The World of Harmcraft has started. And so far i must say: It works great!
Morentherene, the Green Dragon -> Harmed and Killed on second try Ziatar, the Half Dragon -> Harmed and Killed on first try The Neothelid -> Harmed and Killed on second try
Hitting was never a problem and even the magic resistance was not enough - maybe i was just lucky. Lets see if this also works with this DAMN Shadow Aspect - later on! If it keeps going like this Krell will be in SoA in no time. We will see!
I'm sure it is, though it's the difference between what is possible and what's achieved that tends to give me a problem .
Oh yeah !! If I feel that it's possible to no-reload the thing, that doesn't mean that there's not LOOOOTS of way someone can die, even without counting Ducal Palace. That's just so much tougher than regular game with SCS... Add in your own restrictions on playing style (aka not using potions) and you got yourself a mountain of a challenge...
Your first time SoD @Arctodus? Okay - this is going to be interesting. Are you going in it completly blind or read some of the strategies before? Without any prepration - at least for myself - SoD was a really tough nut to crack - especially the final part!!! Anyway: Good luck!
Yep, going in completely blind !! We'll see how it goes...
P.P.S. I have to agree that the LoB + SCS is easier than i expected at the very beginning of this challenge. And with every new run it gets even easier. New mods or restrictions will be required in the future - for a new challenge. And no - it wont be a no-reload one!
One big restriction that would be a game changer would be not using the Durlag's Goblet. Managing health would become much tougher that way. You can also go @Grond0 style and refrain from using health potions at all... Now, that's something else...
I did a couple of minor quests/item grabbing and then went to Band(it) Camp. I choose not to fight at all, but rather use Sanctuary to enter the tent and loot the chest unseen.
I already restrict myself with regard to healing potions cause once you get used to the LoB + SCS style you can avoid damage often times - at least in BG1 it works pretty good.
Going in SoD completly blind @Arctodus will be a challenge! I hope you have spared some good stuff otherwise the first dungeon will be very, very painful.
Then keep rolling @Victor_Creed_SFV - there is a lot of fun waiting. Still have to face the Shadow Aspect - maybe this time!
Keep on trying @Grond0 and you will - hopefully soon - join the SoD fun trip!
Thanks for the encouragement - and I do feel there is a realistic chance of success with any attempt. To try and convince myself to take some extra care next time I thought I would outline below the expected stages of Frey's run (that's just off the top of my head, so I've probably forgotten things). That may both help keep me on track (rather than getting sucked into taking on everything - and then dying to a critical from a gibberling or something equally miserable) and provide an incentive to avoid risks. I'll also only use my standard restrictions on healing items and antidotes. I'll edit the post later in red to reflect any particular issues that occur in the next run.
Gaining invisibility This is the riskiest part of the run as there's no counter available to the possibility of fatal archer ambushes until you can travel invisible. There was an ambush with a single kobold archer on the transition to Shoal's area, but Frey managed to run out of range before he could fire. - do tasks in Candlekeep and leave with a backpack stuffed with sling bullets. - kill Imoen, Xzar and Montaron (I don't allow recruiting PCs in a solo run). - travel to Shoal's area and kite her round (don't blind her as she would then wander off into more enemies). - still in Shoal's area rest repeatedly and investigate area by wrecked ship. Both the carrion crawlers on the random encounter spot there and the dire wolves that may ambush you during resting can safely be blinded and shot down. There should be enough ammunition to get the 10k needed for level 4 and invisibility. I also came close to death there when I let Frey run out of bullets, but managed to pause the game just before he reached a carrion crawler waving his staff.
Gaining equipment From this point until the palace fight any death should be avoidable (barring bugs). - at High Hedge buy the potion bag. Move on to Beregost to pick up Algernon's Cloak. That's not essential, but does cut down significantly on the time required for some early encounters (reducing the possibility of making mistakes). Buy the sling +1 and kill Neera for her bag. - while reputation is being hammered travel up to Ulgoth's Beard and charm Dushai (I think the chance of success there is 2.5% per attempt, so may take a while) to move him away from nosy villagers then shoot him down. Again his ring is not essential, but being able to kite some enemies round inside a web is nice! On the way there use invisibility to loot the ankheg nest. Did some reputation quests on the way down to Nashkel to ensure getting CLW as a Bhaal power. That included a bug with Ardrouine where the game didn't recognise all the worgs were dead - but I just carried on anyway. - at Firewine Bridge charm Meilum and introduce him to some kobolds to get his scroll then do the same to Meilum to get his bracers. - pick up the Frost Wand from Nashkel Mine and Monster Summoning Wand from Valley of the Tombs.
