staff of the Magi from Layenne's corpse and the Lesser Grimoire of Demon Binding (an SCS addition that allowed the user to control any demons summoned by Cacofiend or Summon Fiend). Tossing Vaxall's eyestalk into the cauldron activated the machine and allowed Angelo's safe return to the Bridge District once more.
"If you can take them down so easily, there can't be much left to challenge you," Felicity said as they re-entered Athkatla. "Perhaps you should think about finishing the game?"
"I will shortly," Angelo promised. "There's just one more big foe that I need to take down first."
Hm, been theorycrafting for a new run thru the whole saga for a couple days.
Permanent Polymorph Mustard with a blade is quite silly in BG1, 5d4 dmg with offensive spin, immunity to web and a stacking poison just melt enemies even on lob.
Then ofc 1hp in SOD as @histamiini already showed, and I just love blades hehe.
Has anyone been able to get permanent shapeshift to work properly in BG1?
All I can get is permanent polymorph but my "turn human" ability disappears.
This makes it pretty useless, since the slime is insanely slow and can cast web only from scrolls.
@Victor_Creed_SFV same issue as you. I can be a permanent Jelly but no human form in BG1. I tested something that work: You can use Relair's mistake and polymorph into a wolf, then you'll get an option to turn back into human form.
Edit: Everytime i rest after going back to human form however, it seems to add an additional use of jelly form. You might want to refresh that by redoing the permanent polymorph if your number gets too high and it bugs you.
@Victor_Creed_SFV same issue as you. I can be a permanent Jelly but no human form in BG1. I tested something that work: You can use Relair's mistake and polymorph into a wolf, then you'll get an option to turn back into human form.
Edit: Everytime i rest after going back to human form however, it seems to add an additional use of jelly form. You might want to refresh that by redoing the permanent polymorph if your number gets too high and it bugs you.
Sirus F/I and ToB part 1. No issues at all so far. The pocket plane ability is amazing and mislead work against the majority of foes, except bosses of course.
Saradush
Illasera killed with buffing from improved alacrity + planetar.
I've read about the ascension pocket plane challenge and the rewards and saw that Evil powers were much better for a solo playthrough, especially for a first time like for me, so all evil it will be.
Upgraded FoA to +4.
Crushed the first challenge. 2x Planetar + shapechange + mislead + buffed with FoA+4 killed everything without me taking damage. Got Pocket Plane ability and notice that i got all evil bhaalspawn powers.. Great!
Mislead hasted mindflayer was clearing very quickly in Saradush. Bought some scroll and learned the level 9 spells that i got during chapter 7 at the same time. Imprisonment could be useful as i don't really need more loot right now.
Used Find Familiar to get extra HP.
Cleared Grommir Barrack with mindflayer mislead. Destroyed everybody in seconds, got the sewer key.
Did the quest Betrayal at the Gates with the Spellhold style (mordy and planetar). Nothing could damage 3x hasted mordy swords and IH planetar. Debuffed the mage with Secret word+Pierce shield+Breach.
Sneaked through the sewer into the palace invisible, had to MoD 2x shadow fiends.
PI using the death team nicely cleared the level below Grommir so i had a somewhat safe area. Noticed that nobody but Grommir would see me invisible, so i went downstairs and memorised Shapechange and 2x Timestop instead. Noticed that Grommir is immune to int drain. Well memorised BBoD instead for the next try after resting in pocket plane again. Finished him mislead just after timestop.
Cleared the rest of the room in mislead, one of the mage litterally killed the other one with incendiary cloud. As i came back visible Melissan appeared to stop the fight. Finished the mage and minautor after (debuffed him going back invisible with SotM then power attack). Minotaur was vulnerable to critical strike so smite+critical strike killed him.
Fire Temple
Went for Yaga-Shura. PI with death team saved Karthis. Planetar with enemy debuffed with GM = quick vorpal hits. Bought spellstrike scroll and rod of resurection just in case, shouldn't need a second one but why not.
Mislead + Silver sword make a quick work of Fire giants inside the fire temple especially with GM. Almost died as my Fire res got bugged to -128 for some reasons so i had to go back to rest outside. Feebleminded Brimstone. Rested in pocket plane and made a 3x pierce shield contingency but on ''hit'' and ''hit by'' as i saw that he was surrounded by giants. However he followed me back as i fled to the pocket plane to rest but it still worked very well. Alacrity, waited to get hit once, GM+5x Feeblemind, done. Berenn had his brain eaten like the whole level after this.
Imir then hacked with the FoA+4, time stop and PFMW for the ravager. Still had a very decent -10 Thac0 and 5 IH APR. If specialised i would have gotten 6 but 5 will be fine. Killed the fire lich with timestop + MoD for fun on the way out.
Yaga-Shura and Draconis.
MoD the Gorion shades at the Temple. Brought back the hearts to Nyala and ate the brain of everybody in timestop. Not sure what is happening but i'm killing so many of his neverending soldiers that i'm lagging like crazy. Had to rest in pocket plane. I didn't get harrased when i came back. So now Yaga-Shura is immune to int drain... well this is going to be fun. I saved and CTRL-Q him to see his weakness.... looks like it's only cold at 50%. So i rested again and try to feeblemind him. Managed to feeblemind which is great. Game over hopefully... reinforcement arrive. FoA still deal good damage despite his 99% resistances (well 5-6 per hit...). 2 improved haste and 2 mislead were enough to take him down. That guy can seriously take a beating.
Draconis
Cleared the oasis with a single mislead +IH+mindflayer form. Killed the cleric and mages first, rest couldn't do anything. Sold everything to the priest in Amkwhatever, got another 80k gold and nothing to spend it on.
Met Balthazar, alias one punch man with a diadem (nice new portait).
Went to kill Draconis. Used timestop+ improved haste to change him into dragon, then ran back and rested into pocket plane, made a 3x pierce shield contingency, entered the fight again on improved alacrity, threw 6x feeblemind and got it. I'm getting good with dragons! His AC seemed to be pretty high, so i used a simulacrum and mislead for bette thac0 to help me for the kill. He died quick!
No death so far but the real challenge are Abazigal, Balthazar and chapter 10. Somehow lost my wand of paralysation, must have sold it without noticing... well i didn't plan to use it anyway but i still have my rift device and i tested some sim/PI combo for wish resting and possibly setting up Delayed Fireballs, but it still might have been useful if any of the foes are affected by it in chapter 10.
No death so far but the real challenge are Abazigal, Balthazar and chapter 10. Somehow lost my wand of paralysation, must have sold it without noticing... well i didn't plan to use it anyway but i still have my rift device and i tested some sim/PI combo for wish resting and possibly setting up Delayed Fireballs, but it still might have been useful if any of the foes are affected by it in chapter 10.
If enemies aren't immune to paralyze, in most cases web is just better than the wand, because it stacks.
(rare cases where the -2 penalty isn't enough might exist, but against those enemies wand would be VERY hard to hit in the first place)
So now Yaga-Shura is immune to int drain... well this is going to be fun. I saved and CTRL-Q him to see his weakness.... looks like it's only cold at 50%. So i rested again and try to feeblemind him. Managed to feeblemind which is great. Game over hopefully... reinforcement arrive. FoA still deal good damage despite his 99% resistances (well 5-6 per hit...). 2 improved haste and 2 mislead were enough to take him down. That guy can seriously take a beating.
SCS/Ascension Yaga-Shura is scripted to lose 2% resistances per round for the first 15 rounds you fight him; by the time it's done, he's 20% resistant to cold, immune to fire and poison, and 69% resistant to all other damage. Feebleminding him immediately blocks this resistance reduction.
Since he's almost entirely a melee threat, and doesn't move particularly fast, avoiding him for a while to give this resistance reduction a chance to work is a solid tactic.
Also, the way that fight is scripted - you hit him once, he leaves. Then he comes back a couble minutes later with his lieutenants for the real fight. It sounds like you may have cut this off with your Feeblemind.
@jmerry he did leave for reinforcement, but i feebleminded him right away after that as i tried int drain him first in timestop, but he fled right when it ended and i used that moment to rest and try a different setup in Pocket plane. When he came back i Feebleminded him right away with 3x pierce shield contingency and Improved Alacrity then killed his lieutenants that arrived shortly after using mislead, then finished him with around 6 damages per hit. Good to know about the damage resistance, next time i'll wait a bit before using feeblemind. Still, he wasn't a threat in this state at all.
@Victor_Creed_SFV I guess i could try to 3x Pierce shield, GM then bombard Amelyssan with 8+ webs to prevent her from making a move. Even at 50% to all resistances i should be fine with a turn to deal enough damage with FoA+5 using simulacrum. That should be around 160 ''free'' hits considering that it works every round. Still, not sure what her resistances are at all or what her setup is in ascension. I wish i knew as much as Jmerry . Well it's my first try on Ascension and SCS so i do like discovering it step by step TBH. I'm guessing the rest of the foes can be feebleminded or maybe charmed (got staff of domination and my 4 mind circlet still), so from what i've read, reducing them to 20-30 hp each, finishing them all with a time stop then killing Amelyssan with that setup could work as she will spawn after the first death, i would also have 4-5x PFMW if needed. Still have my rift device but i really don't want to use it. Still this is all suppositions, i have no clue what chapter 10 actually looks like, i've just read a few things about it to not be totally overwhelmed once i get there. It's really the part of the run that i fear the most now that i managed to cheese Demogorgon with fireball traps. I'm guessing 150+ Delayed fireball could also work... it would take me around 5 wish rest, maybe less if i manage to recover spells using BBoD on simulacrums (not sure if that work on clones).
Also saw that it is possible to persuade Balthazar to join you. Not sure if it is a good choice but i really want to try it.
@Victor_Creed_SFV I guess i could try to 3x Pierce shield, GM then bombard Amelyssan with 8+ webs to prevent her from making a move.
I'd be very surprised if she isn't straight up immune to paralyze.
She is a tough cookie, so good luck.
On another note I've been testing around with Wild Mages and they can dweomer while shapeshifted if you use hotkey, and ofc you can get dweomers back with limited wish.
Also while chaos shield and imp chaos shield don't stack, robe of goodman does stack with imp chaos...
Sadly you need to do tob neera quest for Thayan circlet, but after that wild surge positive outcome is 92% proc chance, before tob it's 77%.
Still the dweomer while shapeshifted reduces risk of injury by quite a bit.
Alessia the Barbarian. We suffered Bandit waylay in the second map transition going to Friendly Arm Inn and died with -1AC and 16hp. Almost escaped it too as it was the last arrow that hit us, and did exactly enough damage. Reloaded and this time we hacked Imoen, and killed Xzar and Montaron with WoM. WoM killed Neera for her Gem Bag. Algernon was hacked for his Cloak. 18/45 strength isn't enough for Beregost Invisibility potion, but works for Nashkel manor.
Listened Drizzt getting killed and got his Scimitars and Mithral Chain Mail +4 which is by far the best armor for Barbarian, and we now had -7AC vs. Slashing. Also got one Magic Shielding. We used Rage to block Tarnesh Sleep and then listened Guards kill him.
