Well, unless your party is already a full party of six, Caelar does actually join the party if you join forces with her. That's really the root of my problem (otherwise, I certainly wouldn't have an issue with going for that option).
It's unfortunate that you can't fight alongside her without letting her join the party. You could probably replicate the effect, though, by letting her join the party and then having her act exclusively via script.
I assumed that she could fight for you outside the party if you chose the right dialogue. That's happened in the MP runs with @Gate70, but perhaps the game plays differently in MP (i.e. treating it as if the party were full).
Actually, that could be a pretty fun premise for a run... One CHARNAME and 5 NPCs with only their A.I.s running. You can control them anytime the combat music's not playing, so you can select spells and equipment and prebuffs, but once you're in combat, it's up to whatever A.I. you've given them.
It's unfortunate that you can't fight alongside her without letting her join the party. You could probably replicate the effect, though, by letting her join the party and then having her act exclusively via script.
Just thinking further about this. If the game does treat MP differently then you could just play through the confrontation with Belhifet in MP ...
Actually, that could be a pretty fun premise for a run... One CHARNAME and 5 NPCs with only their A.I.s running. You can control them anytime the combat music's not playing, so you can select spells and equipment and prebuffs, but once you're in combat, it's up to whatever A.I. you've given them.
Hey, I like this idea! What scripts would be good for the npcs I wonder though? You'd want some stuff like 'Spellcaster attack' to be mixed in... and for their special abilities to be employed.
My run is slightly on hold as, after clearing the upper floors of Durlag's & some forest areas prior to taking on the Bandit Camp, my game suddenly started crashing. Possibly time for a re-install.
I assumed that she could fight for you outside the party if you chose the right dialogue. That's happened in the MP runs with @Gate70, but perhaps the game plays differently in MP (i.e. treating it as if the party were full).
Removing this as it doesn't work.
It should play the same, here's the dialogue options
1 What's going on... 1 Is this true... 1 I know not... 3 Well... Yeah.
@semiticgod: I used the Magic Resistance + Harm Combo with my Druids several times on Belhifet. It works. But you have to get luck on your side cause the trigger when Big B uses his Improved Invisibilty is quite random. I had most success with following sequence:
1. Summon Myconids while Big uses his Dispel on Caelar. As Big B (and most demons) prefer to attack Caelar and the summons you have some time (and Iron Skin) 2. Cast Magic Resistance from a safe spot 3. Cast Harm 4. Hope you get a lucky crit roll 5. Finish Big B
In my tests i was often able to get Harm ready before Big B went invisible. The much bigger problem was to hit him with the spell. Or with other words: In a solo no-reload-run this tactic is quite unreliable...
Trying Harm is a reasonable option in a solo LoB run where there are potential doubts about doing enough damage to Belhifet. In a party Core run though it should be easy enough to do the required damage to Belhifet if his MR is eliminated - and it sounds from @Harpagornis experience that shouldn't be too hard.
I just got out of my first beholder encounter in the Unseeing Eye sidequest. It was not too bad, but still far from being clean.
What I did : buffed, used high level summons, hasted everyone with range weapons and went to town on them. I went ok-ish, but they still managed to kill Kivan and Alora. Still, my moderate success makes me a bit more hesitant to go against the big bad Eye himself with his two Death Tyrants buddy as of now. Can somebody give me a few hints for that fight ?
My party is around level 12/13. I only have access to level 6 arcane spells, since Xan still has long way to go before he gets to level 14. I installed unnerfed spell progression for bards, which means that Miluiel will eventually have access to level 7 and 8 spells, but I have still a long, long way to go before that happen. I have access to level 7 cleric spells through Gavin and level 6 druid spells through Jaheira. My setup allow Beholder to "burn through" spell protections and their anti-magic ray blocks all magic effects, beneficial or otherwise.
Should I just go to Brynnlaw instead of trying my luck now against beholders or the Planar Prison/Sphere ? As a side note, I also tried my hand against the Yuan-ti mages trio in Mekrath's lair, and it went surprisingly well; they couldn't disable us and only did scratch damage.
