@Enuhal has brought up the possibilities opened up by the NPC customization component of SCS and I haven't probed them very fully. I shied away from it after a brief foray, thinking it too overpowered, but it does open up some pretty cool possibilities, and even from an RP perspective it would be a nice way to dip into underutilized kits without having to run a custom party.
From a powergaming perspective, I see some very lovely ways to alter existing NPCs, even aside from just giving them better kits or classes (like making Kagain a Dwarven Defender or Minsc a Berserker):
1. Alora gets +2 to AC, luck, saves, and +10% to thieving skills. That's really excellent for a thief, but the luck bonus is especially nice for fighters. Making her a fighter/thief or a Shadowdancer would give her a spectacular backstab game (I've made her a Shadowdancer in the past and she was so good at it), and even just making her a plain fighter would be very nice.
2. Eldoth's poison arrows would be extra effective in the hands of an Eldoth with fighter levels, especially of course an Archer.
3. Xan, of course, is better off as a fighter/mage, as the Xan NPC mod can make him. He would also be an excellent fighter/mage/thief; the Moonblade would be great for backstabs.
4. Voghiln would make an excellent fighter due to his stats, and his helm would be marginally more useful if he had higher APR.
5. Viconia would make a very solid fighter/thief, fighter/cleric, or even just a fighter; higher base HP would compensate for her low CON, her main weakness as a tank. Having thief levels in BG2 would also let her use Carsomyr for an easy 100% MR.
6. Imoen's thief levels would be very well-spent on the Bounty Hunter kit for its extra traps (they're just so efficient in BG1 and SoD with its crowds of weaker critters), and switching her to a mage from the get-go could give her a specialist kit.
7. Hexxat's spectacular un-cloaked stats would make her well-suited for fighter levels or even a monk class. She would also do well as a Swashbuckler, though I still think the Bounty Hunter is the best thief kit over the course of the saga.
8. Aerie would make an excellent sorcerer or specialist mage, as her base 16 WIS could be bumped up to 17 with the Silver Ioun Stone, giving her good Wish spells even on a Project Image clone.
9. I don't know if Wilson's paws can be un-equipped (I doubt it, and I don't think Use Any Item can let him use items unless his kit opcodes don't apply until he goes above level 0), but he has awesome stats and would make a solid warrior of a different kit, and giving him mage levels would help compensate for his naturally poor AC.
10. Haer'dalis would be much nastier as a fighter/mage or even a single-classed fighter, both because his Chaos Blade is an excellent means of landing DEX drain kills but suffers from his typically poor THAC0 and APR, and because Hardiness and the Defender of Easthaven will stack with his innate tiefling resistances.
11. For no-reload purposes, Neera would be better off as a non-Wild Mage.
The Transmuter just took down Belhifet with a Minute Meteor! M'Khiin buffed Voghiln and Charname with Champion's Strength scrolls and Charname landed the final blow thanks to an Enchanted Weapon scroll from Voghiln.
Early SoA will be fun. It's always been my favorite part of the saga. But I know things are only going to get tougher as time goes on.
Thinking about the numbers, the ideal strategy for Melissan might just be to stack up on fighter levels and shred the enemy through sheer force of damage output. With GWW and the Scorcher Ammunition in the hands of one character and a Vhailor's Helm clone, we should be able to just butcher the Five in a matter of seconds, nearly stun-locking Melissan until she's alone. Wish Hardiness cast before the final phase might not last long enough for us to take down Melissan, given the delays between the phases and the chance that stuff goes awry, but just chilling in rat form for its 20-round duration should be enough time to butcher Melissan (rat form also doesn't need to have its MR lowered to be Mazed). I think all we really need is a Ruby Ray of Reversal scroll followed by Breach and then she's vulnerable by the second round, though I think she does have an auto-heal at 20% HP.
If we have a caster-heavy party, we might well struggle to deal enough damage to Melissan and the Five. Spellcasters could maintain Improved Haste and Emotion spells, and both Jan and Haer'dalis can use Firetooth as well as Simulacrum scrolls, but that's banking our safety on temporary buffs. Also, a cleric with Divine Shield can negate all damage, avoiding even the damage animation, so it might be nice to snag Aerie to use as a target for the Scorcher Ammunition.
I wasn't too optimistic about rat form given the other forms' extra elemental resistances and such, especially the jelly form's immunity to stun, but it looks like Melissan's script makes her avoid attacking anyone with 100% slashing resistance, which we would have in rat form. That could make Charname more or less invisible to her.
What I don't know is how viable it is to disrupt any of Melissan's spells, since I think I've seen it happen but I'm not sure I can count on it. I also don't remember the rules about her Time Stop spells.
Keldorn can hit 10 undispellable APR with Carsomyr, which dispels at level 30 with every hit. Melissan is level 30, and her Divine Mantle spell is dispellable, so we might be able to take down her primary defense just by having Keldorn run up and smack her in the face with an upgraded Carsomyr, which hits as +6 instead of +5 like the un-upgraded version. It would take extraordinarily bad luck (less than 0.25%) not to dispel her within 10 attack rolls; it's a 50% dispel chance and Keldorn can achieve a 90% hit chance if he has the Helm of Balduran and the right pair of gauntlets.
Another character (probably Haer'dalis, whom we'll want for high-level, hard-to-dispel buffs) then smacks her with the Answerer, allowing Jan to make easy hits with Assassination while wielding BBoD with a speed weapon in the off hand, another 500+ damage without critical misses. Mislead spell once we have the positioning down and we can keep adding 500+ damage per round with Jan.
