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Another minor curiosity concerning a certain boss

Hey there again, ye good people. I hope no one minds if I bring up another very small thing I've noticed in this particular run through the game.

I took down Big D at the bottom of Watcher's Keep last night. He put up a decent fight, but was not so tough as I typically find him to be when I challenge him. I usually finish the Keep sometime before ToB, but still with enough experience to have a high level ability or two.

The primary reason he went down easier this time around is that he rather strangely failed to summon the two mariliths that normally seem to be a standard part of his welcoming act. I've played through Watcher's Keep many times over the years, until most of it has long since been committed to memory, and in every encounter I've had with Big D he has summoned this duo of mariliths very early on in the battle. This time, for whatever reason, he was content with gating in only a number of glabrezus, and he seemed somehow a bit more reluctant to do even that if I'm not imagining things. The giant twin-headed tentacle monkey himself was more or less just as deadly as usual, I think, but he simply lacked the caliber of backup that would normally be expected of him. Just curious as to whether anyone else has encountered this, and if it's a bug or just a normal variation I've not personally seen before.

Comments

  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    so from the looks of things this is how this battle is supposed to go;

    as soon as it starts a contingency gets fired and he becomes protected by; stoneskin, aura of flaming death and globe of invulnerability

    then next he is supposed to use summon the infernal host which summons 2 marileths

    after this point in time if you have summoned in any tanari he will dominate it without fail

    then if the 2 marileths are dead he will use a special "gate" spell to summon in glaberzu ( looks like 4 of them )

    then if any summoned creature around him is less than 10 levels lower than him an automatic death spell goes off

    and then a timer starts where every 2 minutes a stoneskin gets casted on him

    then another time goes off where every 2 rounds the nearest enemy of the big D will either use his beguiling gaze or his insanity gaze

    then he will blast off an implosion and do so every 20 minutes ( lol? )

    then he will do a finger of death every 3 minutes

    and then he has an unholy word every 5 rounds

    and then he has an earthquake every 10 rounds

    and then he has a harm every 4 minutes if the nearest enemy has less than 50% MR

    and then he will attack all silly like

    now for implosion, finger of death, unholy word, earthquake and harm there are "RandomNum" variables on those spells, so im guessing they only have chance in going off first....? because if i can recall correctly i have never seen him use finger of death or harm or unholy word ( but it also could be because i usually kill this guy in 2 or 3 rounds at the longest )

    and apparently you only need to bring him down to less than 30% HP to finish him off, so you dont even need to do as much damage as his HP to win ( lolz again )

    so with that being said, for your situation either some of the scripts just didnt go off, which is possible ( especially if you interrupted them with say traps or force attacking which can at times mess scripts up ) or if there is lots of stuff going on, that can sometimes mess scripts up as well

    or

    it could be that if you are using any mods, its very possible that a mod that you are using could be messing things up as well

    pretty much 100% of the time that any time when something goes weird or whacky in a game and if that game is modded, its usually the mod that is the culprit
    BlomdorGrond0ThacoBellgorgonzola
  • BlomdorBlomdor Member Posts: 26
    Insightful indeed! Thank you much for writing that all up. :blush:

    All very much in line with my usual experience with the big guy. Something obviously messed up the scripts. He was still using his gaze attacks, though a couple of times they weirdly flew offscreen without hitting anything, which was pretty unusual to see to say the least. He put up Stoneskins, AoFD, and PfMW, but no Globe of Invulnerability. He also used a Storm of Vengeance, and of course Implosion. Mostly normal by himself, but with a couple of odd quirks and strangely missing the Infernal Host.

    Sigh. There's definitely something a bit off about my mod installations, but I'm too far into the game and having too much fun to restart over it. What's done is done. I'll try to make sure Big D gets a fairer fight with both sides functioning at their best next time around. Baldur's Gate draws me back again and again for another playthrough no matter how many times I go through the trilogy, and there's no reason to make this the last. We'll have another round eventually. Still too bad, though.
    sarevok57gorgonzola
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    sarevok57 wrote: »
    because if i can recall correctly i have never seen him use finger of death or harm or unholy word ( but it also could be because i usually kill this guy in 2 or 3 rounds at the longest )
    sometimes i tank him for a long time on purpose to farm the xp i get killing many of his helpers, once i even brought my whole party to cap level in soa and with some party members freshly recruited, it was a 3 people party that i decided to turn in a 6 people one in late soa.

    that particular battle lasted many rl hours and was fun as i did not want to use the exiting area auto save trick so i had no chance to create a savegame, a single error would have meant to start the whole battle from the beginning. it was fun even if after it the party had no more challenge to complete the game.
    it was with tactics mod installed so it could have changed the D's scripts, and i had a fmt with good magic resistance, or his simulacrum, always near the boss, but in hours of battle i don't recall a single harm or finger of death. he did cast a very large amount of implosions.
    Blomdorsarevok57
  • BlomdorBlomdor Member Posts: 26
    Yeah, I could swear I recall him casting quite a lot of Implosions when I fought him with Tactics installed as well. Perhaps a feature of that particular mod? Not sure; it's been a while. To be fair, he's Big D, one of the single baddest dudes in D&D who's been stomping around since the '70s; I'd say he ought to be allowed to implode things as much as he wants to in this fight.
    gorgonzolasarevok57
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