Even in BGEE, BGtutu, and BGTrilogy which all use the BG2 engine, scroll drops are not changed over the vanila game and absolutely should not be. Even in the BG2 engine, you need to first find / buy scrolls of lower resistance before you can memorize and use the spell. BGEE is using BG2s engine sure, buy just like BGtutu and trilogy, there's no way they will be adding in overpowered spells that would completely remove any difficulty from the game like stoneskin or lower resistance.
Even in BGEE, BGtutu, and BGTrilogy which all use the BG2 engine, scroll drops are not changed over the vanila game and absolutely should not be. Even in the BG2 engine, you need to first find / buy scrolls of lower resistance before you can memorize and use the spell. BGEE is using BG2s engine sure, buy just like BGtutu and trilogy, there's no way they will be adding in overpowered spells that would completely remove any difficulty from the game like stoneskin or lower resistance.
I never play BG without 2 mages except for soloing. 1 mage alongside either 1 sorcerer or bard could also be great. However mages in BG1 won't have access to lower resistance. Even if the level cap is increased to allow level 10 arcanes, sorcerers only get to pick one level 5 spell to use 3 times a day, which I doubt will be enough foe Drizzt.
Maybe I will mod Dynaheir to a sorcerer in a future playthrough.
The XP cap needs to be raised to at least 250,000 which it probably I'll be anyway for sorcerers to gain level 5 spells.
Nah. Sounds like Sorcerers being stuck without Level 5 spells for BG1 would be their balancing factor because as you say, they will be "broken" to some extent.
The level cap in BGEE is going to be increased though, I would imagine to at least 250,000 otherwise it wont make any difference.
If so Sorcerers will be able to pick a single level 5 spell, though wasting the first pick on lower resistance just for Drizzt would be a huge waste. It would be much better to take something like Sunfire instead for BG1.
Loved his chainmail, always had to have it. I came back to kill him when high level. Minsc,Ajantis, tanking on him. My character backstabbing,Kivan,Coran throwing arrows and lots of healing and heal pots.
Back in the day, multiple potions of regeneration stacked. Don't know about now...
Have your big guy drink the following: Lots of regen potions! If you drink enough, you won't need healing. Oil of speed Potion of agility Potion of fire resist ×2 (so you can lob in fireballs and such) Potion of fortitude (if needed) Potion of freedom (so you can lob in webs and such) Biggest STR potion you can get Heroism Defense / invulnerability + whatever precasts you've got.
When the pot shot spells have gone, put a thief behind Drizzit and a cleric behind your big guy and pray.
This allowed me to take him with 5th/6th level characters without resorting to cheese.
Manual on "How to beat Drizzt" - the 3H rule: hit him hard
No, really! I did summon a lot of monsters, but no arrows included. Drizzt began to smack the fluffy wuffy and all I did was beat the crap out of him with Charname (fighter/mage wielding Varscona). Oil of speed sure was very helpful! Lasted for a while but that was a win. Nerd rage!
re killing Drizzt. There are some good guides & walkthroughs on GameFAQS. Dan Simpson's is pretty detailed and includes a discussion about how to kill Drizzt. Look on Sorcerer's Place too. I think I read somewhere he can be pickpocketed. Not sure where....maybe.
Easiest way: Take two party members, turn off ai, make them invisible (24 hour versions only), have them stand next to each other on the pier in the lake so that no enemy can move past them. (Note that your party members will still be able to.) Place all but one party member "behind" them with ranged weapons and lots (about 300 should do it) of arrows/bolts/shot. Then send the last party member to make him angry and have him run (normal running speed, you may even have to stop occasionally to let him catch up) around the lake and place him "behind" the invisible characters. Make sure the AI is off so the invisible characters don't move.
Drizzt, who can neither detect invisible things nor attack at range, will simply stand up against your invisible "wall", and you can have the rest of your party attack him with ranged weaponry. Only critical hits will hit, but it's cheap and effective. Takes a while, but he'll go down eventually.
Easiest way: Take two party members, turn off ai, make them invisible (24 hour versions only), have them stand next to each other on the pier in the lake so that no enemy can move past them. (Note that your party members will still be able to.) Place all but one party member "behind" them with ranged weapons and lots (about 300 should do it) of arrows/bolts/shot. Then send the last party member to make him angry and have him run (normal running speed, you may even have to stop occasionally to let him catch up) around the lake and place him "behind" the invisible characters. Make sure the AI is off so the invisible characters don't move.