I think we'll need to keep Keldorn on hand. Melissan's Divine Mantle has felt imposing in the past, and it's really important to take down her defenses early. We can do that with mages, but mages are finicky with aura and there's a huge need to re-cast PFMW; Keldorn can just go in and do it on his own, getting us an early victory that will close the enemy's opportunity to take advantage of our Charname's dubious defenses.
Then we'll want a safe and mobile target for the Scorcher Ammunition, which means Anomen or Aerie for Divine Shield. Finally, we'll want a single-classed fighter to get GM in crossbows to use the Scorcher Ammunition. Since I don't want to do whatever evil-ish steps you need to take to keep Sarevok at the final battle, that means Mazzy or Korgan. Korgan is better from a powergaming standpoint, but I really do like Mazzy a lot, and one of Korgan's critical rage immunities, stun, is something Mazzy gets from her short sword.
Keldorn, Jan, Haer'dalis, Anomen/Aerie, Korgan/Mazzy, and a Transmuter Charname.
Keldorn can hit 10 undispellable APR with Carsomyr, which dispels at level 30 with every hit. Melissan is level 30, and her Divine Mantle spell is dispellable...
Another character (probably Haer'dalis, whom we'll want for high-level, hard-to-dispel buffs)...
Or you could just have Haer'Dalis cast Remove Magic.
Finally, we'll want a single-classed fighter to get GM in crossbows to use the Scorcher Ammunition. Since I don't want to do whatever evil-ish steps you need to take to keep Sarevok at the final battle, that means Mazzy or Korgan.
With the Scorcher Ammunition, APR and THAC0 are irrelevant; everybody gets 5 base APR, and everybody gets +17 to hit from the weapon and ammunition. Firetooth +5, with simple proficiency, deals 6-13 piercing and 2 (MR) + 2-24 (no MR, save for half) fire per hit. Grand Mastery increases the physical damage to 11-18. Against an enemy that isn't resistant to either damage type, that's about 25% more damage.
Also, Korgan can't grandmaster crossbows. The berserker kit does have a drawback.
@jmerry: Haer'dalis would need more than 6 million XP to get a 100% chance of debuffing Melissan, and I don't plan on going deep in Watcher's Keep due to unfamiliarity. Realistically, the odds of him successfully debuffing Melissan are going to be maybe 75% per casting by the endgame. Keldorn would have slightly better odds with his Inquisitor Dispel Magic, now that I think about it, since my install nerfs Inquisitor Dispel to 1.5x, but either way, Carsomyr buys us a greater than 99% chance with GWW (without the nerf, Keldorn would have a 100% chance of taking it down with Dispel Magic).
Good point about Korgan and GM. I typically calculate damage values for the Scorcher Ammunition in terms of piercing damage alone, since I tend to assume key enemies are immune to fire, and so I was eyeing GM for its damage bonuses rather than APR or THAC0. But since Melissan is actually more resistant to physical damage than to fire, most of the damage would actually be fire damage in the absence of GM or Emotion spells. And since Hope and Courage give +5, the same as GM, anyone that can maintain SI: Abjuration is roughly as good with the Scorcher Ammunition as a dispelled fighter with GM, though only Jan and Haer'dalis will be able to use Firetooth. A fighter, of course, can have both GM and Emotion spells active, and can use Critical Strike instead of Improved Haste (which is almost double the damage output against Melissan), but that could easily be dispelled at some point.
Knowing how much extra damage the fire damage will tack on, Jan and Haer'dalis could also slay Melissan in 4 rounds with all their buffs active; Mazzy with dispellable buffs and CS could do it in 2.
I might be overthinking it. We don't need Mislead backstabs from Jan to finish her off quickly (though it would definitely help); the Scorcher Ammunition will be sufficient as long as we have one party member who can use Firetooth. And honestly, dispelling Melissan isn't that necessary when we can catch her with the Scorcher Ammunition anyway.
I wan to finally beat no reload SCS/Ascension trilogy on insane difficulty (without double damage). Which non-custom party do you think has the highest chance to accomplish it (albeit the probabilty that I would succed is still very low). Charname will be berserker 9/mage.
Group in BG 1 for berserker is almost irrelevat because berserker can solo everything (still I will be using group of 6, probably Khalid, Jaheira, Imoen, Coran and Quayle).
In SoD one mage (Dynaheira is better than other alternatives because of her kit) who can cast web/fireball + Corwin can get dualed class berserker to the end, where he regains his abilities.
But in BG2 I must start to assemble the group with regard to Ascension. So fighters over other classes, then someone who can cast cleric spells and disarm traps.
For cleric I will pick Aerie. I don´t like her but with the introduction of spells from Icewind Dale she becomes the second best companion (after Edwin). Spell Sequencer with Chant, Prayer and Recitation makes
many battles trivial.
Then fighters. Mazzy (I like her and can get grandmastery in flails and then dual-wielding FoA/DoE), Keldorn (Carsomyr, Dispel, True Sight, Ravager) and Jaheira. Korgan would be better but unfortunately he is incompatible with Aerie and Jaheira and her druid spells are great in SoA.
The most difficult is choice of thief. The natural choice is Imoen. I like her, it makes sence from roleplaying perspective but she great is liability in Ascension.
The alternative is Jan. Imoen is better mage but Jan can set traps and his kit gives him decent amount of spells but blocks two importatn spell: Horrid Wilting and Spirit Armor.
I really want to take Imoen, I find it almost impossible to not take her back in Spellhold. She is my (half) sister, I like her personality but the fact that I will be facing Irenicus, Bodhi and Fallen Solars + Imoen in slayer form makes me incline to pick Jan.
I wan to finally beat no reload SCS/Ascension trilogy on insane difficulty (without double damage).
I see, the holy no-reloading grail continues to elude you too eh?
