Son of Bhaal (40) vs. The Hero of Neverwinter (40)
Magnakai
Member Posts: 7
in one corner, a demigod in his own right. in the other, a frankenstein of a character with unheard of feats like devastating... 1 vs. 1?! both been to Hell and back. it's like... Carsomyr vs. Death's Handmaiden?!
pls. no flaming lol. no need to be so serious. just a light hearted discussion. which hero did you enjoy playing more albeit them being on 2 different platforms & which u considered more badass. put your troubles aside for a while, log-in, talk some shit, give ur 2 cents!! All posts are opine and none are wrong
Note: And no retardo posts like "ooohh... but one is 2e and the other is 3/3.5e..." work in 'compatibility mode' ok
pls. no flaming lol. no need to be so serious. just a light hearted discussion. which hero did you enjoy playing more albeit them being on 2 different platforms & which u considered more badass. put your troubles aside for a while, log-in, talk some shit, give ur 2 cents!! All posts are opine and none are wrong
Note: And no retardo posts like "ooohh... but one is 2e and the other is 3/3.5e..." work in 'compatibility mode' ok
6
Comments
Max-level PC in Baldur's Gate Saga:
- Can potentially attack 10 times per round.
- By using the right abilities, can critically hit on every attack.
- With the right spells and equipment, can get 85% or more resistance to physical damage and complete immunity to all other damage.
- Can cast like 30 spells in one round by combining Improved Alacrity with the Robe of Vecna.
- Can cast Project Image to create a clone that has all the character's spells.
- Can cast Wish to restore all of the party's spells, including Wish itself.
Max-level PC in Neverwinter Nights 1:
- Can deal a flat 240 damage with no save via a maximized Isaac's Greater Missile Storm.
- By combining Elemental Shield and Mestil's Acid Sheath, will deal over 120 damage to any creature that hits them with an attack.
- With the right equipment and feats, can critically hit on a roll of 10-20, forcing the target to save or die (with a really high DC) on each critical hit.
- HP rolls in 3e continue even after level 9, making the Hero of Neverwinter significantly beefier than the Child of Bhaal in terms of raw HP. However, the Child can make up for this with percentage-based damage resistance.
- (Improved) Evasion will negate nearly all direct-damage spells from the Child that allow a save vs. spell or breath.
- Self Concealment would heavily tip the scales in the Hero of Neverwinter's favor, as the Child of Bhaal has no way to overcome or mitigate non-magical concealment with weapon attacks. Even nat20's and Critical Strike can be blocked if the concealment roll says so. All the Child can do is pray to RNGesus.
- The Hero of Neverwinter can also attack up 10 times per round against a single opponent (11 with an Attack of Opportunity), but this attack rate cannot be dispelled or run out, unlike the Child of Bhaal.
- The Hero can counterspell the Child, foiling attempts to erect important magical defenses. But Improved Alacrity should be able to beat it (minus the first two spells of the round, assuming the Hero has a perma-haste item or Automatic Quicken Spell).
- Hide in Plain Sight is notoriously overpowered in NWN. If the Child does not have 100% Detect Illusions, the Hero will be able to take the advantage, as the Child will have to run out of True Sight/Detect Invisibility/Glitterdust eventually. Even so, HiPS can be used multiple times per round while Detect Illusions only procs once per round. If a Child Shadowdancer were to try the same thing on the Hero, the Hero can at least use their Spot and Listen skills to possibly negate the HiPS attempt.
- The Hero has access to equipment that protects from many more status effects than the Child. Just one helmet provides immunity to all mind-affecting spells and movement-limiting statuses (Cowl of Warding).
- Options off the table include Charm/Domination, Confusion, Fear, Sleep, Stun (!), Feeblemind, Berserk, Paralysis; Slow, Entangle, Grease, and Web.
- Epic Warding is the Hero's equivalent to Absolute Immunity - an undispellable +20/50 damage reduction spell that lasts for 1 round/level, usable only once per day. The Child can only try doing more than 50 damage per hit while Epic Warding is active as they definitely cannot obtain a +20 weapon to break through it.