Death Tyrants have 115 HP each, -2 AC, and no other defenses. Enter with Spell Shield active and you can avoid suffering a single Anti-Magic Ray, which should let Xan do lots of damage for maybe a single round. Combine that with area-effect spells from out of the beholders' line of sight and you should be able to severely wound the Death Tyrants. Anti-Magic Ray should grant immunity to their spells for 2 rounds (maybe just 1, but I think 2), which should be enough to bump off one or both of the Death Tyrants.
In a word, blitzkrieg tactics work on beholders. Hit them hard enough in the first few seconds and they won't be able to resist the damage or bounce back after being wounded.
That said, I typically don't fight the Unseeing Eye until very late in the game, sometimes not until after Spellhold. I'm even more likely to delay the Planar Sphere, and even more likely still to delay the Planar Prison.
So... do you really need Ardulia's Fall before the Underdark? Do you really need an extra pair of Boots of Speed or Kundane? Do you really need the Ring of Acuity or Gauntlets of Ogre Power? I usually say no, and I love Kundane.
I disagree with you guys. I like the Insect Plague/Creeping Doom nerf. Unnerfed, it's an "I win" button not only against mages, but also against clerics and druids (which have no real defense against it even in its nerfed version). With a high level druid, mage fights then becomes cowboy duel : the first who pull the trigger wins. A bit boring for a difficulty mod.
I don't object to some nerfing, but I don't like the SCS approach. Under SCS, even if a mage is suffering from spell failure that doesn't make them helpless anyway - sequencers, items and scripted casts can still cause death to the unwary. For mages to be able to so easily totally block an insect spell therefore seems an over-reaction to me.
One possibility for nerfing would be to make insects more like poison, i.e. remove the 100% spell failure, but allow the damage to occur (which could potentially cause spell failure). This would get around the inequity of arcane vs divine you referred to. Creeping Doom (which triggers more rapidly than insect plague) would then be more likely to cause spell failure - which would be good as in many situations at the moment the 5th level Insect Plague is clearly a preferable spell to the 7th level Creeping Doom. Alternatively you could just reduce the spell failure rate from 100%, so you could never be certain that an opponent had been shut down.
Poison would also avoid chewing through Stoneskins, which tiny insects shouldn't be able to do. But plot-immune critters are immune to poison, as are liches, and it should be about as possible for liches to be distracted by a swarm of insects as living mages. Liches may be undead, but they still have senses that can be irritated; they're not numb.
One possibility for nerfing would be to make insects more like poison, i.e. remove the 100% spell failure, but allow the damage to occur (which could potentially cause spell failure). This would get around the inequity of arcane vs divine you referred to. Creeping Doom (which triggers more rapidly than insect plague) would then be more likely to cause spell failure - which would be good as in many situations at the moment the 5th level Insect Plague is clearly a preferable spell to the 7th level Creeping Doom. Alternatively you could just reduce the spell failure rate from 100%, so you could never be certain that an opponent had been shut down.
I completely agree that those two possibilities you suggested @Grond0 would be a much better implementation balance wise than the SCS nerf. It then would act as an efficient, but not-so-sure way to shut down enemy casters (divine or arcane). It still would be strong enough to warrant a high level spell slot, but wouldn't be the make-or-break type of spell it is in its original version.
Poison would also avoid chewing through Stoneskins
Actually, this is a bug which will be fixed in 2.5 (and is fixed in 2.4 on iOS): Stoneskin now protects against the poison effect again, as it did in the original games.
Actually, that could be a pretty fun premise for a run... One CHARNAME and 5 NPCs with only their A.I.s running. You can control them anytime the combat music's not playing, so you can select spells and equipment and prebuffs, but once you're in combat, it's up to whatever A.I. you've given them.
In my experience, the AI is never sufficient for Ravager or Melissan. In order to win, I always need to turn off AI and take tight control.
I normally put a lot of pictures in my posts in the no-reload thread. Other people put very few or sometimes even zero pictures in their posts. What do you guys think about pictures in the no-reload thread? Is it good to have an image-heavy account? A text-heavy account? Something else? What do you like to read about?
I like reports with pictures a lot more than reports without. It's more lively. And you kinda have a proof of what happened.
Also, I really like your very thorough reports, @semiticgod. I can understand that they probably take quite a while, but you wrote some of my favorite runs in this thread.