BG1 and SoD look fine, and you're not asking about those parts of the saga. I'd just recommend Baeloth over Dynaheir in SoD. His Webs don't have a -2 save penalty from the Invocation specialization but he can cast Greater Malison for that. He has a lot of spells he can cast, including good spells from the Enchantment school such as the already mentioned Greater Malison or the Emotion Hope/Courage spells.
As for BG2:
(1) Keldorn: good offensive pick for the reasons you mention. I'm one of apparently few people who doesn't like his Inquisitor kit very much, but no divine magic (i.e. no Armor of Faith, no DUHM), and the availability of a weapon that mimics his kit's most powerful perk (Carsomyr with its Dispel Magic on hit ability), are fairly considerable downsides imo. Nevertheless as you have no one else for Carsomyr, and no Haer'Dalis for powerful Remove Magics, he's a solid choice.
(2) Jaheira: great pick, both tanky (especially with some of the new SCS spells) and capable of dealing good damage.
(3) Mazzy: I've used her mostly as a (really good) archer but I've found her a bit squishy in ToB. However I've never had her off-hand the DoE. That with Hardiness should suffice to keep her on her feet. She has great shorty saves too. All in all a very strong pick.
(4) Aerie is very flexible. I have her in a current LoB run and she's proven herself useful already. I do find her a bit micro-intensive and she's a late bloomer, but that's preferable to an early bloomer because it's ToB/Ascension where you need your NPCs to shine. I would mention Anomen as an alternative as you seem to have enough arcane magic already, but with the DoE in Mazzy's hands I think heis damage resistance would be lacking in ToB.
(5) Jan over Imoen. Not only is he one of the most powerful NPCs in the game, you already a a full mage in Charname and a multi mage in Aerie, so another 1/2 mage would be more than enough. IIRC Imoen is the only NPC that does not stay behind in Spellhold if you don't take her along. She leaves for Athkatla. I find it comparable to not having her or Yoshimo in the group in Irenicus' dungeon: they follow you on the way out, so you don't even have to be a terrible character to ditch her.
I also don´t like Keldorn too much, but other alternatives are worse. Minsc as pure ranger is weak, Valygar is boring character. He can be very useful but requires lot of micromanagment. Only Sarevok is option but he comes late. But if I had him and changed his aligment, it would weaken Melissan´s side.
Another possibility is to choose Anomen over Aerie and Korgan over Keldorn and give him Foebane to compensate lack of DoE. Or switch Mazzy to Foebane (she can dual-wield it with Kundane) and give Koragn both flails. Anomen would have to rely on Shields of Lathander. This group would be even more oriented on physical damage and charname would be forced to fulfil more the role of mage rather than the fighter. But even with Shields of Lathander I find pure clerics (Anomen is almost pure cleric) highly vulnerable. Aerie would never have to worry about backstab. She can protect herself against everything and then stand in the middle of fight and cast Recitation or anti mage spells (as Secret Word etc).
In Siege of Dragonspear prologue I had two rings of wizardry. When I lost Xan and Neera from the party one of them disappeared. Is this a bug?
Did you unequip both rings? Any items that NPCs are equipped with will be gone for the remainder of SoD unless and until you meet those companions again in that campaign. Items that you unequip and leave in NPCs' packs should transfer to your storebox in the Ducal Palace that travels with you on your journey to Dragonspear.
If you didn't unequip Neera's ring of wizardry, as a returning companion, she should have the ring on her once you meet her again and recruit her.
The Transmuter is about to head to Spellhold. I want to maximize XP, which means taking a small party and recruiting other people later, but Transmuters can't safely solo much of anything and so I've been doing most of Chapter 2 with Jan and Aerie. They're inefficient and have mediocre damage output but they're excellent toolkit characters with solid defenses, so they can handle pretty much anything besides big-ticket enemies like dragons or liches.
We're at a little more than 2 million XP right now and I plan on going through the Underdark just with three party members. Normally I have a lot more attack power at this stage, but the truth is, a lot of stuff in Brynnlaw, Spellhold, and the Underdark can be handled with very basic tools. You don't need Carsomyr or planetars to get past Jon-bon or Ust Natha.
My mods let me visit the North Forest early, which meant I could grab a Time Stop scroll pre-Underdark. With the Boomerang Dagger and the Staff Mace, my Transmuter will be able to deal very big damage once we get our first 2 level 9 spells. That will help us safely take down the Balor (Enchanted Weapon will let us strike as +3) and the low-AC Egg Guards, as well as the Kuo-toa Prince.
Breaking 6 million XP will be a high-priority goal for us. If we can get Aerie Wish-resting via Project Image in mid-ToB and Jan backstabbing with BBoD without having to burn scrolls for it, we'll be pretty much set.
... and if it does come down to burning scrolls, there's always the unlimited supply of Freedom scrolls Ribald sells in chapter 6. At full discount, that's about 24 XP per gold spent. Only shoplifting is more efficient. I've had a run in which I bought enough of those to raise the whole party to the cap in chapter 6, though I didn't actually go through with it fully.
Having scrolls of Freedom available at all before the Underdark is an SCS thing, to balance the fact that high level mages can randomly get Imprisonment. The unlimited Freedom scrolls in Ribald's special stock - that's been there since vanilla, and is unchanged.
We just hit epic levels after fighting some elementals in the Underdark! Plus, we got lucky and landed on the Spell Turning page of the Book of Daily Spell without hitting Burning Hands. While our Transmuter still can't cast SI: Abjuration, at least she'll be able to cast Spell Turning.