2500xp Tenyas Bowl. lv3 *Two-Weapon Style
Dushai lured away from the rest with WoM, and easily killed for Free-Action ring. Bought rep to 13, Oublek 14rep, Firebead 15rep 300xp, Samuel 16rep 500xp, Drienne 17rep 200xp, Brage 18rep 1000xp. Also got Giant Strength which we used to loot Carnival tent for third Invisibility potion. Sold Evermemory and bought Sandthief ring, which got us to Mulahey. He was Charmed with Algernon cloak and killed by Kobbo's. Only needed two charges from Sandthief. Berrun 19rep 1000xp. Charmed Minsc killed Nimbul 650xp, lv4. Joseph's ring 800xp. Charmed Marl ko'd Tranzig 975xp. Raiken escorted us to Bandit camp, Sandthief, Absorption and Invisibility and looted the tent. Spider Wood passed with Sandthief, Chelak's body 800xp. I only had one Sandthief charge left so we used this to pick up Brun's Son 20rep 1500xp. 3 Sandthiefs to reach Davaeorn's Guard, charmed him, lured the Battle Horrors away, another Sandthief, Magic Blocking for the traps and Guard wasted Davaeorn 6000xp. lv5 2000xp escaping the place, then used another Sandthief to pass Drasus party again.
Used last two Sandthiefs to pick up CON-tome and recharged the ring 3rd time. Lothander was precharmed and stopped from leaving, then he wasted his Poison Weapon and Alessia hacked him for Boots of Speed. Marek was KO'd by charmed Gamesman, which took long ass time. After a hour of real time I noticed that battle music ended, so it actually doesn't play forever. It took over 2 hours from single Gamesman, the mistake I'm not going to make again, as I usually charm two of them. 10650xp lv6 *Flail.
Charmed Abela KO'd Ragefast 4000xp. We precharmed Ramazith and after he wasted his spells we killed him for 4000xp. Bought second green PfP and 15 Stone to Flesh scrolls, and did the Basilisk xp-loop killing all in the Mutamin Garden. Only managed to get to 111k xp, because I accidentally killed the two Greater Basilisks at some point. lv7. Used Sandthief to pick up CHA-tome, Rufie 1000xp. Seven Suns 7100xp. Used Cloud Strength to loot Seven Suns, Ramazith upstairs and Iron Throne basement. Used last Sandthief charge to loot Iron Throne and recharged it the 4th time, before going to Candlekeep. Escaped the Ogres with Invisibility potion, Iron Throne freely charmed and they killed themselves. Looted the place, and Catacombs.
4000xp Kirinhale, looted the Warder level with 5 Sandthief charges, Absorption and PfF. Warder's 6000xp. lv8 with impressive 141hp. Before activating Love we left to recharge Sandthief 5th time. Before activating Warders we used Fireball trap to waste some Ghasts. Activated Love 4000xp, and lured him to Fireball trap to be killed. Picked up Durlag's Goblet and Kiel's Helmet. Used couple Sandthief charges to pick up Eltan, 2500xp. For Slythe and Krystin we charmed Larze and Quenash. Magic Shielding, PfP, Cloud, Clarity. And they were no match for Barbarian and Larze, 8000xp. Then we killed Larze. For Palace Ambush we charmed the Assassin, Mage and Shaman, and started the fight with 3 Greater Doppelgangers. 2x Mind Focus, Heroism, Cloud, Invulnerability, Clarity and Speed. No one died the first battle. Assassin killed with couple Goblets. For the mage we used double Magic Shieldings as he Dispelled it first. In the mean time Liia Dispelled the mage, but it still conjured multisummons. It took four Goblets. Lasty the Shaman was easily killed, and it didn't even get any spells off. We only lost few Fists during the fight.
Small things. Denak's party OGL'd out of sight for Ring of Energy. Girdle Ogre, Kaldo and Krumm. Magic Blocking and Magic Shielding for Delorna's party for the last OGL. Sunin PfM, but he went Invisible so we used our last Sandthief charges and killed Tamoko. Back at Sunin we waited our PfM off, level skipped his spells, Greenstone amulet and killed him. All Charmed at Low Lantern and they killed themselves, 9600 gold. Charmed Meilum hacked Kahrk and got killed by Kobbos, 5500 gold. We now had enough money to buy the last potions we wanted.
Sarevok was the usual. Burned his minions out of sight, then finished with Ring of Energy.
No problems for Barbarian. Charming items really do break BG1, and after Cataclysm I probably prefer playing without them. I really like the Barbarian speed too, the fastest char in the game (buffed). It's also the best kiter because of that. There's also couple items in BG2 that should improve speed even more, and dualed to Thief with UAI we could try to reach the hilarious speed.
@Grond0 What about power attack stun? Is there anything that can stun or affect her in any way? Maybe Emotion:Hopelessness ? I'm also thinking about stacking her in incendiary clouds using PI, that could also work if i manage to stay safe somewhere. I probably can reduce her to nothing with Soul Reaver but her timestop and demon summoning are the bosses there. Incendiary cloud could definitely reduce the amount of Delayed Fireball needed too... So many things going on in my head for that fight right now
Cleared my way inside Abazigal lair. Noticed a new dragon i never seen before... Anadramatis. Another futur pray
Looks like i have to defeat him in combat. Time for my classic 3x pierce shield + alacrity + GM and feeblemind x6 strat. Well it didn't work that time... wow. Saw that he saved 4 time then got protected by spell deflection. Time to try again! Went to rest and decided to try 3x timestop with my beloved 1vs1 soul reaver at 6 APR. Use FoA+4 for the last timestop then continued with soul reaver. He could only hit me on crit. Soon after, he yield without even being able to break through my stoneskin.
Decided to kill him (i'm evil now so why not). Noticed at the last minute, finishing him with Smite, that he could be paralyse. Power attack would have been even better if i knew. Also looks like i can rest safely in his lair, this could save some pocket plane rests.
Got the Breath potion. Got jumped by demons and simply fled the scene.
Cleared the room with the Kuo-toan with PI+ Planetar/3xmordy, GM+blinded the greater elementals. Noticed than the PI can use shapechange and attack slowly as a mindflayer... well this can definitely be useful.
Planetar killed most of the next room by himself after. I finished the elementals by myself in mindflayer form. Othydra killed in mislead with FoA.
Looks like i have to head outside as the monk doesn't give me the rope anymore...
I really have no clue who can give me the rope so i did the graveyard lich quest and saved the daughter.
Managed to buy it from the tavern barman.
Went back to the lair and.... oh well... Left at 80 hp as i faced 2 dragons of doom and went back to rest in Amkethran as i failed my timestop. I will try to feeblemind them both using PI...
Got a nice dragon surprise on my way back. Right aside of the loading screen. Refailed timestop, ran away again. I must be able to cast something.
Decided to not use PI and do it myself. Got one with 3 feeblemind, quickly paused to see if i had to cast more. The other one didn't seem to notice me... so i killed him right away. One down.
Paid myself a small pocket plane rest before the second one. Memorized 5 PI to try to feeblemind the second one from a distance, to practice for chapter 10.
Success. I've noticed that feeblemind travels much faster than GM. So next time ill wait a bit before the feeblemind... at least it still perfectly work.
Well i though that it worked, but he came back from feeblemind and went from my character... fled again and redid it myself. Looks like i'm going to have to use protection from acid as he keep interrupting me and i have to go back and run. Couldn't do it so i decided to use a planetar diversion. I would have to move him away to avoid his dispel magic. Got it!
Planetar kept being feared but he was a great bait still. Well as i though i was done, Green dragon shows up. Ran away again for the same tactic. Used pocket plane this time.
Got the 3rd dragon with PI. Waited for the GM to trigger this time. Went back down and used summon planetar to kill the image, killed the feebleminded dragon. Changed crom faer off hand for Answerer so i could hit more often instead of missing 3 out of 5 hits. Switched back just before death for the last dragon. Got Carnifex with PI again! Now i like it!
Finally, last of them.
Cleared the sentinel room with death team. Saw the death tyran and stopped using mindflayer form right away as he began moving toward me. GM made planetar super deadly again.
Used farsight for the top of the room, oh... many tyrans. If this wave doesn't clear it, ravager+timestop it will.
Well my last planetar killed all of them without getting scratched so no need for that. Grabbed the golem page.
Cleared the beholders with mislead + ravager +6, an elder orb appeared and use true sight. Even planetar couldn't live. Waited the true sight, then devoured his brain with power attack. He just managed to lower my resistance before dying.
Got the scroll of reversal... that i'm not planning to use because i want the 12 hours improved invisibility ring
Got lost a bit so i decided to clear the previous demons with enchanted weapon + mislead + timestop.
Last green dragon was also feebleminded and hacked (how many HP does this guy have? Took a while...). Same plan for Abazigal so far.
Decided to have 2x spell immunity and only 4 feeblemind for Abazigal. He will probably try to use true sight so better be prepared if i want to use a clone.
Stayed at the entrance to clear the room first. Used PI with wizard eye, hasted planetar and 3x swords again. Looks like i could be able to damage abazigal human form before engaging in a dialogue (insect swarm targetted him and he didn't move at all).
Saw another dragon, Tamah, that wouldn't do anything at all. Probably due to the dialogue trigger. It went ethereal and disappeared.
Managed to turn Abazigal into a dragon without talking to him. Sadly Tamah jumped on me at this point. Should have feebleminded it... I softlocked the game. Tried to run away from Tamah and Abazial tried to talk to me, but since he's in dragon form he just stay there immobile. Well reload. Actually had to CTRL ALT DELETE to restart.
Redid the same thing but Feebleminded Tamah before the fight when the room got emptied. Feeblemind seemed to work. Prepared my main character for the fight now. Didn't get jumped by the dragon so far so i'd say it's good. He killed my swords right away, so i guess next time if i fail, it will be 5x PI.
Planetar managed to change him alone to dragon form (well i did control him, casting all his fire spell at the same time). PI wasted the contingency on a mordy sword. Wasted my contingency on Tamah by accident, ran away to the entrance quickly and rested in pocket plane for 2nd try (total life saver). Used farsight and 5x PI this time.
1st PI went in and i just had enough time to do a 3x pierce shield contingency before Abazigal reached and killed him (he jumped me near the entrance), the contingency had the time to trigger. Quickly casted immunity and PFMW on my main then Improved haste while running away (that dragon is stupid fast). Had to distract him with planetar using his fists to avoid the dispel magic upon successful Feeblemind. Managed to throw my 4x feeblemind and wished for the best, he hit me just after the GM and i only got 10 HP left. GOT IT!! (Saved by the extra HP from familiar)
Both dragons were now dead meat. Killed Tamah, then Abazigal. He wouldn't die... so i figured out that i would need to dispel the feeblemind so i hit him once with Staff of the Magi. Done!
Upgraded FoA to +5 and the juggernaut golem. Had to drop my dragon scales to be able to upgrade the FoA as Cespenar would just ignore the flail and most other melee weapons otherwise (club of detonation for example). At 22 strength, Belm give me 10 APR which is going to make it even more devastating i think. the 25 strength from crom faer doesn't add as much as 2 extra APR on IH. Still got -12 Thac0 VS -15.
Sendai enclave and 2x challenges
Did the 2nd challenge. Killed all of them easily but even 2 waves of planetar + 3 mordy sword (+ 3x incendiary cloud contingency as an extra, will use that for all challenges i think) couldn't deal with Semaj (imprisonment and abi-dalzim killed them all), so i waited his buffs and fallen planetar out of sight, casted an incendiary cloud just in case before finishing him with FoA. He blinded me but i still had no problem at all to hit him and interrupted him to death. FoA+5 went through his improved mantle without problem.
I'm thinking into abusing PI+imprisonment eventually but i'm not sure what's the best enemy to use it on, maybe planetars/devas and strong demons, while those are vulnerable to int drain though. It could be great if it work on solars.