I personally love seeing the picture updates from the more tactical fights, explaining what's going through your mind and the critical rounds from the screenshots. It's something a very few people do; you, Blackraven, and Alesia are the three that come to mind off the top of my head. I'd love to see that continue, and join you if I can remember to screenshot when I'm playing those crucial rounds.
You might have to wait; the poverty run is going to be pretty simple for most of BG2. But if I manage to take down Melissan, I'll go back and post pictures from BG1 and SoD.
Poison would also avoid chewing through Stoneskins, which tiny insects shouldn't be able to do. But plot-immune critters are immune to poison, as are liches, and it should be about as possible for liches to be distracted by a swarm of insects as living mages. Liches may be undead, but they still have senses that can be irritated; they're not numb.
In my imagination liches gradually become more and more careless of their physical form & bodily functions as they approach demilichdom. These are entities which have decided to forswear bathroom breaks & sleep in favour of spending that time acquiring money & power. If anything they should be infested with weird & warped insects to bother attackers- like those mummies filled with scorpions... In fact there's even a kind of insect which spawns from demiliches called a lichling, a sort of cockroach with a human skull head.
I normally put a lot of pictures in my posts in the no-reload thread. Other people put very few or sometimes even zero pictures in their posts. What do you guys think about pictures in the no-reload thread? Is it good to have an image-heavy account? A text-heavy account? Something else? What do you like to read about?
I'm not generally a picture person and don't typically look at all the pictures in a long post. If I think a particular fight is interesting though I will tend to look at the picture to get a better idea of what happened. It's rare that I use pictures to describe the progress of fights in my own game, although one thing I've experimented with on odd occasions in the past is a sort of 'fight of the day' approach - where one major or interesting fight in each post is described in much more detail with pictures.
I normally put a lot of pictures in my posts in the no-reload thread. Other people put very few or sometimes even zero pictures in their posts. What do you guys think about pictures in the no-reload thread? Is it good to have an image-heavy account? A text-heavy account? Something else? What do you like to read about?
I like it when there are pictures for the start of the run and for any particularly interesting incidents. However I think that it is possible to have too many.
Jesus mother-effing Christ, what the hell am I reading?
"It resembled a cockroach with a pair of insect-like wings, two pairs of human-like arms, a pair of human-like legs, and a human skull for a head, containing razor-sharp fangs. Its body was chitinous and greasy. It began as a 6″ (15 cm)-long creature, but could grow up to 80' (24 m) when mature."
I just had to deal with a cockroach for the first time in years- my apartment is relatively new. Oddly enough having the thought "well, at least it doesn't have a skull head, tiny human arms, and vorpal teeth" is vaguely comforting while batting one of those out of the door with a broom. One of the uses of fantasy perhaps .
I will generally put pictures if something interesting happens, party deaths, or important fights (such as Sarevok). But if nothing remarkable/interesting happened, I not sure what the point of spamming pictures in my post. I agree with @Wise_Grimwald , you can definitely have too many pictures. But I don't play SCS. For those that do, more pictures might make more sense to explain round by round how they got by a tough fight.
About the poverty run: I haven't had to use it yet, but you can get a free party-wide Restoration spell by killing Neb in the illithium questline. It's the one way of curing level drain if your cleric dies somewhere along the way.
Also in relation to poverty, Shoal's raising of her victim is actually a group raise dead spell - hence if you leave her alone during the game she offers the possibility of getting any dead characters back (and if you lure her away from her starting position you can avoid any conflict with Ogre Droth). I tend to feel a bit dubious about taking advantage of that, but I wouldn't totally rule it out if I get desperate .
Well, unless your party is already a full party of six, Caelar does actually join the party if you join forces with her. That's really the root of my problem (otherwise, I certainly wouldn't have an issue with going for that option).
actually, that seems easily solved. Just create 5 dummy npcs, kill them and continue noreload solo that way. Caelar will not join the party at the end of SoD but will join the end fight.
Wat pure AI npcs. That works decently up until major battles where they just die off too quickly due to poor defensive scripting. You can create your own AI scripts to overcome that I guess, but that will be thousands lines of code similar to SCS and IA (and other mods). For bg1 I could manage that but for SoD or later it is a hassle to counter all those spell behaviours.
