Assuming you don't know what's coming, 'the most unfair fight' would go to Aec'letec. There simply isn't anything that prepares you for his gaze attack and I never managed to dispel it with any of my characters.
An example of fair fight is Demon Knight in Durlag's Tower. You are told before fight what awaits you there and while he is very tough, I feel like that fight would be winnable for the first time player if they read carefully the dialogue before that.
Also the final fight with Sarevok is fair, as you also know what awaits you - you are told Sarevok escaped there with his most loyal allies and is waiting for you.
Another example of an unfair fight - getting ambushed by wyerns in a not-so-random encounter when you return knackered after clearing the Cloakwood Mines. Seems to happen every time for me.
on top of that for some reason the EE made him immune to timestop which he didn't have in vanilla, so i have no idea why they did that, it makes no sense for him to have that, but here it is
Timestop interfered with his dying speech in vanilla, which tended to result in him becoming unkillable. I guess making him immune was the way of fixing this bug.
Dispelling Aec'Letec's gaze ... definitely more viable in the original, when dispels were all guaranteed successes. Now that dispel spells have a caster level check, you're up against a level 12 effect. 10% to dispel with a level 8 cleric, 20% with a level 9 mage, 30% with a level 10 bard, 70% with a level 8 Inquisitor. And since some of your party is likely to be silenced, good luck with any of those.
Or... you could use an arrow of dispelling. Guaranteed hit since the character is also held, guaranteed dispel, and all it costs you is some damage to the afflicted character.
Absolutely true, but it also assumes you are carrying arrows of dispelling with you, which sensible people maybe do, but I don't. I also disabled them, using one of the SCS mods, as they are considered OP. Also, it assumes that your archer isn't the one being held, which might be optimistic, because the archer is likely the one who would attack Aec'letec first from the distance, therefore possibly making him the first target of gaze attack (I am not sure how target selection for spell works in BG AI).
In short, it assumes that you know what's waiting for you. All I am saying is that, as far as I remember, no other creature in BG has that nasty attack against you are basically powerless without preparation, and the game never warns you about it. It is funny how in Durlag's Tower you encounter a book that describes how Durlag fought Aec'letec, but his gaze attack (the most dangerous and most specific attack of any creature in the game) is never mentioned there.
Absolutely true, but it also assumes you are carrying arrows of dispelling with you, which sensible people maybe do, but I don't. I also disabled them, using one of the SCS mods, as they are considered OP. Also, it assumes that your archer isn't the one being held, which might be optimistic, because the archer is likely the one who would attack Aec'letec first from the distance, therefore possibly making him the first target of gaze attack (I am not sure how target selection for spell works in BG AI).
Oh, now you're bringing SCS into it? My SCS install has a subtle bug in Aec'Letec's script which renders him completely incapable of using his gaze attack. Not that you're likely to notice, since players using SCS tend to already know about the encounter and prepare answers to the gaze. (The script uses the wrong name, thus trying to cast a nonexistent spell instead.)
Also, only one archer? My first run through the game, with the "canon" party, had three archers, and most runs I've done since have had at least two. Archery is just so good in BG1.
Target selection for the gaze without mods ... that one is a bit weird. It's based on proximity to the protagonist, and it differs based on the protagonist's gender. Most of the time, it'll be a female PC, or the next closest character to a male PC.
With SCS, it's a random one of the three nearest (to the demon) foes that gets targeted. Or, at least, that's what it should be.
I'm going to disagree on many of these, with the exceptions of Aec'letec and maybe Draconis. The whole point of sending assassins to kill your party is to, well, kill your party. Smart assassins aren't going to wait outside while you rest, eat your breakfast, and get all prepped and ready. They are going to wait until you are vulnerable. From that perspective, I think the attacks in BG1 are spot on and give the game a sense of danger that always letting you choose the battle wouldn't.
Moral of the story? Don't wander around unprotected and in bad shape.
