Still the best way that i've found to get past the non-bugged Ducal Palace fight with absolute ease was to charm and drag the warehouse Basilisk to the throne room using the sewers, ideally invisible as it bugged a few times on my level 1 sorc run, some guards would follow indefinitely and get insta-killed dropping my reputation by an insane amount (could have probably charmed them too with the nymph cloak). No need to even drag the shaman and mage doppleganger into another room, the basilisk ended the fight in a few seconds every time i tried so far except one, where it got affected by chaos (i think) and it started killing allies.
Question: how does SoD deal with BG1 reputation?
Reason: PfF from a Green Scroll on Belt then 20 or so Arrows of Detonation using the arrow dupe might be even easier for anything with some Thief. My very first pass of Dukes was the Apocalypse Method (OGL not Arrows obviously) since I wanted a no Algernon's method for a Monk.
Also I'm still mad about the rod of resurrection "fix"... shameful.
Also had a fresh run end to the damn basilisks - Those greater ones only fail on a 1 or something with the 2.6s saving throw fix - ended up taking just >2 hours to clear the zone and the last one paralysed me before I realised. RIP Alice the fighter/mage
Reason: PfF from a Green Scroll on Belt then 20 or so Arrows of Detonation using the arrow dupe might be even easier for anything with some Thief. My very first pass of Dukes was the Apocalypse Method (OGL not Arrows obviously) since I wanted a no Algernon's method for a Monk.
Don't know about the reputation issue - though if it's anything like the SoA/ToB transition, it should carry over - but I don't think detonation arrows would be a good idea there. You see, arrows of detonation in BGEE also deal physical damage. And I'm pretty sure dealing him damage counts as attacking him, which is game over.
BG2EE detonation arrows have zero base physical damage, so you might be able to get away with it on a trilogy install...
Made a Cleric/Mage Lady Rose, lawful good.
Str 10 Dex 18 Con 15 Int 17 Wis 18 Cha 11
With my experience of my former failed FMC, I think I can do it this time. Hopefully
This time I avoided economy run before chapter 5, which is annoying as I don't have boots of speed and haste spell yet.
Rose's journey starts (or mine starts again ):
Rushed to Nashkel and picked up treasures along the way. Then slept until I got the first innate ability - heal.
Bought invisible scroll and potion case (it's cheaper to buy them now before killing Algernon and Dushai).
Grabbed Algernon's Cloak.
Went to basilisks garden, charmed a basilisk and protection from petrification on it. Cleared the whole map.
Learned invisible and went to Durlag's Tower to grab the book of wisdom and the WoMS from the warder level (from a small container near the warders).
Went to kill Dushai with WoMS for ring of free action. Also grabbed a WoF in Ankheg's Nest along the way.
Helped Firebead in Beregost for +1 rep and scroll case.
Bought rep back to 12.
Went to Nashkel mine, got the WoFrost, invisible all the way then charmed Mulahey. Fed him to kobolds. Also Grabbed WoMS the way out. Turned in quest for +1 rep. Also told the fat guy I was not greywolf +1 rep.
Killed Tranzig with WoMS.
Invisible to steal the documents from Bandit's camp. Turned in quest to officer Vai for +1 rep.
Invisible all the way to cloakwood mines. Charmed the boots of speed guy and used him to kill all his team members then fed him to the guards. Grabbed the boots from the (now dead) mouthy one.
Bought OGL and got the WoF from Ulcaster Dungeon.
Now I had OGL 10 charges, a WoMS with 8 charges, another WoMS with 1 charges, a WoFrost with 10 charges, a WoF with 8 charges and another WoF with 12 charges. All for free More than enough to do cloakwood mines.
Invis to Davaeorn, waited for his guards to come. Blasted them to pieces with around 17 to 20 charges of WoF/OGL. Waited for Davaeorn protection gone, then a few charges of WoMS killed him. + 2 rep followed. Now I had 17 rep.
Went to the Baldur's gate and bought haste scroll. And so the economy run with hasted minions and boots of speed began ... then I checked my purse and I found I already had 60k gold, just by picking up treasures along the way All I needed to do now was pump up my rep and charisma.
But first... I killed the crazy who carried the Gauntlets of Ogre Power and yet another WoF with 22 charges, sweet. Finally I could carry some weight.
Did the poison quest for the book of wisdom. Also did the quest for Shield of the Falling Stars.
Returned necklace to Mr. Colquetle + 1 rep. Saved Brage + 1 rep. Killed light house wolfs +1 rep. Now I had 20 rep.
Grabbed the book of constitution and WoPara, killed siriens for xp.
Got the book of charismas too, so 12 base + the poor Algernon's Cloak + friend spell I have 20. I could recharge my WoMS and OGL and did shopping too.
Iron throne. Hid in a corner and charmed the dual wielding fighter, it wasn't too hard just a few reloads and job done. Then two assassins tried to kill him but instead he killed them both. Then ordered the fighter to attack his comrades and he died. Raised 5 skeletons haste and chant and sent them to kill the thieves, clerics and mages. Buffed them with Defensive Harmony and bless while I was invisible. Killed a couple of the enemies before the skeletons died. Left Iron Throne, rest, and went back with a new horde of skeletons again . Same tactics against the 2 fighters, but I also cast doom on them. They had no chance at all.
Candlekeep. invis spell immediately right after the ogre mages ambush started. Charmed Brunos in the library and he killed all his iron throne leader friends. Then I killed him. invis escaped the catatombs.
Iron Throne again. Invis charmed the girl mage. Used all her spells. Then skeles got her. Her two stone golems never appeared as I stayed out of sight.
Ducal palace. Used a tactic suggested previously in this thread (sorry I don't know who found this method). Charmed the nobles. Parked them in different rooms. Parked the mage doppel noble in the corner near Belt. Then left the palace and rested until all charm expired. Talked to Belt, nobles transformed into doppelgangers. But now they were in different rooms and didn't join the battle. Then kill mage doppel with skeles. It wandered around a little so 2 of the doppels in the other rooms joined the battle, but it was alright. Killed all doppels one by one in the end, tactic worked very well. Ducal palace done.
Saravok. Waited for their magical protection to fade. Stayed out of sight and OGL the 4 lackeys to death. Then used skeles and WoMS to tank Sarovok and WoF scorcher and he was no more.
Korlasz's Tomb. Invis to talk down the first level enemies. Then PfU to Korlasz. Used skeles to distract them. Drank invis potion and oil of speed. Used WoF scorcher to hit Korlasz and then immediately got out of the room. With boots of speed and speed potion I ran so fast that they couldn't ever touch me . Then drank another invis potion and repeat again until Korlasz yielded. No challenge at all.
Killed the dwarf lich. With PfU and skeles, this place wasn't hard. WoPoly the bronze sentry. Fought lich in the fire room that I destroyed his soul. And I closed the door to that room using WoMS to lure away the red skeletons guarding there.
Temple of Bhaal. Skeles killed Ziatar easily and her mages. Charmed Akanna and her air elementals killed her. Charmed the dwarf in the mind flayer group and they killed him (he was hard to charm though). Looted his potion of power and got away.
Boareskyr Bridge. Okay this one is very funny. I wanted the potion of power that the orc leader Barghest owned, so I chose to fight the battle. With 60 charges of Nymph cloak I charmed more than half of the crusaders, including Barghest . Fed the charmed mages to the goblins outside the camp. The fight between the mages and goblins somehow triggered the arrival of Flaming fist and Khalid's army and the battle started. With half of the crusaders being traitors, including their leader Barghest , and without their mages to buff them, they were doomed. Khalid even survived the fight . But I couldn't find the power option on Barghest's body, probably he consumed it in the battle. damn... won the battle lost the war...
