On the 13th, I started a new game without the bonus XP from Legacy of Bhaal mode, inspired by a post from @Grond0. On the 14th, I realized I could improve the pet basilisk strategy by using Stone to Flesh scrolls to repeatedly un-petrify and re-petrify a Greater Basilisk, trading 200 gold for 7,000 XP every time.
The whole point of disabling bonus XP in the first place was to make levels harder to get. But the day after I started, I found out how to hit the XP cap in 15 minutes.
you at the same time love to take chances, and highly dangerous ones.
Well I was tempted to play really conservatively just to give the lie to that - but not too tempted . After clearing the Lighthouse area I still needed a few thousand more XP to get druid level 7 and a big power gain and decided to seek that in Shoal's area. The ogre clan there were picked off largely by charming them with Algernon's Cloak (they're one of the enemies that only prevents resting when actually in sight, so it's easy to rest and get more attempts at that). I had a go at charming a sirine, but failed with that while they used up a few arrows and their charm spells (retreating out of sight while they're casting those spoils them).
They required 19 to hit, so that didn't seem too dangerous, but eventually one of them scored a hit - and Rysh ran away a bit and successfully used slow poison. I'd lost about 20 HPs, but decided not to rest as that would give them their dire charms back. A bit more kiting followed, before Rysh was hit again - and when he tried to retreat and rest a wolf had appeared on a previously empty encounter spot. A quick change of direction followed and things looked bleak as several attempts to get far enough out of sight to rest failed. With HPs down to 6 and ticking down fast he had one more try - and this time success .
Or at least a successful attempt to rest, but interrupted by another wolf . That didn't therefore cure the poison, but the attempt auto-cast 2 CLW spells and I think the extra HPs would have allowed him to outlast the poison damage. So it looked like Rysh might pull off a great escape - just as a sirine came into view and killed him with a critical hit from what was probably their last arrow ...
I swarmed Slythe with the Wand of Monster Summoning and hid behind Sanctuary until Krystin was vulnerable, at which point I swarmed her as well. I sold off a lot of loose equipment and made some careful spending choices to make sure I had three Wands of Monster Summoning with 40-60 charges altogether before the final battle.
For the Ducal Palace, I charmed some nobles and sent them into the main room, but I didn't really know what to do with them besides that. I also charmed the cleric from the nearby Temple of Helm and the innkeeper from the tavern to the east of palace and brought them inside, as they had decent stats.
I summoned a huge swarm of critters from the southeast corner of the palace interior, then went invisible and snuck over to Liia Jannath while my summons crowded around everyone. I broke invisibility by talking to Liia Jannath (she had nothing to say), Belt's dialogue started, and just as the doppelgangers appeared, I cast Invisibility on Liia Jannath, hoping no divination spells would reveal her.
I retreated to a safe point and cast Greater Malison and then Chaos via scrolls, as I had seen @Blackraven carrying some mage scrolls in his quick slots in one of his screenshots of the fight a while back, and I assumed they were useful. They confused two of the doppelgangers, but I'm not sure if it made a difference.
The fight was going fine until the Doppelganger Mage appeared. I had no idea where to find it before, and even if I had, I doubted I could do anything but waste a few rounds trying to stun it with the Wand of Paralyzation (I'm sure it would have made its save every time). The Doppelganger Mage hit the Flaming Fist and my own summons with Confusion, and many failed their saves.
My charmed cleric, the charmed inkeeper, and my summons all went wild. Some of them attacked the Flaming Fist, and the Flaming Fist responded in kind. I summoned more critters, knowing they at least would not be confused.
Belt was at Injured, but only had two hostile critters close to him. Liia Jannath was nowhere in sight.
The doppelgangers grew weak, until only the mage was left. I swarmed the surviving mage, but the Flaming Fist went hostile because they had fought with my summons while everyone was confused. Some of the Flaming Fist even attacked Belt!
But the doppelganger mage fell. I understand that you can make the fight a little safer by luring Belt into another room before the last doppelganger collapses, but Belt was busy fighting a pair of Flaming Fist mercenaries, and I couldn't kill them without losing a lot of reputation (I already lost 10 when I tried killing one of them).
Sarevok went hostile. I summoned more critters right on top of him, and though he had a slight opening to reach Belt, he opted to tackle the monsters instead. After a few rounds, Sarevok gave up and fled. The Flaming Fist kept attacking us, but I was able to talk to Belt, who teleported us to the Thieves Guild.
I didn't know this before, but apparently you can leave the Thieves Guild and do some last minute shopping. Everyone went hostile when I tried to get out and I failed to give the right password, but it didn't stop me from selling off a little extra stuff and hurrying to the maze, where I tanked the traps using Protection from Fire and Protection from Electricity.
I used Sanctuary to get past the Undercity party and Tamoko. Why bother fighting them?
Before Sarevok, I spent the last of my gold brewing some Potions of Invisibility. I figured that I would want a lot of escape options if I was to survive the fight.
I broke invisibility by attacking Sarevok with a sling, then fled to the southeast corner. But Sarevok did not follow--maybe because I went invisible on the way there.
Instead, I tried luring him over with a summoned skeleton. But all I could do was shuffle the enemy around; I couldn't isolate Angelo from the rest of the group.
Unable to divide the enemy, I resorted to my PWWP strategy: Provoke, Withdraw, Weaken, Pounce. I hid under invisibility to wait out the enemy's defenses, using Sanctuary to negate divination attacks and fleeing when I needed time.
But invisibility cannot block a Remove Magic spell, even if you go invisible during the casting time. Angelo targeted me with Remove Magic while I was visible and the other enemies were attacking me. I tried to flee, but there wasn't enough room to escape.
There was too much pressure for me to cast a spell, but I could use a Potion of Invisibility. But I did not do so, even though I was suffering heavy damage very fast, because I knew that Remove Magic spell would dispel the invisibility, and I would not be able to move fast enough to escape the pressure when it did.
I let the Remove Magic hit me and drank a Potion of Invisibility when I was down to less than 30 HP. I fled to the corner and drank a Potion of Regeneration--which I purchased specifically because I only had 9 Potions of Healing, and I wouldn't be able to heal myself up to full health more than once without regeneration.
I waited out the enemy's buffs once more, drinking defensive potions until Tazok's haste wore off, and successfully lured some of the enemies (others were invisible) into the northwest corner.
I then went back to cuddling the corners, summoning monsters from the edges of the map and only peeking at the enemy when I was invisible. With a finite supply of invisibility potions and spells, I had to make sure I only went invisible when I needed to.
First, we swarmed Tazok, as he was the closest within reach. Semaj and Angelo used up their spells, and Diarmid used up his arrows. Greater Malison and Chaos failed to do much to the enemy, but with enough summons, we were able to bring down Tazok.
Angelo was next, because Diarmid was too far away (I couldn't spot him without getting too close to the enemy) and Semaj was hiding. Then we moved on to Semaj and finally Diarmid before swarming the skeletons and then Sarevok. I had the Priest of Mystra kit, whose Improved Dispel Magic casts at double caster level plus one (or level 15 in my case, for a 75% chance of dispelling Sarevok's haste, which I assume counting as level 10 like all potions).
Over the course of the battle, we used about 29 charges from the Wand of Monster Summoning, plus a scroll of Haste. I didn't use more than a couple charges from any of my other wands, as I didn't want to get close to the enemy... even though I had a save vs. spell of -1, plenty of Greenstone Amulet charges, lots of Potions of Magic Shielding, extra scrolls of Stoneskin, a spare scroll of Teleport Field, plenty of invisibility potions and scrolls and spells, and a high movement rate. Plus, Diarmid and Angelo and Semaj had long since run out of arrows and spells anyway.
But I really didn't want to approach the enemy. This is my first solo no-reload LoB run of BG1, after all, and I didn't want to take any chances.