Seems like an imprisoned planetar prevent the casting of another one... so i had to use freedom in the last room, planetar despawned right after.
The slayer from the second challenge died to my death team and myself buffed without being able to inflict any damage. Got regeneration which seems amazing and Dark Taint which looks like a great situationnal debuffer with great save penalty.
Sendai enclave exterior dealt with using a far away mislead and mindlayer form.
Cleared the inside with a mislead at the entrance, then left my character on Auto-attack in hasted mindflayer form. He cleared the whole level with 2x mislead and IH.
Mislead cleared the whole Thelynn party. Got the amulet of cheetah speed, which might be useful if i need an extra IH.
Had to kill some drows. Mislead again worked, had to True sight+ secret word+pierce shield + breach a mage, rest died to mindflayer with mislead demons included.
Lich hacked with MoD through timestop for an easy kill. His saves seemed a bit better so it took a few more swings than usual (Odamaron).
Didn't notice the second lich and i hacked the first fallen planetar to establich dominance, second lich fell shortly after.
Ogremoch got his brain eaten with mislead and critical strike in about a second, the other side with Diaytha too, just lured them one by one into the hallway to kill them. Kept the hive mother last when everything was dead. All their brains were eaten.
Captain killed in mislead with FoA. Had to run away from the mind flayer ambush as i only had 1x PFMW. So i rested and memorised 4x improved mantle. FoA is a crazy quick mindflayer killer, which is good, entered the room again protected an on alacrity for summons and mislead, then wiped the room.
Opened the next room and all my summons got killed again and planetar imprisoned (this is bad...). Fleeing by exiting the room lured a few mindflayers away from the pack. I'm now thinking about some 3x timestop kills until it's manageable.
Buffed again, entered the room on PFMW and tried that, casting Timestop as soon as i got in. The entrance was clear after resting, so using timestop was pretty easy.
Managed to get 1x mindflayer and Mithykyl down. This time the thralls decided to follow, so i killed them in mislead in the previous area. They actually all followed, managed to kill 3 more mindlayers with improved mantle. Got all mindflayers down. Had to use amulet of cheetah speed for another IH. Ran to the previous area again and rested in pocket plane to finish the rest in mindflayer form. There was 1 mindflayer left, which got killed on mantle.
Finally the mindflayer room got cleared safely, didn't have much issues thanks to the area switch and pocket plane.
For Sendai, i though that maybe her statues could be affected by int drain, so i tried that first, prebuffing before leaving the mindflayer lair. They are! this is great! Also killed the drow in mislead. Tried timestop but only managed to kill 2 statues after transforming, should have kept planetar. (didn't think mislead would work).
Did a mistake and though Sendai was a drow so i wasted my alacrity and debuffs as he targetted me invisible with a spellstrike. Went to the lower right of the platform and rested in pocket plane.
Now with 2x timestop instead of shapechange for a quick kill (she's probably immune like all of the 5 so far so i didn't bother trying).
Added a 3x pierce shield contingency to the mix. Entered the arena, improved alacrity right away then mislead, true sight, ran to Sendai, contingency debuffed her, it was the final statue which i didn't notice...
Debuffed her again in timestop after her's instead and used PFMW. She fled before death so i dispelled her sanctuary with the book of spells. Recasted a mislead just in case and IH and finished her as she teleported around the arena. I was about to go rest again but i wanted to see of FoA could interrupt her enough for me to kill her quickly. It did.
Still no ToB death and one forced reload due to breaking Abazigal AI, bugging my game. I got pretty good at dealing with dragons and 228 HP is really a life saver. Resting in pocket plane is incredibly strong, it's like a portable wish rest and you can use it as long as there are no enemies in sight. 2 pocket plane challenges left, Balthazar that i'll try to turn as an ally (i've read that i should need 19 wisdom as i am evil, which i should be able to get with an Ioun stone that i kept hopefully). Still hope that ravager can kill himself if i have the shield of reflection, helping with sling of everard. It did work on my non-SCS run but at this point i wouldn't be surprise to see him summon a fallen planetar, 3x Balor's and Mariliths to the fight in addition to bone blades and using timestop every few rounds. Still not even close to needing to use clone items so far, i really only use PI for additionnal summons before rest, feebleminding dragons and simulacrum for increasing damage per round on feebleminded dragons.
@Grond0 What about power attack stun? Is there anything that can stun or affect her in any way? Maybe Emotion:Hopelessness ? I'm also thinking about stacking her in incendiary clouds using PI, that could also work if i manage to stay safe somewhere. I probably can reduce her to nothing with Soul Reaver but her timestop and demon summoning are the bosses there. Incendiary cloud could definitely reduce the amount of Delayed Fireball needed too... So many things going on in my head for that fight right now
I've never faced her in Ascension, but in the standard game she can be stunned, e.g. by using fighter HLAs.
At her full power, Melissan has a powerful suite of immunities and protections:
Immunity to stun effects, paralysis, sleep, charm and domination, Imprisonment, Maze, disintegration, polymorph, poison, level drain, Intelligence drain, and confusion
Immunity to Timestop
Immunity to backstab effects
Immunity to all first-to-fourth level spells
Immunity to any weapon of less than +5 enchantment
95% resistance to fire and electrical damage
50% resistance to cold and acid damage
95% resistance to magical damage
90% resistance to all physical damage
95% magic resistance
2/3 chance that any spell she casts is uninterruptable
1,000 hit points
However, for each of the Five who are killed, Melissan's defenses weaken, as follows:
Abazigal killed: -100 hit points; electrical resistance drops to 50%, can be affected to +3 and +4 weapons
Balthazar (or Gromnir) killed: -100 hit points; physical damage resistance drops to 75%; vulnerable to backstabs (Melissan also receives this penalty if neither Balthazar nor Gromnir fights for her in the first place)
Illasera killed: -100 hit points; magic damage resistance reduced to 50%
Sendai killed: -100 hit points; magic resistance drops to 70%; can be affected by third and fourth level spells; -4 penalty to saves vs. spells
Yaga-Shura killed: -100 hit points; fire resistance reduced to 50%; -2 penalty to saves vs. death
As long as any of the Five (or Gromnir, or Sarevok) live and fight for Melissan, she cannot be killed: if reduced to below 20 hp she retreats to the energy stream to recharge.
It's @Harpagornis' lucky day! Testing has revealed a complication for characters relying on the level 1 trick to pass late-SoD.
The usual way to reach level 1 is to trick the fledgling vampire in the cellar into attacking you, as its attacks drain 2 levels per hit. Beyond requiring an immunity to charm, this approach has a hidden danger in that the HP you gain from your additional levels are lost first before the damage from the vampire's attack is applied. For instance, if my level 9 archer at full health with 99 HP gets hit for 18 damage, then first the 22 HP from the two drained levels are lost (2 x 11 HP/level), making my HP total 77, then I would lose 18 from this 77 to give me 59 HP.
The vampire's attacks normally do 5 - 10 crushing damage, which will be doubled (a max difficulty feature that must be enabled for level 1 immunity to work) so the minimum damage it'll do is 10 HP. To be eligible for level 1 immunity, you'll need to have 11 HP maximum at level 1 (so you'll have <1 HP with Martyr's Morningstar equipped, which will be rounded to 1 HP). Because your levels' HP are drained first, this means that you'll have, at best, a 1 in 6 chance of surviving the attack (although my poor archer never survived any of the tests, so there may be more to it than this).
There are several things that can be done to salvage the situation:
You could employ Amour of Faith, helmet of Dumathoin or the cloak of the gargoyle to soften the blow (the attack does crushing damage, so Stalwart Scales and Kendra's Chain won't help, and the Guardian Devil isn't available at this stage).
You could use Helm of Balduran, Ring of Purity or Steadfast (and Cloak of Beilur Watch if you're a halfling) to give you additional removable HP; similarly, Kiel's Buckler or helmet of Dumathoin (and Steadfast Bow if you're an elf/halfelf) can give you extra removable Constitution.
Although level-drained Dwarven Defenders no longer have innate physical resistance, they could activate Hardiness... but they are not ideal level 1 trick candidates anyway since with 12 HP at first level, they'd automatically be ineligible unless they had <6 Constitution, which isn't compatible with the above and seriously gimps your shorty saves bonus.
Potions of heroism and power could grant extra temporary health, as could some spells like Draw Upon Holy Might or Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (although Animal/Blood Rage cause you to lose control of your character, so those are out).
Stoneskin can block the crushing damage entirely (druids can't use Martyr's Morningstar, so using Iron Skin is pointless).
You can debuff its damage dice using Chant. The vampire's Strength is 18/76, so casting Strength or Ray of Enfeeblement (or even Strength of One) will also weaken its damage.
Alternatively, you could evade the vampire at level 3 and rely on the level drain trap on the chest in Hephernaan's bedroom to siphon off the 2 remaining levels. This lock has a difficulty of 90%, so a Knock spell or an Open Locks of >85% is required to open it - a Strength of 25 corresponds corresponds to an Open Locks of 80%, so it will not do the trick! Only bards, F/T, C/T, F/M, C/M, F/M/C and F/M/T can use this option... single class thieves and mages (and M/T) can open the lock, but can't use Martyr's Morningstar!
In short, this problem isn't insurmountable to the determined adventurer, but it does further demonstrate that level 1 trick is not the guaranteed 'I win' option that it appears.
It's done!! Couldn't post picture on my latest draft as it keep saying ''failed to upload''. I'll try again tomorrow. Long story short, Summary: 20 deaths (14 from Amelyssan) for 133 total since BG1, all challenging fights done (did all the Bhaal curse bosses from the first page and even a bit more) and did spellhold naked.
Balthazar got persuaded to help me.
Pools cleared with timestop + Shapechange, Marilith of hell with FoA.
Five + Sarevok all feebleminded with PI hiding near a pool and hacked near death to finish them all in 1-2 round.
For Amelyssan (required 14 tries, 2 headaches and almost a rage quit) didn't need Rift Device (almost did but i really wanted to clear the game without needing it) but got the luckiest Wish rest, required 10x incendiary cloud (well... 8x as i failed one by walking and got interrupted another time), 2x full wand of spell striking, 3x pierce shield, about 10 casts of The Victor for a bit more damage, then the finished her with 3x critical strikes from Sling of Everard. Can definitely be done with 5x memorized clouds and all scrolls you can buy, + a few more pierce shields scroll to keep the magic res low for less wish required luck if not using rift device.
Didn't need quickslots from clone in the end (twisted rune redone with Histamiini tactic, Demogorgon with Delayed Fireballs) and i don't think it would have added much honestly, except for some extreme rift device use. Hopefully i can upload pictures tomorrow with my strats, end stats and everything.
@XDarkStrikerX Congratz for beating the LoB+SCS+Ascension challenge the first time! Incendiary Cloud is very powerful, and even when halved with Melissan saves and Fire Resistance one should do 125 average damage. I think it's the first time anybody has beaten Melissan here with it. Scrolls are cast at lv10 so that will halve the damage output again compared to F/I.
I've been testing Movement Rate a little in Baldur's Gate. Monk is still the fastest I think, unbuffed and buffed. Base Movement Rate for all classes is 10 I think, lv40 Monk is 10 + 10 = 20 which equals Fighter with Haste. Monks can double movement rate from Paws of the Cheetah, and although they can't be Hasted, they can be Haste 2'd, which is from Whirlwind. So buffed Monk can reach 10 x2(Paws of Cheetah) x2(Whirlwind) + 10(Monk) = 50 Movement Rate. Barbarian/Thief comes just shy of this, 10 x2(Paws of Cheetah) x2(Haste) + 2(Barbarian) +2(Amulet of Cheetah Speed) +2(Taralash) +3(Silver Dragon Scale) = 49 Movement Rate.