Restoring reputation - buy the green scroll of PfP and visit the basilisks (stone to flesh scroll there to get a rep point). Wand scorchers on groups of 4 basilisks both north and south will ensure time is not an issue to kill the monsters. Send in an invisible Korax to attack Mutamin and his 2 basilisk pets - he has an excellent chance of success there. Using the scroll of stinking cloud from Mutamin also gives him a chance against Kirian's mob (especially if you support him with blindness), but run away if that's not working out. I rested before recruiting Korax for Mutamin. An attempted blindness on Lindin drew him away to be paralysed by Korax, but I think I must then have left the game unpaused while doing a bit of work as Korax went hostile while moving round to find Peter. Instead of using him Peter and Baerin were charmed and taken away to die before Kirian was webbed and blinded. - carry on round doing other reputation tasks. Charm Greywolf to get enemies to wear him down for you (though you always want to deal the fatal blow to charmed creatures to get the XP). Rest in between encounters with multiple enemies (mine-site, Arabelle) to reduce the amount of kiting required. Activate Drizzt while invisible and go and kill Bjornin's half-ogres in the area while the gnolls are nibbling away at the drow. Carefully using the cloak from extreme range will allow you to safely charm sirines at the Lighthouse (or could just overwhelm them with summons). Golems can then be kited with bullets or bashed with staff (if you have stoneskin by then) to get the constitution tome. Durlag's was done prior to this to make sure I did have stoneskin. - pick up charisma tome (with that and the Cloak Frey gets to 20 charisma without the need for Friends). - pick up tome from Durlag's (killing battle horrors and basilisks there for another XP boost). - if Meilum was successful rep will be up to 20 prior to the Nashkel Mine and shopping can be done then. Alternatively, may need to do the mine first (web Mulahey and attack him while held before retreating invisibly to prompt his dialogue. Wait for his summons to all gather round him and skull trap the lot of them). The bug with Ardrouine and failure with Melicamp meant reputation was only at 19 even after Nashkel Mine, so Frey went on to the Bandit Camp before shopping.
Main quest - Nimbul can be webbed and blinded. - Tranzig's saves are too good for blind, so the easiest way to deal with him is using summons. Alternatively charming a traveller and using area transitions to dodge spells both work fine, but with slightly more risk of making a mistake. - get a lift to the Bandit Camp with Teven and go invisible to avoid fighting when Tazok attacks. With the run of the camp you can now freely charm Taurgosz and send him off for a fatal encounter somewhere. Inside the tent you could just loot it and leave invisibly. Alternatively set up summons and charm enemies from out of sight of Raemon and direct the conflict invisibly (and out of range of horror). The Camp proved fatal after a pretty smooth run to here. I was trying to charm enemies inside the tent and sneak out without being noticed, but after doing that successfully a couple of times 7 or 8 enemies followed Frey out. Stoneskins and MSD allowed him to go invisible again, but rather than continue to nibble away after resting I put up some summons with the intention of then using webs and blindness on the enemies. Unfortunately I'd forgotten the follow-me script many of the SCS enemies in the camp have. Even though the summons were well out of sight, their appearance immediately triggered the enemies to move in to the attack. I didn't move Frey away far enough and he was caught by a horror aimed at the summons and rapidly shot down by Black Talons and hobgoblin elites. - travel invisibly through the Cloakwood. At the mine Drasus's companions are all subject to being charmed without activating him (there's a possibility he can be charmed as well, but he may be activated by the attempt). Webs and skull traps may then kill Drasus, but using summons can make sure. - in the mine use invisibility to sneak down to Davaeorn. Magic protection for the traps then skull traps from out of sight of the mage normally works well. If his script fires then retreat invisibly and wait for all guards to arrive then skull trap the lot of them (resting as necessary in the same area).
