Bala's Axe... wow...

malachi151

I never really used this before, but I had it on my char and was having a hard time taking out the Lich with Daystar early, at level 9, so I decided to give it a try. I cast invis on my char with the ax and had him run in and hit the Lich to start things off. That one shot pretty much did him in because he wasn't able to cast anything after that.

So basically if you have someone using Bala's Axe and someone with Azuredge or Mace of Disruption then all the Liches and Kangaxx are trivial. I haven't use ti yet against dragons, but if it works on them then...

Raduziel

Does anyone know if Bala's Axe goes through PfMW?

@semiticgod ?

CamDawg

It's flagged as a magical weapon.

Raduziel

Well, it remains a useless item IMHO.

semiticgoddess

Correct. It strikes as a +0 magical weapon (which essentially just means +1 weapon), so PFMW will in fact block it.

That on-hit effect is a spectacular anti-mage tool, but once you get to BG2, virtually all mages outside of a few Athkatlans scrubs use Mantle, Improved Mantle, Absolute Immunity, and/or Protection from Magical Weapons. Bala's Axe will fail against all of them, unless you're using the new EE Enchanted Weapon spell, which will let it bypass Mantle (but not the SCS Mantle; only the vanilla version).

Liches are vulnerable to Bala's Axe if their weapon immunity spells wear off, but most of them have a save vs. spell of 1, which means there's only a 10% chance of actually imposing the spell failure (since the -2 penalty makes that 1 effectively a 3). Tolgerias and Rayic Gethras also have saves vs. spell of 1, but most other mages have a 6, which amounts to a 35% chance of landing the spell failure. It's actually slightly more effective than the Flail of Ages against mages, especially when combined with Greater Malison (which will not bypass lich spell level immunity or a Globe of Invulnerability).

In SCS, dragons are immune to spell failure, much like demons, celestials, and genies, depending on your install options. But in the original game, I don't think any of them is immune to spell failure. However, there are some spells here and there that are scripted to be uninterruptible (such as Vocalize).

Bala's Axe isn't just for mages, though. It also imposes 80% spell failure on priest spells!

Bear in mind that magic resistance will block the spell failure effect.

malachi151

Yeah, Mantle, etc. blocks it, but that's why I ended up getting the first hit via invis. Also, that's just a standard problem, which has to be addressed via Breach etc. as usual. But once the effect lands, it's game over. If you have basically one char using Bala's Axe, one using the Mace of Disruption or Azuredge and one using Carsomyr, with others casting Breach, then it makes very short work of Liches.

Grond0

The lich guarding Daystar can't see through invisibility, but that's an anomaly - standard liches can so you can't rely on getting a strike in before buffs fire. Even if you can attack, as @semiticgod says the chances of spell failure working on a lich are not good. Also, spell failure won't prevent it using sequencers etc - so your characters need to be well-protected to survive it's retaliation.

ThacoBell

Wait wait wait. You mean Bala's Axe is magical? All these years I thought it was just a mundane axe that also caused spell failure.

semiticgoddess

malachi151 said:

If you have basically one char using Bala's Axe, one using the Mace of Disruption or Azuredge and one using Carsomyr, with others casting Breach, then it makes very short work of Liches.

Liches are immune to Breach unless you have SCS installed, as they're immune to level 1-5 spells. With SCS, Breach will work, but only if you get rid of their other spell protections first, and they'll often respond to a Breach with a PFMW Contingency or Spell Trigger.

bleusteel

What would need to be changed to make Bala’s Axe the badass, mage/priest killing/disabling machine it was supposed to be? Making it non-magical? Doesn’t Mantle protect against non-magical weapons?

Spell Strike on hit maybe?

ThacoBell

Considering its a BG1 weapon, its probably good as is.

Dragonspear

Making Bala's ax a normal weapon instead of a magical weapon would make it worse than magical.

Iirc, liches and most higher level enemies are default immune to normal weapons.

Re: @semiticgod all those enemies are NOT immune to spell failure. I took a dwarven wizard Slayer through the game, and learned to love spell failure.

And yes, Bala's on a wizard Slayer was fun while I used it.

semiticgoddess

@Dragonspear: Do you play the unmodded game? I was referring to SCS components that granted immunity to spell failure to dragons, genies, celestials, and demons.

Dragonspear

@semiticgod yes, my apologies. This was in an unmodded bg2ee. I'd meant to write that last night.

Arctodus

For what it's worth, Bala's axe is changed with Dispel on hit (save vs spell negates) in Item Revisions. And it's treated as a non-magical weapon, making the really good against mages with PfMW.

I think it's much better that way, because it makes it a lot more useful in general, especially for wizard slayers : not only it does not step on WS speciality, but it works well with their innate Spell Failure ability. It also makes the various Mantle spells relevant for enemy mages.

(...this is why I love the Revisions mod. They try to make everything useful without making them OP.)

InKal

malachi151 said:

Yeah, Mantle, etc. blocks it, but that's why I ended up getting the first hit via invis. Also, that's just a standard problem, which has to be addressed via Breach etc. as usual. But once the effect lands, it's game over. If you have basically one char using Bala's Axe, one using the Mace of Disruption or Azuredge and one using Carsomyr, with others casting Breach, then it makes very short work of Liches.

PfMW and Absolute Immunity will block Carsomyr and both other weapons. Enemy immune to normal weapons must be dispelled first, Carsomyr will NOT dispel PFMW on hit, because it will not hit until/as long as PFMW is active.

Wizard's Slayers innate miscast magic (mundane weapon) is blocked by PfNW, Mantle, Improved Mantle, Absolute Immunity.

WS miscast (enchanted weapon) is blocked by PFMW, Mantle +2 vanilla, +3 SCS (option), Improved Mantle +3 vanilla, +4 SCS (option), Absolute Immunity up to +5 entchantment, dunno about +6

(btw. +5 is just stupid, +6 is stupid af imo)