Movement Rate Bonus (126)
2 Amulet of Cheetah Speed
2 Taralash
2 Tunic of Blindeye
200% The Paws of the Cheetah
200% Grandmaster Armor
Movement Rate Bonus 2 (176)
2-10 Monk
2 Barbarian
3 Silver Dragon Scale
2 Night Walkers
I've been testing Movement Rate a little in Baldur's Gate. Monk is still the fastest I think, unbuffed and buffed. Base Movement Rate for all classes is 10 I think, lv40 Monk is 10 + 10 = 20 which equals Fighter with Haste. Monks can double movement rate from Paws of the Cheetah, and although they can't be Hasted, they can be Haste 2'd, which is from Whirlwind. So buffed Monk can reach 10 x2(Paws of Cheetah) x2(Whirlwind) + 10(Monk) = 50 Movement Rate. Barbarian/Thief comes just shy of this, 10 x2(Paws of Cheetah) x2(Haste) + 2(Barbarian) +2(Amulet of Cheetah Speed) +2(Taralash) +3(Silver Dragon Scale) = 49 Movement Rate.
Movement Rate Bonus (126)
2 Amulet of Cheetah Speed
2 Taralash
2 Tunic of Blindeye
200% The Paws of the Cheetah
200% Grandmaster Armor
Movement Rate Bonus 2 (176)
2-10 Monk
2 Barbarian
3 Silver Dragon Scale
2 Night Walkers
Haste (16)
Haste 2 (317)
Haste doesn't stack itself
Doubled Movement Rate doesn't stack itself
Incremental Movement Rate does stack
Have you tested Greater Werewolf token with UAI?
On my blade it doubles boots of speed modifier.
edit: probably best on someone with whirlwind.
Have you tested Greater Werewolf token with UAI?
On my blade it doubles boots of speed modifier.
edit: probably best on someone with whirlwind.
Skipped those because they're not from base game I think. Looking at it, the Werewolf token uses the same resource as Grandmaster armor and Paws of the Cheetah, and those don't stack with each other so I don't know.
Have you tested Greater Werewolf token with UAI?
On my blade it doubles boots of speed modifier.
edit: probably best on someone with whirlwind.
Skipped those because they're not from base game I think. Looking at it, the Werewolf token uses the same resource as Grandmaster armor and Paws of the Cheetah, and those don't stack with each other so I don't know.
Idk about GM armor but they do stack with boots 100%, unless my perception of speed is VERY wrong.
They are from Improved shapeshifting, an SCS component, which most people who have SCS probably use?
Idk about GM armor but they do stack with boots 100%, unless my perception of speed is VERY wrong. They are from Improved shapeshifting, an SCS component, which most people who have SCS probably use?
Damn my mistake, I was looking the Wolf Token. Greater Werewolf Token uses Haste, and it stacks with doubled Movement Rate from the Boots. Shouldn't stack with Whirlwind though, as Haste doesn't stack itself.
@XDarkStrikerX Congratz for beating the LoB+SCS+Ascension challenge the first time! Incendiary Cloud is very powerful, and even when halved with Melissan saves and Fire Resistance one should do 125 average damage. I think it's the first time anybody has beaten Melissan here with it. Scrolls are cast at lv10 so that will halve the damage output again compared to F/I.
@histamiini Thanks! I didn't think about that for scrolls, so i tried using after a 3x pierce shield contingency: 5 clouds (+1 from scrolls), GM, 5 delayed fireball, 6 death fog, 5 ice storm, 6 fire arrows, Sling of everard 5x power attacks and smite (would have been better with +4 ammo). Managed to get her down to 175 HP (no rift device, incendiary cloud alone is more than enough if using it), worst try was around 400 hp. After that, 40 the victor charge after 2x spell striking pierce shield wands reduced her to 30 hp then i finished her fishing for crits. 1 additionnal scroll would have made the whole thing much easier but gathering all of them would have crushed her. I didn't think about that yesterday (stacking all kind of fire and cold damage). So still possible without Wish and rift device, which is good to know.
Edit: I must precise that i used 2x Improved alacrity to cast all the spells during the pierce shield effectiveness period.
Pocket plane challenges, persuading Balthazar and killing the Ravager
Did Cyric challenge and got Hand of Murder, which seems to do a great damage increase for a few rounds.
Mislead-Mindflayer destroyed all the mercenaries on my way to Balthazar.
Managed to make Balthazar join me for the final battle. Had to use wish in pocket plane to get all characteristics to 25 as i misplaced the Ioun stone i wanted to use. This mean that all mages should be able to get his help.
Tried the Ravager. Unlike Vanilla, i couldn't make my summons go past the magic gate at all and couldn't even access past the top of the stairs. So they managed to get some agro for a bit, when i figured out it wasn't working i spent 10 minutes running around the arena for the Ravager to kill himself. 5x critical strike and smite with Sling of Everard slightly sped things up but really didn't do much as i had to keep running around. Not sure if imprisoning the bone blade could have helped and if they still count as summons, as it could totally stop him from spawning them so i wouldn't have had to run around constantly.
Got the nice 25% DR passive, making me able to get 100% crushing damage for 40 rounds with Hardiness and Roranach's Horn (and missiles 90%).
Still no death up to this point, the final chapter is really making me nervous right now but i think that i've learned enough to push through it without having to spend 5 hours on it.
Got 1x imprisonment scroll, 5x timestop not counting limited wish, 2x wish scrolls, 3x BBoD, 3x Spellstrike, 9x PFU, 2x PFMW, 2x PFM and 20 potions of heroism just in case, which i don't think i'll need in the end as the goal is to not get hit, staff of command, 4x mind flayer circlet and my trusted rift device if everything fails.
I've read some previous runs on the thread and saw that it might be possible to jam Amelyssan near a pool, as the second one give the teleport ability. So i could 3x pierce shield her and stack a ton of incendiary clouds for the kill. We'll see.
Got my arsenal ready in my pack. Made a PFM + Spell shield + Immunity abjuration contingency before going. Decided to try 2x timestop and 1x wish for level 9 spells. With 5x PI and 2x Sim i was sure to get some wish rests in there for the next challenges.
Fully buffed and added a PFU on top in case Bohdi was affected. Actually they're all ''undead'' technically as i already killed them all.
And let's go *nervousness intensifies*
Irenicus 2 and the pools
PFU inactive in this place... well anyway this doesn't matter. Got the 2 Solar in timestop using Ravager. Balthazar was great as he could fight them during it due to his immunity. I sometime have an annoying bug in timestop where my character just run away from the target instead of attacking it, so i have to position him right aside of it. Irritating...
Imoen fled, not sure what Balt did to Irenicus but i'm not seeing him right now while we were hacking Bodhi together. Saved after that, proud of my success
Looks like Balthazar destroyed Irenicus during my 2x timestops. Great!
Decided to wish rest there, got it first try which is great. Also memorised shapechange for the first pool. The marilith managed to kill Balthazar by itself as i murdered everything else in mindflayer form... seriously?! Such Balance, Marilith for Bhaalspawn. Sadly Balthazar cannot be revived with RoR... pretty sad.
Eventually got through it's defences after breach, 3x PFMW, 2x stoneskin and hasted FoA (have to stay immune to Abjuration as he constantly cast Remove Magic).
Wish rested again. With 5x PI that have 4x sim, i didn't need to use a second PI so far.
RIP soldier, you will be avenged.
Wish setup:
Cast Sim and PI, Pi cast sim, sim of PI recast sim until no more sim, all those sim actually have all the spells of the PI (Thx Victor Creed), those sims cast PI, those PI wish, your first sim hit the sim to dispel PI, recast PI for more wished, until you get your wish rest. Can look a bit ridiculous to have 10+ clones but it works.
This is what the wish setup looks like, might use this to stack a ton of incendiary clouds for Amelyssan.
From only 1 PI.
Rebuffed completely and did the second pool same style (timestop+ PFMW mindflayer form with enchanted weapon)
After timestop and 1x critical strike, again only the Marilith remains. Tried to Devour his brain using the breach from wand of spellstriking but he seemed totally immune to it. Critical strike + hasted FoA+5 under PFMW again did the trick. Toyed a bit with my new powers. Not sure if i'm going to use control demon (i didn't).
Time for last pool. Can't wait to try some teleport tactics.
Wish rested for the same tactic again. Tried to send a sim with Ravager for the Marilith, didn't proc the insta-kill. Figured out that FoA was going to do the trick again.
Decided to try another sim with soul reaver this time. Ineffective and couldn't damage it. FoA it is again. Ridiculous creatures honestly especially with the scripted remove magic.
Died being dispelled without anymore spell immunity (will memorize at least 2 next time)... 1st death of ToB not even on a boss... these unfair beasts killed Balthazar after all.
Killed the Marilith in timestop the next time, dispelling his effects with SotM.
Lured the rest one by one in mindflayer form and ate their brain with critical strikes. I really hate Mariliths now...
The five +1
Now for the Five. Plan is to feeblemind all of them if possible, then get them to near death around 30 HP. Finish them in timestop or with a powerword:Kill scroll that i kept just for that, if it can work. I'll try to feeblemind them from the pools. Same strat as for the dragons but i'll cast the pierce shields manually instead on alacrity.
Used a control circlet on Sarevok then i ran up the circle like a coward as Sendai casted Time Stop.
Illasera dispeled me so i equiped the shield of reflection and hid on the top right pool to feeblemind her. Sarevok died and Amelyssan spawned so i reloaded... I'll wait before the circlet. (count that as 2nd death).
Will start with Illasera to prevent her from shooting her own teamates to cancel feeblemind, and also prevent getting shot.
Illasera didn't seem to want to get feebleminded at the moment. So i went with Sendai at the same time. Not sure if it worked, but Yaga Shura sure did ad he was standing around without trying to reach me.
Finally managed to get Illasera and 3x pierce shield Abazigal in timetop for the next victim. Got him first try. Process is tedious but it work: Stay hidden in a poll extremity, Cast PI, Alacrity + Farsight + Timestop, debuff next target and feeblemind current one, run back see if it worked, max wih with sim, repeat.
3 out of 6 for now. Some mountain bears got summoned by Sendai as i got seen going back before timestop end. She got feebleminded though. 2 Left and they have no ranged powers.
Grommir done 1 shot dragon style, then Sarevok too 1st try.
Wish rested for my Amelyssan setup, which is the same thing but abusing Incendiary clouds.
Reduced all of their health to near death, around 30-50 HP each. Isn't this beautiful?
Amelyssan... is it even posssible to beat her 1 vs 1 legitimately?
Ready to finish them, i used a timestop scroll. Noticed that Amelissan spawn after 1 anyway so i reloaded (3), used PFMW to be able to finish them all in 4 rounds before fleeing to my spot. Sadly got killed in her timestop after as she used spellstrike on me.
Wish rested again for spell shield. Seriously wish resting is getting very boring... especially that i had to reload from trying 20+ times this time.
Tried 3 time (6), if she time stop, i'm just dead. Even PVMW doesn't protect me from it, i eventually get hit and die. Managed to survived, got charmed by a demon. Not sure if she had a summon limit but i have to try.
Forgot about the focus ability... how dumb i am. For some reason this didn't work and i still got killed in timestop (7). (Discovered that you get a complete dispel when she spawn and that her spellstrike+dispel will also remove Focus)
Second try worked but she launched a comet at me and spawned a demon who killed me again on my side of the pool (8).