I don't really know how I'm going to handle Siege of Dragonspear. Putting aside my own lack of knowledge about the game, SoD is really the worst of all worlds in terms of difficulty: it has the low levels of BG1, the massive hordes of Icewind Dale, the complex enemies of BG2, and the advanced AI of SCS.
Siege of Dragonspear fights a lot smarter than BG1 or BG2, and the metagame is still young and primitive. It's not a good combination for a no-reload run.
I just realized a cleric/mage maxes out at level 9/10. This means that they can cast Magic Resistance at level 9 and reduce Big B's MR to 18%, enough for a single Lower Resistance spell to drop it to 0.
Unfortunately, Magic Resistance has a casting time of 9, and Big B can go invisible at any time. And a level 9 cleric only gets one shot at it unless he or she has 20 Wisdom (and I only got one wisdom tome).
Same problem with Doom and Chant; they also have a casting time of 9 in EE. A Minor Sequencer can cast one of them (but not both!) instantly, but you only get one such sequencer per day. I can scribe multiple Greater Malison scrolls, but without Chant and Doom (which can't be scribed), Big B's save vs. polymorph is only 2 with Greater Malison, which means Polymorph Other only has a 5% chance of success per hit. In order to hit a 90% success rate, you'd need to hit him 44 times, and that's assuming you keep Lower Resistance and Greater Malison on him the whole time.
So the viability of the polymorph strategy depends on your ability to hit Big B with Doom and Chant--and the more important one, Doom, is harder to land, since Chant can ignore invisibility.
But I miscalculated the odds in a previous post. With Greater Malison, Doom, and Chant, the odds of a successful polymorph kill on Big B, assuming no magic resistance, is 20%, not 15%, for each hit. So this is what you need to get a 90% chance of success using this strategy:
With Greater Malison only: 44 Polymorph Other spells
With Greater Malison and Chant: 22 Polymorph Other spells
With Greater Malison and Doom: 14 Polymorph Other spells
With Greater Malison, Doom, and Chant: 10 Polymorph Other spells
Polymorph Other doesn't seem practical against Big B without the scroll scribing mod or without both cleric and mage levels, since you can't rest and try again like you could in other fights.
SoD spoiler:
Based on their numbers in Near Infinity, it looks like Caelar would only be able to deal about 300 damage to Belhifet before she dies in about 7 rounds, not counting her healing potions. So we've still got 800 HP to go even with Caelar's help.
If you catch Caelar at 25% her normal health, every Heal spell you cast on her should get you another 200 damage on Belhifet. So a level 12 druid should get about 700 damage out of her, leaving Belhifet with about 400 to go, if you use both of your level 6 spell slots to cast Heal on Caelar.
Cast Haste on her, and her APR should go from 4 to 5, in which case she'll deal almost 400 damage before she croaks, leaving Bellyfat with 700.
If you can keep Bellyfat off of Caelar's back every now and then, you might be able to get her to drink all 10 of her Potions of Extra Healing, which amounts to 270 HP, or 66% of her normal maximum. That would give you another 200 damage on Bellyfat (or about 250 if you keep her hasted).
A cleric/mage or fighter/mage/cleric using the spider gnome trick with the Martyr's Morningstar should therefore need only 5 critical hits to finish Siege of Dragonspear. In spider form, with haste, with one proficiency point in Single Weapon Style, you should land a critical hit every other round on average, which means you should only need to engage in melee combat for 10 rounds total. If our friend uses all 10 of those potions, it might require even less.
But since the chance of a critical hit is only 10% with SWS, it's entirely possible for bad luck to drag out the fight much longer than that. Stoneskin and Mirror Image scrolls would be very important to have, since you can't cast spells in spider form.
@Harpagornis: You invented the tactic of charming the Ducal Palace doppelgangers before they transform, right? What do you do with them, exactly, after you charm them?
Because it seems like you could just charm them, take some of them outside the palace, and then fight only one or two inside the palace itself. Then you could go back outside if necessary, pick off the remaining ones, and return to trigger the next dialogue.
The first dungeon of SoD was a nightmare. I nearly got overwhelmed on the first level when attempting to rest brought a small army of skeletons down on me and the Flaming Fist. I didn't know how strong the Flaming Fist were, so I resorted to the Wand of Monster Summoning to make sure none of them got killed in the process. It took three or four tries to rest before I succeeded.
I talked down Porios by donning Lord Foreshadow's Ring of Human Influence and Algernon's Cloak. For those whose installs don't have the ring (which sets CHA to 18, like Kalah's ring in BG2), the Friends spell can bump CHA up by 6 and a Potion of Persuasion, purchased from the Flaming Fist Healer for a few hundred gold, can bump it up another 4.
The second level was more troublesome. Based on @Blackraven's example, I had brought all the Protection from Undead scroll I could find (5 copies), but I foolishly tried to tackle the first group of undead by relying on Invisibility alone.
But Bonebats can see through invisibility.
Apparently Insane mode and therefore LoB mode adds a skeleton mage to that first fight--a mage which casts Haste! It's a massive boost to its allies, and my summons went down in short order. I used a scroll of Protection from Undead to avoid getting crushed, but the enemy still formed a wall of bones. I had to use the Wand of Fire to burn my way through.
I rested upstairs to avoid spawning any skeletons on the Flaming Fist and ran through the dungeon under Invisibility, and thankfully there were no other Bonebats around. Also based on @Blackraven's example, I ran past the human enemies and used high Charisma to convince the neutral guys to let me open the door to Korlasz's lair.
For Korlasz herself, I summoned a bunch of critters, hasted them, and sent them through the door beforehand. I failed to convince Korlasz to surrender--I chose the first dialogue option; I don't know if it's possible to get her to surrender without a fight first--and fell back to use Web spells from afar.
But as I failed to realize, Korlasz had MGOI and was immune to Web, and I didn't dare break invisibility to try to hurt her friends. And since I normally relied on swarms of summons to deal with mages, I couldn't mob Korlasz either, because those Web spells would have ensnared any of my own summoned critters.
I waited out Korlasz's MGOI and waited in the doorway, because her friends were running around whenever they made their saves vs. Web and I wanted to make sure none of them got behind me.
I didn't want to use many more charges of the Wand of Monster Summoning, because (1) I only had so many of them, and (2) I was sure I'd need them a lot in later fights, but (3) I still needed to recharge my wands and (4) I was very low on gold. But I didn't see any other option; I was trapped between Korlasz' group and the Followers of Sarevok behind me.
I cast Web a few more times via scrolls, fell back, and then tried to kill Korlasz with Wand of Fire charges, again based on @Blackraven's example.
But Korlasz was immune. It seems I missed a step somewhere. Only when I had fried several of her companions did I notice.
I ended up having to use a whole bunch of wand charges to summon monsters to deal with the enemy. I focused on a few already-wounded enemies, but Korlasz' friends include a lot of archers, and they will gleefully kite you. Pinning them down was nearly impossible.
I turned my attention to Korlasz herself instead. I wanted to break invisibility with the Wand of the Heavens in the hopes of triggering her surrender dialogue, but then the Followers of Sarevok suddenly came in from the south, and an Aura of Despair from a Blackguard sent my cleric/illusionist running.
My summons killed Korlasz, only for her friends to crush them in turn, leaving me alone. My cleric/mage was running around invisible and all of the hasted enemies were scurrying around, threatening to box me in at any moment. Mercifully, I recovered from the Aura of Despair before they could trap me, and I escaped the room.
I had to break invisibility to talk to Imoen, but a Potion of Invisibility let me escape to the top level before the enemy could pin me down. I didn't do any of the optional side quests besides reporting to that mummy and getting a +2 shield for killing Korlasz.