End Game - get the tomes in the City. Summons for Marek (and potentially Lothander, though he's not easy to kill before he disappears in LoB), Ramazith and Jalantha all work well. Also get remaining 2 Necklace of Missiles as they don't take up any inventory room. - investigate Iron Throne invisibly and report for duty at Candlekeep. - knock open tombs using protection as necessary before leaving invisibly. - draw Slythe away from Krystin and attack with summons (paralysation wand is also an option for him). - at the palace use buffs and summons before starting the fight. Use improved invisibility on the dukes and malison + chaos (from scrolls) to attempt to disable attackers (wand of paralysation and slow are also an option if there are only a few active opponents left). - ensure all funds are spent up on any scrolls, item recharges etc desired before SoD. - sneak through maze and on to temple. - strand Sarevok in corner using invisibility - all except Angelo will follow him. Carefully tempt Angelo out of invisibility and into action (better to do that yourself to avoid summons being scared / confused and activating the others). If you have spell protections / Protection from Poison / stoneskin then Angelo can't immediately hurt you and malison + paralysation should eventually tag him. Summons can then kill him and the replacement skeleton warrior. Lots of fireballs will (eventually) kill the others (can just wait for Diarmid's scroll protection to expire before starting those) and as the skeleton warriors are drawn out they can be swamped by summons once out of sight of Sarevok. Lots more summons and magic missiles will then deal with Sarevok rather quicker than kiting him round.
Finally i got this slippery i-kill-you-in-one-hit-and-use-misled-all-the-time Cheator!
Or with other words: The Shadow Aspect has fallen!
At the end it was quite simple:
1. Buff up -> Iron Skin is your life insurance here! 2. Cast True Sight right before entering the room 3. Cast Harm once you moved in (evade the AoE-Blind!!!) 4. Attack (and hope the spell gets in - its hard to hit) 5. Finish it!!!!!
Krell rushed through Bridgefort and is now at Coalition Camp - Dragonspear Castle is waiting soon!
So far nothing special. After the Harmed up Boss fights Krell just made sure to get all supplies he will need later on. There should be no more troubles ahead until he finally meets Big B - except for the Crusader Attacking Waves. But with the tests done before they should be manageable too - expecially with a Lich in the backpack.
Not to forget: Thanks for the all the infos you have written down @Grond0 - they give some great insight on how to approach no-reload as a Sorcerer. Maybe i will get tempted too..... nah..... never!
@Harpagornis Well... I got through the first dungeon... only because I had two Scrolls of Undead protection. Otherwise, I don't think it would have been possible... I'll write a more thorough recap later...
I went in the first dungeon, only to find myself stuck against a truck load of undeads. I tried many things, but only Scrolls of Undead Protection were able to get me through the second underground floor of the first dungeon. Kiting was impossible, because there was no room to do it, and the undeads refused to follow upstairs, where they could be kited. Luckily, I had those scrolls, because it probably would have been the end of Caligula right there. I don't know, maybe if you rush Korlasz and deal with her fast, maybe you can bypass them, but otherwise, ... I feel I got lucky there... Here are some pics of Caligula in that first dungeon. It gives a good feeling of what is SoD for now.
I'm now on the coast way travel. After a LOT of kiting (SoD really puts a ton of enemy in its dungeon...), I cleared the first floor of the dwarven mine.
Just to see what is waiting for me, I went through the whole second floor using CTRL-J (insta-kill) on everything. That is a humongous ton of undeads there. It's just obscene. And the loot is nothing to write your mom about. It's an optional dungeon (I think), so I wasn't sure if I wanted to go through with it... I stopped playing for a while, just to relax, and went in again. I told myself : "you want a challenge; you got one there"! So I pressed on...
I cleansed the two rooms ahead of the second floor, plus the Bronze Sentry (who took about 100 acid arrows to go down). The next few pictures describes well what we're up against :
Now that I slowly get into the SoD mindset (aka, truckload of enemies every fight), I'm not as "depressed" as I was earlier today. All in all, these are fun fights, it's just that, for a first time, SoD is a big beast to conquer on LoB, especially with an unkitted fighter.
Good progress @Arctodus! On my very first try i got stuck cause of the undead as i had completly forgot about them. There are cheesy ways (aka Nymph Cloak) to do it without PfU-Scroll but as you only need one more in the mines later on its much easier to go with it.
But no - you do not need them for the Dwarven Mines. Like you i cleared the whole Mine with my Cavalier on the very first run - it took ages. And i wont do this again! But on the good side: You will reach the 500k XP cap very soon!
You like kiting? Then wait for the coming maps - big run incoming!
Holy cow!!! Krell faced the dreaded Crusader Attacks on Coalition Camp and had to work very hard to get through - absolutely great and challenging fights for a Druid!