Didn't manage to learn incendiary cloud from wish, but i managed to jam her near the top right pool finally. I had 3 wish scroll, praying for a wish rest here. Died as she spawned a Balor next to me again.
...
...
Tried 14 times so far... (20)
Managed to wish rest some Incendiary cloud. Memorizing Incendiary was useless as i had 3x spellstriking wands still (will think about that next playthrough... Managed to get Amelyssan stuck trying to hit me on the other side of the south eastern pool, then spawned 5x incendiary clouds + 1 from scroll.
With rift device, she would already be dead. Helped the DPS with The Victor for slightly more damage, spaming Wand of spell striking in between.
This didn't finish her. If i fail, next time it's rift device for a 1st use.
Last scroll got me a wish rest (still had 3 casts but still low %)!! And she's only at near death and i have no more spell shield... 116 HP left. I'm losing hope... then i remember, i still have Critical Strikes from my sling of Everard!
3 Critical strikes later, Amelyssan fell and i finally completed the challenge. Trust me, i accepted that throne this time. I earned it.
Final thoughts on Amelyssan and additionnal F/I strats
She couldn't be stunned, she couldn't be immobilized by any means, she had a ridiculous amount of HP, managed to spellstrike during timestop and every 2 rounds so you have to be constantly under Focus but your buffs won't trigger until it ends (missed an incendiary cloud cast as i misclicked, 10 will work for sure but you can't use PI due to unlimited true sight so you have to be lucky, or have scrolls, next time i'm buying all pierce shield/incendary cloud/Delayed blast fireball scrolls! Possibly even Sunfire. I got insanely lucky with that desesperate wish)
Your buffs seems to get all removed no matter what once one of the Five + Sarevok dies. I also wanted to use the new powers but they seems to be on touch like Unleash. I forgot about Hand of Murder, which could have given my sling a bit more damage per round with critical strikes if that work.
Other tactics that would have worked for sure with a F/I : Rift device which i didn't want to use but still perfectly legit, it would have been my only use. Demogorgon style (Delayed Blast Fireball, debuff her with contingency and lure her into 150-200 fireballs in timestop, didn't want to wish rest that much however)
Retested with all the tools i can use to kill her ASAP (rift device). Setup: Chain contingency when hit and hit by 3x pierce shield, 5x incendiary cloud memorized.
Focus and kill all Bhaalspawn using Focus. Switch to shield of reflection + sling of everard. During her timestop lure her near the south east pool and teleport to the other side, make sure she always see you so she won't teleport on you.
She will cast spells at the beginning, wait until one hit you so the contingency triggers. Rift device her then Improved Alacrity + 5x incendiary cloud, use critical strike + sling of everard to speed things up. She'll die very quicky and it doesn't require 2 hours of wish resting.
Without Rift Device and Wish resting:
As mentionned above, using 2x Alacrity to stack after GM 5x clouds, 6x Death fog, 6x sunfire, 6x delayed blast fireball, 5x ice storm, 6x fire arrows will get her around 200 HP left. The victor + wand of spellstriking can damage her to 30-60 hp, being able to finish her with ranged damage (i used Everard sling with critical strike, maybe some BMU ammo could work too but i didn't try it, it would definitely speed things up as her AC is pretty high). If you can get additionnal incendiary clouds/deathfog/pierceshield scrolls, i'm sure that you can finish her without having to range her or use the victor but i only had 1 incendiary cloud scroll, as i didn't think about that at all back then.
Managed to upload pictures this morning. Done! Not sure which class to try next, but i'm thinking about taking a small break as i really rushed through it and i'm a bit tired. This was incredibly fun, best luck to all of you in your current runs. One thing i've noticed: I'm not even near being able to NR, but keeping a txt file with all my deaths will definitely help me improve on those riskier areas.
This might be irrelevant, but is she immune to hold effects? the readme says "stun effects, paralysis, sleep," - it doesn't explicitly say hold, so does "stun effects, paralysis, sleep," include Holds like Hold Monster? Vanilla Mel says immune to hold on the wiki but SCS doesn't mention it.
Also wondering about disease immunity - contagion slow effect?
This might be irrelevant, but is she immune to hold effects? the readme says "stun effects, paralysis, sleep," - it doesn't explicitly say hold, so does "stun effects, paralysis, sleep," include Holds like Hold Monster? Vanilla Mel says immune to hold on the wiki but SCS doesn't mention it.
Also wondering about disease immunity - contagion slow effect?
Comments
You can get a higher level Sim if your PI casts one, but no idea how practical spell restoration via spell trap with pi is.
You could dispel your PI with dispel tho.
Hm, interesting find about the poly wand, I'm almost certain I tried it on my Sorc run, but it's been a while so I might get it mixed up.
Skull traps def work, he just reduces their damage by a lot and putting debuffs on him is so annoying because he will instantly start spamming his timestops.
Executive Summary: Both the Slave Lords and the Twisted Rune fall to the power of time traps and Mislead.
Having dispatched Kangaxx, Angelo's confidence was high. It was time to rid the game world of two of its other greatest threats.
Unhindered, that was, apart from a stray nishruu and an efreeti that appeared just beyond the central piano. The efreeti was unable to see through Angelo's stealth, but the nishruu approached with unwarranted glee. Angelo ducked into a side chamber before demonstrating that its enthusiasm was misplaced - its attacks were harmless apart from draining arcane spells whereas Angelo's scimitars easily assailed its body, even while dual-wielding with no proficiency. Recasting Invisibility (this building seemed off-limits for the Cowled Wizards), Angelo proved that, despite being a halberd, Wave wasn't such a bad backstabbing weapon after all.
For all of this, however, there was precious little treasure to be gathered on the ground floor. Beyond a morningstar +2 (guarded by a disporportionately dangerous Disintegrate trap) in the central right chest of the left bedroom, Angelo found nothing to get excited about. Heading back to the tavern to memorise the spells lost to the nishruu, Angelo returned, cast Invisibility and nipped up to the second floor via the left staircase.
Incidentally, had Angelo entered via the left stairs, the trap arrangement would have likewise reversed, with the acid-hold occupying the 3 o'clock position while Breach took the 5 o'clock position.
The leftmost bedroom contained considerably deadlier traps this time around. In the top right chest, a Maze trap guarded a wand of paralysation, 9 arrows +1 and 8 arrows of piercing; in the bottom right chest, 20 bolts of lightning, 10 bolts +2 and 7 Asp's Nest +1 were protected by an Incindeary cloud trap; and in the bottom left, a trap requiring successful save vs death warded a wand of frost and 10 darts of wounding. In this case, Felicity informed him, a failed save vs death would actually mean death, so Angelo disarmed it to avoid taking any chances.
Further sneaking yielded some hidden passageways leading around the perimeter. In a secret central chamber on the right, Angelo found and disarmed a Finger of Death trap on a faraway table and looting it revealed a spear +3... an underwhelming haul since the previous table also housed an identical spear +3. The accompanying safe had a wand of fear and a cupboard in a room on the opposite wing contained a sling +2, which counted as slim pickings given the area's reputation.
It was equally disappointing that the 'slave lords', as they were apparrently called, had effectively no answer to Mislead. Stowing his invisible clone away in a bedroom, Angelo went to town on Stalman (8,000 XP cleric) and Sion (6,000 XP invoker) first using a summon luring Ketta (8,500 XP thief) and Stalman's summoned aerial servant out of hiding. Having dispensed of the tricky customers, Koshi (9,000 XP kensai, wearing an illegal helmet) and Olaf Rasmussen (6,000 XP orog berserker) were relatively straightforward to tackle... and although Maferan (6,000 XP minotaur barbarian) was immune to backstabs, it was not immune to the silver sword's vorpal capabilities.
The presence of empty potion bottles on the bodies of Maferan and Olaf Rasmussen that served no discernible purpose implied to Angelo that there had been grander plans for this area which were somehow lost in development. This hunch was further supported by the fact that several of the doors in the western wing were blocked and never went anywhere. Unfortunately, Felicity could give him few concrete details on this beyond speculative conspiracy theories... theories which conveniently led Angelo to his next destination.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Felicity mumured as Angelo set up a time trap and buffed up with Improved Haste. No sooner had she finished asking how they had activated the portal than the lich conjurer Shangalar teleported in to mention something about a rogue stone. Of course, Angelo had no idea of the effect that carrying this gem would have had... presumably, the requisite clues had also been lost in development somewhere.
In the meantime, Shanglar had gotten fed up with posturing and teleported forward to teach the duo a lesson. So consumed with hatred, Shangalar hadn't noticed Angelo's time trap and teleported right onto it, beginning the temporal stasis before its defences could erect. With Improved Haste and Belm in the off-hand, Angelo descended onto Shangalar wielding his mace of disruption and not even the mighty lich could survive the flurry of auto-hitting blows without collapsing for 50,000 XP.
Once the Twisted Rune's buffs had evaporated, Angelo enacted out his usual tactics. His preliminary scouting had thrown up Vaxall the elder orb beholder (14,000 XP) and Revanak the fighter (6,500 XP), neither of which were capable of seeing through illusions. Despite this, he cast Spell Immunity: Divination anyway before creating his Mislead clone and stowing it invisibly in the stairwell. Then he began his gleeful backstabbing spree, beginning with Revanak, although his Detect Illusion soon revealed hidden conjurer Layenne ( worth a relatively meagre 4,000 XP).
For what was supposedly one of the hardest battle in BG2, there was precious little else to report. Both Vaxall and Layenne cast True Sight in their attempts to root out their assailant (the latter illegally), but Angelo's Spell Immunity protected him while the Skull of Death killed Layenne's auto-summoned efreeti without a fuss. Once the dust had settled, Angelo snatched the Staff of the Magi from Layenne's corpse and the Lesser Grimoire of Demon Binding (an SCS addition that allowed the user to control any demons summoned by Cacofiend or Summon Fiend). Tossing Vaxall's eyestalk into the cauldron activated the machine and allowed Angelo's safe return to the Bridge District once more.
"If you can take them down so easily, there can't be much left to challenge you," Felicity said as they re-entered Athkatla. "Perhaps you should think about finishing the game?"
"I will shortly," Angelo promised. "There's just one more big foe that I need to take down first."
Permanent Polymorph Mustard with a blade is quite silly in BG1, 5d4 dmg with offensive spin, immunity to web and a stacking poison just melt enemies even on lob.
Then ofc 1hp in SOD as @histamiini already showed, and I just love blades hehe.
All I can get is permanent polymorph but my "turn human" ability disappears.
This makes it pretty useless, since the slime is insanely slow and can cast web only from scrolls.
Edit: Everytime i rest after going back to human form however, it seems to add an additional use of jelly form. You might want to refresh that by redoing the permanent polymorph if your number gets too high and it bugs you.
You're a life saver.
Saradush
I've read about the ascension pocket plane challenge and the rewards and saw that Evil powers were much better for a solo playthrough, especially for a first time like for me, so all evil it will be.
Upgraded FoA to +4.
Crushed the first challenge. 2x Planetar + shapechange + mislead + buffed with FoA+4 killed everything without me taking damage. Got Pocket Plane ability and notice that i got all evil bhaalspawn powers.. Great!
Mislead hasted mindflayer was clearing very quickly in Saradush. Bought some scroll and learned the level 9 spells that i got during chapter 7 at the same time. Imprisonment could be useful as i don't really need more loot right now.