Things are not looking great. I can cast Animate Dead 4 times per day, and Animal Summoning 3 times per day, but even with Haste, those critters are just not enough to handle minor skirmishes on their own. I didn't have the spell slots to overcome the enemies in the first dungeon; I had to rely on scrolls and wands.
I know I can avoid a lot of fights in SoD, but I need to be able to build up a strong gold supply if I'm going to be equipped for the fights I can't avoid. I'm already low on resources and I'm already running a deficit. And Siege of Dragonspear doesn't have the highly-rewarding side quests you find in BG1 and Shadows of Amn.
Good progress @semiticgod - SoD will be a lot of fun! Hopefully!
Gold problem: Kill all party NPC´s (Minsc, Dynaheir, Safana, Rashad) alone will boost your gold like crazy! And the best: They will respawn once you start the March to Dragonspear so you can kill them again!
You are right skipping most battles in SoD is possible so you can rush through the game quite hard. Once you have played it several times it gets nearly as easy as BG1 (or BG2 for you). Without metagame knowledge on the other hand it will be at least "tricky".
With regard to Big B: A Druid is able to get in the Magic Resistance-Harm-Combo without too many problems (Iron Skin + summons!) so with careful moving a Mage should be able to get in his Polymorph combo too even though you might skip Doom! Big B does not use Imp. Invisibilty right at the start of the battle. He will first cast his Dispel Magic then kill Caelar and then you have one or two rounds before he will vanish for a short time. Summons might distract him a little bit more. Thats 3-5 rounds normally - is this enough?
BtW: I normally drop Caelar out of my group immediately as it breaks the solo rules! And no she wont do 300 damage to Big B - on LoB she will die in just one (or two) rounds once Big B starts attacking (4 APR, 40-58 damage!). This also means that you will need at least six crits with Martyr's Morningstar. Tanking Big B and his demons will be very hard as they will eat your Stoneskins + Mirror Images in no time so you might fall back to the usual invisible hit & run routine.
Charming the Doppleganger at the Ducal Palace makes this battle so much easier for non-Mages! I usually charm the Mage only as he is the biggest danger. I move the Noble to a nearby room and rest once more to reduce the waiting time after the others have died. The rest is business as usual: Use Guards and Nobles, dispel the Dopplegangers and hack them down. Wait until the Mage transforms and blow him apart. Easy going!
@Harpagornis: 40-58 damage? Based on the files in NI, he seems to attack with a +5 greatsword with 22 STR and no proficiencies, which ostensibly would put him at 15.5 damage per hit on average, unless Caelar takes double damage like Charname for some reason.
On that note, Caelar's equipment should make her immune to poison and disease. The player can use a Protection from Poison scroll to block the poison effect, but not the disease, which offers no saving throw.
However, the disease appears to be rigged so that it does not stack, so it will simply penalize your STR and either DEX or CON by 2 for 10 rounds. It shouldn't be able to kill you with stat drain.
Right, the poison and disease doesnt matter. But building a strategy around Caelar is wrong in my opinion. On the one hand she will die very quickly and on the other hand she should be banned from party immediately so you will not be able to control her in any way.
The hit & run using invisibility is the safest way for any warrior so if everything fails this might be a good backup plan to get in the Martyr's Morningstar crits. With summon distraction you might be able to just attack Big B for several rounds - the Myconids are really good here as they wont get feared!!
Krell rushed through Coastway Crossing without any troubles and proceeded to the first danger area: The Fallen Temple of Cyric!
Here a shortlist of his tactics:
vs Ziathar: Buffed up and protected against poison Krell summoned five Nymphs before battle, triggered the talking and closed the nearby door to cut her reinforcements. Lured Ziatar into the corridor and closed the door to her room removing the two Mages from the battle too. All Nymphs started casting "Hold Monster" while Krell soaked the poison breath. Shortly after Ziatar - like always - failed the save and was helpless. Krell took her down easily with dual Scimitars even though the Nymphs panicked shortly after running around like crazy. This called in some of her guards but Krell ignored them. Once Ziatar went down he just moved upstairs again and rested so all guards would reset into their original position.
vs Neothelid: He lured the beast into the entrance room and moved shortly upstairs to buff himself up against poison and domination. He casted Harm twice but failed against the magic resistance so he used to good old hit & run like fighting a melee Ankheg. Thanks to Save vs Death -2 he never got poisoned while Iron Skin soaked up most attacks. Two minutes later the Neothelid was history.
vs Akanna: Used one Fire Elemental to lure the hard hitting Air Aspects out and sneaked up to the invisible Akanna after closing the door! Now Krell used one Insect Swarm on himself to hinder Akannas spell power and hacked her down without any resistance. Grabbed the Wardstone and moved out again.
vs. Morentherene: On his way out Krell rested safely and buffed up again to try his luck on the Green Dragon. He casted Harm outside of the cave (otherwise the Dragon will immediately wake up and attack!) and rushed to the Dragon! Luck was on his side and the hit went through the magic resistance. Another quick hit with his Scimitar +3 took the beast down so he took the Dragon Scales and sneaked out invisible.
The battle for Bridgefort will be skipped so Krell will move on to Coalition Camp soon!
Another awesomeness about Druids: When researching the sickness in Coalition Camp they have the ability to talk with the rats that are running around the camp. Once you ask them a Wererat will show up claiming that you should leave them alone. If you insist speaking with the rat the big one will attack (420 xp). Once she is gone you get some informations about the Blackthorn Tree. Whenever a rat gets sick they will use its mold to get healthy again. Thanks little rat!
Holy cow - the Crusader Waves on Coalition Camp were quite blasting!
After rushing through Dragonspear Castle (Ring of the Crusade!) and the Underground Tunnels (invisibility and haste!) it was finally time to face the ambush on coalition camp! First Wave - Trolls and Ogres For this one Krell charmed the Mage NPC´s first so they could either get in some monsters or cast Web (which works wonders against them like @Blackraven showed earlier). Two Fire Elementals (big ones this time!) and buffed up Krell chose the tough Dwarves of Dumathoin. Too bad: Dynaheir and Co disappeared before the wave triggered so no more Fireballs from them. Anyway: With Insect Swarm + Necklace of Missiles the enemy was damaged constantly while the Web rooted many of them in place. After another Insect Swarm and several Fireballs Krell rushed in to hack the badly wounded enemies apart using Dual Scimitars again. Thanks to Web both Fire Elementals only got "injured" so Krell could use them for the next wave!
Second Wave - Crusager Mages Thanks to Dosia´s resting power Krell had two Insect Swarm up again - as well as two more Fire Elementals. With Four Elementals and one Nymph Krell went with the Wizard Slayers this time. He threw in his Insect Swarms together with several Necklace of Missiles. Once the enemies were badly wounded he gulped Potions of Magic Blocking and rushed in - reusing them whenever another dispel went in. Thanks to Dual Wielding and Haste the Mages went down pretty quickly while still suffering from the second Insect Swarm. At the end two Fire Elementals (injured and barely injured) as well as three Wizard Slayers survived - well done!
Third Wave - Cavalier and Clerics With another rest thanks to Dosia Krell summoned another two Fire Elementals (four again) and one Nymph. Buffed up he went with the very tough War Mages while using the same combo as before: Insect Swarm + Necklace of Missiles to give them nearly no time for healing up again. As most enemies in all of these waves only use normal weapons the four Fire Elementals will survive for a long time. Long enough to get in the second Insect Swarm and burning through the Necklace of Missiles. With the enemy healing cut down Krell went in fully buffed and hacked everything apart. This time one Fire Elemental and all War Mages survived - the Mages did not even got a scratch!
Fourth Wave - The General Thanks to defensive play Krell did not walk into enemy fire (unlike Braxx before) and switched constantly between throwing his Returning Acid Dart +2 and Necklace of Missiles. With the help of his immortal friends Garrus and Auziel the Named Ones went down one after another - victory!