WAVE 1 Come on Beamdog - you have cheated here. Right? Cause unlike in my tests the big Fire Elementals died like flies so the usual: Burn everything with Necklace of Missiles while they tank did NOT work this time. Krell tried to dispel the Haste but without success. After failing several times he changed the strategy: Throw in some more summons and go in for melee combat to damage and distract some enemies - while burning everything with Fireballs in between and heal up if needed. Krell had to switch buttons constantly and after the Archers ran out of Arrows they joined the close combat party. At the end everyone was low but the Trolls & Ogres were down - tough one!
WAVE 2 This one was even more troublesome cause Krell desperately wanted to spare his three Insect Swarms for the third wave. As his Dispel Magics were unable to put the Mage Defenses down the Wizard Slayers died too fast and after everyone was focusing Krell he went down even with 100% Magic Resistance. Only after changing to the Lich support everything worked better as the Undead are very hard to bring down and ignored all kinds of CC. With a combination of Dispels, Necklace Fireballs, some Ankhegs and hacking the Mages apart with his Scimitars Krell finally got a chance. With only one undead staying he put the fight to four remaining Mages. As they had run out of spells it wasnt a fair fight as the Scimitars hit them over and over again. Hard work!
WAVE 3 This one went horribly wrong on the first tries as the ally Mages did not enough damage and the timing of Insect Swarm was suboptimal. Only with constant pressure - Necklace Fireballs + Insect Swarms + Ankhegs + Myconids + Melee Combat - in combination with the Mage CC and damage there was a chance. Krell also tried Charm Person but it never worked. At the end nearly everyone was down, all summon charges were used and the spell slots went empty. Poooh!
WAVE 4 Thanks Beamdog for not removing the Immortal Named Boss Bug - otherwise the last Wave would have overwhelmed Krell and his allies. But with it Auziel and Stysich tanked like gods while Krell was cutting down one Crusader Boss after another. He just had to make sure no one would sneak past the defendending line to attack Andrus! They tried it but Krell was aware of it and put the bypassers down with his last Ankheg summons.
Time to rest before moving on to Big B!
P.S. Sorry for not getting any Screenshots. In the heat of the battles i totally forgot about that one.
Got the boots of speed from Drasus, but was not as skillful as you guys on not activating him (how fast does Nymph Cloak cast? Since I'm no thief I only have Dire Charm which is pretty slow). Since I moved my Skeleton Warriors into the middle of the not yet hostile enemy group before I charmed Drasus it wasn't really a big deal, the mages cast Horror on Drasus and he moved all the way west of the bridge, where I paralyzed him with the wand of cheese for the win.
Got the boots of speed from Drasus, but was not as skillful as you guys on not activating him (how fast does Nymph Cloak cast? Since I'm no thief I only have Dire Charm which is pretty slow).
I'm not sure about the Nymph Cloak, but I've been using Algernon's Cloak quite a bit and that's pretty good for avoiding reaction. The spell effect doesn't cast instantly, but unlike with using actual spells targets don't seem to start reacting until the cast has been completed - meaning if you time it accurately there's a very good chance of retreating back out of sight before an enemy reacts.
Using Nymph Cloak out of Invisibility is so cheesy as it breaks the talk-trigger and enemy groups wont go hostile. Krell is now standing right before Belhifet - will Harm work on him or will i have to play the usual hit & run? We will see!
I think it's probably different, though I don't think I've used the Nymph Cloak in EE. Algernon's Cloak charms for 12 hours and I doubt if the Nymph Cloak does that. Algernon's also uses a save vs breath that I suspect is more difficult to resist than the Nymph Cloak.
Yes, I knew from the wiki it was the same and ever since you guys mentioned using it in here I looked it up, whether I can use it, but not being thief saw no way.
No need for Thief to get Algernon´s Cloak - just kill him!
Anyway: I played alot with Big B last night. After hundreds of tries with Harm i can conclude: Harm will not work at Belhifet as his Magic Resistance seems to be > 100% (or has he just some sort of immunity?). Maybe with a Lower Resistance Trigger there is a chance - but not for the Druid. Any other Demon can be regularly hit with Harm.
Without the Harm option Krell had to fall back to good old hit&run but as i was already tired due to all this testing the level of concentration was "suboptimal" and he died over and over again. Only after getting some fresh air i finally managed to get into the right mood and wear Belhifet down slowly but surely. Even after beating him several times now this fight is not to be taken easy. Prepare yourself @Arctodus!
