There's some food for thought! I'm yet to re-do Belhifet + Caelar with my Barbarian and upload a video. Hopefully I can manage a second time! But this thing is complete nuts even with stacking and it might take a day or two to get the results. At least one useful thing I can demonstrate is how to dodge the initial Dispel Magic with any class when entering the area.
Some observations from the successful Belhifet + Caelar fight:
1. Crommus's Capelet, broadly speaking, is the best cloak.
- Sustained +3 AC from blur beats the alternatives. With an abundance of enemies hitting you, the blur spell is up constantly. There's a case for Cloak of the Gargoyle for any class that can't wield a helmet, but that's it.
2. Good-aligned > Evil-aligned due to Ring of Purity which I could not wield due to BG2 gear choices in mind at the character-creation screen. With SoD as the bottle-neck of the quartet, BG2 preferences should come second.
3. The Protector of the Unworthy is the best belt for every melee user.
- The 4 AC bonus against slashing damage type directly impacts how often most demons and Belhifet can hit you. Damage output comes second to survival.
4. Medal of Valor is better than Lon's Amulet.
- Due to LoB's ridiculous +11 AC bonus, +2 Thac0 bests +1 Thac0 and +1 Damage received from Bless.
5. Although Belhifet wields scimitars, he has an attack range of 2, meaning that he can't be hit (without getting hit back) with a 2-handed weapon from behind other enemies. But! He can be shot with a ranged weapon without getting hit back, and there's only minor damage that must be sustained from 3-4 demons that can hit you with some positioning luck. This is a major strategic victory for Archer and every other ranged attacker.
All in all, a shortbow/longbow Archer with Demonic/Fell as the racial enemy seems most fail-proof and incredibly powerful for 1st-time triers -- but consider that you must spare all 100 of +3 arrows found in game (80 Void, 20 regular from a chest that was either open or knock'able with the help of a strength boost). Caelar can be damaged with most other arrows, but bonus effects from Arrows of Biting won't apply. I'll try an archer too... after I finish the remaining parts of the saga with my Barbie.
Suggest to avoid: Monk, and pure variants of Cleric, Sorc, and Mage... unless you know exactly why any of these choices is going to work. Good luck, Bhaalspawns!
---
Edit: Belhifet is not the most difficult obstacle in the Saga, it's the BG2:EE importer.
Send any gear/strategy questions my way, if you're mad enough to play!
I'd recommend this challenge with the option "Max HP on Level UP" enabled --from start to finish. Otherwise, you're going to run into health inconsistency problems when importing to BG2:EE. Maybe a minor issue to some, but to me it feels like I'm not playing the same character any longer if the hit points are different.
I had to import into BG2:EE about 200 times! 200!.. to finally get the exact HP I had the moment I finished BG:EE SoD campaign. Playing with "Max HP on Level UP" at a face value makes the game easier, but in practice, it's not the case as anyone can reload for a better result.
It's a shame that a 20+ year old game still suffers from such basic bugs.
The not getting your HP rolls transfered correctly is a bug as I see it - AFIK its being dealt with. Either way, you should keeper it to get you rightfull HP pool
The not getting your HP rolls transfered correctly is a bug as I see it - AFIK its being dealt with. Either way, you should keeper it to get you rightfull HP pool
Let's hope that this will be fixed! I'm already fully victimized by this importing casino.
Just wanted to pop in and thank everyone on this thread! It's been an incredible read and it inspired me to try my first solo LoB run (not SCS, not no-reload... I'm not there yet lmao) and I had a great time. Totemic Druid - hardest part was, unsurprisingly, ducal palace and Sarevok. It's inspiring to see what people have done with these games and playing in this way, so different from my typical party approach with core rules, was shockingly fun, even with LoB's quirks. Thanks everyone!
I've done the usual route of:
Algernon's
Free XP + Reputation to 20
Basilisks
Mulahey
Bandits
Forgot to bother with Ring of Free Action early and now it feels too late. Going to blitz the mine to open up Baldur's Gate, might actually have to pick up WoMS, but I'm so used to playing no wand characters that I forget that F/M has a lot more of the good tools.
Going to go with @XDarkStrikerX 's Basilisk method for Duke's since I haven't tried it yet.
Also its cute that I am now called "1765". Its Alice_ashpool here.