All in all the Crusader Ambush was much easier than expected - especially with the resting option in between. Inscect Swarm + Necklace of Missiles + Fire Elementals ruled them down!!
Never ever play a no-reload-run like this when you are getting tired. Especially not when facing an enemy like Big B. But in my arrogance i treated the final fight as a walk in the park and that was my downfall. After playing the whole day my concentration faded away and it happened what has to happen: Krell got surrounded by the whole demon army including Big B after he stayed one second too long trying to get another hit in. He went invisible again - but too late. Big B continued his attacks and with healing out of reach a final 44 damage slash took Krell down. Damn it. All work in vain. Again. Damn it!!!
Time to take a rest. And then: Revenge! Its up to you Korgath once again. But not today. Good Night!
Damn !! So close @Harpagornis !! Really thought you'd do it !! I'm not too worried though, I'm pretty sure it's only a matter of time before you make it in SoA !!
I think I found and used several Wisdom tomes when reading them.
Kudos to the participants here. Those 537 comments were the most insightful, the richest comments about IE games I ever read.
All this knowledge is priceless. I would dare say that the LoB challenge lead to people finding new, previously unthinkable ways of dealing with situations in BG. Using PfM scrolls on Sendai? Charming basilisks? Making Liia invisible? The list can go on and on.
Thanks a lot @JuliusBorisov! I have also learned A LOT during this challenge - thanks to the awesome participants here: Not only thinking but doing what no one has done before!
After eating all these Wisdom Tomes - maybe its time to join our challenge @JuliusBorisov no?
I did everything I wanted to do in Baldur's Gate, but I can't begin the main quest. I tell Corwin I'm ready to go, I head upstairs, talk to the Hooded Man, and then talk to Imoen.
Nothing happens. I'm supposed to rest and then get woken up by Skie, but nothing happens.
How do I get the game to proceed? I can't imagine how I could have broken the questline.
I can't imagine how I could have broken the questline.
Since you've got both Hooded Man and Imoen to talk, neither can I... This is the trigger from bd0103.bcs to advance further
Global("BD_plot","global",54)
Global("BD_MDD007","bd0103",2)
Global("BD_MDD005","bd0103",0)
Gender(Player1,MALE) // or FEMALE
If the variables are correct (and they should be, if you saw HM and Imoen), then there're two possibilities: 1) There's a mod installed that modifies the script. 2) Your gender is ATTACK_HELICOPTER neither MALE nor FEMALE for a reason I can't begin to imagine. Not even the cursed belt or a wild surge could do it, I think? If entering C:Eval('ChangeGender(Player1,MALE)') (or female) into console will fix the issue, then I'll be damned.
Small update for Caligula. Really didn't have much time to play this week, so I went for tougher opponents, like Kangaxx and the dragons.
Kangaxx
After his two liches buddy, the big undead himself was tackled. I first tried to savescum my way to victory against his first form with the IMoD, but, for whatever reason, it was immune to the mace. Oh well. I fought it fair square, well, kinda, because I used the ol' in-and-out of the basement strat to make him waste his bigger spells. Cornugon and Pite Fiend gating ? Pfff... Nothing that waiting can't resolve. Eventually, I managed to have his first form more vulnerable and my simmy took it down with his GWW charges.
In his demi-lich form, well... the same strat was used : a mixture of in-and-out and waiting. His summons and magic defenses went down enough for me to swoop in for the kill. A strike from the IMoD did him in eventually. Nothing too hard actually, but that would have definitively a sharper fight under no-reload.
Firkraag
Went in the Big Red Dragon cave with me and my simmy fully buffed. Engaged the beast with my Effreti. When he triggered his defenses, I had to wait out his PfMW. Firkraag took a surprisingly long time to take out the Efreeti, which permitted to do so. Then, my simmy peltered him with arrows of dispelling while I was emptying my GWWs on him. Firkraag then took down my Efreeti and started to work on my simmy. The simmy tried to use his GWWs while meleeing, but he died before using them all. Bad execution on my part, but that proved inconsequential.
When I found myself alone with the beast, which was still only at Injured, I thought I had about no chance of killing it. But I said to myself : "What the hell, let's do this"! It actually proved to be a lot easier than expected, because Firkraag is very susceptible to be kited effectively. He followed me around, but I could outrun him with them speed boots. I slinged him for a very long time and, due to having 90% undispellable fire resistance, his fire breath were pretty harmless. He sometimes managed to hit me in melee, which did a boatload of damage, but otherwise, kiting was enough to did him in. I even killed him on my first try !! No reload were needed. It was a bit surprising though, because I'm pretty sure I saw him cast lower fire resistance in a previous run before launching a mighty fire breath on one of my toon. He didn't do it against me. Well, maybe he did on my simmy and I didn't see it pass in the log, or maybe I'm just confusing him with the Fire Giants in ToB and he only casted Remove Magic in my preivous game. But whatevs, he dead and he gone now.
Thaxll'ssillya
The Shadow Dragon was pretty much another big kiting session... much bigger kiting session... Started the fight with me and my simmy buffed. My Efreeti attacked him, wait for his PfMW go out, then unload on him. Pretty much the same thing as Firkraag, except that his breath attack drain levels and blinds you. The worst ? NOTHING makes you immune to blind in BG2. Ugh... So, after Thaxlly killed my simmy, I kited him in the most grueling way : I shoot him with a bullet, then switch immediately to the IMoD to prevent level drain, he blinds me (without a save obviously), I wait for the blind to run out, the blind runs out, Thaxlly goes invisible, I wait for him to reappear, he does, I shoot him with a bullet, he blinds me and so on... Ugh, tedious you say...
However, the nice thing is that I could save my game while blinded, so I decided to split the killing run in two sessions. He managed to level drain my twice, but the level drain eventually wears off. I didn't remembered that. I thought it was weird. But hey, he dead and he gone.
So, dragons were... pretty harmless in the end. At no time was I in any sort of real danger against them. And it was not because HLA broke the game; dragons have so much hp (as much as Mel at the Throne) that HLAs were not very significative. The few times dragons could get a hit in, the regeneration from the Ring of Gaxx outdid their work. Firkraag was killed on the first try, Thaxlly on the third or fourth, but only because I thought that blind and level drain were game changers, reloading when I was struck. They're not. Move, be patient and you'll be ok.
After these two kinda underwhelming fights, I hesitate between continuing the main quest or digging deeper into Watcher's Keep. Suggestions ?
@Arctodus sounds like things are just too easy for you! I think you suggested you were interested in going no-reload once Caligula has finished - which might point to cracking on with the main quest?
If the variables are correct (and they should be, if you saw HM and Imoen), then there're two possibilities: 1) There's a mod installed that modifies the script. 2) Your gender is ATTACK_HELICOPTER neither MALE nor FEMALE for a reason I can't begin to imagine. Not even the cursed belt or a wild surge could do it, I think?
Ha! That's it! My character's gender is "Other!"
I used EEKeeper to change it since Frisk's gender is ambiguous in Undertale. I never thought it would have an impact on scripts.
I switched it back to female via EEKeeper and it fixed the problem.
Nice to see @JuliusBorisov interested in this thread. I second @Harpagornis's invitation to join the fun.
@Arctodus, very nice work with some of SoA's most powerful foes. Like @Grond0 I'd move on with the main quest I think, but I'd definitely experiment with Watcher's Keep at some point.
@semiticgod, I think you're selling yourself short when you don't count yourself among the players who "are deeply familiar with the ins and outs of the game and optimize [their] gameplay by careful engineering". If there's anyone who studies all the stats, abilities, immunities etc of the game's characters and who builds entire playthroughs on specific strategies, it's you. Congrats on surviving BG1. The odds of solo no-reloading through LoB/SoD on your first try are against you, despite the wealth of information in this thread, simply because you'll probably have to see for yourself how some enemies behave. I definitely did with the crusader attacks for example. But I wish you the best of luckm may Tymora accompany you.
