Skip to content

Toughest battles in entire BG Saga?

24

Comments

  • AasimAasim Member Posts: 591
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    Aasim wrote: »
    tedmann12 wrote: »
    Imoen - Sucks because I just lose her for the early battle (which I can't beat)

    It's worse than that. Once she gets a hold of herself, she leaves you permanently. Iirc, there's no way to keep her in party.

    No, not true. She will attempt to rejoin after she recovers.

    Odd, she always left me.
    DreadKhan
  • tedmann12tedmann12 Member Posts: 128
    Yeah, I lasted long enough and she rejoined me. Still haven't beat the battle though lol.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Aasim wrote: »
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    Aasim wrote: »
    tedmann12 wrote: »
    Imoen - Sucks because I just lose her for the early battle (which I can't beat)

    It's worse than that. Once she gets a hold of herself, she leaves you permanently. Iirc, there's no way to keep her in party.

    No, not true. She will attempt to rejoin after she recovers.

    Odd, she always left me.

    ...I think this quote sum up life far too well! ;)
    Balrog99Dapifer
  • tedmann12tedmann12 Member Posts: 128
    I’m going to restart from candlekeep, as a druid who I am going to give access to some mage spells, including some level 9s, and use spell revisions and iwd spells, and prep from day 1 to take down melissan.

    This will include loading up on lvl 9 scrolls throughout the game so in this final battle I can use edwin and aerie to spam imprisonment, time stop, all the good shit.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Yeah, that's one 'Whelp, I guess I'm gonna reload now!' moments, when she decimates the time stopped party instead of DYING. Very frustrating.
    Arvia
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    Time stop is overrated anyway. The fights where you can use it can be won without it. The enemies where you *really* want it are immune to it (or you meet them before you can cast it).
    gorgonzolaBelgarathMTHThacoBellArdanis
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    edited June 2019
    the moment you can cast it can vary according to party composition and leveling strategy as well as party composition, the player's style and the particular battle set how it can be useful.
    and very few enemies are immune to it, the final tob boss, the final wk one and maybe a couple others.

    there are plenty of ways it can be used very effectively in the game, a mage can have up to 30 MMM attacks that bypass the to hit roll, hitting critters with outrageous ac every time, a PI equipped with RoV and AoP that manages to cast it successfully has then 3 rounds without risk of TS or DM destroying it or the enemy go invisible or protect himself to unleash the whole spell book. and on and over.

    it is not the ultimate super OP spell, improved alacrity is that one, but is quite powerful and allows even some creative not conventional uses. i personally used it also in battles against the immune enemies, as long as the cater's companions are not in the sight of the immune enemy and the caster is protected from his attacks he has 3 free rounds to kill the enemy helpers.

    this told by a player that usually packs his parties with arcane casters, but very seldom uses TS, in many play troughs i don't even cast it once and is not one of the spells i have always memorized, i do it only if i decide to use it in a particular battle to try a particular tactic. i don't love it much, but i know it and respect its power.

    side note, it is possible to get a ts scroll quite early in soa in a couple of ways, and the PI can use that scroll over and over trough a quick slot, this allow to multiply the times it can be used as a mage has earlier and more lev 7 memorizations.

    @Arvia, i don't know if it is overrated as i don't know how the average of the players rate it, but please don't under rate it only because in your personal style (and also in my by the way) it is not so useful.
    and to say that it is overrated because the battles can be won without it is a non argument, following that line of thinking we should also say that carsomir, FoA, and the very good weapons are overrated as is possible to never weld them and still beat the game.
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    @gorgonzola, most of those weapons *are* overrated, too.

    No special single weapon is needed to beat that game. Not the upgraded Mace of Disruption, not the ones you mentioned above. (I can't remember ever using the FoA. I only use Carsomyr when I have Keldorn. I don't use it for myself as a paladin because I don't like two-handed weapons)That's exactly what keeps it interesting.

