[SCS] Will Edwin leave if I don't do the Nether Scrolls quest until later?
Petycon
Member Posts: 7
Hey everyone!
I've recently modded my game with SCS (nearly a full install, minus removing powerful items from stores) and was hoping more experienced players would help me out with my conundrum. For reference, I'll be playing an evil halfling assassin, so I won't have access to spells outside of NPCs.
In the vanilla game, I would prioritize grabbing all the companions I wanted prior to doing any quests. In general, even on Insane, it wasn't too difficult to mop up their sidequests and move on to the meat of the game. However, I keep reading that SCS II dramatically beefs up certain encounters, to the point where a fresh (~600k xp after SOD) party would pretty much fail every time.
I have no problem with leaving certain encounters for later - that was the beauty of SCS Insane in BG1, where you carefully peeled the game layer after layer like an onion. I do, however, have a problem with two potential conflicts of interest in my party: Korgan and Edwin.
I haven't done an evil playthrough in years, so I'm a little fuzzy on their quests. Here's the gist of it:
A. Korgan wants to do some spelunking in the Graveyard District. From what I understand, the fights should be doable even on SCS insane. Korgan leaves if you don't go to the Graveyard District in time.
B. However, Edwin's quest starts the moment you set foot in GY D. His quest involves killing a lich, and I'm given to understand that SCS liches are DRAMATICALLY more powerful than vanilla ones - even the GY lich, which is normally a gimp.
So I'm wondering:
1) Will Edwin leave if I don't get the scrolls for him in time? The wiki suggests that he will, but I've checked some playthroughs online and it seems that he stays for the long haul. Did they change something with mods?
2) If Edwin DOES leave, would the following be a workaround - grab Korgan, Jan, Dorn and Viccy, dash through Korgan's quest first, THEN grab Edwin and forget about the GY district until Chapter 3? Or does my party lack the magic muscle to chew through the lower tombs?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
I've recently modded my game with SCS (nearly a full install, minus removing powerful items from stores) and was hoping more experienced players would help me out with my conundrum. For reference, I'll be playing an evil halfling assassin, so I won't have access to spells outside of NPCs.
In the vanilla game, I would prioritize grabbing all the companions I wanted prior to doing any quests. In general, even on Insane, it wasn't too difficult to mop up their sidequests and move on to the meat of the game. However, I keep reading that SCS II dramatically beefs up certain encounters, to the point where a fresh (~600k xp after SOD) party would pretty much fail every time.
I have no problem with leaving certain encounters for later - that was the beauty of SCS Insane in BG1, where you carefully peeled the game layer after layer like an onion. I do, however, have a problem with two potential conflicts of interest in my party: Korgan and Edwin.
I haven't done an evil playthrough in years, so I'm a little fuzzy on their quests. Here's the gist of it:
A. Korgan wants to do some spelunking in the Graveyard District. From what I understand, the fights should be doable even on SCS insane. Korgan leaves if you don't go to the Graveyard District in time.
B. However, Edwin's quest starts the moment you set foot in GY D. His quest involves killing a lich, and I'm given to understand that SCS liches are DRAMATICALLY more powerful than vanilla ones - even the GY lich, which is normally a gimp.
So I'm wondering:
1) Will Edwin leave if I don't get the scrolls for him in time? The wiki suggests that he will, but I've checked some playthroughs online and it seems that he stays for the long haul. Did they change something with mods?
2) If Edwin DOES leave, would the following be a workaround - grab Korgan, Jan, Dorn and Viccy, dash through Korgan's quest first, THEN grab Edwin and forget about the GY district until Chapter 3? Or does my party lack the magic muscle to chew through the lower tombs?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
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Comments
Edwin will leave if you don't get the scroll in time. Also not sure whether it's only arriving at the GY that triggers the quest, I've got a vague memory he mentions it at some point wherever you are after some time. So you are forced to go and do it regardless of avoiding the GY.
So it's the lich you need to deal with, and with SCS, that's a tricky fight.
