The insta-kill ones. Arkanis Gath, Irenicus(if you confront him when you are not supposed to), War Elf... Also Unseeing Eye with "Power Word, Kill" when I am wounded and stuff like that. And last but not least - me. When the main character confronts himself in ToB trials.
Mind Flayers, Vamps, including mists, and Mummies, in that order, but especially mind Flayers as I really haven't been successful at killing them properly. - By properly, I mean without cheating - Oh & cowled wizards, and spiders against low level parties.
Really? I guess it depends on your party composition... In my first playthrough of BG 2, I ended up in the Underdark earlier than most cos I was in a hurry to save Imoen, and stumbled into the Mindflayer lair... It wasn't easy to get out, but also not as bad as I feared it might be. I guess it helped a lot that my Charname is a Fighter/Mage with high Intelligence, so I could use him to take on Mindflayers head-on in combat, whilst everybody else attacked from range. (Of course I had to keep a careful eye on his Int each time he got hit.)
Summoning stuff should help alot. I don't know if it's true, but Skeleton Warriors should be immune to intelligence-drain... they got no brains!
Surely Beholders are the toughest common foes (not named individuals or dragons) you come across in SoA without the Shield of Balduran?
Mind Flayers, Vamps, including mists, and Mummies, in that order, but especially mind Flayers as I really haven't been successful at killing them properly. - By properly, I mean without cheating - Oh & cowled wizards, and spiders against low level parties.
>Illithids My winning combo against mind flayers is to send charname alone with 2 buffs... chaotic commands and improved invisiblity. He kills each mindflayer in a round and they can't attack him. They were an outright terror until I figured that out. Chaotic commands especially important due to the psi floor traps
I also read online the strategy of sending out a team of summoned undead (skeletons) with a wizard eye
>Cowled wizards The last and strongest cowled wizard was a pain to defeat. My strategy was as followins: 0. Go to the roof of the copper coronet, near the house where there were the theives from the ring of dawn quest. 1. Summon a bunch of critters (2 aerial servants and 4 nymphs). 2. Fully buff with cleric spells. 3. Cast arcane haste. 4. As the teleport circle starts (from casting arcane haste) send 5 party memebers indoors, charname (who cast haste) runs away leaving the summons to fight the wizards. 5. Wait a while until they kill all the summons wasting their power. 6. Creep back, invisible, until you see the leader. Cast breach on her. 7. Pause and have the rest of party burst out of the house. 8. Disable AI, have all 6 party members focus fire on the now defenseless cowled wizards leader until she drops in about 1 round. 9. Enable AI and just wait for your inevitable victory against the minions who can't even hurt me at this point
>Vampires Harmless, its just supremely annoying having to redo your spellbook after you cast restoration to remove the level drain (plus the fatigue resulting from restoration is a pain if you hadn't modded it away)
Two words: Carrion Crawlers Two more words: Pirate's Cave One last word: Extreme Powerleveling Potential (wait...that is not one word!)
infinite respawn is what I call infinite XP... When doing the quest for the sightless eye cult, there is a statue face near the temple when examined spawns some enemies... guide said its infinite respawn, and they give a ton of XP and went down quick, so I harvested them... sadly after 10 spawns they stopped forever
Every time there is a "trap" or a "riddle" that spawns enemies when you fail, I intentionally fail a bunch of times before passing by eventually.
Two words: Carrion Crawlers Two more words: Pirate's Cave One last word: Extreme Powerleveling Potential (wait...that is not one word!)
infinite respawn is what I call infinite XP... When doing the quest for the sightless eye cult, there is a statue face near the temple when examined spawns some enemies... guide said its infinite respawn, and they give a ton of XP and went down quick, so I harvested them... sadly after 10 spawns they stopped forever
Every time there is a "trap" or a "riddle" that spawns enemies when you fail, I intentionally fail a bunch of times before passing by eventually.
I am far too much of a RPer to consider 'farming' to be legitimate in a RPG like Baldur's Gate. If I wanted to farm, I'd go back to Diablo 3.
I hated liches and more specifically kangaxx this demilich because you don't have access to ruby ray of reversal so you basically need to find someway of penetrating through his defenses or wait for them to time out... NO FUN!
Mindflayers, unless my PC is a mage/bard int is usually the lower stat and the whole stun and one round deaths always occur. usually try to lure them out with aoe spells and take them one by one.
Most powerful enemies can be avoided with the right magical protections. Beholders can't. You either hurt them away from their line of sight, or charge them with your best weapons and hope that they won't petrify anyone.
Doomsayer from the excavation site :O I was very scared in our first encounter (13-14 years ago?), and he crushed me pretty badly. His voice and his blurred figure still scares me nowadays
I am far too much of a RPer to consider 'farming' to be legitimate in a RPG like Baldur's Gate. If I wanted to farm, I'd go back to Diablo 3.
So when professional athletes spend 8 hours a day exercising they are cheating? Are soldiers who train in a wargame cheating?
