Blind priests ... can see??
FredN
Member Posts: 596
.....I'm doing the Eyeless Cult quest, and my Berserker->Thief was scouting ahead, concealed. I saw a bunch of blind priests, and decided this was an ideal set-up for a backstab. I maneuvered around behind one, and got a perfect backstab. I then started running back to the rest of my party who were around the corner, out of sight.
.....I was rather taken aback as, when I was a good 50-60 feet down the tunnel, one of the priests ... hit me with a flame strike?? How?? H'es goddamn blind! OK, I was no longer hidden, so silent movement no longer applied; maybe he heard my footsteps receding into the distance. But unless the beggar had echolocation, like a bat, there should have been no way to target me that accurately at that distance.
I call shennanigans!
.....I was rather taken aback as, when I was a good 50-60 feet down the tunnel, one of the priests ... hit me with a flame strike?? How?? H'es goddamn blind! OK, I was no longer hidden, so silent movement no longer applied; maybe he heard my footsteps receding into the distance. But unless the beggar had echolocation, like a bat, there should have been no way to target me that accurately at that distance.
I call shennanigans!
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Comments
Lore-wise, the cultists are supposed to have had their eyes removed, and instead enjoying a different and not well explained sense, lent to them by the Unseeing Eye.
What that means for you:
They are susceptible to Blindness spells and Nature's Beauty, and they cannot target invisible creatures. You cannot use Dispel to remove their borrowed sense. If Bigby's Inappropriate Gesture were implemented in Baldur's Gate II, they would respond to it.
They do not take extra damage from Minsc directing Boo towards their eyes. But then, neither does anyone else in the game.
I want to talk about advanced backstabbing strategies because there is something wrong, that flame strike that was completely avoidable.
Flame Strike has a casting time of 8, almost a full round, and a on target spell as the caster complete the casting will follow you and get you, does not matter how far you will run, the only way to avoid it is to disrupt the caster while he is still casting hitting him with some damage, better if elemental, or disappearing before he completes the casting.
The latter way is the one a Master Thief uses, the little thing that differentiates him from a novice thief.
A master Thief is always aware of how long his hide in shadows lasts as he is aware of how long the round lasts so he will be able to hide again, if he rushes the stab he will not be able to hide again before the enemy completes the casting, if he waits too long there is the risk that his hide in shadows ends and he fails to hide again.
He is also aware of the light map of the dungeon, in some spots there is more light and he can sometimes fail to hide, a couple of steps away there can be a spot with more shadow where he always hide successfully.
So his strategy should be hide in shadows in a dark spot, get to the back of his victim, wait until the round is almost elapsed, stab, run away faster as he can (speed boots, oil or spell make it way easier) breaking the sight line turning a corner or going enough far reaching a dark spot and then hide again before the enemy has completed his casting. If he can do it the spell will fizzle and the Thief can then repeat as many times he wants and by the way he should never escape in the direction of the rest of the party as some enemies will follow him, stopping next to the point he did hide again, his goal is to divide the enemies and stab them one by one, not to lure them into the party.
Your Thief had 8/9 of 6 seconds so 5.3 seconds to run away and hide, an easy task, to do that vs enemies that cast faster spells is more difficult but still possible, it is even possible to use that strategy to deplete the spellbook of a mage attacking him with a ranged weapon from the edge of the sight field then quickly stepping back and hiding (and then running away as the mage's spell can be an aoe one and the thief should not be in the range of that fireball as it lands...).
I hope this helps you having more fun with your Berserker->Thief, a combo that if well played can easily clear whole dungeons by himself.