Jan and Aerie also just hit mage level 14 and can also cast Spell Turning, and since we have the Cloak of Reflection, I might try playing around with the scorcher loop, with Lightning Bolts and/or Lance of Disruption. I don't know under what circumstances that would actually be useful (so many enemies from now on will have resistances and immunities that will blunt the effects of Agannazar's Scorcher, Lightning Bolt, and Lance of Disruption), but it's nice to have them, even if we're probably just going to be winning big fights with Mislead backstabs and Time Stop dual-wielding from our Transmuter.
Our Transmuter has lost her defenses to Remove Magic a few times, but has always been able to fall back or turn invisible before any enemies can take advantage of her sudden vulnerability. As long as she has the Boots of Speed and Robe of Vecna, she can make her getaway without much trouble--and a sudden burst of damage is unlikely to kill her as long as she wears the Cloak of Mirroring.
Seeing a planetar would be genuinely scary, though. Rat form could let us shrug off a lot of attacks, but vorpal strikes are another story, since Aerie's Death Ward spell would easily get dispelled by a planetar's sword.
Looking good @semiticgoddess! Glad you got Spell Turning, that's a serious boon. Have you considered taking on the Twisted Rune for the Staff of the Magi? Its 1x/day special Spell Trap ability should provide further protection. Twisted Rune is not without risk of course, though there are ways to deal with them.
Planetar vorpals are indeed a very serious threat. One way of dealing with those is having your arcane companions, cast Imprisonment on them. There's also a cloak that protects against vorpals (and other death effects), available through Neera's ToB quest, the Cloak of the Lich. That might be worth looking into. It won't help you in SoA but it's better to have undispellable death ward late than never.
@Blackraven I've never done Neera's ToB quest before; only her SoA one. I've steered clear of Neera because I tend to view wild magic as an unacceptable risk. It's not just the risk of a wild surge killing someone; it's just that there always a chance that a spell won't happen, and even a well-buffed wild mage has maybe a 2-3% chance of spell failure in general. But keeping her invisible and letting the other characters win fights should be doable.
I've wanted to do the EE quests blind, but that may not be wise if there are any nasty surprises for the ToB one.
@Enuhal Maybe if there's anything really weird. I'm expecting the same sort of dangers you'd find in normal ToB fights, plus maybe another wild surge area. Scrolls are subject to wild magic in EE, right? Are sequencers? If so I may just use the polymorph trick to keep jelly form on hand, with a bunch of potions if I need to go invisible or something. By then I'll probably have Mazzy and Keldorn, who can do the heavy lifting if our spellcasting gets all gronked up.
@semiticgoddess I'll just mention (without any detail) three unusual circumstances which could be frustrating unexpected run-enders. I'll put them in spoilers in case you want to go in completely blind.
- There's a situation early on where you will suddently enter battle and most likely be unable to pre-buff, and Neera might not be able to cast spells at all during this entire fight.
- At some point, you will enter an estate where you will not be able to rest. Also: Guards can potentially sound the alarm, which is REALLY bad.
- The primary enemy of the quest has access to some cheesy powers. This includes gating in Balors in an unusal manner (you can get the previously mentioned item granting immunity to vorpal hits by this point in the quest, though).
There are, of course, additional dangers, but those are not out of the ordinary for ToB.
The first one could be sticky, but we'll have Potions of Invisibility. Hopefully that will help. The second one sounds ugly. The third won't matter unless you're area-locked by the time you get the Cloak of the Lich; I was thinking I'd ditch Neera as soon as I got the cloak. Still, we'll be really high-level by that point, I'm sure. I think we'll be okay overall. I got through SoD and the SoA EE quests blind, after all.
I've heard bad stuff about a planetar enemy of some sort, but I assumed that was Dorn's quest.
My last time through, with a no-spellcasting party, I had an AI flaw make the battle weirdly easy. Since casting spells wasn't an option, I kept Neera out of the fight; she never even went into the courtyard.
The boss wasn't content to leave it at that. Rather than casting her scripted "wild" surges, she tried to chase down Neera. Neera stayed ahead of her, the rest of the party dealt with the guards, and then we went after her. It's easy to fight a mage when they never cast anything.
The second boss ... well, you're in control of the battlefield. Set appropriate traps and contingencies, and it's an easy win. If you don't, it can get pretty scary. Scripted wishes are involved.
I've heard bad stuff about a planetar enemy of some sort, but I assumed that was Dorn's quest.
Yes, that's Dorn's ToB quest. The key thing to watch for is that the initial ambush includes a planetar with an immortality item. Focus on it, and you won't get anywhere. Kill everything else, and it leaves.
That's not the only celestial in the quest. But compared to the dark planetars that enemy mages summon, they're not that impressive - they don't get the SCS upgrades like instant casting. And aside from that first one, they're all killable.
Still trampling BG2. I went ahead and tried the Freedom scroll trick, purchasing 128 scrolls with the last of my gold after doing my other shopping, and while we got a ton of XP, we're not really close to any major game-changers at this point. At 4 million XP, Aerie and Jan still won't get level 9 mage spells until endgame ToB, unless I opt to buy even more Freedom scrolls or delve deep into Watcher's Keep (bad idea for a Transmuter, I suspect).
That said, it won't really make too much difference if we don't hit 6 million XP. Our Transmuter already hit her peak now that she has a few level 9 spell slots for Time Stop and later Wish, and Jan and Aerie have been improving very linearly. Jan can already butcher stuff with Mislead backstabs and Aerie can already cover the party with cleric buffs, so we're not actually going to get that much stronger going forward.
One thing that will be nice is hitting mage level 16, which will let Aerie put three Champion's Strength spells in a Spell Trigger for +18 THAC0 to any party member for over 40 rounds (and Keldorn can easily dispel the effect on Aerie and let her cast spells again), which would let Jan hit a 95% hit rate on almost anything even when dual-wielding.