Yes, that even includes the fight at Ulgoth's Beard, which definitely pounded my first party that played ToSC. That fight was what convinced me to always have my party travel under invisibility when possible, even if it meant making more stops in the forest areas.
Now, Aec'letec. I actually just learned you could use a potion of mirrored eyes recently, so I never used it. This battle wrecked my first party in ToSC repeatedly - even though I noticed the respawning immediately. I finally learned that the best way to handled that was have the party go in invisible and launch arrows of detonation in every corner. They might get a touch crispy, but it usually left only a few cultist standing. This fight is mildly unfair IMO because there is no real warning at all for a first time party. HOWEVER, you can send banged up party members back up to the store, which makes it more fair.
The only reason I would tend to include Draconis is because the area where you fight him is fairly small. It is difficult to keep casters out of his area of effect, and he hits hard. Had the developers made that a full-size map, where you could have party members retreat further away, I would consider this battle to be completely fair.
I will add that I have never played on LoB or the hardest SCS difficulties (yet), so I wasn't aware Abazigal is immune to time stop. I normally have a few party members go around the cavern taking out the ice salamanders first so it's just the party versus a single dragon - which makes a HUGE difference. (Though, arguably, it is cheese to use the FoW in this way) It is still a hard fight, but normally my parties send strong summons to keep him contained while peppering him from a safe distance with spells - usually a lot of lower resistance spells so the other stuff can actually hit. All in all, I found Draconis to be a bigger PITA than his daddy.
If you read your journal at Durlag’s Tower then I think you get some hints about Aec’Letec’s gaze from Grael.
It is perfectly possible I missed this, in which case it wouldn't be an unfair fight. I don't recall death gaze being mentioned there, but I probably didn't read it carefully.
Also, only one archer?
Well, in my last playthrough with the canon party, I played with 1/2 of an archer (Minsc). Just personal preference, though I appreciate archers are really powerful in BG1.
While everything you are saying is perfectly valid and true, and a very good way to deal with Aec'letec, I don't think an unsuspecting or first time play party would come to that encounter with 3 archers, all armed with arrows of dispelling and keeping in the background prepared for some death gaze that kills a person within 30 seconds unless dispelled.
To me, it wouldn't even be obvious that dispel magic would work there. I would first probably try with death ward, assuming it can protect from the gaze attack. Then maybe with remove paralysis or cure disease before reverting to dispel magic. Not to mention the fact that he respawns in the bodies of passive cultists, also the first such case in the whole game. All of which makes that encounter quite 'unfair' for me. But I accept that opinions differ on this.
This one never felt that fair, likewise being set on in a dead end or surrounded by wyverns when I was travelling with two alleged rangers seemed cheap
Garrick can use wands, this bonus make him useful without mentioning he can use arcane magic. Pew pew every enemy with wand of fire is a very cheap tactics in the first game, like a machine gun user.
I don’t think Garrick deserves such a bad rep and he is better than Eldoth, who has a pretty pointless high strength, poor dexterity and requires you to add Skie. He also conflicts with some NPCs. In his favour he has a slight constitution bonus and can make poison arrows. Garrick can do better at range, will have better AC and you can get him very early and spec him how you like (less of an issue under the latest patches).
For me, it comes down to the fact that I don't particularly like bards and since I always play with a party of 6, bards to me are completely redundant. Yes, they can use wands, but I always have two mages who can use wands, so there is not much need for another one. They cannot compete with fighters and rangers for damage dealing and I don't care about pickpocketing. And lore...Meh, it saves me a few thousand coins for identifying items...in the game where I always end up with 70,000 gold in the end, which I don't know how to spend.
And the problem with Garrick are his terrible stats. As far as I remember, he doesn't have a single stat that grants any bonus. And being a BG1 only character, he can only cast up to level 3 spells for most of the game. I don't remember correctly, but I don't think he can get to even having stoneskin with one cast per day until well into ToTSC.
Now, if he was kitted, that would have been different.
I never had Eldoth in my party. Surely he cannot be worse than Garrick?