    I didn't say that I don't use time stop. I do, because it makes some fights easier. Just not the really annoying ones, like Abazigal, the Ravager, Mellisan.
    ThacoBellBelgarathMTH
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    By the way, back to the original topic, the hardest fight that I remember was the improved Abazigal with Ascension. In the unmodded game? Probably still Abazigal.
    And Davaeorn in the Cloakwood mine, at least when I met him for the first time and was unprepared.

    I'm not going to use Ascension again, and I don't think I'll ever use SCS. I'm not very fond of ToB anyway, because it has a very linear "story" (if "kill them all" can even be called a story) with tough fight after tough fight. I see no reason to intentionally make it harder. But I guess I understand why very experienced players like to do that. I find more fun in roleplaying than in higher difficulties.
    gorgonzolaBelgarathMTH
  • DavidWDavidW Member Posts: 823
    Arvia wrote: »
    I'm not very fond of ToB anyway, because it has a very linear "story" (if "kill them all" can even be called a story)

    Someone ought to make a mod that changes that.
    Mantis37
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    @Arvia
    so, according to your definition every item but a mundane staff is "overrated" as is possible to beat the game in a poverty run using only that staff (to bash the enemies immune to magic and to magic weapons that other way you can not kill in any way) :)

    i would better consider overrated the things that (on average) are rated by the players more useful then how they really are, that for some reason have a reputation of excellence, among many players, that a more in depth analysis reveal not justified. without implying that those things are needed to beat the game, overrated is not the opposite of essential.


    Dapifer
  • BrightL1ghtsBrightL1ghts Member Posts: 53
    edited June 2019
    @gorgonzola i think he didn't want to say that Time Stop is a bad spell, but rather that if you will actually count how many times per playthrough you use it, the number won't really be as high as you expect. And one of the reasons is that you can actually kill most enemies faster without using timestop. It's especially true for a high level fighter/mage charname.
    ThacoBellgorgonzola
  • DavidWDavidW Member Posts: 823
    chimaera wrote: »
    DavidW wrote: »
    Arvia wrote: »
    I'm not very fond of ToB anyway, because it has a very linear "story" (if "kill them all" can even be called a story)

    Someone ought to make a mod that changes that.

    I assume the new Ascension still goes before Wheels? And SCS v. 32 after?

    Yes.
    Mantis37semiticgoddess
  • NuinNuin Member Posts: 451
    edited June 2019
    Why do I feel like a lot of people seem to treat Timestop the way die-hard rednecks treat guns?

    I've always seen SCS as a mixed bag. On one hand it offers you the very welcome opportunity to stretch your tactical muscles, on the other it more often than not does it in a way that seems questionable or downright... odd. Then again since no one has come up with an engine that simulates the randomness of a true D&D encounter in a cRPG (eg. traps that do something new each time you encounter them, random but practical changes to enemy gear/composition per run, various wild card factors like mages sometimes spawning with golem sidekicks) then I do admit it's unfair to judge SCS too harshly. It works.
    gorgonzola
  • DavidWDavidW Member Posts: 823
    Nuin wrote: »
    I've always seen SCS as a mixed bag. On one hand it offers you the very welcome opportunity to stretch your tactical muscles, on the other it more often than not does it in a way that seems questionable or downright... odd.

    I'm always open to feedback if there are things that seem odd or questionable. (Though many of them turn out to be matters of taste.)

    gorgonzola
  • AasimAasim Member Posts: 591
    edited June 2019
    tedmann12 wrote: »
    I’m going to restart from candlekeep, as a druid who I am going to give access to some mage spells, including some level 9s, and use spell revisions and iwd spells, and prep from day 1 to take down melissan.

    This will include loading up on lvl 9 scrolls throughout the game so in this final battle I can use edwin and aerie to spam imprisonment, time stop, all the good shit.

    Melissan is immune to time stop. If you use that during the fight with her, she will use the frozen time to kill off helpless party members, and/or Charname, if Charname isn't the one who cast it.

