Repository of no-reload survival advice
Ygramul
Member Posts: 1,059
With the upcoming patch, many of us will start new characters to survive the unforgiving lands of the Sword Coast. Let us gather our wisdom together for a survival guide here -- without resorting to "Power Word: Reload".
Rules:
- do not include cheese and AI exploits
- do not assume metagaming and memorizing encounters (same as reload, really)
- assume SCS (AI enhancements ONLY; not enhanced encounters) [optional]
I will begin with a few tips below:
1. Do not fight wounded. -- If a Gibberling could kill you with a critical hit with 5% chance, you WILL die after many many encounters. Similarly, do not melee with Charname if you don't have enough HP to survive a worst case blow (non-helmet classes need twice the HP buffer).
2. Scout. -- Obvious. If not metagaming, an encounter with a hostile party can go south easily if unbuffed, but become a cake walk if buffed. Especially at BGEE levels, you don't have enough spells to remain buffed to the hilt all the time. So, scout.
3. Spells: Melee Defense. -- Especially, if charname is a frontliner. If charname is a F/M or Blade almost all spells should be defensive. Load up on: Shield, Mirror Image, Blur, Wraithform, Stoneskin etc. BUT also on mage defense spells such as Minor Globe, Remove Magic etc.
4. Spells: Mage Fights. -- Most dangerous encounters by far; will end most no-reload games. In BGEE, status effects (sleep, hold, horror, web) WILL kill you. Worse yet, some mages will do clever things like: Minor Globe -> Web -> Fireball. (SCS mage AI is fantastic! -- and without breaking game rules; it plays close to how *you* should be playing a mage.)
So, you need to:
- scatter the party (so that not everyone is disabled/burned by a single AoE spell)
- carry anti-magic spells (Spell Thrust is a must in BGEE -- even necessary in BG2 because it removes Spell Immunity that SCS mages love to use)
- Scout! and Buff! (That Web and Fireball will just tickle you, if you are buffed with Protection from Fire and Free Action)
- strike first (since I do not allow myself to metagame, I only do this if I legitimately scouted)
5. Defense over Offense. -- Some risky strategies that let you win 1/3 times are just fine if you reload, but in a no-reload run, for every round you need to make sure that you are 0.9999 (*) likely to survive that particular round.
(*) Yes, that number is more or less accurate:
Say, in a typical BGEE/BG2EE run you remain in combat for something like 20 hours (not including pauses), then you are in combat for a little over 10,000 rounds. With the average survival rate given above, your chances of finishing a BGEE/BG2EE no-reload run is a mere 37%. (0.9999^10000)
6. Use consumables like your life depends on them. It does.
7. Wild Mages [theoretical] -- DO. NOT. CAST. IN. PUBLIC. Really, what are you gonna do if you get a Gate in Beregost, or a Fireball:self amid Flaming Fist headcourters. Cast only at the enemies (and do not ever buff the charname with a wild mage!)
This is just with Neera, by the way. I doubt anyone ever finished a no-reload run with a Wild Mage charname:
Here are the odds:
there are about ~10/100 wild surges that act as "kill the caster" at low levels (even at high levels, "Petrify:self" will usually kill you, even if you might survive a fireball to the face then)
If you cast 1000 spells through a no-reload run, you will have about 50 surges and your survival chance throughout the run comes to about 0.5% -- yep, just half a percent, even if you play an otherwise perfect game.
(0.1 chance of death per surge -> 0.9^50 = 0.0052 chance of surviving 50 surges)
That's it. Let others pitch in.
Ygramul
4
Comments
Question: do you apply BG2 tweak's consistent stats to the NPCs? I am also considering kitting some of the NPCs..
Re: kitting NPCs
For my next no-reload game (upon patch release), I intend to do a "Don't touch Shadowkeeper" (or EEkeeper) kind of run. Possibly, restricting also min-maxing charname stats as well. (18/18/16/18/3/5 ?! Really?! That's just cheese. But I did such things in my murky past...) I just wanna see if a run of the mill charname can finish the game.
I had a very nice game once with a Sorcerer charname AND a fighter/mage Imoen (I keepered her to a half-elf multiclass F/Illusionist). But I kept her stats: it was very interesting to have a STR 9 fighter in the front line and making use of spells to keep her buffed. I did successfully finish BG (Tutu) with that character only to die horribly to a certain Lich in a Planar Sphere in BG2, Horrid Wiltinging my poor little sorcerer and his party. (My own advice 4 and 6 above would have saved me then, but alas...).
Kitting can be a bit overpowered for BGEE (Tweaks examples below):
- Inquisitor Ajantis?
- Berserker Minsc?
- Sorcerer Dynaheir?
Though it becomes a bit cheesy if every run starts by XP farming from imbecile basilisks until you are the god of the sword coast. Or every mage out of the gate knows where to find an obscure ring to double their spell repertoire.
Highly personal choice here, of course.
To actually roleplay your charname works very well with no-reload games, for my enjoyment.
I usually rationalize metagamey decisions as charname receiving flashes of premonition from his divine blood and meddling powers that be. Like: "I've seen this tent in my dreams! There was an evil wizard inside... it was horrifying. Seeing it in real life brings back that memory. Can you cast resist fear, just in case?" Or for the ring of wizardry, "it looks like that rabbit wants us to follow it. I wonder what it wants? Huh, it disappeared near that rock..."
In the front line, you are a target of every spell slinger (and archer!). Your buffed up Paladin/Blade/Fighter-Cleric etc. will get Dispelled and Held, followed by being nibbled to death by pesky skeletons or gibberlings.
e.g. Sirines are murder in BGEE (before you have access to Helm of Charm Protection or Chaotic Commands). Losing control of your character and being poisoned is very very bad thing, especially if you have hobgoglins/skeletons/carrion crawlers poking at you.
Charm works too, especially early on in BGEE when you don't have good summoning spells. If you have Charm Animal, bears are fantastic.
As a house rule, I don't use, e.g., the Wand of Summoning more than once per encounter and never 'charge' it.
Admittedly, even though I say all that I can't say I've used the summoning wand much. I prefer Animate Dead for its synergy with stinking cloud/cloudkill.
Good point about the Druid spells, and it also comes in handy if you pick up a ranger.
BG tactics revolve around avoiding crowd-control on your team, while crowd-controlling the enemy as often and as hard as possible.