Finally Victor ring on the mage guarding the gunpower barrel. skeles and WoMS took care of them.
Very well done so far Zaknas! Glad to see someone attempting the challenge again. Very well done with your previous sorcerer too. Finally getting to level that character in BG2 feels really good as the sorcerer class is such a low cost about everything thanks to not having to learn scrolls.
I really liked your approach of charming the crusader camp, never tried it myself.
Also not sure if they fixed the Power Potion glitch in 2.6 as i completely stopped using them in 2.5 after seeing how devastating it was but i wouldn't feel too bad for not getting the absolute maximum amount, like missing one or two as their is a ''safe'' amount of them to use. Best with the glitch is to try to predict when their effect will stop to end the fight before it starts doing so.
The glitch is that when a potion effect ends, you're going to lose a big chunk of HP, like literally dropping from 300 hp to about 100 while losing only about 25 maximum health. This also happens with potions of Heroism but since their duration is 2 hours instead of 4 rounds, it ends up being much more manageable.
@alice_ashpool I never did a low rep run during SoD so really don't know about that. If the only thing that changes is buying prices, it won't matter too much for a thief in the end but it could hurt a lot for other classes. Not sure if it got fixed, but playing on lower setting than LoB (insane on version 2.5 or maybe 2.3 with a solo Thief it's been a while) i do remember making the wand of sleep work against them as their level got bugged when transforming, this was before using SCS too though.
Finally I beat the camp battle. This is a battle that I will never forget as it was so epic but at the same time can't remember the details well as everything happened so fast.
Wave 1. Pre-cast 11 skull trap scrolls and 5 skull trap spells. Archer + skeles constant hasted with scrolls. OGL the enemies liked there was no tomorrow. Skeles started dying and WoMS spam for tanking. Kept OGL them until victory. It was tense but no real threat at all.
Wave 2. I don't know how I beat this one. I mean I used wizard slayers + skeles constantly hasted and WoF scorcher + GM + slow + silence. I tried 5 times and got it at last, however the first 4 times the wizards totally owned my army, and the last time the situation is reversed that skeles totally owned the wizards' asses. I don't know what happened and don't remember it was that hard for my FMC.
Wave 3. Pre cast 7 skull trap scrolls and 3 skull trap spells. Wizards as allies + skeles hasted for tanking. Sequencer GM + web + silence and slow scroll at the start and 7 cloudkill scrolls and the battle ended very quickly. I can't believe it could be that easy. This wave was hell for my FMC. I am glad I finally know how to beat this one effectively.
Wave 4. Rogues and dwarfs as allies + skeles, hasted them all. Sequencer GM + Silence + web and then lesser sequencer silence + web and more webs and slow. I used a few WoF scorcher too. To my surprise the rogue allies and my skeles did not get webbed much and they killed the orog boss so quickly that I didn't even realize. May be the dwarfs cast some spells to help my army to avoid getting webbed? I have no idea. I didn't even need to use ankheg summons, the 5 skeles survived the whole fight.
I made it! I killed Bel! ... although barely. but still made it
weapons: martyr's morning star main hand, the hydra +2 off hand, with 2 weapon style.
gear: full plate mail, helm and cloak of balduran, Lon's amulet, legacy of the masters, cloverleaf, boots of speed
rings: ring of purity, ring of the crusade
buffs before the lift:
2x (PfF, PfC, PfE, PfA, PfP)
10x Mind Focusing (8 should be fine, just to be safe)
Then did lift. Skeles, WoPoly and WoL took care of everything. Very easy actually.
Short lived buffs after wave 3 (I used the quicksave and reload exploit so I could drink potion and cast spell super fast):
2x Potion of Magic Resistance
Protection from Evil '10 scroll
Oil of Speed
Potion of Clarity
12x potion of power (somehow I still got 12 even I didn't get the one form Barghest)
Enchanted Weapon
then very short lived buffs:
11X champion's strength (str to 18/00)
Violet Potion (must come after champion's strength buff to set str to 25, con down to 3, dex penalty offset by mind focusing potions)
Potion of Fortitude (con to 18)
Blur + improved invis + Stoneskin sequencer
blue fire shield
My main hand thac0 was -30, and off hand was around -25. Didn't need that much, but it was very hard to do the timing, so I could only keep buffing champion's strength while time was passing and hoped the lift would reach bel faster.
Let caelar joined, she took the remove magic and then died 2 seconds later. Then I started smashing Bel. Switched the helm to Kiel's helmet and drank from goblet when I needed healing and back to balduran after.
Bel killed me about 7 times..., the buffs never lasted that long (I think the cutscene wasted a few rounds, which is huge). Got him to badly injured mostly. Then the last time I got lucky on critical hits and finally got him, but even that time all the champion's str buffs were gone and I had to relied on crits. The feeling was just like playing a 1 hp mage, hoping for lucky crits... except now my character could die.
Should have put a point in single weapon style instead of a sling so I could use martyr's morning star alone after champion's str wore off, would have been much better. Even a little bit would help when everything was so damn tight.
screen shoot
Then something bad happened. A demon refused to disappear and tried to kill me while all my buffs were gone. I panic for awhile, didn't want to die there just because of a stupid bug . But then senses come to me again and WoMS, WoPoly and WoL killed it alright.
Hell yeah finally can play BG2EE. Which will be a blind LOB SCS ascension playthrough.
@zaknas Great job finishing Bel! You're killing it so far. Good luck for BG2. Not sure if you did, but you can skip the cutscene before the fight by pressing escape a few times to save some precious buff time. Pretty much the only way to make the spell immunity last long enough if you want to fight Bel without taking Caelar with you as a mage.
@zaknas Great job finishing Bel! You're killing it so far. Good luck for BG2. Not sure if you did, but you can skip the cutscene before the fight by pressing escape a few times to save some precious buff time. Pretty much the only way to make the spell immunity last long enough if you want to fight Bel without taking Caelar with you as a mage.
you can skip the cutscene?!?! omg that's good to know. The fight would have been much easier if I had known that trick. Thanks.
Actually I found a way to dodge the remove spell without Caelar. Wait for Bel starts casting, then immediately run out of sight and Bel will lose his spell. Not very reliable though as the time window is very tight.
BG2EE, Rose the Cleric/Mage has completed all pre spellhold quests. But I don't not much to say, as a C/M, I have tons of summons available. Skeles, aerial servants (these ones are very powerful), and later Deva/Planetar and with both mage and cleric buffs/debuffs, it was so easy that I didn't even feel like I was playing on LOB + SCS difficulty.
The general tactics is to just use brute force... when facing powerful mages, send skeleton to them one by one, wasting their spells and then use powerful summons to kill them.
But a few battles did give me headache.
Shade lord. Waste spells tactics failed, as it seemed he could cast spell infinitely. This guy used blade of disaster which killed deva in one hit. And cast quite a numbers of death spells too. But in the end my overwhelming force of summons + enchanted weapon got him. Just had to make sure not to let him attack deva and keep summoning skeles to tank him.
Staff of the magi battle. Made the lich appear but did not talk to him. Then cast 4 death fog and 3 Incendiary Cloud out of sight and he was killed. Then the reinforcements came and deva went to tank the beholder. The fog and cloud still lasted long enough to get them all. I hid in Otiluke's Sphere while waiting for them to die and their summons to disappear. Only the mage left and another deva got her.