We're at 4 million XP right now, not so much due to the Freedom scrolls as having a 3-person party for the majority of SoA, and have just now recruited Keldorn and taken down the Unseeing Eye. My install nerfs Inquisitor dispels to 1.5x but Keldorn is dispelling at level 31, soon to be level 33, so he can already clean house just fine as it is.
We still haven't solved the root problem, though, of ToB: we just don't have a reliable supply of WIsh Hardiness spells when Charname is shapeshifted, nor do I foresee that realistically changing without further Freedom scroll abuse (meh) or Watcher's Keep (eek!).
Maybe we'll just go with Maze. I'd like to be able to tank things out with Wish Hardiness and jelly/golem/rat form, but Maze is just better from a tactical perspective. It's not like a shapeshifted mage is going to be much more useful than a Mazed Charname.
One thing that will be nice is hitting mage level 16, which will let Aerie put three Champion's Strength spells in a Spell Trigger for +18 THAC0 to any party member for over 40 rounds (and Keldorn can easily dispel the effect on Aerie and let her cast spells again), which would let Jan hit a 95% hit rate on almost anything even when dual-wielding.
Interesting - I hadn't realized that was dispellable. It would be rare for me to be playing with a party that could take advantage of that, but it's a nice trick to remember.
It takes 4.5 million XP for a multi-classed cleric/mage to be able to do it via Spell Trigger, so it's more useful for dual-classed cleric/mages, who don't need nearly as much XP for the trick (early epic levels depending on the level you dual). You can do it without Spell Trigger, of course, but that requires more spell slots (Wondrous Recall can buy them) and multiple dispels if you want to stack them. Champion's Strength would probably be most impactful for thieves, bards, and druids, who can use speed weapons and therefore attain high APR but have subpar THAC0.
Now that we've hit 4.5 million XP, I'm not sure if a triple Champion's Strength Spell Trigger is all that meaningful at this point. The party is already stupidly overpowered and we've been stomping everything since we got out of the Underdark.
We just killed Kangaxx with almost no resistance, aside from an immortality bug I used a reload to fix (there's no way to get around it besides a reload). We removed his Spell Trap+SI: Abj pre-buff with Ruby Ray and Secret Word, then Keldorn landed a successful Dispel Magic and we took down his PFMW. RIP his first form.
Second form, we had Keldorn, Edwin, and Aerie summon Simulacrum clones, passing the Ring of the Ram between them so each clone would have the ring. Each clone used the ring on Kangaxx for 5d6 damage apiece, disrupting his opening spell, and if we hadn't already damaged him enough to kill him outright thanks to another successful Dispel Magic that took down his PFMW, Aerie's clone's Ring of the Ram had the right angle to knock the poor demi-lich into a set of Spike Traps from Jan, which should have killed him several times over. And that wasn't even the end of the tools we had on hand.
This tends to happen to my BG2 runs. BG1 and SoD can still be challenging for me under the right circumstances, but SoA has always been my strong suit.
I'm too impatient to fuss with Neera's quests (I suspect I need to complete her SoA quests to access her ToB ones), so I'm just going to use the Tear of Bhaal trick to get subzero saving throws to safeguard against vorpal strikes.
Oh, and I think I solved the Wish issue. Today I remembered that Black Blade of Disaster's disintegrate effect strikes as a level 9 spell and can therefore recharge Spell Trap effects, which means Edwin could just spam Wish spells in between re-casting Stoneskin while another mage (Aerie or Jan after 6 million XP, or just Imoen or Nalia) whacks him with BBoD. With Improved Haste and a speed weapon in the off hand, Jan/Imoen/Nalia could recharge 4 level 9 spell slots per round assuming every hit landed. Unlike using Project Image to recharge Spell Traps, it doesn't leave anyone vulnerable.
We should hit 6 million XP by mid-ToB given where we are now, so theoretically we could have Edwin chain-casting Wish spells under Improved Alacrity for the duration of any fight as long as I do the required micromanagement and keep Jan on top of him. But I might not even bother until Melissan; Wish spells shouldn't be necessary before then.
Comments
From a powergaming perspective, I see some very lovely ways to alter existing NPCs, even aside from just giving them better kits or classes (like making Kagain a Dwarven Defender or Minsc a Berserker):
1. Alora gets +2 to AC, luck, saves, and +10% to thieving skills. That's really excellent for a thief, but the luck bonus is especially nice for fighters. Making her a fighter/thief or a Shadowdancer would give her a spectacular backstab game (I've made her a Shadowdancer in the past and she was so good at it), and even just making her a plain fighter would be very nice.
2. Eldoth's poison arrows would be extra effective in the hands of an Eldoth with fighter levels, especially of course an Archer.
3. Xan, of course, is better off as a fighter/mage, as the Xan NPC mod can make him. He would also be an excellent fighter/mage/thief; the Moonblade would be great for backstabs.
4. Voghiln would make an excellent fighter due to his stats, and his helm would be marginally more useful if he had higher APR.
5. Viconia would make a very solid fighter/thief, fighter/cleric, or even just a fighter; higher base HP would compensate for her low CON, her main weakness as a tank. Having thief levels in BG2 would also let her use Carsomyr for an easy 100% MR.
6. Imoen's thief levels would be very well-spent on the Bounty Hunter kit for its extra traps (they're just so efficient in BG1 and SoD with its crowds of weaker critters), and switching her to a mage from the get-go could give her a specialist kit.
7. Hexxat's spectacular un-cloaked stats would make her well-suited for fighter levels or even a monk class. She would also do well as a Swashbuckler, though I still think the Bounty Hunter is the best thief kit over the course of the saga.