With Big B finally down its time to start SoA in the next days - theoretically. I already have ideas about pure Thief or Druid in mind. Yeah, Thieves lack any Fear Protection but with some cheese you are able to get three Greenstone Amulets. One from BG1 and two from Minsc in SoD - if you double kill him. There is still the problem of low THAC0 and no crit protection. This would be painful...
Anyway: I played alot with Big B last night. After hundreds of tries with Harm i can conclude: Harm will not work at Belhifet as his Magic Resistance seems to be > 100% (or has he just some sort of immunity?). Maybe with a Lower Resistance Trigger there is a chance - but not for the Druid. Any other Demon can be regularly hit with Harm.
Did you try casting magic resistance on him (that's the standard way for druids to deal with highly MR enemies)?
Anyway: I played alot with Big B last night. After hundreds of tries with Harm i can conclude: Harm will not work at Belhifet as his Magic Resistance seems to be > 100% (or has he just some sort of immunity?). Maybe with a Lower Resistance Trigger there is a chance - but not for the Druid. Any other Demon can be regularly hit with Harm.
Did you try casting magic resistance on him (that's the standard way for druids to deal with highly MR enemies)?
Loool - it worked! Here is the battle plan:
Avoid Dispel Magic so Iron Skin is still up -> Rush to Belhifet while Caelar Argent distracts the demons -> Hope Magic Resistance gets out before Belhifet casts Improved Invisibility -> Go invisible to get time casting Harm -> Roll a 20 to land the Harm -> One more attack -> Dead Belhifet!
One of the hardest battles in the whole series won in under twenty seconds. I never thought that would work so big thanks @Grond0 for reminding me on this one!!! On the bad side: It took me many (!) reloads to make it work! On the good side: This means that even a pure Druid would be able to beat SoD - including Belhifet!
EDIT: I am not sure on the 80% MR on Belhifet - even after hundreds of hits with Harm it NEVER triggered...
EDIT: I am not sure on the 80% MR on Belhifet - even after hundreds of hits with Harm it NEVER triggered...
A sweet moment I'm sure! Have you tried adding Belhifet to your party (or does your console problem mean you can't do that)? I suppose it's just possible that 80% is his standard MR, but that's increased in LoB.
Yeah, absolutely right @Grond0! Watching the Magic Resistance + Harm Combo working on Belhifet was thrilling!
The Console is still not working - maybe someone else can get the info?
If i remember correctly @chimaera also said that its 80% but my tests with Mage Spells showed that this cannot be correct as he got only affected after several Lower Magic Resistance.
And: After 500+ Hits there should have been at least one Harm trigger - if its really 80%.
Comments
Morentherene, the Green Dragon -> Harmed and Killed on second try
Ziatar, the Half Dragon -> Harmed and Killed on first try
The Neothelid -> Harmed and Killed on second try
Hitting was never a problem and even the magic resistance was not enough - maybe i was just lucky. Lets see if this also works with this DAMN Shadow Aspect - later on! If it keeps going like this Krell will be in SoA in no time. We will see!
I choose not to fight at all, but rather use Sanctuary to enter the tent and loot the chest unseen.
Going in SoD completly blind @Arctodus will be a challenge! I hope you have spared some good stuff otherwise the first dungeon will be very, very painful.
Then keep rolling @Victor_Creed_SFV - there is a lot of fun waiting. Still have to face the Shadow Aspect - maybe this time!
Gaining invisibility
This is the riskiest part of the run as there's no counter available to the possibility of fatal archer ambushes until you can travel invisible. There was an ambush with a single kobold archer on the transition to Shoal's area, but Frey managed to run out of range before he could fire.
- do tasks in Candlekeep and leave with a backpack stuffed with sling bullets.
- kill Imoen, Xzar and Montaron (I don't allow recruiting PCs in a solo run).
- travel to Shoal's area and kite her round (don't blind her as she would then wander off into more enemies).
- still in Shoal's area rest repeatedly and investigate area by wrecked ship. Both the carrion crawlers on the random encounter spot there and the dire wolves that may ambush you during resting can safely be blinded and shot down. There should be enough ammunition to get the 10k needed for level 4 and invisibility. I also came close to death there when I let Frey run out of bullets, but managed to pause the game just before he reached a carrion crawler waving his staff.
Gaining equipment
From this point until the palace fight any death should be avoidable (barring bugs).
- at High Hedge buy the potion bag. Move on to Beregost to pick up Algernon's Cloak. That's not essential, but does cut down significantly on the time required for some early encounters (reducing the possibility of making mistakes). Buy the sling +1 and kill Neera for her bag.