Comments
My run is slightly on hold as, after clearing the upper floors of Durlag's & some forest areas prior to taking on the Bandit Camp, my game suddenly started crashing. Possibly time for a re-install.
It should play the same, here's the dialogue options1 What's going on...1 Is this true...
1 I know not...
3 Well... Yeah.
1. Summon Myconids while Big uses his Dispel on Caelar. As Big B (and most demons) prefer to attack Caelar and the summons you have some time (and Iron Skin)
2. Cast Magic Resistance from a safe spot
3. Cast Harm
4. Hope you get a lucky crit roll
5. Finish Big B
In my tests i was often able to get Harm ready before Big B went invisible. The much bigger problem was to hit him with the spell. Or with other words: In a solo no-reload-run this tactic is quite unreliable...
What I did : buffed, used high level summons, hasted everyone with range weapons and went to town on them. I went ok-ish, but they still managed to kill Kivan and Alora. Still, my moderate success makes me a bit more hesitant to go against the big bad Eye himself with his two Death Tyrants buddy as of now. Can somebody give me a few hints for that fight ?
My party is around level 12/13. I only have access to level 6 arcane spells, since Xan still has long way to go before he gets to level 14. I installed unnerfed spell progression for bards, which means that Miluiel will eventually have access to level 7 and 8 spells, but I have still a long, long way to go before that happen. I have access to level 7 cleric spells through Gavin and level 6 druid spells through Jaheira. My setup allow Beholder to "burn through" spell protections and their anti-magic ray blocks all magic effects, beneficial or otherwise.
Should I just go to Brynnlaw instead of trying my luck now against beholders or the Planar Prison/Sphere ? As a side note, I also tried my hand against the Yuan-ti mages trio in Mekrath's lair, and it went surprisingly well; they couldn't disable us and only did scratch damage.
In a word, blitzkrieg tactics work on beholders. Hit them hard enough in the first few seconds and they won't be able to resist the damage or bounce back after being wounded.
That said, I typically don't fight the Unseeing Eye until very late in the game, sometimes not until after Spellhold. I'm even more likely to delay the Planar Sphere, and even more likely still to delay the Planar Prison.
So... do you really need Ardulia's Fall before the Underdark? Do you really need an extra pair of Boots of Speed or Kundane? Do you really need the Ring of Acuity or Gauntlets of Ogre Power? I usually say no, and I love Kundane.
Doing those quests in Chapter 6 is juuuust fine.
One possibility for nerfing would be to make insects more like poison, i.e. remove the 100% spell failure, but allow the damage to occur (which could potentially cause spell failure). This would get around the inequity of arcane vs divine you referred to. Creeping Doom (which triggers more rapidly than insect plague) would then be more likely to cause spell failure - which would be good as in many situations at the moment the 5th level Insect Plague is clearly a preferable spell to the 7th level Creeping Doom. Alternatively you could just reduce the spell failure rate from 100%, so you could never be certain that an opponent had been shut down.
https://support.baldursgate.com/issues/24117
Also, I really like your very thorough reports, @semiticgod. I can understand that they probably take quite a while, but you wrote some of my favorite runs in this thread.
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Lichling
Another reason why there'll be no lich-based spin off of Twilight...
"It resembled a cockroach with a pair of insect-like wings, two pairs of human-like arms, a pair of human-like legs, and a human skull for a head, containing razor-sharp fangs. Its body was chitinous and greasy. It began as a 6″ (15 cm)-long creature, but could grow up to 80' (24 m) when mature."
*shivers*
I just had to deal with a cockroach for the first time in years- my apartment is relatively new. Oddly enough having the thought "well, at least it doesn't have a skull head, tiny human arms, and vorpal teeth" is vaguely comforting while batting one of those out of the door with a broom. One of the uses of fantasy perhaps
Wat pure AI npcs. That works decently up until major battles where they just die off too quickly due to poor defensive scripting. You can create your own AI scripts to overcome that I guess, but that will be thousands lines of code similar to SCS and IA (and other mods). For bg1 I could manage that but for SoD or later it is a hassle to counter all those spell behaviours.