8. Aerie would make an excellent sorcerer or specialist mage, as her base 16 WIS could be bumped up to 17 with the Silver Ioun Stone, giving her good Wish spells even on a Project Image clone.
9. I don't know if Wilson's paws can be un-equipped (I doubt it, and I don't think Use Any Item can let him use items unless his kit opcodes don't apply until he goes above level 0), but he has awesome stats and would make a solid warrior of a different kit, and giving him mage levels would help compensate for his naturally poor AC.
10. Haer'dalis would be much nastier as a fighter/mage or even a single-classed fighter, both because his Chaos Blade is an excellent means of landing DEX drain kills but suffers from his typically poor THAC0 and APR, and because Hardiness and the Defender of Easthaven will stack with his innate tiefling resistances.
11. For no-reload purposes, Neera would be better off as a non-Wild Mage.
Early SoA will be fun. It's always been my favorite part of the saga. But I know things are only going to get tougher as time goes on.
If we have a caster-heavy party, we might well struggle to deal enough damage to Melissan and the Five. Spellcasters could maintain Improved Haste and Emotion spells, and both Jan and Haer'dalis can use Firetooth as well as Simulacrum scrolls, but that's banking our safety on temporary buffs. Also, a cleric with Divine Shield can negate all damage, avoiding even the damage animation, so it might be nice to snag Aerie to use as a target for the Scorcher Ammunition.
I wasn't too optimistic about rat form given the other forms' extra elemental resistances and such, especially the jelly form's immunity to stun, but it looks like Melissan's script makes her avoid attacking anyone with 100% slashing resistance, which we would have in rat form. That could make Charname more or less invisible to her.
What I don't know is how viable it is to disrupt any of Melissan's spells, since I think I've seen it happen but I'm not sure I can count on it. I also don't remember the rules about her Time Stop spells.
Another character (probably Haer'dalis, whom we'll want for high-level, hard-to-dispel buffs) then smacks her with the Answerer, allowing Jan to make easy hits with Assassination while wielding BBoD with a speed weapon in the off hand, another 500+ damage without critical misses. Mislead spell once we have the positioning down and we can keep adding 500+ damage per round with Jan.
I think we'll need to keep Keldorn on hand. Melissan's Divine Mantle has felt imposing in the past, and it's really important to take down her defenses early. We can do that with mages, but mages are finicky with aura and there's a huge need to re-cast PFMW; Keldorn can just go in and do it on his own, getting us an early victory that will close the enemy's opportunity to take advantage of our Charname's dubious defenses.
Then we'll want a safe and mobile target for the Scorcher Ammunition, which means Anomen or Aerie for Divine Shield. Finally, we'll want a single-classed fighter to get GM in crossbows to use the Scorcher Ammunition. Since I don't want to do whatever evil-ish steps you need to take to keep Sarevok at the final battle, that means Mazzy or Korgan. Korgan is better from a powergaming standpoint, but I really do like Mazzy a lot, and one of Korgan's critical rage immunities, stun, is something Mazzy gets from her short sword.
Keldorn, Jan, Haer'dalis, Anomen/Aerie, Korgan/Mazzy, and a Transmuter Charname.
Or you could just have Haer'Dalis cast Remove Magic.
With the Scorcher Ammunition, APR and THAC0 are irrelevant; everybody gets 5 base APR, and everybody gets +17 to hit from the weapon and ammunition. Firetooth +5, with simple proficiency, deals 6-13 piercing and 2 (MR) + 2-24 (no MR, save for half) fire per hit. Grand Mastery increases the physical damage to 11-18. Against an enemy that isn't resistant to either damage type, that's about 25% more damage.
Also, Korgan can't grandmaster crossbows. The berserker kit does have a drawback.
Good point about Korgan and GM. I typically calculate damage values for the Scorcher Ammunition in terms of piercing damage alone, since I tend to assume key enemies are immune to fire, and so I was eyeing GM for its damage bonuses rather than APR or THAC0. But since Melissan is actually more resistant to physical damage than to fire, most of the damage would actually be fire damage in the absence of GM or Emotion spells. And since Hope and Courage give +5, the same as GM, anyone that can maintain SI: Abjuration is roughly as good with the Scorcher Ammunition as a dispelled fighter with GM, though only Jan and Haer'dalis will be able to use Firetooth. A fighter, of course, can have both GM and Emotion spells active, and can use Critical Strike instead of Improved Haste (which is almost double the damage output against Melissan), but that could easily be dispelled at some point.
Knowing how much extra damage the fire damage will tack on, Jan and Haer'dalis could also slay Melissan in 4 rounds with all their buffs active; Mazzy with dispellable buffs and CS could do it in 2.
I might be overthinking it. We don't need Mislead backstabs from Jan to finish her off quickly (though it would definitely help); the Scorcher Ammunition will be sufficient as long as we have one party member who can use Firetooth. And honestly, dispelling Melissan isn't that necessary when we can catch her with the Scorcher Ammunition anyway.
Group in BG 1 for berserker is almost irrelevat because berserker can solo everything (still I will be using group of 6, probably Khalid, Jaheira, Imoen, Coran and Quayle).
In SoD one mage (Dynaheira is better than other alternatives because of her kit) who can cast web/fireball + Corwin can get dualed class berserker to the end, where he regains his abilities.
But in BG2 I must start to assemble the group with regard to Ascension. So fighters over other classes, then someone who can cast cleric spells and disarm traps.
For cleric I will pick Aerie. I don´t like her but with the introduction of spells from Icewind Dale she becomes the second best companion (after Edwin). Spell Sequencer with Chant, Prayer and Recitation makes
many battles trivial.