Hi all, I'm probably a bit late to the party but let's see who still lurks around this thread
I'm a BG2 Veteran who finished it many many times over the past 20 years and recently bought EE. I finished LoB with a premade party of 6 and yesterday i finished my solo LoB run with a Cleric/Mage. I found this thread by chance and found it really interesting, since LoB solo was kind of a letdown - some ToB bosses were hard (the usual ones - Draconis, Abazigal, Amelyssan, Demogorgon), most of them probably only because I didn't cast harm a single time during my playthrough but found my own strats (which were sometimes just as cheesy, sometimes less ^^).
The thing is, I have never played BG1 a single time in my entire life plus I never tried SCS / any mods on BG2. I'll probably buy BG1 anyway and just do a casual playthrough first, cause I really enjoy the game at the moment. I'd still have a few questions if any veteran is still around to answer them:
1. How hard is it to "learn" the BG1 parts - I might start a casual playthrough today and then hop right into solo LoB. Are there a lot of good items/secret locations etc. to memorize
2. How big of a jump is SCS compared to LoB - can i just go go SCS / LoB straight away or should I go LoB first
3. From what I've read in @zaknas posts, BG2 becomes really trivial because by the time you reach it, you are pretty much overleveled and all the quests are mostly "breeze-through" mode - is that true for all classes?
4. Is it possible to do this whole thing with a pre-created char for BG2 + ToB only? Looking at curses of Selune and Malar together makes me doubt, my cleric/mage would get far on the first floor of the starting Dungeon, perhaps with Skulls Traps + I'd hate having to pick Selune just so I can rest on that floor when it won't affect me for the rest of SoA. It would probably make a good challenge on it's own because Deva usually becomes available near the end of chapter 2 quests and not right away and ToB is pretty much the same either way. Would love to hear opinions from any veteran on that one though
Thanks in advance if anybody is still around and takes some time to answer me - otherwise I'll just revive this thread if I ever happen to actually do the challenge
Thanks in advance if anybody is still around and takes some time to answer me - otherwise I'll just revive this thread if I ever happen to actually do the challenge
@Skunz I happened to notice this post and thought I should respond.
1. BGEE is quite a big game in its own right - you wouldn't be able to learn everything from a quick playthrough, though you could of course use a walkthrough to help. There are probably fewer encounters than in BG2EE, but it's a more open world with much more exploration to the game.
2. SCS makes a pretty significant difference to the way you would play the game. Without it, you could for instance edge up to groups of monsters and deal with them one at a time - that's not an option with call for help active. I would suggest that, if what you're really interested in is this challenge, you go straight to SCS/LoB rather than playing a lot of the unmodded game first.
3. I wouldn't say that BG2EE would be trivial for most classes. I only play no-reload, so making progress is always a challenge for me - and I've never completed this challenge. However, even with reloads you may find difficulties - for instance the dragons you refer to above are quite a bit harder unless you use very specific strategies against them. In LoB, summons are considerably more powerful in general than the basic game, so it is possible for classes with lots of summons to rely heavily on those (though as you've noted, the rules of this challenge make that more difficult to do).
4. If you're asking can the challenge be done just for BG2, then of course you can play whatever you like. However, this challenge was intended to start from scratch in BGEE and the types of difficulties you face will change significantly as you progress through the games (which potentially include Siege of Dragonspear).#
@Skunz I happened to notice this post and thought I should respond.
Thanks a lot for the quick response - happy to see the forum is still active. I'm just about to start a game and figured I should probably be using a walkthrough if I cared about learning the game with all it's secrets and content properly, thanks for the hint though. I will probably even try to run solo on hard so I get a feeling for it ^^
I'm well aware SCS removes some of the very blatant cheesy stuff, but to be fair I didn't require anything like that on my solo LoB run in BG2. And in fact it did get pretty trivial once I had my deva/planetar going near the end of chapter 2. Kangaxx and Firkraag were a big letdown, Kangaxx died to the mace on 2nd hit and Firkraag did the same to my planetar. So I'm excited to see harder fights anyway, even if I have to do harm strats.
What I'm worried about in this challenge is the fact that all my BG2 knowledge is good for nothing, from what I've read in the story of zaknas it's mostly about learning/executing everything properly for BG1 and SoD, by the time you reach BG2 you're probably more than strong enough to breeze through chapter 1+2 and reach XP cap pretty fast, then it's just a matter of executing the strats.