There are a ton of valid in world possible explanations to why you gain power from killing monsters, I see no reason why I wouldn't, in character, "farm"
I am far too much of a RPer to consider 'farming' to be legitimate in a RPG like Baldur's Gate. If I wanted to farm, I'd go back to Diablo 3.
So when professional athletes spend 8 hours a day exercising they are cheating? Are soldiers who train in a wargame cheating?
There are a ton of valid in world possible explanations to why you gain power from killing monsters, I see no reason why I wouldn't, in character, "farm"
There's a difference between wandering around the countryside and cleansing it of monsters and standing next to an infinite respawn point and killing endless monsters. One is 'as intended' by devs, one is cheesy metagaming.
Charname doesn't know what xp points are, he just gets stronger gradually, learning from all the near-misses and times when an ogre knocked him out, maybe finding manuals on fighting techniques, practising with his companions 'off-camera' during rest periods.
I would like to announce I am no longer *quite* so scared of vamps. My solution? Do every single quest, side quest, mini quest, repeated area, equip dual wielding bard with daystar, flametongue, boots of speed and and amulet of negative plane protection, send her in followed up by Ano turning undead. Hasta La Vista, Vampies!
@BaldursCat Congrats... I am getting myself psychologically ready to face the Beholders in the Underdark again. Hopefully if I keep Charname safe from insta-death this time, I can take down that damned Elder Orb, and then summon Skeleton Warriors to help clear the rest of the tunnels...
Oh yeah I just uploaded my efforts in the Illithid City yesterday, if you were curious how an underpowered noob party got through it, XD
I am far too much of a RPer to consider 'farming' to be legitimate in a RPG like Baldur's Gate. If I wanted to farm, I'd go back to Diablo 3.
So when professional athletes spend 8 hours a day exercising they are cheating? Are soldiers who train in a wargame cheating?
There are a ton of valid in world possible explanations to why you gain power from killing monsters, I see no reason why I wouldn't, in character, "farm"
There's a difference between wandering around the countryside and cleansing it of monsters and standing next to an infinite respawn point and killing endless monsters. One is 'as intended' by devs, one is cheesy metagaming
Charname doesn't know what xp points are, he just gets stronger gradually, learning from all the near-misses and times when an ogre knocked him out, maybe finding manuals on fighting techniques, practising with his companions 'off-camera' during rest periods.
You don't need cheesy metagame and knowledge of XP to know that fighting monsters makes you stonger. There are dozens of plausible in universe explanations for that. You even ADMIT that charname must know that as he observes his power grows via cleansing the countryside of monsters. Maybe the death of a being causes their soul to energetically depart their body and those exposed to it grow in power. who knows, but whatever the cause is, it is obvious to anyone that it occurs.
It even make EXTRA sense for charname since he is a bhaalspawn and the entire plot of the first game revolves around people killed=divine power. Heck it is implied that sarevok is so overpoweringly strong because he grinds XP.
So when I come across a portal to hell I could close it... or I can first kill 30 demons and enjoy the benefits of magically empowering radiation / bhaalspawn empowerment from murder / whatever when I slaughter a few dozen. Choosing the latter is not different than execercising IRL.
Now, if there was a bug providing infinite respawns on something that has no plot reasons to respawn that would be a whole different issue.
Even after all these years of D&D in various forms I still suck at serious magic combat. Challenge to self: when BG2:EE comes out, learn to kick the lich where they're boniest.
I really really hate Liches! In my first playthrough, i did not have the slightest idea of how to utilize a cleric to its fullest potential (xp loophole, hit max level, turn unded or false dawn/bolt of glory). Kangaxx gave me a pretty damn hard time, and his second form, not only killed my party members instantly, but those of them that had cleric's protection from death magic too! And i remember party members dying permanently (portrait lost from party), even though i was playing in normal difficulty! For me, liches rock and suck at the same time.
For demogorgon, i used the 4 simulacrum copies of my main (berserker mage), each one lesser-restored by his summoned planetar, and each one of them summoning a planetar and 4 other summons of their own. Battle of seconds. Mind flayers are nothing by the moment you get that +5 2HSword which gives immunity against psionic abilities. Humanoids and goblinoids are cannon fodder. Undead for clerics are bread and butter. Golems can give you a hard time, unless you get the runehammer+5 and give it to someone with some slots spent on warhammers, maybe beholders are tough, but this only due to them appearing in packs and having strong ranged attacks with nasty chance of crippling effects. In this game, i grew to hate liches and beholders pretty much. In that order.
Nothing scarier than wild surging a pit fiend in the middle of a battle.
pit fiends? Those things go down in a about a round without any special tactic or buff, just order your party to attack them. Not to mention they are summoned creatures and as such you can use one of the many "instantly kill all summons with no save or HD limit" spells
Comments
Really? I guess it depends on your party composition... In my first playthrough of BG 2, I ended up in the Underdark earlier than most cos I was in a hurry to save Imoen, and stumbled into the Mindflayer lair... It wasn't easy to get out, but also not as bad as I feared it might be. I guess it helped a lot that my Charname is a Fighter/Mage with high Intelligence, so I could use him to take on Mindflayers head-on in combat, whilst everybody else attacked from range. (Of course I had to keep a careful eye on his Int each time he got hit.)