- while reputation is being hammered travel up to Ulgoth's Beard and charm Dushai (I think the chance of success there is 2.5% per attempt, so may take a while) to move him away from nosy villagers then shoot him down. Again his ring is not essential, but being able to kite some enemies round inside a web is nice! On the way there use invisibility to loot the ankheg nest. Did some reputation quests on the way down to Nashkel to ensure getting CLW as a Bhaal power. That included a bug with Ardrouine where the game didn't recognise all the worgs were dead - but I just carried on anyway.
- at Firewine Bridge charm Meilum and introduce him to some kobolds to get his scroll then do the same to Meilum to get his bracers.
- pick up the Frost Wand from Nashkel Mine and Monster Summoning Wand from Valley of the Tombs.
Restoring reputation
- buy the green scroll of PfP and visit the basilisks (stone to flesh scroll there to get a rep point). Wand scorchers on groups of 4 basilisks both north and south will ensure time is not an issue to kill the monsters. Send in an invisible Korax to attack Mutamin and his 2 basilisk pets - he has an excellent chance of success there. Using the scroll of stinking cloud from Mutamin also gives him a chance against Kirian's mob (especially if you support him with blindness), but run away if that's not working out. I rested before recruiting Korax for Mutamin. An attempted blindness on Lindin drew him away to be paralysed by Korax, but I think I must then have left the game unpaused while doing a bit of work as Korax went hostile while moving round to find Peter. Instead of using him Peter and Baerin were charmed and taken away to die before Kirian was webbed and blinded.
- carry on round doing other reputation tasks. Charm Greywolf to get enemies to wear him down for you (though you always want to deal the fatal blow to charmed creatures to get the XP). Rest in between encounters with multiple enemies (mine-site, Arabelle) to reduce the amount of kiting required. Activate Drizzt while invisible and go and kill Bjornin's half-ogres in the area while the gnolls are nibbling away at the drow. Carefully using the cloak from extreme range will allow you to safely charm sirines at the Lighthouse (or could just overwhelm them with summons). Golems can then be kited with bullets or bashed with staff (if you have stoneskin by then) to get the constitution tome. Durlag's was done prior to this to make sure I did have stoneskin.
- pick up charisma tome (with that and the Cloak Frey gets to 20 charisma without the need for Friends).
- pick up tome from Durlag's (killing battle horrors and basilisks there for another XP boost).
- if Meilum was successful rep will be up to 20 prior to the Nashkel Mine and shopping can be done then. Alternatively, may need to do the mine first (web Mulahey and attack him while held before retreating invisibly to prompt his dialogue. Wait for his summons to all gather round him and skull trap the lot of them). The bug with Ardrouine and failure with Melicamp meant reputation was only at 19 even after Nashkel Mine, so Frey went on to the Bandit Camp before shopping.
Main quest
- Nimbul can be webbed and blinded.
- Tranzig's saves are too good for blind, so the easiest way to deal with him is using summons. Alternatively charming a traveller and using area transitions to dodge spells both work fine, but with slightly more risk of making a mistake.
- get a lift to the Bandit Camp with Teven and go invisible to avoid fighting when Tazok attacks. With the run of the camp you can now freely charm Taurgosz and send him off for a fatal encounter somewhere. Inside the tent you could just loot it and leave invisibly. Alternatively set up summons and charm enemies from out of sight of Raemon and direct the conflict invisibly (and out of range of horror). The Camp proved fatal after a pretty smooth run to here. I was trying to charm enemies inside the tent and sneak out without being noticed, but after doing that successfully a couple of times 7 or 8 enemies followed Frey out. Stoneskins and MSD allowed him to go invisible again, but rather than continue to nibble away after resting I put up some summons with the intention of then using webs and blindness on the enemies. Unfortunately I'd forgotten the follow-me script many of the SCS enemies in the camp have. Even though the summons were well out of sight, their appearance immediately triggered the enemies to move in to the attack. I didn't move Frey away far enough and he was caught by a horror aimed at the summons and rapidly shot down by Black Talons and hobgoblin elites.
- travel invisibly through the Cloakwood. At the mine Drasus's companions are all subject to being charmed without activating him (there's a possibility he can be charmed as well, but he may be activated by the attempt). Webs and skull traps may then kill Drasus, but using summons can make sure.