I might be wrong though, since XP caps are a thing after all - not sure how much higher/better you would be starting in BG2
If I enjoy BG1 I'm pretty sure I'll give this challenge a shot just cause it's hilariously difficult and my solo LoB run was way too easy
@Skunz I happened to notice this post and thought I should respond.
Apparently I deleted my post rather than editing it - thanks for the quick response and your opinions, I'm glad to see the forum is still active
I decided to give BG1 solo on hard a chance for learning, so I can get into the mechanics and timings and yes I'm using a detailed walkthrough just to get some background info and secrets - thanks for mentioning it.
I'm well aware that SCS is it's own thing but to be fair, my solo LoB run in BG2 was pretty much a letdown, especially when some bosses in SoA just got oneshot by deva/planetar/Undead killing mace (looking at you, Chapter 2 Dragons and Kangaxx). Eager to see how it goes when it scales up, will probably be doing a lot more harm strats
If I like BG1 enough I will definitely give this a shot because it sounds hilariously difficult. Might have some questions about the curses coming up then.
@Skunz a lot of people still follow this thread, although @Grond0 is the most active
You could also check-out the "Maybe this time" thread, if you have not been there already. There are 10,000+ no reload attempts documented and almost 1m views. It is quite active right now with some of the long-term pre-EE veterans returning recently. It is not LOB but may give you some new LOB strategies for BG1. I personally play minimal reload and rarely make it to BG2. It is a full adventure by itself!
This thread was/is followed by many.
Most of us just read about the progress, since the challenge requires both skill concentration and patience in abundance….
But reading about the exploits has been a treat and we have learned a great deal about the game - not just about SCS and LoB, but about the core game as well. I use the same strategies in SoD for my core game as Histamiini used in LoB mode…
When the challenge was first posted, many of us thought it would never be completed, but it was. And the many following playthroughs really showed the potential of charname. So new posts are always welcome and your playthrough will surest have its audience. And if you ever need a hint or some help its always nearby.
Hey guys,
I'm doing a Cleric of Lathander dualed into Mage atm and I have this weird bug (?) with Emphatic manifestation in Unseeing Eye quest, where healing does not seem to work.
In fact when I cast the actual cleric level 6 heal spell it immediately gets damaged by 47 fire damage (the same happens on every rest)
Lower level heal spells do not seem to do anything at all.
edit: nvm somehow it was related to invisibility at least for the heal spell (i did try regular heal spells while not invis, but those still had no effect but using prot from normal weapons + level 6 heal finally did the trick)
Comments
BG1:EE SoD / Belhifet and Caelar / Solo Barb - LoB Difficulty
1. Crommus's Capelet, broadly speaking, is the best cloak.
- Sustained +3 AC from blur beats the alternatives. With an abundance of enemies hitting you, the blur spell is up constantly. There's a case for Cloak of the Gargoyle for any class that can't wield a helmet, but that's it.
2. Good-aligned > Evil-aligned due to Ring of Purity which I could not wield due to BG2 gear choices in mind at the character-creation screen. With SoD as the bottle-neck of the quartet, BG2 preferences should come second.
3. The Protector of the Unworthy is the best belt for every melee user.
- The 4 AC bonus against slashing damage type directly impacts how often most demons and Belhifet can hit you. Damage output comes second to survival.
4. Medal of Valor is better than Lon's Amulet.
- Due to LoB's ridiculous +11 AC bonus, +2 Thac0 bests +1 Thac0 and +1 Damage received from Bless.
5. Although Belhifet wields scimitars, he has an attack range of 2, meaning that he can't be hit (without getting hit back) with a 2-handed weapon from behind other enemies. But! He can be shot with a ranged weapon without getting hit back, and there's only minor damage that must be sustained from 3-4 demons that can hit you with some positioning luck. This is a major strategic victory for Archer and every other ranged attacker.
All in all, a shortbow/longbow Archer with Demonic/Fell as the racial enemy seems most fail-proof and incredibly powerful for 1st-time triers -- but consider that you must spare all 100 of +3 arrows found in game (80 Void, 20 regular from a chest that was either open or knock'able with the help of a strength boost). Caelar can be damaged with most other arrows, but bonus effects from Arrows of Biting won't apply. I'll try an archer too... after I finish the remaining parts of the saga with my Barbie.
Suggest to avoid: Monk, and pure variants of Cleric, Sorc, and Mage... unless you know exactly why any of these choices is going to work. Good luck, Bhaalspawns!