Summoning stuff should help alot. I don't know if it's true, but Skeleton Warriors should be immune to intelligence-drain... they got no brains!
Surely Beholders are the toughest common foes (not named individuals or dragons) you come across in SoA without the Shield of Balduran?
My winning combo against mind flayers is to send charname alone with 2 buffs...
chaotic commands and improved invisiblity. He kills each mindflayer in a round and they can't attack him.
They were an outright terror until I figured that out. Chaotic commands especially important due to the psi floor traps
I also read online the strategy of sending out a team of summoned undead (skeletons) with a wizard eye
>Cowled wizards
The last and strongest cowled wizard was a pain to defeat. My strategy was as followins:
0. Go to the roof of the copper coronet, near the house where there were the theives from the ring of dawn quest.
1. Summon a bunch of critters (2 aerial servants and 4 nymphs).
2. Fully buff with cleric spells.
3. Cast arcane haste.
4. As the teleport circle starts (from casting arcane haste) send 5 party memebers indoors, charname (who cast haste) runs away leaving the summons to fight the wizards.
5. Wait a while until they kill all the summons wasting their power.
6. Creep back, invisible, until you see the leader. Cast breach on her.
7. Pause and have the rest of party burst out of the house.
8. Disable AI, have all 6 party members focus fire on the now defenseless cowled wizards leader until she drops in about 1 round.
9. Enable AI and just wait for your inevitable victory against the minions who can't even hurt me at this point
>Vampires
Harmless, its just supremely annoying having to redo your spellbook after you cast restoration to remove the level drain (plus the fatigue resulting from restoration is a pain if you hadn't modded it away)
Two words:
Firewine Ruins
Two more words:
Infinite Respawn
One last word:
Fuuuuuuuuuuu
Two more words: Pirate's Cave
One last word: Extreme Powerleveling Potential (wait...that is not one word!)
When doing the quest for the sightless eye cult, there is a statue face near the temple when examined spawns some enemies... guide said its infinite respawn, and they give a ton of XP and went down quick, so I harvested them... sadly after 10 spawns they stopped forever
Every time there is a "trap" or a "riddle" that spawns enemies when you fail, I intentionally fail a bunch of times before passing by eventually.
Incidentally... Why I hate Beholders...
ARG͞H!͟ ͡St͢o̸p that!͡ S̛T͠O̵P THA̴Ţ!̴ ̡Put҉ d͜o̕wn ͘th̵e Flai̶l̡ ̕o̢f ̨Ag͘e̵s! ́That͠ is N̕OT̢ ͟a͜ ̴t͟oy!͏
Will you excuse me for a moment...? sigh
You either hurt them away from their line of sight, or charge them with your best weapons and hope that they won't petrify anyone.
Are soldiers who train in a wargame cheating?
There are a ton of valid in world possible explanations to why you gain power from killing monsters, I see no reason why I wouldn't, in character, "farm"
Charname doesn't know what xp points are, he just gets stronger gradually, learning from all the near-misses and times when an ogre knocked him out, maybe finding manuals on fighting techniques, practising with his companions 'off-camera' during rest periods.
Congrats... I am getting myself psychologically ready to face the Beholders in the Underdark again. Hopefully if I keep Charname safe from insta-death this time, I can take down that damned Elder Orb, and then summon Skeleton Warriors to help clear the rest of the tunnels...
Oh yeah I just uploaded my efforts in the Illithid City yesterday, if you were curious how an underpowered noob party got through it, XD
It even make EXTRA sense for charname since he is a bhaalspawn and the entire plot of the first game revolves around people killed=divine power. Heck it is implied that sarevok is so overpoweringly strong because he grinds XP.
So when I come across a portal to hell I could close it... or I can first kill 30 demons and enjoy the benefits of magically empowering radiation / bhaalspawn empowerment from murder / whatever when I slaughter a few dozen. Choosing the latter is not different than execercising IRL.
Now, if there was a bug providing infinite respawns on something that has no plot reasons to respawn that would be a whole different issue.
For demogorgon, i used the 4 simulacrum copies of my main (berserker mage), each one lesser-restored by his summoned planetar, and each one of them summoning a planetar and 4 other summons of their own. Battle of seconds. Mind flayers are nothing by the moment you get that +5 2HSword which gives immunity against psionic abilities. Humanoids and goblinoids are cannon fodder. Undead for clerics are bread and butter. Golems can give you a hard time, unless you get the runehammer+5 and give it to someone with some slots spent on warhammers, maybe beholders are tough, but this only due to them appearing in packs and having strong ranged attacks with nasty chance of crippling effects. In this game, i grew to hate liches and beholders pretty much. In that order.