@Harpagornis, belated commiserations man. That was another great run! You're bound to beat the first two parts of the quartet on no -reload sooner rather than later. Berserker/Druid is an amazing class combo. Personally I find it a bit more interesting to read about than Fighter/Thief but I fully understand and support your wish to get Korgath in action again.
I have an Illusionist/Thief in Candlekeep, but after my playthrough with my Fighter/Illusionist I feel I have 90% of SoD down for arcane classes, really the only classes I've played in SoD. Going through the entirety of BG1 and 90% of SoD with an Illusionist/Thief would likely amount to a close repetition of my Blade and Fighter/Illusionist runs. I'm afraid I can't be bothered with that atm.
So I want something out of the ordinary for me.
- I've considered picking a very awkward wizard class, a Transmuter with bad stats that I rolled for a non-LoB run. To me it's one of the most interesting classes since it plays unlike any other mage or other class. Unfortunately, Transmuter is one of the weakest classes for SoA and ToB, the parts of the game where I need a strong class because I've never played them in the context of a solo SCS/LoB challenge. - I also have a new Archer. I've played a bit with Archers before without much success. But I still think that with sufficient defensive items and potions, the Archer should be a fairly strong contender even though lack of +3 ammo will be nuisance against the Big B. - Another Cleric/Thief. I know I enjoy playing Cleric/Thieves a lot. I've tried one before but he fell in an ambush in mid BG1. Now that I know SoD better I fear that Cleric/Thieves have very little in the way of effective crowd control or AoE damage options during the crusader attacks: some traps, Animate Dead takes ages to cast, no arrows of detonation, no Chaos, Web, Stinking Cloud, Insect Plague etc., only two APR while hasted and fireballs from the amulet of missiles once per round. Does anyone have any tips for those battles?
Who can help me decide? I'm also open to other suggestions.
Comments
On the 13th, I started a new game without the bonus XP from Legacy of Bhaal mode, inspired by a post from @Grond0. On the 14th, I realized I could improve the pet basilisk strategy by using Stone to Flesh scrolls to repeatedly un-petrify and re-petrify a Greater Basilisk, trading 200 gold for 7,000 XP every time.
The whole point of disabling bonus XP in the first place was to make levels harder to get. But the day after I started, I found out how to hit the XP cap in 15 minutes.
...Why do I do these things?
I loled.
This sounds like something I would do.
They required 19 to hit, so that didn't seem too dangerous, but eventually one of them scored a hit - and Rysh ran away a bit and successfully used slow poison. I'd lost about 20 HPs, but decided not to rest as that would give them their dire charms back. A bit more kiting followed, before Rysh was hit again - and when he tried to retreat and rest a wolf had appeared on a previously empty encounter spot. A quick change of direction followed and things looked bleak as several attempts to get far enough out of sight to rest failed. With HPs down to 6 and ticking down fast he had one more try - and this time success
Or at least a successful attempt to rest, but interrupted by another wolf
For the Ducal Palace, I charmed some nobles and sent them into the main room, but I didn't really know what to do with them besides that. I also charmed the cleric from the nearby Temple of Helm and the innkeeper from the tavern to the east of palace and brought them inside, as they had decent stats.
I summoned a huge swarm of critters from the southeast corner of the palace interior, then went invisible and snuck over to Liia Jannath while my summons crowded around everyone. I broke invisibility by talking to Liia Jannath (she had nothing to say), Belt's dialogue started, and just as the doppelgangers appeared, I cast Invisibility on Liia Jannath, hoping no divination spells would reveal her.
I retreated to a safe point and cast Greater Malison and then Chaos via scrolls, as I had seen @Blackraven carrying some mage scrolls in his quick slots in one of his screenshots of the fight a while back, and I assumed they were useful. They confused two of the doppelgangers, but I'm not sure if it made a difference.
The fight was going fine until the Doppelganger Mage appeared. I had no idea where to find it before, and even if I had, I doubted I could do anything but waste a few rounds trying to stun it with the Wand of Paralyzation (I'm sure it would have made its save every time). The Doppelganger Mage hit the Flaming Fist and my own summons with Confusion, and many failed their saves.
My charmed cleric, the charmed inkeeper, and my summons all went wild. Some of them attacked the Flaming Fist, and the Flaming Fist responded in kind. I summoned more critters, knowing they at least would not be confused.
Belt was at Injured, but only had two hostile critters close to him. Liia Jannath was nowhere in sight.
The doppelgangers grew weak, until only the mage was left. I swarmed the surviving mage, but the Flaming Fist went hostile because they had fought with my summons while everyone was confused. Some of the Flaming Fist even attacked Belt!
But the doppelganger mage fell. I understand that you can make the fight a little safer by luring Belt into another room before the last doppelganger collapses, but Belt was busy fighting a pair of Flaming Fist mercenaries, and I couldn't kill them without losing a lot of reputation (I already lost 10 when I tried killing one of them).
Sarevok went hostile. I summoned more critters right on top of him, and though he had a slight opening to reach Belt, he opted to tackle the monsters instead. After a few rounds, Sarevok gave up and fled. The Flaming Fist kept attacking us, but I was able to talk to Belt, who teleported us to the Thieves Guild.
I didn't know this before, but apparently you can leave the Thieves Guild and do some last minute shopping. Everyone went hostile when I tried to get out and I failed to give the right password, but it didn't stop me from selling off a little extra stuff and hurrying to the maze, where I tanked the traps using Protection from Fire and Protection from Electricity.
I used Sanctuary to get past the Undercity party and Tamoko. Why bother fighting them?
Before Sarevok, I spent the last of my gold brewing some Potions of Invisibility. I figured that I would want a lot of escape options if I was to survive the fight.
I broke invisibility by attacking Sarevok with a sling, then fled to the southeast corner. But Sarevok did not follow--maybe because I went invisible on the way there.
Instead, I tried luring him over with a summoned skeleton. But all I could do was shuffle the enemy around; I couldn't isolate Angelo from the rest of the group.
Unable to divide the enemy, I resorted to my PWWP strategy: Provoke, Withdraw, Weaken, Pounce. I hid under invisibility to wait out the enemy's defenses, using Sanctuary to negate divination attacks and fleeing when I needed time.
But invisibility cannot block a Remove Magic spell, even if you go invisible during the casting time. Angelo targeted me with Remove Magic while I was visible and the other enemies were attacking me. I tried to flee, but there wasn't enough room to escape.
There was too much pressure for me to cast a spell, but I could use a Potion of Invisibility. But I did not do so, even though I was suffering heavy damage very fast, because I knew that Remove Magic spell would dispel the invisibility, and I would not be able to move fast enough to escape the pressure when it did.
I let the Remove Magic hit me and drank a Potion of Invisibility when I was down to less than 30 HP. I fled to the corner and drank a Potion of Regeneration--which I purchased specifically because I only had 9 Potions of Healing, and I wouldn't be able to heal myself up to full health more than once without regeneration.
I waited out the enemy's buffs once more, drinking defensive potions until Tazok's haste wore off, and successfully lured some of the enemies (others were invisible) into the northwest corner.
I then went back to cuddling the corners, summoning monsters from the edges of the map and only peeking at the enemy when I was invisible. With a finite supply of invisibility potions and spells, I had to make sure I only went invisible when I needed to.
First, we swarmed Tazok, as he was the closest within reach. Semaj and Angelo used up their spells, and Diarmid used up his arrows. Greater Malison and Chaos failed to do much to the enemy, but with enough summons, we were able to bring down Tazok.