Garrick is one of the best party members, so MOST npcs are worse than Garrick. Combining archery, spells, and wands is very powerful. Not to mention the tremendous utility of bards.
Garrick is one of the best party members, so MOST npcs are worse than Garrick. Combining archery, spells, and wands is very powerful. Not to mention the tremendous utility of bards.
To each their own. Everything that a bard can do, someone else can do much better and, as noted above, I don't really see their use in a full party. Never in BG1 was I in situation that I need to use 3 wands in the same round. Nor did I ever have need for their spellcasting, with two other mages in a party. But that's the way I play. I appreciate they can be very good in BG2, especially the kitted ones.
Garrick is one of the best party members, so MOST npcs are worse than Garrick. Combining archery, spells, and wands is very powerful. Not to mention the tremendous utility of bards.
To each their own. Everything that a bard can do, someone else can do much better and, as noted above, I don't really see their use in a full party. Never in BG1 was I in situation that I need to use 3 wands in the same round. Nor did I ever have need for their spellcasting, with two other mages in a party. But that's the way I play. I appreciate they can be very good in BG2, especially the kitted ones.
Not true, only bards have bardsong. Plus, there is no single class that can do everything a bard can do. Heck, full parties is where they truely shine, as they can fill in for almost every other class. Mage can't memorize enough spells to cover every situation? Bard can pick up the slack. Not enough thief points to cover everything? Bard haspick pockets covered. Need an item identified? Bard's got you. Wands, archery, check. Heck, level dependant spells are STRONGER when cast by a bard than a mage. Also, HLAs. Man, zero fail traps!
1) A level 3 cleric can cast chant which is equivalent to level 15 bard song, -and- they can participate in fight (as opposed to a bard who cannot do anything else while performing bard song)
2) The only thieving skills they can use is pickpocketing, which is arguably least important thing that thieves do.
3) Need an item identified? Go to any temple or merchant and identify it for 100 gold. For those items that mages and clerics cannot identify. In the game that showers you with money - go kill Bassilus and you will likely have enough gold to identify everything that is needed in the game.
4) Any character, including a mage, can do missile damage.
Which leaves just their mediocre spellcasting as about the only really usable thing. But since I play with arcane heavy parties, I've never needed more arcane firepower. So, as I say, it depends on the style of play and party composition one prefers. But there is more need for pretty much every other class more than for bards.
Hey, the discussion was what characters CAN do, not what characters CAN DO GOOD. I am only saying that everything a bard can do is likely to be already covered better by someone else in your party. There certainly is benefit of having a jack-of-all-trades in your party, but bard is least likely to save your day
in my opinion i find elven mage/thieves to be way more useful than any bard, a thief/mage can use wands, has more spells, and has better thief abilities, and can go ranged as well
although every once in a blue moon i bring garrick along strictly for the lewlz, and to freshen up party composition instead of just doing the same boring teams over and over again
but i do admit, for solo runs, garrick is great, he can identify and store lots of my pretty items that i think i will need in the future, just to not use 85% of them haha
Garrick is highly underrated imo. I think he pairs perfectly in a party that uses one of the specialist mages, especially Xan. Garrick gains levels faster than a mage and thus works well with stocking his spellbook with level scaling spells -- magic missile, fireball, chromatic orb, etc. BG1 has a pretty awesome loadout of gear for him as well, with the crossbow of speed, an early +2 shortsword, an early +2 chain mail.
IMO having a specialist mage NPC + Garrick is a stronger party composition than having two specialist mage NPC's. Garrick is the only NPC (save Eldoth) who can use the powerful mage-only charge items and a wide variety of weapons.
@VanDerBerg " but bard is least likely to save your day"
The only people who actually believe this either never use bards, or don't know how to use them.
"Which leaves just their mediocre spellcasting as about the only really usable thing."
What exactly makes it mediocre? Bards have higher caster levels than mages. Chromatic orb, dispel magic, skull trap, etc. Any spell that scales on level is monstrous in the hands of a bard.