Then fighters. Mazzy (I like her and can get grandmastery in flails and then dual-wielding FoA/DoE), Keldorn (Carsomyr, Dispel, True Sight, Ravager) and Jaheira. Korgan would be better but unfortunately he is incompatible with Aerie and Jaheira and her druid spells are great in SoA.
The most difficult is choice of thief. The natural choice is Imoen. I like her, it makes sence from roleplaying perspective but she great is liability in Ascension.
The alternative is Jan. Imoen is better mage but Jan can set traps and his kit gives him decent amount of spells but blocks two importatn spell: Horrid Wilting and Spirit Armor.
I really want to take Imoen, I find it almost impossible to not take her back in Spellhold. She is my (half) sister, I like her personality but the fact that I will be facing Irenicus, Bodhi and Fallen Solars + Imoen in slayer form makes me incline to pick Jan.
I see, the holy no-reloading grail continues to elude you too eh?
BG1 and SoD look fine, and you're not asking about those parts of the saga. I'd just recommend Baeloth over Dynaheir in SoD. His Webs don't have a -2 save penalty from the Invocation specialization but he can cast Greater Malison for that. He has a lot of spells he can cast, including good spells from the Enchantment school such as the already mentioned Greater Malison or the Emotion Hope/Courage spells.
As for BG2:
(1) Keldorn: good offensive pick for the reasons you mention. I'm one of apparently few people who doesn't like his Inquisitor kit very much, but no divine magic (i.e. no Armor of Faith, no DUHM), and the availability of a weapon that mimics his kit's most powerful perk (Carsomyr with its Dispel Magic on hit ability), are fairly considerable downsides imo. Nevertheless as you have no one else for Carsomyr, and no Haer'Dalis for powerful Remove Magics, he's a solid choice.
(2) Jaheira: great pick, both tanky (especially with some of the new SCS spells) and capable of dealing good damage.
(3) Mazzy: I've used her mostly as a (really good) archer but I've found her a bit squishy in ToB. However I've never had her off-hand the DoE. That with Hardiness should suffice to keep her on her feet. She has great shorty saves too. All in all a very strong pick.
(4) Aerie is very flexible. I have her in a current LoB run and she's proven herself useful already. I do find her a bit micro-intensive and she's a late bloomer, but that's preferable to an early bloomer because it's ToB/Ascension where you need your NPCs to shine. I would mention Anomen as an alternative as you seem to have enough arcane magic already, but with the DoE in Mazzy's hands I think heis damage resistance would be lacking in ToB.
(5) Jan over Imoen. Not only is he one of the most powerful NPCs in the game, you already a a full mage in Charname and a multi mage in Aerie, so another 1/2 mage would be more than enough. IIRC Imoen is the only NPC that does not stay behind in Spellhold if you don't take her along. She leaves for Athkatla. I find it comparable to not having her or Yoshimo in the group in Irenicus' dungeon: they follow you on the way out, so you don't even have to be a terrible character to ditch her.
Another possibility is to choose Anomen over Aerie and Korgan over Keldorn and give him Foebane to compensate lack of DoE. Or switch Mazzy to Foebane (she can dual-wield it with Kundane) and give Koragn both flails. Anomen would have to rely on Shields of Lathander. This group would be even more oriented on physical damage and charname would be forced to fulfil more the role of mage rather than the fighter. But even with Shields of Lathander I find pure clerics (Anomen is almost pure cleric) highly vulnerable. Aerie would never have to worry about backstab. She can protect herself against everything and then stand in the middle of fight and cast Recitation or anti mage spells (as Secret Word etc).
Did you unequip both rings? Any items that NPCs are equipped with will be gone for the remainder of SoD unless and until you meet those companions again in that campaign. Items that you unequip and leave in NPCs' packs should transfer to your storebox in the Ducal Palace that travels with you on your journey to Dragonspear.
If you didn't unequip Neera's ring of wizardry, as a returning companion, she should have the ring on her once you meet her again and recruit her.
We're at a little more than 2 million XP right now and I plan on going through the Underdark just with three party members. Normally I have a lot more attack power at this stage, but the truth is, a lot of stuff in Brynnlaw, Spellhold, and the Underdark can be handled with very basic tools. You don't need Carsomyr or planetars to get past Jon-bon or Ust Natha.
My mods let me visit the North Forest early, which meant I could grab a Time Stop scroll pre-Underdark. With the Boomerang Dagger and the Staff Mace, my Transmuter will be able to deal very big damage once we get our first 2 level 9 spells. That will help us safely take down the Balor (Enchanted Weapon will let us strike as +3) and the low-AC Egg Guards, as well as the Kuo-toa Prince.
Breaking 6 million XP will be a high-priority goal for us. If we can get Aerie Wish-resting via Project Image in mid-ToB and Jan backstabbing with BBoD without having to burn scrolls for it, we'll be pretty much set.
Jan and Aerie also just hit mage level 14 and can also cast Spell Turning, and since we have the Cloak of Reflection, I might try playing around with the scorcher loop, with Lightning Bolts and/or Lance of Disruption. I don't know under what circumstances that would actually be useful (so many enemies from now on will have resistances and immunities that will blunt the effects of Agannazar's Scorcher, Lightning Bolt, and Lance of Disruption), but it's nice to have them, even if we're probably just going to be winning big fights with Mislead backstabs and Time Stop dual-wielding from our Transmuter.
Our Transmuter has lost her defenses to Remove Magic a few times, but has always been able to fall back or turn invisible before any enemies can take advantage of her sudden vulnerability. As long as she has the Boots of Speed and Robe of Vecna, she can make her getaway without much trouble--and a sudden burst of damage is unlikely to kill her as long as she wears the Cloak of Mirroring.