Angelo was next, because Diarmid was too far away (I couldn't spot him without getting too close to the enemy) and Semaj was hiding. Then we moved on to Semaj and finally Diarmid before swarming the skeletons and then Sarevok. I had the Priest of Mystra kit, whose Improved Dispel Magic casts at double caster level plus one (or level 15 in my case, for a 75% chance of dispelling Sarevok's haste, which I assume counting as level 10 like all potions).
Over the course of the battle, we used about 29 charges from the Wand of Monster Summoning, plus a scroll of Haste. I didn't use more than a couple charges from any of my other wands, as I didn't want to get close to the enemy... even though I had a save vs. spell of -1, plenty of Greenstone Amulet charges, lots of Potions of Magic Shielding, extra scrolls of Stoneskin, a spare scroll of Teleport Field, plenty of invisibility potions and scrolls and spells, and a high movement rate. Plus, Diarmid and Angelo and Semaj had long since run out of arrows and spells anyway.
But I really didn't want to approach the enemy. This is my first solo no-reload LoB run of BG1, after all, and I didn't want to take any chances.
I don't really know how I'm going to handle Siege of Dragonspear. Putting aside my own lack of knowledge about the game, SoD is really the worst of all worlds in terms of difficulty: it has the low levels of BG1, the massive hordes of Icewind Dale, the complex enemies of BG2, and the advanced AI of SCS.
Siege of Dragonspear fights a lot smarter than BG1 or BG2, and the metagame is still young and primitive. It's not a good combination for a no-reload run.
Unfortunately, Magic Resistance has a casting time of 9, and Big B can go invisible at any time. And a level 9 cleric only gets one shot at it unless he or she has 20 Wisdom (and I only got one wisdom tome).
Same problem with Doom and Chant; they also have a casting time of 9 in EE. A Minor Sequencer can cast one of them (but not both!) instantly, but you only get one such sequencer per day. I can scribe multiple Greater Malison scrolls, but without Chant and Doom (which can't be scribed), Big B's save vs. polymorph is only 2 with Greater Malison, which means Polymorph Other only has a 5% chance of success per hit. In order to hit a 90% success rate, you'd need to hit him 44 times, and that's assuming you keep Lower Resistance and Greater Malison on him the whole time.
So the viability of the polymorph strategy depends on your ability to hit Big B with Doom and Chant--and the more important one, Doom, is harder to land, since Chant can ignore invisibility.
But I miscalculated the odds in a previous post. With Greater Malison, Doom, and Chant, the odds of a successful polymorph kill on Big B, assuming no magic resistance, is 20%, not 15%, for each hit. So this is what you need to get a 90% chance of success using this strategy:
With Greater Malison only:
44 Polymorph Other spells
With Greater Malison and Chant:
22 Polymorph Other spells
With Greater Malison and Doom:
14 Polymorph Other spells
With Greater Malison, Doom, and Chant:
10 Polymorph Other spells
Polymorph Other doesn't seem practical against Big B without the scroll scribing mod or without both cleric and mage levels, since you can't rest and try again like you could in other fights.
SoD spoiler:
Based on their numbers in Near Infinity, it looks like Caelar would only be able to deal about 300 damage to Belhifet before she dies in about 7 rounds, not counting her healing potions. So we've still got 800 HP to go even with Caelar's help.
If you catch Caelar at 25% her normal health, every Heal spell you cast on her should get you another 200 damage on Belhifet. So a level 12 druid should get about 700 damage out of her, leaving Belhifet with about 400 to go, if you use both of your level 6 spell slots to cast Heal on Caelar.
Cast Haste on her, and her APR should go from 4 to 5, in which case she'll deal almost 400 damage before she croaks, leaving Bellyfat with 700.
If you can keep Bellyfat off of Caelar's back every now and then, you might be able to get her to drink all 10 of her Potions of Extra Healing, which amounts to 270 HP, or 66% of her normal maximum. That would give you another 200 damage on Bellyfat (or about 250 if you keep her hasted).
A cleric/mage or fighter/mage/cleric using the spider gnome trick with the Martyr's Morningstar should therefore need only 5 critical hits to finish Siege of Dragonspear. In spider form, with haste, with one proficiency point in Single Weapon Style, you should land a critical hit every other round on average, which means you should only need to engage in melee combat for 10 rounds total. If our friend uses all 10 of those potions, it might require even less.
But since the chance of a critical hit is only 10% with SWS, it's entirely possible for bad luck to drag out the fight much longer than that. Stoneskin and Mirror Image scrolls would be very important to have, since you can't cast spells in spider form.
Because it seems like you could just charm them, take some of them outside the palace, and then fight only one or two inside the palace itself. Then you could go back outside if necessary, pick off the remaining ones, and return to trigger the next dialogue.
I talked down Porios by donning Lord Foreshadow's Ring of Human Influence and Algernon's Cloak. For those whose installs don't have the ring (which sets CHA to 18, like Kalah's ring in BG2), the Friends spell can bump CHA up by 6 and a Potion of Persuasion, purchased from the Flaming Fist Healer for a few hundred gold, can bump it up another 4.
The second level was more troublesome. Based on @Blackraven's example, I had brought all the Protection from Undead scroll I could find (5 copies), but I foolishly tried to tackle the first group of undead by relying on Invisibility alone.
But Bonebats can see through invisibility.
Apparently Insane mode and therefore LoB mode adds a skeleton mage to that first fight--a mage which casts Haste! It's a massive boost to its allies, and my summons went down in short order. I used a scroll of Protection from Undead to avoid getting crushed, but the enemy still formed a wall of bones. I had to use the Wand of Fire to burn my way through.
I rested upstairs to avoid spawning any skeletons on the Flaming Fist and ran through the dungeon under Invisibility, and thankfully there were no other Bonebats around. Also based on @Blackraven's example, I ran past the human enemies and used high Charisma to convince the neutral guys to let me open the door to Korlasz's lair.
For Korlasz herself, I summoned a bunch of critters, hasted them, and sent them through the door beforehand. I failed to convince Korlasz to surrender--I chose the first dialogue option; I don't know if it's possible to get her to surrender without a fight first--and fell back to use Web spells from afar.
But as I failed to realize, Korlasz had MGOI and was immune to Web, and I didn't dare break invisibility to try to hurt her friends. And since I normally relied on swarms of summons to deal with mages, I couldn't mob Korlasz either, because those Web spells would have ensnared any of my own summoned critters.
I waited out Korlasz's MGOI and waited in the doorway, because her friends were running around whenever they made their saves vs. Web and I wanted to make sure none of them got behind me.
I didn't want to use many more charges of the Wand of Monster Summoning, because (1) I only had so many of them, and (2) I was sure I'd need them a lot in later fights, but (3) I still needed to recharge my wands and (4) I was very low on gold. But I didn't see any other option; I was trapped between Korlasz' group and the Followers of Sarevok behind me.
I cast Web a few more times via scrolls, fell back, and then tried to kill Korlasz with Wand of Fire charges, again based on @Blackraven's example.
But Korlasz was immune. It seems I missed a step somewhere. Only when I had fried several of her companions did I notice.
I ended up having to use a whole bunch of wand charges to summon monsters to deal with the enemy. I focused on a few already-wounded enemies, but Korlasz' friends include a lot of archers, and they will gleefully kite you. Pinning them down was nearly impossible.
I turned my attention to Korlasz herself instead. I wanted to break invisibility with the Wand of the Heavens in the hopes of triggering her surrender dialogue, but then the Followers of Sarevok suddenly came in from the south, and an Aura of Despair from a Blackguard sent my cleric/illusionist running.
My summons killed Korlasz, only for her friends to crush them in turn, leaving me alone. My cleric/mage was running around invisible and all of the hasted enemies were scurrying around, threatening to box me in at any moment. Mercifully, I recovered from the Aura of Despair before they could trap me, and I escaped the room.
