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Toughest battles in entire BG Saga?

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  • AasimAasim Member Posts: 591
    DavidW wrote: »
    - Kuroisan and Solaufein basically fight the same way SCS fighter/mages fight;

    Thing is, I don't think many people will remember what it feels like to fight a SCS generic fighter/mage character - I myself remember one in Amkethran since he used a trigger with SI:Conjuration in it - that's the only thing that made him "special".
    Kuro will however be remembered by all who met him. Not because he fights differently; but because he has unique voice line "ooooh...this is not a good day" and he drops a cheese katana.
    Solaufein had this battle where u had a Time Stop effect every few rounds which the enemies were immune to (Eclipse). Now, without having played Sola for over a decade now, I still remember the halfling kensai dialogue lines. It was unique.
    DavidW wrote: »
    - There are quite a few bespoke fights in Tactics, but that's also true in SCS (e.g., Davaeorn, Shade Lord, Anadramatis).

    And these are imo the highlights of SCS. Players love enemies with unique abilities PC never has access to.


    gorgonzola
  • DavidWDavidW Member Posts: 823
    Nuin wrote: »
    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.
    Combatants in warzones who adopt a YOLO attitude don't generally last long.

    AmmargorgonzolaDreadKhanBrightL1ghts
  • AmmarAmmar Member Posts: 1,295
    DavidW wrote: »
    Nuin wrote: »
    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.
    Combatants in warzones who adopt a YOLO attitude don't generally last long.

    If I was a Mage with BG 2 rules in the modern (relatively safe) I would still keep up Stone Skin and Armor up.
    With Melf's Meteors there would be the question on how to transport them... from the description it sounds like they have to be kept in your hands.
  • DavidWDavidW Member Posts: 823
    Ammar wrote: »
    DavidW wrote: »
    Nuin wrote: »
    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.
    Combatants in warzones who adopt a YOLO attitude don't generally last long.

    If I was a Mage with BG 2 rules in the modern (relatively safe) I would still keep up Stone Skin and Armor up.
    With Melf's Meteors there would be the question on how to transport them... from the description it sounds like they have to be kept in your hands.

    A good analog is to look at what other classes do. Whatever the presumed discomforts are of having Stoneskin running all the time, it doesn't plausibly compare to having to cart 40lb or more of metal armor - yet no-one suggests that it's unrealistic that fighters you encounter are all armed and armored.

    As for carrying Meteors - yes, I take the point, and if I were running PnP D&D I might constrain it, but demonstrably the PC can rest, sleep and have sex with Melf running in the background (and indeed with Stoneskin active, come to think of it) with no consequence, so one can infer that the BG version isn't that restrictive.
    [Deleted User]AmmarGrond0
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    edited June 2019
    DavidW wrote: »
    but demonstrably the PC can rest, sleep and have sex with Melf running in the background (and indeed with Stoneskin active, come to think of it) with no consequence, so one can infer that the BG version isn't that restrictive.
    very hot sex i would say... ;)
    he can also drink beer in the taverns without problem, or at least if a hot beer instead of a proper cold one is not a problem :)

    edit: i would have added a couple of comments about the interaction of stoneskin and sex, but this site is not rated +18 so i let you guess about what them can be :p:D
  • kansasbarbariankansasbarbarian Member Posts: 206
    I still maintain that Greywolf is hard as hell. He hits hard and often and that is my sword he has. Took me forever to beat him. And the bandit camp tent almost made me rage quit. Took me a couple games to learn to properly buff my party.
    tbone1DreadKhan
  • MaurvirMaurvir Member Posts: 1,090
    I had actually forgotten about the wolfweres in ToSC. If you attempt to go to that island "early", they can very easily hand your butt to you in pieces. Some of those fights were hard even for a party on the cusp of taking on the final battle.
    BelgarathMTHThacoBellDreadKhan
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Maurvir wrote: »
    I had actually forgotten about the wolfweres in ToSC. If you attempt to go to that island "early", they can very easily hand your butt to you in pieces. Some of those fights were hard even for a party on the cusp of taking on the final battle.

    I think that's the area that stands out as being potentially unbeatable with certain builds, especially solo clerics. Most builds have a cheesey way, and I've heard you can pile up endless Glyphs to fry the big baddie, but you need to stack literally endless numbers of them, since they are easily avoided by him. Not much fun I'd wager, so I never tried it.
    ThacoBellkansasbarbarian
  • AmmarAmmar Member Posts: 1,295
    I still maintain that Greywolf is hard as hell. He hits hard and often and that is my sword he has. Took me forever to beat him. And the bandit camp tent almost made me rage quit. Took me a couple games to learn to properly buff my party.