    It gets a tad bit worse for the player with Spell Revisions. Imprisonment will make her use Freedom which will in turn clear all enemies from all debuffs you placed on them.
    Her "Divine Mantle" will keep her safe not only from +5 weapons (w/o SR, u can use +6 to hit her through it) but will make her immune to damage alltogether. (I made this tweak since Apsolute Immunity does the same).

    DavidW wrote: »
    Nuin wrote: »
    I've always seen SCS as a mixed bag. On one hand it offers you the very welcome opportunity to stretch your tactical muscles, on the other it more often than not does it in a way that seems questionable or downright... odd.

    I'm always open to feedback if there are things that seem odd or questionable. (Though many of them turn out to be matters of taste.)

    My main gripe with SCS is that nearly every mage with access to level 9 spells uses Time Stop.
    While it's a bullet-proof method of surviving a bit longer to cast more spells, I find it just drags the game.
  • BrightL1ghtsBrightL1ghts Member Posts: 53
    Nuin wrote: »
    Why do I feel like a lot of people seem to treat Timestop the way die-hard rednecks treat guns?
    I've always seen SCS as a mixed bag. On one hand it offers you the very welcome opportunity to stretch your tactical muscles, on the other it more often than not does it in a way that seems questionable or downright... odd.

    It has a highly customizable installation, for example if you will install spell tweaks and ai enhancements only, then you will get basicly vanilla bg2 ee with much smarter spellcasters. I would say that it's quite a unique and well made mod for a rpg game. You don't have such a great mod for let's say, Skyrim. I absolutely can't play vanilla because it only takes si:abj + si:div + improved invis to become completely immune to any attempt to remove your vital protections. And when i see a powerfull lich killing himself with his own gate i usually want to vomit. But if you mean a full scs installation, then yes, it does change a lot, but that's what faq is for, mod developer doesn't force you to install everything, more so, there is even warning that it might not be wise to install this or that, unless you are sure what you are doing.

    gorgonzolaGrond0
  • NuinNuin Member Posts: 451
    edited June 2019
    DavidW wrote: »
    Nuin wrote: »
    I've always seen SCS as a mixed bag. On one hand it offers you the very welcome opportunity to stretch your tactical muscles, on the other it more often than not does it in a way that seems questionable or downright... odd.

    I'm always open to feedback if there are things that seem odd or questionable. (Though many of them turn out to be matters of taste.)
    I mean it's not like it's not obvious. A simple example: constant Stoneskins and Melf's Minute Meteors on enemy mages. Oh, I understand that such measures are critical if you want mages to be more threatening. Hell, it really helps even the playing field a lot. Like I said, it works.

    But this doesn't detract from the idea of a mage out there that is constantly under the effects of Stoneskin/Melf's Minute Meteors/etc. while sleeping, eating, crapping, polishing the furniture...
    Again though, no one has actually figured out a way to simulate how truly hectic/random a D&D encounter can go so allowances have to be made. That doesn't change the fact that I'm gonna have to think about these things while I'm killing someone like Mekrath, for example.
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    Nuin wrote: »
    DavidW wrote: »
    Nuin wrote: »
    I've always seen SCS as a mixed bag. On one hand it offers you the very welcome opportunity to stretch your tactical muscles, on the other it more often than not does it in a way that seems questionable or downright... odd.

    I'm always open to feedback if there are things that seem odd or questionable. (Though many of them turn out to be matters of taste.)
    I mean it's not like it's not obvious. A simple example: constant Stoneskins and Melf's Minute Meteors on enemy mages. Oh, I understand that such measures are critical if you want mages to be more threatening. Hell, it really helps even the playing field a lot. Like I said, it works.

    But this doesn't detract from the idea of a mage out there that is constantly under the effects of Stoneskin/Melf's Minute Meteors/etc. while sleeping, eating, crapping, polishing the furniture...
    Again though, no one has actually figured out a way to simulate how truly hectic/random a D&D encounter can go so allowances have to be made. That doesn't change the fact that I'm gonna have to think about these things while I'm killing someone like Mekrath, for example.