- Greater Ruin could possibly OHKO the Child of Bhaal as it does 35d6 Positive Energy damage with a Fortitude save of DC 20+caster's ability modifier for half. The Child cannot gain resistance to Positive Energy and offensive Epic Spells bypass spell protections, magic resistance, and spell level immunity. The save converted to AD&D would probably be a save vs. death at -10 for half, but a successful save on the Child's part will still heavily damage them.
- The Hero can use Outsider Shape to turn into a Rakshasa which is only vulnerable to 9th level spells and +5 weapons. It can cast Ice Storm and Dispel Magic an unlimited number of times per day, and it can apply Maximize Spell to its Ice Storm. This build made by the unfortunately banned @FinneousPJ capitalizes on this.
Still, the Hero has one fatal weakness...
With that settled, I'm assuming that each hero would load themselves up with as many powerful items as they can find, along with making them immune to as many modes of attack as they can. That instantly tips the balance towards the HoN, in my opinion, because there exist a lot of immunity-style items in NWN, like the Cowl of Warding as Flashburn mentions. In addition to that Ring of Universal Elemental Immunity, it would make the HoN nearly invulnerable to any kind of magical assault. That leaves only a few magical attack options, such as Imprisonment, or chain Horrid Wilting/Skull Trap spells that deal magical damage. While the HoN has access to Spell Resistance via items or class abilities, if the Bhaalspawn is level 40 he should beat SR checks with ease.
From the flip side, the HoN's magical attacks would likely also be very hindered thanks to items like the Cloak of Mirroring and various Magic Resistance boosts. Caster level doesn't affect MR, so there's a good chance that a spell assault by the HoN against a properly prepared Bhaalspawn would be quite ineffectual. On the other hand, there are a number of 3rd Ed spells like Acid Fog that ignore SR (and thus MR) completely, and as Flashburn pointed out, epic spells also ignore SR, so the HoN isn't completely without options. The fact that the Bhaalspawn, using 2nd Ed rules, would have a very low HP total compared to a 3rd Ed character, means that such spells might still be able to kill the Bhaalspawn if used properly while under a Time Stop effect, for instance.
So what about martial characters? Here's where I think the balance leans heavily towards the HoN's favour. Because 3rd Ed characters can build up such massive HP pools, coupled with the fact that their attack bonus continues to grow into the epic levels, the poor AC of the 2nd Ed Bhaalspawn would not be sufficient to defend against that; the HoN could afford to pump lots of AB into Power Attack and STILL hit every single time. It's entirely feasible for the HoN, using something like a Champion of Torm PrC, to dish out in excess of 300 damage every single round if all their attacks hit.
From the opposite end, a Bhaalspawn melee type would likely fare quite poorly against an AC-buffed HoN. Due to the way AC bonuses stack in 3rd Ed, it's quite possible to build a character whose AC reaches into the high 40's/low 50's, resulting in an untouchable target for the Bhaalspawn unless they get natural 20's. Between these two factors and the higher HP pool, there's really no question here; a melee HoN would easily decimate a melee Bhaalspawn.
That leaves basically a magic-using Bhaalspawn vs (likely) a melee HoN, and it would all come down to whether or not the Bhaalspawn gets lucky with his spell assault (if he managed to get Imprisonment off first, for example).
In either case, epic spells such as Greater Ruin or Hellball (which a level 40 HoN would have at their disposal) are not stopped by such protections and would go right through both defenses. Given the likely low HP of a spellcaster Bhaalspawn, some good damage rolls on either spell might be enough to simply kill them outright.
I'm guessing some nwn2 items are more cheesy than bg2 and vice versa.
I'm not sure it is easy to compare different rulesets.
Hehe, I actually agree completely! But the OP's post said to disregard the incompatibility so we're trying our best to make it work.
It does? Huh. My memory must be faulty then, or I was thinking of spells like Incendiary Cloud that were getting through the Cloak anyway. Hmm... Do you know if it happens to block AoE effects like dragon breath as well? Oh, and what about a Blade Barrier spell cast centered on the caster and then the caster moves into melee range of the Cloak's wearer?
While spells like Cloudkill aren't flagged as "Offensive Damage", the cloak also has effects for specific immunity to some spells. A list of them:
Cloudkill, Blade Barrier, Death Fog, Globe of Blades, Incendiary Cloud, wish Slow.