    Greywolf can be hard, but Blindness has a good chance of affecting him and taking him out of the fight.
    kansasbarbariansemiticgoddess
  • iosfrustrationiosfrustration Member Posts: 153
    From a non meta gaming perspective the twisted rune is my #1. It’s accessible very early in the game, That door is irresistible to any theif, there is absolutely no warning whatsoever (possibly cut content?) and once you are in there is no escape without fighting the fight.
    gorgonzolatedmann12
  • tedmann12tedmann12 Member Posts: 128
    From a non meta gaming perspective the twisted rune is my #1. It’s accessible very early in the game, That door is irresistible to any theif, there is absolutely no warning whatsoever (possibly cut content?) and once you are in there is no escape without fighting the fight.

    Agreed. In my mind this is always a really hard an epic battle that I need to be extra prepared for. Traumatized me as a kid, I didn’t enter that door for like 10 years after
    gorgonzola
  • BaptorBaptor Member Posts: 341
    These are the ones I think of:

    1. Chess Battle in Durlag's Tower
    Maybe there's some obvious way to beat this easily, but I always end up with 2-4 dead characters at the end of this battle. I completed Durlag's Tower with only 3 characters last time. I've tried to make my little sprites play by the rules so they aren't blasted apart, but they never comply.

    2. Demon from Soultaker
    A tough but interesting fight. I never despise this one, it's just hard and I always lose a character or two.

    3. Sarevok and Co.
    The last battle of Baldur's Gate 1 is a doosy.

    4. Early Mage Battles in BG2
    It's possible in BG2 to run afoul of mages capable of 7th-9th level magic very early on. Once you've got some levels under your robes, you'll have counter-magic to deal with them, but if you encounter them early on when your 7th level or so, you can be wiped out without a second thought.

    Like everyone says, by the time you get to BG2 you have so many options that losing a battle means you just didn't try everything yet. The drow bhaalspawn in TOB used to give me issues, but then I figured out that battle and it doesn't anymore.
    BelgarathMTHGirewanArvia
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    The Chess Battle can be made very easy with very, very liberal cheese. Make sure you've turned off AI, and be very sure to set it to pause each round, to make sure you're catching things before they get out of hand, since your folks won't be using AI. This is a rough fight, but I've soloed it with a swashbuckler, not on the hardest though. Was high level and had the best gear. I don't think I bothered with Werewolf Isle that playthrough, not seeing any good way to kill Karoug, who I think alone is about (potentially) hardest fight in BG1 maybe, since he's got great stats, regen, immunities, and has friends along to help. This fight is a nasty one I find, and requires multiple attempts to avoid losing NPCs.

    Sarevok can be cheesed very, very effectively, but it's so much harder than it was in TuTu, where I steamrolled him with a cleric solo. ;) Now I think I like to set up ambushes/traps for the magic users, and maybe even try to paralyze Sarevok and Tazok. Summons are a big help, and you can use 10 charges from a wand of monster summons like it's nothing and still have accomplished little, if you're not making good use of ranged and spell support. Chaos used to work very well in TuTu I remember, as did doubling up on Webs, with the specialist bonus (Xan and Dyn respectively) this might work even better. Confused Sarevok is very easy to kill I found.
  • dunbardunbar Member Posts: 1,603
    "Make sure you've turned off AI"

    I always play with the AI off. I'd rather do a No Reload Challenge than a Play With The AI On Challenge.
    gorgonzolaDreadKhanElysianEchoes
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Bah, I live for luxury in these games... if I lose an item, I cheat it in again if needed, and I don't hesitate to just let the damn PC play the game for me. ;)
    Dapifer
  • MaurvirMaurvir Member Posts: 1,090
    dunbar wrote: »
    "Make sure you've turned off AI"

    I always play with the AI off. I'd rather do a No Reload Challenge than a Play With The AI On Challenge.

    This. The AI makes things vastly harder because your party does stupid things right, left, and center. The AI needed levels like with self-driving cars.
  • MaurvirMaurvir Member Posts: 1,090
    DreadKhan wrote: »
    The Chess Battle can be made very easy with very, very liberal cheese. Make sure you've turned off AI, and be very sure to set it to pause each round, to make sure you're catching things before they get out of hand, since your folks won't be using AI. This is a rough fight, but I've soloed it with a swashbuckler, not on the hardest though. Was high level and had the best gear. I don't think I bothered with Werewolf Isle that playthrough, not seeing any good way to kill Karoug, who I think alone is about (potentially) hardest fight in BG1 maybe, since he's got great stats, regen, immunities, and has friends along to help. This fight is a nasty one I find, and requires multiple attempts to avoid losing NPCs.

    Sarevok can be cheesed very, very effectively, but it's so much harder than it was in TuTu, where I steamrolled him with a cleric solo. ;) Now I think I like to set up ambushes/traps for the magic users, and maybe even try to paralyze Sarevok and Tazok. Summons are a big help, and you can use 10 charges from a wand of monster summons like it's nothing and still have accomplished little, if you're not making good use of ranged and spell support. Chaos used to work very well in TuTu I remember, as did doubling up on Webs, with the specialist bonus (Xan and Dyn respectively) this might work even better. Confused Sarevok is very easy to kill I found.