I had to break invisibility to talk to Imoen, but a Potion of Invisibility let me escape to the top level before the enemy could pin me down. I didn't do any of the optional side quests besides reporting to that mummy and getting a +2 shield for killing Korlasz.
Things are not looking great. I can cast Animate Dead 4 times per day, and Animal Summoning 3 times per day, but even with Haste, those critters are just not enough to handle minor skirmishes on their own. I didn't have the spell slots to overcome the enemies in the first dungeon; I had to rely on scrolls and wands.
I know I can avoid a lot of fights in SoD, but I need to be able to build up a strong gold supply if I'm going to be equipped for the fights I can't avoid. I'm already low on resources and I'm already running a deficit. And Siege of Dragonspear doesn't have the highly-rewarding side quests you find in BG1 and Shadows of Amn.
Gold problem: Kill all party NPC´s (Minsc, Dynaheir, Safana, Rashad) alone will boost your gold like crazy! And the best: They will respawn once you start the March to Dragonspear so you can kill them again!
You are right skipping most battles in SoD is possible so you can rush through the game quite hard. Once you have played it several times it gets nearly as easy as BG1 (or BG2 for you). Without metagame knowledge on the other hand it will be at least "tricky".
With regard to Big B: A Druid is able to get in the Magic Resistance-Harm-Combo without too many problems (Iron Skin + summons!) so with careful moving a Mage should be able to get in his Polymorph combo too even though you might skip Doom! Big B does not use Imp. Invisibilty right at the start of the battle. He will first cast his Dispel Magic then kill Caelar and then you have one or two rounds before he will vanish for a short time. Summons might distract him a little bit more. Thats 3-5 rounds normally - is this enough?
BtW: I normally drop Caelar out of my group immediately as it breaks the solo rules! And no she wont do 300 damage to Big B - on LoB she will die in just one (or two) rounds once Big B starts attacking (4 APR, 40-58 damage!). This also means that you will need at least six crits with Martyr's Morningstar. Tanking Big B and his demons will be very hard as they will eat your Stoneskins + Mirror Images in no time so you might fall back to the usual invisible hit & run routine.
Charming the Doppleganger at the Ducal Palace makes this battle so much easier for non-Mages! I usually charm the Mage only as he is the biggest danger. I move the Noble to a nearby room and rest once more to reduce the waiting time after the others have died. The rest is business as usual: Use Guards and Nobles, dispel the Dopplegangers and hack them down. Wait until the Mage transforms and blow him apart. Easy going!
P.S. I used CTRL+Q to check it. The battle log confirms this!
P.P.S His attacks will also poison and cause diseaese (save vs death)
However, the disease appears to be rigged so that it does not stack, so it will simply penalize your STR and either DEX or CON by 2 for 10 rounds. It shouldn't be able to kill you with stat drain.
The hit & run using invisibility is the safest way for any warrior so if everything fails this might be a good backup plan to get in the Martyr's Morningstar crits. With summon distraction you might be able to just attack Big B for several rounds - the Myconids are really good here as they wont get feared!!
Here a shortlist of his tactics:
vs Ziathar: Buffed up and protected against poison Krell summoned five Nymphs before battle, triggered the talking and closed the nearby door to cut her reinforcements. Lured Ziatar into the corridor and closed the door to her room removing the two Mages from the battle too. All Nymphs started casting "Hold Monster" while Krell soaked the poison breath. Shortly after Ziatar - like always - failed the save and was helpless. Krell took her down easily with dual Scimitars even though the Nymphs panicked shortly after running around like crazy. This called in some of her guards but Krell ignored them. Once Ziatar went down he just moved upstairs again and rested so all guards would reset into their original position.
vs Neothelid: He lured the beast into the entrance room and moved shortly upstairs to buff himself up against poison and domination. He casted Harm twice but failed against the magic resistance so he used to good old hit & run like fighting a melee Ankheg. Thanks to Save vs Death -2 he never got poisoned while Iron Skin soaked up most attacks. Two minutes later the Neothelid was history.
vs Akanna: Used one Fire Elemental to lure the hard hitting Air Aspects out and sneaked up to the invisible Akanna after closing the door! Now Krell used one Insect Swarm on himself to hinder Akannas spell power and hacked her down without any resistance. Grabbed the Wardstone and moved out again.
vs. Morentherene: On his way out Krell rested safely and buffed up again to try his luck on the Green Dragon. He casted Harm outside of the cave (otherwise the Dragon will immediately wake up and attack!) and rushed to the Dragon! Luck was on his side and the hit went through the magic resistance. Another quick hit with his Scimitar +3 took the beast down so he took the Dragon Scales and sneaked out invisible.
The battle for Bridgefort will be skipped so Krell will move on to Coalition Camp soon!
After rushing through Dragonspear Castle (Ring of the Crusade!) and the Underground Tunnels (invisibility and haste!) it was finally time to face the ambush on coalition camp!
First Wave - Trolls and Ogres
For this one Krell charmed the Mage NPC´s first so they could either get in some monsters or cast Web (which works wonders against them like @Blackraven showed earlier). Two Fire Elementals (big ones this time!) and buffed up Krell chose the tough Dwarves of Dumathoin. Too bad: Dynaheir and Co disappeared before the wave triggered so no more Fireballs from them. Anyway: With Insect Swarm + Necklace of Missiles the enemy was damaged constantly while the Web rooted many of them in place. After another Insect Swarm and several Fireballs Krell rushed in to hack the badly wounded enemies apart using Dual Scimitars again. Thanks to Web both Fire Elementals only got "injured" so Krell could use them for the next wave!
Second Wave - Crusager Mages
Thanks to Dosia´s resting power Krell had two Insect Swarm up again - as well as two more Fire Elementals. With Four Elementals and one Nymph Krell went with the Wizard Slayers this time. He threw in his Insect Swarms together with several Necklace of Missiles. Once the enemies were badly wounded he gulped Potions of Magic Blocking and rushed in - reusing them whenever another dispel went in. Thanks to Dual Wielding and Haste the Mages went down pretty quickly while still suffering from the second Insect Swarm. At the end two Fire Elementals (injured and barely injured) as well as three Wizard Slayers survived - well done!
Third Wave - Cavalier and Clerics
With another rest thanks to Dosia Krell summoned another two Fire Elementals (four again) and one Nymph. Buffed up he went with the very tough War Mages while using the same combo as before: Insect Swarm + Necklace of Missiles to give them nearly no time for healing up again. As most enemies in all of these waves only use normal weapons the four Fire Elementals will survive for a long time. Long enough to get in the second Insect Swarm and burning through the Necklace of Missiles. With the enemy healing cut down Krell went in fully buffed and hacked everything apart. This time one Fire Elemental and all War Mages survived - the Mages did not even got a scratch!
Fourth Wave - The General
Thanks to defensive play Krell did not walk into enemy fire (unlike Braxx before) and switched constantly between throwing his Returning Acid Dart +2 and Necklace of Missiles. With the help of his immortal friends Garrus and Auziel the Named Ones went down one after another - victory!
All in all the Crusader Ambush was much easier than expected - especially with the resting option in between. Inscect Swarm + Necklace of Missiles + Fire Elementals ruled them down!!
Time to take a rest. And then: Revenge! Its up to you Korgath once again. But not today. Good Night!
And remember: revenge is a dish best served cold
Maybe its time to awaken the old god of murder Korgath once more from his deep slumber!
I think I found and used several Wisdom tomes when reading them.
Kudos to the participants here. Those 537 comments were the most insightful, the richest comments about IE games I ever read.