Sewer mind flayer den. Deva + summons and I ran around like crazy, the mind flayers couldn't always keep up and got separated. Then deva killed the lone flayer. But this battle was a mess.
Kangaxx. The normal liches are no match for deva, as she is using the mace of disruption + 2. Kangaxx himself I tried so many things on him but couldn't beat him. I didn't have proper gear at the time though but I stilled wanted to beat him before spellhold, so I checked the post here and saw XDarkStrikerX used WoW on him then I did the same. Kangaxx was cheating though as even I had PfU on me he still knew I was there and he cast remove spell on me. Had to escaped his spell by running upstairs.
@zaknas Good job again! For PFU, as Histamiini told me about how it works with SCS, it actually reduces the sight range of the liches like Kangaxx so you can actually use ranged attacks if you're far enough like a ranged weapon, fogs or even The Victor if they didn't use protection from magical energy. If you want the Lich/Demi lich to stay completely immobile and not retaliate, you will have to use the spell directly on it. Will not work for the first form of Kangaxx as he has to talk to you to transform (you would have to wait the duration out) but it does work on his demi-lich form.
First time i managed to kill it by my own means (took a ridiculous amount of tries before i came up with this) i had to buy a Conjure Fire Elemental scroll and used them to finish him. It was pretty tricky as i needed to be able to summon the HD16 or ideally 24 to get a good enough THAC0 with them to beat his regen. Needless to say, the WoW+Efreeti bottle strategy is way less trouble.
@XDarkStrikerX what's the efreeti bottle? I didn't have it and I just used WoW. Also I don't think PfU just reduces the sight range of Kangaxx because after I escaped his attempt to dispel my PfU, I could actually melee him and he did not react (he did try to run away sometimes though). But maybe my installation is broken, have seen a lot of bugged npcs' behavior already. BG1 + SCS works a lot better.
@zaknas The efreeti bottle is an item that you can get by killing the Trademeet Genies. WoW will only turn Kangaxx the demilich into stone but you still have to break it. As i usually kill him before having a +4 weapon myself so i use it as the Efreeti uses a +4 enchanted weapon, same for the Fire Elemental summon.
I guess that it also depends if you have the spellcasting demilich enable from SCS. First time that i did it, even using PFU on myself Kangaxx wouldn't care at all as i was too close, would summon planetars, comets and a bunch of other summons, HLAs/L9 spells which turned the area into complete chaos. It would also be infinite and scripted so i couldn't just waste his spells. He would also cast through protection from magic. It really was... a total nightmare. Nothing compared to Demogorgon though who made me question if it was at all possible for my Fighter/Illusionist without the Rift Device cheese (not sure if it still work in 2.6) . Didn't help that i didn't find anybody who attempted it and survived with the current SCS version so i had not clue what to do, as the fight is way too risky for NR which was what other players were going for when the thread was more alive.
I would definitely give it a shot once you get there. Might not be so bad if you didn't nerf your Harm spell with the SCS revision however, which i am personally not a fan of as i just want it to be a tactical challenge (same for the added scrolls). Would still require some surgically precise spellcasting, would be far from a cakewalk or maybe... some super buffed Ravager form.
I see, I didn't notice the bottle when I killed the Genies. Thanks for the info guys.
Here Rose the C/M's struggle continues. Now she is in hell... I mean in nine hell again deva and planetar pretty much did all the job for me. I found that Deva can kill dark planetar easily as they can stun them, and that makes deva much better than planetar in many battles against mages/liches. Other than that I really have nothing worthwhile to say, but anyway...
Underdark Balrog (can't remember the name, the demon that the gnomes dug out). Planetar/deva alone couldn't kill him. So I tried Improved Alacrity + 4 x lower resistance + GM + finger of death + chromatic orb and that didn't kill him. But he died anyway while planetar was swinging her sword, probably vorpal effect killed him when his ST was lowered. Don't know what exactly happened as the log didn't show the reason.
Bodhi. I had Drizzt on my side, and Bodhi ate him, I couldn't even find his bones . Planetar/deva killed the vampires one by one and only Bodhi left. Then rest and another round of planetars got her. Trivial.
Dragon in the elf city. Time stop + level drain then exited to elf city map. Tried to rest but got ambushed so immediately got back to the dragon map and rest there then time stop and level drain again. Rinse and repeat until dragon was level 1 then planetar prepared dragon meat dinner for me . No risk and no reload required, just tedious...
Irenicus the tree sucker fight. Hid in a corner, waited a while, Deva easily stunned and killed his dark planetar and then later, Irenicus himself. Even easier than Bodhi fight. Wouldn't be this easy if I could only summon planetars.
Irenicus the slayer awaits me in nine hell, wish me luck.
Bodhi. I had Drizzt on my side, and Bodhi ate him, I couldn't even find his bones .
Level drain kills (being drained all the way to zero, instead of running out of hit points) destroy equipment. And Drizzt isn't immune to level drain. The thief and paladin you can bring to that fight as allies aren't immune either.
I found that Deva can kill dark planetar easily as they can stun them, and that makes deva much better than planetar in many battles against mages/liches.
The normal liches are no match for deva, as she is using the mace of disruption + 2.
While the deva weapon uses that description, it doesn't match the stats. Here are the actual stats for the deva weapon:
Immune to level drain. Uses long sword graphics.
3d6+3 crushing damage, +3 to hit, enchantment level +3. Adds strength bonuses. "Large Sword" proficiency applies, and the deva has grand mastery.
On hit, 100% chance to stun for one round on a failed spell save. 26% chance to dispel at the wielder's level and destroy undead and illusionary creatures with no save.
And for good measure, the planetar weapon:
Permanent haste. Uses long sword graphics.
2d10+3 slashing damage, +3 to hit, enchantment level +3. Adds strength bonuses. "Large Sword" proficiency applies, and the planetar has grand mastery.
On hit, 26% chance to dispel at the wielder's level, destroy illusionary creatures with no save, and kill the target on a failed death save at -2.
Note also that the deva has 2 base APR and the planetar has 3. Left to their own devices, the planetar will attack twice as often. In a one-on-one battle without support, the planetar casts Improved Invisibility and negates that stun chance with unbeatable saves, while the deva doesn't have True Seeing to counter it - only Dispel Magic (which must be cast manually, as the AI won't use it) and the dispel chance on the weapon.
At least devas are much better than planetars at dispelling. Both get the divine version of Dispel Magic, but devas have the "cleric" class and planetars have the "mage" class. So a deva's spell dispels at their level (25 at normal difficulties) and a planetar's spell dispels at level 1.
After reading your post I used ctrl+Q on the dark planetar and found that her ST was bugged as 20, 20, 20, 20, 20. That's why my deva could stun her, this is probably a SCS bug.
Edit: I checked a few more npcs to see their ST. Hell Savarok were 20 0 20 -2 1, it was only partially bugged. While some npcs were not bugged at all.
For reference, Hell Sarevok has base saves of 3/5/4/3/6. LoB improves that to -2/0/-1/-2/1. And then that bug you're seeing randomly turns some of those saves into 20s.
Planetars and devas have base saves of 3/5/4/4/6, the level 17+ fighter array. Or, at least, they do in vanilla. My modded 2.5 install (including SCS) improves that to 2/5/4/4/6 for devas and 3/3/4/4/4 for planetars; fighter/cleric and fighter/mage arrays.