    The Chess Battle in BG1 was so bad that I had dreams/nightmares about it for a while. I replayed that stupid chess board hundreds of times because I was more afraid of the board than the opponents on the other side. That is, I was trying to play chess when the opposition was willing to take the damage, which generally meant losing at least one of my party.

    At some point, in a fit of rage-quit, I spammed the hell out of the board with fireballs and web... and won. After that, getting through the chess board area became a lot easier.

    As for Sarevok, the very first time I played, that was almost as bad as the Chess Battle. I never could get through it without losing at least one or two of my party members. Until I tried a tactic I had used before, albeit not on high-level opponents. I left my party by the door, sent Imoen to clear the FoW and scout around, then had my PC and Dynaheir lay down web after web between the front of the temple and my party. I sent Jaheira in with free action to kite Sarevok and co. into the massive pile of webs, which (amazingly) disabled all of them except Sarevok. I was actually astonished at how well this worked, given how low a level web is.

    Once the trap was sprung, Jaheira and Minsc took care of Sarevok, while the rest of the crew pelted the others with spells and arrows. It was still a tough battle, and the party still went through most of the healing potions, but it was doable.
    gorgonzola
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    If stacked web is still useful in tob.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Yeah, I try to avoid 'playing' the chess game like the plague, since I always bungled it if I tried. Ranged, spells like Chaos and Web, Fireballs etc all can make this fight very doable without losing anyone. Soloing it was interesting, and I used both fireballs from the Amulet of Missiles and Arrows of Detonation to clear things up fairly quickly, with Acid Arrows for everything else. I might have set a few traps too, but they would be less important.
  • tbone1tbone1 Member Posts: 1,985
    edited July 2019
    For some reason I *always* have trouble in the under dark with the group of drow + humanoids that jump you the first time you come out of the drow city, just south of the bridge. Even though I know it's coming AND know the enemies, it still is always leaves a pucker mark on the seat cushion.

    [EDIT: "draw" city?!?! I must have been half-asleep.]
    Post edited by tbone1 on
    ElysianEchoesThacoBellStummvonBordwehr
  • Necromanx2Necromanx2 Member Posts: 1,246
    The Red Dragon in Watchers Keep off the Machine of Lum level. I have never beat him as his haste plus what seems like improved acuity (insta spell casts) wipe out my party in a few rounds before I can do debuffs or melee him.
    ThacoBell
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    tbone1 wrote: »
    For some reason I *always* have trouble in the under dark with the group of draw + humanoids that jump you the first time you come out of the draw city, just south of the bridge. Even though I know it's coming AND know the enemies, it still is always leaves a pucker mark on the seat cushion.

    Ha, first EE playthrough this caught me completely off guard, and my party was taking the long walk to the Beholder lair, and was thus dispersed! This was not a good surprise, but was a very thrilling victory.
    gorgonzolaThacoBell
  • MaurvirMaurvir Member Posts: 1,090
    Necromanx2 wrote: »
    The Red Dragon in Watchers Keep off the Machine of Lum level. I have never beat him as his haste plus what seems like improved acuity (insta spell casts) wipe out my party in a few rounds before I can do debuffs or melee him.

    That's Saladrex, and yes, he is quite a handful. Which is probably why you can suck up to him and leave him be.
  • HeartseekerHeartseeker Member Posts: 3
    Kangaxx on hard mode is annoying. The fight has bugged out on me several attempts, and phase 3 is stupid with his unlimited casting of maze. One by one my party disappears, even with chaotic command and death ward active. Dragons are a walk in the park in comparison. And yes, I have to use magic weapons to hit him. Whoever said use normal weapons is wrong. Getting him to phase 3 isn't an issue, normally. I drop a demon on him, and fire off breach, spell thrust, etc. I'm beginning to think he's not meant to die.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @Heartseeker Phase 3? He just has 2. The spell he spams is "Imprisionment" and not maze. It never wears off and requires a level 9 spell to dispel. Not that it matters, since its auto game over if it hits your charname.
    gorgonzola
  • HeartseekerHeartseeker Member Posts: 3
    Right, imprisonment not maze. Seems to me he has 3 phases, but whichever.
  • Gabeg21Gabeg21 Member Posts: 43
    He does have 3 phases and the first two are rather simple. The third phase is tough for sure.
  • TheLungoTheLungo Member Posts: 21
    i actually like Kangaxx hardmode imprisioning my whole party but my mages who are protected. The space is so small it is actually safer for them to be imprisioned than eating a horrid wilting to the face.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @Heartseeker @Gabeg21 What are you guys even talking about? He comes out of the sarcophagus as a Lich, and when you kill him, he turns into the Demilich. THen he statys dead. That's 2 phases.
    gorgonzoladunbar
  • roman2718roman2718 Member Posts: 6
    One more point for SCSI+Ascension final ToB battle.
    In my SCSI+ascension insane solo run, this was the only battle I just couldnt do.

    (Maybe I could have done it if I wasnt forced to sit through 10 minutes of dialogue every time...grr)
    gorgonzola
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