Seeing a planetar would be genuinely scary, though. Rat form could let us shrug off a lot of attacks, but vorpal strikes are another story, since Aerie's Death Ward spell would easily get dispelled by a planetar's sword.
Planetar vorpals are indeed a very serious threat. One way of dealing with those is having your arcane companions, cast Imprisonment on them. There's also a cloak that protects against vorpals (and other death effects), available through Neera's ToB quest, the Cloak of the Lich. That might be worth looking into. It won't help you in SoA but it's better to have undispellable death ward late than never.
I've wanted to do the EE quests blind, but that may not be wise if there are any nasty surprises for the ToB one.
- At some point, you will enter an estate where you will not be able to rest. Also: Guards can potentially sound the alarm, which is REALLY bad.
- The primary enemy of the quest has access to some cheesy powers. This includes gating in Balors in an unusal manner (you can get the previously mentioned item granting immunity to vorpal hits by this point in the quest, though).
There are, of course, additional dangers, but those are not out of the ordinary for ToB.
I've heard bad stuff about a planetar enemy of some sort, but I assumed that was Dorn's quest.
My last time through, with a no-spellcasting party, I had an AI flaw make the battle weirdly easy. Since casting spells wasn't an option, I kept Neera out of the fight; she never even went into the courtyard.
The boss wasn't content to leave it at that. Rather than casting her scripted "wild" surges, she tried to chase down Neera. Neera stayed ahead of her, the rest of the party dealt with the guards, and then we went after her. It's easy to fight a mage when they never cast anything.
The second boss ... well, you're in control of the battlefield. Set appropriate traps and contingencies, and it's an easy win. If you don't, it can get pretty scary. Scripted wishes are involved.
Yes, that's Dorn's ToB quest. The key thing to watch for is that the initial ambush includes a planetar with an immortality item. Focus on it, and you won't get anywhere. Kill everything else, and it leaves.
That's not the only celestial in the quest. But compared to the dark planetars that enemy mages summon, they're not that impressive - they don't get the SCS upgrades like instant casting. And aside from that first one, they're all killable.
That said, it won't really make too much difference if we don't hit 6 million XP. Our Transmuter already hit her peak now that she has a few level 9 spell slots for Time Stop and later Wish, and Jan and Aerie have been improving very linearly. Jan can already butcher stuff with Mislead backstabs and Aerie can already cover the party with cleric buffs, so we're not actually going to get that much stronger going forward.
One thing that will be nice is hitting mage level 16, which will let Aerie put three Champion's Strength spells in a Spell Trigger for +18 THAC0 to any party member for over 40 rounds (and Keldorn can easily dispel the effect on Aerie and let her cast spells again), which would let Jan hit a 95% hit rate on almost anything even when dual-wielding.
We're at 4 million XP right now, not so much due to the Freedom scrolls as having a 3-person party for the majority of SoA, and have just now recruited Keldorn and taken down the Unseeing Eye. My install nerfs Inquisitor dispels to 1.5x but Keldorn is dispelling at level 31, soon to be level 33, so he can already clean house just fine as it is.
We still haven't solved the root problem, though, of ToB: we just don't have a reliable supply of WIsh Hardiness spells when Charname is shapeshifted, nor do I foresee that realistically changing without further Freedom scroll abuse (meh) or Watcher's Keep (eek!).
Maybe we'll just go with Maze. I'd like to be able to tank things out with Wish Hardiness and jelly/golem/rat form, but Maze is just better from a tactical perspective. It's not like a shapeshifted mage is going to be much more useful than a Mazed Charname.
Interesting - I hadn't realized that was dispellable. It would be rare for me to be playing with a party that could take advantage of that, but it's a nice trick to remember.
We just killed Kangaxx with almost no resistance, aside from an immortality bug I used a reload to fix (there's no way to get around it besides a reload). We removed his Spell Trap+SI: Abj pre-buff with Ruby Ray and Secret Word, then Keldorn landed a successful Dispel Magic and we took down his PFMW. RIP his first form.
Second form, we had Keldorn, Edwin, and Aerie summon Simulacrum clones, passing the Ring of the Ram between them so each clone would have the ring. Each clone used the ring on Kangaxx for 5d6 damage apiece, disrupting his opening spell, and if we hadn't already damaged him enough to kill him outright thanks to another successful Dispel Magic that took down his PFMW, Aerie's clone's Ring of the Ram had the right angle to knock the poor demi-lich into a set of Spike Traps from Jan, which should have killed him several times over. And that wasn't even the end of the tools we had on hand.
This tends to happen to my BG2 runs. BG1 and SoD can still be challenging for me under the right circumstances, but SoA has always been my strong suit.
I'm too impatient to fuss with Neera's quests (I suspect I need to complete her SoA quests to access her ToB ones), so I'm just going to use the Tear of Bhaal trick to get subzero saving throws to safeguard against vorpal strikes.
Oh, and I think I solved the Wish issue. Today I remembered that Black Blade of Disaster's disintegrate effect strikes as a level 9 spell and can therefore recharge Spell Trap effects, which means Edwin could just spam Wish spells in between re-casting Stoneskin while another mage (Aerie or Jan after 6 million XP, or just Imoen or Nalia) whacks him with BBoD. With Improved Haste and a speed weapon in the off hand, Jan/Imoen/Nalia could recharge 4 level 9 spell slots per round assuming every hit landed. Unlike using Project Image to recharge Spell Traps, it doesn't leave anyone vulnerable.
We should hit 6 million XP by mid-ToB given where we are now, so theoretically we could have Edwin chain-casting Wish spells under Improved Alacrity for the duration of any fight as long as I do the required micromanagement and keep Jan on top of him. But I might not even bother until Melissan; Wish spells shouldn't be necessary before then.
Maybe we ain't need Maze after all.