So, a planetar with Improved Invisibility active should be immune to deva stun even without LoB.
Also, that bug? Definitely not SCS. Here's a shot from my (mostly) unmodded 2.6 installation, summoning a planetar and using Ctrl-Q.
Once the LoB buff wears off, the saves revert to the 3/5/4/4/6 array.
But I got different ctrl+Q results. ctrl+Q my own planetar gave me the correct ST, ctrl+Q enemy's dark planetar gave me all 20. But even the 20s couldn't be the real ST for a dark planetar in my game, as my planetar never landed a vorpal killed on a dark planetar, while my deva easily stuned them. So yeah... it's random.
Small update. Finally finished SoA, now into ToB and starts feeling the heat, where planetars alone can't kill a boss. Now my general tactic to kill bosses is Planetar + lower resistance + GM + Incendiary Cloud + bolt of glory + flame strike spam.
Beat Irenicus in nine hell. Wasn't hard at all. Used 2 skeletons to lure the 4 demons to the east, fought Irenicus in the west. Planetar and spell spam got him. Took awhile though, as he has lot of hp.
Illasera. She could see me invis while others couldn't, so I invis and went south of the map then I fought her alone.
Pocket plane challenge one. Kited Bodhi around, planetar killed saravok and Irenicus. Spell spam on Bodhi. Lucky enough that the dark planetar stayed north part of the room and I didn't need to fight her.
Gromnir. Planetar/deva killed all his minions, went downstairs, pocket plane rest and come back to kill Gromnir.
Beat Yaga-Shura and Abazigal, wow... it was very tough. SCS changed so many things too many dragons too many dark planetars and it changed the spell systems too. Had to reinstall just to get back the original harm spell.
Yaga-Shura. I went invis and avoided as many battles as I could in Yaga-Shura's Lair, just picked up the hearts and left. Then went to his mother, Incendiary Cloud and deva killed the undead. His mother summoned lots of help but they couldn't see through invis while she alone could, so I lured her away and killed her. Tried so many times killing Yaga-Shura, his immunity to fire damage which forced me to abandoned my spell spam tactic. Tried pierce shield + GM + flesh to stone + finger of death + disintegrate nothing worked. Suddenly I recalled I had harm spell. Used time stop and harm... well... 42 damage and 102 resisted. Then I remembered XDarkStrikerX said SCS nerfed it so I reinstalled and turned off this particular modification. Time stop and harm again, bang! and Yaga was dead.
Draconis. He always gave me nightmare on insane difficulty. On LOB+SCS he is like a demi-god. And it didn't help that I only had two level 9 mage spell slots. Luckily I could abuse the exit map trick (pocket plane didn't always work). Tried a couple of times and finally found a way. Project image summoned deva for tanking then time stop + Improved Alacrity + 4 x pierce shield spam to make him vulnerable to harm spell. Then I cast time stop + harm and beat his human form. Exit map rest and repeat for his dragon form.
Abazigal's Lair. okay this was nuts... Rooms of beholders and lizardmen shaman that could cast high level mage and cleric spells and saw through invis and no space to hide. Planetar tanking, Contingency and Incendiary Cloud + all kind of sequencers for whatever damaging spells available got most of them. Totally a mess. Imprisoned the two lizard shamans. Killed the dragon just like the way I did Draconis.
4 SCS dragons. Okay great harm spell and exit map abuse worked like a charm. The last 2 dragons claimed they were the greater ones of their species and the former 2 were just "lizards". But since harm spell worked on them all the same, I will never know what's the different between a "lizard" and a greater dragon . I am still wondering how fighter classes can beat this thing.
Abazigal. Okay tried many many times with different tactics. This thing was way too smart. One failed attempt was to spam skull traps then pierce shield and lured him into the traps as his dragon form always chased me till the end of the world. But after getting hit by pierce shield, suddenly he didn't want to chase me at all. He just stood still and waited for me to come to him... .
Another failed attempt is of course the harm spell. But since time stop couldn't affect him and so I had trouble to touch his little belly
I also found that the game will stop running when you kill his human form and try to trigger conversion with his dragon form. You can't even close the game by alt+F4. Must use ctrl+alt+del.
Glad that I finally figured out how to beat this. Planetar + farsight killed all his minions. Then I rushed in trigged the conversation and time stop + harm tactic killed the other dragon (or did I? I didn't see her death message, anyway she disappeared). Human form Abazigal couldn't see through invis and wouldn't chase so I could hide and rest. Then spam pierce shield + GM + feeblemind and finally I could touch his belly... not, his AC was still insanely low. Okay no problem project image damage spell spam put him to near death and dispelled the feeblemind and let him scream the scripted death speech and I had his belly .
Hell Yeah I beat demogorgon without the rift device cheese.
screen shots first:
I checked demo stats with crtl+Q. He has -16 AC, 90 magic resist, stone skin, aura of flaming death, protection from magical weapons, spell turning (or absorbing? something like that, can't remember). So okay I thought harm + pierce shield would kill him easily. How terribly wrong I was. The problem was that after I hit him with 3 or even 4 pierce shield, his PfMW wouldn't go away. Then I tried Khelben's Warding Whip, yeah it removed the PfMW, but I had to wait for a few rounds for it to do its work. And if I waited for a little bit longer, then demo somehow increased his magic resist back to 90 while the lower resist spell on him was still in effect (damn you demo, cheating bastard...). So you see, I had to hit demo with harm spell at the right moment while I had no way to know when, and the time window was small.
Anyway here is what I did:
Chain Contingency to store 3 pierce shield (can't store whip, the log said it failed when contingency triggered, but turned out useless as it hit another demon). Spell Trigger to store improved haste, harm, tensor's transform (or may be I picked champion's strength? I can't remember well about this one as it wasn't necessary anyway). Then rest.
Summoned planetar for tanking. Then simulacrum to cast champion's strength on me. Then Project Imagex2 to cast CS on me again, used planetar to dispel the PI. Now I had something around -18 thac0. Then the real me triggered the fight and immediately ran away escaping Demo's sight. As long as I was out of sight Demo wouldn't use time stop.
Summoned the third PI, then PI cast Improved Alacrity, far sight and spammed whip + 3 pierce shield. Then planetar dispelled PI. The real me cast Improved Alacrity, Righteous Magic (can't remember if I actually cast this one...), champion's strength, and used the spell trigger to get IH, harm and tensor's transform. My thac0 was now at least -23 or better, didn't really check as everything happened so fast. Then I charged in, hoping demo wouldn't cast time stop and went to touch demo's belly and hell yeah the first screen shot. Then I magic missile Demo and Jerrod's mace +2 (+6 against demon) main hand and Crom Faeyr+5 off hand and hacked him. And I don't know what kill Demo but hell yeah he was dead as shown in the second screen shot. The magic missile probably didn't get through as there is a spell ineffective message. But the log didn't say I hit him with my mace either.. well... how he died is now a mystery, I believe I killed him with my mace as my thac0 was very very good.
Demo: "NO! NOOO! "THIS CANNOT BE!" the exact same thought I had, yeah how did I beat you, my prince? But hell yeah woo hoo I killed him! That scream was never that satisfying.
Please tell me I am the first guy to beat demo on 2.6 without the rift device cheese.
I don't understand how I beat demo, the spell description doesn't say pierce shield or whip can remove PfMW and stoneskin. May be the planetar dispelled demo's stoneskin when she hit him? Or may be my crom faeyr +5 did some electrical damage to him? But I remember demo also has very high electricity resist. This is really puzzling
Why would you think that Pierce Shield or Khelben's Warding Whip remove PfMW? That's a combat protection. In the standard spell system, only Breach or dispel effects remove it. Most likely, the four-round duration expired.