Used Find Familiar to get extra HP.
Cleared Grommir Barrack with mindflayer mislead. Destroyed everybody in seconds, got the sewer key.
Did the quest Betrayal at the Gates with the Spellhold style (mordy and planetar). Nothing could damage 3x hasted mordy swords and IH planetar. Debuffed the mage with Secret word+Pierce shield+Breach.
Sneaked through the sewer into the palace invisible, had to MoD 2x shadow fiends.
PI using the death team nicely cleared the level below Grommir so i had a somewhat safe area. Noticed that nobody but Grommir would see me invisible, so i went downstairs and memorised Shapechange and 2x Timestop instead. Noticed that Grommir is immune to int drain. Well memorised BBoD instead for the next try after resting in pocket plane again. Finished him mislead just after timestop.
Cleared the rest of the room in mislead, one of the mage litterally killed the other one with incendiary cloud. As i came back visible Melissan appeared to stop the fight. Finished the mage and minautor after (debuffed him going back invisible with SotM then power attack). Minotaur was vulnerable to critical strike so smite+critical strike killed him.
Fire Temple
Mislead + Silver sword make a quick work of Fire giants inside the fire temple especially with GM. Almost died as my Fire res got bugged to -128 for some reasons so i had to go back to rest outside. Feebleminded Brimstone. Rested in pocket plane and made a 3x pierce shield contingency but on ''hit'' and ''hit by'' as i saw that he was surrounded by giants. However he followed me back as i fled to the pocket plane to rest but it still worked very well. Alacrity, waited to get hit once, GM+5x Feeblemind, done. Berenn had his brain eaten like the whole level after this.
Imir then hacked with the FoA+4, time stop and PFMW for the ravager. Still had a very decent -10 Thac0 and 5 IH APR. If specialised i would have gotten 6 but 5 will be fine. Killed the fire lich with timestop + MoD for fun on the way out.
Yaga-Shura and Draconis.
Draconis
Met Balthazar, alias one punch man with a diadem (nice new portait).
Went to kill Draconis. Used timestop+ improved haste to change him into dragon, then ran back and rested into pocket plane, made a 3x pierce shield contingency, entered the fight again on improved alacrity, threw 6x feeblemind and got it. I'm getting good with dragons! His AC seemed to be pretty high, so i used a simulacrum and mislead for bette thac0 to help me for the kill. He died quick!
No death so far but the real challenge are Abazigal, Balthazar and chapter 10. Somehow lost my wand of paralysation, must have sold it without noticing... well i didn't plan to use it anyway but i still have my rift device and i tested some sim/PI combo for wish resting and possibly setting up Delayed Fireballs, but it still might have been useful if any of the foes are affected by it in chapter 10.
If enemies aren't immune to paralyze, in most cases web is just better than the wand, because it stacks.
(rare cases where the -2 penalty isn't enough might exist, but against those enemies wand would be VERY hard to hit in the first place)
SCS/Ascension Yaga-Shura is scripted to lose 2% resistances per round for the first 15 rounds you fight him; by the time it's done, he's 20% resistant to cold, immune to fire and poison, and 69% resistant to all other damage. Feebleminding him immediately blocks this resistance reduction.
Since he's almost entirely a melee threat, and doesn't move particularly fast, avoiding him for a while to give this resistance reduction a chance to work is a solid tactic.
Also, the way that fight is scripted - you hit him once, he leaves. Then he comes back a couble minutes later with his lieutenants for the real fight. It sounds like you may have cut this off with your Feeblemind.
The army is finite. Sixty of them. They stop spawning when you exhaust their numbers or kill the boss.
@Victor_Creed_SFV I guess i could try to 3x Pierce shield, GM then bombard Amelyssan with 8+ webs to prevent her from making a move. Even at 50% to all resistances i should be fine with a turn to deal enough damage with FoA+5 using simulacrum. That should be around 160 ''free'' hits considering that it works every round. Still, not sure what her resistances are at all or what her setup is in ascension. I wish i knew as much as Jmerry
Also saw that it is possible to persuade Balthazar to join you. Not sure if it is a good choice but i really want to try it.
I'd be very surprised if she isn't straight up immune to paralyze.
She is a tough cookie, so good luck.
On another note I've been testing around with Wild Mages and they can dweomer while shapeshifted if you use hotkey, and ofc you can get dweomers back with limited wish.
Also while chaos shield and imp chaos shield don't stack, robe of goodman does stack with imp chaos...
Sadly you need to do tob neera quest for Thayan circlet, but after that wild surge positive outcome is 92% proc chance, before tob it's 77%.
Still the dweomer while shapeshifted reduces risk of injury by quite a bit.
900xp Marl
400xp Noober
125xp Vitiare ranged with 437 arrows.
900xp Hentold dagger. lv2
Listened Drizzt getting killed and got his Scimitars and Mithral Chain Mail +4 which is by far the best armor for Barbarian, and we now had -7AC vs. Slashing. Also got one Magic Shielding. We used Rage to block Tarnesh Sleep and then listened Guards kill him.
2500xp Tenyas Bowl. lv3 *Two-Weapon Style
Dushai lured away from the rest with WoM, and easily killed for Free-Action ring. Bought rep to 13, Oublek 14rep, Firebead 15rep 300xp, Samuel 16rep 500xp, Drienne 17rep 200xp, Brage 18rep 1000xp. Also got Giant Strength which we used to loot Carnival tent for third Invisibility potion. Sold Evermemory and bought Sandthief ring, which got us to Mulahey. He was Charmed with Algernon cloak and killed by Kobbo's. Only needed two charges from Sandthief. Berrun 19rep 1000xp. Charmed Minsc killed Nimbul 650xp, lv4. Joseph's ring 800xp. Charmed Marl ko'd Tranzig 975xp. Raiken escorted us to Bandit camp, Sandthief, Absorption and Invisibility and looted the tent. Spider Wood passed with Sandthief, Chelak's body 800xp. I only had one Sandthief charge left so we used this to pick up Brun's Son 20rep 1500xp. 3 Sandthiefs to reach Davaeorn's Guard, charmed him, lured the Battle Horrors away, another Sandthief, Magic Blocking for the traps and Guard wasted Davaeorn 6000xp. lv5 2000xp escaping the place, then used another Sandthief to pass Drasus party again.
Used last two Sandthiefs to pick up CON-tome and recharged the ring 3rd time. Lothander was precharmed and stopped from leaving, then he wasted his Poison Weapon and Alessia hacked him for Boots of Speed. Marek was KO'd by charmed Gamesman, which took long ass time. After a hour of real time I noticed that battle music ended, so it actually doesn't play forever. It took over 2 hours from single Gamesman, the mistake I'm not going to make again, as I usually charm two of them. 10650xp lv6 *Flail.
Charmed Abela KO'd Ragefast 4000xp. We precharmed Ramazith and after he wasted his spells we killed him for 4000xp. Bought second green PfP and 15 Stone to Flesh scrolls, and did the Basilisk xp-loop killing all in the Mutamin Garden. Only managed to get to 111k xp, because I accidentally killed the two Greater Basilisks at some point. lv7. Used Sandthief to pick up CHA-tome, Rufie 1000xp. Seven Suns 7100xp. Used Cloud Strength to loot Seven Suns, Ramazith upstairs and Iron Throne basement. Used last Sandthief charge to loot Iron Throne and recharged it the 4th time, before going to Candlekeep. Escaped the Ogres with Invisibility potion, Iron Throne freely charmed and they killed themselves. Looted the place, and Catacombs.
4000xp Kirinhale, looted the Warder level with 5 Sandthief charges, Absorption and PfF. Warder's 6000xp. lv8 with impressive 141hp. Before activating Love we left to recharge Sandthief 5th time. Before activating Warders we used Fireball trap to waste some Ghasts. Activated Love 4000xp, and lured him to Fireball trap to be killed. Picked up Durlag's Goblet and Kiel's Helmet. Used couple Sandthief charges to pick up Eltan, 2500xp. For Slythe and Krystin we charmed Larze and Quenash. Magic Shielding, PfP, Cloud, Clarity. And they were no match for Barbarian and Larze, 8000xp. Then we killed Larze. For Palace Ambush we charmed the Assassin, Mage and Shaman, and started the fight with 3 Greater Doppelgangers. 2x Mind Focus, Heroism, Cloud, Invulnerability, Clarity and Speed. No one died the first battle. Assassin killed with couple Goblets. For the mage we used double Magic Shieldings as he Dispelled it first. In the mean time Liia Dispelled the mage, but it still conjured multisummons. It took four Goblets. Lasty the Shaman was easily killed, and it didn't even get any spells off. We only lost few Fists during the fight.
Small things. Denak's party OGL'd out of sight for Ring of Energy. Girdle Ogre, Kaldo and Krumm. Magic Blocking and Magic Shielding for Delorna's party for the last OGL. Sunin PfM, but he went Invisible so we used our last Sandthief charges and killed Tamoko. Back at Sunin we waited our PfM off, level skipped his spells, Greenstone amulet and killed him. All Charmed at Low Lantern and they killed themselves, 9600 gold. Charmed Meilum hacked Kahrk and got killed by Kobbos, 5500 gold. We now had enough money to buy the last potions we wanted.
Sarevok was the usual. Burned his minions out of sight, then finished with Ring of Energy.
No problems for Barbarian. Charming items really do break BG1, and after Cataclysm I probably prefer playing without them. I really like the Barbarian speed too, the fastest char in the game (buffed). It's also the best kiter because of that. There's also couple items in BG2 that should improve speed even more, and dualed to Thief with UAI we could try to reach the hilarious speed.
She's immune to all 1st and 2nd level spells + she does indeed have specific protection against web.
Abazigal and 7 additionnal dragons
Looks like i have to defeat him in combat. Time for my classic 3x pierce shield + alacrity + GM and feeblemind x6 strat. Well it didn't work that time... wow. Saw that he saved 4 time then got protected by spell deflection. Time to try again! Went to rest and decided to try 3x timestop with my beloved 1vs1 soul reaver at 6 APR. Use FoA+4 for the last timestop then continued with soul reaver. He could only hit me on crit. Soon after, he yield without even being able to break through my stoneskin.
Decided to kill him (i'm evil now so why not). Noticed at the last minute, finishing him with Smite, that he could be paralyse. Power attack would have been even better if i knew. Also looks like i can rest safely in his lair, this could save some pocket plane rests.
Got the Breath potion. Got jumped by demons and simply fled the scene.
Cleared the room with the Kuo-toan with PI+ Planetar/3xmordy, GM+blinded the greater elementals. Noticed than the PI can use shapechange and attack slowly as a mindflayer... well this can definitely be useful.
Planetar killed most of the next room by himself after. I finished the elementals by myself in mindflayer form. Othydra killed in mislead with FoA.
Looks like i have to head outside as the monk doesn't give me the rope anymore...
I really have no clue who can give me the rope so i did the graveyard lich quest and saved the daughter.
Managed to buy it from the tavern barman.
Went back to the lair and.... oh well... Left at 80 hp as i faced 2 dragons of doom and went back to rest in Amkethran as i failed my timestop. I will try to feeblemind them both using PI...
Got a nice dragon surprise on my way back. Right aside of the loading screen. Refailed timestop, ran away again. I must be able to cast something.
Decided to not use PI and do it myself. Got one with 3 feeblemind, quickly paused to see if i had to cast more. The other one didn't seem to notice me... so i killed him right away. One down.