The way I deal with the fight, summon as many skeletons as possible and use 3 of them hasted to surround the lich before you trigger the dialogue. Stay back so he targets the skeletons (I think he lets off ADHW after speaking). Have the dialogue, and then try and interrupt the casting of his first spells/protections.
My charname always uses dispelling or biting arrows, (are they available in unmodded, can't remember), but you can buy them from the shop in Waukeens (up the steps on the left looking towards the Adventurers Mart).
Edwin/Jan throw MMM, Dorn uses crossbow(?), Vic sling.
If you don't kill him quick...ummmm.....run away????
For me it's one of those fights where if you get lucky and manage to interrupt the spell casting, it's easy, the skeletons can damage him enough with no spell protections. If you don't well...it's fun to see just how powerful a lich can be.
I have finished that fight at the entrance having used every summon and spell and falling back to keep party out of sight so he couldn't target them. At the end, having basically given up and knowing we were all going to die, launched a desperate last ditch charge with Korgan which unexpectedly worked as I had managed to damage him a bit. That was playing SCS/insane and with an OP party.
Please don't, it's a great fight. I've had a lot of fun trying to deal with him, (especially when I have accidently triggered other foes hanging around the area as well by mistake). I mean, you can always turn the difficulty right down to "easy" for that particular fight and that gives you enough of an edge I think.
Don't know where you got the idea Edwin is level 20 early game, I think highest I've ever picked him up is level 11.
While you're here, just want to say as well, thankyou so much for SCS, I've had so much fun with it installed.
(And probably you won't be so keen on this, being something I would think modders would find extremely frustrating. Even when my install got completely and utterly corrupted (my fault) the game was even more fun and crazy with SCS.)
but..
the OP starts with 600k xp as he imports from SoD, is imo a huge advantage towards starting directly in bg2.
also @Petycon wants to play with a full party, if i get it right.
reading the ScS documentation in the gibberlings3 website
https://gibberlings3.github.io/Documentation/readmes/readme-scs.html#tacticalbg2
i read: and wow, i play tactics, so maybe i am entitled in give my suggestion here...
once with a solo sorcerer, starting in bg2, i did the umar hills-temple ruins quest as first outside town one, with only the initial dungeon and the slavers under the copper coronet done, so my sorc had way less than 600k xp, and he was alone. in tactics temple ruins there are 2 liches each one of them gates in his demon. and the tactics demons not only have an attack that is instant kill, more than 900 dmg, but if you don't kill them fast spawn a further demon and over and over.
it was not an easy fight for a solo low level sorc, it took me a ton of reloads, but he finally prevailed.
so, if really the ScS liches are comparable to the tactics ones, as the gibberlings3 quote seems to suggest, i would say give it a try, why not? obviously having a save before the "no return point", so if the things happens to be impossible or too frustrating you can chose a different route in recruiting the NPCs, and obviously being prepared to suffer, sweat and reload the needed numbers of times until you find the tactic that works. getting in such impossible situations and finding a way to succeed is something that imo everybody has to do sometimes. cause prevailing brings an utter satisfaction after the frustration of failing so many times, and cause is a wonderful way to dig deep in all the resources a given party, a set of npcs, has. the read me i quoted talks of cheesy tactics, i think that there is a dividing line between lame cheese that trivializes difficult encounters and using all the resources of the npcs and equipment, maybe if really needed also some "not conventional" tactic, if the level of challenge remains high enough and the not conventional tactics are not blatant cheating or exploiting badly engine weaknesses.
I used to be wary of modding my game before. Now, I can't imagine playing it any other way.
Regarding nerfing Nevaziah: my main gripe with him is that, if what @UnderstandMouseMagic says is true, if you want Edwin, there's no way to skip or delay him. Which turns Edwin into a pseudo-Imoen as far as I'm concerned - something I leave for much later. Which sucks, since I like Edwin.
So the easiest fix would probably be to change the variables in Edwin's quest (perhaps making it so that he doesn't chime in until you actually go to GY with him, or delaying the quest until Ch. 3), but I don't know how difficult that would be.