One crazy idea that might actually work against Demogorgon: dueling fireshields. While they're naturally fire immune, that's exactly the priest spell Aura of Flaming Death they have, which sets resistance to 90% instead of incrementing it. Make yourself fire immune, give yourself any form of fireshield, get in close, and bounce the damage back and forth for at least one point every tick (cold is more effective than fire, but both work and more fireshields is better). That Spell Turning will reflect the first few shots, but you'll eat through it in no time. And you can start the cycle with absolutely any attack or by being attacked in any way. Magic resistance is irrelevant.
Back in 2.6, this wouldn't have worked - but the spells were changed, and the possibility of repeatedly reflecting the damage was one side effect.
The magic missile probably didn't get through as there is a spell ineffective message. But the log didn't say I hit him with my mace either.. well... how he died is now a mystery, I believe I killed him with my mace as my thac0 was very very good.
Demogorgon is immune to level 1 and 2 spells. That's why the magic missile didn't work.
As for the death, Demogorgon is immortal and always dies by script. Once their hit points drop below 30, you get the "THIS CANNOT BE!" cutscene and they die. A small delay is possible.
"Once their hit points drop below 30, you get the "THIS CANNOT BE!" cutscene and they die"
ah that explains how I killed him, so harm was enough, I don't even have to worry about the stoneskin too. And next time I know I will need breach spell too.
Yes Lady Rose the C/M finally beat Amelyssan and became a goddess. This LoB and SCS run was a wild ride and I learned a lot from this forum, great ideas and insights by people here made solo runs possible. I definitely couldn't make it without help.
Rose's path to godhood:
Sendai. The only difficult battle here was the mind flayer room. chain contingency + Incendiary Cloud + planetar + hid in Otiluke's Resilient Sphere killed the monsters other than mind flayers. Then transformed into mind flayer myself and used time stop to eat the mind flayers. Luckily I could once again exploit the exit room and rest trick here. Sendai herself was no threat at all. Mind flayer + enchanted weapon + time stop + pocket plane in a corner killed sendai's statues quickly. Planetar/deva killed her mage and thief duplicates.
Balthazar joined me to fight Amelyssan. Glad that I didn't have to fight him as I found out later he was freaking powerful
Then pocket plane challenges. Planetar alone got them all except for the ravager. As a C/M harm spell killed ravager in a second. Basically the same way I killed demogorgon.
Throne of bhaal. Couldn't figure how to beat this insanity myself, so I followed what XDarkStrikerX and histamiini did. 4 time stop scrolls and mind flayer form ate Bodhi Saravok and at last Irenicus. Balthazar killed the 2 solars during time stop. Then I healed Balthazar back to full. Went for the middle pool, 1 time stop and mind flayer form ate the balor like demons. Then Balthazar alone killed all the others. Now that I had demon control the other 2 pools were easy. In the end I let Balthazar die and killed all my pet demons because I didn't need them in the final confrontation.
Then not much to say, as I did what histamiini did in his video. https://youtu.be/--QVk9pdgAM
Although I don't know how to escape Amelyssan's time stop like histamiini did in the vid, instead I just cast absolute immunity right before her time stop. Together with stoneskin I survived okay. In short, pre cast skull traps got them all, and harm spell got Yaga-Shura and Amelyssan.
Comments
Question: how does SoD deal with BG1 reputation?
Reason: PfF from a Green Scroll on Belt then 20 or so Arrows of Detonation using the arrow dupe might be even easier for anything with some Thief. My very first pass of Dukes was the Apocalypse Method (OGL not Arrows obviously) since I wanted a no Algernon's method for a Monk.
Also I'm still mad about the rod of resurrection "fix"... shameful.
Don't know about the reputation issue - though if it's anything like the SoA/ToB transition, it should carry over - but I don't think detonation arrows would be a good idea there. You see, arrows of detonation in BGEE also deal physical damage. And I'm pretty sure dealing him damage counts as attacking him, which is game over.
BG2EE detonation arrows have zero base physical damage, so you might be able to get away with it on a trilogy install...
Str 10 Dex 18 Con 15 Int 17 Wis 18 Cha 11
With my experience of my former failed FMC, I think I can do it this time. Hopefully
This time I avoided economy run before chapter 5, which is annoying as I don't have boots of speed and haste spell yet.
Rose's journey starts (or mine starts again
Rushed to Nashkel and picked up treasures along the way. Then slept until I got the first innate ability - heal.
Bought invisible scroll and potion case (it's cheaper to buy them now before killing Algernon and Dushai).
Grabbed Algernon's Cloak.
Went to basilisks garden, charmed a basilisk and protection from petrification on it. Cleared the whole map.
Learned invisible and went to Durlag's Tower to grab the book of wisdom and the WoMS from the warder level (from a small container near the warders).
Went to kill Dushai with WoMS for ring of free action. Also grabbed a WoF in Ankheg's Nest along the way.
Helped Firebead in Beregost for +1 rep and scroll case.
Bought rep back to 12.
Went to Nashkel mine, got the WoFrost, invisible all the way then charmed Mulahey. Fed him to kobolds. Also Grabbed WoMS the way out. Turned in quest for +1 rep. Also told the fat guy I was not greywolf +1 rep.
Killed Tranzig with WoMS.
Invisible to steal the documents from Bandit's camp. Turned in quest to officer Vai for +1 rep.
Invisible all the way to cloakwood mines. Charmed the boots of speed guy and used him to kill all his team members then fed him to the guards. Grabbed the boots from the (now dead) mouthy one.
Bought OGL and got the WoF from Ulcaster Dungeon.
Now I had OGL 10 charges, a WoMS with 8 charges, another WoMS with 1 charges, a WoFrost with 10 charges, a WoF with 8 charges and another WoF with 12 charges. All for free
Invis to Davaeorn, waited for his guards to come. Blasted them to pieces with around 17 to 20 charges of WoF/OGL. Waited for Davaeorn protection gone, then a few charges of WoMS killed him. + 2 rep followed. Now I had 17 rep.
Went to the Baldur's gate and bought haste scroll. And so the economy run with hasted minions and boots of speed began
But first... I killed the crazy who carried the Gauntlets of Ogre Power and yet another WoF with 22 charges, sweet. Finally I could carry some weight.
Did the poison quest for the book of wisdom. Also did the quest for Shield of the Falling Stars.
Returned necklace to Mr. Colquetle + 1 rep. Saved Brage + 1 rep. Killed light house wolfs +1 rep. Now I had 20 rep.
Grabbed the book of constitution and WoPara, killed siriens for xp.
Got the book of charismas too, so 12 base + the poor Algernon's Cloak + friend spell I have 20. I could recharge my WoMS and OGL and did shopping too.
Iron throne. Hid in a corner and charmed the dual wielding fighter, it wasn't too hard just a few reloads and job done. Then two assassins tried to kill him but instead he killed them both. Then ordered the fighter to attack his comrades and he died. Raised 5 skeletons haste and chant and sent them to kill the thieves, clerics and mages. Buffed them with Defensive Harmony and bless while I was invisible. Killed a couple of the enemies before the skeletons died. Left Iron Throne, rest, and went back with a new horde of skeletons again
Candlekeep. invis spell immediately right after the ogre mages ambush started. Charmed Brunos in the library and he killed all his iron throne leader friends. Then I killed him. invis escaped the catatombs.