    The way it's implemented SCS mages are not under spells constantly. They only generate the spells once they become aware of you (think of it as instant buffing), so it's not actually particularly difficult to kill mages before their buffs fire. Some people think doing that is cheesy, others that it's just sensible - like with everything about the way you play the game, tastes differ ;).
    gorgonzolaBrightL1ghtsStummvonBordwehrDapifer
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    i have still to begin my adventure with scs (i am reluctant in doing it as i don't want to learn again the spell system and i have still work to do with the mods i use) so i can be wrong.

    i agree with @Grond0, the buffs on the enemy mages can be seen as some contingency or trigger firing up as they see you, and have also the purpose to balance the fact that many players pre buff using meta game knowledge.

    and as @DavidW is open to suggestions (i really like it as the fact that you made your outstanding mod highly customizable) if it is technically possible to have the enemies pre buff less or more depending on if you use or not meta knowledge would be a great thing.
    this can probably be done using as trigger if you spot the enemy before being spotted, if you do it you have the right to ambush so the enemies have less buffs, but if you are spotted as you spot then the enemies have the full buffs, as your party have them.
    a player that never uses meta knowledge can disable the pre puffed mages to maintain the balance or enable it for more challenge.

    but, and i can be completely wrong about it, reading the comments on the forums i get the idea that there is some sort of repetitiveness and predictability in scs's caster's tactics.
    Nuin wrote: »
    A simple example: constant Stoneskins and Melf's Minute Meteors on enemy mages.
    Aasim wrote: »
    My main gripe with SCS is that nearly every mage with access to level 9 spells uses Time Stop.
    While it's a bullet-proof method of surviving a bit longer to cast more spells, I find it just drags the game.

    even if i am aware that to create and maintain something complex as scs is a lot of work maybe this can be improved.
    i really appreciate how tactics mod (and the sola mod), behind its use of cheese, scripts to force undisruptable spells and the rest, makes every encounter with the casters, and in general with he enemies, somehow unique.
    the gnome illusionist, the acid kensai, the lich in the docks, undead sola and many other casters use their casting power in very different ways, they don't rely on a recipe good for all them, like stoneskin and MMM for everybody and as soon is possible timestop for everybody.
    from that point of view possibly tactics did better, as it do it even in the battles when the enemies don't use blatant cheese, ie the groups that you have to fight in the pontifex's quest feel really different in tactics from the ones in the random encounters in the town (at high level) even if they have similar composition.

    now i understand that to do it mean to be an outstanding good coder and an outstanding good tactical player at the same time and to have a lot of time to spend to find different but really effective tactics for the different enemy casters (weimer had an advantage as his mod is partly a collection of pre made other mods so he had 1/2 of the work already done and he did benefit of the tactical strength of others bejond his own one ), but possibly this is a good way to improve scs.

    and as i told it can be completely wrong as i still did not have played the mod, so my opinion is only based on what i read, not on a direct experience of playing it.





  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    edited June 2019
    gorgonzola wrote: »
    and as @DavidW is open to suggestions (i really like it as the fact that you made your outstanding mod highly customizable) if it is technically possible to have the enemies pre buff less or more depending on if you use or not meta knowledge would be a great thing.
    this can probably be done using as trigger if you spot the enemy before being spotted, if you do it you have the right to ambush so the enemies have less buffs, but if you are spotted as you spot then the enemies have the full buffs, as your party have them.
    a player that never uses meta knowledge can disable the pre puffed mages to maintain the balance or enable it for more challenge.

    The mod already provides ways to do much of what you suggest. Even if you don't want to install it at the moment, you might enjoy looking at the readme - which is well-written and gives lots of useful information.

