Are Belt and Liia Jannath supposed to be pushovers? (spoiler warning)
Sed
Member Posts: 790
So, I'm doing a solo run as a sorcerer and just did the little even at Duchal Palace.
My question is really regarding our dear Grand Dukes, who died like flies the first few tries.
Liia Jannath is supposed to be "a mage of no small power" according to herself, and yet all she does is run around with her dagger trying to kill the doppelgangers. A few spells, stoneskin etc would be a nice addition to her. She shouldn't be trying to melee them at least.
Belt is supposed to be a lvl 19 fighter according to http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Belt and yet he dies quite easily as well. Must be a day off for him...
Is this working as intended? @Dee
My question is really regarding our dear Grand Dukes, who died like flies the first few tries.
Liia Jannath is supposed to be "a mage of no small power" according to herself, and yet all she does is run around with her dagger trying to kill the doppelgangers. A few spells, stoneskin etc would be a nice addition to her. She shouldn't be trying to melee them at least.
Belt is supposed to be a lvl 19 fighter according to http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Belt and yet he dies quite easily as well. Must be a day off for him...
Is this working as intended? @Dee
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I would hazard a guess that the fight is supposed to be this difficult though, and that I just gotta deal with it.
Like Liia, Belt is level 11 in the game. He really doesn't have much in the way of equipment (a Bastard Sword +1, a Medium Shield +1, and Chain Mail +1). He does however have over 100 health.
I'd like to see them working as intended, and at least give Liia mirror image/stoneskin
The big issue now was that several doppelgangers went straight for her, and she ran into the middle of the fray getting killed extremely fast.
Having har cast spells from a distance would keep her alive much longer.
Is there a lot of work re-writing the script?
Allowing her to cast a few spells would not be difficult. I'll see if we can get it in somewhere.
Awesome. Add a stoneskin or mirror image to her and I'll be even more happy
Did they change the fight for BGEE ?
The reason I ask is that in the old days I could get passed this fight with a really weak party or solo run by using ORS to protect one of the Dukes. But now if I try that I get instant death. Makes for more reloads and some different cheese tactics.
Guess it's only fair if they closed that loophole but can anyone confirm this for me.
Actually, that does sound pretty tempting.
However, at least when running with a full party ... no, you don't actually "need" to dispel their Haste (and I can't remember ever bothering to do so), you can pretty reliably cut them down before they do serious damage if you hit hard and fast.
The opposite is true aswell. When a doppleganger uses the Durlag form, it suddenly becomes a diamond gear grinding machine of death that rivals maybe even Sarevok.
Well after about 12 reloads i got an a save were belt barely survives. Starting to think i won't even count this in a no reload challenge. Every other challenge, Drizzt, Sarevok, etc. are nothing compared to trying to keep these chumps alive
Honestly i have no idea how to win a no reload challenge for this part of the game without mods installed like SCS.
If you want to have some experimental fun you can charm anyone in Baldur's Gate and bring them into the palace (moving them through the sewers if they start in another area).
If you don't want to use charm, then chaos (including from scroll) works pretty well with summons, although it won't quite guarantee success.
Casting invisibility on the dukes can help break the dopplegangers' attack up - they're generally not much threat if they attack you rather than the dukes.
I would expect just using best equipment and all useful buffs (speed, defense, mind focusing, power, giant strength, DUHM) would allow you to win the majority of encounters. You can up the odds a bit more using Bhaal horror, which any character can get as a Bhaal power. Alternatively, any character (other than a wizard slayer) can also use the wand of sleep as a disabler. Potions of firebreath will allow you to finish opponents off quickly (though don't try moving around much if doing that
Updated--- well that charm thing is a no go screws something up in the game as not registering all dopplegangers as being dead. Belt and Liia both say "has nothing to say to you"
As Grond0 suggested the key is having them "attack you rather than the dukes."
Stand to the bottom right of the encounter. Wearing the boots of speed, The Dale's Protector Bracers and your favorite Bow, buff up with every potion you want. I used in this order, Oil of Speed, Potion Storm Giant Strength, Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Power, Potion of Heroism, Wand of monster summing in front of Belt until no more summoning is allowed. I surrounded him in a circle of monsters. Currently playing a multi-classed Mage so i have Invisibility memorized.
Casting invisibility on Liia first, forget about Belt he just attacks anyways and becomes visible. You should go into your casting animation as the text comes on screen. So after buffing up cast invisibility on Liia. She seems to take a while to cast mirror image and generally the longer she takes to attack the less you have to worry about her. With boots of Speed and Hasted you should make her invisible before the first Greater Dopplganger appears. Use arrows of Dispelling on them to get them out of the blurred and hasted state they start in. I usually have one or two doppelgangers dispelled by the time Liia becomes visible. Drop in your two horror Bhaal Spawn powers, and or horror spells or wands while running around sniping. Darts of Stunning can REALLY help in this fight, i got them from the final Dwarf under Candlekeep before returning to the surface. According to the Wiki you can buy them from Sorcerous Sundries as well. These really help especially after they are dispelled from the blur and haste effect. They are a lot faster then using Wands of Paralyzation.
Scare them - Stun them - Keep them coming after you
Managed to save Belt some of the time but Liia survived 20 out of 22 attempts.
I'm sure other Veterans like you Jastey or Grond0 or many other cool veterans that have been enjoying this game for 20 + plus years
Now for another No-Reload run, my third attempt in less then a week , must be loosing my touch, sheesh!
Wanted to update again been running practice sessions all night i have had a much better chance of winning if you pay close attention to the feedback message box. After Belt falls if they Attack Liia make her inviisble again then attack the Dopples they should go after you then thin them out.
New Update- You know it's crazy to do a no-reload challenge if you can't practice at it, so in that spirit i thought why not share my save file, all tomes have been found on a half elf multiclass fighter-mage-thief.
mirror on mediafire
888889008-forumtestbelt&liia.zip
local file below
If you rest 8 hours outside the palace after charming a noble, the duration will only have 4 hours left, which is 20 minutes of real-time waiting. If you rest 16 hours, the noble will not be charmed at all when you get back--but the charm can still be useful in this case if you first move the noble to the southern room of the palace, which puts some distance between them and the dukes.
If you want, you can charm every single noble with Algernon's Cloak and move them to the southern room before the fight begins. If you want to take it a step further, you can then rest 16 hours, use the Nymph Cloak to charm each noble with many rounds in between each charm, rest 8 hours, and then trigger the fight. In that case, only a single doppelganger will transform at first, and the other doppelgangers won't transform until many, many rounds later. You can actually pick them off one at a time.
But it's usually sufficient to just charm a few of the nobles and move them to the southern room before resting 16 hours and beginning the fight. That gives you some control over the opening rounds and doesn't require a lot of waiting.