Paid myself a small pocket plane rest before the second one. Memorized 5 PI to try to feeblemind the second one from a distance, to practice for chapter 10.
Success. I've noticed that feeblemind travels much faster than GM. So next time ill wait a bit before the feeblemind... at least it still perfectly work.
Well i though that it worked, but he came back from feeblemind and went from my character... fled again and redid it myself. Looks like i'm going to have to use protection from acid as he keep interrupting me and i have to go back and run. Couldn't do it so i decided to use a planetar diversion. I would have to move him away to avoid his dispel magic. Got it!
Planetar kept being feared but he was a great bait still. Well as i though i was done, Green dragon shows up. Ran away again for the same tactic. Used pocket plane this time.
Got the 3rd dragon with PI. Waited for the GM to trigger this time. Went back down and used summon planetar to kill the image, killed the feebleminded dragon. Changed crom faer off hand for Answerer so i could hit more often instead of missing 3 out of 5 hits. Switched back just before death for the last dragon. Got Carnifex with PI again! Now i like it!
Finally, last of them.
Cleared the sentinel room with death team. Saw the death tyran and stopped using mindflayer form right away as he began moving toward me. GM made planetar super deadly again.
Used farsight for the top of the room, oh... many tyrans. If this wave doesn't clear it, ravager+timestop it will.
Well my last planetar killed all of them without getting scratched so no need for that. Grabbed the golem page.
Cleared the beholders with mislead + ravager +6, an elder orb appeared and use true sight. Even planetar couldn't live. Waited the true sight, then devoured his brain with power attack. He just managed to lower my resistance before dying.
Got the scroll of reversal... that i'm not planning to use because i want the 12 hours improved invisibility ring
Got lost a bit so i decided to clear the previous demons with enchanted weapon + mislead + timestop.
Last green dragon was also feebleminded and hacked (how many HP does this guy have? Took a while...). Same plan for Abazigal so far.
Decided to have 2x spell immunity and only 4 feeblemind for Abazigal. He will probably try to use true sight so better be prepared if i want to use a clone.
Stayed at the entrance to clear the room first. Used PI with wizard eye, hasted planetar and 3x swords again. Looks like i could be able to damage abazigal human form before engaging in a dialogue (insect swarm targetted him and he didn't move at all).
Saw another dragon, Tamah, that wouldn't do anything at all. Probably due to the dialogue trigger. It went ethereal and disappeared.
Managed to turn Abazigal into a dragon without talking to him. Sadly Tamah jumped on me at this point. Should have feebleminded it... I softlocked the game. Tried to run away from Tamah and Abazial tried to talk to me, but since he's in dragon form he just stay there immobile. Well reload. Actually had to CTRL ALT DELETE to restart.
Redid the same thing but Feebleminded Tamah before the fight when the room got emptied. Feeblemind seemed to work. Prepared my main character for the fight now. Didn't get jumped by the dragon so far so i'd say it's good. He killed my swords right away, so i guess next time if i fail, it will be 5x PI.
Planetar managed to change him alone to dragon form (well i did control him, casting all his fire spell at the same time). PI wasted the contingency on a mordy sword. Wasted my contingency on Tamah by accident, ran away to the entrance quickly and rested in pocket plane for 2nd try (total life saver). Used farsight and 5x PI this time.
1st PI went in and i just had enough time to do a 3x pierce shield contingency before Abazigal reached and killed him (he jumped me near the entrance), the contingency had the time to trigger. Quickly casted immunity and PFMW on my main then Improved haste while running away (that dragon is stupid fast). Had to distract him with planetar using his fists to avoid the dispel magic upon successful Feeblemind. Managed to throw my 4x feeblemind and wished for the best, he hit me just after the GM and i only got 10 HP left. GOT IT!! (Saved by the extra HP from familiar)
Both dragons were now dead meat. Killed Tamah, then Abazigal. He wouldn't die... so i figured out that i would need to dispel the feeblemind so i hit him once with Staff of the Magi. Done!
Upgraded FoA to +5 and the juggernaut golem. Had to drop my dragon scales to be able to upgrade the FoA as Cespenar would just ignore the flail and most other melee weapons otherwise (club of detonation for example). At 22 strength, Belm give me 10 APR which is going to make it even more devastating i think. the 25 strength from crom faer doesn't add as much as 2 extra APR on IH. Still got -12 Thac0 VS -15.
Sendai enclave and 2x challenges
I'm thinking into abusing PI+imprisonment eventually but i'm not sure what's the best enemy to use it on, maybe planetars/devas and strong demons, while those are vulnerable to int drain though. It could be great if it work on solars.
Seems like an imprisoned planetar prevent the casting of another one... so i had to use freedom in the last room, planetar despawned right after.
The slayer from the second challenge died to my death team and myself buffed without being able to inflict any damage. Got regeneration which seems amazing and Dark Taint which looks like a great situationnal debuffer with great save penalty.
Sendai enclave exterior dealt with using a far away mislead and mindlayer form.
Cleared the inside with a mislead at the entrance, then left my character on Auto-attack in hasted mindflayer form. He cleared the whole level with 2x mislead and IH.
Mislead cleared the whole Thelynn party. Got the amulet of cheetah speed, which might be useful if i need an extra IH.
Had to kill some drows. Mislead again worked, had to True sight+ secret word+pierce shield + breach a mage, rest died to mindflayer with mislead demons included.
Lich hacked with MoD through timestop for an easy kill. His saves seemed a bit better so it took a few more swings than usual (Odamaron).
Didn't notice the second lich and i hacked the first fallen planetar to establich dominance, second lich fell shortly after.
Ogremoch got his brain eaten with mislead and critical strike in about a second, the other side with Diaytha too, just lured them one by one into the hallway to kill them. Kept the hive mother last when everything was dead. All their brains were eaten.
Captain killed in mislead with FoA. Had to run away from the mind flayer ambush as i only had 1x PFMW. So i rested and memorised 4x improved mantle. FoA is a crazy quick mindflayer killer, which is good, entered the room again protected an on alacrity for summons and mislead, then wiped the room.
Opened the next room and all my summons got killed again and planetar imprisoned (this is bad...). Fleeing by exiting the room lured a few mindflayers away from the pack. I'm now thinking about some 3x timestop kills until it's manageable.
Buffed again, entered the room on PFMW and tried that, casting Timestop as soon as i got in. The entrance was clear after resting, so using timestop was pretty easy.
Managed to get 1x mindflayer and Mithykyl down. This time the thralls decided to follow, so i killed them in mislead in the previous area. They actually all followed, managed to kill 3 more mindlayers with improved mantle. Got all mindflayers down. Had to use amulet of cheetah speed for another IH. Ran to the previous area again and rested in pocket plane to finish the rest in mindflayer form. There was 1 mindflayer left, which got killed on mantle.
Finally the mindflayer room got cleared safely, didn't have much issues thanks to the area switch and pocket plane.
For Sendai, i though that maybe her statues could be affected by int drain, so i tried that first, prebuffing before leaving the mindflayer lair. They are! this is great! Also killed the drow in mislead. Tried timestop but only managed to kill 2 statues after transforming, should have kept planetar. (didn't think mislead would work).
Did a mistake and though Sendai was a drow so i wasted my alacrity and debuffs as he targetted me invisible with a spellstrike. Went to the lower right of the platform and rested in pocket plane.
Now with 2x timestop instead of shapechange for a quick kill (she's probably immune like all of the 5 so far so i didn't bother trying).
Added a 3x pierce shield contingency to the mix. Entered the arena, improved alacrity right away then mislead, true sight, ran to Sendai, contingency debuffed her, it was the final statue which i didn't notice...
Debuffed her again in timestop after her's instead and used PFMW. She fled before death so i dispelled her sanctuary with the book of spells. Recasted a mislead just in case and IH and finished her as she teleported around the arena. I was about to go rest again but i wanted to see of FoA could interrupt her enough for me to kill her quickly. It did.
Still no ToB death and one forced reload due to breaking Abazigal AI, bugging my game. I got pretty good at dealing with dragons and 228 HP is really a life saver. Resting in pocket plane is incredibly strong, it's like a portable wish rest and you can use it as long as there are no enemies in sight. 2 pocket plane challenges left, Balthazar that i'll try to turn as an ally (i've read that i should need 19 wisdom as i am evil, which i should be able to get with an Ioun stone that i kept hopefully). Still hope that ravager can kill himself if i have the shield of reflection, helping with sling of everard. It did work on my non-SCS run but at this point i wouldn't be surprise to see him summon a fallen planetar, 3x Balor's and Mariliths to the fight in addition to bone blades and using timestop every few rounds. Still not even close to needing to use clone items so far, i really only use PI for additionnal summons before rest, feebleminding dragons and simulacrum for increasing damage per round on feebleminded dragons.
I've never faced her in Ascension, but in the standard game she can be stunned, e.g. by using fighter HLAs.
Which seems to imply she is immune to stun...
The usual way to reach level 1 is to trick the fledgling vampire in the cellar into attacking you, as its attacks drain 2 levels per hit. Beyond requiring an immunity to charm, this approach has a hidden danger in that the HP you gain from your additional levels are lost first before the damage from the vampire's attack is applied. For instance, if my level 9 archer at full health with 99 HP gets hit for 18 damage, then first the 22 HP from the two drained levels are lost (2 x 11 HP/level), making my HP total 77, then I would lose 18 from this 77 to give me 59 HP.
The vampire's attacks normally do 5 - 10 crushing damage, which will be doubled (a max difficulty feature that must be enabled for level 1 immunity to work) so the minimum damage it'll do is 10 HP. To be eligible for level 1 immunity, you'll need to have 11 HP maximum at level 1 (so you'll have <1 HP with Martyr's Morningstar equipped, which will be rounded to 1 HP). Because your levels' HP are drained first, this means that you'll have, at best, a 1 in 6 chance of surviving the attack (although my poor archer never survived any of the tests, so there may be more to it than this).
There are several things that can be done to salvage the situation:
Alternatively, you could evade the vampire at level 3 and rely on the level drain trap on the chest in Hephernaan's bedroom to siphon off the 2 remaining levels. This lock has a difficulty of 90%, so a Knock spell or an Open Locks of >85% is required to open it - a Strength of 25 corresponds corresponds to an Open Locks of 80%, so it will not do the trick! Only bards, F/T, C/T, F/M, C/M, F/M/C and F/M/T can use this option... single class thieves and mages (and M/T) can open the lock, but can't use Martyr's Morningstar!
In short, this problem isn't insurmountable to the determined adventurer, but it does further demonstrate that level 1 trick is not the guaranteed 'I win' option that it appears.
Balthazar got persuaded to help me.
Pools cleared with timestop + Shapechange, Marilith of hell with FoA.
Five + Sarevok all feebleminded with PI hiding near a pool and hacked near death to finish them all in 1-2 round.
For Amelyssan (required 14 tries, 2 headaches and almost a rage quit) didn't need Rift Device (almost did but i really wanted to clear the game without needing it) but got the luckiest Wish rest, required 10x incendiary cloud (well... 8x as i failed one by walking and got interrupted another time), 2x full wand of spell striking, 3x pierce shield, about 10 casts of The Victor for a bit more damage, then the finished her with 3x critical strikes from Sling of Everard. Can definitely be done with 5x memorized clouds and all scrolls you can buy, + a few more pierce shields scroll to keep the magic res low for less wish required luck if not using rift device.
Didn't need quickslots from clone in the end (twisted rune redone with Histamiini tactic, Demogorgon with Delayed Fireballs) and i don't think it would have added much honestly, except for some extreme rift device use. Hopefully i can upload pictures tomorrow with my strats, end stats and everything.