    gorgonzola wrote: »
    but, and i can be completely wrong about it, reading the comments on the forums i get the idea that there is some sort of repetitiveness and predictability in scs's caster's tactics.
    Nuin wrote: »
    A simple example: constant Stoneskins and Melf's Minute Meteors on enemy mages.
    Aasim wrote: »
    My main gripe with SCS is that nearly every mage with access to level 9 spells uses Time Stop.
    While it's a bullet-proof method of surviving a bit longer to cast more spells, I find it just drags the game.
    I wouldn't say SCS is predictable - far less so than the unmodded game. It's true that it would be very rare to find a mage without stoneskins, but that's a pretty standard spell for player characters so it shouldn't be a surprise. What you will find is that SCS mages react to what you do, rather than just generally casting spells in a prescribed order. There is a significant random component to spells available to mages, so they don't all have the same selection by any means (and if you want to change their selection you can reinstall the mod to get a new randomized selection). It's also possible to change lots of detailed options through tweaking the configuration, though I don't bother with going to that level myself.
    gorgonzolaArdulsemiticgoddess
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    thank you @Grond0 !
    i surely can read the read me, and i will do it soon, like is almost sure that if my life lasts enough i will give the mod a try in the future.
    Grond0
  • DavidWDavidW Member Posts: 823
    Nuin wrote: »
    A simple example: constant Stoneskins and Melf's Minute Meteors on enemy mages. Oh, I understand that such measures are critical if you want mages to be more threatening. Hell, it really helps even the playing field a lot. Like I said, it works.

    But this doesn't detract from the idea of a mage out there that is constantly under the effects of Stoneskin/Melf's Minute Meteors/etc. while sleeping, eating, crapping, polishing the furniture...
    Again though, no one has actually figured out a way to simulate how truly hectic/random a D&D encounter can go so allowances have to be made. That doesn't change the fact that I'm gonna have to think about these things while I'm killing someone like Mekrath, for example.

    This is a perennial conversation - but 99%+ of the spellcasters you meet in BG2 are - like your own character - in a situation that they know or reasonably can expect will lead to violence. Even most of the remaining 1% have good reason to think that combat is not implausible in the near future. I imagine soldiers don't strap on their Kevlar when doing the dusting, but they do when they're in a combat or combat-plausible situation. And they err on the side of caution when assessing which situations are combat-plausible.
  • DavidWDavidW Member Posts: 823
    edited June 2019
    gorgonzola wrote: »
    and as @DavidW is open to suggestions (i really like it as the fact that you made your outstanding mod highly customizable) if it is technically possible to have the enemies pre buff less or more depending on if you use or not meta knowledge would be a great thing.
    this can probably be done using as trigger if you spot the enemy before being spotted, if you do it you have the right to ambush so the enemies have less buffs, but if you are spotted as you spot then the enemies have the full buffs, as your party have them.
    a player that never uses meta knowledge can disable the pre puffed mages to maintain the balance or enable it for more challenge.
    You have very fine control of how much mage prebuff, from 'prebuff with every spell you have with a duration of one round per level or more' down to 'don't even cast stoneskin', and you can change it in-game via a menu option on a per-fight basis.
    but, and i can be completely wrong about it, reading the comments on the forums i get the idea that there is some sort of repetitiveness and predictability in scs's caster's tactics.

    I think it depends what you compare with. Of course SCS is way more repetitive and predictable than a real-time human player controlling each mage would be, and probably more repetitive than if each encounter was individually and lovingly created (but there are about 600 spellcasters in a full BG1+BG2 install, and coming up with 600 strategies without computer assistance is not trivial). But it is (I claim) way less repetitive and predictable than the vanilla game (I use a much larger range of spells than in the original game, allocate them semi-at-random to casters, and use about 80 different sequencers, triggers and contingencies).