Drizzt, who can neither detect invisible things nor attack at range, will simply stand up against your invisible "wall", and you can have the rest of your party attack him with ranged weaponry. Only critical hits will hit, but it's cheap and effective. Takes a while, but he'll go down eventually.
My solo half orc beserker easily beat Drizzt. Oil of Speed, Potions of Cloud Giant Strength and Heroism are available early. There are two easily obtainable invisibility potions. Just attack him, run away for 6 seconds and attack again, then go invisible. Wait 6 seconds, attack him again and then run away for 6, repeat.
He does not have much hp, a character with 23 strength will kill him in about 5 hits. You just need to get your thaco low enough so that you are likely to hit him. AC is useless against him so you need a lot of hit points.
I slaughtered his filthy drow hide today. My party is approx level 6.
Potioned up CHARNAME (bezerker dualed to a mage) and Dorn until they were at AC8 and STR 21, used CHARNAME to tank with mirror image. Dorn's poison weapon was brilliant.
Other party members spammed magic missile over and over (about a quarter get through) and swung away with +2 weapons to try and get hits in, Monty used Piercing arrows.
No cheap summons, no kiting, straight 6 on 1 wailing and he eventually went down.
Now xzar sports a deliciously sexy set of looted coat mail (along with a cloak of nymph skin and a zombie ring), yes precious, it puts the nymph hide on it's skin or it gets the larloch's minor drain again.
I killed him pretty easily with Kivan shooting him with arrows (first of piercing, then when I ran out, of fire), with a couple of blessings on him to improve his THAC0. Just make sure Drizzt aggros on someone with boots of speed and kite him around until he's dead. Only took a few minutes. You do lose 10 reputation though.
If all you want are his weapons, just pickpocket him. You can take them both and skip the battle. If you want the armor too though, you have to kill him.
I killed him just today using Coran who was at about level 6/6. He's got a natural 20 DEX and illegal Mastery of longbows, meaning he has insane THAC0.
After having failed to kill Drizzt with my party of Dorn, Kagain, Viconia, Neera, and myself as a cleric/illusionist, I decided to send in Coran alone to kite Drizzt around. All I used was the following:
-Boots of Speed -Strength spell to equip a Composite Longbow +1 -Drink Potion of Power -Mundane arrows
With those I had him rocking 0 THAC0 and 3 attacks per round. He is able to hit Drizzt on at least 14's. Drizzt was absorbing some of his damage but I think I remember hitting him for about 5-8 every arrow. With Drizzt being as fragile as he is, he went down in less than 6 turns - the duration of a Potion of Power.
Coran now wears Drizzt's chainmail; we sold his swords out of spite and used the funds from them to buy back our reputation which was only a -5 penalty. Several party members leveled up from his 12k XP.
I have a special patented method of killing Drizzt which I developed a long time ago. It is very easy and I was able to do it when my party was about lvl 3. It is somewhat similar to the "make him stuck with pathing then use arrows" method but mine is much better. It works in either version of bg1 and there is no need for ammo or a throwing axe+2. What you need: at least 4 people in party including a mage/bard with 2 invisibility spells or 2 extra potions of invisibility; 1 potion of invisibility; any staff, two handed sword, halberd, or spear(if using non magical ones; have backups in case they break); 1 shot of any ranged weapon. That's really all you need. Process: Have one party member with ranged weapon and potion of invisibility attack Drizzt to make him mad. Then lure him to the lake shore and drink invisibility. The rest of party is on the island. Place two members of the party right next to each other on the path to the island in one of two specific places where only two people can fit on the path. Cast invisibility on these two. Lure Drizzt around the lake until he is on the path to the island. Have your remaining party members equip staves, swords, and spears and start hacking away. The key to this method is that he can not cross the invisible wall and can not attack your party on the island because his melee weapons have a shorter range than yours. This is so far the best method I have seen because you can easily kill him even at a very low level (I usually do it at about party lvl 3). without worrying for your own safety.
Here's my method of beating Drizzt in a "fair" one on one combat at GORE level of difficulty.
Class: 7lvl berserker dualed to 8lvl mage Important Stats: 19 Con (18 + 1 from a Tome) to get you 123HP (with 12 from the find familiar), which could be further buffed to 128 with the helm of balduran, but I was too lazy to go that far before fighting Drizzt.