Iron Throne again. Invis charmed the girl mage. Used all her spells. Then skeles got her. Her two stone golems never appeared as I stayed out of sight.
Ducal palace. Used a tactic suggested previously in this thread (sorry I don't know who found this method). Charmed the nobles. Parked them in different rooms. Parked the mage doppel noble in the corner near Belt. Then left the palace and rested until all charm expired. Talked to Belt, nobles transformed into doppelgangers. But now they were in different rooms and didn't join the battle. Then kill mage doppel with skeles. It wandered around a little so 2 of the doppels in the other rooms joined the battle, but it was alright. Killed all doppels one by one in the end, tactic worked very well. Ducal palace done.
Korlasz's Tomb. Invis to talk down the first level enemies. Then PfU to Korlasz. Used skeles to distract them. Drank invis potion and oil of speed. Used WoF scorcher to hit Korlasz and then immediately got out of the room. With boots of speed and speed potion I ran so fast that they couldn't ever touch me
Killed the dwarf lich. With PfU and skeles, this place wasn't hard. WoPoly the bronze sentry. Fought lich in the fire room that I destroyed his soul. And I closed the door to that room using WoMS to lure away the red skeletons guarding there.
Temple of Bhaal. Skeles killed Ziatar easily and her mages. Charmed Akanna and her air elementals killed her. Charmed the dwarf in the mind flayer group and they killed him (he was hard to charm though). Looted his potion of power and got away.
Boareskyr Bridge. Okay this one is very funny. I wanted the potion of power that the orc leader Barghest owned, so I chose to fight the battle. With 60 charges of Nymph cloak I charmed more than half of the crusaders, including Barghest
Finally Victor ring on the mage guarding the gunpower barrel. skeles and WoMS took care of them.
I really liked your approach of charming the crusader camp, never tried it myself.
Also not sure if they fixed the Power Potion glitch in 2.6 as i completely stopped using them in 2.5 after seeing how devastating it was but i wouldn't feel too bad for not getting the absolute maximum amount, like missing one or two as their is a ''safe'' amount of them to use. Best with the glitch is to try to predict when their effect will stop to end the fight before it starts doing so.
The glitch is that when a potion effect ends, you're going to lose a big chunk of HP, like literally dropping from 300 hp to about 100 while losing only about 25 maximum health. This also happens with potions of Heroism but since their duration is 2 hours instead of 4 rounds, it ends up being much more manageable.
@alice_ashpool I never did a low rep run during SoD so really don't know about that. If the only thing that changes is buying prices, it won't matter too much for a thief in the end but it could hurt a lot for other classes. Not sure if it got fixed, but playing on lower setting than LoB (insane on version 2.5 or maybe 2.3 with a solo Thief it's been a while) i do remember making the wand of sleep work against them as their level got bugged when transforming, this was before using SCS too though.
Finally I beat the camp battle. This is a battle that I will never forget as it was so epic but at the same time can't remember the details well as everything happened so fast.
Wave 1. Pre-cast 11 skull trap scrolls and 5 skull trap spells. Archer + skeles constant hasted with scrolls. OGL the enemies liked there was no tomorrow. Skeles started dying and WoMS spam for tanking. Kept OGL them until victory. It was tense but no real threat at all.
Wave 2. I don't know how I beat this one. I mean I used wizard slayers + skeles constantly hasted and WoF scorcher + GM + slow + silence. I tried 5 times and got it at last, however the first 4 times the wizards totally owned my army, and the last time the situation is reversed that skeles totally owned the wizards' asses. I don't know what happened and don't remember it was that hard for my FMC.
Wave 3. Pre cast 7 skull trap scrolls and 3 skull trap spells. Wizards as allies + skeles hasted for tanking. Sequencer GM + web + silence and slow scroll at the start and 7 cloudkill scrolls and the battle ended very quickly. I can't believe it could be that easy. This wave was hell for my FMC. I am glad I finally know how to beat this one effectively.
Wave 4. Rogues and dwarfs as allies + skeles, hasted them all. Sequencer GM + Silence + web and then lesser sequencer silence + web and more webs and slow. I used a few WoF scorcher too. To my surprise the rogue allies and my skeles did not get webbed much and they killed the orog boss so quickly that I didn't even realize. May be the dwarfs cast some spells to help my army to avoid getting webbed? I have no idea. I didn't even need to use ankheg summons, the 5 skeles survived the whole fight.
weapons: martyr's morning star main hand, the hydra +2 off hand, with 2 weapon style.
gear: full plate mail, helm and cloak of balduran, Lon's amulet, legacy of the masters, cloverleaf, boots of speed
rings: ring of purity, ring of the crusade
buffs before the lift:
2x (PfF, PfC, PfE, PfA, PfP)
10x Mind Focusing (8 should be fine, just to be safe)
Then did lift. Skeles, WoPoly and WoL took care of everything. Very easy actually.
Short lived buffs after wave 3 (I used the quicksave and reload exploit so I could drink potion and cast spell super fast):
2x Potion of Magic Resistance
Protection from Evil '10 scroll
Oil of Speed
Potion of Clarity
12x potion of power (somehow I still got 12 even I didn't get the one form Barghest)
Enchanted Weapon
then very short lived buffs:
11X champion's strength (str to 18/00)
Violet Potion (must come after champion's strength buff to set str to 25, con down to 3, dex penalty offset by mind focusing potions)
Potion of Fortitude (con to 18)
Blur + improved invis + Stoneskin sequencer
blue fire shield
My main hand thac0 was -30, and off hand was around -25. Didn't need that much, but it was very hard to do the timing, so I could only keep buffing champion's strength while time was passing and hoped the lift would reach bel faster.
Let caelar joined, she took the remove magic and then died 2 seconds later. Then I started smashing Bel. Switched the helm to Kiel's helmet and drank from goblet when I needed healing and back to balduran after.
Bel killed me about 7 times..., the buffs never lasted that long (I think the cutscene wasted a few rounds, which is huge). Got him to badly injured mostly. Then the last time I got lucky on critical hits and finally got him, but even that time all the champion's str buffs were gone and I had to relied on crits. The feeling was just like playing a 1 hp mage, hoping for lucky crits... except now my character could die.
Should have put a point in single weapon style instead of a sling so I could use martyr's morning star alone after champion's str wore off, would have been much better. Even a little bit would help when everything was so damn tight.
screen shoot
Then something bad happened. A demon refused to disappear and tried to kill me while all my buffs were gone. I panic for awhile, didn't want to die there just because of a stupid bug
Hell yeah finally can play BG2EE. Which will be a blind LOB SCS ascension playthrough.
Actually I found a way to dodge the remove spell without Caelar. Wait for Bel starts casting, then immediately run out of sight and Bel will lose his spell. Not very reliable though as the time window is very tight.
The general tactics is to just use brute force... when facing powerful mages, send skeleton to them one by one, wasting their spells and then use powerful summons to kill them.
But a few battles did give me headache.
Shade lord. Waste spells tactics failed, as it seemed he could cast spell infinitely. This guy used blade of disaster which killed deva in one hit. And cast quite a numbers of death spells too. But in the end my overwhelming force of summons + enchanted weapon got him. Just had to make sure not to let him attack deva and keep summoning skeles to tank him.