    It is true that I don't deliberately make very suboptimal choices, e.g. not using timestop when it's more or less a no-brainer for high-level mages. (Note that both the vanilla AI and Tactics uses Timestop with pretty much every L18+ mage too.)
    even if i am aware that to create and maintain something complex as scs is a lot of work maybe this can be improved.
    i really appreciate how tactics mod (and the sola mod), behind its use of cheese, scripts to force undisruptable spells and the rest, makes every encounter with the casters, and in general with he enemies, somehow unique.
    the gnome illusionist, the acid kensai, the lich in the docks, undead sola and many other casters use their casting power in very different ways, they don't rely on a recipe good for all them, like stoneskin and MMM for everybody and as soon is possible timestop for everybody.
    from that point of view possibly tactics did better, as it do it even in the battles when the enemies don't use blatant cheese, ie the groups that you have to fight in the pontifex's quest feel really different in tactics from the ones in the random encounters in the town (at high level) even if they have similar composition.
    I certainly don't want to criticize Tactics, which is an excellent mod (especially for its time and given the coding tools available) and which was much of my template for the original SCS. But I've just had a look back over it (and Sola) and *mostly* its spellcasters just do things SCS does. In particular,
    - Kuroisan and Solaufein basically fight the same way SCS fighter/mages fight;
    - The Twisted Rune spellcasters fight pretty much like SCS mages;
    - All the liches I've checked fight pretty much like SCS liches;
    - the core 'smarter mages' script in Tactics is cleverer than vanilla but actually more predictable: every single mage of a given level, other than the 10-20 or so affected by other components, has the same sequence of buffs, the same spell trigger (chain lightning, chaos, remove magic), the same spell sequencer (fire shield x2, stoneskin), and one of four possible chain contingencies. (And they all use Stoneskin, Minute Meteors, and Timestop!) SCS is vastly more varied than that. (Though, looking back at Tactics mage scripting, I'm struck that I can still see echoes of Wes's design choices in mine - like I said, Tactics is a great mod.)
    - There are quite a few bespoke fights in Tactics, but that's also true in SCS (e.g., Davaeorn, Shade Lord, Anadramatis). I'm not sure how the number compares -but it's not a competition, since most of the Tactics bespoke encounters are SCS-compatible anyway.
    and as i told it can be completely wrong as i still did not have played the mod, so my opinion is only based on what i read, not on a direct experience of playing it.
    Which is fair enough!

    Grond0gorgonzolaMantis37
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited June 2019
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
    gorgonzola
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    thank you @DavidW and @chimaera, now i am even more willing to begin my journey in the magic scs world :)
  • tedmann12tedmann12 Member Posts: 128
    I can't imagine playing this game without scs tbh. I wouldn't still be playing without it. Feels like a required update to the game to me, and makes this game stand with modern crpgs in many regards.
    BrightL1ghts
  • NuinNuin Member Posts: 451
    DavidW wrote: »
    Nuin wrote: »
    A simple example: constant Stoneskins and Melf's Minute Meteors on enemy mages. Oh, I understand that such measures are critical if you want mages to be more threatening. Hell, it really helps even the playing field a lot. Like I said, it works.

    But this doesn't detract from the idea of a mage out there that is constantly under the effects of Stoneskin/Melf's Minute Meteors/etc. while sleeping, eating, crapping, polishing the furniture...
    Again though, no one has actually figured out a way to simulate how truly hectic/random a D&D encounter can go so allowances have to be made. That doesn't change the fact that I'm gonna have to think about these things while I'm killing someone like Mekrath, for example.

    This is a perennial conversation - but 99%+ of the spellcasters you meet in BG2 are - like your own character - in a situation that they know or reasonably can expect will lead to violence. Even most of the remaining 1% have good reason to think that combat is not implausible in the near future. I imagine soldiers don't strap on their Kevlar when doing the dusting, but they do when they're in a combat or combat-plausible situation. And they err on the side of caution when assessing which situations are combat-plausible.

    That's more like an acceptable rationalization considering that if you actually played like your life was on the line then you would never willingly put yourself in a position where you have to stand your groud in order to deal with getting caught off-guard. And it would be truly astounding if everyone you actually met was that well prepared at all times - hell, in real life we don't know if gods or any afterlife ecen exists and yet YOLO is a thing and it doesn't discriminate.

    Regardless, if you DO play like your life was on the line at all times and, for example, always try to scout out areas and other points/persons of interest first before comminting then that's when things get interesting.

    In any case running away is usually the most acceptable response to getting caught off-guard versus standing your ground. But like I said, mapping out how hectic these battles would actuallly go is pointless since no one xan recreate that random factor yet so you suck it up and just play anyway.
Sign In or Register to comment.