Redundantly (they have the type): Call Lightning, Glyph of Warding, Holy Smite, Unholy Blight, Skull Trap, Fire Storm, Delayed Blast Fireball, Meteor Swarm, wish Horrid Wilting (r).
Damage-dealing spells that get through the cloak:
Attack enhancements (i.e Flaming Fists, Poison Weapon)
Fireshields
Thief traps, except for bounty hunter Special Snares.
Sun Soulray (Sun Soul Monk)
Vampiric Touch (Dark Moon Monk)
Lightning Bolt (Priest of Talos)
Breath Weapon (Dragon Disciple)
Larloch's Minor Drain, Vampiric Touch (Bhaalspawn)
Writhing Fog (Shaman)
Summon Insects, Insect Plague, Creeping Doom
False Dawn
Earthquake
Implosion
Ethereal Retribution (Shaman)
Vampiric Touch
Sphere of Chaos
Bigby's Clenched Fist, Bigby's Crushing Hand
Dragon's Breath
Comet
Instant death spells are generally classified as "offensive damage", whether there's any damage attached or not. Spells that create weapons to attack with (such as Melf's Minute Meteors, Black Blade of Disaster, or Harm) generally have the "offensive damage" type on that weapon.
Actually I have dreamed about it since 2002 (the fault is BioWares for giving us that loading screen for BG2....). Wouldn’t it be neat if Beamdog could fulfill the old promise that BioWare made? Well okay, perhaps it’s just me.
The fight could take place in a player vs player arena. We could have a forum championship and see who is the better player. A great way of keeping the community alive.
The trials Gorions Ward had to face were simply far greater than the Hero of Neverwinter and that probably gives him the benefit of experience. From the beginning of his adventures the Hero of Neverwinter had the benefit of the full support of the City State, including an artifact that protects him from death, along with a large network of spies and soldiers. His final enemy (Morag and The Creator Race) pales in comparison to Amellisan or even, for that matter, Irenicus. Gorion's Ward started his adventures with no support at all and with him specifically being targeted by more powerful individuals. He didn't have anything to prevent the moment of death, if he died once it was all over.
That being said, almost every battle the Hero of Neverwinter fought he did so by himself, or with one other person at most. He is probably much more adept at being self-sufficient in battle, compared to Gorion's Ward who usually faced his opponents with a large adventuring team of equally powerful individuals. A one-on-one duel leans heavily toward the Hero.
yeah can't you also use project images and such to cast entire spell books worth of spells? does that exploit or whatever it was still exist? ( in my 20+ years i've played bg2 i may have used PI once just to try it out, and after i heard how exploity it was i never attempted to use it again )
also if that exploit is still true, the true seeing spell/ability of the HoN wouldn't matter since true seeing in that game doesnt actually dispel illusions, it just makes it so the hero can see through them, so by matter of project image; game over HoN
Project Image is still cheese, but it works as intended right
The HoN could still largely neuter such spell damage via two items though: a Ring of Universal Elemental Immunity (you are completely immune to fire, cold, lightning, acid and sonic damage), and a Ring of Improved Evasion (if you are allowed a Reflex save vs the spell for half damage, you take no damage on a successful save. 2nd Ed spells don't really have Reflex saves, so we can only mirror it to similar spells like Fireball. As such, I think any spell that allows a saving throw vs Spell or Staff/Rod/Wand would fall under the protection of Improved Evasion, which includes just about all non-Death/Negative Energy spells.) And don't forget you're still wearing that Cowl of Mind Warding, and a Greater Belt of Guiding Light so you're immune to all Mind-Affecting and Death/Negative energy spells too.
The Hero can cast Time Stop twice as fast as the Bhaalspawn attempting to cast a speed factor 9 spell even with the Robe of Vecna and Amulet of power equipped. By making use of an exploit with Time Stop, the Hero can gain instantly-casting spells and simulate Improved Alacrity immediately after casting Time Stop (as long as the game is allowed to be paused). Then the Hero just has to use Lesser/Greater Spell Breach to take out Spell Shield, then Mordenkainen's Disjunction to strip everything else and lower any potential magic resistance, followed by either death magic or Bigby's Forceful Hand -> Greater Ruin/Hellball/Flesh to Stone to get past the Cloak of Mirroring.