- in the mine use invisibility to sneak down to Davaeorn. Magic protection for the traps then skull traps from out of sight of the mage normally works well. If his script fires then retreat invisibly and wait for all guards to arrive then skull trap the lot of them (resting as necessary in the same area).
End Game
- get the tomes in the City. Summons for Marek (and potentially Lothander, though he's not easy to kill before he disappears in LoB), Ramazith and Jalantha all work well. Also get remaining 2 Necklace of Missiles as they don't take up any inventory room.
- investigate Iron Throne invisibly and report for duty at Candlekeep.
- knock open tombs using protection as necessary before leaving invisibly.
- draw Slythe away from Krystin and attack with summons (paralysation wand is also an option for him).
- at the palace use buffs and summons before starting the fight. Use improved invisibility on the dukes and malison + chaos (from scrolls) to attempt to disable attackers (wand of paralysation and slow are also an option if there are only a few active opponents left).
- ensure all funds are spent up on any scrolls, item recharges etc desired before SoD.
- sneak through maze and on to temple.
- strand Sarevok in corner using invisibility - all except Angelo will follow him. Carefully tempt Angelo out of invisibility and into action (better to do that yourself to avoid summons being scared / confused and activating the others). If you have spell protections / Protection from Poison / stoneskin then Angelo can't immediately hurt you and malison + paralysation should eventually tag him. Summons can then kill him and the replacement skeleton warrior. Lots of fireballs will (eventually) kill the others (can just wait for Diarmid's scroll protection to expire before starting those) and as the skeleton warriors are drawn out they can be swamped by summons once out of sight of Sarevok. Lots more summons and magic missiles will then deal with Sarevok rather quicker than kiting him round.
Or with other words: The Shadow Aspect has fallen!
At the end it was quite simple:
1. Buff up -> Iron Skin is your life insurance here!
2. Cast True Sight right before entering the room
3. Cast Harm once you moved in (evade the AoE-Blind!!!)
4. Attack (and hope the spell gets in - its hard to hit)
5. Finish it!!!!!
Cheers!
So far nothing special. After the Harmed up Boss fights Krell just made sure to get all supplies he will need later on. There should be no more troubles ahead until he finally meets Big B - except for the Crusader Attacking Waves. But with the tests done before they should be manageable too - expecially with a Lich in the backpack.
Any progress in SoD @Arctodus?
Not to forget: Thanks for the all the infos you have written down @Grond0 - they give some great insight on how to approach no-reload as a Sorcerer. Maybe i will get tempted too..... nah..... never!
I went in the first dungeon, only to find myself stuck against a truck load of undeads. I tried many things, but only Scrolls of Undead Protection were able to get me through the second underground floor of the first dungeon. Kiting was impossible, because there was no room to do it, and the undeads refused to follow upstairs, where they could be kited. Luckily, I had those scrolls, because it probably would have been the end of Caligula right there. I don't know, maybe if you rush Korlasz and deal with her fast, maybe you can bypass them, but otherwise, ... I feel I got lucky there... Here are some pics of Caligula in that first dungeon. It gives a good feeling of what is SoD for now.
I'm now on the coast way travel. After a LOT of kiting (SoD really puts a ton of enemy in its dungeon...), I cleared the first floor of the dwarven mine.
Just to see what is waiting for me, I went through the whole second floor using CTRL-J (insta-kill) on everything. That is a humongous ton of undeads there. It's just obscene. And the loot is nothing to write your mom about. It's an optional dungeon (I think), so I wasn't sure if I wanted to go through with it... I stopped playing for a while, just to relax, and went in again. I told myself : "you want a challenge; you got one there"! So I pressed on...
I cleansed the two rooms ahead of the second floor, plus the Bronze Sentry (who took about 100 acid arrows to go down). The next few pictures describes well what we're up against :
Now that I slowly get into the SoD mindset (aka, truckload of enemies every fight), I'm not as "depressed" as I was earlier today. All in all, these are fun fights, it's just that, for a first time, SoD is a big beast to conquer on LoB, especially with an unkitted fighter.
See ya !!
But no - you do not need them for the Dwarven Mines. Like you i cleared the whole Mine with my Cavalier on the very first run - it took ages. And i wont do this again!
You like kiting? Then wait for the coming maps - big run incoming!