All I needed was 1 potion of power, 1 potion of cloud giant str, berserker's rage, 2 memorized spells of stoneskin + one still active after rest, 3-4 mirrored image spells, 2 weapons (I used 2x Rashad's talon +2), just because I liked scimitars, but it would be easier to use a staff-mace + shield as Drizzit has lower AC against crushing I think.
What remains it just swing and bash and remember to cast stoneskins every round, lol, as Drizzit removes your skins at an alarming rate. With both stoneskin and mirrored image I had both completely gone in just 2 rounds. However, if you max out all the buffs and achieve the lowest AC possible, you could finish him from the first attempt. I didn't do that to make it more challenging and it surely was, hehe. Still, a golden girdle + helm + cloak of balduran would greatly help.
Good Luck!
PS: the scimitars you loot from him aren't as good as those in the original BG1. Those were +5 and +3 while these new ones are both +3
@Aikimox Actually the scimitars are the exact same as before. The original's "+5" was a bit misleading. What they did was take the +3 to hit and damage and added the +2 armor bonus to it and called it a +5 sword. If you compare the statistics you will see that they are the same.
@Aikimox Actually the scimitars are the exact same as before. The original's "+5" was a bit misleading. What they did was take the +3 to hit and damage and added the +2 armor bonus to it and called it a +5 sword. If you compare the statistics you will see that they are the same.
I'll throw something in for people who don't know the PnP game.
The +5 scimitar is supposed to be what's called a "defending" weapon. It's normally +5 but, in PnP, you can sacrifice attack and damage bonus for AC. So you can have +5 attack/dam +0 AC, +4 attack/dam +1 AC, +3 attack/dam +2 AC, etc. Your choice.
Of course, due to programing difficulties, the option to decide how the weapons powers are balanced cannot be provided in BG. They had to hard program one, and only one, balance choice. Thus, you have a +3 weapon that gives +2 AC. It is labeled +5 because it is a manifestation of a PnP mechanic.
@Aikimox Actually the scimitars are the exact same as before. The original's "+5" was a bit misleading. What they did was take the +3 to hit and damage and added the +2 armor bonus to it and called it a +5 sword. If you compare the statistics you will see that they are the same.
What about the extra 15pts damage that it used to deal in BG1 (in Drizzt's hands that was)? Now, it grants 50% fire resistance instead. I actually prefer the new ones but given the fact that you can get 2x +2 Scimitars, stealing Drizzt's weapons is not that interesting any more. I only did it because he's the most powerful opponent in the game, so beating him one on one means beating the game. I wish there were equally powerful evil characters, so I'd leave the good drow alone...
Comments
Maybe I will mod Dynaheir to a sorcerer in a future playthrough.
The XP cap needs to be raised to at least 250,000 which it probably I'll be anyway for sorcerers to gain level 5 spells.
Just use set snare x 4 and he dies.
If so Sorcerers will be able to pick a single level 5 spell, though wasting the first pick on lower resistance just for Drizzt would be a huge waste. It would be much better to take something like Sunfire instead for BG1.
Anyway, traps > Drizzt:
I came back to kill him when high level. Minsc,Ajantis, tanking on him. My character backstabbing,Kivan,Coran throwing arrows and lots of healing and heal pots.
Back in the day, multiple potions of regeneration stacked. Don't know about now...
Have your big guy drink the following:
Lots of regen potions! If you drink enough, you won't need healing.
Oil of speed
Potion of agility
Potion of fire resist ×2 (so you can lob in fireballs and such)
Potion of fortitude (if needed)
Potion of freedom (so you can lob in webs and such)
Biggest STR potion you can get
Heroism
Defense / invulnerability
+ whatever precasts you've got.
When the pot shot spells have gone, put a thief behind Drizzit and a cleric behind your big guy and pray.
This allowed me to take him with 5th/6th level characters without resorting to cheese.
No, really! I did summon a lot of monsters, but no arrows included. Drizzt began to smack the fluffy wuffy and all I did was beat the crap out of him with Charname (fighter/mage wielding Varscona). Oil of speed sure was very helpful! Lasted for a while but that was a win. Nerd rage!
And a couple of meat shields in between. (Summoning a lot of monsters to be meat shields worked for me well.)
There are some good guides & walkthroughs on GameFAQS.
Dan Simpson's is pretty detailed and includes a discussion about how to kill Drizzt.
Look on Sorcerer's Place too.
I think I read somewhere he can be pickpocketed.
Not sure where....maybe.
Drizzt, who can neither detect invisible things nor attack at range, will simply stand up against your invisible "wall", and you can have the rest of your party attack him with ranged weaponry. Only critical hits will hit, but it's cheap and effective. Takes a while, but he'll go down eventually.