All this knowledge is priceless. I would dare say that the LoB challenge lead to people finding new, previously unthinkable ways of dealing with situations in BG. Using PfM scrolls on Sendai? Charming basilisks? Making Liia invisible? The list can go on and on.
A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!
After eating all these Wisdom Tomes - maybe its time to join our challenge @JuliusBorisov no?
I did everything I wanted to do in Baldur's Gate, but I can't begin the main quest. I tell Corwin I'm ready to go, I head upstairs, talk to the Hooded Man, and then talk to Imoen.
Nothing happens. I'm supposed to rest and then get woken up by Skie, but nothing happens.
How do I get the game to proceed? I can't imagine how I could have broken the questline.
This is the trigger from bd0103.bcs to advance further
Global("BD_plot","global",54) Global("BD_MDD007","bd0103",2) Global("BD_MDD005","bd0103",0) Gender(Player1,MALE) // or FEMALEIf the variables are correct (and they should be, if you saw HM and Imoen), then there're two possibilities:1) There's a mod installed that modifies the script.
2) Your gender is
ATTACK_HELICOPTERneither MALE nor FEMALE for a reason I can't begin to imagine. Not even the cursed belt or a wild surge could do it, I think?If entering C:Eval('ChangeGender(Player1,MALE)') (or female) into console will fix the issue, then I'll be damned.
Kangaxx
After his two liches buddy, the big undead himself was tackled. I first tried to savescum my way to victory against his first form with the IMoD, but, for whatever reason, it was immune to the mace. Oh well. I fought it fair square, well, kinda, because I used the ol' in-and-out of the basement strat to make him waste his bigger spells. Cornugon and Pite Fiend gating ? Pfff... Nothing that waiting can't resolve. Eventually, I managed to have his first form more vulnerable and my simmy took it down with his GWW charges.
In his demi-lich form, well... the same strat was used : a mixture of in-and-out and waiting. His summons and magic defenses went down enough for me to swoop in for the kill. A strike from the IMoD did him in eventually. Nothing too hard actually, but that would have definitively a sharper fight under no-reload.
Firkraag
Went in the Big Red Dragon cave with me and my simmy fully buffed. Engaged the beast with my Effreti. When he triggered his defenses, I had to wait out his PfMW. Firkraag took a surprisingly long time to take out the Efreeti, which permitted to do so. Then, my simmy peltered him with arrows of dispelling while I was emptying my GWWs on him. Firkraag then took down my Efreeti and started to work on my simmy. The simmy tried to use his GWWs while meleeing, but he died before using them all. Bad execution on my part, but that proved inconsequential.
When I found myself alone with the beast, which was still only at Injured, I thought I had about no chance of killing it. But I said to myself : "What the hell, let's do this"! It actually proved to be a lot easier than expected, because Firkraag is very susceptible to be kited effectively. He followed me around, but I could outrun him with them speed boots. I slinged him for a very long time and, due to having 90% undispellable fire resistance, his fire breath were pretty harmless. He sometimes managed to hit me in melee, which did a boatload of damage, but otherwise, kiting was enough to did him in. I even killed him on my first try !! No reload were needed. It was a bit surprising though, because I'm pretty sure I saw him cast lower fire resistance in a previous run before launching a mighty fire breath on one of my toon. He didn't do it against me. Well, maybe he did on my simmy and I didn't see it pass in the log, or maybe I'm just confusing him with the Fire Giants in ToB and he only casted Remove Magic in my preivous game. But whatevs, he dead and he gone now.
Thaxll'ssillya
The Shadow Dragon was pretty much another big kiting session... much bigger kiting session... Started the fight with me and my simmy buffed. My Efreeti attacked him, wait for his PfMW go out, then unload on him. Pretty much the same thing as Firkraag, except that his breath attack drain levels and blinds you. The worst ? NOTHING makes you immune to blind in BG2. Ugh... So, after Thaxlly killed my simmy, I kited him in the most grueling way : I shoot him with a bullet, then switch immediately to the IMoD to prevent level drain, he blinds me (without a save obviously), I wait for the blind to run out, the blind runs out, Thaxlly goes invisible, I wait for him to reappear, he does, I shoot him with a bullet, he blinds me and so on... Ugh, tedious you say...
However, the nice thing is that I could save my game while blinded, so I decided to split the killing run in two sessions. He managed to level drain my twice, but the level drain eventually wears off. I didn't remembered that. I thought it was weird. But hey, he dead and he gone.
So, dragons were... pretty harmless in the end. At no time was I in any sort of real danger against them. And it was not because HLA broke the game; dragons have so much hp (as much as Mel at the Throne) that HLAs were not very significative. The few times dragons could get a hit in, the regeneration from the Ring of Gaxx outdid their work. Firkraag was killed on the first try, Thaxlly on the third or fourth, but only because I thought that blind and level drain were game changers, reloading when I was struck. They're not. Move, be patient and you'll be ok.
After these two kinda underwhelming fights, I hesitate between continuing the main quest or digging deeper into Watcher's Keep. Suggestions ?
I used EEKeeper to change it since Frisk's gender is ambiguous in Undertale. I never thought it would have an impact on scripts.
I switched it back to female via EEKeeper and it fixed the problem.
I will continue with Korgath soon who his still sleeping in the Tomb of Korlasz.
Mind fresh, motivation high - time to put an end to Big B!
@Arctodus, very nice work with some of SoA's most powerful foes. Like @Grond0 I'd move on with the main quest I think, but I'd definitely experiment with Watcher's Keep at some point.
@semiticgod, I think you're selling yourself short when you don't count yourself among the players who "are deeply familiar with the ins and outs of the game and optimize [their] gameplay by careful engineering". If there's anyone who studies all the stats, abilities, immunities etc of the game's characters and who builds entire playthroughs on specific strategies, it's you.
Congrats on surviving BG1. The odds of solo no-reloading through LoB/SoD on your first try are against you, despite the wealth of information in this thread, simply because you'll probably have to see for yourself how some enemies behave. I definitely did with the crusader attacks for example. But I wish you the best of luckm may Tymora accompany you.
@Harpagornis, belated commiserations man. That was another great run! You're bound to beat the first two parts of the quartet on no -reload sooner rather than later.
Berserker/Druid is an amazing class combo. Personally I find it a bit more interesting to read about than Fighter/Thief but I fully understand and support your wish to get Korgath in action again.
I have an Illusionist/Thief in Candlekeep, but after my playthrough with my Fighter/Illusionist I feel I have 90% of SoD down for arcane classes, really the only classes I've played in SoD. Going through the entirety of BG1 and 90% of SoD with an Illusionist/Thief would likely amount to a close repetition of my Blade and Fighter/Illusionist runs. I'm afraid I can't be bothered with that atm.
So I want something out of the ordinary for me.
- I've considered picking a very awkward wizard class, a Transmuter with bad stats that I rolled for a non-LoB run. To me it's one of the most interesting classes since it plays unlike any other mage or other class. Unfortunately, Transmuter is one of the weakest classes for SoA and ToB, the parts of the game where I need a strong class because I've never played them in the context of a solo SCS/LoB challenge.
- I also have a new Archer. I've played a bit with Archers before without much success. But I still think that with sufficient defensive items and potions, the Archer should be a fairly strong contender even though lack of +3 ammo will be nuisance against the Big B.
- Another Cleric/Thief. I know I enjoy playing Cleric/Thieves a lot. I've tried one before but he fell in an ambush in mid BG1. Now that I know SoD better I fear that Cleric/Thieves have very little in the way of effective crowd control or AoE damage options during the crusader attacks: some traps, Animate Dead takes ages to cast, no arrows of detonation, no Chaos, Web, Stinking Cloud, Insect Plague etc., only two APR while hasted and fireballs from the amulet of missiles once per round. Does anyone have any tips for those battles?
Who can help me decide? I'm also open to other suggestions.