@sarevok57 Multiclasses are just stronger than single classes in general. Its pretty telling that you need to go to multi classes to even approach the flexibility that a bard brings.
Pretty much. Coming back to the subject, I also find some random encounters to be most unfair ones. Especially, as pointed before, encountering wyerns on the way back from Cloakwood mines. Which happens almost every time.
Comments
An example of fair fight is Demon Knight in Durlag's Tower. You are told before fight what awaits you there and while he is very tough, I feel like that fight would be winnable for the first time player if they read carefully the dialogue before that.
Also the final fight with Sarevok is fair, as you also know what awaits you - you are told Sarevok escaped there with his most loyal allies and is waiting for you.
Another example of an unfair fight - getting ambushed by wyerns in a not-so-random encounter when you return knackered after clearing the Cloakwood Mines. Seems to happen every time for me.
Timestop interfered with his dying speech in vanilla, which tended to result in him becoming unkillable. I guess making him immune was the way of fixing this bug.
Or... you could use an arrow of dispelling. Guaranteed hit since the character is also held, guaranteed dispel, and all it costs you is some damage to the afflicted character.
In short, it assumes that you know what's waiting for you. All I am saying is that, as far as I remember, no other creature in BG has that nasty attack against you are basically powerless without preparation, and the game never warns you about it. It is funny how in Durlag's Tower you encounter a book that describes how Durlag fought Aec'letec, but his gaze attack (the most dangerous and most specific attack of any creature in the game) is never mentioned there.
Also, only one archer? My first run through the game, with the "canon" party, had three archers, and most runs I've done since have had at least two. Archery is just so good in BG1.
Target selection for the gaze without mods ... that one is a bit weird. It's based on proximity to the protagonist, and it differs based on the protagonist's gender. Most of the time, it'll be a female PC, or the next closest character to a male PC.
With SCS, it's a random one of the three nearest (to the demon) foes that gets targeted. Or, at least, that's what it should be.
Moral of the story? Don't wander around unprotected and in bad shape.
Yes, that even includes the fight at Ulgoth's Beard, which definitely pounded my first party that played ToSC. That fight was what convinced me to always have my party travel under invisibility when possible, even if it meant making more stops in the forest areas.
Now, Aec'letec. I actually just learned you could use a potion of mirrored eyes recently, so I never used it. This battle wrecked my first party in ToSC repeatedly - even though I noticed the respawning immediately. I finally learned that the best way to handled that was have the party go in invisible and launch arrows of detonation in every corner. They might get a touch crispy, but it usually left only a few cultist standing. This fight is mildly unfair IMO because there is no real warning at all for a first time party. HOWEVER, you can send banged up party members back up to the store, which makes it more fair.
The only reason I would tend to include Draconis is because the area where you fight him is fairly small. It is difficult to keep casters out of his area of effect, and he hits hard. Had the developers made that a full-size map, where you could have party members retreat further away, I would consider this battle to be completely fair.
I will add that I have never played on LoB or the hardest SCS difficulties (yet), so I wasn't aware Abazigal is immune to time stop. I normally have a few party members go around the cavern taking out the ice salamanders first so it's just the party versus a single dragon - which makes a HUGE difference. (Though, arguably, it is cheese to use the FoW in this way) It is still a hard fight, but normally my parties send strong summons to keep him contained while peppering him from a safe distance with spells - usually a lot of lower resistance spells so the other stuff can actually hit. All in all, I found Draconis to be a bigger PITA than his daddy.
It is perfectly possible I missed this, in which case it wouldn't be an unfair fight. I don't recall death gaze being mentioned there, but I probably didn't read it carefully.
Well, in my last playthrough with the canon party, I played with 1/2 of an archer (Minsc). Just personal preference, though I appreciate archers are really powerful in BG1.
While everything you are saying is perfectly valid and true, and a very good way to deal with Aec'letec, I don't think an unsuspecting or first time play party would come to that encounter with 3 archers, all armed with arrows of dispelling and keeping in the background prepared for some death gaze that kills a person within 30 seconds unless dispelled.