Staff of the magi battle. Made the lich appear but did not talk to him. Then cast 4 death fog and 3 Incendiary Cloud out of sight and he was killed. Then the reinforcements came and deva went to tank the beholder. The fog and cloud still lasted long enough to get them all. I hid in Otiluke's Sphere while waiting for them to die and their summons to disappear. Only the mage left and another deva got her.
Sewer mind flayer den. Deva + summons and I ran around like crazy, the mind flayers couldn't always keep up and got separated. Then deva killed the lone flayer. But this battle was a mess.
Kangaxx. The normal liches are no match for deva, as she is using the mace of disruption + 2. Kangaxx himself I tried so many things on him but couldn't beat him. I didn't have proper gear at the time though but I stilled wanted to beat him before spellhold, so I checked the post here and saw XDarkStrikerX used WoW on him then I did the same. Kangaxx was cheating though as even I had PfU on me he still knew I was there and he cast remove spell on me. Had to escaped his spell by running upstairs.
The 2 Dragons. WoW petrification got them.
First time i managed to kill it by my own means (took a ridiculous amount of tries before i came up with this) i had to buy a Conjure Fire Elemental scroll and used them to finish him. It was pretty tricky as i needed to be able to summon the HD16 or ideally 24 to get a good enough THAC0 with them to beat his regen. Needless to say, the WoW+Efreeti bottle strategy is way less trouble.
I guess that it also depends if you have the spellcasting demilich enable from SCS. First time that i did it, even using PFU on myself Kangaxx wouldn't care at all as i was too close, would summon planetars, comets and a bunch of other summons, HLAs/L9 spells which turned the area into complete chaos. It would also be infinite and scripted so i couldn't just waste his spells. He would also cast through protection from magic. It really was... a total nightmare. Nothing compared to Demogorgon though who made me question if it was at all possible for my Fighter/Illusionist without the Rift Device cheese (not sure if it still work in 2.6)
I would definitely give it a shot once you get there. Might not be so bad if you didn't nerf your Harm spell with the SCS revision however, which i am personally not a fan of as i just want it to be a tactical challenge (same for the added scrolls). Would still require some surgically precise spellcasting, would be far from a cakewalk or maybe... some super buffed Ravager form.
https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Efreeti_Bottle
Here Rose the C/M's struggle continues. Now she is in hell... I mean in nine hell
Underdark Balrog (can't remember the name, the demon that the gnomes dug out). Planetar/deva alone couldn't kill him. So I tried Improved Alacrity + 4 x lower resistance + GM + finger of death + chromatic orb and that didn't kill him. But he died anyway while planetar was swinging her sword, probably vorpal effect killed him when his ST was lowered. Don't know what exactly happened as the log didn't show the reason.
Bodhi. I had Drizzt on my side, and Bodhi ate him, I couldn't even find his bones
Dragon in the elf city. Time stop + level drain then exited to elf city map. Tried to rest but got ambushed so immediately got back to the dragon map and rest there then time stop and level drain again. Rinse and repeat until dragon was level 1 then planetar prepared dragon meat dinner for me
Irenicus the tree sucker fight. Hid in a corner, waited a while, Deva easily stunned and killed his dark planetar and then later, Irenicus himself. Even easier than Bodhi fight. Wouldn't be this easy if I could only summon planetars.
Irenicus the slayer awaits me in nine hell, wish me luck.
Balor. Of course, the balor design is based on Tolkien's balrog, but there's a standard name here in D&D.
Level drain kills (being drained all the way to zero, instead of running out of hit points) destroy equipment. And Drizzt isn't immune to level drain. The thief and paladin you can bring to that fight as allies aren't immune either.
While the deva weapon uses that description, it doesn't match the stats. Here are the actual stats for the deva weapon:
Immune to level drain. Uses long sword graphics.
3d6+3 crushing damage, +3 to hit, enchantment level +3. Adds strength bonuses. "Large Sword" proficiency applies, and the deva has grand mastery.
On hit, 100% chance to stun for one round on a failed spell save. 26% chance to dispel at the wielder's level and destroy undead and illusionary creatures with no save.
And for good measure, the planetar weapon:
Permanent haste. Uses long sword graphics.
2d10+3 slashing damage, +3 to hit, enchantment level +3. Adds strength bonuses. "Large Sword" proficiency applies, and the planetar has grand mastery.
On hit, 26% chance to dispel at the wielder's level, destroy illusionary creatures with no save, and kill the target on a failed death save at -2.
Note also that the deva has 2 base APR and the planetar has 3. Left to their own devices, the planetar will attack twice as often. In a one-on-one battle without support, the planetar casts Improved Invisibility and negates that stun chance with unbeatable saves, while the deva doesn't have True Seeing to counter it - only Dispel Magic (which must be cast manually, as the AI won't use it) and the dispel chance on the weapon.
At least devas are much better than planetars at dispelling. Both get the divine version of Dispel Magic, but devas have the "cleric" class and planetars have the "mage" class. So a deva's spell dispels at their level (25 at normal difficulties) and a planetar's spell dispels at level 1.
After reading your post I used ctrl+Q on the dark planetar and found that her ST was bugged as 20, 20, 20, 20, 20. That's why my deva could stun her, this is probably a SCS bug.
Edit: I checked a few more npcs to see their ST. Hell Savarok were 20 0 20 -2 1, it was only partially bugged. While some npcs were not bugged at all.
Planetars and devas have base saves of 3/5/4/4/6, the level 17+ fighter array. Or, at least, they do in vanilla. My modded 2.5 install (including SCS) improves that to 2/5/4/4/6 for devas and 3/3/4/4/4 for planetars; fighter/cleric and fighter/mage arrays.
So, a planetar with Improved Invisibility active should be immune to deva stun even without LoB.
Also, that bug? Definitely not SCS. Here's a shot from my (mostly) unmodded 2.6 installation, summoning a planetar and using Ctrl-Q.
Once the LoB buff wears off, the saves revert to the 3/5/4/4/6 array.
and yeah, it's must be randomly affecting the ST.
But I got different ctrl+Q results. ctrl+Q my own planetar gave me the correct ST, ctrl+Q enemy's dark planetar gave me all 20. But even the 20s couldn't be the real ST for a dark planetar in my game, as my planetar never landed a vorpal killed on a dark planetar, while my deva easily stuned them. So yeah... it's random.
Beat Irenicus in nine hell. Wasn't hard at all. Used 2 skeletons to lure the 4 demons to the east, fought Irenicus in the west. Planetar and spell spam got him. Took awhile though, as he has lot of hp.
Illasera. She could see me invis while others couldn't, so I invis and went south of the map then I fought her alone.
Pocket plane challenge one. Kited Bodhi around, planetar killed saravok and Irenicus. Spell spam on Bodhi. Lucky enough that the dark planetar stayed north part of the room and I didn't need to fight her.
Gromnir. Planetar/deva killed all his minions, went downstairs, pocket plane rest and come back to kill Gromnir.
Yaga-Shura. I went invis and avoided as many battles as I could in Yaga-Shura's Lair, just picked up the hearts and left. Then went to his mother, Incendiary Cloud and deva killed the undead. His mother summoned lots of help but they couldn't see through invis while she alone could, so I lured her away and killed her. Tried so many times killing Yaga-Shura, his immunity to fire damage which forced me to abandoned my spell spam tactic. Tried pierce shield + GM + flesh to stone + finger of death + disintegrate nothing worked. Suddenly I recalled I had harm spell. Used time stop and harm... well... 42 damage and 102 resisted. Then I remembered XDarkStrikerX said SCS nerfed it so I reinstalled and turned off this particular modification. Time stop and harm again, bang! and Yaga was dead.