WAVE 1
Come on Beamdog - you have cheated here. Right? Cause unlike in my tests the big Fire Elementals died like flies so the usual: Burn everything with Necklace of Missiles while they tank did NOT work this time. Krell tried to dispel the Haste but without success. After failing several times he changed the strategy: Throw in some more summons and go in for melee combat to damage and distract some enemies - while burning everything with Fireballs in between and heal up if needed. Krell had to switch buttons constantly and after the Archers ran out of Arrows they joined the close combat party. At the end everyone was low but the Trolls & Ogres were down - tough one!
WAVE 2
This one was even more troublesome cause Krell desperately wanted to spare his three Insect Swarms for the third wave. As his Dispel Magics were unable to put the Mage Defenses down the Wizard Slayers died too fast and after everyone was focusing Krell he went down even with 100% Magic Resistance. Only after changing to the Lich support everything worked better as the Undead are very hard to bring down and ignored all kinds of CC. With a combination of Dispels, Necklace Fireballs, some Ankhegs and hacking the Mages apart with his Scimitars Krell finally got a chance. With only one undead staying he put the fight to four remaining Mages. As they had run out of spells it wasnt a fair fight as the Scimitars hit them over and over again. Hard work!
WAVE 3
This one went horribly wrong on the first tries as the ally Mages did not enough damage and the timing of Insect Swarm was suboptimal. Only with constant pressure - Necklace Fireballs + Insect Swarms + Ankhegs + Myconids + Melee Combat - in combination with the Mage CC and damage there was a chance. Krell also tried Charm Person but it never worked. At the end nearly everyone was down, all summon charges were used and the spell slots went empty. Poooh!
WAVE 4
Thanks Beamdog for not removing the Immortal Named Boss Bug - otherwise the last Wave would have overwhelmed Krell and his allies. But with it Auziel and Stysich tanked like gods while Krell was cutting down one Crusader Boss after another. He just had to make sure no one would sneak past the defendending line to attack Andrus! They tried it but Krell was aware of it and put the bypassers down with his last Ankheg summons.
Time to rest before moving on to Big B!
P.S. Sorry for not getting any Screenshots. In the heat of the battles i totally forgot about that one.
Since I moved my Skeleton Warriors into the middle of the not yet hostile enemy group before I charmed Drasus it wasn't really a big deal, the mages cast Horror on Drasus and he moved all the way west of the bridge, where I paralyzed him with the wand of cheese for the win.
The original Nymph Cloak also uses save vs breath and has 12 hours duration.
Here is the link: Algernon´s Cloak.
Anyway: I played alot with Big B last night. After hundreds of tries with Harm i can conclude: Harm will not work at Belhifet as his Magic Resistance seems to be > 100% (or has he just some sort of immunity?). Maybe with a Lower Resistance Trigger there is a chance - but not for the Druid. Any other Demon can be regularly hit with Harm.
Without the Harm option Krell had to fall back to good old hit&run but as i was already tired due to all this testing the level of concentration was "suboptimal" and he died over and over again. Only after getting some fresh air i finally managed to get into the right mood and wear Belhifet down slowly but surely. Even after beating him several times now this fight is not to be taken easy. Prepare yourself @Arctodus!
With Big B finally down its time to start SoA in the next days - theoretically. I already have ideas about pure Thief or Druid in mind. Yeah, Thieves lack any Fear Protection but with some cheese you are able to get three Greenstone Amulets. One from BG1 and two from Minsc in SoD - if you double kill him. There is still the problem of low THAC0 and no crit protection. This would be painful...
But first some rest!
Avoid Dispel Magic so Iron Skin is still up -> Rush to Belhifet while Caelar Argent distracts the demons -> Hope Magic Resistance gets out before Belhifet casts Improved Invisibility -> Go invisible to get time casting Harm -> Roll a 20 to land the Harm -> One more attack -> Dead Belhifet!
One of the hardest battles in the whole series won in under twenty seconds. I never thought that would work so big thanks @Grond0 for reminding me on this one!!! On the bad side: It took me many (!) reloads to make it work! On the good side: This means that even a pure Druid would be able to beat SoD - including Belhifet!
EDIT: I am not sure on the 80% MR on Belhifet - even after hundreds of hits with Harm it NEVER triggered...
80% is what the Keeper creature browser says and LoB does not usually add MR.
Strangely enough B has no items or spells in that browser tho, so MR + Spells might be added thru a script or smth.
The Console is still not working - maybe someone else can get the info?
If i remember correctly @chimaera also said that its 80% but my tests with Mage Spells showed that this cannot be correct as he got only affected after several Lower Magic Resistance.
And: After 500+ Hits there should have been at least one Harm trigger - if its really 80%.