He does not have much hp, a character with 23 strength will kill him in about 5 hits. You just need to get your thaco low enough so that you are likely to hit him. AC is useless against him so you need a lot of hit points.
Potioned up CHARNAME (bezerker dualed to a mage) and Dorn until they were at AC8 and STR 21, used CHARNAME to tank with mirror image. Dorn's poison weapon was brilliant.
Other party members spammed magic missile over and over (about a quarter get through) and swung away with +2 weapons to try and get hits in, Monty used Piercing arrows.
No cheap summons, no kiting, straight 6 on 1 wailing and he eventually went down.
Now xzar sports a deliciously sexy set of looted coat mail (along with a cloak of nymph skin and a zombie ring), yes precious, it puts the nymph hide on it's skin or it gets the larloch's minor drain again.
If all you want are his weapons, just pickpocket him. You can take them both and skip the battle. If you want the armor too though, you have to kill him.
After having failed to kill Drizzt with my party of Dorn, Kagain, Viconia, Neera, and myself as a cleric/illusionist, I decided to send in Coran alone to kite Drizzt around. All I used was the following:
-Boots of Speed
-Strength spell to equip a Composite Longbow +1
-Drink Potion of Power
-Mundane arrows
With those I had him rocking 0 THAC0 and 3 attacks per round. He is able to hit Drizzt on at least 14's. Drizzt was absorbing some of his damage but I think I remember hitting him for about 5-8 every arrow. With Drizzt being as fragile as he is, he went down in less than 6 turns - the duration of a Potion of Power.
Coran now wears Drizzt's chainmail; we sold his swords out of spite and used the funds from them to buy back our reputation which was only a -5 penalty. Several party members leveled up from his 12k XP.
Take that, you Marty Stu.
What you need:
at least 4 people in party including a mage/bard with 2 invisibility spells or 2 extra potions of invisibility;
1 potion of invisibility;
any staff, two handed sword, halberd, or spear(if using non magical ones; have backups in case they break);
1 shot of any ranged weapon.
That's really all you need.
Process: Have one party member with ranged weapon and potion of invisibility attack Drizzt to make him mad. Then lure him to the lake shore and drink invisibility. The rest of party is on the island. Place two members of the party right next to each other on the path to the island in one of two specific places where only two people can fit on the path. Cast invisibility on these two. Lure Drizzt around the lake until he is on the path to the island. Have your remaining party members equip staves, swords, and spears and start hacking away. The key to this method is that he can not cross the invisible wall and can not attack your party on the island because his melee weapons have a shorter range than yours.
This is so far the best method I have seen because you can easily kill him even at a very low level (I usually do it at about party lvl 3). without worrying for your own safety.
Class: 7lvl berserker dualed to 8lvl mage
Important Stats: 19 Con (18 + 1 from a Tome) to get you 123HP (with 12 from the find familiar), which could be further buffed to 128 with the helm of balduran, but I was too lazy to go that far before fighting Drizzt.
All I needed was 1 potion of power, 1 potion of cloud giant str, berserker's rage, 2 memorized spells of stoneskin + one still active after rest, 3-4 mirrored image spells, 2 weapons (I used 2x Rashad's talon +2), just because I liked scimitars, but it would be easier to use a staff-mace + shield as Drizzit has lower AC against crushing I think.
What remains it just swing and bash and remember to cast stoneskins every round, lol, as Drizzit removes your skins at an alarming rate. With both stoneskin and mirrored image I had both completely gone in just 2 rounds. However, if you max out all the buffs and achieve the lowest AC possible, you could finish him from the first attempt. I didn't do that to make it more challenging and it surely was, hehe. Still, a golden girdle + helm + cloak of balduran would greatly help.
Good Luck!
PS: the scimitars you loot from him aren't as good as those in the original BG1. Those were +5 and +3 while these new ones are both +3
The +5 scimitar is supposed to be what's called a "defending" weapon. It's normally +5 but, in PnP, you can sacrifice attack and damage bonus for AC. So you can have +5 attack/dam +0 AC, +4 attack/dam +1 AC, +3 attack/dam +2 AC, etc. Your choice.
Of course, due to programing difficulties, the option to decide how the weapons powers are balanced cannot be provided in BG. They had to hard program one, and only one, balance choice. Thus, you have a +3 weapon that gives +2 AC. It is labeled +5 because it is a manifestation of a PnP mechanic.