If you do tone him down, though, I won't object - to me, the issue isn't that he's too tough overall, it's that you're forced to meet him so early. I don't think Nalia requires you to kill TorGal to keep her; I believe you can keep Haer'Dalis without going to the Planar Prison by simply not returning to the Five Flagons Inn; and Valygar certainly doesn't leave if you don't rush the Planar Sphere.
I'm sure I'll find a way - like maybe go on a pickpocketing spree with Jan and just overload him with consumables and scrolls. Where there's a will, there's a way. I'd just like to address your point about difficulty, @UnderstandMouseMagic.
I don't think anyone playing the game on SCS Insane will ever lower it to easy. At this point, you're not playing the game for the story - you're playing it for the challenge. To lower the challenge for a specific encounter defeats the very purpose of the mode. Like, why install SCS and crank it up to Insane if you're just going to play the very encounters you beefed up on easymode?
The problem is that the challenge discussed here is grossly out of proportion with what you're trying to do. Liches are meant to be end-game encounters, just like dragons. Imagine if you had to kill SCS Firkraag to get Keldorn. Or assault an illithid hive 7 days after recruiting Jan. Or kill the Shade Lord for Mazzy. No other companion bar Imoen has such a big beefgate in front of them, and I find it odd.
So I have this challenge mode I can approach rationally, other than this one completely out of place variable. What's even worse is that in the original, this lich is deliberately underpowered specifically for its role in Edwin's quest. He's a lich in name only, and the game assumes a starting party will have only a modicum of difficulty defeating him.
As I said, I'll probably find some way to beat him using a combination of scrolls/pots/AI abuse (yes, I'm not above cheap tricks if the game engine allows them). Thank you for sharing your story about Nevaziah, @UnderstandMouseMagic - it actually got me thinking about how to approach this fight.
I just won't lower the difficulty, since it would be counter-intuitive.
And gods, I really need to talk less.
Then again, I'm thinking the new employment of the difficulty slider in v.32 could help make the difficulty level of this and other encounters more customizable than previous versions?
Sidenote: I just noticed in the changelog for SCSII v.14 that Nevaziah's level was reduced to 18, so that, to quote: "(this makes the Edwin quest a little less frustratingly long)." I don't know if that change remained in subsequent versions.
As with the other posters in this thread, I tip my hat to @DavidW for creating SCS. Thank you for your hard work and generosity. I may have shaken my fist at the heavens a few times after seeing my party decimated by liches, vampires, dragons and the like, but your mod has added an incredible sense of realism and immersion to the game.
But nothing can compare to one fight with Nev. where I was retreating back down the corridor and by mistake opened the coffin standing against the wall. Out lurches the high level Mummy, chaos ensues.
Didn't win the fight but Oh My
One of things I like about BG1 is the way you can run around the wilderness areas and end up triggering all the ambushes at once. Not really by design but sometimes it happens when you need to run away and forget where you are.
I would have liked BG2 to have more of that mayhem so this one I really enjoyed.
1: Scroll of protection from Undead will prevent him seeing you, however with SCS he will still use summons (which he will attempt to use for dispel magic/AoE anchors)
2: He usually summons Hakeshar + at least 1 demon 1st time he sees my party, so i usually send 1 in 1st to trigger his summons and retreat before they target me, this usually means The Lich attacks at least 1 of the demons, and the demons and Hakeshar tend to attack each other lol. At that point just wait it out, highly unlikely the Lich will die, but he'll waste all sorts of spells before the 1st set of summons time out and you can then approach a spell-depleted Lich.
3: I advise using ranged weapons, not only do things like Acid Arrows interrupt through his stone skins (once his PFMW run out), but you also keep your party out of range of his fear effect which can dramatically complicate a fight that is otherwise going well lol.
4: Azure Edge and Mace of Disruption can potentially end the fight in 1 hit with a lucky failed save from the Lich, combine this with Scroll of Prot.Undead and with a few reloads you will be able to insta-blap him via a thrown Azure-Edge or 1st hit from MoD since he won't pre-buff until the 1st hit has landed due to the scroll preventing him seeing you.