---
Edit: Belhifet is not the most difficult obstacle in the Saga, it's the BG2:EE importer.
I fully agree. Hopefully there will be more..
Send any gear/strategy questions my way, if you're mad enough to play!
I'd recommend this challenge with the option "Max HP on Level UP" enabled --from start to finish. Otherwise, you're going to run into health inconsistency problems when importing to BG2:EE. Maybe a minor issue to some, but to me it feels like I'm not playing the same character any longer if the hit points are different.
I had to import into BG2:EE about 200 times! 200!.. to finally get the exact HP I had the moment I finished BG:EE SoD campaign. Playing with "Max HP on Level UP" at a face value makes the game easier, but in practice, it's not the case as anyone can reload for a better result.
It's a shame that a 20+ year old game still suffers from such basic bugs.
The not getting your HP rolls transfered correctly is a bug as I see it - AFIK its being dealt with. Either way, you should keeper it to get you rightfull HP pool
Upping the challenge with these bans:
- Watcher's Keep before ToB
- Vhailor's Helm
- Shield of Balduran
- Cloak of Mirroring
Let's hope that this will be fixed! I'm already fully victimized by this importing casino.
Steam and Gibberlings forums seem a little more active.
I'm not participating myself but I'd like to read
Chapter 5, Underdark with Evil Barbarian: Got hands on the Soul Reaver!
I'll use it to slice up Adalon and make some draconic Sushi. There's still quest work to do, however.
Anyone coming in with a self-policed ban on Cloak of Mirroring and Balduran's shield is in for some fun. You'll be pushed to your limits.
Underdark's Mind Flayer tunnel is feared but in practice it's a cakewalk: Those brain suckers can very easily be lured out of the pack, one by one.
Pretty impressive with a Barbarian !
Feels like every class/kit could make it somehow.
Really good work, keep it up !
God-tier autoroller. Flails and Longbows.
I've done the usual route of:
Algernon's
Free XP + Reputation to 20
Basilisks
Mulahey
Bandits
Forgot to bother with Ring of Free Action early and now it feels too late. Going to blitz the mine to open up Baldur's Gate, might actually have to pick up WoMS, but I'm so used to playing no wand characters that I forget that F/M has a lot more of the good tools.
Going to go with @XDarkStrikerX 's Basilisk method for Duke's since I haven't tried it yet.
Also its cute that I am now called "1765". Its Alice_ashpool here.
I'm a BG2 Veteran who finished it many many times over the past 20 years and recently bought EE. I finished LoB with a premade party of 6 and yesterday i finished my solo LoB run with a Cleric/Mage. I found this thread by chance and found it really interesting, since LoB solo was kind of a letdown - some ToB bosses were hard (the usual ones - Draconis, Abazigal, Amelyssan, Demogorgon), most of them probably only because I didn't cast harm a single time during my playthrough but found my own strats (which were sometimes just as cheesy, sometimes less ^^).
The thing is, I have never played BG1 a single time in my entire life plus I never tried SCS / any mods on BG2. I'll probably buy BG1 anyway and just do a casual playthrough first, cause I really enjoy the game at the moment. I'd still have a few questions if any veteran is still around to answer them:
1. How hard is it to "learn" the BG1 parts - I might start a casual playthrough today and then hop right into solo LoB. Are there a lot of good items/secret locations etc. to memorize
2. How big of a jump is SCS compared to LoB - can i just go go SCS / LoB straight away or should I go LoB first
3. From what I've read in @zaknas posts, BG2 becomes really trivial because by the time you reach it, you are pretty much overleveled and all the quests are mostly "breeze-through" mode - is that true for all classes?
4. Is it possible to do this whole thing with a pre-created char for BG2 + ToB only? Looking at curses of Selune and Malar together makes me doubt, my cleric/mage would get far on the first floor of the starting Dungeon, perhaps with Skulls Traps + I'd hate having to pick Selune just so I can rest on that floor when it won't affect me for the rest of SoA. It would probably make a good challenge on it's own because Deva usually becomes available near the end of chapter 2 quests and not right away and ToB is pretty much the same either way. Would love to hear opinions from any veteran on that one though
Thanks in advance if anybody is still around and takes some time to answer me - otherwise I'll just revive this thread if I ever happen to actually do the challenge
@Skunz I happened to notice this post and thought I should respond.