Draconis. He always gave me nightmare on insane difficulty. On LOB+SCS he is like a demi-god. And it didn't help that I only had two level 9 mage spell slots. Luckily I could abuse the exit map trick (pocket plane didn't always work). Tried a couple of times and finally found a way. Project image summoned deva for tanking then time stop + Improved Alacrity + 4 x pierce shield spam to make him vulnerable to harm spell. Then I cast time stop + harm and beat his human form. Exit map rest and repeat for his dragon form.
Abazigal's Lair. okay this was nuts... Rooms of beholders and lizardmen shaman that could cast high level mage and cleric spells and saw through invis and no space to hide. Planetar tanking, Contingency and Incendiary Cloud + all kind of sequencers for whatever damaging spells available got most of them. Totally a mess. Imprisoned the two lizard shamans. Killed the dragon just like the way I did Draconis.
4 SCS dragons. Okay great harm spell and exit map abuse worked like a charm. The last 2 dragons claimed they were the greater ones of their species and the former 2 were just "lizards". But since harm spell worked on them all the same, I will never know what's the different between a "lizard" and a greater dragon
Abazigal. Okay tried many many times with different tactics. This thing was way too smart. One failed attempt was to spam skull traps then pierce shield and lured him into the traps as his dragon form always chased me till the end of the world. But after getting hit by pierce shield, suddenly he didn't want to chase me at all. He just stood still and waited for me to come to him...
Another failed attempt is of course the harm spell. But since time stop couldn't affect him and so I had trouble to touch his little belly
I also found that the game will stop running when you kill his human form and try to trigger conversion with his dragon form. You can't even close the game by alt+F4. Must use ctrl+alt+del.
Glad that I finally figured out how to beat this. Planetar + farsight killed all his minions. Then I rushed in trigged the conversation and time stop + harm tactic killed the other dragon (or did I? I didn't see her death message, anyway she disappeared). Human form Abazigal couldn't see through invis and wouldn't chase so I could hide and rest. Then spam pierce shield + GM + feeblemind and finally I could touch his belly... not, his AC was still insanely low. Okay no problem project image damage spell spam put him to near death and dispelled the feeblemind and let him scream the scripted death speech and I had his belly
screen shots first:
I checked demo stats with crtl+Q. He has -16 AC, 90 magic resist, stone skin, aura of flaming death, protection from magical weapons, spell turning (or absorbing? something like that, can't remember). So okay I thought harm + pierce shield would kill him easily. How terribly wrong I was. The problem was that after I hit him with 3 or even 4 pierce shield, his PfMW wouldn't go away. Then I tried Khelben's Warding Whip, yeah it removed the PfMW, but I had to wait for a few rounds for it to do its work. And if I waited for a little bit longer, then demo somehow increased his magic resist back to 90 while the lower resist spell on him was still in effect (damn you demo, cheating bastard...). So you see, I had to hit demo with harm spell at the right moment while I had no way to know when, and the time window was small.
Anyway here is what I did:
Chain Contingency to store 3 pierce shield (can't store whip, the log said it failed when contingency triggered, but turned out useless as it hit another demon). Spell Trigger to store improved haste, harm, tensor's transform (or may be I picked champion's strength? I can't remember well about this one as it wasn't necessary anyway). Then rest.
Summoned planetar for tanking. Then simulacrum to cast champion's strength on me. Then Project Imagex2 to cast CS on me again, used planetar to dispel the PI. Now I had something around -18 thac0. Then the real me triggered the fight and immediately ran away escaping Demo's sight. As long as I was out of sight Demo wouldn't use time stop.
Summoned the third PI, then PI cast Improved Alacrity, far sight and spammed whip + 3 pierce shield. Then planetar dispelled PI. The real me cast Improved Alacrity, Righteous Magic (can't remember if I actually cast this one...), champion's strength, and used the spell trigger to get IH, harm and tensor's transform. My thac0 was now at least -23 or better, didn't really check as everything happened so fast. Then I charged in, hoping demo wouldn't cast time stop and went to touch demo's belly and hell yeah the first screen shot. Then I magic missile Demo and Jerrod's mace +2 (+6 against demon) main hand and Crom Faeyr+5 off hand and hacked him. And I don't know what kill Demo but hell yeah he was dead as shown in the second screen shot. The magic missile probably didn't get through as there is a spell ineffective message. But the log didn't say I hit him with my mace either.. well... how he died is now a mystery, I believe I killed him with my mace as my thac0 was very very good.
Demo: "NO! NOOO! "THIS CANNOT BE!" the exact same thought I had, yeah how did I beat you, my prince? But hell yeah woo hoo I killed him! That scream was never that satisfying.
Please tell me I am the first guy to beat demo on 2.6 without the rift device cheese.
One crazy idea that might actually work against Demogorgon: dueling fireshields. While they're naturally fire immune, that's exactly the priest spell Aura of Flaming Death they have, which sets resistance to 90% instead of incrementing it. Make yourself fire immune, give yourself any form of fireshield, get in close, and bounce the damage back and forth for at least one point every tick (cold is more effective than fire, but both work and more fireshields is better). That Spell Turning will reflect the first few shots, but you'll eat through it in no time. And you can start the cycle with absolutely any attack or by being attacked in any way. Magic resistance is irrelevant.
Back in 2.6, this wouldn't have worked - but the spells were changed, and the possibility of repeatedly reflecting the damage was one side effect.
Demogorgon is immune to level 1 and 2 spells. That's why the magic missile didn't work.
As for the death, Demogorgon is immortal and always dies by script. Once their hit points drop below 30, you get the "THIS CANNOT BE!" cutscene and they die. A small delay is possible.
ah that explains how I killed him, so harm was enough, I don't even have to worry about the stoneskin too. And next time I know I will need breach spell too.
Rose's path to godhood:
Sendai. The only difficult battle here was the mind flayer room. chain contingency + Incendiary Cloud + planetar + hid in Otiluke's Resilient Sphere killed the monsters other than mind flayers. Then transformed into mind flayer myself and used time stop to eat the mind flayers. Luckily I could once again exploit the exit room and rest trick here. Sendai herself was no threat at all. Mind flayer + enchanted weapon + time stop + pocket plane in a corner killed sendai's statues quickly. Planetar/deva killed her mage and thief duplicates.
Balthazar joined me to fight Amelyssan. Glad that I didn't have to fight him as I found out later he was freaking powerful
Then pocket plane challenges. Planetar alone got them all except for the ravager. As a C/M harm spell killed ravager in a second. Basically the same way I killed demogorgon.
Throne of bhaal. Couldn't figure how to beat this insanity myself, so I followed what XDarkStrikerX and histamiini did. 4 time stop scrolls and mind flayer form ate Bodhi Saravok and at last Irenicus. Balthazar killed the 2 solars during time stop. Then I healed Balthazar back to full. Went for the middle pool, 1 time stop and mind flayer form ate the balor like demons. Then Balthazar alone killed all the others. Now that I had demon control the other 2 pools were easy. In the end I let Balthazar die and killed all my pet demons because I didn't need them in the final confrontation.
Then not much to say, as I did what histamiini did in his video.
https://youtu.be/--QVk9pdgAM
Although I don't know how to escape Amelyssan's time stop like histamiini did in the vid, instead I just cast absolute immunity right before her time stop. Together with stoneskin I survived okay. In short, pre cast skull traps got them all, and harm spell got Yaga-Shura and Amelyssan.