Even without that exploit, the Hero can still cast Time Stop, cast a few spells, then cast Time Stop again before the Bhaalspawn can finish Imprisonment or a Time Stop of their own despite wearing the casting-speed-boosting equipment.
abidalzim's horrid wilting gets through both since its magical damage and it would require a fort save, plus i have never actually found a ring of universal immunity in HotU or a ring of improved evasion, do they actually exist in game?
spell immunity; abjuration will make you immune to; the spell breaches and mordenkainen's disjunction
and is casting hasted spells that much faster? casting a level 9 mage spell with the robe of vecna and amulet of power makes the casting time 4, which is less than half a round for casting time which is pretty quick, i thought that haste only makes it so you can start casting spells faster after you have just casted a spell, does it actually improve casting speed as well?
i would think that it would really have to come down to who scored better on the initiative roll for who's timestop would go off first, and with ToB wish, in theory a bhaalspawn caster could be in timestop limbo for an eternity casting off multiple spell books at once, and once that timestop is done, it's pretty much game over for the hero of NWN
The Spell Breach line of spells are nearly identical to Breach from BG except they can remove spell protections as well, but they're limited in how many they can remove per cast (2 for Lesser, 4 for Greater, 6 for Mord's). SI: Abjuration does not protect against anti-magic attacks like Breach. The breach aspect of Mordenkainen's Disjunction occurs first when casting it, then it attempts to dispel everything else. An argument could be made that SI: Abjuration could protect against it anyway since it also performs a dispel, so if that were the case, you could just substitute another Greater Spell Breach to take it out after removing the Spell Shield.
Haste does nothing to spellcasting in BG, but in NWN1, it allows the casting of 2 spells per round because it also cuts spellcasting time in half (in NWN2 it does nothing to spellcasting time). I recorded some footage in NWN and BG and compared the two:
- In NWN1 while Hasted, it takes 1.268 seconds to cast a spell from when the combat log says the character is casting a spell to the instant the spell comes into existence, denoted by a buff icon near your portrait (if casting a buff). There's a bit of time where the character cannot move or take any actions after finishing the spell, so casting two spells in a row takes 4.304 seconds. In Time Stop's case, time does not actually stop until after exactly 2 seconds, from the start of casting to the culmination of the spell.
- In BG, casting a speed factor 9 spell with the Robe of Vecna and Amulet of Power equipped from the moment the character begins the spellcasting animation to when the game auto-pauses upon spell completion is 2.603 seconds.
Maybe the Hero can't cast Time Stop twice as fast like I said, but still faster than the Bhaalspawn when it comes to certain spells.
Yeah, Horrid Wilting would be one of the few direct damage spells the Bhaalspawn could reliably count on to deal damage to the HoN, since it has a mirror spell in 3rd Ed which uses Fort saves. Depending on who exactly the Bhaalspawn faces off against though, it still might not amount to much. I made the case in an earlier post that I think a martial HoN is WAY more dangerous, and such a character would certainly have the Fort saves and the massive HP pool to absorb quite a few Horrid Wilting spells and keep going. (Or just chug down a Potion of Heal and get all of his hundreds of HP back instanteously.
I don't believe the Ring of Universal Elemental Immunity actually exists IN HotU, but it IS part of the game's base item template. Under the ground rules assumptions I laid out for the match way back in my first reply, I said that I would assume that each character has access to any item that exists in the game's base files, but excluding any kind of custom items created by players. This was done so that both characters could have access to items that otherwise might be excluded by the circumstances of their playthrough (such as say, a Good PC not having access to the Robe of Vecna for its improved casting time to forestall any "a good PC wouldn't use that!" arguments.)
I'm quite sure that I found a Ring of Improved Evasion during my HotU playthrough though (and I gave it to Aribeth, as I recall, since she has pretty insane saves thanks to her class levels.)
As Flashburn mentions, the Spell Breach spells et. al. seem to be similar to the line of Breach/Ray of Reversal etc. spells from BG in that they seem to ignore Spell Resistance and other magical protections specifically designed to stop spell assaults. In NWN, such spells will ignore Spell Mantle and similar spells.
Flashburn actually came to the same conclusion I did.
What if you equipped the godbow on the bhaalspawn? Isn't that an always hit-instakill item?
And let the bhaalspawn use imoens belt for minhp?
I would think that dev cheat items would naturally be excluded.