1. BGEE is quite a big game in its own right - you wouldn't be able to learn everything from a quick playthrough, though you could of course use a walkthrough to help. There are probably fewer encounters than in BG2EE, but it's a more open world with much more exploration to the game.
2. SCS makes a pretty significant difference to the way you would play the game. Without it, you could for instance edge up to groups of monsters and deal with them one at a time - that's not an option with call for help active. I would suggest that, if what you're really interested in is this challenge, you go straight to SCS/LoB rather than playing a lot of the unmodded game first.
3. I wouldn't say that BG2EE would be trivial for most classes. I only play no-reload, so making progress is always a challenge for me
4. If you're asking can the challenge be done just for BG2, then of course you can play whatever you like. However, this challenge was intended to start from scratch in BGEE and the types of difficulties you face will change significantly as you progress through the games (which potentially include Siege of Dragonspear).#
Best of luck if you do take up the challenge
Thanks a lot for the quick response - happy to see the forum is still active. I'm just about to start a game and figured I should probably be using a walkthrough if I cared about learning the game with all it's secrets and content properly, thanks for the hint though. I will probably even try to run solo on hard so I get a feeling for it ^^
I'm well aware SCS removes some of the very blatant cheesy stuff, but to be fair I didn't require anything like that on my solo LoB run in BG2. And in fact it did get pretty trivial once I had my deva/planetar going near the end of chapter 2. Kangaxx and Firkraag were a big letdown, Kangaxx died to the mace on 2nd hit and Firkraag did the same to my planetar. So I'm excited to see harder fights anyway, even if I have to do harm strats.
What I'm worried about in this challenge is the fact that all my BG2 knowledge is good for nothing, from what I've read in the story of zaknas it's mostly about learning/executing everything properly for BG1 and SoD, by the time you reach BG2 you're probably more than strong enough to breeze through chapter 1+2 and reach XP cap pretty fast, then it's just a matter of executing the strats.
I might be wrong though, since XP caps are a thing after all - not sure how much higher/better you would be starting in BG2
If I enjoy BG1 I'm pretty sure I'll give this challenge a shot just cause it's hilariously difficult and my solo LoB run was way too easy
Apparently I deleted my post rather than editing it - thanks for the quick response and your opinions, I'm glad to see the forum is still active
I decided to give BG1 solo on hard a chance for learning, so I can get into the mechanics and timings and yes I'm using a detailed walkthrough just to get some background info and secrets - thanks for mentioning it.
I'm well aware that SCS is it's own thing but to be fair, my solo LoB run in BG2 was pretty much a letdown, especially when some bosses in SoA just got oneshot by deva/planetar/Undead killing mace (looking at you, Chapter 2 Dragons and Kangaxx). Eager to see how it goes when it scales up, will probably be doing a lot more harm strats
If I like BG1 enough I will definitely give this a shot because it sounds hilariously difficult. Might have some questions about the curses coming up then.
You could also check-out the "Maybe this time" thread, if you have not been there already. There are 10,000+ no reload attempts documented and almost 1m views. It is quite active right now with some of the long-term pre-EE veterans returning recently. It is not LOB but may give you some new LOB strategies for BG1. I personally play minimal reload and rarely make it to BG2. It is a full adventure by itself!
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/40393/maybe-this-time-no-reload-thread-the-tale-of-ten-thousand-trials#latest
Most of us just read about the progress, since the challenge requires both skill concentration and patience in abundance….
But reading about the exploits has been a treat and we have learned a great deal about the game - not just about SCS and LoB, but about the core game as well. I use the same strategies in SoD for my core game as Histamiini used in LoB mode…
When the challenge was first posted, many of us thought it would never be completed, but it was. And the many following playthroughs really showed the potential of charname. So new posts are always welcome and your playthrough will surest have its audience. And if you ever need a hint or some help its always nearby.
I'm doing a Cleric of Lathander dualed into Mage atm and I have this weird bug (?) with Emphatic manifestation in Unseeing Eye quest, where healing does not seem to work.
In fact when I cast the actual cleric level 6 heal spell it immediately gets damaged by 47 fire damage (the same happens on every rest)
Lower level heal spells do not seem to do anything at all.
edit: nvm somehow it was related to invisibility at least for the heal spell (i did try regular heal spells while not invis, but those still had no effect but using prot from normal weapons + level 6 heal finally did the trick)