To me, it wouldn't even be obvious that dispel magic would work there. I would first probably try with death ward, assuming it can protect from the gaze attack. Then maybe with remove paralysis or cure disease before reverting to dispel magic. Not to mention the fact that he respawns in the bodies of passive cultists, also the first such case in the whole game. All of which makes that encounter quite 'unfair' for me. But I accept that opinions differ on this.
This one never felt that fair, likewise being set on in a dead end or surrounded by wyverns when I was travelling with two alleged rangers seemed cheap
What if you are fighting for your right to party?
And the problem with Garrick are his terrible stats. As far as I remember, he doesn't have a single stat that grants any bonus. And being a BG1 only character, he can only cast up to level 3 spells for most of the game. I don't remember correctly, but I don't think he can get to even having stoneskin with one cast per day until well into ToTSC.
Now, if he was kitted, that would have been different.
Garrick is one of the best party members, so MOST npcs are worse than Garrick. Combining archery, spells, and wands is very powerful. Not to mention the tremendous utility of bards.
To each their own. Everything that a bard can do, someone else can do much better and, as noted above, I don't really see their use in a full party. Never in BG1 was I in situation that I need to use 3 wands in the same round. Nor did I ever have need for their spellcasting, with two other mages in a party. But that's the way I play. I appreciate they can be very good in BG2, especially the kitted ones.
I run divine-heavy, so Garrick fills a sorely-needed niche.
Looks to me like he's using Garrick's portrait for his main character.
EDIT: Actually, maybe not. Now I see the leather armor and crossbow. So maybe he's using Kivan's portrait?
Not true, only bards have bardsong. Plus, there is no single class that can do everything a bard can do. Heck, full parties is where they truely shine, as they can fill in for almost every other class. Mage can't memorize enough spells to cover every situation? Bard can pick up the slack. Not enough thief points to cover everything? Bard haspick pockets covered. Need an item identified? Bard's got you. Wands, archery, check. Heck, level dependant spells are STRONGER when cast by a bard than a mage. Also, HLAs. Man, zero fail traps!
1) A level 3 cleric can cast chant which is equivalent to level 15 bard song, -and- they can participate in fight (as opposed to a bard who cannot do anything else while performing bard song)
2) The only thieving skills they can use is pickpocketing, which is arguably least important thing that thieves do.
3) Need an item identified? Go to any temple or merchant and identify it for 100 gold. For those items that mages and clerics cannot identify. In the game that showers you with money - go kill Bassilus and you will likely have enough gold to identify everything that is needed in the game.
4) Any character, including a mage, can do missile damage.
Which leaves just their mediocre spellcasting as about the only really usable thing. But since I play with arcane heavy parties, I've never needed more arcane firepower. So, as I say, it depends on the style of play and party composition one prefers. But there is more need for pretty much every other class more than for bards.
True, so why use an archer right?
This thread sums it up pretty well
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/54776/garrick-is-amazing-late-game/p1
although every once in a blue moon i bring garrick along strictly for the lewlz, and to freshen up party composition instead of just doing the same boring teams over and over again
but i do admit, for solo runs, garrick is great, he can identify and store lots of my pretty items that i think i will need in the future, just to not use 85% of them haha
IMO having a specialist mage NPC + Garrick is a stronger party composition than having two specialist mage NPC's. Garrick is the only NPC (save Eldoth) who can use the powerful mage-only charge items and a wide variety of weapons.
The only people who actually believe this either never use bards, or don't know how to use them.
"Which leaves just their mediocre spellcasting as about the only really usable thing."
What exactly makes it mediocre? Bards have higher caster levels than mages. Chromatic orb, dispel magic, skull trap, etc. Any spell that scales on level is monstrous in the hands of a bard.
@sarevok57 Multiclasses are just stronger than single classes in general. Its pretty telling that you need to go to multi classes to even approach the flexibility that a bard brings.