2 Amulet of Cheetah Speed
2 Taralash
2 Tunic of Blindeye
200% The Paws of the Cheetah
200% Grandmaster Armor
Movement Rate Bonus 2 (176)
2-10 Monk
2 Barbarian
3 Silver Dragon Scale
2 Night Walkers
Haste (16)
Greater Werewolf token
Oil of Speed
Haste
Improved Haste
Haste 2 (317)
Whirlwind
Haste doesn't stack itself
Doubled Movement Rate doesn't stack itself
Incremental Movement Rate does stack
Have you tested Greater Werewolf token with UAI?
On my blade it doubles boots of speed modifier.
edit: probably best on someone with whirlwind.
Idk about GM armor but they do stack with boots 100%, unless my perception of speed is VERY wrong.
They are from Improved shapeshifting, an SCS component, which most people who have SCS probably use?
@histamiini Thanks! I didn't think about that for scrolls, so i tried using after a 3x pierce shield contingency: 5 clouds (+1 from scrolls), GM, 5 delayed fireball, 6 death fog, 5 ice storm, 6 fire arrows, Sling of everard 5x power attacks and smite (would have been better with +4 ammo). Managed to get her down to 175 HP (no rift device, incendiary cloud alone is more than enough if using it), worst try was around 400 hp. After that, 40 the victor charge after 2x spell striking pierce shield wands reduced her to 30 hp then i finished her fishing for crits. 1 additionnal scroll would have made the whole thing much easier but gathering all of them would have crushed her. I didn't think about that yesterday (stacking all kind of fire and cold damage). So still possible without Wish and rift device, which is good to know.
Edit: I must precise that i used 2x Improved alacrity to cast all the spells during the pierce shield effectiveness period.
Pocket plane challenges, persuading Balthazar and killing the Ravager
Mislead-Mindflayer destroyed all the mercenaries on my way to Balthazar.
Managed to make Balthazar join me for the final battle. Had to use wish in pocket plane to get all characteristics to 25 as i misplaced the Ioun stone i wanted to use. This mean that all mages should be able to get his help.
Tried the Ravager. Unlike Vanilla, i couldn't make my summons go past the magic gate at all and couldn't even access past the top of the stairs. So they managed to get some agro for a bit, when i figured out it wasn't working i spent 10 minutes running around the arena for the Ravager to kill himself. 5x critical strike and smite with Sling of Everard slightly sped things up but really didn't do much as i had to keep running around. Not sure if imprisoning the bone blade could have helped and if they still count as summons, as it could totally stop him from spawning them so i wouldn't have had to run around constantly.
Got the nice 25% DR passive, making me able to get 100% crushing damage for 40 rounds with Hardiness and Roranach's Horn (and missiles 90%).
Still no death up to this point, the final chapter is really making me nervous right now but i think that i've learned enough to push through it without having to spend 5 hours on it.
Got 1x imprisonment scroll, 5x timestop not counting limited wish, 2x wish scrolls, 3x BBoD, 3x Spellstrike, 9x PFU, 2x PFMW, 2x PFM and 20 potions of heroism just in case, which i don't think i'll need in the end as the goal is to not get hit, staff of command, 4x mind flayer circlet and my trusted rift device if everything fails.
I've read some previous runs on the thread and saw that it might be possible to jam Amelyssan near a pool, as the second one give the teleport ability. So i could 3x pierce shield her and stack a ton of incendiary clouds for the kill. We'll see.
Got my arsenal ready in my pack. Made a PFM + Spell shield + Immunity abjuration contingency before going. Decided to try 2x timestop and 1x wish for level 9 spells. With 5x PI and 2x Sim i was sure to get some wish rests in there for the next challenges.
Fully buffed and added a PFU on top in case Bohdi was affected. Actually they're all ''undead'' technically as i already killed them all.
And let's go *nervousness intensifies*
Irenicus 2 and the pools
Imoen fled, not sure what Balt did to Irenicus but i'm not seeing him right now while we were hacking Bodhi together. Saved after that, proud of my success
Looks like Balthazar destroyed Irenicus during my 2x timestops. Great!
Decided to wish rest there, got it first try which is great. Also memorised shapechange for the first pool. The marilith managed to kill Balthazar by itself as i murdered everything else in mindflayer form... seriously?! Such Balance, Marilith for Bhaalspawn. Sadly Balthazar cannot be revived with RoR... pretty sad.
Eventually got through it's defences after breach, 3x PFMW, 2x stoneskin and hasted FoA (have to stay immune to Abjuration as he constantly cast Remove Magic).
Wish rested again. With 5x PI that have 4x sim, i didn't need to use a second PI so far.
RIP soldier, you will be avenged.
Wish setup:
Cast Sim and PI, Pi cast sim, sim of PI recast sim until no more sim, all those sim actually have all the spells of the PI (Thx Victor Creed), those sims cast PI, those PI wish, your first sim hit the sim to dispel PI, recast PI for more wished, until you get your wish rest. Can look a bit ridiculous to have 10+ clones but it works.
This is what the wish setup looks like, might use this to stack a ton of incendiary clouds for Amelyssan.
From only 1 PI.
Rebuffed completely and did the second pool same style (timestop+ PFMW mindflayer form with enchanted weapon)
After timestop and 1x critical strike, again only the Marilith remains. Tried to Devour his brain using the breach from wand of spellstriking but he seemed totally immune to it. Critical strike + hasted FoA+5 under PFMW again did the trick. Toyed a bit with my new powers. Not sure if i'm going to use control demon (i didn't).
Time for last pool. Can't wait to try some teleport tactics.
Wish rested for the same tactic again. Tried to send a sim with Ravager for the Marilith, didn't proc the insta-kill. Figured out that FoA was going to do the trick again.
Decided to try another sim with soul reaver this time. Ineffective and couldn't damage it. FoA it is again. Ridiculous creatures honestly especially with the scripted remove magic.
Died being dispelled without anymore spell immunity (will memorize at least 2 next time)... 1st death of ToB not even on a boss... these unfair beasts killed Balthazar after all.
Killed the Marilith in timestop the next time, dispelling his effects with SotM.
Lured the rest one by one in mindflayer form and ate their brain with critical strikes. I really hate Mariliths now...
The five +1
Used a control circlet on Sarevok then i ran up the circle like a coward as Sendai casted Time Stop.
Illasera dispeled me so i equiped the shield of reflection and hid on the top right pool to feeblemind her. Sarevok died and Amelyssan spawned so i reloaded... I'll wait before the circlet. (count that as 2nd death).
Will start with Illasera to prevent her from shooting her own teamates to cancel feeblemind, and also prevent getting shot.
Illasera didn't seem to want to get feebleminded at the moment. So i went with Sendai at the same time. Not sure if it worked, but Yaga Shura sure did ad he was standing around without trying to reach me.
Finally managed to get Illasera and 3x pierce shield Abazigal in timetop for the next victim. Got him first try. Process is tedious but it work: Stay hidden in a poll extremity, Cast PI, Alacrity + Farsight + Timestop, debuff next target and feeblemind current one, run back see if it worked, max wih with sim, repeat.
3 out of 6 for now. Some mountain bears got summoned by Sendai as i got seen going back before timestop end. She got feebleminded though. 2 Left and they have no ranged powers.
Grommir done 1 shot dragon style, then Sarevok too 1st try.
Wish rested for my Amelyssan setup, which is the same thing but abusing Incendiary clouds.
Reduced all of their health to near death, around 30-50 HP each. Isn't this beautiful?
Amelyssan... is it even posssible to beat her 1 vs 1 legitimately?
Wish rested again for spell shield. Seriously wish resting is getting very boring... especially that i had to reload from trying 20+ times this time.
Tried 3 time (6), if she time stop, i'm just dead. Even PVMW doesn't protect me from it, i eventually get hit and die. Managed to survived, got charmed by a demon. Not sure if she had a summon limit but i have to try.
Forgot about the focus ability... how dumb i am. For some reason this didn't work and i still got killed in timestop (7). (Discovered that you get a complete dispel when she spawn and that her spellstrike+dispel will also remove Focus)
Second try worked but she launched a comet at me and spawned a demon who killed me again on my side of the pool (8).
Didn't manage to learn incendiary cloud from wish, but i managed to jam her near the top right pool finally. I had 3 wish scroll, praying for a wish rest here. Died as she spawned a Balor next to me again.
...
...
Tried 14 times so far... (20)
Managed to wish rest some Incendiary cloud. Memorizing Incendiary was useless as i had 3x spellstriking wands still (will think about that next playthrough... Managed to get Amelyssan stuck trying to hit me on the other side of the south eastern pool, then spawned 5x incendiary clouds + 1 from scroll.
With rift device, she would already be dead. Helped the DPS with The Victor for slightly more damage, spaming Wand of spell striking in between.
This didn't finish her. If i fail, next time it's rift device for a 1st use.
Last scroll got me a wish rest (still had 3 casts but still low %)!! And she's only at near death and i have no more spell shield... 116 HP left. I'm losing hope... then i remember, i still have Critical Strikes from my sling of Everard!
3 Critical strikes later, Amelyssan fell and i finally completed the challenge. Trust me, i accepted that throne this time. I earned it.
Final thoughts on Amelyssan and additionnal F/I strats
Your buffs seems to get all removed no matter what once one of the Five + Sarevok dies. I also wanted to use the new powers but they seems to be on touch like Unleash. I forgot about Hand of Murder, which could have given my sling a bit more damage per round with critical strikes if that work.
Other tactics that would have worked for sure with a F/I : Rift device which i didn't want to use but still perfectly legit, it would have been my only use. Demogorgon style (Delayed Blast Fireball, debuff her with contingency and lure her into 150-200 fireballs in timestop, didn't want to wish rest that much however)
Retested with all the tools i can use to kill her ASAP (rift device). Setup: Chain contingency when hit and hit by 3x pierce shield, 5x incendiary cloud memorized.
Focus and kill all Bhaalspawn using Focus. Switch to shield of reflection + sling of everard. During her timestop lure her near the south east pool and teleport to the other side, make sure she always see you so she won't teleport on you.
She will cast spells at the beginning, wait until one hit you so the contingency triggers. Rift device her then Improved Alacrity + 5x incendiary cloud, use critical strike + sling of everard to speed things up. She'll die very quicky and it doesn't require 2 hours of wish resting.
Without Rift Device and Wish resting:
As mentionned above, using 2x Alacrity to stack after GM 5x clouds, 6x Death fog, 6x sunfire, 6x delayed blast fireball, 5x ice storm, 6x fire arrows will get her around 200 HP left. The victor + wand of spellstriking can damage her to 30-60 hp, being able to finish her with ranged damage (i used Everard sling with critical strike, maybe some BMU ammo could work too but i didn't try it, it would definitely speed things up as her AC is pretty high). If you can get additionnal incendiary clouds/deathfog/pierceshield scrolls, i'm sure that you can finish her without having to range her or use the victor but i only had 1 incendiary cloud scroll, as i didn't think about that at all back then.
Managed to upload pictures this morning. Done! Not sure which class to try next, but i'm thinking about taking a small break as i really rushed through it and i'm a bit tired. This was incredibly fun, best luck to all of you in your current runs. One thing i've noticed: I'm not even near being able to NR, but keeping a txt file with all my deaths will definitely help me improve on those riskier areas.
Also wondering about disease immunity - contagion slow effect?
Hold is another form of paralysis afaik.